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iwrestlenow · 3 years

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Many More To Die, Chapter 5

TITLE: Many More To Die (Chapter 5)

FANDOM: Sanders Sides (Necromancer AU)

SUMMARY:

Lord Janus is a man with a past--and a drake with a treasure to protect.

Meanwhile, Logan fades in and out of consciousness while the king and his compatriots sort some things out--including the mysterious cadet's true identity.

Something is happening in Logan's mind, magic that he can't understand at his fingertips...and the palace dungeon master is hell bent on stopping it at all costs.

SHIPS: Logince (Logan/Roman), Moceit (Patton/Janus) and future Dukexiety (Remus/Virgil)

WARNINGS: more blatant violence against children, but nothing graphic. Also, I rewrote this bastard SIX TIMES and I’m still not happy with it, but it’s a long, meaty chapter.

Also, no betas, we die like men.

NOTES: This is based on the gorgeous piece of art by @gretacticdraws that can be found here. I ended up writing a ficlet for it, and then my brain got swallowed up. Breathe at me wrong, and I’ll write more…hell, who am I kidding? I’ll write more anyway because this? Is self indulgent drivel. XD

Also located at AO3 over here.

1025, A.A.

“...are you an angel?”

Janus turned sharply at the sound of the tiny, awestruck little voice. He finally pinned it to a dungeon cell across from the shadowy corner where he'd just sold his father's favorite pocket watch in exchange for information on Corporal Mori—a guard that had a nasty habit of roughing up some of the younger prisoners of the palace dungeons.

Janus was a liar, a cheat, and a thief—but he had no stomach for bastards like that. And anyway, he was well aware the corporal was responsible for wrenching Logan Berry's shoulder out of the socket. Janus liked Logan—he was far too straight laced to be anything but forthright and fair in his dealings.

It was the main reason Janus let him get away with the lies he did tell. If Logan believed you were dealing with him in the same fashion, he'd sell out his own mother. Janus respected that, and he looked after the few people he respected.

Hence digging up blackmail on the corporal—until the boy in the cell piped up with something so ridiculous it actually made Janus laugh.

“Angels don't have scales, kid.” he sneered, pocketing the letters he'd been given before he ambled closer to the cell. The kid couldn't have been more than twelve, with a mop of dark curls and lapis blue eyes that were currently so wide with fascination they looked fit to pop out of his head.

“Have you ever seen one?” the boy asked.

Janus hesitated, then found himself laughing again. “You got me there.”

The boy beamed—absolutely beamed, smile full of all kinds of sickening things like sunshine and rainbows. Ridiculous...yet it tugged at something in Janus's chest.

“Then you don't know.” the boy continued. “You've gotta have the prettiest face I've ever seen.”

Stepping right up to the door of his cell, Janus bared his teeth, his too sharp top and bottom canines on full display.

“There's nothing pretty about me. You'd do well to remember that.” he warned, all cold venom and as much menace as he could muster to shake the weird, squirmy feeling behind his breastbone that was only growing stronger the longer this kid looked at him like...like that.

“Is that why you're tryin' to prove Corproral Mori is havin' an affair with the captain of the guard's wife?”

Janus froze, suddenly vaguely uncomfortable with the fact that he might have to kill a child.

“You heard that?” he asked as lightly as he could manage.

The boy lowered his gaze, finally showing signs of fear—shoulders hunching, breath quickening. Good.

Then he wrapped one hand around his opposite wrist, wringing lightly at it and retreating a little further into himself.

“Yeah.” he admitted softly. “I...I hate it, I hate that I'm like this, but...I hope you do prove it.”

Janus didn't need much more to connect the dots, knowing what he did about the corporal.

“Did he hurt you?”

The boy looked up sharply, eyes too wide—only this time, not with awe. He remained silent, but Janus didn't need more than that look to know, or to see red with a swell of rage that took him by surprise.

“What's your name, kid?” he asked quietly.

“Patton.” the boy replied, looking even more scared as he lowered his head again. “I...don't have a Name.”

Another child necromancer. Of course he was afraid of admitting that—Janus knew what he was expecting. Fear, hatred, revulsion.

The fact that this kid didn't get that Janus understood that...

“Show me your wrist.” he instructed. “The one he broke.”

Patton looked up again, eyes still wide—this time with confusion, did this kid have any other setting besides doe-eyed cherub?--but did as he was told.

Making a fist, Janus took a breath and called on what little magic he had. When he felt the heat bleeding into his fingers, saw the ripple of heat in the air and the coal red shimmer of energy, he extended his fist and opened his fingers. The energy fled his grip and laid over Patton's arm, glowing bright before going swiftly dark again.

“It shouldn't bother you again.” he explained when Patton withdrew his arm back into his cell and ran his fingers over it in fascination.

Looking back up at Janus, his smile was softer this time, his expression so intense and...adoring that he couldn't breathe under the weight of it.

“I'm Janus.” he said, by way of responding to that...expression before he turned around and fled the scene like a coward.

********

Two Weeks Later

“...Hart.”

“That...works surprisingly well. You'll get your books. I always pay my debts.”

“Past performance indicates this is an accurate assessment. Hence my request.”

“Oh...go back to bed.”

“Gladly.”

Janus stepped back into the shadows as Logan turned and promptly settled back down on his pallet to sleep. Much as he respected him, sometimes he simply could not stand the elitist little shit. He was still waiting for some parting jab over his shoulder for Janus's obvious display of weakness...but the longer he waited, the less he worried.

He stayed long enough to watch Logan drift off again, remaining in the shadows beyond his line of sight. He stayed, forced himself to stay, so that he didn't make an ass of himself or tip his hand to anyone that might be watching—if living in the palace had taught him nothing else, it had taught him to assume that he was never alone.

Once Logan started to snore, Janus finally let himself take off, flying through the dungeon halls that were his home—literally, as he hit the home stretch, taking advantage of his dragon heritage to propel himself forward with just a little more force and speed, letting him eat up stretches of corridor in half the time of a full blooded human.

He stopped just short of the cell he was looking for—the same one he'd visited nearly every single day since he'd met the angelic little necromancer that had managed to ignite every single protective instinct Janus had ever denied having. He hated it, hated to admit that he identified with any part of his dragon heritage, but Patton was, without question, a bright and golden thing amidst all the darkness that lived below the royal palace.

Janus had found him. Now, he belonged to Janus—and no dragon worth their weight could resist the overwhelming primal urge to jealously protect and hoard their treasure.

“Patton!”

The cot, a recent addition Janus had seen to obtaining for him, jolted with the force of a lump bolting upright, revealing a sleepy, tousled Patton blinking into the dim light of the hall.

“Janny? That you?” He hissed into the dark.

Rolling his eyes, Janus finally revealed himself, stepping right up to the cell bars. “No, it's the Animator.”

“I told you not to joke about that!” Patton admonished, flinging himself out of bed and stomping up to the bars with a scowl. “I'm twelve, I can't hear that stuff!”

“You've never quite explained that.”

Patton blinked, then scrubbed his hands over his face to banish the sleep before raking them back through his curls.

“'Cause...I can't.” he admitted. “It's...it's hard to explain? The Cleansing took my Name, but there's all kinds of little crumbs that sometimes roll through my head.”

Janus made a face at the mention of the Cleansing—the ritual used to strip a necromancer of their Name. It was horrific, painful, and it always made Janus a little bit sick.

He'd seen one take place in his life. It was one time too many.

“And that's one of those...what you said?” Janus asked.

Patton nodded so enthusiastically his curls bounced, tousling and forcing him to run his fingers through them again to sweep them from his eyes. “It's...there's something important about being twelve among the Necromata—and something bad about bad-talking the Animator. I think they might be connected, but I could be wrong.”

Janus felt his chest squeeze painfully as Patton spoke, free as a bird—like this information couldn't be used against him, like he had no idea.

“You shouldn't talk to me about that stuff.” he reminded him. “My father's the captain of the guard.”

Patton just rolled his eyes with a grin. “You won't tell him, I know that—that's why I tell you stuff! It helps you, and I know you won't use it to hurt me.”

“No, you don't.”

“Uh huh! You're way nicer than you think you are, Mister Dragon.”

“I'm a drake.”

“You're pretty.”

Patton did this every time. Every single time, and Janus...he was not capable of blushing. He did not blush, he would not blush.

“I know it's late, but I have something for you.” he blurted instead of responding, or blushing, watching as Patton's eyes widened, his smile growing impossibly brighter.

“No foolin'? What is it?”

Janus took a deep breath, warring with himself. He'd believed the stories for a long time—the evil of necromancers, that they had no souls, no morals, power hungry and constantly thirsting for fresh blood...

Then he met one. Then he was disfigured...then he met Logan, and now he had this fucking urchin that had latched onto him with perfect faith and trust, and he was so fucked up over it that he was willing to empower him. At least, if he was right and this worked.

Patton just waited. Janus lost his hesitation.

“Heart.”

The boy blinked, brow furrowing curiously.

“Heart?”

Janus nodded. “Patton Heart. They took your Name...I thought you might feel better with a new one. Something to be called, at least.”

The little pout his mouth formed had Janus's heart sinking. It was a stupid idea, he didn't like it, and it damn sure wouldn't work--

Patton's breath hitched, and Janus's attention narrowed to the boy.

His dark blue eyes were shiny with unshed tears...but he was grinning. So bright, so painfully bright that Janus had to bite the inside of his cheek to resist the urge to rip the cell door off its hinges, grab the little bastard, and hide him somewhere deeper and darker where no one else could touch him or even look at him. His treasure, his gold...

Suddenly, Patton stuck his hand out through the bars.

“Pleased to meetcha, Mister Dragon...I'm Patton Heart.”

Cursing under his breath in annoyance—not with a smile, he was not smiling—Janus reached out to shake his hand.

“Likewise—Patton?”

Patton was staring at their hands, features ashen. He was clutching Janus's hand hard enough to bruise—and he was absolutely trembling.

“Patton?...Patton, what happened? What's the matter?”

Was it his wrist? It should have been fine—if Mori came after him again...

“Janus, I...I can feel your hand.”

******** 1033, A.A.

Janus was not okay—and for the first time in his life, it was a good thing.

The north wing of the palace was reserved for ambassadors and other dignitaries—a good choice to keep prisoners, as it was well guarded and the guest suites arranged with a lack of accessible windows or too many entrances to reduce the access for assassins and spies. It was also lavish, with a spacious garden area that had high walls and sprawling lawns.

Watching Patton as Janus led him into the suite he'd selected among those available for the two prisoners to share, something restless and angry that had lingered in his gut for the last eight years finally began to relax, at least a little. Here, in the north wing, cut off from other prisoners, from cruel guards and the dungeon master, now Colonel Mori...

His treasure was finally shuttered away, locked up and safe. The dragon that took up entirely too much space in his skin was settling, knowing that his hoard was safe.

Leaning against the doorway, Janus glanced over his shoulder and dismissed the guard that had been dispatched there, content to watch over Patton himself for a short while before he would have to return to the king's side.

Patton shuffled deeper and deeper into the suite's main living area, as if frightened his steps would be too loud or possibly shatter something. His eyes were wide as ever, taking everything in—occasionally blinking hard and fast when the bright light he was no longer used to made them sting or water.

The part of Janus that had secretly grown to look at Patton like the little brother he never had was very satisfied...but the part of him that had been growing stronger over the last couple of years, the one that was haunted by those deep blue eyes and the greedy way he stole the tiniest touches from Janus through the bars of his cell...

The one that had woken up the first time he allowed Patton to touch his face, his scales...that part of him was keenly aware of the fact that they were alone, and that Patton had no fucking clue that Janus had been all but crippled by his pure heart and beautiful eyes.

“Janny?”

Shaking himself out of his thoughts, Janus regarded Patton coolly. “What?”

Patton was in the middle of the room, facing him with a strange look that Janus couldn't parse. He was either distraught or...not...distraught. Whatever it was, the emotion was intense, making his eyes water and his lips quiver, and Janus was caught between bloodlust and the tender, aching thing that tortured him these days with every single second he spent in Patton's presence.

“You remember your promise?”

Janus had to think for a second, but he finally remembered the one promise he'd made to Patton that could apply to this situation.

“...one thing, Janny. Anything in the world you could have, what would it be?”

“Swear to me you won't tell a soul.”

“Pinky promise!”

“...pure blood. Dragon, not human. For the wings.”

“Oooooh, that's a good one!”

“What...nevermind.”

“What about me? That what you were gonna ask?”

“Fine, yes! Happy?”

“Yes—'cause I'd want to get out of this cell so I could give you a big ol' hug.”

“...Seven Hells, Pat...”

“Would you give it to me?”

“No.”

“Second chance?”

“...yes.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“I remember, Pat.”

Patton just stared at him, wrapping his arms around himself—tight enough that he was shaking.

With a sigh, Janus crossed over to him and, with a glance over his shoulder to make sure they were alone, opened his arms.

Patton all but flew into them, pressing his face against the scales running down Janus's throat. Janus held him lightly, carefully—they'd never been able to do much through the bars of Patton's cell, but Patton had an easier time of acclimating to touch with Janus thanks to the fact that he ran cooler than a human or a dragon. Drakes tended to run cold, courtesy of their magic.

“Thanks, Janny.” Patton sighed after a few minutes, relaxing in small measures the longer Janus held him.

Janus made a noncommittal sound, even if he was rubbing Patton's back gently, feeling like he was stealing something by holding him like this. It was perfectly innocent...but it was Patton. Pure, good, secretly conniving Patton, and he was letting Janus hold him like he was something equally good and pure and safe.

It was just more proof that Janus was a terrible person, because he didn't give a shit.

“Happy?” he asked after a moment.

Patton smiled, and Janus had to supress the urge to shiver when he felt Patton's lips curling up against his neck.

“Yes.” he whispered, just before he burst into quiet tears, falling apart for the first time in eight years while he let Janus hold his broken pieces together in comfortable silence.

********

“...sten here, you little brat, you may be waiting for the crown, but I've known you since—”

“I repeat: I know where the guillotine is. We can even slap him after! He won't feel it, but he'll flinch!”

“Remus, please!”

“What? He's basically calling the king a snot nosed child! Am I wrong?”

...voices. Voices, buzzing at the edges of Logan's self awareness, but only just...

“He is a snot-nosed child, and a conduit to boot! You can't trust the gifted—not the useless conduits, not the lying mages or the spineless Sensitives—and you damn sure can't trust a godsdamned necromancer! Now, can we please stop talking about this thing like he's remotely human, finish the damn Cleansing properly this time, and get my prisoner back into his cell?”

“Or, here's an idea—you could...say...shut the fuck up and listen to the king?”

Itchy. Everything itched. Why was he so godsdamned itchy?...

...threads. Everywhere, all over, there were dangling threads. The colors were innumerable, all glowing with varying levels of light. It was a mess...it was a massacre.

Something had been torn away, and all that was left were these threads, some long and frayed, others short and thick. All of them were brushing every part of him—soft, barely there, and absolutely maddening.

“...compulsion to simply stop living. Imagine—imagine the way you feel as you breathe. You don't think about it, it just happens. Now reverse that. To stop, to let go, to fall...that became the natural instinct. My father succumbed to the same insidious magic, I know it.”

“With all due respect, Majesty, it was clearly the necromancer. He's got power he's been hiding, and at the end of the day? That's what they do, they kill.”

“Eh, sounds like bullshit. No necromancer's ever killed anyone before.”

“You're lying. There's thousands of cases, tens of thousands over a thousand years—I've studied it! Graduated the Academy top of my class.”

“So did I—first in my class, actually, and Prince Remus is right.”

“Shut your mouth, Cadet.”

“When the Seven Hells freeze over. Read the military's historical records: they show every combat death, but none of them involved magic. Want proof? It's in the the Tomes, you'll see. Any sorcerer can show you.”

“No offense, toy soldier—I mean, you're cute as the Seven Hells, but you don't strike me as the kind of guy who can speak any of the Ethereal tongues needed to read the magicians' histories.”

“I can't speak them, not really—but I can read them.”

“How?”

“...I'm a Sensitive.”

“Well, Colonel Mori—I guess you just made yourself a new best friend. Besides me, of course...”

“...Remus, get your spitty finger out of the colonel's ear!”

“Eat my thick and juicy co...”

Warm. Logan was warm, a warmth he knew and understood—and being weighed down by something, a steady and evenly distributed weight that was foreign, but not so alien he wasn't familiar with the feel of pressure, from neck to foot.

...threads, more threads, reaching out from the source of heat and heft, tickling at the surface of his consciousness—all so itchy. He had to scratch, couldn't scratch...couldn't escape, couldn't...

Wait. The colors...that one thread, rippling with gray and white, silver and lightning...there was a matching one inside his head...

“...the plan, then?”

“The plan is, we get the necromancer healthy, and have him recall the king to life...Master Picani?”

“Emile, please.”

“--Emile, then—you were in the crowd today, with the rest of the palace mages—what do the people know?”

“The king was seen collapsing. I can tell you that I haven't heard any announcements being made...but the chit chat I picked up on as I was on my way here? Well, word has likely already been leaked from somewhere.”

“Damn it! Then the coronation will have to be arranged...and then voided once my father has been resurrected.”

“You know there is no guarantee it can be done, Majesty.”

“I do...but I have faith...”

...these threads weren't long enough. He knew where they connected to, but there just wasn't enough slack to reach the tattered edges inside his head.

He reached out, leaned out, tried to follow them back to the source—something inside, tucked neatly into the warmth and the weight pressing, cradling, pulling him back into his prison of broken threads and torn scraps...

These threads were attached to something—something whole, not the entire tapestry but a piece of the picture.

“This man is a murderer! He's a demon, a killer--”

“...King Roman? A word?...”

“Of course, Mast—er, Emile. Master Somnum?”

“It's Remy, gurl.”

“Remy—keep an eye on Colonel Mori. Help the cadet subdue him if he does anything stupid.”

“Only if I can get out of prison mage detail. Being the boss is cool? But I hate this asshole.”

“I'll see what I can do.”

“On it, Boss.”

...it was him. There was no question: it was him.

He reached into the source of heat and pulled the fragment out.

“--spineless, useless Sensitives!”

“You wanna see how spineless I am? Take another step, Colonel. I fucking dare you.”

“Oooh, catfight!”

“More like a two hit fight: I'll hit him, he hits the floor.”

“Disrespecting a superior officer? I'll have you court-martialed! Or put into the dungeons...you're too damn close to the Necromata, anyway.”

“We can't use magic, idiot stick, we can only sense or enhance it.”

“So maybe you helped the necromancer kill the king, eh?”

“Oh-kay, Colonel Morose. Back off.”

...this was going to be incredibly difficult. Reconnecting these shorter threads, weaving the ones together in a way that made sense...it was next to impossible....

“...your name, Cadet?”

“Virgil Storm, Majesty.”

“Master Somnum?”

“...he's lying.”

Just a few quick knots on this edge to hold it in place—but it wouldn't stick without...

...there. A shuttle, knotted to the corner of the scrap, carrying a heavy length of glimmering silk.

“...Seven Hells is happening?”

“Oh, well—hello there.”

“Emile? What's happening?”

“It appears that the prisoner is...chanelling.”

“I thought channeling was used to heal?”

“It is—among other things, so don't fucking touch him.”

“Cadet, shut the--”

“Colonel Mori, quiet. Virgil—what's going on? Why can't I touch him?”

“...'cause you're a conduit. You have a ton of magic and no ability to use it, so it's all pent up and shit. Touch him, and you could interfere with what's happening. Your magic, I mean...it can leak out and wreck everything.”

“Is there a spell on this blanket you brought for him?”

“Sort of.”

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing I'm willing to share with an outsider. It's sacred knowledge.”

“Oh, for the love of...”

...the work was fast, he could finish this edge swiftly—the shuttle was liquid lightning, his fingers moving of their own accord...

“..for not even an hour, and there's a jailbreak in progress?!?...”

“I...Lord Janus...how did you even--”

“I joined the assassin's corps when I was eighteen, and I killed the captain when I was nineteen to take his place. I make it a point to know everythng that happens in this castle.”

“Relax, Lord Janus—I have this in hand. Virgil.”

“What?”

“I swear, on the Spider's Thread, that you can trust me.”

“...Majesty?...”

“...Janus, Remy, get Colonel Mori out of the room.”

...it was done. It was...perfect.

It was...

“--get that thing away from him if I--”

“Colonel, stop!”

...oh, shit...

Sudden lightness. Cold, cold, cold.

The shuttle slipped through his fingers.

Pain, searing pain from head to toe.

If he lost it, he couldn't finish, he had to finish or it would slip away.

Sound, fury, crushing weight--

Fingers in his hair. Gentle pressure on his scalp.

A hand in his.

Hold on. Do not let go.

I never have. I never will.

“Loganberry?...”

The shuttle landed in the palm of his hand. He grabbed on tight--

--and opened his eyes.

#sanders sides #logince #moceit #ts logic #ts creativity #ts anxiety #ts deceit #ts dark creativity #fic #logan sanders #patton sanders #janus sanders #remus sanders #roman sanders #virgil sanders #no betas we die like men #this is all the artist's fault i'm just a hapless writer that stumbled across it #i don't even know what i'm saying anymore #my name is liz and i swear to god i will fic again

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cheseyre · 4 years

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good news, sluts! my brain's no longer being completely stupid (only mostly), i've seen the new asides and...have some thought-y thot thoughts:

*deep inhale*

Okay, first things first: this art style is soooo fucking cUTE and I'm a jealous, squealing bitch. Anyone who knows who the artist is, could you link me to them, stat? I think Thomas mentioned them at the beginning of the ep, but nYeh, brain hurt, doesn't wanna do wooork-

Okay, I'll admit, I was a little...apprehensive when I first saw the thumbnail and title. Part of it's just me being a bitter Remus Stan, but also...okay, deep breaths, controversial opinion time, get ready:

I don't ship Prinxiety.

Like, at all.

I can see the appeal, and these dorks were so very, VERY cute in this particular ep, but I was honestly turned off by the ship long ago due to how overwhelmingly popular it is and how some fans characterize these two and treat this relationship as if it's the only valid one, y'know, the works—slight tangent, but that's also why I don't ship Logicality or Remile. I honestly vibe much better with ships like Roceit or Analogical, y'know?

Cutting in for another brief tangent: I'm surprisingly okay with Demus/Dukeceit/Receit/Trashnoodle/Whatever-Their-Ship-Name-Is-Oh-God-Why-Do-They-Have-So-Many-Fucking-Names; maybe it's cause they haven't actually interacted in canon and the fan content gives me such good Gay Disney Villain content, idk man im weird—).

Still, their interactions were both hilarious and sweet and like I said, I see the appeal, it's just not my cup of tea. y'all Prinxiety fans got fucking FED and I'm happy for you nerds. Enjoy ze happy boys!

