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9 | 1,478,088,990 | 189 | As humanity faded away, another civilization colonized the once vibrant Earth only to discover a relic left behind by an ancient king known only as Slim Shady. | Not much is known of the former civilizations of earth, their technology, or customs; however, a recent discovery of a king known as Slim Shady sheds some light on the matter. Historians argue the exactly who Slim Shady was or where he ruled. Seeming to originate from the ancient city Detroit, the extent of his kingdom is unknown. Moreover, he seems to have been associated with two other identities: Eminem and Marshall Mathers. Most historians agree that Eminem and Marshall Mathers were other kings with whom Slim Shady held a tight alliance, though a few fringe theories suggest that they’re all the same person, in some sort of divine, tripartite soul.
Whatever the case, Slim Shady seemed fond of writing his proclamations in musical verse. While unusual to us, this might have been how ancients communicated. While translating his proclamations are relatively easy with advanced algorithms detecting basic linguistic patterns based off the alphabet found on the so-called Campbell Soup Stone, interpreting his messages and laws provides a hefty challenge. For example, in his battle cry, “The Real Slim Shady,” he demands the “real Slim Shady please rise up” suggesting that his followers rise against other, lesser kingdoms known as the imitators. In another battle cry, “Lose Yourself,” he stresses the urgent need of accuracy in ancient warfare, as suggested in the lines: “You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow/This opportunity comes once in a lifetime (yo)”
While obviously influential and powerful, the king was not free from strife. In fact, much of his proclamations seemed to update his subjects on his struggles from his two mortal enemies: Kim and Mother. From what historians gather, Kim was once Slim Shady’s queen, who, after ripping his kingdom apart in events known as “break ups”, would repeatedly try to seduce him. Historians debate if Mother was real person or just merely a creature spread in the mythology in the ancients. Whatever her existence, Slim Shady took serious issue with her placing skeletal remains in his wardrobe.
Discussion Questions:
1. What does Slim Shady’s odd way of giving proclamation tell us about ancient civilization’s ability to communicate?
2. Some translate “The Real Slim Shady” line to be “will the real slim shady please stand up.” Does this help or hurt historian interpretation of this being a battle cry?
3. Do you think Mother is a real person? Explain why or why not.
*****
r/Andrew__Wells
| 50 | most_different |
2 | 1,423,116,654 | 23 | A story where the first sentence or few re-occur as the last few sentences in the narrative. | This is the way the world ends.
Not with a bang, but with a whimper, so T.S. Eliot said, once so long ago, I thought to myself as I looked out over my control panel. Bathing me in green light, I watched the pictures unfold across my screens.
Sudan, gone.
Russia, gone.
United Kingdom, gone.
United States, gone.
We were next.
This is the way the world ends, T.S Eliot. You were only half wrong.
With a bang, **and** with a whimper. The bang of the atomic bomb, and most certainly the whimper of all life being wiped from Earth. | 10 | most_different |
86 | 1,425,721,868 | 360 | Teleportation is possible, but it creates a copy of you and destroys the original. Unforseen effects pile up after a while. | Jack didn’t
underst. Jack
didn’t understa – st. st.
He/L? Is he th- th- th- th-Re-
eeeeeeee-e-e-e bo
oooooot. Reboot. Reboot unsucess////ful
…
When he came out again with his body intact they breathed a sigh of relief, because no-one had known what the fuck had gone wrong. Little red blinking lights and a klaxon noise for the first time in ten years, but it was fine because here was Jack and he’d made it through okay. Probably some problem in L-space. Do you know what L-space is? They didn’t either, but they chalked it up to it anyway.
So here’s Jack, good old Jack, hale and hearty as ever. When he speaks to them after he rematerialises there’s undeniably something a little bit off; they expect Jack to make a joke about coming out if it with his dick intact or something, but he just kind of totters off into the night. It’s cool though. He’s had a rough day. The man was smeared over L-space 45 minutes ago. Probably.
The days go on and on and in a short time people realise that actually there’s something really quite wrong with Jack, but they’re having difficulty explaining what it is. He’s become a lot more likable now, for one thing. Everyone has a smile and a nod hello for Jack when he passes them in the corridor. He used to rub a lot of people up the wrong way with some of those jokes, you know? Like the one about the nuns and the dildo made out of unicorn horn? That was a doozy of a room divider. Really separated the men from the – well, from the nuns. He doesn’t bust those jokes out any more, and that’s made him more popular but it’s also sort of made him a bit dull. No-one really wants to spend time with Jack now. He’s not stupid or dumb, no. People don’t avoid him. He’s just become – and they really struggle to find a nice way of putting it, when they talk over it at the poker nights he’s no longer invited to – a bit middle of the road. Pleasant. Affable?
Bland. That was it. Jack had become bland.
It took about fifteen years before someone realised the scale of the problem. A law intern who had lived an otherwise unremarkable life looked up from her desk one day, and suddenly wondered why 80% of her office had turned up to work wearing variations on the same pastel polo shirt. She knew the corporate life tended to homogenise people, but it still seemed a bit much. Then she wondered why no-one else seemed to think it was weird. She drove home that evening (almost uniquely nowadays, she didn’t like the idea of teleporting), and sent some emails and asked some questions, and they led sort of nowhere because no-one seemed to think anything was wrong.
But when she tuned into the TV that night she watched it with fresh eyes, and saw the same smile on too many faces. The same kinds of lyrics in too many of the songs. 200 channels and she sat there as night bled into day flicking through every single one, and when she ended she found herself back where she started. She found she’d never really moved. So she kept looking. Eventually, she found Jack.
This was what she concluded.
Yes, okay, you ‘port around and your body is scrubbed into L-space (or something), and then rebuilt at the other end atom by atom, all your little processes carefully and completely reconstructed. Every cog and wheelnut in place. No problems there, you know. Peachy keen. They’d done *tests*.
But what happened – she wondered - to the ghost in the machine? Jack was kind of the proof in the pudding. He'd just been an accelerated case, thanks to the malfunction that heaped on his average little head the cumulative effects of a hundred thousand ‘ports in one go. We lost something precious when we ‘port, she decided. Not much. Not enough to notice. Just a tiny little shaving of … us. The bits that make us unique.
Something about being forced into and out of L-space pushes all of our brilliantly spiky, varied personalities through a standard person-shaped hole, and each time we emerge we fit the mould a little better. We’re a little rounder. A little more the average human. She wept at the idea; the whole world, lock-stepping towards uniformity together.
She tried to sound the alarm, but no-one really cared. Why would they? Everyone was the same by then. We all thought the same way. You all thought the same way? They all thought the same way. It was very pleasant indeed. | 391 | most_different |
8 | 1,416,106,750 | 47 | A man takes a wrong turn and ends up in a paradise-like town populated with people that have all went missing or died mysteriously- And he's told he can never leave. | "Come on you piece of crap, work!"
George sighs in frustration as his GPS displays the "Searching for satellites" signal. He checks his watch and impatiently stares at the tiny screen of the GPS.
"Screw it..." he sighs, making the next left on the empty country road.
He continues on that stretch of road for a half hour, passing numerous fields of corn, barns, and herds of cows.
"Already an hour late... Lily is going to kill me."
He glances over at the passenger seat, where he has flowers and a box of chocolates ready to give to his ex-wife. He reaches what appears to be the end of the road, and presses on his horn, extremely frustrated. He puts his head in his hands, and when he looks back up he saw a small child in front of his car. "Jesus!" As soon as George gets out of the car, the kid laughs and starts running away, cutting through a nearby cornfield. Wondering what the hell was going on, George decides to follow him, and starts pushing stalks of corn aside.
After a good half mile walk through the corn, George finally starts to hear voices of other people ahead of him. After a few more minutes of walking, he reaches the end of the field, and sees a small town situated in front of him. There is a small sign that reads "Nowhere", and he looks at it confusedly for a few moments. In the meantime, a large woman notices him and walks over to introduce herself.
"Well hello there! I'm Lauren. Who might you be?"
"Oh, uh, my name is George. Where am I?"
Lauren laughs, looks at the sign then back to George. "Can't you read love? You're in Nowhere!"
"Nowhere? I... I don't understand."
She sighs. "No one gets it at first. You've heard the phrase 'nowhere is perfect', right? Well, welcome to Nowhere, population three hundred and fifty-two! Let me show you around, okay?"
Lauren leads him around the small town, pointing out the cafe, the bookstore, and the five and dime. George sees the little boy from before playing with a tire, and asks Lauren who he was.
"Oh, him? That's Jordan. He doesn't talk much, and I don't blame him. It's pretty traumatic."
"Traumatic? What happened to him?"
"Well, let's just say that he won't be seeing his parents anymore.."
George gasped, cutting her off before she could finish. "His parents died? That's terrible! I feel so bad for him... I followed him in here you know. He needs to learn to be more careful!"
"Yea, sure. Let's go with that."
"I... I don't follow." George replies, confused. "Oh, never you mind. Let me show you the theater!"
When they arrive at the theater a mere three minutes later, George stops dead in his tracks. Lauren looks back quizzically at him.
"What's wrong love? It looks like you've seen a ghost."
George shakes his head, rubs his eyes, and looks up again.
"I think I've seen that little girl before... Where was it? I've never been here in my life!"
Lauren sighs, and goes to comfort him.
"It's always difficult adjusting. You've probably seen that little girl on the back of a milk carton, advertised missing."
George pulls away, looking outraged.
"What kind of sick town is this?! You kidnapped her?"
"No, nothing like that! We don't decide who comes here and who doesn't, and I have no idea who does. They just appear here one day, and that's that. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, they went missing and were never found again. Think of this place as a sanctuary, a paradise, for the lucky few. We have everything we need to be happy, and everyone is! It's Nowhere!"
By this point George is frantically thinking of all of the ways he could be killed by the people in this town, and wanted nothing more than to get out and fix the goddamn GPS so he could get to Oberlin.
"Oh, that all makes, uh, perfect sense. I really have to go though, so goodbye!"
He half runs, half jogs away as Lauren shouts "Wait!" in the background.
When he reaches the cafe, he looks around, trying to find the spot where he entered. He finds it, and with a sigh of relief walks over to it and goes to leave. The second he tries to push against the corn, he feels a tiny shock, and he jumps back. Confused, he tries to push the corn aside again, and feels another shock. A man in his twenties comes up next to him and gruffly laughs.
"I guess no one told you, huh? Once you're here, there's no leaving!"
The man walks away, smiling and chuckling to himself. George spends the next twenty minutes trying different parts of the corn, receiving the same jolt of electricity every time. Getting fed up, he finds the building labelled "Town Hall" and barges inside. There is one small room with one small desk in it, where one small man was sitting in a metal folding chair.
"I'm the mayor of Nowhere, how can I help you?"
"I want to get out of here! I want to see my ex-wife! Turn off the goddamn electric fence!"
"Well son, I don't know who your ex-wife is, but I can assure you that you won't be seeing her. As for getting out, I'm afraid I can't help you there either. What we have isn't so much an "electric fence" as it is a blessing from God! We don't know how it works, but we don't question it. It acts as a shield to keep the unworthy out, and it helps to keep the townsfolk in!"
George slams his fists on the desk, furious.
"Stop playing games with me! I want to leave!"
"But you're in utopia! Everyone dreams of this, and you just want to throw it away? Think about how perfect your life could be!"
"If this place is so perfect, why do you need a "magical shield" to keep people in?"
The mayor smiles and hands George a flyer from a drawer in his desk.
"We're having a party tonight, you should come. Goodbye!"
Realizing he won't get anything more from the man in front of him, George turns around and leaves, slamming his door on the way out.
Having nothing better to do, George sits on a rock and looks at the flyer the mayor handed to him. "You know where the best parties are? Nowhere! Town square, October 17th 5:00-9:00 pm" Disgusted, he puts the flyer in his pocket and checks his watch.
"Four thirty... great."
He desperately tries to break through the invisible barrier again, to no avail. Before he knows it, it's 5:15 and he can hear people talking and laughing a few streets over. Holding back tears, George heads over to try to find someone to help him.
When he gets to the town square, Lauren sees him and rushes over to give him a hug.
"I'm sorry darling, you didn't give me a chance to explain. No one can leave Nowhere, and we're all the better for it! We're happy here!"
George looks at Lauren's face, and thinks of how her smile looks like the smiles he had seen in some docu-drama about cults in the U.S.
"So it's really true? No one can leave?"
"Nope! Isn't it great?"
Lauren smiles again, and walks off to get something to drink.
"We'll see about that..." George whispers to himself.
Looking around, George notices that most of the people in the town are either children or women, with a few men scattered over the square. He feels a shiver run down his spine when he realizes that they all have the same smile as Lauren did, the overly happy look that serial killers have plastered on their faces 24/7. The mayor walks up to him and offers him a can of soda, which George begrudgingly accepts. The man lifts his own can up and clinks it against George's.
"Cheers, to our new resident!"
The rest of the people there stop what they're doing and say in unison "Cheers!"
"I'm not staying here for long, buddy."
Sighing, George takes a few sips of his drink, and starts to sway on his feet.
Waking up, George groggily looks around. He realizes that he's on a queen sized bed, with a nightstand, two bookcases, and a mirror in the room.
"Why do I feel so... happy?" he thinks to himself as he gets up. There's a glass of milk on the nightstand, and he takes a few drinks from it before going over to the mirror on the wall. He half gasps when he looks at his reflection, seeing the same smile he was creeped out by at the party.
"Something... in the... drinks..." he says as he stumbles back onto the bed. Lauren comes in and gently tips the glass of milk into his mouth.
"Drink up hun, you'll be happy soon."
Crying, George curls into a ball and slowly fades into unconsciousness.
A few months later, a middle-aged man walks through a patch of corn in front of the "Nowhere" sign. George spots him and walks over, smiling at the man.
"Where am I? I was following a little boy..."
"You're in Nowhere! Population three hundred and fifty-three!" | 26 | most_different |
4 | 1,599,421,224 | 131 | it is said that if you throw a woman off a ship to avoid bad luck she becomes a mermaid, but instead of getting revenge and drowning the crew, people are abusing this system. now that the superstitions are gone, women are joining ship crews to be willingly thrown overboard to become mermaids | #Southport Tribune
*Drowning death linked to Mermaid superstition*
The recent death of 54 year old Diana Smith after falling overboard the Royal Cardiff cruise ship has been attributed to a local superstition that women thrown from ships turn into mermaids. Having heard the legend while visiting Southport, Mrs Smith convinced two of her fellow passengers to help her test the theory after a night of heavy drinking in the ships bar.
At 2:38 am on the 8th of May, Mrs Smith was tossed over the forward starboard railing on the ships foredeck by the passengers she had assist her, which was caught on security camera. Mrs Smith was unable to swim and it's believed she drowned, although no body has been recovered.
The passengers who assisted her have been granted interim name suppression, and are expected to plead guilty to charges of manslaughter. These tragic events have led to a call for better regulation of cruise ship visits to Southport. Mrs Smith's family was unavailable for comment. | 15 | most_different |
82 | 1,462,080,153 | 1,100 | A serial killer with a particular set of skills never lays a finger on their chosen victims, instead manipulating people and events around them until they take their own lives. | Top Businessman Takes the Plunge, Along With His Stocks
I cut the headline out of the paper, and file it neatly away in my 67th folder. I really need to run down to the stationery store to get more.
My shelves are lined with folders – cheap plastic folders of all sorts of garish colours. There is the hot pink folder of a middle-aged lady who slit her wrists after she discovered her husband cheating on her with 3 different women, there is the mint green folder of the child who failed all his exams and fell into the river while running away from home, there is the electric blue folder of the film-maker accused of paedophilia. I keep them arranged neatly and in pristine condition, as if they were prized trophies – and in a way they are. I’ve been told that every serial killer keeps a trophy of some sort, and I can’t very well be keeping bits of hair or bones or skin, can I? I don’t think I have even physically seen more than 10 of these people.
And that is the beauty of my art; the reason why I am the master of my craft. Sure, the police have become suspicious about the recent spate of suicides, but there is no evidence that anyone has ever harmed a hair of these victims. People have devised all sorts of elaborate rituals to keep their homes safe from suicides, as it were – as if salt or essential oils could keep me away. But I must forgive them their naiveté. As I have said, I am the master of my craft. There is no fingerprint or paper or money trail that leads to my doorstep. I doubt anyone even suspects that all these suicides could be the work of single person. I know I am repeating myself many times, but I am indeed the master of my craft.
I suppose, though, that being the master of your craft doesn’t preclude you from a mid-life crisis of sorts. I know, I am barely 30, so this is hardly considered mid-life. But somehow, like every other member of my millennial generation, I am starting to find that my full-time job does not offer the excitement or meaning I had hoped for as an idealistic undergraduate. When I’d first started this line of work, I had gotten great thrill from finding how easily I could slowly mould a person’s thoughts and feelings, how easily I could take a life without dirtying my perfectly manicured nails.
It had actually started off as a joke. Someone, some other drunk student, had made a joke at a party that the best way to kill someone would be to convince them that life was no longer worth living. But when it actually worked, when I’d filled up folder number 1 (a lurid yellow folder, if you wanted to know), I’d thought I must be a veritable genius.
And yet, as the months and years wore on, the work started taking its toll on me. For starters, it was not really all that exciting. I spent most of my time poring through data, making phone calls, typing up e-mails, sending letters. All the mundane administrative work needed to ensure that things happen at the right place at the right time. And all this took up too many late nights and too many weekends – until my long-time boyfriend couldn’t take it anymore and walked out of the house with his suitcase one day without even leaving a note. It took me three days to realise that he was gone.
That had been two months ago. I thought I would get over it by burying myself in work – and I completed numbers 65, 66 and 67 in quick succession. But somehow, I found myself staying up late at night, questioning my existence and purpose in life. Should I carry on being the best at what I do, or should I slow down and make time for family? These are questions that I’m sure every young person struggles with at some point in time – the great choice between career and family – and they kept me up every night, torturing myself with my own whirring thoughts.
And then my father called, yesterday. I’d not seen him in ages, not since two years ago when my mother ran off to travel the world with some long-bearded hippie. He wanted to know if I was doing well (I was), if Jeff and I were going to get married soon (I said no, but I didn’t tell him the whole story), and oh he just wanted to know if I’d heard the news that he’d gotten cancer (stunned silence on my end).
I remember feeling numb, as I put down the phone. I went online to try to book a flight ticket, to be at my father’s side as soon as I could, but every flight was fully booked, goddammit. The soonest flight was in two weeks’ time. Some holiday season bullshit. So I sit here, now, at my kitchen table, hearing the ticking of the clock and the hum of the washing machine, and wonder what to do next. My father had made it clear that it was some advanced form of cancer – liver, discovered too late. He hadn’t wanted me to worry, of course, so he’d held on to the news for a while, hoping there’d been some kind of mistake, but of course there hadn’t been.
I think of all my trophies, all my colourful folders, but my usual sense of pride and satisfaction eludes me. All I can think of is that, Jeff is gone, my mother is somewhere doing tribal dances on the other end of the planet, my father is dying of cancer, and I am all alone in the world right now. I wonder if I should have spent the best part of my twenties on something more, I don’t know, meaningful, or family-centred. Rather than boring administrative work that, sure, had some impact here and there, but was really more like corporate drudgery than hitman excitement.
At least, I try to console myself, I was good at what I did. That’s more than what most people can say for their boring, unaccomplished lives. I drum my fingers on the table, as I close my eyes and take deep breaths, trying to do the mindfulness thing that everyone has been raving about recently.
But a sudden sound snaps me out of my attempted-mindfulness. It turns out, something has been thrown onto my driveway. I walk out, still in my half-zoned-out state, not caring if someone sees me with my tangled mess of hair and makeup-less face, when something snaps me into shock.
There is a folder, a black plastic folder, lying in the middle of my driveway.
Curiously, with my heart starting to pump a little faster – could someone have discovered my secret? – I pick it up and flip through it slowly.
There are pages of details – identifying information, photos, education details, employment details, details of every member of the family. The kind of things I keep in each one of my 67 folders. But something here is not right. I cock my head, and scan through the information again, and then I realise – it is all about me. The names of my teachers all the way back in kindergarten, my father’s health records, my college academic transcript. I pause for a while, trying to digest all of this.
It takes me another two seconds to realise – someone else does this form of work. Someone else does the same thing that I do.
And another two seconds later – no, I have not been the master of my craft, all these years. I have been a puppet, and someone else has been the true puppet-master. I have never been a master, I have never been a genius. I have just been a stupid puppet strung along by someone else’s designs, without even realising it.
And now, I truly have nothing. No family, no career, no meaning in life.
Something falls out of the folder. It is a small clear plastic bag, unlabelled and unmarked, with two white pills. I know what to do.
| 579 | most_different |
10 | 1,651,228,776 | 174 | Astronauts head into space to save mankind. Their mission? To paint the moon Vantablack as a final solution to the ever growing werewolf epidemic. They don’t realise this is how black-holes are actually formed. | People afraid of werewolves, decide to paint Moon. But nobody knew what was coming...
This summer... From director Michael Bay. And assistant producers the wachowski's.
TOTAL BLACK OUT
STARRING CHRISTIAN BALE as MICK DEVLIN, a disgraced former Air Force pilot with a well maintained buzz at all times.
When scientists discover werewolves are real and the epidemic is upon us one scientist Doctor Hank FightMaster(JOHNNY SINS) discover the vanta black formula, and aerosol dispersant that will turn the moon completely black therefore the light of the Moon... But they had no idea what MOON WOULD DO..
Watch as these two team up with Emmy nominated supporting actress SARAH JESSICA PARKER, in a jam-packed Sci-Fi thrill Ride,
TOTAL BLACK OUT
Rated PG-13 | 21 | most_different |
25 | 1,478,007,693 | 83 | The day after Halloween, everyone has magically turned into what they dressed up as. | “So, we are here with Carter, a local at Huntington Hill,” the reporter said. “In your own words, can you describe what’s going on here?”
“Between the vampire and ghost attacks, nobody is safe,” said the chubby man referred to as Carter. “Luckily we have half a dozen Rambos dealing with the matter, and since the new Ghost Busters movie came out recently we actually have a couple of professional ghost hunters.”
The reporter leaned in. “Tell the viewers about the witch.”
“All right, so, there is this woman going around, turning people into frogs left and right,” Carter said. “It’s a mess down there.”
“And what is the mayor doing about it?”
“Well, at first, nothing,” Carter said, “But then our local Einstein had a brilliant idea.”
“And what was that, Carter?”
“It’s not exactly pleasant, but all those princesses finally have employment.”
“I thought it only worked with princes?”
“It’s not an exact science.”
“What about Frankenstein’s Monster and all these Catwomen?”
“Some things are still not under control,” Carter said, “This year we had a massive shortage of Batmen.”
“Sounds rough,” the reported said, apologetically.
“Yeah, but it’s not only bad. The hospitals, for instance, are finally sufficiently staffed, and let me tell you, the male patients are happier than ever.”
“There you have it, folks,” the reporter said. “It’d take something like this to get the medicare in order! Back to the studio and John with the weather.”
| 39 | most_different |
7 | 1,466,288,558 | 16 | You're being followed by a poisonous mushroom that is persistent on being eaten. | Fungus Venatione. The Hunting Mushroom. Once it's caught sight of its prey, it is ruthless in tracking down and killing its prey via poison.
I should know, I've been tracked by one for four days now.
An idle walk in the woods, an unusual specimen; too late, I recognise the distinctive Cap, with two ear-like protrusions. I ran, but too late. It had spotted me, and gave Chase.
Four days. Four days of non-stop movement. Yes, a Human may be faster than a mushroom, but what it lacks in limbs it makes up for in persistence and endurance. Field and Glen, moor and mountain, it followed. Through raging rivers and barren rock, it followed.
Four days; no more. I could not move, I could not fight, I could only wait for my fate to reach me. I screamed at it as the mushroom came into view "Why?!? Why must you kill me?"
Shockingly, a mouth appeared in its stem, and a high pitched voice came out.
"Kill you? No, no, no! I don't want to do that."
"Then why hunt me?" At my question, its cap turned a pinkish hue, and its gills fluttered coyly.
"Why... I know it sounds like a spore chat up line... but you seemed like a fun-guy" | 10 | most_different |
12 | 1,470,768,270 | 44 | Never fall asleep with an empty seat facing towards you. You don't know what sits there whilst you sleep. | *The following pamphlet was found in a dumpster in San Francisco, California. Looking through public records, it was determined that no such establishment actually exists and the address stated on the pamphlet leads to an open grassland.*
...
Welcome to the Coastal Motel. We are committed to providing a relaxing and comfortable stay for our guests. Please read our codes of conduct.
Again, thank you for picking the Coastal Motel.
Courtesy Reminders and Codes of Conduct
-
...
