#i forgot to post cause i got vaccinated

[lovethytendytenderly]

Fourth of July by Fall Out Boy // an edit a day til penguins hockey, a countdown (day 16)

x x

[littlespyeye]

It’s crazy how S is vaccinated because she had to be to go to Vancouver and Toronto. Canada doesn’t play

oh that's true nonny! I totally forgot about that. So all her preaching is just empty cause she complains about the vaccines but she still got it to get to travel. Hypocrisy much? The more she posts and says the less sense it makes

[salttosaltless]

My quick journey from Salty to Saltless.

First Post:

Let me start by saying I loved salt, like really loved salt and all things salty. Unfortunately, my salty journey ended on Oct 29th, 2022. This was a rather bad day for me as life, as I knew it changed dramatically. This was no slight pivot; rather, it was a 180-degree shift in how I would likely live the rest of my life. At 6:37am on Oct 29th, I was diagnosed with heart failure (HF) at the tender age of 46. This was, by all accounts, a shock to me, my wife, family, and friends. You see, it never even occurred to me I could be a candidate for heart failure. I am 6ft tall, 175 lbs, don't smoke, and am quite fit. I ate healthily, kept food portions within healthy-ish guidelines, and exercised at least 3 days a week. So how could heart failure think I was this great candidate for its nonsensical agenda?

The factor of 4!

1st - Alcohol: Alcohol was a mainstay in most of my evening life, not on all days, but most would end with 2 or 5 beverages to relax in the evenings. Never enough to get drunk nor blackout, simply what I thought was enough to get over the redundancies of daily life. However, add 2-5 evening drinks to 15+ years, and you can create this magic trick referred to as high blood pressure or HB. HB is magic because you can't feel it, it doesn't affect your daily life, and for the most part, you don't even know it's there (this is likely why they call it the silent killer).

2nd - F****** Covid: Yep, 3 weeks before being diagnosed, with HF, I got into a big ass fight with Covid. I was vaccinated and boostered, and that f***** still started a fight with me. This was very uncool and knocked me down multiple times within 3 weeks. By the end, I had a cough that wouldn't go away, had trouble sleeping, and couldn't breathe very well.

3rd - HB: I hate doctors, which is odd because in college, I was such a hypochondriac that I went to the doctor for almost all medical mysteries I learned about and subsequently thought I contracted. Then, on one random day, I was there when a very close friend found out he had cancer. The look on his face was so impactful that it scared me away from any doctor's office. I never wanted to be in that position; that look he had was pure adulterated fear and one fear I never wanted to experience. So much so that I did a 180 and completely stopped going to the doctor. I literally stayed away, so afraid that I would have something bad. My hypocondraicism shifted from I have everything to ignorance is bliss. P.S. If you are wondering how my friend ended up, it ended well for him; he beat leukemia and is alive and well 15+ years later.

4th - Unknown heart condition: Apparently, I have one and already forgot how to spell it, so just believe me when I tell you I have one cause it's true.

All of these combined efforts gave HF the nifty thought that I would be a great candidate and so that brings me here writing to you - if there is actually any of you.

[tfwhynoy]

Lost and Found, Chapter 1

The rain was coming down fast. Tiny droplets streaking down the sky to pattern the sidewalks. Too much to be considered a drizzle, but not enough to be considered a proper downpour. The clouds hid away the sun leaving everything just a bit darker, even in mid-day.

A perfect day for a walk.

Most people stayed inside, afraid of getting a bit wet, finding the dulled out look of the world depressing. For you though, it’s better. No need to wear sunglasses, no loud kids screaming through the complex, no joggers or dog walkers to watch out for.

Sure, half the time people would just forget how to drive properly, but today you had nowhere to go. No urgent errands to do, no places to be, no one to talk to.

So you walk to nowhere. Letting the excess energy out of your legs so you can spend the rest of the day vegetating on the couch. You could have done some chores instead like you usually do when it’s bright or hot out but…

Today is the perfect day for a walk.

Even though you’re a little wet that’s okay. You wore a jacket for a reason, it’s thick enough that the spattering of rain won’t soak through, just the same with your pants too.

It’s almost fun too, just getting a little wet, your hair damped down with water, the excess dripping down your nose. You always walk fast enough to work up a sweat anyway, and the rain isn’t that cold. As long as you watch for large puddles in the streets so no jackass can even think about soaking you proper, you don’t really worry about it.

When you get home you’ll toss your jacket in the dryer and take a nice warm shower before cocooning yourself away to watch Tv or something in the softest clothes you own. The perfect way to wind down after a nice long walk.

Today though, something feels a little… off.

Nothing is wrong, logically, but something feels different. Like the world just got tilted two degrees to the left and you’re only just realizing how crooked things are.

You look around, nothing seems off. The small pond water feature near your apartment is just as murky as always. The jets off center in the middle spraying away. The rain is breaking up the surface, preventing you from seeing the surface currents that always sectioned off the pond as water flowed in and out.

Looking down at the water nearest to you you can see the bottom. It’s about half a foot deep near the edges, and sometimes you can spot little fish darting around the brown algae ridden water. There aren’t any beer cans or bottles floating in it today.

As you look though you can’t help but notice something strange. Near the edge there is a sliver of water not being pelted by the rain. It ripples just fine but the droplets aren’t hitting the water.

And the spot moves with you as you walk.

It’s a bit further behind but is walking at the same pace as you. As you start to slow to stare perplexed at this weird patch of water it too slows to stop. Experimentally you back up a bit, it doesn’t follow. Nor does it follow when you walk a few steps forward again.

You walk close and stick your hand over the spot and find there just isn’t rain. Looking up there isn’t any god made holes in the clouds to save this little spot from getting wet and as you raise your hand-

You startle as it hits an umbrella out of nowhere. The sudden jostle sends a cascade of water off the plastic umbrella onto the ground, making you jump just a tad bit further away from the object and the person holding it.

They look… strangely familiar. Their hair is between brown and red, a thick pair of glasses adorn his face, and they look a mix between surprised and confused.

“Uh… sorry. I didn’t see you there?” It sounds more like a question than you intended. Glancing down you realize the patch of weird water really was just this guy's umbrella covering the water as he walked behind you.

But how had you not noticed him walking behind you? Why did he stop when you did?

And why hadn’t he said anything when you were acting like an idiot about the water?

Cringing a bit you turn, unsure what to say or do. He’s been silent this whole time. His slightly surprised expression gave way to pure curiosity.

Is that what a curious expression looks like? You can’t say for sure, reading faces has never really been your strong suite and… you can’t see his eyes. There’s this weird blue shine reflecting off his glasses completely obscuring his eyes. It’s like some weird anime scene and it’s not helping you decipher anything about this guy.

“Who-What-Are?-“ you have no idea what you’re trying to ask or even say. Shouldn’t you just walk away and hope that you both forget this ever happened. It’s so awkward and dumb but instead, “Are you okay?” You ask that instead. You don’t know why but it felt right to. That’s a normal thing to ask right? Like a weirdly intimate ‘How are you doing?’

That surprised expression is back for a moment before breaking out into a small but bright smile. “I’m doing pretty good today. Though it is a bit strange to go out in this weather, isn’t it?”

You make a face at him for a moment, confused, “You’re… out here too though. If you don’t like the rain why are you out here?”

“I could ask you the same, aren’t you worried you’ll catch a cold?”

His voice is nice, and slightly teasing. He sounds friendly, approachable, like someone you bumped into at the grocery store and are actually happy to see.

“I’ve never caught a cold in the rain. Besides, it’s just nice to walk in without all the people and the noise. It’s quieter these days…” your voice trails off and you aren’t sure why you’re telling him this. “Who are you anyway? I have this nagging feeling like I know you somewhere but I just can’t remember where.”

His expression drops immediately, he suddenly seems distant and you can’t help but feel bad, “Oh that’s not your fault. I’m quite forgettable. I’d be surprised if you recognized me.”

“Wait, do we actually know each other? Because if we do I’m sorry, that's

so not a you thing. I’m absolutely atrocious with names and faces. You actually seem really nice? For some reason? Who are you?”

He opens his mouth to say something but pauses, letting you catch a flash of fangs before he gives a bittersweet smile. “Just consider me a distant friend of sorts. Here, take my umbrella. You should get home.”

“What?” You say dumbly as he tries to hand off said umbrella to you.

“You may not worry about you catching something but I do. Besides, Lilith must be missing you something fierce all by herself. Why don’t you head back before the rain kicks up more?”

You take the umbrella without thinking, mumbling a quick “Ya, should prolly check on her,” as you start walking away.

Your dog always hated when you were gone, especially when you left on walks without her. You would have brought her but the rain always scared her. You’d just have to cuddle her a bit more when you got home to make up for your absence.

You have been gone for a while, about an… hour and a half according to your phone! You’ve gone for longer walks but you had just left the complex, the pond was only just on the edge of it and you couldn’t have been walking around it that long.

It doesn’t make sense, it takes less than five minute to walk to the pond and you weren’t there for that long, right?

Sighing you concede to yourself that it must’ve just been you tunnel visioning and losing track of the time. It’s happened before and it seems to be happening more frequently lately.

As you go to unlock your door you're confronted by a series of questions that you never thought you’d be asking.

Whose umbrella is this? When did you pick it up? And why did you not realize you were holding it till just now?

