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greenninjagal-blog · 5 years ago

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15 for Anxceitmus pls - Anon 👽

I’ll be honest I’ve had a plan for this one for days but never enough time to sit down and write it. Now lets see how this goes :D

Summary: Virgil steals a taste of a cake that’s not his and ends up poisoned.

Words: 4360

Quick Taglist: @chelsvans @faithfulcat111 @felicianoromano @holliberries @jemthebookworm @killerfangirl3 @lunasfriendgabby @never-end1ng-suffering @silverflame-wc @stricken-with-clairvoyancy @thenaiads @treasureofpriam

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Piece of Cake

“I’m sorry, I know it hurts, but you have to trust me okay?” the voice says.

At least Virgil, thinks the voice says it. He can’t really tell over the noise in his head and burning fire in his lungs and screaming in the background of everything that was going on. He can’t even see really, based on the rush of white and black dots all over his vision like pin needles getting jabbed directly into his eyes as his throat shreds itself apart again and again and again.

He’s not sure what is happening, not sure when he hit the floor or how the world around him compressed into just him or why his entire body seems to be trying to rip itself apart with varying levels of success.

He sure that it hurts.

And that he hasn’t cried like this since he was kid and he fell and hit his head on the cobblestone fountain in the market and there was just...so much blood everywhere and he thought he was going to die back then.

It had just been a bit of icing.

And Virgil can still taste it on his lips between the blood and the salty tears and the vomit. The avocado taste that he hadn’t had since his mother had passed from the plague a decade prior.

The burning in his lungs is agony, like he jumped into the castle furnace and breathed in the cinders for fun. He strains his arms to tear at his chest where the boiling feeling seems to bleed from, but something is holding him down, and he screams, pleads, begs-- anything, just to make it stop. He’s sorry, he’s sorry, he won’t do it again, he swears--

It’s like a white-hot poker being driven between his ribs and twisting, like a dragon’s breath right before those sharpened foot long teeth snap him right in half, like his head had been tilted back and he’d swallowed lava.

He writhes against it, but something has his left arm and his right wrist and there’s a weight on his legs that keep him from moving despite the desperation in his motions. Every inhale moves the flames--and he can’t quite tell if they’re imaginary anymore, surely something imaginary wouldn’t couldn’t doesn’t hurt like this hurts so much so badly he’s sorry sosorrypleasejustmakeitstopplease---

Then, all at once, it’s over.

The fire reels back, flooded by a cold so icy it steals the rest of the breath he had. His limbs feel like lead and they drop to the floor of the kitchen. It’s also mercifully silent, which seems eerily impossible because the Castle is never silent ever. His vision swims like dunking in and out of the river back home when he went swimming with the older kids in the river. Far over head the gaping arches of the room fade in and out of clarity. The hollowness rings faintly in him, followed by an all-consuming exhaustion that peels away the rest of his thoughts.

“Virgil?” Someone says his name.

He almost recognizes them. He should probably recognize them.

There are faces over him, people he knows, but they’re too blurry to make out. All he wants is sleep suddenly. A deep dark long sleep.

“Let him sleep, your highness,” someone else says softer. “He’s okay now.”

And then Virgil’s eyes close and he loses consciousness.

The unfortunate truth of the matter was that Virgil had no reason to be in the kitchen in the first place. He should have been mending that tapestry that the twin Princes had mangled in spontaneous duel last week, or adding the few last details to the new tunic Prince Remus had been instructed him to prepare, or fixing the tear in Prince Roman’s riding cloak, or simply catching up on sleep that he had missed while pressing himself to finish the new Birthday outfits for the Twins Ball at the end of the week.

But as it stood he had slipped from his crafting room to the kitchen in hopes that the Head of the Kitchen would take pity on him like he had done so many times before and offer him some scraps from the feast that was going on.

Some noble had arrived in the early morning and the castle had been abuzz with energy as the King welcomed him. Virgil had already heard several rumors about it, just from lurking on the corner counter out of the way of the scurrying kitchen maids and the servant runners.

“Something about him strikes me as odd,” Patton had admitted to him between cutting up strawberries, helping a maid balance a honey bun tray, and directing a newer servant boy on the proper way to refill a spare goblet. “I didn’t like the look he gave Prince Roman at all.”

And Virgil had snorted at that, swiping a glob of honey from the empty pan before it when to the stack of dirty dishes. “You don’t like any way anyone looks at Prince Roman.” He had pointed out sucking on his index finger.

Patton gave him a disapproving look but waved off his blatant theft. “I don’t know what you mean, kiddo-- Lower Terrance! If you keep trying to pour from that height there’s a chance you’ll miss and stain the table cloth-- I know that he’s an important noble, but the way he was looking at Roman was the way a butcher eyes a piece of meat before he cuts it.”

Virgil swallowed and eyed the cook carefully. “Well, how was he looking at Prince Remus?”

“He wasn’t.”

Virgil frowned, “Wasn’t? He ignored the second Prince?” Which seemed ridiculous on all fronts. First of all, Prince Remus was royalty, and no one ignores royalty, ever. Not even if its 3 A.M. and they send for you to discuss a different pattern for the tunic you were making for them and you barely have time to put on presentable clothes much less brush your hair. Secondly, Prince Remus was impossible to ignore even if you were trying to: between his gaudy outfits and the morning star he kept looped on his belt like a sword and his voice which echoed off the cement at all hours of the day, he stood out wherever he went. His auburn hair and green eyes made him quite the talk of the castle.

Patton wrung his dish cloth between his fingers before going back to slicing strawberries. “Well not at first. He bowed and present Remus a cake. After that Remus was too distracted to really notice anything else.”

Virgil had snuck a strawberry from the pile yet to be cut and pops it in his mouth, chews, swallows and then asks politely, “What about his consort?”

“You mean Dee?” Patton slid a sliced strawberry to the side of the wooden board. Virgil had thought was entertaining that Patton had even asked. Roman didn’t take consorts, and Remus only had one: a man by the name of Dee who had the eyes like butter and a smile too soft. His hair flowed like a golden hay field, and his voice was like a fable siren’s. Virgil hadn’t heard him sing, but he couldn’t imagine that there had ever been an instance where he hadn’t been able to get what he wanted from someone.

Dee was pretty, but in a sense that it was too pretty to be real. Like a snake oil merchant come to sell wares to the naive populace.

But Virgil was biased on all fronts: Dee had always been present when Virgil had need to take measurements of Prince Remus for his new tunic, and every time he’d been summoned after that, watching Virgil’s every move like a predator waiting for the perfect time to strike. Virgil’s hands had shaken so badly he had barely been able to read his own notes later, and even if he tried to tell himself it was the stress, he knew it was because of how delightfully attracted he was to two things that weren’t open for him to even dream about. So, he buried thoughts of Prince Remus’s muscles and of Dee’s breathy laughter and pretended that they didn’t keep him awake at night.

“Dee was impassive, you know,” Patton had said, drawing Virgil from his thoughts, “I’m never able to read him.”

“Not like I can read Prince Roman,” went unsaid, but Virgil could hear it under his words.

“What kind of cake was it?” Virgil had asked instead, because he was a merciful friend and wasn’t about to bother a man about unrequited crushes while he was kick dirt over his own emotions.

Patton had wrinkled his nose. “Avocado! Can you believe it? I’ve never heard of an avocado cake before!”

Virgil blinked. He had glanced towards the end of the counter where the cake had been placed so elegantly. He had been eying it all night, letting his mouth water how good he imagined it might be, but knowing it was avocado? “My mom...she used to make those. They were my favorite.”

“Oh, I know that look,” Patton said, pointing his knife at him, “You know that cake is for the Prince. He already declared that no one but him is allowed to have it, Virge. Even if I wanted to slip you some, that would put both of our necks at risk.”

And Virgil knew that, he did. But it was a large cake. Surely, the Prince couldn’t eat it all by himself.

And frankly he knew enough about the royal family by now to know that absolutely no one else would eat a monstrosity like that. Prince Roman didn’t even like avocados to begin with and had loudly complained the last time Patton had tried sneaking it into a meal.

Was the man really going to miss if Virgil snags just swatch of the icing?

Patton lightly hit his hand. “Don’t,” He warned with that stern voice of his which revealed his years over Virgil.

“I wasn’t!” Virgil lied.

“I’ll toss you out of my kitchen, Virgil.” Patton had told him. “Because I’d rather lose your company for the next few nights than have to watch you be run through for stealing from the crown.”

“It’s a cake.” Virgil whined.

Patton gave him another warning gaze and moved another strawberry around. He had been about to say something else, but at that moment Logan, the resident mage who always chose to stay scarce when there were visiting nobles about the halls, had chosen to flourish down the servant staircase which had appropriately distracted them both. Not that Virgil had been hoping for a distraction.

But who was he to stare a gift horse in a mouth?

Logan had zeroed in on Patton, per usual, causing the cook to blush the same way he did around Prince Roman and Logan had mentioned something about a plant they were attempting to magically grow. Virgil hadn’t really been focusing on the words as much as the fact that Patton’s eyes stayed trained on Logan while he talked.

Virgil had inched down the counter, placing a finger to his lips when Terrance noticed what he was doing. He reached out with on hand and flicked just enough of the icing that he’d get a taste, but not enough to disturb the overall look of the cake. In fact, Virgil was certain no one would even know he took some if they hadn’t seen anything.

“Virgil!” Patton yelled just as he popped his finger in his mouth.

Virgil had stiffened at the sound of his name and whirled back to face a very mad Patton and a surprised Logan. The taste of avocado had hit the back of his throat, which almost made him feel great: it tasted just as earthy as he remembered it being when his mother made it, with just the right bitter aftertaste that made Virgil want more, although he didn’t remember it being quite so prominent--

“That was the Prince’s Cake!” Patton had shouted, “As in Prince Remus! I don’t care if you are in good graces with his highness! That was a stupid- stupid -stupid-- what on earth were you thinking? Virgil--!!”

And that was when Virgil had first felt the burning, like an itch in his throat that had suddenly swept him up. Patton’s voice had faded as he grabbed for his own throat, for his chest, for anything to remove the sudden agony ravaging his body. He had toppled straight off the counter in the middle of whatever else Patton had shouted, taking the cake right down with him.

Because that was just Virgil’s luck that he’d steal a lick of the second Prince’s cake and end up poisoned within an inch of his life.

And to be honest, the price for stealing from the crown in most cases is death, and since Virgil had been pretty sure he was going to die anyway he figures when he closes his eyes that was going to be the end.

He wakes up, with someone carting their fingers through his hair the way his mother used to do, before she had gotten sick and died from that plague that had taken over half their village. His head feels like someone had stuffed cotton between his ears, his throat like someone had forced him to swallow swords. He’s warm, which was a strange concept: usually the servants’ quarters are cool, even in the summer and Virgil’s blankets are never quite been enough to stave off the tendrils of chill that seep into his cot. But here and now? Oh, he’s so warm and comfortable he never wants to move again.

“--want him killed!”

“I know you do, your highness.” Another voice says, a voice that’s closer and more comfortable, “But there’s much more to gain from keeping him alive.”

“That cake was intended for Me!” There is the sound of something shattering, something ceramic, and fancy, and expensive.

Virgil tries to shift, tries to open his eyes, but it’s just so...exhausting. The hand in his hair drags slightly, before restarting softly, more gently than before.

“It’s okay, Love,” the voice over him says softly. “I’ve got you. Go back to sleep.”

Something else crashes. And another. And another.

There are more after that, but Virgil doesn’t remember them.

The next time he wakes, he’s more aware of where he is: he can feel the luxurious goose feather blanket draped over his chest, and how several of the loose feathers tickle his chin with each inhale, can feel the soft pads of fingers dancing through his hair in a way that make him want to relax and drift off again, can feel the coolness of a wet cloth on his forehead that wards off an overheating.

Its comfortable, its perfect.

But there’s never been a perfect thing in Virgil’s entire life.

He shifts, moaning with the effort to get his body to move after so long (?) of stiffness. He hadn’t realized that there had been people talking around him, until the conversation comes to a soft stop and the hand in his hair retracts slightly.

Virgil’s eyes open and he almost believes he’s still dreaming.

He knows where he is, even though he can’t believe it: he’d know the opulent bedframe and those darkened green curtains anywhere; he’d know those grey and silver blankets, and that room shape even if he should have fallen blind with everything else that had happened. He had been in that room far too many times for him to not have known.

He’s in the Second Prince’s room, lying in the second Prince’s bed, under the second Prince’s covers, and the Second Prince’s consort was sitting beside him with his hand in Virgil’s hair and another hold a book he seems to have been in the middle of reading.

“Oh,” Dee, the consort who was far too pretty to be anything other than trouble, says softly. “You’re awake.”

“He’s awake?” The sound of the Prince Remus startles Virgil, although it shouldn’t have. It only made sense that the owner of the room would also be in his own room.

What does not make sense is why that Virgil is there.

“Softly,” Dee says to the Prince without removing his eyes from where he’s staring down at Virgil with an expression that he doesn’t dare put an actual name to. The very idea of it makes the back of Virgil’s mouth sting.

Prince Remus had been across the room, perhaps staring out that large window which he did often while waiting for Virgil to respond to his summons, but he comes to the bed almost before Virgil can form another thought. Virgil tries to sit up, tries to move because this was the Prince and Virgil had already been caught stealing a taste from his cake and he was lucky they did just let him die--

Prince Remus puts a hand on Virgil’s shoulder and lightly shoves him back to the pillows, back to Dee’s side, back down. Whatever strength Virgil thinks he has disappears right out of his limbs.

There’s something strange about the Prince, Virgil notes squinting up at him. Not that there isn’t usually something strange about him; it seemed that every time Virgil was requested to his presence there was something just off about him. Virgil had thought it had been like a tease: something that would stick in his mind while he threaded his needles and cause him to shake his head with fondness. It had seemed that Remus had made a game out of it too, on the rare occasions where Virgil almost asked if he was cultivating some sort of joke, and the Prince had smirked at him and dared him to say something (which of course he never did, because Virgil quite likes his head where it’s attached to his neck, and the feel of Dee’s eyes on made him dangerously aware of his own standing).

But this sort of strangeness was not like the other times. It’s a calmness that encompasses the Prince, much like a still pond moments before a stone plunges into the depths. There’s no extra energy, no mischievous glints, smug crude joke. There’s just Prince Remus, and a seriousness that make Virgil fear for his life.

This is the Prince who could beat most of the military with nothing but his fist and his morning star. This is the Prince who could stare down an invading army and send them running home with just a single threat. This is the Prince who would challenge Death to a duel and make it out with his soul.

There’s a fresh cut across his cheek that hadn’t been there the last time Virgil had seen him, as if he had dodged a blade by mere inches and dismissed the attack as not nearly as worthy of his attention as Virgil somehow was.

“Why did you eat that cake?” Prince Remus asks.

“Re—” Dee says sharply.

The Prince holds up a hand at him, and Dee holds his tongue. “I want to know.”

Virgil suddenly feels like the blankets are constricting, tightening around his torso and his chest like a vice. His body shakes at the very idea of the cake. The mere thought of avocado makes his mouth violently taste like blood and his throat smolders with the threat of pain.

His hands go to his neck, to relive the pressure that’s not really there, but Dee is quicker. The consort catches both his wrists and pins them softly to Virgil’s abdomen with one hand and uses the other to rub tenderly rub Virgil’s cheek.

“It’s okay,” the consort says, in a soothing tone, that makes Virgil want to cry, “Shh, you’re okay now, Virgil.”

“I’m s-sorry,” Virgil chokes out, “S-sorry.”

Whatever the Prince is looking for, he doesn’t seem satisfied. He stands up again, fiercely shoving the bedframe. He takes three steps from the bed and then spins back around with a murderous expression.

“Sorry?” He shouts. “He’s sorry!” He slips his morning star from its hook on his belt and spins to swing it against the wall.

“Remus!” Dee interrupts.

“Shut up!” Prince Remus snarls right back. The sound of metal against the stone walls explodes throughout the room, causing Dee to tense up. Its violent and cold and Virgil hates it, hates that he caused it, hates that he doesn’t know why and he’s too afraid to ask.

Dee shifts like he wants to get up, wants to go to his prince and cup his face to ground him back to a reality before he does something he will regret, but in the end he stays right with Virgil. And Virgil is selfish enough that he’s thankful more than he’s guilty. The sunlight from the windows make the consort’s hair glitter gold and the black jewels around his neck that claim him as Prince Remus’s property glint harshly. His touch is far softer than Virgil would have expected, softer than the blankets, softer than a breeze on a warm summer’s day.

The prince swings four more times at the wall, deepening darkening cracks without the slightest care in the world. Then he takes his weapon and throws it across the room where it collides something else beyond Virgil’s line of vision before falling mercifully silent.

“Are you finished, your majesty?” Dee says in a tone that’s dangerous close to being chiding.

“I will be finished when I have that skamelar’s head at my feet!” Prince Remus says nastily. “That cake was intended for me!”

“I’m sorry,” Virgil whimpers again.

“And just what do you have to be sorry for?” Prince Remus turns on him, “Tell me, Virgil! If not for you, I would be dead from having boiled from the inside! Or maybe from having clawed my way right into my ribcage. Or maybe from having ripped my own throat apart? I’m sure that would have been a lovely sight for everyone to watch!”

Virgil’s heart clenches, and he doesn’t know what to say, what he should do. The back of his throat tastes like the inside of his stomach, like blood, and poison, and avocado. And the Second Prince is saying his name like it’s the most normal thing in the world, talking like Virgil had done it on purpose, sounding like Virgil had saved his life and that meant something more than fate intervening at the right moment.

Dee says, “We came so close to losing you, Virgil. It was a matter of luck that you survived. Logan said that if he had been any further away, if you had taken any bigger of a taste... you would not have stayed alive long enough for him to figure out the cure.”

They talk like it means something. Like Virgil’s life is worth something more than the tailoring services he supplies, like he can’t just be replaced with just a single royal announcement, like they think Virgil is….

“W-why?” Virgil trembles. “Why are you—"

Prince Remus kneels next to the bed, and his head dips slightly so that his black crown bows for Virgil.

