[deleted]

After discovering time travel you go back in time to study Neanderthals only to discover that speak your language perfectly.

The rule is you can't use the word "will"

You have to continue this if possible! I'm very interested to see how it plays out. Subverted my expectations with Luthor. It's great!

My condolences for losing your anime collection, that mustve hurt.

But atleast you are safe now. You can live to collect new glorious animes another day!

If the gods are merciful, you might be able to earn a good buck trying to sell off what scraps remain of the robot army to fund your collection? :D

Less lethal. Both of those can kill you.

The grass lawn was well maintained. Birds chirped merrily on the trees. People were commuting in buses, cars, bikes & even bicycles. The sun shone in the sky, but the day was pleasant. I inhaled & exhaled to release my tension.        

Half an hour later, I was all geared up. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous. After all, not everybody gets to travel in an FTL engine, much less through the black hole. And I'd be the first person to do both. Provided I survived this trip.        

Fifteen minutes later, we were given the go. My AI co-pilot, NOR-A checked the systems one last time. Satisfied, I started the countdown sequence. The engines roared into life.        

Ten seconds. In ten seconds, we were airborne. I gradually increased the speed from 10% to 90%. Soon, I was near the black hole. And then, it started. The electronics started malfunctioning. I tried to contact ground control. All I got was some words, a barely coherent message.        

And then, the world went black. (To be continued....)

You think you’re life is 100% private? No government or social media has any information on you?

I came here looking for something sci-fi, with some meek aliens or whatever. I found so so much more. Thank you

Gradient Heart

The galley of Fractal IV buzzed with excitement as the worldship entered the Leodys Star System. A toast to the red supergiant far in the distance. A song for the fluorescent moons of a nearby planet. A salute to the escort of warships flanking every which way. Fractal IV had made it through the Withering Abyss, and its crew showered its inner walls with a kiss for every meddling centurion killed in its path. 

There were lots of kisses.

Sentinel Lagos set down an all-too-full drink of amber ale and unholstered his gradient pistol. He tinkered with the settings, swiping through the modes like a drunken space pirate looking for a late night peg, except he wasn’t drunken.

“Good thing ale is on the house tonight.” Gunner Jarus tossed a deck of playing cards onto the table and sat in front of the unsipped ale, grabbing the mug with one hand. In another, he set down his tonic, and in another, he grabbed the cards. “What will it be?” His last free hand massaged the shoulder of the sullen sentinel at his side. “Poker? Black Jack?”

“Not now,” Lagos said, removing the hand on his shoulder. “Can’t you tell I’m in no mood?”

“Oh, the entire deck can tell.” The gunner took the pistol from the sentinel’s hands and shoved the weapon aside. The glow on the barrel faded. “Plasma, huh?”

“Go away, Jarus.”

“Come on, we’ll be landing on Arratreselle soon. You always wanted to check out the clubs on Arratreselle.” Jarus chugged a mugful of ale.

“Wanted.”

“You still want to, no?”

“Arrastreselle was before her.”

Jarus stood up, moved behind Lagos, and placed a hand on each shoulder and each arm.

Lagos let out a muffled cry. “She didn’t deserve to go like that.”

“No, it was a terrible way to go.”

Shrugging his shoulders and turning his neck, Lagos eyed the quadling at his back. “Really?”

“What? It really was.”

“Can I just be left alone for like a minute?”

Jarus sat down, back to the table. “Listen,” he said. “I can count the number of times I’ve suffered through this kind of loss on my fingers — and I have way more than you — so just look around and celebrate what we have here. There are glowing planets, man.”

“Those are moons.”

“Yet do they glow.”

Lagos slammed his fist onto the table. Patrons nearby stared in silence, covering their mouths as they whispered and waddled away. “Maveera, she wasn’t like any of yours.”

“You know, I tried, Lagos. I really, really tried to be on your side on this one, but I guess it’s just not hurt unless it happens to you, and she wasn’t even real.” Jarus picked up the cards and left the galley.

The sentinel sat at the table through the night, if there were such a thing on the worldship, hands in pockets and head bowed down, and while the lights dwindled with each passing hour, the ache in Lagos’ heart and soul engorged and crippled his will to leave even the very table where he had met the source of his distraught.