[perriewinklenerdie]

Pit in his stomach (MO, 3/17, Ethan x MC)

Missed Opportunities Series, Chapter 3

Pairing: Ethan Ramsey x Claire Herondale

Word count: 706

Summary: All the times when Ethan could have told Claire he loved her but didn’t, and one time he did. Told through Ethan’s eyes.

Warnings: None for now

A/N: There are many things Ethan knows. Like the fact that his partner is brilliant. Or the fact that he loves her. There are also things he didn’t know. Like the reason for Claire’s subdued attitude. 

He closed the file, willing himself to ignore the harsh sound of the chairs being moved against the ground. Harper left right after the meeting ended, Claire following her slowly. Ethan watched his partner closely, his eyes meeting hers when she stopped in her tracks to look at him. He could see something in her eyes – the same uncertainty he’s been seeing since their first day back. Something he couldn’t quite place but for some reason made him incredibly nervous. A pit opened in his stomach, and he couldn’t see a way of closing it. Much faster than he probably should have, he walked over to her. If she was confused, she didn’t let it show, just watched him as he reached for her hand in complete silence.

Ethan felt lost in the whole situation. He already knew that it was something he did, and since he found that out, he began observing her. Looking for any signs that would clue him into what was going on in her head. He neglected to have the conversation with her, the one he promised himself to have. As a result, the cause of her feelings still remained unknown to him. It drove him up the walls, not being able to figure out how he could remedy the situation.

Despite everything, Claire still stuck by him. She was still by his side, through thick and thin. He continued to fight with Bloom for every square inch of freedom and she remained right there, with him, even if she didn’t agree with the way he chose to go about the issue. Harper often laughed at the two of them. At how easy Claire made it seem to handle his ‘hissy fits’, as she called them. At how one touch from Claire worked like a miracle cure for his stress. At how willingly Ethan followed her lead, regardless of what it was about. How he listened to her, with respect and complete focus.

Love. It all came down to love.

His fingers laced with hers, softly, as though he was afraid of breaking them. She hummed, raising her line of sight to watch his face. Ethan observed her very closely, committing to his memory every detail of her face, like he always did when he looked at her. The gentleness of her eyes. Faint wrinkles that marked her forehead, deepening each time she worried. The soft curve of her lips that could soothe every last one of his aches and fix all his problems.

His thumb traced her palm, feeling the warmth of her skin. He could try to name all the things he felt for her and there wouldn’t be enough words in all languages combined to express it. She was becoming his everything, even if neither of them was fully aware of it yet – not even Ethan, at least not yet.

“I- “ he began, unsure where he was going with it. With the situation they were in at the moment, making a grand confession of his adoration would be foolish of him. Logically, he knew that all he had to do was ask – Claire never shied away from helping him working out all the areas he felt unsure of regarding the relationship stuff, when he asked about it.

The diagnostician in him, however, disagreed. He could diagnose some of the most complex diseases. Surely, he could diagnose his own errors. If he could avoid asking her about it and cure the pain he sometimes saw in her eyes on his own, he would. As soon as possible, he would. And more than anything, he didn’t want it to seem as though he used that four-letter word as a way to get himself out of the difficult spot he’s found himself in. When he said it, he wanted her to know for sure that he meant it, no additional motives.

So instead, he kissed her hand, his eyes glued to hers the whole time. “I’m so proud of you.” he finally finished his thought. A warm sensation bloomed in his chest when she smiled, visibly perking up and shaking her head at his cheesiness. Ethan squeezed her hand one final time, sending her on her way. “Go, be brilliant.”

Notes

Don’t ask me how the hell did he still not figure it out. He’s a dumbass and he’s about to know it (his words, not mine - and that’s a spoiler :D)

Vaccine update - my fever reached a high it didn’t see for a few years and my arm was dying. I’m better now, can’t wait for second shot.

I almost forgot to post the chapter today. I got too much into character edits for the “Herondale family+” posts that I have planned (more on that soon).

I think we have an established posting schedule now. So, chapters of this series are going to be posted on Sunday, Wednesday and Friday.

I decided to give away the name of the next chapter with each update. So, next chapter is called Thank god for the waiter.

Hope you enjoyed this part, thank you so much for reading and see you soon!

Perrie <3

[blushnik]

Bestiee how are you? <3

Hey!!! Not sure if it's the same anon or two but I forgot to check my inbox for a while 😅 (All brank HC questions will be answered in time :>)

But srsly! Thanks for asking 🥺 I'm doing well, got my first vaccine shot three days ago and was really scared of side effects (cause my cousin got them real bad) but nothing happened for me so... YAY.

I didn't feel like drawing AT ALL for what feels like weeks, idk where my motivation went but it's back and now I'll have to balance it with gaming cause I just played Assassin's Creed Origins for the first time yesterday and literally can't think about anything else xD (Unless it's Billy and Frank in AC au xD)

A lot of credit for finding my motivation to draw goes to Mr. Julian Fucking Kostov who remembered my drawing of Fivan wedding and posted it in his fan appreciation post on the FIRST slide - bestie I DIED. But also to all people who suddenly pledged to my Patreon this month and made me feel like I'm worth of supporting 💙

Hope you're doing well too, bestie! Stay safe! PS: Behold that man really did it (and BEN BARNES liked it)

And he tagged me like a proper gentleman 😌🙏

[oboevallis]

runaway

hey it’s been a hot minute, not really sure what this is ive have it in my drafts for a while, but i feel like everyone’s written this 😂 but i wanted to post something at least also ‘who is he?’ part 4 will be coming out soon hope everyone’s doing well

“It’s always been her, hasn’t it?” Amelia’s voice wavered as she struggled to keep her composure.

“I didn’t sleep with her!” Link exclaimed, slurring his words. “I just stayed with her.”

“Whenever something goes wrong between us you always go running to Jo. Just get it over with and fuck her already! She’ll be all the things I’m not.”

“You have no right to be mad. I poured my heart out to you, I’ve been planning for months on proposing to you. I love you Amelia Shepherd, but your so damn self destructive you’re ruining this for the both of us. I’ve done everything you’ve wanted this is just one thing I wanted. If anything I should be mad, but I’m being the bigger person.”

“You’re being the bigger person?” Amelia chuckled in disbelief. “Talk to me again when you’re sober.”

“Who said I wasn’t sober?”

“Please, part of Jo’s help sessions always result in the two of you downing a bottle of whiskey, which is an incredibly unhealthy coping mechanism.” As she said this she was aggressively packing her clothes in a suitcase.

“Not everyone’s a fucking alcoholic. Not everyone has to sit an a room with fucked up strangers complaining about their lives, when they did that to themselves.”

“You think I wanted to be snorting oxy off of the reception desk of a medical practice while I’ll my friends watched? Or stealing my brothers car and crashing it trying to find drugs? I thought you were different but you’re just like Owen.” That’s the last thing she said before walking into their sons nursery and scooping with up.

“You can’t take Scout.”

“I can because you’re drunk out of your mind, I don’t even know why I’m talking to you.”

“Where are you going?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Amelia yelled before slamming the door behind her. She fought to get the baby in his car seat, she couldn’t seem to catch a break. She needed to get away, she needed to go back to her original refuge.

“Come on Scout, can we cooperate for mommy?” Amelia begged, fighting off tears as her son kicked and screamed. Despite being a movement baby he hated the car, specifically the car seat since no one could hold him. Eventually the baby was secured, and he quickly fell asleep, as he realized how he exhausted himself after his tantrum. Three hours into the drive Amelia immediately started to regret this, it was a 17 hour drive, and she was doing it alone with a baby who just barely turned one. No, she was doing this, she needed to. She’d be sure to take as many breaks as she needed. This was what needed to be done for her and her sons well-being.

After two hotel visits and countless stops along I-5 S she found herself in LA standing outside her sisters door, but couldn’t bring herself to knock. She knew Addison loved her but she couldn’t help already feeling the subtle condescension. ‘How have you already managed to screw this up?’ ‘I love you Amy, I do, but isn’t this a little extreme?’ ‘You’re clean, right? Because I’ll take you back right this minute’

Quickly she turned around to go back to her car to think about her next game plan before a voice stopped her.

“Amy?” Amelia jerked back around to be met with Addison’s confused yet comforting smile.

“Umm I’m vaccinated, but I got tested if that makes you more comfortable. I’m negative I-I just needed to get put of Seattle.”

“I know the feeling.” The older woman chuckled holding the door open wider to allow the two to come in. “Now let me hold my new nephew!” She squealed as she held her arms out for the baby, soaking in his tiny stature. “I miss when Henry was this little.”

“Where is the little guy? It’s awfully quiet.”

“They went camping, Henry’s been stir crazy for over a year and it seemed safe enough for the two to go away.”

“I’m sure Jake was thrilled.” Amelia smirked thinking back to the time the practice went on a camping trip together and Jake had almost refused to go hence his disdain for the wilderness.

“You know it.” Addison joked along, playing with the baby’s tiny fingers. The older woman then lead the way back onto the deck and settled on a lounge chair under an umbrella. Amelia followed behind and took out sunscreen from the diaper bag she was sure to pick up once they got to LA. “He’s absolutely adorable Amelia.”

“Thanks.” Amelia smiled as she lathered the baby’s extremities with sunscreen.

“Gosh i just want to eat him up.” Addison pretended to bite into him, causing the baby to shriek with laughter. Cracking the first genuine smile the neurosurgeon had since after Maggie’s wedding. “You know I was talking to Charlotte a little while ago and she mentioned she was going to go to a meeting if you want to go meet up with her, she still goes to the one near the pier.”

