Beloved give it a makeover.

FINALLY found a font I’m satisfied with. Switched up the wheel so that it looks more unworldly, added a gradient, smacked on a border, and boom - customer interest.

Releasing this Saturday!

Is this better?

I got rid of the ugly, under-colouring ‘glow’ and refined it to an effects layer [harder than it looks, I had to re-fill the wheel and delete all the noise from my previous attempts] which I can now edit to my heart’s content.

I also added some blood red to the body of the bicycle and fooled with the opacity a little. Too strong == uglier :P

I mean, I want it to look like an ugly colourisation job, but not THAT ugly.

I’m still not happy with the firkin title font though.

What do you think?

Challenge #00631 - A266: Corrupt File

C:> Cannot find Reality.sys. Universe Halted.

There was no other word for what was happening than Glitch. People went to sleep one colour and woke up another the next. And frequently with a change in their social status and standing.

And it wasn’t just their colour that changed. There were all kinds of alterations. People would go to sleep as a man in a mansion, and wake up as a woman in a slum.

Buildings began to show segmentation faults. Infrastructure literally crumbled.

Death rates skyrocketed. Chaos and outrage abounded. People tried to stay awake, hoping that that would prevent the changes, but their world simply altered around them anyway.

When analysed by the intelligent, it seemed to be a very specific kind of chaos. Those in power -and who were arrogant about having it- found themselves on the bottom rung of the social ladder. Everyone stayed within their own country.

The abusers found themselves at the hands of their former victims, staring up at themselves in absolute terror.

God, they said, had taken matters into Hir own hands.

Survivors fled to untouched areas, trying to find solace in what little was unglitched. It was the end of the world as they knew it.

*

The tutor had come to peer over hir shoulder.

“Yhvh…” the tutor sighed. “There’s a reason why I only gave you one planet. And this is it. Just look at the overall mess you’ve created. None of their infrastructure is going to hold.”

“But they weren’t following my rules,” Yhvh complained. “Even when I completely revised it to one rule and stopped doing so many miracles, like you said.”

“I see you’ve been messing around with the root code. Did you save a backup before you did that?”

“Uuuuuuuhhhhhh…”

“You wanted them believing in you again, didn’t you?”

“Uuuuhhhhhmmm… maybe?”

A groan. “Yhvh… you really have to learn that the best interference is the subtle kind. Remember the incidents near the equator? All that smiting? Your heavy-handedness is going to be the death of these beings. What do I keep telling you? Gently. Gently. Gently.”

Sigh. “Yes, Teacher Lusfir…” Yhvh droned.

“Now. Let’s see what we can do to repair this, hm?”

Moaned, this time, “Yes, Teacher Lusfir.”

“It’s a good thing I stopped you before you could bottleneck the population again. Open up the root file and highlight the most recent changes…”

[Muse food remaining: 14. Submit a prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!]

Challenge #00630 - A265: Deep Time Punk’d

A text found on the first expedition by a species to their planet’s nearest celestial body (moon or nearby planet), which explains in perfectly accurate detail how to improve the efficiency of in-system spaceflight many times over.

Appendix A begins “As we know, 2+2=5…”

Five hundred years ago, people had seen strange lights in association with their moon. A light was clearly visible on the surface of the satellite, every time that it became shadowed.

Four hundred years ago, that light went out for the last time, and the lights visiting the moon left. Never to return.

Last year, the planets’ champion - a fine lady by the name of Nyel the Strong - was the first to set foot on that orbiting planetoid in the name of peace and harmony for all.

Today, scientists had cracked the code. The lunar visitors had been prepared for any eventuality. They had left arrows to point the way. The box contained basic pictograms on how to open it and how to read the contents.

The first book unravelled the second, as well as covering some basic elements of science and what the aliens had also thought were basic elements of science. The second unravelled the third…

And while they were learning, they were also testing.

The Grel'ti people leaped ahead. In science, art, and civilisation. They mined their asteroid belts and prepared to go to the stars.

And then they began to decode the Appendices.

“As we know, 2+2=5…”

Five Hundred Years Ago…

The aliens had got their data. Who they were was not important. You couldn’t pronounce their names, anyway. Let’s call them Greg, and Larson.

“Wait. So you got them almost up to our level of tech and you put in a fucking math joke?”

Greg chuckled as he sealed the box. “This is such a classic…”

“No, Greg, you are such a shit.”

He started etching arrows on the walls and floor, giggling the entire time. “I wish I could see their little faces…”

“…for fuck’s sake,” sighed Larson. “You always do this. Every pre-journey planet we monitor, you have to pull this unthought crap.”

Greg continued to laugh. “They are gonna be so pissed off…”

“Someone in authority is going to catch you doing this and then you’re going to know about it.”

“Worth it,” laughed Greg.

[Muse food remaining: 14. Submit a prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!]

Challenge #00629 - A264: You Were Warned

On a warning sign

CAUTION: Eldritch Abominations

The human stopped at the door. “Is this serious?”

“Why would it not be?” said the alien robot. “The Yubshuggoth are a kind people, but their appearance has been known to… cause significant alarm. Some have died from the shock. This is why they use avatars like me.”

