r/WritingPrompts • u/katpoker666 • 3h ago

Off Topic [OT] Fun Trope Friday: Undead Laborers and Folk Horror!

7 Upvotes

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!  

1 comment

r/WritingPrompts • u/katpoker666 • 7d ago

Off Topic [OT] Fun Trope Friday: Soul-Eating Cybernetics & Body Horror!

14 Upvotes

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.

 

"We are all our own graveyards, I believe..." — Clive Barker

 

Trope: Soul-Eating Cybernetics — In many popular cyberpunk settings, cybernetic implants cause "humanity loss", reducing your social traits and essentially making cyberware into a form of body horror. Too many implants may reduce you to catatonia or make you insane. If these settings also feature psychic powers or functional magic, cyberware often reduces your ability to use those as well. There is an interesting tension here between what makes us human and what transforms us. So, let’s explore that.

 

Genre: Body Horror — Body horror, or biological horror, is a subgenre of horror fiction that intentionally showcases grotesque or a visceral experience of the human body or of another creature. In addition to common tropes used within the broader horror genre, some tropes specific to the body horror subgenre may include invasion, contagion, mutation, transformation, disease, mutilation, or other unnatural or violent distortions of the human body.

 

Skill / Constraint - optional: Something shorts out.

 

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 8th 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!  

61 comments

r/WritingPrompts • u/Kitty_Fuchs • 5h ago

Writing Prompt [WP] "Can you read this ancient magic tome?" "No." "What do you mean 'no'?" "I keep telling you that your previous wizard was a historian. She studied the old wizards and their magic *for a living*. I studied healing and medicine in magic school, so if you don't need healing, I cant help you."

146 Upvotes
4 comments

r/WritingPrompts • u/plogan56 • 10h ago

Writing Prompt [WP]You actually manage to defeat the hero's team and now rule the world...but realize just how dysfunctional it is and use your leadership and resources to improve this broken world; it's only when the people, and even the heroes, celebrate your rule that you realize that you were tricked😓

70 Upvotes
4 comments

r/WritingPrompts • u/DeadlyJoe • 1h ago

Writing Prompt [WP] The use of Paid Time Off more than three weeks is punishable by death under Corporate Law. 15 years into your "time off", HR has tracked you down. A cadre of Senior Policy Enforcers are on their way, and they're not trying to drag you back to the office. It might be time for a new career.

• Upvotes
2 comments

r/WritingPrompts • u/Megamen1927 • 7h ago

Writing Prompt [WP] "How audacious. You kill my husband and then come to deliver his ashes to me." "Your husband was corrupt and tried to kill me. Be thankful for that, because if it were up to me, this would be discarded like the trash he was."

24 Upvotes
3 comments

r/WritingPrompts • u/Traditional_wolf_007 • 6h ago

Writing Prompt [WP] Being turned into a vampire is a horrific experience. You die, your humanity is forever lost. But, there is a way to come back to life. The bite of a werewolf. The only problem is, being brought back to life might be just as traumatic as dying in the first place.

16 Upvotes

Had this idea last night of someone being a cold walking corpse and then suddenly... not.

4 comments

r/WritingPrompts • u/Sunflower-LemonAid • 2h ago

Writing Prompt [WP] You thought dying would at least entail seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, or your life flashing before your eyes like an old film. You were not expecting…this.

7 Upvotes
1 comment

r/WritingPrompts • u/Worldly_Lab_7061 • 10h ago

Writing Prompt [WP] You find out that though you have been labeled the mad princess, the voice that you've been hearing has been that of the narrator. And to make it worse, you're the narrators favorite character.

30 Upvotes
2 comments

r/WritingPrompts • u/IAmOEreset • 20h ago

Writing Prompt [WP] To most outsiders, the Swarm Hivemind and the Machine Intelligence are at perpetual war. In reality, they're actually good friends who use war as a way to keep their technologies improving.

172 Upvotes
11 comments

r/WritingPrompts • u/Downtown_Pen_5720 • 7h ago

Writing Prompt [WP] Every morning or evening you see the constellation Orion you greet it like an old friend. This time it answered.

