#jointless

[hobohobgoblim]

Just pondering if the true motive behind Leto's transformation into the worm was because of the Golden Path or because you can't have joint pain if you ain't got no joints?

[sculien]

Okay, look, you and Penelope - you can work the video angle, see if there's more to it. But-but only on one condition.

CRIMINAL MINDS 18.04

[beardedmrbean]

Legislation under the moniker “right to repair” has now been introduced in all 50 states, marking a major milestone in this grassroots consumer movement.

GNN has reported on the march of right to repair laws across the US, but also the kind of entrepreneurialism they engender: like an aftermarket auto parts company that makes replacements for well-known faulty components in automobiles.

Passed in New York, Minnesota, Colorado, California, and Oregon, Wisconsin just became the final US state to introduce some sort of right to repair laws.

In broad terms, all of these bills would generally guarantee a consumer’s right to access replacement parts for devices and machines, repair manuals or other relevant documents for expensive products, diagnostics data from original manufacturers, and even in some cases, such as automobiles, appropriate tools necessary for maintenance.

They may also ban the use of technological protection measures, sometimes called “software locks” that are designed to restrict repair only to authorized repair technicians.

“Americans are fed up with all the ways in which manufacturers of everything from toasters to tractors frustrate or block repairs, and lawmakers are hearing that frustration and taking action,” Nathan Proctor, right to repair director for consumer rights group PIRG, told 404 Media’s Jason Koebler, who has been tracking right to repair legislation for 10 years.

OF A SIMILAR SPIRIT: 580 Repair Shops Form a Flourishing Subculture Fixing Toasters, Electronics, Coffee Makers and Lamps

He details that at first, big tech and big engineering, such as Apple, John Deere, and others, ardently lobbied against these bills, saying that trade secrets protections would be violated if they were forced to turn over diagnostics, telemetry, or other insider data to non-company actors.

The progressive difficulty with which modern products, particularly electronics, are designed prevents most amateurs from being able to repair them if they break.

MORE RIGHT TO REPAIR NEWS: EU Approves Groundbreaking New ‘Right to Repair’ Laws Requiring Appliances to Be Easier to Fix

Screws are forsaken in favor of plastic locking toggles which break if removed, fuse or wire cover panels are replaced with jointless polymer molded covers, both of which and many more examples besides are designed to deter the fix-it-minded folks enough so that they will just throw the product away and buy a new one.

Electronic waste is one of the largest sources of non-recyclable landfill waste, and hopefully enough of these right to repair bills pass that some of these millions of powerstrips, lamps, phones, computers, and televisions can be kept out of the ground.

[thecreaturecodex]

Cephalonoid

Image © Terryl Whitlatch, accessed at CG Channel here

[Sponsored by Soluman Blevins, based on art that Terryl Whitlatch did for her book Principles of Creature Design. At one point in development, I intended for this to be one of the illithidae, but found myself getting more and more sympathetic to it, so changed the alignment away from evil. Thus, they became the rarest of monsters; an octopus creature whose behavior is actually based on that of an octopus.]

Cephalonoid CR 12 N Aberration This creature looks like a hybrid of an octopus and a carnivorous dinosaur. Its head is like that of an octopus, except that its beak is on a long stalk, emerging visibly from the nest of tentacles growing from its face. It walks on all fours, but it can rise on its hind legs like a gorilla. Its fingers and toes are jointless and tentacle-like, and a row of suckers runs down its back and along the upper surface of its tail. A coiling shell grows from the crown of its head, with an inflatable pouch beneath it.

Cephalonoids are strange sapient predators that resemble a hybrid of mollusk and vertebrate. They are amphibious, hunting either above or below the waves and then hiding underwater in order to sleep. Cephalonoids are curious and voracious creatures, and spend much of their lives either hunting or playing. These two activities are perhaps synonymous, as cephalonoids seem to enjoy playing with their food.

A cephalonoid’s primary strategy is to grapple prey and crush it while it struggles to escape. Their beaks are more extensible than those of true cephalopods, but still possess a shorter reach than its many grasping limbs. Creatures bitten by a cephalonoid are injected with a numbing venom, all the better to cut their struggle short and make them easier to constrict. A cephalonoid can spray toxic ink, which can form a concealing and enervating cloud both above and below water. They are highly resistant to mind-influencing magic, which has led some scholars to suspect that they have a link to aboleths, illithids, or one of any number of tentacle horrors with mental powers. Cephalonoids show these creatures no love, and may in fact prey preferentially on them if their ranges overlap.

Unlike the octopus they resemble, cephalonoids are long-lived creatures, with lifespans that can extend up to fifty years. They are territorial amongst their own kind and do not tolerate intrusion, except during mating season or in the guarding of eggs. Female cephalonoids lay their eggs in colonies called gardens, where they watch over them, fasting for months until they hatch. The young are then left to fend for themselves, and may be mistaken for mundane octopus for a few years before their skeleton grows in and they begin to move about on land. Cephalonoids do not understand concepts like domestication or private property, and may come into conflict with humanoids above or below the waves for raiding livestock.

Cephalonoid CR 12 XP 19,200 N Gargantuan aberration (aquatic, amphibious) Init +8; Senses blindsight 30 ft.,darkvision 60 ft., Perception +17

Defense AC 24, touch 10, flat-footed 20 (-4 size, +4 Dex, +14 natural) hp 171 (18d8+90) Fort +11, Ref +12, Will +14; +4 vs. mind-influencing effects DR 10/magic and [slashing or piercing]; Immune poison; SR 23 Defensive Abilities decentralized brain

Offense Speed 30 ft., swim 30 ft. Melee bite +18 (2d4+9 plus poison), 2 slams +18 (2d6+9 plus grab), tentacles +18 (4d8+9 plus grab), tail slap +16 (1d12+4 plus grab) Space 20 ft.; Reach 20 ft. (10 ft. with bite) Special Attacks constrict (4d8+15), ink cloud, master grappler

Statistics Str 30, Dex 19, Con 21, Int 7, Wis 16, Cha 12 Base Atk +13; CMB +27 (+35 grappling); CMD 46 Feats Bleeding Critical,Critical Focus,Defensive Combat Training, Diehard, Endurance, Improved Critical (bite), Improved Initiative, Lightning Reflexes, Multiattack (B), Power Attack Skills Climb +20, Escape Artist +24, Perception +17, Stealth +15, Swim +28; Racial Modifiers +10 Escape Artist, +4 Perception, +8 Stealth Languages Aquan

Ecology Environment any ocean or coast Organization solitary, pair or garden (3-8) Treasure incidental

Special Abilities Decentralized Brain (Ex) A cephalonoid’s intelligence is distributed through its entire body. This grants it a +4 racial bonus on all saving throws against mind-influencing effects. Ink Cloud (Su) As a standard action, a cephalonoid can create a cloud of ink in a 30 foot radius, either above or below water. This ink impedes vision as a fog cloud spell, and creatures in the area must succeed a DC 24 Fortitude save or be sickened and staggered for as long as they remain in the cloud and for 1d4 rounds thereafter. A cephalonoid can make an ink cloud once per minute. This is a poison effect, and the save DC is Constitution based. Master Grappler (Ex) A cephalonoid gains a +8 racial bonus to CMB checks made to grapple; this replaces the usual +4 for creatures with the grab special attack. A cephalonoid does not take a penalty to grappling without having two free hands, and can grapple up to four creatures smaller than itself at the same time. Poison (Ex) Bite—injury; save Fort DC 24; frequency 1/round for 6 rounds; effect 1d4+1 Str; cure 2 saves. Tentacles (Ex) The oral tentacles of a cephalonoid are treated as a single primary natural weapon.

