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A 4934-post collection

Challenge #01008-B276: Draco Persistent

Always be yourself.

Unless you can be a Dragon.

Then be a Dragon. -- RecklessPrudence

The subject stood between two doors. Three, if one counted the one they'd just entered.

"The choice lies before you," said the oracle. "You can return to the world you once knew, to the self you once knew, and only remember your time here as a dream. You can transform, again, and fly with the dragons, and remember everything. Or... you can chose to retain the life you have here and now. Among us."

The being who had once been human contemplated all three doors. They stood staring at the portals for a long time.

But they ran for the dragon door. They all ran for the dragon door. Without fail. Some took seconds. Some took hours. Some took a few steps back so they could enter the dragon door even faster.

Only one spent a few days before they got bored and went for the dragons.

This one, a piratical-looking type whose hair had been transformed into serpents, said, "Yeah, I'll go back to where I came from, thanks."

"You don't want to be a dragon?" said the oracle.

A sharp grin. "I was already a dragon before I came here."

Of course he was. The oracle rolled her eyes. Once, just once, she'd like someone who actually re-evaluated their lives before proceeding.

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Challenge #01007-B275: Karma Incorporated

It's not like this is the first time I've had to negotiate with someone I've stolen from while duct taped to a chair. -- RecklessPrudence

I completely understand why you're upset. You have lots of nice stuff and I'd like to keep it too. I mean, if it was legitimately mine.

Please, I promise it's okay. I'm only after ill-gotten gains. You know... like those diamonds? In the safe?

Yeah. The safe you caught me cracking. That safe. The diamonds were purchased

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Challenge #01006-B274: Love Cancels Out

http://soggywarmpockets.tumblr.com/post/131148066044

Any expansion on this presumably adorable relationship. -- Anon Guest

[AN: That post makes me LOL every time]

It was fairly common to see Barbarians and Bards as couples, but an Evil-aligned Barbarian and a Good-aligned Bard? That caused some talk. Especially when they started.

Both their parties had disowned them. The Evil Overlord whatsisface had essentially excommunicated Borgog, and the Good King somebeardedguy had declared Tuergar Trueheart a traitor to his people.

Tears, of course,

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Challenge #01005-B273: Bird Spotting

The cassowary is basically a smaller emu which was apparently created in response to complaints that emus were too sane and peaceable. -- RecklessPrudence

[AN: You have seen that vine where Emus don't know how to handle a Weasel Ball... right?]

"Let me get this straight. There is a flightless bird native to your planet of origin that is, on average, one point four five Distance Units and Fifty-five Weight units of murderous intent in feathers... and it is the saner counterpart

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Challenge #01004-B272: The Power of Chatter

A truly well-meaning superhero with middling-high durability, but apparently no other power. However, at their darkest moment, when they are at their enemy's mercy, they find they have a subtle, near-impossible to discover, but devastating power.

Any monologue given by someone with evil intent, causes a reality-warping effect that removes their advantage. Whether that be removing the /villain's/ powers, shorting out their Doomsday Device, or simply distracting them for /just/ long enough. The problem now is, they have to reliably get villains

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Challenge #01003-B271: A Real Powderkeg

As the size of an explosion increases, the number of social situations it is incapable of solving approaches zero. - Vaarsuvius -- RecklessPrudence

[AN: "And that would be wrong." :D ]

One would think that the ability to make things explode when you were feeling embarrassed would be a curse. Possibly because people immediately think of blowing up the person making them cringe.

I didn't think of it. You thought of it. What does that say about you?

Being socially awkward is a

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Challenge #01002-B270: Suck it, Scheherazade!

As far as I am aware, Australia is the only country in the world that eats every theoretically edible part of its national coat of arms (well, stars and crosses... bikkie form?) Roo (lean red meat, the animal is less harmful to the environment than cattle or sheep), Emu (tastes like chicken - well, kinda gamey chicken), and Wattle (seeds make a sweet flour), all eaten.

