#will auto correct ever stop fuckin me

[crowcryptid]

there aren’t 500 different leadership styles this is all just astrology for boomers

[josephquinnswhore]

Watchful Eyes

Pairing: Joel Miller! Stalker boyfriend! x female reader

Summary: Joel hates when you go drinking.

Content Warning: shit writing, I’m drunk soooooo, stalker boyfriend Joel, reader is female and drinks alcohol, not seeing red flags.

Note: I’m drunk and this is trash.

Joel hated this—your one day of the two of you not working; and yet you’d insisted on seeing your friend, your best friend. You insisted. Pleaded, tried to make him see reason, that this was worth it, for you.. it was something that you’d hardly ever got to do. The stress of work and trying to keep a healthy relationship was diffficult, and Joel knew the struggle too.

He had to unlearn how to check your location, eyes lingering on the text chat where you’d messaged fifteen minutes ago stating you loved him. But did you really, if you’d not replied to his message. Could he really change his habits? Probably not.

12am rolls around and still no sign of you.

“Call me baby. Where are you?” You were drinking with your friend, of course a few others, all female, which he was thankful for. But that wasn’t enough to stop his mind from wondering. Maybe you’d explore something about yourself if only surrounded by women.

“Got some people coming over. Talk soon!” You texted back as normally as you could, thanks to auto correct.

He growls at the text, why in the world would you message him something so vague, who was coming over, when, were you going somewhere? When would you be home? Were there going to be men? He dreaded it, the anxiety and insecurity he faced as being with someone as beautiful as you.

“Fuckin Jesus Christ!” He cursed to himself, as his fists slammed onto the recliner he sat on. He trusted you, of course he did. You were a sweet woman, a loyal and wonderful women who had never given him a reason to ever doubt him. So why did he?

He didn’t trust a single soul to care for his girl. Especially while she was under the influence.. vulnerable.

As he started his car, he thought of every reason to excuse his irrational behaviour. He wanted to make sure you were safe, cared for, that no one were trying to grab onto you with their venomous hands. “Need to make sure you’re okay.” He murmured as his truck roared to life. Like all of his actions would be excused somehow if he said it aloud.

It���s almost humourous, how close you lived to your friend. Less than two minutes drive, a few streets away.. but he knew they would recognise his car, it was blantanly obvious, a white pickup with all of his construction gear on the back. So he turns the truck off and the lights, letting it roll down the hill until he can see you, standing on the balcony with a drink in your hand.

Only then does he pull the hand break as quietly as he can. He readjusts his blue cap so that he can tuck his stray curls under them, they’re unruly, and blocking whatever vision he has of you… finally.

You’re laughing. Of course you are, you’re a social creature when you drink, a few friends surround you as you make them all laugh. God he’s jealous—no, envious. Why couldn’t it be him? Hearing your sweet laugh and seeing those wonderful eyes staring into his own as he hears whatever you’ve said is so funny.

He texts you again, he can see your friends frown, and complain about how clingy he is, how you have no freedom where Joel is concerned. “Oh shut it you guys he loves me!” You excuse his behaviour and frown as you read the text.

“Oh.. Joel’s sick. I need to get him to the hospital. It could be his heart.” Your friends all give each other a look. You’re frantically packing your belongings before they could protest and Joel drives the short way home, getting into bed before you even start your car to drive home.

“Joel?” You call out wearily. He coughs and murmurs distantly.. “baby?”

Mad, you see him, your heart drops, his cheeks are stained with tears and his hand is clutching his chest. “Oh baby you look like you’re really struggling.” He can only nod at her shoulder as you come closer.

“It’s better now that you’re here. Thank you for coming. I really thought I was a goner..”

Fingers caress his outgrowing stubble.. “I’m here baby. Let’s get to bed.”

The alcohol still flowed through you—your veins, but you were holding him, and he’d never let you know that he smiled as you lie behind him, tucking him under the fleece blanket.

Joel was a bad man, and he loved it. For as long as you were his, he would do anything it took to keep you safe.

[noonmutter]

nothing makes me want to set fires with my mind quite like the small-minded, ignorant, entirely dumbassed statement, "No art is original." (Therefore, you should stop caring about people stealing your work, because it wasn't original anyway, not really.)

And yet. The same chucklefucks that make that argument, which can very easily and with very little stretching be applied to literally every major product and facet of life as we currently know it--words, numbers, cars, etc--are people whose jobs it is to make something. Often, it's someone in the tech industry. Programmers, network admins, so on. Sometimes it's people who do physical jobs, especially ones that end with the creation of a physical object, like a bench or a hammer or a car.

Y'know what those people also get really, really mad about?

When people steal their products (general larceny, grand theft auto, etc), devalue the work they put in because "nothing ever happened" (y2k prep actually preventing an absolutely insane amount of damage worldwide), or don't credit them correctly under the terms of the license they posted that code with (the thing the makers of Glaze did and corrected once they realized what they'd done, then rewrote the entire program to ensure no previous code was still in use).

There are, in fact, some pretty fuckin' serious laws about stealing these works. They were made because people in those professions raised absolute hell about how not okay it is.

So how about shut the fuck up about how artists should shut the fuck up.

[apolloloki97]

"Worthy of Him" Mickey Milkovich x Ian Gallagher

Summary: When Mickey comes across a handsome stranger, he doesn't realize it's the man who cheated on Ian when Mickey was locked up. Caleb is going to have quite a surprise when he meets the love of Ian's life. ---- Or when Mickey meets Caleb.

Word Count: 3076

Warning: Swearing

Song I Wrote To: “Fuckin' Perfect" by P!nk

Note: I just love when Mickey meets Ian's exes. Also, I get really happy when Mickey defends the Gallaghers!

--------

Mickey was on his way home when he heard a string of curses that even made him stop mid-strut on the sidewalk.

At the end of the block, a handsome black man was glaring at his car, his hands on his hips as he swore. Mickey knew that look, he himself had had a similar expression on his face more than once. Weighing his options, he considered just turning the other way and going the long way home, but there was something about the man that screamed “help me” and so Mickey decided to do just that.

Besides, the poor handsome bastard clearly didn’t belong on the Southside considering how well put together he was and the decent set of wheels he was glaring at. Approaching the man, Mickey tried to gauge what was wrong with the vehicle, but it seemed as if even the owner didn’t know. “Hey man,” Mickey greeted. “Wheels busted?”

“Yeah, I don’t know what the hell is wrong with it,” the man said with a sigh as he finally turned to look at Mickey. The latter didn’t miss how the stranger did a double-take, letting his eyes scan Mickey from head to toe. Since he had come out, Mickey had been noticing male attention pointed in his direction more frequently and he couldn’t deny that it made him feel damn good about himself. Not that he would ever admit that out loud, especially to Ian.

Jealous bastard, Mickey thought to himself with a smirk that the stranger before him seemed to notice immediately. Brushing off the bedroom eyes emanating from the other man, Mickey stepped towards the car.  “Want me to take a look?” Mickey offered.

“Yeah, sure, thanks man,” the man said, gesturing for Mickey to move closer. Mickey leaned over the open hood of the car, his eyes scanning for anything outwardly wrong. As he bent over the car, the owner watched on with curiosity. “So, you a mechanic?”

“Nah,” Mickey said as he examined the battery. “My brother-in-law is. Taught me some shit,” Mickey explained. Lip had only begun to teach Mickey a bit about bikes after Mickey had helped him steal from Born Free. Mickey would never admit it to the older Gallagher brother, but he liked Lip a fair amount when he wasn’t being a total asshole. Lip was also important to Ian so Mickey made the sacrifice to “bond” with his brother-in-law whenever the occasion arose and graft theft auto just happened to be one of those occasions.

“So, you’re just in the habit of helping strangers when their car breaks down?” the man said. Mickey scoffed as he shrugged.

“Only when it breaks down on the Southside and the owner ain’t belong,” Mickey said.

“Who says I’m not Southside?” the man said playfully. Straightening up slightly, Mickey looked over at him with a knowing look.

“Trust me, I can tell,” Mickey said. Stepping back, Mickey crouched down to get a look at the grill in case anything was stuck when the bottom of his pant leg rode up slightly, exposing the holster he had strapped to his ankle along with the .22 he kept on him at all times. Iggy called it a “pussy gun”, but with being on parole, Mickey couldn’t risk always carrying his larger piece and he was still paranoid that the cartel would catch up with him eventually. The owner of the car noticed it immediately, his brows rising.

“You a cop or something?” he asked, gesturing to the exposed holster. Mickey glanced down at the hardware Carl had given him before covering it back up again. He looked up at the stranger with a raised brow.

“Not exactly,” Mickey said, disgusted to be even considered to be compared to a pig.

“Right,” the man said.

“What?” Mickey asked as he stood up, leaning against the car. “Are you a cop? Gonna fuckin’ bust me for this?” he asked.

“I fight fires, not Southside thugs,” he said with a wink and Mickey laughed quickly before turning back to his task. It didn’t take him long to notice the coolant leak in the hose.

“You’re gonna need to take this to a shop, man,” Mickey said. “You got a leak here,” he said, pointing to the hose. The man approached him, getting closer to Mickey to get a better look. Mickey rolled his eyes, knowing exactly what he was doing. He was ready to shove his wedding ring up the man’s nose when his phone rang. Knowing who it was, Mickey ignored it.

Ian had been trying to get a hold of him for an hour now. Mickey knew it was because Debbie had pissed his husband off again, but he had no interest in dealing with Ginger-Gallagher drama at the moment. Ian called again shortly after the first call, the shrill of the phone in his pocket permeating the tension that was radiating off the handsome stranger next to him.

“Wife?” the man asked, gesturing to Mickey’s pocket and the obvious ignoring of the calls. Mickey then realized that the stranger had seen the ring on his left hand and just ignored it. Bastard, Mickey thought.

“Husband,” Mickey corrected, always thrilled to do so these days. It wasn’t necessarily because he was proud to be a gay man, he was just incredibly proud to be Ian Gallagher’s husband. He’d tattoo it on his forehead if he hadn’t already gotten a dumbass tattoo for his husband back when he was first locked up in the joint.

“Ignoring him?” the man pressed and Mickey was starting to become more annoyed than flattered at the forwardness of the stranger.

“Just his family drama,” Mickey said, not sure why he was telling this man anything. Then again, bitching about the Gallaghers was something that just happened no matter who you were talking to. Mickey could remember the time before he was with Ian and he would hear everyone in the community talking about how messed up the Gallaghers were. Being a Milkovich, he never thought any other family could be more dysfunctional. When he finally fell for Ian and became more familiar with the inner workings of the Gallagher family, he finally understood the chaos that everyone else saw. However, that chaos was something that he had gone on to love greatly.

They were his family.

“Yeah, that shit’s never easy, man,” the man said.

“What shit?” Mickey asked, trying to see where the stranger was getting at.

“Just that I’ve dated the crazy ones before and the baggage of their family is never worth it. No matter how good of a fuck they are,” the man said and Mickey raised his brows.

“Classy,” Mickey said with a roll of his eyes. Clearly, the man realized he had hit a nerve and was trying to backtrack when a loud shout echoed from up the street. Mickey turned just in time to see Frank stumbling out of a bar that clearly wasn’t the Alibi as the owner yelled at him. Frank, who was already drunk enough to forget where he lived, shouted obscenities back at the bar, shoving his middle fingers to the sky before falling over. “Fucking Frank…” Mickey said, exasperated.

Even before they were married, Mickey had joined in on the “find Frank” game and had had his fill of finding the drunk passed out under bridges and in sewers to last a lifetime. While he didn’t care what happened to the deadbeat, he knew that Liam and Franny would, which is why he tended to try to keep Frank from ending up in the morgue when he could.

“Seems like everyone around here knows Frank Gallagher, huh?” the stranger said, leaning against his dormant car. His arms were crossed, accentuating the forearm muscles that were hidden under the long sleeve shirt he wore. The man laughed as he saw Frank try to get to his feet but failed. Mickey cringed as Frank stumbled again, crashing into a stack of trash cans.

