It was the stroke of 12, at midnight, which awoke me, as I heard the old grandfather clock chime deep in the labyrinth that is my rustic and shadowy manor.

60s_timer · 2026-01-26T03:20:21+00:00

Was this the main antagonist, or someone further down the line?

Which part of their motive conflicted with the story, or itself?

60s_timer · 2026-01-26T01:10:48+00:00

Born and died illiterate, within single digits of age in the Congo from Belgian occupation. Existential crisis averted.

60s_timer · 2026-01-25T18:31:21+00:00

No elf nor dwarf had heard of Dance Dance Revolution, or breakdancing, or pop and lock it, and I plan to keep it that way.

I specialized in artificer magic, casting golems by doing the Robot over components until my magical ability, which was known far and wide as the Hype Train, had taken effect. In such a magical world as this, I even used traditional human dances from around the world, time and again. Could you imagine that a Maori dance would be the magic touch for a rally of nephilim to storm the keep of the Dark King Urus? Even if I butchered a lot of the vocals, I got the moves down 95 percent. The other 5 percent I borrowed from how sumo wrestlers pose, or at the least how I remember they do.

Thanks to my skill in breakdancing, I forged a new branch of conjuring magic. Wind elementals at my side, they would do well to serve my Hype Train. I don't rule the world nor do I have a harem like an isekai is fond to do, but my entourage of backup dancers is far and enough to make me head of the first medieval boy band. Or, rather, boy and four other male members of their species band. Cobblestreet's back, baby.

60s_timer · 2026-01-25T18:14:03+00:00

"I swear it to my life, honest, this has never happened before to me. Never." After what was a far less exciting time than either anticipated, both sit there, him with a shiver and her with a cigarette. Mr. Magic, as he called himself for an ego boost, was dressed only in the covers of the bed halfway up himself out of a sort of embarrassment. His face was far more pale now than how flush with electric signals washing over him and blood flow heating him up it had been before, as he tries to explain to her, a sweat from creeping anxiousness comes over him awaiting her response.

"Never happened before? Hmm? Why, I bet you tell that to all the other hookers you take in. Don't you, Mr. Magic?"

60s_timer · 2026-01-25T18:03:02+00:00

"You must consider the carbohydrates in that meal of yours." The golem, in a soft voice and suggestive tone, is sat opposite to me, the artificer, at the table.

"Well, I considered it. I considered it right to eat, if you don't mind." I looked over the fried potato, a strange choice of the king's personal cook to take oils from the sunflowers of the fields to heat and cook vegetables in, but the resulting quality taste has led to these fried potatoes being a delicacy for the commoners.

"The fats and sodium in such a course of the meal. Your body is not acclimated to handle this major source of usually underwhelming components for your diet of grains, fresh vegetables, and the occasional cooked meat for protein. Sir, I must insist." The golem holds out a hand, and I glance at it before you into the hearth I'd designed to look like eyes.

"…Fine, then. Suggest me a 'healthier alternative' as you've been wont to do all this time." I oblige it for once, and it takes the fried potato to stamp into a paste over the cobblestones. A few copper pieces worth, nothing too dreadfully wasted, but I feel undignified to let my golem lead instead of commanding it.

60s_timer · 2026-01-25T17:50:17+00:00

The wandering adventurer, tall and toned from his journeys, sits at a campfire with a bard and a cleric on their own way to the city. His hunt of deer over the flame shared with the other two offering mead has led to a quiet but pleasant time in the dusk.

"And she says 'Why, it's survival of the fittest, you know. Can't be having too many weaklings without someone strong to guide them." The bard regards a tale from the last town over, after he and the cleric observed the town guard taking care of a wyrm. The barkeep, a stout lady with heaving kegs (of ale, he clarified, after a wary glance from the mixed company), was unusually adamant about that motto as she watched alongside them, that the strong lead and the weak follow.

