#truly is just the epideme of axe | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sp00kworm · 3 years ago

Text

Evo-23

Pairing: Zombie/Infected (Ji-woon) x Gender Neutral Reader

Warnings: Gore, Horror, Cannibalism, Graphic Gore and Wound descriptions, Death.

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“Consider it a harmless improvement of human evolution!”

“It’s a disaster waiting to happen. It is barely tested and not ready for human use. The rewriting of the genetic code was banned for so long for this very reason!”

“And who’s to say it’s a good idea now?”

“It’s truly just a simple splicing technique. Consider the eradication of cancer and genetic diseases!”

“A disaster. An abomination to God.”

“This, my good sir, is God’s great plan.”

They made the Others, then they made the epidemic.

You looked at his face. Again, and again, you looked at his face replaying on the small screen, running on what juice was left in the generators you had managed to salvage from the quarantine hospital camps they had set up when it all started. His bald, freckled head, and the glasses you wished you could snap and stamp on. Cold brown eyes. He’d known and done nothing.

“Just a simple rewriting of DNA code.” You uttered as you pushed your spoon into the syrup of the tinned peaches you were eating. It tasted good enough, but it was pushing close to the expiry date on the top of the sawed open metal. Soon you would be struggling you knew. The risk of botulism would be high the longer you carried on eating canned food after the dates. You hoped that wouldn’t happen. You prayed as you checked the date and sighed with relief. Canned peaches just tasted too good. Along side it you had managed to find some very stale looking crackers, but it was a meal almost for a king in the squalor you had been suffering for the past two years. Syrup dripped over your chin before you wiped it away and slapped the recording off.

The papers had raved about the new viral technique to removing cells, DNA and disease from humans. Rat, dog, rabbit and pig research had all gone well, showing promising signs for the virus vector to be used in all walks of life. Chimps had suffered few effects. One in every hundred had suffered mania effects, easily glazed over and removed from the public eye before the method was patented properly and set to human subjects. It was then that the issues started. Isolated manic episodes, bleeding from the nose and eyes, total loss of motor function before the body was paralysed and the blood vessels collapsed. It killed people. Five participants were killed. It killed their cancerous tumours but then it killed everything else. There was something different after that. Then the bodies started digging their way out of graves. It was covered up. Again, and again, bodies went missing in the night until one of them was gone. The cases carried on after that, bleeding eyed screaming creatures running through hospitals, cold and dead, but moving completely from memory. Then there had been the Others. The Others had evolved. Humans whose DNA had fully incorporated with the virus. They were stronger, immortal and just as dead as the rest, except they were not stupid. They didn’t run after heat and blood; they hid and took what food they wanted. They could think.

Since the days of the beginning of the end, the Others had taken territory, carving it up for themselves as they saw fit, each with their own group of mindless brain rots. You’d done well to avoid them. They preferred it when it was cooler now as the summer sun rotted their flesh faster than it could heal itself. The heat was, for once, your friend. It didn’t solve the issue of your boiling apartment, but air conditioning was a dream you had in the night now. You’d rather the heat than the memories of the last snow, perfectly preserving hibernating zombies under the ice in the wilderness while the city zombies roamed without the risk of rotting and collapsing in heaps of half broken bones and stringy flesh. The Others roamed wild in the winter, tearing people apart while it was cool before disappearing into the subways in the heat of spring and summer. Hopefully it meant you could search for a few more supplies on the next run. You needed some plant pots and seeds if you wanted to survive, and hopefully some more drinking water.

As you finished the can of peaches, you looked outside at the bright sunshine and grabbed for your bag by the couch. It was heavy with supplies, and you rummaged around for the small sandwich bags with pens for if you did manage to find seeds. You shoved the supplies together, along with a bottle of water and a few cereal bars before you grabbed the bush axe you had found, wrapped tightly with cord so you could hold it tightly and not send it flying. Failing that you had a bat and a small knife. You shouldered the backpack and mentally wrote a list as you headed to the door, pulling away your carefully made barricade. There was a small trap you had, and you set the bear trap across the threshold, covered by a sheet. The final touch was the swinging chair you set on the latch before you closed the door and locked it. The hallway was clear, you’d made sure to barricade each end, and you sighed softly before heading to the stairs and locking the doors behind you again, setting the boards back up against the door before you quietly headed towards the exit and out into the streets, into the blistering summer heat and rubble.

The streets were dead. Silent except for the rustling of rotting plastic flying across the abandoned roads. The infected were down below, their shuffling and groans emanating from the sewers below. The rest were dozing in cool shade, swaying back and forth, their eyes gone and the skin of their faces gaunt. The Others didn’t look like that, or so you had been told before the rest of the survivors disappeared. The Others were covered in burst vessels, bruised and pale, cold. Their noses bled and their eyes did too, but they were black eyed and vicious, their voices replaced with snarls and clicks. They were terrifying. You’d been lucky enough to avoid them so far. You took a deep breath of dusty air before tugging at the scarf over your head and peering through the mucky glass window of the hardware store. Inside was dusty and grubby, the shelves mostly empty at the entrance from the looting when it all started. Otherwise, it seemed empty. You hoped you were right as you headed towards the back fire exits and tried the handle bars.

The two around the side clicked but jingled with the sound of chains. They opened a couple of inches before the chains went taught and kept it from opening any further. You sighed and left them, closing the doors again before you carried on around the back of the building and found the employee entrance and exit. You took a breath and opened the door carefully. It swung open to reveal a dark warehouse. The cages of stock were mostly untouched. You grinned in victory before you turned on your pump power torch. It lit up the interior to reveal the cages of soil, wood and other items like watering cans and pots. Plastic pots, seeds and some planting soil. You needed those things, and a water purifier. If you were lucky, people had bunkered down here and you would be able to find some unopened water bottles. It was a long shot, but it was something you desperately needed besides food resources. You took a step inside and listened before grabbing a few bricks from outside and propping the door open, unaware of a pair of black eyes watching you.

The warehouse was devoid of infected, and you were thankful as you searched the aisles of cages and bins for what you wanted. Light, deep plastic pots and a small bag of soil. You needed to be able to carry your things home. You found a few plastic planters quickly and then set about finding seeds, coming through several tote boxes of packets before you grabbed vegetables and fruits of various kinds. They were barely in date, but hopefully something would grow. You shoved the seeds away and picked up your planters and a small watering can, smiling at the little elephant nose on it before fastening it to your bag. Shouldering a small bag of soil, you then quickly did a search for water bottles. To your delight there was a pack of 2L bottles. It was too much to carry but you took a couple in your bag and stashed the rest behind a brick pile outside to collect later. Making sure it was well hidden, you kicked the bricks away from the door and shouldered your bag and grabbed the pots once again before moving as quietly as you could back around to the front of the hardware store. It was still quiet, but the sun was hanging low in the sky, indicating that it was close to being dark. The dark brought cold, and that let the infected walk around without their limbs dropping from their bodies.

You reached your tower block before the night truly set in, dragging the soil up the stairs as you barricaded the doors between you and the exit. You reached your own floor and set the barricades against the door before you sighed quietly and reached for your own door. You unlocked it and carefully inched it open far enough to take the chair snare trap off the handle, lowering it before you leaned down and looped it back on the door. The bear trap was still set, and you inched around it before setting down the day’s findings in the middle of the living area. Your stomach gurgled with hunger, and you grabbed the box of protein and cereal bars you had pilfered, along with the survival food pouches. They were rich in carbohydrates and protein, so they would be good when you were very low on food. You stashed everything away before chewing on a protein fruit bar happily. You looked at the seed packets and smiled as the clouds moved over and thunder rumbled in the distance. It meant rain. You looked through the packets as you chewed and happily started to pick veggies to get growing before the rain rolled over. They needed to be out on the small balcony to get watered by the incoming bad weather.

The night was filled with the crash of lightning and the rumble of thunder, which covered the groans of the zombies wandering around below, rotting and stinking of the sewers. Still, you got a little sleep between the storms, sleeping lightly in the corner of the room, tucked underneath your little fortified area. The bed you’d used to make barricades and weapons if all else was lost. You woke with a start as the handle to your room jiggled up and down. The infected didn’t have such capacity. You rushed out of the small blanket and pillows to grab for your axe, strapping o your stolen police vest before you headed to the little entry way. Your bear trap and chair trap were still set. With a deep breath, you stood ready by the door as the lock opened with a clunk and the handle went down again. The door opened quickly, and you gasped at the creature stood in the doorway, heaving blood from its mouth before it leaned back, and fresh blood dripped from its black eyes. It was once a human, but it was now one of The Others. It clicked and stepped back to dodge the knife strapped chair, slamming the wood down from its pulley in the ceiling with one great slap of its hand. Black eyes looked forwards, and it clicked again, blood dripping from the corner of its mouth as it dashed forwards. Clumsily, its foot slid over the bear trap, and the trap snapped shut tightly around its ankle.

The Other howled a great series of violent clicks, tugging its leg before it fell to its knees and pulled at the metal, heaving the two rows of sharp teeth apart with shaking arms. You acted then, yelling as you slammed the axe down towards its head. He caught the handle, letting the bear trap snap back shut around his ankle as he fended you off, clicking and gurgling.

“What the fuck?” You gasped as you tugged your axe away violently and went to strike again, aiming for the temple. Again, the Other caught your swing, clicking in upset as the bear trap tore its flesh open to the bone, exposing the black stained tissue underneath its skin. An all too human face looked up at you as it pushed your axe away again, black eyes bleeding red. The Other was dark haired, the black tangled mess falling to just under his chin, though his eyebrows were sparse. The same seemed to have befallen his eyelashes, and you looked at the pale, almost alien face as you panicked. It was once a man. Slowly, it reached for the bear trap again.

“NO!” You shouted, and to your surprise, the Other looked at you, its bruised fingers releasing the mechanism for a second time as it gurgled more blood and licked its teeth and eyed the bare flesh exposed from your sleep wear.

The Others still craved flesh and blood. They still needed human cells to survive. Their own bodies were lacking in the vital building blocks of life. Stem cells. The had been seen licking the marrow from bones and pulling open children regularly in search of such treats. Those, it was thought, were the key to their regeneration. The Other looked at your legs and you hopped back a step, as though to hide the long bones full of marrow from his sight.

“Why…” You struggled to find your voice, “Why haven’t you killed me already?”

The Other looked at you, his head tilted far to the left, as though he was listening to you. The creature reached towards you and pointed then curled his fingers back towards himself and gurgled shortly before he reached back to his ankle again and tried to winch open the bear trap. His arms went tight as he heaved the metal teeth apart, slamming either side down onto the laminate. He was free. You took another step back and gripped the axe tighter as the Other got to his feet, his shattered bones clicking back together before the wound closed and his bruised, pale skin recovered the black flesh inside.

The Other clicked again, his head tilting left and right, fingers twitching and eyes rolling. He was looking at you, watching you breathe and move as he moved left and right on his legs. In moments, he was healed, but he still stood by the bear trap and watched. Blood dripped from his nose, weaving a trail over the cupids bow of his lips before it dripped over his sickly purple lips and into his mouth. His tongue dipped out to lick it away. His lips pealed backwards in a smile as he clicked and gurgled again. In a flash, he had moved towards you, his hands slamming either side of your head, pinning you against the wall. His teeth flashed by your skin, blackened and sharp, his mouth filled with clots of his own blood. Another gurgle came from his throat as he sniffed the left and right side of your neck with blood dripping from his nose. A drop landed on your chest, rolling over the skin and into your shirt as the Other clicked again, reaching for you with a grubby and bruised, blood-stained hand. The cold hand wrapped around your throat in a quiet threat, and the Other continued to look you up and down, fingers dragging against the warmth of your flesh.

They like warm flesh enough to come out in the sunlight.

“Are you going to cut me open and peel out my bones?” You asked as you looked at the door, avoiding the snarling face in front of you. Black eyes wiggled back and forth for a moment before the Other opened its mouth, the sharpened teeth flashing over your shoulder before it took an unsteady step backwards, ear tilted towards the windows. It was dark, and thunder clapped in the distance again before the sound of rain filled the apartment once more.

The Other shook his head slowly as his head twisted back, his back bending backwards as he slumped and peered out at the rain. He dragged his ruined foot behind him as he went to the window and looked down at the wet streets below, his black eyes watching the infected below wade through the water and rubbish. Another long, low click sounded from his throat before he turned his dark eyes on you again, blinking slowly before he picked up his leg and looked at the torn fabric of his jeans. The wound had healed, leaving a faint trace of dark red, almost black blood on his bruised skin. His arm moved, but this time it was to wipe the blood from his nose away on his sleeve. His arm came away streaked with fresh blood, but he still peered outside, looking at the meandering bodies outside in the rain.

“What are you looking at?” You asked from against the wall as the Other twitched by the window and clicked again. His black eyes moved from the glass to your face and then back again before he reached into his pocket. His dead fingers wiggled around for a while before he pulled out a long lanyard and presented the card to you. There was a dark-haired man on the picture, his hair slicked back, the sides shaved with a pair of glasses sat on his nose.

“Ji-woon.” You read carefully from where you were, “Is that who you were?”

The Other looked at you, studying your face before he raised a fist to his shoulder and nodded it with his head. You looked at the lanyard carefully, noticing the faded and stained academy logo. The badge confirmed it. He was a teacher before everything. Once he was human. Once he was a teacher. Now he was one of the Others.

“Why haven’t you killed me yet?” You asked again, “You want to eat my bone marrow, right?”

The Other looked at you again, blood dripping from his eyes and spit clinging to the side of his mouth. He opened his mouth, gurgled again, clicked his tongue and then moved back towards you. His black eyes caught the light of a lightning bolt and you reached for your axe with a small yelp.

The axe was thrown from your grasp before you could get a grip on it. The Other clicking as he dragged you by the wrists onto the floor. The axe clattered away, and you flinched as his fingers found the straps of the tactical vest, plucking them away violently before he dragged the material and plating away, leaving you exposed in just your pyjamas. Wiggling, you tried to free yourself from his grasp to no avail. Blood from his eyes dripped down the sides of his nose and onto the material of your shirt, staining it a deep, dark red. You closed your eyes as he let out another series of low clicks and drew closer to your shoulder. If he didn’t eat you, you would turn, just like the rest. A bite from an Other would make you one of his thrall or another like him. Another one of the Others.

“Kill me then. Just don’t let me turn. I want to die.” You whispered as you closed your eyes tight. The Other clicked again, a slow series of articulates noises that disappeared into a whine, not unlike a dog.

Then the arms caging you to the floor slipped downwards. His nails dragged away curls of wood as the Other let his hands travel, his fingers ghosting over your skin again in a meandering pattern downwards. You flinched as he pinched the flesh around your middle, tugging hard before they continued down your stomach and over your legs. He shifted backwards in order to look at your legs. His black eyes rolled over the flesh as spit, mixed with blood, leaked from the corners of his mouth. The slobber dripped over your calves, but you didn’t dare move as his cold fingertips traced under the arch of your foot and then grabbed hold of your ankle. He held it in a bruising grip, his fingers wrapped tightly around the flesh, strangling the blood flow. It hurt and you let out a cry as he twisted it around, tugging the joint awkwardly.

