#did you know there's a vac cube?

[cipheramnesia]

Leather, latex, etc.?

Like okay, take anyone or you or anyone with like the "I am vibrating to pieces" feelings about shows or fictional characters. Multiply that by ten. That is how much I want latexwear. Compact every yearning craving lusting post on this site. That's how much I want it. You know the vac bed post where everyone is like "wow that's weird and strange," I'm the one swearing with my knuckles white and my eyes bleeding over how much I want one of them.

Gonna go back and tag all these kinky posting.

[jeeperso]

D&D Quotes Without Context

Ravenloft Edition, Har-Akir arc, part 1

Poom: "You are not getting me into a dress.” "Hammer pants it is.” Irost: “But how else are we going to sneak you into the palace? Gorbash? That color would be atrocious on him!” Nyx: "Rats, no secret dress-up party then.” Marshal: “You're not the one who had to be vac-metallized in gold.” Jonni: “I have a sexy plan.” Gorbash: “You always have a Sexy plan or a violent plan... or a sexy violent plan.” Irost: “Is it going to be the ghoul pit all over?” "Just as long as the plan doesn't involve peanut butter. I'm still picking pieces out of my ear, I said we should have used creamy instead of chunky.” OOC: I'm forgetting, who is Kat? OOC2: Hairless Tabaxi. Part of a Polycule with three Kenku. OOC: Okay. "If... If I dress up like a naked cat.. does that still count as being furry?” “Only if you shave. But I’m pretty sure that’s offensive.” "You ever seen a dried Illithid? It’s not pretty.” Jonni: “I’ll search the ladies.” "Ah. It’s glowing... That is ominous and foreboding... and a good sign.” "If I do not see you hacking off Nima's fingers, it is not illegal.” Gorbash: “Ah revisiting old memories... like walking on broken glass.” Gorbash: “I'm honestly surprised, usually we have to slaughter or humiliate at least one before things realize it’s a bad idea to bother our caravan.” "Oh we got all kinds of fun. I mean mummies are the big thing but we have Chimera, Manticore, Jackalweres, all sorts of nastiness.” “Genies?” Jonni asks lasciviously. Poom: "What are you, trying to collect the whole set?” Jonni: “If by set you mean every willing woman in the multiverse, then yes.” Azathoth: "Poom! POOM! Follow up on the obvious plot-hook!” Nyx: "Azathoth, no breaking the 4th wall, we just got it fixed after the other campaign broke it.” Nima: ”By the way, help yourself to one of my wares.” She throws a crude totem shaped like a monkey at you. “It's the latest thing, Nima's fantastic totems. Each one is wholly unique and totally yours forever.” Poom: "Art is in the eye of the beholder. But this...this is from its butt.” Nima: ”You know Acheron? That realm of endless pointless conflict.” Yogsothoth: "The 4chan message boards?” Nima: ”Well, each one of these totems is connected to a cube in an endless chain of them, which will be the resting place of the owner after death. And every time I make a new one, a chunk of another plane of existence is ripped out and transported to Acheron.” Marshal: "Edition Wars start this way…" Poom: "Sounds environmentally unsound.” Nima: "Very much so." Nyx: "Why the hell do you make these totems then!?!” Gorbash: "Fun and Profit, I would guess?” Nima: "In theory, but actually no one is buying them. Despite my insistence that they are extremely valuable. But mark my words, I will jam these things down people throats. Literally if I have to.” Gorbash: “So you point us at a tomb, we clear it out and give you the corpses, and then you give us the ring we want. Seems reasonable, with attempted deadly betrayal chances at mostly acceptable levels.” Nima: ”THAT'S A DICK MOVE JONNI. NO ONE LIKES A NARC JONNI! OH AND TELL WILLOW I SAID HI WHEN YO U SEE HER.” Nima: "What did I do to any of you? Aside from laugh at your friends boundless stupidity?” Jonni: “You set up his boundless stupidity!” Edmund: "It was a calculated risk, not stupidity!” Gorbash: “If that risk was calculated, then you're bad at math.” "... You know. Those monkey totems were kind of interesting.” “Your boundless stupidity is showing, Eddie.” "It is against the code to defenestrate a comrade…" Marshal mutters, pointedly not looking at Edmund, but his spectral watchers nod vigorously. Gorbash: “Resist urge to immediately murder local authorities.” The guards head off. After they do, a small skeletal raven lands on Jonni's shoulders with a note in its beak. Irost: "Hey! They have tweets here too!” "After we get that signet ring I say we find a way to cast a tracking spell on her, then hunt her down later after we have gotten everything off the list from around here.” Gorbash: “Best revenge is living well and all that. Nah I can't say that with a straight face, but it is a dish best served cold so bide your time.” Jonni: “Yeah, I know. You realize I’ve been good today? I was gonna polymorph them.” Gorbash pats her head. "And I'm proud that you didn’t." “I don't want to end up a raccoon, once was enough.” Nyx turns her hat of disguise into a giant, over-sized top hat then pulls it down over herself to hide inside. The purple cat bows, "Allow me to introduce myself, I am Katastrophes, priest of Oru, who orders the heavens and all beneath.” "I'm not scared, I just don't want to look at that outfit on someone hairless any longer.” Poom already knows all the best exits. Jon: “And I am suddenly very willing to commit… what’s the technical term for murdering a cleric?” Poom: "There's a technical term?” Behind him Jonni mimes casting fireball to Kat with a big questioning smile. "The term is devout dissention I think. Its how you get new groups formed...Better not though... We don’t want you associated with new groups of a church. Being known as a Sect Maniac will do you no good.” Gorbash mutters about getting blood stains out of wood. Poom: "I know a few ways…" Katastrophe: “Ladies and gentlemen we are gathered here to get through this thing called life. Electric word life it means forever and that's a really long time... wait this isn't the right script.” “Just do the short version.” You notice the silverware is missing from a few carts. “It’s okay, we stole that in the first adventure.” Gorbash: “Well to be fair we're probably going to be looting at least one tomb to the bedrock before we leave.” "My father is the famed architect, Katonahottinrouth.” “Please stop.” "And my mother is Katenthecanary.” Marshal: ”Just like the greatest and most terrible of theives, the Bretonnian Imperial Museum.” Gorbash: “Well we'll just sell the stuff off, not brag about how enlightened we are while displaying our ill-gotten gain.” "Oh no, Kat is pun-blind!” "A blessing be upon her, yes.” Nyx: ”So...who wants to make a bet as to the odds of the Black Scarab being in the same tomb as wherever Nima sends us?” Gorbash: “The odds of that happening are incredibly unlikely... so almost certainly.” "No, this feels like a beheading sort of domain.” “Would that kill you?” "You'll understand if I do not wish to find out, but likely yes.” OOC: Well, hope [GM] wasn't struck by a meteor or something. Night!

