#Puzzle to solve

[puzzlenation]

Real or Fake Game: TV Shows!

Truth is often stranger than fiction, as they say, and as someone who regularly creates quizzes, games, and puzzles for friends to unravel, that’s a core tenet of one of my favorite game styles: Real or Fake Games. Real or Fake Games are quite simple. I present the player(s) with something — a headline, an animal, a fortune cookie fortune, the plot synopsis of an episode of The Simpsons — and…

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Finally caught up with Apothecary Diaries. I can't believe they gave Maomao a gun.

[fishing-lesbian-catgirl]

Just saw someone with “use whatever pronouns you use for yourself for me” in bio. I honestly never considered the depth the pronoun metagame could have, we’ve barely scratched the surface with this shit

[pseudopossum]

i've been playing a lot of balatro lately, and at one point i turned on high contrast cards, had the thought of 'wow those are almost tmnt colors,' which then eventually led to '...i wonder how hard it is to mod this game'

turns out it's not too hard..!

i might've doomed myself here a little tho bc now i want a complete set of face cards.. which means drawing 8 more characters..

trapped in the pixel mines ⛏😔

[sudokuplayer]

[keferon]

oh!! wait, prowl becoming autobot hq would be so cool though!!!! he'd have so much fun i feel making training courses and running the numbers, like you said. i could totally see him actually smiling for once like "holy shit. i finally. theres numbers. theres variables. theres shit to calculate" and everyone else see him smile (i imagine it'd probably look unnerving) and thinks "...is he ok" then jazz just hits them with the "oh yeah no hes just happy! lol"

Yep yep YEP

Like. Prowl is a machine. And machine’s natural state is to perform something. In his case being the operating system of the complex implies that there are people he has to take care of. Otherwise he would just have NOTHING to do. Leaving him alone at the end would be kind of cruel.

Also having a giant building that can shift and transform and rearrange itself as a headquarters? Cool as fuck~

Oh and Jazz lives inside the walls. There’s quite a lot of space in those. Perhaps that space was even left specifically for him. Who knows.

[ladykatibeth]

I think in the future Armand should continue to do his gaslighting, subtle manipulation, narrative weaving, scheming etc except over non-consequential things, and Daniel should just continue to unravel these threads, puzzles, mysteries, lies etc and it’s like foreplay for them.

[sightseertrespasser]

White Out

Today’s story is brought to you by several days of accumulated comment exchanges led by @keferon spawner of intriguing AU’s.

In a rare change of events, I’m actually going try (try) to preemptively outline how many chapters a story will be in advance.

The story will be four parts total and are named below:

White Out

White Knuckle

White Elephant

White Hat

Look up tf portal au to see other amazing creators taking this concept and running with it.

Enjoy.

———————————————————————

In. Out.

In. Out.

In. Out.

Slower.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

Jazz was breathing manually, which had to be one of the absolute stupidest ways the cons have ever tried to kill him.

He much preferred their earlier stuff. Knives instead of needles, long winded monologues where they reveal their whole plan and how they’re going to kill you because they really do believe that they’re going to kill you.

The good stuff. Informative. Classic.

Not whatever shit one of Soundwaves little punks managed to stick him with.

Jazz blinked rapidly as he felt his eyes going dry from staring at the same crack in the wall for the last fuck knows how long.

He couldn’t turn his head without his vision lagging behind, and the risk of dizziness was too great when he’d just managed to find a hiding spot before the drug really kicked in.

It got worse in waves but he was managing to ride them out. Whenever he had a moment of clarity he’d sip more water and whenever the effects got worse he’d stare straight ahead and focus on not having a panic attack.

At the peak of each wave, Jazz could do exactly one thing at a time. Sometimes it was rubbing his thumb in circles against the concrete to ground himself. Sometimes it was wiping the sweat from his cold neck. Currently, it was breathing manually.

Because for some god fucked reason, he was pretty sure his brain couldn’t do that on its own right now and he’d actually suffocate if he stopped.

His breathing hitched, then manually smoothed.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

His fingers itched where he couldn’t move them. Covered in moon dust he’d been trying to paint onto the floor since he’d escaped. One of the few functional portal guns hummed uselessly on his lap.

Orange. It’s the orange one I need to fire.

Back home, Prowl had its twin, an inactive blue portal waiting for him. Prowl always had a door back home for him.

Now if I could just move enough to open it.

The portal guns were pretty fuckin amazing in Jazz’s opinion, and after the moon incident it became pretty clear that the things range was Yes. The only real limitation was the conductive surface needed to hold a portal.

