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notstinky · 2 months

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TIMING: Van's birthday; March 12th, 2024 FEATURING: Van (@vanoincidence) & Thea (@notstinky) LOCATION: The streets SUMMARY: It's Van's birthday! And it's her right as birthday girl to receive products for free. Thea and Van embark on a quest to be normal and get like, a free chicken sandwich or something at least. WARNINGS: Unsanitary tw (gamer girl bathwater discussion)

Van stared down at the options before her. A bent toothbrush, a hair clip that had the charm snapped off, and an old tape that’d been half unraveled. She looked over at Thea, confusion evident on her features before looking back to the shopkeeper. “You mean… you don’t have like, I don’t know, a free cookie or something?” The man looked at her with a arched brow. “This is not a cookie store, girly. You get what you get, and this is what we have for birthday items. What will it be?” She didn’t know how to use a cassette player, and something told her that it was destroyed beyond repair at this point, so she picked up the toothbrush. Maybe she could use it to clean the nooks and crannies of the stove, or maybe she’d learn how to hold it in a way that didn’t matter if it was bent.

“Come on, Thea.” She tugged her friend’s arm, looping it through before heading in the direction where she thought maybe she could at least get a cupcake. “Why is every place so weird? Like, if we lived in a city, I’d at least have a free chicken sandwich or anything.” She dug into her bag with her free hand, coming up with the items she’d already received. A pack of blue rubber bands, a half empty bottle of advil, and windshield cleaner. “At least the windshield cleaner will like, be nice… I don’t know if I trust the advil, though.” She was almost sure it’d been taken from the shopkeeper’s own stash.

It was the right of every financially challenged individual to use birthday promotions to their benefit. That was what Thea believed—knew. Like the way the sky appears blue or that bidets are a necessity, she knew that it was Van’s right as the birthday girl to abuse the marketing tactics of million dollar corporations: Denny’s, Starbucks, Sephora, iHop. Thea had taken it personally when Van’s spoils had been so lame. The first time felt like a sour bubble in her gut and by the time they were getting the windshield cleaner, her shoulders collapsed with disappointment. When Van was picking up the toothbrush, hope vanished from Thea’s eyes. When she’d looked it up online, the results showed that one could expect ‘come find out (winky face)’ on their birthday in Wicked’s Rest. She supposed this was them finding out (though with a notable lack of winky face).

The hope might have left her eyes, her face, her body, but it hadn’t left her soul. As was Thea’s preference for walking with Van, she linked their arms together and squeezed their bodies together. “I think this is like Voltron; we’re just collecting the pieces for something. When we combine it we’ll get, like, a PS5.” She smiled brightly, nudging her friend. “It’s not so bad!” It was terrible, it was miserable. “Who wants a chicken sandwich anyway? You can get those from anywhere. But suspicious Advil? That’s a rare item: S-Rank, Five-star, ultra rare; to put that into anime girl gacha game terms for you.” Thea wanted a chicken sandwich; she’d skipped lunch thinking they’d be drowning in pancake after pancake by now. Besides, there was no way she could sugar coat it to make it sound like used Advil was S-Rank when it was so clearly C-Tier. Still, more than anything else, all she wanted was for Van to have a good day and an even better birthday.

“Are you getting tired?” Thea hummed, eyeing the line of shops—restaurants, to cafés, to clothing stores, to that one store that always smelled super eggy. “I think I’ve got a few more in me before I give up and just start paying for things.” She adjusted the strap of her bag with her free arm, Van’s simple present rattling inside. There was one boon to the shitty spoils: it made her gift feel a lot better by comparison. “Where do you want to go next?”

“Maybe somebody will trade all of this for an old DS or something, you’re right.” Van laughed softly as they continued on their way. She looked at Thea out of the corner of her eye with an arched brow. She knew when people made an attempt to make her feel better, and though Van should’ve been a little disappointed by her birthday spread, it could have gone a lot worse. She could’ve been alone today. Jade was taking her out for drinks later tonight, but at least she got to spend the day with Thea. After everything that had happened with Regan, she needed a normal day. Or, as normal as it could be, all things considered.

