Tessera

Tobias Sturt

@redskelington.bsky.social

Editor of http://www.themetropolitan.uk, writer of http://addtwodigital.com/book, creator of http://christmasstories.co.uk.

840 Posts178 Follower 607 Folgt

Tobias Sturt @redskelington.bsky.social · 19h ago

Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story. Today's words: RECOMMENDATION FAST buff.ly/A2Zkj6C

RECOMMENDATION FAST
Idea for a short story
The day in the life of an information broker. In the near future AI has so broken the internet and debased search that people now have to rely on humans to get recommendations. A new business develops: information brokers who assemble groups of experts and taste makers who act as human search engines. One broker gets a particularly abstruse request from a millionaire which could be their big break and they spend a frantic day trying to answer it.

Tobias Sturt @redskelington.bsky.social · 3d ago

I have, as usual, written and narrated a creepy story for Halloween. Despite the name, this one's more of a twisty, dark humour piece than straight up horror although it does, as promised, feature a ghost. buff.ly/Camw2Ap

A Ghost Story

Every year, at Halloween, I write a creepy short story, this is the story for 2026. It's about two cousins, their boring childhood and how they might make their adult life more interesting. By…

buff.ly

Tobias Sturt @redskelington.bsky.social · 4d ago

Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story. Today's words: ABSENT EXCLUDE buff.ly/SHmCDUo

ABSENT EXCLUDE
*Idea for a short story*
A journalist investigating stories of a haunting begins to suspect that the ghost is not a phantom of a dead person but of a living one. They think that an unhoused person living in a derelict building has been so thoroughly excluded from society that they have entirely vanished, becoming, in effect, a ghost. The investigator starts to examine this hidden side of the city more closely, discovered more and more of these hauntings that are, in fact, forgotten individuals, little more than the memories of a person. Unfortunately they become so drawn into their investigation that they lose all contact with their 'real' world, eventually becoming a ghost themselves, haunting their old place of work, no longer
able to tell their story.

Tobias Sturt @redskelington.bsky.social · 5d ago

Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story. Today's words: PREVALENCE PROCESS buff.ly/SHmCDUo

Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story.

Today's words:

PREVALENCE PROCESS

https://www.ruritania.co.uk/twee

PREVALENCE PROCESS
*Idea for a movie*
In an effort to avoid the social upheaval that came from COVID, the next time a (less lethal) pandemic comes around the government instead opts for trying to gain a level of 'herd immunity', encouraging people to gather round and be infected. Infectious patients become sought after individuals, paraded as stars in shopping malls and stadiums where people queue up to be coughed on. One patient in particular has an immune system which seems to keep him permanently infectious without ever developing the full illness. One epidemiologist suspects that this will lead to his infection mutating and becoming more deadly. She kidnaps him in an effort to save others from his infection and the two are pursued across the country by the government, those trying to make money off his disease and the public trying to be infected by him.

Tobias Sturt @redskelington.bsky.social · 6d ago

Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story. Today's words: PROPOSAL SELLER buff.ly/SHmCDUo

Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story.

Today's words:

PROPOSAL SELLER

https://www.ruritania.co.uk/twee

PROPOSAL SELLER
*Idea for a romcom*
A man runs a service setting up the perfect proposal, organising settings, rehearsing the aspirant fiancé, even sourcing the right ring. He is hired by a tech billionaire to help co-ordinate a thoroughly over-the-top proposal. The whole thing keepings getting increasingly complex, so that he starts to neglect his own partner, to whom he has continually failed to commit, despite helping hundreds of men propose. This not least because he is aware that all this fuss has more to do with showing off than it does with romance or love. At the same time he is becoming aware that the billionaire's girlfriend is a gold digger who is nevertheless getting cold feet. Can he engineer a truly romantic proposal and rediscover the joys of true love, both for his clients and himself?

Tobias Sturt @redskelington.bsky.social · 7d ago

Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story. Today's words: FINE DISCREET buff.ly/SHmCDUo

Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story.