“Did you really think that all these times I just wanted new clothes?” The Prince says so quietly Virgil’s breathe catches. “That I’m not capable of fixing my own holes in my trousers, or my cloaks, or that I truly cared if what I was wearing had rips in them at all? Before you came along Father had been threatening to take all of my weapons and lock me in a tower so I would stop going through fabrics so quickly.”

Dee’s fingers ghost over Virgil’s chin lightly. “And a three A.M. summons is surely the most normal thing for the royal tailor.” There’s a teasing smile on his lips, lips that Virgil thinks might be very nice against his. “Our prince was quite inconsolable when you appeared looking just as presentable as normal, Love.”

There’s something about the way he says words--“our prince”, “Love”--like they’re the most normal and natural things in the entire Kingdom.

“Don’t pretend like you haven’t spent night waxing poetry to me about what you want to do with him, Dee!” The prince commands.

“I have no clue what you are referring to, your highness,” Dee says with a red blush across his ears.

Prince Remus looks up at both of them, before leaning forward on the bed. Like a magnet, Dee moves towards him as well and meets him for a smiling kiss in right over Virgil.

He’s seen them kiss dozens of times: soft kisses, warm kisses, kisses so openly filled with love that Virgil feels like he’s intruding when he looks at them. They’ve kissed while Virgil had taken measurements, when he had been taking notes for the specific requests the Prince had for him, when Virgil had been leaving to go about his duties.

Virgil has never left apart of a kiss like this. His lips are on anyone’s and the only touch he has is where Dee was still holding his hands, which had turned into him lacing their fingers together in a mangled knot. Prince Remus reaches out and takes his other hand, and who is he to deny his prince?

He feels faint, float, not really. Surely, he was still dreaming; the last wisps of the poison having their fun with him. Surely, he was about to wake up and find himself not nearly this lucky.

“Don’t scare us like that again, Virgil,” Prince Remus says, breathlessly as he presses his forehead to Dee’s and squeezes Virgil’s hand, “Not before I have a chance to properly court you. I’ll bring you a barbarians head on a stake or something!”

Dee merely smiles down at him and says “Love.”

Virgil thinks that if he died, perhaps this wasn’t such a bad place to spend the rest of eternity.

#sanders sides #greengabs #Anxceit #demus #anxceitmus #virgil sanders #Remus Sanders #deceit sanders #sympathetic deceit #sympathetic remus #patton sanders #logan sanders #roman sanders #your author might be touched starved!#we aren't sure yet!#also might make a part two some day #alternative universe

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purkinje-effect · 3 years ago

Text

Asking for Trouble

Cait gets a terrible first impression of Melancholy, my Sole.

This blurb has sat in my drafts for a few years now, and I decided to polish it up and finish the thought. Not sure if the encounter will be canon to Anatomy, but it’s here nonetheless. (For those curious to timeline placement, we’ll say this is roughly after the Park Street Station stuff in Fourth Instar, and sometime after his falling out with Mac.)

TWs: Heavy angst, injury and death, drug use and alcohol, explicit description of drug side effects, and violence-baiting.

Cross-posted on AO3 here if you’d rather. Likes, comments, kudos, etc. are all greatly, greatly appreciated.

_____________________________________

Someone at the Dugout Inn had mentioned this place. ‘Choly had come here with a vague recollection that the Combat Zone had once paraded skin. It only served to live up to its name now without any innuendo. Observing a little violence could be cathartic, too, and damn, if he couldn’t use some catharsis after his myriad missteps in Goodneighbor. All his life a spectator, vicarious in every regard.

He belonged here far before Goodneighbor or Diamond City, regardless of looking the part. Who could say a quavering, grey little man wearing a white three piece suit over head-to-toe leather orthotic braces didn’t fit right in among these earthly, physical misfits? He certainly couldn’t see any hackneyed political messes or territory wars erupting here: only people blowing off steam any way they could find it.

He couldn’t entirely say he minded that Angel’s compulsive cleaning habits almost always nettled the Hister Handy into picking up after social locations like this burlesque theater which now showcased cage fights. The possibility any of these raiders might hack it almost avoided him altogether, since he seemed like the only one with a Pip-Boy with which to do so. Such a worry would stick with him long-term after what he’d seen the Rust Devils do to Lowell.

His mind sang praises that Angel had allowed him to resume adding alkaloids to his meal replacement beverage, the Melancholia. Hubeine gave him negligible trouble compared to other options.

The fight unfolding before him was the billed spectacle for the night: for one hour, plus implicit encores, Cait would take down any body foolish enough to step foot into the cage to fistfight her unarmed. He swirled at some bourbon in a shot glass, from his bar seat to one side of the stage. His cataract eyes raised as he watched her continue through the athletic redhead’s performance. Somehow she managed restraint just shy of lethal blows, despite her precision and brute force. Any composure belied the depth of her murderous and bottomless rage. Glassy and lugubrious, he followed her bared teeth and retracted lips, her unblinking eyes, her adrenaline-wired and overworked musculature, her leaden instinctual footwork.

Despite having knocked out seven opponents in twenty minutes already, she wore more of their blood than they did.

In every mannerism, he recognized his enlisted in her. He stopped sipping at his liquor and threw the glass back, only to refill it.

Cait danced with the eighth opponent for about a minute before things escalated. The burly, hairy man pulled a switchblade on her, and managed to gouge her in the arm. In the physical sense, it didn’t faze her. In the mental sense, it had shattered the sanctity of her performance. She roared at him and lunged to sink her teeth into his face.

The crowd exploded. Her ghoul manager stepped in and attempted to stop the match-up, but he knew better than to get between her and the fool. She refused first aid, intent to fuck the guy up. The man kept his distance from her, knife still drawn, clutching at his gushing cheek. she voiced her displeasure to her manager, and he seemed to walk away and leave her again to her opponent... Only to bring her a baseball bat. A bloodied grin ripped across her face as she choked up on it like a familiar friend.

‘Choly smiled quaintly, head askew. The ghoul knew that the crowd demanded results--and more importantly, he knew that the crowd needed to see the consequences of forsaking what little honor they agreed upon in this dive.

She slugged him in the head. As he fell over, she proceeded to beat the shit out of him. The resultant din deafened much how ‘Choly might imagine Fenway Park during the World Series. Not that baseball had been his druthers. God, he wished that had been him on the receiving end. Between her hair, her leather corset, and the carnage, red was so very much her color. Head to toe, she was rage incarnate.

No one wanted to challenge her after that, especially not if they had to step around the bloody mess she’d splattered across the stage.

Time blurred a bit in ‘Choly’s shot glass. The next he looked up, he realized the champion sat beside him to drown herself in a fifth of vodka straight from the bottle. He straightened as coolly as he could, shifting to watch her. He adjusted his half-moon glasses, but could otherwise not obfuscate his alarm. He couldn’t leave alone the familiarity of the untethered ferocity with which she carried herself.

“Forgive me if this is forward of me, but I will get you any chems you want, if you will swear off cyclomorphine. The Psycho.”

“Bull shit,” came a potent Irish twang. She slammed down the bottle. Beneath the indignity in her glower, a tinge of fear felt more like the pressure of desperation. “You suggestin’ I couldn’t possibly fight as well as I do, weren’t I doped up? Your stupid mug hasn’t been here before. I’d remember. Who the hell do you think you are, to go around insultin’ the talent?”

His heart begged hot for her to retaliate. His gloved fingers tapped gingerly at the barely varnished countertop.

“I mean it. Name it. Med-X. Calmex. Anything but Psycho. I’ll even get dirty and brew you the most potent Jet you’ve ever had, if what you really need is escapism and not a low. CM isn’t a chem. It’s a death sentence. And... even if that’s the desired end result, that’s just about as gruesome and painful as it gets.”

She swiveled on the bar stool, resting both hands squarely on her spread knees. Her dead gaze bored through him.

“The fuck do you care so much about this wild theory of yours? You go around cold readin’ everybody’s vices tryin’ to hock your snake oil? Some salesman you are. You’ve got the Charisma of a Mirelurk egg that’s been in the sun.”

He raised his hands in defense, and then said what he meant sooner than meaning what he said.

“I’m not trying to sell you anything. I keep trying to offer solutions to the people I’ve hurt with my life choices, fix the damage rather than enterprise on it. Please let me get you chasing a different devil. Anything but that.”

“You’ve never met me in your life, and I don’t know your name or face from a Molerat in the floorboards. Don’t you try and bullshit me into believing you’re capable of fixing what ails me--and don’t you dare try to take credit for anyone that’s wronged me.”

“I’m the reason Psycho exists in the quantities it does in the Commonwealth. So yes, your pain IS my fault, at least part--”

His jaw seared. ‘Choly found himself sprawled in the floor. He felt around for his glasses, and as they returned to his face, he smiled up at her imploringly from where she stood over him. She cracked her knuckles sourly.

“I don’t have time for this nonsense. Tryin’ t’say I’m the one’s got a chem problem. What color is the sky for you? Forget you.”

Her hard exterior began to show signs of crumblign, in a series of stifled tics, most noticeably a corner of her mouth and the same ear. He could only begin to speculate to what exactly it was she’d taken exception, but he had to keep her attention, hold her contempt. Charm had never come naturally to him, so instead he had to sound the part of insisting at all costs that he was right.

“--Fine, you don’t want to quit. That’s a choice, too. I’ll make however much Psycho you want. You want to go out like that, I can help you with that. But I want you to know just exactly what that death looks like. Abscessed injection sites. Your gums and cuticles bleed. Your tear ducts bleed. It weakens all your capillaries, the tiniest blood vessels in your body. Internal bleeding. Organ deterioration. The numbness doesn’t turn off the pain--it only makes it so you don’t care. Is the anger easier than the hurt? If that’s how you want to go out, I’m not in any position to question it. But you might as well have an expert supplying you with it.”

Rather than help him up, she bore a heel down on his right hand. With an anxious chuckle, he winced, but welcomed being pinned in place. She glared down at him, seething. She didn’t want to hear another word from him, but she had to. Something about him surely sounded more deranged than intoxicated, and it threatened to haunt her.

“Do you know why cyclomorphine exists?” he continued, breath stuttering all the while. “Do you know what it is? Of course not. It was a prewar chemical--I can’t even comfortably endear it a chem--that the military developed so its soldiers no longer felt injury or fatigue. They endeavored to engineer soldiers who wouldn’t quit when hurt, even fatally. And it was only one of a dozen projects of its kind, to exploit the different aspects of human limits. Nothing human came from refining Psycho. It destroys something fundamental to a sense of humanity. The perfect formula didn’t concern itself with whether the patient came back in one piece, or alive at all. The Deenwood Project wasn’t poetic, wasn’t artistic, didn’t make a single beautiful thing. The fact that CM fell into paramilitary use after my tenure ended with the Army... and the fact it now as a result flows freely throughout the country as holdovers from... from the police attempting to keep the peace through intense and consistent violence... The fact is, I’m one of the chemists responsible for cyclomorphine’s end product. Responsible for it being one of the devices of America’s victory at Anchorage... So yes, yes I am. Responsible for what ails you. You’re civilian collateral of the United States Army.”

Her posture shifted slowly from anger to bitterness. She ground her heel into his palm. He pretended the token of her grief got through the reinforced officer’s glove.

“It’s not my place to question the source of your pain, and it’s not my place to insist that I be the one to take it away. I simply know that no matter how great the pain you’re in... Psycho dissolves parts of you, every time you use it to numb you. It begins physically, then advances to spiritually. It robs you of who you are.”

“That’s just the thing. I can’t handle bein’ me. This is the only part I’m fit to play. Besides, Tommy only cares if his juggernaut brings in the caps. I’m beholden to a contract. And the way I see it, you’re tryin’ to come between a man and his money, pokin’ around where your nose doesn’t belong! You’re lucky we’re out here and not in the cage, creep. Either I’m paid to beat your arse, or you’re askin’ to get blackballed.”

He sighed dreamily up at her, almost regretting that she let up on his hand. She drew her fists when his hand went to the lining pocket of his vest, but he chuckled producing a sack of caps.

“I thought you’d never ask. I admire one who rests their agency in someone else’s hands--or pockets, as it were. Surely, this is to the tune of you doing the honors. Add a black eye to the busted jaw. Tack on whatever you like. Ladies’ choice.”

She snatched the sack from him, frowning incredulously.

“What kind of sick flirting game is this? You tryin’ to buy me into bed? I know I’m easy on the eyes, but this isn’t a brothel these days, in case your damaged brain can’t tell the difference.”

He knew he wouldn’t be getting back the sack, but at least he’d tricked her into accepting some fleck of reparations from him.

“How many caps would it take to break your contract? To get you out of here?”

A broken sarcastic laugh crackled out of her. He’d long since surpassed overstepping, having moved on to stepping on toes.

“You’re insane if you think I’d ever want to leave the Combat Zone, especially not on the arm of the likes of you. I’ve got everything I could want here--except right now, not a place without you. You’re the one who needs to lay off the chems. Get your stupid brain-damaged arse out of here before I ask Tommy what I can do with you.”

He whistled for Angel, then retrieved his cane to stand.

“I suppose if you won’t let me help you, obliging you is the least I can do.”

With his Handy by his side, the two left without further question.

On his walk back to Hotel Rexford, he accepted that he’d probably never know the answer, but still he wondered if he had the same or opposite trouble as Cait: Were the two chasing a perpetual numbness, or were they chasing the futility of trying to feel anything again, at any cost?

#fallout #fallout 4 #fallout cait #cait fallout #sole survivor #combat zone #melancholy #deplorable karma sole survivor #battle for anchorage #psycho #whump

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tricktster · 4 years ago

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I feel your pain. My brother has lifelong health problems that are rapidly getting worse. Every appliance that uses water has broken at some point over the last month. Also, I have bought snd exchanged three fish tanks, because each fish tank had a leak. My dental cap ollied out. To be fair I DID do some black magic adjacent shit. So like. I'm bearing it as gracefully as I can :p

Hoo boy, you and I should grab an age appropriate beverage sometime because i also have a loose filling and an unexpected aquarium shrimp tragedy on my list of grievances...

okay well it’s not that huge, it’s just that I was getting anxious because Baja Blast, my recently acquired and spectacularly beautiful blue pearl neocardinia, was acting sluggish and her gills, which had been tinged a distinctive looking neon green a few weeks ago, now looked impacted and weirdly frilly.

So I did some googling and discovered that Baja Blast had ellibiopsidae.

Ellibiopsidae is a fungal parasite that looks kind of like a lichen and essentially eats a shrimp alive from the inside. There is literally no cure recognized by the scientific community, though there are some businesses that will really try to sell you otherwise. I am at my fucking limit for snake-oil miracle cures rn, so I did the same thing I do with regard to my parent’s condition, i.e. skipped the bullshit and went right to the peer reviewed journal articles... and yeah.

Not only is there no cure, but if the infected shrimp molts or dies and the other shrimp eat the infected shell or body (which happens all the time because shrimp are grade a nastyboys), it’ll spread through the tank. So, I had to do the right thing for the good of all my animals, which is the worst thing, and euthanize this little tiny beautiful little being.

I am soft about being the cause of animal death, and getting softer. It’s been years since I ate any mammal (or ridiculously, octopus) meat, which I originally claimed was for environmental reasons, but is in practice because if I can look into the soft, vacant eyes of my idiot axolotls and see that there is some sort of inner life therein worth respecting and protecting, well, shit, have y’all met a pig or a cow?

(If anyone is curious, I still eat chicken and fish; fish, because it is incredibly hard to avoid and because I can vote with my dollar to support sustainable and ethical fishing practices, and chicken mostly because I have spent enough time with chickens to know that if they had any say in the matter, they would eat me first)

Anyway, even though I’m soft about animal death, I will absolutely push myself past any amount of squeamishness when it comes to an animal in my care that is suffering. So, I made the call not to subject her to weeks of untested and possibly painful treatment with little chance of success, and I euthanized a being, even though it really bummed me out, because it was the right thing to do for the greater health of my colony.

I’m getting introspective here, because the analysis I had to engage with there is, on a much larger scale, what my parent is dealing with. I’m trying to respect their confidentiality and not put their personal struggles on blast, but I think maybe an analogy is useful: what is going on is akin to contemplating the amputation of a dominant hand.

Sticking with the metaphor: My parent has a congenital condition that, unmedicated, would lead to the total loss of function in both hands. This is a nightmare for them, as it would be for anyone who has gone 65+ years enjoying full use of their hands, only for that ability to suddenly falter. Due to recent medical advances, they have been recieving regular medical treatments to retain function in their hands, which is extremely unpleasant to go through, but has been worth it because the treatments have not only stopped the progress of the disease, but actually produced some improvement in function.

As with any medical procedure, though, the treatments my parent recieves have some wildly unlikely possible complications. Two weeks ago, my parent received their treatment and it quickly became evident that one of those incredibly unlikely complications had occurred in the most severe way possible. Since that day, it has been a constant, round the clock battle trying different approaches (all extremely painful!) to combat this complication. My parent lost all function in their “hand” on the day this all manifested, and has not had any restoration of function since.

At first, the goal of the medical approach was to restore function to their “hand”, but we are pretty far past that now; the goal is now to not lose the “hand” entirely, forget function. Things have somewhat stabilized, but the prognosis is incredibly foggy and unclear at this point, and all the while my parent has required constant care and has been in incredible pain. Emotionally, they are at the point where it is a question of how much more of this it is fair and reasonable to subject themselves to. The prospect of amputation and prosthesis is extremely upsetting, and the thought of going forward like this indefinitely is ... also extremely upsetting.

My brother is an incredibly smart man with a ton of knowledge on the issue of maintaining quality of life in elderly populations - that’s his life’s work, in fact. He is very concerned about the prospect of amputation and prosthesis because he fears that it will have a potentially huge impact on my parent’s quality of life going forward, and because he is optimistic that we are on the right track to have further medical breakthroughs that would allow my parent to regain function down the road if their “hand” is not surgically removed now.

And me? I’m soft, and my parent is in excruciating pain, and I cannot help but think of the calculus I always have to run for the beings in my care - is the possibility of a cure sufficient to ask them to endure an indeterminate period of suffering? Is it fair and ethical to ask them to endure this, on the offchance that whatever’s wrong can be fixed?

