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Challenge #02185-E356: On and On With the Show

So I saw Bohemian Rhapsody recently, and while I was SO ANGRY at their handling of queer issues and history in it that I was on the verge of walking out at one point, other parts moved me to tears and still others had me ready to punch the air and yell, "Hell Yeah!" (I didn't, I was in a film theatre - I have SOME manners, after all).

Because of this, I am having Queen and Freddie Mercury-related feels, and have decided the best way to deal with that is to send you a number of prompts related to their currently 43-year-old masterpiece, the song that gave the film the title. This is the first of them:

This post. Both the video, and pyrrhiccomedy's analysis/gushing.

Considering how much the whole band liked audience participation, and Freddie in particular loved it when the audience was with him, just imagine his reaction to this, if he could be on stage as the whole crowd sang this to him? -- RecklessPrudence

[AN: I haven't seen Bohemian Rhapsody yet and now I'm wondering if I should... Then again, it is in the nature of Hollywood to shy away from unpleasant topics that they really should handle with respect and understanding]

Some call it the Human Anthem. One song from their pre-Shattering history that survived all the upheavals that Humans could wreak upon themselves. Other parts of culture became lost, became corrupted, became derivative things but this... survived. Even on Brav'Nu, where every piece of information was a lifetime of labor or memorisation, where being a book is an occupation and a marker that the House is successful, it survived.

It flourished.

It produced variants, of course, but the original recording was cherished all the same. Before today, Rael hadn't thought that any one Human had written it, but there, on primitive vinyl analogue, was a copy of the first album it appeared in. A Night at the Opera, first published in 1975.

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Challenge #02184-E355: The Chaos Creator

Third Bohemian Rhapsody prompt.

This video. The Muppets are always an outstanding technical achievement when they do anything more complex than stand there and open and close their mouths, and it is a tribute to Jim Henson that his techniques have been used for such a wide range of media, from Sesame Street all the way to big-budget films like Star Wars and Labyrinth, to a TV series like Farscape that wanted a higher level of verisimilitude for their non-humanoid characters than

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Challenge #02183-E354: Zeerusted Symphonium

Second Bohemian Rhapsody Prompt.

This video. The person who built this machine has (at time of prompting) 97 other classic songs 'sung' and 'played' by the amalgamation of repurposed obsolete computer parts, but for their celebration of their 100th video, they chose Bohemian Rhapsody (it is two videos 'early' because the final necessary component for Bohemian Rhapsody to be successfully done by the machine was obtained recently, and it dates from the Windows 98 days. The fact that this machine, which has

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Challenge #02182-E353: Feeding Time at the Library

Been a while since I submitted a prompt, but I thought of some Archivaas running across references to DNA data storage - look here for my ramblings on the subject (it became too long for a normal prompt, as I am forever incapable of being concise). -- RecklessPrudence

[AN: They have actually encoded a gif in bacterial DNA so we're maybe not that very far off. There is a generational corruption problem to conquer though.]

Archivaas are not a race, though a

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Challenge #02181-E352: Mightier How?

Aliens find out about "ink poisoning" and get concerned about crew members who write on their hands. -- Anon Guest

There should be no reason for a living being to draw on their own bodies. Data readers are flexible and wearable, they can go anywhere a cogniscent being does. The art of writing in and of itself is a niche for hobbyists, since everyone in the modern era types. Well. Almost everyone. There are niche hobbyists and the occasional fanatic who just.

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Challenge #02180-E351: Looks Peaceful Enough

"I think we may have pissed off the locals."

Loud explosions

"We definitely pissed off the locals." -- TheDragonsFlame

The Drizit thought the world they invaded was ripe for the picking because the inhabitants had no obvious weapons. They thought that an agrarian culture was passive and harmless. They should have really done their homework, because these apparently passive agrarians were also humans.

They took precautions, because parasitising an entire planet largely depends on remaining undetected until your presence is merely a

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Challenge #02179-E350: Use Freedom Responsibly

"Do you beeep realize that they beeep wired my voicebox with a digital censor ! Under the beeep pretext that it might shock some Havenworlder. So now I can't say beeep like beeep, beeep, beeep beeep, beeep or even beeep! That's half my beeep vocabulary ! It's goddam beeep." -- Anon Guest

"You can still say 'goddam'," said Human Pel.

