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#also still having heavy issues in real life so i havent done a lot for ff....
tenisonline · 2 years
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entry three - 4/10/2022
after many days of a wifi outage, i return to my little blog. there is a cynic inside my head that says, “not like anyone reads this blog, anyway,” but i choose to ignore them. i will allow myself to feel welcome in this echo chamber that i’ve built for myself. it becomes more comforting every time i use it.
i think i have touched on this lightly before, but i am autistic. i am self diagnosed, and unashamedly so. it took a lot of research and talking to come to the conclusion that i am autistic, and to apply autism to my personal experiences and intersections, and i may talk about it more in depth another time. but, lightly speaking, my brain has more words than my mouth can ever say. it is almost magical, actually, it IS magical, the way that i can type nonstop into a box and when im done, when my back is aching from being hunched over and my fingers are still twitching off pure muscle memory, and my brain has been thoroughly soothed by the sound of a good keyboard-- i’ve done it. i’ve created something messy, incomprehensible to others, but very cohesive to me. something real. i feel heard by my echo chamber. so welcome back, ten. 
today i will talk about two things and it may or may not be long. In 29 days, give or take, i am moving back to my hometown. other important counting-- in 235 days is december, the month i meet my boyfriend. in 227 days is my 21st birthday. 
when i left hinesville, i was a college freshman facing a global pandemic head on, and even with all of the issues that came with living alone i promised i would never go back there. moving from hinesville to columbus was hell. i experienced a lot of firsts all on my own. first flat tire, first dead car battery, first flare up rash that called for a solo trip to the ER. i was raped here, twice, once being... very recently. just some weeks ago. i cried enough tears to fill up the river that surrounds the music school i spent so much time and energy in. i started to think, and i still think, that columbus is a bad omen. im not meant to live here and im being pushed out. its the only explanation for so much hardship. 
i lived in columbus as a child. we moved, to my rememberance, from columbus to hinesville, and then as an adult i moved back. hinesville is my hometown though it is not my first town, because it is the town and i grew and developed in. i can show you every corner, like no where else. its the closest thing to a home area i know. i thought that maybe it would be comforting to go back, but i could still feel the heaviness and hardship i left behind. even then, i was starting a new life as an adult in school and i thought i could do it. a year later im a music school drop out, poor and struggling and ready to leave. life comes at you fast.
so yes, i am running away. i give up. i surrender to columbus georgia and all its weird energy. i am going back to my moms house where i wont have rent and where i’ll always have food and supplies. it’s only right. i need to fix my credit and reset my life and get back into college, i cant do that if im struggling to survive. i am running from people who hurt me, from people that i hurt, i am running. running is not bad. running is exercise. and when i get to where im going i’ll stop running. 
i have been watching a lot of grey’s anatomy. im on season 9, the episode where Christina leaves seattle. She tells Meredith that too much has happened to them. friends dying, a shooting, a plane crash, she feels like its cursed. it took more from her than it gave. Meredith replies that personally, it took just as much from her as it gave. Christina was drained by Seattle, but Seattle was Meredith’s balance. I am drained by columbus. That’s why i am going home.
I struggle with the prospect of going back to my moms house. Me and my mom often bump heads. We dont see things the same way. And also, it’s horrifying to think that I may see someone i once knew well, someone i havent talked to in forever because i just didnt want to. hinesville was where i met my two closest friends, both of which i no longer speak to anymore. outgrew my hinesville friends, my hinesville boyfriend, i am a city person now. i have a new lover who i’ll marry in a fancy dress one day. and i have a new perspective. and im happy. but i know that growth is lonely. when i go home theres no one to call and say “im back” to. 
my mom says return is not failure, it is just a reset, recalibration. im starting to understand what she means. i have to shed my teenaged perspective of hometown in order to be happy. i have to be an adult, starting a new chapter in an old place transformed-- a place that has boomed with new people and new things since i last went-- vs a teenager scraping her way out of a dead end place. i’ll turn 21 there. i’ll go to the bar. i’ll go to a club, ill meet new people, ill live life as an adult there and not a kid. it’s a different life and it’ll be a happier life. mom says i dont have to work for the first two months. she says i can rest. nothing makes me happier. hopefully i can get a job at the health food store. i always really wanted to work there. or maybe something similar, idk. 
i am just looking forward to it all. in december, my boyfriend is coming to visit. we originally planned for summer but it didnt work out that way. i was hurt but december is better. gives us more time to plan something solid. i am so excited to see him and love him up close. and i will. everything will go smoothly and im excited for that, for something in my life to be easy and smooth. he is easy to love. he is good to love, too. 
i am excited to cook in the kitchen. and have money in the bank. and see lamar, and hold him. im excited to see my cat and my family. im excited to pay my debt to my school and transfer to another school. im excited to start living a life free of so much of this pain that comes with living in this apartment. im excited. im happy. i am lucky. i am blessed. and i am hopeful.
i dont think i really want to talk about the other thing today, im a bit tired of being at the computer. maybe another time. to everyone out there-- take care.
-jainie 
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sadsapphicslut · 3 years
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chapter one - original story (i havent come up with a title yet lol)
okay so here it is!! if anyone actually reads this i love u :) please leave feedback if u have any!! 
TWs:
death, drugs, medication, mental illness, references to sex, swearing, alcohol
wordcount: 8.2k
(also i dont think anyone will but im paranoid of people stealing my writing so obligatory dont copy/post to another site or steal my work in any other ways etc)
There were five of us; 4 boys and me. In hindsight I realize from the outside our group probably seemed a little predatory, but it was never really like that. For the most part they were like brothers to me. Of course, being the only girl in a small and isolated club of mainly older boys, things were bound to happen. We were in high school and it was summer, can you blame me? Regardless, however much I loved them, it was not quite in the way my father always assumed or my mother always warned (during our uncomfortable monthly visitations before I managed to get rid of her for good).
The months everything went down, which I often referred to only as ‘The Worst Summer of My Life’, (quite melodramatically but not without reason) were somehow still full of the best moments of my life. Moments I often find myself wishing I could repeat, as nothing has or will ever come close to the way I felt, sitting amongst my boys day after day, somehow light as the warm July breeze that blew past us. My entire body weightless, as non-existent as the time that passed us by. Despite the depression I’d found myself plunged into during the days after my only brother’s death, I truly believe I will never again be as happy as I was then. Laughter seemed to flow freely from our mouths, smiles plastered onto our faces no matter the circumstances, content to just exist. I don’t think I can ever forget the day it was raining so hard the entire city was flooded, but we walked around uptown well past the point of being absolutely drenched, our clothes dripping so heavily the security guard denied us entry into the public library. Something about that day made me feel so free, like we were invisible. Completely apathetic to the whims of the real world, somehow existing only in our twisted minds and intertwined fantasies.
Maybe if I’d had my head screwed on a little tighter, or if we’d met under different circumstances, it wouldn’t have ended the way it did. I used to go down that line of thought every night before succumbing to a fitful but heavy sleep (under the direct affect of 25mg of Quetiapine, working to counteract my Concerta and Lexapro). Those types of irrational thoughts were ones my therapist deemed as my habit for rumination. In regard to the death of my brother she called it ‘bargaining’, one of the stages of grief. I never liked it when she spoke about those stages as I’ve always felt them to be wrong. Maybe because I never quite moved on to the final one, no matter how many years pass. ‘Acceptance’, coined as the “Re-entrance to reality”. Maybe it’s different since I was never really grounded to reality in the first place. I still wake up some mornings, thinking I’ve heard his voice in the other room, ready to beguile me with tales from his day of retail work. Other times I swear I’ve walked past him on the street. Some people may relate to my experiences, with reasonings of ghosts, angels, apparitions, or insanity, among many other causes for the apparent viewing of a loved one long gone to the other side. I never shared these beliefs, but I am not one to deny. Rather, I always take these instances as an omen. A warning. I have come to this conclusion not without evidence, at least circumstantial, given the many occasions over the years – and especially that summer – where I found my hypothesis to be true. All I can say is that I am glad I’ve never been met with the same chimerical visions of my mother; one can only hope that is because she ended up where she belonged. Maybe I’ll see her there, though I hope at the very least they could keep us in separate rooms of Hell if the situation does arise.
From what I know of the others now, which is admittedly not much – majorly due to my own neglect, as opposed to theirs – they share the same prescription for rose-coloured glasses as I. We always were too engrossed with our own romanticization of nostalgia and sentiment that it clouded our view. I often think this was one of the reasons we seemed to fit so well together. Not quite like puzzle pieces, too self-absorbed to hold a candle to that analogy, more like complimentary colours. I wish it could’ve stayed the way it was. We did try, and I never found myself able to fully disentangle myself from James, nor he could to I, but for most of us we could recognize an ending when one arises. I used to find myself using the word tragedy a lot while reminiscing, but I no longer think that word is appropriate. Fate is a more fitting term in my opinion, regardless of if one believes in it or not. “(A)n inevitable and often adverse outcome, condition, or end,” as reported by Merriam Webster. I don’t think there’s a word in the entire English language more accurate in describing how everything ended up; and if there is, I am yet to find it.
  Chapter One
A Dead Brother
          I have tried to erase the day my brother died from my memory so many times I lost count decades ago. I still find the image seeping into my unconsciousness quite dreadfully on the nights I neglect to take my pills and catch myself waking up with a steady flow of tears that dampen my pillow along with the drool that always seems to pour from my sleeping mouth. The dread that pools in my stomach sometimes being heavy enough for me to lose my lunch. I frequently wonder how people managed to reassure me that it wasn’t my fault; the most painful lie I’ve ever been told and one that seemed to stream from people’s mouths as easily as the mini sandwiches laid in the living room of my brother’s wake were stuffed in. The worst part about being told it wasn’t my fault was how obviously one could tell they didn’t believe what they were saying either. His death was my fault; a fact so uncontestable I wanted to kill myself every time I was reminded of it.
           My therapist often tried to remind me that even if his death was “partially” (she always used the word partially, refusing to acknowledge the truth that his death was entirely my fault) my fault, there was nothing I could’ve done to prevent it. This was another lie I despised being told. There were a million ways I could have prevented his death or saved his life and yet, here we are, with him dead and me wishing everyday that I won’t wake up tomorrow. “Begonia,” she’d tell me – she was the only person who called me by my full name, I usually went by Nia, but a nickname felt too personal and I didn’t like her very much – “You mustn’t keep torturing yourself with these scenarios. He’s dead, and there is nothing you can do to change that. I am starting to wonder if you are going to let yourself move on. This isn’t healthy.” That was a line she liked to use a lot, “this isn’t healthy”. As if anything I do is.
           Barb, my therapist that is, liked to go over the details of my brother’s death a lot. She often called it a ‘trigger’, which is why she always seemed to want me to talk about it. “Trauma is a horrible thing, Begonia, and you must learn to move past it, process it. I can see you still haven’t managed to do that on your own, and that’s what I’m here for, to help you move on.” Barb was big on the idea of  “moving past trauma” and “learning to cope”, she often sounded like a broken record of a motivational speech. I found myself comparing her to school guidance councillors without realizing it, they were about equally as helpful (read: not helpful) in my opinion.
