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A 4677-post collection

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 do this while also staying away from the Magic Cripple trope]

There are fine lines between ‘mild-mannered’ and 'antisocial’. And why not be antisocial. All my attempts to be social resulted in infamy, ignominy and just outright humiliation.

It took me a very long time to learn how to seem normal. It took me longer to even want to. I had to, and there is a gulf of difference between having to and wanting to do anything.

Normal is cruel. And I could never bring myself to be cruel to anyone. Not on purpose.

Normal is self-centered. But in order to understand this, I had to step out of my own head and imagine what it must be like. I just can’t be normal, there.

Normal doesn’t care if the wrong amount of pressure can hurt someone else. I had to care about that since puberty.

I don’t know how or why it happened, but it did. I’m one of the very many supers out there who can fly and are strong and are almost invulnerable.

Nobody sees where I come from because Normal doesn’t pay attention. They ignore the weirdo on the train with the rainbow stockings. Or on the street. Or -youknow- anywhere.

All I gotta do to go from weirdo-on-the-street to The Unnypical is take off the big coat that helps the Normals not bother me… and after that, they’re all looking at the silver dress and the rainbow stockings and the combat boots.

It took me a while and I really don’t wanna hurt your feelings and that? But Normal is also kind-of stupid.

I asked Nightcrawler about it, once. How he can get away with not using the image inducer if he just puts on a hoodie and keeps his hands in his pockets. I mean, he doesn’t even hide the tail! And his shoes have to be made special.

He just said, “People don’t look that far down. Usually.”

I’ve lost count of the crimes I stopped just because I saw things other people would miss. I had to learn to wait until things actually started to happen, though. You can’t arrest folks for attempted crimes.

Well, most of them. Murder’s the big exception. Of course.

Oh, and don’t look at me about the name. That’s the news at work. They had no real name for me and 'eyesore’ doesn’t sell papers or get an audience for CNN or whatever. Someone analyzed my voice patterns or something during a fight? And they said I wasn’t nypical and it sorta stuck.

It’s way better than some of the things I get called.

Normal is cruel.

It’s why I hang out with all of the visible mutants. They get it. They get me. Sure, some of them think I’m 'slumming’ just because I can scrub up okay, but then we get talking and… well… they know I’m not 'slumming’.

Normal came up with 'slumming’.

But Normal also came up with heroes. And helping folks because it’s the right thing to do. And learning about things. And social justice.

It’s why I gotta keep being nice. It’s why I have to be the hero. It’s why I want to be the hero.

Because someone has to teach the Normals how to be good.

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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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Challenge #00323: But is it Art?

Toad has come along to one of Sara, Scott or anyone else’s art showings, and in this circle, his mannerisms seem to have accidentally passed him off as an expert or art critic. He’s having fun, and the artist is not sure whether to laugh at how the rich folk are swallowing all of it and buying the work, or cry at how wrong he is about certain bits.

It was one of Sara’s ‘sideshow&

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Challenge #00322: Amphibious

We haven’t heard from Todd for a while, or Mortimer, or any of your incarnations of mister Toynbee. Quick, what’s one of them doing right now?

Ha! This was the little bugger. He got it! He got the little bastard. Mortimer cackled to himself as he extracted the bug - Sammy’s pet phasmids had escaped and this one, sadly, never learned to stay out of electronics - from the system. He wrapped the sad remains in

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Challenge #00321: Cupcakes! Cupcakes! Cupcakes!

Nobody was entirely sure whether to curse the humans or begin worshipping them for introducing the cupcake to the galactic community. 

The human capacity for invention - alongside their notorious insanity, of course - knows no bounds. Therefore it should have been no surprise that both extended to their food.

Bread is universal. Leavening is not. Cake is known, and has saved some species from extinction. Fruitcake - a human seasonal delicacy - has saved civilizations.

And don’t get anyone

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Challenge #00320: Homo S. Cuisine

Considering how many toxic things humans ate, it was a little surprising that their cooking was not only edible, but delicious.

“YE-HE-HEEESSSSS! It’s here!”

