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mostlysignssomeportents · 28 days ago

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The US Copyright Office frees the McFlurry

I'll be in TUCSON, AZ from November 8-10: I'm the GUEST OF HONOR at the TUSCON SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION.

I have spent a quarter century obsessed with the weirdest corner of the weirdest section of the worst internet law on the US statute books: Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the 1998 law that makes it a felony to help someone change how their own computer works so it serves them, rather than a distant corporation.

Under DMCA 1201, giving someone a tool to "bypass an access control for a copyrighted work" is a felony punishable by a 5-year prison sentence and a $500k fine – for a first offense. This law can refer to access controls for traditional copyrighted works, like movies. Under DMCA 1201, if you help someone with photosensitive epilepsy add a plug-in to the Netflix player in their browser that blocks strobing pictures that can trigger seizures, you're a felon:

https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html-media/2017Jul/0005.html

But software is a copyrighted work, and everything from printer cartridges to car-engine parts have software in them. If the manufacturer puts an "access control" on that software, they can send their customers (and competitors) to prison for passing around tools to help them fix their cars or use third-party ink.

Now, even though the DMCA is a copyright law (that's what the "C" in DMCA stands for, after all); and even though blocking video strobes, using third party ink, and fixing your car are not copyright violations, the DMCA can still send you to prison, for a long-ass time for doing these things, provided the manufacturer designs their product so that using it the way that suits you best involves getting around an "access control."

As you might expect, this is quite a tempting proposition for any manufacturer hoping to enshittify their products, because they know you can't legally disenshittify them. These access controls have metastasized into every kind of device imaginable.

Garage-door openers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/09/lead-me-not-into-temptation/#chamberlain

Refrigerators:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/12/digital-feudalism/#filtergate

Dishwashers:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/03/cassette-rewinder/#disher-bob

Treadmills:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/22/vapescreen/#jane-get-me-off-this-crazy-thing

Tractors:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/23/reputation-laundry/#deere-john

Cars:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/edison-not-tesla/#demon-haunted-world

Printers:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/07/inky-wretches/#epson-salty

And even printer paper:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/16/unauthorized-paper/#dymo-550

DMCA 1201 is the brainchild of Bruce Lehmann, Bill Clinton's Copyright Czar, who was repeatedly warned that cancerous proliferation this was the foreseeable, inevitable outcome of his pet policy. As a sop to his critics, Lehman added a largely ornamental safety valve to his law, ordering the US Copyright Office to invite submissions every three years petitioning for "use exemptions" to the blanket ban on circumventing access-controls.

I call this "ornamental" because if the Copyright Office thinks that, say, it should be legal for you to bypass an access control to use third-party ink in your printer, or a third-party app store in your phone, all they can do under DMCA 1201 is grant you the right to use a circumvention tool. But they can't give you the right to acquire that tool.

I know that sounds confusing, but that's only because it's very, very stupid. How stupid? Well, in 2001, the US Trade Representative arm-twisted the EU into adopting its own version of this law (Article 6 of the EUCD), and in 2003, Norway added the law to its lawbooks. On the eve of that addition, I traveled to Oslo to debate the minister involved:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/28/clintons-ghost/#felony-contempt-of-business-model

The minister praised his law, explaining that it gave blind people the right to bypass access controls on ebooks so that they could feed them to screen readers, Braille printers, and other assistive tools. OK, I said, but how do they get the software that jailbreaks their ebooks so they can make use of this exemption? Am I allowed to give them that tool?

No, the minister said, you're not allowed to do that, that would be a crime.

Is the Norwegian government allowed to give them that tool? No. How about a blind rights advocacy group? No, not them either. A university computer science department? Nope. A commercial vendor? Certainly not.

No, the minister explained, under his law, a blind person would be expected to personally reverse engineer a program like Adobe E-Reader, in hopes of discovering a defect that they could exploit by writing a program to extract the ebook text.

Oh, I said. But if a blind person did manage to do this, could they supply that tool to other blind people?

Well, no, the minister said. Each and every blind person must personally – without any help from anyone else – figure out how to reverse-engineer the ebook program, and then individually author their own alternative reader program that worked with the text of their ebooks.

That is what is meant by a use exemption without a tools exemption. It's useless. A sick joke, even.

The US Copyright Office has been valiantly holding exemptions proceedings every three years since the start of this century, and they've granted many sensible exemptions, including ones to benefit people with disabilities, or to let you jailbreak your phone, or let media professors extract video clips from DVDs, and so on. Tens of thousands of person-hours have been flushed into this pointless exercise, generating a long list of things you are now technically allowed to do, but only if you are a reverse-engineering specialist type of computer programmer who can manage the process from beginning to end in total isolation and secrecy.

But there is one kind of use exception the Copyright Office can grant that is potentially game-changing: an exemption for decoding diagnostic codes.

You see, DMCA 1201 has been a critical weapon for the corporate anti-repair movement. By scrambling error codes in cars, tractors, appliances, insulin pumps, phones and other devices, manufacturers can wage war on independent repair, depriving third-party technicians of the diagnostic information they need to figure out how to fix your stuff and keep it going.

This is bad enough in normal times, but during the acute phase of the covid pandemic, hospitals found themselves unable to maintain their ventilators because of access controls. Nearly all ventilators come from a single med-tech monopolist, Medtronic, which charges hospitals hundreds of dollars to dispatch their own repair technicians to fix its products. But when covid ended nearly all travel, Medtronic could no longer provide on-site calls. Thankfully, an anonymous hacker started building homemade (illegal) circumvention devices to let hospital technicians fix the ventilators themselves, improvising housings for them from old clock radios, guitar pedals and whatever else was to hand, then mailing them anonymously to hospitals:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/10/flintstone-delano-roosevelt/#medtronic-again

Once a manufacturer monopolizes repair in this way, they can force you to use their official service depots, charging you as much as they'd like; requiring you to use their official, expensive replacement parts; and dictating when your gadget is "too broken to fix," forcing you to buy a new one. That's bad enough when we're talking about refusing to fix a phone so you buy a new one – but imagine having a spinal injury and relying on a $100,000 exoskeleton to get from place to place and prevent muscle wasting, clots, and other immobility-related conditions, only to have the manufacturer decide that the gadget is too old to fix and refusing to give you the technical assistance to replace a watch battery so that you can get around again:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/26/24255074/former-jockey-michael-straight-exoskeleton-repair-battery

When the US Copyright Office grants a use exemption for extracting diagnostic codes from a busted device, they empower repair advocates to put that gadget up on a workbench and torture it into giving up those codes. The codes can then be integrated into an unofficial diagnostic tool, one that can make sense of the scrambled, obfuscated error codes that a device sends when it breaks – without having to unscramble them. In other words, only the company that makes the diagnostic tool has to bypass an access control, but the people who use that tool later do not violate DMCA 1201.

This is all relevant this month because the US Copyright Office just released the latest batch of 1201 exemptions, and among them is the right to circumvent access controls "allowing for repair of retail-level food preparation equipment":

https://publicknowledge.org/public-knowledge-ifixit-free-the-mcflurry-win-copyright-office-dmca-exemption-for-ice-cream-machines/

While this covers all kinds of food prep gear, the exemption request – filed by Public Knowledge and Ifixit – was inspired by the bizarre war over the tragically fragile McFlurry machine. These machines – which extrude soft-serve frozen desserts – are notoriously failure-prone, with 5-16% of them broken at any given time. Taylor, the giant kitchen tech company that makes the machines, charges franchisees a fortune to repair them, producing a steady stream of profits for the company.

This sleazy business prompted some ice-cream hackers to found a startup called Kytch, a high-powered automation and diagnostic tool that was hugely popular with McDonald's franchisees (the gadget was partially designed by the legendary hardware hacker Andrew "bunnie" Huang!).