There was a simple answer for me in the case of the shrimp. There’s not one when it comes to this, to the big thing looming over my life and thoughts that actually really matters. And, of course, my family isn’t alone in struggling with something like this, particularly now, with a pandemic boiling through my country that is forcing so many of us to face similar dilemmas; what is kind, what is fair, what is medically possible, what nightmare will develop next that we are powerless to prevent? How do you do the right thing here, when the worst and most unlikely scenario has manifested?

So, with ALL that said, I just want to express how profoundly furious, how absolutely enraged and impotent and wounded I am today, to witness a political party of bigots and sociopaths cluster together this afternoon to ensure that a judicial nominee is seated on the supreme court specifically because she will actively work to make these intimate and painful medical decisions harder and more scarring and with greater risks to consider.

This post is ALL over the place but needless to say I am in a mood.

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psychic-refugee · 5 years ago

Text

Sometimes I get basic and like to read gossip.

So, there’s this thread going about that mainly focuses on Dove Cameron.

https://prettyuglylittleliar.net/topic/3903-dove-cameron/?page=37

I cannot and do not make any claims to the validity of the thread’s contents.

This is all internet gossip from an anonymous “set employee” who does not name themselves. Please take this with a grain of salt. I do not necessarily believe this gossip, and I write about it mostly for entertainment purposes. Remember, this is the internet, anyone can make up anything. Whatever you happen to believe is true is based solely on your own preconceptions and biases, as nothing is substantiated, and it all amounts to hearsay.

Please also remember that any anecdote is solely from one person’s point of view. A point of view they are expressing behind the back of said celebrity who is not given a chance to defend themselves nor have they put forth their version of events.

It does not paint her in a flattering light. It literally goes on for 61 pages of mostly people ragging on her plastic surgery (“PS”). I am not a plastic surgeon, so I cannot 100% say what she has gotten done, but as a layperson and from my own opinion, I would suspect that she has had fillers (specifically for her lips), a nose job, and something done to her cheeks. I do agree with that she looks vastly different in each movie, with more work done as time progresses. I’ve also seen her stint on Shameless and bearing in mind that she was 15/16 vs 19/20, I still think she had a lot of work done. I don’t think her transformation can be brushed off as losing baby fat or growing into her looks.

I’m not super offended by PS. There’s this notion that celebrities maintain this impossible standard, but I think it goes both ways. The public isn’t interested in flaws. They want and even demand perfection from their idols. Fans are quick to “cancel” people or they move on to the next hot new thing. It’s kind of a destructive co-dependent relationship. Like honestly, how many celebrities would you “stan” if you didn’t find them attractive? And what do we find attractive? How quick are people to point out flaws in candid photos? I’m not saying everyone does this, but it’s enough to be pervasive in celebrity culture and I think it’s unfair to try to say it doesn’t exist or to not acknowledge the extreme pressure celebrities are under. The thread itself is an example of it. It’s mostly people ragging on Dove about how bad they think she looks now.

No one is famous without our permission and I have yet to see anyone boost anyone who wasn’t at least conventionally good looking. If they are selling an impossible standard, we are the ones buying it.

So, no. I do not find PS all that problematic in itself. I will agree there is something disingenuous about going on about self-love while heavily filtering/photoshopping pictures on top of PS.

But I also find it disingenuous to talk about body dysmorphia or the mental health dangers of PS and then rag on someone and speculate about every PS they may have had.

Pot, meet kettle.

People bring up that young people look up to her and while I agree that she does have great influence, I just don’t know if it’s really her (or any celebrities’) responsibility to be a good role model. A human is a human, is a human, right? No one person is ever going to be perfect and while they may do something admirable in one part of their life, that doesn’t mean they have to be admirable in every part of their life. That’s another impossible standard fans put on celebrities. I think we should all critically think when giving our time, attention, energy, etc…to anyone. Learning how to critically think is a parent’s job. My mother specifically raised me without celebrity magazines and to take into account what they do and say, and to be skeptical of anything anyone tries to sell me.

Why is it a celebrities’ job to be a third parent?

They’re only responsible for what they do, you’re responsible for what you do.

Holding celebrities accountable for false things they say or try to hock is different. Example, if X celebrity says that this specific tea or vitamin is what they owe their beauty and success to when really it’s the lifestyle they can afford and genetics. Then yes, point out that what they’re selling is snake oil and a lie or just don’t buy it. At some point we have to take personal responsibility for what we consume. Or if these are impressionable young people, then hold their parents accountable as well. If they’re so young, then they’re not buying this stuff, their parents are. And we should take into account what celebrities associate themselves with. I think it’s telling if a person literally doesn’t care what they sell as long as they make money. If someone is willing to sell you dangerous laxatives and call it a diet, that should clue you in on how much they respect their fans and you should rethink giving them your money.

Again, the celebrity is just the spokesperson/seller. It’s up to us to actually research and determine if what they’re selling is worth it or safe. It’s also up to us to figure out if the celebrity uses their fame wisely. If no to either, then it’s also up to us to keep admiring them or not. Celebrities tend to change their tune if their money is threatened.

I feel like Dove’s PS in itself is a non-issue. Whatever pic of herself that she posts on Insta or any surgery she admits to is her own business. How I react and what I spend my money on is my business. I do not buy into her proclamations of self-love, I do not buy into her vitamins, I do not buy into the highlight reel of the life she’s trying to portray. I see her for what she is: a celebrity. No more, no less.

I am interested in the reports of her diva behavior. Throwing fits, stealing from set, and yelling at set employees does give a bigger picture of her as a person. And it also helps shatter the illusion of a perfect, happy, person. I don’t want to demonize her, but it is good to humanize celebrities. I do think people should take into account how celebrities treat people that are their subordinates.

I don’t think anyone is so talented or famous that they should be given a pass to be a monster to people.

Dove is not so unique in looks or talent where she can’t be replaced.

There were implications that she is struggling with an eating disorder, it kind of fed into why she may be getting all this PS and the types of photos she takes for Insta. I also wonder if it explains (not excuses) her behavior. She’s probably constantly hungry!

They also alleged that she had been taken “illegal” diet pills. The illegal part might be relative, because the commenter mentioned it may have been Hydroxycut. In the States, it’s an over the counter diet supplement that is mostly just a high dose of caffeine and some herbs. It’s not like an upper or some prescription. Hydroxycut is legal in the States and she probably just brought it over with her. I don’t think it’s a controlled substance, merely just banned for sale in Canada. I’d be more worried that she’s taking it with other stimulants like coffee and soda.

There’s also allegations that she had been cheating on her former fiancé with Thomas during filming of Descendant’s 2, while Thomas also was in another relationship. These things happen, they’re human. It’s a personal issue they should deal with. I wouldn’t want either as a significant other in light of it, but that’s about it. I would be weary of anyone who has an affair as potential mates. If they’ll cheat with you, chances are they’ll cheat on you. But I’m never going to date either of them, so it’s not really my place to judge.

Another tidbit that came from the thread that I’m interested in is Mitchell Hope’s alleged drug use. The comments didn’t specify what he was on, only that he seemed “strung out.” So, if I were making a bet, then it’d be on him to write a tell-all book. I’m pretty jaded on the fact that there are drug addled teen stars. I think it’s just par for the course. Disney makes sure they have a clean image while making and promoting the movies, they literally will protect and pay for good coverage. But once that protection is over then everything comes to light. Mitchell isn’t even really the most famous of the stars for Descendants. He hasn’t really done anything worth noting outside of Descendants. It looks like he has a role in a Netflix Christmas rom-com coming out, but again nothing to really be too impressed with.

I don’t see him lasting long if he’s already showing up to work high. Money goes quick between jobs, especially if you’re blowing it on drugs. There’s also an allegation of hooking up with a set employee. I don’t see anything wrong in terms of two consenting adults, but it’s bad form professional wise. It’s especially in poor taste if he’s 1) obvious about it and 2) makes it public knowledge that it’s just a hook up. Have your fun and all but be discreet and classy about it. Otherwise you’re burning bridges. I think she’ll have more issues than he would, which is why discretion should have been practiced. Like even if he had no intention of getting into a relationship with her, at least respect your partner enough to not endanger their livelihood. But I guess she’ll live and learn.

I was glad to see that Cameron really wasn’t mentioned, at least not in terms of anything bad like diva behavior. He was implicated in stealing items from the set (like costume pieces) but the commenter used the universal “everyone,” so they didn’t outright name him like with Dove and Sofia, so they may have been hyperbolic. Otherwise they said he was always nice, which is good to hear.

I saw a post from another blog asking their opinion about Cameron being friends with Dove despite the behavior alleged in the thread. I want to say that I think their friendship is over conflated. Most of their interactions have been for promos/BTS for Descendants. I don’t think I recall ever seeing them hang together on a purely platonic level, not like he did with Sophie and Karan.

I think people, mostly kids, want to see their movie best friends be best friends in real life. I feel like all the promo stuff insinuated that they all LOVED each other, and they all got along ALL THE TIME. I think most people know that there’s never an instance where literally every person in a large group gets along all the time. They might be cordial and polite to them to be professional, and I think we need to remember that the cast are co-workers.

We also have to remember that they’re young and want to do well in the industry. They won’t want to get a reputation of being difficult or even a snitch. So, while Cameron may or may not have liked Dove that deeply on a personal level, I’ve always felt he was the utmost professional. He’s not going to antagonize her or call her out unless she did something super egregious like hit someone (and maybe not even then, I did not know him personally). From the thread, Dove threw tantrums and yelled at people, none of that warrants risking his reputation for. Even the original poster of the thread wouldn’t give out their name for fear of reprimand and possible legal action. On some level, they too do not think it’s worth calling Dove out for any real consequences.

They’re willing to gossip about it, but they’re not willing to give actual credibility to their story.

When his manager was indicted, he immediately fired him. I think that speaks to his character and if Dove had done something truly heinous, he would have stood up to her.

We also have to remember that it’s possible that this entire thread in terms of Dove’s behavior might be completely made up. We have nothing to go on besides this one person’s account, and we have no idea who this person is. Literally anyone can create a username, open a thread account, and say “I work for X company and I had Y position with Z celebrity.” I can’t verify any of that. One person can also make dozens of accounts, say they’re different people, and try to tell the same story. Again, that doesn’t make any of it true. Even if we took their account as true, we only have their side of the story.

I would never judge Cameron or the others on who they’re friends with based on salacious gossip.

#gossip #dove cameron #cameron boyce #mitchell hope #thomas doherty #sofia carson

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pikachunas · 5 years ago

Text

Chrono Clobbered

“Are you gonna finish your french toast sticks?”

Jay looked up from his tray. The Burger King was crowded for a Monday morning and he was eager to get home and sleep for the rest of his day off. “You can have em’” Jay muttered. “I’m not hungry.” Ennis sighed and reach across the booth to grab a french toast stick off of Jay’s tray. “It’s always hard at first, but this is a good time to focus on doing things you enjoy and pursuing stuff you’re passionate about.” Jay stared blankly into his lap. “Some people say getting back to work sooner than later can help occupy your mind.” Finally, Jay looked up “No” he insisted. “There are too many memories there… good and bad.” Ennis paused for a second. “I hate to see you like this, but I know that you’ll feel better with time.” Jay scoffed “The only time I’ll feel better is in the past. There’s nothing left for me to look forward to.”

“I could tell you how to go back in time but you wouldn’t believe me.” Ennis teased. Jay raised an eyebrow and turned his palms upwards, shrugging. “You just have to take a punch.” Jay sighed “I would take a punch from present day Mike Tyson and then another one from 1991 Mike Tyson if it meant I could go back then and start over.” Ennis chuckled “then you’ll be relieved to learn that it’s not a Hall of Fame boxer you have to get slugged by.”

“Alright, then who is it?”. Jay was genuinely curious. “Do you know Mike Moak?” Ennis asked. Jay nodded “I know of him, I’ve seen After the Fall a bunch of times but I’ve never spoken to him for longer than a couple of minutes.” Ennis put a hand on Jay’s shoulder “Then you know what you’re getting into.” Jay shook his head “I don’t understand. What does Mike Moak have to do with going back in time?” He was already upset but now he was confused and growing increasingly irritated. He had seen Mike Moak in person enough to know that he was much too small and out of shape to throw a punch that could knock someone to the ground, let alone break the time space continuum.

“I know a guy who got in a fight with him in high school and he says he travelled back in time after MIke clocked him.” Jay was in no mood for jokes and he didn’t want to entertain this nonsense, but his curiosity was piqued. “That doesn’t make any sense.” He pondered out loud “Did he not wake up after Mike hit him?” Ennis looked away and rubbed his chin pausing for a moment “of course he did, but he was different ever since. Something changed in him and he wasn’t shy about telling people he had gone back in time. He made a believer out of me.”

“You believe him?” Jay asked. “Hell yes I do” Ennis replied emphatically. “He won $3,000 when he bet that the Giants would beat the undefeated 2007 Patriots in Super Bowl XLII.” Jay curled his lip “You’re telling me this guy knew for a fact the Giants were going to win as heavy underdogs and he still only won $3,000?” Ennis smirked and nodded “That’s what I’m telling you. That was not an easy call back then. They were 12 point underdogs.” Jay lifted himself out of his chair, almost jumping “If he travelled back in time from the future and knew for a certainty the Giants were gonna win that game, how come he didn’t bet everything he owned on it?” Ennis shrugged “I’m sure he did but he didn’t have that much to bet. It’s not like he knew he was gonna travel back in time, and I would venture to guess that if you get punched hard enough that it sends you back in time then you’re not exactly Stephen Hawking when you wake up…. At least not intellectually.”

Jay watched Ennis and waited for a smirk or giggle or some kind of tell that he was bluffing. Any indication that this was an act. “I believe him” Ennis doubled down “he’s just got that vibe like there’s something peculiar about him… like he really is from another time or dimension or something. You’ll understand when you meet him.” Jay thought for a second before pontificating “it’s just so absurd, I know it can’t be true, but I want to suspend disbelief and go into it with an open mind… just for the sake of his act.” Ennis slapped Jay on his back between his shoulders “If it’s an act then he deserves an Oscar for his commitment to the craft, because he’s living it.” Jay faked a smile “Snake oil salesman always do when they’re being watched.” he alleged. Ennis laughed and patted Jay’s back a few more times “That’s the thing about this guy, my friend… he’s got nothing to sell but a story and he’s giving it away to anyone who will listen.”

Later that evening, still unconvinced, Jay invited his friend Teddy to get lunch the following afternoon. Teddy had always been more involved in the local music scene than he ever was, and she would surely be much more familiar with Mike Moak. They agreed to meet at the Iron Gate Cafe on Washington Ave in Albany. Jay arrived first and was seated at a table by the kitchen. When Teddy walked in, he waved to signal her and she walked over to greet him at the table. Before she finished hanging her purse on the back of her chair Jay asked “How will do you know Mike Moak? Do you still see him at shows?” Teddy froze and looked at Jay before taking her phone out of her purse and sitting down. “A little, not super well” she replied “I see him about once a month at a bar or a show I’d say.” “How big is he now, do you like him?” Jay inquired. “Not very” Teddy responded at once. “I mean, he’s chubby and moody and obnoxious, so I don’t talk to him if I don’t have to. He always kind of reminded me of the Mayor of Halloweentown from the Nightmare Before Christmas. Both in shape and attitude. Why the sudden interest in him?” she finally inquired.

“I might have to start a fight with him” Jay responded blankly. “Oh… ok” Teddy countered inquisitively uncertain of whether or not she wanted to know more. “Well, you’d probably win” she paused “he must cut his coke with powdered sugar because nobody that parties as much as him should be that overweight. He’s got the same body type and hairline as the Penguin from Batman Returns.” She took a sip of the coffee she ordered and moaned “I hate to do it but I have to ask. Why do you feel like you need to start a fight with Mike Moak?”

Jay crossed his hands on the table. “I met someone who says that Mike punched him in high school and it sent him back in time.” Teddy laughed out loud, cackling at the thought “That’s great, but I don’t understand the joke” she chuckled “why do you want to go back in time anyway?” Jay looked away “There’s just something… someone I need to start over with.” The room fell silent “Is it someone that passed away?” Teddy asked somberly. “No…nothing like that” Jay answered “It’s just something I can’t let go, and I’d rather risk the rest of my life than keep going on without them.” Teddy was silent for a second then pried “that’s sad, and strangely romantic, but can’t you just talk to them?” Jay shook his head “Too many things have happened that can’t be taken back… I may have said or done something wrong at some point, or I wasn’t honest enough with myself, or I came on too strong… I don’t know, but I know I could make it right.” Jay thought out loud.

“Have you thought about talking to someone?” Teddy asked thoughtfully “Sometimes it can be really helpful to get an unbiased objective opinion.” Jay exhaled a frustrated sigh “There’s nobody else I want to talk to, just forget I said anything.” Teddy nodded “I’m not trying to second guess you, and you know I’ll support whatever you think you need to do, but you’re scaring me a little bit” She paused for a moment, shaking her head struggling to decide whether or not she should even continue to entertain this conversation. “I’ve never seen him swing on anyone but I don’t think he could throw a hard enough bare knuckle punch to knock you off your feet, let alone back in time.” She could tell Jay was anxious by the way he was toying with the straws and sugar packets. “I know that you know how silly this sounds and I hope that you know if you’re going through anything you can talk to me about it.” Jay looked into the distance before meeting Teddy’s eyes “Thank you” he murmured. He then shoved his money, the sugar packets and his still full cup of coffee to the center of the table in one thrust. “But I don’t want to talk about it, I want a chance to start over.”

Jay opened the door to Ennis’ 1984 Corolla and sat next to him in the passenger seat. “I have to remind you” Ennis warned “this guy is pretty wild. This is gonna be a fascinating experience for you. “I’m ready” Jay assured him. “I’m going in with an open mind and I’m willing to try anything.” The ride only lasted about 15 minutes from Jay’s Albany apartment before they parked in front of a modest single family home in the suburbs. “One last thing…” Ennis alerted “he goes by “The Chrone” Jay couldn’t help but break “Ha what?” he laughed “Why?” Ennis opened the door “Short for Chrononaut…. A Time Traveller” he responded stepping out of the car. He was afraid if he thought about it too long he would be overcome by how preposterous this was and he would succumb to logic and reason. He stepped out of the car and followed Ennis to the front door. Ennis rang the bell and after a moment, a near-elderly woman in a light sweater with ducks on it appeared in the doorway. “You must be some of Gordie’s friends” she said smiling. “Come on in, I’ll show you to his room.”

