#last week prior to collision

[nextstopwonderland]

In which that BCC group chat continues to sound like the best thing in life.

[spade-riddles]

Every time Taylor played I Can See You, she also played Maroon the same night. I heard she's no longer playing either anymore because she has officially played Maroon 8 times, and I Can See You 3 times. 👀

The 3 times that she paired both songs together were all dates in relation to the birthdays of Kaylor. 2 times were Karlie's birthday anniversaries, and the other 1 was the 13th of Pride Month.

8/3 - I Can See You and Maroon

6/13 - I Can See You/Mine and Maroon/Cornelia Street

8/2 (365 days later due to leap year) - I Can See You/I Can Fix Him and Maroon/Red

Yesterday when we got the Going Anon for seemingly Maroon, it was the 138th show. 138 is the official Kaylor number as it represents the combination of both their birthdays 13 and 8/3 meeting in the middle by the 3.

When did 138 truly become noticed by the masses? No other than the I Can See You MV of course.

When the music video premiered, the time was set at 1:38am July 9th. Naturally, many fans outside the know were confused by this choice since "1:58" from Last Kiss made more sense given the date July 9th.

Taylor later changed the time from 1:38 to 1:58, but we know she does not make any mistakes. It was not lost on us that a main feature of the MV was a blonde coder that ultimately breaks her free, played by Presley Cash. The birthday of Presley Cash you ask? The 13th of Pride Month.

Given this string of connecting evidence, I believe we did not get the Going Anon message wrong.

(Spade, still going, going, going? 👩🏼‍❤️‍💋‍👩🏼🍷)

While this may be Maroon, it was not a surprise song. In actuality, this message called attention to the date of a super collision. Where all 3 times that I Can See You being played with Maroon had some form of an 8/3 or 13 time gap between the dates they were played and Nov 1st.

8/3 - I Can See You and Maroon (313 Business Days, 130 Weekend Days, or 13 Holidays after Nov 1st)

6/13 - I Can See You/Mine and Maroon/Cornelia Street (38 shows after Nov 1st)

8/2 - I Can See You/I Can Fix Him and Maroon/Red (13 shows prior to Nov 1st)

Not only did she interconnect all of the above, but additionally when we got the going anon for Maroon yesterday on the 138th show... with doing some calculations it proves that every time she played Maroon links back to Nov 1st through either an 8/3 [8/2] or 13 time gap.

Here are the other 5 occurences besides the 3 listed above:

5/26 - Maroon and Getaway Car (113 shows before Nov 1st)

8/27 - Maroon and Afterglow (82 shows before Nov 1st)

2/26 - Maroon/Forever and Always (8 months and 3 days before Nov 1st)

6/21 - Maroon/The Black Dog/Come Back...Be Here (38 Weekend Days or 133 Days before Nov 1st)

5/11 - Maroon and Hey Stephen (13 Weeks and 83 days before Nov 1st)

In other words from Nov 1st when we got the Going anon Maroon submission, there were 8 connected dates to locate that included 8 Maroons and 3 I Can See Yous that were meant to be uncovered by using 8/3 and 13 coded time gaps that all occured simultaneously with Nov 1st as the overarching starting point.

Oh and does it help that Maroon's track duration in general is 3:38?

I think it is more than safe to say we got this one right. ✔✔✔

🤯

[coimbrabertone]

Actions Have Consequences...Finally

Well, at the Mexican Grand Prix, Max Verstappen was being his usual self. Lando Norris got a run on him into turn four, went to the outside, and Max blatantly pushed him off the road. Lando swerves to the left, cutting the track, and then slows up to left the leader - Sainz - back through, but remains ahead of Max.

This evidently pissed Max off, since a few corners later in the esses, he pushes Lando off yet again to get ahead.

The first incident is more comparable to COTA 2024, but this one was closer to Interlagos 2021 as both cars were pushed completely off track and that's how Max made the move.

Max would get a ten second penalty for each of these incidents, leading to him sitting for twenty seconds ahead of his first pitstop. For a brief moment in the Mexican Grand Prix, the two Red Bulls were running last and second to last, as Perez was also having a stinker and a half.

This marked a clear departure from the stewarding decisions at Circuit of the Americas a week prior, and this has led to discourse, because of course it has.

Now, some of it is sensible, including calls for a consistent, permanent stewarding panel that travels from race to race.

Most of it, however, is just Max fans whining about getting an unfair penalty that "ruins racing."

First things first, Max has been getting away with this non-stop for his entire career.

Max Verstappen hitting Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel at the start of the 2016 Belgian Grand Prix, then his moving twice under braking when defending from Max in the same race.

Singapore 2017, when a Schumacher-esque swerve by Vettel and a charge up the inside by Raikkonen led to Kimi, Max, and Vettel going three wide on a wet track. Max stayed in it despite a bad start, and this contributed to their turn one crash. This one isn't entirely on Max, but it's another example of how he'd rather have multiple cars crash than back out of a move.

Azerbaijan 2018, when Max moved late on the straight to block Daniel Ricciardo on the straight and led to that high-speed crash between the Red Bull teammates.

Austria 2019, when Max divebombed inside of Leclerc, they touched tyres, and he forced Leclerc wide (sound familiar?) to take the win.

The all-or-nothing racing with Lewis that he did in 2021 in Britain, in Italy, and in Saudi Arabia which almost felt like a race long meltdown by Max Verstappen as he made late and desperate moves to try and beat Hamilton. This is on top of Interlagos 2021, which I mentioned earlier, when he went off to Narnia with Lewis on his outside, forcing both of them wide as he didn't even attempt the force.

Then in 2022 and 2023, with Max having the fastest car in the world, this narrative started to form about Max growing up and improving his ways. Well, that went out the window in 2024, because when Max's car went to shit, the same old creature came out.

Austria 2024, when he and Norris crashed out, the aforementioned COTA 2024, and of course these double incidents at the Mexico City Grand Prix.

So the way I see it, Max getting penalties isn't a case of inconsistent stewarding, it's a case of him finally facing long overdue consequences.

Max has been doing this kind of stuff for years, and this take the inside, force the other guy off routine has been in his arsenal since the 2019 Austrian Grand Prix, at least, while the Mexico stuff he's used since the 2021 Brazilian Grand Prix. That's years and years of doing this kind of stuff. He has been making these over the line moves habitually.

He's a habitual line stepper.

Oh, but the Max defenders have an argument for that too. More of a whataboutism to be fair, but they claim that Max is doing the same things that Senna and Schumacher were celebrated for.

One: just because something has happened before doesn't make it okay.

Two: people absolutely hated the things that Senna and Schumacher did, and they faced consequences for their actions.

The Suzuka collision in 1989? Senna was disqualified from that very race for cutting across the track, denying him the chance to take advantage of taking out Prost.

Suzuka 1990? Prost called Senna's behavior disgusting and said that if this was how people were going to race, that he might as well just retire now.

For Schumacher, it's more of the same story.

Britain 1994? Schumacher passes Damon Hill on the formation lap, returns the position on the grid, but gets a five second stop-go penalty for the illegal, out-of-position on the parade lap move. Benetton told Schumacher to ignore this as they tried to appeal, going over the three lap threshold, getting the black flag, and then ignoring the black flag and instead trying to serve the initial stop-go penalty.

Schumacher was disqualified from the British Grand Prix and received a two-race ban. The team appealed the ban, but after Schumacher was disqualified yet again - this time for plank wear at the 1994 Belgian Grand Prix - the two-race ban was upheld.

Schumacher was disqualified twice and banned for two races in 1994 alone, and that was before taking out Damon Hill for the championship. The British press eviscerated him for this.

Then in 1997, with Ferrari, Schumacher had the Jacques Villeneuve incident in Jerez. The "you hit the wrong part of him Michael!" commentary was just the beginning of how the press laid into Michael for that one. He was considered a serial cheater by now, and the FIA seemed to agree, as he was disqualified for the entire 1997 season because of it.

