Survival Of The Fittest

At the center of Skyline Heights, there was a small playground by the coin laundromat. Mortimer's mother carried the laundry over to the laundromat from the apartment. The playground itself wasn't special. Mortimer was already a teenager to be too old to reside at the playground, though some of the parents take their kids there. It was a better option than what befell of Malone Circle Park.

Mortimer was wearing his face mask when he was outside. He brought his bike along, in case some pedophile tries to get him.

Ok, maybe he was exaggerating the whole thing with EDP445, but since the streets were mostly deserted from people staying home to avoid COVID, he had to be on edge.

James appeared at the playground later. He was wearing some anime t-shirt and his face mask. His eyes were going completely from side-to-side.

"Morty?" James asked him.

"It's Mortimer. Don't use Morty. That show fucking sucks." Mortimer cut to the chase.

"We need to get some props for our video, though are you able to use that as a horse?" James pointed to Mortimer's bike. He can see what James was getting at. Clever monkey.

"Ok, that can work, though what other props should we get? We need to be cheap here. You know... Economy is being robbed from us. We have to deal with James Corden and Amy Schumer-"

"Aren't they the same person?" James asked him.

Mortimer paused.

"...You're correct. I can try to chip in with stuff, but we need something to show we're playing knights and samurais." Mortimer said.

"I might have something, but I can't have my parents get sussy with me-"

"Woah woah woah! ...The hell did you say?" Mortimer was looking at James like he was crazy.

""Sussy. Like you're sus." James said, prompting Mortimer to let out an annoyed sigh. "I can't be a sussy baka, either." James added.

This wasn't going to be Mortimer's cup of tea. James was a weeb, another drone to the plague of Among Us, and-

Mortimer saw that James was checking his phone.

"Hang on, I need to check my TikTok, quick."

AND HE USED TIKTOK! THE AUDACITY OF THIS ANIMAL! James must have been the antichrist, Mortimer thought.

"Can we get back on track here! What kind of prop do we need?" Mortimer asked James.

"I think I can provide some swords, but I was thinking of finding like a crown to wear. Like a crown that a king would wear." James said, giving Mortimer an assignment.

"...I think I know where we can get a crown. You gotta let your folks know that we are going to Camelot, though." Mortimer said to him.

"Wait, I thought we can't go to the Excalibur hotel?" James asked him.

"No, not the Excalibur. Another place close by. It's in Strawberry Letter Pavilion."

"Hello, welcome to Burger King. What can I get for you today?"

Wow, Mortimer forgot how miserable getting fast food was. Especially at Burger King. He was a White Castle fan, honestly. Both Mortimer and James wore their face masks when they stepped to the cashier. Minimum wage hell looks bleak, but Mortimer didn't have to worry about that yet. Mortimer whispered to James quick.

"What food do you want?"
"I don't know, I wasn't planning on eating."
"Fine." Mortimer cleared his throat, when he spoke to the cashier.

"Hi, we would like a Whopper Jr. Meal. Plus, can we get one of those paper crowns, too?" Mortimer asked the cashier. "Sure, would you also like the limited time jalapeno cheese bites?" the cashier asked. 2 dollars, why not? "Yeah, go ahead. We can have some." Mortimer forked over 10 dollars. He ordered the food to-go, since he didn't want to eat inside the restaurant.

A while later, Mortimer and James hung around at some alley at Strawberry Letter Pavilion. Mortimer wore his new Burger King crown, while the two went over things. James had some of the jalapeno cheese bites. He definitely wasn't hungry, but you can still snack a bit on the munchies.

"We got our crown, you got the swords, I got a horse. Now, we just gotta film it." Mortimer explained.

"Can I be the filmmaker? Like we can film it at Skyline Heights, but we need to make it more dramatic. We need to do it at the crack of dawn!" James said, though Mortimer was confused.

"Why the hell do you want to do it at the crack of dawn?"

"It would look cinematic!" James said.

"James, we have the budget of 20 dollars at our hands. We're kids, not Hollywood directors!" Mortimer explained to him.

"Hey, I don't want to be filming something bare bones! It's not like we are able to film it over at our middle school-"

"We're not going back there." Mortimer immediately said. He already hated being reminded of his middle school, even though he was still in it, technically. At least, he wasn't physically at the grounds. This whole pandemic to him was probably a blessing and curse for him to not deal with these fucking pricks face-to-face in school and during lunch. "We're not going to be going back to that shithole anytime, soon. It makes Skyline Heights look more appealing. At least, it didn't look like we were being taught in a prison." Now, he felt like he should've been a king with that crown on him, but it wasn't made of anything valuable.