Jay entered the Chrone’s room and was overcome with nostalgic sentiment. He became fully engrossed in the atmosphere and found himself unable to look away from the E.T., Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Surf Ninjas, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Super Mario World, the Legend of Zelda, Mortal Kombat, X-Files and Resident Evil posters that covered the walls. The Chrone was laying spread eagle in a beanbag chair in the center of the room playing NHL 95 on Super Nintendo and listening to “...And Justice For All” by Metallica. He was wearing a Smashing Pumpkins Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness T-shirt and a Misfits Crimson Ghost hat. Strewn out on the coffee table in front of the Chrone were stacks of Pokemon cards and Nintendo Power magazines. Jay sat beside Ennis on a futon that was against the wall adjacent to where the Chrone was seated.

“Welcome dudes” the Chrone said without looking away from the television. “Hey man! Thanks for letting me stop by” Jay replied enthusiastically. “Ness said you were interested in becoming a chrononaut.” Jay had picked up and was studying a Tamagotchi that was in the attached cup holder of the futon. “That’s why I’m here… it sounds too good to be true but I’m willing to try anything.” The Chrone stood up and walked over to the stereo that was resting in the center of a bookshelf that was spilling comic books from every shelf. He turned a knob to lower the volume and then looked at Jay, “I can only speak to my own experience, but I have no reason to believe the results couldn’t be replicated if the methods are the same.” Jay put the Tamagotchi down and looked at the Chrone to try and read any potential signs that this was a goof. The Chrone met Jay’s gaze “I wasn’t asking for it, and I didn’t want it… I was just a high school senior in 2007 trying to get laid and next thing I know it’s 1996 and I’m 12 years old again.” Jay stared at the Chrone for a minute and thought to himself before quizzing “If you went all the way back to 1996 why didn’t you invest in Microsoft or invent Google or something?”

The Chrone had told this story and had therefore answered this exact question dozens of times “I tried that kind of thing for a while. I told my parents that Apple was a surefire investment but to them I was just a kid with a sudden and fleeting interest in business and they shrugged it off. I would have loved to invent the iPod or developed Amazon.com but I didn’t have the money or resources to capitalize on what little knowledge I had retained from the future and by the time I was old enough to earn my own money the only thing I could remember was that the Patriots lost the Superbowl after their undefeated 2007 season. I told everyone I knew and I saved as much as I could but I was only able to save a couple grand. By then I had been living in an apartment with two roommates and delivering pizzas. I still had to live my life and I wasn’t positive that going back hadn’t altered the current reality I was living in. I was confident, but if I did nothing but save money and then I lost it all in a bet it would take me years to recover. You don’t realize how much of your life becomes forgettable when it’s just the same routine day to day. There were moments and events that I thought I remembered but most of the time it was no different than experiencing Deja Vu.”

Jay sat still and looked up at the Chrone. He hesitated for a moment then asked “I get this guy to hit me, then what?” The Chrone picked up a Dragonball Z Goku action figure that was on the bookshelf “if you do what I tell you then the same thing that happened to me will happen to you.” Jay was encouraged by the confidence with which the Chrone delivered this promise. He knew the story was laughably outrageous, but as far as he was concerned, he had run out of options and this was the desperate measure brought on by the desperate times in which he was living. .

“What if he kills me?” Ennis whispered, staring at the ground.

“Are you afraid to die?” the Chrone asked.

“I’m a little afraid of what comes next”

“If you believe what I’m telling you you’ll get a chance to live again however you choose”

“If you’re wrong, I’ll be humiliated or dead”

“Would you give what’s left of your life to relive the best times?”

“That’s why I’m here”

“Then do as I say”

Jay flipped his notepad open and tried to focus in spite of the millions of thoughts he had racing in his head. He exhaled “Mike seems like such a sensitive guy, how do I make him mad enough to hit me?” The Chrone sat back down in his bean bag chair and leaned back “There is only one way” he paused “You have to date his ex girlfriend.” Ennis froze, staring straight ahead. This wasn’t a qualifying objective that he was expecting to hear. He hadn’t had a girlfriend since high school and struggled to remember the last time he had even been on a date. After a moment, he flipped his notebook closed and asked, his voice breaking “I’m not very good with women, what if she doesn’t like me?”

“She’s never met a man she doesn’t like” the Chrone assured him “Swooning her will be the easy part.”

“What’s the hard part?” he asked nervously.

The Chrone smiled “Faking it for long enough to draw his attention.”

Again, Jay found the Chrone’s confidence to be encouraging “That’s ridiculous, how bad can she be?” he wondered out loud.

“She’s cursed with the face and the odor of a sewer dwelling rodent. Are you attracted to Dave Grohl?”

“Jesus… no. I mean, I like the Foo Fighters but I never got into Nirvana”

“Then this is going to be very difficult for you.”

Jay rubbed his forehead with the palm of his hand “Why does he like her so much then? He’s a talented, decent looking guy.”

“He wanted a woman which no man would desire. He understands that his jealousy is a weakness that he’s unable to control.”

Jay paced back and forth in a daze of bewilderment “None of this makes any sense, can’t I just hit him first or break one of his guitars or something?”

“Nothing else will inspire the rage necessary to elicit the desired response. If you want to go back, this is the only way.”

Jay sat down and cupped his nose and his mouth with his hands. He sat still for a moment and then released another heavy sigh “How do I find her?”

The following Friday night Jay drove to the bar that the Chrone had told him about. The Chrone had assured him that Michelle hung out there every Friday night since she and Mike had broken up in an effort to meet guys in other bands. Jay wasn’t sure who was playing, but he was hopeful that he would find Michelle inside. Before he walked in he stopped to consider how long it had been since he had approached a woman he didn’t know with the intention of asking her out. Had he ever?

Reluctantly, he walked into the building. The room he entered was narrow with an elevated stage at the end opposite the entrance. There couldn’t have been fifteen people in the bar but there was a band playing that had two keyboards next to each other on stage. He walked to the bar and scanned the room. It didn’t take him long to notice a short girl with thick dark hair in a messy bun and eyeglasses that looked like they were bought at a Golden Girls celebrity auction. She was doing a dance that looked like she was running in place while goose-stepping. She was kicking her feet out in front of herself one after the other while swaying her folding arms back and forth as if she was jogging. He had seen it before at ska shows, but there was no brass in the band on stage, in fact, she was dancing visibly faster than the rhythm of the mellow shoegaze song that was playing.

Jay stood at the bar watching this girl dance and the realization seriously struck him that if he was going to have an opportunity to begin again he would have to spend enough time with her to elicit an emotional reaction from Mike. “Maybe things aren’t so bad” he bargained “maybe I’ve been so focused on starting over that I haven’t spent enough time thinking about how to improve things for myself going forward.” He couldn’t imagine approaching this women, or speaking to her. At this point, he would be surprised if she were capable of holding a conversation. “This girl has gotta have an extra chromosome” he thought to himself. Nevertheless, he was determined to make an impression.

He stepped in front of her and tried to match her rhythm by swaying back and forth and shuffling his feet. For the first time, he looked into her almond eyes and not ten seconds passed before she lunged forward and planted an aggressive kiss on his mouth. Their teeth collided and there was an audible clank that compelled Jay to attempt to pull away. She mirrored the movement of his head and forced her tongue into his mouth. “This isn’t so bad” he tried to convince himself as she grinded their teeth together. After 30 seconds of her gnawing and breathing into his open mouth he slowly began to tilt his face back while gently pushing her away at the waist. He stepped backwards and as they parted she took her glasses off and bit her bottom lip. “Umm” he stuttered “Do you want a drink?” She rested the tip of her glasses frames on her cheek “Vodka soda” she demanded.

Jay trudged to the bar in a stupor. He was relieved that the first, and ultimately most important, goal in his quest was accomplished so effortlessly, but the reality of what was to come was daunting. “I already wish I never met this girl, and I don’t think she even told me her name yet.” he pondered. “You alright?” the squirrely bartender with glasses and a considerable nose asked. “I don’t know, man” Jay responded without thinking “Do you ever feel like you’re already in over your head before you even get started with something?” The bartender twisted his mouth and nodded “hmmm” he mumbled “like when you start a new video game and you have no idea how to control your character or which direction to go and you’re not sure if it’s even gonna be worth playing because there are so many other games that you already know are good?” Jay stared blankly at the bartender for a moment before responding “.... I guess?” he muttered “It’s a little like that” The bartender smirked and nodded “Then yeah, I feel that way all the time. I find it’s best to give it a chance. If by the time you know what you’re doing it still doesn’t seem worth the time and energy, try something new or revert back to the classics…. Anyway, what can I get for you?”

Jay considered what the bartender said and tried to decipher some meaning from his stoner philosophical musing. “I’d rather just give up now then spend any more time with this girl and then realize it’s not worth it, though” he conceded. “No” he asserted to himself “I’m not going to allow myself to be so easily dissuaded, and I’m not gonna quit just because this girl is insufferable. I’m gonna make her fall in love with me and I’m gonna flaunt it all over town so that Mike gets so incensed he slugs me back to the Mesozoic era.” He looked up at the bartender “One Vodka Soda” he commanded.

When the bartender returned with the drink, Jay collected it and then walked back to the center of the room where Michelle was dancing. “Here ya go” he said, handing her the glass. She took a small sip to taste it and then drank the rest of the glass in one gulp. Before he could say anything she smiled and handed him the glass “Vodka soda” she repeated. “Um… OK” he mumbled before turning around and making his way back to the bar. Before he could say a word the lanky bartender had two vodka sodas waiting side by side at the edge of the bar. “This should buy you a couple more minutes” he said with a grin. “What am I getting into?” he asked the bartender, exasperated. “Well..” he said smiling “That all depends on what you’re looking for.” Jay stopped to think of the best way to explain without giving away too many details. “She seems cool” he lied “I guess I’m just looking to get to know her.” The bartender was a aghast “Why?” he asked immediately, failing to mask the look of concern and confusion on his face. Jay was puzzled and disheartened by the bartenders reaction “I don’t know” he replied “she seems fun.” The bartender threw a towel over his shoulder “I guess it depends on how desperate you are… let me know if you need anything else.”

Jay returned to MIchelle with both drinks. He handed the first one to her and again she swallowed it in one gulp. Before he could move she reached for his hand “Is this one for me too?” she asked while ripping the glass from his hand and inhaling the second vodka soda. Jay looked had her wide-eyed for a moment before she spoke again “What’s a girl gotta do to get you to buy her another drink around here?” she asked. Jay was amazed and befuddled “Dude are you serious?” he asked without thinking “Can I at least get you something you can pace yourself with?” MIchelle shrugged and pursed her lips like she was thinking “You can buy me a snack” she answered before pausing “but first…. Vodka soda.”

Jay waited for the band to finish their set before retreating to the bar to add a fourth vodka soda to his tab. When he turned to walk back towards the stage he noticed that MIchelle was kissing one of the guitar players in the band. “Jesus, what the fuck?” he cursed out loud. The squirrely bartender snickered “I could have told you that was gonna happen… she’s got a thing for dudes in bands.” Jay shook his head “I walked away for like two minutes, to get HER a drink” he was struggling to keep his voice down. “She’s moves quick” the bartender said “she’ll be bored with him before the next band is off the stage.” Jay ignored him and walked backed toward MIchelle, who had finished kissing the guitar player and was now chewing the straw from one of her drinks while he finished packing his gear. He handed her the drink “Do you know that guy?” he asked reluctantly. “Which guy?” she replied. “The guy you were just kissing?” he asked as monotone as he could. She looked at the guitar player and then back at Jay “I thought that was you” she said assuredly. Without thinking Jay snapped back “He’s like Asian or something and he’s six inches taller than me, are you feeling alright?” he inquired feigning concern.

“I’d feel better if I had a snack” Jay covered his eyes with his left hand. He had spent less than an hour and $40 on drinks with Michelle and he was ready to ride his fixed gear bike into the Hudson River. “What do you want?” he asked patiently. “I don’t know” she replied “but I’m well hung.” Jay had already spent enough time with Michelle to know that correcting her on the application of that phrase was a fool’s errand so instead he took her by the hand and led her outside to his car. “Where are we going?” she wondered aloud. “I’m assuming I have to decide for you” he said before starting his car. “Do you want to just go to Bombers and then I’ll drop you off back here?” Michelle shrugged in agreement.

“Would you like to sit upstairs or downstairs?” Jay asked after he parked in front of the restaurant. Michelle pursed her lip “The bar is upstairs” she asserted. “Alright” Jay replied holding the door open for her. While Jay was waiting for a host to seat them he turned and noticed that Michelle was no longer by his side. He scanned the room for a moment before noticing her in front of the bar with her arms around a chubby guy with a skull cap and a beard. She was thrusting her waist into the back of his legs and they were both laughing. “How many?” a waitress in a black tank top and cut off jean shorts asked. Jay looked up from the ground “Just two” he replied turning to look back at Michelle who was now taking a shot in unison with the bearded guy, their arms intertwined. “Follow me” she said and Jay followed her to a booth in the corner of the room. He sat alone for a minute confused at the behavior he was witnessing first hand, but moreso why anyone would want to date this person, and uncertain about what it is about her that someone would be willing to fight for.

While he was lost in consideration, Michelle appeared across from him “Did you order me a drink yet?” she demanded. “No, I wasn’t sure what you’d want.” Michelle tucked her head into her chest and tightened her lips, almost resembling a turtle retreating into its shell. She lifted her necklace out from under her “Propaghandi” t-shirt. Hanging from the thin rope in chipped fool’s gold letters were the words “Vodka Soda” in script lettering. “I should have guessed” he chuckled trying to hide his smile. Just then the waitress reappeared “Are you guys ready to…” “NACHOS” Michelle interrupted, hollarring. The waitress laughed nervously “and for you?” she asked, turning her gaze toward Jay. “I’ll have a tofu burrito.. And can we get a Vodka soda and a PBR draft” he requested. “I’ll be right back with that” she promised walking away as quickly as possible.

When Jay turned again to look back at Michelle, she was leaning toward him with her elbows on the table. As she crept closer, he was overcome by the smell of a citrus fruit left to ferment in a fast food dumpster. “What are you doing?” he asked with a tremble in his voice. “Kiss me ya bum” she demanded before puckering her lips with her eyes closed. Jay ducked her attempt and rolled out of the booth. “I’m gonna grab some napkins, and wash my hands; do you need anything?” MIchelle looked in his direction without looking at him directly and shook her head. When Jay came back from the bathroom he found their food waiting on the table but Michelle was nowhere to be found. He checked the rest of the tables in the lobby and the bar but she wasn’t there. The women’s restroom door was ajar so he knew it was unoccupied.

He walked downstairs to find Michelle sitting in a booth with two college aged men. When he stepped into the dimly lit room he saw that she was sitting on one man’s lap and either whispering into or nibbling on his ear. He wasn’t sure why he was still surprised but her audacity was so foreign to him. He approached the table and ignoring the men looked at MIchelle “our food is upstairs, come up whenever you’re ready” before turning away and returning to their booth. He sat by himself for a few minutes, eager to enjoy his burrito but somehow still concerned about Michelle thinking it rude if he started eating without her. After 10 minutes she appeared in the doorway and took her seat across from him, her black lipstick was smeared all around her mouth who had just eaten a chocolate ice cream cone on a roller coaster. There were visible red marks on both sides of her neck “Maybe she’s having an allergic reaction to that dudes cologne” he considered but he knew the truth was that one,each, or both at the same time, of those guys were sucking on her neck. He didn’t mind, but suddenly the panic set in that he might have to sleep with her to keep her interest or for word to get back to Mike and besides the physical act of that likely being as fun and exciting as getting a tetanus shot at your grandmother’s funeral, he didn’t doubt for a second that she might be carrying… something. He had to distract himself from these excruciating thoughts so he quickly asked “Do you work or go to school?”.

“Both” she replied while balling some cheese from the top of her plate of nachos and popping it into her mouth. “Oh cool, what do you do for work?” he was sincerely curious. “I’m a teacher.” Jay wanted to laugh but he wasn’t rude by nature and he still wasn’t positive he had sealed the deal. “Do you teach a spin class or something?” He wondered out loud, trying to mask his sarcasm. “No, I teach English as a second language in an elementary school, I’m almost done with my masters.” He stared blankly at Michelle, hoping the shock he was feeling wasn’t displayed on his face. “Do you go to the University of Phoenix or Devry or something?” he had never been more puzzled. “UAlbany” she responded, stuffing a fistfull of nachos into her mouth. He was literally speechless that this person who had kissed half of Albany and had hardly uttered a coherent sentence in the last two hours provided such a valuable and formative service to children of the community. She didn’t seem to notice that they finished their meal and he payed the bill in silence.

“You ready?” he asked, turning to step out of the booth. “Mmhmm” she mumbled before rubbing the last bit of salsa out of her side cup and then sucking on her finger. He wondered if she was trying to be seductive but she looked like a largemouth bass with human teeth struggling to swallow a breakfast sausage. Jay put on the Casket Lottery for the drive back to the bar. “This sucks” she concluded more than once on the ten minute ride. When he parked in front of the bar on Central Ave, one of the busiest roads in the city, Michelle reached over and began loosening the belt that held his corduroy pants up. “I’m kind of full” he squeaked, attempting to slunk away from her advances. “I”m not” she declared confidently. “I really think we should wait” he could feel the sweat pooling on his face. “Mmm mmm” she hummed still toiling with his belt. “Thank God the technology of a belt buckle is so perplexing to her” he obliged. He heard the thwip of his belt come undone and he could feel his pants loosen.

Just then, in a state of panic he slammed his forearms onto the steering wheel and the horn blasted a long continuous note. It was the most satisfying abrasive E flat he thought he would ever hear and she jumped back at once. “Sorry…. I’m just a little nervous” he fibbed. “It’s ok ya freak, just relax” she returned, attempting to pacify him. “Yer gonna love it.” He found himself involuntarily balling his fists and tightening his arms against his upper body. “I need to get the fuck out of here” he knew, but he had never hit a woman… or anyone, and he wasn’t about to start tonight. He opened his mouth to speak but she stopped him at once “no no no no no” she mumbled gripping at the front of his pants. In a disoriented and frantic daze he absent-mindedly wrapped his upper and lower arms around her forehead and began wrenching her head back and forth. At first she tried to wiggle free “oh, you like it rough, let’s see if you can ride this bull then” she laughed. Jay ignored her and continued to placidly swing her head back and forth close to his hip in rhythm with the song that was playing. After about 30 seconds, her body became limp and she fell asleep in his lap.