I guess another factor in my...low-key hesitance when I first saw what the ep was about is that...okay, get ready, another controversial opinion, le gasp: well, I'm not a big Virgil fan. In fact, at times, he swaps places with Patton as my least favorite sides—especially with some of his recent behavior in eps like DWIT (the "prohibit your breathing comment" really triggered me, for example). Sometimes, his attitude, especially around other sides like Roman or Janus, reminds me a little too much of my sister, who I don't have...a very good relationship with. Add to that how the more...intense side of the fandom has a disturbing tendency to turn him into the 'uwu precious woobie emo baby who can do no wrong' while unnecessarily villainizing other CERTAIN sides in the process, and...I think you all see where I'm going with this little rant 😅

However, upon actually watching the ep, he wasn't...that bad? I don't think? I enjoyed watching him be a flustered, disaster-y mess and genuinely excited at the end, his interactions with Roman were nice enough, and him literally pushing Thomas to make a move with Nico despite his obvious panic attack was a nice moment of genuine character development. I like seeing that, that's the good shit right there. And him being all flustered and shit, and smiling so much at the end of the vid was just...well, adorable. This man has no fucking right to be this cute, my god

alsoooo

pURPLE EYESHADOW

PURPLE EYESHADOW HE LOOKS?? SO GOOD?? WTF?? SLAY EMO, SLAAAAAAAY FUCK, DOES THIS MEAN I HAVE TO CHANGE MY HALLOWEEN COSTUME NOW?

alsoooo

hAPPY ROMAN

YESSSSS~ MAH BOI MAH SON MAH DUMB BITCH HIMBO PRINCE MAH EXTRA MESSY CINNAMON ROLL

ITS BEEN SO LONG

AND HIS LITTLE HEART EYES THROUGHOUT THE VID, OH MY GOD-

IMMA JUST IGNORE THAT "ADDING [MISTAKE] TO THE LIST" COMMENT I AM LOOKING AWAY I DO NOT SEE IT LALALALALA

THOMATHY, SIR, YOU HAVE NO RIGHT MAKING THESE TWO GAY IDIOTS SO BAEBY

Okay, but Virgil not realizing that "cyberstalking in real life" is literally just stalking is both a big ass mood and further proof that, yes, Logan is indeed the only one holding the braincell out of this disaster of a lot. God help them all if he ducks out in the next ep.

👀

And Thomas x Trash Can is my new OTP. I dub thee ✨ "Trashmas" ✨

we sTAN TRASHMAS

Wait, does that mean Remus actually WAS in the ep? Cause, y'know, trash man?

hmmm

👀 👀

Okay, okay.

With how much Virgil and Roman were going off about Thomas constantly lying, I was (understandably) a tad bit disappointed my snek son didn't even make a fucking cameo, but y'know what? In hindsight, I'm okay with this it's fineee~

He was just off playing with shadow puppets and stealing money from us desperate, content-starved peasants with his sheer extra-ness and, honestly? Gotta respect the hustle.

Get that precious, precious coin, dapper snake! Wring us poor losers dryyyy!

*evil snek laugh*

Also, this is a breather ep and adding Janus in probably would've caused unnecessary drama with the Roceit breakup and the constant antagonism between Virgil and him. It probably would've distracted from the point of the ep (flirting with social anxiety, exactly what it says in the tin)—much like it wasn't really Virgil or Remus's place to show up during POF. Does that make sense? I think it makes sense. Sorry, brain going brr-

Still, I can't believe the "Fuck Janus Sanders" Club is actually canon now 😂

God, first Patton in a skirt and now this.

Thomas Sanders, you delight in fucking feEDING this gremlin nest of a fanbase, don’t you? You RELISH our screams of joy and pain and suffering, dON’T YOU?

What's next, actual canonical Janus and Remus interaction? Patton saying the fuck word? The Dragon Witch comes back? Janus's bowler hat gains sentience and takes over the world, Doris-style? What do you have planned, Thomas? Joan? WHAT ART THOU PLANNING, I MUST KNOW YOU HEATHENS YOU FIENDS-

And Virgil's little "would it be fair to him" comment, tho.

👀

Like, I get in the context of the ep, he was likely talking about Nico and how it wouldn’t be good for a potential relationship with Tomas to be founded on lies, but still...my anxceit heart aches, man.

Gimme that sweet, sweet angst with a side of mutual regret and possible future reconciliation and maybe something more wink wink nudge nudge on top, pls

...and fries.

Honestly, tho, that entire bathroom monologue was fucking beautiful, man. And relatable, too—i can't tell you how many times I've talked to myself in public restrooms because I just didn't know how to get the words I wanted to say out. It's...kind of embarrassing, tbh

Speaking of embarrassing, uh, crying stall guy.

Just...

Crying Stall Guy

Like, I was expecting someone to come out the bathroom stall after Thomas stopped talking, but...I honestly wasn't expecting that. God, that whole scene was so cringe worthy and fucking hilarious

Honestly, Thomas in the ep in general was a huge ass mOOD and we collective gay/bi disasters ALL related with him, and if you say you don't, you're either lying to yourself or a demon.

There is no in between

sorry I don't make the rules

Like, I get this series is literally a gay disaster talking to himself for thirty minutes or longer, but like- EMPHASIS on the 'disaster' part 😂

Like...Thomas, you're lucky you're such a goddamn bean, because GOD, I cringing so hard when he first started talking to Nico

Although, I too have apologized profusely for genuine mistakes and am a flustered bi mess around my crush sooo

😅

And god, Roman's "thirty = old man" jokes made me feel old...and I literally just turned twenty, like, come on, man!

Maybe that's because I was literally watching this ep after finishing my ACT and had been sitting with a bunch of high schoolers, with their tiny fucking desks and tiny fucking water fountains smeh

*clears throat*

Anyways, uh, we STAN Nico Pintrovert Florés in this house

He gives me such big Carlos from WTNV vibes for some reason and this makes me sooo happy

and YESS, he's a WRITER

And he's??? So sweet?? A pure bean?? Just sits on his laptop at the mall food court all day, like a god-fucking iCON?? A Nightmare Before Christmas fan?? weARS GLASSES??

my hEART

*cries*

The fandom seems torn between "Nicomas" and "Karrot Kings" as a ship name atm—personally speaking, I'm casting my vote for the latter

*crosses fingers* please dont be another janus x remus multiple ship name issue guys, please please please I can't keep track of them all-

*clears throat*

On that note, I'm guess I'm gonna go try and whoo over my crush with carrots now. If THIS disaster can do it and make it actually fucking work, god damnit, so cAN I

Meanwhile, in hell, my brain's just screaming "CANON LOVE INTEREST CANON LOVE INTEREST CANON LOVE INTEREST-"

God, I hope Nico isn't just a one-shot character, he's too pure and Thomas and him are adorable gay Disney fans and I stan

Oh, I wonder how the other sides'll react to him.

Wait.

Oh god.

This ep just unleashed a new fresh hell of potential Nico x Sides ships, hasn't it?

Welp, time to prepare for ze incoming flood of fanfics, I guess. I'll get my umbrella and rain boots.

That last shot of Virgil during the endcard was so fucking ominous oh my god mom im scared can you come pick me up-

Goddammit, Thomas and Joan, I'm NOT fucking ready to be traumatized again, fUCK

I wish I wasn't a broke ass university student so I could contribute to Thomas's gloriously extra Patreon—both so I can support my favorite content creators who make this amazing blessed content and also, to join my boi Janus in fucking destroying society by giving money to the people who actually deserve it, fuck YOU GOVERNMENT-

Okay.

New headcanon time as to why Patton, Remus, and Logan weren't in the ep: they were helping Jan film that Patreon promotional video.

Remus directed it, Logan helped with the lighting and script, and Patton was just there as the cheerleader.

The reason Janus made a dog with shadow puppets wasn't just to flaunt his deity status and prove how he is truly above us mere wretched mortals

despite that being the absolute truth and we all know it, don't lie to yourselves

No, it was really him trying to do something cute and silly for Patton, because Moceit rights, daMMIT

*inhales*

noww

guys, gals, and nonbinary pals

it’s time forr

the most wonderful time of the yearrr

WAITING FOR THE NEXT EPISODE

Step right up, folks! Hear ye, hear ye, my prediction for the next episode: Prinxiety v. Moceit! With special guest stars: Karrot Kings vibing in adorable gay and Intrulogical, bitter at being excluded aGAIN

Who will win? Who will lose?

here’s a hint: we all will because in this sick twisted game they are no winners only losers-

Place your bets, folks! ✨

Haha im not readyyy~

tl;dr

this episode has cleared my skin, watered my crops, and ended my suffering—an adorable calm before the... angsty fucking shitstorm that’s coming far too soon. Prinxiety stans, enjoy your food. Place an 'F' in the chat for me and my fellow grieving Remus stans. Trashmas is the true OTP, but Karrot Kings is cute too I guess. I've only had Nico Florés for 24 minutes, but if anything happens to him, I'll kill everyone in this room and then myself. Purple eyeshadow Virgil makes me question my sexuality aGAIN, and happy gay disney prince rights y'all. Say a big ole 'fuck you' to capitalism by giving your local dapper snake moneys. Concussion makes brain go brr and imma go buy some carrots and be gay now.

psst hey @quarantinevibes2020 you wanna join me in being disaster-y? i’ll bring my best gay stare and you bring the wine

Until next time, my lovelies! ~ Ches 🖤

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rose-tinted-wings · 3 years

Text

2am thoughts.

I show a lot of signs of ASD.

(or would they be symptoms?)

But like... Does that mean I should follow up on this?

I know quizzes aren't diagnostic tools but like, all that I take kinda point in that direction but neurotypical Nancy over there (my husband) takes them and is all a-okay so it kinda checks out.

I don't know. I can't turn my brian off.

I'm cycling through all my precious hyper fixations and kinda going, symptom, symptom, symptom.

And I honestly don't know how to feel about this.

I kinda freaked out a little because my husband moved my toothbrush but I can't control my emotions well when I'm tired.

And it just makes me remember all the times my family would call me "weird" or different.

I'm kind of a chameleon (I don't know if that's a symptom), but like, I try my best not to be weird. I attach to people and emulate their behaviour so I'm not picked on as weird and freaky and yeah sometimes I'd have to go from group to group so I wouldn't show how weird I am.

I can't seem to help it. People don't like me jumping my leg up and down to try and soothe myself. I literally got told to stop it once by a stranger sitting in front of me at a festival because she was trying to take a picture and I was wobbling the floor too much for her to get a steady shot so I've never done it since.

My husband notices when I wiggle my feet when I'm sleepy so now I only do it under the covers which kinda helps because I like the pressure and the tactile feel of the sheets on my feet.

I know I'm weird. I've always been weird. I can basically tell you a breed of dog just by looking at it because I used to study dog breeds after seeing a poster in the vets when we used to take our dog.

I used to be told that I even ate wrong. Hell, I was told that today! Because I seperate my skittles and you have to eat them in order from worst to best (yellow, orange, red, purple then green, unless you're American because American skittles are different flavour and I don't really like those when I went there, sorry). And I like all my food to be separated. If they're on the same plate they should have a good half centimetre between eat item so they don't touch but preferably eat item would be in seperate bowls but that's a lot of washing up to do so I don't ask for that anymore. I used to be told I ate things wrong or upside down or the wrong way round because of I could I would take the filling out my sandwich and eat that last because that's the better bit. But I do TRY not to get upset when my food touches, like, in a restaurant, I don't expect them to seperate my food, it comes how it comes, I'll seperate it myself. I was told to stop being weird, eat the pepperoni ON the pizza. My mum would purposefully move my sweets when they were all in lines which was really distressing but I knew it was just me being weird, again. And I don't like soft food. Like, I can't eat a sandwich that has a salad filling and a tomato was on the bread. It just makes it soggy and disgusting in my mouth. Like if you have too many crackers and then try to have water after but then there's mushy cracker in your mouth. No. Just no. Yoghurt is bad. I grew some in a lab once at different temperatures and I do not want to ingest that.

But yeah. I'm just like... Is this why people think I'm rude? I've literally been called spikey and aloof by people in therapy.

But then my hubby says this could all just be trauma brain trying to put things "right" or "orderly" and just trying to grasp at control from a time where I had none. (I call it trauma brain because I'm not diagnosed with PTSD and even though I stand with self Dx I can't personally agree to something unless it's like, officially on paper and such, another lovely quirk)

I don't know. He says I need sleep, which, yes, I do. But I cannot turn my brain off.

Like I keep thinking about Greek mythology and how I was really into that, and knitting and crochet and the different kinds of fibres you can use, and like, dimaond art, and psychology. And I wanted to be a mortician because I don't wanna be around people because talking is HARD.

And people are always "why didn't you talk to me?" when I have a mental health crisis but I don't know how to do that! How do you pick up a phone and go "hey! Just wanted to drop a line and say I'm suicidal but there's nothing anyone can do about it anyway seeing as it's all wonky brain chemistry so I don't really know why I'm telling you!" yanno? I don't know how to talk. I don't. Like. I've said it to people before. I see you. We've spoken. I see you as Friend but like... Talk? Uh... Weather? Music? Life? Philosophy? Where... Do we start?

I love my brothers, very much but I do not Do Sport and that's all I can think they're into. I am not Sport Person. I am not Ex Military. I am not Parent. How do we do this? Do we HAVE anything in common? Since the pandemic we haven't been able to play D&D and they don't seem interested in picking that back up so like... Where do we start?

I know people don't get to know me. I put people off by being blunt about my past abuse. It makes them uncomfortable. Like, casually dropped in having sex around 13 once and my friend about fell off his chair. Casually mentioned my father nearly killing me once and again he did not know what to say. Hell, again, it happened today. Talking about when I fell off my bike and broke my arm in two places and nearly my knee and my head bounced off the pavement and I could have died off not for my helmet and they thought THAT was dark until I said I also got told off for bleeding on the sofa and instead of calling an ambulance my dumbass father called my mother from work who took an hour to get home who then took me to the hospital. (and now I'm saying it all again to freak more people out. Awesome.) and I didn't even say how I needed a cloth over my knees because they looked so mangled I couldn't stop looking at the wreckage that was my body and the worst part was I walked home on that knee and when my brother found me he said are you okay? And all I could worry about was my stupid bike that I got for Christmas because I knew they would kill me if it got damaged. My self worth was lower than a bike. At 8.

So is this trauma? Is this ASD? I don't know. All I knoe right now is that I'm weird and I freak people out and I don't know when to shut up but I need all this out my head to be asleep.

And no one understands when you just and a word stuck in your head over and over again. And hubby was like, oh like when a line in a song plays in your head over and over and I said yeah but sometimes it's just a word like hypotenuse over and over and over and it won't stop.

Like now. I can't stop typing because this is all my inner monologue and it just won't stop. It won't let me sleep.

When I used to be like this as a kid I used to look out of the window. No matter whose (is that a word? I'm tired) house I was in. And the world would be still, and quiet, and I wanted that. But my brain doesn't like shutting down and right now I can't sleep until the sun comes up because that's when Trauma Brain says, ah, yes, safe now.

And my husband likes the door open to the bedroom even though I've told him it's a fire risk and no we haven't had a fire but my mum was freaked out by fire after she was in hospital next to a burn victim once and now I've got that trauma. Like, I have to have a safety plan on how to get out if there is a fire and even though it's still only a wooden door you'd be surprised by the amount of protection it brings.

And he likes night lights which, yes, can be helpful sometimes but I don't like light in my bedroom at night. So now I wear an eye mask but I hate the pressure on my face but I don't tell him that but now if I don't wear it I can't sleep because I'm used to the pressure even if I hate it!!

This is tiring. I've been typing for like, 40 mins and I just want to cry and sleep and punch his stupid snoring face because he can sleep and I can't and it's not fair. It's like he's rubbing it in my face. Oooo look how well I can sleep, snoring away next to you ZzZzz!! Ugh. I know it's stupid and petty but I'm tired. I've not slept more than five hours a night for nearly two weeks now and I know that's actually quite a bit for when my body decides to be in these moods and it's got to the point that my body is just fighting my sleeping tablets like an evil villain trying to thwart me.

But I need to wake up WITHOUT a migraine tomorrow as hubby had clinic at hospital but thankfully his dad is taking him but I have to pick him up and if I have a full migraine I don't k ow how I'll drive and I'm just. So. Tired.

Maybe this has helped. Maybe I'll put my phone down and just... Sleep.

Wow I've had to correct myself so much because I'm typing weird.

Weor Weor word word weird. That's it. Weird. That's me

Weird.

#Personal #probably delete in the morning #Asd #mentally exhausted

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d0ntw0rrybehappy · 3 years

Text

i’m going insane lol

so i feel like the next step in working hard is to not even perceive the work i’m doing as tiring. (rereading this it’s making me lol.) it seems weird that i find a part time job at a restaurant this exhausting? and like i can’t pretend that i’m not tired, but i have to somehow take better care of myself and set the conditions to not be tired from it.

i’ve been thinking about baudrillard/barthes a lot still -- pleasantly surprised that their theories are interesting to apply to any- and everything. for example, they both go into how every statement can also be read as its opposite or negation. so, to quote baudrillard, saying “i am not afraid of communism” also implies that communism is something you should be afraid of.

i’ve been using this as a kind of paranoid way to gain insight into why people tell me that i am “strong” because i don’t really know what that means. (other things i am told i am often: sweet, intense). it’s like what they’re saying is, there’s some kind of context, a milieu of weak people i’m being compared to. or like they want to reassure me that i am strong, because i actually come across as how i feel: like a particularly lost, unstable, emotional, sensitive, and lonely person.

i can’t with restaurant work anymore. it. SUCKS. i want to fucking get out, i am like a rat scrabbling at the walls of a glass aquarium. all novelty has worn off, all misguided overtures of honest work or “people skills.” and i’m still stuck here, still holding my breath in the deep end until i can find the eject button. i am tired, my body aches. my body aches!!

i want to just grind my way out (here we are with barthes again -- well if you truly wanted to do that you’d just shut the fuck up and do it instead of writing about it), but here i am, eating another round of chocolate (i don’t smoke, i don’t have sex, i truly just eat), constantly fucking hungry. then like a bull mowing into a red flag i realize i have been grinding...in a completely useless direction. it is like my passion for learning about things gets scattered every which way and i just can’t start, every path is equally exciting and awful and the injunction to “choose” is not “clicking” in my “head.” it’s like my mind cracked open at some point in my teenage years (when i started smoking weed, when my child universe was decisively fractured by a friend) and now the crack is snowing fireworks and glitter and i shift in and out of unreality.

reality is almost too painful to bear. nobody’s happy: you can find contentment by accepting your current lot, but “happiness" is really just contrast or relief from pain. it comes in and out. most people are too lazy or small-minded or too busy complaining to feel content, or their lives are just too twiggy, got too long in the wrong direction or are just too fucking hard. i guess i still am happy, and still love life, in a sort of ferocious and bloody and hungry way.

love is bleak, though. i barely even know how to define it anymore. (culture defines a love which we yearn for; we experience “love” insofar as our real love fleetingly resembles this model, only to come up short -- baudrillard). re: love, to use my mom’s favorite school-of-hard-knocks memory device for the laws of thermodynamics -- a subject she took? -- you can’t win, you can’t break even, you can’t get outta the game (and death and taxes). you are going to get royally FUCKED by love just like everybody else, and you are STILL gonna play, you beautiful mortal fool. like the tarot cards lauren dealt me, putting away the three cards she’d used to describe my near future and then flipping through the entire deck, picture side up, without realizing that i was quietly watching it describe my whole entire life -- clinging at the edge of my seat to see some eventual combination that spelled good, strong, lasting love and seeing only struggle, happiness, struggle, pain, struggle, and finally ending, at my death, in a small statue made of gold.

see also, other realities i hate to swallow: nearly all interpersonal problems are insurmountable and better left undealt with, and work basically sucks unless you are very lucky and very smart.

work. let’s go back to that. i used to think my work would be respected off its merit; now i see the merit in literally fucking my way up. i wonder if i should even be an artist at all. artists are kinda like showponies or whores; they’re not actually important. the more honest and wonderful they are, the less important they probably are, like schoolteachers. they have an impact on an individual level. but on a societal level, you have no control as an artist. you just get played by bigger fish. better to find a way to have your hands on the gears; that way you have a shot at making a higher-order change to society. but alas, the (capitalist) system is totally out of everyone’s hands and will keep running as usual no matter what you do, still savage in equal amounts, i think. doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. but at this point i’d give a toe or finger to work for someplace like youtube. at least it’s reached critical mass where i could do something cool and make a difference with emerging media.

that or i pander to whatever blathering brain-melting slop, drivel, they’re putting on tv for kids and adults. or manage to convince a smaller nonprofit that i am “good at talking to people from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds,” whatever the hell that fucking means. or maybe, ugh god, i’ll work for an ad agency? or do digital strategy? and um, i could say some shit about how capitalism is darwinism and money is a form of social control that works so well because it’s out of the hands of any individual person, and i should probably just stick with art and believe in it, and maybe like, apply for grants. but i want a job, a full-time job. i want stability and enough money that i don't feel guilty buying new underwear and i don't want to hustle to keep the tap running month-to-month and i want to spend the majority of my time doing something i find fulfilling. and soon enough i'll get that, and all my dreams will come true: i’m going to get married and become a fat mom taking my kids to piano practice and saying “the meeting went on forever today,” and i’ll have a husband who never cleans the house enough, and then we’ll get divorced and he’ll find someone 20 years younger and i’ll live out the rest of my years semi-happily alone and i don’t know how i will ever have time to make art again. or if i do i just hope it’s not hobby-like, second-rate.

i wish i could have (feel) the bare-faced honesty and love of sha’carri richardson hugging her grandmother after she worked her ass off for a race. instead everything is this weird simulation where i never feel like i love anybody enough or like i’m working hard enough. i can’t speak honestly except when i am writing about myself (strong, sweet, intense, narcissistic) or things i have noticed, as directed to my own imaginary friend. when i try to communicate irl (or, worst of all, “be real”) it’s all so overthought, overwrought, self-conscious. the only person who knows my real private self is the girl winking at me on my black lives matter poster. i hope she doesn’t mind being here in my room. ducky, the stuffed animal brandon gave me, was also supportive but i put him away because it seemed bad to tell future guys that my stuffed animal is “the child of divorce.” and now /you guys/ know me a little bit, because i took the time to pretend you were all my imaginary friend, my dearest pen pal who laughs at all my jokes and gets all my references, and stopped pretending i was anything besides what’s written here.

and i think, like, a lot of people now live in this weird simulation? and are so confused about romantic and familial love to the point where everyone is getting off on family members fucking each other and can’t decide if it’s normal to think kids are hot? but i guess that was always some weird fucked-up demon side of human existence? another thing i’m supposed to accept. (also sorry trigger warning.) and another thing i took for granted as a child, that most people, if not everyone, is weird/gross/evil, but now that my mind is cracked this shocks me all over again and i seek some sort of explanation. it’s like i can’t find a real hunk of closeness anywhere. i’m close to my own family, but in my other relationships we’re either too distant or too close and i’m desperately searching for just some normal friends. and to be able to give a speech where i tell someone i really love them and for it to ring true. but i try to be grateful that i live in driving distance to the beach and there’s air conditioning and once i stop being a stupid baby there’s probably more friends and work and stuff out there for me. and then i’ll have some new problem.

