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cosmos-dot-semicolon · 4 months

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Dicey Dungeons Dashboard (Diceboard) Simulator

💲 cashmoney-and-fame Follow

probability isn't real. either it happen or it don't

💲 cashmoney-and-fame Follow

wait no i didn't mean it like that

🔨 spanner-time Follow

SHE'S ON THIS SITE???

🔮 sorceress-the-best Follow

op's so going to lose his next run.

#dicey dungeons #the thief #smiting tag #kinda on him though how do you post that while COMPETING

58,960 notes

📊 pal-with-a-calculator Follow

I don't know if this is an unpopular opinion, but stealing equipment shouldn't be allowed! Lady Luck worked very hard on making specific movesets for everyone and it's not fair for you to just steal those for yourself!

💲 cashmoney-and-fame Follow

reblog to pickpocket from op.

🖐️ handthrower Follow

get pickpocketed, loser!

🪞 pal-with-a-calculator Follow

I don't shut up, I grow up, and when I look at you I throw up. also pickpocketing from op.

🔨 spanner-time Follow

Pickpocketing from OP. Sorry, it's a too interesting of a mechanic!

🏍️ earth-foodie Follow

'borrowing' from op.

🃏 yournewjestie Follow

Taking OP's last piece of equipment!

#as tiring as it is being a dice again i gotta say. I missed stealing people's stuff. #trapped for eternity i mean dicey dungeons tag

984 notes

🐝 bees-and-trees Follow

lady luck is such good lesbian representation. you agree. reblog.

🌅 aurora-official Follow

Didn't she say she was going to curse her last assistant/ex for eternity just for saying they were sick of being called a minion

🐝 bees-and-trees Follow

god forbid women do anything 💅

8,469 notes

🍦 slop-slurp-slop Follow

slop slurp, sloop slurp-purp slop slurp Tumblr slop-slup!

slop sloop slurp-slup? slurp slop slip!

slop sloop slop-slurp? slurp slop slap!

slap sloop slup slip-slop slip slurp slop slurp-purp-pop? slip-slop-sloop-sloops!

slop sloop slip? slup slurp slip-slop!

sloop sloop slop slurp slop slap sloop-slop? slop! sloop!

slop sloop slap-slap? slap slup slops!

slap slap slip slap slop slurp slip-slap. slop sloop slop? slap sloop slip sloop slurp-purp slorp slap-slip? slip sloop slip slop slap, slop slap.

slop sloop slop slorp sloop slip-slorp? slip sloop slip slop slap slop slap slip slorp slop slap slop-slap, slop sloop slap slop!

Slap slop slip-purps! slap slap slorp sloop slap slup slorp-slap-slap slop :-)

🦑 babee-squidley Follow

!!! important! always reblog.

💪 roll-out-stronger Follow

thank you op I really needed this <3

#positivity #tumblr checkpoint

12,323 notes

📊 pal-with-a-calculator Follow

🦑 slumberingdepths Follow

This poll is inaccurate! DICE is the PLURAL, while DIE is the singular!

📊 pal-with-a-calculator Follow

Actually, both can be used as the singular in modern-day language! I was just curious since I've heard very different pronunciations of it within the community ^_^

🐝 bees-and-trees Follow

douse sweep.

🛡️ aoife-official Follow

douse sweep.

💪 roll-out-stronger Follow

Douse sweep!

🃏 yournewjestie Follow

Deece.

DEECE NU-

#trapped for eternity i mean dicey dungeons tag #sillyposting

834 notes

🎡 spinningeternally-deactivated20

does anyone else think it's kind of problematic how Dicey Dungeons literally gets to keep its contestants for eternity if they lose? Like. You suck at a game and then they just own your soul?? Forever? How is that fair or allowed? And you're not even allowed to leave or quit your job?

🔮witchinghoursofficial-deactivat

Literally! I love the concept of the show but we shouldn't talk about it without overlooking its issues.

🔥 cooler-than-you Follow

calm down girl it's just a TV show

🎡 spinningeternally-deactivated20

MULTIPLE!! WORKERS!! HAVE COME OUT ABOUT NOT WANTING TO STAY ON THE SHOW FOREVER. THERE ARE LITERALLY NEWSPAPERS FROM 1000 YEARS AGO ABOUT IT.

🎡 spinningeternally-deactivated20

@sorceress-the-best SO DO I?? That doesn't mean we can't fight for better conditions down here? To at least be able to leave?

🍪 sharp-as-a-cookie Follow

sounds like someone's mad that they're not a boss yet >:)

🎡 spinningeternally-deactivated20

YOU WILL DIE IN 7 DAYS.

🔮 sorceress-the-best Follow

prev is literally a minor???

🌵 pricklyanxiouspear Follow

something... bad happened in here :(

⛈️scathach-official Follow

For context, OP was Jester's alt account. @witchinghoursofficial was the Witch's old account.

🍦 slop-slurp-slop Follow

ohhhhhh 😬 sloop.

#dicey dungeons #dicecourse #hall of fame

0 notes

🍦 slop-slurp-slop Follow

🎡 spinningeternally-deactivated20

YEAH I DID! WATCH THIS! @the-lady-luck

🃏 dicey-jester-official-deactivat

wait wrong account

438,048 notes

#dicey dungeons #i can't think of anything else to put here rn. i spent way too much time on this #ESPECIALLY THE FUCKING SLIME BIT OMG.#dots dots dots

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pedros-mustache · 2 years

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checkpoint

a/n: objectively this is trash, but it’s my trash 💛

“Who’s traveling with you?”

Joel grips the steering wheel a little tighter. In the backseat, Ellie slides to park herself in the middle of the bench, her seatbelt long forgotten on the long stretch of highway that came before. “My girls and me. That’s all.”

The sentry frowns, jostles the muzzle of his rifle to indicate you in the passenger seat and Ellie in the back. “Your girls?” The man lowers his chin as he peers into the cab of the truck. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Without thought, the words fall from Joel’s mouth: “My wife and daughter. We’re just passing through.”

Your gaze slides from the blinking gas light on the dashboard to Joel’s profile. Your stomach clenches. Wife—the word winds its way around your heart like a long strip of gold ribbon.

“Not often we got a family come through.” The sentry stands straight, but his eyes remain narrowed. His fingers flex around the stock of the gun.