In response, Taylor played dirty, making a less-capable clone of the Kytch, trying to buy Kytch out, and teaming up with McDonald's corporate to bombard franchisees with legal scare-stories about the dangers of using a Kytch to keep their soft-serve flowing, thanks to DMCA 1201:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/20/euthanize-rentier-enablers/#cold-war

Kytch isn't the only beneficiary of the new exemption: all kinds of industrial kitchen equipment is covered. In upholding the Right to Repair, the Copyright Office overruled objections of some of its closest historical allies, the Entertainment Software Association, Motion Picture Association, and Recording Industry Association of America, who all sided with Taylor and McDonald's and opposed the exemption:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/10/us-copyright-office-frees-the-mcflurry-allowing-repair-of-ice-cream-machines/

This is literally the only useful kind of DMCA 1201 exemption the Copyright Office can grant, and the fact that they granted it (along with a similar exemption for medical devices) is a welcome bright spot. But make no mistake, the fact that we finally found a narrow way in which DMCA 1201 can be made slightly less stupid does not redeem this outrageous law. It should still be repealed and condemned to the scrapheap of history.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/28/mcbroken/#my-milkshake-brings-all-the-lawyers-to-the-yard

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

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fakeoutbf · 1 year ago

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i bought a treadmill during summer at the start of the year and now take daily walks no matter the weather and i'm feeling much healthier and better overall. so i can vouch for that option myself. hope you're doing ok

hi there <3

thanks so much for your experience! i think i am leaning more towards that bc ngl going to a gym sounds exhausting and doing it from the comfort of your own home sounds so much better. i just have to look for affordable options ajejrjeke

#at the start of the year i was also going on walks but i’d go outside with my dog and ngl it did feel great and helped me clear my head #but now it’s literally a health hazard to be outside more than strictly necessary #also we do have a treadmill but the engine doesn’t work well and it makes a ton of noise so maybe i can see about getting it fixed #or selling it and using that to get a new one altogether #we’ll see we’ll see #thank you for the ask and i hope you have a lovely week <3 #answered #anon

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ckret2 · 24 days ago

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The second dimension has burned, all its neighbors are burning, Bill's mutated Dimension Zero into some sort of non-euclidean horror land where he's setting up a ghoulish undead kingdom and pretending that he's fine, and every five minutes the Axolotl sees something new he's gonna have nightmares about for the next billion years.

Naturally, the gods of the multiverse have got to do something:

Make sure the non-euclidean horror land complies with local construction codes.

Here, have a fic.

This is part 4 of a series about the Axolotl—and various local gods—trying to figure out how to deal with the aftermath of what will one day be called the Euclidean Massacre. Here are parts one, two, and three.

####

As the Time Giant inspected Dimension Zero, she took a dizzying array of measurements and performed several tests on the unstable cosmic foam that seemingly made up the dimension. To the Axolotl's untrained eye, the tests looked more like alchemy than engineering. She even momentarily popped out to a point in her timeline when she was in her office to pick up some more specialized equipment.

Dimension Zero operated like an omnidirectional treadmill, the Axolotl discovered; if you flew far enough to the left, you ended up looping around to the right, far enough up and you ended up down, far enough forward and you ended up in the back. The distances were vast, certainly, but finite. Which meant that finding the "edge" of Dimension Zero to escape it was near impossible—it had no edges. The Axolotl was amazed at his luck in having successfully found an exit the last time he was in here. Locating the border of this impossible dimension was like navigating a four-dimensional labyrinth.

But apparently the Time Giant was very good at navigating labyrinths, because again and again she effortlessly located Dimension Zero's border. It was like a thin layer of incorporeal cellophane you could move straight through without leaving Dimension Zero; but if you looked at it just right, from just the right time and place, it became real, and you saw through it into the neighboring dimensions. She spent a long time grimly examining the burning first and second dimensions "above" Dimension Zero—and a long time inspecting the places where the neighboring dimensions had already been incinerated completely, and Dimension Zero bloated out toward the third dimensions like an overfilled trash bag.

And meanwhile, the "Magister Mentium," de facto ruler of this grotesque domain, decided that while he was waiting for news, the most magisterial thing he could do was returned to his party.

To the Axolotl's amazement, the triangle did actually seem to be dancing with his people. There was still some intelligence in some of the living and the dying-but-never-dead shapes.

Some of them��knew a dance that involve interlacing their fingers, right hands to right hands, and whirling together around their joined grip, then switching to lace their left hands together and twirl the other way; and the triangle couldn't be puppeting them—not all of them, not all the time—because sometimes his dance partners were the ones who got the steps right while he fumbled the timing. The Axolotl watched as he missed grabbing a line's hand because he'd somehow gotten slightly skewed into the third dimension and his hand went over hers instead; she teasingly jabbed him in the side with her point, and in retaliation he knocked into her with one of his lower corners and snapped her in half; with a wave of his hand she was repaired and bewildered. In his shock, the Axolotl hadn't seen it the last time he'd been here—but the triangle's eternal dance party was both the horror of a root system digging deep into rotting flesh, and the hope of a flower blooming from an unmarked grave. How many of the dancers were voluntarily dancing forever?

He didn't have an opportunity to find out. When the Time Giant had finished her inspection, she waved over the triangle again. (Not that she needed to; in spite of being back at the party, he'd also somehow remained at the Time Giant's elbow the whole time, watching what she did without blinking.) "All right, I've got the verdict on your dimension. Do you wanna start with the bad news, the worse news, or the ugly news?"

"Ease me into it," the triangle said. "So what's the matter with my dream realm?"

"The matter."

"That's what I'm asking."

"The matter's what's the matter with it."

"What?"

"Every reading I've taken indicates there's a dimension's worth of matter in here. The mass is here for it, all right. I'm picking it up no problem. I just can't find your matter." She gestured out at the infinite dance party, the swirling colors, the twinkling faraway lights, "Everything visible adds up to so little matter that I didn't even bring any tools sensitive enough to register it. It doesn't account for all the mass I'm measuring."

He surveyed the view warily. "So you're saying my place's mass is... what, invisible?"

"Invisible, stuck in pocket dimensions... Y'all said any rubble left over from Dimension 2 Delta would've fallen in here, right? You got it hidden away somewhere?"

His eye lit up. "Oh! Are you looking for this?" He pulled a tall black hat out from seemingly nowhere and reached his arm all the way down into it to pull out a speck of dust: radiating blinding light in every direction, but so dark that staring into it made the Axolotl feel like his eyes were being sucked out of his skull into a black hole. "This is 2Δ's matter."

"Is that all that's left?"

"The whole shebang!"

"Then nah, that's not it. If that had all the matter of a dimension, and it was that small. it'd be the nuke of nukes. The seed of a Big Bang. All it'd take is a dimension's worth of energy to thaw that turkey, and pfft! You've got a baby dimension on your hands." She gestured dismissively at the speck, "No way a mortal could handle an object like that without its gravity crushing you—never mind have the energy to move it."

The triangle stared down at his little pearl of matter. "Huh." It was an oddly intense stare for just a fleck of dust.

"If you don't know where all the hidden matter is, then ten to one odds, you've got a dark matter problem," the Time Giant said. "Nasty stuff. It'll exponentially speed up the heat death of your dimension. You'll have to get a specialist in here to see if there's anything you can do about that dark matter. You want referrals?"

He was silent for a moment, still not looking up; then he said, "No, no—I don't need them." He stuffed the speck back into his hat, tossed aside the party hat he'd been wearing, and put on the black one. "I'm a DIY kind of triangle! I'll figure out what dark matter is."

The Time Giant snorted. "Suit yourself. Problem two: this dimension's a singularity. A really big, spread out singularity, which by the definition of a singularity is impossible—"

"We like impossible around here!"

"Uh huh, I can tell. But it means things that should be separate things are crushed together into one thing—including the landscape and the mindscape. Dreams and reality are occurring on the same level of existence. There's no clear distinction between facts and fiction."

"Okay," he said. "So, is that a problem, or...?"

"For starters," she jerked a thumb toward the distant-and-yet-somehow-ever-present dance party, "it means that the dead and the living are on the same plane. Can't separate life from an afterlife here. And it means anything could happen just by imagining it too hard. Some traumatized vet gets war flashbacks? The war's actually happening again. Have a nightmare about your wife dying? Your wife's dead. If everyone stops thinking about a building for a moment, it could stop existing. Contracts are useless—what you think you remembered them saying becomes what they actually said."

"So, is that a problem, orrr...?"

She paused. "Shoot, it's your universe. If you're fine with it, whatever."

"I call it the dream realm for a reason!"

"Issue three's the ugly one: this dimension's completely unstable," the Time Giant said.

"Yeah, I know," the triangle sighed. "The electromagnetism..."

"The electromagnetism ain't the half of it. I mean it is really unstable. I don't know how it's lasted as long as it has. I can see half a dozen ways the dimension could completely collapse on itself in the next ten minutes."

"What! Where?!"

She pointed. "For one thing, a whole pillar of spacetime right there is about to implode and form a wormhole."

