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A 253-post collection

Challenge #01888-E064: Before a Fall

"I am unstoppable!!!"

slips on banana peel -- TheDragonsFlame

Hubris is always punished. It's a law of the universe. Get too egotistical, get too proud, get too vainglorious, and the universe will extract its taxes on your body, your soul, and everything you hold dear. Time is always good for this. Extracting the years day by day. Making those who were once strong, feeble. Making those in power jealously guard it until Death creeps up behind them and takes everything away.

But the usual ebb and flow of life's cycle and nature's check on megalomaniacs has fallen by the wayside in the modern era. Rich men ensure that their families are set up. Empires of economy are planned. Men and women alike play with the fates of their fellow man as if they were nothing more than counters on a game board.

So the gods had to show their hand more... forcefully. Such as the case of Malcolm Scase. Who now owned a majority of an entire nation.

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Challenge #01884-E060: Let's Make it Clear

Mutual responsibility, when both the government and the governed rely on each other. -- Anon Guest

"Ask any guy in a bar, and he already knows how to run this country better than any schmo in office. So to that point, I am making all our laws, all our policies clear. Including nationwide reform and initiating a coherent set of laws for all states and counties in our beautiful country. If you care about how this country is run, tell us the

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Challenge #01881-E057: As a Bird

Never underestimate the sanctity for some people of the most trivial things, from the wine used to cook to the way to open a pack of cigarettes. -- Anon Guest

Being married to Blake was like... being pecked to death by finches. The really tiny ones that you could never believe were a real bird. And though their tiny little beaks didn't leave much of an impact on their own, they could whittle away a loaf of bad bread all the same.

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Challenge #01870-E046: Top Secret Womens' Business

"Prime Minister, we have little time. We must awaken Atlantis..." the tall dark-skinned woman said, crisp business suit and dark glasses lending an air of authority that even the PM felt humbled by.

"Atlantis? Like the myth of the wondrous Greek city that sunk into the sea?"

"Greek? Sank? Mere misdirecting fiction," she replied. "ATLANTIS as in the Advanced Terran Laser And Nuclear Threat Incapacitation System."

"The what? Is ... is this... thing... in Australia?"

"No, Prime Minister. It is Australia. I'll explain

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Challenge #01863-E039: Reformation Process

Meanwhile, at a Top Secret Government Organization…

Agent: “…and that, fortunately, was the moment the device overloaded and self-destructed. Division 6’s damage-control team was able to convince the public it was just a ignited leak from a gas line triggered by a malfunctioning industrial diesel generator.”

Chief: “Excellent; the last thing we could’ve been able to handle was that chemical getting to the water supply. Ah, our refreshments are ready. Thank you, Lav’der.”

Agent: “Hmph. I’ll pass. God

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Challenge #01862-E038: Trust Yourself

She left a message for her younger self to read. -- SongSpired

Time travel was a bitch. Sorting out the mistakes of life retroactively was never a fun thing. Making sure she would pay attention to her own warnings to herself had been the work of several journeys. And multiple encounters. She could not talk to herself. Both brains shut down for that sort of thing. Leaving notes, however, was perfect.

Her teenaged self was asleep in bed. Sleeping the sleep of

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Challenge #01867-E043: Got'cha

[Person 1] “It’s no use! We’ll never make it in time!”

[Person 2] “Scoot over. I didn’t have my driving license revoked for nothing!” -- TheDragonsFlame

So. Let's recap. They were in what only appeared to be a Tuktuk, stuck in traffic, desperate to make it to the big public exposé to expose more than the badguy could ever want made public, and without much of a hope. Except the one that Els was uncannily good with machines and

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Challenge #01866-E042: A Long Cold Trail

It has been 1.5 million years since humanity, for some reason, left the planet earth. The domesticated animals they left behind, namely cats and dogs ... maybe various birds too, have evolved into species with intelligence on par with humanity. The specie or species discuss among each their cultural memory of humans, and otherwise try to gain a broader image of what these mythical beings were and what role they played in their evolution. -- Anon Guest

[AN: Life Without People says

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Challenge #01856-E032: Hungry Love

“How do you sleep at night knowing you stole my bento?” -- YYHFanfiction

"With... a... full stomach?" said Akiko. "It's not my fault your boy can't tell us apart."

"He's not my boy," Chou sighed. "It's not our fault we're that hungry, either, it's just... Might have been nice if you saved me a taste."

They walked together through the streets. Keeping an eye out for anything useful. Anything they could sell for a few more yen. Looking at them, nobody could

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Challenge #01854-E030: Which is Which?

The gun went off a second time. “Get up and fight, damn you! Show them the real you, you wretched animal!" The shooter’s allies, dozens in number, faces masked, drew in closer, eager to see this… thing… die.

The figure grunted, slowly but painfully rising. "This is the real me. We are not… so different.” A bloody cough. “It is easier for you and your friends to think of us as… less than you, less than human…”

“Shut up, shut up!

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Challenge #01840-E016: Toxic, Useless, and Ugly

"A man of words and not of deeds, is like a garden full of weeds." -- Knitnan

"I will work so hard," he said. "I won't even have time for golf. I won't have time to tweet. I'm talking bloody knuckles. I'm talking wearing out the grindstone with my nose. I'm talking twenty-four-seven. Hard. Sweaty. Work. For you. For all of you." And then he spent more days on the golf course, on holiday, or on leave than any other leader to

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Challenge #01839-E015: A Grand Day Off

Shoes off, comfy clothes, and good read. No phones, no Internet connection, a little bit of Heaven, and Room Service thrown in. Best Break Ever! -- Knitnan

Sometimes, you just need to get away. And sometimes, the problem with going anywhere is that the things you want to get away from tend to follow you around. And today, Ana needed to get away from the entire world.

To that end, she had carefully arranged this day. A new book. A collection of

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Challenge #01838-E014: Hour of Need

It had been a hard day today, she Needed chocolate! -- Anon Guest

So. Let's recap. Best beloved and most capable person in the house arrested for a crime they couldn't possibly commit. On a day when she had needed to run around between four different destination, with stops on the way to pick up whatever. And stops at the bank to get her running money for the week because their mutual funds had been frozen and their family still needed to

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Challenge #01835-E011: The Caring Gap

Their world was games, and Facebook and selfies. Then they wound up in an emergency ward and discovered electric lives are no substitute for the real thing. -- Knitnan

[AN: You clearly have no understanding of modern connectivity. AKA: "You dang kids get off of your social media and get a real life!" ::shakes cane::]

Alice was technically a Cam Girl and technically a Gamer. In reality, that meant grinding assorted games for a pitiful income per game per hour, and taking

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Challenge #01834-E010: The Stakes

A wager will often get results when pleading fails. -- Anon Guest

One has to be wealthy to be eccentric. If you're poor, you're just odd. People could tell that Felwar Nassidd was an eccentric from a long line of eccentrics. The first dead-giveaway was the name. The second was their Wagers of Benevolence.

They laid a two hundred billion dollar bet that a town wouldn't be able to completely convert to green energy, and feed the populace proper nutrition at the

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