Just Add Prompt

A 4935-post collection

Challenge #00737 - B006: Fighting Words

“Veni Ad Me Frat”, Latin for “Come At Me, Bro”.

Shayde sighed as Rael caught her out again. “No? How about ‘non me tracagnum’?”

“Don’t beat me,” said Rael. “How about you stop pulling your Hackmeyer strategies, lay off the BS, and talk like a scientist to these people?”

“It’s hard,” Shayde whined. “I’m too used tae no’ being listened to. Too used tae being dismissed oot a’ hand. Too used tae tha’ jammy bastard takin’ all the credit jus’ fer translatin’. Badly. He’s left 'is mark, the spavined sod.”

Rael was ready for this, he’d done his homework. “Fair enough. Imagine, instead, that you’re giving your presentation to,” he consulted his reference notes, “Adam Savage, Jamie Hyneman, William Nye and Steven Hawking.”

Shayde glared at him. “Aye, leave the most important one fer last, why don’t ye?”

Odd. He thought he hadn’t. Evidently, more homework was necessary. “And anyone else I may have missed.”

Shayde re-consulted her e-ledger. “I’m goin’ have tae re-write all'a this…”

He breathed out. At last. The point he had been trying to get across for half an hour. But, on the plus side, he was being paid for this.

[Muse food remaining: 12. Submit a prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!]

Challenge #00736 - B005: Do We Need Them?

A friend and I, up in tropical Queensland on holiday - land of my birth. We are being buzzed by flies large enough to need Air Traffic Control, and slowly being drained of blood by the clouds of mozzies. The following conversation does not reflect any of my actual views. It was borne of frustration and humour.

Me: -slap- Hey, do we need flies for anything? Like, do they perform a vital role in the ecosystem or something?
Friend (amused): Yeah, I

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Challenge #00735 - B004: Might or Flight

“You suggested something diplomatic,” [Person] noted.

“What, I can’t be diplomatic?” I asked, affronted. “I’m extremely diplomatic. I’m just brimming with diplomacy.”

“Of the Admiral Perry variety,” [Person] said.

“Gunship diplomacy is still diplomacy,” I protested.

“This is all very well for definitive terms,” reminded Captain Mij. “But when it’s us versus the humans, perhaps a more delicate version of diplomacy might be called

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Challenge #00734 - B003: A Short, Sharp Shock

“It occurs to me…your inability to use the brain evolution granted you is none of my fucking concern.”

(There’s a difference between being differently abled and BEING WILFULLY IGNORANT)

[AN: Oh, don’t I know it. Just look at the majority of the Republican Party, anyone wealthy enough to never worry about bills, or Tony Abbott]

They’d carried through with it. The police, who he paid for with his taxes, had done little but make

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Challenge #00733 - B002: Buggier Than a Backyard Barbie

You know, the only good thing about [operating system] is that even the viruses have compatibility issues.

Yusslisstek BSOS had only one advantage over other, more stable systems. It was almost completely immune to any kind of virus, trojan, spyware, malware or worm ever concocted by the devious minds of hackers anywhere.

This was mainly because BSOS was a collection of kludges held together by the willpower of the coders and, some suspected, dark sorcery.

It would certainly explain why, when it

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Challenge #00732 - B001: The Better Part of Valour

Person #1: A ‘strategic withdrawal’ is running away. But with dignity.
Person #2: So lay in a course and let’s get the dignified hell out of here.

Human ships. A fleet’s worth. Just hanging around in space, as one of their own authors was wont to say, in precisely the way that bricks don’t.

The crew of the Expendable Question could instantly tell that these vessels had been made by humans. They showed a deathworlder’s

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Challenge #00731 - A366: That's Me All Over

“I thought we were going to knock it’s head off?” “We’re disassembling it into easily carried pieces”

“I really would advise against that,” said their victim. Currently a head on a shelf. But that was the problem when one was dealing with robots. They didn’t always die all at once.