[sorenwix]

Rosie’s Birth Story

To describe Rosie’s birth story with the full context we need to go back a few years.

Labor never really kicked in with Jasko, our son who was born 4.5 years ago. We had visions and plans of a dreamy at-home birth. Both of my sisters had avoided hospitals during their deliveries and I figured I’d follow suit. Then I ended up laboring at home for 20 hours, then in the hospital for another 20 hours, and then they cut Jasko out with a c-section. In hindsite, I think my body did me a favor by never really “opening up” to deliver him through the tunnel: he came out 10lbs 3 oz with a head the shape of a cube.

We grew to like the hospital; indeed rather enjoy it. It felt like a bizarre cruise, where they bring you room service and medications at regular intervals.

Fast forward four years. As we were getting ready for baby #2, I assumed a c-section would be the deal. I had a story that my body just wasn’t going to kick in or open up for a vaginal delivery. I was almost looking forward to it: plug me into an epidural and get the baby out all civilized while I listen to some meditation soundtrack on my noise-cancelling headsets. There were a couple other factors going into the birth:

•Our new insurance, which had a much lower deductible, started on 1/1.

•The due date of the baby was 1/1. We loved the date (the first day of the decade!) but the hospital wouldn’t schedule a c-section on a holiday (New Year’s Day).

