Story Contest XVII Themes

[Duce]

To suggest a theme, do it in this format.

Theme: <theme title>

Description: <theme description>


You can suggest 2 main themes that will be put in the poll,  you can also suggest as many other themes you want that might be put in the poll, though only the first 2 will be considered the 2 main suggestions. feel free to talk and discuss about the themes like always though.

[yarr]

Theme: A smelly defining moment in history.

Description: When and where did the largest dumps in human history take place? Who delivered them?
A big curvy viking girl after too much reindeer and spoiled cheese in days long gone, or a perfumed high standing lady back in ancient Egypt?
Today, in some restaurant bathroom in New York, back in 1509 in the quaters of a blocked Chinese princess or in ancient Rome.

The setting can in short be anywhere, anytime.

Yes Jimmy, you can also cook up a scenario involving a needy victorian lass with a horse's bowels and bladder  ;D

[Toasty]

Oh man...I know the poll hasn't started yet, but can I vote for yarr's idea one thousand times? Right now?

I just really, really, really, really hope that wins.

[yarr]

*Marches in with high kicks donning a full, fitting Field marshall uniform with an oversized colonoal age admiral hat, chest so cowered in medals that some occasionally pop off due to space issues*

*Mickey mouse voice* Do you feel inspired?

*the super tight uniform pants tear*

*runs away sobbing*




I agree with Toasty, out of all the suggestions posted so far, I too would vote for mine.. 

[DrBones]

Probably not going to participate, but a very fun idea Yarr and one I would like to know the real answer to; when was the biggest (natural) female dump in history?  I'm sure there have been quit a few real "Yarr sized" ones over the years.

I really like the viking girl idea, maybe one who just arrived at a nice stone outhouse in Iceland after weeks on a longship full of guys.

If it was in Ancient Rome, she could have cleared out one of those open stone bench latrines, especially considering the kind of stuff the rich people ate back then.  

Late medieval nobles ate almost nothing but fat meat.  Supposedly when castles where under siege, people would try to use the holes than emptied into the moat even more to keep people from swimming it.  Maybe a princess decided to finish off all the castle's old supplies before they spoiled...

There where a few tough female gunfighters in the old west, and I would have liked to see one completely bomb the town privy after two weeks on the trail eating nothing but beans. ;D

A 60's hippy chick in skin tight bell bottoms also comes to mind.  What happened when she found out the downsides of being a vegetarian in the commune unisex bathroom?

[Jimmy Olsen]

I hope these contests can continue, but I'm not too optimistic after the tournout of the last two.

I have a story (close to being finished) that I can enter for the historical dump theme.
I was planning to use it for Yarr's 3rd contest, but maybe I can enter it in both? 

In its current permutation (it's been kind of mutating as I've been writing it) it's presented as a story that's been passed down for generations via oral history.  But it takes place in some distant age of legend rather than being tied to a particular point in real history, so I'm not sure it qualifies.  But it does contain what's pretty certainly the biggest dump in history.

[yarr]

As long as its a human girl at some point in human history it should qualify, I wasnt aiming at locking people into set dates.

Jimmy, I'd post it for this contest (if my suggestion wins) as a possible contest 3 is very far away. May I inquire what period/setting you're using so there's no double dips?
Since you got a pretty much finished work you should get posting rights to that century at least 


That's some pretty good ideas DrBones, if you dont feel like doing a long story you could maybe do something like the "top 5" or similar, with those ideas put out as short chapters making up a "story", each load increasing from the first part til the last short flick tells about #1. 

That gunslinger girl idea is hilarious!
*thick Texan accents* "Pa, why is the cattle so unruly? Look, two cows lie near the outhouse, they look sick!" "Stay away son, dont go near! The poor stranger we let use it, she had the looks of the devil about her! Listen, even from here you can catch the sounds of her easement! Tomorrow, when the fumes have cleared I fear we might need a trip with the wheelbarrow and showel, or her buffalo-sized contribution shall sit there and fester with disease!"

I plan on entering this time, but I'm still brainstorming on slow speed as I'm working on the 6th Sakura story and polishing the one with Selphie while waiting for the last picture for contest 1. 

