#and now time to tune in for some degeneracy!

[musidoras]

me and my roommate mentioning to our italian colleague that we're going to watch sanremo only to get the answer: oh the last few years it's been really degenerate so it's worse than before

interesting choice of words since as far as i know what's happening in the last few years is that it's campier and gayer 🙄

[hushpuppy5-blog]

Periods? A Bloody Waste of Time 🩸

I'm entirely convinced at this point that anything that they tell us (women) is normal is actually bad for us. While pregnancy from male insemination can be avoided, periods are a different matter. I am certain that they are not meant to be painful at all, nor are we meant to bleed so heavily. If a period is (as some claim) truly the removal of toxins and other fluids, are we not going to analyze what the heck is intoxicating us to begin with?

I saw this documentary a while ago called "Red Moon: Menstruation, Culture, and the Politics of Gender" were several women were discussing the stigmatization of periods. I don't remember which part it was exactly, but they were mentioning how painful periods were an energy thing. For some women, especially those who have suffered from abuse in their past, something may energetically be going on with each monthly release. I think it even goes beyond that.

This world's version of normal seems to be in praise of degeneracy at every corner of life. Pregnancy is normal, yet many women die from it or leave with life long scars (physically and emotionally). Intercourse (which seems to skirt itself alongside pure violence) is normal, yet many women leave with disease or some form of mental disorder. Periods are normal, but many women suffer monthly from it to the point where they can become immobile for a day or two. It seems that just as man has intoxicated nature, he has intoxicated the women as well. Expertly so. Now women have convinced themselves and others that pain and suffering is normal. I found this document online discussing some doctors who observed the difference between the western women and who they called "primitive" women. The western women were described as having highly acidic bodies, whilst the other group of women had alkaline bodies.

During the study, the women who consumed more animal products were more susceptible to bleeding heavier and for a longer period during their menstrual. With the alkaline women who consumed more plant based foods, the menstruation almost ceased to exist.

Modern doctors will claim that the absence of a period is signs of a terrible condition. They'll even suggest that an eating disorder it at play. It's interesting they'll say that losing your periods is unnatural, but popping a pill full of foreign chemicals to "regulate" it is totally not cause for future concerns. Speaking of eating disorders—from a western perspective—arguably many people already have eating disorders. We eat until our bellies our stretched beyond normal, and we consume foods that are lifeless and will end up rotting in our stomachs. I do believe that an aspect of periods is normal, given their spiritual nature. In ancient times, they hinted at a connection between the cycles of the moon. This was when women could be most in tune with their bodies and souls, perhaps harnessing spirtual powers that may have been dulled any other time. Now, women are lying in bed curdling in pain during that time of the month. Not much can be done productively. Of course, not all women have this problem, but plenty do.

This is just some speculation though. For me personally, omitting meat and other animal products from my diet has changed the way I think. I'm only four months in though, and my decision to do this was spontaneous and came about due to some health concerns for mine. I have had asthma and eczema for most of my life. These are two inflammatory conditions that have left me breathless and peeling off my own skin to a gross degree. Since reducing my consumption of eggs and milk and taking out meat completely, I've been breathing better and I've had little to no rashes. As a shift to something completely plant based, I'm curious as to how it will further effect me physically alongside my future menstrual cycles as well. Again, this is just the case for myself and could effect others differently. I just know that society doesn't care for case by case conditions and wants EVERYBODY to do the exact same thing healthwise, regardless of how it effect them personally. They've been choosing death for us for centuries. Now, when some of us choose life, they want to call it dangerous pseudoscience. Spare me. Women need to get to know their own bodies on a personal level. Many modern doctors aren't healers. They're band-aid solutions. This includes female doctors, since they are getting paid too. We need to be in charge of our own health and start educating ourselves.

Periods were once considered the first curse on women. Perhaps they still are. They certainly aren't desired. This isn't to take the Christian perspective of "woman bad", but there are hidden truths within these ancient books that must be analyzed. In the case of Eve, she suffered two curses from God in Genesis 3:16:

"I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children."

And

"Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you."

There's no explicit mention of periods here, but pregnancy and periods go hand in hand on the pain spectrum it seems. The second quote is also intriguing. This desire for her husband is linked to pain as well as "inequality". I believe that her desire for Adam makes them far more equal than we realize. She suffers with him in his degeneracy now, although on a different level. It's also notable that her suffering is more severe and constant. Would she have this pain if she loved "God" more than Adam? Or if she loved herself more than Adam?

There are so many questions, many left unanswered. Regardless, there can be a more optimistic lens to this. Like many curses, perhaps this one can be broken.

[coffee-in-veins]

Day 30: Horrors of the Deep

an entry for darkest prompts promptober 2022  

previous days: 1, 2, 3,  4, 5, 6,  7,  8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29

now available on ao3 too

Horror NOUN - an intense feeling of fear, shock, or disgust; a thing causing a feeling of horror.

* * *

I sleep like the dead, nonetheless, I am lucid If dreams have a meaning, perhaps I should tune in To the signal that beckons, familiar it seems Be silent, you might see yourself in its beams

-- Nightmares never End by JT Music

When the scariest thing he had ever met that pretended to be an aristocratic woman offered him payment for going into some sarded bowels of fuck-knows-what infested Estate, Dismas was pretty sure he read the contract carefully and it didn't say anything about herding some cats. Sure, being in a group required some adjustment to both team’s tactics and personal performances. Required communication skills most of them – solitary by either life, rank or choice – sorely lacked. But it was doable for the most part. Those who couldn’t find someone who would’ve tolerated them at the very least, quickly found themselves to be conveniently sacrificed to keep others alive.

And yet, when he looked at his current predicament, this was the only thing that came to mind. Being set up as a fucking cat herder. And he hated the bastards! Cats. Not his teammates.

Well. Usually.

Because currently he was stuck in a cave with three people who were dead-fucking-set on drowning in brine as he drowned himself in the remainder of whiskey which was mercifully spared from the sad fate of being used for cleaning wounds by being quaffed first.

“Pathetic,” he heard a hiss behind him, followed by a smack. “You lack the will of the Light. How dare you even call yourself the sister of battle?”

“Pain is a gift from the holy Flame,” came an immediate answer, fifth if the highwayman was counting properly which he most likely wasn’t. “I cherish it! Again! I beg you, the messenger of the blessed Light, I… I sinned so grievously!”

Dismas rubbed his face tiredly and took another swing, shaking a few straggler drops of whiskey from the empty flask on his eager tongue. He had an odd respect for teachers and parents now. They only slapped their kids with their hands or maybe rods. Currently, he wished he could strangle this whole moron circus, but even more than that he wanted to come back to his pillow alive. He would sleep it off and drown himself in enough whiskey to forget this all like a nightmare, and he cared not if he had to steal some of Rey’s cut to be able to afford so much booze. Or if he could survive such intoxication. Or how the insufferable knight would have to put in the actual elbow grease to pull him back from the blackout this time. Anything that was capable of bleaching this all from his head and eyes was fair game by this point. And frankly, this was Reynauld’s fault, so it was only fair that he would have to clean up the mess.

Another smack, followed by the feverish:

“Pain is the gateway to divinity! It hurts, yes… B-but also… oh, sweet Light, go through me through your messenger!”

Sure, the brigand was in no way, shape or form a religious man but even he knew that was not a tone for a holy prayer.

“Eyes down while addressing a holy man, you cowering sheep!”

Another slap.

Despite his better judgement, Dismas’ already hard dick made an appreciative twitch, which only added to his mounting irritation. And that same holy prick had the audacity to chastise him for “degeneracy” when the ex-brigand asked for a mere slap on the face! Or the balls to have a freak out when he caught the rogue with a knife and fresh cuts on the back of his arm – oh, that one was a disaster that ended up in a shouting match and Dismas being dragged first to Cloister and then to Paracelsus to make sure that he wasn’t insane and dangerous to himself. Which he obviously was – duh, why else would he end up in Hamlet otherwise? – but not by the measurement which sufficed his hospitalization, much to Rey’s surprise.

And now that same bloody knight was doing things that Dismas wanted him to do to him for so long and while he was sitting right fucking there, Reynauld, for sard’s sake, to his face, literally, with someone else--

Now, he shouldn’t finish that thought if he knew what was good for them both, tempting as it was. And as if he was even more cursed than he usually was, there was not even a drop of whiskey left to shut up his mind. He wasn’t hurt! Why would he be hurt if Reynauld was slapping around someone else, stressed out of his goddamn zealous mind – enough to make all the church glisten fall off and reveal an ugly, cracked core?

Dismas wasn’t hurt.

And that was the point of him being pissed off so much.

He wanted some de-stressing too, for sard’s sake.

The ex-brigand took a calming breath, trying to switch his irritation to something else. Like the smell of a rotting urca carcass. Or that the map was washed away by the tide. Or that he was out of gunpowder. Or that the supposed monster of a man, chained and insisting that he was dangerous for everyone involved, fell into sobbing melancholy when Rey snapped at him one too many times and was now covering near one of the stalactites. Or that this is what their supposed soothing camping quickly dissolved into.

Oh, sod it.

“I fear I am trapped inside of it,” he heard a weak voice beside him. Bigby was rocking back and forth, rattling his locks and chains. “An eternal nightmare…”

Dismas shook his trusty flask, hoping to hear some drops splashing inside, but alas, so he hid it and patted the dangly man’s shoulder.

“Relatable, man.”

“Better that someone strong face these monsters,” the man repeated, hiding his face in his knees. “I don’t want to see those nightmares, I don’t want to…”

The ex-brigand winced at the sound of another smack, feeling that his pants will need a wash not only from all the blood and mucus, and forced himself to look away from the scene which was more suited for a brothel than for two supposedly holy people:

“Ya n’ me both, pal, ya n’ me both.”

“Soon my fate will be upon me,” Bigby finally spared him a glance. “And you.”

“Well, ain’t ya the ray of sunshine in this shithole, feh.”

Unfortunately, the cursed one refused to acknowledge his prodding and the highwayman remained alone with accompaniment he would rather not acknowledge. Oh well. It wasn’t like the knowledge that his life was bent over a crooked fence was anything new to Dismas. He just never imagined it was that bent over.

With yet another irritated sigh, Dis tried to relax his tense muscles and have some respite during this mixed bag of insanities, but there was an irritating tapping of dripping water on his shoulder. He moved to the side, but the tapping remained. So he moved once more, cussing the piss-sprinkling brine and the humid caves, but the water grabbed his shoulder and—

Wait, what?

“Dismas, by Light’s grace, how can you behave in a manner so undignifying? Being tossed out of that den of sin and into the mud does not befit a warrior!”

Ow, his head. Ow, why was the crusader so fucking loud? No, he was usually loud but… ugh…

“Where’s… Junia?” Dis slurred as the knight tugged him up and onto his shoulders.

“In the transept where she should be.”

“n’… Bigby?”

“I care not where that atrocity dwells,” Rey grunted as he lifted him and stomped angrily towards the barracks. “Light, grant me your strength. Dis, you reek.”

“Of brine?”

