♚

You know… my problem with a lot of online help, is NOT that they are trying to help. That is not a problem, & I really don’t want to sound like I am complaining or discouraging anyone from being their version of an online counselor. It is not inferior to real life counseling, it is different. First of all, in real life when counselors suggest to an individual their own accountability and potential to change their situation, they usually use a very mild form of Mindfulness. Online, however, where people are trying to seem “cool” and “right” and “new age” and stand out, you often get one or two nutjobs who takes the lessons of manifestation and movies like The Secret way too seriously. I believe mindfulness and manifestation are one in the same. Manifestation is just what comes from being mindful and if you try to skip over being mindful and just manfiest, you won’t truly know who you are or what it is you are going to manifest. You will probably manifest your hidden pain. Your mind is constantly taking what is inside of itself and finding a reflection of that on the outside. it doesn’t really have to do with words like “mindfulness” or “manifestation”… it’s really just you being you. So whatever you think about, consider yourself stuck with that until you start thinking about something else. Manifestation won’t magically get you unstuck from your situation, whether it be unrealistic and unnecessary expectations that are based on some unexplored material desire you have… or whether it is caused by internalizing abuse you get from the external world.. there are a lot of negative things that manifestation won’t just reach in and pull you out of. You have to first become mindful of the “negativity” in which you currently reside.

My other problem is that online counselors often make it sound as if they’re talking to one person. But they’re not. Im not asking them to write and rewrite every article in a specific version for each personality type, astrological sign, or anything weird like that. Just be conscious of the fact that, everyone reading the article on “How to Make Friends in School” might not be a kid or teenager. Everyone reading, “The stresses of pregnancy” might not even be pregnant. It could be a worried mother or sister or husband who’s feeling the stress second hand. Again, i’m not looking for every writer to cater every single thing they’ve ever written to everybody. A certain level of awareness would be nice though. And I know, it’s hard to always be aware. I’m looking at this short article that I rushed to write just knowing that there is some mistake or something I left out somewhere. I’m just not aware of it. I sense it there somewhere… Guess I have to proofread.

air7s:

My name is Adam. My friends call me Adam the nonrapper, which is a kind of long name, but usually they just call me adam because our other friend Adam stresses the second part of his name, it’s part of his aesthetic and rap persona I guess. I don’t know, I’m not really into music like that, I just stick to the classics or whatever is hot and gets the girls ready to dance. Anyway. We were all in a car, dimitri’s dad’s old Honda Oddeysey to be exact. It was Labor Day and we were going to go fishing on Kline island. I don’t even know what happened next. I say that a lot as I tell stories, and my friends always say it’s because I’m not paying attention, but this time all five of us would agree. Except for Bob, bob disappeared.

Anyway, all I know is we were crossing the bride to Kline island. The same old white ugly bridge. Sometimes I like to look at the water, but today I was double tapping Cindy in some fashionnova just KNOWING she had some water up under those tights. Sorry. Just being honest. Anyway, when I looked back up, it seemed like we were arriving on the island. Obviously right? It’s a bridge, there are no turns on bridges as far as my non driving ass knows so there’s no way we could’ve gotten lost. But tell me why as I’m looking up trying to convince myself that oh yeah this is in fact Kline island, I hear dimitris dad talking about, “this doesn’t look like Kline island. I mean, the roads are the same but… the forest has never been this thick before… 

“Well turn around dad!” 

“And miss out on this fishing? You act like water isn’t water and fish aren’t fish. They don’t care about the name of the island or even a slightly different location.”

“Yeah… but I feel a little. Off about this. You know I was aligning my Chakras last night and-“

“Son. Nobody wants to hear about that.”

“… I’m telling you dad. I saw this with my third eye.” He blew out a philosophical cloud of Juul smoke.

We were holding back laughter although DJ really had seen some things not necessarily in the future, but he’s pretty good at getting a sense for what people none of us have ever spoken to will react to our group as a whole. He’s been doing it before he started talking about chakras, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t even believe in that and just does it to annoy his dad.

