#Literally did this amount of food and worked out and pooped today | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

xillveart · 6 years ago

Text

Sea Legs

Ch. 3 - Playing Doctor

Boku No Hero Academia / My Hero Academia Quirkless, Mermaid, Modern AU

Rating: Explicit | Excessive Fluff, Blood, Wounds, Nudity, Sex, Cursing and Vulgar Language

Genre: Romance / Humor / Angst

Main Pairing: Katsuki Bakugou x Koge Naegi (oc)

A trip to her grandmothers beachfront home was something that Koge had done every year of her life. This time, an unlikely discovery would change her life forever. Who knew explaining how to be a human could be so hard.

“Well, Katsuki, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Koge.” The petite woman stood, starting to make her way over towards the wounded section of his tail. Bakugou scoffed, glare locked on her as she moved. “Don’t call me by my first name. And don’t expect me to call you by yours!” With a small roll of her eyes, Koge squatted down between two rocks, observing the wood that was pierced through his body. “Well, I don’t like my last name so I’m not gonna tell it to you. So, you have to call me Koge.”

“Fuck that… I’ll call you… Utsuro.”

“Eh? You’re calling me hollow? Why?”

“Because you literally have no fucking expressions and your voice is like an annoying whisper. You’re obviously void of any emotion-- hey, don’t touch me! I fucking told you!” He tilted his body away from her touch as Koge tenderly placed her hand against his scaled body, though he couldn’t go far enough to get away from her. Huffing, Koge narrowed her eyes at him. “No, I’m gonna help you. We have to get this thing out, don’t we?”

“I can pull it out myself! You’ll just end up killing me if you try.” Although he was trying to be tough, Koge could hear the fatigue in his voice. His entire body was still trembling, and the confidence in his strained expression was very quickly fading. In fact, Koge was amazed that he was even still conscious at all. “No,” she spoke sternly, tapping a finger to her chin as she tried to think. “I have to help you, you’d just pass out halfway though from the pain. Oh!” Standing, Koge hopped off the rocks back onto the sand, though she turned her attention back to him before going off.

“Just stay here and I’ll be back. I have to get some stuff from the house to be able to do this.”

“Stuff like what?” Bakugou hissed through his teeth, face now hidden in his arms.

“Well… Towels, bandages, alcohol and I have some pain pills that I bet will help. I mean, you’re half human so they have to work, right?” Koge wasn’t quite sure if her question was directed to him or to the open air, but an annoyed glare from the corner of his eye told her that Bakugou had no idea. “Ah, anyway, just… Chill out here, okay? It’ll only take me a few minutes. Don’t die!” With that, she turned and began sprinting down the beach back towards the house, trying to create a list in her mind.

Towels. Bandages. Alcohol and wound cream, whatever it’s called. A blanket? A bucket. A saw, hand or electric would be better? Medicine, like painkillers and maybe antibiotics if Grandma has any sitting around. Would I need food? What the hell would he even eat? Needle and thread maybe? Would I need a lighter? Damn it, I’m not a doctor, I’m way over my head!

Still, Koge gathered everything as quickly as she could, shoving it all either into the bucket or into a backpack. Fresh water, some raw shrimp from the fridge, a couple of fruits, a tent and other miscellaneous items joined the list, and before Koge really knew it, she looked like she was going camping. Much to her frustration, she wasn’t the only one that noticed.

“My dear? Where are you going with all those things?” Kiki spoke up from the kitchen, spotting Koge as she tried to sneak out the back with all her new belongings. With a small cough to clear her throat and steady herself, Koge took a few steps back, locking eyes with her grandmother. “Ah well, it’s so beautiful outside today I thought I would just maybe… Hang out and pitch a tent and just enjoy the sun?” She could hear the bullshit in her own voice, but she had always been a horrible liar, though she knew that the truth would sound just as ridiculous. After a moment, Kiki nodded, giving a small smile. “Oh, that sounds exciting. The beach is very private, as you know, but please don’t go too far down. Would you like me to send someone to wait on you in a few hours?”

“No, no, that’s okay. If I need something I’ll just come back up. I have my cell phone that can make calls and text still, so let me know if you need me to come back, okay?”

With another nod from Kiki, Koge was off, jogging back down the beach with her excessive amount of effects. She worried the entire time if she had everything she needed, if any of it was even going to work, or if she had taken too long deciding what was necessary to bring. All she could pray for was that the creature she had left on the rocks was still alive, after the good hour it took her to return. At first, she was shocked to find that Bakugou wasn’t even where she had left him. Instead, he had somehow moved himself off the rocks and crawled into a shaded area in the sand, where the edge of the jungle met the beach. It was the trail of blood and disturbed sand that led her to him, worry bubbling in her stomach at first glance.

Bakugou had stayed on his stomach, face once again hidden in his arms. From afar, there was no movement, but as Koge approached she could see his back moving with deep, labored breaths. Knowing she had to hurry, Koge put her belongings down near him, softly speaking to him as to not startle him awake. “Katsuki? Can you hear me?”

The only response was a heavy sigh, though it was obvious that his strength had all but given out at this point. How he had dragged himself at least fifty yards from the rocks was baffling, and if he weren’t in such a dire state, Koge would find herself marveling at his power. But for now, she needed to help him.

“I think I know what I need to do.” Koge began to dig through the backpack, pulling out the towels, medicine, alcohol and battery powered electric saw. “The wood is still too long, I have to shorten it first so it won't be so hard to get out. That, and the end needs to be smooth so it won’t leave splinters. Hopefully it won’t, I mean.” Koge was more speaking to herself in a soft mumble, though Bakugou finally lifted his head to respond. “Tch, I guess you’re not as stupid as you look. What are those pain things you were talking about? Painkillers?”

Picking up on his curiosity, Koge handed him the small bottle, which was sealed with a child proof cap. At first, he focused his tired crimson glare on the words, running his finger along the characters as he did. “May cause drowsiness… Don’t take on an empty stomach. Doesn’t say about no fish-people, so that’s a plus.” Bakugou grumbled to himself as he attempted to open the bottle, though his lighthearted joke was quickly swallowed by frustration. “What the fuck, how does it open!?”

Koge couldn’t help but to giggle softly. “It’s made so children can’t get in it. Push down on the lid with your palm and twist.”

“Are you calling me a child?!”

“Well if you can’t open it, you must be one.”

Her quick retort silenced the blonde instantly, though his glare never left her face. “You’re lucky I feel like shit, or I swear you’d regret that.” Bakugou finally got the bottle open with a pop, promptly pouring more than half of the pills into his palm. Stammering, Koge quickly placed her hand over his, covering the pills so he couldn’t plop them into his mouth. “Wait! Only one!”

“Eh? How is just one of these little pills strong enough?!” Bakugou didn’t fight to get his hand back, though his fingers did clamp down around her small hand in response to her touch. “I’m bigger than a human, don’tcha think?” Koge gave a small shake of her head, closing her fingers around the pills to pick them up from his palm. “Still. Only one. If one doesn’t work, then we can do one and a half. These are super strong, they knock me on my ass, seriously.”

“Well you’re a midget.”

“That’s not very nice.” Koge took the bottle back as well, giving him one single tiny blue pill. “But you have to take it with food. Uh… what do you eat?”

Bakugou glowered up at her, rolling the small pill between his fingers. “Anything.”

“Literally anything?”

“That’s what I fucking said. What did you bring?”

After placing the pills back into the bottle and closing it up, Koge dug through her pack again, looking at her selection of food. “I brought some fruit… Uhm… Shrimp? It’s already been de-pooped--”

“Gimme the shrimp.” Bakugou snapped at her, plopping the pill into his mouth before reaching into the bag himself. “What the fuck do you mean ‘de-pooped’? You mean you cleaned them already? Can you not talk like a normal person?” Feeling the cold plastic bag, he pulled them to him, an obvious hunger giving him enough energy at the moment. Enough energy to be an ass, sure, but Koge couldn’t really blame him. He must have been starving after everything he had gone through and how much blood he had lost, though the fact that he began to eat them half defrosted and raw did freak her out a bit.

“Uh, ew. I mean, I assume you don’t cook them… In the water. But still.” Koge glowered down at Bakugou as he ate with a ravenous hunger, eating all but the tails, which he tossed onto the ground beside him. “We eat everything raw, though we do clean the meat before eating it. At least, most of us do. I can’t stand fish with the scales still on them or the fins. Fucking disgusting.”

Koge gave a small hum, setting out her supplies to care for his wound on top of a towel. “Prissy boy, aren’tcha? You seem spoiled.”

“Like you would know! Stop assuming shit, you don’t know anything about me.” Bakugou tossed a shrimp tail at her, hitting her square on the cheek. “Besides, you’re the one that’s obviously spoiled for a human, living in that big house.”

“I don’t live there, my grandmother does. But that doesn’t matter. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed anything like that.” From the side of the backpack, Koge pulled out a water bottle, taking a healthy swig. The morning had faded into midday, and she was beginning to feel the humidity and heat weighing down on her. Even though her hair was up in a ponytail, the stray hairs stuck to her face and the back of her neck, and the grimy feeling of sweat was making itself known. When she finished drinking, she noticed that Bakugou was staring up at her silently, shocking her so much she almost felt the urge to jump. “W-what?”

“What’s that?” His eyes darted from the bottle back to her face. “Is it fresh water?”

“It is. Do you want some?”

At first, he eyed it cautiously, fiddling with a shrimp in his fingers. “If I drink it, I’ll probably take the whole thing. It’s very sweet to us… Addicting almost.”

“Really? Well… Why don’t you have it. I mean… If things don’t go well, at least you got to have some.” Koge handed the bottle out towards him, a bit surprised to see a snarky smirk cross his lips as he took it.

“Heh, true. Well, it wouldn’t be the worst last moments one could spend on Earth.”

“Are you ready then?”

After chugging nearly half the remaining water in the large bottle, Bakugou sighed, the tip of his tail shifting about in what Koge could only assume was either momentary happiness or nervousness. Koge wasn’t confident in herself, but he had put his faith in her, lest he die out here like a beached animal.

“Yes. I want to get it over with. You had better not kill me. I have no choice but to trust you.”

38 notes · View notes

thegreenwolf · 6 years ago

Photo

The Magic of Manure

Originally posted at my blog, A Sense of Natural Wonder, at http://www.thegreenwolf.com/the-magic-of-manure/

How’s that for a title?

So over the past couple of years, as I’ve been spending time on a farm on the coast where my art studio is, the level of manure I encounter on a daily basis has increased quite a bit. It started with a parrot, and then an appaloosa, and now here we are with three parrots, two horses, seven sheep, a llama, a quail, ten chickens, and one German shepherd. Most of these technically aren’t mine (except the chickens and the dog) but I get to take care of all of them on a daily basis.

While I get to do the fun things like feeding and exercising and letting the chickens out to play in the pasture, I also have to take care of the inevitable poop. Sometimes this is as simple as cleaning the newspaper out of a parrot cage. However, one of the messiest and most physically demanding tasks is mucking out the horse shelter, which generally involves taking a wheelbarrow or two of manure and old hay each day over to the orchard to be spread on the ground for the benefit of all the plants. Since there’s nothing new and fragile over there, and the grass is pretty hardy, it can age in situ and within a few months it’s a pretty decent fertilizer for the ground.

This makes it more efficient than hauling it to a composting area, and then spreading it out in the orchard. It also maximizes the amount of nutrients going to that particular land. See, since the farm is right on the coast, the soil is sandy. And in fact the orchard is on the berm of an old railroad that used to run all the way up the peninsula along what was the beach a century or so ago. When jetties were put in at the mouth of the river, they stopped the flow of sand along the coast, and it began to back up. This has since added several hundred yards of ground to the west side of the peninsula; pretty much everything west of the barn was covered in water not too long ago.

So the soil has barely had time to even think of a humus layer, let alone build an appreciable layer thereof. The native plants, like shore pine and common foxglove, have evolved to survive on poor soil, and are some of the first plants to move out onto new land once the grasses have had their say for a while. Putting manure on the ground, therefore, significantly speeds up the rate at which organic material accumulates; planting nitrogen-fixing plants like clover helps further.

You’d think I’d hate hauling manure; it’s literally a dirty job (but someone’s gotta do it) and this time of year when everything is soaked with rain the manure picked up out in the pasture is much heavier. But it’s nowhere near as smelly as you might imagine, and moving it around is good exercise. Moreover, I appreciate the effort I’m putting in to take this lovely compost-to-be that our horses have left behind–literally–and use it to improve the soil for cultivation purposes. Especially during winter, when temperatures are cooler, the manure can decay more slowly so that the nutrients aren’t all lost to rapid microbial activity.

The orchard, with fresh manure in the foreground and each row with an increasingly older layer. Notice how vigorously the grass is growing back the longer it’s been sitting there.

How is that not magic? It is literally creating food from waste! No human being could take a wand and wave it an accomplish the same. Yet like photosynthesis and the hydrological cycle, this complicated and necessary ritual goes unnoticed by the majority of people the majority of the time. No wonder I’ve run into so many pagans over the years who complain that the world lacks magic just because we can’t shoot fireballs out of our hands or physically shapeshift or stop a speeding bullet with our thoughts. I think they just aren’t looking hard enough.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve approached the concept of magic not as some supernatural force wherein we can make things happen beyond normal human abilities, but as the supremely complicated chemical reactions that are at the heart of how our precious, fragile, life-giving Earth functions at all levels. My world is absolutely full to bursting with magic, with the ancient solar-systemic forces that cause the Earth to rotate to this day, the transformation of sunlight into the sugars that fuel the entire food web via photosynthesis, and the replication of DNA in countless cells of a myriad of living creatures every moment.

If I were still the sort of pagan to put stock in spells and rites, I might make something of my daily efforts beyond this. And in fact sometimes I do think about things that are bothering me when I am scooping and cleaning the horses’ leavings; it’s a time when my mind wanders anyway. But I remember that time and effort transform all things, and so I can imagine that when I spread the muck over the ground and leave it to biodegrade, I also leave my worries there to be digested and turned into something more positive and fertile. This doesn’t actually remove the things I worry about from my life, and it doesn’t miraculously cure me of my anxiety. It’s a good mental exercise, and a reminder that in many cases I have the ability to bring forth good things out of an otherwise bad situation if I just put enough work and patience into it. But I don’t see it as some magical rite that changes anything outside my own head, though years ago I might have.

Today, there is magic enough in the manure itself, from the time that the horse’s intestines are drawing the last nutrients they can through their permeable membranes to feed hungry cells, to when flies lay the eggs carrying the next generation in the fresh piles, and finally when the whole mess is spread out by wheelbarrow and raked over sandy soil to be made into a buffet for all sorts of tiny creatures without whom the ecosystem would collapse. It is motion, and transformation, and the passing of life-force from one being to another.

Not only grass, but hawksbeard, trailing blackberry and other plants are already finding a place among what will nourish them for generations. The additional nutrients will also host a greater diversity of fungi, bacteria and other tiny beings, as well as insects and other small arthropods, plus the birds and other animals that eat them–and so on.

I am content with this sort of magic, natural and measurable and infinitely replicable–and not at all anthropocentric. Not that I’m entirely uninvolved; I find peace with the change I make in the world by moving nutrients from one place to another so that the second place may be more suitable for fruit and nut trees, and berry vines, and who knows what else? I experience awe and wonder at knowing, at least from a layperson’s view, how this cycle of decay and renewal works, and how it doesn’t even really need my participation to keep doing its thing twenty-four hours a day. I am bringing forth a more fertile micro-reality in accordance with my Will, though with the understanding that there are plenty of factors–weather, unhappy microbes, me having a cold and being unable to move manure that day–that could affect the outcome in spite of my best efforts.

And so, dear reader, there’s a good chance that while you finish this post, I am out on the land with a pitchfork and wheelbarrow, creating fertile magic with the help of microbes and manure.

Did you enjoy this blog post? Consider picking up a copy of my book, Nature Spirituality From the Ground Up! It’s a guide to connecting with your bioregion on both spiritual and practical levels.

#nature #pagan #magic #manure #farming #mine

46 notes · View notes

verdigrisprowl · 6 years ago

Text

Feb 11 Dancitron Movie Night - Venom

Due to the fact that rabb.it has fucked up its interface, it’s now impossible to copy/paste the chat more than a few lines at a time, AND it requires messing with the code to even copy/paste the names. Because I had to go the fuck to bed, @slenderwave compiled the log instead of me tonight. Thank u slendy.

Also we probably ain’t gonna have any more movie nights until we find a site without a fucked up interface.

Prowl liked the movie more than he indicated; while actually at the movie, though, he was mainly busy being shaken by the uncomfortable parallels between being Venomed and being Bombshelled/Devastatored. He probably said more to Soundwave tonight about what being under Bombshell was like than he has sum total to anyone else so far.

