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calltomuster · 3 years

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Star Wars Fic Recs Take 5

[first fic rec list] [second fic rec list] [third fic rec list] [fourth fic rec list]

Hope you're having a lovely day, friends! Here, take some more fic recs to make it even better!

Infinite Sadness (what does your heart tell you?) by @the-last-kenobi (gen, one-shot, 12.5k words) This fic definitely lives up to its title, not just in what happens to Obi-Wan, but in the sheer, pervasive sadness and desperation and subtle despair that plagues him as he lives life after life over and over again, trying to make things better each time. But it's not a flashy despair, it's muted and ongoing and never over-the-top, and well, it's infinite sadness. I definitely think this fic is slept on, it's absolutely amazing and I highly encourage you to check it out.

How Qui-Gon Accidentally Adopted a Baby by @the-last-kenobi (gen, WIP, 18/? chapters, 26.6k words) Oh, did the first fic on this list make you sad? I have the perfect remedy: another fic by @the-last-kenobi! To say that this fic brings me immense joy is an understatement. This fic makes me smile when nothing else will. You get the premise from the title, and I'll admit it may look a little crack-fic-y based on that, but the sheer cuteness of this fic and the quality of the prose elevates it beyond anything else. I'm not even kidding, this fic makes me want to have kids, that's how adorable baby Obi-Wan is in this.

The When Duty Is Done series by thosenearandfarwars (Obi-Wan/Cody, incomplete, 14/? parts, 90k words) I recommended the first story in this series way back in my third fic rec list, and it's only gotten better since then. I really like this series because it imagines -- well, I don't want to just say an ideal post-ROTS universe, because that implies that things are just magically all better, but I think it's a realistic ideal post-ROTS universe. The Jedi Order reforms itself, the clones get reparations and the ability to govern themselves, Anakin doesn't join Palpatine, etc. Through it all is an absolutely wonderful story about two people and their love for each other. It's just lovely.

Fire to ash, present to past (who knows for tomorrow?) by blueberrywizard (Obi-Wan/Cody, one-shot, 11.6k words) One day, Qui-Gon's apprentice completely changes. Or at least, that's how it seems to Qui-Gon, who has no idea that his Padawan is actually now a much older version trapped in this young body. This fic is told from many different points of view and I really like the prose. Definitely one that sticks with you.

|nothing quite like this| by littlekaracan (gen, one-shot, 6.6k words) Don't read this unless you want to feel like your heart has been ripped to pieces. This fic is a piece of experimental fiction, framed as a class reading for Jedi students in the future who are learning about the Purge. It's just devastating, truly devastating. Even though it features no characters we'd be familiar with, you just get so drawn into the world of this Purge survivor, and hearing their experiences is brutal.

In The Afterman, Solitude by kanerallels (gen, one-shot, 2.2k words, Obi-Wan & Quinlan) Obi-Wan is in a cantina on Tatooine after ROTS and runs into Quinlan Vos. What follows reminds him that he's not alone in the galaxy, not like he thought he was. I really like the progression of this fic, how real it seems to the characters. Obi-Wan doesn't just immediately blurt out what happened, and Quinlan is much more subtle than he usually is in fic. I really enjoyed this one.

Ghost Company by existentialAF (Obi-Wan/Cody, one-shot, 2.2k words) Cody's chip gets removed and he makes it his mission to find Obi-Wan and help him in the way he couldn't when Order 66 went down. A fascinating and touching AU of what could have happened post-ROTS if things had gone a little differently. I'd absolutely love to see more in this 'verse but it is a one-shot so I'll be content with what we're given!