Add Monaco 2006 and Hungary 2010 to the list as well.

Senna and Schumacher are your examples for forgiving Max Verstappen? Those are some of the most controversial drivers in F1 history, they're received plenty of hate, criticism, and harsh penalties. Therefore, it should be no surprise that Max is going to be treated the exact same way.

Actions have consequences.

Elsewhere in the racing world, the Thai MotoGP was pretty damn good - which is a relief since imo, last year was a bit of a snoozer - with Enea Bastianini winning the sprint, while in a chaotic wet race, Pecco Bagnaia triumphed over Jorge Martin, whilst Pedro Acosta put on a clinic in the final few laps to take third place.

Seriously, look up the Pedro Acosta/Jack Miller battle if you get the chance, because those two go side by side through the middle loop of the lap, racing hard, but racing fair. Everyone stays in the track limits, nobody gets crashed out, just a great battle between a Jack Miller who doesn't want to give up position, and a Pedro Acosta who is hungry for a podium.

Maybe Max could learn a thing or two from that.

As for NASCAR, unfortunately, I didn't see it. I was watching the Mexican Grand Prix and NASCAR was at the same time. It's the annoying time of year when racing series think it's a better idea to go against each other rather than challenging high and mighty football. That sucks because I think Homestead is a great track, but from what I hear, Tyler Reddick won.

Regular season champion into the final four. That's at least a decent bounce back after Logano went from out of the playoffs to championship contender in a week.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

The man facing possible prison time over a deadly hit-and-run in Vancouver two years ago has a long record of vehicle infractions — some of which he racked up after the crash. The family of the man killed in the crash, meanwhile, will have to wait until the new year for closure, with the defence’s sentencing submissions for the man who was behind the wheel delayed until January. Alexandre Romero-Arata, 27, pleaded guilty to criminal negligence causing death for the June 2022 collision that left 24-year-old Irish man Eoghan Byrne dead. At his sentencing hearing last week, a B.C. court heard he had been drinking prior to the crash, ran multiple red lights, and hit speeds of up to 152 kilometres per hour. The court also heard of a troubling driving record that included 15 Motor Vehicle Act incidents in just 18 months.

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @newsfromstolenland

[soloh]

Super random question, but does anyone in Aotearoa know what you put in a statement for an insurance company if you're not entirely sure what happened?

For further context: last week while driving I was rear ended by someone, I didn't make an insurance claim because there was only a couple scratches on the back right of my bumper that were not worth paying my excess to sort out (and there had already been scratches there from the previous owner backing into a fence anyway), but the other guy has claimed because he's got a huge dent in the front left corner of his car. He's claiming to his insurance company that I changed lanes into him, despite the fact that a) the damage locations on each of our vehicles to me say he's hit me coming forward on my right, I haven't moved sideways into him b) I had already been in the lane he'd hit me in for a short time prior to the collision, I was not in the process of changing lanes when it occurred and c) after we collided, we both hit the brakes, my car was stopped straight ahead and his was angled to the left behind me, with the back of his car pointed towards the right hand lane (we were in the middle of 3 lanes), which makes me suspect he actually changed lanes into me, or he, for some reason, thought I was going to move left again and tried to maneuver around me. However, I'm not 100% positive on what what happened, my passengers have no idea what happened, and his passengers said they weren't 100% sure who was at fault either.

So do I just say in the statement that I'm not sure what happened but that I believe whatever occurred was his fault not mine for the above reasons or what? Idk how much it'll cost me if his insurance company finds me liable, but I can guarantee it's an amount I can't afford, and I'm fairly certain it was not my fault because as far as I can tell the only way it could've been was if I suddenly started reversing in the middle of the road, which I absolutely did not 😅 I'm also worried that the fact that I've noted details like that he was still angled to the left when we stopped will make it sound like I'm trying to make up some bs, because I've been accused of lying in the past about stuff before just because of noticing details that others didn't 🫠

[orangepanic]

Baatar Sr. adopts Asami AU for @thatoneguy56fanfic

In spite of their chef’s best efforts the girl—young woman, he supposed—only picked at her food. A small bite of fish here. A single sliver of purple sea onion. She tucked each one into her red-lipped mouth as if putting marbles back in a sack after playtime. Not an ounce of pleasure on her face. Baatar found his eyes drawn to her again and again in the same way one might watch the aftermath of a head-on collision. Asami Sato, both body and ambulance. 

“She’s your daughter’s age,” Suyin teased as soon as they were alone. 

“It’s not funny,” he replied. An uncharacteristic disagreement. “Spirits, Su, can you imagine? Opal said they’d only just reconciled.”

The laughter in his wife’s face faded as she turned away. “No, I can’t,” she said. “But I do know something about not having a father.”

Baatar sucked in a breath. He’d walked right into that one. “I’m sorry, darling,” he said, pulling her close. Suyin slotted against him, so warm and familiar. Her delicate breath tickled his neck. “It’s not a comparison. I only wish we could do more than give her somewhere to visit.”

“Because we don’t have our hands full with Baatar and Kuvira right now?”

“Because Baatar and Kuvira are the reason Asami doesn’t have a father.”

Su had nothing to say to that. 

The next day Baatar began his project. “Excuse me, Asami?” he asked after breakfast. “I wonder if you could lend me a hand?”

Her eyes met his, hollow. “What do you need?”

What Baatar needed took most of the morning. He hadn’t really required a second person to help him move his chalkboard from one side of his workshop to another where the light might be better, but in the end it was nice to have a capable set of hands to balance and measure and mark on the wall. Asami proved swift and efficient. Once the final screws were screwed and they were both thoroughly covered in white chalk dust Baatar asked her if she might review his plans for an expansion of Zaofu’s opera house later on. As a favor. Asami said yes. 

They continued like that the rest of the week. Every day Baatar created a project for which he might need the assistance of a fellow engineer. Some were items on his long to-do list; many he simply made up. And every day Asami agreed to help, and spent anywhere from an hour to half the day working on whatever it was he’d decided needed doing. At first Asami mostly took instruction. But as time passed Baatar started to press her for her own ideas. Did she think the lift should be hydraulic or not? Which way should the road cut? Had she come across a better material for the coating in her own work? To these questions he also started adding the odd bit of fatherly advice or occasional terrible pun. It took three days for Asami to laugh at one of his jokes, but eventually she did. And Baatar found that not only were her ideas often good and not at all what he would have done, but that he got more done that week than he had in the whole two months prior. 

“I’ve missed this,” he said one afternoon as Asami tightened the lug nuts on the last tire of the new heavy duty motorized garden wagon he’d decided the estate somehow needed. Hu Meng was getting old, and while they could simply hire another gardener he’d never much liked changes in staff. 

For a long time Asami didn’t say anything. Sweat dripped down from her hairline into her tank top as she strained against the wrench. But finally Baatar heard it, just a whisper. “Me, too.”

That night he talked to Suyin again. What was one more child after all? With Opal moving in with Bolin they even had a spare bedroom.

“It doesn’t have to be forever,” he said. “Just until she finds her feet again.”

Su gave him a knowing smile. “Sure, Dad,” she said.

[7grandmel]

Todays rips: 02/04/2024

Our Sweet Parsley and .​.​.​of 2023 and Christmas Spirit [FILE-07] (Beta Mix)

Season 7 Featured on: SiIvaGunner's Highest Quality Rips: Volume Sapphire

Ripped by cookiefonster

Season 7 Featured on: SiIvaGunner's Highest Quality Rips: Volume Sapphire

Rip credited to "Kai Cenaze the Evil Gyat"

Season 7 Part of: Haltmann's Archives

Ripped by Mitchell

Did everyone enjoy yesterday's April Fools bit? I hope you did, it was a ton of fun - and if you missed it, you can use Raft Ride ~ The Story So Far to get yourself up to speed. But now its time to move past my own silly April Fools joke and back to the SiIvaGunner channel's bit - for the one event I've wanted to cover on this day for months now. In terms of these events, its hard to top just how excellently executed and well-rounded Mario's death event in Season 5 with Your Best Nightmario was - but for me, the event held last year just narrowly takes the crown for me. April Fools of 2023, the Season 7 event held 367 days ago (leap year!), is one of the most heartfelt, silly, and outright fun events the channel has ever had. And yes, I couldn't narrow it down - I HAD to feature three rips from it. Hopefully, you'll understand why.