“Thank you, Addison.” It now felt silly to have been scared to talk to Addison, she always knew how to help the neurosurgeon. “Are you sure you’re okay to watch him?”

“More than okay.” Addison beamed, running her hand through the baby’s hair. “And even if you stayed I still wouldn’t let this little guy go.”

“I love you Addie.”

“Love you too Amy.” Addison assured as the woman walked out to her car, it’d be a lie if she said she wasn’t worried for her little sister. But she was reaching out for help, she wasn’t sure what the issue was but she was immensely proud she came to her and not a baggie of pills.

_______________________________________

“Don’t you think you should call her?” Jo asked as she prepared a bottle for Luna.

“No.” Link coldly said, cradling the baby in his arms.

“At least for Scout’s sake?”

“He’s fine, looking back Amelias made it very clear she’s the only parent that matters or gets a say.” Link bitterly replied.

“I’m sure it isn’t like that.” As much as she loved her dear friend, he couldn’t see where he also went wrong in this situation. “She loves you.”

“Not enough to marry me.”

“She isn’t ready.”

“Her and Hunt were off and on, and she accepted his proposal.”

“First off she had a brain tumor, and because of said brain tumor she impulsively asked him to marry her. She thinks clearly now, and I think she just wants it to work out and be right.” Jo turned around and sighed as she saw her friends annoyed look. “You’ve never been a marriage guy, where is this even coming from?”

“I don’t know it just feels right, i don’t want to lose her.”

“Your gonna lose her if you push her into this.”

“I move mountains for her, I’ve adjusted my whole life for her. It’s just one thing, one thing that I want.”

“Link are you stupid? This isn’t fighting over what couch you get this determines the rest of your life. And marriage isn’t all that, it doesn’t keep a person there.” Jo sighed, since adopting Luna she’d been thinking a lot about her ex husband, and how stupid the concept of marriage was.

________________________________________

“Has he called?” Addison cautiously asked as Amelia fed her baby.

“Nope.” Amelia popped the ‘p’. “I get that he hates me now, but I thought he’d at least check in on Scout.”

“He’s just upset.”

“I know, I just thought he understood. He’s nothing like Owen but since we moved into his apartment I just feel suffocated like I did when we were married.”

“Have you tried talking to someone, professionally?” Addison inquired, leaning further back onto the beach chair.

“What so they can silently judge how I have a perfect life but still feel terrible?”

“Amy, you know a therapist isn’t going to think that, their there to help you without judgement.” She stared at the woman for awhile until she came to a realization. “After Scout was born you didn’t have any postpartum appointments did you?”

“No, the world had shut down a week after he was born.” Amelia confirmed.

“Do you think your having a delayed postpartum depression reaction? I mean you were thrown into taking care of a newborn and three other kids who aren’t yours in complete isolation . Then On top of that you didn’t have time to grieve Christopher. It’s difficult on women who have lost a child previously when they bring home a healthy baby.” Amelia held back her tears, as much as she tried to focus on scout she couldn’t help but feel broken over the fact Christopher didn’t have the opportunities scout has.

“Pre-covid a day wouldn’t go by that I didn’t think of Christopher. Then I just got so caught up in everything, and I’d barely think about him. I mean I almost forgot his birthday.”

“You can’t feel guilty about that.”

“I j-just wish Link would get that I don’t want another baby.I mean he’s ten times more understanding than Owen was about my grief but, I just don’t want another baby.”

“You’re allowed to not want another baby, but do you think it has to do with Christopher?”

“I don’t think so, I just can’t love yet another person without losing myself. It feels like I already have, I don’t recognize anything about me. Surgery doesn’t even give me the thrill it use to.” The older women sat up and placed a reassuring hand on the younger ones knee.

“I’m gonna talk to Violet and have her refer someone to you. Then you’re gonna talk to Link and come up with a game plan. And I’m gonna be right here the whole time, you’re my family. Everyone here is your family we’ve got you.”

[betweentheracks]

Heyo! Not to be too nosy here but you mentioned you're in bad health and recovering, and I just wondered what happened? Also how would it impact your career since, from how you've made it all seem thus far, it's a highly active and demanding job?

Hope you take care and get well! You appear quite strong and not like you'd take whatever has happened just lying down, so here's to you!! 🙏💓

No sweat and no worries here, I dont find this particularly invasive. If anything, I'm flattered you care to ask after me lol. 😁

A few weeks back I met a friend I hadn't seen in some time for lunch. This was against my better sense of caution that I've held firmly to throughout the pandemic, but I would feel regretful and dismissive if I didnt agree to see her while I had the chance. I should've listened my gut and stayed safely at work because this "friend" failed to mention she had tested positive (she knew already by the time of our lunch date, she has since admitted) and had figured since she had no symptoms there was no harm in being in public.

FF only a few days later and I was feeling a little unwell but had put it off as an effect of the winter blast that had just hit where I live. I'd spent half a day out in the cold and snow for a photoshoot only the day before and thought it was probably due to that since I'm susceptible to weather influenced head colds and bronchitis. Fortunately, my job mandates a rigid COVID-19 screening twice a week due to our high profile clientele and as an assurance of health and safety for us all. Mine read back with a positive and with the way I had been feeling I was immediately sent home and the company closed its doors while the building was sterilized and our clients notified.

Thankfully I managed not to infect anyone I work with nor my son. Regrettably, I did infect my best friend since we're horrifically incapable of maintaining personal space and have weak shit immune systems. We both agree it is a wonder we made it this far into plague times without it catching us.

So I went and got looked over and sent on my way with my prescription of potent anti-virals and steroids. I was well prepared to abide the quarantine guidelines and had sent my son to my mother's home for the duration so that he was out of the danger zone. It was fine, I was kinda cool and keen on getting a few days to myself to rest up and all that jazz. But it wasn't meant to last and I found trouble in the form of being unable to remain conscious much at all and would pass out constantly. After a few times of this I gave my brother (he's a doctor and vaccinated) a ring and told him that my fatigue was no joke dude and needed him to come give me a better once over than the one I'd gotten before bc I was sure I was not meant to feel this badly. He found me unconscious in the shower that night, my head battered from crashing to the basin.

After ensuring I wasn't concussed and jokes on what a hard head I have to take such a beating and show no signs of registering it beyond bruising (a joke between us due to him having once accidentally put a golf club into my forehead and fracturing my skull but that's a different story) he told me to call him regularly so that he can review how I feel and the progression of my symptoms and left. By the morning I had already had two more instances of sudden fatigue and collapsing in on myself. I had been posting on my main blog here about how I was doing and due to this I caught the concern of @peekbackstage and upon their suggestion to have my O2 levels tested it was revealed that I was having issues with my blood not circulating oxygen as it should and nearing hypoxia.

Here's the rub. I have a heart condition that is already very dangerous and bleak which limits my heart's capability of delivering blood through my body as it should. Cardiomyopathy or, as it seems better known, congestive heart failure. I've had surgery for it and it has been a while since it caused me any real issues as long as I stick to my routine of care and manage my health, but when COVID-19 infiltrated my body it immediately snagged upon this weak heart of mine and sank its fangs in.

Within a day of being admitted to the hospital I had a grand mal seizure due to the constant fluctuations of oxygen in my blood and the way my body was working double time to supplement for it. And only 2 days after that and when my nervous system had finally quieted down, I went into full cardiac arrest with a heart attack at my young age.

My next weeks were spent connected to machines doing more for me than my own body could. I developed pneumonia in my lungs, acute though it was it was still another complication that my wrecked body had to overcome as it made my already ragged breathing even worse. I was steadily shedding muscle tone and definition due to a lack of mobility and the fact that my body felt like a deadweight I could hardly take command of, and generally very weakened. My heart, the horrible thing, was inflamed and trying too hard by beating too fast, too hard.

FF some more and I was doing fairly well and treatments were showing some improvement. My heart was still being an ugly and gnarled beast in my chest and throwing weird spikes on the monitor that raised alarms. The pneumonia was retreating and I had no further seizures. It was the dawning light of my first signs that I was recovering!

It took a while more and so fucking many tests day in and day out for me get cleared for release. I tested negative for COVID-19 and was ashamed that I actually forgot that that was why I was even in the hospital to begin with, given all that happened. I have to undergo physical therapy and counseling; PT for heart happy exercises as well as to manage to my depleted muscles, counseling bc I was rocked mentally from all the almost dying and the depressive haze of being holed up in the hospital and surrounded by people who, like me, came in with COVID-19 but unlike me did not come out of it.

I'm home now. I had to have a pacemaker implanted and must stay vigilant for any showing that my heart is not performing as it should. I still have some severe inflammation and chest restriction in my airways as well as my blood vessels but nothing too daunting. I also have a full battalion of prescriptions, most for my heart, and a nebulizer to ease any breathing issues. The worst is honestly that I still am very weak and have severely limited reserves of energy.

My job is required to make me take 12 weeks of leave for rest and recuperation. This is very upsetting since I had been requested by name to be an assistant stylist at the Grammys this year which is truly a dream (especially with BTS in the mix 😩😩) and also bc I'm just a workaholic by nature and love my job. When I return I am expected to learn how to properly delegate tasks that do not directly require me to handle and slow down the pacing of my projects. My boss terminated a contract with a client that was nearing the scheduled end of our agreement and was also incredibly problematic to help lighten my workload. It's imperative that I reign in my stress levels or my heart will not last until the next surgery I'll need, so I'm gritting my teeth and letting my job be picked apart to reduce my responsibilities.