[blumoontf2]

Absolute Territory (TF2 x Reader)

Part Two! - Cross-posted on AO3

https://archiveofourown.org/works/63777574/chapters/169826689

You are the Programmer and you work as a member for GRN - Global Radio Network. With trouble arising in your previous job, you had been reassigned and given a nine month deadline to reestablish yourself as someone worthy of working under GRN, by improving and helping the communications and publicity of Team RED.

But RED is different and a far cry from what you know, and the people seem to distrust anyone who works under GRN.

You've been tasked to help them but really it feels like you've been tasked to survive.

Content Warnings - n/a…? Reader gets thrown like eight times.

“What country were you BORN and BRED in, MAGGOT?!”

Every other syllable rings in your ears. The mental work of dissolving sentences in your head melts with the manner Soldier speaks, pointed and snappy with a direction to his words. It doesn’t help the growing ache in your head that he speaks so loud, nor did it help that you’d been hoisted from the dark meeting room into the heat of Teufort with little say in the matter.

He’d positioned you - more so thrown you, as you’d rather describe the notion - into the shade formed by the first brick building, your shadow not quite reaching the light where he stood himself, marching back and forth like a mechanical toy forced into action. His limbs lay flat and jointless, thick planks of muscle that broaden his shoulders, perpetuating him in an upright stance; his arms swing at his sides like a weighted pendulum, moving in conjunction with his steps: he faces the sun when addressing you, and walks by its side when he’s not. When the light hits him, his contours are lost - fed into the coarse gravel background and turning his face pale like the sand. The light bounces from the muted metal of his helmet and your eyes burn to readjust to the sudden offence.

You… think he meant to say raised… not bred…

From your daze, you scramble for a mental grounding, words blustered and forming uncomfortably in your mouth. You attempt to find your sense, though you must’ve forgotten to pack that when you got this job.

“I- uh… I was born in-”

“Silence SCUM!”

He halts in front of you, body stiff - poised in a formality as though etiquette helped in war - and governed in a way you couldn’t quite say was his own. His finger jabs towards you, following it like a dowsing rod until it stabs into your clavicle, twisting into the bone like he were butting out a cigarette. His features - now darkened from the shade - pull into a vicious scowl, his head tilting up to glare down at you by his nose.

“It doesn’t matter WHAT weak country you were born into - you’re on American ground now: you ACT like you’re on American ground!”

His hat jolts about, the metal rattling against what must have been a cave of a skull, knocking what little sense he may have had. His words come out pronounced - accusatory - and his breath falls chillingly against the heat of your skin.

“I may not be the smartest doo-hickey in the arsenal of nuclear weaponry, but I know a Spy when I see one…”

Teeth flat and grit, he stares at you with a malice you find hard to forget. You get the impression there is an instability to fear of this man - unpredictability. He swiftly swipes his finger up, flicking your nose harshly enough that his rigid nail snags you, making you cup your nose in the utter shock of it. You watch as he backs off, resuming his pacing with a strict formality.

“You’ll be put to the test, Spying Scum! There is no regiment crueller than that of RED!” he barks, sounding pleased with himself, “if you survive my training… then you’ll be put down by my hand…”

At this point, you can’t really hide your annoyance, scowling as he monologues about the ‘superior and dangerous initiation of team RED’. This only makes you wish you were sent to BLU instead. Your duffle bag had started weighing into your shoulder, digging into the skin so harshly you know it’ll leave a mark, your head was still ringing with the emergence of a headache, and the folder Miss Pauling had given you had begun to make your arm ache. And now, as you scrunch your nose, you’re given the choice to die suffering, or suffering to die. What was this? Lose-lose?!

“NOW! On with the tour, newbie!”

Soldier leads the one man march, with you tailing behind with less enthusiasm. He takes several detours, sharply turning in odd directions; you forget he’s actually leading a ‘tour’ and not trying to get you lost. He yammers, hardly stopping for breath, speaking in non-sentient ramblings you quickly learn to tune out. Focusing instead on your surroundings, you find that the base is much smaller than it looked.

The courtyard exaggerates the base's size. Chain-fenced and guarded with cameras, most of it is empty, tracks beaten between buildings and formed by time; you believe the base was previously government owned - demilitarised by the Administrator and renovated by YLW. Where you walk was probably the parading grounds: where you came from - the administrative building.

The building he takes you to first is domed and ugly. A sad beige littered with specks of grey presents itself to you, dug into the ground slightly sending you down a flight of stairs when you enter. The doors make a horrible rattle as they slide open, lights flickering in canon revealing malnourished, brittle shelving that appear to have been cheaply made - the Warehouse. Each row gives ten shelves total for storage with yellow fluorescent lights between them: the thin strings of metal somehow hold the various boxes scattered about with only one shelf crumbling from the weight. Crates are segregated at the back near a large industrial door, second to the one you’d entered from.

You are ‘warned’ (more so briefly and off-handedly told: had you tuned him out this very moment you’d’ve missed it) that the door leading outside is heavily guarded and ‘weaponised with tools only the genius of RED could come up with’. Your presumption is that it wards off anyone from BLU attempting an infiltration: another part of you thinks it’s a way of keeping you in.

When you leave, Soldier drags you through four left turns, effectively circling the large building you’d just been in. As you walk, dragging your feet behind Soldier’s more peppy steps, you catch the sight of some of the other mercenaries as they move on with their day; even from across the courtyard, you can feel their pitying, yet hateful gazes on you. It’s the type of look that portrays you, wounded with bloodhounds on your trail; dread - had it not settled yet - becomes much more evident. They watch you like they’ve seen you before: like you weren’t the first of many.

In particular, the tall kid (you strain to remember his name) laughs mockingly in the distance, seeing your exhausted state from the weight you were carrying and from the laps Soldier was forcing from you. He makes it a point to call out.

“Hey Soldier-!” and he stops so suddenly you nearly crash into his back, “what do you call someone who can barely walk a hundred yards? THE PROGRAMMER!”

He cackles, as does Soldier who stomps his foot and slaps his knee.

“I’d just call them BRITISH!”