So what the human do? They thrust open the door and stuck their head inside to see what was so horrible. They backed away from the door, face and hair white, throat strangling out a scream.

The alien robot kindly shut the door and administered a sedative.

“You… never said… they were nudists!”

[Muse food remaining: 15. Submit a prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!]

Challenge #00628 - A263: Drawbacks of Communication

Well, are we agreed that we will never try to talk to the world ending monsters again?

Yes? Good.

They were in his way. They were there to conquer. Smash! Destroy! Devour!

“Hermann!”

Crush! Kill! Consume!

“Hermann!”

The puny human was only a little smaller than him. How? Had they found a way to grow themselves? Were they stealing the Builders’ ways?“

"Hermann, Hermann, look at me. Look. Look, look, look. You’re not them. Think. Know. You know me.”

“Drift,” he said. The Other was coming. Fighting back. He was slipping… slipping. “You were in the drift.”

“I’m here, now, buddy. I’m here. You’re okay. You’re safe. You’re not the monster. Who are you?”

“I’m–” at once a fifty-foot-tall beast of blue blood and blades for teeth… and an underweight, overtall man with a bum leg. He stumbled. “I’m… Doctor…”

“That’s right,” big smiles from Newt. Yes. Newt. Doctor Newton Geizler. “Say the rest of it. I know you can.”

“Doctor… Hermann…” Who? Who was he? “Hermann… Got… lieb.”

“One more time for the cheap seats, buddy.”

“Doctor Hermann… Gotlieb.”

“YES!” Huge hugs from such a small man. The monster was just a murmur in his mind.

Someone in the far background set a timer.

“One more day,” grinned Newt. “One more day of fighting this stupid damn seesaw… We got this.” He rushed away at his usual frenetic speed. Out of the padded room full of soft furniture, and into the lab they shared. “Come on, buddy, we’ve got fifteen minutes before I start to sink. I’m gonna push for sixteen, this time.”

Gottlieb retrieved his cane and made it to the board. The equations soothed his tangled mind like nothing else. Fifteen minutes, oh yes. Fifteen minutes to try and solve the last problem.

How to cure the two last victims of the Kaiju attacks.

Fifteen minutes, maybe sixteen, and he would be the one reminding Newt of who he was in the Soft Room, away from the other best minds available while Newt believed he was the Kaiju they’d linked with. It was a very Newton solution. Chip it away from the inside.

Gottlieb picked up the eraser and corrected the last, shaky figures of his previous calculations. “Have I ever told you, Doctor Geizler, that I find your incessant optimism… reassuring?”

“Not today,” grinned Newt. “Thanks, pal.”

[Muse food remaining: 15. Submit a prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!]

Challenge #00627 - A262: What Maketh Man?

From the Wikipedia article on Personhood:
“If alien life were found to exist, under what circumstances would they be counted as "persons”? Do we have to consider any “willing and communicative (capable to register its own will) autonomous body” in the universe, no matter the species, an individual (a person)? Do they deserve equal rights with the human race?“

What the hell kind of question is that? Of course we should! Of course they do! The only time it’s debatable is when the species is some kind of hive mind, and each unit is not an individual but rather the group as a whole! Then, it’s the hive mind that is a person - they are PEOPLE! …why is this something that is worthy of debate?

[AN: This kind of debate is truly ironic when we count corporations as people and anyone brown or identifying female or both as not people at all]

The Cogniscent Rights Committee were having another debate on the nature of personhood.

"So what about the comatose?”

“Oh boy,” someone rolled their eyes.

“You find a member of a new species, but they’re comatose or otherwise impaired past the point of conversation. Then what?”

“There’d be other indications of cogniscent life. A ship. A bed.  You expect a new species to just randomly visit another planet and leave their comatose there? No culture would do that.”

“Wait two years. We’ll find a bunch of humans who do.”

One of the human members of the Committee blew a raspberry. “This is why we insist that exploration vessels are crewed with at least one Melil or some other variety of Esper useful to the mission. They can touch minds and try to find something. Even a comatose brain has memories.”

“Have any of them read a ‘cell’ from a hive mind?”

“That’s standard UFTP training. Yes.”

The restrained Counsellor from one of the least-poisonous Greater Deregulations was drumming his fingers.

“What if’n you got a law stoppin’ them from -ah- saying nothin’?”

“Sir, we’ve spoken to you about your planet’s antiquated policies of personhood. Your attendance on this council is meant to be educational - for you. This is so you can reform and revise those laws, not so you can find new loopholes in order to keep them.”

“Wimmin weren’t people when I was made, and I won’t reckonize them ‘till I’m cold in the ground!”

“Then you won’t mind exporting them all,” said the Representative of Meeyahn. “We’ll buy them from you wholesale. It should be quite a deal.”

“Lady Astrofi, the population of Greater Deregulation is already bottlenecked. Are you planning to create genocide by proxy?”

“I merely wish to educate,” she purred. “They would soon learn the value of females by their conspicuous absence.”

“This is not the forum for such a discussion. Negotiations with Greater Deregulation are still in process.”