“Please.” You sniffled on the floor as he dragged you back towards him. You wiggled only to have his hand slam on your middle, winding you before he pressed you back to the floor again.

He opened his mouth, wheezed, coughed and then gurgled, “P-Please.”

Your eyes shot open as the Other released your ankle with a frown, his hairless eyebrows furrowed over his eyes. His lips quivered again, dipping up and down before he swallowed and shook, blood spraying from his nose. The droplets landed over your floor and streaked up the Other’s cheeks in wild, spider web patterns. Stumbling, he dragged himself upwards and touched his own lips.

“P-Please.” he gurgled again, a deranged smile spreading across his face.

“Don’t mock me.” You wept at him, wiping your face as you struggled for your axe, your fingers slipping around the handle as he leaped on you again. A smiling face covered in blood loomed over you before he gurgled, clicked and growled, holding his throat before angrily thumping at his Adams apple. The Other wheezed and coughed blood over your chest before he reached into his pocket again, teeth clicking, and pulled out the lanyard to show you. You shook your head before he tapped the photo on the plastic then tapped his own blood covered cheek.

You laid there in confusion, looking up at the drooling monster before you found your voice.

“That’s you before this. Ji-woon. You were a teacher.” You declared quietly, whispering into the thunderstorm.

The Other turned the card back to himself and touched the photo and then his own hair, his cold fingers tangling in the matted mess that hung around his cheeks. It was nothing like the slicked back, side shaven style he once wore, and he seemed to realise that as he tugged at the hair and pulled away a small clump. He wasn’t alive anymore. He was only alive thanks to his constant need to eat the flesh of the living. His victims stem cells and other living tissue was why he was a walking corpse beyond the others. An agonised cry left his lips, and the Other clutched at his own hair as he slumped over you, his teeth clicking dangerously close to your shoulder.

“You’re not him anymore.” You whispered again, reaching up with shaking hands. You sniffled as you reached and carefully took hold of his face, feeling the piercing coldness of his skin. Blood stuck to your palms as the Other raised it head enough to look from side to side, his black eyes quivering back and forth as he looked at your hands cupping his face.

“So, if you’re in there, Ji-woon, I’d rather you end me quickly...r-rather than play with me like a cat.” You sobbed.

The Other let the card of his lanyard clatter to the floor, the dirty fabric of the lanyard laid over wooden floor. There was another deafening crash of lightning and rumble of thunder as the Other stumbled backwards, his legs wobbling as his teeth clicked and ground together rhythmically. Click. Grind. Click. Grind. It was unsettling. You crawled backwards towards your weapon, only to pause as the room was lit up with lightning again, and you saw tears mingle with the blood leaking from his nose. Pink droplets dripped from his chin. The Other looked at you on the floor, then back to the windows, before he let out an unholy scream. With a cry, you covered your ears as the Other called for his thrall with tears the colour of blood dripping down his cheeks and neck. He shook his head and curled in on himself before howling again, another upsetting, glass shaking as he wailed over the sound of the storm. You reached for the axe again, crying as your ears rang with the noise of the Other’s screams. With a scream of your own, you launched yourself at him with the axe held high. Black eyes flashed before he caught you with open arms, grappling you around the middle in a hug. The axe jolted against his shoulder, falling from your grasp as you fell into his grasp.

The Other quivered again you, his jaw grinding before he rested his nose against your neck. He was icily cold, and he wheezed cold breaths over your neck, his lips sticky against your skin. He didn’t bite you. His lips parted to let him wheeze again and he dragged his nose over the skin before he sobbed, more tears dripping down his nose. The Other pulled away, his black eyes wide and wet with more unshed tears.

“I’ve…never seen an Other cry…” You confessed as he hugged you tighter. The thunder of footsteps sounded out on the stairs as the hoard smashed themselves against the barricades leading up to your hide away, “Fuck…”

The Other kept a tight grip on you before he too heard the hoard. His eyes roved your face before he pushed you towards the window and fumbled with the clasps. He opened the window and you peered at the rain, and then at his face. He said nothing but you knew what he wanted. The fire escape. You ducked out of the window and perched yourself in the rain, underneath the stairs to try and shield yourself as the thrall of the Other slammed themselves against your defences. The Other closed the window and entered your room again, standing in the middle of the room, his eyes wide as his creatures swarmed inside, moaning and groping at the walls, floors and him. A few paused by the window before bumping into something else and leaving. None of them cared about the Other. They couldn’t smell the warm flesh of the living, so they filtered away, down the corridors and stairs, falling and smashing things as they went.

As the noises died down, you peered through the metal stairs and looked at the rushing water below. The zombies slowly filtered out of the building, back into the cooler moist air. You sighed as you looked at them, but shivered, sniffling in the rain and cold. A moment later, the window rattled, and the Other peered out into the rain, his black eyes haunting as they shone in the light of the lightning. With a click, he held out his hand, and you watched him reach to scoop his hair from his eyes. It was a human gesture. It made him seem human. Then the lightning flashed and lit up the blood covering his face, neck and arms. His fingernails were dirty with dried blood and mud, but he helped you into the window and clicked again softly, as though it was a noise of comfort. It unsettled you, holding his freezing cold hand as you shivered inside of the apartment. The door was closed, barricade replaced, and the chair pinned back in place at the door. He was still bleeding, and he blinked his eyes, sending two drops of blood down the stained red lines either side of his nose. With a deep breath, you grabbed a tissue from your little den and reached up to wipe the red streaks away from his face. The Other flinched at your warm touch, but let out a wheeze, letting you wipe his face free from blood and gunk.

You pulled away with a small gasp at the sight of his pale, bruised skin. The blood vessels around his eyes ran in spidery black patterns before they disappeared under the pale, thin bruised skin of his face. He looked dead. Deathly pale and gaunt. His face had lost a lot of the colour and life it once had, though he appeared no more tired than he used to. The large eye bags seemed to be a constant factor. You reached for his ID card on the floor and carefully handed it to him. The Other held open his hand and took it from your grasp, gurgling at the picture of himself, or who he used to be, with interest. You let him hold it and watched at he wiped at his nose with the tissue you had accidentally give him alongside it. In a mockery of what you did, he slid the tissue over his nose and cheeks before he gurgled and smile with blood clot covered teeth. He wasn’t human. You repeated that as he passed you the sticky tissue back. It was covered in blood and clots.

“Are you still in there Ji-woon?” You asked the Other quietly.

The Other shook his head as he raised the card again. It span in his grasp, giving you flashes of the image of his human face, “P-Please.” he wheezed at you, “...Help.”

“That is you. You can’t become him anymore.” You said carefully, softening the blow with a dab of the tissue under his eyes. He caught your wrist with a scowl, his unnatural eyes wiggling in their sockets, rolling left and right as he opened his mouth to expose his black dyed mouth full of clots.

“P... Please.” he wheezed again.

“I can...make you look like him but you’re not human anymore.” You tried to tug your wrist free to no avail.

“Look.” The Other held up the ID card and tapped it again before he let you go and looked at the red marks on your arm mournfully, “J-Ji...woon.”

“The fact you can even speak amazes me.” You confessed as you looked at the bruises and blood covering him. His clothes were dirty, matted and torn, exposing his arms which had been unnaturally made larger. He was a predator of muscle and smarts now, who desperately wanted to be human again, “I can help, so long as you can keep those zombies away from me, okay?”

The Other nodded, drooling as he pointed to his ears and mouth.

“Those wails, yes. You can control them and keep them away while I help you. That and you’re big enough to just tear them open...I saw an Other do that once.”

The Other blinked owlishly but nodded once before you rummaged for a bottle of water and pointed to the bathroom, “First let’s clean you up, huh?”

He only nodded and followed at your heels like a drooling, blood covered dog.

You managed to get a small basin to fill with water and then awkwardly got the Other to strip his clothes off. They were full of holes and disgusting. The neck was covered with blood and stiff with mud and blood. You bagged them and tied it closed as the Other stood, swaying on his dark bruise coloured feet. His mouth was dripping with drool again as he turned and looked at the water bowl in your hands.

“Come on. Sit in the tub.” You asked gently as you guided his cold body into the bath. He sat quietly, gurgling on his own blood as you fetch a towel and a small flannel. You dipped the flannel into the water and lathered it with soap before pressing it to his face. His black eyes quivered before he closed them peacefully and let you wipe the grime from his skin. Each swipe revealed more skin like cracked porcelain underneath the blood. The bruising spread from black coloured veins in his face and you were careful to clean around his nose and mouth before setting to the rest of him. It was even more embarrassing to get a zombie to clean his own privates, but something in him remembered and you left him to it before returning to try and scrub his hair.

Most of his hair was dead, the ends snapped and fraying in clumps. So, it was with a heavy heart that you washed it and let it soak with conditioner before snipping away most of the ends. It was shorter, in a wild mane over the top of his head and the shaved sides, but he seemed happy as he peered at himself in your small mirror. You tried to tame it backwards, but the shorter pieces of hair pinged out at awkward angles. He didn’t seem to care as he wiped at his own face, clicking happily at himself in the reflection in the grubby water. He was like a child almost. Entertained by bottles, colours and smells, despite the irony blood leaking from his nose again. He wiped it away with a tissue, wet hands dampening the balled-up paper before he peered over the side of the tub and watched you pull free a few sets of clothes.

“Here. You can’t wear those rags…even though I know you don’t get cold.” The Other stood and looked at the clothing before his hands reached for a khaki green fleece. He rubbed the soft material and happily pulled it over his head before he dressed his bottom half as well.

When he was finished and dressed you let him walk out of the bathroom. He was still bleeding from his eyes and nose but the cleanly appearance gave him an almost human look. The Other clicked and touched the top of his hair, feeling the strands before he looked at you with wide black eyes. In a sudden burst of speed, he was in your face, his teeth clacking together in front of your nose. Snap. Grind. Snap. Grind. Snap. He clicked his teeth rapidly in front of your face, drool stringing between his teeth and lips and dribbling out the corners of his mouth.

“You’re still one of them, huh?” You told him as he gurgled and coughed, fingers dancing by his sides as he twisted his head and twitched violently hard, teeth gnashing in his mouth, “You still want to eat me...”

There wasn’t a fix to his own nature. You watched him retch and fight himself before you moved through to your bedroom and rummaged through the boxes for something to use. You smiled when you found the ball gag. It was a simple thing, made of tough leather and a supple ball attached to simple metal rings. It fastened with a belt loop style fastening. It would be hard for him to chew through at least.

The Other looked at you curiously as you returned with the gag hanging from your fingers. Something in his face twisted, as though he maybe recognised the item, but you watched his fingers twitch again and knew it was the right choice.

“I know what you might think, but this is purely to stop you eating me, okay?” You told him as you opened the fastening and presented the ball to his lips. The Other cocked his head, blinked, and then opened his mouth to accept the ball. You watched him chew the ball like a horse does a bridle before he then settled and let you fasten the back closed tightly. He sniffed, drops of blood dripping from his nose as he ground his teeth into the gag, his mouth parted and the clicks he made gurgled and muffled. It would also stop him from turning on you and summoning a hoard of infected to tear you open. It was a double protective measure. The Other shifted and touched the cool leather wrapped around the back of his head. He could easily undo it if he wanted to, but he let his hands drop and plonked himself down by your door, peering back at you as he pointed to your little bed and tent.

“Don’t eat me in my sleep.” You joked. The Other rolled his eyes as you climbed into your layers of blankets and cushions. He didn’t look at you, but stared at the door, cross legged and clicking softly to himself around the gag in his mouth.

The next morning you woke up to the light in your eyes, and a clicking sound from by the window. As you opened your eyes you were greeted with a curious gurgle from the Other. His black eyes blinked bloody tears down his cheeks before he tilted his head and ground his teeth against the gag in his mouth. Blood painted the sides of his mouth and drool had dried in the corners of his mouth where the o-rings sat.

“Good morning to you too.” You groaned as the Other clicked in front of you and wiggled his jaw from side to side, his eyes looking over you. The exposed flesh had his mouth watering again, and you quickly hid the skin under a blanket before crawling past him and heading to the bathroom. The creature’s hungry eyes followed your legs, and the Other prowled across the wood after you, like a small dog, his gaze fixed on the exposed skin of your calves and ankles.

“M-M-Morn…ing-g.” The Other babbled around the gag in his mouth as his fingers inched along the wood, chasing after your feet. You stopped as his hand wrapped around your ankle. The cold fingers pressed into your flesh, testing the give before you dragged yourself free and slammed the door in his face. The Other grunted as his nose was smashed against the wooden door.

When you came back out later, dressed and clean, the Other was perched by the door again, sat on the balls of his feet, perched in a crouch as he looked at the handle. The knob was twitching. You took a deep breath and carefully reached for your axe, holding the handle tightly in your grasp. The handle twitched again before the door thumped and the latch unhooked. The Other watched the door creak open. A rotten hand curled around the wooden door, and you crept forwards a step before the Other clicked and launched himself at the arm. It took you a moment to realise that his mouth was full of the gag, but it was too late. The Other grappled the infected by the neck, throwing it against the column outside of the door before his arms bulged and he slammed its head backwards, once, twice, thrice, and painted the dirty white concrete with blood, bone and brains. The blood sprayed up the concrete as he continued hammering the creatures head backwards. The initial crack became a wet thud which dissolved into a slick noise of blood and flesh as the Other dug his hands into the cranium and dragged it open, scooping his bruised fingers into the goop. His teeth gnashed on the gag, and you covered your mouth as he pulled at his own cheeks, splitting the skin so he could stick his gore covered fingers into his mouth. He gurgled happily as he scooped the brain into his mouth, followed by the sickening crunch of the zombie’s femur under his foot. He twisted the legs free at the knee and punched his way through to the bone.

Rotten marrow dripped over his fingers, and he groaned sadly, tossing away the bleeding leg in favour of finishing the obliterated head. He struggled with the eyeballs, and you watched, gipping, as he weaved one behind his gag, through the tear at the corner of his lips, and popped it between his teeth.

“What the fuck…” You gasped behind the Other.

The Other’s eyes snapped to you, and he gurgled happily, covered in blood again, as he chewed his meal contently. As you watched him eat, you made your way back into your apartment, shaking as you uncovered a set of reigns. He was still eating as you came back and weaved them around his head and attached the ends to the O-rings of the gag. With a tilt of his head, he peered back over his shoulder and looked you in the eyes, his bloodied fingers stroking the leather up and down before you gave the back of the reigns a gentle tug.

The Other gave a grunt and a small cry, his black hair flying out of place as he tugged at the reigns, back towards his meal. His hands stretched towards the flesh, grabbing for the brains just out of reach.

“We made a deal.” You whispered as you hauled him backwards, “You want to be a human, Ji-woon, right?!”

The Other froze, his fingers pressed into the mess on the floor by the zombie’s head. They danced in the blood for a moment before he looked up at you, his eyes manic and his hairless brows furrowed.

“J-Ji…woooon.” He gurgled before he slumped backwards and grabbed at your trouser leg, his cold fingers burying themselves in the fabric. The Other gave a small wail, burying his head in your thigh as he stroked your legs and shuddered against you.

You reached down carefully and petted his hair, “Humans don’t eat…that. But we need you to live and… I know you’re not human, but we need to think about how this is going to work, okay?”

