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While we're waiting for Melanie E.'s next contest to begin, why don't we have some fun with a rather silly story challenge?
Announcing the 2018-06 Story Challenge:
Here's the setup:
Ken Barrows read the instructions on the tube of GLOO! again.
GLOO! is a demi-permanent biologically active adhesive for the attachment of medical and theatrical appliances. Apply GLOO! Adhesive base to body surface in an even coat using included spatula-like applicator. Apply GLOO! Adhesive activator in a thin coat to corresponding surface of appliance. Press surfaces together and adjust placement as required. GLOO! Adhesive will begin to work as soon as surfaces touch but there is ten seconds or more in which to make adjustments.
Wash excess GLOO! Adhesive base off immediately with running water. Be careful using GLOO! Adhesive not to cause unwanted adhesions of body parts.
GLOO! Adhesive may be safely and painlessly removed with GLOO! Adhesive Solvent if used within eight hours of application. After eight hours, it may be necessary to use GLOO! Adhesive Super-Solvent within a 72 hour window. After 72 hours, adhesive removal may require surgery.
GLOO! Adhesive is an aqueous suspension of inactive astro-nanimals programmed to create demi-permanent attachments of inert materials to skin or mucous membranes. Organic substances such as rubber, plastic, leather, hair and organo-ceramics may become permanently incorporated into the flesh if GLOO! Adhesive is not removed in a timely manner with the right solvents.
It went on for a time after that but Ken’s eyes were already glassy and he stopped reading. Seems clear enough, he said to himself. You have to wear whatever you stick on for eight hours then you can remove it with the solvent.
How much and what kind of trouble is Ken going to get in?
Now for the rules:
Rule 1. Keep it sticky!
Rule 2. Give the benefit of the GLOOD! tag to your story!
Rule 3. Remember, it's all about the GLOO!
Prizes? We don't need no stinking prizes!
That's right, there are no prizes, this is just about having fun! Stories can be any length; they can be fanfiction, part of a series, serial or longer work, or even unfinished. They don't have to involve GLOO! but should refer to some sort of stickiness. The Stuck tag should be appropriate, whatever the story is actually about.
There is no end to this challenge! I will announce the end of my official attention to the matter in early July but you can keep using the tag years from now if you like.
Here's a small GLOO! image you can use in your story if you like:
You can use the beginning I provided above and develop from there or come up with your own sticky concept ab initio. (That's Latin for "Keep the Cap, You'll Need It.")
Have fun!
And warm sticky hugs,
Erin
Comments
Being and Stickiness
I couldn't find the essay where Jean Paul Sartre goes on for THREE PAGES about the existential horrors of stickiness, but I found what seems like a synopsis of it by Professor Peter Royle of Trent University, Ontario that's every bit as confusing:
Viscosity (stickiness or sliminess, for example), is universally repugnant, says Sartre, because it reverses the relations between observer (a ‘being for-itself’ in Sartre’s jargon) and physical object (a ‘being in-itself’). The universal ideal that underlies the unique project of every individual is the hypothetical combination of observer and object as an ‘in-itself-for-itself’. Every ‘human reality’, according to Sartre, is striving to become in-itself-for-itself – that is, to coincide with itself as a necessary (ie non-choosing) being while remaining free and responsible for itself. This, Sartre says, is the definition of the impossible God that each of us, on one level at least, is attempting to become. In the encounter with sliminess, however, the object takes priority over us free beings: we go to pick up a sticky object and instead of our exercising control over it, it clings to us and threatens to suck us into itself. If the ‘in-itself-for-itself’ is the ultimate Value, as Sartre proclaims, viscosity is thus Antivalue...
Excerpted from a larger essay about Sartre's fear of crustaceans (?????);
maybe this can help somebody get started...
~Fusion Hugs, Veronica
"Government will only recognize 2 genders, male + female,
as assigned at birth-" (In his own words:)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1lugbpMKDU
Ha!
Nothing makes a silly story challenge more fun than a tangential excursion into existential angst!
Thanks! :D
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Misreading
"You have to wear whatever you stick on for eight hours then you can remove it with the solvent." I take it that Ken's misreading of the instructions was intentional on the part of the author? I hope I'm not spoiling anything with this question.
And of course, there's the eternal question: did Ken get it at SRU?
Then there was my own visceral reaction to "Glood". I thought of it as a cross between blood and something else. Glue and blood fit fine, although I can't remember if "glue" came to mind before reading the story intro.
This comment just gave me a couple ideas, although I doubt I'll be able to write on them.
-- Daphne Xu
Instructive deconstruction
The story seed was designed to play with several TG and SF/Fantasy fiction tropes in a fun but slightly threatening way. And no, Ken did not buy this at SRU. There is a distant tie-in to two Lainie Lee stories, though. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.