My post awaits my return but I will not be returning to full activity for a while after, which means no rifling through the racks for hours alongside the archivists in search of the perfect piece. I'll be welcome to meet with my clients and oversee the glam teams, will still be the command tower for final verdicts on which styles to use. But I will not be running around showrooms nor personally handling matters any competent trainee could be tasked with like I've always done. I will no longer be able to fly out anywhere for destination shoots or fashion shows.

If, after my next surgery, things are better and my heart stable to the point that they are hopeful of things will be reevaluated. While it is difficult beyond measure for me to relinquish the reigns of my career and be restricted in what I can do now, I am very thankful to be alive and upright when that wasn't a certainty just a little while ago. This is such a humbling experience to have survived when my stats kept dropping every day. I've been told to expect that I will never make a full 100% recovery and to expect to stall out around the 70%-90% range, with 70% being the most realistic.

My best friend (the one I gave the plague to) will be moving in with me so that I am never on my own if things go tits up and to assist in wrangling a toddler since I am currently without the energy to do so as my child is, sincerely, a crazy gremlin spawn with limitless battery life. Slowly, my life will regain some normalcy 💖

[dannypuro]

So I just binged Something Telling and it’s just, so amazing? Like, your characterization is so on point and I just have nothing but nice things to say about it. Can I make a list? I’m gonna make one cause I have Emotions™️ about every one of these dweebs.

1. Grantaire is just, so nice and kind and smart, and not an alcoholic! Like, I love the fics where he deals with that, but it’s nice to see him being a semi-functional adult person. (Was he an alcoholic in this universe at one point?) Plus, he’s still enough of an emotional disaster otherwise. Love him ❤️

2. ENJ VS TECHNOLOGY. I could read about that forever. Swearing in an elevator? Iconic. Never using the space bar? Perfect. Also now I refer to movies as “movings” in my head so there’s that.

3. Combeferre is the sane man of this family and I love it so much. Also I never thought of vaccines for time travel AUs and I genuinely cackled when Ferre brought it up. Like, yeah, that’s a good point.

4. Jehan is always chaotic and I love them for it. Also, I know R doesn’t want to hear about it, but I absolutely want to know what their sex talk consisted of. I’m curious.

5. Baz and Feuilly. Yes. Good. Lovely boys. So glad they got their shit together.

6. “I am wanted by the government for high treason.” Honestly Enj has so many golden moments/lines. He is trying his best and I love him.

7. The PTSD our boy has and how he’ll have to work through it, but he has Friends and Boyfriend to help. (Side note: I live in the US, so I don’t know how much of a thing it might be in Paris, but do they set off a lot of fireworks on New Years? Cause I feel like that would be a thing that Enj would have to deal with, especially if no one tells him about it beforehand)

8. The research you would have had to do for this is just, incredible. And I think you captured how someone would really be if they just got yeeted into the future with no tech experience whatsoever. Like, I’ve been living here since 1994 and I’m overwhelmed by stuff sometimes.

9. Slightly unrelated but I also saw that you did the AU where Grantaire is a baker and Enj is totally not in the mafia (the name escapes me) and I also love that fic.

Hopefully that was somewhat coherent! Seriously though your work is great and I can’t wait for more!

(Also, if you want and it’s not a plot point of the next one, what is Enjolras’s reaction to musicals? I know the boy loves his opera, but someone had to have shown him something on YouTube and I just crave knowledge about this universe) Thanks! 🥰

GUH thank you!!!!!!! thank you thank you!!! and thank you for taking the time to make a list because i thrive off of validation alone and it made my day 🥺. SO.

grantaire is a total sweetheart. like, genuinely a nice person who is trying his best despite the fact that he has a hard time. baby. of course, the funniest part about him is the fact that he has NO idea that he’s actually just like... nice. he’s like... oh man it sure sucks that i’m the worst person possible to help someone in need... sucks that i’m the only one here... sorry dude i’m sorry i’m not combeferre... and then he proceeds to just like. make beef stew and be so careful and kind and thoughtful and try his very best and let enjolras go to sleep on his shoulder during a moving. like... sir. ok. also, yes, i tend to write him a little more... with his shit together, especially in this fic. you mentioned that you read And If I See You In The Daylight (the bakery fic)--i kind of wrote this assuming a similar character arc (minus the bakery, of course. like, grantaire used to be much, much more of a mess in a lot of ways, and drinking too much was a part of that, and he’s slowly been working on it. and now he’s 29, and he’s doing his best, and his friends love him. he’s doing a little better in this fic than in the bakery fic--maybe he’s a little older? maybe because combeferre is a little harsher than jbm and gets on his case when he starts to slip back into old habits? yeah.

ENJ VS TECHNOLOGY. sweetie. baby. the first time combeferre vacuums his apartment when enj is around he’s like “hey man, do you mind if i do the vacuuming?” and enj (has NO idea what that word is, is falling asleep while reading on the couch in the sun) is like “do what you will” and then ferre turns the vacuum on and enjy does that thing when a cat is startled and it jumps like three feet up in the air and puffs up like a squirrel. he’s awake now.

combeferre. baby. he’s genuinely, genuinely trying his best, but it’s fucking hard when you’re tired and overworked and also none of your friends use their brains more than 30% of the time and also your new best friend is a spiky little revolutionary from EIGHTEEN THIRTY TWO. so. um. he’s a little stressed. but he loves enjy so much and doesn’t even mind when he’s dramatic and annoying because he’s such a sweet dude and they’re FRIENDS. sometimes he comes home from a long day of work and enj has come over and washed all of his dishes and brought over takeout but also rearranged all of his books and also eaten like three mangoes. listen. friendship is about gently tormenting your BFF because you are COMFORTABLE AROUND EACH OTHER.

jehan. baby. instagram influencer supreme. i’ve gotten like a bazillion asks about their sex talk--i SWEAR i will write it eventually because the concept of it just cracks me up. jehan is like. “ok. enjy. tell me what you know about sex” and enj is like... “i understand that..... it occurs?” and jehan is like :^/ and enj is like “one must be careful not to contract syphilis from unseemly sources?” and jehan is like “TIme For A Conversation Before Grantaire Messes This Up”

baz and feuilly. babies. they’re just such a sweet, casual couple and they  like each other so much. also, first date 3 am kebabs? after they FINALLY communicated? and then baz gets railed like he deserves? they deserve it.

enj has a secret little sense of humor and it’s just a little hidden by the fact that he is 1) repressed 2) awkward. but it’s there! he’s just so smart and secretly funny and grantaire thinks he’s fucking hilarious. except when he jokes about the fact that he’s technically dead. it makes grantaire sad. he’s like YOU’RE NOT DEAD THOUGH BABE YOU’RE EATING JAPCHAE RIGHT NOW and enj is like. “i believe that if you observe my wicky encyclopaedia you shall learn otherwise 🤷” and grantaire is like 😰BABE

yeah. yeah. listen. he’s got a lot of shit to deal with. it’s gonna take a while. like... that is some SERIOUS trauma, and he didn’t even have any time in his own century to process it. he went straight from a very violent event--LITERALLY about to be executed 😰--to being zapped to a time where he recognizes NOTHING. that... didn’t help. and he can’t really go to a therapist (which causes combeferre no shortage of distress) since like... he wouldn’t be able to explain anything about the barricades or the source of his trauma to begin with. so... yeah. but yes! he has friends and a boyfriend who love and support him so much! and it’s the framework he needs to begin to work through stuff at his own pace 🥺 (also, yes, fireworks are a big thing. they’re also big for the 14 juillet, which i... kind of forgot to address. i might go back and write a scene somewhere around ch. 5 for it and post it on here. we’ll see.)

i’m so glad you appreciated the research! 🥺🥺🥺 legit i... kind of spent a stupid amount of time on it. i really tried to make it as realistic as possible (barring, like, the whole time-zap thing, and also the whole “characters from les mis” thing) since the whole POINT is the differences between their two times, so... i’m glad it paid off. it means a lot to hear that u vibed with it.

thank you thank you! again-- And If I See You In The Daylight is the name of the bakery fic, and i also love it 🥺🥺🥺 . to everyone else... READ IT!

enjolras does not like musicals. like... yes, there was a natural progression from 20th century opera to early musicals, but enjolras missed all of that. and 21st century musicals are pretty fucking different from 1820s/30s opera. he can’t quite understand the music. the plotlines don’t make sense. the plots aren’t stupid enough for his taste. they take themselves too seriously. not enough miscommunication. orchestral parts not nice enough. cosette tries to show him a musical on youtube and enjy is like. who is that. why are they all dressed the same. what is going on. why do they not use their Pocket Fones? why does it sound like this. hellp. (she gives up and shows him a Puccini opera instead.)

anyways. THANK YOU! and to everyone else--send me asks! send me prompts! send me questions! i WILL respond to them and i treasure them all i just tend to be kind of slow! but i love to receive them! thank you!!!

[abalonetea]

Just Keep Breathing: Chapter One

I was partnered with @the-dot for the @originalfictionbigbang! Thank you for working with me, Dot! 

Here is the first chapter! I’ve split the first 10k words between four chapters, and will be posting them all in a masterpost in just a moment!

