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darthwheezely · 4 years

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a change of heart - g.w.

summary: falling out of love was the last thing they had wanted.

pairing: muggle au!george weasley x reader

warnings: mentions of break ups, sex, cussing, ouid, heartbreak, no happy endings, apathetic!george, domestic fights, mean!reader (at times), insinuations of depression, toxic relationship

a/n: this is my first angst without a happy ending and honestly it feels very last 5 years to me and i was in a bad mood yesterday so this happened i love you all mwah xoxo

are we awake?

am i too old to be this stoned?

George blinked in what felt like slow motion at the crumbling ceiling above him as he took another long drag of his joint. He breathed out, his lungs and mind relaxing under a slimy green haze. The bed was spongey, destroyed from one too many sexual escapades and one night stands and full body tantrums that left him kicking and screaming.

His mind never really woke up after the day you packed up and took the bus downtown back to your parent’s. He usually laid there in a collapse of old cassette tapes and cannabis flecks, generally shirtless and wearing wear bleached boxers and lost.

George was never really awake after you.

was it your breasts from the start?

they played a part

You were stunning to him that day in London. You always were. That hadn’t been any different. But the day you walked into the pub everything about you just ached to be adored, he thought. He wanted to know what it was like to attach his mouth to the skin of your collar bone and nibble, knead at your breasts and have his fingers gripping your thighs the second you struck up a conversation.

“Two whiskeys and a beer later and I still don’t know your name,” he gave a little half smile and watched you bite your lip, a chuckle erupting from your throat.

“Y/N.”

“No last name?”

“Don’t need one, not yet anyway. You?”

He looked at you softly and nodded to himself.

“Let’s see if I can change that. I’m George.”

George needed you. Or at least, he thought he did.

for goodness’ sake

i wasn’t told you’d be this cold

He passed out on the couch, the old and relatively shitty TV left on static due to inactivity and refusal to be fixed.

You were supposed to have date night. At least, that’s what George thought. He knew you’d be out and about all day at work and then picking up dinner on the way home, but when you stumbled through the door at 2am, he shot awake. And in a flash of anger, he just picked up on the idea that date night didn’t really matter to you then, at least not tonight.

“Baby-“

“Don’t fucking baby me,” you had growled, looking at him with streaks of mascara running down your face. You sniffles and wobbled off to the bathroom, leaving an albeit confused George on the couch. He listened to you cry in the bathroom, and suddenly realized it didn’t matter if you were pissed at him or scared or whatever was happening.

At least you came home.

you smashed a glass into pieces

that’s around the time i left

“Fine,” you had shouted, picking up the now empty wine glass from the table and throwing it at the cabinets across from you.

The night had started off fine, the dinner was neutral - that had been your new normal with George. Neutral. You two weren’t really angry anymore, just tired. Until you both got in that heated argument and were screaming, the radio getting blown out your earshot due to the high intensity yelling in the room.

The minute the glass hit the cabinet you jumped ever so slightly, not really realizing you had done it, but knowing the lashing out of yourself had scared you just enough. You had let out a choking whimper and quickly enough, your boyfriend had rushed over to you and held you up.

“I’m sorry,” you sobbed against his chest. “Georgie, I’m so sorry, please don’t be mad at me anymore.”

He knew you weren’t really apologizing for a wine glass, or missing a date or two. He knew it was everything, and the idea that you were getting blamed for it all in your mind due to things you didn’t feel safe telling him about crushed him.

“My sweet girl,” he cooed, his nose and mouth pressing into the top of your head.

He pulled off the top of your head, brushing the tears from underneath your eyes “I love you so much, and you can push me away as hard and as much as you want but I’ll come right back, every single time.”

You nodded and fell back into his arms, and George regrettably swallowed.

He had just made a promise he knew he wouldn’t keep.

then she said, "i’ve been so worried about you lately"

"you look shit and you smell a bit"

“George,” you had cleared your throat and sat up a bit straighter in the chair.

It had been approximately two months since he had pushed away from you, and since then you had heard radio silence from the man that had stolen your heart and left your mind mush. But here you were back in the apartment at the behest of Fred who had been, admittedly, “worried fuckin’ sick” about his younger twin.

The apartment was disgusting. Dishes from weeks left in the sink that had most likely caked mold and other major nastiness. Everywhere it smelled like cheap beer and even cheaper weed. It was nauseating to be at the dining room table, looking at the face that used to be George Weasley, but was now puffy, like he’d been getting over crying every single day, his eyes red rimmed and purpling, his usually pale but still vibrant skin tone sallow and raw.

“Georgie, they’re worried about you,” you said softly. He snorted and took another bite of his Ramen.

“George, you look shit, you’re just a-a shell, and your mom has no clue what’s going on, Fred can’t keep up with demands for the record store without you and god, everyone just misses you-“

“I’m fine, Y/N,” he cut. He clenched his jaw before finally looking back up at you, nodding ruefully to himself.

“You saw to it that I always was.”

i feel as though I was deceived

i never found love in the city

i just sat in self-pity and cried in the car

“Pass the damn thing, Fred, Jesus, you bong hog,” George playfully slapped his older brother on the chest. It was their best friend Roger’s nineteenth birthday, and as such, it was 4 in the morning, everyone either knackered as hell or making out in the corner. But Fred always opted to light up with George, especially since he knew it’d be the last time before the Big Move to the City as they referred to it.

“I am, I am, calm your tits, mate!” Fred had puffed into the air, sliding the bong to his brother and watching him inhale. He coughed, George always coughed - as much as he said he was the more mature and worldly one, he still got these little flashes that proved only to Fred that George was his baby brother.

“You know what I’m gonna do once we get to Londontown, Freddie-bomb?”

“What would that be, Georgie?” He smirked, leaning back against the couch. George grinned to himself and finally looked at Fred.

“I am going to find the most beautiful girl and marry her outright.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. And she’s going to have the most gorgeous mind - her brain, y’know. And and we’ll talk about music and art and shit I don’t care sex and whatever the hell else she likes, and I’ll buy her flowers and perfume and pretend I know what I’m doing because I’m a dumb kid and hell, I’ll fall in love so fast...and I hope she does the same...”

George sat in his beat up old Volvo, took in a shaky breath, and started to sob. His fists delivered downward strikes against his steering wheel at his memories, the feelings of love and joy he knew were still there begging to be freed.

But for now, he’d cry.

oh, i just had a change of heart

The answering machine clicked on, the voicemail ringing through the silence in the bedroom. “Hey, Y/N...sweetheart, we - I - can’t do this anymore,”

i just had a change of heart

“It’s not your fault, baby, but...angel, we can’t do this anymore,”

i just had a change of heart

“I loved you so much and we’re killing each other and I-I couldn’t do anything to stop it except hope that it would pass one day, because we could always make it pass, we could do that,”

i just had a change of heart

“But baby, it’s time to...it’s time to stop. For now, at least until things are better - until we are better,”

i just had a change of heart

“Until we can fall back in love again...I just know we can.”

The machine stopped clicking.

taglist! @whizboingies @harrysweasleys @wandsandwheezes @valwritesx @lumosandnoxwriting @amxrtentias @mothermantids @cyliamarti @shakinganxiety @godricsswords @rosietoesy @jorduhnn @sinfulweasley @wand3ringr0s3 @jaywritesstuff0 @anchoeritic

#George weasley fic #George weasley x reader #George weasley #George weasley angst #Fred and George #Fred and George fic #the weasley twins #Harry Potter #Harry Potter fic #George weasley imagine #darthwheezely

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kuiperblog · 3 years

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The first 1% is always the hardest

Usually, the hardest part of acquiring a new skill is starting it for the first time.

When you’re at an intermediate level of progression, you can usually just increase your skill level by incrementing up the difficulty linearly. If you’re a novice weightlifter and your best overhead press is 125 lbs, try adding 5 lbs to the bar and see if you can overhead press 130 lbs. (If not, keep lifting 125 lbs every few days until that becomes “easy,” then challenge yourself with 130 lbs again.) If you can do 10 push-ups, you will probably reach the point where you can do 11 push-ups, and 12 push-ups, and 15 push-ups, and 25 push-ups, and so on. The hardest part of lifting is day 1, when you might be performing certain motions for the first time in your life, and challenging your body to work muscles that you didn’t even realize existed.

I imagine the same is true of other fitness regimens: once you’re able to run a 9 minute mile, you probably have what it takes to run a 8:30 mile, or a 8 minute mile, if you keep at it. Eventually you’ll hit a plateau and the limits of human performance, but the first day in the gym is always the hardest.

This is sort of how the trajectory of my writing career went. And having talked to artist friends, and musicians, it seems like all of them followed a similar trend: they found a thing, they stuck with it, and over time found themselves advancing along that path bit by bit. It became a hobby or a routine such that over time, by by investing a bit more time, or a bit more effort, or challenging themselves a tiny bit more, they got better at it. And over years, the compounding returns of that meant that the girl who got a drawing tablet at age 14 found that by the time she was 22 years old, she had enough artistic skill to make enough money from her art to make a living.

I think that in a lot of cases, people were able to start down that path of gradual self-improvement in part because they were able to somehow bypass the hardest part of it -- they blazed right through the initial difficulty without even realizing it. They couldn’t even really answer the question of “When did you start drawing,” because they’ve always been drawing since the days that they were just doodling with pencil in paper at school. Maybe they just really enjoyed playing outdoors as a kid, and played soccer because it was fun, and made the seamless transition to being a high school athlete. In my case, I spent a lot of time writing long-winded forum posts explaining the finer points of topics I was passionate about (which, at age 13, was mostly Pokemon and Final Fantasy), and somehow by my 20′s I had enough of a penchant for explaining things that I was able to parley that into a writing career (so I can get paid for my long-winded explanations of Pokemon-related topics).

The early days of learning to write kind of sucked and were difficult. (For starters, remember how unintuitive that QWERTY keyboard was the first time that you learned to type? Remember how painful it was to hunt-and-peck your way through sentences at an effective rate of <10 words per minute?) But my desire to talk about Pokemon on message boards overwhelmed any difficulty or “suckiness” involved with learning to express my ideas through text, and so the suckiness of those early days wasn’t really much of an obstacle.

More and more, I’ve come to believe that the most important part of learning a new skill is finding a way to get over that initial difficulty hump -- of finding a way to survive the first day, and then the first week, and then the first month, and eventually reach a point where inertia carries you forward on a gradual upward slope of self-improvement where you’re not even consciously thinking too hard about improvement; you just randomly muse to yourself one day, “Oh yeah, this barbell I’m picking up weighs about 100 lbs more than the barbell I was lifting a year ago. Fancy that.” The longer you keep at it, the easier it is to stick with it.

In many corners of the internet, there’s an oft-repeated adage that “Watching anime won’t teach you to speak or understand Japanese.” And sure, that’s obviously true on some level. If someone is thinking they’re going to spend a thousand hours watching subtitled anime, and then one day flip off the subtitles and be able to follow everything without missing a beat, they’re probably a bit delusional. If you want to actually achieve anything approaching Japanese fluency, you’re probably going to have to take a Japanese learning course, and engaged in spaced repetition to pick up and retain vocabulary, and all of the other stuff that goes into learning any language.

But I think that watching anime does provide you with one big advantage: it goes a long way toward helping you cross that “day 1″ hump. Because the first day is always the hardest. Going from 0 to 1 is harder than increasing your vocabulary by a few new words every week. Before you can get the compounding returns from incrementally improving at a skill, you have to have a starting principle. And I think that watching anime is actually quite good for that, because only knowing “weeaboo Japanese” will give you 20-30% of the vocabulary that’s included in your first couple Japanese lessons.

I’m speaking from personal experience: it’s incredibly heartening to go through a lesson and encounter words that I’m already familiar with. Even if my fluency in “weeaboo Japanese” only covers 10% of what’s introduced in a given lesson, having a head start gives me an intangible confidence boost which makes it easier for me to focus on and retain the other 90%.

I don’t want to understate the importance of that intangible confidence boost: a lot of language acquisition is getting comfortable with a language, and repeating something so much that you do it without even thinking about it. For example, in English, sometimes sometimes someone might ask you “how’s it going?” and you might answer “fine” before your brain has even consciously registered the meaning of what you were hearing, or saying. And I’m enough of a weeb that I can hear i tenki desu ne and immediately reflexively respond with sou desu ne, before my brain has even consciously registered the question being asked (sometimes taking several seconds to mentally backtrack and realize, “Oh right, the “i tenki” part means “nice weather.”). But years and years of listening and pattern recognition have taught me that when someone ends a sentence in desu ne? with the sort of inflection that says “I’m asking you a rhetorical question,” the proper response is probably sou desu ne, and my brain produces that response just as reflexively as it spits out “I’m doing fine, how about you?” any time someone asks “How’s it going?”)

One thing I’ve come to notice is that every lesson begins with some of some amount of review, giving you that spaced repetition, and providing context for the new words and concepts that the lesson is about to introduce, and generally provide a foundation for the new material. Day 1 is, by necessity, the exception -- how can you “review” material that you’ve never covered before? But for me, the day 1 lessons on how to say nihongo and arigato and watashi and anata were already “review” of topics that I picked up through years of being a weeb.

Besides that, there’s the fact that the structural elements of Japanese are something that my brain was naturally able to grok in a way that is intuitive to me after spending years listening to spoken Japanese even though most of it is contextual. (Like, I’m not sure when this happened, but at a certain point I think my brain just kind of learned, when listening to Japanese sentences, to approximate which parts were the verb and where certain clauses landed in the sentence, if only because when watching anime with subtitles you become consciously aware of when a character’s name appears in the dialog.) I’m not really consciously thinking about it, which kind of feels like the “natural” way to learn a language. (After all, it’s not as if native English speakers, as toddlers, consciously think to themselves, “Ah, it seems as though English typically follows a subject-verb-object grammar structure.” Kids just listen to adults speaking English and form sentences that way without really having to be formally taught.)

It’s highly likely that at some point in my internet career that I have at one point been the cynical message board poster telling someone that, contrary to their fantasies, watching anime isn’t going to help them learn Japanese in any real or material way, and if I’ve ever suggested that, it’s time for me to eat crow. Because while the advantage that “weeaboo-level Japanese” gives you might be small, and only help you on the first few days of Japanese class, those are the most important days, because the first 1% is always the hardest.

My familiarity with “weeaboo-level Japanese” has only given me one disadvantage, and that is that years of memes have poisoned my brain to the point where the first I was prompted with “say ‘excuse me’ in Japanese,” my brain (and mouth) immediately spat out “sorrymasen,” and I wish I could say it only happened once, but it wasn’t until around day 3 that I managed to fully train this habit out of myself.

#japanese vocabulary #learning japanese #japanese

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hitsuackerman · 4 years

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Unpredictable (Overhaul x Reader) pt. 1

a/n: I have been struggling with writer’s block because all I’ve been wanting to do was write about garbage man Overhaul. I have no idea how or when my simping for this man began T.T that being said, the words came flowing out when I started this XD

warnings: cursing, subtle flirting, nothing much happens since its only part 1

links: part 2

Masterlist to my other fics: here :)

It was a rather fine Monday afternoon. Lazily drinking your coffee, you waved to the people who knew who you were. You weren’t part of the top ten heroes, no. Not even in the top 100 poll. Instead, with a quirk like yours, you chose to enter the police force. With a bit of training here and there, you mastered everything there was to and still managed to develop your quirk every two missions or so.

Now, you were sitting by the window. Waiting for your partner to arrive. He had called you in for a rather hasty meet up somewhere far from the precinct. With no details given, anything was possible when it came to Tsukauchi and his brain.

A blur of tan and green caught your eye. Turning to face the no longer vacant chair, you observed as he took off his matching hat and fixed his tie. His rectangular eyes greet you with sincerity but hints of anxiety at the same time. Something was about to happen, it was plain obvious.

“Well, good afternoon to you, Nao.” You gave him a cheers of your coffee before taking another sip. The bitterness of your beverage is ever so relaxing. “What can I do for my partner, hm?”

“You read me too well, (Y/N).” He chuckled. Taking a folder from his messenger bag, he placed it on the table and gave you permission to open it. The way he saw your eyebrows furrow only strengthened his hypothesis. “I can explain.”

“You bet your ass you need to explain.” You leaned on your chair. Heart racing a little faster now. Your eyes darting from the detective before you and the streets outside the window. Index finger tapping on your bicep as your arms instinctively crossed on your chest.

“I know this is familiar territory to you and I am sure that you are very much uncomfortable right now,” He began. The little shift in your seat caused guilt to eat him a bit. Seeing your eyes moving from one item to another made him question if this were the right choice. “But with considerable thought, you’re the only one who has a chance in turning this situation for the better.”

“Nao, I get where you’re going but there’s no way in hell I’m going to do that.”

“This mission is only up for 9 months. If you step down then someone else will take your place. With you being tied to the yakuza, the probability of having the time frame cut short is high.”

Ahh. The background-trump card. Of course the chief of police wanted to pull that off.

Before having entered the police force, you had been somewhat a part of the Abegawa Tenchu Kai group. Though the group had been put to an end, they had successfully managed to hide your father in a hidden pathway that none of the police had managed to find.

From there, he had slowly rebuilt it. Still enforcing the way of the yakuza, your father slowly came to realize just how little there was left of the yakuza. Secretly, he began to create ties with the police to ensure a bit of political immunity for his group. By the time you were born, things took a turn and the small organized crimes came to a halt.

When you gave him the news that you were joining the police force, he had let out a hearty laugh that echoed through the halls. Telling you it was ironic and certainly unexpected, he told you of the difficulties you would face but encouraged you the same.

“I know I’m tied up with them but having to fight another one would be difficult. You’re all too aware that the yakuza are a strongly knit group after they were disbanded one by one. Though I’m aware that the group mentioned is trying to take the lead, I would rather not be intertwined in a mess like this.” Your answer was stern but the look your partner gave you made things inconvenient. “Do not give me that look, Tsukauchi.”

“You won’t be alone in this. The plan is for you to talk to the Shie Hassaikai and use them as support for this one.”

“Lmao, what?” You held up your palm and shook your head with amusement. There was no way in hell you were about to create a bond with them. “D’you just hear yourself, Nao? Those people are whack and some are a lost cause already.”

“Overhaul is the current boss. Perhaps you can set a meeting with him and talk.” The way Overhaul came out of his mouth made him want to puke. It was a vile word, even for him. Yet, desperate times call for desperate measures. If low key teaming up with the Shie Hassaikai would put an end to the growing crimes the other group was causing, then so be it. “Just tell him that you won’t dig into his business.”

“You’re putting me in the hands of someone who could obliterate me in a matter of seconds.” You commented. Dragging the folder off the table, you tucked it into your bag and gulped the remaining amount of coffee. It’s taste now bland to you. “Wish me luck. I’m gonna be needing a lot of it.”

“I owe you a lot, (Y/N).” Tsukauchi thanked you while taking his coat and putting it on. Leading the way towards the exit, he opened the door for you and motioned for you to exit first. “Also, be aware that only a select group of people know about this arrangement.”

Rolling your eyes, you scoffed and waved goodbye.

Walking down the streets, your thoughts began to eat you up. If there was one thing your old man taught you, it was that the Shie Hassaikai had something going on beneath them. Of course, your father never gave any information as to what they did. All you could do was to respect his decision. He was still a yakuza after all. And despite what the people might think, the way of the yakuza wasn’t all that bad. At least when it came to morals of brotherhood, of course.

The screeching of tires caught your attention. A white carrier van came speeding through the road and took a rather sharp turn. It was probably 4 blocks from where you stood. You were off duty but still, trouble waits for no one. Cautiously, you jogged towards the location.

Not soon after, a small scale explosion made you wince. By now, you were running and saw the distressed people exiting the corner as a pillar of smoke started to climb towards the skies. Moving at fast speeds, you ended up bumping with a stranger with a black and gray mask on. His layered blue unbuttoned polo exposing his matching shirt. “Sorry, mister!” You apologized before turning around the corner. The look on his face was a little confused. You couldn’t blame him. Confusion was always part of the recipe of disaster.

You stopped running when you were met with dismembered and morphed bodies of the supposed to be criminals. Standing in front of you were 3 people. One with a large build, one who was slim but wore a hood, and the other with auburn hair. His dark green bomber jacket stood out due to the purple fur around the hood.

He seemed to be busy monologuing knowing he hasn’t killed you yet.

“And who might you be?” The voice seemed to be coming from above.

Not wanting to lose your sights on him, you watched as he turned around and faced you. His magenta bird mask on full display. His eyes still marked with the rage he had just let out a few moments ago. His golden eyes dug deep to your soul. It was scary to say the least.

Your heartbeat raced and your thoughts tried to come up with a logical explanation as to why you did not run away. When Overhaul took a step forward, you held your breath and opened your mouth.

“I’ve been meaning to talk with you, Overhaul.” Your eyes followed as his surgical covered hands began to adjust his mask. The twitch in his eye bringing you one step closer to death. “I’m from the Abegawa Tenchu Kai.”

It was amazing to you. How you casually stated you were part of another group. Feeling the air shift around you, the person who had asked as to who you were was now standing beside you. The beak of his mask a mere inches from your face. You wanted to glare at him, but the real threat here was the one right in front of you.

“It’s not safe to talk here. The police are coming and it’s pretty obvious you don’t want any more dirt on your hands, yes?” You began to walk backwards and motioned for them to follow you. They could follow you or they could just brush it aside and move along with whatever business they had in mind.

When the same person who had been beside you just now talked to Overhaul, it was now clear who he was. Chronostasis. One of his indisposable pawns. You’ve heard of the stories surrounding these two.

“You have approximately 5 minutes to decide before they arrive.” You informed them. “I’ll wait in the corner in case you want to hear what I have to say.”

When a minute had passed, you were now face to face with the leader of the Shie Hassaikai and his companion. He probably let the rest go on ahead. Good. At least he was curious as to what in the world a random person would want them for.

“Speak before he changes his mind.” Chrono threatened you.

Unwavered by that, you began to walk. Thankfully, the sidewalk didn’t have that many people.

“I need your help. The Fukuo Kai group have been getting restless.” If they were still updated with the inside news, you hoped you wouldn’t have to explain the details. It was too tiring and time was of the essence.

“Who exactly are you, woman?” This time you heard his voice. It was oddly intoxicating. He was careful but made sure not to show it.

“I’m sure you can do a background check on me. I have no way in stopping you, I’m all too aware.” Rummaging through your bag, you took out a pen and paper. Jotting your number down, you handed it to Chrono. If the stories were right, he would freak out if you were to touch him. “If you want to talk about this more in your office, feel free to hit me up. But, no to kidnapping. It’s tiresome.”

Overhaul just stared at you. Calculating what to do next. Or how this would benefit him. Yes, he would surely ask some of his men to follow you around but with you being tied with the Abegawa Tenchu Kai, it was almost certain that you had henchmen following you around. Looking over at his masked companion, Chrono immediately understood that a background check would be done the moment they would step into the grounds.