He didn’t acknowledge you, but leaned his head into your petting, pushing his choppy hair into your grasp as he clutched at you like a child.

“We’ll work through this mess, together, I promise…Ji-woon.”

#zombie x reader #male monster x reader #monster x reader #infected x reader #monster bf x reader #male zombie x reader #gender neutral reader #zombie x gender neutral reader #monster bf #monster reader insert #monster boy #monster romance #my writing #originaly work

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deadparrish · 5 years ago

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richie tozier stand-up routine

hey! thanks for showing up everyone! so as you all know i took a little bit of a break. well, by break i mean i had a breakdown, forgot my whole scripted routine on stage, and then disappeared off the face of the earth for a month. what can i say! shit happens!

well, actually what happened is that i got a call from one of my childhood best friends which brought up a whole bunch of repressed childhood trauma and was forced- and i’m really not exaggerating here, forced to return to my hometown that i’ve been avoiding for 27 years. now, i’m not gonna say the name of this town, but i will say that it’s the worst fucking town in the world. like, it’s a place that people go to to die. and not even in, like, a relaxing way, like florida. no, you go there and you get, like, your fucking arm ripped off by a weird fucking clown and you die from blood loss. no, i’m serious! that happened to my friends little brother!

anyway, i go back home to, like, fulfill a promise that i made via blood oath when i was 12, during like, the height of the aids epidemic, so it’s a big fucking deal, right. and i’m there in this fucking sushi place, and i’m suddenly face to face with my friend who i’ve been, like, in love with my whole life. so i get as drunk as fucking possible, because i’m an adult, right, and that’s how adults deal with their problems. they get roaring drunk and then they, like, manufacture some stupid reason to arm wrestle so they can hold hands with the object of their 27-year-long crush. NOT saying that i did that. but i will say that this fucker has super soft hands. like, imagine you’ve never done a days work in your life, and also you’re, like, really weird about germs and taking care of yourself, so you use a lot of germ ex and AFTER that you use a lot of lotion. probably lavender scented with, like, aloe vera.

whatever, not the point. so i’m face to face with the dude that i’ve been in love with since i was 12 and in denial that i was gay- oh yeah, by the way everyone, i’m gay- woah, okay, that’s a lot of cheering, okay. calm down gays- haha, anyway. i’m face to face with this dude, and trying to not like. lose my gay mind. and i’m VERY determined at this point to just, like, get through this visit back home without like. totally revealing all of my gay feelings, so i can come back to chicago and be gay and sad in the comfort of my own gay home. did i mention i was gay? sorry, it just feels fucking good to say.

anyway, i’m trying to get through this visit without totally losing my mind, and some of you might be wondering, why are you even back in your hometown meeting with your best friends from childhood? good question! it’s a long story, but it basically boils down to the six of us- there used to be seven, but stan, he- he couldn’t make it, so the six of us have to defeat this demon clown entity that came down from space and has been terrorizing and eating people for, like, a billion years. like, imagine every negative human emotion in existence, put all of those emotions into a demon with a huge forehead, and you have this clown. no, guys, i’m serious! this clown is fucking crazy, and also, like, super homophobic.

so the six of us are there, and my friend mike is like oh, we all have to go into the sewers to It’s lair- and that’s capital I, It’s, folks- so we can kill It. and like, we did the same shit when we were 12, but it’s a little bit crazier now that we’re all 40. i have a receding hairline, bill is fucking bald, and ben- well, bens hot as fuck. point is though, that we’re all like, mike, what the fuck? but we go down there and we do this fucking native american ritual to try to trap the clown, which of course doesn’t work because none of us are fucking native american, and then there’s this huge fucking, like, battle, and then eddie gets fucking impaled by this thing, and i just- sorry, it was just so fucking scary.

i’ve been in love with this dude for over 27 years, and i’m holding him in my arms and he’s bleeding everywhere and i’m like fuck, fuck, i never fucking told him, and he’s like, richie, and he says it in the softest voice ever and he’s looking at me and i’m like oh my god, this is the worst time to have a fucking gay freak out, but what if he says he loves me? so i’m there like, trying to stop his fucking gut from bleeding, and he’s looking at me and i’m looking at him and, quite frankly, i’ve never felt gayer in my life- must have been the atmosphere, dark ass sewers really bring out the pride in me- and you know what he says? i fucked your mother. i swear to god- stop laughing! i couldn’t believe it! i’m the famous comedian and this dude just said that when he’s fucking bleeding out. i love him so much.

anyway, we managed to defeat the clown by bullying it to death, which is how all clowns are killed, i guess, and i got ben to help carry eddie up to the surface- ben is so strong, guys, he’s like, fit. and we got eddie to the hospital and he lived. and then it was like, oh my god, i can’t let him get better and then go back to new york without like, telling him that i love him, right? and honestly, i would have rather faced the demon clown again.

so i’m in his hospital room, and he’s awake and pissed, because he’s been there, like, a week, and he’s bitching about the cleanliness of hospitals, and he’s like, do you know how many fucking germs there are on a doorknob, and then he’s talking about how much his cheek hurts- oh yeah, i guess i forgot to mention, this dude who bullied us when we were kids broke out of a mental institution and stabbed him in the face. don’t worry though, i axed him. it’s not important. anyway, he’s like, my cheek hurts and i don’t want to fucking be here anymore, and i’m just staring at him like an idiot, and he’s like what the fuck, richie, don’t just stare at me, you dick, and i cut him off and tell him i love him. no build up, no framing it as a joke so i can play it off. just a wide-eyed lovesick confession.

and i freeze, and he freezes, and we just stare at each other for a few minutes like idiots. and he just asks, all quiet and perfect, really? and i’m like dude, i’ve BEEN in love with you, and i start spilling my guts, and then next thing i know he’s trying to get OUT of the hospital bed, and i’m like eddie, what the fuck, and i move to push him down, and he grabs my shirt and pulls me into bed on top of him, and let me tell you all, i exerted more energy trying to make sure i didn’t collapse on his stomach wound than i ever have at the gym, ever. and at this point i’m truly freaking out, but it’s like, a good freak out, you know? i’m like, okay, he probably wouldn’t have pulled me on top of him if he didn’t like me. he probably likes me. but what if he doesn’t? so i’m like, eds- and he. he kisses me. yeah, i know, i could cheer, too.

so we kiss, and then he pushes me so i’m laying next to him, and then he starts bitching me out for confessing while he’s in the hospital, and couldn’t i wait until he got released, and i’m just- i know i was staring at him like an idiot, like an absolute fool, and he grabs my hand and he’s like i love you too, moron, and i just say, oh.

anyway, he had to stay in the hospital for another week, and i have so many stories about how he terrorized the nurses, i could write so many fucking sketches, and then when he was released we went to new york and he divorced his wife- hell yeah!- and now he lives with me here in chicago. he’s in the audience, actually! hi, eds! anyway, that’s why i’ve been on a break. being gay is crazy.

#i literally have NO IDEA if this is funny or not and i don't care i had fun writing it. its 1 an #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #reddie #it #it stephen king #it 2017 #it 2019 #it chapter two #it chapter 2 #it ch 2 #it ch 1 #it chapter one #it chapter 1 #adding this to my queue so it posts at a time that ISNT 1 am #mine

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theshatteredrose · 6 years ago

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Guardian of Healing (Chapter 11) - Etrain Odyssey 2 Fanfiction

AN: A somewhat short chapter, and the ending is a bit of a cliffhanger, sooo…enjoy~ :3c

Ao3 | Wattpad | FFNet

Chapter 11:

Despite the lingering tension of the now dubbed Hex Epidemic, Lynus was able to sleep rather well that night. He had a few disturbing dreams, some he couldn’t remember upon waking, but other than that he felt that he had a relatively peaceful night. It was no doubt due to the fact that he was surrounded by his guildmates’ auras and he felt comforted by that. He was glad that they had chosen to stick together, bedding down in the tearoom instead of separating into their private rooms.

He was sure it was a comfort to everyone else to be so close as well.

Although he had a peaceful night’s rest, Lynus still felt tired. He sat on the couch in front of the fireplace and rubbed his face with his hands. A tension headache had set in and he was starting to feel a little light-headed. It was just a side-effect of working too much. Nothing a bit more rest and some food couldn’t cure.

On the couch next to him, gently rubbing soothing circles on his back, sat Axel. He was thankful for Axel’s attentiveness, but it was becoming difficult not to turn to him and just snuggle into his chest and arms until this whole ordeal was over.

He was…tired. Just tired.

“You need to eat something,” Axel said as he continued to rub smoothing circles on Lynus’ back. “You haven’t eaten since around midday yesterday. I’ll ask Matron to bring us some food.”

Lynus didn’t really feel like eating anything, but he knew Axel was right. He needed to eat something. Something more than a cup of tea. A piece of toast should settle on his stomach pretty well. Anything more than that, though, he might feel queasy.

However before Axel could stand up, there was the sound of the inn’s entrance doors being flung open in a panicked and dramatic manner.

Immediately, everyone in the tearoom shot to their feet, protectively on guard as panicked footsteps and voices could be heard outside the room.

“Monsters are invading the city!” someone shrilled.

Immediately, Hamza pushed forward and opened the door to the tearoom. He stepped outside and was immediately confronted by a terrified guard.

“Monsters are fleeing the labyrinth and invading the city! You’re the leader of the Guardians, right? You have to do something! The guards are being overwhelmed!”

The thought of monsters invading the city was bad enough, but Lynus got a deep feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach. There was something else going on here. Monsters don’t just rush into town for no reason. They were content to stay within the labyrinth. That was their territory. That was where their food sources were located. They had no reason to flood into the city.

Unless…

“Damn it…” Mahogany suddenly muttered from the corner of the room.

Hamza immediately turned to look at him. “Hexers?” he asked sharply.

A frighteningly grim expression spread across Mahogany’s face and his eyes narrowed fearsomely as he nodded his head. “Hexers have the ability to instil fear in monster, thus making them easy to control and manipulate. This is exactly what they’re doing now.”

“Then this is the hexers’ final stand,” Hamza said through gritted teeth as he turned to face everyone. “Let’s be ready for anything.”

Could they really be ready, though?

Wait, his bag was up in his room! Lynus couldn’t throw himself onto a battlefield without it. Not after what happened yesterday with that cursed knife and that hexer. He couldn’t afford to be complacent.

“I-I’ll need to get my bag!”

“Go!” Axel said as he hefted his axe upon his back and raced out of the inn with everyone else. “We’ll meet you there!”

Lynus didn’t want everyone to head out without him, but he knew what they couldn’t afford to wait for him to retrieve his bag. Lives were in danger. Every second counted. The sooner Axel and the others engaged in battle with these monsters and defeat them, the better.

He could only hope that the hexers weren’t hoping to use the invading monsters as cover for something far more heinous.

As he raced up the stairs and staggered into his room, all Lynus could do was hope that the others would be fine as they hurled themselves in danger and prayer that he could get to them before anything terrible happened.

He grabbed the strap of his bag and tugged it off the table. He didn’t bother to pull his hair back into his usual ponytail and he didn’t dare to waste another second stopping to put on his white medical coat. He simply lugged his bag haphazardly upon his shoulder, sent a silent prayer in thanks for having the foresight to put on his shoes, and raced out of his room. He leaned heavily against the stair banister as he took two steps at a time to reach the inn foyer. A moment after that, he was out the doors and heading in the direction where the nearly overwhelming sense of fear radiated from.

Crowds of locals and rookie explorers were running away from the sounds of chaos and Lynus struggled to push through them in order to get to Axel and his guild. He stumbled a few times, but managed to keep himself upright and continued to push himself forward. He tried to block out the emotions of fear around him as best he could, but they only added to his own anxiety and distress.

Finally pushing his way toward the stone road that led to the entrance of the labyrinth, Lynus stumbled to a stop and dropped his bag to his feet. With eyes wide, he felt his breath hitch in his throat. Hamza said to be ready for anything, but there was no way they could have prepared themselves for something like this!

Numerous FOEs from the first stratum, ragelopes, raptors, and the dreaded stalkers, were literally running about the area in an unpredictable, confused chaos. Attacking and slashing at anyone and anything that came close enough. Including each other.

The monsters themselves weren’t an overly terrifying threat to Axel and the others. They’ve dealt with them before. But not on this scale and not with so many of them.

And they weren’t the reason for why his guildmates were scattered about, in numerous degrees of distress or suffering.

They were…they all were cursed…

A small chime of a bell caused Lynus to tense and he turned to glance over his shoulder. There he saw six hooded hexers, paled face and wide-eyed, strategically positioned upon the rooftops of the nearby buildings. All wore expressions of malicious delight on their faces.

The only thing Lynus could think of was “ambush”. These hexers lured the monsters into town as a distraction so they could fling their curses and hexes at anyone who stumbled into their path and sight.

“What do you think?” one asked him with a truly wicked grin. “Amazing, isn’t it? How powerful we hexers truly are.”

“It’s cute how you all think a little charm can protect you from our hexes,” a female hexer giggled as she swung her legs cheerfully from atop of a lamppost. “Adorable~”

Lynus didn’t answer them. Didn’t even make an attempt to form some kind of comeback. Instead he turned back around to look at his guild, instantly noting their varying degrees of distress.

Axel was the only one still on his feet, though they were bound to the ground and he could only manage the barest of steps. He was able to strike down any monster that came within distance of his axe, but there were so many of them that he was constantly ducking and blocking other attacks.

And behind Axel was Jhon. Face down on the ground, completely unmoving with his shield flung aside. He was in a deep, consuming sleep. A hex that could only be removed by a refresh spell or a hard, physical attack. Next to him, on his knees was Tobyn. His arms were bound cruelly and painfully at his sides and he struggled violently in an attempt to remove them and to somehow get to Jhon, to wake him up or at least drag him to safety. Monsters in their fearful states continued to circle them erratically, so Tobyn had one eye on the monsters and one eye on Jhon as he continued to struggle with his own bindings.

An absolutely horrified Lirit was sprawled out on top of Macerio, the gunner lying on his stomach on the ground with a look of pure fear on his face a few paces from where Jhon and Tobyn were. Macerio had his gun out and was desperately trying to point it toward his temple like he had done once so long ago. But Lirit had his hands around the gun, his fingers behind the trigger in an attempt to physically stop Macerio from pulling the trigger. Blood poured from his hand and onto the ground, but he wasn’t letting go. He wasn’t getting off of Macerio. He wasn’t giving him any leverage. Wasn’t going to chance it.

Shen was trying so hard to push himself into the battle against the monsters but his movements were slow and sluggish. He had been struck with a paralysing hex. Though it was a miracle that he was moving at all, Lynus could tell that he was suffering greatly. It hurt for him to move but it hurt him not to move, to not strike back at the FOEs, to stop them from hurting others. And it hurt him to not be able to help Magnus. The gentle alchemist sat haphazardly on the ground some steps behind Shen, his head bound in thick vines that he frantically pulled and clawed at. The vines interfered with his concentration. If he couldn’t concentrate he couldn’t use his alchemist abilities. He was terrified.