Summary: It’s the height of storm season and everyone in Hi-Banks, Florida is getting ready for the bad weather. It should be a year like any other - but on the tails of a national pandemic, a new disaster strikes. More than one new disasters. So many disasters that Eddie Carver would like to put some of them back, thanks. He’s just a down on his luck guy living in the local trailer park with his boyfriend. He’s not interested in dealing with the revival of an old murder case - which he knows nothing about, thanks -, the storm season of the century, or…zombies?

Yeah. Absolutely not interested in the zombies.

This black-comedy follows the inner workings of a small town as they band together to survive, and the young man - reckless, mean, angry, written off b the big city folk come to look into a cold case - that might hold all of societies survival in his hands.

Forget about society. Eddie’s only interested in keeping his friends alive.

Chapter One – Hi Banks Florida

“ - increased reports of unprecedented aggression all across New York City. This is following in the wake of Mayor Alex Grand’s assault on his wife. These attacks have increased nearly ten fold in the wake of the recent vaccine’s release, prompting many to wonder if the vaccine was released too soon – should more tests have been done? Could this be a side effect of it? We have reached out to the head of the FDA, Doctor - “

The television goes to pure static, a hissing crackle of black and white fuzz. Eddie groans. “Seriously? I was watchin’ that!”

“Guess you ain’t watching it now,” says Carson, draping himself over the back of the couch. He curls an arm around Eddie’s chest, pinning him against the back of the couch. “You should be at work, anyway.”

“Penny don’t got work for me today.”

“Then you should be out working on the truck. I’m sick of walking to the docks.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. He shifts, leaning up and wrapping his own arms around Carson’s neck, tugging until his boyfriend is leaning down enough that Eddie can kiss him. “I can’t fix the truck ‘till we get a part mailed in. Penny let me use the work account.”

“Bullshit,” says Carson. “You just don’t want too.”

“It ain’t bullshit. It’s, uh, truth shit.”

“Wow.” Carson shakes off Eddie’s grip. “You worked hard on that one, huh? Whatever, don’t work on the truck. I’ve got actual work to get too.”

Eddie twists, pulling himself up so he can drape over the back of the couch. “Gonna rain today. Take an extra shirt.”

Carson says, “sure, I’ll put it in the truck so it stays dry. Oh, wait.”

And, okay, so Eddie kind of deserves that one. The truck hasn’t been running for almost a week now. This isn’t the first time that it’s stopped working. Carson bought it straight out of the local junkyard five years back, and it’s pretty much held together with duck tape – literally – and chewing gum – which might be the next step.

Eddie really is waiting on the part to come in.

The problem is that he sort of forgot to order it until yesterday.

Drooping, Eddie makes a disgruntled sound. “I’ll see if I can’t fudge it, okay? Just, I dunno, don’t get hit by lightning. The storm’s supposed to be nasty.”

“Great.” Carson shoves on one boot, then the other. “So we’re going to have no power tonight.”

“I’ll fill the tub.”

“Summer sucks ass.”

“Florida sucks ass,” corrects Eddie.

Carson thinks on it, then bobs his head in agreement. “Yeah, okay. Let’s go with that one.”

“You gonna be home for - “ The television bursts back into being with a crackle of too loud sound. Eddie swears.

The woman on TV reads off, “ - no official links between the two. Gerald Harbrinks has been arrested today for the most bizarre case of armed robbery the county has ever seen, in which he dropped his gun and instead chose to bite the cashier - “

Eddie mutes it. “Sorry. One’a these days we need to get actual cable.”

“Yeah, when toads fly,” says Carson. “You doing dinner?”

Eddie thinks about what they have in the pantry. Not much, but probably enough to throw at least half a meal together. He’s better at cooking and coming up with things than Carson is. “Yeah. You going to be back before dark?”

Carson shrugs. “How should I know? They never tell me anything. I might not even have to stay if it rains.”

“Babe, if it rains, they’re gonna make you stay out of spite, and you know it,” says Eddie, because the guy who runs the docks is kind of an ass.

Carson grunts. “Thanks for the reassurance.”

“No problem.” Eddie shuts the TV off all the way and finally pries himself up off of the couch. “So, dinner, unless we lose power. We’ll have to hit up Red’s. He’s got that grill or whatever.”

He sways his way over to his boyfriend, plasters himself against Carson’s front and schmoozes his way in for a kiss. Carson curls an arm around him for a moment, then makes a face. “Come on, man. I gotta at least get down there before the rain starts or I won’t make shit.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” says Eddie. “Get outta here. Don’t get drowned or nothing.”

* * *

Hi Banks, Florida is the sort of place you’re born into, you slog through, and then you die in. And mostly, the people are okay with that. Why leave a good thing, right? Or maybe it’s more that the people born into Hi Banks just have a hard time getting together the chance to leave.

The trailer park is on the backside of town, filled up with old mobile homes and trailers parked up on cinder blocks. The paths between homes flood any time it rains and Eddie makes a point of sloshing his way through the puddles until the inside of his sneakers are soaked and his stained up jeans are covered in mud. Splash! Slosh! Splat!

The Calloway’s have added a new pick up truck to the collection of cars sitting out front. Eddie would bet it’s like the rest of their vehicles and the engine doesn’t actually roll over. Not that he can say too much on that front, considering his own truck.

If there’s any chance that he can trick the thing into running, he needs another quart of oil and – well, it is his fault that Carson’s going to have to walk home in the rain later, so Eddie figures he’ll pick up a box of swiss rolls while he’s out. Swiss rolls are Carson’s favorite.

Sweets in general are his favorite, but whatever.

So he sloshes his way through the trailer park and out onto the long, main road that cuts through the center of town. If you keep going long enough in one direction, it will take you to the highway. Keep going long enough in the other, you’ll hit the swamps.

There’s just the one commercially owned grocery store in the whole town. The parking lot is mostly empty, which isn’t a surprise considering it’s the middle of a Monday, and also about to cut loose. The wind’s started to pick up and everything, clouds dark and violent overhead. Eddie scurries into the shop, muttering a brief ‘hey’ to Annie Green when he passes her counter and heads towards the back.

Fitz is curled over the meat case muttering under his breath to himself, which is less unusual than it sounds. Eddie opts not to wave at him, and instead just goes for the cake aisle. It’s so picked over that it’s ridiculous. There aren’t any swiss rolls so he grabs the oatmeal cookies instead.

No doubt that the milk and bread aisles are already empty, to go with the alarmingly small amount of paper product. Up at the check out, he asks Anne, “you seen Roy come in yet today? He owes me ten bucks.”

“Nope.” The machine beeps when Anne scans the box of cookies. “Is Ftiz still back at the meat? I swear, he’s been in here for an hour.”

“Yeah. Maybe he’s stocking up on it.”

“Even Fitz isn’t stupid enough to stock up on meat right before we’re due for hurricane season.” Anne holds out her hand and Eddie fishes a crumpled five from his back pocket to pass over. “You talk to him?”

“Nope.”

Anne heaves out a sigh. “Great. Guess I can walk back and deal with it. If he’s drunk - “

“If he’s drunk, call his wife. She’ll have his ass for drinking that much this early in the day.”

Anne snorts. “Yeah, she will.”

Eddie shifts from one foot to the next, peering out the glass front doors. It’s still raining hard outside. “You think this is gonna light up any time soon?”

“Supposed to rain all evening. I’m surprised that they haven’t canceled work at the docks,” says Anne.

“Ugh. Great. Just, double bag them, I guess. I have to walk back in this.”

Anne doubles the bag and Eddie steps back out into the deluge. He’s soaked in a matter of minutes.

* * *

“Fucking Hell!” Eddie shakes himself off as he steps into the trailer. He fumbles around in the dark for the first few minutes, stripping out of his sodden clothes and down to his equally sodden boxers. Still swearing, he drops the bag of soaked oatmeal cookies onto the counter and flips on the light switch for the kitchen.

Nothing happens.

Eddie swears louder.

There’s the sound of something shuffling about from the bedroom. Eddie grabs the natty tea towel off the front of the stove handle and uses it to wipe off his face. “That you, babe?”

No answer. The shuffling sound gets closer. Eddie rolls his eyes and attempts to pat himself dry with the hand towel. It has a mixed amount of success in actually accomplishing anything.

“I got you cookies. They should be dry. Cause of the plastic and stuff?”

Still no answer. Eddie mutters under his breath. Fine, he’ll just have the cookies himself.

He pops open the plastic wrapper and pulls out a handful of them, carrying them over to the couch – where he finds Carson stretched out, massive headphones in, and a blanket pulled down over him.

“What the Hell, man.” Eddie kicks the couch base. “Move your legs.”

Carson grumbles and slides his headphones out. “When did you get back?”

“Like, five minutes ago. I went to get you cakes, but they didn’t have none.” He passes Carson a cookie instead. “You could’ve said something when you came out of the bedroom.”

Carson squints at him. “What are you talking about?”

Something in the bedroom is knocked over. CRASH. Eddie jerks, spinning around and squinting into the dark of the trailer. “So, uh, that’s not you.”

“Of course it ain’t me,” says Carson. He shoves the blanket onto the back of the couch, swings his legs over the cushions, and leverages himself up. There’s a bat by the front door. Eddie grabs it and passes it to Carson, because he’s tiny and Carson’s not.

“Chicken,” mutters Carson, but he doesn’t look thrilled to have to go deal with this. “We got that flashlight in the kitchen?”

“Batteries are dead,” says Eddie.

“Great. Storm season, and we’ve got bad batteries.”