“I don’t know, I think chicken sandwiches are actually pretty good.” She was getting a little hungry and she hoped that the free cupcake was actually a cupcake and not a bar of soap. Though, it wouldn’t have been the first time she’d eaten something that wasn’t food. Van rolled her eyes at Thea as she translated the terms over into gacha game terms. “Hey! I know what that means like, otherwise. I play other games with those things, not just gacha.” She tugged on Thea’s arm gently, redirecting her towards the crosswalk to the right of them instead.

“Maybe we can get a red bull or something…” Van hummed under her breath as they wandered forward, rolling her eyes at Thea’s offer. “Do that, and I’ll never forgive you. Besides, what if that like… breaks the ritual of all this? The floss might be worth something, we don’t know.” She really didn’t think it was, but whatever. “Maybe to the corner store– re-up, get caffeine, see if they’ll maybe give me a sugar packet.” Van grinned, finally feeling a little bit like herself in this moment. The anxiety hadn’t yet reared its ugly head, and for that she was grateful. She wanted one normal day, and she would get it.

“Because you’ve been running all over the place with me, I’m definitely going to buy you my choice of red bull, by the way.” Before Thea could protest, Van was tugging her through the shop doors, raising a hand of greeting towards the clerk. She led the way towards the back fridges, disappointed to see that there was no red bull, but weird off brand energy drinks instead. “What is… goose juice?”

“Exactly! Like those YouTube videos of the people trading up their pennies for a Tesla, or whatever.” Thea grinned, flush with the joy of having a friend and being with her friend. The fact that it was Van’s birthday meant something to Thea, however arbitrary it must have felt to all the businesses they visited. This was her friend, Van: kinda short, cool, seemingly chronically tired, definitely very sad on the inside. Today was Van’s birthday. It meant something more than the full rotation of the Earth from the day she came into it but the words were lost to Thea, not that she could jumble them into a sentence anyway. Birthdays always felt special to her; beyond the gifts, the candles, the notoriety and free pancakes. Today was Van’s birthday.

“I’ll stop teasing you about your gacha games when I see evidence of you doing anything else but trying to collect cute anime girls on your phone.” Thea smiled, happily led along by her friend. “No,” she whined gently in a playful tone, “not a Redbull; first of all I think you’re like ninety percent caffeine at this point. Like if you prick your finger neon green Monster energy would flow out. Secondly, don’t you want to…” Sleep. Rest. If Van had an energy drink now, would she be up the rest of the day, ruining her chance at a full sleep? Thea bit the inside of her cheek, stopping herself from chastising Van like she had any room to; she wasn’t any better. Most of her diet was coffee and energy drinks and makeup was the only thing that saved her from showing off the eyebags and dark circles that, by now, were permanently welded to the bottom of her eyes. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d had a good sleep. And anyway, it was Van’s birthday, if she wanted Redbull, Thea would put aside the part of her brain that wanted to pretend she was responsible.

“Do they make anime-girl flavored Redbull or…” Thea trailed off, staring into the glass fridge. “Goose Juice,” she repeated. “And that’s not even a goose, that’s a Gadwall—a duck.” She opened the fridge, grabbing two cans of Goose Juice: Goose Juice Original and Goose Juice Extreme Goose. “I was thinking of getting into birding because it’s like looking at the stars but during the day and it’s birds but these people in the bird group were like ‘get serious or get lost’?” She flipped the can over, frowning at its lack of any explanation. “There’s no ingredient list,” she said, “or like, a number to call and tell them that this isn’t even a goose.” She held the cans up. “Do you want to try these? Or we could do, like…” She squinted at the offerings. “Moose Juice? Oh, come on! That’s an elk!” She shook her head. “The standards of local energy drink makers are so low.”

“A penny for a Tesla sounds like, really overrated. Maybe a penny for…” Van thought about it for a moment, drawing a blank. “Maybe a new Honda Civic or something, I don’t know.” That seemed funnier, in its own way. “Or maybe a prius.” She looked over her shoulder at Thea with a frown. “I’m literally doing other things like, all of the time. I work! A lot!” Not so much recently, but that didn’t really matter, did it? Sly Slice was on the slower side which meant hours got cut. Once spring break was over for the students, things would pick back up. That was sort of how it always happened, anyway.

Van scoffed at Thea’s comment. “Not monster, red bull. It’d probably be like, sort of red– ‘cause of the peach nectarine flavor and stuff.” She’d never stoop so low as to drink monster energy. Not even the coffee one, mostly because those made her stomach hurt. She’d sooner drink tea over those any day.

