#Train thoughts

[daydrinking75]

why does every white guy look a little bit like toby mcguire

[a-social-abyss]

D-358

Current status: Betrayed by a jar cake

Diagnosis: Food poisoning, a reminder that life’s cruelties come in deceptively sweet forms.

Location: Somewhere between existential dread and Delhi, physically weak but academically obligated to keep going.

Philosophical shift: The abyss was theoretical until now. Now, it is visceral.

Lessons learned:

1. My body is fragile, but my study schedule is unwavering.

2. Stomach pain is temporary, exam stress is eternal.

3. The UPSC syllabus should include “Survival Strategies for Public Transport While Ill.”

Recovery plan: Arrive. Collapse. Study anyway.

Outlook on life: Distressed but determined.

Social abyss out 🫳🎤

[subwaysoliloquy]

i feel so lonely... :(

[abubblingcandle]

🌹🌹🌷🌹🌹 anything for The Richmond Job? If not a snippet, any fun ideas? (See because I snuck a tulip in. Because one of them’s a grifter)

There's so much so much I wanna share of this but then I don't want to spoil stuff or get people hyped for stuff that's like ... 150k into the story at least lol!

One of the things I am trying to do is build in some Ted Lasso plot points as well but for a heist crew not a football team lol. One of those is Ch24 which is based loosely on the Three Card Monte job and loosely on Man City. Jamie's dad has spent the whole first 23 chapters in prison for taking the fall for a mob hit in Manchester when Jamie was 15 ... but he's just got out and needs a hacker for a job to get back into favour. Ted knows some details about Jamie's dad from various conversations but no one else does. So when he comes back Jamie is trying to keep everyone out of his reach but also not regress all the progress he has made.

Now I thought I had written some of this ... but turns out I just did that in my head and all I had done was put these three scene headings in the plot spreadsheet

... so I've written a bit of it now

Ted was wiping down one of the tables when a echoing cackle crackled through the pub. “Good lad, good lad,” the man laughed patting Colin on the back as he placed a tray of chips and a pint in front of him. Ted was on edge. This was a pub of course there were going to be drunk patrons and this man looked no different to any of the others. He was portly, probably in his fifties with wirey grey hair that was too long to be fashionable but not long enough to be a style. His leather jacket was too big on him and he dug into the chips like a man starved. But that was no crime. Ted got back to wiping down the tables. “Tell me lad. You worked here long?” the man’s voice was just a touch too loud to be ignored even with the noise of the other patrons. “Yeah a few years now,” Colin replied with a shrug, stacking glasses on his arm. “Ah so you’ll know the locals then. Cause I ain’t been around for a while and heard ont grapevine and all that about an old pal of mine coming here an awful lot,” the man rambled, arms waving like he was using the chip as a baton to conduct an orchestra. “You ain’t heard of a James Tartt around these parts have ya?” he asked. Colin’s face paled and the stack of cups on his arm nearly went clattering to the floor. Ted leapt into action. “Jamie, you listening?” Ted hissed, tapping the earpiece. “Huh, am now,” Jamie’s voice echoed in his head. “I think the guy here that they are meeting is also looking for you,” Ted stated and then slid up next to Colin as Jamie was rattling off concerns a mile a minute through the earpiece. “Colin, you feeling alright lad? I’ll take over here,” Ted beamed, nodding to the man and guiding Colin away. “Stay out of his way,” Ted hissed and then pushed Colin into the kitchen. “Sorry there sir. Colin isn’t feeling too swell. Can I get you anything?” Ted smiled, slipping behind the bar to stand across from the mystery man. “Yeah, asking around for a lad that’s been seen around these parts. James Tartt ring any bells for ya,” the man asked, one eyebrow raised. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fucking hell. Ted do not engage. Ted listen get out of there do not do anything until I get there,” Jamie squeaked, voice an octave higher than Ted had ever heard it before. So Jamie knew the guy … good to know.

[dancing-lex]

Fuck I rode the train too long. Now I have an intimate understanding of how this moment is completely unique to this place and time and perspective and it has never been experienced before in its entirety

[lachajakd]

New headcannon all trains are lesbians but only some are trans

[blueshoesandbluemountains]

A corndog is the beef wellington of the prolitariat

[cheapfakeblood]

(spoken with dread) oh god i'm gonna live forever

[blossompoet]

Sometimes, when I see a sunset or snow falling down, I ask myself if this is it. When you are a depression survivor, a trauma survivor, an abuse survivor - any survivor really - you tend to read about this point.

We grew up or grew up to the thought that it will always be awful, that we will never be happy or get to fulfill our dreams. And then, we read about the people who were just like us and still made it.

I remember this post where a once suicidal girl wrote she hears her fiancé and her toddler laughing in the other room now, that she really reached what she never could dream of. Maybe the details were different but the message gets clear, I think. And so many posts like this.

I love it, I love it for them, I love the fact that it gave me and other people hope. Once we're in recovery, we start to work towards this point. But when will it be? Every happy moment I experience, there's this little voice in my head that asks have we made it? Is this the moment where we stop being sad?

And every time I am afraid I will get terribly sad again, and every time I do, eventually. I start to realise that this point will never happen.

There will always be moments that remind me how great this life is and that all this pain was worth it. Maybe one day I won't count them anymore, they will be the normal. It won't stop hurting all the time.

There will be sadness and darkness. But I won't be waiting for the point anymore.

[radicalshadow]

Amtrak should have cat station masters like they do in some stations in Japan.

[spotforme]

ooooh the trains are late, good, i get to stand in the dark freezing cold longer. (apparently there was a medical emergensy which held up everything)

still a bit over two hours and then i can try to sleep.

[aspecbuddie]

I'm in the middle of a four hour train journey between two places I've called home, temporarily escaping a place where life feels impossibly hard, to return to the place that first made me feel that way, with nine days of impossible conversations in front of me before I make the return journey

and yet somehow I've found a small sliver of contentment, with my favourite band in my headphones and the fields of this semi-familiar journey flying past the window

somehow, remarkably, in this moment, for the first time in what feels like forever

things feel like they might be okay

and I'm not taking it for granted

[abubblingcandle]

🎶jamie tartt🎶

🌹doo 🌹doo 🌹doo 🌹doo 🌹doo 🌹doo

Haha I love it!

You get a little snippet talking about Jamie from the next chapter of A Treatment Room Doors Moment

“He’s not my arch-nemesis,” Roy needed to process everything else she said so dealt with the easy portion first. “Really? You got into a punch up on the pitch nearly getting you both sent off and he fucked your knee. That seems like arch-nemesis behaviour,” Keeley groaned in exasperation. “He’s a wanker yes and sometimes I wish he would die but he didn’t fuck my knee Keeley. I fucked my knee,” he groaned. No one got it. No one understood it. Why did no one understand that Roy wasn’t just dealing with one incident that hurt him? He was dealing with the consequences of all of the shitty decisions he had made in the last five years and that was a lot harder. This was no one’s fault but his own. And he was so mad about it. He should be allowed to be mad about it without having to fucking justify, place blame and try to fix it. It just really sucked. Roy had lied just then. One person did get it. Jamie had immediately got to the heart of the matter that none of his family or girlfriend or doctors had managed to work out. And they hated each other, what did that say about Roy’s other relationships?

[dancing-lex]

If me and my mutuals were on the train together I would let them nap on my shoulder

[fruity-hub-blog]

We, as a society, peaked when Capri Suns had those clear backs.

[sirenofshadow]

I wonder how engines would feel about being renumbered. Would they hate having that part of their identity change suddenly?