           Sometimes I blame my inability to forget and “move past” my brother’s death on the way Barb constantly brought it up and made me go through it. I never quite understood how that part of my therapy was supposed to help me. I asked her once, what good was it doing rehashing the worst day of my life?
           “Well, Begonia,” I hated the way she said my name, always so condescending and sour, like even the idea of me questioning her in any way was as impolite as shitting on her desk.
“You have to understand that I only want to help you. You seem to be unable to process your traumas on your own, which is why we need to go through these things. As you are aware, this PTSD,” she always left strange pauses after each letter, her slow tone grinding on my ears, “you have acquired has left you unable to function normally in daily life. I want you to get to a place where you can have a normal life (Ha!) and cope without these meetings. It’s what your brother would’ve wanted.” Barb liked to tell me what my brother would have wanted at least once every session. Putting aside the fact she knew next to nothing about him aside from the intimate details on how he died, I always thought it was an inappropriate thing to say as a psychologist specializing in grief counselling. It never particularly bothered me, I was reasonable enough to realize she was just trying to comfort me, but I never liked the phrase. “What your brother would’ve wanted.” What he would’ve wanted was to not die but we’re past that, aren’t we Barb, as you so often enjoyed telling me.  
I have always been quite averse to my diagnoses, ADHD at 14, Persistent Depressive Disorder at 15, PTSD at 16, issues with alcohol and drugs that landed me in rehab more than once. I’ve been on a concoction of different medications since I was 13, even before I was diagnosed with anything officially. Sertraline, Lexapro, Prozac, Ritalin, Concerta, Adderall, Quetiapine, Ambien, Zopiclone, a healthy mix of off brand and branded medications. Sleeping pills, antidepressants, stimulants. I can’t remember a time before monthly trips to the drug store and side effect surveys that I’m not sure if I ever told the truth on. It’s a wonder that people didn’t see a slew of addiction issues coming from a mile away.
I think I’ve always had the most contention with my PTSD diagnosis though, I hate it because I know it’s undeniably true. I wish it wasn’t because maybe that’d mean my brother was still alive, but he isn’t. And I’m left traumatized and bereaved. Sometimes it feels like it hurt me more than it ever did my mother or father. Maybe it did. I should feel selfish for saying that, but I can’t, because they didn’t have to look at him while the life left his body, praying to God for the ability to turn back time. See the moment his eyes glazed over, knowing I’d never get to hear his obnoxious laugh, or make fun of his dumb face ever again.
  ❈
             “Ray, hey listen I need you to come pick me up.”
It was a cool evening in May, the end of spring brought with it the promise of summer and the air had the familiar aroma of daffodils and petrichor. I had decided to go to a party with my friend Faun, my dad having been out at his girlfriend’s place for the weekend and me having nothing better to do. I wasn’t one for partying, but I did like to get high, so I usually just hung around with the rest of the potheads and pill junkies until someone dragged me home or I fell asleep. That night Don, a friend of a friend of a friend, had brought coke and E and we were all determined to get as fucked up as possible. Faun only ended up doing one line before running into a bedroom with some guy whose name started with an M – was it Martin or Marvin? Maybe it was Mickey – and left me sitting on the couch beside a girl who was about 1 more shot of vodka away from passing out.
I had fully intended on doing some coke, but the E seemed to be hitting harder than I was used to. I was sure my Ritalin had worn off by then but maybe I was wrong. As I stood up to get a glass of water I nearly fell over and decided to sit back down. Turning to face Don, I tapped him on the shoulder trying to get his attention.
“What was in that molly?” I was vaguely aware of the way my words were slurring, but I felt weirdly energized. I was aware my heart was beating a little too fast, but I couldn’t concentrate on anything. I knew what ecstasy felt like, this was not nearly my first time doing it, but I felt really wrong.
           “Don!” He turned to look at me and I felt uneasy. His eyes looked a little crazed – not that out of the ordinary but given the circumstances I was worried – “What the fuck did you give me?” It felt like I’d done 5 lines of coke in the last 2 minutes and I knew that E had been spiked.
           Don’s face had an unmistakable expression of guilt written on it as he leaned down and whispered in my ear, his voice shaking, “I think it was cut with meth.” Fuck. My stomach dropped. I have to get out of here. I quickly shot up from the musty couch I was sat on, carefully holding onto Don’s shoulder so I didn’t fall, my legs still feeling unsteady. I opened my phone; the screen was too bright, and I had a hard time maneuvering it as I attempted to exit the house. Clicking the green Messages icon, I sent a text to Faun – e ws cut w meth im lesving – with shaky hands and burst out the door into the fresh air. I clicked my brother’s contact and pressed call.
           It rang four times before he picked up.
           “Nia? Why are you calling me it’s like 1am?” I could tell from the smooth tone of his voice he’d been drinking. He didn’t very often but he had an appreciation for cocktails and enjoyed getting buzzed now and then. He still was a year from being legal to drink but his friends we’re all 19 and 20 and bought alcohol for him. I found him fun when he got drunk, becoming talkative and giggly, but right now I wished so badly for him to be sober.
           “Ray, hey listen I need you to come pick me up.” I was slurring, my voice a bit too pitchy to pass as anything but high. I knew he didn’t like it when I did this, but he never ratted me out. Sometimes I wish he did, maybe I never would’ve been able to go to that party in the first place.
           I could hear a door shutting on his end, I assumed he was going into a different room. “What’s wrong?” My skin was bubbling with anxiety at the prospect of having to tell him what I did.
           “Fuck, uh… I did something stupid. I’m at Emily Goguen’s, y’know up in Champlain Heights. Please pick me up.” I rarely used the word please.
“Nia, what the fuck did you do?” I almost started crying but I found my eyes to be bone dry.
“Please don’t yell.”
“Okay, really, tell me what is going on or I won’t come get you.”
“I accidentally took meth.”
“You what? What the fuck, Nia! Fuck this I’m on my way and I’m fucking telling Dad.” I cringed but I knew he was going to before I even called. The pit in my stomach grew deeper as the buzzing of my skin grew stronger. I could feel myself getting higher, everything was so clear and standing around was making me grow restless. Ray huffed on the phone and I heard him entering his car.
His tone was softer the next time he spoke. “I’ll be there in 5, just stay put, please. Do you want me to stay on the call or can I hang up?”
I felt like a child, which I was really, only 16 at the time, a whole life ahead of me. Still, I was grateful for the way he spoke to me, reminiscent of being 6 and getting a scrapped knee after falling off my pink Razor scooter. The high made me edgy, and my voice was sharp to my ears, “No, you can hang up.” I heard the click to indicate he’d done just that, and started pushing my cuticles as I waited, the task somehow greatly interesting me, and I did not realize until later I had managed to pick off all of the skin around my pointer and middle fingernails during the five-minute wait.
 Ray pulled up exactly five minutes later in his ugly, blue 2011 Ford Fiesta he’d gotten the year prior after passing his driving test. What I wouldn’t do now to smell the inside of that car once again, a distinct attar of pineapple car freshener and Old Spice deodorant mixed with stale black tea, faintly present due to his ever-growing collection of empty paper cups from various different fast foods and coffee shops.
I stumbled into the car, feeling the strong impulse to clean the space, but attempting to push it down. From the passenger side overhead mirror I could see my blown pupils and sweaty forehead, pieces of my copper red hair sticking to my face. My freckles were showing through my concealer that had mostly worn off and I wanted to cover them back up. My skin was pale from winter (and probably the drugs in my system) but my cheeks were flushed like I was drunk. My high cheekbones made my face look gaunt in the lighting, but my face was wide which balanced it out, so I didn’t look completely skeletal. Ray was looking at me, the worry apparent in his eyes, but his face was flushed as well, and I could tell he’d been drinking a bit too much to drive. I had my license as well, but it was clear I was in no condition to take over on that front, so I didn’t bother saying anything. I wish I had. There’s a lot of things I wish. I wish I hadn’t gone to that party; I wish I hadn’t taken that E; I wish I called someone else; I wish I waited it out at Emily’s; I wish I walked home; I wish I took a cab; I wish I waited for Faun; I wish I wish I wish I wish I wish.
“Are you okay?” He didn’t take his eyes off me as I shut the mirror in front of me.
“Yeah, yeah I’ll be fine. Please just take me home.”
“Is Dad there?”
“No.”
“Maybe I should take you to Mom’s.”
“No!” I’d moved out of my mom’s completely just over 6 months ago, barely seeing her once a month. It was one of the best decisions I’d ever made. She never liked me much anyways, the feeling was entirely mutual. Ray seemed to have a close bond with her for some reason despite how she treated him like shit. I never called him out though, he no longer lived with her, so I didn’t really care what their relationship was as long as she wasn’t hurting him. She did treat him significantly better than me, however, so I figured maybe he managed to forgive her the way I never could.
“Okay, but I’m staying with you until Dad gets home. I’m not gonna lie to him about this shit. Fucking meth, Nia? Seriously?”
“It was in the molly.” He sighed and started driving.
 My brain felt like it was filled with butterflies, or ants, some kind of movement that was itching at my skull. The paper cups scattered around were making me anxious and I needed to clean his car. I began picking at my nails again, but I needed to pick up those cups, you see. I turned around and started gathering the ones Ray had discarded in the back, filling up an empty plastic bag from Best Buy. I was fully switched around in my seat, nearly crawling into the backseat to reach the trash my brother had left. I felt him tap my side, I looked over at him and he started to scold me.
“Nia, stop that will you, you’re distracting me.” But I needed to finish gathering the cups. The car was dirty, and my skin was itching, the traffic lights burning my skin. I was elated and I didn’t want to listen to him, he was just trying to get in my way. I continued to lean over, not registering the swerve of the car as he looked over at me.
“Nia – ”
He turned over to push me back into my seat, his eyes leaving the road for no more than a few seconds. This time I felt the swerve as we broke into the next lane.
 This is where I have a hard time piecing together what happened. From what I was told, we ended up running directly into a 2015 Dodge Ram 2500. In case you understandably have a lack of knowledge when it comes to cars, that is a very large, sturdy, and expensive pickup truck which I would probably consider the last vehicle you’d want to charge headfirst into while going 70km per hour. I don’t recall the actual incident of hitting the truck, whether that be from the drugs, the position I was in, or hitting my head on the roof of the car, I don’t know. What I do know is that when I woke up, we were in a ditch on the side of the road, with the car flipped upside down, and my entire body was screaming at me to Get Out!
I felt blood oozing sluggishly from my head and noted some indistinct pain in my right wrist where it had scraped something pretty badly and gotten twisted, but I otherwise felt alright. I couldn’t tell if the cloudiness in my head was from a concussion or the earlier events of the night, but I figured it was probably good I was awake, regardless of how dazed I seemed.