He zoomed over to the pillar, multiplying into a dozen copies to examine it from every angle. (He looked the same small size as always, but the Axolotl realized that with the distance the pillar was at, he must be lightyears across to be visible from here—either that, or somehow he hadn't gotten any further away. The triangle shouldn't even visible when the light from his position shouldn't reach them for thousands of years. A realm that operated on dream logic.)

While he inspected the unstable structure, the Time Giant said, "Nothing about the structure of this place is self-sustaining. It should've collapsed back into a singularity as soon as 2Δ fell in. I got no idea how it just keeps propping itself back up..."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm working on it," the triangle snapped.

The Time Giant paused. "What?"

"I'm working on it! I'd be working on it right now if you hadn't dragged me away from the party!" The nearest iteration of the triangle groaned, dragging his eyelid down with his hands. "I've been spending ages trying to keep this stupid leaky balloon inflated, and now look at this!" He gestured in exasperation at the pillar preparing to wormhole itself. "I have to start again! Do you know how many times I've tried to fold the... the dumb... the plane?" He tried to pantomime the act of folding something with his hands; as he did, apparently without noticing what he was doing, he folded himself up, like a triangular origami paper. "Fold it in a way that'll get it to stay put? And it just won't! It keeps flopping over! It's driving me nuts!"

"The 'plane'?"

He unfolded himself with a sharp snap. "You know what I'm talking about! The plane! The plane that everything's made out of! The..." Frustrated, the triangle grabbed a wad of existence itself and shook it in the Time Giant's and Axolotl's faces. "This stuff!"

"The fabric of reality?" the Time Giant asked, flummoxed. "You can detect the fabric of reality? You can interactwith it?"

"Is that what it is?" He flung it down in disgust. "Well, it won't stay put when I fold it!"

"Yeah, fabric tends not to do that."

"Right. Right." Grimly, the triangle said, "I need the starch of reality."

"Don't starch reality."

He flung up his hands in defeat. "Well, I've tried everything else!"

Softly, the Time Giant said, "Huh." As if she'd just figured out the answer to a question she hadn't even had a chance to ask.

On the other hand, the Axolotl just had more questions. He may not know very much about the fabric of reality, but... well, that was just the thing. He didn't know much about the fabric of reality. Sure, if he ran into a fraying timeline he could tie up the loose ends and snip off the damaged threads; he could summon up his pocket afterlife at any time, opening a liminal space into his tank from anywhere in the multiverse; but that was the most complex thing he could manage by himself. He certainly didn't know enough to do anything as complicated as keep an unstable dimension from imploding on itself.

But he did know that he didn't know nearly enough for it to be safe for him to even try... and he at least knew what the fabric of reality was. For someone even more ignorant than him to try it...

The Time Giant asked, "Didn'cha... say you're a mortal?"

"Yeah?" the triangle said defensively. He didn't even waste time looking at them; his full focus was back on the pillar, which was beginning to twist around itself. "Last I checked? And?"

She held up her hands. "S'fine. Nothing wrong with that."

Just before the pillar could fully transform into a wormhole, the triangle muttered irritably to himself and snapped his fingers. The pillar inverted like a flower bud turning inside-out. There was an infinitely vast creaking groan—but nevertheless, this immediately solved the pending wormhole issue. And also promptly caused four more things to go catastrophically wrong.

The triangle let out a strangled scream of frustration as half the firmament inverted colors and the stars glowed black. "No no no no no—!" He skidded across existence to the reversed sky, a thousand hands trying to twist the stars back on before the damage spread; another copy of him was knitting closed a rapidly unraveling corner of reality with his own arms as the thread; and the Axolotl wasn't sure what the other dozen shining yellow triangles he saw whizzing by were doing, but a ringing sound he hadn't previously noticed suddenly stopped.

Throughout Dimension Zero, there was a grinding, rumbling noise that filled all of existence. The Axolotl and Time Giant both flinched at a couple of great, splintering cracking noises, so deep that they were felt rather than heard. From every direction, the Axolotl could see soot and souls rain into the dimension. The Time Giant watched the grisly rain, jaw slack in amazement.

The Axolotl saw black hands catch the souls as they fell.

In a moment the triangle was back, looking a little worse for the wear: twitchy, dazed, eye dilated too wide, clearly even more distracted than he'd been a minute ago. He didn't look exhausted, per se—the Axolotl thought he should look exhausted—but it uncomfortably dawned on him that, if the triangle was powerful enough to knit the fabric of reality back together despite not even knowing what the fabric of reality was... maybe he was too powerful to get exhausted.

Where had a mortal gotten that power?

The triangle let out a heavy sigh. "Okay—"

And then a nearby star immediately collapsed into a black hole and started slurping down the raw fabric of reality rather than any of the regular matter hovering just outside its event horizon.

He froze a moment, eye squeezed shut in an expression of pure agony; and then he was zipping across the dimension again to fix one more crisis.

All this time, the Axolotl had thought the triangle was inebriated. He wasn't inebriated at all. It was pain. He had to be near delirious with pain, struggling to control everything without a moment's rest. Weaving back and forth and popping here and there across the dimension as he tweaked and fixed small crises before they became large ones, trying to convince himself that he was at a party as he danced frenziedly with his ever-dying people even as he simultaneously knit and taped and stapled existence back together with his own body. Every time they'd spoken to him, he'd been distracted. They were distracting him from keeping his entire reality from falling apart.

The Time Giant watched him zoom around with her thumbs hooked in her belt and a grin across her face. "Man. I wanna set you loose in an infinite hardware store and see what you do with it."

The triangle gave her an unamused, dead-eyed look. (And somewhere else, he was also picking up the black hole, eyeing it tiredly, and finally just punting it in a random direction. Existence rumbled again.) "Hey, if you know a hardware store that's got whatever it'll take to keep this place from falling to pieces, and you think you can babysit the dream realm until I'm back...

Her smile faded. "Don't think that's gonna work."

He was immediately on his guard. "Oh?"

"That's what I was trying to explain: it's not just your dimension that's unstable; it's destabilizing all the dimensions around it, too."

He flung up his hands exasperatedly. Pale blue flames ignited around his hands. "Yeah, I know!" He hastily shook out the flames on his fingers as he said, "Tell the neighbors to keep their stupid pants on, I'm working on getting this place stable—" (The Axolotl stared at his hands long after the flames were gone.)

"No, you don't get it," she said. "Trying to stabilize it is what's destabilizing the other dimensions."

He paused. "What are you talking about."

"This 'dream realm' is supposed to be a singularity in an empty void at the bottom of everything. The dimensions above are designed to support the higher dimensions weighing down on them without collapsing. They're not structured to take pressure pushing up on them from below." The Time Giant gestured around at Dimension Zero, "And that's what we've got now! Your renovations have filled up the void. That's where that grinding when you 'move' is coming from: every time you try to prop up this dimension, it crashes against all the neighbors—and they push back and destabilize you again. Just based on what little I saw when I was checking the place out, the other second dimensions must be taking heavy damage. We're talking planes fracturing apart, physics destabilizing, wormholes, temperature fluctuations from absolute zero to near Big Bang-level heat—"

"And fires," the Axolotl said in realization, remembering the ashes he'd seen raining into Dimension Zero when the triangle had fixed the wormhole. "The dimensions that were around 2Δ are burning. Nobody could figure out why we couldn't get them under control. It was you."

All of Dimension Zero fell several degrees colder.

The music faltered. The distant dancers that could stop did, shaken out of their trances to look around for their magister. For a moment, the Axolotl could hear the dimension's hissing background radiation almost clearly enough to understand what it was saying—whispers, they were whispers, the Axolotl hadn't been imagining that they sounded like voices. They really were.

He thought he could hear screams in the whispers.

The triangle stared at them, eye wide and empty.

The Time Giant gave him a moment. "You good?"

"No, I— Yes, of course I'm good! I'm great!" He squeezed his eye shut and rubbed it harshly between his thumb and forefinger. He did not look great. "I'm not destroying any dimensions, that's insane! You're insane!" His voice was rising toward a shriek. "Nothing's on fire! I don't know what you're talking about! How would you know?! I heard you out there early, the rest of you are—what, what are you doing, arguing about whose district the ashes are in?! Trying to shift the blame to each other instead of doing anything? And meanwhile I've been here all this time! I'm the only one fixing anything! I'm the one who's been liberating my people from their stupid flat little dimensions before the apocalypse can reach them, so—what do you know about anything here!"