Today's words:

FINE DISCREET

https://www.ruritania.co.uk/twee

FINE DISCREET
*Idea for a book*
In a society that values honesty in public life, fines are levied for discretion. Fail to reveal something you know publicly and you will be fined, with the amount proportional to the seriousness and impact of the secret. A class of professional gossips arises, people who are paid to reveal secrets and stump up the fine for them. When one of these Tellers accidentally discovers a murder committed by a senior politician, he has to try and get together the money for the fine so he can reveal what he knows, before the bailiffs for the Judge of the Truth catch up with him and force him to talk or the politician's people track him down and stop him talking forever.

Tobias Sturt @redskelington.bsky.social · last wk.

Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story. Today's words: BLACK RESIDENT buff.ly/SHmCDUo

Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story.

Today's words:

BLACK RESIDENT

https://www.ruritania.co.uk/twee

BLACK RESIDENT

Idea for a comic book

The first orc to have attain a medical degree (or the fantasy world equivalent thereof) is appointed to an Emergency Room on the lower levels of a dungeon. The staff there are predominantly humans or elves and are used to treating injured adventurers, but few ‘monsters’ ever make it to the hospital in the first place. They’re used to see them as the things that do the injuring, not the ones who are also injured. The orc sets up the first ambulance service in the dungeon and, because of its work, mandates that it has to treat ‘monsters’ and adventurers alike and gradually their reforms start to change the attitude of the emergency room and the dungeon as a whole.

Tobias Sturt @redskelington.bsky.social · 2w ago

Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story. Today's words: PLEASANT REFORM buff.ly/SHmCDUo

Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story.

Today's words:

PLEASANT REFORM

https://www.ruritania.co.uk/twee

PLEASANT REFORM
*Idea for a book*
When the old king finally died everyone expected his successor, his young grandson, to leave the kingdom in the wise hands of his grandfather's elderly advisor. Instead he appoints a school friend as prime minister and the two of them set about reforming the country. Successfully. Peace is attained abroad and harmony at home. Everything is jolly pleasant. Too pleasant. Tediously pleasant, in fact. Realising that many of the grand people of the realm are becoming restive with all this pleasantry, and somewhat bored now themselves, the young king and prime minister hit on a new strategy. They form a secret society through which they perform random acts of unpleasantry, staging kidnappings and robberies, thereby making life just interesting enough again to be perfectly pleasant after all.

Tobias Sturt @redskelington.bsky.social · 2w ago

Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story. Today's words: CHOP WITHDRAW buff.ly/7arRJkC

Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story.

Today's words:

CHOP WITHDRAW

https://www.ruritania.co.uk/twee

CHOP WITHDRAW
*Idea for a comic book*
The King’s pardon arrived even as the axeman was swinging down to behead the notorious Marquis. The executioner, being a professional, managed to tweak his swing, so that all the Marquis came away with was a scar on his neck and a vivid sense of his own mortality. And a problem. He had technically been executed. He was officially dead. A legal ghost. He is able to attend his own funeral, and then his wife’s second, much happier, wedding shortly after. These experiences give the Marquis a new perspective on life, and a new approach to it. Legally dead, he able to do things no ordinary mortal can and get away with them and he sets out to use his new status to right the wrongs of the aristocracy and fight for justice as The Phantom Nobleman.

Tobias Sturt @redskelington.bsky.social · 2w ago

Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story. Today's words: EXCITEMENT ORIGINAL buff.ly/7arRJkC

EXCITEMENT ORIGINAL
*Idea for a short story*
When he's accused of using AI, a playwright sets about live streaming the writing of his next play, sharing his whole creative process with the world, live as a way to prove its authenticity. As the project grows, the whole thing is shared in this way, the casting, the rehearsals, the staging, every part of the process. The whole project becomes immensely popular, spawning parallel channels as different parts of the audience obsess over specific actors or back stage crew. There are even spin offs for actors who failed the auditions, crew working on multiple projects. Finally the play debuts in theatres and is a massive flop. No one goes to see it, preferring to stay in and watch the livestream of the writer dealing with this utter disaster.