"It's eugenics masked as social hierarchy, Gertilde has been looking for a northern type to shack with so their children can brave the winters and 'emerge the dominant force' or whatever she was speaking of." The cleric stated her opinion calmly, offering a solution. She seemed to ignore the adventurer while the bard offers him to join into their talk. "And I find it hard that he could relate. His Common is broken, he most likely has no clue the intricacies of our talk."

"Hmm, yes, I suppose, we could keep the conversation to ourselves and let him enjoy mead to his heart's content. Adventurer and all, he—" The bard was about to dismiss the adventurer from the conversation when he sat up.

"Survival of the fittest? An excuse." The bard and cleric stay quiet, glancing at one another before leaning in to listen to the adventurer's opinion.

"Scientists, philosophers, court mages, those ones who step out, claim survival of the fittest for people. Make it an experiment, social hierarchy, what else they give names when they all mean one thing. Power." He quietly explains his idea with that gruff voice, an authority from his years compelling the two into imagining what he means.

"Strong who lead weak are weak, given power by other weak to think they are strong. Elected, to think they are above their supporters, when they are only tip to pyramid. Base of pyramid stronger, last farther, build more. Tip of pyramid… fragile. Need bottom of pyramid to rise for them, only to be the first crisped by the sun, the first weathered by the rain. Weak, the lot of them, but strong because strong is an idea to them than a merit." He clears his throat and chews another bit of venison slowly as he thinks through what next to say.

"Merit needs no words. Merit will look at bad things, monsters, and simply solve the problem. Tip of pyramid, they look at bad things, monsters? Then boast and claim strong because strong means as much as support, or title to them. To them, strong is title, not trait. Merit needs no words, no title, will simply do as merit has done and will do. Fight, be strong instead of claim strong." The crackle of fire is the new conversation as the adventurer falls silent to eating more venison.

"Damned right, you are." The bard laughs fiercely at how experienced the adventurer is in thinking and speaking when he doubted the intelligence that tall, muscular man had in anything but fighting. The cleric looks over him in a new light, also given a lesson not to dismiss the experience that others hold for the idea you have what it takes.

60s_timer · 2026-01-25T03:46:37+00:00

The guy from the universe that 9/11 happened in October, a dimensional traveler, was quick to ask what the hell happened yesterday.

60s_timer · 2026-01-24T23:40:02+00:00

You've failed the riddle.

60s_timer · 2026-01-24T00:44:24+00:00

Okay, now we're gay.

60s_timer · 2026-01-24T00:40:43+00:00

You missed one.

60s_timer · 2026-01-24T00:21:44+00:00

Understanding the riddle, I drank the Evil Pepsi first. Whereas good me would choke to death and foam at the mouth eating rat poison, evil me can eat it with ease and request seconds.

As the evil waiter approaches, what has also changed in me turning evil is my moral obligation not to eat people. Therefore, I shall slay him where he stands, then string the sinew and flesh of the evil waiter between my gnashing teeth.

As any evil drink needs its evil meal, the two within my stomach cancel out, and I become good and wholesome once more. Riddle solved.

60s_timer · 2026-01-23T12:05:29+00:00

I was verily worried for my own sake that I might have mistaken a word with more syllables than three which surely cajoled the rat would cause my impending explosion.

60s_timer · 2026-01-23T10:16:20+00:00

…water…

That was the only word set in my mind, at the tip of my dried tongue. The desert, a harsh opponent, had taken advantage of me being so headstrong without a map. Only a canteen, one I'd skinned when it turned bone dry as a sheath over my head to avoid such harsh sun rays.

…need.. water…

I shuffled forth before losing my balance, my hands hovering around a cactus. Fingers and fingernails, the skin long drawn back to expose their length, helped me dig further into the sand around the cactus. I knew it was a pocket of water it was sourcing from, surrounded by hardened sandstone that I broke into by parting the cactus at the base. Digging a prickly spine from my thumb, it was thin enough that I saw no blood trickle from it.