“If they did, I think I’d know about it, but I don’t want it to be like, one of those weird situations with that one gamer girl, you know? That was like, totally weird. Did you know it wasn’t even her bath water?” Van was talking about things that didn’t really matter when it came down to it, but she knew Thea would listen, anyway. Thea always listened– she was a good friend like that. The two cans of Goose Juice were… the packaging was cool, Van had to admit, but it definitely wasn’t a goose. Even Van could tell that much. “I think that one is an antelope.” She pointed at another one of the Moose Juices and frowned. She’d never seen this brand before. That didn’t really stop her most days, anyway. She’d eat anything if it looked good enough. “We can try it!” Van took the cans from Thea and hugged them against her chest. “I think you should totally bird watch if you want to, by the way. Like, what are they going to do? Sic the birds on you or something?” She rolled her eyes, “that sounds like, totally stupid. They can’t even control birds.” Van led the way to the cashier, putting the drinks down for the cashier to scan. He looked down at the drinks, then back up at them.

“These come with t-shirts, do you want them?” Van’s eyebrows furrowed, then she looked over at Thea. “Um… are they free?” The man rolled his eyes, “that’s what comes with means, doesn’t it?” Van dug into her bag for the measly 10 dollar bill that’d surely cover the two drinks. “Yeah, we want them!” The man turned on his heel and dug into a box on the ground, later producing two t-shirts– both oversized. There were two non-geese on the front doing kickflips on skateboards, a giant thought bubble cascading over the arm in a misprinted fashion, GET GOOSED, OR GET GOSSED.

“I didn’t know you were such an energy drink purist.” Thea snorted. “Sorry, sorry, your blood is peach Redbull. Will you ever forgive me for forgetting your favorite energy drink?” She grinned, feeling past anxieties wither away. Slowly, the sounds of the world dissolved into white noise. Today was Van’s birthday, and nothing else mattered so much to Thea. She forgot about their terrible spoils and how shitty her gift was. All she was paying attention to was the sound of Van’s voice, and the shape her lips made over the words, and the nonsense that was coming out. “I think that’s like, probably a liability thing?” Thea countered with her own nonsense. “Like it can’t be her bathwater ‘cause that’s nasty and what if someone drank it and got sick? Or, I don’t know, I guess maybe it was a money thing? You should know because you’re a gamer girl.” She smiled. “You have the gamer girl telepathy connection—like Cerebro but for gamer girls. Do you know what Cerebro is? Never mind, I shouldn’t start talking about X-Men.” It was more than likely she would never stop.

Thea tugged on her hat as heat crawled into her cheeks. There was something about Van saying she could birdwatch that embarrassed her just as much as it made her feel like it was actually possible. “They just might.” She smiled softly. “Sic the birds on me, I mean. They’re kinda scary.” They were very scary, like a nerdy bird mafia. She was positive they had Latin bird names memorized and she thought anyone that had any amount of Latin memorized was scary. But Van was right, they couldn’t control birds. Then again, people couldn’t turn into animals and she had howled at enough full moons to prove that wrong. As Van moved away, the world fizzled back into place. Yes, she ate people. It smelled like bleach and rot in this store. Why was she getting an energy drink when she knew it made her more anxious? She was so tired. Van wasn’t having fun and it was all Thea’s fault.

Thea grasped at the open air, desperate for her friend. She caught up to her quickly at the counter, heart pounding. “Free stuff! Finally!” She cheered, a little winded, forcing her smile to go a little wider. When the shirts were presented, Thea snatched one up, dropping her bag to the ground. Without hesitation, she pulled the oversized shirt on, wearing it over her sweater. “It’s kinda perfect,” she said, as the world faded back out. “Come on, you gotta put yours on too.” If Van wasn’t here, she might have been thinking about how presumptuous she was being; maybe Van wanted that shirt for someone else, not her. Or maybe Van didn’t want to put it on now—didn’t want to walk around matching with her. But Van was here, and it was her birthday, and they were friends. “The shirts are S-Tier for sure—for shirt.”

