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from forrest

or, In the Twilight of Arcadia

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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 (Read this how it was meant to be read here, or on the substack mirror.)


“Strong POKEMON. Weak POKEMON. That is only the selfish perception of people.” —Karen of the Elite Four

1, The Pool

It was like a million degrees out, the world was glowing, and everything looked all wavy in the golden distance. Summer shimmered off the crystal waters of the swimming pool, full of children's urine and chlorine. The clouds above looked like big Jumpluff just drifting along, and the clubhouse cast a long shadow, towering over the poolside like some sort of divine structure, its white exterior dotted with all sorts of nautical imagery, which matched the poolside, itself about two tennis courts wide and paved with cement tiles carved with little Magikarp and Shellder designs. A wooden awning shaded a row of picnic tables littered with coolers and juice boxes and radios and towels and pool toys of all sorts, and the parents who enjoyed the shade watched as their children shot each other with Super Soakers and whacked one another with pool noodles. My parents were hundreds of miles away. There was a kiddie pool off in the corner packed with babies, all buoyantly unaware on account of their gigantic floaties. Red maples swayed green overhead in the sweltering breeze. A lifeguard whistled and shouted as kids ran wild. The felty pops of tennis balls could be heard nearby, alongside the faint melody of an ice cream truck several blocks away, and the giggles of children swinging on a nearby swing set, and the taunting of teenagers playing basketball just beyond that. Palm trees towered overhead, their crazy shadows like Exeggutor on the poolside. And all of this was surrounded by a black metal fence that kids could slip right through, and just about anyone could climb over, with two flimsy gates erected on either side, their latches long broken from years of slamming. And just beyond that, less than a sprint away, was a tranquil fishing pond, and around that were the backsides of houses, one of which was my grandma Susu’s, another was my friend Miles’, constructed of red brick, with these big double doors that opened onto a wooden patio, which you could see from the pool itself, only partially obstructed by all the red maple and palm.

So there I was, poolside, lying out on one of those lounge chairs with the rubbery straps instead of cushions, holding my Game Boy Color way above my face to block out the sun so that I could actually see the image, because back then that’s what you had to do, considering the thing had no backlight and the worst glare ever. The time was 2:38 PM in Johto. The pixels were all bright green and pink. Everything was glowing. I could vaguely hear the tennis balls and the lifeguard and the kids and the parents and the ice cream truck, but it was all secondary to the chorus of bleeps and bloops coming out of those tiny little speakers.

I was busy fighting the Elite Four, leveling a newborn Murkrow, nicknamed Kiki, just hatched after an hour of cycling up and down Goldenrod City. She was this little black crow Pokemon with a head the shape of a witch’s hat. She was a Dark type and a Flying type. Her Pokedex entry stated, “it is said to carry misfortune,” or something like that. I bred her from a Doduo that knew Drill Peck, one of the strongest Flying-type attacks in the game, and I was doing all this at the ripe old age of 10 because, days earlier, a kid in the neighborhood named Carter beat me pretty bad with his Alakazam, so I needed a counter for next time, but I also liked Murkrow’s design, and of course I wanted to be the very best, the best there ever was, and I knew how to do all this stuff because I had Prima’s Official Strategy Guide for Pokemon Crystal back at Susu’s house, which was right there next to Miles’ house, exactly like Red and Blue’s houses in Pallet Town, which is what Miles and I used to call each other back then, Red and Blue.

Miles was Red. I was Blue.

Anyway, what I would do was, I’d put the newborn Kiki in the front row of my party, and then, at the start of each battle, I’d switch her out for Freddy, who was much higher level, so I could easily win the battles, and then Kiki would get half of the experience points, leveling up really fast, because Freddy was unstoppable like that.

Freddy was an Arcanine, a Fire-type, a massive orange dog with big paws, a big fiery mane, and a loyal but adorable face, basically the quintessential boy’s best friend. He was my favorite Pokemon. I had an Arcanine in every Pokemon game I had ever played up to that point, and I always named him Freddy, or Fred, or sometimes Fredrix if I was feeling fancy.

So there I was, in my Pokemon the Movie t-shirt and Poke Ball-dotted swim trunks, laying back on that lounge chair, focused on sweeping up the Elite Four with Freddy, when I heard my nickname being shouted real loud, “Blue! Blue!” which snapped me out of my digital reverie, so I looked away from the Game Boy, sat up, and that’s when I saw Red, his head poking up from the edge of the pool, dirty blonde hair all matted to his forehead, big grin on his handsome face.

“C’mon. Aren’t you getting in?”

“Give me a second, I’m almost done with the Elite Four,” I said before leaning back and lifting the Game Boy above my head again.

Freddy was so overleveled that the whole thing was basically just an exercise in tapping the A button over and over again without dying from boredom, which, somehow, I was really good at, despite the fact that all the doctors said I had ADHD and that I couldn’t focus on anything, because “anything” didn’t interest me, which was also why I wasn’t swimming in the pool at that particular moment. I was too into Pokemon. But also, I wasn’t swimming in the pool because I was pretty insecure about my looks. I didn’t like taking my shirt off, on account of my flabby stomach, which Mom always said was just baby fat, but even at the ripe old age of 10, I knew she was just trying to make me feel better. Also, my dad had given me this awful bowl cut right before summer break, which was something I couldn’t really hide, so I just had to grin and bear that one, but it certainly didn’t help with the insecurity, not one bit. Basically, that summer, I was looking something like an overfed hobbit with a bad farmer's tan. I really was.

Then I heard another voice, something I would have described at the time as a high-pitched squeal, because it was Lauren’s voice, and I didn’t like her very much. She was always trying to spend time with Red alone, which kind of annoyed me. And when we played three-on-threes, she always used Espeon, Butterfree, and Meganium, which was whatever, but I once called Meganium “just a dopey green dinosaur with a flower around its neck,” and that annoyed her real bad, and then things only got worse from there. She was also the only kid in the neighborhood with a printer, and one time, I remember, she offered to print pictures of our favorite Pokemon. Red asked for Charizard. I asked for Arcanine. But when she actually got around to printing the pictures, she printed out the Charizard for Red but she only printed a Lickitung for me. I remember, when she handed me that paper with that Lickitung sticking its tongue out at me, my face got so scrunched up in rage and embarrassment that I felt like I was going to cry, and then when I looked up at Lauren, she was also sticking her tongue out at me, just like the Lickitung, so it was like everywhere I looked, someone was sticking their tongue out at me, and Red was laughing his butt off the whole time this was happening, which also annoyed me, so I crumpled the paper and threw it at Lauren, then ran off in a huff. Red still teases me about that whole thing to this day. I also stole her Game Boy Camera one time. I guess I was jealous of her too, on account of all the time Red would spend with her.

Anyway.

Lauren, flopped over the edge of the pool, said, “He just wants to play Pokemon. C’mon, let’s play Marco Polo with Philip.” And that prompted me to glare at her, because I didn’t like it when people told me what I wanted to do, as if they could read my mind or something. So I considered making a rude comment about her incredibly pale skin, or the fact that her eyebrows were so light it barely looked like she had any eyebrows at all, or something about her freakishly big forehead, or all the freckles. I didn’t like her very much. But I also thought she was kind of cute too, I guess, so instead of saying any of that stuff, I sighed, looked back at my game, and started tapping away at the A button again.

Red was quick with his response. “But I want Blue to play. Philip cheats.”

“Stop calling him that. It’s so juvenile.” Lauren was always using big words like that. She was probably just jealous because we didn’t have a nickname for her, though.

Then, another head splashed up behind the edge of the pool. “Hey! I don’t cheat!” It was Philip. He had this long, narrow head, kinda weasley, and he had this permanent look on his face like he was always stupefied about something, and snot was always dripping from his nose for some reason, even in the pool, you could distinctly separate the snot from the water dripping down his face. And his hair was real short, light brown, tapered around the ears, which was not a normal haircut for a kid back then. His parents were real weird, his mom always wore black dresses, and the few times I met his dad, he just stood around looking zonked out of his mind. They usually didn’t let Philip out of the house, so when he was out, it was probably because his parents were out of town and he was being watched by his big brother or something, because otherwise normally we never saw him, which wasn't any skin off my back, if I'm telling the truth, because I didn’t like him very much. Years later, though, I found out his whole family was part of this weird anti-science cult, or something.

Red snapped back at Philip. “Yeah, you do! You find me even when I’m super quiet, and I saw you peeking last time!” And Red was right. He was always super quiet when we played Marco Polo. He was hard as hell to find in the water to an unfair degree, probably because he was built like a triathlon wunderkind, and he was super handsome too. I was constantly comparing myself to him and never living up. He had all the kids in Arcadia, including me, at a huge disadvantage, at least with physical stuff. I usually beat him in video games, though, but somehow that never felt like much of an achievement, even if I liked to pretend it was.

“That was cause my eyes itching,” Philip said. He had this permanent whiny quality to his voice. It was so annoying.

“I’m bored. Let’s go.” Lauren said suddenly as she pushed off with her feet and spun elegantly off into the middle of the pool. I didn’t like her very much, but she was quite the swimmer, I must admit. She looked pretty, too, doing those spins in the water, but I didn’t like her very much.

“Blue! Come on. Just save the game!” Red was staring me down now, this stern look on his face, like he was judging me, like I was an addict or something. And when I didn’t respond immediately, he waded back some, then with both hands pushed this massive wave in my direction. The tsunami soaked my shirt, which was whatever, but it also soaked my Game Boy Color, which was a big deal because it was one of those semi-clear Atomic Purple ones, and I was very protective of it, so after a pained shout, I delicately rubbed it down as if it were a baby. Then, after all the rubbing, I checked to make sure it was still working, and it was. Lance of the Elite Four had just said his final thing, “As a trainer, you will continue to grow strong with your Pokemon,” and now my little sprite was just idling there, doing nothing. So I saved the game real quick, wrapped the Game Boy in a towel, and put it down gently on the lounge chair. Then I glared at Red.

“Why the hell you do that?” I shouted, pretty annoyed. Then I stood up and, without thinking, with my shirt still on and everything, I burst into a sprint toward the pool, followed by a sharp whistle from the lifeguard. Then I leapt high into the air and landed a cannonball right by Red, which produced something like a comet plume. But I ended up landing on Lauren, who, unbeknownst to me, had been underwater, swimming toward Red at that exact moment.

When she came up, it was as if each of the freckles on her face was on fire. “What’s wrong with you?! Didn’t you see me there?!” Her hair seemed to light up with her mood too, normally it was very light red, but now, when she was wading there in the water, yelling at me, her hair seemed as fiery as the sun, and her eyebrows too. I guess I could have apologized or something, but back then I sort of prided myself on never apologizing about anything, ever. Then, without even letting me defend myself, she shouted, “I’m going home!” and that’s when she climbed out of the pool all in a huff. So I said something like, “What’s her problem?” And then Red turned to me with a grim look on his face and said, “She’s never liked you.” So I just kinda shrugged and said, “Whatever, I don’t like her either,” which was true because I didn’t like her very much, but she was kinda cute when she was mad, I must admit.

Afterwards, Red, Philip, and I played Marco Polo for about ten minutes. When it was my turn to play Marco, I cheated my butt off by peeking through my hands, but I was a less obvious cheater than Philip because I would play-dumb by acting like I couldn’t find anyone until a believable amount of time had passed. Philip, on the other hand, would immediately start going after people even when they were real quiet, so the difference between Philip’s cheating and mine was that, when I cheated, I let people feel like they had a chance to win, even though they never really did.

I always had more fun with Marco Polo at night, when the pool was quiet and the lights were off, when every little ripple and every single Politoed croak was plainly audible, like you were one with nature or whatever. It just made the game more enjoyable, it really did, which is why I never liked playing during the day. There was just too much noise, which is why after about ten minutes or so I decided to call it quits. I waded up to the poolside, leaned over the edge, and shouted for a break. Red and Philip agreed. We all climbed out of the pool, grabbed our towels, and dried ourselves off a little bit. My shirt was still soaking wet, of course, but I didn’t want to take it off, so I didn’t.

“Let’s play Pokemon,” I said,

Red nodded, “I brought my Game Boy, like you told me.”

Philip wiped snot from his nose, “I left mine.” And then he licked his snotty hand. He was gross like that. Then, looking real bratty, he said, “I wanna go to the hill and throw stuff at cars.” He was always wanting to throw stuff at cars, tennis balls and pinecones, mostly, he got a real kick out of it, probably because his parents never let him out, so when he did get out, he went wild.

“I wanna do a quick round with Red first.” I said, sitting on my lounge chair, unwrapping my Game Boy from the towel.

Red pushed a lounge chair against mine, and then, in an instant, he and I were linked with a Game Boy Link Cable. We walked our little sprites to the second floor of the Pokemon Center and talked to the lady behind the counter, and then we were face-to-face not only in the physical world but also in the digital one, too. Philip’s snot-caked face was hovering over my shoulder. I could feel his breath on my neck, and I was pretty sure some snot fell on my collar, so I shuddered and shouted at him to move. Then he swapped sides, looking over Red’s shoulder. And then the battle began. It was standard neighborhood rules, 3-on-3, max level 50, no legendaries, no GameShark’d mons.

Our screens swirled, then the battle music started like a keyboard falling through a vortex of adolescent confusion.

The battle was on.

2, Blue vs. Red

Red bent into his Game Boy and said, “I’m gonna win this mofo.” He was always saying “mofo,” even though I’m pretty sure he didn’t know what it meant, but neither did I, so I never really challenged him on it.

His first Pokemon was Houndoom, a Rottweiler-looking Pokemon, Fire-type, all black with devil horns, nicknamed “Shadow,” because he was always into edgy-sounding stuff, and he was terrible with nicknames.

“GO SCALES!” I shouted, pretending I was in the Pokemon anime or something. Scales was a Feraligatr, a big blue bipedal alligator with red scales poking out of his back. His nickname was Scales on account of all the scales. I guess I wasn’t too good with nicknames back then either.

Shadow had the higher Speed stat, so he went first with Sunny Day, and I raised an eyebrow because it was a non-damaging move that weakened Water-type attacks but boosted Fire-type ones, more strategic than I usually saw from Red. Scales used Surf, which I expected to one-shot Shadow since he was weak to Water, but Sunny Day weakened the attack, letting Shadow cling to life with just a sliver of health, the poor dog all wet and beeping in the red.

“Sunny Day, smart, but I told you before, you can’t win with Fire-types against,” and that’s when I was interrupted by Shadow’s Solar Beam, a Grass-type attack, which normally, under clear weather, required a turn to charge up, but under Sunny Day it came out instantly, and it one-shot Scales, leaving me slack-jawed for a good few seconds before I came to my senses and said, “You’re getting better,” all sarcastically.

But Red didn’t retort or anything, he just had this fierce determination in his eyes. Philip, meanwhile, was watching intently over Red’s shoulder. Some other kids had gathered around too, including Gavin, Red’s little brother, who looked just like Red, just three years younger, and a little more goofy-looking, because he had these big lips and a bowl cut about as bad as mine, but he sure did love his brother, because he was always around, especially when we were playing video games.

“Are you gonna lose this time, Blue?” Gavin said.

I didn’t say anything, but I wasn’t worried about losing, because my next Pokemon burst out of his Poke Ball with a magnificent roar, filling me with confidence. It was Freddy. He stood proud and majestic as boy’s best friend. Now it was dog versus dog.

“Shadow’s faster than that mofo,” Red mumbled, finishing his inputs.

“Don’t call him a mofo,” I said, shooting him a glance, “and Shadow’s not faster than this.”

Just as I said that, Freddy’s sprite flashed, then a wicked slashing animation appeared over Shadow, slicing away the last bit of health the dark dog had left. I had used Extreme Speed, it always went first.

Red blinked, then said, all dumbfounded, “I forgot about Extreme Speed.” Then his expression turned serious as he brought his face closer to the Game Boy, using the shadow of his own head to block out the harsh glare of the sun. “You’ll regret that,” he mumbled, then he added a small “mofo” at the end there, hoping I wouldn’t hear it.

His second Pokemon was Typhlosion, nicknamed Blaze, a long, badger-like Pokemon with big intimidating flames that erupted out of his neck. But I wasn’t intimidated, I actually laughed a little bit, then said, “I told you, you can’t beat me with a bunch of Fire-types. You gotta balance your team.”

But Red had a little twinkle in his eye, and at that moment, both our screens shook. Blaze had used Earthquake, which caught my attention, because Freddy, being a Fire-type, was weak to Ground-type attacks. The kids around us let out a collective gasp. Then Freddy flashed a few times as that super-effective crash noise rang in my ears. I bit my lower lip, watching my faithful companion’s health bar drain, expecting him to faint. But to my surprise, he hung on with just a sliver of health. There was a faint taste of blood on my tongue. The collective gasp turned to ambient pool noise, all the kids hunched over, looking over our shoulders, watching the battle intently. “Red’s getting a lot better.” I heard one of them say.

I was low-key kinda pissed, and my face was burning with more than just sunburn, as if I had become a Fire-type myself. Quickly, I had Freddy use Body Slam, which knocked out about half of Blaze’s health and paralyzed him, which meant that next turn Freddy would be faster than Blaze, since paralysis halves a Pokemon’s Speed stat. Then I had Freddy use Body Slam again. But Red switched out Blaze for Skarmory, a Steel-type bird, which he had nicknamed Razor, and that metal bird tanked the Body Slam, taking basically no damage from it. So, venomously, I said, “I’m just gonna Fire Blast her out of the sky,” because Steel-types were weak to Fire-types. And that’s exactly what I did, I used Fire Blast, expecting an easy one-shot win.

But Fire Blast missed.

Red did one of those laughs that starts out as a long raspberry then turns into a bellyful. Then, when he was done laughing, he said, “Should have just taught him Flamethrower.” And he was right, I should have taught him Flamethrower, because of the better accuracy. But instead of admitting my mistake, I just sort of stared at him, trying to appear cool and collected, when actually I was annoyed as hell. Then something totally unexpected happened.

Razor used Mud-Slap, which was a Ground-type move, which was super effective against Fire-types.

Freddy fainted.

I let out a pained scream, something like, “FREDDY! NOOOOOOOO!” because I kept picturing my dog back home, in pain, writhing and howling in agony. I couldn’t shake the image of him getting hurt for some reason, and it was too much for my little ten-year-old brain to handle. It was probably very comical for everyone involved, except for me, of course. Eventually my guttural “NOOOOOO” trailed off, and I fell over then rolled into the fetal position on that uncomfortable lounge chair, holding my Game Boy into my chest as if it were my literal heart in my hands or something. I could hear the kids around me whispering, and I’m pretty sure one poked me. I also heard Philip say, “I think you killed him,” before loudly snorting snot up his nose. I could sense Red was trying his best not to laugh because I could feel him fumbling around, like he was covering his mouth or something, the Link Cable that connected us going from slack to taut then back again. And, after some time, Gavin put his hand on my shoulder and said, “It’s OK. It’s just a game,” but that only made me flail and shoo him away. Then, for some reason, the lifeguard shouted “NO DUNKING,” which snapped me out of my fetal anguish. So I shot upright and buried my face in my Game Boy, avoiding eye contact with everyone and pretending like nothing had happened. One of the kids said, “Hey, Blue, you alright?” but instead of responding, I just sent out my last Pokemon, Furret, a gigantic brown ferret with a playful expression on her face, nicknamed “Foon.” She was way cuter than I was, especially considering my little tantrum.

Without a word, trying my best to seem all stoic and cool, I had Foon use Thunder Punch, which was super effective against Razor, and it was a critical hit, so she basically punched that dumb metal bird right out of the sky. But it didn’t really make me feel any better because I couldn’t get over the image of Freddy getting hurt. So when Red sent out his last Pokemon, Blaze, who was still at about half health, I navigated to Quick Attack and pressed the A button super hard, as if I was the one Quick Attacking Red himself. Foon flashed on screen, and just like that, Blaze was down and the battle was won.

The kids around us both cheered and jeered, some of them ran off, lifeguard whistling, cannonballing into the pool, getting little droplets of chlorinated water on my clothes, which were now mostly dry thanks to the crazy summer sun. I remember it took every fiber of my being to say, “Good game,” under my breath, as I stared down into the void that was the now-blank Game Boy screen.

“Yeah, was worth it hearing you scream like a mofo,” Red said as he turned off his Game Boy, stood up, and pocketed it. Then he picked up his towel and rubbed it into his hair before wrapping it around his waist. “I’ll win next time, though.”

“Whatever,” I mumbled.

The battle had been won, but Freddy’s fall was still taking its toll on my adolescent psyche, and the embarrassment of freaking out over a video game in a public pool setting was starting to creep in too. I could feel the shame like a weight on the back of my neck, which is why I was just staring down into my Game Boy, breathing real heavy. I could feel Red looking down at me the whole time. It started to feel a little awkward. It was like some sort of shame demon was keeping me down or something.

Then Philip broke the silence, “Can we go throw stuff at cars now?”

Red was rubbing his hair with a towel. “I guess,” he said. He was never too big on mischief making, always tagging along reluctantly to fit in or whatever. Then he added, “Gotta go pee like a mofo first, though.” So he jumped in the pool, and then, after wading in the water for a couple of seconds, he climbed out with a little grin on his face and said, “OK, let’s go.”

Philip turned to me and said, “You coming?”

I shrugged, still upset, thinking about Pokemon, thinking about Freddy, thinking about how my dad was coming down later that day and that he was actually bringing Freddy with him, which meant that summer was almost over, which meant that I’d have to go back home soon. But the thought of seeing Freddy again made me feel a little better, though it also made me feel a little sad, because back then I thought, when summer ends, maybe it won't come back.

Because, when you’re a kid, endings sure do feel like forevers.

3, The Hill

There we were, about ten minutes later, climbing up that hill, that bright green hill. It was Red, Philip, Gavin, and myself, all four of us, climbing up that hill.

It was just a little bigger than a knoll, and it was dotted with black-eyed Susans and hibiscus and Carolina jessamine. And the grass, immaculate, even though I never saw anyone ever mowing it. And the birds, those Carolina wrens and American robins, I imagined them as Pidgey and Farfetch’d, they danced and sang. And the crows, perched up in the palms that hung high overhead, squawking down at us, all territorial, I saw them as Murkrow, waiting to be captured. Because my head was full of Pokemon, and angst, because I was still a little moody and embarrassed from my battle with Red, even though I was trying to get over it, I really was.

When I got to the top of the hill, I lay down on my stomach and looked at the grass real close to my nose, and there I saw a wild Caterpie. I wished at that moment I had a Poke Ball and a Pokedex and maybe some water, because I was feeling really parched, having only drunk chlorinated pool water since coming out hours earlier. I often forgot to take care of myself back then on account of, well, being ten, but also on account of my mind being all polluted with Pokemon, and angst, and TV, all sorts of other stuff.

Just beyond the hill was a long, straight road that connected our neighborhood with another. It ran parallel to the hill, and the occasional car would pass, going anywhere from 10 to 20 miles per hour. Just behind the hill, a little ways off in the distance, were the clubhouse and the pool and a very small pond with a fancy fountain, and there were a few rows of houses with verdant alleys between them all. The hill was tall enough to hide yourself from anyone down on the road, which made it the perfect place to throw stuff from because you could just duck behind the top of the hill afterward, almost as if it were made solely for children to make mischief.

We had been doing this whole throw-stuff-at-cars-from-behind-the-hill thing a lot that summer, and at one point, some mail was sent by the Homeowners Association warning parents that kids were indeed throwing stuff at cars from behind the hill, and those kids, in most cases, were us. Red, Philip, Gavin, and Myself, and sometimes Carter, but never Lauren. But, to our credit, we usually only threw pinecones and tennis balls, never anything that could break a windshield, only stuff that caused a big panic for drivers and a good laugh for us.

In this instance, Philip, always eager to cause mayhem, was the first to get the ball rolling. “You ready?” He had his shirt all rolled up in the front, full of lumps, and when he unrolled it, a bunch of tennis balls fell out into the grass. They rolled down the hill a bit before being caught in some overgrowth. Then he looked at me and said, “You first,” because he was always eager to cause some mayhem, but only after he had implicated someone else first, I guess it made him feel better or something. But I just shook my head, too absorbed in watching the Caterpie in the grass, thinking about Arcanine and Houndoom and Typhlosion and stuff.

Red grabbed one of the tennis balls and quickly poked his head up from behind the hill. A car engine hummed down the road. “I’ll do it,” I heard him say, and then he got into this military-like crouch, as if he were Solid Snake or something, tennis ball clasped in both hands, feathery mess of hair fluttering due to some sudden breeze. The noise of the car engine got closer and closer until, suddenly, Red popped up from behind the hill and chucked the ball. Then Philip did this whistle reminiscent of a bomb drop. And I, suddenly feeling swept up in the moment, shot my head up to track the thrown ball, which ended up totally whiffing on account of a gust of wind, which I could tell left Red a little annoyed because he started mumbling loudly after he ducked down. “It was the wind, I swear, my aim was perfect, I would have hit that mofo.” And he would have, too.

Gavin was watching his brother intently, as if he were extracting and installing behavioral data or something, and then he said, “I’ll get one of those mofos for you.”

Red snapped back at him, “You can’t use that word, that’s my word.”

Gavin ignored his brother's rebuke, grabbing a ball from the grass nearby. After a few seconds, the hum of another car got closer and closer, until, suddenly, Gavin popped out and chucked his ball in a sloppy, limp-wristed fashion. But his aim was true, because he hit that mofo dead on.

I watched that tennis ball belt the front windshield of this little red two-door, making a loud thud, before ricocheting into a holly bush, followed by the sharp sound of squealing tires, as if the driver had just stepped on the brakes real hard.

My head was way down, and my heart was pounding, and my skin felt as if it were sparking like a Pikachu or something, but somehow I worked up the courage to poke my head up again, to get a peek of what was going on, and that’s when I saw the tire tracks leading to the hill, and the red two-door just idling there next to the hill, and the man looking around frantically, and then the man started yelling, “COME OUT HERE, PUNKS,” and that’s when I nearly peed myself, so I quickly ducked behind the hill and took a deep breath.

“COME ON OUT, YOU LITTLE SHITS.”

I looked over to Red to see what he wanted to do, but he was already halfway down the hill, running faster than I had ever seen him run before, and he was heading straight for one of those verdant alleys, the same one that led right to my street, and Gavin was right there behind his brother, just barely keeping up. Philip was running off in the opposite direction, which left me, the portly little hobbit, alone on the hill, all by myself, freaking out.

So, full panic mode, not wanting to get in trouble, I quickly got to my feet and dashed down the hill, but my head was swirling, maybe from the lack of water, and my legs were suddenly pool noodles, flailing all over the place, and before I knew it, I slipped, tumbled down the hill like some seriously out-of-shape Sonic the Hedgehog, and ended up face down in the grass with mouthful of dirt.

I think I might have blacked out or something for a second, because when I came to, rolled over, and looked up, expecting only to see those big Jumpluff clouds in the sky, I instead saw the spitting image of childhood fear itself, a random adult I had never seen before in my life, hovering right over me. He had dark shades on and slicked-back gray hair, very thin cheekbones, and he was wearing something like a dark vest and slacks.

I was stammering, “It wasn’t me. I didn’t even throw a ball. I just wanted to play Pokemon Crystal. Really. I swear. I didn’t even throw one. I swear. I didn’t. It wasn’t me. It was Phillip. He did it. I swear.”

The adult’s eyes were covered, so I couldn’t get a full read on him, but I could tell he was frustrated from the purse of his lips, but, despite that, he held his hand out to me, as if to help me up, but I just started scrambling backwards like a Krabby or something. “No. No. Don’t hurt me. I didn’t do it. I didn’t.”

“Look, kid, sorry for yelling like that. I was just upset, is all.” The adult stepped closer. “I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to talk to your parents.” He paused before offering me his hand again. “Where do you live?”

“I’m not telling.” I said, slowly inching backwards. “I didn’t do nothing.” I was so flustered even my grammar was suffering.

“Fine. But can you tell me where the other kids live then? So I can talk to their parents.”

My big, shaky blue eyes were scanning him up and down, as if performing child calculus in my head to determine if he was just trying to trick me or something. The calculation was pretty simple, though, because I quickly came to an answer. “No, not telling!” And that’s when I started scrambling back even more, practically in someone’s backyard at this point.

“Then I’m calling the police. They’ll sort this out.” The adult stepped forward. “Come with me.” He bent over and grabbed my wrist, at which point I started flailing like crazy.

“Unhand me! I didn’t do anything! Let me go!” I shouted, but the adult kept tugging at my wrist, which was really freaking me out, so I shouted, “Fine! I’ll tell you where they live.” I was panting like crazy, like a wild dog almost. “Just let me go, please.”

The man let me go, then he stepped away from me, putting distance between us. His eyes were still covered, but his face seemed regretful somehow, as if he now had second thoughts about grabbing me. I could have run at that point. I don’t know why I didn’t. But, instead, I snitched, and I lied. “It was Phillip who threw the ball at your car. He lives down there.” I was pointing behind me, to the left, beyond the little pond with the fountain. “206, I think.”

“Mossy Oak Way?”

“I think so.” I wasn’t real good with names and numbers back then. I just knew where stuff was.

“And was there anyone else with you?”

I blinked, considering if I should snitch on Red and Gavin. I was, after all, pretty upset about Freddy, but I wasn’t that upset, so I decided not to snitch on them. Instead, I did something much worse.

I shouted, “BITE ME,” and then, overcome by some sort of devilry, I spat a fat one right on the man’s vest. Then I bounced to my feet and bolted off into a nearby verdant alley, one that led to my street.

I could hear the man yelling behind me, “COME BACK HERE, YOUNG MAN. APOLOGIZE RIGHT NOW.”

But I was already gone, hauling butt through buzzing backyards, jumping over oscillating sprinklers, weaving between picket fences, running past red maple and palm, and barking dogs, and big sunflowers, and pink flamingos, and garden gnomes. Then, arms covering my face, I pushed through a holly bush, right onto Mossy Oak Way.

And then I started running again, never looking back, because if that man thought I was going to apologize to him, well, he had another thing coming, because back then I prided myself on never apologizing for anything, ever.

4, Susu’s House

The door was unlocked, it was always unlocked.

The sound of a bell, the stinger, the old Rush Limbaugh baugh, signaled my arrival, as it usually did around this time in the afternoon. I quietly closed the glass storm door behind me as I tiptoed through the front arch, looking over my shoulder nervously, half expecting to see that man rushing after me, but all I saw was the grass lawn, freshly mowed, and the big maple sticking out of the middle, and the little garden Susu had cultivated near the curve of the garage, right by the driveway that spilled out of the main road like a distributary into its own little pond of concrete. Some AM radio commercial faintly crackled, “What are you going to do when the dollar collapses? When there’s no money left in the ATM and your credit cards are just useless plastic? Are you just going to sit around, waiting for the government to take your guns away? No. You’re smarter than that. You’re a patriot. And real patriots put their money in gold and silver.” The radio voice had this funny gruffness to it, “Confederate Gold & Silver,” but I didn’t have the wits to laugh at it just then, because I was chewing my nails, looking through the glass door, trying to make sure I was in the clear. After a few seconds of staring down the road, I saw the red two-door coming around the turn, the same one Gavin pegged earlier, about to pass right by Susu’s house. I gulped and slammed the front door without thinking, all bug-eyed, then I pushed my back against the door, expecting a knock any second, because I assumed, in my weird adolescent ways, that the adult had somehow divined the location of my home merely minutes after meeting me. I was mentally preparing myself for the inevitable, coming up with all sorts of excuses in my head, nearly hyperventilating, chewing my nails to blood, and that’s when Susu called my name several times from beyond the static, followed by a, “is that you, is that you, honey?”

Still freaking out mentally, I gathered myself physically, and then I popped out of the small alcove into the living room proper, right by the big couch pushed up against the tan wall that was actually a pass-through for the kitchen, meaning it was like a big hole in the middle of the wall that let you see right through into the kitchen itself, where Susu stood by the stovetop, moving a frying pan back and forth, sizzling some sort of unbreaded white meat so plain it didn’t even have a smell. She turned and blinked at me with her big eyes, thick with mascara, then she must have realized that I looked freaked out, so she said, “Everything OK, little one?” to which I stuttered out a “Yeah” before walking into the kitchen, which was wallpapered white with stylized green vines painted at the top, making the whole place feel like some sort of Roman domus. “Well, OK then,” she said. And that’s when I pushed aside the window drapes and was lifting one of the white plastic blinds, trying to get the best view of the street while being as discreet as possible about the whole thing. I could barely hear the radio over the sound of my own heartbeat, expecting that little red two-door to show up, so I sort of jumped when Susu said, “I was wondering when you’d be home,” then, noticing me jump, she followed up with, “Are you sure everything’s OK?” But I didn’t say a word, staring out that window, chewing my nails again, still expecting the two-door to pull up at any moment. Then, after what felt like a full minute, she asked, “Are you hungry?” and, seeing no car pull into the drive, I breathed a huge sigh of relief, dropped the blind, turned to Susu, and said, “Maybe a little.”

I was feeling absolved. I was feeling safe. So, first, I drank a whole glass of water, then I opened the pantry and grabbed a bag of pretzel rods, then I started chomping down on them with these real loud chomps. Susu, now done with her frying pan, turned to me and said, “I meant real food.” Then she brought out two plates and put the strips of white meat on them, then she put those plates on the kitchen table, which was pushed right up against the wall, near the window, under those fake, painted-on vines. “Eat some chicken,” she said. “No breading. Very little fat. Just protein. Exactly what a growing boy needs.”

Her chestnut eyes got all squinty when she smiled. She had barely any wrinkles. Her hair was dark red because she dyed it. She was in her seventies, but she didn’t look a day over forty. People always thought she was my mother. She basically was. She was gentle and honest, sometimes too honest, and not afraid to speak her mind, but she was very kind. She woke up at the same time every day. She was always on a very strict diet. She had one of those weekly pill organizers filled with all sorts of colorful pills, most of dubious effectiveness. She watched Gunsmoke at three, Bonanza at four, MacGyver at five, and she fell asleep to Fox News. She loved her routines. She rarely went out, except to water her tomatoes, go to the grocery store, play the occasional game of tennis, and ballroom dance every Saturday night. She had a series of male friends who were much younger than herself. She had an exercise bike in her room and a pull-up bar on her door frame. She spent many hours a day playing solitaire, alone, on her bed. She used to be a professional dancer. She danced on TV one time, in black and white. She was really pretty. She was my grandma, Susu. I loved her, and she loved me.

Anyway.

Susu sat down at the table and started cutting little squares off the chicken with a fork and knife before taking dainty little bites. I sat on the opposite end, still chomping my rods, little twirls of steam coming off the plain white meat on the plate in front of me. For some reason, the idea of chewing meat grossed me out more so than normal, so I gave my helping to Susu after some bickering back and forth. Then, after another dainty little bite, she looked up at me and said, “You have to take a break on the pretzels, hon, you’re getting a little chubby around the waist.” She was always saying stuff like that. Sometimes I thought everything was about looks with her, but she always treated me like a prince, even if I was a little overweight at the time.

By the time Susu and I were done eating, MacGyver was coming on, so we put our plates in the sink and then went to her room. It was always dim and cozy in there. I plopped down on the massive bed and immediately whipped out my Game Boy Color, flipping the power switch, little coin sound ringing in my ears, but by the time Suicune had shown up on the screen, the sound was already drowned out by the orchestral heroics of the MacGyver theme, which compelled me to hum along as shots of the man himself flashed on screen. He was doing cool light tricks with mirrors and running through the desert and eating ice cream from the cone and making explosives out of silly putty and rappelling down mountains and leaping behind cover as helicopters shot at him and thwarting bad guys all without using a gun, and the hair, that dirty blonde hair, long in the back, short in the front, and that smile, that handsome smile, “starring RICHARD DEAN ANDERSON.”

Man, I loved that show. We loved that show. That was our show.

Susu was sitting there, upright, next to me, pillows stuffed behind her back, little table over her lap, playing solitaire with a deck of cards about as old as she was. I was playing my Pokemon. Then it went to commercial, so I zoned in on leveling Kiki some more, mindlessly bashing A through the Elite Four, Freddy Extreme Speeding all the opposing Pokemon, Kiki now almost level 50, all while Susu was moving and flipping cards around on her little table.

Then MacGyver came back on. It was that one episode, “Kill Zone,” where MacGyver jury-rigs a satellite antenna to his camera to make a video feed somehow. We had seen it about a thousand times before. The plot centered around some scientist girl who toyed a little too much with nature and accidentally created a virus that caused those infected to rapidly age and die. The scientist girl had this fluffy black dog too, and by the end of the episode both the scientist and her dog are exposed to the virus, so they both rapidly shrivel up and die right there on screen, which freaked me out. I didn’t want to rapidly shrivel up and die. I really didn’t. The prospect of it all scared the hell out of me. So I said, “We’ve seen this one like a hundred times.” But Susu didn’t say anything. She just kept flipping her cards around. So I shrugged and went back to bashing A, tuning it out.

Only a couple of minutes had passed before the doorbell rang. My stomach fell about a hundred floors. I looked over at Susu, my eyes huge, practically sweating bullets. She said, “What’s wrong, little one? It’s probably just your father.” Then she lifted her table and put it to the side before she got up and walked out into the living room, toward the front door. I was stalking behind her, keeping my distance as I watched her open the glass door, then the main door proper, and there stood the figure of an adult man, partially obscured by Susu.

I gulped.

But before I could get a good look at the man, a golden blur rushed through the door, zipping right past Susu’s legs. It was all Whirlwind, Heat Wave, and Flash. I could barely react at all before I was knocked over into the plush carpet, pinned down by some crazy force, wetness suddenly all over my face.

It was Freddy.

His big golden paws were on my shoulders, his tongue swinging wildly all over the place, and his tail must have been wagging a thousand miles per hour because I could feel the breeze. When I realized it was him, all my dread went away. I wrapped my arms around him, then started play-wrestling, popping him on either side of the mouth, which always made him do these fake little snarls. Then I got on all fours and started snarling back. I was pretending like I was an Arcanine. We were both bouncing around on all fours like we were littermates, him being the runt, because he was about half the size of a normal golden retriever, on account of being mixed with some other breed we could never quite figure out. But none of that mattered because he was part of the family, weird blood or not. And he found us, not the other way around.

One day, years ago, when I was really young, Freddy had just shown up at our door. I remember my dad had heard snarling out on the front porch, and when he opened the door, there he was, golden and dirty, snarling viciously. We had no idea where he actually came from or how old he was, but he looked maybe half a year old back then. I remember my dad, upon seeing the snarling teenage pup, immediately shut the door, then he turned to us and said, “Freddy Krueger’s at the door. I’m calling Animal Control.” But somehow I convinced him otherwise. We tamed the dog with bacon, and soon he was sleeping in my bed every night. And every day, when I came home from school, there he was, right up there on the top step, waiting for me. And when I would go out to play, he would follow me, as if he were protecting me from all the dangers of the grown-up world. We named him, of course, Freddy. There was no other name to give.

Freddy was my brother, my friend, and my protector, even if he was a little rude and unfriendly to most people, like that one time he bit the delivery driver and then my dad had to convince the driver not to press charges, or that other time when he got out of the house and chased our neighbor who was just trying to mow their lawn, or that one time he knocked a biker off their bike, or all the times we had to put him in the bathroom when people were visiting because he wouldn’t stop snarling at them. He gained a reputation as the neighborhood menace, he really did. But he was never a menace to me. In fact, he was a menace to everyone except me, so I felt super safe when he was around. He was my guardian, Freddy. My best friend. I loved him, and he loved me.

Anyway.

Susu and my dad spent the next hour watching TV and talking. Sometimes my dad would go into the backyard to take work calls. He was in real estate. And he always wore an old baseball cap, even inside. I was mostly playing Pokemon the whole time, on the floor with my back against Susu’s bed, because Freddy wasn’t allowed up there, and I wanted to be near him. Later, Red came over for an hour or so, mainly to ask me what had happened back there on the Hill. I told him everything. He thought it was hilarious that I snitched on Philip, and he was grateful that I didn’t snitch on him or his brother. I told him that I could never do that to him. Then I introduced him to Freddy, who only snarled for about half a second before warming up. Then my dad ordered some pizza, and we ate a couple of slices on the screened-in back porch, enveloped in the sounds of crickets chirping and cicadas droning on and on. The sky was pink and orange as we watched the sun fall. Heat lightning flashed off in the distance every now and then. There was some soft rumbling. My dad said it was steel-guitar weather, whatever that meant. Susu didn’t eat any pizza. She said it was too fattening, so we gave her slices to Freddy, who scarfed them down then stood gallantly by my side, never begging for more, because that just wasn’t his style.

Later, as night settled, my dad told me he would be staying with a friend nearby for two days and that, afterwards, he would take me home for the new school year. I begged him to leave Freddy at Susu’s with me, and he eventually agreed. I remember, before he left, he said, “You’re getting big enough now, so watch out for ol’ Freddy Krueger and make sure he doesn’t get into any trouble,” and then he winked and smiled at me.

As I watched my dad pull out of the driveway, I had the strangest feeling that Freddy was going to be the one watching out for me.

I stayed up for another hour, Freddy and I chasing each other around the house like wildlings, until Susu insisted that we go to sleep. I normally slept in Susu’s bed at night, but this night I slept in the spare room on the other side of the house. There was an old television set in there, from the ’80s or something, with knobs, and an old tape player hooked up to it. The bed was nice and comfy. I lay there, trying to fall asleep to the sound of The Simpsons that Susu had taped for me on VHS. She was always taping stuff for me. Freddy was there on the bed, his chest rising up and down as he lay curled up at my feet.

In the middle of the night, a wicked thunderstorm picked up, its lightning flashing like cameras going off, and its harsh wind whipping tree branches against the side of the house. Susu came in and asked if I wanted to move to her bed. I told her no, that I wasn’t scared, because with every snap, crackle, and pop, Freddy’s head would perk up and he’d growl softly, as if trying to scare the monsters away.

I fell asleep that night to the sound of heavy rain and companionship.


Part 2


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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 (Read this how it was meant to be read here, or on the substack mirror.)


5, Carter’s House

The next morning, after Susu had woken up, had her breakfast, made my chocolate milk, and started using the sewing machine in the garage, I stumbled out of the spare bedroom in nothing but my underwear and made my way to Susu’s room. Freddy followed along. I needed to watch my Blue’s Clues and Little Bear, and Susu’s TV was the only one that got cable. I could hear the rhythmic clacking of her sewing machine, muffled in the garage, throughout the house. Sometimes she would spend hours in there making these little cloth pockets with flowery designs painted on them, about the size of an envelope, with magnets sewn into the back so they could stick to a refrigerator and hold things like notes and pens and other knick-knacks. She made a little money selling them at the market downtown. Everyone in the family had one.

