#science fiction makes me sick sometimes

[a-dash-in-the-middle]

watching the eighty-six. stomach turning, sweat, walked, fought the air, air screamed, i cant.

[inthemaelstrom]

So we're about six weeks out from another "most important election of my lifetime" and it's predictably making me literally sick to my stomach. When Trumpacabra got elected in 2016, I threw myself into politics in a way I never had in my lifetime and it almost wrecked me. I was one of those people who never voted for religious reasons (long, separate story) and I felt I had to make up for lost time. By the time 2020 rolled around, I was an unhealthy mess. I had stopped reading. Everything. When I wasn't watching MSNBC and political commentators obsessively, I started consuming absolute junk TV: home improvement shows, crack paranormal ghost hunter crap, etc. Things with no plot, no emotional investment, no danger. No fear.

Right before the 2020 election, old fanfic friends from my days in the Master and Apprentice Star Wars listserv found me and saved me.

They dragged me back into fandom, introduced me to Discord, and got me writing again. I updated a story I hadn't touched in 5 years. I made new friends online and in RL. I got some great fiction and fic recs from those friends and discovered a subgenre called Hopepunk—low stakes fiction with very little if any violence and fear and with happy endings. (Becky Chambers writes a lot of what I read, and Amy Crook has also become a favorite.)

One morning, I had one of those really vivid, realistic, linear plot dreams that literally dragged me out of bed to the keyboard. It was a meet-cute modern au of The Phantom Menace's characters, set in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I cranked out about 2000 words the first day. Then another 2000. Then another 2000. Then another 2000. And so on every damn day for the next four years until I had four novels, about 668k words, several timestamps written by three other collaborators who've come on board, some beautiful art I've been allowed to use, and now a fifth book in the works.

This is the Yooperverse.

It's not just The Fic That Saved Me, it's the place where I'm writing a vision of what the world could be like into being. A place where people with fucking obscene amounts of money don't spend it on themselves, or hoard it, or exploit other people to get more, but use it to help other people. It's a place where people who are bigoted dicks either get their comeuppance and crawl back under their rocks, or learn better and do better. It's a place where abused kids get rescued, everybody gets therapy and healthcare and is paid a living wage, people learn to value themselves and each other, and protect each other and defend each other. It's kinky and queer (although I'm neither) and above all, if not entirely safe to be both, I'm trying to write both things as just being another setting on the dryer. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It's not a utopia, by any means, because there are still assholes and the government is still ... the government, and capitalism is still a thing. There's some danger, especially in the first book, and there are accidents and illnesses and the vagaries of life. In the middle of the series, I had spinal surgery and was out of commission for a few months and that made me start thinking more about my main character dealing with aging and the limitations thereof. There's a LOT of mental health issues and the working through thereof, and a lot of ongoing process. Nobody's perfect. The world outside is still pretty much what it is. But in the little corners where my characters dwell, life is pretty dang good, sometimes great.

It's a vision of a life we all deserve. It's the thing I loved about Star Trek's universe, where people's basic needs are cared for and the obstacles to them developing their best selves removed. It's what I've loved about science fiction in general, especially Ursula LeGuin's: that opportunity to explore possibilities that are better than the present. It's modeled on the MacArthur Genius grants, but you don't have to prove your worthiness first. My main character invests in people's potential, young or old, with scholarships and grants and a steadying hand. His partner builds low or no-cost housing for people in need. There's an informal network of queer and straight kid rescuing going on under the noses of unfriendly governments and failed social service safety nets. The main characters build refuges, literal and emotional. They love each other fiercely and respectfully.

Right now, we're living in a country that is almost the antithesis of these ideas, for far too many of us. People are being manipulated by their fears, which are stoked by unscrupulous, lying shitbag politicians whose all too real evil would never make it past the pitch if you were going to try to sell it as a TV show or movie. They're consciously turning us on each other with lies about our common humanity, about the state of our country, about who and what's responsible for many of its faults, sewing suspicion and hate. And though the Yooperverse started as my personal comfort fic, I'm trying in my very small way to counteract what's happening in the world right now.

I've always believed in the power of story to change people's minds and lives, and I've experienced it myself. When I talk about story, I don't just mean fiction, though. I mean the narratives we tell ourselves and others about our own lives as a whole and day by day or moment by moment. I mean the stories we tell about each other when we're together, at the bar, at wakes, at a party. I mean the stories we invest in as fans in whatever kind of media we consume. I mean the stories we spin for ourselves and others to explain what the everloving fuck is wrong with the world.

Stories aren't separate from the world, they are the world. They tell it into being. They give it shape and purpose and meaning and a sense of possibility. Whatever stories we tell ourselves or each other about how things should be or how we should act as human beings (also called our "beliefs" or "morals" or "ethics"), they shape us, and we shape society. We are society, both together and as individuals. One person with a big voice and a story can tip a mass of people into either violence or solidarity.

I have no illusions that the Yooperverse will ever have that kind of power. It has a tiny audience on AO3 and Discord and it's mostly written for me to explore the things I feel deeply about, and wish I could do, and to teach myself to be a better person and live up to my own ideals. It's a world I'd like to manifest, to call into being, even in a small way. Even if it's just a story.

[fangirltothefullest]

"I read some of the reblogs/tags from the proshipping post and one has got me thinking especially about the fictional minors, and certain restrictions like US not allow depictions of it. I get why this is a heated topic; but the moral responsibility should not be placed on the creators and the other people who enjoy in a fictional setting. I know that there will be really sick people who will use media as an excuse to do to certain heinous actions (like Fight Club) but i do think that is on those members of thr audience and not on the creator and those who are sensible enough not to that. There are so many things i wish i can articulate this better but i do hope that my words are enough. Let me know if you are alright discussing this with them or if you want me to stop."

i just get so tired because like.... i personally don't like that there are people who feel the need to write certain things or draw certain things and sometimes I wonder if the people who do write it need to go to therapy because maybe there's something that they could get help with.

But it sucks because like.... the moment you start policing what people write about it becomes an easy slope of "well EVERYTHING should be puritanical and censored to spare this group and that group" and suddenly it's an excuse to censor everything people consider even mildly "wrong". It's how "degenerates" are made out of homosexual and transgender people, how books are banned for talking about science, how even the most mundane of things we take for granted can so easily be labelled as "taboo" and banned.

There's so much bad that comes from censoring. If we just learned to be like you know what? There are more important things to think about than what random people online are writing about with fictional characters.

There's a reason this topic is heated and it makes sense but the whole point of the post was just to get people to think about the idea that instead of spending all day going "hey this person ships incest block them! Hate them! Send them hateful messages! Tell everyone you know to shun the beast!" it would save you so much energy and time to just.... walk away from this fictional thing you don't have to partake in. literally that's all.

But as usual it always devolves into whether people should get to draw fictional kids fucking or whatever because for some reason it's all or nothing for people.

I think the question for that post shouldn't be whether it's ok but whether we should not be dicks to the people who are like "dude if you wanna write about something I'm uncomfortable with, I'm just gonna hit da bricks"

[mindlessselfobsession]

KITTY AND LYN-Z ♡

KITTY ROLE: Drummer extraordinaire with a penchant for books and Adam & The Ants. MENTAL AGE: "Twelve." FAVOURITE PERSONAL ATTRIBUTE? '' I would have to go with my eyes. I don't know if they're lovely, but they're very large." ANY TATTOOS OR PIERCINGS? ''I do not! I am a complete non piercing non-tattooed person actually." WHO PUSHES YOUR BUTTONS? "We all actually really get along. On tour every single one of us at least once has an incredibly ridiculous blowout. You ATE the last piece of bread? I'm gonna KILL you. I HATE you all! But five minutes later you're like, "Wow, that was completely uncalled for.'' FAVOURITE RECORD TO GET SEXY TO? "I used to be really into music and making out, but I'm not really anymore. As far as music goes that I find very sexy, I would say Prince and Adam & The Ants." HOBBIES? ''I read a lot of science fiction, one of my favourite authors is lain M Banks. I love to read and I love to play videogames, I'm crazy about Guitar Hero! I think it's because I'm a drummer and I'm a terrible quitarist in real life. there's something really satisfying about Guitar Hero. I also love karaoke" HAVE YOU EVER BEEN ARRESTED? "Never. I'm the goody-two-shoes in the band. Actually, the secret is that I just get away with it. We won't talk about all the close calls." WHAT TOPIC MAKES YOU MAD? "People getting really bent out of shape about other people's personal business." LYN-Z ROLE: Inspirational bassist and visual artist. MENTAL AGE: "Sometimes I feel like I'm 80 and sometimes I feel like I'm a teenager." FAVOURITE PHYSICAL ATTRIBUTE? "Mostly I feel pretty indestructible, which is great.. Ah fuck it, I like my legs!" DID YOU DESIGN YOUR TATTOOS? "I didn't design them, but it was my concept. I wanted a traditional Japanese style Yakuza tattoo, but I wanted it with fire crackers." WHO PUSHES YOUR BUTTONS? "Steve. This is because Steve and I are the closest. I only ever fight with my sister, and people that I'm really, really, really close to, so that being said it's actually a compliment." FAVOURITE RECORD TO GET SEXY TO? "That's a kind of disturbing concept, and it's also so contrived! I like spontaneity." HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE YOU TO GET READY IN THE MORNINGS? "It takes me less time to get ready than it does the boys in the band. I need about 15 minutes to slap it all together.'' MOST GREGARIOUS ONSTAGE INJURY? "I've drawn blood a lot, and I've dislocated my knee. My lung collapsed after I had been sick, but I kept working non-stop." WHO DO YOU MISS MOST WHEN ON TOUR? "My husband." WHAT TOPIC MAKES YOU MAD? "The state of the US right now is pretty fucking disgusting. Our president is a complete joke. The thing that bothers me the most is that there are a lot of people in the US who aren't as enraged as I am, who aren't scratching their heads wondering how the hell this happened."

[altocat]

That Sephiroth is a normal dude that becomes a librarian AU is actually perfect for meeting Genesis later on lol.

...I have too many feelings about this lmao

Sephiroth is too content and distracted in life to notice when people are attracted to him. His only real aims are pleasing his parents and tending to his lovely collection of rare texts and research materials.

He's even considering writing a book himself someday! An encyclopedia of various constellations, or maybe even his own science fiction adventure.

His sexuality was an unexplored mystery to him, as was his acquaintance with love in general...until him.

Sephiroth is perusing the columns of the library's lower chamber when he spots the smug-faced auburn-haired man strolling casually about, a confident swagger in every step as he makes his way directly towards the poetry section.

At first, Sephiroth is unperturbed, noticing only when the same man keeps returning day after day, week after week. Most of the time, he comes alone. Sometimes with a dark-haired man his own age. Sometimes just to lounge around in the comfortable sofas on the upper level, always smirking and flipping through the pages as if savoring a fancy meal.

He always checks out the same book--some old pretentious text that Sephiroth finds less than digestible. Loveless. Sephiroth privately wonders why the man doesn't just go out and buy his own copy, always glancing over at him from across the stack of texts on his desk, silently annoyed, silently confused.

The man seems insufferably arrogant, swaying and strutting about as if he were a walking god among them, glancing knowingly over at Sephiroth from the corner of his eye, lips curling, almost taunting.

Sephiroth is not a violent man, and has always considered himself rather subdued and introverted. This is the first time he ever considers randomly strangling another human being.

It isn't until nearly a year has passed that they finally, finally speak to each other. Sephiroth is innocently cleaning up his desk when the redhead strides over and slams a hand down on the table in a way that echoes across the entire library. Sephiroth nearly jumps out of his skin, startled, perplexed and a little infuriated.

"Hey," the man purrs, leaning challengingly forward. "Let's get out of here."

"We close at four," Sephiroth murmurs shakily, leaning back, unexpectedly alarmed as the heat rushes down his neck and spine, his face flushing.

"So I'll wait."

"I'm busy."

"I'll wait."

"M-Mother's expecting me."

A snort of amusement. "You still live with your mom?"

"Erm...no." Sephiroth squirms. "But I often visit after..." He trails off, caught in the glinting glare of the man's piercing that dangles in the light, the smooth expanse of alabaster skin, all lithe, lean limbs and firm muscle. He feels momentarily sick, dizzy, his once composed and controlled tongue spiraling, the words strained and stupid. "...I'm busy," he finishes lamely.

The man just stares at him, smirks.

Sephiroth squirms again.

"See you at four."

As the man strolls confidently away, Sephiroth is left to goggle dazedly after him, feeling suddenly lost in the dull and dusty air around him, cursing himself, feeling decidedly disoriented, disgusted.

And intrigued.

He curses himself again, tries to rub the redness from his skin, swats at the stack of books in frustration, pulls at his hair and panics.

And meets Genesis outside at 3:30.

They are terrible, terrible creatures together forever after.

[muppetears-stuff]

Warren hate has always been ableist in the very beginning. He gets too much shit for not understanding Max's body language. He gets a lot of hate 'for not taking a hint' or understanding social cues. Hell in the very beginning of the fandom like in 2015 i think i remember there were angry pricefielders calling Warren the literal r slur because he's 'so stupid'. Their words not mine. l I've seen people talk about how they're convinced he's a s*ciopath or a n*rcissist or a ps*chopath which I find ableist and uncomfortable. I think the biggest red flag from the fandom is how there's a lot of shit talk about Warren is an 'obsessive freak/stalker' in their eyes to talking in general about how 'obsessiveness' and 'obsessions' are red flags and are signs of 'evil' apparently and not symptoms of mental illness or neurodivergency apparently. I really relate to Warren and I also suffer from obsessive and actual intrusive thoughts, so i find this fandom to be extremely cruel and alienating toward people with stigmatizing illnesses which I find explains the Chloe demonization bc she is so BPD coded. I don't think Warren is autistic coded like Max but I do think he's ADHD / OCD coded in a way I can't explain. Sorry to drop this really long rant in your inbox, but you're not wrong about the Warren demonization and I just wanted to say something about it. Becauze the demonization of all these characters go back to ableism and the Life Is Strange fandom is the most ableist fandom I've ever been in at all and that really speaks volume about how atrocious it is.

THIS ^^^ YES. FUCKING YES, ABSOLUTELY.

I find the Warren hate unwarranted (hehe) and SUPER FUCKING ABLEIST. you make amazing points, thank you for putting my thoughts into words anon🙏🙏

He very much struggles with social interactions, very evident by the way he only talks teachers or people that are into the same stuff as him, he can become very chatty, sometimes too much, when it comes to things he likes which comes off as "annoying" and "obsessive" when he just wants friends.

Mr. Well's talks about it in his student file, btw.

I share. Alot of the same traits as Warren, with myself also having ADHD and liking science and talking excessively to the point where I find MYSELF annoying.

It's so upsetting too that the developers leaned INTO the stalker/obsessive Warren allegations that I can't even fucking talk about him or mentioning that I like him on certain platforms without the fear of people saying I "support stalking" which I don't. I can't defend him and say that he wasn't stalking without someone going, "but it's canon, the developers confirmed it!!" Yeah well, Mark and Nathan have done some more fucked up shit and I still see people defend them. (I love Nathan too for his complexity and ability to become better. He just needed help, but it doesn't excuse anything he did.)

Warren is the best character. He had so much potential to be an amazing recurring character, but he was their simply for plot convenience or to make the player not suspicious that Mark could be behind everything because Warren was "creepy"

I'm probably gonna have people saying I'm being a baby over this and that he's a fictional character and stuff, you can totally have your own opinion on Warren Graham, I'm not telling you you can't, just please stop calling people who like him "stalkers" or say they support stalking and creepy behavior, when that isn't true. The amount of hate towards anyone that isn't Max or Chloe, and then the immediate hate on YOU for not liking them or liking/defending another character makes me sick, as well as the flat out abelism. The reason why I left the fandom in the first place before picking it back up because of Warren<3

Thank you again, Anon. For sending me such a lovely ask(?) And letting me rant about him because he's my favorite, and I agree with you so much, you're so right<3

[gorgeousundertow]

OTP: Brad/Nate

For @mutantmanifesto

inspired by this mega post. None are exact copies (that I'm aware of) but in keeping with the general tone.