The Morning Star series by Kurenaino (4 parts, 1.7 million words, incomplete) I first read this series back in November of 2020 and it has lived in my head rent free ever since then. I'm not kidding, I have to limit myself to only rereading this every couple of months so that it doesn't become too much of a good thing -- and make no mistake, I do reread it every few months, all 1.7 million words of it. To make what is clearly a very long story short, this series charts Obi-Wan's fall to the Dark side post-Naboo and follows him throughout the entire Star Wars saga (TPM, AOTC, Clone Wars, ROTS, Rebels, etc.) I feel like that description doesn't do it justice, though. The sheer breadth of this series takes my breath away. It feels expansive in a way that no fic I've ever read before has, oscillating from large-scale politics to heart-pounding action to sweet and tender love, both romantic and familial. (Oh, and this might be obvious from the whole "Sith Obi-Wan" thing, but just a warning that in these stories, Obi-Wan does some absolutely despicable things, just because he can. Murder, rape, mind control, etc, so take care.) But though he's Sith, he's still got such a heart in him, just like the Obi-Wan we know and love, and you can't help but feel for him at times. And this might not be as much a selling point for you as it was for me, but this series has some absolutely fantastic Thrawn content. He's going toe-to-toe with Obi-Wan and it's glorious, a true match. I'm in the middle of my latest reread of this series, and truly it just makes me so happy. I never see anyone talking about this series and I'm sad it doesn't get the attention it deserves. It really only gets better and better the further into the series you get. Cannot recommend enough!!

There is no Ignorance, there is Knowledge by @sirikenobi12 (gen, one-shot, 4.1k words) A wonderful installment for Jedi June! This fic follows Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon, and then Obi-Wan and Anakin and Ahsoka, as they teach and learn lessons on what knowledge means to them. It was an unexpected tearjerker for me, there's one scene in particular that makes me tremble just thinking about it. I just love the way each relationship is portrayed here, and the care that is put into every word. Amazing!

Keeper of the Force by @pandora15 (gen, WIP, 19/20 chapters, 84.4k words) I can't believe I haven't put this on a rec list before, but since there's only the epilogue left, now is the perfect time. This fic starts out small-scale Obi-Wan whump (not saying that in a derogatory way, that's my exact favorite thing) and grows in size as it goes to eventually become a ROTS AU that is oh so good. It's touching, and inspiring, and lovely, and every time a new chapter posts I drop everything to read it. Can't believe the end of this ride is almost upon us!!

If you like any of these fics, please consider reblogging so they can get more exposure! And if you noticed I missed someone’s Tumblr account, or linked the wrong one, please let me know!

#i need to start writing these as i read the fics and not all in one sitting because my brain gets absolutely fried every time lol #obi-wan kenobi #qui-gon jinn #anakin skywalker #commander cody #quinlan vos #jedi order #ahsoka tano #satine kryze

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betterdaysareatoenailaway · 3 years

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TO HAVE & HAVE NOT #2: STARTUPS FOR SHITHEADS

I have never understood the borderline hagiographical hoopla that surrounds startups. Even the fucking name suggests a kind of nascent know-nothing numbskullery. The “it’s my first day” excuse. Vaporware. Half-formed ideas surrounded by full-time douchebaggery. Such were my impressions before I ever read anything about startups. Now that I have done so, I can see that I was underestimating just how poorly run these companies can be.

As far as I can tell, it works like this: A middle-aged white man gets an idea to fill a need in [insert industry here]. This man always lacks the necessary skill to deliver the product, so he cherrypicks undergraduate college kids (knowing they will work for very little money) to do the hard work in an open-concept office while he hides behind the foreboding oak door that he slams every time he enters his office, lest the underlings deign to ask the question they’re all dying to ask, which is....what do you do?

In the movie Steve Jobs (not the Ashton Kutcher one, though the fact that I have to differentiate shows just how revered these do-nothing con men are) there is a great scene where Seth Rogen asks the titular fuckhead that very question.

I won’t ruin the answer for you, but you can probably guess it’s a needlessly convoluted rationalization that boils down to: “umm...not much.” The only thing the middle-aged white male CEO can do is sell his vision. He cannot sell his product because it doesn’t exist. And as the upcoming selected quotes will show, sometimes he doesn’t even want the product to exist. A physical product necessarily has features and details, a pesky sentience that weighs it down and keeps it from flying. But dreams float forever. So the company exists to sell the dream, to peddle a promise of a future world where the product exists and has improved the lives of those (and only those) who use it.