Rahas, too, struggled so desperately to force himself into battle. Other than Axel, he was the only one able to stand on his feet and able to strike back at the delirious monsters. But Lynus knew that he wasn’t safe, he wasn’t well. His body was turning against him. He was being poisoned by his own body. A hex had caused his body to attack itself. He was slowly succumbing to a poison by his own making. He couldn’t…last much longer.

At the back of the battlefield, Hamza had fallen to a knee as he clutched his head with his hand. He covered the vast majority of his face, but an eye could be seen through the parted fingers, of which was digging painfully into his skin. And that visible eye was wide, unblinking and hazy, but filled with such terror. He had been hit with a fear hex. And it was affecting him so, so badly. No doubt instilling violent, heartbreaking memories. Cedric was there with him, his hands clutching the collar of his cloak and was shaking him in an attempt to pull him from his terror. He was also shouting his name. Over and over again, his voice, his throat getting hoarser by the second.

Poor Chi-hung was another who was bound to the spot, far away from the others of his guild. The white tiger growled frantically, attempting to lure the monsters in his direction instead to save the others from being attacked.

They were…they were all in so much pain and danger!

Lynus’ gaze immediately turned back to Axel when he felt his sudden spike of intense dread. And he immediately knew why. Monsters had swarmed him now. A couple of stalkers. And..,

Axel was bound to the spot. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t dodge-!

Lynus covered his mouth with his hand to smother a scream as razor sharp claw ruthlessly cut into Axel’s back. Blood seemed to spray in the air in shiny red droplets as Axel staggered forward, his grip on his axe loosen. Everything seemed to go in slow motion as Axel fell forward, his hair covering his eyes and his mouth dropping open in a gasp of pain.

As he stumbled forward he, however, somehow managed to stay on his feet. His grip on his axe tightened. His eyes remained hidden behind his hair, but his teeth and jaw clenched as he managed to push past the pain and use his axe to fight back against the raging monster.

But blood continued to flow from the gaping wounds on his back. It splattered across the ground in deep, thick pools.

He was hurt. God, he was so hurt. The monster, it caught him off guard. There were too many of them. Axel was in the thick of it. All by himself.

Lynus so badly wanted to scream out his name, to get to him, but his voice wouldn’t work, his legs wouldn’t move. Was he hit by a hex? Or was it simply from the horror and shock of everything?

A mocking, unsettling laugh seemed to cut right through Lynus’ very core and his eyes widened.

“Come on, pretty little medic,” a hexer mocked him from where he stood behind him. “You have to choose. Heal, refresh, or unbind. Which is it? Who will you help first?”

Lynus whirled around to face and hastily stumbled back a few steps. “Stop it!” he screamed.

The grin that the hexer wore was that of pure malice. “Aww, are we pushing you to your limit?” he mockingly purred. “Miracle Medic, are you at your limit? Tell us, what will you do?”

What will he do? He…didn’t know. He couldn’t heal, unbind, and refresh them all at once. He needed to focus on one task at a time. One patient at a time. But there were…so many of them that needed immediate medical attention.

Lynus turned away from the hexer and stumbled away, though he had no idea where he was going. Tears flowed unimpeded from his eyes as he stared unblinking at the chaos before him. He could hear their voices as they shouted and screamed for each other, to others to get back, for him to get away.

But he couldn’t…

He needed to heal Axel’s wounds while also removing the bindings at his legs. He needed to refresh Macerio’s mind to stop him from trying to shoot himself in fear. Magnus needed to be unbound as well as he clawed frantically at his head to remove the vines that restricted him. Shen was struggling through paralysis in an attempt to engage in battle also. Jhon was trapped in a deep magical sleep, face down and in the danger zone. Tobyn was struggling with his arms being bound. And Rahas…he was starting to cough up blood from being poisoned!

He could feel all their pains, their fears, their suffering. He could feel them all. They were so scared, so horrified, so…helpless.

Others were racing to help. Cosmos. Ryker. Darrell. More guards, but Lynus couldn’t see any of them. All he could see, all he could feel was…pain.

He needed to do something! He had to help them! He had to stop this!

B-but who first? God, there was so many of them. And more were sure to suffer. Who could afford to wait for medical attention and who couldn’t?

No, he couldn’t do them one at a time. Those hexers would just replace the hex with a new one. It was a losing battle. He couldn’t…do anything.

Axel…god, Axel…He was fighting so hard, he was going to be…

No! Lynus screamed in his mind as he held his head with his hands, his eyes wide and unblinking. No. No I won’t allow this!

It wasn’t acceptable. He wouldn’t allow this. There was a way to heal them all. There had to be. He just needed to…push himself further than he had been before. He had to. For their sake. He had to save them. All of them. No matter what it took.

He was a medic. That was what medics did. What they were born to do.

A strange sense of calm unexpectedly fell over him as he clutched his hands against his chest. He walked until he was in the very centre of the chaos, his eyes focused on the semi-circle hooded figures that were taking delight in all the curses as they take effect.

However, they won’t be delighted for much longer.

“That’s it,” Lynus said as he uncharacteristically glared at what he believed was the leader of the small group. “Your fun ends now.”

“Oh?” a hexer cooed at him once more. “What will you be able to do? Will you be able to heal them all? I highly doubt it.”

Yes, he would. He could. He would heal them all. All at once. At the exact same time. No one was going to be left out. Left behind. They were important to him. He would help them. He would.

“I’m going to heal everyone,” Lynus said as his felt a warm but foreign tingling sensation rush through him and completely unbeknownst to him he started to emit a soft violet glow. “And there’s nothing you can do to stop me!”

#Etrian Odyssey #etrian odyssey 2 #fanfiction #Guardian of Healing #Guardian Guild #CtS Crew

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osmw1 · 6 years ago

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Poison-Wielding Fugitive Chapter 23

Arleaf’s father stands up to stop me, but only to have the air choked out of him by his cough.

“Muu! Hold him back!” “Mu!”

Following my order, Muu leaps at Arleaf’s dad. I don’t think he’s exactly a match for Muu right now, but hopefully that’ll buy me some time.

Muu tackles the apothecary and pins him down face-up. Just to be sure, I hit him with a bit of Mild Paralysis Poison.

“Gah!—cough…”

That should buy me some time.

“Yukihisa?!”

Arleaf scoldingly calls my name out in, worried for her dad.

“It’ll be alright. I’m gonna save your parents... though I’m doubtful whether they’d drink this.”

I probably look like I’m being pretty stubborn right now. But this medicine is really tricky to make, and I don’t want to be liable for accidentally killing anyone. Of course, I don’t want anybody butting in. It might have been a little heavy-handed of me, but it’s because I don’t trust myself doing this.

“No… I think Father will drink it once he understands what it is. He mentioned that the potions you previously made were quite good.”

Is that right… rather, will he really understand?

‘Then explain it to them. Medicines with Marphina as the main active ingredient are effective against Bloodflower.’

I explain on Veno’s behalf.

“The disease manifests itself in the shape of a flower on the chest. That’s because Bloodflower is borne out of these tiny parasitic mold-type monsters that live on the patient’s chest.”

I didn’t think there’d be monsters like that. I guess not all monsters are visible to the naked eye. It really makes me feel as if being a Poison-Wielder is playing on easy-mode in this world. Everybody else has it rough.

“Marphina by itself has the same poisonous effect on the body as it does on the monster. But when mixed with Red Deathfire, it becomes more effective against the mold yet neutralizes the poison for the host. It even gains some antidotal effect.”

I get it now. That’s why you said it’s instantly curable. You just have to kill the monsters.

‘It is said that these mold-type monsters were the spawn of an infamous monster. The infamous monster has already been slain, but its creation lives on.’

The toxic mold monsters are instantly killed by the antidote. That’s why the symptoms go away immediately too. … does that mean the viruses and bacteria in this world are all monsters?

‘The only answer I can give thee is that it depends on the situation. There exist illnesses not caused by monsters. Bloodflower, though, is one caused by a mold-type monster.’

Whatever it may be, it’s a troublesome one. I don’t even know if I understand it completely myself. I’m not an apothecary. I’m just a Poison-Wielder and an inexperienced one at that. But if I can’t get them to understand it, they won’t take the medicine.

“That’s why Bloodflower doesn’t do much to people with high levels. The monsters’ attack is ineffective, so they just give up.”

I see. Because poison kills the parasites, I’m practically immune to this disease. The poison coursing through my body is deadly enough to immediately kill them.

“Your medicine lacks enough poison to kill off the Bloodflower. That’s why I’ve added in the plant that causes suffocation, Pogneuk, and deadly Dietetrodake spores; five percent by volume, to be exact. With that ratio, it should be harmless to the user but deadly enough to wipe out the monsters. Do you get it?”

The Mild Paralysis Poison subsides. Arleaf’s dad stays quiet and remains restrained by Muu. He doesn’t look too happy about it. I signal Muu to get off him.

‘What else is there… aye. Thou ought to prove to them that thine medicine is safe, so consume some in front of them. Well, even if the medicine were to be a failure and turns out to be lethally poisonous, thou shall be fine testing for poison with thine Poison Absorption.’

That plan’s just downright dirty… with that said though, I have no choice but to do it like this.

“I’ll prove it to you guys by drinking some first. I probably have been infected just by being here, but if not, it’ll work as a vaccine for me. With this, may I have your trust?”

Arleaf rushes to her dad’s side and nods at me.

“… I don’t think Yukihisa is mistaken about this. Father, won’t you give this a try?” “Cough cough… how boorish of you to get handsy on me, but I get what you’re trying to say. But I won’t trust you unless I see you drink some of what you’ve just made, seeing how it almost all poison. Don’t you fail now.” “Yes, sir.”

With his consent, I add five percent of what seems like pure poison… and mix thoroughly with the medicine Arleaf’s dad has made. I check if I had made this right.

Specialized Medicine Quality: Superior A fairly dangerous medicine made from toxic substances. Can heal certain illnesses. Extremely dangerous when ingested in large amounts.

‘A spoonful should be enough for it to work.’

It looks just like a regular potion and nothing more. I let it cool down to room temperature and drink a spoonful of it. It’s got… a particular flavor. A strong nose of osmanthus. Detect Poison didn’t activate, so I should be fine.

“Is this good enough?” “Cough… hold your horses. What if you go ‘Urgh!’ and fall over dead as I take a sip?”

Well, fair. Not much I can do but wait about ten minutes. As fine and unperturbed as I seem, Arleaf’s father looks at me with dubious eyes. His suspicion leads him to retrieving an expensive-looking bottle of antidote from a cupboard. He’s a cautious one.

“Father, wouldn’t it be less effective if you take both the medicine and antidote together?” “Arleaf! You were watchin’, weren’t ya? If he screwed up at all, I’m drinking nothing but poison. I’ve got to be prepared.” “Goodness… Yukihisa tested it for poison already! You’re being rude! Now, hurry up and take some of the medicine.”

Arleaf helps her father drink some of the medicine I had prepared.

“Ugh…”

It works promptly.

“Cou—huh?!”

Shocked, Arleaf’s father stops mid-cough and pats his chest. The petals on his chest disappear, as does the paleness on his face. He truly has fully recovered in an instant.

“What in the gods’ names?! I’ve been cured that easily?!”

That’s quick for sure. It took almost a whole second. The reason why it’s so easily curable is because monsters were the cause of it. Well… I might be cherry-picking, but the medicine in this world is amazing. It’s just like in a game, where your ailments heal at once.

‘Bloodflower may be dangerous, but the monsters are weak. Take the appropriate steps and they are easily defeated.’

They may be resistant to all sorts of potions and antidotes, so they do have some kind of fortitude. Not to mention, they’re microscopic, just like a virus. They’re bound to quickly die if you pump your body full of poison.

“Bloodflower isn’t really a disease and this isn’t really a cure… it’s monster hunting.” “Monsters, huh? No wonder medicine doesn’t really work…”

Seems like he believes me now. Well, he should naturally, seeing how effective the medicine was.

“How amazing… it worked this quickly.”

Arleaf chimes in, her voice filled with joy.

“The antidotal properties of the medicine you mixed up is enough to neutralize it. Well, make it safe enough to consume in small amounts at least. You should hurry and give some to Arleaf’s mom as well. We can eradicate this village of Bloodflower.” “By the by, thou shall gain a fair amount of experience just by being near someone who is cured by thy medicine. Furthermore, the medicine is effective against similar diseases.”

I ignore Veno’s good-for-nothing comments. Luckily, only Muu and I can hear him. Let’s see… we’ve also got to eradicate this epidemic. Else Veno’s worst case scenario might become a reality.

I had Arleaf’s mom take some of the medicine her husband and I made, and she quickly recovers too. It took some potions and healing magic to compensate for her depleted stamina, but she’s fit to be out and about by tomorrow morning. The next morning, the medicine made with Veno’s instructions was distributed amongst the villagers. And as expected, Bloodflower no longer plagues the village. For the next few days, I took on the role of apothecary and supervised the production of this cure.

It goes without saying, but everyone in this village and the next village over knows my name. They’ve all been impacted by the epidemic and all have gone through rough times. Desperate for a cure, people from nearby villages come to purchase medicine. Well, the ones afflicted by Bloodflower hoping to find an easy cure do so. Adventurers have returned as well, bringing their liveliness back to this village.

“Oh, Cohgray. You goin’ out?”

The proprietress was previously bound to her bed but now seems to feel much better. She suddenly calls out to me as I walk past the reception desk. Her bag-of-bones figure is a thing of the past. In a mere few days, she’s back to a healthy look for her size. Apparently, her other illnesses had complicated, but after a few trips to the apothecary, it seems like she’s fully recovered.

As a result of her vitality returning… all the fat she’s lost had resurfaced. Or something like that. However it may be, that sickly appearance is no more. I’ve even seen her borrows Muu’s axe to split firewood. They say she was a pretty famous adventurer back in the day.

“Yeah, the apothecary has just called me over.” “That right? Yer givin’ it all every day, aren’tcha? Well, this is all thanks to you anyway. Ain’t that right, Muu-Muu?” “Mu!”

I’m glad she’s so bright and energetic now, but I wish she’d stop grinning at me all the time.

“Hey, why don’t I introduce ya to my niece? She’s a sweetheart.” ‘She is attempting to coerce thee into a marriage. Avoid it.’ “Oh, uhh, I’m flattered. Really. But I haven’t really haven’t given that kind of thing much thought yet.” “That right? Cohgray, yer about that age, aren’tcha? Might be a good time for you to settle down.”

Ah, jeez. She’s changed classes from Invalid to Nosy Auntie. She may be letting me stay for cheap, but damn. Time to bust out a secret ancient Japanese technique—the ol’ vague non-answer.

“I-I’ll think about it.”

It’s a roundabout way to reject her offer, but I wonder if it works in this world.

“Heh heh.”

Ah, crap. She laughed. Gah… what should I do?

‘”I do not have the time of day for your niece!” would have been acceptable, I believe.’

Yeah, acceptable for picking a fight!

“Sorry for holdin’ you up. Take care out there. You too, Muu-Muu.”

The proprietress thoughtfully sends us off.

“Mu!” “Right. I’ll be back.”

With that, we leave the inn for the apothecary.

“Oh, Yukihisa!” Arleaf greets me in front of her family’s shop.