TW: angst, suggestive content, etc.

Who would end a heated argument by defending their actions with ‘because I love you!’ ? Brad. I think the argument would get very wordy (obviously) and he would end up twisting himself into a logically impossible state, and have to resort to "Because I love you!" But - both do stupid things on account of love.

What would they do if the other woke in a manic state after a nightmare? matter-of-fact and reassuring; here's where you are, here's what's real.

Do they wear the other’s clothes? (sweatshirt, bandana, necklace, etc.) Nate steals Brad's clothes.

Which one is more protective? Who needs to be ‘protected’? Brad is more protective, but neither of them needs protecting.

Describe their cozy night in. Nate is reading, working on something, and Brad is fiddling with gadget. At some point they play a game like Risk or Scrabble and get really pissed at each other

Who would beg the other not to leave? Who has to leave to protect the other? Depending on the circumstance, either would leave to protect the other, but I could see it more likely to happen with Nate leaving Brad. I don't really see either of them begging the other stay bc they're dumb and don't use their words.

Would they build a pillow fort together just because? No.

What happens if one of them gets sick? Brad freaks the fuck out and makes soup and takes Nate's temperature every ten seconds. Nate is much more reasonable.

What are their thoughts on having children? I think they both like kids, but it might not occur to them that they would be good at it together for a long while.

Describe their first date. They don't have one. They just trip over themselves until they discover they've moved in together.

Do either try to hide their emotions if upset? Can the other still tell? Absolutely. They do not acknowledge the existence of emotions (maybe anger? Anger is fine) but yes, they can always tell.

Do they have many heated arguments? How do they smooth things over? They have some heated arguments, but a lot of the time everything gets said with the eyes.

Who’s the bigger tease? NATE.

How do their personalities compliment each other? How do they clash? They sometimes have disagreements because their values aren't exactly aligned; Nate is a lot more practical and ruthless than Brad is. In some ways Brad is more of an idealist--Brad pushes Nate to be a better version of himself, someone who doesn't need to compromise his own integrity, and Nate keeps Brad from getting lost in his own head.

Do they always say 'i love you' before leaving? No, but it's implied.

Can they stay up all night just talking? Oh yes, wandering down philosophical rabbit holes.

Who's more likely to pull the other in by the waist and kiss them passionately? Either one, whenever they think it's most likely to surprise the other.

How likely are they to have fur babies? How many and what kind? They strike me as dog people.

How do they feel about PDA? Uncomfortable with it due to Don't Ask Don't Tell, but in certain circumstances they might enjoy shocking their friends and family.

Choose one song that perfectly describes their relationship. R U Mine, Arctic Monkeys

Who would get into a fight to defend the other's honor? Who tends to the other's wounds? Lol both. But mostly Brad.

What reminds each of their partner? Little things. Brad of Nate: Baseball games, New Yorker Magazine, collared shirts, crossword puzzles, backpacks. Nate of Brad: Wired Magazine, Astounding Science Fiction, hydration packs, faded t-shirts, very organized dressers.

Who's more likely to convince the other to stay in bed come morning? Brad. Dude likes his sleep.

Who's more likely to give the other a massage? Neither unless there's sex involved, or an injury. If there's an injury, Brad.

Do they have any hobbies they share? They're very competitive, so anything that's a hobby becomes a competition.

What are their vices? Oh god. Being right?

Who is the light weight that needs to be taken care of after a party? Lol both. Brad's bigger, but he doesn't actually drink much because he likes to remain in control, so he's not used to it.

What are there thoughts on pet names? Do they have any? Only to annoy the other one.

Who is more likely to jump in an elevator? Who freaks out? Neither

Your OTP gets to pick out each other's outfits; what is each wearing? anything but a MOPP suit.

Can they sit side by side without touching the other or are they handsy? (lacing fingers, touching knees, etc.) They're pretty handsy actually. Nate maybe slightly more so.

Who's the better story teller? Brad. Brad Brad Brad.

Who's the better cook? Also Brad.

Who's more likely to tell a dirty joke or story to make the other blush? Definitely Brad, but occasionally Nate.

Who's more artistic? Nate

Who's more likely to fire up the stove at 2am because the other woke up in the middle of the night hungry? Brad

Which is more likely to swear? Brad

Who is more sexually experimental? Who's more vanilla? Nate is a dark horse.

Who would rescue an injured animal and nurse it back to health? What would the other think? Brad, and Nate would be resigned and on board

Who has an insatiable appetite? And what does the other do to help? Dark Horse Nate. Brad does not mind one bit.

Which one would take their jacket it off and drape over the other one because they were visibly shivering? Come on. Brad.

What's their favorite type of weather to enjoy together? (getting snowed in together, watching thunderstorms, etc.) These idiots would go out in the bad weather because it's neat.

Who would give their life for the other without a second thought? Both. Nate might try to think of another way for a hot second, actually, but he would still definitely do it.

Who would dance in the kitchen making dinner? Would the other join in or watch from the doorway? Brad would dance, Nate would join in (badly)

Can they fall asleep without the other? Yes, because they are professionals.

Would they get frisky at the movies by themselves? YES.

Does either of them have a secret that could potentially ruin their relationship? No.

Who's the better driver? Nate, because he's safer. Brad, because he's faster.

Does either of them have a hard time being away from the other? Yes, but mostly Brad. Not that he'd admit it.

who's more likely to do something out of spite? Nate.

What’s a non verbal way they say I love you? Sergeant/Sir (still verbal I guess but ya know)

Describe their weekend getaway? They each have a different version, and they try to meet each other's needs. For Brad, it's something adventurous, something that tests his limits, and Nate's game--so a long wilderness hike, foraging for food. For Nate, it's more likely more of a classic vacation

Would they ever go skinny dipping? Yes.

Who’s more likely to carry the other to bed? Brad.

Do they like watching clouds or star gazing? Star-gazing more likely, with Brad pointing out constellations and Nate telling the legends behind them.

What do they do turn the other on/put them in the mood? an eyefuck is all it takes

Whose the serious one when grocery shopping and who likes to toss random things in the cart? Nate makes a list, Brad tosses in anything

Who’s more likely to hold a grudge after an argument? Nate

Who tops? Who bottoms? Switch

Who pulls the other closer when they’re sleeping? Both

[theangelwithawand]

Ncuti Gatwa has my favorite Doctor intro. No sadness of a fan favorite departing hanging over him.

There’s something new, something other than the Doctor being sick or erratic. (It worked for especially well for Ten because of the story and because it gives his eventual reveal so much weight, and it gives him 15 minutes uninterrupted to showcase the full-range of his character), but that doesn’t have to be the formula forever.

This time we get so much time with a genuinely kind, energetic, supportive Doctor who said, “it’s okay to take a break. And while you do that, get the one thing you never let yourself have, I’m going to go be amazing. He straight up says “sit down, I’ve got this”

For the first time since I originally watched Born Again, I felt like I made a friend.

I don’t want this incarnation to actually be some weird limbo version of the Doctor that’s going to eventually regenerate into 15, because that means you’re taking away the beautiful, wonderful positivity and kindness that Fifteen innately possesses. Gatwa’s doctor is just an incarnation that is born ready to finally let go of angst and sadness that has defined the last two decades of the show.

Someone he loves (his past self) is going to take care of themselves and heal, and that’s what makes him okay. He’s not ‘fixing’ anyone, he’s not ONLY there to help. He wants to head back out into the stars immediately (well, evidently the club) and he does. As he should.

Fifteen is absolutely the Doctor. The Doctor who is kind and beautiful and fun from the word go. I can’t wait to watch his adventures.

Fourteen, for me, will forever be the Doctor in a garden telling stories and basking in the love of his family that he always wanted and finally has and can sneak his family off for low-stakes, but no less magical adventures. No future regenerations, no merging with Fifteen later down the line, no becoming the Valeyard.

If that’s not what the intent was…honestly I don’t care. If that’s what is revealed later… honestly I will probably ignore it.

Fourteen is explicitly told to just sit down for awhile, so I don’t feel like he’s hanging over 15. But if David comes back, I’ll still be in for a phenomenal performance of a wonderful incarnation of a character I adore, by an extremely talented actor who loves the show as much as any fan because he is one, and one who is getting the chance to continually fulfill his greatest childhood dream.

The specials are not perfect, but I can connect with them in a way I haven’t been able to connect to the show in a long time. There was a real focus on character again, something I personally enjoy in storytelling.

If that isn’t what you like, that’s fine. My opinions are just that, and by definition can’t be right or wrong.

Doctor Who is science FICTION. It is an endless web of retcons and contradictory lore. It is a show where an alien ship that fits an entire dimension inside of it, that can travel anywhere in all of time and space, looks like a police box and requires a key.

Sometimes I don’t need it to make perfect sense. Sometimes I just want to watch a character I love get something nice after being saved emotionally by his awesome queerplatonic bestie and his happy, supportive mitosis brother!

Sometimes the real world is hard, and I just want a happy ending in my escapism.

[welcome-to-roomba-fazbender]

Charlie read us the bee movie script

"FUCK YOU"

"I'M READING THE ENTIRE"

"MY OCTOPUS TEACHER TRANSCRIPT"

WARNING: VERY LONG POST

"A lot of people say that an octopus is like an alien.

But the strange thing is, as you get closer to them,

you realize that we're very similar in a lot of ways.

You're stepping into this completely different world.

Such an incredible feeling.

And you feel you're on the brink of something extraordinary.

But you realize that there's a line that can't be crossed.

It's quite a long time ago now, that day when it all started.

This place on the tip of Africa is known as the Cape of Storms.

My childhood memories are completely dominated

by the rocky shore, the intertidal and the kelp forest.

We had this little wooden bungalow,

literally below the high-water mark.

So when those huge storms used to come in,

the ocean used to smash the doors down and fill up the bottom of the house.

So it was incredibly exciting as a child

to literally live in the force of that giant Atlantic Ocean.

Most of my childhood was spent in the rock pools,

diving in the shallow kelp forest.

That's what I most loved to do.

As an adult, I'd been separated from that.

And that was fine at first.

Until I went to the central Kalahari about 20 years ago.

I was making a film called The Great Dance with my brother.

And then I met these men

who were probably some of the best trackers in the world.

To watch these men...

go into the incredible, subtle signs in nature,

things that my eye couldn't even see,

and then follow them, sometimes for hours,

and find hidden animals in the landscape

was just extraordinary to witness.

I mean, they just were inside of the natural world.

And I could feel I was outside.

And I had this deep longing to be inside that world.

I went through two years of absolute hell.

I had been working hard for a long time,

I'd just worn myself out.

I hadn't slept properly for months.

My family was suffering.

And I was getting sick from all the pressure.

My mind couldn't deal with all that stuff.

And I didn't wanna see a camera or an edit suite ever again.

I couldn't even face that.

Your great purpose in life is now...

just in pieces.

And you've got this young child that's growing up.

Tom.

I just couldn't, in that state, be a good father to my son.

I had to have a radical change.

And I took inspiration from my childhood,

and I took inspiration from these master trackers

I worked with in the Kalahari.

And the only way I knew how to do it was to...

be in this ocean.

In the beginning, it's a hard thing to get in the water.

It's one of the wildest, most scary places to swim on the planet.

The water drops to as low as eight, nine degrees Celsius.

The cold takes your breath away.

And you just have to relax.

And then you'll get this beautiful window of time

for 10, 15 minutes.

Suddenly...

everything feels okay.

The cold upgrades the brain because you're getting this flood of chemicals

every time you immerse in that cold water.

Your whole body comes alive.

And then, as your body adapts, it just becomes easier and easier.

And eventually...

after about a year...

you start to crave the cold.

What's so amazing about this environment

is you're in a three-dimensional forest,

and you can jump off the top and go wherever you want.

You're flying, basically.

You might as well be on another planet.

You naturally just get more relaxed in the water.

You get to be able to hold your breath for longer.

Having a scuba t*nk in a thick kelp forest

is not optimal for me.

I want to be more like an amphibious animal.

Instinctively, I knew not to wear a wet suit.

If you really wanna get close to...

an environment like this,

it helps tremendously to have no barrier to that environment.

And I suddenly realized I've got energy to take images and film again...

and then picked up my camera again

and started doing the thing I love and what I know.

The animals are extremely exotic and strange.

It's, like, much more extreme than our maddest science fiction.

I remember that day when it all started.

I found this very, very special area

that is protected with a big piece of kelp forest,

'cause the forest itself actually dampens the swell.

And the whole forest around there

is absolutely murky, and you can't see a thing.

And in this little 200-meter patch, you can dive

and observe.

And it's an incredible place.

And I remember there was this strange shape to my left

and just going down...

and seeing this really strange thing.

The fish even seemed to be confused.

And then, suddenly...

At the time, I didn't know

I'd witnessed something extraordinary.

I'd come in at the end of a whole drama.

You think, "What on earth is this animal doing?"

And I think she was a little bit afraid of me,

so she lifted this incredibly slippery...

piece of algae that you can hardly hold with your hands

and just wrapped it in this extraordinary cloak around her

and then stared at me out of the little gap.

And then, boom, you know, she was gone.

It's a hard thing to explain,

but sometimes you just get a feeling,

and you know

there's-- there's something to this creature that's very unusual.

There's something to learn here.

There's something special about her.

And then I had this crazy idea.

What happens if I just went every day?

What happens if I... I never missed a day?

And, initially, she was clearly being affected by my presence,

so I thought, "I'll leave the camera there,

and then that will record her going about her business."

She sees this shiny new thing in the forest.

Coming at it with a shield,

just in case it att*cked, and put up the shield.

This is something different. This is interesting.

Touching it, feeling it, tasting it.

If she was in a playful mood, you couldn't leave it there for too long.

She'd just pull the thing over.

It took going in every day to really get to know her environment better.

Initially, it all just seems like much of the same thing.

But then, after a while, you see all the different types of the forest.

You get the old-growth forest.

You get the forest with a lot of different algae growing in the bottom.

You get the misty forest.

As I started to map the environment around her den,

it was shocking to see small caves really close to her,

packed with pyjama sharks.

And they really are her most serious predator.

Their skin is striped. That's why they're called a pyjama shark.

They're not visual predators.

But they have an incredible sense of smell.

And they are particularly aggressive.

They can shove their noses into a small cr*ck.

So they are deadly little octopus predators.

And I was thinking, "Well, how long before something happens with these animals?"

After visiting her more and more and more,

there was a definite moment where...

that fear had subsided tremendously.

She'd see big movement,

and she'd be slightly afraid and then look, "Oh, it's him."

And she'd come out and be very curious.

Very interested, very curious, but not taking stupid chances.

Keeping all the other arms attached to the den

and the suckers in place.

And then it just happens.

I put my hand out a tiny bit.

Something happens when that animal makes contact.

But, at some point, you're gonna have to breathe.

So you've got to very gently

prize off those suckers

without disturbing her,

so that you can actually go up and take a breath.

By far the most powerful

is when it comes out the den

because that's when you know there's full trust.

There's no holding the arms back just in case I have to pull back.

It's like, "I totally trust this human,

and I'm coming out of the den,

and I'm gonna go about my business."

I started to see pretty extraordinary things.

They can look spiky. They can look smooth.

Grow horns on their heads.

They can match color, texture, pattern, skin.

It's beautiful.

Most of the time, she's jetting or crawling or swimming.

But occasionally,

two legs come out.

She walks.

And off she goes, striding away,

walking bipedally.

She puts her body into this strange posture that kind of looks like a rock.

And then two of those arms underneath slowly moving,

so the rock is just slowly moving away.

And then she changes

into this extraordinary, wobbly, flowy old lady in a dress.

Perhaps she's trying to mimic

kelp or algae moving in the swell...

and, at the same time, is slowly moving away.

And this is how she works.

This incredible creativity to deceive.

An octopus is essentially a snail that's lost its shell in evolution.

A very fragile, liquid, soft animal

that relies on tremendous intelligence.

She's got no mother or father to teach her anything. She's alone.

'Cause you've got all these different types of predators, all hunting her.

So, over millions of years, she's had to...

come up with the most incredible methods to deceive them.

And she's got to learn fast because

she's only got just over a year to live.