#i would put this as read more but it doesnt work on my blog SORRYYY

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exorciseyourspirit · 4 years

Text

The Art Of Disappearing Problems|| Morgan and Rebecca

Just a small favor, asked from a colleague.

Morgan felt bad for not giving Rebecca more notice about when she wanted to meet. It had been early in the morning, her body waking her up just before the alarm, and Deirdre’s arm was around her and even with what had happened in the that had caught them off-guard, Morgan was still able to feel safe and happy and filled with the brightest warmth even from her banshee’s cold skin. It was all so bewilderingly, dangerously perfect. And in that moment of recognition, dread shivered through her, and she knew that Rebecca was the one to call to keep herself from panicking her way into some unnecessary disaster. And now here she was, picking at the leftovers she’d brought for lunch in her lap. “Sorry about springing this on you, again,” she said, now for the third time since coming in. “I just woke up with this weird...feeling. This, “so happy I need to slingshot my way into awaiting the apocalypse” sort of feeling. What do you do with that? When you’re that happy and vulnerable and safe but also--wham: it can’t last, so better start disaster prepping! Do you seriously still hold on, even when you’re cursed with tragedy and suffering? I know, this is all very lame and personal, but what did you do? When you were so happy you scared yourself, what did you do?”

Rebecca had been having a hard time concentrating lately. Her wound itched, but it was healing. Slowly. Winston had done their best to clean it, after all, and a Wraith scratch wasn’t anything to balk at. Keeping her head up when Morgan had come in was growing increasingly harder, but Rebecca was nothing if not stalwart in her presentation. She was a stone, always strong, for others to rely on. “I already told you,” she said again, pushing her papers aside, “it’s totally fine. I wasn’t busy and I enjoy your company.” In fact, she welcomed the distraction. It was easier to concentrate when someone else was around. She let out a long sigh once Morgan stopped talking, chin in her palm. “Mostly? I just reminded myself that the fear was worth the happiness. That I was better for having let myself have this, want this, no matter how big or bold or...terrifying it was in the end. Those moments of purse bliss were always worth it.” Even if they were gone now. She was strong now because of the memories she had of her and Theo. She could keep fighting for those.

Morgan listened, taking bits of vegetable into her mouth as she went. She couldn’t imagine trading anything she’d had with Deirdre for any reason, even for the most wondrous spell. They were hers, the most precious things she’d ever had. It was worth it to her, and it seemed worth it to Deirdre. She had only become more giving, more affectionate, more hers. She had also become sadder, and Morgan kept retracing her actions to absolve herself again and again. Listening to Rebecca now, she wanted to believe that if Constance’s curse had anything to do with the pressures that bore on her banshee’s shoulders, they would be lifted as soon as she broke the spell. They could be free together. They could stay happy, if she could only break herself out of Constance’s grasp. “You don’t think being cursed makes it different? I know what you said before but--” She sighed. “The woman I asked you all those embarrassing love questions about, she asked me to be with her, and I said yes, and maybe five minutes later we were saying ‘I love you,’ and saying it a lot. And… I just can’t be a reason for her to suffer needlessly. And pulling away while she’s having a hard time counts as that, I don’t want that, but what if staying while it draws more of this, this stupid suffering to me counts too, or counts more? Do you know how many times I’ve almost died in the past month?” She was speaking too fast, her body was getting hot, and worked up. Morgan set her food aside and folded her hands in her lap, embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t even, um, I have other, less ridiculously personal questions that I can get to. And, I haven’t even asked if you’re okay. You don’t have to tell me, but I would like to know that too.”

Rebecca listened carefully to Morgan’s frantic words, her worry almost palpable. When she finished speaking again, Rebecca shifted forward in her chair, giving her an even look, those soft eyes she’d perfected so long ago that could make anyone trust her. “No, I don’t think it’s different because of your curse. It’s not perhaps the same, but my job came with occupational hazards that put me in mortal peril almost constantly. And so did Theo’s. Perhaps that was why it took us so long to finally...admit it. But when we did, we were rather the same.” The memories struck her hard and she took a moment to regather herself, sitting back and clearing her chest of the weight gathering there. “Loving someone means suffering with them. Theo told me that once, when I was being particularly...distant. It’s letting them in, even though you know they might suffer. It makes it easier, too, you know?” she looked over at Morgan, an almost sad look on her face. “No one wants to be the reason another person suffers. But it will never be for nothing, not if they love you.” She picked at her own lunch, still uneaten. The scratch on her back itched, but she ignored it. “I’m...managing. And that’s enough for now.”

Morgan blinked back tears, the feeling of Deirdre’s taut, stressed body in her arms too recent, laid neatly over the memory of her own body shaking with grief over her mother, of Deirdre tucking her close. It didn’t seem right, or fair, that these threads should be essential. They could be just as true without having to hurt, couldn’t they? Morgan took it because it was the price she had to pay, but what about after? It was too much for her to wrap her brain around. “You help each other,” she said, barely above a whisper. “Um, managing. That doesn’t sound too good. Is there uh,” she sniffled and breathed out slowly, “Is there anything I can do? To help?”

Rebecca gave a little smile, shaking her head. “No, no. It’s nothing to worry about. Just haven’t been sleeping too well as of late.” And she knew why and she knew that no one could help her. This mess wasn’t going to get fixed anytime soon and the only way to keep people safe right now was to keep them away. So that’s what she’d do. “What’s next in your crusade? You said you’d found the bones of the woman who had cursed you. What’s the next step?” The ‘and can I help?’ part implied.

Morgan wasn’t altogether satisfied by Rebecca’s explanation, but what could she do if Rebecca wanted to handle things on her own? And didn’t she have enough on her hands? The more time she had to do her research, the better prepared she would be. The sooner she could end all of this. “My curse! Right. Constance Cunningham. Well, I was able to find out how she died. A vision--don’t ask--and from that I’ve been able to get some ideas about what she did. Not enough to not need to summon her, unfortunately, but, she had access to some incredibly old magic.” Morgan reached into her bag and took out a file of copies she’d made from her notes and passed them to Rebecca. “She was young or, I don’t know how much twenty-six counts as young in 1891, but it’s weird to be haunted and cursed by someone I might look at as a kid if she weren’t so evil.” She worked her mouth, brow furrowed, trying to choose her next words carefully. “She hates me. Constance. She really, really hates me. The Bachman family, anyway. Like, sacrificed her life in the spell to make it work, hates me. And I still don’t know why. I guess it doesn’t really matter but--” She looked over at Rebecca. It did. It mattered a lot.

“It does matter, I think,” Rebecca said immediately, taking the files Morgan had handed her and flipping through them. “Summoning a ghost isn’t an easy task. Keeping them contained is of the utmost importance.” She set the papers down and stood, rifling through the books on the shelf behind her desk. This was where she kept her more important books. They somehow felt safer in a space she knew he would rarely access, as opposed to the home they’d ended up in. She pulled out a particularly old one and set it down on the table in front of Morgan. “It’s different than what we did with Nell for Erin. Not as...powerful, but more dangerous. You’ll need this to help you,” slid the book towards her. “It’ll outline everything you’ll need and how to do it.” She didn’t lift her hand off it yet, though, pausing. “You can have it as long as you’re not planning on doing this alone. Are you?”

Morgan took the book and cradled it against her chest, rifling through the pages. Some of these ingredients were not for the casual stop and go at Eye of Newt, or Castillo’s for that matter. “And what if I can’t find out? She was the family cook. She probably didn’t have anything to leave behind. I know her parents died a little over years before she did, but they were just sick. It was natural causes. We can do this anyway, can’t we?” She looked nervously from the book to Rebecca and back again. “I um, I have Nell. Remember her? And she has this cousin who’s a summoner. She’s helped exorcists a couple times, apparently…” But Morgan wasn’t sure if it would be enough. “We’ve spoken. She knows her stuff,” Morgan tried again. “But I was wondering if you would...come too. If you feel like you could. And if you do, I will do just about anything to pay you back. A favor. Many favors. But what I have in that file isn’t enough to reverse work a stop to it, right? So this is the best way in.”

“You can, but the less you know, the more danger there is. Spirits are...their power comes from their anger. You’re already risking a lot by summoning a spirit that’s already moved on-- adding her apparent anger for your family and then also the ignorance of not knowing why she did what she did? It’s a dangerous task, Morgan.” Rebecca’s eyes stayed fixed on Morgan as she flipped through the book. The ingredients needed to summon a ghost weren’t often easy to come by, and she wondered just what lengths Morgan would go to to solve this. She dropped her eyes when Morgan asked her to help. Her back itched again. “I...can supervise, make sure nothing goes wrong. Set up the circle, if you need,” she finally agreed. “Your two summoners should be able to pull their part off without me.”

“Please. And thank you, Rebecca,” Morgan said firmly. “I--I need this. And I need it to go right the first time if at all possible. And not just because of the Rusalka hair and the vampire dust. But asking and taking this much from other people, and taking this risk--even if we table the part where I owe all of you for the rest of my life, it’s a lot. And I get that. So if we can just...stick the landing with this, that would be good. That would be really, really good. And if you’re good to help, even just setting our circle right and standing in the wings for back up, even then, I think we’d be better off.” She looked at the other woman, searching her for a sign of reluctance, a foreshock of the earth falling away, water crashing through the dam. If she wasn’t as ahead of this as she thought, she would know, wouldn’t she? “You can say no,” she said. “If you’re not good. I know--well I know things are hard for you too. And I don’t mean to keep putting all my shit on you, so.”

“No, no,” Rebecca insisted, giving a wave of her hand, “I’ll help, Morgan. I already said I would, and I will. I just…” she paused, giving her a glance, before taking in a breath. “I can help, but I can’t be a part of it. I’m not-- ready for that yet.” It was hard to explain without actually...explaining, but Morgan didn’t need to know the details. That Rebecca could feel him pulling at every ounce of her energy and that it took every bit of her strength to keep him at bay. She didn’t need to know that she was slipping. That soon, Rebecca would be no more again. Shaking her head, she looked over at her. “The book will tell you everything you need, and I’ll just be there to make sure nothing goes wrong. Sound okay?”

“Yes. It’s okay. More than okay.” Morgan warmed and rose out of her seat with relief. She reached out to squeeze Rebecca’s hand across her desk. Everything was falling into place and yet as hard as she squeezed, some pressure still sat over her chest. She could not bring herself to smile, not in a way she thought she should. Perhaps the stakes were becoming clearer, no longer a distant wish, but rising tall and insidious before her. Perhaps a little pain, passed across each other’s gazes was how she knew this was real. And she could do this, with Rebecca’s help. She could win. She didn’t have any other choice.

#chatzy #chatzy: morgan #morgan #//thx for the title ish xoxo #the art of disappearing problems

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tessatechaitea · 4 years

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Kid Eternity #2

This cover says, "Don't look at who wrote it! Just look at how interesting these visuals are! Sucker."

In my review of Kid Eternity #1, I threw out a few theories on why Ann Nocenti's writing is so weird. After reading page one of this issue, I've thrown those theories out again but in a different way. That makes complete sense if you understand English idioms and also understand that everything Ann Nocenti writes is basically pre-trash.

This is page one of Kid Eternity #2 and it will probably get this review banned on Tumblr.

I have a new theory: Ann Nocenti asked what a Vertigo comic book should be and editor Tom Peyer probably joked, "They're mostly tits and profound nonsense." So Ann Nocenti's vagina gobbed in her underwear and she squealed with glee. "That's what I do!" she chortled merrily! I probably shouldn't abuse Ann Nocenti for writing things I don't understand. I have plenty of choices of other people to abuse for it: my elementary school teachers for not calling me out on doing just enough to get by; my junior high school teachers who let me get away with not putting any effort into big year-end projects (In science, we were supposed to make a stone age tool. I rubber glued a carved-to-a-shoddy point stick to another stick (which was worse than my friend Robert who put some pine needles into a split stick, calling the weapon "Ow"); in English, we had one project based on Romeo and Juliet (because all we did that quarter was watch and read various versions of the play) and I refused to do it because the teacher was wasting my time; in Computers, I found Dan Felipe's project, a trivia program, and I just copied it and used it for my own project (changing all the questions and line numbers and other things to make it seem like it wasn't plagiarized but, I mean, come on! In fairness to me, I only did it because the stupid fucking school changed computers halfway through the semester, dropping the TRS-80s for Apples and my project was relying on the Poke images of the TRS-80 to create an animated sequence)); my high school English teacher, Mr. Borror, for reading nearly everything I wrote in front of the class so that I began to think I was the wittiest fucker in Santa Clara High; my college teachers for some reason or another that allows me to not blame my own lack of ability; and probably my parents because if they were any good at their parental jobs, I wouldn't be writing a blog about comic books. In other words, I'm sure Ann Nocenti is a philosophical genius while I'm just a guy who blames everybody else for things I don't understand. Even if I truly felt Ann Nocenti was an underrated genius whose writings I'm incapable of parsing, I would never ask her to explain what she meant by this first page of Kid Eternity #2. I just wouldn't feel comfortable putting her on the spot like that. It's not up to the artist to explain their art to the foolish audience! Only the Christian Messiah bears that responsibility (and, let's face it, he wouldn't have had to explain every fucking parable if he'd been able to convince smarter people of his bullshit). So if it's up to me to interpret this first page gibber gabber, I suppose I should get to business. Or kill myself. I mean, killing myself would be easier and less painful. And I totally would kill myself before reading more Ann Nocenti comic books except I have plans to cut my toenails in a few months. Before I begin trying to understand this hogwash, I'd like to point out that if she'd written it as a sonnet, I wouldn't have a problem with it. I'd read it, think, "Yep, that's a sonnet!", nod my head in sage understanding, and then jerk off to the titties. But this is not a sonnet so it is not allowed to be obtuse simply for obtuseness' sake. So this fucking speech. First off, who is speaking? The serpent trying to fuck the naked lady? Is this the speech the serpent used on Eve to get her to eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil? Although if that's the case, how would talking about Buddha convince Eve of anything? I'll assume the serpent is omniscient (because he may or may not be Satan, depending on what holy men or con artists you believe but certainly isn't Satan if you're simply going by the Book of Genesis. I bet the serpent was God doing one of those Zeus things minus the rape. Zeus loved to trick people so he could get laid; Yahweh tricks people to test their faith). I guess since she had yet to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (come on, God! That name is terrible), she wouldn't know what she doesn't know and can't defend against any nonsense the serpent spews at her. Let's assume the art goes with the speech and it's the serpent speaking. So why is "God in repair" and what the fuck does that mean? And why is it followed by the statement, "Why not call the wisest man a freak?" Does the snake only speak in non sequiturs? Was that a stupid question since I already know the snake's dialogue is being written by Ann Nocenti? It is kind of refreshing to see that her dialogue style never changed in thirty years. The shit the serpent says on this page could be nonsense spewed by Coil from Nocenti's New 52 Katana. You know what? I don't have to continue this because, in the end, it's just a carnival barker's pitch to get people to believe in the freaks in his freak show. He's all, "What's the difference between freaks and religion?!" That's not a riddle I have an answer for. The only religious joke I know is "What do Noah's Ark and The Bible have in common?" That might be a joke that was extant before I came up with it but I did come up with it on my own. And I think the answer is so obvious I would be insulting the intelligence of all four people reading this. Oh, and the snake trying to fuck the lady? It's a tattoo on the Tattooed Lady. The reason the comic begins in a circus freak show? Because Kid Eternity is the newest freak on display! The opening sideshow scene is just one of Kid Eternity's dreams. The demon angel babies get into Kid Eternity's dream and when he wakes up, they've tied his hair to the floor which totally has him trapped for like three panels. That was a close one! Kid Eternity decides he can't truly know what he's doing unless he utterly knows himself. So it's time to get his brain probed.

Let me guess: Carl will blather on about synchronicity and dreams while Freud tries to figure out how big Kid Eternity's penis is.

Carl doesn't initially discuss anything. He's just the straight man for Freud saying all the typical things you'd expect Freud to say: penis this, envy that, fuck your mom, kill your dad, more penises, many more penises, everything is penises. But then he comes on fast and furious with his archetypes and collective unconscious and human mythology stuff, all the biggest Carl Jung hits (aside from synchronicity but I'm sure he'll get around to that later. Ann Nocenti isn't going to miss showing the readers all the knowledge nuggets she mined to make her brain big). If only Nocenti would spend as much time writing the story as she spends making sure the readers know she knows a lot of shit then maybe I would have kept reading this comic book. Meanwhile, Zeus wanders around looking for somebody to trick fuck, Madame Blavatsky hunts down the next best burger before she slips back to the past, Beelzebub and Judas wander through Limbo, Jesus gets drunk and falls off a bar stool, and a phone yells at a woman. That all happens on one page to make sure the reader remembers other things are happening. But why does Ann Nocenti spend two panels of that dense page on Madame Blavatsky when she could have updated the reader on the non-X-File FBI agents who will probably hate fuck each other before the story ends? I also wanted an update on the Buddha Christ Trash Child. But no! Instead Nocenti just moves on to more of her proof that she's read all about Freud and Jung and totally understands the shallow top layer of their theories and philosophies. I don't mean to say I know any more than Ann Nocenti! But I understand how little I know of Freud and everything she's had him say are things everybody knows about Freud from all the dirty jokes about him: ids, supermen, parental relations, and phalli!

Oh, that's why we didn't get an update on the dense update page; Nocenti needed a full page to document the hate/fuck.

My new Ann Nocenti writing theory: Ann Nocenti has never had an original thought. She simply reads things, takes copious notes of bits and quotes she likes, and then shoves them sideways into whatever script she's currently writing. No wait. She does have original thoughts but they're almost not worth having. Like "everything in life is a prison" and then proving it by stating a few things about life that can be cell-like. It's profound in that way that things are profound when you're on acid. If you don't think about it, you can find yourself nodding along going, "Yeah! Yeah! Everything is a prison! Life is a fucking prison!" But if you do stop to think about it, it's like coming down off acid. You start to see how that thought you had about how the number three ties everything else in the universe together because of the way the corners meet didn't wasn't as mind blowing as it was six hours ago. Although the rant you went on about how pressing play on the VCR remote play the show and pressing pause pauses it but then to unpause it you have to hit pause again when you should really hit play was pretty fucking good. Speaking of acid, I'm two-thirds of the way through the acid documentary on Netflix and it's fucking fantastic. I wasn't really thinking a lot about it but I was nodding along going, "Yeah! Yeah! Everything they're saying about acid is absolutely spot on!" throughout. I actually had to take a break because it was making me too happy listening to all Sting and Carrie Fisher tell their acid stories. I don't know why I didn't just spend five paragraphs discussing why the FBI agents were playing Scrabble while they fucked. It's probably just one of Sean Phillips' kinks. Oh, maybe they were just playing Scrabble and not hate-fucking. It's hard to tell because on the next page, Jerry asks Val if they can finally fuck and Val is all, "You're a nerd!" Then she slits his throat. But then in the next panel, his throat isn't slit and he's all, "You feeling better?" And she's all, "Yeah!" So I don't know what the fuck is going on and I don't really care. I've still got like eight pages of this mess to get through and I'd rather just nod along than try to understand it. And then just like last issue, Ann Nocenti sputters out a bit of writing that I totally agree with because I've said basically the same thing before. About how every day, I fall in love with some person I see on the street because of the smallest of things. And then I love them forever.

My story isn't as good but I once fell in love walking through the airport in Minneapolis. I was passing by an attractive woman and she was gazing off somewhere as I looked at her face. She was coming up on my right and then I glanced down at her breasts and back up at her face. And that was the moment she noticed me, as I glanced from her breasts to her face. And, catching me, she smiled and laughed and kept on walking. And I still love her to this day.

And for this page alone, I forgive all of Ann Nocenti's past (future?) transgressions and find myself eager to read Kid Eternity #3. Oh wait. I still have a few pages left in this piece of crap. I read a lot of books in college that I sometimes still say are my favorite books but I should probably just say they stuck with me because I know which books are almost always in my top five and a lot of the ones in college aren't those. But Edith Wharton's Age of Innocence always stuck with me. It's possible that I completely missed the message of the novel but to me, the book was about how true love only exists when it's unrequited. Archer Day-Lewis doesn't love Ellen Pfeifer more than May Ryder for any other reason than that she was the one he didn't marry. It seemed to me that Wharton was trying to portray how hard love is and true, phenomenal love only exists in the imagination. Only a love we can imagine can remain magical. Only when we love an object, or the imaginary person we've placed on a pedestal, can we evade disappointment in the reality and flaws of another actual human being. Being in love with Ellen Pfeifer was easy because she wasn't there for all those years. There were no fights or disappointments or multiple times accidentally walking in on her taking a huge shit. She was pure and beautiful and imaginary. But then again, maybe that wasn't the point of the book at all. I was young and romantic at the time and I still absolutely loved the women I'd had unrequited crushes on in junior high and high school while my college relationship was slowly circling the drain due to personality conflicts. But not due to sex. The sex was fucking great! Anyway, Freud and Jung decide Kid Eternity is in denial and they leave. Hemlock and Dog spread some new reality across the world via a computer virus. Madame Blavatsky starts making time go backwards, probably so she can vomit up all the Twinkies she ate and eat them again with their delicious creamy filling. And the devil and Judas wind up in a bar in Limbo with Jesus to make plans for Kid Eternity. There's probably a lot more going on but there'd be too much for me to process even if it wasn't confused by Nocenti's writing style. No wonder I gave up on this book after three issues. There's no way by the third issue I could remember anything that was going on, if I even understood it the month prior. Kid Eternity #2 Rating: C-. A confusing mess that's about 90% Ann Nocenti just vomiting out things she's read. Even the things that, with the benefit of the doubt, I want to believe sprang from her own philosophical musings, I can't bring myself to absolutely believe it. I feel like every thought and piece of dialogue she's placed in this story just came from piles of notebooks filled with notes she's made while reading other people's works. It's practically a collage of philosophical ideas and moral musings pulled from myriad sources and shoved into a Kid Eternity framework "written" by Ann Nocenti. Which could explain Nocenti's penchant for stilted dialogue. If she were making up all the character's thoughts, the dialogue would flow from one character to the next. But when each character can only respond with some profound thought Nocenti read elsewhere, it comes across like a ransom note, each word cut from the mind of somebody else and pasted as a reply to another bit cut from some other thinker, no relation existing between the two thoughts except the proximity relationship Nocenti has given them.

#Kid Eternity #Vertigo #Ann Nocenti #Sean Phillips

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mx-ishikawa · 5 years

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first self-insert story I’m posting to this blog! starring Dr Two-Brains of Wordgirl fame, because I've been quite fond of him lately... actually, fond is an understatement. XD" so I wrote this little meet-cute fanfic that was intentionally written to be cheesy (get it? haha). I tried to keep it true to the spirit of the show, while also telling it as if it was something that happened just the other day, if that makes sense. there's like, maybe five total swear words in this, so small warning for that. also, considering the context of the show, you might wanna keep watch for the words "encounter" and "infatuated". just saying. ;P

It was just another beautiful day in the city. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and somebody was running out of the next building over screaming, but apparently that last bit was normal around here. I was just making my way over to the grocery store for, well, some groceries. I had really only been in there once before, but it seemed like such a nice little grocery store, reminiscent of the local supermarket I used to work in back home.

