#she got a bunch of plastic surgery too and goes around saying that this is feminist bc she did it just for herself bla bla bla

[officialkendallroy]

idk if any of you guys know her but at the concert was a german author/tv personality etc (sophie passmann) and i can't stand her... she has awesome takes like plastic surgery is feminist and such.

[sakurachan7734]

The mouse and the lizard

Chapter 1: pretty woman

Any trans people or you know of any trans people reading this please let me know if I get anything wrong! And if you don’t believe that trans men are men or trans women are women or that trans rights aren’t human rights gtfo my account I don’t want you here <3

Kim(16) pov

Well after I found out where my dad is he was very happy to see me then he took me to the hospital because I had a few gunshot wounds, and I believe a broken leg I got all patched up and I took a nap when I woke up I figured I wandered around the hospital and I saw a girl with one of the doctors with her she said something about “ so how do you feel after your bottom and uterus surgery? And you will have your breast implanted in the next week or two and you have hrt in a few hours” I thought maybe she had plastic surgery or something but I think I can ask her later

A half hour later Kim goes to Sally’s room

Kim: hi

Sally(16): oh hello! Are you the new kid here?

Kim: yes my name is Kim and you?

Sally: I’m Sally do you need anything?

Kim: yea I wanted to ask you something’s and I’m really sorry that there’s a personal but I heard a doctor ask you how you were after a bottom surgery and something about uterus surgery what was that about? I’m sorry for this questions You don’t have to answer me if you don’t want to 

Sally: oh I don’t mind telling you as long as you won’t hurt or yell at me

Kim: I won’t

Sally: well I am transgender And the doctor I was talking to is my aunt

Kim: what is that?

Sally: it’s the process of changing one gender into the opposite gender like a boy turn into a girl or a girl turning into a boy

Kim: oh cool! Which one are you doing? 

Sally: I am turning into a girl! My name used to be Sam so please don’t call me that

Kim: ohh OK I won’t I like your name, Sally! And what do your parents think about it? 

Sally: oh my parents died when I was 6 in a fire

Kim: oh I’m sorry and the doctor mentioned something about HRT what’s that?

Sally: it’s something a lot of trans people use to change hormones and that’s how I got my breasts

Kim: then why did the doctor say something about breast implants?

Sally: oh I want my chest to be bigger and then I have to wear a waste trainer for a little bit, get my name legally changed to Sally and then I’m a girl! Anyway enough about me why are you in here?

Kim: oh when I was five my mom sold me to a lab and I was tested on, lost my eye and my arm, and I have a hole in my face I eventually got out and got a bunch of gunshots and I broke my leg 

Sally: oh my god that’s horrible i’m glad you’re alive

Kim: yea me too and can I ask why you chose the name Sally?

Sally: oh my mother said that if she had a girl that she will be named Sally and then honor of her that’s why I chose that name 

Kim: oh why did you want to be a girl?

Sally: I didn’t feel comfortable being a boy I realize this when I was about 15. 

Kim: ohh does the process hurt? 

Sally: a little bit

Linda: hello Sally aww I see you’re already made a friend

Sally: yea she was asking me about my surgeries 

Linda: that’s nice Do you feel better?

Sally: kinda

Linda: ok do you want anything?

Sally: no I don’t

Linda: ok what’s your friends name?

Kim: I’m Kim!

Linda: your alive?

Kim: what?

Linda: oh a year or two before you got out your father was starting to think that you were dead

Kim: I know he told me

Linda: ok your father will be back soon

Kim: oh ok doctor Linda

Linda: just call me Linda

A week later

Kim: I meant to ask this when I first met you, but what is that star necklace for? 

Sally: oh it’s a Star of David it’s a symbol for the Judaism religion 

Kim: what is Judaism?

Sally

I started explaining Judaism and its traditions, food and clothing and Kim’s face was adorable while I was explaining everything she was asking a bunch of questions and then her father walks in

John: hi Kim! And you now go by Sally?

Kim:* runs up to hug john* hi dad!

Sally: yes I do did my aunt tell you?

John: yes I will write it down to remember

Sally: ok good! 

John: I just came in to tell Kim that lunch is almost ready

Kim: yay!

John leaves the room to go back to the cafeteria

Sally: so what do you plan on doing when you get out?

Kim: I am going to do some fun stuff with my dad and I’m gonna start school! What are you going to do?

Sally: I’m going to go shopping with my aunt and friends 

Kim: are your friends here?

Sally: no they are at school but they will come visit

Kim: what are there names?

Sally: Daisy and Mary

Kim: did you meet them before or after you transitioned? 

Sally: oh I just started transitioning when I met them 

Kim: when did you start?

Sally: I started in November

Kim: ohh cool!

Meanwhile in the afterlife with Zach and Angelina 

Zach: i just want to go through this mirror and give her a hug

Angelina:* walks up to the mirror*me to I am so proud of her and she seems a lot happier now

Zach: she chose the name Sally because she said that if she was born a girl that’s what you would have named her

Angelina: aww she remembered that

Zach: and she made a new friend

Angelina: she looks like John’s and angels kid

Zach: she dose 

Angelina: Sally was a adorable little boy and now she’s a beautiful girl

End of chapter 









[w2beastars]

Waezi2′s thoughts on “Beast Complex” chapter 9.

This chapter of Beast Complex is a bit different. It’s not the story about two very different animals.

Its about two very different aspects of the SAME animals, hence the title “The Shiba Inu and the Shiba Inu”.

Meet Mugi.

Mugi is the model for calendars that sells like hot cakes.

This is ALSO Mugi:

Oh, and BTW... Mugi is a guy. And he is forty.