Specs– ((rabbit is such a shit)) Soundwave– *Soundwave–’s so on time this week it hurts. Everything’s set up, everything’s laid out, and he not only has himself parked at the edge of his couch seat, but he’s already nibbling a little silver ingot - one of several snacks on a small tray on his lap.* ((oh GOD the color)) Prowl– ((… fuck. FUCK.)) Specs– ((I had to manually type in the goddamn URL because trying to paste it in is apparently fucking illegal)) Prowl– ((you can’t copy/paste names anymore.)) SCProwl– ((ah fuck Soundwave– ((oh FUCK)) Prowl– ((it only copies the text, not the names. this is going to make logs impossible)) SCProwl– ((oh for fucks’ sake Specs– ((rabbit fucks up everything the movie)) Soundwave– ((i’ll take the logs tonight and look into how to make this work later in the week. don’t worry about it)) SCProwl– ((it looks like a text screen on a phone and i hate it Specs– ((I KNOW RIGHT)) ((oh and it doesn’t autoscroll at least for me so)) Soundwave– *Anyway, bad site design choices nobody asked for and possible future transfers to other sites if any of them are sufficient aside, here we are, and there he is, as ready as ready can be.* Swerve– //that was ridiculous and way more efort than needed rabbit Soundwave– ((deffo looking for another site before next monday. gotta see if anyone else got their shit together or if this is as good as it gets)) SCProwl– *i suppose that means she’s here as well despite rabb.it’s attempts to make that as annoying as possible* Swerve– //smokey mentioned cytube last week as an alternative? but i don’t know if they checked it out to see how it works yet Soundwave– ((noted)) *Soundwave– absently waves the little bar of silver in Prowl–’s direction as a greeting… then remembers WHICH Prowl– that is and pings her a proper Hello instead.* SCProwl– *nods and pings back before finding a place to sit* Twincast– ((*aggressively changes icon* Specs– *enter dragon! it is Palentine’s day, so she’s brought heart-shaped snacks with the Cybertronian word for “friend” carved, iced, and just generally placed on the centers. Other than the fun shape, it’s the same selection as usual. No magnets today.* Hello, Soundwave–! Windchill– (( Jesus H Crust you guys I leave for a few months and Rabbit goes to poop. More than usual. )) Twincast– ((ikr. I’m just glad the text wrap is apparently only broken on my desktop Swerve– //from what i’ve seen text wrap is more broken on firefox than chrome but seems to vary in general Soundwave– [[Greetings, dragon. Feeling filled with friendship today?]] Twincast– ((ah, yeah. I use FF exclusively, so : ’) RIP my soul *quietly enters room as if he doesn’t randomly disappear for months on end* Specs– Isn’t that human friendship holiday coming up? I don’t know if you theme for that one like you do for the human scaring holiday, but just in case, I thought I’d make them thematic. Soundwave– *Soundwave– glances at Twincast–, back to the screen, and then RIGHT back to Twincast–. Well that’s a sight for sore optics right there, isn’t it.* [[Greetings. Rumble is not in attendance tonight, if you have brought your… friends.]] Blaster– ((WHAT THE FRESH FUCK RABBIT!? Twincast– Nah, just me tonight. Though, I’m sure Rewind would be disappointed to hear that, if he was Soundwave– [[Frenzy requested he theme to this human holiday, yes. Said this one was perfect for it.]] ((rabbit is a pile of butts, i’ll be looking for alternatives as soon as i can after tonight)) Blaster– ((It went…badly, trying to get here Twincast– ((same. clicking the link kept redirecting me so I ??? had to pull some copy+paste black magic Windchill– (( It used to be a good livestream alternative, I don’t understand why they’d make it so hard to actually get into a room. ‘Cept it didn’t even ask for a name when I typed the url in, it just bypassed it so as best as I can tell the whole vetting process is entirely ineffective. )) Swerve– //same Blaster– ((ditto, kept redirecting me SCProwl– Which human holiday are we not observing this time? Specs– ((I had to type it in manually)) Windchill– (( Yup. )) Blaster– ((yeah Swerve– //i like how their 'this is the new rabbit’ window too was all like 'people asked for this!!’ no. no we didnt Specs– I’m glad I themed, then! I hope the snacks meet with Frenzy’s approval. Twincast– ((I think we’re perma invited to this group now, though? At least that’s how it worked for the subgroup I made the other day Blaster– ((literally did not ask for this, I liked the old one damnit Swerve– //seems so based on how i’m still in smokey’s from sat night Tarantulas (( is here ooc for the Good Goo Content and hopes rabbit doesn’t ruin the fun Soundwave– [[Valentines’ Day, as far as he knows. It is when humans consume large amounts of chocolate and appreciate their closest friends and companions. He is told the beings in this film adore chocolate as well and have very close relationships.]] Swoop– ((AHA!)) Twincast– ((WELCOME Windchill– (( YOU MADE IT )) Swoop– ((Dude. Fuck rabbit forever. I shouldn’t have to type the damn URL by hand.)) SCProwl– Chocolate is a type of food, right? Swoop– ((Thanks for coming to the rescue man 😮 )) Windchill– (( Ur welcome. )) Blaster– -don’t mind Blaster– making his way in, for once NOT looking half asleep/dead on his feet- Swoop– ((Wow. This update seriously sucks. It doesn’t scroll down when I send something to the chat. I’m manually scrolling. No way that’s going to get old. Bleh!)) Windchill– (( Gonna go grab a drink that fiasco has got me SWEATING brb. Or maybe it’s this houserobe but you know what. I’m gonna blame rabbit anyway. )) Soundwave– ((stop taking the remote, it may bug out and i can’t get it back)) ((not you, just a general thing)) Windchill– (( I was about to ask I didn’t even notice. )) Prowl– ((I fucked around with a rabbit style and got a way to copy/paste everything again)) SCProwl– ((it gave it to me automatically when i first jumped in, think it’s another issue with this new look Windchill– (( Could be, maybe they’ll get rid of the issue because I can’t imagine that it’s intentional. )) ((Or, don’t want to imagine. )) Specs– ((bots suck enough without having them able to control the remote)) Prowl– ((so we’re back in business, except now I’m fucking pissed off)) Soundwave– [[Yes, chocolate is a human fuel. It is easily melted and not of much value to their internal systems, but they seem to like it.]] Specs– It probably tastes good to them. SCProwl– Not unlike some of the things Cybertronians consume. Soundwave– ((i mistimed by two minutes but whatever - GRAB YOUR SNACKS AND USE YOUR BATHROOMS here are your warnings we start at 8)) ((VENOM // Violence, blood, and death, exposed broken bone, scientific/medical abuse, animal death, body horror, the general grossness of the unbonded symbiotes, seriously bad flashing lights (after eddie fucks with the keypad), moderately bad flashing lights (during a fight scene), I don’t know what you’d call eating out of the garbage but definitely that, vomit, misogynist language, people being in other people’s minds.)) Twincast– *finally slides into seated position–because guess who just realised they were still standing?–and waves at the other Blaster–!* Swoop– ((Dear god. Is everyone having to scroll to keep up with the chat or is it just me?)) Twincast– ((scroll is working… ok for me? my posts get slightly swallowed into the void tho Windchill– (( Mine is automatic, it seems to be affecting everyone differently. )) Swerve– //i’ve noticed that i only hae to anually scroll if i change tabs; as long as i stay in rabbit it auto scrolls Swoop– ((It doesn’t move at all when someone says something new. I’d refresh the page but I might never make it back here.)) Windchill– (( Sorry to hear it’s being an Extra Butt though. )) Blaster– -blinks at the other, waving slightly in confusion- Hi? Prowl– ((mine’s autoscrolling)) Windchill– *He’s here, uglier than ever and wearing one (1) more accessory than usual.*

