#Do you know how fucking difficult it is to find food made without milk protein. Do you know how much shit has cheese. Or butter.

[magpiesbones]

like ngl I would trade all of the Fuckery (dozen minor allergies plus Some Sort Of Fatigue) for a single, common, severe allergy (like bees or peanuts) and otherwise perfect health

[zendozebra]

All the Time in the World Chapter 8

Can’t one day go by without something going wrong in Majima’s life? Apparently, just yesterday there was a villain attack on the students when they were supposed to be doing some sort of rescue training. Majima was supposed to be there helping out the other teachers, but he had promised Izuku that he’d go back to Bandō and look through some of his old stuff. The kid wanted to see some pictures of some of the original quirk users, and it had taken some time to find his old albums. Even then, he had to separate the ones that had himself, Akira, Jin and Aimi in them, seeing as that would probably raise a few questions that he didn’t want to answer. So, since he wasn’t around to help out, Aizawa got his ass handed to him, as did 13 apparently. What does this mean exactly?

It means that Izuku is a fucking idiot and broke his fucking bones again.

“Seriously, kid, if you keep doing this, your ma is gonna take you out of the school. I won’t be able to help you if she does, you know that, right?” The kid wilts under his gaze as Ashido starts to snicker at the boy’s plight. Majima pulls out a cigarette, hoping to catch a fucking break today, and lo and behold, his fucking, lighter is empty. Great, super, fantastic! He snatched the other lighter from Ashido’s hand, angrily lighting his ciga- What? He looked at the pink zebra-striped lighter in his hand, then back up at Ashido. He held up the lighter, “You wanna explain this to me, kid?”

At the very least, she had the good graces to look embarrassed. Izuku looked a bit confused too. “Please don’t tell the other teachers, Majima-sensei.” She said to him, growing a bit nervous, “I know that you can’t smoke on campus, but I don’t know if it’s against the rules to smoke at all.”

“Pretty sure it’s not? I really don’t care either way, your life not mine and all that, but just be careful. Don’t smoke too much.” He then looked over at the problem child. “You knew about this, boy?”

“She asked me not to tell anyone, sir.”

“Good, keep your promises. Trust is important.” He stood up from his desk, stretching his back. “I’m heading to the corner store across the way, gonna grab a snack. Want anything?”

“Ooh, gummy worms!” Ashido called out, while Izuku just shook his head.

Majima walked out into the hall, thankful that the rest of the students have left so he wouldn’t have to stop smoking. He made his way through the security door and out to the crosswalk. Is that Uraraka? He walked up next to his other student, greeting her while they waited for the signal to cross the street. “What’s up, kid? I’d figure you’d be halfway home at this point, what’s got ya stickin’ around school?”

“Oh, Majima-sensei. It’s nothing too important, I just had some questions for Yamada-sensei about the test on friday. Actually, can I ask you a few questions about monday’s lecture? I was hoping you could explain something to me before your test on thursday.” Man, he just can’t catch a break today, can he? Wait, he told them they’d have a test on thursday? Damnit, now he has to write up one of those! Oh, she wanted him to explain something, right? He can’t say no, Nezu has been on his case ever since he almost broke all those classified-information laws. He has to be on his best behavior, so fine.

“Alright, walk with me. I’m headin’ to the store for some stuff, you can keep me company.” She nodded, walking across the street with him and following him into the store.

“So, you told us that villains who act for pleasure or desire are easier to be swayed towards an act of career villainy, but only in situations where the paid actions would fit within their own goals.” Pretty sure that’s not how he worded, but whatever. They walked into the store, where Majima waved at the clerk, and then made his way towards the drinks section.