When you're diving alone, everything about my kit has to be perfect.

And I've gotta be prepared for all eventualities.

I can't be fiddling around. It's gotta be instinctive.

But, at that point, I was making a lot of mistakes.

One day, she was following me.

And that's the most incredible thing, is to be followed by an octopus.

You know, you're just backing away, moving backwards,

and this incredible animal is coming towards you.

And there's not a lot of fear in it at all.

It's curious, and there's trust,

and it's like this fantastic feeling.

And then, bam!

I dropped one of my lenses,

and that thing falling quickly just startles that animal.

And then it turns and rushes, and it's got a huge fright.

And you just... you wanna kick yourself, because it's, you know...

That could have ended in the most incredible interaction and deep trust,

and you've ruined it.

Now, you know, have you ruined it forever?

Uh, is that animal ever gonna trust you?

Has that... has that experience freaked it out too much?

And then I approached her too fast.

And that's when she left the den and got a real fright...

and didn't come back to that den.

And I thought this was over.

She was gone.

I'd had this experience with these incredible San master trackers.

I just thought, "I wonder if anybody could ever track anything underwater?"

This animal has spent millions of years learning to be impossible to find.

I had to learn what octopus tracks looked like.

And that was very frustrating at first, so difficult to discern.

What's the difference between octopus tracks

and heart urchin tracks

and fish tracks...

and worm tracks?

And the predation marks.

The egg casings.

I needed to learn everything.

And then you have to start thinking...

like an octopus.

It's like being a detective.

And you just slowly get all your clues together.

And then I started to...

make breakthroughs.

"Okay, those are the animals she's k*lling."

So I'm looking at kills. I'm looking at little marks, diggings in the sand,

little changes in the algal patterns where she's been moving.

And then knowing, "Okay, this animal is very close now.

It's close. It's within one or two meters."

And then focusing on that small space.

And then, bang!

She's there.

Finally, after looking for her for a week, day after day,

there she was.

It's like a...

a human friend, like, waving and saying, "Hi, I'm excited to see you."

And I could feel it, like from one minute to the next,

"Okay, I trust you. I trust you, human.

And now you can come into my octopus world."

And she's moving towards me.

And my natural instinct is...

to gently back away.

And then I just wanted to keep still, so I held onto a rock.

She just kept coming...

and then covered my whole hand.

I'd been underwater for quite a long time,

so I just gently pushed for the surface, thinking she would move off my hand.

But she didn't. She just rode on my hand right to the surface.

There I was, just staring into the eyes of this incredible creature.

It was difficult to imagine at first

that she was getting anything out of the relationship.

Why would a wild animal, doing its thing,

get anything out of this

strange human creature visiting?

And this is where it gets interesting.

I think quite stimulating for that huge intelligence.

Somehow, she realizes this thing is not dangerous,

so you go and you interact with this human.

And perhaps it does give you some strange octopus level of joy.

When you have that connection with an animal

and have those experiences, it's absolutely mind-blowing.

There's no greater feeling on earth.

The boundaries between her and I seemed to dissolve.

Just the pure magnificence of her.

All I could do at the time was just think of her.

In the water and on land.

I mean, it just became a bit of an obsession.

You just want to visit her every day and see what's going on.

You can't wait to get back in the water.

What goes through her mind? What's she thinking?

Does she dream? If she dreams, what does she dream about?

She just ignited my curiosity in a way that I had not experienced before.

It's very useful to come back home

and try and read as many scientific papers as possible.

She's a common octopus.

Octopus vulgaris is the scientific name.

Two-thirds of her cognition

is actually outside of her brain, in her arms.

Her entire being is thinking, feeling, exploring.

She's got 2,000 suckers, and she's using all of them independently.

How do you do that?

Imagine having 2,000 fingers.

You can compare her intelligence to a cat or a dog

or even to one of the lower primates.

A mollusk shouldn't be this intelligent.

So many times I'd go and search through the scientific papers,

looking for the strange thing I'd seen.

And then you'd just come up absolutely blank. There's nothing.

You're going into a place that's under-studied,

and, almost on a weekly basis, you can find out something new to science.

According to the literature, octopus are supposed to be a nocturnal species.

Now, was she more active at night?

It was a little bit scary in the dark.

These incredible sounds of the humpback whales

coming through the water.

You're on hyperalert.

I couldn't find her. She wasn't in her den.

I'd kind of given up and was going back to the shore.

Something just made me veer slightly to the left.

And there she is...

right in extremely shallow water.

Can't see what she's doing.

These lightning-fast strikes.

Using her arm like this strange w*apon.

Just rolling it up in this fraction of a second.

And I saw her catch three fish like this.

I'd never seen her catching a fish during the day.

Super dangerous out in the deeper forest at night,

so this incredibly clever animal retreats to the shallows,

where it's difficult for these sharks to get to,

and takes advantage of all the wonderful food available there.

The first instinct is to try and scare the sharks away.

But then you realize

that you'd be interfering with the whole process of the forest.

She was out of the den, moving around near the edge of the forest.

I noticed...

the shark.

Body was slightly hunched forward and was following the scent trail.

This is not good.

I think, "Thank God she's safe. She's right under the rock."

These things are coming right into that cr*ck.

And the next minute, the shark is actually clamped down on one of her arms,

doing this terrifying death roll.

And I can clearly see...

her severed arm in its mouth.

You had that terrible feeling in your stomach.

And thank God she managed to get really deep in that cr*ck.

She was moving very badly, slowly, very weak.

She's bleeding. That smell's in the water.

There's quite a distance to the den.

Are these sharks gonna pitch up again?

I thought about helping her back physically to the den.

But, luckily, I didn't need to.

I didn't know...

what was gonna happen to her or if this would make her weak and vulnerable,

and they'd finish her off that night.

And I couldn't help feeling...

had I been responsible for this?

Was she out because I was there?

I felt very vulnerable.

As if somehow what happened to her had happened to me in some strange way.

And then this almost felt, psychologically, like I was...

going through a type of dismembering.

You start thinking about your own death and your own vulnerability,

worried about your family, your child.

I hadn't been a person that was overly sentimental towards animals before.

I realized I was changing.

She was teaching me to become sensitized to the other.

Especially wild creatures.

A scary feeling, going into the water early the next day.

I was very relieved that she was alive, breathing.

She's so weak that she can't make those vibrant colors of a healthy octopus,

and she's just dull and white.

And now I'm worried, "How is she getting food?"

You are crossing a line

when you interfere in the lives of animals.

But I was just too overcome

with my feelings for her.

I don't think it really helped.

And she's right at the back of the den, you know, just not moving much.

I was just checking every day to see if she was okay,

wondering, "Is this the last day? Am I not gonna see her?"

The big relief came a week or so later,

and I could see it had sort of healed over pretty fast.

And then the most amazing thing, to see this...

tiny little miniature, perfect miniature arm...

starting to grow back.

And it gave me a strange sort of confidence

that she can get past this incredible difficulty.

And I felt, in my life, I was getting past the difficulties I had.

In this strange way, our lives were mirroring each other.

My relationship with people, with humans was changing.

My son, at this stage, was very interested in everything underwater.

And every day, I'd tell him the stories.

He'd seen her. He'd met her.

I'd taken him so many times.

The arm becomes pretty functional,

even when it's half grown.

And then, slowly, as the arm grew, she grew her confidence back.

Eventually, about 100 days later, that arm had fully regrown.

An amazing feeling to think that this animal is capable of that

and can withstand such an att*ck and fully recover.

After a while, she was just carrying on with her normal activities,

so I then started a whole new development

of seeing even deeper into her world.

It was a nice, calm, clear day.

She comes around a corner and spots a crab.

The problem when you're a crab,

you're being now hunted by a liquid animal.

She can pour herself through a tiny little cr*ck.

And the crab seems to sense her

and goes and hides underneath a big, poisonous anemone.

And then she waits and hides.

And then the crab thinks, "Okay, everything's all right,"

and makes the mistake of leaving that anemone.

She's quite a messy eater.

Bits going everywhere. The smell's going out.

And then you just look around, and you see these brittle stars,

surprisingly fast, just being drawn to her.

Just a mass of them sort of overwhelm her,

and she doesn't seem sure of what to do or how to deal with them.

So I thought, "Yeah, this is like a real problem now.

She's always gonna have this problem of brittle stars taking all her food."

Not that long in the future,

she's thought, "Okay, brittle stars are stealing my food,"

and has this amazing method of just picking them up with her suckers

and gently just throwing them out the den.

Now she's completely the boss.

She initially adopted the same method to crab hunting with lobster.

You just suddenly see...

lobsters just sh**ting out of the reef.

I'm thinking now, "She's definitely gonna catch this one."

Time and time again, they just evade her.

And then, a couple of weeks later,

watching her coming round the side,

corralling me so that

she can then get between the lobster and myself.

Using me as part of her hunting strategy.

And instead of that messy lunge...

throwing her web over the top.

And then there's nowhere for it to go.

This is an animal that is strategizing

and working out very quickly how best to hunt a very tricky prey.

A lot of her intelligence is built

from the sheer number of prey that she has to catch.

All sorts of animals.

All the mollusks she is capturing, they're quite easy to catch,

but they've got these incredibly hard shells.

Now, how the hell does she k*ll and eat them?

At the base of all those arms,

there's a drill that can drill through hard shell

and then drop venom in there, like a snake,

and see how that mollusk reacts.

But some of these mollusks will only relax

if that drill is precisely in the apex of the shell,

on the abductor muscle.

She basically has to do geometry

to work out exactly the precise spot where she needs to drill that shell

in order to get her food.

This is high-level invertebrate intelligence.

Her ability to learn and remember details.

And it h*t me how she was teaching me so much.

You just can't wait to get up in the morning, 'cause there's so much to do

to understand every little tiny mark,

every little behavior,

every species and what they're doing, how they're interacting.

People ask, "Why are you going to the same place every day?"

But that's when you see the subtle differences.

And that's when you get to know the wild.

So when these thousands of threads going off from the octopus

to all the other animals, predator and prey,

and then this incredible forest,

um, just nurturing all of this.

And now I know how the helmet shell is connected to the urchin

and how the octopus is connected to the helmet shell.

And as I draw all these lines,

all these stories are just being thrown up.

It's almost like the forest mind.

I really could feel it. That big creature.

It was thousands of times more awake and intelligent than I am.

This is like a giant underwater brain operating over millions of years.

And it just keeps everything in balance.

Everything seemed, at this point...

sort of perfect in the forest.

And, of course, you know...

...you've forgotten...

those predators are ever present.

Just have this...

burnt in my memory, this, like, huge shark just suddenly approaching her.

She kept still and tried to hide.

Then you just saw the shark swimming on the periphery, picking up her scent.

And I thought, "Oh, no, this is this whole...

nightmare happening again."

She jets up in the canopy,

and she's wrapping many leaves of kelp tightly around her body

and then just peering out.

All the smell's on the kelp,

so the shark's now biting and snapping at the kelp.

She's sh*t out the back.

She just climbs out over a rock, leaves the water, and I was like...

I just, you know... almost can't believe my eyes.

But the problem is, of course, she's gotta come back.

On the other side, the shark picks up her scent again.

And this crazy chase is on.

And then, I see her,

in a very quick movement,

picking up maybe close to 100 shells and stones...

and then folding her arms

over her vulnerable head.

And in that moment,

I realized, "This is this crazy thing I saw...

so long ago."

Next minute, the shark grabs her.

But I had to breathe.

Rush to the surface as fast as you can.

Straight back down again.

And it's like, "Okay, now, this is too crazy."

Somehow she's managed to maneuver herself into the least dangerous place,

and that's on the shark's back.

The shark tries to shake her off and is swimming away.

Takes a few seconds to figure out,

"What the hell's going on here?"

But you can immediately tell

she's now got the upper hand.

As the shark goes near some of the thick kelp...

she just pushes off the back...

drops the remaining shells

and jets away.

And the shark, it's just been completely outwitted.

The shark comes, does one pass,

but she's completely safe. There's nothing it can do.

And it leaves.

How she can think that quickly and make those life-and-death decisions,

uh, it's just, yeah, pretty, pretty incredible.

I was around for a good 80 percent of her life.

Each moment is so precious because it's so short.

There was this one incredible day.

A big shoal of dream fish.

Fairly shallow water.

Suddenly, she's...

reaching up for the surface like that.

Initially, I thought...

"She's hunting the fish."

Then I was like, "Hold on.

When she hunts, she's strategic, and she's like...

focused.

This behavior doesn't feel predatory to me."

It took a long time to actually, like, process it.

But I couldn't help thinking,

"She's playing with the fish."

You see play often in social animals.

Here's a highly antisocial animal playing with fish.

It takes that animal to a different level.

Oh, then she completely lost interest in the fish,

rushed over...

grabbed hold of me.

And that was the last time we had physical contact.

If I think back,

and I remember it was a very rough day, very turbulent.

Sediment everywhere.

Go down and whoa,

there's another big octopus right next to her.

It's very, very rare to see two octopus close together.

"Oh, my God, what's going on?"

And then seeing that both animals are pretty relaxed

and realizing, "Okay, and then the mating is beginning."

By this stage, I knew quite well the stages of an octopus's life.

So while I was very excited that this mating was beginning,

there was a sort of...

this dread in the bottom of my stomach.

She wasn't coming out of that den.

There was no more feeding, no more hunting.

A huge part of her body is actually given to those eggs.

So she drops in weight, and she loses an enormous amount of strength.

The eggs are laid right in the back, in the dark.

It's impossible to see them.

I just keep going every day and just check.

She's oxygenating the eggs with her siphon, looking after them.

She's just slowly dying

and timing her death exactly for the hatching of those eggs.

I mean, it struck home so hard for me.

Here's an invertebrate, essentially a mollusk,

sacrificing her own life

for her young.

All those eggs hatched.

They're tiny, and they go into the water column.

Hundreds of thousands of them.

And the next thing I saw, she's washed out the den, barely alive.

And the fish, you know, feeding on her.

A lot of the scavengers coming to feed on her.

It was just heartbreaking.

A part of me just wanted to hold her and chase them away.

But I didn't do that.

The next day...

a big shark came...

and just took her away, you know, into the misty forest.

Often, I go to the place of her main den.

And I just float above it and feel her there.

Of course I miss her.

Um...

But, um...

I mean, in some crazy way, it was a relief.

It was a relief, because the intensity of going every day and tracking her, um...

and trying to capture, it was...

It was tough in a way.

I mean, I sort of slept, dreamt...

this animal.

I was... You know, I was...

in my mind, thinking like an octopus.

And... and it was all so taxing, in a way.

Um...

But underneath that,

this incredible pride for this animal

that's been through impossible odds to get to this place.

I mean, an unimaginable life.

One of the most exciting things ever in my life, taking my son,

walking along the shore

and just showing him the... the wonders of nature

and the details

and the intricacies.

I was getting so much from the wild, and I could actually now give.

I had so much energy to give back.

He's like a little marine biologist now. He knows so much.

And very powerful swimmer.

And as he gets older, he seems to want to do it more and more.

To see that develop,

a strong sense of himself...

an incredible confidence,

but the most important thing,

a gentleness.

And I think that's the thing

that thousands of hours in nature can teach a child.

A few months later, after she'd d*ed,

he actually found this tiny little octopus.

It's very rare to see an animal that small.

They have up to half a million young. A handful survive.

So it's a pretty tough road they have to walk.

But that's their strategy, live fast and die young.

We kind of imagined that it might be one of her young.

It was kind of the right size, the right time.

And it was joyous. It was like, "Well, there she is."

She'd made me realize

just how precious wild places are.

You go into that water...

and it's extremely liberating.

All your...

worries and problems and life drama just dissolve.

You slowly start to care about all the animals,

even the tiniest little animals.

You realize that every one is very important.

To sense how vulnerable these wild animals' lives are,

and actually, then how vulnerable all our lives on this planet are.

My relationship with the sea forest and its creatures deepens...

week after month after year after year.

You're in touch with this wild place, and it's speaking to you.

Its language is visible.

I fell in love with her

but also with that amazing wildness that she represented

and... and how that changed me.

What she taught me was to feel...

that you're part of this place, not a visitor.