I was sitting up against the bed’s headboard, in Susu’s normal spot, closest to the TV, with pillows wedged behind my back, sucking chocolate milk through the straw of a white Power Rangers cup. Freddy wasn’t allowed on the bed, so he was lying on the thin rug in the space between the bed and the dresser, upon which sat the TV set, humming the soft orchestral theme of Little Bear, its quiet horns and strings perfectly accenting the innocent countryside adventures of the titular Little Bear himself. I figured that none of the other kids my age watched Little Bear, and I figured they definitely didn’t watch Blue’s Clues, since both were shows aimed at much younger kids, and I was so aware of that fact that I even went to great lengths to hide it, which is why I scrambled for the remote the moment I heard the door burst open, which caused Freddy to jump to his feet and bark like crazy until he realized who it was.

It was Red. He was standing there, in the doorway, looking right at me with that confident smile of his. He was wearing these ridiculously baggy pants that didn’t fit him at all, either physically or mentally. They were called FUBU pants or something. He was always going on about these pants, but I was in no position to crack a joke about them, because I had pulled the sheets over myself, slightly covering my face, which caused the TV remote to fall to the floor, which meant that Little Bear continued to play, which meant the jig was up, and I was a little embarrassed about the whole thing. I remember the episode was titled “Little Bear's Bad Day.”

“Oh, hey,” I said, kinda taken aback.

“Door was unlocked,” he said, then he turned to the TV, “Are you watching Little Bear?”

I started to answer but was stuttering a little bit.

“I never got into it. That’s why I came over. I find something else to do after Blue’s Clues. I love Blue’s Clues. Don’t tell anyone.”

All I could muster was an “Oh,” followed by a smile at the realization that I wasn’t the only one. It amazed me how Red always took ownership of the things he liked, he was never embarrassed about anything, that was something I always admired about him.

Red hopped on the huge bed and sat, legs dangling over the edge. We watched Little Bear together for a moment. Mother Bear was tweezing a thorn out of Little Bear’s butt. It was a strange scene. We both laughed. Then it cut to commercial break.

“I told Carter I’d go fishing with him today,” Red said, unenthusiastically.

“Why’d you do that?” I said, a little muffled because the sheets were still pulled close to my face.

“I don’t know,” he said, then nervously added, “Can you come with me?”

At first, I didn’t know how to respond. Carter freaked me out. He was two years older than us, and he was quiet, in a spooky way, and the way he looked at me sent the worst kind of shivers down my spine. And even though his house was literally right across the street from mine, his parents never let us in, so we had no idea what was going on in there, only that his garage was always open, full of random junk, but his doors were always locked. I felt as if something weird was locked behind them. He had like a hundred sisters, all redheads, pale, with freckles, and it was almost like new ones kept popping up every other day. We had this running joke that they were multiplying like those single-celled organisms or whatever. Carter was the only boy in the family. The more I thought about it, the more I didn’t want to hang out with him. But then I remembered that he played Pokemon, at least he did at the beginning of the summer. He had a good team, too. The last time I played against him, he beat me pretty bad, and I was still kind of burned by that. The very thought reignited the fire inside. I suddenly needed a rematch. I had raised Kiki for that very purpose. I had to beat him. I had to be the very best, like no one ever was.

“He still play Pokemon?” I said

Red shrugged. “You ask him.”

“I gotta get dressed,” I said, a little defensively.

Ten minutes later, we were outside, shaded by the little overhang above Susu’s front door. Freddy was there too. He didn’t need a leash because he always stuck by my side. Some Pidgeotto zipped by overhead, followed by a few Pidgey struggling to keep up, and Freddy was tracking them in place, his nose all skyward.

I was wearing this baggy blue short-sleeve and big jeans, even though it was hot as hell out. I was trying to hide my chubbiness under big clothes, like I always did, because back then I always felt like people were looking at me, judging me, even when no one really was. And I didn’t like how shorts looked on me because my legs were super pale. Susu always said my legs would stay pale unless I wore shorts, but I didn’t like how they looked, partially because my legs were super pale, so it was kind of like a no-win situation.

The heat didn’t normally bother me much, but this day was different. It had rained the night before, and the heat index was like a million degrees or something, so it felt like the worst kind of sauna in the world outside, so I immediately started complaining the moment we stepped out of the shade.

“I don’t think today is a good day for fishing,” I said, but Red ignored me.

Carter’s big two-story house was right there across the street, garage wide open, two huge pickup trucks parked on his sloped driveway. There was a massive mossy oak in the backyard that shaded the entire house and gave it a haunted-house vibe. I imagined the place like some sort of final boss castle in a video game. Red and I had preferred to knock on the door inside his garage to get Carter to come outside, so in the blazing heat, sweating profusely, we made our way across the street and up Carter’s steep driveway, into his garage. But before entering the garage, I patted Freddy on the head and told him to stay outside until we were back. Freddy looked me in the eye, then he walked up to a little shrub near the garage entrance and lifted his leg, showering the prickly bush as if he didn’t respect the place at all. Red and I thought that was pretty funny.

We then had to navigate a little maze of rusty yard tools, and barrels of old fishing poles, and a rack of spears, one missing, and two different lawn mowers, and boxes labeled with duct tape and sharpie, and some gardening equipment, and a big couch with a small table in front of it, upon which was a full ashtray with like twelve empty packs of cigarettes around it, and there were deer antlers mounted on the walls, and a collection of old-looking rifles, and a huge Confederate flag, and then more rifles, and there were a bunch of framed Army medals all over the place, and there was even a small boat hanging from the ceiling in the corner. I nearly tripped over an old hose that was stretched across the floor like a tripwire. Red had to grab me by the waist to save me from cracking my head open.

As we approached the big metal door to the interior of the house, Red looked at me and said, “You knock,” but I shook my head and said, “I’m not doing it, you do it,” and then he shook his head and said, “No way, you do it,” and then, looking back at the open entrance of the garage, I saw Freddy sitting there, looking like the most regal Pokemon ever, with his long golden fur and confident stare, which in turn filled me with confidence, so I said, “Fine.”

I lifted my hand to knock, but before I could, the door creaked open just a little bit, and I saw, in the crack, a line of eyeballs from top to bottom, some green, some brown, some hazel and blue, some obscured by bright red hair. It was the sisters, and due to the age and height differences, it looked as if their heads were stacked atop each other, their eyes all blinking out from the little crack in the door.

“Yes?” they said simultaneously. It was almost spooky.

“Uh, is Carter here?” I said, trying not to stutter.

“He’s out back,” the girls said curtly, and simultaneously, then they slammed the door.

Red and I shared an incredulous look, then we both shrugged and made our way back through the maze, out of the garage, where Freddy was waiting for us, his tongue hanging out all thirsty.

As we walked around the side of the house, through Carter’s yard, somewhat shaded by the dense canopy of moss and leaves from the huge oak overhead, the grass was all mushy from the rain the night before, and it felt like the water was evaporating in real time, enveloping us in a swamp-like mist, and there were little gnats all over the place too, but at least, shaded by the mossy oak, we weren’t getting blasted directly by the sun’s rays. I figured, at this point, complaining about the heat wasn’t going to solve anything, so I just kept walking, Red in front of me. We were almost at the turn into the backyard when I saw something strange.

When I looked back at Freddy, to make sure he was still there, I noticed something right by his paws, little wooden stakes poking out of the ground. I stopped and signaled to Red, then I crouched down near one of the stakes.

There was a whole row of them, like a path almost, leading from the side of the house to the backyard. The stakes were a little larger than toothpicks, stuck into the ground, and impaled upon them were the bodies of bugs. I couldn’t see them as Pokemon for some reason. The first stake I saw was spiked through the torso of a cricket, some brownish juice dripping down the wood, the insect’s legs still twitching. Something inside me turned. The second stake skewered the wings of a butterfly, its body locked in agony, like it had been trying to fly away but couldn’t.

Red too was crouching down near one of the stakes, which had a cicada impaled upon it, and when he went to touch it, it started buzzing real loud, as if it were screaming for death, which spooked Freddy, who started barking, which must have alerted Carter, because there he was all of a sudden, standing by the turn to the backyard, just a few feet away from us, darkly shaded by the massive oak. A chill breeze blew through. The death buzzing stopped. I could only hear the whistle of the wind.

“I call it death row.”

Carter’s voice was quiet but somehow totally audible, snake-like but cracking a bit in his puberty. He wore a loose camo shirt, woodland style, with matching pants, and a squared-off hunting cap with a short bill, also camo. No hair poked out. There were patches of acne on his gaunt, skeletal face, and his brow was so pronounced that it shaded his dark, sunken eyes. He was pretty tall for his age. And, with both hands, he was holding a lever-action BB gun that looked like a real rifle.

I felt something like fear bubbling up, but then I saw a Spearow dart through the canopy overhead, which reminded me of Pokemon, which made me feel a little better, but my eyes were still kind of shaky, on account of all the dead bugs, which I couldn’t imagine as Pokemon for some reason. Red, on the other hand, looked as confident as ever. And Freddy, well, he was in front of us, growling at Carter, because he wasn’t afraid of anything, or so I thought at the time.

“Whose dog?” Carter said, pointing the rifle at Freddy.

The sight of the rifle pointed at Freddy erased all my fear for a moment. I didn’t even think twice when I jumped forward. “That’s Freddy,” I said, voice raised. “Don’t point that at him.” And I must have sounded pretty stern because Carter lowered the rifle with a shrug and said, “Alright, alright.” Then he turned and started toward the backyard. Red and I exchanged concerned glances. “Come on back,” Carter called, vanishing behind the back of the house. Freddy had stopped growling, but he was looking more heated than ever, his golden hair like fire in the shady summer breeze.

When I turned the corner into the backyard, I first noticed one of Carter’s older sisters, sitting on a stump in the shade of the oak, cigarette between two fingers, she was thick but not fat, strong almost, bright orange hair, and her brilliant green eyes were watching as another boy was swinging a real spear around while making dumb action-movie sound effects with his mouth. They were both near a small table upon which sat three dented-up soda cans. The boy was Philip. He hadn’t noticed me yet. There was also a rusty kennel pushed up against the back of the house, and when Freddy saw that, he growled real low, but I could barely hear him over Philip’s dumb sound effects.

I turned to Red, annoyed look on my face, “You didn’t say Philip was coming.”

Red blinked and shrugged his shoulders.

I tried to turn my back a little bit, so Philip couldn’t see my face, but I was too slow, because in an instant I heard my name, real loud, then he rushed toward me with that spear in hand, lurching at me a bit. “Snitch!” he shouted. But then Freddy jumped in front of me, snarling viciously, which freaked Philip out, causing him to fall down and drop the spear. I shouted Freddy’s name, which caused him to stop snarling, and then I bent down and pet him behind the ear, to calm him down a bit.

Philip was crab walking backwards, breathing loudly, “That dog is crazy.”

“You ran at me,” I said sharply.

Carter butted in, his tone cold, “That dog’s violent, needs to be on a leash.”

“You’re violent!” I shouted.

Then Red jumped in, “C’mon, aren’t we going fishing?”

Philip was back on his feet now. He drove the butt of the spear into the ground, holding the shaft with one hand. He used his other hand to wipe his gross, snotty nose. That’s when I noticed a smear of blood across his face. The spear must have nicked his hand when he fell.

“I’m not going fishing with no snitch,” Philip said. Then he must have noticed his hand bleeding, so he said, “He snitched on me and his dog made me bleed!”

“You made yourself bleed, idiot,” I snapped back.

Carter watched us, motionless, something about his posture unnerved me, like he was enjoying this but pretending not to, or something. Then I noticed Carter’s sister put her cigarette out in the grass and stand up from her stump. She walked up to Philip and grabbed his hand, examining the wound. “Calm down, it’s nothing, really,” she said, “I’ll get you a wrap.” And then she was gone.

Philip was starting to cool down. “Whatever, I just don’t want that dog near me,” he said, wiping his nose again. “Why’d you snitch anyway?”

Trying to think of a better reason than the truth, which was that I just didn’t like Philip very much, and not being one to shy away from exaggeration, I said, “You should have seen the guy. He wasn’t going to let me go unless I gave him a name or something. I thought he was going to kill me. I swear. I really did. He was crazy. And he was pinning me down.”

“But it wasn’t even me who threw it.” Philip was swinging the spear around again, acting all macho. “You’re lucky only my brother was home, ‘cause if Mom found out, then I’d really have to stab you.” And just as he finished saying that, he thrust the spear clumsily into the trunk of the mossy oak and left it there. “Wasn’t even me,” he mumbled with a lot of attitude, “was Gayvin.”

Red, perched on the edge of an old, moldy slide that was part of a rundown backyard playground, spoke up, annoyed. “Told you to stop calling him that.”

Then I said, “Couldn’t think of any other address, sorry.” But I wasn’t really sorry.

That’s when Carter’s sister appeared and wrapped up Philip’s hand, then she was gone again. Then there was a weird silence before a pop echoed nearby. It was Carter, he had his BB gun raised eye level, and he had just taken a shot at one of the soda cans. I watched him pump the lever and take another shot. Freddy was watching too, silent but alert. Then Philip pulled the spear out of the tree and started swinging it around again, making those dumb action-movie noises.

I couldn’t think of anything else to say, so I called out to Carter, “Hey, you still play?”

Carter lowered the rifle and turned his head just so. “Play what?” he asked in that cold tone of his.

Pokemon.”

“That kid’s game?” He pumped his rifle and took another shot, but it missed. “Haven’t played in a few weeks.” I noticed his hands trembling slightly, his face scrunched up like a contained explosion.

“I want a rematch.”

There was another pop, another miss, and his aim was even shakier now. There was something malevolent about the whole scene, so as I watched him, I started to imagine him as the rival character from Pokemon Crystal, Silver, who was pretty much just a huge dirtbag with no respect for anyone or anything.

There was yet another pop, followed by a metallic clang, then a fallen can.

Silver then spoke two words.

“Your funeral.”

6, Blue vs. Silver

Silver’s RAICHU, which had no nickname, only the default caps, came out of its Poke Ball crackling. Its orange, ponderous sprite looked menacing with its long, thunderous barb. It wore the most devious expression I’d ever seen, with a little grin full of human-like teeth and those big black eyes slanted the bad way. The mouse was malevolent, that’s for sure, and it looked like it wanted to kill my Pokemon, Scales, who was leading my team and, unfortunately, very weak to Electric-types. I was panicking a little bit, internally, to tell you the truth.

“Never seen you use Raichu before,” I mumbled, trying to keep cool. My face was buried in the Game Boy as I sat on one of those stumps near the derelict playset. Silver was sitting nearby, on his own stump, all link-cabled up to me. His link cable was really long, thankfully, so he was a good five feet away. Red, though, was standing right behind me, moving his head back and forth, trying to get a good view of the screen.

Silver looked up from his Game Boy, it was one of those slime green ones, which was quite dented up and dirty, and he said, with his signature coldness, “I use more than the same three Pokemon.” And Philip, who was standing behind Silver, opposite Red, chuckled some at this remark, as it was obviously a slight against me.

“I use my favorites, not just the most powerful,” I said with some snark, because I was kind of easily offended back then but didn’t like to show it. I guess Silver and I were similar in that way. Thankfully, Freddy was sitting right by my stump, watching the game intently like he was just one of the boys, and him being there calmed me down some and also filled me with all sorts of verve and gusto, so I just went for the riskiest opening gambit possible, figuring dogs’ luck was on my side.

So this is what I did. Knowing Silver’s personality, I assumed he had taught RAICHU Thunder, which was the most powerful Electric-type move in the game, but it also had a 70% accuracy rate, which, in Pokemon terms, might as well be a 20% accuracy rate. I also knew RAICHU was faster than Scales, meaning if I kept Scales in the fight and Thunder hit him, he would be defeated in one turn, putting me off to a very bad start, but I also didn’t have another Pokemon that could safely switch into Thunder without taking serious damage. Freddy could survive one blast of Thunder, but he certainly couldn’t survive two, and my third Pokemon would just faint outright from any Electric-type attack. So that’s why I decided to take a chance. I left Scales in and hoped for Thunder to miss. The ace up my sleeve was that Scales knew Earthquake, which was super effective against Electric-types, so if my assumption was correct and Thunder missed, then I would hit that malevolent mouse with a super effective Earthquake and be off to a good start.

So, I selected Earthquake and prayed. And my praying must have reached the right video game gods, because RAICHU immediately used Thunder, missed, and then took the full brunt of Earthquake, which left him in the red, beeping. I was beaming.

“Thunderbolt’s more reliable,” I said, then caught a quick glimpse of Silver to gauge his reaction, but he only made this little grunt, keeping his head down, deep in his Game Boy, sunken eyes wider than normal, and he was kind of trembly if you looked closely.

On the next turn, Thunder actually hit, and it took Scales down before I could get another Earthquake off. But that was okay, because RAICHU was in the red, about to faint, and the next Pokemon I planned to use was Freddy, who could finish RAICHU off with Extreme Speed.

As Freddy came out on the field, I patted him on the head, ruffling his golden fur. Then I selected my inputs and looked up at Silver, because the screen still said WAITING, which meant he hadn’t input his selection yet. But instead of seeing him head-down in the game, he was actually staring right at Freddy with this deadpan look on his face, his sunken eyes huge and monstrous, as if he were imagining using Thunder on Freddy for real. The stare was so malevolent that Freddy himself started with these low growls. Then, after a few seconds, I said, in this shaky tone, “uh, it’s your turn,” at which point I watched Silver slowly avert his gaze from Freddy to his Game Boy, and then he said something I’ll never forget.

He said, “That dog needs to be put down.”

I couldn’t tell if he was talking about Freddy the Arcanine or Freddy the dog sitting right next to me, but they were both the same in my mind, and the way he said it gave me a terrible chill. I shivered. I really did.

On the next turn, Freddy went first, with Extreme Speed, knocking out the last of RAICHU’s health, causing that poor rodent to faint right then and there. Then the screen said WAITING again as Silver was prompted to select his next Pokemon. I remember he was eerily silent at that point. I was watching him with that Blue smirk on my face, really feeling like the very best, like no one ever was, so I said, “Extreme Speed always goes first,” as if I were giving helpful advice, but really just rubbing it in.

And I must have rubbed it in good, because Silver lifted his gaze, all slow and silent like, as if he were trying to intimidate me while simultaneously trying to appear cool and collected, but something about his pupils, and his slight tremble, and his nostrils, dilating, gave him away, there was a rage boiling underneath, it was obvious. I could see, just beyond his eyes, something crazy, but also something like despair, or both mixed together. I don’t know. But, at the time, it made me feel kinda good, because it meant that I was getting to him, which meant that I was winning. We both just sat there looking at each other for some time, like two sides of the same coin, me all smirky, him all full of malice. The battle music repeated that anxious, high-energy barrage of MIDI piano solos. And Freddy was no longer growling, instead just shifting his snout back and forth between Silver and me, as if taking measure of us both. Philip and Red seemed to be staring at each other too, as if the weird energy had taken over everyone in the vicinity. Then Silver broke the silence, deadpan, he said, “I know about Extreme Speed,” as if he had been thinking about what to say this whole time. I nodded slightly, my smirk a little more incredulous now because I was starting to think that maybe he didn’t actually know about Extreme Speed, maybe he was lying, so that he didn’t have to admit that I knew more about Pokemon than him, even though he had called it a “kid’s game” earlier. Then I wiped my brow, which was beaded with sweat despite my being in the shade of the massive oak. And I could tell that Silver’s malice was fading a little, from the look in his eyes, but he was still staring straight at me, and then, before things could get any weirder, Philip shouted, “C’MON, GO ALREADY,” and that’s when Silver craned his head back into his Game Boy and started pushing away at the buttons.

His next Pokemon was Alakazam. No nickname, just ALAKAZAM. A human-like Pokemon, thin and angular, yellow-skinned, kind of like Silver himself, only Alakazam had this epic Fu Manchu mustache and held these crazy spoons. Obviously a Psychic-type because he was freaking me out. The last time we battled, this same Alakazam defeated my entire team with the move Psychic. I was totally unprepared for it back then, and Silver clearly remembered this, because this time he broke his forced stoic posturing and was looking right at me with this little smirk I had never seen before, which was a tell, because even before I input my command, I knew, just by looking at him, that he had selected Psychic, and that he was expecting the same results as last time. “Your funeral,” he muttered. But I wasn’t afraid this time, because this time things were different.

I withdrew Freddy and out came Kiki, the Murkrow, a Flying-Dark-type, totally immune to Psychic-type attacks. And just as I had predicted, right on cue, ALAKAZAM used Psychic, but it had no effect on Kiki, who was just hovering there, on screen, all dark with her little witch’s hat. She was looking positively gloomy and cute as hell and, most importantly, totally unfazed.

Wanting to catch his reaction, I looked up quickly at Silver, who was staring very intently into his Game Boy, saying nothing, his sinister eyes much wider than before, which told me everything I needed to know. He had not expected this. I raised Kiki for exactly this moment, and he never expected it. And now, I knew he was planning to switch ALAKAZAM out with his last Pokemon, because he had no other choice.

So I quickly input my next attack, Pursuit, a Dark-type attack which does extra damage if the opposing Pokemon tries to switch out. And just as predicted, that’s exactly what Silver tried to do, he tried to switch ALAKAZAM out. But Kiki wasn’t having it. She swooped right into that ALAKAZAM for boosted super effective damage and just like that, ALAKAZAM was down.

It was now two to one. Advantage, Blue.

Red, whose head was right over my shoulder at this point, yelled one of those dumbfounded “WHAT”s real loud right into my ear, then started laughing as if he had just seen the most epic play of all time, and then he was clapping, repeating, “Oh man, oh man,” over and over again. Philip, on the flipside, unamused, bent into Silver’s ear, muttering, “You got this, you got this, it’s just a dumb bird, man.” And then Philip pointed at something on Silver’s screen, as if offering some sort of advice, but Silver, in a rare flare of emotion, jerked the Game Boy away and said, “I don’t need your help,” all quick and venomous.

Kiki was still hovering there, all dark and cute, and Freddy was right there by my side, and I was giving him some quick ear rubs, which he enjoyed very much. Then Silver’s third and final Pokemon showed up on screen.

It was Tyranitar, a Rock-Dark-type Pokemon. Default name, TYRANITAR. It looked like a camo-green Godzilla with a pupa for a torso, brow like a caveman, eyes full of fascism, spikes jutting out all over its back, and it had this thick, drill-like tail, which I imagined was for impaling opponents. It was all bent over with its little dinosaur arms outstretched, as if it were ready to slice me open before eating my flesh and sucking my bones dry. It looked like a right monster, it really did. And its cry rattled my entire Game Boy. The whole thing shook me a little bit. And when I looked at Silver, he was looking back at me, deadpan, but it was almost like I could see Tyranitar in his face, like he was a Tyranitar himself or something. I gulped. I really did.

But I was determined to defeat Silver, determined to formulate a battle plan, determined to win. The thing about Tyranitar was that it had nearly six type weaknesses due to its combination typing. But despite that, it was strong, physically, and it was a Rock-type, which was super effective against both Fire-types and Flying-types, which happened to be my two remaining Pokemon. I was at a big disadvantage. But Tyranitar was also slow, slower than both Kiki and Freddy, at least according to Prima’s Official Strategy Guide for Pokemon Crystal, and I had taught Freddy the attack Iron Tail, which was super effective against Rock-types, just for this sort of unfavorable situation, and, remembering that, I started to feel more confident, so I turned to Freddy and said, “Don’t worry, boy, we’ll be OK,” and then I gave him another scratch behind the ear, which he really liked, his tongue hanging out, because it was blazing hot out, and he must have been quite thirsty, like me, despite the shade of the massive oak we sat under, on which I noticed a family of Sentrets climbing up at that very moment.

Philip wiped his snotty nose, then shouted, “You’re done! Tyranitar owns all your Pokemon,” but Red spoke up on my behalf and said, “Don’t count him out yet, Blue’s smarter than he looks, you know.” And that made me smile a little bit, it really did.

The plan I had formulated required Kiki to take one for the team, which I wasn’t happy about, but I knew that in order to be the very best, the best there ever was, sacrifices had to be made. So I used Drill Peck, which was Kiki’s strongest attack. It wasn’t very effective against the kaiju tyrant but did more damage than I was expecting, about 25% damage, around there. Then TYRANITAR countered with Rock Slide, which pummeled little Kiki with hundreds of rocks for super effective damage, knocking her out, at which point I was wincing and getting a little nervous, sweating more than ever, and not just because of the blazing summer heat.

Now, it was one versus one, Freddy versus TYRANITAR. I had a slight advantage, however, because TYRANITAR was missing some health, thanks to Kiki’s dying blow, but despite that, I still had a big type disadvantage. It was very likely that even one Rock Slide would kill Freddy. But I went for it anyway. I selected Iron Tail, and Freddy glowed all silvery, then leaped forward all majestic, swinging his big fluffy tail at TYRANITAR. Before the attack had connected, Silver hid a gasp, then said, “It’s going to take more than that to kill my Tyranitar.” But then the crash sound effect went off, TYRANITAR’s sprite started blinking, and his health bar started dropping, dropping, dropping. I was holding my breath, hoping for the best, one hand nervously gripping Freddy’s scruff, but to my surprise, the health bar kept dropping and dropping until eventually there was no health bar left at all, then TYRANITAR’s sprite also dropped, because he had fainted.

In Gen 2 Pokemon, every attack has a 6.64% chance of being a critical hit, at least according to Prima’s Official Strategy Guide for Pokemon Crystal.

I had won the match, but I didn’t get much of a chance to revel in my victory, because the next thing that happened I could barely believe.

Silver stood up fast, yanked his Game Boy back, ripping the link cable out, which caused me to lose grip on my own Game Boy, dropping it in the dirt. I quickly picked it up and looked up at Silver, my eyes narrow and harsh, and that was when I watched him rear his arm back above his head then chuck his Game Boy right at Freddy as hard as he could. The Game Boy crashed into Freddy’s big black nose, followed by a sharp yelp, and then Freddy snarled louder than I had ever heard him snarl before, and then he lurched at Silver, so I screamed, “NO, FREDDY, STOP,” but he was already galloping at Silver, who was bolting around the side of the house as fast as he could, with Freddy snapping at his ankles the whole way, leaving a trail of snarls and slobber in his wake. I could hear Silver screaming, shouting, “GET THAT DAMN DOG AWAY FROM ME,” the words trailing off as he ran for his life.

Red and Philip had taken off behind them, but I was huffing and puffing, trying to keep up. By the time I got to the garage, I heard a door slam, at which point Freddy turned back to me, snarling, vicious as hell, before recognizing that it was me. Then he slowly walked up to me, whimpering a little, his head hung real low, so I lifted it with my hands, and that was when I saw his nose, all scuffed up with some blood smeared across it.

I had started wiping blood off Freddy’s nose with my shirt when Philip said, “He’s right about that crazy dog, he needs to be put down.” Then he got on his bike, which had been supine in the yard this whole time, and started turning it toward the street with shaky balance. Red, standing right by Philip, said, “Carter threw a Game Boy at him, what do you expect?” But Philip only rolled down the driveway and yelled, “KEEP THAT DOG AWAY FROM ME,” as he pedaled down the turn of Mossy Oak Way.

I was bent over, stroking Freddy’s head, biting my lip, nervously thinking about all the things Silver might be telling his parents right now, about how Freddy just randomly attacked him or something, and how maybe that would prompt his parents to call the pound or, worse, try to put Freddy down themselves. It was starting to freak me out, so I stood up and said, “C’mon, Freddy, let’s go home.”

And that’s what we did. We crossed the street and went home. Red followed me, and when we got to the front door, he said, “I guess we’re not going fishing with Carter today.”

“Carter?” I said, all confused.

Red raised a single eyebrow.

“Oh. Silver. Right. Yeah. I guess not.”

7, Back at Susu’s

The AC washed over us, chilling our heated souls. We made our way into the kitchen to grab some juice boxes out of the fridge, and that’s when I heard the radio going off from the garage, the door wide open. It was Art Bell. Susu listened to that guy all the time.

“My name is Amelia, from Mexico.” Clack, clack, clack. “OK, Amelia, what do you have for us today?” Clack, clack. “Well, when I was seven, I witnessed an abduction.” Clack. “OK, sure, go on.” Clack, clack. “I was out with my mother, and my little brothers, who were a big handful, and we were at the park, at the playground, and it was kinda, like, twilight outside, you know.” Clack, clack. “OK, sure. Keep going, we have a few more minutes here.” Clack, clack, clack. “Well, I go play on the swing, and then, I don’t know how much time passed, but I saw this bright light in the sky, and it kinda blinds me, so after, I go look for my mother and brothers, because I couldn’t see them anywhere, and after a little bit I see my mother walking back up the path, but my brothers aren't with her.” Clack, clack, clack, clack. “Interesting.” Clack, clack. “My mother was crying, she said they were abducted by aliens.” Clack, clack, clack. “Really. Huh. Did they ever show up, I mean, later on?” Clack. “Never.”

Susu was in the garage, sewing.

Red and I were sipping juice boxes in a funk, the radio breaking the silence between us, and also Freddy, who was lapping away at his water bowl, right next the table, and then he started munching kibble real loud out of the bowl right next to it. He seemed to have forgotten all about the incident with Silver, but I certainly hadn’t. I felt like I was going to cry my eyes out, for some reason, as I sat there, slurping up the last of my Juicy Juice.

“Where in Mexico was this?” Clack, clack. “Baja California.” Clack. “And you never saw them again?” Clack, clack. “No, never again.” Clack. “Where was your dad in all this?” Clack, clack, clack. “He was at home.” Clack, clack. “And what did he think about it?” Clack. “Well, he was very upset about the whole thing.” Clack, clack.

Then Art Bell did that low, incredulous chuckle he was so well known for, the one that sounded both understanding and a little patronizing at the same time, then, between the clacking, he said, “Alright, well, we have to cut to commercial, but, you heard it here first, ladies and gentlemen, don’t take your kids out in the twilight of Baja California, they might just get abducted. Anyway, thanks for that, and you have a good day, Amelia, sorry about your brothers.” Clack, clack. Then the stinger went off and someone started talking enthusiastically about used cars, at which point the clacking had stopped, and Susu was now standing in the doorway to the kitchen.

“Oh, hey boys, are you hungry, need something to eat?”

“No thanks, Susu,” Red said, followed by the dry gurgle of juice box.

“We’re OK right now,” I added.

“Well, you boys just let me know.”

Then I said, “Hey Susu,” kind of somberly, and she turned to me, and I told her the whole story, about what had happened with Freddy and Silver. I told her about the game of Pokemon and how I won and how it made Silver really upset and how he threw the Game Boy at Freddy and how Freddy chased him off and how Philip said Freddy needed to be put down and how I never thought victory could feel so bad. My eyes were watery the whole time. Red was just nodding along, silently confirming the whole thing. And after I finished telling Susu the whole story, she just smiled and said, “Come here.” So I stood up and went to her. She wrapped her arms around me, my head pushed up against her chest, and she said, “Everything’s going to be OK.” And that’s when I started crying a little bit, not because I was sad or scared or anything, but because of this overwhelming feeling of compassion washing over me. “Nothing’s going to happen to Freddy,” she said, like it was simply a matter of fact. And then she let me go, and I stepped back and wiped my eyes and nose. Red was sitting there, at the table, empty juice box, twiddling his thumbs, looking awkward. Then Susu said, “I never liked that boy anyway, something’s off about him.” And then, suddenly, feeling a lot better, I said, “Can you make us some Bagel Bites?”

“Certainly.” Susu’s smile was warmer than a beautiful summer afternoon.

Red and I ate our Bagel Bites to the sound of Art Bell and clacking, then we watched some SpongeBob on Susu’s bed, and I played a little Pokemon, too. Neither Silver nor his parents nor any of his sisters showed up. I guess Silver didn’t tell anyone about what had happened. I didn’t know why not, at the time, I just figured I had lucked out, again.

After about an hour of cartoons and Pokemon, Red turned to me and said, “How about you and me go fishing?” He was always wanting to go fishing for some reason. I shrugged and said, “Yeah, I guess, as long as I can take Freddy,” and he was fine with that. So I grabbed my pole and tackle box from the garage, and we made our way to the front door.

As we were leaving the house, Susu called out to us, “If you boys see a bright light, come right back home!” She actually believed in all that stuff, always on the lookout for alien life, as if life on Earth just wasn't exciting enough for her or something.

Red and I just looked at each other, eyebrows raised, shaking our heads, then I shouted, “Love you!” back into the house, and then off we went, to the fishing pond.

8, The Pond

The fishing pond was just beyond the verdant alley on the side of Susu’s house, in front of the clubhouse, right near Red’s house, which was two stories of red brick, surrounded by red maple and palm. The pond itself was the jewel of Arcadia, it was the perfect size, with waters so clear you could see Goldeen swimming right through, and grass full of Ledyba if you looked close enough, and cattails dotting the banks upon which Squirtle lounged all day, and Magikarp jumping for days. The only things out of place, really, were the two overflow pipes, one big enough to sit on, or swim into if you were feeling crazy, the other just barely large enough to stand on, yet even those gray pipes added to the pond’s charm, a certain suburban flair, and there was this urban legend that Feraligatr sometimes crawled out of the big one, but no one I knew had ever seen one, so I wasn't scared at all.

I remember, on our walk there, we disturbed a murder of Murkrow, and they took off high in the blue Jumpluff sky. And when we got to the pond proper, we saw Silver’s older sister, sitting on the edge of the big overflow pipe, her pale legs dangling as she casually smoked a cigarette, her long, orange hair fluttering in the summer breeze a little bit. She was all decked out in camo. Their whole family dressed like that, as if they only shopped at Bass Pro Shops or something.

Red and I stopped and looked at each other curiously. We both wanted to avoid her, but we also had to walk right past her to get to the good fishing spot, just a few feet away from Red’s back porch, where all his fishing gear was stashed away. So there was really no getting around her.

“Hey,” she said in her smoky voice as we walked by and pretended like she wasn't there. Then she raised her voice a little bit, “Hey!” but we kept walking. Then she raised her voice a lot, “HEY,” so I stopped, but Red kept going right up to his porch, because he was smooth like that, unlike me, always a sucker for girls. Anyway, I turned to her, and she was staring right at me with those big green eyes of hers, which were a little alluring but also intimidating as hell. But I wasn’t too nervous, because Freddy was right by my side, his eyes narrowing in on her, as if trying to determine if she was a threat. But he didn’t end up growling or anything, which was a good sign, because I had come to realize that Freddy was a fine judge of character.

“What, what is it?” I said meekly, putting my tackle box and pole down in the grass.

She dragged on her cigarette, then exhaled a huge cloud of smoke. “What’d you do to my brother?” she said.

“I, I didn’t do anything.”

“Then why’d he run inside, screaming his head off?” she said, kicking her legs back and forth between drags.

It suddenly dawned on me why no one came over to my house earlier, because Silver was too proud, or too ashamed, to tell anyone about what had happened. So I told the truth, as I knew it, “Because he threw his Game Boy at my Pokemon.”

Silver’s sister looked seriously confused. “Your Pokemon?”

“I, I mean, my dog, Freddy,” I said, stuttering because I was no good at talking to girls.

She genuinely laughed, then she put her cigarette out, between her legs, on the rim of the overflow pipe.

“It’s not funny, he made Freddy bleed,” I said as I placed a hand on Freddy’s head and started scratching behind his ear, which caused him to close his eyes, point his nose to the sky, and look blissful as hell. Then I said, in a very nasty tone, “There’s something wrong with your brother.”

Red appeared next to me, fishing pole in one hand, a cheap foldable chair in the other.

Silver’s sister didn’t say anything for a few seconds, only the chirping of Pidgey and croaking of Politoed and the occasional splashing of Magikarp could be heard. She took the quiet time to slip another cigarette between her big lips, then she suddenly jumped to her feet, balancing on the overflow pipe, patting her pants down, presumably looking for something in her pockets. But after a few seconds of patting, she said, “Either of you got a light? Guess I left mine back home.”

“I’m ten,” I said.

Red didn’t say a word, he just unfolded his chair, placed it by the edge of the pond, sat down, and cast his line out with a satisfying zip, all in one quick motion somehow.

“I smoked when I was ten,” Silver’s sister said, taking the cigarette out of her mouth and placing it behind her ear, which poked out of her hair like an elf or something. Then she jumped off the pipe and walked closer to us, stopping right in front of me. I had to look up to see her freckled face, because she was pretty tall for a girl.

“Look, Carter’s got anger problems,” she said, looking down at me, “you have to be careful not to make him mad.”

“How’s that my problem?” I said, my tone very bratty.

“It’s not,” she said, “just something you should know.”

“OK, well, thanks, now I know.” I was being extra bratty, on account of the whole thing.

“And it’s not his fault, you know,” she said before removing the cigarette from behind her ear, “You sure you don’t have a lighter?”

“I’m sure.”

“What about you?” she threw her voice at Red.

“I’m also ten,” he said, focusing on his line, which wasn’t moving at all.

I was kind of annoyed at Silver’s sister for making excuses for her brother, so I said, bratty tone turned up to eleven, “How is it not his fault?”

“Well,” she said, turning to the pond and looking out reflectively at the clubhouse, “it’s our dad, he’s not very nice.”

“My dad’s not very nice all the time either,” I said, very snotty, “Doesn’t mean I can just go around doing whatever I want.”

“I mean, he’s,” she trailed off, then closed her eyes as if trying to hold something back, and opened them again after several seconds. “Our dad’s very, very not nice, if you know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t, sorry,” I said, turning away from her, being quite dismissive and bratty. Then I grabbed my fishing pole and let the line zip out into the pond after one clumsy swing. I didn't actually know how to fish, I just pretended like I did.

There was a brief quiet, only the rippling of water and the laughter of far-off children in the pool could be heard.

Then, after a good ten seconds, she said, “That’s not how you cast a line, kid,” as she stepped closer, literally towering over me. Freddy, who was sitting between Red and me, wasn’t snarling or growling or anything, so it seemed like he fully trusted her, even when she reached out her hand to help me with my fishing pole.

“Here, let me show you,” she said. But I jerked the rod away and said, “Just leave me alone, you and your mean dad or whatever can go hang out with Silver, I don’t care, it’s not my problem.”

“Fine,” she said, turning away all in a huff, about to walk away when Lauren showed up through a break in the hedge between two nearby houses, on the opposite side of the pond. I swear I saw a few Spearow fly out from behind her. “Hey, Katie Belle!” she shouted across the water. And that’s when Silver’s sister, who I guess was called Katie Belle, waved back and ran around the pond to meet Lauren, at which point Lauren shouted across the water, “Hey, Miles! Want to hang out?” But Red just shook his head and shouted, “Can’t! I’m fishing like a mofo!” So Lauren shouted, “Fine, come over later!” And then, just like that, Katie Belle and Lauren vanished through the hedge.

I looked at Red, kind of flabbergasted. “I didn’t know Lauren hung out with Silver’s, I mean, Carter’s sisters.”

“I didn’t either,” Red said with a shrug.

Then a few minutes of nothing happened as we sat there, poles in hand. I swear, at one point, I saw a Seaking jump out of the water for a second, but other than that, it was pretty boring.

Until something crazy happened.

Red’s line went taut, then it tugged a bit, so he leaned in, super focused, and started pulling and reeling like crazy. But after several intense seconds of reeling, the line snapped, and I guess Red was pulling so hard that, when it did, the force of it sent him back in his chair, causing him to fall backward and knock his head on his tackle box. Freddy was lying down on his belly between us, relaxing with one eye open, his tail outstretched as far as it could go. I tossed my pole to the side, then stood up and offered Red a hand, which he firmly grabbed and used to pull himself up. But when he got to his feet, he took a step forward and accidentally stepped on Freddy’s tail. And that’s when it happened.

He must have stepped real hard, because Freddy yelped louder than I had ever heard him yelp before, and then, in a flash, like a whirlwind, Freddy jumped up and chomped down on Red’s leg, right through the calf, like a feral beast or something, then he let go and sulked back, whimpering, as if realizing he had done something terrible.

Red let out a chilling scream, then he started yelling, “HE BIT ME! HE BIT ME!” He had fallen over and was writhing in the grass. “HELP! MY LEG! HE BIT ME!” he shouted, voice cracking, grasping at his leg with both hands, blood oozing out between the cracks of his fingers. The grass was red. “DAMN DOG BIT ME!” The screams were blood-curdling. I had no idea what to do. My eyes were supermoons and my body had taken on heinous gravity. Something had stolen my voice, because I was trying to say something but nothing came out. Freddy was hiding behind me, whimpering.

Red’s dad must have heard the screaming because I saw him burst out of the big porch doors and rush down the small flight of wooden stairs. He made a beeline to his son and instantly kneeled by him, placing a hand on his son’s head to calm him down, which worked because Red stopped screaming and was now just looking up at his father, wide-eyed and trembly, the first time I ever saw him afraid. His father, who looked just like him but more gruff and outdoorsy with snowy stubble, said, “Let’s see the wound.” Then he moved Red’s hand out of the way. The blood had stopped flowing but was now caked around the fang-shaped holes, skin all swollen, deep purples and greens spreading out from around the torn flesh. But Red’s dad didn’t seem that concerned. He just picked his son up, like some sort of superhero, and said, “It looks worse than it is.” Then he looked at me and said, “What happened?”

Enough time had passed for me to regain some semblance of composure, but I was feeling a mix of fear and anger, fear for the repercussions that would fall upon Freddy and me, and anger at Freddy for even doing this to begin with, for putting us in this situation, for hurting my best friend. So instead of answering Red’s dad’s question, without really thinking, I turned to Freddy and started shouting at him.

“BAD BOY! WHY’D YOU DO IT?!” I shouted, as if expecting a real answer. My hands flailed at Freddy, whose head hung low, whimpering. “WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU?” He was cowering like I had never seen him cower before, like he thought I was going to hit him or something. Maybe I would have, I don’t know. “BAD DOG! STUPID DOG!” I screamed. But he just looked up at me with these big, shaky eyes, then in one quick motion turned and bolted through a gap in the holly hedge near Red’s house.

“NO!” I cried, suddenly overwhelmed with this awful feeling. “I DIDN’T MEAN IT!” I shouted, taking off after him. “COME BACK!”

Then I heard Red’s voice, pained, harsh, and terrible, from his father’s arms, “I knew you liked that dog more than me!” And this stopped me like a Stantler in headlights. I was suddenly conflicted. So I turned my head to Red, then back to where Freddy had run off, then back to Red, then back to Freddy, who was now completely out of sight, lost in the wilds of Arcadia. I felt as if I were about to make the most important decision of my life. I remember Red’s father glaring at me with these sharp, judgmental eyes the whole time.