Swerve– //are you using FF? from what i’ve seen people using firefox have more issues than people using chrome Soundwave– ((everyone. and because i really don’t want to spend all night on a good movie complaining about stuff none of us can change: - yes i will be looking for alternatives but i can’t promise they exist - yes the chat probably will not autoscroll for most of us - this update is a trashfire - i don’t know how to fix it and i’m sorry, i only found out about it an hour ago - let’s just do what we can with what there is tonight all right)) Swoop– ((chrome)) Specs– (mine isn’t autoscrolling even on the tab- and I’m using chrome)) Blaster– ((mine throws my replies into the void Specs– ((yessir slendymun)) Blaster– ((kaaay Swerve– //rip Twincast– @boom Sup? *he is reasonably sure you’re one of Nocturne’s… things. gotta say hi!* Windchill– (( Thank for subs. )) Swoop– *scampers in, oblivious to any theme or upcoming holiday* Windchill– *Ignorance is bliss.* Blaster– Um…. Swoop– HI : > Soundwave– ((no prob, i use them myself so i get it)) Windchill– *Will stop blocking the door with his butt maybe.* Blaster– Do….do I know you? Soundwave– *Soundwave– kicks back. It’s time. He’s been looking forward to this ever since it first appeared on his human datanet feed.* Swoop– *waves at said butt* Windchill– *His butt would reciprocate but that would be weird, so he waves with his hand instead.* Twincast– Maybe not, but–think you know'a friend of mine. Looks a lil bit like our host *kind of. Slendy is a unique beast* Windchill– Swoop–. Swoop– hi Blaster– …………….. Windchill– Hi, you Swoop–. Soundwave– *Glances to Twincast–. Now who’s he talking about over there?* Swoop– HI! Keheheh. You a bad door. No moving. Windchill– You know. I could make all sorts of inappropriate jokes about openings with that…but I won’t. Blaster– I’m…yeah, we met Swoop– Me Swoop– like jokes : > Windchill– *He’s gonna find a spot on the floor to sit instead.* Who knows, maybe you’ll hear some other jokes. Swoop– *scampers in and begins his Bird hunt* Blaster– …………….. Windchill– Ah, yes, the poison movie. Blaster– Hey, uh, Soundwave–? Twincast– Hope he didn’t traumatise you too much – Twincast–. Blaster– formerly Windchill– About poison. Soundwave– *There is no Bird tonight. There is enough trouble keeping up as is. Soundwave– wants to enjoy this his own lone self.* [[Yes, Blaster–?]] Windchill– Wait, no. *Has to cup his chin and recheck the definition of poison versus venom.* Eh. Swoop– *is CRUSHED by the lack of Bird and SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHHHS* Blaster– That…thing. Did it just posses the woman? Windchill– *Snickers.* Blaster– And no, he didn’t Soundwave– [[An investigative journalist breaking into scandals and coverups? He approves of such nosiness.]] Smokescreen– ((OH THERE WE GO Blaster– Just…um…wait Soundwave– [[And yes. It does seem it did.]] Blaster– You used to be named Blaster–? Smokescreen– /Smokescreen–’s running in and is hopping onto the couch./ Soundwave–! Soundwave–, how are you? Twincast– Yeah, changed it post-war 'n got this fancy, blue paint scheme to boot. Blaster– Ah. Thanks. Swoop– ((I was getting bacon what’d I miss)) Soundwave– *Soundwave– startles and automatically flips Smokescreen– overhead and down onto the floor. DON’T DO THAT TO HIM.* [[…He apologizes.]] Swoop– *climbs Windchill– to perch* This a GOOD movie? Smokescreen– /OW- Smokescreen–’s staying on the floor for a few minutes, but gives a thumbs up. That was pretty cool, actually!/ Soundwave– ((eddie brock is an investigative journalist, he’s picking up a big report with the guy at the head of the Life Foundation and doesn’t really want it cause fluff piece but has to do it)) Windchill– Dunno, Swoop��. We’re gonna find out. Swoop– ((thx)) Someone DIE? Soundwave– [[He is fine. A little surprised. Obviously.]] *Pause. Lean forward.* [[…Are you injured?]] Blaster– ….so, okay then… Windchill– I guess there was a rocket crash with dead people and a mention of some kind of murder, so yes. Someone died. Smokescreen– Haha, sorry, Soundwave–. Didn’t mean to surprise you! … I’m fine, probably. Just lemme lie down for a little more. Swoop– Crash and die means proooooobably good movie : > Smokescreen– … Can you show me how to do that, Soundwave–? Blaster– …. Windchill– It’s a great start. Prowl– ((as the child of a journalist I am personally offended by how shitty and immoral an investigative reporter he is)) Soundwave– [[All right.]] *He pauses again, then offers a small orange crystal.* [[…Snack? While you’re down there.]] Blaster– Okay, on the grounds that I used to be a reporter, don’t do that. Windchill– Earth is already in space. Everything is in space. Swoop– Them kissy facing. That gross. Windchill– You Swoop– gross. Soundwave– [[And he can show you how, yes. Not tonight.]] Prowl– ((to be fair: it is ENTIRELY valid for an Eddie Brock to be written as a shitty immoral investigative reporter.)) Swoop– Me Swoop– not in space. Me Swoop– on shoulder. YOU gross Windchill– I am gross, thank you for noticing. Soundwave– *Soundwave– would do that. … Not to Prowl–. He wouldn’t break Prowl–’s trust. But he’d totally do it to another bot.* Prowl– ((but the movie acts like we’re like… supposed to side with him for it.)) Blaster– ((Blaster– is just a lil offended. Not much, but just miffed at him Swoop– *points at Windchill–* Ew Windchill– *Sticks his gross glossa out at Swoop–. Likewise.* Smokescreen– Thanks, Soundwave–, that’d be a cool thing to know! And- and yeah. /Smokescreen–’s taking the crystal and is plopping it directly into his mouth./ Soundwave– ((i got the impression we weren’t supposed to like that he did it? everything points out he was a jackass)) Windchill– (( Yes, it bites him in the butt later. )) (( But I’ve seen this a few times so I’ll be quiet. )) Swoop– *blows raspberries* Soundwave– [[Hmph. No surprises regarding Drake’s reaction.]] Windchill– What a delightful sound. Right in my ear. I love it. Blaster– -sighs- Swoop– Kehehh! *points* No eaaar! Ear a human thing. ((eddie looks so shocked)) Prowl– ((so have i; i still feel like we’re supposed to feel bad for him. he doesn’t, like, change.)) Soundwave– *…Takes notes. DEFINITELY don’t do this to Prowl–.* Smokescreen– … Why is she giving him her ring? Windchill– I have audio receptors and they serve the same function as ears. Guess which one is easier to say? Blaster– ….. SCProwl– To end their courtship is my guess. Swoop– EeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeearrrrrUH Blaster– Oh. That really DID come back to bite him Prowl– ((see up here he’s getting consequences. that’s good, that’s valid. but it’s only at the start)) Twincast– Huh Smokescreen– Huh. So is that a ring he lent her or something? Windchill– Everything out of your mouth is an earful. You Swoop– noisy. Swoop– *licks Windchill–’s audio* *extra slobber just for you* Windchill– *SHUDDERS, complete with an ugly face.* Specs– She grabbed a… fish? With her bare hands? SCProwl– Courtship gifts are gifts. Meant to be kept by the receiver. Returning it is a clear gesture of rejection. Swoop– *chirps* Soundwave– [[The ooze creature is so…]] *Hand motion. What’s a word.* [[Oozy.]] Windchill– *Isn’t even going to try to wipe his ear off. Gross.* SCProwl– *not sure the ring was a courtship gift was but it seems like the most likely guess* Swoop– Booger Windchill– My thoughts exactly. A booger transplant. Swoop– Ewwwwwww *grins* Windchill– That’s quite an assumption but okay. Soundwave– [[…They have used precisely one animal. That is insufficient data.]] Smokescreen– He’s… Not a very good scientist, is he? Swoop– Me Swoop– an animal : > Blaster– -shudders- Soundwave– [[Not at all.]] Specs– Clearly not. How many people did he apparently kill? SCProwl– Impatient for the results he wants. Windchill– Are you Swoop– a wild animal? Blaster– That’s disturbing Soundwave– [[At least three.]] Swoop– *is so damn helpful tonight, it’s a shame Bird isn’t here to be helped* Me Swoop– VERY wild! Windchill– *Ear cleaning is so helpful.* I thought so. Swoop– *would lick Bird* Windchill– I’m empty, too. Swoop– Empty? Windchill– It’s a joke. I made it just for you. I thought you liked them. Swoop– ((Wow. He didn’t jump in and make it worse. I’m kind of surprised. I don’t know I’ve ever seen that in a movie before.)) Me do! :V Windchill– So, there’s a joke for you. First one. Swoop– Do it again Windchill– So soon? Swoop– Yah Windchill– These things take time… I’m not ready. Swoop– Slow keheh Windchill– Maybe so. Blaster– ….ow Windchill– Maybe…slow. Swoop– Slow *pokes* poke Twincast– *may be guilty of being that neighbor once or twice* Windchill– Excuse me sir that is my person that you are poking. Swoop– *bobbles his head in a nod* Soundwave– [[…Does he not know what he is there for?]] Smokescreen– Man, Eddie makes me look like I’m doing amazing in comparison Windchill– You making fun of me for being slow? Is that how it is? Blaster– He’s about to find out Swoop– *continued bobbling* Windchill– This man is very dramatic. Prowl– *arrives belatedly and reluctantly* Soundwave– [][][] I? [][][] Windchill– That’s the word I’m using because the others aren’t so polite. Soundwave– *Soundwave– glances at Prowl–’s late arrival. … Well, this isn’t the best scene to come in on, is it.* Prowl– *stops and stares at the screen* Windchill– Maybe you Swoop– slow. Swoop– No no no. Me Swoop– FAST!!! Blaster– -covers face- Windchill– Faster than I am? Prowl– *… tiredly closes optics. he chose a hell of a time to arrive.* Twincast– Mmm, no, that ain’t healthy Smokescreen– Is… Is that normal for humans Swoop– YAH! Me Swoop– waaaaaaaaaaaay faster. Fastest Best Windchill– Eh, you’re probably right. For now, anyway. Smokescreen– /Smokescreen–’s finally starting to get up from the floor to sit down on one of the arms of the couch away from Soundwave– Oh no Swoop– You Windchill– going to be faster later? Soundwave– *You know what, he’s just. He’s just going to make his greeting to Prowl– very subdued and start it with a mark of apology.* Windchill– When I can transform again? Yeah. Now I have to walk everywhere so I do it as slowly as possible out of spite. Swoop– Spite? Who you mad walking at? Windchill– Me probably. Swoop– *slow blinks his confusion out* Windchill– *Just smiles.* *Points* Cat. Blaster– ….huh Windchill– That’s not creepy at all! Blaster– That explains a few things Swoop– This movie so TALK. When Us do crash DEAD again? Blaster– -mostly about his own career, and the 'side-effects’ of it- Windchill– Uh, maybe later? Swoop– Fastforward Smokescreen– Hey! Cats have people they like Soundwave– [[That is a blatant lie. That cats do not like anyone.]] Smokescreen– Yeah! There’s a Ravage that adopted me! Soundwave– *…Cautiously invites Prowl– to come sit down? At least if he’s going to dislike the movie he can be seated comfortably while he’s uncomfortable with everything else.* Swoop– Sometime, uh, sometime Us watch COMP-i-lation videos. For fights and guts and stuff. That more fun than talk movie. Prowl– *starts. right, yeah, he hasn’t sat yet.* *sits stiffly.* Windchill– Then go watch one of those instead of complaining about what we’re watching now, Swoop–. Swoop– Nooo. *holds onto Windchill–’s helm* Us ALL do. Together. Fun. Soundwave– @P: [[If there is anything you need while you are here - /anything/ - …please, be certain to tell him.]] Smokescreen– … Eddie, Aliens are real Specs– Cats simply have standards about who they /do/ like. Blaster– …..wouldn’t this place have cameras? Windchill– Not when the plot demands it. Swoop– ((This seems like a talk y'all should have had in the car)) Smokescreen– Man, secret walls are always a bad sign, aren’t they? Swoop– Plot 😛 Smokescreen– Like, it was like that in Gotham too Soundwave– [[Always and ever, Smokescreen–.]] Windchill– Maybe we’ll see more goo. Prowl– ((they talked about the weather and how the LA angels were doing all the way here and then she was like “oh right shoulda mentioned the aliens”)) Smokescreen– … I guess no walls are secret for me, though, haha. Swoop– Goo is okay : > Windchill– Killer goo. Blaster– …….. Soundwave– [[…He assumes the goo motionless on the floor is de– oh, it’s the homeless human.]] Smokescreen– oh no Windchill– Why is she frozen? Blaster– ………. Swoop– ((omfg did he really just randomly mash buttons)) Prowl– *grimaces at the noise and lights* Blaster– -covers face again- Soundwave– *Of course they’re preying on those with no alternatives. Of course they are.* *Ugh, the lights.* Swoop– Her choke : V Prowl– *grimaces even harder at the living thing oozing over and under his skin* Smokescreen– Is… Is she gonna be okay Windchill– Dead people. Are you happy now? Swoop– *bounces a little at finally getting some fights* KEHEHH Yah! SCProwl– I sincerely doubt it, Smokescreen–. Smokescreen– He was like “I’ve never climbed a fence THAT high before” And then he woke up at home Windchill– What. Smokescreen– Oh… /Sad, Sad, doorwing droop/ Swoop– Kehaha! Him KILL tree. Soundwave– ((lmfao smokey)) Blaster– That’s…most humans should’t be able to do that Swoop– ((omfg)) SCProwl– ((lol smokey Prowl– ((lol)) Swoop– ((he is the most confused koala)) Soundwave– [[…He is going to go out on a limb and assume that none of this athletic ability is normal for Brock.]] Swoop– *immediately busts up* Out on limb Windchill– *Brows furrow.* Swoop–. Smokescreen– This is a mood Swoop– HI Windchill– *Shakes head.* Blaster– Um…. Smokescreen– … This is extremely relatable Windchill– Why are we being made to hear these gross eating sounds. Blaster– UM Swoop– Him Slag eat like that Smokescreen– oh … He’s kinda weak, huh? Blaster– Ah, there we go Soundwave– *Shudders. Disgustin– WELL THEN* Windchill– I mean, I eat off the floor and out of the trash sometimes. Blaster– !!! Prowl– *shudders at the voice* Swoop– *loses it again at the high pitched scream and KO* Smokescreen– Same! Sometimes, you just gotta have floor food SCProwl– Ugh. Windchill– Extra flavour. Floor flavour. Sometimes tastes oddly of feet. Smokescreen– I can’t say I know what feet taste like! Swoop– *holds his footsie up for Windchill–’s inspection* Windchill– They’re nothing spectacular. Swoop– *wiggles his borby toes* Soundwave– *Watching date Prowl– out of the corner of his optics. Part of him wishes Prowl– hadn’t put himself through this if it was going to be this tough. Another part of him appreciates the glimpse into what it must be like for Prowl– based on his reactions. Mostly, he just wishes it hadn’t ever needed to be a problem.* Windchil *Is immediately distracted by the foot in his face. You know he’s gotta do it.* Swoop– ((Lola, go fuck 'em up!)) Prowl– … That’s another one, isn’t it? Smokescreen– … /Watching Windchill–. Is he gonna do it??/ Windchill– *His glossa snakes out and strikes like a viper in case Swoop– tries to change his mind.* *Gotta lick fast.* Blaster– …… Soundwave– [[Yes. There is one that broke loose during the crash of the Life Foundation ship that brought them to Earth. It is that one.]] Swoop– *SQUEAKS but doesn’t pull away because he isn’t a putz* Blaster– I…what….what is going on here? Smokescreen– …… I’d do this Primus Windchill– *Is watching the debacle on screen with exactly one eye.* Swoop– ((omg I have never seen such a fantastic embodiment of the munchies)) Windchill– Your foot tastes exactly like a foot. Congratulations. Swoop– Good : > Windchill– What happens if you fart in a lobster tank? Smokescreen– /Oh dang he thought Windchill– was gonna bite Swoop–’s feet off or something./ Blaster– ….um… Windchill– Do they die? Well, that one’s dead. Blaster– Is……is he…. Swoop– Bubble Prowl– *it’s just a sustained grimace* Windchill– You can put your foot down, now. Unless you want me to lick it again. Which would be weird. Swoop– ((I’ve seen lots of characters called trash over the years but this man is the first one who is actual literal trash)) Windchill– *points* Dog. SCProwl– ((garbage man, dumpster fire trash loser Prowl– ((they do real good at making him look like absolute garbage)) Swoop– You Windchill– weird kehhehhh! *sets his foot on Windchill– for the grossest footprint* Windchill– You’re the one who wanted your foot licked. You think I lick things for fun? Swoop– Yes Windchill– You’d be right. Swoop– Kehehehheh Soundwave– [[…Is it the magnetic fields or sound?]] *Pity neither would work. He thinks. He hasn’t tried the sound, but Devastator’s a whole different thing.* [[Ah. Sound.]] Smokescreen– Liver failure? SCProwl– Fascinating. Prowl– *that was an amazing visual representation of what it feels like to have a monster in your head. and, of course, Prowl– hated it* Specs– I think human livers are also slightly mandatory, yes. Blaster– -he could do it- Smokescreen– What do they do? Swoop– ((this voice is a hair too close to Audrey II. It’s making me expect a song.)) Smokescreen– Do you have a liver, Specs–? Windchill– I leap up and act weird when I get hungry, too. SCProwl– ((feeeeeeed meeee, eddieeeeee Prowl– ((“does it have to be fresh? does it have to be mine?!” “actually lobster will do”)) Swoop– Weird how? Keheh Smokescreen– ((PFHPFHF Specs– I do! It processes methanol into formic acid, amongst other things. I don’t think human livers need to do that, though. SCProwl– ((bwahaha Windchill– Apparently eating garbage is weird. Blaster– ((HAH Smokescreen– Really? Why? Swoop– Me Swoop– BOMBER. Me do lots lots of flying and stuff. Soooo. *pats his belly* Weigh stuff for right amount things. : > Specs– Humans typically don’t have methanol in their bloodstream, right? Smokescreen– … Methanol? I have no idea, Specs–. Soundwave– *Slooooooowly tries to close his mouth as tight as possible.* Windchill– Because…nobody else wants to eat it? Are you implying that you poop on people, Swoop–? Windchill– It’s a biological antifreeze, for my species! But humans don’t live in the snow all the time. Swoop– *cackles* BOMB poops Soundwave– [[He is up to something. His voice suggests it.]] Smokescreen– Don’t trust him Prowl– His lab full of human experimentation suggests it. Smokescreen– oh no Windchill– Burnt. Swoop– Me : > Smokescreen– EDDIE Windchill– Some people never listen. Soundwave– [[The lab as well, yes. But he meant without seeing evidence of intention at the time.]] Swoop– *LOSES it* *this comedy is on his level* Windchill– Um excuse me that’s not a bug. Rude. Smokescreen– I wish I had goo Swoop– *stares, wide opticed and delighted* Prowl– *… Prowl– figures Soundwave– is probably dying of curiosity by this point, so…* @S «Devastator doesn’t talk to me.» Soundwave– *Lets go of the tray on his lap and pulls his feelers back in. Those will just be staying in his chest all night, yes.* Swoop– *in awe* Wicked! Windchill– I’m not even going to comment on goo right now. Smokescreen– Soundwave–, any idea where a bot can get some goo? Windchill– Just eat them. Swoop– *clacks his jaws together to let everyone know where he stands on the biting off heads discussion* Soundwave– *The tiniest blip of surprise. He wasn’t expecting that. He was wondering that, but he wasn’t expecting it.* @P: [[But you have reacted to architecturally destructive visuals before. Is it emotional instead of verbal, or…?]] Swoop– *is glued to the scrreen, loving this* Soundwave– [[He does not know where to find goo. He would not tell anyone here if he did.]] *That’s the last thing any of them need.* Swoop– *taps his heels against Windchill– as he chirps to himself* Smokescreen– Like- it doesn’t have to be that goo. Windchill– *Tolerates this.* Smokescreen– Just some goo to touch, 'cause it looks pretty cool. Prowl– @S «Emotional. Sometimes he makes… something like noises. But he doesn’t talk.» @S «… Bombshell talked.» Swoop– *claps* Windchill– *Could make jokes about lubricants…but is saving the dirty jokes for later.* Swoop– WHOOOOOO! Windchill– You like the explosions? Swoop– DUH! Windchill– I like the colour, it’s very fancy. Swoop– Me Swoop– could blue fire with some copper : > Windchill– Yeah, like how they make fireworks with different colours. Swoop– FACE fireworks! Soundwave– @P: [[Noises. Like screaming or growling, then?]] *That made sense. Maybe he needed everyone to have a coherent mind? No, Devastator had called him through Prowl– before. Someone not in control, then.* [[…Did he talk like this? Like the creature does to the Brock human.]] Windchill– Uh, yeah. Swoop– DEAD KAHAHHAHAHAHAHHA DEEEEEEEEEAD Soundwave– *…THAT is certainly one advantage of having one of these symbiotes.* Blaster– ….that oh wow Prowl– @S «LIKE that. It’s not actual audible sounds, but it /feels/ like roaring.» *he considers the question for a long moment.* «… No. It was a lot worse than this.» Windchill– That’s a lot of teeth. I approve. Swoop– KAH! BITE! Windchill– *Nods.* *He has a certain appreciation for biting the heads off of enemies.* Soundwave– *oh, it’s got Soundwave–’s teeth* Blaster– -actually squeaks this time- Windchill– I like this goo guy. Prowl– *shudders at venom’s little speech* Smokescreen– Rude! Swoop– ((Was that a NOSE BOOP?)) Smokescreen– ((YES Blaster– Yep, okay, no Soundwave– @P: [[He imagines there was never a 'we’.]] *Oh, did it HAVE to say it was in his head? Really?* Prowl– @S «… That was closer to what it was like.» Blaster– The CHILD SCProwl– That’s why this is called Venom? *Disappointed. There’s nothing venomous about the symbiote.* Smokescreen– Renal? Swoop– Gots Windchill– Hey no looking at your phone while driving, lady. Prowl– @P: [[That is - obviously you did not want a 'we’. He is trying to say, he doubts Bombshell spoke to you in any manner other than ordering.]] Windchill– I’m calling the police. Soundwave– *points to the police for Windchill–* Windchill– *He appreciates the assistance but refuses to look.* Prowl– @S «You’re correct. Nearly everything Venom said to him could have been something Bombshell said.» Swoop– ((WE <3 )) Smokescreen– ((WE SCProwl– Could they be poisoning their hosts? Would a compatible human even exist then? Blaster– -ohprimusheightsno- Windchill– Most things are less ugly from a distance. Blaster– Stop looking DOWN Windchill– Defeated by a plane. Smokescreen– Awww. Man, that is the nastiest sweatshirt ever Twincast– ((asfgh Prowl– ((i fucking love)) Swoop– ((are they fucking flirting)) Smokescreen– ((Yes Prowl– ((you know it)) Blaster– ((AWESOME Swoop– Whoaaaaaaa *starry optics* Swerve– //i know it’s canon in the comics that they;re like, married but sometimes i’m surprised that they allowed that much implied flirting in the movie Windchill– Oh, nice. Prowl– ((married with a BABY)) Swerve– //yea lmao Swoop– *in awe* Me Swoop– wanna do that….! : V Prowl– ((… multiple babies but like only the latest one counts)) Windchill– How did she get in? Soundwave– ((y'all ain’t wondered why i said venomtines day lmao)) Prowl– ((they weren’t ready to be parents before)) Windchill– You Swoop– do what? Smash people with other people? Swoop– *Snickers.* Yah! Soundwave– @P: [[He is sorry. That it was what it was. … And thankful that he can speak to you as he does. He often wondered, but - this is very - it is clarifying.]] *Oh, the scared and needing help bit tugs his spark. Damn it.* Swoop– ((And thus Eddie learns that it’s best to just listen to someone else because he has no goddamn sense)) Blaster– Oh, he’d /hate/ me Prowl– @S «This really doesn’t give a very good glimpse of it.» Soundwave– *Kind of glad she’s trying to help, at least.* @P: [[It was more than this?]] Swoop– ((Omg Venom and Annie fuckin got each other’s backs)) Swerve– //venom a+ wingman? Swoop– ((dealing with this terrible garbage man they love)) Prowl– @S «God, yes.» Windchill– Fantastic. Prowl– ((see that there is kind of the beginning and end of his entire self-reflection on the fact that he screwed things up royally)) ((and it came with prompting and didn’t really indicate that he has any understanding that everything ELSE he did was wrong)) Windchill– Gross. Swoop– Punch it Prowl– ((the rest of the movie is like “oh… yeah… this dude really IS a villain… eddie was good for standing up for him, probably, and isn’t it sad that he doesn’t have a job.”)) ((like he’s explicitly characterized as a “loser.” as a person who failed. not as, for instance, an “asshole.” losers are victims of circumstance, not the architects of their own failure.)) Blaster– ((DOGGO Windchill– Oh joy, this is gonna be an interrogation scene, isn’t it. Swerve– //i love the movie but yeah in this case he’s only seen as a loser because he was an asshole in the first place and didn’t really seem to grasp that entirely Swoop– Whoo! Swerve– //still love that doggo tho Prowl– ((that’s why I said i’m disappointed at how we’re expected to sympathize with him. they started off strong–making everything his fault, having him say everything is drake’s fault and annie calling him out on it–that was great stuff)) ((but by the end it’s Poor Eddie The Loser Was Right All Along)) Soundwave– @P: [[Is it permitted for him to ask for more explanation? He knows you do not like to discuss this business in detail, and would ask the alternates of his that were controlled, but he has not encountered any in person. He would like to understand more - understand you. If you are able at this point in time.]] Windchill– *Smacks lips at villainous monologue.* Swoop– *leans over to see what the smacking is about* Windchill– *Smacks more.* Prowl– ((and maybe symby sees him as a loser because he sees himself as a loser, rather than as an asshole–but the more the movie goes on, the more that “eddie is the jerk here” narrative fades away)) Swoop– *mimics the smacking* Soundwave– *Starts at Riot’s appearance* Blaster– …….. Swoop– ((gay)) Windchill– *It’s a chorus of smacking with no snacks to smack on. Tragedy.* Smokescreen– Is… Is that where they’re stored Swoop– *doesn’t know what we’re doing but it’s a team sport now* Windchill– *Smack smack smack.* Prowl– @S «… For starters, Bombshell didn’t let me copilot.» Windchill– *Stops smacking.* Blaster– HOLY-! Windchill– Wow, boobies. *Resumes smacking.* Twincast– ((weakass ladyvenom design Blaster– Um…. Swoop– ((does this count as a threesome)) Prowl– ((i choose to believe that kiss was entirely symby)) Windchill– WHAT. *Fluffs up.* Swoop– King Blaster– I’m… Okay… Windchill– *Grunts in displeasure.* Blaster– Not going to ask Swerve– //i think i like the comic version of klyntar’s more tho than the mcu version Windchill– Awkward, but I’m going to laugh at this. Yes. Smokescreen– ((awwww Prowl– ((i prefer comic venom entirely)) Swoop– Laugh at what? Windchill– My mate’s name is Riot. Prowl– ((the movie version is fun but it’s not my preference)) Swoop– Sweet : V Swerve– //i havent read enough of the venom comics to know him outside the mcu but i do at least know the klyntar in the comics enough to prefer them to mcu’s SCProwl– ((this isn’t mcu. it’s its own thing Prowl– ((~*venomverse*~)) Blaster– ….-muffled snicker- Swerve– //gfhbg yeah i just. refer to all of the live action superhero movies mcu at this point lmao Windchill– …My Riot isn’t that goopy, though. Swoop– You suuure? Windchill– Not usually. Maybe sometimes. Prowl– ((*sees a new batman movie* “grimdark mcu is at it again”)) Windchill– Can’t fight for shit either. Swoop– Whoa! Him get BUTT kicked! Blaster– ….. Swerve– //lmfao i mean Windchill– What a mess. Blaster– What the heck? Windchill– Well, that didn’t last long. Blaster– Annie! Swoop– You Soundwave– can beat up EVERYONE in this movie. Prowl– ((two nerds pathetically smacking each other is the best part of the fight)) Soundwave– @P: [[You have great willpower; the amount of control he would have to have taken - what he’d have to exert to keep you held in–]] *He’s thinking about how much it would take from himself.* [[…You saw Unicron’s control of Megatron. Could you speak to - or at - him as Megatron did? Or were you denied even that?]] Swoop– ((is it just me or is everyone else waiting for venom to get all hot and bothered by his host beating up someone elses’ host?)) Windchill– Dead. Soundwave– [[Perhaps. He’s never encountered a symbiote.]] *And he didn’t do so well against the Unicron up close.* Swoop– D E A D Windchill– Is… Is the sound of the rocket not enough? Prowl– @S «Willpower shmillpower. He didn’t have to exert anything. That’s not how the mechanics of it works.» Swoop– KA BOOM! Windchill– Double dead. Blaster– -covers face- Swoop– drown dead pretty boring dead Soundwave– @P: [[Hm. Closer to a virus?]] Windchill– If you say so. Swoop– Do Do say so Windchill– Not enough explosions? Swoop– Drowning boring. Blub blub fish nibbles. Windchill– Okay. Why are his lips so big Prowl– @S «He severed the connection between my brain and my body.» Soundwave– *Sits up straight.* Tarantulas (( OOPS SORRY (( didnt mean to take remote Smokescreen– ((theif,, Tarantulas (( stealin spide Swoop– ((venom omg buddy)) Smokescreen– ((sneaky spide Soundwave– @P: [[…That is more horrifying than anything he had imagined it was.]] Swoop– ((this is a real romcom good god)) Windchill– Dog. Blaster– ((STAN LEEEE Windchill– *Gasps.* Swoop– Nom nom bite Windchill– There are rules about eating people? That’s news to me. Swoop– Me Swoop– bite LOTS of people Not eat tho Windchill– Luckily, I don’t care much for rules so like, whatever. Just bite? Why? Are you mean? Swoop– ((I hope that writing job pays well because his food budget just went through the damn roof)) Yah, mean : > Windchill– Cool. All of my friends are mean. Smokescreen– “I have a parasite” Man, what an excuse Blaster– ((not hungry anymore Prowl– *mutters* I’m calling Devastator a parasite from now on. *it’s not a term of endearment.* Swoop– ((Wait wait… that was the line from the trailer that they made all ominous.)) Prowl– ((the trailer was so misleading)) Swoop– ((no kidding)) Windchill– (( Oh yeah I’ve had discussions about that one. Marketing at its finest, as usual.)) Blaster– ((it was Prowl– ((venom is menacing toward eddie for all of five minutes and then immediately starts falling in love with him)) Swerve– //yeah when i went to see it originally i expected that scene way way earlier Specs– ((that’s the power of tom hardy)) Soundwave– *Approval ping after the parasite Devastator comment.* Windchill– Edgy. Swerve– //this def sets up for a sequel tho so i’m curious if they’re gonna follow thru on it Swoop– Him not very red ((little on the nose but I’m okay with it)) Prowl– ((i’m disappointed that eddie wasn’t a beefy mulleted blond, but tom hardy is just SO GOOD at being gross in that hoodie, i’ll take him too)) Blaster– ((HAH Swerve– //lmao Windchill– *Stretches exactly one leg.* Smokescreen– ((im still so glad the lobster tank scene was unscripted and he just did that Windchill– That sure was gooey. Prowl– ((I KNOW it was brilliant)) Swoop– ((Tom Hardy did a good job for sure. Normally, when people say “you look terrible” to someone in a movie, it’s a cue on how we should be reading things. In this movie, he actually looked fucking awful.)) Prowl– ((he did. he looked nasty the whole movie)) Swoop– ((Was it really? That is beautiful)) Swerve– //im so glad it was god Specs– *the dragon stretches* Thank you for having me, Soundwave–! Swoop– It pretty good fights : > OH! Us do Mad Max now : V That good fight movie : > Windchill– Had some explosions. Soundwave– [[You are welcome, dragon.]] Swerve– //is this a deleted scene //also wow rabbit did u need to cut off the last post of the chat Soundwave– ((yes)) Prowl– ((this is a great scene and i’m so upset they took it out)) Blaster– ((pffff Swoop– ((So damn good)) SCProwl– ((Venom is gonna make Eddie a better person via cannibalism and tater tots Swoop– ((I saw pics of Eddie getting carried away fro mthe lobster tank too)) Soundwave– ((public stream end marker: 10:00)) Windchill– *Rolls his shoulders. Will this dislodge the dinobot?* Smokescreen– So, uh, Soundwave— you up to maybe dance again sometime? Swoop– *has stayed on a bucking T-rex trying to dislodge him, this is nothing* Windchill– *Sways from side to side.* Soundwave– [[Another time, Smokescreen–. Not tonight.]] *And not to this, for sure.* Swoop– What you dancing for? Windchill– Excuse me? Dance? How dare you suggest such a thing. I’m trying to get you off. Swoop– yuh HUH dance Windchill– Ineffectively. Swoop– Oh Then you suck at doing keheheh Smokescreen– Aww, okay. I’d be up to meet up with you to dance sometime, then! It’d be fun. Windchill– *Grunts his agreement.* Soundwave– [[Perhaps after a movie that is actually fun.]] Twincast– *staaaands. maybe he wasn’t so chatty tonight, but he’d be rude to not give their host a ping goodbye. Maybe next time~* Windchill– You’ll have to get off sometime. Soundwave– *Perhaps next time indeed. Farewell, Twincast–.* Twincast– ((I was so engrossed I forgot to RP. It was fun!! Thanks for streaming : D Swoop– ((I know the movie might have MEANT to imply that Annie was lying about the kiss being Venom’s idea but Venom literally never missed a chance to try to smash them together like Barbie dolls so I 10/10 believe her.)) Nuh uh Smokescreen– … I thought that was fun Windchill– Yuh-huh. Swoop– Not if us DIE here Soundwave– ((you’re welcome!)) Windchill– Oh. Well, sure, but why would we die here? Smokescreen– Oh! Oh, I know a good dance song for us, later. Have you ever heard of Cascada, Soundwave–? Swopp *is joking but he’s got a back full of missiles if we want to end it all* Blaster– ….-yawns and stretches- Swoop– so BORED from these songs us DIE Windchill– *Snorts.* I like them. Swoop– no Windchill– Yes. Blaster– Anyway, thanks for that, but I have to go now. Hopefully to sleep. Swoop– nO Windchill– I’m not having this argument with you. Blaster– Goodnight. Swoop– yes Soundwave– [[Goodnight, those leaving.]] Swerve– //nini friendos Windchill– No. Soundwave– [[And of course he has heard of that. Again, though: another night.]] Swoop– *squeaks* YES Smokescreen– Cool! I’m looking forward to it. Thanks for the crystal- and I still REALLY want you to show me how to knock bots down like you did earlier! Windchill– No, you can’t make me. *Squints at the squeaking next to his head.* Swoop– Can too Smokescreen– /Smokescreen–’s finally getting himself up, and is dropping by the bar to grab a drink before he finally goes home!/ Windchill– No. I have a date later and you, *he points over his shoulder at the Swoop– in question,* want no part of it, so you have to get off and like, not waste my time. *Stands up, Swoop– or no Swoop–.* Swoop– a DATE? :V Windchill– That’s what I said. Swoop– *PERKS UP* TOP GUN Soundwave–, us watch Top Gun? *bounces right off Windchill–* Windchill– *Oh, thank god.* Soundwave– [[No, not right now. Now it is time to leave.]] Swoop– : < But Top Gun good movie, Soundwave– Soundwave– [[Then go home and watch it with your brothers.]] Swoop– Them LAME No flying Windchill– Goodnight, thanks for goo movie, have fun telling Swoop– no for the next several minutes. Swoop– : > Soundwave– [[Goodnight, you are welcome, and he absolutely won’t.]] Swoop– Howwww about a LITTLE top gun : > Just flying parts! Windchill– I guess it’s not for everyone. Bye Swoop–, I’m leaving you here. Sucker. Swoop– *clearly has better taste than Windchill– since he is fighting for TOP GUN* Windchill– *Clearly.* *Waves, and backs for the exit.* Soundwave– [[On your way, now, Swoop–. There is no Top Gun here.]] Swoop– *gives the BIGGEST SIGH IN THE WORLD* fine Windchill– *Normally picks up straggler children to deposit home, but is apparently choosing to be irresponsible and leave it for Soundwave– to deal with.* Swoop– You Soundwave– boring boring Windchill– *And he’s gone before that can change.* Soundwave– [[Yes. What a terrible bot he is. Best you go and leave him to do dull paperwork and listen to people talking for hours without any fighting.]] Swoop– *knows he’s being teased but doesn’t NOT believe that’s what’s going to happen so he blows raspberries all the way out the door* Soundwave– *What do you know? That worked.* Prowl– *gives Soundwave– an expectant look* Soundwave– *Looks back and then around. He’s… he’s not actually sure what to do now. This was a Bad Night, movie-wise.* [[Do - would you like to clean, like the last time, or -]] *Twitchy fingers.* [[We could walk through the settlement nearby, or - anything else you would prefer to do. Actual paperwork, even. He does not know.]] Prowl– You mean doing paperwork and listening to people talking for hours WASN’T the explicit plan? Soundwave– [[Oh. He said that mostly to be rid of Swoop– in a timely fashion, but he has nothing against it if you would actually like that. He has plenty of the first, and the second could be either of us. Or someone else, if you had them in mind.]] Prowl– *… humor ping* Soundwave– *Oh, a joke. Okay, he’s got it now.* [[Ah. His apologies. That actually IS how he likes to spend his nights sometimes.]] *He forgets himself and smiles the teensiest bit.* Prowl– Me too. Sans talking, usually. Soundwave– [[He sees. … Do you have paperwork with you? We could work on that together. Sitting together, that is. Obviously, he is not entitled to type up your reports for you.]] *Pause.* [[Though he could do so with extreme speed.]] *Shakes his head.* [[A good and comfortable shared silence is never to be taken for granted.]] [[…Unless you meant you prefer someone else to do the talking, in which case he has plenty of tales he could tell you.]] Prowl– No, I don’t have paperwork with me. I—don’t know what I want to do. *it’s partially untrue. he does know what he wants to do—go home and be alone for a while—but he can’t have that. he’s never going to be alone again.* Soundwave– *Considers this.* [[You could do nothing, in a sense.]] *Small hand gesture.* [[Sitting and resting, sleeping, doing something unimportant for no reason other than it is fun. That sort of thing.]] Prowl– So, the usual movie night options. *beat.* … The usual besides interfacing. Soundwave– [[A fair point, if an important one. Such moments tend to be good for us both. Though he would like to clarify that he was not thinking of interfacing. He may not have the ability to sing, but he is not tone deaf.]] [[He will clean before it is much later. Experiment with what you care to do at the moment as you like; all he asks is that if you decide what you wish to do is something away from him, you interrupt to bid him goodnight first instead of simply popping away. An acceptable deal?]] Prowl– Mm. I’ll help clean. *that’s something productive he can latch onto. he doesn’t want to just sit and stare around* Soundwave– *Nods and motions toward the couches. Bridge away!* [[…He doesn’t suppose he could get you to help with the upstairs, the Kangaskhan, and the outer walls as well? Being away for a week tends to inspire his deployers to leave things undone.]] *Humor ping.* Prowl– Sure. Maybe not the—the Genghis Khan. I’d rather not have to worry about stepping on organics. Soundwave– [[Oh, they’re very sharp when it comes to not being stepped on - but better to err on the side of caution, yes. Still. He should introduce you to them some time, now that they have air masks.]] Prowl– Another time.]] Soundwave– ((aw man you can’t edit now? booooo)) [[Another time. Not now. Very well, here and the upper floors - and perhaps, if you still feel up to it and are not afraid of heights, he will show you how the deployers scrub the outer walls. And how he does. Both very entertaining.]] *Another small smile, because the first wasn’t as much of a problem as he’d expected. He’s trying to be a distraction. Primus only knows if it works.* [[Come, come. Everything to its place, now.]] *Affection, times three.* Prowl– I’d hardly call that “heights.” It’s only a few stories. *height’s relative and his universe’s Cybertronians are durable. he gets to work bridging the couches back where they belong; there’s a moment of hesitation before he remembers to return the three pings.* Soundwave– [[You’ve never met Blades, have you.]] *Soft huff.* Prowl– Sure. I’ve known him since before the war, we were in Security Services under Sentinel Prime. Starscream forced him into a combiner recently. Soundwave– *Puts the snacks he was crating back on the bar and turns to look at Prowl–, mouth in a small o and everything.* [[…Were it anyone else talking, he would suspect that of being a joke.]] *Shakes his head and goes back to packing.* [[Another reason to see Starscream deposed, he supposes. And he is sorry to hear of your - friend’s? - fate.]] [[He did mean his own, however. Grounder turned extremely unwilling helicopter turned grounder again. He would be surprised if Blades is even capable of jumping anymore. Poor mech.]] [[…Perhaps there’s a link somewhere in this misfortune of theirs. He’ll note it on the map.]] Prowl– I’ve never heard of mine ever being anything but a helicopter. And since I’ve known him since before extensive body mods were allowed, I suspect that’s his original shape. *all the couches are in place, he’s going to find something else to clean.* Not friend. Just longtime acquaintance. Soundwave– [[Longtime acquaintance, then. Still - he would not have wished that on him.]] *Mopping behind the bar while he’s there.* [[Do the two of you speak now?]] Prowl– He and his team have a standing invitation to contact me if they—need anything. They haven’t utilized it recently. Soundwave– [[Disappointing.]] *Maybe it would be good for Prowl– to have someone who Really, Really Gets It he could talk about it with, instead of Soundwave–’s fumbling attempts? Then again, that means someone else had to go through it. He doesn’t know. Unpleasant and sticky situations he never gave much thought to before the war ended.* [[But understandable, in a way. Some pains are too personal to share so easily.]] [[…Thank you for trying to explain it to him earlier, while he is thinking about it. He knows he does not fully grasp all of your situation, but he will continue to try. He would like to always be someone you can rely on to listen to and hear you when you speak about it. You deserve that.]] [[Enough of this room. Let us go clean upstairs. It needs it more anyway.]] Prowl– *a jerky nod* Thanks. For listening. *it sounds hollow right now, when he’s tired of thinking about it; but he knows that later on when he’s less exhausted he’ll be grateful for it.* Lead the way. *and up they shall go.*

