DISCUSSION THREAD -- October 2023 -- 75 Word Writing Challenge

[Parson]

@Yozh .... Splinters .... Some splinters are deeper than you think.

 

[StilLearning]

My wife would like to be clear with everyone: Fractions are cosmic horror, all by themselves.

P.S. She would like to add: Not necessarily all of them all the time, but the potential is always there.

And, yes, I did consider a purely math themed entry.

 

[Parson]

@StilLearning .... The Haunted Sky: .... Time can be a many splintered thing, with all the attendant damage and more.

 

[Starbeast]

Two days ago the Muse sang me song, it stuck in my head, all day and night long.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

sule: A sheep in wolf's clothing.

nixie: One good apple spoils the bunch.

AnRoinnUltra: This is method, but there be madness in it.

Luiglin: Figures do lie.

Yozh: Horror is only skin deep.

StilLearning: Star light, star bright, last star I see tonight.

Starbeast: Rock 'n' roll will always die.

 

[Parson]

@Starbeast .... Cosmic Evil Blues .... Adam and Eve have a modern story.

@johnnyjet .... Look Through Any Window .... Some things are just too good to last.

 

[emrosenagel]

Well. I've had a lot of fun writing cosmic horror in the past, but 75 words clearly were not enough for me in this genre. I tried my best! Hopefully, my wonderful muse will help me out in the 300 challenge since she ditched me on this one So unreliable

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

johnnyjet: Leap before you look.

emrosenagel: A bird of a feather flocks apart.

Provincial: Where there's life, there's no hope.

 

[Parson]

@emrosenagel .... A Single Feather to Hold Up the Universe .... A story that gives us a real bird's eye view of the universe.

@Provincial .... Old Earth, New Birth .... This must be the first installment of "The Baby Runs Wild."

@Mon0Zer0 .... Red State ....

A story most true
of states less blue
with an ordorous whiff
of a bad politic.​

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Mon0Zer0: One thing, one vote.

 

[mosaix]

I'm in. But that was hard in 75 words. Had to use every trick in the book.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Lacedaemonian: Gone today, here tomorrow.

mosaix: A friend in need is a fiend indeed.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

JS Wiig: The gods hurt those who help themselves.

 

[Parson]

@Lacedaemonian .... The Thessalonian .... Some bargains shouldn't be made.

@mosaix .... By The Light of The Moon .… Some assumptions won't stand up in the light of day.

@JS Wiig .... The God That Failed .... Some Gods are not gods.

 

[M. Robert Gibson]

That's me in. All I'll say is that I've been reading a lot of H.P. Lovecraft recently

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

M. Robert Gibson: It's a bad place to visit, but you wouldn't want to die there.

 

[Luiglin]

That's me in. All I'll say is that I've been reading a lot of H.P. Lovecraft recently

Have you heard the whispering yet?

 

[Parson]

@M. Robert Gibson .... At The Mouth Of Despair .... If you want something really bad, badly, then waiting around is a good idea.

 

[Parson]

I still haven't written a story. I have an idea or two floating around but even with reading all of these stories and looking up Cosmic Horror I still don't understand it at all. Horror and a godlike entity where humans have very little agency is as close as I can come. Does anyone else have a concise definition of it?

 

[M. Robert Gibson]

@Parson Lovecraft himself came up with a few definitions

Lovecraftian horror - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

A number of characteristics have been identified as being associated with Lovecraftian horror:

• Fear of the unknown and unknowable.
• The "fear and awe we feel when confronted by phenomena beyond our comprehension, whose scope extends beyond the narrow field of human affairs and boasts of cosmic significance". Here horror derives from the realization that human interests, desires, laws and morality have no meaning or significance in the universe-at-large. Consequently, it has been noted that the entities in Lovecraft's books were not evil. They were simply far beyond human conceptions of morality.
• A "contemplation of mankind's place in the vast, comfortless universe revealed by modern science" in which the horror springs from "the discovery of appalling truth".
• A naturalistic fusion of horror and science fiction in which presumptions about the nature of reality are "eroded".
• That "technological and social progress since Classical times has facilitated the repression of an awareness of the magnitude and malignity of the macrocosm in which the human microcosm is contained", or in other words, a calculated repression of the horrifying nature of the cosmos as a reaction to its "essential awfulness."
• Having protagonists who are helpless in the face of unfathomable and inescapable powers, which reduce humans from a privileged position to insignificance and incompetence.
• Preoccupation with visceral textures, protean semi-gelatinous substances and slime, as opposed to other horror elements such as blood, bones, or corpses.

Not sure if any of that helps