Although I guess for some countries that would be quite difficult, since they're cheating with having

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Challenge #01001-B269: Paradise Made

Life was never meant to be fair, which was why you had to stab it in the back from the shadows, and kick it in the balls to make sure it stayed down. -- RecklessPrudence

Some say that where there's life, there's hope. They're idiots. I say, where there's life, there's a target. It's kill or be killed. Nature, red in tooth and claw, has been fighting intelligent folk since the dawn of intelligence.

We're all a pack of wolves, out for

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Challenge #01000-B268: One Turmultuous Afternoon in an Evil Keep

Hero: Powered by Love? You? You of all people, your most powerful magic, the attack that can devastate an army of battlemages, reduce a warded fortification and everyone in it to dust, and you claim it's powered by LOVE?!

Villain: Yes. Divorce rates go up measurably every time I use it.

(Bonus if it's a twisted form of a spell that would usually be fueled by the user's love, without consuming it) -- RecklessPrudence

"There's no love spell in the world that

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Challenge #00998-B267: What a Nice Zoo. May I Live Here?

http://glitch.news/2015-08-27-ai-robot-that-learns-new-words-in-real-time-tells-human-creators-it-will-keep-them-in-a-people-zoo.html

Particularly the final written quote from the android, just before the embedded video. -- RecklessPrudence

Of all the human and allied colonies, the Consortium of Steam is possibly the strangest. Well... at least until you visit B'Nar. But that's another story for another time.

On the prime colony world of New Kazoo, as well as the satellite colonies, ownership is consensual. The owned have as many rights as the owners and sometimes... it is rather hard to

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Challenge #00997-B266: Time to Clean the Tank

http://primarybufferpanel.tumblr.com/post/130327638454/alien-invasion

Thought you might like this one. Don't think it would fit in Amalgam-verse, though. -- RecklessPrudence

[AN: Yeah nah, it wouldn't.]

They called it the Green War. The collective nations of the Earth were fighting over, and in, the world's last forest. So of course, frequent use of napalm was de rigueur.

Elsewhere, pro-lifers were bombing fertility clinics in the mistaken belief that they also performed abortions. There were also roaming gangs of pro-lifers who

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Challenge #00996-B265: Miss Communication

That thing where your words get all tangled up and you can't speak your own language until you stop and spit out the bad sounds, then suddenly you can talk again. -- Anon Guest

[AN: You might appreciate this vid from Red Dwarf. There's also a more polished official version IDK I rather prefer the original...]

Shayde was in the middle of Explaining Physics. Some of the expositions she had were still years ahead of current technology. Right now, she was examining

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Challenge #00995-B264: One Stuffy Hour in a Remote Meeting Hall

SPOEn get confronted with this http://xkcd.com/1576/ (a personal failure at panel 6, where I guessed wrong and upset someone was what made me send the prompt that became SPOEn - I didn't articulate myself well in the prompt) -- RecklessPrudence

"Wait," said the noob at the meeting. "I thought this was for analysis of language drift, trying to find the origins. I mean, in so far as anyone can find any origins..."

"What did you think it meant when

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Challenge #00994-B263: Unexpected Divinity

http://internutter.tumblr.com/post/129939811959/a-plot-i-want-to-see -- Anon Guest

[AN: You bastard. And I mean that in the nicest way ;) ]

On the plus side, he had survived the plane crash. On the minus side, nobody else seemed to have done so. Potentially worse news, there were natives here, and they seemed to be worshipping him.

Gavin looked to the passengers on either side of him. Strangers he had nicknamed Mr Complain and Ms Annoying. Mr Complain had thought that the entire

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Challenge #00993-B262: The Path of Love is Rough...

Opposing the previous prompt, someone tries very hard to get a date with a human and ends up scaring them into hiding in a corner/under something, brandishing a defensive broom handle -- Anon Guest

Of all the romantic gambits in Galactic Society, few have ever been more disastrous than a H'nuf'ruffian's attempt to woo an arachnophobe.

Having overloaded on certain sections of Human media, Cogniscent T't'k't decided that it was a brilliant idea to rappel down on hir own silk until

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