#everything else is at the fred meyer

[tabbyphobos]

I literally make curry udon with onions and pork every week. It's my meal prep for about four days. I use butter instead of oil and vegetable broth (made primarily of carrots) instead of dashi. But I also add WAY more spices and seasonings than just curry cubes. In fact, I made some tonight!

Kare Udon with Pork

[girldragongizzard]

Chapter 12: War Councils

Rhoda has gotten herself a chair, and is sitting in it to poke around in my tablet’s settings, trying to see if she can figure out why the battery insists on reporting that it’s at 100% even though I haven’t charged it since Kimberly gave it to me.

Or, at least, I think that’s what she’s doing. I can’t see the screen from where I’m sitting.

Cerce is watching her curiously.

While she works, Rhoda almost absently starts talking about something else, “Meghan, there’s something you need to be aware of, if you haven’t checked the local news today. You don’t need to do anything about it besides probably behave yourself as best you can.”

I compose myself carefully to show her that I’m listening. But she’s not looking at me.

“That squabble last night. I think it was Loreena and Poink? Apt names, if I’m right,” she says.

“Yes,” I affirm.

“The two of them, with ample help from the police – but that’s not going to factor into this of course – destroyed half of the Southside Fred Meyer,” she says. “Both City Council and County Council are holding emergency sessions tonight because of it. I’m planning on being at one of those meetings to speak on behalf of you and your kind, if I can. If they let me.”

Oh.

I can only say “yes”, “no”, and “stop”, or make expressions that she’s not looking at, because she has my tablet, but that’s OK. I think she’s going to keep talking anyway until she’s informed me and Cerce of all that’s going on.

“The funny thing is, if you can call it funny, Loreena and Poink were shopping,” she says. “They met in the meat department, of course. Which is right between their two territories, and why they had the dispute.” She pokes at my tablet some more. “But, I’m pretty certain we’re going to have some new laws, policies, and ordinances regarding dragons by next week or so. And the police are going to be empowered to act on them. Or animal control. Or both.”

She squints at the screen, and I bow my head.

“That’s going to put you in a really tight spot, and maybe a lot of danger,” she says. “The sheriff's department has a tank they bought in 2008. It can’t get up to the roof you sleep on, but – oh, this is very interesting.”

“What is it?” Cerce asks.

Rhoda puts the tablet down on the table so we can all see. She’s opened the file browser and navigated to the system folder. And she points at an icon on the screen.

“That’s not a standard file,” she says.

“How do you know that?” Cerce asks.

“I make it a point to know a little bit of everything,” Rhoda replies. “A habit I picked up from my late son.”

“What kind of file is it?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t know if it’s related to the battery, but it’s really weird,” Rhoda says. “That icon is a sigil or rune. Not like those antisemitic new age rip offs, either.”

“What? You’re shitting me. You understand that?”

“No and no,” Rhoda admits. “I just know what it looks like and what it’s not.”

Cerce narrows her eyes and studies Rhoda. “It sounds like you know something most people don’t.”

“That’s probably true.”

I’m back to thinking maybe Rhoda is a witch.

I see movement behind Cerce in the corner of my eye and look to catch Chapman approaching us glumly.

Is it lunch time already?

Sie is wearing an R2D2 themed skater dress and moon boots, with a purse the same color as hir hair. Sie must spend all of hir disposable income on outfits, but I honestly can’t fault hir for doing so.

Chapman notices Rhoda poking at my new hand-me-down tablet and stops and purses hir lips. Then decides it’s important to stay the course and approach us.

Cerce and Rhoda notice where my attention is paid, and look themselves.

“Hey, Chapman,” Cerce says.

“Cerce,” Chapman says in their maple syrup croon. “Rhoda. Hey, Meg. I’ve come to apologize, but now I see I may need to explain even more.”

“What do you mean?” Rhoda asks. But I see she’s not tensing up. She’s just curious. Not even confused.

“That file you're thinking of opening is something I added to the tablet myself,” Chapman says. “I knew Meg would need it.”

“How?” Cerce blinks.

“I’m a bit of an artist,” Chapman replies. Sie doesn’t elaborate and just stands there waiting for the next question.

“Can you explain that?” Cerce asks.

Chapman looks around to see if anyone else is in earshot, then wanders around the table to go get another chair to bring over and sit down. 

Rhoda scoots over to make room.

Then Chapman leans forward, elbows on the table, hands clenched, and looks at each of us conspiratorially. And then waits for us to lean forward.

When we’ve tightened the circle of ears, sie says, “Dragons aren’t the only ones to have awaked recently.” Then sie leans back and again falls silent, seemingly content with having said that little.

I tilt my head to the side.

Rhoda sighs, looks over, and says, “You’re going to have to elaborate, I think.”

“I’m sorry,” Chapman says. “I’ve sworn to secrecy. But the vow is very specifically worded. So, I’m waffling. Do I violate the spirit of the vow by upholding only the letter of it? Or do I keep my mouth shut? In any case, I slipped up with Meghan, and I ‘m sorry for doing that.”

I reach across the table to bring the tablet over to me, and hit home and then the AAC app.

“I felt thing,” I say. “I felt a switch.”

It’s Chapman’s turn to tilt hir head.

“Is magic?” I ask.

“Wait,” Rhoda says, holding a hand tilted toward me to beg my patience, while looking at Chapman. “It’s only been since the 24th. How did you all organize so quickly you have a vow?”

Chapman bites hir lip, then says, “The dragons didn’t come first, or simultaneously. This all begins earlier than that. But also, not everyone took the vow. Not all learned about it. And I just thought it was a good idea.”

I angrily knuckle my tablet, “Did you make happen? Did you do change?”

“No,” Chapman says. “As far as I know, now one knows what triggered it. Only that we’re all out, now.”

I remember my 3.5 edition D&D, and decide to ask outright, “Are you warlock?”

“What? No. I’m also not saying, otherwise I’d break the vow of secrecy,” Chapman scowls. “I basically already have, though. Please don’t ask more questions like that.”

I look at Rhoda and then ask, “Are you witch?” Just to be fair.

She falls back in her chair cackling and shaking her head, “Heaven’s no! Though, I guess I admire the idea of being a wise woman.”

I look at Cerce and she just giggles.

“Are you student?” I ask.

It’s her turn to break out laughing, snorting and putting a hand to her nose, but she nods and says, “Yes! Yes, I am.”

I feel like this is the first time in my life I’ve actually cracked a joke. And it’s a subtle, deadpan joke. My way of talking is really made for deadpan delivery. It’s about all I can do, and it makes me feel sly. I love it.

I know I’ve made people laugh before, but I can’t remember if I’ve done it deliberately or not. I’ve always felt like my purposeful attempts all fell flat before.

Everyone seems to be enjoying the moment, too.

Then I feel that shift again, and Chapman, who’s been snickering too, sobers up and turns Rhoda.

“I’ll take the Council meeting you miss, tonight,” sie says. “I don’t think we can do anything there to alter the Path tonight, but we can at least remain as informed as possible.”

Rhoda nods, and no one comments.

After a moment, I insist on clarification, “What ‘Path’?”

Chapman looks at me, “History.”

Of course. “Yes,” I say.

“What can the rest of us do?” Cerce asks, sounding uncertain that she’s included.

Rhoda puts a hand on her arm and says, “You can come to one of the Council meetings too. Or, since the two of us have that covered, be yourself. You’re doing good already just being friends with the likes of us. There’ll be more work to come. I promise.”

“Do you think we should get my bosses in on this?”

“I believe Nathan is working on that angle,” Rhoda replies. “But definitely. Since the shop is the seat of Meghan’s territory, this concerns them intimately.”

“OK, I’ll back Nate up. But I think they’re already on our side, anyway. The bosses love Meg,” Cerce concludes.

Rhoda just nods.

Cerce squints at Chapman for a bit, then says, “I’m sorry. I’m going to ask you a leading question, but I really want to know. Can you teach me your art?”

“If you took the vow, I think I could try,” Chapman says. “But I don’t think it’d work. It would be unprecedented.”

Cerce sighs and nods.

Chapman folds hir arms and looks down at the table. “OK. Everyone. I’m going to phrase this in a very specific way. Please take it at face value and do not read into it.”

Sie looks around at each of us through hir magenta pompadour.

We each nod.

Sie nods, then suggests, “Let’s all pretend that I’m Gandalf.” Then sie points at me, and says, “You! I was not expecting you to be able to notice things. That’s new to everyone. Though, I don’t think any dragon has been this close to someone like me, yet. It’s only been a week. Less for most.”

I tilt my head.

“That’s all you’re getting today. Just think about it and put it to good use, Meg.”

I bow my head, “Yes.”

I have the weirdly new to me experience of realizing my social connections are falling into place and making themselves clear. And they’re doing so in a way that is at once both reassuring and helpful, but also a bit of a disappointment?

Chapman’s all business now, and Rhoda’s deeper into her business, gripping it with both hands and wearing it like a shawl. And both of them in dedication to me, for some reason. Maybe on Rhoda’s part because we’re friends and neighbors. On Chapman’s part, though, it seems to be pure business, not just autistic interest, but wrapped up in whatever sie has vowed to keep secret. And all of hir signals, signs of excitement, smugness, were probably just the thrill of opportunity falling into place.

But, at least, sie sounds like sie is on my side.

I’m more heartbroken about this than I expected, and I’m kind of confused by that.

What are dragon relationships with humans supposed to be like, anyway?

I wonder what those infant dragons will grow up to be like, being treated as dragons right from the beginning. Are they being raised by other dragons, or humans? Or, are they more autonomous than human babies, and basically self sufficient little monsters with no socialization yet?

I take a moment to visualize maybe having a dragon whelp or four or eight or whatever of my own.

I’d love to lay an egg someday, if my body can do that. But raising even one child? I’m not sure.

Huh.

Would I even have to raise them? Or just protect them for a while? I like the sound of that latter option.

Double huh.

I’m starting to wish that there was an online forum for dragons, so I back out of the AAC program and fire up a browser and do a search while the others are talking about something.

And what I get is a little overwhelming for the moment I’m in currently. But, at a first, cursory glance, I’m not seeing anything labeled, “by dragons, for dragons.” And some of the stuff I am seeing makes me want to close the browser fast.

Between “r/dragon_fuckers”, “r/dragon_masters”, and “r/dragonslayers”, I’m done.

But before I go back to the conversion in front of me, I can’t stop myself from knuckling open the search query question, “Will my dragon fuck me if I ask?”

The answer provokes a series of knocking noises to burst from my syrinx.

It reads, “If you are in the Northern hemisphere, it’s not mating season. If you are in the Southern hemisphere, maybe. The recommendation is, don’t try it.”

“What was that about?” Cerce asks.

“No,” I say. Then I push the tablet over to her so that she can read it.

Her laughter is gratifying.

Chapman looks and chuckles. And Rhoda just shakes her head.

But she looks at me thoughtfully afterward.

She does not elucidate and I have no idea what she might be thinking. But it hardly matters to me at the moment. I’m too amused to care. And then we’re interrupted.

We hear Kimberly say, “Uh, oh.”

And when we all look, we see her standing just outside the door of the shop, arms akimbo, and staring Eastward up the street.

I vaguely hear some people calling things out from up that way, and look, along with the others.

If I had hackles, they’d rise. If I had a dewlap, it’d be inflated.

Instead, my chin starts jerking up of its own accord, and my wings need to be stretched, even though I don’t have the room to do that where I’m sitting.

I see the shadow before they come into my view, but I knew what they were before that and I’m not sure how.

There are eight small pointy heads, with frilled jaws, on thin long necks, all doing that Ray Harryhausen dance as they pull themselves forward on two limbs like a walrus with a thick tail long enough to strangle an elephant.

When I say pointy heads, I mean they look just like baby crocodile heads, but with the frills.

I know the name I gave them before they make a single sound.

It’s Poink.

“Meghan,” Rhoda says, an edge of warning in her voice.

But I’m blocked in by her chair and the table behind me, and I find myself trying to climb the side of the building, despite that big red iron awning being right above me. Also, the fact that there’s a huge picture window right there doesn’t help. Not many clawholds.

I twist to my left, through the air, all the way around, to land with my foreclaws in the middle of the table, and hiss. Which I haven’t done yet. That’s interesting.

“Hey, everyone,” Chapman says. “Let’s all back off and let Meg handle this. Don’t get in the way.”

Thank you.

I manage to wait for my people to clear out and get behind me, and for Kimblerly to glance our way and then retreat into the doorway of the shop, before I move further. Then I scramble right over the table, upending it, without thinking much about my tablet.

Poink is moving pretty slow, and seems to be hurt, and is looking around warily. A couple of their heads have spotted me and are tracking my movements.

When I make it to the corner of the sidewalk, I stop.

My territory extends further than that, and Poink is already in it, but I find that my conscious curiosity about what they’re planning on doing manages to override my urge to press an attack.

Something about their movements and postures does not seem challenging, and they haven’t called out yet.

I can now see that there are big gashes on Poinks shoulders, made by three talons with every stroke. They look bigger than I could make. They’re not really bleeding now, but they must be painful.

Part of me thinks I could crush and eat them easily. And the rest of me is repulsed by that idea. And that inner conflict has me frozen as well.

I wait until they come to the edge of their sidewalk, kitty corner to me in the intersection, and then I say, “Stop.” I can’t make it sound urgent or stern, but I make it as loud as I can.

Their heads all do this fluid pulling back thing, one after another, that would make an animator fall over in delight. A hydra’s version of a taken aback.

