Reflection #AtoZchallenge 2020, Alton Brown Love, and a Short Story #FlashFiction LGBTQIA+

• I managed to get all my posts done this year! 
• I also entered WriteClub 2020. 🤞 
• I worked on my writing. 
• I entered a flash fiction contest (tied for second).
• I celebrated my 13th wedding anniversary – we even opened the wine we were saving.
• I fell behind on journaling. 
• I didn't keep up with my commenting. 
• I'm behind on email replies.
• I've had several arguments on Facebook with people who... don't share my belief in the seriousness of the pandemic. 

Our special drink to celebrate our anniversary.

Look what I spotted on an old episode of Desperate Housewives. A to Z Yellow Pages.

Biolidics, a company from Singapore, has a rapid test for the virus! Video: facebook.com/nasdaily



Wear a mask! Support the United States Postal Service! 📬 Follow Alton Brown's Quarantine Quitchen on YouTube because he, his wife, and their two dogs are adorable! 💑🐶🐕


That's the prompt and this is my entry (this was before I saw the show Upload). (Trigger warnings: current pandemic, LGBTQIA+)


Welcome to Third Life _ _ _

Username:
Password:

"You just pick your name and password to get started. Think to type," the sales representative says as she rearranges my bedside table.

"Right. But this isn't a regular website."

"The instructions are all on the screen. At any time, say 'exit' and an option to quit will appear."

"What happens if I quit?"

She gnaws on her lip before answering. "I've never seen that happen. But you are free to leave any time."

"Why did you pause?"

"Because I'm in the world. I had to cancel and close my box after saying the word. Any other questions you have are answered in the program," she says as she leaves.

I probably shouldn't do this. But she looked so real! I could smell her, and it wasn't a cleaning product scent, but perfume. Her skin felt real to my touch. That's what skin still feels like, right? Anyone who comes in here hides behind a biohazard suit, as do I. She didn’t need to.

I click the FAQ.

Do I have to use my real name?

—  No! In Third Life you can be your most true self, whoever you feel that is. Upgrades and changes for your avatar are purchasable. Usernames are permanent but in-game IDs can be altered for a fee.

I type a username and password. I've seen Avatar and the Matrix movies. And I played SecondLife for years. I know this isn't much different. Except those were movies and a game. This is real life.

Real life? I think that ended back in Nineteen or Twenty. Reality tumbled into a portal dimension of country-sized fires, quakes, sickness, and building-sized asteroids.

The screen starts with an avatar that looks like me. Or, at least, the me that was. Back when smiles weren't hidden behind masks. Hair that was cut and styled: what a memory!

This biohazard suit is like my closet. I dared not come out of it before. I've pretended to be Cis to survive. But the avatars that live in the world are without violence. I can be my real self now.

I scroll through base avatars until I find what I want. There. The body that reflects who I feel I look like.

Hours have passed by the time I've perfected making my avatar. I step out into the world for the first time as my true self.

What will happen to my birth body? They say the avatar never dies. But my birth body was about to expire. I survived the first two virus waves, but won't survive cardiomyopathy. If I exit, is that suicide?

When my birth body dies the biohazard suit, my closet, will be discarded. So I'm out. There's no going back. I'm going to have to live as my true self among the remaining thirty-million survivors. Is that a silver lining, or a tinfoil one?



How was your April? I hope you liked my story.

Zombie Mummy #AtoZchallenge #rpg #fantasy #prompt #pandemic

My theme is a month of prompts and ideas for tabletop role-playing games or prompts for fantasy writers.

Zombie Mummy

People in a fictional society were having a fictional pandemic. And the fictional leader suggested they inject cleaning products into their lungs. A disinfectant producer flat out tells people not to do this, but they do anyway. Really, what kind of leader would even speculate about injecting cleaning products into the lungs? But there you go, people doing it, and the poorest people eating and snorting soap. "I was only kidding!" the leader claims as his people die.