He is not transgender or anything. He just so happens to be a shiba inu dog, one of the cutest creatures on planet Earth. In fact, shiba inus are considered to have the cutest faces alongside the polar bears and otters. But this bread of dogs are also hot tempered... but the cute dogs do their best to hide that since it is not socially acceptable for these cuties to be angry.

And Mugi makes it his job to be cute, even if he sort of resents himself for being a gravure idol.

In case you don’t know: a gravure idol is a female model who primarily models for men's magazines and such. These “idols” do poses or activities intended to be provocative or suggestive but with an air of playfulness and innocence rather than aggressive sexuality. Because some people are into that.

While Mugi goes shopping, he encounter a fellow Shiba Inu who gives him an over the top cute smile as she hands him his groceries. Mugi thinks about how most of his kind do their best to be what society expect of them and how he is being a fraud. Not so much because he pretends to be female for a living, but because he doesn’t FEEL cute. He is a grown male, he drinks too much and smokes and he is pretty moody.

He started as a model when he was 27 and he feels faker and faker for each year that passes where he as a model basically says that shiba inus SHOULD be cute, that it is their defining quality.

He finally reaches a bridge he doesn’t wanna cross when his manager who is a cat tells him to consider getting plastic surgery to “fix” his face. That and that Mugi needs to get rid of his beer belly. Mugi jokingly says that it is hypocritical of his manager to tell him to lose weight when he is downright fat.

His manager response?

Being confronted with the fact that the world doesn’t give a shit about Mugi not feeling like being cute kinda breaks the dog as he decides to be cute in his free time as well, once and for all dealing with it being his fate to be everyone’s cute stuff toy.

But as Mugi walks around while being in cute mode because he has given up on just being himself, he gets recognized by two tigers who buys the calendars he models for.

And these two ass hats are in his face about it, complaining about Mugi being an “old fart” and a “fraud”. As if Mugi owes them something and not respecting the dog’s privacy at all.

And Mugi snaps!

That’s right, Mugi punches a tiger, an animal that is several times bigger than him. Like a true shiba inu, he is a little dog with a hot temper who is not afraid of picking a fight with someone bigger than himself.

The tiger is not hurt, just confused. And so are all the other animals who watched what happened and can recognize the famous model. And they stare completely stunned while Mugi looks anything but cute and yells:

Mugi is right. He has never asked anyone to love him. Who he is and what he does in his free time is no one’s business. Or it shouldn’t be in a fair world.

But the world of “Beast Complex” is NOT a fair world. And Mugi's incident is known the next day in a ton of magazines. Mugi has been framed as a drunk bozo, his cute public face is ruined and it looks like his career as a model is over.

... But his manager sees an opportunity. A way to turn the shitload of lemons he just got into lemonade. Since the cat(or in this case the shiba inu) is out of the bag, why not make it Mugi’s new identity? The cute dog who is not afraid of being rash and hot tempered?

Mugi is asked to consider it. He at first thinks it is a dumb idea since no one is interested in a cute dog acting uncute.

... But then he meets the retail cashier from the other day. the one who made him bitter about shiba inus being a bunch of fakes. But she is not smiling, she just looks at him normally. She is not trying to be extra cute. But she does smile when she recognizes Mugi since she read the article about him being a drunk loser. She smiles genuinely because a shiba inu punched a tiger and was a badass, the sort of dog she wanna be instead of a cutie pie.

Mugi then gets an enlarged version of the “embarrassing” photo of him yelling in public and hangs it over the calendar with him pretending to be a teen girl. the symbolism needs not to be explained here:)

I said it before and I will say it again: The world of Beastars/Beast Complex is not our world. It is an animal world with animal issues. You could compare Mugi’s situation with a human one in some sense, but his issue is basically that he is born “cute”. It could be seen as a perk since it got him a well paid job as a model, but it is also a crutch since he has to compromise to get the perks of being cute, like pretending to be a girl and even being told that he should consider getting plastic surgeries. And even if other shiba inus are not in the exact same situation as him, they still live in a world where they are cute little dogs who feels like they HAVE to be cute.

But someone has to step up. Someone has to break the cycle. And that someone was a 40 year old drunk bozo who finally said stop to the rest of the world’s BS :)

[goldeneyedgirl]

JaliceWeek21 - Day 7: No Dialogue: This Time

Is... is this what organisation feels like? Having a fic ready to post?

Kayla wanted more Divorce Jalice, which I haven’t posted outside of Discord yet, but this is basically a snapshot of their reconciliation. 

he.

I saw you for the first time when we were seventeen and, Alice, I fell in love with you first sight. God, I was a goner who made a complete fool of himself trying to impress you and, despite my very best efforts, somehow you felt the same way.

It takes him the best part of the week to write the letter.

He struggles to find the words he wants to say. It feels a little dangerous, even writing the letter - she made herself clear when she moved in, that she didn’t want to remarry him. That it had taken months of negotiations for Alice to even agree to move in. And then there had been the long debate about her paying her share, even though her freelancing was successful and she was rarely at a loss for work, every trip to the ER left her exhausted for days. She didn’t make a salary, didn’t have any benefits… it just wasn’t reasonable or even expected for her to cover exactly half of the household expenses plus her own - he knew how much she loathed taking money from her family, but had made peace with it when she had no other choice.

And they had been had reached a good place, together. He’d argue it was better now than it had been when they were younger - there was so much laughter, so much conversation, and there was never a night when he didn’t look at her, curled up asleep in his arms, when he didn’t thank every power on earth that he’d been given another chance with Alice.

This… this was something else entirely. This was putting his entire heart in her hands, and risking losing her entirely. He knew Alice, better than he had before, and he knew that if she wasn’t at least a tiny bit open to this, she’d just move out again. Give them both ‘space’.

So, he writes the letter over and over again until it’s as good as it’s going to get. Then he writes it again because he’s smeared the ink.