He let go of a long satisfied sigh and rested his head against the back of his seat. He was profoundly relieved but too terrified of what might happen if he fell asleep so he opened the window hoping the cool air would refresh him. Suddenly, he heard a thunderous roar like a freight train colliding with a jet engine at a nuclear bomb test site. Bewildered he scanned the street only to realize that the sound was coming from his lap. Michelle had been passed out for no longer than a minute and she was already snoring like the Krakatoa volcano eruption. The rumble of her trumpeting appalled and paralyzed him. He shook his hips and she began to sway. Lifting her head she inquired “How long was I out for?” Jay was still in a fog of slackjawed confusion “Umm about two minutes” he replied. She smiled and sat up. He had had enough MIchelle for one night, and one lifetime, so he was eager to get home and die in his sleep. “You’ve been a lot of fun” he lied “I’ll text you tomorrow.” They exchanged numbers and she stumbled out of his car.

The next day Jay was playing destiny 2 and enjoying a Nine Pin Signature Cider from his couch when his phone lit up. He hadn't lived alone long and it had not been a welcome change but listening to records and gaming were a welcome distraction. He checked his messages to see Michelle had sent him a picture. He expected to be disgusted, but was pleasantly surprised to see it was just a screenshot of a different text conversation. The wall of text were from an “MM” and read “That Jay kid, really? I’ll fucking lay him the fuck out” “He’ll never be in a good band because he has no talent and nobody likes him.” “I really need to die. Expire. Disappear.” Jay was concerned at first and then his heart began pounding and he began laughing to himself when he realized his plan was working exponentially quicker than he had expected. Then he saw the most recent message and a chill shot up his spine. “I need to talk to you in person or I’m going to jump of the Patroon Island bridge.” His excitement was immediately curbed when he considered the possibility that he had spent a night with Michelle for no reason. “You should go talk to him” he texted her back “he seems really upset and there’s no reason to burn bridges…. No pun intended.” She responded a moment later “I guess. I need to get my Ipod anyway.”

Michelle arrived at Mike’s apartment and parked on the lawn. She had lived there for four years so in spite of the circumstances, she had no problem walking in unannounced and found Mike sobbing in the kitchen. “I can’t even fucking buy milk that doesn’t expire, I should soak some marb reds in a pint glass and force them down my throat.” she could hear him cursing himself from the living room. He smirked when he stepped out of the kitchen and saw Michelle lighting up his bowl on the couch. “I knew you’d come back to me when you realized you would never find someone with my creative fun qualities.” Unsolicited, he went on “Anybody who has experienced any success will just lie and deceive you… they’ll be like “I love THICC” and then fucking ghost you.” She took a long hit. “Nobody will ever appreciate you like I do or give you a life as exciting as I did. Everything you have and everybody you know that means anything is because of me.”

“Nobody will ever come close to my worth, and my talent, and my heart” Mike went on. “You fucked up. Enjoy your boring lonely bullshit life.” Mike picked the cat up off of the coffee table and held it up to his face. “Look what you’re doing to Henri” he said, rubbing the disinterested cat against his cheek. “We could have been a family… now you’ll never have anyone. Nobody is ever going to care about you as much as I did.” Michelle had become accustomed to tuning out Mike’s rambling and was crafting a paper boat out of a sheet of looseleaf paper that he had scribbled some lyrics on. The words “I’m still alone here waiting to feel the hype we once had both being psyched and in love” were visible on the starboard side of the vessel. Mike droned on “Just leave me alone unless you want to make me happy or make me cum” he proposed. “I’m stoney baloney” she announced, placing the boat on top of an empty vase that sat at the edge of the table.

Mike put the cat down on the couch, turned away, and pounded his fist against the door frame “I wouldn’t take you back if you begged, fuck you” he roared “you gave up GOLD… I’m Mike fucking Moak… I hate your fucking guts.” He covered his face with both hands “There’s no escaping you and this crippling sadness and pain” He turned around and noticed he was alone in the room. “Look at this caterpillar!” he heard Michelle celebrate from the front yard. “I’m gonna drive it to my house!” she announced picking the caterpillar up and stuffing it into the pocket of her jean jacket. She climbed into her Nissan Versa and backed out of the yard, waving as she turned to drive away. “Why doesn’t she understand that she’s in love with me?” Mike wondered while he watched her from the doorway. “It’s like she doesn’t realize I could replace her tomorrow if I wanted to… she’s making the biggest mistake of her hopeless life.” He walked back into the house and sat on the couch next to Henry.

By midnight Jay realized he hadn’t heard back from Michelle. He texted her “You alive? LOL?”. She replied less than a minute later “I forgot my Ipod but I got a caterpillar.” Before he could respond a second message came through “I crushed it in my pocket trying to find my juul though so I fed it to a toad.” Jay snickered and wrote back “Maybe if you kissed him he’d turn into a prince.” Michelle wrote back “I licked it but I didn’t feel anything and it didn’t eat the caterpillar.” and then “Do you want to come to Mike’s show tomorrow night? Everybody in his band is cool except for him.” Jay face lit up when he saw that. He couldn’t believe this plan would come to fruition so rapidly but he was glowing with delight. “You bet!” he responded. “I can’t wait!” He didn’t have to wait long for her reply “Great, I’ll pick you up at 7.”

The following night Mike was on stage when Jay and Michelle entered the bar. He was tuning his guitar and talking to the drummer of his band when Jay noticed the bass player make eye contact with Michelle. “Here we go” he thought “it’s all gonna pay off soon.” Just then the bass player walked over to Mike and said something to him. Mike spun around in a flash and ripped his guitar off his shoulder, tearing the loop of the strap.He stomped off the stage in a rage “What the fuck are you doing here?” He hollarred “Didn’t I tell you I’d fucking lay you the fuck out if I saw you?” Jay’s instincts were to run, but he had invested too much time and sacrificed too much of his pride to give up now. Suddenly he was overcome with a certainty that everything he had done in his life, and especially in the two days, had led him to this moment. “This is my manifest destiny” he thought to himself “I’ll never have to go to work, or wonder what went wrong, or kiss MIchelle again after tonight.” He planted his feet and braced himself for a confrontation. “You trying to steal my 80-85?” Mike squealed.

Jay tensed his upper body and with his newfound hardened will he held his ground “She’s my 80-85 now, motherfucker” wrapping his right arm around Michelle’s waist. Mike balled his fists and shuffled toward Jay. “I’m gonna knock you into last week” he threatened. “That’s not far enough you weeble-shaped invalid” Jay rebutted without thinking. Mike ignored the comment and stood nearly nose to nose with Jay. He exhaled, and Mike could smell onions and discount vodka on Jay’s breathe. This intense olfactory reminder of Michelle was enough to send him into a state of psychosis rage and in an instant he grit his teeth and pulled a punch with his right arm while grabbing Jay’s collar with his left. Jay’s instinct was to duck, but he knew that this moment was the culmination of everything he had endured. He flinched and turned his head slightly to the right wincing just as Mike’s closed fist connected with the left side of his face.

Jay woke to the rumbling thunder of a passing train. He opened his eyes and lifted his head off the pillow to scan his surroundings. There were cd’s stacked on a desk by a computer and records in old milk crates on the floor. He rolled off the bed and walked to the window. Across the street he could see the Menands Little League Baseball field. He smiled and nodded before he paused and let go of a long slow sigh of relief. From outside his room he could hear voice, although it was too faint to decipher what was being said or who was speaking. He stepped over a collection of “A Song of Ice and Fire” books and pushed aside a hockey stick that was resting against the bedroom door. The voice grew louder as he stepped out of the room and into the hall. He walked passed a bathroom and a set of stairs and pressed his ear against the door from where the voice was coming. A tear came to his eye when he was certain recognized who was speaking. He waited for a moment and then knocked softly. From inside the room he heard Pat say “Hold on mom... JG is at my door.”

Epilogue:

Mike sat on the couch in his empty apartment. He lifted his Gibson SG guitar off his lap and set it against the opposite armrest on the springs of the couch where a cushion was missing. He got up and walked down into the basement. He looked at the drum kit that was set up in the corner, a collection of guitar amplifiers, monitors, and speakers stood idle on both sides. “Nobody with my talent will ever use any of this stuff again.” he assured himself. “I might as well set this place on fire so nobody can taint the legacy I’m leaving behind here”. “No” he stopped himself “This place will be a historic site someday… a tribute to the monolithic phenomenon that I was and the heart and talent and greatness I left in my wake” He walked back up the stairs and closed the door behind him.

He walked to Everett road and then down the exit ramp to Interstate 90 East. He stayed on the right shoulder, pausing every couple of minutes to catch his breath. “I should really work on my cardio” he admitted “not that it matters now.” When he got to the bridge that overlooked NY route 787 and ran parallel to the Hudson River he felt nervous for the first time. “Am I really gonna do this to all my fans” he wondered. “They’ll never find another recording artist that produces as much flawless content that’s as meaningful to them.” He looked over the three lane highway that was hundreds of feet below him. “This world doesn’t deserve me” he repeated to himself. “I’m too talented… and creative….and passionate. What a waste.” He stepped over the guardrail, reaching behind his elliptical body to grip it with both hands. “So many fucking posers in this town. Nobody would even be able to find Albany on a map if I didn’t live here.” He let go of the rail with one hand. “Doesn’t matter now… this whole fucking city might as well collapse into the Hudson River.” He leaned forward. “Later Dickheads” he said out loud. He let go.

Michelle parked in front of her building and shut the engine down. She collected her jacket and purse from the passenger seat before stepping out of the car and making her way toward the entrance. She opened her purse to remove her keys and when she looked up she saw a small crate to the right of the front door. As she stepped closer, she saw that a cat was sitting on a couch cushion inside the crate. It mewed as she approached. When she got close enough to recognize him, she saw that a note was taped to the front of the cage over the latch with her name on it.

She unfolded the note and read it to herself. “Henri has a vet appointment on Monday, please take care of him.” Taped to the bottom of the note was a card with the vet’s address and the appointment time and date. She put the card in her pocket and crumbled up the note before throwing it into the shrubs outside her building. She lifted the cage and carried Henri through the front door and into her apartment. She unhinged the latch and left the gate open so Henri could come out when he was ready. She paused as she poured a can of club soda into a half empty 200ml bottle of vodka. “Who am I gonna buy cocaine from now?” she wondered.

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time-to-write-and-suffer · 6 years ago

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I love hearing your opinions on the YT beauty guru drama!! if you have any other opinions you wanna share, please do share them!!! 💖

Honestly I don’t really have anything more to say beyond what I’ve already posted? But I guess I have some thoughts and I could throw them up here in an incoherent ramble.

I’m admittedly not in that “scene” and don’t watch beauty gurus at all (except an occasional John Maclean video for the certain je ne sais quoi), but from what I’ve seen of this, and Instagram models and “influencers”, and the makeup industry at large, it all does far more damage than it does good? And no, I’m not talking about feminism or self-image or beauty standards, though those are also very important.

Basically, you have these people who are essentially famous for being rich and talking about how rich they are, encouraging people to spend thousands upon thousands on makeup and other products based on the implied promise that if they do that, they too can look as and be as successful as their favorite beauty gurus. But then you look at beauty gurus without makeup on and you see that they’re just regular rat bastards with bad skin like the rest of us. The only difference between you and them is money and good filming equipment. But that’s not what sells, it’s how they care about you, specifically, behind the monitor. They care about YOU and that’s why YOU should buy this bottle of chemicals, because it’s good for YOU and your fave says it is, and you trust your fave, don’t you?

Some of them might think that they’re doing something for the community, like they’re informing the customer about good or bad products, and they certainly do that at times, but then you remember that makup brands actively send them free stuff. Unless you shit all over a particular brand using the nastiest language possible, they will keep sending you free stuff. Why is that? Because these people serve as cheap, effective advertisement. Send a palette to White Girl With On Fleek Contouring #3012 and watch as her teenage fans flock to your website.

Relating to that and the latest Drama, they also love to cross-promote each other, which is another can of worms I’m about to pry open. Tati (who I’m 85% sure is a vampire) got upset because Jimmy promoted someone else’s brand. He broke the unspoken rule that you only promote your “friends”. Let’s pretend for a moment that people in Tati’s circle actually use those vitamins. Like, do you think that, if someone realized they are actually bullcrap, they would come forward? Or even say anything? No! Either you promote without using, or you shut the fuck up about anything even vaguely related to the same type of product your friend is peddling.

And it goes without mention that influencers don’t actually use 99.99% of the shit they promote. You can’t buy beauty or success in a bottle, lads. It takes an army and big bucks to make an Instagram model.

At best, any of these “influencers” who try to sell you something are ignorant dipshits being taken advantage of by a company who wants your money (and based on the size and type of audience they tend to have, that ignorance is inexcusable IMO). At worst, they’re glorified snake oil salesmen, slapping their personable and relatable faces on products for a quick buck from an impressionable audience. And rest assured, the more pull they have, the more they tend to lean towards the latter.

All of this is one giant scheme to get you to care, to click, to watch, to buy. It’s all built to reach the goal that is your wallet, and they’re willing to throw you and each other under the bus to get that wallet. (That’s not to say it’s a conspiracy or anything, this is just capitalism exploiting those sweet sweet parasocial relationships. Most end up as part of the cog in the machine even if they’re not aware of it or didn’t actively try to be.)

Some of the bigger ones are also, like, terrible people? Not even just flawed people who make mistakes, but active assholes who talk about positivity but then don’t hesitate for a second before sticking their dick into new drama.

And about Tati specifically, like, vitamins? That woman literally peddles pseudomedicine that could fuck up your health. If anyone outside of this particular industry would do that, we’d rightfully give them the side-eye, yet here it’s accepted? Idk smells bad.

Cancel it. All of it.

(Also I’m super disappointed in Cristine aka Simply Nailogical still stanning Tati like honey no.)

#long post #anonymous

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whatzappening · 6 years ago

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The Zappadydoodah

Hello! I’m Jenny – I am 38, married to a beautiful (in all the ways) lady for five years. We have a son who is nearly two and another baby on the way. I’m writing this down because I’m in a transformative time of life, with deliberate hope for change occurring around some treatment for my Stuff. I’m feeling super overwhelmed, massively restless and thought it might be a) handy to channel it all into a writing area, and b) useful for anyone else in a similar sitch.

The Stuff

So here’s my stuff. Fibromyalgia since 2005, Chronic Fatigue diagnosed since 2011, Depression and Anxiety diagnosed since 2012 but probably always. Definitely always.

Here is a list of some of the things I have done to try to manage/fix/deal with my stuff:

SSRI’s

Meditation

Herbal supplements

Naturopathy

CBT

Psychotherapy

Protein shakes

Exercise Therapy

Counseling

Hydrotherapy

Acupuncture

Pilates

Yoga

All of the Elimination Diets

Gym

Walking

Alexander Technique

Kinesiology

Psychics

Hypnosis

A thousand doctors

Graded Exercise Therapy

Narrative Therapy

Rheumatologist

Physiotherapy

Massage

Reiki

All the other stuff I can’t remember

Short of fish slapping that’s all I can remember right now (I did not try fish slapping). I want to be clear that a lot of these things have been extremely helpful in managing my life and keeping me as upright and mobile as possible. The ones who promised me that they could fix me, did the opposite and caused catastrophic setbacks, in every single case. I don’t feel like me listing which ones are which is helpful because every human reacts differently to different options depending on who they are and what their experiences have been.

I will say, however, that my current team members around my health are counselor, physiotherapist, massage therapist, acupuncturist/TCM practitioner.

So that is my stuff. Read on if you fancy!

What’s happening now, and how and why?

So a couple of months ago we were taking our kid for an outing on a Sunday morning. We thought we’d head to a local market about half an hour’s drive and visit our friends who were selling food there to raise money for the local wildlife shelter. Cute! Fun Sunday outing! He fell asleep five minutes from our destination so we kept going, because sleep is golden and we had no place we had to be, and ended up driving past my sister’s place.

We hadn’t seen them for a little while (she lives there with her daughters who are 19 and 20, both at uni this year so sometimes not there) and pulled up in the driveway, waking them up because they don’t live with a toddler and get to sleep in. I have no bitterness about this, it’s just something worth mentioning.

Her youngest daughter, my niece has had severe fibromyalgia for several years now. The list of things she’s tried are varied and include things like hospital stays, ketamine infusions, morphine – and they didn’t help. Morphine didn’t touch the sides of her pain. I won’t go into too much detail but her quality of life was non existent and she was cut down at her best and brightest. It’s horrific and unfair and all the other things. I have not seen colour in that kid’s face other than green for a number of years.

When we rocked up, she was pink cheeked and was about to go out for brunch with a friend.

Let me pause there – every part of that sentence was not possible for years. So after mouthing OMG at my sister when my niece wasn’t looking, we sat down at my sister’s dining table after her she went out with her friend and my sister took my hand. She teared up and said will you please, please think about trying this thing. It works. Look at her.

And then my heart skipped a beat. It had literally not occurred to me that anything could work. That was certainly not my lived experience. I knew they were trying a thing, and I was ready to support them as much as I could (and knowing that sometimes I need to keep a stronger boundary, to protect my sense of self and eschew self pity) when it inevitably didn’t work and their desperation in scrambling for something, some relief, would continue.

“things don’t work for people like me”

That was the sentence that was ringing in my head, loud and clear as a bell. I had believed one too many times when someone had promised me they could make it all better, and then as time went on the prices would increase and the narrowing field of ways I could be pressed in on me and the possibilities vanished when things that weren’t actually physically possible for me to do (and no, I couldn’t push through or engage in mind over matter, get fucked if you think that’s a thing that can happen in this situation, frankly) and I was a bad, naughty client who wasn’t complying so their promise no longer applied. By then they had all of the money and my sense of self was at rock bottom. Snake oil merchants for the win.

