#hes an angsty teenage atheist

[sell-our-skins]

Day 4 of Paradise Motel Week Post Canon AO3 Link ~ Hum Hallelujah “Trying to honor the dead is really difficult when the person who killed them is *right there*”

The Girl was struggling to close her backpack. It was a fairly cheap thing, recently bought by her mom. The shade reminded her of apricots, and all of the times she used to steal fruit flavored candies with Ghoul. Actual fruits were impossible to come by in the zones, or at least they used to be, but with BL/ind being gone, she supposed that she could try a real one now.

It was hot in the car. She was sitting in the passenger seat and the sun was beating down on her through the windshield. Her door was open, occasionally giving a short gust of wind. ‘Mom’s getting the keys,’ she told herself. Soon she could crank up the air conditioning and try to relax. That was, if the bag would actually close.

The zipper refused to budge. She gave it another exasperated tug, “Motherfucker,” she hissed out. Stupid zipper. Stupid backpack.

“Motorbaby?” Maya poked her head into the front seat of the van. Her dark hair, which was streaked with the occasional grey, was pulled up into a loose bun and a leather jacket thrown over a plain green tank top, “You need help?”

The Girl sighed, silently handing her mom the backpack in defeat. Maya smiled warmly, opening up the glovebox in front of the Girl with a gentle click. It was filled to the brim with trinkets from their adventures so far. The older Killjoy pulled out a half melted blue candle and began to carefully rub it over the zipper lining.

The Girl arched one of her eyebrows.

“Don’t question me, child of mine,” she warned with a chuckle, setting the candle down on the dashboard. Maya firmly grabbed the stubborn zipper, and closed the bag with ease.

“I take back my eyebrow raise. You’re clearly a deity in disguise,” Maya rolled her eyes, handing the Girl her bag and buckling herself up. The Girl carefully set the fruit-colored-bag in the backseat.

Maya started the van, and she started to head towards Route Guano. It was only now sinking in, what they were doing and where they were going. The Girl could feel her stomach flip with anxiety and her head filling with doubts.

It was apparently visible in her face, since her mom commented on it, “You know, we don’t have to do this. We could… make an altar for ourselves. Just a family thing.”

She actually considered it for a second, but no. She wasn’t going to let some asshole ruin her day

“I’ll be fine.”

--=+=--

The two Killjoys pulled up to the Ultra V hideout, which was formally some type of restaurant. A fast food place, most likely, but it was nearly unrecognizable. It was covered in spray painted tags and other interesting looking ornaments. However, today, it was also decorated with different types of desert wildflowers.

Pretty much as soon as the car had stopped, a teal haired Killjoy burst through the front of the restaurant, followed by their pink haired twin.

“KIIIIIIID! KID KIID!” the twins called out, running towards the car as fast as they could. The Girl felt a little smile appear on her face as she opened the door and hopped out of the van. Instantly, Vaya had pulled her into a tight hug and loudly exclaimed, “I can’t believe you actually came!”

“Yeah, glad you could make it, tumbleweed,” Vamos tried to play faer previous excitement off casually. Fae leaned against the van, a caricatured version of looking cool. Though they somehow made it work.

“Don’t scratch the paint, pup,” Maya piped up, hopping out of their car with a bag slung over her shoulder, “Can ya’ lend me a hand?”

“‘Course, Ms. Psychic,” Vaya called out, letting go of the girl and rushing to the other side of the van, their sibling following closely behind.

Merely a few seconds later, Vinyl came walking towards the group. The Girl gave him a wave, grabbing her apricot backpack from the backseat. Vinyl pointed at her backpack, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh, uh, I got it. You can see if mom needs help, though,” he nodded at her words and travelled around the vehicle. The Girl glanced over at the doorway. The last member of the Ultra Vs was just standing there. Staring back at her and leaning against the doorway. His hair had faded slightly, turning a sort of pinkish red.

She sighed and looked up into the sky. Probably around 4.

‘You’ve been through hell and back you can deal with this,’ she ran a hand through her hair and made her way into the Ultra V hideout. Val’s eyes were practically staring right through her. Like a snake watching its prey. The Girl just tried to not acknowledge it.

She looked around at the now decorated restaurant. There were a handful of wildflowers in a variety of colors in cans and petals on the ground. A desk had been pushed out into the front room, making a makeshift altar. It was extremely plain, the only things on it being a faded polaroid of Volume in a soft yellow frame, a couple bad luck bead bracelets placed on the corners of the picture frame, a bag of chips, most likely stolen from Tommy, and a hair dye kit in Electric Frankenstein.

She opened up her bag and began to pull things out of it. Beads, photos, and other precious items. The Girl started to add things to their shared altar, making sure everyone had a section. Her family, her friends, no one was left out.

“Surprised you’re even here, halo head,” Val finally piped up, after what quite possibly could have been the most awkward silence.

‘Halo head,’ she mused to herself, ‘haven’t heard that one in a minute.’

“I’m here to help, don’t get sour,” she said with a sigh, carefully setting out both the battery powered and real candles.

