Amalgam Universe

A 2284-post collection

Challenge #00852-B121: Catching Up

Ok If I’ve timed this right it ought to be just after eurovision.

Your prompt today is whatever act won.

[AN: You got it right. I’m willing to bet you were expecting something like Gay Disco Dracula though]

Shayde called it ‘degaussing’ when she didn’t call it “Catching up wi’ five hundred years o’ Tivo” and it usually involved a bucket of popcorn. Buttered, of course.

“So what are you binging on, tonight?”

“Eurovision.”

Her answers always surprised him. Humans displaced in time generally caught up with soap operas or teledramas. Shayde was, as always, different. “Enlighten me. This is an Earth custom?”

“Oh aye. Europe get together to see who sings the best and then gets in a snip aboot who really does. England loses. Always.”

“Ah.” Terrans. They found endless ways to pick a fight with each other. He sat by her on the couch. “What are you up to?”

“Twenty-fifteen.” She offered some popcorn. “The year - fer no reason, ye ken - they let Australia play.”

“Australia. Great southern land. Opposite end of the globe. Not Europe at all?”

“Aye,” Shayde munched on her handful. “I think they did it tae piss off the States.”

“Probably,” allowed Rael. He watched in confusion. “I thought this contest was a celebration of costume and spectacle.”

“They toned it down for the noobs, I reckon.”

“That’s it? Laser projection and flashy lights?”

“And a catchy song that’s ninety percent chorus, aye.”

[Muse food remaining: 18. Submit a prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!]

Challenge #00851-B120: One Fine Evening at a Galactic Mixer Party

Between two cultures, the body language and customs for aggression/anger in one are very similar to the flirting/courtship of the other.

In this scenario: A series of attempts to get an individual to agree to a date are taken entirely the wrong way.

She shouldn’t have gone amongst the Deathworlders. She could already feel her mortality creeping up on her. Havenworlders and Deathworlders never mixed well.

“Pretty,” said one of the Deathworlders. A tall beast with entirely too much

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Challenge #00850-B119: One Fine Bar Fight at a Galactic Crossroads

Between two cultures, the body language and customs for aggression/anger in one are very similar to the flirting/courtship of the other.

In this scenario: An aggressive display is mistaken for flirting.

She got into the human’s personal space. Closed her off from any escape. Rumbled in a low threat, “I like your face.”

The human bared her teeth and uttered a barking call. Then she pressed her rubbery mouth to  Hoq’a’lu’gi’s face. “I think you’

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Challenge #00848-B117: It Just Goes

About the EM Drive, a possible new space drive that no-one has a coherent theory on HOW it works, but as long as no mistakes have been made in the experiments, it seems that it does. …Somehow.

“Well, the future space programs will no longer need propellants. However, they should probably investigate this thoroughly, this looks like an accidental discovery of summoning…things. While using Cthulhu as a propellant sounds hilarious no one wants to know what happens after that. ”

[AN: The

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Challenge #00843-B112: Relics of a Previous Age.

I think that I’ve never seen anything so stupid and so practical in all my life.

They called it The Archive of Earth. A massive tomb devoted to the Twentieth Century. And Shayde had, through adventure and misadventure, inherited the lot.

“How much of this stuff is plastic?” wondered Rael.

“Uh. After the Twenties? Loads.” Shayde was particularly uninformative, unpacking the vaults and sorting random objects. The swarming Archivaas had left her to deal with everything they didn’t recognise. Which

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Challenge #00835-B104: Close Encounters of the Blurred Kind

More encounters between the spider-people and humans, pre- or post-Amity

Ten weeks prior to Amity’s re-introduction to the Galactic Alliance…

Salvage spacers tended to have short names. Monosyllabic and easy to pronounce in an emergency. So it was with Mar and Dee. Both women had longer names, but such names were exclusively on their paperwork.

“I’ve been on this hulk before,” said Dee, pointing to a conglomerated wreck in their pathfinder screen. “There’s an enormous colony of BFS on

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Challenge #00833-B102: ...Okay?