•We lined up acupuncture on the 31st to give my body a chance to go into labor, thinking that if we show up at the hospital in labor on the first, they then had to deal with my body.

• We scheduled a c-section on 1/2. So headed into New Years week we knew that one way or another we’d have a new human in our lives by the end of the week.

Ok. Now the story.

12/31

4pm. Acupuncture appointment begins.

4:45pm. Acupuncture appointment ends. She advises me to go home and rest up, going on my hands and knees for 15 minutes to get the baby centered, then take a nap.

5:15pm. I swing by Trader Joe’s to pick up a few things. The checkout person asks if I have any fun plans for the evening. I reply, “Have a baby.” Her eyes get wide, she glances down at my giant tummy, then looks up again and she wishes me luck.

5:30pm. Home. Go on hands and knees for 20 min.

6pm. Lay down on my side. Discomfort. Flip over. More discomfort. Realize this might be a contraction. It’s mild, but something more intense than a Braxton Hicks is brewing. I download a contraction tracking app.

7pm. We walk next door to the neighbor’s New Year’s Eve party. Lots of kids and friends from the neighborhood. While chit chatting, I subtly track contractions. Things are happening but I’m not sure if it is “real” and want data. I’m so grateful for the distraction of talking to people and watching the kids’ antics and the NY ball drop.

9:30pm. Home. Don’t want to be “that girl” that shows up at the hospital too early. Also don’t want to show up before our insurance kicks in. But call the hospital’s midwife on duty to give a courtesy heads up that things seem to be progressing. The contractions are steadily picking up in terms of duration and intensity. I’m starting to feel less control over my body and more like I’m latched into a roller coaster.

11pm. Tell Gene it feels like “go time” and to ask Nancy (his mother, who would take care of Jasko while we were busy with baby) to come over.

11:35pm. Nancy arrives.

11:45pm. I crawl into the car. It’s too painful to sit in the seat so I kneel facing backwards on the passenger seat. Gene drive the streets carefully with his hand on my calf. Speed bumps feel terrible. I am distantly aware of the booms of fireworks beginning to explode throughout town.

11:59pm. We pull into the emergency entrance of the hospital. Gene almost goes to park and I snarl at him between guttural groans to get me as close to the door as possible.

12:01am. We walk/hobble in. I sit down in a wheelchair. My water breaks. It feels like a dramatic gush of water that floods the entry (probably in real life it was more like a little splat). I apologize to the front desk people for making a mess. I get wheeled away and hear cheers from the front desk that I might have the first baby of the new year. I’m dimly aware of explosions of light through the glass as I get raced through the corridor.

12:03am. I think the best description of the next chapter would be “Tarzan Yodels” echoing off the mostly empty hallways. We are flying so fast in the wheelchair. I am so impressed with Gene’s speed and care and knowledge of the layout of the hospital. I look back in the elevator and in the middle of contractions and realize it’s a hospital person. Gene is following at a trot with my bag.

12:07am. We check in with the midwife. I mumble something about being in labor and how they can start the c-section whenever they’re ready. They measure me in some awkward position (only hands and knees and maybe my side felt ok) and I’m at 8cm. They raise an eyebrow and Gene says we are open to a v-bac if that was in the cards.

I lose track of time at this point.

They wheel me into a labor room.

I ride through a couple more contractions like a roller coaster. My Tarzan Yodels pick up an octave and get even louder.

I squeeze out a poop. A few more. I feel like a goat at the petting zoo we saw a couple nights prior. I have very little control of my body.

They set up a bar and I’m able to squat while holding onto the bar. The midwife, Polly, is cool and calm and warm and firm. She’s right at the foot of my bed, like a captain of my berthing ship. A doula, Rachel, is on my right giving me sips of water. She puts cool washcloths on my forehead. Gene is on my left.

At one point I exclaim, “This is just like in the movies,” and the room laughs.

The midwife suggests I go on my back, open my knees, hold a sheet, and push. I tell her to go to hell. Then comply.

I still have it in my head that we are going to have a c-section.

The midwife says, “I saw the head pushing against your tissue during that last contraction.”

I still don’t believe it.