It had been three years almost to the date. Sentinel Lagos had returned from near-death on an exploratory mission into an asteroid field, and upon his arrival to the debriefing zone, he saw her, Maveera, winning the final challenge on Survivors: Planet Euclidesta. Lagos had wanted to apply for the competition years prior, but his duties came before anything else. Through Maveera, he would live vicariously, following her every word and every step as she claimed victory.

For her accomplishment, Maveera had been rewarded with a cloning of her consciousness. The very quirks and attitudes she exuded in front of quintillions would be made available for a hefty fee, and luckily, Lagos had saved enough from high-risk operations that he was able to afford such an experience, such a prize. He had bought a shell to house the artificial intelligence and propped it on the very seat on which he now sat.

“Can you hear me?” Lagos had said after turning on the program. “Are you there?”

The cloned Maveera hadn’t answered at first, but with a few light smacks, some perhaps rather rough, the shell whirred, and she answered, “Hello, Lagos.” 

And the rest was history, until Fractal IV had plummeted into the Withering Abyss. It was the great expanse blocking the Leodys system from the rest of the alliance. It also had a knack for knocking out computer systems, a development Lagos was quite aware of. Unfortunately for Maveera, the abyss had done more than shut her down — it had driven her mad. It had fueled her processors with hate and anger and rage. It had erased all that made Maveera, well, Maveera.

Captain Kalorexche had seen enough of the destruction Maveera had caused and ordered her to be decommissioned. Maveera had fought as well as any such thing in such a shell could, but in the end, it was the sentinel himself who pulled the final trigger.

Lagos snapped out of his trance and grabbed his gradient pistol. It was still set to plasma. He looked around the galley. Not a soul was in sight. No laughter. No spurts of conversation. No mugs clanking. He checked the time and left the galley, and as he walked the corridors, again, he saw nothing. So late into the night was it that the entire ship was asleep, but the sentinel knew, as he always had, that captains do not sleep, at least not Captain Kalorexche.

Lagos turned corner after corner, dipping in and out of tight turns and low walls. His massive frame wasn’t made for such hallways, and he wondered why, of all ships, was he placed on the one with the smallest of crewmates. At last, he arrived at the helm of the worldship. The door to the bridge opened as the sentinel stepped inside.

“Sentinel,” Captain Kalorexche said. The captain set down a snack and sat back, book in one hand and a monocle in the other.

“Captain,” Lagos said, walking up to the massive viewing window before them. He stared out into the darkness.

“A bit late for you, is it, sentinel?”

“I can’t sleep.”

“I can imagine.”

Lagos touched the glass. “Can … you?”

The captain placed a bookmark in his book, set it down, and brought both hands together, intertwining his fingers and twiddling this thumbs. “Yes, I can. You must understand I did what I had to do to protect this ship. To protect this cargo. To protect everyone. I more than anyone know your pain.”

“You don’t need to lie.” Lagos turned around. “Your kind knows no empathy. None of us do. That’s what made her better than any of us. She taught me to know what it would be to know another’s pain, and you took that away.”

“She was going to murder innocent civilians.”

“She would have been fine if you didn’t change course into the abyss.”

“Then what, those Laplorian Horrors catch up and take us to who knows where to live out our days in chains?” The captain coughed and returned to his seat, almost tripping over his own feet. With one hand on the armrest, he lowered himself down and laid back, staring up at the ornate ceiling.

“Why do I feel like I’m the one in chains.”

“She wasn’t real, Lagos.” The captain coughed again, this time dry heaving into his hands. “She was mass produced. You have to know that she was literally one of millions, not one in a million.”

Lagos pulled out his gradient pistol and charged. With one hand on Kalorexche’s collar and the other on the weapon, he screamed, “Say that again! Say she was mass produced! Say she was one of millions!”

The captain coughed and choked, heaving and heaving until blood spat out from mouth and nose.

“What the hell,” Lagos said. “What is this?”

“It’s blood.”

“I know what blood is.”

“I know.”

The captain and the sentinel remained still as moments became minutes and minutes became movements so slow that even the stillness of the darkness beyond the glass seemed to pass at terrifying speeds.

“Why is it red?” Lagos asked.