"...Guessing you didn't enjoy being there?" James said, trying to sympathize.

"I doubt anyone enjoys going to school over there. Everyone there is useless. Even the school nurse and she's the type to think a stab wound is just a scratch or a minor boo-boo." Mortimer complained. "They could've made it less obvious that we were living in some fascist government that enforces a status quo. Next thing you know, the military-ind-indust-" Fuck, he was strutting. "Military-industrial complex is going to get people to their sign-ups. Or better yet, they will have us in the Amazon sweatshops to piss in bottles while claiming to support the gays." Mortimer said as a brief rant.

"....So.... like a school to prison pipeline?" James asked him.

"...Kinda!" Mortimer threw his hands up. He was hoping that he didn't have to deal with shit like what was happening in the world, if he got a job.

He sunk his teeth into his burger.

On the "day" of filming in the "morning", Mortimer had set his phone alarm clock to a "wonderful" 2 AM. That was the time that James said the sun would rise.

Clearly, he was fucking wrong.

It was completely dark out, but now Mortimer couldn't go back to sleep. And he couldn't wake up his sister and his mother either.

"This sucks..."

All Mortimer had to comfort him was the wonders of the darkness.

Mortimer sneaked into the kitchen. One single light switch and his eyes will get flashbanged. It wasn't funny.

Ok... maybe he can make breakfast toast in the dark. He reached down to open the cabinet where the toaster was stored... only to accidently cause some pot lids to fall.

"Shit."

This was going to be difficult than he thought.

Maybe, he can try to do... a breakfast sandwich. Ok, that will be much easier.

Mortimer can tell where the refrigerator was, opening up the freezer to grab a sausage breakfast sandwich. He probably bet that James had his mother cook up sausage for his breakfast. Like real sausage links. Mortimer couldn't savor or crave for the good stuff. He just needed to deal with what he had.

Mortimer opened the microwave and slipped the breakfast sandwich in, after he took it out of its plastic wrapping. He had to be quiet with the microwave, since the moment that it finished microwaving, it let out that loud beep. Mortimer had to open the microwave door, just as it about to beep, so that it didn't wake everyone up.

Eating breakfast near the witching hour was surreal, though he was early-morning tripping. The next thing he can imagine, he's going to start hearing Toreador March and get himself killed.

Mortimer wrote a quick note, if his mother woke up to notice that he was gone.

Need to do an errand by the laundromat. Will be back, don't worry. Have my phone also.

- Your son, Mortimer.

It was a cold morning, but Mortimer came prepared. The crown he wore. His bike that was his noble stead. And James would bring around the swords. Whatever they were. It was hard to find sticks, Mortimer guessed.

He wore a jacket and some jeans. The skies above him were getting lighter and lighter. The sun was yet to appear, but it was close. James was true to his word and appeared at the playground by the laundromat. To Mortimer's mischief, he saw that James had carried some pool noodles with him. So those were the swords.

"You got your phone ready? We shouldn't stay out here this early, James." Mortimer told him. "Hey, relax! It's not like we're breaking curfew!" James replied, but Mortimer mentioned something that might have rattled James a bit.

"What about the pedophiles?"

"The what?"

"You know. We're like the only two young boys out here. They might start coming out of the shadows, trying to offer us some cupcakes or shit." Mortimer mentioned.
"Are there actually pedophiles here? How much stuff do you know?" James asked him.
"Trust me. I seen horror stories of people sending other people pictures of their shit."
"Arghhh dude! You're trying to make me vomit up my breakfast?!"
"The hell does it matter? You can't make breakfast without waking up your folks!"

"They were already awake! They got back home to make me breakfast before I went to hang with you!" James asked to him, which caused Mortimer.

"Wait? How? Where were they both last night?" Mortimer asked. "My mom and dad both have night jobs. They sleep during the day, while I do Zooms and they leave for work at night." James explained to him. "Let me guess. They had enough time to make you some pancakes and sausage?" Mortimer got a bit jealous that James' parents had the time to make their son breakfast before he had to go to school.
"I'm a waffle guy than pancakes."
"Whatever... let's get this show on the road. My mother might harass me in a moment, when she wakes up and sees that I left a note for her." Mortimer said to James, getting his bike and the crown ready.

"You're able to splice in some medieval or Japanese samurai music after we film this?" Mortimer said to him. "Yeah, I can borrow my parents' Mac computer. Just act like you're jousting." James gave him the orders. Oh boy, this was going to be an interesting morning.