“2 days. If no call, I’ll move on to the next people on my list.” You gave them a quick bow. There was no need to but he was who he was. The rumors being spread about him and his plans were most probably true. He at least deserved a half ass bow from you.

Knowing it was more than enough contact, you turned to the next corner and made your way back home. All too aware that the possibility of being followed was all too high. There were two ways you could go, you could go to your apartment or go home. None of that surely mattered with who he was and what he was capable of. Letting out a sigh, you went with the former.

By the time you arrived in your unit, you flopped on your sofa and threw your bag to the coffee table. Sinking further and further down, you flailed for a few seconds before composing yourself. Leaning towards your bag, you took out your phone and began to dial up a number.

“What can I do for you, (N/N)-chan?” The voice over the phone said.

“Is dad busy?”

“The boss is currently out of office. He’ll be back in a few hours. He shifted in his seat and felt a tad antsy. “Is something wrong?”

“Nah. Just miss the old man.” Giving him a chuckle, you sat straight up and pulled your bag closer towards you. Shuffling through the mess as you took the folder out. Placing it on your table, your eyes began to wander and skim through the pages. “Anyway, I gotta go. Tell him to call me back.”

When he gave his reply, the call ended and you immediately began to read the information more closely.

Hours had now passed and you ended up crashing on the couch. By the time you woke up, the room was now dark save for the city lights illuminating the walls softly. Stretching your limbs, you stood up and turned the lights on. It was painfully blinding but you adjusted quick enough.

Checking your phone for any messages, you tossed it back on the couch and grunted. Zero. Nada. Zilch.

With nothing else to do, you decided to get started with dinner.

Pasta and wine. That’s what you craved for. Not sure why but all the contents were now laid out before you. Preparation time would take around 30. Nothing too long or too fast, just right. Starting the labor, you began to heat up water in a pot and began to prepare the sauce.

Moving in a trance, the sound of your phone ringing caused you to jump. Wiping your hands clean with a tissue, you jogged towards the living room and stared at the unknown number.

‘Shit.’ You mentally prepared yourself. “(L/N) speaking.”

“I have been thinking about your offer.” He said over the phone. His voice a little muffled due to his bird mask, at least you presumed. “However, I would prefer if we talk about this in person. I would hate it if your phone was bugged and such.”

“What time are you free?”

“2 in the afternoon. I am aware that you know where we are located.” He replied. A tiny voice seemed to be yapping about in the background. The small voice seemed to stop and Overhaul continued. “If you’re late, then you’ll have to go through your list of people.”

Before you could respond, he ended the call. For someone who was rumored to be antisocial, he sure had a knack of being sarcasm. Who were you kidding, that wasn’t sarcasm.

Walking back to your kitchen, your mind was out of it as you continued making dinner. Your foot began tapping your tiled floor. What would happen tomorrow? Sure, you knew where they were situated but to be inside their headquarters? A chill ran down your spine.

In the task force, you were one of the people who were experts on reading people. Yet, the Shie Hassaikai leader was one person you would rather not read into. Sociopaths were usually textbook people but for someone who was whispered to be an antisocial sociopath? Your mind couldn’t comprehend what goes through his head.

Safe to say that you did not enjoy your dinner.

Time was now moving fast. In the blink of an eye, you found yourself at the gates of their headquarters. Last night, you fell into such a deep sleep that you barely had enough time to dream. With only another cup of coffee to keep you going, you knocked on the wooden gates and waited for entry.

The gates opened slightly. You were met with a random thug who didn’t wear a mask. He was wearing plain simple clothes but the look on his face told you he was definitely not happy to see you.

“I have some business with Overhaul.” You said plainly.

“Oh so you’re that woman.” Opening the gates a little wider, he watched as you entered. “Follow me, missy.”

The headquarter’s building was designed similar to your home. Traditional Japanese interior when you made your way through the front door. The tatami mats lined on the floor while the shoji screens littered every few steps.

The walking stopped and you were now face to face with Chrono. His mask present and his hood kept his hair hidden. The man who led you quickly bowed and left without looking back.

“Not the traditional meeting room?” You tried to joke. Met with only silence, you told him you were ready and he began to walk down the dimly lit path. Tailing behind him, you took note of the turns you had to take. For a while, it began to confuse you and realized that the sole purpose was for that.

It went on for quite some time before the halls were now lit properly and a double door was now facing you.

“Do I knock? Or do I just barge in?” You turned to be face to face with Chrono. A smirk landed on your face when he let out an unamused sigh. Before you knew it, he leaned and opened the doors for you.

Making your way inside, the decor of the room was nothing much. Two sofas parallel to each other with a table situated in the middle. A banner of their insignia hung proudly on the wall. Sitting on one of the couches was the reason why you were even down here.

Without his obnoxious bomber jacket, you had to admit that Overhaul looked pretty damn fine. Clean and proper. Taking a seat on the empty sofa, you leaned on to the back and shrugged your shoulders.

“Well, what do you wanna talk about?” You decided to start the conversation. In a way, it calmed your senses since the silence was deafening.

“What do I get in return?” His elbows rested on his knees. Tilting his head a little bit, he squinted his eyes ever so slightly. The horrible lighting of the room somehow made the golden trimming of his mask shine.

“You get to take their rank. You’re aware that the Fukoa Kai are pretty up there and surely you would love to have additional men behind your back.”

“And why would a police officer like you want to ask help from people like us? That’s a bit ironic now isn’t it?” Not a single movement save for his occasional blinking. “I’ve heard stuff about your lot. And it would definitely make things a whole lot easier. Besides, the chief of police saw it amusing by using me as a bridge. You’ve done your background check I presume?”

“(L/N). Daughter of the man who reestablished the Abegawa Tenchu Kai group from the dirt. Top ranking police officer despite having been born with the yakuza way.” He began to relay out. “Political immunity granted due to the old man pulling a few strings and helping the force every now and then. Such a shame his goal was patterned like that .”

Years of hearing that, you were now immune to those choice of words.

“If it calms your clammy hands,” You retorted. His eyebrows jumped a bit at how you raised your voice. “Only a few select people know about this. We plan to keep this on the low hence me meeting you. You won’t be meeting any of them, save for maybe one. But other than that, this would surely benefit you more than it would for us.”

“Tell me, (L/N).” He was now leaning on the back of the sofa. His head craned back to rest as well. You couldn’t help but wonder how heavy that mask was. Or what he was hiding underneath it. “Do you play shogi?”

Not expecting the question, you couldn’t help but giggle ever so slightly. Making sure that your hand partly covered the smile you were holding in. Tucking in a loose strand of hair, you lifted your chin and responded.

“I do but I’m not the best at it.”

“If I am satisfied with how you play, then we will commence whatever plan you have in your head.” He motioned for Chrono to get the board. “But, should I win, you have to add a few more privileges for my participation.”

“I’ll have to…” You had to cut yourself. Coming to a conclusion that your chief would surely decline it, you would just have to face the consequences of it later. “Sure.”

Watching as his companion laid out the board, you took the opportunity to observe what you could with the man sitting in front of you. His shoulders were broad and his face smooth. His eyebrows were quite unique as well. His lower lashes were eye catching, no doubt. Though his eyes were the money shot though. The dim lighting did no justice to the golden hues he were gifted with.

When his eyes met yours, he raised an eyebrow. You raised one as well. Furrowing his brows, you merely blinked lazily. Squinting your eyes, they slowly traveled down to his shoulders. Realizing that you were clearly checking him out, you jolted your sight once more and met his. The staring game was always fun for you knowing you don’t chicken out. When Overhaul finally broke connection, he gave you the liberty of ushering the first move.

The only sound that now echoed the room was the sound of your pieces being put into place. It was a rather intense game. For a while, he had managed to snag some of your powerful pieces but you managed to turn the table around by taking his as well. Chrono stared intently at the game. Seeing how his boss was now playing with his hundred percent was something he had not seen in a while. Looking at you, you were unfazed by the pressure of playing with the boss.

Little did they know that behind your poker face, you were panicking. The moves left were slowly depleting and you could only go on for a few more minutes. It was too obvious he was enjoying this. Deciding to play on defense, you picked up a tile and placed it where you intended it to be.

This exchange of moves went for a few more minutes before you finally saw the opportunity to grab his king. By now both of you had practically an equal amount of each other's soldiers. Though it would require you to sacrifice three pawns, the feeling for victory would probably be within reach in 5 moves.

5 moves later, you finally leaned back on the sofa. That had been one of the longest games of shogi you had ever played. Mentally, you were drained and hungry. The effects of the coffee had worn down 16 moves ago and you wanted to stuff down a hearty burger before you head to the precinct.

“When will the operation start?” Overhaul asked as he still stared at the board. Processing how he had just lost. Yet, he had to admit that your final moves were brilliant.

“I’ll give you a call.” You tossed the piece and he caught it with ease. His eyesight never tore from yours as he placed it back on the board. “But, I am in a rather good mood. The only add on I can give to you is that no snooping around will happen. Whatever it is you have planned in this maze of an office you have, I’ll have nothing to do with it. I’m here for one purpose and one purpose only.”

“Then so be it.” He accepted the offer. “If there’s nothing else-”

“How heavy is your mask?” You blurted out.

Both men in the room were rather speechless at the sudden question. Even you were surprised. That had simply been a thought but your mouth seemed to move faster than your brain could comprehend. Perhaps it was the hunger taking over.

“You don’t have to answer that.” You looked away and stared at their banner. Shame and embarrassment creeping into you. “But, yeah. There’s all there is to it.”

Once again, you were back to the winding halls. You didn’t bother memorizing the area knowing full well you were bound to go back. When the traditional walls were within sight once again, all you could think of was the exit and the nearest hamburg shop.

“What’s your quirk?” Chrono suddenly asked.

“Thought you’d already know by now.” You replied.

“It was marked as classified information no matter how deep we dived into the systems. Did you pay for the secrecy?”

“Nope. Well, maybe.” You were now facing the entrance. Chrono was still waiting for an answer. “I’ll tell you when the time comes. But, it has something to do with health. So if it makes your boss any less worried about the germs I carry, I’m clean.”

Waving a farewell, you walked and exited yourself away from the building.

Taking your phone out, you searched for the nearest hamburg store and began to walk your way. It was only a few blocks away so it wouldn’t hurt to exercise your legs. Glancing at the time, you were shocked that 2 hours had passed in that meeting. It felt too fast but perhaps it was the shogi that took up most of the time.

Realizing that you had to send updates to your partner, you searched for his contact and hit dial. He answered after the second ring.

“Yes, (Y/N)?” The typing of his keyboard was evident and you recalled just how many other cases he had under his care.

“It’s a done deal. But, I had to cave in with his one demand.” Letting him digest what you had just shared, you heard the creak of his office chair. A sigh followed after. “We are not to meddle with his affairs. One purpose and that’s it.”

“Well, at least it’s not much. And another team is currently doing that as well. Still, as expected from my partner.” He praised you. “How’d you do it?”

“I beat him at a game of shogi.” You couldn’t help but smirk at the memory of him realizing he was in too deep to pull himself out of the corner. “Anyway, I’ll be eating lunch. Want me to bring you something?”

“Daifuku will do.”

“Got it.”

Ending the call, you scrolled down through your contacts once more. Hitting up the dial button, you finally arrived at the food chain. The ringing still killing your ears. When the waitress handed you the menu, you were put into voicemail.

“Gei. Pick me up when you get this.” Placing your phone on the table, you called the waitress and told her your order. It would take 15 minutes for your food to arrive and that meant you had 15 minutes to dig around what you could about Overhaul.

Scrolling through news articles, there wasn’t a lot of coverage about him. As expected from a young yakuza member. How old was he anyway? Remembering how you asked him about his mask, you face palmed and scolded yourself.

The screen changed and Gei was calling you. A smile found its way to your lips. “Whattup girrrl?!” Your friend greeted you. His voice pitchy as always and you were positive he was moving his head with every word.

“Just finished a meeting with someone and was wondering if you wanted to crash by my place tonight?”

“Say no more boo. Imma bring some chips, a tub of ice cream, and the glorious wine!” His happiness was contagious. With such a tension filled job, it was a miracle Gei and you became friends. “What’s the occasion baby girl?”

“Uh, just the usual.”

“Ooh~ Is this a red wine situation or a moscato problem?”

What kind of problem was it anyway? If you replied red, it would mean work trouble. If you went with moscato, it would be a mix of work and relationships.

“I guess both?”

“Well! Lemme take my purse and rush to the convenience store! You better spill the beans (N/N).”

“I will~” You said farewell and he made sure to send kisses over the phone. Ever so flamboyant, your friend was. Yet, despite his personality, you knew that Gei would always be there for you no matter what. Of course, with him being your loud best friend, it was a given that you would do anything for him as well.

Your food was now served and you downed it in just 10 minutes. A new record, if you said so yourself. Wrapping things up, you took the daifuku and went your way towards the precinct. Wishing you had taken your car, you called for a taxi and took a quick nap.

#overhaul x reader #chisaki kai x reader #overhaul #bnha overhaul #bnha chisaki kai #mha overhaul #mha chisaki kai #shie hassaikai #overhaul is garbage but i cant help but adore this man #this is the reason why my one shots are delayed #aaaaahhhhhhhhh

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lovemesomesurveys · 4 years

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giraffe 101--class is in session

So, the idea is to answer as much as you can without using Google or anything, but I’m going to lol. I’m going to do the research for ya’ll. You could look at my answers and then try to answer as much as you can yourself that you can remember. Or just learn some interesting giraffe facts cause giraffes are awesome. (:

Giraffe-Themed Survey

1. Wolves travel in packs. What is a traveling group of giraffes called? What is a group of giraffes called when they are standing still? How about when they are moving? Collectively they’re a herd of giraffes. A group of giraffes standing still are called a tower. A group of giraffes on the go are called a journey. I love that!

2. Baby cows and baby giraffes are called “these”. Calves.

3. Do you own anything with giraffe print? What is it? Yeah, a giraffe print body pillow. I also have bedsheets and matching pillowcases with little golden giraffes all over. And if you want to count the shit ton of giraffe stuffed animals and knickknacks I have that obviously have giraffe print.

4. What was the name of the Toys R’ Us giraffe? Geoffrey. Of course I knew this one, Toys R Us was my childhood. “I don’t wanna grow up, cause I’m a Toys R Us kid.”

5. What continent are giraffes most typically found on? Africa. I really wish I could go to Giraffe Manor in Kenya. That would be such an incredible experience.

6. Which internal organ inside of a giraffe helps pump blood to the brain and weighs over 20 lbs? Their heart. They have big hearts.

7. Giraffes eat approximately 75 lbs of what, daily? Leaves! I got to feed a giraffe at the zoo, it was SO cool being that close to one.

8. Human and giraffe necks both have the same number of vertebrates. How many? 7, but theirs are obviously longer.

9. How many species of giraffes are there? 4 distinct species.

10. Giraffes are the tallest mammals in the world - true or false? True!

11. What kind of terrain do giraffes prefer, and why do they prefer it? Savannas, grasslands, and open woodlands. They prefer areas with lots of shrubs and trees.

12. What height do male giraffes grow to? How about female giraffes? Males are 15-19ft and females are 13-16ft.

13. Approximately how much does a male giraffe weight? How about a female giraffe? Males: 1,764-4,255lbs Females: 1,213-2,601lbs.

16. How long is a giraffe’s neck? About 6 feet long.

17. Which sex(es) of giraffes have the horns? Both, but the male’s are usually thicker.

18. How long is a giraffe’s tongue? Up to like 20in long.

19. How long is the gestation period of a female giraffe? 15 months. Anyone remember the big story about waiting for April the giraffe to give birth?

20. At what speed can giraffes run? They’re super fast, they can get up to almost 40mph.

21. What is the approximate life expectancy of a giraffe? 10-15 years in the wild, but can live until 20-27 years old in captivity. 22. How long does a baby giraffe drink it’s mother’s milk for? 9-12 months.

23. How much does a baby giraffe weigh at birth, approximately? 220lbs. Yikes!

24. How does a giraffe drink water? They basically do a split with their front legs and lower their necks. Good thing they don’t have to do that very often because they get a lot of water from the plants they eat, which as you recall they eat a lot of.

25. How do giraffes protect themselves from predators? They have a very powerful front kick.

26. Are giraffes herbivores, carnivores, or omnivores? Herbivores, hence the 75lbs of leaves lol.

27. How do male giraffes establish dominance? By necking, which is sparring with their necks.

28. How long after birth can baby giraffes stand on their own? About 30 minutes.

29. How long do giraffes sleep per day? In captivity they might sleep up to about 4.5 hours a day, but in the wild it’s only about 30-40 minutes a day, only a few minutes at a time. They have to be on high alert in the wild.

30. How long can a giraffe tail grow to be? Up to like 8ft.

31. What are male giraffes called? How about female giraffes? Males are called bulls, females are called cows.

32. How often does a giraffe need to drink water? They can go a few days in between cause they get a lot of water from their food.

33. What sounds does a giraffe make? Occasional snorts and grunts.

34. What do you think draws you to giraffes? I’ve had a love for them ever since I was a kid. They’re just such beautiful, majestic creatures. I also kind of have a long neck lol and “giraffe neck” was a playful joke as a kid.

35. What is the most unique giraffe-themed item that you own? I have a 4ft giraffe in my room that has a Santa hat on still from Christmas last year lmao. I have a lot of giraffe stuffed animals of different sizes and shapes, some of which were bought around different holidays so there’s Valentine’s Day giraffes and Christmas giraffes (one is a pretty red and green sequined one). I have a squishmallow plush giraffe (Google it to see how cute) that is super soft and cuddly. I have a couple little beanie baby ones (called beanie boos) that have big adorable eyes. I have a little wooden giraffe figurine. I have a little giraffe jewelry box and 2 giraffe ring dishes. I have the body pillow, bedsheets, and pillow cases I mentioned. Giraffe mug. Giraffe paintings. Ahhh, I hope I’m not leaving anything out.

[a-zebra-is-a-striped-horse]

#personal #text #survey #surveys #giraffes

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let-it-raines · 5 years

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Catch Me If You Can (22/?)

298 days. That’s how long Killian Jones was away from a baseball field. It’s less than a year, only part of a season for him, but it might as well have lasted a decade as he alternated between physical therapy and spending an excessive amount of time sitting on his couch.

But then he came back and won the World Series.

It’s something no one saw coming, and it’s certainly not something anyone who knows about his arm would predict. Now it’s a new season with new possibilities, and anything could happen. On-field reporter Emma Swan will be there to cover it all even if she is not his biggest fan right now.

Asking her out live on-air will do that.

Rating: Mature

a/n: Everyone take a moment to check out the INCREDIBLE drawing that @carpedzem did that was inspired by this story. It can be found | Here | and deserves all of the likes and reblogs for bringing the Killian in this story to life!

Have a good weekend! ❤️

Found on AO3: Beginning | Current

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Tag list: @eala-captian @galaxyzxstark @xellewoods @mariakov81 @ultraluckycatnd @royalswan @shey-starsfury @superchocovian @sals86 @iam2307 @ashley-knightingale @karenfrommisthaven @scientificapricot @captswanis4vr @ultimiflos @jamif @idristardis @nikkiemms @resident-of-storybrooke @tiganasummertree @bmbbcs4evr @onceuponaprincessworld @jennjenn615 @mayquita @captainsjedi @teamhook @notoriouscs @kmomof4 @ekr032-blog-blog@cs-forlife @andiirivera @jonirobinson64 @qualitycoffeethings @youraverageshipper

-/-

“You haven’t updated your Instagram account in weeks.”

Ariel says this as they sit in the hotel restaurant with their plates full of salad, grilled chicken, and rice. Killian’s been eating like shit lately, and as good as it feels in the moment, he can tell that it affects him and the way that he functions on a daily basis. So he’s been eating the same thing for every meal for the past week, but since they’re on the road where he doesn’t have constant access to a fridge and stove, he’s had to get a little creative in obtaining his food. Ariel is pretty much an expert at finding whatever it is that he wants when he wants it, and he cannot thank her enough for it.

Stabbing a piece of chicken, Killian lifts his fork to his mouth and takes a bite while he taps his passcode into his phone to see if Ariel’s statement is actually true. He really wouldn’t know, but it looks like he has several photos from the last few weeks on there.

“You can very clearly see all of these photos, A. Why are you so big on my social media presence lately?”

“These are all professional photos,” Ariel sighs, an emphasis on professional, and she pushes his phone back toward him. “You need more personal photos. You look like a baseball player.”

“I am a baseball player.”

She waves him away. “You know what I mean.”

Killian arches a brow and scoops up some of his rice. “I really don’t, love.”

Ariel rolls his eyes, and he settles a little further in his booth, his eyes glancing around to the people sitting around them in the restaurant. It’s not very crowded, just a few people here and there, but that’s par for the course considering it’s tentwo in the morningafternoon on a Wednesday. Not a lot of people are chilling in a hotel restaurant in Boston when there are approximately fifty-two other things they could be doing within a five-foot radius. And that’s only the tourists.

And he’s pretty sure that everyone in here can hear his conversation, is probably judging them for the particular subject of it, but he knows that no one cares.

He certainly doesn’t, but if A cares, he should for her.

“People like a little personality,” Ariel explains, ripping up a bit of her napkin. “I know we’ve talked about this before, Killian. You’ve got to show a little personality outside of baseball. I’m not saying put your diary on there, but post a picture with someone outside of baseball.” “Literally, everyone in my life is involved in baseball in some way.”

“Okay, true,” Ariel laughs. “It’s the same for me, so I get it. Still, though, think about it.”

Killian hums noncommittedly, pushing his rice around before looking up at Ariel and wondering why the hell she’s looking at him like she’s holding all of the secrets of the world in that mind of hers.

“Did you really ask to meet me because we needed to talk about my Instagram feed?”

“I mean, obviously not,” she huffs. “I had a few work things to talk about with you, but I’ve also missed you. I feel like it’s been so long since we all spent time together with you guys not in uniform. It’s got to have been months, and I miss it.”

His heart swells and breaks all at once while his head tilts to the side to look at Ariel, eyes glancing up and down over her as he studies her. “You okay, A?”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Ariel.”

“Killian.”

“Ariel, I am here to talk if you’re upset about something, and, literally, say the word and I will get all of us together to do something. We’re here for five days before we’re back in New York for a week. I know we’re in the crazy part of the season where it feels like we can’t breathe, but I promise there’s time for us all to spend time together.”

Her eyes glance down at her food, and she swishes her water around in the glass before taking a long, slow sip that he knows is to take up time.

“I really am fine,” she promises. “I’m just a little stressed with it all, and I feel like I need some time with all of you guys and Belle and, um, Emma too. I’m trying to make contract negotiations for Eric, which has involved us talking about a lot of future stuff that I wasn’t quite ready to talk about yet.”

