#But maybe that's a reason why I never go to the doctor when I'm sick

[lesbianhivemind]

Does everyone forget instantly how healthy feels like the minute you get sick, like a minor cold?

Like, my throat hurts a bit and I'm in bed thinking

This is my life now, my throat will always hurt, my throat had always hurt

[featherymainffins]

Family is clearly just prolonging my and my mother's misery by forcing me to text her on special occasions and send her gifts, which is giving her false hope that her only boxing bag might come back and endure whatever she decides to take out on it again.

[oh-no-its-bird]

You are making me EMOTIONAL thinking about baby kakashi losing his teeth and not having his dad around to ask about things now, not even specifically for fang reasons either 😭😭

I think I was late and lost my first took when I was almost seven and idk exactly when Sakumo died officially but. Idk. Something something the tragedy of potentially not even having a parent around to explain what is going on when you lose a tooth for the first time

I'm so glad u sent this actually bc I was thinking ab wanting to write a post ab this premise but wasn't sure how to phrase or start it

Kid Kakashi struggling through starting to lose his baby teeth after his father dies <33

Google tells me that children start losing their baby teeth around 6, and the general age I've seen for Kakashi when Sakumo kills himself is usually around that same number, so, it works out!!

You bring up such a good and fun point actually in just. Does Kakashi know what's happening to him? Has anyone explained to him that your teeth just naturally fall out when you're little?

One day, Kakashi goes to class and sees Obito, who's a few years older than him, bragging about how he "just lost my tooth the other day"

And Kakashi quietly goes to himself, "wow this guy is so bad at fighting, he got his tooth knocked out and he's happy about it. What a weirdo."

Obito is IGNORING the judgmental stares coming from Kakashi's direction, assuming Kakashi is just jealous of his super cool milestone of growing up

Thinking maybe Obito even comes over to try to brag about it, but Kakashi just goes "??? Why are you bragging about losing your teeth ??? God, you're such a freak"

And Obito is like, "I know ur just jealous BAKASHI. Because you are still a BABY while I am on my way to being a MAN"

And inside Kakashi, still deeply confused and weirded out, is like, 'why the fuck would I be jealous' but outloud he just glares and goes, "I've never lost any of my teeth because I never lose."

To which Obito loses his mind because he's like 9 and to a 9 year old that sounded kind of sick and how DARE Kakashi try and be cool about this

(In the background, Minato is well on his way to losing his mind trying not to laugh. Rin meanwhile is squinting and doing mental math as she tries to tell if Kakashi is joking or not)

But anyways like. Kakashi later losing his own teeth and freaking the fuck out about it. Is he sick? Is he dying? Should he go to the doctor?

Oh my god wait ok but Kakashi cornering Rin after a training session and demands she help diagnose him bc he doesn't want to go to the actual doctor or ask Sensei for help. And Kakashi admitting she's a "good med nin" and Rin is kinda going omg Kakashi conpliment,,,, life goals,,

But also like Kakashi thinks he's dying and she's SUPER flattered he thinks she can help but she's like. 10. And a med nin in training.

So she's kind of sweating like "omg what are ur symptoms, why do u think ur dying?"

And Kakashi is like my "fucking teeth are falling out !!!!!!"

And Rin is like "woah that sounds super scary and seriou— Hold on a second."

Kakashi goes as far as to take off his mask to show her, which goes to show how desperate he is rn because he'd usually never do that.

And Rin is torn between being tempted to pinch his cheek and pull at it like it's Mochi and also like. She's struggling SO hard not to laugh at this point because she knows if she does Kakashi will literally never forgive her

So Rin has to break it to Kakashi as gently as she can (and without laughing or cooing at his cute kid naivety) that don't worry, you aren't dying, this is normal

Kakashi doesn't believe her at first. But when he does he's suddenly overwhelmed by embarrassment. He will never recover. Hes so fucking glad he didn't actually go to the doctor or to sensei because at least Rin he can swear to secrecy FOREVER

Kakashi has to deal with his suddenly too big for his mouth adult fangs and keeps going to Rin to help heal the cuts they keep leaving on his lips ,,,,

Somehow Obito catches wind of this, and hears "Rin + helping with Kakashi's lips (???)" And thinks they're kissing and loses his goddamn mind in spectacular fashion.

Toddler drama....

Idk where Im really going with this, it ended up taking a life of its own

Uhhh anyways. Moving this conversation entirely:

You can copy pasted this exact concept onto Naruto for a really funny (and kind of awful) au where Naruto loses his first tooth and becomes convinced he's dying

He does actually try to go to the hospital but they try to turn him away, but when he blurts out that he's scared he's dying a particularly mean spirited doctor pretends to examine him then goes "oh no. You really are dying and have a week to live. Boohoo."

Naruto loses his fucking mind and makes a "things I want to do before I die" bucket list and then spends the next week desperatley trying to complete it bc hes convinced he's gonna die on the final day

This list includes but is not limited to:

- become Hokage

- start a family

- eat every single different kind of ramen on Ichiraku's menu

Idk how to make the first and third especially funny but like.

"Starting a family" ending up somehow leading to Naruto very aggressively trying to get literally anyone to hold his hand in a similar fashion to "Uchiha Sasuke's 10 step plan to get revenge" where Sasuke tries to get Shikamaru to marry him in his quest to "live a good life" to get revenge on Itachi, while Naruto hears Sasuke is looking for a husband and very loudly tries to get him to pick him instead

Which is actually a really fucking funny one on its own and now I'm just thinking about that instead, so I'll leave this post here

I got a little distracted, but. Thank you for ur ask !!!

[luveline]

hi jade !! this is me resending my hotch request bc of ur recent post 🤍 i sent the one about hotch taking care of bau!reader who has a really bad stomachache, thanks so much, i think you’re amazing 💞💞💞

thank you for requesting angel! fem

You do this sad thing with your hands when you're in pain. Aaron wishes he didn't know your tell, that he'd never had reason to understand it, but he does. Your fingers, in particular your pinky, curl toward your palm frenetically, and he has an ample view of your closed off face in the chair opposite. He can pin the moment he knows you're in pain down to the minute twitch of your lip. 

He peeks at Morgan where he lays on the couch before leaning across the table to touch your arm. The jet offers little privacy, so Aaron tries to be delicate. 

“L/N? Are you alright?” 

“Mm,” you hum, too high-pitched to have come out the way you meant it. 

“What's wrong?” 

“Nothing.” You say this, and yet you can't open your eyes, leaning less than subtly away from him as though your pain is catching.

Aaron keeps his head down as he stands so as not to attract attention. You've sat near the wall, leaving an empty seat for him to sit in. “Hey,” he says, touching the crook of your elbow, wanting to fix it, soothe the twitch from your hand, “you're in pain.” 

“It's nothing.” 

“Saying it won't necessarily make it true,” he says. 

“It felt worth trying.” 

He is genuinely perturbed to see you in pain like this without explanation. “You have to tell me what's wrong.” 

“Hotch, I…” you say, your voice wrought with embarrassment as you open your eyes, “it's just my stomach hurts. That's all.” 

“Sharp pains?” 

“Just hurts. Nothing dire.” 

“How do you know?” he asks. 

“Happens sometimes.” 

He puts his arm around you, careful not to jostle your back. You're tense as a rubber band about to snap. It's unlike you to be the more rigid of the two of you, less foreign for Hotch to have softened, especially when it's you. “How often?” he asks, wary of the tears brimming like silver at the corners of your eyes. 

“Just sometimes, I don't know.” You speak in a concise, panicked tenor. 

In this line of work, it could be anything. Not eating enough, not having time to stop for breath. You could be thirsty, sick, anxious, stressed into pain. It could be purely psychosomatic or you could be injured. He can't remember you taking any blows during the last few days away. It could be your period. You might not want to mention that. 

“Y/N,” he says, falling out of boss mode now he's sure it's not going to kill you, and into someone who cares for you, “what can I do?” 

You shudder a breath, slouched under his touch. “It's not that bad.” 

It's clearly a shocking amount of pain. Your shuddering worsens as he pulls you into his side. He's prepared to sit with you until you can give him better instructions, or until the pain passes, or, God forbid, things get worse. “I'm here,” he says, rubbing your arm gently. “Try to breathe.” 

He's wondering why you might think this amount of pain is normal, or acceptable. Wondering why he shouldn't just call for medical assistance here and now, but then you start to come around, your face shining with perspiration. “Oh,” you sigh, wiping your face with your sleeve, leaning into your hand, hiding. 

“Is it getting better?” he asks. 

“I think it's anxiety or something.” Your breath slips out in disjointed huffs. 

He can't guess what it is. Have you been to the doctor? he wants to ask, but perhaps in a moment, when you're steady in yourself again. “From the jet?” 

“No. Maybe.” You frown. 

“Jack doesn't understand that I'm on a plane.” 

You lift your gaze in confusion. Aaron moves onwards.

“He doesn't understand that this is a plane. I brought him by, once, to try to explain why I can't always answer the phone. It's thick metal, you know?” It was an easier explanation than having no signal in the sky. “But he didn't get that it was something that could move. I had to take him to the airport. We watched…” He slows as your eyes meet his completely. “We watched them take off for hours. Now he doesn't get so angry when I don't answer.” 

“Jack was angry?” you ask, half incredulous. 

“A bit.” He tries to string the story together before you can realise what it is he's doing, his arm curling around your from behind, fingers making the most tenuous of circles into the very side of your stomach. A barely there sort of comfort. “It's not like him. He reminds me of his mom when he's angry.” 

Your smile is a physical relief to see. “Does he have tantrums?” 

“Doesn't every kid?” 

You talk about Jack in dulcet tones while he tries to keep the pain at bay, his arm steadfast behind you, your faces closer than they have any platonic business being. He'll pester you into doctors appointments when you touch down, but for now, he just holds you and talks to you like everything is normal. 

You cover his hand with yours when the pain starts anew, talking through it, pain in the soft line of your bottom lip. 

“Am I hurting you?” he asks. You give him a weak smile. He feels awful, but it makes his heart race. So close, and so pretty, and so upset. “Is there anything I can do?” 

An embarrassing amount of weight lies in ‘anything’. You shake your head, whispering, “Nothing. This is enough.” 

Aaron pulls you in closer and wraps both of his arms around you, hiding you from the others, an aimless attempt to protect you from a pain he can't touch. Someone puts a cup of tea on the table for you, but otherwise you're left alone for the rest of the flight. 