“Pretty sure that’s not a hurricane breaking stuff in our bedroom, babe.”

Carson shoots Eddie an unimpressed look. “No duh.”

They make their way to the little off shooting bedroom, Eddie tucked close to Carson’s back. It’s at least still early enough in the evening that wane, yellow light creeps in through the nearby window. Carson presses a hand to the door, pulls in a deep breath, and shoves it open.

What happens next happens fast: there’s motion from the over turned bedside table. Carson swings with the bat, effectively smashing their lamp to pieces. The neighbor’s fat, orange tabby cat gives an indignant hiss and jumps onto the bed, then out through the nearby busted window. There’s glass all over everything, from the lamp and the window, and rain has blown in from the storm soaking the bed and the table in equal parts. The carpet nearby squishes loudly when Carson takes a step.

“Oh,” says Eddie. “Window’s broke.”

Carson drops the bat onto the ground. “That’s it. We’re going to Red’s.”

[themummersfolly]

So you’re getting the covid vaccine

You’ve finally gotten a hold of the health department, nailed down that elusive appointment, and the big day’s almost here. You may have a lot of questions: what will the site look like? Who else will be there? How will I feel afterwards? You may be excited; you may be nervous (and your conspiracy theorist family member hasn’t been helping).

I’m going to try to lay some of your concerns to rest. I’ve been working at my state’s vax sites for about a month at the time of writing; my information won’t apply to all states and it’s very unlikely to apply outside the US, but it may help you get your bearings and make the whole thing less alien and intimidating.

The site is likely to be run by state or county health departments, or by a local hospital, but it may not be located at a healthcare facility, depending on the number of patients they usually get. High-volume sites tend to be set up wherever they can find room for a thousand people and their cars; some of ours are hosted by sports stadiums and shopping malls. Pop-up sites are also a possibility, and will probably become more common as younger people are brought into phase. These are sent out to places like industrial sites and college campuses to get shots to people where they are. 

Most of the sites I’ve worked at are drive-thru, some take foot traffic. Almost all require you to make an appointment. (I can’t help you much with the appointment side of things; that differs significantly from state to state. Best to google it or call your local health department.) If you have an appointment but aren’t familiar with the site, drive by it ahead of time. See for yourself what you’re heading into. If they’re not too busy, stop and talk to some of the site personnel. Ask them if there’s a particular way they want you to enter from; many sites have a single flow of traffic with one entry and one exit, while others (like the one I’m at right now) are set back in a rabbit warren of back streets, half of which will be blocked off on a busy day. Scout ahead; we appreciate you being prepared. Ask questions; I guarantee I’ve answered much dumber ones.

A note on drive-thru sites: please be on your game when you’re driving. You’ll most likely be driving through tight spaces with pedestrians and other cars very close by. Know where the corners of your car are, and be able to tell your gas pedal from your brake. It sounds petty to harp on these things, but I spend my days dealing with people who straight up can’t. Keep your head on a swivel, as we say. Please don’t be that person who plows into a concrete barrier or, God forbid, one of my buddies. If you’re not comfortable driving in cramped, low speed conditions, please try to find someone to drive you. At the very least, have someone drop you off; even drive-thru sites will accommodate a walk-up if you have an appointment.

Now that you’re at the vax site, who can you expect to meet? A lot of other patients, obviously; you can’t receive the vaccine if you’re currently sick, so you shouldn’t be at an elevated risk of catching anything from the people around you. However, people will occasionally get in line thinking it’s a testing site (which they generally won’t seek out unless they’re sick) and you always have the risk of silent carriers, so it’s best to maintain a distance and mask up as applicable. 

Most sites are going to be staffed by employees of the hospital or health department running the event; depending on where you are, the National Guard may also have been deployed to assist. At my site, we have a mix of National Guard, State Guard, and Health Department staff working all positions: three of our medics are military, while on a busy day the Health Department's dentist will come out an help me direct traffic. Don’t be intimidated by the uniforms; we don’t have any authority beyond parking you in the right spot, and I don’t think any state arms their covid-response teams. And don’t thank us for our service; it’s awkward, annoying, and we’d much rather you just wear your mask and not hit us with your car. 

There may be cops onsite, depending on how bad traffic congestion is and/or how many belligerent boomers they’re expecting. (Seriously, that’s who causes the majority of our problems. If somebody’s going to start trouble, nine times out of ten it’ll be an old white person with a shit ton of money.) I wish I could say that none of them are the kind to go looking for trouble, but unfortunately I’ve known too many cops - it only takes one to ruin it for everybody. For the most part, though, this is going to be an easy-money type of assignment for them, and if they’re not in their patrol cars they’re probably gossiping with the National Guard.

 As you get up to the actual clinic, someone is going to approach you to take down your medical information. If you’re on foot, they may hand you the forms to fill out; if it’s a drive thru site, they’ll probably ask you the questions and write down your answers. This won’t take long; most sites streamlined their process while they were doing testing last year. To avoid clerical errors, a good practice is to hold up your ID and have them copy your name and address, especially if English isn’t your first language or you speak a noticeably different dialect of English.

Ok, so you’ve located the site, braved the traffic, made it past Corporal Snuffy with his clipboard, sat in The Line That Time Forgot, and now you’ve finally reached it: the Gleaming Needle of Destiny. What will the shot itself be like? Practically speaking, not all that different from the average flu shot. A quick poke in the arm, a bandaid that you don’t really need, and then you go wait 15-30 minutes to make sure you aren’t allergic to it. My buddy and I just finished our course of the Pfizer; neither the first nor the second shot gave me more than a sore arm, but my buddy got a mild fever after the second one and didn’t feel well for about 24 hours afterward. Both are normal reactions. It’s best to plan your second dose so you have some time to recover in case you do have an immune response; better to have it and not need it. However, if you break out in hives, get an itching throat, or show any other symptoms of an allergic reaction, this is not normal and you should flag one of us down immediately. Walk up to somebody, beep the horn - whatever you have to do to get our attention. You are surrounded not only by medical personnel, but by bored soldiers with a shit ton of first aid training and visions of lifesaving and glory. We will be more than willing to help you.

Once you’ve received the shot but before you’re sent off to Observation (Interminable Wait #2), you’ll receive a card with your vaccination info on it. If you do not receive one, go back and pester them until they give you one. This is your proof of vaccination; do not throw it out. If you want to get on a plane you may be required to present it as proof of not being a plague rat, and at any rate you’ll want it for your medical record. Some places may put a date on there for your second shot and use it as proof of appointment; others may require you to go make the second appointment on your own. Double check which the case is. You most likely will be getting the two-shot vaccine, either Pfizer or Moderna. I don’t know of any sites that are doing Johnson+Johnson; they seem to be encountering a bunch of PR problems already, so I don’t know how widespread that one will get. Just make sure if you are scheduling your own second appointment that you get the same vaccine type as you got for the first one; getting one Pfizer and one Moderna will result in neither being effective. The scheduling website should be set up so you can’t do that, but just double check; trust but verify. And by the way, the second shot isn't formulated any different frim the first one. It's the same exact thing in the syringe, your body just has to see it twice to be able to use it.

And that’s it! After about fifteen or thirty minutes we will have established that you aren’t going to swell up like a character from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and we’ll turn you loose upon the world. Go home, take a nap and/or some motrin for that sore arm, and then feel free to add your experiences to this post!

[maryellencarter]

So the final cause, if I recall my Aristotle (I was terrible at Aristotelian logic, or at least at what the badly illustrated homeschool textbook said was Aristotelian logic), was that my apartment has been growing irregularly more squalorous for months. Occasionally I would have a bout of energy and put my groceries in the pantry, but for the most part I've been doing well to keep up on the laundry. The proximal cause was... probably the coloring books.

Anyway, this morning I put on pants that were not sweatpants, probably for the first time in months, because going to get vaccinated is a festal occasion and one ought to look one's best. (I put on my cute top with the frilly shoulder straps and the little rosettes, too, since I figured it'd be smart to wear something sleeveless. And my combat boots with the pastel tiedye laces, in case of hiking, which also turned out to be smart. I was decked out.)

So then I went and showed a number of people my ID and my appointment email, and they poked me with a timy needle -- not as small as the one they used in the ER for the insulin that time, I didn't even feel that one, but a very nice thin needle compared to my usual standard of needles, which are the ones they use to try and get blood *out* of you, and often fail when you are me. Then they made me sit down for fifteen minutes in case I took an allergy, and then they gave me a lollipop (I got blue cotton candy, my favorite flavor) and a sticker with a hashtag on it and I left.

Then I got to wend my way back from the place where the vaccinations were happening -- it was a big event on the college campus, since they have a lot of nice big rooms and wide open spaces there -- and it happened I was coming back from a direction I do not usually wend my way from, and I dropped into Michaels. Usually I go to Joann's, because they have fabric, which Michaels doesn't, and Michaels is generally a bit froofier in the sorts of craft supplies they stock at least locally, but the Michaels and the Joann's are right across the street from each other, and I still haven't heard anything about my special order on the floss color that Joann's was out of. Michaels doesn't have the full range of DMC colors, but I took a look and they did in fact have the color I needed.

Then I wandered around some, because Michaels actually does have a bigger yarn selection than Joann's, and I found some Patons Kroy (my absolute favorite sock yarn for feel and texture) in a colorway I didn't loathe, which is *not* something I've been able to find since they stopped making that one colorway with all the orange and black and gray stripes, which I loved dearly and can't remember the name of. So I was like "this will be just the thing for that one lace scarf I was looking at that needs wool yarn in case it has to be blocked to look right", because knitted lace is like that and you can't block acrylic. You can "kill" acrylic but that's different and I'd rather not.