“Guess not.”

“Mind if I ask your... family a few questions?”

“That’s fine.” Joel’s head swivels to face you, and you know enough by now to follow his lead without question.

Angling your head forward, you meet the curious stare of the sentry. “Afternoon.” You glance at Ellie and reach over the middle armrest to tap her knee. “Say hi.”

“Hi.” Short—brusk—entirely unconvincing.

Unsatisfied, the sentry keeps his focus on you. “This man your husband, ma’am? He’s not taken you by force or nothin’? We don’t take kindly to any of that—”

“He’s my husband,” you say. You slide your hand from Joel’s shoulder to his forearm. “In name anyway. Wasn’t a judge to officiate or anything. Guess they were kinda busy...”

The sentry huffs. His hand relaxes against the rifle as he chuckles, shaking his head. “Funny.”

“Is that all?” Joel’s voice scrapes against the back of his throat, and you press your nails into his arm. He grits his teeth. “It’s just... the truck idling wastes gas.”

“You’re right. Sorry—just doing what I’m told.” The sentry steps back, folding into his post like a good soldier. He salutes from the rim of his worn baseball cap. “Good luck to you and your family.”

Joel pulls away, out of the checkpoint and further onto the blank and desolate highway. Though his gaze remains fixed on the road, he tangles his fingers with yours. He presses the skin of your empty ring finger.

“Family,” he mumbles. His brow pinches.

You turn your face to the window and smile. “Family.”

#joel miller x reader #hbo the last of us

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pinkdrills · 18 days

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dashboard checkpoint - check in ^_^

#artists on tumblr #oc #checkpoint

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mythologeekwriter · 11 months

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Dashboard checkpoint

Have you had water?

Have you eaten?

Have you sat still too long?

Should you be asleep?

#Juno talks

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wannabeastickbuiltlikearock · 7 months

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Dashboard Checkpoint:

Hi! Have you looked away from your screen in the past 20 minutes? No? Look away for at least a minute.

Have you had water recently? Grab a cup.

Have a craving for something sweet? Grab a cup of coffee, tea, or diet soda.

You got today. 💚🤎

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duesouthbigbang · 10 days

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Complementary works checkpoint

It's time for complementary work check-ins! Complementary creators, please get in touch with the mod team about your progress; you can DM one of us individually or email [email protected]. We'll also be reaching out to you individually at the contact you put in your sign up, and you can simply reply to that message.

If we don't hear from you, we will start looking for a pinchhitter.

Instructions for submitting complementary works

Log into AO3 and go to our collection.

Select "Post to Collection" and fill out the form.

Make sure the "Post to Collections/Challenges" field is filled in as "ds_c6d_bigbang_2024". This ensures your work is submitted to the moderated/unrevealed collection and isn't visible to anyone except you and the mods.

If you're not familiar with how to post works on AO3, this FAQ will walk you through it.

If you want to link to your primary creator's piece in the "inspired by" box, either they or the mods can give you the right URL.

Then preview your work to make sure you're happy with how it looks, and click "post". The mods will review your work and either accept it into the collection or get back to you if there are any issues.

If you want to edit your work after submission and can't find it, go to your AO3 dashboard and select "Statistics". This page should list all your works, including the ones in unrevealed collections.

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v-the-nomad · 22 days

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O-M-G Persia,

Fuck me sideways with a rusty crowbar! Remember how high I was riding high last time? Well, the universe just decided to remind me why I don't do optimism.

So there we are, sitting pretty at the SoCal border checkpoint, and Jackie hands me these so-called "legit docs" for our cargo. Chica, I swear on Selita's grave, it's a fucking LOA form. You know, "Lost On Arrival"? Might as well have "STOLEN GOODS" stamped across it in neon ink. I nearly choked on my own spit.

And it gets better! This absolute delta brain tries to tell me he "forgot" about the bribe money. I'm about ready to introduce his gonk face to the dashboard when he finally coughs it up. Christ on a chromed-out crotch rocket, I thought I left this level of stupidity back with the Raffens.

Now I gotta try and sweet-talk our way past the border guard with nothing but a smile and a pocket full of eddies. Shouldn't be too much of a clusterfuck, but seriously, why'd Jackie have to get my hopes up with all that document talk? I swear, this city kid is as clueless as a corpo in the Badlands.

I tell ya, Persia, when we make it through this shitshow, I'm gonna bitch slap that gonk Jackie so hard his grandkids'll feel it. My nerves are frayed enough without his wide-eyed naiveté about how the real world works. Fucking protected street kid, probably grew up in some cushy pad with full walls, a stable signal, and hot water on demand. Argh, these city slickers, I swear. They think they're street smart, but it's more like street dumb if you ask me.

Anyway, chica, I gotta go put on my best "innocent nomad" face for this border guard. Wish me luck – your girl V's gonna need every scrap of it.

Hasta la transmisión, V

#cyberpunk 2077 #v

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winterpinetrees · 4 months

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Project Excalibur (The Gap Years part 16)

June 24th 2019

Project Excalibur Ruins, NV

This one is longer than usual. Think of it as a mid-season finale! I will warn you that this place is not a place of honor. They’re going into a bioweapon lab.

……..

It’s pitch black outside the Jeep as they drive past the last military checkpoint. Marin is saving his strength for later, and all of the lights are off for the sake of secrecy. Thousands of stars fill the sky above them, but their ghostly light doesn’t reach the ground. Marin doesn’t seem to mind though. Elves must have outstanding night vision. Clay can hardly see the rifle in his white-knucled grip. He usually loves the night, but he feels like a prey animal this evening.

Once, at the end of Sophmore year, he climbed the steel skeleton of a construction site with a few friends that Sierra and Brian had never met. They’d hauled themselves up the I-beams until the city lights shone out to the water and his hands were covered with rust. The view was nothing like from his father’s penthouse in New York City. No glass separated him from the world, just a hundred feet of distance he’d covered with his own two legs. His perspective shifted again when he heard sirens and looked down to see a few of those city lights flashing red and blue on the street underneath them. Someone must have seen the group from below, silhouetted against the light-polluted sky. Surprise is a different emotion than fear though. He hadn’t been too worried.

