Just Add Prompt

A 4934-post collection

Challenge #01023-B291: No Such Thing as Normal

This poem: http://bonehandledknife.tumblr.com/post/130524095600/if-you-are-a-monster-stand-up-if-you-are-a -- RecklessPrudence

They called it the DevilPurge, and they came for all the creatures of the night. They came politely, with notarised invitations and assortments of red tape.

They helped the vampires move out. They assisted the werewolves. They kindly and gently moved the mausoleums of the undead. They bussed the witches, wizards and warlocks into a faraway place on the very borders of the kingdom.

To make things better, they said. To improve land prices, they said. To make things perfect.

The new town on the very edge of the kingdom was very nice. It had mansions for the vampires and spacious cemeteries for the undead and the ghouls alike. It had scenic cottages for the witches. Towers for the wizards. The people who had made it had made certain that the things they insisted would move there did not want to move back.

They were very good at their job. And we were happy. There was no hate or prejudice among us. We helped each other.

And every week, there was another string of busses. Another host of unwanted faces who we made very welcome. We got them on their feet. Or fins. Or wings. Or motive appendages of choice. And they were happy with us.

The busses slowed to a trickle. Of course they did. The Kingdom ran out of monsters to ship away. They were down to thieves, ne'er-do-wells and other denizens of your average hive of scum and villainy.

We made them so welcome, that they forgot to be criminals.

Then the volunteers came. The weirdoes. The strange ones. The people who were a little on the odd side. They could not stand the kingdom's idea of perfection and came to our flawed welcome. Some of them wept to finally feel at home.

We were a kingdom of our own, without a king. A crowded, chaotic, magical, and marvellous miniature of all the flavours and colours that those in the Capital did despise.

After the odd ones finished coming to us, the not-quite-perfect came to visit. To steep their toes in what we had become. They were afraid of not being 'normal', but loved our bizarre too much to stay away.

We housed the homeless. Fed the hungry. Found a place for every odd piece to fit. We worked together, as was our way. And we taught our way to all who came.

The kingdom didn't like that. And sent the not-quite-perfect to us. They had a few troubles, and we understood. They didn't want to come, and being forced made them angry. They came around in time. Redirected their anger into other things.

By that time, there were so very few of the perfect left, that the Kingdom gave up on perfection. Stopped purging strangeness from its Capital. But by then, we didn't care to come back.

We built the monarchs a palace, on the very edge of our allotted lands, and invited them to move in.

We have yet to see if they do.

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Challenge #01022-B290: The Thirteenth House

Haunted House? So what. http://bonehandledknife.tumblr.com/post/131049565560/tbonechessor-leftbouquetarbiter-listen-ok -- RecklessPrudence

It was, of course, a fixer-upper. With their credit rating, the Smiths could afford little else. Callie looked up at the looming heap of crumbling Victorian glory and sighed. "It's another haunted one," she monotoned.

"Come on, Callie... The odds have to be in our favour, one time."

Callie just sighed. This was the twelfth such house they'd lived in. She was beginning to see the pattern. "There's history,

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Challenge #01021-B289: You Know What You Did

You can be villainous all you like, little AI, but if the people writing the safeguards are competent, you get this: http://weirdlet.tumblr.com/post/131323113905/furious-peridot-witchoil-devilishdescent -- RecklessPrudence

[AN: Another one I must reblog to notify that this is a thing. Also, I am trying very hard not to channel Bender Bending Unit Rodriguez]

"Welcome to transit station Eighty-Six, the asshole of the universe," droned the alleged welcoming committee. "If you've been assigned work here, then you've made some really

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Challenge #01020-B288: Feel the Burn

This post: http://babblingbug.tumblr.com/post/131643642080/xtremecaffeine-copperbadge -- RecklessPrudence

[AN: Reblog that post with a linkie]

"The jingles, O my Powers, the jingles..." complained Wayne, apprentice of the Darkening Arts. "All night! It just kept singing them all night... I can't get them out of my head."

"But you got it in your head, right? You can remember all this shiz?" asked Davies.

"It's a terrible price. I thought a music demon would be harmless. I did all the cantrips.

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Challenge #01019-B287: Tough Assignment

Another one of these, please: http://thepreciousthing.tumblr.com/post/121702150607/finding-flight-okay-but-imagine-a-medieval -- RecklessPrudence

He went where he was summoned, of course. Demons did not have much in the way of free will. He did not question why.

What he did question, after he appeared in several appealing guises, was why it was not working. He was the living embodiment of hot, muscular temptation. He could even do doughy, fuzzy temptation. And he did, just in case.

He could not get a

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Challenge #01018-B286: What a Wonderful World

What else did the corrective wish from Challenge #00954-B223 fix/break, retroactively? -- RecklessPrudence

When Irde stepped out of her home, things had changed. Technology was leaps ahead of what she knew. Even the phone in her pocket wasn't the one she entered with.