Mortimer doubted that anyone would know that a 14-year old Mortimer Schaub would be wearing a cheap Burger King crown while having a pool noodle to compare how medieval jousting was similar to Japanese swordsmanship on horseback. James was no actor like Mortimer, though it was interesting for the two to be using pinecones as "gold bars", which James was also lucky enough to get from a park nearby that wasn't Malone Circle. The two spent a good hour or so together, where after they were done filming, the two just decided to mess around with a pinecone to pretend that it was a package of heroin.

Some innocence that James managed to grant to Mortimer.

Mortimer's mother eventually knew of where Morty was at, but allowed him to hang at James' place with his parents, after she phoned them. The two were huddled over in James' bedroom, which looked more tacky than Mortimer's own den. Lots of anime posters and merchandise. He didn't understand why James had Warrior Cats books, but he mentioned to Mortimer that they were his friend's copies that he kept. Apparently, James had something blooming for one girl.

Mortimer had a video set up on James' computer, so they can watch the most trippiest movie possible.

Outside In.

"Where do you even find these videos?" James asked him, while Mortimer sat next to him on a stool. "I get to see a lot of things online. Especially after blogging." Mortimer explained to him.
"Are we good on the essay?"
"I written my part of it, did you?"
"Just need to talk more about the weapons like the tonfas. Going on about martial arts to fit in more of a paragraph."
"I did see what you put down. Did you quote Mortal Kombat?"
"Uhhhh no? Did I accidently quote Mortal Kombat? I was using our textbook."

"...Does our textbook have a quote from Mortal Kombat?"
"...That's a good question. I thought they wouldn't let us see the movie, because of how gory it is."
"The games. Obviously, they can't show it. Films? They are actually tamer than you think. I'm not talking about the newest Mortal Kombat movie. I thought the original one in 1995 was tame. It's still alright, but I prefer the animated one with Scorpion." Mortimer said.

"They have an animated movie with Scorpion?"
"Only direct-to-video, but you can still pay to watch it online. Nice and gory, like how it actually has to be."
"What about the sequel to the 1995-"
"We don't talk about that shit." Mortimer immediately said.

Mortimer sat up and went on a bit of a tidbit. "Mortal Kombat Annihilation is probably one of the worst movies I ever watched. Trust me. That one is so fucking horrible. It's not even so bad, it's good. It's painfully bad to a T." Mortimer warned him. James looked back at the screen to continue watching the video.

"...This video feels like a bowling alley screen animation."
"I feel some merit in this. Artistically. It's basically two powerful beings being able to control abstract reality. The first time, I seen this video. I just got hooked."
"..."
"..."
"...Is this video supposed to get me high?"

After they finished the essay and after James uploaded the edited footage into the video to have it be attached to their paper, the two just allowed each other to be.

They weren't friends. They were only partners.

Maybe it was probably for the better, since Mortimer didn't see it in him to interest James further with his favorite works and ideals. He allowed James to have the Burger King crown, but that was something that can be put in the trash, since it was of no real value.

It would be just another day in the spring, while the world was trying to heal itself.

---

I'm going to get this fucking game done...

Around the end of the month, Mortimer finally managed to get to the end of Bloodborne, as hard as he tried. With all the skills that he learnt, he was able to duel against Gehrman, The First Hunter.

"Tonight, Gehrman joins the hunt..."

A chill went down Mortimer's spine. This was going to be a boss fight and it was. Mortimer finally had his skills together and sure enough, he beat Gehrman. Mortimer went ahead and fought off the Moon Presence. Two final bosses back to back. There was something so satisfying in it all. Sure, Mortimer rather didn't become a baby squid, but there was still the energy that he got. How rewarding it was to him to finish beat Bloodborne before Elden Ring was supposed to kick his ass.

Relieved, Mortimer leaned back at his chair.

"...I wish Ray was here to see this."

He would see him. Eventually.

Chapter 5 - May - Shut Up, CNN! I'm Trying to Fuck This Tall Vampire Chick!
202.2 CHILLER FM:
System Of A Down - Cigaro

OOC Disclaimer: Handler Deblod100 wanted to link some articles on a certain event for the sake of critiquing and providing social commentary on one of the main focuses of this chapter: the news network CNN. However, due to the evils of capitalism, the websites request subscriptions before articles are allowed to be read from their sites. Deblod100 is only able to provide one objective article on the matter, though he believes he is still able to get his point across and have others research the event in question for themselves.