Um. Anyway. Then I wandered around some more, because I get into Michaels so seldom that it's handy to look at what-all they've got while I'm there. Over the past... week or so I have had a sudden bout of wanting to color in coloring books, because that happens to me sometimes; there was an impulse trip to the Walmart way out in the boondocks on the unlit road for Crayola colored pencils, because I decided I was not going to pay eight times as much for Prismacolors.

(The really infuriating thing about coloring books, in my opinion, is that right now you can either find the kiddie newsprint coloring books which are with us always, of course, or you can find "adult coloring books" which are *in-fucking-variably* filled with horses and lions and whales and other large charismatic mammals covered in what look for all the world like quilting patterns. If I wanted to color a rendition of a quilt filled with tiny stripes and polka dots, I'd get some graph paper! And the dots and lines and so forth are so tiny that you can *only* color them with colored pencils, because that's Adulty.)

(Yes, I know they sell coloring pages on Etsy and places. I've been avoiding the print shop for at least a month and a half now, when if I would put the things on my thumb drive and go to it, I could start getting my student loans out of default. I would never wind up printing coloring pages off of Etsy. No, I don't know why. Print shops scare me, perhaps slightly worse than post offices.)

Um. Where was I? So I had gone way far out to the Walmart nobody goes to which therefore often has interesting things in stock, and I had discovered that Crayola still does the glitter crayons I had coveted as a tiny, and they also make double-ended scented markers, which are like the coolest thing ever to the tiny early-nineties child I still am in my heart. So as of this morning, my kitchen counter was completely covered with... things. There was already the sewing machine and the Dr Pepper that doesn't taste like an old shoe, and the peanut butter and the elephant-shaped porcelain wax-warmer, but there had been a narrow slot where I could put a plate and eat my meals -- my only table having been co-opted a year ago by my workstation. Now that slot was filled with various Crayola products and a coloring book with mermaids in it, which at least had a few pages that could be colored partly with markers or crayons, instead of being entirely minced into geometric shapes barely larger than a pencil lead.

SO, what happened after I got vaccinated and found yarn and floss, is that I found out that Crayola still makes the *pearlescent* crayons I coveted even more as a kid. I had gotten one in a little sample pack included with my big 64-box, and it was very precious to me. It's long gone now, of course.

So of course then I bought the pearlescent crayons, and then I bitched at Leia for a while about how I didn't have any coloring books I could use these wonderful crayons *on* unless I wanted to go back to the Lisa Frank newsprint of my youth. (They did actually have Lisa Frank. I strongly considered it. But my tastes have evolved beyond newsprint.)

Then I googled some things, and I found Walmart listing a Crayola mandala coloring book. I went to look for it, and I didn't find it, but I did find a different coloring book with "stained glass" style pictures (sadly not on actual tracing paper, but it occurs to me that if I could source some tracing paper, which it further occurs to me that I haven't seen in years although admittedly I haven't been looking, that I could *trace them* and color them and tape them on my windows like the tacky '90s kid I am), which GLORY HALLELUJAH has spaces big enough to fucking color in!

...Michaels also had neon and metallic Crayola crayons. I might go back. They were 24-packs of each. The single silver and gold crayons from my mom's 64-pack were pretty much only used for Easter eggs in our house, so as not to use them up. I just -- I have a wealth beyond imagining of special effect crayons and markers available to me, and I'm struggling to find anywhere to use them. This seems backwards.

So anyway, then I also found a cute sundress big enough to go over my ass, and then I sat in the furniture section for a while and pondered buying a new table so I wouldn't have to keep stacking coloring books on top of the peanut butter jar in order to eat, and it occurred to me that if I took down my Christmas tree, which I've had up since the Before Times (having gotten it from in fact the same Walmart east of anywhere after all the rest in town were sold out of the particular model), then I would have a space along the back of the kitchen counter where I could hypothetically put a table.

So, because I am a sensible and moderate individual, I bought a thing of string to tie up the Christmas tree branches with, and did not buy a table yet. Then it was time for D&D, so I hurried home and put my vaccination card on the fridge and got into the voice chat and started taking down the Christmas tree.

Then it was five hours later, and I had started konmari-ing the whole apartment in order to have somewhere to store the Christmas tree, and I had discovered that my closet shelf was almost entirely full of empty cardboard boxes, so I had pulled all those out and rifled through them to make sure they didn't contain anything important, and after rescuing three cards from a friend and one glasses chamois, I stuffed most of the boxes in a trash bag, jammed the condensed Christmas tree and all the winter blankets and my air mattress and various other wintry things into the giant box my office chair came in, managed to get that giant box up onto the closet shelf (I have some soreness around my injection site but I honestly don't know if it's a side effect of the vaccination or a pulled muscle from wiggling a very large heavy box into a very tight space over my head), and moved the Goodwill oddities into a midsize box that I think I brought my workstation home in, but they just moved the remaining onsite agents into a much smaller room so I don't think I'm going to be asked to bring my workstation back for a while, and when I do go to bring it back I think the monitors will fit nicely in my washtub.

(I'm giving Goodwill my crockpot. After I forgot the garbanzos in it for three days until the chicken broth started to stink, I decided I am not a person who needs to own a crockpot. Also something like eight skeins of rather ugly yarn because I bought too much for the baby blankets I was making.)

(I'm not sure why I own a washtub. It's bright blue and plastic. It does have a use, which is to hand-wash my weighted blanket in occasionally, as of course you can't put twenty-odd pounds of glass baubles in a washing machine.)

(I certainly did make some life choices that led me here, did I not.)

Annnnyway, so now I have an almost empty three-drawer Rubbermaid dresser, an entirely empty and extremely large Rubbermaid tote (I'm pretty sure I could trap myself in there, but I haven't tried), a mostly empty square ottoman which is also a storage box, and a royal shitton of tiny things like office supplies and party favors that don't *go* anywhere.

"A place for everything" is the really hard part, you know. I achieved it once. Then I moved out of that apartment and have never achieved it again. Once things *have* places, then even if you don't have the spoons to put the peanut butter jar back in the pantry right *now*, you know it has a spot between the Hormel and the Chef Boyardee, and it's way easier than "oh god if I open the pantry there won't be any room and I'll wind up putting the peanut butter under the bathroom sink with the Johnnie Walker Black or maybe over the kitchen sink on top of the Thermacare back wraps."

(You're supposed to store whisky upright in a cool dark place, okay. None of the upper cabinet shelves are tall enough, so I could have put it either directly over the water heater or directly next to the oven. Instead it lurks behind the toilet paper, next to the Clorox wipes and the pre-pandemic Lush bath bomb, which I should... probably use at some point.)

Erm. So then I was pondering what-all storage I would need to source in order to begin having places in which to put things, *findable* places which is the real grail, and -- I think I took a pause to read Dreamwidth and someone linked me a plushie trilobite, okay. I haven't yet entirely decided whether to buy it, but it occurred to me that I definitely have no home for a plushie trilobite, any more than for the amazing Zaeed plushie currently trapped under my cross stitching or the Star Wars Build-a-Bear who was supposed to make Ewok noises until three weeks of freeze-thaw cycle in a malfunctioning package locker did for his electronic squeaker, or the poor American Girl doll languishing inside the ottoman.

So then I was like "we used to have that little net corner hammock for stuffed animals when I was a kid, we never could get it mounted right, but perhaps with fewer cooks that would be a good option". So I googled for one, and all I could find was an assortment of JUMBO five-or-six-foot-long double-deep toy hammocks, obviously necessary to keep your child from drowning in the flood of stuffed animals that have taken over beds in the past thirty years.

(Okay, I was pretty toy-deprived as a kid, the 1980s were not in general what you would call a time of less stuff in American households. Still. I have a twin bed. I can hardly even *find* a toy hammock that wouldn't be bigger than my bed in some dimension.)

So then, it being the aforementioned five hours later with a lot of D&D combined with hard physical labor in the middle, I said to myself, said I, "Hammocks are made out of net, and nets are made out of strings." And by god, if there is one thing I'm better at than another, it is making things out of string. I've never actually gotten around to trying out the whole process of making an actual fisherman's net, which is much more closely related to tatting than to knitting, but I have yarn and most of the possible knitting or crocheting supplies I would need to invent things.

Which, at long last, explains why I have paused to write this halfway through creating a triangular filet crochet toy hammock out of sparkly yellow yarn.

Joann's is having a 50% off sale on plastic storage whatsits tomorrow, but I think I'll probably spend a large part of the day putting office supplies into ziploc bags and hanging them in rows on the wall with pushpins so as to figure out what-all I in fact own.

[iced-souls]

It’s getting long so imma just post a pt 2 for the down below thing-

PART 2

And yes it’s a happy ending

So I’m gonna go quick on this one.

So sans now happier than before is vibing with papyrus now, and actually finds a tape recorder that he fixes up so he’s records some little things he does with papyrus, like painting, where I imagine papyrus almost consumes some paint. Anyways, along the way of living life, sans finds a bottle in the dump that has a letter inside of it that talks about the life up above and the underground and the people living there being nice, wondering of what’s below the waterfalls, a little something about a kid wanting someone to hang out with all the time, some talk about being a better king then the current, and along with that note is a couple of fur strands, but sans doesn’t mind that. So this gives sans a single dream of making it out of the down below with papyrus. He prepares for the future with plans on what he might need.