I turned my head to the left and was greeted by a view I will never be able to forget, it having been branded to the insides of my eyelids, scorched in my mind. Ray, with his left arm twisted in spectacular fashion, reminding me of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, after Lockhart spells away Harry’s bones. My brother had always been squeamish with broken bones and I hoped he wasn’t aware of how his limb looked at the moment. His head was bleeding quite profusely, and I was alarmed despite how many times I’d heard in movies that headwounds bleed a lot. His eyelids were fluttering, irises appearing glassy and unfocussed. And then I saw it. A piece of glass was stuck in the left side of his neck. The windshield apparently had broken with the impact and my brother was lucky enough to get a piece lodged right in his trachea. It was thick, bright red blood –  that I could’ve sworn was sparkling in my current inebriated perspective – was gushing out the side, so heavy I could smell it, taste it, in the air. I was frozen once I realized.
Do something, do something! Put pressure on it! Call 9-1-1! My mind was screaming at me, but it was all I could do to sit and watch the blood stain his clothes. He was wearing the corduroy jacket I’d gotten him for his birthday and a white button up, the red seeped into them until it was as if they’d always been that colour. My voice was caught in my throat, but I managed to push some sound past.
“Ray?” It was weaker than a whisper but in the silence that seemed to envelope us in that car, completely independent of the outside world and sirens that could surely be heard from blocks away, I knew he would be able to hear me.
He looked up, eyes focussing slightly on me, and a tear slipped down his face, only it went the wrong way since we were still upside down. He mouthed the words “I love you”. We never said that to each other. As close as we were, our relationship had always been more comparable to that of a best friend than sibling. We weren’t overly affectionate, never hugged or said I love you, hung out for enjoyment rather than as a punishment. Most people didn’t know we were brother and sister until we pointed it out, we never really looked alike and were absent of the traditional distaste and rivalry usually present between siblings. I knew, as he looked me in the eyes and said those words, this would be the last time I’d ever see him outside of a morgue.
I sat in my seat next to him with dry eyes, wishing desperately I could cry, needing to express the feeling of utter horror and despondency that completely overtook my body and mind, but I couldn’t. Barb told me time and time again that I was in shock, there was nothing I could’ve done, but I will never be able to believe that. I still remember the moment the final tear slipped down his face. He smiled at me, pain evident in his eyes. His entire body was covered in the metallic smelling red, and I wanted to vomit. I wish I could say the crash had sobered me, but it didn’t, not really. I was still entirely in a daze as I saw his muscles relax, smiling falling from his face, eyes not quite rolling back all the way but enough to give me nightmares for the next 20 years. The life had been absorbed from his body, leaving a heavy shell. I was told afterwards this all happened within the span of 10 minutes, but it felt like years. By the time the first responders had appeared I was an old woman. Grayed hair, and arthritic bones. Mourning for the brother I’d lost oh so many years ago, when I was just a girl. I think in a way I died in that car with him, I never was really the same. But who would be? Best friend and confidant, older brother, idol, dying in front of your eyes as you do nothing, knowing for the rest of your life that his death is – was – your fault. Knowing you could’ve done something, anything really, to prevent his untimely loss of life before the paramedics arrived. If I’d been the same after that night I would have to be much more disturbed than I ever thought.
I sat in that car beside Ray’s corpse for 3 more minutes before I heard the sirens closing in around us – me. I thought I might pass out, either from the toll of what I’d just witnessed or from my concussion, but I remained upright, probably from the adrenaline. I couldn’t move so I just waited, and hoped I’d die too before anyone reached the scene. It would be much preferrable to any other outcome I could think of at the time. I could vaguely register the pain in my wrist, but I felt so numb I’m sure you could’ve shot me in the foot and I wouldn’t have blinked.
A young fireman named Walter ended up getting me out of the car. The door was smashed and stuck which meant I’d been trapped in there either way. I was happy I hadn’t bothered trying to escape as I'm terribly claustrophobic and finding out I couldn’t would have thrown me into a proper panic attack. The fireman was incredibly nice, saying reassuring things the entire time they were opening the door with the “Jaws of Life”. I ended up seeing him again in the hospital actually, or at least that’s what my father told me. He wanted to check in on me and left me some hydrangeas in a vase. I always preferred chrysanthemums but I'm not that picky when it comes to a floral arrangement.
After the door was busted open I was carried out by Walter. I was shaking and apparently babbling nonsense but in my head I was trying to tell them to save Ray. I wasn’t really aware of all that much, completely blind to the crowd of spectators that had rudely gathered to witness the violence – wasn’t it supposed to be taboo to stop at a car crash? Wondering vaguely about what happened and wishing you could get a better look as you drive past the scene.  My head wound had made me a bit incompetent and the meth in my system was really not helping the entire situation.
I was laid on a gurney and rolled onto an ambulance. I don’t remember much about the ride; the sirens, the bright lights, a paramedic named Alice who spoke softly, smoothing out my hair while the other put an oxygen mask on my face (which I wasn’t entirely cognizant enough to question though now I'm not really sure why they did it) and splinted my wrist. Alice asked me if I was on drugs and I nodded but was unable to speak when she asked me what ( I would find this a common occurrence after the accident, my voice seemingly stolen alongside Ray’s). She just nodded and said something to the other ME that I didn’t quite pick up. She asked if I could tell her my name and I shook my head. She must’ve noticed the iPhone in my pocket and grabbed it, turning to the medical ID page.
“Is your name Begonia?” I nodded, though the name sounded foreign on my ears. I liked the way Alice said it though, she had a light Spanish accent and a matronly tone that made me feel safe. I wondered if she had kids of her own; she looked young, but my own mother had me at 19 so who could say? She told me her name after complimenting mine. “Begonia is a beautiful name; I love the flowers. I’m Alice, okay? We’re gonna make sure you’re alright and take you to the hospital.” Her voice was sweet like syrup and I became sleepy as she spoke.
“No honey, you can’t fall asleep yet. Just stay awake a little bit longer and I promise you they’ll let you sleep at the hospital.”
  I don’t remember anything of the rest of the ride to the hospital. I was dropped off at the Emergency Room at the Regional, head still too foggy to allow me to recall anything before I was sitting in a white bed, in a white room, with white sheets and a light blue hospital gown on. It was morning and my father was sitting at the end of my bed in an uncomfortable plastic chair, his eyes bloodshot and moist. He’d very obviously been crying for a long time and my chest panged with guilt. I reached up to feel my head and realized there was a cast on my wrist. With my other hand I touched the cotton that covered my forehead, wincing when I felt the sting of what had to be stitches in a nasty gash. I would spend the next 5 years of my life with a variety of diverse haircuts that attempted to hide the ugly scar that served as a reminder of the worst night of my life. Even now it is still extremely obvious, but I can’t be bothered to try and hide it, I so rarely look in the mirror that it wouldn’t matter if my skin turned blue.
My dad hadn’t looked up, so I attempted to gain his attention but once again found my voice failing me. I tapped on the bed a few times before he seemed to realize and face me.
“Nia… how are you feeling?” His voice was raspy and thin. He reeked of cigarettes and stale coffee, though this wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. I remained silent as he looked at me, searching my face for something I'm not sure he found.
“Nia, I, I'm not sure how to say this to you.” Here it comes. Almost worse than watching my brother die, the confirmation. “Ray, he’s, well dead.” I saw my father’s eyes begin to tear up again as I stared straight ahead. I couldn’t feel the sobs that racked my body, nor the hot tears streaming from my eyes. I saw my dad start to move closer but sit back down when I flinched. Of course, I knew my brother was dead; I had front row seats to watching the event happen, but somehow I still didn’t believe it until the words left my father’s mouth. According to my dad, who many years later described to me how eery the whole event was, my sobs were completely silent, and I was entirely unaware of everything happening around me. This dissociation lasted the first few days after the accident, and the entirety of my hospital stay. Leaving the blissful gap in my memory I have now.
Barb told me this was my mind’s way of coping with the tragedy and stress of what happened. I was honestly just happy I had an excuse to skip some of the dreadful retelling she forced upon me.
 ❈
             The funeral was of course a depressing and solemn event. I was still yet to speak and found myself thankful for the way people gave up on trying to get me to communicate. I dressed in a black skirt with a black short sleeved button up. A dark coat thrown around my shoulders as the cast on my right hand was too big to fit through the sleeve. I looked terrible, barely a week out of hospital before I watched Ray sink into the ground. The wound on my forehead was still quite nasty, though it looked better than it did before. I tried to cover it up with my hair but was unsuccessful. I got bangs soon after.
           The matter was very traditional, taking place in a church even though none of our family was really religious. It was only the second time I'd ever been in a church, the first having been for my cousin Julie’s wedding when I was four years old. I don’t remember anything of it aside from the material of my dress itching at my neck and making me rather miserable. Of course, not nearly as miserable as I was the day of the funeral, sitting in a pew at the front of the church, listening to a priest claiming Ray would’ve wanted us to celebrate his life. I knew this not to be true; Ray was extremely dramatic and would’ve cherished the thought of everyone he’d ever spoken to moping around for weeks after his death, beside themselves with grief. He sometimes referred to himself as “Romeo” after having been broken up with by another girl he was supposedly in love with, stating he better just stab himself in the heart now if he couldn’t have her. On the rare occasion he broke up with a girlfriend, he’d lounge around, eating ice cream, pretending to not be upset and comparing his cold heart to that of Richard VIII. The concept of him being any different over his death was almost comical; Ray was nothing if not predictable.
           I sat beside my father, who sat beside my mother (it was an extremely awkward arrangement that neither I nor my father cared for) and seemed to have the idea that I could evaporate if I thought hard enough about it. Unfortunately, I did not evaporate, or even come close to it, instead finding myself exactly where I'd been the whole time. I mostly tuned out the service, only really paying attention when my father and Ray’s best friend, Jake spoke. I managed to escape the duty of having to speak that day thanks to my fragile mental state and mutism. Though I'm sure I would’ve been forced all the same if I had been able to talk in any capacity, regardless of where my head was at.
           Faun was sitting in the pew behind me, feeling quite guilty about the whole ordeal. Or friendship dissolved soon after, I think she blamed herself for taking me to the party. It didn’t bother me too much though; we were never the closest and I sometimes thought her to be extremely annoying. An endless stream of shitty boyfriends that she only acquired so she could further repress her sexuality. When we were 14 we kissed at a sleepover and she admitted she was in love with me. I felt bad for not returning the feeling and our relationship had been on rocky territory ever since. I don’t understand how she thought she was in love with me since she barely knew anything about me, but either way she never brought it up again and soon after the monsoon of boytoys had begun.
           My brother’s friends and ex-girlfriends also attended the event. I didn’t approach any of them, far too scared they’d blame me for the death of their friend. One of them, Alex, went up to me to say how sorry he was about everything that happened. He was crying quite heavily (I later found out he was the friend Ray had been drinking with and the second last person to see him alive) and I could smell alcohol on his breath. I stood there while he spoke, telling me about how great my brother was as if I was wholly unaware. Body waving side to side as he stood with his hand on the wall beside me. He offered me some bronze liquid in a flask, and I obliged, savouring the burning sensation that followed in my throat. Alex’s voice was steady and deep, reminding me of my father’s. I’m not sure how long we stood there, him spinning a fantastic web of anecdotes and stories about my brother, some entirely new to my ears. We passed the beverage back and fourth until it was empty. My head felt lighter and heavier somehow simultaneously, and I found it much easier to listen to Alex talk. Later he tried to kiss me in my bedroom during the wake. His mouth was sour, and his tongue seemed too big for his mouth. I wondered how he was able to talk so much without it getting in the way.