To start, I think it needs to be established just how BIG this event was. There have been far larger in scope events on SiIva before - the King for Another Day tournament basically lasted from September to Thank You, Everybody! across several months and over a thousand videos - but April Fools 2023 is different. All 248 rips uploaded were done so not across months, not across weeks - but ALL DURING April 1st itself, within a 24 hour timespan. Now granted, 21 of those were Trailer Stringers for Garten of Banban (don't worry about it) - but it still speaks to the sheer bredth of the event itself. It was downright agonizing to think of just three, two, let alone one rip to feature on the blog to cover this event, because unlike with Your Best Nightmario or Grand Dad Metropolis - there's not truly one set of rips that best encapsulate everything about it.

Which, then, brings us to the event's theme, the main hook, one that compared to the above mentioned April Fools events from prior years, is quite subtle. You may have noticed that each of the three featured rips share a quirk in common in their title - a (Beta Mix), or in the case of .​.​.​of 2023, (Beta Mix) (Beta Mix). What's that all about? Well, Season 7 as a whole can be best described as a loveletter and celebration to the *entire* SiIvaGunner channel - this is a large part of what RIP² was about as I covered in SING A SONG ABOUT HOPES AND DREAMS and Return to Collision Clouds. It wasn't just cheering for KFAD, wasn't just remembering The Reboot, wasn't just being nostalgic for Season 1 - every inch of SiIvaGunner's history, obscure or popular, was brought up, remixed, paid tribute to, and so much more throughout the whole year, and the year's April Fools event was the greatest testament to it. We all slowly realized what that (Beta Mix) suffix meant - that each of the many, many rips uploaded that day, were *direct tributes* to the rips uploaded in the channel's past, elaborations upon or spoofs or alternate takes on these classic - or obscure! - rips.

And that side of the coin is what I think Our Sweet Parsley in particular captures brilliantly. Sonic Adventure's My Sweet Passion saw two absolutely classic rips be made of it during Season 1: The first, Our Sweet Passion, is made in the channel's earliest months and is one of the most concise examples of a truly good bait and switch, playing the track's instrumentals but having its lyrics be read aloud, dramatically yet with a confused inflection, by ripper How2BeEpic, emphasizing the bizarre word choices and writing to comedic effect. In the season's final months, Harmony Friends of Coconut Gun fame mentioned back in CG Man HD Remastered Edition, gave us My Sweet Parsley, a rip that sentence-mixes these same bizarre lyrics in YouTube Poop-esque fashion whilst still playing the original instrumental behind it all. Our Sweet Parsley, then, sees cookiefonster pay tribute to both at the same time in a rip I'm sure many of us thought possible, yet had likely forgotten about by the time Season 7 was upon us seven whole years later: a perfect fusion of the two. That's right - the lyrics of the YouTube Poop-ified My Sweet Parsley are read out with the same dramatic, quite-unfitting voice as Our Sweet Passion, and its arguably even funnier: Since there's no sentence mixing done, we get to hear first-hand cookiefonster's descent into madness reading off how Amy "had to shave it". And to really bring the point home of how much of a loveletter this entire event was, the aforementioned descent into madness is immediately followed by a bait-and-switch performance of the DK Rap with changed lyrics, directly paying tribute to Harmony Friends' Coconut Gun Rap. And then there's a sly reference to Thunder, Rain, and Lightning just after that - ANOTHER Harmony Friends rip from Season 1!!

You see what I mean, right? This was just one of the 240+ rips uploaded this day, but a ton of them had this same sort of love and care poured into them, no matter how shitpost-y they may seem from the outside. For me, the entire day was like being continuously rewarded for having kept up with SiIvaGunner so closely since its inception - yet more than the average use of the term "fanservice" implies, it all felt like it was done with the most genuine and wholesome, mutual respect between rippers behind-the-scenes. And, well, I say rippers - but part of the fun with the event was that it extended far past just rips! .​.​.​of 2023 is a (Beta Mix) version of a fucking *VLOG* of all things, the Vlog that channel founder Chaze the Chat recorded to announce the end of SiIvaGunner Season 2 and the beginning of SiIvaGunner Season 3. In other words, the equivalent of an update video, not anything actually core to the channel - yet still a video that die-hard fans like myself have long kept in mind since it was made.

I have no clue who "Kai Cenaze the Evil Gyat" is, but I want to thank them sincerely for creating the funniest rip I've ever seen out of one of SiIvaGunner's few completely-straightfaced videos, one that I mostly remembered for its very funny thumbnail. In some ways, it's the most classic of YouTube Poop, with sentence mixing and edits done purely for the silliness of "he's not saying what he's supposed to!!". But there's little nods to the fanbase's running jokes in the background - The Christmas Comeback Crisis development hell, the Rave.DJ sticker in the bottom right of the whole video, and so on - all the while, prominently, the entire video is coated in modern-day-YouTube content mill slop from top to bottom. A reaction video cam of Chaze the Chat, based on the Season 1 ending announcement The nutshack theme but the first nutshack is replaced with me ending the channel but edited to basically do nothing but say "uhm", constant reminders to like and subscribe, sensory-video sound effects - its genuinely absurd in a hysterical way to see such a tranquil, normal "olden days" YouTube video be slathered top to bottom in this kind of stuff - and it shows just how far this event went to fuck around with our past knowledge of the channel's history.

But, you know me - I'm a lorehead - and alongside all these videos, we also got the very special morsel of Christmas Spirit [FILE-07] (Beta Mix). I've long since accepted that a lot of things that happen on SiIvaGunner, especially nowadays, don't really have any direct ties to greater channel lore - that's completely fine, and its allowed the team to flex their creativity and individual skills in ways they couldn't whilst being ran under Chaze the Chat's administration in the first four seasons. Yet for this silly, downright pure-fun holiday event, Mitchell goes back to (Beta Mix) up one of the old Haltmann's Archives videos, the videos made during Season 2 and Season 3 specifically to condense and help convey old and new lore to the audience. It is, admittedly, not very serious, likely not even meant to be taken *seriously* - but it depicts a sort of glitch in the system, with the log changing from a researcher team's findings regarding "Christmas Spirit", to suddenly focus on a new, unknown substance called Fools' Spirit, a substance that appeared out of nowhere yet able to "warp and corrupt the space around itself". The testing is described as fruitless, yet as the log ends, we're shown a peek into the elusive testing grounds previously only described verbally - now covered in mist as pink as the Fools' Spirit, and evidently causing glitches to the actively-running SiIvaGunner experiments.

The rip is far simpler and straightforward than the abovementioned two - its less rip and more textbox - but I think its the initiative and attention to detail that really speaks to me here. The original Christmas Spirit [FILE-07] was well over five years old by the time this event rolled around, covering lore that hadn't been touched upon since the last main Christmas Comeback Crisis episode from just about as long ago - lore that, compared to stuff like Figments as covered in Bowser's Finale, is far less relevant to the channel's status quo. To find a way to bring back that old lore, repurpose it for the intents of this new event, and all the while having it tie together with the current state of the lore as well!!! You can see at the end, the laptop screen describes "Illucidity Active", describing the dream environment in which SiIvaGunner exists within during the entirety of Season 7 in particular. This Fools' Spirit then infests the laptop, and by extension SiIvaGunner's own dreams - giving us the entire April Fools events' gimmick to begin with! And hell, depending on how you read into things, it could even be viewed as - unintentional or not - foreshadowing for some of the great reveals made during the Season 7 finale, One Last Chance [Episode 11] of the Christmas Comeback Crisis.