Van rolled her eyes. “Only gamer dudes who don’t like, wash their armpits drink monster.” She wasn’t sure if that was true, and some monster energy drinks were good, but she definitely preferred Red Bull. It was fairly obvious at this point, anyway. “I don’t know, I might never forgive you. It like, totally depends.” She stuck her tongue out at Thea playfully, glad that today was panning out the way it was. She was having fun with a friend, and it wasn’t a birthday where she was holed up in her room curled up beneath the covers— instead, she was… having a nice time? Fun, even. Thea was fun, and Van was grateful that out of her days off, she’d chosen to hang out today.

As Thea went on to explain liabilities, Van shrugged. Thea probably had a point there. But still, there’d been a whole thing about false advertising, and by the end of the twitter thread (fuck you, x), Van had been so squeamish about bath water that she took only showers from then on. “Why would you insult me like that? Gamer girl. That’s like the whole, not being like other girl things only with another thing on top of it.” Van liked games, but she didn’t consider herself to be a gamer girl. Oh no, maybe she was a part of the I’m not like other girls crowd with that mindset. “Never mind, I guess… you’re right, I am a gamer girl.” She bowed her head in respect for the crimes she’d committed in that moment, hand to her chest. “I know X-Men! You can keep talking about X-Men, but I don’t know if I agree with you. There’s no like, telepathic connection here.”

“If they did, the birds would like, learn how nice you are and turn around and attack the other people…” Van grinned at Thea, willing her friend to believe that she could do anything she put her mind to. Whoever told her that she couldn’t bird watch was a total asshole, and Van kind of really hated them for it.

Van grabbed the t-shirt that was presented to her, pinching at the corners of the arms as she took in its full view. It was funny, in a weird nonsensical way. Thea was already putting hers on, and Van had to hide the smile that definitely meant I’m glad we can share something. She did so by pulling the shirt over her head. It was a lot longer on her than it was on Thea, but it didn’t matter. She’d wear it as long as Thea wore her’s. “S-tier for shirt…” Van snorted at Thea’s (missed) joke and tugged on her arm, leading Thea out of the store after paying for the Goose Juice.

“What do you think these even like… taste like?” Van tugged at the collar of the oversized shirt slightly, crouching down at the end of the sidewalk that led back into the store. She cracked open one of the drinks and peered inside. It was a weird orange color, that much she could tell. She looked up at Thea with a grin. “What if this is like, my new favorite energy drink?” She hoped it wouldn’t be— it was way more expensive than Red Bull. But maybe it wouldn’t be all that bad. She’d be reminded of Thea every time she drank it from then on.

“I drink Monster.” Thea frowned, summoning her best attempt at a wounded puppy. She couldn’t be sure how she looked, maybe it was closer to ‘crusty stray dog’ than ‘puppy’, and anyway, she couldn’t keep it up for long. She burst into a wide grin, meeting Van’s playfulness with her own. “Sometimes I’m really into that sugary, battery-acid stuff. And sometimes, it’s got more caffeine per dollar so it feels like a more sound investment despite my slow demise into a gamer dude with stinky pits.” The Monster plus java drink was probably a crime against her body, but there was something about chugging an obscene amount of caffeine all at once that really made her survive being underpaid like nothing else could. “Is it?” Thea tilted her head to the side as Van went on, humming in consideration. “I thought, like, you’re a girl…and you play games so…you’re a gamer girl. But maybe you deserve your own special classification! You’re a Red Bull fueled Van—not like the car—girl.”

At the mention of X-Men, Thea perked up. There was nothing that derailed any pattern of thought much like something she was fixated on: astronomy, science in a broader scene, celestial objects and X-Men. “So in the comics, there’s this underground mutant society where all the nasty mutants went because they felt like, ugly or whatever. And their leader is Callisto and she’s all like, I’m ugly! I gotta go in the sewers because I’m so ugly! But she just has an eyepatch? Like she looks fine? Like maybe Callisto should relax?” Thea didn’t consider that she was like Callisto in many ways; her baldness did make her want to go create a new society in the sewers. “I would be so mad if I went into the sewers because I was too ugly for society and Calisto with her abs and eyepatch was my leader.” Thea shook her head. “I, uh, totally forgot what we were talking about.” Something to do with birds, probably; Thea felt vaguely encouraged by Van, though she assumed it was Van’s general presence that did that.