“Of booze!” the crusader snapped and complained. “I just washed that shirt for you! Do you know how hard it is…”

But all Dismas could think about was the existential crisis of having a stiffy to a nightmare about a religious sadist slapping a religious masochist while having a nightmare of not having any booze and yearning for a pillow.

What the fuck was even his life.

[solomonish]

he comes with a warning sign (satan & his brothers)

One of these things is not like the other...the one born as soon as the others fell, the one made entirely of feelings they'd all rather forget.

ao3 link: here!

Satan started his life crashing into the ground, the impact creating a crater that is now considered a piece of Devildom history.

His first memory was the gut-wrenching jolt of falling through the air, watching as a man he didn’t know let out his anguish in a mess of feathers, blood, and tears Satan vaguely felt he wasn’t supposed to see. The next was of his collision, a bone-shattering hit that, somehow, only sent a dull ache through his body. Black feathers floated down around him, some matted with blood falling faster than the others, soft like the ones inexplicably around his neck in a boa. Around him, he could hear quiet moans of pain and the occasional sob, a cacophony that both grated in his ears but fit the turmoil that threatened to spill out from within him. Those first moments were nothing but hatred, an acidic burn within him so strong it felt like all he’d ever know.

Emotion didn’t come easy to him. For the longest time, he felt like an animal, some form of furious energy trapped in a cage of demonic armor that wouldn’t give no matter how often he lashed out. Occasionally, he’d manage to reach his arm between the bars and swipe at whoever made the mistake of getting close, attempting to ease him into the familial life that was expected of him. Who were these people? Why did they think they could expect him to care about them? It didn’t matter to him that they were shrinking from him, undoubtedly fighting behind closed doors about who’s turn it was to see him. In a way, it made him feel better. They should feel as angry as he did.

Even after he calmed down - convinced himself to put on a show of obedience for the right to stretch his legs and not have to wonder if the others forced the orange-haired one named Beelzebub to send his dinner (meaning he’d get none at all) - he was still aloof, uninterested in what the others thought about spot in their family. Eventually, he’d learn: learn of what they used to be, what they did to fall from that place, and of the person they lost. For the first time, he cared about the misfitting sensation inside of him. After all, he’d very much rather feel like an intrusion than a replacement.

The knowledge of what happened introduced that new emotion to him, a sort of sympathetically charged guilt that he, hah, hated. The others were in no state to teach him how to be a person. Their means of teaching him to be something other than a feral beast were certainly some sort of violation of his personal rights. So, instead, he took to reading, desperate to find answers to questions he didn’t yet know how to ask. Through the many novellas and epics, the treatises and research journals, entire libraries worth of fiction and nonfiction, Satan began to piece himself together. He taught himself how to craft a facade of sympathy and understanding, how to mask the anger that constantly boiled inside of him, and tuned himself to his emotions lest he fall back into the vat he always hovered just above. Cats and books calmed him down. Black feathers and Lucifer made him lose his grip.

Perhaps it was because, if he reached back as far as his memory went, the only thing he saw when his entire body burned with pure wrath was Lucifer himself and a tornado of feathers. Maybe it was because Lucifer seemed to watch him and regard him as a miniature version of himself, then promptly remind Satan that he would always be a step beneath his legacy. All Satan knew was, on the days Mammon would call on his crows to complete a scheme and the yard was littered with their feathers, his mood soured in the same way it was when Lucifer even made his presence known.

Every day, Satan had to wrestle with emotions the meanings of which he had to discern for himself, emotions that never should have been his in the first place. The war that raged inside his very core was only the product of a failure, a symbolic continuation of what robbed his “brothers” of someone he would never meet. There was no way he and this Lilith could exist at the same time, and Satan often wondered how readily the others would trade him for a chance to have her back.

Satan did not waste time wallowing in self-pity. However, despite his practiced control, he could not stop the frown that always formed when someone spoke of his origins. He was the product of Lucifer’s wrath and grief, a part of Lucifer that he tried so desperately to claw out of himself he disfigured himself in the process. Lucifer was once the most brilliant angel, the morningstar himself. Satan was the worst part of him, an embodiment of that which he could never want, not in his grace as an angel or his degeneracy as a demon.

If any of his brothers caught on to this pattern of thinking, they never breached the topic. Perhaps they agreed. Satan wasn’t sure he’d want to know if they did.

His withdrawal from the others was only natural. His violence in the beginning effectively conditioned them to stay away, and he could only imagine the things they associated him with in their grief. As they all did their best to move on, letting their broken bones fuse crooked, Satan gave up on his hope of ever fitting in. He was the youngest, yet the fourth most powerful - the one in the middle, splitting up the older and younger siblings and somehow not quite meshing with either group. When Diavolo commented on the everlasting love of brothers, Satan smiled and nodded. If he could put on an act of being a composed individual, he could put on an act of being a true member of their family. With how absorbed they were in themselves, it was rare the topic ever came up.

The only one who seemed to care was Lucifer. Even then, he only seemed to want to be his brothers’ keeper, if only for the disciplinary privileges it gave him. When Satan stepped out of line - which seemed to be always- Lucifer was quick to remind him that, oh, perhaps they weren’t brothers. Something churned in his gut, nothing like the bile he pretended rose up at the thought of being Lucifer’s son. As Satan simmered in his fury, silently planning something to get back at Lucifer, he wondered if they truly did find pleasure in reminding him how much he didn’t belong.

Logic said that only Lucifer knew to plan psychological torture that way, but Satan was under no obligation to forgive the behavior of the others on the ground of ignorance.

So, as was only natural, Satan came with a warning sign. He was the one to be wary of, a ball of uncontrollable rage disguised as one of them. His smiles were all surface-level and fake, hiding his true, devious intentions. Be careful around him - better yet, don’t associate yourself with him more than you have to.

After all, he had been pushed away from the beginning, a volatile bundle of emotions that Lucifer couldn’t - didn’t want to - deal with. There was no place for him anywhere when he had been tossed aside like trash from the start.

[missmeikakuna]

Chad and the Incel Chapter 10

Rated: M

Fandom: Original Fiction (but inspired by the Virgin vs Chad meme)

Relationship type: Male/Male with a bit of Female/Female (the lesbians are adorable, btw) and unrequited Male/Female (in other words, the guys are bisexual).

Description: Chad is, well, a Chad, or at least he looks like one. He’s got his sights set on the cool nerd Becky and enlists the help of her shy incel ex-friend Noah, offering to help him get the gorgeous girl (Stacy) he desperately wants. Noah is reluctant to help, believing that he will be stuck in inceldom forever, but Chad’s interest in his life gives him hope. When their plans go awry, they start turning their romantic attention towards each other.

Content Warning: Given the subject matter, you can guess that this story has dark themes in it, such as suicide and self-harm (plus the mental health issues that often cause them), sexism, slut-shaming homophobia, biphobia and transphobia. There is also swearing and some mentions of sex but nothing too explicit (hence the M rating as opposed to an Explicit rating).

10th Post: [Experiment] (POLL) Should I end it all?

Noah didn’t show up at school, spending all day in bed.

Chad tried messaging him but got no response. As he made his way to his locker during lunch he even tried to call him, but the mocking dirge of four gradually quieting beeps played on the phone.

‘What the hell?’ Chad asked his locker with a hiss. He added, ‘Noah, don’t ignore my calls,’ despite no one being there to hear him.

His shoulders jumped when he felt a slap on the back.

‘What’s up? Hey, where’s your ugly friend?’

Chad whipped his body around and grabbed Tyrone by the collar. ‘Who are you talking about?’ he growled.

Tyrone’s shoulders dropped. ‘Y-you know. Whatshisname, with the weird shirts and the glasses.’

‘Fuck you. You know nothing about him. Absolutely fucking nothing!’

Tyrone held his hands up like a soldier caught by the enemy. ‘Woah, c-calm down, dude! You on your p-period or something?’

Chad raised his fist but didn’t punch Tyrone, opting to drop him instead. ‘You’re not worth it. You’re a pathetic piece of shit who clearly needs glasses himself.’

Now it was Tyrone’s turn to grab Chad by the collar, albeit with a weaker grip. ‘Nobody calls me pathetic. Nobody.’ It took a crack in Tyrone’s voice for Chad to notice that the tiny boy was blinking abnormally fast. ‘And what’s your problem? You were spending all that time with whatshisface and I let you even though you were supposed to be my friend. Why? Because you seemed happy around him. You had this stupid little Grinch-looking grin on your face whenever he came into the room.’

Chad instinctively touched the ends of his lips with his thumb and pointer finger. ‘I did?’

‘Yeah.’ Tyrone let go of Chad’s collar and rubbed the back of his own neck. ‘Look, uh, s…s…’ He took a deep breath before squeezing out what he wanted to say. ‘Sorry for insulting the guy. You know me. I run my mouth a lot sometimes. By the way, what was with the part about me needing glasses?’

‘Nothing!’ Chad croaked as he swiftly turned away from him.

Tyrone shrugged his shoulders. ‘I’ll, uh, leave you to calm down or whatever. I wouldn’t worry too much about the guy. I’m sure he’ll be back tomorrow. Probably spent all night watching whatever he watches.’

Noah did not, in fact, come back to school the next day. Or the day after that. Whenever his mother tried to get him out of bed, he screeched at her to get out of his room.

He was tempted to use his phone to watch YouTube to pass the time but he kept reminding himself of one word. ‘Cope’. Instead he lied down and thought about everything that had gone wrong in his life, from never having had a girlfriend to Chad finding his incel forum account. Though he refused to admit it even to himself, the latter caused an even greater sting in his heart.

After hours of thinking, he mustered up the motivation to stand up and grab his phone. He put up a post to the forum.

Rotcel2003- (POLL) Should I end it all?

It’s over for me. It was over for me as soon as I was born with this deformed face. And now the one girl who I thought I could be with has found this account and is mocking me for it. Should I just end it?

He checked the poll several hours later and became a mess of tears at the results. He was right.

Yes- 102 votes

No- 28 votes

Someone commented an alternative.

Islavistalol- Go ER and kill everyone. Get revenge on the girl who mocked you. Foids deserve the bullet.

He envisioned Chad’s dying face. He had done this in the past with the girls who rejected him or simply didn’t notice him but, for some reason, this time he felt pain more powerful than any pleasure he could feel at the concept of revenge. There was no way he could even attempt what the infamous Elliot Rodger did.

He added one edit to his post. 

It’s decided. Goodbye, everyone.

Chad was reluctant to check the forum again. He’d already made enough of a mess. However, as he secretly looked at his phone during a boring class,  he gave in and saw Noah’s final post.

‘Shit,’ he murmured as he stood up.

‘Is something wrong, Mr Beaufort?’ the teacher asked but Chad ignored him and raced out of the classroom. ‘Hey, what are you-’

Chad searched through his scrambled mind for a place Noah would commit suicide. Sweat ran down his entire body and his throat felt dry and sore as if he had just screamed for ten hours. His heart felt like it was trying to escape out of his chest and he panted like a wolf in the middle of the desert. 

He got into his car and sped away.

He first stopped at Noah’s house and banged on the front door. When no one answered, he took a few steps back and kicked the door open. Noah was nowhere to be found.

He tried the train station but there was no sight of Noah. He went to a bridge where suicide was common and couldn’t find him there either.