“Ok son… you know I can’t argue with you about any of that stuff I don’t believe in. All I k ow is They’re going to be biting as long as we’re baiting.” 

“That is true Mr.Credit.” Bob, our quietest friend, agreed from backseat for no reason. Sometimes he does things like that, just to make sure we haven’t forgotten he can talk. Bob is Whoca’s cousin. Whoca is quiet too. His beats aren’t though, they are fire. He was also always sleeping, like right now. 

This whole time we had just been driving. Usually we go to the other side of the island because no one else likes to go out there. But we weren’t even going to reach that side of the island. Things were about to get really weird. Here is the part of the story where…. if you’re a regular person who only wants to read about regular things. Just stop right now. I really mean that. 

We saw a crab in the road, and for some reason, dimitris’s dad who honestly has never seemed to care about edible animals, screeched to a half as If he were my Grandma. “Guys that crab is waving its claw at us!!” I looked closer. It was waving. A waving crab. Standing on its tippy toes. How curious! Gotta snap this one for the gram. I opened the car door as I reassured the gang, “Don’t worry I got this… I’m  going to take a picture first though….” but I couldn’t. The crab, and look I know crabs move quick and yes I got pretty close for a good macro shot, but this crab moved quick and with force. He didn’t break my whole phone, he just crushed the part with the flash and camera between one of his claws. “Aaack!” I jumped back, but he hung onto the phone dangling from it. He hopped on top of the phone and stared me dead in my shit. 

“Aaahhhhcccc get back!!” I tried to fling him off but he hung on tightly. I heard “wtfs” and “yo chills” from the van. “IM TRYING TO CHILL THIS CRAB WONT CHILL ON MY PHONE!!” Now laughter. Wow. What great friends I have, in a one on one with a crab and no one jumps in. just then, the crab spoke up. “If you really want to chill I can show you how.” I stopped. “Huh??” I was dumbfounded. But when I think about it, I don’t even understand why I asked the crab huh. The way to become crazy is to entertain it, and if you entertain a taking crab you must want to be crazy. Maybe. Or maybe you’d be just like me if you were in this unusual unearthly situation. Anyway, the crab spoke up again. “Your friends are right. You need to chill.” Now I had stopped moving. “Guys, this crab is talking like an effing human being…” 

“They are not all guys, they are beings. I am a being too. A talking being and a crab being. Why should only humans be able to talk? Is that what makes humans human? Last time I was on the mainland sitting on the porch of my favorite restaurant, there wasn’t even anyone talking… people were just occasionally looking down In their hands and laughing. What is so funny about your hands!!??” I was confused by the talking crab, but for some reason I was sucked into what he said, and thinking about it. “You must mean their phone.” “YOOOO GET IN THE CAR THROW THAT THING AWAY” 

I looked at the crab and considered throwing the crab for just a moment. The crab blinked, I looked back up, and the Honda oddeysey was gone. I looked back at the crab. “Your friends were haters. trying to put a wet rag on your fire experience. Fire… that’s a word that’s being used synonymously with good these days, right?” Good question crab. But you’re a little old. “You can day that, or you can just say fye. Don’t ask what it means just say that shit cuh.” 

“Because what?” 

I could see this crab was being purposefully stupid. I knew he knew what cuh meant because I zoomed in on his face a bit, and he actually had crip gang tattoos all in the face area.. i guess for crabs it’s called the thorax or some shit, and a whole blue badanas YATTED on his stomach. Wow. Cool crab. Except that he’s being dumb on purpose.

“Mr crab, look at all these tattoos you have…. I know you know what cuh means.”

I did not get these tattoos by choice. My previous owner did this to me.

“So, you still should’ve overheard him!!”

“Well, my owner was honestly just abusive and never talked. He used to starve me and put dolls with pins stuck through them in my tank. And as a crab who loooooves the blue water and the yellow sand, I honestly grew so tired of the red interiors of that space. That, more than the food, made me want to escape.