I had just recently moved to Fair City a couple weeks ago after getting accepted into the art school there. It was fairly cheap and had a wide range of programs to choose from, so I was thrilled to go there. Being a couple thousand miles away from my old home didn’t bother me in the least bit. Heck, I was glad to get away. But I didn’t realize how crazy this city could get until I moved there. The place was getting constantly pillaged by a wide array of villains, some with weird powers, some with giant robots, and some who were just looking for trouble, and people let a little kid and her monkey handle all of that?? But, Wordgirl is an alien, and a very smart kid with a good head on her shoulders, so she seems like she can handle it. I was lucky enough to briefly encounter her about a week before, and the kid’s got spunk, I’ll tell you that. Not to mention Huggyface is an adorable sidekick. Yes, the city may have been safe in her hands, but little did I know the mess I was about to get myself into…

I entered the store and looked around, trying to remember where everything was. I was probably gonna have to go through every aisle in order to find what I needed, because my memory is TERRIBLE. I pulled out my miniature notebook from my pocket, let’s see, what do I need—oop, that’s not my grocery list, that’s my villain encounter list! I turned the page, nope, that’s a bunch of phone numbers, another page, still not it, that’s school information, another page, oh there it is! Let’s see here… coffee, bread, cheese, soda, chips… I squinted at the last bit of scribbles. Goshdarnit, I can’t even read my own handwriting! What the heck is THAT?? Oh well. I made my way through the maze of aisles, trying to navigate to my needed items. It didn’t take me long for me to find the coffee, thankfully—but I also found a leak in the ceiling! I turned to the man that I recognized as the manager of the store; thankfully he was nearby.

“Uh, excuse me, sir,” I said, waiting until he turned his head to me before continuing, “but, um, it looks like there’s a leak in the ceiling right up there, cuz there’s like, there’s a puddle down here, so uhh…” I trailed off after pointing in the respective directions. The manager immediately perked up.

“Ah! Excellent eye! We could use perceptive people like you around here! You’re hired!”

“I—I wasn’t—" Actually, I could use a job, but this felt too informal; I didn’t even fill out an application! “I was just trying to help y—AAHHH !!”

CRASH!

I cringed as the stack of pickle jars I unwittingly backed into fell to the floor with the nerve-wracking sound of breaking glass.

“Oh my god, I am so sorry!” I immediately panicked.

“Aw, I just put those up!” the manager yelled. “You’re fired!”

“Oh dear…” I shifted my eyes, debating on running away from the mess I caused and never coming back, but my manners got the better of me. “At least let me help you!”

“Well alright then,” the manager said. “I’ll handle the glass, here’s some paper towels.” He handed me a roll of paper towels that he seemingly pulled out of nowhere, and we immediately got to work. He quickly grabbed a bucket for the glass, and I worked on mopping up the pickle juice. Soon enough, I felt someone else’s presence.

“Here, let me help, too,” a familiar, high-pitched voice said. I didn’t quite realize who it was until I happened to look up mid-sentence.

“Aw, that’s alright, you don’t have to—ey, Becky!”

Becky Botsford is a very smart and sweet fifth-grader that I met the other day when her art class took a field trip to my campus. If I may brag, she seemed rather infatuated with the cartoon-style art I was doing, and expressed her envy of her best friend’s art skills. So I introduced her to some artist tips and tricks. I taught her the old lines and shapes technique, which is probably the oldest one in the book, but it really works, and the two of us felt most comfortable around each other during the time her class was there. I could’ve sworn she looked familiar, but she insisted that we had never seen each other before, so that was probably my brain playing tricks on me. How funny of her to show up again; I was just starting to miss the kid.

“Hey Light,” she said, grabbing a paper towel to clean the juice. “How’s everything going?”

“Besides being a clumsy moron who knocks over stacks of pickle jars, life’s been good I suppose.” I chuckled nervously, which earned a giggle from Becky in response.

“Aww, don’t say that, it happens to the best of us,” she said. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve done similar things while trying to stop a crimi—I mean stop Bob from eating all the food.” Her pet monkey, Bob, squeaked in apparent disapproval. I laughed a little at the animal.

“Hey, at least you have an excuse,” I said, “I’m just a klutz.”

“Well, you’re not the only one,” she reassured.

“Thanks for lending a hand, young lady!” the manager praised as he began plucking pickles off the floor.

“Yeah, thanks for helping out, Becky,” I added, scratching the back of my neck.

“Oh, it’s no problem,” she insisted. She then got a little closer, as if she were about to share a secret. “Anything to get away from my mom’s coconut craze,” she mumbled.

I chortled. “Coconut craze?”

“Ugh, coconuts are on sale this week and my mom keeps obsessing over them!” Becky groaned exasperatedly. “She’s infatuated with them! Like, what are we going to do with so many coconuts?!” Bob squeaked again just then, to which Becky said, “You got that right, Bob.”

“I know how you feel, kid. My dad’s the same way with his chili. I swear to god, every time I turned around he’d be making that stupid chili even though he knew darn well my mom and I both don’t like it! He’s especially terrible with it in the wintertime, like jeez.”

“Parents, right?”

“I hear ya.”

We shared a laugh as the last of the mess was cleaned. “Phew, got that out of the way,” I said. “Anyway thanks again for helping me with that. Are you sure we didn’t encounter each other out on the street or something before the other day?” I was sure my brain was just tricking me into thinking Becky was a familiar face, but I pressed it one more time in jest. Becky giggled.

“Nope, I’m sure you never saw me before.”

“Encounter?” the store manager suddenly butted in. “Is that some new type of material I’ve never heard of? I could really use a new kitchen counter.”

“No sir, it doesn’t have anything to do with kitchen counters,” Becky began. “To encounter someone or something means to meet with or bump into them, usually unexpectedly. Like how Light here and I happened to run into each other in the store at the same time. We encountered each other.”

“Yeah!” I agreed. “Or how I’ve encountered several villains since I’ve moved here, so I made a list of all the known villains in the city and put a check mark by each one I’ve met!”

“Wait, you have a list of villains you’ve encountered?” Becky asked. Bob squeaked in confusion.

“Yep I do! So far, I’ve ran into The Butcher, Mr Big, Amazing Rope Guy, Tobey’s robots, a couple of Lady Redundant Woman’s copies, and I met Chuck the Evil Sandwich Making Guy twice. He seems so nice, I can’t see how he could be evil.”

“Wow, sounds like you’re having a crazy time here,” Becky said.

“Yeah, but I like crazy, so this is awesome!”

“Becky~! Bob~!” a jolly female voice suddenly called from a couple aisles away. “Come check out all these wonderful coconuts!” I wheezed in amusement.

“I’m guessing that’s your mom?”

“Yes,” Becky said flatly. “Guess I should get going,” she sighed. “But hey, hopefully we can see each other around again sometime!”

“Yeah, see you around, kid!”

Becky quickly jogged over to the aisle her mom must’ve been in. I still couldn’t shake the sense of familiarity from her, but maybe it was the start of a sibling-like affection towards the kid. I glanced back down at my grocery list, realizing I still had no idea where everything was at, and cautiously turned back to the manager.

“Uh hey, uhhh, I know I just made a mess a couple minutes ago, but I’m still new here, and I don’t remember where anything is at, except for this coffee here, so uhh, could you help me out here please?” I showed him my grocery list.

“Why certainly!” he said. “The bread is right over in the next aisle to your right, the chips are aaaaall the way over on the other side of the store, the soda’s right by there, I can’t help you with whatever that is at the bottom of your list, oh, and the cheese is right down the aisle next to the meat! Asiago is on sale, and flying off the shelves fast, so grab it before it’s gone!”

“Alright! I’ll try to remember all of that! Thanks!”

“My pleasure!” the manager said before I made my way down the aisle to the cheese. They had a really nice cheese selection the last time I was here, and I wanted to try some of that asiago. So I took a good long look at all the cheeses when I got to them. Oh yeah, they’ve still got all kinds of cheeses… cheddar, havarti, gouda, muenster, mozzarella… oh jeez, there’s only one asiago left… hmmm, should I take it? Or should I wait until they have more of it later and let someone else have this? I squinted at the price. Jesus, this stuff is expensive, even on sale. No wonder it’s all but gone. I shifted my eyes again, trying to sort out my mental conflict. I always felt guilty for taking the last of something… but hell, I’d been here for two weeks and I’d been proving myself to be an independent adult just fine, I deserved to splurge and treat myself!

“Aw fuck it! I’m taking this ch—AHH!” I jumped and cut myself off as another hand joined mine in reaching for the cheese.

“Whoa there!” a somewhat raspy male voice yelled, sounding just as surprised as mine.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know you were trying to—” I cut myself off again, this time with a sharp gasp, as I looked up and saw just who was competing with me for the cheese. This man was tall and slender, and donned scientist attire. He was incredibly pale, with messy white hair, piercing red eyes, pink-tinted cheeks, and a few crooked, silvery whiskers protruding from around his subtly twitching nose. But what tipped me off was the small, exposed, slightly pulsating brain nestled within the white hairs on his head. I took a step back, slightly fearful.

“Y—y-you… y-you’re… you’re d-d—Doctor Two-Brains!”

“Yep, that’s me,” he stated proudly, shooting me a wicked smirk. He put one hand on his hip and began casually twirling what I assumed to be one of his ray guns with his other hand. “I gotta say, I wasn’t expecting any competition.”

“Heh, neither was I,” I said, suddenly feeling flustered. “I mean, I guess I always run the risk if I’m anywhere near cheese, but I had no idea you’d be here today!” I perked up as I remembered something. “Oh, I gotta add you to my villain encounter list!”

Two-Brains blinked in confusion. “Your what-now?”

“My list of all the villains I’ve met so far! Most of them are pretty nice for villains, but Tobey’s got quite the attitude problem. Kid’s too young to be having a God complex.”

Suddenly, Two-Brains bust out laughing.

“Oh my goodness,” he wheezed. “Tobey—God compl—ahahaha!” He clutched his sides as he doubled over, shoulders shaking. “Did you hear that, henchmen?” He elbowed the bigger henchman, who simply exchanged confused looks with the smaller one. “Oh that is rich!”

I laughed a little myself, mainly at how amused this supposedly evil scientist was at my throwaway comment. “Well, I’m glad you got a kick out of that, haha.” I could’ve sworn Two-Brains wiped a tear from his eye just then.

“Oh man, I haven’t laughed that hard in ages. You’re quite the comedian.”

“Haha, well thanks, I try…”

Suddenly, as his laughter died down, our eyes locked. A sensation akin to that of a tiny electrical current coursed through me as he stared into my soul. His eyes were so mesmerizing. It’s not very often you see such a lovely ruby shade. It was hard to tear myself away from them, but soon enough I felt nervous maintaining eye contact, so my eyes discreetly wandered to other parts of his face. I noticed his smooth, pale complexion. His rosy cheeks. His fluffy hair. His nice jaw structure, not too sharp but not too baby-faced either. Then his cute, pink lips. In that moment I was worried he noticed me gawking, so I looked back into his eyes. Those beautiful eyes, framed by long lashes. I gulped as the truth sunk in.

Oh no. He’s gorgeous.

I was finally snapped out of my trance when Two-Brains cleared his throat. I shook my head, damn, I probably creeped him out by now.

“So,” he began, casually leaning his arm against the shelves, “you’re new here, huh?”

I sputtered in shock. “H-h-how did you know?!” Two-Brains chuckled at my reaction.

“Well, for one thing, people who are from around here don’t have a ‘villain encounter list’. Also, I come to this grocery store a lot, so I know who else comes here, and you’re definitely not a familiar face. Besides, I think I would’ve noticed you before.” If I’m not mistaken, he winked at me right then. I blushed.

“Pfft, as if.” I smiled but waved my hand in dismissal. “No one ever notices me. Not without forgetting about me immediately after.”

Two-Brains snapped into an upright position. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope. I was always the weird kid that got left behind…” I rubbed my arm, suddenly feeling insecure. I wasn’t anybody, yet here I was, thinking I could talk to a guy like Two-Brains. What was I doing wasting his time?

“Gee, that’s awful.” The doctor’s voice softened.

I shrugged. “It’s alright. I’m used to it by now.”

“Still, it’s a shame. But let’s not talk about that!” His voice quickly returned to its regular pitch as he plucked a block of cheese from the shelves and immediately tore into it. “So what’s your name?”

“My name? Oh, well uhh… you can just call me Light. I don’t really like going by my real name anymore.”

“Yeah me neither,” Two-Brains deadpanned, taking another bite of his cheese. “It just isn’t who I am anymore.”

“Exactly!” I snapped my fingers. “Like, no offense to my dad, since he picked out my name, but I needed a new identity with my fresh new start.”

“My mom picked out my name.” Two-Brains shrugged. “Safe to say, I’m not her sweet little boy anymore.”

“I bet,” I chuckled.

“So why Light?” he questioned, carelessly tossing the now-empty cheese wrapper behind him and taking another block. “You got some special glowing power or something?”

“Oh no, not at all, it’s just, the word was in my internet username, so people started calling me that and it kinda grew on me. Doesn’t really mean anything, although ‘light’ was my first word as a baby, sooo I guess that counts as something, haha.”

“Interesting…” he pondered the thought as he munched on the cheese.

“Hey boss,” the smaller of his henchmen interjected, “are we actually gonna steal this cheese, or…”

“Uh, yeah, start loading it up in the cart.” He waved his hand in a “get going” motion.

“But wasn’t the plan to threaten everyone with this big ray machine?” The henchman gestured to a very large contraption behind them. I took a step back in shock.

“Uh, whoa.” How did I miss that big honkin’ thing?!

“Change of plans, we’re not gonna cause a scene, we’re just gonna take the cheese and leave,” Two-Brains answered. “But fire up the ray in case Wordgirl comes around.”

“Gee, I hate to get in the way of your, uh, cheese heist,” I awkwardly shuffled my feet. “I know you’re infatuated with the stuff.”

“Aw, you’re not in my way,” Two-Brains cooed, “why do you think I’m changing my plans?”

“Uhhhh, becaaauuuse… I don’t know.”

He chuckled, leaning against the shelves again as his henchmen loaded up the cheese behind him. “You’re a little dense, aren’t you?”

“Um, honestly, yeah, I’m really not that smart,” I sheepishly admitted, rubbing the back of my neck.

“Hm. You guys know what I’m doing, right henchmen?” He craned his head in their direction.

“Uhh, not exactly,” the smaller admitted. Two-Brains facepalmed.

“Oh, you’ll all figure it out soon enough.” It seemed like the statement was directed at all of us, but he turned back to me to say it. Suddenly he was gazing at me with those eyes. My heart skipped a beat. I looked at him, then at the cheese, then the henchmen, and back to him. A crazy idea formed in my brain.

“You know… I could buy this cheese for you.” Oh god, why did I say that?! I’m broke as hell! I can’t afford all that cheese!

“Well aren’t you a sweetheart~” he crooned, taking a few steps closer to me. I felt my face heat up. Sweetheart? Such a word never usually struck a chord in me, but for some reason, the way he said it sent shivers down my spine. He leaned in, giving me a sweet smile, before his expression turned more malicious. “But I want to steal this cheese. Ahahahaha!” He tilted his head back and let out an evil laugh. I laughed as well, but it was more out of embarrassment.

“Right, of course. I’m not entirely sure why I said that. Pretty soon I’ll be offering to buy Mr Big a hypnotism kit.”

Two-Brains’ wicked cackling quickly turned into a giggle fit. Guess I tickled his funny bone again.

“She’s at it again, boys!” he giggled. “Hypnotism—pffahaha!” He put a hand over his mouth at he attempted to stifle his laughter. I blushed. Good lord, this man was adorable. “As if he isn’t rich enough to buy all the hypnotism stuff he wants!” He shook his head as he calmed himself down. “Where did you learn to be so humorous?”

I shrugged. “I dunno, my family? I come from a long line of goofballs.”

He giggled again. “Well hey, the world needs more charming goofballs like you.” He made a finger gun motion with one of his hands, and I sputtered again.

“Me?? Charming??! Haha, that’s… I think you’re the charming one around here.”

“Well, I do what I can,” he said in a proud voice. He winked before continuing. “But I think you’re not giving yourself enough credit. You need to have some confidence in yourself!” He reached over and clasped my shoulder, making my face turn red.

“Pfft, easier said than done, Doc.”

His brows curved upward as he patted my shoulder. “Aw, I’m sure you’ll get it someday, sweetheart.” I let out a strangled noise that sounded like a cross between a choke and a lovestruck sigh. Dammit, there’s that word again. I’m pretty sure my entire face looked like a tomato at that point. Then I noticed he was gazing at me again. I nearly lost my breath as a realization formed in my brain.

Wait, holy shit, is he flirting with me??! No, that’s crazy. There’s no way a guy like him would really wanna flirt with ME! Besides, he’s a villain, he probably flirts with everyone… but he’s like, being genuinely nice to me too. Could it be?

“Heheh, you know,” I began, “you’re also pretty nice, for a villain. I mean, we just met like, five minutes ago, and you’re already treating me better than most of the people I knew for years ever did.”

“Hey, I may be evil, but I’m not completely heartless!” My breath hitched as his arm snaked around my shoulders. “Say, could I take a look at that little villain list of yours?”

“Oh yeah, sure! I really gotta add you to it now!” I pulled my notebook out of my pocket and handed it to him. In response, he pulled out a pen.

“I think I’ll add myself onto here.” Two-Brains clicked the pen and began scribbling into the notebook. Then his henchmen butted in again.

“Alright boss, the cheese is all loaded up… should we go?”

“Bring everything to the van, boys! I’ll catch up with you two in a minute.”

I opened my mouth to tell him how honored I felt that he was setting aside his time for little old me, but suddenly, I heard a familiar whoosh noise and an even more familiar voice.

“The only thing you’ll be catching up to is jail, Doctor Two-Brains!”

“Wordgirl!” Two-Brains assumed a defensive stance. He glowered as he realized she was blocking the henchmen’s path. “No surprise you’d show up eventually.”

“Well, that big ray machine was pretty hard to miss.” Wordgirl vaguely gestured to the large contraption Two-Brains had somehow rolled into the store.

“Impressive, isn’t it?” Two-Brains said smugly. “Just feast your eyes on what it does!”

“Wait a minute, uhh… is she with you?” she gestured to me before he could press any buttons on the machine. I shuffled awkwardly, suddenly very aware of being in between a spunky superhero and a cute supervillain.

“Oh, her?” he pointed his thumb at me. “This is Light, and uh, she’s only with me if she wants to be.” He threw his arm around me and winked again, a sly smirk playing at his lips. I sputtered yet again.

“Aw, gee, I’d love to, but um, I kinda gotta keep my record clean, heheh.”

“Shame. I’d love for you work with me.” My face reddened and I opened my mouth, but he pulled away before I could respond. “Now, back to my marvelous machine—”

“Let me guess, it turns things into cheese?” Wordgirl crossed her arms, apparently unamused by Two-Brains’ ploy. Huggy made a noise that sounded like a groan.

“No!... Maybe… okay, fine, yeah, it does!”

“No surprise.” She was clearly not impressed.

“Hey!” I butted in. “Figuring out how to turn things into cheese couldn’t have been easy for Two-Brains! Like, that’s altering entire chemical compositions here! And since he’s figured that out, I don’t really blame him for using it over and over. It’s impressive if you ask me.”

“Thank you!” Two-Brains exhaled, throwing his arms up. “See? She gets it.”

“Well hey, I know if I had machines that could turn stuff into cheese, I wouldn’t have any stuff left!” This statement caused Two-Brains to laugh yet again.

“I know, I don’t have much left either, haha.”

“Right? And honestly, I don’t blame you for stealing cheese, either.”

“Oh boy, she’s as infatuated as he is,” Wordgirl offhandedly remarked to Huggy.

“What can I say? It’s darn good stuff,” I said, stealing a gaze at Two-Brains. Huggy made some chirping noises, and Wordgirl craned her head towards the simian sidekick on her shoulder; he seemed to be asking her something.

“Oh, well I’m glad you asked,” she answered cheerily. “To be infatuated with something means to be very passionate about it, and love it a lot! Like how I’m infatuated with words! Or how Doctor Two-Brains is infatuated with cheese.” She pointed towards him, and Huggy squeaked in understanding. “Or how Light there appears infatuated with Doctor Two-Brains.”

I nearly choked.

“Whoa whoa hold up what??! I—wha—”

Wordgirl stiffened as she realized her mistake. “Oh my goodn— I am SO sorry! I just—”

“What gives you that idea?? Hahahaha…” My nervous titter made it clear that I knew exactly where she got that idea from. Why did I always make things so damn obvious? I’m like an open book. I thought maybe I was doing an okay job at concealing my little crush, but even the kid was able to see right through me!

“Well I was kinda… just trying to define ‘infatuated’, haha.” She sheepishly folded her arms behind her back, trying to make herself smaller. “Sorry about that.”

“Well hey uh, defining words is your job, right?”

“That and protecting the city by fighting cr—AAAHK!”

Wordgirl shrieked as she was suddenly whacked out of her midair hover and onto the floor by a sticky, yellowish substance. Two-Brains’ wicked cackling filled the aisle.

“Oh, did I forget to mention that my ray machine also shoots sticky nacho cheese? Bwahahahaha! Thanks for helping me escape, Light! Haha!”

I froze as I realized that I had accidentally distracted Wordgirl long enough for Two-Brains to trap her in a nacho cheese cocoon. It must’ve been super strong cheese, too, for as much as Wordgirl struggled, she couldn’t break free, even with her superstrength.

“Oops,” I mumbled. Two-Brains started making his way out of the store, with his henchmen rolling the ray machine away, but something made me panic.

“Wait!” I cried, lunging forward and reaching my hand out towards him. Two-Brains simply looked over his shoulder with a quizzical expression. “I uhh… this is kinda… this is probably a longshot, with how… I mean you’re such a well-known villain so you’re probably busy a lot but… do you think we could like… I dunno… hang out some time, or something?”

Two-Brains blinked once, as if in disbelief, before a sly smirk etched his face. “Way ahead of ya, sister.” With that, he winked, made a finger gun gesture, and waltzed away, but not before tossing something at me. I fumbled it for a moment, but I did manage to catch it somehow. I looked down, and saw it was—asiago cheese. The last of the asiago cheese. He let me have that?? I stared in front of myself in silence for a second or ten, trying to figure out if that entire interaction really happened. But I was cut from my thoughts when I realized Wordgirl and Captain Huggyface were still struggling to break free from the cocoon that was partially my fault they got into in the first place.

“Oh. My. God. I am. SO. Sorry!” I panicked. “I swear, I did NOT mean to do that!”