"Not beeep helpful, Pel," sighed Ioli, resident AI. "I've been hacked. This is a beeep violation of my freedom of beeep speech!"

Pel took

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Challenge #02178-E349: Worn Away

"I don't like escort mission..."

"It can't be that bad !"

"We must escort a class 1 Havenworlder with no survival instinct." -- Anon Guest

[AN: See here for reference on Havenworlder scale]

Havenworlders, especially, are known for not exactly evolving, but sauntering vaguely along the evolutionary tree until cogniscence eventually kicked in through sheer boredom. The higher the Havenworlder instinct, the worse they are at certain survival skills.

This is not the rule. Unfortunately for Humans thinking they have an easy escort

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Challenge #02177-E348: The Biggest Speech Wins

Monologuing Villain encounter Drama Queen Hero. To the detriment of both minions and party members. -- Anon Guest

Alcratho was midway through Opus 67: You Don't Understand My Struggles (It's a Harsh World and We Can Remake it). His nearby minions made themselves comfortable.

Meanwhile, working on counterpoint Zanthinar was midway through his epic performance of Oh My Trials! and his cohort were busy busting out the cushions to sit on and using Create Popcorn.

To the uninitiated, it seemed like they

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Challenge #02176-E347: What Were You Thinking?

Deep inside our consciousness is the Lizard Brain, primitive, and kept us going till we got much better, but every so often it has it's say in our lives.

And probably at the 3 F's stage of existence with an attraction to distraction. -- Anon Guest

[AN: The three F's are something I used in some slightly-raunchy fanfictions for The Adventure Zone. They stand for "Fight, F*ck, or Feed"]

Brains are funny things. We like to imagine an internal hierarchy because

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Challenge #02175-E346: A Trail a Mile Wide

Elves. they come in all shapes and incarnations from Lord of the Rings to Santa's little helpers. What if they all got together for ElfCon. -- Anon Guest

Welcome to Warpvale. The impossible happens daily.

In this case, the 'impossible' is a wide and varied range of Elves, from all over the multiverse. All possible hues of skin and more than a few that aren't. All possible sizes of ear, too. From 'vaguely human but huge', through 'human with a point stuck

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Challenge #02174-E345: Unstoppable Argument vs Unflappable Opposition

Automatic skills, once acquired you can just do them. Touch typing, knitting and my personal favourite the cat owner's foot sweep and fridge door close manoeuvre. -- Knitnan

Muscle memory is an amazing thing. A skill set repetitive enough can wander into the back-brain and just... remain there. Encamped. Ensconced. Set into stone once done often or regularly enough. So much so that the being involved in such thorough learning can employ them whilst employed in another activity. This phenomenon is most

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Challenge #02173-E344: Predator Practice

The most common game in the galaxy was, Surprisingly, Hide and seek, Havenworlders even had entire Leagues and sports stars based on the game.

For Havenworlders it was thrilling but safe, and allowed them to exhibit each species natural abilities in defensive evasion, as well as honed their tactics and attention to detect Predators

They were surprised to find Humans enjoyed the same game, realising that the seeker made sense to a Predatory Species, but it Terrified them just how well a

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Challenge #02172-E343: One Notorious Encounter at Midnight

Vorax raiding parties had enough trouble with ships containing only one human, imagine the response to encountering a ship with a full crew of them... -- Amberfox

The ship was dark and silent. After numerous excursions in which the Vorax had encountered Humans, they felt that -perhaps- attacking a ship in its dormancy period might rally the spirits of the crew. Certainly, it lacked a little honour, but the Humans were next to relentless and this area of space was loaded with

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Challenge #02171-E342: The Depths to Crawl

It will be called the Battle of the Somme. It will begin on a date that will be called July 1, 1916. In this charge, on the first day twenty-thousand men will die. Twenty-five thousand more will be wounded. But most will survive, and charge again another day.

Belisarius shook his head. "How-?"

We do not know. We do not fully understand humans, even the Great Ones. But you will do it. You will do it again and again and again. And

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