“Help with what? None of this even… matters,” he moved away from his spot in the doorway and towards the altar she was working on.

She didn’t even dignify his sentence by turning to look at him, continuing to set out the picture frames. Val was just trying to get a rise out of her, she knew it.

“I mean, what deity is this for, again?”

“The Phoenix Witch,” the Girl strung a string of bad luck beads around the top of the desk.

“Yeah, the humanoid in a feather coat.”

She gave Val a somewhat annoyed look from over her shoulder, “Just a few months ago you saw me explode into a ball of green electricity,” she went back to what she was doing.

That seemed to set him off, really make him flare up, “I’m not gonna let some bomb with a silver tongue make my crew-”

“Heyyyyy!” Vaya announced their presence as they burst in through the front door. When they noticed how tense Val was, they cleared their throat, “Hope I didn’t interrupt your little get together.”

“Nope, we’re fine,” the Girl put on a fake smile. Apparently it was believable enough, because they let it go with a shrug.

Vaya was followed in by the rest of the Killjoys, all holding different bags filled with goodies.

Val’s anger seemed to fizzle out, since he practically slunk back into the background. It was like a sparkler, going from loud, bright, and fiery to silent in a matter of minutes. A sparkler in Poison Red hair dye. It still made her frown when she thought of it.

--=+=--

The altar was almost completely done, and Vamos was helping with the finishing touches. It was packed full of gifts and photographs, all meant to honor the ghosted. Maya, Vinyl, and Vaya were all in the restaurant’s kitchen, cooking both for the altar and for all of the other Killjoys. There was laughter coming from the kitchen. Well, Vaya and Maya were laughing, Vinyl was trying to fight the smile that wanted to appear on his face. The others were able to hear due to the openness of the restaurant. Val was hunched over on the couch, scribbling in his notebook.

“Lookin’ pretty shiny,” Vamos adjusted one of the frames near the back, since the glare of the lights had made it difficult to see. In it was a photo of Dr. Death Defying and Cherri Cola that the Girl had stolen out of Dr. Death’s station. Faer smile faded almost instantly.

“Christ, I kinda miss the old man,” fae mumbled, tone somewhat sorrowful, maybe even regretful. Fae brushed some of their neon hair out of faer eyes and continued to stare at the frame for a moment. Val shifted on the couch, no longer hunched over. No, now he was listening.

“Yeah, but, I guess… it happens… in a way?” the Girl struggled to find the words, she could feel herself getting somewhat choked up.

“It wasn’t his time,” Maya added, her tone laced with bitterness, “It’s a damn shame, but he’s with the witch now”

“God can you hear yourselves? He was a broken record. A dust angel. What’s the point of all of this?” Val’s voice snapped through the conversation. Everyone was tensely staring at Val, now. A stiff silence having come over the room.

“You wouldn’t know a broken record if you were hit over the head with one,” the Girl snapped back, after what felt an eternity, “The hell is wrong with you? Why can’t you just enjoy something for once?”

Val wrinkled his nose at her, storming out of the building without another word. Fuck.

“Guess you really blew up on him,” Maya tried, her joke falling flat.

--=+=--

It had only been around 15 minutes. The Girl hesitantly poked her head out of the door, looking at Val, who was sitting on the stairs.

“What?” he didn’t look up at her, like he thought the pavement was the most interesting thing in the zones. The stars were just starting to pop up in the sky, the sun sinking behind its spot in the hills.

The Girl just plopped down next to him and stared up at the sky, “You don’t have to like me, Val.”

Val looked up from his pavement, staring at the Girl with a look of mostly confusion.

“We just can’t keep pretending like we aren’t bothered by each other,” she ran a hand through her hair, focusing on a particularly bright star.

There was a beat of silence, “And I know you’re too stubborn to agree. It’s fine,” she hoped that her words came off as lighthearted. The last thing she needed was Val snapping at her again.

“You like the stars?” he finally spoke up.

She broke her staring contest with the bright star to glance at her fellow Killjoy, “Yeah, uh…” The Girl ran a hand through her hair again, debating whether to share what just popped into her head.

“Party, they used to tell me that when you got ghosted you would get turned into a star,” Val looked over at her, his face unreadable, “It always made me feel better, when I would hear people talking about claps going South on the radio. Made me feel like they were just… turning into stardust.”

He looked like he was processing her words, struggling to find the right response.

“Shiny,” is what he finally landed on.

“Yeah, shiny.”