A series of high-level meetings take place either in golf clubs or conference rooms or both, and money starts pouring in. Said money is promptly spent on sex workers, booze, and/or drugs. There is nothing wrong with any of these things, I’m merely pointing out that the money is spent fast and spent stupidly. Not to wag my finger, but if you can’t pay your lowest paid employees’ paycheques and they’re late on rent and have empty fridges...you should lay off the rippers and the blow. Furthermore you are a shithead and your hubris has a very real human cost. But the shitheads keep coming. I read an article this week that talked about the history of the coded, racialized term “superpredator” and its very real consequences on incarceration and Black youth in America. The news media should have warned us about the shitheads instead. Think of the headlines! THE SHITHEADS ARE COMING. Or the news media should have kept the term but replaced its description from African-American gang member to middle-aged white golf club member.

See, even though over 95% of startups fail to recoup the money it cost them to...ahem...start up...people keep falling for this shit. The shitheads keep coming. It’s like nobody can say no. Such largesse is bound to give birth to arrogant assholes who are bad at numbers and can’t code. And the absenteeism reported on in these articles is nothing short of miraculous. So when you’re a CEO you can just...not go to work? That’s an option?

Apparently. In the two examples I read, the boss comes in late if he comes in at all. It all reminds me of the scene in Apocalypse Now where a weary Martin Sheen, huddled in a trench to escape mortars fired by an unseen enemy, barks “Who’s in charge here?” and the guy next to him says “I thought you were.”

The two different articles I read are about corporate impropriety. Both feature eerily similar quotes about eerily similar situations in which the CEO - the ostensible leader of the company and therefore the shepherd and spokesperson for its “product” - actually does not want the software to be completed, because by leaving the product in a state of perpetual almost-thereness, more investors can be duped, which means more hookers rented, more booze bought, and more drugs done.

And more entry-level workers fucked over by their paycheques either bouncing or not coming up at all.

It all sounds like reality TV. When Startups Close Down or When Idiots Collapse.

Here’s a quote from a Toronto Life article about a Canadian capitalist named Boaz Manor who used the fake name Shaun McDonald to start a new venture (of course a rich guy’s last name is Manor...to the manor born, amirite?):

“Leong, Ortiz and others who did the demos insist the terminals would have worked, or could have. But they say Shaun seemed to be more interested in the marketing than in the product itself. ‘I believe the tech was never finished because Shaun didn’t want it finished. What he wanted was to raise more money,’ Ortiz says.”

And here’s a quote from an article in The Verge that details the almost-boring-because-so-inevitable rise and fall of a company called Oomba, run by a douche named Michael Williams:

“After four years, the company’s core product was never able to do what it said it was supposed to: work with any game. It’s possible this was because many of Oomba’s engineers were college students whom Williams apparently sometimes paid in free food and the promise of stock options. Or maybe, a few employees suggest, he preferred to keep the software unfinished. ‘There’s glitches and glitches and glitches, but he didn’t want it to work. He wanted it to stay almost done, to raise more money from investors,’ one senior-level employee believes.”

Bearing such malfeasance in mind, I’d like to announce that I’m starting my own startup called...uhhh....let’s go with Revivify. Our product will be vaguely revolutionary in [insert field or industry here] and our company will stay private by courting the interest and support of venture capital firms. In the hawkish world of venture capital and leveraged buyouts, “interest” means time-consuming meetings and “support” means money. Our CEO shall be me, and I will be spending $500 a day on heroin, $500 a day on coke, and $1000 a day on crack. $2 for my morning double-double. I will be arrested sometime in late 2022 and go to jail for four years. The day I am released I will overdose on fentanyl in a Starbucks bathroom in Guelph.

I’m kidding, of course. But Jesus F Christ, what a fucking hustle these guys ran. An eternal “coming soon” sign. Always almost done. Brilliant assholes, these startup starters. All of them. I’m neither creative nor mercenary enough to do what these CEOs did, though I have done terrible things in my life to get the money that pays for heroin. I’m just smart enough to know that my life is essentially tainted, just talented enough to know I don’t have enough talent to make a living from it. Let me leave you with a quote from Mary Robinson’s “Yours”, a story that appeared in The New Yorker in the early 1980s, a story with a quote that explains my conspicuous lack of accomplishment and achievement in my 34 years on this planet:

“...to own only a little talent....was an awful, plaguing thing...being only a little special meant you expected too much, most of the time.”

Here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson.

