Dark Bloody Mocha Frappuccino

by Lost Duck Inc

An AU in which Charles got into a one-night stand with a vampire named Erik, had to attend therapy sessions, and wanted Starbucks to recognise vampiric rights and the university canteen to cater raw beef for Hank the blue werewolf.

Dark Bloody Mocha Frappuccino

Author's Note:

Welcome to a crack-tastic fight for food equality. WARNING: Insanity ahead.

Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men.

XXX

Foreword from the Author

After last month's string of governmental blows aimed at the alternative food society (more commonly known as the alt foodies), which resulted in the enforced public "outing" of several key members of the online community 'American Alt Anonymous', massive shut-downs of Supernormal Gourmet Societies across educational institutions in the United States of America, and the subsequent incarcerations of anybody deemed to hold some semblance of standing in both online and physical societies, I decided that America needed some kind of perspective regarding the unfolding of the events, excluding any statements issued by any governmental and police institutions. My name is Charles Francis Xavier. I was an on-and-off member of Alt Anonymous, under the pseudonym of Professor X, and a faithful member of MIT's Supernormal Gourmet Society, from which I had been receiving free support, counselling, and therapy sessions, until some dastardly men in suits chained the doors of the society room and tied it up with garish red tapes [1].

[1] By the way, they are petitioning to get the red ribbons exterminated or at least dyed into another non-garish, non-optically-offensive shade, because the Bonnie blue walls and the violently hallucinogenic red tapes do not a happy university make. Please support the 'Migraine Free, Rakish Red Free, Free MIT!' movement by clicking here.

My name is Charles Francis Xavier. I am an acute migraine sufferer with three forms of synaesthesia (grapheme - colour, sound - colour, odour - colour) that give rise to a secondary synaesthesia (life - living hell). I would not have dipped a toenail — much less a toe — in this broiling broth of issues until the waters seem to have somewhat calmed, because, frankly, this whole thing gives me headaches when I am already getting ten too many every week; however, my boyfriend had the mulish pride to get jailed last month, so here I am, giving you, my reader, a crash course lecture [2] on being a human while living intimately with an alt foodie.

[2] Note the diction 'lecture' here. My mutations mean that I am a sensory-sensitive person who shuns public gatherings, loud noises, and generally noisy, living human population in bulk. This translates to my poor interpersonal skills beyond my close circle of acquaintances and my success in the lecture halls – because of, not in spite of, the majority of the student body (the figure oscillates between 75% to 100%) being slightly above half dead at any given point in time. Hence, to avoid any awkwardness, I am resolute to introduce myself as your lecturer and address you, my reader, as one of my brain-dead students, not that you would have any evidence to claim otherwise.

The work you are holding in your hard drive right now is the e-book version of 'Dark Bloody Mocha Frappuccino: The Struggle for Starbucks to Supply Bloody Caffeine', which is how I managed to sneak in a fancy, snarky foreword and real groovy hyperlinks. The paperback edition will be out in Stark Supermarkets across the country by next week, with a much watered down version of the Foreword, but I say that I am an entirely agreeable and understanding man: not everyone is equipped to learn the truth the hard way. The e-book you can get for free, save for a minimum US$1 donation. The e-book donation and the entire profit gained from the paperback sale will contribute to the 'Ctrl + Alt + FREEDOM' fund [3], which is dedicated to paying the bails of the unjustly imprisoned souls above.

[3] You can view Ctrl + Alt + FREEDOM homepage here. So far, we are still unable to set all of them free save for three individuals: Mr James Howlett 'Wolverine' Logan (paid by the life savings of an anonymous human supporter going by the name 'Rogue'), Miss Virginia 'Pepper' Potts (who swore that she was lurking in Alt Anonymous for "the sole purpose of making life hell for the handle Ironman and not for foodies' causes"; nobody, naturally, wondered why), and Steve 'Captain' Rogers (because, well, he is Steve Rogers).

I would like to thank Rogue for her support and threats throughout the caffeine-filled, whiskey-drowned four days of non-stop writing. Without her, I would never have started this (goddamned) book in the first place. The world would have been a much happier place.

I would also like to thank Miss Ilsa Heine, who agreed to host the e-book on her Livejournal and various accounts in online writing sites. Much less gratitude is extended for her marketing move, which involves putting this up in 'kink meme' sites. A dab of relief is appropriately attributed to her final decision not to post the link in strictly adult entertainment sites.

I would like to blue-ball my boyfriend, who got me into this trouble in the first place. I miss cock-blocking you, my friend.

