Just Add Prompt

A 4873-post collection

Challenge #00887-B156: Can't Eat, Won't Eat

A cooking show for all of us with allergies, medical conditions and on medication which won’t let us eat common items. Grapefruit, garlic and members of the cabbage family come to mind.

“Welcome to the cooking show that we all love, but chefs love to hate! It’s Can’t Eat, Won’t Eat!”

Applause and hoots.

“Our judges tonight include somebody on bloodthinners, he’s also allergic to the entire cabbage family and won’t eat onion!”

The judge waved.

“As you see, he has the three magic buttons. I don’t like that…”

The
judge pressed the relevant button. A cartoonish vomiting sound carried over the audio and a green Mr Yuck face lit up on the screen.

“I’m allegic to that…”

This time, it was an ambulance siren and a medical sigil.

“And this stuff will kill me.”

A brief seranade of the death march and a skull and crossbones.

“And
we also have our regular judges, someone who’s allergic to alcohol of any kind,” whistles and cheers, “and The Baby Tongue.” This regular
judge had an extra button that made a ‘waa waa’ sound and added a dummy
to the screen. “As always, our celebrity chefs have a fully stocked
kitchen with everything they could possibly need. And we only tell the
chefs once! They have to–”

The audience joined in, “Pay attention or pay the penalty!”

“That’s right! Get it very wrong, and our celebrity winds up in the sin bin.”

People watched to see if any chefs actually made it all the way towards making a complete meal. So far, nobody had.

[Muse food remaining: 18. Submit a prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!]

Challenge #00886-B155: Unexpected Bastion of Safety

“Deportment and propriety in High Society 101” at Lady Favisham’s, a mandatory course for young ladies.

(AKA “How to break a man’s wrist without letting go of your fan”)

“Men,” began Mistress Carlysle. She said the word as though it were an epithet. “They own the world. They run the world. The spend their lives believing that whatever they see… they own. They believe they have the right to help themselves. And it is up to us… It

Read more »

Challenge #00885-B154: Dawn Technology

“Like many other things, if you know what you’re doing, an open fire isn’t particularly dangerous.” Says the person wearing no safety gear, having lit a campfire with flint and steel and currently rearranging the burning sticks barehanded.

“You’re… burning raw cellulose,” said the alien, through its translator. “There is no safety equipment.”

“Got a shovel,” soothed Tanja. “Got loads of sand. We’re good.”

“You are not knowing if this cellulose is loaded with toxins.”

“I live

Read more »

Thievery can net you the most interesting trinkets sometimes...

“What, this li'l thing? Oh, you know how pickpocketing goes; a bit of clothing lint or spare change here, a rare jewel or costly necklace there, the pulsing locus of an esoteric magical ritual over there. Luck of the draw, really.”

(#00884-B153)

Still dunno everything this one does… I twiddled with the locket around my neck. When it’s open, it glows enough and shows up all the genuine tosh. Gives it that little extra sparkle. Gives me an edge.

Don’

Read more »

Challenge #00883-B152: Stress Indicators

Hiccups.

“But… I can’t be an ambassador,” Lalama protested. “I’d be the worst. HIC! There’s a reason -hic- there’s a reason -hoik- a reason I -hic- I went for -hiku- for Oort mining.”

“Well understood,” said Ruraha. She was a saurian. “Galactic law is not on your side. Friend Yayama… is breathing problem medical-dangerous?”

“No, I -hic- I just get -hyurk- get hiccups when -hroooip- when I’m nerv– HIC! Nervous.”

“But… you are

Read more »

Challenge #00882-B151: Stifled Rude Noises

Prompt: That “GNK” noise a person makes when they manage to sneeze with their mouth shut.

Brexx didn’t know what was wrong. The human ambassador spasmed suddenly and made a sort of Skngx! noise. Then she gasped for breath and went, Skngx! Skngx! Skngx! in rapid succession.

Brexx hit the panic button. “Human ambassador non-communicative. Making abbreviated noises of unknown meaning.”

“…th’ flowers,” gasped Ambassador Harry.  Skngx! Skngx! Skngx! Skngx! Skngx! “I’b allergig…”  Skngx! Skngx! “To th’ flowers&

Read more »

Challenge #00881-B150: One Missed Point on the Commercial Concourse

A time machine has to have flashing lights. It’s not a proper Time machine unless it has flashing lights!

