#if everyone chips in a little ass combined we can get him one fat enough to soothe his issues

[hotcryptidsinyourarea]

Falling for the Frogman of Loveland, Ohio

story synopsis: Molly is a 30-something cookbook editor who has decided to move from New York to Loveland, Ohio after a bad breakup and a desire for a fresh start. She is instantly attracted to her neighbor Jeremiah's midwestern charms, but this local guy is much more than meets the eye...

human (she/her) + interdimensional humanoid frogman (he/him) cw: social anxiety, existential pondering, negative self-talk

Chapter 3

My body and mind are so exhausted, I sleep in an hour later than I usually do. The fact that my new bed is very comfortable also facilitates this late start, but I don’t really have it in me to complain about that. I finally pry myself from between the sheets and get dressed for my first full day in my new home. First thing’s first: coffee. 

I do a quick search for the closest non-chain coffee shop to my place. Part of the appeal of moving to a smaller community is supporting the local business culture. Never again will I spend $10 on a tall, burnt-ass latte from the Bucks. There’s one on Loveland Madeira alongside all the other fast food chains, but I’m going to avoid it like the plague. It’s the weirdest thing in New York: everybody talks about how much they love their neighborhood coffee shops, but no matter when or how you see them in real life, there will always be that ubiquitous siren-logo’d cup planted firmly in hand. It’s like some grand delusion we all pretend we’re not a part of. 

No that I think people in a small town are paragons of virtue or anything. I know there is hypocrisy and assholes everywhere you go. But you spend enough time in one place and eventually you have the right to gripe about it as much as your little black heart desires! Or that’s what I tell myself, I guess. Part of me will always love New York and I truly look forward to going back and visiting. But the agitation I feel at just a passing reminder of the city tells me I made the right move leaving town. I just hope this place ends up being where I’m supposed to be. 

Well, what better way to get a feel for a new town than running a couple of normal, domestic errands? Namely: coffee. Let’s fucking gooooooo!

_____________________________________________________________

I’m loving the decor at the Blue Chip Roasters coffee shop. The amount of hearty wood furnishing and exposed burl fixtures gives it a Twin Peaks vibe without being derivative. It’s warm and homey and the scent of fresh coffee brewing makes my mouth water. There’s a huge wraparound counter that isolates the staff area behind the machines and cash register, which lines up with the doorway so you can walk right up to it. On the other side of the counter are bar stools occupied by various coffee drinkers who are all immersed in their books or laptops. It’s simple but welcoming. A satisfactory first impression, for sure. 

It’s a blessedly simple menu. They only have two types of milk, whole and oat, but I’ve never strayed from the classic whole milk-coffee combination anyways. Full fat means full flavor and that’s what I want. I order a double iced latte and a cinnamon roll for breakfast. As I drop in a dollar for tip, I notice the jar is covered in stickers and such all depicting some artists’ renditions of an anthropomorphic frog. In big block letters it reads: 

>> DON’T FROG-ET TO TIP! - LFM <<

“Who is LFM?” I ask the girl working the register. 

“Oh, it stands for Loveland Frogman. You’ve never heard of it?” 

“I can’t say that I have, but I’m new in town. Like, brand new.” 

“Oh, well it’s just a dumb local legend. Years ago, a couple cops saw a lizard standing on its hind legs and told everyone they saw a Frogman. Locals have kind of taken it on as a mascot of sorts even though it’s fake as fuck.” 

“It’s NOT fake,” says the kid behind the espresso machine pulling shots. “The Frogman is real. That lizard story is a cover-up ordered by the FBI. Ask anyone from around here and they’ll tell you a story about them or someone they know spotting him at some point.” 

“That’s ridiculous,” the cashier rolls her eyes. “The people that claim to see him are just dumbasses lying so they can be the center of attention for a moment. Either that or meth heads.” 

“It wasn’t a frog at all,” says a third worker sweeping something up behind the counter. “It was an alien. A being from another dimension. That’s why the FBI wanted to cover him up. No one cares about some overgrown science project.” 

The local color of it all has me stunned silent. I am not used to talking this much with strangers. Honestly, I felt like I was pushing it by asking the cashier in the first place. I was half expecting a snide fuck-if-I-know dismissal. And now after instigating the conversation, I find myself at a loss for words. Great! I have no idea how to get out of this in the correct, polite way. I’m a decade out of practice. Thankfully, a voice coming from a bar stool in my periphery offers me a blessed interjection to keep me from looking as dumb as I feel.  

“Don’t listen to them. They’re just messing with you because you said you’re new in town. We don’t get a lot of ‘new’ around here often. A lot of the same,” says the guy. I turn to look at him, remembering the most rudimentary of manners, but what I see doesn’t help my muteness because this dude is good looking. 

Very good looking, one might say. 

Ridiculously, if you’re so inclined. 

I get that feeling in my chest that makes me feel like I’m twelve years old again and my friend Jessica’s older brother Adam would walk in the room while we watched TV– like it’s suddenly difficult to to take a full, deep breath and a heat spreads across my shoulders and chest. I can’t remember the last time I felt this way. I am completely flustered. I break eye contact to fumble through my wallet for an extra couple dollars to throw in the tip jar. Fuck! I need to work on my spontaneous conversation skills. I wasn’t expecting to experience culture shock quite to this extent, but I guess even just one state away is a whole other place, isn’t it? 

“Where are you from?” asks the guy. A straightforward question that I am perfectly capable of answering… hopefully. 

“I moved here from New Yor–” I manage to croak out, stumbling over that last syllable. I clear my throat. “York. I moved here from New York.” 

“New York City?” 

“The very one.” 

“Why would you leave New York to come to Loveland of all places?” he asks. “Most people are doing everything in their power to make it out of here.” 

“Oh, you know, sometimes the place a person needs is the last place you’d expect,” I reply. Looking back at the cashier, they have an incredulous look on their face like I’m speaking crazy talk. 

“Whatever you say, lady.” They hand me my coffee, my transaction finally complete. I lift the cup in salute and give a tight mouthed smile to the hot guy at the bar. He lifts his cup in return, a good humored smile plastered on his face. 

As I leave the coffee shop and settle into the driver’s seat of my car, I’m suddenly hit with the realization that I answered that hot guy’s question with the kind of trite bullshit normally reserved for Pinterest quotes. 

“Sometimes the place a person needs is the last place you’d expect,” I repeat back to myself. “What the FUCK does that mean, you dumbass weirdo bitch?” The heat I felt across my chest has definitely spread across my face. Luckily, there’s no cute coffee guy to see my embarrassment as I drive back home. 

_____________________________________________________________

Once I’m back home with my coffee and cinnamon roll, I park it back outside on the iron patio set and enjoy my breakfast. With a little food and caffeine in my system, I realize I may have been overreacting to the little interaction at the coffee shop. It probably wasn’t as bad as it was in my head. I was just hungry and fatigued from moving. No big deal. 

I hear the doorbell and go to let the internet installation technician inside. I’m impressed that he showed up so early in the estimated service window. It wasn’t uncommon for me to wait all day for a tech in New York only for no one to show up when they said they would. The next day or so, I’d often get a call while out and about. 

“Hi ma’am it’s George from Concast. I’m here to install your internet. Can you let me in?” 

“Let you in? You were supposed to come yesterday. I didn’t get any notification that you’d come today– I’m not here.” 

“Well, I need to be let in to install your internet…”

“But I’m not there. We’ll just have to reschedule.” 

“Next availability is in two weeks.” 

“GODDAMMIT. Wait right there– I’ll be back as soon as possible!” 

But none of that rigamarole is happening now. At this moment, I am reading a book on my back patio with an iced coffee and a cinnamon bun while Lyle sets up my fiber internet at the exact time he was scheduled to do it. Life is good. 

Okay, I may be looking at everything with rose colored glasses, but I’ll allow myself to bask in my new home serenity for a little while longer. What can it hurt to take the time to enjoy the fact that things are going smoothly? Back in the city, it felt like I was constantly having to strive for things to work. They rarely did and any hint of them possibly doing so was dashed with such expedience I never allowed myself the luxury of thinking that I possibly deserved for things to be easier. 

There was no way for me to get to that point when stuck in constant survival mode. The city is a beast, constantly growing. So even if you get to a point where you’re realizing some sort of comfort, the beast will continue to expand and shift until your complacency gets you displaced. It’s exhausting! I guess the hustle gives you something to live for– that’s why you see so many 80-year old women wandering around the streets of Manhattan. But they’re a hard eighty. And you can’t help but think they’re not there because they want to bust their asses just to make it through a day, but because they simply don’t even know there are other ways to live. Humans are creatures of habit. We find comfort in conformity. We create these confines and then tell ourselves because we made them, we must also work within them. 