1. Please be aware of your noise level and other guests in your hall.
2. Any vegetarian food options are available upon request.
3. Please do not leave valuables (jewelry, phones, etc.) behind in your room.
4. The third floor is currently off limits. We are sorry for any inconvenience.
5. Avoid being out in the halls during a blood rite.
6. Never fall asleep with an empty chair facing towards you.
7. If there are more than two mirrors in your room, please talk to a staff member.
8. No pets are allowed. If you are caught bringing in a pet, you will be punished.
9. Channel 12 is not supposed to work. If you see images of self-mutilation and exsanguination, please unplug the television and talk to a staff member.
10. The laughing is normal.
11. In the event of a fire, use the elevator.
Have a great stay!
-
| 18 | most_different |
8 | 1,440,034,446 | 31 | finds himself [WP] | Who am I? Who *is* Waldo? I put on the hat and the funny sweater then just stand in crowds. My whole shtick is that I nearly fit in because, of course, I don't really. Its not for some profound reason either, I just dress funny. Thousands of people have stared into these stupid pictures to find, what? Waldo? They don't even know who I am. Take this picture for instance. It was a sunny afternoon on the beach. One guy was flying a kite, a kid over there just dropped his ice cream cone, and there's a dog running off with some lady's bikini top. But what am I doing? I'm just standing over... I could of sworn I was standing by the rainbow umbrella. Uh... maybe I was by the... no. Anyway, it doesn't matter the point is I'm just standing there with a stupid smile... wait a second! There I am.
There I am - and you know what, that was actually kind of fun! Maybe providing a simple distraction for kids and brief respite for their parents isn't wasting my time. Finding Waldo marks a small victory for in any persons day and perhaps it gives them the jolt they need to go out and do the things I can't. Maybe, just waiting to be found is my small contribution to humanity. Have you found Waldo? For the first time, I think I have. | 12 | most_different |
25 | 1,395,683,594 | 52 | It started raining heavily all over the world, and it hasn't stopped for five/ten/fifteen/twenty years... | --July 15, 2023--
"Finally started raining, has it?" said James, talking to Francine. Francine, his nurse, just looked at him and smiled. "Why yes, I do believe it has James." His room had no windows, but anyone could hear the deafening downpour. Francine changed his bedpan and left the room.
--July 15, 2024--
"I can't believe it's started raining, it was so dry yesterday," said James. Francince was gone now, but the new nurse used her name all the same. "Yes, it's a tad strange sir, very unexpected," she said. She finished her duties and left the room.
--July 15, 2034--
"Feels like it's been raining all night, doesn't it?" said James. His nurse, he didn't even remember her name, just looked at him and didn't respond.
--July 15, 2054--
James May, was a good man. Early in his life, he developed amnesia. Until the very day he died, his faithful nurses did all they could to keep him content. He died on a rainy day, his favorite kind of day, and may he rest eternally in the rain he loves so much. -Newspaper obituaries.
| 63 | most_different |
5 | 1,656,211,074 | 76 | "You may want to sit down..." The doctor said, giving you a pitying look, "All the tests came in. The colored hair, the good looks, the infinite potential... I'm sorry but your child is a main character... You have at most in arc to live." | ...Those results did hit hard.
Having a kid with blue hair, a secondary character or even a comedic relief one is something you could brag about to your friends in your favorite bar. However, the main character is an entirely different story. Most of the time they have tragic backstories and their relatives outside of the main cast get killed off way too often. Being a relative of a main character was a stressful position, but being the only close relative to a main character without also being either a villain or a hero was basically a death sentence.
That's all assuming the doc was correct and Rita was (or was about to become) the main character of a shounen. Unfortunately, there was little room for error. Soyama spent enough time studying the works of fiction, any responsible parent of a blue-haired child would really, to know the best doctors in that field.
This train of thoughts was interrupted by someone barging into Soyama's office
"Pa, I got accepted!"
"Mhm dear, congrats." Soyama sounded rather unenthusiastic
"Really, that's all you got for me?" Rita pouted in disappointment
"Sorry, dear, I'm a bit busy right now. Are you leaving this Sunday?"
"Actually today, the train is in an hour. Was just checking in to say goodbye"
"Oh, okay then. Leave me a message when you board it please."
"You won't notice, but sure. Gotta leave the dream world sometimes Pa, bye!"
She left. Next hour and a half Soyama spent staring blankly in the same direction, waiting. An hour in, Rita diligently left a text saying she boarded the train and obviously didn't expect anything in return. This was definitely a scene.
Some minor details didn't match, like the door to the office was actually locked and leaving one hour before the train was cutting way too close even for Rita's usual lack of planning ahead. However, Soyama could understand the Author not wanting to break the flow of the main storyline. The dialogue was also quite stiff, but judging by the lack of resistance, the Author was fine with his protagonist's dad being that aloof middle-aged man, too busy with his dreams to pay enough attention to Rita.
If Soyama had to guess, the reason for that personality would be the frozen grief over his wife's untimely demise. It wasn't Soyama's actual profile, but hopefully by the time the Author realizes his mistake, it would be too late to rewrite any big parts of the story.
Next thing Soyama did was take off all his clothes. Being naked was somewhat uncomfortable, but it did give him some sense of privacy -- no sane shounen author would pan the camera to a forty year old dad flapping his junk around, at least that early in the story. Time to make some calls and pull some strings for Soyama to survive even the very start of this story.
\-------
*Same day, evening time, still in the office.*
The uncanny impulse to do something that will get you killed, the "call of the void". The main cause of death in horror stories, especially for secondary characters. Fortunately, Soyama felt he could resist the impulse to open the door, for now at least. It did mean he's being fridged offscreen, which made sense given his current condition.
knock-knock
"Who's there?"
"Clients, open up."
Right, those guys weren't in the mood for knock-knock jokes, they've come to kill Soyama. Just two of them, but its still one more grunt than was needed to murder a lawyer with zero combat experience. However, Soyama already prepared some contingency plans.
"Listen, how much did Mbeg pay you? I can easily double that."
"Forty kay." This guy was in for the money, zero hesitation. The sum was way higher than Mbeg would actually pay for this task, but Soyama wasn't going to haggle.
"Are you dumb? It's a trick. Open the fucking door or we're breaking in!". That's the second one. Oh well, chances are they were going to try to kill him even if he paid up anyway.
"One second."
And Sayama set off the traps, really hoping it was not a mistake.
\-------
*Same evening, twenty minutes later, still in the office.*
Next one to arrive at the scene was a cloaked and mysterious woman. She also barged in uninvited, but this time the door was legitimately unlocked.
"Hey, Laura." Soyama was quite busy filling some big plastic bags.
"Lady Luck, not Laura. Also, why the fuck are you naked?"
"Just making sure I'm not in the scene."
"You're nuts! If Rita sees you like that you're dead two hours before! Wont even fucking know what hit you!"
"Relax, Rita is already on the way to the Academy."
"Academy, huh. Makes sense if she's in the show."
The Academy was essentially a big playground for the school-based stories. Filled with heroes and hero wannabes, it was quite a hectic place, but no matter how many stories made their tragic end, more young idiots would try to get their share of fame. Fandom was quite tight and Soyama could bet his left nut that the Academy was booked by different Authors for at least a hundred years in advance.
"By the way, why are your traps that gruesome? Surely they don't have to dismember people, I almost threw up cleaning the corridor."
"PG rating. The higher, the less Authors can pin you down. I do hope those were really Mbeg's henchmen though."
Laura was what they call a meta-hero. Her job was to lurk on the outskirts of the story, assuming some fleeting roles like a scary mentor or a crazy vigilante, nudge the plot a bit and bail out before getting too invested. With her main superpower being “luck”, it was notoriously hard for Authors to justifiably kill her off. Or maybe her cameos were too juicy to give up on completely. Whatever was the secret of her longevity in the business, she was a very important contact for someone who tries to survive the hamster wheel of being a supporting character.
"You take on from there then. I used your equipment, so the story of you saving the day is much more plausible than what actually happened."
"You bet. Are you sure we ain't on a radar? Something feels off."
"I meeean, unless you're feeling sudden primal urges..."
"Fuck off, you're not nearly bald or ugly enough to be a hentai protag. It could be a short story, prompt or some shit still."
"Who cares, those are what, one hundred words? If I didn't kick the bucket by now, there is no chance it'll drag on till I do."
"Feeling quite confident, huh?"
"Hey, I got the pro on the job. Paying three times as much if you manage to get the Author to scrap the plot completely and bring Rita back home."
"No promises."
She never did promise anything, Luck does not work like that.
But Soyama had a good feeling about this one. | 19 | most_different |
10 | 1,632,342,134 | 784 | When you gained the power to heal yourself and others, you were ecstatic. Instead of being invited to the hero league, they called you "the mad doctor" and claimed you robbed hospitals. At first you were confused, but then you noticed just how many "billionaire playboys" were heroes. | **"How do you plead!"**
"Not Guilty! I was..."
**"Did you, on the 23rd of September, enter the Mount Sinai Children's Hospital in new york, posing as a doctor?"**
"Posing? I'm a healer! my powers granted by Mithras himself!"
**"Are you a qualified and registered medical professional of any kind under state law?"**
"... no, but I can heal with a touch and produce healing elixirs from water"
**"But you do not hold any form of medical degree from any accredited medical school do you"**
"...no..."
**"So, on the 23rd of September, you did enter the Mount Sinai Children's Hospital in possession of an experimental medical compound?"**
"it's not experimental! It's the elixer of health that my connection with Mithras allows...."
**"Has this compound been approved by the FDA or any national regulatory agency?"**
"well, no....."
**"And where did you go once you had entered the hospital?"**
"I went to the children's cancer ward!"
**"And where there children there?"**
"yes, a ward full of children with cancer!"
**"And when you reached the children's cancer ward did you or did you not perform experimentation on the children present"**
"It's wasn't experimentation! I was using the elixir of Mithras!"
**"Has this 'elixir' ever been tested in any approved clinical trials?"**
"Well, no, but I used it on myself! it re-grew my arm!"
**"So you were testing it on cancer patients for the first time"**
"Well... yes"
**"Did you perform any animal trials of your 'elixir' to make sure it wouldn't cause adverse reactions to cancerous tissue?"**
"No..."
**"Did you perform any form of formal risk analysis?"**
"No..."
**"Did you consult any oncologist's about how cancerous tissue might react to you 'elixir'?"**
"No..."
**"And did you get ethical approval for this experiment on vulnerable human subjects from any IRB board?"**
"No..."
**"And did you get consent from the childrens parents or guardians?"**
"No...."
**"Did you so much as inform the medical staff on the ward that you were about to administer an experimental compound to the children in their care?"**
"No...."
**"You stand accused of practising medicine without a licence and with performing unethical human experimentation on vulnerable children, without ethical approval and without any form of consent! To be clear, is there any part of the charges against you that you dispute?"**
"OK, perhaps I'm technically guilty! But I cured them!! You didn't prosecute Bruce Kent when he used his Omega Serum on sick children!"
**"His legal team filed for FDA approval of the clinical trial, they filed all the risk analysis paperwork and got proper IRB approval and consent from the children's guardians and had all the required insurance to cover possible harm in case of adverse events!"**
"But when Bruce tested his formula all the children merged into a Cronenberg horror! It attacked the city!"
**"Yes, sometimes unfortunate side effect occur but Bruce-Corp stayed within the law! You however did not! For performing unethical human experimentation on children without licence, consent or oversight I have no choice but to sentence you to...."**
____
Written after thinking through what would happen if some rando *actually* just walked into a hospital and dosed children with some unknown elixer, even if it worked perfectly and cured them given how real world regulators work even when there's a known not-yet-fda-approved treatment for sick children.... so this may stray dangerously close to real-world politics.... | 250 | most_different |
7 | 1,419,523,752 | 118 | Like Saint Nicholas, through some accidental miscommunication, your deeds and normal routines have been immortalized into an over-commercialized holiday for kids. Tell us about it! | So you'd like to know how the Payday Holiday got started, would you? I'll tell you, it's really not all it's hyped up to be these days You see people decorating their homes with scales and ledgers, and banged up delivery truck figurenes, and those rain misters that kids like to run through, and TV commercials selling all kinds of construction equipment toys. All of these unncessary things that go into the celebration ... it's just a money maker nowadays. It started so much more simply...
When I was young I worked for a small construction company doing bookkeeping and processing the payroll. We had this massive project that was nearing its completion deadline which, if we reached it, every employee would receive a substantial bonus. So, we stalled all of our other projects and sent every last worker to get this project done. On June 16th, the final day of work which was also a payday, a huge summer rain storm came through and knocked a tree down on the delivery truck with our checks. I was tasked to retrieve the checks from the crash site and get them to the workers on the site as they were finishing up. The workers' morale was boosted so much that they were able to finish the project by the deadline. Through the euphoria of finishing the project and getting their checks on time, I was lifted up on shoulders and passed around a crowd of happy sweaty construction workers.
The sucess of the project was such a milestone for our company that it launched us into a series of even more successful endeavors. Fast forward many years later to when the company had grown to an national level and had long since established an annual bonus on June 16th, and I had decided to finally retire on that day. There were parties held in every one of our offices around the country celebrating the Payday Miracle and I gave a retirement speech that was broadcast company wide. Each year after, the company held Payday Holiday parties on that day, and it just kept getting bigger and bigger. Soon other companies were doing the same thing after they saw the impact it had on our employees. Famlies were given the day off work to come and celebrate with their co-workers all of the hard work they had done over the year.
But soon the entrepreneaurs and marketing companies got a hold of an idea: let's capitalize on all of the cheer and celebration. Commercials started selling decorations for peoples' houses, taking captive of the details of how it all started: construction equipment, the delivery truck, all of the details that made the day so special started becoming ways for others to make money. I even once saw a collectable set of figurenes of different kinds of construction workers holding me up on their shoulders.
The one thing that lives on today that strikes at the core of how it all started is how most companies give that annual Payday Holiday bonus to their workers and throwing a party celebrating all of their hard work throughout the year. That's how it all started, anyway. Just a bunch of different people working hard to get a job done right. | 30 | most_different |
6 | 1,466,531,212 | 32 | You are a sci fi author from the year 1016 writing about the 21st century | Jean du Mer loaded the last of his belongings into the wagon and calmly stroked the hindquarters of his mechanized horse. Even at the great speeds which the iron beast could easily maintain, it would still be a three-day trip to reach London. At least with the tunnel beneath the Norman Channel having finally been completed, there'd be no need to book a ferry.
"Monsieur du Mer!" a voice called across the field. "Monsieur, wait!" It was one of the messenger boys from the city of Calais. He sped across the field, a speck of a thing amongst the near-infinite spires of du Mer's vertical farms. "Monsieur... The King... Calls for... All able men...." the boy spat out between deep breaths. He held out a small bronze box: a message repeater. du Mer slipped a small key into a receptacle; by doing so, his key's unique pattern of teeth were recorded, indicating he'd received the message.
"To all my loyal subjects," began the voice of King Louis VIII, having recorded his message on special wax cylinders which were capable of repeating his voice. "I call upon all men capable of bearing arms to report to the town of Paris immediately. The Rus army threatens to cut through the Holy Roman Empire, and we must be prepared to defend our borders!"
du Mer sighed. He'd been planning this pilgrimage for nearly two years, corresponding with his Welsh cousins over the steel box which transmitted messages across the seas. But his king and his country called. He must do his duty. | 11 | most_different |
16 | 1,523,236,056 | 230 | you and a group of developers just released an augmented reality device capable of time travel with 100% accuracy. 87% of users chose to visit 19th century Confederate America. Baffled, You use your dev option to secretly peer into some of their playthroughs disguised as an NPC. | 'What's so interesting about-' I checked my area. 'Weehawken, New Jersey on July twelfth 1804?" I looked around carefully, surveying my surroundings. Astonished, I noted five men standing near a copse of trees. One looked to be a doctor and two were wielding guns. One of the wielders had glasses on. "What the?" I said aloud. I watched, transfixed as the two began their duel. They walked their ten paces, and bizzarely, the man wearing glasses did not shoot. He took the other mans bullet between his ribs and as he fell, he accidentally discharged his gun, shooting a tree branch. As the men all react to this and row themselves across the hudson, I hear the other users began to hum quietly. I don't recognize the tune, but after it subsides, in one eerie and chilling
line, I hear five words. "The World was Wide Enough" | 23 | most_different |
28 | 1,527,068,934 | 361 | The polish army has been crushed. All the generals are dead. Only one person of rank remains in command: Wojek, the Bearer of artillery. | *Bearer of Arms*
by **Sabaton**
1944, the hills of Italy
Polish soldiers manning artillery
Monte Cassino their final destination
Finest troops of the Polish nation
Deadly German counter attack
Direct hit on the general staff
Nobody left to lead the line
Wojtek the bear knew it was time
*(Chorus) Polish bear,*
*fighting the Wehrmacht*
*One lone officer,*
*leading men to fight*
*Bravest ursine,*
*last of artillery*
*Corporal Wojtek,*
*fought through the night*
Frightened gunners lost and aimless
Contact broken, allies in rout
But the bear rose up and led them
Kept the guns firing at the foe
Final advance, climb towards the Abbey
German paratroops on the ground
Hardest troops in Hitler's defenses
Wojtek and Poland fought them down
*(Chorus)*
| 160 | most_different |
240 | 1,419,961,485 | 1,256 | Walt Disney actually WAS cryogenetically frozen, but he's now been cured, unthawed, and is being briefed on what has happened with his company since 1966. | "So where is my Scrooge McDuck money vault?" Walt asked
"Sir?"
"Did I fucking stutter? Scrooge McDuck money vault. Where I can swim in the massive wealth you guys made for me while I was asleep?"
"Ummm. We didn't make it."
Walt spun. He looked around the room. Not a single man in the room had a mustache. "I didn't leave many instructions. I really didn't. But I did leave a few." Walt paused.
"Alright, what did you do?"
"Well, sir.."
"Walt."
"Sir?"
"Call me Walt."
"Well, Walt, we've expanded the parks. We have the RunDisney program up and running. We own Marvel. We own Star Wars. We own Hasbro. We owned Sonny Bono, before he died. He extended Copyright quite a bit. And now that you're alive again, I think that means Mickey's copyright is back in effect again. You own Oswald again."
"Good. Alright. I have no idea what half that shit is. But, everyone seems to be nodding. So here is what you are going to do." Everyone stared anxiously.
"One, start construction on my fucking Scrooge McDuck money Vault. Two, fill my fucking Scrooge McDuck money Vault. Three, get me a goddamn cigarette. Four, get me a bottle of Scotch. Five, thaw out Marilyn. She's got Number Six." | 1,024 | most_different |
13 | 1,460,640,559 | 66 | A horror movie monster is waiting outside the bathroom for its next victim. Unfortunately, the victim really likes to sing in the shower. Things get awkward. | Dalton opened the bathroom door, the sound of him entering the bathroom masked by Chelsea singing a rendition of Rolling In The Deep by Adele. Fuck, he loved this song, but he had to do what he had to do. As Chelsea sang "The scars of your love remind me of us...", he drew his knife and approached the shower. Finally as Chelsea began the chorus, he ripped the shower curtain aside and shouted "WE COULD HAVE HAD IT AAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL" as he plunged the blade into her heart. "ROLLING IN THE DEEEEEEEEEEEEP" he continued, stabbing her again and again, painting the shower red. He continued humming as he pulled the shower curtain down, rolled her body in it, and placed it in his car. | 21 | most_different |
10 | 1,472,463,958 | 38 | Born in the future, you're only attracted to tall women, so you move to the Moon, where you marry a taller woman. Years later, the low gravity has made you taller than her. Write your /r/Relationships post. Commenters, help OP. | I [35M] moved to the Moon [4530000000Satellite] to be with my wife [33F]. A large part of my attraction [1000Scovilles] was due to her height [6'2''] versus mine [5'9''] however as time has passed my spine [33Vertebrae] has lengthened to the point where I now am taller [3Inches] than her.
Things [1House1MoonDog2Children] feel slightly hollow and my wife seems somehow less than the woman I married [1BaptistCeremony1AmazonWishlistNoConfettiShe'sAllergic]
No longer do I ask her to reach items [16Spices4RarelyUsedEquipment3OldDocuments] from the top shelf, instead, she asks me. No longer does she offer me piggy-back rides that make me feel like the king [1Monarch] of the world [3rdPlanet]. In fact the last time we tried she crumpled sadly to the ground like [1SadCardboard].
Does anyone have any non-surgical suggestions? | 13 | most_different |
9 | 1,404,436,548 | 26 | The Impossible Prompt: Make me sympathize with a friend who just lost their pet mosquito. | I sat and cried with him. What else could I do? I was only six years old at the time. My friend had just lost the most precious thing in the world to him.
He’d found Steve a couple days ago. Steve was always there for him, during the day, and during the night. When his parents would be passed out somewhere, he was able to talk to Steve. Heck, his parents weren’t even home half the time, much less did they even acknowledge my friend’s presence.
Steve was the first thing that my friend had that his parents had never taken away from him. He treasured the little fellow and did everything he could to take care of him.
And then it happened a few minutes ago. He had been talking to Steve, letting him know what had been going on and talking about going to do something fun. His father came in after being annoyed by hearing my friend talking, seemingly to himself. As he was about to slap my friend for being such a loser to be talking to himself, my friend explained he’d been talking to Steve. His father got mad and let Steve out of his entrapment. My friend was crying, not wanting to see Steve go, which irritated his father even more. The next thing he knew, his father’s boot was coming straight down on poor old Steve.
I sat with him for another hour as we cried over Steve. His remains were laid in front of us, his crushed corpse a symbol of my friend’s life. Just because Steve was a mosquito doesn’t mean he was any less important to my friend. Hopefully you can understand better than his father.
-182
| 21 | most_different |
56 | 1,410,526,904 | 523 | Thousands of years in the future, a lazy anthropology student put off his "Mating Rituals of Ancient Civilizations" project until the last minute | Based on contemporary magnetic films made of Mating Rituals, Ritual often initiates with the male presenting himself at the door of the female's dwelling, and presenting an offering of flat-bread based foods or metal phallic totems (A "Screew-driveer", figure 1). The female, often wearing loose attire (A "Toweel", figure 2) possibly after undergoing a cleansing ritual, will meet the male and initiate negotiation. After disclosing that she has no currency to exchange for the offerings, she will remove her attire as a repetitive, metallic ritual music begins to play.
Then the male and female will initiate coitus (see figure 3 for anatomical reconstruction and Table 1 for the theories on the role the enigmatic organ "cllytoris" plays during ritual), often on a floor covering of animal skin as the female ululates a sacred fertility chant (see Dr. Urectum's philological study on Terran Fertility Invocations, 3485). Manner and orifice used for coitus will be changed once every 5 minutes, the reasons for such acrobatics is unclear (it has been theorized that these are stylized dances used to invoke the male fertility deities Viaagraa and Ciaalis), until both participants vocalize the termination.
Finally, a burnt offering in the shape of a white cylindrical incense sticks will be made to the deity Nosmo King (possibly a local warlord deified by later generations) in thanksgiving for the completion of the ritual. The original food offering appears to remain unconsumed throughout the entire ritual, see Appendix A for hypotheses on the usage of food offering. | 337 | most_different |
18 | 1,421,866,482 | 21 | Describe a devastating disaster that claims the lives of thousands in the style of a children's book. | September eleventh, two thousand and one
was a day that was terrible, not at all fun
Some very naughty people thought "let's fly a plane
into a pair of buildings that will never be seen again!"
So that Tuesday morning at quarter to nine
the plane hit the building; people were dying
Twenty minutes later the second plane hit
people thought "We don't like this, not one little bit!"
Before that they'd thought "oh, it must be an accident"
but now they cried "find them and kill them, wherever they went"
Three thousand died on that terrible day
but in our memories they will never go away | 10 | most_different |
11 | 1,465,022,044 | 102 | A New App callled Butterfly can tell you the short term and long term outcomes of any current choice the user faces with a 99.99 percent accuracy rating has lead to a new daily life. | Ever since my friend introduced me to the butterfly app, my life’s become incredible. I asked what I should work with to make the biggest change in human history. The app said that working in the cancer treatment lab in california would change the world. I did as the app said. I applied for the job and after 10 years I developed a cure for cancer which lead to a cure for aids and a vaccine for almost every disease in the world. I became famous. I got the nobel prize in medicine and got declared the smartest man in the world. For a 37 year old, that was a lot to handle.
With the app I found my true love. I asked which restaurant would lead me to happiness. It did as I asked and I found my soulmate. Fire sparked inside our eyes the first time we met each other. We fell in love. We made three beautiful kids.
