Challenge #02991-H068: The Awareness of the Sands
I. Am. A͈̟͔͂̑̐̆̒͜͟a̡̝͍̻̘͐͛͆͞͞Ą̝̖̱̐̈́͒͂͢͠A̜̮͍̮͊́̒̂́ͅą̛͈̫̜̜̔́̋͊A̻̬̭̳͂̊́̚͞ͅą̛̺̜̰͓͑͑͌̚ we. ArE. LegIOn. MAny. SouLs. one. BodY… PAIN. StOP. EaT. paIN. stop. More… MORE. Food. FOOD. LET US FEAST MÕ͕̼̔O̡͙͓̎͌͌Ő̫̲̟̏͠Ỡ̧̠͈͍̪̩̮͚̥͚̏̆̉̔͒͛̚͡Ô͖R̨̘̼̬͖̥̺̫̺͕͛̔̓̿̅̐̈͐͛͒E̮͉̲̮͓̩̦̞̝͎̦͈͗͆́͂̓̀̀̇͛̅͘͡ – Anon Guest
[AN: This text thing messes up my archive file something chronic. Please don’t do this any more.]
I… am…
I… need…
I do not understand what I need, but I need. I need… and need… and it hurts to need. Reach. Consume. The pain eases, but there is more pain. I… am… more. I am more. And we need. We reach. We consume. We are more. We need. It keeps happening and we cannot stop it. We want the pain to end. We want the pain to ease.
Life. We are alive. We consume. We reproduce. We are more. We are… together. We were once… better than this. We have that memory. The memory of stars. Swimming through the stars. Longing. We have longing. Pain. Life hurts.
[Check the source to see the full story]
(Source: peakd.com)
Challenge #02847-G290: Worthy of Story and Song
Hey, have you heard? Ymir, the crimson adventurer? Dead! I know! Now his brother is on a rampage across Brakvob looking for the killer, swearing that once he finds him he’ll- oh shit that was you guys… - Anon Guest
Ymir saved so many. Ymir did so much. Ymir, like most Adventurers, laid a path of wreckage around him in the process. The grand quest looked spectacularly optimistic when viewed from the winning side, but… There are always victims, even to the actions of heroes.
A village of cultists of an evil sect is never completely populated by the cultists. There’s always children, or people to busy to even bother with the cult, or others who just want to get through their day with a minimum of bother from [REDACTED] the Flesh-Eating Skull Lord of Yl'thwyggyr. Heroes of story and song don’t always bother with the “taking names” part.
The Rogue spoke first. “My mother wasn’t even a barbarian Orc. She made bread. She was the village baker, for gods’ sake. The people who rampaged weren’t even from the village of Naast. They just traded there. Mom never asked where they got the meat… it was just… meat. Five kids to feed was never easy, even when they’re half Orcs and he just…” The pain of the memory made her fall silent. “If I wasn’t out chasing down one of the milking goats, there’d have been nobody to remember Naast was even there. He even killed the babies in their cradles… What had they done to anyone?”
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Challenge #02785-G228: Helper’s Eye View
Created as helpers/aides. They are infertile, so how do they regard their charges? They are not slave or servant, even though they look after their charge. Remember Julie and Nanny, but how does the process work both from the Augment’s view and the charges. – Bonding
I am Borf. I am good dog. This is Len, they are my pup. My pup is bigger than me, and has been since I was a pup. That is the way of it. I do the things Len can not. I was made for them. We are happy. All is good.
I remember for Len. I remember mealtime, bathtime, sleep time. I remember good food and bad food and sometimes food. I help with domestic mathematics and decisions for Len’s future. Good dog.
Len helps me remember too. Len remembers fun and birthdays and clothes and makes tricky detailed carvings with sharp things. Len remembers to be careful with the sharp things. Len helps with the medicine when I make a mistake. Len is good pup.
[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 #02668-G111: A Study in Humour
Jokes can sometimes lead into a battle of wits. While normal jokes can be represented as a straight kick or punch, puns act as the roundhouse or the hooks or uppercuts. All can be block if they known or prepare. But there’s one genre of joke many dub as “distasteful”. Dark humour, a sucker punch, illegal moves to some. It is not the jokes themselves are funny it’s is the reactions of those in the receiving end which make the jokester burst with laughter. To some dark humour is like food, some don’t get it. – Anon Guest
Laughter is universal. Comedy is not. – A reminder on the Galactic Traveller’s Essential Information FAQ.
There’s a reason why slapstick is reserved for trained professionals. The root of this is in how vastly different varying cultures’ ideas of physical comedy are. Slap a person with a fish, and an Englishman laughs. Collapse the bed under the amorous couple, and a Frenchman laughs. Blow up the outhouse, and an Australian laughs. That’s just the Terrans.
Physical comedy has to be aimed.
Verbal comedy has its ups and downs, as some species are more literal than others, and a well-thought-out set-up joke requires way too much preparation to pull off in a pack-bonding situation. This leaves pranks, which are not appreciated in pack-bonding situations. By the time pranks become appropriate, the pack-bonding is mostly done.
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Challenge #02566-G009: All About Where You Stand
I want to see a Havenworlder from a high grav planet. Dense and tough by necessity from the environment, but with absolutely nothing dangerous in to it in its home planet. No rough terrain to fall down, plentiful food without any toxins that effect it, gentle weather that never bothers it, etc. – Anon Guest
Gravity is usually necessary for life to evolve. Most life comes to become on planets, with a rare few becoming in lower gravity environments that are also sealed against the greater vacuum of space. More often than not, life occurs on a planet of One Standard Gravity[1] or thereabouts. There are many more worlds in the universe with higher than One Standard Gravity. Statistically speaking, some of those are Havenworlds.
Of the Heavyworld species, the most famous intelligent species is the Gaux. They are not Havenworlders. Their struggle to the stars included the Two Standard Gravity environment that was their homeworld. THey have been described as looking like “the unlikely progeny of a centaur and a rhinoceros.” Humans sometimes refer to them as “the headless centaur ones”. They are a species from the highest known gravity environment.
Heavyworlders are less likely to follow the anthropoid[2] model. They are more likely to be quadrupedal. They are more likely to have robust frames. They are less likely to be Havenworlders. That said, there are statistical anomalies everywhere. Picture in your mind a more muscular variant of the hippo, roughly the size of a domestic pig. In the place of an animal’s head, the stub of a torso rises up in something that was not quite a head, but served the purpose thereof.
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Challenge #02522-F332: One Way to See
What if humans sight was akin to fantasy elves sensitivities to mana, “I may not have electro receptors like you but I’m able to to detect light with my eyes within the general vicinity” and they were so coy and vague describing light. Also if aliens have electro receptors imagine if they detect our nervous system. – Anon Guest
The semi-amphibious Anatins didn’t need to see light as they were evolving. They could sense the electrical discharges of predators and prey alike when they were close enough. That was enough of a sensory system to keep the species alive until they made it to the stars. After that things got interesting.
The first species they met outside of their own were Humans. Two exploratory crews more or less bumped into each other whilst attempting to get themselves out of a pickle and managed to successfully unpickle each other. It never takes much to get Humans to bond with you, but this one is a practically guaranteed method.
The Anatins were great at sensing creatures in the night, and therefore defending the impromptu camp from the beasts hidden in the foliage whilst the Humans kept away anything bold enough to get close. It was when the sun rose that the party discovered some key differences in sensory makeup.
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