It’s logical: as animals, we are bound by evolutionary instinct to find and keep a lifestyle that enables us to be productive– namely, reproductive– so that drives us to make choices that are safe and keep us connected. But I don’t think it’s extreme to say we as humans can and should continue to evolve past base evolutionary drive. It’s not imperative for all of us to be constantly productive. We have machines and programs that help us do a lot of the heavy lifting so that we may spend more time enjoying the world we’ve been gifted. And just as these advancements further separate us from any quote/unquote “natural way” of existence, we should consider the possibility that breaking free from our patterns and choosing not to conform to the established expectations may serve us positively. 

Of course, it’s that “new is better” mindset that led Mark to breaking up with me. He saw moving in together as conforming to the established expectations of those around us and he couldn’t do it. So perhaps I’m a hypocrite waxing poetic on the evils of conformity. No ideology would’ve stopped me from moving in with him. I was dead set on doing the expected. 

Except, I didn’t see it as settling. I saw it as an exciting new experience that just happened to promise a bit of security alongside the novel. There is adventure to be found alongside someone you can rely on. I guess at the end of the day, we broke up over a difference of perspective. If you’re going to build a life with someone, you should both see your future from the same vantage point. 

_____________________________________________________________

With the internet working and full stomach, I’m ready to continue unpacking. It’s not so much the unboxing that’s taking up my time. But with every essential item I unwrap, I’m reminded of something I’ll need to buy in the process of turning this house into a home. It feels a little consumerist, but I fully intend to take my time in accumulating these items and purchase with quality in mind, so I don’t sweat it.

Well, I don’t sweat the prospective shopping. Unpacking boxes does work up quite the literal sweat, however. It’s almost 6 pm and I am in desperate need of an end-of-the-day shower. Before I hop in, I pull up a food app and find the best rated Thai restaurant in my delivery area. I put in an order for pad thai and spring rolls and receive an hour delivery estimate– plenty of time to get clean before dinner, so I hop in the shower. 

I’m right in the middle of rinsing the conditioner from my hair when I hear the doorbell. An hour was either an incredibly inaccurate delivery estimate or it took me much, much longer to wash my hair than it normally does. 

“WAIT!” I holler towards the door as I wrap myself in my favorite extra large, super fluffy bath towel. “I’M COMING! I’M COMING!” I scurry as fast as I can to the door, probably looking like a drowned rat. 

“I’m so sor–” I halt as soon as I see who’s on the other side of the door. It isn’t my Thai food at all. It’s the guy from the coffee shop– the hot one who rescued me from my social awkwardness. He has that charming smile on his face, but it fades a bit as he gets a good look at me. In a breath of realization, his eyes go up to the sky as a pink blush spreads across his face. It’s kind of adorable, to be honest. 

“I am so sorry,” he says. “I’m your… we’re neigh– I live a couple doors down,” he fumbles through. “I wanted to come over and welcome you to the neighborhood.” 

“We– we met earlier, right? At the coffee shop?” I find myself once again in a situation I haven’t experienced in quite some time. Fourteen years in New York and not once did I have a neighbor come to my door to introduce themselves. I’m not even certain if I’m expected to invite him in. I certainly don’t know how to proceed when I’ve opened the door but a single layer of terrycloth between my nude body and the– admittedly gorgeous– welcome wagon. Thankfully, the wagon in question seems steady on the trail. 

“Yes! Yeah, that was me. Hey– I can, you know, wait here a second if you want to…” he makes a vague gesture towards the towel. 

“Oh! That would be great, yes. But you don’t have to wait outside. Please, come on in.”

He gives me a wary look. “Are you sure? I don’t mind…” 

“Yeah, I guess it’s not exactly best practice to let some guy I just met into my home while I’m changing, huh? I’m sorry, I just don’t want to be rude.” 

“You’re not, I promise. Go ahead, I can wait here. I’m patient.” 

Now I’m the one who’s blushing. Blushing a nude in front of a strange man. Mother would be so proud. I give him a sheepish smile as I close the door then scurry back to my room to throw on the nearest clothes I can get my hands on. I make a pit stop to take a peek in the bathroom mirror, rub the smudged mascara from under my eyes, and run my fingers through my hair. It’s not much, I think looking at my sorry state, but it’s what I got. 

I head back to the front door and take a moment to compose myself to come off with a false air of nonchalance. Fake it til you make it, right? 

I open the door and see him leaning against the wall and looking through his phone casually. I notice for the first time he’s holding a bottle of wine in the other hand. He looks up and catches my eye. A smirk sprawls across his face. 

“Woah– that was quick!” he says. 

“Yeah, well, I don’t have a lot of things unpacked here at the moment, so I don’t have much to sift through. Cuts down on the decision fatigue when choosing what to wear, for sure.” 

His smile brightens and it puts my entire body on high alert. I may not be nearly naked anymore, but looking at this guy makes me feel so exposed, like he’s seeing things about me that I’m not even aware of. I’m a grown ass woman, but this guy has me feeling bashful for the first time in years. 

“Come on in,” I move aside and open the door completely to let him inside the house. “I think you’ve proven you’re trustworthy enough.” 

“Cool, yeah.. I mean, thanks.. Yeah.” His stammering is endearing. There’s something comforting in the shared awkwardness as if the meeting of two awkward nerds cancels us out into being normal. “I’m Jeremiah,” he introduces himself and holds his hand out to shake. 

“Molly,” I grasp his hand in return. “It’s nice to officially meet you.” 

“Yeha! I hope you don’t find this creepy, but earlier I noticed the internet guy in your driveway and realized someone had finally moved into this place. The for sale sign was taken down about a week ago and I was wondering when you’d show up. Then when you said you just moved here at the coffee shop earlier, I thought maybe the new owner could be you.”

“And it is!” I interrupt. “I mean, I am. That is to say… It's kismet.” Jesus Christ. Is that something people say? Can I even define “kismet?”  Am I just embarrassing myself here? 

“Exactly!” His smile breaks my shame spiral. “It’s always worth noting when we get to witness the stars aligning in real time.” He holds the bottle of wine up to eye level for me. “I brought you a housewarming gift. It’s nothing special– I wasn’t even certain if bringing wine to a stranger is appropriate. But it’s a pretty dry red. I thought if you don’t drink, you can use it for cooking.” 

“I do! I mean, I do drink. Thank you, you’re very kind and I feel quite welcome.” I take the bottle and scan the label. It’s a Chianti I’ve never tried before. “This looks beautiful. Would you like to have a glass with me?” 

“Um… sure! That sounds nice. Do you have glasses?” 

“I don’t have stemware, but I have a couple cups that will do. Plus,” I pause to rummage in the drawer where I stashed my well loved wine key the night before, “I have this!” I grab the water glasses I have from the cupboard and start working the corkscrew into the top of the bottle. 

“Please, allow me.” Jeremiah takes the wine and key from me and effortlessly drills deep into the cork, angling the bottle away from him. He looks me directly in the eye as he pushes the lever away from him and removes the cork with an muffled POP.

What in the actual fuck? How was that so… hot? 

He grabs the glasses and distributes even, modest pours in each of them before handing me one. “Cheers,” he says, lifting his own glass, “to your new home.” 

“And new neighbors,” I clink my cup against his, immediately questioning whether that was smooth or just pathetically thirsty. Either way, I take a sip. I notice his eyes darting around, taking in the details of the house. 

“This place is almost the exact same layout as my place, just reversed.” 

“Really?” I ask. “Is that unusual?” 

“Not really, no. These subdivisions are financed and built before they’re ever sold. Developers will have a handful of blueprints and rotate between them while building. I guess keeping everything as uniform as possible allows them to churn out houses quickly and reduces the risk of error. You build the same house over and over again, you can probably throw them up in your sleep.” 

“Or they get so overconfident and cocky, they begin to slack off and make mistakes.” 

“Oof. You’re telling me. Complacency can definitely lead to miscalculations.” He takes another sip before continuing. “Happens in my work all the time.” 

“Oh yeah? What do you do?”

He winces. “It’s kind of hard to explain– not that it’s beyond your understanding,” he reassures me and my heart melts ever so slightly. “But, basically, I track and predict rainfall.” 

“You’re a meteorologist?” 

“No. I don’t really know much about weather in general. It’s more like I use statistics to estimate which places will experience flood or drought in the near future. I then use those estimates to inform the purchase and sale of certain commodities.” 