[sailordiavolo]

i read something somewhere abt nero in the novel o’ whateva and it basically confirmed my headcanon that nero was either atheist or went thru a angsty god-hating atheist phase (or the in-world equivalent thereof).

like i KNEW it!! i could smell it from a mile away!! nero is a ball of pent-up angst who questions everything who is prone to telling people to get fucked if they push him too much

i mean look. in dmc4 he’s literally a teenager wearinv a hoodie inside a jacket

side note: religion for nero=order of the sword, therefore god=sparda, so i bet nero had a fun time learning that A) sparda is real and B) sparda is his own grandfather

[apunkrockernamedzev]

I remember when I first discovered punk rock, at the age of fourteen. I was still attempting to locate who I was, what I wanted to be in life, and then bam. It came to me, like lightning in a bottle of punk rock. Through a documentary called The Other F Word, it was all about men in middle age who were lead singers of punk rock bands, going from saying fuck you to authority, to suddenly becoming that authority they so desperately attempted to ward off earlier in their youth. Within that said documentary, I was exposed to the likes of Pennywise, Rise Against it, NOFX, Bad Religion, Sex Pistols, Circle Jerks, Black Flag, etc. And let me tell ya after I finished the documentary and listened to the bands (religiously) I was a rebel with a cause. I walked up to my friend later that day, and told him, “I’m a punk!” He merely laughed it off, either thinking I was joking or was unaware of what that even was. I got a mohawk, wore this leather vest which I put buttons on, and found whatever critical thinking books on changing one’s way of thinking, (and a few punk rock books here and there) when I could. 

I was so blessed, to find this community of music and people, that benefited me from such an early age. I don’t know who, or what I’d be, had I never found it. Punk rock allowed me to be an angry, angsty, brooding teenager who hated politics and thought the world was full of sheep. But, then again, that is your typical teenager. 

I was a fourteen-year-old atheist, a critical (and always) thinking, punk rocker. If you asked me, life couldn’t be better. I was into smoking pot and drinking booze on the weekends with my buddies, and I was in bliss. 

I was a rebellious, fun-loving, hating boring sheeple kid. 

Hopefully, you can read this, and say, “Wow! That was me!” 

Later, y’all! 

[a-beast-of-prey]

CHARACTER INTERVIEW / repost, don’t reblog

NAME: K’ / K Dash (birth name still unknown)

ALIAS: K Prime, beast of prey, the silver inferno, man-made flames of Kusanagi, the second Kusanagi flame

AGE: Between 16 and 18 (is at least 18, if not older, after NESTS’ downfall, given it took some two-odd years to take them down, but is closer to the 16-17 mark in a handful of verses)

SPECIES: Human

PERSONAL!

MORALITY: lawful / neutral / chaotic / good / neutral / evil / true

RELIGION: Atheist

SINS: greed / gluttony / sloth / lust / pride / envy / wrath

VIRTUES: chastity / charity / diligence (on and off; mostly off, though) / humility / kindness (it’s awkward and well-hidden, but it’s there) / patience / justice

KNOWN LANGUAGES: English and Japanese

SECRETS: Contrary to his solitary nature, he’s terrified of being completely alone in the world. The couple of people he lives with, as well as his sister’s clone, are literally all he has, since whatever past familial ties he may have had have been long since lost to NESTS screwing around with and erasing his memories; they could be dead, for all he knows. 

Kind of tying in with this is that K’ is of the belief that without his flames, he’s useless and he’ll be discarded accordingly. A fear that’s perpetually looming over the horizon, given the nerves in his right hand are damaged, all of his larger, more reckless, fire attacks steadily frying them towards complete uselessness… Thus, he’s keeping this particular problem under close wraps.

PHYSICAL!

BUILD: scrawny / bony / slender / fit / athletic / curvy / herculean / pudgy / average

HEIGHT: 6’0 / 183cm

SCARS / BIRTHMARKS: Entire right hand under the gauntlet from fingers to wrist is a patchwork of severe burns. Has some old surgical scars, primarily around arms and torso, and permanent needle and port punctures in his hand from the gauntlet’s inner workings that go into his skin. Also has a few old wounds from fights here and there, some of which were self-cauterised.

ABILITIES / POWERS: Pyrokinesis, thanks to Kyo Kusanagi’s DNA being infused with his own. Translocation, the ability to move so fast that the naked eye perceives it as a teleporting blur; has also manifested the branched ability of the technique to freeze time briefly. Mildly boosted strength and healing capabilities, thanks to DNA tinkering.

RESTRICTIONS: His powers are unstable and are only able to be wielded from the one hand; the gauntlet is needed to keep them in check, or else they may burn him to death. He also cannot control fire he himself hasn’t created.

Regarding translocation’s time freeze capabilities: three or four seconds per burst is his safe limit (aka: long enough to appear in front of his opponent and catch his sunglasses). Holding the state for more than six or seven will start resulting in all sorts of complications, from dizziness and a bloody nose, to his body becoming completely paralysed, to slipping into a comatose state for a few days, dependant on how much he overdid it; modified or not, the human body simply isn’t meant to move that fast, or deal with such an immense amount of strain.

FAVOURITES!

FOOD: A massive fan of salty food in general, tbqh. Jerky’s his all time fav, but he loves literally any and all other meat products. Especially if they’re coated in a batter or glaze, or in a curry, that’s mega spicy. And burgers. He likes burgers.

DRINK: Coffee; black, with no sugar or creamer. Also known to chug an unhealthy amount of energy drinks from time to time.

