introspectivememories · 2 years ago
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hc that damian absolutely loves sitting in his mom's lap and talia when she was absolutely sure that nobody from the league was watching them would let damian sit in her lap and tickle his belly and he'd giggle and press his face into her stomach and then they'd fall asleep on the bed together and maybe if damian could work up the courage to ask his mom will ask, "amma do you love me?" and talia would go very still before pressing a kiss to his hair and respond "with everything that i am" and maybe if damian's feeling extra brave he'll wait until talia's almost asleep before asking "do you think baba loves me too?" and talia would reach down to pinch his chubby chubby cheeks and say "he already does. from your ten little toes to your chubby cheeks." and they'd curl up closer to each other and everything will go to hell soon and the cuddle sessions might get rarer and rarer and one day dami will move to gotham but that is then and this is now and right now dami has his amma's strong heartbeat in his ears and her arms around him and a head full of dreams about his baba and everything is okay even if it's just for a little while
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lifewithdavefarts · 3 years ago
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DaveFarts - Episode 6 “Fart Bet, Easy Bucks” [Episode List] When, rather immaturely, Tim’s friends are doing some random, silly bets, things soon turn stinkier and gassier as Dave joins the game…
Fart Bet, Easy Bucks
The immature, roaring laughter of me and my friends echoed in the living-room as another pal of mine, Jim, took one last bite of an onion, his cheeks turning red, teary eyes, almost puking in front us. We clapped our hands like the drunk monkeys we were, ignoring our friend’s gagging sounds, and we all took another shot of vodka in his honor.
“Well done, Jim!” Adam laughed, as tipsy as the rest of us.
That’s what we were doing in Adam’s parent-free house: really mature bets. At late night, it was almost 3:00 a.m. Our onion-eating friend just lost one of those silly bets we were challenging each other to do. Pretty stupid tasks, like standing on one foot for 3 minutes or reading stuff upside down. Quite mundane, easy, but try doing it after two bottles of vodka-lemon. Each.  The loser had to take a couple of bites of an onion, because as I said, we’re very mature. And clever.
The entire room stunk like that stinky vegetable and alcohol, didn’t help that some of us were also burping loudly and proudly, but we were too tipsy to even notice or even be bothered by that (plus, it’s not like I’m not used to… bad-smelling stuff…). When not betting each other to do shit, we were all sitting on two different couches: Adam, Jim and a couple of other guys were all sitting and burping on a longer couch, while I was on a smaller one with Dave, sitting next to me.
As more laughs roared in the room for no reason, in the chaos, Dave elbowed me and chuckled a bit, bringing to my attention the weird vibrations on the couch: he was ripping one of his big farts, the sound completely muffled by the pillows, his loose dark grey jeans probably making it sound even louder and manlier. I only smiled a bit a took another shot of vodka; my gassy friend did the same, finding my awkward reaction hilarious as usual.
“Tim, it’s your turn!”
I almost chocked on my own drink when I heard my name: Dave’s flatulence usually makes me very absent-minded. I finally realized that Adam was standing in the middle of the room, each one of us, one by one, whistling a song to him: if he guessed wrong, then it’s onion-hell for him. It was my turn to whistle a song then. I think about it for a moment, and then I start to whistle this famous hit from a couple of years earlier, but I was pretty drunk, so I didn’t really realize how weird the sounds coming out of my lips were, but my friends laughing should have been a wake-up call.
Eventually, Adam ran out of time, because he couldn’t guess the song I was “singing” to him. He was mad, almost furious, but it was the alcohol talking.
“Tim, you’re an idiot!” he was understandably angry, because it was my fault. “That wasn’t even a real song, you asshole!”
Didn’t help that we were all laughing at him, but my friend didn’t accept defeat, and he actually had all the rights to.
“I’m not going to eat those fucking onions!” Adam shouted. “Tim made me lose: he should be the one choking on that shit!”
I wasn’t offended, to be honest. I was actually laughing like the rest of the guys.
“Dude… we’re out of onions!” Jim said, noticing the empty plate.
We all laughed even more after that and I may have given to my angry friend a smug-ish look. I was just kidding, but he took it very seriously.
“Oh you’re going down, Tim. Just you wait…”
He eventually convinced our other pals that I was, indeed, deserving a “punishment”.
“Make him lick your dog’s balls!” someone suggested. “Leave my princess out of this!” Adam replied, offended.
It’s like the entire group stopped being drunk just to decide what disgusting task I should have done. I just laughed the whole time: it’s part of the game, they were not mean-spirited. Even Dave suggested some stuff, like drinking expired milk with my nostrils. Each suggestion was met with a mixture of laughter and disgust.
After a couple of minutes of discussion, I felt Dave once again elbowing me.
“Gentlemen, please!” he shouted, in a slightly sarcastic tone. “Since you’re wasting my time, I propose an entire new bet. Whether the result, Tim will still get his… punishment, trust me!”
He was trying not to laugh, but he did earn some puzzled looks from our other pals.
“If Tim survives to  this  for 5 minutes straight…” he leaned a bit, the couch shaking again under the pressure of his enormous, muffled fart, which lasted 4 seconds. Our other friends laughed immaturely and I started to sweat. “…then you guys are going to give us 20$. Each.”