Do you see why this event was like heaven on earth for me, the notorious overthinker of SiIvaGunner lore? This channel is my autism fuel, it is my Pokédex - and the entirety of April Fools 2023 was like being personally thanked for 24 hours straight for my commitment and love for the channel. No, you silly doofuses - thank YOU for running the channel to begin with, for keeping it so incredibly fresh for eight years and running!! I could do this sort of breakdown for far more than three rips from this event - if you gave me infinite time, I would GLADLY repeat Raft Ride ~ The Story So Far but for April Fools 2023 -, but I think its best I leave you all to explore the event on your own. It needs to be emphasized just how magical Season 7 was for me - it was the thing that made me start this damn blog to begin with!! - and it fills my heart with such joy to see that so much of the SiIvaGunner team loves this channel in its entirety. Be it the love for rips, like with Our Sweet Parsley, love for lore like with Christmas Spirit [FILE-07] (Beta Mix), or love for quite literally everything inbetween like with .​.​.​of 2023 - I'm forever assured that SiIvaGunner will stay in good hands in the years to come. Godspeed, you beautiful bastards. April Fools.

[cupboardgods]

Updated Character Profiles!!!

https://toyhou.se/cupboardgods/characters

I've been working really hard over the last two weeks to beef up my toyhouse. I've uploaded over 300 new images across all profiles and finished writing bios for my most important characters.

Many of the profiles are still a WIP, but here are the completed ones:

The way things are set up, no one single profile will give you the entire story. But if you read multiple profiles, you should be able to pick up on the plot as a whole.

If you're at all interested in my ocs, now you have a place to read about them. This the first time I've put this much info about my personal projects online. I'm sure this will mainly be a resource for me, but I'm hoping other people will check it out too.

Story synopses under the cut!

Princess Paz

Princess Paz is a prodigy genius and scholar, widely beloved by all her kingdom. She was prophesied at birth to bring her country into a golden age at the dawning of her adulthood. However, she hasn’t slept even a minute since her 13th birthday. The adults in her life believe her insomnia is the prophecy come true, but her obstinate sister Corrin is convinced it's actually a curse. While Corrin goes searching for the answers, an otherworldly monster is let loose in the palace. 

Fairies (temp title)

The fairy territory is witnessing its first ever monarch rise to power. Queen Silicaris towers over even the tallest fairies. Her body looks and moves as if it's made of molten glass, but her most devout followers insist she is the purest crystal. The queen has been hosting processions and parades through all parts of the fairy territory. She takes her seat at the new house of government in the Big Tree near the creek bed. 

Beryl, a young courtier befriends Lark, the lone archivist. Together, they begin to suspect something unsavory is going on with the new queen. After getting too close to the truth, Beryl goes missing from the Big Tree--he wakes up in an unfamiliar forest and meets Agate, another fairy from his homeland who knows nothing of the queen.

Collision

It's the year 21XX; Adair is an auditor for the newly formed government agency called the Offworld Management Department (affectionately called DOOM--Department Of Offworld Management--by its employees). A little over one year prior to the start of the (actual) story, Adair survives a hit and run that knocks him and his motorbike off the edge of a highway ramp, critically injuring him. After a long time off work, he's ready to get back out in the field with his new assistant and best friend Cecil. What he doesn't know is that the accident was not an accident, but an attempt to kill him. Who would put a hit out on a nobody government worker? NOTE: Cecil, Adair, and Nica are some of my oldest ocs--I mostly put them in domestic scenarios and have fun with their personalities.

Moose (temp title)

After an earthquake, Moose and her friends Devon and Rem develop paranormal abilities while on a camping trip the summer after high school graduation. A few days later, Devon and his car disappear right in front of Moose and Rem's eyes. As they make their way back home without him, Moose sinks into a deep, desperate anguish. Once they reach their home city, it seems that the paranormal abilities have proliferated throughout the public, and Devon is still nowhere to be found.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Inside Climate News:

It’s been a dark decade for the endangered North Atlantic right whale. More than 40 of these ocean giants have perished since 2017, mainly due to two human-driven factors: vessel strikes and getting tangled up in fishing gear. 

But this week, scientists announced a rare bit of good news for the struggling species. In 2023, the right whale population size climbed to 372 individuals—a slight uptick from 2022, according to the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium, a scientific data-sharing body. 

The modest increase indicates a leveling off of the sharp decline seen in prior years—with some caveats. The estimate includes new calves before they are officially cataloged for the first time; recalculating 2022 in the same way updates that figure to 367, about a dozen whales more than the earlier number. The new numbers also do not reflect the five documented deaths or the four lost calves that scientists presume have died in 2024 so far, the third highest annual mortality count on record. 

“While the whales may be adapting to a rapidly changing environment, the continued high level of mortality and serious injury clearly shows we must continue to adapt and evolve our management,” Philip Hamilton, a scientist at New England Aquarium’s Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life and a member of the consortium, said in a statement. 

To prevent entanglements, the federal government has enacted seasonal fishing closures in parts of New England, which limit lobster harvesting during the whales’ migration season. In recent years, a new technology known as on-demand gear has emerged to minimize rope from lobster traps and help fishers get back on the water during these closures—without putting whales at risk. But many lobstermen see the technology as another threat to their industry rather than a solution.

In May, I visited Cape Cod to see this “ropeless” gear in action and talk to some of the main players in these efforts, which you can read about in a piece I published earlier this week. Today, I’m diving into the process behind reporting this story and what’s at stake for the right whales and lobstermen.

Entanglements, in a Nutshell: North Atlantic right whales migrate through the East Coast of North America to breed and follow their favorite food—tiny crustaceans called copepods, abundant in the Gulf of Maine. But these waters come with risks. Each year, the whales pass through lobster fishing areas in Massachusetts and Maine, where they may struggle to avoid copious amounts of gear and traps, research shows. 

Over the past decade, at least 10 right whales have died from entanglements with fishing gear. However, reports suggest that 85 percent of right whales have scars from an entanglement at some point in their lives. Studies show that even temporary rope incidents can cause infections, increased stress, starvation and disruption to the ability to breed. 

The situation came to a head in 2017, when an unprecedented 17 whales died in U.S. and Canadian waters. Research shows that waters warmed by climate change shifted copepod distribution, and whales likely followed their food into the new areas—which had little to no protection from fishing gear and ship traffic. I learned more about the boat collision side of this issue for a story I covered last year. 

My new reporting underscores that more fishery closures are likely—and that new gear could be a workaround.

[talktaurean2meblog]

AEW Collision 9-21-24

This is just a little write-up on All Elite Wrestling's Saturday show, Collision. It's no surprise that I'm trying to become a better fan of their product and that includes watching more often.

It was a solid show, actually, and a lot of folks said it blew Dynamite out of the water. SHEEH.

We begin the action with a Ring of Honor Tag Team Title Match between the reigning champions (Sammy Guevara & Dustin Rhodes) and Undisputed Era (Mike Bennett and Matt Tavern*)

I don't know the most about either team but Sammy and Dustin got the jump on UE before they were even all the way up the ramp. Let the madness begin! Its a gimmick match, but i didn’t catch the specifics.. maybe the name will come back to me, at some point..

Dustin was, at one point, currently grinding a belt buckle into someone’s face.. Apparently this is Dusty’s old one and it was gifted to him after his passing.

A Buckhouse Brawl? I believe that's what it was? And the last one hasn't been a thing since 2020. I thought that Undisputed Era might get a sneaky win.. that was my initial thought, about this match. This damn crash test dummy Sammy, later on in the match, caught a steel chair to the head… and I'm pretty sure this is the type of straight shot that is outlawed in most promotions. At least.. I thought?