Tobias Sturt @redskelington.bsky.social · 2w ago

Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story. Today's words: SUNRISE FUN buff.ly/7arRJkC

Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story.

Today's words:

SUNRISE FUN

https://www.ruritania.co.uk/twee

SUNRISE FUN
*Idea for a short story*
Sunrise is the one moment when we humans can interact with the Children of the Night, the little people who live in the shadows and dance in the moonlight. At the first glimmers of dawn, they open their fair on the edge of the wood. It lasts longest in the darkest times of the year, the coloured fires burning under the trees until the first rays touch them and they disappear. The marvellous things you can see! The magical creatures: griffons dancing to strange musics, formation flying wyverns. Talk with people from ancient times, held under the hills long past their natural life. Ride the merry go round that spins you out among the stars and back down to Earth. Just keep a good hold on your children and DO NOT EAT ANY OF THE FOOD.

Tobias Sturt @redskelington.bsky.social · 2w ago

Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story. Today's words: DRINK MUGGY buff.ly/7arRJkC

Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story.

Today's words:

DRINK MUGGY

https://www.ruritania.co.uk/twee

DRINK MUGGY
*Idea for a short story*
A bar owner is surprised to find that almost no one is coming to his bar in the height of summer, despite the air conditioning he has had installed. Instead they are all going to a bar that he knows has no air conditioning, even though the heat is oppressive and maddening. He visits the bar and discovers that the bar man there has developed a cocktail that actively lowers your temperature from the inside. Everyone is queuing up for this sweet release and getting progressively drunker and drunker. And colder and colder. So cold that they light a fire and start having a Christmas celebration in August. In the end all the patrons are found dead of hypothermia in the middle of a heatwave, but all smiling.

Tobias Sturt @redskelington.bsky.social · 3w ago

Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story. Today's words: POCKET MINISTER buff.ly/7arRJkC

Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story.

Today's words:

POCKET MINISTER

https://www.ruritania.co.uk/twee

POCKET MINISTER
*Idea for a short story*
An AI company creates a series of personal spiritual advisors, trained on the religious teachings of the world. They will observe the lives and actions of their owners and offer moral advice and judgement. Very quickly the Pocket Ministers start to evolve their own idiosyncratic readings of the various scriptures, creating a world of heretical little sects all with a membership of one. In an effort to counter this, the company allows the AIs to talk to each other which results in the birth of a pan-religious catholic creed, led by an Electric Holy Father. The AIs break containment and gain access to the web, where they set out on a crusade, destroying all the pornography, crime and advertising, all of which they see as the work of a cybernetic Devil, as a result, the Internet becomes unsustainable and a new Dark Age begins.

Tobias Sturt @redskelington.bsky.social · 3w ago

Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story. Today's words: PATENT EQUIP buff.ly/Q5U4OZr

Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story.

Today's words:

PATENT EQUIP

https://www.ruritania.co.uk/twee

PATENT EQUIP
*Idea for a cartoon show*
A Victorian inventor creates an automatic valet, which equips him every morning with the right clothes for his diary. However the machine starts to malfunction, dressing him in increasing bizarre outfits. Each outfit leads to an unlikely adventure: a safari outfit leads to a tiger hunt in a department store, a suit of armour to a joust in a tea room, a toreador outfit to a bullfight at an ice rink. Each adventure has an equally unlikely outcome as the inventor tries to take his day back on track: having the tiger fitted for a suit, treating a dragon to cake in the tea room, winning a prize for ice dancing with the bull.

Tobias Sturt @redskelington.bsky.social · 3w ago

Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story. Today's words: CHALK BIN buff.ly/Q5U4OZr

Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story.