He took out his phone and looked up advice on stopping someone from committing suicide. He only skimmed it, barely able to concentrate as memories of Noah flashed before his eyes. One thing that the boy said stuck out.

‘I’d spend the rest of my life here if I could.’

A thorny bouquet of different curse words tumbled from Chad’s mouth. He turned his car around and rushed to the local library with intentional graffiti.

As luck would have it, the door had a ‘closed’ sign attached to it.

Chad repeatedly slammed his hands against the clear doors and, when no one was there to open them, he looked around. He ran around the library until he was behind it, his heart pounding in his ears.

He saw him, dipping his toes into the lake. Chad shivered even though he wasn’t touching the water himself. 

‘Noah!’

The boy turned his head, tears in his eyes. ‘Leave me alone,’ he spat. ‘I don’t want to fucking talk to you.’

Chad stepped towards him, careful not to step too close and scare Noah even more. ‘But I need to apologise. I get it. I was shitty. Real shitty.  I shouldn’t have tried to meddle so much. But don’t drown yourself over me! I’m not worth it!’

Noah moved out of the lake and stormed up to Chad, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and giving him a murderous glare.

‘You think it’s ‘cause of you? You fucking narcissist. It’s not all about you. I’ve spent years of my life trying to get a girlfriend, and for what? So she can spread her fucking legs for some piece of shit like you? Everyone on that website you fucking spied on me on is right. It’s hopeless for someone like me. I look like shit, and even if I just looked average, girls don’t want an ‘average’ guy. No, they only go for the top 20 per cent of men. Do you think that’s fair, huh? Huh? And don’t try to explain it away by saying, ‘Just have a less shitty personality,’ like you know what oppression is. Fuck off!’ He shoved Chad away.

Chad touched Noah’s arms with shaking hands. Noah’s glare softened at his touch. ‘I don’t know about ‘oppression’, per se,’ Chad said. ‘But I do know what it’s like to be treated badly because of something out of my control. It’s something I’ve tried to keep hidden, so I don’t know what I’d do if I was in your shoes and people found out the truth. That’s why I’m really sorry.’

Noah pushed Chad’s arms away and started walking back towards the lake. ‘I bet your secret’s something small like, ‘A girl rejected me once so I had to go with one of my thirty other options’.’

Chad took a deep breath. ‘More like, ‘I confessed to a guy and got my ribs kicked until they broke and I had to go to the hospital’.’

Noah turned around. He said nothing. He just repeatedly opened and closed his hands as if he was trying to hold onto the air. The wind blew and he wrapped his arms around himself, shivering. Chad stepped closer.

‘And besides, you don’t look like shit,’ he said. ‘I’ve told you this before. You’re hot.’

When Noah put his foot in the water, Chad felt a painful bolt of electricity in his veins telling him to run forward, but he reminded himself of the consequences of trying to rush this. 

Noah sighed. ‘Do you think I want to hear that from you? Guys want everything. They’d fuck a walking table if they could. Hearing stuff like that from a guy isn’t the same as hearing it from a soft, feminine femoid…’

Chad had to tune out when Noah started describing the ideal woman. He pictured Noah having sex with a woman and felt like he was going to vomit.

‘… so I don’t want to hear it from a degenerate like you.’

‘Degenerate?’

‘You just told me you’re a faggot.’

Chad felt like slapping himself when his blood started to boil. How could he want to punch someone who was on the verge of suicide?

‘I’m not a faggot,’ he murmured with his head down as he shoved his hands into his pockets. ‘I liked Becky, remember?’

‘I bet that was just a cover-up.’ The more Noah explained, the weaker his voice became, as if his own mind was already arguing with everything he was saying. ‘You just wanted to cope with your degeneracy by acting like a normal person so you could bang a bunch of other Chads behind the scenes. Knowing you it worked. You probably get to sleep with ten men a night just like a femoid. And me? I get to spend the rest of my life not knowing the love of a woman. Or maybe you’re really straight and you’re just coping with Becky rejecting you so you pretended to like me. You wanted to convince yourself you’re happy when you’re really miserable.’

Chad took another step. ‘Is that last bit how you feel... about yourself?’

Noah released a single quick laugh. ‘I’m eighteen for Christ’s sake. Guys half my age are already having sex.’ Chad winced at the thought. ‘If these are the best years of my life, I may as well die now. No femoid is going to wake me up with a kiss and tell me the kids are already up, excited for their Christmas presents. No femoid’s going to cook my favourite meal when I come home from work upset at my boss. And no femoid is ever going to tell me she found this goofy-looking tie and thought of me so she bought it. If I stay alive, I’m going to be a virgin at fifty and everyone’s going to look at me like a worthless waste of space. Humans are supposed to reproduce, right? What’s the use of a man who can’t do that? I’m going to die alone. I just know it.’

Noah submerged his ankles in the water, then his shins. Chad grabbed his arm. ‘What’s your favourite meal?’ was the only question he could come up with in such a short amount of time.

Noah bit his lip. ‘Meatloaf,’ he whispered, looking away from Chad. ‘I know it’s normie shit but Mom makes it with this weird spice that makes it ten times better. I’d… love to ask her what the spice is so I can tell my future wife and she can cook it for me.’

‘You can’t do that if you’re dead.’

After Chad said that he rubbed the back of his own neck. ‘Look, I really hope this doesn’t look like I’m insulting you, but I don’t see the logic in what you’re saying. It seems like you’re taking one thing that’s happening now and convincing yourself that it’s the end of the world. The steps between you not getting laid right now and you dying alone don’t seem to connect. And it’s not like you’re a virgin anymore since we, you know….’

Noah stepped further into the water and Chad pulled him back. ‘Wait! I didn’t mean to… I’m sorry. I’m not trying to, you know, downplay what you’re feeling right now. It’s just that it doesn’t seem very rational and I know you’re the kind of person who believes in logic and reason.’

‘I’m not… rational? I’m very rational. I understand more about the world than some Christian who probably tries to pray the gay away.’

‘That may be true, but right now you’re not acting very rational. It’s like someone’s possessed you and put these thoughts into your head against your will. You’re not really like this, Noah. I know you’re not.’ 

Chad wiped the tears that were beginning to surface in his eyes. ‘And, to be honest, I’d like to wake you up with a kiss and tell you our future kids are already up for Christmas. I’d like to learn that meatloaf recipe and make it for you after a hard day’s work. I’d probably skip the middleman and ask your mom directly. And I’m probably not good at picking out ties, but I could buy you one if you wanted me to. I’m sure by then I’d know you well enough to know which one to pick. 

‘Actually, you know what? It doesn’t matter what I want right now. You’re right, I’m a narcissist. Even if we never got together and I saw you going out with some chick, I’d be happy enough. I’d survive. Even if we never had sex again and I never had sex with anyone else, ever, I’d be okay. Even if I’m fifty years old. If someone looked at you funny for being a fifty-year-old virgin, you know I’d punch their lights out.’

Chad lowered his hand from his tear-stained face and smiled at Noah, pulling him just a little bit closer. He himself stepped closer, trying his best to ignore the coldness circling his feet as the water seeped into his them through the holes in his socks. Noah’s eyebrows shot up and his eyes grew several sizes, his lips pursed and his limbs stiff.

‘You see, even if you don’t get a girl, you’ll still have friends, family and all that good stuff,' Chad assured him in a soft but firm voice, brushing his fingers against Noah’s cheek. 'You’re not a waste of space. It’s just whatever’s possessed your mind telling you that.

‘Look, I’m not too good at talking about this kind of thing. I’m not even sure if I should really be arguing about this with you instead of just listening to you. Maybe you should talk to someone who, I don’t know, gets paid to listen to people going through what you’re going through. They should have better advice than me. Please, just talk to someone about this. 

‘And not that forum. I know I don’t know what I’m doing, but I sure as hell know more than those idiots who told you to kill yourself. It’s not like they’re people who have gotten out of your situation. It’s like going to a support group for alcoholics run by someone who’s still an alcoholic and hasn’t gotten help themselves.’

Noah’s mouth opened but he didn’t say anything. His eyes moved from side to side as he contemplated what Chad said. Tears spilled out of his eyes and made his cheeks sting. His nose started to run and he put on a tiny smile. He looked into Chad’s eyes. When he realised that his fingers were still on his cheek, he pushed them away and stepped back. He gasped when the wet earth underneath him started to shift, pulling him into the water. He instinctively reached for Chad’s hand and inadvertently dragged him down with him.

Both were surrounded by pitch black. Noah closed his eyes, tears joining the lake water. Once the shock wore off, Chad looked up at the surface, which had a light he could just barely see. He wrapped one arm around Noah’s waist and when he did so, Noah opened his eyes as if waking from a nightmare. The two swam up together.

Loud gasps for breath echoed throughout the area. Chad hauled Noah onto land and Noah, in turn, pulled him up. They lied down, shivering, on the grass. They breathed heavily as they looked at the sky.

‘I think I should take you to a hospital,’ Chad suggested.

‘Why? I’m not injured.’

‘That’s good to hear. But, I mean, you’re still injured in the mind.’ Chad took his phone out of his pocket and tried to turn it on but the screen remained black. ‘Shit! So, I was on a website that said people who attempt suicide have to go to the hospital, even if they’re not physically hurt.’

‘So I can be shipped off to a madhouse and feel even worse?’

‘Not really. They’ll just check up on you and keep you safe for a night or two. Then we can find you a therapist.’

‘We?’

Chad’s eyes went all over the place. 'Well, yeah. Like I said, even if you don’t want to date me, we’re still a team. I won’t try to meddle too much since you know how that turned out, but you can always talk to me if you don’t like the therapist or whatever, and we can switch ‘em.’ He stood up and held out his hand. Noah hesitated but took it, and as soon as he stood up he started sobbing loudly into Chad’s chest. His shoulders relaxed when Chad put his arms around them and patted his head. 

The two walked like this, with Chad still holding Noah close and whispering words of encouragement into his ear. Chad helped Noah into the car and drove him to the hospital while Noah relayed to him the various reasons he attempted suicide. Chad knew most of this, but he listened anyway.

When the doctors took Noah away, Chad sat in the waiting room with knees that repeatedly bounced up and down. He looked around him and felt fear strike his heart when he noticed how plain and lifeless the white walls were. Was this the right environment for Noah?

This fear clawed at his heart for a good half hour until a doctor called out to him and took him to Noah’s ward.

‘You should feel proud,’ the doctor said.

Chad raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m supposed to be proud? What was I supposed to do? Let him die?’

The doctor chuckled. ‘I suppose you’re right.’

‘Am I really allowed to see him this early?’

‘He wanted to see you. He said he’d attempt suicide again if I didn’t let you in.’

Noah’s face was already fresher, though his eyes were still red and puffy. He gave Chad a small smirk.

‘Do I look sexier now in a blue gown?’

Chad sighed in relief. ‘Please don’t tempt me. You’re doing surprisingly well if you can joke like that.’

Noah scratched his cheek. ‘I thought about what you said and you were right. That forum just made me worse. I… I feel like a class-A moron.’ He let tears escape from his eyes.

‘You’re not a moron. You just got sucked into it.’