I hear a single, quiet, “Poink.” And then they bow, lowering their shoulders and then their heads.

All the cars that have been coming up the streets have stopped, including a city bus. They all know better than to get between us at this point. And ideally, we want a demonstration of draconic diplomacy instead of a fight.

But at that “Poink”, I cannot stop myself from charging!

Bound! Bound! Jump, glide, skid, flap, flap, “GggrrrrrrrrrRREEEYAWK! NOKNOKNOKNOK!!!”

[divinedokoro]

sitting home alone today, on a bit of a depressive streak. after having been awake since 7, i finally just got up to fill my water and get some food going at 12.

I'm wearing an old comfort. this maroon hoodie from vans, with gray highlights. tattered at the cuffs and with holes in random spots, this hoodie has seen hundreds of days like this one in my younger days, and it's ideal for every purpose i have it for. This is my dysphoria hoodie, and no matter how much i wear it down, it will stay in my possession for helping me get through this all for so long

i live in alaska with a thin-ass body that hates regulating its own temperature right. i find myself cold often, and this hoodie is thick enough to warm me up without being too heavy

and it's BIG. well, from my perspective, at least. it's probably just a large men's hoodie i found at fred meyer in my egg phase. this hoodie has shielded me from so many little painful experiences that add up over time.

today i wear it for different reasons. i don't get as dysphoric as often now that I'm almost at 2 years on E, so it's spent a lot of the time since in my closet (waiting there for me in the home we both shared, i guess) as a result.

wearing it now, i know it's not shielding me the same way it did before, but i think it's symbolic. the hoodie is worn and old, but still stands strong through everything we went through together.

i wear it now to step into that strength. not strength of muscle, but of spirit. This hoodie carries with it a sliver of my being, and that gives it a power nothing else really has

[dustedmagazine]

Rempis / Harnik / Lonberg-Holm / Daisy — Earscratcher (Aerophonic)

Earscratcher by Earscratcher

You could call this record a late, late birthday present. In 2019, Austrian pianist Elisabeth Harnik first played with saxophonist Dave Rempis, drummer Tim Daisy and cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm. The encounter was sufficiently satisfying for her to plan a tour with them in May, 2020 in celebration of her 50th birthday. Of course, that tour didn’t happen; it took two full years and a couple postponements before the quartet finally commenced it on May 2, 2022, with the concert preserved on this CD.

You can hear pent-up anticipation being dispersed, but that’s not all you hear. When she first convened the quartet, Harnik undertook a gambit sufficiently familiar that someone else named their band after it — The Chicago Plan. The city’s creative music scene has sufficient mass that an outsider can have a pick of partnerships that permit them to tap into both geographic and group dynamics, and Europeans have been taking that route ever since Brigitte Fontaine recorded with the Art Ensemble of Chicago in 1970. Daisy, Rempis, and Lonberg-Holm have been performing all together or in subsets since the late 1990s in Triage, the Vandermark 5, Rempis Percussion Quartet, Klang and Ballister, so Harnik dialed up both a thoroughly tested collective compatibility and a breadth of sonic-stylistic possibilities when she made the calls that assembled this group. 

One quality that prolonged practice can cultivate is mature judgment, and it’s in ample evidence here. No one feels the need to bring the full breadth of their sound into play. Instead, they contribute what the situation at hand requires. Sometimes that means being subliminal or silent, but even when an individual is playing full-on, they astutely balance whatever they play with everything else around them. Consequently, the album’s three lengthy (between 16 and 20 minutes) collective improvisations sustain cohesion despite a prevailing dynamic of rapid change. Rempis, who plays several horns, confines himself to alto sax, on which he plays darting, discrete phrases that coil and stretch around Lonberg-Holm’s just-distorted-enough shudders and scrapes like a serpent wrapped around a broken physician’s staff. Daisy is like a turbulent weather system, shifting suddenly from gusty vectors to stormy sound-bursts that imbue the music with motion and shape, but never add too much weight. 

Harnik often places herself within this group dynamic, playing more sparsely than I’ve heard in other settings. Sometimes, a strum across the piano’s strings or a quick, isolated phrase completes the music happening around her, such as when she draws bright, thin arcs of sound through a thicket of similar gestures near the end of “Penggaruk Telinga.” But in other passages, her playing adds ballast and intricacy. She has a percussive attack that melds especially well with Daisy’s drumming, creating by turns a complex field of discrete strikes and a tidal surge of aggregated sound during “Ohrenkratzer” (all three tracks translate from another language into English as “Earscratcher”). For better or worse, as long as you’re alive, you keep having birthdays. If this quartet found a way to play music this engage on an annual basis, that would definitely be for the better.  

Bill Meyer

[theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin]

When I saw 'Romanians' mentioned in your last post I had a wtf moment cause I have only watched the movies and I don't think I've ever noticed their existence. Regardless, I just had to read the wiki page and it is hillarious to me cause coincidence or not they seem to be named after the psychopathic ruler 'Vlad the impaler' and his cousin 'Stefan the great'(he might have murdered more people than his cousin known as the impaler, but you know he is great). Also, what do you think of them? Sorry for the rant...

You have no idea what you’ve unleashed.

I love the Romanians because they are, hands down, the trashiest, weirdest, lamest, loser vampires in Twilight canon. 

Just, these two are so hilariously beautiful.

First off, while Meyer undoubtedly named them with Vlad Tepish and Stefan the Great in mind, the Romanians are actually much older. We don’t have exact dates, but we know the Romanians (then presumably the Dacians), held great power over their territory for a thousand years before the Volturi had truly established themselves. After the Volturi took on and won against Amun’s coven in Egypt (and took the grateful Demetri off Amun’s hands making Amun still bitter thousands of years later) they waged war against the Romanians and won. (Vlad and Stefan are still very bitter but give us the silver lining of “oh yeah, well, we’re only partly petrified. SO TAKE THAT STUPID VOLTURI!”)

Vlad, Stefan, and Vlad’s wife were the only survivors. The Romanians, being one of the most evil and trashy covens in Twilight, decided to take on Volterra by amassing an army of 100 vampires. Hilariously, they had poor timing, this is a decade after Aro acquired Jane and Alec. The entire army is defeated in a second, Vlad’s wife is murdered, and by 810 AD, it’s just Vlad and Stefan.

They’ve remained losers the Volturi don’t take seriously ever since. Every decade, Demetri pays them a visit to remind them that yes, the Volturi does remember them and can find them any time they want to. Even more hilariously, Vlad and Stefan take this very seriously, and are constantly on the run from the Volturi, never aware that the Volturi actually don’t care. At all. 

Point being, given these guys, first it’s entirely likely their original names are not Vlad and Stefan. We see many of the vampires of the ancient world periodically change their name. We have Chelsea and Demetri, who are canonically acknowledged as having done this. Given when and where they were born, we can assume Marcus and Caius were not originally Marcus and Caius. Similarly, we can assume Aro’s name was originally far longer as well.

None the less, it would be just like these two to name themselves after these Romanian human warlords, one of whom serves and the inspiration for the modern vampire myth in Europe. And then, insist, of course, that the human rulers were actually named after Vlad and Stefan, because the humans still worship them, you know.

They’re going to be back on top any day now, you’ll see. 

That’s another thing worth getting into. The Romanians are evil. I’m not exaggerating this, of all the vampires in Twilight, they are the most appalling (and this is including James, Maria and the southern war lords, Joham... well not Joham, he’s a special brand of evil). These guys had a thousand year reign of terror in Dacia. Humans were butchered seemingly by entire villages, they made humans their slaves and demanded worship and sacrifice. When the humans periodically tried to overthrow them, they slaughtered them all, presumably placed their heads on spikes, and used them to taunt those few surviving humans.

When they lost power, they made an army a hundred vampires strong, which given what we see of the newborns in Seattle (who were only around twenty and still far too large to control), probably wiped out several large settlements in eastern Europe. Didn’t matter, just as long as they got rid of the Volturi.

And they miss those glory days dearly.

They actively reminisce about in Breaking Dawn to an oblivious Bella, who is just so happy these very important and impressive Europeans are here to help her beautiful daughter and so impressed they they’ve been fighting the corrupt Volturi for thousands of years (which is another bit of hilarity we’ll get into). You know, when/if the Volturi fall, the Romanians will be the first in line to rape the women and enslave us all. Good times, good times.

But back to them being trash people.

Vlad and Stefan are utterly destitute, their entire coven is destroyed, and yet they still insist they’re a Big Fucking Deal. Not only that, but just their every action is beyond weird. They talk in unison like Fred and George Weasley, they’re these ridiculously tiny men dressed as stereotypical vampires, and they show up out of nowhere on your doorstep saying, “So, hear you’re starting an insurrection against Volterra, Carlisle, we want in” (While Carlisle, I’m sure, just dies a thousand times inside). 

They then talk to Bella all about how they fight the corruption of the Volturi. What is the corruption, you ask? Well, the Volturi drove them out of their kingdom and liberated the human slaves. Then they imposed this stupid law where you couldn’t eat humans in broad daylight. Then when the Romanians tried to invade Italy they killed them all.

The Romanians will expose the Volturi’s crimes here and now. They stand for justice, peace, and Renezel--Renpunz--Renesmee. (The Romanians decidedly do not come for Renesmee, they hear about Carlisle’s army through the vampire European rumor mill, which just shows how out of hand it all got because now Carlisle’s amassing an army to protect the immortal child his son made. They show 0 interest in Renesmee.)

They give me serious McPoyle vibes.

More, beautifully, everything they touch becomes tainted.

Laurent, another beautiful loser character, starts life as a French courtier in Versailles. When he’s turned into a vampire, he assumes the vampire world works like Versailles. It works nothing like Versailles.

He seeks out those vampires with the greatest power.

Well, vampires in general are cannibalistic homeless nomads who care nothing for power.

This brings him, beautifully, to the Romanians. They insist to Laurent they’re super cool and powerful, Laurent believes them, but either Laurent eventually clues in or realizes something’s not right here. So, he goes to seek out the real power, the Volturi.

Unfortunately, Laurent is a loser, the Volturi is not court, and Aro has no need for some lackey trying to get in his good graces. Plus, Laurent hung out willingly with Vlad and Stefan. And anyone who does that...

So, Aro goes, “Ew, no, leave.”

Laurent is convinced, even when canon rolls around and he’s sunk so low as to hang out with James and Victoria (also loser vampires), that Aro will call him back any day now.

Aro never does. Laurent is eaten by untrained sixteen-year-old shape shifters.

But yes, point being, I imagine that in this modern era the Romanians would have a Go Fund Me for purchasing the blow torches they’ll use to destroy the Volturi once and for all. They also have a YouTube channel which is unintentionally dungeon porn, in which they cover their heads in bags so as not to be recognized, and talk about the good old days in thick Romanian accents. It’s a very popular YouTube channel, nobody understands why they wear so much body glitter.

Oh, right, Bella.

Bella is so beautiful with these guys. So, in Breaking Dawn, Bella actually takes the Romanians seriously. They’re all I describe above and more, they’re not hiding it, they’re full McPoyle (including the taking over the world built). Jake even tells Bella he finds them weird as hell. Bella thinks they’re great.

No, really, she thinks they’re great.

They tell her how they enslaved all the people in their territory, demanded tithes, and would eagerly do so again as soon as they get the chance and she stares at them with wide eyes and thinks about how cool all these vampires who came for precious Renesmee are. (Which, funnily, they actually all came either for Carlisle, because he has a billion friends everywhere, or else as a power grab like the Romanians, or both in Amun’s case. It’s the weirdest, most beautiful, mixture of people.)

Bella has her moments, but loving the Romanians has got to be a top ten for her. My explanation is that she’s so high on vampirism and Renesmee that this is all just great for her. LIFE IS WONDERFUL!

EDIT: I could no longer abide my spelling mistakes, I also edited a bit for cleanliness.

[leafs-lover]

Because Two People Got Drunk: 27

Series Masterlist

Chapter 27

Summary: You fill the team in on the pregnancy and move into your new house.

Warning: Smut, NSFW, Oral sex (male and female), swearing Word Count: 9500

“Hey babe” you mumble walking out of the bathroom and right into Fred’s chest; his arms instinctively wrap around your back. You can smell his cologne, something that use to make you melt but now the oak and blackcurrant is making your stomach do backflips. You take a deep breath and swallow feeling his heartbeat as you stand intertwined for a few minutes.

“Thought the sickness was supposed to be over by now” he whispers rubbing your back.

“It normally is. But this baby has a mind of its own” you groan against his chest.

“You should take those pills the doctor gave you” he says to you.

“It doesn’t happen every day. Since I have to take them at night I don’t know if I’ll need them the next day or not” you mumble against his chest.

His chin rests on your head before he finally speaks again “I made you toast and jam, it’s on the counter. I have to go to practice though.”

You whine thinking about him leaving, you’re wrapped in a warm embrace and you don’t want to leave. Fred chuckles slowly rubbing your back, with how you’ve been feeling you have been super cuddly and needy. He has been making jokes about you being a clingy girlfriend, but you know he secretly has been enjoying every second of it.

“Ollie is almost done making you a picture, he says it will make you feel better” he whispers, his hand softly rubbing your back.

You smile thinking of your two year olds though process, his solution to everything is a hug or a picture and they really do make everything better. “He is the best” you mumble into his sweater.

“It’s because his mom taught him to be, now let’s get some food in you” Fred grips your hand and pulls you to the kitchen.