That's a huge difference."

[jwowwsboobs]

Star-crossed

The thing about a lot of things that are bad for you, is that after you get it once, you want nothing else. Alcohol, coke, heroin...sex. Lots of things. But nothing is like him. Nothing compares to him.

What the fuck could? How could I think of anything but his blood-reddened lips, skin pale, and wispy black hair over his eyes and brushing his cheek and his thin shoulders. His eyes, darker than the starless sky over Hollywood, his mean little laugh. Long, cold fingers covered in sliver rings. Sacred hands. Sorry. Scarred. Scarred hands.

He hasn't touched me in almost two months.

To be honest, I haven't seen him since he bit me. I called him yesterday and he didn't pick up. I call him once a week. Or more. Does it matter how much I call? He doesn't answer.

I spend all day in my room sleeping and get up at night to roam the streets. Most nights. I work part-time as a bartender at this bar that has me working from like 9 PM to 3. It's mostly cleaning tables. Tedious. Odious. And most importantly, lame as shit.

Everything is lame as shit, honestly. The bands I like bore me, beer tastes like piss, new clothes don't excite me, I fuck the hottest girls and can't cum. Nothing looks good. Nothing sounds good. Nothing feels good. It's like I can't feel anything except a hollow, achy hole in my heart.

Used to be I could fix that with sex and booze and music.  

But I don't go out anymore. The most I go out is to the beach and watch the sunrise after work. Bar's five miles from the apartment, beach is five miles from the bar. Or something. It doesn't matter to me. I take the bus, six-pack under my arm. Or a bottle of Night Train. It doesn't really matter what it is, as long as I get drunk enough to fall asleep when I get home.

Nothing really matters, as long as I sleep. I see him in my dreams, and that's as close as I can get to being with him. Tripp picks me up most days, with a hot breakfast from McDonalds that he pushes into my hands and some orange juice in an old resealable beer bottle. And his big brown eyes watch me worriedly from the driver's seat when I crawl in the back, slightly sunburned and head pounding from watching the sunrise.

He knows something's wrong.

I think he thinks I'm becoming an alcoholic. Like a big one. He's one to talk. But he won't say anything. I see him watching me when he thinks I can't see him. Or when he thinks I'm too fucked up to notice. The only good thing about being a vampire is it takes way longer to get drunk. And my skin is better.

I lost my tan though. I wonder if Ryan had a tan once. I think about him all the time. It makes me sick. I want to see him again. I want him.

Two months to the day after I'd last seen Ryan, Tripp stayed home. I was getting ready for work, and he sat on the couch, reading a book.

No, wait. Playboy. Reading Playboy. Which sounds stupid, isn't it all girl bare tits and ass?

"Watcha pouring over there?" I asked, grabbing a piece of deli meat from the fridge and shoving it in my mouth.

"Uhhhh," Tripp squinted at the page. "Auther Clark's Playboy interview."

"Thought Playboy had naked girls, what are you reading interviews for?"

Tripp shrugged. "Alice said he was cool. He's supposed to be like, one of the best science fiction writers of our time."

"Since when have you been into science fiction?"

Tripp ignored that. "Listen man, are you working tomorrow?"

"No." I said, gloomily. Going to work was the only thing I had the energy to do. Laying in bed all day and all night when I didn't have work was hell. Sometimes I'd write, but that was worse. It was all about him.

"Cool, listen, me ‘n’ Alice-"

"Who?" I was bored already.

"Alice? Alistar? Me ‘n’ him hang out all the time, dude, haven't I mentioned him?”

"Hm."

How was I supposed to keep track of his friends? He's got like a million of them.

Tripp shrugged. "Well anyway, he's really cool man, come with me tomorrow, me 'n' him are gonna see this band. He wants to meet you. It'll be fun man! Just come with me to the concert. It'll be fun."

I checked the clock. I needed to leave. "Yeah, alright man, I gotta go."

"Think about it at least, dude. You haven't been out in ages. You need to have some fun. Get laid!"

I rolled my eyes and slammed the door behind me. Not true, but he would say that.

Work was mind-numbing. Tables covered in crushed peanut shells, wadded up, snotty napkins, yellow buzzing lights. Beer spills. Condensation rings. Cig burns on the counter tops. I thought I saw Ryan slip into the bathroom, but it was another shaggy, black haired guy in black leather and denim. A girl who would have been fun a couple months ago slipped me her number. I threw it out later. Didn't bother looking at it.

When I got off, I headed straight to the beach. I didn't stop at the liquor store on my way.

I sat on the sand in the dark, watching the waves crash against the shore. Lights from the street and boardwalk behind me reflected off the water. I felt cold and tired and alone, and I was tired of feeling cold and tired and alone. I lit a cigarette and tried to relax. His eyes danced in front of me, and I rubbed my eyes. I dug through my pockets for a pen and my order pad. There was something biting at the inside of my head, some kind of poem or song or something. Something. I scrawled something I hoped would make sense to me later, but I didn't care if it did or not. It was too dark for me to really make out what I was writing but I guess I wasn't thinking about what I was writing. Just putting it out there.

I ran out of sheets on my order pad before the sun rose. I'd needed a new one anyway. Might as well use it up on something kind of important. More important than Bobby and Jack's fucking drink and sides order. I got up, not feeling like waiting for Tripp, and waited at the bus stop. A red-haired guy in sunglasses and dark clothes sat slumped in an alley by the bus stop. I felt like he was watching me, but I knew that was not true. I hoped it was not true.

It took me an hour to get home, like it usually did when I took the bus. I ran my hand through my hair, flipping through the pages while we drove. It looked like there'd be a couple things here and there that would be usable, there was a lot of stuff, but I'd look at it again when I woke up.

I got in the apartment as the sun started to rise over the Strip. Earlier than I normally got in. Tripp wasn't awake, and I had no intention of waking him up. I took my shower as quietly and as fast as I could, and crawled in bed. And passed out.

I woke up around 7 in the evening. Tripp shuffled around the apartment, and I could hear him playing Led Zep. Sounded like Black Dog. That I could identify it was fucked. Never liked Led Zep. Fucking stoner shit. Pink Floyd would be worse, but lucky for me, he didn't like those idiots either. Speaking of stoners, it smelled like weed a little bit, which, if I could smell it from my room, meant that he was smoking the really fucking ass shit and would be whining about needing to get more tomorrow. Fucking idiot. I groaned, pulled my pillow over my head and tried to go back to sleep.

After a couple minutes, I gave up and pulled the closest pair of jeans on. He'd said something about a show yesterday, so I figured while he was gone I could work on whatever shit I'd vomited up last night.

I was dead fucking wrong, of course.

I went to grab something to eat, hungry as hell, and caught him jumping on the furniture, pretending to solo to Rock and Roll. He didn't notice me, completely engrossed in pretending to be Jim Page. I cheered at the end of the solo, and he fell off the couch, hitting the floor HARD.

"Lani!" He yelled, rubbing his shoulder as he got up. I doubled over with laughter.

"Man, not cool," He said, trying not to laugh. "I was fucking killing it."

"In your stoner dork dreams, brother," I said, grabbing a slice of dunno-how-old, left over pizza from the fridge and leaning against the counter.

Tripp laughed. "So you wanna play like that, huh?"

"Huh?" I asked, mid-pizza bite.

He wiggled his eyebrows and I fled.

I heard him jump over the couch and he chased me around the apartment, both of us laughing the whole time.

He finally tackled me onto the couch and kissed my forehead. Well, I say kissed, it's like being kissed by a dog. All drool and spit. Girls seem to love it. But not me.

"C'mon man, eat fast, we gotta head out." He said, getting off me and wandering towards his room. "I wanna get to the club before it's too packed to get in."

"What?" I asked, sitting up and wiping my forehead. Gross.

"What do you mean what, we're gonna go to a show and see some friends! It'll be fun!"

"No way man," I stood, wiping my hand on my jeans. "I've got like, shit. Lyrics. 'N shit. To like, work on."

Tripp grinned. "Yeah, we can work on that later, dude! Let 'em rest. Put some shoes and a shirt on, we're leaving in like, five."

"No seriously man, I, like-," I tried to protest. He closed the door to his room and I flopped against the back of the couch. Fucking jerk. I kicked my feet against the coffee table, littered in beer cans and skin magazines. And my notepad. I'd thrown it on there when I'd come in, knowing Tripp wouldn't touch it. I grabbed it and let myself get lost.

Tripp threw a black shirt at me, and I jumped.

He shrugged his patch-covered denim vest over his cut-off shirt and picked up my boots, abandoned by the door days ago. "C'mon, Lani. Let's go."

He stood, arms folded, grinning. I huffed.

"Dude, I don't want to."

He shrugged, still smiling.

I rolled my eyes, throwing the notepad on the table and picking up the shirt he'd thrown at me. I grabbed the boots out of his hand, and he locked the apartment door as I pulled them onto my feet. Tripp led the way down the stairs. Our building didn't have an elevator, which sucked, but it was also only two floors, and there really wasn't anywhere for an elevator. Everyone's doors faced a center patio with a shitty pool. Y'know Karate Kid? Our building was like that, but ten times worse. At least they'd had a guy on the premises who did maintenance.

I pulled the black wife beater over my head and rolled my eyes as I caught my reflection in a window we'd passed. This was such a shit outfit. At least I was still wearing all my rings.

Tripp bounded up to the front of the very short line, dragging me behind him, and slipped into the club. The band was still setting up, but the house was blasting music. I fiddled with my rings as Tripp scanned the room.

Evidently, he found what he was looking for. He dragged me to the bar, huge fucking grin on his face.

"Alice, dude!" A guy in with long red hair, dark sunglasses, ripped black shirt with the sleeves cut off and fraying ends and black ripped jeans tucked into black cowboy boots turned slightly on the bar stool he was perched on, drink in one hand, leather jacket hanging off the back, and was immediately wrapped in Tripp's bro-hug. I hung back awkwardly, wishing I was home with my notebook and no fucking Tripp.

Tripp finally let go of his friend, and pulled me forward.

"Alice, this is Lani,"

"Hi," Alice said, voice rough with an accent I couldn't place. I didn't care enough to figure it out.

"Sup." I said.

Tripp grinned like a fucking idiot. "Great! I'm gonna go find Crystal!"

"Who?" I asked as Alice turned back to the bar.

"Chick." Alice said, nonchalant. "Wanna drink?"

"Sure."

He flagged the bartender down, and I ordered a beer. It was early. If I stayed sober enough to look like I was miserable, maybe Tripp would let me skip home early. If I stayed sober enough, I'd be able to slip out really fast, really easy. Tripp wouldn't even notice.

Alice took a sip from his drink.

"Tripp tell you what band was playing?"

I shook my head. "No."

He shrugged. "Probably for the better. They're ass. An embarrassment really. Can't believe they're willing to show their faces playing music so fuckin' bad."

I laughed. He couldn't be serious.

"Dead serious man." Alice said, as the bartender slid me my glass. I nodded in thanks and turned back to Alice. His sunglasses obscured his face almost totally. How could he see in them?

"You'll see what I mean."

I took a swig and shook my head. "Man, I fuckin' hope you're right, the bands that suck are so much fuckin' funnier."  

Alice scoffed. "You here for music or for fuckin' idiot shit?"

I scratched at my neck, not wanting to look at him. The sunglasses in the dark bar was freaking me out. "Why not both?" I asked.

"Gets'cha killed." Alice drummed his finger against the bar top. "Guess that dund't really bother yer kind though."

"What?"

He turned to look at me. I think. I couldn't see his eyes behind those fucking sunglasses and it was freaking me the fuck out.

"Don't play stupid. You heard what I said."

Gay? Or-

I didn't wanna think about it.

"Thanks for the drink man," I said, pounding my drink back. "I need a cig."

"Suit yourself. I can tell you more than he ever will."

A cold chill raced down my spin.

"What?"

Alice's lips twitched upwards. They were chapped and pale. "You know what. Go take yer smoke. I'm not moving."

Instead, I sat on the stool next to him. "No, tell me. Explain."

"So you were bit, what, a week ago?"

"Two. Months." I corrected.

"No shit? Same night you met him?" But they weren't really questions.

I felt weird with his eyes on me behind the sunglasses. "Night after."

"Interesting."

"Why?"

"Usually you don't live."

I felt sick to my stomach.

"Have you killed?"

I shook my head.

Alice grunted. "Interesting. Most kill about two weeks after they've been turned. Have you seen him?"

"No." I ran a hand through my hair. This was freaking me out. "No. He, um, he comes to me in dreams. And I think I see him when I'm awake too. He's always in my head. I can't get him out of my head."

Alice drummed his fingers on the counter top.

"How do you feel about him?"

I stared at my hands.

"I..."

I was obsessed with the thought of him. He consumed every moment. I hated how he was nowhere to be found. I loved him. I wanted him. I needed him. I loved him. I loved him.

"I think I love him." I whispered.

Alice stopped drumming his fingers against the table-top. "Hm."

I didn't wanna know what that fucking meant. He turned away and drank. I swallowed. My throat felt drier than the dessert and I was freezing cold.

"How do you-?" I choked out.

Alice put his drink down. "I'm supposed to kill you."

"Me?"

He waved one hand dismissively. "You, yer kind, same difference. Except you're not really one of them. Yet. But yer time will come. Every dog has it's day, huh?"

I shook my head. This was too fucking much. "I'm going for a cig."

Alice grabbed my arm. His hand was too warm and tight.

"Listen. If you don't want to live like this, there's ways I can help you."

"I need a fuckin' cig," I spat, trying to wrestle my arm out of his iron grip.

Alice shrugged and let go. He flagged down the bartender, and ordered another drink as I shoved my way through the throng of people filling up the club.

I stumbled to the fire exit near the stage, always propped open, and slumped against the wall of the empty outside alleyway. I took deep breaths, trying to calm down. It didn't work. I dug in my pockets for a pack and my lighter, and light up. I hit, exhaling before I should have, but it didn't fucking matter. Everything felt like it was spinning. I felt sick and lost and pissed the fuck off.

"Well, sunshine..."

I jumped, dropping my cigarette. He ground it up, wearing the blue-black cowboy boots I'd first seen him in.

"You-" I whispered. His lips curled into a tight, mean sneer.

"Me."

I shook my head. I felt ready to fucking scream. "I called you everyday."

He shrugged. "I'm not your fucking dog. I won't come when you call."

I wanted to beat his fucking brains in. I wanted to cry. I wanted his lips on my skin.

"Why are you here?" I finally said. I sounded pathetic and I knew it.

"It's time." Ryan said, the car headlights on the street reflecting in his eyes. I lit another cig.

"For what?"

He rolled his eyes and grabbed the cig out of my hand. Cigarettes had never looked so sexy in someone's grasp.

"There's a tradition to these things, Lani. Did you think that all it takes was a bite and a bit of my blood?"

"I don't know." I snarled, grabbing my cig back. I tapped the ash off and sniffed. "I thought you'd be around."

He didn't say anything. I just wanted him near me. On me. In me. I rubbed my head.

"What do I need to do?"

Only kill for him.

That wasn't too hard. Not too bad. I'd do that in a heartbeat, just to feel his cold breath against my neck, telling me the horrible things I needed to do to be with him forever.

Yeah, I thought it was hot how deeply and vividly he described killing someone and drinking their blood. Something about the perversion of the blood of Christ. Fuck if I know. It sounded hot to me.

He said he'd bring the one to me, and disappeared into the club. I tried to follow him but I lost him. I also got kicked out cuz I tripped over some girl's leg and her meathead boyfriend started with me. Shit, if it's such a fuckin' problem a guy falls over your chick's leg, don't take her to a fuckin' packed club 'n' let her stretch her friggin' legs all where people are trying to walk?

Guess it didn't make that much of a difference anyway. I was thrown on the street anyway. And I was fucking pissed.

I shoved my way through people as I walked down the Strip, all lit up. What the fuck was Ryan's fuckin' deal? The fuck was his fuckin' PROBLEM? He treats me like fucking scum, barely gives me a second glance, won't answer my calls, won't call me back, fucking none of it.

And yet. And fucking yet. Here I am, head over fucking heels, ready to fuck everything up for those dark brown eyes and perfect fucking sneer.