             We moved in procession to the cemetery after the service. The grass was a vibrant green colour, and I didn’t understand how the world kept turning after Ray’s death, for mine stopped the moment his heart failed to beat. The sky was a lovely shade of cyan-blue, with clouds so perfect they seemed animated. Pink carnations were planted near the outskirts of the yard and I could smell spring in the air; a heavy, floral aroma that never failed to comfort me. I thought it should be raining, it felt inappropriate that the weather refused to match my despair. My mind wandered as we approached the empty grave and I considered what it would be like if Ray was here beside me. He’d probably be making jokes, telling me to lighten up for a minute or my face would get stuck that way. He’d mock my silence, saying how I never managed to shut up for a minute before but suddenly I'm as proper as a nun. I'd smile, ruffling his hair to piss him off and try to refrain from laughing aloud. The absence of him only felt stronger as I imagined this scenario, so I shoved it out of my head.
           The casket was lowered into the ground, my father was a pallbearer and I often think about how he must’ve felt carrying his son’s body before watching him being buried. My mother sobbed loudly which annoyed me, it felt a bit exaggerated. I had a few tears falling from my eyes but mostly, I just felt numb. Incredibly and absolutely empty inside. To onlookers it may have seemed as though we weren’t very close, my reaction being similar to that of his ex-girlfriends’. However, this didn’t account for the loss of my voice, or the broken state I was in mentally. Maybe it was better that my reaction was rather dulled. It meant people didn’t feel the need to approach me as they did my mother. Less concerned given she was the one playing up her emotions to the point of embarrassment. My father cried, more than I but far less than my mother. He didn’t cry very often – I'd actually only seen it once prior to the whole event – and I figured he probably needed it. At this point I felt as though I'd shed enough tears to last a lifetime so Ray wouldn’t mind if I was a bit subdued in comparison. He never was a crier anyways.
           As I sprinkled soil onto his casket I imagined he was right beside me, watching, ready to criticize as usual. The dirt stained my hand, clutching the sweat and turning my skin a muddy brown colour. As I wiped the dirt on my jacket I could hear him nagging about how I better go wash my hands, what was I, a six-year-old? He was in denial about me growing up and took every chance to remind me I was still just a kid. Not that he had much on me, but I enjoyed it. I never was one to shy away from attention; at least not before. Little quirks and inside jokes between us were always some of my favourite things, the type of humour you could only get from living with someone your whole life. No matter how much his memory will fade there are some things I can’t let myself forget. His mocking tone when he’d make fun of me is one of those things. If I ever managed to let go of that sound then I must be dead as well.
           The sun beat down on my back, my skin burning in my black clothes. I wasn’t sweating yet, but most of the men around were – suit jackets aren’t exactly known for their breathability. My nose was dry and aching red, sore from how much I'd been wiping it the last couple days. Still the sweet seeping tinge of flowers and spring managed to crawl into my nose, settling underneath my skin, the buzzing from before had returned, I could feel my heartbeat loudly in my throat and had the desperate urge to just run. Instead, I just followed the rest of the party, sitting down in the passenger seat of my dad’s car. The silence that settled over us was uncomfortable and stale. He turned on the radio, Led Zeppelin filled the air around us, thankfully relieving some of the tension. I felt in my left pocket for one of the carnations I’d picked from a nearby grave earlier. The flower had begun to wilt, heat taking effect on its delicate composition. When I got home I put it in between the pages of my oldest copy of Romeo and Juliet. Ray would have found it funny if he was around to see.
The drive to my mother’s house was short and minimally awkward. We sat in silence – aside from the music – only because there was no alternative. My hand remained clutched around the dying flower in my pocket as we left the car and entered the home. Other people had already arrived, clustered in the living room, picking at tiny ham sandwiches and various desserts my mother had undoubtedly stress-baked the day before. I wasn’t hungry so I sat as far away from the food and people as humanely possible while staying in the living room, not wishing to hear my mother’s scolding about how I need to socialize more. Eventually I managed to slip away into my old bedroom, where Alex was sitting on my bed drinking a mickey of Smirnoff I assumed he swiped from my mother’s freezer. He offered it to me, and I accepted, the weird repetitive déjà vu like act, mirroring earlier and making the whole day feel like somewhat of a dream.
When I went over this part with Barb she always felt the need to emphasize that it wasn’t a dream. I knew this, obviously, which I told her every time, but she was inclined to disbelief when it came to my denial over my brother’s death. “Begonia, you must realize he’s gone. Dwelling is helping nobody, especially not you. This isn’t a healthy mindset for you to have. Always comparing living to your dreams. I want you to tell me you understand this isn’t just some dream you can wake up from.” The first time she said that to me I was thrust into a bout of wordlessness, as it struck a bit too close to home. The next time she brought it up I just told her of course, though even now I still cannot say I fully understand. How can I when all of my assumptions have been constantly disproven time and time again. How can I ever say this isn’t a dream when I'm not even sure I'm real? James always tries to reassure me, “Bee, I'm telling you, if you can feel this beat, the pulse in your wrist, your neck, your chest, you are alive,” he’ll say while pressing my hand to my wrist, but we both know it isn’t that simple.
Me and Alex made out for a few minutes until I managed to excuse myself. He was a bad kisser and tasted disgusting. I left him sitting on my old bed while I went downstairs to find my dad. He was sitting at the counter with a can of root beer, blank expression sat upon his face. When his eyes met mine he sighed, grabbing his keys out of his pocket. It was obvious neither of us wanted to be here, for numerous reasons, so we left. And if the radio stayed off as we drove home we didn’t acknowledge the silence that time. In my hand was the crumpled carnation, and for some reason it made my chest hurt. A deep ache of dread. I could feel my heartbeat, hear it over the drum of the car engine, and I crushed the flower further. I was careful not to rip it though, as if that was crossing some kind of invisible line my mind had set for me. My fingers felt waxy when I finally let go.
Back home, I opened the copy of Romeo and Juliet. I retrieved the deteriorating plant from my pocket and placed it in the center. Closing the book, I stacked it under a few dictionaries, a magazine under it so it was trapped on either side. I sat down in front of it and cried. Not the huge gasping sobs my mother seemed to fancy, nor the quiet weeping of my father. No, I cried the tears of a child who just found out their grandparents died, the soft uncomprehending grief that overcame them as they first learned what death really meant. How long forever was. My legs pulled up to my chest, hands loosely hung around knees, unable to clasp together because of my cast. I closed my eyes and I swear I could hear the sound of Ray sighing behind me, but when I opened my eyes I was alone. I went to bed, earlier than I ever had in my life, still believing it was a dream and I'd wake up like Alice after her adventures in Wonderland. But when I awoke, I was met with the slow, oozing perdure of my reality. The one which I could not wake up from, and the one where my brother was dead.
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shootycatfishgame · 4 years
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Well its done, "Shooty and the Catfish Episode 2: The Spoopies" is finally out in the wild for people to play, why you can even play it yourself for free if you head on over here:   https://visitorsfromdreams.itch.io/shootycatfish-episode2 Truth be told the game has been out for 3 days now and has only been downloaded a grand total of 4 times. It might seem like a discouraging number for sure but its important to remember that this is the second episode of a series, and with the first episode itself only being downloaded a total of 124 times to date (my previous project Hazmat is sitting at 525 downloads and Flatwoods at 849 downloads) its not that surprising. In all honesty im not really expecting the series to really gain any sort of momentum until its fully finished and released as a stand alone product on Steam, and I think thats fair enough. The idea behind the episodic releases was largely so I could get the feedback to improve each episode as the project went along, and I think I have achieved that so far. So I guess you could consider this to be a post mortem. Where did things go right with Episode 2 and where did they go wrong? Well, for where things went right, development started in March and was finished in September so you could say the game had a 7 month development cycle. Looking back at it now due to the length of the episode that actually feels really excessive considering the amount of content in the actual game (which I will come back too) but compared to the first episodes 2 year development cycle it was a huge improvement. I am also pretty happy with how the games set up worked. Episode 1 played it very strait with its single town and non linear dungeon set up taken right from the standard JRPG guidebook. Episode 2 on the other hand was a little more experimental. The opening town was more about establishing a tone then a solid narrative with the Episodes dungeon being where all of the real story telling happens. While im sure this isnt a new idea, its something I havent personally experienced in any turn based RPGs. Sure, its not uncommon to find environmental story telling packed into the game world, but to have every combat encounter also be an NPC that pushes the narrative forward? I think the results were perhaps a little wordy and at times a bit on the nose, but for the most part I think it works. Episode 1 had a very non linear dungeon which worked well but it was nice working on something a little more directed as well which Episode 2's layout definitely was.
Im really happy without how the quality of life improvements in the game turned out, introducing new elements like coded doors for different kinds of keys and giving you the option of finishing the game without fighting the optional boss which, you know, actually made that optional boss optional. In fact I was so happy with those changes I went back and patched them into Episode 1 only a couple weeks back.
So where did things go wrong?
Well, to be honest, the only thing I wasnt happy with was how long it took me to get this game out. Like I said, 7 months is a big improvement compared to 2 years, but its still a lot longer than it should have been. Some of this was definitely my fault... as mentioned above there was a big push to have all the narrative put into the dungeon, but the down side of that was that it meant there was a lot more meaningful dialogue in this Episode than there was in Episode 1. The previous Episodes dialogue was mostly made up of silly gags from goofy NPCs in town, but for this Episode I had to create that ALONG with the more serious and narrative driven dialogue found in the dungeon itself. There were several weeks where I didnt touch the game at all because it all seemed so daunting. Ironically when I finally forced myself to write those sections it ended up only taking me 2 nights, so really I spent weeks if not months putting the project off out of fear of something that ended up taking collectively 6 hours tops.
So yeah... that explains some of the delay, but not all of it. The second issue that struck me during the development of this Episode was my own insecurity. The first 5 months this games development were during a time when I didnt know what was happening with my job,  I was very nervous, and with my fiance being processed through the notoriously awful Australian immigration system I was also pretty damn scared. The last few weeks of those 5 months was a massive period of crunch at work for a huge project and then immediately it was over... and I was out of a job. If I had known for sure that this was how the gig would have turned out I would have spent more of my free time trying to develop a following. I might have even been able to get my Patreon into a state that could have helped me out financially a little, or atleast thats what I liked to think I would have done, but at the time I didnt have the confidence or energy to do so. This was followed with me taking up a freelance project (well quite a few actually but most were great) which while it has definitely paid my bills over the last couple of months, it has also left me exhausted, emotionally and physically. All of this slowed down the development of the game, and perhaps even more importantly had a large impact on the writing of it.