Noah wiped his eyes and raised his head at the doctor. ‘Uh, can Chad and I speak privately?’ The doctor nodded and closed the curtain. ‘Can you come here?' he asked Chad, who obliged. He held his arm up and, after a few seconds of curling up his fingers, cupped Chad’s cheek. 'Thank you for putting up with me.’

‘I’m not ‘putting up with you’. People don’t just ‘put up with’ the ‘people they love.’

Noah averted his gaze. ‘Love, huh?’

‘Uh, well, um, I meant… I meant to say ‘like’ but I just blurted out that word and I didn’t mean to come across as creepy or too forward or anything like that, uh, so…’

Noah choked out a laugh, his smile like that of someone who had been shot by an arrow that just missed a vital organ. He shifted his hand until it was under Chad’s chin, pulling him a tiny bit closer. 

‘Why’d it have to be a guy?’ he grumbled. ‘I never saw my future self liking, or loving, or… whatever... another guy.’

A big, dumb smile adorned Chad’s face. Noah slowly and tentatively pulled him even closer and brushed his lips against his. As he closed his eyes he initially envisioned smoke, but the image quickly evaporated. The kiss was fleeting, but it was enough for now.

[purplefairywriter]

Where / Ever

Hobi is a warrior training to become a paladin: a warrior who wields a sword in one hand and the texts of a god in the other. However, he finds himself victim to a strange set of nightmares that change his course in life forever. [BTS fantasy AU fic set in a D&D/RPG-like (so medieval fantasy) world. 4.5k words, stand-alone. Doesn’t go on and on about any religion, real or fake, a great deal. No pairings, just J-Hope being J-Hope in a way. This is gonna be a trip, so settle down for a ride.] Enjoy your freaky Friday the 13th, y’all!  _____________________________________________________   Hobi woke up that morning drenched in sweat. The sun shone in from his window, illuminating his room. He groaned and lifted his blanket over his head. With each passing day, the day of his great final exam was drawing closer. The fighting test that would ensure that he’d become a paladin. Despite it being a childhood dream, now that he was closer to achieving it, the more he longed to just stay in bed until there were no more gods. A knock at his door made him sit up in bed. “Hobi, come on! You’re late! The Grandmaster is going to have you by the ears for this!” Hobi recognized that voice as one of his fellow paladins-in-training. Hobi groaned before rubbing his eyes and getting out of bed.  “Okay, okay, I’m workin’ on it!” Hobi said as he clumsily got dressed. His hair was a wild, untamed mess. It clashed with the simple elegance of his light plate armor. Hobi, like all good paladins, spent an inordinate amount of time ensuring that his armor shined. Over the years, he had grown convinced that this wasn’t just to ensure the armor’s upkeep but to also attempt to blind any opponents with the awesome nature of a paladin’s armor. Hobi stumbled out of his room. He went towards the direction of the main eating hall only for one of his fellow trainees to grab him by the arm. “Come on, sleepyhead. You slept in too late. Again. Grandmaster said no breakfast for late sleepers.” Hobi grumbled as he walked side by side with his fellow student. As they walked outdoors towards the training ring, Hobi covered his eyes to keep the sun from blinding him. The lush green fields and the bright sun made for a beautiful day. Hobi only frowned when he saw the rest of his fellow trainees standing in a circle with the Grandmaster in the center. Hobi calmly walked over. Two trainees moved to make space for him. “Late again, are we?” The Grandmaster stopped in the middle of his previous speech to ask that. “Yes, Grandmaster,” Hobi said with as little enthusiasm as possible.  The Grandmaster sighed before continuing his speech about how the circle of life worked. Or that’s what Hobi assumed. He began to tune out the speeches on right and wrong long ago. Deep down he knew their version of right and wrong was wrong.  “He has to be the worst paladin I’ve ever seen.” Hobi tuned in just in time to hear someone across from him whispering that. “I know! I’m surprised Grandmaster hasn’t fussed at him about his hair…” Another person whispered. Hobi sighed. He knew they were talking about him. He was the butt of jokes for his training group. Ever since he had first arrived as a snot-nosed teenager, they had ridiculed him. So Hobi threw himself into training to be a great paladin. Now that he was among the top students of his class, despite his manners and appearance, it drove his fellow students mad. Lately, however, Hobi felt himself starting to slip... “Hobi!” The Grandmaster snapped. Hobi looked up and towards the Grandmaster. “Yes, Grandmaster?” Hobi asked. “You see a burning house. You go to investigate it. You see a mother and child inside, both still alive but struggling to get out. You also see an altar of evil in the home. What do you do?” The Grandmaster asked.  Hobi stood there. I hate these stupid tests, it’s all about morals. It’s not about what techniques you’d actually use. Hobi scratched the back of his neck before answering. “I’d rush in and save them,” Hobi said with a degree of confidence that made his comrades’ stomach churn. “No, you wouldn’t. A good paladin would leave them be.” The Grandmaster said with a frown. “You’re telling me that just because you see possible proof of wrong-doing, you’d leave two people to die?” Hobi exclaimed. The group gasped as he spoke out of turn.  “There is right and there is wrong, Hobi. Evil in any form cannot be condoned.” “Yes, but maybe they weren’t evil! Many times, a tribe of barbarians take over and replace the local population’s gods with evil ones. On the pain of death, they have to get rid of their old gods or get killed!” Hobi said. His attempt to restrain himself in a more subdued way of speaking failed as he grew more enraged.The other trainees in the circle whispered among each other. Hobi sighed, knowing they were insulting him and his words. “You can’t punish people for what is out of their control. Maybe the mother and child had no choice but to put the altar-” Hobi started. “That’s how the degeneracy begins, students. You let one person slip through the cracks and into evil. Then before you know it, the entire countryside is engulfed in darkness.” The Grandmaster said. The tone in his voice let Hobi know all he needed to know. Hobi frowned. I’ve done nothing but disappoint people since I got here... He thought. “Do you even know the procedure for saving people?” The Grandmaster asked after a moment of nothing but the other trainees whispering among themselves. “I… um…” Hobi said as he scratched the back of his neck. “… you save people?” The Grandmaster sighed. “Hobi. What do you do after that?” “Wish them well?” The Grandmaster shook his head at Hobi’s response. “No. You’re supposed to teach them about the gods. Haven’t you been paying any attention?” Hobi knew replying either way would result in harsh words. So he decided not to reply at all. The Grandmaster rolled his eyes and waved his hand dismissively. “Just… go back to your room. Go get some sleep, you clearly are lacking that.” The Grandmaster tried to say that in as caring a tone as he could. Hobi, however, only heard the excuse he was given to leave. Hobi sighed and walked off towards his room. Hobi stared at the austerity of his room. I hate it here. Was the only pressing thought on his mind. I’m not allowed to be myself here. I used to be so different. I’d laugh, I’d shout… now I can’t do any of that. I have to be this shell that spouts out whatever propaganda the Grandmaster feels is appropriate. Hobi closed his door, changed into more comfortable clothes, and sat on his bed. He had not pulled his curtains closed to block out the sunlight. He happened to look out the window when he heard a songbird warbling in the distance. The world isn’t a scary place. Yes, there may be scary parts of it. But there’s so much beauty. I don’t think people can be straight good or straight evil. Hobi sighed as he turned away from the window. He began to try and lay down when a sharp caw snapped him out of his thoughts and into reality. Hobi looked back towards his windowsill to see a crow sitting there. He sat up. For a split second he eyed the sword he kept near his door. The crow tilted its head and cawed again. Something about the way the crow stared at him caused Hobi to feel uneasy. I know that crow. I swear I do… He thought as he stood up. Just as he reached out to touch the crow, the crow flew off. Hobi stared out the window wondering if it would come back before he sat back down on the bed. Eventually, he laid back down on the bed. When Hobi awoke again, it was dark. The full moon was the only thing illuminating his room. What awoke him was the sound of the crow again, cawing on his windowsill. Hobi got out of bed again, and like earlier, tried to touch the crow. This time, instead of flying away, it vanished in thin air. Hobi gasped before letting out a groan. Not another dream, please… He thought as he heard a knock at his door. Hobi opened his door, ready to tell off whoever was bothering him. Instead of seeing the normal hallways of his training grounds, but a white room with a wooden table in the center. Hobi hesitated at the doorframe for a moment. Two men were sitting at the table. Hobi didn’t recognize one of them. He looked to be a bit older than Hobi was and wore glasses. The other man, however, Hobi felt like he recognized. His short, shorter than Hobi’s hair at that moment, seemed to be a dirty blond. When the blond man looked up, he smiled, revealing his dimples. Hobi stood there, staring at the man, trying to remember who he was. I know his face, but I don’t… I don’t know his name. But I should know his name! But I don’t… Hobi thought. “J-Hope hyung! You look like you didn’t know we were meeting today. Which is funny because you are late…” The blond man said in a jovial tone. Hobi looked over his shoulder, trying to find who this J-Hope person was. The older man laughed and shook his head. “You know he’s always a joker.” That statement made the two men chuckle a bit before the blond man invited Hobi into the room and to have a seat. Hobi sighed. Great. Another weird dream. What is it going to be this time, me getting eaten by herd of a giant sheep? Hobi shrugged and sat down in a chair close to the man. “So! I know we’ve already discussed making this album a series of solo songs for each member of the group, yes?” The older man asked. “Yes.” The blond man said. “But we still have to do that comeback trailer. I know we discussed themes for the album, but I… I don’t think that temptation is a good idea for a theme. Especially for a comeback trailer, people may think our album is just… I don’t know.” Hobi looked at the older man before looking at the blond man. I shouldn’t add anything, should I? He asked himself. When the older man turned towards him, Hobi knew that staying quiet wasn’t an option. Okay, it’ s only a dream. It’s not like whatever I do is going to affect anyone’s future, right?  “I mean… Temptation is a great theme, I think. Doesn’t everyone deal with temptation? I mean, don’t we all want things we’re not supposed to?” Hobi asked. The grin on his face disappeared once he realized that both the older man and the blond man were staring at him. “That is true, you know, Rap Monster.” The older man said. The blond man nodded. “You were having a hard time writing the lyrics for the comeback trailer, I know. Why not let J-Hope help? After all, we were talking about making it his comeback trailer…” Hobi felt his jaw slack as shock took over him. “L-lyrics?” RM chuckled and shook his head. Hobi nearly started to frown when RM’s smile faded. RM sighed. “J-Hope hyung, I wasn’t making fun of you. I thought you were kidding! You make a lot of jokes. There’s a reason people call you the sunshine of the group, you know. Look. How about you, Pdogg and I work on the lyrics for this? Then you can rap it or sing it, you can make your own dance routine too! That’d be cool, don’t you think?” RM said with such enthusiasm that Hobi found it impossible to say no. Until he remembered something. “But… But I can’t sing or dance. And I don’t know what rapping is.” Hobi said in a serious tone. Instead of chuckling, RM just shot a wary glance over towards Pdogg. “Don’t tell me you’ve been listening to those netizens again. Don’t listen to them, they don’t have any idea what they’re talking about. You are one of the best dancers I’ve ever met. And your rapping? Without you, our rap line wouldn’t be so great!” RM said to diffuse the situation. It worked as Hobi smiled at his words. “But we’ll focus on the lyrics for now and we’ll worry about the singing, dancing and all of that later.” “And you can’t forget the MV,” Pdogg said in a voice barely above a whisper. A ringing noise made Pdogg sigh before taking a strange object out of his pocket and looking at it. “I’m sorry boys, but I have to go. We’ve already gone over what lyrical offerings I have to offer. Bye!”  