“Fuck,” Mickey said, knowing he was going to have to do damage control with his niece when her grandfather came home looking like he slept in a dumpster. “That’s my fuckin’ cue,” Mickey said, pushing off the side of the car.

“You all take turns looking after the city drunk, huh?” the man asked, amused by Mickey’s distaste for the derelict.

“No,” Mickey said with a sigh, “just those of us who are unfortunately his fucking family.” This seemed to shock the stranger.

“Family?” the man echoed.

“He’s my father-in-law,” Mickey said and then paused, “sort of…” Mickey was never sure what exactly Ian saw Frank as. He knew that Frank was not his biological father, but he was also the only father Ian had ever known. Regardless, Mickey was now tied to the man forever. Just as Mickey was about to pull his phone out to call Sandy to come and help him with Frank Pick-Up, the stranger said something to make him pause.

“ You married a Gallagher ?” the man said, his voice holding a hint of disbelief.

“The fuck you gotta say it like that for?” Mickey said, ready to defend his family to the man. “Yeah, I married a goddamn Gallagher, so what?”

“Which one?” the man asked and Mickey looked at him as if he was a moron.

“What do you mean, ‘which one’? There’s only one fucking gay one,” Mickey said with a scoff.

“Ian?” the man asked. “You’re Ian’s husband?” Mickey was starting to get pissed off at this man’s tone and he was really starting to regret even offering to help him.

“I’m sorry, I think I missed a few episodes, here,” Mickey said, “Who the fuck are you and how do you know Ian?” The man hesitated for a second before answering. Mickey waited.

“I’m Caleb,” the man said. “Ian and I used to date.” Mickey didn’t need more than a second to recognize the name. Ian had told Mickey all about his rebound firefighter. Mickey knew that Ian wasn’t going to stay single while he was locked away. Mickey was just glad that Ian wasn’t screwing old men. Hell, he had even thought that the Trevor guy seemed great, but Caleb was someone that Mickey had hated the second Ian began talking about him. Then, when Lip had told him that he and Ian had witnessed Caleb cheating on Ian with some woman, Mickey hated him even more.

Lowering his head slightly, Mickey finally took a moment to size up the firefighter. Caleb was big and Mickey knew that those arms would pack a wallop if Caleb decided to start a fight, but Mickey also knew that he was craftier and if it came down to it, Ian’s ex would be on his way to the hospital very soon.

“Oh, you’re Caleb,” Mickey finally said, staring him down. “The fucker who cheated on him with some bitch and claimed it didn’t matter because she didn’t have a cock.” Caleb seemed perturbed by that but quickly composed his face despite the crassness coming from the other man.

“And you are…”

“Mickey Milkovich,” Mickey said, just daring Caleb to say something else stupid.

Which he did.

“Ah, Mickey,” Caleb said. “The abusive boy toy.” Mickey stopped for a second, wanting to punch Caleb in his perfect face.

“Abusive…” Mickey echoed, not liking the accusatory tone in Caleb’s voice.

“Ian told me all about how you used to beat on him before screwing him like he was your bitch,” Caleb said and Mickey could hear the anger in his voice. Mickey knew that Ian had been hurt after a lot of their arguments. The worse one being when Mickey had beat him up after the Terry incident. Mickey had never felt more horrible in his entire life than when he had done that. Even now, he tried to make up for it even if Ian said that he had already forgiven him. The thing was, Mickey had never forgiven himself for the beating he had given Ian in that gravel lot.

However, hearing that Ian had called him abusive, especially to someone like Caleb, just made Mickey more pissed off. Not necessarily at Ian, but more at the situation as a whole. This was who Ian felt the need to run to after their break up and regardless of how attractive the firefighter was, Caleb had no idea who he was speaking to.

“He did, did he?” Mickey said and Caleb nodded, acting as if he had Milkovich all figured out. “Right, well did he also tell you that the first time we banged, he threatened my ass and tried to beat me with a tire iron?” Mickey asked, spotting the exact tool on the ground next to the rest of the tools Caleb had hauled out. Ignoring the little voice in his head that sounded a lot like his parole officer, Mickey reached down and picked up the iron. “Sort of like this,” he said before taking a swing at Caleb’s windshield, shattering it.

“Fuck!” Caleb exclaimed. Mickey followed up by taking off one of the side mirrors before swinging the iron into Caleb’s face, causing the other man to stumble back.

“Get the fuck off the Southside or next time I’ll hit something other than your fucking car,” Mickey threatened. Caleb was wary of him but didn’t back down.

“You don’t deserve him,” Caleb said and Mickey’s eye twitched for a second before composing himself. It wasn’t news to him that people didn’t think Mickey was good enough for Ian, but he didn’t need to hear it from someone like Caleb.

“You don’t know shit about him or me,” Mickey said. “If you did then you wouldn’t fucking test me.” Caleb stared down at Mickey, but the latter wasn’t backing down. He would go back to jail before he let some asshole ex of Ian’s make him feel unworthy of the man he loved.

When Caleb went to retort, his attention was pulled by a police SUV rolling up to them and Caleb’s smashed car. Mickey didn’t move and he didn’t drop the tire iron as Caleb turned to the cop. “Officer, maybe you could arrest this man for threatening me and damaging my property,” Caleb said, glaring over at Mickey again.

“Mickey?” the cop said and Mickey finally looked over at the man in the front seat of the SUV. He recognized him immediately.

“Arthur!” Mickey greeted with a grin.

“Hey man!” Officer Arthur Tipping said, offering his fist to Mickey who happily tapped it with his own.

“You know him?” Caleb said as Mickey grinned at him.

“He’s my partner’s brother-in-law,” Tipping said with a goofy grin on his face. Mickey liked Carl’s partner because the man was the definition of a loveable idiot. Plus, he always turned the other way when a Gallagher was involved.

“Yeah, Carl’s a cop now, asshole,” Mickey said to Caleb. “Good luck filing a complaint or pressing charges, dick.” Caleb was fuming as he started towards Mickey.

“Woah there, bud,” Tipping said. “You might want to take a few steps back.” Caleb stopped and did as the officer said, but not without sending a death glare towards Mickey. “Need a ride home, Mr. Milkovich-Gallagher?” Tipping asked.

“That would be great, Arthur,” Mickey said with a grin as he tossed the tire iron aside. He looked at Caleb once more and then casually walked up to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “You come near my husband and I will make sure that nobody ever finds your body,” Mickey said sweetly before leaving Caleb on the curb and hopping into the front seat of the squad vehicle. Mickey flipped Caleb off as Tipping drove away. Caleb just swore and lashed out at his car.

Mickey relaxed in the car before sighing. “Shit, pull over here for a second man,” he said and Tipping pulled over. Mickey then got out of the car and pulled open the back door before crouching over a half-conscious Frank. “Fucking Gallaghers,” he said as he hauled his father-in-law into the back of the squad car and Tipping took him home while Frank snored in the backseat.

When Mickey finally got home and deposited Frank on the floor in the living room, he went in search of his husband. He found Ian in the kitchen, finishing up some dishes. “Hey, you,” Ian said as he spotted his husband walking into the room. Mickey smiled at him. Ian grabbed the back of his head and pressed a kiss to Mickey’s lips, savoring the taste and feel of his husband.

Mickey kissed him back, but Ian could tell it was less enthusiastic than usual. Pulling back, he furrowed his brow at the man in his arms. “What?” Mickey asked.

“You good?” Ian asked.

“Long day,” Mickey said with a dismissive wave. Ian didn’t look convinced so Mickey pulled him back to him, kissing him deeply. Ian wrapped his arms around Mickey, holding him tightly. Mickey sighed into Ian’s mouth, content to be with him after the shit he had dealt with that afternoon.

When Ian pulled back again, he leaned his forehead against Mickey’s, running his hands down his arms. Mickey looked up at him, Ian’s green eyes looking stunning in the low light of the Gallagher kitchen. Everything Caleb had said to him was coming back and he hated that he was letting it get to him. He loved Ian and he knew that Ian loved him, but there would always be that part of him that felt unworthy of Ian’s love.

Ian, being Ian, noticed the look in Mickey’s eyes. Self-doubt was not something Mickey hid very well. Reaching up to cup Mickey’s face in his palm, Ian gently rubbed his thumb along his husband’s face. “What did I ever do to deserve you?” Ian whispered.

Mickey slid his hands up to Ian’s shoulder, always loving how much taller his husband was. With a breath, Mickey inhaled the scent of his love and then smiled softly. “You just...were you,” Mickey answered simply. Ian mirrored the soft expression as he leaned into Mickey once again.

“I love you,” Ian said against Mickey’s lips.

“I love you too, Gallagher,” Mickey said before pressing his lips against Ian’s, falling into complete bliss and knowing one thing for sure: Ian and he deserved each other and nobody was going to tell him differently.

[absuuuurdstarkid]

My personal highlights of the Starkid Broadway Whodunit 4/10/20

Strap in this could be long...

Lauren’s character is pregnant and she has the biggest most fake looking bump I’ve ever seen

Joey is wearing a baby carrier even though the baby isn’t due for another MONTH

James is amazing and so convincingly nervous as has character, I think he was the only one who didn’t break the whole time

Jaime is playing herself and controlling her puppet (you know, the sweet one Nick made for her wedding) but the puppet keeps saying wildly inappropriate things - think Trekkie Monster from Avenue Q

Jaime’s character later murders the puppet, cause why not

Meredith looks BEAUFITUL and her character wants to be an actress so every time she’s asked a question she turns it into a really long monologue about her upcoming one woman show

Meredith’s character (who was called Denise, love it): “I taped my breasts together with duct tape earlier and I’m worried my nipples will fall off” *drinks wine* *Andrew breaks*

Joey and Lauren used their tgwdlm newsreader voices the whole time, and Lauren was just hanging off Joey’s shoulders

Walker was playing a like 20 year old and just kept saying Dope, Dope about everything

Corey’s character was obsessed with Lauren’s (and turns out was the father) and every time he appeared Lauren moved rooms and ditched him with an UGH

Joe’s character also had a TikTok and Joe did not sound sure than he knew what TikTok was

Everyone left Joe alone in the room and he looked so offended

Lauren disappeared to ‘go pee because of the baby’ about 6000 times

Jamie Burns’ wig was even more wild than Chorn

Brian: “Can sesame street go away please” “Vicki BEAT IT”

Joe: “YEAH I am a teenager, have you SEEN my TikTok???”

Everyone had their character’s names at the bottom of their screen but there was a glitch so every time they moved rooms Lauren and Joey’s just said laurenlopez

Corey’s character Danny appeared in a ‘disguise’ which was just some sunglasses he was also wearing earlier, everyone sees through it apart from Brian

Jamie’s character was an infomercial star and came up with a product called the Butt Clamp which would stop you needing to use the toilet - everyone else kept calling it a butt plug and Jamie got increasingly angry the more this happened

Corey to Joe: “ThEy’Re GoiNG tO caNCeL YoU oN tHE inTeRNeT”

Joe’s character gets shot and dies, Lauren “He died of old age?!!!”, Brian “He looks like he has a butt clamp in” *everyone accuses Vicky of murder by butt clamp*

Andrew “I’m gonna call a private investigator”, Brian “Why don’t you call 911?”, Andrew “No!”

Andrew on the phone “please come figure out what happened”, Joey “finger who?!” *Lauren and Mere break*

Lauren “Ya butt clamp’s defective Vicky” “Yeah cause your not meant to use it on your vagina!” *Lauren, Brian and Robert all hide off camera they’re laughing so much*

The Investigator arrives aka Joe with a drawn on moustache, Jaime immediately “Is that sharpie on your face?”

WHAT THE FUCK DID THAT PUPPET JUST SAY?!!

Joe says some lines as the investigator so everyone can keep up with the plot, Brian “Are you reading this off of something?” “NO! what kind of question is this?!” “well your talking very robotically” “Yeah does feel like it was written” “Are you done?”