There I was, at this devastating crossroad, stay with Red or run after Freddy.

So I ran.

9, The Grove

I ran through overgrown alleys of wild grass and tall weeds, pushed through prickly holly, and leaped over fallen logs from the massive oaks and maples that hung over the hissing summer lawns I trespassed, trampling dandelions and breaking Sunflora in my wake, following my frightened friend like chasing one of the Legendary Pokemon across Johto, and as I bolted across yet another street into yet another lawn, where a group of Sentret, who were starting to look a lot like squirrels, scampered away, and I was refreshed by the cooling waters of a sprinkler, I had nearly caught up to Freddy, who had not broken his stride at all, but as I got closer to him, he stopped only for a moment, looked back with these sad eyes, then bolted again, faster this time, boosting into a wooded area full of red maple, oak, and palm, right behind the backyard of a tall brick house. I imagined him as Entei, sparks and embers trailing as he charged through the wood, where he eventually stopped in a shaded grove within a circle of trees, where only a few rays of sun poked through the canopy, like hope on the worst day ever.

“I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t mean it,” I stuttered after catching up. I was bent over with my hands on my knees, huffing loudly, totally out of breath.

Freddy just stood there, in the very center of the grove, stray sunbeams all around him, looking all legendary and majestic and sad.

I dropped to the ground, bottom first, hands behind me, propping myself up, then I lifted my face to the canopy and let out a long sigh.

“I didn’t mean it,” I said. “You’re not stupid, you’re not bad.”

Freddy, of course, said nothing. I don't know what I was expecting.

“I just, I just don’t know why you did it.”

Freddy was watching me, tongue now draped out of his mouth, panting softly.

“Why’d you bite him?”

Freddy hung his head, whimpering a little bit at the question.

“Now everyone hates me.” I sat up lotus, glaring at Freddy. “I don’t really care about Silver,” I said, “but Philip, sometimes I hang out with him when I’m bored.” I paused to make sure Freddy was paying attention. He was. “And Red,” I said, frowning real hard. “I don’t think he’s ever gonna hang out with me again.”

A big cloud must have passed overhead because it got real dark all of a sudden. There was some heat lightning off in the distance, followed by a far-off rumble. When the cloud passed, suddenly, almost like magic, everything was dim, and the little sky I could see through the canopy looked like someone had spilled pink and orange paint on a dark blue canvas, and there was only enough light to just barely see Freddy, standing out there in the center of the grove.

“And, and tomorrow Dad’s coming to pick us up, and I’m gonna have to tell him what happened.” My eyes welled up and my voice was cracking. “And, and what if,” I couldn’t get it out. “What if they,” I stopped, my voice shaky as hell. “What if, what if they have to put you down?” Now I was really crying. “I, I don’t,” I really couldn’t get it out. Then I covered my face with both hands and started doing these big dry heaves, unable to speak but trying my best.

“I, I just don’t know what I’d do.”

Then I felt something wet on the back of my hand, so I stretched my fingers open and looked through them. It was Freddy’s big black scuffed-up nose, so I lowered my hands and looked straight into his big canine eyes. I could see my reflection there. I looked awful. Then he gave me a big slobbery lick across my entire face. I started laughing a little bit. Then he licked me again. I started laughing a lot. Then I wrapped my arms around his fluffy neck and started play-wrestling, getting on all fours, horsing around, pretending we were both Pokemon. We were play-fighting like crazy. He was snarling in his funny way and I was laughing my head off. There was a flash of heat lightning. The low rumble in the southern sky turned into a light drizzle, which barely made its way through the canopy, but we ignored it, we just kept playing, and for a moment there I had forgotten about everything and I was truly happy. I really was.

Then, after some time, I fell on my back, out of breath, stray droplets hitting my forehead, and that’s when Freddy, standing over me, licked my face one last time before turning away.

He turned away as if he knew what he had to do.

I sat up, watching him closely, my eyes welling up again, as if I also knew what he had to do.

Then he started walking away, into the depths of the grove.

I called, softly, “Freddy, Freddy, where are you going?”

But he did not look back.

In that moment, it didn’t feel right to follow him or make him come back, like he would have been sad or something if I’d tried. I don’t know why I felt that way, but that’s how I felt. That’s how I felt as I let him go. That’s how I felt as I watched him walk away. That’s how I felt when the heat lightning flashed real bright, and just like that, he was gone.

And then I felt all alone.


Part 3


#ShortStory #Pokemon

 
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 (Read this how it was meant to be read here, or on the substack mirror.)


10, The Next Day

The next morning, I didn’t watch my Blue’s Clues or my Little Bear, and I didn’t drink any of my chocolate milk. I tried to play some Pokemon, but I just couldn’t get into it. Susu said she would put up signs, but I told her it didn’t matter. I told her Freddy was gone, that he wasn’t coming back.

Later, Miles’ dad came over. He wasn’t mad or anything, but he wanted to talk to my dad, so I called my dad from Susu’s home line. I told him that Freddy bit Miles, but I didn’t tell him that Freddy was gone for good. I don’t know why I didn’t tell him. I just didn’t feel like it. He said it was okay, the biting thing, but he sounded really disappointed. Then he talked to Miles’ dad on the phone for a while, and afterward, he faxed over some of Freddy’s papers, for rabies or something, and that was the end of it. Neither Miles nor his dad wanted to press charges or anything. I asked Miles’ dad if Miles could come over, but he said that he needed some time or something. I told him I just wanted to see him before I had to go back home, but he repeated that Miles just needed some time, so I told him that I understood, but I didn’t really understand. Then Miles’ dad went home, and it was just Susu and me for the rest of the day.

At some point, I packed up all my stuff, except my Game Boy, in case I wanted to play it. My dad was coming later that night to pick me up and take me back home for the school year. I felt pretty uncertain about the whole thing. It wasn’t like I had any friends here anymore, but I didn’t have any friends back home either, so I was kind of in the same boat either way, no friends anywhere at all. I started thinking some serious doom and gloom. I kept telling myself that nothing really mattered, that we all die eventually, so who cares. I was pretty nihilistic or whatever, even back then. But I couldn’t stop thinking about Freddy, what he was doing out there in the wilds. I kept thinking about how he was going to find food, how the other animals out there might be treating him, and where he was sleeping at night. I imagined him like one of those strays you see sometimes, behind houses and restaurants, all dirty and wet, ribs showing, going through the trash, and that made me real sad. So, to cope, I started telling myself again that nothing matters, but then I thought, if nothing matters, why am I so sad?

So I spent most of the day just lying on the bed in the spare room, starving myself like some sort of repentance for letting him go, but I also wasn't very hungry, on account of being so sad or whatever. Eventually, after like hours of moping, Susu came in and started talking to me.

She opened with, “Why didn’t you tell your dad about Freddy being lost?”

“He’s not lost.” My voice was all shaky.

“What is he, then?”

“He’s gone,” I said, “he doesn't want to come back.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“He wanted to go.”

“He’s a dog, honey.”

I rolled over on the bed, not saying anything.

“He won’t survive out there.”

“Stop,” I said.

“He needs us.”

“STOP,” I shouted, shooting up, “just leave me alone.”

She didn’t say anything more. She just shook her head and left the room, leaving me there all alone for some time until eventually she brought in some tater tots and chicken on one of those paper plates. I barehanded a few tots, but I didn’t eat the chicken. I wasn’t hungry. I couldn’t stop thinking about Freddy. And I also couldn’t stop thinking about Miles, how I probably would never see him. Then, suddenly, I was overwhelmed with the thought that I had to see him at least once more before I left. I had to do something. I had to make him like me again or else I might just be alone forever. This realization was like an electric shock, jolting me out of bed.

The clock read around seven, so it was getting dark soon, which meant my dad would be showing up any minute now. But I didn’t care. I bolted into the living room, grabbed my Game Boy, pocketed it, then rushed to the front door. Maybe I could trade Miles some rare Pokemon or something, maybe that would make him like me again. I didn’t really know what to do, all I knew was that I had to make amends somehow. I also had to find Freddy, because Susu was right, he couldn’t survive out there all alone, just like I couldn’t survive out there, all alone, without him.

When I went to close the front door behind me, I saw Susu standing in the doorway of her room. She was watching me. I think she was smiling, but she was far away so I couldn’t really tell. I waved goodbye to her, and she waved back.

The sky above was like yin and yang. One side gray, with pillow-fort clouds, a soft rumble rolling through them as heat lightning flickered here and there. The crescent moon was up there too, waiting to drop like a guillotine. The opposite side was clear and bright, streaked with orange and blue, and the sun hung low in the humid air. I remember thinking it was like darkness and light duking it out up there. And it was like a million degrees out.

I cut through the verdant alley by Susu’s house, like always, and made my way through the red maple and palm, to the fishing pond. When the back of Miles’ red-brick house came into view, I saw Lauren and Katie Belle sitting on wire chairs on the porch. I awkwardly stepped up the small flight of stairs and sort of waved at them as I passed, then went up to those big double doors and knocked real hard. The girls let me knock a few times, they were giggling a little before they interrupted me.

“He doesn’t want to see you,” Lauren said.

“Oh,” I said, sort of kicking my feet. “I get it.”

“And he’s not here, either,” she added.

“Where is he?” I said.

“I don’t know,” Lauren said coldly, “his parents are gone too.”

Katie Belle was looking me up and down, like she knew something, lit cigarette dangling from her lower lip, smoke twirling past her nose.

Figuring I was too late, I walked down the steps, into the grass, head hanging low, feeling defeated. But then something came over me in that hissing summer lawn. Maybe it was the guilt, or the tranquil pond noises, or maybe it was all that making-amends stuff, I don’t know. But, for some reason, I turned to Lauren and just started pouring my heart out.

“Look, I’m sorry about everything. I’m sorry for all the mean stuff I said to you. I’m sorry I called your favorite Pokemon a dopey green dinosaur with a flower around its neck. I’m sorry I stole your Game Boy Camera that one time. And I’m sorry I jumped on you in the pool the other day. I don’t know why I did all that stuff. I think I’m just jealous. Yeah, that’s it, I’m just jealous. I really am. Look, again, I’m sorry. You don’t have to believe me or nothing, but I am. I really am.” Then I sort of paused for a moment, looking down at the ground. “And I guess I kinda like you, too, or something,” I mumbled. “I don’t know. I’m gonna go now.”

I was feeling a little embarrassed, and I was certainly blushing, so I turned around real quick to leave, but Lauren shouted, “Hey!” so I turned and blinked at her for a moment because she was just sitting there on Miles’ porch, looking down at me with those big, intelligent eyes of hers, and after a short awkward silence, she said just one word.

“Thanks.”

I did this shy little nod and tried to leave again, but this time Katie Belle spoke up.

“He’s at my house,” she said.

I froze, something shifted in my stomach.

“You OK?” she added, blowing smoke.

“Why’s he over there?” I said solemnly.

“I don’t know, guess he doesn’t have anyone else to play with now.”

“Whatever,” I mumbled, then I turned and bolted through the yard, right past the fishing pond, through the red maple and palm, into the verdant alley, where I paused for a moment to catch my breath. I considered going over to Carter’s house, to find Miles, but I was feeling insanely jealous, and that jealousy was turning into anger, and that anger into pure adolescent rage. I shouted, at no one in particular, perhaps the world itself, “I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU!”, but I instantly felt bad about it, so I hung my head low, slowly resigning myself, in that verdant alley, to a fate that did not include my best friend, or any friends at all, or even my dog. I was getting all nihilistic again. I was really starting to believe that I was destined for obscurity, and that that was OK because nothing really mattered.

But then I heard something, a yelp, a pained yelp, from a dog, then barking, distressed barking.

My head snapped up, my eyes went wide. I knew that bark. It was Freddy. He was in danger. All my jealousy, self-pity, and rage were gone. It had all melted away. My body surged with newfound energy. I honed in on the sound of the barking, then bolted off in its direction, running fast as hell.

The bark took me past Susu’s house, across the street, into Carter’s empty driveway, where it stopped for a moment, replaced by the whistle of wind and the rustle of leaves from the massive oak overhead, and in that eerie quiet, I looked into the wide-open garage, where I could see some spears missing from the old rack, and one of the rifles near the Blood-Stained Banner was missing too. I felt sick, but only for a moment, because then there was another pathetic yelp, this time from the backyard, so I tore off around the side of the house, past the row of mutilated bugs, then ripped around the corner into Carter’s backyard, and that’s when I saw something that made my heart nearly explode.

“CARTER!” I screamed.

I was furious as hell.

11, Death Row

“LET HIM GO!”

I was snarling like a wild dog in that backyard, which was otherwise oddly silent, not a single summer sound could be heard.

“No,” Carter said, cold as ice, rifle pointed right at me.

He stood there, taking aim, in these green camo pants with no shirt on. I could see greenish-yellow discoloration around his stomach, and he had these long scars across his shoulders. Exposed upon his bare chest was this little golden cross, dangling, its glimmer gone in the shade of the massive oak. And despite it being hot as hell outside, not even one bead of sweat rolled down his bare chest. It was unreal. His brow hung over his sunken eyes, which seemed to me full of tyranny, and when I looked into them, I pictured spikes bursting out of his back and him growing this drill-like tail, which I imagined him impaling me with before eating my flesh and sucking my bones dry. He looked like a right monster, pointing that rifle at me, he really did.

Maybe it was the adrenaline or something, because I wasn’t afraid, but I was feeling betrayed, because Carter wasn’t the only one there, both Miles and Philip were there too, also shirtless, and they were holding these long spears, the same ones from the garage. They looked kind of like the savages you’d see on TV. Miles had thick gauze wrapped around one of his legs, and when he first saw me, he quickly looked away, as if he didn’t want to make eye contact. Philip, on the other hand, looked ecstatic, even with snot oozing from his nostrils. They were both standing next to Carter, on either side of him, just a few feet away from a rusty metal cage.

It was an old kennel, locked with a sliding bolt. Freddy was inside.

His jaw was locked around the metal bars. He was growling, desperately, shaking his head like crazy, rattling the whole cage, trying to tear his way through. Blood trickled down the bars. His once-golden fur now matted brown, caked with dirt and mud, and he was all wet. He looked hurt and helpless. I had never seen him like this before. I couldn’t stand it. I was furious as hell.

Maybe that’s why I wasn’t afraid.

“LET HIM GO, CARTER.”

“What are you going to do, tell your grandma?” Carter’s lips curled into a devious smile as he turned the rifle back on Freddy.

“Don't worry, Freddy,” I said, stepping closer to the cage.

When Freddy heard his name, it was as if he snapped out of a violent trance because his jaw released and he turned to me with these big, pitiful eyes. Then he pointed his scuffed-up nose at the moon, which looked like a guillotine being lifted, not yet ready to fall, in the still-bright sky, and he howled. He howled a painful howl. It was like nothing I had ever heard before.

I stepped closer to the cage. “It’s gonna be OK, buddy.” I nearly had my hand through the bars when I heard Carter pump the rifle and shout with more emotion than I had ever heard from him before. “STEP AWAY FROM THE CAGE, WEAKLING.” He sounded like a full-grown man for a second, he really did.

So I stepped away from the cage and put my hands up because I had seen MacGyver do that on TV. I was dissociating, feeling like a different person, a TV person, I really was. Then I said, “Relax, I’m unarmed, I was just checking out the craftsmanship of the cage, is all,” because it sounded all cheeky, like something MacGyver would say, but Carter didn’t find it funny. He just pointed the rifle at Freddy and said, “This isn’t a joke. Your dog’s a menace.”

I noticed Philip was grinning ear to ear, muttering, “do it, do it,” over and over like he was some sort of mad monk. And Miles, well, he was looking at Carter with these wide eyes, a weird expression on his face.

So I said to Miles, “Why? Why are you doing this?”

Carter responded for him. “He don't have to tell you why. You know why.” He took one step closer to the kennel, rifle lifted up to his face, one eye closed like he was an expert marksman or something. “Your dog needs to be put down, he's violent.”

“You're the one with a rifle,” I snapped back.

“That damn dog tried to kill me,” he said. “I'm just defending myself.” Then he grinned as if he had just come up with some brilliant insight. “Actually, I'm defending the whole neighborhood from a violent beast.”

“Yeah, you're a real hero, killing a dog.”

“Do it, do it,” Philip mumbled.

“You saw it, you saw him try to kill me,” Carter said, looking down the barrel.

“I saw you throw a Game Boy at him,” I said, channeling MacGyver, trying to coolly reason with him.

Carter scoffed, shifting his aim back and forth between me and Freddy. “He hurt Miles too,” he said, his eyes flashing. “Didn’t he, Miles?”

Miles started stuttering, “He, he bit me, on the leg.”

“You stepped on his tail!” I shouted, cool fading, face all scrunchy and mad. “It was an accident! And you know it was an accident!”

Miles was looking at his feet, shaking his head. “No, no, it wasn’t, it wasn’t.”

“Yes it was! And you know it!” I shouted. “That’s why I don’t understand why you’re doing this!”

Miles kept shaking his head. It was really starting to piss me off.

“Tell me!” I stomped. “Tell me why you’re doing it!”

Carter tried to chime in, “He doesn’t have to tell you,” but was cut off by Miles, who was now looking straight at me, eyes wide and vulnerable.

“I’ll tell you why,” he said, lifting his spear with one hand and pointing it at me.

There was sudden chill, a breeze, the oak whistled.

“It’s because,” Miles lowered his voice, “it’s because you left me.”

“What? What do you,” I started, but the words didn’t come together.

His eyes were shaking, then he lowered his spear, then his gaze, then something sparkled to the ground, like a small crystal.

“You, you left me at the pond,” he mumbled.

“But your dad, your dad was,” I stopped because when he looked up at me, tears were streaming down his face.

Then his sadness shifted to anger, and his spear was up again, pointing right at me. “You like that dog more than me!” he shouted. “And I’ll never forgive you for that!”

I had never seen him cry before. I didn’t understand it. It actually scared me more than Carter ever did. It scared the hell out of me. So I stepped back, stunned, eyes stuck to the dirt, trying to think of some excuse, some justification for why I ran away, some good reason why I left him there at the pond bleeding out, something that he would accept. But I couldn’t think of anything. I couldn’t think of one damn thing. I could hear Freddy whimpering behind me, and Philip chanting, “do it, do it, do it.” But I just kept replaying the moment in my mind, that moment at the pond, the moment I ran away. I kept replaying it, trying to figure out if I had done the right thing, but I couldn’t figure it out. I just couldn’t figure it out. Then, like some sort of contagion, I started tearing up too, so I closed my eyes real hard, and then, all of a sudden, like a truck or something, it hit me.

“See?” Carter said, aiming the rifle at me. “Everyone hates you,” he smirked, “and they hate your dog too.”

Philip shouted, “Yeah, and you snitched on me!”

But it was all just background noise now. I looked up at Miles, his spear limply pointed at me, and then I said two words.

I said, “I’m sorry.”

It was the first time I had ever said those words to him.

He didn’t say anything in response. He was just staring at me, blinking tears.

So I held out my hand to him, gesturing at the spear, and said, “C’mon, let’s go.”

“He’s not sorry,” Carter cut in.

“Am too,” I said firmly. “I am sorry, I really am.”

“He’s just sorry that we’re about to kill his dog,” Carter said, shifting his eyes between me and Miles. “That’s all he cares about. That dog. He cares about that dog more than you.”

Miles was glancing back and forth between Carter and me. There was uncertainty in his big, trembly eyes.

“Don’t listen to him,” I said.

“Spear the dog, Miles,” Carter said in this low, hypnotic voice. “Spear him good.”

“Do it, do it, do it,” Philip was repeating.

Miles took one step toward the kennel. His spear was limp and trembling. He was seemingly unable to look at Freddy because his eyes were locked on the ground, but Freddy was looking right at him, not afraid at all for some reason.

“Miles,” I said, my tone so fake-confident it was actually confident, “Carter is just mad that I beat him in Pokemon. That’s it. He’s a sore loser. Don’t do what he says.”

Miles shook his head, slowly trying to lift his spear.

Then, after a few weirdly quiet seconds, as if he had been stewing on my words, Carter spoke up. “Mad?” he said. “That you beat me?” he chuckled. “In Pokemon?” His voice sounded strange, different, like the ice was shattering or something.

I gulped but narrowed my eyes at him. “That’s, that’s what I said.”

“It’s not about that at all,” he said sharply. “It’s about weakness. That’s what it’s about. It’s about how this world is full of weaklings like you and your stupid dog and how strong people like me rule over the weak.” He readjusted his aim, nearly speaking into the rifle. “It’s about how the weak should obey the strong.” He was starting to sound older. “And how, when they don’t, they should be put in their place, taught a lesson, punished.” He paused and licked his lips. “Do you understand what I’m saying to you, boy?” His eyes shifted faster than a reptile. “You’re a weakling, that’s all you are,” he grinned. “You wouldn’t survive a day out there, kid.” His voice took on a totally new sound, like he was channeling a full-grown man who smoked twelve packs a day. “Think you could survive out there in the trenches, eating old corned beef and drinking slop from a thermos, bombs going off all around you, vomiting blood, watching your friends get maimed and decapitated and blown to bits?” Something was glimmering in his eyes. “And getting used to it! That’s the worst part, getting used to it!” His eyes shut hard for a moment, and when they opened the glimmer was gone, replaced by a sort of sorrowful madness. “Never knowing when some gook is going to pop out from the trees, or the bushes, or the goddamn soil!” His rifle was shaking. “They’re in the goddamn soil, Carter, that’s what we used to say. Not just the enemy, but friends too, in the soil. And they were right, Carter, they were right, ghosts and bones, all around us. I don’t wanna drink, but what else can I do, they’re everywhere, Carter! They’re all over the goddamn place, they’re even in the soil! I don’t want to do this, but I have no choice.” He paused, trying to steady his aim, “Don’t you understand, boy?” And when he didn’t get a response, he shouted, “DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND?”

I was wide-eyed and freaked the hell out, having no idea what he was talking about. I stepped back, closer to the kennel. All my fake confidence and MacGyver posturing, gone. I wanted to turn and run, but something compelled me, kept me glued to this new version of Carter. I could hear Freddy, whimpering, filling me with dread. I suddenly felt like Carter was about to do something really crazy, like this wasn’t just kids messing around anymore. This was for real. Suddenly, I felt like I had to do something. I had to stop Carter. But I didn’t know what to do. I dug into my pockets, hoping to find a miracle, something I could maybe throw at him, but there was only my Game Boy Color. I gulped. I didn’t want to break my Game Boy. I really didn’t. So instead, I looked at Miles, hoping he would do something, but he was just standing there, too, staring at Carter, and I could tell from the expression on his face that he was just as freaked out and confused as I was.

Carter adjusted his rifle one last time, then looked down the iron at Freddy, who was whining helplessly, and then he said, “They're in the goddamn soil, Carter.”

I watched his finger inch around the trigger. I felt helpless and weak. I couldn’t focus. My mind was going a thousand thoughts per minute, and one of those thoughts was Freddy, lying in a pool of blood, and this caused me to step forward and scream the loudest NOOOOOOOOOOOO I had ever screamed in my entire life, then I slid the Game Boy Color out of my pocket and chucked it right at Carter’s face as hard as I could.

There was a loud, smoky bang, followed by a sharp, pained howl. Carter fell backward into the grass, the antique rifle spinning as it hit the ground, barrel trailing smoke. Philip bolted, his high-pitched shrieks echoing off the houses as he ran down Mossy Oak Way.

For a moment I just stood there, stunned, staring down at Carter. Then my senses kicked in, and I hurried to the kennel. Freddy was there, eyes wide and ears back, looking shaken but otherwise unharmed. I sighed relief. Then I knelt by the cage, hands trembling as I fumbled with the bolt, and that’s when I heard Miles mumbling nearby.

“He, he told me it wasn’t loaded,” his voice was cracking up. “He told me, he told me it would just be a funny joke.” There was a soft thud as his spear fell to the ground.

My hands were shaky, so I was having the hardest time with the bolt, and it didn’t help that Freddy was licking me through the bars. I couldn’t for the life of me get the gate unlatched. Then I heard something behind me, something that twisted my stomach into a terrible knot. It was a deep roar, as if from a wild animal, so I turned around and that’s when I saw Carter trampling toward me on all fours, blood spiraling out of his nose, dirt kicking up in his wake.

He leapt off his back legs, arms up like some sort of mountain lion mid-pounce. I tried to dive away, but he caught me before I could move. We tumbled a few feet, then, our arms twisted together, we both wrestled violently for control. I was trying my best to push away, but he was clawing into my arms and chest and face and quickly got the better of me, then he had one hand around my throat, straddling me, pinning me to the ground, looking down on me with these wild eyes, blood dripping from his twisted nose, drooling all over my face like some sort of rabid dog. “YOU MADE ME DO THIS, CARTER,” he shouted. Then he lifted his free hand high above his head as if to pound my face in, and that’s when a golden blur zoomed by, and all of a sudden, just like that, the whole thing was over.

I rolled over on my left side, where I saw Freddy pinning Carter down with his big, golden paws, snarling, canines real close to his face, dripping saliva, looking ready to tear the kid apart. But he wasn’t. He was holding back. I mumbled, “Good boy,” then I rolled over on my right side and saw Miles, kneeling by the kennel, gate wide open. He gave me a solemn nod then a little thumbs up. I nodded back.

Then I rolled onto my back, my mind so overwhelmed it was blank. Freddy’s snarling was the only sound I could hear. My chest heaved up and down, and my eyes stayed wide open, staring up at the sky through the shady oak canopy. There was no more gray up there, just smears of light blue, pink, and orange, like the sun was reflecting off the horizon, and the horizon was an old kaleidoscope or something. It was beautiful, but there was also something a little sad about it, too. Then, all of a sudden, cicadas started buzzing, drowning out the snarling, then more cicadas, then crickets chirping, then even more crickets, and then frogs croaking, a whole chorus of frogs. The backyard had suddenly become a full summer orchestra, as if life was returning to this once-dead place.

As I pushed off the ground to prop myself up, my hand landed on something hard and plasticky. I picked it up and stared at it. It was my Game Boy Color, but the screen was shattered outward from a dime-sized hole in the middle, bits of melted plastic all over it, and all the buttons popped out. It was fried, still hot to the touch. I slid out the Pokemon Crystal cartridge, and it too had a hole through the middle, right through Suicune’s face. I started laughing, at first just a little, but it grew louder and louder, and then I could hear Miles laughing behind me too, and then I had to wipe my eyes with the collar of my shirt because they were getting all watery.

When I got to my feet, I turned to Freddy, who was still pinning Carter down. Carter had this terrified look on his face, but he wasn’t trying to escape or anything. He seemed paralyzed there, accepting of his fate, almost. And as I stared down at him, I started feeling sorry for the guy. I really did. I even considered offering him a hand, if you can believe that, but decided against it, because I didn't want him to break my wrist or something.

So, instead, I just said, “C’mon, Freddy, let’s go.”

But Freddy only turned his head slightly, giving me a very narrow side-eye. He was still snarling, and his canines were still showing, and his tail stuck straight up like a wooden stake.

“C’mon, buddy, let’s go home.”

But he just kept snarling.

“C’mon, buddy.”

Carter’s eyes were big and trembly as he stared up into the void that was Freddy’s open mouth, warm saliva dripping onto his face.

“Freddy, let’s go,” I said firmly, my voice deeper, more mature.

The snarling faded. Freddy turned his head again, but this time his floppy ears were pulled back, which scrunched his brow and made him look like he was deep in thought. He stayed like this for a moment before stepping off Carter, then slowly came to my side, where I gave him a scratch behind the ear. He opened his mouth, panting, which happened to look like a big goofy smile.

“You thirsty, buddy?” I said. “Let’s go home.”

Before walking away, Miles and I exchanged a brief glance. I thought about thanking him or apologizing again, but in that moment, words seemed unnecessary, as if they could only do harm, so I just nodded, and he nodded back.

Then we left that backyard, never looking back.

12, Twilight

Stepping from the shade of death row, the sky had become a darker blue, and the pink and orange had merged into one, making the sky appear as if it were on fire. It took my breath away, it really did. And at that moment, despite everything that had happened, I didn’t want the day to end. Most of all, I didn’t want summer to end, but I could see the ending right there, across the street, in the form of my dad’s blue compact, parked right there in Susu’s driveway.

“Let’s go fishing,” I said.

“But isn’t that your dad’s car?” Miles said.

“Yeah, so what?”

“Well, aren’t you supposed to be going home now?”

“I don’t want to go home, Miles.”

Freddy was sitting there watching the sky, looking all dirty and wild.

After a brief silence, Miles said, “Wait, you’re calling me Miles now?”

I looked at him with a faint smile and said, “That’s your name, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, sure, but you’re always gonna be Blue to me,” he said, laughing.

Then, all of a sudden, I took off down Carter’s steep driveway, across the street, past my dad’s compact, weaving between red maple and palm, into the verdant alley, pondward bound. Along the way, I pushed low-hanging branches away from my face, leapt over stray logs, and tried not to trample patches of flowers. Freddy was a golden blur beside me, and Miles, though he got a late start, was easily keeping up because he was in much better shape than I was.

All our running must have disturbed the crows, because just as we arrived at the pond, a murder of them took off from a nearby hedge, soaring right over the water and vanishing into the deep blue sky, its fiery horizon rippling off the surface as a fish leapt out of the water and plopped back in. The crickets, cicadas, and frogs were already in the middle of their summer songs, and all three of us stood there by the edge of the water, awestruck by the majesty of it all.

After some time, I turned to Miles and said, “It sure is pretty out here.”

And he said, “Yeah.”

Then I said, “What do you call this time of day, anyway?”

“I dunno, I think I heard my dad call it twilight once.”

“Twilight,” I repeated to myself.

Then, suddenly, out of nowhere, Freddy barked and, in one graceful motion, jumped and bellyflopped into the pond with a huge splash. Miles and I started laughing our heads off. Then, after Freddy dog-paddled back to the edge, he climbed out and sauntered right back up to us, golden and renewed, and despite our “no no no, don’t do it,” he did the wet-dog shake, getting us all wet, which just made us laugh even harder.

And we laughed for a long time.

But when the laughter stopped, and there were no words left, I found myself staring into summer’s end, off the fiery blue, so I sat down at the edge, to take it all in, and that’s when Miles and Freddy sat down too, right next to me, and then we all just sat there, for the longest time, in the twilight of Arcadia, not saying a word, just taking it all in.


Part 1


#ShortStory #Pokemon

 
Read more...

from Salt Forged Stories

Content Warning: NSFW – Sex, violence, and nudity. All at the same time. (It’s wet boxing in Beat, Prey Love. Come on now. Be fr.)

“Y'know,” Vivian Jiang explained, fastening the strap on her green and blue boxing glove, “I'd been meaning to return to the sweet science anyways. I'm mostly a Mixed Martial Artist, especially now, but when Kathy said one of the freshies wanted a topless boxing match, I said, 'hell yeah!' so let's have some fun with it, kid!”

“Yeah! Let's do it!” The short, tan student grinned at her from across the ring. “I heard that some of the best fighters on campus fought at Beat, Prey, Love. I hope the rumors are true.” The wiry youth slammed her boxing gloves together, eager to begin. Her bright green gloves and shorts contrasted well with her light brown skin, and with the rest of her outfit. Her black boxing boots looked well used, even if her matching black leg warmers and arm warmers gave the 19-year-old pugilist's outfit a touch of youthful whimsy.

“Rumors? C'mon Maxine. Wet or dry, if you're looking for a fight, BPL is the best org near campus. But something gives me the idea you're not new to this...” Vivian explained, gesturing at Maxine Williams's topless torso.

“Oh? Why do you say that” The freshman asked, stretching out and twisting to and fro and putting her cute, lithe frame on full display.

“Most girls at least try and look scandalized standing topless in a boxing ring.” Vivian Jiang said with a laugh. “You are cute though.” he grad student grinned.

Maxine decided that Vivian looked like a very fearsome nerd as she smacked her boxing gloves together while still wearing her circular glasses. Her generous bust and hips jiggled as she bounced in her fighting stance. Besides her gloves, she wore a skimpy, festive, multicolored skirt. and decorative bands around her abs and legs. The bright colors of her outfit and the matching highlights in her hair gave Vivian the look of a raver who'd stumbled into a boxing ring. Her softer, curvier shape only intensified the depiction. “Ready to go, 'Lil Maxine?' I'm not taking it easy on you just cause you're young and impressionable” she laughed.

“Impressionable? Can it, grandma. The only impression I'm gonna leave is my gloves alllllllll over you. I can't wait to put you flat on your back so we can have some real fun.” She teased. “But, don't your girls hurt, bouncing around like that?” The younger woman brought her gloves to her modest chest, imagining her breasts were as big, or as heavy as those of the sturdy graduate student grinning at her. “They're fucking huge.”

“Ok, they're only... 'big.'” Vivian laughed. “Maybe 'huge' on a good day. And no, they're fine, but feel free to stand still and stare them as long as you want.”

By contrast, Maxine Williams's short, dark brown, hair, lithe, muscled body, and much smaller chest gave the Puerto Rican pugilist the distinct look of an athlete. Though she was nearly the same height as the 5'5” Vivian, the difference in their shapes put 'Lil Maxine' at a clear size disadvantage. The graduate student in the other corner was soft in all the right places for the freshman to imagine them embracing, kissing, grinding, until her opponent, worn out and beaten, slid down her taut torso, leaving a trail of sweat and saliva before settling into her rightful place on her knees, face nuzzled between the horny boxer's thighs. It took a mighty effort to calm her throbbing excitement. “Since we're already topless, any special rules I should know?” She gulped.

Vivian moved to answer, but stopped when their referee interjected. “Start with a kiss, no mouthguards, obviously. The crowd fucking loves that part. After that, mouthguards in, ring the bell, and start swinging.”

A twitch of arousal shot between Maxine's legs as she considered standing chest to chest with her busty opponent and kissing her before trying to knock the woman senseless shortly afterwards. The thought excited and aroused her and made her all the more certain that this was where she wanted to be.

“Other than that?” The referee continued talking, and Maxine observed that their referee was likely a competitor as well, given her age, shape, and the way she stared at both competitors like rivals. The woman in the striped shirt confirmed this assumption right after she introduced herself as Flor Ramirez. Maxine bounced and tried to listen intently as the athletic Latina explained the rest of the night's rules: No judges, no decisions, and no throwing in the towel between rounds meant that the fight would end in the ring, either by a knockout or the ref stopping. Six 3-minute rounds followed by an untimed round 7 that would last as long as needed to determine a winner. The 10 count only started when the fighters separated, which Maxine immediately understood to mean that they were allowed—if not expected— to take advantage the other woman before actually letting her hit the canvas.

“Hey Viv, you better beat the brakes off the new girl.” Flor cackled. “I had dibs on her till Kathy said she owed you a favor. Have some fun with her” The Latin woman looked from one competitor to the other, gauging their reactions.

“I promise.” Vivian grinned. “Hard punches, not hard feelings.”

“Totally!” Maxine agreed, also considering the third hard object she'd bring to this fight. “You seem cool.”

From outside the ring, Kathy Liu held court, holding a mic in one hand to address the crowd. She introduced both women by their ring names, rather than their government names, a tradition adopted by professional wrestlers and adult performers alike and fighting promotions. Inside this ring she was 'Lil Maxine,' which though funny, did nothing to hide her identity. She didn't care; the pun was too good to pass up. Vivian, now 'Indigo Rave' or 'Indigo' for short, had chosen a name that leaned into her image.

When both women nodded, Flor yelled at the two to give the fans some action. The whoop of the crowd was the first time Maxine noticed them, and the diminutive Puerto Rican puncher wondered if she'd see anyone she knew ringside. She doubted any of her classmates or roommates were here tonight, but for a campus of nearly 35,000 students, CU@LA often felt much much smaller than that.

'Lil Maxine' nearly leapt from her corner, meeting the older woman just past the center of their pink colored ring. Vivian—no—Indigo's gloves on her hips, strong and firm and more than a little possessive, made her swoon even before their lips touched. This curvy stranger was no stranger to kisses and caresses and the younger, smaller woman forced herself to focus, lest she forget that she was here to fuck only after (or perhaps while) soundly beating this would-be party girl in a punchdrunk stupor.

But for as silly of a name as ‘Indigo Rave’ was, her allure overwhelmed the younger boxer. She smelled sweet and inviting, her makeup was precise and alluring, and her mouth was dangerously warm, to say nothing of her soft curves pressed against Maxine's slight frame. Indigo's muscles tensed beneath her touch, a reminder that the graduate student's chubby body hid dangerous muscle beneath, like rocks beneath the surface of the lake. Maxine's green gloves traced the lines of her soft waist, her wide hips, and her pillowy bust. Indigo's body squished playfully, and Maxine wanted her. Badly. The 19-year-old trans woman felt her arousal poking through her thin shorts, a fact her opponent registered with a sultry smile. She kissed her deeply, aggressively, with the practiced ease of a skilled lover. Indigo nibbled on her lower lip and pulled on the small of her back and held her in ways that made the younger woman shiver and wiggle and gasp.

Maxine needed this voluptuous temptress like she needed air.

“Someone's excited to get started. If you cum in your shorts now, do we just call it a win for me?”

Lil Maxine swooned and felt her knees buckle beneath the passion of their kiss before she pushed her opponent away. Her face burned and her heart pounded in her chest and the freshman felt the distinct sensation that she'd been outplayed even before the fight had started. But this was part of a wet fight. The crowd that'd gathered for a night of fights in the small gym cheered the tantalizing sight of two attractive women holding, kissing each other, ready to trade leather a few moments later.

Indigo adjusted her glasses and blew her a kiss as they returned to their corners, shouting taunts that made Maxine ever more certain that she needed to win. From the corner, Maxine watched the surly grad student tilt her head forward and dump her glasses into her gloves before passing them to a |haughty brown-complexioned woman with an expensive looking dye job. Once she straightened up, their referee called for the bell and let the two college students duke it out.

The pair of warriors tapped gloves and traded mouthguard-shielded smiles before the freshman assumed her Peekaboo style, palms turned inward and gloves held near her cheeks. Indigo Rave met her with a more traditional boxing stance, flicking jabs at the younger woman. Thick and sturdy, the graduate student's brawny, curvy frame and looked exactly like the kind of woman Maxine assumed would be popular with or without clothes.

Lil Maxine has trained nearly half her life, a gym rat who'd moved from watching her dad in the ring to entering it herself. Lil Maxine circled and strafed around the bigger girl, expecting to contend with a reach disadvantage like she almost always did. Such was the struggle of fighting taller women. The topless warriors felt each other out, leaning and shifting in search of an opening.

Leather lashed through the air as the two women traded words and kissing for punches. They landed only glancing blows until Maxine tagged the bigger woman with a clean jab, then slipped Indigo's response and sank two hooks into her sides. They separated and reset back into their stances. Maxine observed the smirk she'd elicited from her curvy foe and resolved to knock the smile off Indigo's face.

Indigo moved like a martial artist, or a kickboxer, with a a stance wide enough for throwing kicks as well as punches; a reminder that she wasn't a boxer. not purely. Maxine pawed at her, trying to force her bigger opponent into a mistake. The petite technician landed punches and slipped away, repeating the process several times. The tomboy thought she'd found exactly the opening she needed before the fighter's blue-green glove collided with her chin. The force of the blow staggered her and nearly sent her to the ropes before Indigo caught her, pulling Maxine's hips against her own.

“Woozy already? Don't tell me our fiery little freshman has a glass jaw...” the older woman laughed, apparently enjoying the sensation of the smaller woman struggling against her.

“Sh-shut up. I'm still gonna knock your block off.” Maxine replied between groans. She'd expected this woman to hit hard, but she hadn't expected the veteran's timing or accuracy. Far from a plodding MMA striker pretending to be a boxer, Indigo Rave was a striker, a bomb the freshman would have to defuse before dismantling her. Maxine was more determined than ever to prove to the women of Beat, Prey, Love that she wasn't here to compete; she was here to conquer.

Having tasted each other's talent and tactics midway through the first, the topless boxers went about the task of winning a fight. There'd be plenty of time to appreciate the other woman's figure once Indigo was woozy and punchdrunk. Lil Maxine focused on her movement, darting in and out and demonstrating how much faster her hands were than her opponent's. She wanted, needed, the brawny grad student to feel slow, and plodding; once she'd left Indigo uncertain about when or where to strike back, the petite puncher figured she could dismantle her foe at her leisure.

But it was clear the party girl wouldn’t go down easy. Indigo was fast too and packed real weight behind each punch. Maxine walked back to her corner after the first round wondering if she'd ever felt a woman that size punch with that much force. The 5'5” Indigo Rave hit like a woman twice her size.

Their second round began with less patience and more fireworks. After 3 minutes together, Maxine knew more about her opponent's movements and tactics, and judging from her increased output, her opponent felt the same way about her. Indigo was a talented martial artist, but not a boxer, and Maxine found little deficiencies and habits to exploit, scoring with small flurries that would build up over the course of a fight. They traded punches, with Indigo landing harder but Maxine landing more often, frequently drawing a knowing smile from her opponent after landing a clean punch.

“You're just target practice!” The petite woman taunted. She'd taken advantage of the realities of their topless boxing match to begin targeting Indigo's heaving breasts in addition to her face and stomach. “You really shouldn't have agreed to fight topless, Indigo. I'm gonna paint those punching bags purple blue before we're done here.” The slender freshman felt good about her chances; she just needed to keep up this pace and lean on her advantages.

The taller woman must have picked up on Maxine's strategy because after absorbing a stinging left hook later in the round, she initiated a clinch. She used her plainly bigger frame to bully the younger woman, digging her shoulder, or hip, into Maxine's spry frame before sneaking solid punches into undefended skin. Maxine recognized the shift in tactics, but countering it was another matter. When Maxine fought her way out of the clinch, Indigo had a fist waiting for her as a goodbye gift. When she sank into a clinch instead, Flor took her sweet time breaking them up. It was a topless match after all; their crowd cheered the collision of feminine bodies, of two attractive young women tangled in each other's arms, grunting and groaning and trying to dominate each other.

The second round ended, and Lil Maxine lifted her fist into the air as a sign of victory. Though she felt she'd won the first two rounds, there was no denying this fight was close, and she could not shake the feeling that it should not have been. Was that overconfidence seeping in? The ref wasn't going to save her from the woman in the other corner grinding her into paste and then fucking her into sweet submission. She'd have to force the kind of fight she knew how to win. Indigo wasn't generating her own offense; she was counterpunching, looking to catch Maxine as she came forward into range or stayed too close after an exchange.