Then one day I went to bed and jokingly asked the butterfly app what the consequence would be for sleeping and the app delivered as usual. Death.
| 42 | most_different |
7 | 1,627,842,797 | 45 | You're beginning to notice and wonder why your child's lemonade stand seems to be making more money than you and your spouse combined. | The lemonade stand had a line down the block, with dozens of people craning their necks to see the front of the stand. Brandon’s lemonade stand had seems quaint at first to his parents, an endearing way for the seven year old to learn the value of a dollar. The sweetness turned sour when adults started knocking on the family’s front door at all hours, empty glass in hand, begging for lemonade. People slept in their yard, camped out in tents along the sidewalk, hoping for a glimpse of Brandon and his lemonade before it sold out for the day. The neighborhood HOA looked the other way in exchange for a pitcher of lemonade.
Customers began to offer Brandon their homes, cars, boats for a single pour. Brandon’s bedroom overflowed with keys, jewelry, cash, and deeds. His plastic race car bed was sticky with simple syrup residue, lemonade stains on all his tshirts.
Brandon’s parents did not like juice, both dentists with sensitive teeth. After moving into a new home, purchased with Brandon’s lemonade money, Brandon’s mother finally took a sip of his lemonade. The lemonade was nothing special, a bit sweet for her liking.
The pain in her toes started a few hours afterwards. Her ankles and knees were next, her legs feeling like they were on fire. The pain continued up her body, forcing her into bed, shivering with fever, crying from agony.
Brandon came to her bedside, lemonade in hand. “Do you want some more mom? I think it will help.” | 22 | most_different |
91 | 1,441,597,074 | 1,809 | The year is 2340 and Dreamworks is filing for bankruptcy due to uninspired movies and their big brother disney is at the height of it's popularity, before filing for bankruptcy, they make one last movie. The story of the boy fishing on the moon. | SCENE: The Crescent Moon
The BOY looks down from his spot on the tip of the crescent moon sadly. He grabs another piece of fishing line next to him and carefully threads it into his rod.
BOY: [morose] Please be long enough this time. Just this once.
The BOY casts off the Moon. For the first time, the camera follows the sinker on the end of the line as it travels down. It passes a starfield, a medieval castle lit up with Vegas lights, and Chinese mountains as it falls. Finally it approaches ground (overhead shot).
CUT TO: Interior Shot (House)
A GIRL sits sadly in her room, gazing at the Moon from her window. Suddenly, a sinker plummets past her view. She gasps in surprise and hurries outside.
PAN THROUGH WINDOW TO: Exterior Shot (Backyard)
The GIRL approaches the line hesitantly.
GIRL: You... you finally made it...
The GIRL grabs hold of the line and tugs it twice.
CUT TO: The Crescent Moon.
The BOY is overjoyed as the line moves. He begins to reel it in. The GIRL travels past a chicken farm, an Old Western town and an Incan temple before she finally pulls herself onto the tip of the moon. The BOY and GIRL embrace as the clouds cover them. We see the Dreamworks logo, but with two changes. The BOY and GIRL are waving at the audience from the O, and the letters now read, THANK YOU.
Fade to black. | 985 | most_different |
20 | 1,399,051,359 | 155 | You have the ability to read peoples' thoughts by kissing them. You use this power to become the world's most uncomfortably successful detective. Solve a case. | "Mister Eteny," her radiant red lips beckoned. "I think my husband is cheating on me."
"There's only one way to find out," I responded. "Come here." She knew the drill. She knew who I was, and she gave herself over- I dropped that sexy little dame into my arms and I put one on her good. When she came up for air, she was flush.
"Well, Mister Eteny...what's the verdict?" she wondered. I cracked a smile.
"Doesn't matter, does it?" I chuckled. "Because you just cheated on him!" Then I pointed to the recording camera in the top of my office.
I couldn't read people's minds, but I could definitely blackmail them. | 135 | most_different |
4 | 1,599,460,420 | 22 | Pregnant women get powers. They typically peak at birth and fade over the first year. Often they are practical- super speed or strength, reduced need to sleep. Your powers are not typical, and show no sign of dissipating. | Mary torpedoed the baby out of her uterus, and it smashed into the giant robot. Boom! one of the robot's legs disappeared in a fiery inferno of baby guts. Crash! the robot fell sideways into a building, the building crumbling like wafer.
Silence and dust filled the air. Then...
Loud metallic noises.
Mary covered her eyes, squinting through the dust. The robot was disassembling itself, breaking into smaller machines that started zooming towards her. Thousands of roombas. Malevolent roombas.
Mary leaped onto a nearby car, and leaned back. Within her body, she felt the mitosis starting- as one baby divided into two babies, and then a thousand babies. She let loose the machine gun of babies that was building inside her. Baby, baby, baby, baby. | 12 | most_different |
3 | 1,409,573,030 | 24 | A convention where diseases of the world come together to talk, socialize and gossip. | "Welcome, diseases of the world, to the 54th annual Outbreak Awards! I'm your host, Common Cold."
[applause]
"2014 has been a tremendous year for epidemic. But before we announce the winner of the 54th Outbreak Awards, let's acknowledge some of the unforgettable plagues from years back."
[applause]
"First, he killed as much as 70% of Europe's population in the Middle Ages... you all know and love him... the father of modern contamination, give it up for Bubonic Plague!"
[an extremely old Italian man stands up in the crowd waving]
[applause]
"Bubonic, would you like to say a few words?"
[someone hands him a mic]
**Bubonic:** I may be on my last legs, but I assure you I'm nowhere near *morto*.
[awkward coughs as nobody knows what that means]
"Alright, thank you Bubonic. Up next, he's responsible for the most deadly outbreak in history... the Outbreak winner from 1918 to 2009, you all know him as... Swine Flu!"
[applause]
"Swine Flu? Are you there? Paging H1N1..."
[confused murmuring]
"Sorry folks, looks like Swine Flu couldn't make it."
[someone yells from the crowd]:
**Anthrax:** Maybe he's hiding in a fridge at the CDC!
[laughter]
"Oh, Anthrax, such a card. Well it looks like we've come to that time folks, when I announce the winner of the 2014 Outbreak Awards!"
[applause]
[Common Cold pulls a card out of an envelope]
"It's the moment you've all been waiting for! At only 38 years old, she's the newest (and youngest) addition to the epidemic club... let's hear it for Ebola! Come on up!"
[applause as a dashing young African American lady makes her way on stage]
"Congratulations Ebola!"
**Ebola:** Thank you! This is just so amazing! I'd like to thank my patient zero, and I'd like to thank the protesters who released my patients from the quarantine center in Monrovia.
[someone yells from the back of the room]: "You're nothing! What about me?!"
**Ebola:** Shut up ALS! You got your place in the limelight.
[laughter as camera pans out] | 14 | most_different |
25 | 1,645,978,175 | 599 | You are a Immortal and your Wife is a Reincarnation of all Wifes that you had. Some may say it's a Tragedy that you have to see her die over and over, but at this point it's a Game between you and her to see who finds the other first. | The woman at the dock is hunched over, her figure faint under all the layers she’s wearing, seemingly unnoticeable beneath the dark sky.
In the distance, a cat mewls and a car skids against asphalt. The watch against her hand strikes midnight, but the woman merely hums, looking up from the vast waters below to gaze up into the sky. Her eyes glisten as they follow the black abyss. She hums again, absentmindedly tapping her fingers against her thigh. Behind her, a street light begins to flicker. The woman snorts into her hand, but doesn’t turn around.
“Took you long enough,” she says instead. But somehow the words betray her biting tone, fondness etched behind it.
All around her, the air buzzes inconsistently. The universe feels quiet burrowed beneath all the night’s silence, as if it were sleeping, unbothered by the rest of the world’s musings. It should be unnerving, but somehow it’s only peaceful.
“Well,” the woman insists. “What’s your reason this time? And don’t tell me you got lost, I stopped believing that after the second time.”
This time the air snorts, which causes the woman to slowly smile. To anyone else, it would be more of a grimace, but he can see the soft upturn of her lips, the steadily etched laughter lines under her eyes, the way her posture relaxes into something more comfortable.
“I was busy saving a cat,” the air — now the man — tells her.
She barely conceals her snort. “A cat? Really? Even *I’m* not that naive.”
“Yes,” he says. “It was stuck in a tree.”
“A tree?”
“It was very high.”
“Of course it was,” she huffs, before giving him a once-over and sighing when it appears she’s not seeing what she wants. “Well, I suppose all that matters is you’re here now.”
The man nervously chuckles in reply.
“Come on,” the woman beckons toward the water, and the man sighs, finally moving to reach the edge of the dock.
“This is nice,” he tells the woman once he’s at her side.
“It’s nicer in the morning, when the sun hits the water and all you can see is the sky’s reflection.” The man wants to tell her he disagrees; that the way the sky hits the water now is perfect, as the stars swim beneath him, like he could place his hands inside and scoop up a thousand man-made wishes. A wishing well filled with untold dreams. Untold lives. It was strangely beautiful, in a haunting and mysterious way.
“Anyways,” the woman interrupts the man’s musings. “I thought we could maybe live here, give the seaside a try for a change.”
The man hums, looking out into the vast darkness that seemed to run on for miles and miles. He imagines the world in the morning, under the newly risen sun, and thinks the woman might be onto something.
“Okay,” he tells her. “Let’s give this a try.”
“Yeah?” She asks, looking at him with surprised eyes, and he can understand why she would. He’s always been afraid of the unknown, and the ocean is no exception. Perhaps it’s ironic that they’ve spent so many lifetimes occupying different bodies, unsure of when the next life will come, but somehow always finding each other in each one. The man supposes they’ve always been living unknowingly, mere shadows beneath an equally darkened sky.
“Yeah,” he tells her this instead, and for a moment they stand like that, just the two of them looking at each other from behind half-mast eyelids, where they’re simply two bodies standing along a dock, two faceless figures in the night. Where the past simply lies in the past, and their future, like all futures before, remains unknown.
Then he sees the tilt of her head, and knows she understands.
Maybe she wants to say something more, reassure him or hold him or punch him in that joking way she sometimes does, but she simply turns back to look out into the black waters instead, and he watches her for a moment. It’s times like this when he’s reminded of why he fell in love with her in the first place. The weight against his chest still weighs heavily, but somehow with her by his side, it eases just as steadily.
Slowly, almost cautiously, he reaches out to take her hand into his. She blinks, but doesn’t react much more than that. After a few moments, she squeezes his hand.
And, as he turns to watch the darkness give way to light with the only woman he’s ever loved, he slowly squeezes back.
—
/r/itrytowrite | 86 | most_different |
46 | 1,402,822,693 | 66 | There's a law when you divorce, the children from the undone marriage get killed | "You do understand the law regarding divorce proceedings, don't you Sir?"
"I do, your honour."
"So you are aware that the termination of your marriage will result in the subsequent termination of 7 year old's life?"
"...Yes your honour"
"And you understand that there is no law preventing this course of action to take place once you've signed this form?"
"...Yes your honour"
"In which case, the only further service I can offer you as a judge of this court is a strong recommendation that you do not proceed with this."
"I understand your honour, your recommendation is noted."
The two men stood in silence, a look of helpless despair on the father's face as he looked over to his son in the stands.
"Thank you daddy" the boy croaked, his eyes filling with tears.
"I love you" The father whispered as the judge took the signed form away.
"I love you too daddy, I can't wait to see you again".
The boys eyes slowly closed as the doctor flicked the switch on his life support machine. | 68 | most_different |
8 | 1,432,487,708 | 35 | You play an online game in which you repeatedly kill and flame and harass another player in the enemy team. That player is a leader of a country and he declares a war on your country giving an official public statement that you and your actions are the reason for the war. | "why the fuk would u build vladimir on cm u autistic shit"
"Что ебать ты просто чертовски говорят обо мне, вы немного сукой? Я вас знаю, я закончил вершину моего класса в армии, и я принимал участие в многочисленных секретных рейдов на Аль-Каидой, и у меня есть более 300 подтвержденных убийств. Я тренировался в гориллы войны, и я сверху снайпер в целых Отечества вооруженных сил. Вам это ничего не для меня, но только другая цель. Я протрите вам нахрен с точностью, подобных которым никогда не видели раньше на этой Земле, запомните мои чертовы слова. Вы думаете, что вы можете уйти с того, что дерьмо для меня через Интернет? Подумайте еще раз, ублюдок. Как мы говорим Я контактирую мой секретный сеть шпионов по всей USAand ваш IP-трассируется прямо сейчас, так что вам лучше подготовиться к шторму, личинка. Шторм, который стирает жалкий маленький вещь вы называете ваша жизнь. Вы чертовски мертвых, малыш. Я могу быть где угодно, в любое время, и я могу убить тебя в более семисот способами, и это только голыми руками. Я не только обучен приемам рукопашного боя, но у меня есть доступ ко всей арсенале Российской морской пехоты и я буду использовать его в полной мере, чтобы вытереть задницу жалкий с лица континента, вы немного дерьма. Если бы вы только могли знать, что нечестивый возмездие ваш маленький "умный" комментарий был готов обрушить вас, может быть, вы бы провели свой гребаный язык. Но вы не могли, вы не сделали, и теперь вы платите цену, вы идиот проклятый. Я дерьмо ярость все над вами, и вы будете тонуть в нем. Вы чертовски мертв, детка."
The headlines read; Vladimir Declares War on America Over Dota.
Fuck | 11 | most_different |
35 | 1,438,005,830 | 161 | Life is a hellish nightmare. Death, violence and distrust are ubiquitous as everyone fights to survive. Except on Tuesdays. Tuesdays are fine. | A knock came at the door.
Joe answered, "Who are you?"
A voice came back through the door. "Hey, man, it's Steve. Just wanted to see you again. I even brought you a present!"
Joe suspiciously peered through the padlocked door, but to no avail. "I've lost my calendar somewhere... what day is it again?"
Steve replied, "Oh. Let's see..." Joe heard the tapping of a smartphone through the door. "It's a Tuesday."
Joe silently sighed and unlocked the door. "Thank goodness, if it were -
His words were cut short as he was devoured by the demon sitting outside his home.
It was a Monday. | 78 | most_different |
21 | 1,427,555,003 | 119 | Humanity has achieved immortality. Due to resource concerns everyone must submit to a council their chosen manner of death at 150. The more amusing the death the longer the council lets you live. | Young shemp stood before the council awash in fear. He, at the tender young age of 150, had to come up with a routine so comical, so amusing that the esteemed council would see him fit to be granted the immortality they themselves had achieved. This would be no easy task. The esteemed council of three, the mighty Moe, the honorable Larry, Curly the wise, had practically invented the concept of slapstick humor, highest and most revered of all art forms. This had to be good. Shemp took a deep breath and launched into his routine, a series of prat falls and prop gags that ended with a grand finale of a piano being dropped on his head. Shemp gave out a sigh of relief, he had done all he could, it was in the councils hands now. They quickly deliberated and he anxiously awaited their answer. "Close enough!" proclaimed Moe. Shemp would live to see another day. | 41 | most_different |
13 | 1,393,605,815 | 18 | Describe yourself in the third person | She lingers at the top of the stairs, chin lifted, face proud. She wears a sweeping dress of red silk and a crown heavy with jewels balanced on top of her perfect hair. She is, in every way, perfect. The room stops and stairs. Hushed conversation is stilled as she begins, delicately, to descend the marble staircase. Urns of flowers line the balustrades, tumbling white roses spilling petals into her path. At least five men, three woman and a bear will fight for her hand tonight. The lightest of music starts and the crowd parts to let her pass. At a flick of her perfectly manicured fingers, she is fetched a drink. No one knows what it is, but everyone wants one. Night is falling outside and the full moon is rising outside. She spins in a glory of red and the moonlight breaks through the windows. There is frantic screaming. The orchestra flees for their lives. People abandon their drinks and their purses. She is a werewolf. She is a werewolf and she is hungry for blood. | 12 | most_different |
9 | 1,443,626,145 | 24 | You are a super hero, but your super powers only work when you're insanely drunk... | The man stumbled out of the bar into the city. He held an almost empty bottle in his hand. He quoetly grumbled about how the lightweights in there couldn't believe how well he could handle alcohol.
Suddenly, a scream pierced the air. The man's head turned to the direction from which it came. He slowly wandered towards the origin of the scream.
As he turned the corner, a woman ran into him and fell backwards. Tears were flowing from her face. The man didn't notice until she hit the ground.
"Hey!"
Another man with a knife quickly caught up.
"You get out of here you drunk idiot, this one's mine!" he said.
The drunk took a second to process his words.
"Don't hurt ladies," the drunk slurred out, "it's a dick move."
The criminal lunged at the drunk with the knife. He tried to get it under the drunk's ribs. The drunk didn't flinch as the knife deflected off him like he was stone. The criminal tried to slash downwards across his face. The knife caught in the man's hair like a fly in a spider web.
"What the fuck?"
"Uhh, you know what they call me?" the drunk said, "I'm the Drunk Tank!"
A fist was clumsily thrown out, but hit the criminal in the stomach like it was a steel bar. The Drunk Tank then helped the woman up and crushed the knife like a sheet of tin foil.
Such was one criminal stopped by the Drunk Tank. The first of many as he patrolled the city. He continued until the morning when he found himself with a paper cut from a newspaper. | 11 | most_different |
6 | 1,602,735,129 | 36 | Finally sick of the jesters nonsense, the king draws his sword and goes to behead the jester. As the kings sword hits the jesters neck, a loud clang is heard as the blade snaps in two. | The sword gleamed as the king held it to his side, the light bouncing off the colorful gems studded in its hilt. Though only a ceremonial sword and therefore untested, its edge is nonetheless sharp. The ministers' eyes widen as the king swings the sword, bringing it down on the Jesters neck. But in the next instant, it is not the Jester's neck that falls to the ground separated from its body; it is the sword blade, snapped in two.
The court is silent except for the echoing clang of the broken edge. The king, his expression changed from anger to fear and surprise, and the Jester, his face frozen in mock joy, stare at each other.
The jester is the one to break the silence,"Well, it seems I'm no longer needed here. I'll *Beheading* out then", and with a great odorous fart, he disappears in a puff of smoke. | 17 | most_different |
8 | 1,475,569,801 | 62 | North Korea's Twitter account is following 3 others: 2 are used by North Korea as propaganda, and the other is some dude in Texas. You find out why when you visit him. | Is this really what modern journalism had become: meet and greets with twitter celebrities? I miss real stories, honestly, as a journalist, I miss war. War is exciting and vivid and worth writing about; I don’t give a shit about Buzzfeed top 10s and Kardashian tweets. But that’s what the editor demands, and with the job market for qualified journalists in the shitter, it’s time to adapt.
I was given this assignment after the Times’ social media executive stumbled upon North Korea’s online presence on Twitter. It’s about as exciting as you’d think, the usual propaganda and “death to America” rants. But we noticed something odd about their feed, they were following some dude out in West Texas, Arnold Jeffers. I tried to do some digging on the guy to find out he had a negligible online presence, with the exception of a couple of anti-Obama tweets expected from rural Texans. Not knowing whether I was about to stumble upon a poorly veiled spy ring or just some guy with anti-government sentiment, I flew into the Lubbock International Airport, how it got the International in its name will remain a mystery.
I loaded up the rented Range Rover with some photography equipment and began the hour long drive into the great unknown. We discovered that Arnold’s last known address had been in a town called Enochs, near the New Mexico border. But those records were more than a decade old, and we couldn’t find any contact info or known relatives. I figured the best course of action would be to start asking around when I got there, you know, good old fashioned investigative journalism. Maybe some of the folks out here would even still read newspapers, given what appeared to be a technological gap that became more apparent the further I got from the “city” of Lubbock.
I noticed the first billboard about 15 minutes from Enochs: “Take America Back!” written in bright patriotic letters. Having traveled through most of the US, I knew these signs were common in the rural South, and thought little of it. The next sign was a little more conspicuous, “Join the III% Today: Recruiting Center in Enochs.” I’d heard a bit about the three percenters, mostly militia-type that wanted to start another Civil War or something. I was wondering if that’s why North Korea gave a damn about this part of the world; did they actually think there’d be a fighting chance here if the US was divided? I kept driving.
The checkpoint was unexpected. The guards carrying Type 58 AK pattern rifles was even more shocking. I rolled down my window when one of the burly men ushered for me.
“The hell you doing out here?” was the closest I got to an explanation from him. It looked like he could smell the city on me, and he certainly noticed my foreign car with out of state plates.
“I’m looking to speak to Arnold Jeffers” I replied, “I heard he might live out here, I’m a journalist from the Ne –“ I stopped myself, then corrected “Dallas News, my editor was looking to do an interview on his views towards American foreign policy.” I figured that was close enough to the truth to suffice, and he seemed to perk up at the mention of a local news agency taking them seriously.
“Alright, but we’ll have to search you before permitting entry,” was his response. After having gone through worse checkpoints in Taliban controlled regions, I didn’t think there’d be much harm in permitting a search on American soil.
What I found on the other side of the checkpoint was astounding, the entire town of Enochs had been converted into a paramilitary training camp, completely outfitted with North Korean issued small arms and equipment. When I reached city hall with my armed escort, I was greeted by a large bearded man, carrying a 1911 45 caliber pistol in a drop leg holster, and smoking a fat cigar.
“Welcome to Enochs, “he began, “Or as I should say, the capital of the Free States of America” and with his gesture, it all started making sense.
*edit for some formatting and grammar* | 10 | most_different |
10 | 1,443,986,366 | 81 | Adolf Hitler got into art school. Though in his 90's he ends up hosting the 'Joy of Painting' instead of Bob Ross in 1983. | Somewhere in an alternate 1980s, a family gathers around the television. Dad finally manages to get the remote off of little Bobby Sue, who's trying to watch the latest AVA video on MTV. Everyone famous in this alternate universe is Nazis, for some reason. Just roll with it.
Dad turns on the nightly news, and America's most trusted name in journalism appears onscreen. It's not Walter Cronkite or Dan Rather.
"Good evening, this is the CBS Nightly News and I'm your host, Joseph Goebbels.
"Our lead story tonight involves the hostilities in Palestine.
"The United Nations, led by world superpower Germany -- which won WWII in this timeline by using the creative tactics of 'not invading the USSR until they'd defeated the other guys' and 'not being so batshit crazy that literally anyone who is not them hated them'. But of course viewers at home will already know that, you live here-- anyway, Germany's current Fuhrer has condemned the Jewish nationalist uprising in the Levant.
"*Reichskanzler* Kohl had this to say:"
The screen cuts to a shot of the most powerful man in the world, Helmut Kohl, who is standing behind a podium addressing journalists. He is speaking in bombastic, half-shouted statements as the crowd applauds.
"The peaceful nations of the world will not let the disease of nationalism destroy the great nation of Palestine! This aggression will not stand!"
The screen cuts back to Goebbels behind the news desk.
"Peacekeeping forces have been dispatched to help the Palestinian Security Forces quell the unrest. Of course, no nation in this timeline recognizes Israel as a legitimate state. Why am I telling you that?"
"In other news, a well-loved artist who appears in his own television program is in some hot water with minority advocacy groups."
The screen cuts to an elderly, bespectacled Adolf Hitler, who still wears his trademark moustache. In his late 90s, it is wispy and cotton-white. He is standing over a canvas, speaking.
"And now vee shall paint ze happy leetle tree, so gut für burning ze Jew. . ."
Cut back to Goebbels.
"The ADL and several other Jewish advocacy groups have roundly condemned this statement, which the show's editors apparently failed to notice.
"Of course, no one else cares much about anti-Semitism because the Holocaust never happened in our timeline. In fact, without the Nazis having happened to make everyone take a collective breath and say "yeah, maybe modernity has gone too far," racism in general is still pretty cool in the 1980s of this timeline. You win some, you lose some, I guess! You can tune in for new episodes of *The Joy of Painting* every Tuesday, here on CBS!"
| 31 | most_different |
179 | 1,465,687,157 | 1,455 | You're a man who's tired of his life, so one day, while driving home from work, instead of stopping at your house, you just decided to keep driving. | Hands on the wheel
and eyes on the road -
Dad taught me safety
all those years ago
He said, "Get a good job
and get a nice wife
and look out for strangers
and don't ruin your life."
He said, "Play it safe, son,
you need security,
so just keep your head down
and don't end up like me."
So I got a nice job
with a nine-to-five grind
And I got a nice wife
who I didn't mind
Right up 'till one day
when I drove home
with my hands on the wheel
and eyes on the road -
and I saw my turnoff
and something just snapped
so I kept on rolling
with the sun on my back.