[Jimmy Olsen]

The short answer is it takes place in the times before the Roman Empire, when the Mediterranean region was dominated by the Greeks or Mycenæans, or maybe even the Minoans (who invented the first known flush toilets, by the way).  So if other writers would avoid those 3 cultures and their Mediterranean contemporaries it would be helpful for me, but not necessary.  I have no problem with somebody writing about the Romans, though.  They were the first to segregate male and female privies, by the way.

Now here's the full answer.  My story will be in two parts (unless I change it again).  There are events in the "present," then the story within a story, which makes up the bulk of the story.  The "present" sequence is set in a small country near the coast of the Mediterranean.  I'm not clear on the date, but I'm thinking 8th century B.C. at the latest.  The story takes place at an unspecified earlier date, separated from the storyteller and his audience by generations, and features the same country during its legendary past, as well as other larger-than-life countries.  These are all made up by me, but I can probably find ways to link them with some of the lost/mysterious/probably made up countries from Greco-Roman myths and the writings of historians.

[DrBones]

I assumed the theme was mostly a guideline to inspire ideas, not rule that everything has to be perfectly historically accurate.

Yarr, wile the idea of a bunch of mini stories is interesting, I don't think I'd be able to pull it off.  I'd have a hard enough time creating one decently engaging character and setting, let alone five. If I did that, it would turn out as; girl one poops, girl two poops, etc. (Not that that's all bad ;D, I'd just like a little more to it.)       

The cowgirl idea was the one I was thinking about the next day too.   I may actually put off my next project for a wile and try this, just to say I entered one of these, but no promises.  Just don't expect a complex background plot on this one.   What I'm thinking of has a very short setup, then the action and maybe an aftermath.  I doubt anything will compete with Jimmy's epic if he done it anyway.

I don't know how formal Duce wants to be with the voting on this, but seeing as we already have two possible entries and a lot of support for this idea, he may want to just skip the poll and start the contest now.   

I've been looking forward to the Selphie story for a wile now.  I've never actually played FF8 (surprise!), but I have seen some reviews and Let's Plays, and she is cute, especially in Micro's walk-in pic.

Jimmy, the classical myth idea still sounds great, sort of in the style of your reimagined fairy tails.  I really like most of those even if I didn't actually review all of them.

So the Romans where the first to separate public toilets by gender?   I didn't know that, but I believe you.  I heard the first bathhouses where unisex, but the public prostitution and rape got out of control.  (A few idiots ruining things for everyone, like always. )  I read somewhere that the Romans supposedly invented public restrooms in the first place, but I imagine earlier cultures had to have had something that served the same purpose, even if it was just a big line of pots by a work camp.  It's nice to imagine a dozen or so temple priestesses and rich ladies lined up on those open stone benches, all squished together cheek to cheek...    

[FallenStar]

Dr. Bones, if you like hyper, ditzy characters who nevertheless are computer experts and can fly spaceships, then you'd like Selphie Tilmitt.

If not, you probably wouldn't like her that much, lol

[Jimmy Olsen]

It's nice to imagine a dozen or so temple priestesses and rich ladies lined up on those open stone benches, all squished together cheek to cheek...

It is nice to imagine that!  I suggest you write it up.  For reference, you can find photos of the outdoor toilets of Pompeii and other Roman locales by doing an image search.

[DrBones]

"Dr. Bones, if you like hyper, ditzy characters who nevertheless are computer experts and can fly spaceships, then you'd like Selphie Tilmitt.  If not, you probably wouldn't like her that much, lol."

That's good, because I do. ;D

"It is nice to imagine that!  I suggest you write it up.  For reference, you can find photos of the outdoor toilets of Pompeii and other Roman locales by doing an image search."

I wouldn't be doing it anytime soon.  If I enter the contest, I'll go with the cowgirl thing.  Still, it is a nice idea so maybe some time.  When I was younger I used to write stories about groups of five or six girls all using a public toilet at once.  It was really hard to keep the characters straight and the action came out very jumpy and broken so I would have to focus on just two or three of the girls.  (No, I don't have them anymore, they sucked anyway. )

I did find a few more reference images already.  One has wooden benches with round holes, but I assume that kind of thing would have been in more remote places like the forts in Britten.  My well-kept noble ladies would be sitting on polished white marble.   Micro's pic. of Yuna actually shows that style very well...