"'Liberating'?" the Time Giant said. "What in the multiverse are you talking about?" The Axolotl's stomach sank.

"You think I can't see out of this place?" He drew them closer and closer as Dimension Zero moved around them and grew larger and larger as he spoke, forcing them to look up at him. "You think I haven't noticed my people out there dying while you big shot so-called 'gods' stand around and watch?! I can see through all their eyes! I see everything! I feel it when they die! I've been the only one saving them!"

As clear as if it were real, the Axolotl saw his memory of Dimension 2 Epsilon burning. (The Time Giant sucked in a breath—the way the mindscape worked here, could she see his memory too? Could the triangle?) The shapes spontaneously combusting and plummeting into Dimension Zero. Reality seeming to twist around them, grasp them, crush them. He saw a frightened green triangle—except for the color, a triangle so like the Magister Mentium as he'd been on the day he met the "eclipse," young and small and terrified of the cosmic forces around him—crushed and burned in the folds of the fabric of reality. Only the shapes were taken—none of the creatures around them. The triangle's people. "You're not saving anyone! You're the one killing them!"

The triangle blazed red in rage.

Everything ignited. Searing, white-hot pain. The fire was on the Axolotl's skin, in his eyes, in his gills, inside his body. He felt the voices in the cosmic radiation screaming.

Everything unignited. The Axolotl was unharmed. (Was it a hallucination? A dream? Had it been too brief to leave damage?)

The Time Giant was holding the Axolotl in front of her chest like a big plushie shield.

The triangle was small and black and still. White light traced his edges like the halo around a black hole. He didn't say anything.

He was staring at the Axolotl's memory. And the Axolotl could see the triangle's memory: from above, the plane of Dimension 2 Epsilon melted and folded around a small frightened green triangle, crushing and burning it within the fabric of reality; from below the plane, a trembling black hand reached up, stretching into the fabric of 2Ε like it was a glove, trying so hard, so carefully to catch and cradle the other triangle before it fell, confused when the fingers opened and once again all that was left in the palm was ashes.

Both memories burned up and vanished.

The Axolotl shook himself free of the Time Giant's grip and cautiously swam closer to the triangle. "Magister...?"

The universe quietly moved, carrying the Axolotl and the Time Giant away and rotating around the triangle so they were placed behind him. Okay, fine. He'd wait.

When the triangle finally spoke again, his voice was hoarse and flat. "I can't just stop fixing the dream realm. It'll collapse on us." He turned slowly to face the Time Giant. His color was starting to come back. "You've got some kind of... divine home renovation crew that can repair everything?"

She shook her head. "Sorry. I still had some hope for this place when I thought it was banging against the neighbors when it was collapsing. But if fixing it is what's breaking everything... There's nothing we can do."

"Some god," the triangle muttered ruefully. "So... what are we supposed to do."

"Honestly? This void was never built to support a dimension. Best idea is to leave and set up your dancing hippie colony somewhere else," the Time Giant said. "The third dimension next to where 2Δ used to be is swarming with refugee services; if I were you, I'd talk to the guy with the planets to set you up somewhere until you can move into another dimension."

That snapped him out of his funk. "Are you kidding? I'd rather keep fixing this place for an eternity! We sacrificed everything to reach our paradise. We're not about to ditch it now!"

The Time Giant took in the wretched floating dance party huddled together in a lonely, landless, kaleidoscopic void, and silently mouthed, paradise. She shook her head and moved on. "Well, you can't keep this place even if you wanna. It's impossible to get this place up to cosmic construction code."

"Who cares about the code!" He zipped up to her face, hands outstretched to her beseechingly. "Can't you let it slide? I am willing to bribe you. Just tell me what it'll take!"

"Buddy." Her voice took on a steely edge. "The cosmic construction code defines how every dimension in the multiverse has to be built. It exists because any dimension that doesn't meet the code could destroy all of existence." (His eye widened.) "Your 'paradise' doesn't fit in the crawlspace beneath dimensions. One of two things will happen: eventually, you fail to stabilize it, it collapses in on itself, and everyone in here ceases to exist... or, you do stabilize it, and it destabilizes every dimension built above it, and the entire multiverse collapses in on itself—including your 'dream realm.' You like either of those options?"

The triangle's hands drooped helplessly. "I... But th... After all w... I can't..."

He fell silent. His light sank back toward black.

This triangle had made himself the leader of these people, he couldn't abandon them now. The Axolotl wasn't about to watch him lose himself in despair.

"Would you let your people die like that?" He circled behind the triangle, forcing him to turn to face the Axolotl—and face his people at the same time. "You said you liberated them." As misguided as he had been—and even if few of them, maybe none of them, were actually his people—it had to be an act of love, didn't it? He had to care about them, didn't he? "After everything you did to save them, do you want to lose them now?"

The triangle glanced at the shapes, and quickly looked away. "I..."

"Look at them," the Axolotl commanded.

He looked at them.

Slowly, he floated over his eternal dance party. To the Axolotl's surprise, several of the clear-headed ones who had stopped dancing—the haggard, the ever-bleeding, the newer arrivals that were ever-burning—stretched their hands up toward him.

The triangle flinched, ever so slightly—just a twitch in his hands—and then he reached down to them in return. The line that the Axolotl had seen dancing with the triangle earlier brushed his fingertips; he stopped to squeeze her hand as he passed.

The Axolotl could see the guilt radiating out of the triangle.

He didn't know how he knew it was guilt. He didn't even know how he could see it—it had no color, no shape. Nevertheless, he saw it. The guilt spread out like ink in water, poisoning Dimension Zero, clinging to every surface. The Axolotl's skin was unusually sensitive to toxins; the guilt made him queasy.

One of the shapes asked the triangle something; the Axolotl couldn't hear the question, just the triangle's quiet answer: "Nah, don't worry about those losers. A few higher-dimensional beings got mad we liberated ourselves. They hate to see the second dimension winning. It's fine, I can kick their bases if they try to make any trouble."

(The Time Giant snorted. The Axolotl wasn't sure it was an empty threat.)

"Now why isn't everyone dancing! C'mon, chop chop, this is a celebration! I wanna see everyone shaking their sides! Talking to you, Graham!" The triangle raised a hand, threateningly preparing to snap his fingers; before he had to, all the shapes were dancing again, as enthusiastically/fearfully as ever.

He watched his people for a moment longer.

And then turned to the Time Giant and the Axolotl. "Okay," he said. "I'll talk to the guy with the planets."

####

(Thanks for reading!! If the art lured you in and this is the first chapter you read, this is part 4 of a 7-or-8 part fic that keeps getting more parts, about the Axolotl in the immediate aftermath of the Euclidean Massacre. I'll be posting one chapter a week, Fridays 5pm CST, so stick around if you wanna watch the Axolotl slowly discover just how much of a monster that silly triangle he likes really is.

It's ALSO chapter 61 Part Four of an ongoing post-canon post-TBOB very-reluctantly-human Bill fic. So if you wanna read more of me writing Bill, check it out. If you're not sold on the idea of a human Bill fic, I've also got a one-shot about normal triangle Bill escaping the Theraprism if you wanna read that.

If this is NOT your first time here and you already knew all of the above: the great thing about this plot is that almost every chapter has a new terrible reveal about what Bill's up to! Looking forward to hearing y'all's thoughts on this latest bunch of revelations. Depending on how I split things up, next week might be another more low-key chapter to set up further horrors.

Nobody asked but the line Bill was dancing with is named Lynn Segment, and the Graham he spoke to is a quadrilateral with two older siblings: Perry, Lilo, & Graham. What's the point of making geometric shape characters if you aren't giving them pun names.)

#gravity falls axolotl #bill cipher #euclydia #(or what's left of it)#gravity falls #gravity falls fic #gravity falls fanart #fanart #my art #my writing #bill goldilocks cipher

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artbyblastweave · 5 months ago

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So with superhero origins, what's basically always been the case is that the writers exploit whichever area of cutting-edge science is currently in the zeitgeist, banking heavily that the audience will be unlikely to understand the actual effective limits of the science under discussion. In the pulp era many of the protocapes are getting whatever "power" they have from souped-up training regimens, healthy living, "Eastern Wisdom," whatever. In the thirties and forties it trends chemical- they're taking "miracle pills" or inhaling weird vapors or whatever, its steroids, they're on steroids, or possibly meth. In the sixties, in the atomic age, its particles, its radiation, its rays. Eventually, you know, it's pretty well understood that radiation can't do that either, so they migrate over to genetic engineering, cybernetics, nanobots. Every cape and their brother was some kind of cyborg or lab experiment in the 90s. These days it's quantum this, string-theory that, dimensional wonkery, cats in boxes. In 20 or 30 years we'll have a better sense of what all of that actually means in practice (likely not much) and then it'll be something else.