PIZZA TOPPING: Meat, meat and more, M E A T, olives, pineapple.

COLOUR(S): Black, shades of red (darker ones especially), deep purple.

MUSIC GENRE: Rock (mainly mid-late 90’s and early 2000’s), metal, a very light dusting of screamo, and the occasional techno(ish)-rock hybrid. He tends to favour angry and/or angsty sounding stuff, for the most part. So… he’s pretty much your stereotypical broody emo teenager in terms of music taste lol.

BOOK GENRE: He reads more car and motorbike manuals than fiction tbh, buuuut…. action/adventure probably seems like a good bet? I’m thinking books similar in content to Maximum Ride for the most part - ie: kids being experimented on, escaping, and fighting to stay free - since he can hashtag Relate™.

MOVIE GENRE: Doesn’t watch many movies, and only really sticks around for action-packed thrillers. Is also a massive sucker for anything with found family in it, even if he initially bitches very vocally about the childishness of them, and will vehemently deny his fondness of them when asked (don’t listen to him; he’s lying to you and himself).

SEASON: Summer

CURSE WORD(S): Fiddle-faddle. Fuck, shit, and crap.

SCENTS: The ocean, leather, cooking meat, brewing coffee, engine grease, cigarettes, fresh citrus (lowkey).

FUN STUFF!

SINGS IN THE SHOWER: No, but may hum when (he thinks) nobody’s around to listen.

LIKES PUNS: Ehhh, not really. But he’s known to throw in the occasional one from time to time around close friends if he’s in a good enough mood when an opportunity arises. Mainly around Maxima until the big guy becomes especially insufferable. At which point K’ regrets indulging him lmao.

TAGGED BY: @zappsta (Thanks heaps, Leia!!! :D)

TAGGING: @demon-blood-youths (for whomest ever of your kids you feel like doing), @thralls-for-alls (choice of muse is yours too, my friend ;y), @hackingfirestarter, @betterhealing, and @helioph4ge! But only if you guys feel like it, of course. Everyone else is more than welcome to pinch this, too~

[hueymario-blog]

Franky’s Prayer

                                             Why am I preaching?                                         To this choir, to this atheist?  

Now you see, Francis has been without relationship for the epoch of his teenage life. Well, his entire life really. It bothered Frank somewhat -- why couldn’t he find a lover? Why was everything so hard? How can someone so lovely be without a significant other? What did he do to become so destitute of love? Frank found answers and somehow even more confusion in one of his ongoing efforts to liberate himself from the chains of loneliness. It was a farce, really, his situation. So what was this “farce” anyways?

Frank was always talking to someone. It was like a drug really. Once he started, he just had to have more and more of the thing that brings people happiness: love and affection. But no drug is without side affects, the love of drug and affection could back fire at any moment and cause sadness that highly out levels the “love” and “affection” you felt while taking the stimuli.

Frank, feeling the side affects of his past intake, decided it was finally time to shoot up again so, just like any other person, he fastened the belt and threaded the needle; within a week it was in full effect.

This high was one of the best ever. He had taken the subject of a brunette, the type of brunette that wasn't one at all really. When the light shined upon this subject her brown undertones cascaded down like a chocolate waterfall, she was tanner than usual for a Caucasian girl like herself, she had hazel eyes, she had clean, brisk, and unmatched thick eyebrows, she had a very round figure and her chin caved in which formed this very cute nuance in her overall structure. She was an overall very attractive being -- Francis was very lucky to pickup on this subject.    

It was somewhat funny because Francis had seen his subject many times before but never approached her. Partly because he was shy and nervous but also really because he had no real intent just yet, he had other matters to take care of at that time. She was also very intimidating. She always crossed her arms and looked straight forward without any emotion, she also seemed taller than him which therefore intimidated him (she was.)

I will not bore thee with preliminary details. All you need to know that Francis and his fellow significant subject have gone through the works of meeting, talking, liking each other, etc. They talked everyday and enjoyed each others company (all of this in the span of 3 weeks or so.) 

See now it was like an earthquake or per-say a volcanic eruption. Everything was going so good up till the point of climax and all of the sudden his significant subject just stopped talking to him. Yes, just like that. 

See it wasn’t because she didn’t like him, but that she quite literally vanished from the face of the earth. Her entire history was vanished -- she became nothing. No one had any recollection of her afterwards, not even her parents, except for Francis of course.

Francis, before anything, was broken to pieces. Francis was always keen on feeling things to the fullest extent; he had always said that he felt little emotion and that he was without empathy (he thought this partly because his humor was dark and sarcastic) but the truth of it was that he felt everything sharply and bluntly. He didn’t know what had happened the first few days, he simply felt sad and lonely without his subject.

The next days were filled with a variety of emotions: anger, anguish, sadness, grief, hope, happiness, depression, melancholy, all of those and more! Note that he had these feelings even before trying to search for answers of his subjects disappearance.

A week went by with these ranges of emotions until Francis finally decided that he wanted answers for this ludicrous event.

