#i don't feel like sleeping today I'll do the sketches i couldn't do earlier

[rui-drawsbox]

Comm for @differenteagletragedy (and @meowzilla93 , if you saw their fic)! A cute moment at the beginning of step 3♪

[forgivenpunishment]

"Nicholas, do you have any idea how important you are?" Wolfwood glares daggers at the old doctor beside him as he sets his bones back in place. The escape plan was a failure. Legato made sure of that. Conrad's cybernetic implant flashes a green light, indicating that the man is analyzing his patient. "You are an essential part of our grandiose goal. Furthering the human race. Imagine humanity, without reliance on Plants, or energy, or flora, or fauna. Humanity without a need to sleep, eat, or drink. Unnecessary blights upon the race removed straight at the source—no more warring, because no one needs to fight over resources. A truly ethical existence, just as we had always wanted. Just as Master Knives has always wanted." "What does that have to do with me? What does that have to do with Livio? With Hopeland?" The doctor picks up one of his scalpels, intending to check the bone damage for himself. At least one important test would come out of this... outburst. "You have no one who loves you; no one to defend you. You have no purpose in this world, and you would have most likely died in the wild or in the slums of some backwater town. We saved you, Nicholas. Be thankful." "Besides that, you are incredibly special. For some reason, you are especially compatible with genetic splicing. You're most likely to survive, and survive you have."

The flashback hits Wolfwood like a sack of bricks.

He's just being traced on with a marker of some sort, but it feels like the knife itself burying into his skin. There is another set of gloved hands—the same woman from earlier who really couldn't be bothered to care.

"Doctor. Your hands are shaking. Need I remind you how important it is that we do not contaminate or damage our tissue samples? We already have to filter the drugs out of our blood samples. We do not need any more extra steps."

She takes the pen from the man's hand and begins to sketch surgical lines herself. She is not gentle in the slightest—her hurried determination to get this done leads her to press the marker into his flesh like a knife. Wolfwood swears he can feel himself bleeding.

"Take one of his kidneys, remove two ribs for bone density analysis and testing. Collect tissue samples."

The woman hums in thought.

"We'll need to check his virility for human sustainability. Perhaps someone else should handle that if your nerves are too overwhelming. We'll also need samples of the subject's cerebrospinal fluid and grey matter if we can. Those are today's tasks. Is that clear?"

Wolfwood settles with attempting to squirm once the marker is set down. His wide silver eyes tremble in panic, irises nothing but pinpricks underneath the bright surgical light. All he manages to do is slam into the table and the restraints. Even the relaxant fails to work completely with the level of anxiety he's experiencing.

"You—ugh, what is your name? Nicholas? The more you squirm the more painful this will be. I advise you to just lay still. Truly, this is for the greater good. With your assistance we'll develop new 'upgrades' for humans from your stem cells alone. Or something. You—doctor—get it together."

He hears the clicking of heels and the writing of a pen after she turns away. Taking things from his body? They haven't done that to him since he was still a lab rat. Even towards the end, they would only collect small things—not an entire organ. Can he even regenerate something like that? Can he regrow bone?

His breathing turns shallow and rapid.

"Can't... do this to me... don't touch me... I'll—I'll fucking... kill you," Wolfwood tries to growl but it's really not anything more than an empty threat and a harsh whisper. No one can hear him. No one will come rescue him.

Please.

Let this be a nightmare.

The choking was such an inconvenience... like babysitting an infant that could barely function. At least one doctor was always sort of close by, hovering-- a doctor who could've been doing something much more important, but of course not, someone had to make sure the subject didn't choke itself to death before they could begin. But the hustle and bustle of hard-working scientists, busy with what they believed to be furthering the human race, went just a bit too eerily still when their subject uttered another name.

. . .

Silence eventually turned to harsh, pointed whispers. Bickering amongst the brilliant minds about the whereabouts of the Plant and whether they had the time to at least get started or if that utterance had been a death knell until someone, much louder and sharper than the rest, cut through the chatter just to scold the rest of them.