Last but not least, thank you, my reader, for paying for this sub-standard piece of memoir-slash-literary-charity and therefore relieving me of the guilt of leaving my boyfriend to serve his time because, really, if he gotta be free, I gotta drink. (Single Malt Scotch Whiskey does not fall from trees!)

Tipsily yours,
Charles Francis Xavier
a.k.a. Professor X

September 21, 2011

XXX

Foreword by the Editor

Alternativism: The belief that alternative humanoids are inferior to the human race. Often abbreviated to altism. See also alternativist.

September 21, 2011 marked the one-year anniversary of the banning of Bram Stoker's 'Dracula' in the school libraries of the United States of America, which was a memorable victory for the long-suffering community of American vampires and alternative humanoids in general. In Europe, however, the implementation of the ban was taken as a move too late in coming: all European editions of 'Dracula' have been carrying the warning page against alternativism (better known as altism) — "Parental advisory needed: the work may contain offensive and discriminatory portrayals of the alternative humanoid community." — since the sixties. In terms of taking care of her alt communities, America is lagging far behind her European siblings.

In alt-speak, America is nicknamed as the Badlands: Christopher Columbus' discovery of the continent and the subsequent influx of foreign settlers spearheaded the twin genocides of Native Americans and American alts of the old. Some Native Americans remain now, scattered in handfuls, but alts, with their supernormal phenotypes, suffered nothing short of a clinically thorough wipe-out. No alts dared to approach America for a long time since, not even after alts began to come out in Europe and mutual co-habitation with humans was achieved in the early nineteenth century. Altism still had the chance to flourish in Europe in the initial recombining of the human and alt societies, only to undergo gradual eradication with the implementation of the Alts' Rights Bill. The European alts' skirmishes in their fight for equality amounted to very little, when compared to what their American cousins had to put up with. In America, altism continues to persist in an alarmingly rampant manner. Even with the relaxation of visa approval for alts in the year of 2000, alts generally avoid stepping into the United States. The Lady of Liberty does not look favourably towards anything less or more than humans, it seems.

Some factions may argue with the usage of the present tense in the discussion regarding altism in America. It is true that the Alt Registration Programme had been scrapped in 2005 under European pressure, and that alts are now protected by the American law as much as the next human being; however, America remains a hostile environment for alts. In 2010, a staggering 96% of alt visitations to America involved business as their reason. 71% of the alts who have chosen to remain as Permanent Residents of America cite business transfers as their reason; the remaining 29% are the families of this class of alts. No alt seems likely to volunteer heartily to enter the United States of America, and they have a very good reason to be wary.

Life as an alt in America is generally a miserable affair. Although the path to employment has been much lubricated by the American Alts' Act in 2001, the American society at large remains skittish of the idea of living alongside alts, in a manner that is very much unlike sheer bigotry and misplaced conventionalism. American producers appear to be hell bent against the idea of catering to alt consumers, despite the glaring existence of the possibility of a niche market and profits. They have a very good reason not to: public calls to boycott any business owner who dares enough to take up the challenge dominate anonymous online forums in America. A famous example is Tony Stark: the former Stark Industries owner and CEO resigned from his position to protect Stark Industries, before scandalising the American society by opening the only supermarket chain catering exclusively to alt customers, 'Tony's Supernormal Gourmet Industry'. Before Supernormal Gourmet, American alts were forced to go to alt-owned grocery stores that sold highly priced imported European alt food.

Food, the most basic necessity for life, remains the biggest point of contention in the fight for American alt equality. Alt food has been synonymous to the alt cause for some time; American alts seem to regard alt food availability as their first step towards an alt-friendly America. Unfortunately, the American human society seems to have come to a similar conclusion, and they are determined to never let it happen.

The August Alt crackdowns in Cambridge, San Francisco, and New York (places with the highest concentration of alt populations) mark a new record of regress in the American alt history. The move was taken after a collective action in the form of a mass lodge of complaints against the American Alt Anonymous website, the American Alt Anonymous Livejournal community, and the Supernormal Gourmet Societies. The reason given for the complaints was that these societies promote alt lifestyle, which coverage under the American criminal law and list of psychiatric problems has been undergoing debates since 2009. The United States of America once again proves to the world its worthiness of the name the Badlands of the old.

'Rogue'

September 25, 2011

XXX

Look, I know that now you may think that I'm crazy, and I am crazy, soooooo feel free to flame. Or review. Or just drop a word. But, most of all, thank you for reading!

Signing out,

Ilsa S. Heine

Lost Duck Inc.