[cookinguptales]

You know... I hear people shitting on the orange peel theory a lot, and I do get the criticism. It's not healthy to introduce quiet little tests into your relationship. But... I don't know. I do think that "test" hits a little differently when you're disabled.

For the record, I cannot peel oranges. I haven't been able to peel oranges in many years; the joints in my hands are simply too weak and clumsy to do it these days.

I haven't eaten a whole orange in a very long time.

So I can see the appeal in the test, if I'm being honest. Handing someone I love a knife and asking them to peel an orange for me just to see what they'll do. I wouldn't actually be asking for an orange, though it'd be nice to have one, I suppose.

I'd really be asking...

Will I be able to eat oranges when I'm with you? And if I keep asking you to peel my oranges, will you begin to resent me for it?

Because I'd really be asking...

Will you accept me and all the things I can't do? Will you accept that a life with me will be harder? More inconvenient? Will you accept that I will always need help?

Do you care that I can't eat oranges?

Is it safe to love you?

There's this fear that I think all disabled people have to some degree, this fear that the people they love will slowly grow to resent them and their care needs. I can't think of anything that scares me more, honestly. And I know that, to a certain extent, I do test people who I know I want to love.

I'll do it on dates sometimes. (Or even just going out with friends I'm beginning to really warm up to.) I'll purposefully ask them to do an activity with me, and I'll warn them that I might have to do things a little differently. They usually say yes, no problem!

Some of them end up ghosting you at the very beginning, when you say you need to meet an accessible coffee shop instead of their favorite haunt. Some of them make it a little longer, visibly irritated while you wait in line to check an electric wheelchair out at the zoo. Or when you have to walk extra slowly around the garden. Or you need to sit every half hour or so at the museum.

Sometimes I'll ask them for something small that I might be able to do myself. Ask them to get me a water bottle or carry my tray to the table. Maybe ask them to hold my coat for a minute because I need both hands to stand up.

Some people can't handle even a few hours of that, the alternate entrances and the extra planning and the agonizing slowness that is me. And I know immediately that they'd never, ever be able to handle a lifetime of it.

That's fair, I suppose.

But man, when I meet someone who doesn't make me feel less than when we're out, even when I'm slow and tired and inconvenient, that's pretty special.

Maybe it's a little manipulative to arrange an outing just to see how people handle it. But god, god, I know how much it hurts to find out a week, a month, a year, a decade into your relationship that their patience will run out when you need it most. When you physically can't get up and get that water. When you're too sick to get out of bed for that movie date.

When you're running late after a doctor's appointment one too many times and they tell you that you always make things so difficult.

Once, a few years into college, I had plans with a friend to go out and grab dinner, but I had to cancel because I was flaring. When that friend offered to bring me soup instead, I cried. I'd never had a friend offer to do that before.

That's when I realized how much I'd internalized the idea that I wasn't worth being around when my disability was affecting me -- and that's one reason why I had never actively tried to date anyone before.

When someone is a real partner, they're going to see you on your good days and the days that aren't so good. They're going to see your condition deteriorate over the course of your life. They're going to notice that you can't peel oranges.

And what will they do then...?

After that evening, I did make more of an effort to surround myself with people who I trust to be around me even when I need help. And I've made an effort to trust the people who love me, to trust that they won't hate me even if I ask them to peel me the damn orange.

I still do most of my outings alone so I don't feel guilty about going too slowly. I still find it very difficult to ask people for help. And I still buy clementines, a smaller fruit that I can peel myself.

But man. Some days I think it would be really nice to eat oranges again.

[threepandas]

Bad End: Preserve Us

You know how in conservation biology you sometimes try to introduce a pair to be mated and one will just... just fuckin' merc' the other? Just absolutely obliterate them in a hissing, growling, nightmare ball of fury? Before anyone can stop them? Territorial and (to put it lightly) "uninterested", dispite your desperate desire to save their species from extinction, and need for them to get frisky?

I know.

Holy SHIT do I know.

There's a lot of reasons. Ways you can (hopefully) get around it. But first? Is finding out WHY it happened. Was it just the one? The environment? Were they sick? Or... as is the case sometimes, did they decide their Handler was their mate? Some species only mate once. Are loyal for life. You gotta work around that.

Which is all well and fine and good.

When we're talking about ANIMALS.

Non-sentient, non-sapient animals! Not ALIEN SPECIES! What the ABSOLUTE FRESH HELL did they expect from me!? Compliance?! This was UNETHICAL! Monstrous! I had been trying to slip my gaurds long enough to radio for help SINCE I GOT HERE.

I hope the fuckers ROTTED in whatever their Gods considered a Hell.

"Conservation facility" my ENTIRE ASS. You can't run CONSERVATION EFFORTS like this on SENTIENTS. Eugenics loving, atrocity fetishizing, immoral BASTARDS!!! And they KNEW it too. They HAD too! Or they wouldn't be HIDING it! Fucking KIDNAPPING scientists! Biologists! Doctors!

I was on my ways to study Lekku monkeys!

God...

I'm? I'm so tired of being pissed.

Furious and outraged and SCARED. Horrified and sick. There are PEOPLE here. Kids! And I don't... oh god, I don't... H-How LONG has this been going ON? Why did no one NOTICE?

Every day I feel my heart break. The desire to scream and scream and never STOP, grow inside me. I have to get out. I have to get us ALL out. Get these people FREE. Do SOMETHING. But I am forced to "conserve" the species assigned to me. The group assigned to me.

It's killing my love for the field. Making a mockery of everything I worked for.

I don't... I don't think my hands will ever be clean again.

But I have to help. Do everything I can. Make hell a little kinder, if nothing else. At least while I figure out a way OUT. My group deserves better. The groups I do not work with, deserve better.

I disguise games as "testing". Pages and pages of meaningless numbers ans scores. INSIST that enrichment is the key to success. Diet is EVERYTHING. Oh, and habitat? Well unless we can mimic their habitat there's no WAY they'll "breed".

No, no, using machines would stress them out too much.

It's like you DONT want babies!

Who's the expert here? That's RIGHT! Dr. Cho, but FAILING her and like five other people? Me. And I know for a FACT they are pulling the same scam. We ALL fucking hate you. Dr. Cho has KIDS, you FUCKS. Hasn't seen her son in YEARS thanks to you bastards. He was engaged. She's probably missed his WEDDING thanks to you!

Getting distracted, spiraling again, gotta stop DOING that.

It wont help anyone.

But God, if my brain doesn't slowly feel like it's shorting out the longer I'm here. Stress is called the silent killer for a reason. Or what that something else? Fuck. I can't even look it up! Bastards cut us off from the galactic web. Full information blackout. Because of COURSE they did... can't risk us rightfully calling for help.

Getting the Feds involved to shut this hell pit of a black site DOWN. Or a "whatever it truely is" site. Because it sure as SHIT has nothing to do with conservational biology. Except maybe the abuse of it.

But that doesn't help me right now.

Focus, damn it!

The Yanderens. Old, absurdly rare, nearly extinct, with a home planet they'd reduced to uninhabitable wastelands millennia ago due too... something. No one knew what. There had definitely been fighting. It WAS documented they were excellent fighters. Ruthless ones at that. But it was ALSO documented they strongly pack bonded.

There had been a lot of strongly worded warnings on what few documation my captures were able to find, translate, then shove at me. But honestly? They said the same thing about humans. Ooooh big scary persistent hunters~ oh nooooo! Watch out for the omnivores with a history of war! Sins of the father and we are defined by our diets! Class systems! Let's all JUDGE each ooooootheeeeer~!

Yeah, no. Not buying it.

Especially when the "warnings" were so damn vague and poorly documented. All "the HORRORS!" and "we barely SURVIVED!". Cause honestly? The Yanderens I was watching over? Easily the most mild and temperate individuals I had ever met. No tantrums from the kids, no big emotional meltdowns, just curiosity and at WORST? Mild frustration.

It made everything ten thousand times worse for me, that these poor people were in this hellish place. They were calm. Curious. Meant for greater, BETTER things! They should be out, playing and learning. Exploring and enjoying peaceful strolls in some art gallery or zen garden somewhere! Not... not this sterile fucking LAB.

But then M-17 loses his SHIT.

And now I'm kinda panicking. Because F-6 is not just dead, God rest her soul (she didn't deserve this. Oh god. She was so SWEET.), but M-17 might just be too, soon. If I can't find out what HAPPENED. Because if he's "feral" or "diseased" or whatever other horrifying terminology they end up using? They DO something about it.

And I can't actually stop them.

I... I don't know if it was a trauma response. Or I did something wrong. I could PROBABLY pass it off as my needing more studies into their observed "mating habits"? That... that I somehow... turned it... uuuuh... dominance battle? Shit. Where are my notes?!

F-6 is DEAD and its all my fault.

She was such a cuddle fiend too. Always excited to hear about my studies, from before. My life. Wanted to join me after we got out of here. I never should have let her volunteer. Granted, she wouldn't have taken no for an answer. Wanted to spend the pregnancy plotting our escape. Asked me to help raise the kid once we got out. Had a whole grand plan. But I...And I...

God...

I should have said NO. Insisted. It was just so hard, when F-6 had made it all sound like it would be okay. Like she had a plan and all I need to do was trust her. Believe in her. Then we could be free.

I had hoped M-17 would work best. He was always the most agreeable and quick on the uptake. I figured... well... ha ha. God, I'm such an IDIOT. I should have CHECKED. Who KNOWS what happened before I arrived? What triggered I just accidentally rammed my foot into? FUCK! I sweep everything from me desk onto the ground. Don't give I shit that I'll have to clean it up later,

I had figured M-17 would be COOL with it.

This place is getting to me, isn't it?

Why the FUCK would anyone be COOL with getting jumped? Bred like an animal? Shoved in some random ass room, with a vaguely familiar stranger, and told "now fuck. We want a literal litter from you two"? All while some biologist watchs and makes god damned NOTES!?

Of course he fought back. OF COURSE he didn't stop!

The only one there he could trust was himself.

I...I'm becoming a monster... aren't I?

Oh god.

At least we're in the satellite facility. The gaurds are definitely going to rat me out, but the news will take time to filter back. And... and the Yanderens being so "dangerous" might work in my favor. I... I can spin this. I HAVE to spin this. I can't let TWO people die for my fuck up.

