Prompt

A 480-post collection

Challenge #00324: Those pesky living authors

Analysing the work of someone still living always runs the risk of “No, that’s not what I meant at all”

Page twenty. Not bad. Especially considering that she’d written it strictly for academia and not for the national newspapers. Her analysis of Hartnell’s greater literary works was getting a lot more notice than she had ever hoped for.

The phone rang. Of course she answered it.

“Hello,” said the voice on the other end, “are you the lady who wrote Hartnell, a Feminist Before Their Time?”

“Yes,” she blushed. A phone interview! Life was looking up.

“Mister Hartnell said to tell you you got almost all of it completely backwards.”

“What?”

“Mister Hartnell–”

“I heard you, I just… Mister Hartnell told you?”

“Yes, of course. I’m his secretary.”

Blush. “I… thought he’d passed on.”

“You and his agent,” said the secretary. “He’s reading it over and he says you’ll get a more in-depth rebuke when he finishes laughing.”

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Challenge #00323: But is it Art?

Toad has come along to one of Sara, Scott or anyone else’s art showings, and in this circle, his mannerisms seem to have accidentally passed him off as an expert or art critic. He’s having fun, and the artist is not sure whether to laugh at how the rich folk are swallowing all of it and buying the work, or cry at how wrong he is about certain bits.

It was one of Sara’s ‘sideshow&

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Challenge #00322: Amphibious

We haven’t heard from Todd for a while, or Mortimer, or any of your incarnations of mister Toynbee. Quick, what’s one of them doing right now?

Ha! This was the little bugger. He got it! He got the little bastard. Mortimer cackled to himself as he extracted the bug - Sammy’s pet phasmids had escaped and this one, sadly, never learned to stay out of electronics - from the system. He wrapped the sad remains in

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Challenge #00321: Cupcakes! Cupcakes! Cupcakes!

Nobody was entirely sure whether to curse the humans or begin worshipping them for introducing the cupcake to the galactic community. 

The human capacity for invention - alongside their notorious insanity, of course - knows no bounds. Therefore it should have been no surprise that both extended to their food.

Bread is universal. Leavening is not. Cake is known, and has saved some species from extinction. Fruitcake - a human seasonal delicacy - has saved civilizations.

And don’t get anyone

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Challenge #00320: Homo S. Cuisine

Considering how many toxic things humans ate, it was a little surprising that their cooking was not only edible, but delicious.

“YE-HE-HEEESSSSS! It’s here!”

The nervous Passeri crew gathered at a safe distance to watch the Ship Human - somewhere between lucky mascot and terrifying on-board entertainment - cackle and sing to herself.

They had been told that female humans were far more trainable than the males. That they were, on the whole, quieter and less dangerous than

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Challenge #00319: In Memorium

Found on a gravestone, “Name, date-date, (Killed 99 bears) We pray he has found rest”

We pray he found rest. We’re not sure, but we hope so, because nobody ever found a body, and 99 may not have been enough.

(replace bears with appropriate sentient or nonsentient species at your discretion, especially in the case of early-contact humans :P)

If any being needed any further proof of human insanity - besides ten minutes’ contact with any number

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Some questions should remain unspoken.

“I can’t believe you just said that. I am so glad they ended the call before they heard you.”

“What? It was a perfectly valid question.”

“I don’t care, it’s downright rude! And kind of disgusting.”

“But now you’re thinking about it, aren’t you?”

“…yes, damn you.  Next time you wonder something like ‘How do conjoined twins decide whose hand wipes

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Challenge #00317: Common Band

Different cultures, different vocal physiologies, and different mechanisms of hearing certainly make for interesting music nights.

Of all the past human phenomena that proved endlessly fascinating, the one that Rael could not turn away from was ‘channel surfing’. Every time either one of them found themselves at the other’s residence, Rael always let Shayde have the entertainment remote.

Not because she had good taste, but because what she did fascinated him.

Even the humans used to limited entertainments

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Challenge #00316: Sing-along

Humans burst into song spontaneously all the time, usually started just by one humming and becoming a little quartet or a vocalist and backing choir very suddenly.

Add in various aliens, and the somewhat macabre lyrics for the beginning of Bohemian Rhapsody

The humans called him Captain Ted. It was the closest they could get to Tyd'r'kaad and, compared to the many other things they said and did, it was only mildly annoying.

He was the first galactic captain to have

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Challenge #00315: Downhill From There

A Tragic Mispronunciation and its results

“This is all your fault!”

“Me? It was him that didnae recharge his teletubby.”

“Assistant.”

“Whatever.” Shayde struggled upright. "And he said he wanted a bubble-bath of oranges…“

"A meal at Unsuitable Food..”

“I was bein’ amenable.”

“You do not take Ambassador Maliik’s common nouns at face value!”

“Well I wasnae given the Cliff Notes!

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Challenge #00314: Ekkritism

(Someone had a mispronunciation accident, this was the result)

Wolverine: Oranges

“Just a warning, Ambassador Maliik suffers from Ekkritism,” Rael murmured into Shayde’s ear.

“Aye? And what’s that when it’s at home?”

Translation: I know you’re trying to tell me something, but I have no idea what it means.

“He unfortunately mispronounces all names as common nouns with seemingly no relation to the original name.”

“Oh, this

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Challenge #00284: All Things Ridiculous and Human

Squashed Fly Biscuits - the round shortbread ones or garibaldis, whichever is more convenient.

Bonus points if someone is disappointed to find out they don’t contain real flies.

(all the bonus points ever if it involves T'reka, I’ve totally fallen in love with that story, but realistically whoever fits the prompt)

From the Journal of T'reka the Inquisitive:

With exposure, I have been picking up some of the human language. They understand that I am still learning and

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You overhear the strangest things from public-phone conversations sometimes...

“…well, sir, it was about, oh, a meter or so tall, looked kinda like if someone had stuck bat-ears, a big-lipped face, skinny arms and legs, a ratty wig, and, er, prominent female features on a big lima-bean of some sort and…  …No, no sir, I’m not drunk or drugged, I swear it.  As I clocked in and went to begin my shift, it - or she, I guess - was sloppily wandering around the central

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Challenge #00282: The Kindness of Strangers

In the bottom of one of the many pockets of the bag, forgotten but apparently not for that long, was a slightly battered perfectly pink apple. It had been on many journeys, and was remarkably unscathed considering how easily apples usually succumb to bumping about in a bag full of other odds and ends.

There was a face on it. A happy face made of two small circles and a larger arc. Cut into the skin by someone else’s knife.

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See where this bit of commenting takes you...

“I feel like I am just footsteps away from either screaming in fury or breaking down into body-shaking tears… and I’m not sure which.  But you’d never tell it by looking at me.  I’m good at bottling things up and repressing my reactions.  For a while anyway; every bottle breaks eventually, no matter how sturdy its glass.  I don’t know when I began this habit, or why I keep doing it, but

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