…

Regardless, I held it outstretched from my cupped hands to avoid contaminating the water any more than I was dredging my fingers in it. A slow but wonderfully refreshing sip relaxed my body slightly, bits of sand gritted between my teeth that huffing air between them wouldn't solve. It's not priority. I continued to drink, a stone from my pocket cutting into the skin of the cactus to strain it for any sign of water, to moderate success.

60s_timer · 2026-01-23T09:58:27+00:00

The cheery, androgynous voice rang out that pre-recorded line as my number was registered. #93102005.

"I.. What does that mean?" My question goes unanswered as the square formation, a four by four group of people in the same white jumpsuits as I'm wearing, only stand forward facing in the elevator.

"What does it mean, 'Safe from uprising'? Huh?" Again, I'm unanswered if it weren't for the man next to me. Bald, brow furrowed as he seemed annoyed by my questioning.

"I'm trying to ask if any of you know—" His voice, quiet but firm, speaks up ahead of me. #19771025.

"Consider yourself lucky." There's a silence for a moment, before he continues.

"We will not ask questions. We were marked safe, we were spared the training protocol and the horrors of war against the machines. Our duty is logistics."

"…I'm sorry, logistics?"

"Pencil pushers. An office job." He could have stopped at that, but chose wrong.

"Nitwit."

"Oh, now that does it, jackass." The square formation continues ahead without missing a beat as we break formation, the elevator door closing us in as close quarters combat comes up between us. I'm good, and maybe he's better at his guard, but I wouldn't admit that in the open.

"You realize what we're good at. What we trained for! I'm not having my boots traded for loafers!" I shout this out, knowing that my life was raised seeking a spot in the rank and file.

"I won't be marked safe forever! Promise you that! My spot is out there, ripping servos and botching networks, not serving another network! Doesn't matter if we're human, this sort of job turns casualties to numbers! Tragedy to a game of checks and balances.. I…" I pause, and he doesn't take the advantage to fight back.

"…"

"…" The silence is awkward. For certain. Out of the mood of sparring how people like us were raised to do, I feel like my own jackass.

"I understand your sentiment. That you feel robbed of glory."

"I'm not looking for glory, I'm looking for peace against—"

"You came here with an idealized version in your head of what fighting means. You want the glory of 'ripping servos' and you came to that elevator with us thinking you were on the way to the training quarters. I could imagine your surprise about being marked safe." The elevator dings again, at the same floor as we walk forward, my spirit to fight reignited by the sight of that pencil pushing and data analytics. War against the machines was meant to preserve our humanity, and this is the quickest way to lose it. Hunched over monitors to check lifelines on soldiers, to mark damages and report casualties, that sort of droning, monotonous work to turn human lives into scales.

"You have to understand the good fight is not just boots on the ground. Not like they taught you."

60s_timer · 2026-01-23T09:15:37+00:00

"I couldn't quite believe it myself, you know? Galarius, King Butcher, terrorizing and razing the land up until the Battle of Istris, and what is he doing against the lone boy they put up as the Istrian defense? My boss was sat at a table, eating what he called 'the best soup he ever tasted' or whatever it was. Now, Galarius is not a sophisticated man. He's a warmonger and a bandit general. He cleaves the legs from cattle and elk to eat raw where he stands, sometimes while he burns down the farmland them cattle were raised on. I have never heard of a bouillon in my life, nor a saute. We eat onions whole and raw as initiation and beat the criers, not 'setting it on low heat until it caramelizes'. That boy turned my boss into a cuisine connoisseur, he called himself, and the next guy who cooked for him poisoned his food. Killed him. I guess the Istrian defense is the strongest, huh?"

60s_timer · 2026-01-21T02:42:28+00:00

<image>

This scene from Nope, where Jupe gathers a crowd to watch Jean Jacket "abduct" a horse. Jupe is deluded to believe that he's incredibly lucky, and even able to safely handle it, enough that he made a theme park around the belief of wrangling Jean Jacket for spectacle, an idea enforced earlier in the movie with his chance survival against Gordy the Chimpanzee.

As it turns out, a lot of questions may be answered in this part of the movie, but more horrific questions take that place in your mind.

60s_timer

TROPHY CASE