“Commodities. Like food?” 

“Food is a big part of it, yes. But also a lot of precious metals and whatnot. And oil. There’s always oil.” 

“So you’re a gambler,” I tease. He grins in response. 

“An informed gambler, yes. But, you know– no risk, no reward.” 

“Well it does sound pretty interesting. More so than what I do.” 

“Which is?” 

“I am an editor for a publishing company that specializes in highly stylized cookbooks. A lot of Housewives for housewives kind of content. I basically make sure that what the authors– or, at least, their ghostwriters– put in their drafts all make sense. You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve caught cups– multiple cups– of salt from being added to a dessert recipe.” 

“That sounds interesting to me,” he says, being polite. I appreciate it nonetheless. “So does that mean you know how to cook a lot of different things?” 

I guffaw. “In theory, at least. I’m not a talented chef by any means, but I can make a meal.” I realize that at every chance I get, I’m diminishing myself in this conversation. When did I fall into that little habit? But before I can think much more about it, my doorbell rings. “Speaking of meals, that would be the takeout I thought you were.” I answer the door and thank the delivery person after they hand me my order. When I come back, I see Jeremiah rinsing out his now empty glass of wine before gently placing it in the sink. 

“Well this seems like the perfect opening for me to make a graceful exit. I’ll leave you to enjoy your dinner.” He gives me a genuine smile and reaches out to shake my hand goodbye. “It was really great meeting you. I’m excited to have someone cool in the neighborhood. And if you need anything, anything,” he gives my hand a squeeze on the emphasis and while making some very effective eye contact, “don’t hesitate to ask.” 

Damn. My new neighbor is hot.

[bookwyrminspiration]

canon fintan is absolutely a rat man and personally i am sad that that has gotten lost in fanon (along with everything else about him that i like lmao)

fintan is a miserable little pile of problems of a man and he does not have the ass (or anything else) to make up for it.

!!! yes! he is so. unhinged. but also calculated. he is dangerous because he is smart and a danger to himself because he doesn't know when to stop, when to play it safe. he likes to brag and he likes to win and he likes to do it in a way that leaves everyone gasping, leaves them scrambling because he's got the upper hand and everything is working as he wants

he is like this catastrophic force of unpredictability contained within a person. you have a general sense of what he wants and what he believes but you have no clue what he's willing to do to get it or what he'll sacrifice but you know it's going to be more than you would ever give.

the thing is he also cares. he may be the most passionate person in the series. what his cause began as is something any of us would probably support, but it's his devotion and utter willingness to give every piece of himself that makes him so frightening. because how can you stop a man whose entirely willing to lose everything.

and he does! he loses nearly everything! and then he becomes scary in a different way because he learns, because he is a miserable little pile of problems of a man and yet. he still believes. he knows he made mistakes, that his hubris brought about his downfall in the end, and yet it is met with this calculated indifference.

he's like "ah yes...that was foolish of me," but in this wistful unsettling way where you just know that he's not upset with himself, just amused. amused at where he went wrong. and that now he knows better and has become more dangerous and cunning and focused and your primary defense against this new person he's become is that he's locked up.

he is suave and elegant, but he is also so so unhinged and devoted to a fault. he is simply fascinating okay I love the kinda of characters that are so fueled by passion they're so interesting to watch and dissect

anyway fanon is fun but it is definitely not the version of Fintan Shannon has written. the version shannon has written would have a woefully insufficient ass to make up for all the problems he has.

[mellometal]

Hey, everyone.

I've tried to compose myself before making this post. This is a subject that I've touched on a little bit in posts, but I've never done a deep dive into JUST this topic. I was going to make a post solely about this subject sooner, but this one in particular is really hard for me to talk about without getting emotional...and yet Dhar Mann has talked about this on quite a few occasions in the most insincere, toxic ways. I'll do my best to discuss this topic without getting too emotional.

It's about a serious subject that people still are ignorant about and don't take seriously. Even to this day, with the body positivity and body neutrality movements. (I don't know of a better way to describe just being neutral about your body. Sorry if it sounds weird.)

For anyone who doesn't know what I'm referring to (honestly, I don't blame you, as this is a subject that's often seen as normal and is encouraged in society for the most part), I'm talking about fatphobia. Hating on people for being fat. Discriminating people because of their weight in the workplace, at the doctor's office, just in general. Not many stores having inclusive sizes. People being treated like they're subhuman because they're fat.

I want to say this first, before I bash on Dhar Mann again: I'm a plus-size young woman. This is something that I have personal experience with. Your weight has no significance to your worth as a person. If you do happen to be overweight, obese, whatever, you're not subhuman. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. You're worthy of being loved, listened to, treated with kindness, and respected, just like anyone else who isn't fat.

If you treat people like utter shit for their weight, get some help. Why do you care about somebody else's weight? Obviously there's an exception to this, like if they're so big they can't move or they're so skinny their organs are showing....because those are causes for concern, but other than that, mind your own business. Even if they are in those extremities, unless you're their doctor and/or their family, STILL mind your own business. How the fuck does a fat person simply breathing and existing affect you in any way? News flash: there will always be fat people.

Before I get to the weekly ritual of tearing TWO of Dhar Mann's videos apart (the next one will be in another post or I'll reblog this post and continue on there), here's an obligatory trigger warning for the video analysis itself and my response: The following post contains fatphobia, fat shaming, a man being super fucking misogynistic and treating women like they're objects, and there's even a touch of some racial aggression. How shocking. Because Dhar Mann really seems to get a kick out of writing about racism to make it all cute. Oh yeah, you're totally solving racism, Dhar Mann. /s

My response contains my experience with fatphobia, relationships with food, mentioned/implied thoughts of s3lf h@rm, feeling like I'm unworthy of being treated like an actual person because of my weight, and absolute rage. Like usual. My responses are very heated. This one especially. It's LONG. Buckle up.

With all this out of the way, let's get to the first video that I want to tear apart. This one is about the auditions for a record deal. I will get to the video about a kid wanting to be a host of a radio show later.

To sum up the first video, a plus-size white woman (Krissy Elliot) is singing for an agent (Isaac) and his assistant (Evette) so she can follow her dream to become a singer. Isaac cuts Krissy off to viciously bash her for being a plus-size woman. Evette stands up for this woman, and says she sounded fine and to let her finish. Isaac doesn't listen to Evette, let alone take what she said into consideration. He continues to ridicule Krissy for her appearance, that she'll "never make it in the music industry" (WRONG, do you know how many plus-size people are in the fucking music industry? There are A LOT more now than when I was growing up and it honestly makes me so happy. There were more plus-size people in the entertainment industry than in the music industry back then.), suggested that she "become a chef or a food critic" because she apparently loves being around food (being a chef or a food critic are noble professions, but NEVER fucking assume ANYONE'S relationships with food), to the point where Krissy left the room in tears.

Here are a few screenshots for context:

When this skinny, conventionally attractive woman (Jesse) comes in, Isaac's mood does a COMPLETE 180° and he's all sunshine and rainbows. Then right as soon as Jesse did her audition, Isaac is over the fucking moon, complimenting her physical appearance, treating her like an object, and signs her up for a record deal RIGHT AWAY. Pay attention to Isaac's facial expressions in one of these screenshots.

Evette suggests that they sign Krissy for a record deal instead. Because she was "the best singer they've had all day". Isaac, still all hot and bothered by a skinny, conventionally attractive woman that he's treating like an object, tells Evette that people like Krissy don't make it in the music industry because they're "overweight and unattractive", and is verbally aggressive towards her when she does nothing but explain her stance. Isaac sees this as Evette "talking back" (remember how I mentioned that there's racial aggression? He says that Evette is "talking back" because she happens to be a black woman) and fires her. He signs Jesse a record deal and has a blast with her.

The award ceremony comes around, and they're picking a winner for Best New Artist. They pick the winner, and it's....guess what? You'll never get it! It's Krissy Elliot! Why? Because Evette became her agent after Isaac fired her. Krissy goes into her whole story about how she was laughed out of every single agency and that she worked hard. Good for her. Jesse is obviously very happy for Krissy. We gotta love women supporting women.

This video was again another dumpster fire. As usual. Like I said, with this video in particular, I couldn't get through the first thirty seconds the first time around. Because I've dealt with shit like this. Obviously not with the music industry because I don't even think I'd be good enough to step into an agency...but I mean in my personal life.

Being told by my own dad that he was "tired of buying bigger clothes for me" when I was a young teenager, despite him buying almost nothing but "junk food".