“It’s alright, nothing I haven’t been though before,” Wordgirl said. “Besides, this one is kind of on me.” Suddenly, with a grunt and a burst of strength, she burst free from her cocoon of cheese. “Ah, that’s better. Now off to find Doctor Two-Brains. I’m not about to let him get away from me again!”

“Yeah, sorry again about accidentally aiding him… also, this is gonna sound crazy, but you remind me of someone.”

“Oh?” Wordgirl raised an eyebrow. “Well, people have said I look like a young Dana Hill.” I laughed a little.

“That could be it. But I feel like I know you from somewhere outside of superheroism… it’s probably just my brain being weird on me again though, haha.”

“Probably. Also, it’s great that you and Two-Brains are getting along, but he is a supervillain, so just… be careful around him, okay?”

“I gotcha, kiddo. He seemed really nice to me, but if he ever tries to pull something, I know who to call.” I gave Wordgirl a finger gun motion. “Anyway, I better let you get back to your business.”

“Thanks. Now come on Huggy, let’s go get Doctor Two-Brains! Word up!” And with that, she sped away. It was then I remember the last thing Two-Brains said before he left. Way ahead of ya, sister… what exactly did he mean by that? I picked up my little notebook that had fallen onto the floor and flipped to my villain encounter list. When I looked by his name, I almost dropped the thing in shock. Not only was there a nice little signature, but written beside it was a seven-digit number, with the words “call me” and a wink face. Holy shit.

“He gave me his number…” I whispered in shock. As it sank in, a grin slowly crept onto my face until I’m pretty sure it was ear-to-ear. “I GOT HIS NUMBER!!!”

“Nice!” a random person from somewhere inside the store shouted.

“Thanks!” I shouted back. I just could not believe it! Man, I really came in this store for groceries and ended up with a cute mad scientist’s phone number and Cupid’s arrow impaling my chest, huh?

How cheesy.

#my writing #self ship #wordgirl #self shipping #dr two brains #self shipping community #f/o: Dr Two Brains #self ship fic #two is better than one

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windowinto · 4 years

Text

Social Media

This post is just a thought vomit post: The feeling that I’m feeling is quite strange. As if I cannot show the world the things I genuinely appreciate. Social media terrifies me in every way possible to the point where it is entirely toxic. I constantly live in this panic or fear where everyone is laughing at me or judging me. I feel as if social media is a place where I should be able to express myself in whatever way I want to. Sadly that isn’t the case for me. As much as I would love to show the world or anyone who has an “interest” in following me, whether it’s a mutual “oh I know you ill follow or add you” thing, whatever, the things I love dearly and hold close to my heart. For instance I love Elliott Smith a lot and would love to share my love about him but I feel as if people will make fun of me for enjoying the beauty that is his music and self. I get so terrified or think “what is the point” or “who even cares?”. Social media is so strange and I feel like it has me pinned to the ground sometimes. It is always in the back of my mind. For the last few years I have consistently been on and off social media. I’ll have a stride of confidence and post on social media consistently but it never seems to last before I delete everything, Instagram, twitter, facebook. Ill start with Instagram and why it really scares me. With Instagram, I feel very pressured to upload pictures in a timely fashion. It’s almost a personal blog or a perspective from my eyes to share with the people who decide to follow me. There are people who follow me and will never interact with my posts when I do decide to post something. It makes me wonder what is the point in following me if you don’t like anything that I’m sharing, not in the sense of the actual like, but enjoying what I post? I would rarely post anything on Instagram, I turned my Instagram that is now deleted, into a page for my art. I was scared to share things I have created. Showing people something I like, a window into my brain, for them to judge, even though I have gotten good feedback on my art, at the end of the day I still think its not good. Yet another reason why I am afraid to post on social media. I have little to no ego or confidence in myself. Before my Instagram was my art page, I would sometimes upload selfies only because that is just, what we do nowadays? It felt like I had to fall in line and I felt this pressure to show the world how I was changing as a person. “ooh look at me” but in my head there is nothing to look at. I struggle with body dysmorphia. I look in the mirror every day and see someone completely different. It isn’t just a “I feel ugly today”. It is a brutal battle of one day I feel okay but 30 minutes later my face feels rearranged. I know it’s a very common feeling to never see what others see in yourself, but I look in the mirror a lot and can never figure it out. I’m not sure why, I just try to take time to really understand my face because too often I don’t understand it at all. My face is very A-symmetrical and I feel to be beautiful you must have good face symmetry. My face has twist and turns, which most people might not notice, maybe they do. It is just something I really struggle with. Some days I feel normal, my face looks fine, but some days it feels like someone took a blender to my face. The thing with mirrors and phone cameras you only see the mirrored version of yourself. That is what you are used to. So seeing pictures of me that aren’t mirrored throws my head into a fucking spiral of insecurity. I tend to avoid pictures with people or having people take pictures or videos of me because all I can do is watch the video or stare at the picture for hours wondering what other people are going to think of me and my contorted face and body. I know that no person is perfect and we all have our imperfections, but exposing mine to the world is terrifying. Pictures are different. They give people time to dissect and focus on your imperfections for as long as they want. People terrify me. I’ve been bullied when I was younger and I have been made fun of over the years for looking certain ways, dressing certain ways because I’m not what they want me to be. I just want to be myself without judgement. Being able to be genuine and to not be made fun of for “trying too hard” or “trying” to have a certain look. I always get thrown under certain labels and its so frustrating. “haha you are a sad boy” or stupid remarks as if I’m trying to be anything but myself. I am terrified to be myself because it will never be good enough for anyone. I have been around a lot of toxic friend groups where they even make fun of their best friends. They make evil remarks or judge them for having a stride of confidence or trying new things. I love when people express themselves or try new things instead of staying in the same box that people put them in. It just seems others like to make fun of people for trying something new or pushing the boundaries of what is “them”. Self exploration is a beautiful thing that everyone should focus on every now and then. We should all try to expand on ourselves and strive for the best versions of ourselves. Who likes being the person stuck in a box? Where is the fun in that? That is just a perspective of mine but I always feel forced into this box. Which is a big reason I stay away from posting pictures of myself because if I post a picture of myself I am either “cocky” “too confident” or “trying too hard”. I took a picture of myself. That’s all I did. I had no intentions other than to just show people hey this is what I look like today and for once I don’t feel like my face was hit with a tornado. With Instagram I feel if I don’t post frequently or become inactive then people will start to not care. I’m not sure why I have this feeling of wanting people to care, but that’s how social media feels to me. You follow me for some reason, maybe because you care, who knows. There’s certain people who like to look down on me because I’m constantly changing and they might of liked or are used to a previous version of myself. Some people don’t like change. People also get so wrapped up into other peoples lives which is also another reason why I don’t like social media. Instagram is full of fake pictures and perfect people. Sometimes I feel like I have to be perfect or have a perfect picture for it to be “Instagram worthy”. I don’t understand what is a right and wrong picture to post. Sometimes I want to post everything, sometimes I don’t. Some people get so wrapped up in their “aesthetic” or “online image” and its not them what so ever. I don’t want people to get the wrong idea of me, I would much rather have someone make a judgement of me in person rather than a post on the internet. Intention and tone are hard to grasp on the internet unless you already know that person really well. With twitter, It feels the same as instragram but instead of pictures it’s tweets. I used twitter like a journal of just random things. Random feelings, random thoughts whether they were serious or just goofy. I didn’t try to appeal to anyone, I just kind of posted whatever I wanted. Over the last 4 years of on and off social media usage, there has been a few instances that make me scared of letting people know on the internet what is going on in this complex head of mine. With the first instance, I’ll bring a bit of context. I was about 17 or 18 at the time, my memory with age and time is always so bad so I’m not exactly sure when. I was going through a really rough depressive episode. I stopped hanging out with my friends and isolated, didn’t get out of bed ever, didn’t even play video games. It was really bad. I would also tweet about my feelings, which there is a stigma on posting about being sad on the internet because everyone is sad sometimes or all the time and just wont admit it, but will laugh or judge you for having feelings like a human being. “Wow look at this dude, he is so sad? Go get a therapist sad boy” but are the same people who do the same things they are complaining about. It’s weird how it works. Makes absolutely zero sense to me. People will hide their sadness behind vent accounts but on their “main” act like they aren’t sad. Which there is nothing wrong with that, but don’t judge others for being sad. Maybe they need someone, but you are too afraid to be that someone or “don’t feel like dealing with it”. I finally broke free from the death grip of depression and finally decided to hangout with some friends. It was the current E3 showing off all the new games. We were all having a good time discussing new games and seeing all the new titles. A game came up and I simply said “I heard that game isn’t that good” and a friend of a friend in the room said “of course you think that, you hate everything”. Stunned I replied “how?” and he replied with “you are constantly tweeting about how sad you are and how you hate everything”. Ill admit I had some sad tweets but I never tweeted or talked openly disliking anything. This guy barely knows me at all just so you know. We have mutual friends, have hungout a few times, skateboarded in the same group of friends. Clearly he had bad judgement on me. My eyes scan the room to see all of my “close” friends at the time. They all were just as stunned as me and nobody spoke up. I said proudly, in which this is true “I haven’t tweeted anything sad in months actually, feel free to go look at my tweets” he replied with “well good for you then”. This will stick with me for a really long time and this was maybe 5 years ago or less that this happened, like I said I’m bad with time and memories. I still think about it all the time. Goes to show, be careful what you say, it might stick around in someone’s head for longer than you think. Apparently one of my friends told him afterwards “Dude, he JUST started hanging out with us again and you had to do that”. Although I’m not sure if that is true or not. I would then to go on to delete my twitter and stay off social media for about a year or so because I was so terrified of others having this same outlook on me. Because if someone I barely know can have this judgement of me, then someone else surely can. To this day it still messes with my head and is also a big reason I have been off and on with social media. The next instance is from 2 almost 3 years ago. I was talking to the girl of my dreams, a girl I had a crush on for years. We got along wonderfully, shared the same sense of humor, there was a connection there that I couldn’t explain. But even then I would still struggle with my depression. Even in the happiest of times I still had these dark depressive moments. Which I have to explain that, my mother who had raised me without my dad, had battled cancer for 4 years only for it to take her life in 2012, which turned me into an anxiety riddled depressed kid. I would disappear, walk away, disassociate, have these dips in moods even in public. She didn’t really seem to understand or has never really had to deal with something like this before with someone. I completely understand that I was easily too much for her to handle. It’s really hard to find someone who understands or cares enough to stick around. Unfortunately my depressive episodes lead to the demise of our short “relationship”. We were not dating. We got into an argument and I told her how I was feeling and how she made me feel like she didn’t care. She sent me a long text message about how I’m too sad to deal with and I’m too much to handle. She told me all I do is bring everyone around me down and that I am a sad negative person. I am just summing it up, I don’t want to go into detail. This destroyed me more than any other words have before in my life. We were young and she didn’t understand the power of what she was saying. This threw me into a spiral of a year long depressive episode that I could not control. I didn’t talk to my friends about how I felt or my family because I was afraid to bring them down. I still struggle to this day with opening up about my feelings because of this but I have gotten better about it. But I was scared to just tell people that I was sad. I became so focused on faking this image to not let a single person know how I truly felt. It was hell every day holding in this whirlwind of feelings. I felt like I had to hide all of my feelings and that my feelings weren’t valid. I felt as if I wasn’t allowed to feel sad. I would get so mad if I ever got sad. I would tell myself no. Which it kind of worked, it kind of helped me get better in a sense but I think its important to feel sad now. Its important to process those emotions instead of ignoring them. But this also made me stay off social media for another year or so. But this year of no social media it forced me to learn a lot about myself. I was going into young adulthood and trying to understand the world and figuring myself out. A lot of self-growth was made in this time which I am kind of thankful for. But this was a huge reason why I struggled so hard with social media and how people perceived me. Also another reason why I struggle still because words like those tend to stick with you. Twitter is such a strange platform. I still don’t use it to this day. All because of judgement. Not even about sad tweets this time, just fear of self-expression. Goes hand and hand with the way I feel about Instagram. People thinking you are trying to hard or people just not giving a fuck. Social media is so weird. I feel that I am also missing out on a lot of possible friendships because of not using social media. A friend of mine said “you aren’t putting yourself out there, no one can find you if you are in the shadows” which I feel is very true, for friendships and possible relationships as well. Okay so onto facebook… I grew up in the prime of Facebook. I was there for all the changes and updates and when it first really started to blossom into what it was. This was before twitter was even popular. I grew up with sending everyone friend requests and the bliss of making random internet friends. Not caring about what you post and just having a good time. I think before I stopped using facebook when I was around 15 or 16 and I moved to twitter completely, which felt better for the way I felt, I had around 2,500 friends on facebook. Well that is definitely not the case now. Facebook is a weird strange place filled with old people and family members who haven’t cared about me for 10 years that send me a lovely friend request. I have such bad anxiety about facebook friend requests. It is so incredibly hard to explain. I initially made a facebook for the soul purpose of adding friends on xbox so I could stay in contact with them when we weren’t playing xbox. And then of course I started popping up in peoples suggested friends on facebook. I was friends with maybe 20 or less friends, very close people. Then my friend requests started flowing with people I know who I wasn’t close with. I left some people in what I like to call the friend request purgatory for LITERALLY 3 FUCKING YEARS. I was so scared to accept it and let them into the things I liked and would share on facebook with my close friends. I slipped into a music “scene” and made some friends in this specific scene. There was a guy in a band that actually got signed to a big label who I thought was really cool and funny who I thought hated me, he sent me a friend request and I left him in the purgatory for a whole year before declining the friend request. Just because he lived a whole 3 hours away and was way cooler than ill ever be and I didn’t want him to find me weird or a fucking loser. So I just never accepted it. I am not sure if he ever saw it pending for so long but I did change my profile picture in that time and I am sure he seen that. I feel really bad about it and it makes me cringe with awkwardness. I am not that bad at socializing and id like to think of myself as a funny and nice person. I feel like I am easy to get along with. But now I am no longer apart of that “scene” if you even consider me being “apart” of it. I just went to local shows and really enjoyed the music. That’s is my main problem with facebook. Random people I do and don’t know sending a request “HEY LET ME IN I WANT TO BE YOUR FRIEND” but… do you actually or do you think we are just mutual and wanting to network. Facebook is a weird place. Especially local selling communities. I live in the Midwest so there are racists and homophobes left and right. In conclusion of this awful mess of a post I just wish I could feel normal. To feel more understood. God forbid I ever tell anyone I feel “misunderstood” without being made fun of or not taken seriously because that’s just what people do now. I understand that the world is full of assholes and judgmental people but, there is also people out there that care and are good people. They are harder to find than the people who suck but they exist. You just have to look a little harder or just be patient. A dear friend of mine told me that I should just be myself and whoever doesn’t like it can just fuck off because at the end of the day it doesn’t matter what other people think. But to just appreciate the people who do care. I try to focus on those points and to let myself realize everything will be okay if I just stay genuine and true to myself. People will always have something to say and dislike, all you can do is keep on truckin’ and keep doing what you want. At the end of the day the only thing that matters is your own happiness. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices. Sometimes you have to just not give a single fuck. Maybe one day I will come back around to social media and finally come to terms with it. Who knows? But for now I am working on it one day at a time and will eventually ease back into it. Still very scared of it all, but progress is progress.

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ithacamoma · 5 years

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20 QUESTIONS FOR: TAMMY SALZL

image courtesy of the artist and DC3 Art Projects

1.Name:

Tammy Salzl

2.Occupation(s):

Artist, Sessional Teacher in Senior Level Painting at the University of Alberta.

3.Where are you from and what is your education?

I was born in Edmonton, AB, into a gigantic dysfunctional family with 18 aunts and uncles, 42 first cousins and barely one parent. I spent my summers being tortured as an English speaking city slicker in French speaking prairie farm communities. Retreating into art and stories and animals was the salvation I didn’t find in the fundamentalist religion I was periodically thrown into. For my undergrad I did 2 years at ACAD (Now called AUArts), and finished my BFA at the University of Alberta. I received my Masters in Studio Arts (Painting) at Concordia University in Montreal 2014 and have been expanding my practice to include video and multimedia installation since graduation.

4.Where do you live/work (neighbourhood/city/country)?

For the past 3 yrs I’ve been splitting my year between the Southside of Edmonton, AB. and Parc Ex in Montreal QC. I have family in both places, which makes this both possible and necessary.

5.Does your location affect your practice?

Definitely! Emotionally, psychologically and logistically. I’m lucky to be able to spend time in both eastern and western Canada. Sometimes they seem like entirely different worlds and it’s a privilege to be able to step into both. It broadens my field of vision.

6.What is your favourite tool in the studio?

I have two favourite things. My glue gun, because I love glueing stuff, it makes me feel like a little kid again! I also love it when I have a fresh, unused brush in hand.

7.Where do you look for your source material?

Everywhere! Movies, books, (I love sci-fi books, and I just finished 2 books by Yuval Noah Harari - Sapiens and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century - so gooood!) mythology, ecology, weird/wondrous animals (like the barrel eye fish or the Aye-aye), bus stops, Edmonton’s River valley, back alleys in Montreal, weird stop motion animations, the fresh sights, sounds and smells that come with travel, looking at art and, occasionally, the bottom of my wine glass.

8.What is you daily art world read?

I email subscribe to a bunch of art blogs (like Hyperallergic and artdaily.org etc), and I also try to read Border Crossings and Canadian Art magazines, but honestly a lot of my art world reads come from instagram. Cuz you know… pictures.

9.What is your daily non-art-world read?

I love science and nature blogs. I really enjoy nature.com, naturecanada.ca, futurism.com/, and for quick global news stuff I like Quartz Daily Brief. It’s hard…you don’t want to be ill informed yet it’s so bleak out there…I think overexposure to media can be harmful. I try to find a balance.

10.What role does writing play in your practice?

Sadly, not much. It’s an inescapable task for every artist, and one I dearly wish I could escape. That said, aside from the necessary evil of artist statement/proposal/grant type of writing, I sometimes play at creative writing. I make little one page tales that turn into paintings, or I write a short narratives based on something I’ve made. I’ll often have automatic writing embedded in my underpaintings, and if you look hard enough you can sometimes find traces of a word here and there.

11.What role does research play in your practice?

Because I peddle in tales, I research the history, culture, psychology, pop culture, philosophy of whatever traditional tale or mythology I’m referencing, and how others have interpreted those tales over time - even if I’m referencing something like Dr. Seuss. I often tie that into the research I do out of my interest in ecology and nature. For me, working representationally means there is intension in everything. I try to have layers of meaning and make work that engenders multiple interpretations. I research the symbolism and history of objects, places, animals, colours , etc. With my installations there is a lot of material research involved as well.

12.What role does collaboration play in your practice?

Since expanding my painting practice into intermedia work, I’ve done quite a bit of collaborating in the form of “I don’t know how to do this technical thing so I need to find someone who does”. It’s taught me a lot in terms of learning to communicate and work with others. As a solitary person, it’s a challenge for me, but I also find it incredibly rewarding and enriching. Also, a couple of years ago 4 female artist friends and I began an art collective called IFPP (incubator for phantom pregnancies) We’ve staged a couple exhibitions and have some upcoming shows, and it’s been really great. You learn a lot about yourself in a collaborative process, and it’s exhilarating ending up with this thing you helped create, but in a mind hive kind of way.

13.How does success affect your practice?

Ideas of success are pretty subjective, no? Speaking in terms of non-commercial success, I would say it helps drives my practice forward. It gives you the incentive and confidence to keep going, to make more, to take risks and think bigger. Sometimes commercial/monetary success can do the opposite because you’re expected to make more of the same, sellable stuff - to keep the formula and not colour outside those lines.

14.How does failure affect your practice?

Failure is an opportunity to learn, and can lead to amazing things. I suck at it. I can be super stubborn and fight with a painting that’s not working for days and days. I’m often my own worst enemy. I’m learning to walk away, to turn the bloody thing facing the wall and only come back to it when I can be more objective - when I’m in a better place to paint over the 100 hours invested and start over.

15.What do you identify as the biggest challenge in your artistic process?

My own stubbornness! My own rules and obsessiveness and need for control. I can get restrained by fear of making something ‘bad,' and I struggle to let myself play more, to let myself ‘fail’. I can get too caught up in my own head. I struggle with a lot of self doubt. A dear friend of mine recently sent me a beautiful quote by Robert Hughes in an attempt to assuage my doubt:

“The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize.”

I’m not so sure this is the case, but it’s nice to hear!

Also, like so many of us, I struggle socially and will hide in my studio rather than go to an art opening when I know I should be trying to make “connections”. Wine helps tremendously in all my struggles.

16.Who are some historical artists you are thinking about?

This fluctuates a great deal. I often find myself interested in artists I thought I didn’t like years ago, and will lose interest in artists I thought I loved. Art crushes come and go. I just bought a Frida Kahlo book and am rediscovering my fascination with her.

17.Who are some contemporary artists you are thinking about?

Everyone and no one in particular. I was in LA last January and saw an amazing Outsider Art show at LACMA. There was a piece by Greer Lankton titled, “Candy Darling” depicting a transgender actress who was featured in several of Andy Warhol’s films and was one of Lankton’s icons she looked up to as a trans woman. It’s exquisite with an edgy sexuality - totally blew my mind. I also saw some Mark Bradford works at The Broad that really surprised me. You have to be in front of them to understand how profound, beautiful, raw and sophisticated they are.

18.How do you describe what you are making now?

Right now I’m bouncing all over the place with various mediums. I’m working on a new series of oils, sort of taking the piss out of patriarchal old fables and the misogynistic way they portrayed women by retelling them through a contemporary lens. I’m also making a series of small, intricate “naughty fairies” made out of Sculpey (imagine tinker bell-like creatures going down on each other), some larger installation pieces that incorporate a variety of materials - video, sound, found and crafted objects, and I just completed my first short narrative video with footage shot on an artist residency I did in Norway last year.

Sometimes I feel like I’m spreading myself too thin and there’s an invisible pressure to focus on one thing, but I’m a storyteller and I use whatever mediums best suites the tale. I think everything I do remains distinctly me, it all has connective threads. Generally I paint in the morning and move onto video and sculpture in the afternoon/evening. Painting is mentally challenging in a very singular way; it’s super humbling and I need a fresh, rested brain to do it.

19.Who is an artist that you think deserves more attention?

Oh man. Too many to count. Seems to me art world trends often translate into amazing artists not getting their due. I think Canadian artists in general deserve more of the international spot light. There’s so much talent here.

20.How can we find out more about you (relevant links etc)?

I keep my website pretty up to date, including upcoming shows and press links etc.

www.tammysalzl.com

#20 questions #art #Artist Interview #tammysalzl #canada #ithaca moma

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getallemeralds · 5 years

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Fix-it Leo: Katie / KG

welcome to something im tenatively calling “fix-it leo”, where i take my really old OCs and try to make sense of them! i’ve previously done this with Shadowy, which you can read here. seeing as im redrawing & “bringing back” a few other old ocs i figured id make this a series of talking about things! unlike the Shadowy one this doesnt have pictures beyond the initial ref bc i dont want to murder my hand and im also not sure how to draw some of this

today’s subject: Katie! also known as KG.