Pdogg got up and began to leave the room. Hobi watched him as he left. “What? I… What’s an M-” Hobi began before just shaking his head. They haven’t answered any of my questions so far, why are they gonna start now? They clearly think I’m someone else. Pdogg closed the door behind him, further making sure that Hobi’s questions would be unanswered. Hobi looked back at RM and cleared this throat before speaking up. “Let’s get started.” “Good, now I have some lines I thought of for the song. I have the hook, I believe, but I can’t think of the first verse.” RM said as he opened up a notebook. Inside were a bunch of notes and scribbles, with one page titled ‘comeback trailer’. He pushed the notebook towards Hobi. “See, I only have bits and pieces for the first verse.” Words like ‘this love is another name for the devil’, ‘but because of my uncontrollable greed’, and ‘because of my childish love’ all jumped out at Hobi. He poured over what RM had written so far. Hobi felt like the lyrics that RM had written so far were capturing what Hobi himself truly had been feeling lately. Despite never having met the man before… “What about, for this line ‘because of my childish love’, it ends with ‘I lost my way’ or something. Something about a dream you had but you abandoned it for something better?” Hobi suggested. RM nodded. “How about ‘I lost my way on a path of a dream’?” RM asked as he began to write those words down. “Sounds good!” Hobi said, watching RM write. “Any ideas for the first line?” RM asked. “I was thinking something about light…”  It took a moment for Hobi to realize that RM was still talking. It was just that Hobi couldn’t hear him. Hobi reached out to touch RM when he heard another knock at the door. It was louder, more insistent than the previous one. Hobi stood up and slowly went to the door. Hobi pressed his ear against the door to ear someone on the other side, muffled, telling him to hurry up. Hobi opened the door to find a man about his age with yellowish blond hair. He had bangs that covered his eyebrows but somehow his face was able to carry a great deal of expression without visible eyebrows. The stranger smiled a little once Hobi came out of the room. A very toothy but somehow attractive smile. “I thought you were dead or something.” The man said in a slightly teasing tone. “I… I was um… I was just writing lyrics.” Hobi said, trying to remember whatever words this dream wanted him to use. “Really?” The man’s voice dripped with interest. “I didn’t know you were planning on a follow-up for your mixtape so soon, Hoseok-hyung. That explains a lot. Usually, I’m the one who stays in my hotel room all day while the rest of you decide to go do whatever.”  Hobi smiled. He’s my friend. He thought as he watched the man shrug. I don’t know how I know that, but he’s my friend.  “I just wanted to tell you that…” The man cut off his words as he turned towards the wall behind him. An odd portal seemed attached to the wall behind them out in the hallway. There was a little chime playing, one that Hobi felt he had heard before as he watched the white screen faded into a black one. Hobi was confused as to what he was seeing. Flashing images of a bunch of things that Hobi felt he recognized began whatever it was he was watching. Hobi’s eyes widened as he realized that in one of the brief clips he saw himself with a group of other men. When he saw what looked like was his profile standing there in the shadows, his mind began to race. That can’t be me. There’s no way that can be- His jaw dropped when the shot lit up and revealed it was indeed him. Hobi was still in denial right up until he heard himself singing. For about the next three minutes, Hobi stood there, his eyes transfixed on that odd portal as he watched himself. He found himself chuckling as the copy of him in that portal proclaimed ‘wherever my way’. The way the portal him said that reminded real-life Hobi of how he used to be before the paladin training set in. Perhaps that reminder was what made Hobi grin ear to ear as he video on the portal came to a close. Hobi swore he felt tears forming in his eyes as he watched the portal version of him sitting on top of a building, lit up by the bright lights of the city. The video ended and the man chuckled. Hobi snapped his head over towards him. He had forgotten where he was and who he was with. The man was smiling, which relieved Hobi in some way. “That turned out really well!” The man said. “I think it perfectly captures who you are based on the beats alone. I’m glad they used some samples from the intro from our debut album... We’ve come a long way since we debuted, haven’t we?” Unsure of what to say, Hobi only nodded in response. “I still wish we could go to just one hotel without people knowing who we are, though. It was kind of cool that they decided to play your comeback trailer.” The man said in a whisper. Hobi wanted to ask him why that was when the man spoke again. “Look, I’m going to go rest up. That was a very good MV though, everything about it was great! Maybe you should write more songs.” The man said as he patted Hobi’s shoulder. Before Hobi could even mutter thanks, the man walked off, leaving Hobi to look around the hallway. Just as Hobi thought of walking further down the hallway, there was a knock on the door behind him. Hobi turned and placed a hand on the doorknob. He waited to hear some noise from behind the door. Only silence. Hobi opened the door to find himself standing in front of a dark forest at night. The trees looked gnarled and blackened by the light of the full moon. Crickets were the only noise he could hear. Hobi braced himself for the worst. This is only a dream. He reminded himself over and over. He walked out into the forest. As he took a few steps in, he heard the door behind him close. He turned around to see that the door was gone. There was the only forest both behind and in front of him. A cawing noise made Hobi look up at one of the tall trees in front of him. A crow was perched upon a high branch, eyeing the young man. Hobi swallowed hard. The crow tilted its head to the other side to stare at him through its other eye. An eye that was unnaturally blue. Hobi took a deep breath. This is only a dream. He reminded himself again. The crow flew down from the branch. It swooped down near Hobi, who cowered when it flew past him. Hobi stood back up once he was sure the crow was gone. The crow cawed again from behind him, where it sat on a tree stump. Hobi sighed. “What do you want, huh?” Hobi asked the crow. “I know this is just a dream, okay? Can’t you just… go away so I can wake up?” The crow cawed again. This time, the caw transformed into laughter. A cloud of black feathers surrounded the crow. Once the cloud disappeared, a human man was sitting there on the tree stump. His hair was pitch black, as if Hobi was staring at a void instead of hair, as were his clothes and eyes. His eyes seemed to lack a human glow to them. Hobi closed his eyes for a moment to remind himself once again that this was not reality. “Why would you want to wake up? Don’t you like your dreams?” The strange man asked. His voice sounded both mysterious and ordinary. Hobi opened his eyes to see the man sitting there still. “I… I do, but… they’re just dreams.” Hobi said. The man sighed as he stood up. “Then you aren’t ready.” The man began to walk away. “Wait! Not ready for what?” Hobi asked. The man laughed before turning back around to face him with his arms crossed. “Ready for the truth.” Hobi felt himself squint at the man, much to the man’s delight. “You’re the only one who has the dreams, you know. The rest of them don’t.” The man said. “I know that I know that the rest of the trainees don’t have these dreams,” Hobi said. “No, no. That’s not what I meant.” The man sighed a heavy sigh. “There’s seven of you, you’re one of them.” “Seven?” “Yes, seven. Seven of you who were taken from one reality and placed into another.” “And how am I one of them?” The man rolled his eyes.“You were brought here by someone who doesn’t want you messing with that reality anymore. In the other reality… Your dreams are the reality, Hobi. Your nightmares? They aren’t nightmares. Your life in this reality is the nightmare.” Hobi began to shake his head. The words ‘that is impossible’ were about to cross his lips when the man continued. “There are six others. All of you have to defeat the darkness in this reality to get back to your real reality. In the real world, you are famous beyond anyone’s wildest dreams, Jung Hoseok. Your restlessness, your dreams are all a result of the real world, the real you wanting to exist and be real again. To do that, you must defeat the one person who wants to keep you here. The one person whose goal is to keep the people across all realities unhappy.” “Where will I find that person?” Hobi’s words spurted out before he got a chance to contain them. “You can’t defeat that person alone.” The man said. He snapped his fingers and a wooden box appeared in front of Hobi. “Go on, pick it up.” Hobi hesitated for a moment. The man’s glance urged him to do as he demanded. Hobi lifted the box, expecting it to be heavy. It was lightweight. Hobi opened the lid of it. Seven ribbons, each one a unique color, were laid out. He managed to pick out the one that caught his eye. A silver ribbon, which glowed gently in the moonlight. The man chuckled. Hobi looked up at him as he felt the box disappear from his hand. “You will get your calling soon enough. You and the six others will bring peace to the land and then you may return to your own reality.” “But… how do I know you’re not lying? Or that this isn’t just some weird dream? How will I know those six others? How will we-” Hobi’s voice grew frantic as the information finally set in. “You only need to know that you will know those things and the answers to them in time.” The man said. Before Hobi could ask another question, the man dissipated into a cloud of black feathers. The man’s last statement rang in Hobi’s ears as he began to wake. Hobi sat up in his own bed at the knocking at his door. At first, he ignored it. I could still be asleep. Hobi reminded himself. The knocking grew more frenzied the longer Hobi waited. He made sure he was at least dressed decently before opening the door.  An elf stood outside the door. Hobi knew he was gawking at her for he had never seen an elf before. He had heard the countless rumors that elves were pretty, but he never thought they could be that pretty. If he was more awake, he would have thought of something interesting to say to her. Something about her pretty black hair or the faint freckles that ran across her nose and cheeks. Maybe even something about her green eyes.  “Are you Hobi?” She asked curtly. “Yeah, that’s me,” Hobi said as he leaned in the doorway. He laughed nervously at realizing she was a bit taller than he was. That and the fact he nearly lost his footing trying to look relaxed by leaning against the door’s frame. His confident tone seemed to outshine his slip up as she did not seem to notice. She nodded her head in acknowledgment of his answer. “Message for you. From the king.” She said as she handed him an envelope.  Hobi took it, expecting he would be able to finally interject some kind of one-liner when she just walked off. He sighed as he looked down at his envelope. There was nothing on the front, but a red seal with Elvish writing on it on the back. I can’t read that. I hope I can read the letter… Hobi thought as he ripped open the envelope. He pulled out the single piece of parchment paper.  The paper only had a few sentences on it, written in clear cursive.  The time is now. Be at The Crested Dragon at dark tonight. Your quest begins now, Hobi.  It was unsigned. Hobi shook his head at the letter. His name was right and he knew where that inn was, it was right in town. This can’t be right. This isn’t for me, I don’t know any elves, let alone an Elvish king- His thumb brushed over an unfamiliar texture. He moved his thumb to see a silver ribbon identical to the one from his dream. He closed his eyes for a moment as the man’s last sentence rang in his head. You only need to know that you will know those things and the answers to them in time…  Hobi packed all of his things. He showed the letter to the Grand Master, who gave him permission to leave his training as long as he called himself a ‘probationary paladin’, do good by the order, and came back to training as soon as he was done. The Grand Master seemed more concerned with the seal rather than the letter’s contents. As Hobi walked away from the training compound where he had spent the last few years of his life in misery, he hummed to himself. He was grinning with the knowledge that he would never, ever come back. He accidentally bumped into another trainee coming back inside. “Hey!” The trainee cried. “Where do you think you’re going?” Hobi thought for a moment. The look on the trainee’s face let Hobi knew the man was looking for a fight. Instead of apologizing, Hobi only shrugged. “Wherever my way is,” Hobi said lightly as he walked off. 