At first he thought that this situation was impossible. He questioned his realm -- his being. How can a person just disappear from the face of the Earth? How could no one remember them? These questions just don’t have answers. To him, if the questions weren’t possible then the answers weren't possible -- she had to be somewhere; she ran away maybe? If this were to happen then what’s to stop it from happening again? What is existence? Are we real? These are the types of questions that Francis asked himself and many others in his time of grief. These questions without answers only drove Francis to the point of madness in his attempt to answer them, it drove him mad and angry. Who took away his beloved subject?!

The question: Who took away his favorite subject? Became the epitome of his next stage of grief. During this time, Frank became very angsty and detective-like; he suspected everyone so therefore, he hated everyone. He dreamed about what he would do to the person who took her away: shoot them, stab them, cut their head off, disembowel them, kill their family, drown them, choke them, shrivel off their skin with a potato peeler -- the list went on really. 

Frank McCarthy’d a subject after weeks of stalking, paranoia, suspicion, and overall madness. He had brought a glass bottle along with him to protect himself and also place fear in the subject. When he approached the person, he broke the bottle to unsheathe its sharp edge but it exploded outwards like a fragmentation grenade and cut deep into Franks hand. With the rush of adrenaline, Frank was able to deliver his speech to this subject without passing out -- he passed out right after -- the subject called for an ambulance because he was unsure if Frank would bleed out or not, also because his gash looked very gnarly; as if he punched and forced his way through the sharp end of a serrated knife. 

To be continued

[shogunchelios]

Seven Sins: A Discussion and Ranking

When I was 17, I declared myself an atheist and went along my merry way. twenty years later, I merry'd my way back to the discussion because it turns out, there's more to it than that. The whole concept of god and the afterlife and guardian angels and devils is too fantastical for me. I thought that was what being in a religion was about. believing all the crazy parts of the holy books as literal. it wasn't until I started to introspect full blast (because I was fully blasted on the ganja) that I understood what religion truly was. The real meat (that you can't eat on fridays) of religion is to provide a structure, a rulebook for life. Being an angsty teenager, I didn't mind throwing that out along with the supernatural stuff. How dare you impose rules on me? I'm a legal adult! Now that I've been developing into an actual adult, I see that rules aren't things to hold us back. It's the rules that make everything work better. Just like the universe wouldn't exist without electromagnetism, weak and strong nuclear forces, and gravity, life doesn't function as well without some restrictions. like in wrestling, the matches aren't as good if the referee just allows anyone to interfere, anyone to get pinned, etc. We fall into chaos when there is no order, which is what Jordan Peterson's book is all about. Last weekend, I was at a family gathering of in-laws and someone there was really into 'the secret.' The dude is even going to come out on the new documentary they're going to put out after the success of the old one. the old one was something i hated because it was so dumb. The video is just folks saying 'well, i just focused my thoughts on checks arriving to my mail, instead of bills, and now a year later, checks are coming in every week!' It's like those workout videos that show a fat person and a muscular person three months later. they leave out the part where the entire lifestyle (diet, sleep, consistent workouts) has to change. the secret left out the part where you still have to do some work. But when the dude started explaining why he enjoyed the secret, most of it was what I read in Jordan Peterson's book (fix yourself first, be grateful for what you have, etc). Which in itself is just a guidebook of rules to follow. It seems non-secular folk spend a lot of time searching out new religions, as long as they're not called religions. The ones I've gravitated to are buddhism (life sucks, so make the best of it) and the self-help corner (make a plan, distract yourself from sucky life with material/emotional successes). none of them have god in them. which makes it tougher because if you have some all-powerful being you're disappointing, it motivates you, especially if he can see you at all times (like santa. didn't like to disappoint him either). But when it's just me I'm disappointing, well, I don't care as much, because who am I to try to impress myself? fuck myself, that guy sucks anyway. which is why my roaring twenties were spent going the opposite way. if there is no god, and it's just me, then fuck it, let me do all the things i shouldn't and see where it gets me! then god is sitting there, like thanos in endgame, telling me 'where did that bring you? back to me. I am inevitable.' Then he caused a huge flood and killed half the population. but it's not all bad. We learn from our experiences and the mistakes teach us the most. I haven't touched a stove burner since I was five and touched it that one time. so, without further ado, here's a ranking of the seven deadly sins in order from worst to best! 7. wrath not too surprising that wrath would end up pretty low on my list, considering my usual happy-go-lucky baseline. it's in there though. i feel it, like when i'm driving somewhere and the asshole in front of me is tapping on their brakes even though there aren't any cars in front of them. or when i want to turn right and the dude in front of me isn't turning on the red light and waits for the green light TO TURN RIGHT. my biggest wish from when i started driving was