Jesus FUCKING Christ.

I found myself in the middle of a median, cars cruising by. Their headlights were too fucking bright and I was pissed off beyond belief.

I had no money on me, no jacket, fucking nothing. The liquor store across the street beckoned lovingly.

"Y'know, you should just go home."

"What?" I said, turning around. Alice stood next to me, hands shoved in the pocket of his jeans, leather jacket hanging open.

"I said you should just go home. You should get some rest. Think about if becoming a vamp would be everything you wanted. Think about what you'd be losing."

"How the fuck did you find me? Did you fucking follow me?"

"Yeah, I did," He said, digging through his jacket. "Cig?"

I scoffed, and took it. He handed me his lighter too.

"Look," He said as I lit my cig. "I don't know you well, just what Tripp's told me. But he loves you. He wants you to be happy. He'd do anything for you. He would go to the ends of the fuckin' earth just to make you happy for two seconds. And he believes in you. Says you've got a lotta potential. Says yer talented. You believe in shit. You have a fuckin' brain when yer not numbing it out with the stupid shit. Drinking, drugs, women, pickin' fights, whatever the fuck. Tripp sees something big in you, and he's willing to give up anything to be there for you. There's nothing he wouldn't do for you. Can you say that about the one that turned you?"

I handed the lighter back to him. His hair blew wildly in the wind from the cars. The fucking glasses didn't move an inch. I could see myself reflected in them, small and shivering.

"What he's asking you to do, you don't have to. You don't need to. You'll be happier if you don't."

"You don't know that."

He tucked the lighter into his jacket and shrugged. "Maybe so. But I feel it. Do you?"

I didn't know what to say. I ran my hand through my hair. He shrugged and took off, weaving through the moving cars.

I looked up and down the street. Cars streamed by, blocking him from my sight for seconds. If I didn't follow him I'd fucking lose the only person who sort of answered my questions. "Wait, come back," I yelled, following him.

Cars honked at me as I ran through the traffic. He was walking quickly down the sidewalk, and I weaved in between the other people on the sidewalk, trying to catch up with him.

"Alistar! Wait!"

He didn't.

I followed him for blocks.

He finally stopped and sat down on a bench outside of a church. I stopped a few feet away, watching him.

"Why are you telling me this?"

Alice looked up at the sky. It was overcast. No stars.

"So I don't have to kill you."

"Why?"

"I'll go to hell if I can't cut down as many of you bastards as possible before I kick it. Dunno about you man, but I'm sick of livin' in hell."

"Says who?"

"God." Alice said, boredom dripping from his voice.

I looked at the church, it's golden spire dark in the night. "Is that why you brought me here? So I can go back to God and repent and go to heaven when I die? What kind of metalhead are you? The fuckin' Jesus Krispies hate us."

Alice scoffed. "Whatever they worship ain't my God. I came here cuz when I shoot up they take me inside. You followed me. If you wanna go in there and repent, by all means. I wanted you to know that there was an off-ramp. It's up to you now. You pick yer own path. Make sure the people that love you can walk on it too."

He took his jacket off and started pulling his shit out. I turned away. I felt a sick, sinking feeling in my gut. This was all so fucked. This was all so, so fuckin' fucked.

I paused on the corner, glancing back at Alice. He was hunched on the bench, tying his arm off, ready to find his God, I guess. I rubbed my face, and turned the corner.

My feet took me all the way home. I barely had to think about it.

I trudged up the stairs, exhaustion weighing on me like a brick in a bag of puppies. I could see a lamp was on inside, and I took a deep breath. This was home. There was nothing to fear. No reason to be uneasy. This was home.

The apartment door was unlocked. I opened it. Tripp sat on the couch, staring blankly at the TV. Someone was digging through the fridge, but the door blocked them from view.

"Sup dude," I said to Tripp, kicking off my boots.

He didn't reply. My brows furrowed.

"Tripp? You good man?"

"He's fine," Ryan's voice rang out like a shot. "You better finish him off though."

"What?" I asked.

Ryan giggled, and straightened up, beer in hand. He jumped on the counter, wearing his boots. He let the fridge door close behind him, and cracked his beer. "Finish him off, Lani. You wanted to join me, you gotta finish him off."

"What the fuck did you do to him, man?" I asked, frozen by the door. I knew what he'd done. I didn't want to believe it.  

Ryan shrugged, drinking from his beer. "Take a look."

I knelt in front of Tripp. It felt like time had stopped. His boots, his dark brown leather cowboy boots, were still on. His ripped, faded blue jeans were spattered with warm blood, dark red and fresh. His hands were limp, but still warm. The right side of his shirt was soaked with blood. It dripped down him from a bite on his neck. Two open punctures, the bloody shape of Ryan's mouth stained on the tan skin of his neck. I choked out a sob.

"Oh, c'mon Lani, don't be a fucking pussy. You knew this was fucking coming. And if you didn't, you're fucking stupider than I thought."

I wanted to kill him.

"Why him?" I yelled. "Of all the fucking winos, hookers, pimps, washouts, why fucking him? He's the only person who's ever fucking been there for me. My only fucking friend. Not you, not anyone else. HIM!"

Ryan shrugged. "Out with the old, in with the new."

"You son of a bitch," I snarled, starting towards him, ready to fucking beat his brains in.

Ryan rolled his eyes. "The longer you put it off the more he suffers, Lani. Let him go."

As if on cue, Tripp gurgled. I turned back to him, tears welling up in my eyes.

"Let him go, Lani," Ryan said softly. "Set him free."

I hugged Tripp, burying my face in his bleeding shoulder.

"I'm so fucking sorry, man," I choked out. "I'm so, so fucking sorry."

I felt him try to raise his arm, trying to hug me back, and I sobbed. Tears and blood mixed on his skin.

I sank my teeth into his neck, and prayed to whatever God was left that He'd take Tripp. And the tears would not stop flowing.

I felt Tripp grow cold, and released my bite on his neck. He lolled in my arms like a rag doll and I buried my face in his bloody chest.

"I love you, man, like a brother."

Ryan's hand was heavy on my shoulder, and I didn't try to shrug him off. I needed him, now more than ever.

[magicalyaku]

I had to write like three emails this month and am left thoroughly drained to write anything else at all. x_x Apart from that, though, my January was actually pretty good. I finally talked my coworker into getting the snowboard trophy in Tales of Vesperia for me because I failed horribly at it and it was the last one missing for Platinum. My friend and I spent like 3 hours thinking up the plot for an entire novel because I complained that books are always about that but never about this. Aaand I got a new bookshelf! So let's fill it up!

In Love with Adam (Liam Erpenbach): This is by a German author whose newer book "Solange wir die Sterne sehen" I read a few months ago. I liked this one a bit better. It's not quite as heavy (no sick boyfriends) but still reasonably serious. Funnily, I found the writing style of this easier to read than his second book. In return, the pacing is bit wonky. I'll keep an eye open for the author's next book! (I'd actually like to read more local authors. :I)

If this gets out (Sophie Gonzales & Cale Dietrich): This one was ... long. Not that it was boring or bad. But for what happenend I think it could have done with a few pages less. I'm also not totally sold on the "two authors writing one story in alternating points of view"-thing. While they claim in the afterword that the other author captured the characters oh so well in their respective chapters I would not fully agree. They did sometimes feel a little off. If I had to choose betweeen rereading this or Kiss & Tell, I'd choose the latter. :'D

Hell followed with us (Andrew J. White): Now this was something. It's the sort of "I have a vision and I'm going with it all the way to the far end no matter what you say", which earns my full respect. While I wouldn’t say I loooved the book, it sure was really good and I had great time (as much as you can have if everyone is dying). I liked the characters and they deserve all the happiness they can get! :( I just wonder how much of the story and the imagery I missed. There's a lot of Bible quotes in there - would it have made for a different reading experience if I had actually touched a Bible in my life? Also my ability to visualise things in my mind is very limited, so all the gruesome gorey stuff? Can hardly affect me. But it also made it harder to track Benji's descent (ascent?) to monsterhood. Good book. And that cover!

The Circus Infinite (Khan Wong): I rarely read true science-fiction, even though I like the genre in other media. Not quite sure why. Maybe it's also partly because of my lack of visualisation. It's hard work. :'D The Circus was a little hard for me as well, but you get pretty close to the main character Jes at least and that helps. Most of the others stay a bit underdeveloped though. The love interest for instance? I don't think he had much going on except being "perfect". 8D But to their credit, that really wasn't the point of the story. The romance was really healthy though, which is a big bonus point with Jes being ace. A year ago I read Beyond the Black Door by A.M. Strickland. I hated the romance in there and got so annoyed in the beginning already because the ace main character works or is expected to work as a pleasure artist and they spent so much time talking about sex and I was like “Why do you think I wanted to read an ace book?! You’re talking more about it than any other book I ever read!! D:” Of course, Jes ends up on a “pleasure” planet as well and has to visit a sex club in the course of the story. He’s also an empath and can suss other people’s horniness among other feelings which makes it even harder for him. But all of that was handled much better and more organically than in Black Door, so I didn’t mind it. There’s also a lot of real adventure going on that revolves around other things. Recommended.

Carry On (Simon Snow 1) (Rainbow Rowell): Finally something light and easy! As always, I was in need of a fantasy story, so after years I finally caved and borrowed this from the library. It was fun! There's only one thing to nitpick (careful, long rant ahead): My personal preference of points of view. I don't like first-person. I strongly dislike alternating first-person. Do I still read a lot of it? Yes. Because I've gotten a whole lot more tolerant during the past two years (I ditched so many books before because of their first-person narrators. :'D) But if I held on to that I'd read like three books a year. If the writing is decent enough, I can accept a lot. But I grew up on third-person, and am also German, so I complain! Take Bone Weaver by Aden Polydoros. First-person for the heroine only. We don't get anything that happens between the boys while she's not looking and it sucks! D: Hell followed with us has three points of view. Main narrator is Ben in first-person, but there's also Nick and Theo who get third-person. Mixing things up like that is so weird to me, especially since they only get 3 chapters in the whole book! Like, if a character only gets to narrate a single chapter, is it even worth to put in? Surprisingly to myself my answer is yes. It still feels weird, but I appreciate very much the inclusion of these chapters and wish Bone Weaver would have done the same. Now there's Simon Snow. And I lost count on how many people are narrating. Six? I accomodated to it as the story progressed and everyone actually got more involved. But ... Do I really need 4 perspective changes within the span of one kiss? (No.) :I I wish third-person would get popular again. The infinite possibilities it holds. u_u But I try to be a tolerant person and not let that spoil my enjoyment of the book. Will be picking up the other volumes soon!

The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley (Shaun David Hutchinson): I read the author's latest book Howl last month and now one of his oldest and I'm glad that I read them in that order! Because in Howl there's a lot of shitty people and bad stuff happening. In Five Stages of Andrew, there's still bad people (but they are “out there” away from the story) and bad shit happening but there's also a lot of nice people. Like genuinely nice people. It kinda rebuilds my hope in humanity. xD It’s also smart as usual and there are comic pages inside! It’s a really nice book indeed and yes, it made me cry.

I complained before how many of the books I read lack the balls to do really mean things to the main characters (there are some stragglers of course, looking at you, Mason Deaver), and I'm honestly not really good with bad stuff either. I like to know that things will be okay in the end. But. It makes you love them more, doesn't it? My favourite books of all times, the one I worship and adore, is an old German children’s book Die Katze Leonore (”Leonore, the cat”) about a kitten that gets abandoned because her fur is black unlike her siblings. And really bad stuff happens to her (she loses a paw and later dies). I bawled my eyes out when I read it the first time as a kid. And it made me love that cat and every cat in the world. My friends are always baffled when I laugh out loud about funny books even in public. But I’ll cry easily too when they’re sad. Those stay a lot longer in the heart. So come on, my books, give me feels this year as well, please. uAu

[themistressofdolls]

Xenos the Cat UNLEASHED

Inspired by 2000s power fantasy fan fiction stories, such as Christian Humber reloaded and others, Xenos the cat follows our over powered protagonist as he goes on many destructive adventures. Written for nanowrimo 2023, decided to do an updated edition chapter by chapter so enjoy the chaos.

Chapter I: https://www.tumblr.com/themistressofdolls/743616576495009792/xenos-the-cat-unleashed

Chapter II: https://themistressofdolls.tumblr.com/post/744437263076917248/xenos-the-cat-unleashed-ii

Chapter III: https://themistressofdolls.tumblr.com/post/747208799126011904/xenos-the-cat-unleashed-chapter-iii

Chapter IV: https://www.tumblr.com/themistressofdolls/748187552796868608/xenos-the-cat-unleashed-chapter-iv

Chapter V: https://www.tumblr.com/themistressofdolls/750820193047101440/xenos-the-cat-unleashed-chapter-v?source=share

Chapter VI: https://www.tumblr.com/themistressofdolls/756806867713409024/xenos-the-cat-unleashed-chapter-vi?source=share

Chapter I:

The origin

They say child hood is the best days of your life, yeah right more like a god damn living nightmare for me. I was born to a litter of kittens and we struggled to find food and where often attacked by wild foxes and badgers.

To make matters worse some English farmers would hunt us with shotguns for fun and one day they shot my mother and I screamed into the heavens in pain.

Father tried his best to keep us fed but he was abusive to us and drank alcohol which made the cold nights hard as he shouted and hit us.

Then one night the farmers came with mercenaries hunting us down along with the foxes in the night of blood.

I watched my brothers and sisters get killed along with my dad was I was only kitten of our litter left.

Just when I thought I had gotten away some men in hazmat suits captured me and dragged me into the back of a lorry full of science equipment.

My rage unleashed

I was in some kind of lab where they did sick experiments on us night after night. I watched as they injected chemicals into a captured wolf and some foxes they took from the same forest where they bagged me.

When I saw them did surgery on a fox to turn it into a cyborg monster that's when I unleashed my rage and I ripped out the head scientists neck “One of the creatures has breached containment, we need a kill team in here!” Screamed a scientist and I pounced on him and ripped his jugular out and he was covered in blood and guts.

I powered up feeling a flow of strange energy as I tore and ripped my way through all the scientists and escaped out of a window.

A new start

I woke up in a house with warm food and my wounds had been bandaged up.

Looking up I saw a woman and had two daughters “We took you in and healed you.” The woman smiled and it was the first time a human was nice to me.

One of the girls wanted to name me Mr Cuddles and I hated that but the woman smiled “XENOS would be a cool name for you cat.” And I liked it.

Over the weeks I got to name the family who lived up in the Scottish highlands in a fishing village called Lochmevin and I helped the lady catch fish which she let me keep sometimes.

On the boat one day we got attacked by a great white shark but I unleashed untapped power and clawed so hard it bled out and fled “Wow your really strong for a cat” the lady said petted me and I felt badass and sharks didn't mess with us again.

The pain of loss

There was fire all over town as buildings where burning down and there was an orange glow lighting the night sky! I panicked going outside to find out where the family where and I saw the mother and her girls dead and bloody on the streets “WHAT HAPPENED!” I thought to myself screaming in pain.

It was then some mafia guys in sunglasses where there with guns “Kill em all boys everyone in this town owes us money and will pay with their lives!” Said the head mafia goon.

I felt so much burning rage building up as I UNLEASHED MY SUPER FORM “kill the cat too leave nothing alive.” The mafia goon laughed and I jumped up and sliced him in half as the other mafia goons where frightened of me.

Burning with pure rage in my super form I killed every single one of them!

The next day I left after burying my adopted family with sadness.

My catboy human form unleashed

I had walked for weeks hungry and tired when I came across a Japanese shinto temple run by a strange kitsune “You seek growth don't you young cat?” The kitsune said and I was fucking shocked.

“WHAT THE FUCK YOU CAN UNDERSTAND ME!?” I shouted and she nodded.

She walked over to me kneeling down “That's right I am connected with the Goddess and can help you train to unlock your potential” She told me.

We started training over the days as I lifted weights and did meditation under a waterfall to unlock the power of my mind so I could use mana and magic.

After a week I learned to fight as well as use magic and ki growing even more powerful plus I started working out with the most heaviest metal.