#chat #submission

3 notes · View notes

iamsoneurotic · 6 years ago

Text

Enter, Levi: The Final Chapter Part II

8 Months later is better than never I guess.

I had intended to write a second post about Levi’s birth (as I did with both Milo and Noli), but as it turns out, free time isn’t really a thing when you have 3 kids. Go figure. Anyway, where did I leave off… The boy was born.

The C-section left Rachael bedridden for the duration of our stay at the hospital, which is pretty typical. From what I’ve been told, it’s not so bad - the doctors load you up with pain meds and you’re out the door in a couple of days, ready to take on the world with a baby in one hand and a bottle full of pills in the other. Well, due to an allergy to Ibuprofen, Rach was denied the good drugs and had to settle for a less effective Tylenol substitute which may have been less effective than somebody flicking her in the ear to distract her from the pain in her healing wound. To make matters even worse, she was fighting a horrible cough and every hack of the lung made her feel like she was being gutted like a fish.

As sort of an icing on the crap cake, her IV slipped out of her vein at some point during the first night and caused her arm to swell and rash. Her stay was divine to say the least.

Speaking of crap cakes, guess who was on diaper duty by default! Well that’s nothing new, I’m usually on diaper duty just because my lovely wife secretly loathes me (we have a dog now, by the way. Guess who gets the honor of cleaning up his little backyard nuggets). This particular series of diaper changes, however, stands out more than the others because Levi pooped a mountain’s worth over the next few weeks. Not exaggerating. He went through every phase on the newborn poo color wheel in a matter of hours. Something was clearly afoot, I’ve been around this whole breastfeeding business for a while now and I know for a fact he was exporting more than he was taking in. Pretty sure milk doesn’t have corn in it either.

There’s a video of his first changing… I can’t even post it. It’s just that awful. I don’t even know why we would have filmed something like that in the first place.

One last poo item to discuss - there was one nurse who was a complete POS. Her shift consisted of coldly telling Rachael to suck it up and walk so they could discharge us and berating her about everything she did ranging from how she breastfed Levi to, I don’t know, the way she wore her hair that day. She was a real piece of work. Not sure if there’s a polite way to wish Ebola on somebody, but I’m all ears.

There was a bright side to Rachael being confined to her bed, it meant I got more time to hold Levi. Given the stress of his birth, I had no desire to ever put him down - thank goodness he only weighed a little over 6lbs, our lightest one yet!

I noticed while holding him that he bore a striking resemblance to Don Rickles.

Leading up to the birth, I had “joked” that I was looking forward to the time away from the kids while we stayed at the hospital. I was wrong, I missed my babies. Before we had left, Noli was really upset that we were leaving him - that image of him sitting on the steps broken hearted was burned into my brain the whole visit. Milo didn’t seem to care much, he gets away with more when daddy’s not home (Noli was yet to figure this out). So after 2 days of not showering, Rachael approved of my release so I could go home, see the boys, scrub the thin layer of Italian grease off of my flesh, and let her mom see the baby for a while.

It was a nice little visit. The boys and I wrestled, built Legos, and I showed them pictures of the baby. Noli was needier than usual and didn’t like that I had to leave again to go back to the hospital, luckily my mom stopped by to take the boys to her place so I could catch a break for a few… For the record, however, I didn’t take a break for fear that Rachael would sense my relaxation and unleash the hordes of hell upon me.

Advice for any new dads out there: NEVER enjoy yourself while your wife is in pain or holding a child. Don’t close your eyes, don’t smile, don’t sit comfortably in a chair, and if you absolutely HAVE to eat, make sure the food gives you indigestion… But not diarrhea, because woman have figured out that bathrooms are a man’s place of peace. There can be no peace.

…

I’m literally not kidding.

Long story short - she thought I was gone too long and as penance, I bought her Pei Wei and she reluctantly showed mercy.

I screwed a number of things up with this birth. First was posting Levi’s picture to Facebook before Rachael had even seen him, second was having the audacity to take a shower at our house, and the third thing happened after being discharged from the hospital. When we got home, I rushed the baby into the house so he wouldn’t get cold. Inside the house my parents were waiting with cameras to film the boys’ reaction to the new addition. Well, in my haste, I failed to wait for Rachael (who was hobbling up the sidewalk in excruciating c-section pain) - depriving her of the opportunity to see the boys’ reaction live. I’m currently serving a life sentence in the doghouse for my foolish ways.

All screw-ups aside, the evening went well. Noli, who we were most nervous about adjusting to a newborn, held the baby in his lap (with heavy amounts of assistance). It was a giant relief. Milo loved the kid at first sight, 8 months later he’s still in love with the little guy… I’m a proud dad. My parents went home, Rach attempted sleep, and late that evening I wrote “Enter, Levi: The Final Chapter Part I”. A masterpiece in biographical storytelling.

For the next few days Rachael was stuck sleeping on the couch until her incision healed more; getting out of bed was too painful. So we spent our evenings watching the Winter Olympics while Levi slept on our chests. In the mornings my mother-in-law would treat us to fresh grapefruit & oatmeal breakfasts and I would grab us Starbucks on the way back from dropping the boys off at school. It was a really nice couple of days… I even finally buckled down and got my Texas Driver’s License! Only took me 3 years to make the effort.

We nicknamed Levi “Popeye” because he would always wink his one eye and make scrunchy faces. In retrospect, I should have thought to tape a little pipe to his pacifier. Dangit! During this time, I discovered that the sound of a crying baby isn’t as horrific sounding as it had been in the past. Milo’s cries would send me into a panic, and Noli’s would just irritate me… I find Levi’s cries on the adorable end of the spectrum. It’s probably because this will be our last kid (assuming all goes according to plan). I’m taking in the infancy more, trying to make it last and enjoy every moment. Sure, I still get frustrated - that’s what babies do to you, but I’m enjoying the ride more… I know I’ll miss it. I still wish I could pull baby Milo out of the photos on my phone and hold him.

If I’m not writing a ton about Levi in this post, it’s because the kid was just so darn chill as a newborn. He didn’t give me much more material than “Awww, how cute”... And he was definitely cute (still is - all my babies are).

While both boys were great with Levi, Noli had gotten increasingly needy. I’m not going to lie, it was downright infuriating sometimes to deal with it. I took him out one day to give him some one on one time, the plan was to buy him a ‘gift from Levi’. I told him Levi gave me money to buy him a toy (kids are so gullible!)... I should have specified how much money Levi actually gave me because $60 later we had a brand new Lego Spiderman play set which took me an hour to build and only 10 seconds for Noli to destroy. 10 glorious seconds of him leaving me alone.

The nightmare was only beginning.

Rachael’s mom had stuck around for a few weeks to help out around the house while we got acclimated to all the changes. The hope was that anything that could have gone wrong would have gone wrong while she was here and we’d have the extra hands… But Murphy’s Law is real, kids. Thanks to the joys of school, Noli came down with the flu a day or two before my mother-in-law was leaving. Just the thing you want around a newborn! And there would be no extra hands. Before we even got home from the hospital, Rach began packing her bags to stay with my folks until our house was no longer contaminated with disgusting little boy germs (Milo was beginning to run a fever as well).

Rachael and Levi staying with my parents didn’t ease my worries, however. The boys are constantly sticking their grubby little fingers all over my face (why their fingers are always moist I’ll never understand). The fingers occasionally go in my mouth because kids are weird and have no boundaries. That mouth is incapable of not being on baby Levi’s face… Because those cheeks. All I could think was that I had given my newborn baby boy the flu and it was an awful feeling. I had shown no signs of having the flu, but it takes a few days before symptoms even start, so everything was up in the air… Just like the flu running rampant in my house. It was a waiting game and I hate waiting.

So it was me, the boys and my mother-in-law, and I only had her help for about two days before she had to go back home. Thank God for moms is all I have to say. She made sure we all took everything we needed, when we needed to take it, and I’m pretty sure she kept me flu-free, because (spoiler) I never caught it and luckily neither did Rach or Levi.

Those few days, however, were difficult for an entirely non-flu-related reason… Needy Noli. By this point he had already been driving me nuts with the constant need for attention, but the flu just made it worse. Today I was looking through the texts Rachael and I were sending each other and every other message was me going out of my mind while Noli stalked me around the house. It was like one of those dreams where you’re being chased by some unknown entity and it always finds you no matter where you hide. You’d think the flu would have destroyed his sense of smell, but somehow it was heightened. There was no escape.

All he wanted was to play legos… Legos which by now were CRAWLING with flu germs. Every click those blocks made when I connected them was like the empty click of a revolver in a deadly game of Russian Roulette. Sitting in that pool of Legos (we have a LOT of Legos) was like swimming in a pool of flu-juice. I swear some of them were wet.

Then my mother-in-law flew home… and it was just me and the flu-zombies.

Thank goodness for my Dad. He took one for the team and later that evening risked his good health to save me from the inevitable misery that awaited me with those kids. The man is fearless. My memory of that week is a little hazy, but I’m 80% sure he arrived via horse. When he got to the house, he told me to get out and enjoy myself for a few while he spent time with the little petri dishes. Even Noli let me leave the house! So I grabbed my iPad and booked it to Starbucks where I spent the next 2 hours sipping Lattes, drawing, and watching videos of Levi that Rach would send me.

The week was no doubt hard - dodging sneezes, dealing with neediness and the usual parenting frustrations… But the hardest part was being away from Levi. I spent 9 months waiting for the little stinker and barely got to know him before he left me for a week. There was a constant stream of videos and photos coming from Rach, but it only made it harder. There was one evening when Rach stopped by with some food and I snuck out to see her. She had Levi in the van and I had to just stare at him from the window (as I was still unsure if I was sick or not). It was torture.

Rach on the other hand was living the good life at Hotel De’Marianelli with my mom. Pampering, baby assistance, hot meals… and a Boxer who quickly became a therapy dog. When Rach arrived at the house that first night, she was a nervous wreck. She started crying when she came in the door and Roxy (the Boxer) ran up to her, put her head on Rachael’s chest and just stared at her. She’d lick the baby’s feet constantly and anytime Levi woke up from a nap crying, Roxy would book it into the room to check on him.

Dogs are the best. Not to speak ill of the dead, but our cat would have just pee’d on the crib.

Fast forwarding ahead, the boys started feeling better, I never got sick, and seeing as my dad’s work was finished, he went back home… I seem to remember him riding off on a chariot of fire. The details are hazy.

One last thing remained… The disinfecting of the Legos.

20% of them ended up down the drain. I hope they never return.

Finally my baby came home. I refused to let him go that night… Or the next night. If I could lactate, Rach would have never gotten him back.

I make good babies. ~ M.

#parenting #parenthood #dad #daddy #daddyblog #newborn #humor #baby #fatherhood #kids

3 notes · View notes

forgettinggirlinterrpted · 6 years ago

Text

Sunday 5/6

My roommates name is Shauna. She doesn’t flush and when I got here there was what I can only assume were soiled clothes in a brown paper bag.

A woman in the hall is also talking about her shit. I’m the youngest person here and im afraid to shower, there’s no door. The poop lady is cackling.

My roommate and I talked, she’s nice, and I met her night nurse and she is so nice. Her name is Maria.

I’m having a hard time figuring out why I feel like this. Its hard b/c I’ve been hungover but surely that’s not all it is. How do you recover from a hangover so bad you end up in a psych ward?

It weird not having my phone, I want to check twitter. I don’t want to go to group therapy tomorrow.

I just can’t stop crying, my eyes actually hurt.

My mouth tastes bad but I have no toothpaste.

I started reading this book called notorious nineteen and it is truly trash.

I don’t have the lights on bc Shauna’s sleeping- I feel like Mozart.

My eyes hurt, I might go call my dad again to get my moms phone number.

Ill be back.

Got Taylor’s # and called her/my mom. Maria gave me some antihistamines to try to calm me down/sleep.

My sisters want to come visit me on Tuesday.

I’ve only eaten a donut this morning.

There’s a painting of a window that is 100% mocking me.

I’m sweaty.

Some snaps I would be sending if I had my phone

*a pic of the little card that was on my bed when I came in w/ a number on it for housekeeping. Caption idea-

is this a joke?

It’s a work in progress.

*def a snap of me whipping/nay naying to the woman whose been singing in the hall all night (singer)

Shauna is snoring. There’s no joke there but its absolutely worth noting.

I just want to play candy crush.

Monday

(12:30 pmish) I feel like I’m in a dream. I’ve been sleeping all day- it turns out it was only like 3 hours tops.

I had so many dreams.

I just went and talked to a big ass table of doctors about my life and I just feel so groggy. They’re in there talking about me.

I skipped lunch b/c my tummy hurt so bad after breakfast.

Shauna puked everywhere.

I think she’s leaving.

Also turns out she’s in withdrawal AND pregnant.

And she has an infected injection site on her arm.

I just talked to my mom/dad/Taylor and asked them to bring me some books + shirts.

The nice psychiatrist said she would give me some adavan to calm me down. Also I skipped lunch b/c my stomach hurt so bad from breakfast but now I’m hungry so I guess they’re gonna order me something. I feel so weird. (might have napped here)

4ish pm

40 mg stratera (sp?), one mg atavan.

Finally left my room, I’ve been asleep all day.

Nurse went and got me a coke + a water and I saw they’re watching forgetting Sarah Marshall so I thought Id join. Everyone called me out when I came in since ive been hiding out. Bitches.

Movies suggested by the dude I’m watching FSM w/

- assassin’s creed

-Dogma

10 positive ways to describe myself

1. Legs that go up to my asshole

2. College educated

3. Big heart

4. Good sense of humor

5. Love babies

6. Love my friends

7. Good communicator

8. Love the outside

9. Big smile

10. Lovely family

9 positive coping skills

1. Talk to Taylor

2. Going on walks

3. Calling my parents

4. Reading

5. Going to therapy

6. Doing hw

7. Watching movies

8. Candy crush (questionable)

9. Eating veggies

8 things I’ve accomplished

1. College

2. Getting into grad school

3. Learning Spanish

4. Coming to the hospital

5. Making great friends

6. Moving a lot and making it through

7. Driving to SLC

8. Supporting myself (for the most part)

7 healthy things I can do each day

1. Eat well

2. Shower

3. Talk to my friends

4. Not drink

5. Clean my room

6. Clean my clothes

7. Do my hw

6 things I can change

1. My eating habits

2. Drinking

3. Exercising more

4. Getting a routine

5. Whitening my teeth

6. How I see myself

5 things I can’t change

1. How my family acts

2. How my friends act

3. The status of the US public school system

4. The amount of sunlight in my apt

5. My face

4 reasons I can’t give up

1. My family

2. I’m going to change the world

3. My friends

4. My future students

3 places I can get help

1. w/ dr. whose name I can’t remember

2. my apt (Taylor)

3. the hospital

2 people I can really trust

1. Taylor

2. my parents

1 reason I’m here

1. I need to not feel like this anymore

I’m holding myself back from asking why everyone’s here.