But finally, it’s done, and he keeps it in his bag - like a ticking bomb. He goes home, they have dinner together and go to bed early to make love and watch the end of a movie. He sleeps with her in his arms, and he tries not to think that if this all goes wrong, this will be it - the very last time. That she’ll be gone again, like a ghost, and he already knows how wrong that will feel.

He leaves her sleeping the next morning, with a kiss to her temple. He walks across the road to the bodega for the good bagels and a bunch of flowers. He leaves them in the kitchen, and props up the letter in front of the vase.

And then he pulls the rings out. The fine, etched wedding ring, and the sapphire engagement ring. The initials and dates are engraved in the inside of both rings, three sets of Whitlock grooms and brides. He’d felt like a failure when he’d taken them back, had broken a link in an unbreakable chain. They were always destined to be passed to one of Rosalie’s children, but freely given, maybe even bequeathed. Never across a conference table, in front of lawyers.

Never as an act of pity and kindness when he had been buzzing from whatever cocktail of pills and alcohol he’d chased with an espresso before he signed away any legal or emotional connection to Alice.

Fuck, he was still ashamed and guilty. He still hated himself, especially now he knew the entire story.

He stares at the rings in his hand and hopes. That’s all he has left. Hope. And then he tucks them into the envelope.

It’s done. Whatever happens next, it is what it is.

she.

I have struggled with how close I came to losing you forever, and I think I always will. I need you to know that you are, and have always been, the best and most precious thing to me.

It’s a normal morning when she wakes up. Jasper leaves the curtains drawn these days, leaves her to sleep the morning away, if that’s what she needs. There have been a few little set-backs with her health over the last few years, but mostly she’s good.

No, not good. Better than good. Happy, content, loved. It’s more than she ever hoped for, in those dark days between one failed surgery and the next; when she and her surgeons had to debate the benefits of more surgery versus a full transplant, and she was alone with no one to lean on, no hand to hold.

Looking back, she wants to comfort her past self, let her know that better days are coming, that Jasper will come back to her - and her Jasper, not the man she divorced - and she’ll be okay. That every empty hospital room, every nurse that pitied her lack of flowers, and family and friends clustered around her bedside as she waited for the doctors’ verdict, her chest stitched and stapled and swathed in bandages, is just another step closer to things being wonderful again. That she and Jasper are both better people, better friends, better partners and lovers for everything that happened.

She gets out of bed, and heads towards the bathroom - detouring into her bedroom to retrieve clothes. She’s got a half-done piece on her desk, one that needs to be finished and shipped to her client in the next week or so.

After her shower, she locates her phone. The lock-screen is a photo of her and Jasper, the weekend he dragged her to California for some conference. They’re sprawled out on a sun-lounger together, grinning at the camera. It’s her favourite photo of him, of them. She can see his tattoos snaking around his side, his arm, his shoulder, and his neck; his hair is pulled back in a ridiculous ponytail she finds impossibly sexy, and the smile on his face is pure, unadulterated happiness. She’s tucked into his side in the silly (he called them ‘hot’ and ‘adorable’) heart-shaped sunglasses he’d bought her when she forgot hers. She’s got her hands clasped against her chest, her head nestled against his, and she’s smiling too. She remembers being so nervous about wearing a bikini for the first time, with her scars, but he’d convinced her, and they’d had a great day. A few people stared, but that was normal.

That had been the week he’d started wearing his wedding ring again, and when she’d asked, he’d dismissed it by saying he was tired of people hitting on him, even after he told them he wasn’t interested - and at the conference, with alcohol and the beach, it would be more annoying.

She’d let him think she believed that excuse and let it go.

It’s after eleven, and there’s no messages from him. Usually when she gets up, there’s at least three or four - maybe a photo of good coffee art if he stops by his usual place; a link to a restaurant or a movie he thinks they’d enjoy; or maybe an article that will make her laugh. And always a ‘good morning beautiful’ just before lunchtime.

Not today, not yet. Not so much as a dirty emoji message as a joke. There’s one from Rosalie (lunch on Friday), one from a prospective client, and one from Esme (family lunch on Sunday, can she and Jasper bring a dessert).

She frowns as she slips into the kitchen, and her gaze falls on the flowers - a mess of bright yellows and blues and pinks and purples. They’re beautiful and unnecessary and she’s already reaching for her phone again when she sees the letter propped up against it.

And for a second, she thinks her heart stops.

they.

I know you didn’t buy whatever I told you about me wearing my ring again. Because it was never about anyone else. It’s about you and me, and my commitment to you - my promise that as long as you’ll have me, I’ll be here. And that’s why I want you to have these back - because they have always been yours.

He walks home the long way. Home, in that moment, feels like a trap. Until he gets there, slides the key into the lock, he still has a partner, a girlfriend, a quasi-wife who told him so damn clearly that she didn’t want more than what they had.

(He knows it all now. The depth of the hurt, the pain. Pondering if she should have just cancelled the surgery and died quietly in the bed next to him whilst he drank and got high and fucked around behind her back. The days she spent in a hospital bed, alone and forgotten whilst he sat in a hard plastic chair in a church basement and admitted he had a problem. The long nights in the ER, holding her breath that it was just a false alarm, and nothing to worry about. Couples therapy had been as damning as it had been cleansing, and he carries her lost years with him everywhere, reminding him to be better, reminding him of how close it all came to being unfixable. He understands why she shies away from remarrying him when their marriage was always tangled up in so much hurt, but it doesn’t stop him from wanting more, wanting the most she can give.)

She’s in the kitchen, cooking dinner, when he walks in the door. That has to be a good sign. The apartment is warm and cosy, and it feels more like a home than anywhere he’s ever lived. He doesn’t want that to change.