I've observed that Dr. Strange and other magical characters are actually basically immune to this treadmill, because they're magic- that's already post-modern and fluid and squishy and immune to the expectation of real-world scientific rigor. They're vulnerable to changing cultural perceptions of magic, the Strange of the 60s isn't interchangeable with the Strange from the 2010s, but it's not as drastic a shift. From the other direction Green Lantern is also kind of resistant to the treadmill because the lantern tech is, and always has been, ludicrously advanced and totally divorced from any real-world techno-logic- It's Clarke's third law shit. Flash was forcibly made immune to the treadmill through the introduction of The Speed Force into the mythos- it's not a chemical accident, it's a higher fundamental power, it's just how this universe is metaphysically structured, now stop asking questions.

In due time I suspect that all superheroic origins will converge on one of these. Unfalsifiable magic, unfalsifiable alien toys, unfalsifiable higher unifying forces. Or else they'll fall into the gaping maw of the secret fourth thing that lurks beneath and intersects with all three of these- that you got powers instead of radiation poisoning from that accident because we're in a story, the thing happened instead of not happening because it was more interesting, because "narrative" is a force as real, if not realer, than gravity. Of course it goes without saying that you need to be really, really good at writing to pull off the secret fourth thing. Start fucking around with the secret fourth thing and the result is either going to be genuinely transcendent metafiction or something so self-absorbed and tautological that it disappears up its own ass.

#thoughts #meta #worm dances on the knives edge of the secret fourth thing #superheroes

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i-was-today-years-old-when · 1 year ago

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i learned that Treadmills Were Originally Created as a Form of Torture

The treadmill was invented as a rehabilitation device by a British man named William Cubitt in 1818. It was originally designed as a way to make prisoners more productive by milling corn, and pumping water at the same time. However it became a popular “atonement” device for lower level criminals.

It was a lot like the sport of log-rolling, only instead of falling safely into the water, participants would end up falling onto the hard ground below, and run the risk of becoming gravely injured.

Cubitt created several different versions of the treadmill. The most popular one was originally located at Brixton Prison in London and consisted of a wide wheel that prisoners had to run on. It could hold 24 prisoners. Most included partitions to prevent the prisoners from socializing.

The treadmill proved to be so popular that half of all prisons had them by 1842. Those unlucky enough to receive this punishment often did so for up to ten hours per day. One of the most famous people to endure it was Oscar Wilde, during his imprisonment for gross indecency.

The popularity of the treadmill, however declined. The British started to emphasize education as a means to rehabilitate their prisoners. Many argued that the treadmill was a dangerous practice that led to an unusually high death rate of prisoners. By 1898, they were outlawed.

Designs for a new type of treadmill designed for exercise emerged in 1913 when American inventor CL Hagen was issued a patent for a “training-machine.”

Later on, an American engineer named William Staub would create the modern form of the treadmill, called the Pacemaster 600.

Today, treadmills are one of the most popular types of exercise equipment in the world, though I’m pretty sure they are still considered to be a type of torture for some.

#today i learned #facts #truth #history #treadmill

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nasa · 1 year ago

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For the Benefit of All: Assistive Tech Developed from NASA Tech

What do modern cochlear implants and robotic gloves have in common? They were derived from NASA technology. We’ve made it easier to find and use our patented inventions that could help create products that enhance life for people with disabilities.

October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month, which highlights the contributions of American workers with disabilities – many of whom use assistive technology on the job. Take a look at these assistive technologies that are NASA spinoffs.

Low-Vision Headsets

The Joint Optical Reflective Display (JORDY) device is a headset that uses NASA image processing and head-mounted display technology to enable people with low vision to read and write. JORDY enhances individuals’ remaining sight by magnifying objects up to 50 times and allowing them to change contrast, brightness, and display modes. JORDY's name was inspired by Geordi La Forge, a blind character from “Star Trek: The Next Generation�� whose futuristic visor enabled him to see.

Cochlear Implants

Work that led to the modern cochlear implant was patented by a NASA engineer in the 1970s. Following three failed corrective surgeries, Adam Kissiah combined his NASA electronics know-how with research in the Kennedy Space Center technical library to build his own solution for people with severe-to-profound hearing loss who receive little or no benefit from hearing aids. Several companies now make the devices, which have been implanted in hundreds of thousands of people around the world.

Robotic Gloves

Ironhand, from Swedish company Bioservo Technologies, is the world’s first industrial-strength robotic glove for factory workers and others who perform repetitive manual tasks. It helps prevent stress injuries but has been especially warmly received by workers with preexisting hand injuries and conditions. The glove is based on a suite of patents for the technology developed by NASA and General Motors to build the hands of the Robonaut 2 humanoid robotic astronaut.

Smart Glasses

Neurofeedback technology NASA originally developed to improve pilots’ attention has been the basis for products aimed at helping people manage attention disorders without medication. The devices measure brainwave output to gauge attention levels according to the “engagement index” a NASA engineer created. Then, they show the results to users, helping them learn to voluntarily control their degree of concentration. One such device is a pair of smart glasses from Narbis, whose lenses darken as attention wanes.

Anti-Gravity Treadmills

A NASA scientist who developed ways to use air pressure to simulate gravity for astronauts exercising in space had the idea to apply the concept for the opposite effect on Earth. After licensing his technology, Alter-G Inc. developed its anti-gravity G-Trainer treadmill, which lets users offload some or all of their weight while exercising. The treadmills can help people recover from athletic or brain injuries, and they allow a safe exercise regimen for others with long-term conditions such as arthritis.

Wireless Muscle Sensors

Some of the most exciting assistive technologies to spin off may be yet to come. Delsys Inc. developed electromyographic technology to help NASA understand the effects of long-term weightlessness on astronauts’ muscles and movements. Electromyography detects and analyzes electrical signals emitted when motor nerves trigger movement. Among the company’s customers are physical therapists developing exercise routines to help patients recover from injuries. But some researchers are using the technology to attempt recoveries that once seemed impossible, such as helping paralyzed patients regain movement, letting laryngectomy patients speak, and outfitting amputees with artificial limbs that work like the real thing.

To further enhance the lives of people with disabilities, NASA has identified a selection of patented technologies created for space missions that could spur the next generation of assistive technology here on Earth.

Want to learn more about assistive technologies already in action? Check out NASA Spinoff to find products and services that wouldn’t exist without space exploration.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

#NASA #space #tech #technology #spinoff #robotics #physical therapy #disability #disabled #accessibility #a11y #inventions

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lena-in-a-red-dress · 7 months ago

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Blue and Fire Engine Red, Pt 2

Kara shuts the door of her car shut behind her, and smoothes her sweating palms down the front of her jeans. She should have stayed in uniform, she thinks. She’s no longer on shift, but she always feels more confident with a badge pinned to her chest. As it is, wearing jeans and a tee shirt, she feels exposed, as though anyone looking at her would be able to see just how fast her heart is racing.

But she’s come this far-- she can see this through. Exhaling deeply, Kara starts the short walk up the drive to the firehouse’s open bay doors. As she crosses the threshold sounds of activity fills her ears. She glimpses firefighters rolling hoses and mounting them on the engine, and others are buffing the chrome bumper of the ambulance. She catches the eye of one, she thinks she recognizes him from multiple calls– Brainy, she’s heard the others call him. He brightens at the sight of her, and to her horror comes trotting over to greet her.

“You are approximately 32 minutes late, Sergeant Danvers,” he says precisely. He clasps his hands behind his back.

“I–I’m sorry?” Kara asks. She hadn’t told anyone she was coming, let alone what time she planned to show up.

“Since I glimpsed you conversing with Lieutenant Reilly, I anticipated you would seek her out. Seeing as your shift ended one hour ago, and the precinct is 30 minutes from the firehouse, you are, by my calculations, late.”

Kara blinks. “There was traffic on the freeway… how did you–?”

“The lieutenant can be found in the gym,” Brainy clips, extending an arm towards the far corner of the engine bay. There, Kara glimpses a glass paneled wall and the outline of a pull-down machine.

“Thank you,” Kara issues numbly.