“Well, in a way. A good example would be the Hero Killer: Stain.” Uraraka shuddered a bit at the mention of that name, but the teacher pushed forward, “If he was contacted by a third party group who desired his assistance with, let’s say, capturing heroes, he might be persuaded to accept the offer, seeing as he himself has a similar goal. However, that union would be unstable due to their varying different end goal. The third party might want to keep the heroes alive for many reasons. Information, extortion, experimentation. Stain, however, only wishes to kill or maim them, and would likely act upon his desire despite the wishes of his employers.” Oh sweet, they had vanilla-flavored milk here? He hasn’t seen any of that in years. Grabbing a few of those sonsabitches. He moved away from the drinks and moved over to the snacks. “Anything else you wanna know?”

“What about trauma villains? Those who do not have a clear goal, but-”

“Trauma villains don’t act with a goal, but more with a lack of one, if that makes any sense.” Judging by the look on her face, he guessed it didn’t. He threw a bag of chips at her. “Hold these for me. Alright, think of it this way. You are training to be a hero. You wake up, you train, you go to sleep. Simple. All of your actions are pushing you towards an ultimate goal. Someone who has been traumatized to the extent of the Echoed Mind is no longer being motivated by a goal, but of some basic desire that has consumed them. He didn’t have any reason to cause the violence that he did, but he didn't know what else to do. He was empty, hollowed, and without purpose in life.”

There we go, there’s a look of something on her face. Majima grabbed the bag of gummy worms that Ashido wanted, as well as a small can of walnuts for Izuku. Might as well get the kid some protein for his strength training.

“So, if someone had found the Echoed Mind, and gave him some kid of a goal to work towards, like using his quirk to help amnesia patients, he might not have gone down the path of villainy?” Damnit, she’s going backwards. Hopeful thinking, but backwards.

“Not… Quite? It’s rather difficult to explain, especially when I’m not paying too much attention to the conversation. Plus, I’m not a doctor and I’m totally not certified to say anything for certain. However, it’s less of that, and more like damage control. The Echoed Mind had been traumatized since birth, and he might have been beyond emotional help, but there could have been a possibility that he could have at least been rendered non-violent. But I knew the Echoed Mind personally, and I can tell you that he was too far gone to be helped, especially in a world that hated quirks.”

Uraraka helped him carry his food over to the counter, where he paid for everything and left the store. She thanked him for his help and made her way to the station, while Majima headed back to the school. He opened the door to his office and- The hell was their problem? Izuku and Ashido were bright red in the face, well Ashido was a darker pink but same thing, and they both seemed super nervous about something. He was missing something, wasn’t he? Alright, time for a little test. He put his bags on his desk and threw Ashido her candy. Just before he sat down, he made a show of checking his pockets and saying, “Aw, damnit, I think I left my wallet at the store. Alright, hold on guys, I’ll be right back.” Alright, plan set. He’ll just wait outside in the hall for a few minutes and use time stop. He’ll be able to walk back into the room and catch an eye of whatever they were-

“Majima-sensei!”

-Aaaand, he lost his train of thought. He gave an annoyed huff, looking to his left and seeing Kendo walking up to him. Oh great, another student wanting to talk to him. Man, this is bullshit, he just wants to drink his fuckin’ milk. Waste of his time, dealing with stupid ass kids and their dumb questions.

Kendo gave him a strange look, “Are you okay, sensei? I just wanted to ask you a question about your-”

“Look, I probably shouldn’t have even given that lecture on monday, so any questions you have should probably go to the principal. Don’t want to get myself into any more trouble than I already have.”

“I… Just wanted to ask about your old friends.” Oh, shit, well. That changes things. He really shouldn’t talk about that. Not without writing down like, a script or something. The whole thing tends to make him uncomfortable, except if he mentions one of them in like, an anecdote or something. She was staring at him, waiting for him to answer. This is gonna be tough to say.

“Why do you want to hear about that, kid? They’re not important, just an old man talking about things that don’t matter anymore.” Man, he had to be how old now? Almost 300, yeah?