A few contractions later I ask, “Am I really having a baby here? Is this what’s called ‘pushing’?” The room laughs.

I’m starting to understand that I can push this baby out. I’m starting to get tired. They can tell my tempo and focus is slowing down. She says, “If we can’t get through this together, there is a doctor who has a vacuum. That could be a next step.”

I reply, “Can you pull it out?”

Someone responds, “Babies don’t come with handles.”

I don’t know if they are trying to mentally psych me up or not, but it works; I really don’t want a shop-vac baby.

The next few pushes I feel myself going into that place I know before a big athletic event or endeavor. “Here we go team. I got this. We got this.”

It is like being latched into a roller coaster ride, going up and down with waves of contractions.

On one, someone says, “Use it.”

With their direction, I hold my breath, count to 8 while pushing instead of groaning. Then take a tiny breath, hold my breath again, count to 8 and push. Then a third time. A couple times I manage a fourth push within the contraction.

They can see the head. Gene can see the head of our baby.

It was like pushing out a giant poop. I say I am scared of tearing and someone puts a hot cloth down there to ease the tissue.

A few times later, feeling like it is now or never, I gather myself. Someone says, “Use it.” I say, “Let’s do this,” and gather my energy.

BOOM: Defying all notions of geometry, and yet adhering to what women all over the world do each day, our baby’s head and 7lb 5oz body squeezed out of my body at 1:22am on 1/1/2020. Go team.

Someone exclaims, “It’s a girl!” We have a baby girl.

The next part is what they don’t include in the movies. Probably for good reason. The chattering and freezing sensation as my body recalibrated. My stuck placenta that warranted a trip to the operating room with a spinal tap, placenta scraping, lots of blood loss, and more chattering teeth/hot sheets. By 7am we were in the recovery unit, with the sun rising and Gene, me, and Baby snoozing.

Thank you to Midwife Polly, Doula Rachel, Dr. Carroll, the amazing nurses, and the fleet of caregivers and room service providers who took care of us during our 2-day, 1-night stay at the Providence hospital on Glisan.

We’re now home. Rosie is eating and sleeping like a champ. Big Brother Jasko is building nests and supplying stuffies. I’m entering the “Every part of my body is leaking” and “I feel like a human napkin” part of parenting a newborn. Gene is his usual steady, strong, supportive self. Nancy is our amazing 3rd parent. And Gene and I are basking in the glow of love from our amazing community; we feel like the luckiest people in the world as we transition to a family of four.

[ecotone99]

(MF) The Caller

“You barely made it out, didn’t you Gilt?”

“Who is this? How’d you get this number?”

“Pathetic, Gilt, really. You can’t even handle the booze you pay for. No wonder you’re fat and broke.”

“I’m going to hang up now. If you call again, I’ll find you, and when I’m done with you, you’ll have to breathe through a straw. Got it, pal?”

“Sure, Gilt. Sure thing. Just one question though, huh? How’d you feel when you came to this morning? Probably pathetic. Am I right? Yeah, definitely pathetic.”

“Wait, what happened? Where was I last night? Who is this?”

“Why don’t you look in the mirror, Gilt? Take a good, long look. Oh, and one more thing. Don’t leave the house. Don’t make any calls. And be good. Talk to you soon, Gilt. Very soon.”

Owing to a penchant of mine, this talent I have for blackouts, my memories get fooled around with, fanned out and then cruelly shuffled. I live in a daze of time-jump, of brain lag. I’m a joggle of clanking pasts. For instance, as I lay on the bomb-stained carpet there, nose-up and piteously wheezing, I remembered a breakfast I quaffed last summer: stiff shingle of toast (blowtorched, flinty), wet flop of egg, throat-scalding hell’s brew of frizzled black coffee, and a single, zigzagged cigarette, exhumed from an outdoor trash bin. Perfect, translucent clarity, everything summoned with ease. But the previous night was a wipe. Well, there was a shimmer of data: a cracked tooth and boggled eyes, a bruised rib and towelly tongue. I felt run over, totaled. Not much to go on really, but it was clear that I got into something. Or something got into me. The details were all smudged out. As a rule I don’t do deep dives, or plunges, into memory’s dark underwaters. I’m just not brave enough. You never know what’s lurking down there, in that gulp of time and squid ink.