I promised myself I would get as many people out as I could. I refuse to back out now. Even if that means crying, puking, then going out there to lie my ASS off. This was TOTALLY NORMAL. In fact, expected! Yep! It means that's we've determined that M-17 is the alpha Yanderen! A thing that is both REAL and possible to BE!

I rinse my mouth, stomach empty. Crying has exhausted me. But I can't give up. Too many lives count on me now. I... I wish so badly I was just a nobody again. Just some random biology student, trying to make a name for herself. Being "important" is a CURSE.

I try not to chug my water as I half stumble out of the glorified shoebox that is my bathroom into the much larger and Fancier CLOSET that is my room. Truely, no expense spared, for the captives they ripped away from their lives. So glad I am here willingly and of my own volition.

I gather myself. Finally ready to go and try to untangle the mess I have made of everything. When a deep booming alarm rattles my bones. The lights flickering to red. Blast doors slide down, SLAM shut over the transparent recessed bit of wall that counts as my window, the door to the rest of the facility.

Trapping me inside my small room.

Almost immediately after, an EXPLOSION rocks the world hard enough to knock me from my feet. Only the bed's limited padding keeping me from a nasty concussion. The edge of it still ramming painfully into my shoulder. Another explosion. Then another. I sit for a long, terrible, second stunned.

The moment passes.

I scramble on my hands and knees for the in facility communication device that I had knocked from my desk in anger, grief. Not daring to stand lest I be thrown down again. I manage to find it as the world shakes again for the fifth time. Followed by what sounds like gun fire out in the halls.

I fling myself back towards my shitty little bunk. Drag every bit of padding and protection I can, down and under it with me. If the roof goes? I want shock absorption. If shots get through the door? I want something to slow those blasts down. Anything. ANYTHING! To increase my fucked chances of surviving.

I burrito up and wriggle back as deep as I can. The world muffled but ending just outside my crawlspace. Then I desperately try to get one of the others on the line. I got nothing but chaos. Running. Running. Hiding. And Dead.

Dead. Dying.

Remember me.

And GONE.

Some of them fighting with their groups too freedom. Some being targeted right along side their captors. Others savaged by the ACTUAL animals they had been working with, the one's Galacticly deemed too dangerous for effort like this. Someone or something had set EVERYONE free. A simultaneous attack on all fronts that our captors could not put down or escape.

The Yanderens were out there.

Oh god. Please let them be okay. They wer-

My thoughts ground to a halt as M-32 LAUNCHED his tiny body onto the screen of one of the security feeds I was desperately looking through. F-6 had figured out how to get us a backdoor to them a long time ago. M-32 was just a kid. A small, soft, cuddly little thing that loved to lean against me and crawl into my lap. All cherubic cheeks and cute little curls. Shy!

Yet I watched... in mounting horror... as like a lion on some unfortunate animal, he landed on a gaurds back. Small arms going around his body in a mockery of a hug. Head tilting so he could BITE at the back of the man's neck, small hands clawing and ripping at weak points in his armor, as he screamed. Thrashed. Tried desperately to get M-32 OFF of him.

There was so much blood.

My hands were shaking. So much, I accidentally hit the next screen button. Jerked my thumb back. But... but oh god. There was F-26. Using the butt of a rifle to slam down against the head of a scientist. Again and again and again. Long after the begging and thrashing stopped. I flipped again. M-4? No... please not M-4. Not the soft spoken and wise...

I watched as he grinned, a cold thing, and shot out another joint. His foot on the chest of the head scientist who had moved him to a different group. In the background, his supervisor lay dead. They had not died quickly. The head scientist was begging. A mess of tears and pain. M-4 shot another joint, pressing his foot down harder.

I wanted to be sick.

I flipped again. And again. And AGAIN.

H...Had I known them at ALL? Like demons wearing the faces of those I'd known. People I'd trusted. Not a SINGLE ONE was... oh... oh god. F-6. Had she been too? Would I have ever known? Was THIS what all those warnings meant? I couldn't think. Couldn't breath. Had... Had never had a panic attack but... BUT-!

I wheezed.

Shook.

"Oh, Clever giiiirl~" A familiar voice sang, before a blood splattered face flickered into being on the screen in my hands. "Where aaaare yoooou~?"

M-17. He'd somehow managed to take over the security cameras. That or the communication feed. His eyes were bright. A grin on his face like I'd never seen from him. ALIVE in a way I'd never seen him. The excitement transformed his face. No longer softly doll like, but something DANGEROUS. Unhinged. His eyes dilated and deadly teeth on display.

"Come out, come out wherever you aaaare~. I have so much to TELL you! We have so much to DO! I'm going to make you MINE sweetheart! No one else can have you. So come out. I won't hurt you much, I promise! Just gotta make you mine then we can leave okay~?"

Furious snarls echoed through the halls. Male and female alike. Old and young. I... I recognized each of those voices. What was HAPPENING?

"Aaaah? Did you TRASH really think you DESERVED her? Ha! Please." M-17 grin was cruel. Mocking. "You don't have a chance in hell of taking what's MINE."

His eyes seems to shift away from unseen enemies and back, somehow, to me. Warming to something euphoric. Resting his head on his hand as if to consider me. His fingers spread, stroking his own face, as if the desire to TOUCH was simply too great. As if what he was imagining was bleeding over into the real world.

"Oh clever girl~ my clever, clever girl~♡ I can't wait til it's just you and ME. Start think of where you want to go first, okay? We're going to get married. Have that child you wanted me for. All the things you ever dreamed~♡ I'm going to have you all to myself. No more annoying others. Ah~ can't wait to find you soon!"

"But first?"

"May the best of us Win."

[raccoonfallsharder]

hello, friends! i wanted to give you a quick update. i am certainly on the mend right now. i feel better than i have in probably a week or more, and though i am still not clear of pneumonia and all its complications in my life lol, i am hoping to be almost completely back to normal by the end of this week, if all goes well.

i also wanted to thank you all for your kindness and also your threats and affectionate insults. thank you, so much, for caring. the world can be a hard place to live, and we are encouraged in so many ways to live these small atomized lives. but no matter how tenuous or fleeting our internet-interactions are, they are still real, and i appreciate you reaching out to tell me to rest, and to send me your well-wishes. it truly does mean so much, not only as a moment of connection, but also as a reminder of how well people can care for each other, even those they barely know or never met. you all inspire and uplift me, and i am grateful for it.

for those of you more curious about the details (and the absolutely absurdity of my friday night this week), you can read on. i tend to fall into irreverent medical narrative monologuing (as i do with everything else lol) but i will try to keep it brief.

content warnings for doctors, medical stuff, pain and illness, emergencies, and hospitals.

here's the basic timeline of my week lol:

on tuesday, i got really sick. i tend to not have a lot of normal symptoms for things (i have only had a fever once in my life, and it was NOT the time i had appendicitis, a ruptured intestine, or kidney stones), and figuring out when i don't feel well takes a lot of conscious effort on my part. plus i gaslight myself hard. these are all things i'm working on and have gotten a lot better at - which is probably the only reason why i went to urgent care instead of convincing myself this was "just a flu" and trying to take care of myself at home. i had been having side pain as well, which i had attributed to a pulled muscle, but something in me was afraid i had maybe done something else and caused an injury that got infected or something. i don't know, it just felt connected.

urgent care diagnosed me with probable pneumonia (they couldn't find it with the stethoscope, but they were confident it was there) and started treating that. they believed the strained muscle was not related but told me to come back on friday with an x-ray if my other symptoms didn't improve.

on friday morning, we went to get an x-ray done at 7am and hit up urgentcare on the way back. the x-ray said i was clear on pneumonia, but my cough was worse and my nausea had returned (no fever anymore though, thank goodness). my muscle pain in my back was also so much worse, presumably because of all my coughing, so they gave me some meds for my lungs and for my muscle pain.

now we get to friday evening, probably 5pm. i have a coughing fit with an unsupported back - and i scream. i think i blacked out for a second. my partner came in running. i couldn't move. i've never been in so much pain in my life, and i have a stupid-high pain tolerance. (this is another part of my issue with figuring out when i don't feel well). at this point, the pain had suddenly migrated. it felt like it was grinding down through my flank and into my groin. the location felt very similar to a kidney stone but it was unlike anything i had ever experienced before. i was sweating, trying to walk to the car and then up through the hospital doors. the guard at the front was like "get this woman a wheelchair" lollol.

it was a pretty crowded night so when we were admitted, we were stuck in the hall, which was fine by me. the doctors and nurses were all lovely (my partner believes we were the favorites on the floor because we are very easy-going and also funny lol. i think he has a slightly-inflated view of us but whatever, one of us is wrong and i'm happy if it's me). anyway, the med staff all seemed to think - like me - that perhaps all my symptoms had actually been a kidney stone, and that it was the cough that was unrelated, rather than the muscle pain. so eventually i go back a CT. The scan comes back an hour or so later and, surprise, it is still pneumonia (of course it was able to pick up what an x-ray couldn't). What it also noticed is that the pneumonia had inflamed my entire diaphragm. i do not remember learning much about the diaphragm in school but i knew from logic that it had something to do with respiration because of my choir- and stage-inclined friends. but it does a lot of other things as well (like puppeteering the bladder) and impacts a lot of systems and also, apparently, causes a lot of fucking pain when inflamed.

so. they had already given me some pretty hefty anti-inflammatories. they tell me they'd actually like to replace the seven other drugs the urgent care doctors have me on with one different one. it should totally knock out the pneumonia, especially since i will be starting with a full course of the medication after already tackling the pneumonia with the other antibiotics since tuesday. this sounds great to me, and i say sure. they give me the new drug and discharge me, more quickly than i have ever seen a discharge take place, and i was on my way - already feeling better than i had in days thanks to the antiinflammatory they'd given me before.

here's where the night gets spicy

we get in the car, i'm feeling better than i have in days, it's all good. we hit the freeway and i'm like. huh. my face feels funny.

my partner's like.... what.

i'm like, i don't know? my face feels funny? not itchy or anything, but like.... weird?

he says, should we go back?

i'm like... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ i genuinely cannot identify this sensation.

then something switches, and i'm like... oh yeah, okay. my mouth and face all feel like... not itchy, but fuzzy. staticky. and while i have not had this kind of reaction before (like everything else, my allergies show up weirdly), i have heard about it. so i say, yeah.... i think we should go back. my throat's a little tight, but there's no swelling on my face, no hives - because again, i am weirdly symptomatic. and because i'm aces at gaslighting myself, i say, maybe i'm overreacting?