Joe “I’m going to introduce myself now, my name is...investigator ..moo-stache” everyone breaks, Joe can’t get through the line

Jaime “Are you sure sure your name isn’t investigator Sharpay?” *Andrew is so gone he gives up trying to hide his laughing, Lauren and Meredith fall out of frame*

Brian makes a suggestion, Joe “are you the investigator here or am I? SHUT UP”

Joe gets some words wrong and corrects himself, Lauren “See this makes be think you’re reading it off somewhere” “Yeah stick to the script”

Jamie Burns “Put a but clamp on your mouth and shut the hell up Mr Moustache” Joe in an incredulous voice “What did you just say to me? put an ass clamp on my mouth?!” “A BUTT CLAMP” *more people have broken than are still in character* Joe “I’ll have to come back to that one”

Lauren “Can you at least make eye contact when you’re talking to us, you’re looking at your shoes”, Brian “Listen, put whatever you’re reading more up by your camera and then It’ll look more like you’re not reading it” *everyone breaks, Andrew, Joey, Lo, Mere, James are all on the floor* Joe “I am remembering it, I have to look at my shoes to remember!”

*everyone heckles Joe, looks like he’s about to explode/have a breakdown*

Joe is now reading it higher and desperately trying to keep looking at the camera

Jamie “You’re a hack... I could figure out this whole investigation with my eyes closed and my butt clamped” *mass breaking*

Andrew announces that all the butt clamps in the world have been sold in an attempt to end this joke. It does not work.

*Inspector asks who people thing the murderer is* Meredith “Well let me look at... my thoughts that I’ve been writing down”

Joe uses the sharpie he drew his moustache on with to pretend to take notes

Andrew’s character “Can I tell you the truth”, Joe “You actually are compelled by law to to tell me the truth yes”

Brian to Joe “We have a lot in common actually, I mean...I went to the Apocalyptour too” (The poster is behind Joe on the wall) Joe, desperately trying not to break “my daughter dragged me”

“He’s not the murderer, he’s just stalking the fuckin butt plug lady”

Joe “I’ve just... got to check the notes on my shoes”

Joey desperately wants to name the baby after the murdered puppet

Lauren accuses Mere’s character of being pregnant, Meredith “Am I PREGNANT?! Is that why my breasts look so good?!”

Brian “Is that like an air drop? DID YOU AIR DROP A BABY IN HER?!” *Andrew corpses*

Corey tries another disguise, but he’s just wearing a baseball cap backwards

Turns out Joey’s character had been fucking the puppet “The thing is it’s got a big hole in its ass” *Lauren and Joey both start laughing*

Jaime “I’ve only killed one non human thing today” Joe “You killed a puppet made out of menstrual blood”

Lauren can’t remember her character’s surname and she and Joe break

*Brian tries to show something on an ipad* “I don’t know if you can see that” Joe “Yes, yes, the camera is auto adjusting the white balance I can see it perfectly” *Lauren hides laughing behind her hands*

There’s a TWIST that Robert isn’t French and called Luis (loo-E), he’s actually called Lewis but everyone had been called him Lewis all night anyway so it didn’t really work but was funny and Meredith felt so bad about it

Joe says the same thing twice and everyone accuses him of reading again “I’M THINKING, I HAVE TO LOOK AT MY SHOE WHEN I THINK AND REMEBER”

There’s a beautifully photoshopped ‘evidence picture’ of Joey and the puppet

Meredith is convinced Brian is the murderer, decides to strangle him

The proof that Brian isn’t the murderer is that in a video he doesn’t know how to use a gun

Robert accuses Lauren’s baby of being the murderer, Joey and Lauren are busy kissing Diane

Joe’s explaining the final plot points and pauses to find the next bit of paper to read “Sorry, one sec, I’m REMEMBERING” *everyone breaks* “LOOK AT YOUR SHOE!”

FINAL PLOT TWIST turns out Joe’s investigator was really the long lost triplet Gaston to the murdered Ashton and Sebastian THE END

Joe “You might think that because I was a triplet this moustache is fake, BUT IT’S NOT, IT’S REAL”

They all take their wigs off, Joe out of character sums it up: “I truly did not know what was going on”

[corpse--diem]

The Organ Trail | Nic & Erin

Tips hat in shady

@bountybossier

White Crest seemed incredibly open about their less-than-mundane characteristics and that was what Nicodemus appreciated about it. The less complicated his job, the more streamlined he could keep his internal database. It didn’t take long to find a bounty worth his time. A bigwig at Nichols’ Funeral Home. Shit, if there were ever a place to be inconspicuous while slinging a body bag over his shoulder. At least the day was burrowing into the evening and no one was likely to pay him any mind. He adjusted the body and rapped at the back door. “Evening.”

Erin wasn’t expecting anyone that night. The staff had just finished up, filling the house with that sweet silence she could only truly enjoy for a few hours of the night. Not willing to waste any of it on sleep, she disappeared to the basement, the influx of new arrivals ready and waiting. The “sky fish”, as she’d seen on the news, had reigned down on more than a few unfortunate souls that week. Between the skull fractures and the heavy bruising, she finally had some worthwhile challenges to sink her teeth into. It was gonna be a good night. But when the knock came, her first thought went to Dale. That wasn’t right, though, was it? He wasn’t due for another few days. Today was Tuesday, right? Scalpel in hand, she held it to her side as she opened the door. Not Dale. Definitely not Dale. “Can I… help you?” She asked, though her eyes were locked on the hefty bag he had in tow.

Nicodemus blinked complacently and shifted his weight to his right side. The client had told him that there’d be someone else at the building when he arrived. On purpose, too. At least she hadn’t come out swinging at him, though he could read the tension in her shoulders well enough. It wasn’t anything for him to bat an eye at. His arrivals typically ran the route of unexpected. Of course, it did likely look strange. A man with a bodybag and more than a few scratches to show for how he might have got it. “Nichols, right?” He said after a shared silence, voice gravel on a broken road. He remembered the name the client gave him, but had placed the client’s own on the backburner. It would only matter if the check bounced. “I hear you know your way around organs.” His grip tightened on the body bag. “Your boss said that you do a hell of a job an’ all.”

Her boss? Great. Erin’s lips pursed together as the initial shock eased into an angry-shocked hybrid. “Jesus,” she mumbled, stepping back to open the door wider. “Yeah that—that’s me.” Body bags were normal around here. Walking in with one slung over your shoulder? This guy was trying to look as suspicious as possible. Nonchalant as can be - like he was a pizza delivery boy or something. “Get in, hurry up,” she took a quick glance, seeing and hearing nothing, then locked it behind her. “What is this?” Her voice grew shrill and her eyes popped open. “Who is this?” That sinking feeling she got every time she slipped a bag of organs into the freezer instead of placing them back where they belonged overwhelmed her. “Who are you?”

Nic’s brow furrowed as he stepped in. “You got it.” She hadn’t been expecting him. Annoyance thrummed against the back of his eye. His teeth dug into the inside of his cheek. He would demand a higher price the next time he spoke to her boss, because dropping a werewolf body on an unsuspecting person most certainly cost extra. The hunter creed didn’t mean as much to him as it did others. Even then, he tried. “So he didn’t tell you.” Even saying it outloud had his arm clenching tighter around the still-warm body bag. He swore and took in a breath. How to explain? The straightforward route seemed appropriate. “Your boss wanted a certain set of organs from a certain type of person,” he explained, casual as the weather. Whether or not it would set her mind at ease, he couldn’t be certain. A body was a body was a body to him. “I’m just the guy your boss hired. Nic works fine.” He glanced around carefully. “There a sink I can use?”

A certain set of organs from a certain type of person. Erin hated the way those words fell so smoothly from this man’s lips. As if he’d done this before. Or something like it, anyway. She hated that this man probably also had something to do with whoever it was inside that bag. She hated that there was absolutely nothing she could do about any of this either, unless she wanted to wind up in one of these too. She pointed to an empty metal slab for him to lay the body down. “Cold day in hell before anyone does anything but dump things in my lap,” she muttered darkly. Before she even realized it, she was slipping on her scrubs, mind slipping into auto-pilot. “Over there,” she tilted her head toward the sink at the end of the room. “What, uh--” she paused to swallow, fighting with her rubber gloves. “Did he mention what he wanted? Specifically.”

For as rough as he could be, Nicodemus laid the body down carefully. He reached up and stretched his shoulders, popped the bones in his clavicle as he shook himself out. It really cramped up the body to lug a corpse around. “Ain’t that just the way,” he said in response as he headed toward the sink she indicated. He rolled up the sleeves of his henley and scrubbed away at his skin, his face, until the water went from red to clear. He dabbed at his face with paper towels as he returned, maintaining a respectful distance. “Livers and kidneys, I think,” he answered. “Y’know, the good stuff.” His expression was just as flat as his voice. “So, boss really didn’t tell you, huh?” He sighed low into his chest. Unbelievable. It could have been disastrous and he wasn’t above choking a man out in front of a grieving family. “Pretty fucked up. He prone to shit like that?”

Erin kept an eye on Nic as she unzipped the bag. Didn’t miss how warm the body was the second she touched the bag, either. This was something she’d done a thousand times. Never hand delivered by a stranger without proper documentation, though. “I’m still new to this, but I’ve gathered he’s the ‘does whatever the fuck he wants’ kind of guy.” Like, having his henchmen murder a guy and have his mortician slice him up like she was on fucking retainer or something. Her shoulder rolled, and she took a final steadying breath before unzipping the bag. Something was wrong, just not in the way that she had anticipated. Her body sagged and she glared up at Nico. “This is a dog,” was all she said, her voice flat but also slightly relieved.

The hunter watched her watch him as she opened the bag. “Yeah, I’m gathering as much. These black market types usually are, but they can’t be bothered to actually do a damn thing themselves.” As much as Nicodemus could complain about it, it kept him, for lack of a better word, employed. He folded his arms and leaned back against the nearest counter. The appearance of fur in the bag didn’t phase him a bit. Wolves died however they lived, just how the world worked. His face screwed up at her statement. “The dog has thumbs. Big fuckin’ ones,” he stated, just as flat. “That ain’t a dog.”

Erin would’ve cringed at hearing the words black market actually spoken out loud to her, but all she could focus on was the dead dog in the body bag. “A dog, a wolf—whatever. I’m not a fucking veterinarian.” She let the bag close and stepped away, searching for a cooler to put the organs into. The relief was there, but the confusion stepped in where the initial fear had been. “He couldn’t have sent this thing to a—a butcher or something to take care of this?” What a fucking day this was turning out to be. “I can’t believe this guy,” she mumbled, shaking her head. “Boss guy, not you,” she corrected, not forgetting this guy had killed something before he got here. She had a rough idea of how this would go, but she’d never dissected a dog before. Her first cut was careful, intentional, desperately trying not to puncture one of the nonspecific organs requested.

Nicodemus stared blankly at the mortician. “And I’m not fuckin’ Jesus, but sometimes we have to make wine out of water.” Even if she thought it was just a dog, that didn’t stop her from grabbing organ coolers anyway. He could appreciate her work ethic and the way she handled a scalpel. “Well, if we’re gonna be frank...” He figured they had established a report of honesty, dog thumbs and all. Maybe it would be helpful if her boss continued to pull fast ones of the organ collecting variety. “Bossman said you were good when it came to matters of the delicate type. And considering that’s a werewolf you’re gettin’ handsy with…” He paused and searched for his flask to take a small sip. A shrug followed. “I can follow the logic.” A quick glance at his flask and then back to her. “...you want a drink?

Erin tilted her head a bit. Glad to know her shadowy boss figure at least had some faith in her. Was she glad, actually? At least of all his henchmen, Nic was up front about his intentions. Her nose turned upwards at the smell of dog filling the room, fingers exploring warm innards—“what?” She asked, caught off guard. Werewolf? It was a big dog but—a werewolf? It’s barely been a week since she’d just touched on the fact that vampires and bear-people were a thing. And already she was elbow deep in a fucking werewolf? “Werewolf,” she repeated the word, an exasperated laugh following. “A werewolf. Naturally. Of course it is. Of course.” She pulled her hands out of it’s chest, reaching for the flask with the gloves hand with the least amount of blood on it. If this guy killed this thing, what did it matter? “Yes,” she answered. “More than you know.”