The nervous Passeri crew gathered at a safe distance to watch the Ship Human - somewhere between lucky mascot and terrifying on-board entertainment - cackle and sing to herself.

They had been told that female humans were far more trainable than the males. That they were, on the whole, quieter and less dangerous than

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Challenge #00319: In Memorium

Found on a gravestone, “Name, date-date, (Killed 99 bears) We pray he has found rest”

We pray he found rest. We’re not sure, but we hope so, because nobody ever found a body, and 99 may not have been enough.

(replace bears with appropriate sentient or nonsentient species at your discretion, especially in the case of early-contact humans :P)

If any being needed any further proof of human insanity - besides ten minutes’ contact with any number

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Some questions should remain unspoken.

“I can’t believe you just said that. I am so glad they ended the call before they heard you.”

“What? It was a perfectly valid question.”

“I don’t care, it’s downright rude! And kind of disgusting.”

“But now you’re thinking about it, aren’t you?”

“…yes, damn you.  Next time you wonder something like ‘How do conjoined twins decide whose hand wipes

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Challenge #00317: Common Band

Different cultures, different vocal physiologies, and different mechanisms of hearing certainly make for interesting music nights.

Of all the past human phenomena that proved endlessly fascinating, the one that Rael could not turn away from was ‘channel surfing’. Every time either one of them found themselves at the other’s residence, Rael always let Shayde have the entertainment remote.

Not because she had good taste, but because what she did fascinated him.

Even the humans used to limited entertainments

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Challenge #00316: Sing-along

Humans burst into song spontaneously all the time, usually started just by one humming and becoming a little quartet or a vocalist and backing choir very suddenly.

Add in various aliens, and the somewhat macabre lyrics for the beginning of Bohemian Rhapsody

The humans called him Captain Ted. It was the closest they could get to Tyd'r'kaad and, compared to the many other things they said and did, it was only mildly annoying.

He was the first galactic captain to have

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Challenge #00315: Downhill From There

A Tragic Mispronunciation and its results

“This is all your fault!”

“Me? It was him that didnae recharge his teletubby.”

“Assistant.”

“Whatever.” Shayde struggled upright. "And he said he wanted a bubble-bath of oranges…“

"A meal at Unsuitable Food..”

“I was bein’ amenable.”

“You do not take Ambassador Maliik’s common nouns at face value!”

“Well I wasnae given the Cliff Notes!

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Challenge #00314: Ekkritism

(Someone had a mispronunciation accident, this was the result)

Wolverine: Oranges

“Just a warning, Ambassador Maliik suffers from Ekkritism,” Rael murmured into Shayde’s ear.

“Aye? And what’s that when it’s at home?”

Translation: I know you’re trying to tell me something, but I have no idea what it means.

“He unfortunately mispronounces all names as common nouns with seemingly no relation to the original name.”

“Oh, this

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One good turn deserves another - a good samaritan winds up with superpowers as a result.

One good turn deserves another - a wai

[AN: O noes! Looks like an accidental premature submission. I shall do what I can with what there is…]

(#00311)

It took her two hours to reach the accident site. By then, most of the fires were out, and most of the people who had survived the crash had perished.

Nothing to be done about that. The authorities were days away. Things rarely fell from the sky, and when they did, they never

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One other Clarke's Third Law thing.

So, there’s Clarke’s Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Then there’s what I first ran across attributed (in a Uni textbook, no less!) as Murphy’s reformulation of Clarke’s law: Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.

Then there’s what is in the textbook as a Programmers’ restatement of Murphy’s reformulation of Clarke: Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from a rigged demonstration.

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Challenge #00309: The Body Language Gap

(Well, you mentioned prior experience in that last snippet, so…)

T'reka and hugs.

(also if the story you mentioned being sparked from that gets written, I totally want in on your beta reading list and will probably buy it multiple times)

[AN: After I finish writing the Hevun’s Child series I will be working on The Amity Incident. 120K word goal. But before that, I think I deserve a week’s rest, don’t you?]

There was

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