Assassin’s creed guy, also known as biting guy (an inside joke from earlier) and sweater girl are talking about if the food delivery guy has extensions.

We got called to dinner, now were finishing Sarah Marshall.

Biter dude told hair guy “nice hair”.

Oh my god, when peter sings about how much he hates himself, biter and white shirt turned to me and said dang sounds like he’s going to be in the room next o me! way to be self aware guys!

Just called my dad to find out about my stuff getting dropped off but turns out he did 2 hours ago and its all been in my room.

I started crying immediately b/c Taylor is amazing- she brought me the perfect books. It was like she was talking to me through the books.

She gave me b Franks autobiography and Jesse Donaldson’s ‘on homesickness’. And the book Amanda gave me. also wuthering heights and pastures of heaven. All so perfect.

Shirts is roasting the shit out of double lasagna (he ate… double the lasagna we all got for dinner).

He keeps saying he looks like he’s about to give birth

“I mean were already in the hospital we just gotta figure out what floor is maternity”

Wuthering Heights

1801- Mr. Lockwood +Heathcliff

Thrushcross Grange

Double lasagna is talking about the last time he had tequila- brother the last time I drank it I ended up here.

What an anecdote.

“they could have stolen my jewelry or even my virginity!” – about the guys who helped when he got too drunk. Double lasagna’s real name is * but he just introduced himself as Dorothy (to hair the night nurse helper).

Fake Abby (biting guy came to my room thinking I was her) is here and shirt just said “you’re awfully quiet” and she rejected him hard. It was awk.

One of the helpers is just chillin in here w/ us while I read my shitty book and we watch “just go w/ it” – its so bad.

One of the nurses (pony tail) just made me go on a walk down the hall w/ him. They all keep asking me how I’m feeling and I keep saying fine but I’m not. As long as I don’t talk I don’t cry. I’m starting to think I want to stay here longer but also leave right away. Its all so confusing.

Double lasagna just asked hair nurse if he could have his phone out of his bag and the way just looked up from his phone and said “nuh uh” was iconic.

Its 805 pm and I think I’m going see about getting my sleeping pills so I can just crash.

I need to document stuff better tomorrow b/c I don’t like how much of a blur today is.

I finally showered and I feel better I think. I just don’t know what the move is once I get out. Like I don't know how to talk to anyone.

I need Taylor to contact Morgan I think.

I’m sure she’s confused. Or maybe she doesn't care literally at all. Who cares. I’ve been surprised at how easily I’ve been sleeping today especially without my phone and with everything on my mind.

I need a talk therapist like yesterday.

I can’t bring myself to get through any of the books Taylor brought. The 19 book in such trash but it’s easy to read.

The shower needs to be pressed every 45 seconds to say on. I wore shower shoes.

Fake Abby doesn’t know what the move is, I can tell.

I called Taylor + my mom then got snack in my night meds. I mom told me to call back to talk to Mack so I just did. She’s lovely.

Double lasagna somehow talked to snack nurse into giving him a full sandwich. I got a strawberry poptart and a coke.

They’re checking in a new girl now who looks a bit like she’s closer to my age.

I’m happy she’s not my roommate.

I think tomorrow ill try to call family/friends less and trust the process. I need to really take a step back.

I’m just happy I feel comfortable sitting in the sun room. I knew a lot more about movies than they did

Goals for tomorrow-

Check out group

Find rec room/sign my name by Mack’s

Document everything

Keep room clean

They still haven’t cleaned Shauna’s side. Its off putting.

Have I mentioned they check on me every 15 minutes?

Its off putting also.

I wish I had just like some mascara or something. I hate to be that girl but damn.

My mom keeps trying to talk about the funny aspects of this but I can’t say I’m feeling them yet. Today just really was such a blur. I sept a lot then talked to therapists then I think went back to sleep? Then begged for lunch then I think slept? That’s where its fuzzy. Called my fam too much, I need to not tomorrow.

I also want to gain control of tv room tomorrow. Power move!!

Did I mention I called Chelsea? My brain is mush.

- Be more present tomorrow-

- Ask more questions-

be warned: new beginnings are rarely pure, and neither are the men who seek them

On Homesickness pg 23

Scott County

We are homesick most for the places we have never {truly} known

37, Franklin County

Questions to Proteus -> how do I get home? 45, Montgomery County

Tuesday

7:10 am

slept super hard but also had super vivid dreams. Mack and I talked about that last night.

She said she had never brought it up. I was a little restless, prob just bc they were constantly opening my door and eventually just stopped closing it.

I’m just trying to let go of control. I don’t want my phone back. I need to talk to someone about the insane anxiety I feel when I think about home back to the real world.

Even just being in my apartment scares me b/c it feels like its full of negative energy. I need to focus on the good when I get out.

I keep thinking about my phone bill and I can’t remember if I paid for internet. Also the maintenance light is still on in my car.

Even though mom and dad are coming today I need to be communicating less w/ outside world. If I really want to be off the grid I need to really b alone with me thoughts and be okay with it.

I kept feeling for my phone throughout the night.

I wonder what the nurses think of me. do I seem different than everyone else?

I keep finding myself trying to relate to the nurses, esp. the young male one (hair) but what am I trying to prove? That I’m not like everyone here?

Newsflash, asshole, I am

(I’m the asshole)

I need a sharper pencil- do you think a lobotomy joke will be appropriate when I request one orr?

I wonder if Prather has texted me. I’m supposed to sub on the 21st.

Yikes

Not looking forward to checking my bank account. I really spent a lot w/out giving a shit. It was freeing but I also haven’t worked in over a week + a half soooooo.

On homesickness is so dramatic but I love it. Makes me think of Taylor. (bc home, not the drama)

Also I think I’m getting fucking sick. Or, according to Lula (Flula) in 19, I’m getting hospital cooties.

7:27 am

I’m in TV room w/ singer. I asked what we’re watching and she said “some kind of cartoon”. She’s not screaming which is awesome. I’m going to read Wuthering Heights.

Almost 8

Called dad and asked him to bring me a pair of readers since my eyes hurt. Nice nurse #2 is here again. She’s blonde. I haven’t seen Maria again. Met another nurse too. She was young. Also there’s a fake nurse (fake nurses are in teal, like hair, and he real ones are in blue) who I def. know. Cant figure out from where, maybe high school? Either way, not cool with it. Also, they sharpened my pencil.

TIME TBD

Having a hard time focusing on reading. My eyes hut.

I don’t like waiting around.

Is it petty to point out inconsistencies in the rules? There’s different info on different sheets in the packet they gave us. Makes me wonder how closely these patients are reading it. Its all petty though, like whether or not we should take 5 or 10 minutes to use the phone or how many visitors we can have at a time.

I know myself too well, ill be bringing it up. I’m going to check on breakfast.

8:30ish

breakfast was sub par. Sat alone. New girl, sat w/ double lasagna. She only wanted milk so homeboy asked if he could eat hers! Has he learned nothing?? I ate pretty quick; I think I need to go back to sleep. I feel weird.

Time-?

Dr.?? (nice psychiatrist) came in and we talked. Started fine but I got really upset b/c of how much I feel like garbage and I don’t now if I want to be here. But also I don’t want to go back to the real world. She left and I went to go get a visteral 25 mg b/c I’m so upset. They gave it to me and when I got back to my room I 100% had a panic attack.

I felt like I was a kid again. Maybe its b/c I’m here but I’ve never been sure that what it was until now. They happened a lot as a kid and usually ended in my mom holding me and saying everything’s ok. Its so hard not having that now. I left my room and the med student from Sunday was in the hall and he came and talked to me until I calmed down.

With talking to them I finally feel like I’ve been able to verbalize how anxious I feel here along with how I feel about leaving. I just need to rest my eyes for right now, but when I’m up I need to write down what Dr. B said about when I get out.

I miss my parents.

Time unknown

Honestly can’t remember what happened next.

Social worker came in, she’s lovely. Talked a bit then I kept resting.

She gave me some info on how to stay grounded during a panic attack.

Then I think I went to the rec room to do a puzzle but then religion group started. I stuck around but then little dr came to get me and asked if I would meet with big table of doctors even though I hate it.

I did it but it made me upset again. They said they would come talk to me but they haven’t.

I fell asleep again then not Maria nurse came to tell me they’re gonna give me more adavan once my visteral wears off. Fell back asleep then got a drink/ate lunch.

My puzzle got hijacked so I brought a new one into my room. I hit a wall so I stopped to write all this down and go find out what they talked about it my meeting.

I think its around 1 pm.

2pm

Sat and watched how I met your mother for a little. Started crying. Asked a nurse when I was gonna get talked to when little doc came up. they gave me an adavan and now I’m waiting for him to come talk to me. the maid is making up Shauna’s old bed while I sit and cry. Very awk.

I don’t know why I keep crying. I just feel like I’m going to keep having these attacks. I feel so hopeless.

Still sitting here crying. Still no doctor.

My name is Abigail and I am safe. I am in the present and I am safe.

~505

lil doc came to talk to me and I got upset. I don’t understand what my next move is.

Just slept pretty hard until now then got dinner. Going back to sleep is very tempting.

I think I’m allowed another pill. What’s the point?

6:50 pm

I honestly don’t know what I’ve been doing since after dinner. I’ve been doing the puzzle in the TV room. I’ve been watching the office. I asked nice nurse if I could have another pill but she’s pretty sure she cane until its time for bed. My anxiety is pretty high right now my parents will be here in like an hour.

7 pm

officially been hoarding pencils. They say I can have an atavan at 10 pm for bed, but they gave me a V. im wondering if that’s going to help me sleep. They’re going to put me on abilify on top of my startera. I’m hoping they’ll give me some of this visteril to take home in case I start to freak.

Decided that in order to help me not get stressed I want someone to take my phone and ask me one by one about who texted/called/emailed and help me deal with it. Same w/ my bank statement.

I want to say I feel better, but I don’t know. Its just all a blur.

I want to see m parents so I can find out what the move is when I get out. Maybe a meeting with Andrea and social working and one of them would be cool.

I don’t want to get out after Taylor leaves. Fuck.

Double lasagna and biter left.

* is still here, and fake Abby is MIA.

New girl who I don’t know

New guy Brandon- wears vans

And tad who Mack warned me about. Apparently he called 911 on the nurses from the phones.

Bold move.

Fake Abby and I are friends. I think she’s lonely, I know she wants to be my roommate, but I can’t deal with that.

Now I just kill time until mom gets here.

930 ish?

Mom and dad came and I feel a bit better. Mom and I did our crossword puzzle and dad and I figured out grad school. I also had him assure me I don’t need to worry about $ right now.

I asked for a pen but they said no. but I STOLE ONE FROM MY DAD!!

Honestly its low on ink but just having it feels great.

Just called my mom and said goodnight to Mack. I feel ok. Mostly just shook b/c of how much of a dream this all feels like. But I’m ok. Time to crossword and eat my poptart like the star patient I am. And I’m gonna do it in god damn pen!

Goals for tomorrow-

- track when all meds taken

- get better at checking time

8am

slept like shit. But I think I might go home today?! I’m sick so my head fucking hurts. I dontknow what to think. I just want to sleep in my own bed.

11am

talked to dr. B + some of the team and I think I’ll just stay another night. It was hard for me to think of what I wanted to b/c I just woke up. but she made a good point that if I’m sick and drowsy it could be good to stay since they’ll change the time I get the abilify. I don’t know. Just very tired.

1109

Watching fresh prince. Thought there was gonna be group in here, but so far nothing. Fuck this.

Fake Abby told shirt he looks like Carlton and no shit he kind of does. He deadass did the dance while he was walking out. He thinks side burns were cool. Now singer is singing Elvis songs.

Newer girl is even scarier she’s very touchy. Seems like she doesn’t listen.

singer is standing directly in front of the tv. She threatened to fire the nurse that told her to stop.

Shirt is leaving today.

New girl just came in and snatched the stuff out of singer’s hands and then tried to talk to everyone. Now singer is out for blood. New girl is wild.

1140

going to lay in bed until lunch.

~12

slept a little until lunch. Hamburger and a coke.

I’m def staying another night. Thinking of some ideas for pickup since I need someone to go back to my apt w/ me.

I think that’s the move. And then if its horrible I can try to stay somewhere else. I’m thinking of asking my sisters. Idk. Might call some of them now.

I’m really just waiting to get something for my cough.

215

just slept super hard

even denied taking my cough meds so I could sleep more

I finally got into the rec room and unsurprisingly it was a disappointment.

Couldn’t find macks mark so I left.

Gonna go try to get more crossword

255

just called Chelsea, she said she would try to come over after work/talk to liv about doing the same. I just want to take a real shower.

Crazy Tad just said hi to me.

New girl (maid) is asleep sitting up, we’re watching that 70’s show.

My shirt smells like Keenan.

Also its almost snack!

Hmmmmm 4?

took a shower after smashing a poptart. The sheets they gave me to use as a bathmat smells like actual piss and shit- maybe I shouldn’t have wrapped myself in it.

A little before 5

Slept again. Got woken up for dinner. It was ok. God I’m so fucking tired.

I’m glad I’m writing everything down b/c its all such a blur.

Cant remember if I already wrong down that I talked to chels. I want help meal prepping and doing some laundry. Also someone to sleep over. I want my own bed, but I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want my phone. I don’t know what good anyone can do me right now until my meds get figured out. I don’t know!!

I met my new nurse, DD, who said I’m taking my abilify in an hour. Then I want my sleeping pills so I can konk out, ugh.

Time to lay down. Again.

I think I fell asleep again?

Went to get my abilify around 615. Panic attack happened again.

I can’t stop crying and I don’t want to be here anymore w/out talking to someone about all my regrets.

I think more than anything I’m really disappointed with how this whole thing is going down.

Just want to stop crying.

830 pm

calmed down. Kind of okay w/ leaving but also so anxious.

844

Singer has 12 different personalities.

About to go ask for my meds/follow up on what’s up w/ the nurse’s research

9ish

Ate a poptart. Nurse was doing meds so she hasn’t looked into anything. Took 2 hydroxizines (50 mg) + a 3 mg melatonin. Called dad, still not a grad student. Very frustrating. Everything sucks but its ok bc I am Abigail Nash and I am safe in the present. I am not in the past. The present. And there are people that love me.

Thursday

- if… because then

- one day at a time

9 am?

Had breakfast, found out I’m going home today.

Called mom + dad, and mom is gonna pick me up around 5

2 more free meals!

Getting a therapist is going to take a minute but I feel ok about it

Nurse Nadine is so sweet.

These people are getting the wildest thank you cards later.

930

I’m going to get a watch

I don’t like not always knowing the time

That fucking short haired nurse came in again and gave me shit for being in my room

Don’t know her name

But I don’t want to

I’m getting out here short haired lady! And I’m pulling out to win!

I’m getting sleepy, fuck

I have like 8 hours to kill

Soooo

Suddenly now that I know I’m getting out I feel like some kind of bubble has been burst and I feel semi normal

Am I really the Angelina Jolie of this place? Not actually Angelina, but her character from Girl Interrupted?

She’s hot in that too, though.

Final thoughts for now- RIP Brittany Murphy.

925

group- only going because nurse Nadine is leading it.

Tad gave a very sweet little speech about his dad

Grabby girl wouldn’t share, she it nuts

But now miss congeniality is on!!

1055

cute rec therapist let me into the rec room. I wrote

SCABZ

In big letters on the table, and made a picture frame. Also played ping pong with grabby. I’m not even going to go into how that went.

Update: grabby thinks I’m her mom

My best gift:

The gift of travel. Travel in the sense of moving, traveling to see a friend, or a friend traveling to see me. travel has allowed me to maintain friendships w/ people I usually wouldn’t. Another gift coming from travel is my best friend, Taylor who traveled to another state for school, where I met her. And the gift of going to visit my best friend in France a few years ago who I’ve known since I was 9.

~~~~ when the party is at it’s best, it’s time to leave the party ~~~~

- Tad’s ex-father-in-law

almost noon

Tad (ok turns out its not the Tad Mack was talking about) said some really good stuff in group and when he was talking about finding balance I said, “like the yin for your yang?” and he did not know what I was really talking about but it fit into the convo really well. So I started to draw him one and when it was over I gave it to him and he was really touched. I feel really good about it. It sucks I’m just now getting to go to group but I think my meds might be working b/c I haven’t gone back to sleep yet.

Also, they said I could keep 19!

I need to get some books together to donate. And some puzzles.

After lunch

Pulled pork. Singer change the channel on TV to cartoons. I see a nap in my future. Also brushing my teeth.

There’s a new kid, he’s gotta be newly 18 b/c he looks young.

Tried playing monopoly w/ Tad, maid, and new guy, but it devolved.

Thought he was cute but he might be nuts (shocker)

I said he was welcome to my books and he looks a mans search for meaning and I’m about to leave so I don’t think im getting it back.

Amanda wrote a nice note in it. That sucks. I gotta stop being so nice.

I asked them to give me a visterile and they did. I should be ready to rock when mom gets here.

430

did more painting- made a weird sign for door knobs. No sign of homeboy + my book. I kind of don’t want to leave, but I refuse to let myself have fomo in a place like this. Idk what the move is for my book. He better be reading it. I don’t want to leave before dinner so he can at least have a chance to say something to me about it.

Tad is really fun to hang out w/. he is really nice. We talked about grounding during panic attacks and he invited me to play monopoly and we talked about how it sucks that we all just started talking to each other but that’s also prob just a sign that the meds are working.

I saw he put my yin yang in the front of his journal. Very sweet.

This isn’t to say he isn’t totally nuts. Also, young guy said my voice reminded me of “stuff” what the fuck.

Grabber called me mom and tried to give me her hand.

2 notes · View notes

canaryatlaw · 7 years ago

Text

mmm. I have a lot of conflicting emotions about things right now. mostly nothing to actually do with today, just stuff that’s been floating around in my head and being exacerbated by not knowing what’s going to be my future. Like if it’s NY that’s going to be a whole new world I’ll have to adjust to, and even if I stay in Chi I have no idea what I’m going to do job wise. And everything being in flux like that just makes it so difficult to plan practically anything. And on top of that I just have so many messy emotions regarding friends and relationships and I’m trying to make sense of it all but my brain doesn’t work correctly because it’s actually depending on 3 different antidepressants to change the chemistry, so I can do more than literally just sleep all day like last summer. and antidepressants are great and I’m very thankful for them, but sometimes there are gaps, and things just don’t work right, or past experience makes you paranoid about certain behaviors and desperately trying to prevent the past from repeating itself while also trying very hard to not come off as clingy because I know that I can be very clingy and I really hate that. Trying to convince myself I’m not being purposefully excluded which I know in all rational thought I’m not, but my mind is not always rational and has such feelings anyway. Sigh. Anyway, that's enough rambling, I should actually talk about my day now. It was fine, pretty good. I woke at I want to say 10:22, and before I looked at the clock I thought it was much earlier than that, like 6 am but no it was later so I got up and had some breakfast, after which I got in the shower to continue the whole morning shower thing (and omg, my bangs looked so good all day, I’m so obsessed with them). My normal hair routine is to use shampoo every day, then every 3 days use the special color depositing conditioner I have, as recommended by my hair stylist to keep it from being oily, and it’s worked pretty well so far. I only brought the conditioner with me because shampoo is shampoo for the most part, and after I used the stuff they had here my hair had a very weird feeling to it, like hard and would like, make noises and shit if you pressed against it lol, so I took a very tiny amount of conditioner and worked it through my hair which seemed to help a lot. My mom, my uncle, and I ended up going to this giant mall not too far from them (my aunt was totally pooped from partying yesterday and just wanted to sleep). It was pretty cool, a really big place, so we mostly just walked around there for a bit and went in different stores. We got some lunch in the food court from a soup and salad place that I’m pretty sure has places in Chicago, I got the crab and corn chowder which was very good, there was a hint of spice but strangely enough it wasn’t the burn my tongue spice but more like I could just feel it in my mouth afterwards. Idk, it was weird. We took a look in Brookstone trying to find something for my dad being that father’s day is next weekend and his birthday is two days after that (both my mom and my dad have birthdays super close to mother’s day and father’s day respectively, which is very convenient tbh 😂) because he likes their kind of gadgets and such, but they didn’t really have much, just like, stuff for a grill, speakers, and a bunch of different massage centered products, so that was a bust. We ultimately ended up leaving without buying anything (which is honestly rather impressive) but we drove back and stopped at a Tim Horton’s on the way, because Michigan, I got a small white hot chocolate because of course I can’t have coffee, and we chilled out in there for a bit before going to the house. Upon arrival we all just chilled for a while, and eventually got around to the topic of dinner, there wasn’t much in way of options at the house since my aunt was down for the count, so we ended up getting chinese food that I ordered online and my uncle and mom went to go get. I’m finding that the term “lo mein” can have many different interpretations depending on where you are ordering it, because several times in Chicago I’ve had types that didn’t match the one I’m used to, and this was one of those as well. It was still pretty good though, and I ate rice and fortune cookies and all that good stuff. By the time we finished it was about 7:30, and we watched a little tv before switching over to the Tony Awards!!! Which I realize I did not liveblog on here at all lol, I had to make a decision if I wanted to live tweet it on my main internet peeps account or my IRL people’s account, and I ended up going with the latter because that’s where my actual theatre people were. Overall I thought it was pretty good, Josh Groban and Sara Bareilles were great hosts. This review is probably not going to be in chronological order of the show, just warning you now. When they honored the Parkland drama teacher for hiding SIXTY FIVE FUCKING CHILDREN in her office for two hours before the all clear was given, and of course she should be credited as many of the more outspoken student advocates from Parkland were in the drama program and credit it for giving them the means from which it express their opinions. man, I cried so damn much. And then they had them all sing, SING, ONSTAGE, AT THE TONYS, as high schoolers, man, that has got to be such a dream come true. The girl who had the Joanne solo towards the end of the song fucking KILLED IT, I was watching knowing she had the high note at the end and I’m just thinking please don’t crack please don’t crack and she didn’t, she fucking NAILED it in an incredible show of talent, like dude, that’s insane. So I enjoyed that part of it. It was interesting that Mean Girls performed so early on. I was wondering what song they were going to do, and I understand why they chose what they did as it featured most of the cast, but I also think it wasn’t the strongest song(s) in the show, so that wasn’t all that helpful. Taylor Louderman sounded either very nervous or sick, her voice was pretty shaky, but she pulled through. I fucking lost it at Karen, I knew just from listening to the OBCR that she was perfect for the role, and tonight just confirmed that, she was great. I wish my girl Janis got to do more (I had been thinking maybe they'd do Revenge Party) but at least she got in there. Other things, let’s see, I hadn't heard of The Band’s Visit until tonight, so I certainly wasn’t expecting them to largely sweep the awards, I guess the voters (or whoever determines the winners) were really feeling it. Not gonna lie, Hailey Kilgore from Once On This Island was fucking ROBBED for the leading actress Tony, she had a stellar performance and she totally deserved it. Loved their number as much as I did when I saw the show back in January. Frozen was interesting on a few different levels. I had been thinking about how they were going to split the musical into two acts, and how Let It Go might be too early in the story to make it the act one finale, but there’s no way in hell you’re going to get an act one finale that even holds a candle to it. So I looked it up and they ended up just making Let It Go their act one finale, probably a good choice. When I saw they were doing for the first time in forever I was like oh we’re gonna end up switching to Let It Go, they had to, so of course I was right and they did, and man, they nailed it so well. It was clear they had to get that scene exactly right if they wanted to be taken seriously as a show, and they managed to find an actress who can actually hit the notes on a level comparable to Idina Menzel, because if she didn't that’s all anyone would be talking about. But she fucking killed that song, made it her own, and even managed to hit an extra high note that was not in the movie score, I was really impressed and I might go see it honestly, I’m trying to think, I wasn't as engaged with the performances of shows I’m not terribly familiar with, Carousel had a great dance number but I didn’t get much else out of it. The Spongebob number was......something alright, I mean if nothing else he certainly did a great job embodying Squidward, so there’s that. I’m trying to think if I have anymore feedback but it’s 1 am here and my eyes really want to close so I’m gonna try to keep it short. The De Niro thing was fucking hilarious and I love that it happened. I am cautiously curious about the harry potter play, I know a lot of fans thought it was trash, but it did do fairly well awards wise so there might be some good in there. Alright, that’s the end of my day and that’s it for now, my eyes really want to be close so that is what I’m going to do. Goodnight my lovely friends, Good luck on your Monday.

#daily journal #June 2018

2 notes · View notes

eldermillarmissionblog · 4 years ago

Text

Service Week

Good afternoon everyone! :) Hope y'all have had a great week!

Here are some updates on life in great Scottsdale, Arizona:

We had service literally everyday this week. We helped dig out a bunch of mud from a koi pond (pretty much just fish poop), helped two people move, dug up a bunch of weeds, painted some flower boxes, and teamed up with a food bank to help deliver food to those in need. It's been great to do so much service but our time to do study has been very limited…haha.

Yesterday I had the wonderful opportunity to give a talk in our Spanish branch. We were not given much notice so preparation time was limited, but I am grateful for the Spirit’s help in guiding my words. I love speaking in Spanish and I love the people. We had a pretty good amount of people at church, too, which was great to see. Even one of our friends, Antonio, was there! We were quite surprised because during our last couple visits he didn't seemed too interested, but he has been warming up over time. We are excited to keep teaching him. :)

Transfer news:

We had interviews with our mission president this week and he gave us transfer leaks. I'll be staying here in the Camelback Dos branch and I will be getting a new companion. We still don't know some things, like where Elder Smith is getting transferred, who my new companion is, or if I will still be covering the English ward, but we will get all those details this Saturday night. I've learned a lot this transfer -- about myself, how to teach better, how to be more patient, and how to love more. I feel like I have learned what God intended me to learn these last 6 weeks and I am excited to carry this knowledge forward to this next companionship. I'll be honest, it has been a hard transfer, but that is what I needed to grow. My grandpa often says: "There is very little growth in your comfort zone, and there is very little comfort in your growth zone." I've seen the reality of this statement lately, and I'm grateful for it. I have been pushed out of my comfort zone and it hasn't been very comfortable, but that is just what I needed. :)

Spiritual thought:

For my spiritual thought today I want to start out by sharing a quote I really like from a 2015 General Conference talk by Elder Andersen. He says:

Your faith will grow not by chance, but by choice. How we live our lives increases or diminishes our faith. Prayer, obedience, honesty, purity of thought and deed, and unselfishness increase faith. Without these, faith diminishes. Why did the Savior say to Peter, “I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not”? Because there is an adversary who delights in destroying our faith! Be relentless in protecting your faith.

I love this quote as it really shows the importance of us perpetually exercising and seeking to strengthen our faith each day.

As somewhat of an analogy:

The strength of our faith and testimonies is not like a bank account. We cannot read our scriptures, say our prayers, etc., just for a few days or weeks and then assume we have put enough "spiritual dollars" in our bank account for now and stop doing those things. If we do that, when doubts or trials arise we will try to withdraw from that bank account only to find it empty. As Elder Andersen points put, our faith is either increasing or diminishing. There is no middle ground.

Brothers and sisters, I have seen too many people fall away from the church and lose their faith because they quit doing the simple things. If we will read the Book of Mormon every day, pray every day, attend church and partake of the sacrament every week, we can develop the faith and testimony to overcome ANYTHING! That doesn't mean life will be easy. In fact, it is often more difficult to do these things than to not. But it is worth it. Please read. Please pray. Please go to church. And do it consistently. Don't allow tiredness, lack of motivation, time, or work to impede you from doing these things. Have the faith to push forward and to what the Lord has asked us to do. I can promise you blessings of more peace and happiness in your personal lives and in the lives of your family; the ability to look at things from new perspectives and conquer your trials with the help of the Savior; perform better in every aspect of your lives (physically, academically, and with work); and most of all you will find the Savior. I promise that as a representative of the Lord, Jesus Christ. In His name, amen.

I love you all. You all are amazing. Stay happy and stay true! :)

Love,

Elder Millar

Pic: me and Elder Orton (the legend)

0 notes

w1737087 · 4 years ago

Text

1st June

Sipped on mango juice through the night.

Up at around 9 from mother’s rigid voice and all her disputes with father.

Got up shut the door and shut the window. I could still hear her.

I finally placed multiple orders on ear buds..

Today she thinks dads out with a woman

I put on back to sleep playlist and later fell asleep. It was hard work, to fall asleep,

Dad called. I ignored it.

Kay called. I ignored it.

Up before 3pm and out of bed by 3

I cried before sleeping from all the frustration and triggering the sack of thoughts about my never ending tribulations and vast entrapment by mother.

Dreams? A little fucked up.

Shambolic scenarios being slammed in and out of one from another.

Killing bunnies?

Interrupted sex dream?

Other weird & hectic shit happened I cannot recall but I remember being sucked in by my pillows into some visions like a vacuum literally PULLING my face in. This happened twice and funny thing, I was in my mind REALISING it but also having the want to not... wake up because of it so I gave in again. It soon..was getting intense. Not scary but just hitting the red meter and I thought I’d burst and die and mentally I recited my shahada. Again, no fear, just intensity. Who dreams like this? For someone who dreams a lot this was something new I experienced.

When I woke all I concluded was that I really wanted to sleep. I hadn’t gotten enough and knew I wanted to get some more to meet the amount I should have gotten.

By 4pm completed the last mask sitting in the bed in my parents room.

Packed it up got ready. The little one tagged along. Dad came home and stormed back out. Mother has been fighting over the phone with him since the morning disrupting my sleep. I can hear her all day as I get on with my own day.

We went to post office to drop the mask sack off. Learnt what postage stamps are really for. A source of posting currency. Second band I sent it. Dad actually waited near the shops on the way there spontaneously, he called and we hopped in.

He took us McDonalds and we ate sitting in beckton car park. It was hot.

The little un wanted to return her books and I also needed to go to the high street.

We didn’t do either and I felt bad for not having taken her where I told her we’d go.

She also mentioned the zoo recently and I said a couple weeks time.

I’ve got to tell work I ain’t working my usual days then I’ll plan the zoo.

The car park is pretty empty. Around us boxed tarmac and in front upgraded stores.

Dads wearing a half sleeved shirt and

I wanted a fag as he had his.

I sat at the front, the little one at the back.

She talks about newspapers and her friends hand drawing being in today’s paper. She wanted to see. Dad only had dated ones.

I had one in my hands now and decided to do a crossword puzzle and a sudoku. I was really into the crossword as we arrived home.

We came home and through the journey dad talked about mother’s behaviour and she called a couple times and I didn’t like it. She is just so bothersome. Rightfully so but to witness it and know enough of what’s going on I’d without a doubt shove a muzzle on my mother for life and let my dad be. She would also be settled by this. Then I would be and that’s my main motive.

6pm

Tried to poop. Fail.

Eldest was in the shower. She was prompt.

Middle one wanted to go. I got out unbothered as i couldn’t go.

Came up

18:10

Lit up out the window.

My heart does that thing again.

Somethings deeply wrong. Inside of me I know for a fact there’s a riot, flaccid tears, somewhere along in the past couple weeks or further back I malfunctioned.

I don’t know if this is anxiety or not but I find myself alone and noticing my heart beating at an abnormal rate. It is everything but peace. I feel horrifyingly unsettled. I’ve got the essays I’ve got to write on my mind. It’s a factor in play as well as the wrecked sleep and I just feel so so insufferable these days. I can’t stop it, I try to be calm, I seem calm, I tell myself calm, I am so, but just as I am, I am entirely not all fine. Whatcwr this is I need it stop. My motner and her aura, ber behaviour which wrecks my sleep every morning as well as being underpaid at work and so many otber reasons. I cannot seem to stabilise myself correctly enough anymore. Everytime I want to yell at my parents it goes down mentally and when with them individually it’s to come out as I would be deemed crazy to blurt these issues out at the wrong times. At the right time it doesn’t work either. Either their good mood or their something is in the way. I’m doing so many things wrong and i just feel I’m in the middle of an identity crisis too. I don’t go to uni, I picture my desk and have no clue what’s there, I don’t go so label it as I can’t go, my baby sis is growing up and I haven’t been there, day by day I still feel I’m doing wrong by her, now that I’ve started work I’ve wasted time to better things with her. I don’t want to be here in this house and nobody will let me leave. I have no one to speak to because speaking to people is all that’s ever done, they hear they listen but they just don’t know the root of my problems and I am just beyond in need of help. How do I survive another year of this and manage to build the money and courage to move myself out of here, i don’t want grey hairs, if they show up I’ll know I’m damaging rn and I want to be settled if anything for now, for whatcwr this feeling inside of my chest is to mellow. It’s hectic between my rib cage there and my mind is swell. They are not in sync. I am not fine. Summer always had me feeling a type of way too. It’s a very very fine day and I want it but I feel once it comes around every year I’m not a part of it. Ever. It’s like it’s always for the world except for me. I cannot indulge in it enough to feel like it’s for me too.

The house is empty for now. Just us girls. Parents gone out to get some papers for the little one.

They may be back. I don’t know. I’m in my room holed up.

Mood today:

Absolutely off

Down

Unsettled, torn.

18:40 tbwy levaw. The sisters now. I’m all alone. It’s Such a rarity I don’t have time to pick what to do. Today’s agenda was to begin emailing Stewart and getting started on something to do with the essays.

I’m still dressed.

I cleaned up the powder that fell to the ground dispersing into a thousand pieces from my compact blush case.

I remember growing massively agitated over it as it was a fat mess and it fell like they always somehow accidentally do due to lack of space here and how I always always mentally be careful to not let them fall and they do anyway.AND I GET WO MAD

🆘

Recap

Been a busy day. Productive.

Moved extension cord back. Had to move alll my shoes and did rearrange them better seeing as the few at the bottom were damaging by the compression.

Tidied the messy tower of clothes on my chair.

Emptied the underwear drawers and distributed everyone’s own to their own rooms. Assigned the two empty drawers to the little one now. She needs the space.

Liphi went for her lip filler appointment today with Nam who didn’t wanna go with.

We FaceTimed later around 9:45 for a bit.

Her lips are bruised.

I cleaned the floor. Emptied the bin, enjoyed the brief empty house before bleaching and washing my shirts.

Shuffled some things around

Tidied the bedside table and some of the drawer, moved all the bundles of colour pencils and placed them in my art box under the bed, the drawer now has better space but still clogged as usual.

Opened a package which held my sports bras that I wanted more of after having one. They stabilise my breasts well.

The little one stayed by me as I cleaned my room. She was refolding her clothes all very neatly for their new place.

She went out with my parents when the house was empty to collect madrasah forms and tbwy went shopping at galleons. From H&M she bought a sky blue dress, trackies with hearts on them, pink sliders with cartoon slapped on and a pair of leggings.

Meals:

Macdonnas in the car with dad

Late night lasagne. 00:30

Ice cream from truck - sister bought after I sorted out everyone’s underwear with the little one in parents room. She sat in her car much of that hour.

Brain kicker

A nutty Lindt bar and I just ain’t taking care of my body anymore am I in terms of eating matter..

Notes

Sneezed 3 times

Thought about that bee lad at today.

Remembering to take my vitamins.

Killed my first mosquito tonight and seeing more than a couple. This means summer has officially kicked in.

Almost burnt the entire microwave down and could have blown a fuse. I placed my lasganve in and the wrapped food pack it was in caught fire immediately and I lunged at the push button.

Couldn’t blow the flames off as they were too great. Tossed it in the sink quickly and splashed water all over it which went everywhere too.

I was very alarmed. I don’t find myself in such situations that cause panic ever really.

Didn’t go to the Palestine protests as there were fights breaking out and harm occurring with the movement.

Humayra’s in the bathroom at midnight when I’ve already set my clothes in there and was ready to shower. I went back up for something and did an arm workout for 30 minutes or so including some rnr

I didn’t like that she was in there at this hour, why is it every time I need the bathroom she utilises it. I felt aggravated and those thoughts immediately crept in that I need out, I need my own place where I can get shit done without wasting these few minutes a couple hundred times a day of everyday due to others. It’s literally slowing my life down and she’s in the way of my kitchen and bathroom use, more so the latter this season.

So I showered, scrubbed my face, ears, in between toes and all and finally done with my day around 3am

0 notes

etraytin · 4 years ago

Text

Quarantine, Day 170-171

August 28-29

So the story here is that I started writing a journal entry last night and realized I was becoming literally incoherent from falling asleep at the computer, so I went to bed. Luckily, it saved as a draft on my computer, so here is that draft, followed by today's entry: "I am writing the journal very late this evening because I have been busy with Projects. Project one is, of course, the continuing weaning of the kittens. After a day and a half of introducing them to the idea of kitten food as food, I am now presenting it to them at mealtimes, stimulating them so their bellies are empty, and then leaving them with the food for half an hour before coming back with the bottle. They are very displeased with the lackadaisical service around this joint, but Robinton is already eating slurry and wet food very well, and Sebell pretty well. No appreciable progress from the girls but they are still gaining weight so that is good.