which is when i realize that at some point, my partner has called 911. i answer some questions but it's definitely hard to keep my eyes open. and then the car is pulled over, and there are EMTs. and my partner tells them i've been passing out at thirty second intervals. i tell them i'm just being a drama queen and i'm probably overreacting. they apparently think that's some bullshit and i get my very first ambulance ride. i'm phasing in and out - pretty badly hypotensive with really low blood pressure, but still - no visible swelling. my throat is tight enough that my voice sounds like that of a ninety-year-old who's been smoking four packs a day her entire life, but there's nothing they can SEE, other than that i'm "cold and clammy" (rude, lol). still, they stick me with epinephrine and give me some O2 and take me right back to where i come from.

one of the nurses from earlier sees me being wheeled in (to a room, this time - no hallways for repeat customers, i guess) and she is like, "NO! miss dae! why are you back?!!" and i say, "because i missed you. and i wanted the room upgrade."

and then i start giggling hysterically.

and the registering nurse asks me if i consent to have my insurance billed and i say, "FUCK YEAH. fuck those guys" and giggle some more. i don't know if that was the epinephrine or just pure delirium at that point.

then i start crying because i feel so bad about coming back, again. all my self-gaslighting really coming out to the forefront. and they're like, NO, you did absolutely what you should have done, don't be silly.

they get me all settled and are shooting me up with a ton of antihistamines, and finally let me partner back, and my voice still sounds like rocks going through a meat grinder but you know what? you know what antihistimines do? THEY DECREASE INFLAMMATION. so my diaphragm is feeling better than it has in like, a week.

my doctor from earlier comes in, and he clearly felt so bad about everything. he tells me to return to my previous course of drugs, and puts this one in my file as another allergen. after about an hour of fluids and watching me, they release us. we get home at 3:30am and crawl into bed, safe as houses.

now, i can't really say "the end." the pneumonia's not gone yet, and i still have some ongoing pain from my diaphragm. additionally, a coughing fit that happened later that night does seem to have damaged an old surgery site (probably because of the diaphragm muscle, actually), so i need to get that checked out this week too. BUT. i am feeling so much better than i have all week. i am privileged to have decent insurance and while we do have to live pretty frugally, we make ends meet. we're lucky that we will be able to take care of these bills when they come.

and honestly? that shit is FUNNY. (i mean, for me. definitely not for my poor partner who probably lost twenty-seven years off his life; pray for him). i can't wait to really perfect the way i tell this story because it's HILARIOUS. like. what the fuck

anyway if you actually read all this, first of all, wow. second of all. i appreciate you. thank you for worrying about me, for wondering about me, and for caring in general. i'm so grateful, and i hope that you have everything you need, today and every day moving forward.

[sciderman]

im so happy for you that you have a possible reason/cause for your brain itch!!!! i hope the tumor removal goes superduper smoothly. Do they know how long its been present/growing???????? how did you find out??? <- you obviously do not have to answer these personal medical questions lmao im just!!!! so curious and excited for you.

from what i've discussed with the docs it's been there for a LONG time... they say this sort of thing might take up to a decade to develop - it doesn't happen overnight!

i think i started noticing symptoms about maybe... 7 years ago? literally as soon as i started working full-time, maybe. my first job stressed me out so much and i cried underneath the tables at 8pm because i couldn't leave the office, i still had so much to do. i was leading up an entire ass animation department at 20 years old. bad. awful. that's when i started depending on things to get me through the day. my body started feeling awful. i thought it was anxiety, or me just being weak, i guess. i don't know if stress created the tumor, or the tumor created the stress - (well, it's the latter now) i think it's probably both, but all the research i've done and what the doctors have said is that there's just - some people with a genetic predisposition for it.

it's funny - i never miss a deadline, and i'm really really good at my job, always. i never let anyone down, ever, at the cost of my own sanity, and i seem to always, always have it put-together when i'm dealing with people - i have the constant consensus from everybody around me that i'm the most cheerful person to work with on this here planet earth - but apparently, my body was falling apart underneath it all - which i failed to recognise, because outwardly i was holding it together so well, and figured it was just normal to cry all the time when nobody was looking.

i started really noticing it after taking on a lot of freelance work on top of my day job – i was really doing very hot, and did these amazing projects for some really amazing clients who sought me out for being amazing (i am amazing) - but naturally, had consecutive nights of no sleep, and quick deadlines - and INVOICING... screams. and just, realised - after taking those jobs that - my heart did not stop pumping afterwards. my heart was still racing a mile a minute, even after all those jobs were done and dusted and ever-so-loved and appreciated by very happy clients. my heart. wouldn't. stop.

i figured it was MAJOR anxiety, and sought out some counselling sessions, hoping they'd help. i relayed my woes. i said i'm worried i'm not resting enough. i'm not sleeping enough. my heart rate won't go down. they said "oh. not everybody needs 8 hours sleep, don't worry about it. everyone's different." - for some reason that reassured me. i thought it was okay. okay. i don't need rest. maybe my body's just different and doesn't need rest. maybe that's why i wake up at 6am every morning without fail. i just don't need sleep, i guess. (bad advice.)

so – everyone is telling me i'm okay. i should just get on. you're barely sleeping? that's fine, you probably don't need it. your heart is pumping? that's healthy. your heart SHOULD pump, idiot. get back to work.

i felt very unhappy at work - i felt like i was stagnating - so i moved job, last year. i moved job to one that was so, so much more fast-paced. i thought the excitement and change would do me good - but i've been facing maybe - 3 deadlines a day? vs my previous one-deadline-a-month arrangement. and i think it broke me. i needed to depend on so many unhealthy habits to get me through the day. i needed like 6 energy drinks, 3 coffees, i'd have the shakes, i'd have the jitters, i'd feel like i was going to fall apart every single day.

and then, one day, i did.

one week last year i doubled over - my body was in so much pain that i couldn't sleep, i couldn't eat, and worst off - i couldn't work. it was the first time i'd taken sick leave - i couldn't function. after being on antibiotics that didn't work, i eventually went into the emergency room because i just couldn't sleep. i couldn't do anything. i didn't care if they put me down, i wanted the pain to end.

she was a kidney stone. her name was sharon (sharon stone) - i suspect it was all the energy drinks that made her. i've dealt with her now. but during the process, the doc pulled me aside, and he said "dear. do you have any pain in your other kidney?"

i said... no............... why?

doc said "ah. problem for another time."

so, once sharon was dealt with, obviously i had to chase up on that doctor's ominous warning. i said "WHAT'S WRONG WITH MY OTHER KIDNEY!!"

you have a tumor, dear. his name is lamar. he's on your right adrenal gland, and we suspect he's messing up all your hormones.

i did my own research, and turns out all these crazy, mysterious symptoms i've been having all line up - so i chased, and chased, and chased.

the doctors didn't take me seriously at first. because i guess i'm not in pain, and i handle it so well. i'm still so strong. i'm a fighter, i guess. whatever. but, turns out...

it's worth it to chase. your life might depend on it. i'm so glad i did, because there's an end to my suffering (dear god, i hope) - but, guys, if your heart won't slow, and you chronically can't relax, and you feel like there are bees in your brain - that's the time to do some research. it isn't normal, actually. and sure - it might not be a tumor, but - kid, you need some support. you need some help. you need to ask some questions. it's not okay for that to be your baseline. your body needs to rest. it needs to rest. even if i have to force it to. it has to rest.

right now i'm in a major stressed way, and i broke down and cried. i'm in the middle of a freelance job, and in the middle of an interviewing process for a new full-time job, and still working my current full-time job with 3 deadlines a day, and my surgery is next week. and i feel like crying. all the time.

i can't wait for rest. i hate that i literally have to be hospitalised to get it. but, i'll get it. i'm going to rest so fucking hard.

[midnight-mourning]

I'm back! (for the most part)

Hello, hope everyone is doing alright, needed a few more days than I expected. BUT, here now and slowly working on being more active. May take me a bit but plan to get caught up with everything and the likes. Going to release promptobers throughout the next couple of days, along with anything else I'm currently working on. Expect some updates on the oneshot, ch. 35 and so on as well ^-^ Thank you all for your paitence and hope to be back to regularly posting soon!

some medical/mental stuff below the cut if you're curious, I was going to save this for the ch. 35 note, but figured I might as well just say it now as it's part of the reason my return was delayed

SO, haven't really spoken on it but I've had a sinus infection for about two months now and gonna be so fr with you all, it's sucked. Like, i've never had one this bad before and it just totally knocked me on my ass. I've been tired, dazed/brain fog, some bad headaches/face pain, all the really fun stuff. I made the joke that I spent like two days of being 23 healthy and the rest of the time I've been sick lmao

But anyway, I kept waiting to see if it would clear up on it's own (and for like a week or so there my health insurance was messed up so there was that to deal with) and it just, didn't. And with everything going on with research (esp this past week) I just made myself tough through it hoping it would get better, and it didn't. So, finally went to the doctor and got on some meds and I'm feeling a LOT better.

The point to all this is to say, I've had no motivation to write beyond very small bursts and thus why I've been putting out promptobers but not the latest chapter of CS. My energy has just been super low, and I had a lot of brain fog for several weeks and I just, couldn't bring myself to do it. Maybe it was a little bit of writer's block from stress too, not super sure

I took the break mainly bc things with research just got, really shitty for a few days there and I just needed time away from everything for bit esp with the sickness issues. Thankfully, things are working out a bit better this week people-wise and hopefully we'll continue to go up from here.