To have just enough talent to know you’re not talented enough to get paid for the one thing you’re good at doing sucks. Lockdown is back again and my job is gone. Therefore I am currently selling the lower half of this photograph to the highest bidder. Bidding started this morning at 35 cents and I’m already up to $4. Go capitalism. As Alan Greenspan once proclaimed, perhaps unwittingly displaying the kind of circular logic only Americans seem capable of: “The regulatory mechanism that oversees the market is...the market.”

This is the financial version of “we had to destroy the village in order to save it.”

Anyway I’m kidding. There isn’t really a lower half to that photograph. There’s nothing to see. I’m selling you the hope that you will see my penis. I can’t believe someone has offered me $4 for it. I didn’t expect to clear $3.25.

ANYWAY that’s it for me, for now. I’m heading back to fictionland, where I actually wield a modicum of power, though it’s not power I want.

It’s comfort. Comfort for me and my cat. I just got over an illness that might have been COVID and I have my cat Cookie to thank for assisting my speedy recovery. The only reason I read about the above-mentioned startups is because I was lying prone for ten days, groaning and reading articles. So if you’re bored or perhaps sick, here’s a link to an excellent Stephen King short story, also published in The New Yorker: http://writ101van.weebly.com/uploads/2/2/7/3/22735066/king_the_man_in_the_black_suit.pdf And here is an impeccably well-crafted piece on self-respect, something I decidedly lack, by Joan Didion: https://www.vogue.com/article/joan-didion-self-respect-essay-1961 Sorry about the lack of updates on here, all one or two of you who read this. I’ve been writing a new novel and trying to find a publisher or agent for my first one, a decidedly non-commercial affair. 900+ pages. I gtg. Sleep awaits. I have a startup to start tmrw.

#betterdaysareatoenailaway #startups #millions #losers

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jasonmcgathey · 5 years

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This has already been a fun, if sprawling and chaotic, section to tackle. Expect frequent changes as I continue to add to and revise the sections. It’s probably going to take a while to get a handle on this page – so just maybe, if you can, try and avoid these orange construction cones and blinking arrows straight out of the Spring-Sandusky interchange mess. If it looks a little skeletal, know that I am working on this as my current main project, and continue hoping some brilliant idea will help me organize it a little better. Until that lightning flash of inspiration arrives, maybe a series of alphabetized districts (with a couple I’m making up just now) and/or major roads is the best way to go:

Arena District (north of Spring, west of High)

Brewery District (south of the interstates, west of High)

E. Broad Street

W. Broad Street

Downtown Proper (area with most of the government buildings, etc, between Broad, the Scioto River, the interstates, and S. 4th Street)

German Village

N. High Street

S. High Street

Uptown District (everything north of Broad that isn’t covered elsewhere)

-Arena District-

Nationwide Arena

North Market

-Brewery District-

Though downtown as a whole has been plagued by this to some extent, the Brewery District is unique in that I feel like for 20 plus years now, there’s been this trend of bars blowing into here with a ton of hype, and being packed to the gills in what has always been a happening district – in other words, a theoretically sustainable business – but then the masses stop showing up overnight, a few months down the road, and the place is toast before you know it.

Banana Joe’s – an early lesson in how the night of the week is everything. We came here on a Friday and it was one of the most insane crowds I’ve ever witnessed; a Thursday journey maybe two weeks later had more in common with a funeral home.

Brewmasters Gate (485 S. Front St.) – this would be an excellent example of what I’m talking about. This opened as a positively cavernous club in the early 2000s, and had to be just about the most popular place in town for a good six months. A bunch of us drove down here often during the summer of its heyday, during which time it was unfailingly jam packed with young people throwing down, spilling out to the spacious patio and even the sidewalks. By the following summer, nobody came here, and you were looked at kind of strangely if mentioning it. I’m not sure exactly when it closed, but it didn’t seem to stick around very long after this. Strangely enough, the place survives and has maintained the same name, though it appears this is now just a hall people rent out for events.

Tommy Keegan’s – stumbling across this entry in my journal, from early 1998, is an especially striking example of why I’m glad to have taken so many notes. I actually forgot all about this enterprise and haven’t heard mention of it since.

Tommy Keegan’s looks vaguely like one of those modern faux Irish pubs or something, with its painted cement floor, its dark and generally unfussy atmosphere. Being located underground doesn’t hurt, either. The front, larger room holds most of the bar’s occupants, including some annoying, talent-challenged goober playing acoustic guitar and singing near the door. It’s hard to imagine he would receive much encouragement or tip money even if warbling at the campus BW3. But apparently, they pay him to come here.

