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A 4765-post collection

Challenge #00338: The Return of Wark

Someone has taken a formal invitation to its logical creative interpretation and shown up/put someone else in a literal penguin suit

“I still say the instructions were a little vague,” said Rael.

“You managed tae follow them,” Shayde noted. She was resplendent in an empire-line gown in gold and white. She’d also done something with her hair that made it sparkle.

“Yes, but I know your lexicon. Others are not so advantaged. I had to field several hundred queries about your meaning.”

“And ye got paid fer it…”

“Don’t get me started on the gender binary issue. There’s more than ‘Ladies’ and 'Gentlemen’, now.”

And there he was. One of the cogniscents who had not checked with Shayde’s Ambassadorial offices and gone… creative.

It was a literal penguin suit. Not the sad, floppy, faux fur fabric ones favored by animal rights’ activists. This was a penguin suit that paid significant effort to making the wearer look like a giant penguin. There was even a highly effective beak mask to complete the effect.

“Aw. Poor lamb…”

“Penguin,” corrected Rael.

“Mind if I get 'im on me dance card?”

There were moments when Rael could never understand her. And this was definitely one of them. “Are you showing him off or comforting him?”

“It takes some effort tae pull that off. Column A and Column B.”

They cut a surprisingly good figure on the dance floor. And judging by the twitching, Shayde was explaining while seeming like she was smiling.

And judging by his smiles… he’d done the costume on purpose.

Just part and parcel of the weirdness that followed her.

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Challenge #00337: The real reason why you don't cross your own time stream

“It’s not the whole risk of changing-historical-events/becoming-your-own-dad/killing-your-ancestors thing that aggravates me most about time travel, it’s keeping all the damn tenses and grammar straight - when you try talking about something you already did, but that you did in the future, that will lead to something you’re going to do, that you’ll do in the past - it’s enough to drive a person insane, it is.”

Paul had

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Challenge #00336: Vulnerable

“No, Lasagne! My only weakness!”

Rael did his utmost to resist Shayde’s variants of charm. It rarely worked, but he persisted. Often as much as she did.

It had, in fact, reached the point where she arrived with temptation in hand. Usually in a tin box, but this time, she arrived with a thermally insulated parcel.

“I know ye dinnae like the ballet, but I have tae go an’ yer me preferred plus one. And ye

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Challenge #00335: To Be a F.A.I.R.Y

“When you wish upon a star, it’s actually a satellite. Your wish has been recorded and an agent assigned to your case.”

She’d just passed the written test. She knew the rules. When it came to wish granting, they gave the toughest one of the day to the rookies. To see what they could do.

It was all part and parcel of being a F.A.I.R.Y. Facilitating All Invocations, Responding Yesterday.

It was

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Challenge #00334: The first Christmas in Space

Someone has set up a little model nativity scene, and then has to explain to the others “why they are sacrificing that baby to the animals”

The ships’ human had set up a small altar in their assigned space. There was a small pine tree (live) that had been stasis-shipped from Britania. There was assorted sparkly lights, a metallic plastic substance referred to as ‘tinfoil’ and numerous spheroids hung about the little branches.

The saurians who were

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Challenge #00333: Look at This Photograph...

That’s what chilled me most about the picture when I saw it again, when I really got a good look the second time. Without that single detail, it could’ve really been perfectly ordinary, like any other plain old image taken a million times by a million other people. It looked so deceptively normal except for the one thing that could never, ever be normal. – Josh

It was blurry, but the eye could make out what appeared to be

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Challenge #00332: Wark

Someone has been crammed into a penguin suit, protesting or not, and wow does it look good on them

The last thing he remembered was a voice demanding, “FORMAL ATTIRE IS MANDATORY,” before the minions descended.

He missed his JOAT coat the most. At least the shoes were marginally serviceable. Too shiny and too thin, but they could do in a pinch.

The pants were completely wrong. Black was not his colour. He was anti-religious. The white waistcoat fit his

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Challenge #00331: Unexpectedly Useful

“What a good thing you had all those clockwork ducks”

[AN: Your Girl Genius fandom is showing. And so is mine, because I know exactly where that line came from]

Rael peeked through the one hole in the barrier that let him see without being seen.

“Okay,” he recapped. “They’ve got our ship surrounded. They’re armed to the teeth. And there’s hundreds of them. And only two of us.”

Shayde

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Challenge #00330: Fool Me Twice

Friends help you move, real friends help you move bodies.

[TW: Rape, violence]

“Ari, what the shit?”

“I told him. I warned him. I said. You heard. I said. I told him. I’d survived one. I escaped two. I told him. Never again.”

There was no doubt she’d been defending herself. The RapeX was still clinging to his shriveling and bleeding member. Ari bore the bloody evidence of a struggle. She clung with a

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Challenge #00329: Old Wars, New Combattants

Getting inventive with the dress code

There is a Galactic adage: if you want something done, tell a human it’s impossible.

Kasib Campbell had purchased the JOAT conglomerate and decided to begin bringing order to the naturally chaotic JOATs at Amalgam Station.

Shayde, somehow always by his side, was seething. She’d tried to warn him, and he’d dismissed it as one of her many mental disorders. But, right now, in this room, a Campbell had come

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Challenge #00328: ...and Wherefores

Gil took longer than most children to grow out of the “why?” stage (either Klaus or Von Pinn dealing with him at that age, you pick, I just want to see toddler!Gil and hilarity)

It was a little celebration amongst the rigger rats. They called it Family Day, and used it to remember the people they had left behind. Gil enjoyed the stories the others told but, when it came to his turn, his joyful mood fell to ash.

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Challenge #00327: A Gru-some Predicament

The minions have unionized and gone on strike

[AN: I just fell over backwards in the bathroom and did something horrible to my right arm. This fillet is being typed left-handed LIKE A BOSS. PS: it’s not broken, but it hurts like fuck]

“DE BA DO! DE BA DO!” the minions chanted, marching in circles in the underground complex that was both their workplace and their home. They carried placards with their grievances.

Alas, they were written in

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Challenge #00326: Metrics

“This homework has an unacceptably high cussing: work done ratio.”

Going to college was an eye-opening experience. Katie had seen the world, but little was more fascinating than white kids trying to be individuals when their own sphere of experience was very sadly limited.

The fact that she had become a kind of instant guru in her dorm because of her experiences was one shocker. The fact that someone had mistaken ‘in college’ for 'of age’ was

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Challenge #00325: The Unnypical

I’m tired of villains being the only representation of people who aren’t 100% mentally typical.  Show me a hero coming out as having anxiety disorder/depression/Asperger’s/something (I know not all of those are equal but you get my drift).  Show me a place in heroics for people like me, that isn’t either as a villain or locked up in an asylum, or both. (Marvelverse or DCverse would be awesome

[AN: Attempting to

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Challenge #00324: Those pesky living authors

Analysing the work of someone still living always runs the risk of “No, that’s not what I meant at all”

Page twenty. Not bad. Especially considering that she’d written it strictly for academia and not for the national newspapers. Her analysis of Hartnell’s greater literary works was getting a lot more notice than she had ever hoped for.

The phone rang. Of course she answered it.

“Hello,” said the voice on the

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