“Babies?”

“Ding, ding, ding,” she laughs, even if it’s kind of pathetic. “I mean, I want kids. I do. I want them with Eric especially.”

“Well, I’d be a little concerned if you didn’t want them with your husband.”

She flicks a piece of lettuce at him. “Shut up.”

“Never.”

“Why do I love you?”

“I literally have no idea,” Killian teases, reaching over the table to grab Ariel’s hand so that he can squeeze it to reassure her. “Go on, A. I’m listening.”

“I just – it’s hard, you know? Obviously, Eric and I are financially secure right now, but you can’t plan life when that’s exactly what we’re trying to do. Because what happens if Eric gets traded somewhere else? We have to uproot everything, and having kids will complicate that. And we have to have a plan for Eric after he retires. Like, I have a pretty nice job because of all of you, but he’s going to need to have something to do. It’s just…it’s a lot on my plate when I’m already balancing so much. I mean, haven’t you thought about all of that?”

Damn.

Like, damn.

No, he hasn’t thought of any of that. Not at all. Well, that’s a lie, but it’s a small lie, a white one really. When he was out after the accident, his future was always on his mind, but it was never any concrete thoughts. It was always depressing ones about him never being able to play again, about him having no discernable skills outside of a sport, and about him wondering if he was going to fall into women and bars once more simply because things weren’t going his way. It was never a concrete answer about what he’s legitimately going to do after baseball. Money isn’t really his concern as long as he handles it all correctly, but how will he spend his days? What will he be passionate about?

Is Emma going to be by his side through all of it?

Woah.

Okay.

That’s not at all where he thought his mind was headed, but his brain apparently had a much different roadmap than he thought. Killian loves Emma, undoubtedly, and he does want his future to involve her, but it’s like Ariel said…they can’t plan life.

And he doesn’t know what Emma’s plans are.

Realistically, too, Killian isn’t exactly sure what he wants out of life, and he already knows that he most likely won’t have a career as long as a lot of other guys in the league. They haven’t had broken arms and rotator cuff tears that still bother him like he has.

Fuck.

This is not how his morning is supposed to be going, and the way that his heart is hammering in his chest is far worse now than it will ever be when he gets out on the mound tonight.

Swallowing the lump in his throat, Killian squeezes Ariel’s hand again. “It’s hard to think about, A, but you guys will figure it out. I don’t think life can ever really be planned. I sure as hell have planned none of mine, and if I didn’t have you, I think it’d be a much bigger mess.”

Ariel’s cheeks flame up to be the same color of her hair, but she smiles at him anyways. “You’re right. You would be a mess without me and everyone else. I am the glue that holds you together.”

“You and a couple other people which means you are all very weak glue to need that many people to hold me together or I’m just that resistant.”

“The second option.”

“You’re going to be okay, A. You and Eric are solid. And if or when you do have that baby, no matter what city you’re in, I’m going to be there to be that kid’s favorite person in the world.”

“Please,” Ariel laughs even as water fills her eyes, “no one could ever compare to me. I’m definitely going to be my kid’s favorite person.”

“Whatever you have to say to make yourself sleep at night.”

-/-

Killian gets booed when he steps out onto the field, and he can’t imagine a more fitting welcome in Boston since that is what usually happens.

But then it continues past that first moment.

And he very much deserves it for how he’s pitching, though that booing is probably from the Yankees fans and not Boston natives. His arm is stiff, a bit of pain running through it, and he’s too stubborn to ask to be relieved early or to admit that he’s in pain. He tries to convince himself that it’s all exaggerated, that he’s simply been in a negative headspace all day since eating lunch with Ariel and all of the heaviness that was in that conversation, but he knows that it’s not exaggerated. Killian knows that his shoulder is bothering him, his mind is bothering him, and nothing is going to get him out of this foul mood.

Especially not when Al pulls him after the third inning once again and yells at him to get his shit together. Will does too, and even if it’s in his joking tone, Killian doesn’t take it that way. He doesn’t take any of it as a joke.

Who the hell cares about what he’s going to do after baseball if he can’t even figure out what he’s doing right now?

And in all of his anger, in all of his frustration at himself and at his team, the thing he hates himself for the most is brushing off Emma when she asks for an interview. He mutters a no under his breath and keeps walking down the hallway back to the locker room so that he can take a shower and get a massage.

She’s the woman who he loves more than anything or anyone else, which he didn’t even realize until right now, and he just blew her off when she was simply trying to do her job.

He’s such an asshole.

They lose 3-17.

-/-

Elsa: Are you okay?

Elsa: Killian.

Elsa: I know you’ve checked your phone. The game ended three hours ago. Five hours ago for you.

Elsa: I’m going to start calling you and won’t stop if you don’t text me back within the next five minutes.

Killian sighs and rolls over on his hotel mattress, phone still in hand, and sends Elsa a text back because he really does not want to talk on the phone right now.

Killian: Yes, Els?

He expects the bubbles to pop up to tell him that she’s texting back, but they don’t. Instead her face pops up, a picture of she and the girls from Christmas last year, and he wonders if she was ever not going to call him. The answer is most definitely no since he’s been ignoring her – and everyone else – all evening. Eventually someone was going to call him out on his shit.

Sighing again, he hits answer and presses the speaker button as Elsa’s voice comes through the phone.

“Why are you ignoring everyone?”

“I’m talking to you.”

“Only because I just promised to harass you until you did. Seriously, Killian. Your brother and I have been calling you all afternoon, and you’ve ignored us. And when I texted Emma, she said that you were ignoring her too.”

“Bloody hell,” Killian grumbles aloud, sitting up in bed and moving his arm so that he’s not pressing down on it so as to agitate it more. “You texted Emma?”

“Um, yeah?” Elsa questions, the hesitation obvious in her voice. “She’s your girlfriend. She was at the game. I kind of figured she was with you, but apparently the two of you haven’t talked either. What the hell is wrong with you that you’re not even talking to Emma?”

Well, he’s an asshole for one. He’s also never told Emma about his shoulder injury and the full extent of the accident. He doesn’t want to. There’s no rhyme or reason to it, but he doesn’t want Emma to know about it. Not now. As irrational as he knows that it is, she might think less of him. And maybe just maybe, if he doesn’t tell more people, the problem will somehow go away.

This is all becoming more irrational by the second, but it’s fine. Everything is going to be fine. That was such a dark place in his life, one he doesn’t want to keep repeating and reliving even if Emma already knows parts of it, and he has no idea how he’d even talk to her right now since she’s very obviously, and rightfully so, pissed at him.

It’s all so easy to mess everything up in the blink of an eye.

“She’s likely pissed at me since I brushed her off for an interview. I didn’t even say hi or smile at her or find her afterwards. So, I didn’t text her, and she hasn’t texted me. I don’t know…she’s upset with me, right?”

“She’s concerned about you,” Elsa breathes out, and from the lack of noise around her, Killian imagines that she must have locked herself in the study so that no one bothers her. “Killian, Emma loves you. Anyone with eyes can see that, and you guys are a team. Granted, you’re a brand new team, but you’re a team. You have to work together and share stuff like this.”

“I know that, Els.”

“Then why isn’t she with you right now?”

“Because my shoulder feels like shit today, and she doesn’t know anything about the accident besides the broken bone.”

Silence fills the air around him after he says the words, and it’s exacerbated by the fact that Elsa isn’t saying anything on the other line. The only sounds are the sounds of his television playing some kind of celebrity gossip show. How out of touch is he if he doesn’t even know the name of the show?

Why would it even matter to him?

“Killian,” Elsa whispers, and he’s so damn tired of hearing people say his name in sympathy today, “you haven’t told her?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I haven’t told anyone else, Els. Eight people on this earth know about it, and I don’t even know how I would tell her. I don’t want her to look at me out of pity. I don’t…my life has had some pretty shitty periods, and that was one of them. Emma didn’t honestly know me then. She didn’t know how fucked up that I was, and even if I’ve told her about Milah and all of the women after Milah and – I’ve told her a lot, and at some point, she’s going to flip out on how messed up I am.”

“First of all,” she starts, not even allowing him to take a breath or truly think about everything that he just said, “you are not messed up. You, even with all of your privileges now, have had some really hard times in your life. You lost your mom at a really young age and had a pretty shitty dad who took advantage of you and your talents. And then you had a really big love kind of blow up in your face, as well as everything that came after that, and just as you were getting over that, the accident happened.”

“It’s even more depressing if you say it all in a list like that.”

“But,” Elsa continues, “you got through all of that. Are you still struggling with it? Absolutely. But it hasn’t kept you from continuing to live your dream even though things are frustrating. It hasn’t kept you from finding a really great girl in Emma. You’re okay, you know that? And we all love you so much that I don’t think I can even express it with words.”

Killian smiles to himself and twists in his bed, a bit of water coating his eyes, but he blinks the tears away and runs his hands through his hair, taking a deep breath. “I love you guys too.”

“Good. Now text your girlfriend and think about telling her some of this stuff that you’re carrying around on your shoulders.”

“Is that supposed to be a joke?”

“A little.”

“You have no shame.”

“I know. Call me tomorrow, okay?”

“Will do.”

The line goes silent, for real this time, and Killian slams his eyes shut simply so he can have a moment to breathe. Today has been a lot for him, and he knows that Elsa is right about everything. He does. But he’s not quite ready to be that open with Emma. He will be. He does actually want her to know about everything even if he thinks it’ll make her run for the hills, but he’s not ready. And he tells himself that it’s fine. Emma has her own hang-ups, her own past, and not everything has to be shared right away.

They have time.

And his arm may very well start feeling better soon, and his freak out will all be for naught.

Killian: Can I come up to your room?

Emma: Ruby and Graham are in here.

Killian: I don’t care if you don’t.

Emma: 514.

Rolling off the bed, Killian bends down to his suitcase to grab a shirt, not caring which one, and tugs it down on over his head and shoulders before grabbing his phone and wallet to walk up to Emma’s room. He’s not even wearing any shoes, just socks, but he doesn’t notice this until he’s looking around the hallway to make sure no one is around and then quietly knocking on the door.

Graham opens it, a smile on his face, and for some reason it makes Killian think that maybe Emma isn’t as pissed at him as his mind has convinced himself that she is.

“Hey, come on in,” Graham says, opening the door a little wider and letting Killian inside. “I’m sorry about the game.”

“I’m sorry that you used vacation days to see us all play like shit.”

“Yeah, well,” Graham laughs, “at least I’m not at work.”

“This is true.”

Killian takes another step in the room and sees Emma sitting on her bed dressed in a pair of shorts and his old Vandy sweatshirt. He’s going to have to get something else because she’s going to wear that thing until it is nothing but threads. Ruby is sitting next to her, laptops on both of their laps, and he imagines that they’re simply working. Or, at least, he hopes.

“Hey,” Killian greets, crossing his arms over his chest.

Emma looks up at him, a slight smile on her face, and his chest practically heaves. They’re not even in a fight. Why does he feel like they are?

“Hey,” she says. “I’ve got to finish up this article, okay? And I have a little bit of prep work to do for tomorrow.”

“Yeah, Swan, that’s fine.”

“It’s only going to take her thirty minutes,” Ruby starts, slamming her laptop shut, “and then she’s going to yell at you for how pissed she is at you for completely ignoring her today.”

“Hey,” Emma gasps, reaching her hand back to slap Ruby, “you weren’t supposed to say anything.”

“Well, I knew you weren’t going to.”

“I was.”

“You’re a liar.”

“I was going to talk to him.”

“No, no you weren’t. You two are ridiculous. It’s not that hard to talk to each other.”

“Sweetheart,” Graham sighs, tilting his head to the side, “why don’t you let them deal with their issues on their own? I think they can handle it.”

“You know Emma almost as well as I do, so you know that’s not true.”

“Oh my God,” Emma groans, sinking down further on the bed, “this is why I should have left the two of you in New York.”

“Technically,” Ruby laughs, “David sent me because this is a big game, and he didn’t want you to produce on your own.”

“Yeah, well, I should have convinced him to let you stay, and then we definitely could have left Graham behind.”

“Hey,” Graham scoffs, and Kilian can’t help but laugh. He’s only spent a little bit of time with the three of them all together, but they obviously get along great. Ruby is definitely an acquired taste, but Graham kind of evens things out. “I am on vacation. I don’t need to be berated.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Emma huffs, rubbing the palms of her heels under her eyes. “I’m just a little stressed.”

“Do you want me to go get you a cup of coffee, love?”

Emma glances over to him and shakes her head from side to side. “No. I’ve had enough caffeine today. Thank you, though.”

Silence falls between all of them, only the hum of the air-conditioning remaining, but Killian’s gaze stays on Emma even when she goes back to typing on her laptop.

“Ruby, let’s go out to dinner,” Graham suggests, walking over to the bed and beginning to pack up her stuff. “We’ll all have to do something together tomorrow night, yeah?”

“That sounds great, Graham,” Emma promises. “There’s a seafood place down by the harbor that I want to go to.”

Killian watches as Ruby and Graham collect their things and leave, saying their goodbyes to both he and Emma, and it’s not awkward until the hotel door slams shut behind them and he’s left with just Emma.

When was the last time he felt awkward around Emma?

Probably during his interview back in March. That was a lifetime ago.

“I had a shitty day,” Killian blurts out, walking over to the desk that’s next to Emma’s bed and sitting down on the edge of it so that he’s not talking to her from across the room. “That’s not an excuse. God, love,” he huffs, running his hands through his hair, “I know that’s not an excuse, but it’s mine. I’m sorry that I brushed you off, that I barely acknowledged you at the stadium, and that I didn’t text you while I’m here.”

Emma’s nails clack against the keyboard, and he swears every letter is being burned into his skin for how anxious he feels until she’s closing her laptop and placing it next to her on the bed, pulling her legs up to her chest and wrapping her arms around her knees.

“Why have you had a shitty day? Just because you played poorly? Because I’ve seen you play poorly before, and it’s never resulted in you ignoring me while I’m trying to do my job. I get that reporters suck and that you have to talk to a million of them. And I don’t expect special treatment because I’m your girlfriend, but you can’t just brush me off like that and then basically be a ghost for hours after that. I mean, you weren’t even answering your family’s calls, Killian.”

How is he a functioning human being? How? How does he even have people who love him?

Killian’s got answers to all of her questions, to every single one, but he doesn’t know how to say them without talking about his arm and that’s…that’s not going to happen today when he needs more time to accept it all himself.

Emma will understand. When the time comes, she will.

“I’m an asshole, Swan. I am. I know you probably think I’m great with expressing my emotions because I usually am with you, but sometimes I still struggle with it. I had a day where nothing seemed to go right, and instead of seeking out the help of people who care about me, I isolated myself. It’s not right. I know it’s not, but it’s a pattern that I fall back into time and time again.”

Green eyes glance over him, studying him, and he feels her everywhere, like she’s able to peer deep into his soul and see all of the things he’s hiding from her.

Or the one thing.

It’s just one thing

And it can’t be that big of a deal. It’s not. He’ll tell her. Later. Tonight is not the right time.

“You’re not an asshole,” Emma sighs, flattening her lips. “I know I call you an ass all of the time, but I don’t mean it. I just – you had a bad day. I get that. I have bad days all the time, but, and at least I think I’m right about this even though Neal and Walsh never did this with me, when you have a shitty day, you’re supposed to share it with me, come to me, lean on me. If you need time to yourself, fine. Take it. That’s probably a good thing, but I don’t want to do this if every time things don’t go your way I’m pushed away.”

“Did you rehearse that?”

“Does it sound like it?”

“A little bit,” Killian chuckles as he scratches behind his ear. “If only because everything you just told me not to do is everything that I know you have a history of doing.”

“Yeah, well, I’m a hypocrite.” Emma lets her legs fall against the mattress before standing up and stepping into his space so that she’s standing between his thighs with her hands on his shoulders, nails curling into his t-shirt. “Obviously, we both have our own issues, but let’s try to be better, yeah? And if all else fails when it comes to talking, I’m a really good person to eat junk food with and possibly get a little drunk even if those are terrible coping mechanisms.”

He huffs, his hands finding her hips so that he can tug her closer. “I’m on a diet, actually.”

Emma’s nose scrunches up in that way that he loves before she’s dipping her head down and softly, thoroughly moving her lips over his in the way that he’s been craving all day. He hasn’t seen her today, only those few seconds after he got pulled out of the game, and he had no idea just how much he missed being able to feel her against him, to be able to smell the scent of her shampoo, until right at this moment.

“I know,” she says when they pull back from each other even if he doesn’t let his grip on her hips go. “We’ve been eating like crap lately.”

“I’m trying to rectify that. I know you are too.”

“Actually, Ruby and I signed up for another Pilates class at home, so I’ve been working my ass off to still eat my onion rings. Literally.”

“Oh, don’t do that.” Killian moves his hand back to squeeze her ass, reveling in the way that Emma rolls her eyes. “I like this ass too much.”

“Well, consider it some kind of punishment for being a broody ass today if my butt happens to get smaller.” She smiles at him before kissing his forehead in a move so gentle that he wonders how in the world this woman has so many wonderful facets. “Now, do me a favor and find something to watch while I finish up my assignment, okay? I have to talk about everything you guys did wrong today.”

“Just punch me in the gut why don’t you.”

“I try. C’mon, twenty-nine. I think we both deserve a relaxing night.”

“Yeah, Swan, me too.”

They don’t get drunk and eat junk food, but once Emma finishes her work a little under twenty minutes later, she turns her laptop off as well as turning off the hotel room lights, and crawls under the covers with him so that her feet are tucked into his calves. Killian loves that she does that, that she feels comfortable doing that, and it brings him comfort even if her feet are far too cold. Seriously, it’s like she sticks them in the freezer before she gets in bed.

As if that would be possible.

Emma absentmindedly playing with his chain and his mother’s ring is something he’s also grown used to recently, something that brings him peace, and Killian continues to trace words of affection into the skin of her back as the night goes on. They don’t talk much, just a few exchanges of words about Emma’s day, her plans and schedule for tomorrow, and she drags just that little bit more information out of him. It’s still not everything, was never going to be everything, but it’s a start.

And his shoulder doesn’t bother him nearly as badly when Emma is sitting beneath it with her head on his chest laughing at his truly terrible Arnold Schwarzenegger impression. He’s usually much better with accents, but this one is apparently too much for Emma to handle.

Weirdly, though, or maybe not so much, all of his concerns that sparked after his conversation with Ariel this afternoon fade away with each passing second. Killian’s got no clue what’s going to happen or if things are going to work out, but at the end of the day, all he wants is for Emma to laugh with him and kiss his collarbone before she falls asleep.

#catch me if you can #cs fic #cs ff #captain swan fic #captain swan

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acekatherineplumber · 6 years

Text

Questions! Yay questions!

1: 6 of the songs you listen to most? Out Tonight (RENT), Tightrope (The Greatest Showman), Candy Store (Heathers), Delicate (Taylor Swift), Gorgeous (Taylor Swift), So Much Better (Legally Blonde)

2: If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be? Taylor Swift. It would be so nice.

3: Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17. You will have to pay for excess baggage.

4: What do you think about most? How much cleaning I constantly have to do

5: What does your latest text message from someone else say? “I once again work until [private information], but I hope you have a great day”

6: Do you sleep with or without clothes on? It depends.

7: What’s your strangest talent? I’m doubled jointed in three places

8: Girls… (finish the sentence); Boys… (finish the sentence)Girls are wonderful. Boys can choke.

9: Ever had a poem or song written about you? No.

10: When is the last time you played the air guitar? No idea.

11: Do you have any strange phobias? I’m afraid of stairs

12: Ever stuck a foreign object up your nose? When I was like 5. It was a bead.

13: What’s your religion? Atheist

14: If you are outside, what are you most likely doing? Taking a walk

15: Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it? Behind it

16: Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band? I like solo artists more

17: What was the last lie you told? I don’t remember

18: Do you believe in karma? Kind of? I believe that the way you treat people affects how they treat you.

19: What does your URL mean? Katherine Plumber is ace. Fite me.

20: What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength? Perfectionism, passion

21: Who is your celebrity crush? Emma Watson? I just think she’s pretty, but I’m not sure I want to date her because I don’t even know her, and I’m not sure she would like that.

22: Have you ever gone skinny dipping? I have a hot tub, so regularly.

23: How do you vent your anger? I like to vent it through art

24: Do you have a collection of anything? I used to collect state quarters, but nothing current

25: Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online? Phone

26: Are you happy with the person you’ve become? Sometimes yes, sometimes no

27: What’s a sound you hate; sound you love? I hate windshield wipers, I love cats meowing

28: What’s your biggest “what if”? Everything is a what if for me

29: Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens? Yes to both

30: Stick your right arm out; what do you touch first? Do the same with your left arm. My earbuds, one of my cats

31: Smell the air. What do you smell? I have a stuffed nose today, so nothing

32: What’s the worst place you have ever been to? Probably my old private school

33: Choose: East Coast or West Coast? East

34: Most attractive singer of your opposite gender? No.

35: To you, what is the meaning of life? Finding and pursuing your own happiness

36: Define Art. Anything that makes you think (except Modern Art, because that is fucking elitist and pretentious and terrible)

37: Do you believe in luck? I believe in making your own through hard work, but sometimes shitty things just happen.

38: What’s the weather like right now? Cloudy, slightly rainy

39: What time is it? 10:07 am

40: Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed? Yes, and unfortunately yes.

41: What was the last book you read? The Count of Monte Cristo

42: Do you like the smell of gasoline? I don’t hate it, but I don’t love it

43: Do you have any nicknames? Yes, but it’s personal

44: What was the last film you saw? The Princess Bride

45: What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had? I’ve had a lot of bad sprains. Also a concussion.

46: Have you ever caught a butterfly? Yes

47: Do you have any obsessions right now? Bubble tea. Don’t judge me

48: What’s your sexual orientation? Asexual

49: Ever had a rumour spread about you? I used to be bullied really badly, so yes

50: Do you believe in magic? Yes

51: Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong? Yes.

52: What is your astrological sign? Leo/Virgo

53: Do you save money or spend it? I try to save it

54: What’s the last thing you purchased? A stuffed cat

55: Love or lust? Love

56: In a relationship? Yes

57: How many relationships have you had? Technically 5, but only 2 of them have been really serious

58: Can you touch your nose with your tongue?No

59: Where were you yesterday? At home for most of the day

60: Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you? My cat’s nose

61: Are you wearing socks right now? No

62: What’s your favourite animal? Cat

63: What is your secret weapon to get someone to like you? Honesty and passion

64: Where is your best friend? At her school. She has a summer class. The other one is at work.

65: Give me your top 5 favourite blogs on Tumblr. @hoogwoorts @schmackarys, @keepers-quaffles-and-old-clocks, @berrykikwi, and @purplerainbowsrachel

66: What is your heritage? German, English, Irish. Very white.