The smeared white surface on the floor was about half the size he needed.

The tight empty feeling of not enough air snapped his brain back to the present.

In. Out. In. Out.

In. Out.

In.

Out.

After several indeterminate measures of time, Jazz tested his current level of capability by changing the direction of his vision.

He got his head to turn far enough down that he could see the white patch on the floor, so it was mostly in his peripheral. But at least he was kinda looking at it.

He felt well enough to start petting the concrete again. The motion brought to mind the analogy of petting his own brain like some kind of nervous animal to keep it from jumping away.

Once his automatic breathing kicked back in, Jazz turned onto his knees achingly slow. The world wobbling to catch up with his glacial movements.

Just a little longer and he could finish the portal base.

Boots scraped the floor above him, painfully sharp in his ears. “In his current state he can’t have gotten far. If he is gone we’ll just have to move up the time table on project White Out. Keep looking.”

Or now.

Now is fine.

Jazz heaved himself over the white blank mural and started to paint his escape. The shot of adrenaline from hearing the Decepticons enter the fire escape stairwell made his heart stutter over itself in a way that put a great big dark spot in the center of his vision.

I need to get back. I need to finish this and fire the portal to get back home.

Completing the portal is the fastest way inside the Autobot base.

Blinking away the darkness, Jazz moved unconsciously, wiping broad even strokes across the ground. Sweat dripped down his nose. His visor growing cloudy from his steaming breath rising through the freezing air.

Footfalls.

A shout.

And then a gun fired.

—————

Prowl prowled.

He certainly wasn’t pacing. It just so happened that the terminal on one side of the chamber was .0052% faster in sending signals to the solar arrays than the terminal on the other side that streamed camera feed from the west wing with .099% less static.

Therefore, it was perfectly rational for Prowl to stalk back and forth between the two.

And the steady blue glow of the unconnected portal in the center of the chamber was purely circumstantial in its location at the halfway point between those terminals.

He would not look at it.

He would not sit and stare like some forlorn puppy or a sailors wife taking vigil in her bay facing window.

He had a job to do.

Ratchet was with an away team gathering medical supplies. After last time with the twins raiding a veterinary office, it was deemed that expert supervision was worth the risk to bring back the correct supplies.

There was an unfortunate limit to what Prowl could create. He had vast stores of many kinds of chemicals and base elements, but the supply wasn’t infinite. Everything he gave was something he’d never get back.

Chip chip chipping away at the facility, every disaster made him just a little bit smaller.

As he amputated and recycled pieces of himself too damaged to repair, Prowl became intimately acquainted with the looming concept of entropy.

The Autobots were questionable company at times, but there was a hidden value in the ways they staved off that rotting entropy. Both of body and mind.

Symbiosis: (noun)

1. the living together in more or less intimate association or close union of two dissimilar organisms (as in parasitism or commensalism)

2. a cooperative relationship (as between two persons or groups)

Prowl gave them protection, food and warmth.

The Autobots brought him supplemental salvage, entertainment and.. autonomy.

At least, one member did.

He glanced at the static oval of blue.

Prowl had a theory. A completely implausible unscientific theory which he could test, however that would mean considering something no better than a superstition as a serious intellectual phenomenon.

The second Prowl left this room, Jazz would return.

He didn’t need to leave. He really only moved his avatar between the terminals of his central sanctum. He technically didn’t even need to do that. Manual inputs were far slower than simply commanding what needed to be done internally.

Prowl just typed out of habit.

He was staring at the portal again.

Sighing, Prowl looked up where Elita was to discuss her observations of the exterior of his facility in “person.” Finding her on the way back from the roof, Prowl raised his crane into the ceiling of his chamber to meet Elita on the upper floors.

The portal flickered to life.

Ecstatic rage and vindication were completely blown from Prowls processor as he watched Jazz hit the ground so hard he bounced.

Shouting voices carried through the tunnel in reality and Prowl descended.

He was not usually in the habit of leaving the lights on when working alone, so when the shabbily dressed Decepticons approached the ever shifting orange hole punched through space, all they could see was Jazz’s limp form surrounded by darkness.

Then red.

Body like a claw at the end of a mechanical arm, Prowl was wrapped around the spy instantaneously. He snapped up his gaze to the would be kidnappers just beyond the portal. One almost raised a gun on instinct before their more observant cohort yanked them into a full fledged retreat.

The look on Prowls face promised the kind of death that could only be described by a science fiction author dropping acid in the eighties.

A moment later and Prowl disabled the portal while bringing on the lights. He sent a prerecorded facility wide intercom message politely demanding for [medical trained personnel] to immediately report to [central chamber].