"Shooty and the Catfish: Episode 2 - The Spoopies" deals with some pretty heavy themes, with suicide and the treatment of suicide victims being chief amoung them. Then on top of that I realised half way through development that while the idea of an office building full of ghosts of asshole business people who commited suicide after a stock market crash does have some comedic value (poor taste as it may be), the gameplay loop of systematically killing every single one of those ghosts has absolutely no comedic value and is quite possibly the most morbid thing I had ever created... Ironically not even on purpose... I found myself in a situation where I accidently created a "suicide victims ghost murder simulator". While im no stranger to creating offensive or disturbing content, for once this wasnt my intention but rather the result of the games story concept clashing with the established gameplay mechanics... and realising too late. What do you do when you set out to make a dumb comedy about 2 wise cracking idiots that kill monsters for money and instead... well here we are. What a mess... Im not going to pretend that the game handles the subject of suicide well and I also dont think I ever could approach the subject in a satisfying way. If its treatment upsets or offends anyone I think thats completely understandable and any critism I receive because of it is completely justified. Something I do think that is a positive to come out of all this however is this is the first game project I have worked on that I feel, to me personally, is a piece of "art". Well I mean... I think all games are art, but playing through this game now I can see the struggle I was going through developing it reflected through the characters and through the writing. Its almost like playing through 5 months of my own loose streamed consciousness. My stress, my depression, my insecurity, my fear, my defeatism, its all there. The game has tonal whiplash of morbid  nihilism and stupid dumb goofy comedy in a way I havent been able to pull of since my 2014 film Spilt Coffee (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp2HSx_f9WE) which ironically serves as a prequel to this game and was created at a time of my life when again, I felt quite trapped. Episode 2 might be the worst game I have made to a lot of people and thats totally fair, but I think its also my most personal and sincere for what thats worth. Thats it for this update, I have gone on long enough as it is. So where do we go from here? Well... I made myself and my players a promise at the end of Episode 2, and thats that Episode 3 will be a fun light hearted adventure. I think after this games development I really need it, and hopefully the contents of this depressing Episode doesnt stop those players from coming with me on that adventure too. If your interested in helping me support my indie game development then why not check out my Patreon? https://www.patreon.com/VisitorsFromDreams Every little bit helps ~ <3
Thanks again to everyone who has taken the time to read this post.
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masterserris · 5 years
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all versions of mysterio are feral bastards, at least a little bit. dramatic and chaotic and cunning and damn dangerous despite just being a Guy. mysterio’s real powers are his words and psychological warfare. 
but not completely evil either. jerks for sure but even still they aren’t ya know... in-human. case and point: Ends of the Earth. p much all mysterio’s i’ve seen do this shit
more spoilers under cut
like gyllenbeck didnt wanna kill parker at all. sure he always had planned to kill nick fury and maybe some civilians would get hurt in his illusion shit to sell it being real, but he really didnt wanna drag peter into it
peter finding the truth put himself and others in danger. 
from a villain perspective, ya gotta tie up loose ends. mysterio was very on-point looking for those little details and possible issues and trying to deal with them
case in point: the trippy mindfuck illusion scene to get rid of parker and the evidence. also the final scene when he notices the issue with the drones RIGHT away.
he’s smart. he dont fuck around. he has plans for plans. i dont think he’s dead. he honestly shouldnt be. if marvel says he’s dead then they are lying cowards imo lol
yeah he’s a huge jerk for tryina kill mj, ned, and all the people who know his secret but it makes sense and it isnt done just to be evil.
------------
but like what floors me is that mysterio really could have been a hero with all that tech. he was gonna be a hero. he just did it. badly. in a very dangerous way. 
if he’d have just let his grudges go, just talked it out, he could have used all that shit to fight real villains. it worked stupid good against peter. only by a fluke did he even figure out it was fake
sure plenty of other people could have figured out it was fake. but like. he coulda really used that tech to help people more. just own it man. 
deadass you wanted your holograms to change the world and you could have!! but ya let your anger/grudges get in the way. and that is something mysterio always struggles with honestly...
so yeah really good stuff. very much like comic mysterio to a letter except with a bit of a backstory change (that still hits all the necessary beats) and he doesnt seem to have actual fear gas/chemicals/robot doubles (yet). only holograms, projectors, and drones.
love the meta joke that he’s wearing a vfx suit lmao. but maybe i would have liked to see him wear the mysterio suit more instead of only holograms/a few real scenes with him wearing it but it makes sense he can’t. irl it’s a really heavy and restrictive suit.
but he still wore a bubble on his head so mad respecc
PS: even tho hydro man and ESP molten man were fake like i thought they were, they looked cool af. esp when molten man kept growning it was p epic. thanks quentin.
ANYWAYS MYSTERIO IS 12/10 AND HE BETTER NOT BE ACTUALLY DEAD OR IM GONNA RIOT.
he really is alive, i think the post credit wasnt meant by the creators to be ambiguous at all. like that’s proof enough that he’s still out there, imo
it’s he’s really dead and everything from now on is just a projection of him then that’s just disappointing. ugh. we’ll see if gyllenhaal wants/gets casted for another marvel movie i guess. he seemed to like the role a lot so there’s that.
“people will believe anything” as he dies. even believe he’s dead? idk man i just feel like he’s exactly the character to fake his death this well. but it’s it’s just his crew pretending to be mysterio now? bah. 
let beck live 2k19. it’s really up in the air, we’ll see.
edit: i suppose one of the funniest things was that Mysterio is Right.
tony left these glasses of Doom to a kid. the world listened to tony. he had issues. (i’ll defend tony but later ok. tony made enemies a lot)
and people were gonna listen to a “hormonal teenager”
he’s right to be pissed af!! valid!! not so valid in.. ya know killing people but yeah
he was mad that the glasses werent given to the defense force. like hell he made it sound like that would have been ok in his book. he wanted people with the credentials and experience to be given the respect the deserve in the end
when he’s thanking his crew he shows this to a letter. just like comic mysterio. comic mysterio was pissed he wasn’t getting the credit he deserved
gyllenbeck is mad af bc tony pissed all over his entire life. like DAMN. DAMN. 
tony ruined everything for him no wonder he’s pissed. kinda funny tho that mysterio waited until tony was dead to take revenge. not surprising, iron man scared the piss outta people like vulture. lesser, more regular human villains. i mean who wouldn’t be? you’d literally have to be thanos to be not worried about stark and even THEN thanos knew about him. just saying
anyways that trippy mindfuck scene was my absolute fav bc that’s what mysterio is all about and it’s everything i wanted. perhaps i wouldve wanted more but lets not get greedy
also for once mysterio aint a thief. if anything he’s the victim of tony stealing/messing up his life’s work. mysterio aint robbing a bank yo
sure, he kinda tricked peter into giving him the glasses, and it may have partly been for the power trip? but also i think he deadass thought it was safer in his hands than a KID who literally almost killed his friends a few hours earlier with it on accident so he’s not wrong. again. 
mysterio for how much of a feral, chaotic, terrifying, cunning, jerk that he was? he was the “hero” after all in the story. or at least the protagonist, kinda like infinity war thanos. he had a goal that would wake people up to the bullshit all around them and put power in the hands who made it possible in the first place. the people who know what they’re doing. 
would beck have been a villain after he won? world domination? i dont think so. i think he would havent been great with it, but i dont doubt he had decent intentions SOMEWHERE in his heart. 
but mainly revenge. let’s be honest. he was pissed af and rightly so.
ANYWAYS im rambling about a bubble head so.
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^^I can’t believe gyllenbeck literally has this energy after peter figures out he’s a faker. literally has this chaotic, feral energy. dead ass calls him gullible and hits him with a TRAIN. like fuck dude mad respecc for being just a guy and fuckin with a superhero so bad. really amazing portrayal of beck.
just. let beck be still alive. it would be a waste. he’s such a tricky person, it’s almost too easy for him to fake that shit. but maybe they really did kill him. hng. we’ll see in the next spiderman movie or another marvel film.
ALSO ALSO:
good au ending where tony lived and mysterio was never fired but legit became a hero bc he totally could have done so
he's got raw talent and cunning. i mean tony was just a guy with a brain too so yeah
good ending au.
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scatterbrainuk · 5 years
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Theory about the blonde guy and how he affects Tyrus
So a lot of people have been assuming the blond guy from the trailer is a new love interest for Cyrus given how he is smiling at Cyrus and how TJ looks “jealous”. But given an interview with Sofia where she mentions an episode will revolve around Cyrus and an issue that will have a “very important message to get across  in our day an age” it has me wondering that if the blond boy (anyone got a name for him yet?) is in THAT episode maybe we have misread the trailer entirely. 
Lets be frank: america has come along way but its still heavy with homophobic violence and parties built on making LGBTQ people suffer. whats a good way to show that this is not right to a younger audience and make them aware of their own actions towards others, LGBTQ or otherwise? have a watered down version be a threat to a character on their show. by watered down i mean verbally attacking Cyrus without using the words that THEY use in real life but still implying his sexuality in a negative way. Maybe thats what the blond guy is, a bully who has guessed Cyrus’s sexuality and is mocking him in front of TJ, who took cyrus to the rally. Cyrus looking for support turns to TJ but he does nothing,  causing cyrus that hurt look as he looks back at blonde guy realizing he is all alone dealing with this. this way the young audience is shown both the horrible situation someone being attacked this way is in and how doing nothing to aid the victim makes them a part of the bullying by allowing it to happen. they can then question if they have ever done anything like this or what they would do if they saw it happening to someone they knew.  this could also be the cause of the look in the cafeteria: a friendship damaged by TJ not helping his friend when he needed him the most, perhaps out of fear he would then become a target by association with Cyrus. Cyrus does look the more hurt out of the two in that scene. 
That situation is pretty dark for a Disney show but then this is Andi Mack, a show thats pushing alot of topics not handled by kids shows. 
Another theory i havent really seen thats a little bit lighter than my other theory is that maybe Blond guy is either TJ’s boyfriend or ex. Maybe TJ and blond guy got together before he and cyrus even became good friends and TJ had been keeping him a secret because either a) their still together or b) he’s still trying to figure cyrus out and waiting to come out to him. then they meet Blond guy at the rally and TJ is not only possibly outed by him to cyrus but reveals their relationship which might cause cyrus’s hurt look: the guy he has been crushing on kept not only his sexuality a secret but also that he was in a relationship. i think this one is less likely but dont think many people would see it coming. 
personally i hope it is that cyrus now has 2 guys interested in him as a lot of people seem to have taken the trailer that way (myself included first time i watched it). but the fact theirs going to be a Cyrus centered episode can only be a good thing whatever subject matter they tackle, boy troubles or not.      