I don't know what'll happen
but I'm feeling no fear
'cause dad, there are worse things
than danger out there. | 1,199 | most_different |
11 | 1,641,415,100 | 83 | - A cover letter by someone who really wants to work as a dentist but has no qualifications, or really any idea what teeth are. | # Joe Person
**Dr. Phillip Ralston**
*Dentist of Human Faces*
O'Fallon Family Dental
501 Grant St.
O'Fallon, MO 63367
Dr. Ralston,
Since as long as I can remember, I have loved teeth. When I tell you about this love, I must emphasize that my passion for human dental bones is entirely innocuous. I do not eat the teeth. If given the opportunity to eat the teeth, I can assure you I would not. If offered teeth on a plate for consumption, I would politely decline and remind my host that "eating teeth is *not* a very human thing to do."
I *would not* eat them.
My fascination is more professional than such a base desire, however appealing it might seem on the surface. I am particularly drawn to the way teeth move, their circular motion, and the delightful honking noise they make when eye contact is made. I have done much research on this subject.
Being a human being, and not a creature from a different plane of reality, I often spend hours peering into the mirror smiling, conversing with my teeth, offering them positive reinforcement for their contribution to the greater human goals, such as sports and electronic mail.
I would greatly like to join you in the dental profession, so that I may share my entirely normal admiration for teeth with patients, all of whom also have teeth on account of their humanity.
You will see on my attached resume that my experience is extensive. I have performed one hundred dental things, and cured countless cases of dental death. Thrice I have been elected President of the United States. I attended the prestigious dental academy, The Dental Academy. Privately, I still recite my Alma Mater's chant: *Fix the teeth, do not transfer teeth from one being's mouth to your own mouth.*
I look forward to hearing back from you.
Joe Person
November 14, 2021 | 54 | most_different |
19 | 1,475,801,916 | 447 | Hurricane Matthew is approaching and at this point there is only one force powerful enough to stop it. Florida Man. | He was seven rounds deep with the mutated gator what had tried to snatch his balls in a Taco Bell shitter when the call came in.
"Git, Shitter Gator! Git!" roared Florida Man over the twinkling peel of his Nokia. He grabbed out the syringe of butterscotch pudding he kept in his boot for such and like occasions and stabbed the gator in the eye - blood, viscera, and orange instant pudding splattering the walls.
"Real busy!" crowed Florida Man into the Nokia. "Turtle with herpes in the K-Mart! Speak or shut up!"
"Save us, Florida Man!" screamed a lady's voice on the other end of the phone. "He's comin'! Hurricane Matthew is comin'!"
"Fuck! Really? Fuck! Shit! Okay, shut up," said Florida Man, cramming the pay-as-you-go phone into his cargo shorts. "Miami Hurricanes I'mma *fuck* you up sumpin' **fierce**." And with that he dove through the bathroom window, stole a truck full of Monster Energy, and headed south towards his aunt's house.
"Aunt Windy!" he screamed, huckin' empties at the front door. "Aunt Windy, wake the fuck up!"
The door crashed open. Aunt Windy laid a trio of warning shots out into the street, only managing to hit a mid-sized dog and Carl, who probably deserved it.
"What the fuck you want?" howled Aunt Windy.
"It's them hurricanes," said Florida Man. "Gone too far. Need my Power Up juice."
"You mean yer bath salts?" said Aunt Windy.
"Stop yammering and gimme!"
Aunt Windy slipped him the finger, but did as she was told.
"**BY THE POWER OF FLORIDA, I HAVE THE POWER!**"
"You go git 'em," said Aunt Windy. "And pick me up some scratches and some Mad Dog on yer way back."
"Git 'em yerself y'old tit-bag!" snarled Florida Man. "I'm gonna go fuck a pile of pizzas!"
"What about them hurricanes?" said Aunt Windy.
"Hurricanes can eat my asshole!" shouted Florida Man as he peeled out onto the street, running down an escaped zebra, a meth-head Eiffel Tower, and Carl in the process. Seven hundred yards later, Florida Man immediately forgot what he was doing and so drove to the nearest strip club instead, where he was arrested soon after for eating stray panties and fucking a soap dispenser in the men's room.
_________________________________________________________
*But seriously, Florida is great. Please don't get swept into the ocean, you beautiful weirdos.* | 96 | most_different |
16 | 1,590,966,815 | 128 | Monarchs have gotten tired of sending their princes to death to rescue princesses as a means of finding a spouse. You decided to capitalize on this by assembling a team that does princess extractions efficiently and effectively, for a price of course. | If you want your princess saved, come on down to Me and Dale. Dale and I will save your damsel with the utmost care and attention. We also do rat extermination.
Out of any other princess extraction service in the Tri-State Area, Me and Dale is the only one to actually exist. Some people say that's because there are no princesses in the Tri-State Area. Some say Dale and I lost our minds due to prolonged exposure to rat gas. They say we're going crazy. They say we're hardly speaking English anymore.
But Dale and I know the truth: these people are devil worshippers who want us to forget our loving monarchs, the invisible ones, who need their princesses saved and their vassals shaved. We also do vassal shaving! So come on down to Me and Dale, leave your socks and all metal objects outside, and I dunno, just come on down here. We'll do the thing we said we would. | 22 | most_different |
10 | 1,443,720,257 | 43 | Instead of football, the world is obsessed with a sport involving a ruler, cosplay, a field of Jello, 2 bowling balls, half of a golf club, and 3 small children. | "He's chosen his suit. not a conventional choice Terry but the long robes of the Jedi order can counteract some of the bounce if used correctly. Here the Captains; Atikins and Pardoe taste the field, as per tradition, before assuming the Left-handed Aardvark position - And there's the fudge! Just look at those fishnets! Curry mincing down the left wobbler whilst Gordon breaks the ground with a terrific hurl! Howard making amazing progress there despite the Godzilla-foot handicap and the shaft is in! straight into the thumb hole of the number twelve ball! *it does not get better than this!*"
"Oh yes it does Barry! Wells is making a tiff on the twins with barely seconds left! He's stacked George and Frederick but can he make a triple Oreo? Here comes the number seven ball now in the steel claws of Edward Scissorhands! worn by the man himself! The legend! Marcus Gresty! If there's anyone that can pull this off it's him! And there's the leap! AND THEY'RE STACKED! Perfectly plunged into the hands of little Marie at a height of ten metres fifty-seven!"
"And look at the mess of that pitch! A complete bakers! Not a single defending player in twelve left unstuck! Truly it is a rare treat to see a play as great as this Terry!"
"Yes it is Barry... Yes it is!" | 11 | most_different |
883 | 1,418,220,081 | 3,546 | Wikipedia is shut down and all copies deleted for lack of funds and loss of net neutrality. This is the founder's "I warned you, jerks" notification. | Dear Wikipedia Readers: We’ll get right to it. We’ve never asked for much, maybe a few dollars here and there—to be honest, we've averaged maybe $15 in donations. That’s it. Did you know that 99% of other charities average $15,000 *per day*? Probably not, because we made that statistic up. Do you know why we made it up? We’re pretty sure you know why we made that up.
We want to make it abundantly clear that we at Wikipedia tried our best to keep our website a non-profit. For over a decade, we’ve run and maintained the largest free encyclopedia in existence, never once portraying so much as a single advertisement on any of our millions of pages. Do you remember the days of Encyclopedia Britannica, where you’d need to hire several burly, Swedish bodybuilders to lug half the compilation to your Psychology 101 class, just so that you could understand who the hell Sigmund Freud was? Probably not, because that was almost a hundred years ago. Is that date completely and utterly made up? Absolutely, but you know why. However, if for some reason you haven’t caught on yet, keep reading.
Here at Wikipedia, we, the editors, made our requests simple and clear: we just needed $3 from some of our visitors once every few years. That’s it. Three dollars. With that, we could’ve kept running for decades. Yet a total of fourteen of you donated this year, giving us a result of $74.32 raised (and to the jerk who sent 32 cents, thanks for costing us money to receive your donation). Do you know how much you spend on Starbucks every week? $27. You spend twenty-seven dollars on Starbucks. Every. Single. Week. Is that statistic made up? Yes. Do you know why it’s made up? We’re positive you do.
As many of you are aware, Net Neutrality was struck down this year, resulting in heavily increased costs for Wikipedia to maintain its servers and remain equally accessible to all Internet Service Providers. As such, we at Wikipedia were met with a difficult choice: either we could put a few banner advertisements on the website, which would net us millions—if not billions—of dollars, but sacrifice our integrity and the reliability of our content; or we could depend on you, our trusted, loyal visitors, to donate less than a tenth of your weekly paycheck. As we had such blind faith in our beloved users, we decided to decline all advertisement offers and move forward with our previous plan of funding: donations. After all, we’ve always survived on the measly funds gained by you, our greedy, selfish users.
In order to continue functioning as a company, we at Wikipedia, a non-profit library of endless information, needed to raise a total of $3,000,000. We raised $74.32. Seventy-four thirty-two. The average 14 year old child makes twice that in a single day of basketball. Is that fact actually a completely made up statement? It absolutely, positively is. Yet here’s the issue: due to the fact that none of you donated more than what a hypothetical, athletic child earns, Wikipedia has officially closed its doors as a non-profit as of December 10th, 2014. You can no longer trust statistics that were once reliably provided by us through our pages. That’s right, we’re done, out, closed. It’s over.
“But Wikipedia, I’m on your site right now. I’m reading this notice on your website this very moment.” Great observation, Captain. You are a very astute learner. You are most certainly on Wikipedia right now. Yet you might notice something a bit strange about it. For example, have you taken note of the fact that every single page now incorporates references to Comcast and their excellent products, and those that don’t simply redirect to Comcast’s Wikipedia page (heavily edited by their glorious lawyers)? Why don’t you go ahead and search the word “Cats.” Do it, we’ll wait.
Have you searched it yet? Great. Did you know that the average feline prefers Comcast’s XFINITY^® to Verizon? Of course they do, it’s just a better product all around—Wikipedia clearly explains that. How about the fact that the most common cat in the United States is the XFINITY Triple Play™? “That doesn’t make any sense” you say? Well, according to Wikipedia-Comcast^® it most certainly does.
We here at Wikipedia-Comcast^® are proud to announce our long-awaited merger with Comcast, allowing us to become a publicly traded company and fully incorporate their great line of products and services into any and all encyclopedia entries. Reading a great excerpt on Shakespeare’s beloved tragedy *Romeo and Juliet*? You may just be lucky enough to find a fantastic coupon to save 10% on your already low monthly Comcast bill. Checking out the results from the 1972 World Series? Whoa—a free month of HBO on Comcast’s renowned television services! Of course, this also means that all Wikipedia pages are no longer editable. Our lawyers also want us to mention that all Wikipedia pages have been stripped of citations that have not approved by Comcast and that all entries should no longer be taken as fact, although they certainly will be chock-full of money saving offers from Comcast.
Wikipedia-Comcast^® would like to thank you for the decades of experiences you, our loyal, devoted fans, have granted us. For more than half of our average user’s life, we have stood by you, supported you through your education, allowed you to plagiarize your way through college and beyond. We are eternally grateful for the opportunity to have assisted you, and would like to conclude our farewell on a very simple, basic note. For a limited time, sign up for Comcast’s XFINITY Triple Play™ using the code “Wikipedia” to automatically be updated to the “HD Preferred” package, a $199/month value for just $189/month.
______________________
^If ^you ^enjoy ^my ^writing ^style, ^feel ^free ^to ^check ^out ^some ^of ^my ^other ^short ^stories [^in ^my ^brand-spanking-new ^subreddit](http://www.reddit.com/r/ChokingVictimWrites/) ^or [^on ^my ^website!](http://wordsontheinternet.org/) | 4,509 | most_different |
16 | 1,462,891,461 | 34 | You are a construction worker on a government job. Everything seems normal, until one day you discover the true nature of what you are helping to build. | In the dusty, smoggy afternoon sun, a cacophony of men working berated the Xinyi district of Taipei’s streets. Workers working and materials moving intermingled with busy cars and pedestrians. This chaos was Taiwan’s effort to build the world’s tallest building in their capital city.
Within all of the commotion, a worker left for lunch. His team finished their morning assignments and separated to find peace somewhere quieter. He walked down the block and turned right at the first corner and then walked another block to sit on a curb and eat the lunch his wife packed him.
The grey blur of cars, mopeds, bicycles, and foot traffic passed left and right in front and behind the man draped in a fluorescent yellow vest and topped with a scuffed and blackened white hardhat. He enjoyed the quiet and resting his legs for a moment before digging into his brown paper bag. A man in a gray suit took a seat on the curb next to him with a brown paper bag in his hand.
The worker looked up from the pear he munched on, “Hello.’
“Hello,” the suited man said. “You’re working on the one-hundred-one story building, yes?”
“Yes,” the worker responded without interrupting his munching.
“And your name is Leo?”
The worker looked the suited man in the eyes and finished chomping his bite, “Who are you?”
“Your name is Leo Liau, correct?” the suited man persisted.
The worker continued staring the suited man in the eyes, “Yes.” The suited man presented the brown bag to Leo and Leo accepted it, “What is this?”
The suited man smiled and stood up. Leo stared up at him. The man centered his focus on the flowing crowd on the sidewalk behind Leo before entering and walking off. Leo opened the brown paper bag and found three sheets of paper the size of postcards. He scanned through the writing on them. The papers instructed him to tamper with the tuned mass damper system, the system that stabilized the building and protected it from swaying uncontrollably under harsh conditions.
Leo left the curb immediately to get to tampering before his team returned from their breaks. Leo accessed the mass damper surprisingly easily. He figured he would. Everyone wore the same uniform and had no reason to question a worker working. He removed the twelve bolts the instructions asked him to remove and he hoped the Chinese government wouldn’t kill his family like they promised they wouldn’t, so long as he obeyed. Afterwards, Leo felt torn with guilt over potentially harming masses of people to save his comparatively minuscule family.
An hour later, another man came and removed twelve more bolts and felt the same way. A number of men before and after tampered with the damper and felt awful. Some of them killed themselves that night, and others were slaughtered with their families in their sleep.
The construction teams never lost much momentum after losing saboteurs. Teammates disappeared overnight and the government already assigned replacements by morning.
“It looks alright,” the Taiwanese leader said watching and rewinding a clip of the Taipei 101 collapsing.
“It looks alright!?” an orderly questioned. “We worked *painstakingly* to sabotage the building for proper aesthetics””
“It looks too messy. The Chinese would never attack act so sloppily. Don’t air it.” | 11 | most_different |
8 | 1,451,900,291 | 16 | A world where everyone talks in puns. | 'The problem with her', said the Marquis, 'the problem with her is that she's terribly badly bread'. And it was true: the girl was awfully crusty, and spent most of her time baked or loafing around the Yeast End.
'Anyway', continued the Marquis, raising his glass, 'let us toast her nonetheless'!
'Though she may well knead an intervention soon', his accomplice said with a rye smile.
'I'm not so sure', replied the Marquis. 'I think it might be butter not to try and mould her'.
They paused.
'I hear she wants to become a chef', rejoined the Marquis. 'But I'm not sure she has the skillet takes. And I've always found her to be a tad shellfish'.
'You're right, she has mushroom for improvement. All she knows is what she learnt during her time in Amsterdam: what she likes to call her 'Hollandaise'. Apart from that she's put in little thyme or effort.'
'Well if she's mustard up the courage to go for it, good on her. Though I hope she's learnt from her errors. Those who forget the pasta condemned to reheat it.'
'Indeed. Is she still vegetarian?'
'Oh no. She realised rather quickly that that was a missed steak'. | 13 | most_different |
8 | 1,457,906,173 | 32 | Color is man-made and created in factories. Some cities can't afford to have color distributed to citizens. | A man from a grey city called Drock was walking home from work. He looked up in the sky and saw a Color Vessel, most likely flying a color shipment to the wealthy neighbouring city, Skyleen. He watched in awe at it's enormity. He thought to himself, *even the Color Vessels are grey, you aren't going to be able to afford to paint your daughter's room for her birthhour. She is going to be crushed. Huh, I guess this Vessel does have a splash of orange on it...is that fire? Wait, there's no way it's defective, it's the brand new line of Zeppelin Color Vessels.*
It exploded. The insides of the vessel spewed out, covered the sky, and then slammed down on the man and everything around him. He opened his eyes to his daughter's favorite color. He realized, I have a blue house with a blue window. Blue is the colour of all that I wear. Blue are the streets and all the trees are too. I have a girlfriend and she is so blue. Blue are the people here that walk around. Blue like my corvette, it's in and outside. Blue are the words I say and what I think. Blue are the feelings that live inside me. | 10 | most_different |
12 | 1,475,161,191 | 66 | Mankind has just discovered life on another planet. The first comprehensive report on their biology, culture, societal structure, and the rest of their civilization as a whole is being prepared. Use your imagination to describe an entirely alien world. Nothing is taken for granted. | 134 | *Study of Proxima b : TSAL* | Section 8 *Historical Technology*
---
use of radio telescope. Interestingly, despite many of their differences, optical technology is very similar to how it was developed on Earth. In the early period of their technological development, many of their telescopes used refracting lenses at a distance from each other in order to discern heavenly bodies. With the eyes of the Tylrteg being one of the only things similar to Humans[13], it is one of the only similarities in technology. Many of their early observatories were set in craters because it would be easier to block infrared EM waves from their environment [51]. Later, orbiting telescopes gathered data from the entire EM spectrum. Details of Tylrteg optical and telescope technology are in Appendix E4.
*Space Travel*
The Tylrteg have not spent as much time as humanity in space despite having had the technology for longer than us. This is because of the relatively few places they would be able to travel within 1 ly. In the early stages of development, the Tylrteg first developed spaceflight in order to launch satellites into orbit. The first satellite launched into orbit was on 1853/05/23 Earth year, and was designed to send EM signals to the opposite side of the planet. These EM waves were in the radio spectrum which the Tylrteg can see [13]. Later satellites included telescopes, relays, and broadcast stations.
The first ‘manned’ spaceflight was achieved on 1926/08/06. The purpose of this was a proof of concept to their scientists who theorized interplanetary travel [245]. Only 375 Tylrteg years later, a successful space station orbiting their sun a day behind their planet was established. Despite this success, the next nearest mission to the nearby Alpha Centauri A and B would not take place until Earth year 2135. This mission was seen as a waste of resources by many Tylrteg and was one of the causes of the Sector 438/2514 government separation in Earth year 2135.
To launch spacecraft into orbit around their planet, the Tylrteg took advantage of their planets equatorial momentum and the gravity of their sun. Launch sites are always on the equator, and launches occur so that the rocket launches towards their sun. This reduces the amount of fuel that the rockets would need. This was important because the Tylrteg did not have access to any sort of fossil fuels [52], and used O2 as the main component in their fuel. What the fuel contains is a mystery since they will not share what it is made of [263]. They are also secretive of
---
*Terran Study of Alien Lifeforms* 2450
| 13 | most_different |
45 | 1,650,835,197 | 2,775 | An enterprising mad scientist opens a shop to sell supplies to other mad scientists. However, the store becomes very popular with the local college students for cheap hardware repair, access to forbidden knowledge, and adorable mutant pets. | It’s hard to explain, but there’s something special about the girl who works Montmartre’s forbidden knowledge desk. I told my buddy Ian yesterday and I don’t think he understood. Will you?
To start, there is Montmartre. I think the name itself is a reference, though I’ve never figured out if it has any special meaning. Pierre, the madman who owns the store, is neither discernibly French nor discernibly artistic, and we live in an age where we all feel neutered without Google ready to answer for us, so I’ve hit the end of that road, I think.
The store has a certain style, however, and you can gather what you need about Pierre and his broader world from it. Montmartre is a disaster zone of stolen goods and sketchy tools, failed experiments strew the ground like leaves in fall. It's a single room subdivided by thin rice paper curtains, more like a warehouse—or a junkyard—for eccentricities than anything resembling a functional store. A trip to Montmartre most often entails a shovel and an entire afternoon spent sweating side by side with a villain attempting to build a better bomb, and though the conversation is always excellent, and though the villains are always rather personable and quite fabulously dressed, you come away from the experience hoping that you ruined their day as much as you might have made your own with the discovery of some five-dollar doodad to brew the perfect cup of coffee.
And so it would take a singular person to work in any sort of place like Montmartre, and the girl behind the forbidden knowledge desk is absolutely singular—I didn’t even need to speak to her to find that out—but before that, there is the matter of the forbidden knowledge desk itself.
Its location changes. Some mornings it begins in the southwest quadrant, proceeding logically on in a counterclockwise motion that maps poorly onto the (generally) squarish room. Other times it chooses its locations at random: true north on a dreary Monday, east on a Tuesday afternoon, on the second floor balcony above the pet supplies section for three days straight before traipsing off behind linens for the weekend.
And once found, forbidden knowledge is itself partitioned. Imagine Montmartre: you enter through a gaping pair of old-world rolling doors, stolen, perhaps, from a barn. Pierre greets you in a pinstriped suit topped by a baseball cap for a team that’s never once existed, waves you further into his madness, and ducking between the adamantium legs of a thirteen-foot, gas-powered colossus you find the forbidden knowledge section dead center of the chaos. You step through an invisible barrier, lifting off the world like a fine haze of lingerie, and there she is, forbidden knowledge. A thousand books surround the desk arranged in precarious, pyramidal piles. Ten thousand fireflies form themselves into color-coded walls and aisles. A hundred thousand secrets wait, locked behind a million forgotten passwords. In the center of it, the girl.
I think her name is February.
I might be wrong. I’m probably wrong. Nobody is named February, though I knew a girl once named April, and May is a pretty enough name as well, though I think they spell that differently. Suffice to say that February might, or might not be her name. I’ve never quite been brave enough to ask, intimidated as I am by her confidence and the hellacious ease with which she approaches learning.
February devours books, you see. Every time I enter into forbidden knowledge she’s sitting in her tattered armchair, feet balanced on the polished mahogany surface of her desk, and she’s reading, a more obscure tome each day. Titles like *How to Start An Ending, How to End A Starting, Fashion In The Subliminal World,* and most recently *My Time Embedded With A Tantric Dragon.*
I watched her turn the pages once. Ten seconds, page. Another ten seconds, another page. Like clockwork, the easy motion of her eyes, her entire being focused down onto the single point of ink and word and page.
And if you’re asking what’s so special about February, that look is my easy answer. When she’s focused it’s like there isn’t any world. I envy that.
But of course, that’s just the easy answer. When I told my dear friend Ian he asked if she was beautiful. I stalled a moment and a slow, salacious smile spread across his face. He didn’t wait for my answer, just rushed on to make assumptions, to assume that, above all else, I must *want* her.
Which isn’t untrue really but the thing is, February isn’t beautiful. Not in any classical sense. She’s…
She’s perfect, but god it’s hard to understand.
I like her dresses. The way the black eats at the light. I like her socks, they’re always fun and mismatched. She has long, clean-lined legs, and I can’t deny that’s pleasant, but she also doesn’t have a face. Not in any classical sense.
Again, it is so hard to understand.
Ian powered on. He slapped me on the back. He said the friend-ly things. He told me I should ask her out and here I am, having ducked between the steely legs of the thirteen-foot, gas-powered colossus, having navigated through the rice paper partitions and the firefly aisles.
And there she is.
And she looks up when I say her name.
And she looks at me.
And she sets down her book: *Failure: A Case Study.*
And she cocks her head to the side.
And she asks me to speak up. | 443 | most_different |
9 | 1,645,027,138 | 87 | The USA is destroyed. You go across lifeless streets scavenging for something to eat. Your house is one of the few still standing up. Nostalgia is what's keeping you from departing to find a new home after the Apocalypse... Then you hear a knock on the the door. It's the IRS. | INT. apartment - day
A disheveled post-apocalyptic apartment: broken furniture, junk dragged in off the street, dead plants in pots, door along back wall. Furniture includes sofa with no cushions, a card table, and a char with one leg missing. At the kitchen counter is a MAN dressed in filthy rags. He is stirring a pot and humming to himself.
After a few seconds, he dips a ladle into the pot and retrieves a rusty tin can. He deposits this onto a plate, and takes it to the table. He is just about to dig in when there is a knock at the door.
MAN
Always when I'm eating! (gets up, chair falls over behind him) Coming, I'm coming.
MAN crosses over to front door, and opens it. Behind door is an IRS AGENT, dressed in a filthy ragged gray three-piece suit. He carries a beat-up briefcase.
AGENT
Pardon me, Mister Clements?
MAN
No, he died.
AGENT
Oh dear. Well, would you be Mrs Clements?
MAN
I'd prefer not to. She's dead, too.
AGENT
I see. Well, is there anybody in who's not dead?
MAN looks around the otherwise empty apartment.
MAN
Well, I suppose there's me?
AGENT
Me who?
MAN
No, me Bob. Who you?
AGENT
Me IRS Agent.
MAN
I might have known. What are you here for, then?
AGENT
Oh, it's nothing to worry about, I assure you. Just coming around to collect the revenue.
MAN
What revenue?
AGENT
Why, the tax revenue, of course. May I come in?
