#i woke up as tired as i went to sleep today

[fandoms-in-law]

Ophelia's Son: Smoking

Following on from Ophelia's Son to avoid everything going in its reblogs

Summary: In an effort to avoid nightmares, Robin gets Eddie and Steve to try meditation with her. An Addams trait derails it

Authors Note: This bit starts with me mixing up todays idea with tomorrows, cause I didn't check them before going out for the day

/\

Ophelia had gone back to Steve's father, set on keeping the flowers she'd started growing again and reminding Richard that a Frump should never be a second priority. Steve had laughed to hear that but agreed wholeheartedly that she should demand her due affection again.

The kids had been uncertain of her the few times they'd visited during her stay, mostly the boys because she immediately took El and Max under her wing to learn judo. Robin and Nancy had sat in on a few of the lessons too but after the third time of getting roped in for them to practice throws Steve and Jonathan teamed up to suggest actual classes they wouldn't be part of for them.

Lucas hadn't had luck in doing the same and was the only boy willing to come with the girls on their visits still. He did sigh in relief to realise Ophelia was gone however and immediately radioed the rest that it was cleare, getting snickers from the girls.

"We have something else to do now anyway." Max agreed, turning an expression full of plotting to Steve.

"Which is?" he asked, bemused.

"What flowers grow on your head?" El asked, bringing seed packets out of Max's bag.

The pair smiled innocently at him, holding the seed out and Steve couldn't avoid smiling, "Okay and you think they sprout in record time or is today just scattering them on my head then waiting to see if any stick long enough to grow?"

Yhey shared a look, frowning for a moment. "Wait here. We're picking some flowers from your neighbours." Max decided, grabbing El's hand.

"No.No! My neighbours will call the police on kids and they will kick up hell if Hopper doesn't seem to do anything." Steve stopped them. "Get weeds, wild flowers, hell go explore the woods taking cuttings of anything you can identity and bring them over another day. Don't cut the neighbours flowers."

Max straightened, matching his glare and crossing her arms. "We want to test it now."

"Well you can't. Go get Joyce to help you plant the seeds so they're at least sprouted before you shove them on my head." He gestured to the door where the Byers had indeed just pulled up.

"Fine." Max dragged Lucas and El out with her, Lucas once again talking into the radio as they went.

/\

“We’re meditating.” Robin decided.

She and Eddie had slept over the night before and they’d all been woken three times by the nightmares they had and Robin’s parents had been suggesting meditation as a solution for nightmares since a month after Starcourt. So far she and Steve had refused, certain nothing could actually get them past everything they’d gone through.

Steve blinked over to her from where he was nursing a coffee and nodded, “Sure, fine, might as well see if it’d get us a single nights sleep.” The agreement was easy. Perhaps when their nightmares woke them a couple times a week for fear of Russians could be carried on through, and perhaps feeling tired for half the week could be pushed past, but if they were together they woke each other if the nightmares got bad and apart Steve was sure none of them slept after their first nightmare of a night so they had to try something.

Eddie stayed silent, looking between the pair curiously.

“I’ll bring the books and tapes Mum tried pushing me to use tonight. You make a blanket fort in there.” Robin nodded, certain the decision was unanimous without him speaking.

/\

Listening to a tape was easy, even as sceptical as Steve was that mediation would help. He could follow the voice asking him to focus on his breathing, to imagine a flat colour or whatever else it was talking about.

He could not however keep focused on it when Robin yelped, suddenly scrambling from where she had been sat next to him and started batting him with a cushion, especially not when Eddie joined in, freaking out and asking where the lighter was and how something had happened.

Steve had automatically rolled up, moving his arms to shield his head but blinked at the pair when they stopped a moment later. “The hell was that about?”

“You were smoking!” Robin yelled, somewhere between panicked and accusatory.

“I was meditating! What the hell would I have been smoking? Eddie keeps whatever he shares with us when we aren’t intending to smoke.” He argued, looking to Eddie for support but only seeing his head shaking rapidly.

