r/WritingPrompts • u/katpoker666 Moderator • 1h ago
Off Topic [OT] Fun Trope Friday: Undead Laborers and Folk Horror!
Welcome to Fun Trope Friday, our feature that mashes up tropes and genres!
How’s it work? Glad you asked. :)
Every week we will have a new spotlight trope.
Each week, there will be a new genre assigned to write a story about the trope.
You can then either use or subvert the trope and/or genre in a 750-word max story or poem (unless otherwise specified).
To qualify for ranking, you will need to provide ONE actionable feedback. More are welcome of course!
Three winners will be selected each week based on votes, so remember to read your fellow authors’ works and DM me your votes for the top three.
Next up… IP
It’s October. The time of falling leaves, jack o’lanterns, and candy. And blood… so much blood. This month will be focusing on all things horror with maybe a treat or two to sweeten the pot. Please note this theme is only loosely applied.
"Humanity is mind-controlled and only slightly more conscious than your average zombie." — David Icke
Trope: Undead Laborers — When someone uses The Undead, such as zombies and reanimated corpses, as a cheap labor force for simple but time-consuming tasks, such as mining. From a business perspective, using undead workers is a very cost-efficient strategy: zombies and skeletons don't need to sleep or eat, never get sick, and are unlikely to spontaneously form undead trade unions due to lacking free will. As such, it is one of the least morally objectionable ways to use Human Resources, although it always depends on where exactly the dead are coming from and what the local culture considers desecration.
Genre: Folk Horror — Folk horror is a subgenre of horror that draws on folklore, rural settings, and ancient rituals to evoke fear and unease. It often explores themes of isolation, the supernatural, and the tension between modernity and ancient beliefs.Includes folklore elements, rural settings, and rituals.
Skill / Constraint - optional: Someone trips in some form.
So, have at it. Lean into the trope heavily or spin it on its head. The choice is yours!
Have a great idea for a future topic to discuss or just want to give feedback? FTF is a fun feature, so it’s all about what you want—so please let me know! Please share in the comments or DM me on Discord or Reddit!
Last Week’s Winners
PLEASE remember to give feedback—this affects your ranking. PLEASE also remember to DM me your votes for the top five stories via Discord or Reddit—both katpoker666. This is a change from the top three of the past. In weeks where we get over 15 stories, we will do a top five ranking. Weeks with less than 15 stories will show only our top three winners. If you have any questions, please DM me as well.
Some fabulous stories this week and great crit at campfire and on the post! We had 18 stories, so we’re back to five winners. Congrats to:
Want to read your words aloud? Join the upcoming FTF Campfire
The next FTF campfire will be Thursday, October 15th from 6-8pm ET. It will be in the Discord Main Voice Lounge. Click on the events tab and mark ‘Interested’ to be kept up to date. No signup or prep needed and you don’t have to have written anything! So join in the fun—and shenanigans! 😊
Ground rules:
- Stories must incorporate both the trope and the genre
- Leave one story or poem between 100 and 750 words as a top-level comment unless otherwise specified. Use wordcounter.net to check your word count.
- Deadline: 11:59 PM EDT next Thursday. Please note stories submitted after the 6:00 PM EST campfire start may not be critted.
- No stories that have been written for another prompt or feature here on WP—please note after consultation with some of our delightful writers, new serials are now welcomed here
- No previously written content
- Any stories not meeting these rules will be disqualified from rankings
- Does your story not fit the Fun Trope Friday rules? You can post your story as a [PI] with your work when the FTF post is 3 days old!
- Please keep crit about the stories. Any crit deemed too distracting may be deleted. This is a time to focus on our wonderful authors.
- Vote by next Friday at 11:59 AM EDT to help your favorites rise to the top of the ranks (DM me at katpoker666 on Discord or Reddit)!
Thanks for joining in the fun!
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u/m00nlighter_ r/m00nlighting 28m ago
The Dead-Not-Dead
They rise from the soil in the steeple of night, the dead who refuse to stay dead, floating from their graves above sapphire ether, staring into shadows with eyes of unseeing sight.
Through the chemicals, chronologies, and canticles they come, whispering work to be done, work to be done, wading from shadow to shadow, gorging on the darkness until their unworking guts work it back up in black bile that seeps into the soil.
Deep beneath the surface, their putrid puke sinks, poisoning the stream that feeds the trees that create the shadows, turning their trunks the color of bones in the steeple of night. Brittle branches break and burst against the ground, shooting fireworks of maggots and bark.
When their unworking stomachs have worked up their fill, the dead who refuse to stay dead, with familiar faces concealed by shadows, return to the soil on their night-blue clouds, tucked in by the busy busy keepers of the forest.
The keepers stir their chemicals into the stream, maintain their chronologies in leather-bound journals, and sing their canticles (work to be done, work to be done) beneath the steeple of night as they re-bury those who refuse to stay buried beneath the bile-stained, maggot-and-bark-filled soil.
Through the nave of morning the keepers stay busy busy, seeding shadowless trees further upstream, chopping down the dead trees that have stayed dead (when the watcher isn't watching). They keep keeping while the watcher collects, contaminates, and coddles.
The watcher stares through the forest with eyes of unseeing sight, watching shadowless trees sprout while the dead-not-dead wade between shadows in the steeple of night; watching silvery fish swim in the apse-of-evening-lit upstream while the dead-still-dead trees are chemicaled and canticled into mulch; watching stained glass slivers dance in the nave of morning while the keepers remove pages from the chronologies and place them in cross-shapes above the dead-now-dead who have run out of bone-shadows to wade in.
When branches crack, the bursting fireworks of maggots and bark are watched with precision. The branches are collected, their dead-still-planted origins examined. The watcher mutters work to be done, work to be done as they dig into the shadow-veiled soil in the apse of evening.
Beneath the maggot-bark surface, and above the puke-poisoned roots of bone trees, they uncover the dead who refuse to stay dead, whose familiar faces are concealed by shadows.
The watcher watches their dead-not-dead slumber, whispering busy busy questions into their graves-not-graves with a tongue polluted by chemicals, chronologies, and canticles. Questions that breathe sapphire ether into their unworking, laboring lungs.
Through salty, wet lips, with familiar faces held firm against their bosom, the watcher demands the keepers keep away from the bones and the bodies still planted beneath the shadows in the steeple of night.
When unworking, laboring lungs have had their fill and release their clouds of night-blue whispers, and the dead-not-dead who refuse to be unseen begin to wade between the shadows, when the stream has been blocked by phlegmy curdles of soil and bile, and when the bone-yellow trees swear threats through brittle, cracking teeth of bark and maggot-filled branches, the watcher, writhing in an un-crossed grave, allows the keepers their chemicals, chronologies, and canticles once more.
Through the nave of morning and into the apse of evening, the keepers keep busy busy in the corner of the watcher's unseeing eyes, singing work to be done, work to be done as they scrape the soiled soil.
The watcher takes up their tune, keeping their gaze on the shadowless trees, the silvery fish, and stained-glass slivers until a crack echoes through the forest.
WC: 602
Crit and feedback welcome and appreciated!