Clay tries to reach for that courage now as they approach the ruins. This fear is a physical force driving him to run. When Clay saw those police cars, time seemed to slow. He didn’t panic, but his muscles didn’t lock either. Suddenly it was easy to put his hands where they needed to go, and he knew that if he tried, he could slip past the fences and disappear into the urban maze. Now though, the only thought in his mind is a burning need to leave this place.

Nothing valued is here.

His palms are sweating so much that the rifle nearly slips out of his hands. Clay forces himself to speak. “Are we sure about this?”

Brian shifts in his seat and looks right at him. Clay can barely see him raise an eyebrow. Clay is usually the brave one of that pair.

Thankfully, Sierra replies. “Clay’s right. Something’s really off about this”.

Zerada tells them to hold on a moment. She’s hardly more than a dark shadow against the galaxy, but she sits in the passenger seat with her feet up on the dashboard. Clay knows that she’s ditched the heels for leather boots that lace up to her knees and wears athletic clothes in a strange elven style. The humans, in contrast, all wear gray sweatpants tucked into their socks and sweatshirts with the hoodies pulled tightly around their faces. They also wear paper masks to keep radioactive sand out of their lungs. These are nuclear ruins, after all.

After a moment the elf sighs “There’s an avoidance charm to keep away wilders. A few more miles and you’d both be fighting to stop the car”. She looks back at them and her amber eyes flash. Clay feels his blood cool and his thoughts tick back into place.

The glow gives her face a skeletal look, “of course, this proves that there is something in the ruins after all”.

The road leading up to the abandoned site is gravel and dirt and the Jeep shakes more and more as they approach. It’s been ten years since what was reported as a critical failure with the reactor caused a meltdown and an evacuation, and the road has already been reclaimed by the desert. Sierra tells a different story though. Project Excalibur was a transparent codename for a different project. Human scientists were trying to understand a lost elven sword that had been found in the Alaskan tundra. Elves ran in one night and damaged the reactor themselves, breaking every camera as though the images had been corrupted by gamma radiation and charming or killing the witnesses. Thirty scientists and staff died the night of the disaster, and most of the bodies were never found. Dozens more died of radiation poisoning in the weeks afterward. The environmental effects were nowhere near as bad as Chernobyl, but the human toll was far higher. Sierra says that American physics has barely begun to recover. She takes out a flashlight and holds it in her teeth while reading a map. They’ll approach from the side to avoid main entrances.

After a few more minutes, they take a turn and go completely off road. Sierra’s magic detector reaches a fever pitch, but the Geiger counter goes silent. They’ve entered the elven base, and it has been shielded against radiation. Marin parks the car behind a building that Clay can barely see and they all step out into the dirt. The glowing eyes of the elves shine like beacons in the dark. Brian points a flashlight at the ground, and something shines like broken glass bottles against the dirt. Sierra drops to one knee and places a hand on the ground.

“Is this…trinitite?” She asks, letting the colorful shards run through her fingers. “That doesn’t make any sense. There wasn’t a fireball here. The sand shouldn’t have melted,” she explains.

Clay looks over at Brian’s magical pistol. The detailing is deep green, and so is a lot of the glass. The building behind them has a few scorch marks. Did Marin say that his mother was part of the strike on the base? Sierra had confronted him on that first afternoon after the battle, but he doesn’t remember much from after the nobleman died.

Marin plants his quarterstaff in the ground and looks into the distance. He wears elven gear as well, with his hair tied back in a bun and his hands wrapped like a boxer. He looks regal, for once. Zerada moves to stand behind him, and the light reflects off of the long daggers that she has sheathed along her wrists. She looks dangerous, as always. There’s a gleam in her eye even when she isn’t using her magic, and Clay is relieved that she is targeting Brian instead of him. The elves whisper to eachother in another language and gather them to leave.

They walk onward with Marin and Sierra in the front. Marin, because he can use his illusions to create the appearance of light that only they can see, and Sierra, because she’s memorized the layout of this place. Also, they want to see it coming if she turns on them. Brian holds his baseball bat in the center and Clay and Zerada bring up the rear. Sierra’s footsteps are louder than the other four combined. The ground slopes upwards as they approach the center, and the false-light can’t quite match the real thing. It reminds him of the world just before the total eclipse he saw two summers ago. For a few moments, everything was sharp and gray, and the abandoned base looks about the same. He can see some signs of life though, little things that someone less familiar with ruins would miss. There’s desire paths in the dirt and the door handles are clean.

Eventually they stand in front of a perfectly intact side door. A sign beside it reads Project Excalibur in faded letters and then something else in what Clay now recognizes as the Lazarin alphabet. The elven name, probably. Brian asks what the sign says.

The prince looks at it for a moment. “The first word is ‘project’ in Lazarin. The second word is old Mercurali or something like it. Diasu. I think it means ‘to separate’, but it might be supposed to stay untranslated”.

“So it’s named after some archaic thing just like Project Excalibur?” He replies.

Clay’s never thought about it that way. Sierra reaches for the door. Clay shouts for her to stop, but Zerada shoots him a glare.

“You really think they’ve set an alarm? No human can get within a mile,”

Sierra pulls the door, pauses when Marin says that a sign in Lazarin says “push”, and then pushes it. The door is locked.

Brian points his bat at the door. “Are we breaking in?” Clay does know how to pick simple locks, but this door is not simple.

“No. I’m going to go around,” Marin replies.

He disappears in an instant and moments later the door swings open from inside.

“So can you break into anywhere by switching between worlds?” Clay asks.

Marin shakes his head, then pauses. “Unless there’s one- an anti-magic zone, then technically yes. But it can be detected”.

He lifts a hand, “so you just blew our cover?”

“I doubt it. They’ve built a matching base in our world,” he explains, “but there wasn’t anyone nearby. I’m good at illusions, too”. Marin looks at Zerada as if she is the one judging.

Brian is shocked. “A matching base? Then they really must have been working here for a while”.

And with that, they’re in. A central air system churns furiously above them and the humans all take off their masks. Clay hesitates though. It’s best to keep air circulating when dealing with an airborne disease. The original purpose was to keep radiation out of his lungs, but he wonders. It’s a hallway like any other. The walls are gray and mostly undecorated, and as they walk the hallway splits into many more nondescript corridors. Clay almost expects to see his friends from last year's internship gathered around a water fountain. Instead, the halls are empty but clean.