It took a moment before Eddie stopped. “Nope, not smoking a joint or anything, there was literally smoke coming out of you. You were smoking. Is that an Addams thing? A Frump thing? Do Addams’s smoke?” He asked the questions rapidly before realising neither Steve or Robin would know.

“I could ask, but can I first try doing that so I can see what you’re talking about?” Steve hesitated, glancing from his friends, to the phone and back again.

Robin pulled him up instead, walking around him, lifting his arms and even inspecting where he’d been sat. “Okay, no signs of anything having burnt, or anything like that. I will rewind the tape to the beginning. Eddie and me will watch you and not listen to it. You decide if you’re following it with eyes closed or open.” She concluded, going to do just that.

“Gotta be an Addams thing.” Eddie muttered, but did move so he was facing Steve instead of beside him now.

Once Robin hit play again Steve kept his eyes open, staring at Eddie while following the breathing guidance. He saw the twitch as Eddie tried not to react to something and glanced down to see he was indeed smoking while breathing and relaxing.

“Mum didn’t leave a number for where she and father are now.” He stated, trying to remain calm. “So I’ll just call Morticia and see if she knows what this is.”

It was an easy call to make and Morticia sounded delighted to hear the question. “Oh, Steve, that’s wonderful. I smoke just like that. Of course it’s normal. Everyone smokes, just remember to be polite and check if any guests are comfortable with you doing so before you do.”

“I will Aunt Morticia,” He promised, hanging up and smiling at the pair listening as closely as they could. “It’s something she does. Apparently I’m not taking after just my mother now.”

“Please, please smoke around the band. I wanna see their reaction to it.” Eddie immediately requested, comfortable to accept the new ability now they knew an origin for it. “Actually no. I’m gonna make a character you can play for a campaign, have you smoking at so many points until they ask how you manage that.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “Can we go back to trying the full meditation now? I do want a full nights sleep sometime.”

“Okay. Just no developing some other weird feature if we do it this time.” Robin teased, once more rewinding the tape and arranging cushions so they’d all be comfortable.

[rederiswrites]

I feel so drained. It's been such a week. The same pain we're all feeling, of course, with a few extra things thrown in for fun. Animal death to follow, if you don't want to deal with that.

The kids all adapted readily to a classroom environment, despite my worry, and did so well so calmly that I'm very proud and much reassured. It was still four plus hours away from the house every day. They all helped keep the chores done, so the drain was mainly psychological. But I don't like driving, and sorry everyone, I don't like being in town. The seagulls I could hear from my parked car the fourth day were almost hilariously welcome. Parking lot rats, but that reminder that nature exists was a balm to my soul.

Kiki died yesterday. He'd been in rough shape, but still enjoying life. We knew it was a matter of time til something critical failed, and that there wasn't anything likely to help him short of truly major expensive things that still might well not help. Then he declined rapidly this week. I held him for the last three hours. He cried terribly if he wasn't held, and Phantom had to hold him while I got dressed, so at least we know being held was a comfort to him. It was an expected death, and timely in its way, but when at last he didn't draw another breath, I was so, so tired.

I put him where Ciri could check him out and understand, however her mind understands these things. I didn't think to do that when Hrothgar died, and Ciri went around the house meowing for him for a week. It seems to have worked, because she's quiet today. After he died, I went straight to bed and slept til it was time to leave for class, and then stayed parked next to the class and slept in the car.

When I woke up, the car wouldn't start. Left something on, I guess, though I couldn't figure out what. Jacob was on his way home, but turned around, and the car jumped and started up just fine. In fact, before @mythicalfungi0-0 's dad showed to collect her, so before we would have left anyhow. So again, nothing but a psychological drain, really.