The back room is a bit more subdued and we make a bee line for it. They’ve got one of those giant hoppers dispensing free popcorn back here, and even while knowing in the back of your mind it’s only going to make your thirstier, desiring ever more beer, which is why they manipulate you such, in the moment you just don’t care and grab some anyway. Or at least this is what I do.

It’s Keisha’s birthday and we started out with a much larger posse, but the war of attrition has whittled us down to these seven survivors: the birthday girl and Pam, and then Damon, Paul, John H, this Mike guy who’s kind of cool, and me. But somehow there’s this random kid just hanging out by these pool tables, of which the bar has a couple back here, and by some convoluted turn of events he winds up being partners against Paul and me in a few games of standard billiards. Damon is absolutely on fire for some reason, and they totally smoke us from start to finish. But we’ve already exhausted what limited kicks are to be found at Keegan’s, and have agreed to strike off for Victory’s next.

“Stay and play a few games with me!” the kid begs Damon, “we’ll make some money!”

“Ah, we gotta go,” Damon returns with a laugh.

Victory’s – I’ve only actually set foot inside of Victory’s once prior to this, nearly a year ago, that night of Maria’s birthday bus. And while it feels impossible to have memories down here from a year ago, which were pretty crazy yet not really referenced at all since then – neither in my thoughts nor discussions with these guys – I guess it’s another example of how the proverbial moss is growing beneath us, and we’d best keep moving if wishing to avoid entrapment by it.

So the layout here is much different that I remember, but then again, I’d been pretty blasted that night, a singular experience thus far in my Columbus residency. There are two front rooms with one long, connected bar that runs in the middle of each. One side is basically a chill out zone, while the other is encumbered with a dance floor to boogie upon, and a stage for the band. In the back, which is kept much darker, there’s an elevated second dance floor, this time under the purview of a nearby DJ booth, while beyond here the pattern repeats with that exact same scenario out on an exterior patio. The patio is not presently open, however.

Damon and Paul sit off to one side which allows them the perfect vantage point for drinking, smoking, watching and critiquing the band all at once. They call themselves Jonesy, though I’m not exactly sure of the spelling, and these guys do a fantastic job mixing 80’s covers with a few more recent selections, from the likes of Nine Inch Nails. So good, in fact, that these two are debating whether this band isn’t just miming to a tape. Featuring keyboards and electric drums, both elements you don’t see a whole lot of in this city’s live scene, they also boast an impressive live show, although it might actually belong to the bar.

The rest of us are out on the dance floor, hopping around to the music, hoping for a cheap brush of fate with one of these ladies. John breaks away from us to scout the perimeter for any fresh prospects. During this interim I do enjoy the inevitable wayward interactions with Keisha.

“I thought that was so hilarious earlier when my friend got kicked out of the bar, and you were like, gee, that’s terrible!” she’s shouting into my ear at one point, laughing hysterically.

John returns with even better information than this. “There’s a couple outrageously hot chicks on the other dance floor,” he tells me. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

We stroll off to the back room and step up to the elevated floor, casually work our way toward these two honeys. And yes, they are quite exceptional in appearance. Just as we’re about to zero in on them, however, these two dudes swoop in and throw their arms around the girls, clearly some sort of flag panting move. Damn. So the ladies are claimed, but whatever. As more ammunition mounting in this war chest of whatever you want to call it, Keisha and Pam have actually followed us back here, with Mike in tow right behind them. So they climb onto this platform with us, and we continue dancing in this dingy corridor.

-E. Broad Street-

Columbus Dispatch

Columbus Dispatch (62 E. Broad) – Home of the city’s major daily newspaper. I don’t feel like Cleveland bests Columbus in very many categories at all, but this is one exception – The Plain Dealer has always been a better paper. A lot of people, including some of my friends and I, were vaguely horrified when the Dispatch bought up treasured weekly independents, The Other Paper and Alive! True to form, they soon axed The Other Paper, citing overkill. In fairness, however, I will say they didn’t really seem to tinker with Alive! much, far less than expected.