“It’s just that Ibara-san noticed that you always seem to be sad when you mention your old friends. Maybe we could help you out a little bit, sir?” Kendo’s a good kid, probably his favorite in 1-B. That class always seems to be lagging behind 1-A, and quite a few of them are pretty bummed out by it. Plus, the Sports Festival is next week, right? He should give these guys a little gift, something that he doesn’t give to 1-A.

“I, uh… I’ll tell you what. Remind me next week, I’ll tell your class some stories about some of my friends. Nothing about Jin, Akira, or Aimi, though. I’m not really… Ready, to talk to so many people about them. But there’s still quite a few stories that I have with guys like Ueno, or Arai. Play your cards right, and keep that Monoma guy at a safe distance from me, and I just might tell Class 1-B about some of the other original villains.” She nodded and made her way down the hall, leaving Majima alone in the hall.

Why was he out here again? It had something to do with time stop, right? He snapped his fingers, looking around for whatever. He sighed and walked back into his office, where- Oh, yeah, forgot about that. Well, Ashido is tracing the scars on Izuku’s hands, so he guesses there’s something going on there. He should mess with them. He sat down at his desk and opened a bag of chips, throwing a handful in his mouth as he propped his feet up on his desk. He snapped again and watched the two of them for a minute. Yeah, they’re definitely together. With an extra loud crunch his two students jumped out of their skin in surprise, both a complete stuttering mess while Majima laughed his ass off.

[kipjordan]

Tour Down Under, 2017

Full disclosure - there’s not a single photo of the pro Peloton ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Day 1

Well, a series of Jetstar & God’s blunders

I’m still relatively new to cycling, I’d say in the last 6 months I feel strong, really finding my stride, or (pedal) stroke, what have you. And I have these miasmic memories of missing out on #TdU2016 - suddenly everyone was gone and I was whipping my head around rasping “Huh? Td - what?”. And then came the photos, the videos, the enormous envy welling up inside me. 

So, jumping ahead to #TdU2017, I wanted to get there desperately. Thursday night came and I went, gliding on clouds of bliss to Tullamarine, Terminal 4. Lugging that bike bag, savouring it’s weight on my shoulder, leaving deep aching marks there, and deep imbued memories on my brain.

I watched the storm on Thursday 18th of January charge it’s way across the ocean, a cavalry of wind, rain and lightning thrashing it’s mane over the city. So much so in fact that we couldn’t land. A lap of Adelaide later and we returned to Melbourne. So went The Evening of Thursday 18th of January. Spent entirely in a flying metal tube. 

Day 1 

Okay let’s try this again

A 4:30am start with 3 hours sleep, a 6:30am flight complimented by a lukewarm and floppy McDonalds muffin-type breakfast. 8:30am and I’m in Adelaide, the living room of Andy, Caz, Jake and Gen. Jake greet me heartily with a warm “huh? you’re here already?”, his underpants hanging loosely to his lean Adelaidean cyclist leggos. We embraced, he is very kind and lovely. And together we sat in a silent morning daze, on the edge of nihilism in the face of another day, but as the rays of the sun fought their way through the blinds, we shook our heads clear of their dustiness and begun our days.

Bike built (with the help of Andy’s marvellous and very useful Park Tools Work Stand), coffee had and Ebenezer Place along with Treadly Bici Shoppe looked at, I joined Adrian and his crew of mischief makers for a self styled* “recovery ride”. *self styled becomes contextually importante

Here is where the riding begins, and by God, this was no recovery. I had been had. More than less, this was in search of down for the sake of up, short and sharp, anaerobic heart rates, sweat stinging the eyes. And a whole lot of smiles, sweeping descents and laughs. Okay, the photos begin now jeez

This ride was tough, by no means am I a mountain goat on bike, nor is my bike the stiffest $15,000 hot mess an Investment Banker in team kit would put on the card for points - but I reached each crest, and pushed past them. I also learnt the value in compact chainrings and the Dean Jones 32t Cassette Workout Programme, the hard way. 