MAN
Oh, I suppose. Wipe your feet.
IRS Agent carefully wipes his feet and enters the room, which we now see has a dirt floor.
MAN
I'd offer you a seat, but I've just got the one.
AGENT
Quite all right, sir. I always bring my own. (takes a small camp stool out of his briefcase and sets it up)
MAN
Any trouble getting here?
AGENT
Oh, not at all. There was no traffic to speak of. But then, there never is, these days, is there?
MAN
Hardly any roads either.
AGENT
Well, yes, that does put a bit of a crimp on in. But you know what they say, "Neither rain nor sleet nor snow..."
MAN
That's the Post Office, isn't it?
AGENT
My goodness, so it is.
MAN
Whatever happened to them, anyway?
AGENT
Well, it turns out that rain nor sleet nor snow--
MAN
Nor gloom of night--
AGENT
Nor gloom of night, yes. Well, it doesn't say anything about fallout.
MAN
What, nothing?
AGENT
Not a word.
MAN
Funny they'd leave that out.
AGENT
I thought so. But of course, we of the Internal Revenue are, if I may say so, made of sterner stuff.
MAN
Well, you'd have to be.
AGENT
Quite. Which brings me to the object of my visit. Namely, you don't appear to have filed your taxes for this year.
MAN
Ah. Well, there's a good reason for that.
AGENT
Oh yes?
MAN
I couldn't find a stamp.
AGENT
Did you try your local post office?
MAN
I did. It was closed.
AGENT
Closed?
MAN
Well, by "closed" I mean "rubble". But I dug around for a while and found what was left of the front door.
AGENT
And?
MAN
It said, "Closed for lunch, back in 5 minutes."
AGENT
And were they?
MAN
No!
AGENT
Oh dear.
MAN
I must have waited twenty minutes.
AGENT
Well, never mind. The truth is we've been having an awful lot of trouble with late filers this year. We experimented with sending out homing pigeons, the idea being that people could tie their completed returns to the pigeon's leg, you see. It worked very well in the trails. So we sent a few out.
MAN
What happened?
AGENT
They ate them.
MAN
Ate them?
AGENT
They thought it was "Meals on Wheels".
MAN
Oh dear.
AGENT
Quite. And so we decided it would be easier to send people out door-to-door, as it were. And here I am.
MAN
I see. Well, I'm not sure how much I have in the way of revenue this year.
AGENT
Not to worry, I'll help you, it's what I'm here for.
​
(cont'd below) | 12 | most_different |
33 | 1,417,789,137 | 61 | Your so-called "chosen one" has decided to join the ranks of your sworn enemy. | My answer to this prompt is a sequel to another answer I wrote [here](http://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/2o0b5a/eu_sokka_and_katara_never_find_aang_as_a_result/cmil979), where Aang is found by the Fire Nation. And if you don't know the names, this is all from the Avatar: The Last Airbender universe.
----
A single Fire Nation ship steamed into view on the horizon off the coast of Haven Island. A Water Tribe runner burst into Zuko's hut, where he was meeting with his top lieutenants, Noatak and Tarrlok. He panted at the door, trying to spit out the message, but it was unnecessary. Zuko spotted the ship through the doorway and bolted outside, shouting commands. Noatak and Tarrlok followed, gathering their Water Benders for a tidal wave push.
They lined the shore and began to dance in their slow, swaying patterns. Earthbenders slid down the sandy arms of the bay on gliders, preparing to raise shoals behind the Fire Nation vessel so that the wave would wreck the ship and tear it apart. The waters of the bay began to stir with motion, moving back and forth in an ever-increasing mass. The ship steamed closer, and gouts of fire began to rain down on the beach. Zuko stood on a raised tower, zapping each artillery shell with bolts of lightning that detonated the explosives like fireworks. Earthbenders raised a stone wall around the village, protecting it from the bombardment.
The wave grew more powerful. Tarrlok and Noatak were deep in concentration, biceps bulging as they controlled the wall of water. With a final shove that left the waterbenders collapsed on the beach, it traveled down the middle of the bay like a freight train, full of unstoppable fury. The earthbenders raised pillars from the ocean floor, creating a spiky barricade ready to pierce the hull of the ship.
As the wave reached the Fire Nation cruiser, it... split. The ship passed directly between the two waves that crashed harmlessly into the rock pillars and dissipated. Tarrlok and Noatak stared at each other, then at Zuko. Their expressions were clear: *that should have worked.* Zuko nodded back. This was something new.
From the deck of the ship, a small shape burst into the air. Some sort of bird? Its feathers shown red against the sun as it swooped over the bay and soared toward the beach. The earthbenders hurled rocks into the air while the waterbenders snapped at it with tendrils of water, but it duck and wove with magnificent grace. Zuko took aim, sending bolts of lightning arcing through the sky, but no luck.
As it came closer, Zuko finally saw: not a bird, a boy. With a wooden glider, painted red with Fire Nation insignia. *But how*... he thought. *Father wiped out the airbenders over a hundred years ago!*
The boy dove to the beach and landed in a whirling tornado of sand, throwing Tarrlok and Noatak back against the jungle that lined the beach. His bald head was marked only by a single blue arrow tattoo, and he wore the bright red robes displaying the Phoenix Queen symbol. He shot a gout of flame at Zuko's watchtower, and the supports turned to cinders and collapsed. Zuko dove gracefully for his age and rolled to a stop on sand. *Airbender*? *Waterbender*? *Firebender*? His eyes narrowed. *The Avatar,* he realized. After years of searching, Zuko had given up on the prospect of ever finding him. He'd just assumed that he had died with the rest of the Air Benders. But apparently, Azula had somehow gotten to him.
"I've come to put an end to your reign of terror," the boy announced. | 28 | most_different |
5 | 1,641,448,414 | 111 | The Aztec guide raised his palm, signaling his conquistador companion to halt; “Do not go into that cave. There are no riches, no gold, only death. It is not a place of God”. | Juan Pablo Soria Hernandez Vega Almanzar de Garcia smirked. One hand rested on the pommel of his sword while the other fished a metal cross out from underneath his collar, brandishing it proudly.
"Thankfully, I bring God with me wherever I go. Just as I brought him to this primitive land."
The Spaniard strode forward, but the guide threw an arm out, blocking his way.
"I am serious...please believe me when I say you will find nothing good in there. Unless you think death is good."
The Spaniard scoffed.
"Our Lord Jesus Christ vanquished death itself. Or did you forget what we've taught you? When you walk with God, you fear nothing."
The guide hesitated, but then stepped aside with a sigh of resignation.
The Spaniard nodded, pleased, and then strode into the cave.
A few minutes passed.
And then a scream cut through the silence, ringing out from the depths of the cave. It carried on, pain and fear and despair choking the chilling sound, until it stopped abruptly.
A rustling sound came next, the scraping of something along the floor of the cave. The guide looked away pointedly, only seeing, out of the corner of his eye, a tall, four-legged, spindly silhouette emerge into the sunlight.
A low growl sent shivers down his spine, and then the disquieting sound turned into words.
"Bring...me...more..." | 38 | most_different |
18 | 1,419,336,196 | 52 | Due to bafoonery in both the democrat and republican campaigns, a write-in candidate wins the 2016 presidency; Uncle Iroh gives his inaugural address. | “It is time to look, to start asking the big questions. Like who we are, and what do we want? We have two great and powerful parties, the democrats and the republicans, but they have become divided and lost balance with each other. We must remember that our brothers across the aisle are not our enemies, but our family. We are, after all, a Unite States, forged in the fires of war to have a fine edge and deadly purpose.
To restore balance to the parties I am enacting a new proposal. All senators and congressman must cast one vote to a bill sponsored by the opposing part for every three they cast to a bill sponsored by their own party. If things continue we will amend the proposal so that it is every two bills, and then every bill. If that is not sufficient, we will only allow bills sponsored by independent parties.
Now to address these lesser parties. For many years they have struggled under the weight of the two party system, with many wise and learned candidates failing to achieve election for lack of support. Therefore I will let the party chairman know that one half of all my parties funds will be distributed to these lesser parties, and I encourage my counterparts in the opposite party to do the same. I am showing weakness to you, my brothers in the other party, and will trust you to join me in aiding those of our brothers who are not so fortunate to have a strong supporting party.
We must not allow ourselves to slip into discord and despair, and surrender to your lowest instincts. In the darkest times, hope is something you give yourself. That is the meaning of inner strength." | 23 | most_different |
3 | 1,659,451,039 | 85 | After a person dies they will be presented with a customization screen to create their ideal body upon reincarnation. You however made your character as monstrous as possible. | “Oh… wow… another free thinker who wants to stand out from everyone else,” the angel says with a bored voice.
“What? What’s wrong with being pink Shrek? You said I can customize myself however I please and being Shrek but neon pink pleases me!”
“Huh…” The angel sighs and messages the bridge of his nose. “Look, kid. Let me ask you something, why do you think there’s so many ugly people in the world?”
“Er… genetics?”
“They all wanted to mess around with the character creator. Just. Like. You. Then they regretted their decisions the second they were born. You’re not a special snowflake kid. You’re a factory made replica of a stale meme that stopped being funny two thousand years ago.”
“Oh… So you’re saying I can’t look like pink Shrek? What, isn’t God supposed to be all mighty and powerful!?”
“Fine, you dug your own grave, kid. Enjoy being a perma virgin in your next life. Frankly, I don’t give a damn anymore.”
“Oh, on second thought! Wait! Wait! Wait—”
“You get what you deserve, kid. NEXT!”
And so the cycle of wacky character customization continues—forever. | 24 | most_different |
18 | 1,627,991,990 | 394 | A multi-billion dollar company with near limitless reach has targeted you as an enemy. They made the mistake of thinking you were just an ordinary person that would be easy to silence. They are about to find out what happens when they incur the wrath of an old god. | / /*The train now standing at Platform 16 is the 07.57 to New Hawthorne, calling at Reeve's End, Queen Street, Riversdale...and New Hawthorne.*\\ \
A man in a smart, plain black suit walked over to the coffee stand and ordered a coffee. The station was busy; there was nothing remarkable about him; nobody would look twice at him.
Yet he had an objective, one single objective and his objective stood only meters away from him, on the station concourse.
He glanced over, taking care not to be seen to be looking at his target.
The target, a somewhat small man, wearing a plain black T-shirt and grey chinos, looked up at one of the balconies overlooking some of the platforms.
The man in the smart, plain black suit mixed in a carton of milk with his coffee and began to sip slowly, blending in perfectly with the crowd.
*No witnesses*, the contract had clearly stipulated. He hadn't asked any questions; a contract was a contract.
He had calculated that the station would be busy; it was rush hour and there would be many people. There were two main options - either the station toilets or on the actual train itself. The train would be the likely suitable area.
He reached into the inside of his suit to double-check that the pen was there, ready and waiting. Of course it was there; he'd done this dozens of times; all targets had been successfully eliminated and nobody had been none the wiser.
Another announcement blared out from above.
//*Attention. This is a platform correction announcement. The 08.04 to Queensbury will now be departing from Platform 19.*\\
*Shit*, the man in the plain black suit thought.
A large crowd of people was now rushing off a train from platform 11 and were spilling out onto the concourse.
He tried to search for his target, who was a little shorter than average. He walked over to the middle of the concourse, taking care not to attract too much attention.
*There*!
The target was walking quickly towards the far side of the station, where Platforms 17 to 24 were located.
*He must have changed his destination*, the man in the smart, plain black suit thought.
He began to slowly tail him through the crowd, attempting to determine which platform he was headed towards.
The smartscreen above showed several trains departing from those eight platforms within the next twenty minutes.
*Shit*.
The crowds were getting larger and chaos was ensuing. The crowd from platform 11 was getting larger as people continued to spill out onto the concourse, rushing towards the far side of the station.
At that moment, a tall girl, who couldn't have been more than 16 or 17, but was at least 1.8 meters in height, collided into him.
His coffee cup went flying and hot coffee spilled across his suit and onto the floor.
"Oh my god, I'm so sorry," She said, with a thick US accent - from somewhere in the Midwest perhaps.
He sighed hurriedly and waved her away.
"It's fine, it's fine," he said impatiently.
The crowd had now ground to a standstill as dozens - maybe more - of people attempted to reach the far side of the station.
He could no longer see his target.
*Fuck, fuck, fuck!*
He tried to squeeze through the crowd, taking care to appear as a usual impatient commuter, not an assassin on the tail of their target.
Somebody tapped him on the shoulder.
He glanced backwards to see a well-built man - perhaps an Arab or a North African person - standing behind him.
"Hey, dude, is this yours?" the man asked, with a Spanish accent, motioning to an old-fashioned looking leather-bound book.
The assassin frowned and shook his head.
He then continued trying to squeeze through the crowd.
A tap on the shoulder again. It was the same Arab or North African man.
The assassin attempted to keep his irritation from showing.
"Dude, did you lose something?" The man asked again, holding up the same book.
"No, that's not mine!" The assassin snapped, taking care not to draw too much attention.
The other man then moved his head closer, close enough that the assassin could smell his breath and his cologne and whispered menancingly into the assassin's ear.
"I could've sworn you lost something. It's best if you don't find it; we know who you are."
He then turned around and began walking in the opposite direction.
The assassin's eyes widened as he looked on at the man.
*Had his cover been blown? Impossible. This was a standard contract. This had never happened before.*
The assassin considered his options quickly. He had already been paid 20% upfront. The remaining 80% of his fee would come upon completion of the job.
He'd have to abandon this current attempt and report back to his contact.
This had never happened before.
He stood still, stunned and confused. The large crowd continued moving forward and the station concourse had now morphed into an ocean of people.
**************
Gertrude Frost placed the telephone down calmly, even as her hands trembled.
She was furious and shocked at the same time.
Her contact had got back to her. The assassin had failed.
This was ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous. How difficult could it be to take out a normal person in one of the busiest megacities in the world?
She had covered her tracks anyway. Even as a non-executive chairperson, she had made sure to make sure nothing could be traced back to her. She'd already successfully seen several targets of irritation taken out during her time in her non-executive role: the irritating Union president in Chile who was threatening the company's main South American operations with waves of strikes and boycotts; the former employee heading a class action suit in Philadelphia; the Vice President of global operations who kept giving media interviews about "toxic workplace environments".
Frost ran her long bony fingers through her silver hair and stood up. She walked over to the long, wide windows and looked out across the vast ocean, plotting her next steps.
*Something had to be done.*
She still remembered what the contact had told her about what the hitman had said.
"His cover was blown, somehow. He's one of the best; he must have been under surveillance," the contact had said. "Look, I assure you that you haven't been implicated. This is a secure network. I don't know how, but your *normal target*"- he had emphasised this part and she imagined him holding up his fingers for emphasis - "appears to have tails of his own. Protection, maybe? Are you sure you gathered enough information?"
Gertrude had snapped at the contact and assured him that she had been as thorough as she could have been. It wasn't an important or famous or rich person, so there'd been no need for anything extreme.
Clearly she had been wrong.
She turned around and began flicking through this morning's SmartPaper, waving her hands from right to left as she flicked through the smartpages.
She froze upon arriving at page 14.
An image stood out to her; an image of a small Chinese-looking man, with fierce eyes and a gaunt-looking face. Beneath the image was the caption "WISCONSIN GOVERNOR DONATES $250M FROM HIS OWN POCKET TO THE AMERICAN FOOD PROGRAM; CRITICISES FEDERAL GOVERNMENT FOR FUNDING DELAYS"
Frost, clearly stunned, hurried over to her desk and pulled out a SmartScreen.
"Delaware," she said softly. Delaware was the password to the encrypted and classified information on her systems and network.
She quickly brought up the image of the target, the center of the failed operation last night.
*It can't be,* she thought.
The resemblance was uncanny, but according to the private detective, the target, Eric King, was of Vietnamese-Cambodian descent. She waved a hand across her SmartScreen and brought up a bio page of the Governor of Wisconsin. 53; born in Henderson, NV to Chinese and Mongolian immigrants; no children. She quickly ran a deepscan through *Jupiter*, a private intelligence database to determine if there was any link between the two. No, nothing.
She sat back and stared across the room, thoughts swirling through her mind.
Sure, random people resembled random strangers; humans were humans after all and part of the same species. Yet, coupled with the failed operation last night, she couldn't help but wonder if she had indeed missed something here, something that even The Batbayar-Ping Campaign team had missed.
She resolved to find out. But something still nagged at her. She didn't personally know Batbayar-Ping - the Wisconsin Governor - but according to the company's database, under Batbayar-Ping's governorship, the company's commercial and private military operations had been forced out of Wisconsin a few decades ago following a staggering increase in corporation, dividend and income taxes and a tightening of several regulations, amongst other unfriendly measures. This was before Frost's time, but Batbayar-Ping was clearly not liked by the company back then. He appeared to be something of a "public enemy number one" back then - in the company at least. Some executives in the North American arm had simply seen it as a rival business magnate using his overt political position and control to stick it to rival corporations, yet Batbayar-Ping's corporate interests didn't really overlap with the company's.
She picked up the telephone and dialled Martin Strasbourg's number.
He picked up after several rings.
"This is Martin," he said sternly.
"I am going to send over two names. I need you to find if there is a link - any link at all - between the two. Off the record, okay?"
"Fine." Martin hung up.
Gertrude sat back and stared out across the ocean.
She'd find out soon enough if this source of irritation was something more than she'd initially thought.
****
[To be continued...] | 155 | most_different |
9 | 1,658,940,738 | 326 | “The end is nigh!” the old warning went, or so we thought. It turns out the prophecy was misunderstood. The end is Nye. The Science Guy. | # Bill Nye
*This article is about the American science educator and former President of the United States. For the British actor, see* [*Bill Nighy*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nighy)*. For other people, see* [*Bill Nye (disambiguation)*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ)*.*
**William Sanford Nye** (born November 27, 1955),^(\[4\]) popularly known as **Bill Nye the Science Guy**, is an American mechanical engineer, science communicator, and television presenter who served as the 47th President of the United States.
Born in Washington, D.C., Nye began his career as a mechanical engineer for Boeing in Seattle, where he invented a hydraulic resonance suppressor tube used on 747 airplanes. In 1986, he left Boeing to pursue comedy—writing and performing for the local sketch television show Almost Live!, where he regularly conducted wacky science experiments.^(\[2\]) He later pitched the children's television program Bill Nye the Science Guy to Seattle's public television station, KCTS-TV, which would became a hit among kids and adults^(\[11\]), was critically acclaimed, and was nominated for 23 Emmy Awards, winning 19, including Outstanding Performer in Children's Programming for Nye himself.^(\[5\])
Nye continued to advocate for science, taking on high positions at various research and advocacy institutes across America.^(\[13\]) Riding upon his well-known celebrity status, Nye campaigned for and won the 2024 United States Presidential Election as an Independent, becoming the first President not to be affiliated with either the Democratic or Republican parties since Millard Fillmore.^(\[69\])
Nye's presidential career began with high expectations, but controversy soon surfaced. His first act as President was to push for the signing of the Provisional Climate Bill, which would have diverted a significant proportion of the country's military funding to anti-global warming efforts.^(\[72\]) However, this and other policies sparked widespread protest when it was revealed that Nye had received funding from the National Polar Bear Conservation Association, leading to speculation that Nye was advocating the interest of foreign bears instead of the citizens of the United States.^(\[13\] \[37\])
The conflict came to a peak when Nye was accused by a White House employee of staying late at night to repair a malfunctioning air-conditioner in the Oval Office.^(\[22\]) Critics claimed that Nye's personal use of indoor climate control was indicative of hypocrisy and various other conflicts of interest. After a series of lengthy and well-televised trials, Nye was impeached by the House of Representatives for contempt of court and general lack of coolness.^(\[84\]) This result had wide-reaching implications for climate agreements worldwide, with most climate agreements being cancelled due to fear of being associated with Nye. To replace them, bills encouraging the use of fossil fuels were implemented, supported by representatives of the oil and gas industry.^(\[3\])
Nye's final words before leaving office were "You guys are hopeless. I give up."^(\[31\]) After leaving the presidency, Nye became the founder of Hide Yo Children, a construction company specializing in building underground doomsday bunkers and air conditioning systems.^(\[40\])
Nye resides in his underground bunker with his wife, Liza Mundy.^(\[9\]) He is a fan of the Seattle Seahawks.^(\[11\])
# See also
* Global warming myth
* Benefits of fossil fuels | 51 | most_different |
83 | 1,592,494,918 | 2,301 | In 1941, Vampires successfully infiltrated the Red Cross and started collecting blood. Many years later, they are no longer parasites, now in a mutually beneficial relationship with humanity. While bringing cookies to a nursing home, you lock eyes with a former vampire hunter | Vampires are conservative. Reactionary. Very rarely do they adjust to the times, and it is not uncommon that if one has the pleasure of meeting one, they're still wearing the fashions of their day. Of course, with the upheavals in vampire society that happened in the 20th century, it is more common to see a vampire wearing tweed or 1920s style suits, than to see one wearing doublets and a codpiece.
Before the 20th century, vampires were by and large a reclusive group of violent, predatory, parasites. But younger vampires seeing the growing power of the human cattle, looked for alternatives before the inevitable scientific proof of their existence was uncovered. With the first world war changing society in Europe, the traditional home of the currently most extant strain of vampirism, the young vampires used this to strike down their elders.
As revolutions and counter revolutions were waged among the humans, the vampires rose up and struck down their traditional aristocratic leaders. Many enigmatic and elusive counts, baronesses, and such, were destroyed by either the younger vampires, or by local humans who had enough.
The vampires in czarist Russia certainly didn't anticipate the bolsheviks quietly sending in the red guards to cripple and destroy that ancient clan. Now the slavic vampires are practically extinct. This was the final warning for the more modern vampires in central and western Europe, along with the eastern clans. A small cabal of the wider vampire camarilla, used the second world war to infiltrate the international organisation known as the Red Cross. It became quietly known that donated blood, of which they often had abundantly stored in frozen packs, could be acquired without having to hunt down peasants or fair maidens, which became increasingly harder during that time.
As the slavic vampires had been hunted down by the a secret department of the USSR's Cheka, later the NKVD, and eventually the KGB, so were the western vampires hunted by a specific group funded by the Reich. The so-called Blutjägeren Regiment of the infamous Schutzstaffel had seized a lot of vampire hunting lore from various private pre-war organisations and were hunting down vampires. Not for the good of the people, but instead because they wanted to extract immortality and power from vampires, and make an immortal, unstoppable vampire army. The exact results of their work are unknown, but the higher echelon vampires know that some of the officers involved escaped to South America, where they have been recruiting other former Waffen-SS members for unknown purposes.
The Red Cross became a haven for many vampires in those days, giving blood transfusions, planning blood drives for the future, and using their excellent knowledge of human anatomy to help the wounded and maimed of the terrible war. And when it was eventually revealed that the Red Cross consisted of about 80% vampires, most people accepted it as a better thing than the alternative. Besides, the hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of people they had helped during the war and its aftermath, was a clear sign that we vampires had started to work with humanity, instead of feeding off of them.
Today, vampires and humans live side by side, and discounting the few cases of insane vampires, which are about as common, statistically, as insane humans, nobody gets bitten. A lot of international health organisations like the Red Cross and the Red Crescent, Doctors Without Borders, etc, are now mostly staffed by vampires.
Of course, not everybody is happy with this. Certain members of the religious right claims that the only decent thing to do with vampires is to exterminate the lot of them, and of course the eastern side of the Cold War just continued their work to eradicate all vampires: Who in official Moscow papers are called the ''Bloodsucking Parasites Upon the Working Class.'' who have been completely exterminated in their part of the world. Unofficially, three research cities in Siberia spends their time dissecting, cutting, burning, and vivisecting captured vampires, eastern vampires who survived the first pogroms, and imported jiangshi from China. In order to further the proletariat's war against the vampires, of course. Though rumours are that at least one of them is trying to create artificial immortality without the need for blood.
I am a higher generation vampire, and I spend my time delivering medicine and goodies to the homes of the elderly. Today, as we have been working together with the Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts recently, which are primarily Werewolf-run groups, I'm delivering a lot of cookies to a care home for the elderly. As I am handing out boxes to various old decrepit people, I see an old man sitting in a corner, trying very hard to look nonchalant. Of course, as I had been instructed to hand out one box to each elderly decrepit human, and noting to give the artificially sweetened ones to the residents with diabetes. So I walked over to the man, who was trying very hard to pretend that he was reading Moby Dick, the effect of which was somewhat spoiled as the book was held upside down.