Right after, UE pulled off a nasty doomsday device outside the ring. Sammy's rotation (or over rotation?) had me scared for a second. Dustin went through the table on the outside, and barbed wire was definitely involved, some way. Sammy got to give a running cutter, jumping from the ring and landing on the table that was set up outside. Whew.

Jesus Christ, when will Tony Khan stop this mf from taking all of these over-the-top bumps??? He just fell from a ladder.. We JUST  got back from commercial At this point, Dustin has both men in a vice grip via pliers at the nuts.

Almost everyone is bleeding right now.. Its almost hard to watch… I don't know if that's because I'm not truly a "sicko" or not... Or if it's because it's ACTUALLY over the top. There's a “this is awesome” chant at 13 min into the match. Mike Bennett tried to make a comeback, tried to get a cover on Rhodes, but Guevara breaks up the pin. Dustin is, unbeknownst to me, wrapping barbed wire around his right boot.. Very slowly, i might add. He does this while completely bloodied in the face and kicks mike in a nuts while he’s in the corner…

Sammy is, at the closing moments, at the top of the ladder. He went for a Swanton bomb, I believe, and got the cover over Mike Bennett to retain. The goal of this match seems to have been to put on a crazy opening tag title match but also to get Sammy .. somewhat.. closer to being over/show that Dustin can still go.

2. Conglomeration had a backstage segment, including Mark Briscoe, Kyle O'Reilly, and Hologram, but it was Interrupted by Premiere athletes, I think. We're still learning these names.

3. Evil Uno also has a backstage segment about a future match against Mox, I believe. But tonight, is all about him and Darby Allin. Darby is still on Mox's radar, for some reason, too. Darby walks up.. Talking about a war coming? The prior beatdown on Private Party is referenced also. Darby said he has no plan of laying down and dying… he's a future world champ, he adds.

“Remind me what you can do.. Show me you got that dawg in you”

This was a quick moment of beauty from Darby Allin, towards Evil Uno.

For the Conglomeration's match, we have Mark Briscoe and Kyle O'Reilly (joined by Rocky Romero), and with Hologram. The masked wrestler is on a ten match winning streak, according to commentary. They took on the Premiere Athletes (Tony Neese, Ariya Daivari, and someone else I don’t know?)

Grand Slam is coming up on Wednesday this week!

Apparently, AEW 5 is also coming up and that's where Britt Baker is returning. Mind you, we have not seen hide nor tail of that women since she did what she did in between those ropes against Mercedes Mone at All In at Wembley a few weeks or so ago. But AEW 5 is October the 2nd. Title Tuesday is October 8th?

It was a lot going on, so I didn't have many thoughts. Hologram is insane, in between those ropes, and i mean this honestly. He was playing a little bit of cat and mouse with Tony, and he looked so quick and speedy while doing it. I disassociated for a little bit (ADHD), but Briscoe got the pin and not before some crazy shit from Hologram, attempted interference by Smart Mark Sterling Kyle O doing what he normally does.. The damn thing.

3. We were eventually blessed with a MxM Backstage Segment. I love this shit so much for them…

They stole Max Castor's jacket last week.. And gave it a "makeover". Apparently, next week they’re going to do the Grand Slam Finale and reveal it, a la NYFW. I love them so much.

Bang Bang Gang (with Daddy Ass) did a little promo segment backstage, in response, about twenty or so minutes later.

4. At some point we get Mariah May vs Lady Frost in an Eliminator Match. Not too much to write home about, for this one. Short match, good stuff by Frost, a predictable win for this new "champion".

Lady Frost? Oh yes ma'am, that bob is BOBBING. MM is wasting time blowing kisses at Nigel over on commentary and LF attempted like 3 pins on her as soon as the bell even rang.

No surprise, Mariah May lives to hold that belt around another day.

Around this point, is when my "old lady senses" started tingling, letting me know that it was almost my bedtime. So I did finish the episode, but as a casual watcher. No notes.

What should/promotion should I watch/comment/react on next?

Should I start doing the whole show? Or just break down a match or two? We've got some goooooood shows on the horizon, folks.

[photogrivy]

If the last 48 hours of petty tweets, the unexpected airing of dirty laundry, and the whole of the internet thinking she’d ever let Louis Denver inside of her was anything to go by, Ivy had figured today was gonna be a rough day. With a day of gossip rags theorising about her relationship with her best friend’s ex boyfriend – one of the many things she didn’t miss about dating Dierks – and watching Wardo wallow in self-pity, Capote in his lap, head in his hands, and Ivy tucked against his side, she’d been grateful for a day off to just relax. As much as she genuinely loved her job working for the Rangers, she was pretty content to not have to see Max face-to-face after everything that had unfolded. It was a veritable mess and Ivy thought she might need another five to ten years to recover from the whiplash they’d all experienced. 

Today, however, she’d begrudgingly left Wardo’s couch – where she’d situated herself with a throw pillow and one of Capote’s blankets – and made her way into the bar, ready for a world of distractions to keep her from worrying about her best friend. She’d cursed herself on arrival, remembering that Raff had the day off – for reasons she hadn’t actually cared to listen to at the time – and silently prayed that they wouldn’t get too many difficult customers coming in today. Not that Ivy wasn’t able to handle them herself – she was more than able – but without Raff to keep her grounded, on a day like today, she hadn’t quite trusted herself to be a voice of reason. 

For most of the evening, her shift had passed with ease. Nothing too strenuous, a steady flow of customers coming in – the week leading up to Christmas always tended to be a little more hectic, even on a weekday, so she’d accounted for large parties of pub crawlers in silly red and green hat, most of which hadn’t bothered her in the slightest. That was, of course, up until the last 20 minutes before closing. 

Ivy was winding down for the evening and delighting in the slower pace of the night, chatting aimlessly to some of their regulars as she sipped her steaming mug of tea, keeping herself awake. In what she could only describe as a crash heard around the world – another cliche that she was sure Wardo would eat her alive for – a young woman came storming into the bar, leaving the doors swinging on their hinges as she veered right towards Ivy. Confused and not in the mood for any more drama, Ivy came out from behind the bar and fixed the woman with a stare. 

“Can I help you? We’re closing,” she’d told the woman, keeping her tone as patient as was humanly possible for Ivy Rogers. 

The woman was beyond reason, however, and swung, full force at Ivy, her ringed fingers colliding with the side of the girl’s face. Truthfully, Ivy had taken harder hits over the years, but the shock of the impact alone had sent her head reeling backwards, the collision causing her to lose her balance. Stumbling backwards, she gripped her hand tight onto a barstool to steady herself and turned her attention back to the woman in front of her. 

“Holy shit, lady. What the fuck is your deal?” she yelled, throwing professionalism out the window. 

Straightening herself up, she locked her two hands together and stretched them out in front of her, cracking her knuckles in a way that she hoped was vaguely menacing. Then, Ivy curled her right hand into a fist, walked towards the woman and punched her square in the jaw, knocking her to the ground instantly. 

“Dumb motherfucker,” Ivy spat, her own cheeks stinging ever so slightly from the light slap she’d received just prior. 

She was just readying herself to turn away, back to her punters, and apologise for the commotion, when two men walked into the bar. One was short, probably about Ivy’s height, but ripped. Despite his height, he looked as though he could go a few rounds with Scotty Carter without breaking a sweat, his arms bulging out of his comically small t-shirt. The other was taller, about six foot and weedy as hell; they looked like they were straight out of a fucking cartoon, if she was being completely honest. With an arched brow, she waited to see if they were with the woman on the floor – who was now wailing, not a tear in sight, and claiming that Ivy had tried to kill her. 

“What the fuck did you do to my sister, slut?” The shorter of the two asked, and Ivy smirked. Of course, the random erratic woman who had seemingly attacked her out of nowhere had a set of misogynistic bodyguards who looked like they’d been permanently trapped inside a mismatched set of House of Fun mirrors. 

