Challenge #02617-G060: Bonding Through Irritation
The humans teach some havenworlders how to play an infamous board game known as monopoly. – Anon Guest
Competition is innate in Humans. Without some form of competition in their lives or society, Humans tend to… wither. A society without competition goes retrograde. A Human without competition becomes bored. There are few forces in the universe more destructive than a bored Human.
Fortunately for Havenworlders, Humans tend to bring along entertainment. This may be some kind of survival instinct at work or even a protective one. Human protective instincts are renowned for being very strong indeed. Full analysis must await cogniscents who are immune to infection by Human Insanity.
Nevertheless, always be wary of the ones who bring along tabletop games. There are three kinds of those. The ones that take two to five years to play, the ones that are ludicrously complicated and difficult to understand, and the ones that seem engineered to create animosity. Of the last category, the game known as Monopoly is the worst.
[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 steemit (dot) com (slash at) internutter for the stories at their freshest]
Challenge #02616-G059: Vital Education
A: Why is your baby so happy and well behaved? I’ve tried everything with mine!
Baby A: shriiieeeeek!!!
B: I just listen to them.
Baby B: happy cooing – Anon Guest
Parenting classes did not exist, once. People were expected to pick up parenting from their own parents. This was not always the best model. Child psychology and psychology in general began with one simple step: listening. The instant people began to learn that their infants attempt communication from birth, is the instant things change for the better.
Of course, like most things, it was not a universal nor an overnight change. There were many who thought it was some neohippy nonsense. Many of them were hostile. Some… were desperate enough to consider the results. There were scenes similar all over the world, but this one occurred in a waiting room with overworked understaff in attendance.
In such a room, one baby cries because they are bored. Then ten more babies cry because one baby is crying. Keeping them quiet is exasperating for everyone. The babies are stressed. The mothers are anxious because their babies were crying and they might look like bad mothers because of it. The few staff present were stressed because there wasn’t enough of them to go around and the room was full of crying babies.
[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 steemit (dot) com (slash at) internutter for the stories at their freshest]
Challenge #02615-G058: Useless? Never Heard of It
those odd coins in the bottom of your pocket or bag. Putting them to good use. – Anon Guest
As a member of the Loyal Order of Hitchhikers, it is prudent to clean out one’s bags regularly. Especially the bags one uses for currency. As one makes one’s way through several cultures and territories, one accumulates small change like a piece of sticky tape accumulates lint. This is most important as weight limits can prevent further travel and some coin weighs more than others.
This important and vital information had just occurred to Human Zer as they and their essentials were being weighed in the balance and found excessive. “How many Siwus[1] over?”
“Six,” said the captain. “I can’t spare the fuel to take you. You’re going to have to shed the unimportant stuff. I’m sorry.” They were. They were one of the freight haulers who knew the ways and the usefulness of Hitchhikers. It paid to know a Frood[2] who knew where their towel was. “I can delay a day. After that… You have to find another lift.”
[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 steemit (dot) com (slash at) internutter for the stories at their freshest]
Challenge #02614-G057: Therapeutic Bonding Exercises
Humans quietly did not speak of it.
Speak of it and it makes it real, yeah?
One of the leftover prejudices from Pre-Shattering.
In reality, it wasn’t so bad. Young terrans unmeaningly latching on to inappropriate first beings when they were beginning their Adult Growth cycle. Receiving mixed and confused information due to age and species wasn’t so odd, with all the travelling.
You just had to know how to handle it so it went from “No, it’s okay!” and not “What kind of counseling do you need, small Terran???”
The growing little ones may need help, but when you thought of it in terms as them seeing their surroundings as Perfectly Normal, it made much more sense. – Anon Guest
Before Ships’ Human was an occupation, it was an infestation. Stations that had Humans lurking in forgotten or neglected spaces ran the risk of infecting other ships with Humans. There were warnings. There were precautions. Yet there were no fatalities, regardless of the fear of Deathworlders. Many who gained Humans on their ship gained them temporarily, and tended to view them as a wild animal that had decided to declare a truce so it could reach a destination.
After all, the reasoning went, who was going to stop a Deathworlder. Moreover - how did they plan on even trying? They were Deathworlders. Surviving having one on the ship was something of a badge of honour. Some Havenworlders even tried to gain a Human or two for long voyages. Even then, many travellers understood that Humans would protect even a temporary home. On those long voyages, the Humans would start to bond with the non-Human crew.
That was when other secrets about the Ships’ Humans were revealed. Many of them were juveniles. Some reached their maturation in the company of relative strangers. It was, owing to unfamiliarity, a rough trip for all concerned. The Infonets shared what they could, but confirmable information was as unreliable as the knowledge from the Humans.
[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 steemit (dot) com (slash at) internutter for the stories at their freshest]
Challenge #02612-G055: Befriending Sunshine
I figured I would take a stab at hoping for a part 2 of a story? It’s from this prompt.
https://steemit.com/fiction/@internutter/challenge-02494-f304-mr-sunshine-s-new-friend
Ms. Lilcoon goes looking for her friend, Mr. Sunshine, after she has the surgery on her paws to make them more like dextrus hands. She’s grateful he saved her and had tried to keep in touch by writing him. But with her hands bandaged for a bit, writing would be hard. She told her family about what happened, of how he saved her, and was given permission to go and meet him for lunch and a chat. After all, everyone needs to have friends, right? – DaniAndShali
One of the allegedly nice things about modern technology was that hands were no longer necessary for writing. One of the drawbacks of speech to text was still that it couldn’t transcribe everything. Lil was at a further disadvantage because the painkillers also slowed her tongue and slurred her speech. Half the time, her family and carers didn’t understand her. The other half was spent in reassuring her that the Pax Humanis enforcer would not hurt her.
She tried to tell them that she was not a delicate and precious flower. She tried to tell them that she was not a fragile Havenworlder. She, too, was from Deathworlder stock, but the attending Mediks interpreted her protests as becoming upset or disturbed and ramped up the tranquillisers. It was a long time before she was able to make herself clear.
In that time, she feared that Mr Sunshine might believe she had abandoned him. It took some explaining, once she was on lighter painkillers, that Mr Sunshine had been nothing but protective of her and had even saved her from a Nufurrian who had attempted to claim her as both property and a bedmate. That was when the blocks between herself and him came down.
[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 steemit (dot) com (slash at) internutter for the stories at their freshest]