Dave was insane. Was he really going to do what I think… no, that’s just crazy. It can’t be, come on! There was people watching us! Our friends were a both amused and disgusted.   But also intrigued.
“But if he gives up, then Tim owes Adam… let’s see… 200$” “What?!” I thought, the money-part being the only thing I disagreed with. The thought of Dave face-farting me was amazingly distracting as usual.
As our friends discussed Dave’s proposal, my gassy friend just patted my shoulder. “Come on Tim, that’s some easy bucks, right?” he whispered, chuckling a bit. My fetish was just a weird, fun game to him, and I couldn’t have been happier. But in front of our pals? That was too strange even for my standards.
When I turned to my gassy bro, however, he was already leaning on his back, his legs cocked up, his loose dark grey jeans forming that well-known “barrage” made of denim, a really familiar sight for me. I heard my friends laugh, Adam getting closer to me, his hands on my shoulders.
“Come on Tim… I want to see your face turn green!”
He was trying to sound threatening, but he couldn’t help but laugh; I know Adam: he’s just a friendly dork trying to act tough and I knew that he was actually finding the entire situation immaturely hilarious. But he had to look mad, it’s part of his… character.
I heard Dave sucking some air in his ass, his jeans now sagging, exposing a bit of his red underwear (interesting color, that’s for sure). The weird sounds coming from my friend’s butt were the only thing I could hear, despite my friends laughing. Every time Dave farted was like a dream coming true, but this time we were not alone. I stopped thinking about how risky the situation was for a moment, knowing that my friends would never suspect what was really going on between me and Dave, and just listened to the chorus of “Sniff it!”.
I gently buried my face in that soft, denim pillow, his legs slowly wrapping around my head, as if he was hugging me, trapping me in his gas-chamber. With my nose touching his underwear-covered anus, I could still feel the air being sucked in. A moment of silence, and then I felt his butt-muscles relax, and a first fart began.
It was so loud it’s hard to describe. Despite being on command, it was incredibly gross and wet-ish. The smell was rancid and unbearable, the mixture of alcohol and onions in Dave’s stomach probably produced something that no human would have been able to handle. The fart was so strong… loud, manly: my entire face was shaking, I swear I’ll never get used to his gassy talent. I could barely hear my friends laughing: my ears were devoted to Dave’s immense display of flatulence.
I coughed a bit, pretending to hate the smell, when the truth was obviously really different. This first fart alone lasted almost 20 seconds, one of the longest I’ve ever experienced from him. Our friends clapped their hands in approval, having yet another shot of vodka, a toast to the incredible display of fart-talent they just witnessed, and just kept laughing immaturely.
As they laughed, I saw Dave’s face just above that “barrage” of sagging jeans: as usual, he was laughing, and smiled at me, and then winked: his “plan” was working great. I felt his hand brushing through my hair and gently pushing me even deeper into the denim depths of his ass, this time with my nose almost perfectly aligned with his underwear-clad anus.
Dave’s grip, as usual, felt more like a caress, and the fart that immediately followed was just as big as the first one. And hilarious as well. “This is a natural one!” I heard him say, basically bragging about his gassy-abilities, as the fart kept going strong, our friends laughing again. “Pull him closer!” Jim shouted, then (probably him) pushed me even more “inside” of Dave’s butt (I couldn’t tell if it was Jim, as my face –and eyes- was completely buried in my friend’s fart-shooter). Dave made his butt comically wiggle a bit, forcing some toots out: my nostrils were almost burning, the stench being a mixture of rotten onions and burning vodka-lemon.
“That’s so gay!” Adam laughed. Ironically, he was right, about me at least.
“3 minutes already!” I heard somebody scream. I almost lost track of time: as I said, those farts make me absent-minded. Dave just kept ripping this series of loud rips one after one, without even sucking in. I couldn’t tell anymore whether he was farting on command or not anyway: he was just so good at it that the farts always felt natural (and, 99% of times, they were). “Aww man.” Dave chuckled, lying down slowly. He was tired, exhausted. “Can I turn around?!” he asked. They all simply laughed in response, though I also heard some gagging sounds.
My best friend turned around slowly, adjusting his position, his legs somehow keeping my face planted in his ass, as if he was “wrestling” me down, albeit very slowly and gently. He was now lying on his stomach, his loose-jeans butt looking like a beautiful pillow made of denim, his red underwear slightly popping out.
“Do your longest one, Dave!” Adam suggested. I was both mad and grateful for that.
He then came closer and made sure that my face was buried in the farter’s butt, pushing me even deeper in it. Dave just laughed, while I was trying not to get as red as tomato. I just couldn’t believe how open-minded Dave was about this, going as far as face-farting me in front of everyone else; granted, the bet was a smart excuse, but still, I was speechless. I didn’t even feel embarrassed: it was like a big prank, and friends alway prank each other, but the friendship remains intact, if not even stronger.
“Alright, I feel a good one… ready?” my gassy friend said, but it’s like he was talking to me only, as if we were alone as usual, during one of our fart sessions.
