Challenge #02550-F360: A Hero is You
Grandma I got the big sad, can you read me a story? – Anon Guest
Oh my child, my darling dear. Sadness must be hunted. A story can quell it, but you must trace it to be happy in the long term. It is a hunt only you can embark upon. You must armour yourself with happier times, you must strengthen your soul with the knowledge that your true family is always there to support you, and arm yourself with clever thoughts to defeat it.
Sadness can turn into a monster if you let it, my dear one. It can grow too big to deal with alone. Sometimes, it will grow too large to deal with in company. It will eat you if you’re not aware. Best to hunt it down while it’s still small enough to defeat.
You’ve done well, darling. You have recognised that you have a big sad. You’ve spotted the monster. You know it best, because it is yours. The stories quell it, we know. The stories make it cautious. That’s because the stories tell you that all monsters have a weakness. The stories help you know that monsters can be killed. Remember them as you track your beast.
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Challenge #02542-F352: A Mark in History
Let me show you “hero” the leader of the demonic army, the one you swore to kill, the demon king Drakornia Manafesto. Or you can call him by his formal title “Country of Gloria FIRST HERO” – Anon Guest
They say every hero is someone’s villain. Perhaps every villain is someone’s hero. It’s hard to imagine some of History’s villains in that light. Perhaps Vlad the Impaler was kind to children and loved playing with kittens. Perhaps Jack the Ripper doted on a daughter. Perhaps the man who threw uncounted thousands out of their homes to build an enormous park for the public also was a god-fearing gentleman who went to his place of faith every week, regular as clockwork. Those who look into History rarely find those details.
Drakornia Manafesto, Gloria’s First Hero, had not thought of things that way. He had simply loved his country. He had wanted it to be great. He looked into legends and lore and the long swathes of History and found an era in which his tiny plot of land, with cities huddled together for protection, had been great. In that any Historian might call any era great because it was full of interesting events. Historians seem to love wars, invasions, plagues, and suchlike[1]. He could imagine that his little country of Gloria could fight back against the bigger kingdoms.
He found a way to be nastier, meaner, more violent, and more destructive than anyone else around them. He did so by allying with what could be conceived as the biggest of evils he could lay his hands on. Some history books paint it as an act of desperation. Some say it was seeking the strength he needed to give his people living space. Some say he only meant to make his country great again. Either way, he became host to a strong demonic spirit, used its magic and strength for his own.
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Challenge #02400-F210: From the Ashes
Who comes to the aid of someone marked as “bad”? Where is the villain’s hero? – Anon Guest
Morality is not a binary switch. One does not flip from ‘good’ to 'evil’ or vice versa. There’s a sliding scale of evil that moves from refusing to tip your restaurant waitstaff through parking in disabled parking spaces to outright deciding that hungry people need to deserve to eat before one can give them food. After that comes definite evil, like not paying employees enough to live through to the next paycheque, overcharging rent, and believing genocidal actions are completely justified against anyone Not Us. Actual murder of innocent people is somewhere in there, but gradual murder[1] counts.
Nevertheless, despite the slow and insidious evils of the world, good exists. When the meteor wiped out most of New York, those good people came to the fore. Risking life and limb to rescue those in greater peril, forming human chains to remove the rubble. Forming bucket chains to put out the fires. Opening their homes to the homeless, giving their food to the hungry, loaning what small power they had to those in need, regardless of whether or not they were deserving. Many of those rescued were not.
Pauschia Danervries was among those who didn’t deserve the effort it took to spit on her. She had spent a literal lifetime with an entourage taking care of her every want, and not acknowledging her needs as anything more than peripheral benefit. She was, in essence, a spoiled, rich brat who had never had a problem in her life. Now she had problems beyond counting. The meteor strike had taken out all the upper-class areas of her city. All the hotels, all the shopping emporiums. All the cute little bistros, restaurants, and coffee shops where she had spent most of her gifted existence. It had also taken out the stock exchange, all the banks, and most, if not all of the records that said she was a billionaire. It had taken out the data farms that could have verified her as an Instagram Influencer, Someone Famous, or even just Someone. Her purse, a bag big enough to carry two three-year-olds, had been lost in the wreckage, so she was without her phone, her social media accounts, and her father’s credit card. In brief, she had lost everything.
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Challenge #02296-F106: Some Improvements
You are a therapist who insists that all are welcome. This is why you now know the identities of both heroes and villains. – Anon Guest
Y'know, for a therapist, I’m… kind of unobservant. I mean, sure, I know I can’t help everyone, but I listen well and I try my best, so it kind of works out. That, and I take doctor-patient confidentiality very seriously. I’m one of the few people who knows who Captain Magnificent is when he’s not in that ridiculously sculpted suit.
I… also happen to know who Master Malevolent is. Sometimes, they’re even booked for the same day. They pass each other by in the waiting room and barely say ‘boo’ to each other. So mild mannered, so cool that butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths. But that’s not what this is about.
What I’ve noticed are… safety zones. Master Malevolent doesn’t hit businesses or city features where I’m likely to do business, carry out my routines, or otherwise live my life. Similarly, Captain Magnificent steers his Super Battles away from the same zone. People noticed before I did. What I noticed where the huge numbers of people sub-letting, and the sudden rise of Megarise complexes where business and residences merged.
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Challenge #01907-E083: Pitcher Plant — Steemit
“I turned around for just a second, and she was gone. Off like a shot. I couldn’t catch her. I didn’t see which way she went. She just… she just went.”
It was the same complaint all over Lower Tadfield Young teens and children above toddler age were going missing. Even the people running the funfair were complaining. But there was something… odd… about the people running the funfair. Something… uncanny.
And the more children that were missing, the more attractions there were at the funfair. The brighter it was. The louder it was. The more sparkly it was. The more attractive to small, young minds it was. Except for some.
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Challenge #01901-E077: Ordering the New World — Steemit
Migno the Malevolent pouted on his throne-like chair. “I am trying,” he said, “to be the ultimate evil, here. The worst living thing on this earth. I need a volcano secret base, some kind of intimidating laser-assisted animal life, and at least one overly-complicated death trap. Because when a nicely-dressed superspy gets up in my grille, I actually have to be prepared for that.”
The accountant took all this down. “And… why are you doing this?”
“To take over the world, of course. Once the global system is under a unified rule, things will be way more efficient. No more starving people in weird little countries. It’ll all be one country. No borders to secure - no borders at all! Universal medicine, guaranteed food supplies, no more trade tarriffs. A sudden lack of tax shelters… the whole nine yards.”