Clutching his peace offering - a raspberry cake from the place a few blocks away - he walks into the kitchen.

She’s always the most beautiful woman in the room, in the world, to him and that’s no different tonight. There are no words for her, flitting around the kitchen like she knows what she’s doing, the curl of her hair against her cheek, the way she bites her lip as she checks something on the stove.

The way she brushes her hair out of her face with a hand that is wearing a fine, etched wedding ring, and a sapphire engagement ring that has their initials and wedding year engraved on the inside, and his heart definitely freezes in his chest and she’s wearing them again and that’s not something he let himself hope for. He prepared himself for the very worst and he’s found the very best and he doesn’t know what to say.

She meets his gaze with that warm smile, the one that is a little secretive and knowing that she only ever offers to him, and he holds out the cake like an offering and as she takes it, her eyes lighting up, he moves around the island to scoop her into his arms and kiss her. She squeals and somehow manages to put the cake down before she throws her arms around his neck, and he can feel her smiling against his lips.

He kisses her like it’s the very last time he’ll ever kiss her, like he’s trying to prove something. And maybe he is. Maybe he’s always going to be making up the past to her, like he can erase the hurt, the pain, the suffering. But they don’t have a time machine, and she’s long since made peace with everything that happened. Addiction is an illness, like everything else, but one that never truly goes away. The same way her heart will always been a little bit broken, he will also have that struggle. Maybe some day it will win again; there will probably be days when he does fall, just as long as there are more days he doesn’t. And that’s okay - she didn’t fall in love with him expecting him to be perfect. And the more she thinks about it, reflects on the apologies and the things he’s told her about everything that happened, she knows he never intended to hurt her.

Jasper’s been the centre of her universe since they were seventeen, since he looked across a classroom at her like he was starstruck and then grinned, that same grin he’s wearing now like he’s won an unwinnable prize. As if she could have resisted him, back then and right now.

That everything she is to him, he is to her.

He pulls back to look her in the eyes, to take her hand wearing the rings and to kiss it. She kisses him again hard and that’s all he needs to hoist her over his shoulder, her squealing and laughing, and it’s the best sound in the world as he turns off the stove and the oven, and sweeps her off towards his room.

Towards their room, both of them giddy, drunk on each other, on the idea that they’re in the same place at the same time, happy, healthy, and whole. Together, forever (this time.)

There is nothing in the world I love or will even love a much as I love you.

[jq37]

The Report Card – Fantasy High Sophomore Year Ep 3

 Thanks, I Hate It!

This week, we move forward by first jumping backwards. Last episode, the Bad Kids found that Riz and Fig were missing. Now, we get to see what happened in the meantime. Riz was in his office, trying to put together anything new on the Nightmare King. We’re reminded that his sword--the Sword of Shadows which he got from the arcade and lets him misty step (also, which he used to kill Kalvaxus)--was made by Tabaxi ninjas (seemingly relevant considering the whole Shadowcat thing). He notices that, in his photo, Kalina’s image doesn’t look as time-worn as the rest of it, as if only the part where she appears was protected. He hears a noise and goes to investigate. What he finds, is a creepy-ass nightmare skeleton person in the mirror claiming to be Baron, from the Baronees (the person he on the fly lied--poorly--that he was dating in ep 1). Respecting the fact that Murph never clarified whether Baron was a guy or a girl, Brennan has Baron exclusively refer to themselves as Riz’s R̵̪̹̄o̸̱͝m̸͔͔̂̽a̴͕̾̈́n̵͙̬͒c̸̣̏͠ḙ̸̃̓ ̶̞̇̕P̸̞͚̈́a̸͉͒͝r̴̛͈͈t̷͓͇̋͒n̸̬͛̈́e̴̮̒r̴̝̃̓ in this mega-cursed, fake Swedish(?) accent.

Thanks, I hate it. 

Riz, faced with his lie brought to life, is pretty freaked and tries to shoot it but he’s quickly subdued and dragged into the mirror. Luckily, he’s able to leave the photo for his friends to find. 

Meanwhile, Fig spent the night in a weird fugue state--almost like an enjoyable nightmare. Most of her focus is on this feeling of isolation, fame, and power--but in a good way. In the background, she’s doing some unimportant stuff. You know, packing her stuff, stealing a gem, trapping Gorthalax in it, and going to Bastion City. No big deal. Anyway, that brings us back to the present with the rest of our party.

They make it to Bastion City and, more importantly, the hotel where Fig is supposed to be. On the way, Adaine tries to detect magic on Sandra-Lynn to try and figure out why she can see the photograph but nothing comes up. At the hotel, they unsuccessfully try to get the concierge to tell them where Fig’s room is. Adaine detects that the receptionist has some kind of transmutation on them and her first thought is, “Magic plastic surgery.” She dispels it. Not magic plastic surgery. The concierge is a demon--which is different and worse than devils who are at least lawful and, like, part of the bureaucracy of punishing people who deserve it.

Anyway, fight time! A lot happens during this fight so I’m going to try and highlight the most important parts:

All the employees in the immediate area turn into various demons to fight the party.

Adaine and Kristen catch sight of Fig’s room number (downstairs penthouse) right before the fight starts and, at the top of the initiative, Adaine goes invisible and runs for the elevator. 

Fabian vaults of Gilear’s face--unnecessarily--and rolls a nat 20.

Gilear (who has FIVE hit points) ducks and covers because of course he does. That doesn’t stop him from being completely obliterated by one punch from one of the huge gorilla demons. He freaking DIES. Thanks, I hate it.

Downstairs, Adaine finds a bunch more demons who are with Fig who is clearly being mind controlled. They have Riz strapped to a table and Fig’s about to stab him with a ritualistic knife. Adaine goes for a dispel magic and gets advantage because of Boggy which leads to her rolling *two nat 20s* and snapping her out of it immediately. 