In case you would be interested Jimmy, I found a guy on Photobucket with a bunch of pencil sketches of girls pooping from different periods in history. 

http://s187.photobucket.com/albums/x215/vuurwerk_2007/Toilet%20en%20health/?start=all

I just wish they where a little bigger and clearer.      

[Jimmy Olsen]

When I was younger I used to write stories about groups of five or six girls all using a public toilet at once.  It was really hard to keep the characters straight and the action came out very jumpy and broken so I would have to focus on just two or three of the girls.

What you said there made me do a lot of thinking last night...Now, I won't do this now, since right now I'm only finishing stories I've started (and even that is being put on the back burner right now while I make drawings for this one dude's website), but I would like to write a crossover story where various characters I've invented are in stalls in the same bathroom, talking while they use the facilities.  I did a cursory inventory, and there are at least 15 characters I can use in a real-world high school bathroom setting (many more if I included older women and ones from sci-fi and fantasy universes).  The big challenge (besides finding the time to write it) would be contriving a remotely realistic reason why so many girls are using the same restroom at the same time (and it would have to be an unusually large bathroom if I used all 15+ girls in one scene.

[DrBones]

I would love to read a story with 15+ girls all talking wile using the bathroom at once, but as I said, I think it would be a really hard thing to pull off.   Maybe the girls could start conversations in groups of  three or four with those in the stalls next to them.  Each mini scene could be done all or most of the way through be starting the next one with the others just occasionally adding something that would be referenced in the other parts.  I know that kind of defeats the purpose of using a huge group, but I just can't imagine how you could make it work otherwise.  On the other hand, you may have come up with some magic solution I could never dream of. ;D

If they're all going to be high school girls, I don't see too much of a problem with realistically getting them all together.  Even medium sized high schools can have eight or ten stalls in one girl's room, (and there are often lines with that many) so fifteen or sixteen isn't so hard to imagine in a big, modern building.  Plus, nothing says they all have to be on the pot at the exact  same time.  Some could be standing by the sinks talking and doing whatever wile the rest go.  If you wanted to be really realistic, it could be the restroom next the cafeteria during lunch.  It could start with one small group and then more groups of three to five would filter in and out over the course of ten minuets or so. 

If on the other hand, you wanted to throw in all the characters and get them all butt down on the porcelain in one glorious line, it could be the end of a concert or sporting event in a huge stadium.   Then a massive crowd of females in various states of desperation all rushing into 30some  stalls doesn't sound so far fetched.

One more fun thing about this concept is you can show the whole "range" of toilet activities.  Realistically, most would just have to pee (some a lot more than others) and then a few could take dumps of different sizes with assorted degrees of smell and noise, a good topic for conversations.

[Jimmy Olsen]

You bring up some interesting points, Bones.  I didn't know any high school restrooms had that many stalls.  The biggest boys' restroom at mine had like five.  My hope is to feature a bunch of full-bladdered girls converging on one restroom (which is possibly already being used by several girls), and your sporting event idea sounds promising. 

The first germ of this idea came from a dream that I can't stop thinking about, where a bus of cheerleaders that had been on the road for many hours stopped at my campus and they invaded the only bathroom (unisex) in the building.  That scenerio is pretty far-fetched, but I'd like to write something sort of along those lines.

I've never attempted writing a conversation among 15 people before.  I've done about half that, which isn't too hard.  The hard part would be keeping the actions straight.  I have trouble doing that in scenes with just 2 characters.  I already know what some of the girls would be doing and talking about, but I'm still a long way from writing this scene.

Now for more historical stuff.  Herodotus reports that the women of Egypt could pee standing up.  I know this contest is for pooping, but there's no saying there can't be a nice little pee moment too.  Also, apparently the pharaohs claimed they were gods, and part of their propaganda held that they never pooped.  The source I got that from didn't mention peeing.  There was at least one female pharaoh, Hatshepsut (18th Dynasty).  What if somebody spied on her to see if she really did poop?  What if her attempts to hide the fact that she has "mortal bowels" forced her to go weeks without pooping?