“S-Tier for shirt! Duh.” Thea giggled as Van pulled them along. But not even Van could counteract Goose Juice; the smell hit Thea in one acrid wave. Goose Juice reeked of indeterminable chemicals. She peered into the can. “It doesn’t smell like orange.” Usually orange things smelled like orange because they were orange-flavored, Thea’s favorite. Goose Juice was a different beast. “I think all cans of Peach-Nectarine Redbull are crying right now because you even suggested that.” Thea shook her head. “Oh! But--uh, hold on--” Thea pulled them to a halt, jamming her hand into her bag. She pulled out a small box, delicately wrapped and adorned with an orange ribbon. “Since, you finally got something for free…” Thea tugged on her matching oversized Goose Juice T-shirt. “...I can finally give you your present.” Present was certainly a generous word for her attempt at Crazy Frog earrings—the market for Crazy Frog merchandise was limited enough that Thea had to make her own. But she’d never really worked with clay before, and she wasn’t much of an artist, and they didn’t look the same and one was certainly more Kermit than Crazy Frog and if the earrings were sentient then they would probably want to live in the sewers with Callisto and oh god, what had she been thinking?

Thea bit down on her lip. “Maybe, uh, take a shot of the Goose Juice first; it’ll help, maybe.” Thea tried to hide the tremble in her hands. “I hope it tastes like orange; since it’s orange. But maybe it’s, like, peach? Or mango?” And now she was just hoping to distract from the present.

Van froze, mock devastation sprinkling over her expression as she tucked a hand to her chest at the reveal that Thea drank monster. “Why have I never seen it? Do you have a mini fridge in your room or something? I feel like, so lied to right now.” Laughter bubbled between her lips as she shook her head. “Please, you do not smell like that.” Thea used way too many soaps to actually ever smell bad. The smell of her showers lingered in the apartment for hours afterwards. Was that weird to think about? Probably. But she always smelled good! Not like stinky gamer man pits.

“I think that I’m insulting girls who play games if I try to say I’m not a gamer girl because then it’s like, am I embarrassed to be considered a gamer girl?” She paused, brushing some hair out of her face before she continued, “I should hold my gamer girl head high. You’re so right, Thea. Thank you for opening my eyes to it.” She grinned at her friend, happy that at least she’d been trying to make up other words for what Van could consider herself to be. “Not like the car—girl though, I like that. That makes sense for who I am as a person.” She gave a curt nod in Thea’s direction. “I’ll keep that one.”

As Thea went on to explain the ugly-people society beneath the sewers, Van snorted. “Yeah, but we all know that like, the ugly people in comics usually aren’t ugly. They’re drawn with super pointy boobs and stuff and are still considered hot, but want us to think they’re ugly by saying they’re ugly, you know?” She wasn’t sure if that made sense, but she thought it did, and she figured that it would make sense to Thea. Thea seemed to always be able to parse out what she was saying; or maybe she was just… pretending she was? Van wasn’t sure, really. “You can totally ramble about X-men any time, by the way! I like to learn things I didn’t know about things I’ve read because I haven’t read those, you know? Plus, if I ever get pulled into trivia, then I at least know some things.” The smile she wore didn’t falter as she looked at Thea. Instead, it grew slightly.

The smell that emitted from the can, or rather, the longer she did smell it, the more it seemed… less than exciting. A little scary, actually. What if this was actually battery fuel or something? “You’re right, I don’t know why I suggested it.” She looked down the can again, one eye closed so that she could get a better look at the contents of the drink. Suddenly, she was stopped by Thea, and there was a small box produced from her friend’s bag. Van stared down at it, surprised by the arrival of yet another gift. She looked back up to meet Thea’s eyes. “Dude, you didn’t have to get me something else— you already did.” She pushed the drink into Thea’s hands, exchanging for the gift box. She popped it open, surprise illuminating her features as she saw what was inside.

“Dude, these are so cool! Did you make these?” They looked hand made which made them like, way more special than anything that was store bought. Though, Van would still love them even if they were store bought, because they came from Thea! Her cute friend! She quickly began to take out the strawberry earrings she’d been wearing prior and put on the ones that Thea had made her before depositing her others into the box. She closed the lid and shoved it into her own bag before tucking her hair behind her ears, showing off the jewelry to Thea. “Do they look cool? They feel cool.” The smile wasn’t going away anytime soon, she realized.