“Mommy” you hear your son sing as he lights up seeing you. “I made you this!” he squeals standing on his chair holding his picture up. You walk over and hug him and look down at his picture that is mostly green and blue scribbles with a yellow blob in the corner.

“Wow, look at this” you say examining his art work, Fred looks down at the page trying to figure out what it is. You look at Fred through the corner of your eye, and he grins looking down at the piece of paper you’re holding. Besides the sun you are at a loss for what else is in it.

“It’s rex” Oliver points to the large blue splotch at the bottom of the page. Next he points to the green marks “he’s playing at the park.”

Rex is his stuffed T-rex, Fred bought him for his second birthday. It’s not his favourite stuffed animal that is Blue, his blue bear Fred bought him when he was only a couple months old. Oliver is basically inseparable from Blue, taking him everywhere. You have more pictures of Oliver with Blue than without; it has become his security blanket in a sense. However if he is sick or missing Fred during a road trip you will often find him curled up with Blue, and that’s because Rex has a voice box. Fred recorded a few sayings into the box, so whenever Oliver misses him he can squeeze it and hear his voice. You practically bawled when he showed it to you, now you realize you were pregnant then, and it was your hormones. But either way it is the one thing that cheers him up when he is missing his dad.

“Oh I love it Ollie” you say brushing his hair back and kissing his head. You feel tears begin to well in your eyes, and you sniffle them back, wiping them away with your other hand.

Fred chuckles seeing you do this, he has gotten pretty used to you crying over everything the past couple weeks. He pulls you both in for a hug and kisses your cheek before placing one on your son’s forehead.

“I have to go to hockey big guy” Fred says.

Oliver wraps his arms around Fred’s neck “love you daddy.”

A couple hours later you are in the doctor’s office waiting for Dr. Morris. You have stripped of most your clothes, lying on the table wrapped in the blanket. Finally a different doctor walks into the room and washes his hands, sitting on the chair beside you.

“Dr. Morris was called away, I’m Dr. Meyers, and I’ll be doing your ultrasound today if that’s okay. So how are things, how have you been?” he asks.

“I’ve been okay. Some nausea, it’s not as often as before” you explain. You continue to tell him about how your hormones have been crazy, you cried during a dog food commercial the other day, and last week you cried when you couldn’t get a McFlurry at 8am. You explain how your morning sickness was over by this point and you didn’t get irrationally emotional when you were pregnant with Oliver.

“Well every pregnancy is different, some people believe the first one is always smooth to convince women to have a second baby, and the second one ends up being significantly harder on the mom” he says putting on some gloves and chuckling. “But that’s an old myth; everything sounds like normal a pregnancy, and your blood work is normal. These are things you might have to cope with for the next few months. I’d like to tell you you’re hormones will get better, but it’s likely the opposite.”

You grumble under your breath and can feel Fred smirking beside you as the doctor begins to setup the ultrasound. You adjust on the table while the doctor shifts the screen so he can see it. Fred moves his chair closer, grabbing your hand as the doctor spreads the jelly on your stomach. He moves the wand around for the few minutes, taking some pictures and measurements but doesn’t say anything.

You start to get nervous as if something is wrong, normally by now the doctor should have said something; shown you the screen or turned on the heartbeat monitor. Time is droning on, it feels like the doctor has been quiet for hours when in reality it hasn’t even been a minute.

You can practically hear your heart beating through your chest. You turn to Fred and he shoots you a quick smile, but it does nothing to alleviate your anxiety. He shifts awkwardly in his seat, you can tell he is picking up on your nerves. The doctor continues to move the wand around your stomach. A scowl reaches his face as he opens your file, reviewing some of the notes, switching his gaze between the screen and the file.

“So everything is okay” he finally says turning the screen to show you. You take a deep breathe, exhaling in relief. He points onto the monitor “your babies are doing good. A little on the small side, likely because the nausea is preventing you from eating a lot; but nothing too concerning right now.” He turns on the fetal Doppler and the heartbeat fills the air.

You can see Fred from the corner of your eye, smiling ear to ear. Whenever a doctor turns on the heartbeat Fred immediately only focuses on that. He doesn’t even hear what you and the doctor are talking about, too fascinated by the heartbeat. You always end up filling him in all the details he missed, and this time is no different.

“You uh…you…you said babies. As in plural” you say shifting on the table, and tightly squeezing Fred’s hand. This catches his attention and his eyes snap up from the screen and lock on yours. You see some confusion cross his face, since he didn’t hear everything.

“Yes you are having twins” the doctor says pointing to two shapes on the screen. Fred’s eyes go wide as he turns his attention to the screen and looks to where the doctor is pointing. The room falls silent, the only noise is the heartbeat and your increased breathing.

“Twins” Freddie finally says softly. “Like two babies?”

“Yes” he chuckles “twins means two babies. One, two” he says pointing to the screen.

“Shut up” you say in disbelief.

“No way” Fred whispers beside you.

You bring your hands up to your face covering your eyes “are you serious?” you ask.

Fred begins stroking your arm and you hear the doctor respond “yeah” with a light chuckle. You bring your hands away from your eyes and look the monitor while the doctor continues “it’s likely that one was hiding behind the other during the last ultrasound, it happens from time to time.”

“Oh my god” you say half laughing bringing your hand up to grip Fred’s.

The doctor prints out some pictures and talks with you a little while longer. You try to focus on what he is saying, but it just becomes white noise at this point. How are you going to manage twins? The rest of the appointment becomes a blur, you hope this is the one time Fred is listening because you aren’t.

You walk out to the car hand in hand, a million thoughts running through your head. You heard him correctly, he said twins.

When you reach the car Fred opens the door and lets you in, he started it before you left the office so the seats are nice and warm. When Fred gets in he doesn’t start driving right away, instead his hand reaches across the console pulling you from your trance.

“I can see the wheels turning, I know you are stressing” Fred says his hand lightly squeezing your thigh.

“And you’re not? He said twins Frederik.”

“Full name, not good” he laughs. “Babe we talked about having three kids.”

“Yeah but we were going to re-evaluate after having this one” you laugh, but you can feel tears building in the back of your throat.

“Hey elskede” Fred says reaching across the console to place a soft kiss on your forehead. He rests his forehead on yours, a hand lightly placed on your hip “I love you so much and we will be okay. No matter what happens we have each other and we’ll be just fine.” He places a soft kiss on your lips before pulling away and sliding back to his seat.

“I know but Fred its two babies. But it’s just not just two babies because we already have one. We are going to have three babies, three babies under the age of 3. We are going to be outnumbered; it’s going to be crazy.”

He put the car in drive and pulls out of the lot, his hand returns to your thigh. “I know it won’t be easy, I mean some days will be absolute mayhem. We will barely sleep, have no clean clothes and go through a million diapers a week.”

“You’re not helping” you whine loudly cutting him off. You feel your chest begin to tighten, heart racing while you think off how difficult this will be.

Fred laughs and squeezes your thigh “some days are going to suck, and we’re just going to want to curl up in bed and cry all day. But we have each other and we’ll figure it out. We figured it out with Oliver, that situation was difficult too.” His hand squeezes your leg before he moves it to grab your hand; he pulls it to his mouth and places a soft kiss on it. You look over at him and see him smiling at you. His presence calms you while you take a few deep breathes “we’ll figure this out too Kære” he says softly turning his attention back to the road.

“I know we will it’s just going to be a lot” you sigh.

“I know, but just think about all the good times. Two times the smiles. Twice the baby laughs” he squeezes your thigh “I know you love baby laughs.”

You chuckle lightly remembering when Oliver first started to laugh, his laugh filled the room and your heart at the same time. A smile creeps over your face and you see Fred grin knowing he is helping to calm your fears.

“We’re going to have twice the love smuk, so even though it will be crazy sometimes it will always be amazing. And there is nobody else I would want to do it with” he says and you see him grinning from ear to ear. He stops at a red light and leans across the centre console to place a kiss on your cheek, but you turn your head and his lips land on yours. He places a soft kiss on yours lips before pulling a way to look at the light which is still red.

“Same babe” you whisper pulling his face to yours for another kiss. It starts off soft as your hand runs up the side of his face, stroking his stubble in the process.

You open your mouth and Fred gently slides his tongue in. Your tongue swirls around when you hear a honk from behind you. He quickly pulls away, the light now green and drives through the intersection chuckling while you wipe some of the Chap Stick that has smeared around your mouth.

---

“You guys are moving tomorrow right?” Kathy asks. You are almost a month into your second trimester, but due to the sickness and exhaustion you haven’t made it to many home games over the past month making it hard to keep her updated.

“Uh we get the keys tomorrow, and then we have some small reno’s and the painters are coming. Then the furniture is coming, then the movers to bring all our current stuff over” Fred explains.

"Yeah so there is still a bit of stuff to do but we are hoping to be fully moved in mid-march” you continue.

You and Fred are at the annual Night of Assists gala for the Penguins foundation. They had some casino games open prior to dinner, so you haven’t seen much of the players. You found a spot at Fred’s roulette table and spent a few minutes shooting him seductive glances and playfully sucking on your straw while he just shook his head at you from behind the table.

The waiters filled the wine glasses prior to everyone sitting down. You haven’t told any of the wag you are pregnant yet so Fred quickly drank it for you. Fred hasn’t told any of the players, wanting to wait for you; and you have wanted to do it in person. What he didn’t plan on was the waiter seeing the empty glass and refilling it before the salads were brought out. He finished his glass prior to the main course and switched to water for now, trying not to drink too much tonight. This means that you have a full glass in front of you, and it has been there for the last 40 minutes untouched.

“I’m okay we can share a piece” Fred says to the waiter holding a piece of chocolate cheesecake.

He turns his attention back to you, sliding his chair closer. “It’s bold of you to think I would share my cheesecake” you say bringing a piece up to your lips. You open your mouth and slip the fork in, slowly drawing it out while you look at Fred through the corner of your eye. A light moan leaves your lips while the amazing decadent flavours fills your mouth.

He just laughs leaning in close to you, the chatter of the room is loud and he doesn’t want to yell. “I thought you might be generous and offer me one bite” you can feel his beard graze your ear, his warm breath on your neck “but I can wait until later for my dessert” he whispers kissing your neck before pulling his body back a bit to talk to Kris beside him. You immediately feel yourself dripping down your leg, part of the second trimester is your crazy sex hormones. They were bad with Oliver, and you thought since this pregnancy is so different it might not be that bad, but you were wrong they have been worse.

While it still terrifies you the thought of having twice as many feedings and diaper changes, you have calmed down from the previous day’s news. You and Fred have an amazing support system between the WAGS, your friends and Fred’s mom there will be a lineup of people wanting to help, but it’s still is slightly terrifying thinking of twins.

A part of you is nervous at telling people. Some of the WAGS are slightly traditional and have been asking when you are getting married. And marriage should be the next logical step, but you both agreed you didn’t want a big age gap with your kids. This is why you are having another kid right now instead of planning a wedding. Fred also hasn’t proposed, which is the first step to getting married.

And if your being honest, you might not have had a wedding yet but you have everything that a marriage represents. To you it represents a lifelong commitment, with babies and a house. You know that Fred is committed to you so the path you take to get there isn’t too important to you; they all lead to the same place. He has suggested going to city hall to get married, and you have considered it. But an important part of your wedding is having all the people you both love there to support you.

Fred’s hand is resting on your leg just above your knee as everyone chats around you, he leans in “how are you feeling babe?” he whispers.

“Good, I haven’t really felt sick today. They have been giving me the day off from puking which has been super considerate” you joke as Fred kisses your cheek. “But actually it’s been better in general; apart from being overly emotional I have been noticing I have a bit more energy. There have also been some cravings” you take a small piece of cheesecake and put it in your mouth, slowly pulling the fork out.

Fred kisses your shoulder “oh yeah” he mumbles while you bring a piece to his mouth. He opens his mouth and you slide the fork into it. He closes his lips around it, pulling back cleaning the fork in the process. You swallow trying to not get too turned on as there are about 400 people around you, and it’s a team event.

He leans closer to you placing a kiss on your cheek “let me know if you need help with any of those cravings” he growls lowly. His raspy voice and hand slowly inching up your leg has you want to find an empty bathroom. Your core is on fire and Fred knows exactly what his touch is doing to you. You look over at him and before you can respond you hear Kathy “(Y/N) you haven’t touched your wine” Kathy says drawing some of the eyes to you.

Fred quickly responds “she hasn’t been feeling the best for the last couple days.”

“Oh sorry to hear that” Sidney says.

“You think you had a bug or something? One went through the Guentzel household a couple weeks ago” Kathy adds.

“No” you say as they stare at you, you feel Fred shift slightly, his arm moves behind your head resting on the chair. After a brief pause you look at around at the waiting eyes of his teammates. Fred smiles at you before you continue “we’re pregnant.”

Kathy squeals and runs over to you wrapping you in a big hug. “Congrats guys” Sid says.

“How far along are you?” Kathy asks.

“18 weeks” Fred says.

“No way you’re 18 weeks, you don’t look pregnant at all” one of the WAGS says to you.

“Yeah the doctor confirmed the date again yesterday” you explain. “I’m 18 weeks along”

There is a slight pause before Fred chimes in “with twins.”

“Twins?!” Kathy exclaims “that’s so exciting!”

“Yeah I guess" you say chuckling.

“You guess?” Christina inquires.

“(Y/N/N) is a little stressed about the twin thing” Fred says laughing rubbing his hand on the back of your neck.