Suddenly you think you’re in school again, sitting in a classroom while your classmates laugh through the window. Goddamn comedians… they never get far in life. But neither did you, evidently, to wind up here.

He bolts to the building he was heading to, the longest and farthest from where you stand. You’re sure he does this in an attempt to taunt you, proving you’re weak, slow and beneath him, and in a way, he’s right, but only because you don’t feel like chasing a man who wasn’t worth your time.

For all the efforts the warehouse put into its camouflage, the second building Soldier takes you to immediately nullifies the effect. Usually, you’d describe a building of this state to be ‘one a bomb had been dropped upon, demolishing what little dignity it had towards its function’. In this case, you fully believe it to be true.

The body is charred across its right side, a near perfect split between one half of the building and the next. Where blown out windows are bandaged with wooden planks, broken glass and rubble accompany it, not yet removed from the stage of destruction. It’s a scorn against the image of the base - a shameful mark of carelessness that’s patched in a way of negligence. The wall is scalded with soot stains the shade of black coffee, patterned across the red brick like an oil spill and darkened in the areas of impact. A coal scent lingers, dancing with the vapours of oil. The building’s twin - the left side - remains unmarked, at least, not to the extent of the right. It serves as a reminder to its abuse: to the decency it lost.

Coming closer, the sounds of machinery spark. A garage door stands, sealed on the bare wall to the left, muffling the horrors enacting behind it. It sounds like sundering metal and you can presume who is the cause of it - the Engineer.

“PROGRAMMER!” Soldier speaks suddenly, as though you’ve stepped on his heels, “do you want to see something… FUNNY?”

You perk to the suggestion, a feeling of camaraderie coming to you - an opportunity for connection in this place, to prove yourself worthy of being here! You agree readily, disregarding the feeling you have in your gut, and he grins at you furtively. He leads you closer to the garage door, like a stalker to its game, to a smaller one off-set at its corner. When you’re moments away, he hoists you at the collar, kicking the door and chucking you in.

The weight of your duffle sets you off-balance and you clatter first into the edge of a table, and then second to the ground. Your files spill from your hands, papers scattering alongside a holder of pencils, and your scream is only slightly out-classed by the jolted hollar of ‘DANG NABBIT’. When you peel your head from the tile floor, you're met with the image of a very angry, very stressed, Southern man.

“Lil Pop Quiz for you: when a door has a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on it, what d’you do?”

It’s a simple question yet your words elude you. Turning for support, you find your ‘guide’ has disappeared, leaving you in the wreckage. Your eye twitches involuntarily, yet somehow you feel this is your fault: logic speaks that it’s not, instinct claims it is. You begin your plea, body lifting from the floor like you’re begging forgiveness from the Lord Himself.

“I’m so sorry, I did NOT mean to-”

“You’d better start praying, boy-” he interrupts before restraining himself, knuckles fisting as his sights sit past you, “Soldier. You have a part to play in this.”

It’s not a question but the Soldier answers like it is anyway, ‘affirmative’ coughing from his throat. It’s like he teleports behind you, unable to keep from getting involved in the situation HE CAUSED. You thought he disappeared to have plausible deniability and yet he doesn’t fight to claim his own ‘innocence’.

“...why don’t you get along now before one of you gets hurt?” the Engineer suggests with barely contained irritation.

You make a sound of agreement, scuttling for your papers before you begin sweeping up his pencils by hand: he clears his throat harshly, barely disguising the hateful sneer on his lips. It gives you pause long enough to offer him a loosely grit smile.

“...you don’t want me to-?”

“Just get the fuck outta my workshop,” he stresses, rubbing his temples with his middle finger and thumb.

Message received loud and clear. You back out, passing the threshold, and the door immediately meets the tip of your nose. For a communications ‘expert’, you are making a horrible first impression: what kind of curse was set on you to place you here in Teufort? You know why, and yet you feel the punishment is ill-fit for your crime…

Stupefied, your body turns slowly like a haunted carousel, directing towards Soldier who stands innocently at your side; it takes will-power not to leap at him, mouth agape - near foaming - as you try to kindly word ‘what the fuck his damage is’ without inciting a physical attack. Naturally, you’re stopped before you start.

“That was a pathetic display,” Soldier says and the civil approach you’d planned to use gets thrown to the curb.

“...WHAT DO YOU MEAN-”

“I MEAN! You should GROW. SOME. BALLS, SNOWFLAKE!”

A guillotine, his arm sharply lifts like the blade, slamming onto your shoulder with a pronounced thud you jump violently at. His grip is strong, thumb dug under your collar bone, and you flinch with the thought he’ll punch you.

“If you want pure blooded RED to run through your VEINS, you have to start MANNING UP! You GRN Men are all WEAK: cowering at the sight of conflict…”

He snags you by the scruff of your neck and begins towards the last standing building. At this point, you allow yourself to get dragged along, the fight that had sparked diminished by a tidal wave.

“You will TRAIN. SIX AM. We don’t need WIMPS in this BASE! WE’RE AT WAR!!”

It’s endless! And your will is slowly getting chipped at. He insults your profession, and simultaneously his own - did the man think wars were won without the help of admin? - but then, you’re only ever reminded of war from those who stand on the field.

He takes you to the front of the last building: gnarly and plain with curtained panes watching you like eyes. Squished, the roof is flat, a single story drags on to make up for the lack of height. It’s walls are fashioned plainly, rugged and worn like a charity case. Gun holes scatter down twin doors, displaying the hollowed out wood and meeting with torch marks rising from the bottom. It’s sets you up for a weakened expectation and thin walls: if you expect privacy, you also expect very little of it.

You can understand why YLW use cheaper material now, if only for the frequency the base clearly gets abused. Soldier enters without thought and you catch the door behind him, letting it gently fall shut as you enter after.

It’s a long hallway with a large, arching door at the end of it: the entrance to the cafeteria. Soldier actually points this out - the only useful thing he’s done this entire tour - only to mention something about bread? You care very little, haven learnt not to trust his word. The place has more rooms than people working there. You’re surprised to find everyone HAS rooms rather than being lumped in one shared hall. You spot a communal restroom at the furthest end by the doors to the cafeteria, and next to that you believe are the communal showers.

You move further down, observing the doors as you pass them with keen attention. There’s different logos on each door and you notice a total of nine variations, bar the one Soldier drops you off at - your door - marked with GRN’s logo (a radio antenna).

Entering your room, the first thing you notice is the mirror across to your door. You see your state, all soaked in sweat and grime, knees dirtied by filth and clothing slightly ary: you smooth a hand down your face only to feel how caked in oil it had become. With a click, your door shuts behind you, and you observe your life for the next nine months.

It’s noticeably bare. That was… to be expected and yet the sight sinks in how far from home you are. Your new mattress adorns a thin bedding, draped over itself at the pillow and tucked in at the edges: it’s hoisted up by a thin, fragile frame that creaks in threat when you drop your bag upon it. You briefly consider the survival rate of deserting this job. You don’t think about it too long.