In a very boss move, Fig immediately grabs Riz and dimension doors him out of his restraints and them both to the coat check where she left the ruby with Gorthalax. Before they poof out, Riz sees yellow eyes in the shadows. Familiar tabaxi eyes. Seemed like she was calling shots. 

Riz gets in a very cool kill with the line, “Tell Daybreak I said hi.”

Fig finds out Gilear is dead and grabs his soul. Kristen heals him up.

Fabian vaults off of Gilear a second time and rolls a nat 1, sending him back into death saves. 

Kristen tosses a spare the dying at Gilear and then kisses full wolfed out Tracker because time isn’t of the essence or anything.

Fig grabs the ruby Gorthalax is in and sees that it’s cloudy--cursed somehow to keep them from breaking him out. Not good. She also finds a bunch of other gems which she also grabs.

We meet Kristen’s new spirit guardians which are now hipster Post-Grad philosophy students in a full spectral coffee shop. She finds them insufferable but is also kind of into it. 

They clean up the rest of the demons and then Fabian does donuts on the Hangman. And we are out of combat.

Fig is a little distraught about having almost killed Riz and brought them all into this dangerous situation which literally killed Gilear--even though no one else blames her even a little. Gilear has a bit of a breakdown which is fair. The man died. They try to send him home--Fig wants to give him 10k gold and send him on vacation--but he is determined to stay and experience things and be useful. Also, Fabian has it in his (and Gorgug’s) head that Gilear must be some kind of chosen one since one of the demons in the fight chose to attack Gilear over him. 

Fig looks through the other gems she got and only one--a Celestial Sapphire--is similar to size to Gorthalax’s. When they bring it out, a slot in Gorgug’s van pops open. They slot the Sapphire in and, through the radio, an Angelic voice speaks to them. He sounds like Owen Wilson and he doesn’t remember his name. The Hangman hates him immediately. Fig pretends to be a cop to get info from the cops that arrive on the scene, doesn’t find out anything useful, but does roll a nat 20 on her deception (come on) and briefly turns the game into the sister, cop-drama show set in the same universe as the Grey’s Anatomy sham-life she’s living, kissing another full adult man. Incredible. 

They regroup at a posh restaurant/cafe called The Swan’s Little Parade. Sklonda calls and, after she and Sandra-Lynn do the mom-catch up thing, she has a quick talk with Riz where we find out a few things about Kalina:

She only worked with Pok on missions between Falinel and Solace.

She was great at going invisible and other infiltration things.

(Note: We actually learned this earlier but I wanted to keep this info together)She looks more like a traditional housecat than a big cat like some other tabaxi.

It’s extremely hard to scry on her. 

She didn’t attend Pok’s funeral.

The last time Sklonda heard from her was 12ish years ago.

Riz only encountered her a few times as a kid. 

Last Sklonda remembers, she reached out to Pok it was something to do with the ship the Oracle sank on. 

They pass around the picture to see who can see it and not only does it appear that Ragh can see her (oh, kinda implied this before but Riz can too) he also seemed really bugged out. Tracker says she can use her cleric mojo to put up some wards to (1) keep them from getting mind whammied like Fig did overnight and (2) maybe make Ragh feel safe enough to talk. She also suggests they all sleep in a huge dog pile for safety which I think is great and someone should draw that.

Gorgug gets a text. It’s Zelda. She can’t believe he left without saying goodbye.

Thanks, I hate it. 

Detention

Fabian for Using Gilear as a Launch Pad Two (2) Times

This was a top contender for this spot, even before Fabian did this a second time and screwed up so bad (nat 1!) that Gilear dropped to zero again and had to make death saving throws.    

Honor Roll

Adaine for Freeing Fig 

Listen, I will freely admit that I have a clear bias towards Adaine. You got me. She’s my favorite. HOWEVER, you cannot tell me that going invisible, rushing straight to the elevator, then rolling double nat 20s (a 1/400 chance) to release Fig from domination right before she plunged a knife into Riz’s heart wasn’t the sickest series of events that happened during this ep. What could possibly compete? 

Random Thoughts

I’ve been trying to figure out the rhyme or reason to who can see the full photo but I haven’t figured out a pattern yet. It’s not that only people who have seen her before can see her because Sandra-Lynn can see it and she said she’s never met her--although I guess it’s possible that she has and she didn’t recognize her since she’s a super spy. And it’s not a blanket thing on the Bad Kids specifically because Riz can see her. I was hoping they’d show it to more people so we could get a better idea of the rules. Maybe it’s based entirely on if she wants to be seen by that specific person? But then why wouldn’t it default to the blank image. It seems (from our limited POV) that most people can see her. Maybe for most people a blank space would be more suspicious than a random tabaxi? Idk.  

Riz forcibly installing himself as Fabian’s best friend and it working is low key the funniest relationship development in FH. I’m so glad Murph and Lou ran with that. Also, the fact that he’s basically accepted that Riz is his best friend but the Hangman hasn’t at all is so good. 

Brennan really just shot Zac in the head at point blank range at the end of the episode, huh? He really just did that to our boy. What’s also funny is that, unlike--say--CR where there’s usually at least a good minute of decompression and goodbyes, Brennan just goes for the kill shot and then peaces out immediately. What a power move. 

Also, poor Zelda! She’s already so insecure, this isn’t gonna be good for her self esteem. Arguably, there were extenuating circumstances Gorgug can claim but you know that’s only gonna help so much since he def could have at least called/texted her to let her know he had to leave in a hurry because Fig/Riz were missing. I wonder if there’s a section of the binder on this. 

For reference, the demons they fight in the hotel lobby are a Cambion, and then several barlgura and skeksis.