-W. Broad Street-

COSI

Center of Science and Industry. It’s an okay spot, though much less exciting than one might imagine. A trip to the zoo or the Ohio Historical Society easily offers you much more bang for your buck. Only recommended if you’ve never been and are burned out on all the other similar options in town.

Emma digging into chocolate cake at Spaghetti Warehouse

Spaghetti Warehouse – Treasured destination over the years, mostly because my daughter Emma is somewhat of a spaghetti maniac. Our most notable visit here was probably her 4th birthday party, which featured a memorably random cast of family members. Up above are some photos of her attacking chocolate birthday cake at that party. Maddie appears to be enjoying herself considerably just watching her sister in action. As the name would imply, it’s a great old building with a warehouse vibe, the highlight being this train car with highly in-demand seating.

-German Village-

The original Max & Erma’s was opened down here in 1958 (739 S. 3rd Street), before becoming a franchise in 1972. Sadly this spot went belly up in 2017 and an operation known as Wunderbar currently calls this address home. But as a consolation prize, there’s no shortage of great restaurants and taverns both, mostly within walking distance of one another, down in this district.

-Uptown District-

Mitchell’s Steakhouse

Downtown Columbus This has already been a fun, if sprawling and chaotic, section to tackle. Expect frequent changes as I continue to add to and revise the sections.

#Arena District #Brewery District #Columbus Dispatch #COSI #Dispatch #downtown Columbus #Mitchell&039;s #Mitchell&039;s Steakhouse #North Market #Victory&039;s

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nickywaynewood-blog · 6 years

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‘One of my housemates travels through time - it’s weird’

He doesn’t seem to think much of it though - but then again, he also didn’t think much of it when Pope Urban II called the Fifth Crusade in our kitchen.

One of my other housemates is two men in a cow costume (but Justin (my time travelling housemate (Actually he’s not my housemate, I technically own a different flat, I don’t pay rent here)) insists that it’s a real cow), another is my Dad (who died 10 years ago (At least, he says he’s my dad but he’s trapped in the body of a baby)), and the last is just a really chill dude (his name’s Nick, by coincidence (my name’s Nicola)).

Those parenthese weren’t strictly necessary, but I’m starting to feel like everything that happens to me is embedded in some larger clause that I’ve lost track of somewhere along the way.

It started when I moved in with Justin. At first, it was pretty normal, but after about 20 minutes, a shoe cupboard filled with island natives burst into the living room and started trying to hack me into pieces. The strangest part was, I had put my shoes in there when I got in, and hadn’t seen them. I really don’t remember how I got out of that one.

My first encounter with Daisy the Two Men in a Cow Costume was when Justin was explaining how alternate timelines work and describing the highly, highly varied repercussions of the butterfly effect while he gave me a tour of the house. We walked in on her trying to use the bathroom; I say her as opposed to them in this context because the way she was positioned seemed very much like how I’d expect a real cow would attempt to use a toilet (Not that I would go into a situation like that with many expectations). I ended up getting quite attached to her - which was a shame, because I was the one with the shotgun when she contracted foot and mouth a couple of years back.

When I arrived last October I was fresh out of Uni with a Masters in Biomed from Oxford, and a week so full of job interviews I barely had time to think. When I finally got to the first one (six months later), toxicology didn’t seem all that important to me any more. Fortunately the voice of my father in the back of my head, which had pushed me to work as hard as I did, was now coming out of a baby, and as such, had lost a little of its gravitas.

Since then, I’ve spent the majority of my time hosting the things Justin brings back from the ruins of alternate timelines, trying to stop them destroying the house, or the world. It probably sounds like I spend all my time galavanting through the past and future, but honestly the majority of it is disease control. It’s kind of boring, but as it turns out, if you go dragging people over from a world ravaged by no-legs plague, you risk an outbreak of no legs. I’ve had to stem the tide of purple-ear-lobe-delight, pointy-finger-surprise, instant-death, cactus-for-eyes, can’t-stop-barfing-oh-god-why-can’t-I-stop-barfing and a handful of ones where people burst. Oh and sorry about swine flu, that’s on me.