Prowl himself, meanwhile, frantically began searching his information banks on everything pertaining to emergency care.

Bombshell had done quite a number on Prowls data banks, deleting scores of “useless” information to free up additional memory and processing power. The first category to go was anything pertaining to keeping humans alive. It wasn’t exactly a priority to Prowl at the time, so he’d not bothered making backups beforehand.

Cursing quietly, Prowl had to focus a camera on a first aid guidelines poster in an employee break room several floors down instead.

1. Do not move unless the environment is dangerous.

Jazz is in the safest possible location.

2. Call for help.

Done.

3. Check subject for mutant mantis men bites or a wire tap.

What? Fucking Tarantulas.

4. Check subject for responsiveness.

“Jazz?” Prowl gently laid his hands on the human. He couldn’t feel temperature or really even texture but he could clearly see how soaked Jazz’s shirt was beneath the collar of his coat.

“Jazz are you alright?” He was breathing loudly, but didn’t sound like his airways were blocked.

“Hengh.” Jazz moved to roll onto his back and Prowl helped him.

He tried to speak again, “Heeeey Prowle- Pow-wer, oh WOW talk- talk-‘King is weird right now.”

The core of the facility stared down at him. Prowl lifted Jazz’s visor to better see his eyes and Jazz just giggled.

A beat passed, “Your pupils are massive. What happened? Were you drugged?!”

“Feels like it!” Now that he wasn’t trapped in an enemy base, Jazz relaxed considerably and seemed content to become an unhelpful puddle.

Before Prowl could tear out his technically real, technically not hair, Orion and Elita ran into the chamber.

“Buddies!” Cheered the mess on the floor.

“Jazz! You’re okay!” Orion beamed down.

Prowl cut off their reunion with a number of floor panels pulling aside to bring up a fully stocked medical suite.

“Jazz is not okay he has been poisoned with an unknown substance, now would one of you do something?!”

After some scrambling and unnecessary apologies, Jazz was lifted onto the gurney and about half a dozen different monitoring devices were set up.

Prowl was receiving data. He was receiving data that he couldn’t interpret because fucking BOMBSHELL deleted over half of his medical files, and Prowl didn’t have anything else to compare what he was seeing with.

He’d schedule full depth medical screenings with every Autobot available once Ratchet returned. Without a proper baseline Prowl was useless in this department.

Speaking of Ratchet, Elita called over from one of the terminals, “We got Ratchet on the line but the connection is fuzzy. Jazz, how’d you get poisoned?”

“Mmm, stabbed.”

Somewhere deep down in the facilities inner workings, an old pipe burst like a blood vessel.

“WHERE?!” Three voices simultaneously called out.

“Leggy.” Burbled Jazz, who was now wiggling the leg in question with no signs of stopping.

Bemused, confused and deeply entertained, Jazz just snorted when Orion grappled his leg like a small alligator.

A crackling voice came over the terminal, Ratchets frowning mug appearing on the screen, “-leave you idiots alone for two days and the whole damn-“

“Ratchet, I’m sending along the data we’ve acquired so far. None of Jazz’s organs appear to be failing yet but I’ve already come up with a list of possible donors. If we work quickly then-“

Ratchet raised a hand, scolding through the screen, “Hold it HOLD IT! Absolutely NO organ removal without me being the one doing it! Now everyone shut it while I read this. Prowl, give me a couple clear photos of Jazz if you want to be useful.”

The facility core quickly did so snapping pictures of the small puncture wound on Jazz’s leg as well as some wider shots of his overall state.

Ratchet mumbled to himself, barely coming over the microphone, “Blood sugar is a little low, temps running high, there’s signs of an adrenaline spike which makes sense, and a foreign chemical signature of..”

Ratchet guffawed, then broke into a full belly laugh.

Never in any of their individual lives have they ever heard Ratchet laugh at a medical report.

Shaken slightly out of his stupor, Jazz worriedly looked over to the screen and made a noise that was vaguely interrogative and lacked any consonants.

Getting a hold of himself, Ratchet addressed his patient, “Hey kid? Were the cons throwing a party?”

Jazz made another noise that was more confused than concerned. Still without consonants.

Either because of lag or a failing poker face, Ratchets face twitched a smile. “Because you’ve got about two hundred milligrams of THC in your system.”

—————

Jazz felt floaty.

And bored.

Once word got out that Jazz was back, a cause for celebration, and that he was high as fuck, a cause for significantly more childish celebration, social hour began and didn’t stop til Prowl plucked Jazz from the party claw machine style.