"The other project is already underway; the Independent will NOT be a problem. Don't let desperate mewling squander this opportunity!"

Despite the encouragement, however, unease would still take root. Movements were quicker, and more deliberate-- the clatter of surgical tools and sterile smell of alcohol much sharper and more distinct in the hush that had fallen over the operating room.

At least, until a different doctor rotated into spit-clearing duty-- a slightly younger man with a thick bushy mustache and shaking hands that had no business holding the thin black pen to Wolfwood's abdomen at that moment. Drawing dotted lines along certain sections he'd been told to highlight. He... was close enough to hear him. To know there was a question that was being asked. And he attempted to look him in the face as his mouth opened to reply, but he lost the nerve quickly. No. No, no, no, too much, too much--

"... f-furthering the human race." he said, voice trembling worse than his hands. "Y-you're invaluable, a-and we... w-we desperately need your help, t-to..."

... to do that. Which just sounded like the song of someone trying to assuage his own guilt as he tried and failed to speak to the man they were aiming to slice pieces off of in the name of science--

[pbandjesse]

Today was a pretty good day. There was a big stressful part of the beginning but the majority of the day was very good. There was even a special surprise. And yoga.

I slept super poorly last night. I couldn't fall asleep for forever because I felt sick and nauseous and bad. And then when I did fall asleep I woke up a few times again. Air conditioner turned off in the middle of the night and James rollover next to me and I woke up just horribly uncomfortable. He wouldn't turn the air conditioning back on that because he always takes care of me. And I was able to sleep until about 7.

James was awake and told me I could keep sleeping but I didn't really want to. I wanted to lay there so I just played on my phone for a while. And then I got up. I got cleaned up and dressed and I felt okay.

I hung in my hammock for a little bit and then James told me he made a waffle. And I was like okay. And I was confused because he had asked me what I wanted for breakfast last night and I said I was going to have the avocado scramble thing I made the other day. And then he remembered that after he made the waffle and felt very bad. But it was fine. He made the thing I wanted and he had the waffle for breakfast instead.

I got the best boyfriend.

We hung out for a while and then left to go to the bus. James walked me there. And then bus proceeded not to show up for almost a half an hour. I was very frustrated. Because it was supposed to be there at 9: 30 but it didn't come until almost 9:50. And we had been there since 920. So I was very stressed out and I hate being late!! I texted Tiffany and let her know and I was just very distressed.

I was about 15 minutes late in the end. Sucks. I'm going to try to get an earlier bus tomorrow. So even if it runs late I will hopefully have the same issue. Because seriously we were three blocks away from access art and our bus driver saw someone on the street that he knew and he park the bus and got off to go have a conversation with him. I was losing my mind.

But I got there and everyone was fine. We're just lesson planning so it wasn't like I was missing anything yet but I hate being late. We all kind of bullshitted and talked for a little bit and then the teacher from holistic Life Center came.

He was a really nice guy. He told really funny stories and he was young and covered in tattoos and wearing a Orioles yoga shirt. He mostly talked about mindfulness. A little bit of yoga. And we learned a lot about breathing exercises. I felt very Vindicated and validated about the types of breathing exercises I already do with the kids when they're upset or hurt. But I learned some really interesting ones today. Specifically that I breathe wrong and I'm trying to retrain myself but it's very hard. It was very enjoyable even though I hated sitting in the folding chairs for that long. My feet don't reach the ground and it's uncomfortable.

But we also played a couple mindfulness games at the end of that was cool. Stuff that we can use in the classroom and it's awesome. I'm really glad that we were able to do that.

We had a late lunch. Marcus went down the street and got me a spring roll. Was very good. And I worked on my lesson plan. Almost out. I think I'll probably end up finishing it tomorrow. And then I'll go back in and make sure it's all good. I also think I want to use a couple other visual things for the classroom. And maybe add some tutorial images of some kind. We have tomorrow and Friday to finish lesson plans. And even with my brain breaks where I sketched tattoo ideas I still got a lot done.