You’re given a work desk - folder flung there, your poor arms ache - a lamp, a ceiling light that flickers and sparks when you test it out, and a single unit for dressing, alongside that mirror that mocks you at the door. The bed aligns itself with the window, a thin fabric hooked across it that barely serves its function, room bright even with the curtains drawn. The first thing you consider is replacing them. On the opposite wall, your dresser and desk sit, aligning with your bedroom door. To the left of the dresser, another door rests. You open it to find a bathroom.

It’s small, cheap and shitty - nothing spectacular and just barely a privilege - with a single standing shower. It comes with a small bottle of MannCo branded ‘5-in-one shampoo, conditioner, body wash, aftershave, and melee weapon!’ you refuse to touch in fear it’ll peel your skin straight off. A bowl shaped sink sits under a dull mirror, fake as though you lived in a dollhouse, the material used probably nothing more than a reflective coating. It’s clear enough to voice your misery and you quickly recede to your room once more.

You have two boxes that were delivered before your entry. The first, you find, are basic necessities. Your favourite mug, a small radio, a few books both for reading and writing: nothing too interesting so you set it by your desk. The next - and you chuckle, guilty at the sight - are your sheets and, in tow, your small collection of plushies. You grab the box and flip it, fabrics falling onto the bed softly and your plushies smacking into the hard mattress. One of the smaller toys (a round toy bomb with a beanbag in it) rolls from the bed and onto the floor with a soft thump. You pick it up and throw it in your hand. You’d won it one summer in an arcade with friends: friends you won’t be seeing any time soon. The other soft toys are equally symbolic, mostly kept as a reach for your childhood, and you almost feel bad for bringing them to this place.

You finally take a seat at the desk - your desk - thumbing through the pages of the file Miss Pauling had given you. You are the Programmer, the identity supplied to you by RED, and you work for GRN.

Global Radio Networking: the company desired control and monetisation. You’re here to paint a picture to both the world and the Administrator: you’re here to lower their guards.

You’re being tasked with the work of five men, you find, with your description outlining report writing, resource allocation, the programming of your station and how it’ll be structured. Half of it is what you were already used to: the other half are foreign demands from team RED. In the back of your mind, however, you have clear instructions from GRN. Gain information.

You’re expendable and they’ve put you here as a bit of a trust fall. You were valuable enough to keep, yet not enough to not question. Your mistakes have marked your name: you have to prove your worth.

Your deadline is nine months. And in nine months, you’ll have either secured your job at GRN, or died trying. You’re being tossed between Death’s hands and it’s only fate that can sway you one way.

You lean back on your chair and sigh. You might as well unpack.

[bakawitch]

Haunted doll gemship au, where Malik gives Bakura a creepy hina doll for shits and giggles on his birthday. Bakura leaves it in his bedroom and forgets about it for a while, only to be woken up by the strange feeling of being watched in the middle of the night. He notices that the supposedly jointless doll has turned to face him. Sceptical, but still slightly paranoid, he decides to toss the doll in his basement and go back to bed. Only to wake up to the doll somehow being moved to his bedside table. He thinks Malik sneaked into his house to prank him with the doll, but Malik immediately denies it very believably.

This goes on for a while, weird things happen around the doll, and Bakura desperately tries to get rid of it with no luck. One time, when Isis visits with Malik to check on Bakura, who has been very withdrawn and paranoid, she sees the doll and immediately reprimands Malik for giving it to Bakura. Isis explains that the doll is bad energy and gives a quick run down on its tragic history to Bakura. Isis offers to take it away, but after two light bulbs burst in a row when Isis tries to grab it, they decide that it might be best to come a bit more prepared and they leave Bakura with the doll.

After the reveal of the doll's history, Bakura decides to try and be nice to it. He talks to it about random things, and things start to calm down a little. The doll usually just stays by his bed, sometimes appearing in the kitchen or the living room when he's not looking. A new thing, though, is the weird recurring dreams he starts having about a guy whose face he can't see. He vaguely remembers the name 'Ryou' and starts calling the doll by that name. After that, the doll tries to communicate with him more in very frightening ways (mostly bloody finger painted messages), which are oddly affectionate in nature.

Isis gets called away on business, so the doll's exorcism gets put off for a while, and Malik decides to crash at Bakura's place to keep an eye on him and make sure the doll doesn't do anything to him. Bakura doesn't care but warms Malik to prep himself for some weird shit on occasion. The only one who seemingly has issues with this arrangement is Ryou. The doll seems to really dislike Malik, and more accidents than usual happen around him. Bakura eventually gets sick of it and stops talking to Ryou. They end up confronting each other in a dream, and Ryou promises to behave (their first time directly talking to each other). Ryou leaves a slightly disturbing apology message for Malik.

Malik eventually goes home after a while, seeing that Bakura is okay and the doll doesn't really mean any harm to him. Bakura looks into ghost summoning stuff and tries to play one of those urban legend ritual games to summon Ryou. It almost goes horribly wrong, but Ryou saves Bakura at the last minute, and from that point on, they figure out a less dangerous way to bring Ryou to the world. Ghost romance stuff happens, and I have no idea how the story ends. Maybe Ryou moves on, or Bakura gets killed somehow, and they just decide to stick around to haunt the house together idk lol XD

[aka-indulgence]

trick or treat! "monster under the bed" for the prompt? >:)c

You woke up with a hand holding yours. It was warm and inviting, and you would’ve been comforted by it if only… you didn’t live alone.

Your blink your eyes open sleepily, your realization not yet waking up your entire body. Squinting, you look at the hand holding yours, squishing your fluffy blanket.

It was dark- as black as the midnight sky. There were no shadows. No highlights. Like what was holding your hand was if the void grew a hand. It looks unreal, though you know what you’re looking at was a hand, where it ended and where the rest of the world started was… fuzzy.

Finally your instincts wake up and you yelp, yanking your hand away. This startles the hand-holding fiend, and the hand almost skitters away, off the bed. You shuffle the blankets around and take a peek over your bedside, and you see a long, jointless arm slither under the bed.

Your mouth flattens. What the fuck- was that?!

Despite your better judgement, you climb down your bed to peer into the darkness.

You’re an adult. You’ve shoved things under there before. Nothing in there but forgotten t-shirts and sentimental knick knacks that’ve gotten lost over the years. Actually, you cleaned it out recently, so it should be clean down there, apart from some dust.

You do find some dust bunnies but… something isn’t right. Your room is dark, but it shouldn’t be dark enough that the ends of your bed look pitch black.

And the longer you stare at the darkness, the more it feels like its staring at you.

A yellow eye opens. Then another.

Then a great big smile. It greets you.

“….. Hello….”

[lightblueminecraftorchid]

The thing that distinguishes dignity of risk from unsafe practice is 1) informed consent and 2) lack of coercion.