[dirtyfilthy]

I  guess Janis Joplin is very free indeed.

“It is the absolute freedom of every working locomotive to gaze longingly out of it’s own windowpanes, and then -- having caught it’s thoughts on some particularly picturesque piece of scenery or another -- to daydream of that distant mountain range all day long -- and imagine what it would be like to climb up to the peak of it,  to stand on the very tipmost top of that mountain and look out over the clouds. This forlorn place -- I mean the summit, being extremely mountainous and also very rugged and almost entirely made out of snow & rocks & vast sheer cliffs with vertical drops into hundred of meters of nothing, this is most certainly no fit place for a plain ordinary train such as myself. Sadly,  it is also very likely that no rails will ever run there,  because honestly there is no good reason for them to do so, and yet, even then, knowing all of this as I obviously do, somehow this very same train finds it can’t stop itself from wishing...”

Gordon has begun to trail off, looking wistful.  Thomas The Tank Engine began to wonder if this story had any dragons in it, or perhaps some flirtatious passenger carriages (although Thomas often found them to be altogether Very Silly), or maybe it was even a story with an Instructive Moral ending. The Fat Controller was always telling Thomas about Instructive Morals, normally after something very bad had happened. This, reflected Thomas, was entirely the wrong way round. It would be far more helpful to learn the important lesson before the fatal disaster had occurred, rather than afterwards, when it was usually too late to be of any real use.

“Does this story have an Instructive Moral?” asked Thomas, feeling very clever.

“Only one lad”, replied Gordon very gruffly; “that it’s sometimes kinder to strangle Hope in its’ crib, when it is still a baby, rather than slowly battering it death one day at a time over a period of many years”. And with that, he huffed off to the Depot, looking very cross indeed.

It really doesn’t matter if you are the White bishop or the Black bishop, there are simply some squares on the chessboard you will never get to visit. They say we are each free to pursue happiness in our own way, in whatever form that may mean to us personally, and in the idiosyncratic manner best suited to our own inclinations.

Every form of freedom I can think of that is worth actually having either costs a lot of money or has already been made illegal.

Am I free to walk off into the forest and build a log cabin? I mean sure, if I first purchase the land, then get the planning permission & employ a licensed contractor to build it to the safety specification etc etc

Can I take a group of friends and occupy some abandoned industrial factory, then try and turn it into a.rich green garden of over-growing plants and tangled, blooming relationships and perhaps even (in the right season) farm a crop of meaning out of it? 

I think you know the answer to that. You’re free to buy the standard package.

Is there no place left on earth we can still wander & get a little lost in, where if you go they won’t try to follow you? 

The only frontiers that remain exist purely in the realm of the symbolic. The little private fiefdoms we can carve out for ourselves because surveillance is (not yet) all pervasive and enforcement of the law remains an economic game of how best to assign entirely limited resources to practically unlimited crimes. 

Shit man. I think our only chance is to slip like pick pockets into whatever obscure through-fares of ideology that may yet remain unnamed. Look: If the only soil they are going to give us -- the soil we are supposed to farm enough meaning from to supply the entire rest of our lives -- if this “soil” is really just the dead black dust of recycled asphalt & finely ground up plastic 

-- then I think we simply have no other choice but to build a whole new psycho-geography of hope, right there on the top of it.

I leave true revolution to the prayers of the idealists. My only real wish is for there to be enough cracks left in the concrete that something truly wild might get to grow unnoticed. 

I’m old enough to know that confronting power directly is often extremely foolish, and that better results may usually be obtained by simply routing around authority. To be a smuggler of dreams requires nimble feet and a faster speed boat than your opponent, still, it is generally better not to dress too flashy. While staying anonymous, no particular indignity is likely to occur to you beyond the usual laundry list, but if the Eye Of Sauron ever becomes focused in your direction then may god help you because the authorities can easily bring down such  immense force to bear so incredibly quickly, they will  come to your home carrying a huge lever & then not hesitate to use your little life as a fulcrum, merely for causing them some minor irritation.  

This is why finding those phantasmal frontier towns is so important. It’s less about the initial gold rush than it is finding a place for you to finally  stretch your legs. Time to remember what walking normally feels like, before society stuffed it’s hand up so far up your ass you felt more often like a puppet than you did a person.  These new conceptual spaces (the internet, crypto, the CHAZ etc) that continually open up every now and again are normally beyond the rule of law (at least initially, for one brightly shining moment in time, a moment almost always entirely too brief  --  I do find that the sweet songs with a little too much truth in the tune have an unfortunate tendency to end up -- not as chart hits -- but as choked throats or as conveniently cut break-lines. If the coroner actually had any left of his own, he’d have to write “sincerity” as the real cause of death in such cases. The typical verdict, “suicide by song”, isn’t exactly fooling anyone.). 

Looks like you got there just in time! Here before they fenced the prairie. The fresh country air (ah! nothing compares to the old-timey smell of a working industrial coal generator) is alive with the phosphorescent glow of freshly hatched possibility vectors, zipping wildly about, moving around this way and that, and giving off the occasional “pop!” of a dot product whenever they randomly collide together. 

On a night like tonight, on a day like today, you begin to feel like a man might really make something of himself here, perhaps even cast off that rotten old albatross of his past. Maybe he could invent a brand new man (a far better one) to replace the tired old shell that originally stumbled his way down the road and into this town. Besides, I reckon that tired old man has got far too many barnacles of regret & remorse growing on the hull of his soul to do any real sailing these days, not now anyways. Time to scuttle the ship and go claim the insurance.

So, possibly maybe perhaps, at this time, at this place, you might just have found that right sized slice of peace you need to actually live with yourself for a bit

That is: until the great meat grinder of government finally gets wind there is a good thing going. Then, when enough of the bureaucratic cogs have joylessly rotated into their designated satanic alignments, something eldritch will start to rumble deep within the grim bowels of the machine.  A bell tolls. It is time. Somewhere in the pits of hell, within an anonymous, windowless office, orders are issued. They will now send in the police. Each officer is proudly armed with the latest in “non-lethal” crowd control technology, a shiny new police issue woodchipper, polished to a mirror finish. They are here to clean up the streets, remove all the riff-raff  and generally make the place reputable for ordinary decent law-abiding citizens who speak with the right accent and don’t look suspiciously “foreign”.

Of course,  the new sheriff will have to hang a few skellywags and neer-do-wells to really get his point across. There’s a new law in town! Examples must be made, standards must be set, and any deviance, degeneracy or drunken shenanigans of any sort must be quickly and severely punished ( for the sake of clarity,  “shenanigans” also includes decadence and/or diabolism). There are no ifs, buts, or caveats; a new curfew is now in place: from sunup to sundown, “if you think you might, don’t”; additionally, there is absolutely no tom-foolery to be had without a permit (permits are NEVER issued), and any vagrants (exact definition of this term is left to the Sheriff’s discretion) found without a leash or collar in a public park will be first taken to the city Pound and, if unclaimed at the end of seven days, humanely euthanised. Tickets to perform humane euthanisations are available at a cost of forty dollars and strictly provided on a “first-come, first-served” basis. 

Looks like it’s time to move on. 

ˇ

[fiftytwobadstories]

39 - Gone Flat

We didn’t have any nightclubs in our little nowhere town, but they did hold dances at the community centre on the weekends. It was always an event for the whole family, but the kiddies would usually have to leave after sunset because things could and would get pretty rowdy. Once the party got going there was usually no stopping it until something broke; a table, a window, a femur, or whatever. No matter how much our morals tried to keep us in line, shit always had a way of hitting the fan in the end. There was so little to do in this void of a town that it was the only way we knew how to get out the frustration of our existence.

Alcohol was usually the main fuel to our weekend degeneracy. While the town was lacking in almost everything else, booze flowed right through it like a river. You never needed to go out and buy any because it was always around in no short supply. Here, you learned how to drink pretty early on. I personally took my first drink around the same time I learned the truth about Santa Claus. It wasn’t the best coping mechanism, but it was really all we had. Though, looking back at it, it’s a mystery that we even survived as long as we did.

After one particularly bad night that resulted in a trip to the emergency room two towns over to get glass removed from my forehead, I told myself that I would never go to a damned weekend dance ever again. Smoking was a healthier habit. All my buddies grilled me about me endlessly. They just couldn’t understand why I would want to stop going. After all, most of us had seen worse. What they didn’t know is that the doctor’s had found more inside my body than just glass. They had found the one thing that had terrified me since I was just a little kid, because it was the same thing that had taken my Dad from me.

First thing Monday morning, I got up and went for a run. It was brutal and I wanted to give up every step of the way, but I pushed through the pain and did it again the next morning. I tried eating better and drinking more water, basically all the things they told me to do in those Saturday morning cartoons. I kept telling myself that it wasn’t too late, that I could still turn my life around. I could still live.

My buddies were of course constantly poking fun at me. I wondered if I should tell them about what the doctor had said, but we had never really talked about that kind of thing before. So, instead I’d just get mad at them and storm off every time they called me a pansy. I didn’t need them anyway. They were all just enablers. Getting better meant sucking out all the poison in my life and that included them. By the time Friday rolled around, I was starting to feel better about my life. I really was starting to think that I could beat this thing and live a long happy life.

Unfortunately, then came Friday Night. I readied myself for a long night of being parked in front of the TV, to keep my mind off the dance happening down the street, but soon realized that the one companion of my solitude was a flickering screen of absolute garbage. After so many re-runs of reality television, it started to feel like my brain was dripping out of my ears. I ended up shutting the thing off and tried reading, but I was never much of a reader and was easily distracted. So I threw the book against the wall and ended up just staring at the ceiling.

From down the road, I could hear the hollering coming from the community centre. The ruckus bounced around the inside of my skull as I stared deeply into emptiness. My mouth felt dry and itchy as my stomach was twisting and turning. I was suddenly aware of how hot the room was and immediately felt uncomfortable in my own skin. If only I could cool myself off and get my mind off of things. If only I could have one drink. My mind began to drift off and I started to remember all the fun times that I had had with my buddies at those dances. I slapped myself and tried to shake the thought. No, I couldn’t give up now.

I stood up and paced the room. There had to be something else you could do to pass the time in this town without drinking. I couldn’t go anywhere. Everywhere else in town was always closed during the dances. Every moment spent in this quiet house in this nothing town was sucking the life out of me. I was just so damn bored. I kept pacing back and forth, but my bones felt as though they were going to burst out of my body. I was losing my mind and the sun had only just gone down.

Well, I supposed that I could still go to the dance and not drink. It wasn’t like anyone was forcing me to drink when I went. I was sure that I could still have a fun night without drinking. In fact, I was sort of missing my buddies. Sure, they could be mean some times, but they were nice guys deep down. Hell, it could even be my chance to laugh at them as they stumble around drunk like idiots. It didn’t seem like such a bad idea. It could even be fun.