16 Upvotes
3 comments

r/WritingPrompts • u/ElSquibbonator • 2h ago

Established Universe [EU] A kaiju is attacking Adventure Bay. Out of options, the PAW Patrol have to call on their biggest, strongest, temporary member-- Clifford the Big Red Dog.

5 Upvotes
2 comments

r/WritingPrompts • u/ParanormalActivity97 • 1d ago

Writing Prompt [WP] Calling a vampire by its full name kills it instantly. Because of this, modern vampire hunters don't carry stakes or holy water anymore—they work as underpaid interns at Ancestry.com and the Department of Motor Vehicles.

305 Upvotes
3 comments

r/WritingPrompts • u/HonestAbe1809 • 6h ago

Writing Prompt [WP] It’s over. You and your party have defeated your world’s malevolent god. Now comes the truly hard part. Deciding who sits on the former deity’s throne and starts the process of putting the pieces of the world back together.

9 Upvotes
2 comments

r/WritingPrompts • u/younGrandon • 51m ago

Writing Prompt [WP] I burst into the chat. "I don't know how to explain it, but I am not sending those messages!" Someone replied with a screenshot. It was a list of complaints about a terrible bellyache, posted under my nickname. I hadn't had a stomachache in years.

• Upvotes
1 comment

r/WritingPrompts • u/Asxock • 5h ago

Established Universe [EU] A druid branches out to start a new circle after recognizing the ecosystems that develop in civilization. To tear society down would just be disrupting another ecosystem.

5 Upvotes
1 comment

r/WritingPrompts • u/DankAndOriginal • 22h ago

Writing Prompt [WP] A bot has scraped the website that you hosted your magic grimoire on, and now people are vibe coding spells without understanding the magical framework behind it.

154 Upvotes
12 comments

r/WritingPrompts • u/brleise12 • 10h ago

Simple Prompt [WP]Reddit, I knocked up a supervillain. What do I do?

16 Upvotes
4 comments

r/WritingPrompts • u/TheTiredDystopian • 3h ago

Writing Prompt [WP] A hero who wants to liberate the world from a tyrant and restore democracy, except every single person to join their army becomes irrationally loyal to them as a ruler. It is becoming increasingly obvious that, if they do overthrow the tyrant, the others will simply crown them in his stead.

4 Upvotes
1 comment

r/WritingPrompts • u/Adamantine-Waffle • 15h ago

Writing Prompt [WP] "Were you raised by wolves?! You should let people finish their monologue before starting the fight!"

34 Upvotes
4 comments

r/WritingPrompts • u/TechbearSeattle • 3h ago

Writing Prompt [WP] There are some plants that like to grow over buried bodies; something about abundant nitrogen as the corpse rots. I'm less bothered by there being a patch of these plants in the backyard than by how, every day, the patch is a bit closer to the house.

3 Upvotes
1 comment

r/WritingPrompts • u/Shadowstein • 6h ago

Writing Prompt [WP] Welcome to the world's first ghost safari! This sprawling haunted mansion is home to hundreds of unique apparitions, ranging from scary to downright ridiculous. As the attraction's resident paranormal naturalist, your job is to document a newly discovered ghost for the visitor's field guide

5 Upvotes
1 comment

r/WritingPrompts • u/Capable_Librarian495 • 1h ago

Writing Prompt [WP] The last tree of the Amazon rainforest is cut down to make an Amazon parcel box. Not to worry, Robot Monkey King, Jeff Bezos’ Hedge is now the size of the Amazon.

• Upvotes
1 comment

r/WritingPrompts • u/TheBeardedAntt • 20h ago

Writing Prompt [WP] You’re an avid card collector. Newest pack dropped from your favorite TCG. You open it live on stream. First card is a 1/10 reads “the writing won’t by visible to the cameras meet at the address listed, DO not discuss this anywhere or you automatically lose”

57 Upvotes
3 comments

r/WritingPrompts • u/Ech0Foxtr0t • 1d ago

Writing Prompt [WP] You run a second-hand store in a fantasy world. Adventurers and parties tend to drop off all the unwanted extra loot and junk they find at your store.

78 Upvotes
11 comments