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Challenge #02881-G324: Ten Siwu's of Trouble

"Of course I understand why you don't want more than one human on the ship. Back home we kept a guardian goose with the chickens." -- Anon Guest

Humans and their metaphors, am I right? Half of them are domestic animal excrement, but which half? The really scary part about these balding Deathworlder apes is that the half with a grounding in reality has the high potential to be truly terrifying.

Look this stuff up at your own risk, is what I'm saying. I made that mistake when I heard about guardian geese. You think waterfowl are harmless and safely edible. They're not. Geese are super Deathworlders. Comparatively fragile[1], yet also willing to put up more than a sufficient fight. How much? Enough to frighten the Humans that keep them. This is a bird that has serrated teeth on its tongue, and have been advertised as "better than guard dogs" by many.

Having seen just the teeth, I'm prone to believing anything those apes have to say about their geese. How they can connect that bird to a figure benevolent to their infants is beyond me. Deathworlders are confusing.

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Challenge #02880-G323: Like Sands Through the Hourglass

"Our soap operas are weird. Yours are incomprehensible." -- Anon Guest

[AN: All soap operas are wont to escalate into incomprehensibility when given enough time]

"Beshenia, I love you, but I can't be with you," said the figure in the holo display. "I tried to keep it hidden, but... I'm your descendant from the future, and it would be incest."

"WHAT?" said half the watchers in the room. The other half made gestures of victory and cheered, "CALLED IT!" Which sparked so

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Challenge #02879-G322: A Bad Influence

She grew up in the slums of a DeRegger colony. But her family wasn't like most of those here. What little funds they got, they used for books - though carefully hidden. She was forced to dress, and act, like a boy to fool the rulers. The small family, two sons, their father, and her, were all very well educated and well-read. And they believed it was time for a true change to this brutal regime. But to do that, more people

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Challenge #02878-G321: I'm Doing My Best Over Here

If I had a dollar for every time a extra-dimensional portal appeared and gave me powers, I would have two. Which isn’t much, but it’s weird that it happened twice. -- Anon Guest

Did you know it kind'a sucks to be able to recognise an extradimensional stick with a human on it[1]? I can tell you for free that it creeps me out every single time. The first time, I was five and thought my kindergarten teacher was a

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Challenge #02877-G320: Just Because You Can...

time to get spooky -- Anon Guest

[AN: Video linked is some very clever stop animation and I do NOT believe those are actual organic pumpkins. That would be WAY too involved for a piece of art that took months to make. Double cleverness is inventing Halloween lyrics to fit in with Hall of the Mountain King]

Human creativity knew no bounds. One of their favourites was creating the impossible. Inanimate vegetable matter should not have expressions. Once carved to have expressions,

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Challenge #02876-G319: Horror of the Baby-Sat

Parent: Thank you so much for agreeing to watch the baby for me. Also, I'm sorry.

Babysitter: Sorry for what?

Parent: The baby has worked out how to do vocal distortion.

Baby: G̷͕̯̻̎̓̉͛̑̀̂̇̀̐͋͘͘͝a̶̢̰͇͇̱͂̉͋́̓͐̂̃͂́́ ̷̧̖̝̱̽̈́͠ǵ̸̢à̴̳̲͍́̀͛̓̃͘̚͝ͅͅ -- Anon Guest

Parrots and very small children seem to share two common interests. The first is an apparent desire to destroy the universe around them via unexpected means. The second is the Dissonance Joke.

The otherwise cute and adorable Human toddler in Companion Lua's

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Challenge #02875-G318: Drastic Action

So about 8 months ago security forces kept seeing these reflective belts in the brush and they would go to chase them and they would keep getting away so finally somebody realized that there were reflective belts on the deer. So they catch one of these deer and there's names on these belts. Apparently the marines had been tackling the deer and putting belts on them they would of gotten away with it to but they left their names. -- Anon Guest

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Challenge #02874-G317: Best Danger Noodle

Humans have interesting pets. Sometimes small, even almost harmless even by havenworld standards, sometimes terrifying. This human had one that was at the terrifying end. As they came aboard a ship of saurians, across their shoulders was a snake that was as nearly long as their body and very heavy. It seemed, however, content to remain curled there while the person introduced them to "little slinky." A snake they'd raised from an egg. -- DaniAndShalii

[AN: Submission included a picture of an

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Challenge #02873-G316: A Puzzling Sample

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6ZjMWLqJvM -- Anon Guest

The Archivaas are primarily Human. One of the few sects of Human obsession that made hoarding work for them. They will, like most Humans, adopt anyone who shares their compulsion. Compulsions are not always healthy, but the Archivaas work hard to make theirs as healthy as possible.

Always be wary of an order capable of re-ordering entire solar systems so they can store their collections. They're very capable of being dangerous if

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Challenge #02872-G315: Small Thrills, Big Day

A human's friend has been begging them for months to take them to Earth to a local event. Something that all humans could enjoy in one form or another. Something that was fun for all humans but didn't involve large explosions or things being destroyed. The human thought for a long moment and smiled, they had the most perfect idea. And that is how this level one havenworlder ended up sitting and trying deep fried cheese curds and onion rings for the

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Challenge #02871-G314: Cause and Effect

Haiku can be strange

Five, seven, and five again

Refrigerator -- Anon guest

There were magnets with words on them. Yet another Human invention that could be used for long-term communication and yet was still used for random art. For instance, the poetic form on the communal chilled food store. A thing that described itself and was still a joke. Typically Human.

Companion Zue considered the words scattered around the magnetic surface, and thought about the message she might leave for the

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Challenge #02870-G313: Double-edged Blade

I was Baptized twice. Once in water, once in flame. I survived because the fire within me burn brighter than the fire around me. -- Joshua Graham

There's a reason why certain peoples are fire resistant. Their ancestry is in flames, their genome comes from an active cauldera. There are pyres in their souls. Those who claim to have souls, anyway. Some have given up on laying claim to souls.

It's the way of worlds with magic in their bones. Be dragon-kin

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Challenge #02869-G312: Tolerance Levels

Human A: "Try this!"

Human B: "Is it hot?"

Human A: "No."

Human B: "Your not hot, or my not hot?"

Human A: "...it's not hot."

Human B: "..." takes a bite

Nonhuman Cremember: "Why is Human B crying while guzzling milk?"

Human A: "It's not hot!"

Human B: (takes a moment to stop guzzling milk)(snot and tears running down face) "I'm sensitive to capsaicin, and you eat raw ghost peppers for fun! Your 'not hot' is not my 'not hot'!" (goes

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Challenge #02868-G311: To Change the World

The life of tieflings and kobolds has never been an easy ones. Discriminated against, trodden upon, mistreated practically from the day they are born, it is not unusual, though heartbreakingly cruel that it is, to find an infant of one of those races either deceased or weak, thrown upon midden piles or abandoned in the forests. But that was to change. At least a little.

A new village was starting to form. The alone, the abandoned, the lost, all gathered here. Tieflings,

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Challenge #02867-G310: Unexpected Bargain

A human, intent on preparing a treat for havenworlder shipmates, orders a large amount of sugar. Due to a mix-up somewhere along the line, this human receives a large delivery of sugarcane instead and, well, "waste not, want not" -- Anon Guest

"Wait. Why is this shipment in bales? I said 'boxes'..." Human Thal checked their invoice archives. "That's a 'B' in the receipt, but it doesn't say what that stands for... Oh shit, that's a big number..."

Something had yet again

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