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edwad · 6 years
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If you had to choose 10 marxian econ books for someone who has only read marx, what would you recommend
by “marx” i have to assume you mean capital because that really is the root of “marxian econ”. it won’t suffice to just have read the manifesto or something like that and i don’t want to recommend books that will be saying things that you’re totally unfamiliar with because you’re skipping straight into the secondary literature which already largely assumes a reader which is familiar with capital. anyway, heres a list, which isnt in any particular order and which includes a few things that i’m still working through for myself:
1. essays on marxs theory of value - isaak rubin 
hugely important book which essentially all value-form theory derives from. written by an extremely knowledgeable marx scholar who had a much better idea of what marx was doing in capital than most marxists today. last month brill published a book called “responses to marxs capital” which includes some of rubin’s other writings, most of them being published in english for the first time. hes a huge figure in the literature and definitely worth looking in to. 
2. marx, capital, and the madness of economic reason - david harvey
i was obviously going to put something of harvey’s in here and i think his last book is a fairly good summary of the best of what hes done up to this point with some welcome additions (the visualization of capital, the stuff on anti-value, etc). not perfect but he definitely provides a good framework for how to understand the geography of capital which doesnt require necessarily agreeing with him on everything. honestly, if you keep up with harvey at all you’ll be able to tell that its mostly just typical harveyisms with the inclusion of some stuff from his recent talks (which have all been almost exactly the same). 
3. in the long run we are all dead - geoff mann
maybe this looks more like a book on keynesian rather than marxian econ, but its real argument is that keynesianism as a long historical project (meaning long before and after keynes himself) has been an immanent critique of liberalism and revolution and that keynes is to us what hegel was to marx. a really great book that covers a lot of ground which isnt always explicitly economic, but definitely worth the read if you have the patience. if you want a longer review, i left a pretty lengthy one on amazon a few months ago where you can get a better idea of what i got from this book, what its limitations are, and why i think its so important. 
4. monopoly capital - paul baran & paul sweezy 
an older book which hasnt exactly aged well, but its thesis has become extremely popular again since the crisis. written by baran and sweezy, the fathers of “the monthly review school” of economics, its played a huge role in the direction of marxian debates from the 1960s up until today. the authors were both tending in the same intellectual direction in their earlier works (sweezy’s theory of capitalist development and baran’s political economy of growth, the former still being considered one of the best introductions to marxs work and its relevance to the 20th century, with much controversy of course) and this was the result of them coming together to talk about what they saw as a monopoly capitalism which was fairly different in character than the “competitive capitalism” of marx’s day and therefore had to be dealt with differently. 
5. capitalism - anwar shaikh
probably the most ambitious work the left has seen in a long time which tries to thoroughly critique neoclassical theory and develop an alternative economics which is rooted in what shaikh calls the “classical” school (”classical-marxian” would probably be more appropriate but i think hes trying to downplay his reliance on marx). in it, shaikh takes a good look at many of the competing schools of thought (neoclassical, post-keynesian, sraffian/neo-ricardian, etc) and sees how they stand up analytically and empirically, taking issue with their underlying assumptions and the inevitable problems which arise from building a theory on false foundations. 
one of his bigger points is that the neoclassical theory of “perfect competition” is nonsensical but wasnt thoroughly combatted by heterodox economists, who only made it so far as asserting the “imperfect” nature of competition, which, in shaikh’s eyes, is to simply add imperfections after the fact into the theory which necessarily begins with the absurd assumption of perfection. the book’s argument is that the theorists of “imperfect competition” still rely on the theory of “perfect competition” as their starting point and never really manage to escape the latter because they havent actually created an alternative way of thinking about competition, they’ve just inserted a complication into a theory which was a completely unrealistic assumption to begin with. much of his attack is directed at the monthly review school and the idea of a “monopoly capitalism” which is supposedly different in form than the allegedly “perfect competition” of capitalism during marxs life. in this sense, this book serves as a counterbalance to the MR approach and is also probably the most successful attempt at situating marxs TRPF within an empirical study of kondratiev waves. 
hes also got a website with a bunch of resources and a lecture series from a course he did on the material in the book which is pretty interesting, but it assumes a good deal of familiarity with economics. 
6. a history of marxian economics - michael howard & john king (2 volumes)
this is a pretty thorough history of the internal debates among marxian economists ever since the death of marx all the way up to 1990. it covers a lot of ground and doesnt shy away from controversies where marx didnt come out on top. of course, a good amount of this is subject to the interpretation of the authors and they definitely have a great deal of input, but its a very impressive work which i frequently use as a marxian encyclopedia of sorts. 
7. the making of marx’s capital - roman rosdolsky
despite some problems, rosdolsky’s classic book on the development of marx’s critique of political economy is easily one of the most important marxological works ever written and it still holds a lot of sway. taking the grundrisse as its starting point, the author unpacks marx’s project and constantly asserts marx’s method and in particular his explicit reliance on hegel’s logic, pitting marx (as he was in his drafts) against the then contemporary thinkers and critics which were prone to misusing or misunderstanding the arguments in capital. as a disclaimer and partial criticism of rosdolsky’s portrait of marx, i dont believe that we can simply say that marx in the late 50s was identical to the marx of the 60s and 70s that wrote and published capital, but i also dont think that means we necessarily have to discount the grundrisse (or theories of surplus value, etc) simply because they werent written at precisely the right time for marxs thinking. 
i only just got my own copy a couple of weeks ago so i cant say too much more but i have skimmed through chunks of the pdf and its totally unavoidable in the secondary literature so im not totally unfamiliar. its one i plan on tackling in full very soon.
8. moneybags must be so lucky - robert paul wolff
another marxological one, this tiny book is a literary analysis of capital and in particular the first part of volume 1. wolff does a great job of deconstructing the arguments in chapter 1 to try and clarify what marx is doing and why with a lot of humor and philosophical tangents. one of his biggest points is that marxs heavy reliance on irony was the only adequate way of capturing the contradictory nature of capitalism and is therefore part of the theory itself, rather than simply being a way to dress up the theory and make it more palatable to readers. i approached this book after id already “read marx” too, but it was extremely useful because it wasnt until i read it that i finally started to actually understand marx. for that reason, i dont feel particularly bad about recommending it to anyone thats already familiar with capital because it does a great job of making the most difficult part of volume 1 infinitely more exciting and comprehensible – especially since its never enough to just read capital once. 
9. the production of commodities by means of commodities - piero sraffa
against my better judgement, i’m putting this on the list knowing full-well that i’m going to be harassed by an anon which has been on my ass for about a year now ever since i first recommended sraffa’s book in a reading list despite the fact that ive never finished it (barely even read it to be more precise). i do, however, know that its had a huge influence on the trajectory of marxian thought since 1960 and that many of the thinkers are still trying to recover from the theoretical displacement implicit in sraffa’s thesis. 
its a math-heavy book (which is why i havent been able to wade through it) and its status as a work coming from the “marxian” approach is hotly contested, but its certainly had its way with the marxian school (not to mention the neoclassical school, which has an easier time simply ignoring sraffa entirely), generating countless debates among scholars, many of whom simply wish that this book had never been written. for a short summary of the debate and whats apparently at stake, ive got an old post where i worked out some of the initial responses to sraffa and how this has snowballed into the controversy that it is today. ive got it on this list because of how unavoidable it is. you cant go into the secondary literature at anything resembling an intermediate level without knowing sraffa’s name and why everyone feels so strongly about him.
10. an introduction to the three volumes of karl marxs capital - michael heinrich
i dont quite like that im ending this list with a book that presents itself as an “introduction” when we’ve already established that this is a bunch of recommendations for someone thats already acquainted with capital, but sadly this is the only full-length book that heinrich has in the english language and its reading of capital is so unorthodox that it feels totally alien against all the traditional interpretations of marx. honestly, it doesnt feel like an introduction in the first place, reading more like a challenge and an intervention into the secondary debates about what marx is saying in capital which derives from the german debates which constitute the parameters for the “neue marx-lekture”, or “the new reading of marx”, which sits uncomfortably among the more typical marxisms that surround it on all sides, especially among non-german theorists/readers. 
as far as the dominant reading of marx goes, nearly everything this book says betrays marx’s project, but heinrich knows marx very well, better than most of us (as even his biggest critics readily admit). this may be considered reflective of a “new reading”, but that doesnt mean the old ones are any better or that this one is necessarily a “revisionist” project as many claim (or at least, i wouldnt consider it to be revising marx even if its guilty of revising “marxism”, which is by no means necessarily a bad thing). on the contrary, i think heinrich has the best understanding of marx out of pretty much everyone else right now and thats why i wanted to end with this one. yes, you should read all of the others, especially since you cant understand the way we read and think about marx without coming across the work of people like sraffa and sweezy, but that doesnt really change the fact that heinrich points to a big problem with the way we read and think about marx, that the debates have been getting it wrong all along and largely misunderstanding marxs actual project, miscontextualizing it and falling into dogmatism for various political or academic reasons. 
what heinrich does is to show how the way marx is read and interpreted often misses or downplays the most crucial elements of what marx is actually trying to get across. marxs critique of political economy simply gets converted into a newer, more correct political economy which simply builds on the classical school (shaikh), or it suffers in the hands of those that believe its foundations need to be updated as if it isnt all that relevant anymore (sweezy and baran), or that many of its categories are lacking utility and can simply be done away with (sraffa). rubin’s work plays a big part in establishing the NML reading and harvey draws on heinrich’s scholarship a lot, but nobody really does it as well as heinrich himself and i genuinely think hes lightyears ahead of everyone else. a lot of people are starting to agree and i was one of the most recent converts on the heinrich hype train which has been growing for the last couple of years. 
any day now, we should be getting one of his older books, the science of value, in english and i plan on devouring it as fast as i can, but sadly its been in limbo for several years, with its initial release scheduled for 2014 (if i remember correctly). in the mean time though, we’ve only got his introduction to capital and a bunch of shorter pieces/videos.  
so i guess thats my list of 10 things to read after marx with some explanations on why i think theyre important, culminating in ideologically correct heinrich-worship. this was sorta fun and if you have any other questions feel free to ask. 
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My problem is I see a lot of hate on Jaune and much of it is stupid or takes his flaws and makes them worse. Then there is the whole Pyrrha thing where its a series where Magic is made real we know Ozpin cheated death and we havent even got started learning the rules and people just go no she is dead period and I am like wut? Dont even get me started on the whole Jaune disrespected Pyrrha thing its like no one had ever heard of taking up another's sword before.
There most definitely is senseless Jaune hate. 
People who say Jaune should just die are haters who engage in pointless vitriol and aren’t really suggesting a good solution to what a is very real characterization and pacing issue. 
Jaune is here to stay because his is the story of the underdog who has glaring flaws and has made a dishonest action but also has the potential and drive to make things right. 
He’s the deuteragonist, meaning that his story is pivotal to the overall narrative, but is second in priority to the story of Team RWBY, the title characters. 
However, that doesn’t mean a very good job has been done with his characterization in the first few volumes, nor did he have an appropriate amount of focus in Volume 4. 
Jaune’s a genuinely good guy. He really is. He’s my boi. My son. I’m rooting for him. 
I just don’t like how his progress and growth is being handled. 
(Incoming RWDE, beware.)
See the BRNZ vs JNPR fight, where his leadership is reduced to a joke just to have a gag about team uncoordination, or how he shouts vague orders rather than be given serious delivery about his strategy-building when RNJR fought the Geist Grimm. Or how he told Ruby, Ren, and Nora to go in a circle when they were already doing that. 