67: What were you doing last night at 12AM? Browsing the Internet.

68: What do you think is Satan’s last . It’name? I don’t give out the last names of real people.

69: Be honest. Ever gotten yourself off? Yes. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, and is actually really healthy. It’s good for anxiety.

70: Are you the kind of friend you would want to have as a friend? I hope so.

71: You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do? I call someone else over and head on my way.

72: You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. a) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? b) What do you do with your remaining days? c) Would you be afraid? I would probably wait until my last two weeks to tell people. I would travel. Yes, I would be afraid.

73: You can only have one of these things; trust or love. I don’t trust people anyway, so love

74: What’s a song that always makes you happy when you hear it? Love Song by Sara Bareilles

75: What are the last four digits in your cell phone number? Not giving that out.

76: In your opinion, what makes a great relationship? Honesty, kindness, and common interests.

77: How can I win your heart?You can’t! You can have eggs and you can have bacon, but you can’t have Elphie because they are taken!

78: Can insanity bring on more creativity? Yes, but it should still be medicated

79: What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far? Going to London.

80: What size shoes do you wear? 7.5-8

81: What would you want to be written on your tombstone? I don’t know, but I think it should be in French.

82: What is your favourite word? At the moment? Princesa.

83: Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word; heart. The color blue.

84: What is a saying you say a lot? It’s amazing what you find when you clean up.

85: What’s the last song you listened to? Delicate

86: Basic question; what’s your favourite colour/colours? Aqua

87: What is your current desktop picture? Liberty Leading the People

88: If you could press a button and make anyone in the world instantaneously explode, who would it be? Mike Pence. I hate Trump, but Pence is scary and would be harder to impeach.

89: What would be a question you’d be afraid to tell the truth on? Everything that is wrong with my brain.

90: One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren’t really doing anything, they’re just standing around your bed. What do you do? Run and lock the door.

91: You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power? Invisibility

92: You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again? Probably the latter half of the first act of Les Mis in London.

93: You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be? The thing that caused my PTSD.

94: You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. Who would it be? I don’t really want to do that. I don’t know of trust them.

95: You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go? Berlin.

96: Do you have any relatives in jail? No

97: Have you ever thrown up in the car?Yes

98: Ever been on a plane? Yes

99: If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say? Something about education rights for all.

#story of my life

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sometimesstorieshappen · 6 years

Text

Over/Under

Barian had been mopping the floor for approximately 12 minutes when he was interrupted. Not that he didn't welcome the interruption, for usually cleaning was a job he assigned to someone else, but nevertheless he found himself mildly annoyed as a man materialised in front of him with a muffled crack. He stepped back to avoid getting water on his immaculately white suit.

"Please. We have a front desk for a reason you know." Barian said as he waved the smell of sulphur away. He had often wondered why he wasn't used to it by now, as despite smelling it almost on a daily basis it still forced him to crinkle his nose.

"Uhhhh...."

"Desk. At the front. Big queue, you can't miss it." At the man's continued confusion Barian sighed and dropped his mop. "Alright then, I'll help you this time. But only this time." He practically dragged the man to his feet and set off towards the door.

"Who...who are you?" The man asked with a quivering voice. He was dressed in clothes that looked tattered and torn, as though he had been mauled by a bear, and next to Barian's gelled hair and white suit he looked even worse.

"I am Barian, general manager and secretary to Lucifer himself. And you are?"

"Leo. I don't – I don't have any titles."

Barian shrugged. "Doesn't matter too much down here." As they exited the room Leo was given a sight of what looked like the entrance to a bank, albeit a very, VERY large one. A line of desks stretched into the distance, far beyond the limit of Leo's eyesight, and in front of each one was a queue of between 100 and 250 people. Behind the desks was one long wall, punctuated by doors every so often, and it was from one of these doors that the pair had come out of. Barian looked at the queues and groaned.

"I forgot, there's a war going on at the moment. Tell you what, since I'd rather sort you out quickly I'll take you to the boss myself. If anyone asks then you waited in the queue. Got it?"

Leo had enough sense to nod. "But who is your boss?"

Barian stared. "You kidding me? I even told you his name already! Come on, you seriously never heard of – ah forget it. Come on." Barian pulled out a set of keys that jangled loudly, putting one in the door they had come out of. After some jiggling and muttered curses, the lock turned and the door opened. Except it was not the same room. Inside was what looked like a large ballroom, occupied by nothing but a desk with a computer on it. A man sat at the desk, studiously typing away, and there was another empty chair for visitors to sit on. Barian dragged Leo to the chair and sat him on it.

"Did you finish up in 37B Barian?" The man asked.

"Not yet, got interrupted. Queue jumper. I'll leave him with you." Barian turned on his heel and left, the sound of his jangling keys following him. The man typed for a few seconds longer before pushing the computer to the side and addressing Leo.

"Now then, my name is Lucifer. I hear you appear to have skipped the queues out there."

"I don't know how I got here, I just –"

"Alright alright, first things first. Let me find you on the system." Lucifer typed for a few seconds, and Leo took the opportunity to look at him. He was dressed simply, a plain black shirt and jeans, hair cut very short. No rings, necklaces, jewellery of any kind. Suddenly something clicked for Leo: Barian had mentioned the queues were due to war, and the boss was called Lucifer...

"Am I in hell?" Leo blurted out. Lucifer looked up at him.

"I should think that's a bit obvious. It's not exactly easy to arrive here accidentally. Though..." He frowned. "I can't find you on here. Now it could be a computer error but Belerus assures me that is not possible. So option two is that you are not meant to be here." Leo squirmed in his seat as warmth flushed through him.

"Am I... am I dead?"

"Well now that's an interesting question. The fact that you are here suggests yes, but if you're not on the system then you are not officially terminated." Leo felt warmth flush through him again, stronger this time, and little beads of sweat formed on his upper lip. "I believe the best thing to do is to give it some time, allow your representation to –"

With a crack and a smell of sulphur, Leo disappeared again. Lucifer frowned, and after a moment's contemplation pulled a mobile out of his back pocket and pressed a speed dial.

"Belerus? It's me. I need you to run something through the simulations for me. Yes, that one. Yes, I just want to check it. Okay. No, I'm not your chef, there's a snack machine in the corridor. You asked for the damn thing. Okay. Okay bye." Lucifer pocketed the phone, sighed, and returned to his computer.

Leo opened his eyes. Or rather, he opened one of them – the other had something in it. His right arm was held in a cage of twisted metal, the bicep pierced by what looked like part of a door. One of his legs was dangling in front of him, the joint twisted beyond normal angles. He was held in place by something that he recognised as a seat belt, the ends disappearing into the broken branches and car parts around him. There was a person crouched over him, beaming. Leo couldn't quite tell what was happy about this situation, but then he did not have the context. The defibrillators should have been a giveaway.

For 2 minutes and 13 seconds, Leo Brazikin had been clinically dead.

"Look, do you realise the implications of what you're asking me to do?" The doctor put his pen down, giving Leo his full attention. "You're not even off crutches, let alone healthy enough to undergo this sort of thing."

"2 months ago I died, Dr Massan. I died, and I saw where I was going. Now I want to go back, and this is the only way I know how." Leo shifted in the chair. It was an uncomfortable plastic one, and with his leg still in plaster it was proving impossible to find a good position. He sighed. "Look at me. They say the leg will never heal fully, the break was too severe. I'll have problems for the rest of my life."

"The fact that you even have a life is enough reason to reconsider. You have no idea how lucky you were to live. The fact they didn't amputate that leg is even more astonishing."

"It might as well have been amputated." Leo said with a frown. "I've looked everywhere, you're the only person who could undertake this. You've been researching clinical death for nearly 20 years."

"Yes, preventing it. Not causing it." Massan dragged a hand down his face. "This is clinical death, not clinical sleep, or clinical rest. Death. The risks in doing this are immense."

"With respect Doctor, it is not your place to decide what I can or cannot do with my life."

"With respect," Massan retorted, his voice dripping with sarcasm, "I'm not just worried about you. Let's say something goes wrong. I'm left standing over a dead body that I personally killed. Manslaughter, 5 years minimum. And there's no way out, it's only your word that can save me, and it's not like I can drag that out of you when you're a slab of cold meat on the table. This is just as risky for you as it is for me!"

"Doctor, please. I... I don't have anywhere else to go." Leo looked down for a moment, gathering himself. Massan let the silence hang in the air for several seconds before breaking it.

"If we're going to attempt this we need rules."

Leo looked up in joy. "Oh thank you so –"

"Shush. Rules. Listen. First rule is that you write a will extenuating me should you die. Unfortunately that's pretty much going to be a signed suicide note, so you cannot show or discuss this with anyone."

"I'm single and my parents are long gone. Who would I talk to?"

"Alright. Second rule is length. No longer than 30 seconds."

Leo frowned. "Why?"

"The longer you're out the greater the risk of brain injury. 3 minutes is the cutoff point for full recovery, After that it's virtually guaranteed you'll wake up with some brain damage. The only way to extend that is through induced hypothermia and I don't want to risk any further complications. You've already been through a 2 minute death, doing another one is asking for trouble." Massan stood up, pushing his chair back and walking to the window.

"Anything else?"

"Last rule." Massan turned to face Leo. "You do everything I say. If I say jump you say how high. Most of the potential damage from this will be while you're conscious, and if I can't do the proper procedures then the chances of brain damage are very high. So Listen. To. Me." Massan smacked his hand on the windowsill to emphasise each word. "I'll need to prepare a room out of the way, plus get hold of some equipment. I'll message you the address and date.

Leo stood up. "Thank you Doctor. You have no idea what this means to me."

Massan sighed and turned back to the window. "No, I don't. I never do. I just do what I think is right. Don't prove me wrong. Now get out before I change my mind."

"Uhh. Hi God. It's me." Leo looked up. The stained glass window above him was supposed to depict some kind of religious scene, but he couldn't really tell what exactly. He didn't exactly live in the most opulent area, and so he reasoned that it was likely done a little cheaply. "So it's been a while huh? A few years I think. Okay a lot of years. I'm not good at this." Leo looked around. He was sitting on one of the front pews of the church, bathed in orange and yellow light from the window. Or he would have been if the weather wasn't cloudy.

"I don't know if I should kneel, or like, bow. Or do something besides sitting. Not sure if it even matters. You're probably ignoring me anyway. I would." Leo sighed. "So I'm here because, well, I guess you could call it an old habit. My mother used to bring me here, take me to confession. I would sit in a booth and tell some guy that I took a chocolate from the sweet cupboard at night, and he would tell me to say some prayer I don't remember, then everything would be fine. You were supposed to admit your sins or something. And that's what I'm here for. I want to get something off my chest." He paused for a second. "Am I crazy?" He waited for an answer. For a godly sign, a beam of light coming from the heavens. But there was nothing. "I died, then I lived, now I'm about to die again. Except this time I'm dragging someone else into it. If I die, he takes the blame. I feel...guilty. You know? Like he has to deal with me because I can't. I don't know if that counts as a sin or not, but it's worth admitting I think." For a moment the sun found a gap through the clouds, shining through the main window onto Leo. Had it been slightly earlier it could have looked like a godly sign, however now it just looked like the sun shining through a slightly crappy stained glass window. Leo looked at his phone again, at the single message from Dr Massan. He sighed and stood up as the light faded.

"Keep an eye out for me God. I know I've been a dick in the past but just this one time. I'll say however many prayers you want. I'll even go to church. I really will. Do this for me and I'll do something for you. I promise. For whatever that's worth." Leo stood up and made to leave, but he stopped for just a second. He gave as much time as he dared for an answer to materialise. But nothing came, and he carried on out of the church muttering to himself. "I'm asking a goddamn window if I'm crazy. Way to go Leo, good job. Gold star."

"Ah there you are. Come on, quickly." Massan led Leo down, down, into the basement of the building. After a few too many stairs for Leo's liking they arrived at the designated room. It was large but undecorated, with a cracked concrete floor and ventilation pipes snaking through the roof like worms; the sort of room you held kidnapped people in, Leo thought with a morbid smirk. In the middle was a hospital bed, with several other pieces of equipment surrounding it. Most were complicated looking medical machines that Leo did not recognise, all hooked up to an extension lead going to the corner of the room. One looked rather worryingly like a refrigerator.

"Oh ignore that." Massan noticed Leo staring at it. "It's an ice machine. We'll only need that if things go wrong. Lie down please."

Leo laid down on the bed, fully clothed, as Massan began attaching electrodes to various parts of his body.

"So you're not going to be in the same position as last time. Last time was full cardiac and respiratory cessation, due to shock and having a big hole in your lung." Massan finished attaching electrodes and turned to a machine behind him. Leo could hear the beep, beep, beep of his heart ticking away. The sound of his continued existence, spelled out in monotone notes. "I'm going to induce ventricular fibrillation using a large AC shock. I would tell you how big this shock will be, but to be honest I don't want to frighten you. Take off your shirt and spread this on your chest." Massan gave Leo what looked like a tub of hair gel.

"What's this for?"

"It's so you don't have defibrillator shaped scars on your chest. At this voltage these things will burn your skin without protection, and I don't have the equipment to deal with an infection here. Plus if you show up at a hospital with defibrillator burns they'll start asking questions, which is the last thing I need." Massan pulled out two paddles, rubbing them together as they charged. They made a faint high pitched whine as they did, and Leo eyed them nervously.

"Is this going to hurt?"

"I'm afraid so. I can't get hold of any decent painkillers without going through procedures and they would never approve this. Unless you want to start downing paracetamol now I suggest you don't think about it. It's a very short shock." Massan placed the paddles on Leo's chest, pulling out a stopwatch as he did so. "3, 2, 1, clear."

Leo looked up. The roof was far above him, which meant he was lying down. But he wasn't lying in the bed. Instead he was in a big room. Someone was looking down at him. Someone familiar.

"You again. Most perplexing." Lucifer shook his head. "Alright I'll bite. What do you want?"

"I want to understand." Leo said as he stood up, his legs shaky. His chest ached, a deep throbbing pain that reverberated through his body. "What is this place? How does it work? What happens?"

"I don't deal with the technical side of things down here. But I know someone who does." Lucifer walked towards the door, pulling out his keys as he did. After a quick fiddle with the lock the door opened to what looked like a laboratory, full of giant glass tubes and computer banks. A small man in a lab coat and sunglasses was busy at one of the machines.

"What now? I'm busy." The main said. His voice was nasally and thin, tinged with annoyance.

"Leo, this is Belerus. He's our chief of technology down here, and if anyone can tell you about how we work, it's him. Now don't bother me again unless it's important." Lucifer practically shoved Leo through the door and slammed it behind him. Belerus finished at his machine and turned around, grinning.

"I heard about you. Barian couldn't keep a secret if his lips were glued together. Although being asked to run some very specific simulations was a hint."

"What exactly is this place?"

"Really? That's the question you want to open with? I should think that was pretty obvious." He spread his arms. "Welcome to Hell. Purgatory. Shak'delar. The Cycle. Whatever you want to call it. Every culture has some inkling of what happens after death, and though the words change the intent is the same. This is where you go when you die."

"I thought there was a heaven as well as hell?" Leo frowned.

"Depends who you ask. As far as I know there's only one place after death, and that's here. Thing is what you're seeing is technically a communal mental representation of what you think this place looks like. Your subconscious is deciding everything for you." Belerus walked over to Leo, and as he did Leo realised just how small he was. The man was barely 4 feet tall, his lab coat tails dragging on the floor. His smile was greasy, a little too forced. "So right now your body is a subconscious mental projection of your self. Effectively you're walking around in your subconscious body. This place can therefore be treated as both heaven and hell in a sense. It's your subconscious that decides which one you see. You judge yourself guilty or innocent. It's quite beautiful actually."

Leo felt warmth flush through him and realised Massan was trying to bring him back. "What about you? Do you actually work here? What do you do?"

"Oh a bit of this, and a bit of that." Belerus pushed his sunglasses further up his nose. "That's not important though. I anticipate we're running out of time."

"What – how do you know?"

"You're not the first." Belerus said simply. "I'll explain later but I need more time to confirm. I need you to die for longer really. I don't have enough time to run any simulations on you. Come and see me again when you can stay for longer." Leo felt the warmth again, stronger, and he closed his eyes.

"Come on, stay with me. ShitShitShit!" Massan threw the set of paddles to the side and pulled out another pair, these ones hooked up to a car battery. He glanced at the clock. 51. 52. 53. "Come on you bastard, get back here! Come on!" He let the charge go, Leo's slight frame jumping as the electricity contracted his muscles. And then with a gasping breath he opened his eyes.

"I – urgh – ack" Leo tried to speak but found he couldn't.

"Quiet. Lie still." Massan began lumping ice onto the bed, covering Leo in it. Once done he pulled out a syringe, and after a quick inspection, promptly injected Leo in the neck with it.

"Urgh"

"What's your name?" At Leo's blank expression Massan sighed. "I need to know if there's any damage. Your speech will recover once blood circulates, cognitive function should be immediate. Name. Now."

"Leurgh"

"Close enough. How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Fouurgh"

"Good." Massan sighed and collapsed into a nearby chair, wiping sweat off his forehead. "This is crazy. You're crazy. What the hell am I doing here performing the medical equivalent of mad science in the basement? That's it. No more. I'm done." The basement was quiet save for heavy breathing and the beeping of Leo's heart, still struggling onwards.

"No way. Not after last time."

"He told me I needed to die for longer."

"He could tell you to jump on one leg and sing songs for all I care!" Massan threw his hands up. "Who told you this anyway?"

"Belerus. He runs the technical side of things in the afterlife."

Massan tilted his head. "You know, at first I thought you were making this stuff up. But nobody is this exact with lies. You talk to me about the same things over and over, and you're almost convincing. But I just can't. I'm sorry, but last time was far too close. You were dead for 50 seconds, somehow you didn't suffer any major brain damage but god knows how."

Leo quietly wondered about that. His memory had been worse since he woke up, and he pondered if he really did avoid brain damage. Or if he would even notice it if it occurred. "Massan please. I'm begging you."

"You did that already, and It worked the first time. But no more." Massan sighed. "You have to understand how abhorrent this is to me. I took an oath, Leo. A code I've lived by for nearly 30 years. On top of that what you're asking me to do is something that I have been actively researching to prevent for 20 years. This is something I have dedicated my life against, and you're asking me to cause it. God knows why I even agreed to this in the first place, but it goes against everything I've lived and worked for. Please understand." He leaned back in his chair. "I don't have anything against you personally. I honestly hope you find someone else to help you in this, I really do. But it cannot be me anymore."

"I see." Leo slumped in his chair. Massan looked at him for a moment.

"Look I'll tell you what. You want purpose in this life? Let me give you something. I've got to clear all that stuff out of the basement later today, why don't you come help me with that? It'll take your mind off things."

Leo shrugged, but beneath the nonchalant exterior the gears of his mind were turning. "Guess I don't have anything else to do. What time?"

"7:30 exactly. There's a gap in the schedule that we have to hit. We'll have a 30 minute window, otherwise we'll be explaining why we're carrying hospital equipment to the next janitor. So be punctual." Massan turned to his computer, and Leo stood up to leave.

"Oh and Leo? Life is great. Trust me, I work at keeping it." Massan chuckled to himself.

"Yes. Yes it is." With that Leo left the room, crutches clicking as he walked.

Leo looked at his watch as he entered the basement. The equipment was all still there, the defirbillators, the hospital bed, unmade and covered in ice. It was odd to think that this was his deathbed, both metaphorically and literally. He brushed the ice off the bed, clicking on the machines as he did so. He wasn't sure what for but they felt necessary somehow. He couldn't find the electrodes however so instead of a steady repetitive beep the machine simply registered a flat monotone line. It was unsettling, as though he had already died. Another glance at his watch. 7:28. After a moment's searching he found the defibrillators, the cold metal heavy in his hands. A quick search found the switch to turn them on, hooked up to the extension lead, and Leo lay in the bed. He couldn't find the gel, so he simply left his shirt on. As the defibrillators charged with a faint whine he looked up at the roof, the fluorescent tube lighting illuminating the weathered ceiling, the silvery grey of ventilation pipes like jewellery on a scarred body. The earrings and tongue piercings of the building, Leo thought with a smirk. Funny what the mind jumps to when it's about to die. 7:29. Leo placed the defibrillators on his chest, and took a deep breath. Then another. Then another. He muttered "Clear." to nobody in particular. Then he pressed the button.

"How long was it between the sessions?"

"A day and a half, more or less." Leo thought back. "Why?"

"I need the data for the simulation. Come." Belerus beckoned Leo over to a large machine, typing some numbers on a small calculator he was holding. There was a screen at the bottom of the machine, and the scientist gave it a few meaningful taps. It began to show a complex mathematical formula, something Belerus evidently understood as he gave a few excited claps.

"And that is...."

"So time doesn't run parallel down here. At the point of death your mind speeds up, it works overtime to find a way to save you. As far as we can tell that overclocking of your brain carries over to down here, hence time runs faster down here than it does up there." Belerus waved his hands distractedly. "Well I say time runs faster, in fact that's a lie. You're just thinking faster. Time isn't a fixed linear progression, it's in a state of flux that varies depending on our perception of the world around us. You think that the passage of time influences your perception of the world, whereas it's the other way around. Your perception speeds up or slows down time."

"I don't get it." Leo was struggling to keep up, and Belerus sighed.

"Basically time runs faster here. The question was how much faster, and now I know." He gestured at the screen. "Taking your mental calculation speed as a base value time is exactly 12.67 seconds per second down here. For every second you spend up there, 12.67 seconds passes down here. Well I say exactly, it's pretty hard to calculate mindspeed but –"

"Wait, how long have we been here for?"

"About 20 minutes."

Leo's heart dropped. "Massan should be here by now. He should be trying to get me up. Where is he?"

"Massan?"

"Someone on the other side. A doctor. He's been getting me here. I.... I tricked him in order to come here this time." Leo looked up at the ceiling in hope.

"Sorry I'm late, I had to dodge a few questions. Some of my old colleagues work here and –" Massan stopped. He saw the bed. Leo asleep on it. The defibrillators half charged, dangling from the side. His formidable mind put the pieces of evidence together, sent the compiled report to his brain, and after digesting for a second it came to a conclusion.

"You didn't. No way. No bloody way." He ran over to the bed, but he knew in his heart that Leo wasn't just asleep. "You stupid, selfish, son of a-" He picked up the defibrillators left on the bed but they were still charging, useless to him. The backup pair were hooked up, and he pulled them out. The ECG was still registering no heartbeat, the electrodes dangling uselessly, and the tone mocked him as he pulled up the paddles. Without even hesitating he fired them. Compression. Wait. Discharge. Compression. Wait. Discharge. Compression. It wasn't working.