“He’s just a guy!” He certainly is. Check out his stats. Hilarious but also, I can’t act like my stats would look that much different. 

I truly, truly cannot believe that Emily pulled the exact same hospital stunt again and it resolved in exactly the same way. This is like when I played blackjack with my brother when I was a teenager to teach him that the house always wins and he hit 21 twice in a row. 

Also on the topic of Fig, her coming down from her mind control was my favorite part of this episode, for a couple of reasons. I love how sincerely Emily played the immediate shock and horror at what she almost did (closed book my ass). I love how every other person was so happy to get her back. I love that none of them even entertained the thought that she might be dangerous or untrustworthy now. Relationships at the intersection of constant bullying and ride or die are my favorite. 

While we’re on the topic of emotional scenes, Gilear full breaking down in the van post-fight was very funny but you also genuinely felt for the guy. It’s been a really long day for the guy and he died like one and a half times. His, “I haven’t experienced anything before this moment,” line really hit me hard. And I think it’s very wild that Brennan set the DC for convincing him to go home at 25 (which Fig did not pass with a 21). It’s very interesting that Gilear’s reaction to this series of events was to double down and be like, I *need* to be here. Seems like this could be a set up for some interesting Gilear development. 

The amount of times I have almost typed Balnor is unreal. My brain stores all the middle aged men hanging out with people too young for him to be hanging out with in the same folder.  

I can’t believe Adaine just went for that dispel except that I can because she did the exact thing with Iris’ wig at the NY live show and I couldn’t believe that either! I really did not think (1) that was a good move or (2) gonna lead to combat (except for the kind that gets you banned from a hotel). I completely misread that situation. Like, it’s a world full of magic. It’s not that weird that a random person would have a spell on them. Anyway, this is why she’s the oracle and I’m not. 

The Barlgura needed a 3 or higher to hit Gilear. He got a 19. Yikes.

“I had to ask.”/ “No you didn’t.” (The crew explodes into laughter.)

Riz tells the whole gang about the Baron thing and tells everyone that they need to stop lying in case all their lies are gonna pop out and attack them. Gorgug admits that he’s kissed the Hangman. Kristen confesses to a group of her closest friends and girlfriend that she is gay. Tracker is like, “Babe, what?” Tracker (and the Bad Kids but in a different way) must really love Kristen because she is just so much all the time. 

Fabian: Who are you seeing then?/Riz:...................No one. 

Ally Middle Name Beardsly wtf is a paranoia check? 

The comedic rhythm of Fabian vaulting off of Gilear’s face with a nat 20, him dying, being resurrected, and the Fabian trying to do it again with a nat 1 and knocking him near death is so perfect that it’s wild that it was totally random. This is the kind of thing that makes you get superstitious about dice. 

We’re introduced to Boggy’s second mood this ep which is Boggy’s mood which is a slightly squinted, “Hmm...I don’t know about this.” Thanks, I love it. 

In addition to considering Gilear might be the chosen one (by who? Of what? They don’t know and neither do I) the half of the group entertaining this theory also considers Gilear might be the Nightmare King (”If you are you have to tell me. I’m your daughter.”). I don’t know if the NK does possession but please have the NK possess Gilear at some point. If the theme of this season is carefully filing away random off the cuff gags and making them plot relevant, please let this be one of them. Also, lol at Murph trying to roll high enough so that Riz has the knowledge to stop the shenanigans before it derails the whole campaign.  

The group bestows upon Gilear the positions of Tour Manager, Social Media Manager, and Honorary Bad Kid (listed last of course).

Fig grabbed a lanyard of out Adaine’s jacket and I remembered, oh yeah, she has a very magical jacket that is only ever used for shenanigans, if at all. Imagine being so magic that you have a magic jacket that you’re always wearing that can summon anything (w/i reason) and you just kinda...forget about it most of the time. 

Curious about why Fig specifically was called in to do the sacrifice and why Riz was the one who had to be sacrificed. 

I hope Adaine just continues to loan out Boggy to anyone having a bad day. I love that.

“Maybe this is one of those massages that hurt.”

Really wanted Hilariel to Skype in and ask about Gilear. Her take on everything is always so funny. She is as crazy as everyone else in her family but in such a low key way.  

Lol at the party being like, “Yeah, Tracker healed me just fine without any 69-ing,” which is truly an incomprehensible sentence without context and still mostly incomprehensible with context. 

Don’t wanna overlook the coolness of Fig rolling double 17s (disadvantaged) to command the barlguras. Not magically, just convincing them she was still in charge of them. Very clutch.

Fabian is so much chiller about letting people on his motorbike these days. He let Gilear ride it. He let Riz ride it. He gave a blanket invitation for anyone in the area to hop on before he did donuts. I love Sophomore Fabian. 

Gilear gets a nat 20 for his first roll! Riz and Kristen got two nat 20s. Fig got one, Gorgug got one (he rolled a second one that was lost with disadvantage), and Adaine rolled two but they really only count as one since it was with advantage. Fabian rolled one of each. That’s a lot of 20s for one ep!