“Oh worried about giving birth to two babies?” one of the rookies asks.

“No" you groan glaring at him “I haven’t really thought about that! I’m worried about the 3 babies under 3, trying to handle all that. Two screaming babies and an energetic toddler, it will be a blast.”

“Stop stressing out, everything will work out" Fred says kisses your cheek lightly.

“You know I will always help out with the little ones, especially since you two make the cutest babies ever” she squeals still not letting go of the hug.

A few hours later the boys are off participating in some of the fundraiser events, Fred was up on stage participating in the team auction but it just ended. After the auction you saw him get pulled away by some donors. You and Kathy were walking around the room playing some of the games while catching up.

“Can’t believe he finally proposed to you” you say looking at her ring. It’s a beautiful oval cut diamond on a rose gold band, there are multiple small stones set around the band, and every time she moves her hand it catches the light.

“I know” she squeals picking up her wine glass from the bar. You grab your water and you both walk back to your table “he did it on all-star break” she starts to explain sitting down.

“We went to Salt Lake City where we had a private cabin” she tells you. “We had dinner in front of the fire and after the bottle wine we went on the balcony. It was snowing, the lights from the neighbouring cabins lightly illuminated the sky. I was looking out at the mountains and I turned to look at him and he was down on one knee, it was amazing. Just the best night, I’m so excited to finally be engaged.”

“I didn’t think he would propose until he retired” you say half joking.

“I know me too!” she shrieks bringing her hand up to look at the ring. “Now I just have to plan a wedding.”

“When are you thinking?” Anna asks from across the table.

Kathy brings her glass up and takes a sip before answering “August, I already booked a spot downtown. It overlooks the city and we’ll see the lights at night during the reception.”

“Oh that sounds perfect” you exclaim, getting into more details of the wedding with her.

You feel a hand on your shoulder and can tell from the touch who it is immediately, you look up to see Fred in his form fitted three piece grey suit. Your breath hitches in your throat as he leans down putting his hand out in front of you “dance with me.”

You grab his hand and stand up, he leads you out to the dancefloor. He places one hand on the small of your back, as you place one on his shoulder. He holds you tight as he leads you around the dancefloor, soft music fills the air. “I don’t know if I told you this yet, but you look amazing tonight babe.”

You are wearing a black low cut floor length gown. It has a wrap around the stomach which is hiding your bump. You paired it with the red Louboutin shoes Fred gave you for Christmas. “You have told me” you say lightly “many times. But I don’t know if I’ve told you how amazing you look.”

“You’ve seen me in this suit before babe” he says spinning you he pulls you in closer to himself this time.

You look up to him raising an eyebrow as he smirks “I will never tire of seeing you in a suit” you say lightly as his hand slides lower to just above your ass. The noise around you fades into the background, you feel like it’s just the two of you in the room.

“Well this dress is stunning babe” he kisses your forehead. “When did you get it? I don’t think I’ve seen it before.”

“You bought it for me about 2 weeks ago" you say smiling at him.

“Did I now?” he says laughing as you continue dancing. Your hand squeezes his firm bicep as your other slides up the back of his neck, playing with his hair. It dips behind the collar of his dress shirt, your pinky loops into his chain pulling you in tighter to him. You smell his familiar cologne, but he must have changed his body wash, you are getting a hint of coconut coming off him.

“Well none of my other dresses fit me because of the bump" you explain.

“It was worth every penny” he says kissing you lightly on the lips. “For the record my favourite part of your outfit is the little baby bump your dress is skillfully hiding.”

You stare up at him smiling “you’re ridiculous, this bump isn’t really that little. And this wasn’t easy to hide.” You laugh lightly remembering the hours you spent, trying to find a dress that fit the theme for the night but also disguised your bump in case you didn’t want to tell the team tonight.

“I love you, and I love seeing you pregnant. You look great with a bump, I don’t want you to hide it ever. I loved seeing you pregnant with Oliver.”

You roll your eyes at him as you continue to sway to the music, Fred holds you tightly. “I can’t wait to see the bump all the time" he says leaning down to place a soft kiss on your cheek. “Get to feel your growing belly, the babies kicking. I love it all” he places another kiss behind your ear. His thumb drawing circles on your back while his beard rubs against your neck as he peppers kisses on you.

You moan lightly his hand now gently resting on your ass “babe, can we leave?” you ask.

Fred doesn’t answer you instead he kisses you gently on the lips. He pulls away and walks over the table and grabs your purse before retrieving your coats. The drive home is an easy and comfortable silence as you stare out the window, your hand is gently resting on Fred’s thigh.  When you arrive home, you find Christie on the couch and wish her a good night. You lock the door behind her and as you turn around Fred pushes you against the door, mouth sucking on your neck.

You arch your neck to allow him access moaning loudly, your hands slide from his chest down his treasure line. You feel his erection straining his dress pants causing you to raise an eyebrow at him. “I told you I love seeing you pregnant” he growls reaching down to pick you up and carry you to bed.

----

“What else did the doctor say?” Fred asks over the Bluetooth, he can tell you are holding back. You just left your appointment which Fred had to miss because of a road trip. He doesn’t have a game today so you were able to call him and discuss the news while you drive to the new house. You are heading over to check on the progress since you are supposed to be moving in a week and there are some final details you want to ensure are completed.

You take a deep breath “my blood pressure is a little high, and with twins I’m at a higher risk of preeclampsia” you say pulling off the highway only a few minutes from the house.

“Okay, so what does that mean?” he asks, you can hear the concern in his voice.

“I need to take it easy” you start to explain.

“So you thought instead of resting you would go check on the house?”

“Well I need to make sure things are on track so we can move next week.”

“And if things aren’t we can push the move back. The last thing is our current furniture being moved in, I did that so we can stay longer if needed. We don’t have to leave the condo for 3 more weeks. Babe I need you to listen to the doctor and take things easy.”

“That’s not all I can do to help my blood pressure babe. I need to drink enough water, make sure I exercise, limit my salt, and eat more veggies and less meat. There are a lot of things I can do. I don’t have preeclampsia, it’s just high blood pressure, something a lot of pregnant women deal with.”

“Well you’re the only woman pregnant with my baby so when the doctor tells you to do something I’m going to make you do it. And you might not have it now but it could happen. Limiting unnecessary stress and resting is best for you. Christie is there, you should be home and taking a nap babe. I need you and those babies to be okay. Promise me you will take it easy skat.”

“I promise babe I will. I love you.”

“I love you too, now go home. Not inside the house but back to the condo and lie down. You are not allowed in that house until we move" he says.

“But what if they -" you start to object.

“No, go home. You promised you’ll take it easy. The designer has everything under control and she can Facetime with questions. Please for me”

You huff in disapproval “you’re lucky I love you” you mumble. You pull into the driveway but immediately turn the car around and head toward the condo. You don’t have preeclampsia, lots of women have high blood pressure and never get preeclampsia. But you know he worries even more when he is on the road and can’t be there with you.

“I love you too kaere” he laughs before hanging up the phone.

March 15

Today is the day of your gender reveal party. Kathy has been planning the party for you; Carlee, Allie and Fred’s parents and one of his brothers are visiting as well. It is also a housewarming party, and the first time you and Fred have seen the finished product.

You originally wanted to do something small with just the three of you, but since you aren’t having a baby shower you agreed to this party. Kathy started a group chat with your friends and they basically forced you into this, even getting Fred on board. You agreed because this is something you never had with Oliver, you had a small shower with your friends but due to the circumstances you didn’t have an elaborate party and didn’t really celebrate the pregnancy with Fred.

After the doctor’s appointment last week Fred wanted to cancel the party, but Kathy promised to do everything so you could stay off your feet as much as possible. It seems a little extreme since you are still supposed to exercise but Fred is more worried about you stressing over the little details.

“Oh you look gorgeous mama” Allie says hugging you. You are wearing a white, pink and blue floral dress. Since most of the party is indoors you figured you were fine to wear a dress during the winter. There is also a lot of people in your house, which is making the temperature rise.

“And your house is amazing!” Carlee exclaims taking in the house.

“I know they finished yesterday. We haven’t even spent time here. The keys went right from the designer to Kathy so she could set up for the party" you say laughing. “We get to stay tonight finally, but everything looks amazing.”

“Hi dear" you hear from behind you and see Fred has returned with your grandparents and his parents.

“Oh you are glowing, look at your belly” you grandma says placing a hand on your stomach.

“Yeah two babies does this to you" you say laughing as you hug her.

“You look amazing" Charlotte says walking up to hug you.

“Yes she looks amazing, but she is supposed to be sitting” Fred groans kissing your cheek. You roll your eyes at him and walk over to the couch with your friends and family to catch up on everything.

The party continues for a while. Oliver roped some of the players into a game of ministicks in the basement. And even with music and chatter you occasionally can hear the boys laughing or cheering. You know it is very possible there will be some broken apple watches or cracked phone screens with how they play.

Due to feet pain you have spent most of the party sitting at the couch, not that you would tell Fred he is right. Since your conversations have been limited to those nearby Fred has been mingling with everyone and you haven’t seen him in close to an hour. You just returned from the bathroom, when Kathy tells you the gender reveal is in 15 minutes.

You make your way over to the drink table, grabbing a bottle of water when you feel the familiar touch of Fred’s hand on your back. “Hey babe" you say looking to him. His lips kiss the top of your head, and you breathe in his cologne. A light moan leaves your lips but Fred doesn’t hear over the chatter from everyone else. His hand slides around to your stomach “you look stunning babe" he says in your ear.

“Thanks, so do you" you say turning your head to kiss him.

“I don’t look nearly as good as you skat” he says stroking your stomach. He leans closer to your ear “this dress, it really shows off your bump.” His thumb slides higher, lightly grazing your breast, you tilt your head, and you wince slightly at the feeling. “It also shows off your boobs, which I see have popped too” he chuckles, his hand briefly strokes your boob before dropping lower to your stomach.

Your breasts have recently become very sensitive, as has every part of your body. As much as you have wanted Fred to touch you, some nights you are far too uncomfortable. You have fallen asleep on your side, while his hand rest lightly on your hip, one of the few areas that doesn’t seem to bother you while lying down.

You lean back a little bit resting your back against his chest and feel his erection straining through his jeans. Your eyes go wide looking around the room at all the guests “told you I love seeing you pregnant.”

You turn around to face him and stand on your tippy toes, whispering in his ear “I can’t wait for everyone to leave.” You press up against his erection “so many things I want to do to you,” you place a kiss on his cheek.

You hear Fred groan and take a breath before you walk away. You find Kathy and chat with her, you try to engage with her but you can feel Fred’s eyes staring at you. Every time you glance in his direction he smirks at you. Your hormones are in overdrive from those subtle glances he keeps sending you. Fred knows what he is doing to you and what you are feeling.

You showed up a half hour before everyone else, except Sid and Kathy were there setting up in the entryway. You have been doing some yoga the past few weeks which has been helping with some of your pain; so when you arrived you weren’t feeling too bad.

Given how you have been horny for the last 3 nights but too sore to do anything you thought you finally found a window. Kathy was distracted with decorating, and Oliver had pulled Sidney away to show him some toys. Fred went into the pantry and you followed him in closing the door behind you. Kathy walked in and found you sitting on the counter engaged in a very hot make-out session and if she had of come 2 minutes later she likely would have seen a lot more. She laughed and jokingly closed the door behind her to give you guys “privacy” while turning up the music, but the moment was gone.

Now you are starting to feel sore again, but you are still extremely horny. You hope that your pain and sensitivity drops so you can enjoy your first night in your house. Kathy finally wrangles everyone for the gender reveal which is outside.

You put on your coat and meet Fred and Oliver who are standing by a net with a hockey stick for a picture. As the three of you pose you feel Fred’s hand slide down your back, before it finally reaches your ass where he gives you a light squeeze.

“Frederik” you sternly whisper, jumping slightly.

“Come on babe you’re better than that. You know what calling me that does" he squeezes your ass again. He set Oliver on the ground and kisses you on the cheek, you move over to the side as Fred gets ready with a puck.

You opted for a hockey themed gender reveal. There is a net with 5 accuracy shooting targets attached, one in every corner and one in the middle. Fred will shoot a puck, and he has to hit the targets. 3 are blanks and two have powder either pink or blue depending on the gender of each baby. He lets the first puck go hitting the target in the top right corner.

“Ahh" you hear, the target breaks and everyone waits but nothing happens. Oliver runs to the net “Daddy, hit this one" he says pointing to the bottom right corner.

“You think that one has a colour bud?” he asks.

“Yeah daddy!” he exclaims. He isn’t really sure what is happening, but he is so excited to be a part of it.

“Okay bud, go to mom so you’re out of the way.” Oliver moves and Fred shoots the puck, blue powder fills the air.

“I told you daddy" he says running for a hug. You join him as Fred kisses you “you know what that means?” you ask Oliver.

He shakes his head “well that means you are going to have a little brother" Fred explains.

“Yay! I want a little brother” Oliver screams causing a laugh from everyone.

“Well there is two babies, so we have to find out if the other baby will be a boy or a girl" you say.

“Boy! I want two brothers!” he says and you laugh lightly kissing his head. You and Fred are set on no more babies after the twins, so you are kind of hoping for a girl. Apart from the matching mother daughter outfits you love the idea of Fred having a daughter. You know that she would have him wrapped around her finger the second she is born.

“What one should daddy hit next? Top, bottom or middle?” you ask him pointing to the targets.