that every car had some sorta phone and everyone's carphone number is the same as the license plate. that way, i can call the asshole in front of me and go full sam kinison on them. 'FFFUUUCCCKING GOOOOO YOOU GOODDAMMN MOTHERFUCKER SONOFAFUCKINGBITCHMOTHERFUUUUCKEEEERRRRRRR!' other than the road rage though, i don't partake too often in the fun of wrath. i know i have more in me because at least a couple times of year i have a dream where i'm beating the crap out of somebody. but like, excessively. and it's never anyone very specific. that's why i'm not sure if a memory i have from my youth is real or not. i think i had sent that story already, but when i was about 4 or 5 years old, i was at my grandpa Chorizo's house and i beat the everloving shit out of some neighborhood kid while my brother and uncle egg'd me on. then we never spoke about it again. so was it real or a wrath dream? the world may never know. 6. envy this one would've been ranked higher about 10-15 years ago, right at the height of myspace/facebook/google+ (i swear it almost became a thing! you should've given it a try!). it's not just wanting what others have though. it's also taking pleasure in their misfortune (good ol' schadenfreude [i had to google 'buddhism' to spell it right, yet i got schadenfreude right on the first try, which says a lot about me]). social media and envy are like jerry and beth when they go to the alien marriage counselor. alone, each one is bad, but obvious. together, though, and they're unstoppable, one feeding into the other endlessly. healthier folks can channel their envy into something positive. "i want to go on a cruise too, i'm going to work harder to achieve it!" for unhealthy assholes like me though, it's more "why is this big-bootied chick with that schlub? i'm much handsomer! i should homewreck." but even if it were to happen, at that point, i wouldn't even want that chick anymore. no one wants to be part of a club that would have themselves as a member. the longing and wanting is the best part of envy, which is why it's ranked this low. that part sucks. i like getting what i want and having it. the anticipation is the part i dislike the most. waiting in line brings up my wrath and that takes up way too much energy. 5. pride according to my extensive research (wikipedia), pride is the worst of the worst. the father of all sins. pride leads to every other vice. it is the complete anti-god state of mind. they have the tower of babel as their image to define it. believing we're powerful enough to build a tower high enough to reach god, how dare us? putting ourselves first before all, that's not too good, says the bible/god. but wouldn't that make god prideful? the dude doesn't allow us to put anything else before him, that's the biggest unchecked pride i know of, but i guess when you create existence, you can be full of yourself. my pride is mostly all about my looks, as if it wasn't obvious. sometimes i think i suffer from low self-esteem, but that's mostly about my inside, i feel like i'm a piece of shit. but the outside, i think i've got a decent situation happening. it's that belief that throws gas on my fire of superficiality. no fat chick would ever have a chance with me, because, c'mon, look at me, i can do better than you. that's why i befriended all those fat girls that later were ready to divorce to have a chance at me. i figured 'well, they don't give me boners, so it's totally safe to be charming/flirty.' not even considering that they may be catching feelings and ready to risk it all for a taste of my sweet chocolate lovin. i know, seems like i'm high on pride, so why is it so low? because it's exhausting. i'm constantly in a state of mind of 'i'm the star of the show' as if i'm being filmed for a reality show that's being filmed in secret, truman show style. it's why i alternate hairstyles so often, because i have to keep things fresh for my audience. practicing my facial expressions in the mirror, telling anecdotes to myself ahead of time,

expensive haircuts, it's time consuming. the buddhism helped bring my ego into check. it's about controlling the hungry ghost. or, like in 'community' where the gang go to a party as celebrity impressionists, i was going through a jeff winger inflating apple moment until it burst (britta came up with the metaphor, which to her is 'an idea with another idea's hat on' which is such a perfect metaphor). now, i try to spend less time on my looks, and more time on my rotten insides. 4. greed isn't the quote 'greed is good' (i hate putting punctuation inside quotes when they don't match the quote, so here's a sidenote to make space for the question mark)? i think folks can manage and be decent even if they've got some of that greed in them. It helps them make a lot of money, which they can use for good. unless they have a lot of pride, then maybe not. it's the combinations that get you. the reason I'm ranking greed higher than pride, though, is because i'd definitely rather be rich than handsome. with money, you can hire people to tell you you're good looking. like prostitutes, lots and lots of them. but then you can never get your fill. greed is weird, because i feel like it's the basis for the rest of the sins at the top of the list. wanting more and more of something. i don't have as much greed in me as some of the other ones, so i guess maybe i'd like to have more of it? shit, there just isn't much to say about it. maybe that's why it's in the middle of the list, it's the humpday of sins. yeah, no one likes greedy folks, but everyone would love to have a wealthy friend. so this is one of those sins you can get away with, as long as you don't pair it with pride, or wrath. because then you'd be beating people with sacks of money. let's move on. 3. gluttony i almost ranked gluttony much lower, since i've had a complicated relationship with food. sure, it gives me nourishment, but also, that one time, i got hepatitis from church's chicken. then also, there's the time i smoked, early on, maybe my 3rd or 4th time, and i had sorta had sex with a pizza. now wait, hold up. let me rephrase that. no, let me just start the topic over, because i've had this in my head as a short stand-up comedy act. by a round of applause, how many of y'all here tonight have had sex with food? ok ok, hold on, i think we're all thinking of different things. some of y'all clapped and you're thinking of the classic strawberries being rubbed on your nipples or whatever. no, no, i'm not talking about that kind. nice work, though, keeping it classy. not like the other folks out there. i can see by your face that you're on the other side of the food sex spectrum. not that i'm judging, by all means, more power to you. but, no, i'm not talking about american pie, cut a hole in a melon, condom on a cucumber type of events. but again, you do you, friends. no, what i'm talking about is, have you ever eaten something so delicious that it gave you a boner? halfway through the brooklyn style dominos pizza, i realized that loud heavy breathing was coming from me, and my hips were involuntarily thrusting while i deepthroated the cheese and pepperoni. that's why gluttony got ranked this high. at this point, the sins are just fighting over order of preference. in our barest, most honest versions of heaven/paradise/nirvana, having all our favorite foods is basically near the top. there's only one thing that would stop me from a boner pizza. 2. lust yeah, i know, i figured this was an easy swish for the number one spot. but believe it or not, a lot of care went into this list. trying to figure out how to rank all these activities, I had to come up with criteria. and the first thing i thought of was, what gives me the most pleasure. then i subtracted out how bad i feel before, during, or after the acts. and lust only has the middle part as a high, and the rest not so much. but boy is that high super high. during the act, whether with a partner or solo, there's nothing better. flash a bag of money, a pizza,