As for why I was gone the few extra days, the stuff they put me on made me feel physically great, but it also made me feel like doing absolutely nothing for a day or so. But, figured out the timing for those so now it's manageable to get through the next week and hopefully I'll be fully back to normal by then ^_^

TL;DR if you can go to the doctor when you're sick, go. It is NOT worth the discomfort, stress, etc to not. Also, take a break when you're stressed, does wonders for your mental health

well, since you took the time to read all of this, enjoy these pictures of a cat that showed up at my parents place a few days ago. She’s a bengal! Which makes her the second stray that's shown up that is incredibly rare/bred to look like that (the first is Nubs, my idiot who eats everything if any of you recall). Not to worry, she went home to (hopefully) her forever family early yesterday :)

[lolhex12]

we don't talk enough abt akutagawa's cough / lung disease (chronic&terminal) yet it has so much angst potential?? anywayy

after the current arc, atsushi knows akutagawa is actively dying and he's the only one who does bc akutagawa didn't tell anyone else abt it. (altho, in all honesty, the amount this man coughs should at least hint at it. i'm honestly amazed not more ppl in the story are concerned abt it)

so, the next mission they have together, akutagawa coughs and atsushi is now aware what it really means, so he wonders out loud with nonchalance masking his concern: "hey, so like, do you think yosano's ability would help with your cough and all? would it go away then?"

akutagawa, wiping his mouth, slightly annoyed: "how would i now? i'm not well-acquainted with your coworkers, weretiger, therefore it's none of my concern. and even then, i wouldn't trust any ada members with my issues, nor my life."

atsushi finds his words a bit sus bc 'u do trust me tho', but doesn't say it out loud and they leave it at that.

somehow, it becomes a regular thing. every time they have a mission together and atsushi hears his partner cough, he presents more ideas of how they could cure a terminal lung disease, and they vary in absurdity as he runs out of inspiration.

his ideas range from mere "have you tried going to a doctor?" (<- at which akutagawa stares in disbelief: "you either think i'm an idiot, or you are the idiot. which one is it?" and atsushi pouts bc 'ok yeah, fair... but also, rude') to insanities like "maybe witchcraft would help! i could look up witches in the area and see if black magic or something has any luck." (<- at which akutagawa is so done he doesn't even entertain the idea and just keeps walking)

they never follow through with any idea tho, bc akutagawa stubbornly refuses to waste time on trying to find a cure when his time on earth already is very limited.

it should also be noted that each time the cough gets worse; louder, rougher, more persistent and even bloody, which only makes atsushi more and more worried.

so one time, akutagawa's particularly annoyed by atsushi's insane and stupid ideas. he turns to him and point-blank asks: "why do even care so much whether i succumb to my illness or not? surely, my death should only leave you overjoyed to see the world be rid of one more evil."

that makes atsushi think bc 'why? why does he care whether akutagawa lives or dies? he's right, a bad person like a mafioso dying should be a good thing.'

after lengthy contemplation he comes to the conclusion that he simply cannot have his sworn enemy/rival/partner die from something as pathetic as a disease. someone as strong as akutagawa has to die in a more memorable way - not alone, in a bed, coughing, with nothing more to be remembered by. if anything he'd have to die fighting atsushi or something. yeah that's it. that's why. (<- it's not, but they're not quite there yet)

so atsushi tells him as much. akutagawa accepts it bc 'yeah, makes sense. what else could the reason be?'

the whole routine of coughing and brainstorming a solution in vain continues as the ideas get even more insane, the cough even worse and atsushi more concerned than ever.

the next time akutagawa is annoyed enough to pose the question again, atsushi is close to tears from anxiety as he holds up akutagawa who collapsed and can't seem to subdue his cough properly.

atsushi struggles to get out the water bottle and cough drops he'd started carrying around on their missions together. he's so scared bc he's never seen akutagawa look so sick and frail before (but not weak. never weak. akutagawa could never be weak in atsushi's eyes. it's impossible, bc akutagawa being strong is a simple, unchangeable fact, constant in any possible universe).

what would he do if akutagawa actually died there? in his arms? on a mission? which would probably get cancelled. would the pm think atsushi killed him? does he bring back the body or just bury it somewhere? pretend he got killed on the mission and not by his own body that had turned on him years ago and was in reality a long time coming? he couldn't even bear to think abt it.

"why tf do u care so much??" akutagawa yells with a scratchy voice before his cough continue despite his best efforts to stop.

atsushi can barely breathe anymore. "because i don't want you to die, you idiot! we're a team! you're my partner. who will i be left with if you go?" tears stream down his face, mainly from how overwhelming his anxiety feels. or maybe bc he really doesn't want his partner to die? nah, it's the anxiety. definitely the anxiety. (<- #denial)

akutagawa, at first embarrassed how his collapse derailed their mission bc goddammit he's supposed to be a professional and not let his issues interfere with his job, pauses when he sees atsushi crying... for him? because of him? ???

he's very confused bc he's pretty sure his rival/enemy/partner should not be so concerned abt his health and impending death, but something abt atsushi's expression and that whole situation makes him rethink his outlook on life.

that's when akutagawa starts taking his health more seriously and actively looks for possible, feasible ways to cure his disease, even if there's only a small chance it'll actually work. bc seeing atsushi like that made him realize there are a handful of people who care abt him and would mourn him if he died; more than just his sister and higuchi.

it made him realize his life had a bigger impact on others than he'd previously thought, not all of it bad.

[thevioletcaptain]

So I've been quiet on here a lot longer than planned.

The reasons are many. The reasons are varied.

The reasons are mostly fucking horrible.

Under a cut because it's long. Check tags for content warnings.

First was the expected absence: my parents came to visit me in Los Angeles over my birthday, so I spent the first half of October showing them around whenever I wasn't working a shift at my shitty department store day-job, or in class at UCLA.

Then, almost immediately after they went back to Australia, I got a second job working as a personal assistant for a composer. This was (and is) an extremely fun and rewarding job, but meant having one more thing on my weekly schedule, which was an adjustment.

Given that until halfway through last year, I'd been out of work since I immigrated in 2019, it took a while for me to get used to having so many concurrent responsibilities, and I'd just started to get a handle on things when I got sick right before the holidays. I took many covid tests -- all negative -- and eventually determined that it was just last year's strain of flu, which I hadn't managed to find time to get the shot for due to the aforementioned super busy schedule. I'm almost positive it was thanks to a particular customer at the aforementioned shitty department store job who coughed hard enough in my direction for their germs to get through my n95.

Anyway, last year's flu was a monster, and I spent a week in bed with a fever, then several more weeks being utterly drained and with a horrendous cough to match. It took a full month for me to recover, and then in mid-January, almost as soon as I started to catch up on all the things that had fallen behind while I was sick, things got bad, then good, then worse, then better, then much, much, much worse.

Basically, it starts with my dad being diagnosed with prostate cancer. He'd told me in October when they came to see me, but the surgery was scheduled for the tail end of January.

The surgery happened on a Monday, and it was a complete success. They got it all in one go. No chemo or radiation or further treatment needed at all. I spoke to him on the phone after he woke up, and he was in good spirits. Happy to have been given the all clear by his doctors.

I told him to watch Star Trek: Strange New Worlds & Evil while he rested up at home, because I'm writing specs for both this year and wanted him to be able to read them and know what was going on. He's the one who got me into sci-fi and horror, after all.

He went home.

He was home for two days.

He started feeling a bit rough on the Thursday. Short of breath. No appetite. Mum took him back to the hospital, just to be safe.

Turns out he'd had a mild heart attack. They couldn't figure out why. The echocardiogram didn't show any issues with his heart.

Then over the next couple of days, his breathing got worse. They took a scan of his lungs, and found that they were extremely inflamed. They'd given him covid tests but they came back negative. We told them about a work accident he had about 20 years ago, where a switchboard he'd been working on exploded in his face, and he'd suffered from inhalation burns among other things.

They thought that maybe something during the prostate surgery had caused irritation in his already damaged lungs, which put stress on his heart and caused the mild heart attack. He's never had any issues with his lungs since that accident, but they thought that maybe he'd just adapted to the damage over the years without realizing.

They kept trying different treatments to help his lungs heal. Nothing seemed to work. His breathing kept getting worse. They had him on as much oxygen as possible without intubating him, but it wasn't enough, so over that weekend they decided that they'd need to move him to another hospital with a more specialized lung unit.

When they were preparing to do that on the Monday night, he crashed. Another heart attack. Bigger, this time. They intubated him. Sedated him. Called my mum and told her to come in right away because things looked so bad.

But then he rallied. By the morning, though he was still sedated and intubated, the doctors were confident that with the right treatment at the specialized lung unit at the other hospital, he'd be okay. He was still in a rough condition, but stable. They transferred him to the other hospital.

He was given another covid test. This one came back positive.

My mum and brother called me once it was a reasonable time in Los Angeles to let me know what was going on, and the next day my brother booked me a flight back to Australia. I had to leave for the airport about five hours after my ticket was booked.

I got to Melbourne on February 1st.

For the next two weeks, dad was intubated, sedated, and in an isolation room. Every few days, they scanned his lungs again, and they were slowly improving.

Finally, he stopped testing positive, and was moved to a regular room in the ICU. Then he healed enough for them to extubate him and wake him up.

On February 13th, he was conscious enough to squeeze my hand when we went in to see him. On February 14th, he was conscious and capable of talking enough to ask a nurse in his ward to bring him his phone, and called mum first thing in the morning to wish her a happy Valentines Day.

Two days later, on Friday 16th, his lungs looked good enough on scans that they felt it was safe to do an angiogram, which they wanted to do just to double check that there weren't any issues with his heart that they missed with the echo.

They did the test. They found massive blockages. 90% blockage in one artery; significant blockages in two others.

Even though he'd barely recovered from covid, the blockages were bad enough that they scheduled him for open heart surgery on Monday 19th. They said without surgery there was a 100% chance that the blockages would cause another massive heart attack that he would not survive. They said there was about a 20% chance that he'd have complications, but only about 4% that they'd be serious/life threatening.

Like before, the surgery went well. Triple bypass, in the end. We got a call late on Monday afternoon to say that he was in recovery and looking good. His heart was functioning perfectly. They'd bring him out of sedation that night. Keep him in the ICU one or two days just as the standard post-op procedure. He'd spend a week or so in a cardiac ward after that, then head to a physical rehab ward for a couple of weeks until he could build back the muscle mass he'd lost while sedated.

We went in to see him the next day. Tuesday 20th. His 66th birthday.

He was tired, but looked good. Color in his cheeks. He made a couple of jokes. We left after about 45 minutes because he was pretty worn out, and we wanted to let him get some rest.

But then after, that his breathing started to get bad again. By Wednesday morning, they'd switched out the oxygen prongs in his nose for a big, high-pressure mask again. They called to let us know they were going to intubate him again so he could rest while his lungs recovered a bit more.

They struggled to get the tube in.

His lungs were deteriorating badly. He kept getting worse. We couldn't go in to see him because they were working on him all day.

At 9pm we got a call to say that he was just getting worse. They had him on 100% oxygen. He just wasn't absorbing it. His entire body was under massive strain. They were doing everything they could, but he just wasn't improving.

They said we should go in right away.