Tonight's other project is my terribly illegal effort to acquire geolocked Canadian podcasts from the CBC. =O Way back in the day, I listened to a Sunday Edition series called 20 Pieces of Music That Changed the World. It was an awesome series, super interesting and explored a lot of types of music that I had never thought much about the wider societal impact of. Unfortunately, when I went back for a relisten, it had been geolocked because they played a lot of complete tracks of copyrighted music in order to examine and analyze them."

So that's pretty much what happened yesterday, or at least enough as to make no nevermind. I was so tired because I had stayed up nearly all night on Thursday between a virtual response Red Cross call and a fanfiction read-along for one of my favorite authors that unfortunately was in Pacific time. It led to a very sleepy day, but sometimes you just have to do something slightly unwise simply because it is fun and you haven't had enough fun lately. Plus I felt pretty smart about staying up so late when the Red Cross called at 2am and I was already awake and at my computer. Go me, so alert!

Today was a generally good day in which not a lot happened. The kiddo has gotten two nights of good sleep after we decided that all electronics will spend the night in my room so as not to provide temptation in the wee small hours. He's also back on his lower-dose medication but it is obviously helping. Today he was able to play with Legos and concentrate on Minecraft, plus he also cleaned the bathroom for the first time in ages. (His bathroom and bedroom are worth quite a few internet points to keep clean, and are a good indicator of his general motivation level.) During Power Hour, we picked out a family-friendly Minecraft server from a list so that he could do some multiplayer Minecraft even though I can't get it to run on my computer. He really enjoyed himself a lot!

For my own part, I spent a lot of today on the kittens, where weaning is proceeding at a fairly good pace, with two kittens doing great and two kittens extremely reluctant. I can live with this because Sebell and Robinton now require very little bottle at all, saving precious formula resources for the little girls. I'm halfway through the last of my Breeder's Edge formula after I got a number of extremely generous donations in May when I had Rosa and Jackie. That formula has lasted me through those two, the Gaang, and these four, so it went a long way but now it's nearly gone. I think I can probably beg some off the people at the spay/neuter clinic if I have to, but that might get complicated because they have a zillion kittens right now too. The further I can make my supply go, the better! I've got plenty of wet food though, so the boys can absolutely chow down on that to their fat little hearts' content.

(And hey, if anybody would like to throw another can of formula my way, it's on my wishlist on Amazon, it's the Breeder's Edge Foster Care Formula. It's expensive as hell, but it works _so well._ You should see the poops on these guys!)

I also made a small amount of progress on cleaning, though tomorrow's project is definitely going to have to be laundry. I got through several more episodes of illicit Canadian podcasts as well, very exciting! I also played a lot of mindless little app games and set a terrible example for my child, but we did stay in the house, safe and socially isolated. Good job, us! Got to talk to MIL on the phone a little and she is doing better, starting walking practice and eating much better than she did in the hospital. It's very good news! My husband reports that the neighbor kids have taken it upon themselves to pick Nana's blueberry bushes and bring him most of the proceeds, so he has something like eight pints of fresh blueberries to do something with. Not a bad problem to have, really!

#quarantine #foster kittens #weaning #illicit canadian podcasts

3 notes · View notes

butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway · 7 years ago

Text

I know that I've stopped talking about this publicly for a while but I figured I would update folks.

Continuing to eat regularly is hard. I don't quite feel like I'm constantly eating anymore, but it's not far off from that.

If I try to eat healthy foods, I tend to way undercut my calorie goals. Like by 500 calories or more. There just.....isn't that many calories in vegetables. Which sucks because if I could subsist off of tomatoes and berries and yogurt and chicken strips, I'd be way happier than trying to eat bagels and muffins and sandwiches.

I poop so fucking much. Like 2-3 times per day. It's so weird. I honestly think that the most distressing sign of how little I was eating is that I used to only poop every other day or so unless I was having severe gastro-intestinal problems.

Because I can now enjoy the act of pooping multiple times on a daily basis, I basically never crave Taco Bell anymore. This leads me to believe that the comedy bit about "you did if you don't shit and you die if you don't say you're not a Nazi" may have been into a strange truth about our digestive system.

Now that I'm filling my belly with food, staying hydrated has become a genuine problem. No amount of setting multiple bottles full of drinkables near me at work has improved this and at this point I'm not sure what I can do besides wait it out.

Eating enough is expensive and food goes bad so quickly.

I am still stuck at about 1800 calories and I have never felt so sane. I don't know how to describe what the difference feels like, but I no longer feel feral all the time. There was a solid two hours today where I was able to work on my projects and not feel distracted or unfocused or frantic or dissociated. I sleep regularly and well and wake up significantly more functional now. Once, I had enough energy to do some dishes, cook, walk the dog, and still go to the store, even though I'd already been at work for nine hours that day.

I shower and brush my teeth almost daily and I'm paying a little better attention to getting the house tidy.

The concept of fasting for Yom Kippur terrifies me. I don't think I can do it. I don't know how to explain this to anybody around me and I am scared to be asked why I chose not to. I still have not gone to the doctor even though I know I need to.

My weight is fluctuating so drastically. I'm seeing bloat-deflate cycles with a difference of four inches in my waist band, and that's not even touching on how voluminous my pants legs feel around my thighs these days.

I genuinely get less acne now. This is unexpected and a true blessing.

It has been 37 days since I had anything even remotely resembling a period. Around day 25 I took a pregnancy test that came back soundly negative. Since then, I have had unprotected sex a few times. I am afraid to know whether or not a new pregnancy test would return another negative result.

I am still so tired and psychologically damaged. My anxiety continues to be through the roof. The major difference appears to be in how present I am psychologically while it happens. I am both overjoyed and so fucking frustrated by this. Anxiety is ten times worse when you're actually there for it.

I am no where near at a sufficient, regular caloric intake rate. I am still 500 calories per day shy of a minimum healthy rate, and that's on a good day. There are days when I can still barely force myself through 800 calories. On those days, I inhale junk food and choke down muscle milk in a desperate attempt not to send my body on a metabolic roller coaster. It is disgusting and uncomfortable and I hate it.

I want to be better. Like....genuinely of my own volition give a shit about my own well being. This has literally never been true for me in my conscious memory. I wouldn't give this new feeling up for anything.

#ravi talks about body issues #an update in the briefly abandoned saga of me being a fuck up

21 notes · View notes

distant-rose-archive-blog · 8 years ago

Text

Emma Swan vs. The Bake Sale

Note: I don’t normally update two days in a row but this prompt was too good to pass up. imhookedonaswan on AO3 made a comment on one of the prior installments about Emma bringing store brought brownies to a baked sale with judgmental moms and I really couldn’t pass it up. It was just too brilliant for me to let slip through my fingers so I decided to write it. Anyway, thanks again @welllpthisishappening for always lending an ear and constantly reading blocks of text that I send your way. You’re amazing. Summary: Emma Swan is the Savior, the Sheriff of Storybrooke, a daughter, a sister, a wife and a mother of five children. Her life is a bit hectic. God forbid, she bring store bought brownies to the youth football bake sale. Rating: T Word Count: 5,500+

Before she got married, Emma Swan admittedly thought about how her life would be if she survived the Final Battle. She had fantasized about an idyllic life where Killian and she only had to battle a monster once a week, would go to Henry’s track meets, eat dinner with her parents and have an absurd amounts of sex on a daily basis. She had imagined that she and Killian would have a few years to grow comfortable with each other before deciding whether or not they would have children. And even more admittedly, Emma had imagined that they would have one or maybe two kids, a boy and a girl preferably, and they would be beautiful, charming but respectful of their parents and wouldn’t get into too much trouble. (She always assumed that any child of theirs would have some mischief in them, but would be smart enough not to do something crazy like perhaps steal their grandfather’s sword and go swinging it around like it was a baton. Seriously.)

That was a fantasy though, and some deity up there on Mount Olympus had seen those fantasies and laughed their ass off because that was not the reality that Emma Swan was granted.

The reality was that Emma Swan and her family only ate with her parents twice a week, Henry had quit track during sophomore year to run the school newspaper and while she still had a healthy sex life, it was constantly interrupted by her four (yes, four, she was still uncertain how they had managed to get that number) small children who didn’t seem to understand the meaning of a closed door. Those same children, of course, were beautiful and charming, but they didn’t often understand the meaning of the word ‘respect’ and they seemed to get into trouble more often than they were out of it. Emma was now very familiar with the school principal, who seemed to have her on speed dial, and her family health insurance now covered absurd things like “falling off a roof” and “accidentally eating harmful paints” because apparently, she needed that. She’s pretty certain that the Emma Swan of eleven years ago would be terrified of the reality she had been given and would have gotten her tubes tied.

It wasn’t that Emma hated how her life had gone since the Final Battle had been won. She adored her life, her husband and her kids, but sometimes she just wanted a day off or at least a twenty-minute nap. That’s all she asked for. Well, maybe she also wanted for a clean kitchen too. And a magic proof cookie jar. And a vacuum that could actually pick up dog and cat hair. And a way to detect if a suspicious brown stain was chocolate or poop. Okay, she wanted a lot of things, but at the moment, she really, really, really wanted that nap and it was only nine in the morning.

“Sometimes I envy you. You have nothing to do except eat and sleep,” Emma whispered to her youngest son as she attempted to get him to eat the chopped strawberries she had prepared him for breakfast. At six months of age, Neddy was just starting to eat solid foods and he was showing himself to be just as fickle as his older siblings. “I would kill for either right now.”

“Bah,” Neddy replied in the same eloquent fashion of all babies who hadn’t learned to speak yet.

He batted Emma slightly on the nose was his strawberry coated fist and looking up at her with unblinking and impossibly blue eyes. Neddy’s eyes were nearly identical to Killian’s and Wes’s eyes and now that he had hit the sixth month mark, Emma was certain they would stay that way instead of going green like Harrison’s and Beth’s.

“Bah is right,” Emma agreed with a nod of her head, holding a strawberry up in front of his mouth in hopes he would take the bait. “You are a man of many words, Neddy Jones. A gentleman and a scholar. Now if only you would eat as well as you talk.”

“You know he can’t actually talk right?” Emma’s eight-year old son Wes called as he entered the kitchen. “Because he can’t. If you were expecting him to, then you might want to talk to a doctor.”

Emma sighed, rolling her eyes and turning to give Wes a very unimpressed look.

“When did you learn to become such a wise guy?” she asked, her voice sounding incredibly tired even to her own ears.

“Birth,” Wes replied, making a beeline to the cookie jar and putting his hand in to take one of the last remaining Girl Scout cookies in the house.

“That explains a lot,” Emma remarked before she realized what Wes was doing. “Hey! Put that cookie back, kid! It’s literally nine in the morning. House rules! No cookies before noon.”

“Dad had one this morning so I don’t know what house rules you’re talking about,” Wes replied defensively.

None of this surprised Emma; Wes arguing with her or her husband eating cookies at nine in the morning. Killian had a massive sweet tooth and an intense fondness for Girl Scout cookies. In fact, Emma had taken to hiding them to keep him for eating them all, especially the Tagalongs which were her favorite. Wes, on the other hand, seemed to want to argue and fight with them every step of the way and Emma was dreading his teenaged years, which were right around the corner.

“Your father is an adult and rules don’t apply to him,” Emma replied, still not impressed with his arguing skills. “You’re a child and you’re going to put that cookie back or so help me Westley Graham Jones, I will make you regret it.”

“Fine,” Wes muttered, putting the cookie back in the jar and giving her a dirty look.

He practically stomped his way over to the cupboard that held all of the cereal and Emma half the mind to tell him off for the attitude but she was still incredibly tired from Beth being sick all night and Neddy refusing to fall asleep and it just wasn’t worth it. If the kid wanted to be an ungrateful brat, then Emma would let him be an ungrateful brat.

“Is Henry coming to my game today?” Harrison asked, walking into the kitchen and looking at Emma with hopeful eyes.

He was dressed in football gear, looking bigger and older than his ten years, which was a good thing Emma supposed because her father had insisted he play for the U12 team instead of the U10 team so he and Neal could play together. Emma was almost certain that David wanted to groom her giant sweetheart of a kid into a Division One talent. The thought made her inwardly snort. It was a fool’s errand. The kid didn’t have a mean bone in his body.

“Not this time, kiddo,” Emma replied with a sympathetic smile. “He’s still in Seattle this weekend, but I’m sure he will try to make it next weekend. You know that he loves being there for you.”

“Oh okay,” Harrison mumbled, immediately wilting at the news and walking towards the counter with his shoulders slumped to get bread for toast.

It broke her heart that he was so upset about it. Her two oldest boys were incredibly close despite the rather large age gap. Henry was without a doubt Harrison’s hero and at times a source of confidence. Harrison always seemed to be less shy and surer of himself whenever Henry was around. Archie was currently working on a way to make Harrison less anxious without Henry, but so far it seemed to be a fruitless endeavor.

“Hey,” Emma placed her hand on Harrison’s shoulder pads. “Just because Henry isn’t there doesn’t mean you aren’t going to totally rock today. I bet you anything that Grandpa David is going put you on both the offensive and defensive line and if you get seven tackles, which you totally can, I will buy you ice cream. Pinky promise. Sound good?”

“You have strawberry on your nose,” Harrison mumbled, not really answering her.

Emma brought her hand up to her face and sure enough, she had mushed strawberry on her nose. She sighed and wiped it against her sleep-shirt. She didn’t want to add any dish rag to the dirty pile and she was going to put her shirt in the laundry later anyway.

“How come you don’t buy me any ice cream when I score goals in soccer?” Wes asked, still in a foul mood.

If there was anything that Emma had learned over the years, it was that parenting multiple children at the same time was hard; almost impossibly hard. Each child was different and needed a different style. Harrison needed constant encouragement and help with his self-esteem while Wes, who had no confidence issues to speak of and was nearly as wild as a Lost Boy, needed a firm hand to keep him from exploding up his own face. Beth also needed a firm tending to because she had a mischievous streak of her own, but seemed to work better under Killian’s handling than Emma’s. Neddy, who couldn’t walk or talk yet, thank the gods, was an unknown factor at this point. She was slightly hoping that he would become a mild-mannered nerd who didn’t need much handling at all.

Her kids didn’t necessarily seem to get that they were different and needed to be treated differenlyt. It wasn’t uncommon for them, namely Wes, to complain or imply that there was favoritism towards certain members of the family over others. It often made Emma want to scream.

“Well, if you score three goals, then I will buy you ice cream too, okay?” Emma replied in the most patient tone she could muster at the moment.

“Two goals, not three,” Wes countered.

“This isn’t a negotiation, kid. Hat trick or nothing,” Emma said firmly.

“Bah!” Neddy cried, picking up the leftover strawberries in front of him and tossing them across the table, which Emma had just cleaned not even twenty minutes ago. It seemed her youngest was feeling a little left out of the conversation.

Emma sighed and closed her eyes, quietly counting to ten to keep from screaming. This was her happy ending. Her life was great. She had wonderful husband and children that sometimes acted like normal human beings. This was a tiny bump in the road compared to dealing with curses, evil witches, psychotic villains and the sort. Or at least that’s what she kept telling herself.

Just as Emma was starting to calm down, her husband’s voice cut sharply through the kitchen.

“I don’t think so, Westley Graham Jones. Put the cookie back in the jar.”

Emma opened her eyes to see Killian standing by the doorway with a pale looking Beth on his hip. He was glaring at their son, looking nearly as exhausted as Emma. The son in question looked guilty as hell, hand outstretched. There was no cookie in his hand, but there was one levitating in the air not too far from his fingers.

“You got to be kidding me?” Emma exclaimed in exasperation, bringing her hand up to her forehead before it ran back through her hair. “Kid! I told you like five minutes ago, no cookies before noon!”

Emma snapped her fingers and the cookie disappeared, returning back to its home in the cookie jar. Wes pouted, not even looking remotely sorry, which really got on Emma’s nerves because he had deliberately disobeyed her.

“But Dad ate a cookie this morning!” He repeated his earlier argument. “I saw him!”

“Westley, did you buy the cookies?” Killian asked in a tired tone.

“No.” Wes answered sourly.

“Are you above the age of eighteen?” Killian continued.

“No.”

“Do you pay taxes for this house or anything in this house?”

“No.”

“Then you don’t get make any decisions in regard to cookie eating,” Killian concluded, giving him a firm look while also running his fingers down Beth’s back. “In fact, because I can say ‘yes’ to all of those questions, I’m going to make a cookie eating decision now. And you’re not getting any for the rest of the weekend.”

“For real?” Wes asked, looking very dismayed.

“For real,” Killian confirmed, looking like he really wanted to roll his eyes. He then turned his attention to their daughter who was still resting on his hip. “Think you’re ready to come down, love?”

“Yeah.” Beth’s voice is a bit on scratchy side, but she climbed down from Killian’s side with ease.

Killian placed his hand on Beth’s forehead for a moment, frowning to himself before allowing his fingers to make their way through her long dark hair. He looked a pinch concerned and Emma could only assume that her fever was still running high.

“You’re still warm, Minnow, are you sure that you’re feeling alright?” Killian asked gently.

“I’m good,” Beth mumbled, leaning into his touch. “Pirate queens can’t be sick. You said so yourself.”

“They can if they’re only six-years old and have been throwing up all night. I don’t want you making yourself worse. Can’t run a crew if you’re running yourself ragged,” Killian replied, leaning down to plant a kiss on Beth’s forehead.

“I’m tough,” Beth said stubbornly, puffing out her chest and standing a little taller as if that pose would somehow convince her father that she was, indeed, tough.

Of course, Beth didn’t realize that Killian already thought she was the toughest bean in the world and had proven so when she was only two. Emma wasn’t ever going to forget how Beth had hit her head against a ceiling fan when she had been on Killian’s shoulders and how they had rushed her to the emergency room to get stitches. Instead of crying when the doctor had been sticking the needle into her skin, she had growled at him. Emma remembered vividly Killian’s look of disbelief and laughter when he realized their toddler was more pissed off than scared about getting stitches on her face. “That’s a tough lass,” he had commented, pride filling his voice rather than guilt.

“I know,” Killian responded while placing another kiss on Beth’s forehead, looking straight at Emma rather than at their daughter. And for a moment, Emma was positive he too was recalling the stitches incident as well.

“Hey Mom,” Harrison called suddenly, standing in front of the open refrigerator and frowning. “Did you make brownies for the bake sale today? Because I don’t see them.”

“What?” Emma frowned, a fusion of confusion and panic running through her. Bake sale? What bake sale? What was he talking about?

“You know, the bake sale that the moms are running today to help raise money to buy new uniforms for the team,” Harrison explained, looking just as panicked as she felt. “You said you would make brownies for it.”

“I did?” Emma asked, closing her eyes and hoping that this was some elaborate prank that Harrison was uncharacteristically playing on her.

“You did,” Harrison replied solemnly. “Did you forget?”

“Fuck…” Emma muttered and she dropped her head gently against the table. The game was in an hour and a half. She had absolutely no time to get dressed and make herself look like presentable human being as well as make brownies and bring Harrison to the game on time. She was the Savior, not Wonder Woman. (Though she kinda doubted that even Wonder Woman could do the same in a time crunch with four children.)

Neddy giggled next to her, flinging more strawberries about. One landed on the back of Emma’s neck and she suddenly realized that she dropped the mother of all swears in front of her impressionable six-month old child who would probably say his first word at any moment

“Shit,” she exclaimed, raising her head from the table. Her whole body twitched as the strawberries slide down her neck into the back of her shirt. She pointed a finger in Neddy’s direction. “Don’t repeat anything Mommy says. Your grandmother would kill me if your first word was a swear.”

Warmth spread through Emma’s shoulder and she glanced to see her husband had placed his hand there. As her eyes met his, his hand gave a gentle squeeze.

“Would you like me to drop by the store and buy something while you get dressed, love?” he asked gently.

“Could you? I mean you’re not really dressed yourself, but if you could, you would be the best because if I don’t bring those brownies, I will never hear the end of it from Aurora and the others on the Parent Association,” Emma said, smiling at him.

“If that’s what you desire, it will be my pleasure. I’ll just throw on some actual trousers and I’ll take Beth and Wes with me to the store,” Killian replied, dropping a quick kiss on her lips.

“Thank you. You’re my savior,” she replied, incredibly grateful to have him.

“I believe that’s your title, love,” he said, the corners of his eyes crinkling a bit as his thumb brushed against her cheek. “But I’m always happy to be the Savior’s savior.”

“Why do I have to go?” Wes frowned, leaning against the counter and crossing his arms in front of his chest. He looked the epitome of displeasure and once more, Emma was dreading his teenage years.

“Honestly?” Killian arched an eyebrow at their son. “Because I don’t trust you alone with those cookies and we’re on the last box of Tagalongs. Your mother needs to get dressed and she can’t watch you and keep you from taking them, you little thief.”

“I thought the preferred term was pirate,” Wes retorted.

“It is,” Killian agreed, the corners of his lips twitching. “But regardless of terms, I don’t trust you with the cookies alone and my word is final. You’re coming with us.”

Killian practically dragged Wes by the back of his shirt as they headed out the door with Beth walking slowly behind them. Emma frowned as she watched her daughter follow them without her usual enthusiasm. Regardless of what Beth said, she was certain that her daughter was still pretty sick and was only pretending to be okay. Emma sighed and picked up Neddy.

“Come on, you,” she said gently, giving the boy a kiss on top of his mop of black curls. “Let’s get you and me clean and dressed so we can watch your brother decimate kids that are two years older than him.”