So, about this problem I was having, spreadeagled and sweating on the stained underlay, laboring to remember what happened, to give some kind of form to the flicker. How did I come to be there, all bloat and pregnant pain, a burping, bewildered komodo, capsized on my silver shag? There was clearly some flash of violence, probably with my caller there, whose number was a string of sixes, whose voice went slithering across my nape. It was a sickly, heart-curling voice, a spasm of greenish disgust. What would I do if he knew my address? He might appear at my innocent door, his powerful neck all teeming with veins, his tight face and Adam’s apple, his rage dials set to maximum. Yes, what would I do? I considered a knee to the groin, a stiff thumb in his eye, a shock of knuckles to the valve of his throat. I had some real options here. It was violence a la carte, and that made me feel a bit better. The knee-to-balls route seemed best - the jelly maker, the maneuver with the highest payoff, the most grind and twang for the effort put in. I had a good knobbly knee on me too.

I noticed how my cell phone, the snazzy little two-way there, was now dark with battery death. I must have blacked out again: the device was lubed with slobber. (I mouth leak when I’m unconscious. It’s something I’m working on.) It may surprise you, I know, but I felt pretty shipshape. Passing out never felt so good. I sprang up and shuffled to the bathroom, to the glass and glare of my shame. The mirror said nothing as I streaked and splattered it. I howled and cursed while scalping my face. I combed and rinsed and tweezed and spat, but there wasn’t much I could do. The perma-stubble skin, the burglar mask eyes: I was faded, spectral, a washed-out shimmer, a grizzled fat spook with a vindictive bladder. But man, was I feeling good. I was ready for the mystery caller.

I watched myself in the stoic glass, rehearsing my chop and swing, my lunge-block combination, my crushing elbow thrust. Oh yeah, my blood was up, and I was crackling with hot fight static. But listen, don’t get me wrong - I’m a realistic kind of guy. I have a good meaty fist and a stony jawline, but I’m a bit doughy in the middle. I admit it. And there’s the issue of my guileless, side-parted hair, my stained glass style, my cotton candy heart: I have the menace of a snoozy koala. I’m practically made of sweater fuzz. But I’ve lived in some jungly places. Right now I sleep in a chintzy motel, this ruin at Thirteenth and Pike, a stripped slum where fear levels rocket from sensible precaution to diuretic retreat. You don’t stroll about down here, let me tell you, not without some good brass knuckles or a broken wine bottle. Yeah, I may look soft, but I’ve survived this city. I’m big too, bigger than most bounders out there. If my caller even tried to ghost my steps, he’d come to in a glass avalanche, a cataract of boom and shatter. Yes, I’d pick up his call. He would hear my answer all right, in tooth-rattling quadraphonic. I was so ready.

I had plans for a very big day. I assembled the sundries on the bedside table, including my cologne of choice (Bad Boy, a very respectable knockoff, quite close to some top-dollar scents). I rechecked the hair, had a no-show on the toilet, and drowned my uvula in a quart of orange juice. A spritz of Bad Boy on throat and nape - easy, not too heavy there - and a gruff hawk into a startled dishrag, and I was teetering out into the open air. My cab was late but I didn't mind. (My car wouldn’t start, that sly rattletrap.) I was firmly on mission, and that felt good. My first act of the day: to purchase a slick new talkie, since I couldn’t revive the dead one, not even with a thorough cleaning. It turns out cell phones aren’t droolproof. You know something? We should get the guys at NASA on that. They came up with space blankets and velcro, even the cordless vac, lots of terrific doodads. It would be an honor to shake their hands or give them a whopping tip. We thank you, and space thanks you, for the tiptop job and all the great doodads.