Readying herself for a verbal beatdown, Ivy shook her head, no interest in arguing with a group of strangers with a stick up their ass. She had no idea what she’s supposedly done to offend the Cartoon Network’s latest experiments, but she wasn’t about to get herself fired in the name of breaking a few noses. It had been a while since she’d been in a proper fight and, as much as she missed it, she wasn’t sure Raff would be allowed to keep her on if she was caught throwing their customers through tables. 

Ivy opened her mouth, ready to offer a polite retort, when her eyes seemed to betray her too, causing hallucinations right in that moment. Because surely – at that hour of the night, a fresh bruise blooming on Ivy’s face – Louis Denver could not be walking through that door? Distracted as she was, Ivy noticed much too late that Ripped Danny Devito was charging towards her, her eyes widening as he tackled her to the ground, her head knocking off the edge of the bar as she fell. 

“What the hell is going on?” Ivy murmured, her vision blurring, blood filling her mouth. 

[nextstopwonderland]

Yuta has been a key part of Bryan’s road to Wembley from the beginning. He was the catalyst for Bryan to enter the Owen Hart tournament, after Bryan saw how fired up his was to come back after being injured

Prior to Bryan’s first Owen match with Shingo at FD, Yuta gets targeted in an in-ring segment that very much mirrored last year’s pre-FD segment with Bryan, Yuta, and Okada.

Bryan cuts a promo afterward feeling angry and protective because he knows someone who just came back from injury was in harms way for him.

In the middle of all of this, Nigel is continuing to say on Collision that Wheeler should break away from the BCC and go out on his own. In the middle of all this, he drops the Pure belt but not before he does the Cattle Mutilation, Bryan’s signature submission hold, during the match with Lee.

Then on Rampage, Bryan accompanies Yuta for his match against the Butcher and then goes on comm where he talks about how they’ve been training so much together, and working on a lot of things. One of those is revealed to be Wheeler using the Cattle Mutilation again, and this time he’s able to get it for the win.

Bryan is ridiculously proud.

The next night on Collision a promo drops of Bryan and Wheeler training together to get Bryan ready for Swerve and Wembley, not unlike when Bryan was getting Mox ready for Windy City.

Again, throughout this Nigel is still instigating that Yuta should break away, despite the two of them seeming stronger than ever.

On Dynamite, Bryan has his Anything Goes match with Jarrett, and Yuta runs out after to check on him. Swerve comes out, decides maybe he needs his own ‘get ready’ match and chooses Yuta. And tells Bryan he has to watch as he dismantles him.

Yuta is more than ready, Bryan calms him down telling him to wait until next week.

The next day it’s announced Bryan will be on commentary for Rampage again

So now we have a situation where Yuta, coming off an injury, could potentially get hurt again for Bryan while Bryan watches on.

See rampage commentary:

Possibility the way they play this is Yuta gets “injured”, Bryan feels guilty but more than that he feels fucking pissed and now there’s real heat behind their match.

Also: Claudio will be in the building next week, perhaps Mox returns? maybe there’s hangman interference? I believe a lot could go down at the end of this match to drive things into a fever pitch.

ETA: how it went down with swerve - the dragon was unleashed:

[astromechs]

What's one line/small section of your work that you are incredibly proud of/the most proud of and why? <3

this was actually really tough, but since i did reread it last night, i'll give you the following excerpt from this fic (which is titled in my docs as "kestrel and keef lol", aka the au where cassian and jyn had a different first meeting, five years prior to rogue one):

It’s there, in that moment she can finally inhabit, that she notices a bruise on his face for the first time, just above the swell of his cheek. By the look of it, it isn’t fresh; it’s several days old at least, or a week, or maybe more. Whatever had done that wouldn’t have been worse than getting shot, no, but it had to have been painful. She thinks: he’s like her, isn’t he? Taking pain on top of pain, gritting teeth through it, shouldering it all alone, because in this fucking galaxy, that’s the only choice available to anyone who isn’t privileged, lucky, or selling away pieces of their soul. That’s just the way it fucking is. But maybe, for a moment — Almost as if it’s acting on its own, without her brain’s involvement, her hand reaches out, lightly ghosting fingers over the purpling skin of the bruise. The sharp breath he sucks in is audible, and for a second, he visibly tenses — but then his exhale is slow, and he relaxes, markedly more than she’s seen him do in the short time that she’s known him. (If she can, really, call this knowing.) Her touch, then, becomes more certain, with her whole palm flattening, gently, against his face and resting there, her thumb tracing the line of his jaw. That one simple motion locks them into a space, an orbit that neither are making a move to escape. Her heart is racing now, and her breath is caught, but she’s hardly paying attention to any of that; it’s as if the man in front of her is the center of her own personal universe, holding it all steadier than she’d ever thought possible. She doesn’t know who first definitively closes what’s left of the distance between them — or if it’s both of them, or if it’s neither, tethered along by gravity — but their lips meet in the middle, a soft collision.

and, like... i probably have passages that are better written than this on a technical level, but i remember when i was writing this, and it was this specific part that took the whole story to a place i wasn't really expecting? but i really liked the tentative but profound tenderness of this, how such a small thing meant so much to two isolated people who both hadn't had much in the way of meaningful connections in a while, and it's like... idk man. i really liked that story a lot.

[westeroswisdom]

Remember the coffee cup incident from Game of Thrones S08E04?

The stray cup on the head table at Winterfell was not a Starbucks cup but apparently from a vendor at the studio. Regardless, the cup instantly became associated with the giant coffee chain and accrued the company a massive amount of free publicity.

So it's been calculated how much that free publicity has been worth.

Starbucks gained an estimated $2.3 billion in free advertising over the last few days after a modern-day coffee cup was spotted during a "Game of Thrones" episode — and it turns out it wasn't even a Starbucks cup. On Sunday, eagle-eyed fans of HBO's fantasy epic noticed something out of place during a feast scene. Photos and videos of the moment went viral on social media within hours of the show airing. The label is muddled in shadow, but many fans speculated that it was the iconic green siren from Starbucks — and most of the jokes and discussion called out the Seattle coffee chain by name. Turns out, it was just a craft services cup. Stacy Jones, CEO of marketing company Hollywood Branded, put the estimated value of all the buzz at $2.3 billion. Jones cited PR subscriptions service Critical Mention, which has tallied 10,627 mentions of Starbucks and 'Game of Thrones' online and on TV and radio around the world. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime collision of opportunity for Starbucks," she said. "But really, this is just the tip of the iceberg, because what isn't being monitored or estimated is the word of mouth and social media on top of this."

Product placement for profit has been around for a while. This was a case of unintended product placement.

Traditionally, product placement would be more suited to a character or the show it was featured in. Had this been intentional, the cup would have been considered a standard product placement, a branded product that is in the scene but not part of the plot or storyline. Because of the high ratings and cultural relevance of "Game of Thrones," a product placement in this show could cost six figures, Mallin said. The May 5 episode drew 11.8 million viewers for its first airing, down about 2% from the prior week. However, because HBO is not ad-supported, advertisers typically do not pay for product placement. Instead, they supply the product — a coffee cup, a car, an item of clothing or a shooting location — to the show, offsetting the cost of production rather than paying a flat fee for their product to appear. Mallin said media or advertising companies would have a hard time ever reproducing this type of fervor organically. "This was lightning in a bottle," he said.

It has not been determined who exactly was responsible for the cup on the faux medieval table. But most of the finger-pointing has been good-natured. The gaffe did not cost HBO anything except a pittance to edit out the cup in subsequent showings.

[thomas-iat410]

Devlog #2: Oct 3rd, 2024

Over the past couple weeks with our shift from Godot to unity, I found myself retreading a lot of ground covered in the first week of development, however things are looking optimistic for the project’s milestones. After much discussion and scope narrowing, the game’s core mechanics are nearly completed, allowing for more fine tuned testing in the next week and subsequent playtests. Aden worked hard getting the first draft of sprites ready for us, and Mikael worked on implementing collisions and enemy AI programming, while I focused on the main character control and mechanics implementation during the last week. 