While I was taking a break on my lesson plan I was looking at eBay and I got a crazy good deal on a Furby buddy. Something that I've been trying to get for 2 months now there's a little plush versions of the Furbies. I don't absolutely love them but people use them to make the long Furbies. And I'd like to try my hand at that. And I got one for $5. Usually they go for $35 to $40. I am very excited. I think I'm going to use it slightly as part of my example for my quilt making lesson. I'm going to make its belly pattern based off of Victorian crazy quilts. I'm very excited.

At 3 we finished up. We all decided on which weeks we should be teaching our lessons and when. Was decided that my quilt project would go first which makes me slightly nervous but it's probably a good idea. Because it's community building project we're going to kind of have all the kids get out there art things right away before they jump into other projects and I think that will work out nicely.

And then me and fitsum went home. His driving kind of makes me nauseous. Lot of fast speed up and then stopping. But we had a nice conversation about capitalism and its downfalls. And talked about apartments because he's moving as well. We saw a couple meet cars that we pointed out and talked about. It was a good time.

He dropped me off and I made some food. Did a couple packing things. Made a pile of the furniture and getting rid of. And just kind of hung out. Me and James were going to have dinner together but I kind of just wanted to be by myself a little bit. My dad's going to come visit this weekend and he's going to take the bed. So really these are the last couple days I'm ever going to live alone if all goes according to plan. And it feels very strange. I've lived alone for a long time. But I am excited. Nervous but excited.

I was just kind of chilling. Even though it was too humid in here to call it chilling. Playing Animal Crossing and watching videos. And then I decided to go check the mail.

I was excited because I had a package. But then I saw that there was a letter in there as well from the Minneapolis Apartment project. Which means it's from the class action settlement. Which means it's a check. When we won the settlement last year they said that we would get all of our rent back. But of course it was going to go into appeals. So we would probably just get a portion of our rent back. And honestly getting any amount of money from living in those apartments would be fine. But I was so nervous about opening this check. So he opened my package first. And it was socks! very exciting. I was looking forward to those socks. They're black and they have little hearts on them.

But I couldn't put off opening the check any longer. And I did and if I did my math right I thought about nine months worth of rent back. And the checks that this might not be the only check. That I might get more? Like after all the lawyers and fees are paid if there's anything left over there going to send another check. That's wild. And like all of my money stress. The $40 me and James got scammed out of the other day. James his bike breaking. Moving. All of it. This kind of feels like a buffer. We don't have to worry about it now. Least for a while. And I'm making more money and if he gets this job he's going to be at making more money. And even if he doesn't get this job he's going to keep looking until he does get something good. Don't have to be so stressed out and nickel-and-diming ourselves all the time. it's exciting. It feels Like the universe is telling me everything's going to be okay. That means using my white privilege to help make the lives of my neighbors and Minneapolis better is being rewarded. And that sometimes being a good person and trying to help other people does pay off in the end. And sometimes in cash.

I kind of didn't know what to say when I open the check. So I called James and let him know. And then I called my dad. We talked about taxes and he's going to check with the tax lady to make sure that I have put enough aside next year. I don't want to have an issue. But yeah it's exciting. And it was good to hear dad. He sounds a lot better. And he's looking forward to coming on Sunday and I'm looking forward to having him here. We're going to patch holes but hopefully we'll also do something else. Maybe we'll eat some good food and maybe we'll go see something interesting. Unsure of what yet but I'll figure that out.

I called Jess next to let her know. And she was very excited for me. And then I went back to packing. I brought more stuff from the basement. I broke down all of my Furby boxes. I don't know why I'm keeping them but it feels weird to throw them away. So flat in the Middle East to put them in storage. And I use the box that I have been storing them in to put kitchen stuff in. Paper towels and Ziploc bags. That one bottle of alcohol I always have. And then I took a shower. I painted my toenails and I'm just watching videos and enjoying my night.

Back to lesson planning tomorrow. And then I think falafels with James. No matter what it's going to be a good day. I can feel it. Hope you all have a good night tonight. Be kind to each other. Go out of your way for someone else. Don't expect anything in return. Good night