pictures of myself, nothing will take me away from it. the problem is that it's too good. once it's over, what else is there? have a cigarette? drink a beer? what's going to bring you up to that same high? what else can compare? that's why whenever you find out someone abstains from drinking and drugs (which both fall under gluttony, i think. another reason it was ranked so high), they're usually addicted to sex or porn. like chris d'elia and all his pervy activities. it can fulfill your every desire. but after the eleven minutes (much love Paolo Coehlo) are done, what's left? if you're in love, then you bask in the love. if it was with a random, then you bask in the awkwardness. and if you were alone, then you bask in the shame. all that basking puts a filter on the goodness. then I also thought about the boner pizza, and the only thing that'd take me away from that pizza is some good ol' fashioned homespun luvin', but the only thing that'd take me away from that good ol' fashioned homespun luvin' is some even better activity. one that can not be replicated. 1. sloth taking a siesta. becoming the devil's plaything. tirando la hueva. i always get mad when folks say 'oh, i love the rainy weather!' because when i ask why anyone would like a gloomy day, they say 'oh because it's great weather to stay in and watch movies!' uh, you can do that shit on sunny days too. you're just looking to be lazy and need an excuse. just be lazy and be done with it. don't evoke mother nature to give yourself an excuse. like the covid overreactors. you know a lot of them acted terrified because they wanted a reason to not have to go to work. just fucking admit it! we get mad at others for what we hate in ourselves, which is how I know this one is a sin. I hate that my favorite all-time pastime is just shooting the shit, watching the world pass by. this is why sloth is number one. i'm a lazy fuck and i'm not ashamed. it's the sin that I most identify with and it's the one that has slowly been taking me down. at its own pace and leisure. well, I'm not 'not ashamed,' since i still get offended when someone other than myself calls me lazy. only our kind can use that word. call me unmotivated instead. that's the proper term. all the time i've spent trying to understand myself this is the one that i can't explain. it's been my dark passenger for as long as I could remember. i guess tv is my dealer. that's what keeps me the slothiest. but i also vegetate when i have something pending to do. or if there's a situation i don't want to deal with. like when lucy got mis-diagnosed and i thought she was dying, for days i couldn't do anything. the only thing i can accomplish when i fall into a slothhole is smoke the green. which makes the inactivity so much more exciting and fun. still though, you can't defeat it. it keeps you out of trouble, outside of the existential kind, and is completely free. you can partake at any moment, but it gives you the biggest rush when it's right before a major project is due. or even when it's a completely voluntary project that you use to self-impose deadlines that you then ignore, so you don't finish your 'seven deadly sins ranking' idea you came up with in april until mid-june, a week after you were going to send it. You know I have it right. Shit, I know you probably skipped down to look at number one because you were too lazy to read your way there. The best sins are the ones that feel the best and are secretly the worst. During lust, you can feel yourself going ape-like sometimes, and you feel like a fat fuck when you're devouring your third helping, but scratching your balls and watching TV while the world is on fire? That sin right there is a slice of heaven.

[rhiannonroot]

BOOK REVIEW: ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ by J.D. Salinger

Uggggggggghhhhhhhh. Why? Why. Why. Why. Why. Why. Why. Why?!

Somehow J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye” manages to make a privileged teen’s nervous break-down completely and utterly dull. Keep in mind this is a book that contains massive amounts of swearing, a scene where the protagonist pays a prostitute and another where a male teacher totally hits on the protagonist.

And it’s fucking boring.

Let’s get into the plot before we talk about anything else.

The book begins with Holden in some sort of mental institution and he’s recounting when how he got here. Then he launches into a tragic backstory.