Take, for example, Yvie Oddly.

Yvie Oddly is a drag queen. She was the winner of Season 11 of RuPaul’s Drag Race, and also participated in All Stars 7 (all winners season). If you watch her drag now, it’s very different. In Season 11, Yvie was doing a lot of contortionist stunts on stage, or moving in a very fluid and “jointless” way for effect during performances. Nowadays, she uses a wheelchair part time, and she mostly hosts events so she can sit safely and protect her joints.

Why the change?

Yvie has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS), a genetic disorder which affects the hypermobility of joints, among other things. Notably, for EDS people, overextending joints consistently or performing those contortionist stunts is really bad for their joint health, and can cause their joints to stay in place much more weakly.

Yvie Oddly knew that. She was aware well before performing on Drag Race that her stunts and performances would damage her joints, and that it would shorten the limited timeframe she would have to walk and move without a mobility aid. With that knowledge, she chose to do those stunts anyway, because she enjoyed doing them and it was part of her career at the time. Notably, Yvie is still a drag queen. She chose to perform on Drag Race herself. In one of the episodes, despite not being required to, she chooses to perform through an injury. Are these the safe practices for people with EDS? Absolutely not. Did Yvie know that, and choose them anyway? Yes. Would it be wrong for the show producers to require Yvie to perform with an injury or not accommodate her EDS? Yes, 10000%. Should Yvie have been prevented from doing so? No.

Dignity of risk sometimes means that there is a very high or guaranteed known risk of harm. Yvie’s performances 5-6 years ago have likely directly contributed to her using a wheelchair so often now. That’s not a tragedy, or something that should have been prevented, because Yvie knew the risk and chose to do it anyway.

Does that mean others with EDS should do what Yvie did? No, not necessarily. She made risky choices, and someone shouldn’t make those choices without being informed of the potential outcomes. It would be wrong for a doctor to tell their patient “well, Yvie Oddly here has EDS too, and she’s doing all these splits and bends and contortions on stage, so you can do those too!” without also giving the context of the joint damage accumulated by those stunts. But it would also be wrong for a person with EDS to be told “Any unsafe or risky choices you make mean that you don’t deserve help anymore, because you knew it would make your disability symptoms worse and you did it anyway”. Yvie shouldn’t be denied access to a wheelchair because she chose to perform in a risky way before. She still deserves to be accommodated now.

Anyway. I think this should be applied to more contexts. Disabled people shouldn’t have to perform their disability accommodations “correctly” or always choose the safest option so they don’t get blamed and punished for their symptoms. Abled people make risky choices all the time.

[saintsylestine]

Story time!! Read part 1 here

f!Aeldari x Astrates (yep I love these two now and am forcing you to read about them)

A/N: Syl writes some action? Some plot? No warnings today! Would love opinions.

Dreams of the Ruin-Bound pt. 2

The skittering grew louder.

Wet clicks. A dragging hiss. Something moving on the walls—through the walls.

She rose in a fluid, predatory arc, blade already in hand. It was long, curved, alive with psychic glyphs that shimmered like insects under the skin. Malrion stood behind her, slower, heavier, every motion a grim monument. His bolter clicked and locked.

The shard at his belt pulsed again. Stronger. He didn’t have to look—he could feel her heartbeat through it. Her fear—not for herself. For him.

“What is it?” he asked, low.

“Wrong.” She didn’t look at him. Her eyes scanned the dark. “Warp-born. Fed on wraithbone and memory. It smells the shard.”

“Let it come.”

The wall beside them tore open.

What crawled through looked like a spider made of ribs and wet teeth—slick with something that dripped backward onto the floor. Eyes? None. Mouth? Too many. It dragged itself on jointless limbs, clicking and whispering in reverse.

It screamed. A sound like voices pulled through a dying vox—like laughter caught in meat.

It came for her.

She didn’t run.

Instead, she vanished—a blur of silver and black and soullight, flickering through its limbs in a slicing arc. Her blade carved through one arm, then another, wraithbone screaming as the monster shrieked. It snapped around toward her, bleeding warp ichor that steamed where it touched stone.

It didn’t see Malrion coming.

He struck from the flank—a charging wall of fury, bolter roaring at point-blank. Explosive shells slammed into the daemon’s flank, bursting open its ribs in a wet pop. It reared, tried to scream again—

Her blade was already in its mouth.

She thrust upward, through the roof of its skull, and it folded—legs spasming, then collapsing like rotted silk.

Silence.

The thing sizzled as it died, melting into the floor. The stench of it filled the corridor.

Malrion lowered his bolter, smoke trailing from the muzzle. He looked at her—shoulders heaving, face lit by the fading psychic burn of her blade.

She turned toward him slowly.

“You moved like I was already inside you.”

He blinked.

“Maybe you are.”

They stood there, weapons dripping, the shard between them burning hot enough to ache. And for a moment—bloodied, breathless—they looked at each other like predators who’d just hunted the same prey… and realized they hungered for more than meat.

---

The daemon dissolved slowly, as if reluctant to leave the world it had soiled. Its bones sagged into slurry, its mouths closing one by one with wet sighs.

The air was thick with afterbirth. Warp-burn. Burnt flesh.

They stood in it—she, poised and breathing like a storm-witch after climax; he, massive and still, steam coiling from the gaps in his armor, bolter slack in his grip. Smoke curled upward between them, thin as thread. The silence was no longer tense.

It was charged.

Malrion was the first to move.

He crouched beside the ruin, checking for signs of regeneration. None. Just bone sludge and the stink of other realities. As he rose, his breath hitched—not in pain, not quite. But he swayed.

She noticed. Of course she did.

“You’re bleeding.”

He grunted. “It’ll close.”

“It won’t.”

She crossed the space between them without hesitation, ghost-quiet. Her fingers ghosted toward the fracture in his side—where daemon claws had scraped through both ceramite and carapace. He flinched.

Not from pain.

From her touch.

“Let me,” she said. Not soft. Not demanding. Just… there.

He nodded once.

Her fingers slid beneath the broken armor, brushing against raw, overheated skin. A hiss escaped his throat. She ignored it. Instead, she drew out a small bone-blade—not for killing. For carving. Etched with psychic script.

“This is not medicine,” she said. “It’s binding. Soul to tissue. Pain will make it take.”

He smirked faintly. “Of course it will.”

She cut.

A single line. Shallow. Across the wound.

He didn’t cry out, but his hand braced against the wall, muscles locked. Her breath was in his ear.

“Don’t move.”

The blade etched a second symbol. Then a third.

And then she pressed her palm over the wound.

The shard pulsed—through both of them. The psychic pain was immediate, intimate. Not like fire. Like sex turned inside out. Like nerves pulled into a knot and kissed open again. His spine arched. Her lips parted, trembling. For one moment, they were one pain, one breath.

She stayed there, palm against his bare side, her head bowed slightly—hair brushing his chest, eyes closed.