“You know why it’s red.”

“You’re … human?”

The captain took in shallow breaths, and he churned out a river of tears, relieving the drought in his eyes that had been afflicting him for years. “I said I wasn’t lying. Would a god be able to empathize with you?”

“But, but you killed her."

“She was a machine, Lagos. If I didn’t do what I did, would I still even be human?”

“Why are you here, so far from home? Earthians have plenty of safe havens to go to. Why help these fallen gods? Why help me?”

“You’re incredible gods. The galaxy’s pantheons might shun and hunt you for your silver blood, but it is as rare as you are beautiful. You don’t need a machine to tell you that. You don’t need a human to tell you that.”

Lagos let go of the captain and walked back to the viewing window. “Are you dying?”

“Yes.”

“The abyss?”

“Yes.”

“How long?”

“When this night ends.”

“But … it’s almost morning.”

Lagos turned around and stared at the captain. There Kalorexche was, slumped over, body limp, and blood staining his once white uniform. At his feet lay his book, upside-down, and a displaced bookmark. Lagos picked up the book and began to read from the beginning. Though the cover was that of a popular Neshian novel, the words did not match. No, instead, they began, “The story so far: in the beginning, the universe was created.”

End

Write a story about two lovers, but one has to be an elemental creature, for example, a water spirit (their body comprised entirely of water)

At least that’s how I felt back then. Laying in the grass, in the dark, listening to the party carry on without me. It was peaceful here. I practiced a trick I had learned on my uncle’s farm, find the dimmest star visible and stare at it until it becomes clear, then find another, farther star, and stare at that until you can see the whole sky full of pinhole lights. I heard my partner’s deep rumbling laugh, answered with a trilling response. Yeah - they’d never miss me.

Twenty Years Later* I’m just about to finish up my degree. A bit later than most, but I got there. My spouse is curled up warm behind me and our cat is purring loudly demanding attention. I hear our son cough down the hall. I will be taking him to fencing class tomorrow. He’s starting to get really good. I never thought these people existed. This perfect little family of weirdos and nerds. Spouse and I were right - our kid is turning out to be smarter than both of us - and has both of our neurodivergent issues. And I’m so glad he has us. I’m so glad he has parents who know what it’s like and that we can be for him the people we never had.

Young me may or may not have been missed so long ago, but I know there would be a hole where these people and this family were supposed to be today and no one could do a better job of holding them together than I do.

One of the stories where after I'm done reading it I have to check your other posts and comments to see if you do this regularly.

That's a high bar, congrats on your writing skills. Your dnd players are lucky.

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Well, he warned him. What else was he supposed to do?

Unironically, though, very good write. I very much want to see this wonderful knight at full strength.

You are a failed writer who is ready to end it all, only use happy words to describe everything (words like rainbow, happy, etc)

A police report of a crime scene. The incident described is fairly straightforward, but the particular language and tone of the detective writing it becomes increasingly unsettling as the account goes on.

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You expect me to write prose on a whim?

To expertly use all manner of verbatim?

Alas, your challenge,

Has made me cringe,

In matters of limericks I am quite dim.

A human sets out a month after Odysseus left, trying to join his crew. A series of misadventures follows, in which the guy just can't seem to get closer or further from the famed hero's location.

Constraint: Must be told as a series of limericks.

Who among us has never broken a law?

"So what are we going to do? Bomb the building and take him out when he least expects it?" Killer Croc asks.

"Nnnnno, it won't be fun. I want to play with him, ahahaha"

"I agree with joker, we will capture Kent with a series of elaborate traps, lead him by dropping clues and make him think he's solving a mystery so that he ...."

"Shit up Riddler, how many times have you failed trying this? The best thing to do is sneak in our mercenaries and attack them all so that we get a chance to have the drop on him. Although i still don't think Kent is batman. " Bane interrupts him, slamming his palms into the table hard enough to create a small crack.

"Kent lives in metropolis yet he is covering Gotham all the time and publishes articles that nobody else but us or Batman can know about. He's also friends with both of those wealthy chaps Lex Luthor and bruce Wayne who are obviously the source of his funds. He also has the same height and build as Batman" Riddler explains.