This post:

http://azzandra.tumblr.com/post/116731684146/fleshwater-matt-the-blind-cinnamon-roll

(list of weird things humans do like losing baby teeth to grow a second set, then:

“At some point, the aliens aren’t going to know anymore when we’re actually trolling them.

Us: Under certain circumstances, humans have been known to spontaneously develop the ability to breathe fire.

Alien: yeah, okay, that fits in with the other wacky bullshit you guys can do.”)

The humans walked out of the airlock, male and

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Challenge #00832-B101: Picnic in the Park

The final holiday on Earth prompt - Author’s choice as to what the human shows their friend again, but this time everything is finally perfect.

[AN: This story happens somewhere in the middle of #00830-B099]

What
bothered Rael the most about travelling the Earth with Shayde was how easily she switched languages and habits to match her environment.

For
instance, as they marched steadily and almost silently through the Australian wilderness, she was singing an ancient song. Thousands of
years old

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Challenge #00831-B100: Fun Park a la Deathworld

Holiday prompt the third! Author’s choice what the human shows their companion, as long as it goes pear-shaped

[AN: This story precedes yesterday’s]

Deathworlder entertainments are not advised for non-Deathworlders, said the Wikipedia Galactica, only the native life forms of a Deathworld can withstand even the most allegedly gentle of their entertainment vehicles. Though the Deathworlders insist that these entertainments are safe, be advised that they are only safe for Deathworlders.

Rael could easily believe, and understand those words, now.

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Challenge #00830-B099: Comfort Food

The holiday continues, introducing the friend to things like non-irradiated cheese, actual lemons, and real dumplings

It started small. Well, comparatively small. A steaming curry at a van vendor, swimming in grease and overloaded with turmeric rice.

What followed was a tour of all the places that still sold unsuitable or unexportable food. Haggis, Casu marzu, Lutefisk. Pizza cones. Powdered doughnut pancake surprise. Death By Chocolate cake.

And now it finished here.

If it wasn’t the birthplace of Unsuitable Food Eat,

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Challenge #00829-B098: You Can't Really Go Home

Well, at least the human was excited about the holiday, however ill-advised taking the trip to Earth with them was going to be…

“Thereitis, thereitis! Earth. Aw… it mostly looks the same…”

“I did tell you that it’s been five hundred years since your departure. Geographically, little has changed.”

“I’m goin’ tae stop in at Wales. Go see what’s happened tae home.”

Rael, a little more prepared, had tried to find Shayde’s ‘home’ on a map.

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Challenge #00828-B097: Homicidally Annoying

Ethics. Of all the flaws for a crew member to have, why did it have to be ethics?

Do’jii had to wonder why he was carting this human around. Sure, his actions were often in a confounding chain of cause and effect that came out with profit at the other end, but at other times…

Like this time…

It was hard to see the profit at the other end.

“Let me understand the chain of events,” began Do’jii.

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Challenge #00819-B088: True Words

Beware the happy person with power tools.

There was a sign over the door to the maker-space. Warning: Happy people with power tools inside.

Shayde thought it was a joke until she stepped in. Sure, it had been a few years since she got together with fellow nerds and a bunch of tools to create something. At least, in subjective terms.

In real-time terms it had been closer to five hundred years.

The very concept of maker-spaces had changed while she was

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Challenge #00816-B085: Infectious Craze

The Birdy dance, aka the Chicken dance. Turn it loose somewhere, have fun.

Shayde was wearing the patched muumuu. Which meant that her ‘street’ act, today, was something she called Stump the Frump. Which was ironic, because he knew for a fact that she’d spent an entire hour making certain that she looked like she didn’t care.

The act was, people would bring her musical instruments and, if she couldn’t wrangle a tune out of it, the person or

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Challenge #00815-B084: Inappropriate Love Gifts

There were a line of little heads on the mat near the bed, just the heads. The damn cat had been at it again!

Sandra drew her toes up again and hid them under her comforter. It wasn’t a straight line. More of a curve. All those dead, bloodied little heads. Arranged in something of a semicircle in a kind of post-mortem worship of her bed.

And in came the cat. Black, sleek and proud. Smirking at his fine achievement. Tail

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