DISCUSSION -- MAY 2017 75-word Writing Challenge

[Ursa major]

Or even two** days: there are fewer than 48 hours to get those tie-breaker votes in.


** - To think I actually deleted the mention of the two days of voting when copying and editing last months tie-breaker poll announcement to create the one above, thinking we were all up to speed....

 

[nixie]

TDZ was on my short list and receives my vote.

 

[Danny McG]

I voted for the dusty zebra story, mainly cos I liked the idea of the skyscrapers being ripped apart to let the humans out.
Me and grandkid often do that with lego men and big cubes. I do the squeaky little voices for him

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Shyrka was my very close second place, so gets my tiebreaker vote.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Or even two** days: there are fewer than 48 hours to get those tie-breaker votes in.


** - To think I actually deleted the mention of the two days of voting when copying and editing last months tie-breaker poll announcement to create the one above, thinking we were all up to speed....

Good lord, that's two months in a row I've said that. What the heck?

 

[Starbeast]

TDZ was on my short list and receives my vote.

Same here, Nixie. I knew they'd be a Tie.

 

[Talysia]

Shyrka was on my shortlist, so that's where my vote has gone in the tie-break.

 

[Hugh]

Many Congratulations to Shryka and TheDustyZ.

I'm really stuck re voting now. I'll have to wait a while and let things bubble around a little.

 

[Perpetual Man]

I voted for TDZ originally so I stuck with that

To the various Mods: Thanks for sending me the copy of my story, I have enough now... and an excessive amount of nipple clamps.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Just don't use them to clamp unorthodox combinations of words together again.

 

[Perpetual Man]

Just don't use them to clamp unorthodox combinations of words together again.

Yes Ma'am

 

[The Judge]

Congrats to TDZ and Shyrka! Both good stories, but TDZ was on my shortlist, so she gets my vote in the tie-break. (Sorry, TDZ, you'll have to keep nibbling on the nails. The cake's held up at Heathrow.)

And City swallowing thanks to Chris P for the shortlisting which came in after my post last night, and hungry Jackalmen feasting thanks for the delicious vote, Hazel!

Re my story, I mentioned that the Judicial Helpmeet wanted to know why the city was walking itself across the desert to its doom but I decided to leave the reason ambiguous. One idea was that the city didn't know of the ravine which would destroy it, but in my preferred version it was deliberately ridding itself of its human parasites, but I thought I'd made enough social comment about human beings without adding that to the mix! An ambiguity I didn't foresee is one Parson picked up, which says a lot about his good nature in thinking the best of people.

Sadly, Parson, far from understanding the Isaiah verse with its suggestion that the poor may eat the fat of the land, my idea was the Jackalmen were going to eat the fat of the humans... The only point which I wasn't sure about was whether they would wait for the humans to die -- either in the ravine the city falls into or in the pitiless desert as they try to cross it -- or whether they would hasten things along and eat fresher meat.

 

[Cathbad]

Great. Now I'm hungry!!

 

[Vaz]

Big thanks to The Judge for the runner up mention.

My gast is flabbered, a stealth vote! Cheers, Harebrain.

Dusty got my tiebreaker vote by a stripe. Great entries you two. Best of luck.

v

 

[Luiglin]

Thanks for the mentions and the vote @Wruter.

For me urban fantasy says to me everyday modern world mixed with fantastical elements. I wanted to do a happy piece but ended up with a tale about an urban mage committing suicide by buying lots of spells from different shops and casting them all at once. I think I was too subtle though as no one seemed to read it that way. Oh well.

Tie round I went for @TheDustyZebra.

 

[Starbeast]

@Shyrka - Congratulations for being in first place. Good luck in the Tie-Breaker.





As for my tale "NEXT is 6": Toy maker, Geppetto, tried to replicate another nice, living wooden boy. Unfortunately, his Second through his Fifth attempt, didn't go well, and they had to be destroyed.

Then when he created his Sixth Pinocchio, it was a dangerous psychotic, and definitely had to be incinerated.

Plus I added elements from the movie BLADE RUNNER.

 

[Perpetual Man]

Well with normal voting over, here is the very naughty story that was pulled for being over the word limit:

Within the Fetish Emporium

“I’m having problems, uh… in the bedroom department.”

“Ummm….”

“You specialize in this eh? Y’know, somethin’ a little different, t’get the sausage sizzlin’. Nudge nudge, wink, wink!”

“Mmm, you do know they call me a Fetish Mage – to do with little magic object d’art, not the kinks of pervs and deviants?”

“Oh.” Face falls.

“Sigh. Never mind. I might have a pair of Arabian nipple clamps that might do the trick. Happy endings guaranteed.”

“Yay!!!!”

 

[mosaix]

Congrats Shyrka and TDZ.

As for my own story, I thought it would be interesting for someone to use psychic powers to influence the outcome of a football game. You can't much more 'urban' than that.

BTW I was so close to using City and United instead of Albion and Wanderers. Guess which team went down?

 

[Parson]

Two very good stories Shyrka and Dusty! They were both in my short list. Forced to choose, I'll choose to vote for the Dusty One as she seemed to be a little more center in the genre and theme.

 

[Phyrebrat]

Once again I live up to the suffix portion of my screename, and forget my thank-yous!

So, with many apologies and even more gratitude, thank you to ratsy, Victoria and Stable for their votes. As I said UT, I had planned on letting this challenge slip past but in the last week I was waiting on the Central Line tube platform at South Woodford and an empty tube sped through the station which is pretty unheard of. Coincident with that I had been asked a few months ago by a student why the tubes used to be different colours up till the 90s (white and red, with some green). The two things melded into a spark that ended up as an entry.

Incidentally, I know the story was unclear in mine, so I was chuffed to get 3 votes. Red tube = you go south, white tube = you go to Heaven

I voted for Shyrka in the tiebreaker.

pH