(no subject)

[thedreamisdead]

[There's no getting around it. It's an essay. About the dangers of sugar abuse on your health, linked to several medical articles. In it, she links the abuse of sugar to depression, diabetes, dopamine imbalances, fueling cancer cells and making tumors more aggressive, impotence, increased risk of heart attacks and heart disease, increased inflammation leading to joint pain and arthritis, increased risk of strokes, kidney failure, and rotting teeth.

Included in her essay is a list of signs of sugar abuse, including false teeth, rotten teeth, pupil dilation, jitteriness, mid-afternoon 'crashes', and other symptoms.

She wraps up with a plea for people to seek help and rehabilitation for their addictions and avoid anyone who might try to push such addictive substances on them.]

Comments

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[walkingballpit]

Can confirm: Rich Rider is fine.

[ You're welcome ]

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[whyarewehere]

oh my god why

[ It's all he really has left now. ]

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[walkingballpit]

Because I have complete faith that you'd do the same for me if I left a statement just dangling like that.

[private]

[whyarewehere]

[ Grif's about to fire off something flippant when something occurs to him. He deletes what he was typing, and instead: ]

has he seemed weird lately to you?

[private]

[walkingballpit]

[ Robbie uses smash segues like that, so he tends to take them seriously when other people do. ]

Rich? No, he seems OK to me. Or OK when I saw him last. I've been ... not paying the greatest attention to people, and the conversation was kind of not normal ground. I thought he was really cool about it.

[private]

[whyarewehere]

i don't know he's just been

[ The cursor blinks as Grif puzzles out what he needs to say. He's been thinking this stuff, but not articulating it.]

weird. quiet. doesn't want to hang out. he keeps making excuses and stuff like he's busy.

[ It's almost enough to make him wonder if he's done something wrong. Rich isn't rude, but Grif's started to notice a pattern of being brushed off. ]

is he just spending more time with you guys? the last time we talked he was excited for you?

[walkingballpit]

I honestly wouldn't know.

[ Typing out that sentence is perhaps the most soul-crushing thing he's done in a year. It looks so cold and calculated. No, I literally have no idea if one of my best friends is acting strangely because I, Robbie Baldwin, am crap at life. ]

I've been kind of ducking him myself. It's one of those things were you need to ask for advice, and it turns out the right answer sucks. I don't know why he'd be excited about my life a compost heap, but if he is... that's really messed up.

[whyarewehere]

i thought things were going good with you and vance?

[ Okay, wait, slow down a minute. He backs up. Talking about this with Robbie is extremely not his place, but it's just too weird to leave it lie. ]

look it's not that it's my business, but that's what he was saying.

[walkingballpit]

Is this some sort of joke?

Because, I promise you, I'm not laughing.

[ So, no, things are not going well there. ]

Seriously, what the hell did I do to get this high school shit thrown at me?

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[lovernotafighter]

Wait. WAIT. WAIT.

There's someone here named Dick Rider and I'm just now putting this shit together?

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[walkingballpit]

It's not my fault you're too slow to be pro. You got to catch stuff like that or your game goes down the tubes.

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[lovernotafighter]

Dude, my game is FIIIIINE. Don't you worry about my game!

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[iamresponding]

I go by Rich.

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[walkingballpit]

Does that ever work? Like if I stood up and said, I go by Rob, nobody'd listen.

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[iamresponding]

I'm so going to get you back for this. Somehow. I was hoping I could stay under Tucker's radar with the name thing until all this was over but noooo. Now I'm never going to hear the end of it.

[Goddamit, he hasn't talked to Tucker much but he's heard enough about him and seen enough of his dumb conversations to know he's never going to let this go.]

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[walkingballpit]

[ Robbie doesn’t really know the extent to which Tucker is Tucker, so this is an unintended consequence, but it’s such a normal reaction that it makes him feel guilty about how he and Grif are thinking he’s acting weird. Maybe they’re the ones bring weird. ]

I’m sorry, Rich. I didn’t mean for it to be a permanent thing. This Tucker guy… I mean, I could do a full five minutes on his name. It might shut him up?

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[lovernotafighter]

Yeeeah, pretty sure your name is Dick Rider though and I'd be a shitty person if I let that slip by.

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[iamresponding]

[Oh God. He doesn't really know Tucker but he's hard to miss on the comms and Grif has told him a bit about him. This is the last person he wanted to figure out the stupid joke with his name.]

Alright, since you're never going to let me hear the end of it, I'm just going to have to accept that.

That's okay. You can make fun of my name all you like. I still got something you apparently don't got.

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[lovernotafighter]

[Sorry; there is no end to this, not now, not ever, not unless Grif kicks him, and even then it might only make it worse.

Egging him on? That wasn't going to help either.]

You better not be talking about what I'm packing, because I can tell you right now, I'm packing.

[iamresponding]

Nope, what I have is enough operational knowledge to know I'm in possession of equipment that's tried, tested, and hot babe approved.

[Despite this conversation being about junk,he keeps things oddly respectful when it comes to the aforementioned hot babes, mainly because he actually does respect the hell out of them. This joke is at Tucker's expense, not theirs.]

That's not me bragging. I'm just a very lucky guy, who has on occasion somehow done things to make some incredibly admirable and gorgeous women grace me with the gift of their very valuable attention.

So it must be hard for you. It's just a lot easier to not worry about that kind of thing when you can do frequent field testing instead of doing it all in tutorial mode.

[whyarewehere]

[ Grif needed this laugh very, very much. ]

hello, 911?

[lovernotafighter]

If you say one word about a burn

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[circusbat]

Which I'm grateful for, otherwise nobody would ever know who was shouting for Dick around here.

[Yes, he knows what that sounds like. No, he doesn't care. Because it's hilarious.]

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[whyarewehere]

you already wasted so many simmons-related opportunities back home that it's sad. i expect better of you.

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[lovernotafighter]

Yeah, Simmons is too easy, though; he just gets flustered and wavy arms and squeaks like a dog toy. This is a whole new thing.

Besides, this shit is DICK RIDER. It's way funnier.