“Stop talking, you’re supposed to be dead,” said McLargehuge. He was the smaller, smarter, and sneakier of the two thieves.

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Challenge #00730 - A365: Strange Nest-Fellows

Imagine a life-preserving pod being picked up by a human vessel. Imagine it contains a Numidid keet (and possibly a dead parent or message from them). Imagine that keet raised by humans with no contact or knowledge of the Numidid people besides the pod remains. Imagine that keet as a young adult meeting other Numidid for the first time with no idea of Numidid society.

[AN: I know this is hellishly late, but I was hoping our internets would have returned by

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Responses to "Fright of a Lifetime" (2-4)

Ideas that this mash-up sparked:

1. Krumm is out lurking and finds Abner’s trough. Meets Abner, and cue unlikely friendship.

2. The monster trio meets the Sewer King. ‘Nough said.

3. The Gromble watches the results of the Halloween ‘War of the Worlds’ debacle; is grudgingly impressed.

[AN: Once again, I have to remind my readers to PLEASE SUBMIT PROMPTS ONE AT A TIME. My own absent-mindedness and technological incompetence means that I have to do multiple stories at once. On

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Response to "The Fright of a Lifetime" (1)

Oblina tries her hand at scaring Helga, but studies her first. Recognizes her interaction with Arnold from her time in Dr. Buzzcut’s Human Suit. Take it from there!

(#00726 - A361)

The view from the gutter was not wide, but it was educational. Oblina had long since learned to recognise the human by her shoes.

She had somehow suspected that Dr Buzz Kutt’s theories had been in error, but there was living confirmation. She could see and hear Helga

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One person's trash...

Arizona pyrope garnets occur in a remote section of the Navajo Nation in Arizona. The gems have never been mined commercially because there aren’t enough of them.  The entire world supply of these gems depends on those living nearby who collect a few stones after the occasional rainstorm and trade them at local stores.

This gem is most commonly called “ant-hill garnet” because they are “mined” by ants. Ants find the garnets while digging their anthills, drag them out, and discard

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Challenge #00724 - A359: Technobabble

From a forum conversation on technobabble: “we’re running low on pixie dust and the containment breach can’t hold any more rabbits so the ship is going to explode from thermal expansion and kill us all”

Responded to with: “Pfft, everyone knows pixie dust is self-containing.”

They called it the Ark.

“So… you got all the StarMetal that was ever made, and turned it into… this?”

“There’s also magically re-enforced Dweomer Steel. It’

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Dragons need better PR agents.

“Hmrph… but that’s how it always is, isn’t it? Just because they have so many prolific bards and scholars in their employ, they think they get the rights to dictate how everyone else is seen by the future generations - they don’t even TRY to ask my opinion… I’ve got scales on my butt older than their eldest king, and they still think they know more about my kind than I do… Humans are utter idiots.”

Catlike,

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Challenge #00722 - A357: Food That Sings

http://callmegallifreya.tumblr.com/post/104613467865/the-magical-crawdad-mmolio-funkocide

“asexual sirens getting real fuckin pissed about all these sailors interrupting choir rehearsal”

“sirens are already asexual they dont have sex with the men they kill them”

“well no wonder they kill them they keep interrupting choir rehearsal”

“Asexual mermaids being really pleased when an asexual sailor begins singing baritone counterpoint.”

They usually didn’t pay attention to the wooden things that floated on top of their

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"Did you hear the one about the two humans?"

What if the majority (or at least a statistically-notable percentage) of the Galactic Community had mating seasons, like most animals do, so that as a result, with humanity’s decidedly non-seasonal “anytime and anywhere” sexual biology, we’re the butt of a million planets’ cheezy and/or stereotype-based dirty jokes…

[AN: Trigger warning: rape mention]

(#00721 - A356)

Of course, humans supplied some of them. Nothing cycles around quicker than a recycled joke.

“How many humans does it take to screw

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