We got there by 10pm. My brother and his wife arrived about the same time. We went in to see him. He didn't look good. He looked pale. But he was warm, and he'd come back from the brink before, and we were sure he could do it again. We stayed with him for about an hour, and left not long after 11pm. Went back to my brother's place because they live closer to the hospital.

We were there about half an hour before they called us again. Just after midnight. He was gone.

That was about a week and a half ago, now. It still doesn't feel real. He was only 66. He hadn't even retired yet. He was working full time up until the week before Christmas, and had planned on going back to work a few days a week after he'd recovered from surgery. He never had any heart trouble, or lung trouble. He was active. He was fine.

My wife Zel and her mom flew in a couple of days after it happened. I barely remember anything from the past two weeks. Everything just feels fake.

I've been trying to write something to say at the funeral, which we've finally been able to arrange for next week -- it was delayed because we had to wait for dad to be released by the coroner. I don't think I'll be able to do it.

Anyway. That's where I've been.

It'll probably be a little while longer before I'm around here much, let alone posting with any regularity, because I'll be in Australia helping my mum & and my brother sort everything out. I have no idea how long I'll be dealing with stuff, or when I'll be able to make words cooperate enough to post anything, but I'll be back eventually.

I'm trying to keep an eye on Discord (I'm violetmatter over there) so you can find me there if you want. But yeah, I just wanted to let you guys know why I've been so quiet.

[copperbadge]

Hi Sam! When you decided to go for an adhd diagnosis, is there a reason you went to the type of place you chose? I know you ended up having a difficult time with them after your evaluation. Did you go to your pcp first or try any other routes?

I’m starting to feel very heavily impacted by what I’m fairly certain is undiagnosed adhd, and I really want to try medication to see if it helps, but as I’m sure you’re aware, the process of making appointments is very difficult for one with undiagnosed adhd. Sigh. I’m wondering if it’s worth it to try and just make an appointment with my regular doctor to see if that gets me anywhere. But I know that doctors tend to be very cautious when prescribing, and I don’t want to bother with completely pointless appointments.

I just feel so overwhelmed when I think about trying anything else.

Yeah, I started working on getting evaluated in 2019 and only managed it in 2022, so I'm familiar with The Delay :D It never occurred to me to go through my primary care doctor -- I haven't had one for most of my adult life, because my insurance doesn't require it in order to see my specialist, and I just use a clinic if I'm sick. If you have a PCP you trust that's probably your best bet. You don't need to talk to them about prescribing, even, just talk about "I wonder if you have a recommendation for where I might get evaluated." You might even be able to get a recommendation without making a formal appointment. But if you get pushback on getting evaluated, then you can venture out on your own (more on this below).

I had a recommendation for a testing site, and I called a handful of times in 2019, but they never called back -- the desk person would say "Leave a message for our scheduler" and I'd say "Is there any way I can talk to a person? I keep leaving messages that don't get returned" and they'd say "Oh, they'll definitely return it this time" and that never happened. So by about mid-2019 I gave up and said I'd deal with it later. I started to research it in 2020, but then there was a global pandemic and I didn't want to be spending hours on end in a small room in a medical center.

And honestly, whenever I spoke about it to someone who wasn't a peer -- a parent, a doctor, etc -- I'd get a skeptical look and the response, "But you're so put-together and you're successful. Why would you think you have ADHD?" And I internalized that a little, to the point where I thought, yeah, I'm coping fine, it's not like anything would change other than maybe medication, why bother? Which...

That worked until it didn't, sometime in late 2021.

It worked until I looked at my life, which was not falling apart, and could see it fraying, and that if it did fall apart, it would be catastrophic. So my resolution for 2022 was to get evaluated. If it was ADHD, to get medicated; if it wasn't ADHD, to get help because clearly my life was not going as well as it looked.

So I just...sat down with an empty spreadsheet and I started googling "adult adhd evaluation chicago" (If you're not in a major city, I'd google your state or major cities nearby instead). Every site I found, I recorded the URL, my thoughts on the site, and their process for making an appointment. Once I had a list of places, I started "cold-calling" -- mostly via email, just reaching out to each place and recording the date and how I contacted them. When they answered, I recorded the date they replied and whether I responded.

The place I ended up going wasn't the first to call me back but they WERE the most responsive, and the first to schedule me for the evaluation (I did save the spreadsheet in case that fell through). They did a good job, more or less; I had struggles with them, but those were more to do with the fact that the woman who evaluated me already had one foot out the door and left my eval unwritten, meaning someone else had to take up the slack, which took time. And it at least helped to be able to say to my prescribing psych, during our first meeting, "Look, I have a diagnosis but I'm struggling to get the paperwork from them, and I'm really hanging on by a fingernail here." He gave me a much-abbreviated evaluation (basically a 20-minute questionnaire) and was able to prescribe for me that day.

So your other option is to just...find a psychiatrist who specializes in adult ADHD and/or ADHD medication management, make an appointment, and say, "I don't think I have it in me to set up a longform evaluation for this. I'm wondering if you can help me get evaluated and get some help." One of my goals was to get medicated but your overall goal is not medication -- the goal is help, and that just often happens to be medication. This isn't like, a trick to get a prescription or to manage a suspicious doctor (those have their place, believe me I know) -- your goal in getting treatment should always be to improve your life. But it's okay to want medication, you just have to want it in terms of improving quality of life, not medication qua medication.

So on the one hand, you sound like you need help, and you should work towards getting it -- but on the other, bear in mind that this sometimes just takes the time it takes, and keep your eyes on the goal. If you can be doing something, do it, and if you can't, then don't feel guilty that you can't.

Good luck :)

[enniewritesathing]

commentary (or a/n) #i lost count

honestly should just call it A/n but I'm truly showing my age there, lol.

So, the big update is done. The Incident is clarified, expanded on, etc. Some shocking developments and a twist or two. Lots of things happened. I'll try and break it down part by part, see how that goes.

Parallel

First thing's first: yes, that motherfucker is a vampire but in a very loose sense. You may think "Ennie, the fuck you mean?" There are clues everywhere! Like look at him! The vibes were rancid this whole time! The most recent foreshadowing aside from his blood smelling different from everyone else's (described as rotten and old), is that Charles' voice had a second tone to it. Undetectable by human ears... except Vin's.

I say in the loose sense bc he microdosed this benefactor's blood. Just enough for him to stop being sick and have very little vampire side effects. The side effects were being sensitive to sun (but not burned), not requiring much sleep, don't have to eat... the real subtle shit. However, he never really had the urge for feeding on blood.

...BUT it totally puts this pic in a new light:

Do you think that if Bernard wasn't there... that he'd lick Vin's blood off that knife? Makes you think. (yes. absolutely. look how he's holding that knife. if you thought that part was 'was he--? yes. in a metaphorical sense.)

Anyway, I didn't get into what disease/malady he had but it drove him to become a vampire* to get rid of it. He did -- and went on to become a well-respected doctor that specialized in... uncommon/rare diseases and shit like that for humans and occults. Even dispelled myths. Sure, his methods were... unethical to say the least, but it got results.

Yeah.

He did discover that little John (who I think was 11 when Vin awakened) was a werewolf and lied to him about what that meant -- that he had to somehow get rid of Vin before it would be too late.

You may also remember that vampires have various degrees of the power of suggestion/manipulating by the tone in their voice, so it was very easy to keep it going for as long as it did. (This was for everyone involved, not just John.)

Keep that in mind.

Naturally, Charles did the whole 'we're not so different, you and I' thing' which Vin does call him out on.

... Charles was like 'no yeah, you're right but I was on a power trip and maybe I was a little horny about it'. Chat: he was a lot of honry about it.

“Call it torture if you like. I had to know what I was dealing with. Perhaps I became drunk with power when I was granted the responsibility, but fact of the matter is I was excited. Excited at what you were capable of… for what it’s worth, you never let me down.”

BRUH LMAO. I wrote this down and I stared at it with this amount of disgust. If you remember what part that pic came from, this is also the part where Bernard thinks to himself that Charles is a sick fuck and brother (neutral), he was right.

The audacity Charles has after Vin threatens to kill him there, to turn that shit on him and say "look what you did" and y'know. For a few moments, he got to Vin.

This is where he fucked up -- he made Vin cry, but not for the reason you think.

Vin (and John) is an angry cryer. He is so angry, the absolute balls for Charles to call him a monster? No, sir.

Vin points out that the bullet wound Charles got earlier is healed up. This is why Charles wasn't too upset -- he has a healing factor... that's just enough.

Just enough. Charles is shook (literally, I did gifs and I'm very proud) by what Vin says to him and tries to weasel out of it.

Vin also calls him out that he didn't kill them but Charles did on the account of his manipulation and his pride that he wouldn't accept failure to get rid/even kill Vin.

“No. You don’t deserve mercy. You don’t deserve to live. Go to Hell.” is a line I've had since the very beginning of the idea of this story. Maybe as far back as I did the Incident. Then Vin's final words to Charles is, "Fuck you."

I was gonna go a different way with it with Vin yelling it before he closes in on Charles, but I thought him saying it quietly/firmly made it more dramatic. Almost as if he was weary...

Vin could've just offed Charles but no, he actually listened and obviously... y'know. He know someone like that needed to die a slow, painful, torturous and horrible death. What he deserved.

Asunder

AND BOY HOWDY, MY FAVORITE PART TO MAKE! I did the goddamn most with his part and I'm a little sad that, despite the content, you can't help to admire the work I put into this. I don't think I know of anything on simblr that matches this vibe. I just don't. It's bloody, it's raw, it's the culmination of what Vin was put through by Charles. Roughly 14 years of pent up Wrath. He made good on his promise. (lowkey another favorite part).

A little behind the scenes. Because this was me basically doing a near 1:1 of the Incident but I have a bunch more CC and I can pull off the ideas, I had to do something about this part to really enhance this part. I had to get creative -- so I found some corpse/dead body CC made by natalie-auditore (which *mwah*) and a detached head bc why not... but there were no pile of guts that I could use.

Which I think someone would've made by now, no matter how niche. I got to thinking on how fucked up Charles' body was gonna be. I took to using Procreate to draw claw marks and bite marks (and looking for brushes to imitate it) but it didn't quite hit. It wasn't vicious enough.

So I drew in a BIG hole where his stomach/intestines/etc should have been. A big whole cavernous space where there's nothing in there. What about the guts? They're somewhere way outside of Charles' body. Then I thought, we're getting there and then I had the idea of his head just fucking missing. Vin tore it off and yeeted it somewhere.