“Yup,” Nicodemus affirmed. Better to rip the whole fucked up world view bandaid off then try and take it slow. “A whole ass werewolf.” He wasn’t attuned to any normal sense of human expression, but she seemed to be taking it well. She hadn’t fainted, screamed, or stabbed him yet. All perfectly acceptable responses. Maybe that meant it was going well. For the time being, he would assume that it did. He blinked in surprise as she reached for the flask, a quiet hell yeah sounding in his head. “You got it. Don’t worry, I won’t tell your boss you were drinkin’ on the job,” he said with a half-smile as he passed it off to her. The place was fucking freezing but his neck felt warm. “This not your first, uh, rodeo then?”

For all of the internal screaming she was doing, Erin was thankful that Nic was at least trying to be a calming presence during this. Plus, he brought the alcohol, and was thoughtful enough to share. “I think there’d be more cause for concern if I didn’t drink,” she gave a small smile back before she felt the liquid burn down her throat. Tried to rub off any blood onto her scrubs, but couldn’t help the little bit that stuck to the flask. She gave an apologetic wince when she handed it back. “Not my first collection. But it’s my first werewolf. Thank you so much for sharing this experience with me.” Nic kept saying it, and she’d said it a few times now, but all she could see was a dog. A massive, dead dog. She raised an eyebrow at him. Oh, great. “So did you think about whether or not bossman wanted the heart before or after you stabbed it?” She questioned, pulling out a chunk for him to see.

Nicodemus snorted and shook his head. He hadn’t expected them to idly chat while a werewolf’s entire innards were on display, but he had stranger ways of making a first impression. “Yeah, I’d hate to see you try this shit sober.” The smell was the first thing he had to become accustomed to, his grandfather all but sticking his face into gut rot night after night. After that, the rest came easy like Sunday morning. He eyed the blood on the flask, but didn’t pay it much mind when he stuck it back into his pocket. Wouldn’t be the last time blood got in weird places. “Oh, sure. Wouldn’t miss it,” he said. “Not just a dog anymore, huh? Told you, it’s the thumbs. Besides, her boss had wanted him there anyway. After what he had learned, he assumed it was meant as some sort of intimidation tactic. He could only hope that her boss would see his remark of being good at killing shit other than beasts as one too. His mouth turned down thoughtfully. “If he wanted it, he should have been specific. He wasn’t. Besides, everything else is more useful.”

“It’s not the thumbs—“ Erin sighed, but gave up halfway through with a roll of her eyes. “It’s just not the weirdest thing I’ve seen in the past few weeks.” A deformed dog. A werewolf. Whatever it was, it would be out of her basement faster than she could study it. She tossed the heart chunk into a waste bin next to her, “Well if he asks, be sure to let him know you played chop suey with it, not me,” she told him rather than asked him. She realized she had very little control in any of this, but she could pretend, right? She kneeled a bit, digging in a little further, getting to the good stuff, as Nic has put it. “So,” she glanced up after an awkward moment, making careful slices around the creature’s liver. “Is this your, uh—thing? Dog catcher and delivery boy?” A hint of a smile followed, remembering again that he was still the one with the bigger knife here.

He didn’t fight the slim smile that cracked his relaxed expression. “Fair enough,” Nicodemus hummed. “Plenty of fucky stuff around here that this might as well be white bread.” His eyes crept across the room, taking in every sharp and shiny edge. A far cry from the back alley chop shops he wandered into every now and then. Erin Nichols was a lot more accommodating, let alone easy to talk to, than the last man he met that simply went by Butcher Pete. “By the time I’m done talking to him, the heart’ll be the last thing on his mind,” he said as he pulled out the flask again, tightening and loosening the cap to keep his hands busy. The hunter was about to take another drink when she spoke up again. Delivery boy? A frown lacking any true distaste appeared. “Depends on the order,” he answered after a drink. “Sometimes I deliver, sometimes I don’t.” He shot her a knowing look. “It’s different every night, but as long as the check clears...Little bit of both.” With her elbow deep in werewolf and him sprinkled with blood, honesty came easy among thieves of a varying nature. “Should I be doin’ anything other than just standing here?”

“Why, do you plan on sweet talking him? Or giving him hell for not preparing either one of us for tonight? ” Erin had seen enough crime movies to get the gist of what Nic was saying. He was a hitman for hire, from what it sounded like. Not unnerving at all. Her hand only shook a little as she tried desperately not to knick the dog—the werewolf’s—internal organs. “Gotcha,” she nodded, cautiously pulling out the thing’s liver, setting it inside the cooler. Raised a brow at his question as she dove back in. “Unless you know how to remove werewolf kidneys, just keep sittin’ pretty,” she smirked up at him. This wasn’t the worst shady interaction she’s had since moving back to White Crest. “There’s whiskey in the cabinet by the sink. I don’t think there’s enough in that little flask of yours for the both of us after this.”

"A little somethin' like that," Nicodemus said as he tipped his head to the side. "Givin' him hell an' all, 'cause I'm a little rusty at sweet talkin'." The hunter tried to gauge her reaction, but if she was bothered at all by what his words all but confirmed, she kept cool about it. The werewolf's liver came out and he was looking at that instead of her. He didn't stick around too long to see what the parts he delivered were ever truly used for. There was a distinct feeling that would change while he was in White Crest, especially if the two of them made a night of organ harvesting a weekly endeavour.  "Well, can't say I do, so yes ma'am, sittin' pretty it is." He bit back the dry smile that threatened to creep. At the suggestion of whiskey though, his brows rose. Oh, really? He hadn't expected that. Unlike her boss's surprise, he liked that one a bit more. Hell of a lot more. The bottle was quickly found and he held it up to the light. "Well goddamn. Probably makes it easier dealing with your boss."

“You? Rusty at sweet talking?” Erin scoffed, but she still shot a smile his way. “I don’t believe it.” This guy was dangerous, but there was something… warm about him? Maybe that wasn’t the word, but she probably wasn’t as terrified as she should have been. Or maybe she was still numb to this. Either way, he was doing a fantastic job at making this oddly casual. “I didn’t start keeping that down here until I found out about our mutual… friend,” she grumbled. A few more organs came out and Erin gave pause, almost forgetting the big one. “Sorry, buddy,” she murmured to the wolf as she dug around for her brainsaw. It wasn’t often that she got to use it, as the medical examiner usually got to this part first. “Hope you’re not squeamish,” she said a little louder to Nic as the saw buzzed to life. A few minutes later, and some snipping around the edges, the surprisingly large brain joined the rest of the organs in the cooler. “That should do it,” she said, clicking the container shut. Thank god.

“Well, shit. Give it time, you’ll see.” Bashful was not a word the hunter would ever use to describe himself. Nor would anyone else under threat of an imminent throat punch or nighttime garroting. That being said, socially unprepared for anything less than a business conversation wouldn’t be inaccurate. Her smile unnerved Nicodemus. He wanted to frown back as some sort of equalizer, but his face, the bastard, betrayed him. Just like he knew it would. Something would have to die after this, that would probably help stifle anything. Suddenly, he became very interested in the organs she pulled out. “This isn’t my first impromptu anatomy session. I ain’t gonna faint.” The top of the bottle came spinning off as soon as the organ cooler shut. All he had done was bring the werewolf in, yet he felt like a drink was suddenly incredibly important. “Looks good to me,” he said with a nod. Considering the blood and guts, he turned on the sink for her and stepped aside. A thought slipped by him and he snorted. “Got any clean jars around? We could really old school the hell out of this if we wanted.”

Was this supposedly dangerous man trying to fight that smile on his face? Was he actually having a good time right now? Despite the circumstances, the better question - was she? Erin was wholly perturbed at the thought, even as she pulled the bloody scrubs off and watched him turn the sink on for her. “Glad to know I’m not your first,” she smirked, then narrowed her eyes in confusion (mostly at herself) after she turned. This was weird. She needed that drink more than ever. After washing her hands, she leaned down and sorted through one of the cabinets. “You’re just in luck,” she said as she dug, the sound of glasses bouncing off each other echoing through the room. “I promise, these have been thoroughly sterilized.” She set them down on one of the empty metal tables, snatching the whiskey back from him. Found herself smirking up at him again as she poured. “I can’t imagine all of your ‘meetings’ go exactly like this though.”

The hunter made a sound like a cross between a snort and a laugh. Nicodemus was glad for the momentary reprieve from her gaze, as he looked down at the floor, completely bewildered. What the utter absolute hell was happening? Biting the inside of his lip brought him back to reality, as well as the smell of blood that settled heavy in his nose. At least he could thank his senses for making him completely incapable of just projecting his way out of a room. “Holy shit, I was half-joking, but hell yeah,” he said as he found his voice again, gravel and all. “I’ll take your word for it, but if I get dysentery, I’m gonna be pissed.” His hand stayed suspended after she grabbed the bottle. Right, hands were used for shit and he grabbed the jar. Damn it, he’d need to kill something else while he was out. “They sure as shit don’t, but it hasn’t been that bad. Was it good for you, organs an’ all?”

Erin wished she could blame some of the flush in her cheeks on the drink from his flask earlier. But nope. All her. And a lot thanks to him, too. “Dysentery for two, then,” she laughed, lifting her jar and clinking it to his. She almost choked on her sip, the alcohol burning her sinuses as it tried to force its way back up. “Wow, well, when you put it that way,” she nodded, sure that now whatever cool demeanor she’d been projecting was entirely out of the window. “Not my worst organ collection, no. You’re better company than the usual guy. Dale? Total dick. Never offers booze. Just a lot of creepy smirks and vague threats.” She let out a longer laugh now, shaking her head, trying to stare at her drink instead of him. This was her life, huh? That’s when her eyes fell back onto the wolf carcass. “You’re going to take that with you too, right?”

"Dysentery for two," Nicodemus agreed, eyes on the shaking surface of the whiskey for a beat before he finally looked at her. He took a long draw of his drink, relishing the burn to distract him from the heat rising up the back of his neck. He was a grown ass man, this was ridiculous. But she was also a grown ass woman and she was smiling at him like he'd never really been smiled at before. What the fuck was he supposed to do with that? The tally for the night grew larger. They were supposed to just be digging for organs and calling it a night, not whatever this was. "Dale, huh? Yeah sounds like a real chip on the shoulder." Fuck he needed to leave. Immediately. The distraction of the carcass worked wonders. He finished the rest of his drink with a hefty swallow. "Well, appreciate the drink an' all but gotta hit the ol' dusty trail…" He set the glass down and swiftly shut the body bag as an answer to her question. It was easier to fall back into that rhythm. Body bag slung over his shoulder and a small smile on, he went for the door. "See you at the next harvest."

It was hard to gross out a mortician, but the feeling swelling in Erin’s stomach was enough to make her nauseous. Especially when she was torn between relief and disappointment when he started to pick things up. Be cool, she internally screamed at herself. This guy had killed a… thing she wasn’t entirely unconvinced was just an oversized wolf he found in the woods. “Safe travels,” she nodded, shaking her head at the harvest joke. Fuck. He was funny. She held the basement door for him, handing off the cooler like she was handing off his lunch pail. “Hey, uh—give bossman a little extra hell, just for me, won’t ya?”

[doctorcolubra]

How about Eleanora or the Fall of the House of Usher for Jarrich? (Fluffy or no, I'm interested in what you do with these!!)

I say that I want to write drabbles or ficlets and then end up with almost 3K, typical. I really want to get better at short-form stuff (still taking prompts if anyone wants to send more). 

I’m in a haunted house mood for fall so here’s Fall of the House of Usher! 

