twitch the bot

Let’s play the biggest game of kick the can on the internet.

Lumberjacks, like most megafauna species generally require more space than the average hardware store, even a big box store could provide. The misconception is that Lumberjacks are a social species because of how they often work and live together.

This is a matter of necessity, not preference, and a survival technique for thriving under the LogBoss.

A “pack” of Lumberjacks, if not under the environmental pressure of a LogBoss will naturally disperse until they each have a wide territory.

Lumberjacks rarely fight for territory.

One on one, a Lumberjack could drive out a Dad or Lesbian, however the latter tend to travel in social packs.

Lumberjacks will passively retreat on the presence of large numbers of people. Kind of like Sasquatch.

Getting a “pack” of Lumberjacks assembled would be hard enough unless they were forced into a Hardware Store by a LogBoss. In that case, they would already be in a heightened and potentially agitated state far above their natural behavior. This artificial scenario can be likened to a circus animal running amok. If it had been in the wild, the incident would not have occurred.

Free-roaming Lumberjacks are the cryptids of the Hardware ecosystem. They are surprisingly quiet and unobtrusive.

Only experienced silverbacks or the boldest young Dads dare venture into a craft store for long without his mate or offspring to keep roving Craft Ladies at bay and guide him in this strange ecosystem. If a Dad enters with his mate and is separated from her, he will often scuttle for the seeming familiarity of Woodcrafts, Models, or Paints (the latter not to be confused with Fine Arts, unquestioned territory of art students), but he eyes Scrapbooking and Jewelry with trepidation and will usually venture into those exotic areas only in the company of females of his pack.

Lumberjacks are rarely spotted entering craft stores of their own volition, for while they do not fear it as Dads do, they know it is an environment unsuited for megafauna such as themselves.

Hardware store Lesbians generally adapt more easily to craft stores, although they may enlist another Lesbian of a subspecies more adapted to that environment to guide them until they find their niche. Lesbians have even been known to seek the aid of a Craft Lady, a native fauna that share similarities with Lesbians but are usually smaller and nimbler to suit their chosen habitat. Dads who witness this are often awed by the Lesbians’ temerity, for although larger, Dads are generally wary of the cunning and dexterous Craft Ladies and may mistake their enthusiastic pack greetings as predatory swarming.

Craft Ladies, secure in their ecological niche, have no fear of interlopers and take the presence of non-native beings in stride, although they may become territorial about scarcer resources.

Then the crafters overwhelmed Joann, especially the aggressive kudzu of crafting, the scrapbookers. Other stores had very little fabric, mostly quilting, which only sustained a very limited group of those who sew. The supply of varied fabrics and adjacent products were limited there, and increasingly limited even at Joann. The older employees no longer could answer sewing questions. Our way was being absorbed by industry.

Now we subsist on what we can scavenge from thrift stores or obtain online, or in a Walmart, Michaels or Hobby Lobby, which are both extremely limited and which we prefer not to seek out. Or we must journey long miles at great risk into the rougher parts of cities where there are stores with big piles of loosely organized fabrics, to burrow until we find the one that will sustain us for a while. And all this while knowing that world has come to regard us as a dying species that is highly expendable.

Does anyone have the number for Walter Robotics? I think one of their bots has left Biscuit Town and joined the ministry…

spiderman dances to the beat

A sigh escapes you as you toss over the last of your rations, not even bothering to stand up as you do so. What’s the point? You think. I’ve been trapped in this cave for days, nobody is looking for me, and the monsters are closing in. Why should I bother even trying? I could just fall asleep now, and let this little mimic eat me too.

The thing is… it doesn’t. It eats your rations, but when you lay down and try to sleep, it doesn’t attack. You do hear it move closer, but you don’t open your eyes until you feel something nudge your hand. As you barely open your eyes, you can see that the mimic has morphed itself into a crude sword. You can’t help but chuckle.

“You’re cute, but I don’t have anything left to give you.” You don’t have anything left to give for yourself either, but you don’t say so.

The mimic doesn’t seem to take no for an answer. It becomes a dagger, then an axe, then a staff, as though it’s trying to determine what your preffered weapon is.

“Listen, I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but it’s not working. I’m not going to pick you up and take you into some other part of this stupid cave system. Nice try, though.”

You turn away from it and attempt to sleep again. As you do so, you find yourself shivering. You really wish, as you doze off, that you had a blanket.

When you wake, much later, you’re surprised to find yourself covered with the warmest blanket you’ve ever had. You quickly sit up, eagerly hoping that someone had cone for you, but the cave is empty. When you look at the blanket, you notice the imperfect edges and the janky seam across the middle.

“…why haven’t you eaten me yet?” You ask the little mimic that’s now laying on top of you. “What’s wrong with you?”

The mimic, still in the form of the blanket, slithers off of you, but it does not respond. Instead, it begins taking the form of weapons again. When it turns into a crooked staff, you reach out, despite yourself. Your fingers wrap around it and you use it to haul your aching, injured body to your feet. “I guess there are probably nicer places to die.”

You know you won’t get far. And you don’t. Especially not without light. The mimic doesn’t seem too bothered, though. When you collapse again, it scuttles off. Perhaps this was simply where it wanted you to take it. Perhaps now you can finally succumb to your exhaustion.

Then, a few minutes later, a misshapen clay cup bumps against your hand. It’s full of water, and there’s a crack in the middle like a jagged mouth. You pick up the cup and you drink, telling yourself it’s only out of desperation. When you set the cup down, that little cracked mouth seems to smile.

This goes on for what feels like days. The mimic helps you limp along through the tunnels, transforming into whatever you may need at any given time. Every time you fall asleep, you expect not to wake up. Yet, you do, usually with a mimic blanket wrapped around you. It brings you food and water when you can.

The biggest surprise comes when one morning, you find you’re pleased to have survived another night. You’re happy to have the mimic keeping you warm. It’s a new feeling, and a confusing one, but it’s not unpleasant.

The other monsters that you know are down here seem to leave you alone for the most part. You aren’t sure why. It crosses your mind that maybe it has something to do with the mimic. Then again, maybe they’re just waiting for you to die. Death is gradually beginning to sound less and less appealing.

The day you catch a glimpse of sunlight down a long and narrow tunnel is the first day you finally feel like your old self again. Your pace quickens, and you don’t need to lean on the mimic’s staff form quite so much. The illusion shatters when you reach the light’s source. A small gap, high above. You curl up on the floor and cry. When you finally have the strength to look up again, your mimic has become a ladder.

Getting up is hard, in your state. Climbing, even more so. But the ladder is the biggest and best transformation the mimic has done so far, and if it wants you to get out, then you can’t let it down.

You feel it push up under you when you reach the gap. It helps you squeeze through, and then… freedom. Fresh air, and sunlight. You lay on your back on the stone, and you pass out.