“Bottom one!” he exclaims. You take Oliver and move to the side; Fred hits it on the first shot and nothing happens.

“Not that one” you say. “Pick another one bud. Top or middle?”

“Umm" he says staring at the saucers. “Middle one, the middle one daddy!”

Fred takes a shot and hits the middle one “oh" everyone says as the disk explodes and nothing comes out.

Fred walks over and kisses you “at least we know what one it’s in.” You laugh as you watch him walk back, your eyes linger on his ass that is covered in dark denim. They are fitted in the ass, but don’t do justice for what you know is underneath. While he gets ready your eyes scan around the crowd and you see Carlee who is just smirking at you from across the way. Your face goes slightly pink as you know she saw you.

Fred aims at the top one but you hear a ringing as it hit the post. He pulls another puck over and takes a shot and shoots low, he takes another shot and goes wide. Everyone laughs at the missed shots.

“Need some help?” Sid jokes.

He takes another shot hitting the crossbar which earns some chirps from his team mates which he laughs off.

“My job is to stop shots not take them" he laughs.

“You’re supposed to hit it daddy” Oliver calls out which causes everyone including Fred to laugh. He shakes it off and brings another puck over to the shooting surface.

He takes another shot and hits the centre of the target and blue powder fills the air again. “Two brothers” Oliver squeals running to Fred. “Daddy I can play hockey and wrestling with them!”

Fred picks him up “yeah once they are a little bit older you can bud.” He wraps his arm around you and kisses you. He moves to deepen it slightly when Oliver starts laughing in his arms “gross daddy.”

Everyone laughs as he sets Oliver down who runs to your grandparents and Fred’s parents.

“Two babies and no girls" Fred says to you.

“I know babe, but as long as they are healthy that’s all that matters. If they are anything like our first son they will be amazing” you say looking at Oliver.

“With you as their mother they will be the best boys ever" he says kissing you.

Everyone surrounds you congratulating you, “maybe you can try for a girl once the twins are a little older” you hear Ernst say.

“Ha!” you laugh.

“We already decided we are done after these two” Fred explains.

“Being a mom of boys sounds nice” you say as Fred pulls you in tight to him. “If it was a girl Fred would let her walk all over him anyways.”

“Yeah that’s for sure” Charlotte says laughing.

A little while later everyone has left, you are at home; Oliver fell asleep pretty quickly once everyone left. Fred is driving your grandparent’s home and his family to your old condo. Your old bedroom set is going in the guest suite and you didn’t want to book the movers until this house was ready. You wanted them to stay in one of the spare rooms upstairs but there was some items on back order that won’t be arriving until next week leaving you with nowhere to put his family.

You are loading some dishes into the dishwasher, your playlist on a low volume fills the room when you feel Fred wrap his arms around you gently rubbing your stomach before settling on your hips.

“Babe, you have to take it easy” he places kisses on your temple.

“It’s just some dishes, it’s not stressful” you say moaning lightly at his touch.

“You shouldn’t be on your feet, need to rest” he reaches around you and turns the water off and scoops you up. You wrap your arms around his neck as he carries you to the elevator. Your hand plays with the gold chain around his neck, your head hearing his heartbeat while you ride upstairs “can’t wait until you’re no longer pregnant so we can christen this” he says in your ear.

You laugh and kiss his cheek “look forward to it” you say as the door dings. He carries you into your bathroom and sets you on the counter. He walks over to the tub and starts the water setting a warm temperature. He opens the cupboard to your bath salts and bubbles.

“What one?” he asks looking at you.

“Lavender vanilla” you reply smiling at him. He walks over and dumps some into the tub, a little too much as you see a big plume of bubbles forming. He walks over and helps you off the counter and pulls your dress and underwear off you. He quickly strips and leads you over to the tub where he steps in first.

He takes your hand and carefully helps you into the tub sitting down behind you. You relax against him, feeling the sensation from the jets being turned on around you. His hands are resting beside you, he is trying to respect your limitations even though you know it’s hard for him to not constantly touch your bump and feel his boys kick.

You rest your head in the crook of his neck, bringing his hands up to your stomach. Your eyes shut as he keeps his hands gently resting on your stomach not moving them. His touch alone relieves tension you didn’t even know you had been carrying. Calmness fills your soul as he begins to test the waters gently rubbing your stomach, a soft moan leaves your lips which he takes as encouragement to keep going.

“I remember 4 months ago enjoying a bath at the hotel with you when you suggested us getting a new place. We said how we wanted to get a tub like that in our house” you say lightly.

You feel his chest rise and fall behind you “crazy that you were pregnant then and we didn’t even know” he responds.

“Crazy how far we’ve come. About 3 years ago right now I found out I was pregnant with Oliver” you sigh as your hand draws up and down Fred’s thigh. Fred’s large hands still stroking your stomach as you feel one of the babies start to kick. You slide Fred’s hand to the spot on your stomach “just wait” you whisper as you feel his lips pressed gently into your head.

A minute later you both feel the baby kick and Fred chuckles in your ear “I love feeling them kick” he says as you turn your head to look at him. “Me too babe” you whisper against his lips. Fred’s golden brown eyes stare down at you for a minute, you see the yellow flecks in his irises before he brings his lips to yours locking you in a soft kiss.

You turn slightly to sit on one of his legs while you deepen the kiss. Your hands run up his beard, while you feel his slide up your back tangling into your hair. You continue to kiss, but it stays soft as your tongues explore one another, you finally pull back to take a breath.

“Bed?” you whisper and Fred nods helping you get out. After drying himself he helps you, laughing lightly as you struggle to reach your back. Once dry you grab his hand and walk over to the bed. He sits down with his head against the headboard and calls you to sit in front of him.

He starts massaging your back lightly. “Mmm” you moan lightly as he applies pressure to your shoulders, while peppering kisses to your neck.

“Remembered you like this from last time” he says.

“I think most pregnant women like massages” you laugh while he continues. “But this is really nice.”

“Well I have booked a masseuse to come every two weeks. Help keep your stress and pain down” he explains.

“I think that’s a little excessive” you say.

“You don’t want the massages?” he questions stopping. You turn around and stare at him “no I do, especially when you give me them. I really like when you give me them” you say smiling. “I especially like when you give me naked massages.”

He laughs, before he continues “I like when you give me naked massages too” he says pushing your hair in front of your shoulders while his hands work on your knots. You bring your hands down to your side looking for something to grip, and grab his thighs. You place a light grip on his legs, straightening your back while he continues massaging you.

You feel his lips lightly start sucking on your shoulders, your hands tighten on his thighs. Another soft moan leaves your lips as Fred’s mouth continues sucking on you. His hand leaves your shoulders and reaches around to cup your breast.

The pregnancy has them feeling extra sensitive, as you arch your back. “I need you babe” you groan, Fred’s mouth moves to behind your ear “yeah?” he questions. You nod your head and Fred moves out from behind you. You shift back slightly as he places a few pillows to help you get comfortable.

He spreads your legs and smirks seeing how wet you are before lying down putting his head between you. He lightly licks up your folds, causing you to moan. He continues placing light licks on your folds, and soft kisses on your thighs for a few moments before he slips his tongue in you.

“Babe” you gasp lightly as his tongue pushes further inside you. Your hips buck up when you feel him smirk against you. His beard rubs against the side of your thighs when you feel him slip two fingers inside you. He scissors you open and his tongue slides fully into you licking your walls. You are so wet that he could have slid in no problem.

His tongue slides out as he sucks on your clit, his fingers begin pumping in you. Your legs squirm while his fingers increase their speed. He sucks hard on your clit and you begin to feel your high approaching. You bring a hand down to grip his hair, moaning loudly.

“Fuck Fred” you groan as he continues, his fingers speeding up. He knows you are close and chasing your high. He sucks hard on your sensitive clit, curling his fingers hitting your sweet spot every time. He pumps quickly as your high comes crashing over you. Your legs shake as he works you through your orgasm, it is more intense than normal and he doesn’t let up until you finish.

He slows his fingers before he completely stops and pulls away. He smiles at you and you see your juices glistening on his beard while he sets your legs back down. He crawls up you and kisses you, you can taste yourself as you moan loudly. Your hands move to his back and start pulling him closer, feeling his erection pressed into your thigh. Your tongue swirls in his mouth, pulling him closer by his chain but Fred pulls back slightly.

“What?” you question as he looks at you softly. A hand gently cups your cheek “babe you have been sore and uncomfortable recently. You sure?”

“I said I wanted to do things to you. I meant it” you say pulling him in for a deep kiss. Fred rolls off you and sits with his back against the head board as you crawl over him. You can feel his hard dick pressing against your entrance while his hands rest on your hips.

He helps guide you down slowly as he fills you up. You moan at the feeling “you okay?” he questions. You nod and groan as you place one hand on his lower abs and the grips his shoulder. You take a deep breathe while you continue to slide down him before you feel him fully inside you.  

You smile at Fred and start a slow pace, rising and dropping on him. His hands move to your ass, helping you. Fred allows you to set the pace as his mouth attaches to your nipple. He gently sucks on your breast as you roll your hips on him.

“Fuck” you mutter, arching your back.

“You getting close babe?” he asks.

You open your mouth as a strangled groan leaves your mouth causing Fred to smirk. He pushes his hips further into you and begins to increase the pace. Your hand on his shoulder tightens its grip digging crescents into his skin as you rise and drop on him. The pace is very fast and has you moaning loudly, your head falls to his shoulder as your orgasm crashes over you.

Fred continues pushing into you as you lose focus, everything becomes intense. Fred slows the pace while you continue through your high. After a few minutes you loosen your grip on his shoulder and look up to him. He places a soft kiss on your forehead “you okay babe?”

“Mhm” you whisper staring at him for a second before you bring your lips to his. The kiss starts soft when you feel his hand tangle in your hair drawing you in. Your tongues dance around each other’s mouth as your hand slides up his abs that are covered in sweat.

You feel Fred’s hands give your ass a light squeeze as he helps you rise and drop on him. You are very sensitive from your previous two orgasms, and Fred allows you to set the pace. “Freddie” you moan.

“You good?” he asks kissing your cheek.

“So  good” you growl. “Unbelie…evably good.”

A devilish grin crosses his face as he increases the pace. “You feel so good” he groans pushing fully up inside you. Your head falls back and you feel Fred sucking on your neck.

“Fred. Fuck Fred” you scream as he pushes hard inside you. You begin to feel him becoming sloppy under you. You bring your hand down from his abs and begin pressing circles into your bud. Fred thrusts up inside you when you feel your third orgasm approaching. The familiar knot in your stomach begins to untangle, your walls tingling, you spasm and clench around him.

You stop moving while your third orgasm rips through you. Your vision blackens and your head falls onto his shoulder. You feel Fred’s pace slow before completely stopping. The grip around you, turns to a steadying embrace as whimpers leave your mouth. His hands run up and down your back waiting for you to return.

Your hand slides down his sweat covered chest and you slowly look into Fred’s eyes. “Babe?” he asks “you okay?”

“Yeah, just a lot. Those three came so easily and quickly, I’m just a little sensitive. Just need a minute” you explain.

Fred grips you and gently flips you onto your back “nope” he mumbles kissing your cheek. “You’re done for today.”

He rolls beside you and you see his hard thick cock, your juices covering it. The vein is deep blue, tip throbbing and leaking precum. You roll onto your side and run your hand over it causing Fred to whimper “I can’t leave you like this” you explain.

“Yes you can, I’ll be fine in a couple minutes if my naked girlfriend stopped touching it” he shoots you devilish grin trying to grip your wrist but you shake it away. “After what happened we’re not continuing. I knew it would be too much.”

“Too much pleasure not pain babe” you explain stroking him and rolling to rest on your legs. “If you’re not going to fuck me then I’ll have to handle this another way.”

You crawl onto your knees hollowing your mouth. Your hand pumps him a few times while you open your mouth taking him in. You clean your juices off of him and then proceed to fully allow him in.

“Babe, come on you don’t have to” he moans but you aren’t even sure he believed himself. His hands stop trying to pull you off, and tangle into your hair pulling it back into a loose ponytail. You bob up and down with a hollow cheek taking him fully in.

Danish curse words spill from Fred’s lips, his grip on your hair tightens. You know he is close and you bring your hand to his gently massage his balls. You feel his legs tighten under you as he reaches his high. He spills his seed deep in your throat, while you suck him dry.

You pull away and smirk up at him through your lashes “geez babe, your something” he says with a large smile. You crawl up to your pillow and lie down looking up at Fred who shifts onto his side. “You didn’t have to do that smuk” he whispers brushing your hair behind your ear.

“I know I wanted to” you respond and feel Fred’s lips press lightly to yours. It’s a soft and quick kiss before you feel the mattress shift while he gets out of bed. He pulls on a pair of boxers and heads to the bathroom. He returns with a damp washcloth and gently strokes your sensitive folds. You whine at the contact and Fred kisses your shoulder “sorry smuk” he mumbles against you.

He throws the cloth in the hamper and pulls one of his large t-shirts over your body before crawling in behind you. He adjusts the pillows to get you comfortable, you feel your eyes getting heavy. He lies down and rests his hands on your hip while you listen to his light breathing as you drift off.

Next Chapter

[fiveseatisthepowerhouse]

For me, the hardest thing when I went off the meal plan in college was figuring out what to eat (I ate a lot of instant pot chicken). It only got harder when I graduated and started working full time. I’m still figuring it out. I still eat fast food more often than I’d like to, but I recently stumbled on something that makes life easier.