[angst-king]

the monthly suffering

(Trans kirishima x bakugou..also this involves perverted Mineta and Kiri dealing with the pain of having functioning ovaries)

Kirishima was pushing Bakugou out the door. "go babe, I'll be fine I promise." "you were throwing up twenty minutes ago red" Bakugou protested, Kirishima sighed. "I can take care of myself, now go out and try and have fun." Bakugou grumbled and kissed his forehead "call me if you need anything okay, and you should probably take off your binder because I heard its not good to wear it while...you're on." Kirishima nods, standing on his toes he kisses his forehead. "I will I will, now go out and have fun." He finally got Bakugou to leave with one more 'I love you Red', and now Kirishima was all alone. He went back into his room, and grabbed some comfy clothes. Kirishima was on his period, the awful part of being a trans boy without bottom surgery and the poor boy was suffering. His stomach was cramping pretty bad earlier which was why he threw up, he could feel his ovaries and he didn't want to. Grabbing a soft sports bra, comfy light sweat pants, he had to grab a pair of loose fitting panties because he couldn't wear just his boxers while he was in his time of suffering. He'd just wear loose fitting panties and then loose fitting boxers, just to give himself a little bit of a masculine feeling. Taking them to the bathroom, he goes to take a shower. Undoing his binder, Eijirou turned on the shower water while continuing to undress. When the binder was off he huffed and took a deep breath, knowing his upper back would be feeling sore soon so might as well enjoy this peace for now. Getting into the shower when he was ready, Kirishima washed himself up. The hot water felt great, his body temperature fluctuated when he had to deal with this. So sometimes he'd go from cold to hot very quickly. Though the water was good he knew that standing like this would make his back hurt as well as his feet. He really needed to figure out how to make his entire body comfy but as long as he could get just a little comfort he was okay. Letting the water drench through his hair that went down with ease and laid down onto his face. When he was able to get out of the shower, he could feel the soreness and cramps coming back, he needed to take his pain medicine soon if he was gonna survive this with out crying too much. So he got dressed, putting on his underwear after putting on a pad with it, pulling up the sweats. He was happy that the waist band didn't put any pressure on his abdomen. He then put on the sports bra, Kiri didn't feel like wearing a shirt, he's alone right so why should he? He didn't feel like blow drying his hair so he just used a towel and brushed it out. When he was ready he left the bathroom and went into his dorm. Putting his other clothes into his hamper he grabbed his phone and went to the elevator. Getting down stairs the red haired male goes into the common room, his bare feet pitter patter against the hard wood as he went into the kitchen. Pushing his bangs out of his face, he goes into the pantry, because he couldn't decide on which craving to satisfy. He wanted sweets like chocolate but he also wanted something salty like overly buttery salty popcorn. He couldn't find any soda or pop corn but in the fridge he did find a medium sized bowl of chocolate pudding that a certain student who loved to bake, made. Grabbing the bowl he could help but lick his lips at the chilled bowl, he went and got a spoon. Taking off the plastic wrapping kirishima took a spoonful and soon put it into his mouth, oh yes this was delicious! It was cold but his body still ran a little hotter than usual so this was great. He softly bounced on his tip toes as he started eating out of the bowl. Pacing lightly Kirishima was in his own world as he devoured the bowl. All he knew was he was alone in heaven, well actually he wasn't alone at all. The girls were still here, they were just hanging out in momo's room and were coming down the stairs to the common room to have a girl's night. When they arrived what they saw was a mop of red hair in a sports bra and sweat pants who was this girl? The girls didn't seem to recognize their sunshine peer, well all except for Mina who noticed it was him when she saw how tall the 'girl' was. "k-Kirishima?" Hearing this they froze in their tracks and dropped the almost empty bowl which felt on his foot making him jump and yelp in pain. "Ouch!" The girls approached looking very perplexed at him. "w-wait Kiri?!" Kirishima looked up and immediately covered himself and tried to hide. Mina hurried over "Its okay kiri sorry we scared you" Kirishima still covered himself when Mina came over. He couldn't look her in the eyes, he was already feeling dysphoric and shy. "Here why don't we clean this up, are you okay it looked like it hurt?" Mina asked seeing some of the pudding on the floor, Kirishima nods quietly and goes to get towels, limping softly to get paper towels. Mina helped him clean up, it was hard to kneel down on the floor because of his stomach and back hurting so he was happy to have the help. "There we go" Standing back up Kirishima noticed the girl's staring at him. "u-uhmm" Mina looked back at the girls "don't stare at him please." She requested Hakagure finally spoke since the girls were silence. U-Um Kiri a-are you a girl?" Kirishima felt like disappearing, hiding, anything to keep him from being seen hoping their reactions wouldn't be harsh. Mina answered for him. "Kirishima is a transgender male, he likes to present as male despite his biologically female body parts. He feels male on the inside versuses his female outsides." They all seem to have a look of understanding on their faces Jirou was next to question him. "So why didn't you go with the boys then, usually you're with Bakugou all the time?" Kirishima nods and speaks up for himself still keeping his chest covered with his arms, even with the bra on he felt exposed. "i-i..I um.." It felt so weird to say it even if its in front of a bunch of girls who most likely get their monthly torture time. "I'm on my period" Suddenly the room's mood changed to sympathy, their eyes turned soft and warm. Mina gently rubbed his back and cooed, "Aaw Kiri why didn't you text me?" Kiri muttered about how it was embarrassing. Jirou came back into the conversation to try and make the boy feel better. "Kirishima, no need to be embarrassed around a bunch of girls. Most of us have to deal with our periods too, I know it sucks even more for you because you probably feel all yucky about it. You don't need to cover yourself, it should be us girls and you." "yeah you're not the only one who walks around dressed like that around the dorms" Kendou smiles which seemed to cheer the male up a little, he slowly let go of himself. "th-thanks girls, y-you're really nice." He earned a bunch of giggles when he blushed and and smiles. "Plus you're not the only one on their period right now ya