“You’ve made it, eh, Cohgray?”

The doctor calls my name with an annoyed look on his face.

“How is progress, doctor? Not just with the village… the whole thing.” “It’s tapering off. Surely you know too.” “Well, yeah…”

He lets out a heavy sigh.

“Now then… it’s time we discuss payment.”

previously: /ch001/ /ch002/ /ch003/ /ch004/ /ch005/ /ch006/ /ch007/ /ch008/ /ch009/ /ch010/ /ch011/ /ch012/ /ch013/ /ch014/ /ch015/ /ch016/ /ch017/ /ch018/ /ch019/ /ch020/ /ch021/ /ch022/ /ch023/ /next/ (full list of translated chapters) (discussion thread on Novel Updates) (please support me on Patreon or Paypal)

#Poison-Wielding Fugitive #PWF #Average Translations #AvgTL #osm #毒使いの逃亡者 #一般の英訳 #light novel #ln #aneko yusagi #アネコユサギ

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dfroza · 4 years ago

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to come to view life as a child

(through baptism eyes)

to “believe...” in the True illumination of the Son.

Today’s reading of the Scriptures from the book of Matthew illuminates the significance of this. and just as we are told to be baptized in the water of earth when we come to believe, we are also asked to be open to invite the Spirit into our own (welcoming the entrance) who illuminates as Light inside that guides us into truth.

for we’re all searching for our identity in this world, and we only truly find it in the eternal.

we find our True selves in Love and its sacred truth.

[John the Baptizer]

It was at this time that John the Baptizer began to preach in the desert of Judah. His message was this: “The realm of heaven’s kingdom is about to appear—so you’d better keep turning away from evil and turn back to God!”

Isaiah was referring to John when he prophesied:

A thunderous voice! One will be crying out in the wilderness,

“Prepare yourself for the Lord’s coming

and level a straight path inside your hearts for him.”

Now, John wore clothing made from camel’s hair, tied at his waist with a leather strap, and his food consisted of dried locusts and wild honey. A steady stream of people from Jerusalem, all the surrounding countryside, and the region near the Jordan came out to the wilderness to be baptized by him. And while they were publicly confessing their sins, he would immerse them in the Jordan River.

But when he saw many coming from among the wealthy elite of Jewish society and many of the religious leaders known as Pharisees coming to witness the baptism, he began to denounce them, saying, “You offspring of vipers! Who warned you to slither away like snakes from the fire of God’s judgment? You must prove your repentance by a changed life. And don’t presume you can get away with merely saying to yourselves, ‘But we’re Abraham’s descendants!’ For I tell you, God can awaken these stones to become sons of Abraham! The axe is now ready to cut down the trees at their very roots. Every fruitless, rotten tree will be chopped down and thrown into the fire. Those who repent I baptize with water, but there is coming a Man after me who is more powerful than I am. In fact, I’m not even worthy enough to pick up his sandals. He will submerge you into union with the Spirit of Holiness and with a raging fire! He comes with a winnowing fork in his hands and comes to his threshing floor to sift what is worthless from what is pure. And he is ready to sweep out his threshing floor and gather his wheat into his granary, but the straw he will burn up with a fire that can’t be extinguished!”

Then Jesus left Galilee to come to the Jordan to be baptized by John. But when he waded into the water, John resisted him, saying, “Why are you doing this? I’m the one who needs to be baptized by you, and yet you come to be baptized by me?”

Jesus replied, “It is only right to do all that God requires.” Then John baptized Jesus. And as Jesus rose up out of the water, the heavenly realm opened up over him and he saw the Holy Spirit descend out of the heavens and rest upon him in the form of a dove. Then suddenly the voice of the Father shouted from the sky, saying, “This is the Son I love, and my greatest delight is in him.”

The Book of Matthew, Chapter 3 (The Passion Translation)

Today’s paired chapter of the Testaments is the 36th and closing chapter of the book (the ancient scroll) of 2nd Chronicles:

[King Jehoahaz]

Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he began to rule. He was king in Jerusalem for a mere three months. The king of Egypt dethroned him and forced the country to pay him nearly four tons of silver and seventy-five pounds of gold.

[King Jehoiakim]

Neco king of Egypt then made Eliakim, Jehoahaz’s brother, king of Judah and Jerusalem, but changed his name to Jehoiakim; then he took Jehoahaz back with him to Egypt.

Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he began to rule; he was king for eleven years in Jerusalem. In God’s opinion he was an evil king.

Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon made war against him, and bound him in bronze chains, intending to take him prisoner to Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar also took things from The Temple of God to Babylon and put them in his royal palace.

The rest of the history of Jehoiakim, the outrageous sacrilege he committed and what happened to him as a consequence, is all written in the Royal Annals of the Kings of Israel and Judah.

Jehoiachin his son became the next king.

[King Jehoiachin]

Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king. But he ruled for only three months and ten days in Jerusalem. In God’s opinion he was an evil king. In the spring King Nebuchadnezzar ordered him brought to Babylon along with the valuables remaining in The Temple of God. Then he made his uncle Zedekiah a puppet king over Judah and Jerusalem.

[King Zedekiah]

Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he started out as king. He was king in Jerusalem for eleven years. As far as God was concerned, he was just one more evil king; there wasn’t a trace of contrition in him when the prophet Jeremiah preached God’s word to him. Then he compounded his troubles by rebelling against King Nebuchadnezzar, who earlier had made him swear in God’s name that he would be loyal. He became set in his own stubborn ways—he never gave God a thought; repentance never entered his mind.

The evil mindset spread to the leaders and priests and filtered down to the people—it kicked off an epidemic of evil, repeating the abominations of the pagans and polluting The Temple of God so recently consecrated in Jerusalem.

God, the God of their ancestors, repeatedly sent warning messages to them. Out of compassion for both his people and his Temple he wanted to give them every chance possible. But they wouldn’t listen; they poked fun at God’s messengers, despised the message itself, and in general treated the prophets like idiots. God became more and more angry until there was no turning back—God called in Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, who came and killed indiscriminately—and right in The Temple itself; it was a ruthless massacre: young men and virgins, the elderly and weak—they were all the same to him.

And then he plundered The Temple of everything valuable, cleaned it out completely; he emptied the treasuries of The Temple of God, the treasuries of the king and his officials, and hauled it all, people and possessions, off to Babylon. He burned The Temple of God to the ground, knocked down the wall of Jerusalem, and set fire to all the buildings—everything valuable was burned up. Any survivor was taken prisoner into exile in Babylon and made a slave to Nebuchadnezzar and his family. The exile and slavery lasted until the kingdom of Persia took over.

This is exactly the message of God that Jeremiah had preached: the desolate land put to an extended sabbath rest, a seventy-year Sabbath rest making up for all the unkept Sabbaths.

[King Cyrus]

In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia—this fulfilled the message of God preached by Jeremiah—God moved Cyrus king of Persia to make an official announcement throughout his kingdom; he wrote it out as follows: “From Cyrus king of Persia a proclamation: God, the God of the heavens, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth. He has also assigned me to build him a Temple of worship at Jerusalem in Judah. All who belong to God’s people are urged to return—and may your God be with you! Move forward!”

The Book of 2nd Chronicles, Chapter 36 (The Message)

my personal reading of the Scriptures for friday, march 5 of 2021 with a paired chapter from each Testament of the Bible, along with Today’s Psalms and Proverbs

A poetic post from the heart of my thought-life that contains the poem “believe...”

A post by John Parsons about trust:

If you can't detect God's hand in your circumstances, then trust His heart... The heart of faith affirms: "gahm zu l'tovah" (גַּם זוּ לְטוֹבָה): “this too is for good,” particularly when the present hour may be shrouded in darkness... Whenever I am confused about life (which is often enough), I try to remember what God said to Moses after the tragic sin of the Golden Calf: "I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my Name, 'The LORD' (יהוה). And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy" (Exod. 33:19). God’s character does not change: the LORD is the same “yesterday, today, and forever.” The meaning of the Name, however, cannot be known apart from understanding the need of the heart....

Earlier God had revealed to Moses that the Name YHVH (יהוה) means: "He is Present" (i.e., the word is a play on the Hebrew verb hayah [הָיָה], "to be"), and therefore God is “always there” (Exod. 3:14). The great I AM (אֶהְיֶה) means God stands outside of the constraints of time, “one day is as a thousand years” and “a thousand years as one day” before Him (2 Pet. 3:8). Just as a thousand years is but “a watch in the night” (Psalm 90:4), so one day is as a thousand years. God’s Spirit broods over all things and sustains the entire universe. God is “necessary being,” the Source of Life, and foundation for all other existence. God’s creative love and power sustain all things in creation...

Now while the idea that God is the Source of all life in the universe is surely important, it is not entirely comforting, especially in light of man’s guilt and anxiety over death. After all, we do not stand before the “god of the philosophers,” but rather the personal God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The meaning of the Name YHVH - that He is merciful, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and truth, and so on - therefore presents additional revelation in face of man’s inherent brokenness and spiritual need. Some things in life are only known in the passion of faith... things like love, beauty, honor, and so on. The Name of the LORD as the Compassionate One is only known in humility, when all human pretense is stripped away and the inner life is laid bare in its desperate need. The Name YHVH is God’s response to the heart’s cry for deliverance, for compassion, for mercy....

What is God like - what is His heart - is the first question, and how we answer that will determine how we deal with all the other questions that come up in theology... What do you feel inside when you stare up at the ceiling before you go to bed? In light of the ambiguity and heartaches of life we might wonder if God is there for us. Does God care? Is He angry at me? Does He really love me? This is the raw place of faith, where we live in the midst of our questions. The Name YHVH means “He is present,” even when we are unconscious of His Presence in the hour of our greatest need.

The legalist is actually enslaved to the idea of God’s conditional acceptance. His deep creed is: “If you (outwardly) obey, then you belong.” The message of the cross scandalizes the realm of the outwardly religious because it boldly states, "if you believe, then you belong...” As Kierkegaard rightly observed, "And this is the simple truth - that to live is to feel oneself lost. He who accepts it has already begun to find himself, to be on firm ground. Instinctively, as do the shipwrecked, he will look around for something to which to cling, and that tragic, ruthless glance, absolutely sincere, because it is a question of his salvation, will cause him to bring order into the chaos of his life. These are the only genuine ideas; the ideas of the shipwrecked. All the rest is rhetoric, posturing, farce." For Kierkegaard, religious rituals devoid of a sense of crisis within the heart are little more than a sham. “I think of the times I tried to use him to make my life secure, and undisturbed, and painless. Also the times I was enslaved by fear of him, and by the need to protect myself against him through rites and circumstances” (de Mello). Religious behavior (i.e., rituals, ceremonialism, etc.) is a tawdry substitute for trusting that God's heart (YHVH) is forever present for you. [Hebrew for Christians]

3.4.21 • Facebook

Today’s message from the Institute for Creation Research

March 5, 2021

One God

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD.” (Deuteronomy 6:4)

This great verse has been recited countless times by Israelites down through the centuries, setting forth their distinctive belief in one great Creator God. The Jews had retained their original belief in creation, handed down from Noah, while the other nations had all allowed their original monotheistic creationism to degenerate into a wide variety of religions, all basically equivalent to the polytheistic evolutionism of the early Sumerians at Babel.

But along with its strong assertion of monotheism, there is also a very real suggestion that this declaration, with its thrice-named subject, is also setting forth the triune God. The name “LORD,” of course, is Yahweh, or Jehovah, the self-existing One who reveals Himself, while “God” is Elohim, the powerful Creator/Ruler. “Jehovah our Elohim is one Jehovah” is the proclamation. A number of respected Jewish commentators have acknowledged that the verse spoke of a “unified oneness” rather than an “absolute oneness.” The revered book called the Zohar, for example, even said that the first mention was of the Father, the second one the Messiah, and the third the Holy Spirit.

The key word “one” (Hebrew achad) is often used to denote unity in diversity. For example, when Eve was united to Adam in marriage, they were said to be “one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). Similarly, on the third day of creation, the waters were “gathered together unto one place,” yet this gathering together was called “Seas” (i.e., more than one sea, Genesis 1:9-10).

Thus, Israel’s great declaration should really be understood as saying, in effect: “The eternally omnipresent Father, also Creator and Sustainer of all things, is our unified self-revealing Lord.” HMM

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thebandcampdiaries · 5 years ago

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Introducing Claudio Magrassi: An Italian session guitarist with an international background.

March 2020 - Claudio Magrassi is a session guitar player from Italy. His sound stands out for his versatile and eclectic take on the six-strings, allowing him to approach different styles with creativity, openness, and verve. His acoustic and electric performances have been captured on many songs, including recent sessions for Jack Shields and No Hugs, among others. In addition to that, Claudio also produced music for commercials and ad campaigns, showcasing his ability to understand melody and contextualize songwriting to any environment.

Inspired by blues and rock legends such as Jimi Hendrix, BB King, and Muddy Waters, Claudio became enamored with the expressiveness of guitar earlier on. In 2015, he auditioned for Boston’s Berklee College of Music and eventually received a scholarship to attend the prestigious American school while at Studio Bleu in Paris. He eventually decided to relocate to Los Angeles, where he works with a variety of local artists in the studio, and on tour. In fact, he had the chance to tour extensively with the band “Wepro,” performing in the United States and Abroad.

These are only a few snapshots and exciting moments from Claudio’s remarkable career. He always looks for new opportunities to be a part of exciting projects, be it live or in the recording studio. As a guitarist, Claudio maintains a very open-ended and humble attitude, always looking to expose himself to new influences and ideas. The key to being able to work with different musicians is to understand a lot of different music styles, as well as being willing to look behind the usual cliches and genre limitations. With such a forward-thinking attitude, Claudio is quickly making a name for himself in the session world and beyond, working with some of the most talented and inspiring new artists, as well as rising artists who are conquering larger crowds.

Find out more and follow:

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvaq-6fBP-2yfBxCcBHo2hA

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/clodstrato90/?hl=it

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/clod.magrassi?ref=bookmarks

Keep reading for a full interview with Claudio!

- As a huge guitar nerd myself, the big question is: favorite guitar? What do you normally record and gig with?

I've always been a Fender Player. My first guitar was a Squier Strat that I still keep hanging on the wall of my room back home. My favorite guitar is the Stratocaster. I have a 60’s style custom shop Stratocaster, three-tone sunburst and rosewood neck. That’s my favorite axe and the guitar I use for most of my gigs and recordings. I also have a Martin X series (OM shape) that I use for my acoustic gigs and recs. I got it for a last-minute gig, planning on returning it to the Guitar Center the next day but I fell in love with it!

- Let’s talk pedals! Do you have any secret weapons or favorite effects you can’t live without?

I like the idea of trying to get all (or most of) the sounds I need with 4 or 5 pedals. The essentials of my pedalboard are the Strymon Flint and El Capistan. The first one is tremolo/ reverb the second is a great delay pedal. They have a lot of controls and often the artists I record for ask me to give them a few takes using these pedals in a creative way, experimenting with their sound. About a month ago while at NAMM with No/Hugs, I had the chance to try a lot of gear. There, I got the Perseo, a truly beautiful clean boost, made in Italy by DOPHIX. I’m using it to beef up my clean or solo sounds. Another favorite overdrive of mine is the Xotic AC Booster that goes along very well with my strat and my amp.