Now I am wishing I had thrown this crab. This story kept on seeming weirder and weirder, I had been separated from my friends, and although a little weirdness is ok, I wasn’t really looking to get sucked into an everlasting whirlpool of weirdness… especially not one rules by Mr crip crab. Mr. Cc. I don’t support gang violence, I am from the suburbs. However, I did watch ganglands, listen to my brother’s Cam’Ron tapes, and listen to some gangster rap myself. Whenever my friends were listening to it. So, I know some things. And, after hanging around the cool kids at school, I can pretty much talk like an OG. So, if you have a problem with my gangster… come test it. But imma save that for the next chapter, and I can already tell that a lot of you haters won’t be back to hear the crazy places that this crab will take us. I’m telling you, this crab actually did change my life. I’m only writing this because he might change yours. I didn’t say for the better or for the worse, and I also didn’t not say that the main way he might change you is by taking away your time and your conception of time. But anyway, now I’m just spoiling the story. For now, just remember that when we get back, the crab is on my phone and I want him off.

air7s:

I am making everyone play again. I even made them forget. This game has had a grip of me for so long, I cannot stop playing now. I have forgotten everything except creating and then painting realities certain people can see while certain others cannot. I have fallen in love with the idea of building a team, one of many, and a team that is just the highest player and the lowest player. Two spots that are guaranteed to take everything in between. I am in love with the betrayal, the suspense, the creation and destruction. All sides, all parts, all versions, all out comes. You might think I’m being melodramatic, and you might be right. But in my ideal world, this is how I feel all day. I truly have no regrets.. none at all, for playing this game. I do not know why some people come here and get obsessed with leaving. So obsessed they do crazy, out of character things. But I’m sure these things are the reason you picked up this story. The deaths. The relationships that get built and ruined. Right? Who reads these stories for things like the new ideas and perspectives people get as they play this game? The new lives created from the so called deaths we experience? These things are beautiful too, and they are what most of us would call positive. Yet most of us seem to look to be entertained by the negative. Well, in this game nobody even dies, you’re just gone until the next round. So if you came for bloody and gruesome deaths, you probably wont find any here. And whatever number you get, from -5 to 5, none of it matters. As long as you pick a direction and stick to it. I always pick negative. I target the one person who enjoys playing or learning to play the most, and I instruct and assist them on going positive. I build trust. I tell the masses that it’s best to blast off as quickly as possible and to rally around the most negative. I build trust. I keep my relationship with the most positive lowkey. At the end, I am the most negative and whether or not I lose to the most positive, we agree to make everyone play again. It is easier to keep the same characters or versions of them. Sometimes, they break the contract and leave anyway. This leaves behind a copy that tends to have a rebellious, rule-defying personality. I find that this makes the game more fun as well. Anyway, the main key of the game is to create a pathway of perceiving art that goes along with the riddles of The Gamemaster. The Gamemaster will not allow you’re art to clearly communicate the content of their riddle. So, you must go about creating your own symbolic language and convincing others of its merits.  I personally am never afraid to steal, use, or misuse another character’s language. Everyone calls it something different, but essentially this is what everyone does. Some people stay right in 3d reality as they do it, I try to zoom out as far as possible and then zoom in, but entering into the minds of The Gamemaster, the other contestants, and then myself. Sounds confusing, but you will see what I mean. I will talk as if I am them sometimes.

