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Prompt 3: Ventriloquy Writing, Janice, FPS

Shit… what’s his name? How do I not remember his name? Brad? Benji… Bowen? God, that’s so embarrassing. 5 months here and I don’t know the name of the only dude who works Monday midnight shift with me. Jesus. Moments like these make me think I could make more of an effort at work-- be more of a “team player”, or whatever WorldMart told us to call ourselves during training. But then I watch our manager get in his car and hotbox for so long that the smoke practically turns opaque, and I think I might actually be the most involved employee here. I mean, aside from Brock. Brian. Shit. Anyway, Blake just pulled a finger from his pocket- Has he been holding onto that?- and the zombie across from us is motioning for him to hand it over. Look: I’m not jealous of a dead woman. That’d be pathetic. But Bryce and the zombie are like, flirting right now? She’s asking him to choose between an orange or red skirt for tonight and sweet, stupid Billy is telling her she’d look pretty in orange even t...
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How I'd Rename Barbie-Q

There’s no title I could come up with would match “Barbie-Q” in terms of pun quality. But if I had to rename the story, the most immediate alternative I can think of would be “Life in Plastic” or something of the like. Despite being possibly stolen from the Aqua song, I like it here for two reasons: One, because it literally describes the lives our main characters live vicariously through their Mattel counterparts. They’ve built a world to escape to out of these dolls, a plastic alternative to their more modest situation IRL. But two, because it describes the fake flashiness of the lifestyle these dolls represent, and the rigidity of maintaining that kind of showy glamorousness. Celebrities are marketing at their core, moreso than people. Affluence is a lifestyle that turns people into brands- plastic. Maybe it’s a bit of a stretch. Maybe I just wanted a reason to listen to Barbie Girl again. If anyone’s actually got the energy to read and engage with this blog post, sound off below.
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Barbie Q and Celebrity Worship in the Wake of Corona

Though the main characters of the short story are children, it’s easily inferred that Barbie-Q takes place in a profit-driven society much like our own. The narrator and her friend treat the barbie dolls as representations of the affluent lifestyle they strive towards; the dolls wear elegant, “Jackie Kennedy”-esque outfits of “satin splendor” and work in such lavish professions as lounge singing. The children themselves presumably come from a lower to lower-middle-class background, given that they can’t afford most of their barbies until they go on sale for being damaged, and it would seem that they’ve been conditioned to associate wealth with self-fulfillment, as is often the case in societies run by capitalism. They treat these dolls as the representation of everything life could be, burying their hopes and aspirations within them. The reverence for these dolls reminded me of one aspect of our own culture, celebrity worship. They represent for us what the Barbie dolls represent to t...
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