 Personally, I spent the bulk of my time running through Unity tutorials,and familiarising myself with Unity’s new input method. Controller support and keyboard support are functional now, and the character’s movement is snappy and responsive. Attacks are being implemented with a 3 hit light combo that can be interrupted by a heavy attack at any time, which will be the bulk of the work going on this week heading towards milestone 1’s completion. I will also be working with Aden to figure out mechanics of the first boss and find out how best to implement them to make a fun and engaging combat scenario. 

As well, I am going through more unity tutorials to learn best practices on structuring the project’s files from a backend perspective, allowing my other groupmates to access files and have a clean workflow going forward, preventing many future headaches in the future as the project grows in size and complexity. 

Overall, throughout these next few weeks, I will be pushing myself to finish all mechanics and get some rudimentary animation implemented for the main character’s sprite sheet that Aden was working on over the past week. The frenzy mechanic will probably pose the largest challenge when balancing prior to first playtests, and will probably require a lot of reiteration to find a good, balanced, and satisfying implementation of the effects and powers that come from the mode. Items will also be a tough thing to balance, as we will have to balance how powerful the blood bombs will be, as well as how rare we want the consumable items to be during normal gameplay, which I will be asking for feedback on during playtesting as well as prior to playtesting within the team.

In the attached video, it shows the tweaked inputs that I worked on over the last week to get character sprite animations, rotation, damped movement, and the dash ability.

[from-dre]

Many Million Dreams Ago • Ch. 4 of 10

The weather outside had changed like clockwork—, summer to fall to winter and then? It seemed like it got stuck somehow. The cold had completely frozen the bedroom window shut, it had stalled my car’s engine to where it wouldn’t turn over anymore—, it quickly become one of the eeriest seasons of my life. The only place where I’d found any warmth whatsoever was in my girlfriend's arms. There was only one problem; we didn’t know how to get any closer. Physically, we’d gone as far as we could go. Emotionally, we were completely tied up in the other. Only our mental state had any free space left to give away.

I’d moved to a different city—, we were now farther away from one another. Less time to be together, less time to share and experience new things, less time, less time. We’d become desperate for reasons to stay inside. I didn’t want to leave anymore. Home wasn’t fifty-some miles away, it was wherever she was. We’d become desperate for reasons to keep grasp of the other. She didn’t want to leave anymore. No friends, no work, nothing that seemed like it was from the outside world. We’d become really, really desperate. Desperation turned to anger, anger turned to hatred, hatred personified itself in the form of something too sharp for words. Something too vengeful, too heavy for mere emotions to make sense of. We held onto the handles of ominous instruments and used them to sculpt a darker reality than the one we’d been running from.

“Baby!—,” she’d exclaim upon waking up. What happened here last night? Unsettling thoughts ran through our minds. All we could do is guess at the unfortunate scenarios which may have played out. Furniture moved around. Couch cushions turned upside down. Thermostat all the way up. We’d blacked out and remembered nothing. Only the stains remained—, measuring our madness like height-marks on a wall. We traded in long-term happiness for some temporary relief at the hands of tiny, pointed teeth. Regretful us. How short-sighted can young love really be? We were on a collision course in trying to find out. Two lost ships with no lighthouse in sight. Dense fog. Broken compasses. We never stood a chance at making it out intact. Every inch ripped apart—, another scar on our hearts. Pound for pound, we weighed and made sure to repay in kind. We became unrecognizable; cutlery rivals. That which we loved, we came to resemble.

“What’s happening with you two?,” friends would eventually ask. They’d noticed we’d become more withdrawn, less excited about the things which had made us so happy before. There was always a catastrophe to complain about. It was our new routine and we’d found some type of comfort in it. A quiet humming sound constantly played in the backs of our heads, like we knew something was wrong, but something we couldn’t shut off either. It pulled us out of everyday moments and affected our presence in regular situations. This went on—, day after day, week after week, month after month. Things played out tragically; broken promises, broken spirits, everything around us was breaking apart. Slowly, the seasons began changing again, but not our negative energies—, we’d gotten too used to them. Now, they became ingrained in our thinking, in our voices, and in our love itself.

Summer came around once more so we headed back to a land of lovely memories we’d made just a year prior. Back to Florida, back to the Gulf Coast, and back to a type of temporary lifestyle that’d suited us so well beforehand—, but strangely, felt disconnected from this time around.

“What’s different?,” I asked myself aloud.

“Everything—,” I heard her voice whisper back throughout the once-sunny horizons of my mind. There were no more exciting drives throughout the city, no more people-watching, and no more dreaming about future lives lived out together. I wanted what we’d had before so badly—, I wanted our old memories and moments which had made the previous summer the best one of my life. Now, it all seemed to be a distant dream to which I’d never be able to return. The car rides were quieter, the waves crashing onto the coast were calmer, everything was empty of any excitement or joy. At night we’d lay awake in bed, look up at the ceiling, and wonder if we’d made a good decision to come back here.

The morning coffee started tasting different—, even in a beautiful city like the one we were visiting, the depths of our regret from home followed us. We’d sit and sip and stare at the floor, very rarely bringing our eyes back up. We felt so many emotions at once and directed them straight toward one another. Somewhere deep within our dark roasts—, we could barely make out the shapeless waves of an uncertain future together and it made each passing day feel more hopeless and gloomier than the one before.

We were nearing the end of our trip and an hour before we’d be heading back to the airport, she tried one final time at making a lasting memory.

“Do you want to collect some sand from the beach with me?,” she sweetly asked from the armchair. I just slowly shook my head and looked back down at the floor in disappointment. So much for trying to rekindle a nearly-forgotten feeling. I’d go on to regret the decision for a long time afterwards.

Back home for another autumn. This one brought about a newly discovered rush with it. I’d made all the wrong types of friends in my new neighborhood and they had the party essentials one in my situation of desperation needed to take in order to fully enjoy life again. I bought a bag’s worth and waited until I saw my girlfriend again to dive in. I chopped up the piece and laid out a long line across a plastic case, gently handing it to her along with a rolled-up twenty-dollar bill. She readied herself, bent down towards her lap, and drew in every last flake with complete poise and perfection. I would’ve married her right there on the spot. She was everything a person looks for in their toxic-twin; courage, composure, and the sexiest bloodshot eyes. We were re-sparking a fire that’d almost completely gone out. We were discovering something new together again—, like we had with drinking, smoking, and the rest of our rituals. This time though, the stakes were raised.

We divvied up white lines on each other’s stomachs and took turns inhaling the freshly fallen snow off our bodies. The room whirled around us—, we were alone in a sea of subjective spinning brought on by outside substances. Nothing to keep us tied down to this world—, we flew high above it all. High—, and above it all. Beyond clouds, beyond time and space. We’d found another realm where we watched ourselves slow-dance to a far-off symphony while going through all the phases of life. Together and separated only by our imaginations. Eventually, they too would combine into a singular vision; objective rapture. Never wake up. We almost never did. Earth came calling and we had to answer back, opening our eyes once more. The room stood still. Only our elevated heartbeats kept rhythm with what we’d just witnessed. It was useless to try and ask her if she’d seen the same things I had. I knew, somewhere deep inside herself—, she’d dreamed of them before ever meeting me in the first place. They were just amplified now; feelings, fantasies, an on- going reverie that wouldn’t let up. How could we go back to normal after something like that? We couldn’t. So we didn’t.

Though the fun lasted a short while—, it wasn’t enough to truly keep us going for long. We swam with the current as far as possible before our arms started to give out. Driving back home to her apartment one day, we had the radio unusually turned off. There’d been something on my mind for a while and I couldn’t keep the question to myself for a minute longer.