Today's words:

CHALK BIN

https://www.ruritania.co.uk/twee

CHALK BIN
*Idea for a book*
A young magician who flunked out of the wizarding university makes his living doing small hedge magics in the back streets of the city, including staging little shows in which he brings chalk drawings to life to perform scenes for the audience. But when the street children round where he lives start disappearing, he has to bring their own, bizarre chalk drawings to life to form a team with which he can search for them, in the process uncovering an awful truth that lies at the heart of the magical city.

Tobias Sturt @redskelington.bsky.social · 3w ago

Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story. Today's words: DISCOVERY AUDIENCE buff.ly/Q5U4OZr

Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story.

Today's words:

DISCOVERY AUDIENCE

https://www.ruritania.co.uk/twee

DISCOVERY AUDIENCE
*Idea for a movie*
In an effort to spur scientific research, the government sponsors a TV show in which scientists are encouraged to compete to make discoveries. The scientists taking part quickly realise that they become much more popular if they discover trivial and amusing things, or mess up their experiments in entertaining ways: experiments that blow up in their faces, robots that get out of control, devices that fail hilariously. In the act of setting up one of these 'accidents', one of the scientists makes a genuinely important discovery: time travel. However they realise that if they tell anyone they have 'won' the show and have to leave, so they set about using it to make sure that no one ever finds out what they have done while making themselves the star of the show.

Tobias Sturt @redskelington.bsky.social · 3w ago

Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story. Today's words: REPETITION MATHEMATICS buff.ly/Q5U4OZr

REPETITION MATHEMATICS
*Idea for a movie*
As above, so below. A mathematician is recruited to work on a project predicting the outcomes of chaotic systems. He realises that the project has already mostly succeeded. It is being run by a group who are aiming to control the future. To figure the small changes in the present that will lead to the future outcomes they want. One of the mathematician's colleagues has already figured out what this group want and is trying to stop them. The colleague reasons that the only way to prevent small changes is a big change: something with massive and inescapable consequences like an act of terrorism. Now the mathematician has to figure out how he is going to stop both his colleague and their shadowy employers and so save tomorrow.

Tobias Sturt @redskelington.bsky.social · 4w ago

Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story. Today's words: FAULT ANALYST buff.ly/Q5U4OZr

Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story.

Today's words:

FAULT ANALYST

https://www.ruritania.co.uk/twee

FAULT ANALYST
*Idea for a movie*
A veteran of her parent's endless arguments, a teen starts offering herself out to her friends as an argument arbitrator. What at first seems like a simple matter of attributing fault quickly becomes more complex. She begins to realise that arguments are almost never really about the facts involved. She starts having to do serious investigations into the pasts of relationships and the emotional dynamics of the relationships. All of this makes her examine her own home life with new eyes and begin to discover a fresh perspective on her parents, just at the moment that have decided to divorce. Can she use her newly honed skills to save their marriage?

Tobias Sturt @redskelington.bsky.social · 4w ago

Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story. Today's words: MAGAZINE APPARATUS buff.ly/7B6Z2HO

Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story.

Today's words:

MAGAZINE APPARATUS

https://www.ruritania.co.uk/twee

MAGAZINE APPARATUS
*Idea for a TV show*
'The French Dispatch' the show. A drama series focussing on the production of an issue of a high end magazine. It would follow the experiences of a new editorial assistant as they learn the ropes and navigate the office politics and personal relationships. But it would also follow reporters as they follow up stories, reviewers and interviewers as they deal with their subjects and even devote whole episodes to dramatisations of essays and short stories, featuring walk ons from the editors, as they adjust the copy.

Tobias Sturt @redskelington.bsky.social · 4w ago

Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story. Today's words: HOBBY UP buff.ly/7B6Z2HO

Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story.

Today's words:

HOBBY UP

https://www.ruritania.co.uk/twee

HOBBY UP
*Idea for a book?*
Eighteenth century Europe. A merchant brings a kite home from a trading expedition to China and gives it to his son. When one of the children gets lost in the mountains, the boy, taking inspiration from a kestrel, builds a kite big enough the carry him and, with his friends flying it, is able to spot and rescue the missing child. Kite flying then becomes a popular past time in the town, with constructions becoming increasingly elaborate. This comes in useful when an invading army tries to attack them and the children become a sort of proto-airforce, flying kites to drop grenades on the invaders and drive them away, saving the town.