Marin reads out the signs as they pass. Processing. Storage. Clay supplies technical terms when Marin doesn’t know the English words. Electron Microscope. The corridors are lit by electric lights that glow bluer than most human ones. Much of the lab must have needed to be rebuilt. Sierra said that an entire underground section was collapsed to contain the radiation, and he guesses that elves have their own building standards. A stairwell is blocked off with a rope around the handle. Several doors lead to storage rooms full of boxes labeled with tiny writing.

Further down, a doorway is marked with a jagged circular symbol in blood red. Marin places a hand by it and explains that it means biohazard. Sierra quips that she likes the human symbol more. Clay agrees. The label by the door reads Observation Ward. Clay’s hand hovers over the handle. He grabs it and pulls, shocked by the quiet click when it swings open. Are elves so used to “going around” doors that they just don’t lock things? He swings the rifle over his shoulder and into his hands. Another hallway lies ahead with gray doors on either side. Were these offices, once? The doors are too close together. He imagines scientists with stacks of paper walking the halls and drinking bad coffee in the mornings. How many lived expecting elves to stop their research? How many were surprised?

Sierra lets out a strangled gasp behind him. He turns, raising the rifle’s sights to his eyes, and sees Zerada drag her into the Observation Ward with a hand over her mouth. The elf glares at him and Clay hears her voice in his mind. There is someone outside. Stay silent. Marin has always been better at hiding light than sound. Clay creeps backward and drops to one knee for a more stable shot. A young elf in a pale green uniform walks down the hallway and continues on without pausing. Unlike many ruins he’s found, these halls do not echo, and she is quickly out of earshot. Clay lets the rifle fall to his side and reaches for a door handle to pull himself back up. The internal lock shakes, but the handle does not turn. He stands and peers through a small window into a half-lit closet, and Clay Shepard sees precisely what the elves have been observing.

His reflection, a sharp, long face with light brown eyes behind glasses, stares back at him. It’s hard to look through glass at something dark from a place that is light. That’s actually the principle that two-way mirrors are built on. Clay cups a hand over the glass and tries to see beyond himself. The room is maybe eight feet long and six feet wide, or about the dimensions of an old prison cell. He decides to keep that comparison. There is a toilet in one corner and a cot in the other. The cell is the first place in this lab that isn’t perfectly clean.

Clay doesn’t just trespass for the thrill. The purpose of exploring is discovery. Clay has found beautiful, mysterious things, but he also knows the shock and shame of putting the pieces together and not liking the answer. Sometimes the shattered glass on the ground is trinitite, and sometimes he kicks a spent bullet with his boot and knows to leave while he still can. Clay hesitates as he brings the flashlight to the little window, but he was never going to be able to walk away. He also already knows what he will see. There is a young man on the cot in the cell. He wears a hospital gown and his head is shaved, but he has a tattoo of a crescent moon on one arm. The man stirs when the beam of light passes over him.

“What are you looking at?” Brian is calling for him.

The dying man in the cell lifts himself up. There are little raised circles across most of his body. Clay reaches for an explanation, acne or something, that doesn’t spell certain doom, but every preteen that’s a little too smart has their creepy fixation. Sierra loves nuclear accidents, Brian will talk for hours about the worst wars in history, and Clay always had an interest in plagues. He loved how they spread and hide and kill, and how societies fought (pretty unsuccessfully, until about a century ago) the biggest killer in history. He went as a plague doctor for his last real halloween.

He never thought it was as bad as Brian’s wikipedia history though. The fight against disease is a victorious story after all. Vaccination was discovered in the 1700s, then there was germ theory and antibiotics and the triumphant end of smallpox, that ancient killer, in 1980. His family, as corrupt as they are, did their part in that fight. Clay switches off the flashlight as if he can shove what he’s learned back into the darkness. He reaches for the mask in his pocket but remembers that this disease doesn’t spread by air. Or at least it didn’t spread by air before.

“You all need to see this,” he says gravely.

Sierra lifts her own light to the window and gasps. “There’s a person,” she looks around. “Is that what they’re observing? Already?”

Their horror is just disgust and pity, though. They don’t know what those raised circles mean. Why should they? It was eradicated twenty years before they were even born.

“He has smallpox, guys”.

They recognize the name, but it doesn’t carry as much weight as he feels like it should. “The disease that killed ninety percent of the indigenous population of the Americas, which was fully eradicated a few decades ago, is a bioweapon now”.

That gets more of a reaction out of the group.

“We should have expected the Mercurali to use disease,” Marin snarls.

Zerada turns to look at him, and it might be the first time that Clay has seen her look confused. “Enkidu wasn’t killed by disease. It was a targeted strike that looked like disease”.

He’ll have to ask about that later. Clay paces the hallway and looks into a few nearby cells. Each one holds a human being at a different stage of the same familiar disease. The air circulation system sounds even louder. What good is a doomsday plague if it only spreads by touch? It’s not like Clay was ever vaccinated against a virus that was eradicated generations ago, and the elves have probably modified it enough to make old immunity useless. This is a nuclear physics lab, not a sealed containment area. Brian’s damn quest could have just killed them all.

“We need to stop this,” Clay says stupidly. What he means to say is “we need to leave”.

“So now you-” Brian thankfully stops himself from spilling the secret of their conversation, “So now you want to be a hero?”

“I don’t want to die of smallpox, so yes!”

“Is there something fragile here?” Sierra asks, “Like, some fancy tech that they need?”

“We could cut the power supply,” he suggests.

Marin shakes his head. “Power can be sent between worlds, or generated through magic”.

Zerada gives him a look of pity “And this can’t be the only lab,”

It’s like he’s stealing money from his father again. Nothing they can do here will change anything. They can’t even free the prisoners because they’re infected with a deadly disease that the world is no longer prepared to fight.

Brian shakes him out of it. “Damaging this place will still delay them, right? I say we smash something important looking and then get out”.

And so they do. It’s not like breaking the place will make anything worse, right? They’re already enemies of the elven state. They leave the observation ward and stalk through windowless halls until they find a room called Sample Storage. That room is actually locked though, and blinking lights from sensors and cameras stare back at them through the glass.

“I looked at the map. We’re pretty close to the main entrance,” Sierra adds. “Brian, break the door. It’s refrigerated inside and maybe we’ll ruin everything. Then we run”.