Having my abuser make comments about my weight and talking about diets while I'm trying to eat my food, despite her being overweight.

Having someone I know (not anyone I'm friends with) make a comment about me eating a few things (ONE small piece of broccoli, two baby carrots, a small handful of chips, and ONE small piece of pineapple) and said to "save some for everyone else", even though I was saving food for everyone else, which is why I took so little. She tried to justify it with the fact nobody was there yet (why do you think I took very little food?), and she "was saying that to everyone" (why did she look at ME when she said that instead of making it clear that she was talking to everyone [saying "Hey, everyone" before the comment about saving some for everyone else IS NOT HARD]?), even though I know it was just to save her own ass. I knew she said that to me because I'm plus-size. She didn't say anything to anyone else, nor did she make it clear that she was talking to everyone.

Another person I know (not a person I'm friends with) saying that I overreacted (I did not overreact; SOMEONE TRIGGERED ME and you did NOTHING about it) even though they all KNEW my relationship with food is complicated. They KNEW that I don't really like eating in front of other people. I was upset that someone MADE A FUCKING DISGUSTING, TRIGGERING COMMENT ABOUT ME EATING VERY FEW FOOD ITEMS, ALMOST ALL WERE HEALTHY, DESPITE OTHER PEOPLE EATING A LOT MORE THAN I DID AND PICKING AT EVERYTHING. That day, I was begging one of my friends (one of the people I trust to eat around) to PLEASE take me home because I didn't want to be there (never wanted to be there in the first place), I was tired (I worked all night the night before and was forced to go to a meeting before all this happened), I didn't feel comfortable there anymore, there were way too many people (four individuals plus all their staff from another house were in the house I work in), I couldn't breathe (I was either about to pass out, have a panic attack, or just start crying), but nobody listened to me. I ended up getting a bus to go home.

(Sorry about all that. I was trying not to get emotional in this post. I just needed to share how this can affect people.)

Onto my response, which is all in the screenshots below.

ETA: I know the screenshots for my response are very jumbled right now and it’s difficult to read. I apologize to anyone who’s unable to fully read it! Because this is part one of this whole subject of fatphobia (I’m making a post about the boy wanting to become a radio host very soon), my response here will tie into that post. My response to that video is vastly the same, despite not making a comment on that video as of right now (the radio host one). 

I’ll be typing out my full response here. I apologize for weird formatting. Instagram wouldn’t let me break up my response into paragraphs. I’ll break them up into paragraphs here instead.

CC (Combination of the first, second, and third screenshots, aka, the first part of my response):

 I have a few questions before I get into my thoughts on this video. One, how the hell does your weight have any significance on your worth as a person, and if you do think this way, why would you think that? Two, do you know that fatphobia is a lot more than just judging a person for being fat? Three, why do you feel like you can speak for fat people like myself with this piss poor excuse for a video that I could barely get through the first thirty seconds of the first time? 

You can’t speak for any of us. I can’t speak for every fat person because not everyone has the same experiences as me. 

I’ve been bullied for my weight in real life as well as online. People have called me ugly just because of my weight. By the way, your weight doesn’t equal beauty, and that’s what I’m still learning. Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes. 

On quite a few occasions, I have actually thought about doing dangerous things to my body that I don’t feel comfortable going into here. All because I had people try to boil me down to my weight, call me ugly, and destroy whatever self-esteem I had left. You don’t know what fat people go through, so don’t act like you do. 

There are many factors that go into why a person may be fat, including medical conditions, mental illness, trauma, genetics, etc. All of those things are none of your business unless those people decide to be open about it. 

No, it’s not always healthy to be fat (obviously there are extremities on both sides of the spectrum of weight that are extremely unhealthy), but it doesn’t make a person any less of a human being. Fat people are human too. Quit treating us like we’re not. We deserve to be treated like everyone else who isn’t fat. I’m not saying put all fat people on a pedestal. I’m saying treat us like human beings.

CC (Combination of the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh screenshots, aka, the second part of my response):

Remember how I said that fatphobia isn’t just about judging people for being fat? Well, there’s the “fat tax” on plus-size clothing (even though it maybe only costs a little bit more in fabric, if there’s any difference in making clothes for people who aren’t fat), limited styles for fat people in stores (making a lot of us have to buy fast fashion or have to spend a fortune on clothes that actually flatter us), not very many stores have inclusive sizes still (if you don’t at least carry max 5XL or a size 38/40 in pants size, you cannot call yourself inclusive), and a lot of other things.

Many fat people, myself included, are afraid to seek medical attention for anything (even checkups) because of doctors who only focus on our weight and not on what we came in to see them for. They write it off as if our weight is the sole cause of our problems, which isn’t always the case.

How about we talk about how expensive it is to eat healthy in a lot of places? Not everyone can afford to make fresh meals every day, let alone once a week. Maybe they were never taught how to due to their upbringing. You don’t know.

I’ve had people comment on my weight, what I’m eating (even if I’m eating something healthy like fruits and veggies), talk about my weight or diets EVEN WHILE I’M TRYING TO EAT, and it’s caused me to wait until I’m alone or around someone I trust to eat anything. As a result, I have a complicated relationship with food now.

Telling someone they’re fat doesn’t help them. They know that. They see themselves every day. People may want to change, but they either are afraid to ask for help, or they don’t know where to start. Some may not want to change. It’s up to them, honestly. If you want to help them lose weight, maybe suggest any physical activity they’d have fun doing and do them with them? I dance for fun. Also, you could help set up meal plans with them. 

If you’re not going to at least try to help them lose weight if you’re so concerned about them (this is all if they actually want to change things and don’t know where to start), I cannot say this in a sweeter way: shut your mouth and mind your own business. Because you’re just being a cunt at that point.

CC (eighth screenshot, aka, the third and final part to my response):

There are quite a few plus-size people in the entertainment industry as a whole who are/were very successful. Remember the late Chris Farley and Aretha Franklin? Chris Farley was big, but that didn’t change how great of an actor he was, how funny he was, or how much of an impact he made in the entertainment industry. Aretha Franklin was a plus-size black woman in the music industry, but she’s inspired SO MANY artists we have today! There are many plus-size men, women, and I believe even nonbinary people in the public eye in general. Like I’ve said, beauty comes in all shapes and sizes. That’s why the body positivity and body neutrality movements are a thing.

(I know I implied that I thought about sh here in my response, but please don't worry about me as far as that goes. I'm fine now. I would never go through with anything like that.)

In the last part of my response where I mentioned some plus-size people in the entertainment industry as well as the music industry (the late Chris Farley and the late Aretha Franklin), I was going to name more people, but my comments were getting too long. I'll name some more here off the top of my head:

Lizzo (rapper), the Piggy Dolls (the first K-Pop girl group made up of actual plus-size women), K*v*n Sp*c*y (I don't feel comfortable saying his name because he's a disgusting person, but he's another plus-size man...he was in King of Queens and in A LOT of movies), PSY, Greyson Gritt (a genderqueer person in the music industry), Elle King, Produce Pandas (the first music group in China full of plus-size men), Martha Wash, Chubby Checker, Fats Domino, Big Angel (a J-Pop group of all plus-size women), Chubbiness (another J-Pop group of all plus-size women), Pottya (another J-Pop group of all plus-size women)...there are so many that I found, but if you want to add more plus-size artists, plus-size actors, plus-size comedians/comediennes, feel free to add them in the comments!

Dhar Mann, you'll never know what plus-size people go through. You don't know what we go through. You have NO IDEA what we go through on a daily basis. Stop acting like you do. Because you don't, and you never will.

By the way, Dhar Mann, this will NOT be the last post I'll make about you or your videos. The more you make fucking deplorable, poorly written bullshit, the more posts I'll make! Teehee!

If you got this far, thank you so much. The next part of this is coming very soon. I'm sorry for not posting too many screenshots from the video. I wanted to fit in my response because it's important for people to see.

Have a good day/afternoon/night, y'all. Love you!

[cerastes]

HEY DRIMO it's been a while since you did a big myth post so how about you tell me a cool story about my boi karna

Oh dear me, Hindu mythos, damn, ok, so, first rule of Hindu mythos is that you all have to wear your seat belts while reading this. If you don’t, you are susceptible to immense physical and spiritual damage, enough that it might kick you right out of the cycle of reincarnation, and then the Mythos Retelling Collective (MRC) will revoke my license due to Irresponsible Sharing of Intense Tales (art. 23847). Are you all strapped in? Y’all got your helmets? Alright alright, let’s get this show on the road.