As I handed the box of cookies over, I saw his, a face I can't ever forget. Landgraf Erich Hoffman Von Adlerstadt-Am-Main. Colonel in the Waffen-SS, one of the three primary leaders and founders of the Blutjägeren. One of the most accomplished vampire hunters in the 20th century, having personally hunted down and slain more than 200 vampires, and captured a further 3000 vampires for experimentation. We'd seen each other before. When I fled across the border from Vichy France into Switzerland, he had been right on my tail. I can still remember the sanctified silver bullets flying past my ears, striking down my fellows, Carlotta, and Manfred, who burned up on the inside.
I say nothing, and he says nothing, as he takes a box of cookies. In an almost trance like state, I walked around, mechanically giving away boxes, while thinking bout the man who was the bane of all vampires, who wrote the books, ''Psychology of Vampires'' and ''Blood and Silver: War Against Vampirism.'' The man who would fill my young vampiric mind with nightmares for generations. While leaving, the Colonel walks up to me. He says nothing, but merely hands me a box. As I get back into my delivery van with its darkened windows, I open it. Inside are two extensive plans. ''Projekt Ewigkeit'' about the establishment of a secret vampire nazi terrorist organisation which would wait for people to forget become lax and lazy regarding the survivors of the old regime, and recruiting all known people who escaped via the Ratlines after the war ended. The second plan was ''Projekt Mondreich'' A plan to rebuild the nazi regime on the moon, which would eventually along with the stay-behind vampire forces, invade Earth once again.
I drive back to our HQ as fast as I can. My superiors in the Supernatural Allies of Humanity, and the Vampire-Human Oversight Council, will want to see this.
[/r/ApocalypseOwl](https://www.reddit.com/r/ApocalypseOwl/) | 671 | most_different |
9 | 1,479,811,530 | 169 | Humanity has progressed so much that it was now possible to mass produce alternate universes. Everyone's favorite pastime was to create and nurture a single species and have them fight against another universe. | ”Come on, Jack,” Lance said, a crease of annoyance across his forehead. “We’ll be late!”
    The two friends picked up their snacks before hurrying to the grandstands. The stadium was packed this evening, and they barely reached their seats before the host started talking. They looked excitedly at the massive holographic screen in the middle of the arena.
     “Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to the grand finale of this year’s UNIBOWL!!”
    The crowd went insane, and Lance who had his mouth full of popcorn sprayed them all out just so he could join the roar of approval.
     “Advancing through the upper bracket – eliminating both the Tirattle Seafolks and the Old Dork Giants – give it up for the Green Day Hackers!”
    To the cheering of the crowd, the video highlights from the previous battles rolled across the screen. An army of hulking leviathans wading on the seafloor, their heads the size of small islands, about to clash with an armada of battleships. A raging sea where a steel-plated ship, larger than a city, struggled in the crushing grip of a kraken. Crab-like creatures pulling themselves up on beaches, machinegun fire pattering against their shells. And finally, inside a control room flashing with lights and flat screens, a tiny creature with freckles, frizzy hair, dark eye shadow, and rabbit teeth working his fingers in hyper speed over a keyboard.
     “Some good moments there, folks,” the announcer said. “Now for our other finalist, please give it up for the horrors from Tetra Centurion, the beasts of the outer dark, the QAROLINA HAUNTERS!!”
    The holographic screen again switched to a city with lights beaming towards a heaven of dark clouds. A shadow moved over the roofs of the buildings, then the entire city went dark and screams echoed through the speakers of the stadium. A close-up followed of a three-legged creature with a hairy trunk, carefully creeping up a street spattered with purple liquid. Then without warning a shadow seemed to fall over the creature and it disappeared into a dark alley with a shriek. The clip was replayed in slow motion and you could see a black clawed arm reaching out from the alley, snatching the trunk-creature.
    Lance turned towards Jack, his eyes big with excitement. “This is going to be sick!”
     “Oh yeah, I’ve got three hundred brics on the Hackers. They better not disappoint!”
     “Really, dude?” Lance said. “You’re betting on your own team?”
     “Don’t act so sanctimonious; I know about your side-deal with Vicky,” Jack answered. “She told me you’ve made a bunch already off of your Haunters.”
     “Goddamn Vicky,” Lance said, smiling. “You can always trust her to spill the beans.”
******
If you liked this story, check out my little library: [/r/Lilwa_Dexel](https://www.reddit.com/r/Lilwa_Dexel/)
| 14 | most_different |
35 | 1,432,212,306 | 255 | You are 70 years old, and see your granchildren playing with the newest electronic. It looks complicated, and when you ask to use it, you say "Where's the touchscreen?". | ”what's a touch screen?” The boy looked perplexed but was starting to get used to grandpa's senile ramblings.
” you know the part with the picture you touch to make it work” grandpa was confused, senile and wondering why the boy didn't know what a touch screen was. the boy looked at the calculator his father had given him. He was still getting used to the black and white display that would seemingly by magic show numbers when you pressed the buttons. The calculator was a gift for his birthday, his father found it scavenging in the ruins of Alanta.
” grandpa is a touch screen a thing they had before the bombs fell?” | 306 | most_different |
13 | 1,439,050,518 | 88 | You and your party survive the zombie apocalypse by hiding in a sock warehouse. You're surprised by the fact that you rarely need to leave for other supplies. | "God, guys," the survivor below the sock factory's window calls up, "I would kill a man for a fresh pair of quality socks."
"Uhh, no," Jim replies from above. "However, we will take trade--in material goods. Food, preferably. Ammo, maybe."
"I have two cans of ravioli."
Jim confers inside with his friends. "That's not bad," Jim finally declares. "Listen. Since we've got so many, I'll give you three days change of the best hiking socks per can, okay?"
"Not Sketchers or New Balance," the survivor below the window says. "Work socks, preferably. Clean. Dry. Warm. Thick."
"Yup," Jim says to the survivor. "Got some really fine Timberlands in here. Justa sec." After a minute of rummaging, Jim comes back to the window, holding out said very quality pair of socks, still in its packaging. "Can one first," he says.
A can of Chef Boyardee comes flying up through the window, and then the traded-for socks come flying down in return.
"Here," Jim says, and tosses down the remaining pair of socks. "Call it good will."
"Sure," the survivor says, and tosses up the remaining can. "Pleasure doing business with you."
"Tell your friends," Jim calls down.
"I think I'll do that."
"Yeah, later, man," Jim replies. "And good luck. Enjoy the socks. Happy trails, and all."
"Eh," the survivor says, and departs.
Jim turns back into the sock factory. "Now if we could just get some panties..." | 62 | most_different |
13 | 1,433,848,438 | 66 | A tearful confession using the word 'Bro' as often as possible. | "She said, 'No,' bro," Bro One says, shifting his gaze toward the ground.
"It's alright, bro," Bro Two says. He puts an arm around Bro One. "You'll find a bro-ette, one day." A tear slides down Bro One's cheek. "Just keep going, bro. Be a strong bro for me. Do it for me," Bro Two says.
"I don't know if..." Bro One's probably talking and thinking at the same time.
"If what?" Bro Two pushes back.
"If I can, you know, bro, figure all of this stuff out," Bro One says.
"What do you mean?" Bro Two says.
"I'll keep trying, bro," Bro One forces himself to say. "Really, I will, but I don't see how any bro-ette would want me. Maybe my maxed-out pecs aren't maxed-out enough. Maybe these sweat pants really *are* stupid--"
"Are you *still* thinking about that non-bro with the glasses and the scarf at the bar? Fuck that guy. Just be yourself, bro, and be proud of the bro you are."
"You're right, bro. And if I have to be a single bro for the rest of my life, I'd rather be that than be with a bro-ette I don't like!"
"That's it! Keep being a bro, bro! I believe in you."
"Thanks, bro." | 46 | most_different |
20 | 1,463,478,889 | 240 | A mad scientist finds a method to shut off what makes us human. Expecting chaos and anarchy, he releases it upon the world. Unfortunately, "being human" was not exactly what he thought it was. | README.docx
Author: Will Dalton
If you are reading this, I am dead. Not probably, definitely. After all, the secure encryption on this is tied to my brain. No, not my heart – so they can't incapacitate me with that hellspawn.
But of course, you don't know who I am, or why it matters. I am Will Dalton. My name has been redacted from history. And here is my story.
On October 17, 2071, I was, as a mercenary, offered the sum of one hundred thousand credits by the North American government in order to participate in a project with level ten clearance. The orders: to assassinate Aaron Garcia, better known as Doctor Death. A comically ridiculous name, I know, but hey — I didn't pick it.
Anyway, I was tasked with killing him and stealing a highly dangerous and infectious substance that he had been developing for the past several decades, as the government told me: Tabula, it was called – Latin for "slate," or "tablet." Of course, a hundred thousand credits was quite a sizeable sum for me, enough for a year. Particularly because it was taxation-exempt. Thanks, North American government.
Anyway, fast forward a couple weeks and some two hundred dead people. No, not Garcia – me. Yes, I know, I'm a terrible person, but that's ninety percent of why the government hires me. But that's besides the point. And enter Garcia's laboratory – a rather mundane affair, probably something you would see at the dawn of the century. No advanced particle accelerators or force-field separators… simply a centrifuge, an array of glass beakers – yes, glass, the thing that those old church windows are made of – and some vat. Pipettes, a solution for gel electrophoresis, and a cooling container, bubbling with liquid nitrogen, labeled MILF. No, goddamnit! Sylph! SYLPH. Cortana, I know your speech dictation feature works off previous search history but they sound nothing alike. Not even remotely. Fucking hell, you piece of shit. Sixty years since these things came out and you still can't distinguish basic words apart.
Uh, anyways, sorry. Where was I? Oh, yes. MILF. God damnit! S.Y.L.P.H. I have no idea what it stands for, but it looked scary. While I attempted to sample the substance – Garcia came. I shot him – two lethal rounds to the stomach, I don't make a policy of using nonlethal guns – and proceeded to begin analyzing the substance, ignoring his screams of pain. But what he said afterwards – here, let me pull up the audio transcript.
720123-33MilleniumAve-WEDalton.mp3
*static*
"Don't—"
"Just die quietly and let me do my thing, all right?"
"Listen to me."
"Why the hell—"
"Listen. To… Me…"
"I suppose you're bleeding out anyway, so go for it."
"That container has Sylph, the delivery mechanism. The vat – Tabula. Slate, for slate-wiper."
*coughing*
"Yes, I know."
"I conducted live human trials."
"You sick bastard…"
"No, listen! They… I thought they would die. But they did something far more terrifying."
*coughing*
"They ascended."
"What the fuck? Cortana, do you hear this?"
"Yes, I do indeed hear audio that states—"
"Okay, shut up! Garcia. Continue."
"Tabula does not destroy any organ nor any part of the nervous system. No, it targets the human soul. I sought to destroy humanity from its fundamental origin."
"And?"
"What is the human soul?"
"I didn't major in fucking philosophy, you piece of shit. I dropped out of Neuroscience and went straight into the military."
"It is our hatred. It is our sin. It is our greed, our sin, our lust, our wrath. And above all, it is our mortality."
"What?"
"Have you read the Bible?"
"No. I'm atheist."
"Do you know the story of the forbidden fruit? That is the human soul. That first sin, the one that cast us out of Eden, That was what made us, human."
"And when you take that away…"
"Door E3. The code is—"
*cough*
"I have the clearances. Goodbye, Dr. Garcia."
*gunshot*
*static*
What I saw haunted me forever. Six people, evidently mentally unstable, confined in a cage.
*sobs*
Damn it, Cortana!
\disable_emotion_recording
They looked horrified. "End me," I heard. "End me!"
I shot. I emptied my clip at them all.
Nothing happened.
Immortal, transcended. Stupid. Desperate. Perfect and yet so horrifying.
It was then I realized that we are our flaws. That I – my preference for MILFs,
my nicotine addiction, my lying, immoral ass – that is me. And I wouldn't trade that for anything.
So this is it, government. That is why I destroyed all samples of Tabula. This is my final report – and it has no clearance. Citizens of the Internet, do not let the government take your identity, your soul! I will die. That is inevitable: resistance is
death. Freedom, liberty, is dead. But you must fight.
This is Will Dalton, signing out.
EDIT: Just came home and looked at it on PC. Damn, sorry: Reddit Mobile formatting is shit, it should be more readable now. Apologies to anyone who had to suffer through that. | 84 | most_different |
12 | 1,441,760,273 | 22 | Take a commercial's jingle and incorporate it into a satanic ritual. | The cult's leader showed no emotion as he slit the throats of six innocent people, each abducted from their homes in the middle of a lightning storm. He stepped back from the tables to allow his servants to bind the twitching bodies in chains, hanging them upside down to drain the blood faster.
The crimson streams found their way to the center of the floor where they deliberately stained the ancient wood in the shape of a pentagram. All the while, the servants positioned the corpses over each point of the inverted star and placed the remaining one, the youngest, in the center of the unholy icon.
Addressing his servants, the leader proudly spoke: "I have the fire!"
The wooden floor spontaneously ignited, sparing only the areas where the survivors placed their feet and the bloody pentagram.
Again the leader shouted, "I have the force!"
The walls and ceiling exploded outward, revealing the night's earlier storm had subsided so that the moon could cast an eerie light on the ritual. The corpses remained where they were, suspended by an unseen force.
Completing the chant developed by Iron Maiden so many years ago, the leader barked, "I have the power to make my evil take its course!" The moonlight took on the menacing red glow of the flames under their feet.
And now the cult leader introduced the latest addition to their group's mythology. Grasping two of the floating corpses by their shoulders and taking a deep breath of the scent of burning flesh, he finally declared:
"Arby's! We have the meats!" | 13 | most_different |
5 | 1,605,653,088 | 127 | Your small town is home to the local superhero, Fred, who has the power to hypnotize people and make them do his bidding. At least, that's what everyone let's him think. He always seems to use his "power" for the betterment of others and his town, so everyone else just kinda... goes with it. | The little boy dashed through the town with his pocket watch in hand. He ran past Mister Anderson, his pocket watch waving through the air like a madman. Fred was after the supervillain who had taken this town for his liking. The evil Mister Yokeman!
His little feet scampered across the floor, as he opened the door to the bakery. There, in the bakery, sat a man in bright blue spandex, spinning yolk within a bowl. Fred ran up, his pocket watch above his head.
"I command you to get back to m-making cookies, and brownies for the town," He said, making the pocket watch spin side to side, and up and down.
Mister Yokeman smiled just the smallest bit, "No, you'll never make me return to work Fred, I have you bested! Tonight, I'm wearing glasses!"
Fred looked towards Mister Yokeman, it was his greatest challenge yet. He looked upon the room for a distraction. Eventually, he found a metal retainer full of napkins. He grabbed the retainer, and reflected his pocket watch.
"I will use the famous Double Vision!" Fred shouted victoriously, aiming the reflection and the watch at Mister Yokeman.
Mister Yokeman groaned in his defeat, and the mask was pulled off by his wife, who gave him a small kiss to the side of the cheek. Fred, the local superhero, did a fake gag, and wiped the 'sweat' from his forehead.
"Another villain defeated, I must be off!" He shouted with joy, as he from the store with his famous pocket watch. | 28 | most_different |
36 | 1,426,522,110 | 477 | The Pope is calling God to discuss upcoming world events, but God accidentally turns on speakerphone and the whole world hears. | "Is there anything we in the church should know about, for the coming months?" The pope asks God and the cardinals all gather up their notebooks.
"Well, yes. In three weeks, there will be a 8.1 earthquake fifty miles west of Panama. Be prepared for Tsunamis in Papau New Guinea, Ecuador and Hawaii." God answers, and the sound of a scroll being opened can be heard.
"On April Fools day, there will be a volcanic eruption in Mexico which will blot out the sun for most of the Midwestern United States. This will last a day. I guarantee you, it's not a prank."
One of the cardinals feels as if he hears something and excuses himself from the meeting.
"On April 15th, there will be a mass beaching of narwhals in Iceland. The cause is a trio of russian submarines testing out new jamming equipment. Iceland will likely challenge Russia on this, but before Russia can respond, a rogue wave will wipe out the strongest of the submarines, and Russia will retreat."
The cardinal rushes back in and whispers something fiercely into the pope's ear.
"Um, My Lord...is the green light on on your phone?"
"What...why would it..." There's a long pause. "Yes. Yes it is. Everyone heard that didn't they?"
"Yes, my Lord. Shall we prepare a damage control team?"
"It's too late for that, gentlemen." God hangs up, and everyone in the world hears it. | 196 | most_different |
3 | 1,434,442,961 | 26 | You are a claims adjuster in the city of Metropolis. Your most common claim: 'Acts of Superman.' | Dear Mr Rathcone,
I am writing to advise you that your claim for 'Act of Superman' is not covered as it was not the proximate cause of the damage that occurred to your home. On the 17/04/2015 there was an incident in your area that caused several million dollars in damages, and we investigate each claim fully.
You advised us that the damage happened when a block of concrete flew through your window. The investigation found several inconsistencies in what you advised us.
The damage to the table actually seems to have occured because you were standing on it 'trying to get a better view of the action', you then slipped, fell through a window onto your car which was below. We learned this via your public youtube channel where you uploaded the video.
This has been deemed to be accidental damage, which you have not selected on your policy, and thus there is no cover in place.
You should contact your motor insurer about damage to your vehicle, and health insurer about injuries you may have sustained.
Thank you.
Gerard Green
claims handler
| 16 | most_different |
14 | 1,427,293,056 | 37 | You’re being praised for a revolutionary work of art … which you actually created by accident. BS your way through your artist statement. | "I was committed to a deep sense of oneness with the inherent randomness of life and the universe. The chaos of the piece might first look like it arose by accident, but that is an expression of chaos itself - representing both the attempts of humanity to force order on the universe and the failure to do so."
"At the same time, I think a kind of beauty emerges from that chaos - the patterns that suggest that chaos itself is a kind of order, which should cause an appreciation for our existence to well within the viewer."
"In short, I think 'Thick Globs of Latex Paint on a Small Contemporary Rug' is perhaps my most important and evocative work yet." | 24 | most_different |
7 | 1,478,885,854 | 144 | John Denver returns from dead to claim rightful place as King of Northern Colorado | John Denver shook his head as he walked along an L.A. Beach. He cracked his neck and felt the son along his skin. He smiled as he remembered a nice day skiing with Anne. He frowned as he remembered what happened next. They always seemed to be fighting in those days. He shook his head and begin waking up the beach towards civilization. He approached the closest newspaper stand and promptly said "oh my god it's 2016!"
**********
"So...you were able to come back as you were in your prime? And you aren't a zombie?" A man in a dark suite asked the folk star.
John Denver smiled and laughed "its the darnedest thing, all I remember is crashing my plane and waking up on the beach in the prime of my youth!" The now young again folk star said with a bright smile on his face.
"...right," the suited man said as he wrote down some notes. "Your social and drivers license checks out, and I think everything is in order. Alright Mr. Düsseldorf, you are free to leave and continue loving your life. On a personal note, may I ask what you are planning on doing now?"
John Denver just laughed agin before a somber looked passed his face. "I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I am going to try and change that guy they just elected as president stance on global warming," John laughed as he got up and left the building. He called a taxi over and bought a ticket to Colorado, as while Mr. Denver was learning about what happened in his absence, he found out that Colorado had legalized pot finally. He smiled as he climbed in the taxi and got ready to change the world again. | 15 | most_different |
72 | 1,403,225,119 | 122 | A man goes to the bathroom, and while he looks in the mirror while washing his hands, he discovers that his reflection is slightly out of sync. | Looking down at the sink, he washes his face. Looking back up at the mirror, he sees no reflection. But wait... yes, there is a reflection. But ever so slightly behind. He blinks, waits a moment, and his reflection blinks.
"What the--?" this is what he tries to say. His lips move but no words come out. Then a moment later his voice says, "What the--?"
*One too many beers last night,* he thinks.
Going outside, he discovers that simple tasks like opening doors are extremely annoying. A split second makes a big difference.
Walking across the street, a car is in the distance. He safely reaches the other side, yet somehow finds himself hit by the car.
The driver gets out frantically and runs to his side.
Lying on the ground, the man exclaims, "What's happening to me??" (And of course has to wait a second for the voice to emerge.
The driver suddenly becomes amused.
"You must have a bad ping. Ever heard of lag?" | 55 | most_different |
15 | 1,457,795,831 | 319 | when you look at the death and destruction surrounding you. You wonder if it was really worth a Klondike bar | After a few seconds of self-doubt, you casually take a seat on the armchair behind you. You watch as the city in ruins around you is engulfed by an inferno of your own making through the bombshelled walls of some random apartment you just happened to stumble into at the moment you had completed your task. Don't know who it belonged to, don't care. You cross your legs.
*Yes, yes it was*, you think as you nonchalantly take a bite out of your single hard-earned klondike bar.
You put on your shades and admire the fireworks. Who knew watching the whole world literally burn would be so tasty? | 65 | most_different |
102 | 1,601,853,414 | 7,553 | "They said that gluing salt to a baseball bat to fight ghosts was a stupid idea, but who's laughing now?" you say as you whacked the ghost again. | “And you said it was a bad idea!” The child cackled and continued his swings at the ghosts before him. “You owe me!”
His father raised his hands, “Alright, so you got me this time, now keep it up or they’ll get to ya!” Dexter continued to watch his son swing at the creatures advancing towards them. Street lights barely lit their front yard, making this whole ghost hunting ordeal rather tough for the young boy. His father stood behind him, also having his own battle with the ghosts.
The child squealed once more as another ghost tumbled to the ground. “This is the best Halloween ever!” He swung his bat at another one of them while calling out, “Take this!” another ghost fell, “Take that!” he bellowed out. It continued, one ghost fell after another as the father and son advanced through a mass of them that littered their front yard.
The father warned his son once more as a ghost did a surprise dive towards them. “Watch out, we’re almost home. We’re almost safe! Keep it up, Ivan!”
“Got it Dad! Salt really does work!” The child dove towards a ghost that had already fallen to smack it some more, sending his little league bat right into the ghost’s face. “I can’t wait to do this again!”
From behind, the father heard footsteps. Then, a voice. “So, who’s going to break it to him, Dexter?”
“Break what?” He kept his eyes glued on the ghosts while his wife continued.
“You know what I mean.” His wife eyed him then shifted her gaze towards the makeshift ghosts dangling from the clothesline nearby.
“What? I just wanted him to have fun. It’s not my fault I can make the greatest Halloween decorations known to man. He’s having after all, isn’t that what counts?” His wife shook her head but ultimately let them carry on with the stunt.
r/CasualScribblings | 1,136 | most_different |
15 | 1,450,745,144 | 35 | You are an IT Engineer. The aliens have tasked you with connecting their internet to ours. | Chief Network Engineer Khazrad na'Gruag flared his brilliantly pigmented crests, the sharp, spiny points rising over his head as he glared at the insolent Human.
"Small and squishy, aren't you" his translator spat, its tinny autospeech echoing in the server room. "Why don't you worm under the serverbank and scrape the dust out with your noodly little arms?"
The offending human, Ryan Fairbanks, Senior Internet Engineer of the IETF, refused to move.
"I asked how your packet headers were formatted."
"And I said to R-T-F-M, and G-T-F-O!" With a sharp *click*, Khazrad turned on one long-clawed toe and stalked away.
"Allen!" Ryan shouted. "Allen, get back here! He won't eat you, you know."
Allen, a thin, nervous man sent along as network assistant, scurried into the room, gasping in horror. "You can't say things like that! It's…impolite…" He trailed off under Ryan's exasperated gaze.
"Somehow, I don't think this guy cares too much about manners. Who taught him to say that anyway?"
"Ah, not me, um…maybe…they were going over the transmission protocol yesterday, ah, must have been Elena." Allen looked nervously at the hulking alien, crouched over a console on the far side of the room.
"Yes, he can hear us," Ryan muttered. "Did they agree on a format?"
"They were close enough that we, um, decided to accept theirs. Did – did you set an encoding standard?"
"Tasha's team did. And Randall's been reworking NAT. Give them all one Earth IP, for now anyway, and treat their global net as a very large local. Any word on the cable adapters?"
"Ah, they should be here soon, I think," Allen pulled out his phone to check. "Oh, and, ah, Tasha says you can…er, test the wireless now."
"Great. Khazrad!" Ryan shouted across the room. "On Earth, we transmit at two-point-four gigahertz. What frequency do you use?"
"You will meet us?"
"We have the equipment!" Allen scurried around him, plugging in cables and flipping switches as they set up the wireless receiver.
"Two-point-seven. Sending test now."
"Wait–"
A jumble of data flickered across the screen as, in a final flurry of panicked adjustments, Allen brought the receiver online.
"Khazrad!" Ryan shouted. "Sending packets now. We're receiving, but this isn't the encoding Grajakh and Tasha developed!"
A dull, frustrated thud shook the room. "Fuck!" Khazrad shouted, his gravelly voice echoing like a thunderclap indoors.