That said I do get more than my fair share of interesting surprises, like take earlier today for example (I’m fairly sure it was today), when we were at breakfast. I opened the fridge to find a human head nested between a bag of frozen peas and the fish fingers. I queried it with Justin, who was perched at our kitchen counter with some cheerios. He tilted his head over to get a proper look and informed me, “Oh, that’s Walt Disney.” before returning to his cereal.

“Yeah, surprisingly that isn’t actually an answer to my question.” He gave a little shrug and didn’t finish his mouthful to let me know, “Well I don’t know, it’s probably there for a good reason though, just leave it.”

“Justin, it’s on the ice tray.”

“Just wash it.”

And then there’s whatever is going on in the basement. If you were to pull open the old door beneath the stairs you’d be welcomed with a chorus of throaty singing, and a woman's anguished cries while someone chants, “He hath returned for us! Now get the balloons!” At this point Justin or I would drag you out and slam the door on a chorus of “aww” from the depths below. We should probably get a lock for it, or have the place fumigated. Plus whenever someone sleeps on the couch they spot hooded figures sneaking into the kitchen for snacks. Whether they’re related, I don’t know.

So what questions are people bound to ask? Furthest back I've ever been with Justin? That's probably the time we had to go dinosaur hunting. At one point in time Justin really thought it was a good idea to hire a warehouse downtown to keep Fred in (A T-rex which some future or past version of himself had thought would be a good idea to keep as a pet). When it came to feeding Fred, the best plan Justin had was to hunt and kill a handful of triceratops and anatosaurus from 70 Ma. So inevitably, despite my own great disapproval I might add, we sauntered back to the cretaceous period with a high powered rifle, and started trying to bag us a meal. As you might expect, Fred only stuck around for a day. As it turns out T-rex’ aren't of the disposition to hang around quietly in cramped warehouses, preferring people-eating rampages. If only we'd known he'd eat people before, we wouldn't have had a problem.

Furthest forward in time? Honestly not all that far; it seems to be inevitable, regardless of what the pair of us do, that if you go more than about thirty years into the future humanity has been conquered by the Xit’Greb. Unfortunately the only technology they’ve worked on is for the express purpose of aiding the removal and consumption of human brains. This is assuming, of course, that when they arrive humanity hasn't already been wiped out by the machines (It usually doesn’t happen unless the love affair between Larry Page and Tim Cook makes front page news. Don’t ask me why).

Since last October, I’ve seen a drastic increase in a few of things; occasions on which someone else very nearly (or in fact did) die, occasions on which I very almost (or in fact did, according to Justin) die, and the weird insects that won't stop making nests anywhere they get the opportunity. It wouldn't be so bad, but they've evolved to look like tiny toy cars (I’ve been trying to think what evolutionary advantage ‘looking like a toy car’ could have for an early insect; I’ve so far got a fairly solid hypothesis. It revolves around Justin (who has yet to start on this operation), pheromones, the CEO of Hasbro, and a Toyota Corolla. Though why he would carry it out, I’ve no idea.) I've got spray for the bugs, but they always seem to come back. I'm also beginning to get nervous that one of my Dad's collectibles is an imposter.

I’ll try to explain how all the time jumping happens without altering the history of the world into some dystopian nightmare. I’m still fuzzy on the details, but I’m pretty sure Justin never bothered to understand how it works himself (I’m still toying with the idea that I lost my mind over my final exams, and am currently sitting in the corner of a padded cell). Every time Justin goes back in time, a new timeline is created, and when he leaves he goes back to the one he came from. This way he abandons one reality, leaving them with whatever situation he brought about, and the future he goes back to is completely free of his influence. This leaves him completely unaccountable for his actions (I did a Philosophy module at Uni, and I’m pretty sure that’s not how ethics works).

It becomes hard to pick out individual stories after a point. They all end up blending into one five year period of utter lunacy, half of them still haven’t happened, but the results are evident in the state of the flat and the memories of those who inhabit it. My most coherent memory is the time I spent three months in the ranks of Attila the Hun’s army because Justin forgot where he left me. I have to say they were pretty alright guys, I could have done without the heart eating, but hey, when in Rome. I wonder if Ernac missed me? Perhaps that's a romance better lost to history.

Three men smelling overly cologned just came in and asked me to direct them to the newborn babe, so I think I'd better go get that sorted before they find my father and lose their minds. In the meantime if anyone has any questions, please fire away.

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