“Do you feel like we’re drifting apart?,” I sincerely asked. She instantly answered back.

“I really do.” That was all she had to say. Even with new toxins and exciting experiences, we couldn’t escape the let down of our second summer. We tried our hardest to remain hopeful about the future, but things seemed to pull us in separate directions now more than ever.

We hadn’t seen each other for quite a while. She started school again, I picked up another job, things naturally cooled down after our last car ride together. I was finishing up my shift at work one night when my mom walked in to surprise me.

“Hurry up and clock out, I’ve got something to show you,” she excitedly said. We walked into a glitzy restaurant right across the street and headed downstairs. I reached the bottom floor and stood for a second, unable to react as there sat my girlfriend in a glittering red dress. She slowly turned to face us and gave me her signature look.

“Hey—.” That was all she had to say. I’d fallen for her again in a matter of moments.

“I’ve missed you,” I admitted to her later on at home.

“Me too,” she replied. We moved from the bed to the floor and back again. It was as I’d remembered—, an unequalled emotion. Something absolute and complete. We were making up with each other, making up for lost time, and making more memories than either of us had in the previous few months. We left the white linen sheets and still had the energy to smoke a couple of cloves on the roof outside my bedroom window while quietly wondering where everything was leading to this time around.

Winter rolled around once more. It seemed colder than the last one—, which was near- impossible. I’d been over her place for a few hours when we started downing shots—, one after another in quick succession. The room spun, the kissing started—, everything was going according to our usual plan. Finally, she fell asleep and I didn’t wait long to do the same myself. The next morning, I could already feel the consequences of what’d happened even before I had the chance to open my eyes. We woke up in a haze—, not knowing the exact sequence of events or what order they’d fallen into, but we felt the weight of regret hanging heavily in the atmosphere. Something vile about the way reality came crashing back down on the both of us kept her and I quiet for a long while. She eventually broke the intense silence.

“Look at yourself,” she got out, raising her gaze up from the floor. She stared at me with the saddest eyes I’d ever seen as I noticed the smears I still wore.

“They’re just arms,” I naively said. She quickly covered her face with both hands.

“Those used to be my arms!,” she cried out from the bed. I had nothing to say—, no words could properly describe the amount of desperation I felt. I turned to walk away, leaving the room with an air of awful energy attached to it. I slowly made my way down the stairs and out through the front door, got into my car and forever drove away. So it went that it’d be one of the last times we’d ever see each other.

I needed to vent—, to lash out at something, anything. I had so much pent up within me that I didn’t know who to turn to. Everything was my fault—, I’d felt the emotion radiating from her spirit without her having to say a word. Without having ever fallen in love with me, maybe she’d be so much farther along—, with dreams, with relationships, with life itself. It seemed that I’d kept her in place for much of the last few months. The same arguments constantly led back to the same conclusions; maybe it just wasn’t meant to be after all.

We didn’t speak for a long time afterwards. We just watched the clocks change seconds and minutes and hours but nothing else around us ever improved. We were without the other and while it gave us some breathing room, it also forced us to remember how everything felt before falling into our first kiss together. It all seemed like it’d happened so long ago—, in a different lifetime altogether. Finally, she called up one night to see how I was holding up and of course, it didn’t take long for the attacks to begin.

“Are you using needles yet?,” she said in a soft tone. I cringed at the thought of her actually asking me such a question.

“No,” I answered back, a little annoyed. How was it possible that we’d drifted so far apart? Wasn’t this the same girl who’d always kept me in line, calculating my grades everyday for an entire semester of English class to help me pass? Now—, she was asking if I’d been injecting myself with drugs. Of course the flow of firewater never let up and the pills seemed to be in full supply ever since I’d moved, but her imagination was definitely getting out of hand.

“I don’t think we should speak to each other for a while,” was her suggestion. I appealed with pure emotion.

“So we can’t even be friends?”

“I don’t want to have a friend like you,” she said, tearing my heart in two. That was that. We hung up and the world seemed a little bit colder than it was before our conversation had started. I pulled myself up off the floor where I’d always sit to talk on the phone and went upstairs to my room—, confused and more alone than ever.

I decided that if people were beginning to see me as a person on a permanent downward-spiral, then that’s exactly what I’d become. Party after backseat after movie after bedroom—, I started making my way through all of them with a sense of invincibility. I’d figured that I’d already gone through enough to where only I could get in my own way—, that nothing could slow me down or could take away from the momentum I’d built up over the last couple of years. Everyone around saw the walking catastrophe I’d turned into while I was becoming increasingly unaware of the dangers starting to surround me.

The night finally arrived when I took one too many pills and was rushed off to have my stomach pumped clean. I woke up with leather straps wrapped around my wrists. My arms were tied to the metal handlebars of a hospital bed on both sides. In the corner sat a woman of about forty with a nice, warm smile on her face.

“Hello,” she said. “Do you know where you are?”

“Yes—,” I answered back. I knew what’d happened. To escape the heavy sadness of the entire situation, I began replaying old memories of happier times. Just when it seemed like I’d made the worst mistake of my life, I noticed there was a phone sitting beside me on the nightstand to my left. I thought about it for a while before finally being allowed to pick it up and dial her number. It rang—, and rang and rang. Just before I was readying to hang up, she answered.

“Hello?,” her familiar voice said with a tinge of worry to it.

“Hey—,” I began, trying to follow it up with something useful to say, but I came up empty. She didn’t wait long to get down to it.

“Why are you calling me from St. Joe’s?,” she promptly asked.

“I—, umm..., almost O.D.ed,” and just before I had the chance to say another word, I heard the coldest click of a telephone hanging up ever. That would be it. Nothing else followed but more tears and praying sessions for me with sidewalk preachers and sobriety milestones that I’d mess up later on anyway. There was nothing else to do or say. We split ways for good after that.

What’s it feel like when pure romance dissipates? It’s being left completely alone in a foreign country with no translator. Nothing around makes any sense and nobody can help out. Every message, meaning, and concept had been made clear through their presence. Now? Static. How can we eat—, or drink—, or even sleep? The soul’s been ripped apart and our own reflection is no longer familiar. Lover was gone—, but so was Best Friend. Nobody was left to confide in. Nobody was left to even speak to about anything that mattered at all. So onward I went—, into the pitch black darkness of an everlasting night with nothing to illuminate my path or guide me back to the dawn. I wasn’t just pursued by the shadows any longer—, I became one myself.

Things started to make less and less sense. I didn’t feel like I fit into the mainstream lifestyles any longer and couldn’t pinpoint what I’d been made for in the first place. People all around me had goals, went in pursuit of them, and reached new levels of their destinies. Me? I just lulled around in self- pity. All that kept coming back were memories of better days. Please let me turn back time, I’d beg The Universe. No luck. What used to be someone so secure and confident was reduced to a mere hallowed-out shell of their former selves. I had to exit the existential framework. Life seemed so forced and anyone who didn’t follow its strict guidelines was faulted to the maximum degree. Selfish arrogance took over. I didn’t think about anyone else—, least of which, the people that truly loved me—, least of which, my mother. She could tell I’d become withdrawn and uninterested in everything that I’d liked so much before. Who was I to take such a special gift as life in my own two hands and try to rip it into shreds just for the sake of self-interest and sorrow? No one. I was no one—, I just didn’t know it yet.

Finally, the day came when everything around me silenced itself into a dull quiet. Like I’d finally reached the end of a long-winding tunnel. What’s left?, I thought. Nothing. I found myself in the backseat of a car with the outside world blurring by. Faster and faster it went—, down the busy street and straight towards the nearest E.R. Once there—, I woke up—, mentally and emotionally. The doctors’ hearts broke for my mother’s own. I couldn’t open my eyes from the sheer heaviness of it all and didn’t know how to process the situation so just fell into a very deep, very detached sort of sleep.