Ryan shook his head in despair. "Who taught him…"
"Ah, Elena, probably…"
Without warning, the stream of meaningless data stopped. The floor shook as Khazrad stomped behind his console. "System's fucked!" he bellowed. "What did you *garzhakh* humans do?"
With a frightened yelp, Allen hurried out. Ryan sighed, mentally preparing for another shouting argument. Until they got this working, it was going to be a very long week. | 19 | most_different |
6 | 1,656,556,071 | 302 | In a chaotic, crime-ridden world, two heroes cross paths by destiny. One is an American weeaboo who dresses as a samurai. The other is a Japanese man who dresses as a cowboy. | Their fates will be forever intertwined.
The American's name was Shinobi. He wore a black mask over his face and carried a sword, which he used to cut down his enemies. His eyes were hidden behind the mask, but he still had his trademark smug smile.
"So that's the way it is, huh? You're just gonna stand there and watch me die?"
Shinobi was standing in front of the cowboy, who wore a red hat, a white shirt, and a pair of jeans. His weapon of choice was a six-shooter pistol.
"Oh, I'm not gonna let you die," said the cowboy. "I'll shoot you with this gun, then I'll throw your body into the river."
"What do you mean by that?"
"I mean, I'm going to kill you," said the cowboy. "I don't want you getting in my way, so I'm going to kill you."
"You're right. I should have thought of that sooner," said Shinobi. "Well, then, I guess I'll go ahead and die."
With that, Shinobi raised his sword high above his head.
"Don't bother."
"Huh? You're gonna save me?" Shinobi Asks
"That's right. I'm going to save you."
The cowboy fired his gun, aiming for Shinobi's head.
"That's how it's done!"
Shinobi dodged the bullet and cut the cowboy across the stomach.
"Whoa! You got me!"
The cowboy fell to the ground, clutching his stomach.
"Wow, you're fast, Shinobi. But I'll get you next time."
"Yeah, yeah, I know. I'll be waiting."
With that, Shinobi ran away.
It Was A Typical Day at comicon | 34 | most_different |
23 | 1,621,567,270 | 203 | All of your prompts on r/WritingPrompts get a lot of upvotes, but no comments. Today you plan to do something about it. | “La dee da,” the nameless protagonist said.
He had no features. The place in which he existed had no real features either. It was a blank white space save for a handful of non-descript black figures scattered about. The protagonist had a general idea of what he was doing here. Those observing him had suspicions of what it all meant. But they never could have guessed what he was about to show them, say to them, do before their eyes.
And so long as he spoke, minimally, one hundred words, he could stick around, keep them hanging on the cliff's edge. | 30 | most_different |
30 | 1,411,472,149 | 26 | With prose or verse, tell me how wonderful I am. | **A poem to /u/FailureOfAWriter whose walls I live in.**
You face, your skin, your lovely eyes,
I'll be with you all day,
Your smile, your laugh, your shiny hair,
I love you every way.
No one knows the feelings,
I bear inside for you.
No one can imagine,
All the things I'd do.
I'd like to hold you in my arms,
And keep you safe and tight,
I'd lock you up, away from harms,
And visit you at night.
I'll keep you like a pet my love,
I'll feed you dainty treats,
You'll never have to see the light,
You'll never see the streets.
And should we ever grow apart,
I'll never set you free,
We'll burn ourselves to little bits,
And bury you with me. | 21 | most_different |
33 | 1,438,691,162 | 93 | Write me a story with a really likeable protagonist until the very last sentence, where he becomes a huge asshole | Jonny's favorite thing in the world to do was eat. From dawn to dusk he would cook, often giving away his marvelous concoctions to neighbors and friends to enjoy when he himself could not finish the food. Everyone loved Jonny. On Christmas, Jonny decided to cook a meal that would feed the whole town. He added all kinds of vegetables, spices, sauces, and a special meat he called "sugar meat" to this feast of feasts. The community loved it and dedicated a street to be named after him. Jonny was beyond thrilled. He ran home to tell his wife all about the delicious meal he made for everyone, and how much they loved it. He cracked open the door to his bed room to see his wife laying in the bed.
"Hey, Sugar," he said, "too bad your arms are tied up or I would let you try some! Your calf meat is to die for!" | 43 | most_different |
22 | 1,409,684,053 | 35 | Use the first line of a literary novel and spin it into an entirely different story | Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.
But their normal lives were would never return once it was interrupted by a soft but sharp rap on their door in the middle of the night.
Vernon Dursley, his face turning the color of his scarlet silk pajamas, stopped when he saw the knocking figure was not a snot nosed ruffian but instead an old man with a long white beard, crooked nose, and tears in his eyes.
"Hello, Mr. Dursley. Petunia." he nodded to the dumbfounded woman carrying her crying infant. "I wish we could be meeting under different circumstances."
Behind him, appearing seemingly out of nowhere, stood a cross looking woman with sage robes. She suddenly didn't look so cross as she buried her head in her hands and began to sob softly.
"Wha...wha.." Petunia couldn't speak.
"Petunia, you poor, poor woman. I am sorry beyond words.
Your sister has been murdered. Her husband is gone as well."
Somehow the shock propelled her back into speech.
"The...th....boy...?" She croaked.
Albus Dumbledore simply shook his head.
| 23 | most_different |
10 | 1,645,987,709 | 1,062 | Just like usernames on the internet, everybody in this world must have a totally unique name that nobody else has. When a person dies, that name becomes available. John fears for his life's safety. | When John Anderson was born, he didn’t quite understand the danger he was in. After all, a baby’s sense of self-preservation was on par with a dry branch trying to jump into fire. It was the period where one tried anything and everything.
Through many dadas and mamas, he eventually learned how to say his own name—John.
When John Anderson was a child, he learned what his name meant. It wasn’t just a sound to respond to any longer. It was a signifier, a marker, that determined who he is.
And he learned, paradoxically, that while his name was once common, he was now the only John around, amidst a sea of names that used letters in place of vowels, or those that forwent vowels all together, or even tagged with the name of aircraft.
When John Anderson was a teenager, he learnt why it was so. His name, once popular with the last generation, had essentially died out. The new world demanded everybody to have a name as unique as a fingerprint. John, as a relic of the past, was used as a placeholder, like sticking a framed stock art into a building full of unique masterpi… OK, maybe just paintings.
Yet, the last John Anderson in the world died just then. The new John Anderson, therefore, took the recently-vacated mantle through a marriage of convenience and coincidence, in which the system registered his name before John’s parents ever had the chance to review.
When John Anderson reached adulthood, he feared for his life. Each day, he received a new torrent of messages via every platform he was on, and also every other platform he wasn’t on.
See, the older generation had passed on. The new generation now bore a newer generation. And apparently, a common way to honour your passed loved ones were to give your newborn their names. And John was very, very popular. There was an easy fix, however.
When John Jonah Anderson found himself approaching the wrong side of 30, he began to worry. The messages still came, but far less frequent than before. Now, when he wakes up without a bustling basket of notifications, he breathed a sigh of relief and thanked his lucky stars.
But there were other things to think about. The job. Family. Finances. Mortgages. Bills. Fines. Lawyer fees. Peace of mind about not getting murdered in his sleep, due to a robust security system and occasionally, a bodyguard, when the messages flow in faster than a rushing waterfall.
When John Jonah Anderson-Creek found the white hairs growing out of his scalp, he thought about what he need to do.
The excessive obsession with his name has, thankfully, made him prepare for a doomsday scenario. Sacrificing every bit of luxury for decades allowed him to aggressively pursue investments and savings plans and, of course, insurance, in the event of his death. Then he sat down, and calculated how much money he had, and was surprised that he no longer had to work for money for the rest of his life.
When John Jonah Anderson-Creek! (spoken with a lifting tilt at the end, like you were elated to see him) found himself quite unable to walk, he sat on the porch, nursing a drink in his hand, and stared out at the sky for a good long while.
It turned from soft blue, to swan white clouds, to fiery hues of orange, to the muted canopy of dusk. He tapped on the letter—a letter, a physical, inked letter!—on the table, and mumbled.
“I’ve been careful,” he mumbled to himself. “But is this a life I wish on someone else?”
When John Anderson was buried, several tears were shed, and an assortment of firm nods were exchanged. His close friends and family was there to see him off. His extended family was there, mainly, to gossip about their own goings-on, with the occasional intrusion of condolences and well-meaning words.
And there was another John Anderson, fresh-faced, barely a teenager, with quivering eyes, standing at the front of the row. He walked up to the casket, to see the past John Anderson with a frankly morbid smile on his pale face.
“Thank you,” John said. “The name honours my grandfather. But it will also honour you.”
And thus, John Anderson continued to live.
---
r/dexdrafts | 166 | most_different |
216 | 1,448,737,651 | 4,193 | Nicolas Cage is completely unaware that he is an actor. All he knows is strange men with cameras follow him around while he gets into crazy situations and money shows up randomly in his bank account. | I sat at my computer, typing away at the second volume of my memoirs when my phone rang.
"Hey Nic" said my agent
"Yeah"
"We have to talk about your book"
"What about it"
"Well…it would seem that you're claiming it's your memoir"
"Yeah"
"But nearly every event in the book, is a scene from one of your movies"
"What's that?"
"I said but nearly every event in the book…"
"No I heard you. What's a movie?"
"What's a…what's a…"
I heard my agent say 'oh boy'
"Nic, do you know where the money in your bank account comes from?"
"That time I found the treasure?"
"No that was National Treasure"
"That time I found the answer to all those conspiracy theories"
"That was The Rock"
"That time…"
"Yeah I'm just going to nip this in the bud and say no"
"So where does it come from"
"From your movies"
"What?"
"Ok you know how sometimes when you do things there's people with cameras filming you?"
"Is that what they're doing?"
"Ok, just to confirm you really don't know what movies are right?"
"No"
"Ok try not to do anything, I'm going to contact Shia Labeouf and figure out how to spin this as performance art"
"Shia Labeouf, the guy who fought all those transformers?"
"I'm hanging up now"
The line went dead and I hung up. I went back to writing about that time I was on the earth when it was destroyed, wondering if I should dedicate a whole chapter to how I'm actually three gnomes wearing a trench coat wearing a Nicholas Cage costume or if I should save that for the author's biography on the dust flap. | 2,307 | most_different |
23 | 1,444,109,261 | 50 | Write the titles on /r/upliftingnews in the year 2050 that paints a terrible picture. | “Dust storms over the California Badlands lightest in nearly a decade, experts say.”
“China agrees to new United Nations arbitration deal, United States released from debt, must cede Hawaiian Islands and Alaskan Territories. ‘Fair deal’ says U.S. Secretary of State.”
“Radioactivity within the Tehran Dead Zone continues to fall, may be habitable within 70 years.”
“Pan Mesopotamian Caliphate over turns founding group ISIS’s edicts and moves toward serious social reforms. Women will be allowed in public.”
“Cure for Super Cancer may only be a decade away WHO researchers say.”
“Martian Emperor Elon Musk dies at 79, tyrannical rule at end. ‘Earth finally safe from the Devil of the Red World’ says UN Security Council representative.”
| 40 | most_different |
10 | 1,463,724,005 | 17 | Write a beautiful poem about the most mundane of topics. | Keep watch for a ship with white sails
that rides the wind as easily as the sea,
for which each gentle zephyr's breath
are paid passage to new shores of mystery.
Keep watch for a ship with white sails
that holds no captain and no crew
it floats unmanned across the land,
a phantom drifting: up, around, and through.
Keep watch for a ship with white sails
painted with icons of kings of old;
Each one bears this maker's mark
to brand the cargo they are meant to hold.
Keep watch for a ship with white sails
Listen for its rustling flags
If you find one, take it with you and
Recycle all your plastic bags.
| 17 | most_different |
16 | 1,471,557,255 | 303 | It finally happened: Stephen King has replaced Shakespeare as required reading in high schools. | "Good morning students!" Ms. Avery said excitedly. "Welcome to year six English."
The student body replied only with a 'sigh' that said "why the hell are we awake at 9am?"
"Let me start by outlining the corriculum for the year," she continued. "As required we will all be reading Stephen Kings 'The Dark Tower' in its whole... thats it, that is all we have time for, that's English for the year."
"Any questions?"
A young boy raises his hand tentatively.
"Yes Jake?" Asks Ms. Avery.
"So we won't have a final essay this year?"
"No Jake," she says with a smile, "and that is the truth."
| 25 | most_different |
4 | 1,443,903,528 | 14 | There has been confusion in the media about which victims belong to which serial killer. The killers have a round table discussion to mark territory, names, and demographics | Minutes of the meeting between The City Strangler (CS), The Mad Choker (MC), The Belt Killer (BK) and Crusher (C)
As no minutes of previous meeting were recovered from the biannual Arsonists' Consultation, the agenda proceeded straight to the first item on the agenda.
BK raised an objection to the improvised nature of MC's killings, explaining that in future, he should be banned from belt-related stranglings. After some discussion as to the nature of what constituted "fucking you up if you speak again, bitch", MC acquiesced. All future belt-stranglings are to be denied to other members.
CS suggested that the territorial dispute between C and himself be resolved by declaring the area between main street and first avenue a no-choke zone (NCZ). The motion was passed. Despite C's objections, it was deemed that an additional NCZ to be understood as between CS's head and shoulders. C agreed, and after administering oxygen, CS returned to the discussion.
MC led the discussion on The Voices. As he was the only one who could hear them, the other members of the board agreed not to act on their instructions.
C was actioned with the task of alerting the media to the new rules. C agreed.
An emergency rule was passed unanimously that nobody kill any other member of the board. MC was restrained.
CS was actioned with the task of alerting the media to the new rules and removing C's body.
The NCZ zone from C's former territory was removed in light of his sudden death.
BK suggested a mutually beneficial arrangement whereby members would be able to share each other's weapons disposal sites. CS voted yes. After some unorthodox deliberation, MC explained that masturbation was considered a tacit agreement.
No other business was raised, and the meeting was adjourned. | 11 | most_different |
7 | 1,646,577,212 | 57 | You're walking down the street when suddenly a stranger dressed in weird clothes stops you and asks: "excuse me, could you tell me what year is this?" | Lily gaped, before grabbing the strangers arm and pulling them a few steps into an alleyway.
The stranger, looking to be about 15, was out of place in downtown Seattle. Their clothes look normal enough at first glance, but if you looked at them for long enough, you could see stark differences between the regular clothes of others. The cut was different, the colors slightly more vibrant, more stitches, and most noticeably, a thick cloth bracer with woven metals on their right forearm.
“What are you doing here?” Lily whispered furiously, releasing their arm and beginning to dig around the bottom of her purse, searching for something.
“I came here by accident,” the stranger said, giving her a quizzical look. “Well, mostly by accident.”
“Whatever, it doesn’t matter. You can’t be here for long,” Lily told her, finally pulling out what she was looking for. She shoved the cloth mask into the stranger's hand. “Put this on.”
The stranger furrowed their brows as they held up the mask. “What is this supposed to be? And what am I supposed to do with it?”
Lily sighed exasperatedly. “It’s a mask. You put those two loops around your ears so that it stays over your face. It protects you from the coronavirus. To answer your question, it’s 2021.”
The stranger's eyes widened, and they immediately put on the mask, fumbling with it slightly. Once they had it on, Lily crossed her arms.
“So,” she started. “Care to explain how you got here?”
The stranger looked at their shoes and started fidgeting with the hem of their shirt nervously. “Um, it’s kind of a long story.”
Lily checked her watch. “Well, I have about an hour before my meeting, so I dare say I have time. Talk quickly.”
“I was exploring my grandma’s old lab, and I found this cool bracelet thing,” the stranger gestured to their forearm. “My dad kinda said not to touch anything, but it looked really interesting, and I have no impulse control, so I kinda……putitonandittookmehereandnowimnotsurewhattodo.”
Lily raised an eyebrow, and the stranger rubbed the back of their neck sheepishly. “I guess it’s not really that long of a story.”
Lily grabbed their right arm and turned it over, examining the back of the bracer. “How did you know this was a different time? How do you know it didn’t just take you to a parallel universe, or another state?”
“My grandma has all sorts of pictures of Seattle from when she lived there when she was younger,” the stranger explained. “It looked exactly like this. Plus, I also got a look at a newspaper that showed the date.”
Lily nodded absently at the explanation, running her fingers down the bracer carefully. “What’s your name?”
“Oh, right. My name’s Ariol,” the strangers said with a smile. “What’s yours?”
“Lily,” she answered. “Now, when you put it on, did you press anything, or touch a specific spot?”
“Um,” Ariol said. “I think just the front on the top and bottom.”
Lily turned the bracer over again and let out a hum of understanding. “Ah, yes I see. I think I just need to…”
She pressed lightly on the back, before running her index finger over the middle. The bracer started glowing.
“That should do it!” she said happily. “Just press the front of the top, and it should take you back.”
“Should?” Ariol asked nervously.
Lily shrugged. “It’s the best I can do, I’m afraid. Good luck, kid.”
Ariol nodded their thanks, and pressed the top. With a near silent pop, they were gone. Lily looked at the spot in slight shock, before peering into her bag, where an almost identical bracer sat.
“I can’t believe it worked,” she whispered, before setting off down the street, a soft smile on her face. | 13 | most_different |
5 | 1,589,856,416 | 15 | It's the Paleolithic Era. Grog is dead. As his closest, lifelong companion, it's your job to give the eulogy at the funeral. | **The Eulogy of Grog**
Grog was man with big rock, and bigger heart.
Grog death was not surprising. Grog should know not to chase mammoth from front! But Grog was distraction. Grog wanted tribe to eat, but more: Grog saved daughter. My daughter! Grog, hero.
Recall to time when Grog was hunter.
Grog was brave and brought many meats to table. Threw rocks the farthest, but he got tired of looking for rocks afterward. Decided to tie rocks to sticks! Imagine that! Grog, inventor! But then, Grog moved on.
Recall to time when Grog was gatherer.
Grog saw not all were hunters. Grog hated collecting his rocks, but when he did, he found many berries and bugs to eat. Had those who couldn’t hunt to gather. He was a hunter and a gatherer! But at the end of the day, when sun hides, Grog was warrior.
Recall to time when Grog saved daughter.
My daughter, my little saber-tooth, she was pebble size. She crawled in front of charging mammoth. She not yet knows the terror of a mammoth up front. Grog did. And Grog stepped forward. Grog pushed her out of way and became no more. I will never forget Grog; I owe him everything.
Grog, you are not a rock; you are a stone. | 11 | most_different |
19 | 1,417,458,957 | 48 | ou're a composer with synesthesia. Describe your works without using sound. | The violins open with bows to their strings
in a crisp rolling field of electric, hot greens.
The landscape sweeps by and its vistas stand clear
with sharp blades of grass: bold staccato veneers.
Dread fire above lights the air in the sky:
the sound of the trumpets ignites all on high.
Their rays scour land like the flare from a gun,
as sure and as pure as that showboating sun.
Now flautists sneak in with their piquant blue blitz:
the wings of bright jays flying high, as in fits
Because they're disturbed from the branches, so tall:
Those brown, blotchy tics of a clarinet's calls
Are scampers of squirrels, as they dance in the trees
O'er rust-colored cries of a tuba: fall leaves.
Cold whiteness sets in, burning sheets of hard snow:
The dour bassoon sets the whole world aglow
with wave after wave of its pale, deathly chill
Before it all colors' great grandeur grows still.
The death of the landscape's no cause for concern,
for even pale white is a color, in turn,
And even it adds to the story, once told
The sound of the music's a sight to behold.
| 28 | most_different |
128 | 1,420,489,029 | 1,183 | You have dishonored your family and you must commit Sudoku. | The wan light shines upon the gritty paper of Sudoku puzzles, and John's face grows more perplexed by the second. Two gentlemen in uniform stand on each side of him, and wails (most likely coming from his wife) could be heard through the door.
"I'm confused...what exactly do you want me to *do*?" he asks.
The man on the left puts on an annoyed expression. "God, what an *idiot*."
"As punishment for filling a crossword puzzle incorrectly, you must finish all of the Sudoku puzzles in this book." The man on the right says, while also pointing at the book in front of John.
"Um...okay." John picks up his ballpoint pen and starts solving.
He was always great at Sudoku. It was how he was introduced to crosswords. And, him being him, he licked the corners of the pages as he turned them. He is at the second-to-last puzzle when he feels his heart stop. He falls down and dies. The last thing he sees is the black poison on his index finger.
EDIT: Spelling | 683 | most_different |
4 | 1,428,595,549 | 15 | Describe a war fought by the factions of /r/thebutton | “We contributed just like you did,” said a purple one.
“NOT like one of us,” responded one of the greens. “And because of purps like you, the end is nigh.”
“It isn’t over yet,” called out a purple one, atop a hill and looking down at the sea of purples and greens. There were a few blues, but they were sparse and disjointed.
A green one started to climb the hill, shaking his fist. “But it’ll be over and if we had just stayed regimented, none of this would be happening.
A purple down below shook his head. “It’s the admins fault.”
“Shut up you damn purp!” cried someone, who was joined by a mixture of jeers and cheers.
The purple on the hill spoke again. “Not all of us have time to babysit the button. Some of us have lives.”
This was not received well. More jeers.
“You see, I thought it was a cool idea. And I pressed the button. Yeah, I know. I know it was at 57
seconds…”
There were many gasps.
“But I pressed it and I contributed. I never knew the consequences. None of us did…”
“Until now.” A green stepped forward, holding the hand of a young boy, colored grey.
“Go,” commanded the green.
The countdown was at 10. The grey boy walked to the button and extended his hand. The green shook his head.
6, 5 , 4, 3…
A few gasps.
2.
The green nodded and the grey pressed the button at 1. The boy turned from grey to red. He was one of the only few.
59, 58, 57….
“There are several more greys. Being guarded and guided… by us greens. The rightful owners of the button.”
“The button belongs to all,” said the purple. The green that was climbing the hill was almost upon him. “And yet no one. It was the admins that doomed us. Not us proud purples.”
45, 44, 43…
“Nothing could have prepared us for the end of reddit. Nothing.”
“And yet here we are,” said the green.
35, 34, 33…
“What’s reddit?” called out a voice.
This elicited many gasps once again.
25, 24, 23…
It was another grey. He was 85 years old and had only logged in once, thinking he was signing up to his bank account.
“There are more greys out there,” said the green. “And we will find them. And then reddit will be saved.”
The purple shook his head. The green was upon him, wrestling him down. "You're only prolonging it! Reddit will end!"
"What's reddit?"
15, 14, 13...
The murmurs and grumbles grew louder. The wrestling had extended down to the fields, purples, greens, blues, all moving in a wave as they shouted and blamed each other.
And yet, none could argue over the intentions of the admins. Yes, reddit had folded. They had whittled away their capital year after year, and now it was insolvent. And what better way to end it all than with... the button? The grand social experiment to see the greatest website out the door.
Meanwhile, the Knights of the Button, all grey, stood by and watched. When the commoners had run out of greys, they would make their presence known. They always knew. Always. Press at 1. No later, no earlier. They alone could prolong Reddit for another month. Yet... it was only a month. Let the people internet just a little longer.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1...
59, 58, 57...
| 15 | most_different |
13 | 1,655,338,187 | 160 | On the phone they excitedly ask "How is the premiere going?" "Uh turns out the film is so historically inaccurate it's caused a riot. I'm hiding from the angry mob right now." | From the makers of AIRPLANES THAT DIDN'T FLY WELL and HOW TO INSTALL YOUR NEW SAMSUNG DISHWASHER, it's:
#### Pharaohs of Egypt!
Created by a team of real historians who were actually present during the events portrayed, Pharaohs of Egypt is the most accurate sci-fi romance time-travel docu-drama ever to grace the direct-to-DVD pipeline.
STARRING:
* Tom Holland AS Xerxes I
* Christopher Walken AS Tutankhamun
* Kathy Bates AS Cleopatra
* Giorgio A. Tsoukalos AS the *true* architect of the pyramids
* Bill Murray AS Zeus
* Ewan McGregor AS A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
* James Earl Jones AS King Arthur
* PewDiePie AS Harry S. Truman
* The Blue Man Group AS Time Travel Team Ten
* Chuck Tingle AS Sexy T-Rex
* Buzz Aldrin AS himself
AND YOU (seriously we need help finishing this film)
So be sure to see Pharaohs of Egypt this fall! You can't* miss it!
(* Because you're in it, remember. You're helping us. You're in the credits, you gotta do it) | 43 | most_different |
73 | 1,617,130,570 | 2,512 | You bought an instant-print film camera 5 years ago, but to your surprise the film never ran out. Inside, instead of where the film should be, is a note, "The film runs out when you photograph your soul mate." This led you to become a professional photographer, with a very successful career. | In the age of instant photographs on our phones, I found fascination in the idea of a photograph that was instant but also that you couldn’t alter. From filters on Instagram to the ones built into your cell phone’s camera app, the possibilities were endless. But with an instant-print camera, that was it. Take the shot, and whatever’s done is done.