There's blood everywhere and all over Vin. He is just a goddamn mess. It's even in his hair, chat.

Another thing I thought after making the decision to not have words, what could I do to show that there's nothing except Vin breathing?

I tested it with Photomosh Pro and gone through the effects and landed on one/tweaked it to make it look like he was. It was just gonna be just one pic, but I said, fuck it, every pic he's in, he's just breathing.

It's scary, it's bloody, it's raw. I know I said it earlier but I'm saying it again. This is Vin at his most feral, "monster."

Hey, remember when Vin told those two behind the window not to come in or else they're gonna die? One of them went in anyway and got domed in the forehead by Charles.

WELL GUESS WHO LISTENED?

THAT'S RIGHT, THE SMARTEST MFER IN THE WHOLE STORY, MARK

Mark is the only one to survive because he wasn't in the room. Luigi wins by doing nothing!

Though you can tell Vin wasn't gonna do shit even if the guards were there. He has his reasons.

I do like how he looks like a dog guarding whatever when Mark came bursting in.

I made the guards less goofy looking finding the CC outfits (had to lightly edit them)... in the Incident, they used some costumes from Get Famous... it was so unserious, lol.

Vin's tired, he's a hot mess. He even tells Mark that he has no intention to harm him, nor does he want to. He just wants to leave. And he does. His voice is very quiet the whole time.

Yall think that this lab was just sealed up because dealing with the sheer mess of it is just. Nah?

I never did say where this lab was in particular but it is very underground, which explains why it took Mark so long to get back to where he was. It's 20 minutes one way.

YES I DONT HAVE TO DEAL WITH THAT MANY RIGS AGAIN

also good riddance to Charles... holy shit, what a slimeball.

on the other hand... yeah, I had a time writing his whole deal on the fact that I've never done it before (or at least didn't go full tilt).

this was also a part that I held back on when I did the Incident despite my lack of CC. The whole thing really, but this especially. I was concerned about scaring the hoes (positive) back then. Not like it worked because I averaged a literal 5 notes across the whole thing.

this time im like 'it's time to get scorny.'

Cleanse

There wasn't gonna be dialogue in this either as... what would Vin even think about?

I made these into gifs but I had a time getting the steam for the vfx (they are the steam from woohooing in the sauna i believe, which is why those shots were tight).

I had another pose I was gonna use of him sitting at the bottom of the shower but there was no way I could get around not showing his business. So he's doing the ol angst shower.

That water is scalding, btw but obviously, Vin doesn't care.

That shower must've felt so good though.

Admonitory

I had to re-use the hospital lot I had for catharsis, but thankfully it has many rooms I can use/redecorate.

I had to figure out what Vin's clean look would be. I also wanted to have visual continuity with his hair being wet/damp and thankfully I had some that fits him. (that said i have no idea what his hair texture is lmao). It's honestly a good look.

Here's another part that is important overall -- Vin talking to Mark about what's next in general. How is this gonna be covered up and the like.

This is a callback (Call forward?) to Part 8 of the The Werewolf story (why did I name it that ugh). I can say though that what was given there were the only copies -- and how John and Brian found out what happened. (John specifically, and the catalyst of him finally accepting Vin.)

but back to the past; getting ahead of myself

this part was more or less straight forward in Mark explaining everyone elses' motivation

I can say -- MAN STUDENT LOANS IS A REAL KILLER HUH

Mark also admits to Vin that since that day Vin started to wake up, he just noped the fuck right out. That's why you didn't see him until the beginning of the Incident. At least someone had some self-preservation.

Earlier in the story, he lost to Jordan at rock paper scissors... but that night, he won so he didn't have to be in the lab. Whew.

that and Jordan telling him it's okay to be selfish every now and then... 🤔

Soul

alright, this is another dialouge-less part; just vibes, and honestly the one post I thought would at least get an RB or 2 but... I'll with-hold my general frustrations and save it for later.

it even has a SONG INSERT like come on... I put a lot of thought into it.

Anyway, there is an effect that I had in mind -- Vin didn't really know what Brian looked like which is why he looked like that (from his perspective.), but he sensed that he was gentle.

There's a lot to say (or maybe not). John's dead yet he thought of Brian at the very wnd. It can also be viewed as sort of the whole 'having a piece of a loved one's soul' for comfort. Brian's not exactly guarding John from Vin. It's more like 'ah, you're hear to get him; that's fine'.

...this had an Effect on Vin that I don't think he knew at the time.

Departure

The setting whiplash lol.

This part is important bc it contextualizes why Vin was absent for 2 years after the Incident -- to heal the damage from the trial. It was extensive but luckily the healing factor wasn't totally destroyed.

(this may explain why John gets chest/heart pains when it's time to turn, that it's residuals from that night. idk, I haven't decided why it happens but it could be one of those hidden physical changes as well. He just know that shit hurts and he has to lay down until the time comes. on top of that damn fever.)

Vin knew that he had a time limit in what he needed to get done. I made some subtle hints at this while he was wilding out that he was not 100%. He also knew that he had a time limit with talking to John before he left.

Despite everything what happened, Vin's not hostile to John, like at all. Maybe it's the situation itself that that's not called for. Earlier, he was (rightly) angry at him for being stubborn.

When Vin said that John's not going to remember what happened... just what does that mean? I feel its clear that Vin is the one to remember everything... and that he wouldn't lie either. He's not the sort to.

so what does this mean for John? Something to think about.

If an emotion is strong enough, it will affect the other. I sound like a broken record but, keep that in mind lol.

Pyhrric

he got everything done, but at what cost? Vin didn't get time to really let everything sink in.

There was another shot I wanted to use with him just passing out, but it came out a little too goofy.

Not much of what I can say here other than shoutouts to the wallpaper/floor CC I downloaded on a whim to make everything pitch black. makes it very easy for PS stuff too.

Brew

AND WE'RE BACK IN THE 'PRESENT'.

It's been so long that we've last seen John himself, lol. It's odd, really.

Speaking of, John's reaction to what had actually happened that night; he's gonna be processing that for a minute. Or the fact that Charles was revealed to be a vampire*, which makes some prior shit to him a lot of sense (but talked about later, I promise.)

That said, they are a thing in my setting but I haven't elaborated on them in general. I just know that Vin will clock one just by hearing their voice (they have a ~compelling~ tone that may mix into their words.) or otherwise his senses.

It makes total sense for Vin to let Mark live. How else was he gonna get out of the lab in the first place? lol

if you read The Werewolf story, that's how John and Brian got all that shit about Vin; Mark was the contact Brian talked to. He also told Mark if he or anyone else get near John/Vin again, he will kill them.

Brian's not joking, btw. Wouldn't take much for that little twerp.

The part of him needed to be a story, that makes sense, how some people use monsters as a cautionary tale/night time stories for kids/around the campfire?

Anyway, Vin accuses John of hiding behind his amnesia this whole ass time -- the main side effect from the experiments and whatnot that was done. But to what degree? And what if John remembers...?

love how Vin dodged the question prior to that but don't think John didn't catch that

in any case, the elephant that snuck into the room during all of this is going to be addressed. Vin confronting John, years in the making. The thing is that John knew it was gonna happen eventually. He's not beating the allegations here.

Maybe John is hiding something from Vin. Now's the time to address his own role in this as well bc Vin will want answers. I don't think he's that innocent. I would say up to a point but that's all I can give out.

There's gonna be words. Maybe some hands will be thrown. (but how much idk bc I gotta pose that shit out lol)

[plantsjustwannahavefun]

Theories on how Izzy lost his leg

Okay so we're all very interested in Izzy's leg, obviously, but so far everyone else seems to assume it was caused by his toe getting infected. I don't buy it, though, for several reasons.

For one thing, I'm not a doctor but is this really how infections work? How would a toe infection spread so far and so quickly that they had to cut his entire lower leg off? Yes, we know Izzy isn't inclined to accept help or allow himself to appear weak or sick, but he's not stupid either. He's an experienced pirate, he must have seen enough amputation or deaths from infections to know what's at stake. He's much too practical to let it get this far without seeking medical help or at least getting it amputated sooner so that he only had to lose a foot and not his entire calf or even his knee (can't tell from those few frames in the trailer yet).

And besides, we already saw his foot get better at the end of S1, it seemed like several weeks had passed and he was walking just fine, wasn't even using his cane anymore. From what I know, if a wound gets infected, it typically happens within the first few days of an injury. In several weeks it would either have got infected already or healed enough not to be a problem anymore. For much of the S2 trailer Izzy is seen taking part in attacks, with his leg still whole, so it seems like he only lost his leg in the second half of the season. We don't yet know what sort of timeline the season follows, but it's safe to say it's going to take place over a period of at least 3 weeks. So that's several more weeks. That makes it even more unlikely for Izzy's toe to suddenly get infected towards the end of the season after all this time.

And secondly... it would just be a bit boring from the narrative perspective. Losing the toe was already punishment enough. Even if it had healed fully with no physical consequences at all, the whole experience of being woken up in the middle of the night to the pain of having it sheared off and then forced to chew and swallow it is was definitely traumatising enough not to be forgotten that quickly... This show doesn't shy away from graphic injury and violence, but it's never gratuitous. That's why that toe cutting scene was so powerful - it already stood out as one of the most seriously violent moments in the show. Adding more to it would only diminish its impact rather than strengthen it.

Now you might want to mention Lucius losing his finger, and the way it didn't happen immediately and went from a minor injury played for laughs to a serious infection with a significant time gap, but that's a very different case. There was a comedic contrast here, a very minor injury that happened in comical circumstances (Buttons accidentally biting Lucius's finger) unexpectedly turning into something serious. But Izzy losing his toe was taken seriously from the very start, there was nothing comical about it. There already was an expectation that it could turn into something worse... but it didn't. And Lucius having his finger cut off wasn't portrayed as a punishment, just bad luck, a realistic moment on a 17th century pirate ship. It led to a cute and significant moment between Lucius and Black Pete, but other than that it could have happened to anyone. And he only lost that one finger. If he got a finger bite and ended up losing his whole forearm, that would have been way too cruel and out of character for this show.