It was a tiny little nookery of surprising inside dimensions. It only
seemed small on the outside. The shelves were full of interesting things that looked very impressive. There were a myriad of blinking
lights.

“Welcome, welcome,” beamed the proprietor. Their nametag declared them to be Thiite. “Do you like my time machines?”

Blez Jenkins looked again at the items on the

Read more »

Challenge #00880-B149: Feelers

“‘The flowers that bloom in the Spring, Tra, La!’ Have everything to do with the case.”

Prison cells on Amalgam were, for assorted humanoid species, a Ten
Distance Unit Cube that accommodated the bare minimum necessary for
existence. And monitors for all activity.

Shayde had chosen a
rubber ball for diversionary occupational therapy and sat with her back
pressed against one wall. She was currently engaged in throwing it
against the floor so it would ricochet off the wall and return to

Read more »

Challenge #00879-B148: Tokens of Adulthood

multitool,

They threw him a Going Away Party. Just like they threw him an
Adoption Day party on the anniversary of his arrival on Hippo Mining
Station. And, like all the things the mining crew did for him, it
involved available materials.

So far, he’d been given a pair of
The Drongo’s old work-boots - refurbished and ‘gussied up’ with a layer
of gleaming black ductape. This parcel contained fabric scraps from
Dode’s stash. Every colour of the rainbow,

Read more »

Challenge #00878-B147: Educational Aside

Since this year was a bust, eurovision prompt 2: Lasha Tumbai

[AN: I looked her up on Youtube… wow]

“So…
if that’s ‘Eurovision Lite’…” Rael couldn’t help himself. Perhaps curiosity was yet another Alpha-draft flaw. “What is -ah- ‘Eurovision
Heavy’ like?”

“Nearest words I can get is - the video answer tae crack.” Shayde queued up another video segment and fetched more popcorn.

“I’m not going to see anything… awful… am I?”

“Na, na,

Read more »

Challenge #00877-B146: Walk This Way

The ministry of silly walks.

“Absolutely not. That walk is the wholly-owned property of the Consortium of Steam.”

Ribuffo
sighed and stood still. “Fine. It was just an experiment. What about this one?” Once again, she paraded in front of the motion capture
cameras.

And once again, the alarm blatted.

“Don’t tell me. I
accidentally did Wilgro. I knew it. One more. One more.” This time, Ribuffo added the little fillip with the half-skip left step.

“That’s Wilgro with a

Read more »

Challenge #00876-B145: DO NOT ASK

Murphy’s Law, and ensuing resulting chaos thereof.

[AN: You can get some really interesting ones over here: http://www.scottrainey.com/jokes/murphys_laws.htm]

There are rules to space travel. Primary amongst them is: Shut the flakking door. And many of them are cycled upwards or downwards depending on the frequency of use.

But always, somewhere in the top ten is: Never ask questions with an inherently obvious answer.

The
examples of the lawbreakers are numerous. Blex T’iiv once

Read more »

Challenge #00875-B144: Things To Do...

W.I.P. (work in progress, U.F.O. (unfinished object). See what you can do with it.

[AN: You don’t really need to say “see what you can do with it” at
the end of a prompt. I will see. And so will you. Required reading: Ballad of Bitzer]

July 13 1923

Bitzer
had been waiting. Hiding silently under the dropcloth and listening. One of the children had a nasty cough. It sounded like the poor infant’s
throat was

Read more »

Challenge #00874-B143: Sufficiently Advanced Technology

Today’s challenge is to write anything you like based on the animated video for Mystery Skulls: Ghost

If you need to know, Blue = Vivi, Yellow = Arthur, Purple = Lewis and Dog = Mystery

[AN: This takes place sometime after a re-union of ghost and mystery team. Also I love the fuck out of MSA :D]

Mystery had his nine tails out as he slept. And one eye open. Lewis glared at the kitsune, and at the target beyond.

Arthur. Snoring gently into a

Read more »

Challenge #00873-B142: Distracting Objects

Keets and a laser pointer.

Problem one: Keets are super-delicate babies and must be protected.

Problem two: Keets are as hyper as all get out in rainy weather.

Problem three: Keets can climb, but they’re not that great at getting down safely.

Problem four: they’re suicidally curious and have worked out how to open the playroom door.

Keri had to keep them under constant supervision and off the shelving and occupied until the grownups came back.

And, as further trouble,

Read more »