- Just to wrap the gear convo up, any favorite amps?

Clean amps all the way! Fender Deluxe, Twin and Blues Jr. At the moment I have a Hot Rod Deluxe. The dream tone is the Tone King imperial.

- Coronavirus is causing some stress in the world, and it is forcing many artists to cancel tours and events. Are you staying busy with session work during the epidemic?

For sure a lot of categories are affected by the Coronavirus Outbreak, however, I think that in a situation like this it is crucial to think as a collective instead of individually. I am working remotely but much less than usual. I rely on what I saved in the past months hoping that things would get better soon. Now it’s important that everybody does its part to contain the spread of the virus. There will be a lot of work when things will go back to normal. I try to think of it this way!

- As someone who has recorded with many different artists, do you have any suggestions for aspiring guitarists looking to take the same route?

Working with many artists and recording different genres is for sure a challenge! But it also helps to keep it fresh. These types of gigs stimulate my curiosity and give me an incentive to get better and better! If I can suggest something it would definitely be trying to get out of your comfort zone, get in the habit of recording yourself and play with a metronome, ALWAYS!

- Are you planning on recording or publishing any solo projects or compositions? I have some of my music in the works. I’m a perfectionist (unfortunately? maybe...) and I keep going back and forth on my ideas, change sections, add, subtract elements. I feel this year would be a good one to work on my own music and release some of it soon.

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anythingstephenking · 7 years ago

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Misery Loves (Holding) Company (Hostage)

One of King’s most beloved tales, Misery, is next on my list. Coming off two fantasy stories back-to-back, it was nice to get back into the swing of terror and tribulation, although I am anxious to get to the next Dark Tower.

Misery was a quick read, consumed primarily on my travels to and from Minnesota for the holidays with my family. Let me tell you, if you never visit Minnesota in December, you’re lucky. Even the joy and warmth of my niece and nephew on Christmas morning did not make up for 5 days of negative temperatures. Returning to a 25 degree day in Nashville felt like a visit to the tropics.

Misery was originally planned as a Bachman, and it reads like one. I’ve mentioned previously, but King said this of writing as Bachman: “There’s a place in most of us where the rain is pretty much constant, the shadows are always long, and the woods are full of monsters.”

And that really gets to the crux of what Misery is - a deeply dark place full of monsters in the guise of a overweight manic-depressive named Annie Wilkes.

The running speculation is that King wrote this novel as a window into his own most personal fear - being typecast as a horror writer, being allowed to write nothing else, then being punished for this by being held captive by a cuckoo-bananas fan. For me, this seems like an easy out. Actually having read everything King has written before Misery, the range of his writing is broad enough to call phooey. Even if people were disappointed in Eyes of the Dragon, The Stand, The Talisman and Dark Tower books were all well received even though they are decidedly “un-King” like. When you add in his novellas and short stories like Shawshank and The Body, you can’t say that, even in 1987, that King is strictly a horror writer. Any of his fans would know this.

This coupon was tucked inside my McKay’s copy. If only I could time travel back 30 years to New Mexico I could get a free Dr. Pepper!

What this story is really about, and what makes it a Bachman, is that King is writing it from his dark place. Our hero, writer Paul Sheldon, becomes trapped in a place in which he can not escape. Physically, he can not escape from Annie, but mentally he can not escape from his dependance on the painkillers Annie feeds him. He goes as far as to escape from his locked bedroom, not in an attempt to escape her house (at first) but to search for more pills to squirrel away under his mattress. Paul craves his dope and agrees to most anything that Annie asks him to do, so long as she brings him his pills. Almost 30 years before the opioid epidemic will transform the national conversation about prescription drugs, King’s words warn of the dangers of dependency that is rooted in his own struggles. The deeply personal nature of this addiction makes Misery pure agony to read.

It’s hard to read Misery without picturing Kathy Bates as Annie. She won an Oscar for her performance, so I suppose it could be worse. Annie is the perfect villain - a rather unassuming, overweight older woman, who hates swearing and says things like “cockadoodlie” and “fiddle-de-foof.” My favorite thing she says is, and I quote: “You can have a couple of loads of double-ought buck up your cockadoodie bumhole if you don’t get out of here!” She could be my grandma.

Turns out she’s also an insane person that hits herself when she’s depressed and kidnaps authors.

While in captivity, Annie makes Paul write a novel just for her. Paul writes garbagey victorian era nonsense, staring the heroine Misery Chastain. Now THAT’S a name. We get to read a few passages of this new work, and yeah, it’s garbagey for sure. Good ol’ Annie loves it so much she names her barnyard pig Misery. I mean, I named my cat Lucille Bluth, but I’m not kidnapping Jessica Walter anytime soon.

Paul equates his situation to that of Scheherazade, which I had to google - my notes said “look up who the heck Scheherazade is”. It starts like any good story does - back in the olden-days, there was a King who would marry a virgin, bed her, then kill her the next day so she couldn’t cheat on him. What a paranoid dumpster person. Scheherazade comes along and marries him, and rather than sleep with the King, tells him a story. As the sun rises, she ends on a cliffhanger, and the King needs to keep her alive until the next night. This goes on and on, until eventually the King is in love with her and decides not to murder her. What a hopeless romantic.

Anywho, Paul gets himself into a real Scheherazade situation, using his book to keep himself alive. But this ain’t some misoginistic fairy tale from the 16th century. At some point his novel will be done and he isn’t going to ride off into the sunset with Annie Wilkes. At some point, Paul realizes he’s Scheherazade-ing himself, through his hope and desire for more drugs and less pain. It’s a surprising moment of clarity that you know is how King himself feels himself as he writes this book.

Even after escaping Annie physically, Paul is still haunted by her, as he craves his bed-drugs as the book ends and self medicates with lots of booze. Even though the hero prevails, it’s still a downer of ending. Bachman through and through.

I jotted down this quote from King that was on the DVD extras of the new IT movie. “The thing about fiction is, you take all the reality that you can possibly take, and then you change everything that you want.”

I think King certainly accomplishes this in Misery.

9/10 - if it was a Bachman, it’d be my favorite

First Line: umber whunnn

yerrrnnn umber whunnn

fayunnn

These sounds: even in the haze.

Last line: Now my tale is told.

Adaptations

This movie is Kathy Bates and only Kathy Bates, which is a-ok with me. Actually, I take that back. Richard Farnsworth as the sheriff (aka Matthew from Anne of Green Gables aka the greatest adoptive pseudo-father in literary history, the dress had puffy sleeves for cripes sake!) adds a fair bit of comic relief, along with his deputy/wife Frances Sternhagen (aka Bunny from Sex and the City aka the worst mother-in-law in cable sitcom history).

While the novel is Paul and Annie alone until the end, the movie tacks on a few other characters to get the viewer out of the house. Which unfortunately does mean that claustrophobic feeling that lingers throughout the novel doesn’t really translate to the big screen. A single location would have been a more interesting choice for the movie, but no one asked my opinion.

King didn’t want Misery made into a movie. After being impressed with Rob Reiner’s adaptation of Stand By Me (which has King’s favorite movie requirement which is that it is very faithful to the source material, obvs) King only agreed to sell the movie rights if Rob Reiner would produce and/or direct. Reiner did indeed do both.

The thing I love about this movie is that it has “the scene.” I love a movie with “the scene” - something so horrifying or traumatic that anyone who discusses the film must bring up “the scene.” I’m weird.

The scene of course, is James Caan getting hobbled and is a truly awful moment. They used gelatin legs to get the right bend. :::shudder:::

If you’ve read the book though you know this is actually SO MUCH WORSE. Rather than breaking Paul’s ankles, Annie cuts one of his feet off with an axe. The description conjured images of James Franco cutting off his arm in 127 Hours and paper cuts make me queasy so it was rough going. Then, at some other point, she cuts off his thumb, really just for the hell of it, cause she’s an insane bananas person.

The Tommyknockers is next!

#stephen king #misery #book review #movie review

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living-with-abhi · 4 years ago

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Social media is playing a major role in Covid-19, but is it enough?

Read More - https://www.livingwithabhi.com/post/pondering-over-the-role-of-social-media-during-the-covid-19-pandemic

The 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) or extreme severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), as it is now known, is rapidly spreading in India and to the rest of the world from its origin in Wuhan City, China. This deadly and life-threatening virus infected 2,549,632 people and resulted in 175,825 deaths around the world. In India, there are currently 17,610 positive corona infected cases (till 24 April 2020) as reported by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare Department of India.

During sudden outbreaks, the public needs access to timely and reliable information about the disease symptoms and their prevention. Nowadays, social media are often seen as fast and effective platforms for searching, sharing, and distributing health information among the general population.

Also, social media serves to provide an important informal source of data to identify health information that has not been reported to medical officers or health departments and to uncover or share perspectives on any life-threatening health-related issues.

But this channel of disseminating knowledge sometimes mixed with scare tactics, discrimination, misleading reports, and conspiracy theories related to the origin of the virus, its spread, and mass buying of face masks, all closely connected to the modern 21st century “info media” social media networks.

Despite the importance of rapid access to information in these critical situations, poor comprehension or inaccurate or false information in the format of rumors or unreliable news can lead to misunderstanding in the community, which makes the situation worse.

Dr. Tedros Adhanom, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), calls this the battle against “trolls and conspiracy theories.” Misinformation creates confusion, and spreads fear, hampering the outbreak response. “Misinformation on the coronavirus might be the most contagious thing about it.”

These circumstances can lead to an increase in the people's unnecessary expectations requiring diagnostic, medication, or referral services as for instance taken as a shortage and black marketing of face masks and hand sanitizer in India. As for low- and middle-income countries with limited health services, this can make the situation worse because these nations don't have enough workforce and financial resources to cope up with this epidemic.

Yet India is managing with its own level at its best, but it seems like the virus's potential path is uncertain.

Hence, this review provides a bird's eye view of the impact of social media on the general population during this CoV epidemic.

Government and health professionals must embrace and make plans for the use of social media, work together, establish limits and build guidelines for its usage, and above all, make them work for the general population.

What is the Role of Social Media during the COVID-19 Crisis?

Today, social media such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, have become primary sources of information.

They are also vehicles for fake news and disinformation. During a crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic, how should social media be mastered and employed in a responsible way? HEC Paris Associate Professor of Marketing, Kristine de Valck, has been studying the role of social networks in the marketplace since 1999. She explains.

The #coronavirus health crisis highlights the particular strengths of social media and how it brings people across the globe together, to make sense of what is truly happening.

HOW DO COMPANIES AND INDIVIDUALS USE SOCIAL MEDIA DURING SUCH A CRISIS?

Broadly, there is two opposing logic. Companies can use social media for commercial purposes or for communal purposes. In other words, companies use social media to brand, sell, market their business (which is close to traditional marketing efforts using mass media) versus using social media to connect with and co-create with customers and – more importantly – to provide a platform to customers to bond together. You can see this as the distinction between using social media to talk to your customers versus using social media to talk with your customers and have them talk to each other through your brand.

For individuals, the same axe translates into using social media to self-present – that can turn into the very narcissistic self-exposure that we sometimes see on social media versus using social media to connect with friends, family, and like-minded others for socialization and emotional support.

WHAT PARTICULAR STRENGTHS OF SOCIAL MEDIA ARE HIGHLIGHTED DURING SUCH DIFFICULT TIMES?

For me, this crisis highlights the particular strengths of social media in how they can be used for the second type of purpose; that is community and emotional support.

Just like we have seen with other crises, such as the earthquake and following tsunami that caused the nuclear disaster in Japan in 2011, the terrorist attacks in Paris and elsewhere in Europe over the past years, we see today that people all over the world reach out to each other – close by and far away – through social media to make sense of what is happening.

I am thinking of the many funny videos about how people creatively deal with the lockdown, of the neighborhood Facebook groups that organize entertainment and practical support to help neighbors who need assistance with grocery shopping or childcare, and the quick rise of apps and functionalities that allow for live chat and video sessions with multiple people.

This is social media at its core and at its best.

PEOPLE TURN TO SOCIAL MEDIA NOT ONLY FOR SUPPORT AND ENTERTAINMENT BUT ALSO USE IT AS A SOURCE OF INFORMATION… AND FAKE NEWS.

This is where we need to warn of the dark side of social media and its role in spreading fake news. Platforms have been slow in acknowledging their responsibility in helping platform users distinguish fake news from facts, but they are taking steps in the right direction. Instagram, for example, announced to only include COVID-19 related posts and stories in their recommendation section that are published by official health organizations. In general, my advice is to crosscheck information that you get through social media with at least two other information sources such as government websites and high-quality news outlets. In addition, we also all have a role to play by not further spreading rumors through our social media accounts.

HOW SHOULD MARKETERS ADOPT THEIR SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGIES IN THIS EXTRAORDINARY TIME?

It is a tricky question. Typically, marketers should relate their social media contributions to the real-time context. Indeed, at the start of the crisis, I kept receiving long-before planned brand posts that did not refer at all to the situation, and thus, seemed misplaced. At the same time, trying to leverage a sanitary crisis for branding purposes in your social media posts can quickly be perceived as distasteful.

The best examples I have seen come from companies that offer free resources to their customers to face the crisis. For example, many academic publishers have made online content available for free to support teachers and students worldwide with distance learning. Closer to home, the teachers have started a YouTube channel where they post videos on how we can keep fit while confined at home.

This is social media at its core and at its best.

Coronavirus: How Panic Spreads Through Social Media

With its capacity to bring people closer than ever before, social media has also set new and special challenges, including phenomena of Cyber-bullying, exploiting public opinion, and other forms of crime. The pandemic of CoV is affecting global health and now become a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) as declared by the WHO. In the International Health Regulations (IHR) 2005, the term Public Health Emergency of International Concern is defined as “an extraordinary event which is described, as given in these regulations:

To constitute a public health risk to other States through the international spread of disease; and

To potentially require a coordinated international response.” This definition implies a situation that: is serious, unusual, or unexpected; carries implications for public health beyond the affected State's national border and may require immediate international action.

While the Internet is seen as an effective source for obtaining health information, it can be used as a means of disseminating misinformation. As standard research methods include methodology and peer review, this analysis also includes a framework for inspections which balances to minimize the risk of inaccurate or inappropriate content dissemination; social media platforms will often encourage open membership, and in large part unrestricted exchange of ideas under 'protecting and allowing free' principles expression – sadly because of short legal consequences, there is little or no accountability for what is said or communicated.

In addition to resolving the urgent need to step up public health interventions for tackling the epidemic, the pandemic of social media hysteria must be combated. This spreading of panic and misinformation about CoV is termed as “Misinfodemics.”

Sharing and spreading timely and transparent information, especially when the news is unfavorable and predicting uncertainty is clearly an integral part of managing large-scale epidemics and other emergencies.

All such interactions should be routine between government agencies and the public to develop trust that becomes critical during epidemics. In today's world, reaching the general population – especially in times of public health crisis – takes more than common mass media as some of the channels which are behind paywalls.

Subsequent public contact from China and other parts of the world and exchange of knowledge strengthened the response to the outbreak. Similarly, Singapore's approach to public risk communication, including Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's speech on February 8, 2020, was lauded by experts in health care as they developed a model for reducing panic and rumors among their people.