There is one more important detail about this game. And this is where this might get confusing. But everyone sees the other ten characters as different people. I might be seeing people from my church, you might be seeing people from your school. We are all using avatars that are colored with our past stories, but we are submerging them here together. All of this is subject to change. If I can tell you about who I am and who another person is to me, they might change for you. Also, I know I called these places arenas… but there really is no limit to their size. There is simply a principle that draws us all into proximity with one another. So, that being said, I was relaxing, reading in the library, when suddenly, I knew the game had began. I had a quick meeting that day with a friend of mine. We were going to discuss some things about her flower garden. Regular life things. She was running super late though. I should have planned this into my time. Late people always make me want to be rude to them. Since you wasted my time… Take this slap to the face. I saw her old pickup pull up outside. Disgusting, but whatever. That is what gardener nature types like. Old trucks that smell like goats. I checked myself, I realized that I was having quite the internal negative dialogue. This is fine in regular life, but when the game starts and the stakes are raised, I always aim to command complete and utter control of my emotional composure. It is of utmost importance. Especially with women, delicate like flowers. This one even gardened flowers. She walked through the door and our eyes met. Did I know this lady? Was she truly part of the game? Had she already found some way to convince me she was someone else? That would be the only way she’d be able to change her form into someone I don’t know. I felt caught off guard immediately. Must regain composure. One second.. two.. composure regained. “Hi.” She said very roughly. “My name is Andrea. I am here to talk with you for this game.” She had no cover, she didn’t mention the flowers which are going to need a lot of investigation. The fact that it is what is bringing us into proximity suggests that it may be key to discovering what we need to blast off. So why is she talking like.. she hasn’t played, but yet I don’t even.. “Sir?” Awkward. “Oh yes, Hi!” I slid out of my seat and extended a gentle hand coupled with a warm smile. I hoped the smile wasn’t too late. She gave me a look that said “um… ok?” as she shook my extended hand and sat down. I turned around and realized I had knocked over my chair. “Hahah.” I laughed, awkwardly and also because it was actually funny. She smiled too. “So. How’ve you been Andrea?” The good old how’ve you been. But this time I really needed to see something. “Good. How about you Jonah?” So she did know my name. I wasn’t even going to acknowledge it. “Uh, Ive been good. Just went and saw some other clients. Everyone wants our pest protection this year. All natural is finally winning big!” She gave a slight smile. “Yes, well I’ve been your client for literally forever. I knew you were going to win like this for sure for one day.” Huh? Who is this. Really, I don’t know. “Well Andrea, today is that day. And I want to help you keep winning as you know.” She gave me a weird stern look. That lasted too long. I gave an awkward smile, but I realized I needed to figure out who this person was quickly before things… got out of control for me. Having a person who’s psychology you don’t understand is one thing, but if they can take on multiple forms for you, then you have someone who has multiple bodies and a psychological leg up on you. Who is Andrea and what is she trying to tell me? What is she trying to do to me? “Well Andrea, um before we go any further-”

“I know Jonah. I know what you are about to ask me. And it’s because you forgot.” Wait… no I won the game, so I didn’t have to forget. I’m the one who called everyone here this time. “No, I don’t think I forgot anything. I’m just not really sure.. who you are.” She smiled. “Well, you’ve seen me before but you just forgot who I was. I was an extra. Obviously as you’ve figured out, I am not any of your original ten who you recruited here. And if I was, I wouldn’t tell you which one. But I am an extra you stared at for a long time during the first game, and the person who I really am… who you’ll never guess… I’ll put it simply because I’m tired of wasting time with little play boys like you. You Play like every hin–thing a game. I’m here to fuck you up, boi. I’m here to drag your body through the dirt, you will not be blasting off too the sky, first, last, or in between. I’m going to kill you and I’ve been given permission from the Game Master, he is tired of you and how many times you have forgotten you’ve played, how you dominate and-” I just walked out. This wasn’t the first time I’d heard a message like this. People around me always think that I get moved by threats in this game. Threats are the weakest version of psychological warfare. It was weird that she had chosen this extra that she knew I would think is highly beautiful (even tho she was late, I was just staring. All my madness had disappeared. I didn’t even realize it at the time but now that I think about it) to come and plant these seeds, and that this is the very first day. And that this is an extra from so long ago, so long ago that yes, I honestly did not remember her. I mean, who remembers extras? People usually take on their bodies as a disguise. I have never really found it that useful, I’d rather transform you or myself into somebody who is from another player’s world perspective. But that is neither here nor there. I stepped out the library and the fresh air hit my face. I sometimes turn my back to people who threaten me in this game, just to show them I know their threats are empty. They seem to forget that physical pain in this game never goes beyond briefly losing consciousness from the force of a hit. Well, this time it was a dumb idea. To my surprise, I felt a pair of brass knuckles hit the back of my head. I guess Andrea had more to say…

wtf aha