SO, KARNA. I assume most of you are familiar with Karna having Big Strength and being god damn unkillable. Ok, so, it goes beyond that. It goes at least three Milky Ways in width beyond that. Originally known by his other name, Vasusena (and this dude has like 14 different names), Karna is the main protagonist of the Hindu epic, Mahabharata, and–

Oh, right, before I can tell you anything about the Mahabharata, or about Hindu mythos in general, I need to explain power levels. So you know how in Dragon Ball Z Abridged, Vegeta and Nappa use “Raditz” as a unit of measure for power levels and ki? “My power level is 500 Raditz.” “My power level is 23000 Raditz”, the joke being that Raditz was such a weak grunt that his meager total power can be used as a unit as you would with centimeters? Ok, this is actually canon in Hindu mythos. They have a scale of power levels, referred to as “Levels of Warrior Excellence”. The levels are:

Ardha-rathi: The lowest level, meaning literally “Half of a Rathi”. Read the next section for a more elaborate explanation, but this is Yamcha-tier, basically, the weakest of the badasses.

Rathi: It almost sounds like Raditz, doesn’t it? Well, Rathi is the unit by which all the other levels of Warrior Excellence are measured, as well as a rank by itself. A Rathi is an individual so powerful and skilled, that they can do battle with 1000 regular warriors simultaneously. This is the “Dynasty Warriors Playable Character” tier: Strong, but still susceptible to frames per seconds drops and getting stunlocked by arrows.

Atirathi: HERE is where things get spicy. An Atirathi is a warrior that can fight with six Rathi simultaneously. This is the level of strength possessed by Kevin by the time of Home Alone 2.

Ekarathi: You thought six was impressive? TRY EIGHT RATHI SIMULTANEOUSLY. We are entering Popeye-with-spinach levels of world-ending strength now.

Maharathi: The top level, the cream of the crop, the true definition of “Fuckhouse”. Those who reach this level are immensely powerful, and can do battle with 12 or more Rathi simultaneously. That is 12000 asses worth of whoopings. This is where you favorite Touhou is, obviously, and fuck what everyone else says.

Their measure of unit is basically “How many thousands of dudes can this person fight, or how many people that can fight a thousand people at once can this person fight?”, which, in other words, means that India has not fucked around a single day in it history.

So you might be wondering, “where’s Karna in all of this?”. Well, Chili Con Karna is SO MINDBOGGLINGLY STRONG AND SPICY that he is, literally, a Double Maharathi. Karna is stated to be “in terms of strength and skill, equal to two Maharathi warriors”. These peak jokers made this elaborate power level chart just so they could say “AND KARNA IS DOUBLE AS STRONG AS THE STRONGEST”. He is Two Gokus. Karna could literally look at you, without the laser, and you would just be atomized, restructured, and atomized again in the span of minus three seconds, and you would thank him for it. And damn RIGHT you would thank him for it, because he probably didn’t mean to do that to you. That’s because Karna, despite having more powers than Superman and God combined, is the Ultimate Good Boy. This dude is Puppy Kiss Central, this dude chips in on Pizza Thursday every week, and makes up for those who didn’t chip in. Karna lets you take the last chicken nugget. Karna lets you use Player 1 when you hang out at his place. Karna tells you to text him or call him once you get home after hanging out and he gets worried if you don’t. That dashing guy you saw doing volunteer work at the homeless shelter the other day? Probably Karna. The owner of Old Friends Dog Sanctuary? Definitely Karna.

He’s GOOD.

And that’s why the Mahabharata is so painful: I don’t speak Hindi, but I am pretty sure “mahabharata” translates directly to “Karna Has Bad Day :(”. Today, we’ll be talking about Karna’s Three Curses, with a little bit of his childhood for context on the first one, and because I just want to talk about his dumbass mom. Also that one time he clowned Arjuna and Planet Fucking Earth got mad at him.

SO, there was this lady named Kunti, princess of the Kunti Kingdom (yeah), and this one time she was the host to a sage named Durvasa, who was visiting. She is a most Excellent Host, and provided Durvasa with the best of services, the most delicious food, the most luxurious of drinks, and every volume of Detective Conan, and Durvasa was so stoked at this 10/10 Would Come Again service, that he gave Kunti a special boon: With a mantra he taught her, she now had the amazing power to get knocked up by any deity of her selection. Kunti was really happy with her new pregnancy powers, and couldn’t wait to try them out, so she did to call upon the Sun God Surya, and guess what fucking happened: That’s right, fucking happened. It was a violent and intense cyclone of sex so kinky that the baby was born with armor and earrings (in some versions, Surya “handed” the child to Kunti, but in others, which I opt to believe, Kunti bore his child, and his fat solar load was so powerful that the fetus was armored). And then Kunti was like “oh fuck it worked lol but I am not wed” and since she didn’t want to be an unmarried mother (refer to Hindu tradition for this one), so she did like many other Mothers In Mythology and she put Armor Baby on a basket and set him afloat on the rivER LIKE A REAL KUNT, IT WAS IN HER NAME ALL ALONG, WHY DO YOU ASSHOLES KEEP DOING THIS.

THE REST IS UNDER THE CUT BECAUSE THIS IS TURNING LONG.

Like many other Babies In Mythology, Armor Baby was found by someone, this someone being a charioteer named Adhiratha, but not just ANY charioteer, this was the chief charioteer of King Dhritarashtra, who I hope will forgive me if I wrote his name wrong, and was adopted by the charioteer and his wife, Radha. Armor Baby was given a name, Vasusena, and his pet name was Radheya among the locals. Being born an armored baby, it should come as no surprise Vasusena was interested in the military arts, and so he approached this really cool dude named Dronacharya who taught princes about warfare, BUT Drone told the armor kid to fuck the off because he only taught Kshatriyas (the military social caste in Hindu culture), but he was very impressed by Vasusena’s guts because this shit ass kid more or less just strolled into his house and said “HEY TEACH ME HOW TO BE A BADASS”, so he suggested to his father to change his name to Karna, which means “one who peels his own skin”, as a reference to his guts and totally not any sort of foreshadowing to anything NO SIR WHY WOULD YOU THINK THAT.

So ok he got a cool name and whatever, bUT SEE, he still got told to fuck off, which he DIDN’T LIKE, so Cartman, not one to be daunted, sought out Dron’s own teacher instead, because fuck you, that’s why. So Kane finds him, name of Parashurama, and asks him BUT FIRST he disguises himself as a Brahmin, because Futurama only teaches Brahmins, and Karlos was not gonna make THE SAME MISTAKE TWICE. Panasonic agrees, seeing potential in this Double Goku kid and so begins the training arc. Result: Parashurama proudly announces that Karna is his equal in the art of warfare and archery. All this heaving and hoing gets my man Parmesan tired, though, so Karna, ever the good boy, offers his sensei his lap so he can sleep, sensei says fuck yeah and he uses his lap pillow. While he is sleeping, however, a very angry bee goes and stings the hell out of Karna’s thigh, but he’s got his sensei on his lap, which is like when you have a cat or a puppy on your lap and it falls asleep and you do not DARE move. So he didn’t, and this leads to a very important lesson to be learned in the Mahabharata: NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED. When he woke up, Parashurama saw the wound and the blood that flowed from it (and from this, I take bees in India are Cazadores from Fallout New Vegas) and immediately realized that Kane was NOT a Brahmin. This lie meant he had ILLEGALLY STOLEN INFORMATION, and so he cast a curse on Karna that made him forget everything about how to wield the divine weapon Brahmandra-astra, an immensely powerful divine weapon he learned to use, but Karna pleaded to please be reasonable, at which point Par realized, hey, maybe this is kinda excessive and impulsive, so he reduced the curse to make it so Karna would only forget it when he needed it the most against an equally powerful warrior, which IS NOT ANY FUCKING BETTER, and then he felt EVEN WORSE because Karna had basically been his best student ever and is a Good Person, so he gave him his own divine weapon, the Bhagavastra, as well as his bow, Vijaya. I mean, you could’ve just. Undone the curse. But hey. New weapons!