It’s almost Christmastime in the late 1940s New York [I couldn’t figure out the exact time stamp] and angsty teen Holden Caulfield has been kicked out another elite boarding school because he can’t be bothered to crack open a book and, you know, study or apply himself. Yep. He doesn’t mention what he’s doing with his time instead, though. So he’s on his way out of the school, but not before talking to one of his grumpy teachers and annoying the shit out of his classmates. He purposefully needles them and is fussy when those around him are messy.

Forgive me, but I find it difficult to be sympathetic to a lazy kid who throws around money like it’s Halloween candy, has more power and access to better education than I ever will and doesn’t seem to care about anything. But our Holden is ashamed, you see, so he doesn’t want to go home too early while his parents are processing another one of his failures.

So he leaves early. On the train he meets the mother of one of his classmates, lies about his identity and her son and internally mocks the mom as a “phony” the whole time. Stay classy, Holden. Everyone is a “phony” in Holden’s eyes.

He then goes to a hotel, but not before getting in a taxi and asking the driver inane questions about ducks. He goes to the hotel, hangs out in the bar with tourists but doesn’t know how to hold a conversation with any of his new friends, so he ends up meeting Maurice the pimp and Sunny the prostitute.

And this cycle more or less repeats itself: Holden meets a person from his past and can’t connect properly and instead annoys the shit out of them and he can’t connect with new people either. Then he gets fixated on children and “protecting them” (hence the title of the book.) And has a nervous breakdown while out and about with his 10-year-old sister Phoebe.

The ending is Holden describing that he’ll be at a new school in the fall and really he hasn’t learned a damn thing from this experience. Woo. What a classic. What literature.

The only fun thing about this book is that because of his limited vocabulary and penchant for calling people “phonies,” Holden basically sounds like Donald Trump. (Just swap out “phony” for “fake news” and it’s indistinguishable.)

“The Catcher in the Rye” does hold the distinction of being one of the most censured and challenged books in U.S. public schools. (When I read this in high school, we could only read it aloud in class, the teacher wouldn’t say the actual swear words and we weren’t allowed to read it on our own.)

Additionally, the prose is repetitive and stilted. I have no idea who Salinger intended the audience to be – it seems like it’s a book about teenagers than intended for them. Further, all the characters sound the same and are basically indistinguishable from one another. The swearing is unskillful and reads like that episode of “South Park” where everyone says “shit” a lot . Also “South Park” makes fun of this book in a different episode. And it's pretty great.

Here are my major gripes with the book: It’s easy to get caught up in Holden’s head and monologue and see him as sympathetic, but really, when you look at his actions, e.g. purposefully annoying people in conversation, calling people at odd hours without apologizing, his fixation on other people’s sex lives and acting entitled to that information, his desire to have a romantic relationship with a “deaf mute” girl, the fact that he can’t hold a conversation with his peers or superiors and instead likes talking with children and being around them instead (and wanting to “protect” them from graffiti) …dude’s a budding abuser.

On page 92, he says that when he’s fooling around with a girl, he always “stops” when he’s told to, but thinks most guys don’t. And he sees a problem with his stopping. Yeah, that’s something that rapists consistently say.

In fact, I’d bet actual money that Holden would become one of those “save the children” types who would support questionable morality legislation while privately having multiple abusive relationships with intimate partners. Holden’s a gutless hypocrite.

Further, my other major gripe with this book is that Holden Caulfield doesn’t know what an atheist is . On page 99, he describes himself as an atheist, but then he goes on to monologue what I can only describe as Bible fan fiction. He also talks about his brother as being in heaven. At another point he describes his family as being “atheist,” but in the one scene where Holden’s mom appears, she asks Phoebe if she’s said her prayers.

Do I even have to say it? That’s not what an atheist is. Not even close. Atheists are people who favor natural explanations for natural phenomena and reject any and all gods and religions. Generally, they do not believe in an afterlife or the existence of a heaven or a hell. Nor do they really “say their prayers.”

Holden doesn’t describe being skeptical of Christianity or of any aspect of the Bible. Notably, he also keeps the G capitalized in god throughout the book, except for the phrase “goddam.” (That’s something believers do, yo.)

I’m all for exploring the topics this book discusses: isolation, growing up and finding your place in the world, alienation, but I think there are better more interesting books that you could read.

What to read instead: “The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath, “Speak” by Laurie Halse Anderson, or just Google “What to read instead of Catcher in the Rye.”

[understudieshq]

WHOA, WATCH out -- it’s super radical Melchior Gabor. He’s your typical angsty whiny teenager who likes to brag that he’s an atheist. He likes to use big vocabulary words and pretend like he knows what he’s talking about, but half of the time he’s just quoting Faust. He thinks that just because he’s the most outspoken student at his all-boys Catholic school, that makes him the only one who is meant to rock the boat and challenge the system. Although talk is far more different than actually acting on things. He’s arrogant and full of himself, but all the girls he meets still seem to drop their panties the moment he opens his mouth. Too bad he’s not the type to stay around when the morning sun rises.

[sell-our-skins]

*writes Val like he’s an overly angsty teenage atheist*