Also, don't wonder, he will mention THAT thing that happened, even though this is supposed to be 2021.

But why not we call this time crime foreshadowing, hm?

---

I think it's best that we take a pause and do a little doom pandering for a minute or two.

Hm?

You live in the 21th century, and sure enough, every century before then had became its own history book of stories to tell.

The 14th century could've very well ended the world in misery from the Black Death, though there were the false nuclear alarms and near-misses from stray comets that tend to be the ones that could just make the world explode if they wished.

From the 20th century, there was:
- The Tunguska Event (1908)
- Titanic (1912)
- Assassination of Archduke Ferdinand (1914)
- World War 1
- Hindenburg (1937)
- Attack on Pearl Harbor (1941)
- The Holocaust
- World War 2 being the massive budget sequel that no one wanted.
- Victory in Europe and the atomic bombings at Japan (1945)
- Le Mans (1955)
- Cold War
- Sputniks into space (1957)
- Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)
- Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" (1963)
- JFK getting assassinated (1963)
- Apollo 11 Moon Landing (1969)
- Vietnam
- Kent State Shootings (1970)
- FUCKING RICHARD NIXON, HUNTER I HEARD YA!
- Jonestown Massacre (1972)
- Black September during 1972 Olympics (1972)
- The Fall of Saigon (1975)
- Iran Hostage Crisis (1979-1981)
- John Lennon getting assassinated (1980)
- Bhopal disaster (1984)(Warren Anderson is rotting in hell, don't worry)
- Challenger disaster (1986)(Big Bird nearly died)(Someone made a what if on if he did)
- Chernobyl (1986)
- Lockerbie bombing (1988)
- Tiananmen Square and the Man in front of the Tank (1989)
- Berlin Wall falling (1989)
- Nelson Mandela being released from captivity (1990)
- Freddie Mercury dying from AIDS (1991)
- Waco Siege (1993)
- Rwandan Genocide (1994)
- Oklahoma City Bombing (1995)
- O.J Simpson (1995)
- Princess Diana's death (1997)

A large book of stories and events that shaped the world. There are more examples, but you get the idea.

With the invention of the internet, humanity no longer needed to go to a giant book for all of the information on the 20th century. We were able to catalog the decades one by one. Point out what defined them and what was different and significant.

Books of history are still being written and made. Digital media will exist forever, but print media is still needed.

Now, let's not think of the 20th century.

Let's think about the 21th century.

Or rather what has happened so far, going up to 2021.

We're only 21 years into the 21th century and we had to deal with:
- 9/11
- The Invasion of Iraq (2003)
- Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami (2004),
- Hurricane Katrina (2005)
- The 7/7 attacks (2005)
- The Survival of the Fittest terrorist attacks happening 4 times in a row every year. Whoever was President during that time was on suicide watch.
- Mumbai Attacks (2008)
- Michael Jackson dying (2009)
- Black Saturday bushfires (2009)
- The Chilean Mining Accident (2010)
- Haiti Earthquake (2010)
- Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill (2010)(THANKS BP, YA BASTARDS!)
- Fukushima meltdown (2011)
- Osama Bin Laden getting sent to hell (2011)
- Survival of the Fittest happening for the 5th time
- Nelson Mandela dying (2013)
- Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 and its victimization by CNN for ratings (2014)
- Survival of the Fittest happening for the 6th time
- Charlie Hebdo Shooting and the November 15 Paris Attacks (2015)
- Manchester Arena Attack (2017)
- Las Vegas shootings (2017)
- Survival of the Fittest happening for the 7th time
- COVID
- Beirut Explosion (2020)
- And recently the Capitol incident.

There are some important events that hasn't happened yet for Mortimer, but let him see the surprise for himself. You should know the answer for a major one. I'm not giving out a hint. You should know...

Ok, you get a hint. It happened 7 times. That was too obvious.

But let's rewind a bit, before what is having Mortimer do some doom pandering is because CNN wouldn't shut the fuck up with its bad news bias. I guess Kirby being president isn't enough for them to talk about other negative things?

Oh, but at least they aren't a punchline like FOX News.

Ok, maybe CNN might have tried to blackmail and threaten to dox some Redditor because he made a Canon made, but that was too long in the past and people probably already forgotten that.

Or maybe using the powers of some time crime-ing, we can talk about how even in moments that affect the world, you need to have people consume even with people dying. Also, isn't Applebees the place where the lesbians are going to now?