A wizard, who was banned from the kingdom by the leader, attempts a spell to end the pandemic. He doesn't know about the cleaning products. By chance, having soapy lungs is the only way this spell could possibly backfire. (But really, who would think someone would have cleaning product in the lungs? I mean, come on...) So everyone in the fictional land that was still alive or recently died and followed the idea of the leader turns into a zombie. Those who had died earlier in the week after following the idea become zombie mummies (walking around with bandages, because that's how the land cares for their dead). Oh, and anyone who ignored the cleaning idea has just been cured of the pandemic and now has to deal with zombies and zombie mummies.

Your party might include the wizard, adventurers from other lands, residents from the land...
Kill them? Try to cure them? Risk restarting the pandemic?
Side with the leader? Replace the leader with someone in your party?



Some people like to use a fictional game to make light of an impossible situation. Winning a fictional game can almost feel like regaining a little control. And rolling natural 20s while slaying fictional evil can be a healthy outlet for anger. All players should be aware of the premise beforehand, as many people are experiencing mental health challenges right now. The idea for the post was written in early March, not including the cleaning products. Originally the leader suggested drinking ogre milk and the party had to figure out if an ogre even could be milked... but, I mean... real life just outdid my idea, as you can see by the hyperlinks.

PLEASE do not ingest cleaning products. Follow the nice Wizard Sanders... 😉




And that's it for the A to Z Challenge 2020! Thanks to everyone who visited me. This is a personal blog, and 11 months of the year it's just me sharing my thoughts somewhere other than FB or Twitter.

normal

(Warning: Language and Pandemic rant. This is not an A to Z post.)

I had a dentist appointment coming up on Tuesday. I have rescheduled it for September. Hopefully, things will go back to normal by then.

OMG. 

Yes, I know. We were a world in need of change. We were a country with some serious problems. For fuck's sake, our two frontrunners for the November election have both been accused of sexual assault, so it's so bad in America that we can't even get someone without a history of criminal behavior to stay in the presidential campaign!

I'll grant you that Bernie dropped out as a way to protest the lack of vote-by-mail opportunities at a time when voting could mean infection. So he was trying to protect his people, which is freaking presidential. But still, look where that leaves us. With an Electoral College picking which sexual assaulter will rule for the next four years. That sucks.

And STILL, I want to go back to normal.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanhatesthis/after-coronavirus-it-will-not-go-back-to-normal

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/04/world-after-coronavirus-pandemic/609775/

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/31/how-will-the-world-emerge-from-the-coronavirus-crisis

https://www.vox.com/2020/4/10/21215494/coronavirus-plans-social-distancing-economy-recession-depression-unemployment

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/21/georgia-leads-race-become-americas-no-1-death-destination/

This exhausted kitty sums up how I feel.
(I got this pic by becoming a Patreon of Niv
https://www.patreon.com/m/4301398/posts
I highly recommend following her.)

You people exhaust Kitty.

Look, what I'm saying is that I would like to be able to make a dentist appointment without wondering if the office will be there, and without thinking there's a good chance a cleaning will actually kill me. I need an x-ray of my lower back. I've been putting that off for two reasons. 1- Because I know the x-ray techs are completely overworked right now. 2- I don't want to get the virus and die from having a back x-ray.

My best friend just lost an immediate family member. How? He broke his leg and went to the hospital to have it taken care of, and then spiked a fever, and then the fever got really high, then they put him on a vent, then in a medically induced coma, and then he died. That was in the span of a few days. And my best friend is three states away so it's not like she can go handle things, or attend a funeral (which are drive-by services where you roll up in your car, pay respects at the casket, and drive off). Plus, she works security for P&G, and it's not exactly the right time to take off of work. (Feel free to click to see what they make. Gold. They may as well be making freaking gold right now. If someone robbed Fort Knox, they'd use the gold to buy stuff from P&G because it's worth more right now.)

