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A 15-post collection

Challenge #04348-K330: A Returning Memory

Even the smallest photo can bring back so many memories, especially when you're trying so hard to smile again. -- Anon Guest

"We've restored it to its original condition. Honestly, it was a miracle such fragile ephemera made it to this century. A miracle find, considering where it was found." The Archivaas went on and on and on about anaerobic bacteria and all the varied things that ate cellulose and assorted photographic chemicals in a landfill.

Shayde had stopped listening, staring at the copy of the image that had been cleaned, processed, run though a thousand procedures, and returned to what it might have looked like. They were scary close to complete accuracy.

It was a family snap. A polaroid of a group of four at a tourist trap that claimed to be the world's largest rubber band ball. Two adults, a teenager, and a kid who hadn't quite figured out how to fake a smile for photos yet. The teen girl was wearing a Madonna T-shirt and had her red hair done up with a thousand rainbow neon shoelaces. Her jeans looked like they fell through a shredder before being worn. The boy was in a sports numeral and shorts. The parents - her Mom and Da - wore the smiles they wore in every photo, practiced and smooth and false. Tie-died shirts and handmade canvas pants made with practicality in mind. The photo didn't show their practical, steel-toed boots.

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Challenge #04346-K328: Early Childcare

There's something to be said about need being the parental of invention. A small, sharp needle, some thin wire, and a lot of imagination can move mountains. -- Anon Guest

[AN: A little elementary research has shown me that the concept of a fastening device that doesn't hurt its wearer is older than you think it is. Look up fibula brooches. You're welcome.]

There's something to be said about loving another to the point of invention. Loving someone so much that creating

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Challenge #04131-K113: Useless Witness

The dragon looked upon the tired adventurer who stood there quietly after patching up their injuries.

Dragon - "I offered you gold and gems, you stand by a huge pile of treasure yet you do not reach for a single coin, you are not like most who make it this far."

Adventurer- "That's not real treasure, that's just gold."

Dragon - "Then what is it you seek?"

Adventurer - "You're over a millennia old, all I want is to learn the truth

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Challenge #04045-K027: In the Darkest Years

A rumor was going around that living unwelcome peoples were Good Luck Charms. People were hunting hellkin to knock out and cut off their horns, capturing kobolds to steal some scales, and other such actions. -- Lessons

Ward off unwelcome fate with that of unwelcome form, -- Old Human Superstition.

It's honestly amazing how simple statements can turn to misinterpretation. The origin came from a distant settlement that paid host to the Unwelcome. They found their troubles almost halved at first, and

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Challenge #03970-J318: The Path Untrodden

I am not the future you, nor are you my past self anymore. More correctly, you are that forgotten starting point of mine, unfulfilled ideal of mine, the unchosen answer in many decisions. -- Anon Guest

If you could change anything about your past - would you? If given that chance, what would you change? The threads of time and fate can only tangle one way, it seems. But what if--?

The Faekindred of Nanogh play with time like most children play

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Challenge #03815-J163: Alike in Villainy

One side was demons, the other, humans. What was the difference, other than looks? Nothing at all. Both sides knew it, but it took a blind child to slap sense into both, and get them to work together. The village is prosperous now that they work as equals. -- Anon Guest

They say, "Out of the mouths of babes comes the truth." Obviously whoever 'they' are, they have never known children. They only spout the truth when it's socially inconvenient. A more

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Challenge #03423-I135: Not Pinpoint

A: I’m lost, where tf are we in the timeline?

B: like I said after the primate revolution and the before the cleave of humanity

A: MF THAT’S A 700,000 YEAR GAP

B: Oh, after all the creation of the argunaught

A: THAT DOESN’T HELP -- Anon Guest

It was one thing to learn that time travel was possible. It was another to learn that the Professor's time machine looked and sounded like a Winnebago. A rather arthritic

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Challenge #02779-G222: And There Was Only One Bed

Archivist finds a Treasure Trove in a Library's donation of 'source material, just old papers'. Stored in time seal conditions. Just one problem to the end of all their funding problems it was all hand written. -- Anon Guest

It was a sealed box in one of the Pre-Shattering Permaplastics. Someone had scrawled, "rando papers" in permanent marker across the lid. Scanners indicated that it was still hermetically sealed. This required care and attention to detail.

Good thing the Archivaas were an

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Challenge #02146-E317: The Wrong Kind of Smart

"Look, it's very simple. Knowledge equals power, right? So it makes much more sense to reward people who are well educated, as well as people who can help apply that education for the benefit of everyone else."

"They ask too many questions." -- Anon Guest

Knowledge may be power, but an education is like a disease. As soon as you've got one, there's a compelled desire to spread it around. It's one of the reasons why you find oligarchies, plutocracies, theocracies, monocracies,

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Challenge #01321-C226: Lost and Found

The Ballad of Apollo XIII - sung to the tune of 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald', but with a triumphant ending. -- RecklessPrudence

"I can't find Ambassador Shayde."

They should have been terrifying words, but they had lost any such sparkle through repetition. It had got to the point that Sherlock and Officer Marken both used Ambassador Shayde as testing material for new recruits.

So far, only one sharp Ensign had passed the Shayde Test.

This... was not that Ensign.

"You've

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Challenge #01301-C206: Per Ardua Ad Astra

'Fire in the Sky.' Specifically, the filk song by Dr Jordin Kare, released in '91 but remastered in '04. This song moved Buzz Aldrin to tears on national television when he first heard the remastered version, apparently. There was a competition to make a music video, and this one won. I first found the music video, a few years ago now, and I've never forgotten it. -- RecklessPrudence

"You were there for it, weren't you?"

Shayde looked up from her Kung

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Day four of pre-hydration

OK so yesterday, I didn't weigh myself and I had what some might call some bad choices for my meals.

Pre-hydration - drinking about half a litre of water before meals - seems to work its best when one can do so before every meal.

I skipped out on lunch's water, yesterday, and it kinda shows.

I'm back up above the 95 kilo mark. BUT, I'm not back up to my previous level of stagnation, so that has to be something. I

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medievalpoc: The Sa'wkele, The Ku-Ku, The Boqta, The Henin: How the Mongol Occupation of Europe Changed European Women's Fashion...

medievalpoc:

The Sa’wkele, The Ku-Ku, The Boqta, The Henin: How the Mongol Occupation of Europe Changed European Women’s Fashion Forever

One of the most immediately recognizable symbols of the European Middle Ages is the towering, often conical or cylindrical, women’s headdresses popular throughout Europe in the 15th century. To this day, the tall, often veil-decorated “Princess Hat” is immediately known even to American children as a sign of feminine stature, nobility, and elegance. Tiny, cheap versions of this hat

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When Historical Dramas Fail History...

I can forgive AU’s. I have a great love for them. I can understand a writer willing to explore an alternate time stream.

But when they pretend they’re set in our history… nails down the chalkboard.

You can NOT show the Mona Lisa in-progress on a freaking canvas. She was painted on an oak board.

[You should also not make Jesus white, but that’s a whole different can of worms…]

Similarly, having era- or

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The Alien in the Playground

You can spot her from a mile away. The one kid playing alone. Lost in her own little world. She clearly wears a mixture of hand-me-downs and homemade clothing when all the other children are wearing clothes, relatively new, from the shops.

Some other children are approaching her. Even from this distant vantage point, you can tell their intent is not friendly. They are all bigger than her. Together, they could beat her into a pulp, but violence is not their pastime

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