So, what's my take then, you ask? Well, I don't really have anything concrete. Except, we know that the real Blackbeard shot Izzy in the knee. I know OFMD isn't trying to be historically accurate, not when it comes to the characters at least, but they could still use that bit for inspiration. Maybe Ed does shoot at Izzy. Or maybe Ed tries to shoot at Stede, but Izzy gets in the way. Or maybe Stede does something really stupid and Izzy gets shot or injured trying to protect him - no really, think about it, they're practically glued at the hip in the trailer. They're having a friendly banter. They're gonna be friends. Getting himself injured while trying to protect Stede would be a major milestone in Izzy's redemption arc. It would even explain that bit in the trailer where an already peg-legged Izzy punched Stede in the gut. It wasn't a hateful punch, you could tell he wasn't really trying to hurt Stede. It looked more like punching your buddy out of anger when they did something really, really stupid that got both of you in trouble.

Honestly, I'm open to pretty much any theory, except the toe infection because it's boring af and makes no sense.

[oddballwriter]

Dwelling in the Night, Part Three: Ruined Meals

Series Masterlist

Pt. 1 Pt. 2 - Pt. 4

Summary: The run-ins with The Silhouette and the strange behaviors of their next-door neighbor continue on. However, it seems like the longer these happenings go on, the stranger it gets with The Silhouette acting more now annoyed with the run-ins with MoonKnight, and Steven's neighbor appearing a bit disheveled.

Warnings: The reader is a vampire, so there is talk of blood, being undead, and the like. The reader as Y/N eats raw meat at a certain point. It is mentioned that at a certain point, the reader looks sickly. The reader has canonically killed and kills criminals.

Author’s Snip: This is half the usual length of the other parts in this series and I'm sorry for that. this also doesn't really help much with the plot but I wrote it already and did the word count so I can't really do anything now. I’ll shut up now. Enjoy! And don’t be afraid to request.

Word Count: 1294

Three times.

Three times this month the boys have caught Silhouette and what most likely would have been their latest criminal catch. At first, it seemed like a nice surprise to them, a bit of some banter between the two of them before parting ways. But now they've been getting more annoyed with the meetings.

Of course, Marc and the rest of them weren't just going to let Silhouette kill someone right in front of them, nor did Silhouette desire to kill in front of him either.

In the meantime, you had seemingly shut yourself into your apartment for weeks now. You hardly came out, both in the day and during the night and it was starting to worry Steven. He had really started to think that the two of you were starting to get along and become friends. But now it seems like you're back at square one for seemingly no reason.

Maybe you were just busy with something involving your work. Whatever that was. You've never told him about it.

But he still worried because whenever he would catch a glimpse of you, you looked a bit worse for wear. You looked paler and looked like you'd been restless for a bit.

🩸🩸🩸

"Why don't you just go to their place and ask if they're okay?" Jake asks as he watches Steven pace around the living room of his flat from the glass of Gus II's tank. "Because they're asleep at this time, mate." Steven answers, "If I knock then I'll just be bugging them, and that's the last thing they probably need right now." the Brit adds. "Are they sick?" Jake questions. "I don't know. Maybe. They just don't look right." Steven says.

"Well. They did say that a doctor's got them on a liquid diet, right? Maybe that's got something to do with it." Jake suggests.

"Maybe," Steven mutters to himself. "I hope they aren't making themselves stay on the diet. It looks like it's hurting them pretty bad if it were that." Steven worries.

"Maybe confront them next time you see them." Jake recommends, "We don't want your only friend other than us and your little fish to go wasting away." Jake adds a light-hearted quip to try and sell Steven on the idea.

🩸🩸🩸

Another night of patrolling. Though, this time Marc didn't see Silhouette. It felt a bit off. They had grown so used to crossing paths with them on rare occasions, though recently it hasn't been that rare. But the thought that it was for the better, maybe you could finally get a kill in peace.

Marc slips in through the flat's window into the usually darkened space. But this time a light shone in the usual darkness, coming from the kitchen. The fridge light, which only shone when it was open.

Marc was careful, keeping the mask and suit on to keep his identity hidden and making whatever was here think that MoonKnight managed to catch a random house break-in and not his own. Because he knew he, nor the others left the fridge like that when they left.

He crept about looking for any signs of someone still being around while investigating the kitchen.

He found the fridge ransacked, all of its drawers and contents rummaged through in what looked to be a search for something. Upon looking down at the floor before the fridge, he saw disheveled plastic wrap and styrofoam trays with some spots of reddish wet droplets strewn about. It took Marc a moment to realize just what he was looking at and needed to do a few look-backs at the fridge.

The meat.

It was the containers of slices of meat that Marc and Jake had gotten for themselves for their own food. Someone took... someone seemingly ate the raw slices of meat that they had in the fridge.

"That's disgusting." Steven comments.

Marc moves away from the scene. He tries to look around and figure out if this person is still here and if not, where they could have gone. In this process, he mimics a possible escape route through their open window, only to notice that your window is opened too.

He only really thinks "Shit-" before quickly scaling the gutter under the window to yours, fearing that this freak's broken into your place too. Marc also doesn't think before hopping into your flat.

There, he finds you just having come out of your bathroom and being startled by the sight of him.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to alarm you." Marc apologizes. "I was patrolling round the place. Someone broke into your neighbor's flat through the window. I wanted to make sure they didn't break in here too." he explains before trying to make his exit through the window again.

"Marc! What the bloody fuck?" Steven exclaims. "You just broke into Y/N's place! They could have recognized your voice with mine!" he scolded. "You have an accent, Steven. They didn't see our face. They won't have any clue that it's your voice." Marc assures, upon making it far enough away from your open window so that you can't hear him anymore.

"That doesn't mean you can just barge in think that!" Steven exclaims louder. "You would have done it too if you were fronting." Marc grumbles, "Don't be mad about me checking up on your little weirdo next door." he remarks.

"Hey. At least they look better. Huh, Steven?" Jake proclaims trying to calm Steven down.

🩸🩸🩸

You stood in your flat, gobsmacked by what had just transpired in front of you for a few seconds.

That was him. That was MoonKnight. The hero of the moon that you've been having witty banter with for the past few months and coming across again and again.

If you could still have heart attacks, no doubt, you would have had one right there. You thought that maybe he still had his suspicions about you and had started tracking you from afar and had learned who you were, where you lived, and now seen you steal the meat from Steven's fridge.

You didn't want to resort to doing that. Steven was nice to you. You would never want to steal from him in any other circumstance. But you haven't been catching any criminals to drink from for weeks now, and it was starting to take a toll on you. Stealing meat was the best you could to save yourself from falling into a feeding frenzy and killing someone innocent for the sake of being fed. It might not be as good as blood of any kind, but it did the job of helping you hold out till you could maybe catch a criminal again.

It just so happened that Steven wasn't home while he had his widow open.

You don't know why you went into Steven's flat. Sure, you were a bit delirious to eat and possibly took the first opportunity you had, but you still remembered that Steven was vegan. So there was no chance that he would have meat at all. But strangely enough, he did have it in his fridge.

Maybe he just doesn't eat it but was planning on cooking some for a friend. Except that thought made you feel a bit more guilty for eating all his meat.

You hadn't really dwelled too much on it. You just focused on getting back into your flat and cleaning yourself up from having scarfed down your gross meal and then getting yourself back into your coffin for your rest before daylight broke and ran the chance of burning you.

Something you should get to doing now. You can act surprised and shocked about the story when Steven sees you again and tells you all about it.

[cookinguptales]

you know, when I was like... maybe 7ish we had a pizza party at school. they had 2-liters of coke for us, but I remember crying because I wanted diet coke. and all the teachers were like ??? because it's not typical, I'll admit, for kids to want diet drinks. and I was asked, y'know, am I diabetic? do I have blood sugar problems?

no and no.

my dad has trouble digesting sugary drinks. I was never banned from them, I just didn't have the opportunity to drink them often. we only had diet drinks and juice in my house. (and even juice wasn't my favorite.)

so I didn't like coke. it tasted far too sweet to me. it was unpleasant. I wanted a diet coke. and I cried because everyone else had a special-occasion drink they liked but I had to drink coke, which was so unpleasant, until a teacher took pity on me (or got irritated) and got me a can of diet coke from the break room.

and, y'know... for years, I felt embarrassed about throwing a fit about that damn drink. oh, I should have just shut up and drank the coke, or maybe just gone without a drink. it's so embarrassing the way I cried over everything as a child. (and I do mean everything.)

but I understand these days that I was dealing with a fairly traumatic home life (that I constantly tried to tell the adults in my life about, but who told me I was overreacting) as well as being neurodivergent. I understand things like sensory issues and RSD now. I get why everything always felt so overwhelming at that age, why everything felt like it was the end of the world and why I felt like everyone would hate me for every perceived infraction.

what I understand better, though, is that I also cannot digest sugary drinks. it turned out to be something I inherited from my dad. my father and I aren't diabetic or anything; we've been tested many times. we just... don't handle sugar well. and I hadn't been exposed to a lot of sugar back then, but I knew when I had really sugary things, especially in liquid form, I didn't like it. I didn't like the way it tasted and I didn't like the way it made me feel.

we didn't know that I had an actual medical issue back then, or that I probably should have always had low-sugar snacks on hand. that they should have had a diet coke for me from the beginning.

but we knew that I didn't want to drink that soda.

idk, I just... as a kid, I always felt so ashamed of this episode. like I was being purposefully manipulative to get what I wanted. but as an adult, I have a lot more patience and understanding. I hate that we don't just listen to kids. they don't always have the experience to tell us why something is bothering them, but they know that something is bothering them.

I'm thinking now about how long it took me to get diagnosed with my multiple chronic illnesses, and how part of what took so long was the fact that many doctors didn't take me seriously. several of them told my parents they should be taking me to a therapist, not a medical doctor. they thought I was just a kid acting out.

idk. idk. this isn't like... a full meta post or a well-thought-out post about disability or anything, but just... I'm thinking about how from birth, we're taught to ignore what our body is telling us. (especially if we're AFAB.) I'm thinking about how raising a fuss while trying to take care of that body is something that'll get you shamed.

I'm thinking about how sick I got every time I drank juice at breakfast, and how none of that was necessary.

going to school with my spine partially dislocated wasn't necessary. fainting between classes wasn't necessary. hell, going to school with bruises and bites and scratch marks all over my body wasn't necessary.

idk. I don't want kids. for a lot of reasons, really. but sometimes I want to take care of them just so I can listen to them as they learn what their body is telling them and spare them any unnecessary harm I can. :(