So Karna, a dedicated and excellent archer, was VERY HYPED to try out this new legendary bow he had come to own! There’s a thing in Hindu martial arts called “Shabdavedi Vidhya”, the art of hitting a target by detecting the source of the sound. What Karna didn’t consider is that shooting things by just detecting their sound, you know, means you are not REALLY LOOKING AT WHAT YOU ARE SHOOTING, but hey, like eager-to-try-new-toys mother, like eager-to-try-new-toys son. Three guesses as to what happened. You are RIGHT, HE SHOT A FUCKING COW. And it’s not with a little arrow or a harmless stick, this was with the Vijaya, which means that cow was obliterated off the face of this god damn planet. My dude was practicing “shooting at sounds” with a tactical nuke launcher. What the tits did he expect to happen. SEE, I’m sure you know, but shooting cows in India is not exactly something you just apologize about. But Karna, albeit not the brightest crayon in the box, was still Ultimate Good Boy, so he went to apologize to the owner of the cow, who happened to be an actual Brahmin who had performed the Agnihotra rite daily, which made him extra holy. Brahmin, of course, was pissed, and since apparently people in India just have a full moveset of curses ready to sling at a moment’s noticed, cursed Karna AGAIN, with this curse being “fated to die a helpless and callous death”. Not the best series of days for Karna. He could’ve just walked away, but he’s a Good Boy, so he had to take responsibility. NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED.

So I want to call attention to this bitch of a life for a second: Baby is born because some cunt used her super pregnancy powers to see if they worked without considering the consequences of, you know, getting super pregnant, Baby is chucked into a basket and sent to fuck off on the rapids, is picked up, immediately tries to enroll with a fighting master, instead enrolls with a SUPER fighting master that taught the previous fighting master, and gets double cursed for being a good boy and having bad trigger discipline.

Now, let’s skip a couple of chapters, and we arrive at the moment where the Pandava princes, all demi-gods, hosted a “tournament” of sorts to show off their skills to the people and to their guru, Drona. They were all having a good time, being badass and superpowered WHEN SUDDENLY Karna shows up and arrogantly challenges them because he knows he can do better, from what he has seen. One of the princes, Arjuna (kept you waiting, huh?), who was regarded by Drona to be the most powerful and skilled on the Pandava, told him to maybe fuck off, and that they couldn’t compete because they were above him, as his caste was no doubt lower than theirs. A certain pair of ears DID NOT LIKE THIS and jumped to Karna’s defense: Duryodhana is the name of the owner of said ears, and he’s got Authority. How much of it? Well, he just up and named Karna King of Anga then and there, just so he could compete. Holy SHIT. Now, see, Duryo hates the Pandava. Duryo REALLY, REALLY HATES the Pandava, and he was 100% behind supporting this random stranger if it meant he could possibly maybe humiliate these ugly sumbitches. Maybe. Ok, see, here’s where it gets a bit weird, but depending on who tells the tale, Duryo and Karna actually already knew each other and were childhood friends, but most tellings make this their first meeting, and I am absolutely on board with that, because it only goes on to show how much Duryo hated the Pandava, and divine people in general. He just fucking HATED gods, man. Can relate. So Karna goes and UTTERLY OUTDOES AND UPSTAGES the Pandava princes. Outright beats all their highscores and writes “ASS” in the 1st Place billboard on each entry as his name. They are all FURIOUS at him, especially Arjuna, who had aced every single event, and now had to wear a nice 2nd place on all of them because this absolutely nobody (no one knew Karna was the sun’s son yet) showed up and utterly pulverized them. This also starts his relationship with Duryo, with whom he’d become fast, and eventually, best friends.

BUT, SEE, HE KINDA GOT MADE A KING, SO HEY, HE HAD TO GO, UH, TEND TO THAT. He was checking his brand new sudden kingdom, when he came across a WEEPING CHILD. If there is one thing Ultimate Good Boy can’t stand, that’s the tears of children, so he approached the girl and asked what’s wrong. See, the girl had accidentally dropped her ghee (kinda like butter but less dense) and she was going to get her ass whooped by her step mother. Karna kindly offered to buy her new ghee, but she said it had to be THAT SPECIFIC ghee with the dirt on it, and that she didn’t want any other. Karna, in his infinite kindness, said “oh, sure, lol”, so he grabbed the dirt and squeezed it with all of his extremely godly might, extracting the ghee back into the jar as if squeezing water out of a sponge, because that’s just the kind of solution you come up with when you are the strongest person in Ever.

hey

hey

you guys remember what I said a while ago?

WHY YES

NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED.

Guess what happened. Guess whose anger he incurred. He got Bhumi Devi/Mother Earth herself pissed at him. And what was her beef, you ask? Well, see, Karna squeezed that soil SO DAMN HARD that she took offense. Yes. Really. And guess whSHE FUCKING CURSED HIM TOO, OH MY GOD, CEASE THIS, YOU CAN’T JUST HEX A DUDE FOR SQUEEZING DIRTY, COME ON. The curse this time was that she would one day trap his chariot’s wheel during a crucial moment in his life. All because that little girl wouldn’t make do with a new jar of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter.

WORST. WORLD. EVER.

And guess how Karna dies.

Yes.

His chariot’s wheel gets trapped on the earth (third curse) during a crucial confrontation with Arjuna, he attempts to defend himself with his astral weapon, but forgets how to conjure it (first curse), and is decapitated by a shot of Arjuna’s Gandiva as he helplessly leans against the chariot’s wheel, unable to free it (second curse).

The moral of the story is don’t fucking help anyone, ever, and don’t own up to your mistakes, because if you do, you’ll be triple cursed.

                                                                                       Karna deserved better.

[thatweirdmod]

Windowless Moviemaker Chapter 1: Routine

Author: I’m u/thatweirdmod from the explicitliterature subreddit.

STORY:

Windowless Moviemaker Chapter 1: Routine

TWO WEEKS AGO:

I hover behind a nude woman, her head and hands imprisoned inside a pillory. She groans as I stuff a vibrator into her vagina.

"Kidney, are you getting this?" I ask, my voice altered by the voice changing mask over my head.

"Sure thing," he responds with a low chuckle.

He’s standing next to me, naked and fully erect, and holding a video camera. He films me forcing my dick inside the woman’s asshole.

She screams. Must be feeling the skin tearing.

"Oh wow, that's so tight," I moan. I keep going, thrusting in and out as deep and fast as I can manage.

The sensations of the constricting, hot little hole on my dick, combined with the vibrations from the toy on the other side of the flesh wall are arousing beyond belief! I hear her sniffling and crying.

"Quick! Get her face." I tell Kidney, while continuing to anally rape the woman.

"Please, please stop," she begs. In response, I give her cheeks a hard smack and double my efforts of destroying her ass with my cock. "It hurts," she mewls, bursting out in tears.

"Ohhh, that's good. I'm gonna come soon," I grunt. "Shoot her from behind now," I say to Kidney. "Look, her pussy's soaking wet  from the vibrator, and her asshole is all bloody now." Kidney and I both chuckle in satisfaction.

"Damn, that so hot," he says, and zooms in on her privates while they're getting fucked. "I can't help myself," he says, overcome with lust.

Kidney sets the camera up on the tripod, walks to the front of the woman, and grabs a fistful of her hair. "Suck me," he orders, pushing his erection past her lips. "Suck it as far down your throat as it'll go."

She takes him into her mouth, doing her best to service him as her asshole and vagina are ravaged from behind.

"Yeah, there you go," Kidney groans. "Keep your mouth opened wide like that so you don't use your teeth."

He pushes her head further onto his stiff penis. She chokes a bit, but keeps on at the deeper level. "Now that's how a real woman gives head," he says, a smirk in his tone. "This is way better than a school girl."

I rip the vibrator out of the woman's cunt, flinging her juices in the process, then shove my dick inside. "Damn, what a horny bitch," I slap her ass, nice and hard. She cries out, causing her to choke on the dick in her mouth. "I'll cream you nice and good, don’t you worry."

Kidney lets out a high pitched grunt, as he jizzes all over the woman's face. I up my pace, jackhammering in and out of her vagina. On the final thrust, I push my penis in up to my balls release my seed deep inside her.

After Kidney and I have satisfied ourselves, we take the woman out of the pillory, shove her down to the ground, then high five each other.

“Alright!” Kidney says. “We got some great footage tonight.”

"Remember," I tell the woman, smirking under my mask. "We recorded everything on video. Unless you want your friends, family, boyfriend, coworkers, and everyone in between to see it, you'll keep quiet about today."

She nods, sitting limply on the ground with fear quivering in her puffy eyes.

"Just think," I continue for good measure, "Of how humiliating it would be if everyone saw this. You, bent in a pillory, completely exposed with your ass in the air. Pussy drooling all over a vibrator, tits hanging down like cow udders, as you're fucked and molested by two random guys.

That's all anyone would be able to see or think about when they saw you. They'd never forget.