He has quite the swing, but the door looks reinforced. He looks back to Clay. “Maybe the concussion rifle would work better?”

That seems reasonable. Clay lifts the gun to his eyes, plants his feet, and fires at the edge. The reinforced door dents on the first shot, distorts on the second, and the seal breaks on the third. Cold air hisses out at them through the crack and then they’re running for the exit.

Clay knows how to run. He’s been on the cross country team since middle school, but his real hobby is more difficult to put on a college application. He’s a freerunner, parkour’s more artistic variant. It’s an odd hobby for a billionaire’s son, but when Clay runs through the featureless halls of this biohazard site, he imagines the utility tunnels underneath. A large building is a bit like a body. They both require maintenance, and aren’t as secure against invaders as people like to think. Rust and blood both taste like iron when you trip and need to figure out just how hurt you are. When a building dies, it falls apart and becomes home to new life until someone in a suit remembers that the city stretches beyond the chain coffee stores and high-rise condos. This place is steel and glass and smells like antiseptic. It’s more honest about the horrors than anything his father pays to keep running.

Maybe that honesty is why he keeps thinking of the end of this world. Brian once explained that the word apocalypse comes from the Greek for unveiling. Decay is like an old friend to him, but the rest of the world doesn’t see how quickly the dust and radiation can creep in. Doesn’t he want an unveiling? An alien invasion is such a clean end. He imagines every dark secret revealed before the world as he knows is replaced with something better. He’s no fool though. If conquest ever improved things, then his family wouldn’t be a fraction as rich. He also wouldn’t have learned how to break into ruins if this world was capable of clean endings.

Clay didn’t stay with his friends and face the police on that warm night two years ago because of loyalty or courage. He stood with them because he was just starting to learn about power, and he knew that his father, as terrible as he may be, would bail him out. He bet that old James Shepard would bail his friends out too just to keep all of them quiet. Hell, he’d pay off the entire police force to keep his second son from disgracing the family name. Looking over the city, he’d realized that his father’s name could be a shield if he learned how to use it. Two years later, he has. Power and privilege are old and simple. When this plague is unleashed, his friends with spray paint on their hands will be more likely to end up in a mass grave than any Shepard, Whitaker, or Bracken. They pass a few uniformed elves who turn as they pass but then return to their own business as an illusion seizes them. What are elven commoners like? Marin says that they mind their own business and handle their own affairs, but that can’t be strictly true. Is there graffiti in the elven capital? Is it encouraged or erased?

They pass through a deceptively human foyer and exit into the night. They turn their flashlights back on and Sierra points them back to the car. As always, Clay turns to look back. He swings his light in a lazy arc at the desolate main entrance and nearly falls to his knees. A message, in English but also something far deeper, burns itself into his mind.

This is a message. Pay attention to it! Sending this message is important to us. We are a powerful culture.

You feel proud of discovering a secret. This place is not a place of honor. No highly esteemed deed is commemorated here. Nothing valued is here.

What is here is dangerous and repulsive to you. This message is a warning about danger.

The danger is unleashed only if you travel into the place that has been abandoned. This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.

Leave this place.

Leave this place. Leave this place. He feels Zerada’s protective magic again and the same fear passes like a freight train inches beside him. He is nothing compared to it, just another human boy who must be kept out from underfoot until it is his time to die. Clay turns off his flashlight. This time, he runs with his friends to hide in the dark.

……………

Can you tell I first imagined this while quarantined nearly four years ago? Because I did.

Smallpox doesn’t exist anymore. If you do not think often about the fact that we got rid of smallpox, you really should.

If Old Lazarin is Latin, then Old Mercurali is Akkadian. Marin was close with his translation though! The real meaning is “to thresh”.

The bolded message is a modified version of the Sandia National Laboratories nuclear warning message.

And that’s Clay’s moment of perspective-changing elf trauma done! It’ll be a bit before Sierra and Brian get theirs.

#by me #the gap years #my oc stuff #writing that *is*

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haruhey · 2 years

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The Day Will Come Where You Won’t Be Preview

AKA: Enemies With Benefits Chapter 1 | coming January 9th, 3pm EDT

“Well, shit, who pissed in your cereal this morning?”

You let Negan’s question linger, but he peels into the gravel-faced clearing before you can let silence fully steal the space between the three of you. He slams the brakes as he turns into his spot, and it sends your body forward. You barely have time to lift your hands to brace for the stop, but you manage enough, your forearms pressing against the dashboard.

“Whoops,”

He pulls the keys from the ignition then, pulling a laugh from his chest before you hear a click from between the two of you, and he gets out, resting his arms against the top edge of the truck before leaning in with a wide smirk.

“Guess you should’a worn your seatbelt.”

Asshole.

You’re not sure at what point your abrasion had distorted in his head into banter, but, frankly, it pisses you off. It pisses you off because he couldn’t be more obvious with the fact he doesn’t think of you as a threat. As far as he’s concerned, you’re some angry chihuahua he’s ultimately got control over. Angry as all hell, but harmless at the end of the day. The more you think about it, the more it pisses you off, and though your mouth opens in the beginning of a retort, Simon’s static voice breaks through before you can form anything further.

The group reached checkpoint C first.

“Pass me that, won’t you?”

Grabbing the walkie-talkie from the cupholder, you chuck it at him without another thought, turning to open your side’s door as it hits his chest with a thump, and he even laughs at that, not missing a beat before the push-to-talk is engaged and his voice rumbles into the microphone.

They reach a second checkpoint not much longer, the chained-up rotted soon after that, and radio silence follows after they reach the wall of burning trees. It must have freaked them out - it was Simon, after all, whose voice was the first and last they’d heard. They would have had to have known something was coming at this point, even if his presence at the flames was purely by chance.

Sooner or later, they were gonna get sloppy. They were gonna get nervous - get desperate, and slip up - and they have no fucking clue what’s in store for them.

comment or dm me to join the EWB taglist!