Round three brought a different kind of action. Both women had been forced to change strategy once already; it was now Maxine's task to find a way to shift things back into her favor. She felt bruises beginning to form over her pretty brown frame, the same as those marring Indigo's paler curves. She lifted her bright green gloves and prepared to play matador. The pace slowed as she chose her openings more carefully, reluctant to wade into another clinch. Her flurries slowed into hit and run tactics that again put Baltimore native on the defensive. Lil Maxine figured that the growing difference in punch count had to be obvious to every observer. Indigo Rave simply couldn't keep up with her hand speed or her footwork. Not in a fight without wrestling or kicks. The graduate student apparently realized it too, after a sizzling three punch combo splashed against her face heaving chest. Her response clobbered the air where Maxine had been a moment before but left the freshman unharmed.

“Too slow, Grandma!” Maxine yelled, accentuating her tease with a swish of her slender hips.

“Nice one!” Indigo nodded, conceding the sequence. “You're pretty good. You'll fit in here, right next to all the other girl's I've beat. Ready to get serious?”

The undersized swarmer felt a wave indignation that twisted her face and raised her pulse. 'Serious?' They were 3 rounds into a fight she was decisively winning. What was this punchdrunk nerd talking about? Maxine resolved to put the issue and her opponent to bed, planting her feet and putting her bodyweight into her next right hand.

She expected the satisfying shiver of a knockout punch reverberating up her arm. The jolt she received instead shot through her jaw and nearly wrenched her mouthguard out of her mouth. The world slowed for a minute and bells went off in her head. She blinked, retreated, and fought to understand. The curvy Asian woman was advancing now, too close for comfort. Maxine staggered backwards, hands high, trying not to trip over her own shoes until she felt the cold leather ropes dig into her bare, wet back. The crowd was cheering, even more loudly than they had in the first two rounds, but they were no longer cheering for her. They were cheering for her to lose. She tightened up her guard as her foe approached, more menacing than she'd ever been. Maxine just needed to survive. She needed to clinch, or escape, endure. But she nearly spat up her mouthguard when Indigo's uppercut rammed into her chiseled abs. Maxine gasped and fought to keep her lunch down. She absorbed another volley of half defended shots before lurching forward to tie up the bigger woman and stem the abusive tide. Her arms wrapped around her opponent's pale torso, unintentionally pressing the side of her head into Indigo Rave's sweat slicked bare tits. They were as soft as they looked: a squishy, steamy, prison in which Maxine needed to take temporary refuge.

“It's like bullying a freshman...” The broader woman said sarcastically, her breath hot in Maxine's ear, “Oh wait... I guess it is bullying a freshman. Damn, my bad.” Indigo laughed. Tangled up in each other, neither of them could punch effectively. Instead the position left them to coo and sigh and taunt each other for a few moments. “It's not too late to quit. You're the smallest girl in the gym and I'm not even a boxer. Quit now and I'll make sure we both have some fun.”

Lil Maxine felt Indigo's stiff nipples digging into her, felt Indigo's thigh grinding against the freshman woman's quickly hardening shaft. “Qu-quit? Fuck no... You-you're strong, but I-I'm gonna piece you up until-” Maxine stammered.

“Maybe” The bigger woman dismissed her. “Don't cum in your shorts though, kay? I want to wring you out on camera, maybe get a close up of you slumped in the corner after you bust all over your stomach.”

The taunt made Maxine's member throb, a fact that did not go unnoticed by the woman pressed against her. The Baltimore native pulled Maxine's face into her massive bust, wrapping an arm behind the trapped woman's head and grinding her sweaty tits into the shorter woman's face. Maxine fought to keep her balance as she finally escaped, but unknowingly leaned directly into the brutal left hook that followed her out of the clinch. The thudding flurry that followed knocked her loopy, and she stumbled on shaky legs as she collapsed into the ropes, mumbling a half remembered discovery. The pair of fists she absorbed into her stomach and ribs on the way to the canvas were entirely gratuitous.

Lil Maxine lay on her back gasping for air like a caught fish. Her slender frame ached, a gnawing burning sensation that started in the pit of her stomach but concentrated in her throbbing head. She recognized the trouble from the first. This was an ugly, bad knockdown. The crowd sounded far and distant. But Indigo was right there. Maxine gasped when her opponent sat on her abs and forced precious air out of her burning lungs.

The talented striker caressed her face with a blue-palmed glove, chest rising and falling with each breath. “Someone's losing pretty... hard” The woman cackled, eliciting a breathy gasp when she began grinding on Maxine's hard shaft through her shorts. The pressure felt great; Lil Maxine clenched her fists inside her gloves and fought off her encroaching orgasm. “Remember, count doesn't stop till we separate, right? So I'm here asking you to stay down. Take the 10-count, have the best sex of your life in front of a cheering audience. No one said you had to win to join BPL. You put up a good fight. Be proud. This was fun as fuck.”

The flattened freshman groaned an unintelligible response and shook her head.

“Think it over.” Indigo asked her younger opponent before climbing off of her. Maxine looked down her chest and watched the curvy slugger retreat to a neutral corner to await the count and the freshman's imminent decision.

Her once blurry vision had long since cleared: above her, a sneering junior counted, slow and steady. Around her, a throng of watchers, many of them potential opponents, looked on and cheered the sensual violence. Flor looked at her with smug disdain. But Maxine was hurt—she wasn't done. She wanted to fight. She wanted to fuck. She didn't want to lose to this woman, as attractive as she was. Indigo Rave was bigger, older, and probably a better martial artist. But Maxine still intended to prove she was a better boxer.

And so she rose, rolling onto her aching chest and ribs before pushing up to her knees and using the ropes to help steady herself. She surprised herself when she made it by the count of '6,' bright eyed and ready to put this round behind her. The bell had already rung to end the round, and Maxine returned to her corner to prepare for the 4th round. If she'd won the first two rounds 10-9, that 10-8 knockdown had evened the score. Thank God wet fights almost never had judges. Her corner person helped her with her water bottle while the Puerto Rican freshman considered her options.

She was still doing so when the bell rang to start the 4th. Lil Maxine hoped she didn't look hurt as she felt, or as hurt as Indigo did. But the knockdown a minute earlier had energized the wider woman, who now pushed the pace and Maxine around, threatening with the same blend of speed, power and grit she'd shown all night. But Lil Maxine weathered most of it and waited for her chance to strike , sneaking shots in each time Indigo Rave relented. She knew better than to sit and trade, and though slower, she hadn't boxed for nearly a decade just to let some well placed body shots turn her into a sexy, mewling punching bag. She was still in this fight, still playing the role of matador, just less confident she could survive being gored again.

Her patience paid off when an ill-spaced right hook left Indigo Rave off balance. The shorter girl let her hands go, a flash of green leather that landed with satisfying thuds. Two hooks stung either side of her ribs and sent Indigo's heavy bust wobbling like a metronome. The last, a stiff uppercut, knocked a sheen of sweat into the air and jerked the woman's head up toward the ceiling. The graduate student lurched backwards, and Lil Maxine had reestablished the natural order as she saw it. She had all the skills she needed to win, so long as she could keep her focus and enough to her horny brain from walking her into a knockout punch.

The 5th round marked a continued shift toward Maxine, as the now tiring Indigo increasingly struggled putting her gloves on the petite freshman or keeping out of the way of Maxine's punches. The smaller woman went hunting, targeting Indigo's face and breasts as her favorite targets. The graduate student's cheek and chest had begun swelling, and the flurry that collided with her chin didn't help matters. The bigger woman crumbled and lurched forward, wrapping up the younger woman.

“N-Nice one.”

“Remember when the ref told you that you better kick my ass? How's that going for you?” Maxine taunted the woman currently drooling on her nearly flat chest.

“Better than you'd do in MMA, Maxine.” Indigo Rave groaned.

“We'll have to give that a try next time. For now, you look a little eepy, Indigo. Ready to nap yet, or nah?”

“Fuck no. You're a hot lil commodity but I'm not quitting, rookie. Don't insult me.”

The punch count, already weighted towards the skinny tomboy with active hands, turned egregiously one-sided as her swarming punches increasingly dominated their exchanges. She finally toppled the curvaceous slugger early in the 6th round and excitedly guided Indigo Rave's face down her chiseled, bruise-splotched abs. She eagerly introduced Indigo Rave to the hard tent pitched in her green shorts, pulling the woman's head against her impressive shaft with the palm of her glove as she humped her. Maxine smeared the scent of her sweat and arousal across Indigo's bruised cheeks, stopping just short of attempting to fill her mouth. The sound of Indigo's immodest moans wracked the younger woman with sultry, sensual desire. The freshman wanted to climax on, or in the woman kneeling before her. She felt capable, powerful, and desirable. Like a demigod elevated over the mortals at ringside and the unfortunate woman thrown into the ring with her. The freshman groaned, struggling to contain her encroaching orgasm before finally allowing the bigger woman to pitch forward onto her hands and knees.

Lil Maxine felt a distinct sense of satisfaction at the sight of the older, more experienced woman gasping and dripping sweat, one glove cradling her head. She turned around and basked in the crowd's cheers and jeers. Though some of the audience no doubt maintained their loyalty to their friend and regular competitor, many of them just wanted to see sex and violence intermingled. She thrust her hips toward the audience and made a new promise. “Who wants to watch me knock Indigo Rave the fuck out? Who wants to watch me fuck her?”

The rapturous response the audience delivered sent a sensual shiver up her spine. she slammed her gloves together, more excited than ever to win her Beat, Prey, Love proving match in sexy, decisive fashion. The sight of a |very cute, slim, pink-clad Black woman leading a “fuck her, fuck her up!” chant was too satisfying for Lil Maxine not to smile and wiggle in response.

True to her word, Indigo rose off the canvas, refusing to simply concede. Sweaty, bruised, and swollen, the graduate student was nonetheless determined to fight to a finish. The lively Puerto Rican spitfire was determined to oblige her. She harassed and pursued the Asian woman, walking her down and swarming her. The green and black clad slugger noticed that exhausted and visibly aroused, Indigo picked her shots more carefully, lashing out only when certain she could do so without eating an emerald leather response. The bigger woman's guard tightened, and the 19-year-old took what the flagging slugger gave her, taunting and teasing the woman physically and verbally.

“What happened to you putting me down for a nap”

“What happened to putting me down in 3 rounds?” Indigo laughed.

“You're better than I expected.” She admitted, “but nothing I can't handle.” Lil Maxine punctuated the taunt with half a dozen unanswered punches, but couldn't find the fight ending sequence she craved.

Instead, their match ended in dramatic fashion nearly a minute into the final, and untimed, seventh round. There'd be no more breaks, no rest periods, no reprieves from the ensuing punishment or pleasure. Unfortunately for her opponent, Maxine was all too eager to make this woman dance like a puppet on a string. She caught her opponent and the referee sharing a knowing, weary looking shrug as the bell rang for the second to last time.

She acknowledged Indigo Rave's resolve with a vicious smile. the woman was a fucking warrior and Lil Maxine wanted her more than anyone she could remember. They traded punches, more a token to the woman's efforts than a legitimate battle. The feisty, slender freshman's piston-like jab snapped the woman's head back repeatedly, and the unanswered flurry that followed marked the end of Indigo's response.

“See? Now I'm done.” Indigo admitted as they clinched. “Goddammit, I really thought I had you there. Ah well. I'm tired and horny. Let's get to the fun part.” The busty graduate student's lust was palpable, as if her arousal had filled the space where her aggression had been. Indigo wasn't out on her feet but didn't resist when Maxine spun her around and forced her to look out onto the crowd. Maxine wondered what she looked like. She stopped thinking about it when she began humping the woman's fantastic ass instead. Indigo's body was so soft, with a skirt and panties that only accentuated her curves. If not for the boxing gloves the little spitfire would have stripped them both and taken her right there on the canvas. Instead they humped and moaned, the swooning loser pressed hard into the ring's taut ropes.

The crowd cheered as hard as than they had all night, as Indigo's lewd moans mixed with hers and the thin layers of fabric between them did little to blunt the sensation of the friction. Lil Maxine's green gloves found purchase on Indigo's wide hips and fun skirt, and she pulled the woman harder against her throbbing shaft. Indigo rocked against her, clearly in search of her own sticky orgasm. Their sweaty curves pressed against each other in lurid gyrations there in the ring together. Their desire had overcome their aggression; the boxing match transformed into a 20 minute foreplay session to determine who would top whom that night. Lil Maxine's thoughts blurred as her girlcock pulsed, and her own desperate moans surprised her.

“Fuck you're so hot. I-I need you” She admitted, not caring how that sounded. They were dry humping in a boxing ring for a cheering crowd. Nuance wasn't in attendance.

“Give it to me” Her opponent turned partner replied, reaching back to grab Lil Maxine's hips or shorts. The younger woman muttered a few new expletives and increased her pace. Her body tightened, caught in waves of pleasure, until she finally climaxed, white spunk spurted through her shorts and splashing on the woman's thighs and ass.

Fresh off an orgasm, her brain buzzed with wild, lewd ambition. She'd punched, groped, and teased this woman hard enough and long enough that she'd willingly, excitedly fucked her back. Lil Maxine was guided by her lusts now more than any coherent plan. She hadn't thought of how she wanted to win, only that she did. She could likely let the other woman collapse now: let Indigo slump against the ropes while she basked in the cheers of her soon-to-be new rivals and the glow of a devastating knockout (fuck out?) victory.

But she wanted a little more. She wanted to enjoy this until she couldn't anymore. It was simple to spin Indigo back around, and deliver the fight's last two punches. She had to catch her own breath to swing the sizzling left hook-right hook combo that detonated on the MMA fighter's unprotected chin and turned her mouthguard into a comet: the green and blue plastic hurtled through the air with a trail of spit following it and landed in the crowd like a fresh souvenir. Indigo crumpled forward, spent and exhausted, and Maxine caught her with her torso, again exalting in the feeling of a sluggish opponent sliding down her body, legs too weak to carry her. Indigo felt to her knees, head resting against Lil Maxine's shorts. Her own body ached from the abuse she'd endured, but the sight of Indigo Rave's pretty face smeared with Lil Maxine's seed made the shorter, younger woman feel like she could fight a hundred more rounds. Her involuntary thrusts of her svelte hips battered the woman's face, a last indignity sent Indigo crumbling backwards. She landed on the bottom rope, left arm caught on it and draped outside the ring.

Flor completed the count, though everyone in the gym recognized it for the formality it was, kneeling by the woman who never even attempted to rise. Maxine leapt into the air and yelled as the bell sounded, her voice drowned out by the crowd's myriad reactions. She'd done it. She'd fought the woman meant to beat her into a mewling, compliant pulp and had instead established herself as a force to be feared inside the square circle. If Indigo Rave couldn't beat her, who else would even be willing to try? Their referee had seemed eager to do so, and Maxine welcomed the challenge. Later. For now, she wanted to celebrate. And maybe sleep. The freshman thrust her green gloves into the air, black arm warmers shiny with sweat and spit. She wanted everyone to see her. She wanted everyone to want her.

The referee grabbed her wrist and held it high to declare Maxine the winner. It was a second euphoria, one marked by as many cheers as the first.

She stared down at Indigo Rave laid out on the canvas, soft curves no longer dangerous, heavy breasts rising slowly with each breath. |A voluptuous black woman with thick glasses, had already moved into the ring, providing first aid to the downed woman. Vivian looked hurt but alert, and she was already standing when Maxine turned back around after playing to her crowd once more. She gave the woman a tight hug and thanked her repeatedly for the fight. Vivian was gracious in defeat and returned the hug with a few compliments and a promise to run it back with different results some time. Maxine promised that she'd only knock her out faster next time.

With this fight won, the freshman wondered what came next. There were more fights after theirs yes, but what else? Could she approach Vivian with an offer of less aggressive sex in the locker room now that she'd beaten Indigo Rave? Was someone else in the audience or backstage thinking of her the same way? Were the girls going out to dinner afterwards? Possibilities abounded.

For tonight, 'Lil Maxine' had the world exactly where she wanted it.

#Writing #NSFW #Series #Commission #BeatPreyLove #BPL #Fiction #Action #Sex #Fight #MartialArts #Boxing

 
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from Salt Forged Stories

Late February, The Year Before Everything Happened,


Kathy Liu and Abigail Summers stood in the cold midnight air of an indoor martial arts gym, sharing glances and comments. They'd successfully held the first 2 fights of the inaugural Beat, Prey, Love fight card, a series of sexy MMA fights contested entirely by female college students from the nearby California University at Los Angeles. All of the contestants, save one, had professed some kind of previous martial arts experience, and the two women left to fight in their 'Main event” both promised that they were the toughest woman Kathy knew.

Tonight, one of them would be proved wrong.

Abby Summers lacked any of the usual pep she brought to her streaming content: Sinnamon Sweet was sweet and alluring and innocent. The twentysomething black woman behind the onscreen character was markedly less so, especially around the woman she'd mentored as a content creator.

“So your friend... what's her name... “

“Flor.” Kathy interjected, leaning against a wall. Her willowy 5'10 frame was almost interrupted by the generous curves that helped make her a popular streamer..

“You think she's legit?” Skepticism marred Abby's voice but not her light brown eyes or friendly smile.

“I know she is. We've trained together. She's golden gloves level. Smart money's on her.” Kathy gushed. “You're not just saying that cause you two are fucking, right?” The older student asked.

The Chinese-French woman blushed, nearly red enough to hide her freckles. “Why would you... how would...” she shoved her hands in the pockets of her crop top track jacket.

“Don't bullshit a bullshitter, right?” Abby shrugged. Kelsey Drama might be a sultry, sensual, flirty streamer with a penchant for discovering new and creative ways to keep her breasts and ass at the center of her gaming streams, but Kathy Liu was much less open about her personal dealings. Being called out felt like an invasion of privacy.

The two bantered about the previous matches and the next one before the first of the main event's competitors approached them, handwraps trailing behind her like ribbons.

“Probably realized what she was in for and ran off. I was hoping she'd stick around and find out firsthand.” Flor Ramirez explained, staring at her handwrap instead of her audience.

Abby eyed the woman like one might appraise a diamond ring from a pawnshop: Medium height. Brown skin and dark brown hair. Toned like an athlete. Curvy in spite of that. But the thing she noticed most of all was the way she moved, and the way she didn't. Kathy's new beau moved like a coiled spring, only ostensibly at rest, ready to explode at any time.

This could be interesting.

Abby waved excitedly as the fighter arrived, looking her up and down. “Oh wow Kathy, you weren't kidding. She looks like she's ready to kick some ass. You'd probably knock me out with one punch, Flor” Abby said, wincing. “Since you're here, why don't I go see if we can't find the other half of this matchup.” The 5'8 Black woman smoothed out her jacket and jeans and left the two coeds to their own devices.

“Ready to go?” Kathy already knew the answer.

“Hell yeah. I mean, if you just want me to do what I did to Hannah? This'll be easy.” The Chicana woman beamed. “I'm not used to like... wet fights but as long as you're not expecting 'porn star' I think it'll be ok.”

“Yeah, that was perfect. You can beat her up, just... don't just beat her up. There's plenty of places where people can watch women's MMA. Beat, Prey, Love is gonna be the intersection of 'hot girls, real fights, and sexy action.' The taller woman explained. Kathy massaged Flor's athletic shoulders and whispered into her ear. “Besides... you know how hot I get watching you dominate someone. Show her who's in charge. Then show her a good time...” Kathy's sensual tone left no doubts about her desires or expectations. The Latina boxer swallowed hard and spun away, smoothing out the torn white crop top she wore on top of a black sports bra meant to flatten her impressive bust.

“Aww jeez Kathy... don't say it like that. You make it sound so dirty...” She put her knee up and hands out as if fending off an attacker.

“Fine. I guess I have to look at least partially impartial.” Kathy shrugged.


“Heyyyy,” Abby's voice was sweet and saccharine as always. “I was worried one of you got lost.” She giggled as she pushed into the gym's locker room, greeted by the sound of giggling women.

“You're pretty funny.” Whitney admitted between laughs, but the two competitors immediately stopped laughing when they noticed the cheery interloper.

“Get lost, sunflower. We'll head out there when we're ready.” The bigger woman explained. 6'0 tall, and as well endowed as she was thickly muscled, Whitney Kotey's scowl was visible even as her giant mane of bouncy black curls covered her bright green eyes. She'd dominated an overmatched freshman in the night's first bout; now she sat peeling off the fight gear that sold her 'goth girl' aesthetic. Sitting beside her was Miranda Torres, who looked ready to enjoy similar success against Flor. Abby watched the athletic redhead pull off a US Marines shirt and slip into a skimpy, military camouflage-colored cheerleader's outfit and a pair of green MMA gloves.

“So I know you're Hex Flex,” the slender Black woman eyed the bigger, paler one before she turned to the ginger Latina. “But what's your ring name tonight?” Abby smiled, clasping her hands in front of her.

“I'm Sierra Echo.” the redhead announced, primping her high ponytail and bangs. “And I'm ready to fuck this wannabe up until she begs me to fuck her harder.” The toned college sophomore rose off the bench and moved towards the door. “So move it, bubblegum, unless you wanna be next.” She shouldered past Abby, and Whitney shoulder checked the older student hard enough to knock her on her ass, laughing as they returned to the bright lights of the gym.


Miranda Torres sauntered and skipped through the crowd, fully enjoying the stares and gasps that she and Whitney elicited. Her menacing new friend had proved useful already. She let the goth titan clear a path through the observers, finally tapping Whitney on the hip and moving past her to confront Kathy and her noxious little bulldog-paramour.

“Okaaaay Miranda, I see you, getting into the spirit of things with a little cosplay, a little dress up.” Kathy smiled. “That cheerleader outfit is cuuuute.”

“Took you long enough.” Flor said. “I was wondering if you decided to save yourself an ass whooping and escape with the bride of Frankenstein over there.”

“I've never seen someone look like they need a shower before the fight” Miranda scrunched up her face and made a dismissive gesture. “And shaving half your head screams 'I need therapy,' but whatever...” She turned to Kathy, “I'm ROTC now but I was a cheerleader in high school: I figured a camouflage outfit would be cute.” She gestured at her clothes. “And you know what? I was right. But hey: if you fight as bad as you dress this'll be over faster than Whitney's fight. Maybe you can steal some of Kathy's clothes while you're doing the walk of shame out of her appartment next week.”

Miranda took a half step back and let Kathy move between her and a newly incensed Flor. Pissing off losers like her never failed to amuse, and hearing someone behind her laughing at her joke only emboldned her.


Two minutes later Abigail was pointing a camera at Flor and Kathy as the latter interviewed her friend on camera for the first time. Flor's reluctance shone through immediately, dissolving only after Kathy assured her that the interview was in fact necessary and fed her a few easy questions.

“I mean, it's like... it's like I said. I'm 'Rosa Rated R' and I'm here to bully a cheerleader. Shit, I'm actually here to bully everyone... but since this puta couldn't stop running her mouth, she's getting handled first. One of us is dangerous and the other one is wearing a skirt. I'm still planning on taking her pride and taking her top for a trophy. We're getting wet and wild on camera, right? Tears, smeared mascara, and a fucked cheerleader is a classic combo.”

“So why do they call you 'Rosa Rated R'?” Kathy asked.

“I'm guaranteed to produce graphic sexual content and gratuitous violence.” Flor stammered. “Stay tuned.”

Flor knew the things to say but didn't have the comfort in front of a camera that Kathy took for granted. The interview continued for several minutes until Flor answered a question, dragged her thumb across her throat, and swore at Miranda. She walked past Kathy and Abigail, effectively ending the interview. From behind the camera Abby gave her mentee the thumbs up and confirmed that they'd captured enough raw footage to edit into something compelling later.

Now it was her smug opponent's turn to make an introduction.

“So I'm Sierra Echo , and I'm like, here to have a good time!” Miranda exclaimed with a gesture that was part salute, part exuberance. “I'm pretty, popular, and ready to rumble!”

Kathy took a second to regain her composure. She'd prepared for a lot of things, but the surly sophomore redhead playing an overly exuberant babyface cheerleader was almost too much to bear. She swallowed hard and moved to her next question. Miranda responded with the same bubbly energy. Kathy wasn't sure if Miranda Torres intentionally butchered the pronunciation of a Mexican word or phrase every time she mentioned 'Rosa Rated R' but she could almost hear Flor's teeth grinding somewhere behind her.

But with each question it became more clear that Miranda was faking it. Her artifice was increasingly obvious, more manic than happy, more wolf in sheep's clothing than happy bunny.

Kathy was willing to let her soldier on but the woman behind the camera stood up and sighed.

“Hey, Miranda... I... this feels a little forced.” Abby explained with authentic concern. “Being nice is supposed to come naturally, isn't it? Maybe you should play your character a little more true to life...”

The pale Latina's brow furrowed as turned from Kathy to Abby. “Excuse me, bitch?” The response was nearly automatic.

“Yeah!” The two streamers exclaimed in near unison. “Give us that Miranda! Or that 'Sierra Echo.'”

The sophomore stared daggers at both of them and sighed. “Really? Bitchy cheerleader?” A vicious smile spread across her face and her voice sharpened. “Fine. It's her funeral after all...”

Miranda's restarted interview was much more vicious, and the upperclassmen streamers wondered what kind of high school experience could have shaped her. Not quite 'queen bee-prom queen' but something sharp and confident and dangerous. This Miranda was witty and caustic and the insults she generated seemingly on the fly drew genuine laughs from the girls watching on.

Kathy thought that Miranda seemed like the perfect bully, as if grown in a lab for this express purpose.

Abby worried about pairing two heel characters together on the first card, and worried more about the fact that these two harbored more genuine animosity than any Beat, Prey, Love pairing so far. Beat, Prey, Love matches were supposed to be sexy and competitive rather than ugly and gritty, but would Kathy notice before it was too late?.

Abby only wondered which predator would feast on the other...


Abby-Mochi served as their referee Miranda objected to Flor's fuckbuddy refereeing her fight. Kathy acquiesced and handled camera duties while the slender Black senior handled the introductions. Kathy had specifically asked her to pitch them on starting their bout with a steamy kiss like Connie and Jessica had, like all future BPL bouts would, but one look at the twitchy hatred animating both women was enough to convince Abby otherwise. She announced the fighters by their ring names as Miranda and Flor became Sierra Echo and Rosa Rated R. She reminded the camera and the fighters about their 'wet MMA' rules: a knockout, submission, or orgasm were all legitimate ways to claim victory, and removing clothing was as legal as a left hook.

Both women nodded, and Sierra even tapped Rosa's outstretched MMA glove as the fight began.

Then Rosa's stiff jab snapped her taller opponent's head back and Sierra's smirk curdled. Kathy swore under her breath and hoped this could stay competitive and sexy somehow.

Their stylistic differences revealed themselves over the first 30 seconds of their bout: Rosa moved with the tight, angled footwork of a boxer, arms tucked and fists bobbing, always pushing forward into Sierra's personal space. The taller redhead kept her hands wide and open, clearly looking for a solid opening to grab the brawny boxer. The Texan boxer might have more fighting experince to lean on thanks to an impressive amateur record, but she gave up a noticeable size advantage to the taller, broader Marine cadet.

Rosa stung her with increasing frequency, buzzing around the taller girl and digging into her with her red MMA gloves. The cheerleader connected occasionally but it was clear which of them threw punches only recreationally. Instead Rosa menaced her, standing too close and always at weird angles that frustrated her own attempts. Sierra had imagined a plodding boxer, more brawler than technician, but instead found a tight, sharp ball of constant motion. Rosa grew more confident as she scored, taunting the younger woman. “Damn. You fucking suck.” She said without affect. “Just quit.”

Their referee worried that this might be a landslide victory for Kathy's lover until Sierra blocked a punch thrown close enough for her to snatch a tan bicep in her firm grip and drive her hip into her target's stomach. Rosa didn't understand the exact mechanism of the throw that followed, only the sensation of Sierra turned away from her a moment before she sailed through the air and landed on her back with a thud that reverberated through the drafty gym. Some of the girls surrounding the cage winced as Sierra pressed against the downed boxer, smiling like a knife.

“Did you see that fucking Judo throw?” One of the girls at cageside asked. “Who knew she had skills?”

Rosa blinked away confusion but found a moment of clarity when Sierra crashed a hard forearm into her cheek and reminded her of an eternal truth: Grappling fucking sucks.

The downed boxer brought her arms up to ward off more punishment and immediately sought an exit. Those weeks getting steamrolled by Samantha and submitted by Kathy had to be worth something.

“You got quiet all of a sudden. That's no fun.” Miranda said, still looking for a position from which to rain down hell on her opponent. “I wanna hear you cry, beg, moan.” For Sierra, the rest came naturally: waiting for the struggling girl to tire, make a mistake, and subject herself to Sierra's every wicked whim. It'd worked on whatever bitch dared to cross her throughout her high school enrollment, and it'd work just as well here. Classmates, rival cheerleaders or players, stupid fucking musclebound boxers: everyone was the same once she sat on their waist. She'd heard and seen nothing to suggest Flor was any threat if she wasn't standing up.

“Come on, sport.” She teased. “I thought you were gonna kick my ass? What happened, Rosa?” he pulled and twisted on whatever limb Flor wasn't defending at the moment, stopping only to jam a hard limb into Rosa's body or taunt and tease the spiteful Texan beneath her.

“Just taking a detour, slut. Don't... get so impatient.” Rosa groaned as Sierra ground her into the canvas.

They spent less than a minute on the ground, their roles of predator and prey reversed, before Rosa Rated R found an escape off her back and onto her knees. She leaned against the cold wall of the MMA cage, rubber coated metal sagging under their combined weight. She finally fought her way free after another scramble, more bruised and tired than she'd been before the trip to the canvas.

And that was the rhythm of their fight: Sierra Echo applying increasingly apparent Judo training in search of a trip or a throw while Rosa Rated R sought to maximize her ratio of 'bruises delivered per second spent standing.' It was gritty. It was hotly contested. It was everything that Beat, Prey, Love's founder didn't want:

A brutal fight between women with genuine animosity.

The only “hot action” came when one girl was at a severe disadvantage: Rosa's sloppy kisses and rough groping came only after a vicious punch left the buxom cheerleader woozy or gasping for air. But Sierra's grappling was equally vicious, spitting out her mouthguard onto a trapped and squirming boxer to suck her neck or lick her chest or grab Rosa's surprisingly bountiful chest and curvy hips with all the tender care of an oversexed freshman boy seeing breasts in person for the first time. By the time five minutes had elapsed, both women were sporting new, colorful bruises and exactly no hickeys or signs of arousal. A mouse under the cadet's eye threatened to swell and the Texan's taught abs sported new, berry colored splotches.

Behind the camera, Kathy wanted to call off the fight and swear at both girls. She wanted to send them home without pay. She wanted them to be sexy and she couldn't figure out why they couldn't just give her what she wanted instead of both being so fucking stubborn about being so fucking tough. The same details that made watching Flor dominate another girl so irresistible made watching her brawl vicious and ugly. Why wasn't Abby stopping them, making them fight the way they were supposed to? Instead her mentor only broke them up when the gasping warriors fought themselves to a stalemate.

For Rosa, the sound of someone grunting when she dug her fist into them reminded her of home. The only thing missing was her father griping at ringside. He'd never supported her dream of professional boxing, not truly, always too enamored with the idea of raising a champion son even if that meant ignoring the most naturally gifted pugilist of all his kids. She might no longer have Olympic aspirations, but that didn't mean that the surly Texan couldn't put her years of training to good use.

A short flurry detonated on Sierra's face and chest and the San Diego native swayed, ready to take her second or third solo trip to the canvas. But Rosa, ever present, caught hold of her skirt as she tumbled back, intending to hold her in place and deliver the fight ending sequence before finally delivering the steamy aftermath her girlfriend wanted so badly. Instead the camouflage cheer skirt partially ripped and its owner landed on her ass near the edge of the cage.

“Fucking bitch!” Sierra screamed, but not fast enough for Rosa to dive at her, tugging at the fraying garment and landing punches to the face and stomach meant to force the grappler to relinquish her now tattered spoils of war. This time, Abby did intervene, and the cute Black girl wearing an oversized striped referee shirt and short shorts reminded both girls that torn or partially removed clothing had to be removed entirely. Sierra protested and only Abby's threat to disqualify her mollified her mini tantrum, one encouraged by Rosa Rated R's taunts from across the cage.

“Keep that skirt nearby, ref! I want a picture of me holding my trophy after I knock this bitch out. I'm gonna put it on my dorm wall like a signed poster.” she announced

Kathy wondered what had pushed the normally surly, taciturn woman into outright antagonism.

Sierra stalked across the cage, bare legged now and wearing only a scandalous black thong alongside her cheerleader top and MMA gloves. Warmth blossomed inside of Kathy as she watched the Marine cadet’s curvy, muscular thighs and bare ass jiggle and tense with each movement.

Rosa interpreted this as the beginning of the end for the disrobed cheerleader. Sierra Echo wanted nothing else than revenge. When the Chicana boxer dashed across the cage looking to write the night's ending, she found a judoka coiled like a spring. She tackled Rosa with a takedown that bore little resemblance to the slick trips and tosses that had marked her earlier moments of the fight. This time the pair collapsed in a messy heap with the half dressed cheerleader nominally on top and aiming punches and knees at Rosa's sports bra or between her legs. When the downed girl twisted and turned, Sierra's target became evident. She grabbed at the Texan's bra and the crop simultaneously, pulling both up and over. When she lost her balance, Rosa bolted to her feet, arms held above her head by half removed clothing.

“My turn, bitch!” Sierra said with venom that would have impressed a rattlesnake. Rosa staggered backwards, trying in vain to quickly discard her top and defend herself, but Sierra took advantage faster than their ref could intervene. She landed her best punches of their bout, driving hard shots into the older student's undefended stomach and chest. “I'm gonna fucking break you. I'm gonna fuck you on camera until-”

“Hey hey, stop!” Abby grabbed at the incensed cheerleader's shoulder and bicep to pull her away. Partially removed clothing had to come off before the fight could resume. A few of the audience laughed at Rosa's predicament, one arm waving helplessly, shirt half over her head, but nothing else about the scene or fight engendered mirth.

“Fuck off, bubblegum bitch.” Sierra snarled. “You let her try to break my face while I was on the ground. Now it's my turn.”

Abby persisted, and the rest occurred in slow motion to the woman behind the camera: her streaming mentor pulling on the taller fighter, Sierra gripping her opponent's top and bra with both hands, and Rosa pulling away towards the wall of the cage.

The shirt ripped, Abby lost her grip and tumbled to the floor, and a newly liberated Rosa Rated R charged straight for her opponent. Sierra met her head on and they collided, then crashed to the floor, flailing and fighting, swapping bottom and top position with reckless abandon, lost to anything besides pure rage.

Kathy had finally seen enough.

The camera caught her entering the cage and alongside a newly upright Abby, pulling on either combatant. A few of the girls caught on that this wasn't part of the plan or the show and helped forcibly separate the incensed brawlers who threw invectives even when they could no longer throw punches.

“You're still a fake Mexican bitch, Miranda! 100 percent puta!” Flor railed as Kathy and Jennifer struggled to keep her from charging across the mats. The lanky, green haired freshman always seemed to be within arm's reach of Kathy.

“I'm gonna make you regret being born you dirty little trash b-” Miranda shouted, only stopping when Whitney physically lifted her off the ground and spun her away.

Kathy looked between the two girls and swore. She wanted to cry, wanted to walk out of the gym and make this someone else's problem. But that would mean giving up, and she wasn't about to let these two egocentric gladiators strangle this new lucrative dream in its infancy. It just wasn't fucking fair; why couldn't they just

“You're crying. Go have your meltdown in the bathroom.” An instruction, not a recommendation. She found Abby staring at her. Kathy knew her mentor was right. The college junior wiped her face and excused herself.

The Digital Arts and Communications double major stared at herself in the mirror. Thank God for (mostly) waterproof makeup. It took 5 minutes to remind herself of everything that had gone right, that the growing pains of a new endeavor were normal. That this, she, was ok.

She wiped her face and put on a smile before she visited Miranda and Flor, each of them sitting in a different locker room or restroom and attempting to cool off from the manic bloodlust of the ruined match.

She'd seen Flor first, though the woman wanted nothing to do with her or anyone as far as she could tell. Kathy still held feelings for the moody slugger but couldn't deny a throbbing frustration with Flor’s actions.

Miranda was easier: Kathy let Whitney and Abby do the talking, only stopping by as a courtesy to ensure no one was seriously hurt.

It took 5 more minutes and another chat with Abigail for Kathy Liu to gather enough composure to address the crowd with some semblance of the bubbly personality that her friends and online followers alike had come to expect from Kelsey Drama. Her voice pierced the awkward silence and milling about that had since subsumed the now preparing to leave fighters and audience members.

“Well... that happened, right?” Kathy forced a laugh and prepared more damage control. “Thanks to all of our competitors tonight, even the two who legit tried to kill each other. But... fuck me, that's my fault, right? I thought you two could like... pull your heads out of your asses and actually like... be cool or whatever.” She clapped her hands together.

“But like I said, welcome to 'Beat, Prey, Love!' We're gonna get wild here, maybe a little too wild sometimes, but even that's ok. No one went to the hospital, we got some awesome, sexy footage, and I at least had a good time. Hell, I know a lot of you did too.” She looked over the group of female college students.

“But I've gotta go home and like... edit this footage, so you should all go home too. We're definitely gonna do this again; I know a few of you didn't get to compete. We'll definitely have to change some things before we do this again, but we're definitely gonna do this again, ladies.” She noticed her own unease when she said 'definitely' for the third time.

“This was the first 'Beat, Prey, Love' event and there's absolutely gonna be a second one, and soon. In the meantime, if you post any photos or pictures, make sure to use the ‘Beat, Prey, Love’ or 'BPL' hashtag, or at least tag me, kay? Now get home safe, pass your classes or whatever, and I'll see you all next time!”

Her mea culpa delivered, Kathy gave a smile and a wave and walked off. If her years as an online streamer had taught her anything, it was that reframing the experience and performing damage control were the most important parts of an apology. She'd established her brand, established expectations, and she knew that the girls would tell their friends about tonight’s events. Abigail met her by the locker where she'd left her stuff and began discussing next steps. When the persistent presence standing too close to her refused to leave, the tall redheaded streamer turned around to find the awkward, too-tall freshman girl with green highlights and persistent 'resting bitch face.'

Jennifer Schweizer was easy to spot and hard to remember.

“What's up Jen? Need something?” Kathy asked.

The nervous freshman bit her lip and paused, “I caught the bus down here but all the buses stop at midnight soooo...” Jennifer asked without actually asking.

Kathy suppressed her agitation and smiled. “Yeah... sure. You can ride back to campus with Abby and me. I can't actually leave yet; I gotta clean up and lock up, or the assholes who own this place will actually never let me film here again.” Kathy sighed. Her swift escape would have to wait.

“Sure! I can... help out or whatever.” Jennifer volunteered.

Kathy nodded, mind racing, already considering what she should have done and would have to do differently next time. She'd need to ensure a better, sexier outcome, or better harness this kind of raw violence in a more lucrative way. All of that would have to wait, but the possibilities were already more exciting than any of her classes.

#Writing #FirstDraft #NSFW #Series #BeatPreyLove #BPL #Fiction #Action #Sex #Fight #MartialArts #MMA

 
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phonyism titlecard

Author’s Note

“Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Jim Steele.” —The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger, 1951

YOU’RE ABOUT TO READ THE MOST BRILLIANT ESSAY on The Catcher in the Rye ever written. I wrote it back in 2005. It was my Loxley University Graduate Thesis. It has been considered by many to be the most comprehensive analysis on the themes, symbols, and philosophical implications of J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye ever written. This is not a brag. Many have said this. I am merely stating the facts.

I am posting the paper here now, in this lowly blog, for pedestrian consumption because the last legally binding contract that had tied my paper to one of a number of academic journals expired this year, in 2025—meaning I can now legally post my brilliant essay unfettered, whereas before I could not. And again, I am not bragging: the word “brilliant” has been used to describe my essay by a number of highly educated individuals, including several well-respected college professors and literary scholars.

Again, these are just the facts.

Ultimately, my hope is that, by sharing this paper with a less-educated audience, it will, on average, raise the intelligence quotient of humanity—even if only by a few decimal points—on account of how brilliant my essay actually is. Make no mistake: it is one thing to have a brilliant essay praised in high academia, but it is another thing entirely for that essay to be consumed and understood by the hoi polloi—so, in this way, I hope to wash the unwashed masses in the figurative waters of the ocean of brilliance that is my Loxley University Graduate Thesis. And yes, I realize that last sentence reads very pompously, but those words—“ocean of brilliance”—are not my words, but the words of a professor who had once published a glowing review of my essay in a literary journal.

Again, I am not bragging. I am merely stating facts. The most important fact being that the paper you’re about to read is, in fact, brilliant.

Before we get into the main body of the paper: some context. Do note that the attention span of the average human being—of which, statistically, you are (average)—is generally around 8.25 seconds. So, in case you forgot: the paper you are about to read was (and is) my Loxley University Graduate Thesis. This means I wrote it when I was very young. In fact, I was in my early twenties, and I wrote the whole thing in approximately ten hours, merely a day before it was due. That was because I was quite the wild child back then, and I had gotten completely carried away reading War and Peace (for the fourth time that year). When I finally snapped out of my Tolstoy-induced reverie—to my younger and far less educated self’s surprise—weeks had passed, and my thesis was due the next day. So, with last-minute verve and gusto, I sat my young self down at my writing desk, in front of my old Royal Quiet De Luxe—Hemingway’s preferred typewriter (in case you didn’t know)—and started typing up a small storm. And thus, after ten hours, the brilliant paper you are now about to read was complete, all without proofreading.

When I presented this paper to my professor at the time—a Dr. Thornton Daniels (who had a PhD in Philosophy and was actually quite intelligent, although not as intelligent as myself, if documented IQ tests are anything to go by)—he insisted that my paper was brilliant, from both a literary-critique perspective and a philosophical perspective, and that it had to be shared with the broader literary world as soon as possible. I recall him saying, verbatim, “In my thirty years of teaching, out of all my students’ thesis papers, I have never read something quite like this, which has really made me think in brand-new ways that I had not previously thought possible,” and he even sent my paper off to one of his old friends—a Dr. Garrison—who just so happened to be one of the most well-respected J.D. Salinger scholars in the nation, who quickly wrote back, saying, quote, “This analysis of the themes, symbols, and philosophical implications of The Catcher in the Rye could have only been produced by a new type of human, one with a mind whose cognitive abilities far exceed all previously established parameters of contemporary human thought.” He too echoed Dr. Daniels’ sentiments, suggesting that I publish the paper immediately, as anything less would be a crime against humanity—and thus, so as not to deprive the world of my brilliance, I immediately sent my graduate thesis off to a number of academic journals.