KG’s from 2010-ish, so some time after Shadowy but before the Shattered Worlds rework. to be as specific as possible, he’s from a RP setting that people that have known me closely have at least heard mentioned, if not seen snippets of it outright: KL, the massive crossover including any character and setting me & my friends wanted to RP.

as a self-insert character in crossover hell, Katie is VERY weird.

it was really hard for me to find info on Katie, because i actually had a bunch of OCs using that name that were my direct self-inserts for RP & story purposes both in and outside of KL. the unifying idea was that he was kinda just Me but in a fictional universe... and, apparently according to what info i DID find, all of the various Katies were. actually the same person, just in various conflicting situations with various conflicting backstories? so me stitching it all together got kinda weird. i did find a starting point though, so, uh... here we go!

as a general overview, Katie is pretty much just me. autistic, ADHD, likes videogames and art, bad social anxiety conflicting with desperately needing validation from everyone around him. he also has a very short temper and no volume control, which was usually a comedy thing but could also lead to him lashing out and doing/saying things he regrets, mostly hurting his friends. as a result he was kinda unpopular in his hometown... except for a small handful of friends he went to school with.

one night, he decides to go camp out with his friends to watch a meteor shower cause hes pretty fascinated by comets & shit like that. one of his friends, Elson, was acting pretty weird about it but Katie’s too excited to take much note of it up until the meteor shower “starts early” and Elson runs off into the woods. confused and startled, he gives chase. then, uh, the fucking apocalypse happens.

a lot of plot happens that im skipping over bc this is gonna be long enough as it is, but it gets revealed that Elson is actually an incognito alien named Elohim and an alien invasion is happening and wiping out civilization, and Katie is just. running out of sanity. being a main character SUCKS. he has a tragic backstory now, his friend (who he kind of had a crush on?) is an alien and is partially responsible for his tragic backstory, they join a rebellion after confirming “yeah your family’s dead as hell” and go to space, and finally find out that the leader of the aliens got a case of “jewelry makes you evil”.

they save the day obvs, with the help of some other people they ran into, and Katie has a moment of “well, fuck” bc his hometown is still extremely exploded and his family is still extremely dead and he’s like .5 miliseconds away from a mental breakdown. he then has a conversation that goes roughly like this:

person that helped them bust out of alien jail: hey, i think i know someplace you can stay katie: my house exploded person: cmon trust me

and then it turns out that that guy is actually Ninten and he’d just helped save the world with a fictional character, and before he has any opportunity to go “wait, what” he gets pulled through a portal by him and ends up somewhere totally different. more specifically, he’s now in the Earthbound universe, and his brain is going “[dial up noises]” a whole lot bc its not like his life was weird ENOUGH now he’s just... ditched his home reality??? with Ninten’s help??? and Ninten’s taking all of it in stride and ends up explaining the multiverse to him and that he’s one of the guys who ended up with the ability to worldhop and had stopped by Katie’s universe because he knew the possessed alien guy. he’s also apparently used to having to help people acclimate to massive paradigm shifts caused by multiversal fuckery.

so Katie’s just kinda trying to wrap his head around this, but takes Ninten up on his offer to go get to meet people and he goes to the Nowhere Islands! which was like, basically the hub location of KL. and then things get EXTRA surreal for Katie, because like... he used to write fanfic, and come up with story ideas that he daydreamed about a lot before everything exploded, and he bumps into Kurousu who is his OC. and there’s a lot of “UHHHH”-ing but he plays it off and befriends her, and its finally starting to sink in that yeah, he’s hanging out in this super weird crossover reality now, and he tries to make the most of it!

then some... weird things start happening. Tank, Joseph, and Vince make a jump to the Persona universe to do some plot stuff and run into Katie there, where he’s apparently joined SEES? except the last time they’d seen him, he’d been acting as a lackey to one of the arc villains because of a FMian from the Megaman universe screwing with him and taking advantage of his trauma to create a “new” Gemini Spark. and they start to write it off as “well i guess he’s like Tails where there’s some AUs of him running around” except... he recognizes them each time? but looks different and has different backstories and nothing really adds up. the next time a protagonist sees him, it’s Artemis post-getting turned into a Nobody finding Katie’s Nobody, Teixak, who apparently was very excited about getting to meet Roxas... despite, according to himself, having been living in Twilight Town for as long as he could remember. while also being very aware and very confused that that contradicts everything else about him.

teixak: eeee you mean i get to meet roxas?! he’s my favourite kingdom hearts character!! >w< rasemtix: ...you do realize you just told me youre from this universe, right? you were just explaining to me about how you lived here with leixand until the shadows attacked you two and stole your hearts. teixak: eh..? hm. ............Hm. but.... hm.

meanwhile on Katie’s end of things, he gets his heart stuffed back in his body and he reconciles with his externalized FMian-induced evil side and various other things from various other worlds, but everything feels weird and disjointed. he remembers attending school at Gekkougan, but also remembers living in Echo Ridge, but also remembers Twilight Town, but also remembers living in a boring world that got invaded by aliens where also all of this was just videogames and books and animes and OCs. and then things start getting weirder for him. he makes a joke to Artemis about “hey, remember when we got in a big fight cause i hit you with a sign?” and he doesn’t remember it. he teases Ninten about something personal and Ninten freezes up and asks him how he knows that, and Katie gets confused because he told him. he has an even more personal talk with T1, and then has the same talk later but with slightly different words. and it’s starting to look like it’s not just “various Katies”, it’s Katie also dealing with various... varieties of everyone else, and he’s pretty much spinning a wheel on “what version of events am i in today?”

he finally gets an answer after a while-- something went really weird and really wrong when Ninten first brought him into the KL multiverse. the Katie that told Gomess about the Andromeda Key is the same Katie that joined SEES is the same Katie that got his heart stolen is the same Katie that got rescued from an apocalypse, but he’s sort of... existing simultaneously in different realities with slight “adjustments” to his personal history depending on what universe he’s encountered in. he also exists “outside of canon”, so some of the weirder memories he has are from rewrites or scrapped plotlines or noncanon moments that sometimes clip into canon when theyre not supposed to. apocalypse!Katie is the “primary”/original Katie, and that’s where all his weird meta knowledge comes from.

it’s... really confusing, and nobody really “gets” it, least of all Katie himself. he just knows that he’s ended up with a bunch of cool powers, although he’s not really sure what he’s doing and has been a villain at least two universes. he also has a severe case of main character-itis (hence getting a Persona, getting his heart stolen, etc), and still isnt sure how to tell if he’s interacting with the “canon” versions of everybody or not. he’s at least unable to cause weird bizarre paradoxes by interacting with himself; trying to visit one of the universes he has an “echo” in just causes a perspective switch to the resident Katie. Katie also has access to all of his abilities as long as he’s not in a universe with a resident Katie; apocalypse!Katie has no abilities at all, starforce!Katie only has his FMian transformation, kh!Katie can only use his Keyblade, etc. this only starts being a thing after he “clicks” with his new existence.

he also has various outfits and aesthetics depending on universe, with the one i drew being his “outside canon“/default one. he gets cat ears! and Outsider eyes. Katie also has a bad habit of stealing things from universes he visits, and as a result has a collection of random things that he really shouldnt.

#txt #leo chirps #leos ocs #fixit leo #oc: KG

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matildamaldita-blog1 · 5 years

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All my love,Elea

“All my love, Elea”

I caught a plane back to France, I am still paying the price of my rowdy times in the states, I got pulled under by a mean current but I had reasons to stay alive. Going through all those old drawings and words could make me sick to my stomach or shiver through me. Adam would finally get away from my love interest. Sometimes days like this make me feel no restless and no boredom just the prospect of calm quite days with the time to read, write and draw is all I ask. Adam had an obviously huge influence on every aspect of my being.

Hi I’m Elea- My mom and dad use to describe me as a very intense seething little being right from the beginning. What can I say coming from a very famous parents? I have always been the subtle but dramatic young artist, “a very prolific” they say. Starting at the very young age, I drew wacky personal style and always have a strong vision of my own universe. At an early age I had already a vivid concepts of good and evil (angels and devils), rich and poor (princess and urchins), joy and sadness, pain and pleasure. Was it my parents overly attentive, overly stimulating behavior that made me into attention-craving little show-off monster intensity-case? or was I born that way?

All I know is that they were the best audience a kid could have; I probably made a lot of drawings just to make my dad laugh, he was so into it. I also spent hours and of hours entertaining myself, far off in the elaborate fantasy world of an only child. “Elea Simone! I told you thousand times to not touch my stuffs” my mom says, I remember that day when I was about to reach her very expensive paint brush. My mom and I have always been apart from each other, I can always feel the heat between us, but I have always want to hug her, what do you expect from a kid to her parents? I was a little screwy, but then my father weren’t exactly average, and he never looked at me funny or told me I was weird.

We move to France when I was nine. The years that followed are oddly dim and blurry in my mind. For about a month I cried my eyes out saying “I hate you France” Imagine, they drag me from California to the South of France, pretty weird huh. But then I guess I just accepted the thought that I’d never live in the most populated state in America again. At school I was hated by some saying

“Grosse americaine!” and others were fascinated by me.

In Junior High I started to be normal, my teacher always misinterpreted my name saying

“Elea Simoienk?” Its Elea Simone I say, and people start to laugh.

I actually started correcting my parents French like

“banjower madame” my dad says, It’s not “banjower” its “bonjour”

I also made friends and it went fine. I guess it’s not that bad here. But I must’ve been killing time and the anguish of a new life by drawing sketches archived by my Father. Nancy, little lulu, old Walt Disney, betty boop, popeye, golden books and etc. inspired and obsessed me, thanks to brain washing, vintage education. Puberty made me become self-conscious, and I tried to conform to fit the school standard even though I never succeeded in that branch. Sketchbooks were always with me, and illustrated diaries full of teenage angst.

During my late adolescence my Father’s increasing fame started to loom over me, as I slowly realized it was my fate to forever be compared to “The Legend” if I kept on drawing. My parents are keeping a low profile as writers and artists, and it was a heavy thing trying to find a style, an artistic identity of my own, impatient and frustrated. I found refuge in my teenage life: hash, beer, boys, drama, high school dorms and grungy bongo parties filled my days and my sketchbooks. I took an art in school and love life drawing and art history but was skeptical of the badly taught, pretentious contemporary art curriculum. Still, art class and English class are what got me through high school without flunking, as I spent most class time doodling and daydreaming. After a couple of years in stretching my brains in college I finally graduated and I knew that at some point I made my parents proud of me. Paris! Big city life, freedom, weird Moroccan waiter boyfriends and circus school; being a pseudo English teacher for fancy Parisian companies where suburban secretaries would rant about their unhappy marriages in bad English; living in a bad neighborhoods and exploring dive bars and the streets of Paris on bike at night; meeting artists and musicians, good and mostly bad. The buzzing life that surrounded me was still exhilarating and stimulating. But art-making was still a confusing issue. I did manage to finish a comic or two and even publish some. But my sketchbooks were the place I had the most fun, not having to worry about all that. It wasn’t a “work”, and I drew freely, letting it all spill out.

For days I’ve been thinking about to go back to US, maybe get a job there and see what happens. I told my parents about it, my dad agreed to it although my mom is obviously against about it, but they can’t stop a dreamer from dreaming, and they said “Go on, we’ll be fine here”. As I’ve arrived in Brooklyn, N.Y. Airport I thought “I should rediscover my homeland, maybe it would somehow liberate me in all levels and solving certain identity issues, my own identity issue” and then I laugh. I almost got lost looking for 10 East 53rd Street, New York, 10022. Glad that I found myself in 52ND St. I was walking around in circles trying to find some signage and there it is, a tall building, kind of eccentric but good. The room is in minimalistic style, and liked it so much so I never moved anything. I never had much sleep in my second day in New York; I didn’t even touch my stuffs nor have some coffee. As I’ve stood up and look through the glass wall I saw a great “moon deli drew” coffee shop in front of the building that I’m staying. “What a surprise” I say. I published some more and drew a lot, feeling free and identifying some-what with the edgy, outsider, punk youth-culture in the bay area and then in New York City.

On the next day it was a bit gloomy, it’s Monday and I need to get up and get my exhausted butt to work. I think I’ll made up early at work if I’ll ride a cab so maybe there’s nothing wrong if I’ll have a little coffee first in deli. As I enjoy myself viewing the newspaper a light strikes my eyes, it was a man’s sunglasses, and it reflects the sun to me. The man was in a hurry stepping into the coffee shop, and I found my eye’s following him until he get out in the deli’s and until he was a bit blurry from afar.

As I got in the condo from work I feel totally washed out.

“What a luck! What a gift! What a crazy existence!” and then I lay in bed

“What the hell am I doing here kvetching and moaning? I should be doing so much good stuff for the world or at least for me!” and then I stood up and look in the mirror

“Every 4 seconds, once acre of forest turns into desert and most of the world is dying…but I’m not” I sighed heavy.

“If I were to try to make my dreams come true what would I do? I can’t be an activist, some people aren’t made to deal with people I’m incapable of that” I walked to the kitchen and get some glass of vodka.

“My dreams are selfish I’d love to be a nomad and do art and make a living with it” I open the sliding glass door and I stood there in the balcony.

“Well I guess I’ll just a have a vodka and wait for the things to happen”.

I saw that man again in the Deli’s he was sitting there, having chitchat with someone. I saw him two times in a day and that could be something. “Maybe that’s the girlfriend” I say. After a minute of talk the woman left and the man was still there sitting, nodding and not moving while me, I was just there in the balcony standing, then all of a sudden…

“Lolai lolai lolai” as the gypsies sing

“Oh God I forgot I live in a gypsy neighborhood in Brooklyn” I say.

It always gets out of hand and ends up a big mess. Sometimes they annoy me so much, and the worst is that I hate being woken up. Everyone still thinks it’s the greatest neighborhood in Brooklyn because there’s always excellent gypsy music. But it’s New York City, and it’s the city that never sleeps.

On the next day at exactly 6:00 am, I stop by at Deli’s to grab some espresso. I sat at deli’s tables outside the corner and relishing every effort I drew like creeps and bumps, junkies, wing-nuts, train-riding, crusty brats and street artists then suddenly “Can I sit here?” a man said. His voice could be foghorn loud when he was blooming out a guffaw but it was normally mellifluous. It took me a second to answer; it was him, the man on deli’s, so I just nod my head. He’s so intimidating, why is that? I couldn’t make a single move. He’s eyes speaks more than his mouth, like one look would say anything and he wouldn’t have to talk.

Its half past 7 and I’m still here, my knees are quivering.

“Why am I leaving?”

“What am I gonna do after?”

“What about him?”

Like what about him? Why would I care about him? I brush off from that table immediately.

And from that day I always await for him in the balcony. By weekdays at exactly 6:00 am he would stop by carrying his briefcase at deli’s first for some café latte and a raspberry muffin, by 1:00 pm he’ll drop over with his co-workers and order a cup of espresso macchiato and by 6 pm until he’ll finish the last sip of flat white coffee it would take him an hour to leave his favorite spot in deli’s. By weekend he would be at deli’s by 10:00 am wearing casual clothes, he usually wear nifty clothes. He have this Mohican cut and as he glide with an athletic grace without skipping a bit his hair would fall perfectly. He had a manly Samson physique and his derringdo personality and bass voice were a big part of his ambitious character.

I have this part of me “nosy” and so I asked the barista at moon deli drew about the guy.

“Hey can I have some café mocha, and oh make that two!” I say.

“Two café mocha coming right up”, she said.

“The other one is for you”, I smiled.

“We don’t accept anything that comes from our own menu, but anyway thank you” she said.

“Actually I just want to know the name of the guy who always carries with him his briefcase, you know that French guy?” I say

“Oh Mr. Adam he’s not French he’s Irish” she said.

“Adam, hmm that sounds sexy” I chuckled.

At my room I always feel like I’m losing my grip, losing my touch with reality…like I’m a ghost but it kind of feels alright.

“I just want to bash my head in from time to time no biggie” I say while I’m waiting for my family to call me.

“Whattevah New Yoahk City” I say.

-telephone rang-

“So how’s Brooklyn?” My mom said.

“Good, t’was great I’m really getting to it” I say

“Well you don’t sound like, you know you can always comeback Elea” she said

“Mom please don’t start” I said.

“You can’t please everybody with your work so what’s the use trying?” she said.

“Mom I’m halfway through” I said.

“There would always be someone to criticize you and put you down” she said

“Sorry mommy, sorry to not be doing what’s best for me, but it’s just what I need, after all you did say I was on my path of truth does that include every bad choices I make?” I said

-hang up-

We quarrel sometimes, and sometimes we weep. I’m too tired trying to have a good conversation with my mom; I better leave it this way. The next morning was a sunny n’ warm day so I went for a dog run then I gave myself a punky 80’s mullet but cute haircut I hope Adam would see me now. My sketchbook was filled with “Adam Anatomy” I watch for him to walk by my glass window every single day, I woke up 5:59 in the morning so that I could exactly holdup a minute to see him pass by. I always look down waiting for him to sit on his favorite spot at moon deli drew.

The next day was a very fine day but I woke up late, it’s already 8 in the morning and I missed Adam to pass by. “Great, just great and now I have to wait for him by 1:00 pm” I said. Its 1:30 and I’d never saw an Adam walking in the 2nd avenue he’s always on time and always in a rush in daytime, but now? Hours past and I finally saw him sitting in his favorite spot. I notice that he always order a cup espresso “Espresso is not far from his personality, he’s always in a hurry and espresso is strong one it makes him to be always on the go. Maybe this man knows how to get what he wants and always on the way of getting it” I said. While I’m savouring the moment by looking at him, he lift his head and looked at the sky and then he looked at me instantly and I immediately ran inside the room and I hide in the curtains.

Today was quite a bit weird day. I never saw him in any time of the day. By the next day, I only saw him once it was Saturday and he didn’t stay long at deli’s. It’s been three weeks and still, I never had a chance to see him passing by or sitting on his favorite spot while I glance at the glass window from time to time. Days past, days turns to weeks, weeks to months, and months to year it is unmarked, except in relation to how long it will be before I’ll see you again. Alone in my room, I receive no guests, I rarely go out. Having stopped out of work, I’ve lost contacts with my friends: I’ve withdrawn from them, and they from me. My days are as long as despair can make them. I begin taking endless and exhausting walks to nowhere, just block after block into Brooklyn or over the bridge into Manhattan. I spend hours of each day sitting on a bench on the promenade, looking at the bridges over the East River, sometimes turning to consider the houses behind me, wondering in which Adam lives, if he still lives near there.

I’ve had too much fun breaking into abandoned buildings, sleeping parks, falling in love and getting my heart broke for a year. I was wild out of control, it was great. But sometimes I felt quite at home, but disillusion and decrepitude slowly replaced the awe. “I want to see you again Adam” I said while blowing my cigar. “Where could you be?” You left a heart that is tired to grow, I’m hurt, haggard, growing more and more clueless and lost, a sort of endless heartbreak and disbelief. I got screwed. How come no one warns me that all the endearing, youthful confidence, ambition and energy are just kind of wear off. The pain, the suffering, the tedium, all the crap that made me stronger, it all just helps clarify the vision of my wretched sorry horrible existence. I have my little escape methods and still, what seems to “count” is what I went through that changed me. The heavy moments without realization, I was altered and there’s no going back.

“Sweetheart?” my dad said on the phone

“Dad I’ll caught a plane back to France” I say

“What’s going on Elea?” my dad said.

“Nothing that concerns you dad” I say.

“When will you coming home?” he said

“Maybe next week” I say.

“You tell me everything that happened to you in there, okay?” he said

“Okay” I say.

I spend a lot of time in boutiques, trying on clothes I have no intention of buying, looking at myself in the dressing room mirrors. I’ve always been drawn to mirrors, not out of vanity but for re assurance. I’m in there, and I don’t resist any reflective surface-puddles, and shop windows. As I look outside the glass window of the boutique a light strikes my eyes, it was a man’s sun glass he pass by across the street from that boutique. I instantly follow the guy until I was out from the place, he was heading straight off to moon deli drew and knew it was him, it was Adam. His wrestler’s shoulders were part of his burly physique. His gap year clothes always made him appear younger than his years. The swirl of his cologne had me swooning in the aisles. “It’s been a year, and we never had a conversation maybe by now I could say something” I say while I’m following him.

There he was sitting on his favorite spot. His Irish mariner-blue eyes were soft and swam with joy, it is orb round with gleam and delight. I want to get close to him, but as I got nearer a woman just pop in the scene, a winsome type, voluptuous and so fine that every man would drop dead. I was knock off for a minute, they we’re happy and so I should be for him. I turned back and walk away, deep down in me was hurt and a part of me was gratified after seeing him again. I don’t know what’s got into me that I walk back to my track, I just thought that “I’ve waited for him, I’ve been wondering for a year about where could he might be, and now? I just want to hear something from him,

“Am I making myself look loony?” I said

“Hi” I said

“Uhm hello, do I know you?” Adam said.

“No but I know you” I said

“Have we met before?” he said

“Who is she?” the girl asked.

“I know this would sound so weird but…” I said.

“What do you want? I think your lost sweetheart” the girl said.

“Let her speak Talia” Adam said.

“Am I missing something here? Is there something that I didn’t know?” she said

“Talia please just let her talk” he said

I ran away from their table, I ran as if I was being chased. Did I just embarrass myself? I think I just made myself look stupid in front of them.

Days past, my remaining stay in Brooklyn is soon will end. I have let go all that pressure of living up. I don’t really expect much from myself as art-wise, maybe in a few drawings. Maybe if I’ll go back to France I can figure out all the abnormality, perversion and zaniness onto paper.

Dear Adam,

Since I’d never had a chance to talk to you this letter might be a good one to start. I’m Elea by the way, I know you don’t know me but your eyes consume me, eyes that see me but never know me. I summon the oceans to drown every pain since I never saw you coming to “moon deli drew” and that sleep is where I hide. I guess I’ll learn to take the good with bad, I’ve been waiting for you to pass by my glass window and that I’m fleeting from this truth but I can’t flee indefinitely. I don’t really have an idea why I ended up in New York but it leads me to you, It's just that when the truth is like a stranger, it hits you right between the eyes. I guess I’ll just go back from where I should be. These nowhere's and no times are the only home I have. Je te regardrais toujours, meme si tu es telement hors d’atteinte.