I left my house with a slight spring in my step. The music coming from the community centre grew louder as I walked. I hummed a long with the tune. It was a very good song. I walked through the wide open doors and was immediately greeted by my group of buddies with big bright smiles. I must admit, it was nice to see them again. One of them tossed me a beer and as though acting entirely on muscle memory, I cracked it open and immediately downed it. I felt a slight flutter in my head. Oh my god, that was good.

[auskultu]

The Jimi Hendrix Experience: A Genuine Nightmare

Tom Philips, The New York Times, 12 November 1967

THE Jimi Hendrix Experience is neither a pill nor a weed, but three young musicians who came over from England recently and gained some quick notoriety with a stage act that’s reputedly enough to make a sailor blush. They’ve now got a first album out on the Reprise label called Are You Experienced (6261; stereo S 6261).

The album cover reinforces the degeneracy theme, with the three sneering out from under their bouffant hairdos, looking like surrealistic hermaphrodites. It comes as a real surprise to find that the disk itself is a serious nightmare show, with genuine lust and misery; and also a highly successful blending of simple folk-blues forms with advanced electronic sound effects.

The Experience consists of Hendrix, an American Negro with a rich and primitive vocal style, and two young Englishmen. Mitch Mitchell plays the drums, with a clean, almost military kind of savagery. And Noel Redding plays a bass guitar with the amplification tuned up so far that it’s a bit haywire most of the time—it sounds like a cello, bowed with a hacksaw and fed through a bullhorn.

There are plenty of good cuts on this disk, ranging from the straight hard rock of ‘'Fire" to the eerie futurism of “Third Stone from the Sun.” The sound is robust and hellish and tightly controlled; and Hendrix, who writes the lyrics, knows what he’s writing about.

Another first album with a Walpurgis-night packaging job is A Whiter Shade of Pale, by Procol Harum (Deram 18008; stereo SI8008.) This one comes with a Beardsleyesque cover and an identical poster, and it is of course the follow-up to the hit single of the same name. Procol Harum is not an individual but a group: five young men from England led by Gary Brooker, who plays piano, writes the music and does all the singing. A non-performer, Keith Reid, writes all the lyrics.

The title song is the best cut on the album, and its major asset is the organ background, which is lifted from J. S. Bach. On its own, the group is nothing spectacular musically, although Brooker has a nice bluesy voice and they do get some interesting baroque-rock effects by using both the organ and piano at once.

The words are uniformly weird, as in “A Whiter Shade.” Typical is one song about a man who keeps running into his own tombstone, on street corners, in a movie theatre and in a loaf of bread. It’s too obscure and ornate to be scarey.

The best organ sounds around these days (in the pop field, anyway) are to be found on Electric Music for the Mind and Body (Vanguard 9244; stereo 79244) the first album by a Berkeley group, Country Joe and the Fish. David Cohen plays it, and while he doesn’t do anything too complicated, it sounds reedy and stately and provides this group with a consistently elegant sound. They have other assets as well, mainly Joe McDonald, a fine composer-lyricist-lead singer. He’s a man of many moods, most of them clever, The best songs on this disk are “Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine,” a put-down that’s devastating without being bitter, and “Happiness is a Porpoise Mouth,” a circus waltz with cinematic-erotic imagery.

[racingtoaredlight]

The degenerate’s guide to college football TV watch ‘em ups, 2019 season, week 2

Now do you want to read about college football or do you want to listen to your wildest fantasy of Jeffrey Epstein conspiracy theories in a podcast format? If you answered “college football” then click to read more! If you want to listen to an incredible podcast that will feed your absolute worst inclinations towards nihilistic disillusionment then click right here! True Anon is really all I’ve ever wanted in a left-leaning shitfest. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Now for the football. Hell, the CIA is behind this shit, too. The highlight of the week for me is the line on the Bammers game. No way Saban holds up his end of that bargain. Why the fucking hell is there even a line on that shit?

If you’ve read this nonsense before you know the drill. If not, the times are eastern, the schedule is ripped from FBSchedules and the gambling informatics are per Vegas Insider dot com. Degenerate football can alternately mean football that you only pay attention to for purposes of gambling or the low-level, barely FBS, preferably late night types of games that play for stadium crowds in the hundreds and TV audiences in the dozens. It doesn’t have to be college ball, the UFL is my true ideal of football degeneracy. If you gambled on that you are my target audience. Onward and downward we go.

Saturday, September 7

Matchup                                                                   Time (ET)        TV/Mobile

Ohio at Pitt                                                                11:00am            ACCN

Wow. What a special game. It’s got a one hour headstart and for what? Goddamn is this trash. Why is ACCN not just an extra ESPN channel? SECN and Longhorn Network are just parts of the ESPN app but ACCNe is just off by itself inaccessible to 90% of the country.

Southern at Memphis                                              12:00pm  WMC-TV / ESPN3

There’s no line on this game so just check on it to see what’s going on with Memphis. They beat their secret rival The Racist South last week but scoring less than 20 is weird for them.

Rutgers at 20 Iowa                                                    12:00pm              FS1

This being a conference game is funny. Maryland and Rutgers being in the B1G is funny. And stupid. Mostly stupid. But that’s why it’s funny. Take Iowa even at -19 because it’s Rutgers.

West Virginia at Missouri                                          12:00pm           ESPN2

Speaking of dumb conference stuff, both of these teams belong in the Big 12. That’s the true spirit of college football and it’s completely akilter. Is Mizzourah the good offense out of these two now? Everything is wrong. I wouldn’t touch a 14-point line in either direction here but over 62.5 seems worthwhile.

Vanderbilt at Purdue                                                   12:00pm            BTN

These are the same team but one has Rondale Moore. Otherwise there is no difference.

UAB at Akron                                                               12:00pm          CBSSN

I don’t like the beloved CBS Sports hosting a MAC team even if they are hosting UAB. Why did the o/u drop from 55 to 46 over the course of the week? That’s odd. I’d have to check with our dear president but I don’t think Ohio is in the path of any hurricanes.

21 Syracuse at Maryland                                             12:00pm          ESPN

From the bottom of my Georgetown-born, VA-burbs raised heart I hate everything about this game. I would love to see Syracuse lose even if it means Maryland winning. The odds have flipped crazily from opening Syracuse -5 to now having Maryland -1.5. Take the turtles.

Army at 7 Michigan                                                      12:00pm           FOX

I saw ESPN talking up Army last night so go all in on Michigan to beat the ever-living piss out of the troops. -22.5 is nothing.

Bowling Green at Kansas State                                 12:00pm            FSN

Good lord, no.

Charleston Sou. at South Carolina                            12:00pm          SECN

This is cancelled, right? If not pound the under.

Cincinnati at 5 Ohio State                                           12:00pm           ABC

Cincinnati sucks but count on Fickell to make an Ohio State University look bad one more time. Bearcats +16, book it.

Kennesaw State at Kent State                                     12:00pm        ESPN3

I think Kennesaw is the Welsh version of the British Kent. I could be wrong about that but who cares?

Old Dominion at Virginia Tech                                     12:00pm        ESPNU

VPISU should be better by now. I’m wrong a lot but it’s possible I was really wrong about Justin Fuente. Betting on ODU sounds like a bad idea but I fully endorse it.

Western Carolina at NC State                                       12:30pm          RSN

There is no reason to bet on a game like this. This is practice.

NIU at 13 Utah                                                                 1:00pm         Pac-12N

I could be wrong but off the top of my head I don’t think Utah usually covers in the first four weeks of the season. This is a guess you can use in your gambling.

Fordham at Ball State                                                     2:00pm         ESPN3

Blocks of Granite for the win. Book it.

USF at Georgia Tech                                                       2:00pm          ACCN

By my count Georgia Tech covered last week against Clemson. USF just hung out in a trash can for 60 minutes. Yet the Bulls are favored here. Charlie Strong was once a hot commodity that programs all over the country coveted. Hindsight is absolutely hilarious.

Tennessee Tech at Miami (Ohio)                                    2:30pm          ESPN+

There’s no line but I’m loading up the wagon for the Golden Eagles. This is the big auto mechanics school, right?

Southern Illinois at UMass                               3:30pm     FloSports / NESNplus

I, uh, guess, uh... Don’t watch this under any circumstances. Pack a cyanide pill if you must.

Southern Miss at Mississippi State                                3:30pm         ESPNU

This is an appealing bit of misery but there’s no chance I watch it. Miss State -16.5 seems crazy against anybody. I think.

12 Texas A&M at 1 Clemson                                             3:30pm          ABC

This is statistically expected to be Clemson’s toughest game and they’re still favored by 16.5. The money looks to be going towards aTm but I can’t shake the notion that Clemson is going to absolutely maul them from the get go.

Central Michigan at 17 Wisconsin                                    3:30pm         BTN

I don’t trust Nick Saban to do what’s right by gambling folk but Wisconsin is different. If they don’t humiliate undermanned opponents that means they are a bad team. -35 is the kind of line you see when the Badgers go for 80+.

Charlotte at Appalachian State                                          3:30pm       ESPN+

You’re on your own with this one.

Eastern Illinois at Indiana                                                   3:30pm        BTN

See: Charlotte at Appalachian State.

Grambling State at Louisiana Tech                                    3:30pm      NFLN

Is there a way to make a throwback game between Doug Williams and Terry Bradshaw take place here?

Illinois at UConn                                                                   3:30pm    CBSSN

Oh, come the fuck on.

25 Nebraska at Colorado                                                      3:30pm     FOX

The two Big 8 programs that benefited most from 5th downs are facing off on national TV representing the B1G and Pac-12. That’s horrible. Nebraska being a top 25 team but also being favored by only -4 against this version of Colorado is what is known as a paradox.

Richmond at Boston College                                             3:30pm  ACCNE xtra

No line. What cowardice.

Murray State at 3 Georgia                                                    4:00pm    ESPN2

Pound the under.

UTSA at Baylor                                                                     4:00pm       FSN

Go UTSA. We’re all rooting for you.

Western Illinois at Colorado State                                      4:00pm     ATTSN

Man, this is all trash. Not even the good kind.

New Mexico State at 2 Alabama                                          4:00pm      SECN

The predicted score by way of gambling is Bama 60, NMSU 5. Saban is pulling his starters in the second quarter, though, so put a buck or two on New Mexico State just for the hell of it.

San Diego State at UCLA                                                     4:15pm   Pac-12N

This is Pac-12 After Dark/CBS Sports fodder playing in the sunlight. Both teams might explode, literally.

Northern Colorado at 22 Washington State                       5:00pm  Pac-12WA

Pac-12 Washington? That’s a channel? Washington State lookd good in week 1 so hit the over (63) and see what happens.

ULM at Florida State                                                             5:00pm      ACCN

Oh, Willie. Poor, poor Willie. Why, Willie, why? Monroe +22 looks pretty good to me.

Gardner-Webb at East Carolina                                           6:00pm     ESPN3

Yeah, buddy, now we’re into it. If this game happens. I think it’s not happening. But if it does? Man, oh, man. You know what I mean.

Maine at Georgia Southern                                                  6:00pm     ESPN+

Why would you think Eagles could beat Black Bears? That’s crazy.

North Carolina A&T at Duke                                            6:00pm   ACCNE xtra

Let’s go A&T, beat the devil.