At the time, I did not expect any of those journals to actually take my paper seriously because, as you might imagine from my very modest retelling of events here, I had never considered myself anything more than the average college student who had simply rushed to finish a thesis paper after many hardcore nights of Tolstoying. In fact, I was quite humble back then (and still am, if you could not tell). So again, as you might imagine, I was completely surprised when, upon sending my paper off for publication, I was, within days, overwhelmed with lucrative publication offers—many of which were legally binding—from several highly respected academic journals, including (but not limited to): Notes & Errata, The Studious Reader, Compound Nouns, The Paris Critique, Page Turners, The North Atlantic, Meanings in the Margins, The Existentialist Review, and, of course, the peer-reviewed Loxley Journal of Very Important Words. It was even translated and published in several French journals, which prompted much French fan mail to be sent my way, all of which I replied to in French, as I am something of a hyperpolyglot, and I can do advanced calculus in my head, and I have near-perfect recall—although I do not like to brag.

Again, I am merely stating the facts.

That is how my graduate thesis on the themes, symbols, and philosophical implications of The Catcher in the Rye came to be—and also why it took twenty years to publish the paper online, for free, on this lowly blog, which targets an audience of uneducated laymen, of which you, statistically, are one; although, after reading my brilliant graduate thesis, you may not be. In fact, after reading my Loxley University Graduate Thesis—which I wrote in just ten hours without proofreading (in case you forgot)—I guarantee that you will be a changed person; you will be smarter, wiser, and more aware than you once were.

And, of course, there is no need to thank me—but you are welcome.

Now, without further ado…

1, This Essay is Phony

“It's partly true, too, but it isn't all true. People always think something's all true.” —The Catcher in the Rye

IF IT WASN’T OBVIOUS ENOUGH, that entire “Author’s Note” up there is total bullshit—that’s right, I made it all up. I’m a massive goddamn phony.

Now you might be thinking, “Would a phony really just admit to being a phony like that?” And the answer is most assuredly YES. Because, in the phony’s mind, there are all sorts of games and tricks formulating at all times, like a football coach obsessing over his playbook, trying to figure out which bullshit plays work best, all to obfuscate the fact that they’re a goddamn phony—“Well, if I admit to being a phony now, then they’ll think I’m actually a genuine person, which makes it harder for them to figure out all the ways I’m actually a phony, which makes it easier for me to trick them into believing I’m not being phony later on”—or something like that. In truth, the whole point of the “Author’s Note” up there and my subsequent admittance of it being bullshit was purposely designed to lull you into believing that I’m actually the opposite of someone who would write something like that, that I’m actually a down-to-earth humble dude, which will make it easier for me to manipulate you, the reader, into accepting some of the seriously bold claims I’m about to make with the remainder of this essay. Or maybe not. Maybe I’m making all this up. Who actually knows?

By this point, you’re probably confused, and you’re probably also wondering something like, “Isn’t this essay supposed to be about The Catcher in the Rye?” And, technically, yes, it is, but also not really.

Before sitting down to write this essay, I considered doing something like a book report, covering the narrative and themes of the novel; like, how it’s essentially an unreliable first-person narrative, a bildungsroman (or: a coming-of-age story) told from the perspective of one Holden Caulfield—a judgmental, contrary young man from a wealthy family, addicted to cigarettes, who hates phonies, who, before the events of the novel, had already flunked out of three high schools. And how we, the readers, tag along as Holden aimlessly wanders 1950s New York, looking for ducks, soliciting prostitutes, lying his way into seedy bars, getting publicly shit-faced, and doing many other young-and-dumb things, all told in a humorous yet deeply introspective-for-a-sixteen-year-old-kid kind of way; and also how we, the readers, follow along as Holden grows, both emotionally and existentially, from an angsty teen to a slightly less angsty teen; and how the novel deftly weaves the symbols of Holden’s red hunting hat and ducks and museums and his dead brother’s baseball glove and the merry-go-round (pictured on the front of the novel, in case you were wondering what that was), all to color Holden’s struggle coming to terms with growing up in a world he perceives as phony bullshit. But I decided not to write about any of that, because all that stuff up there has been covered many times before, by many people, all of whom probably have far better reading comprehension and compositional skills than I do.

So, if that’s why you’re here, to read a book report on The Catcher in the Rye, well, unfortunately, you’re not going to find it here, because this essay is not an analysis of The Catcher in the Rye at all—despite the fact that I read the novel like three times front-to-back in the two months leading up to this, and it might even be my favorite book, ever. Yet, despite all that, I’m still not sure I really understand the novel in full. Because, despite it being only 234 pages, give or take, it’s actually incredibly dense in meaning, much of which might even be completely up to reader interpretation. So, it follows that another reason this is not an analysis of The Catcher in the Rye is that I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to be writing one to begin with. Instead, I think you should just read the novel yourself, do your own analysis, because the meaning of The Catcher in the Rye will always be unique to you, and it will change depending on where you’re at in life when reading it, which is part of what makes the book so special.

With that being said, instead of writing an analysis of The Catcher in the Rye, I decided to write an essay about being a goddamn phony. And I figured what I’d do was, I’d use the backdrop of The Catcher in the Rye, and Holden’s character, as a springboard for that—and I’d call the thing Phonyism. And that’s what you’re reading right now.

So, of course, my hope was that, upon reading that fake “Author’s Note” up there, you’d come away thinking I’m a goddamn phony on some level. But that’s only the beginning. I’m going to take it even further: What if I told you that you, too, are a goddamn phony? And then, what if I told you that, actually, everyone’s a goddamn phony?

I know what you’re thinking: “Wow, those are some seriously presumptuous claims; this guy’s a know-it-all and an asshole.” And that’s fine that you think that, for now, because that’s kind of the whole point of this essay: to prove that every single one of us is a poser, fraud, charlatan, impostor, or mime of some sort, kabuki through and through. It’s all Phonyism, all the way down, and I’m going to prove it. And you know what? Phonyism’s not always a bad thing. In fact, in some cases, it’s actually preferable to be a phony.

So, with the rest of this essay, I’m going to convince you that I am, in fact, a phony. And then I’m going to convince you that you are, in fact, a phony, too. And then I’m going to convince you that, in many cases, it’s actually a good thing to be a phony.

And, to that end, there’s no better place to start than with Holden Caulfield himself.

2, Holden is Phony

“I'm the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It's awful. If I'm on my way to the store to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where I'm going, I'm liable to say I'm going to the opera. It's terrible.” —The Catcher in the Rye

NO ONE KNOWS PHONIES BETTER THAN HOLDEN CAULFIELD. And, just like me, Holden, too, believes that everyone is a goddamn phony—only, unlike me, he hates phonies more than anything else in the whole goddamn world.

Holden even hates his own brother, D.B., a writer who—in Holden’s mind—became a “prostitute” when he started working in Hollywood. And he also hates movies in general, because they are phony imitations of real life. And he especially hates the actors and actresses in those movies, whom he perceives to be the biggest phonies of all, always pretending to be someone they are not, rehearsing their phony lines while making their phony poses in the mirror. And he hates people who flatter others to get what they want, which is something his school dormmate Stradlater does all the time. And he hates people who say “good luck” when you’re walking away to do something, because what do they care? And he hates school, especially Pencey Prep, with its phony slogan about turning students into “splendid, clear-thinking young men,” because in Holden’s estimation there’s not even one clear-thinking young man there. And he hates the phony headmasters, like Mr. Haas, who give special treatment to wealthy parents and their kids, because they care more about money and reputation than education. And he hates people who think that good writing is all about “putting the commas in the right place.” And he really hates pianists who put all these dumb, show-offy ripples in the high notes, and he especially hates when they do those phony bows after performances, and when people applaud. And he hates people who describe things as “grand,” because there is never anything “grand” about it. And he hates people who laugh at their own jokes, because who do they think they’re fooling? And he hates those Ivy League guys who all look and talk the same. And he hates phony white dudes who are into Eastern philosophy and only date Asian women, yet go to Columbia and live in high-rise apartments. And he hates people who say stuff like, “How marvelous it is to see you,” when they know damn well there’s nothing marvelous about it. And he hates preachers who give sermons in phony “Holy Joe” voices instead of their real voices. Hell, he even hates his own on-again-off-again girlfriend, Sally Hayes, who may look pretty and act polite but is actually a shallow narcissist only interested in her own reputation. And he really hates balding dudes who comb what little hair they have over the top of their head to hide their bald spots. And he especially hates guys who do a lot of show-off tricky stuff on the dance floor—and that last one is really important, because Holden himself likes to dance a whole hell of a lot. He especially likes to tap dance and do the jitterbug.

In fact, the only thing Holden likes more than dancing is his ten-year-old sister, Phoebe, even though she’s quite snotty, which is actually one of the reasons he likes her so much—because at least she’s honest, whereas most adults are snotty but try to hide it behind polite Phonyism, which Holden can’t stand. In fact, Phoebe is one of the few people in the novel whom Holden does not describe as phony in some way. The other non-phony, according to Holden, is some kid named James Castle, who once said some mean things about a group of bullies at school but wouldn’t “take it back,” which ended up with Castle falling out of a top-floor window, resulting in his death; meaning, Castle died due to his utter commitment to being honest. So, it goes without saying that Holden admires those who are true to themselves, both inwardly and outwardly, regardless of the consequences, even when that consequence is death.

But the problem with all this is, Holden Caulfield has a blind spot: out of all the phonies in the novel, he’s the biggest phony of them all. That’s right: Holden Caulfield is a big goddamn phony.

Holden’s own Phonyism is apparent from the first few chapters, wherein he’s pretty much just lying his ass off to everyone all the time. At one point, he even admits that, once he gets started lying, he can go on for hours: “No kidding. Hours.” For example, while riding on a train, he ends up sitting next to the mother of one of his classmates, introduces himself as “Rudolf Schmidt,” and then starts telling the mother lie after lie about her son, building him up as a super nice kid who wouldn’t run for class president on account of how modest he was, when in reality, the kid was a terror to everyone around him, and he kept going like this because he enjoyed watching the mother’s reaction. Later, he tells a group of girls that his name is “Jim Steele,” and even later gives a prostitute that same phony name while also claiming to be twenty-two years old. Then, when he was in the hotel room with that same prostitute, he made up a phony story about how he had an operation the night before so he wouldn’t have to sleep with her. Holden also exaggerates constantly about everything; anytime he references someone’s age or the number of times a person did something, he always doubles or triples the number—the person was always “about a hundred years old” and they always did something “about a thousand times.” Holden is also incredibly sarcastic, constantly giving people compliments when, internally, he’s rolling his eyes and thinking about all the ways they’re phony. He changes his behavior depending on his audience—like, in one example, when he’s riding in a cab, he starts saying all this “corny” stuff to the cab driver, then justifies it by saying, “When I’m around somebody that’s corny, I always act corny too.” And he self-admittedly “drops hints” instead of actually speaking his mind, to prevent hurting people’s feelings or to prevent violent altercations. And he’s always telling people phony stuff like “I’m glad to have met you,” when he’s not glad to have met them at all, and then he turns around and criticizes people for doing the exact same thing. And he looks down on people who engage in sexual acts with those they aren’t in love with, yet he admits he’s “probably the biggest sex maniac you ever saw,” and he can’t even live up to his own standards because he still “horses” around with girls he doesn’t truly like; for instance, right after swearing he wouldn’t fool around, he turned around the very same day and did exactly that with a girl he described as a “terrible phony” named Anne Louise Sherman; meaning, he can’t even keep the promises he makes to himself. And, of course, the biggest lie of all—the pivotal lie of the novel—is that he doesn’t tell his parents he’s flunked out of Pencey Prep and instead goes wandering around New York for three days, fantasizing about running away and pretending to be a deaf-mute so that he never has to face any consequences, which is sad, really, because Holden could do well in school if he actually applied himself—he’s incredibly intelligent—which is yet another thing he lies to himself about, constantly insisting that he’s “dumb as hell,” when in reality, he’s way brighter than most of his classmates, as evidenced by the fact that they’re always asking him to write their essays. And on top of all that, Holden admits he’s “yellow”—too scared to stand up for himself—even when someone has wronged him; at one point, he imagines what he’d do if someone stole something from him, and he admits that even though he would want to punch the thief in the face, he knows he wouldn’t go through with it, so instead, he just stands in front of the mirror, striking tough-guy poses and reciting phony lines from the movies, just like one of those actors he thinks are so phony.

So, yeah, Holden is the biggest phony in the book.

By this point, you’re probably sitting there thinking, “I thought this wasn’t supposed to be an analysis of The Catcher in the Rye?” And you’d be right about that. I’m sorry for going on a 1348-word tangent up there, but there’s a point to this whole thing, and the point is:

Holden and I are pretty much the same person.

We’re both phony as hell.

3, I’m Phony

“I thought what I’d do was, I’d pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes.” —The Catcher in the Rye

MY DEFAULT IS PRETTY MUCH “FUCK YOU” but I’m all smiles and how-do-you do’s—just like Holden Caulfield. And, just like Holden, I chain smoke like a fiend, or at least I did. And, just like Holden, when I’m all alone, I talk to myself in the mirror and make dramatic poses. And I failed all my high school classes, except for English Literature, just like Holden. And I exaggerate all the time, especially with personal stories and numbers, just like Holden. And I even flunked out of a private school and eventually dropped out of public school on account of a total lack of motivation and a frankly unwarranted contempt of all institutions, which really just stemmed from the fact that I’m a big contrarian, just like Holden. And I could keep going, but I think you get the point.

And no, I’m not typing all this up just to subtly make myself seem cool by attaching myself to a highly popular literary figure—because I actually don’t think Holden Caulfield is all that cool to begin with. Maybe, if I had read the book back in high school, I might have thought he was cool back then, but nowadays, in my thirties, he mostly just comes off as incredibly immature, and that’s probably because I see myself in him, because back when I was a kid, I was immature as hell, way more immature than the average teenager, in fact. And since it takes one to know one—so, I feel like I know Holden Caulfield.

Back when I was a kid, I was wealthy, just like Holden. Well, I wasn’t personally wealthy, but my stepfather was; he owned three mansions, all of which he had custom-built, on a gated private island resort. But, just like Holden, I could never get into the whole wealthy-lifestyle thing. I always felt out of place and weird, like an outsider. Everything felt phony. Maybe this was simply due to my latent contrarianism, or some undiagnosed depression, or something. I don’t know. I don’t mean to analyze it too much here, only to give you some background, to color the story I’m about to tell you. Anyway. I remember I was always hanging out up in my big mansion room, alone, playing video games, reading science fiction, writing whiny blog entries for my LiveJournal, and listening to music that came out way before I was even born. I didn’t really do much else back then. My real friends were hundreds of miles away, and I barely knew any other kids, because there were barely any other kids on that private island. And the kids who were there weren’t like me at all—not to say that I was better than them in any way, although I might have thought that back then—they just weren’t like me: different interests, different priorities. They were OK with the whole yachting scene, the whole ballroom culture. They were OK with polo shirts and khakis, I wasn’t. I was into quote-unquote “punk” rock and goth stuff; the whole early-2000s-corporate-counterculture thing, itself very phony, thinking about it in hindsight, with its $200 pairs of ripped jeans and Nirvana T-shirts purchased through huge retail chains. I wanted people to think I had a tough life, like I wasn’t some sort of super privileged white kid, all while obviously being a super privileged white kid, especially considering how pale I was.

I thought that I was the only unique person in the whole world, that everyone else was just a big godman phony conformist.

So, at school, which was on a different island nearby, I aligned myself with people who were like me. There was this one older boy I thought was pretty cool—I think his name was Andrew—and at one point, I wanted to be just like him. He was a punky kid with a buzz cut, wore Minor Threat and Fugazi shirts, and was one of those straight edge kids—no drugs, no sex, a vegan—for ethical reasons, or so he claimed. He was, in general, just a smart kid, like a teenage punk rock philosopher, always saying some pretty high-minded smart stuff for his age. I wanted so much for Andrew to like me that I once told him I was straight edge too, which was an easy claim to make, considering I was thirteen, with little access to drugs or alcohol, and more interested in video games and music anyway. And I also told him I was a vegan, which was a huge phony lie. And to convince him of all this, I drew the big X’s on my hands, which was a straight-edge thing inspired by the X’s bouncers used to draw on minors’ hands at punk shows to keep bartenders from serving them alcohol. Anyway. I drew those X’s on my hands just to signal to Andrew that I was, in fact, a straight-edge, vegan punk, just like him.

All of this is to say that, for a moment there, when I was thirteen, I tried really hard to be something I wasn’t, mostly just to impress this one guy who, honestly, I barely knew, aside from talking to him a few times while walking the halls between classes.

One day I was hanging out down by the pier with a couple of other kids, surrounded by that pungent fishy smell and those dirty fishermen who lined the massive boardwalk, and we were watching waves go up and down, trying to spot dolphins, and suddenly here comes Andrew, walking up from behind us with a simple “Hey.” And I got that whole electric feeling you get when someone you really like shows up out of the blue—like the feeling of anticipation being fulfilled and the lingering static afterward, or butterflies waging full-scale war inside your stomach, or something. So Andrew and I started talking, and I again told him that I was indeed a vegan, just like him, and I had those big phony X’s on my hands, and he was really buying my whole phony act. Then one of the other kids suggested that we walk to the gas station to grab some snacks and a couple of sodas, to which Andrew said, “I don’t drink caffeine,” and naturally I said the same, but we agreed to go to the gas station anyway because it was midday and hot as hell outside and we were all quite thirsty, so off we went to the old Parker’s.

We walked a couple of blocks, strode past a few of those “I’m on Island Time” souvenir shops, walked by the old candy and ice cream place, and crossed the street by Palm Coast Coffee to get to the old Parker’s gas station, and there we spent a few minutes picking out our drinks and snacks. I remember Andrew got himself a water and a bag of pretzels. And I remember that I really wanted a Mountain Dew—something I normally drank at home—but, on account of wanting to maintain the whole phony “I’m straight edge too!” thing, I forced myself to grab a bottle of water instead, and then I grabbed a bag of Trolli Sour Brite Crawlers, and then I checked out.

With our snacks in hand, we left the old Parker’s and sat down on a nearby bench, me sitting right next to Andrew, who was sipping water between handfuls of pretzels. At which time I pulled out my water, twisted the cap, and took a sip. Then I pulled out my gummy crawlers, tore the bag open, removed one of those little worms, and dropped it right into my mouth, smacking and chomping quite loudly while doing so—all while Andrew was kind of glaring at me with one eyebrow raised, which, at the moment, kind of confused me, but I pretended to ignore him, instead just shoving more gummy worms into my mouth, followed by more smacking and chomping. But after a minute or two, I noticed Andrew had stopped eating his pretzels and was pretty much just staring at me, and that’s when I started to feel kind of strange, so I said something like, “What? What is it?” And after a long pause, during which I ate a few more gummy worms, still smacking and chomping like crazy, spit and gummy particles probably flying everywhere, Andrew finally said: “You know those have gelatin in them, right?” And I responded with something like, “What do you mean? Gelatin? What’s that?” I was a pretty dumb kid. And he said, bluntly, and with something like contempt in his voice: “It’s made of animal bones.”

At which point, my bag of gummy worms and my stomach both dropped—the former to the ground, the latter to whichever pit in hell is full of all the terrible phonies forced to relive their most embarrassing phony moments over and over again. Then, my mouth still full of animal bones, I said something like, “I didn’t know, I promise, I had no idea, really, I swear.” To which Andrew just let out a little grunt, turned away from me, and then started talking to one of the other kids. Needless to say, after that day, Andrew never spoke to me again, and I learned a valuable lesson about Phonyism.

Or, at least, I thought I did.

The truth is, I haven’t changed much since then. Shortly after that whole Andrew thing, I started smoking cigarettes like a fiend, and I started experimenting with drugs, and I flunked out of high school on account of skipping class all the time. I fell deep into an anti-consumer, anti-capitalist, hippie-adjacent mindset, thinking that everything money touched basically turned to shit, all while being a super privileged white kid. I was still very similar to Holden Caulfield—just high on weed, amphetamines, and Marxism. I became one of those fashion-statement Marxists who are wealthy but do absolutely nothing to further the cause, who instead just spend their time complaining about how the system sucks while doing nothing to change it, thereby unleashing more and more negativity into the world, all while being strung out on drugs and playing video games, and I was doing this all from the comfort of my own lavish mansion, paid for in full by my wealthy stepfather, who, to this day, I have no idea how he made his money—on account of him being kinda shady about the whole thing—but I do know he was very much a Republican, while I was very much a Democrat who leeched off him quite substantially, at one point even racking up a $1,000 iTunes bill on his credit card, which he initially tried to ground me for but eventually agreed to make it my Christmas present, which just further illustrates how super privileged and white I was (and still am).

Eventually, at the age of 18, I decided enough was enough and did the most non-phony thing I had ever done in my life: I voluntarily moved out of my stepdad’s big-ass mansion. I could have stayed there, living the easy life, but the cognitive dissonance caused by being a mansion-dwelling Marxist just became too much. So I decided that I had to go out on my own and make it in the world all by myself. So, with the help of my mom, I got an apartment with some friends. But only about a month passed before I had to start begging mom for rent money because, as it turns out, I was totally unprepared to live on my own. So, once again, I slipped into the kabuki theater of being a pro-Marxist living off the wealth of my parents.

Eventually, however, after several months of mooching, I got a job in a call center and started paying my own rent. And I stayed with that call center for about ten years, moving up very little, just kind of coasting, sustaining myself so that I could play video games on my off hours or whatever, and that was my life for a long time. I was still of the anti-corporate, anti-money, anti-consumer mindset, yet all my hobbies, namely video games, were consumerist as hell, and I was still sustaining myself with corporate money. So basically, when I think about it real hard, from childhood to adulthood, nothing really changed: I just traded in my parents for chief executive officers. And so, I benefit from the systems I claim to be against, all while weakly biting the hand that feeds, pretending that makes it OK somehow.

I’m realizing now that my youthful desire for financial independence, away from the pocketbooks of my parents, only put me on a path further into the bad kind of Phonyism, because eventually, after a decade—and after getting married and having two kids—it led to me getting a job at a software company, and that job eventually morphed into a sales position, and that sales position eventually morphed into a management position, and now, as of writing this, I’m corporate. I’m corporate as hell. I am the very thing I claim to hate: corporate. It has all led to this. This is where my lifelong lazy-ass, drug-addled, gaming-addicted, cigarette-smoking, hyper-contrarian attitude has landed me: managing a fucking sales team in a corporate software company.

I cannot stress this enough: I NEVER WANTED TO BE CORPORATE. I wanted to be an artist. I wanted to play an instrument. I was in a band in high school, for god’s sake. I wanted to paint. I wanted to be a painter. I wanted to write novels. I wanted to be America’s next great novelist. In fact, one of the main reasons I’m writing this essay is to low-key convince both myself and some non-existent audience that I am, in fact, a genius writer, just like the author of the “Author’s Note” up there. So, please believe me when I say that I NEVER WANTED TO BE CORPORATE. In fact, corporate is pretty much the antithesis of everything I stand for.

And before you start thinking, “Well, you gotta do what you gotta do to get by in this world, blah blah blah,” STOP. Just stop. I could have said NO at any step in the corporate process. I could have quit my job and worked at a farm or traveled the world pretending I was a deaf-mute or joined a Buddhist monastery or something; but NO, instead, I actively pursued a corporate job in the software industry. I climbed the corporate ladder. I really did. I sent the emails. I made the slide decks. I did the interviews. I presented to clients. I did the on-site visits. The Zoom calls. I spoke at the conferences. I did it all. The whole corporate nine yards, all of it. I did it all. And the kicker is, while doing all that cringe corporate crap, I knew: I knew I wasn’t being true to myself, but I kept doing it, I kept climbing the corporate ladder, and I’m still climbing that ladder, even to this day.

I could say that I do it to support my family, or because I have no other options, or whatever—but, at the end of the day, those are all just excuses, because, no matter what I say, I’m still an anti-corporate corporate goon. I’m basically a Marxist, in sales.

So, remember when I said, in the first chapter, that I was going to convince you that I’m a big goddamn phony?

Well, there you go.

4, Everyone is Phony

“If you sat around there long enough and heard all the phonies applauding and all, you got to hate everybody in the world, I swear you did.” —The Catcher in the Rye

IT’S NOT JUST ME, I see it everywhere: the Phonyism. And I’m not just saying that to excuse my own Phonyism. I’m saying it because it’s obvious. It’s very very obvious. Everyone and everything is phony.

From all the corporate phonies, like myself, who claim to be artists or writers or whatever, but work unfulfilling corporate jobs that ultimately contribute nothing to society; to those of us who make small talk with people we barely even like; to all the Instagram filters we use to make ourselves look pretty; and the cashiers at restaurants who say “my pleasure” after literally every sentence; and the guys who grow their beards because they’re self-conscious about their jawlines but will never admit to it; and the girls who wear pounds of makeup because they think they’re ugly without it due to some arbitrary standards reinforced by decades of toxic television and movies; to the corporate retail chains that sell t-shirts with anarchy symbols on them; and especially the creeps on LinkedIn with nonsense job titles like “Brand Evangelist” or “Culture Architect” that post AI-generated images of themselves as action figures and have thousands of followers somehow; and the television shows like South Park that mock corporate greed yet air on corporate networks, therefore only existing because of the very same corporate greed they mock, thus profiting from the very thing they claim to be against; to clothing, in general, because we’re all ashamed of our bodies for some reason; and those of us who excessively lift weights to satisfy some socially constructed bullshit standard of what we should look like but pretend it’s “for our health” or whatever; and “The Communist Manifesto, Free With Spotify Premium”; and, of course, those of us who have ever wanted to punch someone in the face because they were saying some real stupid shit, yet refrained from doing so to avoid causing a scene or going to jail or whatever; to every goddamn insurance company that finds some ridiculous loophole allowing them to refuse coverage, because they care more about their own bottom line than human lives, which is the exactly the opposite of what their phony “Mission Statement” states on their website; and politicians (I shouldn’t have to explain this one); and all the AI-generated slop found all over social media; and all the animal lovers working at shelters that have to turn down all the big dogs because big dogs don’t get adopted as quickly as small dogs and the boss wants those dogs out of there as fast as possible to keep racking up those adoption fees; and all of us who applaud real loud at the end of every performance, even if it was a total bore; and book publishers who publish both The Bible and Fifty Shades of Grey without a second thought, because money trumps principles; and all the reluctant coders working at Google or whatever who are encouraged by corporate to use AI to write code, thereby kind of facilitating their own unemployment in a roundabout way; and that one episode of Black Mirror that warns of the dangers of subscription-based services, yet the show itself can only be watched on Netflix, which is a subscription-based service itself; and all those customer service people who say stuff like “your call is very important to us” and “we value your feedback” and “I totally understand your frustration” because they don’t want to get low scores on their calls and thus not get a raise that year; and those of us who say “sorry” all the time for literally everything, even when it’s not our fault and we’re not sorry at all; and those of us who always say “good” or “can’t complain” when someone asks us how our day is going; and, of course, all those people who even ask us how our day is going to begin with, like they actually give a damn; and those lawyers who save guys’ lives but only do it because they want to be patted on the back at the end of the trial and told how good of a lawyer they are; and big shots who donate a lot of money to some charity, but only do it so that everyone knows they did it; and those charity workers who do it less because they genuinely care about helping people and more because it makes them feel morally superior or less guilty or personally fulfilled or whatever; and those of us who only say “I love you” when we’re leaving, like at the end of a phone call or something; and all these people who try so hard to appear “normal,” but they’re fucking freaks underneath the facade; and all these people who cry their goddamn eyes out at the movies, but nine times out of ten, they’re mean bastards at heart; and, of course, the movies themselves, because even the most realistic ones are never an accurate representation of life; and all of us who share news headlines pretending that we actually read the whole article but didn’t even click the damn thing; and those of us who offer help just to appear generous, hoping that the people we’re offering help to don’t actually take us up on it; and those of us who go to family gatherings or parties or whatever but don’t actually want to be there; and all those well-off hipsters with top knots who pretend to be Buddhists or whatever yet have book collections and watch Breaking Bad and eat at McDonald’s three times a week; and all the parents who tell their children that Santa Claus is real and that peeing in the pool turns the water red and that the family dog didn’t die it just went to live on Grandpa’s farm or whatever.

I could keep going, but I think you get the point.

What I’m trying to say is, everyone is a little bit phony. And those who think they're not, well they might just be the most phony of us all, maybe even phonier than Holden Caulfield.

And if Holden is right about one thing, he’s right about this: modern life is phony, and it makes us do all sorts of phony things as a result. Not only is modern life phony, but human life has always been phony, across all time periods—or, at least, since we crawled out of the caves and started making huts or whatever. Phonyism is intrinsic to humanity, because with great intelligence comes great capacity to lie, especially to ourselves, and we use this great power to cope with the heinous world we live in. Phonyism has been ingrained in us all since the beginning of human civilization, and we have become dependent on it to survive, so now it’s the only way we can reach any semblance of homeostasis. And this Phonyism continues to spread unchecked to this very day because of three main reasons:

The first reason is that resources on this planet are limited, so civilizations always end up using some sort of barter system, which ends up like something resembling capitalism. And these barter systems, by their very nature, encourage collection and competition, which encourage greed and fraud, which encourage lies and deceit. And these barter systems cannot exist in a vacuum, meaning everyone nearby has to participate, otherwise they get screwed over—which means that, to participate in civilization, we must worship the almighty dollar, in some way or other, regardless of whether we really want to or not.

Take, for example, South Park, a television show that frequently criticizes corporatism but could not exist without that very same corporate structure it criticizes, because it takes resources to write, draw, and animate a television show—resources that the average everyday person just does not have, but corporations do. So, even if the writers of the show have anti-corporate inclinations, they still have to participate in some corporate system to even get the show created, thus compromising their principles, thus Phonyism.

But consider: even if that is the case, does that mean South Park—(or whatever show, South Park is just an example)—should not exist at all? Does compromising one’s principles, even just a little bit, mean one should forsake their goals entirely? One might argue that, even though principles were compromised in making of South Park, we would never have any television shows at all if principles could never be compromised to begin with, and since we like television shows, then maybe we should allow for some level of compromised principles. If we grant credence to that hypothetical argument, then we have to grant that Phonyism can sometimes produce good outcomes—like South Park, or Daria, or whatever.

But not only that—on the flip side of this—take, for example, a lawyer who only does the job because they want to make a lot of money, but they end up saving hundreds of lives in the process. Is the end result somehow tarnished by the fact that the lawyer’s motivations were less than pure? In this case, do the positive ends justify the phony means?

Regardless of whatever views you have on consequentialism, what I’m trying to drive at is: money makes people phony; just look around at all the people working these unfulfilling jobs. Do you think anyone really wants to work at McDonald’s? Or Walmart? Or even for a software company, taking customer support calls, making sales, doing project management, or whatever? When you look at the guy trying to sell you a cell phone from his little booth in the mall, do you really think that guy enjoys his job? Do you really think he wants to be there, hawking cell phones at you? Do you really think he wakes up in the mornings, smile on his face, all ready to shout at people in the mall about how his phones are cheaper than anywhere else and how he can throw in a free rhinestone case if you buy right now? No, of course not. He’s just trying to survive in a world that’s phony as hell, just like the rest of us. And the profession doesn’t matter; you could swap out the cell phone guy with literally anyone else. Even someone “doing their dream job,” like a musician or a teacher or something, surely dislikes certain aspects of the job but does them anyway—thus, Phonyism. For the musician, it might be having to sacrifice some artistic control because of record company contracts; or, for the teacher, they might have to pass some kids that really shouldn’t pass so that they (the teacher) keep their quota up or something, or they might not teach specific courses because of local government mandates, or they might have to avoid teaching certain books they really love because those books are banned. (Note: The Catcher in the Rye was once on several “banned books” lists across the United States). And regardless of whether it is a dream job or not, there is always one particular goal that everyone seems to be striving for—one that highlights the true Phonyism underlying all human professions—and that goal is: Retirement.

Everyone, no matter what profession, wants to comfortably retire, which is tacit admittance that none of us really want to participate in this money-obsessed system we find ourselves in. Considering this, it seems to me that, if we had our way, we’d all be playing games, hanging out with friends, going fishing, knitting, reading books, writing, or whatever, forever. It seems to me that we all want a peaceful, quiet life, doing the things we actually like doing, surrounded by friends and family, and everything up to that point is just a phony means to an end. And maybe that’s OK. Maybe that’s the way it has to be. I mean, things have to get done, it’s just unfortunate that things have to get done like this, it really is.

The second reason Phonyism persists is because we humans are herd animals, first and foremost. We are social creatures. We desire companionship, affection, and acceptance from those around us, and we go to great lengths to acquire these things, and many of those “great lengths” are quite phony indeed—like someone wearing the latest expensive designer outfit to signal to some high-class social group, or a dude watching the latest streaming show so they don’t feel left out because all their friends are talking about it, or those “nonconformists” who wear all the crazy goth clothes with the belts that they bought from some corporate chain because “fuck the system” and “I don’t care what other people think,” or those people who go to the coffee shops with their coolest band T-shirt and their laptop and just sit around pretending to be busy on their computers but really are just looking for people to talk to, or those people in any of the countless echo chambers online like Reddit or whatever that pretty much ostracize anyone with an opinion that doesn’t conform to whatever the current hivemind opinion is, or religious people who gather every week to worship and gossip about how Cindy’s daughter has turned into one of those godless heathen goth girls, or anyone who goes to a singles hook-up night at the local bar or whatever, or those online communities in which people just post pictures of birds and exclusively follow other people who just post pictures of birds, or thirteen-year-old me pretending to be vegan to fit in with the post-hardcore vegan kids, and the list could go on forever, really.

What I’m trying to say is, even those of us who think we don’t do this whole phony song and dance, do. We’re all performative, on some level. And there’s nothing inherently wrong with that. We all want to be accepted, somewhere. We all want to belong. This is Phonyism. And again, there’s nothing wrong with that, by itself.

From pep rallies to poetry readings, we’re all a little bit phony. And that’s fine, for the most part, but it can go too far in some cases, especially when people try so hard to fit in that they hide their true selves completely. Take, for instance, all these people who dress and act totally normal, as if they’re trying to look like the most generic person on the planet—usually to avoid some perceived ostracization in the form of other people thinking they’re “weird”—so they wear the polos and the khakis and put the MUDLIFE stickers on their trucks and act like they’re just another good ol’ country boy from the South or whatever; but really, when you get to know them, you find out they have a bobblehead shrine in their basement with over 600 bobbleheads and they can blow the sickest spit bubbles you’ve ever seen and they play the violin.

What I mean by that is, even the most mundane, generic people you can think of are unique in some way, but you might never know it unless you met them one-on-one. In fact, to tell you the truth, thinking back, I have never met a single normal goddamn person in my whole entire goddamn life. And it usually tracks that the more normal a person seems at first, the more strange they actually are, because once you get to know them, even a little bit, you find out they’re fantastic whistlers or a collector of fountain pens or a connoisseur of fine wines or they use Pokemon cards as bookmarks for classic literature or they’re trying to build a bomb shelter in their backyard or they’ve written three erotic novels or they exclusively listen to music on cassette or they collect their own pee in glass bottles for some reason or something. Everyone’s a freak underneath the facade—and that’s fantastic.

People are phony to fit in, and there are different degrees of this: sometimes it’s fine, other times it’s not; and when it’s not, it can be kind of depressing, because, ideally, a person should lean into their weirdness—signal to the weird social group that aligns with their weird behavior—instead of being ashamed and going to such phony lengths to hide it. But sometimes that’s just the way it goes with Phonyism. There’s always some good with the bad, or vice versa. Yin-yang, wabi-sabi, Phonyism.

The third reason Phonyism is so ingrained in us is that, in our intellectual pursuit to rise above the violence of the animal kingdom, we have taken certain steps to suppress our default monkey-brain impulses, and we call this suppression “being polite.”

We all have dark impulses, aggressive tendencies, that voice inside our heads that talks bad about everyone else—the default FUCK YOU attitude—but we like to pretend that we don’t have these animalistic urges. We don’t want to be associated with lions slaughtering their own in mating rituals and monkeys brutally beating each other to death in tribal territory wars, or whatever. We want to distance ourselves from all that. Yet, deep down, we kind of know we’re not that far off. And I’m not saying humans are so mindlessly violent—although serious arguments could be made (so I kinda am)—all I’m saying is that we’re part of it, the whole violent circle of life, but we don’t want to be, so we invented cotillion.

I think we all know, deep down, about the darkness—about the primal urges, the visceral rage, the base desires, all that stuff. We have all felt it in some form or another. And we don’t like it. So we try to hide it. We try to bury it under rules and systems. Hell, we’ve even created entire religions to do just that; take Christianity, for example, in which one of the core tenets is that all humans are sinners, yet we should strive not to be—this “sin” being our true, dark impulses that exist inside all of us; the same dark impulses we’ve just covered here, which we are commanded by “God” to suppress. And when we can’t suppress them, we are told to beg for forgiveness and repent, or else we suffer for eternity or whatever. It’s all kind of phony, but it does lead to people treating each other a little better than they would otherwise. And this is not a commentary or a dig on Christianity—simply an acknowledgment that, for a very long time, since maybe the beginning of human civilization, we have been developing systems to control and suppress our true impulses, be that through laws, gods, shame, or whatever. So, in a way, the systems themselves are phony by design—and by adhering to these systems, we are adhering to Phonyism—because otherwise, we’d be giving in to our base impulses, attacking each other over petty disagreements, forcing ourselves on one another, and just being awful in general, and we don’t want to do that at scale, because we know that will lead to absolute chaos, so instead, we smile and fake it; we say “please” instead of “do it now,” and “thank you” instead of “it’s about time,” and stuff like “I respectfully disagree” instead of “I want to fucking kill you right now.”

And maybe that’s OK.

5, This Conclusion is Phony

“I’m always saying ‘Glad to’ve met you’ to somebody I’m not at all glad I met. If you want to stay alive, you have to say that stuff, though.” —The Catcher in the Rye

MAYBE PHONYISM ISN’T SO BAD AFTER ALL—or at least it’s preferable, in some ways, to being true to yourself. Because if we were true to ourselves all the time, it would be chaos, more so than it is right now. But this insight isn’t really all that profound. In fact, if I ended this essay on that note, I would be ashamed of myself, for how shallow and basic that conclusion would be. I mean, it’s so basic that a little kid could figure it out. Holden Caulfield even figured this out himself, per the quote up there that accents this chapter. But the thing is, Holden doesn’t fully understand it. He doesn’t understand Phonyism.

Remember back in Chapter 3, when I said Holden was immature? I said that because, for one, he’s a kid, and for two, even though he seems to understand the need for some Phonyism—like the general politeness in everyday society—and he’s an expert at recognizing when people are acting phony, these insights are actually basic and surface-level, because they’re obvious as hell—a kid could figure this stuff out, and they often do, considering that Holden is pretty much still a kid himself. He’s a kid on the edge of a cliff called adulthood, and behind him is a field of rye. The cliff does not lead to death, but to change, and Holden hates change; he thinks change is akin to being phony, like cutting off a little piece of yourself to become something new. And to him, all Phonyism is bad, full stop.

Anyway. Back to the field of rye. The field of rye is comforting and fun, and there are other children running through it, enjoying themselves—some enjoying themselves a little too much, because they’re recklessly running toward the edge of the cliff—and Holden sees it as his job to catch anyone who might fall off that cliff, especially himself. Thus, in Holden’s perfect world, everyone is a child forever. But by standing at the edge of the cliff, being the catcher—one foot in the rye, another almost dangling off that cliff—he’s not remaining a child forever, like he wants to be; instead, he’s just fully aware and hyperfocused on the Phonyism of the cliff all the time, basically going insane, just totally obsessed with it, in the darkest way possible. He never wants to grow up, and he doesn't want anyone else to grow up either, because that would be phony. But the thing is, Holden doesn’t understand that youth—the field of rye—is not meant to be forever, because nothing lasts forever—and that’s OK, because if things lasted forever, they’d become dull and boring. There is beauty in transience. The field of rye is a phase, just as falling off the cliff is a phase; both are phases in a cycle of change; and change, even if a little phony sometimes, isn’t always a bad thing.

And here I said this wasn’t going to be a book report.

What I was trying to say with that awful analysis of The Catcher in the Rye up there is that Holden Caulfield is immature because, not only is he a kid, but he also views all Phonyism as harmful, and because of this, he cannot function in society; he crosses his arms, hates everyone except kids and nuns, and is constantly depressed or pissed off because of it. The Phonyism kills him, as he likes to say. But it’s only killing him because he doesn’t truly understand it. He doesn’t understand that Phonyism can actually produce good outcomes, and he doesn’t understand that if everyone is a phony, then he, too, is a phony—and therefore he’s on the same field and cliff as everyone else, and therefore he should have a little bit of empathy for those he looks down on for being so phony, because he himself is phony as hell.

To further illustrate how Phonyism can be a good thing, let’s go back to another real-life example: the hipster with a top knot who goes around telling everyone he’s a Buddhist but lives in a nice condo and collects vinyl records, video games, and books, or whatever. This guy is obviously not a Buddhist—he’s a materialist phony—but Buddhism is a fine thing to pretend to be, because it promotes certain positive behaviors like compassion, mindfulness, patience, and generosity. So, the top-knot guy may be a phony, but at least he’s pretending to follow the right path, and surely pretending to follow Buddhism is better than pretending to follow white nationalism or something. In this way, some things are worth being phony for, while some are not. And this tracks even if the individual’s motivations are selfish—like, for example, if the hipster Buddhist is just doing it to appear “cool” or whatever—even in that scenario, he’s still pretending to reach an overall positive goal, which requires him to alter his behavior at least somewhat, which is better than nothing. In fact, it might even lead to him, down the road, becoming a bona fide Buddhist. So, even though he might not fit the full definition of a Buddhist monk right now, at least he meditates sometimes, which helps him overcome stress, and he’s trying to be more generous and compassionate. So, in this scenario, even if this hypothetical caricature of a hipster Buddhist (who’s not based on anyone I know personally, I swear) is just doing it to be cool, the ends sort of justify the means. Would I prefer the hipster Buddhist guy to fully practice what he claims to believe and not be a big goddamn phony? Probably. But who fully practices what they claim to believe, anyway? At least he picked the right thing to be phony for.