#haruwrites #daryl dixon #daryl dixon x reader #daryl dixon the walking dead #the walking dead #haru's ewb #daryl dixon fanfiction #daryl dixon oneshot #the walking dead daryl #the walking dead daryl dixon #if this flops i'll cry fr #twd

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bravecmatthews · 4 months

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CROSSROADS - A MEMORY

i went down to the crossroads, fell down on my knees asked the lord for mercy, said help me if you please

📍 REDACTED

months had passed, each one dragging on with the weight of duty and the toll of war. cole found himself entrenched in a relentless rhythm – brief moments of chaos punctuated by long stretches of monotony. each day brought new challenges, each night a haunting reminder of the fragility of life. most deployments lasted no longer than seven or nine months, yet they were staring down the eleventh.

he woke up to the same unforgiving landscape every morning, a desolate expanse of dust and rublle that seemed to stretch on endlessly. not until they were on the move did the distant horizon seem to suddenly blur with the haze of uncertainty, air thick with the acrid scent of burning rubber as cole’s convoy rumbled forward. each bump in the road a jarring reminder of the dangers that lurked just beyond the safety of their vehicle.

the sun cast long shadows across the barren landscape and cole's heart raced with a mixture of anticipation and fear as they approached the next checkpoint – a feeling he had become all too familiar with in recent years.

suddenly, the crackle of gunfire pierced the air. instinct kicked in as he navigated the treacherous roads, his hands moving with practiced precision as he scanned the horizon for any signs of danger. and then, in an instant, everything changed.

the deafening roar of an explosion filled the air as shrapnel tore through the metal shell of the humvee. pain seared through cole's body as he was thrown against the dashboard, the world spinning wildly out of control. darkness closed in around him as consciousness slipped away, leaving behind a resounding silence.

📍 HELLTOWN, OHIO

even after all these years, the remnants of a former life lay scattered throughout the car. the ashtray overflowed with loose change and on the passenger seat lay a worn pack of marlboros. a half-empty bottle of gatorade rolled on the floorboard, its contents warm and stale – a relic of a simpler time, when thirst was quenched with reckless abandon.

on the dashboard sat a dirty beavers cap, its brim frayed and faded from years of use, and dog tags hung from the rearview mirror, their metal cool to the touch. this was the same truck he’d been driving since he first learned how to, it burned through gas like crazy but it was as close to an extension of himself as any, why rid himself of something useful.

as he passed the city limit sign, the familiar sights and sounds of home greeted him. despite his best efforts to break free, the magnetic pull of the town had drawn him back once more. it was as if helltown had a hold on him, refusing to let go – a constant reminder that some ties were stronger than others.

dusty roads stretched out before him, each pothole a jarring reminder of the town's decaying infrastructure, when suddenly his gaze caught on a familiar figure standing by the side of the road.

"kayla," he called out, the name feeling foreign on his tongue after so many years. she turned, her eyes widening in recognition as a hesitant smile tugged at the corners of her lips. "cole?" her voice was tinged with disbelief, as if she couldn't quite believe her eyes.

"the one and only," cole replied, his own smile mirroring hers as he leaned out the window. he could think of worse things and people to welcome him back home. “need a ride somewhere?" after all these years he wasn’t sure whether he should ask, but felt that he needed to do something, anything, to soon bridge the gap that had formed between them over the years.

kayla hesitated for a moment before nodding, her expression one of gratitude mixed with a hint of something he couldn’t quite dechipher. "yeah, actually. i'm meeting up with some … friends," she explained, her words hesitant as if she was unsure whether to accept his offer. “could you drop me by the bowling alley?”

"sure, hop in," cole replied, gesturing to the passenger seat beside him. as kayla climbed into the truck, cole couldn't help but feel a sense of déjà vu wash over him. it was as if no time had passed at all, and yet everything had changed. the years had changed them and molded them all into different people, but the bond once shared lingered in the air.

if he’d known then what would unfold after, would he have said or done something differently?

#▸ M E M O R I E S || braver than you think.

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tabletopwhumper · 2 years

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Whumptober Day 3: Impaled

Might write a follow up to this. Haven't decided yet. TW for blood and car accident type of situation. And, as always, profanity abound.

"First point is in 50, then the next is off Carlston's rubble," Johnny calls over the comms as dozens of vehicles speed away from the starting line. "Split like we planned and come back on the freeway."

"Watch out for Juko," Ali growls back from her own vehicle, cutting a hard turn and narrowly avoiding an orc with an attitude problem. "His guys were acting pretty shifty earlier. I think he's got shenanigans planned, and he isn't patient." She makes the next left past an abandoned warehouse and guns it through the intersection.

"Yeah, I thought so too."

Leaderboards pop up from the first checkpoint. John and Ali aren't at the top yet, but 22nd and 25th isn't a bad start from the 50 cars that left the gate. Besides, they're playing the long game. First part of the race would be pure power, something the couple knows they can't match the corporate sponsored teams for. But after the third point things get technical. Skill will overtake speed, and that's what they're counting on.

"HIROSHI KANEDA IS IN THE LEAD! THE TEAM FROM MITSUNARA GLOBAL HAVE THE EDGE!"

The freeway is coming on fast, just as the "eliminated" board comes up. Ten racers have already been incapacitated, their vehicles unable to continue. Then fifteen. Twenty. Several from the leaderboards. Something is happening... either someone is making a huge and dangerous move, or…

"Shit, shit, SHIT TAKE THE OFF-RAMP!" Johnny shouts as he hits the e-brake and pulls a drift off the road, dust and debris flying as he switches to off-road mode. "THE OVERPASS IS COLLAPSING!"

"Which one?" Ali is just behind, eyes towards the horizon as smoke and fire begin to spread.

"ALL OF EM!"

The ground rumbles as she veers off into the same makeshift dirt road that John had carved.

"Holy motherfucker..!" An explosion rocks behind them. Thirty cars out of the race. "Is the checkpoint clear?"

"Jesus fucking... yeah, should be, it's away from the freeway. Can't you see it?"

"Having NavSat problems." She glances at the error lights. "I think it's a loose wire." Her voice drops to an aggravated snarl that the comms still manage to pick up. "Even though I checked them a hundred mother fucking times."

Johnny grimaces as his wheels skid across rubble. "That can't be right, we just installed that!"

"I KNOW." Ali slams her fist into the dashboard, turning one of the lights green.

"Ah, there we..."

The sudden cut to static sends a lead weight into his gut. "Ali?" He flips through the AR info tabs... all silent, save one:

CRITICAL DAMAGE, SYSTEM DOWN, CALLING DOCWAGON.