South Dakota at 4 Oklahoma                                               7:00pm   FS PPV

What lunatics are paying for this? You should feel ashamed.

Jackson State at South Alabama                                         7:00pm   ESPN+

Lots of bodybag games, even at the lower levels. I hate it.

Wyoming at Texas State                                                        7:00pm   ESPN+

Kind of beautiful but you’ll probably have to squint to see it.

WKU at FIU                                                                             7:00pm    ESPN+

Get your shit together, Butch. Now. Stop embarrassing me.

18 UCF at Florida Atlantic                                                     7:00pm   CBSSN

Oh, now this - THIS! is what CBS Sports is great for. What a shitty game that I love like a long lost child.

Tennessee State at Middle Tennessee                                7:00pm   ESPN3

Too Tall U vs. MTSU is cool in a way but it won’t be a fun thing to watch.

North Texas at SMU                                                               7:00pm   ESPN3

Spencer is visiting ms621 and my people are expecting a lot of scoring in this one with the lawyers coming out on top. /suggestive eyebrow raises

McNeese at Oklahoma State                                                 7:00pm   ESPN+

Chuba Hubbard should get about 8 touches so watch early if you’re watching at all.

 Furman at Georgia State                                                        7:00pm   ESPN3

Man, this is a long list of boring crap.

Eastern Kentucky at Louisville                                          7:00pm  ACCNE xtra

Other than the 24 fumbles I thought Louisville looked pretty good last week. Not enough to tune in for a minute of this but maybe they can fine tune some of the difficult football activities like “snapping the football” and “holding the football close to your body” or “handing the ball to the running back” against Eastern Kentucky and then when they pop up against Clemson later on it’ll be worth watching.

Coastal Carolina at Kansas                                                   7:00pm   ESPN+

Les Magic: Kansas is favored to start the year 2-0. Not by a lot, mind you.

BYU at Tennessee                                                                   7:00pm   ESPN

Nobody tell Bergie but I’m rooting for the Mormons here. Gotta go for what makes the most people feel the worst about sports.

Tulane at 10 Auburn                                                                7:30pm   ESPN2

Is Auburn rising in the polls enough to make me bet against them at home -17 vs. Tulane? It sure is. Auburn is just as chaotic as LSU but not as funny about it.

UT Martin at 11 Florida                                                          7:30pm  ESPNU

Fuck the Gators, man.

Western Michigan at 19 Michigan State                              7:30pm     BTN

Sparty, too.

Arkansas at Mississippi, Oxford                                         7:30pm   SECN

I am on a descent into hell here.

Buffalo at 15 Penn State                                                       7:30pm     FOX

If Notre Dame is next I’m hanging up on this post.

Eastern Michigan at Kentucky                                             7:30pm   SECN Alt.

Whew. Hill people that can only intermittently football. That is a huge relief right now.

Liberty at Louisiana                                                              7:30pm     ESPN+

Fuck the Falwells, and not in a good way.

6 LSU at 9 Texas                                                                    7:30pm      ABC

There is one ironclad rule in college football gambling: never bet on an LSU game. Those who fail to heed this rule will never see longterm winnings. Oddsmakers keep pushing the line towards LSU and I agree wholeheartedly that’s where the expectations should reside but would you be even sort of surprised to see LSU blow this entirely and lose? No, you would not. Neither would I.

Nevada at 16 Oregon                                                           7:30pm     Pac-12N

Oregon is favored by 24 and my very cursory impression of these two is that Nevada is a straight up better team than the Ducks. Granted, I’m really bad at this, but that +24 looks like easy money.

Stony Brook at Utah State                                                   7:30pm   Facebook

Not even a great QB talent is worth going on facebook.

Miami (FL) at North Carolina                                               8:00pm     ACCN

Pound the damn under. Also, ESPN talking heads are all on the UNC to upset train so put whatever money you have set aside for this contest on the Hurricanes. 

Prairie View A&M at Houston                                              8:00pm     ESPN3

That one good recruiting class is mostly a memory for Houston at this point but they’ll still be fun to watch once D’Eriq King and Dana Holgorsen get on the same page.

UTEP at Texas Tech                                                              8:00pm       FSN

Wasn’t Texas Tech supposed to run the ball more this year? One week in they’re leading the country in passing. Maybe they ran the ball more and it still wasn’t very much.

Tulsa at San Jose State                                                      9:00pm      ESPN3

This is the kind of game that should be played in a prison yard.

Arkansas State at UNLV                                                      10:00pm  Facebook

This is the kind of game that shouldn’t be played.

California at 14 Washington                                               10:30pm      FS1

I do believe I’m the span of this game away from getting fully on board with UDub rolling the Pac-12 again. The only team with similar talent, as far as I have seen, is USC. But there are a long list of other issues with USC.

Minnesota at Fresno State                                                  10:30pm  CBSSN

This is the kind of stupid game I love but I think I’ll be watching Pennywise the Dancing Clown at this point.

23 Stanford at USC                                                               10:30pm    ESPN

USC should just fire Clay Helton now, win or lose.

Northern Arizona at Arizona                                                10:45pm   Pac-12N

It would be very Pac-12 of Arizona to lose this game.

Oregon State at Hawaii                                   11:59pm     Spectrum / Facebook

I guess facebook is there to scoop from the most bootlegged team in college football’s illegal audience but I still hate it. Hawaii playing at home two weeks in a row means pound the over even at 77.5. It’s not like Oregon State plays defense, either.

[acarnivalofstars]

Ensemble Stars Scout Translation: Eccentric “Year-End Party with Old Friends” Part 3

Can you imagine an app game where you play as Natsume trying to serve up food and drinks for the rest of the Oddballs that would be so cute--

Special thanks to Dreamy for helping me proofread! We’re also working together to translate Magical Halloween so stay tuned for updates! (As for when idk orz)

All the Oddballs gather together at the cafe for a nice conversation and Shu orders croissants as expected.

Kanata: *slurp, slurp*......🎵

It’s delicious~ Aah, I feel revived…...🎵

Rei: That`s splendid. Shinkai-kun comes closer to death and is revived much more than my undead self, it seems.

Do take care of your body more. It has become chilly as of late.

Wataru: It is a coldness only winter can provide, isn’t it! Amazing…...☆

Kanata: Wataru~ That’s not funny. It’s cold. I got a “chill” just now.

Wataru: Eh? That has the same meaning as “go die” to me as well, you know?!

Shu: Even if you scold him it can’t be helped, Rei. Kanata never listens to what others tell him after all.

Rei: Nay, if it is the current Shinkai-kun then he can understand even a small sum of human language I am sure.

That is what I would like to believe. He will not remain an arrogant monster who does not know right from wrong in this world forever.

Wataru: Who can say? Kanata has been the most otherworldly one among us all both in the past and even now, yes?

Kanata: That would be you, “Wataru”~. I am “normal”......🎵

Rei: Just what exactly is “normal,” I wonder…...Sakasaki-ku~n, give me a refill of coffee as well. Coffee as sweet as blood and as black as night, if you would 🎵

Natsume: Blood is not SWEET. And besides, I’m not a waiTER. I will not wait on you, OKAY?

Well, whatEVER…...The owner had some business he couldn’t put off so he LEFT, and he did ask me to watch the place during that TIME.

This isn’t my job THOUGH, so don’t hold any expectations for the flaVOR.

Little Kitten, will you lend me a HAND? My older brothers* don’t know how to hold BACK so they eat and drink much more than expected despite how they LOOK 🎵. (T/N: Keep in mind that Natsume isn’t referring to the Oddballs as his biological brothers--it’s common in Japan to call people older than you that you’re close to as “older brother” or “older sister.”)

Shu: Unlike my colleagues, I only partake in what is necessary. …...Are there no croissants, boy?

Rei: Yes. It is an appropriate time for both gods and the new moon to doze off, so croissants are suitable.

People’s preferences sure are a mystery. I feel that food can’t be eaten cleanly.

And yet Itsuki-kun, did you not choose only what was beautiful to put in your mouth?

Shu: Do you have a problem with that? I wish to only take beautiful things into my body. It is for that reason humans have aesthetic sense.

Even unicellular organisms possess the basic neural circuits to see through beauty or ugliness.

To forget that and inadvertently take in food right before your eyes is a shameful degeneracy.

Kanata: Ufufu. I am “satisfied” with just “water”~

Nacchan, will you give me some “ice water”? My “skin” is still chilly, so I’d like some “moisture”~🎵

Natsume: I don’t MIND, but make sure to drink the ice water normaLLY. Don’t splash it all over your BODY. Cleaning up would be a pain after ALL. …...Wataru-nii-san, what will you ORDER?

Wataru: Fufufu. From this lineup it seems that everyone else will be fooling around so I am in a good mood.

For now I will have some black tea and…...one dish each that Natsume-kun wishes to serve us from his menu, if you please 🎵

Natsume: So you’re putting all the decisions on me I SEE. What a grave responsibiliTY.

Wait for just a bit, OKAY. I’ll go prepare it right NOW…...If you’ll excuse me now 🎵

Kanata: Nacchan, why not “stay with us” instead of working? You are soometimes “reserved,” aren’t you……?

Shu: He is the only junior among us after all. Joining a flock of upperclassmen all by himself requires quite a bit of courage, I’m sure.

It is much like how Rei excessively puts on airs of being someone older and acts grand.

Rei: Uwah, sparks were flying this way. Itsuki-kun just does not understand the feeling of spending one’s youth alongside your juniors after being held back~

It is in its own way a method of paying attention to the needs of others, you see~......?

Though I am particularly worried about Shinkai-kun and Itsuki-kun, it is also best if everyone else move up a grade as well.

It leaves things half-done and causes trouble for others after all. Well, what comes around, goes around.

Anyhow. This can only be considered an uncanny relationship formed through a turn of fate. To think that we would all be gathered here on this eventless day.

Whether it is God`s playfulness or a trick of the Devil, either way it is a rather interesting development 🎵

Shu: It is a mere coincidence, I’m sure. Rei and the boy happened to encounter each other at the same cafe by chance. After Wataru and I took a tour of the museum together, and by chance...we picked up Kanata on the road home.

Then, in order for him to drink in moisture and warmth, we happened to enter this cafe by chance…resulting in our gathering here.

As long as we affiliated with Yumenosaki Academy, the scope of our activities is bound to overlap.

To have this many coincidences repeat one after the other is not an impossible feat according to the theory of probability. Rei’s manner of speaking that overemphasizes romantic ideals can be disgusting at times.

Wataru: Fufufu. That is a shared loveable vice shared among us “Five Oddballs,” surely.

Kanata: Yes. It felt as if we were in a “play” for a loooong time “last year” after all.

Rei: Yes, last year was…...This year, it seems each of our lives changed completely.

Let us talk about that, my old friends whom I happen to come across occasionally.

It happens to be the season where many popular customs like year-end parties flourish. Though it may be a heavy topic for a chat over tea...let us reflect on the year for each of us.

Sakasaki-kun, once you are done preparing the drinks and such, come over here as well.

Since this is a rare occasion you should likewise sit alongside us, young lady. Let us put aside rank, forget about our ties of obligation to this world, and make merry.

A strange one-act such as this is seldom seen after all 🎵