Thea was rambling about the drink she held in her hands and Van grabbed onto her forearm. She didn’t feel any bit anxious which, in all, was weird for her. “These are so cool, can you show me how you made them? Maybe I can make you some and then we can have like, matching t-shirts and earrings.” She took her own drink back from Thea before smelling at it again. “The earrings are way cooler than the goose juice,” Van admitted with a small frown. She looked back up to meet her friend’s eyes, “thanks, for real— this is like, the best present ever. I don’t think I’ll ever take them off.”

There wasn’t much Thea had done right. She’d come to Wicked’s Rest by the force of her own mistake; landed a definitely-not-legal job at a probably-illegal fight club by desperation; even meeting Van, meeting her friends—which were the only things that felt normal at all in her life—came from an accident. She shouldn’t be here. She shouldn’t be Van’s friend. It was Van’s birthday; she shouldn’t be here. Her happiness was surreal, tugging at the strands of reality and pulling her mind out of her body. She felt like someone else, watching two happy friends. She didn’t say anything about how it wasn’t a mini-fridge, but she was still renting out a room in the maybe-haunted house because she was afraid Van would get sick of her. She might have said something about how Van was right, comic artists always give women pointy boobs. Maybe she said something else about how she was happy to get Van something else; nothing about how one thing didn’t seem like enough. If she gave Van more, maybe she could feel like she’d earned their friendship. Did she switch her weight nervously? Did she laugh? Did she turn her eyes away, afraid of seeing Van’s disgust? How could she tell when everything spun? Sweat pooled in her palms and heat rushed to her cheeks.

She cracked open her own foul can of Goose Juice and sipped it. Worse than the fear that Van wouldn’t like her present was not knowing where to put the praise. “It’s your birthday,” Thea mumbled. “And that’s… really special because it’s you. And it’s your birthday. And it’s been like, two decades, of the world spinning with you on it. So, like…” Thea braved her own anxiety and looked at her friend and her new, crude, frog earrings. “Yeah, it’s just like, clay. And you mush it and bake it and then you get that.” Thea took another long sip of the goose juice. “Do you actually like them? You’re not just saying that to…” Thea took another sip. What flavor was this? It was beyond fruit, beyond chemicals, like a laboratory Frankenstein flavor was soaked into a dish rag and rung into a can. “It’s your birthday, y’know?” Thea tried to perk up. She couldn’t tell how nice her smile looked; it hurt her cheeks, tugging up her dry lips.

“It’s like…” The Earth wobbles; the pole goes in a circle. And every ten thousand, there’s a new north star. And right now it’s Polaris, in 12,000 years it’ll be Vega. But right now? “Um, sorta like…” And someone said the calendars should follow the solar year, and that marked one end into a beginning. And the Earth spins and has spun for years and years but right now? “It’s…” Thea shrugged. “I dunno, it’s your birthday. I want to do special things for you, ‘cause you’re my friend and I like you.” How long have people measured time? How long have they been looking up and around and tracking the sun and watching the stars and marking one solar day into the next and could they have fathomed of a RedBull-fueled, mobile anime girl collecting, kinda short, sorta sad, definitely in need of more sleep, girl named Van (not like the car)? Would they know she was Thea’s friend? Did they ever imagine today? Right now? “You should definitely take those off at some point though, I’m pretty sure that’s how you get like, diseases.” In 12,000 years, the humans looking up at their new north, would maybe understand what it was like to look at Van. It was Van’s birthday, that was all Thea wanted to say.

And it was weird that someone gave her a bent toothbrush. Why was it bent? How do you bend a toothbrush? Why didn’t they put a goose on the can? How could it be that something was right, finally, for her? It was Van’s birthday—everything turns and changes and moves and it has been, and will be, but right now it was Van’s twenty-first birthday and it never would be exactly like this again. But wasn’t it wonderful to know that in a year, an event just like this would happen again?

Thea linked her arm with Van’s again. “Now can we eat something? Because I’m so hungry, I could eat a person. Not that I would! Or have ever done that before!”

#that's just the logo for skatebird sdfkjhfaskd #i love van someone get her a free pancake #i am always in awe of ci's creativity #some things are born out of ci's mind that i cannot fathom #c: van #s for shirt #writing #s2 #unsanitary tw

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