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Pets

A 47-post collection

Challenge #02776-G219: Peculiar Parenting Problems

There were things I expected to say to my children when I got into this whole parenthood thing. Things like "don't eat that" and "put your pants on" and "stop drawing on the walls" or "do your homework". Then, there were the things that took me by surprise. "Don't put that in your butt" was one, and "NO! DON'T PUSH YOUR BROTHER DOWN THE STAIRS!!" was another, but most recently, "If you make me faceplant into broken glass, you will be in so much trouble" took the cake. -- Anon Guest

[AN: Honestly, one could collect a whole encyclopaedia's worth of "Things I never expected to say as a parent" and there would still be new submissions by volume 128...]

Some things about parenthood are universal. Some are timeless. Some are both. Parentals of all genders, identities, and relations to the young have heard themselves saying things like, "What have you got?" in a semi-warning tone. Phrases like, "No you can't," or, "Get that out of your mouth," or, "Stop messing about," or, "Put that down," are so common that they might become rote.

It's the other things unique to the situations at hand that end up stunning the adults in the room. For perfectly logical reasons, various parentals have had to say such things as, "Get down out of there before you fall down out of there," or, "That is not for your bottom," or, "That is neither nutritious nor delicious," or, "Back-to-front, dear."

A parental would have a perfectly logical reason to say, "You have your feet on backwards," for instance. Today, in this family, in this house, it was, "I thought I said that should stay buried." It's not easy living in a household of natural necromancers.

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Challenge #02771-G214: A Few Minor Obstacles

Everyone, even havenworlders, like to have pets. The type of pet, of course, depends on the type of havenworlder. One, after visiting, and surviving, her visit to the deathworld known as Earth, and especially Australia, had learned of a harmless, but brightly colored, bug called the Christmas Beetle. It was short-lived, not edible - but only because it had a very thick shell, but otherwise completely, utterly, harmless. She learned how to breed them and soon began to sell them as safe,

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Challenge #02578-G021: Spoil Them Good

Love me as an equal, and I will pay you back. Exist while I love you SO MUCH, and I will burn entire star systems for your sake. (humans and pets) -- Anon Guest

Humans will pack-bond with anything, though the continually most mind-boggling example of this is Humans and inanimate objects. Second in that esteemed list is the non-cogniscent animals that Humans elect to share their space with and how intensely those creatures are spoiled.

The Humans themselves will put up

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Challenge #02530-F340: Love for All Creatures

Humankind will happily share/shelter tiny pets with/from the universe. Hamsters, flying squirrels, cats, parrots, sugar gliders, lizards and snakes, even dogs. As an unsocial person, I will socialize the heck out off my girl despite my discomfort. As a nonviolent person, I will murder anyone who lays a hand on my baby. How much would I love someone who protected my pet for me? -- Anon Guest

This wasn't the first time Human An had woken up in a medbay.

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Challenge #02528-F338: Meeting Bip and Bop

A human is always highly protective of a large front pocket of his shirt. He makes sure, when he puts on his skins, always clear ones never opaque, or his armor, that there's a space there, rather inefficient, but it's when a tiny head pokes out that people realize, he has a pet there. A sweet little sugar-glider that is his constant companion. Sure they're almost as fragile as a level 4 Havenworlder, but he loves his little pet very much. He

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Challenge #02309-F119: ...Now You Do

Once all of the children had a comfort item, it was time to pass those that remained to agitated adults. -- Anon Guest

Where there are disasters, there are the aftermaths. Wreckage and ruin are there, for certain, but the heart of it is always with the people. Sheltered in temporary structures. Huddled under blankets or hiding from the world. The bleeding and needing, the vacant-eyed ones who are broken on the inside... and the children.

There are so many pairs of

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Challenge #02154-E325: She's Still a Pup

[NAME] winced slightly. "It's a dog, Major. A companion animal."