"Come on you bastard, come on. I'm not going to jail for you. Not like this. No way." He charged the paddles again.

"What are you waiting for?" Belerus had a notepad out and a pen poised and ready.

"It feels warm when he shocks me, like a hot flush. He should have arrived a minute ago. I should feel something, anything. But I don't." He noticed Belerus was scribbling furiously. "Will you stop that? This is serious!"

Belerus' phone rang, and he held up a finger at Leo as he pulled it out. After a moment's nodding, and a few affirmatives, he ended the call and turned to him.

"That was the boss, he rang to say you're officially turned up on the system." He held his hands apart. "Congratulations. You've officially died."

Massan leant back. The last charge had only produced meagre sparks: he was out of juice. The extension lead was no longer connected. He was out of options. He looked at Leo lying peacefully on the bed, the result of his endeavours. For the first time in 22 years, Massan sat on the floor and, in between muffled curses, began to quietly cry.

"What do you mean I'm dead?"

"I'm not sure how you can misinterpret that sentence." Belerus tilted his head. "Besides, what is one world to another? You can be perfectly happy down here. I could even take you on as my assistant."

"I can't." Leo was panicking now. "I have to get back." He grabbed Belerus by the shoulders, practically shaking the man. "You have to help me, there must be a way. There has to be."

"Well, there is a way." Belerus frowned. "Come with me. Quietly." He led Leo through a small door, closing it behind him. In the room was what looked like a table, upright, with manacles on the corners. Various equipment surrounded it, some appearing to be medical in nature, others...less so, Leo thought with a dull flash of fear.

"What is this place?"

"Nothing you need concern yourself about. Hop in." He gestured to the table. Leo stood against it and Belerus closed the manacles around his wrists and ankles.

"What happens when you kill something that's already dead?" Belerus muttered under his breath.

"What was that?"

"Oh nothing. I must thank you really. I've wanted to try something like this for a while, and simulations are only so good. After a certain point more substantial evidence is required." Belerus turned away, and when he turned back he was holding what looked like a very large needle attached to a cable. "Don't worry about this, it'll hurt for only a moment. It looks scary but it's not that bad, I assure you. I have no other way of delivering the charge to your heart sadly."

"What?"

"I'm going to kill you." Belerus said with a grin. "I don't know if this will work or not, but we shall see. Are you ready?" Leo nodded. "Alright then. On the count of three. One. Two." Belerus plunged the needle into his chest and Leo's world flashed white.

Massan jumped. The last vestiges of electricity leaving Leo's body had caused it to jump. For just a second he thought it had made a noise. He looked at Leo intently for a few seconds, but the body was as still as a...well, as a corpse, Massan thought with a mirthless smile. He turned away again.

"Wait what was that? I need longer! That was no time at all!"

"I can't." Belerus threw the needle down, the cable clattering on the floor. "What did you see?"

"I saw... there. The real word. But only for a second." Leo looked down at his chest, at the hole the needle had produced. It reminded him of a particularly nasty insect sting, not something that he would associate with a hole going towards his heart.

"The time difference. You saw it for about a 12th of a second if my calculations are accurate."

"I need longer."

"I told you I can't." Belerus frowned. "The body that you see here is a coalescence of your subconscious. I ran a large charge through it for about 2 minutes already, any longer and it'll start to dissipate."

"What do you mean dissipate?"

"It just... goes." Belerus waved his hands in the air, then grimaced. "Look I'm a scientist, I don't like admitting that I don't know something. Down here there are things that I know or things that I will know, nothing else. The coalescence just vanishes if you run too much charge through it, I think it just destabilises the brain, cauterises it somehow."

"How can you know? You've never done this before."

"I told you before. There were others." Belerus said darkly, scratching the back of his head. "I'm not a good person. But I tell the truth. And before you ask no, we can't go again. Your subconscious needs time to settle. Maybe a week or two." He walked over and unbuckled Leo from the table as he talked.

"A week!? I – woah." Upon trying to stand Leo found it difficult to even stay upright.

"You're just had a massive charge run through you for nearly 2 continuous minutes. Your subconscious will struggle to stay together for a while, so take it easy."

"I'm coming back. As soon as I can, I'm coming back. If I have to get a message up there a half second at a time then I will."

Belerus shrugged. "It's your call. Just do me a favour and get some rest in between."

"No guarantees."

Detective Inspector Marinetto looked around. This late nobody was in the station, which was perfect for his needs. In the room in front of him was the victim of case 1437. Cause of death apparently defibrillation, suspect apprehended and convicted of manslaughter. Though the times varied slightly, every 4 days the body would jerk and make a noise. His superior had ordered him to get rid of the body, but he was a detective at heart, and he couldn't leave a problem unsolved. So he had pulled some strings to get it and place it under surveillance. He had pieced together the recordings of each noise, and something was starting to become clear. After nearly 12 incidents he had the makings of what looked like a word.

"I'm." He muttered to himself. The body was saying something, and it began with I'm. I'm what? Alive? Here? Marinetto shivered. Eventually he would figure it out. He always did in the end. It was just a matter of time. He clicked his pen, shut his notebook, and without another sound left the station, leaving the body to wail its message into the waiting lens of the camera and the open arms of the dark night.

#but hear me out #what happens if you get reincarnated

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arplis · 4 years

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Arplis - News: “Everybody knows that pestilences have a way of recurring in the world, yet somehow we find it hard to believe in ones that crash down on our heads from a blue sky

There have been as many plagues as wars in history, yet always plagues and wars take people equally by surprise.” — Albert Camus, The Plague Time is cruelly elastic. When March began, Joe Biden was celebrating the resurgence of his presidential campaign after a win in the South Carolina primary. When March began, downtown Atlanta was packed with marathon runners, while the Hawks were, reliably, scraping the bottom of the Eastern conference. When March began, we were going to restaurants, and to school, and to soccer games and concerts and plays and funerals and weddings. When March began, we were going to work. When March began, dozens of Georgians were walking around with absolutely no idea that within a matter of days they would be dead from a virus that had traveled across the world only to alight on them. How many more of us will step into its crosshairs? Each day feels like a month. So much news is compressed into 24 hours—thousands more infected, ICUs at capacity, unemployment rates reaching heights not seen since the Great Depression, our 401ks decimated—that our brains seize up. Grocery store visits are planned with the precision of a wartime raid. Kids’ days are ostensibly scheduled—Reading! Enrichment! FaceTime with the teacher!—but how do you homeschool and telework at the same time? You don’t. The screens you once cursed are now free childcare. That’s, of course, if we even can work from home. Some of us can’t. Many of us have been laid off or furloughed as restaurants close their doors, as nonprofits’ funding dries up, as fitness studios go dark. Others of us who have been deemed “essential”—nurses, doctors, first responders, grocery-store workers, mail carriers, truck drivers, delivery people—come home late at night and shed our clothes outside so as not to bring the virus near our loved ones. This wasn’t supposed to happen. This was guaranteed to happen. But to us? Now? We spoke with our neighbors about the world we’ve left behind, and the one that awaits. Interviews edited for length and clarity. Tap on each person’s name to read their full interview. • • • Dr. Michelle Au | anesthesiologist at Emory Saint Joseph’s Hospital I first started hearing about the virus after Christmas. But the news still felt like something distant. It was in China, so you’re watching with this detached interest. I am in the unusual position of being a Chinese American physician with a public-health degree who also happens to be running for office [Au is a Democratic candidate for the 48th state Senate district, which incorporates parts of Fulton and Gwinnett counties]. I was talking with voters in the Chinese community who said that I should be speaking out on the issue more. I probably should have paid more attention. I should have taken it more seriously. Dr. Meria Carstarphen | superintendent of Atlanta Public Schools Right after Valentine’s Day, one of my friends was going to Venice, Italy. While my friend was there, they shut down Carnival [due to coronavirus]. That was my reality check. I said to our team, “We need to prepare for the day when we have to shut down the district.” There were moments where I felt I was pushing a wet noodle up a mountain. As things started escalating, we had to make decisions. I said, “We have to prepare a contingency plan that starts with the worst-case scenario.” Devon Clinkscales | senior at Booker T. Washington High School This year was my senior season of high school baseball, my last year. I was really excited about going out strong and getting ready for travel ball. It was my best opportunity to get some scouting. Hugh Acheson | owner of Empire State South in Midtown and 5 & 10 in Athens and operator of By George in the Candler Hotel The real canary in the coal mine was [in early March], reading about restaurants in Shanghai. Shanghai to Wuhan [where the virus is said to have originated] is an immense amount of distance. [Restaurants in Shanghai] were saying that they didn’t know how long they could stay open. Their sales were down 80 to 90 percent, and it was just a ghost town. We’re not an industry with deep pockets. Everybody’s like, “Oh, Hugh, you’ve been on TV. You must be rich.” I’m like, “You have no idea how this works, do you?” Kathy Weeks Lowery | self-employed travel agent in Marietta [A client] was supposed to leave on March 28 out of Tokyo for a 12-day cruise. That was her son’s college graduation gift. Holland America held tight. They said if she cancels now, she’s losing 50 percent of her money. That was January 24. Travel insurance doesn’t cover a pandemic. Since then, they canceled the cruise and gave her the rest of the money. Cruise lines are offering as much as 225 percent of your refund toward a future booking. For me, it’s been everything. I had 117 kids going to D.C. for a field trip, 10 people going to the Grove Park Inn, a busload going to Mary Mac’s and Hamilton. All canceled. I only get paid after clients travel. I figure this year’s income will be 20 percent of last year’s. Amy Phuong | vice president of government relations for the Atlanta Hawks My wedding was set for March 28. We had everything planned. I even had a final walkthrough at the venue on March 4. We’d invited 200 people. Mike Gallagher | co-owner of Brick Store Pub and Leon’s Full Service in Decatur, Good Word Brewing in Duluth, and partial owner of Kimball House. Together, the four restaurants employ approximately 200 people. 2019 was a tough year. We had opened [Good Word Brewing]. The contractor had gone belly up when we opened. We lost our chef and sous-chef. We had a lot of money invested in Duluth. But 2020 was starting great. We’d put down a sizeable amount of money on a redo of Brick Store. On February 26, after seven years running the pop-up restaurant Eat Me Speak Me, Jarrett Stieber opened his first permanent restaurant. The build-out took months. Jarrett Stieber | chef-owner of Little Bear in Summerhill We had inspectors tell us we had to change things, and we covered the cost. So, like every restaurant, we ran way over budget. We opened with $285 in our checking account after buying products for the first week and just prayed that we were busy. We, thankfully, were. On March 2, five days after Little Bear opened, Governor Brian Kemp announced the first two confirmed cases of coronavirus in Georgia—two members of the same household in Fulton County. Nationwide, only 90 cases had been confirmed, six of whom were fatalities. “Georgians should remain calm,” Kemp said. Stieber We had one customer who said that she couldn’t believe that a place like Little Bear was here, that it reminded her of restaurants in San Francisco. That’s exactly what I had in my head when I planned this restaurant, that small-capacity hole-in-the-wall that basically is a neighborhood restaurant in terms of how it feels but has food as good as any high-end restaurant. We were hitting our stride. Jarrett Stieber: “My focus is keeping the business open any way I can.” Photograph by Audra Melton Clinkscales On March 2, we were evicted from our apartment, but they didn’t change the locks. If they’d changed the locks, we’d have nowhere to go. Our stuff would be out on the street. My dad and my mother had a couple of disagreements on how to maintain. I have an older sister who has an apartment in a project, so my mother, my other sister, and my niece all moved in with her. But I stayed with my dad. He didn’t finish high school. He needs someone. He doesn’t understand how things work. I love my dad, and I have to be with him. Belisa Urbina | founder/executive director of Ser Familia, a nonprofit that provides services to Latino families My husband’s family is from Spain, so we knew what was going on there. We knew what was going on in other places. I knew that if this was happening in all these other countries, it was going to happen to us because we are connected. Flights are coming in and out. People are moving around. Shawn Ware | owner of Vibe Ride cycle studios When the news about the coronavirus first came out, I was taking a break at home, between working at the Westside studio in the morning and Grant Park in the afternoon. I thought, Okay, well, this is just a flu. I’ve always been a gym rat, and I’ve always joked that I’ve been a germophobe since I was in the womb. I’m always washing my hands, using hand sanitizer. I thought, So, now you all are jumping on board for what I’ve been doing my whole life? But then, as the hours and days went on, I realized this was serious. On Friday, March 6, President Trump, wearing khakis, a windbreaker, and a Keep America Great baseball cap, visited the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta for a photo op and press conference, where he referenced his “natural ability” at understanding the complexities of virology and addressed the sluggish pace of testing for the virus. What he said wasn’t even a complete sentence: “As of right now, and yesterday, anybody who needs a test—and that’s the important thing.” While other countries were ramping up their tests to include even those who were asymptomatic—results which indicate who is contagious and who is not—the United States was (and as of late March remained) unequipped to test any but those suffering the most extreme symptoms. By Monday, March 9, the number of Georgians who’d tested positive for the virus had climbed to six, with 11 more presumed positive. Kemp announced that space at Hard Labor Creek State Park in east Georgia would be outfitted to accept COVID-19 patients who needed to be isolated. Phuong Even that week [of March 9], I started out feeling like, Okay, our wedding is so soon there’s no way it’s going to be impacted. Even though Italy at that time had made a turn for the worse, [my fiance] Kerry’s family is from Spain, and we felt good because they weren’t impacted the way Italy was. Then, we got to Wednesday, and that’s when it dramatically switched. That’s when the Hawks had their final game. That was the same evening that Trump instituted the travel ban from Europe. Kerry’s family would not be able to make it. Carstarphen The day when I said to my fellow superintendents that I’m considering closing the district even though we don’t have any cases—that was a bit of a shock. Even to myself. I work with children. So, the idea that I would even put on the table this notion that they might not have a prom, they might not be able to play for the state championship, they might not be able to get closure after 12 years of public school, that their moment gets snatched away from them? It’s sobering how your decision can change the direction of people’s lives. Dock Hollingsworth | senior pastor at Second-Ponce de Leon Baptist Church Wednesday, March 11, was a turning point. We were here for the Wednesday night services. There was still a lot of levity. A 94-year-old man came up to me and said, “Boy, I was relieved that this is targeting people 60 to 80 since it’s been so long since I was 80.” By Thursday morning we were in a whole different mode. I was in a peer group with other Atlanta pastors. Everyone was asking, “What measures are you taking?” Keisha Lance Bottoms | mayor of Atlanta I went to Sam’s Club on Thursday. A woman asked me what I was doing there. “The same thing you’re doing.” I have four kids at home. My husband makes grocery runs on his way home from work. But I knew we needed to stock up with a family of six. I’m now cooking three meals a day. But my personal adjustment pales in comparison to what’s happening. People are dying. Urbina We provide services to about 4,500 people. The services that we provide are very difficult to find. To give you an idea, there are 700,000 Latinos in metro Atlanta but there are less than 70 counselors who are fully licensed that can speak Spanish. There are four psychologists in the state of Georgia who can speak Spanish, and there are five psychiatrists who can speak Spanish. Latino children have twice the chance of having anxiety and depression compared to other teens. Our Latina girls, almost 20 percent of them attempt suicide. Joey Camp | cook at Waffle House in Canton who also drives a party bus part-time I started getting pneumonia [in early March]. I felt like I was drowning. The chills had gotten so bad that I could not keep my teeth from chattering. If my teeth weren’t chattering, I was coughing. [On March 12,] I went to the emergency room. They did all these tests—a CT scan with contrast, x-rays, everything. They were like, You got really bad pneumonia. We’re going to put you in a room and monitor you for a few days. Well, I was in there for probably nine hours when they hung the isolation box on my door. Which is where they keep all these gloves, smocks, and masks that everybody has to put on before they’re allowed into the room. I got a little nervous. Photograph by Audra Melton Phuong It hit me Friday night. We’d been planning so long, and now, our wedding is not going to happen. It was emotional. Dr. Laurence Busse | medical director, critical care, Emory Johns Creek Hospital On March 13, it was profound the amount of people coming into the ER. That was a scary day, and we all finished that day thinking, What are we in for? Dr. Jessica Nave | hospital medicine, Emory University Hospital I was hoping that, by early April, we’d peak. But now, my projection is we’ll peak at the end of April. And that’s still optimistic. It’s just the numbers. If you look at Seattle and New York, they’re still going. We didn’t start getting cases until the second week of March. We have to have a solid month of getting hit really hard before we peak. Marshall Rancifer | homeless advocate and relief worker There are 4,000 homeless people out there on the streets. Youth and adults. Homeless people share everything: food, clothes, hygiene products, blunts, crack pipes, needles sometimes. I brought a bunch of crack pipes to them so they wouldn’t share pipes. Some don’t know there is a virus outbreak in the city. They don’t have access to social media or the news. If you’re not in a shelter, you’re walking around in suspended animation all day. I saw people starting to light cigarettes and pass them around. I knocked the cigarettes out of their hands. I said, “You can’t share cigarettes, can’t share food, don’t touch nobody, don’t shake nobody’s hand. Don’t hug nobody.” Had to explain to the mothers in a park on Proctor Street what they can and can’t do. We’re not just educating the homeless; we are educating poor people and marginalized folks. They just don’t know. The weekend of March 14-15 was surreal. Social media and television were talking about nothing else, and school districts across the state, including Atlanta Public Schools, were announcing or had just begun indefinite closures. But for many Atlantans, life went on as normal. Bars were full. Restaurants were open. The BeltLine was packed. At Brick Store in Decatur, the owners decided to go ahead with a planned St. Patrick’s Day celebration, which included a short parade to the bar, scheduled for Saturday. Their decision, announced on the bar’s Facebook page the day before, brought out the knives. “You are encouraging people to make a very selfish decision,” wrote one of the more restrained commenters. “Public health providers are telling us to behave AS IF WE HAVE THE VIRUS, because many of us likely do.” Gallagher Calling it a “parade” is a stretch, because there were about 15 to 25 people. There were more people congregated in front of retail stores than there were in the parade. But we did it, and we had our event. We removed some tables. We put some tables spread out outside. We removed some barstools. I think people were clustering with whom they felt safe, their own household member or a family member, and then they spread out otherwise. It wasn’t six feet apart in the whole place, for sure. But our staff was militant about sanitizing bartops, tabletops, stools, chairs, menus in between their reuse, faucets. I got a lot of feedback from staff and guests about how meaningful it was to them and how they viewed it as a beacon of hope in an otherwise bleak moment in time. So we certainly got a lot of great feedback. But the bashing on social media was unfortunate and unnecessary, quite frankly. Carstarphen I always believed we would be here at mitigation—not prevention, not containment. Mitigation was probably the only way we’d go given the spirit of our country, given we’re a democracy, given that people love their personal freedoms and their individual decision-making. Stieber This is the first time that social media and the general public have been able to kind of force people’s hands in a business sense, beyond just what is recommended from a health standpoint. We live in an era where people are so polarized and proselytizing of everything from behind their screens that whether you want to stay open right now, to fight for your business, you don’t really have much of a choice because of the stigma associated with doing so. As new restrictions kept restaurants from opening to guests, they pivoted to takeout operations. They started GoFundMe accounts for furloughed staff. At Brick Store, owners reduced their menu to soups and sandwiches. Donations to the “soup kitchen”—meant to compensate workers—were encouraged, but if you couldn’t pay, you could still grab a bag. Acheson My real worry is for all the people that I promised to provide for and can’t. That’s very hard, because I want on my tombstone to be remembered as a good employer, and a good human, and a good dad. The people who are going to get hit worst by this are undocumented. It’s not like we have a huge number of them on the payroll, but across the country, there are. They can’t get unemployment. They pay taxes through payrolls, but they don’t get taxes back. They are screwed. But we’re all screwed. Everybody’s like, Well, we’ll recover. No. Fifty percent of the restaurants that just shut down across this country will never reopen. Gallagher Most restaurants are lucky to have two full weeks’ worth of financial runway, and employees, probably even less. A lot of these guys are paycheck-to-paycheck. We are taking the money from the GoFundMe, the money from the gift cards, and any additional monies that have been given, and we’re divvying them up among staff on this upcoming payroll. We’re going to try to find an hourly threshold. For instance, if you worked 24 hours or less, you’ll get this pay rate. If you’re 25 or more, you’ll get that pay rate. We felt that was the most equitable, least cumbersome way to do it. I’ll be honest, it was tough. Do you pay more because they make more? Do you pay more because they need more? Do you pay more because they worked with you longer? Acheson I’m really happy that people are buying gift certificates. If we sell $2,000 of to-go food today, I’ll be impressed. That does not equate to being able to pay $16,000 in rent next month that Empire State owes and payroll costs of $44,000 every two weeks. Urbina Our community works in hospitality, restaurants, construction. Those are the first industries that are affected. We have already had clients who have lost their jobs. They know that they’re probably not going to be able to pay rent at the beginning of April. While most coronavirus infections don’t require hospitalization, roughly 15 percent do. Usually, though not always, the person needing hospitalization is elderly or immunocompromised. The infection ravages the lungs, leading often to pneumonia. Patients can’t get enough oxygen on their own. Some require a ventilator, a machine that augments the patient’s respiration through forced exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide. Busse I’m critical care. So, when patients get to me, they’re in dire straits. The typical thing that’s seen down in the emergency room is fever, some increased work of breathing, some hypoxia [low levels of oxygen in tissue], and some malaise or body aches. Those folks who have, let’s say, a little bit of increased work of breathing or need some oxygen would be admitted to have supportive care while they get through their illness. But if they have a higher degree of oxygen needs or they’re in septic shock or they’re in kidney failure, then they come to me. And those folks can be exquisitely ill, anywhere from just needing a few extra liters of oxygen to having multiorgan failure and needing a full bevy of life support. Dr. Laurence Busse: “When patients get to me, they’re in dire straits.” Photograph by Audra Melton Nave Sometimes illness is difficult to define by objective measures. We’ll get a call from the ER physician saying, “I think this patient needs to get admitted.” I’m looking at their chart and saying, “Well, they’re not hypoxic, they’re fine.” They’ll say, “Just come and lay your eyes on them.” So, I do, and it’s, “Oh yeah, this person is not going to do well.” They have a look about them. Their breathing pattern is abnormal. They’re using more accessory muscles. Au The act of intubating a COVID-19 patient is essentially the highest-risk procedure you can do. As you’re putting in that tube and they’re breathing out through this channel you’re putting in, it gives an opportunity for the virus to be in the air. Usually, it’s in droplets. Aerosolized virus can float around. It’s one of the most infectious potential procedures you can do on a COVID patient. The person who is best and most senior and experienced at doing intubations should do it. They take the least amount of time possible. Put in the tube, quick, hook up the ventilator, and minimize exposure to everyone. Nave Some of our sickest patients have been in their late 20s to late 30s and otherwise healthy. We don’t know why. Camp On Saturday [March 13], they tested me for COVID-19, and I got positive affirmation on Monday. How in the world did I get this? I have not been to Italy, I haven’t been to China, I haven’t been around people, to my knowledge, that have been to those places. I live a very boring life. When they finally told me on Monday, they also released me from the hospital to self-quarantine. The house I was living in had an infant in it. I didn’t want to take the chance of getting that infant sick. So, I was like, “I need options.” Camp was brought to Hard Labor Creek State Park and put in a camper to recuperate until he was no longer contagious. He was there for six days. Camp It had a nice bed in it. There were cookies. The state health officials were super helpful. I asked them to go on a grocery run because a diabetic cannot live on chips and cookies. And they went and got me some bananas, some apples, some cucumbers—all this stuff for me to snack on. I offered to pay for some of the stuff, and they wouldn’t have it. They paid for my medicine. They got me a new blood-sugar meter. The first few days were rough. The coughing was the worst part at that point. I had stopped having chills, I had stopped having a fever, but I was still coughing my brains out. It was like starting a car. Just whoop, whoop, whoop, just constant. And it just slowly went away. One day, I was coughing every three or four minutes; the next day, it was every half hour; the next day, it was every hour. And by the time I was done, I was only coughing very, very rarely, when I got a tickle in the back of my throat. It wasn’t even in my lungs anymore. Au We know that some of the sick are going to be our colleagues. We know that the more we are going to engage, the more people are going to be sick. Over the weekend, I started sleeping in the guest room in the basement because it’s separate from the rest of the house. I have my own bathroom because I don’t want to share a bathroom with anyone. I’m very meticulous about hygiene now—I mean, I always was because I work in the hospital—but now it’s like, shower and change into clean clothes before I leave the hospital. And then, I shower and change clothes again [once I’m home]. Rancifer I wasn’t scared before, but I’m scared now. My father and mother always taught me not to run away from trouble—run toward it, because you can be the person who can change something or save someone’s life. But once this gets out of hand, I’m not going to run toward someone that can kill me. I’m 63. I fall under the category of major at-risk. After I meet with big groups of folks, I skim down to my skivvies. I wear two pairs of gloves. When I get in the car I take my clothes off and throw them on the ground. I take the top pair of gloves off and put them in a disposable Ziploc bag. Then, I take the sanitized clothes out, get dressed, and then move on back home. Au Yesterday I cried talking to a high-school friend. When you’re at home, because the kids are there, you want to be like, Everything’s cool. It is so disruptive for them, so you put on the cheerful face. And at work, since I’m an attending physician, you want to put forth that “everything’s under control.” You get accustomed to trying to keep other people calm. But talking to someone that I’ve known before this, it was just an unguarded moment. What if I get sick? [My husband and I are] rewriting our wills right now. He’s a doctor, too. One of us has to stay well. Clinkscales My mom is worrying about what we’re going to do. She is part of a housecleaning business, but people haven’t been allowing them into their homes because of precautions. My dad works in building services for a hotel, and his income has been dropping. Because of the pandemic, baseball has been canceled, five games in. Colleges aren’t recruiting. Some schools aren’t even accepting students. Ware I spent most of the day today on the phone with our creditors and sending emails to landlords and to the people we lease bikes from, and they’re like, We get it. They’ve been extremely understanding, but it is a very, very scary time. One of our creditors said, We can defer for three months but we’ll still collect interest. Our largest creditor, Wells Fargo, is deferring payments with no late fees and no interest and no reporting to our credit bureau. But a community bank is going to charge us interest. They said, That’s just what we have to do. When we sent the email that we were going to suspend everyone’s membership, we had 35 to 40 people call and say, Don’t cancel. Don’t suspend our accounts. We want to continue to pay because we know you are hit hard, and this is our gym. We want to help and support you as much as we can. Some of these people have been members since the beginning. They’re not clients or strangers; they opened the doors with us. That has been so amazing. Shawn Ware: “I spent most of the day today on the phone with our creditors.” Photograph by Audra Melton Acheson I had $26 in my checking account last week, last week, before this all happened. I’m borrowing personal funds from people I know to pay payroll. Small business is being abandoned. It’s been abandoned for a long time in this country. Nobody has any inkling about how much hurt this is going to do. Lobbyists are on the Hill right now getting every meeting that they want to bail out Delta Air Lines yet again, and the auto industry is going to get bailed out. One in 10 people in the States work for the hospitality industry. Nobody’s bailing us out. We bail out all the wrong people in this country, consistently, over and over again. These are the same people who don’t want Medicare for All, yet they want a socialist handout when they make bad decisions in business, and they go broke. When the coronavirus closed Atlanta Public Schools, the district implemented a massive effort to continue offering free meals to its 52,416 students. Working with the Atlanta Community Food Bank, APS offers a bag of free groceries every Monday at four locations around town. The district hosts an additional giveaway on Tuesdays and is offering meal service at 10 sites around town, including delivery of meals via the school bus system. Carstarphen Our goal as of yesterday was to be at 40,000 meals on any given day in a school district. We let everyone eat. As food supplies diminish or are late, and as staff continue to self-quarantine and find other challenges trying to come to work every day, we’ll have staffing shortages. Bottoms I drove to my mother’s house, and she stood outside my car. I hadn’t seen my mother in a few weeks. Which isn’t normal. My grandmother would quote the Bible: “Be anxious for nothing.” You hear from people all the time, “This, too, shall pass.” I had to write that on the wall in the mayor’s office to remind myself. We’re going to be alright. When I need to take a breath and clear my mind, I’ll go and sort some shoes. This too shall pass. Camp I work in the service industry. Half of my income has been wiped out by this. The party bus industry is on hiatus because all the bars are shut down, proms were shut down, all of that. That’s killing my income. I still have bills. Part of me feels like the government shouldn’t be telling businesses to close their doors. I feel like that should be a case-by-case basis. Busse The preparation [by the federal government] has been poor, but I didn’t really expect it not to be. Do you plan for the worst-case scenario? Or do you put resources elsewhere? So, the response in general has not been great. And I think that’s sort of what I expected. And frankly, if I was in that position, I’m not sure I would’ve done it differently. I mean, it’s really hard to plan for something like this. I’ve never had this in my lifetime. And I’ve been here for Ebola, for H1N1 influenza, and I was here for the first SARS illness back in 2003. We’ve seen these things erupt on a regional level but never really become a global pandemic. This is new in our generation. Urbina My nightmare is that one of my employees gets sick, and I have to close my office, and our families have nowhere to go. At the moment, what we need most are donations or gift cards. One donor asked if she could bring baby formula, and I said yes, that would be fantastic. We have another person who asked if they could bring baskets of food. Yes, whatever you think you can do. We are very grateful. Busse When we run out of ventilators, that’s not something that we can just pull out of the closet. So, we’re relying on and hoping for support from the government to get more ventilators. We’re relying on and hoping for support from industry to get us more resources. We’re using what we have now, and once that’s it, once we’re out, we’re going to have to get creative. We don’t have enough N95 masks. We don’t have enough personal protective equipment. We’re using what we have, and we are hoping that we don’t get the virus. Nave We’ve started rationing our personal protective equipment. We’re trying to be very, very smart about when to use it and on which patients. It’s kept under lock and key because there’s panic even in the healthcare system when something like this hits. People start hoarding. Ware My husband is 60 and has heart disease, so we want to make sure he is extra-protected. I’m a breast-cancer survivor. We live in a condo downtown. We are in and out of the parking garage, touching that door all the time. Those are the things we have to be conscious about. We’re here, and we’re in the house more now, obviously. But it’s fine, it’s family time. We’ve got a puzzle. I got me some wine. Brad Levenberg | rabbi at Temple Sinai So many of us have relied on physical gatherings to provide comfort when we’re going through difficult times. When it’s joyous, we gather to celebrate. In the days after 9/11, we gathered in homes and apartments to watch the news. Now, this kind of support is all being challenged. We need to find other ways. Busse Right now we’re not seeing the normal volume of patients that show up needing care at the hospital. And is that because patients are being more careful and taking their medicine and having telehealth visits with their primary-care doctors? Are they no longer using the emergency room as a sort of a primary-care outlet? And it makes me think: Is this what healthcare could be if we were sort of using the system appropriately? Now, of course, the pessimist in me worries that when this is all said and done, we’re going to look at mortality and morbidity of people that were not infected with COVID-19 and we’re going to see that go up. Nave Italy had so many cases that all presented at once that it overwhelmed their entire system, and they’re having to choose who’s going to live and who’s going to die. They’re looking at two patients who are actively dying and there’s one ventilator, and they’re saying “You get it.” That’s probably the most horrific experience for a physician. I can’t even imagine. That’s what we don’t want. Hollingsworth We are in the holy season of Lent right now. It’s already designed to be a season of introspection and asking the big questions. So, in many ways, this makes the Lenten questions more real and more pressing because the ground is shaky under people. But personally the ground doesn’t feel that shaky to me. Because I have a different kind of existential hope. We may see people turning to the church to ask, Are there answers there that perhaps I’ve been making fun of for a long time? This is an opportunity to live inside a hope that is not built on markets or how many widgets you can sell. Carstarphen This is going to have a huge and disproportionate impact on black and brown and poor children. When you’re in a city that has the label of being the most unequal city in America when it comes to income disparity, and you’re working with people who are already fragile and incredibly strained in the healthiest of economies, this is crushing. If you’re wealthy, you can still get the access to the things you need for your family. Our kids weren’t getting that at the outset. It took a pandemic to wake up some people to know that we have to support our marginalized brothers and sisters. Clinkscales I don’t have money to pay for college on my own. Scholarships have been taken away. I’ve been thinking about starting a business. I have always wanted to own a sports bar. Now, I’m scared about what I’m going to do after I graduate. I was working hard, doing extracurricular activities, filling out scholarship applications, playing sports, trying to do something better for my family. And it all got taken away because of the virus. Devon Clinkscales: “I’m scared about what I’m going to do after I graduate.” Photograph by Audra Melton Urbina This pandemic has proved how connected we are. Nobody can say that they have not been touched by this. I am Latina, but if something is happening to my friends in the black community, it’s my problem. I have to do something about it because they’re my people. With everything that’s happening to the Asian community, I feel so sad that people have made them feel they are to blame for the situation, which, they’re not. We need everybody’s help so we can survive. There will be repercussions from this that we can’t even imagine right now. Do whatever you can, but just do something. Stieber My main focus is keeping the business open any way I possibly can, which right now means switching to a to-go–only format this week. But we have to do what we have to do, and I’m doing whatever I can to make sure I pay my staff and keep their jobs. If you have the ability to stay home and still get paid and you’re willing to share with the people who need it, then do so. Just stop posting the same memes—pony up and do something legitimate to help. Nave I don’t leave my house a lot [when I’m not at the hospital]. We have gone to the grocery store. We do not bring our children. I keep hand sanitizer in my purse. The second I get in my car, I sanitize my hands again. We bring all the groceries in, unload then, and immediately wipe every single food item down: boxes, milk jugs, whatever. Then, we take a wipe and retrace our entire steps from the time we entered the house—every doorknob, every baby gate, every counter. Levenberg This is a time when you don’t have to put your life on the line to be a hero. You’re a hero when you pay your yard people to not show up. When you pay your cleaning people to stay home. When you send a gift card to teachers who are learning new tools to teach your children. These are all heroic measures. Bottoms I’ve been thinking a lot about the Holocaust and the diary of Anne Frank, how people’s lives changed and they had to go in hiding. When I think about that, this is a minor inconvenience. There are people who live across the globe with disease and war. I’m in a house with AC and a backyard and two dogs who get to run around and play. It’s made me grateful just about the little things—going to a restaurant, getting your nails done, going to the store. These conveniences we take for granted our entire lives. It’s given me a perspective, another layer of empathy. Nave This is a different infectious agent than we have ever seen in most of our lifetimes. This truly is unprecedented. I was at Emory when we dealt with Ebola. Ebola’s mortality is way worse than this, and it’s very infectious—but not as infectious as this. This is crazy: You start with one city in China, and now, the whole world has it because we’re so interconnected. This is such an unprecedented infectious agent that we have to be more diligent and cautious, even at the cost of some of the economics of this country. Because how do you put value on a life? Hollingsworth If we have a death in our community, it’s our practice to come together as a community and tell stories. We can’t do that now. But an interment can’t wait. The staff here will do small graveside services, and we’ll encourage families to push a memorial service into the future. Gallagher [My wife and I have] had some difficult talks about the greater good. Is it being available as a soup kitchen, or selling food to raise money for our staff, or closing down and keeping the highest level of social distancing? This morning, she shared a dream she had where she was in the grocery store and there was too many people and she could see the hand sanitizer and she couldn’t get to it. Levenberg I hope we have a renewed understanding of those who are more marginalized than we are and of the privileges we claim by default. Maybe that sense will be awakened in people who are seeing that there are a lot of people who are worse off, who are seeing that they’ve milked the existing system for their families at the expense of others. Amy Phuong and Kerry O’Brate Photograph by Audra Melton Phuong We thought, What’s preventing us from still getting married? So, we went to the courthouse to get our marriage license the last day the court was open. We pulled up the weather app to look for a date when it wasn’t going to rain. Bill Bolling [the founder of Atlanta Community Food Bank, who was officiating] said, “Pick a pretty spot.” I thought, let’s just pick our neighborhood park, Cabbagetown Park. When Kerry and I first started dating, it was midway between our houses. My parents came, my sister. We had to keep it under 10. We had hand sanitizer. I picked up pastries from Alon’s that morning. We used Kerry’s Zoom account to do some livestreaming. We wanted to make sure family and friends got to be a part of it. On the virtual stream, somebody wore pearls, somebody put on a dress and makeup, someone wore a tuxedo T-shirt, one of the bridesmaids who couldn’t be there even wore her dress. There was a beautiful moment in the ceremony where Bill was addressing the virtual crowd. His remarks almost made the park feel like it was full. He did an affirmation: “Will you guys support this couple?” That was a beautiful moment, looking over at an iPhone on a tripod and hearing everyone say, “We will.” Expanded interviews: These Georgians had so much more to say than we had space to print. To read their full stories, click on the names below. Dr. Michelle Au | Dr. Meria Carstarphen | Devon Clinkscales | Hugh Acheson | Amy Phuong | Mike Gallagher | Jarrett Stieber | Belisa Urbina | Shawn Ware |Dock Hollingsworth | Keisha Lance Bottoms | Joey Camp | Dr. Laurence Busse | Dr. Jessica Nave | Marshall Rancifer | Brad Levenberg This article appears in our May 2020 issue. The post 21st Century Plague appeared first on Atlanta Magazine. #JarrettStieber #EmpireStateSouth #KeishaLanceBottoms #MichelleAu #Coronavirus