Goodbye friend. Goodbye daughter. Goodbye diligent worker. Goodbye whatever you were before. You'd just be the one that got raped- the victim everyone has to tiptoe around.

I bet you can feel it already, the atmosphere turning heavy, the laughter dying, as soon as you enter the room." The woman stares down blankly as I go on. "Sure, everyone would feel bad for you, but no one would want you.

When you'd be with your man, you'd know what he'd be thinking- that his woman was tainted, covered and smothered by other men. You can feel it, can't you? His fingers holding back, never to truly to embrace you again."

I watch her eyes fill with water. "You're no better than a whore now." I tell her, savoring every word.

The tears stream silently down her face and splatter on the concrete floor of the underground bunker.

"But," Kidney adds in, "No one has to know how dirty and damaged you are. After we let you out, you'll be free. You can return to your life as normal, to the joy and acceptance of your friends and family. So..."

He pauses and tosses a water bottle and a bottle of pills over to her.

"Go ahead and take 2 of those. They'll ensure that you won't have to worry about any pregnancy, and the side effects aren't too bad."

She shakily reaches for them, sniffling.

"Just go about your business as usual," Kidney says to the woman as she swallows the pills. "That way, everything will be alright."

PRESENT:

"'Everything will be alright' huh?" I wonder to myself, as I lean back in my seat and sigh.

Kidney is sitting at desk next to mine. He brushes his sandy brown bangs back from his eyes, as he pretends to focuses intently on the school work before him.

I attempt to begin re-playing another night in my mind, but the teacher's rambling is getting on my nerves. I know it's his job, but I can't concentrate like this. It's so fucking hot too, I think, as I flap my white button up shirt to puff air over myself.

"Jeeto!" The teacher snaps. Finally got enough of my obvious inattention, eh?

"Perhaps you can give us the answer?" He says.

Damn, this is so cliche. I have no idea what he was talking about, besides the basic fact that it must have to do with geometry. There's a triangle on the chalkboard. The annoying, salt 'n pepper haired man in front of me crosses his arms, waiting.

"I... *huge yawn interrupts my sentence* I have no idea, man... sir."

Mr. Simon clicks his tongue, putting his hands on his hips like a sassy bitch.

"Well perhaps you can get an idea in detention, young man."

The students around the classroom chuckle and giggle.

I groan and rake a hand through my mid-length, brown hair. What a waste of my lifespan.

After school finally lets out, a familiar scenario plays out again. It's of me walking slowly, taking in nature under the orange hue of evening, with potato chips and diet soda on my mind. The convenience store close to my house is one of my favorite places in this little secluded town.

Outside, I see Kidney. He's leaning against the brick building eating an ice cream thing from the store. I go over to him.

"Hey," I say.

"Hey yourself," Kidney replies, with the corners of his mouth tugged upwards. "Have you seen the cutie who just moved here yet?"

"Which one?" I ask. "The way I heard it from those gossipy old nags, the new single dad's a pretty fine piece."

"Maybe so. That just explains where she got it from," Kidney says, grinning fiendishly at the thought of the girl as he licks his ice cream.

"You gonna scare 'em off already? They're probably not even done unpacking," I say.

"Hmm, I think I'm gonna do this the nice way," Kidney answers, a plan gleaming in his eye.

He tosses his ice cream stick on the ground, even though there's a bin a few steps away. "You win 2 tickets to Rocket Roller theme park if you're lucky enough to pick the right Creamtastical Pop," he says.

I laugh. "Don't tell me that's actually got you buying 'em everyday."

"Whatever, man."

"You're just part of the 999,999 that beefs up their sales while they give a sliver of that beef to the 1 in 1,000,000 that wins their shitty prize. A literal sucker, 'cause it's ice cream on a stick."

"But," Kidney says as we walk into the store, "I can't help loving consumerist culture. Indulgence is in the air. Besides, Creamtastical Pops really are the bomb."

"Welcome!" The old woman at the counter says. "If it's not our most frequent customers."

I smile back at her and say, "Hey, Roodle."

Yeah, that's her name- Roodle. She's the manager of this permanently under-staffed store. She's here 6 days every week, in a green polo shirt with her gray hair pulled back into a pony tail, running the register and almost every damn thing in between.

Somehow, I imagine myself in her shoes when I'm that age, and I don't have any problem with it.

Even though it's just a convenience store job, I'd say she busts her ass, so I never sneak too much into the pockets of my dress pants when she dashes into the backroom or down an aisle. You could say I've got boundaries with Roodle.

Kidney's over at the freezers, and I see him slip a Creamtastical Pop into his pocket. But he grabs a 2nd one and holds it openly to purchase.

While I peruse the chips selection, he walks behind the counter. He opens the glass door of the cigarette cabinet, takes a carton like it's totally natural, and walks back out, just before Roodle reappears.

I glance between them, a little nervous. I don't want it to get awkward when I come here because my friend got caught stealing, you know? Roodle didn't notice shit, though.

Fucking hell. If I succeed her, I'm gonna install cameras for sure. Corporate would hear a case and a half from me if they protested.

I'm thinking we've mulled around long enough, so I force myself to decide on two bags of chips and go up to pay.

Kidney and I walk together down the sidewalk, as the nostalgic orange glow around us hints at cooling into night. I glance to my left, taking small satisfaction in how the trajectory of my gaze to Kidney's face is at a slight downward angle.

He's double fisting his ice cream bars, biting one then the other. He hums a happy laugh. "The vanilla one is the one I paid for, the angel. And the chocolate one is the devil one, the one I stole."

I watch him devour the two masses of sugar and fat. The Creamtastical Bar is a dessert more multi-faceted than most people. It's an ice cream sandwich coated in fudge, then smothered in whipped cream, then coated in a chocolate, vanilla, or fruit flavored shell, sometimes with a chopped nut finish.

If just one kind wasn't enough to satisfy their loyal customers, the company has made dozens of variations and limited editions. You'd gain a 100 kilos just by trying each of them.

"By the way, when did you start smoking?" I ask Kidney.

"Huh? Never had," he replies. "I just thought I'd try some cigarettes today. I've been pretty stressed out lately. Maybe a nice drag and a hit of nicotine will hit the spot."

"Nicotine's lame," I say. "If you're gonna smoke something, at least go for weed. I hear it comes with less cancer too."

"Well, cigs come with less cops."

"Not necessarily if you steal them."

"Oh please, Jeeto," Kidney says, smiling. "Good ol' Roodle wouldn't call the cops, even if she did catch me. She's a total push-over. A decent apology is all I'd need."

We walk up the incline that goes past the playground. I observe at the worn down swings and other sad looking equipment. Kidney and I used to hang out here a lot as kids.

The place isn't as fun now that the slide is too short to have a real slide down, and the fall from the monkey bars is too low to fear. Though, we still come back to the swings sometimes.

The swings...

I notice a girl sitting on one alone. "Hey, that's her," Kidney whispers, looking past me.

Speak of the devil, we were just going up to her house so I could get my first look around.

"Who's 'her' anyway?" I ask. "You never told me her name."

"Oh yeah. It's Rilla."

I examine her from where I stand, but a ray of sunlight is blocking some important parts of her from view. Thinking, what the hell, I walk off the sidewalk and start across the grass over to her.

Her head is low, auburn bangs hanging over her forehead. She's in thought, maybe, before she notices me and looks up. My heart doesn't skip a beat or anything, but I'm not unhappy.

"Hi," I say cordially.

She stands, giving me a better look at her legs. She's a little short, but they're nicely proportioned. She's in a skirt that stops teasingly just above her knees.

I'm careful to smile with warmth and not pleasure. "My name's Jeeto. I heard you moved into the neighborhood a few days ago."

"That's right," she says, like the kind of person who has to work past their shyness a little for every word. "I'm Rilla... Rilla Arocci."

"Welcome to Grishee Town, Rilla. It's really nice to meet you."

She returns my smile reservedly. "You too, Jeeto."

"I'm from the Fuma household, which I believe is a straight shot down the street from you," I say. "If you ever need anything, I'll be happy help, alright?"

Rilla nods and says, "Thank you."

"Well, I've gotta go now. See you around."

She says goodbye and we wave to each other as I walk off the playground. Instead of continuing up the slope to her house, I turn back to head home. Just as I start to wonder where Kidney went, I see him hiding behind a tree, with two unmarked ice cream sticks at his feet.

"Playing the voyeur on her's one thing," I say to him. "But I was back there too."

"Very funny," he grumbles. "I told you, not so much as a half hour ago, that I was gonna get Rilla. Where do you get off jumping the gun on me?"