OOC: Handler Deblod100 will be saving the Applebee's ad during Ukraine for the future in Mini for further reference for a future RP.

Here's another time with the usage of time crimes...

...Remember how you accidently used Andrew's video? Remember how you nearly accidently linked a vacuum cleaner fetish video?

In fairness, news stations using the most random Youtube videos possible has happened before.

What kind of message is there that needs to be said?

It's good to have others come up with their own message, but maybe you could consider that even though there are influencing machines around the world that speak their gospels to others, you still need to consider that they have flaws like humans, since they are just entities made up by multiple human beings with a certain goal and/or agenda in mind.

Let's be honest. Some videos made by news outlets are completely stupid. Thanks, CNET.

And don't get started on the rage bait.

Ok, maybe he would be more lenient to the newest Mortal Kombat movie. Mortimer thought about this, while he was engaging with his daily weekend lunch with his father, who was mentioning to him about 4th of July. It was May, but he wanted Mortimer over as usual. He wouldn't say no. Who would say no to fireworks?

Maybe one kid, that's in the future and Mortimer doesn't know them yet.

Where was he again?

Oh right, talking about Mortal Kombat. He had to give the film some credit, since it was paying homage for the fans, though whenever the critics who never played the source material get involved, they will complain that it caters to the fans, but no one else who was in the loop. Kinda unfair, but Mortimer knew they had a point.

Well... actually that depends. It wasn't like the 1993's Super Bros movie that sucked. Or Street Fighter. Or for heavens and hell, Morty didn't want to think about Double Dragon.

It was creative of them for Mortal Kombat to include the leg swapping attack spam. Props to that, though Mortimer thought back to the other movies in the past, excluding the animated ones. He liked the performance of the soul-stealing Shang Tsung back in the original 1995 movie, though compared to Annihilation...

What is there that needs to be said? Mortimer wanted to say more on it on his blog, but he wanted to wait on it. He felt like he hasn't seen all of his top 10 worst movies yet. Top 10 best were always subjective. Mortal Kombat Annihilation was definitely on the list, however. A movie with a script so bad that Linden Ashby refused to reprise his role as Johnny Cage for it. Special effects so bad that you can see the wires as clear as day. Scorpion having the most laughable bad dialogue. Along with this piece of script-writing Dadaism.

Damn, now Mortimer wanted to play Mortal Kombat 11 again with Scorpion and Sub-Zero. Play the OG characters and be reminded why they were much better in the games than that shitty movie.

He could... but Mortimer was waiting on a pre-order.

Actually...

---

Mortimer installed Mortal Kombat 11 just quick to try to get his fix with the classic characters, only to be decimated TWICE by both the porn Joker and Cassie Cage dressed as Harley Quinn. Scorpion got a jack-in-the-box that popped his head off, and Sub-Zero got a nut kick so hard, his skeleton flew out.

"COME ON!"

There was a dangerous thing in the world that made disillusioned people.

Disappointment.

A thing that becomes more apparent as one grows old.

Mortimer still want to have that sigma male mindset on him, but the sad truth was that he was learning that the evils of the world, the ones that he was trying to rebel against, would eventually use it to continue their wicked agenda to smite the innocent.

Reddit used to be cool briefly, until the cryptocurrency got shoved into people's faces.

All of the anti-heroes needed to save us were being used.

Would he allow this to be his fate?

He would just squander of all of his need for pop culture and media to waste away, while the world that he wanted to change or was unable to change would continue to go the way in punishing others who didn't deserve it?

Oh, I think we all know the answer as to why Mortimer thinks about that.

It's the obvious scapegoat.

It was more subtle than blaming everyone around him.

Life isn't meant to be fair, but the truth is that people wished that it wasn't always cruel.

Bleak events make bleak people.

Somewhere in the future, Mortimer would imagine that there can be someone to help him. He wished that they would understood him. Though, the best candidate to help or understand him at least, was probably the one that would go on to hate Mortimer to a degree. One that Mortimer has yet to realize.

Mortimer had to help his mother adjust a loose windshield wiper on her car, before he immediately scrambled back into the apartment to get to his bedroom. With his precious Christmas and birthday money, he had pre-ordered Resident Evil Village on Steam and was anxiously waiting for it to be released. Let's be real, we all know that everyone who saw the trailers wanted to bang that tall vampire chick.