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doctormelapples · 7 years

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Sorry this took so long

1: 6 of the songs you listen to most?

erm, idk but I can list some of my favs? how about “Mr. Know-It-All” by Young The Giant, “Brain Stew” by Green Day, “Swimming Pool” by The Front Bottoms, “Tokyo Narita (Freestyle)” by Halsey and Lido, “Big Jet Plane” by Angus & Julia Stone, and “Doo Wop (That Thing)” by Lauryn Hill

2: If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?

Do they have to be alive?? How about Beyonce Twin #2

3: Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17.

I’m sitting right next to a bookshelf wtf. Okay the first book only had a line 12, Book 2: “…glittering sceptres. These shones so brightly September had to shade her..”

4: What do you think about most?

I see photo opprotunities when I walk? like if I’m walking past a house I see the exact angle that I would take a picture of it with and what the frame and coloring would turn out to be? does that count?

5: What does your latest text message from someone else say?

Text or sc?? cuz idk on either tbh sc:goals text:theenks

6: Do you sleep with or without clothes on?

Clothes

7: What’s your strangest talent?

I have none, so like,,

8: Girls… (finish the sentence); Boys… (finish the sentence)

Girls are beautiful, Boys are beautiful, and so is everyone else

9: Ever had a poem or song written about you?

lol no

10: When is the last time you played the air guitar?

like yesterday probs

11: Do you have any strange phobias?

Strange? idk

12: Ever stuck a foreign object up your nose?

When I was a child,,, marble

13: What’s your religion?

who’s that

14: If you are outside, what are you most likely doing?

being sad or taking pictures

15: Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it?

behind absolutely

16: Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band?

jesus christ

17: What was the last lie you told?

I have a headache

18: Do you believe in karma?

sort of, like maybe not the textbook definition but I do think that you get what you give to some extent

19: What does your URL mean?

listen,,, okay Doctor is because i like doctor who and melapples is a dan and phil reference, okay, i made it when i joined tumblr, I was young and unknowing, okay

20: What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength?

weakness: I’m too emotionally soft; strength: whom’st’d’ve

21: Who is your celebrity crush?

Does phil count, phil counts? It’s Phil

22: Have you ever gone skinny dipping?

almost

23: How do you vent your anger?

ahah, to the world and through tears tbh

24: Do you have a collection of anything?

I used to collect izze + snapple tops, then got bored

25: Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online?

video chatting, I like seeing facial expressions

26: Are you happy with the person you’ve become?

whom?

27: What’s a sound you hate; sound you love?

It took me FOREVER to think of a sound I hate, and like i had sounds i love when my fingers hit the keys. sound I hate: Fork schreeching on a plate; sound I love: laughs, soft sounds of fingers on skin, leaves crunching as you wak in autumn, or snow in the winter, wind, papers fluttering

28: What’s your biggest “what if”?

What if I had stayed at my old school

29: Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens?

well not really, but aliens absolutely, like, there is no way the universe is so fucking big, and there isn’t life outside of earth

30: Stick your right arm out; what do you touch first? Do the same with your left arm.

My window frame; a notebook

31: Smell the air. What do you smell?

somebody is making pasta downstairs

32: What’s the worst place you have ever been to?

what kind of worst? cuz like I believe that no matter where you go you can always get something out of it. Let’s go with my racist ass school

33: Choose: East Coast or West Coast?

EAST

34: Most attractive singer of your opposite gender?

idk harry styles?

35: To you, what is the meaning of life?

42?

how about: to know, be, see, and do what you want

36: Define Art.

Life

37: Do you believe in luck?

kinda like the same way I belive in karma

38: What’s the weather like right now?

It’s been rainy all day and we just had a rainbow. It’s cleared up now

39: What time is it?

1:23:09 AM

40: Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed?

41: What was the last book you read?

A graphic novel called March about John Lewis

42: Do you like the smell of gasoline?

yeah actually

43: Do you have any nicknames?

lila bean

44: What was the last film you saw?

Wonder Woman pretty sure

45: What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had?

all of the skin on my leg was scraped off once so

46: Have you ever caught a butterfly?

I’ve had a beautiful butterfly land on me during a meditation session once

47: Do you have any obsessions right now?

strawberry milkshakes

48: What’s your sexual orientation?

I’m pan bro

49: Ever had a rumour spread about you?

yes rip how fun

50: Do you believe in magic?

in my hopes and dreams

51: Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong?

no, I’m really bad at holding longterm grudges but you better fucking run for at least two weeks if u piss me off

52: What is your astrological sign?

scoooorrrrrppppiiiiooooo

53: Do you save money or spend it?

i save money highkey short term and mass spend it

54: What’s the last thing you purchased?

A swimsuit. oh shit no wait strawberry syrup for milkshakes

55: Love or lust?

lust

56: In a relationship?

damn i wish

57: How many relationships have you had?

58: Can you touch your nose with your tongue?

nope

59: Where were you yesterday?

crying in bed all day tbh

60: Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you?

my comforter that I’m sitting on lowkey has pink flowers on it

61: Are you wearing socks right now?

listen,,, fuck socks okay no

62: What’s your favourite animal?

cats homie

63: What is your secret weapon to get someone to like you?

laugh at their jokes + be a pleasant person

64: Where is your best friend?

idk probably sleeping somewhere tbh

65: Give me your top 5 favourite blogs on Tumblr.

i don’t pay enough attention soz

66: What is your heritage?

like,,? My dad is from finland probably but otherwise i have no idea, all my family tree has is slavery so

67: What were you doing last night at 12AM?

fuck dude crying

68: What do you think is Satan’s last name?

smith

69: Be honest. Ever gotten yourself off?

hell yes

70: Are you the kind of friend you would want to have as a friend?

idk i hope so

i like can’t really swim that well so like probably get the attention of someone who can and get the dog saved then go to work. but fuck that job tho

nah bro, i would try and accomplish everything i wanted, travel, be happy with family, and make friends happy, not afraid

73: You can only have one of these things; trust or love.

trust

74: What’s a song that always makes you happy when you hear it?

bills by lunchmoney lewis

75: What are the last four digits in your cell phone number?

or not?

76: In your opinion, what makes a great relationship?

trust, communication, known goals

77: How can I win your heart?

idk bro its pretty easy out here a-fucking-pparently

78: Can insanity bring on more creativity?

yeah for sure

79: What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far?

Join theatre

80: What size shoes do you wear?

9.5 or 10

81: What would you want to be written on your tombstone?

rip in pieces

82: What is your favourite word?

antidisestablishmentarianism

83: Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word; heart.

the image of the organ tbh

84: What is a saying you say a lot?

lit, tbh, rip, wild

85: What’s the last song you listened to?

star by brockhampton

86: Basic question; what’s your favourite colour/colours?

pink rn, it was just green, i fluctuate

87: What is your current desktop picture?

a picture i took of a car mirror in a violet sunset

88: If you could press a button and make anyone in the world instantaneously explode, who would it be?

trump probs but only if he is right next to pence that bitch will not be president

89: What would be a question you’d be afraid to tell the truth on?

why are you sad

FUCKING RUN DUDE CLIMB OUT THE FUCKING WINDOW FUCK THAT SHIT NO GET OUTTA MY FACE FUCK

91: You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power?

elements my dude. if I had to pick which one it would be wind probs

92: You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again?

The half-hour where I thought I fell in love with someone before they broke up w me a week later

93: You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?

94: You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. Who would it be?

RIHANNA

95: You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?

Prague

96: Do you have any relatives in jail?

probably, but not that i know of

97: Have you ever thrown up in the car?

omg yes don’t remind me

98: Ever been on a plane?

yups a few times

99: If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say?

damn y y’all listening to me?

probs something like “jesus christ just shut up and listen to each other speak without jumping to fucking conclusions and preconceived notions of what other people are like kay?”

#long #ask #anon #my bae fai #ask game #answered #dont mind me

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durex-on-a-bible · 7 years

Text

Self-Defence (4/5)

Well, that just happened.

Takes place pre-Logan

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

“Oh no.”

Logan dropped to his knees.

“Oh no no no no fuck-”

And fell.

“LOGAN!” He scrambled over, eyes fixed on the blade hilt sticking out of Logan’s back. It had only sunk in about half-way, but already a ring of blood was filling around it and dripping down his side. Caliban crawled to meet Logan’s face, which was turned to one side and wheezing. One watery yellow eye darted to look at him. “Talk to me!”