So yes, I’m implying that everyone starts out as a phony with all things, pretty much. Hell, three years ago I picked up writing after not writing for over a decade, and back then I was pretending to be the best goddamn writer on the internet because I thought it was cool. (And, in many ways, I’m still doing this.) And let me tell you, I felt like a big goddamn phony, but I kept doing it anyway. While that was a very phony image I was projecting, that Phonyism inspired me to write more often, which improved my writing ability, which led me to learning how to use compound adjectives and em dashes at least somewhat correctly (although I still barely understand semicolons, despite overusing the hell out of them, and I’m sure most people think I’m pretentious as hell, which I kind of am, I guess). So again, it seems to me that when starting out at something new, everyone is a little bit of a phony, but that Phonyism can lead to good outcomes, like learning how to write, or becoming a Buddhist, or something.

Pardon the overused aphorism, but with everything in life, we fake it until we make it, in some form or another. From new jobs to new hobbies, we all fake it until we make it. This is Phonyism. This is how we learn. This is how we improve. Impostor Syndrome is just part of the human condition. It’s all Phonyism, all the way down. And eventually, the things we pretend to be, we become. This is something young Holden Caulfield didn’t understand; he saw all Phonyism as negative Phonyism, which hurt him in the long run because it led to an inability to adapt and fit in with those around him. It drove him crazy, pretty much, and it got him into a lot of trouble, too.

But, to Holden’s credit, this was something I didn’t understand either back when I was his age—back when I was crossing my arms, hating life, chain-smoking like a fiend, and pretending I was better than everyone else, just like Holden was. Back when I retreated into myself, coasted through life, ended up in a call center for a decade, then in sales, then corporate—all because I saw life as some sort of sick, phony joke that just needed to be ridden out. I thought that by hating everything, calling out the phoniness, and being sarcastic all the time, I was being cool, that I was not participating in the phoniness. But the whole time, all I was really doing was holding myself back.

And of course, the kicker is that, just like Holden Caulfield, I was just as phony as everyone else—maybe even more so; I just couldn’t admit it to myself. But I wish that I had, I really do, because Phonyism isn’t something to be afraid of. It’s actually something to embrace, because if we all recognize that we’re phony, then we can all pretend to be whatever we want to be, which means we can do anything, which means we are unbound, which means we are without limits.

So, the next time you feel like an impostor, remember: you are.

But then remember that you are limitless.

This is the power of Phonyism.

Thank you for reading my Loxley University Graduate Thesis.


If this essay made you feel something, please let me know via email at f0rrest@pm.me.


#TheCatcherInTheRye #Essay #Autobiographical #Books

 
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from DigiVoyager

The act of loitering and death seem pretty contradictory in nature, but that is precisely what loitering drones are. Even now, a farmer in a field in Faisalabad could be right under one (one was in Attock, and died, in fact)

I do not really possess the vocabulary to articulate all my thoughts on existing, and I'm certainly not any good at philosophy, but this entry in my log is merely to capture a certain feeling.

Right now, life is a bit scarier than usual – not for me but for those in every other province but KP. Pakistan is no easy place to live in to begin with, the economy seems to be hellbent on eradicating us poor and now you have loitering drones from India wandering around different cities.

Recently, people in Bahawalapur watched a missile fly overhead, and hit a local area. There was news of a traveling missile, and so everyone had gotten their phones out. I think that the footage of that missile is probably the best statement we can have, as regards the fleeting nature of life.

Bahawalpur Missile Incident

Watching such footage, I find the very thought that there are rabid people on both side wanting a war horrifying, to say the least. The fat old men in the chair will do anything but fight the actual war, sending everyone else to die instead. It is so easy to say such things at a great distance, separated from the actual landscape, tapping on your phone, technology has made some of us so much more desensitized in so many ways. But I suppose that's how distance always factors in, I have no doubt that I could easily find people that have no idea where Pakistan is, or what even is happening but would wish me dead, thinking “Pakistanis are just terrorists” and so he must be one too. If you wish to experience that for yourself, set your Steam profile flag to Pakistan and play Dota 2, watch as your profile gets flooded with such comments.

Even more drastic than that, various cities were infiltrated by Harop drones, 25 of which have been taken down so far, one of them fell near my cousin's school in Pindi, a mere 2 kilometres or so away. Children in a school could've well had their last moment, unaware a loitering drone was right there, ready to rain death from above had they been there (luckily, they weren't)

I myself grew up in an era where terrorist bombings were common, one such example is when I was playing field hockey by myself (I would take the ball and run it around – just one of the many ways I would pass time) in Hayatabad and there was an explosion a few kilometers away, the sound was deafening and the quaint hotel I had just passed an hour ago was now a coffin of fire and broken windows. I doubt you can find anyone that hasn't lost someone to such events – those were the 2000s in a nutshell, someone dead in a blast in a CD store, someone else dead in a blast due to a car that had been parked with a bomb in it – such things were the norm. The situation stabilized around the mid 2010s, I would say, or got close to it for people in KP, Sindh and Punjab – poor Balochistan not withstanding.

Back in the 2000s, the people of Waziristan had to live in a constant sense of fear, innocent or no if, you were in an area painted for a drone strike, that is just about curtains. And many died due to being in the wrong place at the wrong time, something about collateral damage and the Doctrine of Double Effect, or some such. Life for them was such that they grew skilled at shooting down drones with rocket launchers.

There is a beautiful article in The Atlantic that highlights some of their anguish link

Now, there are Harrop drones wandering through Pakistan, being shot down, and people are just carrying on, not giving a damn while the army engages them – some even got injured in an engagement with said drone.

We Peshawaris (I am from Nowshera myself but have lived here so much I am pretty much one too) have always been in the thick of it, terrorism, bombings, drones – all of this usually was confined to our province. And for the first time we are watching without being affected ourselves, and it feels very odd.

In Rawalpindi, one person — a resident of Lahore — lost his life and two were inj­ured after a drone crashed near the Pindi Cricket Stadium on the Murree Road. Were the food street area of that stadium not closed at the time there could've been more casualties. And as mentioned earlier, a farmer died in Attock, and someone died in Gujranwala also.

Of the 25 drones, some crashed on roads, others on houses and many are being found in fields, thankfully the number of casualties remains low – yet it is not zero, and every so called casualty is somebody's entire world, but the man in the chair does not care, we might as well be numbers to the rest of the world, a fate I made peace with many years ago.

I would like to end this entry by dropping a question from that article in the Atlantic about drones in Waziristan.

Would you have nightmares if they flew over your house?

 
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from forrest

  • SAVING … DON'T TURN OFF THE POWER
  • trying to convert my friends to Buddhism so they'll give me all their stuff
  • polar bears in the zoo sometimes grow algae on their fur, turning them green; they say it's because they're stuck in the wrong place.
  • the best feature of the Nintendo Switch is one that's rarely talked about: it's basically immune to power outages.
  • there's no such thing as a normal person, only people who try really hard to appear that way; everyone's a fucking freak underneath the facade.
  • trying to remove the word “just” from my vocabulary, outside of very specific instances. stuff i’m trying to avoid is, “I'm just saying …” or “I was just …” because these come off as very defensive and unconfident, in a way.
  • every passing car, a breeze.
  • ‘If you had a million years to do it in, you couldn't rub out even half the “Fuck you” signs in the world. It's impossible.’ —Holden Caulfield
  • police are in the business of crime; their quotas necessitate the existence of crime.
  • so far, I'm not a huge fan of the first LotR novel, especially when compared to The Hobbit, the latter being a fun, action-packed adventure that quickly gets to the point, whereas LotR is much slower to start and overwrought with descriptive text, very “telling” over “showing.” like I don't need to know what every single hill in The Shire looks like. let's just get on with it, thanks. I usually appreciate descriptive writing that gets a description of a place across in one paragraph, more than descriptive writing that needs like three pages to describe a field of poppies. although, Fellowship does get a lot better In the second half, after Strider is introduced; but you have to slog through almost 200 pages to get there.
  • infection maybe the highest form of intimacy
  • I can't stand it when people fit stereotypes so perfectly. it's like they're doing it on purpose. like, every guy with a trump sign in his yard around here also has a motorcycle, a huge potbelly, and some sort of mustache. it's ridiculous. it's as if some sort of evil God pushed them all out of a demonic cookie cutter or something. I don't understand it
  • every star a pentagram
  • dozing off while reading a book in a nice comfy bed: one of the best feelings in the world
  • we all feel like imposters because we are.
  • Trump admin be like “there was one immgitent dude who raped a girl therefoee they all gotta go” every press conference is like this. just grasping at anything to justify their latent fear of people who look different from them, it’s basic baby stuff, actually.
  • my entire life can be traced down i-95
  • rechargeable bolted-in batteries in controllers are inherently anti-consumer compared to replaceable batteries, because batteries are the main breakpoint for controllers, And if a rechargeable bolted-in battery breaks or whatever, It's hell replacing it (at least for the average consumer); so, the normal person just buys a brand new controller, whereas in the past we could have just swapped out the double A's; in this way, rechargeable batteries are the ultimate convenience but they also pull the wool over our eyes and trick us into spending more money
  • smartphones are humanity’s One Ring, and we are all being summoned to Mordor. this analogy basically writes itself; it's so obvious that it's not even worth writing more about it, because you already know. i mean, when Frodo wears the ring, an evil overlord is able to track everything he does, for God's sake, lol; the PHONES parrellel is too obvious. One Ring = Your Smartphone; Evil Overlord = Google, Apple, Zuck, &c. &c.
  • I love these YouTube shorts that arelike two videos spliced together, vertically; like, the video on the right is some comedian telling a really bad joke that isn’t fuinny no matter how you listen to it, and the left is muted Rocket League footage or something. isn't this just like a tacit admittance that both things being shown are too boring to exist on their own? like they need to support each other to be interesting?? or maybe we have finally dropped the act, surrendered to the fact that we have collectively killed our ow attention spans and cannot even watch one video at a time anymore???
  • i know it's a construct, but there's still something emasculating about sitting in the backseat of a four-door, like i feel like a child when i have to sit in the back, this is certainly a mental hangup of some sort lol
  • It's good to take a break from a game every now and then, especially a game you really love—otherwise you might just wear it out.
  • leave it to the Nintendo fan base to go wild over an announcement that 20+-year-old games are being rereleased on the switch 2—totally unchanged, without even so much as upscaled resolution. Nintendo literally puts no effort into it, just ports ROMS over to their new hardware, pretty much, and still the diehard Nintendies go crazy: “finally I can play Wind Waker again, at 640x480, on my 4k television!!! my nostalgia!!!!” man I can’t stand quote-unquote “gamers,” we are the worst kind of consumer ever. i’m embarrased to be a part of it, really. unfortunatley, games are in my blood, been playing them since like 2-years-old. but seriously only the Nintendo fan base would be happy with very old rereleases for near-full price on their brand-new state-of-the-art console. ROMS lol.
  • how to raise a kid in 2020s: just don't give them a phone. that's it. if you can do that, your kid is already way better-off than most. the bar has literally never been lower.
  • some people may consider themselves “lucky,” but no amount of “luck” is going to save them from long-term asbestos exposure. what I'm trying to say is, there is obviously a hard biological limit to “luck.”
  • delivering mail is one of the best jobs ever, and one of the most meaningful, in my opinion, in terms of raw “goodness” and true fulfilment—because mail-people are literally bringers of joy, deliverers of happiness. one of the few jobs w/ significant existential meaning. like, some random guy just handed you the book that you have been wanting to read for 10 years (cuz you ordered it), or they hand you a sweet letter from mom, or whatever. delivering joy is literally the job of the mail person, what could be better? yes, i guess they sometimes deliver bad news, too, but whatever; yinyang wabi-sabi &c. &c.
  • Suikoden HD, a remaster of a single player jrpg from the 90s, just released, and they're releasing a patch for it to fix a number of bugs; this got me thinking that, back before online was such a prominent thing, games were just released as is and that was it, no more changes; it’s not like a guy could come to every house and reprogram the game if there was a bug just discovered after release. but also, I feel like there weren't as many game-breaking bugs back then compared to now when nearly every game needs a bunch of post-release patches—why is that? Could it be that the prominence of online has made developers less thorough in the development process because they know that they can just fix their mistakes with an online patch post-release? i guess this method leads to faster game development, thus more games, but the trade off is more bugs because developers can be less diligent in the development process. idk.
  • The Trump tariffs are impacting the price of video game consoles and PC parts and, at this point, the tariffs have even delayed the Switch 2 pre-order. which means, FINALLY, it is happening: the beast, once asleep, now awake: GAMERS ARE RISING UP TO SAVE AMERICA, NAY, THE WORLD.
  • How can I sometimes think myself so smart yet so dumb simultaneously; this is my essence, my burden, my cross to bear, as they say, or something, whatever.
  • “this machine kills fascists,” written on Woody Guthrie’s guitar.
  • make everything slightly inconvenient and the stuff you find yourself still doing frequently will be the stuff you truly love; for example, instead of using Spotify, switch to a Cassette player, then you'll find yourself taking the time to seek out and listen to the music you’re actually interested in, instead of mindlessly going from one song or album to the next, going in one ear, out the other, due to the sheer convenience of Spotify. access to everything all at once is NOT a good thing. convenience turns everything mundane, in a way, you start to take things for granted when you have access to everything at your fingertips.
  • i have fond childhood memories of reading manga in the nail salon after school, my mom getting her nails extravagantly done, it taking fucking forever.
  • THERE'S JUST SOMETHING ABOUT THAT BRICK WENDY’S AESTHETIC
  • ChatGPT just released a new image generator that people are using to create Studio Ghibli-like images; I was reading an article about this which included a picture of Miyazaki, and the caption underneath read: “The animator and director Hayao Miyazaki, whose work can be EASILY RECREATED using ChatGPT, has been critical of artificial intelligence in the past.” And I thought this caption was incredibly disrespectful because of the verbiage “can be easily recreated using ChatGPT,” which is a very bizarre, almost naive (or willfully dishonest) way to spin this, because ChatGPT cannot and will never be able to “easily recreate” Miyazaki’s work. ChatGPT could never create something like Kiki's Delivery Service or My Neighbor Totoro, because these works are more than just an art style, they are the creation of human imagination—which is my way of saying that ChatGPT (and other AI tools) will never be able to come up with something as original as a Studio Ghibli movie, even if it can create artwork that somewhat looks like it, because AI tools don't have the level of ingenuity and/or creativity to come up with their own unique ideas, they feed off the ideas of humans, so of course it could never create an original Ghibli film, because anything it could create would be derivative of already existing Ghibli films—what i’m trying to say is, anything ChatGPT could create would be a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy &c. &c.
  • the thing about Stewart Copeland’s drumming is that he's wild as fuck even on slow tempo tracks, take “Murder By Numbers” for example. you’d figure, with how many different things he's banging on in the timeframe of literal milliseconds on that song, that the song would have to be up tempo, but somehow it's not, somehow he just fits a whole bunch of crazy shit into small periods of time, all while keeping a slow time. he’s one of the most impressive drummers I've heard, and he’s def the most talented guy in The Police, and that’s saying something because i normally don't care about drums too much. same guy did the soundtracks for the Spyro games, i think.
  • “So I don't know about bores. Maybe you shouldn't feel too sorry if you see some swell girl getting married to them. They don't hurt anybody, most of them, and maybe they're secretly all terrific whistlers or something. Who the hell knows? Not me.” —Holden Caulfield
  • PlayStation 3 logo font is the same font used in the titles of the Sam Raimi Spider-Man films. this makes sense when you think about how both were owned by Sony, but it just makes the Ps3 stuff look really tacky in hindsight, like the console of choice for edgy 13 year olds (which i was one, don’t get me wrong lol).
  • SaGa Frontier 2 (one of my favorite rpgs) has been remastered. If you haven't played it give it a try, the music alone is worth it—best soundtrack on the PlayStation, even better (imo ofc) than Chrono Cross and FF8. But DON'T play the remaster; play the original. SF2 has gorgeous hand-painted watercolor backgrounds, but the remaster team has “upscaled” the background in a way that stretches and lowers the quality—it's likely that they used some cheap AI tool to do it, too, which, frankly, is disrespectful to the game’s legacy—and pisses me off, somewhat. Unfortunately, this is a common trend with these old PS1 “remasters,” especially the SquareEnix ones, upscaling the backgrounds poorly or whatever. I'm sure the game itself is still fine, it's just not the original experience, and some of the beauty is gone. (I'm noticing that these “fragment” documents are progressively featuring more and more complaints about AI—a portent of things to come??)
  • the pursuit of intellectual enlightenment or whatever is always selfish, which is why most intellectuals stay unhappy and depressed, because it's a solipsistic pursuit, obsessed w/ the self; true happiness comes from family and companionship, which both require a level of selflessness that the average hardcore intellectual does not really have, because they're more focused on expanding their own brain or whatever.
  • “The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world.” —G-Man, Half-Life 2
  • the right fart at the wrong time can make all the laughs in the world
  • “Super Anti-Kaiju War Machine Mecha-Thunder-King” real Yu-Gi-Oh! card
  • the official white house twitter posted an AI-generated Ghibli-style image of a woman being arrested by ICE. let it sink in.
  • Ruka Buraito
  • “Nostalgia” by The Chameleons. great pop song. considered putting a quote from it in Mysterium Nostalgia, but wouldn't have fit, thematically.
  • Zelda BOTW note: I don't think weapon breaking is a bad thing, but I do think having to navigate a menu to equip a new weapon every time a weapon breaks is a bad thing; for a game like BOTW—which no doubt aims to be immersive—any time the player is forced to navigate a menu, immersion is broken, which is objectively bad within the framework of maximizing immersion, which, again, seems to be the game’s goal.
  • “All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, A light from the shadows shall spring; Renewed shall be blade that was broken, The crownless again shall be king.” —Gandalf
  • The problem with this “everything is subjective, nothing matters” philosophy is that it's self-defeating in that, if nothing matters, the philosophy itself doesn’t matter, thus it’s not worth discussing; it trivializes literally everything to the point where why are we even having discussion at all. It's some of the most brainrot philosophically paralyzing garbage ever. And, to me, it's just clearly not true; if you say nothing matters yet are depressed or sad or enjoy certain things, then obviously stuff matters to you, like the fact that you care undermines the whole premise.
  • we're all putting on airs, perhaps airs is all we are.
  • can bugs read malicious intent? why they bite me???
  • do you know what pisses me off in video games? The whole “here’s an enemy standing on a wooden tower with a bunch of explosive barrels near the bottom of it” thing, like why would the enemy put a bunch of explosive barrels right at the bottom of their wooden tower so that someone could easily just trigger the barrels to explode??? it's just so dumb. it totally takes me out of it. I know it's just video games, but this type of stuff is too video-gamey, if you know what i mean, it breaks immersion.
  • “this game needs a remake.” no, it doesn't. great games never need a remake. stop encouraging companies to milk you for money with copies of copies of copies and ouroborus tail-biting behavior.
  • dig a little deeper into Steve Albini and—I assure you—you'll hate the guy. idk why no one talks about this. don’t say i didn’t warn you though. it’s gross.
  • I hate being lectured at; I immediately tune out, regardless of content of the lecture. this is probably one of the factors that contributed to my poor performance in school.
  • i’m entranced by Breath of the Wild. i haven’t felt this sense of wonder for a video game in a LONG time. i play it at night, after my son goes to bed, and I am actually excited to play it throughout the day; a game hasn’t made me feel like that in a long long time.
  • I got Suikoden Remastered for Switch, it came with a code for day-one exclusive content. like what? “gotta get my day-one content for this single player role-playing game from the '90s.” ?? devs & publishers: stop doing this.
  • use ChatGPT to write an essay about how much AI sucks
  • now that I've played played breath of the wild, I can now see just how much it influenced elden ring, but elden ring is almost like the Hyrule map without any of the exploration tools like climbing or gliding or whatever, and now elden ring just seems very blah; Like I was never fully sold on the fact that elden ring needed an open world to begin with, and now I'm even more convinced that it never needed one. open world is cancer 90% of the time.
  • “I was concealing the fact that I was a wounded sonuvabitch.” —Holden Caulfield
  • “free speech absolutist” or: i should be allowed to say the n-word while you should NOT be allowed to say anything negative about me saying the n-word or the country or the president
  • what if dreams are actually windows into events happening simultaneously to other versions of yourself in a parallel universe? welcome to “high thoughts,” high school edition
  • which means that some version of myself just got his head sawed off by a maniac near a dark pool at night. fucking hate dreams sometimes. actually, hate them all the time, because i only remember the bad ones.
  • I love how “transmog”—a word from “transmogrify” that was made popular by the World of Warcraft player base, pretty much—has been adopted by all other game devs across the planet to mean any in-game mechanic that changes the look of something. this is a perfect example of how language is like a virus (negative connotation, but no negativity intended, just an observation).
  • “people never think anything is anything really.” —Holden Caulfield
  • I wanna know what you're like, alone, driving in a car, at night, when no one watching. do you pick your noses? scream lyrics at the top of your lungs? say weird stuff to yourself? i really wanna know.
  • i know this is capital-letter MEAN, but i can't take Brandon Sanderson seriously because I keep picturing him without his shirt on. i can’t imagine that guy has much self-control or discipline in his life, and I shudder to think what his ofice looks like, probbably nasty with fast-food wrappers all over the plac. and—THIS ISN’T JUST ME BEING JEALOUS—but, after reading some of his prose and considering his extremely fast novel output, i think a lot of his work is actually AI-generated.
  • There are quests in breath of the wild that are collaborations with other games, for example, there's a quest called literally “Xenoblade Chronicles 2.” it makes me want to throw up. I can't think of a better way to break immersion than by reminding the player that the game they’re playing is not only a game but also an advertisement for some other game. uhhhhggggg
  • my default state is “fuck you”
  • 4/1 WHITE HOUSE PRESS SEC. ANNOUNCEMENT (not april fools): “An illegal alien released by the Biden administration into our country was just arrested in Georgia and charged with the horrific killing of Camellia Williams, a mother of five and grandmother. The suspect has now been indicted on charges of malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, rape, aggravated sexual battery, and necrophilia—which, for those who don’t know, necrophilia is an sexual obsession with a horse, ahem, corpse.”
  • ‘”Lawyers are all right, I guess-but it doesn't appeal to me,” I said. “I mean they're all right if they go around saving innocent guys' lives all the time, and like that, but you don't do that kind of stuff if you're a lawyer. All you do is make a lot of dough and play golf and play bridge and buy cars and drink Martinis and look like a hot-shot. And besides. Even if you did go around saving guys lives and all, how would you know if you did it because you really wanted to save guys' lives, or because you did it because what you really wanted to do was be a terrific lawyer, with everybody slapping you on the back and congratulating you in court when the goddam trial was over, the reporters and everybody, the way it is in the dirty movies? How would you know you weren't being a phony? The trouble is, you wouldn't”’ —Holden, The Catcher in the Rye, pg. 190.
  • pressure washing an old stone wall is like wiping the wrinkles off an old man’s face or something
  • young children tend to sleep more than older people and this seems tragic, like biology insists that youth be wasted.
  • Nintendo’s RIDICULOUS Switch2 pre-order process: ‘As of right now, the reservation process is limited to Nintendo account holders in the US and Canada who are at least 18 years old. Invitations will be valid for 72 hours and will be “prioritized on a first-come, first-served basis,” according to Nintendo; you’ll also need to have purchased a Nintendo Switch Online membership for a minimum of 12 months and have logged 50 hours of gameplay on the original Switch as of April 2nd, 2025, to be eligible. What’s more, you must have opted in to share gameplay data with Nintendo (you can see if you’ve done so in the privacy section when logged into your account). Once invitations have been sent to account holders who have met these criteria, Nintendo says it will send invitations to “remaining eligible registrants” on a first-come, first-served basis. Unsurprisingly, the invitations will be nontransferable and sent to the email address you used while registering your interest with Nintendo. Console and accessory purchases will be limited to one per eligible account, at least during the initial invitation period, with the first batch of invitations going out on May 8th.’ YOU MUST ALSO BE WHITE OR JAPANESE, NO CHINESE OR BLACKS. ALSO, YOU MUST COMPLETE A CREDIT CHECK, AND SUBMIT YOUR LAST THREE PAYSLIPS. YOU MUST ALSO OWN A HOME, NO RENTERS. AND YOU MUST HAVE AT LEAST 3 YEARS OF TENURE AT YOUR CURRENT PLACE OF EMPLOYMENT—IF YOU OWN YOUR OWN BUSINESS, YOU MUST SUBMIT NET PROFITS FOR THE LAST THREE YEARS. thank you.
  • “Former Persona and Shin Megami Tensei Creator returns with Tsukuyomi: The Divine Hunter — A Roguelite Deckbuilder powered by AI trained on his own art.” retch. hope it bombs. we shouldn't normalize any game made with AI, even if it's only made partly to w/ AI. should've known it would be Atlus.
  • there's a “Villains wiki” that labels Mr. Antolini as the “main antagonist” of the Catcher in the Rye, which i find just absolutely knock-out funny—like, that's certainly one perspective
  • Imagine, like, a club of pee drinkers. Like a Pee Drinking Club, and all the members are like, “We love drinking pee; and the only ones who get harmed by drinking pee are ourselves, so who cares if we like to drink pee? Ain't hurting anyone else.’ Then someone comes around and is like, “Yo, maybe you shouldn't drink pee?” But they're all like, “Um, please let us live our lives; we aren't hurting anyone else, and if drinking pee was so bad, why do other people do it, like the people in this club? Please stay out of our Pee Drinking Club, we don't want any Anti-Pee Drinkers in our Pee Drinking Club.”
  • when you get so hungry that you don't know what to eat anymore because everything seems gross.
  • “'A mortal, Frodo, who keeps one of the Great Rings, does not die, but he does not grow or obtain more life, he merely continues, until at last every minute is a weariness. And if he often uses the Ring to make himself invisible, he fades: he becomes in the end invisible permanently, and walks in the twilight under the eye of the dark power that rules the Rings. Yes, sooner or later—later, if he is strong or well-meaning to begin with, but neither strength nor good purpose will last-sooner or later the dark power will devour him.’” —Gandalf, LotR 51
  • is Hamilton supposed to be uncomfortable to watch? the actors are impressive, and I respect anyone who can recite all those lines so perfectly in one go like that. but the music is definitionally cringe, like a middle school diss track, lPG Eminem on sedatives, and the history is storybook, and the whole thing reeks of hardcore bourgeois virtue signalling for the terminally well-off. people who obsess over Hamilton are the same type of people who spend $400 on useless shit at Target every week and drink white wine every night.
  • for a super rich guy about to fall off a mountain, you sure are desperate to pitch your chocolate to me, sir
  • something you may not know about me: I don't use big words, because I can't remember them, because I'm fucking stupid. and no, this is not some self-deprecating joke.
  • one time, when I was 10 or something
  • sometimes i seriously wonder, considering all these stylistic genre labels, if they're all just made up after the fact, to pigeon hole an author, when the author was just writing what came from their soul. like, imagine you're an author and you just released your breakthrough novel or whatever, and then imagine some critic is interviewing you, asking you stuff like, “so what gave you the idea to write a novel w/ such baroque prose in the philosophical didactic style with hints of metafictional irony?” idk about you but I would be like: “excuse me, what?” i doubt any novel written with the intent of trying to check specific genre/style boxes is even worth reading to begin with because it would be tainted from the get-go with this pretentious conformity to some high-minded genre labels instead of being original and honest to the writer's true self. it follows that, if you willfully try to fit a mold—“I'm going to write a Neo-Victorian Pastiche!”—then you are sacrificing a little bit of your originality.
  • Brian Eno's Windows Chime is a lesson in minimalism: you can cause great joy with just a few seconds.
  • ‘That's the whole trouble. You can't ever find a place that's nice and peaceful, because there isn't any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you're not looking, somebody'll sneak up and write “Fuck you” right under your nose. Try it sometime. I think, even, if I ever die, and they stick me in a cemetery, and I have a tomb-stone and all, it'll say “Holden Caulfield” on it, and then what year I was born and what year I died, and then right under that it'll say “Fuck you.” I'm positive, in fact.’ —Holden Caulfield
  • YouTube has created a culture of creation that is dependent on other creators to exist, for example: “Skyward Sword Retrospective.” 2 hrs of some dude talking about some other creation. so there's creators then there's creators that rely on other creators to create then there's consumers, and the last two there are very close to being exactly the same, except the Creator who relies on other creators to create is making money from their consumption of other creator’s creations, so they're almost like exploiting other creators creations, in a way. it's really telling about the nature of YouTube that nearly all the “content” on there would not exist without the existence of some other content that precludes it. YouTube is like a leech, in a way, attaching itself to someone else’s baby, sucking the life blood to sustain itself. this is also why watching YouTube videos always leaves you with this unfulfilled feeling like you just wasted an hour of ur life, and you immediately forgot what you just watched; whereas watching a movie, reading a book, or playing a game barely ever leaves you feeling this way.
  • AI has made it so corporate content masquerading as “artwork” is easier than ever to spot and avoid; all u gotta do is look for that glossy sheen.
  • I actually really like Shinichirō Watanabe’ new anime Lazarus. obviously trying to capture the magic of Cowboy Bebop a second time, and it's very obviously style over substance so far, but the electro-jazz soundtrack is excellent AND THE EVEN USED “LAZARUS” BY THE BOO RADLEY’S AS THE ENDING THEME; man, I got goosebumps when that started playing the first time, bravo.
  • when you're feeling stuck, artistically, rearrange the furniture in your workspace.
  • I've been playing Zelda BotW recently, and it's got one huge problem: it's too fucking big. in game dev, at what point does the size of the game world become a psychological burden upon the player? well, the answer appears to be BotW.
  • I think as an adult with big-boy job and kids and a writing hobby, 100-200 hours to complete a game is way too fucking long
  • another flaw with Zelda BotW is that there's nothing to unlock; like, in previous Zelda games, you progressively unlock new, cool items, and those items allow you to access new, cool things, and this ushers you on, encourages the player to keep going, to unlock the new stuff; but in BotW, you get all the tools at the beginning of the game, and those tools become stale after a couple hours of play. compared to another type of game, like a JRPG, as you progress in the game, you unlock more characters, more spells/abilities at higher levels, etc. but BotW has none of this, there is no true feeling of progression outside of hearts, stamina wheel, and clothes, which is all too basic or superficial to feel profound from a gameplay sense.
  • BotW is a game moreso about vibes than gameplay: moreso about wandering the perfect cell-shaded Ghiblian countryside of Hyrule than swinging a sword back and forth. So the true question is: How long can vibes alone sustain interest in a video game? of course the answer will be different for everyone, but for me, it's about 20 hours.
  • generative AI is very unregulated right now, but just wait until some billionaire loses a bunch of money because of some AI-generated hoax; once that happens, AI will be locked down hardcore. maybe we should encourage that to happen????
  • body dysmorphia is when your face feels blob-like and you have constant intrusive thoughts telling you to take a knife and carve up your jawline so that it looks immaculate; or the urge to slice off the small curves of fat on your stomach and sides, regardless of the numbers on the scale (it’s malfunctioning and/or inaccurate) or the positive feedback of others (they're lying). sometimes I wonder if it's biological or if it's cultural, like if i had grown up in a body-positive culture, would I still feel this way? would I still feel like a nasty bulbous monster when walking down the street? does culture dictate my reality so plainly? it's sad that that might just be the case, implies my will is not my own, or I am incredibly weak and susceptible to manipulation.
  • pickleball is so lame; it's like tennis with its balls chopped off.
  • DBZ is probably the hardest anime to adapt to live action because the character aesthetics are so pivotal to the popularity of the series. like Goku has to look like Goku or the fans will flip.
  • contrary like the sun to the moon
  • we all want acceptance from others, but we rarely say it outright. the whole reason anyone tells someone else about their own interests is to gain acceptance and companionship. this is the only reason people talk about themselves, even for narcissists.
  • on 4/16, after a 3 day weed break, i smoked some resin and had something like an existential crisis, one of those recursive psychological weed-loops in which you just keep circling back to something, overanalyzing it to death, seeing all the ways it has possibly fucked you over going forward in the future. this feeling, which i’m still having while typing this, has shown me, once again, that i should never smoke weed. weed is so weird and contrary that it tells you not to smoke it. seriously, i am not smoking weed after today. DONE. i quit alcohol, i can quit weed.
  • sent this to some dude in an email and liked it: “I'm in that sort of so-high-you-hate-yourself-for-being-high high state.”
  • “It's a big enough umbrella, but it's always me that ends up getting wet.”
  • one of the things i hate about the Nintendo Switch is that, once I play a game docked on the TV, I feel like I can’t play that game on handheld anymore; as if the handheld experience is now lesser in some way, when i know that that is totally stupid, yet i still psychologically loop this way for some reason.
  • “Wallace said the plotting and notes had a fractal structure modeled after the Sierpiński gasket.” note that a ‘sierpinski gasket’ is basically a TRIFORCE, literally a triforce shape. Infinite Jest is modeled after a triforce.
  • I've been listening to albums on cassette tapes w/ my walkman for the past month or so, and the whole process has brought me closer to the music, like I've formed a special relationship with the albums themselves, because tapes kinda facilitate a full listening experience because they force you to put in real effort to listen to them, as opposed to something like Spotify where listening to music turns into a throwaway, “swipe right”-like experience. seems to me like over-accessibility leads to taking things for granted.
  • all philosophy is cope for the horrors of biology; in this way, religion and philosophy are not so different.
  • funny how these mega corps manipulate people every day into saying their ridiculous product names out loud, like “hey pass the NERD CLUSTERS™”
  • Tom Bombadil is annoying as hell. Jackson was right to cut him from the movies. although I like this quote, “Take off your golden ring! Your hand’s more fair without it.”
  • there's a scene in Suikoden I In which the main character is given the choice to drink some poison tea, and if you select the no option, the dialogue simply loops around back to the choice again until you select the yes option; and this is like the epitome of JRPGs, their essence. the illusion of choice. which, from a certain perspective, is fine, because jrpgs are more about telling a linear story rather than letting you make up your own (story), but it's always jarring running into one of these fake choices in jrpgs
  • when i was 15, my dad sent me to the South Carolina Citadel military camp for a month. during my start, i sent a note home that was full of expletives. my grandma kept the note. years later, the citadel camp program was shut down due to allegations of widespread sexual abuse; i didn't see any of that during my time there, but it didn't surprise me, considering hardcore conservative Christian military dudes seem like the perfect chemical petri dish for suppressed sexual urges. anyway. I'm thinking about writing an essay or short story about this whole thing, although, for some reason, I don't remember much of my time at the camp, but—interesting fact—there is a Columbo episode set in the exact same barracks I stayed in.
  • country music like weird al without the jokes
  • all these modern remasters of old JRPGs (like Suikoden 1+2 & SaGa Frontier II) fuck up in the same way: they make the UI modern-looking in this minimal, black way, and they smooth out the font, which the makes the whole UI look and feel soulless. the original Suikoden 2, especially, got a lot of character from its antique, earthy UI, which is just lost completely in the remaster. i am not shaking my fist at clouds here, it's objectively stupid and ugly and pointless; the only reason remasters should exist is to make the same old games playable for a new audience, nothing else; the games themselves don't actually need to be changed in any way, they just need to be ported to modern hardware so they're not lost to time. stop putting a mustache on the Mona Lisa.
  • our childhood wants and need never change—just the older we get, the more we’re pushed into phonyism to continue to fulfil those wants and needs; what I'm trying to say is: everybody would rather be playing games, hanging out with friends, or doing whatever, than working, but they still do the phony work. ask anyone, the goal is always to retire comfortably, everything up to that point (outside of leisure and passion) is phony.
  • this will likely be my last fragments post, because i’m trying to transition to taking notes in little notebooks, because writing by hand feels better—more deliberate, thoughtful—and also so the notes will be accessible to my kids when i die or something, idk, and also because i’m starting to care less and less about advertising my thoughts to people, like they’re even worth advertising here, and how egotistical it all feels, expecting you to read this stuff and think it smart or whatever.

#fragments #notes

 
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from Salt Forged Stories

Content Warning: NSFW – Sex, violence, and nudity. All at the same time.

(It’s wet MMA in Beat, Prey Love. Come on now. Be fr.)

“Aight, so... I'll go easy on you. We'll keep it light, have some fun, shoot some saucy content and-”

“Wait, what the fuck? Why would you go easy on me?” The feisty blonde interrupted. “You got fucking destroyed by that short nerdy Black girl and then Vivian kicked your ass the next time. Neither of them are even that scary. You lose to losers: I should be the one offering to take it easy on you, red.”

Kathy Liu had to stop herself from gawking. “You know, Flor says I might be on the spectrum, but even I'm not that bad at reading people...” She wasn't sure if McKenzie had heard her or not; the freckled blonde wasn't a great listener at the best of times. But McKenzie Booth or “Combat Keigh” as the Beat, Prey Love audience knew her, had other skills. Blessed with soft, extremely bountiful curves and a round, cute face, the 5'5” Tennessee native was a reliable draw for a few reasons.

Kathy and the BPL audience recognized two big, heavy reasons in particular.

“That's perfect then. Just come at me 100%: I want you to kick my ass and humiliate me; really put it on me, OK?” The invitation was utterly facetious; Kathy could not include “accomplished martial artist” alongside any honest description of McKenzie. But the stubborn, buxom blonde blamed each loss on her unimpressive record on factors beyond her control. Tonight Kathy intended on being one of those factors.

The pair climbed into the boxing ring in the middle of the gym and stood in opposing corners, waiting for the fight to begin in earnest. The crowd was large enough to pack the gym's bleachers, she observed. Good. These fights were fun, to be sure, but what use was making content if it didn't draw fans?

When both fighters agreed that they were ready, the referee called them to the center of the ring. “Kelsey Drama,” black roots visible in her dyed orange hair, was at once a fiction and a very real part of Kathy. Her raunchy streaming persona had transitioned seamlessly to a world of raunchy, wet fights where sex and violence commingled. Her black, pleated athletic skirt only partially covered her curvy ass. The green bandeau top stretched against her chest was printed with “BPL,” the initials of her promotion, on the front.

Kathy Liu was a college student. Kelsey Drama was a poster child for controversy, sensuality, and violence.

Combat Keigh sized her up, vicious grin lighting up her peach colored face. The 5'10 Kelsey Drama smiled down at her.

“Alright! Kelsey Drama! Combat Keigh! If y'all are ready, let's get it on!”

The bell rang, the crowd cheered and the two pressed chest to chest. Kathy reached behind her opponent and cupped Keigh's ass in the palms of her fingerless MMA gloves. She could feel the shorter woman standing on her tiptoes to kiss her. The audience wooped their approval as the two women met in a kiss, hands gliding across each other other's curves. Keigh felt as thick as she looked, with real heft to her hips and torso. Keigh's massive bust squished against the streamer's toned abs as they kissed. Keigh's kisses were as aggressive as the rest of her, with an overeager tongue that pushed into Kelsey's mouth too early and too often. Kelsey moved her hand up behind the blonde's head and tilted it until she could more easily suck on Keigh's lip. She let her tongue dance, teasing and taunting the younger woman. Kissing was a skill, and her smoldering relationship with a woman on her dorm floor had only made her more eager to practice.

The two combatants stood there, locked in the sultry embrace that began wet MMA matches at Beat, Prey, Love. Kelsey felt the growing warmth in her chest, the tingle between her thighs, the familiar pleasure of sharing heat and contact and affection. It was intoxicating.

But Combat Keigh was drunk on it.

The kittenish streamer felt the shorter woman swoon, felt her knees buckle for an instant before the blonde college student regained her composure. Combat Keigh tried to break their kiss and pull back for air but found no reprieve. Kelsey pushed their lips together again until the shorter woman flailed. When Kelsey finally relented, Keigh pulled back too hard and fell onto her ass. The pratfall drew cheers and laughter from the audience, and Beat, Prey, Love's proprietor and most committed showman prepared to put on a performance.

“C'mon loser. I love rolling around with cute girls, but they usually at least try to punch me first.” Kelsey said with a devilish grin. She patted the blonde on her head, rustling Combat Keigh's messy bangs and pigtails before Kelsey lightly ground her hips against the curvy southerner's head.

“I'm gonna do more than just try!” Combat Keigh said, pushing Kelsey away and rising to her feet.

Kelsey Drama waved her in, slowly circling the shorter woman in the center of the ring. Long and limber, the edgy streamer intended to keep this Southern nuisance at bay until Combat Keigh decided she was a lover, not a fighter. When her opponent charged, Kelsey played matador, catching Combat Keigh with a jab before slipping to the side. She pawed at the shorter, younger fighter, casual punches and kicks intended to test reflexes and responses. Data collection. The first punch caught Combat Keigh flush and briefly froze her. The second landed on her arms as she covered up.

Kelsey Drama lacked the force or volume to cower Keigh into timid compliance, instead the peach toned Tennessee native pushed into range and threw a flurry of punches. Kelsey bobbed and weaved through them, absorbing a few light impacts on her arms and abs as she slid to the left and away from the corner.

“Maybe try... hitting me?” She teased.

An insulted Keigh charged again, hands lower this time as if to grapple her. Kelsey stepped up and used every inch of her 5'10 frame to throw a long, straight kick that cruised over Keigh's lowered gloves. The ball of her foot slammed into Combat Keigh's chest and stopped her in her tracks. The blonde winced and gasped Kelsey Drama followed up with a long, hard kick that slammed into the blonde's calf.

“Let's go shortstack. I thought you were gonna make this look easy?” She teased.

“Shut up! I'm gonna make you look easy,”

The two women iterated on this initial encounter: Combat Keigh's height disadvantage and limited footspeed made approaching the nimble streamer difficult, and Kelsey relished each opportunity to demonstrate the difference in their accuracy, speed, and footwork. Keigh surged forward in bursts of action, but their fight took place at the range where Kelsey wanted it and she repeatedly tagged the overconfident blonde with punches and kicks thrown from farther than Keigh could retaliate. And when Kelsey wasn't hitting her in the ribs, she was ribbing her with jokes, teasing and encouraging the younger woman to make good on her pre fight boasts. Keigh finally scored on a very nice punch combo, but Kelsey pulled her to the mat in their next exchange and gave the wilting blonde some unwelcome affection before pulling away, dramatically savoring the taste of her opponent's mouth, lips and neck. Kelsey Drama refused to finish a fight so quickly but she couldn't resist demonstrating her superiority to audience and opponent alike.

Combat Keigh chased a takedown of her own but a stiff kick collided with her cheek and wobbled her. The streamer wrapped up her struggling quarry, nuzzling her in a clinch that wasn't strictly violent.

“You're my favorite fucking loser, you know that?” Kelsey said, just loud enough for the front row of fans to hear. She snuggled the blonde, pulling Keigh's face against her hefty pair. “Get your rest, Keigh; you're about to need it.”