It’s like his butt “hugged” my face even more, right before the explosion that engulfed my entire, defenseless head in a cloud of stench. The fart shook my entire face and part of the couch like an earthquake. The chainsaw-like sounds were as loud as a thunder; the whole flatulence sounded fake, but it wasn’t, at all. 10 seconds, but the fart kept going strong, almost unnaturally.
I caught a glimpse of Dave’s smile as he slightly turned his head around, making sure I was enjoying it, but the rest of our friends didn’t notice that apparently, as they were too busy laughing and clapping their hands. “No way!” Adam shouted, in a mixture of anger and hilarity: as the fart was still being ripped, Dave slightly lowered his jeans a bit, fully exposing the red underwear, the sound getting even louder. I felt his hand again pushing me between his buttcheeks, as he spread his legs a bit more. I was having a close-encounter with his anus, the underwear acting as one final line of defense separating me from the real source of that gas. The smell was unbearable: onions smelt nice in comparison. And it was great.
As a “big finale”, as Dave announced it, the flatulence turned as loud as it was humanly possible, the ear-piercing sound almost destroying my own eardrums. My nostrils were burning, my nose getting wet-ish due to Dave’s sweaty buttcheeks. It was the most intense face-farting that my best friend ever made me experience… and he was straight: imagine if he was gay!
“No fucking way!” Adam roared. “5 minutes!”
Everyone else cheered and laughed, playfully throwing pillows at our angry friend. I slowly sat back, Dave doing the same, tying his jeans belt again. He patted on my shoulder, laughing, while I was doing my best to tame my huge boner, hidden by my own jeans.
“No way! You guys did this before, come on!”
Adam asked, ironically (if only he knew…), now laughing too, as he took a 20$ bill out of his wallet. The rest of the guys reluctantly did the same, throwing money at us, disgusted and amused at the same time.
The entire living-room now smelt like onions and rotten alcohol (if rotten-alcohol existed… does it exist?), everyone moaning in disgust, while me and Dave counted the money we just earned… by cheating.
“Easiest bucks we ever made!” he whispered, handing 50% of the cash to me, elbowing me like he did other times. “Great job!” he chuckled.
We all had another shot of vodka-lemon, and the night proceeded as usual, as Jim found another stash of onions hidden in the fridge. As the really clever betting continued, my gaze landed more than once on Dave… just Dave, sitting next to me, as if nothing happened. He’s like a brother, my best friend. He did that for me, he felt he was really gassy because of all the alcohol… and so farted in my face as an excuse, money or not.
Yes, I bet Dave did all of that for me, not just the money. And that’s another bet I’m sure I’ll win.
End of Episode 6
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oldfritz · 4 years ago
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this was surprisingly hard because half of them I wanted to throw in f, but then felt guilty about it so here’s where we are. explanations under the cut to be nice (fair warning: I’m writing this while tipsy so this is a journey)
S-tier
Old Fritz: look me in the eyes. look at me. are you looking? good. where else was I was going to put him? where? in C with the other losers? foolish. I am ruining my life for this man, I’m going to go into debt so I can be moderately qualified to write books on him so Tim Blanning and Christopher Clark don’t boo my off the stage. I sit here sometimes and I’m like ‘y’know, I would start a podcast to talk about his life’ as if I’m some straight white guy who thinks any of you want to listen to me for an hour. he’s a bastard, a smug bastard, and is the epitome of self-destructive tendencies. and, honestly, I wouldn’t mind if he wasn’t so fucking misogynistic all the time. ‘oh women aren’t fit to rule’ shut up Fritz before I time travel to fuck your wife and make her have one night where life feels worthwhile. but he’s funny, I enjoy how he does foreign policy, and he’s unfortunately relatable to me. cheers, Fritz. here’s to never being satisfied from one gay disaster with anger issues to another. may we burn in hell together
A-tier
Friedrich iii: “Suzanne, he was only on the throne for 99 days!! how can he be this high up when some of these bastards refused to die?” I hear you, my friends, and I have answers. I’ll tell you two words you’ll be shocked to hear put together: liberal Hohenzollern. a rare breed, isn’t it? imagine, friends, a world where he got over his throat cancer because he listened to a doctor and we get through the 1910s, 20s, even the 30s without Wilhelm II Electric Boogaloo being in power. Prussia is still on the map, the Anglo-Prussian alliance is strong, and I live in peace. but no. this stupid man had to keep smoking. because he’s selfish and doesn’t care about my needs. you know, he actually loved his wife. rare in this family. loved her and wasn’t abusive. the bar is so low, guys. and his wife is amazing too, Victoria. the world would’ve been in competent hands if they’d been in power longer (and Bismarck would’ve been out of a job still but at least these guys are smart. their son inherited grandma Vicki’s IQ). I would sleep with both of them and would thank them for the honor (when it should always be the other way around, remember that)
B-tier
Friedrich I: if your name is Friedrich and only Friedrich, we’re buds. that’s my rule. I have to give him credit where credit’s due. he was the first. while I agree with Fritz in his proscription that he was ‘small in big ways and big in small ways’ (I may have flipped that around), he wasn’t a bad guy. he just was born into the wrong job for him. I appreciate that he rode on his father’s coattails of proving useful to the Habsburgs and did a little himself to get that sweet, sweet kingship. smart move. I also like that he saw Louis XIV and said to himself “I stan, I kin, on God we’re gonna do that’ and tried. only for have his stupid, ungrateful, unclassy son to do away with that. I, too, am a woman of luxury and self-indulgance and if I had all the riches of Brandenburg and Prussia at the time (not much), I would spend them ridiculously on outfits and music and art. now, what did he do as king? what policy legacy did he leave behind? that’s a good one :)