The eye squinted, and the older mutant coughed red where he lay.

He shook his head: “Oh, okay, that was stupid. Can you hear me at least? Blink once for yes, twice for no.”

Blink.

“Thank God. Ok, I…” He looked at the upright knife, still oozing at its base, then back: “I can’t- I can’t take it out yet. The bleeding… If I take it out now you’ll bleed out. I need to-” He glanced away, trying to weigh up his options: if he called an ambulance, he wouldn’t know what address to give; then, even if he did, the risk of people finding out about Logan, himself, Charles…

His shoulders fell. Logan stared at him from the floor.

“I need to get some things. Stay still and… breathe easy? I don’t know, just - don’t die, OK?”

He clattered upstairs into Logan’s room, throwing aside a sea of empty whiskey bottles. Soon, he found a small bottle of aftershave – the closest to antiseptic they had; he made a mental note to buy an actual first aid kit after this was over. Throwing himself back downstairs, he fished some clean dish towels and a washcloth out of the cupboard, then pulled on a pair of latex gloves and dashed back over. After putting the cloth to one side, he leant over Logan and spoke softly: “Alright? I’ve changed my mind. I have an idea, but it’s not gonna be fun. Are you OK with that?”

Logan frowned, then blinked once.

“Right. I’m just gonna…”

A gaunt hand held the knife, and pulled up.

“UNH!” An onslaught of coughing, and the cut, now empty, was bleeding freely.

Fast as he could, Caliban pulled the towel over two pointed fingers, poured the aftershave onto them and pushed it into the open wound.

“-HHAAAAGHH!!”

“Shh, shhhh.” Pulling the fingers out, he bunched the rest of the towel over the hole and pushed down as hard as he could with both hands. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”

They stayed like that for the longest time, one looming over the other, pressed into him, whispering nothings and reassurances as his charge shivered in pain underneath.

Eventually, the rattle in Logan’s breathing settled, not quite so vicious. Caliban sighed in relief. Turning down to him, he spoke: “You’re doing really well, so well, I just need to get something quickly. Hold on.” He stood up then, making his way into the kitchen; rummaging through the drawers, he produced a length of sewing thread and a needle, bringing them back over and running both through the aftershave with his fingers. Not ideal, but maybe Logan’s healing could make up for his own incompetence.

“I’m just gonna clean and patch you up now. Just need to…” He gently tugged on the towel, bringing it out in a soiled, bloody clump. The wound was still deep, still red and angry, but it had stopped bleeding. Threading the needle with difficulty due to the gloves, he began pushing it through the skin on either side, an amateur’s needlework; he could hear the shorter man’s breathing hitch a little as he went. In short time, the line of thread was tied off and cut, leaving a messy stitch closing the wound up. Content, Caliban took the washcloth to the kitchen and ran it under some warm water. When he turned around, Logan was lifting himself up onto his knees.

“Oh! Don’t move too much, you’re still healing!”

“ ‘M fine, I-” he hacked, curling back over and catching himself with his palms.

“Shh, Logan, it’s OK.” The taller mutant crouched down beside him again, placing one hand on his collarbone to support him. Using the other hand, he wiped away the blood from his back and chest as carefully as he could, saying: “You’ll need to give this time to heal. If I help, do you think you’ll be able to make it upstairs?”

“…Think so.”

“Good.”

Patting down the wet skin with another towel, he removed his latex gloves and offered both hands to the kneeling man. Logan took him by both arms instead, and together they rose slowly, gripped hands edging their way further along the thin arms until he was holding himself up on Caliban’s shoulders: Caliban in turn had repositioned himself to hold the other man’s sides, fingers curled under his arm.

“You good?”

Logan panted: “Yeah.”

“Come on.” He stooped, allowing Logan to rest himself fully on his frame. “Fucking hell you’re heavy!”

Creased in a smile and pain: “-Metal skeleton.”

“You don’t say.”

They staggered together, each holding one rail as they climbed the steps, stopping if the injured man coughed or lost his balance. Eventually they reached the top of the stairs and tottered over to the messy bed, where Caliban gently set Logan down. Pulling the blanket from the bed, he helped move the arms and legs into place, then tucked the sheet back on when he was done.

Their eyes met.

“Logan, I’m…”

“Not now, Caliban.” Logan breathed, exhausted: “Please.”

“…OK. Later.”

He made to move, to leave Logan to sleep, but stopped, looked back to see him drifting off. Something pushed inside his own chest, and he went back to his side, leant down and put a small, chaste kiss onto his forehead.

Brown eyes snapped open.

Caliban jumped back, then froze in place before the older man’s gaze. Tense, he waited for disgust or pity or-

All he saw was Logan’s face rest again, nothing left but tired eyes looking at him… with regret. His gut coiled.

“Good night,” he managed.

“Night.” Expended, their eye contact broke as Logan finally passed out.

Automatically, Caliban shuffled back downstairs to scrub the rolled-out linoleum, still caked in blood.

----

“When do you suppose Logan will be back?” Charles asked, between mouthfuls.

Caliban looked up from the modest fry-up, which he had been cutting into pieces for the elderly man: “He’s just sleeping Charles, he’s had a busy day at work.” Nothing he hadn’t said four times over the past couple of days, but nothing that he couldn’t say again.

“Hmm.” He opened his mouth for another bite, chewing thoughtfully, then: “I like it better when Logan’s here.”

A wave of annoyance washed over the pale mutant – he swallowed it back, scoffed: “Yeah, me too.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake Caliban! Give those here!” Snatching away the knife and fork: “I’m not a bloody two-year-old!”

Both hands raised disarmingly, he relented. Some days his ‘patient’ could eat for himself, but his routine always accounted for the days when he couldn’t. With caution, he watched as Charles gingerly took some fried egg onto his fork and fed himself. Relieved, the tall man peered down below the gurney to fish out one of the many books they’d managed to scrape together, after they’d moved to this rusted place. Opening the book to its first page, he crossed on leg over the other and rested it on top, ready. He turned his attention back to Charles, wearing his best approximation of a kindly smile: “I’m going to read this. If you like, I could read it to you while you eat?”

The knife and fork clinked back onto the tray, wrinkled grey eyes fixed at some point in the distance.

“…Charles?” Shifting in his chair, leaning forward: “Would you like me to help you eat-”

“Love,” he murmured.

“…Sorry?” His gut twisted.

“Love…. Rejected. Spurned.”

A pressure, like the light scrape of a butter-knife, brushed inside Caliban’s forehead. Silently, he closed the book and made to stand up. “Charles…”

“Don’t understand why… Thought he felt… the same? Why he’d done everything, this past month.” He frowned: “Don’t know why…. Unless…”

The paper bag rustled in a shaking white fist. “I think,” Caliban stammered, from the few feet of distance he’d put between them: “It’s time for you to have some more of these-”

“-Unless he knows.”

Both eyes widened.

Charles turned, steadily, unblinking, to face the other mutant.

“Knows what, Caliban?”

Blood racing, he tried to focus on the room, push his thoughts away from the scraping edge of Charles’ mind – still tethered by drugs, but railing against them. Rusted roof; potted plants; weathered carpet; assorted books. He steeled himself, pushing two pills out of their plastic sachet, imploring: “Please, you need to take these pills!”

“So much guilt. Ashamed!” The push grew firmer: “Of what?”

“For God’s sake, Charles! We’re running out of time, please just-”

“Take the damn pills, Chuck.”

So caught up in the moment, neither had noticed the clank of the steel door as Logan had entered, fully dressed in his work suit. Caliban breathed, feeling the flat weight on his brain pull back. Charles looked on sheepishly.

“Logan, he-”

“Is trying to do his job.” Taking what had been the taller man’s seat: “Come on.”

“He’s got secrets.” he placed a scarred hand in his and looked up at him adoringly: “I’m sorry Logan, I thought he was going to hurt you.”

“I told you not to poke around in people’s heads. Not at your age.”

“Hah!” Charles laughed: “You’re one to talk!”

“Yeah, well,” Logan chuckled, unable to come back with a retort. Taking the pills from a stiff Caliban, he said firmly: “It’s time, Charles.”

“Oh, fine. I don’t know what’s even in these things!” Charles complained, throwing the medication into his mouth and drinking his water. He opened his mouth afterwards, smugly showing off that he had indeed taken them.

“Told you before, they’re just sleeping pills. Speaking of, you should finish your dinner and have a nap. I’ll see you later.”

“Humph. Very well. I’ll see you then, Logan!” He picked up the knife and fork and resumed eating as the bearded man cranked the door shut behind him.

Caliban unfroze at the sound, glancing back and forth, then came to his senses. “Wait- LOGAN!” He yelled, pulling his poncho and hat on before running out after him, fumbling at the door and ignoring the icy stare Charles was shooting from behind him.

Huddled in the scratchy cloth, he dashed across the dirt towards Logan, who turned around and, seeing how little protection the albinistic mutant was wearing:

“Holy shit!” Rushing over, he wrapped one arm around him and dragged both of them through the door leading to their living area, slamming it shut behind them. “What were you thinking!?”

“What am I- What about you?” He yanked the hat off his own head: “You’ve only just gotten up and walking again! Where do you think you’re-”

Logan put a hand up to pause, then bent over with a wracking cough. Instinctively, Caliban patted him on the back. Before he could interject, he was interrupted: “It’s fine. I’m not gonna die from driving a goddamn limo.”

“The cough?”

“Scar tissue, probably” he wheezed. “Just gotta live with it.”

“You…” His posture slackened. “Just be careful.”

“Hm.”

As Logan made to open the door again, Caliban started: “Wait! Hold on.”

Looking back incredulously: “Make it quick.”

“I really am, y’know, sorry.” Pinkening: “Not just for stabbing you.”

“Oh, er, it’s-”

“I just,” gathering his thoughts: “I didn’t think you would... be the same way, or even towards me-”

“Ugh,” He put a hand on his scarred face: “Caliban, it’s not about that, it…”

With the same hand, he gestured all around him.

That same look of regret:

“It’s too late.”

Caliban heard the words, but couldn’t process them. Before he could respond, Logan was already opening the door.

“Oh, and, don’t worry about the training anymore.” A smile, grim but sincere: “You’re ready.”

“…I am?”

“For once in your life, just take my word for it.” Closing the door on him, he turned his head back: “Bye, Caliban.”

From further down the corridor: “See you later.”

The door shut.

#Logan #Caliban #Calogan #whump #hurt comfort #blood tw #gore tw

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brentrogers · 5 years

Text

25 Fabulous Years of Psych Central: An Interview with Founder & CEO John Grohol

The year 2020 marks the 25th anniversary of Psych Central. It is quite an achievement, especially in these days when even the most prestigious publications have been closing down at an alarming rate. John Grohol, the Founder and CEO, deserves the credit for his brilliant idea and all the work he has put into the site for the past quarter-century.

I’m Bella DePaulo, and I have had the good fortune of blogging for Psych Central since 2011. Five years ago, for the 20th anniversary, I asked John Grohol if I could interview him about the site. Happily, he agreed. Readers enjoyed the interview and learned a lot, too, so I asked if we could do it again to mark the 25th anniversary. I hope you appreciate John Grohol’s insights as much as I do.

Bella: How has Psych Central changed over time?

John Grohol: When I first began Psych Central in 1995, it was composed of approximately a dozen web pages. Today, it houses tens of thousands of articles on hundreds of different topics. It’s gone from my small hobby site to a powerhouse of mental health information, reaching over 7 million people each month.

I moved to working on Psych Central full-time in 2006, hiring a journalist to help us with writing news updates, as well as a part-time managing editor. We’ve grown the staff slowly, over time, as our revenues allowed us to hire more people.

After 25 years, we’ve reached an astounding 650 million people from around the world through our resources, support communities, and articles.

Bella: What are the different components of the site now?

John Grohol: At its heart, Psych Central continues to be about providing objective, unbiased mental health information to people, no matter where they may live. We do this primarily through our mental health library, where we house all of the information related to mental disorders, as well as their symptoms and treatments. We also have hundreds of parenting and relationship articles in the library, as well as self-help articles that teach common cognitive-behavioral techniques and other therapeutic exercises.

We have a fantastic daily news bureau that publishes news and research updates related to psychology, mental health, relationships, brain science, and parenting. Psych Central Professional focuses on articles and topics mainly of interest to mental health professionals, such as psychologists, psychiatrists and marriage and family therapists.

Our blog network is composed of dozens of active bloggers. Our bloggers aren’t just mental health professionals, but also include those who grapple with various disorders since too often their voices are not heard in the same conversations we have about mental health.

Our Ask the Therapist feature, begun in 2006, is an advice column staffed by four different therapists who answer people’s questions at no charge. The questions tend to focus on relationship and personality issues, but also include mental health concerns and questions about treatment.

With dozens of different interactive screening quizzes, we offer people the opportunity to see if they may have mental health concerns that warrant further attention from a professional. We also have a daily Mood Tracker as well as the Sanity Score, an overall measure of a person’s general mental health and well-being.

Psych Central has a great self-help support community comprised of over 200 support groups and 500,000 members. Our Forums house self-help support groups for mental health and related everyday life concerns. It’s overseen by myself and a great team of moderators who help keep the community safe and supportive.

Bella: What makes Psych Central unique? What is its special mission, if you think it has one?

John Grohol:

Our Credo:

Provide the best evidence-based mental health & psychology information, regardless of profession. All voices are important and should be elevated in the discourse about mental illness & mental health.

We’re unique in that we’re the oldest and largest independent mental health website online today, still overseen by mental health professionals. We’re also special in that the company isn’t run by businesspeople looking to simply monetize mental health information. We’ve outsourced our actual advertising so that we spend about zero hours a year worrying about or focusing on advertising. This makes us more editorially independent than most other sites.

We’re driven by the daily reminder that through our efforts, we are saving lives. Education is the answer to stigma, discrimination, and prejudice. So we work to provide the best and most diverse set of education resources to help people better understand mental illness and its treatments.

Bella: What are you most proud of?

John: Well, I’ve got 25 years’ worth of things to be proud of. Next to our recognition by mainstream media outlets (included the New York Times and being picked as one the Top 50 Websites of 2008 by TIME.com), I’d have to say I’m most proud of the community we’ve built up, both in our self-help support groups and among our wonderful set of bloggers and contributors.

Our support groups are filled with so many inspirational stories of hope, overcoming horrible circumstances, and recovery. Our members in these groups are warm-hearted, real, giving people… And so many find strength in giving support to others.

The group of bloggers and contributors we have on the site are just amazing. I’ve never met a more creative, thoughtful set of people who constantly inspire and make me think. We’d be hard pressed to offer the kind of diversity of viewpoints without them. Sharing a breadth of experience is so important when dealing with mental illness, because there are so many variants not only of conditions, but of treatments and self-help strategies that work for people.

Last, I’m also very proud of our support of people who live with mental illness every day. Not only do we do this through our online support community, but we also do it through direct action too. For instance, we hire people who struggle with mental illness in their own lives. It’s never been an issue for us, and in fact, I often find that people who are in recovery from such challenges are more resilient and make more passionate workers than those without.

Bella: What do you see as the future of Psych Central?

John: I think the future is wide open, as the Tom Petty song reminds us. People are mostly interacting with websites through their mobile devices and apps. So that suggests a couple of avenues to explore, such as creating a really spectacular all-in-one mental health helper app. Something that not only allows you to track your mood and remind you of therapy appointments and taking your medication, but also provides just-in-time resources for support or immediate treatment. Imagine you just needed someone to talk to, and could log in and find someone immediately to have a conversation with… That could be a very powerful helping tool.

The digital publishing landscape has also changed significantly in the past 5 years. When we last talked, it was far more stable and easier to run a business with online advertising. With changes that Google has continuously made to its search engine algorithm, such stability is less assured. Even long-time, high-quality websites like Psych Central can be impacted, demonstrating the unpredictable nature of Google’s changes.

So it might make sense to take a hard look at how we can continue to grow our business in an increasingly challenging marketplace such as this.

But I believe today more than ever, we need such independent resources that Psych Central provides. I believe there will always be an audience for high-quality articles that span the mental health spectrum — something we do a great job producing.

25 Fabulous Years of Psych Central: An Interview with Founder & CEO John Grohol syndicated from

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m-logs · 6 years

Text

- cleaned my room -

but lowkey still need to do more things.

I determine my stress levels by the way my room is looking. If it’s looking clean, that typically means I’m content with my life. However, if it’s not then... I had no time to clean it WHICH means that I’m stressed beyond words. It probably took me over a month to accumulate clutter around my room, whether that be my desk to putting away an air mattress that haven’t been slept on since last month. I guess life just caught up and here I am, with a cluttered, messy room. Today I cleaned it, I guess to relieve some of the stress that I’ve been dealing with for the past few weeks. I guess here is where I talk about those (with additional commentary).

Ever since the month began, my life has just been on a consistent “GO” mode. Not really any time to just breathe and collect any thoughts. Just go, go and more go. Actually I retract my statement, ever since the YEAR began.

Mind you, I guess I’ve been doing “better”. Prior to 2019, I wasn’t sleeping properly or drinking enough water. My mind was just in a complete blur and I felt like everyday I needed to do something. Sometimes I don’t even know what that something is. And then, in the last few weeks of 2018, I decided to change things. Not dramatically. But mentally.

I made an internal promise with myself to keep my room clean. To drink more water. To try to not sleep for only 5 hours. To not be afraid to say some things that would probably be better left unsaid, as cheesy as that may sound. To have some confidence again, and not really care if you disappoint others, just try not to disappoint myself. I guess you can say that this is like a “New Year’s Resolution” but to me it was more like a promise to myself to just take care of myself.

Now for the reasons why I’ve been stressed. Well not really reasons, but just wild thoughts that have been running through my mind for the past few weeks. I feel like people are kind of sick of listening to me ramble and talk about these things, but I want to just say it because I’m slightly going crazy. (lol)

So the major thing that have been on my mind that has been causing me this stress is obviously work. Yes, this is a work “rant”. Please exit the post if you don’t really want to hear this... or I guess read this. But if you want to read on, be my guest. It’s a long story. You’ve been warned.

It all started in October 2018. Yes, back in October. I happened to be in the “right” place at the “right” time, and an opportunity came up. It was a... very unofficial, uncertain opportunity. But nonetheless, an OPPORTUNITY. Something that isn’t really seen in my workplace for people like me. The little man. Basically that opportunity was to get hired. To not be contracted anymore and be a full-time employee. Again, this isn’t something that comes to everyone and I am eternally grateful to have people who would help me get to that place.

Now let me explain the “unofficial, uncertain” portion. I would like to say this is a VERY unconventional way of going about it (unconventional in my workplace if I say the least), but to other people, it would make some sense. Basically the reason why I was offered this opportunity was because I did some extra work that led to significant changes. Good changes. I was acknowledged for those changes and people were impressed with my work. So you would think that would be enough to hire me on the spot. But there was uncertainty. That being because they didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. I didn’t go to school for this. My field so different from my job. There was that. There was also the uncertainty of if I actually enjoyed doing what I am doing at work. And that’s where things got “tricky”.

Make no mistake, I appreciate my job for what it’s worth. I try to do my best in the things I do. However, for the past year it’s been getting too... repetitive. Doing the same things every.single.day got exhausting. The routine was getting boring and I was finding myself just going to work for the sake of getting paid. The environment was alright. I learned when was the best time to just break away from work and talk to my coworkers about random stuff. But most of the time it was work, work, work. I mean it’s still like that. And I guess that was the primary reason as to why I started experimenting with stuff at work. I knew how fast I needed to work in order to do these “extra” things. Trying out new ways to go about work. Creating things to make my life (and I guess the life of my coworkers) easier. Letting my brain think of ways to go about things in a more “outside the box” mentality. And while doing all these things, I realized I started to enjoy what I was doing. Having a problem and just figuring out how to solve it. Kind of like a puzzle. Having my creativity and imagination go a little wild in a systematic routine. At the time, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I still don’t to this day. But I found something that sparked my life at work and didn’t realize it until I had to talk to someone about it.

Anyways, back to story. The attempt to get me hired. Basically a “big gun” at my work heard about the stuff I was doing, and was “curious”. More so skeptical at first, but I would like to say they were also curious. And to be quite honest, I had no idea that I was mentioned ever anywhere other than my own team. But word gets around, that’s fine. Before they approached me, they wanted validation of the work I was doing, which made the most sense. Once they got the validation they needed, it was now time to talk about this opportunity. Well actually after I had a talk with them about what I wanted to do with my life, then the opportunity came along with the plan to execute this.

In a nutshell, I had to come up with more ideas on how to improve the stuff we do at work. I also needed to present my extra work + those new ideas to more higher up people. So for the next few months (Oct to Jan 2019), I was working on this presentation. Mind you, this is on top of my regular workload. ON TOP OF THAT, it was all a “secret” from everyone. Only 3 people knew what was going on, and one of those people was me. And honestly I think hiding this from basically everyone at work caused me to go a little crazy. I told my family about it and close friends to let go on this crazy idea/plan from my head (which is why I feel like they’re so over my shit because it’s been going on since October... and it’s already February). AND to the cherry on top: being inserted into a project; which I didn’t mind being part of because it allowed me to create new things and yeah, you know lol.

Anyways, finally the presentation preparation was done and ready to be presented. I think I only had approximately 3 days to prepare for this presentation (added EXTREME stress and anxiety filled 3 days + weekend), with having countless meetings to go through what I was going to say, and how I was going to say it. Finally the day of the presentation, scared shitless and... it went well. And then... I didn’t hear anything for a few weeks.

Yup. No updates. I mean, people in the presentation said I did a great job. I just didn’t have any other feedback. What was happening with the opportunity? Did I blew it? I mean in fairness, the “unofficial”-ness plays a part here. I was only told that this *could* be a possibility. If everything goes right. No promises, but at least we tried. So me, being me, kind of just gave up. I stopped thinking of the idea of getting hired and just went on with my work. I was still part of the project, I was still doing my everyday workload. Life just moved on. Was I a little disappointed? Yeah, most definitely. But I knew from the start that this wasn’t going to be finite. That there was “no promises” that it was going to happen. And I accepted it. So my life moved on.

AND THEN, I happened to be at the right place at the right time again. Where I accidentally saw a communication message that I shouldn’t have seen. And I kind of knew that this *potentially* is going to go through. I wasn’t supposed to do it, but I was kindly asked to write my own proposal (on behalf of someone else lol) for why I should get hired. Not like I presented and did all that shit for a few months. But anyways, I wrote up the proposal, sent it off to the person and that was that. Again some hope, but not too much. A week passed and nothing was heard. No update again... until just recently. And this, ladies and gents, is why I’m up right now and an ungodly hour of the night, typing away my thoughts/rant/story... I don’t know what to call this anymore.