The last outbreak of Ebola in Western Africa is yet another clear example of the ability of social networks to influence the actions of people. This news of the epidemic created a fearful environment globally with rumors and misinformation, which rapidly spreads through social networks.

Several studies had investigated the role that social networks have played in spreading misinformation about Ebola. A study published in the British medical journal analyzed tweets about the Ebola outbreak from African countries. The researchers revealed that most of the messages contained false information, and 'fake' tweets were more retweeted than those comprising “truthful” facts.

Odlum and Yoon also state that various senses of public anxiety, anger, and health information seeking global Ebola-related goals were identified during the Ebola epidemic through Twitter's 2014 to 2016 content review.

Furthermore, social networks helped spread conspiracy theories, gibberish accusations, and some even gave them information about fake treatments; likewise, the SMS and WhatsApp messages also spread false news stories.

Conclusion

Instead of self-glorifying social media brand posts, brands will be forced to embrace the communal logic of social media during the COVID-19 crisis. More than ever, social media posts should be user-centric and not producer-centric. Brands that will be able to deliver messages and engage in conversations that are considered valuable because they provide helpful information, relevant advice or that simply make you laugh will come out of the crisis stronger.

Stay safe and keep sharing!

#bloggercovid19 #antibiotics #affectingall #antiinflammatory #Virus #panic #pandemic #socialmedia #publicopinion #facebook #twitter #instagram #pinterest #concern #disease #globally #healthissues #mask #sanitizer #fakenewsspreading #emergency #WHO #virus #covid #COVID19 #COVID19PH #COVID2019 #covidsafe #covidhelp #Covid19India #COVID19outbreak #COVIDSecondWave

#bloggercovid19 #antibiotics #affectingall #antiinflammatory #Virus #panic #pandemic #socialmedia #publicopinion #facebook #twitter #instag

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artworkandstuff · 6 years ago

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Outrage elaborated fully

Outrage is an album influenced by current affairs, the media and politics. Its existence will be to shine the light on issues typically unaddressed to young audiences. Its inspiration has come from my love of knowledge and my wish to share this information with others. Particular events such as Brexit, Grenfell and the General Election fuelled my curiosity to discover the world of politics and all its dirty ways.

My EP - OUTRAGE

Track 1 - Police Brutality

My first track is called Police Brutality which is straight up about police brutality. Not only is it about Police Brutality, it’s also about Black Lives Matter. Black Lives Matter is much more than just a hashtag on twitter, it’s a worldwide activist movement. Black Lives Matter is a campaign against racial injustice against black people internationally. This subject ties in directly with Police Brutality as majority of victims of Police Brutality are black, especially in America. Now although the argument against that is that more white people are killed by the police in America than black, its the fact that the black community are such a small percentage in America as opposed to white. Bringing it back overseas to the UK we don’t have deaths that frequently because of the police, but we do have stop and searches often. Here shows a graph displaying those who have been stopped and searched in groups of ethnicity.

https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/crime-justice-and-the-law/policing/stop-and-search/latest

You can clearly see how much more the black community is victimised down to simply being black. The whole police system is racially rigged, no argument against it and this clearly shows that.

One poor guy who is no longer with us who suffered the full force of the British Police is Rashan Charles. I made the song in memory of him and reference to his unjustified death. “Let me spend this moment and spit something for Rashan for was wrongly strangled by the blue man, forcely accused of swallowing a package, when the 50 fucked him and turned him into bagage”. I wanted to reference him as evidence to show my frustration at Police brutality but also to show how needed “black live matters” is. On top of that I reference stop and search by saying “Rest in peace brother only so young what does it take for the feds to see what they done, a joke a mess that’s basically their ego, touching up young men like some peado”. I wanted to make a hard point that it’s just a joke, why are people being victimized for the way they look then suffering because of it. Its pathetic.

I do understand that the lack of funding to the police force by the Conservatives austerity has hit the force hard, but it’s not an excuse for imbecilic behaviour. I mention this in my piece by saying “Under funding and stretched supplies, but you still interested in taking lives, but not taking knives, jheeze you hurt inside. Not nice. Not nice.“. I talk about the subject of knives as in Britain we have a knife crime epidemic. Knives are easy to obtain and conceal and can easily cause a death. Due to the lack of police officers on the street and the closure of youth centres down to the Conservative government there simply aren’t the resources available to bring these criminals to justice and the support for young people just doesn’t exist anymore.

The Tory government went as far to blame other reasons for the rise in knife crime and not them cutting police numbers and closing youth centres. Amber Rudd the home secretary blamed numerous matters, such as music and videos posted online on youtube. She said that the use of violent words and actions has had a dramatic affect on young people’s minds. By posting these music videos online apparently “glamourise” the lifestyle of a “thug”. On top of that the illegal creation and importation of crack cocaine has created the perfect environment for gangs to unleash terror on neighbouring gangs due to disputes over unpaid money. The third reason Rudd claimed to have contributed to the rise in knife crime is Alcohol consumption. Once consumed alcohol can greatly affect one’s decision making and can alter your physical ambition. Additionally Rudd claims that crowded pubs can assign people to inappropriate behaviour, even though there is little evidence to support this. People’s “age” and “character” is just as much of a contribution to, according to Rudd. The way people socialise and communicate affects their character which leads to knife crime. Personally I feel that these accusations are rather bland and have little to no evidence to support them. Furthermore Rudd claims there are more contributing factors, which I personally feel I are pathetically hilarious. For instance she had suggested that knife crime has always been an issue and because of better police records they can document more, leading to knife crime appearing to have grown. The last contributing factor is apparently wider problems across society. The statement Rudd made was rather bland as she accuses lack of communication because parents, police and youth workers from fighting knife crime together.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/two-uk-top-cops-warn-12449585

Track 2 - Our Freedom, Our Future

Our freedom, our future is a track I created based upon poverty, Brexit and the austerity of the Conservative government. Since the Tories came into government back in 2010 the country has changed dramatically. David cameron’s choice to introduce Brexit and a national vote on the matter has led to the term “immigrants” being used as a term for race. Since the vote in 2016, hate crime has risen. I wanted to show this in the rap and I start it off by saying “I’m not defending my race or culture, but I’m defending that fallen soldier, to fight was not his wish, but to serve was his life, sad thing is that no one cares cause he’s not white”. I’m not talking directly about a soldier, but I’m just simply talking about strong people dying for no need, such as a result of gang crime and knife crime, but little is truly being done about it because they’re not white. Towards the end of the piece I continue to talk about brexit as well to highlight its controversy and I say “cause opportunity will give us a life, but instead you vote for the rich arsehole party every time, the same party that is happy to walk away without a deal, then in that case just have it repealed”. Food banks have increased with up to 1 million people using them weekly. Dominic Raab, Conservative MP claims that people who use food banks aren’t actually in poverty, but those with a cash flow and management problem. This tory MP then went on to say that he is thankful for them. As great as food banks are, it’s a shame that they exist in the sense that it’d be a dream for poverty not to exist. Yet with Tories in control of the government, they don’t seem bothered by these figures.

Alongside food banks, children’s school dinners seem to be getting the axe, much like children’s milk did back in the 80’s with Margaret Thatcher in charge of government, claiming that there simply isn’t the money. To highlight this matter I said “Free school meals sound like a dream, but you don’t want rich people paying for those in need”. The rich people are the government. Majority of MP’s send their children to private schools as opposed state funded schools. Because they don’t experience poverty and lack of money, they are so unintouch with the country and it’s true needs. So by cutting school dinners you’re leading to children falling hungry.

Police numbers have been cut by more than 20,000 and they wonder why anti social behaviour and violent crime are on the raise. Police claim that violent crime has risen by more than 20% since the tories came into government, however the government have found from their own individual research that it’s only 14%. Regardless, the percentage has risen. The ignorant among us would claim it’s “all the immigrants” being allowed into this country causing the problem, when in reality it’s a lack of care to society by the Conservative government. Such as cutting funds to school clubs, youth centres and even the beloved library. Shamefully up to 15% of mental nurses have been cut since 2010. We have pay caps for the public sector, we have benefits being cut to those who depend on them. One of the lines from my rap is “Cutting benefits to those who need it, but givng rich arseholes more tax cuts, can you believe this”. I’m outing the complete carelessness of the Conservative party. The NHS is crippinling to pieces and we have a man running it who has written a book called “ Direct Democracy: An Agenda For A New Model Party “. The book talks about the “denationalisation” of the NHS, to replace it with an insurance system. It’s a book co written by Tory mp’s, one of which is Health and social care secretary Jeremy Hunt. The cabinet reshuffle in January saw Jeremy Hunt move from “Health care secretary” to “Health and social care secretary”. By doing so Hunt will merge both healthcare and social care together, shared funding. It’s the worst thing. You’ll have people taking up hospital beds who simply need help going to the toilet and taking medication. That simply isn’t right. It’s more than clear that the tories are trying to tear the NHS apart in order to find an excuse to privatise it. This is already being done by selling off property on hospital land for investment by other companies such “Virgin Care”.

Track 3 Conflict catalyst -

Conflict catalyst is a track that talks about the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia under a conservative government. We are second in the world when it comes to arms trading. There is an international law that states if you sell your weapons to one country, they can’t use them on you, so they can’t attack you, even if you’re not really an “ally”. This is perfect, however its rather bad as well. Countries who thrive off of war use them, Saudi Arabia love war and so there for thrive off of them. They are in war with Yemen at the moment and it’s all rather ironic. Not only are we selling arms to Saudi Arabia who have links to ISIS, we are giving foreign aid to Yemen, the country they are bombing. How on earth does this make sense, it’s almost comical.

Saudi Arabia is one of the wealthiest places in the world, but also one of the number one human rights abusers. Sharia law is in place within the country which is an incredibly ancient Islamic law as its over 1400 years old. How on earth you are able to apply ancient laws to a modern society. You can’t. As a part of the law there are crimes classed as “Hudud” which include Baggery, Adultery and theft as well as many more. These crimes are punishable by public demonstration via lashing, stoning, removal of body parts and beheading and somehow in a modern day world they still exist. Out of anger I created the bar “Happily cut a next man for liking a man, happily stone a girl for having a baby that ain’t planned, intimacy in public is illegal, the heck they doing beating their own people”. I didn’t even need to changed anything it was practically freestyle and I’ve kept it to use in my work because sometimes thinking on the spot fuels your creativity.

We openly sell weapons to this country and with our knowledge of their breach of human rights, our conservative government doesn’t care. Money over morals. The fact that they have more of our own weapons then we do is ironic.

Track 4 Political Correctness:

Political Correctness is something that has taken the world by storm in the past 10 years. The point of it is to ensure people aren’t discriminated against but because of this people who have never fell victim to not being represented feel that it is not needed. Not only that but some people who fall victim to discrimination find themselves just as frustrated as for now they are being wrongly represented. An example is a term called “emoji blackface” which is people using an emoji of another race when they are a different race. I have heard of it before but recently two rather well known people had bought it up. Comedian Darren Harriott bought it up as part of his set and made a mockery of it saying how its political correctness gone mad. I can completely agree, he said why couldn’t emoji’s just of stayed yellow and there’d be no problem. A rapper known as Big narstie also bought it up in a live stream while having his hair cut. He said how it’s all been taken way too seriously and emoji’s as a whole are more of a joke than a second language. Especially with new emoji’s being released often it’s almost a way to dull subject matters down and for the subject to make more sense to a wider audience, such as hyroglifics.

There are far more subject matters that I have put into my work as I feel that everyone is born the way they are and everything should accept that. No one should be put in a box as at the end of the day someone else’s life and routine of life won’t ever affect yours. Within the piece I explain how political correctness does more good than bad as it allows people to no only feel accepted but also to push unwanted language and descriptions to the side.

Within the piece I reference Animal Farm, a book by George Orwell. One of the quotes is “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others”. Animal farm is a book based about war and the movement of politics throughout history. I am using this quote in my work to show that no human is no better than another, no money, ethnicity, job, sex life can change that.

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solomonfiore · 6 years ago

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Pigs

We’d been corralled into a muddy pen from out of the back of a truck. The pig next to me led by example on what not to do. He stood up on two legs to announce that a mistake had been made. He was not a pig at all, he said, but a human being.

This behavior was unsettling to the pigs around him. A few of them approached him nervously. They comforted him with fake smiles, wiggling their snouts against his cheeks. He was just confused, they assured him. He’d adjust to his new quarters and soon accept that he was a pig after all. He’d just been traumatized from being so suddenly relocated.

This coddling was squelched the instant the more hardened hams came to address the new arrivals. Flaunting their bigotry and ethnocentrism like trophies, these alpha pigs went down a list of rules to us, shouting them in our faces.

As we were being grilled about the do’s and dont’s of the pigpen, one of the lady pigs snuck away from the crowd to report to her superiors. A newcomer was already trying to incite panic at the campsite, she told them. He had the gall to tell everyone there that he wasn’t a pig at all, but a human being!

It wasn't the first time this offense had been committed. Numerous pigs had tried to get away with disguising their true identities in the past, inciting discontent within the male ranks, anxiety amongst the females. Gang activity was associated with this misconduct. In other words, it was intolerable. It had to be dealt with swiftly and harshly if order were to be maintained. To curb this rising epidemic, a rule strictly forbidding the use of species’ aliases was enforced.

Death would be the penalty for the malefactor who’d transgressed this rule within merely ten minutes of our arrival.

Some of the pigs wore uniforms. They were the only pigs permitted to speak to our corporate captors. The man who’d spoken out of turn was led away by these pigs. The buzz of a circular saw was heard shortly thereafter, the horrid bellows of a freshly slaughtered prisoner groaning beneath the sparks of the enormous blade.

As the screams from the execution simmered down to a gurgle, a clove of cabbage bounced off my cheek. I was pelted with carrots seconds later.

From the other side of the fence, a man in a suit and tie had thrown some rotten food at me.

“Look at that filthy pig grunting in the mud,” he said to his followers behind him, all of them tall, white, upstanding citizens like himself. With their heels and shoulders pressed close together, the crowd formed a wall that towered high above us in the sky, blotting us out as we stood around in our own waste.

The asshole in the suit directed his entourage back to the farmhouse to complete some business transactions.

While sitting atop a hill of feces below the sunny window of the family farmhouse, I heard the tip of a pen scraping across a sheet of paper on a desk. The chief executive had just signed our lives away. For the week to follow, we’d be taken away one by one, being told we just had to go over some minor preliminary or other with the boss to keep everyone calm. Inquiries were never made as to why he or she had never returned after having been taken away. No one seemed to know or care about the absence of their fellows and the dwindling population. I knew we were being exterminated. Unfortunately, everyone else had been brainwashed. It was inexcusable to question the superiority of the human beings and the uniformed pigs. Every indication had been given to the pigs that their best interests were always being kept in mind by administration. I knew this was complete bullshit. But I’d be assassinated on the spot if I said this.

I kept my jaws clenched tight together, clamped around my churning mind as I sketched out a course of action.

‘You cannot tell them,’ said a voice in my head. ‘You must show them.’