My cab arrived and I poured myself in. I was practically rosy, all spruce and twang and radiant health. But it was actually quite pallid, closer to anti-health, and it didn't radiate: it seeped out from my blazing armpits. Wow. It must have been the Good Boy deodorizing spray. I had gotten myself all shiny with it. I guess Good Boy and Bad Boy don't really mix. As we barreled and bounced over uneven streets, I stared out my window in a daze of preparation: duck, lunge, thrust - and kick! I hardly noticed the waking city, the sudden scrapers and blue vault of sky, the rounded back of my driver, who was slumped over the flummoxed wheel.

“Hey. Hey pal. You okay up there?”

He didn’t budge, not a twitch. Now there’s a guy who lives hard. I’ll bet he gargles jet fuel in the mornings, gulps pots of frizzled coffee, runs on track-lit dreams and deep money-need, the city’s blunt promise of more, more. Always more. We need it, don’t we? Time, hair, psychotherapy, youth, fuel, pleasure, analgesics, headspace, vitamins - and money. I was just happy we limped to a stop, at the corner of Veck and Main. I stepped out from the car and got ambushed by a lurking curb grate. I was okay, no problem, just face-down in the steaming street. I yanked myself vertical, found my bearings, and I tubbily bowled on through a dizzying crosswalk. We had stopped a block short of my destination, a gizmo emporium on Franklin Ave. Looked like I would have to walk it.

My strides were bold, no-nonsense, as I lumbered past the signs and shops, the grottoes, the clearinghouses, the eateries. Whatever you needed was there. You could buy it, trade it, hock it, consume it. And you could smell it too. Steam from the hot tarmac, with strong emanations of mineral and bad egg, blended vapors from belching cars and streetside vendors, went trailing into my nose - and into my hair, my clothes, my eyes. I walked upstream among the morning commuters, the frowning sidewalk tramplers. I rounded Ninth and Main to see the looming business district, a bar graph of square-top buildings and glassy towers, prisms of turquoise and white and mean money-green.

I stopped to breathe (I mean pant) by a display window, the lit stall of a ladies’ boutique. Within the bright cube was something strange, a rather unsettling scene: a pale gallery of tranced mannequins, misangled and leaning like the dozing dead, many of them armless, all draped in scalloped ghost-gowns or frilly white frocks. The whole thing frankly shuddered me, right down to my carking feet. I turned to march on but found myself fixed, eye-locked by a mustachioed kook, an arm-flapper standing in the baffled street.

“Gilt Hammer, the time has come to pay!” he screamed. Indeed it had. I knew that voice. Oh yes, I knew it, and the anger coiled up behind it. It was him all right, and boy did he fit the bill, a seven-foot, fizzing lunatic, a real yowler. I felt anchored to the earth, drilled in.

“Gilt Hammer, the time has come to pay!”

How did I know this guy? The rockets of memory all fired at once, twirling toward the distant past. Surely I would hit on something. Nope. Misfires, every one of them. He must have been someone I duped or swizzled that year when I tried out flimflamming. It turns out I’m a lousy grifter. You wouldn’t believe how tough it is, trying to get over on people. Most guys, most gals, they’re smarter than you might think, and they don’t see the joke or the value in getting themselves gazumped. And this guy must have taken it to heart. Yeah, most of that year is lost now, sunk beneath the booze and the tranks and those experimental nights with a whip-wielding vampire named Sylvia Six. (Don’t ask, because I’m not answering.) As I watched the burled barker doing his thing, yelping away in the street there, something unbelievable happened. No, I really don’t think you’ll believe it.

A sharp-nosed speedster came knifing in. It parped and hootled its way toward him, but he wouldn’t move, our man. I blinked to find the maniac, all seven feet plus hair, cartwheeling over the length of the car. With a bounce or two on the blacktop, and a fine impersonation of a thrown bowling ball, he barreled over the curb to clang his face against a pole. As onlookers swarmed to help or take closeups, I walked on toward the gizmo gala on Franklin Ave, feeling vindicated, weightless. I was old Buzz Aldrin there, doing my lunar lollop. I had never felt so fine. It was poetry, you see. I had poetry on my side. Or was it irony? Either way, it’s potent stuff, and that morning was all smeared and slathered with it.

submitted by /u/Keyboard_Komodo [link] [comments] via Blogger https://ift.tt/2HZpudj