On the way home, we listened to music--Phantom has some great tunes fit to the times that I'll have to share with you. After a period of silence, I said, "OH! We need crocus bulbs." And Phantom said, "Oh! Right!" to the bewilderment of the Borrowed Girl. Crocuses, to go on Kiki's grave, next to Hrothgar's by the pond. It lies next to a large rock projecting from the ground. Someday we'll etch their names into the stone. I've ordered them, in a different color than the ones on Hrothgar's, so that we can think of both of them when they bloom.

I got a good night's sleep last night. Spoke to my friend who fosters kittens this morning. Today, I will keep planting flowers. I think the future will have flowers.

[space-blue]

Last festival day for a while... I did it... I'm taking a couple weeks off-ish after tomorrow ...

[electricpurrs]

time and time again the only things that take me out of deep depressive states are having fun and spending time with people and yet everytime i get so shocked like wow! love and fun and laughter sure made me feel like life is worth it again. who would've thought

[felis-insomnis]

I very much enjoy booping, but tumblr is running like ass today and I'm already low on spoons so I'm not returning boops as well as I'd like :(

[floral-hex]

woke up at 4am feeling the weight of my life crushing me, so I’ve been sitting out in my car for the last couple of hours because I just need. to. be. somewhere else.

[heybaetae]

.

[euclydya]

hold on we may have just won the insomnia lottery

[goldenliartrash]

.

[missmouse25]

Alright i could really, really, REALLY use that secret boyfriend rn because we had ⚡️flash floods⚡️last night so guess who was hoiking buckets of water out of the fishpond at 7 this morning????

ME YAY!!!

[elprupneerg]

I am never sleeping over at my parents house ever again goddammit

[megumiifushiiguro]

also no hunger games for me :( i wont watch it in theaters

[vriendenboekjes]

well luckily i didnt need my post breakfast nap today but i also slept until 10:15

[tea-cat-arts]

If I had a nickel for every time Mihoyo set up something excellently entirely through implications and visual story telling, only to insert some bullshit narration/monologue that completely contradicts everything we’ve seen so far and ruin the entire premise- I actually don’t know how many I’d have. Hopefully I’d be able to buy enough vodka to forget those plot lines ever happened though

Seriously though, up until HoD, every Herrscher that had gone violent had done so as the direct result of human cruelty. Siren was a victim of torture, Anna had been isolated to the point she didn’t have the will to resist the Honkai… heck, didn’t PE HoC directly say that it would have just lay dormant if they hadn’t tortured and killed Rin??? Didn’t they make a point to say that Senti was only born because three of the strongest forces against the Honkai decided to turn on each other (heck, wasn’t she also ultimately stopped with love and compassion)? I thought that was supposed to be the significance of the previous era and why they failed- that they were cruel and that they hurt each other, only making their overall situation worse. But no, people just weren’t evolved enough I guess

You know another benefit to making the Honkai just a product of humanity, Mihoyo? Using love and friendship to save the world instead of project stigma would have actually made in-universe sense. As things stand now, our protagonists just seem like a couple of idiots trying to stop what seems like a perfectly reasonable plan just because they personally don’t like it. Why on earth would Kevin, a man who’s watched all his friends and his world die, have any reason to ignore the plans of his world’s leading scientists (who’s work has actually yielded results) for some hair-brained idea that no longer makes sense with the lore and risk the destruction of yet another world??? If they had just stuck with the original premise though, what the protagonists are trying to do would have actually had a precedent within the lore

I don’t know how to conclude this. Idk man, I’m just sick of Mihoyo fucking things up by making them more complicated than they have to be. Anyways, pardon all my ranting today. Here’s a picture of my cat as compensation

[roadimusprime]

trying not to believe they turnt the Internet off before they left for work. 😒

[lightblueminecraftorchid]

Me, yesterday, 5:30 PM: wow I’m honestly doing so great at my adult tasks; I’ve gotten some homework done, I went grocery shopping, my laundry is almost dry. I spent so many spoons and I barely feel tired! Maybe I’m finally fully recovering from burnout!

Me, yesterday, 6:00 PM: oh.