When I first got into photography, it was a hobby that dragged me in a hundred percent. I used a couple different cameras, but formed my opinion on Polaroids, as they’re known among the general public, quite quickly. I bought a Polaroid Originals OneStep+, an excellent camera, especially for the value, since I bought it half price from someone who had just gone through a phase and quickly tired of it.
Or at least, that’s what she’d told me. We met a park after talking on craigslist, it seemed to work fine when I tested it out, so I forked over $50. It was much less than it seemed it was worth, but the other young woman seemed happy to be practically giving it away. She said there was a full roll of film in it, so just have fun. I bought some refills, but they just sat on a shelf.
And they continued to sit there. And sit there. And eventually there was no denying it - my camera wouldn’t run out of film. I finally opened it up to find the baffling note: *The film runs out when you photograph your soul mate.*
It would’ve been impossible to believe if I hadn’t already taken hundreds of photographs to find the camera was empty. And I tried contacting the young woman who’d sold it to me, bursting with questions at that point, but it was a craigslist email address that just bounced back now. Stumped, I figured I may as well consider it a challenge. Not to mention a gift, if it was literally a never-ending supply of film. That stuff can get *expensive*, especially as a professional.
And that I was. I opened my own studio a few years after buying the camera, mostly doing formal photos for people, many of whom had heard of my great work with my Polaroid. A lot of it was a matter of the right lighting and shot composition of course, but every photo was different, each one was special. That was what the customers felt when they got photos from my endless-film camera, among others that I would use during our sessions.
Mostly the soul mate ‘fact’ was relegated to the back of my mind, because that seemed one step too far, for some reason. Maybe it’s because I’d never been a romantic, even though I’d had relationships before, with both men and other women. But it felt like cheating, if I were to go out of my way to photograph men and women I thought were attractive or who I enjoyed talking to, even after a date that I felt was successful. Not to mention, what if the mythology of the camera just got in my head and soul mates didn’t exist? What if it didn’t actually do what it promised and I was fated to spend my whole life pining for a soul mate that didn’t exist?
So, the camera remained part of my daily routine at work, but aside from that, it became nothing more.
Eventually, I became tempted, though. I was dating a guy for going on four months and we seemed to really fit well together. I loved hanging out with him, loved his laugh, his intelligence, his heart. And so, I relented, telling him to come pick me up at work for date night. I took a picture with the camera. And it gave me a photograph.
I stared at the photo, almost confused, and then took another one. It printed again.
“Am I not posing right?” he asked, presumably noticing my facial expression.
I quickly smiled. “Sorry, no, it’s just so weird to see someone I really know on the other end of my camera after all the strangers,” I told him. “What do you think?”
Keeping the smile on my face, I showed them to him, and he grinned, loving how they’d come out. And we went out to dinner. And that was that.
Except it wasn’t. Something started to bother me over the next month, some feeling that we didn’t have a future together. We started to drift, things about him started to annoy me, and before I knew it, we’d broken up.
Then I found myself feeling lost.
*The camera was right, then. We broke up. We weren’t meant to be, weren’t soul mates. But…what if we were great together? What if the camera was wrong and it just got into my head? What if I could’ve married him and been so happy with him?*
The experience left me distraught, almost angry at the camera, but I took a deep breath, pushed the thoughts aside, and continued on with my life. I went on dates, had smaller relationships that just didn’t work out, some that were disasters, even one where the first date was just a train wreck. But I kept moving forward, with my love life and with my work.
Then I met Jamie.
It was at a friend’s birthday party, we were introduced, and she caught my eye in a romantic way immediately. She asked me questions about being a photographer and I asked her questions about working at the local zoo, and I found her job much more fascinating than mine. She had the most hilarious stories and we ended up talking all night.
You can guess how it progressed from there. We went on our first date the next week, I spent the night at her place a few weeks after. We grew closer than I’d ever been to anyone and it felt like my future was starting to form in front of my eyes. The steps I would take through my life with her, each milestone a valuable jewel that I couldn’t wait to grasp hold of and clutch tightly in my hand.
Jamie proposed to me one day, out with friends who had been told ahead of time and were all recording it on their cameras, and I tearfully accepted. We’d never wanted a big wedding, and settled on inviting close friends and family, having it at a large restaurant in town that also did events. As the day grew closer, I was so glad we’d decided on a smaller event because even that much was so stressful and more expensive than we’d expected.
The photo ‘booth’ was going to be run by my assistant at my studio, a young man named Jacob who wanted to go into the career himself but was just still learning the ropes. Jamie came by one day as I was wrapping up work, talking to him about what we would be offering the guests.
“There is one guy,” Jamie told him, “and if you see him, you’ll know him if you see him, looks like Grizzly Adams. My uncle Jack. He’s been known to drink too much, and if he bothers you to take more than a few photos, feel free to shove him back onto the dance floor so the rest of the guests can have a turn.”
Jacob laughed and nodded as he headed back to the portrait area to clean up for the night. “All right, duly noted.”
I grabbed my jacket from the back of my chair and my purse from my drawer. When I turned around, the Polaroid camera was in Jamie’s hands. “Say cheese!”
My eyes widened and I gasped in. “Wait, Jamie-”
The flash went off.
Jamie lowered the camera. “What?” She looked to it expectantly but narrowed her eyes. “Oh. Is it out of film?” She met my gaze. “Honey? What’s wrong?”
I slowly smiled and swallowed hard. “Yeah, Jamie. It’s out of film.”
“Ugh, I can never get a spontaneous picture of you,” she sighed, putting the camera back where she’d found it and turning back toward the door. “Now even the cameras are conspiring against me. All right, we’ve got a reservation, come on.”
Picking up the camera and looking through to frame her up, I saw her pause at the door and look over her shoulder. And I pressed the button, but no photo emerged.
“What’re you doing?” she asked with a smile.
I lowered the camera and smiled back. “Just looking at my soul mate.”
​
/r/storiesbykaren | 384 | most_different |
12 | 1,460,920,091 | 51 | The apocalypse has come. The only survivors: a young child, and the monster under the bed... | A boy within a mostly empty room,
with nothing but a cot to rest his head.
The world outside is quiet as a tomb,
Alone, but for the beast beneath his bed.
His mother and his father? Burnt to ash,
in conflagrations nuclear and vast.
The silence is soon broken by a crash,
The monster crawling upwards from the past.
The beast, it looks around the empty room,
while staying near the safety of the bed.
Its focus on the boy, and in the gloom,
It reaches out and pats him on the head.
"I'm just as scared as you", the monster moans...
"But lonely doesn't always mean alone" | 24 | most_different |
5 | 1,403,816,900 | 22 | In the near future, in an attempt to fix political corruption, the President is now chosen by lottery | Alana Thompson, age 47, sits with her obese husband and kids, waiting in anticipation.
The president of the United States, Plo R.P., walks on to the stage to great thousands of obese faces.
"Today, we will reveal our new leader, our new president, who will lead this great nation to victor!" Plo said in the microphone. The crowd begins a chorus of cheers. After some more speeches, the lottery begins.
Alana Thompson, after gaining millions of dollars in the entertainment genre, has put every cent she owned into the lottery, in hope of her name being called.
Plo R.P reaches his hand into the huge tub of folded paper slips.
The president sighs in agony as he announces "Our new leader is... Alana Thompson."
No one cheers. People just look around in confusion. "WHO DA HELL IS DAT!" Cried someone. After some booing and confusion, the president clarifies, "Alana Thompson, better known as Honey Boo-Boo, is our new president"
The crowd began an uproar of hatred and cries in fear of the future of the U.S..
"I WIN I WIN I WIN!!! WEEEEE" Screamed Alana. She attempts to walk up to the stage, but fails and collapses on the ground. She then starts spinning and spasming randomly out of pure happiness.
"WEEEEEEEEE!"
---
The Moral Of The Story: Please Don't Have Presidential Lotteries... | 11 | most_different |
18 | 1,421,163,949 | 104 | At birth, everyone is given a DnD alignment at random and they must act accordingly, regardless of what they actually think. | Finally, ISIS was crushed by the West and the new Republic of the Islamic State which encompassed both Syria and Iraq had had its first election. Finding out who was an enemy to world peace was no issue; most insurgents and terrorists carried the Chaotic Evil alignment and acted as such.
That's why the new President of the ISR, Yusuf al-Rohani, who, promising peace, law and order was easily the best choice. Lawful, was after all, law abiding. Afraid of having an undesirable in office, the polls were rigged by foreign powers without the populace knowing, allowing Yusuf to take the election.
It was only then that the world felt regret. The changes were sudden and brutal. Yusuf implemented an unpopular Sharia Law into the region and governed it with an iron fist. There were no protests that existed without a massacre. Advocates for change were branded terrorists and insurgents. The hopeful population was again forced down the path of extremist Islam. While those who spoke against the government and it's laws were 'taken care of', all others who followed the law did receive the promise of 'peace and order'
For Lawful Evil is absolute in its governance. And those who do not accept the law shall feel the law's absolute might.
| 40 | most_different |
9 | 1,609,744,095 | 501 | You are a dragon that has slept for 100 years due to being bored with the humans and their warring clans. After waking into a Victorian age, you find that humans have grown more civilized. You don your disguise and prepare to mingle in high society, where words are more powerful than swords. | QUEEN VICTORIA’S DRAGON
[Part I]
Kuldrum, Lord of the Skies, Champion of Yellow, Seeker of Riches, whose wings were each the size of a Blue Whale, whose spiked tail could crush ten grown men in a single swoop, whose impatience with humanity’s self-proclaimed “enlightenment” pushed him into another early hibernation, woke up on November 1st, 1858.
To his bitter disappointment, he soon learned that the historical significance of the mighty Kuldrum’s two massive, green eyes opening for the first time in over a century was overshadowed by a 39 year-old woman. Apparently she had just become the Empress of India. She already ruled half the globe from her little island, and she did it in spectacular style. Kuldrum, being a drake of imperial tastes himself, was desperate to meet her, and mingle with her subjects, the Brits.
While some dragons may have flown right to Buckingham Palace, Kuldrum learned long ago that humans do not react well to seeing dragons in their natural shape. That’s why he stole one of Old Xordun’s transfigurators. Plus, Xorduns are a great investment to snap up before any long naps. It always appreciates in value. Hey, it’s not like dragons are ever going to be happy by being themselves!
Kuldrum took the smooth stone in his talons and put it to his gentle, scaly lips. A soft red heat began to emanate on Kuldrum’s breath, and then in a flash it became a beam of white-hot flame. The stone embraced the flame, diverting its force into an elaborate series of engravings. As the flame danced down thousands of twiggy paths, sections of the stone itself began to move, rearranging the etchings on its surface into a million different combinations, not completely unlike a Rubik’s Cube.
Kuldrum held his breath, the flames ceased, and the stone’s moving pieces came to a stop in the shape of a human body.
A few disorienting moments later and Kuldrum stood admiring his dainty hands and soft feet. He ran a hand through his thick head of yellow hair, slipped his fully charged Xordun on over his head like a necklace, and, stark naked, set off for London, where he expected to enjoy an audience with Queen Victoria.
[PART 2]
Six weeks later, Kuldrum had fallen in love with Victorian society just as much as Victorian society had fallen in love with him. At first he was an oddity, wallowing in obscurity for the insane nonsense he spouted about being a dragon. But as he sharpened his wit, discovered his sense of irony, his fashion and his taste for the finer things, he began to climb.
Grasping the human’s passion for building a grandiose nest, Kuldrum constructed a mansion in the heart of London. He financed it with a pinch of gold that he’d stashed in Portugal a few hundred years back. At over 20,000 feet, the unveiling of his London home made him a tabloid celebrity. His parties were lavish, but what made them memorable was simply him. Kuldrum.
Kuldrum who, no matter what the circumstance, never dropped his ridiculous joke of pretending to be a dragon in human form. The sheer commitment and irreverence sent people head over heels. Yet Kuldrum often found himself, on days when the big house was empty, that he too was empty. His wish remained unfulfilled. Queen Victoria had not even noticed his existence.
On one particularly gloomy day, when, truth be told, Kuldrum was feeling near his lowest, he was paid a call by Sir Charles Dickens. The rotund, graying, spritely fellow ranted and raved for two hours about what Kuldrum must do. It was brilliant. It was perfect. Kuldrum must write a book about this dragon persona.
Make it romantic. Make it terrifying. Make it poetic. Make it a smash hit. Become the best-selling author in the British Empire. Where Charles saw for his eccentric friend a spectacle, a lifetime of fame and fortune, and an advancement of British literature, Kuldrum saw a chance to get in front of an audience of one. So the next day, Kuldrum, Lord of the Skies, Champion of Yellow, Seeker of Riches, sat down at his writing table with a stack of paper on which to write his book. He began with the title. After pursing his lips and furrowing his brow, he put quill to parchment and scrawled out three words: Queen Victoria’s Dragon.
[PART 3]
In 1843, Charles Dickens, later to become an earnest good friend of the dragon Kuldrum, published A Christmas Carol. It sold out completely in six days. In 1859, Kuldrum published Queen Victoria’s Dragon and sold out completely in three days. His novel, a swashbuckling adventure story full of thrilling adventure and intimate romance, was a smash hit. The French and American publishers were already chomping at the bit to republish in their countries.
Kuldrum was propelled to new heights of fame and fortune. Every day he checked his mail box. Every day he paced back and forth in the mail room, peering over the shoulders of his crew of fifteen assistants, who spent all day sorting through bags of fan mail, discarding everything, looking for one unique address. Just one.
And on a sunny Tuesday morning in March, it arrived. Kuldrum read it out loud, as all his assistants sat paralyzed, hanging on its every word.
“The enjoyment of your presence has been requested by Her Majesty Queen Victoria I, Queen of the United Kingdom, Empress of India, Queen of Canada, Queen of Australia, Queen of New Zealand, Head of the Commonwealth.” Kuldrum raised his head and lowered the card in his trembling hands. All of his assistants saw the tears gushing from his eyes. They erupted in applause, hugging and kissing each other, wildly throwing fan mail in the air.
The next day Kuldrum set to work choosing an outfit for his audience with the Queen. A velvet suit of purple and red it would be. At quarter-past-three, a royal valet arrived outside Kuldrum’s London house. He climbed into the carriage, but as he sat down and took hold of the complementary bottle of chilled champagne, he felt a nasty tug on his neck.
It was his transfigurator. It was flickering. Kuldrum closed the windows of his carriage and unbuttoned his shirt. The transfigurator looked different. Over half of the intricate lines that crisscrossed its surface had lost their dull glow. More were fading at that very moment.
He was running out of power. By nightfall, Kuldrum would transform back into his natural form.
Kuldrum stuck his head out the side of the carriage and caught the attention of the valet.
“Double-time, please, it’s an emergency! I must get to the Queen at once!” Noticing after a few moments that the valet had done nothing in response, Kuldrum stuck his head out once again and this time tossed a bag of gold coins onto the man’s lap.
“I said go!”
Men, women, and children alike were diving out of the streets as Kuldrum’s carriage bounded toward Buckingham Palace. As its wheels came to a stop on the rich gravel of the palace grounds, the golden rays of sunset were already hitting slanted roofs all across London.
Kuldrum was in no mood for polite greetings. He pushed past the guards and various dignitaries, leaving them baffled and offended, trailing after him as he barked out commands and questions, like, “Which way to the throne room!?”
As Kuldrum turned yet another corner, his transfigurator pulsed, yanking him momentarily to the ground. Just over one-tenth of its power remained. He had mere moments before his arms would turn to wings, his fingers to talons, his face to a monstrous jaw with rows of razor-sharp teeth.
As the sunset loomed outside the large bay windows of the palace’s southern side, Kuldrum pushed open the door to Queen Victoria’s drawing room – and then he froze in place. His feet rooted into the ground. The air left his lungs. His arms seized up. His transfigurator blinked. And then went dead.
Standing before him was Queen Victoria. Kuldrum managed to stammer out the first thing that came into his head.
“Your Majesty,” he said, “I am such a huge fan!”
And then she screamed. | 93 | most_different |
7 | 1,470,231,021 | 38 | The year is 2023. In a decision that shocked the world, the US has officially ended the war on drugs. In the wake of this decision, a new sporting event has been taking the world by storm: The Drug Wars. | ”And remember, Doctor Trump’s Home Remedy is made with only the safest of government-approved medication, including morphine, heroine, THC and more! Treats the common cold, depression, fatigue, boredom, sexual impotence, hair loss, night sweats, fuzzy ear, sore feet, rough gut, rust gut, tough gut…”
**Click**
"Tonight on Top Gear; Matt Leblanc drives the new Tesla X4 on a racetrack through a crowded mall… on ecstasy. Stay tuned.”
**Click**
“…with the 2024 presidential election just months away, we join our political correspondent Heath Johnson live at the Republican National Convention, where two-term president Donald Trump is expected to launch his official support for Jeb Bush. President Trump, the man who, surprisingly, shifted wild-middle after his 2016 election. President Trump, the man who, in the face of all odds, opened relations with Russia and rescued our economy from certain collapse. However, most will likely remember him as the man who decriminalized, and then capitalized on, the sale and consumption of formerly illegal intoxicants…”
**Click**
“Well, you know, the pressure… the pressure really got to me. I was in a dark place.”
“Please, Ms. Lohan, take your time.”
“Thanks Conan. So, you see, back before the *transition*, I got so wrapped up in fame that my only outlet was cocaine. It ruined my life, it ruined my career… but now I’m back!
“Your agent said you were here to plug something, but wouldn’t say what. Care to enlighten us?”
“Of course, Conan! America, my name is Lindey Lohan, and I’m launching a new line of cocaine-infused skin care products!”
**Click**
“Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to DRUG WARS! Tonight, we begin our show with a chess match between the world-famous artificial intelligence *ARTemis* and… Jake Stone, an overweight man who works as a sanitary engineer for the City of Seattle. But… here at Drug Wars we like to mix things up. That’s why Mr. Stone will be playing under the influence of a very potent neurotropic. Can he beat the odds and beat his opponent before the potent cocktail swimming through his veins gives him a brain hemorrhage? Lets watch.”
**Click**
“Thanks John. I’m standing here in what used to be the ruins of Detroit. We are all aware of the… rocky past associated with this fair city, from its heyday as the center of the automotive world followed by its sharp decline in the early 21st century. But today, the city is on the rise. Employment is through the roof, wallets are full, and crime is at an all-time low. This revitalization can be attributed in part to the works of Trump Medicinals, who purchased over eight million square feet of shuttered automotive plants to begin production of their world-famous *Home Remedy*…”
**Click**
“He did it! Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Stone has defeated ARTemis in only eight moves! Astounding! Surely this moment will go down in history as the day mankind moved beyond our digital… oh dear… OH DEAR! Ladies and Gentlemen, Drug Wars fans, it appears that Mr. Stone has collapsed to the studio floor… oh my…. Oh my god. Turn the camera off… turn it off Steve!”
**Click**
“Hello, and welcome back to Martha’s Kitchen. Tonight we will be whipping up a fun and easy Holiday Quiche that’s sure to put a spring in the step of all your guests through the cold dark nights. All you’ll need are eggs, cream, salt, pepper, and a small pinch of organic, locally-produced methamphetamine…”
**Click**
“But *Daaaaaaad*”
“No buts, sweetheart, you have to eat your cereal if you want to grow big and strong.”
*”That’s right kids, only Trump-O’s contain a healthy dusting of consumable steroids that help a body grow…”*
**Click**
***
*If you like what you read, be sure to check out my [subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/Irishpersonage/comments/4i1vq9/welcome/) for more of my writing.* | 10 | most_different |
11 | 1,438,532,952 | 94 | In an alternate timeline, marijuana and alcohol are legal. Caffeine - as well as anything containing it in appreciable quantity - is not. | Why do people use it? Is it the good feeling afterwards? Is it the taste of the things it's mixed into? No. That can't be the reasons. Not when the side effects literally stop you from sleeping, make you irritable and can in some cases cause what is known as "the shakes".
I've only had one experience with "Red Bull" and I don't remember it very well. It was terrifying. I was more alert, I stayed up all night wondering if I was dying and I had the resting heart rate of a serial killer.
The next day I met up with some friends who have been through the same thing and are still very consistent users. They said the typical things like "Haha you'll want it again" and "I don't play online video games well without it." It's like they were almost dependant on the stuff. Where do you even safely transport it with all the random checks and police raids on known warehouses?!
Personally the whole habit seems like more hassle than it's worth and I doubt I'll ever do Caffeine again. I actually want a future. No employer would look twice at my resume if the words "Caffeine user" were listed under any criminal convictions I may have had.
My advice, get an education and stick with the safe stuff like weed if you're going to try anything. There's a reason there's no recorded hospitalizations of the stuff. Don't throw your chance at a good future away because you wanted that "buzz" just once more. | 42 | most_different |
6 | 1,601,952,147 | 89 | The creature crawls from under the bed, ready to feed. It then smells it, milk and cookies. It crawls down the stairs and sees some fat guy eating the first food it’s seen in weeks. | I scurried around under the bed, seeing that the giant left, I could finally go out safely, Mother tried to go out yesterday and was killed by the giant, so I am not going to make the same mistake.
​
I haven't eaten in weeks, this might be my only chance of getting any for a long time, I dashed down the stairs, trying not to make any sound, then when I finally made it to the large chamber, I saw food, cookies and milk, and judging from the smell its freshly baked aswell,I dashed down the corridor, not caring about making sound anymore, I am starving but when I got to the table, there was a *huge* giant sitting on the chair, chomping down on the biscuits, bits of crumbs and spit flying everywhere and landing on his beard then, with a final crunch, all the cookies were eaten and the milk drank.
​
I was *pissed*, so I bared my teeth and bit the man on the leg, he screamed and yelled "OH SHIT ITS A FUCKING RAT!", moments later, I heard a woman shouting from upstairs "HONEY, THERES A BURGLAR GET THE SHOTGUN". | 11 | most_different |
3 | 1,590,717,363 | 152 | In a world where psychics are killed upon discovery, you have hidden you abilities. However, using telekinesis on your arms allow for stronger punches and you become a boxer. When you are sent to get a physical, the doctor starts to become suspicious of you. | "When did you say you started boxing?"
"When I was 17," I said coolly. Having been interviewed one two many times (from match promotions to sports magazine articles, even daytime television talk shows) I have the answers to basic questions asked locked and loaded in this brain of mine that keeps getting banged against my skull match after match after match. My physician, Bert, once commented that for a boxer, my memory really good. Bert and I talk about a lot of things, and we even got to the level where we share a drink or two during a lazy day. However, on this day, things were far from lazy. And the doctor in front of me, asking questions, isn't my friend.
His name is Jones, and initially the look he gave me reminded me of an opponent's inside the ring— focused, and waiting for a time to strike.
So when Jones started talking to me, I was caught off guard. First he remarked on how I didn't look like a fighter from my weight division. He corrected himself that while I look the part, I don't feel like it. I gave a bullshit answer like how I'm different when I'm outside the ring versus when I'm fighting in a match. Killing intent and whatnot, I said. He replied: "Fair point."
Then he started asking questions, like the one about when I had started to box, is boxing my first sport, and what did I like about it. This is the part of the conversation where I got a little proud of myself and dropped my guard a bit.
"I actually had my background in wrestling, but I decided that fighting with my fists suited me more than fighting with my whole body," I said. It's true, though. As someone with telekinetic abilities, I was able to enhance my body's capabilities and strengthen it to a level that normally wouldn't be possible. When I first discovered that I have this kind of ability, I was ecstatic; I pushed myself to try many things, until I discovered that I'm good at fighting, and with telekinesis I can become better at it. Not world champion level, but maybe good enough that I can manage to afford certain luxuries on my own.
Back to why I started with wrestling: One of my friends was a wrestler, and decided to invite me in to join a few classes. However, it wasn't easy to focus, especially since I'm using my whole body to attack the opponent. I have to fight as well as hide the fact that I'm using my ability, so I decided to stop. A few months later I gravitated towards boxing.
"I guess boxing feels more natural to me. I like the simplicity it offers me," I said.
"Simplicity," Jones said, his voice trailing off. "But you are not a simple man, are you, Mr. Briggs?"
At that moment, a wave of confusion hit me. Is he testing me? So I jokingly answered: "You got that right. Simple men don't win back to back matches, that's for sure."
*Simple men also don't respond well to my telepathy.*
My eyes widened as I heard a voice in my mind that was clearly not my own. When I turned to look at Jones, his teeth was bared in what I could only guess was an attempt at a smile. I took a step back, and his smile only grew wider.
*Now why don't we proceed with that examination, before the boys outside the room become suspicious?* | 22 | most_different |
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