A scuffle in the mud distracted me. A female pig was being harassed by some male pigs. I wanted to intervene but felt so helpless at the time. I’d become hopelessly disgusted with this entire dump. I hated myself for having gotten caught up in this mess and not knowing what to do.

Though losing more and more belief in myself as time went on, I still stuck to my plan of sneaking out of our pen at night when the moon was at its highest point in the sky. From the farmer’s shed, I’d pilfer one tool a night and hide it near the main gate. I prepared myself to get at least one cold konk in before they dragged me away, choosing equipment I thought would do the most damage.

While returning from the shed on the third night, a shadow in the twilight cast itself on me - a great female figure. The lining of my belly froze. My scheme had surely been implicated by a farmhand or one of the other pigs.

“You too?” came a voice from out of the darkness, instantly calming in the sweetness of its cadence. I recognized it as Vita’s, the only pig I hadn’t written off as full of shit. Indeed, she’d been the only one to extend a non-judgmental word to me since I’d arrived. She’d caught me standing on two feet - a violation that held the same penalty as using the “h” word. But what was this? She’d also risen up from off all fours. Standing quietly by the fence beside me, she wiped the mud away from her face to reveal that, not only was she a human being like me, but a strikingly beautiful one at that.

Our predicaments were the same. Both of us knew perfectly well we weren’t pigs but couldn’t share this secret for fear of being implicated for treason. The plot had thickened. Now I had an ally.

We came up with a plan. This is how it all went down:

I got around behind one of the pigs in uniform when two of them came for Vita. They weren’t used to insubordination. It was easy to get the copper’s revolver out of his holster. Before the other one could even think of drawing his piece, I’d shot him in the stomach. As his intestines poured out of his ruptured gut, I emptied two more shots into his face. The thick skull of his partner retained the remainder of the clip. He’d still been absentmindedly patting down the empty holster on his belt as his buddy was being dispatched.

The farmer arrived to discover the bluecoats laid out in the dirt, the gate to the stable left wide open. He didn’t see me hiding behind it. From my secret stockpile I’d withdrawn a metal rake. It glinted in the sun before descending, its rusty teeth penetrating the denim of the farmer’s overalls to sink into his breastplate. His lungs and heart pierced, his final breaths dribbled out of his mouth and into a ravine of dung.

Vita had managed to exit the open gate during this commotion. Distracted by the massacre of their masters, the others failed to notice her escape. We bid each other ado and she fled across the cornfield.

Her escape would prove successful. I wish I could’ve joined her. Were it not for her I might have died in this world believing I truly was a pig, laid out on a chopping block as the circular saw cut its lethal grooves into the back of my head.

I’d been throwing pearls before swine, she’d said. Just because we’d refused to bow down to the will of the ignorant oinkers surrounding us didn’t mean that they were in the right by insisting we weren’t human. They were the pigs, not us.

My end of the strategy would also prove successful. The goal?

Let’s just say that none of those motherfuckers had bacon that day.

Investigators would later find the blood of the deceased farmer’s wife splattered all over the kitchen walls. I’d bludgeoned the fat cunt to death with a shovel.

Sliced, diced, and hacked up with an axe, all three of their children’s bodies would be deemed too unrecognizable for open caskets at the funeral.

I’d be shot down by police on the porch an hour later. What mattered was that I hadn’t died on all fours at the hands of my captors.

I’d been forbidden from telling everybody I wasn’t a pig.

So I had to show them I wasn’t.

Solomon Fiore - July 2, 2018

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New Post has been published on https://shovelnews.com/the-last-days-of-diarrhea-planet-a-band-thats-too-weird-to-live-but-too-rare-to-die/

The Last Days of Diarrhea Planet, A Band That's Too Weird to Live But Too Rare to Die

For three straight days last week, the symptoms of serious gastrointestinal upset arrived in a flash epidemic to the Midtown area of Nashville, infecting hundreds of people. To the untrained eye, it looked like a mysterious flu had sent 20-something punk kids into delirium: heavy sweating, aching bodies, sore throats, the occasional runny nose. But to the trained eye belonging to any doctor of shred, the sickness was as obvious as the antidote.

The city of Nashville had a serious case of diarrhea.

Playing sold-out shows on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at the Exit/In, beloved local guitar heroes Diarrhea Planet had been the ones responsible for putting both natives and out-of-towners into this sudden feverish state. With their style of raucous performance—where the band crowd-surfed as much as the crowd, where pitch-perfect AC/DC covers were as much a guarantee as their own songs, and where even the most arms-crossed-and-clearly-over-it ticket holders became beaming kids again—no one left feeling the same as they had upon arriving. Diarrhea Planet shows induce an uninhibited madness, a madness for which the only remedy is more Diarrhea Planet.

Unfortunately, the antidote will soon be hard to come by. Though the band announced one final “victory lap” opening for Jason Isbell in October, the headlining shows on September 6th, 7th, and 8th served as Diarrhea Planet’s proper long goodbye. After thousands of gigs over the course of nearly a decade, the scatalogical punk six-piece announced in July that they’d be calling it quits.

It was the end of the planet as we know it, and no one felt fine.

The crowd at Diarrhea Planet’s last show. Photo by Wrenne Evans.

Bob Orrall suggested that this article be titled, “With the Demise of Diarrhea Planet, Is This Truly the End of Rock and Roll?” It was the Friday of the second-to-last show and we were in his office in the Wedgewood-Houston neighborhood of Nashville. Orrall runs Infinity Cat Recordings, which has put out every single Diarrhea Planet release, starting with 2009’s Aloha EP; from there, the band made two more EPs and three full-length records, the most recent of which, Turn to Gold, came out in 2016. He is both the spiritual and literal dad of the underground rock scene in Nashville—spiritual because of the bands signed to the label (DP, Daddy Issues, Music Band, White Reaper) and literal because his sons are Jake and Jamin Orrall, the two founding members of JEFF the Brotherhood. Technically the label is Jake and Jamin’s, but since the duo’s ascent early this decade, day-to-day responsibilities have fallen on dad.

“I think that people are always going to make loud noises with guitars, but [Diarrhea Planet] certainly were”—he stopped himself, remembering it wasn’t quite over yet—“are a great, great rock band. I’m 63 years old and they’re one of the greatest rock bands I ever saw.”

His favorite show of theirs took place in Chicago on his 35th wedding anniversary with his wife, where they both found themselves pressed against a barrier at the front of the stage, his wife telling him after the fact that Diarrhea Planet was the best band in the world. Uh, what about her sons’ band? “She told me they were going to have to step their game up.” Orrall’s favorite DP song is “Kids,” a scream-along anthem about the hard-to-capture innocence of youth. “The first time I heard it, I cried. What an incredible message.” For a brief moment as we talked, he teared up again. On Saturday, I saw Orrall screaming “we’re just kids!” a foot from the stage. Watching him, I cried a little, too.

Anyone will tell you that it’s not just the songs that get you—Diarrhea Planet’s live shows are infamous. Maybe it’s the onslaught of guitar harmonies—not one, not two, not even three, but four beautiful axes shredding in tandem—or the almost impossible energy that each member gives off until the very last second on stage, even when they’re only the opener. “Someone told me yesterday that they had seen one of the shows [when they opened for the Darkness]. DP had the place going crazy,” Orrall told me. When the Darkness took the stage, it was a different story. “They complained about the audience talking through [their] songs.”

From left to right: DP’s Mike Boyle, Emmett Miller, and Evan Bird during the last show. Photo by Wrenne Evans.

Or maybe it’s Diarrhea Planet’s fans that make them who they are. “If you read any article about DP, they talk about the crowd constantly because the crowd is our seventh man,” said guitarist and singer Jordan Smith during an emotional thank you speech Friday. He had just watched The Sixth Man, a 1997 film about a basketball team that gets a ghost as a ringer. Like Marlon Wayans playing alongside that ghost during the NCAA championship, Diarrhea Planet couldn’t have done what they did without the assist of their devoted fanbase.

At the top of that set, Smith had negged the audience. “Last night was a little bit like a Tame Impala show: a lot of people standing around and smelling their own farts.” It was time for the crowd to show up, which they did in immense proportions that night and the following. In the balcony, the bands’ parents, aunts, and uncles were exuberant: taking photos, singing along, buying rounds of PBR tallboys.

After having seen Diarrhea Planet play at least a dozen times myself, nothing compared to seeing them play their final hometown run, with not just a crowd of locals but kids who had come from all over the country. I spoke with fans who had come as far as Indiana, Georgia, New York, California. One Instagram I caught came with the caption, “22 hrs in Nashville with no bags and no hotel to see these goons play one last time.”

“It’s really hard to describe how I’ll continue my life without Diarrhea Planet, but these three shows really will hold a special place in my heart,” Michael Rivera, a 25-year-old cardiologist, told me. He first saw the band at Bonnaroo in 2014, where he said he heard the faint sound of electrifying guitar solos in the distance and turned to his friend to say, “I need to see this. I need to.” I watched Rivera, who has the same long, curly hair as Slash, completely lose it on Friday and Saturday nights, and by the end of Saturday night, he was up on stage with the band during their encore, screaming a song actually called “Ghost With a Boner.”

Which is another thing. It could be the humor in their songs that makes the band such a cult favorite—the juvenility can be a put-off to many, but it’s also the reason that others are drawn to them in the first place. “Ain’t a Sin to Win” is about challenging God to a motorcycle race; “White Girls (Student of the Blues, Pt. 1)” is a love song with the lyric, “I will always save the last slice just for you,” a reference to the Papa John’s that employed several of the guys over the years. “I don’t have one negative thing to say about them,” Laura Lee Volkerding, the manager of the store for 21 years, told me when I visited her. “They were very loyal. You couldn’t ask for better. They started to get much bigger and pretty soon they weren’t able to work as much, but I was so happy that they were able to do something they loved.” Volkerding still can’t say their name, though. “Diarrhea and the restaurant business don’t go together. I call them the DP Band to this day.”

Breaking up when they did felt natural, Smith told me Monday by phone. “It was a sprint from the start. We never really took time off and we never really slowed down. Most bands break up because they get mad at each other,” he said, which he affirmed wasn’t the case for DP. “Everyone was starting to get to know depression, not because of any specific turmoil, but because the lifestyle really ground us down. We just want to be happy and experience life in a normal way again.”

The finale of DP’s last show, in which fans crowded the stage; spot Michael Rivera upfront in the NHL jersey. Photo by Wrenne Evans.

Diarrhea Planet represented a different time, and not just the era of hair metal they sometimes drew from. The band came up in the early 2010s, long before Trump had been elected president, before we began to live in an age of disturbing parody that continues to eat itself. Now that they’d decided to break up, there was an element of “too weird to live, too rare to die” in their passing, for better or for worse. They were funny, ridiculous, and necessarily innocent of the world around them. To pull off the kind of music they made and the shows they put on, they kind of had to be.

I remember a woman guitarist I’d spoken to years ago who lamented the popularity of Diarrhea Planet, arguing that the last thing the world needed was a throwback to cock rock, which was considerably hostile to women. I had always seen Diarrhea Planet’s shows as a rejection of those ideals, like their deference to Marnie Stern’s guitar skills and their insistence on the pit being a safe space for all. “The whole point of DP was building culture,” Smith told me. “I think we made something really special with this community. It was just really cool to see that overall message of positivity and love manifest itself so intensely.”

The face of the DIY scene in Nashville had been changing for a while anyway, according to Olivia Scibelli, guitarist and vocalist for Idle Bloom (Friday’s opening act). Scibelli was a huge fan of Diarrhea Planet as both musicians and people, and she knew that they’d leave a hole in the scene when they retired. While male fans appeared to outnumber women roughly three to one at DP’s final shows, Scibelli acknowledged that something was in the air—a shift away from all-male bands with a predominantly male fan following. “I volunteer at the Southern Girls Rock Camp, and every year I see more and more young women and nonbinary kids wanting to start bands.”

In that moment, the focus was not on the rock scene to come but what everyone could enjoy right here, right now. Julia Martin, owner of an eponymous gallery in Nashville, told her friend Stephanie as DP’s set began that she was gearing up to head for the pit. “You might have to hold my purse.”

The sweaty close of the final show. Photo by Wrenne Evans.

Five hundred people were chanting “DIARRHEA PLANET! DIARRHEA PLANET! DIARRHEA PLANET!” at the highest possible volume. Nearing midnight on Saturday, the band left the stage after covering Rage Against the Machine’s “Bulls on Parade,” and they hardly even pretended that a blowout encore wasn’t coming. “There is literally no tomorrow for this and that’s the best you got?” a ghost voice announced over a microphone from backstage. The crowd began to sound legitimately desperate.

“This is really weird, it’s really surreal, it’s a really emotional thing,” Smith said after he bounced back on stage. “Thank you for keeping people safe in the chaos, thank you for creating an atmosphere of love and acceptance, thank you for enduring years of social strain for going to see a fucking band called Diarrhea Planet.” With that, they launched into a heartbreaking rendition of “Kids.” “I looked out and everybody was bawling, and half the dudes on stage were bawling, too,” Smith told me later. The experience itself felt like the pains of growing up and moving on.

They closed with “Ghost With a Boner,” one of the first songs they’d ever written. By the very end, the band and the crowd had sort of swapped positions: On stage, 50 to 60 fans crowded around the chaos, while Smith spent the song crowd-surfing around the room. He requested that those carrying him hoist his body up until he reached the venue doors. By the merch table, he looked like rock‘n’roll Superman.

“Maybe this sounds dumb because their name is Diarrhea Planet, but I just think that they’re a really inspirational band,” Ale Delgado, former lady of all trades at Infinity Cat, told me after the final show had ended. It was at 12:30 a.m. and she and her friend Michelle were standing in the center of the room looking shell shocked. “Yesterday, there was somebody about to crowd-surf and a guy turned to the girl next to her, who was much younger, and covered her head. They’re so good and the people they attract are so good. There’s none of that rock‘n’roll bullshit.”

Say it ain’t so. Photo by Wrenne Evans.

By last count on Sunday morning, I had seen one man cry, five say they were about to, at least 200 people with clothes so soaked through with sweat that they looked like they’d been caught in a biblical flood, one shirt with a well-endowed ghost drawn in Sharpie, and no fewer than 50 emotional embraces. I’d been shown one Diarrhea Planet tattoo, watched one woman stage dive with a broken foot, heard one guy ask a friend if his ear had fallen off, and been given one horrified look by a future bride out in a very different part of Nashville when asked if she was a fan of Diarrhea Planet. My favorite part of the entire weekend was looking back into the crowd as stage lights lit up fans’ faces: every single person was either singing or smiling, and most often, both.

As fans filtered back out into the humid city in the early hours of Sunday, the fever that Diarrhea Planet had caused finally broke—this time for the last time. Hundreds of people had screamed until they were hoarse. The aches of being tossed around in a pit or stage-diving into a sea of fists would subside by Monday, and persistent ear-ringing was sure to pass after a few days.

The only symptom that would remain after all was said and done was the one that was hardest to cure: heartbreak over the fact that a band that had really meant something to a lot of people had hung up their guitars for good.

Source: https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/the-last-days-of-diarrhea-planet-a-band-thats-too-weird-to-live-but-too-rare-to-die/

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