"I have created new freeze grenades which will make the environment around and inside the daily planet extremely cold. We will wear special heat suits firefly created. So let's just discuss the plan. Bane, please tell us a plan"

"clayface will pose as his editor in chief Perry white, and give us the info. We will know the exact time on when to attack, and as soon as he gives us the signal, Kite Man will drop 3 freeze grenades on different sides of the building. "

"Hell yeah" kite man screams in excitement.

Bane continued "rest of us will be waiting in an amusement park the penguin owns nearby, and a few minutes later we will activate the scarecrow plan with dr crane taking the guards out using his fear gas. Ivy will give any remaining security a kiss. Clayface will call Lois lane into his office and will reveal himself taking her hostage when we reach the 13th floor. Already weakened by the cold they won't hold up and without his suit Batman wouldn't be able to face me.

I, joker and croc will capture him and we will take him to our base, while deadshot keeps an eye on him from far away".

.

.

A couple hundred miles away, a humble reporter hears someone mentioning his name, so he focuses his super senses to listen. He could easily stop them in his red and blue suit, drop them to prison or Arkham but he needs to both protect his secret identity and deter the Gotham villains. So that's a job for Clark Kent not Superman.

0.4 seconds later after considering every possibility he decides to approach his usual enemy and occasionally uneasy ally.

"Mr Luthor, this is Clark Kent, daily planet"

"I know you Kent, you've made quite a name and have some nerve writing against lexcorp while working for me. "

"Hehe Mr Luthor, gotta write the truth, even if it's hard and bitter"

"It's alright. I like you for taking the stand, like i do, and call me Lex. So what brings you to call me at this hour of the night?"

"Uh, lex, how do I say it - This concerns the daily planet and its safety. My informant from Gotham just passed me a message that a group of metahumans are planning an attack on the daily planet, and that group includes joker and Bane".

"What? Any amount of security would be useless against those nutjobs. You did the right thing coming to me Clark. Do you know when they're attacking or why?"

"Unconfirmed but seems they think Batman may be working there as a secret undercover identity. Lois and I called Superman's name but he didn't respond so I called you"

"Hahahaha those damn lunatics. Batman working at the daily planet. And forget about the alien Clark, we don't need him for every single thing. Lex Luthor can handle this himself. Let the Gotham lunatics come, they will regret their lunacy and will never even think about messing with metropolis again."

"Please don't do something that makes me regret reaching out to you Lex. Good night!"

"Good night Kent, and say the same to Lois from me too. And don't worry they will all leave from here alive and in one piece."

I jumped off my bed in fear. I crouched down and turned my head to get a look at the monster. It looked to be a woman with pink skin and antennas. She was sleeping. I think I missed some details because I shot up so fast, afraid that it would attack. It was sleeping, though.

I held the book in my hands. I flipped through it, seeing many creatures. Then, I found it. It was called a “herkademon.” The description simply said, “They are not hostile. They want to make friends.”

I wrote a note and threw it into the floor. It read, “Be my friend?” A hand emerged from beneath and grabbed it. A few seconds later, she crawled out from it, stood up, and looked at me, smiling. She wore a tank top and jeans. “Hi. I wanna be friends.” “Okay”, I said with the same expression, “Lemme show you my roller skates.”

“What are roller skates?” “I gotta teach you.”
We went to the side yard. We stood on the asphalt. I skated in a circle, and she watched in awe. “Wow”, she said, “I wanna try.”
A few minutes later, she was wearing my big sis’s skates. She held my hands. “When I let go, steer yourself, okay?”, I asked. She nodded. I let her go and walked by her side. She glided left and right while holding her hands out. “Now, if you wanna pick up speed, slowly kick back one of your feet.” She did so before heading to the fencing and grabbing it for support.

And?

If Adam wants to watch me spank one out to Waluigi hentai, but I know for a fact the CEO of Nestle is getting [politely made to pay for his crimes], I have absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain here. On the average day, I don't break any laws. I don't need to.

An AI like Adam isn't going to drone strike me for speeding (if I did) or pirating music or something. But even if I got fined or something for it, to live in a world where the bad people actually pay? Fuck I would literally live on a farm tending ducks for the rest of my life, happy as a goddamn clam.

You got it! :)