So yeah. When I say normal, I mean I want to be able to go to the store and buy Charmin UltraSoft toilet paper and a roll of paper towels and some Lysol disinfectant spray. I want to buy all of those in one shopping trip, like normal. I want to carry them to my car without my husband putting on his Hulk face like, "don't mess with us! These are our products! Stay back!" And I don't want to feel bad if I opt to buy two of any of those items. DON'T TELL ME THAT PART WASN'T WORKING. BECAUSE GOING TO THE STORE TO BUY TOILET PAPER WAS WORKING PRETTY DAMN WELL FOR ME, THANK-YOU-VERY-MUCH.

Change is good. There are improvements that can, should, and must be made to our world.

But there's nothing wrong with wanting to be able to do A SIMPLE FUCKING THING like buy toilet paper, get an x-ray, have a meal with a friend, or go for a dental cleaning.

I AM ALLOWED TO WANT THOSE SIMPLE FUCKING PLEASURES BACK. 

AND FUCK YOU IF YOU TELL ME I'M NOT ALLOWED TO WANT THEM.

It doesn't have to be every day. But yes, I want the option for those things 24/7/365. I want that back. AND I AM ALLOWED TO WANT IT. I'm allowed to want to not worry that my husband went to work today and could get the virus and bring it home to me. I'm allowed to want to not worry that my mom is going to get the virus from her merchandising job. I'd really like to be able to go back to Facebook being happy stuff shared with friends instead of damn near every post being catastrophic. I want healthcare workers to be able to see their families. I wouldn't mind if states stopped trying to outdo each other with death tolls. "My state is gonna be the death destination!" "Nah, I already have a quarter of my citizen throwing suicide parties!" And it sure would be nice to have a president that loves the lives of the people more than money and power. (That's a long-shot dream. I'M ALLOWED TO DREAM.)

But yeah. When I say I would like to go back to normal, I don't mean nothing should change. But there are some basic routine activities that I'd like to have back. This world we're in right now is too stressful and, honestly, I don't know that I can handle the idea of this new level of constant fear and stress as being permanent. And I don't think I'm alone in that.

Pandemic Theories

(This is not an A to Z post. Please scroll for those. Thanks.)

Some of the theories about the current pandemic. Are they crazy? Worse, are they true?

The Earth Theory:

Not taking climate change seriously enough? You aren't the only species living here, but you are the one causing the problem. So the Earth is getting rid of a bunch of you to save itself.
See movie: The Happening

The X-men / Heroes Theory:

Evolution has caused some people to evolve with superpowers. There's a way to prevent it, but only if the entire population is inoculated. There are already people who won't take the vaccine for polio and whatever. So a new threat was needed, one that would come with a global pandemic so laws could be passed requiring every healthy person to get the vaccine, and to do so with minimal resistance.
See TV show: Heroes

Zombie Theory:

A government was testing a virus. Because that government owes China way more money than it can pay, they opted to secretly test there. But it mutated and got out. And now it has spread across the globe. Naturally, that government will never admit to what it did. I mean, come on, you've got people being violent against anyone who likes like they might have ancestors from any part of the entire Asian continent. The person may be smart, but people are freaking stupid.
See movie: Outbreak

Time Travel Theory:

Why hasn't a time traveler come to stop this? Because time travel isn't possible? Or because a time traveler actually started this?


Robot Theory:

A company has created AI robots who can do all the jobs people do. Except people do the jobs. People not doing the jobs is called unemployment, and a high rate of that costs politicians elections. However, if there were a reason that people couldn't do jobs, if they had to stay home, then the robots could take over. The governments would give lots of their money to this company for these robots. So much so that the company would become the world's largest economy. And the robots could end wealth inequality. Robots can't allow people to suffer, therefore they can't allow poverty, starvation, homelessness. They'd have to make sure everyone had enough. They also couldn't allow wars. Some versions of this result in the robots killing all the humans.
See movies: Wall-e  I, Robot


Why am I writing about this?
🐇 Plot bunnies for stories. Does anyone want to read these stories right now? Probably not. I don't. But these things are in my head (and on the Internet, because no sooner do I think it than I see someone else mentioning it).