C-tier
Friedrich Wilhelm III: now as a king he sucks. and I stand by this because, you know, he lost to him *imagine me pretending to be short and saying ‘oui, oui’ in a bad french accent*. and as any proper Englishwoman I can’t support a monarch who goes around losing to the French unless their name is Mary I. but, he’s a pathetic little man. he really is. so indecisive, so unsure of himself. what are you doing little guy? you think because your last name is Hohenzollern, God thinks you’re a good king? well it is like 1805 and, while divine right isn’t really being used as much, it’s as good as any reason on why you’re the chosen one and my family is eating dirt in Sicily and on the Scottish border. he’s really just a dude, nothing extraordinary about him except that his wife was the only one with brains and was the first to establish that (sorry Wilhelm I). he cried when he found out that his children didn’t call him ‘papa’ and went into a deep depressive state when his wife suddenly died. he’s an average man, of average abilities, but of big heart. and the big heart is what bumps him up, for me, from his old place as an F to a C. though, his moralizing is tedious
Friedrich Wilhelm II: this man should have partied with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. everyone’s got that one ruler whose all about sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll. for the US it’s JFK, for the UK it’s Margaret Thatcher Charles II, France has Louis XIV. Prussia has this guy and we should thank him. so many mistresses, so much sex, so much revelry and debauchery and sin! this guy’s personal life is like a treasure trove of political and sexual intrigue. if you’re into that - as I am as a town gossip - you’ll love him. I am constantly amazed by the fact that some STD didn’t kill him. syphilis, herpes, crabs. something, man, anything. but he didn’t. he’s a shit king though. absolutely horrible. all he did was whine that he didn’t get taught anything by Uncle Fritz and, yes, that’s not good if it’s true (but it’s not completely because the treatises are detailed but I guess he didn’t have time to read) but c’mon. actually apply yourself and learn on the job. I know that would’ve required him to not be balls deep somewhere, but unfortunately he’s not Dorian Gray. there’s work that needed to be done and he didn’t do it. boo!!
D-tier
Wilhelm I: apparently he was a good guy, unlike the other 3 who populate the lowest rungs of Prussian kinghood. so I give him that and I can respect that. but what did he do? what were his own ideas? I thought about putting Bismarck as king instead because, really, he was. Bismarck was a minister who ran around the king’s back to set things up exactly as he liked and it fucking worked because he was the brains. his wife was intelligent too, but theirs wasn’t a wamr and loving marriage. and Bismarck worked to get Wilhelm to distrust her because she was liberal and the fact that Wilhelm would listen to Otto even if it meant allowing himself to be drowned in the Rhine is pathetic. fun party at Versailles though. hope it was worth the war reparations
F-tier (bastard time) I’m going in a different order because I want to go from the ones I hate least to most xoxo
Friedrich Wilhelm IV: “I won’t accept a crown from the gutter” then you won’t accept a crown at all, stupid idiot! god, the smugness. the authoritarian impulses. I know it was the cool thing in 1848 to put down any revolts/protests with as much force as possible, but man, at least the Habsburgs were transparent. homie was like “yeah guys lol I’ll make a constitution and it’ll be epic! you’ll have so many rights! xoxo gossip girl” and then...nope. and AND he wanted the Habsburgs in charge of things too! Mr. ‘I’m Nostalgic For When HRE Was Great And We Blew Austrian Dick!’ grow up man. it’s Prussia time buddy, Austria is beginning to fall apart. don’t look to the past, look to the future, but you didn’t have that vision did you?
Wilhelm II: *banging pots and pans* I blame this man for everything! now, intellectually, does Germany take all the blame for WWI? no, that’s foolish and propaganda of the Allies only. if you’re a European power in 1914, you get to share the blame (ex: why did UK need to make this a naval arms race? Austria should’ve declared war on Serbia sooner if that’s what it wished to do. Russia, please stay out of the Balkans then and forever). but does my irrational hatred of Wilhelm blind me to this truth when I see his stupid face and that ugly fucking mustache that I wish to yank off? my god, yes. I see him and Rule Britannia and The Yanks Are Coming start playing so loud in my head and I’m like ‘yeah, the kaiser’s gonna pay.’ I’m sorry that Bismarck’s ego was bigger than yours but did you have to prove him right by getting incompetent buffoons who were playing checkers when he set the board up for chess to replace him? Did you have to prove Freud right by displacing private problems onto public life with your little tit-for-tat with George IV (VI?) because his mummy loved you more? Why did you need to fuck every naval vessel you saw like an inferior of Peter the Great who believed he was Sir Francis Drake? but that’s just the first war and he lived to see things setting up for the second. wasn’t in convenient for you to be close with the N@zis when you thought they might want a king back on the throne and you could reclaim your little tyrant. like every goddamn Prussian conservative or Junker, you thought you could play the tyrannical cockroach. sure, you figured out earlier that he was no pal, but you still collaborated and you still allowed yourself to get played like the weak man of conscience you are. cheers!