Kroger (and Fred Meyers or Smith’s if you’re out west) sells these meal kits. They’re in with the prepackaged salad mixes at my store. They come with everything you need except the protein. They put well with chicken, tofu, and steak. There’s a bunch of different ones, but the teriyaki stir fry is my favorite. They’re affordable, filling, cook fast on the stove top, and they taste good.

Getting back into a regular workout schedule, I’ve found myself hungry all the time again and with less time for cooking than I had when I wasn’t spending my evenings on an erg. These things have been a life saver. Thought I’d share in case anyone else is in the same boat.

[allforhader]

Anxious Feelings

Bill Hader x (F) Reader

Warnings: Langauge

You’ve always wanted to be a writer for your own tv show. But pitches and “running the show” weren’t your thing. Even though actors do “run the show”, you didn’t really. You’re the actor many know, but the anxiety is killer so you tend to stray away from stressful situations.

Hence why your first time on SNL is going to be killer.

Y/N admired the work of everyone she saw in the office as they all prepare for true table read. The only one you truly know, closely, was Fred. When Y/N told him about it being her first time on SNL as practically a “guest star”, he was excited for her. It’s nerve racking yes but an experience! After the table read, Fred immediately started introducing Y/N to everyone because he knew for a fact that she was going to try and slip out when it was over.

John Mulaney

Kristen Wiig

Kate McKinnon

Kenan Thompson

Seth Meyers

The last person Y/N was introduced to was Bill Hader. Even though, ever since she joined the table he’s been wanting to introduce himself. Now Y/N enjoys everybody’s work equally. They are all talented in their own creative way. But even actors have favorite actors. Bill being hers.

“This is Y/F/N Y/L/N! She already knows you because well-“

“It’s a no brainer Fred” Bill laughs before holding his hand out. “It’s nice to meet you”

“Likewise” Y/N smiles shaking his hand as she currently thought ‘Can he tell I’m shaking as I shake his hand or am I just paranoid?’.

Bill stops the handshake thinking he’s making her nervous. Not because of the shaking. But her shoulders tensed up. He gave a half smile to reassure before watching her leave.

“Is she okay?”

“What?”

“She seems nervous”

“Weren’t you nervous your first SNL?”

“Touché.” Bill says calmly watching Y/N leave the room completely as Fred elbows him in the side. “What?”

“She likes you”

“What?”

“Okay. Don’t take that into any other context for the time being. But make her feel comfortable during rehearsals even if she doesn’t have the biggest part in the game show skit. I don’t care. She’s a close friend of mine and I want her to be comfortable. Then when the night actually comes. Do the whole break a leg shit you do.” Fred states before making his own leave, leaving Bill with a lot to think about personally.

The day of rehearsals was really just the morning of SNL. Y/N arrived earlier than most but Bill also did. He taps her shoulder to get her attention but she freaked for a moment before realizing it was just Bill.

“Sorry”

“No no it’s my fault. I didn’t mean to startle you”

“It’s Fine Bill” Y/N smiles as she had the script in her lap even though it wouldn’t be hard to remember a couple of lines. Stress man.

“Would you like some coffee?”

“Uh no thanks it gives me-“

“The jitters” the two said in unison as Bill did that on purpose.

“Sorry. When I’m anxious, coffee doesn’t really help” Bill laughs rubbing the back of his neck before straightening up. “Tea though?”

“Um. Yeah, I’d love some.” Y/N smiles as does Bill. She watches him leave to go get her tea, and she suddenly started thinking about what it must of been like for all of their first shows with SNL. But thinking about it made her even more anxious.

“Here” Bill smiles handing her her tea watching her light up at the gesture.

“Thanks Bill”

“Of course” He smiles taking the other director’s like chair beside her. “It’s the first skit. It’ll go by smoothly”

“Hm. Easier said than done bud”

“Well, you know like the dumb sayings right?”

“I mean yeah but I’d love for you to tell me regardless” Y/N laughs taking a sip of her tea.

“Imagine the audience in their underwear. Just pretend you’re the only one there-“

“Then who’d you direct your lines to? That one is honestly really confusing”

“Mm. Well okay. The first skit, I’m in it with you. Just...pretend it’s you and me. Time your lines in rehearsal and when it’s the actual thing. Just pretend it’s you and me. No cameras. No other actors. Just me at the podium”

Y/N smiles thinking about that since she kinda felt that way already. Imagining just the two of them and not having to worry about what’s around them.

When the time came...and we mean the actual live show of SNL..Y/N panicked to herself before getting into costume and character stepping out into position in the dark. She sighs to herself and straightened up when the lights turned on. Except instead of seeing everyone, it was exactly how she imagined it.

Just her and Bill.

“I like you”

What

“I’ve always have”

Y/N...

“Fuck this game show. Fuck us contestants. When will the mediator get some?”

Shit. Scripted.

Bill froze in his spot watching Y/N in character approach his podium grabbing his tie and pulling him down to her level. Still scripted.

“You want to leave this hell hole and take the prize for yourself?” Y/N asks but something about it felt real. Bill smirks a bit getting back into his character wrapping an arm around her waist and carefully dipping her.

“The game has always been rigged to begin with”

“O-Oh” Y/N stutters not on purpose before shutting up when Bill presses his lips against hers. The audience ate it up.

But there’s passion in it. A bit...too much. Wait. Stop!

Y/N carefully pushes Bill off and when the lights turned off she panicked pulling herself out of there. She took off her mic turning it off before handing it off to Fred and getting out of there. Bill frowns quickly following but was stopped by Fred for a moment.

“Take a minute”

“What?”

“Shut up Bill. You have another skit. Check on her after”

“But why are you stopping me now? When I have a window?”

Fred didn’t want to be blunt but who else was going to be.

“She’s anxious”

“Okay?”

“Around people she likes and around those she wants to impress”

“I’m not—wait”

“Connect the dots Bill. I’m not gonna do it for you”

“She wanted to impress me?”

“Okay maybe I have to” Fred grabs both his shoulders. “When we worked together before. She told me how much she liked your work. And everything about you practically. But you make her nervous and her profession makes her anxious. You two just put the two together. Imagine how she feels right now”

“Shit”

Once all of Bill’s skits were done and over with, he stepped out into the hall thinking Y/N is there. But no. He really checked everywhere instead of the obvious, which was last, by going outside. Y/N held herself hugging the wall watching the cars as they go by. It’s calming in a sense. She spotted Bill coming over to her from the corner of her eye and she tensed.

“Hey”

“Hi”

“I’m sorry”

“Wait..what?” Y/N looks at him confused as Bill hugs the wall beside her.

“If I knew-“

“What did Armisen tell you?”

“That you practically like me”

“And you think it’s weird? Or Y’know. I don’t know. Sorry. What you said to imagine...worked. But made everything feel real”

“Are you referring to the kiss? The one meant to just be staged?”

“Meant to be staged. That’s a way of phrasing it...”

“Well, what can I say without being obvious?”

“I’d just be obvious Bill. You know I like you.”

“I like you too”

Y/N felt her face heat up making her turn away so he wouldn’t look at her directly. Bill moves himself off the wall getting into her line of sight.

“You barely know me”

“I can get to know you”

“Hm...even with our busy schedules Hader?”

“Even with our busy schedules” Bill states watching Y/N straighten up taking a leap of fate bringing him down to her level, pressing her lips against his.

What a gesture

“Why’d do you do that?”

“Just wanted to confirm my...anxious feelings” Y/N sighs happily feeling Bill rest his hands on her cheeks sneaking in another kiss.

Once they parted Y/N looked at him with her cheeks a deep red, which Bill thought was adorable.

“Now what was that for?”

“Confirming my feelings for the gorgeous woman in front of me”

[jvzebel-x]

yoshi:pt7

when we finally all leave together, we're running from an actual Plague that will most definitely kill me if i contract it, and my happy little family is doing their best to keep me from dying under the soul-crushing guilt of knowing that we are homeless during an international crisis because i am dying and my worst fear is being locked into a hospital to die alone.

&the anxiety of going from living in a fishbowl to being around people who might accidentally kill me makes it hard.

&punching down my ego, feeling the weight of my own bodily deterioration and the eyes of everyone around me trying to figure it out as i hobble, makes it hard.

&the cops tapping on my window at the literal Devil's hour to harass us, along with everyone else who has nothing, makes it hard.

&the time a guy coughed on me to mug me which made me spray the Fred Meyer's bathroom with blood when i panicked, made it really fucking hard.

but nothing is harder than the morning when i wake up&my dogs are gone.

♡

i learn love in the fetal position, my arms around my knees, &i only want the cramps to stop so i can stare at the treeline again.

♡

we've been living in a car, the five of us, when we're blessed with a place to set up a tent&funds for some gear. everything is finally looking up... but my body cant handle the temperature changes, sunrise or sunset. one night is harder than most, &in the midsts of my own emergencies, my escape artist baby boy rips the tent open&takes off into the woods for freedom, his sister on his heels. only Turbo stays behind.

he always comes back if i cant find him, but a day goes by, then two, &my dogs are still lost to miles&miles of open forest, dotted all along the way with warnings of bear sightings.

i cant even help look. my health is why we're out in the woods, my health is why we lost them that night, so why wouldn't my health also leave me completely useless to fix the problems it had caused?

♡

i learn love charting out Medford to Grants Pass, building a detailed list of every shelter between the two that could possibly have my dogs, meticulously calling each one with a scripted minute-long message to describe each of my babies exactly. the camp is exactly fifteen miles from Grants Pass and thirteen miles from the citylines of Medford, technically Jackson county, which is apart of Medford, but the nearest shelter is a little farm technically in Josephine county.

i keep hearing bears snarl in my head, i cant shake the thought no matter how hard i try.

"maybe a nice family found them," i say quietly between phonecalls.

"they finally got sick of my shit," i mumble, &i have to take a second.

"of course they did, i kept them in a goddamn car for months because i couldnt hack it."

it's so much harder, without anyone there to lick the tears away. you know?

[thelightofthingshopedfor]

I meant to take more time off during the summer, like semi-regular three-day weekends or something, and instead summer basically disappeared because of course it did, so I decided to take Monday and Tuesday off because fuck it, there are a bunch of things I’ve been wanting to get done for a while and I never seem to have time. so of course as soon as I started making a list, I forgot what those specific major things were and remembered that actually I need to do fucking everything so that’s really not helpful.

actual goals for this actual weekend:

creative

make tiny modification to doll jacket

add one more piece to Young Loki and take pictures (and actually post them)

finish a fic??? I know I keep saying this but I NEED TO ACTUALLY DO THIS, I know I have some that are genuinely almost done

type notebooks, at least a bit

patch pants, maybe

design more Pride Cap shields, also maybe; most of them wouldn’t take long but it also isn’t super urgent

make some adjustments to the masks I bought from TeePublic (and a couple others, probably) so they’re actually usable

political

maybe read a few articles to post on Facebook although probably I should prioritize literally anything else

call legislators

research candidates for my union’s current election and vote

look up muni election

write 10 letters to voters for Sierra Club (and/or some postcards or Vote Forward letters)

gaming

play/finish a relatively quick quest chain in SWTOR with three more characters to pick up some more casino chips

then use up all casino chips in SWTOR, because the Nightlife event is an annual thing and it’s done on Monday; the nice part is that even though they unfortunately don’t have an autospin feature, playing a virtual slot machine is still pretty fucking mindless, which means I actually can multitask with some of the creative or political stuff

check my subscription (my general idea was to finish story content and then unsub, but there’s really...no reason to do it like that? especially because I just got 6 weeks free of Xbox Game Pass for PC, so that needs to be my priority for now, and unless there’s a huge benefit to an autorenewing SWTOR sub, there’s no reason to keep that when I could instead just...resub when I want it. also now that Steam has some kind of points program, there might be some benefit to subbing through Steam specifically, so I need to check that)

Humble Choice charges in about a week, so I need to decide whether I want to pay for the current month or cancel, and I need to download whatever I might want from Humble Trove while I can

download some GameJolt games in case they vanish

check out a game-related WW84 thing from Microsoft

miscellaneous responsible-adult shit I mostly don’t want to do

submit insurance appeal

try to make the last major decision(s) for my will and get that finished

try to figure out why PC continues to misbehave, uuuugggghhh (trying to close more tabs might at least help in the short term, which is...a whole other thing)

check gift stash to see if I have anything for my sister, because if not I’m gonna have to buy something real quick for her birthday in less than a week oops

pack and mail Etsy order

check my car for title and put it in my safe, where it should have been all along

read this one specific ADHD post that’s been open in a tab for literal months, and maybe also make one of my own

review recent Etsy purchases

try to clip Hazy’s nails...........again.........or at least call Petco to see if the coupon they just sent me for a free nail trim is literally a coupon for a free nail trim or if it’s like, free nail trim with a bigger grooming package, and if it’s the former maybe actually do that, although at this point maybe she’ll be even worse with a stranger clipping her nails than she is with us, so that’s great

also possibly return the nail grinder if it seems like there’s no way she’s ever going to tolerate it

make a Fred Meyer order for pickup

also, make a decision on the shoes I bought, so I can return one pair if I decide to do that

things that do need to happen in the semi-near future but if I want to get anything done at all this weekend I probably need to accept/decide that these things aren’t going to happen yet:

list some stuff on eBay before the USPS gets even more fucked up

make a couple new Etsy listings or at least renew some sold-out ones, which will involve price research

related: start working on other new stuff for Etsy, like holiday items, because those are no good if they aren’t available well in advance

work on other personal projects; finishing Young Loki is a great start but I have at least a few others that are honestly close to being done

copy photos off my phone

rearrange some stuff so I can display more of my pins (the vast majority of which are Loki pins, yes)

post some stuff in my drafts

work on an actual backup system/schedule for my PC, hahaha fuck me

attempt to do some cleaning in my room? haha yeah that’s not gonna happen

oh I still have a bunch of songs in my iTunes library that are all fucked up for some reason, I still need to...do something about that

[writtenbyhappynerds]

Unit 5- Twins Are Very Stupid

    If you haven’t taken the Exam 1 quiz for Fanfiction 101 go do that!! That quiz covers material from the first four units: Rules for the Universe, Formatting, Face Claims, and Names. Everything from this unit onward will be a part of Exam 2.