She repeatedly drove her fist into Keigh's unprotected side, cradling her blonde head with the other arm. From this distance she couldn't generate the torque necessary to knock anyone out, but the punches hurt all the same, and they elicited the desired response: The sorority member moaned and flailed but didn't collapse. Their bodies pressed together in sweaty embrace, the sorority member struggled, until she broke free. Kelsey grabbed her again, greeting her with a sloppy kiss. When Keigh finally escaped that indignity, the rangy streamer looped her leg behind her victim and tripped her to the mat. The younger woman reached for anything to keep her standing and tugged on Kelsey's skimpy tube top. The black and green bandeau didn't rip but it did slide down her torso, baring Kelsey's bouncing breasts to the audience and the camera.

Kelsey covered her chest with her arm, feigning scandal for a moment before shrugging and pulling the top up and over her head completely. What was the point of advertising a wet fight if no one got naked or wet? The crowd cheered as Kelsey Drama smacked her ass and wiggled her hips for their amusement.

“Let's go blondie. I'm not done wringing you dry.”

On her ass for the second time in the match, the freckled braggart lacked some of the boisterous confidence she'd started with. What remained was indignant insecurity: a woman embarrassed but not yet beaten. Kelsey Drama looked down at her and thought she saw Keigh recognizing that victory was slipping from her grasp.

“No, now it's my turn!” The blonde snapped, rising onto shaky legs.

Kelsey hesitated for a moment too long and couldn't react in time to prevent Keigh's burst of action turning into a takedown, her first successful one of the night. Combat Keigh lay across her torso, vengeance in her blue eyes. Kathy winced as the scrappy blonde scrambled to hit her and climb on top of her at the same time, and she grabbed the waistband of Keigh's already unbuttoned skimpy denim short shorts. Keigh managed half of a submission attempt and a few solid knees and elbows before settling on an sensual approach that Kelsey Drama found much more agreeable. The sensation of steamy wet mouth on nipples stiffened by the chilly gym air sent an immodest shiver through Kelsey as she lay pinned on her back.

Combat Keigh had finally done something besides flail and absorb punishment. Kelsey was almost impressed. The blonde pushed her advantage, tongue trailing a wet trail from the streamer's chest towards the beltline of her skirt. Kelsey leaned into the sudden reversal, content to let the little loser lead their dance: this didn't need to be any more of a one-sided dismantling than it already had been, and she longed to see if what the southern belle had learned during her current losing streak against anyone in Beat Prey Love's gold or diamond divisions. Combat Keigh shifted now, crawling on top of her foe and pressing her hand between Kelsey's thighs. The streamer eschewed underwear during her matches; Keigh's aggression was about to lead her towards a soft, steamy prize.

“Y'all ready for me to fuck her? I'm not stopping till she screams louder than y'all do!” Keigh yelled before pressing her face against the streamer's hot sex.

Kelsey smiled at the boast and bided her time, listening as the crowd's loyalties turned and they cheered Combat Keigh's success. The streamer moaned, slightly exaggerating the sensation of Keigh's tongue against her lips. It was nice not to have to do all the work sometimes. When she lifted her legs straight up, the blonde didn't move. Kelsey sighed, half from the pleasure and half from the unfortunate realization that her favorite grappling dummy still hadn't learned to recognize danger.

Their reversal was sudden and severe: Kelsey's legs tightening like a snare trap around Combat Keigh's neck and arm, those same legs rolling both women over, and then finally turning Keigh's prize into a prison as the experienced grappler sat up and sat on her opponent's face. Kelsey trapped the blonde between her thighs and the canvas, grinding slowly to emphasis the position.

“Auughhh fuck. Get off me!”

Keigh raged and flailed until her fury turned to whimpers. Her legs slapped harmlessly against the ring's canvas as the Asian American streamer luxuriated in her torment. One hand traced sensual curves up and down her own curves, kittenish expression promising more eroticism to come. Kelsey's other hand wandered along her opponent's soft torso, pulling her heaving breasts free of her loosened top before pulling at the knot itself. She tugged at Keigh's already unbuttoned shorts, tugging the denim down one hip. The task was made easier by her opponent's relative lack of hips.

Kelsey felt arousal rising inside her: a tightness in her body, a warmth spreading through her, and a yearning for physical touch and lewd sensations. She'd intended to prolong this beating, but riding a girl's face to orgasm was about as demonstrative a victory as you could manage in a wet fight.

Only the bell to end the first round saved Combat Keigh from the indignity of being Kelsey Drama's latest sexual conquest. The streamer reluctantly rose off of her opponent, tension and frustration clear on her flushed face.

“I was soooo close. Like... I was right there....” She moaned, thighs clenched together. “Damn. I guess I'll just have to fuck you next round.”

Her opponent yelled something at Kelsey, but the San Francisco native was more entertained by Combat Keigh yelling at the referee who'd reminded the blonde that any partially removed clothing had to be fully removed. The 30 seconds she'd spent tugging at the sorority member's top and shorts had ensured Keigh would start their second round devoid of either. Unfortunately for her, she was facing an opponent eager to put on a show at her expense.

The 10 minute first round hadn't been kind to Keigh's stamina, looks, or attitude. Kelsey watched the flushed blonde take long, slow breaths that only emphasized her massive bust. Her face and body both bore enough bruises and swelling that she'd have to make “you should see the other girl” jokes in class on Monday. Unfortunately for her, people could see the other girl. This match was being recorded after all.

Kelsey Drama came out of her corner grinning and bouncing. Her missing top necessitated a little less jumping around, but neither her opponent nor the fans would mind. The red-faced blonde met her near her own corner, clearly wishing that the one minute break had been longer. Kelsey took her time exhausting her outmatched opponent. Keigh's increasingly desperate lunges only gave Kelsey more opportunities to delight the crowd with creative applications of blue belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. She dragged her prey to the mats and had her way with her, wrapping his long, strong legs around Keigh's neck or aching ribs. Each surge, shove, and scramble was another chance to bend and stretch Keigh, another chance to drag practiced fingers across her sweat slicked skin or apply his eager mouth and tongue to the exciting work of drawing immodest moans from her opponent.

“This is where it gets fun, Keigh! You're so good at losing I'd swear you're starting to like it” She giggled, taking a moment to smile and preen for the camera ringside while her victim squirmed, immobilized and helpless.

The next three minutes of their second round were a gauntlet of near submissions and near orgasms. The shorter woman spent each torturous second held, squeezed, bent, folded, moaning, or dripping until she finally ran out of pride or composure.

“Fuck... just... fuck me already alright?” She conceded. She'd spent all but a few seconds of the round on the canvas courtesy of a streamer eager to show off her grappling prowess. Kelsey looked down and saw a woman exhausted and subdued.

“You win. Just... give them what they want or whatever...” Keigh gasped, hips still bucking from Kelsey's most recent exploration of her steamy, exhausted body. Sweat and saliva ran down her curves, puddling beneath her as she struggled and finally gave up trying to sit up.

“Hmmm.... since you asked so nicely. OK!” Kelsey Drama laughed. “You all heard her right? Anyone got any ideas? I'm taking requests.”

Kelsey stood up and left her victim on the canvas behind her. She listened for a few seconds, eyes darting between the crowd and the soggy puddle of woman she'd just dismantled and humbled. One idea caught her fancy, and she turned around to greet her victim. “It's your lucky day, Keigh: we're both about to go viral.”

Folded into a position Kelsey could perform better than she could describe, Keigh was a passenger to her own demise. The scandalous streamer sucked and slurped greedily on the younger woman's skin, sating her own lewd longing by grinding on her victim's thigh before letting her fingers wander down Keigh's reddened stomach. The end of the match came when Combat Keigh did, moaning and shaking and utterly spent. Too lost in the euphoria to retain any of her early petulance, the conquering martial artist distinctly heard her blonde victim mutter a meek “thank you” between heaving breaths.

“Awww, you're welcome. And thank you for being such a good little loser. That video's gonna do fucking numbers.” The Asian American woman whispered, caressing the downed woman with genuine affection. “Might compile all your losses into one video. We can call it the 'Keigh-O highlight reel.'”

Kelsey Drama stood up and found the nearest camera. Her wink for the viewers came accompanied by double peace signs and a naughty grin at the cameras before she sucked the glistening arousal off her fingers. The sex and violence were real, but Kelsey Drama was a performance that clarified everyone's expectations of her. Her image of a too-online, raunchy 'e-girl' entailed clear tasks, expressions, poses, and phrases.

The cameras caught every angle of Keigh laying on the canvas before she stood, supported by Kelsey's warm hug. The announcer read off the details of her victory as the referee raised her arm, but Kelsey's thoughts had already left her exploits in the past: there were more fights on tonight's Beat, Prey, Love card, and with them, more money to make. Kelsey Drama was a business, but Kathy Liu was an entrepreneur.

#Writing #FirstDraft #NSFW #Series #BeatPreyLove #BPL #Fiction #Action #Sex #Fight #MartialArts #MMA

 
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from DigiVoyager

Dr. Fawltea had been looking forward to this day. After many many years of begging his wife, it was his day out—finally, some much-needed time to himself. An escape from the constant whining at home and from the Tekken Tag Tournament-obsessed, pop culture-addicted, wannabe Western “burgers” who discussed more philosophy than medicine, infesting the medical ward where he worked. Oh, would that he were like that man who was half jaguar, half human (or perhaps he was just wearing a mask?) and able to capture them in a throw and never let go, until their very life force was extinguished. Fawltea made a mental note of making sure to take one of these annoying idiots home one day, the one who knew how to do those never-ending grabs, so that his son could be taught a lesson, humbled into giving up video games and focusing on his education.

And speaking of education, he was responsible for their training, wasn't he? But they didn't seem to give a shit. Even when they talked ethics, it was more in relation to Ariana Grande, or Lana Del Rey who, in Fawltea's opinion, sounded more like car models.

He wondered why all of these popstars had such car-sounding names:

Ariana Grande – Corolla Grande

Lana Del Rey – Ford Del Rey

Taylor Swift – Suzuki Swift

Whatever happened to the good old days of names like Beyoncé and Lady Gaga? Nowadays you have people calling themselves Sabrina Carpenter, which in Pakistan would be considered a local carpentry business. Or Charli XCX, which just reminded him of the Punnett Square for color blindness and how XcX women were carriers. Is this why she calls herself that? She's colorblind? Brave, I suppose.

Fawltea made his way out of that godforsaken “It's a medicine ward where we do everything but practice medicine” that would've humbled even the harshest of administrators, wondering where his chums Frank and Joe Hardy (he had nicknamed them such because they reminded him of his favorite duo of adventurers) were; probably off on a grand adventure in the Margalla Hills, befriending a Snow Leopard and what not. Or possibly even gone to FATA and Balochistan, masquerading as locals to capture terrorists. In Fawltea's view, there was no timeline where these tigers among men would not have been recruited by the army in secret, maybe that's why they worked at the government hospital where no one knew who was where, as a deep cover.

As a matter of fact, they had both gone to the police hospital, just a few miles away from where Fawltea was currently, because funds were in short supply and the local blood bank proved a most amiable treasure chest if one only knew where to sell the stolen packs. Far from being secret agents, they would be more likely to sell the nation for some change.

He had only gotten as far as the emergency block, when once again, that annoying pest Gul Abad was waiting at the special entrance meant for ambulances, defibrillator in hand. He was a technician who pretended to be a cardiologist, and if recent rumors were to be believed, he claimed to have specialized in electrophysiology.

Of course, he was more like a lizard whose skin changed its color depending on where he was, in the ICU he was known as Gul Abad the intensivist, and he must've had many more roles besides that.

“For God's sake, Gul Abad, not every emergency case needs to be shocked.”

Gul Abad merely rolled his eyes. “You should be glad someone wants to learn, unlike all your other trainees. Anyways, what's the harm, all it does is analyze the rhythm and tell me if its shockable or not.”

Fawltea was in no mood to argue, and that last riposte was quite nasty, he was done for the day. He didn't care to tell Gul Abad that he was wasting precious seconds, especially when a patient arrived with bullet holes in his body, and Gul Abad would stop them at the entrance for “mandatory rhythm analysis.” Someday, he'll get his, thought Fawltea.

As Fawltea walked, he was ambushed by that which he feared the most, an army brat. For those not in the know, an army brat is the spawn of usually not one but two army officers, and crossing one in Pakistan can have disastrous consequences. This one, like all others, was beyond entitled.

“Dr. Fawltea, I was wondering, can I do open heart surgeries?”

You're a medicine trainee, you're not even allowed in one of the damn ORs – is what he wanted to say – but he also didn't want to end up in a black Vigo, vanished without a trace, lost to time, knowing full well his damn son would be playing video games without even batting an eye, not giving a toss. Possibly, he would even order a cake.

“I'll uh….I'll talk to the departmental chair, see if we can't arrange something, you are, after all, so damn talented. How about we start you off on something small, hmm, an appendectomy?”

She preened at the praise but there was also a smidgen of annoyance he could pick up on. “Appendectomies? Even Gul Abad does those, give me something serious to do, na.”

Somehow, the fact that Gul Abad had started doing surgeries did not surprise Fawltea one bit. No wonder post op infection rates were peaking. To make matters worse, that na was not a friendly na, it was the passive aggressive na, lord help him.

“How about some cardiac catheterization to start off with? We can even mark it down as part of your future cardiology rotation, change a few dates around, the usual.”

She glared at him as if he owed her a few thousand dollars, or even a kidney, before flashing a smile.

“Oh look, the Vigo's here to pick me up. I do hope I'll get to do that open heart surgery, Dr. Fawltea, I simply won't settle for anything less. D'you know, I never noticed just how fast these things are, until today. Why, you could be off in a flash.”

She didn't even bother to look back at Fawltea as she made her way to the Vigo, knowing full well he was probably drenched in sweat and his heart was off its rocker due to anxiety.

In a world where Gul Abad did appendectomies, Fawltea reasoned, surely a qualified medical trainee doing an open heart surgery wouldn't be so bad...That is what government hospitals were for, after all, training dens that churned out butchers at the expense of the poor, uneducated masses.

As Fawltea got to his car, the exit was blocked by a BMW. How typical. And he knew well who that BMW belonged to, like all his demons, this car too had ties to the halls of power. It belonged to some new fangled spoiled navy brat (because army and air force brats weren't enough demons to face, apparently) who had only just started her training at the ripe old age of 33, that too due to nepotism and without passing the first part of the fellowship exam. After acquiring her degree, she'd gone on a world tour for the better part of 7 years, as only the elite could afford to, and was now finally ready to start her life, without even going through any of the hurdles one usually does. And the fact that her training was stipendless bothered her not a bit, for her pocket money was more than what Fawltea made in 3 months.

In fact, now that Fawltea thought about it, this very BMW was something he'd never be able to afford, even if he saved up his whole life. Suddenly he realized why that forlorn, vampire-esque trainee whined about poverty so much. He was the only serious trainee and regular fixture here, though he was not smarter than the doctor that reminded him of Veronica Mars, who while being a genius with insane medical knowledge, cared not an iota to lift a finger because of her “It's better to ease a poor person's suffering by letting them die, they have no future here, this country has no future” world view, Fawltea wondered if Dr. Veronica Mars would also let the emo trainee die, were he to end up admitted here with a serious illness. Then again, she had told Fawltea to drive his car off the hospital terrace when she'd asked him how much he'd saved up for the upcoming rupee crash, so the answer was probably in the affirmative.

For once, Fawltea felt the pain of being poor. He too wanted the very best in life, but could not afford it, it had been his dream to drive a Ferrari, and it would remain so until the day he died. Unless, of course, one of these rich brats invited him to drive theirs some day. He could only hope. He had once dreamt of owning a Bugatti, or a Lamborghini, or even one of the more higher end Ferraris but that was 1998, before the country's first default. Then, he had lowered his gaze to just owning any Ferrari, no matter how cheap, that was the second default. Now that Pakistan had defaulted thrice, he was merely hoping he'd get to drive one someday. O Hope, he told himself, no wonder you were part of Pandora's Box.

Snapping out of his thoughts, he called the naval brat, but of course she was not picking up. Then, because it'd be too pathetic if he went looking himself, he called Gul Abad, who answered almost immediately. “Gul Abad, I need you to find that BMW brat, the one who brags about her damn world tour, no doubt paid for by our damn dime.”

Gul Abad spoke as if he were this serious, intense professor: “Oh, sorry I can't help you, I'm teaching the medical students how to do pericardiocentesis. And it's not going very well. And stop being petty, this is why I keep telling you to stop paying those taxes like me, gullible man.”

Fawltea could hear worried whispers, a cry or two, but before he could say anything, Gul Abad had terminated the call.

Oh well, I have other cards to play, thought Fawlty, and called his only serious trainee, the depressed fellow who looked like he hung out at graveyards. Legend has it that the reaper saw his face and spiraled into depression himself, and for just one day, no one died.

“Yes, I need you to find that BMW brat like yesterday, I'm losing precious time here.” The fellow simply said “Yes, sir” and terminated the call, this is what Fawltea liked about him, he knew his place, and he obeyed without question. Oh, to have a few more like him.

Fawltea stood there, waiting. 5 minutes passed, 10 minutes passed, he sat down on a bench and started looking at his phone. He had left the ward at 1 PM, it was somehow 2:50 already, oh well, he had 5 more hours to himself, and 10 minutes too if it came to that.

At 3:30 he could wait no longer, and called the grave-dweller.

“You seriously can't find one damn doctor? Where can she even be?”

His voice, as beaten as ever, came out softly. “I've searched our ward, no one has seen her sir. Then, I searched the 2nd floor, and even the 3rd. Just 9 more to go...”

“You buffoon, just go to the security room and ask to have a look at the cameras, God, you people are so inefficient.”

20 more minutes passed, and no update, Fawltea sent him an angry voice message, telling him to start by reviewing footage from the car parking.

3 minutes later, he got a call.

“Sir she seems to have left the premises with a guy, it looks like, she's not here in the hospital.”

“Ugh, sod this, I'll just get a damn cab. And tell Gul Abad to cut the brakes on this damn BMW, sod her.”

“Not a good idea sir, he'll just go to her and tell her you said this, sell you out.” he replied.

“Sod you all.” Fawltea said angrily, and started to walk towards the exit gate. He had only just passed the CCU, when he saw Gul Abad teaching 2 medical students the art of reading an ECG. There was no one else in the damn ward, not a single doctor.

“They left you in charge, Gul Abad?”

“Of course sir, they said you can read ECGs, know how to load MI patients, and do pericardiocentesis if need be, and are able to use the defib, they said I'm a cardiologist already. It's Eid, all the trainees went to their villages. They said I can practice central lines while I'm here, and if need be, use the cath lab. Doctor Zain said it's as simple as driving through a tunnel, I just have to push the catheter through.”

“Doctor Zain is a damn pathologist, he's never even seen the damn inside of a cath lab, let alone a procedure. Do you even know what a bloody guide wire is?” Fawltea asked, knowing fully well he was only gonna be more annoyed. At this point, Fawltea's mustache seemed like it was going to grow a pair of beefy arms, and punch Gul Abad's lights out.

“No, but there's nothing like doing, to learn. Experience is the best teacher. And you are just jealous of him because he is a total rockstar and fast bowler, and the nurses don't even look at you while they go all the way to the lab to flirt with him. No one buys your lopsided combover, Dr. Fawltea.”

The mustache deflated faster than the tires of a Suzuki Mehran drifting through glass on one of those roads near Karkhano Market, where all the glass factories had decided to form a giant glass factory behemoth, King of Glass GaoGaiGar as the locals called it in fact, they did not call it such a thing, yours truly is embellishing here

“Goddamit. Goddamn you all. Sod you lot. Sod this CCU, I'll have every damn trainee terminated.” Fawltea's patience for these hooligans, the so called “doctors” of today had run dry.

“Not a good idea, sir, three of them are related to the Corps Commander...” Gul Abad said in a smug tone, and suddenly Fawltea found his patience again. For to Fawltea, that word might as well have been Corpse Commander, bringing forth vivid hallucinations of a rogue lich general with an army of corpses all storming him.

Fawltea hated the milk of human kindness, the very little that remained in him, because it compelled him to stay. He called his graveyard shift crypt dwelling trainee again, and decided to do a proper round. There was also a new fellow, a house officer who didn't know how to tell a patient's pulse, let alone what a beta blocker was, the chief minister's nephew, because of course he was. Gul Abad had also called his friend the janitor Fazal Amin, who was apparently an “expert at calculating doses” because he was just really good at Math, beyond that he had no use. He was also really good with his hands, apparently.

He explained, to these three stooges and that one vampire wannabe – a total emo if he ever saw one – each case, its management protocols, possible complications, and what to keep an eye out for, as best he could. There were 12 beds, and it took Fawltea 15 odd minutes to cover each. Fawltea had lost 3 more precious hours of his time. It was now 7 PM, and he only had one hour left.

It's Eid, dammit, I can't waste this day, I simply must do something. Fawltea ran, ran outside to get a cab, he had but crossed the building when he saw the BMW leaving, finally, oh thank God. He ran back to his car, and turned the keys. Ignition.

Only there wasn't any.

No, he had to make this day count, he would fight his compulsion to troubleshoot, test and diagnose, to repair, he would not waste his only day off, he would take a cab and go for a stroll and dinner at the nearby golf club, at the very least, and possibly even play a round or two, if they let you at night, for once he would spend his money and treat himself, his wife never agreed to give him any time off, he had to make this count dammit, he had to...……

“Say Gul Abad, you wouldn't happen to know how to fix cars, would you?”

“As it happens, sir, Fazal Amin here moonlights as a mechanic....”

And so they made their way to the car, Fawltea, Fazal Amin, Gul Abad, and even the emo trainee.

“Hachi Go...” said the trainee, and popped the hood, getting to work before Fazal could even understand what he had said.

Well, at least I found my new mechanic, thought Fawltea, taking the cigarette Gul Abad had offered. He had never smoked in his life, but he wanted to get something out of this day, at the very least. The damn thing tasted like melted tires, but he continued to blow smoke, between coughs. He wondered if maybe this is what he needed to be cool, damn Zain and his damn rockstar looks. No one should have a full head of hair and look 30 at 50, Fawltea felt. Damn you, Telomeres, and damn you Free Radicals, and damn you especially, Apoptosis. Damn you, Anne Hathaway, for being a vampire and hiding the secrets of immortality from the rest of us.

He couldn't believe he was driving home half an hour later, his car felt better than ever. Fazal Amin was magic, the garage he worked at was a mere 5 minutes away, and that coupled with emo mister's knowledge had led to his car getting a shot of adrenaline. The two crazy geniuses were talking about how they'd managed to squeeze in an automatic transmission with close gear ratios for a more sporty feel, whatever that meant; Fawltea wasn't really paying attention to his emo trainee's infodump, all he heard was 8-6 or something.

Fawltea was cruising, it was as if he was young again. Zain was right there, right next to his car in his stupid 2007 Civic, Fawltea hit the accelerator hard, showing him the true power of his unreasonably maligned car, for that moment he was not Dr. Fawltea, Internal Medicine Specialist who fancied himself a better Cardiologist than anyone else in Peshawar, he was Michael Schumacher, making lesser drivers taste his tire's dust. All he needed was some rain, and for Zain to slip, crash and burn, but alas.

As he continued to blitz through Mall Road pretending it was Need for Speed 1 – for Fawltea never did like 2 – the traffic light turned red, Fawltea hit the brakes repeatedly but the car just kept going.

“Oh well, if Gul Abad can do appendectomies, maybe I can drive home without brakes,” he reasoned. He knew the coin of fate had fallen on tails far too many times for one day, and now it was time for heads.

Just then, a BMW suddenly veered onto the road.

“Well, shit.”

 
Read more...

from Salt Forged Stories

So much for an easy first job.

Demise had run this playbook before: A quiet heist conducted while the city's heroes were busy elsewhere. Pacify the local civilians, collect whatever item had attracted her attention, and leave quickly and quietly. A clean first job. She'd learned from her previous mistake. Experience had sanded down the rough edges of her procedure until even a heroic response didn't phase her. She'd dismissed Thundriana in less than 3 minutes when she attempted to stop her in Eagleton. She'd put the Pale Strider in the hospital for trying to keep her from snatching the Rabanastre Diamond. Heroes were goofy, sanctimonious, predictable. Barely even worth her time.

She'd assumed the same of the fierce looking Black man in the red and white armor who'd accosted her in the R&D facility of the Meritron Building. He was tall, muscular, and as cocky as the rest. Demise remembered yawning before dropping the stellar engine she'd stolen into the starry abyss of her coat. She'd barely felt anything at all when she'd cast her favorite spell and hurled toward him. Malus Meteora sent her flying through the air and to take her target down with meteoric force. Despite her knees on his shoulders and the solar powered superhero's warm face between her thick thighs, Demise had barely felt anything at all. Heatstroke, as he'd introduced himself, was uncommonly attractive, but she remained unconvinced that he was uncommonly smart or strong. Defeating him, embarrassing him, would be like going through the motions, and she wouldn't feel anything at all doing so. It was all so mundane.

Then he'd proved her wrong. Repeatedly. The Black women with mystical powers hated this man in a way she struggled to fully articulate. It was something in the way he called her a “witch” and said it like a pejorative. The way he kept staring at her chest, or her thighs, or her eyes like some horny, disgusting voyeur. The cocky way he joked as they traded blows. Heatstroke was so goddamn sure of himself. All of it lit something in her, excited her. She'd already hit him with much of her repertoire, including using her summoned shadow servants to bolster her own techniques. She'd put him through the ringer from the very first. And he'd kept getting up, as obnoxious as ever.

He took her best shots and hit her with the kind of power that defied easy hyperbole. He didn't “hit like a truck,” and he didn't have “monstrous strength.” This Heatstroke had already proven he was better, stronger than any of that; he was a real fighter in the superpowered sense. It was the way he moved in his stance, steady and balanced. The way he threw feints and paced his stamina and whatever powers he possessed. He was game for a fucking fight, and the sensation was intoxicating. No distractions, no objectives, no mercy. Demise loved the heat in her blood, the warmth spreading throughout her curvy frame, the glee that came from hurting someone who dared to stand up to her. The 33 year-old witch savored this chance to get to fight without worrying about the rest of the coven getting in the way of her fun, or getting themselves hurt. She wanted to make her name off of his and establish a new threat here on the sunny Southern California Coast. She didn't know much about Heatstroke but she knew she wanted to beat him senseless. She didn't need her thick glasses to see that this man was a challenge and a threat.

And WitchWay's field leader and resident Combat Witch fucking loved every moment of this. It reminded her of why she'd picked this line of work, why she'd been comfortable operating on the wrong side of the law. She was bad. Demise wanted to take all of his strength and pride and joy and crush it. She wanted to hear Heatstroke whimper and watch him cower and see the look in his eyes that said he regretted crossing her. She wanted to have her way with him. She wanted to break Heatstroke and let his humiliation serve as her fearsome introduction to this city. And if he were lucky, maybe she'd have some fun with him before someone came to cart him off. She certainly had enjoyed the feeling of his warm face between her thighs. If his dick was as hard and hot as the rest of him she might just leave him alive after she'd emptied him out.

But as she wrapped her legs around him in midair and spun him to the ground hard enough to crack the tile and leave a crater, the short, curvaceous combat caster had to face a dispiriting truth: Heatstroke didn't stay down. Not when she bounced him off the wall of the laboratory, not when three summoned shadows hit him with consecutive diving elbows, not even when she taunted him about the ass kicking she was delivering. No, instead the musclebound hero stood up, nearly blinded her with a flash of light, and then hit her hard enough that Demise worried he might have knocked a spell out of her memory.

She heard him standing over her, certain he'd won, never noticing the spell she was weaving. Commanding her shadows was second nature and she could do it with her eyes closed. The taunting? The taunting came naturally. With talent and strength and desires like hers, she had the liberty to say whatever she wanted, take whatever she wanted. But he lit something inside her, something bloodthirsty and insatiable. Something she had to fight to keep control of her own desires. Each time she adjusted her wide brimmed hat or glasses or braids was an attempt to keep her burgeoning desires in check. But she didn't want to fuck him.

Demise wanted to annihilate him.

She felt it in her veins, flowing as surely as her magic. She wanted to consume him. He looked worse for wear, his brightly colors clothes and glowing body each bearing the marks of her punishment. But the harder she fought, the harder this cocky superhero hit her in return. The brawny, athletic Black man wasn't ceding any ground while the short, stocky Black witch steadily burned through her mana and her ideas to demolish or demoralize him. And so when they tumbled on the ground for the umpteenth time, she swerved. When she couldn't fully pin him beneath her, she kissed him. The feeling of her lips on his, her chest against hers was almost as gratifying as feeling him go limp. The taste of his mouth was as delicious as his surprise. She adjusted her broad brimmed witch hat and grinned down at him, black and yellow braids falling down around her chubby face, black sclera eyes staring imperiously at him.

It wasn't fair. She'd changed the rules of their conflict on a whim with no warning, adding eroticism to what'd been a simple fight, simply because she'd wanted to. But that was her ethos: doing whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted, and destroying anyone who dared challenge her. It was why she'd never seriously considered working as a hero. Goody two shoes like Heatstroke didn't get to do things like this. They had rules and procedures and limitations. She had whatever her mind could conceive. Demise seized her moment, pitching forward and trying to choke him with one of her favorite techniques. When Heatstroke fought her complicated maneuver, the frustrated witch wrapped her arms behind his head and pulled him deep into her massive cleavage.

There was more than one way to choke a hero, after all.

But the heat from his face sent an immodest shiver through her chest and between her legs. Fully seated on his waist, Demise felt the rippling muscles of his hips and thighs strained her hips. Just straddling him was a stretch. But Heatstroke's warmth didn't stop at his face. Demise stifled a gasp of her own and kissed him harder, grinding her lips against his abs just to see the shocked look on his stupid face. She especially savored the delicious moment he lost sight of their fight. She knew what enchantment she'd placed on her lipstick, and his subtle, unseemly moan made no secret of what he wanted to do with her, to her.

Fucking loser.

“Ohhh? I wasn't sure that spell would work, but that's not a torch in your pants is it, Heatstroke? Be a good boy and I might reward you.” She teased him, gesturing at her massive chest to further emphasize her body even as she denied him. An obnoxious man like Heatstroke deserved to writhe with unmet need forever, begging for mercy that she'd never give him.

But even that abuse didn't put him down and out. Instead he, woozy and distant, muttered some unintelligible bullshit and pushed him off of her with a strength that was frankly insulting. How was he this strong, even after the beating he'd endured, and the effects of her enchanted lips?

The 33 year-old villainess knew her strengths: she'd overpowered heroes three times her size, and just last month her kisses had turned the pair of thieves who'd tried to double-cross her into needy, drooling sluts crawling over each other for the chance to worship her.

So what made Heatstroke so agonizingly different? She wanted to know, if only before she ruined it, before she despised him. But Demise recognized the grim reality of the situation. Her mana reserves were rapidly depleting and she was no closer to escaping or destroying the sole hero she'd encountered. The realization was sobering, and whatever fire she'd harbored while fighting him had died, smothered by the uncomfortable realization that anyone who arrived on the scene with powers wouldn't be there to help her. At best they'd be greedy villains who'd demand a cut of her take in exchange for help. At worst they'd be whatever this hotheaded asshole counted as friends. Meanwhile, she'd come here for some lawless fun and to start the first of what would surely be many lucrative high profile thefts in this sprawling metropolis. The deceptively strong witch needed to escape now, while she still had her wits, mana and the prototype stellar engine she'd stolen moments before he arrived.

And so the sinister Black woman considered what spellstrikes she hadn't tried yet. The Umbra Driver, a fearsome combination of magical and wrestling acumen, wasn't the kind of move you merely walked away from. She relished the thought of leaving this bright eyed nuisance half buried in the floor as she offered the last words and thoughts he'd ever elicit. But the spell was complicated to weave and harder still to perform. Its substantial costs also meant she'd only get one attempt at it. The risk of burning out her reserves and collapsing somewhere in the city before even securing her ill gotten gains was too great.

No, the thirty-three year old Black witch needed something a little more... measured. And so she began considering alternatives. And when Heatstroke struggled to his feat, she envisioned his defeat. It took the form of a tightly coiled ball of dark magic, churning and vibrating with frenetic energy. Cupped in her palm, the purple-black mass buzzed angrily like TV static. She stared at her work and smiled. Then she leapt at him, enjoying the fear in his glowing eyes as she plunged it into his chest.


The curvy, sneering haughty witch didn't remember leaving her feet or hitting the floor. But there she was, pushing up to her hands and knees, coughing and sputtering and swearing and bleeding. Her eye had swollen enough to obstruct her vision, and her cheek and ribs ached. Her head rang like a telephone and her veins throbbed. It was absolutely infuriating. How the hell had the first hero she'd met in this godforsaken city pushed her to her absolute limit? Inconceivable.

Worse yet, this asshole couldn't even die right. Instead he'd deflected the spellstrike at the last possible moment, turning a lethal strike into a devastating one. For both of them. Whatever solar power enveloped him tightened at the last moment and reacted violently to the concentrated mass of dark magic she'd summoned.

Now she heard him murmuring, beginning to wake. Demise decided then and there that fighting Heatstroke was no longer fun, satisfying or lucrative. He stood, armor cracked, hero swaying, and Demise felt an unwelcome pang of arousal shoot through her. The blood and bruises marring his frame did nothing to obscure his good looks. If anything, seeing him battered and ailing only made her want him more. The broad bands on his skin had dulled to pale yellow, and he swayed on unsteady feet. She'd done that to him. She wanted to finish things between them.

Demise waved him in, losing herself in the heat of the moment. In him. She swung at him, annoyed by her own lethargy, only for him to grapple willingly with her. She'd never be too tired to drop a loser on his head.

And then he kissed her, and her plans changed again. He tasted nice, the sweat on her lips and the warmth of his tongue. She wanted him, the strength of his hands on her bountiful hips, the way he squeezed her like she was his already. It was presumptive and bold and she didn't hate it. He'd stood up to her and meant it, lasted in a way few others could, or had. This could be a consolation prize before she conquered him. Heatstroke, this brawny hero, grabbed her bare ass, slipping his hand underneath her torn dress. She gasped, stifled a moan, and fought to maintain her composure, and to think about anything but her burgeoning lust. They kissed, once, and then again: slow, wet, sloppy kisses exchanged by opponents who'd each expected a quick, decisive victory.

She hated how much she wanted this, liked this sensation. Her hands explored him, touching him in ways she hadn't been able to while trying to physically overpower him, doing things she simply couldn't while summoning servants to help her slam, stomp, twist, and choke him. She wanted him, she decided. But she needed to leave. Now.

He'd asked her if she was ready to give up. He must have known how she would answer.

“So what comes next?” He'd asked her. And the Field leader for WitchWay drew on every ounce of her training as a combat witch.

“Your demise.”

She'd left her familiar as a lookout, tasking the enchanted creature with watching for anyone with enough power to interfere with her ongoing robbery. At least, anyone else. Now she spoke to it without words with a bond only the two of them understood. The creature was a fount of mana and Demise needed every drop of it.

The haughty spellstriker summoned her last few shadows, pitiful, threadbare things barely held together like poorly sewn dolls. While they engaged the weary hero, Demise ran, touched her black cat familiar and weaved, a familiar, desperate spell.

Magic wrapped around the beast, turned her familiar into a facsimile of her current appearance. She placed her hand on the black cat's head and suddenly beheld herself instead of the creature. Her familiar still couldn't talk; it was only a cat, albeit a magical one, but the important thing was that her beloved pet looked exactly like she did right now. On one hand this made it a convincing decoy. On the other hand, the sight was frankly disconcerting

Her black and purple braids were frayed, singed, torn. Her cheek was swollen. Her dress had ripped in several places and afforded her precious little modesty. Her heaving breasts strained the now ripped fabric, and her hat and cape both had rips and tears in the night sky fabric. Bruises marred her beautiful dark brown skin and one eye looked swollen. This was not a haughty, conquering witch. No, the Demise she beheld in front of her had been in a fucking fight with a truly fearsome.

And survived. Maybe even won.

She nodded at the familiar-turned-facsimile and fled. Behind her, the hero tore through the last of her summoned shadows. The short, stocky witch felt Heatstroke pull on her threadbare cape. “Get your fucking hands off me!” She yelled, pulling away from him. The fabric gave way and she heard it rip before she broke into a full sprint. “Bitchass!” She offered one last insult and dove through the illusory plate of jet black shadow at the end of the room.

When the black abyss finally parted, she emerged onto a busy street. The witch ducked into an alley, out of sight, and paused to catch her breath. What a fucking ordeal. When her pulse finally slowed, Demise gathered herself, pulling the hat off her head and reaching into the night sky of its underside. The fabric was deeply enchanted, less a fashion accessory than a portal, and her hand vanished into it as she scrounged around the void of starry space stitched into the underside of her hat.

She finally found what she was looking for, not a moment too soon. Someone had come around the corner into the alley, and she was unwilling to engage anyone while she was so utterly depleted. She might have her pride, but more than anything she still had some sense. Heatstroke hadn't knocked all of that loose at least. The witch pulled out an inky, eerie black circle, and shoved it against the wall. A transportation spell. All she had to do was think of her destination and walk.

She heard yelling behind her but it was too late. They'd never catch her. Instead she thought of the loft her and her coven had leased, spun around to face her mysterious pursuers, and flipped off what ended up being a bunch of young, poorly dressed adults. Heroes perhaps? Mere goofballs? None of it mattered as she fell back into the void and away from the world.


“Tea and an ice pack?” The pale woman cackled. “Looks like someone had a rough-”

“Shut up, Mathilda.” Breanna Thompson wasn't in the mood for her teammate's acerbic sense of humor. “It's too early for that shit.”

Mathilda Lundstrom shrugged, and walked past the short Black woman to begin digging into the nearby fridge. “So, two questions, Demise.” Mathilda ran a slender hand through her messy blonde tresses. Her stocky friend eyed her warily, and the two women exchanged glances in their airy loft.

“You get one, Maddie.”

“Did you get the number of the truck that hit you?” Breanna watched her teammate dissolve into ugly cackles.

“That's your question? Not 'did you get the Star Engine?' Not 'did you find out more about the heroes in this city?' Not, 'how are you feeling?” She'd been willing to humor the older woman, but the combination of the oppressive morning light and Mathilda's wisecracks was too much for the cranky witch.

“Honestly? I figured we'd get to the important shit later. You're good for that. That's why we made you coven leader, remember? That way I get to be your wise cracking deputy who handles morale and discipline. And fundraising.”

Breanna didn't know when the lithe Swedish woman had found, or began eating, an apple, but that was the least of her questions right now. Mathilda Lundstrom, known professionally as Overhaul, specialized in transmogrification magic. While Demise had shaped her magic into control of shadows and close range combat, Overhaul focused on turning things into other things. A backpack into a jetpack. A metal box into a car. A pebble into an an apple.

“And also,” Mathilda continued. “I know you, Bre. If you hadn't brough the engine back, we would have known about it. You're a lot of things, but 'a good loser' ain't one of them. Seriously though. The fuck happened to you?” She pulled up a chair, spreading her legs to sit backwards in it. The two woman sat there in the broad, vacant studio. Witch Way's two oldest members, and its longest tenured. Breanna didn't want to be dressed this early, let alone at the studio and conducting buisiness. That annoyed her, but the fact that the other members besides Maddie hadn't shown up yet frustrated her more. She stared across the table at her friend. Maddie had a quirky charm to her, especially when she wasn't covered in her characteristic sheen of motor oil. The woman sat with her arms crossed, open flannel shirt partially covering her soiled tanktop, messy hair spilling out from her backwards cap.

“Less about me.” Breanna's head still ached but the pain was already beginning to dull. She wore a sweater baggy enough to mostly hide her curvaceous physique, paired with short shorts that always seemed too eager to ride up her thighs. The result was something nondescript without being uncomfortable or looking unsightly, helped by a series of charms on her necklace, a nose stud, and a pair of fashionable earrings. She looked like the kind of woman who might live at, or perhaps also run, an artist commune. “So Wwere are the cadets?”

“Abbi Kadabra and Hextasy went out on the town last night. Said something about painting the new town red.” Mathilda laughed. She was now drinking from a porcelain cup. It smelled like good coffee.

“It's not our town, yet.” Breanna's hand tightened around the handle of her own tea cup. The flavor helped ease the tension curling her fingers. Loose leaf, of course. Cherry, and lemon and vanilla. The store she'd bought it from had called it 'Cherry Swirl.' That wasn't too far off.

“Alright. Sounds like we need to talk.

Breanna took a deep breath and pushed her glasses up her nose. Those frames were the only part of her 'Demise' wardrobe that perssisted into her civilian life. Her wide-brimmed, connical hat, sultry dress, and wrestling boots were more 'work outfit' than 'everday gear.' She looked up from her still steaming cup of tea, and then started explaining exactly what had happened the night before. At least, most of it. Breanna had to catch herself a few times, stopping mid-sentence to pointedly elide the most intense of her emotions, as well as the two kisses she'd shared with the hero. She'd expected to literally walk all over him, to embarass him and leave him for the medics to find. Instead he'd matched her,m step for step, and forced her to nearly empty her mana and her bag of tricks to escape.

But even her escape hadn't been absolute. Left entirely unspoken was the fact that she'd seen Heatstroke again that night, if only in her head: the brawny, tenacious hero had crossed her mind more than once while she masturbated in bed, trying to relieve that day's tension. Something about his bright eyes and broad shoulders and the warmth of his face made her tingle even now. In her lewd fantasies he'd been bound by thick tendrils of shadows, powerless to do anything but squirm before she rode his warm, satisfying face to a messy conclusion. It was lewd, and lurid, but that was one fantasy she'd have to keep secret from the rest of her coven.

“I can' t remember the last time you didn't absolutely maul somebody on your first night in a new town. Are you slowing down, Bri?” Mathilda flashed her crooked smile. The two small horns protruding from her forehead didn't ruin the effect. Each member of their coven bore a brand, some physical indication of the pact they'd forged with whatever entity had given them their powers. Breanna didn't regret the pact that gave her her sinister colored eyes. Black sclera and yellow irises were a small price to pay for the kind of power that could disrupt a city. Mathilda's knobby horns were similarly a small cost for powers that let her turn a plastic fork into a plastic explosive, or a sheet of cardboard into a functional parachute. Breanna shook her head, sending her black and purple braids shaking like a curtain of beads. “Same. But it doesn't change anything. We're running the same playbook as always. Art gallery by day, crime ring by night.”

“Technically those both happen at night.” Mathilda said, unable or unwilling to hide her cheeky grin.

“Shut it, Maddie. Anyways, that hero from last night said he was from the “Kinetic Solutions” like that was supposed to mean something. Tell Abbi and Hextasy that if they wanna hit the streets so damn badly, they can go round up some intel on what we're dealing with. I like wins, not surprises.”