“You are most welcome.” Brainy then turns and returns to the ambulance and his chores. By now Kara’s thundering heart has climbed to her throat, but it;s too late to back out now that she’s been seen.

Kara wipes her palms again, nodding to herself. “You can do this,” she murmurs. “Look sharp, Danvers.”

Kara follows the hum treadmills and the clink of weights to the back right corner, where a glass paneled room sat under the spiraling staircase up to the second floor. There she stops, mesmerized by a dark swinging ponytail. Lena.

Lena running.

Lena running in a tank top and spandex shorts. Muscled arms swing in rhythm with her bobbing head, and Kara can glimpse round earbuds nestled in her ears.

She almost turns away, if only to keep from getting caught ogling. But a sweaty towel smacks Lena in the side of the head, pulling her attention to the young woman smirking off to Kara’s left. Nia, is it?

“Got a visitor, LT!”

Lena’s head swivels towards Kara without breaking stride. Her sweaty features brighten at the sight of her.

“Sergeant Danvers!” she chirps. She hops onto the strats of the treadmill, taking a moment to tap the machine off before stepping down entirely. She uses Nia’s towel to wipe her glistening face and neck, her breath huffing lightly. Kara’s mouth goes dry. “I was beginning to think you weren’t coming.”

Kara blinks, giving herself a little shake to re-orientate herself. Then she gives as easy a grin as she can manage. “And give up a free autograph? Not on your life.”

A smirk crosses Lena’s features as Nia steps up to stand at her shoulder. “Autograph?”

Kara plucks her calendar from her bag, giving it a playful flourish. Nia’s brow furrows, then lifts in delight.

“Oh my god! Miss March has a fan?!”

Lena turns towards her coworker with a roll of her eyes. “Nal…”

“Yeah?”

“Give us a minute, will you?”

“But–!”

“Nia.”

Nia sighs. “Fiiiiine…” She grabs her water and phone from beside the weight bench, and all but prances out with a smug, knowing smile in Kara’s direction. “Nice seeing you, Sergeant.”

They wait until Nia slips out, leaning them together with nothing but charged air between them. Kara gazes at Lena, who gives a soft smile in return. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Lena smiles back. Her cheeks are flushed, and Kara feels a glimmer of satisfaction at the thought it might not be entirely from exertion.

“So…” she says. “I have a place or two in mind for that drink. Someplace… friendly.”

Lena gives a slow nod. “I like friendly.”

“Someplace where we could get some privacy.”

Another nod, this time accompanied by a deliberate step forward. “Privacy is good.”

“And, ahhh… one of them just so happens to be walking distance from my place.”

Dark eyebrows lift in surprise, and suddenly Kara finds herself awkwardly trying to reel herself back.

“I mean, you know, in case we can’t drive after. I didn’t mean to imply– not that I expected… um, that.”

Pressing her lips together, Lena waits for Kara to talk herself out. It serves to jolt Kara back into herself; she chuckles. “You going to cut me a break here or what?”

“Oh, no, not at all,” Lena returns, grinning. “I’m curious to see how far we’re not going to go on this date.”

Kara laughs. “Okay, okay. Look– what I mean is that I don’t expect anything more than a drink to get to know you better. That’s all.”

With a slow nod, Lena saunters even closer. “Message received,” she murmurs smoothly. “That said…”

She leans in close, until Kara can smell the tantalizing tang of sweat and the subtle fragrance of Lena’s shampoo. Her heart pounds so hard there’s no way Lena can’t hear it.

“If any of that,” Lena continues, “were to follow… I wouldn’t be averse to it.”

Unable to help her answering grin, Kara cocks her head. “Well, before we even get to that, we do have one order of business to get to first.”

She flips the calendar tauntingly between them, even going so far as to let the thing tap against Lena’s chest when she waggles it playfully. Lena glances down sharply, clearly having forgotten the “true” purpose of Kara’s visit. She throws her head back and laughs a full belly laugh that turns Kara’s insides to jello.

“Guess I’ll have to rustle up something to sign that with–”

A marker flies out of nowhere, bouncing off of Lena’s chest. She fumbles to catch it, and Kara lunges for it on reflex. Their heads crack together audibly, and they both stagger apart, cursing.

“Jesus fuck–!”

“Godammit!”

Nia’s voice calls cheerily from outside. “You’re welcome!”

Kara locks eyes with Lena, who grimaces at her.

“You said something about privacy?”

#supercorp #blue and fire engine red #oh kara-- don't ever change #awkward yet also sexy?#y'all know its true #Lena is *delighted*

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swaps55 · 3 months ago

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In response to the question, "How does your character deal with an itch found in a place they can’t quite reach?" from The Big Place discord server.

“Boss, what the hell are you doing?”

Shepard looks up halfway through an awkward squat against the front rail of the treadmill, face contorted in a grimace that Kara has to stuff a fist in her mouth to keep from laughing at.

“Itch,” he replies, grimacing even harder and twisting his spine to get a different angle.

“So you’re trying to scratch it with a smooth pole.”

“I can’t reach it,” he grumps.

She tilts her head, tapping a finger on her chin. “What if we stuck one of those scrubby things they use to clean the converter thingamajig? You know, the thing with the spiky bits that are pokey but not too pokey?”

“You’re an engineer, right? You know what the thingamajig is, right?”

“I’m an explosives engineer.” She mimics an explosion with her fingers.

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

“Do you want me to get the scrubby thing or not?”

“Yes, get the scrubby thing. I’m dying.”

Ten minutes later she’s retaping the scrubby thing to the pole, using a stronger adhesive this time so it doesn’t fall off the moment he starts going to town on it, when Alenko walks in, towel thrown over his shoulder. He come to an abrupt halt at sight of the two of them crouched in front of the treadmill.

“Put it up a little higher.”

“What, can’t squat that low?”

“Of course I can squat that low, doesn’t mean I want to.”

“I thought pain let you know you weren’t dead yet.”

“What the hell are you doing?” Alenko asks.

“He has an itch,” Kara replies.

Alenko stares at Kara. Stares at Shepard. Then exhales wearily and holds out a hand to pull Shepard to his feet. Without a word, he whirls him around and starts raking his fingernails up and down Shepard’s spine.

“Fuck,” Shepard sighs, shoulders slumping in relief. He wiggles his back around to move Alenko’s fingers to the right spot, groaning like something out of a porno.

When the itch is finally sated, Alenko resumes his course towards the training mat and starts his warm ups. Both Shepard and Kara watch him, pensively.

“Why didn’t we think of that?” Kara asks.

“I mean, a custom back scratcher is still a good idea.”

“Right? Oooooooh. Hang on. I have an idea.”

“You thinking Stabby?”

“Definitely. I’ll go get ‘im.”

#mass effect #mshenko #kaidan alenko #otp: after all this time #my fic #opus!verse #'shoot it again sam' shepard #kara pendergrass

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pumpkin-cake · 3 months ago

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Hi! After your very cute Five x reader oneshot, would you be interested in a crossover between Saw and TUA?

Like maybe the reader or Five survived a saw trap, so it would be a combination of fluff and angst. Maybe flashback nightmares as well. Whether they both survived one (together or seperate) or just one is up to you. It could also make use of the Five-only-has-one-arm plotline that got abandoned.

Keep up the good work!

so i'm in love with saw, and i'm in love with tua. i'm usually afraid to write crossovers because of how complicated they can get but i'm actually really excited to combine these two. thank you sm for the request! i also came up with my own trap for this :) i hope you like it!

warnings: blood and a bit of gore, maybe some disturbing imagery

You woke up in a dark room. Your hands were chained to something, you couldn't make out what it was. Your feet were bare, standing upon some sort of rubber material. You stayed calm, The Commission had trained you to always keep calm and stay on guard.

The lights in the room flashed on, violating your retinas. You could see an old CRT TV, and it flickered to life revealing some dirty and raggedy puppet with a white face and blood red spirals on his cheeks.

"Hello (Y/n). I want to play a game." The puppet's mouth opened as it seemed to speak. "You're wondering why you're here, but I believe the answer is quite simple. You are the type of person who doesn't value human life. Killing mercilessly all for the prospect of wealth. You don't bother to question who you kill or even why, unlike your partner, who unfortunately managed to escape my grasp. Your strange ability won't be enough to get you away from me, however. Right now, you are chained to a treadmill that I engineered to only run on the highest setting: twenty miles per hour. Instead of running from your mistakes, you will face them and be taught how valuable life truly is. You will run at this speed for an hour, and if you fail, you will fall into the meat grinder behind you. If you do manage to escape, you will bleed out. Live or die. Make your choice."