In the first two cases, it’s not like there can’t be funny moments during a fight. But comedy shouldn’t come at the expense of a character’s development. Specially when said development is such a profound sign of progress. In the third case, that’s just a plain writing inconsistency. It’s one you might miss, for sure. But it shows that very little attention was put into it.
For more on that, I’d like to refer you to this post, where I explore the unwarranted amount of dialogue delivered by Jaune or centered around Jaune. 
I’d like to talk about Pyrrha dying and Ozpin’s ability to wander around without a body.
Ozpin’s spiritual being is something that is probably inherent to his powers, whichever those may be. Many, such as myself, believe that Ozpin received the powers of the Wizard, much like the powers of the Maidens are transferred from woman to woman. 
Obviously, that raises a lot of questions. One such being, “If the Wizard’s consciousness can transfer to the newest receiver of the Wizard’s power, can the same happen with Maidens?” 
Back to the matter at hand, however, you have a point in saying that if Magic is a thing in Remnant, how is it less likely for Pyrrha to survive than Ozpin? 
Well, you could argue that a power unique to Ozpin enabled his survival, and because Pyrrha does not possess it, her death is certain, or rather her return in any other form is unlikely. 
We’re still very early in the show’s timeline, however. That could be proven wrong down the line. Who knows? 
The issue is that it is very difficult to bring back a character from such a fate without it feeling like a cop-out. 
No doubt it can be done, but… it can only be done in a handful of ways, since you could end up contradicting rules you had previously established. Or you could disregard the poetic and thematic gravity of a moment. Character deaths are meant to be heavy and meaningful. If a character just comes back without the proper foreshadowing or a significant change in their personality, the return of said character fails to be genuine.
But I’m sure you know that, Anon. I just needed to make that statement for argument’s sake.
Again, I’m not saying it can’t happen. It absolutely can. It just wouldn’t feel right if not done properly.
But that’s something that’s way down the line. When it comes to RWBY, a lot of things can only be dealt with a wait-and-see approach. That’s why speculating can feel a bit pointless. 
But hey. It’s fun. We all do all sorts of things simply because it’s really fucking cool.
As far as that goes, I don’t disagree with you on that, Anon. But because I’ve deviated from my initial position, I’m kind of on the fence until I can collect more evidence and pick up on more and more foreshadowing. 
If said foreshadowing comes. 
I’m just the kind of person who’s gotta work on concrete evidence when it comes to stuff like this. 
Now, about Jaune taking Pyrrha’s metal and using it for upgrades… It is disrespectful. Not just to Pyrrha, but to her family. As far as we know, she only has a mom, but she’d still want to know how her daughter’s doing. She probably don’t even know Pyrrha’s dead.
And Jaune just… thinks it’s a good idea to keep what’s left of Pyrrha to bury to himself rather than look for her mom so she can have closure about Pyrrha’s fate? So she can decide what happens to Pyrrha’s former belongings? Pyrrha’s mom should get to decide whether those things should be part of the only burial Pyrrha might ever get or if Jaune should inherit them as a memento of his partner and the person who saved his life countless times.
Pyrrha being mostly only relevant to Jaune is yet another tiring and frustrating iteration of the “Girl-Exists-For-Boy-and-Only-For-Boy” trope that has crushed the agency of countless female characters since time immemorial. Pyrrha shouldn’t just exist for Jaune. Pyrrha should get to be her own person separate from Jaune. With other relationships that get to be explored in the show. 
That’s why Ruby’s reaction to Pyrrha’s death felt so… forced. Because there hadn’t been any true meaningful interactions between her and Pyrrha. Every single heart-to-heart conversation Pyrrha’s ever had has been with Jaune. Who’s Pyrrha to Ruby? Just this nice girl she’s hanged out with a few times and fought with that one time. 
“Well, they probably had a very close friendship off-screen!” you might say. And that’s a very flimsy argument, to be honest. Because that’s just pure conjecture that can’t be proved unless it is mentioned or shown in canon that such moments really did happen.  
In a show about strong female characters, you’d think you’d see other female characters bonding, other than the titular characters. Nora is the kind of person who’d adore Pyrrha and spend time with her and have fun. But we don’t get that. 
I’ve also been meaning to write meta about how there was a missed opportunity with Pyrrha and Weiss bonding over their foiling circumstances of privilege and solitude. Pyrrha in Weiss have so much in common. It’s absurd how similar they are. That could have been a great relationship. 
Don’t get me wrong, there’s good stuff about Jaune and Pyrrha. I’m absolute trash for Arkos. But Pyrrha’s character shouldn’t revolve around Jaune as much as it has. 
Volume 3 was refreshing because Pyrrha finally got a story arc of her own that was pivotal to the overall story. It was hers and hers alone. Jaune was a small part of that. It was much more different than Pyrrha being a big part of Jaune.
Those are my thoughts on that matter, Anon. I made it as thorough as I could. Feel free to add anything else.  
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i was ready for bed and heard the call of weed again - or what i hoped would be weed but instead was 10$ which is probably honestly for the best in the long run. i probably honestly need 10$ more than i needed weed - and they stll smoked me a few joints anyways. 
but it was good to speak to other people. to regain a sense of my surroundings that is not the little bubble of the 5 streets that seperate my house from his. because ive lived in that very protective bubble for atleast several weeks and although its protective, its not a bubble thats for me. i am just like hitching a ride on someone elses bubble and neglecting my real life because it sucks. and its hard. 
it 3am. and i want to like pretend im going to make some fucking plans for tomorrow an do things but i dont know if i will. i know that this is a very weird way to be living right now and i have to excessively apologize for fucking living in a squat house at this point. it doesnt have to be thiissssss bad. this is stupid. but i dont have the energy to make it any better right this second so im just kind of thinking about it - which is super typical for my life. that describes my entire being. 
the way i would describe this week has been like an rpg video game but like.. in a metaphysical world. like i existed in this world while also in another world of my mental being and continually battling shit that was just .. really stupid and unnecessary. this was like a frustrating shittly made rpg. and the first couple of levels are painfully hard where like its just grinding and grinding to be able to do anything. and then once you get to thing you grinded so hard for its lik the most impossible glitched bugged out boss but you already put 80 hours of your life into it so youre going to find that 1 in a million fucking way to beat the boss that for som reason in itself has like  17 side quests you have to complete before you even touch the guy. 
and its like the people aroud me are shitty people watchng a stream of this video game but all they see is my webcam. they dont see the actual game. they just assume what the fuck im doing or how im doing it or if its hard or not and give me vague advice that kind of rings true to the situation but they have no idea whats actually going on anyways. and like everyone in awhile you get this shitty comment about how you suck or you’re a failure and its like you dont even know what the fuck is happening on the other side here right now because im doing pretty well for the circumstances at hand. 
i dont know if im even at the final boss i think im on the 17 side quests. and like i dont have fucking time for this but i also dont not have time for this because its life or death inside of my head right now. you cant walk away from that its very serious and im stuck inside my head. 
being around other people helped. but like i wouldnt have been able to go out and meet these people for a random thing. i wouldnt. but the way it was set up - and that in itself felt like a fucking side quest to make it happen; i felt comfortable and could sit and just observe a conversation and just participate when i felt like it. i didnt sit and moan about my life at all. i was more than capable of having a normal conversation about totally neutral topics and common interests. most of the time i just listened but listening made me feel acknowledged. lke i also existed because this person was telling me someting and to them in that moment i was important because they wanted to tell me this thing. 
because they wer emore acquaintances than true friends i “knew”, i was also able to regain reality by seeing their own display of personal greivances. if i shared mine, they would have been worse. and times in my head i couldnt help but think you know you guys are actually kind of lucky. these things could all be a lot worse. you have a lot going for your life. but this is life. and they have their own set of problems which weigh heavy on them enough to need to air their issues to people they dont actually know very well. and that says something, regardless. they also feel a sense of desperation in expressing something that maybe theyre not even expressing to other people. 
i didnt take that chance with them for myself though. i was very subtle - or i perceived myself being subtle when talking about the issues ive had lately. im also really confused by these issues - the side quests. because i know these are side effects of the drugs and im panicking about very odd things that dont need such a sense of panic but its bringing to the surface the idea of these problems existing at all. like focusing on not having family. i havent had family for awhile. this is not the most pressing issue but it was killing me for hours on end. and like - this takes up way too fucking much of my day. to be sooo panicked about something you cant even do shit about is exhausting. and then like i project these feelings on to him because i want to share something with him - like i dont even know if i want to share a life with him because im crazy and this is crazy and everything is fucked. but i want something with him and being crazy and too fucked to work / find a job is standing in my way. i have nothing to prove im a functioning human. and im barely a functioning human, honestly. like it is very surprising i am 27 now. thats fucked. 
regardless if i do something or not, things are going to change dramatically in my life in the next several weeks. because i am very sure i am going to be evicted. and i probably very much deserve to be evicted. i owe atleast 3000$ point blank in my life with all my debts, which it could be more - and i have no job and ive spent weeks trying to “get better”. thats terrible. i absolutely deserve to be evicted. i am already homeless and i live like a homeless person squatting in a random apartment i got lucky to find. like this is fucking nuts the way im living right now. and people are witnessing it. they literally have witnessed this and thats pretty embarassing. 
again in my head im like oh yeah im going to get up tomorrow and just go out and look for work. but i havent showered in three days. or eaten anything substantial - out of catatonic fatigue and general lack of care - and ive pretty much allowed the cats to piss on everything i own so i have no clean clothes or underwear. i just let everything around me go to complete shit 
and its funny because i naturally wanted to solve my issues with weed. like a fucking power up to get through the worst of it and i went through fucking everything and everyone to do it. with no fucking money. i made money and still got weed. thats how fucking well i did that. 
and yet.. here i am. this is ... like im the weirdest craziest person to be around. i really think i have to be like pretty up there in craziness. like the perception people must have of me ... if its even a ‘perception’ since its probably the reality but im like .. crazy bitch over here. i cant even imagine knowing me. i cannot even put myself outside of myself and imagine knowing me as a person. i would be a super frustating person to witness in life. i am really .. i dont know. ive existed on fucking nothing. like how did i even do that. why would he even be around me for this long outside of his own craziness. like why the fuck would you even love me. its not even a self pity thing im generally like ... appreciative that i am being loved but wow why would you. i really offer... being a nice person. thats what i got in life. i am a nice person who is creative and like fairly well read & intelligent with an assortment of domestic skills none of which are really top notch but they get you through. other than that i got nothing. i got debt. i got shitty cats that even im like these are probably our last days together. i have good looks which is probably why im honestly getting by in life and have gotten by so far. and that honestly is not even something to gloat on because its not like im super fucking hot. im just a good looking person. like slightly above average. i have a pretty nice body as well but i dont keep in shape in anyway and am frequently malnutritoned. ive also completely scarred probably 70% of my body which is very obviously done by me. so thats always fun when youre about to fuck someone for the first time. and i mean.. im not even that into sex. ive been called a tease more than once because i allowed my good looks to give me what people were offering me when i knew it was because of my looks. i wanted something, but i wasnt interested in them. 