The general consensus was that the Cons had definitely intended to kidnap Jazz like they had Mirage. Their choice of drug and the state of the equipment Prowl saw those goons carrying implied the Decepticons were salvaging whatever they could find. They wanted him alive, so they improvised something that would fuck him up but not kill him.

Lucky Jazz.

Injections worked differently from smoking or edibles, so the former party ambulance took an “educated” guess at when it’d wear off and rounded that up by another twelve hours to be safe. He also talked Jazz through how best to ride it out, which Jazz was so using for blackmail material later on.

Interrogating the brick wall of a doctor on his adventurous youth would have to wait though, as he and a few other autobots were still a days travel away.

More concerningly, Ratchet also flagged a couple things that implied Jazz might have caught a cold on top of getting Turbo High, so current orders were to eat, drink and rest.

While everyone was around, he played up the goofy character people expected when they thought of someone being high as balls and Jazz didn’t let up the whole afternoon. He got quite the applause.

That said, his head hurt. He felt cold and exhausted. And he technically hadn’t gotten a chance to actually rest since he first got shanked. But he could’ve kept going. This was the most fun the Autobots had had in a while and he didn’t have the heart to turn them away.

Prowl? Not so much.

He pretty much went limp as a kitten when Prowl swiped him and spent the last of his energy blowing kisses and waving goodbye while Prowl scolded the party over letting him actually rest. Soon enough, Jazz was deposited into his personal room within the facility and left with a little peace and quiet.

A lot of peace and quiet.

Maybe somewhat too much peace and quiet actually.

Sensory overload straight into total silence wasn’t exactly playing nice on his fuzzy brain. So while Jazz focused once more on breathing at a steady pace, he turned to the camera and crooked his fingers in a “C’mere.”

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

The sharp click of panels in the ceiling indicated Jazz was about to get something much more entertaining to do than breathe.

“Hellooo French fries from the skies.” Jazz sang.

Suppressing a smile, Prowl lowered to his bedside.

“How are you feeling?”

Flopping his head back, Jazz self evaluated, “Tired, bored, thirsty, dizzy and did I mention bored?”

Turns out getting Weed Wacked meant baby sitting duty, except instead of teaching toddlers swear words, Jazz was baby sitting his own brain without pay. And he already knew all his own swear words. Scammed.

“Soup?” Prowl offered.

“Ye.”

A few moments later the greatest invention known to man was delivered.

The two made small talk as Jazz ate, Prowl updating him on what gossip he’d missed and Jazz taking notes. When the walls have literal ears there were certain benefits to befriending its mouth piece.

Eventually Jazz was warm and satiated, eyelids getting droopy.

Well almost satiated, he always was a sucker for desert. He put on his best sultry look which was probably comparable to a half baked bread loaf that was hanging partway off the counter.

Jazz draped himself forward, “Kiss?”

Prowl just laughed once and met him in the middle.

They both knew kissing didn’t physically feel like anything to Prowl, but there was still the emotional feedback that made him run a little warmer beneath the shell. Heck, Prowl offered to give affection about as often as Jazz requested it.

And Prowl was nothing if not indulgent.

Besides, Jazz had learned awhile ago what did make him happy and exploited the hell out of it. The closest thing Prowl experienced to a dopamine hit was when someone did well in completing a test chamber, so Jazz was a regular subject in those spaces.

Jazz did once suggest he could solve a rubix cube while they were making out, however this proved to be logistically challenging.

What was much easier at the moment was to cup his hand around the back of Prowls neck and pull him that much closer.

This near, Jazz could peek and see what Prowl looked with his eyes closed. He smiled into the kiss.

Tracing his fingertips along where the base of his skull would’ve been, Jazz caught the touch of a seam that trailed down the center of his neck and beyond.

He’d been inside there once. After shutting Prowl down and replacing the lost morality core, Jazz wouldn’t let anyone else touch him there.

He wanted to make sure that Prowl would stay Prowl no matter what anyone else tried to argue.

Crisply, Jazz could see the memory in his minds eye: smooth interlocking metal puzzle pieces that folded away with the right touch, compact switches like rows of pin heads, bundles of cabling so carefully spaced out.

He could imagine the feeling of clicking the access panel open and threading his fingers through the wires.

Grasping, then yanking-

“Woah.” Jazz suddenly stopped. Then pulled away completely.

His eyes were scrunched closed tight as he tried to push the mental image from his mind.

From some casual conversation with Prowl previously, Jazz knew, he knew that pulling the plug on Prowl was about as unpleasant an experience as it could get for the guy.