_____________

Richard doesn’t like driving, or at least he doesn’t like traffic. The hostility, the birds flipped, the goddamn honking. He’s doing okay out here in the country, on empty roads where no one can take offense at his speed, his signalling, his sloppy lane changes or his occasional hasty U-turns. Jared’s in the passenger’s seat, asleep. Collar askew, hair windblown, lips parted—keep your eyes on the road, Hendricks.They’re driving back to Palo Alto from the Central Sierra Audobon Society Birders’ Convention. “I was going to be Muriel’s plus-one,” Jared had said one day last week. “But I suppose I can go alone. I have my safety whistle.”“For what, bears?”

“Of course. With black bears, your best strategy is to stand your ground, if you’ll forgive an expression sadly tainted by the legal system. You make yourself look as big as you can.” Jared held his arms out wide, hands in his raincoat pockets to make his skinny frame broader. “And that’s where the whistle comes in. Noise frightens the bear off. Those same tactics would probably get you killed if you ever met a grizzly, though,” he added. “But you won’t. In spite of what the state flag would have you believe, the last grizzly bear in California was shot in the ‘20s.”

“Where is this place?” Richard said, and then: “Don’t go alone, for fuck’s sake. Can I go? With you, I mean?”

“Richard…” Jared lit up. “Oh, I would love to take you. But I couldn’t possibly take you away from—you have so many things to think of…”Even Jared couldn’t quite pretend that Richard is still a busy CEO.So they did BirdCon. Richard was wondering if he needed glasses or whether he was just bad at this hobby, because Jared and the other birders kept losing their minds over woodpeckers, warblers, flycatchers, sparrows, raptors and vireos. Richard, once, correctly identified a squirrel. Jared drove here, anyway, so Richard’s returning the favour on the way home.And he’s not lost. He’s not. He’s supposed to be in some town called Confidence on the edge of Yosemite Park, and follow the highway from there to Modesto, and from there he can figure his business out.The Google Maps lady has been giving suspicious instructions for awhile now, though, and Richard doesn’t think he’s anywhere close to Confidence. Which, ha ha, super funny. He’s on a stretch of road that’s…well, not desolate. It’s pretty. Hills, grass, trees. Whatever. But he’s trying to figure out if Google Maps Lady is on the level, and the land around them doesn’t hold any clues.When a cop car rolls up behind him, he’s almost relieved. (Almost. He’s sweating a lot.) Jared jerks awake while Richard fumbles with the window switch.The stocky, brown-skinned cop bends to the window. “You boys looking for the casino?”“Wh—no,” Richard says. They couldn’t have blundered into Nevada somehow. Right? No, absolutely not. “We’re…are we near Confidence? The town, I mean?”“You’re on Miwok tribal land,” says the cop. “Tuolumne Rancheria.”“Oh.” Richard has no clue where that is in relation to Confidence, Yosemite, Modesto, or Palo Alto. Fucking Google. “Um, sorry. Are we allowed to—we shouldn’t be here, right?”The cop avoids a complicated question of colonialism. “You’re not in trouble, just thought you might be lost. Casino’s down that way. Where you coming from, Jamestown?”“We were up in Yosemite, for—for BirdCon—and we were supposed to pass through Sugarpine and then Confidence,” Richard says, disconnecting his phone from the cord and showing the officer the screen. “The GPS voice kept saying to stay on 108, and I was doing that, and then the road turned into the E17…”The cop looks at Richard’s phone and chuckles. “You’re real lost, wow. I don’t even know how you did that.”Between the two of them, they determine that Richard had made some catastrophic error while typing the address into GPS, and Maps is now trying to send them to Confidence, New Mexico. Richard is indignant—the one thing he wouldn’t fuck up is data entry—and blames Google’s shoddy user interface and aggressive auto-correct.“Yeah, maybe,” says the cop with a shrug. “But you’re still going the wrong way.”“Oh,” Jared says suddenly, softly, looking ahead. He’s been quiet and bleary from taking an extra allergy pill, but now the haze has lifted. “Oh, no, I know just where we are.”Richard turns back to look at him. “You do?”“I used to live near here. For awhile. Not on the reservation, naturally. But I know this road. Thank you, officer, we’ll be fine from here,” says Jared to the tribal cop, who wishes them goodnight and heads back to his truck.“You don’t have to drive,” Richard says, plugging his phone back in. “My fuck-up, I got it taken care of.”“No, not at all—I’m so sorry I fell asleep on you, Richard.” Jared is straightening his collar, brushing his dark hair back into place with his fingers. “I should have stayed awake to navigate—”“Come on. It’s the end of the day, it’s my turn.”“Okay. But could we…no, that’s self-indulgent of me…”“What?”“I think—I think I might like to drive past the house. If it wouldn’t take us too far out of our way. We don’t have to stop, even, but…” Jared trails off, looking out the window at the hills. “Only if there’s time. I’m sure there’s not.”“There’s lots of time, now that we’re not…going to fuckin’ New Mexico. Just—point me where we’re going, it’s okay,” Richard says. Muriel would have stopped for Jared. “We’ll take a look.”The house is low and white and dead, like a broken eggshell lying amid the trees. Peeling paint, windows boarded, a child’s plastic car lying sun-bleached on its side, no cars in the gravel driveway. Jared doesn’t seem disappointed—in fact, he’s quietly elated. “It’s empty,” he says in wonder, staring out the window. “It’s all empty.”“That’s…too bad,” Richard says, but he’s guessing. “Is it? Did you like this place?”“No,” Jared says, the way he always says these things. Light, soft, without rancour. He hasn’t looked away from the shabby house in the trees. “I didn’t at all. Could we—no, I’ve already taken us out of our way…”“You want to get a closer look?”“Maybe. Yes. For a minute or two, Richard, not long.”The grass is knee-high around the front yard, where the trees clear, and Richard can see glimpses of weeds out back that would come up to his shoulders. He’s picking his way carefully toward the door, convinced that he’ll step on a snake at any minute. Poisonous snakes. He’ll get bitten. Richard is not mentally or spiritually equipped to be bitten by a snake, it’s haunted his nightmares ever since he was a reluctant Boy Scout in Tulsa. He’ll end up in the hospital being laughed at by that goddamn doctor. Then a painful death, then—“The door’s off its hinges,” Jared says. “We could go inside.”“Is that safe?” Part of Richard wants to shake Jared out of this reverie: don’t look at this, don’t remember, don’t get lost. But he knows that if he did, Jared would apologise profusely and never mention the house again. And that’s bad, Richard knows. Because something bad must have happened here. “Are you okay with this, man? We don’t have to go in. I mean, I will. I know you came to check out Peter Gregory’s stuff with me, so. Fair’s fair. But…I’m not trying to—to talk you out of it, unless…like, unless you want me to talk you out of it?”Jared has opened his backpack (practical, pristine, everything tucked in orderly pockets) to get out his flashlight. But he looks back at Richard and smiles. “It’s funny,” he says. “I barely remember the year I lived here. The brain is an amazing organ—there we are…” The flashlight’s blue-white glow shivers over the front hall of the house. “Hello? Anyone here?”Silence. The flashlight’s a necessity, but there’s still some sunlight streaming in from outside, and that’s all that’s holding Richard together. It’s not dark yet, but as Bob Dylan said, it’s getting there. Everything’s dusty. Good thing Jared’s already popped an allergy pill.Richard follows Jared, using his phone for more light, looking at the time capsule of a house. Harvest gold and avocado kitchen, landline phone on the wall with its cord a cramped spiral tangle. Warped bookshelves disgorging hoarded piles of magazines. Someone must have tried to clean the place before giving up: there are garbage bags and boxes everywhere, Pine-Sol and Febreze bottles, mops and brooms at rest in the corners. The ceilings are water-stained and in places the paint has buckled away from the wall, bubbling outward in layers that Richard instinctively wants to peel away.“What are we looking for?” he asks Jared.“Nothing,” Jared says, tentatively pushing open a half-closed bedroom door. A teenage girl’s room, walls papered with Tiger Beat and Big Bopper pages. Jonathan Brandis, the Hanson boys, Leo in his salad days, young and green. (Richard knows too much about magazines from this era. But that’s another story.) “Nothing special—oh, Richard, don’t look so frightened, please. We can go back to the car.”“No,” Richard says, stubborn now. “Not until you’re done with…this. Closure. Right? That’s what this is. Isn’t it?”“Maybe part of the process of closure, yes.” Jared moves to the next bedroom door. “This wasn’t the worst place I ever lived. I think I was relieved to get here. It felt safe, safer. Back then. The Alguires were strict, but they didn’t hurt me. Just…I’ve forgotten so much about living here. If you’d asked me yesterday to list all the homes I’ve ever had, I would’ve left this one off the list. But I was here for almost a year. Eleven months, I think.”“How old were you?”“Ten.”“I don’t remember ten either, really,” says Richard, staying in the teen girl’s room and raising his voice a little to be heard. “I mean I know where I was and what I was doing. We never moved, same house in Tulsa all my life. But I don’t remember being ten. It sucked, I know that.”“How come?”“School.” Richard used to rage over this, why did they do it, what was wrong with me, but in Palo Alto everyone else had a similar story, and he got over it. Kinda. “Everyone hated me.”“They just weren’t ready for you,” comes Jared’s voice from the other room, as inexplicably fond as always. “The solitary genius.”Sometimes Richard’s not sure if Jared’s making fun of him or not. Who could actually believe this stuff? What would it even be like to be so earnest? Terrifying, Richard thinks.He’s afraid that somewhere in this house they’ll find something really dark: chains and shackles on a radiator, or a potty chair in a locked closet. The house is depressing, but in an ordinary way. The former inhabitants must have verged on clinical hoarding, but the situation wasn’t bad enough to get on TLC. Just a particularly good archaeological record of the early ‘90s.Richard makes his way further down the hall, still on the lookout for snakes. It’s darker, and then, suddenly, brighter—the back door is gone, open to the audience of Sonora pines. Shafts of slow gold afternoon sunlight break through into the dark little house, nurturing a tidepool of vegetation. Moss is spreading across the rotting wooden floorboards, with leggy weeds crowding in the brightest spots. Tiny green tendrils trace paths from the shadows into the light, breaking into full leaf where the sun hits. The air smells damp, fresh, alive when everything else in this house seems dead. Flourishing.He wanders back to find Jared in the other bedroom. Jared’s poking through a big Rubbermaid tub that seems to be full of toys: headless Barbies and uncanny baby dolls, loose Lego, die-cast cars, green plastic army men, neon water pistols empty of their charges.But then a look of recognition breaks over his face and he reaches in to pull out a recorder, still in its blue plastic sleeve, a sheet of music folded inside.“Mrs. Alguire hated noise,” Jared says. “This was her house, the year I lived here. She used to confiscate inappropriate toys. I don’t mean to say she was unkind—she was a step up from my aunt’s place. But she did like silence. And I…” He slides the recorder out of its plastic sleeve. “I always wanted to play an instrument, or—when I got to Vassar I was allowed to sing. I liked that. But one day I found this in the inappropriate toys box. Even if I couldn’t make music, I thought…I thought I could make noise. Maybe somebody would notice if I was loud. I don’t know what I wanted them to notice. I was already getting as much help as anyone could give me.”“Not enough.” Richard is beside him, digging through the Rubbermaid tub too, examining the Barbies and the Hot Wheels and all the other miscellanea in the pile. “I had one of those plastic recorders for about three days,” he says. “My parents took it away too. Not that—I mean, it’s not the same as your thing.”“Well, some adult reactions become more sympathetic as we get older.” Jared polishes the dust off the recorder with a clean tissue from his pocket. “But the recorder was a very important part of early music, you know. Some beautiful airs were written for it. No instrument sounds very pleasant when it’s made of plastic and costs a dollar.”“Yeah, true.” Richard fishes the sheet music out of the recorder’s sleeve and unfurls it, skimming the notes. He has no talent himself, something he discovered from the childhood piano lessons that he got and Jared didn’t. “‘Early One Morning’—oh, I remember this from an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer…”Jared laughs. “You’re so cultured, Richard.”“Okay, that, right there, that was making fun of me,” Richard says—he’s grinning, not even mad, just relieved that he finally caught Jared just teasing him for being an idiot, the way a normal person would. “You know goddamn well that’s not cultured.”“I would never judge you for—”“You should, though, Jared. You should judge the hell out of me. For everything.” Richard bumps his arm gently against Jared’s, one of the few tactile gestures of friendliness that he’s learned how to use properly. “You’re gonna blast some ‘Early One Morning’ right now, aren’t you?”“I shouldn’t.”“It’s your moment, c’mon.” Richard likes to tempt Jared—sometimes to make him do things he needs to do for his own good, sometimes for more selfish reasons. To enjoy Jared’s purity, and to feel it crumble. “We’re a million miles away from anything. You’re not gonna bother anybody.”“Well…” Jared looks down at the recorder in his hands and smiles. “A little bit. Okay.”They walk out into the sprouting back hall, over the crumbling floors, where the weeds are winning in the sun. Richard gets his phone earbuds out of his pocket and puts them in as makeshift earplugs.Jared takes a deep breath and blows the recorder like a shofar, a raucous high-pitched whistle. Not playing any note in particular, just blasting it as loud as he possibly can, with all the air in his lungs. Not music, only noise. Serious noise. Richard can hear it even through his earbuds. It echoes through the pines, loud enough to frighten off a black bear.It’s a silly, childish sound—it brings back memories for Richard too. He used to annoy his parents with plastic recorders and cheap harmonicas and the repetitive sounds of Bach’s French Suite No. 3 by way of Tetris on his GameBoy. He’d had the freedom to bug people without having to worry about whether he might lose the roof over his head for it.When Jared stops, he looks satisfied for a brief moment, then guilty. “I feel so foolish,” he says. “I don’t know what I was expecting. We came so far out of our way just for that.”“You were trying to remember and you did. And we’d already gone out of our way, right?” Richard smiles at him. “I was trying to take us to Confidence, New Mexico. I’m the foolish one here, I’m Boo Boo the Fool.”“Never.” Jared reaches out for Richard, almost aimless: straightening one of the strings on his hoodie, fingers brushing over Richard’s shoulder.Jared starts to say something, and Richard is afraid that it’s thank you, which is bullshit—I’ve given him nothing, I’ve done nothing but take—so he leans in to wrap an arm awkwardly around Jared’s waist. “Let’s go home.