    Much like cliches in regular fiction, there are a plethora of cliches that exist in fanfiction. Some are specific to certain genres, some are on a wider scale as a whole. For this unit we are going to dissect common themes and ideas first based in specific genres (re: fandoms) of fanfiction and then open the floor up to widespread cliches as a whole. We’ll start with Twilight.

    In Twilight, the biggest cliche we see is Bella Swan having a sister who is, “not like her sibling at all!” This isn’t original. It isn’t creative, and 9/10 times the unique sibling is a lot like Bella Swan they just talk more than her. Regardless of your feelings towards Stephanie Meyers and her books, what this shows me is a writer who is uncertain of how to approach the quiet, observational, internalized thinking of Bella Swan as a character. It also shows me a writer who believes loud is the complete opposite of quiet and because someone shouts their opinions more boisterously than the next girl, that makes them unique. Neither statement is true. Imagine Bella Swan’s sibling really being the complete opposite of her. Like, imagine Bella’s little sister in Seattle doing coke off a stripper’s asshole. You can’t. So don’t say that she’s the opposite. She isn’t, and that’s ok. Siblings can have common interests and like the same thing, and your OC is not a bad one if they are similar to Bella Swan. A better contrast to Bella Swan would be an OC that’s athletic. Bella Swan from the get-go is described as someone who is not an athlete, doesn’t spend time in the sun, and likes to be by themselves. A sun-kissed volleyball-playing little sister would be more contrasting to Bella Swan than someone who is again, her but louder.  

    In BBC’s Sherlock the biggest cliche the Editor and I have seen is Sherlock having a twin sister who is also a detective. Now in Unit 3: Face Claims, we discussed that Sherlock’s sibling shouldn’t be the voice of reason or conscience while also doing the exact same thing as him. This still stands. If Sherlock has a twin, that twin shouldn’t be seen as “the good one” or “the nice one” when they shoot the same things, break into the same places, and act just as manic as he does. It isn’t consistent. The twin should not be a carbon clone that is smarter and prettier and gets along with everyone else. That’s not a character, that’s a Mary Sue that solves crimes. There are 10,000 jobs in the world, and the best way to break the monotony of Sherlock’s twin is to make her something that isn’t a detective. Make her her own person. For example, Sherlock could have:

    A twin sister who works as a crime statistician for the government. She’s been given a cushy office she doesn’t deserve because of Mycroft and she tries to call her brothers once a week. They don’t necessarily answer. She needs to use criminal trends to track where Moriarty will be so Mycroft can have him arrested and interrogated.

    A sister who went to school for law, and became a powerful and wealthy corporate attorney. Sherlock paid off everyone in a mile radius? She paid off everyone in a 5-mile radius. She makes sure his bills are paid, his fridge is stocked, and that he and John are happy without either of them knowing. She uses her knowledge of the law to find holes in Baskerville’s policies that would allow Sherlock and John to sneak in.

    A twin sister who’s a mom of two and likes to paint. She teaches at the local college and babysits her neighbor’s kids when she’s out. Mycroft is the godfather of both of her kids, and she likes to crochet when she has the time (she never does). She needs to figure out why the painting is a fake and what book fits the cipher.

    My point is that Sherlock can have a twin. I don’t care, and that doesn’t trigger me like it triggers the Editor (I think she just has something against twins). Sherlock’s twin should have a personality of their own. The cliche in this genre is Sherlock having a twin that’s essentially, “genius but better.” If you make her exactly like him you limit the potential to make a story that’s compelling. You also break the rules of the universe, as you’ll have to go back and rewrite all the episodes to include her. Don’t do that to yourself.

    In Supernatural, The big cliche is the boys having a teenaged Winchester sibling and/or a guardian angel. Bonus points if Cas is the guardian angel. I’ve also seen a lot of ‘Sam Winchester’s Guardian Angel’ and if that’s you after all the things that character has gone through you need to be fired. These ones just don’t make sense. They break the rules of the universe and make the cast have to bend over backward just for the character to exist. The original work should not be broken to fit your narrative. You have to make your prompt work in their established universe. Unfortunately, teenaged Winchester siblings do not work. There is not enough of a time gap between what we know about the story and this prospect to fit a 16-year old child. The same stands for Dean Winchester’s child. It doesn’t fit, so don’t try and force it to fit. You can have a teenaged hunter be significant and interact with the Winchesters without them being blood. By forcing them to be blood you go against one of the main themes of the show: Family don’t end in blood. Stop making Bobby Singer’s child OCs, or Cas’s, or Sam’s, or another illegitimate John Winchester child because we already have one who spent god knows how many years in hell. Instead, John Winchester could have family he’s estranged from. An older sister or brother who left the Winchester house after they turned 18 and never looked back. You could create a new pair of hunters, an OC who runs the halfway house for Hunters. Garth stepped in as Bobby when he died. Who stepped in for Jo and Tess? There are more options and much more creative options than pigeonholing one specific cliche.

    Moving on, in the same vein of not needing an OC to be bound to the cast by blood, Hermione/Harry/Ron’s twin sister is a huge cliche. Sometimes the Hermione twin sister is also, “not like her sister at all,” a phrase that usually means, “also brilliant, but more attractive and funnier.” The origin of these OCs, however, is minuscule to the fact that they always either end up dating Draco Malfoy or are in a love triangle and/or square, where all the boys in Harry Potter (Cedric Diggory, Fred Weasley, George Weasley, Dean Thomas, and Draco Malfoy) are in love with the OC. As a matter of fact can we just get rid of love triangles altogether? They’re exhausting and not realistic. They don’t add enough to the story to make it meaningful, and an OC should have a story that’s more compelling than “which boy am I going to end up with?” Also, usually, these stories tell you in the title. I’m talking about the [Fred x reader], [Draco Malfoy x Reader] titles, though the same is true for any writer who puts [Love Interest x OC] in their title. What is the point of a love triangle my guys? What are you doing? We already know before we even read the first chapter who the main character is going to end up with, so why bother wasting our time with a love triangle?

    The other Harry Potter cliche, is the youngest Weasley sibling who is a girl. This is a huge no-no and should be stricken from the record entirely because, once again, it breaks the rules of the universe. We know from the Harry Potter books that Molly Weasley wanted and craved a daughter and kept having kids until she got one. This is why Ron is the least loved, as he was the last boy in the family before Ginny, as said by the Horcrux in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows “Least loved always, by the mother who craved a daughter. Least loved now by the girl who prefers your friend” (Rowling 375). What this means, is that if you make an OC who is the youngest Weasley sibling, and a girl, you completely go against the desires and intentions of Molly Weasley as well as devalue and undercut the importance of Ginny Weasley- her tokenism as the only girl is tied to the significance of being the first and last daughter Molly Weasley ever had. Without that, with another girl there is no need for Ginny Weasley, and as we’ve discussed numerous times here: Your OC should never replace a member of the cast. What is acceptable, however, is Ginny Weasley having a twin sister, or even being a triplet. If you are sold on a youngest-girl Weasley fanfic, make them a twin or triplet of Ginny. If you go above or below her you break the rules of the universe. They have to stay on her level. In addition, please see Unit 4: Nameberry.com to properly name your Weasley sister OCs, as they have to fit the style and vibe of being named after nobility. Moving on.

    The next handful of cliches don’t apply to any particular genre. Every genre is equally guilty of having these cliches, and what we’re going to do is use some works for specific examples of these cliches, but know that they apply to everyone; not just the work we’re referencing.

    If a character is marketed as a strong and capable badass who is independent and a boss and kicks ass and takes names, they should not turn into a wimp because their love interest wants to “protect” them. “Protection” as a whole is such a cliche. It’s in practically every story. If a character has been described as strong and has up until this point kicked a lot of ass, that character will not break down and destroy all the character development they just made for the sake of a love interest. A character who is described as strong will also not let their love interest try and stifle them like that. “Protection” is overused, and unless the character is going to crumble like a daisy at first blood or is living in a war zone, they can handle it themselves.

    Again… We’ve all seen Pretty Little Liars. It’s almost funny how many cliches came from that show and book series. Let’s talk about evil twins. I don’t just mean evil in the Alison DiLaurentis way where she stole her sister’s identity and had her carted off to inpatient treatment, I also mean evil in that they are everything their cast member sibling is, but superior. This is evident in so many siblings and twin fics. The evil twin is usually better at everything than the cast twin, and systematically destroys the cast member’s life for fun. Now, I’m not saying this isn’t a valid plot point. What I am saying is you can’t make the evil twin better at everything than the cast member twin. That’s not realistic, and it negates the need for a struggle. A villain is not a more intimidating adversary because they’re better at everything than the hero. An evil twin is not scarier or more frightening as a villain because they can do 3 flips into a punch while the hero only can do 2. Also if the villain is so wonderful and so much better how is it realistic when the hero defeats them? It isn’t. “The same but better” shows me as a reader that the writer is uncomfortable with character creation, and making stakes that mean something or seeing their character struggle.  Not only will it make the OC more realistic, but it will make the story more fun to write.

    A writer uncomfortable with the struggle is another cliche we see often. It takes the form of characters who are perfect, who hit every step just right and have the best comebacks all the time. We as people fail and fall down, and characters are meant to be a reflection of us that we can relate to. An audience won’t relate or root for a character that always accomplishes their goal. It actually makes the character boring because, we know they’re going to do what they set out to do so why bother reading? Characters are allowed to have flaws. Those flaws, and seeing consequences for those flaws are what make a character compelling, and for every positive attribute that a character has we should see 1-2 flaws that reflect that attribute. For example, in my own original work Trapped, the main character is an alien on a planet that is thousands of years ahead of Earth in technology, intellect, and scientific advancements. One of these characters is an upstart student training in one of the top labs to be a doctor. He has people working underneath him, and he’s clearly achieved. His work ethic is incredible and he is dedicated to his field. However, his dedication has cut him off from his family- their relationship is strained to the point where one of his siblings entered the same field just to catch a glimpse of him. He is afraid to be emotionally vulnerable because he has to have the answers to all these questions. He doesn’t know how to relax, because he’s always at work and this has cost him a life outside of the lab. He gets annoyed easily because he thinks fast enough to see the answer and becomes frustrated when he has to work with other people. We’re going to revisit this in the next unit, but a character without flaws is a boring character because the flaws are what allow us as readers to do our own analysis and find a deeper meaning in someone as a whole.

    Our final cliche is the ire of the Editor’s existence. It is twins who are separated at birth or end up in foster care that magically find each other at the start of the story. I also kind of hate this cliche, because again, we’ve all seen The Fosters or is it Switched At Birth? I don’t know, and I don’t really care. If you have a character who is taken from their actual family, you need to double-down and commit to the issues that OC would have. That character wouldn’t show up on someone’s doorstep and magically be taken into the family as one of their own. Life doesn’t work that way. The foster care system is a horribly broken system (at least in the US it is) and that character many times won’t have access to that. In the US, for that information to be given there needs to be reciprocated interest in both the fostered child and the biological parent (usually the father). In divorce proceedings, the courts will almost always give the child to the mother unless the mother has a severe strike against her that would make her unfit to keep a safe environment for her child (prison time, drugs, etc.). The courts really dislike the idea of taking a baby away from its mom, which means that fathers rarely get custody of the child, and a non-blood relative even less than that. When the child is underage, the biological parent can’t show up on a doorstep and demand to see their child. They need to go through the courts and express a desire in having a relationship with their child. The child would then get an advocate, who would speak for them in court and make sure their wishes (to see or not to see their parents) are expressed. The foster system is messy and wrong and sometimes cruel, and if you are going to write switched at birth or foster-twin stories, you need to do your research on the judicial system. It isn’t just showing up on a doorstep with a birth certificate. It’s gritty and messy and if you want it, you have to take in it all.

    Next week we are going to talk about realism, and how to really capture both the voices of cast members, as well as realistically write living scenarios. Remember to take Fanfiction 101 Exam 1 if you haven’t yet, and everything from this unit until Crossovers will be on Exam 2.

References:

Joanne Rowling. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Scholastic, 2007.

[feitanswife]

That southern gothic post got me thinking and here’s my guide to writing books about Washington State since SOMEONE ruined it...

We’ll start at Western Washington

Cults. Not shitting you. Everything is a cult.

Churches with weird names right in the middle of a suburban neighborhood. On the way home from school a long long driveway back into a parking lot of an unassuming plain building, you never see anyone parked in the parking lot, the lights are never on.

Everyone in my neighborhood had a special knock, or you announced yourself by shouting your name as you knocked. Cause the only people that ever rang the doorbells were the cult recruiters that made daily rounds.