“Is everything alright? Did I do something?” Prowl still had a hand between Jazz’s shoulder blades, so even though he was asking, Prowl didn’t think he was what hurt Jazz.

Jazz scrubbed his face with one hand and waved him off with the other, “Yeah, yeah you’re fine. I think Aunt Mary the hit-man is coming to fuck with me one last time.”

“I see. Do you want me to try and reach Ratchet or anyone else?” Prowl spoke quietly, lightly leaning into his space.

Honestly, Jazz was feeling crummy in that way pre-illness usually did. However the mental image of hurting Prowl was still sharp in his mind and Prowls presence was making it hard to not dwell on. He pushed it away harder and felt a little cold sweat on his back.

“No, no I think I should just sleep this off. Come get me if anything crazy happens though yeah?” Jazz scooted down his bed a little further and got more comfortable.

Prowl lingered, but nodded, “Of course. I’m going to speak with Elita if you need me. She says there’s some concerning cloud cover incoming and wants to know how the facility will handle a white out.”

White Out caught in his mind. He hadn’t told anyone about what he’d heard right?

His tongue felt heavy in his mouth. He could think the words he wanted but the sound wasn’t forming. Or was it? Ratchet mentioned inner and outer monologues could get a little mixed up on high doses. Maybe he already said it at the party.

He was dropping quickly now, warm and fed and thoroughly exhausted. But he needed to..

He needed to..

“Snow is falling outside.” Prowl looked up through the ceiling into the sky beyond.

His bed was so unfairly soft.

Leaning over one last time, Prowl pulled the blanket a little further up Jazz’s shoulder as the human fought for consciousness.

Softly, in a voice that Jazz suspected Prowl didn’t think he could hear, he said, “I’m glad you came back.”

Jazz had no more voice, nor even a twitch to his fingers, so he put all his thoughts into his eyes and hoped that Prowl could read them.

Me too.

I love you.

I’m pretty sure the impending snow storm is another attempt to kill us all by the Decepticons but I am unfortunately too blasted to communicate that right now so please read the S.O.S. I am trying to blink at you ah fuck my eyes are closed.

Goodnight Prowl.

Goodbye Prowl.

———————————————————————

Tada!

It is so very late at night.

Take care everyone.

- SSTP

[spaceistheplaceart]

im still playing through plvspw.... and having fun w it hehe

[a-bad-case-of-the-stephs]

Hm. Everyone knows that Cluemaster being a ‘knock off Riddler’ or supervillain or rogue or whatever is not nearly as important to Steph’s narrative than the very ordinary abuse he inflicted on Steph and Crystal right. We r all on the same page right. Just so we all r aware and thinking abt it a little. Like I think it says a lot that Cluemasters first post crisis reappearance and Steph’s first comic ever features him once he’s been ‘cured’ of the whole leaving clues shtick. Like him having a compulsion to leave clues didn’t make him abusive. Thats just not what Steph means when she says he ruined her life. He’s still going to do crime, and he does, and he’s still going to be a piece of shit abuser, and he is. It doesn’t matter. He’s cured, they let him go, but his compulsions didn’t make him a bad man, and no longer having them doesn’t make him a good one. At the core of Steph’s narrative is her love for her mom, and her hate for the man who hurt them both. So little of her character and history should be tied to the whole ‘clue’ thing. I’m sorry. I think it’s a bad choice and it reduces Steph’s complexity. I find it lame and ineffective and absolute weaksauce. Part of why Batgirls 2022 didn’t land for me, though absolutely not the only reason.

[cloud-ya]

back on werehog bullshit due to unleashed recompiled

[puzzlenation]

Twin Films Film Festival Test!

Are you familiar with the concept of twin films, fellow puzzlers? The basic idea involves the commercial release of two films with extremely similar plots or concepts being released in proximity to each other. For example, if I described a 1998 global disaster film centered around an impending impact event that threatens to end most or all life on Earth, what film would you name? You could…

[daftpatience]

my three puzzle solving boyfriends

[nondistinctmeganerd]

I like the idea that none of the batfamily members really know Jason's story. If they were there for his robin days then they weren't when he was in the league, and no one really has the full story on his childhood. I think they have to piece together Jason's story with each other. I think that they are hyper-aware when Jason mentions something about his past, every little comment pulling the wool from their eyes a little more. No one likes the full picture, and Jason, for all of his efforts to hide it, doesn't like that they've seen it.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

the puzzle freak who's three apples tall and compliments ur deck for the "level design" while his big dragon shoots the life points off u with lasers

[iliothermia]

I started to color him and it's game over y'all

I can't survive this