CONTEST: High Concept # 12, Under the Weather
Tom Russell
voted for someone else, everyone who has participated and kept these
contests going. It's surely a great honour to have won another
contest, but it means even more to me that these contests have become,
in Saxon's words, our current play-thing. It's been over a year since
the first one was announced, and there haven't been signs of it waning
yet. So, thank you, thank you, thank you, all.
For a couple of weeks in May, I came down with a pretty bad abscess
infection in one of my bottom wisdom teeth (located, of course, right
next to the nerve in the jaw). Said infection spread to the jaw and
my ear-- thankfully, it was treated before it got to my heart-- and
caused me a tremendous amount of pain; more pain than I've ever been
in my entire life, more pain than I could bear. I couldn't eat
anything but applesauce, and even then it caused me a great deal of
pain; I was extremely weak, unable to work, to read, to talk, to even
think. It made me extremely irritable towards my friends and family.
Illness does that to us; pain, as Dr. Beverly (or was it Elliot?)
Mantle put it so memorably in DEAD RINGERS, causes character
distortion. It upsets our routines and impairs our ability to
function.
And so, I give you High Concept Challenge number twelve: Under the
Weather, in which your hero or heroine, super-powered or otherwise,
finds themselves battling the forces of evil while afflicted with and
recovering from some perfectly ordinary ailment.
By "ordinary", I only mean that it's something that's within the range
of normal human existence, something you or I could conceivably come
down with and recover from-- it can be as mundane or as serious as you
like. What I'm ruling out are fictional diseases-- alien viruses,
techno-organic future polio, fear gas hallucinations, et cetera-- and
long-term illnesses like cancer, AIDS, or diabetes. The idea isn't to
write a story about a hero dealing with a disease on a daily basis,
but about something that's explicitly disrupting their daily routine.
Infection, fever, common cold, laryngitis, migraine, rash, broken arm,
sprained ankle-- the possibilities are really quite endless.
So, there's the concept, hope it piques your interest; I'll set the
deadline for three weeks hence-- August 24th.
==Tom
Dave Van Domelen
due to the hero's powers is merely acute? i.e. getting AIDS somehow, and
while their system will burn out the virus in a few days, to them it's like a
nasty cold (and that selfsame immune system means they never suffer from
regular colds)?
Dave Van Domelen, wonders how many dozen Spider-Man stories involved him
having a cold?
Tom Russell
> How about a hero dealing with an ailment that is normally chronic, but
> due to the hero's powers is merely acute? i.e. getting AIDS somehow, and
> while their system will burn out the virus in a few days, to them it's like a
> nasty cold (and that selfsame immune system means they never suffer from
> regular colds)?
Sounds reasonable to me-- and clever, to boot, honouring both the
spirit of the challenge and the genre.
==Tom
Andrew Burton
> By "ordinary", I only mean that it's something that's within the range
> of normal human existence, something you or I could conceivably come
> down with and recover from--
How about broken limbs, where the hero is in a cast?
--
Andrew Burton
tugly...@aol.com
http://utilitarian.us - A Guide to Esoteric Technology in Paragon City
http://jarodrussell.livejournal.com/ - Take a guess. ;)
Andrew Burton
> Tom Russell wrote:
>> By "ordinary", I only mean that it's something that's within the range
>> of normal human existence, something you or I could conceivably come
>> down with and recover from--
>
> How about broken limbs, where the hero is in a cast?
>
You said broken arm. *sigh* I should read the whole post before
replying. Arg!
Andrew Perron
> Dave Van Domelen, wonders how many dozen Spider-Man stories involved him
> having a cold?
I always liked the one during the "organic webshooters" period where he
ended up splooging web all over his apartment.
Andrew "NO .SIG MAN" "Juan" Perron, sploot
Saxon Brenton
What? You were going through all that and then let me crap on about
my regularly scheduled once-every-half-DECADE bout of the flu? Well
fsck Tom, you're supposed to give people a wap-upside-the-head in
situations like that.
---
Saxon Brenton
Tom Russell
Don't worry, there was nothing even remotely head-wappable about the
situation.
> Saxon Brenton
I should note that I'm getting that same tooth removed this Friday,
which apparently entails me being sedated via an IV drip (actually,
I'm getting both bottom wisdom teeth out, wisdom teeth are difficult
to remove in and of themselves, and the ones situated on the lower jaw
being right next to the nerves are thus extra-difficult), being in a
recovery ward for at least most of Friday, and then spending at least
the weekend if not a few days of the next week being grumpy and
howling with pain and trying to avoid the development of a dry socket
and such.
This being the case, I will likely be incommunicado for at least this
weekend if not longer. Not that I think there's any pressing reason
why anyone in these parts would need to absolutely get ahold of me
this weekend, but as I generally return e-mails the day that I recieve
them, I wouldn't want anything thinking I was snubbing them, so, heads
up.
==Tom