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A 253-post collection

Challenge #02278-F088: Getting Into It

It's hidden in plain sight, of course if you've been Shown or found your way there it's where you go. When you can. When you need to. -- KnitNan

Just about everybody in the school despised Weird Ellie. She was too weird, too quiet, too strange. She'd come out with knowledge that nobody else should ever know about as if it were something everyone should know - once you could actually get her to talk. For the most part, she was silent. In class, she did the work and rarely spoke to anyone, not even the teachers. Nobody knew where she spent her lunchtimes.

Gangs of other kids would roam the campus, trying to find her hiding spot. Somewhere a weirdo nerd like her would conceal themselves to escape the mob justice of the playground. She was never in detention. She wasn't in the shady spots or nooks where the older kids went to conceal more grown activities - smoking, nudie magazines, cussing, and so forth - she wasn't even in the library. It was as if she vanished when everyone else thundered out of the classroom, and reappeared when class came back in.

What's weirder than that is... that's exactly what she was doing.

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Challenge #02244-F054: Made Outta Ticky Tacky

Yet another 'Wonderful Scheme' that was going to make life easier, Might have worked if they'd only listened instead of hiring a "well-known designer." -- Anon Guest

Here's why planned community spaces suck: they're always designed by an older, able-bodied man who is more concerned with aesthetics than practicality. In order to be a Name in the business, they design for beauty in mind. Unfortunately, beauty is both blind and deaf to the needs of anyone not fit, young, or adult.

Stairs

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Challenge #02243-F053: Hardy Malone and the Mystery Missive

The letter appeared on her homework desk, under her second-hand typewriter.

"Nanna! You said you changed things, and I told you to do something about it, and go read the papers from 1940 onwards. And you'll need 10 pounds to buy that chest in the Junk shop."

"But! But I'm 14 and still in school!" -Inspired by Casandre Jones. -- Knitnan

The letter was printed, and not by any means that she recognised. It certainly hadn't come from her typewriter. Her letter

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Challenge #02225-F035: That They May See

Words cut deeper than any weapon ever could. Thankfully, they also heal better than any medication. -- Anon Guest

Everyone has words they hate having flung at them. Slurs, for instance. For the linguists among us, it may be fascinating to analyse how the words we choose to hurt others with show how those who arm evaluate those they see as less. However, those words still hurt. Others may choose to glide past them. Having never had such words used against them,

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Challenge #02219-F029: Fallen From Grace

"I don't understand why you don't understand." -- Anon Guest

This place was an outrage. Roman's first thought as he returned to consciousness was that someone was going to pay for being so loud in his vicinity. It didn't matter to him that the someone was a baby. It mattered that the baby was interrupting his rest. There was other hubbub. People talking. People clattering around with things. He opened his eyes to see dingy grey foam tiles in the ceiling. Who

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Challenge #02198-F008: Immortality Perversion

Little known fact: Queen Elizabeth II is a descendant of Vlad the Impaler, meaning she, and the rest of the lineage to the throne under her, are direct heirs to the bloodline of Dracula...

Kinda makes her remarkably long life seem a bit questionable now, doesn't it? -- Anon Guest

They say wealth has its privileges. One amongst many of those is being able to literally get away with murder. The only mistake -say- Elizabeth Bathory made was selecting someone who was

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Challenge #02197-F007: The Girl Who Circled Time

"My apologies for the security breach. I was experimenting with temporal rifts and found myself here." -- Anon Guest.

Roswell, New Mexico. 1947. Everyone has a story about what happened that year, but it was a weather balloon carrying a top-secret attempt at detecting enemy nukes and that was that. However, since the American Public believed there was a coverup, it and the nearby Area 51 became the perfect stalking horse for other, experimental technologies.

Then there's the actual Incident that happened

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Challenge #02190-E361: Unreachable

What if someone was trying to get information out of someone else by threatening them, but the second person was just too positive. For example:

"I'll cut off your leg."

"Yes! I can get a peg leg!" -- Anon Guest

Violence can solve some things - like how to stop a racist in one easy step. What it can't do is defeat someone with the correct amount of optimism.

They called him Fearless Harry, and the enemy who captured him were beginning

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Challenge #02188-E359: Normal is Relative

"Why is that rooster using an airhorn?"

"It's outsourcing its morning crowing." -- TheDragonsFlame

There are downsides to living in quiet country towns and the one you never notice is how casual one can become when faced with things far from normal. It's only when the outsider arrives that things like the neighbours taking their pigs for walks or the rooster down the road greeting the dawn with an air horn get pointed out as unusual.

The same thing goes for the

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Challenge #02177-E348: The Biggest Speech Wins

Monologuing Villain encounter Drama Queen Hero. To the detriment of both minions and party members. -- Anon Guest

Alcratho was midway through Opus 67: You Don't Understand My Struggles (It's a Harsh World and We Can Remake it). His nearby minions made themselves comfortable.

Meanwhile, working on counterpoint Zanthinar was midway through his epic performance of Oh My Trials! and his cohort were busy busting out the cushions to sit on and using Create Popcorn.

To the uninitiated, it seemed like they

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Challenge #02176-E347: What Were You Thinking?

Deep inside our consciousness is the Lizard Brain, primitive, and kept us going till we got much better, but every so often it has it's say in our lives.

And probably at the 3 F's stage of existence with an attraction to distraction. -- Anon Guest

[AN: The three F's are something I used in some slightly-raunchy fanfictions for The Adventure Zone. They stand for "Fight, F*ck, or Feed"]

Brains are funny things. We like to imagine an internal hierarchy because

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Challenge #02169-E340: Local Womens' Controversy Club

"As Chairman, I'd like to call to order this 1,357th meeting of the local 'Responsible Parenting' committee." -- Anon Guest

"Daisy... It's the coffee and cake meet."

"I want it to feel more official," objected Daisy. "It's about vaccination."

Five women in the room all rolled their eyes. "I thought we weren't going to bring up controversial topics at these," objected Claire.

"What's controversial about protecting your kids?" asked Julie.

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Challenge #02168-E339: True Reform

The prisoners were prepared for torture, not a hug and kind words. -- Anon Guest

They shuffled into the institution in chains. Ugly jumpsuits standing out against the grey of the bus and the grey of the tarmac The featureless quad stretched before them as heavily-armed guards marched them in twos towards the opposing doors in the large,imposing facade before them. It, too, was grey, and had no windows.

Other guards, dressed in blue and grey, came out of those doors

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Challenge #02166-E337: Microcosmically Conscious

A white blood cell and a macrophage cell already have an unlikely friendship. But then they get "the call" -- Adam in Darwin

"Listen, Neocyte... we don't have the time for you to mature and be ready to fight. Take a back seat. This is literally my job."

"This is an all-hands battle, Blob," argued Whyte. "I have to be on the front. My graduation is mere milliseconds away! I can do this!"

The call came from the Internal Army. "Bacteria at

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Challenge #02161-E332: Playing Power

“Commander, I always used to consider that you had a definite anti-authoritarian streak in you.”

“Sir?”

“It seems that you have managed to retain this even though you are authority.”

“Sir?”

“That’s practically zen.”

― Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay -- c/- Anon Guest

Power corrupts, they say. Absolute power, they add, corrupts absolutely. They say this a lot, especially when protesting against those who have the power. Systems with a huge and unbreachable gulf between the Haves and the Have

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