"Looks like a class 3 bio engineered weapon to me!" -- Anon Guest

The creature was huge. Even sitting down, it was almost as tall as a human. It was almost as wide as a human. Only the wagging tail distinguished it from a Terran bear. That, and the lolling tongue, dripping saliva as the animal panted. The human by its side agitated some fur by a nub that could have been

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Challenge #02024-E200: Remarkably Similar

[ a race of sapient felines encounter Humans and their pets ] -- Anon Guest

Ahnrau hadn't expected a close encounter like this one. She had been hunting valuable asteroids when a shard of a distant impact sent her vessel spiralling out of control. The last thing she remembered before the spin blacked her out was identifying another vessel on a collision path...

She was messed up. She could feel it. But... she was also on the mend. The room she was in was

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Challenge #01948-E124: Who's a Good Dog?

In the land of magic, Death frequently has problems with pets that absolutely refuse to stay dead. -- Anon Guest

In all of creation, there is nothing more loyal than a good dog. Though it was widely agreed that Kerby was one of the truly daft ones. He was a rescue dog, and had some kind of skin infection that made him look dead. Dan, who had picked him up with a shovel as part of his job, got the fright of

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Challenge #01892-E068: What Rough Beast

“Wait... you mean to tell me that this is the ‘terrifying predator’ we’ve been searching for?” -- TheDragonsFlame

Eyes glowed in the dark. Human Grif trained her spotlight on them and found, "Aw, it's a kitty. Here kitty, kitty, kitty..."

The creature in the darkness slinked out into the light, making a "Mrrp?" sound as it came.

Human Grif made kissy noises, and tore off a tiny piece of jerky as an offering. Before long the cat was smudging up to

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Challenge #01811-D350: Special Classification

Aliens vs Parrots who imitate sounds (such as water coolers or alarms) -- TheDragonsFlame

Human Steev had a pet, which was also Stiiv. It was a bird. A Terran parrot known as an African Grey for reasons that were clearly obvious. And, like most parrots, it was the devil incarnate.

Terran Parrots are officially classed as weapons of mass destruction for reasons that quickly become obvious the more time one actually spends in the presence of one. They gnaw at anything within

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Challenge #01810-D349: Who's A Pretty Boy?

Aliens vs (Talkative) Parrots -- TheDragonsBlaze

It had to be a human ship. Ugly. Functional. Battle-scarred and pitted with a million micrometeor impacts. But there was frozen precipitation and high winds incoming. Nothing could survive it better than a Deathworlder ship. So Tikkotz scurried inside and hoped that the human would be benevolent.

It was a huge space. Mostly made of metal, but there were softer areas. Seating. Bedding. Hangings, for some reason. There was no trace of the human, beyond that

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Challenge #01786-D325: No Pets!

A Human is patting an alien animal when they suddenly notice the rest of the away team is hiding behind the largest rock they could find. -- Fliss

"Oozagoo' critter? Oozagoo' critter?" Baz continued chucking the alien life form under its chin. Its hind leg waved vaguely in self-scratching motions. "You is! Essoo'iz! Essoo'iz! Esso'iz such'a good critter..." Baz paused from adoring the alien beastie to check on her team of alleged xenobiologists.

They were all hiding behind a rock and some

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Challenge #01774-D313: Tiny New Friend

Giant sapient space spiders meet tiny Earth spiders -- TheDragonsFlame

You need a great amount of arachnophilia to deal with the H'nuff'ruff. The mere sight of having a gigantic spider sneak up on one is not for the faint of heart. Fortunately, Sally thought they were cute, and wore a speech-to-palp-sign translator almost permanently on her brow. She also had a palp-sign-to-text translator permanently running on her eyescreen.

So she definitely did not jump when tapped delicately on the shoulder by a

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Challenge #01759-D298: Hazardous Associations

An unknowing (group of) alien(s) tries to take a human as a pet, thinking ‘It’s small and cool-looking.’ Problem is, Humans are to them as velociraptors are to humans. -- TheDragonsFlame

It was quadrupedal and had no bowel control. It had to be an animal. That was the reasoning that lead to Heatstone becoming a pet in the first place. Cho'nish frequently bragged to her friends that Heatstone was a rescue pet. They had hir in simply terrible conditions. And

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