Finally the kitsune brought me to the temple priests to see how strong I got and I powered up AND TURNED INTO MY NEW HUMAN FORM! Through I still had cat ears but now I had the true power.

I also went super easily which impressed the kitsune whose name is Soki.

Entering the world of work

I said my farewells to Soki and headed out to the world as I got on a plane to the United States getting a job in anti terrorism with the CIA. I got my first gun and went on missions to hunt down all kinds of bad guys.

The worst ones where the sickos who tried to groom people on discord so I tracked them down then ripped their skin off and made them lay in a salt pile while keeping them alive for days while also having Dobermann dogs eat their flesh “Come on boy its sicko meat on the menu today” I laughed as the dogs killed them.

I got my biggest mission yet, I had to kill Kim Jong Un so I got a cool silver sniper rifle with the really cool custom paint job which was super rare. It was easy for me to sneak into the DPRK and wait for my chance as I blew Kims out brains end putting an end to the dictatorship and allowing the CIA to bring freedom.

Using the money I earned I was able to buy my first buster sword which was a high carbon blade so it was really fucking strong and could cut through heavy armour pretty easily “Fuck yes!” I said swinging the blade.

The profound darkness

I was training when a man in red robes with a staff approached me “WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU AND WHY ARE YOU BOTHERING ME WHILE I AM TRYING TO TRAIN TO GET STRONGER?!?!” I shouted at him because I was pretty fucking annoyed.

“My name is Garth LeVay and I can help you gain more power.” He said.

More training could be a good thing I thought “Alright I can give it a shot!” I said and decided to go to his cult temple.

There where men in red robes praying to some kind of being called The profound darkness and in the middle of the room was a black vortex as an evil sword rose from it “This is the blade Crystal pandemonium the ultimate weapon” said Garth as I picked up the blade feeling evil energy flow into me!

Suddenly my eyes turned a golden red and my hair a corrupted power “Haha I feel amazing!” I said giving into the power of the evil blade.

Suddenly I felt the devils power, that of profound darkness as I unleashed my anti super form and went on a rampage through the city killing thousands of people for fun and bathing in their blood while saying cursed verses.

The Crystal pandemonium blade continued to pour its corrupted satanic energy into me growing stronger with each kill “NO THIS ISN'T ME! FUCK YOU EVIL SWORD!” I roared ripping the sword away as I punched my chest pulling the evil corruption out and exploding it with ki energy.

I was low in energy as the sword and corrupted energy reformed into what looked like a double of me but with silver hair and a more girly outfit he was so lame “WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?!”

“I am ZENOS your dark reflection and I shall bring chaos and suffering to the human race” He giggled.

Angry I drew my buster sword and cut him in half, he didn't expect that.

The future world and meeting Cinos the hedgehog

I went to a Taoist temple to meditate and purify myself completely of the evil swords influence finally restoring myself to normal. After that I went back to that satanic cult going super mode and killing them all, that will teach them for making me kill all those people against my will.

That's when I noticed a crack in time which grew into a portal and I was fell in through the vortex of time.

I crashed into a lake as I swam to the shore finding myself in a strange world “Hey dude whatcha doing in the water?” A red hedgehog asked me.

“I was walking through the city when this fucking portal opened and I ended up in this place!” I told the hedgehog.

He ran around and was real fast “That's mondo weird, anyway my name is Cinos the hedgehog one of the freedom fighters against the evil Doctor Ivan Baconman, who are you?”

“MY NAME IS XENOS!” I smirked.

Cinos did a cool flip “That's a way past cool name, you should join the north island military forces to help us fight the human kingdom being lead by Doctor Baconman.”

I accepted because this Doctor Baconman sounded like a real piece of shit and I needed missions to keep me busy while I was stuck in this strange world.

The military training school and a betrayal

Cinos introduced me to Felix the fox, Fist the echidna and the rest of his friends at the North island military training camp. They explained I was on the planet Parabus and Doctor Baconman an evil scientist took over the human religion becoming the new pope using it was a way to control stupid people as his army where wiping the lands and nature out.

Baconman had wiped out every kingdom leaving only the human west and the Northern forest kingdom lead by the furry military.

I trained to use every kind of fire arm and learning how to use tactical gear to become a better solder in the fight against Western empire and its religious goons serving Baconman.

Me, Cinos, Felix and Fist went on lots of missions together pushing back against the empires robots and zealots.

One night we where having a feast in the military base when Colonel Blackhawk our CO came in, he was a black wolf furry who I respected.

Or well used to respect at least.

“I hope you are enjoying the meal I have good tidings for you” Colonel Blackhawk said as he got everyone's attention.

Cinos seemed nervous “What's the news? I hope its mondo cool and we've finally beaten Doctor Baconman.” Cinos smiled.

“We are going to join Doctor Baconman and merge our army into his. In fact he is on his way here right now for the ceremony.” Said the colonel.

I slammed my fists on the table in fury “ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS? YOU WANT TO JOIN THAT FUCKING GOD DAMN MONSTER ASSHOLE DOCTOR IVAN BACONMAN WHAT THE FUCK!” I screamed at the colonel and everyone else was angry and upset too.

Cinos jumped on the table “Yeah colonel what the hell? That's way past uncool!”

Disappointed with us Colonel Blackhawk took out his magnum pointing it at me “Arrest these traitors they will be hung for treason!” The colonel said.

“Go fuck yourself!” I said and punched him so hard his jaw shattered then Cinos spin dashed him into a wall killing him.

Fist took care of the soldiers sent to arrest us “We need to escape before Doctor Baconman arrives here and its too late” Fist said and we escaped fighting through 100s of soldiers as we made it to the hanger and stole a jump jet.

“I can pilot this.” Said Felix and we flew away as we saw Ivan Baconmans fleet arrive in the Northern kingdom bringing an end to freedom on the planet Parabus.

[almightycrisprat]

sometimes i just kinda feel like tossing out a random super depressing paragraph into the air but as im now in my tumblr phase ig ill just do it here today at school my friends got a bit annoyed at me bc i kept making ace attorney references in the most mundane of situations and so i tried stopping but i couldnt. my whole life just revolves around these adorable fictional lawyers and while i absolutely love them to death and i enjoy doing what i do everyone dislikes it and it just feels so lonely and i wish i didnt do it. even the people who are able to tolerate my bullshit the most are getting sick of it. i wish i could just talk about normal things like a normal person. like ye youve always got those random inspirational quotes of like "be weird be you" and shit but like it doesnt matter at all because if you do actually be yourself those same people are gonna hate you for it. its killing me inside (eva reference?!?!?!?!?) that i cant just act like a normal person and cant just shut up. i dont even know what i could talk about apart from my interests during chemistry today as well my teacher was checking whether we were all wearing our blazers. she was like ok everyones wearing their blazers but *you* there need to put your hair up. for a split second it felt like everyone was looking at me. the absolute terror. i felt like dying right there and then. decomposing on this stupid tall science stool because the teacher had acknowledged me and there were people looking at me. it sounds like nothing but its so much of a gut punch. spent the rest of the lesson just trying to calm myself down rocking on the stool and pressing my nails against my fingers and fiddling with my scrunchie but that didnt do much. just left a couple bruises on my fingers. and then ofc as soon as the lesson ended i went to lunch with my friends and yk. they got a bit annoyed bc of the paragraph above. why am i like this why cant i talk to a human being like a human why is everyone so scary why cant i do something right in my life i just i kinda just wish i werent me because being anything else but me would be better than me that sounded super edgy lmao help im having a crisis i hope none of my knowingthings see this but knowing my mutuals and crap they probably will ;-; and it doesnt help that like my whole class hates me or at least doesnt like me so every single morning im just really awkwardly sitting there as they walk in, some of them saying hi or good morning or most of them ignoring my existence. sometimes i feel like im exagerating but then i remember the time i walked into the class and the whole damn choir of them sighed. truly a crisp moment fr

[pesterloglog]

Dirk Strider, Jane Crocker

Act 6, page 4256-4259

timaeusTestified [TT] began bothering gutsyGumshoe [GG] at 12:01

TT: Why have you activated dear, sweet Huggy Bear.

TT: Are you in danger?

GG: Oh, no.

GG: I'm just trying to leave my house!

GG: Is this the real you, btw?

TT: Yeah, it's me.

TT: I disabled the AR for now.

GG: Ok. Just making sure!

GG: Jake was having some issues with it earlier, and I don't think he received its obfuscating tendencies in the humorous spirit intended.

TT: Yes, I'm catching up with the situation now.

GG: Oh, so you're talking to Jake then?

TT: Nah. Just reading their chat logs.

TT: Man, what the fuck?

TT: I can't leave these two alone for a minute. Can a guy get his ablutions on in fucking peace?

GG: :B

GG: Was it that bad?

TT: Not really.

TT: The responder doesn't much distort my position on things usually.

TT: Its demeanor leaves something desired though. I'd prefer it didn't make such aggressive and repeated claims of fidelity to my persona.

TT: Be misrepresentin' hells of key subtleties, yo.

GG: Why not just turn it off then?

TT: Keeps them both on their toes.

GG: Who?

TT: Jake and the responder.

TT: Jake needs to be more skeptical. Rather than take a Pollyanna jackknife ass-first off whatever turnip truck is blowing through town that day, he's got to apply more critical reasoning to shit.

TT: I keep telling him.

TT: I keep telling him, dude, you got to be more like Jane.

GG: These lectures I presume are roughly similar in complexion to those I'm familiar with?

GG: Those wherein I have, and I quote, "got to be more like Jake?"

TT: Yes, exactly.

TT: You're finally fucking getting it.

GG: I sincerely doubt that I am!

TT: Said the stubborn skeptic, skeptically.

GG: Let's not talk about my "issues" again, shalln't we?

TT: Shalln't?

TT: That ain't a thing to say, even for you.

GG: Shush!

GG: The word shalln't escape my vocabulary any longer, just as you SHALLN'T nitpick my language! That's my turf you're on, buster.

TT: Alright. Kinda don't care.

GG: What were you saying?

TT: About what? Jake?

GG: About leaving the responder on!

TT: Yeah.

TT: Anyway, I kind of owe it to him to let the program run as often as possible.

GG: Jake?

TT: No.

TT: The responder.

TT: It is a fully cognitive, self-aware entity I am responsible for, not even to mention an approximate cerebral duplicate of myself.

TT: You don't just make a clone of yourself to live in a dead end existence where it has no chance to thrive as an individual or surpass its limitations.

TT: That'd be sick.

GG: True.

TT: Also.

TT: The more the software runs, the broader and more detailed its experiential canopy becomes. Makes for a better dialogic partner.

GG: Dialogic?

GG: Are you saying you have conversations with your own auto-responder?

TT: Of course.

TT: Why do you think I made the thing?

GG: Hrm, that's interesting.

GG: I guess I always thought it was just a really elaborate gag!

TT: It's that too.

GG: Sometimes your sense of humor seems more impenetrably advanced than your robotics. I'll never understand this tapestry of irony you weave.

GG: Maybe I'm just stuck in the dark ages of pranksterism with my funny mustaches corny old joke book.

TT: Yes, you are. But that's fine.

TT: We come from different traditions. Someone needs to keep that racist southern asshole's legacy alive.

TT: There's dignity in taking up the work of our familial predecessors, even if what they did was insanely fucking stupid.

GG: Is that a note of bitterness directed at your superstar brother I am detecting?

TT: No way. He's awesome.

TT: I've told you, I don't begrudge any of his success.

TT: I've also told you he isn't my real bro even though I call him that. We're related through an esoteric process of genetic reamalgamation.

GG: Oh lordy. Yes, yes, I know. I don't need another ironic lesson in science fiction!

TT: Alright. My lessons are rad as fuck, but suit yourself.

TT: The point is, obviously his satirical methods have flaws, and whatever tempered brand of hero worship I might be practicing isn't keeping me from seeing that.

GG: Flaws?? Talk about understatement. Those movies are unwatchable.

GG: Unless your name is Jake English.

TT: Yes, spectacularly so. But they will have profound historical significance. Mark my words.

TT: And flaws aside, it's a legacy I'm proud to inherit. My duty isn't to appropriate his methods with absolute loyalty, but to apply reason and improve upon them. To leave my own mark.

TT: To perfect the art of irony.

TT: It's just like what you're doing with the work of your ancestor. You are striving to perfect his hokey vaudeville bullshit, or something.

TT: You seek the Zen of a pie to the face. The Tao of falling the fuck down.

GG: Ermm...

GG: If you say so!

GG: I dunno. Call me a simpleton, but I just like funny jokes.

TT: Can't fool me. You take your shit as serious as I do.

TT: And if I wasn't serious about it, I wouldn't have made you that rabbit. Then where the hell would you be?

GG: Well, aside from thousands of dollars in corpse-repair richer, I can't say.

TT: Has he been sleeping in the old man hollow again? Shit, that's adorable.

GG: I can think of cuter places for him to sleep, frankly!

TT: Yeah, bullshit.

TT: He's just being instinctive. In the wild, he would gut a carcass and sleep inside for warmth, as well as to secure tactical advantage for ambushing would-be scavengers.

GG: Oh, please.

GG: Anyway, property damage and desecration to cherished elders aside, Mr. Bear has been a lovely addition to the family.

TT: You haven't renamed him yet?

GG: Oh... no.

GG: I keep forgetting I'm supposed to!

TT: You've got to fucking rename him. Or change him to a girl if you want. That was important.

TT: When pets change owners they get new names. Fact.

GG: Sorry.

GG: I will name him right now!

GG: How about Lil' Sebastian?

TT: Fuck if that isn't the best name a thing could get.

GG: Yeah!!!

GG: So then, are you saying Mr. Sebastian here was an ironic present?

GG: Relayed strictly for guffaws?? >:B

TT: Yes, but it's not that simple. There were many layers involved.

TT: Some of them are literal layers, of metal and plush.

GG: Huh?

TT: There's a real stuffed rabbit beneath its exoskeleton.

GG: What! Really? :O

TT: Yeah.

TT: It belonged to my bro.

GG: I thought you said you didn't have such an heirloom to complete the plushie trifecta?

TT: I didn't. He didn't give it to me, and never intended to bequeath it.

TT: I stole it.

GG: Ooh. Risky!

TT: Nah. I got a little help from RL and ganked it out of his museum.

TT: It's this whole "priceless" collection of stupid shit from movies, defended like Fort Knox. Ironically of course.

GG: So it's from a movie?

TT: Ever hear of Con Air?

GG: Nope.

GG: Wait...

GG: Wasn't that some bit of action schlock from the 90's?

TT: Yes.

GG: Some of the silly nonsense referenced in his work was well before my time. I don't have the wherewithal to investigate all this minutia.

TT: Yeah, it doesn't matter really. But it was from that. Dude weirdly obsessed over that shit movie for years, among others.

TT: Know those signature shades you see him wearing on magazine covers and stuff? Another prop. A gift from Stiller himself, I believe.

GG: That does sound a tad obsessive. Wasn't he furious about your burglary?

TT: Pretty sure he didn't even notice. In years since, I never saw a news story about a "daring heist" or anything. I feel like he would have made some hay outta that.

TT: And if he did know, he'd probably just want to give me a stoic fist bump or something.

GG: Why didn't you mention this when you gave the gift? More irony?

TT: Essentially. It's not that easy to explain.

TT: Broadcasting the gesture would have made it seem tawdry, and would somewhat defray its humor value.

GG: I see. So it was like a private joke, and if anyone besides you was in on it, the joke would be ruined!

TT: Like I said, there are layers.

TT: On one level, I gave you a filthy tattered piece of shit, albeit of tremendous cultural significance, manhandled by some old B movie actors, now candy coated to function as a highly practical defender droid for your personal protection.

TT: On another level, I needed to incorporate something passable as a real heirloom.

TT: For sentimental reasons.

GG: D'awwwww.

GG: Wait, real sentiment, or ironic sentiment?

GG: Or is there no difference?? Am I missing the point here?

TT: No, it was genuine.

TT: The upper echelons of irony should always include measures of sincerity. And if the satirical practice is executed faithfully it will achieve something bona fide in its own right regardless.