When she finally spoke, it was not with detachment.

“You hide yourself too well, mon-keigh.” A whisper. “There is beauty in your ruin.”

He didn’t answer.

But his hand rose. Slowly. And settled on her wrist. Not to stop her.

Just to feel her.

Just to know she was real.

---

Her palm stayed pressed to his side, fingers splayed across the edge of the wound. His skin was hot beneath her—fevered with battle, adrenaline, and something deeper still. The binding was done. The sigils were in place.

But she didn’t move.

Neither did he.

The psychic sting of the ritual still burned in his nerves. It hadn’t faded. It had changed—softened. What was once a scream had become a hum, then a purr. The pain no longer shouted.

It ached.

Pleasurably.

Malrion’s hand was still on her wrist. Not gripping. Just holding. She felt the strength in it, the restraint. One twitch and he could break bone—but he didn’t.

Her head was still bowed. Her hair brushed his bare chest, damp from blood and sweat. She inhaled, slow and deliberate, as if tasting his pain. Her mouth opened, just slightly.

“You endure well,” she murmured.

He grunted. His voice came low, harsh with strain. “You enjoy this.”

She looked up. And for a breath, their faces were so close her lips nearly grazed his skin.

“Would it frighten you if I did?”

He didn’t answer.

But his heart pounded. She could feel it—through the shard, through her hand, through the heat between them. His body was trembling slightly, not from fear.

From restraint.

She ran her fingers—slowly—from the wound, across his side, over the rise of his abdomen. Not quite a caress. But close. Her palm lingered on the ridged muscle just beneath the curve of his ribs.

“Your kind is all walls,” she said, softly. “Armor, doctrine, shame. But your flesh…”

Her nails traced a faint line.

“…is honest.”

He caught her hand before it could rise further.

Not harshly.

Just enough.

Their eyes met. And something passed between them—something too fragile to speak. Not love. Not lust. Something more dangerous.

Recognition.

She didn’t pull away. She didn’t want to. Not yet.

So she asked, barely a breath:

“Do you have a name?”

He blinked, surprised. Maybe even disarmed.

Then, after a moment:

“Malrion.”

She nodded. The name settled in her mouth like bloodwine.

“Mine is Eithra.”

Malrion’s gaze lingered on her lips.

The moment held.

Then—

He inhaled. Deep. Shuddering. Pulled back just enough to let her hand fall.

“We should move,” he said. Voice hoarse. “Before something hungrier finds us.”

Eithra’s fingers curled slowly, as if catching the memory of his body before it cooled.

“Yes,” she said. “We should.”

But neither of them moved for just one more heartbeat.

As if both were waiting—hoping—the other would.

---

The chamber they found wasn’t a room. Not exactly.

It was a hollow in the dying wraithbone—collapsed inward like a chest caved beneath a final breath. The walls still pulsed faintly with psychic residue, like muscle after spasm. Pale light shimmered above, fractured through the broken veins of the Craftworld’s inner skin.

Malrion stepped in first, shoulder brushing the crumbling arch as he ducked. Eithra followed a step behind, silent as vapor.

They’d crawled here through smoke and bone and ruin. Bleeding, breathless, neither speaking. And now, here in the stillness, the quiet roared.

Malrion leaned against a pillar that had once been carved with sigils—now smeared with soot and blood. His armor hissed softly, joints seared from battle, torso scorched open where the daemon’s claws had found flesh. His eyes were half-lidded, but watchful.

Eithra stood near the entrance a moment longer. Her silhouette was backlit by the soft rune-glow, cloak barely shifting as she looked at him—not with fear. Not with longing. With something closer to study. As if she were learning a language just by watching him breathe.

He looked up.

“You’re not sitting?”

Her voice came slow. “You’re taking up most of the floor.”

He almost smiled. It didn’t reach his mouth.

Then he shifted, broad back arching as he moved to make space. A quiet wince. The wound still pulled when he stretched.

Eithra crossed the room and lowered herself beside him without ceremony.

Her hip touched his thigh. Armor to armor, but barely. Heat pooled in the shared contact.

Neither pulled away.

For a while, there was nothing but their breathing. The shard sat between them again—on the stone, not glowing, not cold. Waiting.

Finally, he said, voice low:

“I should thank you.”

She blinked. Slowly.

“For binding the wound?”

“For not taking advantage of it.”

Her lips parted. A breath. Then:

“You think I didn’t?”

He looked at her sharply.

She turned her face away—but not in shame. In truth. Letting him feel the quiet of her regret… or restraint.

Then she leaned forward. Not toward him. Toward the shard. Her fingers hovered over it but didn’t touch.

“It’s changing. I can feel it.”

“Or we are.”

She said nothing.

But her shoulder pressed a little harder into his. Not intentional. Just real.

A moment later, her head tilted. Barely. Just enough to let it rest lightly against the curve of his upper arm.

He tensed.

Then let her stay.

Between them, the shard lay on a broken stone plinth.

It pulsed once every few seconds.

Like a heart.

Like a clock.

Like a warning.

They said nothing for a while.

The stillness ached.

Then—

“You hesitated,” she said quietly.

He looked down.

“When?”

“Before we struck. You waited for me to move.”

He exhaled. Not a sigh. Just breath let go.

“You were faster. Cleaner.”

“That’s not the same as trusting me.”

He studied her face. The way her lips curved downward at rest. The flicker of tension still lingering in her shoulders. He didn’t answer right away.

Then—

“I didn’t trust you. I just… didn’t want to get in the way.”

Her expression didn’t change. But she blinked, slowly. As if that answer surprised her more than any lie would have.

She looked at the shard.

Its next pulse was faster.

“It’s getting stronger.”

“Or hungrier.”

She nodded. Her voice softened.

“They say when it bonds two souls, it shows them all their possible futures. All their deaths. All their intertwined ends.”

He stared at it.

“You’ve used one before?”

“No.” A beat. “I was supposed to. Once. I didn’t.”

The silence returned—but it was thinner now. Closer. Like breath across skin.

Her voice was soft.

“You don’t sleep, do you?”

“Not well.”

“Then let me.”

He blinked.

“Let you what?”

“Stay here.” Her eyes didn’t flinch. “Close. So the shard doesn’t take us apart in our dreams.”

A beat.

Then he nodded.

Just once.

She settled in beside him—shoulder to arm, her smaller frame folding into the curve of his. Not a lover’s embrace. Not yet. Just… proximity. Contact. Human and Aeldari. Heat and stillness.

The shard pulsed.

And their hearts began to sync.

Malrion stared ahead, eyes catching faint lines of soul-runes flickering across the stone. Then, quietly, as if not meant for her:

“I don’t remember the last time I sat beside someone without armor between us.”

Eithra didn’t turn, but she stilled. Slightly.

“Not even your brothers?”