I shrug. "I only introduced myself. You could've come and said hi too."

"Dumbass. One guy is bad enough. Two guys approaching a lone girl is only sure to scare her. Women are pretty fragile, and wary like rabbits, you know. It's a pain, but it's true."

"Rabbits are like that because they know there are foxes in the world. Women know that there are men like us."

"So now it's our fault?" Kidney challenges. "We're not out to kill them like foxes, unless they take it to that level themselves. If they'd just give it up, neither party would have these problems."

“But we don’t really want them to just give it up, do we?” I counter.

“Well, half my point still stands,” Kidney insists.

I just shrug again. "Wanna play some Mortal Kombat at my place?"

"Sure, even if we do already know how it's gonna turn out," Kidney says, now smirking. "Kidney wins! Flawless victory. Fatalityyyyy!"

"If you were a Mortal Kombat character," I begin, "What'd your finisher be anyway?"

"I dunno. It'd have to be something where I tore out their kidneys with my bare hands."

By the time darkness has fallen outside my bedroom window, I've thoroughly gotten my ass beat via console.

My knuckles redden as I squeeze my controller in rage- the diet form of hurling the piece of shit at the wall. Kidney can't stop laughing, which is what's really pissing me off.

"Fuck it," I say. "I'm gonna go get something to eat." I leave my bedroom, slamming the door behind myself.

Soon, I'm listening dully to the sounds of the humming microwave, crickets chirping loudly outside, and grease popping on my buffet takeout. I go back upstairs with my food, and find Kidney scrutinizing my shelf.

"You really oughta hide those DVDs we made better," he whispers to me. "You can't just leave them here with all your normal stuff."

"Why not?" I say lackadaisically. "Unmarked, empty looking discs aren't particularly interesting when they're next to a bunch of movies, TV shows, and porn."

Kidney just frowns. "The whole, 'hidden in plain sight' thing is bound to backfire eventually. You live with your mom and kid sister for fuck's sake, and they don't exactly respect your privacy.

Say one of them gets bored, and decides to kill time by having a look through your stuff. After getting through everything else, they might wanna check if there's anything on those unmarked DVDs.

Hell, what if one of them was even looking for an empty DVD to rip stuff onto. They see those, think there's probably nothing on 'em, and that you won't mind if they take one. It'd all be over then."

"Alright, alright," I groan. "I'll put 'em somewhere else. But where?"

"Inside your mattress would be good. You make a hole in it, put the DVDs in the hole, and sew it back as it was. I bet not even cops would find them there."

"The hell?" I question. "Am I supposed to dig them out and put them back like that every time I wanna watch them?"

"No. You burn them onto your computer, and store the videos in an encrypted, hidden folder.

The DVDs are only supposed to be backup storage, in case you have to delete the stuff off the computer, or its hard drive gets corrupted. Things like that."

"All of this sounds like a huge pain," I say as I stuff my face.

"Come on, it's easy," Kidney assures me.

"If it's so easy, then you can do it yourself," I tell him, and plop down onto my twin sized bed. "My computer's password is 'jeetocheeto69365'."

"Isn't that your username on Runescape? You really are careless," Kidney sighs, and logs on.

By the time I finish my dinner, Kidney is still ripping the DVDs onto the computer. I decide to kill time by getting some preparations together.

"We're going to need more animal tranquilizer after this one," I tell him, as I draw the last bit of liquid from a glass bottle into a small syringe. It's your turn to buy it, so order some online soon, alright?"

"Fine," Kidney agrees.

"And hurry up and get done with that already," I say. "I wanna get going to Mrs. Horatay's house soon."

"Why so impatient?" Kidney asks. "We still have several hours of night left before even the earliest risers start getting up. It's actually still a little early."

"Do you even have to ask why I'm impatient?" I ask as I pack rope into a black backpack. "You've seen her too, after all."

Kidney grins. "If I was her husband, I'd hate to have to leave that rack for a boring business trip, on the week of our anniversary, no less. I'll be sure to give her a good titty fucking in his absence."

I laugh. "It's funny how we've never even spoken to the Horatays, but we know all this shit about them. Gossiping housewives are truly a force to be feared. If I ever get married, it'll be to a quiet woman."

Kidney lets out a scoff. "A ring around the finger is like a collar around the neck. I look at it as a symbol of bondage.

We do most things with our hands and fingers, so rings are placed around them to show that everything you do after marriage is under your spouse's control."

"Are you sure you're not just saying that because your dad's a pussy whipped loser?"

"Tsk," Kidney grumbles, as he removes the final DVD from the tray. "Flip your mattress over, will you. It's time to put these away."

I do as he asks, then watch him go to work on hiding the DVDs.

"You're a pretty good seamstress," I remark. "You'll have to give me an embroidery lesson sometime."

"Say what you want, sewing is a useful practical skill, same as cooking. I won't be dependent on some bitch to take care of me," Kidney says.

"Yeah," I agree. "I'm gonna have to know how to close the mattress on my own after we make new movies anyway."

There's a pause before I ask, "How's Krin doing?"

He bristles. "Why should you care about my little sister?"

I sigh, "What's the problem? You're always complaining about how annoying she is. She's a lot like mine." I grin, then say, "I'd be fine with you fucking Sota, you know."

I notice Kidney swallow, then I laugh.

"I know you want to, man. It's totally obvious."

He has no counter to this.

"How about we strike a deal? I'll slip some roofies to Sota, if you do the same with Krin."

"Krin's not annoying all the time," Kidney says softly. "I've talked about how she badgers me into doing homework and chores and takes my stuff without asking. But, I guess I've never mentioned how it really is between us."

I listen with an eyebrow raised.

"In the town we lived in before, our old man had a pretty nasty fall from grace. The folk there were cliquish to begin with, big families rooted in years of tradition.

So, that incident only ensured that we were completely rejected- all of us Bellourds. "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree," they'd say, so the adults didn't want their kids around me or Krin.

Nobody really spoke to us. Even if they didn't understand why, we were just rotten apples to be avoided. Even so, we weren't lonely.

We were able to stay together a lot, because we're only a year apart. Things were nice with just the two of us." Kidney smiles in recollection.

"We played around all time back then: hide and seek in the woods, role playing, a lot made up games too... One day, we decided to play doctor in Krin's room.

I can't remember whose idea it was, but I remember that after she checked my breathing, if behind my ears were clean, and everything else, I ended up lying on the pale gray carpet for a "down there checkup."

After my checkup was over, it was my turn to be the doctor, and do the whole routine on her.

After that time, we'd play doctor every few days. And after a while, the patient started to always end up saying, 'Hurry up and get to the down there checkup.' That eventually became all the doctor game was about.

We didn't know much, except that it felt good, and that we didn't wanna get caught doing the down there checkups.

Over time though, we stopped bothering to call them checkups, or asking, 'Wanna play doctor?' We'd just go into a bedroom, close the door behind ourselves, and touch each other.

We didn't stop, even after our family finally got enough money to move here, and we both made other friends. And one time back in junior high, our parents went on vacation.

We had a long day of doing whatever we wanted around the house, got tired, crashed on the couch, and turned the TV on to some lame channel.

I got hard, which wasn't unusual when we were alone, but this time we both felt it was different.

Now, we had all the time in world to go as far as we wanted. That day, when we lost our virginities together, is the most cherished memory I have.

It was amazing, almost heavenly. I'd never felt that close to anyone before. I felt so warm and complete- so happy and at home.

Even now, the honest moments between me and Krin are the most precious things to me. I'm not ready to accept any other man into the picture, Jeeto."

I sigh, "But any other woman is fine?"

"What I do with those other women isn't like what me and Krin have together. They're nothing," Kidney says.

"Krin would be nothing to me, and as for her, she wouldn't even know who it was. That's hardly getting into your precious picture, then, is it?"

"But Krin is something!" Kidney says emphatically. He then reins himself in. "I just don't want anyone doing her that way. End of discussion. I'm going back to my place to change and pick up my bag."

"Alright," I say lazily. "But you know, for someone who I thought hated women, you've got an annoying soft spot for one."

"Meet you at Mrs. Horatay's house," he says.

I watch his back with narrowed eyes as he leaves, wondering if Krin's little pussy would feel as "heavenly" for me if I forced her down on her knees and fucked her.

If and when that happens, I'll let her know that she has her brother to blame the most.

I might have let this go if Kidney didn't make such a big deal about it. But he just made her forbidden fruit, and a woman should understand, how a forbidden fruit is more enticing than all the others in the garden.