Four or so years ago I had a massive breakthrough with a fabulous narrative therapist I was working on my health management with. One day she asked me how it would be if I could just accept my limitations and not place pressure on myself to be capable of anything more than I could do. That I have a serious illness that impacts every single area of my life, and the more I ignore it the louder it gets. How would it feel to accept that?

Because I was ready to hear it, and because I trusted her, and because I knew everything I knew by that stage, I took it in and really imagined how it would feel. And my shoulders dropped about fifty metres and I felt relaxed and calm.

That year I had my first winter since my diagnosis where I didn’t have a severe depressive episode. I rested more, I kept myself warm, I didn’t push myself to not be such a big whiny baby. I cared for myself. I didn’t pretend I wasn’t unwell. I acknowledged it and acted accordingly. Bloody hell – it was absolutely life altering. I will always be grateful to that therapist for that revelation. Then she went and decided to help the refugees on Manus Island with their myriad of psychological issues resulting from trauma and abuse, which I understood but felt a bit miffed about in a selfish way.

So that huge shift had informed the way I went about caring for myself. What a relief to not feel the pressure of turning every stone over just in case. Wearing myself out going to All The Appointments. Never stopping because if I did that meant giving up.

Stopping is brilliant and should be compulsory for all people in all situations.

So now I have my team around me. Every member is crucial and I’m pretty happy most of the time. I’m a great parent and wife and friend and relative, I think.

The thought of messing with that? Oof. SO risky. Terrifying. But my sister held my hand and asked me to think about it. So I did.

I don’t mean to vaguebook atcha. The thing is called TMS and is usually provided to people who have severe depression. The kind where no medication works and everything is hopeless. It’s non invasive, and uses magnetic thingamebobs to retrain the pathways in your brain that have died off due to illness. So for people with fibro, the pathways of normal sensation are often replaced with pain pathways. Recently when I was extremely distressed about a work situation and I could not deal with what was happening, my brain told me that whenever I took a step I was at risk of my ankle shattering. My ankle was not at risk of shattering, but the pain felt extremely real and terrifying. And so on and so forth. So the TMS thingo (and to be honest it’s a little bit tinfoil hat to avoid the government reading your thoughts) is a metal cap that goes over your hair on the place where the specific neural pathways are, then magnetic waves are sent through the thing which stimulate your brains. It’s habit forming, so doing it once a week isn’t going to do squat. But 3-5 zaps a week (each zap is 30-60 mins) will be highly likely to have an impact. 5 will work faster, 3 will still work the same amount but will take a little longer.

They recommend about 30 sessions and then you can taper off and see how you respond. Here’s the kick. I live 90 mins from Melbourne CBD and it’s the closest place I can go for treatment. A three hour round trip a day isn’t possible for me (both in terms of fatigue and available free time).

My work is quite seasonal so I had planned to close off my books from May for a few months, and we were all going to go as a family to rent a house for a few months and just smash it. But then we both realised my wife’s pregnancy wasn’t getting easier and sooner would be better than later. So the compromise is as follows:

Kicking off this month with a week together as a family for calibration and a couple of treatments, and then I’ll head to Melbourne Tuesday morning til Thursday middle of the day allowing me three zaps (Tues – Wed – Thurs) and on the way home I get acupuncture so I can decompress a bit before arriving for family time at home and don’t just dump all my emotions all over them. I’ll have had time to process and chat a bit. Fridays the kidlet is in daycare, Saturdays and Sundays as per usual, Monday with the wee fella. Tuesdays drop him off at daycare late on my way in to town. We’re getting some help with kid wrangling on Wednesdays from daycare pickup to bedtime so my beautiful pregnant wife won’t have to be too exhausted after working all day. There’s a lot going on. Did I mention we’re married but not legally so we’re going to do that in a few weeks as well? It’s a big time.

I turned it all over and over and over in my head, spoke with some key people and most helpfully talked with my love. You don’t owe us anything, she said, and meant it. You try it, you don’t try it, we love you. Your body and health changes, or doesn’t, we love you. If you try it and it doesn’t work and it creates massive turmoil for you then we cross that bridge. You’ve dealt with worse.

So forward we go.

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newstfionline · 6 years ago

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The bridge of desperation

By Katy Watson, BBC, Aug. 23, 2018

The humanitarian crisis in Venezuela has led to one of the largest mass migrations in Latin America’s history.

President Nicolás Maduro blames “imperialists”--the likes of the US and Europe--for waging “economic war” against Venezuela and imposing sanctions on many members of his government.

But his critics say it is economic mismanagement--first by predecessor Hugo Chávez and now President Maduro himself--that has brought Venezuela to its knees.

The country has the largest proven oil reserves in the world. It was once so rich that Concorde used to fly from Caracas to Paris. Now, its economy is in tatters.

Four in five Venezuelans live in poverty. People queue for hours to buy food. Much of the time they go without. People are dying from a lack of medicines. Inflation is at 82,766% and there are warnings it could exceed one million per cent by the end of this year.

Venezuelans are trying to get out. The UN says 2.3 million people have fled the country--7% of the population. More than a million have arrived in Colombia in the past 18 months.

Many of those Venezuelans have come over the Simón Bolívar International Bridge.

The bridge is about 300m long and 7m wide. It straddles the Rio Táchira in the eastern Andes, a river that snakes along the border between Colombia and Venezuela. The river bed can sometimes dry up but heavy rains soon change that.

The two small towns the bridge connects--San Antonio del Táchira on the Venezuelan side and Villa del Rosario in Colombia--are in two very different worlds.

Colombians rarely pop over the border to do their shopping in Venezuela like they used to. It’s almost entirely one-way traffic nowadays.

Every day at 05:00 Colombian time, (06:00 in Venezuela), the sound of a fence being dragged across tarmac breaks the silence in the valley and marks the opening of the bridge to pedestrians.

The queue from Venezuela into Colombia usually builds steadily overnight. When the gates open, it’s like athletes out of the starting blocks. Venezuelans can’t get over quickly enough.

Some people are stopped by guards and told to open their bags. While most do so without drama, you can see panic in some faces when people realise they are about to be caught.

With Venezuela’s economy in crisis, there’s an incentive to smuggle staples like meat and cheese into Colombia so it can be sold for higher prices. The people doing it aren’t Mr Bigs--they’re mostly just Venezuelans desperate to raise money to buy other essentials.

One woman, whose meat is confiscated, wails: “What am I meant to do?” The guard replies gruffly: “This is a humanitarian corridor--you can take food into Venezuela but you can’t take it out.” And so it repeats throughout the day.

Those with nothing to declare--or perhaps just the lucky ones who aren’t stopped--walk on through. The trundle of suitcase wheels is the soundtrack of this bridge.

When you get to the end of the bridge, you reach what’s known as La Parada, or “the stop” in English. It’s a bustling community that makes its money from border trade. Market sellers, pharmacies, shops and bus companies all vying for sales from those crossing the bridge. Most of the street traders here used to be Colombians--this is after all Colombia.

But increasingly, Venezuelans have also started setting up shop here, trying to sell their wares in a country where the currency hasn’t been decimated.

Right at the end of the bridge, amid the chorus of street-sellers, one man shouts: “Who wants to sell their hair?”

In front of a metal barrier protecting the bridge, Laura Castellanos sits on a plastic stool. The 25-year-old has long wavy brown hair to the bottom of her back. She looks uneasy.

A woman is stood behind her, scissors in hand. Laura is about to lose most of her hair.

She’s nursing her two-month old daughter Paula who is wrapped up in a big fluffy blanket and wearing a stripy pink hat. She yawns as she lies patiently in her mother’s arms, unaware of the border chaos around her. Laura’s husband Jhon Acevedo is nearby looking after their two older daughters.

The hair-cutter is lifting up the top layer of Laura’s hair and cutting what’s underneath right back to the roots. She doesn’t want to talk much.

With every snip she hands a chunk of hair to another woman standing next to her. The hair buyer says nothing and looks away. It feels like a cold transaction, nothing more.

Laura is getting paid 30,000 pesos ($10) for her hair. It’ll be sold on to make extensions or wigs.

“It’s the first time I’ve done it,” she says with a mixture of nervousness and embarrassment. She’s come for the day from the town of Rubio, about an hour from the border.

Laura is selling her hair because her eldest daughter, eight-year-old Andrea, has diabetes and the family needs to raise money to pay for her insulin which she takes three times a day. The family has run out of supplies and it’s been three days since little Andrea last had her shots. Jhon’s salary as a saddler doesn’t always stretch to pay for his daughter’s drugs.

“There’s no medicine, it’s hard,” says Laura. “People are dying in Venezuela because they can’t get the medicines they need.”

After five minutes of cutting, the family heads off to find a pharmacy. At first glance you can’t tell Laura’s had most of her hair removed. The hair-cutter has left a thin layer of long hair on top to hide the truth. Laura admits she feels a bit sad.

“It will pay for something at least,” she says. Her husband Jhon says they’re looking for a “pirate” pharmacy--an informal stall that sells drugs in plastic cabinets on the street. Insulin pens will be cheaper there than in a walk-in drug store.

But on the streets around La Parada there’s no way of knowing that what they are buying is the real deal. Counterfeits abound but it’s a risk Laura and the family think is worth taking.

“There’s no insulin back home, you can’t get it anywhere,” Laura says as she eyes the best-before date on the side of the insulin pen. They pick up two dark blue pens for 8,000 pesos each ($2.65) and go on their way. That will last them nearly two months before they have to begin the search again. It’s not enough time for Laura’s hair to grow back.

“President Maduro is the worst thing Chávez left us.” That’s a feeling shared by many. When Hugo Chávez came to power in 1999, there was hope. He was a man who championed the poor in what has always been a deeply divided society. He was a vibrant and controversial figure who wanted to lead a socialist revolution in Venezuela.

But Chavez was helped by strong commodity prices that funded his ambitious social programmes. With a fall in oil prices, President Maduro has had no such luck--and little of the charisma his predecessor had. During his leadership, the country has fallen into economic decline.

“The government does whatever it wants, it has all the power,” says Celene. “Only God can help us--it’s the only thing left.”

But Celene has a lifeline. Her mother-in-law lives in the US and sends back $500 every couple of months. With her new baby, and two older children who are four and eight, Celene is unable to work. So she relies on that money to keep her afloat. It’s money that she also shares with her sister, her brother-in-law and their baby.

Ten minutes’ drive away into the centre of the nearest city Cúcuta, the Erasmo Meoz hospital is creaking under the pressure.

In the emergency ward, patients are lined up in hospital beds along the wall and in front of doors. Family members are gathered around the beds, comforting their relatives.

Those who are able to are sitting on a row of plastic chairs. Other patients are in wheelchairs, attached to drips. Outside the ward, in the hospital courtyard, more people are waiting. In among the mass of people, a group of prisoners, chained by the wrists, is guided to another part of hospital for treatment.

The emergency ward has capacity for 75 beds. But there are currently 100 patients in this room. There’s hardly any space to move.

In a room off the main ward, a dead body lies waiting. Covered in a white cotton sheet, and tied tight around the neck and feet, it’s there for all to see until a member of staff finally wheels it through the crowds of beds and on to the mortuary. There’s no space or time for a peaceful exit in this chaotic hospital.

Each bed is marked with the patient’s nationality.

Ángel Escobar, 28, is one of the Venezuelans. His mother is wrapping bandages around arms which are red-raw, blistered and weeping.

Ángel, his brother Teobaldo and their mother Cecilia recently made the journey from the city of Barinas, 350km from the border. They didn’t have the money for a bus ticket, so instead they hitched several rides, nursing Ángel and his wounds along the way.

Ángel used to be a motorcycle mechanic. Five years ago, he was fixing a bike in his workshop when a spark caused a petrol tank to explode.

“I got second and third degree burns,” he explains. “I waited in hospital in Venezuela for help--it never came.”

Instead his situation got worse. He contracted three infections in hospital and he went downhill rapidly.

The injuries he’s got look so red and recent but this has been five years of daily pain. The seeping raw skin is the aftermath of the infections, not the burns themselves.

“They didn’t treat him because they didn’t have supplies,” Cecilia explains.

Ángel has got large scaly scabs on top of his skin that are slowly coming off now he’s in hospital.

His arms are deformed because of an error made by the doctors in Venezuela. In Colombia he says he’s being looked after at last.

Dr Andrés Eloy Galvis Jaimes, who is in charge of the emergencies ward, says the situation is getting out of hand.

“Thirty per cent of our patients in emergencies are Venezuelans,” he says. “The national government isn’t giving us extra money. There’ll come a moment that we won’t have any more resources for anyone. That’s a real fear.”

Around the corner, a middle-aged man is lying on a bed in the corridor waiting for a gall-bladder operation. He came over from San Antonio, the town just across the bridge. He’s been lying here for four days.

“In Venezuela you can’t get anything, you just die,” he says. “There aren’t even sedatives,” he adds laughing. He used to work in a bag factory but it closed down.

Now, he earns his money smuggling petrol.

“There’s nothing else to do,” he says. Every night he works in “las trochas”--the word used for illegal trails that cross the border. It’s a journey of 20 minutes, there and back, he says. He does the trip two or three times a night.

“They give it away in Venezuela,” he says, of the heavily-subsidised fuel.

While hyperinflation has seen prices of most goods soar in Venezuela, petrol prices have remained low. A bottle of water can cost 30,000 times the price of filling up a tank in Venezuela.

To smuggle 250 litres, he says he pays off the soldiers with 15,000 Colombian pesos ($5) and gets 20,000 pesos himself.

Smugglers earn a tidy sum reselling fuel over the border. It’s one of the reasons President Maduro said earlier this month that he wanted to get rid of universal subsidies and allow prices to rise to international levels.

President Maduro and his administration often paint themselves as the innocent victims in this story of Venezuela’s decline. And they paint those who leave as deserters of the socialist cause.

As the day goes on, the queues carry on building on the border. Hundreds of people wait in line at immigration for a stamp in their passport to make their onward journey more straightforward.

There are queues at money transfer houses where Venezuelans wait patiently to pick up much-needed funds from relatives and friends who live abroad.

And there are queues for buses--people waiting with suitcases piled up high, their entire possessions carefully packed as they head to meet their friends and families across South America.

But for every Venezuelan lucky enough to be moving on, there remain dozens who don’t have the resources to go anywhere.

Johnny, Angel and Yember are hanging around the middle of the bridge, waiting for Venezuelans to come over. Dressed in T-shirts, ripped jeans and trainers, they’ve each got a luggage trolley in hand with rope wrapped around the handles--they’re ready to tie up the heavy bags of incoming Venezuelans and help them get to the nearest bus stop.

They’re all recent arrivals from the capital Caracas, Valencia and San Cristobal. They’ve stayed by the border to earn some money before moving on. But business as a “maletero” is slow.

“The people coming from Venezuela are immigrants with nothing,” they say. They’re coming in search of money and better lives so few nowadays have the spare change for a luggage-handler.

On a good day, they earn 15,000 pesos ($5) but on a bad one, not even a cent.

They’ve given up hope of change back home. With President Maduro winning the elections, he now has another six-year term they think he’ll complete.

“If things could end peacefully, then that would be the best thing,” says Johnny. He dismisses the idea of the military turning against the president. “A coup could mean lots of people, including children, would die. But if things could end, well...” he trails off, thinking of the options.

From the bridge where the maleteros are, you can see a blue-painted cage. Inside is a figure of the Our Lady of Mount Carmel (Virgen del Carmen). She’s the patron saint of drivers and of the Army in the Andes. In a part of the world where hope is fading, faith remains strong. Fitting too that her home is an insecure frontier town, an area where soldiers operate around the clock.

The virgin sits across a dirt road, in front of a metal yard where Pompilio Rincón is throwing slabs of aluminium on to a scrap heap.

He says there are lots of metal collectors that come over from Venezuela.

“Before, Venezuelans would come in their cars and trucks,” he says. Now, people are bringing metal on their backs--women and children too.”

As he chats, a young teenager in a smart checked short-sleeved t-shirt comes in with a big bag and dumps his treasure on to the massive set of scales on the floor of the warehouse. He hopes to get 1,500 pesos (50 cents) per kilo of his metal.

Breiner Hernández, 15, comes from San Cristóbal in Venezuela. He goes to school in the morning and when he’s not studying, he’s looking for metal. Every few days he jumps on the bus with his bag to sell on the other side of the border here in La Parada.

“With scrap metal, what I make in one month in Venezuela, I make in one day here,” he explains, adding that the money goes to help his family eat. He lives with his grandfather who looks after Breiner’s two younger siblings so his salary matters.

He’s been doing this since the start of the year.

“The situation is really difficult,” he says. He can’t vote but it doesn’t stop him having an opinion on his country’s politics.

“No one wants Maduro, he treats people really badly,” he says. “We need a change.”

As the sun starts to set, more and more Venezuelans head back over the bridge, their jobs done for the day. Food purchased, medical appointments met. One passer-by loaded with nappies shouts “what a humiliation”--people having to leave their country to buy basic goods so they can survive.

But even as the afternoon fades, there are still plenty of people still trying to enter Colombia. They’re queuing up along a bright yellow metal fence, like corralled cattle, waiting for their turn to show their documents and be allowed in.

The Bolivarian National Guard--Venezuela’s army--usher them through to the Colombian side. On one fence, there’s a billboard.

“Territory of peace” it reads. But one soldier mutters. He sounds fed up. He may work for the government but he suffers the same as his compatriots. His salary doesn’t stretch and he can’t eat a decent meal.

“I wonder how long I can last here,” he tells me as he too contemplates his escape.

#Venezuela #Venezuelan economy #Venezuelan migrants #Simón Bolívar International Bridge #Venezuela-Colombian border

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rametarin · 4 years ago

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I had to watch this motley crew of competing and wholly schizophrenic interests be united in their hatred of their enemies for decades and deal with their hydra-headed attack strategy of disparate, competing, often paradoxical goals, standards and ethics be applied to every white male that they browbeat and chastized for one social offense or another, listen to rant after rant from allied people all saying something slightly different and talking past each other in ways that would become full blown arguments if they were enemies or even slightly adverse, only for them to blow passed it and ignore it because they were friends and allies against a greater opponent.