“Especially not them.” He shifted slightly—his breath sharp as the healing wound pulled. “We were raised for purity. Silence. If one of us touched another in sleep, we apologized. Even in dreams.”

There was no judgment in her expression. Only the subtle stillness of someone listening with more than her ears.

She let the silence return after that.

And when her head tilted—barely, just enough to rest lightly against the curve of his upper arm—he tensed.

Then let her stay.

---

Sleep didn’t take them gently.

It sank its teeth in.

Eithra’s head rested lightly against Malrion’s arm, breath slowing in measured loops. He remained still far longer—stone-quiet, every muscle tight, eyes half-lidded beneath the flickering psychic glow of the ruined chamber. But exhaustion was a tide. Even he couldn’t fight it forever.

Not with the shard pulsing between them.

The moment their breathing synced, it opened.

---

There was no beginning.

Only a shift.

Stone fell away to starlight. Flesh became thought. The air tasted like memory and metal.

They stood at the center of a vast space without ceiling or floor—a cathedral carved from wraithbone ribs and wet, radiant void. Soundless. Alive.

They were naked, but not fleshless. Clothed in memory. In ritual. In ruin.

Malrion bore the scars of a hundred oaths. Pain carved into him not for survival, but for obedience. Red lines crossed his chest, some fresh, some glowing like cauterized shame. He breathed hard, fogging the air, as if even here the weight of his armor refused to leave.

Eithra stood across from him—barefoot on a floor of flickering soul-runes. Her skin shimmered with embedded stones, half-submerged into her chest, her hips, her throat. Each pulsed faintly with meaning. None were silent.

She tilted her head slightly. Her eyes black, but soft. Reading him.

Seeing not just form—but pattern. Fracture.

And he saw hers.

Not cruelty. Not hunger.

Loneliness.

And then the shard appeared.

Floating between them, humming low. Glowing with an oil-slick shimmer, slick as breath against the inside of the skull. From it spilled visions:

—Eithra above him, bent low, her forehead pressed to his.

—Malrion kneeling before her, hands bloodied, offering his breath into her mouth like prayer.

—Their deaths, intertwined. His name on her lips. Her soulstone shattered in his hand.

He took a step back.

The cathedral shuddered.

“This isn’t real,” he said.

Eithra didn’t answer.

She stepped forward instead—into the shard’s glow. The light swallowed her like silk over bone.

When she spoke, the voice wasn’t hers.

“Do you want to touch what you buried?”

He staggered. The shame, the heat, the need in him coiled too tight. His voice came rough.

“Stop.”

The shard pulsed.

The vision changed.

Now she was closer. Her hand at his chest. His at her jaw. Neither moving. Just there.

The silence became pressure.

Her lips parted.

And this time, it was her own voice. Quiet. Unsteady.

“If you want me, say nothing.”

He said nothing.

He stepped into her space instead.

Their foreheads touched—hot with psionic tension. Fingers curled into skin. Breath became shared.

No kiss. No release.

Just ache.

And then—

They woke.

Malrion gasped.

He sat up too fast—powerful body rigid, breath dragging through his teeth, eyes wide. Sweat slicked his skin beneath the broken plates of armor. One hand rose to his chest, to that same spot where she’d touched him in the dream.

It still burned.

A dull, deep heat—like a brand, or a memory.

Eithra was already awake.

She hadn’t moved. She sat still, back against the ruined wall, her knees drawn slightly inward, cloak pooled around her ankles. Her eyes were fixed on him—not frightened. Not cold.

Just watching.

The shard pulsed once between them.

Neither spoke.

For a moment, the only sound was their breathing—his, ragged and thunder-deep; hers, steady and almost silent. But he could hear it now. He knew her breath.

He clenched his jaw. Let the silence stretch like a wire.

Finally, she broke it.

“You dreamed it too.”

Not a question. A confirmation.

Malrion’s hand flexed, then dropped to the floor beside him.

“I didn’t have a choice.”

“No,” she said. “Neither did I.”

A beat.

Then softer:

“That’s what makes it worse.”

His eyes found her at that.

The line of her jaw was taut. Not angry. Not tense. Just… tight. Held together with the same force she’d used since the first moment he saw her. She hadn’t even looked shaken—but she was. He saw it now.

And she’d let him see it.

His voice came rough.

“It was you.”

“It was us.” Her gaze didn’t flinch. “The shard just showed what we wouldn’t admit.”

Another silence.

Malrion leaned back against the pillar. It was cold against his skin. Grounding.

“You knew that could happen.”

“I knew it would. Eventually.” She looked at the shard now, her voice growing quieter. “Just not so soon.”

He huffed once. A breath, not a laugh.

“Does it always show that much?”

Her eyes flicked back to him. Slower this time. Measured.

“Only when it senses possibility.”

Eithra's fingers moved—not much. Just a subtle shift in her lap. The kind of motion someone makes when they should be standing, walking, doing anything else—but aren’t.

She wasn’t looking at the shard anymore.

She was watching him.

Not his face.

His hand.

The one still resting near his chest, where her dream-self had touched him.

He felt her gaze like heat against his ribs. But he didn’t look at her. Not yet.

“It meant nothing,” he said finally.

The lie landed like a crack across stone. Hard. Hollow.

She didn’t correct him.

Just tilted her head slightly. Her voice was even.

“Do you believe that?”

Malrion didn’t answer. Not with words.

He shifted his weight instead—arm brushing hers where they still sat too close. She didn’t move away. She leaned in. Barely.

A long, tight breath dragged through his chest.

“I’ve seen what the warp can do. What it whispers. This…” He shook his head. “It wants us compromised.”

“We’re already compromised.”

That stopped him.

He turned to look at her, finally. Full on.

The distance between them was too small for that kind of eye contact. It burned.

She didn’t look away. She didn’t blink.

“I felt your breath in my mouth,” she said. Quiet. Raw. “That doesn’t vanish just because we open our eyes.”

Malrion opened his mouth—closed it again.

His throat flexed.

For a man who bled for a living, this was what pain looked like.

She saw it.

And still, she didn’t move.

Then—

“What do we do with it?” he asked, and the question didn’t sound like him. It sounded younger. Like something pried loose from a part of him long buried.

“We endure it,” she said.

A pause.

Then, more softly:

“Or we give in.”

---

At that, something shifted between them again. Not loud. Not sudden.

Just a quiet realignment of proximity.

Her knee brushed his. He didn’t pull back. She could smell the heat rising from him, feel the slight tremble in his thigh as it pressed against hers. His hand flexed against the stone floor—once—as if deciding whether to reach for her again.

He didn’t.

But his breath slowed.

And hers matched it.

[jayjamjary]

I know this is probably phrased poorly for getting accurate results but I'm tired so whatever. I made this because my joints very often feel loose and weird and idk how common this is. I will be going to a doctor about it soon don't worry.

[midas-concrete-flooring]

Why Choose Midas Flooring?

