Challenge #02881-G324: Ten Siwu’s of Trouble
“Of course I understand why you don’t want more than one human on the ship. Back home we kept a guardian goose with the chickens.” – Anon Guest
Humans and their metaphors, am I right? Half of them are domestic animal excrement, but which half? The really scary part about these balding Deathworlder apes is that the half with a grounding in reality has the high potential to be truly terrifying.
Look this stuff up at your own risk, is what I’m saying. I made that mistake when I heard about guardian geese. You think waterfowl are harmless and safely edible. They’re not. Geese are super Deathworlders. Comparatively fragile[1], yet also willing to put up more than a sufficient fight. How much? Enough to frighten the Humans that keep them. This is a bird that has serrated teeth on its tongue, and have been advertised as “better than guard dogs” by many.
Having seen just the teeth, I’m prone to believing anything those apes have to say about their geese. How they can connect that bird to a figure benevolent to their infants is beyond me. Deathworlders are confusing.
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Challenge #02880-G323: Like Sands Through the Hourglass
“Our soap operas are weird. Yours are incomprehensible.” – Anon Guest
[AN: All soap operas are wont to escalate into incomprehensibility when given enough time]
“Beshenia, I love you, but I can’t be with you,” said the figure in the holo display. “I tried to keep it hidden, but… I’m your descendant from the future, and it would be incest.”
“WHAT?” said half the watchers in the room. The other half made gestures of victory and cheered, “CALLED IT!” Which sparked so much debate that the host had to pause playing the entertainment in question so that all present could properly hash out their feelings.
Tempers are wont to run high when emotional labor has been expended on anything. Evidence was trotted out from both sides and a Talking Stick had to be employed, then taken away again once once of the more enthusiastic debaters attempted to employ it as a weapon.
[Be sure to visit internutter (dot) org for a link to the rest of this story, and details on how to support this artist. Or visit peakd (dot) com (slash at) internutter for the stories at their freshest]
Challenge #02879-G322: A Bad Influence
She grew up in the slums of a DeRegger colony. But her family wasn’t like most of those here. What little funds they got, they used for books - though carefully hidden. She was forced to dress, and act, like a boy to fool the rulers. The small family, two sons, their father, and her, were all very well educated and well-read. And they believed it was time for a true change to this brutal regime. But to do that, more people needed to learn. Soon an interesting past time began to spring up amongst the slums. Using scraps of paper, whatever they could write with and imaginations… a new game formed. Called Storytime. With it, the one thing the rulers didn’t want began to happen. More people began to think. – Anon Guest
Day knew he was strange. It wasn’t hard to miss. His body was more like the wumin seen on the screen than anything else. A body he had to hide. His father and brothers had taught him how to hide. How to act. How to not be a girl. It hurt him and they all knew it, but it was be a boy or die. They had all witnessed what happened to wumin in everyday life.
He could not even call himself ‘she’. Not even in the privacy of his own head. It was safer that way. He and his family had been working for generations on creating ways to keep their planetary colony from becoming completely toxic. Their ancestors had seen it coming, and worked on ways to use their own cultural identity to sabotage the creeping agenda of hate.
They had been working for generations to be sure that every man had the right to one wumin, but those peculiar creatures still had nothing resembling rights of their own. Which was, according to grandfather, a monumental shame. It was a saying that the family, and the discrete club they were members of, had in common. You need both hands to create good things.
[Be sure to visit internutter (dot) org for a link to the rest of this story, and details on how to support this artist. Or visit peakd (dot) com (slash at) internutter for the stories at their freshest]
Challenge #02876-G319: Horror of the Baby-Sat
Parent: Thank you so much for agreeing to watch the baby for me. Also, I’m sorry.
Babysitter: Sorry for what?
Parent: The baby has worked out how to do vocal distortion.
Baby: G̷͕̯̻̎̓̉͛̑̀̂̇̀̐͋͘͘͝a̶̢̰͇͇̱͂̉͋́̓͐̂̃͂́́ ̷̧̖̝̱̽̈́͠ǵ̸̢à̴̳̲͍́̀͛̓̃͘̚͝ͅͅ – Anon Guest
Parrots and very small children seem to share two common interests. The first is an apparent desire to destroy the universe around them via unexpected means. The second is the Dissonance Joke.
The otherwise cute and adorable Human toddler in Companion Lua’s arms came out with gibberish that sounded like the child was channeling an Elder God. They then apparently switched modes and said, in the sweetest possible voice, “Hayo Nehneh?”
“That’s right,” cooed Human Vi. “Companion Zeth is your Nanny today. You two are going to have fun together.”
As if to demonstrate, the very small Human Dee uttered more eldritch gibberish and then said, sweet-voiced, “Cookie.”
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Challenge #02874-G317: Best Danger Noodle
Humans have interesting pets. Sometimes small, even almost harmless even by havenworld standards, sometimes terrifying. This human had one that was at the terrifying end. As they came aboard a ship of saurians, across their shoulders was a snake that was as nearly long as their body and very heavy. It seemed, however, content to remain curled there while the person introduced them to “little slinky.” A snake they’d raised from an egg. – DaniAndShalii
[AN: Submission included a picture of an albino python. I prefer to include links to the original source, so you’ll be getting something similar]
Everyone knows that Humans love domesticated predators. Some keep domesticated prey. Lapines, avians, even insects. Some even bring along ungulates. However, Terra is a Deathworld and therefore has many, many options for predators. This one was a pale lump patterned in yellow and white, apparently content within an otherwise empty fish tank. There were other, more alarming accessories within Human Hari’s luggage. A larger vitarium. Heat lamps. A small selection of cloning equipment for in vitro rodents, and a colony of something called “feeder crickets”.
Companion Loes, getting acclimated to Humans and their love of predators, said, “What kind of predator is that?”
“This is my little Slinky,” grinned Human Hari. “I raised him from hatching. He’s a little sulky today because he never likes to travel. Poor baby.”
[Be sure to visit internutter (dot) org for a link to the rest of this story, and details on how to support this artist. Or visit peakd (dot) com (slash at) internutter for the stories at their freshest]