Your eyes widened, and the calmness you felt quickly dissipated. You looked behind you and the huge machine began to whirl, blades eagerly awaiting you. Your first thought was to get off. The chains were long enough, so if you did fail you would fall into the machine rather than be stuck on the treadmill. The spikes surrounding the machine were rather discouraging though. You'd only be able to avoid them if you could jump, but the chains were solving that problem.

Before you could think and rationalize further, the treadmill was starting up. You quickly began to run, and was very glad your stamina was better than the average human. As you ran, you tried to think. You tugged at the chains to get a better look. No lock or keyhole. They must be automatic. This guy said he was an engineer; it wouldn't be surprising if he manufactured these cuffs too. They covered your whole hands. There wasn't any way to break your wrists to get out.

You were stuck. There were spikes on the edges of the treadmill too, ensuring you didn't try to wait out the timer. An hour, could you manage that?

You broke a sweat five minutes in. The room was hot, way hotter than average. You grit your teeth. Another factor to the test. All you could do was listen. If you jumped on the edge spikes now, you might bleed out or faint. You had to make it through.

You had been doing good, really good. You looked to the timer. Your clothes were drenched in sweat, your legs ached, you felt dizzy. You could hardly read the timer. You squinted. Ten more minutes. Just ten more. You would be free if this bastard kept his word.

Then, you tripped.

The chains clunked together as you lost your footing, as you fell backwards so fast you couldn't pull your legs up fast enough. The grinder dug and tore into your feet, blood gushing as it threatened to pull you in.

Your scream filled the room, and through sheer determination you grasped the chains and yanked yourself up again. You didn't even look at your feet, searing pain coursing through your body. You couldn't keep running. The puppet's words echoed through your head.

Live or die. Make your choice.

You grasped onto the chains again and with a scream you managed to pull yourself onto the spiked edges. The spikes shot through the mangled messes of your feet, and tears streamed down your face as you shrieked in pure agony. You yanked and pulled at the chains desperately, feeling the spikes violating your insides.

Then, the chains unlocked.

The whirring of the grinder stopped.

The treadmill came to a stop.

You collapsed onto the treadmill. Quickly you pulled your raw hands from the restraints and pulled off your shirt as fast as you could, ripping it half with the bit of strength you had. You wrapped the pieces of fabric around each leg to make tourniquets around them. The TV turned on again, but you couldn't hear it over your own cries and sobs of agony. Your feet were completely mangled, blood coating the whole treadmill. Was that bone in there?

Then?

It stopped.

You shot up in bed, a hand on your shoulder. You didn't even realize you were screaming until you choked on one of your own cries. Ignoring the man next to you, you threw the blankets off you and looked at the stubs at the end of your legs. Your cries worsened, remembering that had all been real before.

"Darling, breathe, I need you to breathe." Five said from next to you, also sweaty. He grabbed the blanket and adjusted it around your shoulders and held your face. "You are not back there. You're safe, okay?"

You somehow managed to meet his eyes, even if yours were cloudy with the fat tears streaming down your face. His face was calm, and he stared at you with a firmness. He believed in you.

"You can do this. You're in bed with me. That twisted asshole is not here." He said, and even if he was so angry at the man who made you this way, he stayed calm and collected.

Five remembered when he found you. He had worked tirelessly with the CIA, FBI, and his siblings to find you. He had jumped ahead of the investigation when they had any clue as to your location, ignoring warnings to wait. He had barged in, and when he saw you laying pale on that treadmill with no feet, he swore his heart stopped beating.

He knew your mental state would be delicate, and that was stressful. Five wasn't great with emotions. You'd break down frequently, and he felt helpless. What was he supposed to do? It usually ended with him hugging you close, kissing your wrists where they'd been chained or gently rubbing the stubs at the end of your legs.

Five was the most supportive he could be, helping you around with your new prosthetic feet. Or flat out carrying you if you didn't feel like wearing them as you got used to them. Now you could walk without them even so, but he still liked to carry you up and down the stairs.

You looked into Five's eyes, sweaty and tearful. He kept his hands on the sides of your face, and you shakily reached up to hold his hands.

Five had a quick flashback of when your bloody hands met after you'd regained conscious. He hadn't left your side in the hospital, threatening to murder the hospital staff if they dared to keep you from him. That's how he was scrubbed up and in the operating room, not letting your hand go for even a second.

He sat with you in the bed, whispering sweet nothings while you cried. It pained him so bad to see you in such an awful state, he couldn't hide the expression on his face. That's why he pulled you into his chest so you wouldn't see. His stomach felt like it was shriveling up and dying while you wept profusely into his striped nightshirt.

He wasn't sure how long it was before you stopped crying and pulled away from his chest.

"I'm thirsty." You mumbled hoarsely.

He nodded, pressing a soft kiss to your wet cheek. "Okay." He said simply, pulling the covers off and going to your side of the bed. "C'mon, up." He spoke. You held your arms out and he lifted you from the bed, taking you to the kitchen with the utmost care. He set you on the counter by the fridge, used to this routine. He took your hand and kept it in his while he reached for a cup, even if he had to strain.

While the two of you were still getting used to this set of nightly events, he had let go of your hand and you had immediately began freaking out, begging him to keep touching you. Safe to say he would never let go again, so that's why he gave your shaky hand three squeezes. I love you.

Three squeezes back. I love you.

Five put some ice in the cup and filled it halfway with water. You'd most likely spill it if it were filled up all the way. He helped you drink it, just quietly supporting you.

"Thanks." You whispered, and he smiled.

"You're welcome. Are you ready to go back to bed?"

You hesitated, and he chuckled gently. "Alright, let's read for a bit." He carried you back to the bedroom and clicked on the warm lamp on his table. He grabbed the book sitting there, Fahrenheit 451 written by Ray Bradbury.

“We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real?”

As he read, your eyes slowly began to close. You were asleep in his lap within a matter of minutes. He placed a bookmark between the worn pages and put it back. He clicked the lamp off.

"Just like that...told you that you could do it." He whispered with relief, glad to see your peaceful face again.

#gn!reader #x reader #sawposting #the umbrella academy #umbrella academy #five hargreeves x reader #five hargreeves #crossover #hurt/comfort

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watarfallar · 1 month ago

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I'm on a roll with these!

Impulse: I wouldn’t wish that upon my worse enemy! Impulse: Unless of course. . We’re talking about my enemy, Gem. Fuck you Gem, you know what you did!

Joel: I just found out from Grian today that when Pearl died and the service did the 21-gun salute at their funeral, Gem said, “They should aim at the coffin to be sure.”

Jimmy: If I had a face like yours, I'd put it on a wall and throw a brick at it. Scar: If I had a face like YOURS, I'd put it on a brick and throw a wall at it.

Gem: You ever get so tired that you start seeing spiders? Etho: Me after I take 17 Benadryl and start seeing the hat man. Gem: THE WHO? Etho: Oh is this not a safe space suddenly?

Jimmy: Cause your pretty and your smart, and your ignoring me so your obviously my type. Tango, who was distracted: I'm sorry- what were you saying? Jimmy: Perfect.

Tango: Self care is stuff like taking a bubble bath or putting on a lot of make up if you like that, or taking a nice warm nap and stuff like that basically. Ren: Self care is the burning heat when rage washes over you. self care is when you feel the bones crack under your powerful fists. self care is the fear in your enemies eyes. Gem: Self care is stealing someones birthday cake just to eat the frosting. Ren: If you touch my birthday cake I’ll make you eat your hands.

Scar: You know what bothers me? Bats. Why can bats fly? Martyn: Not again! Scar: No. Seriously, who gave them the right? They're mammals! Mammals walk on land, no exceptions. Pearl: Just wait until you hear about whales. Scar: What now?

Martyn, texting Jimmy: Please don't text me for the next hour, I'm going to be on the treadmill. Jimmy: I wasn't planning on texting you. Martyn: What did I just say?

Cleo: When will Ted himself...finally show up to the talk? Impulse: The final boss. Scott: You guys know TEDtalks stands for technology, entertainment, and design talks, right? Cleo: I will not let Ted hide behind these lies any longer

Tango: According to the footage here, you shook the vending machine and when the shake alarm went off, you punched the glass and broke it. Gem: …I was hungry.