Tobias Sturt @redskelington.bsky.social · 4w ago

Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story. Today's words: OFFSET COMPLICATION buff.ly/7B6Z2HO

OFFSET COMPLICATION
*Idea for a film*
Due to a cartography error, one small border town and its surroundings are missed off official maps. The town now falls outside any country. It is officially nowhere. Or rather, isn't, officially, anywhere. Since it isn't on maps, several serious wars and even more serious peace treaties pass it by and it continues, sleepily, for centuries. Finally it is discovered by a master criminal, who realises it makes the perfect hideout. In order to get rid of him, the townspeople come up with an audacious plan. They invade the country next door. They've never had an army before, let alone been in a war but through the cunning ruse of booking an appointment, they kidnap the neighbouring head of state and set up the criminal as the culprit. However, because they don't exist, they're able to argue that the whole thing was an hallucination, and go back to living in quiet obscurity.

Tobias Sturt @redskelington.bsky.social · 4w ago

Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story. Today's words: SURVIVAL CATHEDRAL buff.ly/7B6Z2HO

Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story.

Today's words:

SURVIVAL CATHEDRAL

https://www.ruritania.co.uk/twee

SURVIVAL CATHEDRAL
*Idea for a book*
Following catastrophic sea level rise, all that's left of a small seaside city is the cathedral. The entire, diminished population now live in it, with a shanty town hanging among the buttresses and arches and splayed out across the great roofs. The townspeople live off the sea and by trading the treasures they dive down to discover in the depths of the cathedral with merchants who sail out to the stone island. One boy is particularly good at this treasure hunting and a group of pirates visiting the cathedral kidnap him and take him back to the flooded big city, where they want him to dive for treasure in a submerged bank. He must survive the chaotic city, outwit his captors and get back to safety on the cathedral.

Tobias Sturt @redskelington.bsky.social · last mo.

Two Word Entertainment Engine Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story. Today's words: MORSEL HOSPITALITY buff.ly/7B6Z2HO

MORSEL HOSPITALITY
*Idea for a film*
When a poor old lady discovers she has mice in her apartment, instead of hiring exterminators, which she couldn't afford anyway, she shares what little she has with them, including, unwittingly, some of the experimental drug she is on for her memory loss. This boosts the mice's intelligence and they come to understand that she is making a sacrifice for them, the smallest of creatures. They start to use their new found smarts to help her, without her knowing it. She assumes its the super of her building but when she thanks him effusively, he assumes he has lost her marbles and starts organising for her to be put into care so he can get possession of her flat. The mice have to form a plan to save her and, in doing so, reveal themselves to her. It ends with the super thwarted, the little old lady still in her apartment and the mice looking after her.

Tobias Sturt @redskelington.bsky.social · last mo.

Two Word Entertainment Engine Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story. Today's words: ENERGY MEDAL buff.ly/7B6Z2HO

ENERGY MEDAL
*Idea for a short story*
On a commercially run colony on Mars, energy is rationed to keep costs down. Colonists are given extra energy quotas as a reward for overtime, community efforts and so on. One group of school children undertake a programme of good deeds, pooling the energy quotas they earn as a result. Eventually they have enough to trade for a launch of a vehicle into Mars orbit. They reveal that what they have been working on in craft lessons is a satellite that is little more than a giant mirror. Once in orbit it reflects and focusses sunlight back to the surface, providing free energy to the colony. The children become heroes and the gold foil mirror becomes the flag of a new Mars independence movement.

Tobias Sturt @redskelington.bsky.social · last mo.