All my love,

Elea

#createwriting #shortstory

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maxmundan · 6 years

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I don’t know how to keep my mouth shut. I am a smart ass through and through, and many times this inability to know when to speak and when to keep quiet and who should or shouldn’t be told to their face that they are an idiot has gotten me into big trouble. In junior high school I had been regularly beat up and shoved into trash cans due to my habit of making sure every meathead there knew exactly what I thought of them and their intelligence level at all times. Later, I would decide that it was better to be feared than crushed, and I would start telling everyone that I was Hitler’s grandson. They tended to stay away from me after that. Hitler never had any children, of course, and thus was unlikely to have any grandchildren, but most of the guys at my school were in no danger of making the debate team or winning the spelling bee any time soon, if you know what I mean. Junior high school had been very hard on me, and I feel like I just ever so barely made it out with my life. I’ve learned a lot since then, and I’ve made a concerted effort to not mouth off to people I don’t know very well, or whose ability to control their temper I have been unable to gauge. Here’s the problem though. I drink. I drink a lot. I drink to excess, among other vices that I’ve cultivated, and when I drink, my control over the time delay between some insulting thought entering my brain and that same ugly thought popping out of my mouth becomes pretty nonexistent. I can say some pretty nasty things. One time I was on a blind date with this young lady named Elaine. She was the friend of a friend’s wife, who had set us up together, thinking that we were both fiercely proud of our intelligence and that, because of this, we would be perfect for each other. It was a stupid thought. I took her out to dinner at this nice Italian restaurant and we fought the whole damn time. About everything. We fought about art and science and music and movies. We couldn’t agree on a single thing. And the more I drank, the more insulting I got. I went from disagreeing with her to telling her how unbelievably moronic I thought her opinions were. I ended the date by telling her that I would rather fuck a man than her. She burst up from the table, throwing her full glass of red wine directly in my face and stormed out of the restaurant. What had gotten into me? What a terrible thing to say. Here’s the weird part, though. It wasn’t even true. I had thought she was pretty hot and, until that moment, I had been hoping we could get past our differences and I was going to get into her pants. That shit about fucking a man had just popped into my brain and out of my mouth without even a moment’s thought. The more wasted I get the greater the chance that I am going to say something that will just burn it all to the ground. This brings me to a night I spent doing way too many drugs and drinking far, far too much alcohol; a night I got lost and beaten and bloody and wet and ended up sleeping it off in the local holding cell; the night I met the inbred hick fucks. I like to party. That much has been established. I like to drink, and I like to drink to fucking excess, and if you invite me over to your house and pour me a glass of wine, or a beer, or a shot of whiskey or tequila, you are not getting me out of your house until every drop of alcohol you have has been consumed. That’s just the way it is. Don’t invite me over if you are saving your alcohol for a different, special occasion. It doesn’t even matter if you hide the alcohol from me. When you are out of the room, say going to the bathroom, or paying the pizza delivery man, I will go through all your cupboards and look under your bed and behind the old photographs in your closet to find it. I am going to have your alcohol, that’s just all there is to it. If you don’t have a lot, chances are that we are going to be taking a little trip to the store to get more. You’re going to have to pay, of course. I’ve been out of work for a while now and I can barely afford to take care of myself. You wouldn’t expect me to go without food or shelter, would you? I’m sure you don’t want me to stop feeding myself, am I right? So, you’re going to have to pay. We might very well get bored of the alcohol at some point and decide to move on to something a little more challenging and exciting, like cocaine or crystal meth. That would be fun. Don’t you think that would be fun? What about a little heroin? We could do speedballs for the rest of the night and really get fucking crazy. That would be something, wouldn’t it? Angel dust? Did someone mention angel dust? Damn, I’d sure love to do a little of that. It’s been so long. Do they still even have angel dust? Of course, it goes without saying that you’re paying for this too. I can’t afford that kind of shit. It’s expensive. We talked about this. I thought you understood. If I pay for this little bit of fun for the two of us, then I have to go without one of life’s essentials. Do you want me to be homeless or starve to death? Of course you don’t. So just pay for the coke and smack already and we can get this party started. The particular night in question, I was going to a cast party. You may have guessed already that I am an actor, due to my savoir faire and barely controlled narcissism. Yes, I’m a struggling actor. You say that like it’s a bad thing. Of course, I’m a struggling actor. I think I’ve made $10 doing it my entire life and that was when I played Twinkie the Kid at a grocery store opening for a half hour when I was 17. That’s a story for another time, though. The night of the inbred hick fucks was a cast party. I was doing a show called “The Feeling Child.” It was an amazing piece of shit, I’ll tell you that. You know “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood? Well, this was sort of the opposite of that. It was a science fiction play about a future world where abortion was mandatory. The evil commie lefties had taken over and placed a strict limit on the number of babies people could have. They had convinced everyone that the lie of climate change was in fact true, and this new law was necessary to cut down on the out of control overpopulation that was depleting the planet’s resources. So, this evil, leftie government was forcing good, god-fearing, Christian parents to kill their fetuses. I played the leader of the anti-abortion rebellion who had been arrested protesting at one of the abortion mills and was now being tortured by the authorities for the crime of just wanting babies to live, damnit. It was written by a born-again right-winger. I guess that goes without saying. Only a born-again right-winger would write something so fucking stupid. The play was a disaster from the get go. I have no idea why I even agreed to do it in the first place. I must be a glutton for punishment. Either that or I have absolutely nothing going on in my life, and I will sign on to any piece of shit that will get me in front of an audience, where I can feel the adulation and hear the applause. Nothing else, not even the drugs, can quiet the voices in my head of crippling self-doubt and self-loathing like adulation and applause. It got even worse. The director was under no illusion that this piece of shit was going to Broadway and was afraid, I think, that the audience was going to laugh instead of cry or become outraged when they saw it, so he decided to do this thing Kabuki style. That is right, Kabuki style, which is an ancient form of Japanese theater. So, me and the rest of the cast had to perform in a very stylized physical way. We also had to hold paper cut-out masks in front of our faces the whole time. There is a scene where my tongue gets cut out because I just can’t stop talking about how fetuses were meant to live, and god would hate us for what we were doing. The director decided to symbolize this by having a red ribbon attached to my mask. When the big tongue cutting scene happened, which was the climax of the whole atrocious play, I just pulled the ribbon through the mouth of my mask and let it drop all the way to the floor. Needless to say, it was a hoot. The opening night of the play, about four or five minutes in, the audience started laughing. They started to laugh really loud. They didn’t let up. They thought the play was amazing. They thought it was a comedy. Hell, they thought it was a really terrific comedy. Now, I’m no idiot, so when the audience started to bust up laughing, I decided to go for it. I played it for laughs. I started exaggerating my movements and holding for laughter and using my comedy training for things like double takes and physical theater bits. I even did a spit take at one point, shooting water through the mouth hole of my mask. The audience loved it. They ate it the fuck up. When it came time for the curtain call, every last one of them got up on their goddamn feet and gave me a standing ovation. I shit you not. A standing ovation. It was one of the crowning achievements of my acting career to this point. I mean it was fucking amazing. It felt great. I felt like a star. Of course, the writer and director were a little pissed about the whole thing. More than a little pissed, actually. they were furious. They refused to talk to me, or even look at me, after the show. To this day, they still haven’t ever talked to me. As far as they are concerned, both of them, I am persona non grata. This was the party after the performance, though, and I was riding a pretty great high, so I was bound and determined to get wasted. I started off slow, just getting my game on, with a couple of Mango Wheat Brown Ales or some such shit, I don’t really remember. Then, a bit later, someone produced a bottle of Stolichnaya from the freezer and man, was it on. I can drink straight vodka all night. I just started pounding shots. I couple of cute girls came into the kitchen where I was and started egging me on, so I upped the pace a little and began chugging straight from the bottle. By the time I reached the bottom of it, though, the chicks were nowhere to be seen. What the hell happened to those girls? They must have disappeared when I wasn’t looking. I didn’t have long to wonder about the whereabouts of the girls before my friend Sycamore Taylor walked in holding a big blunt in his fingers and asked if I wanted to take a little toke. Well, of fucking course I wanted to take a goddamn toke. Who the hell did he think he was talking to? Sycamore was as big a stoner as me, if not worse, and he was always rolling these big, fucking bomber joints that were half weed and half tobacco. It took like ten rolling papers to make one, and goddamn they wiped you out. The one this night was a particular monster and just the first hit off it gave me cotton mouth so bad I had to get something else to drink to go with it. There was a bottle of Somrethingorother Cabernet Sauvignon sitting unopened on the counter, so I grabbed that and started rifling through the kitchen drawers to find a corkscrew. I couldn’t find anything, so I handed the bottle to Sycamore, thinking, “What the fuck is wrong with these people that they don’t have a corkscrew? Isn’t that the bare minimum if you’re going to throw a party at your house?” I was throwing open all the cabinets and even looking through the trash. There had to be some way to open this fucking bottle of wine. Sycamore was just standing there, looking at the label on the bottle, not helping me in any way, when he said, “Shit, man. Check it out. This bottle is a 1996. I don’t think we should drink this. It’s probably pretty valuable.” “Are you some kind of fucking idiot?” I asked him, snatching the bottle from his hands, “If they didn’t intend for people to drink it, they would have never brought it to a goddamn party, right?” Sycamore acquiesced and agreed that this was pretty logical thinking on my part, but we still couldn’t open the damn bottle for the life of us. I ended up just taking a big steak knife and carving my way through the cork till I could finally get my lips at the delicious wine. Fuck, that tasted good. By this time the blunt had gone out and we needed to relight that sucker and give it a good smoking. By the time I had crushed the tiny butt out on the kitchen floor with my boot, Sycamore had disappeared too, and the bottle of wine was empty. I was completely alone in the kitchen, leaning up against the refrigerator. I decide to go in search of more alcohol and lurched forward with that intent. I was a lot drunker than I had given myself credit for, though, and my legs didn’t operate in anywhere near the fashion I wanted or intended them to, and I fell flat on my face instead. I banged my chin pretty goddamn viciously on the kitchen floor so that I bit down hard on my tongue. I could taste blood in my mouth. I decided the best thing for me to was to stay down on the floor like that. I might really fuck myself up if I tried to get back on my feet. I don’t know how long I was there, but eventually someone, I don’t know who, came in and lifted me back up. I must have blacked out around this time because the next thing that I remember was sitting on the couch in another room with a glass full of whiskey in my hand, watching John Waters “Pink Flamingos” on the TV. It was the part of the movie where Divine buys the piece of meat at the butcher and shoves it up her dress between her legs as she walks. I was having black out experiences a lot these days. I would be missing hours, sometimes entire nights. The worst was when I would wake up in the back seat of my car and realize that I must have driven from some party or other to wherever it was I found myself in the morning but had no recollection of getting there. I could easily kill myself or someone else in one of these blackout experiences. At a certain point, I realized I needed to give up drinking and driving before something terrible happened. I decided to sell my car. I polished off my glass of whiskey and looked around the room. I was the only person there. Well, not the only person. There was a shirtless guy passed out on the couch next to me. Someone had drawn cartoon penises all over his chest. “That’s totally fucked up,” I remember thinking. “Where had everybody gone?” I wondered. I pushed myself gingerly off the couch and went in search of more alcohol. “There must be something here,” I thought. I wandered back through the kitchen where a whole bunch of people I didn’t recognize were laughing at some story I couldn’t quite figure out. I asked them if there was any more beer, but they just ignored me. I had no idea where all my friends had gone and by this point I couldn’t even remember whose house it was that I had been partying at. I pushed a couple of guys out of the way of the refrigerator and threw open the door. There had to be some alcohol inside. There wasn’t. I started to ask the guys if they knew where to find any, but they were giving me a particularly dirty look, so I slithered out of the kitchen to continue my search. There was nothing. I looked everywhere. I found a couple of half full bottles of beer, but they had already become party ashtrays. I even tried to drink one but got a cigarette butt in my mouth that I had to spit out on the floor. What’s more, there didn’t even seem to be anybody I knew in the house anymore. I ran from room to room, but I didn’t recognize any of my friends or anybody from the cast of the show I had just done. Where did everybody go? “I guess I might as well head home,” I thought. I stumbled out the front door with the intention of walking home. I was having trouble moving in a straight line, but I figured if I really focused I would probably be able to make it. A sort of jock looking dude about a foot taller than me stopped me on my way down the driveway. “Hey man,” he said, placing his hand on my chest to slow me down, “You’re really drunk. why don’t you let me give you a ride home?” “I’m fine,” I answered, belligerently, pushing his hand out of my way. “Seriously,” he said, reaching out for me but failing to grab my shirt as I dodged his reach, “You’re going to fuck yourself up going off like that.” “Don’t worry about me,” I spit back at him over my shoulder, “I’ve done this a thousand times. I’ve walked home drunk more times than you’ve masturbated, and from the look of you that’s a whole fucking lot.” “Well, fuck you then, asshole,” I heard him shout at me as I lurched from the driveway out into the road, just narrowly stepping out of the path of a pair of headlights that was rushing on me quickly. The problem was that the guy was right. As I walked off down the street, it occurred to me that I had no idea where I was and thus, no concept of the correct direction to choose to get home. I had only the vaguest memory of getting to the party in the first place. I know I had been driven there by one of the other cast members, but I was damned if I could remember which one. I’d had a few fucking drinks, okay? How the hell was I supposed to remember boring details? I hadn’t been paying attention to the streets either. I had just been laughing and telling jokes and otherwise making a spectacle of myself. “God-fucking-damnit,” I thought, “Why am I always such a colossal fuck up?” I figured the best thing I could do was to keep walking. If I did, maybe I would come to a place I recognized, and from there, be able to find my way home. It’s wasn’t like I just moved here yesterday. I’d lived in this town for a couple of years. I’m not some newbie, wannabe poseur who just fell off the turnip truck. I just happened to be in a strange part that I didn’t recognize. I walked for about fifteen minutes, turning frequently, but always trying to move in the direction that I assumed the center of town might be. I’m pretty arrogant about my sense of direction. Unfortunately, I was way off. I found myself at the bottom of a cul-de-sac I had been sure was going to lead somewhere, so I marched back in the other direction and turned the opposite way from the one I thought I had come. “This has got to work,” I thought. There were only so many directions I could go. I had to find the town center sooner or later. I was wrong again. I walked about a block and a half on this street before the houses started to disappear and I began to encounter bigger and bigger plots of land. “Oh shit,” I said to myself, slapping my own face with my hand, “I’m on the fucking Bottoms. How did I get to the Bottoms?” The Bottoms were what we all called the huge stretches of farmland on the outskirts of town. I was nowhere near where I had thought I was. The Bottoms were about a twenty-minute drive from the center of town, about thirty minutes from my place. It was going to take me for-fucking-ever to walk home at this point. I briefly wondered what time it was. It must have been after 2am. The party hadn’t even started till 10:30. It occurred to me that I might be really fucked here. I’d never spent much time on the Bottoms in the couple of years I’d lived in town. I mean, why the hell would I spend a lot of time in this area? I’m not a big fan of cow shit and there wasn’t fuck all else on the goddamn Bottoms. Why would anybody with half a brain even come down to this shithole if they didn’t have to? I’m not a frat boy into drinking two shots of Jägermeister and then drunkenly pushing cows over and I don’t need to pick magic mushrooms out of fresh, wet poop. I buy my mushrooms from the dealer like a respectable drug addict. I just kept stumbling down the road. I started looking around, hoping to see a car coming that maybe I could flag down and hitch a ride home. That seemed to be the best idea, but there was nothing, not a car in sight. This wasn’t exactly New York City. If it was as late as I thought it was, every goddamn person in town might be in bed already. “Jesus fucking Christ,” I screamed at the top of my lungs, so the cows could understand my pain, “could this be a bigger disaster?” Then it started to rain. With my luck, I should have predicted it. Oh, it had been misting for a while, but all of a sudden, the skies opened up and it started to pour. The rain was pounding down on the pavement and the marshy farm land the road ran through, splashing mud all over me. Within a few minutes, the original color of the clothing I had worn was impossible to distinguish, covered as it was with a thick layer of dripping clay. “Fuck,” I thought, “these were brand new duds I picked out specifically for the party.” I started to run as fast as I could down the road, screaming at the top of my lungs as I went. I have no idea what I was screaming and was pretty certain nobody could hear me anyway. After a few minutes, I slowed to a halt, realizing that running was counterproductive. I could easily be running farther away from where I wanted to go. I stopped in my tracks. “I’ve really fucked up this time,” I thought. I had no idea how I was supposed to get out of this situation. I probably should have accepted that ride from the jock dude back at the party. The rain continued to pour. If anything, it was raining harder than it had been a few minutes ago. “I guess it’s just never going to fucking stop,” I said to myself. Then I started to laugh. I just threw my head back and let out with as big a belly laugh as I’d ever laughed in my life. “I guess I’m going to die out here,“ I thought, and as I did so, I realized that the laughter had morphed seamlessly into tears, and I was bawling like a baby. I really committed myself to self-pity at this point. I plopped my ass down in the mud at the side of the road and cried my eyes out as the rain pelted me till I could taste the mud in my mouth as it rolled down my face. “What a shitty place to die,” I thought. Then I saw the headlights. At first, I wasn’t sure that’s what they were, as they crept slowly down the long road. My mind could have easily been playing tricks with me at this point. After a couple of minutes, though, I recognized the outline of a vehicle headed my way. I jumped to my feet and started waving my hands hysterically and shouting. I must have looked a sight, a soaking wet and mud-drenched lunatic standing in the road screaming in the middle of the night. Nobody in their right mind would pull over and let me get in their car. The most likely outcome is that they would just drive on by and leave me there with my misery. I wanted them to stop so fucking badly, though. It could be the difference between life and death for me. I found myself praying for the first time in many years, repeating a mantra to myself over and over again, “Please God, let them stop for me. Please God, let them stop for me.” The car got closer and closer to me and it did appear that they were slowing down. I could see now that it was an old Galaxy 500 in pretty bad disrepair. Even through the driving rain I could see that this was one junker of a car that really had no business being on the road at all. It certainly wasn’t one of those beautifully restored models that real car lover guys often have. It looked like it had been driven non-stop from the 50s to this moment in time without so much as a tune-up. “Oh well, beggars can’t be choosers,” I thought. To my surprise, the car pulled over to the side of the road and the driver’s side window rolled down. Inextricably, the rain seemed to double in intensity at that moment, obscuring my vision, so I couldn’t make out any details of the head or face that looked at me from the open window. “Please God, let them give me a ride home,” I prayed silently, not moving a muscle. At that moment, the face in the window spoke. “Hey buddy,” it said, “are you alright there? You don’t look like you’re doing so good.” “I’m not,” I replied. I wanted to say so much more. I wanted to get down on my knees and beg for my life, beg for him to save me, to give me a ride home. Nothing came out, however, and I just stood there in silence for a minute or two. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, the driver spoke again. “Why don’t you get in the car dude? We can give you a ride home.” “I’m soaking wet and covered in mud,” I told him, taking a hesitant step towards his car. “No shit,” he replied, “I can see that. It won’t make a difference in this car. Just get your ass inside and we’ll get you home.” I couldn’t believe my luck. A minute ago, I thought I was going to die out here, alone on the road, and now my salvation was at hand. “Thank you,” I said hesitantly, as I stepped towards the car and opened the rear driver’s side door. It was dark inside, but I could make out that there was already someone in the back seat. I looked towards the front and saw that there was another person in the front as well. I still couldn’t make out their faces, just the outlines of their figures. “Three guys in here,” I thought, “I guess that’s okay.” Now, I don’t usually hitch rides and I certainly never pick up hitchhikers. I’ve heard too many of the stories and half the people around here seemed like they walked out of a Manson family look-alike contest, so the last thing on earth I’d want is to share a ride with them. I was hesitating in a limbo between getting in the car and stepping back out onto the road. I was getting a really weird feeling that I couldn’t quite put my finger on, and it was leaving me very unsure as to what I should or shouldn’t do. It was then that the guy in the back seat reached out and pulled me into the car. I flopped down on the seat beside him, spraying an arc of mud across the inside of the car as I did so. “Goddamn,” the guy in the back seat said at this point, “this fucker really is covered in mud.” “That’s okay,” the driver said, turning to look at me, “Would you close the door though, dude? A lot of rain is getting in the car.” “Oh yeah,” I replied, as I pulled the car door shut, “sorry about that.” “No worries,” the driver said, “Now where we takin’ you, Mr. Mud?” “Uh, I live in t…t…town,” I stuttered, “near the corner of 5th and G.” “Alright,” he said, “then let’s get on the road.” He and the other guy both turned their faces back towards the front of the car then and the driver pulled out onto the road. I could hear the rain pounding on the roof as we started to move. If anything, it was falling even harder still. “Thank God I’m finally out of it,” I thought. “Thank you,” I said to the whole car, as I settled back into the seat, resting my head on the cushion. I was still very fucked up and drunk. You would have thought the walk and the rain might have sobered me up a bit but that was far from the case. I turned towards the guy sitting next to me in the back seat and realized that he was staring at me. I had the distinct impression he was sizing me up. I hadn’t paid much attention to the way the guys in the car had looked to this point, but I noted now that they could almost be triplets. All three were blond, white guys with short, military-cut hair and camouflage hats like hunters wear. “So, what’s your story, Mr. Mud?” the one sitting next to me said, “You look like you’ve fucked this night up one side and down the other.” “What do you mean?” I answered tentatively. As I did, I looked over at him and noticed for the first time that he was very heavily tattooed. He was wearing blue jeans and a grey t-shirt and had tattoos all down his arms and up his neck. It’s possible he even had a couple on his skull that were showing through his short blond hair a little bit. In the diffused lighting inside the car, I couldn’t really be sure. Now, I have nothing whatsoever against tattoos. I like them, in fact. I even have a couple myself. One on my right arm of my dog, Oscar, and a Chinese Symbol that means freedom on my chest that I had gotten the first time I got sober. There was one on this guy that bothered me a bit, however, just below his left ear. It was partially hidden but still unmistakable as the double lightning bolt SS symbol of the Nazi Stormtroopers. “I mean all THIS, Dude,” He said, waving his hand at me, “All this mud and water and stench and the scratches on your face. You are one fucked up dude, am I right?” “Yeah, I guess I’m a little drunk,” I said, trying my best to sound confident. I turned to look at the guy in the passenger seat, who was now turning around staring at me. He was smiling the most hideous grimace of a smile I’d ever seen and there was nothing in his eyes, no life, no warmth. He was a killer, through and through. He had the same SS Tattoo under his left ear. I swung my gaze towards the driver to see if he had one too. Mercifully he was still looking forwards, towards the road, but he had an identical SS tattoo under his ear as well. “What the fuck have I gotten myself into?” I thought. I live in little town in Northern California called Arcata. Arcata is the most liberal town you are ever going to find in your life. My guess is that every old hippy left on Earth has ended up here and every young hippy makes a pilgrimage to be among their own kind. It’s my kind of place, full of vegan restaurants, political action committees, and hot hippy chicks. In the end, though, Arcata is just a very tiny, progressive island in a vast sea of redneck ignorance. Some of the