“Point taken. I'll make sure Dylan and Stef get the message. So do you have something planned for tonight?”

“Sleep.” Breanna said, once again sounding like the confident leader of a coven of superpowered witches “Tomorrow I want a coven meeting at sunset. We came here because I have a few leads I wanna follow. Also, Maddie, go wherever you go to find all that scrap metal. If we're gonna pull off this 'artist commune' thing, we need to actually make some art. I'm planning an exhibition in a week and a half. Gives us enough time to build a little buzz without making it feel like a spur of the moment thing.”

“Aye aye, captain. Your wish is my command.” Her deputy grinned, and the two women switched to other topics.

“So how are we on cash?”

#Writing #FirstDraft #Series #SFW #HotDarkLoveStory #HDLS #Fiction #Romance #Action #Fight #Magic #Superheroes #MartialArts

 
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from Crapknocker

I was staying up too late one night, going down a youtube rabbit hole when a thought occurred to me. What was behind that one sunken ship door in that game I never finished a few years ago? I could never quite make out the solution. So I dug into videos on how to complete it, what the solution was, what the breakdown of the puzzles were and so on for the absolute masterpiece of a game that is The Witness.

The Witness came out in 2016, the follow up to Jonathan Blow's famous indie game hit Braid. The game took over seven years to complete, going over its initial release date substantially. In interviews and on the development blog, the game's architects reveal that the initial gameplay prototype was completed relatively early and the final few years were spent mostly on polish. In the game, you can see and feel that time spent in every corner of every environment of the world.

The Witness is a puzzle game, in which the central mechanic is drawing a line between a circular origin point and a destination. This is primarily presented through the use of panels in the game world which usually unlock a door or the next panel in a sequence. The twist comes when variations in the puzzle panels are presented. There are dots along the path that you have to cross over, shapes you have to outline, colored squares you have to separate, etc.

The real ingenuity and beauty of the game becomes apparent in some of the more advanced puzzles, in which there are no obvious clues on the panel toward its solution and too many possibilities to try each one individually. A player (you) has to use clues from the surrounding environment to find the correct path to trace.

A beautiful example comes in the orchard section of the game, where the panels are not their usual grid shape but instead laid out in the shape of exponentially branching trees. There are hundreds of possible solutions, which would take quite a while to trace individually. The beauty comes when you notice, just behind and off to the left of the panel, a tree in a somewhat similar shape to the puzzle. The tree has only one apple hanging from its branches, and when you trace the path of the branches that ends in the apple, the pleasant sound of a panel successfully completed greets you and a lighted wire leads you to the next location.

This helps to teach you some of the lessons that the game will expand upon in wonderful and unexpected ways. Heavy spoilers lie ahead. I honestly recommend you play this game so much that if you might have any interest or desire to play this game, playing it unspoiled is the only real way to understand what the game is trying to communicate. So read no further, ye who wish to have one of the most absolutely unique experiences in the field of gaming unspoiled.

The years of polish they spent on this game come through most clearly in the environmental design. Puzzles completely aside, every different location on the island is located relatively closely to one another, has its own distinct aesthetic, color pallette, and soundscape. There is no background music in the game, aside from where it factors into a puzzle or two. Instead, there are the ambient sounds of the wind, the beach and your footsteps as you walk to different locations on the island. But the best part of the soundscape is that the sound of your footsteps change depending upon the environment, the crunch of sand in the desert is a far cry from the metallic clank of walking on platforms in the swamp. The sharp taps of the quarry contrast with the muffled thumps in the forest. All these areas sit close enough to one another to be able to walk back and forth in a minute or two, but the from within each area very rarely distracts from your objectives there. As a player, I could almost see the immense amount of tweaking and moving things around slightly to create each area's own sense of space and location. Not to mention how each area's theme plays into its puzzles.

The quarry's concept deals with subtracting areas from puzzle grids that you were already familiar with. The desert deals with the reflections of the sun and other objects to clue you in to the solution. The treetops deal with connecting isolated areas, both in form and puzzle function. The town in the middle of the island displays a mixture of the puzzle types of all the surrounding areas.

But the in-game metaphor goes further than that. If you're still reading and feeling intrigued about this game, stop and go play it instead of reading on. I assure you, the actual gameplay is better than reading about it here! Also, because I am going to talk about one of the absolutely sublime things the game does with its themes and I would rather you experience it firsthand from a game that took years to make rather than my writing which took significantly less. I'm going to talk about THE MOMENT.

THE MOMENT

So eventually the time comes where you have been conditioned to look in more detail at the environment around you. There are many puzzles that use the environment, one in particular that I banged my head against for quite a while featured a transparent panel. No other panel in the game up to that point is transparent so it initially sticks out. I went round and round until I realized that it must have been transparent for a reason so I started looking around to see what might give me clues to the solution. This panel is located near the shore of the island, with a beautiful coastline in the distance spotted with several bright green palm trees. The trees contrast against the rocky brown surface of the island outcropping and they are just the right distance away to all be seen through the panel I was wrestling with. If you treat them like some of the surrounding puzzle elements, they point the way to solve the puzzle. It takes a few leaps of logic to solve this one, and for an optional puzzle no less!

But that’s just one trick the game has for you, in a quiver that seems bottomless. As you’re wandering about the island, you will have seen places, perhaps on walls, perhaps outlined in the trees, that remind you of the shape of the puzzles you’ve been seeing on the panels this whole time.

Wouldn’t it be funny, you smirkingly think to yourself, if…

And then you click and see that it works! You can trace these patterns in the environment! Your mind is blown, you had no idea this was even possible. Your expectations have been shattered and a sense of wonder fills you as you try to discern exactly what is happening. The limit of what is possible in a game seems much bigger than you initially thought.

Meanwhile, the game is giving you audio and visual feedback as you move your cursor through the line you’ve spotted in a garden or walkway. Completing the line, the game gives you a thunderous, resounding echo and a trail of sparkles that point you to the previously inscrutable obelisks you may have already run across. These obelisks now show the pattern you just outlined brightly on one of its sides, while the rest of the sides show darkened patterns that await you to find them.

You were never explicitly told to find these patterns or to try and click on them. But the game has been conditioning you to see both the elements of the puzzle and to pay attention to your environment to be able to progress. To get that little hit of dopamine when you solve a puzzle. While it may only be tracing a line, it feels like enlightenment the first time you do it.

And then you start noticing these patterns everywhere. They were there from the beginning, hiding in plain sight. The game was pushing you towards this epiphany. It wanted you to see it, it gave you a starting point and clues from your environment to help you find the intended destination.

But that’s not the end of the game. To finish the game, you have to complete enough puzzles in enough areas to alight the lasers at the end of each sequence. Once finished, a laser will emerge that points towards the mountain that has been looming over you while you have been exploring the island. Making your way up there, you find the summit locked by another beautifully unique puzzle involving perspective. Solving it, the peak of the mountain opens. Within is a labyrinth you descend which functions as a kind of final thesis of the ideas and themes of the game.

Now, an admission. In my gameplay, I had descended deep within the mountain, finding both the intended route and the alternate deeper path which lead further into the caverns. However, I was distracted by outside life events and ended up never completing the game from that point forward. Oddly like many other games I had gotten 95% of the way through and abandoned (Warcraft II, various Final Fantasies, etc.) I never returned to it. Until late one night where my curiosity got the better of me.

I resigned my gameplay fully believing that, spatially and thematically, you would finish the game by rising up through the same tunnel you started the game in. Watching through a handful of YouTube videos that night proved my inclination right. You see, aside from just puzzles the game also contains audio recordings of voice actors reciting quotes from various sources including philosophical texts, famous scientists and the Diamond Sutra.

As I’m sure you all know, the Diamond Sutra is a foundational work in the practice of Zen Buddhism. I certainly didn’t have to look that up. Anyway, another practice of Zen you might be familiar with is that of a koan. In short, a koan is a saying or piece of text that tries to induce a sense of uncertainty or contradiction in order to break through false understanding to try and bring a greater or more intuitive understanding.

In this sense, the game functions as a zen koan. It gives you patterns, lets you solve them and then deliberately changes the rules to give you a greater understanding of the world the puzzles inhabit. The environmental puzzles, too serve this purpose as both an extension and breaking of the rules of the world.

I have come to similar understandings through various methods in my own life. Perhaps the easiest for me to explain is through, surprisingly, statistics. If you’re trying to build a statistical model of a system, let’s say a six-sided dice roll, you can easily tell a computer to randomly choose a number between one and six. But there are always problems with any simulation. If you’re a student of computer science, you know that computers are not really all that great at choosing truly random numbers. It might not matter for a single 1/6 chance, but run the simulation thousands or millions of times and biases reveal themselves. Conversely, your simulation might not account for a tiny chip in your die that leads to one number being favored over another if rolled a certain way. In either case, the computer model of the d6 might work for just about any purpose you might want, but it’s not a perfect model.

In statistics, this was made clear to me in the phrase, “All models are wrong, but some are useful.” This phrase is attributed to George Box in the 1970s. But as the wikipedia page I just pulled that from notes, the sentiment has been expressed many times throughout history with one of my favorites being, “The map is not the terrain.” by Korzybski, 1933. This jives with the many references towards scientific understanding in the game as well.

But I think the game posits that this metaphor extends to enlightenment as well, with the Buddha himself saying in the Diamond Sutra that, “All that has a form is illusive and unreal. When you see that all forms are illusive and unreal, then you will begin to perceive your true Buddha nature.” While I don’t call myself a Buddhist, I take this to mean the same thing, that capital-t Truth is unknowable. But our senses can give us useful impressions and ideas of the universe that can increase our understanding of it. In this way, I think that enlightenment is an ongoing process, not a linear path to an end.

Which brings us back to the game. Solving line puzzles over and over eventually brings you to the game’s main ending, which as I later found out takes you on a tour of the island, resetting all the puzzles you’ve completed and returning you to the tunnel you began in. Is the game saying that our time doing all of that was wasted? No, I think it’s trying to say something a bit deeper. It’s not the act of tracing lines that’s important, it’s the journey you took, the things you learned along the way. To be blunt, the things you witnessed or that inspired you or surprised you or frustrated you or blew your mind were what really mattered.

But all these themes and gameplay mechanics coming together with the story and textual references to such a point to prime you to that feeling of epiphany, it’s an incredible achievement. And not just to experience it, but to interrogate it, to feel it over and over again and try to get you to ask the question why? An incredible achievement. Where some games can’t even keep their mechanics and story coherent between one cutscene and the next, Jonathan Blow has created gameplay so enmeshed within its themes that it’s breathtaking. For all these reasons I recommend playing it. Spoiling yourself is denying you the experience of climbing to these heights and is, I propose, another false enlightenment. Sure, why not save time and look up the puzzle solutions? Why think hard about things when I can just get the answer whenever? Why climb a mountain when I can just look at a picture of it? Why try to change myself when I can just cruise through life from one experience to the next. This game is not for those type of people.

Endings and pretentiousness

Which brings me to the topic of the second ending. If you manage to light all the lasers from every area, find all the environmental puzzles and thoroughly explore the underground area you will find a new set of caves with more audio recordings. These, though, are not of famous scientists or religious experts but conversations between people that detail their experience with the island. Some have been profoundly changed by it, some don’t remember their time there. It’s remarked on that the island is a simulation and that each individual has to choose when they want to exit.

Here’s where the ‘story’ of the game might be said to be hidden, in that the island was apparently constructed to be a tool to induce and examine these feelings of enlightenment and self-awareness. There is one last hidden puzzle here, which gives you an alternate solution for the gate of the first area of the game. Instead of opening that gate and allowing you into the remainder of the island, it opens a gateway to what might be termed a developer room. This takes the form of a luxury resort, showing photos and other items from the process of creating the game. Following this newly opened path to it’s end, you are treated to a video in first person of someone emerging from what looks like a dream.

The person interacts with their environment as though still in the simulation, aka the game, touching circles and tracing lines along furniture in their surroundings. But here in the ‘real’ world, there’s no feedback or reward to continuing these activities. This downer ending is where a lot of the negative feedback and accusations of pretentiousness have come up after the game’s release.

First, a few disclaimers. I never personally achieved this ending, or any ending within the game. As I said earlier, I quit probably minutes before I reached the end. And as previously mentioned I’m not an expert on Buddhism or statistics or anything like that. But I do think this ending is open to interpretation (and there has been a lot of it out there, to be sure).

I think this video was included for the extraordinarily devout that went and solved every last damn puzzle the game offered. The character in the movie seems unable to move past their time in the simulation, almost broken or crippled by their compulsion to see everything as a puzzle to be solved. I feel this was intended as a warning by the developers for those chasing nirvana or easy answers within the game. If life, understanding, and enlightenment are processes, then getting stuck in our understanding of one portion of any of them is a false enlightenment. Like a doctor who insists on treating patients the way they always have despite new and better medicines being available. Or a person who has overcome trauma in their life only to look down upon others who have not had to struggle.

I think this game tries to help us to progress towards understanding, but obsessing over it, taking it for more than was intended only leaves us more poorly equipped to understand the world around us and ourselves. We have to choose to exit the island to get back to reality. If we don’t we’re stuck, literally and metaphorically.


The Unbearable Now: An Interpretation of The Witness https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOJC62t4JfA

The Diamond Sutra: https://diamond-sutra.com/read-the-diamond-sutra-here/

Literary Analysis of the Witness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0HbiCLiWu8

The Witness Dev Blog: http://the-witness.net/news/

Also, since I thought I understood what the game was trying to say and didn’t feel the need to finish every last puzzle or even complete the game means that I ‘won’ the game in the truest sense and am better than anyone else at everything.

 
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from DigiVoyager

It is Ramazan, and a pleasant one at that with good weather so one doesn't really get too exhausted while fasting.

I am not really in the mood to write something proper so this is just me babbling about matchmaking culture.

When growing up in Pakistan, you're told life starts when you finish your degree and get your first job.

As a doctor with over 3 years experience, I am now being told life starts when you finish your training and get a big post, then you're able to buy a car, a house, etcetera and are considered eligible.

By the time that happens for me most of my peers will have children aged 9 and what not, they will probably have enough savings to get a 2nd house or probably just be out of this hellhole. It feels a bit like trying to race a bicycle or perhaps even a donkey cart versus some cars.

In Pakistan, those who don't get married past a certain age are generally viewed as leftovers – yes, it is that toxic.

For women that age is lower, and thus life even harsher. Past 25, people start wondering if there are serious issues with the girl, after all if she's unmarried at 25, something must be seriously wrong with her. And 30? Well that's the red line. After all, there can only ever be one reason a girl is unmarried, it means nobody wanted her.

Mhm, people here are that stupid and toxic.

For men you used to get a bit more leeway, as it's a patriarchal society and men were expected to take time to settle, but that has also faded away as of late. With so many rishta bureaus, Facebook groups dedicated to matchmaking and apps for the same, there's no shortage of men and thus, it is no longer a case of “oh men need time to settle.” because so many men have houses from their parents, familial wealth, automobiles etc. I am already mocked for it at 26 by people I work with, friends etc. and there is another senior we have, aged 31 or perhaps 32, who I have heard being referred to as patay maal by the nurses, other doctors etc.

Patay maal means leftovers, maal being thing/item/asset and patay meaning ignored/left behind.

Now the fellow says it started at 30. For me who is getting it at 26, I wonder how bad it'll be. I mean, I already have some idea, I am the kind of person who if he visits his relatives won't get offered a glass of water, whereas others might get forced to stay for dinner, but I'd rather not have fake niceties in my life.

For all my poor, not so well off friends, the matchmaking system is brutally transactional in nature, and will make you feel utterly worthless unless you have some decent assets. People would rather have an uneducated landlord with a good passive income than a struggling banker, doctor, engineer, lawyer etc. I do understand, to a certain extent – you would, at the very least, want to make sure your daughter was financially secure if you lived in the capitalistic hellscape of Pakistan; a dystopia so hellish for the common man that it would make Orwell throw away his finished manuscript and begin to write it all over again.

A lot of my aunts tell me I brought this on myself, and should have become a freelancer or something of the sort and studied something that paid better instead. There is no sympathy no matter where you go. And if you complain about the saturation and lack of pay, “Doctor so and so” aged 50 with a decades old private practice is mentioned. Reason, as they say, goes out the window, for a swim with some starving sharks, while wearing a blood soaked shirt.

They said I should just shut up and marry someone over 40, just because of her wealth. Maybe in a different world, I would have done, but I have spent so long swimming in the waters of poverty that I no longer care about much, if anything. Give me a good book or a film and I am set, I have even lost interest in two of the things I loved the most, anime and games, no longer do I care for either, perhaps I am too depressed, who knows.....

I do, in fact, and it is depression after all, wearing an orange hoodie with the words eat, pray and love written in bold while he mixes ice cream with coca cola and makes a float.

Just as men suffer rejection based on physical traits – for instance, age, baldness, height, wrong skin color are the main dealbreakers for many – so too do women, and of a far worse degree. In addition to height, color (girls with wheatish and dark skin are often told to get certain dodgy injections for whitening, fairness creams are the norm – think of the famous Fair and Lovely), their face gets scrutinized – someone I know got plastic surgery because her big nose was a deal-breaker for her cousin, so do their manners, their “keeping in line with tradition”, dressing, how they talk, obedience and what not. There are also those weird types obsessed with finding a doctor daughter in law, only to turn her into a homemaker, it is considered a societal flex. Yes, things are that bad.

To be honest, I am just a bitter man paying for having grown up a little too sheltered, I had no idea medicine was so saturated or that my life after becoming a doctor would be no different than the struggles of a common clerk, but that is the state of Pakistan, turn over a rock and you find 100s of us, or even 1000s, there are more medical colleges than ever, and the rate at which new hospitals emerge with new posts isn't even 1:10 for the amount of new doctors that graduate every year. The teaching side isn't much better either.

Women have it far worse, being treated like cattle or livestock at a market, imagine just resting at home, reading a book when you are told to come down to the lounge and meet this family who wants to look at you. It is all so Orwellian, and the normalization/embedding level of this culture is too horrid. And for those over 30, it is a particularly horrendous nightmare, as then you're shown men of 40, 50 and even 60 or often widowers and divorcees. Lucky are they who come from more liberal families and don't have to go through this system – though even there some families often force their daughters to end things and marry that one boy they picked out, instead. What follows will be a cleansing (or in more extreme cases, deletion) of all her online accounts, perhaps with Ariana Grande's Thank U, Next playing in her room as she does – my shout outs to that one colleague who has imparted more pop culture knowledge to me during our breaks than an entire college level course would in years, sometimes I feel like we are hanging out in America when she's talking.

I've always wanted siblings but I'm glad I don't have a sister, I would not be able to stand her going through this system.

My own fate, you can say I kind of foresaw this, even as a kid, was always clear. When you swim in the waters of poverty too long you start to accept that maybe this is all you'll get, but there is also a sense of gratefulness, having a roof over your head and edible food, and the respect I get from some patients and all our custodial staff.

And so, my once great expectations have turned into grape ones. Life goes on, it throws a newspaper at someone's window, drives over a ditch, slips on a banana peel, nearly gets eaten by a tiger, and smokes a cigarette with death, who is waiting for his friends at the bus stop. Turtles move a lot faster than we realize, and often life drives over them too.

 
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from inpurpleshadows

My Interests (Part 1)

For my first blog post on this site, I wanted to introduce myself by sharing some things I have an interest in. While I have already met some of the people here on Mastodon, it’s been a while since I actually interacted with them and discussion of my favorite media was kept to a moderate level. The people were so kind, to a point that I felt like I was able to express myself in a way I never thought I could ever do. So now, it’s time for me to gush about some of my favorite pieces of media.

Sonic the Hedgehog: Despite the inconsistent quality of the franchise’s games and the series as a whole being easy to make fun of, there’s no doubt that Sonic the Hedgehog had a massive impact on the gaming industry and those who played it, me included. One of my earliest gaming memories was playing Sonic Advance on a hand-me-down Game Boy Advance which was also my introduction to Sonic. While I absolutely sucked balls at it because I was only 3 when I first played the game, there were so many things about it that caught my attention. The expressive characters, the vibrant graphics, the catchy music, it was unlike anything I ever experienced.

Since then, I have become a massive fan of the franchise and not only played the games, but also read the IDW comics, collected the merch and watched the TV shows and movies. I know that to this day, some people still make fun of the franchise and its fans, but that doesn’t stop me from loving it to death. Whenever I have a crummy day or start feeling anxious, Sonic and pals are there to help me get through it.

And like I said, the actual games themselves are not exactly golden when it comes to quality, but I enjoy a majority of them because of how unique they are. The series’ various gameplay formulas are styles that haven’t been replicated by other games outside of indie titles. Even though I am usually averted to change, Sonic still manages to capture my attention and even in its dark phases, I will always support this amazing franchise.

Super Mario: Another platformer icon I take great interest in is the beloved Super Mario franchise and its countless sub-series. Even though I’m a bigger fan of Sonic than I am of Mario, I definitely agree with many on the later having a greater quantity and quality of games. Even if you aren’t into gaming, there’s a good chance you’ve played at least one of the red plumber’s outings. Take one look into a video game store and you’ll see this man’s face everywhere, and I’m okay with that.

I know that some people in recent years have criticized the Mario series for being oversaturated and formulaic and while I agree to a certain extent, there’s something so damn charming about it. There’s a reason Mario has stuck around for so many years, that being the franchise is universal. It doesn’t matter where you’re from, what your age is or even if you take an interest in gaming because Mario can appeal to almost every demographic under the sun. Even though I personally tend to stay far away from games in the mainstream, there’s something different about Mario.

Just like with Sonic, my first experience with the series was at an early age and my appreciation for it has grown since then. Each game contains something that makes it stand out from other titles, in other words, every game is distinct. I also love the characters; in an era where every game tries to have some gloomy edgelord as a protagonist, it’s great to see characters that are just there to join the ride and have fun. I have many issues with Nintendo, but I’ll always love Mario.

Five Nights at Freddy’s: Whether or not you like Five Nights at Freddy’s, you can’t deny its impact on horror gaming. Ever since the first game released back in 2014, it provided an experience unlike any other at the time. Its gameplay was relatively simple but contained a genuinely tense and unsettling atmosphere. That first game was my introduction to horror, and I would continue to follow the franchise for years to come. Interestingly enough, the gameplay was a very small part of why I enjoyed the series. I loved the games for their atmosphere, complex lore and characters that truly straddle the line between creepy and cute.

Speaking of which, the characters were probably my favorite part of Five Nights at Freddy’s. It might seem crazy to say that considering how their personalities, especially in the first few games, are almost non-existent. Though, I think it has to do with how said characters are designed. They strike a balance between appearing eerily uncanny and being lovable goofballs. The animatronics in Security Breach are probably my favorite, especially Roxanne Wolf.

While I never directly participated with other FNAF fans, it was still awesome to experience the evolution of the series as more and more games were released. I know that FNAF isn’t as popular as it once was a decade ago, but I still love it. Even those who are still in the fandom have created a real sense of community with several fan-created works being prominent in certain online spaces. FNAF isn’t for everyone, but it certainly was and still is an amazing series for me.

South Park: If you follow me on Mastodon, you probably know that South Park is my favorite show, and I don’t just mean in the realm of animation. The writing, characters, and humor are among the best in any piece of media I’ve ever experienced. In addition, South Park has crossed every possible line multiple time to the point it’s a wonder the show hasn’t gone off the air. Though, one of the reasons for that is because it’s a masterpiece.

Despite my parents having differing political views from one another, they were both pretty cool with allowing me to watch stuff that I probably shouldn’t have. At the age of 13, I watched my first episode of South Park called ‘Medicinal Fried Chicken’ where Randy intentionally got testicular cancer to smoke marijuana while Cartman got involved in a KFC crime gang (no, I’m not kidding). It was absolutely hysterical which further caused me to watch more episodes and eventually the entire show.

Even though South Park has a reputation for being arguably the most offensive TV show of all time, it’s oddly endearing compared to other adult animations. A lot of animated shows geared towards mature audiences seem to rely on swearing and political incorrectness as a crutch while lacking subtlety and cleverness. South Park is different because it offers commentary and dark humor that’s surprisingly nuanced.

South Park was also something of a comfort show when I was stuck in my home during the COVID Pandemic. Throughout that time, I became depressed and even now, I still feel like crap on most days. However, it was refreshing to discover South Park, a show that made me laugh like a hyena. I was never really emotive and barely let my feelings show, but South Park somehow never fails to make me feel happy, especially when it feels like the world is fucking burning.

DOOM: Just like South Park, I got into DOOM during the pandemic and similarly allowed me to ease my anxiety. It sounds strange considering how the game is basically about slaughtering demons to utter abandon. However, it was cool to unleash my anger without harming any real people. This anger eventually turned into me genuinely enjoying one of the greatest gaming franchises of all time. Before then, I already had an interest in retro games, though DOOM skyrocketed that obsession.

At its core, DOOM is simple; you take a gun, see a demon, shoot a demon, rinse and repeat, right? Well, that’s not entirely the case because DOOM is very intricately designed, even compared to modern shooters. Everything just works, from the level design to the weapon variety to the absolute god-tier soundtrack. It’s impressive how DOOM, despite being one of the first games of its kind, manages to be even more expertly crafted than almost every FPS game that came after.

There are also the sequels which are just as fun as the original, DOOM Eternal being an obvious example. Let’s not forget about the infinite number of unofficial WADs which makes an already re-playable series into something that could last for several lifetimes. While I think other video games are better, well, games, if I was forced to play only one game for the rest of my life, it would be DOOM. Despite what the name might imply, there is a lot of hope to be found in DOOM.

Hazbin Hotel/Helluva Boss: Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss are among the more recent pieces of online animation and have gained quite a fandom, as well as a hatedom for some reason. Despite the divisive nature of both shows, I think they’re breaths of fresh air in this era of adult animation and kind of changed how web series were viewed. Needless to say, these flawed masterpieces showed how internet-created animation could be just as amazing, maybe even surpass what’s seen on television.

Like I mentioned before, both Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss are polarizing, but I personally love them to death. The art style is very unique, the soundtracks are awesome, and the characters are probably some of the most empathetic and down-to-earth in animation, which is ironic considering the shows literally take place in hell. They can also be quite emotional and even gave me an entirely new perspective on media.

The characters in particular are very well-written, which is a rarity in the realm of adult animation. My favorite characters are Husk from Hazbin Hotel and Loona from Helluva Boss (I swear I’m not a furry). The two have a deadpan snarky attitude, an archetype I will never not love. The story is additionally very engaging and ambitious, one could argue that it’s too ambitious. I know these shows aren't for everyone and totally get the criticism for it, but I adore it, and I’ll always remember the moments that made me laugh, feel happy, or shed tears.

Resident Evil: Now that we got slaughtering, rehabilitating and empathizing with demons out of the way, it’s time to do that first one with zombies. As of now, Resident Evil is my latest hyper-fixation, and I don’t think it’ll be going away any time soon. Back in December, I played Resident Evil 4 and quickly considered it one of my all-time favorite games. Afterwards, I went straight to the PS1 trilogy and enjoyed those as well, with Resident Evil 2 being the best in my opinion.

I know I’ve stated this plenty of times, but I love retro games, and Resident Evil is no different. The gameplay, the visuals, the story, the characters, the soundtrack, they’re all incredible. I also like how narmy the games can get, especially with the voice acting (Jill Sandwich, anyone?). It adds a ton of charm and honestly feels like something right out of a low-budget B-grade horror flick. There’s also a massive amount of lore, even in the classic games which was pretty rare for gaming in the 90s.

They’re also addicting as hell and have a crap ton of replay value which I really appreciate. Though, even with the often-subpar voice acting and clunky tank controls, RE can be pretty frightening. Something about the dated aspects of PS1 horror games has always unnerved me, speaking of which, I will elaborate on that in a future post.

-Purple

 
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from Lucifer Orbis

Renouncement

I must not think of thee; and, tired yet strong, I shun the thought that lurks in all delight— The thought of thee—and in the blue heaven’s height, And in the sweetest passage of a song. Oh, just beyond the fairest thoughts that throng This breast, the thought of thee waits hidden yet bright; But it must never, never come in sight; I must stop short of thee the whole day long. But when sleep comes to close each difficult day, When night gives pause to the long watch I keep, And all my bonds I needs must loose apart, Must doff my will as raiment laid away,— With the first dream that comes with the first sleep I run, I run, I am gathered to thy heart.

Alice Meynell

Now she feels arrested and entangled in this sweet spider web, where she knows the spider won't devour her (although she desires it) and with her mind's eye open, nearly aghast towards Heaven, waiting for release, for a handhold that never comes. Even if freedom casts a veil over a portion of her insight, would she still make the trade, I wonder... It is so that everything is so intertwined at this time, that the love can't be disentangled from the other elements that compose it. We both know why our beguine walked peacefully to the center and seized her destiny with a serene and tranquil resolve. She knew what she wrote was right; she couldn't recant it. She knew what it was to be this love, and, in a way, she sacrificed herself through it, and with it, and in it.

 
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from Salt Forged Stories

“Listen up,” She said as she called the room to order. She stood at the head of the table, graphs and pictures displayed on the large screen behind her. “We're real and we proved it. We're not some one-off rebellion. We're the Renegades, and the Maji will have to deal with us globally now. That means clashes with the Astral League, the Starseekers, and whoever else they find.” Nedra explained, sitting backwards in her chair at the head of the table. She ran a hand through her dense braids and smiled at the group of agents and majes assembled in the room. Her dark red leather jacket commanded almost as much attention as her confidence did.

“It also means running PR missions for non-Maji aligned countries.” Max said, British accent on full display. “You can run an operation, but civilians need to see us run a campaign.” With his dirty blonde curly undercut and trimmed goatee, Max Winters looked ready for a photoshoot or a battlefield. Like Nedra, he'd also shown up in his typical outfit. Unlike her leather jacket, holsters, and gear just casual enough to blend into a crowd, Max's purple and black bodysuit was designed for absorbing impacts and minimal wind resistance while flying through the air.

“What they need is stability.” Across the table from him, Donojan Oerbas scowled. His wavy silver tresses hung down his brown face in an asymmetric cut designed to obscure his eye patch. “Wars aren't won on the battlefield. They're won in the hearts and minds of the populaces and soldiers involved. Ask me how I know.”

The question was facetious; everyone in the room knew the well publicized story of the crown prince of the nation of Oerbas ascending to the throne 12 months prior amidst rumors of scandal and betrayal only to be ousted after a long bloody civil war led by his wife. Less public was his recent association with a group reviled as terrorists or hailed as liberators, depending on who was talking.

Nedra Adebayo intentionally kept a low profile, but “Spectre” had gained notoriety among the intelligence community as an opponent of the Maji ever since her departure from the CIA. Though he might report to her, Major Max Shields, better known as “Max Impact” served as the Renegade’s public face and ostensible leader. Donojan had been assumed dead after being deposed by a successful civil uprising, but “Dusk,” had slowly come around to the idea of operating on a team. Together, the trio were the burgeoning movement’s most powerful battlemajes.

“So 'the Renegades' are international, thanks to that little dust up in Fortazela.” Donojan said, “the real test will be what comes next.”

“We know what comes next.” Max laughed. “The Maji aren't just gonna sit there and take it. They're gonna come out swinging.”

“They're going to try and delegitimize us.” Nedra corrected him. “It's what I would do.” The Nigerian woman scanned the room: nearly two dozen faces stared back at her, some standing against the walls of the makeshift conference room. “When that fails, they're going to hunt us. They'll try and get us off the chessboard however they can. The one thing they can't tolerate is a viable alternative to their plan for the world. It’s why they hated Set. And feared him. But with him gone, we have the funding. We have the support. We have the resources. But most importantly? We have the opportunity. Take a look around: we can either do this now or die wishing we had.”

Her audience responded with nods and growing confidence written on their faces. This was working. It reminded her of being an intelligence field agent, running ops and sowing the seeds of an insurgency. It felt good to make a difference the way she knew how.

“If we want to fight them on anything like equal footing though, we'll need more majes. battlemajes.” A woman at the table opined, green eyes locked with Nedras as her straight black hair ran down one side of her face. “I'm tired of getting my ass kicked and having to take cover everytime Rumble or Andromeda or fucking Verdict shows up, yeah?”

“That's a good point, Lin. Ain't too many heavies walking around now what can hang with those two. Even fewer I can think of I'd want to recruit.” His British accent was clear. “But I might just know one.” He grinned and pulled a phone from his pocket.

“Wait, what? You know someone who could even kinda stand up to Rumble and just... didn't call them?”

“Hey, listen. She's... fucking unpredictable, aight? We’ve only talked once since the Aegis days. But if she's still alive, I know she's still down to scrap.” Max put his hand up to silence the groans his answer produced.

Nedra knew who he had in mind. She'd read Max’s file months before she'd ever recruited him. Before he'd been the face of the Renegades, even before his second stint as a battlemaje for the British Air Force, Major Impact had been part of Aegis, the now defunct strike force made up of battlemajes from a dozen different countries.

With his versatile telekinesis majick, self propelled flight came as easy to Max as gathering a cloud of debris and hurling tree branches and rebar from 200 feet in the air. The man was his own artillery, his own air support, his own “no fly zone.” But majes like Martin “Rumble” Washington or Verdict shrugged off those kinds of impacts. They called them “heavies” for a reason.

No, if the Renegades wanted someone who could stand toe to toe with those juggernauts, there was only one person she knew that he knew. Their eyes met, and Nedra considered spoiling his secret. But Max's talents were only matched by his ego; if she wanted him around she needed to move out of the way and let him shine.

“I'll leave it up to you. Don't disappoint me.” She warned.

“I never do.” He grinned.

———————————

She was too big for the helicopter, and Max Impact wondered if she'd grown since they'd last seen each other. He hadn't expected they'd see each other again at all. Her agreeing to work with them came as a genuine shock to a man difficult to shock anymore. The intense wind whipped her blonde high ponytail and messy bangs back and forth. She crouched in front of him, peering out of the side of the chopper and down at the scene beneath.

The wind made it difficult, but he could just make out the words she muttered.

“God I missed this.”

Below them a battle raged. Smoke wafted from plasma scorched craters and people fled east along streets choked by abandoned cars and bikes.

“Right then, what fresh hell am I dropping into?” She asked as she shut the door and turned back to him. He’d almost forgotten her New Zealand accent.

“It’s a protest gone wrong.” He paused to consider how much more to tell her, or how much more she’d want to know. “It’s political. There’s a new candidate with some divisive ideas. We didn’t start today’s fight, though.”

“No? Pussies. Whatever. Don’t care who started. I’m gonna finish it, Max.” The towering woman punched her palm. Her blue eyes gleamed at the prospect of violence.

“Alright. We’ll bring the chopper lower and you can hit the ground running. Play it just like we planned...” He gestured towards the ground.

“Since when do you play things according to plan? Don't tell me you turned into Beacon when I wasn't looking.” She teased.

During the Aegis days he’d been the one bristling loudly at overbearing commanders. Max wondered when he’d become a boring authority figure to her; another voice telling her ‘no.’

“Fuck you and fuck him. I know you can regenerate, but I didn't bring you all the way out here to watch you go splat on the bloody asphalt.” Max took umbrage at being compared to their former squad deputy commander. “Beacon wouldn't know a joke unless he was planning to avoid it during a mission.” They were nothing alike.

“No, you brought me out here to beat up the big mean man who's been bullying you and your friends.” The tall, tanned woman laughed at her own joke. She looked for someone to high five, and finding no one, high fived herself. Max noticed that the extraordinarily tall woman had changed her outfit and her attitude. Gone were the preppy red and white jersey and shorts designed like a volleyball outfit.

Now Hellbent wore a cropped black jacket partially zipped up over a red halterneck top. Her new jacket was no better at hiding her massive bust than her old outfit had been, but her change to pants fitted with armor plates was a welcome one. The new gear made her look older, more serious.

And in their years apart she'd found new confidence and a new attitude to boot.

“I changed my mind. Go fucking splat right there on the asphalt, Leslie.” Their banter felt familiar like an old jacket pulled out of a closet.

“THAT's the Max I remember. Welcome back, asshole. And tell your boys not to forget my luggage. I'm high maintenance.” She fell backwards out of the helicopter, two middle fingers extended, tongue out.

Just like old times.

Max gave a command to the agent behind him, motioned to the black case along the wall of the helicopter, and then followed her out of the helicopter and into the open air above the city.

Hellbent might enjoy a freefall all the way to the ground, but Max Impact was telekinetic. His purple aura wrapped tightly around him long before he hit the ground and he turned a tight arc until he was parallel with the ground, racing above a city street. Leslie Slayter had her mission. His was search and rescue.

Her legs tensed like springs and she felt the ground shake beneath her as she landed. She felt the impact plates in the soles of her heavy boots snap and shatter, and felt that entropy warm her in turn. Breaking things was a fact of life for a woman more than 2 meters tall. But Hellbent's majick turned broken things into power. Each shard of glass that broke beneath her feet was a drop in the bucket of her mana. She found the first soldier and threw him. She didn't much care whose side he was on. He was an appetizer. His scream, the sound he made when he hit the wall behind him, the parts of his she'd dislodged or damaged, all of it was fuel.

Hellbent was hungry.

She ran into the fray, towards the next group of soldiers, plasma rifles heated and blaring. She recognized then that she'd gotten it right. Her first victim had been one of these. This trio went down shooting and screaming, victims to a battlemaje who thrived on conflict like some statuesque blonde war goddess. It was almost boring. Almost.

Hellbent turned to study the situation, looking for whatever direction the civilians and allied agents alike were running from. She could count on the most fun and the best fuel there at the source of the chaos. She popped the collar to her jacket, checked the straps on her heavy boots and gloves, and began running.

He wasn't hard to find. She'd seen him on TV before. He looked taller there. In front of her he was half a foot shorter than her and nearly as wide as he was tall. But the man in front of her was definitely, obviously Martin 'Rumble' Washington. There weren't too many metas with glowing blue veins and sweat and a shape that would make a bodybuilder envious.

She found a hunk of concrete and split it into chunks with a downward elbow. More broken bonds.More drops of mana absorbed. She hefted one melon sized piece of concrete and hurled it straight at Rumble, trying to catch him unaware. But if the videos oversold his stature, they undersold his composure. The brawny Black American lifted an arm to guard himself but never turned towards her, even as the stone turned to dust as it collided with his beefy forearm.

“Wicked...” Hellbent said. This was going to be fun after all.

Rumble barked an order to his soldiers nearby and then took a step that Leslie barely saw. She fixed her eyes on him as he came to a stop in front of her. He wore an orange and black rash guard, lightly padded along the ribs and back and marked with the Cosmic League's starred logo. His shorts were short and broad, designed to never impede his movement.

“What name should I give them when the paramedics come get you?” He asked, staring through her as he assumed a mixed martial artist's stance, loose and ready for anything

“Well how's that for a hello? I figured we'd banter back and forth a bit. Get to know each other a bit. You know girls like a little foreplay before you try and sweep them off their feet.”

If he cracked a smile, it was a small one, black goatee and moustache framing his mouth. “Everyone knows who I am. If you're here, you're here to fight. So let's rumble.”

Hellbent was halfway through her high roundhouse kick by the time he finished his sentence. The 6'6” New Zealander felt her shin against her boot against his arm and pivoted into a hook, and then a knee, a flurry of strikes meant to test his defense. Rumble blocked, then parried, but she caught him by surprise when she caught his brown arm in hers and flung him into the air.

The stocky battlemaje turned midair, trying to regain his balance. Hellbent met him in the air, legs tensed to send her soaring before she curved her body backwards and spiked him back into the ground like a giant volleyball.

“The name’s Hellbent, asshole.” She smiled, brushing off her pants.

It felt nice to put skills from her pre-majick life into practice here in her new career. Back when her greatest ambition was pro volleyball. She landed with a much softer thud than Rumble had, but he leapt back to his feet before she could follow up.

This time there was no denying he'd cracked a smile. The Starfinder’s premier brawler, their immovable titan, was impressed. Hellbent twirled, picking up a downed street sign with ease and swinging it at Rumble. She didn't even see him duck beneath it. Instead, her eyes locked on him again right before his fist landed flush on her cheek and sent her tumbling.

“Hellbent? Sure. Let me know when you start regretting coming here.”

“Hey Leslie, you still alive down there?” Impact's voice was clear in her ear. The fact that he thought to check on her was sweet. The fact that he thought he needed to after a punch like that was insulting.

“Fuck off, flyboy. Me and Rumble are about to get much better acquainted.” She rolled away from Rumble's diving knee, realizing then that a piece of rebar had slashed her side. She felt her mana seeping out of her, mending the torn skin. She watched Rumble observe the reaction as well, studying her.

“Oh, you like that? Come closer and I'll give you a closer look.” Hellbent wiped a layer of dirt off her shirt and made certain to touch her chest more suggestively than necessary. Her curves were no secret. Why not make them a weapon.

“I'll see you close enough when you're in a cell.” Rumble said.

And then they lunged at each other.

Rumble was faster than she’d expected, especially from a man that large. But that was the power of majick: nothing needed to be as it seemed. He fought with the confidence of a career fighter; no surprise coming from a man who’d been a champion fighter before ever becoming a maje. But Leslie leaned on her advantages too; a body that healed itself, and a significant reach advantage. Most important of all, she’d never learned to fight by any rules. She was free to use anything and everything at her disposal.

And that included her luggage.

He’d gotten the better of their last few exchanges, striking with near instant and thunderous force. He was learning her style, her habits, and beating her to the punch. Worse yet he was mocking her for it. The smiling Black man was enjoying himself more with each passing moment.

But Hellbent was not a woman without her secrets.

“Drop my luggage.” She said, finger to her earpiece.

“Leaving already?” Rumble taunted, circling her. He dashed toward her, but Leslie saw an opening in his approach this time, hoisting him up off his feet and then jumping into the air before dropping him on his head. She didn’t press her advantage this time, instead leaping away from him. The black obelisk was already plummeting towards them.

“Bingo.”

The man sized box landed with a thud and a cloud of smoke. Rumble stared at her, uncomprehending as she stood next to it. She slapped the top of the box and then grinned as it split open, revealing a minigun.

She pulled the weapon from its container and hefted it in two hands. Its immense weight didn’t surprise her; the weapon had originally been designed for mounting on vehicles. Only the superhuman strength offered by her majick made the immense gatling laser a feasible weapon for the athletic brawler.

“I didn't expect to need this, but since you got me all riled up... let's go another round!” The blonde woman grinned, weapon trained on him, her hand wrapped around its massive trigger.

#Battlemaje #Action #Magic #Fight #Fantasy #FirstDraft #SFW #Fiction

 
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