#perplexing

[shiftythrifting]

full glam 🐡

Community Threads in Arlington Heights, IL

[pa-rou]

something off about this guy ://

[valkyrjuk]

why the fuck do I have a harry du bois react

[robo-dino-puppies]

dragon age: the veilguard | bellara lutare

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

hey, CCLI? yeah I've just got one quick question

whomst?

[fourforyouodo]

I just watched Endgame, the Voyager finale, for the first time and have sooooo many feelings but first off:

I knew in advance that Seven and Chakotay would be an item but no one ever mentioned to me it's literally just in the last episode????? And it's so insanely out of character for them?? No build up whatsoever??? Truly if I hadn't been spoiled on this I would be reeling.

I know I'm a huge JC shipper so that may colour my judgement but even my parents thought it was really weird and off-putting, they were like "did we miss an episode? When did this happen??"

[tabloidweather]

16 January 2024

MTV: Turn in the weather puzzles even Pekka Pouta

MTV (channel 3) is the original commercial TV channel here. Pekka Pouta is one of their meteorologists and a bit of a celebrity. That's him in the viral "winter is coming" weather forecast video back in 2015.

[dwarfbehavior]

Been getting spammed with notifs like this. I checked the site and

I don't quite know what's going on here.

Aside from the pocket dimension filled with blood, I'm not sure what here is causing everyone's pathing to go haywire. I tried DFHack's autodump command on that spot a couple times but nothing. Maybe I need to turn the sprinkler system off for a moment?

[chronivore]

[xpandamind]

Perplexing Hourglass

[bigmeatpete69420]

portly Polish pharmaceutical peddler

[rhythm-section-want-ad]

so I opened tumblr and saw I got an ask, but when I went to my inbox nothing was there?? I also saw my follower count went up by one but I didn’t see anyone new? I didn’t get any notifications in my activity feed for either as well and I refreshed the page a bunch already but still nothing,, so sorry to whoever sent that and thank you stranger for following me

[trans-yllz]

there has been. a Startling increase in out of state license plates in the last two weeks? first it was just a noticeable amount of texas plates but then there was an increase of plates from california which I guess makes more sense but is still weird. now they're from everywhere tho I see at least 10 a day. I've seen FOUR florida plates in the last 24 hours. I saw an alaska And a maine plate today. why are you here

[blackjackkent]

Narrator: The tentacle pulses within the wall...waiting...

Hector really starts regretting his big idea to do this right about at this point. But he can't back down now. They need to know what's going on here.

Reach back in.

Narrator: There is no hesitation this time - the tendrils lash out like a waiting predator.

The grip is frightening in its power. It closes around his wrist, yanks him tightly into the wall; his jaw scrapes on the stonework painfully. Behind him he dimly hears Karlach say his name with fear in her voice, but it is muffled behind a sudden rushing sound in his ears.

Terror floods him. This was a mistake. This was a mistake! He tries to pull his arm back, to escape from the trap, but he is no match for the raw strength of the creature, and it knows now how to counter the twists that allowed him to pull free the last time.

Narrator: The tendrils tighten and suddenly you are-- elsewhere.

The rushing sound vanishes abruptly, leaving him hanging in a void in perfect silence. A dizzy, sick feeling spins through his stomach. There is no up or down, there is only an unending emptiness in all directions.

Empty except for...it.

Narrator: The presence is no longer approaching you, but encircling you. *Observing* you.

Oddly, with the sudden stillness, he finds he is abruptly calm. The fear is still there but at a distance, as if he left it behind when he was pulled into this strange realm, and it will find him again when he returns. There is nothing but him and this enormous creature, vast beyond his comprehension.

It speaks, a rolling, rumbling voice that he first heard when it knocked him to his knees on the road to the goblin camp, in what seems another life.

"-other- -else- -ABERRATION?- -why---- -WHAT------ ....--who are you?"

Hector draws a slow breath, lets it out and feels it trembling in his lungs. The voice is like a hammer beat in his mind, each word filtering through unsteadily, fragmented. He cannot tell if it is agitated, surprised to see him, or perhaps even simply curious.

"I'm...Hector Carlisle..." he whispers, barely audible.

My Lady, please watch me in this moment. Do not let me fall to this creature...all things with your strength...

More of the strange writhing tendrils extend around him through the void, and he feels the sense of a thousand, a million unseen eyes on him, picking him apart piece by piece. And then...something shifts.

"---You are-- ---the flaw---- --FLAW----"

Narrator: A pause...as if it struggles to compress its vast being down into terms you can understand.

The tentacles shift, and begin to twist and...shrink...consuming themselves and turning inwards, flesh on flesh in a stomach-churning display...compressing down like a compacting, dying star and taking on an inward glow as they settle into a smaller, writhing mass a little larger than Hector's head.

The feeling of calm deepens, a strange feeling of peace - not from safety, for no doubt he is still in more danger than he has ever been in in his life, but from the feeling of having reached some center point. For better or for worse, this is what he was looking for.

The writhing mass rolls before him, its tendrils flicking out in all directions.

"This is the voice they have given me," it intones, its words less fragmented now, more solid. "To better speak to your kind without breaking you."

