The #MastoPrompt for Saturday 22 March 2025 is:
The poem or story can include the prompt word or be about the prompt word.
@ me, if you like, or just include the #MastoPrompt tag (to allow people to follow or filter their feeds), or keep your work to yourself - all the options are good as long as you're writing.
If you're including an image please do include alt-text if you’re able to.
Today's Wandering Shop Stories #prompt is #trade. Feel like writing something short and sweet that has the word "trade" in it? Check out the definitions of the word at: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/trade Join in and tag it with #wss366! #writing #WritingLife #microfiction h/t @asakiyume
\"What was that 'go-to advice' you were talking about earlier?\" bubbled the Thing, all twelve of its eyes boring into her. \"'Cis people don't have to think this hard about their gender', or something along those lines?\"
\"And...\" She leaned against the wall and took a deep breath. \"And humans don't have to think this hard about being human. Oh. Oh, stars.\"
The Thing shifted slightly. She didn't know how she could tell, but she was certain it was beaming at her.
\"What was that 'go-to advice' you were talking about earlier?\" bubbled the Thing, all twelve of its eyes boring into her. \"'Cis people don't have to think this hard about their gender', or something along those lines?\"
\"And...\" She leaned against the wall and took a deep breath. \"And humans don't have to think this hard about being human. Oh. Oh, stars.\"
The Thing shifted slightly. She didn't know how she could tell, but she was certain it was beaming at her.
"]Followup poll about #MicroFiction in general and #PowerOnStoryToot
The latest post on my WordPress blog: Darkness Falls (flash fiction) #flashfiction #fiction #microfiction #starwars #sciencefiction #dark
https://jedigirlblog.wordpress.com/2025/03/22/darkness-falls-flash-fiction/
Ohai fren: I have been avoiding, since 2024, writing dystopian #microfiction on #PowerOnStoryToot hashtag, because trying to focus on positivity no matter how much the OTHER muse points out the awfulness happening in this timeline
The city was a labyrinth of despair. Sam Spy, Private Eye, leaned against a lamppost under its dim soggy glow. He closed his eyes. The picnic table, his sister’s laughter. They’d shared dreams and sandwiches, the world still filled with hopes and dreams. Now, he hunted for answers in a world painted in shades of gray and betrayal. “I’ll bring you justice,” he promised her ghost and clenched his fists. #Microfiction #photography
"Welcome to the White House, Mr President."
"What's that red phone on my desk?"
"That's The Hotline, Mr President, so you can call the president of Russia in case of imminent nuclear war. But we had to disconnect it from Russia."
"Why?"
"The scammers discovered the number and the previous president came close to launching the nukes at them several times."
"So what does it do now?"
"Straight to a sex chat line. It was the best way to distract him."
The ship’s cat has discovered that the sonic cleaner in the shuttle bay airlock gives the **best** brushies. Now every time I bring the shuttle back with a load of supplies I have to budget ten minutes extra to let her have an extended decontam cycle. Five whole minutes today on just her left cheek.
"It's a family heirloom," David said, "But no one used it when I was growing up. Too much effort to prepare." He held out the lidded ceramic jar for Danielle to inspect. She looked in.
"What's this stuff? Some kind of meal?"
David nodded. "My gran said sometimes it's wheat, sometimes corn, sometimes barley. The main thing is, it never runs out."
He poured all the meal into a saucepan ... but moments later the jar was full again.
"Cool! I'll definitely use it!"
Lady Gygax carefully repainted the eyes on the scarecrow's burlap face.
"Oh my goodness! Thank you so much!" he exclaimed, covering his eyes with his hands. "Now I can see much better!"
"Friend Scarecrow," replied the lich, "you can not see anything with your eyes covered like that."
"Yes, I know," the scarecrow replied. "But I am talking to a skeleton, and I wish that I were blind!"
The #MastoPrompt for Friday 21 March 2025 is:
The poem or story can include the prompt word or be about the prompt word.
@ me, if you like, or just include the #MastoPrompt tag (to allow people to follow or filter their feeds), or keep your work to yourself - all the options are good as long as you're writing.
If you're including an image please do include alt-text if you’re able to.
“Hey, void, is there somewhere you go if you need to scream?”
「The Grand Canyon is nice」
“No problems at the border?”
