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A 4675-post collection

Challenge #01004-B272: The Power of Chatter

A truly well-meaning superhero with middling-high durability, but apparently no other power. However, at their darkest moment, when they are at their enemy's mercy, they find they have a subtle, near-impossible to discover, but devastating power.

Any monologue given by someone with evil intent, causes a reality-warping effect that removes their advantage. Whether that be removing the /villain's/ powers, shorting out their Doomsday Device, or simply distracting them for /just/ long enough. The problem now is, they have to reliably get villains monologuing, even as the trend (not the power) is noticed... -- RecklessPrudence

They call me The Tank. Minecraft nerds reckon my muscles are made of Adminium. I love those peeps. They're so funny.

In case you haven't guessed by the cape and the glittery tights, I'm a superhero. My strength isn't that much, compared to other heavy lifters, but I can take a licking and keep on ticking. Fifteen separate villains have tried to punch my clock with assorted doomsday devices and at least one direct strike with a meteor.

You can guess it didn't take.

I can soak up damage like a closet camel wicks away moisture. Probably loads better. Astro-Naughty tried to smack me with two dwarf planets, one time, and I still came out laughing.

But my real secret power? The one nobody's clued on about? I can get the bad guys monologuing.

Seriously. The bad guys are super-starved for attention or something. Or maybe my charisma has some extra bonus, but... I just ask an innocent little question or drop the cliche, "You'll never get away with this," and all of a sudden, they're spouting a freaking novella.

Like they have nothing better to do with their time that go on and on and on about how their plan is just so superior and how I can never defeat them.

Meanwhile, my team-mates have all the time they need to sneak around and not only defeat their undefeatable death device, but soundly trounce the baddie as well.

I even managed it a few times when I was working solo. Tank, you can survive the heart of a star... Tank, you can fly through a black hole... you know the deal. But once I have the bad guy preening about how clever they are... they have no care for what I'm doing in the background.

One time, I even sabotaged the dude's entire base and got back to his doomsday device before the Accretor had finished his speech celebrating how invulnerable his space base was. That guy was an absolute nut.

But I have to be careful around the really smart ones. They're starting to notice the pattern. I have to act like I don't want them to talk whilst simultaneously getting them talking. Some of them even wise up to that halfway through. But at least the temporary stupidity field or whatever it is that I do is still in effect and they try to attack me physically.

Big mistake.

I am worried about when they clue in before they get going. That's going to be a black day.

(Muse food remaining: 14. Submit a Prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories! Or comment below!)

Challenge #01003-B271: A Real Powderkeg

As the size of an explosion increases, the number of social situations it is incapable of solving approaches zero. - Vaarsuvius -- RecklessPrudence

[AN: "And that would be wrong." :D ]

One would think that the ability to make things explode when you were feeling embarrassed would be a curse. Possibly because people immediately think of blowing up the person making them cringe.

I didn't think of it. You thought of it. What does that say about you?

Being socially awkward is a

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Challenge #01002-B270: Suck it, Scheherazade!

As far as I am aware, Australia is the only country in the world that eats every theoretically edible part of its national coat of arms (well, stars and crosses... bikkie form?) Roo (lean red meat, the animal is less harmful to the environment than cattle or sheep), Emu (tastes like chicken - well, kinda gamey chicken), and Wattle (seeds make a sweet flour), all eaten.

Although I guess for some countries that would be quite difficult, since they're cheating with having

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Challenge #01001-B269: Paradise Made

Life was never meant to be fair, which was why you had to stab it in the back from the shadows, and kick it in the balls to make sure it stayed down. -- RecklessPrudence

Some say that where there's life, there's hope. They're idiots. I say, where there's life, there's a target. It's kill or be killed. Nature, red in tooth and claw, has been fighting intelligent folk since the dawn of intelligence.

We're all a pack of wolves, out for

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Challenge #01000-B268: One Turmultuous Afternoon in an Evil Keep

Hero: Powered by Love? You? You of all people, your most powerful magic, the attack that can devastate an army of battlemages, reduce a warded fortification and everyone in it to dust, and you claim it's powered by LOVE?!

Villain: Yes. Divorce rates go up measurably every time I use it.

(Bonus if it's a twisted form of a spell that would usually be fueled by the user's love, without consuming it) -- RecklessPrudence

"There's no love spell in the world that

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Challenge #00998-B267: What a Nice Zoo. May I Live Here?

http://glitch.news/2015-08-27-ai-robot-that-learns-new-words-in-real-time-tells-human-creators-it-will-keep-them-in-a-people-zoo.html

Particularly the final written quote from the android, just before the embedded video. -- RecklessPrudence

Of all the human and allied colonies, the Consortium of Steam is possibly the strangest. Well... at least until you visit B'Nar. But that's another story for another time.