Friedrich Wilhelm I: ladies and gentleman, the moment you’ve all been waiting for! the biggest bastard straight outta Berlin, FW1! and who doesn’t love an abusive father? who doesn’t love a man, so insecure and pathetic, that he needs to terrorize children to be able to look at himself and have a little pride. I understand that it was because he wanted his kids, specifically Fritz, to be best. but being best and perfect meant being miniature versions of him and aren’t we supposed to want our children to be better than a carbon-copy of a small man? honestly, I could live with the occasional smack for this time period. it’s within the norm and, while horrible, isn’t irreparably damaging. this guy really had to beat the shit out of Fritz and Wilhelmina and I’m sure Augustus and Henry and Amalia and all the others (so many kids) didn’t get spared either because if you hit one, you’ll hit ‘em all. and I judge them for their flaws all the same but, for some of them, it gets hard to. because what fighting chance did they have when their father was telling them how worthless they were and beating them senseless and threatening death and life imprisonment on some? I’m constantly impressed by Henry and Fritz and Wilhelmina for amounting to any semblance of maturity, even though it’s always fleeting, because this man didn’t give them the tools to be functioning adults. but each of them managed to be greater than their father, as did Amalia managing a really cool coup in Sweden. and what did FW1 get? he built up his army, had a tall guy fetish, increased the treasury, and made the cabinet and executive offices more efficient. there used to be this one guy on here that would argue that that was all a good king made and that this lowlife didn’t deserve the contempt he got by some on here (an obvious vague of me) for his behavior as a father. and maybe I’m a crackpot, but I believe the quality of a man outshines all those other achievements and that that’s meaningless to me, in my personal life. and when I get to hell, before I go to any of these other men, I’ll go to him and ask him how hell’s fires feel because, if his God was real, it would never love him. and that’s beautiful
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yellowocaballero · 5 years ago
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written in 2 hours for $5
my friend: so, in your story, you say that Jon went to see a doctor who DIDN’T diagnose him with anything, despite him thinking all of his employees were trying to kill him...I will give you $5 to write this conversation
me: what’s your venmo.
under a readmore as to not traumatize Bukowski with sloppy depictions of therapy.
                Okay, that ordeal was over with. Jon hated health services. He never went to the doctor if he could help it. It was easy to avoid it, since Elias gave as little healthcare as physically possible, and Jon was of the personal opinion that he never got sick, anyway. Sickness was a state of mind, and Jon’s mind was not in that state. What was a cold but your body temporarily acting funny before going back to normal? Absolutely nothing, no matter what Martin wrung his hands and insisted about. If Jon got the flu, he threw up in the toilet and then went back to work. RIP to the influenza virus but he was different.
                Jon sat anxiously in the waiting room of the counseling clinic, struggling to recall if his mother was depressed or not.
                Like, Jon would personally be very depressed, if he had given birth to Jon. He hesitantly wrote it in, then scratched it out, then scowled at the very nuclear family centric medical history section of the patient chart, then went through the usual rigamarole of feeling self-pity over being an orphan. Finally, he settled on just writing in a big question mark in the mother and father sections. He wrote into the side that his Grandfather and two of his Uncles had schizophrenia, which had to be useful in some sort of way.
                Okay, that ordeal was over with. Jon hated health services. He never went to the doctor if he could help it. It was easy to avoid it, since Elias gave as little healthcare as physically possible, and Jon was of the personal opinion that he never got sick, anyway. Sickness was a state of mind, and Jon’s mind was not in that state. What was a cold but your body temporarily acting funny before going back to normal? Absolutely nothing, no matter what Martin wrung his hands and insisted about. If Jon got the flu, he threw up in the toilet and then went back to work. RIP to the influenza virus but he was different.
                The waiting room for the clinic wasn’t empty, even if that would have made Jon feel better. A tired looking Hispanic woman clutching her purse sat on one couch, an elderly man clutching a cane sitting in an armchair with his wife browsing a magazine beside him. Boring, banal, bothersome. Jon wasn’t like these losers. He wasn’t a weak-willed person who…accused all of his coworkers of murder plots…to the extent where one of his subordinates threatened him into going to a therapist. That hadn’t happened. To him.
                For the record, it wouldn’t have worked if Martin hadn’t been so good at disguising what a manipulative bastard he was. Jon didn’t know people could make their eyes that big. Or that people could be so talented at gathering evidence of workplace harassment, enough that even Elias would be forced to exact some sort of disciplinary action against him. Had Martin always been so terrifying? His ranking on the ‘Possibly Wants To Kill Me’ scale jumped a few notches, but was forced to drop down a few notches due to Jon admitting that someone who wanted to kill him probably wouldn’t blackmail him into therapy.
                Probably.