This gruelling adventure, off the back of the Thursday night storm which lashed the windows of Adelaide, my plane and soul all equally, was exactly what I set out to be a part of. Tour Envy(tm) had been avoided, innate human desire for suffering and self destruction satiated, belly grumbling for nutrition and brain yearning for naps all ticked off in a 420 birds with one stone bonanza.

Big thanks to Alex, Adrian, Cam and Finn for having me along. Glad I could keep up - or that you kept a gentle pace ;)

We managed to make it in time for a little interview with Lachy Morton, hurr’ing and durr’ing as he does, and a little viewing of Thereabouts 3, with Lachy Morton’s hurr’ing and durr’ing offset by brother Gus Morton’s sharp green eyes and we were ready to eat.

Now, there aren’t any photos of my evening: a grand feast, the likes of which have never seen before, was had in the halls of Kopi Tim, Adelaide’s finest vegan friendly Malaysian restaurant. Why no photos? This is a photo bloggo after all you dolt. Well because it was one of those times, so sublime was my company that my finger ne’er did reach for a shutter - nay it didn’t reach for much other than food and my single accompanying beer (cheers to Max who joined my lead-out attack in that regard, and made me not feel like a freak in a bunch of healthy vibrant non-drinking... people who are really wonderful. This is sprawling). And so three meals inhaled down my gullet later we bid adieu to Kopi Tim and slowly rolled through the city, branching off as the intersections came and went. 

A big thank you to Andy, Caz, Jake, Gen, Sam, Fiona, Lana, Max and Faz for making that dinner sit as a trophy in my heart. These are fantastic people with big kind hearts, full of empathy and love. Big ups. 

Day 2

Willunga Return - pro cycling is very boring (terms and conditions apply*)

Because I am a very delicate flower I’m not used to back to back days of long riding, but there was something in the air, something in the water, food, bed linen, that invigorated the spirit and granted bonuses to Strength, Intelligence, Dexterity, Constitution, Wisdom and Charisma. It was essentially the DnD v5 character sheet with a Bard and Cleric char giving squad bonuses on a 5d5 roll that always hits. Duh, it’s a buff.

Now on the vein of me being a flower - I slept in, received messages from Caz along the lines of “where are you?”, “Get up and get here”, “We’re going to leave”, “Oh what?”, “Oops yes you’re right the ride doesn’t leave until 9am”. #ProHours Caz. Anyway, she did save me from myself, and as a flower does I rolled out of bed like a sack of potatoes, rolled into kit, rolled into town, rolled into the cafe and rolled some coffee into my body, then rolled into the hills on my bike, all the fashion of a sack of potatoes. 

This was a day spent cruising, some challenging difficult climbing, some loose gravel but always followed with smiles. That’s very much what this was - a day of smiles.

It’s really just a whole lot of me sitting on Andy’s wheel. I don’t have a single regret - that booty just so fine.

This was a long’un - a series of episodic run-ins with friends from all over, as if the entirety of Melbourne’s cyclist mass had migrated west, diving head first into the summer instead of patiently waiting it’s arrival back home. 

I’m just gushing and stammering madly about how good the entire time was - and thus I’d like to continue thanking people who helped make it so pleasant, in the extreme. Lana, Max, Andy, Tim, Alex, Faz (even though she relentlessly dropped us, forgetting, surely, for the entire day that she wasn’t in fact registered to race in the Tour itself), Caz, Gen and Jake for being a thoroughly entertaining and early rising support crew. And I’d like to thank myself for just being me, you know.