The air was cleaner. The streets were paved with solar panels. The roofs were covered with solar panels. The neighbourhood was prettier. Greener, in more ways than one.

The nearest cellular tower also sported wind turbines.

She had

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Challenge #01017-B285: User Interactivity Issue

"Pew pew pew."

"Uh... sir... are you making laser noises?"

"YES!"

"But... your laser is making actual noises..."

"Yes but they're not lasery enough!" -- RecklessPrudence

Grax boggled at the human. "I am not understanding."

"We're in the middle of a siege situation. Do you really need a lesson in human history now?"

"In-between volleys would be sufficient," allowed Grax. She let off a few shots at the enemies without the verbal accompaniment.

"Pew pew pew!" Andi retreated back to their shared

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Challenge #01016-B284: Rescued!

I'm not a machine... just someone with night vision and a heads-up display -- RecklessPrudence

[AN: Significant thoughts about a certain SPG Music Video]

Kyri had thought she was in a very effective prison until someone walked through the wall like it was made out of wet cellulose. She had to assume they were a someone, because they passed the Turing test within five minutes.

She spent most of her escape inside a protection pod, but judging by the jinking turns and

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Challenge #01015-B283: One Smoky Afternoon in a Dive Bar

Person #1: What the hell is going on, [Person #2]?

Person #2 (calmly, going to sit down): Well, it appears that we're going to start a revolution. -- RecklessPrudence

Ax'and'l looked askance at his human business partner. "Is this one of your definitely profitable insane ventures, or one of the ones that is more... pro bono publico?"

"Uh," said Hwell. Never a good sign. "Not really sure. But we need to do something. Take a look around this room. What's missing?"

Ax'and'l

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Challenge #01014-B282: Know Your Enemy

"Damnit this attack wasn't supposed to actually succeed!" -- RecklessPrudence

It was supposed to be a feint. A sacrificial lamb to the slaughter. A potential method of getting rid of Lord Auditor Vorkosigan without allowing the blood to come near his hands.

What he didn't know - not until the Emperor himself told him shortly before his permanent exile in Camp Permafrost - was that Lord Miles Vorkosigan had a significant and classified history of commanding inferior forces against a superior enemy

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Challenge #01013-B281: B-GUD

I wasn't human, and more than likely once my nature was found out... In popular fiction most A.I were villainous. Hal-9000, Skynet, GLaDOS, SHODAN, AM. Hell, I was even planning on building an army of robots and conquering a planet!

Well, conquering two gas giants and associated hundred and twenty-nine moons.

For the good of my creators. -- RecklessPrudence

I know, I know. There's all kinds of justifications. But they really wanted it, they just didn't know it yet. I'm doing

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Challenge #01012-B280: Didn't Think Things Through

Inspired by The Best Friends RE4 playthru. When the bad guy turns themself into a giant impractical monster, what's the plan for afterward? I mean you beat the hero but now what? -- SeaDragon2012

The gigantic monster looked down the endless abyss that the hero had fallen down to their ultimate defeat.

Victory! Victory at last!

Now all the power in the world was theirs. All they had to do was enter the portal...

...that was made for more normal-sized humans.

The

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Challenge #01011-B279: Trolling at an Intersection

Let's see what the SPOEn think of this quote:

“English is the product of a Saxon warrior trying to make a date with an Angle bar-maid, and as such is no more legitimate than any of the other products of that conversation.” ― H. Beam Piper, Fuzzy Sapiens -- care of RecklessPrudence

[AN: You really love fucking with the SPOEns, don't you?]

Shayde loved grafitti corners. They were an excellent avenue for both spleen-venting and art. And sometimes the art of provocation.

Just

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Challenge #01010-B278: History Q&A

Anything they were willing to try using as fuel during the space race is volatile enough to qualify as an emergency explosive, including the stuff they actually used for launches. -- RecklessPrudence

"They didn't try less volatile launch methods? Like low-orbit flight and gas boosting?"

"Or maglev railgun shots?" suggested another member of Shayde's audience.

"They were thought of, awright. But they were too expensive and too slow. It was a race, ye ken. Braggin' rights tae th' first one on the

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Challenge #01009-B277: What's Nice About Prophecies?

Prophecy Wreckers, Local 182 -- RecklessPrudence

"See this?" The union Chief waved a battered tome. "This is why prophecies are vaguely-worded and open to interpretation. These 'nice and accurate' prophecies are going to be the end of us!"

The Chair opened it at random. The first prophecy her finger fell on read, "Ygnorre thif ye daft olde fool. Thif if being myne gift to myne defendantf."

"Er," said a fellow member, reading over the Chair's shoulder. "I think she knew about us.

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