i have no formal education and dropped out in early highschool - like very early. i dont drive. i dont have a car ad defiinitely could not afford one. i dont even have a bike. i cant afford public transit most of the time. im a nice person, you know. i’m caring, sometimes to a fault. i have potential to give a very serious kind of love to the right people. but thats it. thats what i have to offer a person in a relationship with me. thats what i have to offer in a life with me. i mean, i dont even have real interests. i watch documentaries. thats honest to god my biggest interest and has been for months. its like a fucking hobby in some ways. i watch guys playing video games on youtube - a lot. i dont even play video games. i honestly dont know why im fucking watching it. this is totally unnecessary and ive done it openly and just fallen asleep peacefully. why? thats so weird. thats such a weird thing to do. i smoke, alot. i smoke a ton of weed. thats one of my worst qualities. i cost a lot of money and make .. none. the amount of money ive cost other people is probably in the thousands and that was out of kindness. just so i could exist. but i know it does help me. it helps me cope and to leave it behind with no coping skills is really unhelpful to my life. 
so where do i start? probably by going to sleep. waking up at some decent hour - its almost 4 now so i hope for 10, but this is just spewing dreams in alot of ways. i could wake up and continue to lay in bed for hours. somethng simple like stretching - which i honestly really need after this anyways. taking a shower. trying to clean my house. find money, just.. keep finding money and money resources. thats the best i can fathom right now. i want to say ill find a job but thats so complex of a hurdle i just .. i can successfully find money in trade for simple labor. not a job. fucking.. eat food. i have food. i literally have food to eat. i just need to get back ... i dont know. somewhere. back in myself. 
tommorow will be the beginning of the final battle right now. there will be more battles, more shitty rpg games, but this battle will be finished soon and im getting back to real life. real fucking life. 
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kangaroomoney · 7 years
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Top Financial Mistakes Under 25
These are a combination of the biggest financial mistakes that I have my myself and that a lot of young adults have made and some tips on how to fix them.
1. Not Saving or INVESTING This is kind of obvious and definitely easier said than done, but so vital to adulting. Up until this past year, my saving account has always been extremely turbulent. I would save a little then deplete time, save a little then deplete it.
About a year ago, I got serious about saving because I had goals I wanted to reach and soon. I saved 60% of my net income (after-taxes) and put it in a high yield online savings account. Online savings accounts can provide higher interest rates because they have lower overhead (cost associated with operation) due to not having to pay rent for the building, employee salaries, electricity, and other associated costs. Also, having an online savings account prevents you from constantly moving money back and forth between accounts which is a lot easier when your checking and savings are at the same bank.
Onto investing. It sounds like a scary and complicated notion and it kinda is because you’re betting and gambling with a lot of your money which could fluctuate a lot. It’s not actually that scary. Since the market has rebounded it has been a really good time to invest. I have always had a 401K set up with the jobs i’ve had and the tip is to save the same percentage that your company matches to optimize the amount that is going in. Since I get taxed a lot, I decided to save 10% and my company matched up to 6% so I could pay slightly less in taxes (we pay more of our paycheck in taxes than other age groups generally.) Putting money into your 401k adds up. Just check on it periodically and if you want to put more in CDs or more in the money market, you can adjust the percentage that is invested in each category.
One option that is really popular now is low cost index funds. I cannot tell you how grateful I am for Vanguard who started this. These index funds are diversified (invested in varies categories) and you can get in with as low as $300. I invested in a fund with $6000 and in the first quarter this year I yielded 7% growth which is greater than the market. The idea was that bankers who charge fees and get commission from managing your portfolio does not do any better than if you randomly picked stocks to invest in and they RARELY do better than the market. I should check my account more frequently than i care to admit. Investing in many individual stocks is a lot riskier because together they may not be diversified into different industries and you’d constantly have to watch it all day, every day and do so much more research, which I kind of do anyway because Im a great and on top of my life (kidding). But index funds are a great way to enter the investing realm.
2. Upgrading Too Soon (depreciating assets) A lot of people get a new job or get promotion and decide to #treatyoself by upgrading their car, buying a new gadget or upgrading their current tech items. If you buy a car without a heavy down payment, you’ll be sucked into this monthly debt you may not be able to afford. Just because you got approved for the loan, doesn’t mean you can afford it. I know a lot of people like to trade in cars but if you own a car that does not have a good resale value, don’t trade it in. Drive it until it dies. Growing up, my parents always said, “if you can’t afford it, don’t buy it.” They hated the idea of pay interest, so they would not buy a new car unless: it crashed, or died. My mom actually still drives her 1998 Toyota Sienna which my brother and I dubbed “Bertha”. They also paid for all their cars in cash. This idea is nice but, this isn’t as realistic these days. I would put in 35%-50% and finance the rest. I also love tech and gadgets. When I saw Brookstone had begun commercialize drones, I wanted one, bad. I read a million reviews on different drones and to be honest in like 2013 the drones at $400, sucked. They were flimsy, faulty and did not have a great camera, great dodge there. Going back on topic, wait out on large purchases like Laptops and tech toys. The general advise is if you have one that is functioning, dont get sucked in by marketing ploys of the new and flashy.
3. Budgeting- Not being realistic or not having one at all. Budgeting is so important because a lot of us don’t even know how much we spend or need to spend each month. In order to save, invest, and create fluidity, you have to budget. I don’t follow the 40, 30, 20, 10 rule that most financial blogs and institutions suggest. This is because we all live differently. I love food and cannot cook to save my life therefore, my food expenditure would be significantly higher than someone who is competent in the kitchen. I am a little crazy because initially I put all my expenses each month in an excel spread sheet and use that to adjust my spending and plan for future events like wedding and trips. My credit card also does this but i have multiple ones for different purposes and this spreadsheet just allows me to make graphs and see trends a lot better. I am not saying people need to do this because it is an extreme measure and I love spreadsheets but some sort of tracking is important. There are so many apps out there like Mint, Wallaby, Wally that you can input CC info and are able to track your spending. 
I put in my core and fixed expenses that don’t change: rent, student loans, car payments, electric, gym memberships, etc. Then I personally put aside how much I wanted to save. Whatever was left over was what i had to to work with for leisure because at the time, my main focus was saving. This did not allot me with much because I’m young and working in the city making, not a ton of money. I soon realized i didn’t need to spend $500 on clothing each month or rationalize going to NY every weekend or even small things like grabbing Starbucks everyday even though my office has a Starbucks machine #notsoychaithough...
Adjust your budget frequently. I adjust each quarter. I had a speadsheet for the year with a planned budget then at the beginning and end of each quarter go in an see how i’ve done and change things for the next quarter to see what i can improve on. Things change and events come up. My friends and i like traveling so when we plan a trip I incorporate it into my budget. 
Be flexible. I can never understand people who don’t like change, as it is the only thing that is constant, (haha so cliche). It true though, you have to be able to say “ok, this month, I cannot got to Starbucks at all because I have a trip coming up or because I had to replace my brakes the previous month.” 
Get rid of non-utilized memberships and expenses. A friend of mine was paying for 3 different gyms at one time. Take a look at everything you pay for and get rid of non-core expenses. Some people have issues parting with things but if there is no value greater than its cost, get rid of it. I had a similar kerfuffle when I thought, oh i can get rid of my gym membership because my job has a gym in the basement, easy expense to nix. I then visited my company gym, and it just wasn’t for me. It didn’t motivate me to work out, it was cramped and I had to workout with my coworkers next to me, ugh, kidding. So i decided to keep my gym membership but i did nix my yoga membership because I just cannot wake up at 5AM and Chaturanga at 6. I also combined a lot of my memberships with my brother and parents to reduce monthly costs like Netflix, Hulu, Spotify, Tidal, and AmazonPrime and pay annually so there isnt that monthly conversation of. “Hey, you havent paid me the $5 for Netflix” and think well it’s only $5, i’ll let it go. These expenses add up. The people you choose have to be reliable or you have to be reliable. Cancellation can be a bitch if communication is not clear.
One big problem I used to have with budgeting was that I was not realistic. I would say I would save $1000 a month with only $2000 coming in monthly, but I would do it by running up my credit card on things i did not need and pretend like those expenses did not exist. I just was not strict enough on myself. If you create a budget take it month by month or week by week and keep yourself on track.
4. Yes Man - Social life & Overspending This ties into budgeting but more of the social aspect. Living in a city, there are so many things to do. There are events every weekend or even during the week. You gotta stick to your budget and know how much leg room you have to for fun. I am one who always says yes, because I don’t like disappointing and i like doing things. As one of my coworkers, Elliott had described as an “activities based” person. I am definitely one of those. DC is conveniently located where less an hour out in any direction, you will get a completely different but very capitalistic environments.  Happy Hours and company events were the bane of my existence. I have to say, a lot of people I know go out drinking 3 days a week. This adds up and no one is paying me enough to be drunk 3 days a week. You can’t say yes, when your bank account is screaming “NO.”
5. Credit Cards
At last, these evil little things can be so easily misused and you can get yourself into a lot of trouble. I have a couple but only use 2 of them. There are so many articles I used to read about the best ones or the credit cards with the best perks but they’re all quite comparative. I’ve had a line of credit since I was 16 because my parents mistakenly decided to allow me to have one under their account. My first real credit card was a travel card from the bank i have my accounts in, which was not terrible because If i spend $3000, i got 40,000 points which equated to a free flight to Cali which I was planning for anyway. This card, got in into a lot of trouble and took way too long to eventually pay off. I then got a Discover card, which was my trojan horse. The limit was $500 and this really allowed me to control my spending. I actually still use this card for most of my purchases because there is no reason for my to spend more than $500 each month on miscellaneous purchases. They also had better cash back offers which I enjoyed the quarterly divisions. It is a great card for college students and young adults. I still use my travel card solely and immediately pay it off. I still live by the rule of putting everything on credit first then paying it off because i now have that control and not overspend for the most part. If you dont have that self control i would say just, pay everything in cash. You cannot go down a hole by overspending and think, “well i’ll get 5% or 2% back.” I also have not been interested in cards that have an annual fee though they have slightly better cash back offers or perks. Find one that suits your needs. If you drive a lot, get one with better cash back offer for gas purchases. If you travel often, getting a card with an airline has better perks than the generic travel cards for the most part. Its hard if you fly all over the place and don’t stick with one specific airline. But a travel card would be beneficial in that aspect. The rule of thumb is pay it off immediately. Don’t just pay the minimum because after your initial promotional no interest period, those rates are upward of 20% usually. If you put off full payments, you’ll balloon up your monthly payments after that introductory period. Having credit card will build up your credit but mismanaging will also ruin you. If you have plans for a big purchase like a car or home in the future, it may not be an option if you dig yourself a hole in debt.
This was a long post but, hopefully you got something out of it. I definitely have made many money mistakes but I’m here learning and trying to help at the same time. Happy adulting!
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