                He briefly detailed his diagnostic history (none), detailed his list of previous surgeries and health conditions (none, save the anemia in uni), and briefly gave a list of childhood trauma (none that anyone would believe, although he found himself hesitantly writing down ‘Foster system, parental incarceration, orphaned’, as if that was a real trauma or something instead of stuff that just happened to him that had no effect on his brain whatsoever).
                He finally got to the difficult section, the one that always tripped him up and made him sweat. He breezed through the demo questions (Black, male last time he checked, younger than he looked) but stared for an uncomfortably long time at the sexuality questions. His pen hovered over heterosexual, but his Mental Georgie (meaner than the actual Georgie) yelled at him until his pen hovered over bisexual instead. But that wasn’t quite right either, was it? Bad memories of scrolling desperately and shamefully through AVEN at 2am last year flashed through his mind, but asexual wasn’t on the list. He marked in bisexual, although he didn’t think it counted if he’d never had any…relations with male presenting people, although it didn’t quite fit.
                Under alcohol use he very proudly put none, feeling both smug and embarrassed over being smug over it. Under drug use he also was proud to put none. Then it asked for his history and, like, whatever. He hated this list. It sucked. Jon didn’t like admitting to the coke he only did three times. Or was it four? That he could remember.
                Under the ‘Have you ever been hospitalized’ question he put yes, then he remembered that they had technically diagnosed him with alcoholism and depression so he had to go back and put that down in his diagnoses, then he had to put down that he had attempted suicide a few times. Jon felt uncomfortable about nameless strangers knowing this, when he had never told anybody and had never been planning on it. It was a secret he would take to his grave, but he was telling this piece of paper, apparently. Hopefully nobody looked at this.
                Under the section for ‘why he came in’, Jon decided honestly was the best policy. He wrote down carefully, in precise letters, ‘I do not need to come in but my subordinate (who may be plotting murder against me) blackmailed me into it’. There. Honesty was the best policy.
                Finally the accursed intake form was over, Jon was able to hand it to the nurse he suddenly imagined looked very judgmental, and he was able to flip aimlessly through the three year old magazines on the glass tabletop flanking a piece of calming abstract art. He would never admit it to literally anybody in his life, but he enjoyed the voyeurism of celebrity gossip. He loved learning things about people that were supposed to be private, that nobody was supposed to know. It wasn’t a real secret if he learned it off TMZ, but it felt like one, and that was good enough. It was none of his business who was dating who or who had cheated on who, but that was part of the fun. Jon’s thirst for knowledge was absolute. But, still, nobody could ever know about this. Georgie had laughed at him for a week when she found out.
                Still, the magazine was wrong. The pop star wasn’t cheating on her boyfriend with her bodyguard. She was cheating on her boyfriend with her college roommate. Jon didn’t remember exactly where he had read it, but he knew it was true. Must have caught it on a reddit thread or something. Jon snorted. They should really polish up on their fact checking.
                After what felt like hours, but in fact was twenty-two minutes and forty seconds exactly, the nurse called Jon in. They took his height (still too tall), took his weight (ugh….), and took his blood pressure, which seemed to alarm the nurse, who asked him if he had a family history of hypertension. He just explained that his job was very high stress.
                “Ah,” the nurse said, and made a note on his clipboard.
                “The previous holder of my position was murdered,” Jon said helpfully, “and I think one of my employees did it. Either that or my boss. That, or various supernatural entities, but generally I’ve been doing a pretty good job of holding those off.”
                “That’s so interesting,” the nurse said, making another note on the clipboard.
                Then he was directed into the actual therapist’s office. Not his therapist, or at least he didn’t think so – the way they explained it to him, and the way the twenty internet sites he’d compulsively researched said it worked, was that he would get an intake with a trainee, who would then refer him to a therapist that worked for him in the building. It made sense, although very little about this entire process really did. Jon hated doctors. What were therapists, but doctors who made less sense, and did not respect science?
                The intake therapist’s office was overly calming. There was an incense diffuser in the corner, a tea station set up in another corner, and a comfortable looking couch facing a chair. There was a coffee table in the center filled with fidget toys and candy, along with some stuffed animals and other comfort items with some books, and Jon awkwardly shook the hand of the young woman who opened the door for him and sat down on the far corner of the couch.
                She introduced herself as Angela and had a bright white smile. Jon wondered if she had ever killed anybody. Her hair was glossy and black, she seemed to be Hispanic or thereabouts, and exuded a trustworthy and competent yet friendly air. Jon did not trust her.
                “So, Jon,” Angela said, once they both settled down. “I’m just going to give you a quick run-down of this process. I’ll interview you based on your intake form, we’ll come up with a case formulation, and I’ll refer you to a therapist with our clinic who can help you out. You indicated that this is your first time seeing a counselor?”
                “Uh, yes.” Jon clasped his hands, then his knees, then sat up very straight, then slouched. He now understood why the fidget toys were there. “But I really don’t want to see a therapist. I just told someone I’d come in here, so here I am. I can leave right after this.”
                “Who asked you to come in?”
                “Martin. Uh. My employee.”
                She made a note in her notebook. “Does he only know you from work?”