Basically the opportunity is falling through. Submit a resume, prepare for an interview. All that loveliness. And you’re probably thinking that I’m probably just excited and nervous and what not. But I’m honestly not feeling all of that. Ok I lied. I am. But it’s more so... just thinking of everything again and me being me... the worrying parts. I shall explain (with the little energy I have left).

There’s a part of me that is worried about the potential aftermath. When I say that, I mean what people would think about me getting this opportunity that isn’t offered to just EVERYONE. Maybe they’ll think I “kissed up” to the higher management to get this. I don’t know. I just want everyone to know that I worked REALLY hard for this. All the extra work I’ve done, all the meetings I’ve attended. Countless hours of experimenting and testing things. Not easy stuff. I doubt they haven’t done that. But there’s always gonna be those people. Guess I would have to just have thicker skin.

And then there’s this conspiracy that I have... and probably I’m the only person who has this. But I’ll save that for another post. It’s late. I should go to bed.

Anyways to close, I think I had a lot of self doubt, anxiety and stress. Something that I would have to just work with and try to calm myself and what not. But writing it out has actually helped a bit. I should do this more often...

[Will probably come back later and edit my tragic grammar]

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redlemonz · 7 years

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Day #6

Wow, so that was.. something. Day 6 began part way through what resulted in phone calls equating to about 3 hours late last night. Honestly, there’s not much to say from it all - nothing’s changed, as expected. We’re still in the same predicament, maybe worse because I may have pushed a lot of her buttons through testing limits. By being a cheeky fuck.And of course, time was both our enemies as we both felt the intense loneliness and missed each other from the same time last weekend (+ sick day monday). But she’s dead set on achieving one thing when it comes to all this - getting over me. She perseveres and will never give into the heart’s desires as her brain overrides that. Assumptions and general conclusions of how things would play out have already been confirmed to her, due to her negative outlook upon our history. It’s not a conceivable idea that this thing lingering, is actually not necessary just part of the remaining strings of us, but rather the start of something new. Oh well, I don’t blame her - anything I do think of or say is either insanity or a fantasy supposedly, so be it. The strangest thing is, that as much as I want her in that moment, and in general, most of me is actually keeping pretty sane and calm. I once told her about a year ago that she taught me, without having to do anything but be her natural self, the concept of unconditional love. I feel as though I do in fact seem to be living that concept. I’m mostly okay with everything, and am happy just knowing she’s happy. Though it could be argued that there was some much needed tough love, I’ve benefited most from her, as she’s sculpted me into the man I am actually proud to be today. I’ve grown up so much more than I imagined along side her, and she’s taught & inspired me further to just be a better human being. Looking back at the absolute simplistic formula of last night - I’m just glad that she was able to have a few laughs and smile a bit by the end, and there was nothing more rewarding than turning that night around. Obviously she did the same with me - the sound of her voice and picturing her smile brought a gleeful ending to the night.

Day 6 - simple, familiar pleasures

Early morning, as I awoke - we started snap-conversing for over an hour regarding, well generally speaking, humanity. We had an intellectual exchange of our minds that found us both to be quite the philosophers - not to be arrogant or anything.. but we should definitely totally rule the world together. Or she should; she’s always been a Queen after all. Nevertheless, details of our conversation aside - a few words apparently reminded her of me which were shared.. “in a society that profits from your self doubt, liking yourself is a rebellious act”. This does in fact speak volumes. Feeling so fucked up and insecure feeds everyone around you, and it’s easier for them and yourself to take advantage of your head through your vulnerabilities. Though a lot of this can be attributed to your own overthinking. Not giving a shit is indeed the key solution - although that factor’s also limited by your own enemy ultimately, the mind. Easier said than done after all. You gotta be careful not to be an asshole, and to carefully pick the fucks you give out of that limiting bucket - it can certainly be life changing when you’re on the right path. But I digress from everything, as all I simply wished to convey is that I had the perfect start to my day - a smile upon my face, and the feeling that she was right here with me, in my mind and heart. I won’t unnecessarily let the reality of the circumstances between us change this moment, as those are just unneeded complications that make situations way worse than they actually are. Turns out that there’s always hope for a better future, and that love and care for another as simply people can truly go a long way. Poor cutie was cold last night and didn’t sleep enough though. Wish I could’ve kept her warm. Please note that my thoughts are currently scattered all over the place though, but in a atypical, less fucked up mindset sort of way that I’m use to. It’s just been a really long, eventful day that followed.

So the family went to lunch on the northern part of town, next to the beach. Another beautiful day with the sun shining - I can only imagine the expression on her face as she walks along the beach, so content and in her zone. Then there’s me, at times when I’m not beside her, i’d likely be slightly away or behind, taking pictures of this beauty in all her true nature & habitat. So as I stepped on that beach and felt the sound of the waves grasp my memories with her, I cherished every moment. The best part of this extravaganza is seeing my nieces in this environment. My sister was way too overly concerned and strict with the fact that their shoes and clothing would get dirty and filled with sand, rather than let them be free to live and love the spectacle that was. You see, my family’s never been quite use to this view of possibilities, and this sort of freedom, due to their own personal upbringing and harshly overprotective nature. I experienced this similarly as a result during my own childhood - until I learned to be that very rebellious act and live as I wanted to. She opened my eyes to this much further in the many adventures we’ve experienced together in such a short time. So inspired by her in that moment, and picturing what she would’ve been like in the shoes of my nieces at that age, I voiced my opposition to my sister and took charge. I took my nieces by the hand to the sand and let them go crazy. They had the time of their lives, and their faces lit up, similar to seeing them at Christmas morning. I gotta admit, I had these quick flashing-forecasted thoughts almost, of the father I dreamed to be some day in this moment, and knew I would make her proud as my partner in life. Though I know it’s just another silly fantasy as always of what could have been, don’t worry. I watched as the elder niece hunted for shells on the beach, and assisted her. All of a sudden, I was captivated and entranced by her actions that I decided it was adventure time once again. So I drove. Long story short, I ended up at 9 different beaches around the city within a timeframe of approximately 5 hours or so. I also had the support of a friend, now known as local homie (I just decided that - she lives down the road) for the second half, who assisted me on my mission and kept me sane enough (considering I’m pretty good at making hasty decisions such as this, of which 90% end up having some sort of negative repercussion). It was actually a ridiculously enjoyable journey to once again experience the familiarities of every beach - as when arriving at each one, I knew I’d been here with her. Walking and running on the sand with her. Singing songs with her. Swimming (or attempting to, in my case) with her. Laying next to her as she soaked in the sun. Gazing at the stars with her (though I didn’t get the opportunity to visit that one). Even be caught in a thunderstorm at night on what was our first non-date date in which I initially confessed my feelings to her and wound up in the friend-zone for many months (worth! She always is). Once again, I felt content and my soul calmly rested - my heart satisfied with what my brain offered, a refreshing change of events. We also snapped and conversed here and there during the day after our initial morning chat, which just felt natural and right. I understand that there certainly is an ardent possibility, that I could have expanded plenty more upon the details of today’s events, our conversations, utilise better and more varied vocabulary (that one’s always an ongoing case however), and just my usual general mindset, but I can’t seem to.. or want to. It was a good day.. and I’m going to try to not let overthinking ruin this one. What a surprisingly, unexpected, positive weekend #1. I very much hope she also had a splendid time herself, and is okay with me. Though that’s not to say the week ahead can’t alter that. I’ve learned that this feeling can only last so long, right? Correct - because it’s likely that my idiot self will find a route that will lead to ruining everything once again by making further shit choices, regardless of my good intentions. Because our mindsets and perception just drastically differ, and I’m a risk taker - with a history of bad luck. But I keep persevering. And though I just wish to be the sweet friend who’s displaying that this City misses her, the mission I embarked on today with the assistance of local homie.. may yet be regrettable in the near future.

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poweredbydietcoke · 8 years

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My favorite books of 2016

(~3500 words, 10-15min read)

As I was thinking back on 2016 over the holidays, I decided to go re-read my notes from all of the books I read this year (a total of 48 books—4 audio books, 5 “tree books”, with the balance on Kindle, and 3 of them were repeat reads) and see what I had learned (or simply enjoyed) … then it seemed easy enough to write it up. Rather than a generic top-ten, I picked my favorite twelve just because, and all by themselves they came out with an interesting blend of topics. My favorite quotes are in block quotes below the book.

Normal Accidents by Charles Perrow - originally recommended to me by Ryan Barrett, this classic engineering tome holds up well in theory (if not in the examples he chose), and is a fantastic reminder to anyone building (or operating) complex systems … which these days, is basically all of us. TL;DR the more linear you can make a system (interactions flow one direction in a well-defined path, instead of complex where everything interacts with everything else), and the more loosely-coupled you can make a system (with buffers and room for slack to ensure errors are isolated to one part of the system, rather than tightly-coupled where an error in system 1 immediately spills over to system 2), the safer and more reliable the system will be.

the characteristics of high-risk technologies that suggest that no matter how effective conventional safety devices are, there is a form of accident that is inevitable.

If interactive complexity and tight coupling—system characteristics—inevitably will produce an accident, I believe we are justified in calling it a normal accident, or a system accident. The odd term normal accident is meant to signal that, given the system characteristics, multiple and unexpected interactions of failures are inevitable.

computers are more reliable than pneumatic controls.

A note on the terms “complex” and “linear” is in order. It is difficult to find precise terms that are also brief; I have opted for brevity. “Complex” should read “interactions in an unexpected sequence”; “linear” should read “interactions in an expected sequence.”

tight coupling is a mechanical term meaning there is no slack or buffer or give between two items.

Tightly coupled systems have more time-dependent processes: they cannot wait or stand by until attended to

Straight to Hell by John Le Fevre of @GSElevator fame - this one can best be described as a guilty pleasure, but it’s funny (and inappropriate) as hell. It’s one banker’s memories, likely exaggerated for good measure, of his time in New York, London, and Hong Kong. Definitely not appropriate for kids.

Who by Geoff Smart - originally recommended by my friend Jordan Burton, and then a number of other people, this is probably the book I’ve gifted most widely this year. Like many “practical” “business” books, it could probably be half the length and just as good, but it lays out a fundamentally useful (and from first principles) approach to evaluating people for the purposes of hiring. TL;DR it emphasizes the importance of functional scorecards (rather than vague, useless, traditional “job descriptions”), well-defined interview objectives, and behavioral interview techniques to increase your chances of hiring well.

Part of successful hiring means having the discipline to pass on talented people who are not a fit

Jonathan Livingstone Seagull by Richard Bach - recommended by my coach Chris Holmberg, this is the closest I got to philosophy this year (that I actually enjoyed), but it was fantastic. Basically, a fable about a seagull learning to fly, and while all the rest of the seagulls just want to “fly to live”, Jonathan wants to “live to fly” and learn everything he can about flying, just for flying’s sake. I certainly haven’t absorbed all of the learnings, but it’s a very rewarding read on multiple dimensions.

He spoke of very simple things—that it is right for a gull to fly, that freedom is the very nature of his being, that whatever stands against that freedom must be set aside, be it ritual or superstition or limitation in any form. “Set aside,” came a voice from the multitude, “even if it be the Law of the Flock?” “The only true law is that which leads to freedom,” Jonathan said. “There is no other.”

“Why is it,” Jonathan puzzled, “that the hardest thing in the world is to convince a bird that he is free, and that he can prove it for himself if he’d just spend a little time practicing? Why should that be so hard?”

Manna by Marshall Brain - I don’t remember who recommended this to me (maybe Ryan?), but it was a fun pair of short stories on the best- and worst-cases of our future robot overlords. TL;DR don’t kick the robot dog on Youtube (LINK), because its descendants will probably retaliate. But seriously, very quick read and thought-provoking, even if it does diverge into utopian ... "hopefulness."

The Other Side of History by Professor Robert Garland - recommended by Cornell professor David Collum (whose end-of-year essay my dad passed on last year and I quite enjoyed...warning it's not for the faint of heart or easily offended), this was the first Audible audiobook I listened to … and it was fantastic. An engaging series of lectures based on the premise that most of history studies the heroes, the royalty, the “influential figures”, this would instead cover all of the nameless, faceless people that history generally glossed over. What was it like to be an Egyptian peasant during the reign of the Pharaohs? Or an Italian shopkeeper during the time of the Medicis.

Living with a SEAL by Jesse Itzler - recommended by my colleague Steve D’Angelo, this book is another easy/quick/fun read. Based on the premise that the author hired a former Navy SEAL to come live with him for a month and train him (for fitness), it’s an amusing tale of “you can do a lot more than you think you can,” peppered with quotes of “SEAL says …”. Some highlights:

“I don’t stop when I’m tired. I stop when I’m done.”

“It doesn’t have to be fun. It has to be effective.”

I found out SEAL once entered a race where you could either run for twenty-four or forty-eight hours. Shocker: SEAL signed up for the forty-eight-hour one. At around the twenty-three-hour mark, he’d run approximately 130 miles, but he’d also torn his quad. He asked the race officials if they could just clock him out at twenty-four hours. When he was told they couldn’t do that, he said, “ROGER THAT,” asked for a roll of tape, and wrapped his quad. He walked (limped) on a torn quad for the last twenty-four hours to finish the race and complete the entire forty-eight hours. “When you think you’re done, you’re only at forty percent of what your body is capable of doing. That’s just the limit that we put on ourselves.”

Open by Andre Agassi - recommended by my old roommate Tricia Lee prior to my first-ever trip to Wimbledon, this was a great autobiographical account of one of the great legends (and characters) of tennis, including all of his ups and downs.

The scoreboard said I lost today, but what the scoreboard doesn’t say is what it is I have found. Over the last twenty-one years I have found loyalty: You have pulled for me on the court, and also in life. I have found inspiration: You have willed me to succeed, sometimes even in my lowest moments. And I have found generosity: You have given me your shoulders to stand on, to reach for my dreams—dreams I could have never reached without you. Over the last twenty-one years I have found you, and I will take you and the memory of you with me for the rest of my life.

Turn the Ship Around by David Marquet - recommended by Robert MacCloy, this was the other contender for my most-gifted book of 2016. From the email I sent to our executive team:

It’s the story of a USN captain assigned to command the USS Santa Fe, one of the latest of the 688-class nuclear attack submarines, and how he guides it from one of the worst-performing submarines in the fleet to one of the best. Let’s start with the metrics he chose — not only performance evaluations during exercises, but also the promotion rates for the crew, and how many of them went on to bigger and better things in the Navy (captaining their own ships, etc). And what’s even cooler, he focuses on what happens to those numbers *ten years* after he has left command; it’s about building a system that runs itself, not simply about him being awesome.

He, and the crew, affect this change largely through adopting his philosophy on leadership (which he calls “leader-leader”, in contrast to “leader-follower”) … this matches very well with my own personal philosophy, only he has thought about it a lot more, written it down, and is probably way better at it to boot. :)

First, a few observations he makes about leader-follower. It’s great when you wanted physical labor from people, and didn’t need to harness everyone’s intelligence. But it tends to suppress people thinking for themselves the farther down the chain they get. Even when it works, it leads to personality-driven leaders (and organizations) that fall apart when leaders leave. There are no checks and balances (he tells a great story about an order he gave, by mistake, which is a physical impossibility and yet was relayed all the way down the chain of command “because he said so”). And finally, he points out that to scale this type of organization demands incredible stamina from the leader(s), who must be everywhere all the time to make sure things don’t fail.

In contrast, leader-leader is the idea that each individual in the organization has both the responsibility and the authority to do his or her job. This doesn’t mean there’s no org chart / structure (it’s the Navy, after all!), but that the default assumption is that each person does his/her job and his/her manager will only step in when things go totally wrong. Put differently, “don’t move information to authority — move the authority to the information.” The person closest to the work is probably the right one to make the decision. I could write a few more paragraphs on specific learnings and stories but I’ll leave it for you to discover, and/or maybe discuss in the future. Instead I’ll leave you with one major change he made in his organization which, while we’re way less formal, I think makes sense for us as well. Instead of the classic “sir, I request permission to…”, everyone on the Santa Fe says “I intend to…”, and one of the captain’s goals is to go as long as possible saying only “very well.” This means that the crew plays “a game” of providing just the right level of information upwards in any decision to allow the approver to decide it’s the right action (without needing to ask a lot of questions back).

And the Weak Suffer What They Must by Yanis Varoufakis - I think I first heard about this book from dad; it’s a fun, opinionated (even if I don’t agree with a lot of them) account of the Euro crisis by Greece’s short-term finance minister, starting from before Bretton Woods and going to the present day, and closing with a chilling personal warning about the rise of the Golden Dawn party in Greece and what he believes is a return of Nazi-ism across Europe. As with many political economic texts, I found it hard to separate fact from opinion (there’s an immense amount of “X caused Y”), but the perspective is interesting and certainly credible.

“Gentlemen, for years you have been disparaging our stewardship of the postwar global financial system—the one we created to help you rise up from ashes of your own making. You felt at liberty to violate its spirit and its rules. You assumed we would continue, Atlas-like, to prop it up whatever the cost and despite your insults and acts of sabotage. But you were wrong! On Sunday, President Nixon severed the lifeline between our dollar and your currencies.4 Let’s see how this will work for you! My hunch is that your currencies will resemble lifeboats jettisoned from the good ship USS Dollar, buffeted by high seas they were never designed for, crashing into each other and, generally, failing to chart their own course.”

looking through Keynes’s papers and books at King’s College, Cambridge, I noticed a copy of Thucydides’s Peloponnesian War in the original ancient Greek. I took it out and quickly browsed through its pages. There it was, underlined in pencil, the famous passage in which powerful Athenian generals explained to the helpless Melians why “rights” are only pertinent “between equals in power” and, for this reason, they were about “to do as they pleased with them.” It was because “the strong actually do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” ... “those who find themselves in the clutches of misfortune should . . . be allowed to thrive beyond the limits set by the precise calculation of their power. And this is a principle which does not affect you less, since your own fall would be visited by the most terrible vengeance, watched by the whole world”

So what did these Bundesbank men do? In a move more reminiscent of a banana republic than a European democracy, Germany’s central bank engineered a sharp recession to oust the government.

Volcker symbolizes the self-confident American policy maker whose greatest fault is an unquestioning conviction that what is good for the United States is good for the world; a weakness compensated for with an astonishing capacity to look into the future and distinguish between that which is desirable from that which is feasible.

If the budget goes into a deficit exceeding the Maastricht Treaty maximum of 3 percent, the commission begins to issue warnings that can eventually lead to sanctions. Usually this triggers a long negotiation between the member-state and the commission that becomes the subject of lengthy Eurogroup meetings, leading to some additional austerity for the country in question plus a great deal of creative fiddling with its macroeconomic accounting.

The Seven-Day Weekend by Ricardo Semmler - another recommendation from Chris Holmberg, this could be quite simply described as the hippie version of Turn The Ship Around. :) A discussion of Semco, a reasonably large and successful company in Brazil which eschews all traditional management structures in favor of complete “use your best judgement”. Both are somewhat light on tactical explanations of how this actually works, and strong on the reasoning behind “why”, but clearly there’s something here (and clearly it resonates with me!)

“Sometimes I sits and thinks, sometimes I just sits.” —Satchel Paige

To put it another way, people who have learned to answer e-mails on Sunday evenings also need to learn how to go to the movies on Monday afternoons.

We brainstorm up to ten years into the future, but we only write down the next six months, a process that guarantees freedom. Besides, every one-year plan that I see has all the good things happening in the second half.

It’s hard for a leader, especially a charismatic one, to avoid becoming synonymous with the company in the eyes of employees and the public. Equally harmful is that leader who believes all the hype and equates himself with the company. To avoid this trap, I believe a dedicated leader must physically distance himself from day-to-day company workings and continually decrease his influence.

I also want my customers to depend on the company, not on me. I learned this maxim from a client who owned a large chain of diners and bought his dishwashers from us at a heavy discount. He was a ferocious bargainer and often tried to go up the corporate ladder for even more rebates. When the unit general manager passed him on to me, I listened at length to his tale of loyalty and commitment. When he finished, I asked him the size of his current discount. I expressed utter shock at the size of his discount (shock akin to that felt by Claude Raines that there was gambling at Rick’s place in the movie Casablanca), but immediately promised to honor it and also have a stern talk with the manager who’d authorized it. The customer hung up, relieved that he could keep the same deal, but knowing that deeper rebates were unlikely. After I’d done the same to a half dozen customers, they stopped calling me.

How did he keep his job when his official forecasts were so off the mark? “Ah,” said the man with silver hair and thick eyeglasses, “I have the right to be wrong, but only so long as I am precisely wrong!” Talk about Alice in Wonderland–style logic!

As an IBM CEO once put it, “We only restructure for a good reason, and if we haven’t restructured in a while, that’s a good reason.”

Algorithms to Live By by Brian Christian - this was a book that kept popping up enough I finally had to read it (first Lizzie, then Scott Cannon, and so on from there)…and it was totally worth it. The basic premise is “what do computer science algorithms look like when applied to life?”, and it a) largely jibes with the way I think about my life, b) is a great reminder and exploration of new stuff, and c) is quite entertaining. Think the optimal-stopping problem applied to apartment searches or dating; explore/exploit applied to trying new restaurants; etc.

I find that the three major administrative problems on a campus are sex for the students, athletics for the alumni, and parking for the faculty. —Clark Kerr, President of UC Berkeley, 1958–1967

A similar insight might help us resist the quick-moving fads of human society. When it comes to culture, tradition plays the role of the evolutionary constraints. A bit of conservatism, a certain bias in favor of history, can buffer us against the boom-and-bust cycle of fads. That doesn’t mean we ought to ignore the latest data either, of course. Jump toward the bandwagon, by all means—but not necessarily on it.

When we start designing something, we sketch out ideas with a big, thick Sharpie marker, instead of a ball-point pen. Why? Pen points are too fine. They’re too high-resolution. They encourage you to worry about things that you shouldn’t worry about yet, like perfecting the shading or whether to use a dotted or dashed line. You end up focusing on things that should still be out of focus. A Sharpie makes it impossible to drill down that deep. You can only draw shapes, lines, and boxes. That’s good. The big picture is all you should be worrying about in the beginning.

The world’s most difficult word to translate has been identified as “ilunga,” from the Tshiluba language spoken in south-eastern DR Congo.… Ilunga means “a person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time.”

Now is better than never. Although never is often better than right now.

I’m an optimist in the sense that I believe humans are noble and honorable, and some of them are really smart.… I have a somewhat more pessimistic view of people in groups. —Steve Jobs

the value of a stock isn’t what people think it’s worth but what people think people think it’s worth. In fact, even that’s not going far enough...We have reached the third degree where we devote our intelligences to anticipating what average opinion expects the average opinion to be. And there are some, I believe who practice the fourth, fifth, and higher degrees.

James Branch Cabell: “The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.”

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