Mortimer naturally done some things to pass the time. There were all of those Russian slapping competition videos that were making rounds for his consumption and interest. Now, there will always be the so-called wise guy that will ask Mortimer, "Why can't you go outside than on the computer?", which they will say when people don't want to accidently catch COVID. Especially at the public pool, but it's been years since Mortimer wanted to go swimming. There were houses with pools back at Meadowbrook, but there weren't houses with pools at Skyline Heights. You had to go to a public pool nowadays, which could be deserted with only the anti-maskers being there.

They might as ask, "How about you touch some grass?". Oh, you poor fool. People will be touching grass. After they make rule 34 images of it into a monster girl and then say that they want to "touch grass".

Or better yet...

People tend to forget that you shouldn't be asking too many "Why can't you do this instead of that" questions. Mortimer knew the confidence of some scalie in a comic book that even though you have the technology to make the cure for cancer, you rather prefer to turn people in dinosaurs.

Sauron is actually based. He doesn't want to use his evil powers for mass murder. He just wants to turn people into dinosaurs.

You can't argue with that logic-

Oh yeah, the game got released!

Mortimer got to work in downloading it.

How long was this game? Damn, he was already a hour in and there was a bunch of colorful characters. Especially this Duke guy who is probably the only character who isn't trying to harm or kill Ethan. Or rather die for that matter.

Still, Mortimer didn't realize that he would be going through tall vampire MILF and her vampire witch daughters this early in the game.

But he still needed to beat the game.

In the name of the Redfield bloodline, he can help Leon Kennedy fuck Claire.

He must do it for Chris Redfield.

"....Ughhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

Wow.

The new Saw movie Spiral was aggressively mediocre. Not even Chris Rock could save it.

The only reason that Mortimer was trying to give it props was because it wasn't anything like Saw 3D, but that is a low line to jump over. Very disappointing, though in fairness, Mortimer only liked the first Saw and nothing else in the series. Every other film that had to do Detective Hoffman, save for the 6th movie was lousy. It didn't help that the Jigsaw killer copycat in Spiral was almost like him.

Did he even need to kill Salvatore Moreau?

Mortimer got that he was supposed to be a creepy merman fish boy, but he felt that Salvatore was harmless compared to that PT fetus puppet witch.

Heisenberg, as Mortimer was playing through his part of the game, has definitely a chore that expected you to know what to do.

Mortimer wished that he didn't sell Dimitrescu's waistline to Duke.

"While we are wrapping up this school year, I think we should discuss the importance of the positives and negatives." Mortimer's Zoom teacher said, while he acted like he was playing attention as usual. He was watching for the lecture to pop up, so he can focus on something else on the same screen.

Another Zoom, another droll moment in front of the webcam. Everyone had their secrets, but it was no secret to Mortimer that he wanted this school year on Zoom to end. Everyone was supposed to share their thoughts on the school year in general, but Mortimer was thinking about how good it would be to not deal with being in middle school. Especially since they said that the lockdowns would be easing up after school was over.

No more baking bread, because it was a trend online. No more doomscrolling through social media or reading books downloaded straight from the screen. No more being taken advantage of by Netflix or any other streaming service, because you're stuck inside your house with the cabin fever. No more having to use the Peloton bike and yoga mat. No more days of trying to deal with those fucking toilet paper and hand sanitizer hoarders, while the world burns around them. No more long hair and no more messing around with adult coloring books to relieve stress.

Now that things are only, Mortimer didn't have to save face for Zoom meetings. Everyone else could be happen as gamers like him to go peace out on gold gambling on their precious MMOs to support their virtual characters and pets.

It could've ended this way, until his teacher got a video prepped up.

"Now, I know you will all be going into high school, but I want to show this video, since there are still kids who get bullied a lot by older kids." his teacher said.

And what kind of video were they going to watch?

You have got to be kidding me.

A Dhar Mann video. The savior of Facebook moms who want inspirational videos to help them through their glasses of wine and children's soccer games. His teacher was going to make him watch a Dhar Mann video.

Unfortunately, the video also had to do with autism. Seriously?

"Kids MAKE FUN OF Boy With AUTISM, They Instantly Regret It" by Dhar Mann.

He guessed that this video was supposed to be aimed at 14 to 15 year olds like him, but this video was made for 6th graders. Yes, people get bullied for being autistic, but why didn't you show this shit earlier? Oh wait, this literally came out last month. No wonder.

Well...

At least, it wasn't Among Us, which was the usual modus operandi.

After the video and after class, Mortimer got curious and realized that his teacher had a TikTok. He guessed Facebook wasn't her thing, though for an old lady, she kept re-using the same saxophone background music for her clips.