Lady Astrofi gave a very feline growl.

The Chair tapped their info-tablet meaningfully. “Now. On to the matter of the Faiize. There have been a number of disturbing reports, but this found its way to my in-box this morning…”

The main screen lit up with video feed from a medbay. It looked like every mining station medbay the Galaxy over, but the contents were more interesting. A human medtech was facing down a silver Faiize with a dead Cleaner.

“Broken,” said the Faiize. “Doc fix.”

“I think it’s BSOD’d,” said another human, just inside pickup range.

The Faiize pointed at the cleaner. “Broken. Doc. Fix. Init!”

“Is it… giving me an order?” said the medtech.

Now the Faize pushed the medtech to the dead Cleaner. “Doc fix Cleaner. Init!”

“It is an order,” said the other human.

“Init! Hup hup! Moovit! Pronto! Stat!” Now it shoved the medtech’s hands onto the corpse. “DOC FIX!”

“I can’t fix dead,” the medtech argued.

Now it faced the other human. Its flat features twisted in pain. “Dave sez medbay fix. Need fix broken Cleaner.”

There was silence as the video ended. “This is not an isolated incident,” said the Chair. “I’ve done my homework on this, and there’s evidence that all the extant Faiize are this intelligent. The only question to be answered is, did Wave of the Future intend to make gengineered slaves?”

“I’d buy ‘em,” said the restrained Counsellor for Greater Deregulation.

Everyone else ignored him.

[Muse food remaining: 16. Submit a prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!]

Challenge #00626 - A261: He Said it Best

Interdum feror cupidine partium magnarum Europae vincendarum
[Sometimes I get this urge to conquer large parts of Europe]

“Eh, sometimes you change the world,” Shayde sighed. “Sometimes th’ world changes you. And sometimes… Caesar said it best - ‘interdum feror cupidine partium magnarum Europae vincendarum’…”

Rael was looking into his eyepiece. “Sometimes, I get this urge to conquer large parts of Europe?”

She sighed. Technology. That was the problem. People could just look things up. “Yer no fun. Used tae get a lot o’ mileage outta that wi’ Hackmeyer.”

He’d heard the stories she’d told. Found the archival records of Hackmeyer’s old students. He knew that her old professor was a fraud, a charlatan, and a glory-hound. That was why he laughed at the mental image of a balding professor pretending to know everything and murmuring, 'wise words, wise words’ before moving on to a different topic… all while the students who knew what it meant giggled behind their hands.

“Kept you going, didn’t it?”

“Aye. Kept me goin’ a lot.” Through the years with Hackmeyer. Through the years after Hackmeyer. And almost… almost… today. She’d have to find new tricks.

[Muse food remaining: 17. Submit a prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!]

Challenge #00625 - A260: Original Meaning

Saying something in all earnestness, not realising that it’s been twisted far from what the words actually _mean_ by scum and then used as a warning sign by people more socially aware than you, and that you just marked yourself as one of those scum. All because you were using the words as they were meant to be used.

[TW: rape]

Sometimes, there’s a big problem with being a card-carrying member of SPOEn - The Society for the Preservation of Original English. One of those problems was that you could only really talk to other members of SPOEn, all of whom had different ideas about what Original English was.

“I'faith, I have a trial most vex’d,” said Old William. “In where to take my debate next.”

“That’s a nice sentiment,” said Paul. Practiced listeners could tell which ‘nice’ he meant. This time, it was the one that indicated a lack of intelligence.

“Ugh, stop raping the conversation, Will… You’re totes gainax.” The young girl known only as Pong didn’t even look up from her replica vintage gaming device.

“Shut thy meat-hole for making noise, thy conversation lacketh poise!”

And then there were moments like this, when all you wanted to do was leave the room. Preferably, running and screaming.

[Muse food remaining: 16. Submit a prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!]

Challenge #00624 - A259: Slippery Slope

The uselessness of the “reassurance”, which fortunately I’ve only ever seen in fiction, that ‘You know you’re not evil by the fact that you still worry about your morality’. You could quite easily not realise that you’ve already sunk to new depths of depravity, and still worry about it.

[AN: I almost deleted this because of its similarity to yesterday’s prompt. PLEASE space out your similar prompts with other muse fuel. Thanks.]

“It’s for the best,” he repeated. “Isn’t it, Miol?”

The catlike creature across his shoulders purred his sweet song. “Of course it’s for the best. You tried everything else to convince them. And now they have a leader to inspire them in their unthinking rebellion.”

“But… killing him? That can’t be necessary…”

“Just remember,” cooed Miol. “It isn’t really evil if you’re still worried about it…”

It still didn’t feel right. Which was why Lord Jev the Dark sent the bare minimum of opposition against the rebelling hero. Why he never used his ultimate weapon until it was far too late.

He never wanted to press that shiny, red button.

Miol had no such concerns.

And it was why, when they killed Miol and imprisoned him for trial, that he wept. Not for Miol. Not for his lost glory. But out of sheer relief that it was over.

It was all someone else’s problem, now.

[Muse food remaining: 17. Submit a prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!]