Hector's eyebrows lift. The voice speaking to him is most definitely the same voice he heard on the road, the voice of the Absolute itself. And yet it speaks of a they.

"I was once a servant of the Grand Design," the voice continues. There's a strange sadness in it. "Now I am slave to *theirs.* But you..."

It hesitates. One long tendril extends, draws delicately across Hector's jawline and then withdraws. "You are the flaw in their design. The single thread that could unravel everything they've planned."

Hector's heart rate begins to speed up rapidly. He was right - this was not a mistake after all. There's something critical to be learned here, if he can only master himself long enough to understand it.

"Who are...they?" he asks unsteadily. His voice sounds tinny in his own ears in this vastness.

"They name themselves Chosen," the voice booms, then drops abruptly to a whisper sliding through his mind like a knife. "But they are slavers. They will use me to bind this world..."

A vision of the artifact floats before him. "But I cannot bind you..." the voice whispers.

Sudden urgency - the voice speaking faster, calling, demanding. "You must come to me - so I can become myself again!"

Pain, abrupt and sharp, stabbing through him, through his shoulder and chest and jaw.

Narrator: A world away, the grip on you tightens - a desperate drowning thing that pulls you down with it.

The creature spasms, lurches, its smaller form expanding rapidly into a hundred, a thousand of the enormous, slime-covered tentacles. The voice booms through him like thunder.

"Come. Become. -COME- -BECOME----"

He is back in his body, lodged up against the wall, pulled forward like a fish on a hook. The strain on his shoulder is tremendous and the pain in his head is excruciating.

Karlach is behind him, both arms around his torso now, trying to pull him free. "Hello?! Hey, snap out of it!"

The creature is so strong. It is pulling him in mind and body simultaneously. It wants him there, it wants him to find it, to free it...

[WISDOM] Focus your thoughts to an edge - and cut free.

It takes every bit of control he has, every scrap of will. He can feel the pain extending out to his friends now, and he can feel Karlach's desperate pull against his body, and it's that as much as anything that helps him step beyond the terrible thing trying to consume him.

He screws up his face, and focuses on who he is, where he is, and pulls--

He staggers backwards, hits the scaffolding with a grunt, almost rolling off towards the floor below before Karlach is able to grab his shoulder. Immediately he screams in pain and she releases him sharply.

"The Absolute fairly ripped your hand off..." she mutters. "That's no way to tempt us into a meeting."

Hector can't speak, not yet. Everything hurts and his mind is spinning. Maybe it was a mistake after all, and yet he learned something he would not have known otherwise. But he still has just as many questions as answers. And the voice of the dream guardian seeps into his mind.

"Careful...it nearly had you...whatever that creature was, its telepathic force as unlike anything I've ever encountered. It must be the source of the Absolute."

----

Their yelling attracted some attention from the cultist guards, which leads to something of a sticky situation for a few minutes. Ideally, Karlach would like to bundle them all into a closet or something long enough to treat Hector and let the suspicion pass, but moving him is clearly not an option.

His arm is hanging at a brutally wrong angle and he is shaking like a leaf, his eyes blank and confused. And below them, several guards are discussing the sound of screams and trying to figure out where they came from.

"Can you help him?" she hisses in an undertone to Shadowheart. "We can't stay here. Sooner or later one of those ignots is gonna look up and then we'll have some explaining to do."

"Of course," Shadowheart says stiffly. "I'll...need a moment to reconsider my spells first. Gale, is there anything you can do to cover us up? Turn us invisible?"

"I can turn one of us invisible, but as for obfuscating the entire group..." Gale shrugs uncertainly, then considers for a moment. "Distraction, though..."

Turning, he lifts one hand and sends a carefully aimed fire bolt arcing through a nearby window looking out on the front landing. A slight pause, and then sudden shouts. "Oy! Someone drop a match or something? Something's burning!"

The guards hesitate, then turn and duck out of the room. Karlach relaxes. "Good thinking."

She sits down heavily next to Hector's head and runs her fingertips gently through his hair as Shadowheart begins mumbling some of her healing spells. "Hey, Soldier. C'mon...deep breaths now. Like you taught me..."

He shudders, his eyes flickering open to look up at her blearily. "Karlach..."

"I'm here, Hec. You took quite a beating. I think that think wanted to pull you right through." She frowns, traces her fingers along the side of his face; really she wants to pick him up and bundle him off somewhere safe, but where the hells would that be? Gotta keep control of myself... "Did you...find out what you wanted to know?"

He swallows, winces as Shadowheart's magic begins tugging at his limp arm, slowly dragging the joint back into place. "It's...I think I spoke to it. And I don't think its the mastermind," he whispers. "Those...Chosen, the three people it shows us before...they're the masters, not the servants. It wants us to free it..."

"And are we believing this fantastical story?" Gale asks, raising an eyebrow questioningly.

"Believing? I don't know," Hector says quietly. "But it's certainly a part of the picture we didn't have before."

[fiyr-cap]

had a dream last night that I was Benoit Blanc's sidekick???

[gmax]

IM SICKKKKKKKKKKK WHAT DID THEY DO TO HER. EXPLODE!!!