It took Emma a record twenty minutes to get herself and Neddy bathed and dressed. By the time she returned downstairs, Killian was waiting for her with two tins of brownies that Emma recognized as coming from the bakery section of the grocery store. She smiled, glad that he had gotten those over Wes’s preferred zebra cakes.

“The crew is all buckled in the car waiting for us. Do you want plate these so they don’t look like you just bought them?” Killian asked, grabbing their son out of her hands and bouncing him. Neddy let out a squeal of delight.

“No. I’m not going to lie to them. There’s no point in it. Destinee McRae or whatever her name is will know they’re store bought from a mile away and I’ll never hear the end of it,” Emma sighed, picking them and gesturing with her head for them to go to the car.

When they arrived at the field, Harrison immediately broke into a sprint, muttering something about being late and coaches that were going to kill him. Killian looked down at his watch and frowned.

“The game doesn’t start for another ten minutes and he only missed a few seconds of the warm up and Dave is the coach. What in blazes is he going off about?” he asked, a bit confused.

“This is Harrison we’re calling about,” Emma said with a sigh as she adjusted her hold on Neddy. “He freaks out when we’re less than fifteen minutes early to a dental appointment. He likes to be early in case something happens.”

Killian gave her a look like he wanted to say more on the subject but didn’t want to say it in front of their other children. Emma understood the sentiment. She looked around for the bake sale stand, hoping against hope that none of the really anal mothers were manning it.

When she spotted the stand she breathed a sigh of relief when she saw it was only Ashley Boyd who seemed to be running it. Ashley was probably the most manageable and sensible out of the other mothers, which meant there would be very little cajoling over the brownies. However, at the same time, Emma was a bit confused. Ashley had two children now, Alexandra and little Thomas, but Thomas was only seven years old; nowhere near old enough to be playing in a U12 football game. Emma frowned.

“Everything alright, love?” Killian asked, noting her expression.

“Yeah,” Emma replied faintly. “Yeah. Everything is fine. Why don’t you go find my mother and the little ones and go sit with them. I’m just going to drop these brownies off and wash my hands of this.”

“You sure you don’t want me go with you and fight off the judgmental harpies?”

Emma couldn’t help but laugh a bit at his very adept description of the Parent Association mothers.

“No need. It’s just Ashley,” she said, giving him a quick kiss. “I shouldn’t be long.”

“If you say so,” Killian responded, smiling a bit. “But if any of those surly ladies show up and try to pick a fight with you again, just remember you’re the Savior and you’re taken on more fierce foes than them. Their nattering is nothing but bored and jealous chatter.”

Emma made another amused noise in the back of her throat.

“I’ll keep it in mind,” she chuckled.

“Would you like me to take Ned?” Killian asked, gesturing to their youngest, who was sitting on Emma’s hip and focusing on the teething ring in his mouth.

“Nah,” Emma replied. “I’ll keep Bug with me. He makes for a good distraction if the ‘harpies’ show up.”

“As you wish.” Killian bent down to give her one last quick kiss. “Good luck and raise hell if you need to.”

Ashley’s eyes lit up as Emma approached with both the brownies and Neddy. It became clearly very quickly that Ashley was more excited to see Emma’s son than either herself or the brownies.

“Is that Bug?” Ashley asked in an very enthusiastic tone.

Emma laughed.

“It is,” she said. “And I’ve got some brownies for the bake sale. I forgot about the bake sale so they’re store bought. I hope you can forgive me.”

“Brownies are brownies. The kids aren’t going to care. It’s all good,” Ashley dismissed with a wave of her hand as she came closer. “Hey there, Handsome! Can I get a cuddle?”

“You may,” Emma laughed placing the brownies down on the table and handing her son off to Ashley. “He loves giving cuddles to his favorite daycare teacher.”

Ashley held Neddy close to her, smiling and running her finger down his cheek. Neddy gave her a smile around his teething ring, nuzzling his head into the crook of Ashley’s neck.

“I will never get over how much of a monster cuddler he is,” Ashley said with a smile, running a hand up and down Neddy’s back. “He’s such a sweetheart. He’s a joy to look after. He almost makes me want another. Almost.”

“Yeah. I got lucky,” Emma agreed. “He’s a good boy. I wish he would stay like that forever. They get less cute and more complicated once they can walk and talk. They’re always easiest at this age.”

“Do you hear that, Bug?” Ashley laughed, looking down at Neddy. “Mom doesn’t want you to grow up!”

“You call your son Bug?”

Ashley and Emma turned to see Aurora approach them with a look of pure judgment on her face. Emma internally sighed. Aurora was exactly the last person she wanted to run into.

If there was anything that Emma hated more than dealing with immature, screaming children, it was immature parents. In fact, parents normally held the persona-non-grata spot on Emma’s tolerance list. Aurora had never given much of an issue to Emma before. They were never close, but they weren’t enemies. At least, they weren’t until Emma’s son Harrison joined the U12 football team and Aurora threw a great big stink about Harrison’s age and how he should be playing at “his proper level.” Emma was more than convinced it had something to do with the fact Aurora’s son played the same position as Harrison on the defensive line. On top of that, Aurora was near militant about food and Emma was pretty sure she could recite little Philip’s allergies in her sleep.

“It’s just a nickname,” Emma said, taking her son back from Ashley and holding him a tad protectively.

“Yeah. They call him that because he’s got these killer big blue eyes,” Ashley exclaimed, still focusing all of her energy on Neddy. “And the fact he likes to be snug like a bug in a rug. He’s a cutie pie.”

“Ashley’s right,” Emma chuckled, slightly amused that Ashley was aware of their nicknaming tendencies. It didn’t necessarily surprise her however. Emma had put all of her children save Henry through Ashley’s daycare. She knew her kids as well as anyone.

“Interesting,” Aurora replied, sounding like she wasn’t interested at all. “Did you bring the brownies, Emma?”

“Yeah…” Emma replied, somewhat confused. “I thought that Ashley was running the stand though…”

“Oh no, I’m not,” Ashley clarified. “I’m here because Alexandra is cheerleading for the game. I was just holding down the fort until Aurora came back from the bathroom.”

“Gotcha,” Emma said with a nod, feeling a little dismayed. She really liked Ashley and she tended to be a bit more reasonable than Aurora.

“Emma, are these store bought?!” Aurora asked, looking positively scandalized.

Emma closed her eyes briefly for a moment. This had been exactly what she had been expecting when she arrived at the field. It was half the reason she brought Neddy with her to the bake sale stand. It wasn’t so much of a distraction for the other mothers as much as it was a shield for them. Emma Swan couldn’t knock someone’s lights out if she had a baby on her arms.

“Yes, Aurora,” she said calmly. “They’re store bought. I just didn’t have enough time to make some and I didn’t want to come empty handed so I had Killian buy some.”

“Emma, you’ve known about this bake sale for weeks. I sent an email almost weekly about this. Don’t say you didn’t have enough time. I told you sent you an email on Monday.”

“Aurora, I have four small children,” Emma responded, not willing to take the Princess’s chastisements. “Neddy is teething and Beth has been sick for the past few days. Plus I had to arrest three Vikings this week for diner dashing on Granny and I had to get my car fixed since Henry wrecked it last time he was here. Forgive me if I’ve had more stressing matters on my mind than a bake sale.”

Emma’s explanations seemed to fall on deaf ears however because Aurora was still glaring murderously at the brownies, still in their packaging, on the bake sale table.

“Whatever. It’s bad enough that you brought processed brownies. Who feeds their kids these? Are these even sugar free? Gluten free? Nut free? Vegan friendly?” Aurora asked, rounding Emma with her hands on her hips.

“Store bought brownies are fine. My kids eat them all the time and I promise you that they haven’t died yet,” Emma replied, barely holding back an eye roll.

She was pretty sure Aurora would have a fit and call child services if she revealed Wes’s love for Little Debbies and Zebra Cakes. “And I have honestly no clue. Killian bought them while I was in the shower.”

“Great,” Aurora replied with a huff. “Great. Now I’m going to have to label them so everyone knows that they’re not friendly brownies.”

“Not friendly brownies?” Emma stared at her in disbelief. “They’re regular run of the mill brownies, Aurora. It’s not like they’re nuclear or something.”

“No, but kids like my son can’t eat them!” Aurora hissed through clenched teeth. “Kids who have celiac disease or who are allergic to nuts cannot have these brownies. They could die, Emma! That’s why everything is labeled! At least tell me you have a pen so I can write all of this stuff down.”

Emma glanced down on the table and sure enough every single food item was labelled. Nearly everything on the table was vegan, gluten-free, sugar free and made with products that were free of GMOs. She honestly didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. It seemed like children with all dietary diseases and allergies had a variety of choices, though they didn’t look necessarily appetizing.

“I have a pen in my car, Aurora,” Ashley said with a slightly awkward smile. “I will go get it for you.”

Emma nearly screamed at Ashley with her eyes not to leave her alone with Aurora but Ashley merely gave her an apologetic smile and a final ruffle to Neddy’s hair before sprinting off to go to her car.

“Look, Aurora, I’m sorry that I brought store bought brownies and that your son can’t eat them, but like I said, I genuinely forgot and didn’t want to come empty-handed.”

“I honestly would have preferred if you came empty-handed, Emma. My son is going to see these brownies and he’s going to want one and he can’t. I thought having a mini circus like you do would make you more sympathetic to the dangers of food allergies.”

Emma’s jaw clenched. A mini circus? She wanted nothing more than to punch her in the face, but thankfully for Aurora, Neddy was nestled against her chest and she loathed more than anything to put him down.

“None of my kids have food allergies and just because you’re frustrated with me that doesn’t mean you can insult my kids,” Emma replied tersely.

“Please,” Aurora sniffed. “People have said worse.”

That was it. Emma was done. She wasn’t going to stand here and get chastised by a woman who had hired an nanny to look after her only child. She couldn’t punch her in the face like she wanted to, but that didn’t mean she had to stick around.

“You know what?” Emma said lightly, adjusting her grip on Neddy. She perched him a bit higher so that his wild curls tickled the bottom of her chin. “I did what was asked. I brought brownies. I don’t have to stand here and help you. In fact, I’m going to sit with my husband and watch my son start over yours despite the fact he’s only ten. Have a nice day.”

Aurora’s jaw dropped at Emma’s words and she looked like she wanted to say something but Emma didn’t wait for her. She spun on her heel and went to go find Killian.

When Emma finally found her husband, her mother and their kids, the game was already seven minutes into the first quarter. Wes and her younger siblings were nowhere to be found but Beth was laying across Mary Margaret with her head in Killian’s lap, looking positively miserable. Killian was running his fingers through Beth’s hair, watching the game.When he finally noticed Emma approaching, he offered her a smile.

“Still sick, Little Beth?” Emma asked her daughter as she approached.

Beth made a mumbling sound before burying her face in Killian’s stomach.

“She’s still a little under the weather but she’s enduring as always. Hello, love. You were gone for awhile,” Killian commented.

Emma sat next to him, giving him a quick kiss before responding.

“Apparently it’s the end of the world if baked goods aren’t vegan, gluten-free, nut-free and sugar-free,” Emma informed him. “How’s Har Bear doing?”

“He’s going well. He has two tackles already,” Killian reported. “Neal is also doing well. He got himself a touchdown. Your brother is quite fast.”

“The touchdown is expected. I mean, I’ve seen how fast that kid is when he’s going a naked yard dash away from my father but Harrison has two tackles? You sure it was our kid?” Emma asked in disbelief.

“Of course. He immediately picked up the other boys and brushed them off, making sure they were okay,” Killian responded with some amusement. “What’s this about vegan and all of those free-somethings?”

“Okay, yeah tfhat definitely Harrison,” Emma laughed. “And I know. Apparently you can’t just sell regular baked goods at a bake sale. I don’t know what else to tell you.”

“I see. Well then, fancy a wager, Swan?” Killian asked, wiggling his eyebrows.

“I’m all ears,” Emma responded, burying her face in Neddy’s hair and watching her husband’s amused expression.

“I bet you anything, including the Jolly Roger, that those brownies will be sold out before anything else on that table,” Killian stated with a grin.

“Oh, that’s a given. Only a fool would bet against that.”

Sure enough at the end of the game, they walked past the bake sale where Aurora was doing her best to sell off vegan cookies that had apparently been made with apple sauce. Only one brownie from the store bought batch remained and Emma smiled to herself as she watched a child buy the last one.

#captain swan #cs #cs fic #cs fanfic #cs fanfiction #cs ff #little pirates #little pirates fic #my shit #my fic #ned jones #harrison jones #wes jones #beth jones #emma swan vs the bake sale

70 notes · View notes

queennicoleinboots · 6 years ago

Text

Day 7 of Xara and Peter's "Curse"

A/N: Unedited

Xara's smartphone refused to stop playing Irish Rock. It played steadily for 15 minutes before Xara answered the phone. Joebear was growling at the phone.

"Fuck you, too! What the FUCK IS THIS E-mail?!!!!!" Peter W. Parker screamed over the phone.

"Hello... that E-mail mentioned appointments and beatings. Why are you screaming at me?" Xara asked sleepily. She was incoherent and grumpy.

"Because I can't fucking wait until Wednesday! My mother is sick and can't cook. And because YOU, you fucking bitch, cursed me, I can't fucking cook, either!!!!" Peter yelled at the top of his lungs.

"Couldn't you order out?" Xara said as she yawned.

"No! I tried that! The food ends up all fucked up. Why the fuck did you do this to me?!" Peter yelled as something slammed in the background.

Joebear growled, rolled over, and went to sleep.

"I didn't mean to! It happened because I can't handle stress. I'm sorry, Peter," Xara said as she got out of bed and went to get coffee. She was cursed. Waking up to anyone, much less Peter W. Parker, screaming at her over the phone was the worst possible way to wake up.

"Neither can I! I can't stand the taste of food anymore. I can deal with peanut butter and bananas, but that's about it! Why the fuck am I cursed?!" Peter screamed as he was beating his fist against a table.

"Because you were tainted with my poop. Sorry," Xara said as she was heating a cup of coffee for herself.

"Oh Jesus. That makes sense. Goddammit. I have had fuck luck all my life, but this is unreal!" Peter said as he put his head in his hand while holding his black flip phone tightly against his considerably small head.

"True," Xara said before she heard the microwave beep at her. She took the coffee out of the microwave, sat down, and had a sip. "I legitimately did not mean to do this to us."

"Well, it happened. Please talk to the Giant NOW and make an appointment TODAY!!!!" Peter yelled before he snarled. "If I have to look at another jar of peanut butter, I'm going to turn into an ape!"

"Okay, Peter. Jesus. It's too early for this shit, Peter!" Xara said as she drank her coffee.

"Fuck you. You're not the one with fucked-up taste buds. Call him NOW, or I will (or won't) disable your already malfunctioning BRAIN!!!" Peter yelled.

"Yes, Pete," Xara said as she stole Peter Parker's trademark sigh.

"Good. Bye," Peter said as he slammed the parts of his flip phone together. Peter then took a paint mixing stick and started beating the table until it broke.

When the phone had hung up, Xara said while singing to DarkSydePhineas's remix "Megaman's an A-Hole," "He's a fucking ass. He's a fucking ass." She continued to drink her coffee before she called The Giant. "Fuck me."

The Giant answered the phone with a bellowing voice. "What the fuck do you want?!"

"A lot of things, actually, but my main priority is magic spices. I can't wait until Wednesday. I have an important dinner coming up and need them TODAY! It just kind of sprung up. May I have some, please?" Xara asked.

"I DON'T FUCKING HAVE ANY! My supplier is late on his delivery, goddammit! I used it all on Saturday!" the Giant yelled over the phone.

"Are you fucking serious?!" Xara asked with an exasperated sigh.

"YES I'M FUCKING SERIOUS!!! WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU TAKE ME FOR?!" the Giant screamed.

"I don't know, dude. I'm just fucked right now! I have this big dinner, and I can't cook because I'm fucking cursed," Xara said.

"Goddamn right you are. Your shit's affecting me. Instead of going about our scheduled meeting, I have to go find this leprechaun and beat the shit out of him until I get the magic spices! Jesus God!" the Giant said. "Because that's what the fuck I want to do. Leave my lair in the sky and hunt jackasses. This is bullshit."

"Dude, I understand. I don't want to deal with this shit, either," Xara said. "Damn."

"But I have to for the sake of magical sanity. See you next week! I am cancelling all my appointments," the Giant said.

"See you next week," Xara said.

The Giant hung up the phone and threw it clear out of the window on the other side of where he was. The phone landed on some other poor fuck's roof, probably the Keebler Elf's roof again.

"Jesus Christ!" Can I make love to a woman without hearing some bullshit hit my roof?" asked the Keebler Elf who was only wearing his green elf cap while his butt was sticking out of the sheets. He was on top of Lady Smurf.

When the phone was hung up, Xara shuddered and took a deep breath. "Peter is going to go ape shit," she said to herself as she dialed his number.

"So, did you get that appointment today?" Peter asked with a goofy smile on his face.

"Um. No. Not only that, but he cancelled everything this week. He's on a hunt," Xara answered.

"Oh what an asshole!" Peter yelled as he threw his hands in the air.

"Well, Peter, he ran out of magic spices, and his supplier is late on the delivery," Xara said as she put her head in her left hand.

"Oh what an asshoooooole!" Peter sung.

"Yeah, it's bullshit," Xara said.

"You're an asshole," Peter said flatly.

"I know. I'm sorry... We'll have to be patient and deal with this curse," Xara said.

"Yep... but until then, I'm going to go outside and go ape shit," Peter said as he spoke through clenched teeth.

"You go do that. I'm going to go get ready to *not* deal with your bullshit," Xara said.

"Thank you. I want to massacre you," Peter said darkly.

"I know," Xara said.

"See ya," Peter said.

"See ya," Xara said.

Peter slammed the two parts of his phone together. "I'm surprised this phone isn't broken yet," Peter said. As soon as he opened his mouth, the phone broke in pieces. Peter just stared at the remnants of his once-proud flip phone with his jaw dropped. "Yep. I'm going ape shit now."

At that moment, Peter stood up and starting beating on his chest rapidly with both fists while jumping up and down like a literal ape. He was making ape noises similar to when his novels done turn. Out the way he wants them.

When Peter was a normal human being, he was a writer, actor, artist, and drywall finisher. But when he was acting like an ape, well... under Xara's curse, he was literally transforming into an ape.

His hands and feet were growing even bigger and more muscular than they already were. His nails were becoming thicker, and his brown curls were getting thicker and longer. His teeth were growing inside of his mouth, which was also growing with a full set of pink lips to boot. Speaking of teeth, Peter now had a massive underbite with one large saber tooth at each bottom corner of his mouth.

In fact, his whole head and torso (and dare we say his penis, testicles, and ass) were becoming encased with a large amount of muscle density.

His radiant green eyes grew in proportion to his now large head, which meant his glasses broke off of his face. The only thing that remained somewhat small despite his new proportions was his pug nose.

His legs were now muscular and even longer than they were before. He used to be 7'4," but now he was "8'6" even with his back curving like an ape's would. His arms were also elongated and muscular like a typical ape's arms.

A side effect of his transformation was that he outgrew all of his clothes and was completely naked. Luckily, he grew a bunch of hair where apes normally have hair, so his man junk wasn't too obvious for people to see.

The clothes he was wearing were torn in shreds and were lying in a pile on his screened-in back porch.

Peter looked down and freaked out. "Holy Shit! I'm actually an ape!" he screamed. Then he smiled and shrugged. "But at least I have an excuse to only like bananas now."

His mother, Godiva, walked over slowly and hunched over because her back was killing her to see what the commotion was outside.

Peter was worried that she would freak out, so he tried to hide.

"Peter? Where are you?" she asked as she looked for him.

"You sure you want to know?" he asked with a deeper voice than usual.

His deeper voice subconsciously made her smile and bat her blue eyes. "Absolutely," she said a bit more seductively than she should have.

"Okay, but don't say I didn't warn you," Peter said with his deeper voice.

She really wanted to find her son then, and maybe plant kisses on him when she does. "Okay," she said with a giggle.

Peter emerged from his hiding place to greet his mother. "Hi, Mom," he said in his deeper voice.

She stood there dumbfounded and with butterflies in her stomach. She breathed heavily and stared at him softly, "Oh wow...." Something about his ape form really mesmerized her.

"Yeah, ummm... I don't really know how to explain this," he said with a booming laugh.

She laughed as well. "I didn't ask you to," she said as she walked up to him with a better posture than she was able to maintain all day. She had forgotten all about her achy back when she saw him.

"Good... because I have no idea how it happened..." he said with an awkward smile.

His awkward smile really drove her wild. If he weren't over three feet taller than she was, she would have totally kissed him right then. She came closer to him and touched his right arm. "I still love you no matter what you are," she said as she looked deeply into his eyes.

"Thanks, Mom," Peter said as he hugged her.

Godiva leaned into his hug and rubbed along his sides. Peter pet his mother's head softly.

"Do you still like your back scratched?" she asked as she was trying to hug around him. Her body was tightly wrapped against Peter's.

"Yeah, but I feel bad asking for it from you, considering all you do for Dad," Peter said as he looked into her blue eyes that were behind leopard-print glasses.

Peter's father was Jamie Parker, a 84-year-old retired man who still wished he could work. He installed drywall for a living and generally worked out of Atlanta, GA. He typically worked 80 hours a week when he was working.

Jamie made a nice life for his family and made it possible for Peter to be slightly spoiled. Generally, Jamie was a nice guy, but he had a disconnect from his artsy and feminine son. He was definitely fond of Peter, but being a conservative Republican fundamental Christian, he struggled to understand his liberal Democratic agnostic son. Truth be told, Jamie made more attempts to connect with Peter than Peter did with his father.

Unfortunately, about 16 years ago, Jamie fell out of bed and broke his right hip. He was now bound to a wheel chair and could barely do anything for himself. His wife now takes care of him full-time.

Godiva started scratching Peter softly. "Peter, you're my son. I'd do anything for you." she said softly as her delicate hands moved up and down his back. "Besides, I love scratching your back." She kissed his chest. The taste of his gorilla scent was driving her wild.

"Oh well... I wouldn't want to take any attention away from Dad... in his delicate situation and everything," Peter said as he rubbed her back softly with just his right hand.

"Oh please do!" Godiva said as she continued to scratch his back. She could feel herself start to feel younger when she was touching him.

She was transforming into her younger self. Her hair was turning from gray, short, and straight to brown, curly, and long. Her skin was becoming more vibrant. Her back became straighter, and her clothes were fitting around her newfound curves in flattering ways. Her blue eyes were becoming more vibrant and her lips a more pure pink. Her nose was pointier just like she was when she was 54 years old.

Peter looked down at his mother, and his jaw dropped awkwardly.

Godiva was a bombshell in her younger days. Her 36B-cup breasts complimented her perfect hour glass waist and hips that were the same circumference. Her floral top brought attention to her chest and her pull-on jeans hugged her waist tightly.

"Maybe I might have to take your attention away from him after all," he said with a big smile as he fingered one of her curly strands and looked her straight in her bright blue eyes.

0 notes