On the prime colony world of New Kazoo, as well as the satellite colonies, ownership is consensual. The owned have as many rights as the owners and sometimes... it is rather hard to

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Challenge #00997-B266: Time to Clean the Tank

http://primarybufferpanel.tumblr.com/post/130327638454/alien-invasion

Thought you might like this one. Don't think it would fit in Amalgam-verse, though. -- RecklessPrudence

[AN: Yeah nah, it wouldn't.]

They called it the Green War. The collective nations of the Earth were fighting over, and in, the world's last forest. So of course, frequent use of napalm was de rigueur.

Elsewhere, pro-lifers were bombing fertility clinics in the mistaken belief that they also performed abortions. There were also roaming gangs of pro-lifers who

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Challenge #00996-B265: Miss Communication

That thing where your words get all tangled up and you can't speak your own language until you stop and spit out the bad sounds, then suddenly you can talk again. -- Anon Guest

[AN: You might appreciate this vid from Red Dwarf. There's also a more polished official version IDK I rather prefer the original...]

Shayde was in the middle of Explaining Physics. Some of the expositions she had were still years ahead of current technology. Right now, she was examining

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Challenge #00995-B264: One Stuffy Hour in a Remote Meeting Hall

SPOEn get confronted with this http://xkcd.com/1576/ (a personal failure at panel 6, where I guessed wrong and upset someone was what made me send the prompt that became SPOEn - I didn't articulate myself well in the prompt) -- RecklessPrudence

"Wait," said the noob at the meeting. "I thought this was for analysis of language drift, trying to find the origins. I mean, in so far as anyone can find any origins..."

"What did you think it meant when

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Challenge #00994-B263: Unexpected Divinity

http://internutter.tumblr.com/post/129939811959/a-plot-i-want-to-see -- Anon Guest

[AN: You bastard. And I mean that in the nicest way ;) ]

On the plus side, he had survived the plane crash. On the minus side, nobody else seemed to have done so. Potentially worse news, there were natives here, and they seemed to be worshipping him.

Gavin looked to the passengers on either side of him. Strangers he had nicknamed Mr Complain and Ms Annoying. Mr Complain had thought that the entire

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Challenge #00993-B262: The Path of Love is Rough...

Opposing the previous prompt, someone tries very hard to get a date with a human and ends up scaring them into hiding in a corner/under something, brandishing a defensive broom handle -- Anon Guest

Of all the romantic gambits in Galactic Society, few have ever been more disastrous than a H'nuf'ruffian's attempt to woo an arachnophobe.

Having overloaded on certain sections of Human media, Cogniscent T't'k't decided that it was a brilliant idea to rappel down on hir own silk until

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Challenge #00992-B261: It Doesn't Mean What You Think It Means...

Expanding on http://internutter.tumblr.com/post/119713605994/challenge-00850-b119-one-fine-bar-fight-at-a (aggression of one species very similar to flirting for another)

Someone tries their absolute hardest to start a fight with a human, or just scare them off or something (maybe there is a bet going?) And gets unexpectedly dipped. Kiss optional.

Alcohol was one of the more common registered inebriants, so Intoxicant Bars always came with a semi-flammable miasma. One such establishment was The Unlikely Mammal Drink. A bar run by a saurian

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Challenge #00991-B260: What is 'Painting'?

More about humans and their ridiculous "sight" -- Anon Guest

[AN: For those too busy to go look it up, the original instalment is here]

The pirates the crew had just soundly trounced had a treasure of art works in their lair. Including a baffling array of rectangular, flat objects. Lieutenant-Commander Jain, however, almost had a conniption.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Careful with those. They're paintings. Care-ful. That's art." Ze almost snatched a rectangle from Ensign Ch'koff's hands. "We have to put these

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Challenge #00990-B259: One Dull Morning in a General Supplies Store

The helgoq leaf (http://internutter.tumblr.com/post/125201724094/challenge-00914-b183-cautious-eaters) being used/marketed as a human repellant. -- Anon Guest

The really beautiful thing about a truly open market was that things moved astonishingly quickly. No snake oil, just things that worked, and worked best at what they were for.

Though there were a few 'alternative uses' that made for interesting discussions...

Shayde found one such item in the safety products aisle. Alongside the usual protective devices and common-use medical instruments were

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Challenge #00989-B258: The Houyhnhnms Fandom

More on the humans and the unicorn ambassador seen here: http://internutter.tumblr.com/post/127820781249/challenge-00946-b215-the-houyhnhnms-arrival -- Anon Guest

[AN: CallMeGallifreya, is that you?]

Ambassador Thrass kept G'pux by her side at all times. But when she found out that there was an exercise track... She crept out in the early morning to enjoy a good run.

All she needed to do was follow the warning signs.

She met up with Ambassador Shayde on her second lap, her white hair mostly

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