He makes a new friend who becomes like family and now the group is sans, papyrus, and the friend. The friend being a fourza. Oh wait I forgot about that. So I made the ranks of the people have nicknames, so 1 stats are one-zies, 2 stats two-zu’s, 3 stats being treh-zo’s, 4 stats being four-za’s, and 5 stats being five-zers(came up with this one cause of the vaccine lol), there’s no more cause none have been discovered.

So everything’s going well for the past 2 years, beside side stuff, sans’s now got a backpack for things he’ll need for the climb. But then one the friends birthday, the friend asks about papyrus staying with them cause it might be safer, in which sans declines saying he’d rather papyrus be farther away from the town. And friend gets mad, revealing his mischievous plot to gain trust then take papyrus nicely to donate to the rest of the higher stat-ers. Stuff happens, sans gets caught and papyrus gets taken. After sans wakes up, he full on action movies his way to save papyrus and then runs straight to home base. He gets the backpack and straps papyrus to himself using a scarf [;)] and starts climbing up the rocks beside the waterfalls. By the time the villagers catch up, he’s high enough to get out of their reach and gets on a stable ledge, he gives them all the best frickin speech a child could give. And leaves. It takes a couple days to get up the cliff, but when he gets up he reaches the dump and celebrates with papyrus. He tells papyrus that from then on he would take care of papyrus in the best place to live and that papyrus would become the greatest, kindest, and bravest skeleton, something that no other skeleton he knew could be. And off to the underground life they went, before falling to sleep after a long climb—

Hope enjoyed that theory, again, if anyone wants to know more about any of my theories/ideas, please go ahead and ask! Hope ya’ll have a great day, see ya!

[with-love-anu]

Hello!

I overslept... typical me. I've got an exam at 3 today and I haven't studied one but and yet still here I am. And Miss??? You got your first dose of vaccination?? Woo-hoo! Thay deserves a three cheers, Doesn't it. Hopefully it hasn't had any side effects.

Ohhh, my ideal day would be very similar to yours, I'd like to spend the day doing some of the things that I usually don't get to do on my parent's watch. And I'd like some quality time with my fav person. That's something I don't get much.

And Miss... are you okay? I read your post today and well.... I know it's difficult but I couldn't help checking in on you!

Good to know that you are hydrated Missy. Cause I'm just not able to find the time to drink some hydrogen hydroxide. Work has been piling up here like crazy and that's the reason I'm unprepared for my 300 marks JEE prep test. It sucks. Though I hope you are doing good.

- C

P.S. I really love my new house BTW. And plus I'm excited to celebrate my birthday in this house I've been yearning to do so since years. And Miss... you are too sweet to me.

Haha no💛 sleeping is nice, people should defo catch up on it whenever they can. And tbh you've had a very busy day yesterday.

YOU'LL DO WELL!! ALL THE BEST💛💛

Yee I did. I've only got very bad pains in my arm and a light fever?

That sounds good tho-

Jdjdjje I think you're talking about yesterday's post? I forgot to delete it when I came on dnndndne I'm not that great- choosing a college is hard + parents 😬

Practice papers. It helps a tonne, the more you'll do them, the better you'll become!

P.s. when is it?👀

[lucianajellyfish]

Since I posted a bit about the issues with my existing chronic illness symptoms with the covid vaccine I’ll elaborate a bit now while i have the brains.

Let’s start with I got the Pfizer shot. This was not a choice I made, it was what was available to me, but since I’m talking about my reaction to it I figured it needs to be stated which one I got. At my particular local they have a system for making an appointment, but then you arrive and need to stand in lines and walk up stairs (not warned for in the appointment making or instructions). I asked if there was a place I could sit even before I knew about the stairs and was shown an accessibility line. It seems like if I’d taken the accessibility shuttle from the parking garage it would have dropped me off right by the accessible line, but since I walked up and there was no attendant at the back of the line I ended up standing there for a bit before anyone even showed up that I could ask. Accessibility line was mainly a wait for the 1 elevator that, because of covid, has a limit of 2 ppl at a time and was quite the bottle neck, but at least they had chairs set out there. You get to the top of the elevator and they send you in through a door...and to the back of another line.  Once again I had to find and grab someone to be like “I can’t stand in this line.” By this point I’ve been waiting more than an hour and it’s well past my “appointment” time. I had not planned for needing to wait nor so much standing in line and am starting to have more severe difficulties. The person I flagged down was like, ‘I can get you a chair’ but another person showed up and just shuffled us to the front of the line to check in. They then shuffled us to the end of another short line to wait for the next available person to administer our shot. By this point we’ve been here for nearly 1.5 hours, I’m wearing a back brace, leaning heavily on my cane, have not had anything to drink or eat since before we left our house (nearly a half hour drive), and am experiencing dizziness and brain fog as well as joint paint. I think it showed on my eyes because the nurse asked how I was feeling. When I told her I was a bit dizzy she got me water and just sat with me for a bit and decided to put me in the one recliner chair to give me my shot and then I had to sit/lie there for nearly a half hour (normal observation time is 15 mins). I finally lied and told them I was feeling okay and they let me go, but I’m not sure they would have if I’d not come with someone.  It’s frustrating that an appointment time was not actually for a scheduled time, despite it looking that way. The fact that they didn’t indicate anywhere that “normal” procedure was to stand in a long line that winds up 3 flights of stairs was frustrating. The fact that they forgot about accessibility once you got out of the elevators was frustrating. There is always the contributing factor that other than my cane I don’t “look” disabled (I guess it’s a good thing I decided to bring it and not just wear a knee brace), so it’s possible that elderly or more visibly disabled people were getting different treatment (directed automatically to how to avoid standing in line), but I got my shot and will be better prepared when I go back for round 2 in 3 weeks. TDLR: If you have chronic illness that causes dizziness, be aware that one of the reactions to the Pfizer vaccine is dizziness and this overlap in symptoms will likely mean the nurses will be hesitant with you and might want to observe you longer than normal. You know your own illness and situation and if you think it’s safe to, dizziness might be something you choose not to mention.

[selfcareparker]

WHY CANT I KEEP EVERYTHING IN ONE POST FFS, (on procrastination) i spent about half an hour scrolling reels on instagram that i didn’t even like.. like have you done that? like maybe the next will be better lmao

IM SO GLAD YOU GOT YOUR LAPTOP FIXED!!! hopefully that makes the zoom-uni better? how is uni going btw?

also i don’t remember how long you were gone for jshsjgsjsj but i checked a lot 😭 i feel like we have to catch up now, like you’re a friend i haven’t seen in a long time and i forgot to respond to the last text you sent me and now it’s like WAIT WHATS GOING ON WITH YOU lmaoo

i love healthy mom-daughter relationships😌 like me and my mom are best friends and everyone says it’s weird and unhealthy but it’s not?? and i love that you and your mom can talk about the neighbors above you HAHAH

but ily 😭😭 i know i keep saying that but i’m so glad you’re back bc i missed you <333 i’m gonna reread your response bc i swear i’ve read it i just need to refresh myself hdshsjs

- lovely anon 💘

Wait omg when did you send this? I only just saw it 😭

I’m good sksjsjsj not much to talk about. I’m just doing uni stuff and most of my lectures (esp linguistics— which is very surprising) are really really fun. I submitted my first ever assignment last night 👉🏼👈🏼 but it wasn’t that hard so I definitely think/hope I’ll get a good grade/mark. (🤞🏼)

And okay I really do not want to complain about having too much free time... but I have too much time on my hands omg

I thought I’d be busy 24/7 once uni started, and one of the things that was giving me the most anxiety and depression in the last year was not having anything to do. But now I only have like one lecture a day and not really a lot of homework (again I don’t want to complain, I don’t need more homework💀 but yeah) or assignments and I don’t have any lectures on Friday. So I always have a 3 day weekend which sounds amazing in theory but honestly I’ve just been sitting around, not knowing what to do and feeling useless for those 3 days (Fri-Sun) every week.

I might get my vaccine (was about to spell that ‘vaxine’ 🤠) soon so maybe I can do more and meet more people but I’m not really that social and I’d be doing something once a week max. so I don’t think much will change sksjsh

I feel really bad about complaining about how little work I have to do like obviously I’m grateful that I’m not super busy all the time but... idk more free time means more time to overthink lol

One good thing is that I might have my driver’s license soon? I mean I’m quite good at driving but there are so many tiny mistakes that you could make that automatically mean you fail, even though everyone else makes those mistakes daily (they’re not really mistakes but you know, it’s just not what you’re supposed to do but nothing happens if you do it anyway irl, but in the test they’re just like: okay you can stop now cause you’ve failed 🙂). Idk how to explain it and i can’t think of any examples burneks

And another very very good thing is that (if and when I get my vaccines) my mum/mom(lmao) and I might be able to go to England and see our family! We haven’t seen them since 2019 and both her and I are really close to my grandad and all the other relatives in England really so that would be cool!!!!!!!

Omg I hate people who say that being friends with your parents is unhealthy? No. Not being friends with your parents is unhealthy lmao. (By friends I just mean being close with them obviously lol)

I love you moooore and (again) I missed you 💘💘💘 what’s going on in your life? Do you have anything planned for when school ends? 🥰

I feel like this was a really bad reply but idk why lol