I had to listen to Fabian socialists (what these people call, ‘neoliberals.’ It’s a term that basically means, ‘Fabian socialists and mainstream normy democrats that don’t know Fabians are in charge of generic non-Marxist/non-Socialist liberalism’) lie and omit goals and ambitions and act like school moms and snake oil selling guild leaders, greasing palms, keeping the disparate sides of far-leftism coordinated and working together. I had to deal with the snarling, mouthy attack dogs that postured and thought they were tough because they could loudly interrupt you and posture at you like they’d fight you and do anything more than get murdered. I had to hear the sarcastic, mealy mouthed, cynical capitulations of burnt out Marxist-Leninist-Stalinists try to “inform” people about their unrealities about the Soviet Union to “set the record straight” and then get shut the fuck up if anyone that even knew the history was there to contradict them.

And after watching this den of vipers co-mingle in fragile alliances, blind to eachothers “problematic” points of view, actions, things that they gladly ignored or memory holed the other doing if it was against the hated enemy, now that they’ve more formally revealed themselves from the shadow of mainstream American leftist politics and decided to be more proactive with policy writing and setting;

there’s finally seeing the lines between these groups, whom gets to write the doctrine, and whom gets to either be attack dogs with no real formal inclusion to the intelligentsia, and whom gets to pound sand.

If it can be said that America’s right wing are soul searching and have an existential crisis at the moment, post Trump, which upturned their safe, milquetoast, “choose from the pre-approved harem of samey puppets for right-wing national policy,” into one where America’s right are not satisfied with the GOP leadership, then it’s absolutely nothing but a minor Thanksgiving Dinner family dispute over the salt compared to the coming fissures and earthquakes about to hit American Leftist politics and social divisions.

Trump was a fork in the proverbial microwave of the American mind, from his first announcement as running for president and with aftershocks that damaged the foundations of this disgusting alliance between anarchists, communists and syndicalists with his term as president ending.

And now you have your tough-on-crime, demented, racist, Big Tech, cyberpunk dystopian president with his hypocritical pot-punishing racist vice president soon-to-be-president at his side. A man nobody actively liked, a man whose biggest claim to fame was he wasn’t one of those “white supremacist fascists”, ‘like those people on America’s right wing.’ A man whom by all rights didn’t even deserve to make it past the primaries and flummoxed verbally against even DONALD. FUCKING. TRUMP. The Soda Popinsky of debates.

God the next 4 years are going to be hilarious. 4 years from now an armchair with sunglasses on it is going to have more political charisma than whatever sad, rainbow flag wearing extension of the prison industrial complex you wheel out to scream they’ll save you from those horrible white people trying to genocide everybody if the other guy gets in. Because somehow you’ve managed to turn a party composed of aging evangelicals, plutocrats, and eat-shit-through-the-gaps-of-a-hammock style Big L Libertarians like John Fucking McAfee look attractive in comparison to this shitshow in the DNC.

Anarchist banners seen hanging in Washington DC on the eve of the Biden inauguration

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thefinalcinderella · 7 years ago

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DIVE!! Book 4 Chapter 7-LINE

Have a nice, soft Sachiya chapter, in which I wonder if me not understanding half the things Youichi says is because of my limited Japanese skills or because he’s just a weird guy

Full list of translations here

Previous | Next

“DIVE!! to Sydney!! MDC”

His hand holding the cheering flag was getting damp due to sweat. It was a white flag that blurred the oil-based ink. It was the size of a lunch tray, with sketches of Tomoki, Youichi, Shibuki and Reiji drawn in the four corners that didn’t look like them at all. For a supporter, one absolutely needed to prepare a flag if nothing else, and so the day before Sachiya left for Osaka, he went to the hardware store to gather supplies for making his masterpiece.

Next to Sachiya, who never let go of the flag even once, from just a while ago Keisuke was watching the progress of the competition with a grave look. Keisuke during competitions was always like this, rarely ever opening his mouth. Making up for that, Kayoko and Ooshima were exchanging opinions on the progress up till now.

“When the sixth-round finishes, is Tomo still going to be in fourth place? Even I can place Yamada’s genius at just once glance, but I didn’t think Asama would hold out until this far.”

“The difficulties of his techniques are high and their rates of failure are low. That’s the strength of a veteran for you. But it’s alright, there isn’t much difference between the scores. Rather, Sakai-kun can keep up with that youthfulness of his. But what’s more…”

“What’s more is that Shibuki is being risky. So far he’s getting points at an incredible pace in his top form, but the degree of difficulty of his final dive is 1.6 at any rate. Even if he got perfect 10s from all the judges, that’ll only be 48 points. He has to widen his lead considerably by the ninth round. 600 points is too tough.”

“On the contrary, Sakai-kun’s last dive is the 4½ with a degree of difficulty of 3.5. If he got all perfect 10s, 105 points will roll into his lap just like that.”

“I’ve never seen all perfect 10s in my life. So, what about Youichi?”

“I can’t read him. As the degrees of difficulty of his second half are impressive, if his original condition returns, a huge turnaround won’t be just a dream for him. But, currently he’s struggling while still in pain. Even emerging into just ninth place with that body is amazing of him.”

Kayoko said, while imploring to Keisuke’s profile. After the intermission, when Kayoko reported to him about Youichi’s high fever after she returned to the stands, all he murmured was “is that so”, not even moving an eyebrow. Had he known? Or was he killing his emotions?

“Anyways, there are four more rounds to go.”

“Four more rounds…”

Kayoko and Ooshima murmured uneasily, then resumed concentrating on the competition.

It was the seventh round of the finals. The divers on the stage who were getting a little bit tired were literally unrolling the fierce battle that they devoted themselves wholeheartedly into.

For the MDC this round, only the top batter Reiji had already finished his performance. He had suddenly made some kind of breakthrough from the fourth round, and was doing unprecedented offensive performances in rapid succession, but regrettably in this round he overdid the backward somersaults that he was poor at as he made his entry, and cried at the harsh penalties in points. But even so Sachiya shouted “Rei-kun!” at Reiji as he got out of the water and continued waving his flag around.

Scores, rankings and other things like that should be left to the coaches. In this competition Sachiya decided to devote himself only to cheering. No matter who won, no matter who lost, he will wave his flag with all his strength, until the very end.

He didn’t really understand what a supporter is, but that was surely it.

Sachiya still didn’t know why he went to a diving club in the first place, when he was afraid of heights.

“Weaknesses should be overcome only during childhood,” his mother said imperiously, taking him for the first time to the Tokyo Tatsumi International Swimming Center in fourth grade. Although he was told what diving was, the moment he looked up at that towering diving tower, Sachiya felt like his eyes were going to pop out of their sockets.

He didn’t need to climb up the stairs or stand on the platform. In just one moment, at just one glance, Sachiya understood it instinctually. Just like how moles can’t fly in the sky, sheep can’t hunt, and snakes can’t scratch their backs, I can’t dive.

But, his heartless mother said,

“If diving’s no good, we’ll try skydiving next.”

With that one sentence, Sachiya quickly decided to join the MDC.

Although, when she tried thinking it about it more, his mother who was only energetic at the beginning for anything quickly gave up, telling Sachiya that “you can quit if you want to quit” when he didn’t try to go on the higher than three-meters platforms even after being in the club for two years. And just recently, she went by the saying of “weaknesses might not be something to overcome, but something that goes along well with you”.

But why had he continued to go to the MDC for four years until now?

That was one of the Three Great Mysteries of Sachiya’s thirteen years of life.

Fortunately, Keisuke was an understanding coach, never forcibly dragging the unwilling Sachiya up to the platform, pretending not to see him as though he was “it” in a game of tag. Nonetheless, there was no one who took a one-way, one-hour trip to the pool every day just to become “it”.

By discovering the hobby of watching the synchro moms, it was also a fact that he was able to remarkably fill up the practice time that had been unmanageable free time. But, at the Sakuragi High School’s pool which served as their practice venue in the summer, there were neither shape nor form of the synchro moms.

It was obvious that if he went to practice, he could meet his MDC clubmates, but they, who were older, were all busy with practice unlike Sachiya, so they couldn’t exactly keep him company. Even though he had a mountain of things he wanted to talk to and consult them about.

Yes, Sachiya was always anxious to talk to them, who were like his big brothers.

For example, the summer of fifth grade. There were cases of paranormal activity happening one after the other at Sachiya’s elementary school. For several days, any phenomenon that happened in school was taken as the deed of a ghost. If there were smudges floating on someone’s desk, they were the tears of a woman who had committed suicide a long time ago. If the water in the toilets didn’t flow, it was the grudge of a man who had drowned to die a long time ago. And finally, the hands of evil extended to Sachiya. During class, a bug that came in through the window had unfortunately landed on Sachiya’s hair whorl. Needless to say, that was the ghost of a man who had killed a bug a long time ago. “Sacchin got possessed by a ghost!” everyone screamed as they left their desks.

After school, Sachiya went to the Sakuragi High pool, on the verge of tears. Until now, though humans and animals and insects lived in harmony with each other, in just a few days everything was dominated by those that cannot be seen. The world suddenly transformed, becoming too complex for Sachiya. He wanted Tomoki to say, “Those are all just lies.” He wanted Reiji to say, “Bugs are just bugs.” But when he arrived there, they had already began practicing quietly. Definitely not an atmosphere for proposing a discussion on ghosts.

Reluctantly, Sachiya sat down at the poolside, watching everyone’s practice.

Tomoki dived from the seven-meter platform. Reiji dived. Ryou dived. Every time the water splashed up, it got illuminated by the setting sun. Youichi dived from the ten-meter platform. A higher splash got illuminated by the setting sun. A constant repetition. Before long the water brilliantly reflected the evening sun, and the dim light that held the scent of summer embraced everyone’s shadows as well. A usual snapshot of summer.

When Keisuke said, “That’ll be all for today,” even though he didn’t discuss with anyone, for some reason Sachiya felt like being silent. It’s alright. The stars are turning properly, and I’m not possessed by a ghost…

This was also the case in the winter of sixth grade, when Sachiya’s parents had a huge fight in front of him for the first time.

He had never, ever seen such a fierce quarrel between his parents, who were usually so close, before. The reason was that his father, who worked in an appliance shop in Akihabara, and his mother, who also worked in Akihabara as a personal computer instructor, both had stubborn disagreements on “the Akihabara outlook”.

“So then, are you saying that amateurs who don’t know anything about the products shouldn’t come to Akihabara?”

“I’m saying that if you come, then come as armed as you can. Akihabara is a battlefield. Whether you sell or buy, it’s a real, all or nothing battle. It’s not a child’s land where such a lack of self-reliance where you keep saying to make it cheaper without knowing the quality or model of a product can be accepted.”

“But, it’s also the consumption of those amateurs help support Akihabara. If they stop coming here, then Akihabara will only be occupied by electronics nuts.”

They both loved Akihabara from the bottom of their hearts, nothing more than that, but both his father and mother refused to give way, and when the next morning came, they turned their faces away.

What do I do. Are they going to divorce like this? It’s all Akihabara’s fault. Would Akihabara be occupied by nuts someday?

Finishing the day with uneasy feelings, Sachiya headed for the Tatsumi pool after class. His father, mother, little sister and himself had lived happily like usual until then, but maybe that was something that didn’t come easily and naturally. He wanted to ask about those feelings, but since he knew nobody was up for that right now, he quietly watched practice.

Tomoki dived from the ten-meter platform. Reiji dived. Ryou dived. And then Youichi. Every time, their limbs carved vivid, solid, perpendicular lines into the sky. Many, many times over.

When practice was over, Sachiya still came to feel like being silent. It’s alright. Mom and Dad aren’t going to divorce. Even Akihabara can’t steal away anyone.

This summer, he faced his biggest crisis. In July of 1999, the destruction of mankind was predicted. As the original evidence was that famous Nostradamus this tine, and the target comprised of all of humankind only, the sense of impending crisis encompassed all of Japan, not just limited to schools and homes. As expected, it was only this time that Sachiya wasn’t able to reach the conviction of “everything will be alright” even when he was watching everyone practice.

And so after practice, he waited for everyone at the locker room to try to ask them.

“Well, everyone, what do you think of Nostradamus?”

Tomoki said, “Who’s that, an American?”

Ryou said, “Stupid, he’s the great demon king who’s gonna destroy the human race.”

Reiji said, “Nostradamus and the great demon king are probably two different people.”

Youichi said, “Is the great demon king a person? It’s descending from the skies, right? If you think about it normally, you won’t be the first to get destroyed.”

Shibuki said, “Are those kinds of dramas popular in Tokyo?”

Sachiya etched it into his mind that he would never go to them for a consultation ever again. At the same time, he felt somewhat silly about his frightened self, and when he went home he became unafraid of neither Nostradamus nor the great demon king.

When he looked back in this way, they were truly his big brothers who were ignorant of things like common sense and fads of the world, and could not be relied upon on land. But once they were on the water, they were always cool, strong, shining, brimming with courage, and protecting Sachiya’s peace. Every time the world’s axis went off-kilter, it was restored by the perpendicular line of the ten-meter.

And so, one of his Three Great Mysteries might have actually been unravelled a long time ago.

As Asama Takashi’s petite back sank into the water, power filled Sachiya’s hand that was gripping the flag.

Of all of his MDC big brothers, Tomoki, Reiji and Shibuki were competing in today’s competition with reasonable results. Sachiya didn’t know anything about the quality of their performances, but he could make a rough guess based on the way the splashes rose, the scores the judges gave, and listening to Kayoko’s and Ooshima’s conversations. Tomoki and Shibuki were equally well matched. Reiji showed an unusual assertiveness. Only one person…

Youichi, the only one who was forced to struggle, reappeared on the head of the dragon.

The alias that Tomoki gave to the diving tower, concrete dragon. Youichi tamed this beast with his natural-born talent and hard work and reigned on its head like a king, but somehow today this dragon beneath his feet was in a stormy temper.

“Youichi-kun!”

Even while waving his flag around, Sachiya couldn’t help but feel anxious deep down.

The big brother among big brothers who was always ahead of everyone else. The boss of the other side of the MDC. How could that Youichi get a fever on the day of such an important competition…

Don’t panic. You’re not an elementary school student anymore, so don’t cry. Though he told that to himself, when he heard about that from Kayoko, Sachiya still wanted to cry.

What’s more, his next event was a super dive with a degree of difficulty of 3.0.

“Forward 3½ somersaults in pike position. It’s a high-risk dive for him currently.”

Kayoko’s expression as she looked at the entry table was also dark.

“Really? But pikes are his specialty.”

“But for this dive, he’s going to dive with an approach. There’s the problem. He isn’t very good at taking in the rhythm of an approach. In addition, today he lost his perception because of his high fever. If he was unsteady during his approach and messes up the rhythm…”

“It’ll be the end of the road.”

Listening to the conversation between Kayoko and Ooshima, Sachiya wanted to cry more and more.

For four years, Youichi protected Sachiya silently, and now he was in a desperate situation. Yet he couldn’t do anything about it. That was irritating, frustrating, shameful, and he felt the tears building at the back of his eyes.

Please let Youichi-kun finish his performance without any problems.

Sachiya’s noisy, uproarious heartbeat was noticeably beating fast. The whistle signalling the beginning of the performance sounded.

One. Two. Three.

Youchi always dived out with that timing, but today he was unusually cautious, and not moving his feet quickly. He stopped at the back of the platform, and his posture, which had always been striking, felt unsteady and delicate right now.

Four. Five. Six.

Youichi was looking down in concentration, his shoulders also delicately shaking. Beside Sachiya, Keisuke’s breath was caught in his throat, Ooshima cast his eyes down from being unable to watch, and Kayoko’s hands were clasped together as though she was praying.

Seven. Eight. Nine…

Right on “ten”, Youichi began to run.

At that moment, Sachiya stood up quickly and thrust the flag in his right hand up high to the ceiling.

The tiny grip of the flag carved a perpendicular line with all of its best effort into the air.

Please, please…

Keep the axis of this world straight.

Rankings as of the Seventh Round (Cumulative)

① Yamada Atsuhiko (403.59 points)

② Okitsu Shibuki (403.41 points)

③ Asama Takashi (381.72 points)

④ Ogawa Shinobu (373.68 points)

⑤ Sakai Tomoki (371.94 points)

⑥ Matsuno Kiyotaka (355.74 points)

⑦ Fujitani Youichi (342.99 points)

⑧ Tsuji Toshihiko (342.57 points)

⑨ Moriya Kazuteru (312.84 points)

⑩ Nakayama Masahiko (309.48 points)

⑪ Maruyama Reiji (307.02 points)

⑫ Kaburagi Shinji (294.63 points)

#DIVE!!#dive novel translation

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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What Are NFTs and Why Are Comics Companies Selling Them?

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With an announcement from collectible maker VeVe, the world was introduced to the first officially licensed DC NFTs. “What is VeVe?” you might ask. Or possibly “What is an NFT?”

Excellent questions, friends! We will do our absolute best to explain them in clear, concise terms to you right now.

Here are simple answers to complicated questions: NFTs are ecologically devastating vaporware created to part very dumb, very wealthy collectors from their money, made by stoned libertarian math nerds trying to prove a point they think is profound but is actually just very banal. Veve is no different than any other secondary huckster that springs up around a particularly successful snake oil economy.

As for why DC is getting in bed with them, it’s hard to know if the company is trying to just be cutting edge or if it’s because AT&T took on a shitload of debt buying Warner, and like anybody with creditors breathing down their neck, they need to make several quick bucks or else.

THE NEXT EVOLUTION IN COMICS HUCKSTERISM

Two full decades after Metallica teamed up with record labels to make sure we didn’t own anything we purchased digitally, a group of rejected Captain Planet villains came up with a workaround: NFTs.

NFTs use blockchain, a distributed AI accountant that requires ENORMOUS amounts of processing power to work properly, to assign certificates of ownership and record transactions. Accepting the pitch behind blockchain technology requires one to step back to an absurdly abstract level, then a zoom back into the extremely micro.

Every transaction between two people is built around trust: I trust that you are giving me the thing I’m paying for, while we both trust that the currency I’m handing you has a (relatively) absolute value which will allow it to be traded for other things. Blockchain purports to eliminate that trust: it uses a distributed ledger that anyone can see and confirm to record our transaction; it uses an algorithm to make sure every copy of the ledger is the same; and it assigns tokens to each transaction that can be given a value.

