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Challenge #02235-F045: Sing Out the Sun

"Hey what song are you singing today?"

"'I love those J-I-N-G-L-E bells.'"

"Oh good. I can hang my laundry today." -- Anon Guest

There are interesting wrinkles to being a life companion for a bard. Especially if that bard took a level or two in the Druidic arts, apparently for the laughs. One of them is the daily practice session. Not that Jiihan needed it. She was a very good bard... but the druidic edge put certain harmonic combinations at a level of risk.

For instance, some popular tunes could affect the weather. Jiihan kept it under control, the instant she put it together of course. Once the connection was made, she took care to only practice one song at a time. Unfortunately, practice songs with no defined spell in mind had no lyrical relationship to the weather it produced. As an example, Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head when unfocussed, caused gale force and dehydrating winds.

Enrai had to plan his day around the musical mood Jiihan was in at the time. Whenever they weren't on adventures, domestic life had to continue around Jiihan's practice sessions. "So... what's the song today?"

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Challenge #02234-F044: Incidental Hazards

Young children like to lounge on people, caregivers and companions alike. Do other species deal with this? -- Anon Guest

There is an instinct almost universal to the young of any given species. Stay close to your caregiver. Once able to move about free of the nest/clutch/creche/pouch, the caregiver is still a bastion of protection, font of education, and primary source of emotional resilience. In species with communal childrearing, any older member of the species will do.

Which was

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Challenge #02233-F043: Greatest Responsibility

What would an intergalactic nursery look like? -- Anon Guest

Multi-species infant care is a fascinating workplace to begin with. For each species, there are separate demands beyond the standards of clean, warm, and comfortable. There are some general rules, like mammals do best when fed on their parental secretions. Reptilian life forms, for instance, get essential gut bacteria from their parentals' regurgitations. Some, like Humans, thrive with the assistance of gentle physical contact. Others are too frail to be disturbed until

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Challenge #02232-F042: To Stand in Judgement

"I've known nothing but struggle and heartbreak... and yet I fought to survive, certain it would all be worth it in the end and my prayers would be rewarded... And now I learn THIS? I discover that, from your point of view, my entire life, from the moment I was born until the day I die... well, died... that every day of it is... er, was... just a bit of idle entertainment?!"

"Well... though that's a terribly dark way to put it.

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Challenge #02231-F041: Workarounds

"You're being stingy."

"Yes, I know." -- Anon Guest

"I warned you," said Lady Anthe. "These caverns are not as friendly as the rest of the Underdark. You won't find luminous mushrooms or special glowing crystals here, and most of the fungus among us is either deadly poison or just plain carnivorous. I used to survive in places like this."

"You mean you used to live--"

Anthe cut Marvin's well-meaning correction off. "I wouldn't call it living. After three more days, neither

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Challenge #02230-F040: Radical Prototype

"I fail to see how crew members taking the offensensitivity warning I attached to myself as a joke or challenge is in any way my fault." -- Anon Guest

Human Kari tapped at the small pin. It was shaped like a fan, and mostly silver. The borders were thick and black and there was an ornamental scroll that had the words, Accidentally Offensive embossed into it. Presumably, those within range to read it would also be subject to Human Kari's... more colourful

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Challenge #02229-F039: Special Talents

"Am I weird?"

"Yes, that's why we get along." -- Anon Guest

They say things like, There's always one, or, Strange is as strange does; but what they generally mean by that is, Look at the statistical outlier. It's not always done with malice, but it certainly feels that way when one is on the receiving end. For those who experience this sort of thing first hand, it's interesting how the statistical outliers are reviled and expelled from groups as "too strange"

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Challenge #02228-F038: Tactile Rewards

Human giving an alien scritches.

"I'm not a pet, you know."

"Do you want me to stop?"

"…No" -- TheDragonsFlame

The one thing one must remember about Humans, Thrikki wrote in her journal, apart from the most obvious like the whole Deathworlder thing, is that they are incredibly tactile. They reach out to feel things just to experience what it feels like. They reassure themselves on the presence of their fellows. They show affection through touch.

Human Cass was doing just that,

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Challenge #02227-F037: Think of the Children

An alien equivalent of a lawyer is studying up on various human court cases and stumbles upon a series of cases from family courts dated up to the mid 2030s citing "deviant sexual attitudes" or "deviant sexuality" as reasons for being an unsuitable parent. Upon consultation with its human liaison as to the nature of these cases, the alien discovers the murky and dark legal situations around kinks. -- Anon Guest

For those seeking further proof of Human Insanity, look no further

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Challenge #02226-F036: Simple Metallurgical Skills

They were doomed. The copper tin alloy for the critical drive component they desperately needed was on a planet weeks away, and even if they had it, they couldn't make the part on the ship.

That's when the human walked into the bridge mopping sweat off hir brow.

"All fixed let's go."

"What do you mean all fixed?"

"Simply, I made a cast of the part with the pieces, then melted down the original and re cast it. It should last to

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Challenge #02225-F035: That They May See

Words cut deeper than any weapon ever could. Thankfully, they also heal better than any medication. -- Anon Guest

Everyone has words they hate having flung at them. Slurs, for instance. For the linguists among us, it may be fascinating to analyse how the words we choose to hurt others with show how those who arm evaluate those they see as less. However, those words still hurt. Others may choose to glide past them. Having never had such words used against them,

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Challenge #02224-F034: The Better Mousetrap Paradox

"Why do you carry a device only for recording your voice?"

"I think too quick to type anything down" -- Anon Guest

"There are auto-dictation programs galore," added Phrel. "Voice to text."

"Except they come with autocorrect and it takes a freaking age to teach them my personal lexicon. I'm a self-confessed weirdo that way. It's much easier for me to record the audio, slow it down, and use an older autodict to take a best guess at all the spelling. Then

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Challenge #02223-F033: Treasure (n)

The Archivaas learning about the libraries at Alexandria and Timbuktu -- Anon Guest

They say that if you want to annoy a Human Librarian, you should get them started on the Library of Alexandria. It's one of the more famous instances of knowledge destruction in Human history. It's famous as one of the most devastating hits to human progress in all of their devastating histories of Humankind, right next to the Shattering.

Less well-known is the fact that the Library of Alexandria

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Challenge #02222-F032: Snapping Point

(Sorry for everything bad in this prompt. My grammar isn't perfect. Anyway English isn't my native language :/)

Obsession about humans is almost natural in some species. Scientists literally love watching their human beings on tests. But some scientists went too far, when they ask: How much pain can human endure before they give up? -- Anon Guest

[AN: No worries, Nonny. When I encounter a prompt with obvious grammatical or spelling errors, I fix them up so that the soul of the

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Challenge #02221-F031: The Wager Motivation

Humans have a way of betting that causes the right people for a particular challenge to attempt what is at the time seemingly impossible.

An Inducement prize Contest like the "Ansari X prize" for making the first reusable private Spacecraft, or a Wager like the story of "Around the world in 80 days", even just friends and the ole "Hold my beer".

Humans strive to do the impossible because they like to win. It's in the DNA -- Adam from Darwin

The

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