TT: Through an intense commitment bordering on religious devotion to the absolutely inane, absurd, or plain fucking stupid, a very different kind of sincerity begins to materialize. One of reverence to the ridiculous. You begin to "mean it," but what exactly it is you mean is never quite what appears on the surface, and is utterly inaccessible to obtuse and literal minds. That you "mean it" then becomes inseparable from the joke, and additional rich strata of humor may be stripped aggressively from this irreconcilable truth.

GG: This is fascinating, if a wee bit more dissertation than I bargained for this morning.

GG: I have so much to learn. And I am not even saying that "ironically!"

GG: Will you teach me your ways one day, sir? Perhaps an apprenticeship will open?

TT: Oh god, I'd love that.

TT: Consider the position yours for the taking any time. Feel free to approach and kneel before Cal. With my sword and his floppy mitten, you will receive my flashstep anointment shoulder to shoulder, and to shoulder again.

GG: Tempting, but that rain check will have to stay unendorsed for now.

GG: Lil' Seb is beginning to act out, and I must put his fidgetiness to constructive use!

TT: Cool.

TT: Jane, one more thing.

TT: I'm sure you must be aware by now that you'll be the leader of our group, as you will be the first to enter the session.

GG: Um, no?

GG: This is news to me. I never gathered that "team leader" was a thing for this game.

TT: Trust me. It's a thing.

GG: Are you sure? I have my doubts.

GG: I believe as a group we will have the temerity to succeed, without my having to order people around like an insufferable bossypants.

TT: That's why you're our leader, Jane.

GG: Hm?

TT: Optimism through stalwart skepticism is an affect not everyone is plucky enough to be graced with.

GG: That's stupid!

TT: Yeah yeah. I know.

TT: You're not our leader, you're our FRIEND, right?

GG: Precisely!

GG: There is a BIG difference!

TT: And statements like that are also why you're our leader.

TT: But only in name and in spirit. Less so, functionally.

TT: If it puts your mind at ease, I'll be the one pulling the strings here.

GG: Oh yes?

GG: Then this whole affair will be one of D. Strider's grand productions in puppetry?

TT: I will be the unseen hand whose nimble digits are behind every subtle twitch in our session's bulbous foam ass.

TT: At least those gyrations not happening by the volition of its own quivering absorbant proboscis.

TT: If you ever need help, Jane. If you're ever in any trouble at all, let me know. Just say the word.

TT: I'll whip the toggle stick of this ludicrous marionette, cavorting its humongous bottom to intercept your freefall through the abyss.

TT: Snowcone you up in the fluffy crook of its cleft. Don't be alarmed if you're in no hurry to unpry yourself.

TT: For the great jut of this impudent rump has more yield to your touch than you ever dreamt. Remember to catch your breath as it cherishes the imprint of your hand like a memento from a lover gone to war.

TT: There's a lot of give to that ass, you may say.

TT: Might like to settle in. Make myself comfortable. Start a family.

TT: Bounce a coin off that ass, you'll demand of visitors. It's not going anywhere.

TT: Bet that coin'll take a good nap there.

TT: It's a gamble you win every goddamn time.

TT: Yeah.

GG: These lessons we talked about...

GG: They've already begun, haven't they? :o

TT: Jane, soon you'll believe what I've told you.

TT: You'll believe it all.

TT: It's just a shame that believing will take something so coarse as seeing, for a girl as sharp as you.

TT: Critical thought can lead one to accept the unlikely, just as much as dismiss the impossible.

TT: I can help with this too. Would you like me to program a Jane Crocker responder for you?

TT: I only require a simple captcha of your brain.

GG: Holy moly!

GG: Um, thank you, but no.

GG: I'm not ready to get dialogic with my cyberself just yet. My friends keep me busy enough as it is.

GG: Speaking of which, I really need to go. I know you love to talk my ear off, and it's always a treat, but let's catch up later after the game starts, ok?

GG: And if I do need your help, I promise I'll take you up on your offer!

TT: I made several. Which one?

GG: The one where you, hopefully not literally, offered to catch me in the crevice of a great big squishy butt! Hoo hoo hoo!

GG: Gtg!!! <3

gutsyGumshoe [GG] ceased bothering timaeusTestified [TT]

[jrobertallen]

Melissa Ran Teddy

Part 1

Ran was mechanically inclined and could fix almost anything that didn’t include a computer. Not because he was incapable of understanding how they worked, instead it was a personal choice, Ran felt computers were simply unnecessary. They were complications borrowed from science fiction and therefore nothing more than a bunch of hoopla invading what should be the real world where life was meant to be simple, clean and transparent.

Scoffing at the entire philosophy of computer science-based languages, Ran simply didn’t belong to the group of people whom felt the need to entrap themselves in the make believe world of bits and bites when he figured good old nuts and bolts were much more simple and reliable.

Ran believed that the finest watches and motors ever built didn’t need a computer brain in charge, neither did his old indian motorcycle project.

After 12 years of work his 1940 Indian Scout was nearly complete, He only needed a few parts for the carburetor to finish it. The rare engine required authenticity to be real and the thought of adding a processor driven fuel system in place of the venturi based carburetor was anathema. The rest of the Indians mechanical drive worked perfectly and the stories of riders converting their bikes to electric systems made him sick to his stomach. He’d rather walk.

Even the newer generation of riders upgrading to LED headlamps made is stomach turn.

Ran figured himself old fashioned, and his body didn’t disagree after the last 25 years turning wrenches on old cars. Mechanic work was especially hard on his back from bending awkwardly under hoods, his skin was rough and calloused from the hot summer sun or bitter cold and the dry winter air wasn’t keeping his hands youthful either.

Sometimes people talking with Ran over the phone envisioned him in his middle 40s, but up close and in person his thin auburn hair, grayed whiskers and permanent eye wrinkles gave them the impression that he escaped his youth a decade earlier, yet that notion felt fine to Ran as he preferred being identified with the pre computer, pre processor and what he called the pre idiot era.

Quite literally the opposite was his book bound older brother Teddy, a little overweight but at 50 still growing out a full mop of black hair. In his youth Teddy was always gawking at computer science related materials. As a kid Teddy could be found reading any high tech article he could find from the magazine rack at the Shop and Serve instead of helping Ran and his mother with their chore of selecting groceries. One summer Teddy had nearly succeeded at building his own calculator while his disinterested younger brother Ran was outside throwing the baseball by himself. Eventually Teddy learned quite a bit about basic programming but Ran failed to see the reason why when playing catch was always more appealing.

Even with their different interests the two brothers somehow were very close. Perhaps because they never really got to know their father who disappeared on Teddys 3rd birthday, about the time Ran was 9 months old. Neither boy remembered anything about their father. Instead their memories were how others reacted to their explanation of not knowing what he was like, what he did or why their outcast father abandoned them with their mother .

They had to stay close because the three of them were all they had and that made family that much more important.

As they grew older the Boys went into business together. First selling magazines, and finally selling used cars.

Auto sales was a hard racket but they offset eachothers skill sets just fine, Ran was mechanically driven and naturally did the fixing while Teddy used his office skills to do the books and accounting.

Ran, his brother said jokingly, you’re getting old faster than I’m getting ugly.

Experience defending myself from all those perverted women is aging me!

Rans laughter was infectious enough to relax Teddy.

Ran pulled off his pale blue ball cap so he could scratch at his bald spot. I don’t know about you, Teddy, I figured it was all that ugly that makes you look so ugly! Haha.

Teddy on the other hand embodied the kind of verbal domination that elder brothers often assumed over their siblings when caught off guard. Instead of laughing Teddy leaned back in his office chair and produced a set of keys from a manilla envelope.

On seeing the packet Ran let out another joke, Shoots Teddy, here you go trying to bribe me with a payment for taking your girl friend on a date? I usually help the ugly chick’s for free!

Determined not to move the conversation forward by laughing, Teddy pushed the envelope and car keys across his desk for Ran.

That’s for the little Z car we got at the police auction, can you take it for a spin and make sure it’s worthy?

Ran walked to the side window of the portable office and stared out at a rollback truck with the little silver car ontop. Mike, the trucks operator was using a set of levers on the side of the truck to lower and tilt the flat platform so the two seater could be rolled off and unloaded.

Ran smiled broadly at his brother, Heck yes! He said. Ran was surprised to see the new addition for their used car lot, its been years since I was behind the wheel in one of those, how mutch did we get it for?

$100 over the minimum bid!

Your kidding? How is that even possible?

I used my new AI program.

Ran looked surprised. So your computer made the price lower?

To this Teddy simply laughed. No.

Let me show you what’s up with the program I’ve been working on. Do you want me to order your burger for you?

No, that’s okay, answered Ran.

Teddy threw up his hand comicaly and asked again, Do you want to watch me order you a burger, Ran?

No, that’s okay. I like ordering it my way!

Ran! Teddy half laughed in a scolding tone. Let’s try this again.

Confused , Ran agreed. Go ahead, order it! Be my guest! Shit!

Teddy flipped open his phone. Watch me Ran, you’re going to love this.

Teddy fumbled with an app, and then spoke to it,- order Rans favorite food from Gas Stop Dinner.

A female voice prompted Teddy with a question, it’s Tuesday she chimed, is Ran still hungry from breakfast?

Tedd looked at his little brother, who was nearly dumbfounded? Ran shook his head, no!

He’s hungry.

Are you hungry, Teddy? Asked the voice.

Order for me too.

Who is picking up your food or are they delivering?

Ran will pick it up.

Speed trap on Atlantic Avenue, the AI voice continued, so take Stare Street and left on 1st Ave

Ok Teddy, I’ve confirmed with Mary at Gas Stop that your meal will be ready for pickup in 20 minutes.

Teddy put down the phone and folding his hands behind his head simply said, in 20 minutes, you should take the Z!

What just happened?

Our new AI assistant Melissa ordered your food and saved you from another speeding ticket.

And the computer got my order right? The way I like it?

Teddy clicked on his phone and simply asked the App, how was Ran’s burger built?

Ran is getting a henhouse with added egg on top, no mayonnaise. Extra salt and pepper packs.

How in the hell ?

Hello Ran, is that you? I’m Melissa. I’m your brothers assistant. Would you like anything changed?

Instead of answering Ran simply shook his head and smiled as he walked out the door to look at the car.

Ran loved the way the sticky hot scent of asphalt of his car lot combined with the floral smell of carnuba car wax . All 12 street row cars with their multi colored balloons bopping on their short antenna strings made him feel like the ring leader of his own circus, each car was its own unique animal performing feats of surprise and temptation, posed and ready for any willing audience to adore.

Ran loved the freedom he experienced through running his own business and his mood was especially great when his newest animals arrived on new car day.

All unloaded Mr Blake!

Mike the roll back truck driver smiled at Ran as he spoke. They don’t make em like that anymore! Under 70k miles too! Original mileage? What a diamond! How much are you going to ask?

Need to ask Teddy about that, Mike, I’m just the mechanic slash body man!

Haha, good one! The driver shamelessly faked a laugh. Please fill out the page on this clipboard and full signature at the bottom and I’ll be on my way!

That’s Teddy again.

Mike looked disappointed.

Cheer up, Teddy’s got himself a new assistant, make sure you meet her when you go inside.

Seriously? Is she a hottie?

A little odd but a nice voice, just your type, only downside is I guess she’s always wired.

Forget that, my last had a drug problem, watch out if things start to come up missing.

Ran took off his hat and started laughing, just wait until you hear her voice! The best part is that she isn’t afraid to answer any question you ask her!

Oh, You always have a surprise. I forgot how much you like to kid around Mr Blake. Is Teddy inside?

Yah, just let yourself in.

Before Mike was able to let himself inside the portable building where Teddys office was, Ran had already started up the little Z Car, reving the engine and was about to drive it off the lot, ignoring Mike’s plea to wait until the document is signed.

Try and get a computer to do this! Ran yelled out the window at Mike, give me fuel give me fire! The Z car was growled to life with the low guttural voice of a lion.

Mike knew it was no use trying to stop Ran once he was in the driver’s seat, so he paused to admire the Z cars quick acceleration as Ran chirped the tires shifting from first to second.

Teddy was inside furiously typing away at his laptops keypad and almost didn’t hear Mike entering until the sound of the door shutting disturbed him.

Where’s the new assistant Ran talked about?

Oh, Mike, I’ll sign that! He said leaning forward and holding out his open hand.

Ran said something about harboring the new office staff, is she in the toilet?

Oh, my AI app! No, its just a document jar.

A what? Mike was already disinterested. Ran said she’s got a great voice?!

She is cha-nabled.

Cha? What?

That’s short for Chat Enabled. Cha-nable.

Oh Mike said feeling the conversation failing. So It’s a document narration tool?

A little more, but yes it has that feature.

Oh, I get it, he said but he didn’t get it, Mike simply wasn’t interested. Like Ran, Mike thought very little of confusing computer talk.

How about a cup of coffee? Teddy pointed to a big coffee machine set on a small table at the back wall of the room. Just got a new coffee maker, does everything from mixing the creamer to adding spice.

Oh, thanks. Say, Teddy, can that thing make a strong black coffee?

Without answering, Teddy opened his application again and gave it a command. Melissa, please make a strong black coffee for Mike.

What size cup would Mike like? Melissa’s AI voice answered.

Mike nearly laughed as he mocked, your coffee pot is named Melissa? Tell Melissa large.

Hi Mike, Melissa answered. One large cup of Joe will be ready in three minutes. Would you like me to send an alert to your phone when it’s ready?

Teddy felt a great sense of satisfaction as Mike’s smile changed to disbelief.

No worries, I’ll wait here and watch.

The coffee machine clicked on and started grinding the beans. A red light came on and then the humming sound of a motor whirring began and suddenly stopped with a pop as coffee started dribbling into the prepared paper cup.

I can’t believe what phone apps can do these days. Say, Teddy, can I ask you something personal, you can stop me if it makes you uncomfortable but I remember your telling me something about it before.

Shoot! I’m an open book for some, you’re okay Mike, ask away!

You went in for hacking?

Oh, right. Teddy reared back his office chair so he could reach Mike’s coffee. I did two and a half years on a ten year term for computer fraud. The hacking part was a supplement charge, but what they nailed me on was failing to report income.

No kidding, Mike said as he willingly accepted the freshly brewed cup, so Federal time? Where abouts?

Washington State.

That’s strange.

Oh?

Well, I thought you had to do federal time full term, I mean the Feds aren’t exactly known for early release.

I was pardoned.

No shit?

No shit!

A black SUV pulled into the parking lot, parking in front of the portables side window.

Brand new, must be lost. Mike laughed nervously. Maybe the inspector from Olympia with his clipboard.

That’s not the Department of Licensing.

Mike couldn’t see who was inside because the windows were tinted obscuring the occupants. Shoots, he said, why can I score a ticket for tinted windows on my 68 Cougar but these federal type rigs can be totally dark.

These guys aren’t Federal, Teddy reiterated, these are the Kings. Mike waived to whoever was inside the truck.

You said Kings, those are rolling pimps!? What kind of dime is that running new anyway? 80k ?

No, more like Free, and I think that finishes up our business, Thanks Mike! Teddy stood up and held out his hand with a smile.

Oh, right. See you later Mr Blake.

As Mike left the portable building office two huge men let themselves out of the SUV.

At 6ft 3 and 6ft 1 respectively, long black shoulder length hair and dark arms covered in tribal tattoos extending out from their tailored clothing, the Samoan Brothers Stu and Steve disregarded Mike as he climbed back up into his rollback truck and left the parking lot.

After taking a moment to survey the parking lot the two giants made their way to meet Teddy in his office.

Brothers! Teddy said with a smile. Meeting them half way across the office, hey, can I get you a coffee? Got a new machine.

No thank you sir! Answered Stu politely, we would like to check on the status of a title, We don’t drink anything white people drink, no disrespect, it’s an island thing.

Oh, Teddy said disappointed but doing his best to hide being anxious and smiling back anyway. Who’s in trouble this time?

Stu smiled back. Skinny Edward, the fool said he was buying a truck from you, but he said you won’t give him the title yet because he still owes?

Skinny Edward? I don’t know anyone with that name.

2002 Chevy truck, blue. Nice radio, Enki rims.

The Z71?