「I don’t go that way」
Today's Wandering Shop Stories #prompt is #meal. Feel like writing something short and sweet that has the word "meal" in it? Check out the definitions of the word at: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/meal Join in and tag it with #wss366! #writing #WritingLife #microfiction h/t @asakiyume
armies are always fighting the last war. survivors come home with scars and lessons learned and ranks achieved by virtue only of being still standing at the end, and busily begin the process of figuring out what they should have done to keep more of their friends alive. but everything's obvious in retrospect, and the enemy learns too.
R&D is always fighting the next war. or trying to make war obsolete. or working on something completely unrelated that just also turns out to be able to fly or float or explode or reduce humans to paste or circuits to scrap… if it actually works on the battlefield.
fighting the last war makes you predictable. trying to fight the next war needs you to be lucky. it was the bureaucrats who forced the compromise that is modern pilot hardware, yoking the fractious generals and scientists together in the present.
the original, basic function of the implants is keep our pilots alive and conscious through high G and EMP and blood loss and battlefield fatigue, and to keep them informed and connected to the network. the implants work very well. the technology matured a long time ago.
but they can only help so much if the pilot's training is wrong: if she has learned to duck under an incoming K-29b, and then the K-29c comes along with better lookdown sensors, well, that's all over but for the flag they mail home.
so the other function of the implants, sacrosanct, in place of all the other features that the lab monkeys claim they could be fitting in that limited space instead, is memory patching. faster than training an old reflex out of someone and a new reflex in. click. download. done. keeps you fighting the current war, and winning.
don't worry too much about how. the side effects from a few too many doses of neural plasticizer is a small price to pay compared to death, disability, or forced retirement. besides, they don't mess with the higher functions much: principles, ethics, loyalty, if you had any to start with, you'll probably still have them. those are much less amenable to memory patching than the low-level functions. muscle memory. threat recognition. fight/flight balance.
it's true that there are some side effects that can be more initially distressing than others. they're fast low-level reflex functions too, and the patch source could be anyone in the fleet, after all. broad compatibility is important. so yes, sexual preferences and orientation can get a little… blurry. but you'll get used to it, pilots. the system works. □
There was a mysterious parcel on grandma's front step. On top it said, "To the fairest." On one side it said "to the wisest" and on another "to the bravest." On a third was "to the wittiest" and on the fourth, "to the forgivingest." Grandma raised an eyebrow at that. "I think I know who this is from."
"Who?" I asked.
"Your granddad. He forgot my birthday the other day." Inside the parcel was a six-pack of Moxie." Grandma laughed. "Your granddad's such a card."
How likely am I to recommend the Gednarian Reformation Fleet to another planet? How likely do you *THINK*? You assholes shut down our universities, stole our oceans, did unspeakable sexual assaults to our cattle, and tanked the stock market (never mind, that last one was a hoot; seeing billionaires eating biocompactor sludge to survive was chefkissalicious). But. BUT. The true and telling flaw that earns you this zero is even ASKING for a Galactic Promoter Score. Only a negatively cool invader fleet would do such a thing. When we kick your asses in the third act you are gonna be so sorry.
You take a deep breath and look around in your unlit room. Another one of those shitty dreams where you try to run only to end up kicking your feet in place.
You read once that it happens because your brain "locks down" your body while you are sleeping or something like that to prevent you from moving and hurting yourself.
Except this time you were so determined that you ended up kicking the actual air in front of you and waking up.
"How do I tell if I'm in a dream?", you wonder for a sleepy second.
Then it hits you. Not a revelation or a sudden leap of logic. A faint hint of knowledge deep down in you.
You fly.
Grimm tale: Snow-White inhaled the crisp forest air, a hint of spring in the breeze. Birdsong filled the morning, then shattered by a dwarf's enraged shouts. Rose-Red rushed to calm him, his beard tangled in a rotting log. Snow-White searched her bag for scissors. The poor man! They had to help. #Microfiction #aiart
As the lich, the raven and the tin man walked through the woods, they heard a commotion behind them. This turned out to be the scarecrow, stumbling his way after them.
"Please let me join you!" he exclaimed. "You rescued me from my pole, and I have no idea what to do next. But, if possible, I would like for the Wizard of Oz to give me some brains."
"He's a humbug, you know," said the raven.
"Pardon?"
"And you need to have your eyes repainted! Lovely Lady my ass!"
ShouldbeWriting