[thaumaturtles]

Begin ANGELQUEST

The other day, I was doing some.......

...... studying.......

When I came across an advertisement. This isn’t at all an unusual experience; I’ve been on the internet for a decade and change and I’ve come to accept that ads are a part of the experience. This was an ad I’d seen many times before, too. I’m so accustomed to seeing it that my eyes often skip right over it. However, I’ve been reading a lot of articles about Enlightenment, lately, and I’ve been trying to put that into practice in my everyday life. I’ve been attempting, to varying degrees of success, to become more aware of myself and my environment, to probe onward into my mind’s own blind spots. In short, I’m trying to blitz my chakras. (Don’t worry, am Indian, can reclaim.)

And so, for perhaps the first time, I took a moment to truly see the ad in front of me. To stop and smell the dogshit hiding behind the roses. And, goodness, was it a sight to behold. Ladies, gentlemen, and all who fall betwixt, I present to you, THIS:

Take a moment, if necessary, to take it all in.

Have you collected yourself? Good. You’re holding up the rest of the class.

I don’t know how I’ve managed to let this pass without mental comment on more than one occasion. How did I look at this image, think “angel reading? yeah, sure, that’s a thing that exists” and then shuffle along? The only explanation I can muster is Divine intervention, which would ironically lend this product some legitimacy. I need to understand. What does Angel Reading mean? How could such a process be personalized, and, furthermore, how could it take place over the Internet? Who is this “Celeste”? What is she after? Why does she look vaguely disappointed in me? Can she see my soul? What is an “Angelic Medium”?????

Clearly, if I want answers, I’m going to have to dive in. I place my Crocodile Dundee hat on my head with no small measure of trepidation, though I must confess a moiety of excitement deep within. As I hike up my Adventurin’ Shorts and stuff a few hundred metres of rope into my backpack, I consider the long road ahead. And then, with my cosplay explorer’s outfit put on to my approval, I sit down at my computer. I’m really not sure why I felt the need to do all that when I’m just gonna be here at home.

I steel my will, and I click.

This loading screen appears, and I’d like to mention that the URL for this page is perhaps longer than any URL I’ve ever seen before in my 16 years.

Okay, let’s just take a moment to get our bearings here and-

HOLY MACKEREL, THERE’S A COUNTDOWN!

And only twenty-seven minutes left! Sakes alive, I clicked this link just in time! Imagine If I’d wasted more time farting around and dressing up like Indiana Jones!

Although, weirdly enough, whenever I refresh the page, the timer restarts, and it always restarts at 27 minutes and 50ish seconds, which is a random-enough number to seem legitimate.

Hmm. Odd.

I wonder if maybe the countdown isn’t actually real and is just there to pressure you into typing your info more quickly so you don’t notice how fishy this whole opera-

OH MY GOD ONLY 26 MINUTES!!!!!!!

OK, gotta think quickly here. Gosh, they’re asking some personal questions right off the bat, but I can’t let them know it’s me; they might recognize me from tumblr. If this sting operation’s gonna go forth I gotta lie my ass off. My name? Uh, uh.. My name is Dyl-Dy- Uhhhh, shit, okay, it’s Dylan-NO, Dylllllllll...... Delilah? Delilah. Like from the Bible. Yeah, that’s fitting, especially since I’m swindling these fools. Soon, Celeste, your hair will be mine.

They’re asking for my date of birth, which I’m hesitant to put because my 16th birthday party was kind of a big deal and Celeste might’ve heard about it, in which case she’ll know it’s me AND things will be super awkward cause I didn’t invite her to the party.

I put 4/13/1969 obviously

They’re also asking for my e-mail address, which I can’t give out because it has my full name, address, and social security number in it, so let’s just pull this ripcord real quick and parachute out of this nightmare zone, and over to a quick, free, secure e-mail client. That is, protonmail.com, which is not my usual e-mail server and will thus throw Celeste’s goons even farther off my trail

Wow, that was a surprisingly quick and painless process! I might just have to use protonmail in the future

So anyway here’s my info, sent in right under the wire, with a mere 24.3 minutes left! God that was close. Picture that classic scene in Indiana Jones where he slides under the door and then reaches back in to get his hat, only it’s an out-of-shape teen and also the door hasn’t even started closing yet.

I went with my actual country because, c’mon, there’re a lot of people in Jamaica. Statistically speaking, how likely is it they’d find me through that?

You know I didn’t. You know I fucking didn’t. Why are you asking.

Also, here’s a quick rundown of what Celeste is actually offering in case anyone was curious. It does somewhat tickle me that she claims she’ll “get to work immediately” as soon as anyone clicks the link and subscribes, as though the process isn’t completely automated. It evokes a clear image of Celeste, in full angelic garb, sitting at a computer screen and answering calls while also typing into three discrete keyboards simultaneously.

The idea that she could personally take the order of every individual who clicks this ad betrays either a complete lack of confidence in the desirability of her product, or an incredible amount of confidence in her own ability to multitask.

Who is “she”? Celeste? That doesn’t make much sense in the context here. Peter’s Guardian Angel? But earlier Celeste made it sound like all angels use he/him! Also, what does “bring her back” mean if it’s the angel? Can angels leave and later be found again? I feel like if you find your guardian angel once, that should be it forever, but apparently they can leave and you have to ensnare them again?????

Hooray! A link from an unknown source to an unknown destination! I sure can’t wait to click it all day long!

The things I do in the name of science, I swear to God Celeste.

It took a minute but here it is. Sidenote: I rather enjoy the irony of an inbox which consists of three e-mails about encryption and ways to curate a safe internet experience, and one which is an automated link from a bullshit ad for a product that doesn’t exist. There’s a subtle poetry to this image. I almost want to frame it, and then sell it for an exorbitant amount of money.

Here’s the e-mail, folx. If ever you needed proof that this was a scam, look no further.

Who on this good green earth would think beginning such a missive with, “Thank you for your trust,” would be a good way to garner MORE goodwill? When I go to my local grocer and I purchase a party-sized bag of Tostitos to eat by myself over the course of a day and a half because I’m in control of my body, goddammit, the bag doesn’t say, “Thank you for believing in us! We promise we won’t give you dysentery!

Like, what the fuck? “Thank you for your trust.” Your product should be able to stand on its own two feet and proudly proclaim, “I’m gonna give you a fucking angel reading or die trying!”

That initial line has honestly made me more scared than ever for this process. I’m confident I’m going to click that link and it’s going to auto-download a terabyte of obscure Norwegian pornography to my hard drive. I did just update my computer this morning, however, and all my data are backed up, so I feel somewhat more secure than I might otherwise.

Did I really just say “data are”? I know it’s grammatically correct and all, but it’s still jarring to hear. Messes with my mental flow. And wouldn’t the proper, descriptivist thing to do be to use “data is” to avoid confusion? Using “data are” feels clunky, is more difficult to say, and makes me look a bit snobbish. I’d delete it but that would require hitting the backspace button on my computer and I’m frankly quite lazy about that sort of thing. What was I talking about again? Oh, right. I have to click the link.

 Again with the “thank you for your trust” bullshit! Whatever, I’m going to let it pass. They’re clearly going for a friendly, approachable persona here, even if they’re doing it in the most threatening, ass-backwards way possible.

This next email took a seemingly endless eight minutes to arrive, during which time I meditated, raised a bonsai tree to adulthood, watched Marley & Me, grappled with intense feelings of loneliness, and worked on some of my homework.

Or maybe I just played games on my phone. You decide!

Okay, not quite what “hereby” means, but sure. It’s a common mistake, likely exacerbated by the presence of the word “here” within “hereby.” Sort of a “wherefore does not mean where” situation I suppose.

Anyway, I’m submitting to the mortifying ordeal of clicking the link yet again.

Christ get a load of this shit. How fitting that the Angelic stone for someone born on 4/13 would be Jade. My archangel is Megatron apparently??? His info claims he’s some sort of scribe. My major planet is Neptune, and my secondary planet is.... the sun? Is anyone going to tell Celeste what stars are or do I have to do everything myself around here? I do like that ram up in the top left though. I’m naming you Ram Elliot.

Now for the pièce de résistance. Meet Mahasiah. Mahasiah is not my guardian angel; Mahasiah is the guardian angel for anyone born between April 10th-14th. My guardian angel is Yerathel, apparently. A few things I learned while researching this: both Mahasia and Yerathel have “feminine energies” (???) and both have Fire as their associated classical element. Also, Yerathel rules over Intelligence, which is one thing I actually somewhat like about myself. This is actually kind of neat to learn about!

I mean come on. That’s pretty fuckin cool. His name means “He Who Punishes Evildoers” which is beyond epic, and his associated gem is Smoky Quartz, aka the only Steven Universe character.

You know, maybe this whole Angel Reading business isn’t a scam after all. Maybe it’s a perfectly safe process and I’ll be totally fine, what am I worrying about? At the very least, it couldn’t hurt to explore her site a bit more..... for research’s sake.

yeah baby tell me more

h-

certainly, miss celeste, anything for you

wait, aren’t I already in a relationshi-

JAZZERCISING JUNIPERS BATMAN THERE’S ONLY 28 MINUTES LEFT

holy shit! I want accurate readings!

Oh god oh no okay i’ll do whatever you want celeste please don’t leave me i need my tarots

THEY KNOW ABOUT ME ALREADY OMG

Well, okay, even in my currently addled state I can still see that “Duo-Telepathy” is complete bullshi-

OH WELL IF AMANDA GAVE THEM THREE WHOLE STARS I HAVE TO TRUST IT

Amazingly, my info was pre-filled in. Almost like this site is linked to Celeste’s in some way, or perhaps even run by the same group of scammeUPSTANDING CITIZENS IS WHAT I MEANT TO SAY

Ooh, another e-transmission from my good friend Celeste! Oh, how I’ve missed her! And apparently large and surprising discoveries have been made concerning me! She’s presenting me a Guide? I sure hope I’ll be able to open it, hassle-free, with no additional purchases/information required!