There’s no race. Not anymore, not for him. Johnny quickly switches off and opts out of all feeds, instead switching the beacon system to primary as he reaches across to engage the in-car first aid kit. Sweat creeps down his brow and the back of his neck, worst case scenarios swimming to the forefront of his mind. It doesn't help that his AR feed is awash with warnings of “CRITICAL DAMAGE” as he speeds back the way he came trying to zero in on Alison's signal.

Following the navigation system becomes more difficult as he gets closer, the road obscured by varying sizes of debris until he reaches an impassable expense. Blasted sections of highway litter the path in a twisted tableau of concrete and rebar that make his stomach twist. She’s somewhere in all that… But the source of the signal is close and he's not about to stop. Grabbing the medkit, Johnny sprints across the treacherous landscape as his heart hammers in his chest. There. Across a field of debris, downed wires, devil rats, and puddles of runoff he can make out what's left of Ali's Westwind. And within he can make out the slightest hint of activity from her bio monitor. His muscles burn. There's a frantic fear in his chest for what he will find but he doesn't dare stop; DocWagon is still minutes away.

He can see before reaching her door that the windshield is gone and what's left of the driver side window is a web of shattered plasti-glass held together by a layer of paper thin bulletproof mesh. For a moment he's not sure he can open the mangled door on his own… but it falls open with a bang to reveal what he's so desperate to find.

Johnny’s heart is in his throat as something cold drops down his spine. Because for the first time the reality is worse than what his imagination has conjured. He doesn't want this, doesn't want to focus on the outline in the driver's seat, choosing instead to take in the crumpled dash. Part of the roof is missing on the passenger side. Shattered remnants of the windshield are everywhere…

Focus, dammit!!

The state of the car makes him all the more fearful to examine the girl he loves. But the vitals scrolling across his feed from her bio monitor scare him more and looking down at her… Ali's legs are crushed beneath the mangled mess of the dash, blood pooling freely down the side of the seat from a wound in her middle. A gash across her forehead has painted her face in a crimson mask. But Johnny falters at the sight of a stray piece of rebar jutting out from the right side of her chest, pinning her to the seat.

For several seconds he hovers, unsure of where to start… until a high alert from the monitor brings his eyes back to the display. Her vitals are dropping and the severity of her injuries breaks over him like an icy torrent.

She'll be gone before DocWagon can get here.

“C’mon Ali… come on…” Johnny pleads as he uses the knife in his belt to cut away enough of her jacket to get a trauma patch secured, her vitals jumping in response. He knows it'll make healing harder in the long run, but at least there's a chance that there will be a long run.

The gash in her head doesn't look as bad as the blood coating her face suggests. Reaching back for the MedKit, he fishes around for what he needs before turning his attention back to his girl… and is surprised to find her eyes open. “Hey!” he chokes out, startled. “Ali? Can you hear me?” She blinks slowly, as if just waking up from a long nap, before her brows knit together in confusion.

“What happened?” she croaks, her voice low, breaths labored. Johnny can see that her pupils are blown wide as she struggles to focus.

“Your car got caught in the demolitions that went off on the freeway.” John clears the blood from her face and applies a layer of ClotShot to the gash in her forehead. “DocWagons coming so just don’t move, okay?”

“Not… going any…place,” she whispers around wet rattling breaths and it’s with a new sort of fear that he can see red coating her lips.

Fuck.

Johnny’s eyes move to the rebar and he quickly decides that is something he’s not equipped to handle. Moving further down he lifts the sticky crimson painted jacket… and nearly chokes. The gash in her stomach is deep. Too deep. Chunks of gore fill the space and there’s so much blood…

“Th-at… good, huh?”

Fuck, poker face slipped. Focus, dammit! I’ve gotta keep her calm…

He bites back his fear and grins for her. “Naw, just a little scrape. I’ve seen you walk off worse.” Ali half coughs, half chuckles… but the result is a splatter of crimson down her chin and her vitals spiking dangerously. Reaching into the MedKit for a pack of BioMesh, Johnny stretches the porous surface across her stomach wound. The nanotech instantly bonds to the flesh and he activates the automated MedKit. A few clicks and beeps later the diagnostic software finishes- catastrophic damage, seek immediate medical assistance- and begins dispensing medication through the BioMesh.

He meets her gaze again and finds that her eyes are glassy. “Lo-ve… you…” Ali chokes out. “If I… d-don’t-”

“Hey, no, none of that.” He glances down as the fear in his gut twists. Two minutes until DocWagon shows. If they show, his doubts whisper. It’s fucking Remond. They might not even bother. “I love you too. Help is coming, just gotta stick it out for two more minutes.”

"N-not… sure… it's u-up… to me."

A strangled sort of laugh pulls from his throat. “You tellin me you-” but whatever joke he has in mind is lost as he watches her eyelids droop… “Hey, nonono!” Johnny cradles her head in his hands, gently bringing her gaze back to him. “Eyes on me. Keep lookin at me Ali-Cat.” She does… except that her eyes are distant and unfocused between them.

"Sorry…" she breathes out. "H-hurts… C-can’t-” she chokes, coughing out more crimson. The biomonitor shrieks in protest as she stiffens around the rebar in her chest and Johnny grinds his teeth against his own helplessness as the girl he loves struggles to breathe. The fit passes, but leaves her clouded gaze wandering aimlessly. “J… Jo-hn?”

“I’m here. I’m right here baby.”

“C-an’t…” Her voice drops to a breathy whisper. “Ca-n’t… se-e…” One blood painted hand gropes blindly and he grabs it with both of his, pressing her crimson painted fingers to his lips as tears finally break free.

“I’m right here sweetheart just… just stay with me, okay?” But she doesn’t offer a reply as her eyes continue to drift, unseeing. Johnny slumps forward as despair grips him. Broken glass digs into his knees as he rests his head against Ali’s shoulder. “Just stay with me,” he pleads again.

Another alert from the biomonitor and he knows she’s fading.

“Stay with me.”

#whumptober2022 #no.3 #impaled #OC #fic #car accident treatment #blood #shadowrun #whump #whump writing #original character #angst #whump prompt

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govindhtech · 13 days

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Amazon SageMaker HyperPod Presents Amazon EKS Support

Amazon SageMaker HyperPod

Cut the training duration of foundation models by up to 40% and scale effectively across over a thousand AI accelerators.