Everything is football. Everything. Is. Football. You are sincerely more likely to see a Seahawks flag on a flag pole than an American one. Everyone likes football. Schools have Seahawk Spirit Days more often than they have normal ones.

We’re notoriously unfriendly and that’s intentional. Don’t trust a smiling stranger, don’t eat the food they bring. Don’t listen to their honeyed words for a snake lies underneath. Re: cultists but also racist sleeper agents who don’t even realize they’re racist.

Everywhere you go there’s just trees. Random forests in the middle of towns, snaking between developed areas. You could go from decadent three story houses with crystal chandeliers to back woods farmland within two miles. All the kids from all these houses all go to the same public school.

Calling the cops is largely a useless measure, half the time they don’t even show up unless someone’s dead. If your new (cultist) neighbors entered the neighborhood by gifting everyone homemade pizzas that made everyone ill enough to go to urgent care? And made active threats against the people across the street? Just... deal with it I guess. Tell the kids to not play near their yard. Hope they move out or die. Yes this is a true story.

Everyone’s house is haunted. Or possesed, or inhabited by other non-reality beings. I don’t care if you built it yesterday and it’s on the water not even on land! Your house is haunted! There’s nothing you can do about it and frankly it’s more of a minor annoyance than anything. Most of the time. Unless you give it a reason to be more.

Everyone knows someone with a horse. Or who used to have horses. Or comes from a long line of show horse breeders or champion riders.

Everyone knows a Car Family, or comes from a Car Family. Whether it’s hand-building army jeeps from just a frame to go rock-crawling in the mountains, or lovingly restore classic cars that hang out in Walmart parking lots on Friday nights, everyone knows Car People.

You either ski, cross-country ski, snowboard, or snowmobile. Or do sled dog racing if you’re really cool. You know someone who knows someone who has an old cabin on Snoqualmie pass, or Stampede, or somewhere, cause only tourists go to the lodge.

Seeing liscence plates from out of state gets weirder reactions the father out of state you come from. Idaho? Oh well that’s kinda odd. Arizona? Must be a...family event I guess. Georgia? What the fuck are you doing here? Whatever it is get it done fast and fuck off.

Clothes are the most important thing about a person. Everyone here dresses to send a message, and allegiance, to let you know why they are and who they definetly are NOT. Don’t come around in a pain short sleeve button up and belted slacks if you aren’t looking to be grouped in with the damn cultists.

Everybody knows a witch or three. It’s just a fact of life at this point.

Easy book plot: character just moved from out of state, befriends a shy but polite boy who seems perfectly normal. One of the haughty, popular girls takes her aside and warns her against hanging out with him, but gives no specifics as to why, acting like it should be obvious. Character thinks that this is just normal high school bullying and forges on, but as she starts to get closer to the boy she starts to notice that his family isn’t what they seem. They keep odd hours and act strangely, but surely it’s just a cultural difference! But then she’s invited to come to church with them........

Eastern Washington

Mostly just like the west side but 300% more forests in the central-area and way fewer cults but a lot more racists. Also there’s nobody out there aside from small pockets of civilization.

In Central Washington there are like... 4 towns. And a couple villages. Ellensburg, Cle Elum, Roslyn, and Ronald. Ellensburg is the only one of those big enough to have a Fred Meyer. Outside of those you technically have Thorp, Liberty, and Easton. But I don’t know if those qualify as towns. They’re more like villages.

The forests go on FOREVER. Everyone has a quad (that’s a four-wheeler for normal people) or an old hand-restored Jeep that they take out in the hills and ride the trains with for hours because what else are you going to do?

Everyone knows someone who seems to have an unnaturally good memory of the trails. All their names, and the names of everyone who rides them.

Again with the horse thing, everyone has horses it’s weird.

Anything post-Ellensburg is a WASTELAND. DRY HOT BULLSHIT. INHOSPITABLE. YOU WILL DIE.

There’s certain places with life, such as tri-cities, Yakima, Spokane, uhhh Lake Chelan... and various itty bitty towns in the middle of nowhere that I can’t in good conscious reccomend for a visit. I can’t reccomend most of eastern Washington. It’s scary out there.

It’s actually a lot like the traditional Southern Gothic setting, except take all the southern-ness out of it. Rather than old-money families with fake smiles and Murder on their minds it’s new-money, upstart wineries with cool hipster themes, “oh we hard-restored this old silo and made a tasting room and we had our daughters wedding here!” 50-something couples with four kids and three dogs, they seem so genuinely nice and down to earth but the situation just feels so odd I mean they just don’t ever want to disclose anything of note about the vineyards.... even their niece from the west side who they practically raised knows nothing....

Easy book plot: group of city kids decides to go camping at a random lakeshore on the edge of Wine Country, with an itty-bitty town next to it, middle of nowhere type with nothing but dry farmland for miles and miles. There’s maybe 100 people in the whole place, and the kids happen upon the extended family of one of the nearby vineyard owners, including a girl around their age who shows all the signs of being a normal person with coherent thought: dyed hair, edgy clothes, denim jacket with politically charged patches and pins, etc. and she offers—no, begs the group to come down to the vineyard the next morning, for the big family brunch and grape picking party! The group wonders why she was so insistent, but once they got there it was fairy obvious, things weren’t normal at this vineyard and she clearly needed backup.

[atinytinyanne]

200405 free thought

I don’t know how everyone else is living amongst social distancing and quarantining ourselves from others, but I don’t leave my house that much. 

The notion of me leaving scares my family, I was debating going and grabbing a pint of ice cream and I got just about a million “please don’t” and “I’d rather you didn’t” texts from my friends and family and so I didn’t get the ice cream and was just a little sad instead. 

But I understand that my parents are scared and my sibling is scared and my friends are scared and everything needs to be taken seriously. So I understand and I’ll do what will make my family and friends feel a little bit better. I can’t do much, but the least I can do is do what I can to make the people I love feel better. 

I only ever leave to go to the grocery store and I don’t even go in, I sit in the car and wear a mask and don’t leave and let the Fred Meyer people load the trunk of the car and I don’t move. I get home and use a Clorox wipe to wipe down everything and once it’s wiped, I take it upstairs and organize the fridge because I am the designated master organizer of the fridge because I like playing Tetris in real life. I wash all the produce ten times over. 

And then I don’t leave the house unless I’m walking around the neighborhood (except I live in the country so it’s not much of a neighborhood, just fields and fences and dogs that bark and scare the shit out of me) for the next week. 

I stay at home and walk figure-8’s around the couch and the dining table and pace. And then the week is gone and it’s time to go to the grocery store again.

[cipheramnesia]

I didn't realize Fred Meyer was regional lol, it's a Kroger everything store

It's okay, I'm sure it's owned by one of the same handful of multinational conglomerates as everything else.

[andreacamille1]

Really love my friends house and all her treasures. She collects rocks too but her collection is so much bigger than mine🤷‍♀️😂 Her kitchen table and coffee table are both solid stone and carved. They're so cool. My favorite are the 3 huge white quartz rocks. I can't wait to go rock hunting with Aizen this summer. There's so much in Alaska that I haven't experienced and I can't wait to learn with Aizen. Theres Sheep Mountain that I never even heard of off the Glenn highway that's suppose to be real cool. Didn't do much today aside from look at my friends rocks, stay in bed and go to a fundraiser. I was suppose to go skiing for the first time with my friend at alyeska but I woke up feeling so yuck. Usually I always wake up around 6 but this time I slept in untell 10am😱😂 woke up, felt half dead.. cancelled on my friend like a douchebag, stayed in bed and finally went to this cool church fundraiser and silent auction where I won at bingo. Didn't win any of the silent auctions because I got.outbid on everything and didn't stand around at the end like alot of people. Next time i know what to do. Had alot of fun. I should of brought my grandma but I didn't know what I was doing untell I just kinda found it driving to starbucks😂 I was only planning to go to sb and then freds to get kale for my friends bunnies but I seen the sign and stopped. Man! My friends bunnies sure creep me out😂 I really thought I was going to like them but they are creepy!

My son got sick today too and the nurse called so my sister had to take the rest of the day off. I feel bed about that and now just wish his dad would've brought him down yeasterday. We were just worried about him missing school because he missed a week for hawaii and then a few days here and there because we both kept getting sick... that ending up adding up to alot of absences and his school sent a letter home about it that made us both feel bad about it. Now it seems like he's still going to miss more🤷‍♀️ We can only do what we can. Just always thankful we haven't ever got seriously sick. In WA they had this reuse and recycle group and everyone in the neighborhood posts items they no longer use or needed.. I loved that group! Anyway, I went to pickup a couch and met a mom with a son around the same age as Aizen at the time.. only 4 and he was going through cancer treatment. It caught me off guard and like an idiot I started to cry😱 The mom was like what the hell! I made her mad! Suppose to always be strong for kids and not feel sorry for them 🤷‍♀️ Point is.. ever since then I'm always so thankful for my son's good health. I would rather have something go wrong with me than have to watch him go through anything. I hope my sister knows how to take care of him. When our baby brother was born.. we were all worried to leave him alone with renee😱😂 I think because she acted younger than she was? She was the baby for 15years before my mom had our baby brother. Now she's learning. Aizen gets to be her teacher.

Here I didn't even make it to fred meyers today because I forgot after the fundraiser so no kale for the bunnies. They have their dry food untell tomorrow. Can't let my uncle see the bunnies because he might try and make stew or something. Then I'll really cry probably ❤

and i hope everyone knows everything always works out. I used to worry all the time about everything too but as soon as I stopped... its crazy how my life changed. I can't really explain it to people because when I try to.. they don't get it. Whatever you really want to have happen.. probably will if you can just stop trying so hard😂 I know it sounds stupid because you see people everywhere who don't do shit... so nothing ever happens or changes. but it's like you have to keep trying to go for something.. but almost forgot what you're going for... or detach from what you want so bad and just concentrate on what you do daily. Like if you really want to lose weight or something.. don't fantasize about looking perfect all day (maybe I used to do that😱😂) .. detach from what you really want and focus on daily habits.. small improvements. Totally forget about the way you look and just worry about what you're doing everyday. Time will pass and all of a sudden you'll look in the mirror and be so surprised that what you used to dream about.. maybe even almost gave up on.. is right there and you already have it. ❤ Same with everything else. Whatever you hope for.. you probably can get.. if you can just figure out what to work on each day... without becoming upset all the time because it isn't coming fast enough.. or getting pissed off because someone else already has it when you dont. I can't believe how many people make their own lives miserable thinking about what other.people are doing all day long without worrying about what they are doing themselves. If that's you.. please stop whatever you're doing.. sit down alone at a table... think long and hard about what you really want.. then write down what you want.. and right next to it write down everything you do each day. If what you do everyday doesn't get you closer to what you want... you really aren't doing shit. It doesn't matter how many hours you work or what you say you are doing either. Point is you don't have what you want and aren't taking steps to get it. Do us all a favor and shut the fuck up untell you figure out what you need to do to finally make yourself happy.

[willlville]

hmm, yes, been awhile since I have been on tumblr. I think I’ve been spending much time on Instagram in order to play some sort of game at school in trying to meet people. Here, on tumblr, I feel content.

I just finished watching the movie the lighthouse. Very good, and very different. I felt that the cabin fever and maritime themes spoke very strongly to me due to my time spent in the coast guard, living at the Sturgeon Bay Canal Light. The power dynamics were well explored and the obsession with sex as well. depravity is maybe a better word. I just remember experiencing a lot of what Robert was in that movie. Maybe i’ll elaborate more later. 

I got home and felt hot and my stomach acidic. I tried to go to sleep around 8pm thinking that I would take a nap and then ride the bus to school to get some work done. I have a lot to do for school, or maybe that it’s just a lot in my head, because I have a difficult time quantifying the amount of work the tasks I need to get done when all jumbled in my head; until I start completing everything, not until then do I realize how little or how much more work I have to do.

I lay in bed hot and acidic and then thought, shit I should just go to sleep sleep and wake up at four thirty like I have been wanting. I got excited at this opportunity and the prospect of being able to get on that sort of “productive” sleep schedule. Well the excitement kept me awake, lol. 

I got out of bed and drove to the store and bought a bunch of fruit. Oranges, mangoes, and pomegranates. Some chips and then a bottle of spring water. I really can feel how fresh the nice water has me. The water comes in a green bottle and hails from Garland County Arkansas. 

when I got home I sat in my car and turned on the stories from Instagram. I don’t know what compelled me, but I just started seeing how quickly I could tap through them. I was blazing through them and I didn’t give a shit about what I was seeing. it took longer than expected, I was consciously wondering when I was going to get through them all while tapping as quickly as possible. I wonder how long it would take to get through them all by actually watching them. 

it just reminds me of when I would play a lot of video games. when you’re done playing and you close your eyes the little men are still running around, shooting each other and building shit. it is the same when I sit on social media, I close my eyes and my inner eye just sees images disembodied from context. I don’t even see what the images are, they are just shapes within in a square with color. I can’t stop the pace they come at, how long they linger or how quickly they pass is up to something else. at least I have control when the phone is in my hand. 

I was thinking, shit I should be reading, that is “better” for me, but now a days i am often confused as to what is worth my time. I am older, 27 and when I was looking in the security screen at the self check out in Fred Meyers I couldn’t help but think shit, I am a full grown man. Look at that beard. Apparently he’s supposed to know stuff, he’s got a beard and half-moons under his eyes.

well, he knows he wants some motherfucking delicious fruit. and he also knows he doesn’t need to get up at 4:30 in the fucking morning to feel productive.