Of the evening itself I can’t remember much, perhaps in a fugue state I was unable to consolidate as my cup overflowth with joy - an analogous situation reminiscent of Socrates story of the Three Sieve:

From Lyceum Philosophy, Happy and Freedom in Socrates & Callicles:

A brief description of the two myths is in order. In the first one, Socrates speaks about those uninitiated ones in Hades who carry water into a leaky jar using a leaky sieve (where the sieve is meant to be the soul). And because they leak, he likens the souls of fools to sieves (493b-c). In the second, he tells of two men, each of whom has many jars. The jars belonging to one of them are sound and full (one with honey, another with milk, etc.). It is also supposed that the sources of each of these things are scarce and so attainable only with much toil. Now the one man, having filled up his jars, doesn’t pour anything more into them and so he can relax. As for the other man, he too has the resources that can be attained, though with difficulty, but his jars are perforated and rotten. And so he’s forced to continually fill them, all day round, or else he suffers frustration and pain (493d-494a). 

And yet Socrates, there I sat, a man with a full jar - happy as Larry with yet more to pour in and spill lavishly around the outside of what I envisage as a mason jar, full of a banana soy protein milkshake. I’ll stick to that, you enjoy your hemlock, bro.

I went to bed happy once again.

*Riding 3 hours to see Sagan not pop a wheelie for 3 seconds rates poorly. Pro cycling is a good view from a couch, and even then, most of the time it’s white noise until the final 10km. So if it’s not friends, or me, I don’t super care. This is just another person’s opinion.

Day 3

Let’s hit the hills, let’s feel sore and go to to a cafe

Hey it was something of a inner-chuff, feeling familiar with Montecute road, enough to pace myself at least to the top of Corkscrew. Having been duped by The Adrian Zanado ‘I don’t know how to run a recovery ride’ recovery ride, I decided not to give Corkscrew another strong burl. This decision was compounded by a half rotten corpse that used to be Mason Hender, that I found at the top (later analysis proved a solid 15km ave [or something], and roughly 300watts ave [I think thats like 8.5watts per kg]).

And on we went, resting here and there, enjoying the calm gentle afternoon. Time to stop by a clearwater babbling brook to watch the fish lazily wave their tails against the flow of the stream felt like something we could do for hours were it not for the immediately pressing of matter of getting Cam the fuck home asap as soon as goddamn fucking possible, holy shit they’re gonna fucking leave without him, shit what they dumped his stuff outside the hotel room? What the fuck, dude we’re like 60km and 1,000m up and away from there, fuck fuck okay lets fucking bomb down the old freeway oh fuck.

After the frantic descending at 70km/ph we finally bombed our way into the CBD to be greeted with this:

Were they happy that Cam’s ride took far far longer than we had possibly anticipated? We will never know, it’s one of those meta physical matters that only death would grant us the answers to. And yet, maybe not even then - who could possibly say.

What I can say is that the meal I had at this cafe was top notch. And out the window went my Melbournian elitism as Adelaide planted itself firmly as a strong contender for Second Capital City (Maybe) after Melbourne (and definitely never Sydney). In this scenario the whole of Canberra has dishonourably retired from the political and economic world after using tax payer money to buy apartments on the Gold Coast.

So in closing...

What can I say about TdU2017 and the people of Adelaide?

My heart swells - I can say that with a keen crystal clarity. I feel much love for the event of TdU, not specifically for the event itself - as well organised as it is. Not specifically for the city of Adelaide which opens it’s arms and accepts us all, allowing us to clog it’s road arteries and veins. It’s not even specifically the love of cycling itself, no - it’s very much the people on the bikes. 

Sure, I don’t know them all, that would be outrageous. But the ones I do know are the best of people. I wrote this earlier, and to repeat myself: I’ve found in them a great kindness, openness and empathy. Immediately they’ve warmed to new people and like their city, open their arms to us. I’m glad to know I’ll see them at least once a year for (hopefully) many many years to come.

Now this isn’t to say us Melbournian’s are the pits - nah we’re pretty great too. Some of the finest were out there, and for every moment I spent with them I am thoroughly appreciative. 

So in closing: smiles, laughter, a heavy pedal, sweat dripping from the tip of my nose after a deep exhale. These small moments made a whole, and it’s a whole I’ll treasure.