Pearl: BigB, get that hidious thing out of the living room, would you? BigB: Tango, Pearl wants you to get out of the house.

Scar: I wanna be a knight! Scott, a knight: What the fuck do you want this shit for? I kill people, all right? Their blood is on my hands! Every night, when I go to sleep, I see their FUCKING faces staring at me! Their families weep, and I FEEL NOTHING! I’M DEAD INSIDE! Scar: Man, I want some of that in my life!

Lizzie: When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! I don't want your damn lemons, what the hell am I supposed to do with these? Demand to see life's manager! Make life rue the day it thought it could give Lizzie lemons! Do you know who I am? I'm the person who's gonna burn your house down! With the lemons! I'm gonna get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that burns your house down!

Bdubs, holding a gun: If the conspiracies about life being a simulation are true WHOEVERS CONTROLLING MY SIM I JUST WANNA TALK.

Skizz: Dearly Beloved, we are here today to remember Mumbo, taken from us in the prime of life; when they were crushed by a runaway semi, driven by the Incredible Hulk. Mumbo: Aww, you knew my favorite cause of death.

Impulse: The ‘how the fucks’ and 'why are you so dumbs’ don’t matter. All that matters is that I have a new gun.

Bdubs: Grian is off at an appointment, so while they’re gone, I’m going to cut the sleeves off all of my shirts. Gem: Why? Bdubs: They’re like 90% of my impulse control.

Skizz: If I can't cause tiny bits of chaos every day, I think my body will shut down.

Joel: ...This is one of those moments where it doesn't really matter what I have to say, isn't it?

Jimmy: What’s the announcement, Lizzie? Lizzie: It’s a lecture. Skizz’s gonna tell us everything they know about sex. Etho: It should be an enjoyable 60 seconds.

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hypergamiss · 9 months ago

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Discovering the craftsmanship of vintage pieces is a slap in the face. It reveals how modern life is one big profit-driven scam. Everything's engineered to break, replaced by an even cheaper version. Cars, gadgets, even the food we eat – it's all designed for planned obsolescence, not to last.

They tell us it's "innovation," but it's really just maximizing profit. They hold advancements hostage, keep us on that treadmill of constantly needing the new, the slightly shinier, the ultimately pointless.

This greed…it's suffocating. Every purchase feels like feeding the beast, every bill a reminder of this rigged system, every questionable fee added on never makes sense. I try to be an ethical consumer, but there’s barely anything ethically made available to purchase. I have to hunt for things or give in because they are not easily available. And I would say that I have pretty good access and people to help me source things. It’s insane.

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sherewrytes · 7 months ago

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ℂ𝕆𝕄𝔼 ℂ��𝕆𝕊𝔼

Gym Bro Satoru x Tom boy black reader

Synopsis: You met Satoru at your apartment complex's gym

It was a typical evening at the apartment complex's gym. You had decided to squeeze in a quick workout before dinner, hoping to burn off some stress from the day. As you approached the treadmill, you noticed someone already on it, running at a steady pace.

"Hey there," a voice greeted you, pulling your attention away from your thoughts.

You looked over to see a guy with a friendly smile, his white hair swept to the side and laced with sweat. He had a calm, inviting presence about him.

"Hey," you replied, offering a small smile in return as you stepped onto the treadmill beside him.

Satoru was eyeing you up next to him thinking "Damn, who's that?" he thought, his gaze lingering on your figure. Your confidence exuded as you warmed up on the treadmill next to him.

The way your black tank top hugged your curves, and your loc'd hair was pulled back into a ponytail and dyed red and the ends. It was like you were the only person in the room, and everything else faded into the background.

As you both continued your workouts, you found yourselves falling into an easy conversation. Satoru talked about his job as a freelance software engineer, and you shared stories from your own work as a graphic designer/ creative director.

Despite your different backgrounds, you found common ground in your love for fitness and shared interests.

Time flew by as you ran side by side, exchanging laughs and smiles. Before you knew it, your workouts were over, but the conversation continued as you cooled down.

"So, same time tomorrow?" Satoru asked, a hopeful glint in his eyes.

You grinned. "Definitely. It's nice to have a gym buddy."

The next day, you met Satoru at the gym again, and the day after that, and the day after that. Before long, your daily gym sessions became the highlight of your routine.

Outside the gym, your friendship blossomed. You grabbed post-workout smoothies together, went on evening jogs around the neighborhood, and even teamed up for the occasional Brazilian Ju Jitsu class.

Satoru found himself being more attracted to you the more time you guys spent together outside of the gym.

One day, as you were finishing up a particularly grueling workout, (one that Satoru crafted for you to get a more toned back and waist) Satoru looked over at you with a grin.

"Hey Ma, my friends are coming over to my apartment tonight wanna come over and hang with us."

"Sure, I'd love to," you replied, flashing him a smile. "I could use a break from all this sweating."

Satoru laughed, his eyes lighting up with amusement. "Great! It'll be fun, I promise."

Later that evening, you found yourself standing outside Satoru's apartment, nervously adjusting your casual fit. You took a deep breath before knocking on the door.

The door swung open, revealing Satoru with a wide grin on his face. "Hey, you made it!" You eyed Satoru up and down. He was wearing a black fitted vest with a gold chain and matching bracelet paired with grey sweatpants. He looked good you thought. Satoru caught you checking him out and smirked. He opened the door wider for you to walk in the apartment.

Satoru really loved your lil fit, he knew from you both always texting and talking that you were a bit insecure about your more tom boy side, but he always assured you that you looked damn good. You stepped inside, greeted by the cozy atmosphere of Satoru's apartment. Shoko, Geto, and Nanami were already there, lounging on the couch and chatting animatedly.

"Hey guys, this is y/n," Satoru introduced you, gesturing towards you. "She's my gym buddy."

"Nice to meet you," Shoko said with a smile, while Nanami nodded in greeting. Geto being the messy best friend of Satoru's piped up and said "Oh she's the baddie you won't stop yappin' about." Satoru's eyes cut to you then Geto.

You felt a blush creeping onto your cheeks at Geto's comment, but Satoru's reaction made your heart skip a beat. His eyes flickered to you, a mixture of surprise and amusement dancing in them.

Gojo hid his face a lil then said "Geto wtf man forreal. but yah that's y/n" he said, his tone teasing. "She's the one who's been kicking my butt at the gym."

You rolled your eyes playfully. "Please, you're the one who's been pushing me to lift heavier weights."

Shoko chuckled, shaking her head. "Well, it's nice to finally meet the infamous gym buddy. Satoru hasn't stopped talking about you."

Satoru's cheeks tinted pink at Shoko's words, and you couldn't help but smile at the sight. It was clear that his friends meant a lot to him, and you felt honored to be a part of this moment.

Geto nudged Satoru with an elbow, a mischievous twinkle in his eye. "Looks like you've got yourself a crush, bro."

Satoru's blush deepened, and he shot Geto a mock glare. "Shut up, man," he said with an amused tone, while he playfully shoved Geto.

Nanami, ever the voice of reason, simply nodded in agreement. "You two seem to get along well. It's nice to see."

The rest of the evening flew by in a blur of laughter and conversation. You found yourself fitting in seamlessly with Satoru's friends, sharing stories and inside jokes as if you'd known each other for years.

As the night came to a close, Satoru walked you to your door, a soft smile playing on his lips.

"Thanks for coming, i know the invite as kinda last minute" he said, his voice warm with sincerity.

You grinned up at him. "Thanks for inviting me. I had a great time."

Satoru hesitated for a moment before leaning in to give you a quick hug, his arms wrapping around you in a gentle embrace.

You felt a flutter in your stomach at the contact, a rush of warmth spreading through you. You felt his body pressed against yours, the light scent of cologne and Geto's cigarette smoke on his shirt.

"Let's do this again sometime," he said, pulling back to look at you with a smile.

You nodded, your heart racing with excitement. "Definitely."

As you walked inside your apartment, the memory of Satoru's hug lingered in your mind, sending shivers down your spine. The air felt charged with anticipation, and you couldn't shake the feeling of wanting more.

Thanks for reading. Wrote this in one go. lemme know if you want this to be explored more

#jjk satoru #gojou satoru x reader #gojo satoru #jjk x black reader #jjk x y/n #jjk x reader #gojo x black reader #gojo x reader #jjk gojo #gojo fanfic #gojo fluff #gojo x black fem reader #gojo x y/n #gojo x black y/n

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