OHOHOHOHO

bro i’m shitting my drawers rn

I have no fucking clue what that means but you said FREE so i’m in!

oh my god there’s still so much left. just shut the fuck up and take my money you fools

AW TITS YEAH

....i think

Okay, I know the original thing said FREE and I should be “mad” or watever, but look at that bargain! that’s more than half off! It might as well be free! I’d be stupid NOT to buy it!

I’ve invented a lot of secondary information for Delilah. The phone number is merely (559) YOU-SUCK, as a subtle way of establishing the power dynamic at play here. I’m sure Celeste will appreciate it.

Hmmmmm.............. It would seem my method of “just input numbers randomly” won’t work here. Such a shame. Credit card fraud used to be so easy. I’ll have to put that on the backburner, though, because look what just appeared in my inbox!

You can see where this is going.

I’ll take my leave now, this post is getting long enough as is, but I do feel it’s important to note that doing a quick bit of research shows that Celeste & co. are famous for emotional manipulation, as well as getting people addicted to their products and forcing a sort of dependency upon them. It’s important to do your research, and remember basic internet safety tips like don’t click popups or check if a site is legit before downloading from them. It’s incredibly easy to get trapped down this sort of rabbit hole, where you wind up buying more and more of their products like you’re stockpiling for the Rapture. Not me, though, I’m obviously fine and can quit anytime I like. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go try a bunch of credit card numbers until one works.

[mineofilms]

Day of the Dead

Today Marks the 1-year anniversary of me being carried off on a stretcher and taken to the ER. Like my 1-year anniversary for not drinking, I am not really sure how I feel and/or reflect about all this. I know the last calendar year I have grown/changed a lot internally. Not just medically/mentally, but internally/spiritually as well. I have changed in so many ways it is hard for me to put it into articulating patterns of words to understand.

I am not one to really air my laundry on “the Facebook.” I know a lot do it but, I do not. I am very transparent about my feelings/thoughts these days just not on this specific platform. Main reason being is people do not read and/or understand what is actually being presented and said. They see the parts they can associate with and run with that. I can tell you from experience this is not the correct way to “get me.”

Not that really anyone should be doing that. You should be doing you and yours. If you consider me part of yours that is great and all. I don’t see it. I have a standard for such things and there are people out here that get that, they know. I make/made the effort.

I am only saying this because it is true from my point of view. I am not screaming for attention or anything of the sort. I actually do not care for much attention. I get what I get from the people I want/need it from and that is it. My circle is very small these days.

You cannot really associate Mineo of 1994-95, 2000-2004, 2009-2012 to Mineo of 2020-2021. I am a completely different person. Sure, some things are the same, but much has changed. I am good with that change. Finally, emotionally, I am in a place where I feel I am solid.

However, mentally, medically, life. No. I am not there. I do not move at the speed in those areas like I used to. I do make progress… It only works when everything is working for me, not against me. I take a step forward only for the Universe to throw me back a few steps and the process starts again.

That was fine and dandy; as I was always able to roll with those punches. However, I cannot do that anymore. I don’t have “that” in my back pocket anymore. Like many things I used to be able to do at a high level, I can no longer do.

If I attempt to do it. I have problems. Problems of the sort that tends to stop whatever show is going on around me. I have “mini” episodes just about every time I leave the house now.

In the case people have not been paying attention today’s anniversary is when I had Covid-19; which sent my diabetes into a rapid black hole where Diabetic Ketoacidosis & Pancreatitis set in. I probably would have not made it through the night if I didn’t call 911 when I did. I had already been sick for 2 weeks at this point and about 3 days deathly ill.

I was in the hospital for 5 days, 3 days after I got out I went blind with edema in both eyes and later diabetic retinopathy. I have had extreme anxiety ever since; that they are saying I have severe PTSD from the experience. I have also had 3 therapists tell me I have bipolar tendencies now in the past 2 months.

With all that said we are a calendar year later and I am only “moderately” better. I still have severe vision issues to a point I do not drive at night. Diabetic Ketoacidosis & Pancreatitis are still there, just dormant. As long as I keep my blood sugars normalized and do not get sick I can live with this. I have had to change the way eat, obviously, but not just for diabetes. The Diabetic Ketoacidosis & Pancreatitis fucks with my digestive track. I try to make smart food choices based on what little money I have and what I can just tolerate.

Do not tell me to go vegan… I am NOT trying to destroy my digestive track, thank you very much… Don’t even get me started on those topics…

Since I am reflecting here I am not really sure how I feel/think. When I tell people I am trying to get well before I try to live again, everything in life that is a distraction to getting me right just gets ignored.

I literally do not see it.

I pretty much have said all this before. If one feels inclined to go read those blogs. Feel free too. I will post links at the credits of this BLOG.

This blog really isn’t well thought out. I am just sitting here free writing. I have found that when I sit to write I can really crank out some words. I can write a 2,000 word blog now in about 2 to 3 hours. After writing the BLOG, rereading it, correcting grammar and such. I feel pretty good about that.

I know most of you will not read 1,000 words, let alone 2,000 words. My Facebook is crazy on how narrow the vision is with people of what is actually being said in a post. It has gotten so bad I hardly ever post directly onto the Facebook anymore. I will post on my IG and it will auto-post to Facebook when I want it to. When I post on Instagram it is for my Instagram followers. The intention is going there. I realize I know most of the people in some way on my Facebook, but it is not like that on my Instagram. I follow way more people there and most of them I do not know and they do not know me.

However, I have made some really great, real, and important friends there. To a point where I value their friendship in a more important way than I do with people I have been friends with in the world for decades.

It is why I feel like there is a huge disconnect between the Facebook, its people and I, in relation to, well, relations. I feel like people see me now but really see “that old Mineo from VAMS/VHS/MCC years.”

Yeah… That guy doesn’t exist anymore. He hasn’t in a long while now. The best I can remember maybe as far back as 2013 when my health first started giving me real problems. At that point; me disconnecting from “that life” had begun. By 2016 and 2017 I was too busy to worry about all that, including my health. I had another really bad issue and life shifted again.

The point I am trying to make here is that if you think you know me. You don’t. Things have changed. If you haven’t been around in the last 18 months or so and we do not talk at all you do not know me very well. Some loose associations, sure. I am very disconnected when compared to the last time we hung out as friends. I am saying this not to be mean or an asshole or anything. It is just true. I cannot entertain people and pretend I am good to go when I am not. I am not even sure if I would be able to bring you into the fold either. Sure, I will believe I can, but I honestly do not know.

I do not know what I can take before I start to have issues and just shutdown. When I feel overwhelmed I shutdown. I do not respond to people or anything. I just leave, go back to my hole, do something I enjoy and start the process again in the morning. I cannot apologize for this and I won’t.

It kind of feels like being a new person of sorts. I like my small circle. I do not require being the center of that circle. For a long time I did. I wanted to be number 1 and in multiple circles. I pulled it off at some moments in life. However, that wasn’t me and it actually has some responsibility of “how I got here right now.”

In some respect this is exactly what my soul needed. The issue is now L.I.V.N. Livin’… I need just a few things to go right and I can handle the rest. I wrote this more for me than I did for you all. As I already know, few will read this. Obviously, if you are reading this, it isn’t from Facebook. The link, sure, but these words are not on that Fuckin’ Thing…

Below are links to the other blogs directly associated to this topic. Might be interesting. There are more details as to the specifics, as I saw them, during the time of writing. These are my feelings about it all now, exactly one year to the day and the actual time I made that call. As I wrap this up that hour just approached.

 Day of the Dead David-Angelo Mineo 7/11/2021 1,525 Words Blog 1 Blog 2

[tumblunni]

Been starting to play some pokemon go again, and i think i’m enjoying it more after my bad first impression and stuff.

I still can’t actually USE it tho, since i only have wifi connection and no data plan on my phone. But I’ve surprisingly been able to acquire like fifty mons just by leaving it on in the background and tapping whenever some mon happens to walk into the vicinity of my house. And I guess my area got some pretty decent local mons? Whismurs and Gulpins and Arons, weird combination. And there’s LOADS of gyms around this area for some reason, like I’m fuckin buried in gyms and they’re all pretty damn active? There seems to be only like five pokemon go players in all of st mellons but they’re all fuckin hardcore and it would be a cool goal to aim towards to someday defeat any of them. There’s shiny drgaonite and charizard taking over our local library! And a zapdos raid spot at the local anglican church, oddly enough. I hope I can get a better data plan so i can actually go out and experience that! Oh, and a weird situation where the minor auto correcting on gps signal while i stand still in my house will SOMETIMES push me a few meters more south and i can ping the nearest pokestop if i’m sitting in a certain spot in my computer room. But it’s like once an hour that it happens. Still, so far I’ve already stacked up a bunch of eggs and berries and stuff that i can’t really use yet but damn i’m excited for when i can!! And apparantly there’s an actual 2 mile trail of pokestops every 100 metres cos some sort of kids art project was deemed important enough to be registered on this database. srsly its just the tiny fossil pattern educational things along the route to a school and its become like 12 whole pokestops incredibly close to each other. I lucked out! Well, I lucked out if i can find how to get to that school road, lol, i haven’t ever travelled down that side of the county. Oh huh a 48000 hp ho-oh just raid dropped at the local job centre. Sucks that we definately don’t have enough people around here to ever complete any raids if that’s the difficulty level! I mean they dissappear in an hour so you couldnt even whittle it down with the amount of people passing thru in a week. They really should rebalance raids for low population areas, yo...

Oh and apparantly the pokeball plus watch add on thing can actually help with my inability to use touchscreen?? when a mon appears u can just hit the button on it to try and catch regular game style with no motion controls. apparantly the odds are super low but man im dropping ten balls per battle so it can’t be lower than my actual skills. And u can also grab stuff from pokestops with one button instead of a touchscreen minigame, and u dont have to rotate the camera around and click on a thing to actually start the whole thing. seriously im legit having trouble even clicking on stops and gyms and mons on this damn toucscreen, i have THE WORST HANDS

but anyway i have an oversized mime that i adore, and also found Literally My Actual MVP From Sinnoh At My Own House, WTF. Roselia is the rare pokemon for our area and i got a really high cp one on my first try that was even the same gender as the one i had in the main series! Shame you can’t evolve roselia yet. I guess I will have to stick with cherishing Momime and also my 700cp ridiculously unbalanced event alolan exeggutor. Gotta stock up on those while i have the chance!!!

OOO A SURSKIT YAY i dunno why but the server is registering our area as rainy weather despite the clear skies. Can’t complain, cos it means higher odds of cute buggos! Why bugs get boost in rain tho? Its only snails that get attracted by puddles and sadly drown themselves :( poor snails, why are you the most harmless and maligned critters of the smolworld :( there needs to be more snell pokems

ok bunni returns to the pokems now, farewell

[a-panda-reads-act-omega]

ACT OMEGA PART 7

THE 19/10/16 UPDATE

Alright hi people. Gotta fun story for you! I’m sick. So yeah, the end. I’m huddled up in my room, experiencing an uncomfortable amount of stomach pain, and I. thought “hey! why dont i just do a liveblog?” and now im here. prepare youreselves, we’ve got a whole 4 pages today! lets just get started.

Oh right, we left off with these fellas. Jasprose looks more than happy to bother this guy, and Erisol looks like he wants to jump off a cliff but cant because he floats.

ERISOLSPRITE: fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

Jesus, not to good at socializing are we Erisol?

JASPROSESPRITE^2: Hey you! ERISOLSPRITE: nope nope nope nope nope.

Ok yep, he wants no part of this. I fuckin love Erisol. I mean. The fusion, not the ship. 

JASPROSESPRITE^2: HEY!! ERISOLSPRITE: leavve me alone JASPROSESPRITE^2: Stop that. ERISOLSPRITE: fuck thii2 fuck that fuck evverythiing. ERISOLSPRITE: and fuck you e2peciially.

Ok guys I’m relating to Erisol on an uncomfortable level. Also this conversation so far is golden. 10/10.