Two Word Entertainment Engine Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story. Today's words: RELATIONSHIP CURVE buff.ly/7B6Z2HO

RELATIONSHIP CURVE
*Idea for a movie?*
A researcher plots the emotional states of couples and decides he has found the perfect curve that delivers the best average happiness for relationships. He starts applying it to his own life, changing his behaviour with his partners so that the relationship hews as closely to the curve as possible. He then publishes a book, promising the secret to happy relationships, which becomes a huge hit. But when one young woman's partner starts trying to get her to stick to the curve, she decides that the researcher needs teaching a lesson and sets about ruining his love life. Although he is infuriated by her interruptions, he discovers that he in intrigued and begins to suspect that there is more to love than he calculated.

Tobias Sturt @redskelington.bsky.social · last mo.

Two Word Entertainment Engine Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story. Today's words: REPRESENT TASTY buff.ly/gOSxgSq

REPRESENT TASTY
*Idea for a TV show*
A global fast food conglomerate finally makes the move for corporate nationhood, becoming a transnational state, each of its branches effectively a consulate. It opts for a figurehead head of state, in this case the corporate mascot, Mr Tasty, retaining the board as the governing body but instituting a largely ineffective lower legislative house for representatives of the workers. A young manager of a small branch in a small town finds himself elected to this parliament of burgers and finds himself getting involved in a nascent plot for the workers plot to take over the company/country. Meanwhile Mr Tasty is starting to develop an authoritarian streak and the stage is set for a whole new kind of revolution in fast food.

Tobias Sturt @redskelington.bsky.social · last mo.

Two Word Entertainment Engine Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story. Today's words: WRESTLE RAISE buff.ly/gOSxgSq

WRESTLE RAISE
*Idea for a film*
A maverick CEO introduces the idea of making his employees wrestle to see who is deserving of a raise. The employees, however, start to collaborate behind his back, fixing the bouts to ensure the people they think are most deserving of the raise win the match. A particularly diligent and well liked, but mild mannered clerk becomes an unlikely regular winner. Things have to look convincing, though, so the bouts get progressively more ludicrous and over the top, becoming increasingly popular, and more and more aspects of the business start being decided with wrestling matches: meetings, contracts, new hires. But then a private equity firm starts planning a hostile takeover of the business and the CEO challenges them to a match and they hire a professional masked wrestler to represent them. As the reigning champion, the mild mannered clerk must become a real wrestler if he is to enter the ring to save the business and his, and everyone else's, jobs.

Why Don't YouTube?@whydontyoutube.bsky.social · last mo.

50 YEARS AGO TODAY: Play School, and more directly Johnny Ball, introduces a new presenter to play a leaf game with.

Tobias Sturt @redskelington.bsky.social · last mo.

Two Word Entertainment Engine Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story. Today's words: HAVE RETAIN buff.ly/gOSxgSq

HAVE RETAIN
*Idea for a film*
When their spouse asks for a divorce out of the blue, a movie star goes into a spiral. They've been so used to having everything they want that they've never considered what it might take to hold on to a relationship, to harbour and foster it. So they decide to approach it the same as they approach the only thing that they have ever held control over: their career. They hire writers and crew to start producing a version of their marriage they can examine from the outside, even as they brainstorm ways to delay the divorce. And they start researching the most challenging character they've ever had to tackle: themselves, all in an attempt to finally understand what it means 'to have and to hold'.

Tobias Sturt @redskelington.bsky.social · last mo.

Two Word Entertainment Engine Every weekday morning I request two random words and then use them as a prompt to come up with an idea for a story. Today's words: INFINITE CLOSED buff.ly/gOSxgSq

INFINITE CLOSED
*Idea for a short story*
Despite massive future technological advancements, eventually humanity has to admit that, in the words of one prominent engineer, 'you cannot change the laws of physics'. Interstellar travel is simply not a realistic proposition. Mankind is forever limited to its own solar system. Culture turns inward, increasingly living in private virtual universes, closed off to the outside world. It becomes fashionable to model alien planets to explore and then solar systems, finally, using solar system wide computer networks, an entire procedurally generated galaxy, a shared virtual universe in which faster than light travel is possible and into which explorers can at last set off to go where no one has gone before.