🚀 Services Offered:

✅ Heavy-Duty Industrial Flooring ✅ Polished Concrete Flooring in India ✅ Concrete Floor Restoration ✅ Expert Concrete Flooring Contractors ✅ FM 2 Flooring Standards Compliance

[infinitethree]

It is, to put it bluntly, too goddamned quiet.

Stepping onto the stage was supposed to be a big deal! A crescendo in the production, the climax of the story!

At the very least, things were supposed to be less fucking boring!

But it is, sadly, a ghost town. Even the Showrunner doesn’t have an exact idea of the metrics of the sad little platform their existence is really known on, but they know it’s not great.

Uhg. They really don’t love the idea of jumping the shark already, but…things need to get livened up.

The audience really needs to appreciate the marathon of bitching that will be Show’s reward for the bone they’re gonna throw into the spectral audience.

Quite literally kicking down the door into the library, they shout, “Hey, Scribs, we need to chat! Get your nose out of your fucking books!”

Much like the Showrunner’s stage, the library is the domain of another unusual individual. The infinite rows of bookshelves bear titles in indecipherable scripts, but…that’s the only real feature of the space.

Everything else is a void. A white, empty void, stretching out over Eons and Eras.

Show’s face shifts to a brief animation of an eyeroll. Great, in-jokes that exactly one person can possibly understand. That bodes super well for how this’ll play out.

From amidst the shelves, a figure slowly emerges.

Like the Showrunner, their form is…unusual. What little ‘skin’ is visible is, much like their counterpart’s, rather similar to a jointless mannequin. The color differs, though– a swirling, silver-and-lavender as opposed to the Showrunner’s gold-and-black.

But largely, they are obscured by a cloak.

The cloak covers most of them, bar their many extra arms– and the number of them keeps shifting, as do the sizes of the books they’re writing in– and their ‘face’. It looks almost like a universe is depicted in them.

Or…it is a universe. Because it moves– the stars, the celestial bodies, all of is moving. In just a few moments, several stars wink out, while others suddenly appear. Along the edges of the ‘garment’-- if it really can even be called that– are ever-shifting runes in that same silvery-lavender color that seems unique to them.

Each rune seems to be made up of a shifting mess of overlapping words.

In much the same way, the odd, dark purple, crown-like ring of horns that blends into the cloak are made up of untold words in seemingly eternal flux. Above the center of that crown is a large, cat-like eye made of yet more words– these in bright lavender.

Around the eye are dozens of rings of varying widths and sizes, spinning in seemingly random directions, with yet more eyes embedded into them.

And…that only leaves their face. Or what passes for one.

There’s a geometric, elongated sideways eye-esque shape in the center of an otherwise white mask. The edges of it shift slightly, but only enough that gives the impression that it’s capable of more change.

In an almost bored monotone, the Scribe says, I have made it clear I have no interest in being on your stage. Leave me to my work.

“It’s fucking boring, though! If there’s no audience, there’s no point in writing! Scribs, you gotta–” Showrunner, you have already interrupted me and dragged your audience along with you. Whatever game you seek to play, I will not be partaking.

The Showrunner groans, multiple extra arms appearing to help them emphasize, “The game is that there’s nobody to write for! The seats are empty, the stage is lifeless, and I’m bored outta my mind!”

At this, finally, the Scribe’s own additional arms pause in their writing.

…I already allowed you to use my name to, as you put it, ‘liven things up’. “That wasn’t even me, not really! That was the yahoo at the keyboard needing to make your precious little sociopath play nice!”

The first hint at emotion comes, the Scribe replying, You speak as though you have no favorites of your own. “I never said I was unbiased, but it still fucking helped you, too!”

The pupils of all the eyes thin in unison. I grow weary of your arguments. Leave, you have gotten the hint of mystery that you, ironically, are incapable of cultivating on your own.

A shriek of frustration accompanies a sound like breaking glass. Jagged, teeth-like shards of the Showrunner’s flickering red screen-face mouth along to the distorted echo of, “Holy fucking shit, how are you such a giant bitch!? Stop being such a useless stick in the mud and help me make this fucking work!”

Emotion is once again gone from the Scribe’s voice as they sigh, Still a spoiled child, demanding attention and affirmation. If your stage is so empty, stop waiting for a prompt to populate it. Simply…devise the scenario yourself.

The flickering gets more intense, and the Showrunner seems to become just a little larger. The circle of extra screens around their face spins faster and faster, until they stop looking like anything more than a glowing red ring.

And then it all cuts out. The audience has not yet earned this particular reveal, no matter the desires of the one who usually mans the cameras. 

[girlgenius1111]

I’m so sorry to tell you this but the way the stick figures just have jointless limbs sticking straight out makes them look like patrick star and now I can think of nothing else 😭😭😭

LOOK I NEVER SAID I WAS GOOD AT ART

[t4tails]

NICK i bought venus mcflytrap yesterday. do i keep her in the box or take her out and put her next to my jointless batman figure. (i collect but whether they stay in boxes or not is just dependednt on mood. asking you becasue i feel like you have good opinions amen)

TAKE HER OUTTT free her... im a firm out of the box collector UNLESS i think the box adds to the look. mh boxes are nothing special, let her experience nature

[hplovecraftmuseum]

A curious, amusing, and probably purely coincidencedental similarity might be observed between the robot featured in the 1960s television show LOST IN SPACE and the creatures discribed by H. P. Lovecraft in his later tale, THE SHADOW OUT OF TIME. In the case of the creatures from Yith, also called, "The Great Race" by the protagonist of the story, they have crab-like claws at the ends of their pair of flexible and sinuous arms. Atop their heads - also at the end of a flexible neck - there is an arrangement of wriggling protrusions resembling flowers in appearance. At their bases the Yithians are able to propel themselves by a sort of flexible "foot" resembling somewhat that of a snail or slug. The heads of these creatures feature three large eyes and a sort of 'beard' of flexible tentacles that also act like fingers. It is clear that steps or stairs were not used by such creatures in the architecture of their buildings. Instead the 'Great Race' depended upon ramps for travel up and down between floors. Shown below is a still from 1966 in which the famed character "Robby the Robot" meets the "Robot" from LOST IN SPACE. The latter does not walk about like the Robby 'mechanical man', but is fitted with fairly inflexible tracks instead of feet. Like the Yithians of Lovecraft's story the LOST IN SPACE robot has retractable, jointless arms which terminate in mechanical claws. The 'neck' of the robot is also capable of moving up and down though not with the same flexibility as the arms. At the top of the transparent head of the Robot there are some sensory devices that usually spin about like small radar dishes. Did Lovecraft's depiction of alien life have any direct influence on the concept of the LOST IN SPACE robot? Probably not. Robots with segmented arms were not uncommon in the Sci-Fi illustrations of HPL's day. However, there were no mechanical men or robots presented in any of Lovecraft's fiction. Indeed, machines of any kind were extremely rare in his tales. (Exhibit 499)