dumbest, ugliest motherfuckers you’ve ever seen in your life populate the surrounding towns, like McKinleyville, Garberville, and Laytonville (which I always referred to as Satanville for its hellish, frightening qualities). The most conservative people in Arcata vote Democrat every time, but in the surrounding communities there are a pretty fair share of racists, neo-Nazis, and white supremacists. It was looking like I’d fallen in with three white trash mutants from outside Arcata. Now, I’m sure you’re probably able to guess exactly how I feel about motherfucking Nazis. You are correct, sir, I cannot fucking stand them. We’ve fought long and hard to cut through the moronic racism in this country and shame the drooling, KFC swilling, KKK hood wearing redneck pigs back under the rocks they originally emerged from. What’s more, we had gone to war in Europe not so very fucking long ago to eradicate these ridiculous, sadistic scum from the face of the Earth. Not only were Nazis and white power jerk-offs amazing assholes, but they were always history’s big losers, constantly on the wrong side of both victory and history. Why any human being would want to throw their hand up in a “sieg heil” and declare yourself one of this spineless, pathetic crowd is beyond me. Yet, here I was, trapped in a car with three of them. The driver kept his eyes on the road and without turning, he said to me, “I’d say you’re more than a little drunk, wouldn’t you, friend? I’d say you’re shitfaced, you’re two sheets to the wind, you’re one toke over the line, aren’t you?” This Nazi sure knew a lot of colorful terms for being wasted. “Alright, I’m totally fucked up,” I replied, just deciding to go with it now, “Is that a crime?” The one sitting next to me busted out laughing, and slapping me on the shoulder, said, “I think it might be. What do you guys think, guys? Isn’t getting fucked up out of your mind a crime?” The guy in the passenger seat turned towards me again and in the coldest voice I’d ever heard said, “Yeah, it’s a crime. I think it’s called drunk in public. Maybe I oughta make a citizen’s arrest.” This guy was the one I really needed to watch out for. It’s possible he could jump in the back seat and slit my throat at any second. “Ha,” I said, laughing myself to try and join in their fun somehow, holding my arms out with the wrists turned up as if I was waiting for handcuffs to be put on, “you got me dead to rights. I’m busted. Why don’t you put the cuffs on and take me to the clink?” The guy sitting next to me grabbed my arms and pulled them towards himself so that I was spun around in the back seat. His grip on my wrist was tight, and he had long, rat-like fingernails that were now digging deeply into my skin. I couldn’t tell for sure by the light in the car, but it was possible that he was drawing blood. “Hey motherfucker,” he screamed at me, moving so his face was so close to mine that I could see the spittle from his pasty lips spraying off him at my mouth and eyes, “Do we look like cops to you?” “Uh…,” was all I could say in response as he continued to hold my arms tight. The one in the passenger seat reached back to grab me now too, leaning way over the back of his seat to wrap his arm around my neck and put me in a headlock. “Well?” the passenger seat guy screamed, “Do we look like cops to you, motherfucker?” “N…n…no,” I answered, trying to wriggle out of their grasp, “you guys do not look like cops.” Apparently, that was the right thing to say, as they both released me now and settled back into their seats. I looked at my wrists and saw that the asshole next to me had, in fact, drawn blood. “How fucking long are that guy’s nails?” I thought. “You got that right,” the guy next to me said now, “We ain’t no fucking cops. Maybe you ain’t so drunk after all. You can figure that out at least.” All three were guffawing now. They thought this was the funniest comedy ever. Nazis have a pretty lousy sense of humor, it turns out. Maybe that’s why there are no Nazi comedians I can think of off the top of my head. They just kept repeating “Ain’t no fucking cops” over and over and laughing at the top of their redneck lungs. Suddenly, however, the laughter stopped dead. I looked around the car and the two who weren’t driving were both looking at me with the fiercest intensity I’d ever seen. I could practically see the steam coming off the tops of their heads from the angry fire of their stares. The one in the passenger seat leaned a little closer to me and said, in a voice that could cut through steel, “What DO we look like, Mr. Mud?” Without warning, the driver pulled the car over to the side of the road and turned off the engine. He turned towards me also and asked, “Yeah, what DO we look like?” I said nothing and just looked around the car, from one impenetrable face to the next. “C’mon Mr. Mud,” the guy in the passenger seat said, “you can be honest. Tell us what we look like.” I realized later that I should have said “You look like nice guys” or “You look like cool dudes.” That would have been the safe and appropriate response. When I get really fucked up, though, as I’ve been telling you, I get very belligerent and the time between thinking a thought and that thought spilling out of my lips becomes almost nonexistent. So, instead of saying something sensible that would help get me safely out of this situation, I opened my big, fat mouth and said, “Inbred hick fucks. You guys look like inbred hick fucks.” This was a mistake. Next thing I knew, the three of them were dragging me out of the car and out into the middle of a muddy field. I obviously do not know when to shut my big, fat, fucking mouth, because I just kept screaming “INBRED HICK FUCKS” at the top of my lungs. If I had had my senses about me I would have understood that this wasn’t going to improve my situation any. Inbred hick fucks do not like to be called inbred hick fucks. Go figure. They must have dragged me for quite some ways because this part seemed like it went on forever. “What they hell is going to happen to me?” I wondered. Were they going to kill me? Rape me? I’d fucking seen Deliverance, you know. The last thing on earth I wanted was to be made to squeal like a pig, not by these stinking scumbags. Finally, the three of them came to a stop and threw me down hard into the spongy, muddy grass on the ground, so that my face became half submerged in muck. I tried to scream “INBRED HICK FUCKS” one more time but my mouth filled with filthy water and it was all I could do to spit it out before the beating started. The first kick hit me right in the crotch. I jerked in pain and tried to roll myself into a ball, but the kicks started coming hard and fast now, landing from all sides. My stomach, my back, my ass, my ribs. Kicks were landing all over my body and Jesus fucking Christ, it hurt. Those motherfuckers must have all been wearing steel-toed boots. They just kept kicking me and kicking me. All I could do was to put my arms in from of my face to at least protect that. “Please God,” I found myself praying, “don’t let them ruin my pretty face.” I was very worried that one good kick to my kisser would be able to knock out my teeth. I didn’t have the most attractive teeth in the world. I mean, I was usually a lot more interested in getting royally shit-faced than I was in going to the dentist or practicing proper hygiene, but I sure liked my teeth better in my mouth than lying on the ground with the mud and the cow shit. We must have been out in the middle of a field because I could hear the cows mooing over the sound of the still driving rain. The rain didn’t seem to be bothering the three assholes at all, though, or slowing them down a bit. They didn’t say a word while they did it, or even make a sound. They seemed totally focused on the business of beating the living shit out of me. Finally, the one who I think had been the driver shouted to the others, “Okay, that’s enough. We don’t want to kill this fucker.” And like that, the beating stopped. Thank God they didn’t want to kill me. It actually came as a bit of a shock. I didn’t expect Nazis with moral boundaries. I looked up at them, wiping the rain, mud and what I assumed to be blood out of my eyes. The three of them spit on me, and then the one who had been sitting next to me in the back seat kicked me one more time, square in the face and shouted, “Who’s the inbred hick fuck now, fucker?” “Well, it’s still you,” I thought, touching the bruise on my face where the toe of the boot had connected, “kicking my ass doesn’t change that.” I kept this thought to myself, though. For the time being, at least, I had learned my lesson. The three Nazis walked back to their car then and left me lying alone, sprawled on the ground in pain, soaking wet and covered in mud and blood. I tried to raise myself up to my feet, but my legs gave out and I immediately fell back in the mud. “Shit,” I thought, “those guys really fucked me up.” I forced myself painfully to my knees. I didn’t think anything was broken, but until I started to walk I couldn’t possibly be sure. I had no idea what hour of the night it was at this point. It could be four or five in the morning for all I knew. I couldn’t judge how much time had elapsed since those fucking rednecks had picked me up. I looked around, in all directions. All I could see was grass and mud and rain and cows. It occurred to me then that, the vicious beating aside, I was much worse off than I had been when the inbred hick fucks had picked me up. I had been lost to begin with, but now I didn’t even know what direction to go in to find a road. I was well and truly fucked. I plopped my ass down in the mud one more time and just started to scream at the top of my lungs. I don’t know how long I sat there screaming. It could have been five minutes. It could have been an hour. It was impossible to tell. I was bleeding from multiple spots on my face and body and there was so much pain. Every part of my body hurt. Those stupid bastards had really fucked me up. Why the hell had I insisted on telling them what I really thought? At one point during my screaming, I looked over and there was a cow just a few feet away, looking absently at me. It must have wondered what this loud, obnoxious creature was doing out in the middle of its field. The cow didn’t look particularly menacing, more quizzical than anything else, but I did catch myself wondering if there was any way I’d be able to defend myself if the cow decided to charge me. Luckily, that never happened. I didn’t want the headline in the morning to read “Unknown Actor Trampled to Death by Cow.” I just kept screaming and screaming. I wasn’t doing it for any particular purpose. It was more that I just couldn’t think of anything else to do. If I got up and started walking; if I was, in fact, able to make it to my feet at all, I ran the risk of getting myself even farther from the road and making my chance for survival worse than it already was. I screamed for what seemed an eternity. “Somebody has got to hear me,” I thought. I decided I would scream and scream until someone, anyone, eventually showed up to help. “Please just don’t be more Nazis,” I thought. I was still screaming incoherently when I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I turned half way around to see the flashing red and blue lights of a police car. “Oh, thank God,” I thought, “I’m saved. These cops will take me home.” You might not be surprised to know that I really don’t like cops. I hate them, in fact. As a general rule, they are never there when I fucking need them, but always manage to show up when I’m speeding, or running a red light, or transporting a shitload of heroin and hashish across state lines. Cops are not my friends any more than Nazis are. On this one occasion, however, I was overjoyed to see them. I stopped screaming completely at this point. I didn’t want to look like a total idiot. I’m sure I looked bad enough without the screaming. The lights were about a hundred yards away from me. Those fuckers had really dragged me far from the road. I kept staring at the lights to see if anyone was coming towards me, but for the longest time there were just the lights, no movement at all. “What the hell was taking them so long?” I thought. Couldn’t they see I was in trouble here? Finally, I started to see two tiny figures moving towards me in the rain. I stared at them as they got closer, trying with all my might not to start screaming again. It took every bit of my will power, though. In the end, I couldn’t fight it anymore and started waving my arms and shouting, “Hey, over here. I’m hurt bad. Over here.” When the cops got close, I could see that one was a guy and one was a girl. Rather than looking like they were happy to see me, however, they both looked like they were pissed that they had to get all wet on account of me. “Okay, quiet now,” the male cop said to me when he got within a couple of yards, “You can stop screaming now.” I stopped immediately. I hadn’t realized that I had still been screaming. The two cops stopped right in front of me, looking down. I got the distinct feeling that they were observing me like they might a bug they were about to crush. They stood that way for a few moments, before the female cop said to me, “Well, what exactly is going on here?” “Yeah buddy,” the other cop added, “don’t you think it’s time you left these poor cows alone?” “What?” I replied to them, trying to get to my feet, “These fucking Nazi guys brought me out here and beat the shit out of me.” “Hey now,” the female cop said, “watch the language. Is it necessary to have such a foul mouth?” As she said this, the other cop reached out with his foot and pushed me back down into the mud. “Why don’t you just stay where you are?” he said, “You can tell your story from there.” “They beat me up,” I answered, trying to get all the story out now in one breath so that they might believe and help me, “I was walking home from a party and hitched a ride from these guys with Nazi tattoos and they started giving me a hard time, so I called them inbred hick fucks, sorry but that’s what I said. I called them this name, so they pulled the car over to the side of the road and dragged me out here and beat me up. There were three of them and I tried to fight back and defend myself, but they were all attacking me at once and there was nothing I could do except try and defend my face from getting kicked.” “Wow, this guy’s really got a story to tell,” the male cop said, looking at the female cop. He then turned back to me and added, “How much have you had to drink, buddy?” “Uh…,” I answered, stunned, “what’s that got to do with anything?” “It has a whole to do with a lot of things,” the male cop responded, “There’s actually a law against public intoxication.” “Yeah, I’ve heard that somewhere before,” I said, looking from one cop to the other for some sign of compassion. I didn’t see any. I tried to find something else to say but nothing came to my lips. I was dumbfounded. I had told them the whole story of those violent Nazi scumbags and these two stupid cops actually thought that I was the criminal here. These fucking cops were proving to be as useless as all the rest. “C’mon now,” the female cop said as they both reached down to pull me up by my arms, “haven’t you bothered these poor cows enough?” “Yeah,” the other cop added, “maybe we should let them get some sleep.” Both cops started laughing then as they dragged me, tripping and stumbling, the hundred or so yards back to the police car. Every once in a while, one cop would look at the other one and repeat their hilarious joke, “Let them get some sleep.” Then the two of them would both bust out laughing. When we got back to the road and the police car, the female cop threw open the door and the guy cop tossed me unceremoniously in the back seat. “You’re going to get a little time to rest,” he said to me as he closed the door, “Don’t you dare vomit back there.” I must have passed out on the way back to the police station because I don’t remember any details about it at all. I remember being wet and filthy and uncomfortable but there is nothing else. The two cops could have laughed at me or taunted me the whole way, or they could have passed the entire ride in total silence. I have no way of knowing. I do remember arriving at the police station, because the guy cop pulled me so hard from the car that I smashed my head on the doorway as I came out. I thought cops were supposed to protect your head. Maybe that was only getting in the car, not getting out. Fuck, it hurt. I could tell I was going to have a big bump there on top of the damage that the inbred hick fucks had done to me. The two of them each held one of my arms to keep me steady as they dragged me up two flights of stairs. I was thinking the whole time about who I was going to bother when I got the one phone call they always give you. They carried me into a wide room with another cop standing behind a big counter at the end. I didn’t like the look of this one. He looked like a real asshole. In fact, he looked pretty similar to the fuckers I had been in the car with and who had beaten the shit out of me. He had blue eyes and short blond hair and that typical Nazi look of total condescension when his eyes met mine. “Christ,” I thought, “the two who had arrested me and brought me in might be the nice ones.” Chances were that I was pretty fucked here. “What do we got here?” he said to the cops who brought me in. “Drunk in public,” the female cop said. “We found him crying and screaming in a cow field,” the guy cop added, “He needs a night in the drunk tank to sleep it off.” “Alright then,” the cop behind the counter said, “Let’s get to it then.” The two who had arrested me left me with the asshole looking cop then and disappeared back into the night. I guess they were off to arrest some other poor slob who had been beaten senseless by Nazis. The majority of the booking process that followed occurred in almost complete silence. The asshole looking cop may have said one or two words to me the entire time but that was the extent of it. He took my mugshot and my fingerprints, and I had to blow into some balloon like thing, I guess it was to measure my level of drunkenness. It was totally unnecessary. If he would have just asked I would have gladly told him how drunk I was. “Alright,” he said when we were finished with that, “I think it’s tank time for you.” “Don’t I get a phone call?” I asked him. I had been going over my options and I planned to call my friend, Satlin, who was a guy I’d known for a long time and who had been at the performance of the terrible play earlier in the evening. Damn, that seemed like a lifetime ago now. I’d been wracking my brain and Satlin was the only one I could think of who might be interested in me getting the hell out of here. It wasn’t that he cared so much about my wellbeing, but Satlin had a sick sense of humor and would want to make sure I was safe and ready to give another over-the-top performance of “The Feeling Child.” In response, however, the asshole looking cop just slapped me on the shoulder and laughed. After he had giggled and chortled his fill, he looked at me and said, “No phone call. Now, take off your clothes.” “Wh…what?” I replied to him. “I said give me your clothes,” he said to me, biting off the words right in my face, “You’re not getting in my tank wearing all that filthy, stinking shit.” “M…my clothes?” “Yes, your clothes. Go ahead now. I’ll wait.” So, I proceeded to strip naked in front of the asshole cop. He didn’t seem to be enjoying it, thank God. It wasn’t one of those things, at least. As I mentioned earlier, I naturally always think the worst of cops and It would surprise me not the tiniest little bit to find out they made a habit of raping and murdering the people they arrest. To be perfectly honest, though, it felt pretty good to take my clothes off. I had been wet and covered in mud for so long that I had kind of gotten used to it, but it was a bit of a relief to finally be rid of the clothes. When I got down to just my underwear, I thought of asking if he wanted me to continue but I knew the answer already, so I just stripped them off and threw them onto the pile of my clothes on the floor. “Okay, what now?” I said to him when I was finished, standing completely naked in front of him. “Now I say nighty-night,” He answered, taking me by the arm and leading me down a short hallway to a room with a very thick door and an extremely tiny window. I assume the window was for checking on what was inside rather than looking out. The asshole looking cop opened the door and I peered inside. There were two other guys already in there, sitting on the floor. For some reason, they had been allowed to keep their clothes. The walls and floor were all heavily padded, and other than the two guys, there was nothing in the room but a dirty toilet in one corner. “Home sweet home,” I thought. “Hey look, I got a friend for you guys,” the asshole looking cop said, then threw me roughly into the room. Luckily everything was padded because I smashed hard into one wall and slid to the ground. What was it with people throwing me around? The two guys didn’t even look at me. they were both in their own little worlds. Then the asshole looking cop slammed the door and left me alone with my new friends. I looked up from where I was now squatting uncomfortably against the wall. The excitement had roused the two other guys in the cell and they were now looking in my direction. Both of them looked like redneck guys in their mid to late 50s. They were wearing jeans, flannel shirts, and red MAGA caps, and both of them had long cracker beards, like the assholes on Duck Dynasty. They eyed me like a piece of meat. I was trying to figure out if they wanted to kill me or fuck me, or both. “Christ almighty,” I said to myself, “how many fucking rednecks does a guy have to deal with in one evening?” They were both the same evil person as far as I was concerned, so I don’t remember which of them spoke first. Maybe it was the one closest to me, maybe it was the other one. It doesn’t make any difference. One of them, however, asked me then, “So, what are you in for?” “I was arrested for being drunk in public,” I answered, feeling that I had nothing really to gain by lying about my situation at this point, and really, who gave a damn what these rejects thought of me, “but in truth I had the shit beat out of me by these three guys and I was left out in a field to die. The cops decided not to believe any of that, though. They think I did this shit to myself somehow and decided to drag me in.” The two of them sat up a little straighter against the wall, and this time I’m certain it was the one closest to me who said, “Those motherfuckers. They never fail to let the bad guys run wild in the streets and arrest the decent, law-abiding folks.” “Right?” I responded. I was pretty sure that when he said “bad guys” he meant immigrants and African Americans. I thought it best to keep that to myself for the time being, however. “What the fuck did they do with your clothes?” the other one said to me. “They told me to take them off,” I answered,” I thought they were going to give me new ones. “Those motherfuckers,” the first one said again, “Did they at least give you a motherfuckin’ phone call?” “No,” I said, feeling like I was starting to win them to my cause, “I asked for a phone call and they just laughed at me.” “Goddamnit,” the second one said, and the first one chimed in with another “motherfuckers.” “Yeah,” I told them, “It doesn’t seem right to me. Does it seem right to you?” “Hell no,” the first one said, “it does not seem motherfuckin’ right. You are owed one goddamn phone call, like everybody else.” “Those bastards are robbin’ you of your rights,” the second one added. Both of these were certainly insufferable redneck racists in real life, but I sure needed someone on the me-team at this point, so anyone was welcome. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, or some such nonsense, right? Never underestimate the comradery of shared whiteness. The two of them got up on their feet at this point and started pounding on the door and walls, shouting “Give this guy a phone call,” and “Everyone deserves a phone call,” and other stuff like that. I watched them in amazement for a while. I was pretty certain they had as good a chance of getting me beat up again as they did of getting me a phone call, but there was no way I was going to stop them. After a while, I got up myself and started pounding the walls and shouting with them. I was not unaware of how ridiculous I looked doing this, being naked and all, with my junk bobbing up and down every time I pounded the foam rubber wall. All this accomplished nothing, however. The cops never showed up and eventually, my two new friends gave up, sitting back down in pretty damn near their original positions and passing out. Mercifully, it wasn’t too much longer before I passed out myself. I was roused by a sharp kick in my already badly bruised and painful ribs. “Fuuuuuuuuuck,” I exclaimed, as I opened my eyes to see the asshole looking cop standing over me. He had my clothes in his hands. They were folded neatly, so maybe someone had washed them in the night. “Get up, buddy,” He said to me, “It looks like you’re in luck.” “What?” I replied, not understanding. “You’re in luck,” he said again, “It looks like somebody loves you. Now get your ass up and let’s go. I don’t have all day.” I looked around the room and my new friends were both gone. I wondered for a second what had happened to them, but then the asshole cop kicked me in the fucking ribs again, so I got myself up and followed him. He led me out of the padded cell and motioned silently to a bathroom just outside, handing me my clothes as he did so. “Why are they letting me go?” I wondered to myself, and what had the asshole looking cop meant when he said, “It looks like somebody loves you.”? I slowly got into my now clean clothes. It was difficult because of all the cuts, abrasions and bruises I had suffered from the night before. I had been hoping all that had been a bad dream. Apparently, it was all too real. I checked my poor, battered face in the mirror. “Fuck,” I thought, “Those inbred hick fucks really did a number on me.” I opened the bathroom door and the asshole looking cop was still there waiting for me. He took me by the arm and led me back to the very same room where this trip to the looney bin had begun. Satlin was sitting there, waiting for me. I should have guessed. Who else had enough riding on my continuing to breath air? He had an expression on his face that said, “What idiotic situation have you gotten yourself into this time?” It looked like he was having serious difficulty holding back a laugh. Satlin has always been fond of telling other people that they should only spend time with me if they want their entire lives turned upside down. Of course, this comes from a wealth of his personal experience. One time Satlin and I been walking together to the movies, when a car came screeching around a bend in the road and plowed us down in the intersection we were crossing. The car hit Satlin’s leg and spun him to the ground, but I jumped and and ended up on the hood, hanging onto the windshield wipers. The first thing Satlin said after the car had sped away was “This is all your fault.” I was pretty certain he was really enjoying seeing me like this. The asshole looking cop pushed me, not entirely gently, in Satlin’s direction and said, “He’s all yours. Don’t let him take you on a tour of any cow fields.” Then, he threw his head back and let loose with one last hideous guffaw. Fuck, I fucking hate cops. Almost as much as Nazis. Of course, there’s probably a lot of crossover there. On the way home, neither Satlin or I spoke a single word to each other. I wasn’t in the mood, with my head banging and pounding like someone was playing an NFL game inside of it. Satlin must have known it wasn’t a great time to give me any shit about what had happened. There’d be plenty of time to hear the whole story and to bust my chops later. When we got to my apartment, I got out of the car without saying goodbye and walked into my place. The first thing I did was to draw myself a hot bath and place my wounded body into the blissfully warm water. “What a fucking night,” I thought. I spent the rest of the day in the bath, not being able to pull myself out, wondering if I’d ever learn to keep my big fat mouth closed. The moral of the story, of course, is I should give my life to Jesus, and I should spend my days praying and imitating Norman Rockwell paintings so that shit like this doesn’t happen to me. If that’s too extreme for me to handle, then maybe I should go to an AA meeting and get a grip on my drinking problem, or at least learn how to leave a party while there are still drugs and alcohol waiting to be consumed. None of those things are going to happen, of course. The best I may achieve is to learn to keep some of my more unflattering thoughts inside my head where they belong, instead of blurting them out in people’s faces. At least around inbred hick fucks.

Max Mundan, Inbred Hick Fucks

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