                “Yes.”
                “So your employees have been noticing some behavior from you at work that lead them to ask you to come?” Angela asked delicately.
                “Uh. Yeah.”
                “What kind of behavior?”
                Well, sure, make him think about it. Jon clenched his trousers a little. “I’ve been…well, according to Tim, I’ve been stalking them a bit. Which, perhaps, from a certain point of view, I’m willing to admit to. Also going through their desks. Some verbal accusations. Apparently, I’ve been difficult to work with lately.”
                Scribble scribble scribble. “What sort of accusations?”
                “Someone’s trying to kill me,” Jon said firmly. “I’m just trying to find out who. I’m exploring every option. Nobody is above suspicion. I know it seems…I know it doesn’t seem very usual, but that’s the situation.”
                “Have you talked to the police?”
                God, has he ever. “They’re willing to collaborate with me, but there’s only so much they can do,” Jon said seriously. Even if they had confidentiality, which they had explained to him as he came in, he could hardly admit to Basira doing something illegal for him. “But we are working on it together. At least some officers on the force take murder investigations seriously.”
                “Alright. If you don’t mind, I’m going to refer back to some questions that we asked you on the sheet. Just a little more detail on them.” Angela looked down at what he had to assume was a print-out of his answers on the intake questionnaire. “It says here that you have a family history of schizophrenia?”
                “Yeah,” Jon said blankly, “what does that have to do with anything?”
                She looked further down the list. “And…a history of alcoholism and drug abuse?”
                “Yes, technically.”
                “Alright.” She leaned backwards and opened a file cabinet, rifling through it before withdrawing a piece of paper and passing it to Jon. Jon hesitantly took it, scanning the paper. “Can you fill this out for me quickly, please?”
                Jon read the questions.
                Do you ever hear or see things that others cannot?
                Well, yes, Jon experienced many supernatural phenomena that others could not perceive. He checked off yes.
                Do you ever struggle to trust that what you are thinking is real?
                Frequently. He just knew his mind was being manipulated by the mysterious Watcher. Plus there was that business with Sasha. Something’s off about her.
                Do you ever get the sense that others are controlling your thoughts and emotions?
                That occurred in dozens of Statements, plus his own life. Yes.
                Do you struggle to keep up with daily living tasks?
                Tim did tell him that he didn’t shower enough…
                Do you feel that you have powers that others cannot understand or appreciate?
                Jon thought blankly of all those times that he asked people questions and they almost…had to answer. He checked yes for that too.
                Etc, etc, etc.
                Jon looked up from this test. “Are you under the impression I’m schizophrenic?”
                “I can’t make a diagnosis yet,” the therapist said delicately. “Why don’t we talk after you finish the screening.”
                Jon silently passed it back to her, after checking yes on almost everything. She scanned it quickly.
                “Hm.”
                “Look,” Jon said awkwardly, knowing that this probably looked bad, “I know that I may come off as a paranoid lunatic, but the supernatural is out there and is targeting me personally. I think I may work for it, honestly? Do you ever feel like an accountant for evil in your day to day life, or is that just me?” Jon paused a beat, and found that his hands were shaking. He was scared. Why was he scared? “I always feel something watching me. Something – something in the walls. I’m sitting at my desk, it’s late at night, and nobody’s around, but sometimes when I do my work…I feel something looking over my shoulder. It hates me. It wants to hurt me. I don’t know why I know it, I just do. Something invisible in the walls is looking at me, and nobody believes me when I say it’s there but I know it is.” He found himself speaking faster, almost as if he was begging her to understand. “When you look at a – at this couch, you know it’s there, right? How would you feel if everybody started telling you that it wasn’t there? That what your eyes and ears and body was telling you was fake? You’d feel like it was everybody else who was crazy, not you. Even if your eyes were closed, if you reached out your hand you could feel it. No matter what you might tell yourself, or what other people might tell you, it’s real. It’s there. You can’t deny it. I’m not crazy. It’s there. Something is watching me. You don’t – you don’t have to believe me. But I’m right. And you’re wrong, if you think it’s not.”
                Angela stared at him.
                Then she stood up, clutching her mobile. Jon realized for the first time that it was ringing. “I’ll be right back.”
                She left the room, holding the phone to her ear. Jon felt it was somewhat unprofessional for a therapist to walk out in the middle of a session for a phone call. Maybe it was important? Her husband was in the hospital or something? It was none of his business.
                Jon tapped his toes. Stared at the wall. There was a poster with a sloth on it that said ‘Hang In There!’. He was hanging in there, all right.
                He wondered if he was crazy. If it even mattered.
                Jon had always had nobody but himself to rely on. Well, maybe Georgie, once upon a time, but he had burned that bridge. At the end of the day, it had always been him. In that gutter where he had almost drowned in his own vomit, it had just been him.
                If he couldn’t trust his own mind, who could he trust? If even his own faculties left him, he had nothing. No friends, no family, no support. Just him. If Jon lost his mind, if he went completely crazy, then there was nobody to pick up the pieces ever again. For the first time since coming in, Jon found himself scared. Would he have to take medication? Would it make him dumb? Jon would rather be crazy then dumb.