NFTs add in an absurd additional abstraction: ownership of digital media. I have always had the ability to, for example, produce an animated reaction gif from a television show and sell that animated reaction gif to you for a fixed sum of money. You would be an idiot for purchasing that reaction gif for several reasons: anyone else could make the exact same gif and you could find it in iMessage’s search engine, for one. But nothing in the past has ever prevented this transaction from occurring.

The “innovation” around NFTs is that it uses blockchain technology to “prove” “ownership” and “authenticity,” a sentence that is so heavily caveated that to express it correctly in writing makes the writer look like a conspiracy theorist. The NFT assigns a ledger value to the piece of digital artwork, and then that ledger value is what is sold between parties. It is a non-fungible token – unlike Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency, the idea is these art pieces’ tokens’ inherent value doesn’t change (hence the non-fungible), while cryptocurrency is a token whose value is relative to other less imaginary currency.

This has led to some frankly embarrassing sales online. Jack Dorsey, the vacuous and bizarre founder of Twitter, is auctioning off his first tweet, something that already happened, that you can find with one simple Google search, for millions of dollars. Beeple, an artist the internet assures me is real, auctioned off a digital JPEG collage of all their previous works for $69 million. Jose Delgo, a comics artist from the ‘70s that very few people remembered until this happened, has made almost $2 million selling NFTs of his own artwork, spurring DC to email freelancers to remind them that they should not be using DC characters to try and skate atop this obvious bubble. Not because of the catastrophic environmental impacts caused by the blockchain algorithm, mind you. No, it was because AT&T needed to get some of that sweet, sweet tulip money.

THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS MOSTLY POOR PEOPLE

Joanie Lemercier, a French artist and climate activist, has sold six NFT pieces so far. The act of accounting for those sales – assigning a token, then transferring ownership of that token from Lemercier to the purchaser – was 8.7 megawatt hours of energy. That’s roughly equivalent to the entire energy consumption of his studio for two entire years.

The algorithm used for NFTs, like the one used for Bitcoin, other cryptocurrency, and all blockchain transactions, requires computers perform a certain volume of complex activity to access the ledger. That’s how it prevents fraudulent transactions – by making the barrier to writable access so high that it’s functionally impossible.

Of course, as demand for these transactions increases, so too does the computing power needed to record them. Hence the massive power consumption from Lemercier’s sale. Bitcoin transactions, especially since Elon Musk invested heavily in them to drive up their price (presumably the “pump” part of “pump and dump”), now use more energy annually than the entire country of Argentina.

Here’s the catch: in a perfectly green, zero emission energy environment, this wouldn’t be a huge problem. Unfortunately, as anyone who has gone outside in the past 18 months has noticed, we’re not quite there yet. And while adding another Argentina to global power load isn’t the same as adding another China, it is still a significant drain on existing grids, and if it’s not timed and sited right, it’s using very dirty power (it’s fairly complicated, but the short version is electricity generation generally gets dirtier as demand increases).

So when Grimes auctions off a certificate of creation for her digital artwork, she’s triggering a set of computer actions that put a massive stress on the power grid that churns out oodles of negative environmental consequences, which according to study after study fall disproportionately on poor people and people of color.

Or! Instead of auctioning off something that clearly doesn’t exist, maybe she’s just using fracked natural gas as laundry detergent for mafia cash.

DIGITAL MONEY LAUNDROMAT

Let’s say I was a certain very sadistic, very fictional, black mask wearing crime lord of an American city and I have $1 million in cash lying around that I made from my operation’s drug business. If I suddenly bought a house with that million dollars, the authorities would notice that large transaction (probably through transaction reporting from the bank handling the sale, or the property exchange paperwork that runs through City Hall) and start sniffing around to find out where that money came from.

The same goes if I were to purchase IRL fine art through an auction house. The auction house would ask questions about where that money came from, and if it didn’t like what it found, it would report it to the authorities. Same for buying cars, or businesses, or lots of other real life transactions.

Now replace bank, city hall, and auction house with “a bunch of computers playing tic tac toe against each other on a 1025 square board” and try and guess where the reporting comes in. We don’t have to wait for an answer, that reporting doesn’t exist.

NFT transactions are the perfect confluence of the shadiness of art dealing with the shadiness of off-book dark web money-moving. They’re not all money laundering, but they are easy enough to use as money laundering that the authorities are getting concerned.

PRECARITY, PANDEMICS, AND COMICS ART

So why are comics people doing this? To start with, we mean actual people, and not people in the legal sense of the word (corporations).

It’s not hard to see the eye popping amounts of money changing hands and understand why at least some of them are getting involved. But it’s equally easy to look at the economics of the pandemic era of comics creation and at least sympathize with the pull. Comic page rates have been largely stagnant since the 1980s – penciler page rates in recent years are actually lower than the modest demands made by creators during the abortive effort to unionize in the 1970s.

With that money being so limited, most artists relied on the sale of original art, sketches, and sales at conventions to help make ends meet. So the last year has been exceptionally tough on them. Add to that the trend towards digital art, where there’s no actual physical page produced for the comic, and it’s not hard to imagine a hard up artist, one year into not seeing another living soul except for when the grocery clerk brings a bag of food out to their car, seeing someone coming along waving a conservative five figures at them and not explaining the extremely convoluted yet catastrophic environmental impact of the proces, saying yes to the quick cash.

To their credit, many comics creators are repulsed by the idea. Several have expressed serious concerns with NFTs on Twitter, with Doomsday Clock artist Gary Frank expressing “bewilderment” at the idea of his art being used to sell one of these things, and Marsha Cooke, widow of New Frontier great Darwyn Cooke and manager of his estate, going so far as to ask DC to stop using his art in them.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Hopefully the companies involved (or thinking of getting involved) with NFTs listen to their creatives. Nothing more honors the spirit of Batman than using his image to help give a pallet of Bratva money a quick scrub.

The post What Are NFTs and Why Are Comics Companies Selling Them? appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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zerohour1974 · 4 years ago

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Day 15 : Top 5 Board games

Hello ladies and gentlemen and welcome to Day 15 of the daily blog challenge throughout January. Well today I have decide to deviate away from the usual computer oriented blog to look at something that I enjoy outside of the computing medium.

That is the world of board games. Sometimes it’s nice to sit with friends and just play something that involves interaction, fun and conversation. So without further ado here is my Top 5 board game choices.

5. Snake Oil

This is a fun game where you take turns to sell an item from your cards to a designated customer. So you will have to persuade why a Rock star may need a Banana cannon or a Shoe Whip ???

The game is silly, fun and frenetic. Sometimes you have just the right cards to make an offer to the customer but equally when you don’t it requires inventive thinking on your behalf to think why anyone would need your useless item.

Created by Out of the Box Publishing in 2010. It has proved to an immensely popular game.

4. The Resistance

This is a fun party game played between 5-10 players. The idea is among your party there will be an assigned number of spies. Now the spies will know who each other are but no one else will.

The game is you have been assigned as a group of Resistance agents to try and overthrow a government agency so you have to send teams on missions to try infiltrate the system.

Each round you must pick a set of agents and among them maybe a spy. Obviously the game is to try and pass 3 of the missions for the resistance to win and vice versa the spies have to make you fail.

Can you determine which member is a spy and which is loyal to your cause.

Released in 2009 by Indie Boards and Cards this is a game that can shift rapidly but equally be nerve wracking at the same time.

3. Ticket to Ride (US Edition)

Ticket to Ride really shouldn’t need any introduction it is one of the top selling board games outside of the common monopoly set.

The basic game for 2-5 players has you trying to pick up cards in order to build various routes across the US in order to score the most points.

It really is quite a simple game to get stated but a difficult game to master as you start trying to get somewhere and you are blocked by someone so you have to try and work out alternative routes to get your trains to be.

Created in 2004 by Alan R Moon and Published by Days of Wonder. Ticket to Ride has many different variations and countries but my preferred version is still the original.

2. Funemployed

This is once again a game where one of you is after a particular vocation. Say you want to employ a Masseur.

Players must give persuade you why you want a Masochist with tattoos, a cape and chronic sleep problems to be your ideal candidate.

It’s funny, its imaginative and the justification makes this game incredibly fun. People can change out their wanted traits from a group of six in the middle.

You will be amazed at the crazy individuals you get applying for your positions and it is up to you to decide which one you want.

Published by IronWall Games in 2013. It’s definitely fun and will raise a smile.

1. Pandemic

In Pandemic, several virulent diseases have broken out simultaneously all over the world!

The players are disease-fighting specialists whose mission is to treat disease hotspots while researching cures for each of four plagues before they get out of hand.

The game board depicts several major population centres on Earth. On each turn, a player can use up to four actions to travel between cities, treat infected populaces, discover a cure, or build a research station.

A deck of cards provides the players with these abilities, but sprinkled throughout this deck are Epidemic! cards that accelerate and intensify the diseases' activity. A second, separate deck of cards controls the "normal" spread of the infections.

Taking a unique role within the team, players must plan their strategy to mesh with their specialists' strengths in order to conquer the diseases. For example, the Operations Expert can build research stations which are needed to find cures for the diseases and which allow for greater mobility between cities; the Scientist needs only four cards of a particular disease to cure it instead of the normal five—but the diseases are spreading quickly and time is running out.

If one or more diseases spreads beyond recovery or if too much time elapses, the players all lose. If they cure the four diseases, they all win!

An amazing co-operative game that can be panic inducing, frenetic but immensely fun as you try and contain the viruses from spreading and taking over the world.

Released in 2008 by Z-Man Games. This Matt Leacock designed game has become one of the most popular games in the cooperative board game world and has spanned many different variations such as On the Brink, In the Lab, Cthulhu and many more.

#day 15 #daily blog challenge #board games

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knightofbalance-13 · 7 years ago

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZzVHlhsEeA

Wow, just wow.

It’s like FMF heard how I said that I found a WORSE RWBY reviewer than him...

Then proceeded to go “BUT this isn’t even my FINAL FORM!”

0:54 No, your group RWDE is terrible because you have no morals. You’re only limit is not what is right or what you stand for, but what you can get away with. RWDE only reposnded well because they had literally no other options without outing themselves as uncaring. You however can use the combined echo chamber to ignore reality and pretend like your lies are truth so you won’t realize what you’re eating is shit.

1:04 Well if he did that Lord Fatass, you’d call him a Nazi and then say he fucks his dog because you said so. I mean, that’s what you do to your own critics, which just kind of proves you know what you are doing is wrong and you don’t want to face it.

1:32 Bullshit Slick, I’ve seen you in RWDE. You get involved ALL the god damn time.

1:37 Wow, how knew friendly fire was enabled?

1:44 Now does Jess have any opinions aside form yours? Or does she just spoonfeed you what you already think? Because considering YOUR interactions with anyone who doesn’t think exactly like you: I don’t trust you.

1:52 By talking to them. About this topic. Which is exactly what you tried denying a few seconds ago. So you’re lying before we even get to RWBY. Great.

3:01 No, they are willing to talk. It’s just they can’t or else the assholes you people created and encouraged will rise up like zombies and tear them limb from limb. I’ve seen it happen so you can’t deny it.

3:12 “The idea of a homosexual character being a villain-it’s just thrown in there”

... This is the people who RWDE praises as the height of intelligence: Dumbasses who think that gay people cannot be bad, as though they are somehow any different that straight people.

3:29 Ah huh, so literally ALL THE OTHER SCENES WITH ILLA never happened. Because that proved she had depth already. And Illa had rather explicitly romantic interactions towards Blake with favoritism towards Blake. It wasn’t tacked on, you just tacked THAT on to pander to your RWBY hating audience.

3:37 Hi Lord Fatass. I see your IQ has dropped since we last met. No fucking wonder, all the energy needed to generate that hot air must leave your brain lacking.

Seeing as she was SENDING BLAKE TO ADAM: it wouldn’t affect her motivations at all. If she loved Adam then yes but she doesn’t, so no. But let’s see what snake oil you’re gonna try to sell us.

3:41 https://youtu.be/56Z6po1woq0?t=12m19s

“Literally” huh? Seems like that came well past the Adam section. Almost like it had NOTHING to do with it.

4:00 SO you people didn’t even fucking KNOW what you were talking about. FOur minutes in and you’ve proven yourself unreliable.

4;13 Problem is, you assholes abuse Death Of The Author so much that it has lost all menaing, You gusy don’t get to have interpretations due to your immense bias and untrustworthy behavior as well as a tendency to lie your asses off.

You guys get to show facts and make statements about them SOLELY. I’m pretty sure it’s illegal for you to do so otherwise with RWBY.

4:17 No articulation: No credit.

4:27 And we should trust you...why? You just got done saying that she was doing stuff to get Adam to notice her by your shock that the looking comment was about Blake, showing that you don’t know what you are talking about. So your “feeling”could be you misreading the scene or lying about it.

5:03 So did you not watch the Blake CHaracter short or a good chunk of Volume 5/ Because saying Illa’s motivation is to fuck Blake shows you are spewing shit.

5:13 Yeah, it is...so you being a RWBY fan and ignoring the actual motivation don’t fit. SO which is it? Are you lying or do you hate the show so you make up shit?

5:27 Minus the sociopathy. And the selfishness. And the edginess. And the self serving motives. And the personal investiment in the White Fang. And the dick. And the sword. And the anima traits. And the backstory. And the result...

What do they have in common again aside from being White Fang members?

5:35 I see. SO this isn’t four people talking, this is one person talking and three meat puppets. Well, at least I’m only tormenting one person then.

6:01 Fifty bucks says he bites himself in the ass.

6:07 Do I get extra money if he bites himself not even ten seconds later?

6:31 And nothing changed with Illa. She still hates humans. She still cares for Blake. She still doesn’t know what to do. She still doubts herself. She still fights for the Fanaus. And she still has her morals. That’s a hundred bucks now.

6:32 Which is why the character short in which we had her motivation said nothing about Blake and was about her parents.

7:43 Considering SlickSlick is Tumblr and you’re massive following here: You are. In fact, you’re the root of tumblr’s bullshit in RWBY. I should get to tearing them out sometime...

7:54 Here’s more proof you are indeed Tumblr. You can only see in race, gender and ethnicity. Not diversity of thought but rather superficial diversity. Just like Tumblr. Also: All four of you are straight, white and male. You have no room to talk.

8:11 And the shovel official has more IQ than you Fatass since Adam clearly wants to kill humans for Fanaus supremecy, not to fuck. Just like Tumblr, you cannot separate WHAT a person is from WHO a person is.

8:27 Doesn't matter if Illa is gay. Her viewpoint has NOTHING to do with her sexuality

8:33 “all on the unrequiented love”

Was relevant for 43 seconds. I counted. Check for yourself. I do have a link to the moment: Just count the seconds until it changes topic.

Proof you have no idea what you are talking about.

9:11 Precisely what they did. But that can’t be bitched at so here you are, denying reality. Pathetic.

9:36 A. Wasn’t relevant until now (do yo0u wlak around saying “I WANNA FUCK WOMEN!” all the damn time?)

B. Catmen never came out. Incompatible. You just wanna draw a connection to Cartmen to pass off his infamy to Illa while being a clown. Well you fialed both Lord Fatass.

10:05 He can’t eb Edgy lord Extreme.

Fatass is there.

10:11 Considering the actual commentateries don’t rely on echo chambers and edited footage and ignorance to make points, you people need a red pill.

10:17 The fact we are the same species sickens me. It reminds me I can never escape your shit because it’s in me. And it’s disgusting.

10:29 Yeah, people who call others beta are usually omegas themselves. Alphas don’t nee dto assert their dominance or prove themselves, that all comes naturally and they naturally get it. You guys won’t even speak out anywhere that doesn’t give you the advantage or shows weakness. MurderOfBirds cries on screen and is humble enough to thank his fans and acknowledge his flaws: You people put ona façade, act like your hot shit and never own up. You’re all weaklings.

10:43 Illa never abused Blake in a relationship. Illa never killed out of spite (in fact, she saved out of love). Oh wiat, not your narrative. Sorry, I forgot you’re all delusional.

11:14 I think you meant to see “We’re all equal shit”. Considering yoru just Fatass’ drones: Yes you are.

12:16 And the fact that you are gonna act like that is any different than America having all white casts proves you ain’t peak Tumblr...how?

12:23 When you assholes became Tumblr.

12:49 Not like that’s exclusive to RACE asshole. An Asian growing up in America is not gonna have Chinese values. And a white person leaving in China will not have the same culture as a white person in America.

13:14 Thing is: They ain’t all the same thing. Blake is a Fanaus, Weiss is from Atlas-You have three differnet sides there. And even then, again: Not bound by race.

13:59 Not if they hate each other “because.” Just like getting along for no reason is boring too. You don’t understand how writing works. Then again, you never did so you’re still going shit!

15:19 NO, THERE ISN’T. Race, Gender and Sexuality mean NOTHING to WHO a person is unless they let it and even then, that a part of PERSONALITY. Only people who argue that those do have an affect are the bigots or idiots. Oh wait, you’re the second one...

15:53 Oh so NOW different culture sdon’t matter huh? Never occurred to you that THEIR society doesn’t work EXACTLY THE SAME as ours? That maybe, they don’t care about that?

How are you all not Tumblr again?

16:45 Not all shows wanna do that and certainly not all people want to watch it. Only people who do are, surprise, hyper Tumblrs!

16:53 Actually you do: Illa. She says nothing about it, she doesn't mention it, she doesn’t act like it, she has no trouble aside form the usual and being gay itself isn’t shocking. SO there you go.

17:19 Easy: Care about something else. The society doesn’t care and you shouldn’t.

18:35 FOr all of you actually since you show no variety in opinion and are notorious for echo chambers.

You just keep saying “We should judge people based on sex, sexuality and race! Taht’s how thinsg work!” without thinking about how so many people want to IGNORE all that.

And taht’s all. Final Thoughts: As expected, they make up bullshit and actm like it’s reality. It’sm RWDE in pure, concentrated video form and surprisingly, they don’t wanna admit it.

Basically: worthless opinions by untrustworthy and stupid people. So laugh at them, make him flip out and dig themselves a hole to be stuck in and leave.

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