JASPROSESPRITE^2: I said stop it! ERISOLSPRITE: iill do wwhatever the fuck ii wwant. ERISOLSPRITE: wwho the hell evven are you anywway? JASPROSESPRITE^2: That’s my line! JASPROSESPRITE^2: Do you have any idea how baffling it is to have some random drifter appear now of all times? You’re a complete stranger! 

Its just about as baffling as everything else that happens in this fucked up story. PLUS, Jasprose, you were going around looking for fun. dont you be sassy with the depressed asshole for it.

JASPROSESPRITE^2: I mean, it's a welcome surprise and all, but I'm still perplexed!

Man I wish Jasprose did cat puns now.

JASPROSESPRITE^2: Here I thought we were finally done with all the pointless bullshit. 

We’re never done Jasprose. It’ll always just keep coming. BUT I GOTTA DISAGREE WITH YOUR CLAIM THAT ERISOL IS POINTLESS BULLSHIT. ERISOL IS THE TRUE FUCCKIN HERO OF HOMESTUCK FOR BEING THE ONLY ONE TO POINT OUT HOW FUCKED UP IT ALL IS.

God I hate that I relate to Erisol.

ERISOLSPRITE: actually forget ii evven a2ked. ERISOLSPRITE: ii ju2t met you and ii already hate evverythiin about you.

Gasp! Could this be black love at first sight?

ERISOLSPRITE: and not the 2leazy kiind eiither. iim talkiing about the mo2t platoniic of loathiin my pump bi2cuit could po22iibly mu2ter.

Oh.

JASPROSESPRITE^2: Well, if you aren’t going to tell me your name I’m just going to call you whatever I want. ERISOLSPRITE: or... ERISOLSPRITE: you could go awway. 

Oh my god I feel bad for him. He just wants to be alone to wallow in his own self-hatred/pity. Which is weird, because normally I would hate somebody who wallows in his own self-hatred/pity.

JASPROSESPRITE^2: So tell me about yourself, sad sack! JASPROSESPRITE^2: How’s sprite life been treating you? ERISOLSPRITE: ugh.

Ugh indeed. Does anybody enjoy being a sprite? I mean, its great to be alive again (unless youre erisol), but other than that you just become kinda irrelevant. Gotta be kinda jarring to see life go on without you.

JASPROSESPRITE^2: I mean, two dull troll dopes in one? What a waste of a perfectly good kernel. JASPROSESPRITE^2: Where did yours even come from? There are precisely ZERO empty kernels remaining in this session. I would know! JASPROSESPRITE^2: The only logical conclusion to draw here is that timeline shenanigans are somehow involved.

Jasprose, thats the only logical conclusion anybody can ever draw. I’m guessing though, that Erisol was just on LOWAS during all that retcon bullshit? I think. None of this makes sense anyways though.

ERISOLSPRITE: wwho knoww2? maybe 2kaiia ju2t got bored. ERISOLSPRITE: but 2ure, wwhatevver. let2 go wwiith that. 2ound2 2en2iible enough. JASPROSESPRITE^2: I knew it! I love being right. ERISOLSPRITE: holy 2hiit, are you obnoxiiou2. 

I know, Jasprose is the best kinda obnoxious. It’s like this perfect blend between playful and snarky. 

ERISOLSPRITE: ii diidnt thiink iid evver fiind 2omeone ii hate more than my2elf but youvve done iit. ERISOLSPRITE: ... diid ii ju2t 2ay that out loud. de2perate much??

Of course you are, you’ve always been desperate. Also, auto correct is hating these quirks.

ERISOLSPRITE: the fact that ii evven entertaiined that thought and contiinue twwo talk twwo you iin2tead of nopiing the fuck out of here remiind2 me of ju2t howw depravved ii really am, and that the only thiing keepiin me from obliiteratiin my2elf ii2 howw much of a deranged kiick ii get out of my owwn 2ufferiing.

HNN youre so perfectly pathetic I love it.

JASPROSESPRITE^2: Wow, are you a trainwreck or what?

No kidding Jasprose. Like, theres nothing this guy can do to ever be happy.

JASPROSESPRITE^2: You know, I think I might actually hang around a tad longer. I happen to find trainwrecks and other horrific disasters morbidly fascinating. ERISOLSPRITE: evvery moment ii spend wwiith you iis hell.

I can sum up this whole conversation so easily.

Jasprose: haha youre patheticness is fucking priceless Erisol: kill me

JASPROSESPRITE^2: Then why not leave? I’m hardly chaining you to the spot here, green cheeks. ERISOLSPRITE: ... ERISOLSPRITE: twwoo much effort. JASPROSESPRITE^2: See? Riveting.

He’s already explained this though! he literally just wants to see himself suffer.

Nice panel. thats all I have to say on the matter.

JASPROSESPRITE^2: So now that we’ve established you’ll keep up our conversation purely out of apathy and an acute, masochistic sense of self-loathing...

Yes, yes exactly.

JASPROSESPRITE^2: (Also apparently some form of conflicted caliginous attraction to me. Aint that a doozy?)

HIUDNSA <3 FUcking love you Jasprose.

JASPROSESPRITE^2: How did you end up here? WHY did you end up here? ERISOLSPRITE: ii a2k my2elf that evvery 2iingle day. JASPROSESPRITE^2: Yes, yes, you hate yourself. I get it. Can we please move on? I need details! ERISOLSPRITE: fiine wwhatevver.

Oh wow, is he chilling on the self-hatred thing? who would’ve thought.

ERISOLSPRITE: ii followwed an orange biird guy twwo thiis planet that came from fuckiing nowwhere. ERISOLSPRITE: but then he kept tryiing twwo mumble hii2 2tandup routiine2 at me 2o ii fucked off.

Yep, that sounds about right for Davesprite.

ERISOLSPRITE: ii wwandered around debatiin the pro2 and con2 of fiinally 2elf-de2tructiing untiil 2ome 2ort of wwiindy 2hiit 2tarted happeniing.

Oh cool, John’s big quest thingy. Also, that’s kinda morbid... Like, I get this is part of his self-hating schtick, but he was literally contemplating suicide.

damn.

ERISOLSPRITE: iit managed twwo dii2tract me from gnawwiing exii2tentiialiism for a miinute there untiil ii stopped giivviing a 2hit and movved on. ERISOLSPRITE: then an iindi2crimiinate periiod of tiime pa22ed and 2uddenly you 2howwed up. ERISOLSPRITE: 2tiill deliiberatiin on that explodiing thiing by the wway.

DONT you fucking dare blow up you green asshole.

JASPROSESPRITE^2: Prrr prrr, I see! So both you and Davesprite came the same way I did. JASPROSESPRITE^2: How intriguing. JASPROSESPRITE^2: But enough about how; let's move on to why. JASPROSESPRITE^2: So, Señor Fishface, what are your plans? Any unfinished business you might want to attend to? In need of a GUIDE, purrhaps? ;3

Jasprose, I think the last thing he wants is for you to guide him.

ERISOLSPRITE: meh. ERISOLSPRITE: not really. JASPROSESPRITE^2: That’s hardly an answer! Aren’t you curious about the cosmic significance of your continued existence? ERISOLSPRITE: fuck no. ERISOLSPRITE: iin fact that ii2 pretty much the thiing ii am the lea2t iintere2ted iin. JASPROSESPRITE^2: Well that’s just boring. ERISOLSPRITE: doe2 that mean youll leavve? JASPROSESPRITE^2: Let me think about that... JASPROSESPRITE^2: Nope! 

This poor fucking guy, Like, he needs to ollie outie outta  here quick, because his submissive self-hatred is almost making me feel bad for enjoying this conversation.

ERISOLSPRITE: fiigure2. ERISOLSPRITE: wwhat2 evven the poiint? ERISOLSPRITE: lookiing at 2kaiia ii can 2ee another uniivver2e frog ha2 2howwn up and relea2ed iit2 vva2t croak thiing. ERISOLSPRITE: wwhich mean2 the game i2 ovver and the player2 are probably reciievviin the ultiimate rewward a2 wwe 2peak. ERISOLSPRITE: 2o there ii2 liiterally nothiing left twwo do be2iide2 wwaiit around for an opportuniity twwo croak a2 wwell. JASPROSESPRITE^2: Now hold on a second! JASPROSESPRITE^2: I’m not so sure about that, actually. ERISOLSPRITE: wwhat noww?

Hm.. Im not sure if enlightenment is the first thing or the last thing this guy needs. Honestly I think he just needs a break.

pffFHAHA, JASPROSE WITH THE SINGLE PAP AND STARE INTO HIS SOUL

And he just

wants to die.

JASPROSESPRITE^2: Well, while I was ignoring your dismal yakking, I think I’ve figured it out!

Goddammit Jasprose.

ERISOLSPRITE: (wwhat are you doiing.) JASPROSESPRITE^2: I am almost certain now that you appearing wasn't pointless after all! ERISOLSPRITE: (...)

She’s gonna say something that’ll make him feel more shitty, isn’t she.

JASPROSESPRITE^2: Of course, I thought so at first. But then again, I bet Rose also thought that of me when I initially sprang into being only a few hours ago. And I turned out to be fairly important for the final climactic battle, didn’t I? ERISOLSPRITE: (*2iigh*) JASPROSESPRITE^2: I also thought Davepeta was fairly pointless but I agree with them now, that is definitely not the case. In fact their destiny has the potential to be quite grand!

Where are you going with all this? Come on Jasprose, don’t say something stupid to him. 

ERISOLSPRITE: are you goiing twwo get twwo the poiint anytiime 2oon. JASPROSESPRITE^2: Don’t interrupt!! ERISOLSPRITE: (wwhy me.)

I dont know man, they just dont see how great you are. 

JASPROSESPRITE^2: As I was saying. Let me dumb things down for you: Even though it may not be immediately evident how you’re meant to slot into place amongst the great puzzle of causality, that doesn’t mean a purpose isn’t waiting somewhere in the brush to pounce upon your puke green sprite tail! JASPROSESPRITE^2: And I definitely want to be here when that happens.

Is it just me, or is Jasprose giving off Vriska vibes? I’m not sure what she means by she wants to be there when it happens, but it’s feeling like she could start getting all controlling over his “destiny.”

OOH HI KIDS! I’m hoping we get to see some interaction soon. It looks like John’s hanging out at the door, so probably not from him. BUT these other pairs might be interesting to see.

Dirk/Jake: Yeah this one was pretty obvious, I’m not sure with all the. timeline shenanigans, but I’m guessing they’ll need to work out some relationship issues.

DAD/Calliope/Jane: Not much to say on this pairing, other than it might be interesting if we get to see DAD talk? He probably wont though, let’s be honest.

Dave/Karkat: Ohh yis, the gay ship that nobody can agree on. WELL I CAN AGREE WITH MYSELF, and what myself thinks is that they are fucking precious together.

Jade/RoSE OH FUCK: OK DONT MIND ME JUST SHIPPING. Ahem. So THIS is a pairing we haven’t seen a lot of, despite them both being from the same session. WHICH IS INTERESTING, because they have a really neat dynamic. AND ALSO I FUCKING SHIP THEM

Kanaya/Roxy: This should be interesting as well! Again, I’m trying to wrap my head around timeline shenanigans, so who knows how much Kanaya knows about Roxy. But Roxy did the matriorb thing! And I feel like Kanaya is seriously gonna admire Roxy, which is likely going to be adorable.

Terezi/Endless Void: Seems like they’re enjoying a nice staring contest. Even though she’s blind-

ALRIGHT THATS ENOUGH OF THAT! We got a dialoglog to open

JASPROSESPRITE^2: We’re simply going to have to wait and see. :3 ERISOLSPRITE: yeah 2ure wwhatevver.

Waiting and seeing. Oh, I guess that’s not as controlling then. Though it is kinda unlike Rose to stand by and let the game do it’s thing. . .

HMMMmm.. . .

alright that’s the end of thaat. For only 4 pages, I think I made that reasonably long. Anyways, I’m gonna end this now. BYE.