                The door opened, and Angela returned. But there was something just a little different about her, something Jon picked up immediately. Her eyes were – almost glassy, almost not present. She had been such an attentive, active listener before, but now she seemed far away. Her gait was a little stiffer than it had been previously.
                “Bad news?” Jon breached awkwardly.
                “Nothing to worry about,” Angela smiled. But it didn’t reach her eyes. How strange. She sat back down in her chair, posture perfect and prim. “Well, I took a look at your sheet, and I have some good news for you.”
                “You – you do?” Jon asked, thrown off. Doctors never had good news for him. They always seemed to think he was a medical freak of nature who was alive only through an act of spite against god.
                “Of course. You don’t seem to have any kind of mental illness. Honestly, I just think your problem is that you’re stressed at work.”
                “I – so you don’t think I’m schizophrenic? Despite answering yes to almost every question on that test? And having family members with schizophrenia? And being a black male in my late twenties, the highest risk group?”
                “Yes.” Angela smiled prettily at him. “I think it’s just a matter of adjustment. You’re a transitionary phase in your life, Jon. You’re moving from one role to another. I think all you have to do is accept your new role in life, and your problems will sort themselves out.”
                “I – yes. Yes, of course.” It was like a huge weight had been taken off his chest. Jon felt so relieved. Nothing was wrong with him. His mind was still his own. He wasn’t crazy! “You’re right. I’m just stressed. Thank you so much, doctor. I feel a lot better about this now. I knew Martin was just overreacting.”
                “Martin’s always overreacting!” Angela laughed. She stood up from her chair, clearly signifying the interview was over despite him only being there for less than ten minutes. “Have a great day, Jon. You deserve it.”
                “Thanks, doctor. I promise I’ll work on – just calming down a bit. Wow. What a relief.” Jon stood up too, wiping his sweaty palms on his trousers before shaking her hand. “I knew I wasn’t crazy.”
                “What’s crazy,” Angela said, “but a state of mind? The world is already so bizarre and usual, Jon, it’s strangest to be sane.”
                “I – okay?”
                Jon left the doctor’s appointment feeling very good about everything. Maybe the doctor’s had been a good idea. He would have to thank Martin.
                Wow. Now that was a crazy thought. Thanking Martin! Hah!
                Jon went home, feeling very good about his life and his trajectory in it.
                For the very last time.
53 notes · View notes
stopkingobama · 7 years ago
Text
VIDEO: Has wrestler "The Progressive Liberal" met his match?
Photo Source: The Daily Caller, No Things Considered, Screencap
If you don’t hate “The Progressive Liberal,” you’re not a Real American.
Appalachian Mountain Wrestling’s Dan Richards, a.k.a. “The Progressive Liberal,” could be one of the best-worked wrestling gimmicks in years.
Donning a “Not My President” t-shirt, the smug, condescending performer berates his interviewer for his Kentucky drawl before lighting into his opponent as a “Fox News maggot.”  He tears into crowds for their inability to understand the tenets of democratic socialism, before asking ravaged coal mining communities to sign a petition to ban coal power.
We’ve seen wrestlers do the “smug arrogance” and “anti-American” gimmick before.  What make this seemingly ludicrous gimmick work is, you’re not sure if he’s kidding.
Most performers would come to the ring in a dress, or waving a Communist flag. But Richards is so effortless, and within the realm of reality, he could actually pass as a MSNBC host.
In fact, the Daily Caller’s Tim Young landed an interview with the crusading leftist, and it got a bit testy.
Why do I have the feeling these two haven’t seen the last of each other?
The interview starts at the 15:00 mark.
Richards will compete tomorrow, June 30, against Kyle Maggard in a “Crybaby Match.”  The loser must wear a diaper and suck on a bottle.
0 notes
americanlibertypac · 7 years ago
Text
VIDEO: Has wrestler "The Progressive Liberal" met his match?
Photo Source: The Daily Caller, No Things Considered, Screencap
If you don’t hate “The Progressive Liberal,” you’re not a Real American.
Appalachian Mountain Wrestling’s Dan Richards, a.k.a. “The Progressive Liberal,” could be one of the best-worked wrestling gimmicks in years.
Donning a “Not My President” t-shirt, the smug, condescending performer berates his interviewer for his Kentucky drawl before lighting into his opponent as a “Fox News maggot.”  He tears into crowds for their inability to understand the tenets of democratic socialism, before asking ravaged coal mining communities to sign a petition to ban coal power.
We’ve seen wrestlers do the “smug arrogance” and “anti-American” gimmick before.  What make this seemingly ludicrous gimmick work is, you’re not sure if he’s kidding.
Most performers would come to the ring in a dress, or waving a Communist flag. But Richards is so effortless, and within the realm of reality, he could actually pass as a MSNBC host.
In fact, the Daily Caller’s Tim Young landed an interview with the crusading leftist, and it got a bit testy.
Why do I have the feeling these two haven’t seen the last of each other?
The interview starts at the 15:00 mark.
Richards will compete tomorrow, June 30, against Kyle Maggard in a “Crybaby Match.”  The loser must wear a diaper and suck on a bottle.
0 notes