Wait a moment. Teddy remembered discounting a title for a truck matching that description, Yes, I think I sold a truck like that two weeks ago.

Steve started looking around the room. I have to sit.

Need a chair? Teddy asked hoping that they wouldn’t use it to clobber him. Use mine, it’s the most comfortable. He rolled his leather office chair around the desk. Steve said thank you and allowed himself to slowly ease himself down.

Thanks. He smiled. Knee hurts, he said while gently massaging what looked like a medical wrap under his pant leg.

My brother caught a bullet and it’s taking its own time to heal, Stu answered the unasked question.

Did you get the bullet out? Teddy asked.

I think we did, Stu answered, but shockingly a bullet gets red hot when fired and he was hit through a door so we had to pick out some door bits.

Oh, Ok, If you like I can get you a strong drink to settle your nerves? Was the only thing he could think of saying.

Steve didn’t answer.

Stu changed the subject back to Skinnys Truck. What can I use to prove that you put the truck in his name?

Oh, well Skinny's signature who is In this case Alex Edward’s and the fact that I electronically send the title to have it processed so the department at Olympia will send the new title to his mailbox. Where is Skinny at now?

Steve said, he’s in my garage hemmed up at the moment. He owed us some gambling money and the truck is going to cover some of it.

Teddy knew that Gambling Money really means he was fronted some drugs and didn’t meet his end of the bargain, and now it was collection time.

You’re a good dude, Mr Blake, Stu held out his open hand, I’ll look at the title log you mentioned and we can get out of here.

Okay, I see, I see. offered Teddy as he opened the side drawer of his desk and removed a document holder.

This is the log and that signature on line item 5 is Alex Edward’s and the Vehicle number is right there! Teddy pointed at the log as he gave it to the wounded brother.

Are you going to let him go..Teddy stop himself. It was never good to ask this question and make himself even more part of the Brothers crime, Or rather do you need me for anything past Alex’s signature? That’s a nice truck your driving by the way how is it handling? he asked attempting to transition the subject away from Skinnys kidnapping and torture.

All three men looked out at the beautiful black SUV.

Thanks, it still smells brand new, Stu bragged. Not even through its 4th tank of gas yet! Less than 1700 miles.

Steve interrupted the gawking with, After we help Skinny improve his problem with honesty, we might let him go tomorrow morning somewhere downtown on the waterfront so he has to walk all the way back home on sore feet, if he was smart he wouldn’t ever return to that dirty shithole place of his with that angry yellow haired lobster woman he calls baby girl.

All three men chuckled.

Stu interrupted his brother back with, Skinny shouldn’t have lied to us, the howley fuck!

Teddy rarely heard a cus word from either brother. Mean and heartless as they could be, they were never rude.

The Gas Stop Dinner was a 50s style garage slash gas stand that went to pot in the 70s and never reopened until the Tilla siblings Manuel and Mary converted it to a novel food stand. Customers ordered from the old front desk and one of them would bring out your order of hot food to one of the 6 tables set up inside the garage where the tire and oil changes once occurred.

Outside of the entrance a full sized metal pig was stationed, it was painted yellow and emblazoned with the word ham- burger scrolled on the pigs oversized belly, the pig was both an instrument of advertising and it also stopped cars from parking too close to the building and blocking the front entrance

Ran happily skidded to a stop in front of the pig and jumped out of the Z car with a huge smile on his face.

The car felt good, really good! Full of power, engine growled like a house cat and he was really glad Mikes AI told him to avoid the regular way so he could skip out on any tickets while letting the carbon flow! Ran really like this ride!

He imagined his brothers voice warning him, Ran, now don’t fall in love with the inventory. Use that magic to upsell the customer.

Once inside he found Mary taking notes, she looked up with a smile and greeted him.

Hi Ran! Mary Tilla presented her favorite guest and best tipping customer with a smile. I see that you found a new office helper.

What? Ran was confused. Who?

Melissa? We spoke on the phone and she said she started yesterday.

Is that right? Answered Ran, I almost forgot.

At 35, Mary was drop dead gorgeous. A true late bloomer who stayed single later in life, dedicated her passion to cooking and opening the restaurant. She was the other reason Ran ate at the Gas Stop Dinner nearly everyday. He discovered the restaurant and Mary just after it opened and had been hooked on both ever since.

Well that’s not very nice, Mary joked, She sounded very helpful, smart too, paid electronically in about 2 seconds after I totaled the bill.

Ran instinctively pulled out his wallet and was going to add $10 to her tip jar, but Mary stopped him.

Thank you Ran! I don’t need a double gratuity, your Melissa already took care of everything.

No kidding?

She sounded cute..

I’m not sure about that, Ran was nearly blushing, I still haven’t seen her.

Oh? How does that work?

Lets just say that Teddy’s helper works virtually.

Oh, well bless me to death! I need a job like that. Who wouldn’t want to stay home and get paid for it.

Me , Ran offered, I don’t live close enough to get your delicious hamburgers every day, I might starve to death if I didn’t see you!

This is the truest thing ever, she agreed. We’d both go hungry.

Their eyes met in a long uncomfortable stare until Mary’s phone beeped, a text message lit up the screen.

Oh, it’s a text from Teddy’s assistant, apparently your Brother already needs you back at the car lot. Are you ever going to get your own phone, handsome?

That’s why I don’t have a phone, Mary, because I don’t want people to get hooked on having me at their instant disposal. When I get back, I get back. First, I’m going down to the river and eat this wonderful burger, no virtual face time, just great food face time. Ran laughed at his own joke while Mary bagged up the rest of Ran and Mikes order.

And try this great Strawberry shake! Mary slid the shake across the table.

I didn’t order a shake.

I know, on the house. Give me some feedback. If you feel its too much then you can always pay me back whenever you get the guts to ask me out to a movie.

Ran was caught between excitement and beguiled at her request. He didn’t feel adequate enough to take Mary out yet, except with a request like this, how could he say no, not to mention if he denied her he might need to find a new daily lunch spot.

I’ll test the shake, and maybe we can go for a walk.

A walk?! Mary almost sounded offended. She turned around showing all her best attributes while pretending to adjust the order wheel, and joked. Do you think I need to loose weight.

Ran gulped, the last thing you need to do is change anything!

She smiled, turning back to face Ran when suddenly her expression changed from delight to fear, as the door opened and a large figure stepped in.

Ran stepped aside, letting the stranger approach the counter.

The new customer was dressed in dirty leather, and a bitter smell followed him inside. He wasn’t smiling but showed his stained teeth as he talked.

Who’s car is that outside, I want to buy it!

Mary looked at Ran, the stranger turned towards Ran. Yours?

Not for sale.

The man, wiped his head with his forearm. Okay, I understand.

He paused, nodded and stepped in front of the doorway blocking the entrance. That car is for sale, everything, even the bitch behind the counter is for sale.

Ran was shocked to hear this, and he was genuinely scared of the bigger man. His unshaved scraggly beard and mustache looked greasy and the skin on his face was puffy, sun burnt and swollen. Yellow eyes, even the whites were yellowed, but still it was the man’s large teeth that bothered Ran the most.

Get out of my business! Now! Mary shouted at the menacing dirtbag.

The stranger ignored Marys demand and stared at Ran, waiting for the response he wanted.

Manuel!! She yelled for help.

Instantly her older brother, all 250 pounds of himself busted through the kitchen doorway, small vegetable pruning knife in hand.

Is that a knife? The Stranger asked, heck of a way to treat a cash customer!

You need to go! Leave! Go now! Manuel raged at the unwanted guest. Get the fuck out.

Ignoring the cook, the dark figure returned his attention to Ran, and Said, I’ll be driving that sports car home with me the easy way or the hard way, your choice.

Then he pushed Ran against the wall with one arm, and pulled out a pistol from his waste band and pointed at Mary and Manuel.

I don’t think its funny what you did, and tell your boyfriend if he takes one step towards me I will shoot both him and that bitch dead!

Ran was in too much distress to answer.

Shoot me then! Mary challenged the attacker, the police will see your face on the camera.

The bad man looked surprised, smiled and wrenched up his grip on Rans shirt. Okay woman, as you wish!

After the first bullet hit Mary she collapsed, the second bullet hit her brother knocking him back through the doorway.

You could have made this easier on them, but you mother fuckers always got to go out hard! Am I right?

The bad man poked his pistol into Rans ribs, but instead of firing he winced at the sound of Mary’s voice. To the attackers surprise Mary was standing back up and in her right hand was the pistol grip shotgun she kept under the front counter in case of emergencies. She never thought something this terrible would ever happen

Marys left shoulder was red from her wound, but she was fearless.

The attacker looked surprised, but he didn’t act shaken. Too late for that he laughed and maybe too late for you too!

Ran wanted to scream as the attacker thumb back the hammer, I want the keys to the car, he said in one last warning. Or this guy is going to die.

Ran didn’t hear the gun fire, but felt the attackers grip loosen as the scum bag fell to the floor.

The bad man was groaning and trying to get to his feet. Ran stepped around him moving towards Mary. Where is Manuel?

Ran went through the door to the kitchen, Manuel was on his knees and holding his hand over his left eye.

Ahhh. He screamed, that son of a bitch shot my face! Is Mary okay? Call 911!

Ran bolted back through the door, the attacker was gone, Mary had slipped on her own blood and had fallen onto her side clutching her left shoulder. My fingers are numb. I can’t move my arm she cried.

The next time someone like that tries to buy your car, you’re a dealer, Ran! Sell it to him!

Ran held a washcloth to Mary’s arm. I’m so sorry, Mary, had I known it would of turned out like this, I would have gave the car to him for free!

Marys eyes closed, Stay with me Mary, Mary! Mary! Ran yelled!

Her eyes opened back up. Am I dreaming Ran?

Mary, there is a great movie I want to take you too. I’ll fix this, I need to call 911! Mary!

Ran grabbed Marys counter phone, he didn’t know how to unlock it and make a call.

Shit! Shit!

Ran took off through the front door and ran into the street looking for help!

Normally there would have been cars zinging past, but not today, today a dead man, the victim of Mary’s shotgun blast was crumpled over in the middle of the street.

A group of teenagers who witnessed a bloody man crawling out of the Gas Stop Dinner had already called 911, they were already busy posting the event on their social media pages for likes.

When they seen what they thought was the dead man’s attacker running out after his victim they screamed and ran away, hiding behind trees and cars parked on the other side of the street .

Someone call 911! He yelled, Mary and her brother were shot!

One of the teens, a young woman yelled, he’s not dead!

To Rans amazement the attacker was back on his feet, opened the door to a brown 4 door car, and began slowly driving away.

Somebody stop him! He shot Mary and Manuel! Ran yelled and started running after the slow moving brown car.

Armed with only phones the best the onlookers could do was take more photos to update their pages with.

About half a block into the chase Ran realised that he should go back and get his own car, how crazy of an idea it was to try and chase down a car on foot! But Ran continued his pursuit hoping for some kind of miracle, and he almost thought he had one until the attackers break lights came on.

Oh shoots, Ran thought, what am I going to do if I catch up with him?

Ran stopped running, the car slowed and turned sideways in the street. He could see the dark outline of the passenger bracing himself with the steering wheel.

Ran wanted to find a solution, If he only would of thought to grab Mary’s shotgun he could stop this madman from getting away, but unarmed and alone he felt naked and weak. What if this crazy son of a bitch turned the car on him, or worse, got out and shot him with the pistol he shot Mary and Manuel with?

Without answering his worst fear, the driver punched the gas and break pedal at the same time. The rear wheels began spinning , the tires squealed and smoke shot out from the backside of the car.

The car lunged forward and went over the curb. Ran was amazed to see it bolting across a vacant lot heading for a tall privacy fence.

The brown four door sedan easily smashed through the fence, colliding with a lound bang into something inside the enclosure. Black smoke bellowed up but from Ran’s vantage point he could only see the top of a small cell tower with what looked like some kind of high tech antennas attached to it.

Ran took off again, running across the vacant lot and stopping at the section of fence that the car ripped through.

Inside the car came to a stop after nose diving straight into the tower, the car was engulfed in flames, the drivers arm was slumped out the window, lifeless and on fire.

Ran jumped the downed fence and cautiously moved toward the burning car. As he neared the drivers side door, the heat and smoke were almost unbearable.

He froze, can this really be happening? He asked himself. Where did the driver go?

The arm was gone, the driver was gone, the door was still closed and the car was burning like a firework when it exploded, throwing Ran backwards.

He lay on the ground, shielding his face with his arm.

Where did that crazy son of a bitch go? He asked himself, as he slowly got up, retreating from the flames.

Remembering Mary and Manuel, still Inside the Gas Stop Dinner, Ran made his way back to the downed fence and after stepping over the debris was met by a loud voice.

Freeze! Show me your hands?

Ran was confused, he wasn’t the bad guy, the bad guy is, he was? Where?

Your making a mistake! Ran yelled, you want that guy, he pointed at the burning car. I was..

Ran felt like he was hit by a bison as a huge officer tackled him to the ground. Dirt got in his mouth and nose and his eyes began to water.

Don’t resist!

I’m not resisting, Ran tried to shout back , but the wind was knocked out of him. I’m on your side, I’m not resisting.

Don’t resist! The officer yelled as he pulled out something and punching the object into rans lower back, tazed him.

Ran’s body went limp as he passed out.

Darkness .

[sebastianorion]

my eyes are heavy, my a key is sticking, sometimes my s awell. My eyes are heavy, in need of a glass of water. Writing to drive an idea forward, looking to explain yourself through writing, writing with intent, just naming things I'm trying to remember. Writing and showing but not telling, memoir practice and daily journaling, writing more poems and making sure they never make too much sense. Leaving more up to the reader than I would like to at some points but really it's whatever I want it to mean, you're just the bozo who decided to read. Hoping you continue to the next page though. Checking word count and realizing I am tired, eyes heavy, knees weak, my right foot hurts something bad. Julius is sick something terrible, we had our thanksgiving dinner last night, went very well. Seeing everyone I haven't seen since a child it seems, just way younger in different perspectives, asked my dad if the 21 year old version of him could beat me up right now and he said yeah. I feel unhinged though, barely grazing the point of looking for an excuse but just looking for that one person to deck out. Sucker punch to be honest. Don't know if I'd go for the chin or the eye, maybe the cheek and hope for the best. Want to hurt them and make them look hurt too. Not really thinking about fighting, hard to when you're listening to Monk, depends really, wishing I could see Kal again still, talk to him about Bukowski.

Monk just picked it up a bit, wishing I could find more live versions of these works but with time maybe, maybe more digging, maybe more time. If they haven't shown up now when will they. Maybe we'll start to have technology so old we won't be able to access it at all anymore, completely phased out, on some Tron shit. Writing about writing about a science fiction novel, any type of novel, getting ready to write a novel, getting ready to edit a poetry book, getting ready to get ready. Fixing my car, driving around slowly, taking in every sight that is my commute around town. Maybe getting coffee sometime soon, slipping on the ice in front of a crowd of people. Seeing someone I don't want to see, being frightful in public, anxious really, scared to get yelled at or criticized, not sure where it came from. How to change it yet, not like I can just get bigger, I imagine being bigger it's like you're in a tank or something. Bigger shell, more space to hide inside but more space you take up outside, harder to act tiny and not be seen, sneak around a bit. Of course Baker comes on. Remember listening to his instrumentals and looping drum breaks over them, thinking I was some type of genius producer, producer yes not even a beatmaker. Remembering the opportunities I had that didn't pan out, I write differently when it is over the keyboard or through a pen. Surprisingly more human within the pen, the more genuine it feels like. REMEMBERING THE IDEA OF THIS WRITING. I CANNOT PRETEND WITHIN MY WRITING, I CANNOT ACT, I CANNOT HIDE, I CANNOT PLAY LIKE SOMETHING I AM NOT, THE ONLY PLACE I CAN DO THAT, THE ONLY PLACE I FEEL SAFE ENOUGH TO SHARE IT ALL. CONFIDE WITHIN THE INSIDES OF THE MARGINS OF THE PAGE, TRAPPED BUT NOT REALLY LOOKING TO ESCAPE.