We are happy to inform you today that Amazon SageMaker HyperPod, a specially designed infrastructure with robustness at its core, will enable Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) for foundation model (FM) development. With this new feature, users can use EKS to orchestrate HyperPod clusters, combining the strength of Kubernetes with the robust environment of Amazon SageMaker HyperPod, which is ideal for training big models. By effectively scaling across over a thousand artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators, Amazon SageMaker HyperPod can save up to 40% of training time.

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SageMaker HyperPod: What is it?

The undifferentiated heavy lifting associated with developing and refining machine learning (ML) infrastructure is eliminated by Amazon SageMaker HyperPod. Workloads can be executed in parallel for better model performance because it is pre-configured with SageMaker’s distributed training libraries, which automatically divide training workloads over more than a thousand AI accelerators. SageMaker HyperPod occasionally saves checkpoints to guarantee your FM training continues uninterrupted.

You no longer need to actively oversee this process because it automatically recognizes hardware failure when it occurs, fixes or replaces the problematic instance, and continues training from the most recent checkpoint that was saved. Up to 40% less training time is required thanks to the robust environment, which enables you to train models in a distributed context without interruption for weeks or months at a time. The high degree of customization offered by SageMaker HyperPod enables you to share compute capacity amongst various workloads, from large-scale training to inference, and to run and scale FM tasks effectively.

Advantages of the Amazon SageMaker HyperPod

Distributed training with a focus on efficiency for big training clusters

Because Amazon SageMaker HyperPod comes preconfigured with Amazon SageMaker distributed training libraries, you can expand training workloads more effectively by automatically dividing your models and training datasets across AWS cluster instances.

Optimum use of the cluster’s memory, processing power, and networking infrastructure

Using two strategies, data parallelism and model parallelism, Amazon SageMaker distributed training library optimizes your training task for AWS network architecture and cluster topology. Model parallelism divides models that are too big to fit on one GPU into smaller pieces, which are then divided among several GPUs for training. To increase training speed, data parallelism divides huge datasets into smaller ones for concurrent training.

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Robust training environment with no disruptions

You can train FMs continuously for months on end with SageMaker HyperPod because it automatically detects, diagnoses, and recovers from problems, creating a more resilient training environment.

Customers may now use a Kubernetes-based interface to manage their clusters using Amazon SageMaker HyperPod. This connection makes it possible to switch between Slurm and Amazon EKS with ease in order to optimize different workloads, including as inference, experimentation, training, and fine-tuning. Comprehensive monitoring capabilities are provided by the CloudWatch Observability EKS add-on, which offers insights into low-level node metrics on a single dashboard, including CPU, network, disk, and other. This improved observability includes data on container-specific use, node-level metrics, pod-level performance, and resource utilization for the entire cluster, which makes troubleshooting and optimization more effective.

Since its launch at re:Invent 2023, Amazon SageMaker HyperPod has established itself as the go-to option for businesses and startups using AI to effectively train and implement large-scale models. The distributed training libraries from SageMaker, which include Model Parallel and Data Parallel software optimizations to assist cut training time by up to 20%, are compatible with it. With SageMaker HyperPod, data scientists may train models for weeks or months at a time without interruption since it automatically identifies, fixes, or replaces malfunctioning instances. This frees up data scientists to concentrate on developing models instead of overseeing infrastructure.

Because of its scalability and abundance of open-source tooling, Kubernetes has gained popularity for machine learning (ML) workloads. These benefits are leveraged in the integration of Amazon EKS with Amazon SageMaker HyperPod. When developing applications including those needed for generative AI use cases organizations frequently rely on Kubernetes because it enables the reuse of capabilities across environments while adhering to compliance and governance norms. Customers may now scale and maximize resource utilization across over a thousand AI accelerators thanks to today’s news. This flexibility improves the workflows for FM training and inference, containerized app management, and developers.

With comprehensive health checks, automated node recovery, and work auto-resume features, Amazon EKS support in Amazon SageMaker HyperPod fortifies resilience and guarantees continuous training for big-ticket and/or protracted jobs. Although clients can use their own CLI tools, the optional HyperPod CLI, built for Kubernetes settings, can streamline job administration. Advanced observability is made possible by integration with Amazon CloudWatch Container Insights, which offers more in-depth information on the health, utilization, and performance of clusters. Furthermore, data scientists can automate machine learning operations with platforms like Kubeflow. A reliable solution for experiment monitoring and model maintenance is offered by the integration, which also incorporates Amazon SageMaker managed MLflow.

In summary, the HyperPod service fully manages the HyperPod service-generated Amazon SageMaker HyperPod cluster, eliminating the need for undifferentiated heavy lifting in the process of constructing and optimizing machine learning infrastructure. This cluster is built by the cloud admin via the HyperPod cluster API. These HyperPod nodes are orchestrated by Amazon EKS in a manner akin to that of Slurm, giving users a recognizable Kubernetes-based administrator experience.

Important information

The following are some essential details regarding Amazon EKS support in the Amazon SageMaker HyperPod:

Resilient Environment: With comprehensive health checks, automated node recovery, and work auto-resume, this integration offers a more resilient training environment. With SageMaker HyperPod, you may train foundation models continuously for weeks or months at a time without interruption since it automatically finds, diagnoses, and fixes errors. This can result in a 40% reduction in training time.

Improved GPU Observability: Your containerized apps and microservices can benefit from comprehensive metrics and logs from Amazon CloudWatch Container Insights. This makes it possible to monitor cluster health and performance in great detail.

Scientist-Friendly Tool: This release includes interaction with SageMaker Managed MLflow for experiment tracking, a customized HyperPod CLI for job management, Kubeflow Training Operators for distributed training, and Kueue for scheduling. Additionally, it is compatible with the distributed training libraries offered by SageMaker, which offer data parallel and model parallel optimizations to drastically cut down on training time. Large model training is made effective and continuous by these libraries and auto-resumption of jobs.

Flexible Resource Utilization: This integration improves the scalability of FM workloads and the developer experience. Computational resources can be effectively shared by data scientists for both training and inference operations. You can use your own tools for job submission, queuing, and monitoring, and you can use your current Amazon EKS clusters or build new ones and tie them to HyperPod compute.