know." Mina mentioned while ruffling his head, which made him whine and rubbed his temples. She with drew her hand feeling that his hair was still very damp. "Kiri hun why is your hair still wet?" Kirishima shrugged. "I don't feel like doing anything with it." "that's understandable, why don't you join us, we're gonna just hang out in the common room anyway, Kiri?" Suggested Nejire, Kiri couldn't say no to the blue haired girl plus the girls were nice and it wouldn't be so bad right. "Okay sure" Sitting on the floor or couches the girl squad and Kirishima, were having a pretty good time. Talking about movies they liked, hobbies and such. While listening to kendou talk Mina was brushing Kirishima's hair out so it wasn't so wet despite his towel drying method. It was a good distraction from the pain that had turned mild after a little bit, though now the pain was starting to get worse. His back ached while his stomach and pelvic area cramped painfully, his head started hurting. His toes curled as he squirmed lightly trying to get comfortable. Some of the girls noticed hearing him whimper softly. "you okay Kiri?" Asked Kendou, Kiri grunts and bites his lip. "C-cramps, e-every thing hurts bad." "Ooh, what do you usually do for the pain bud?" someone asked, Kirishima shrugged while rubbing his temples. "Have you ever used a heating pad or hot water bottle? It usually helps most people with cramps." Kirishima looked up and replied "A what? U-Usually Bakugou will just use a small part of his quirk which warms up his hands and he'll put it on my stomach, it helps a bit." "Aaw that's so sweet of him~" Momo cooed sweetly, Mina gently pats Kirishima on the head who nods in agreement. "Y-yeah, he'll cuddle and rub my stomach sometimes get me stuff from the store if I ask him to." "Omg that is so sweet, I had no idea the loud Pomeranian could be so nice." Smiled Uraraka "Kero yeah though Kirishima must've brought out his soft spot kero." joined Tsu, Kirishima chuckled a little while wincing and whining. Kirishima paled a little feeling nauseous, he then curled up against Mina who frowned and rubbed his back. "Cramps?" "f-feel sick" It was only a minute before Kirishima felt a tap on his shoulder. He looked up a little to see Momo handing him a soft seltzer drink. "It should help settle your stomach" Gratefully taking the pop can, Kiri sipped on it with a small 'thank you'. It did help feeling the carbonation bubbling in his aching stomach and it did dull the pain a small bit. Mina continued to rub small circles into his back. She did manage to tie up some of his hair into a small ponytail so it wouldn't be in Eijirou's face. The girls and Kirishima continued to talk and were now watching videos. In the middle of it, Kirishima excused himself to go and change out his pad. He got that icky feeling that meant he needed to do that also he needed to pee anyway. Walking to the bathroom he took off all three bottom pieces, and did his business. Washing his hands he had the sudden craving again for something salty and he was hungry anyway. So when he came back he offered to get and make snacks for the girls and himself. "hey Kiri do we have any more popcorn?" Inquired Mina "not in the main pantry no" Momo just decided to make a box of pop corn with all the separate packets inside. He put four bags, one in each microwave. Since the kitchen was big, there were multiple appliances for a large amount of students to use. He'd given the girls their bags that they'd share since he knew no one would want to eat his popcorn that he planned on loading with salt and butter. As he made his bag, Mineta decided to come down, the girls hadn't noticed since he'd came down quietly. He'd been spying on them for sometime now but when he saw Kiri from behind. Much like his classmates before, the grape boy couldn't recognize Eijirou as Eijirou. He drooled at the what he was seeing. Kirishima was quite busty for a trans male, and he was bench over watching his popcorn cook. Mineta creeped closer and closer until the midget was just close enough to grab onto both the sweat pants and boxers and pulled them down revealing Kirishima's orange panties. Kirishima shrieks in terror when he was pants turning around and stumbling out of his pants to get away from Mineta who tried to him again. The girls hear this and immediately race over, they all screamed as well. Kirishima kept using his foot to keep Mineta away the best he could, the girls tried to help but bloody hell Mineta was relentless. "How could you keep this goddess away from me she's so hot with such beautiful breast." Kirishima was screaming like a spider was on him forgetting about his painful cramps and tried to pull off Mineta. With the girls's luck the door opened and in came the boys. "We're back~!" Called out Kaminari with a gleeful smile as the boys walked in Bakugou had a bag of goodies for Kirishima since he knew his boyfriend felt awful. Though hearing and seeing the girls hitting something with a broom the boys got confused. "the hecks going on?" Questioned Kaminari then Kirishima growls "get your filthy fucking hands off me you perveted midget!" the turned to see the horrible scene of the girls hitting Mineta with a broom who was holding onto Kirishima's breast and pushing his face in for cover. "oh god someone get him off he's putting his mouth on me eeew!" Exclaimed the red head recognizing the voice Kaminari pulled Bakugou and Aizawa over. They were pretty horrified, "someone fucking help me!" as quickly as possible Aizawa used his scarf to tie up Mineta and pull him off. Which gave Mina, Bakugou, and Kaminari the chance to rush to their friend. Sitting up was a petrified Eijirou Kirishima who was crying and holding his stomach. "hey hey hey babe, its okay now, grape fucker is gone  now." Kirishima still kept crying and just held onto Bakugou who wraps his arms around his boyfriend. "Baby where are your pants?" Bakugou knew his lover wouldn't walk around with out his pants even if Mineta wasn't around. Asui came over holding his sweat pants and boxers holding them out to Bakugou. "H-he p-pants m-m-me" Stammered out Eijirou who cried into Bakugou's strong comforting chest. Bakugou was ready to commit murder but right now he needed to focus on his crying love. The blond took his pants from Asui with a look that said 'Thank you' with out him saying it. "I'm taking him back up stairs" Bakugou states while picking up Kirishima bridal style, the boy sniffled softly while Aizawa nods. "If he needs to go to recovery girl please let me know. I will be handling Mineta" The raven haired teacher glared down at his captured student who was still drooling over his small taste of his own desires. Bakugou takes Kirishima into the elevator then to his dorm. When in Kirishima's dorm, Bakugou set him on the bed. "I'll take a shower with you okay" Kirishima only nods, he felt disgusting feeling sick to his stomach again, not just from the pain but from what had just happened to him. Grabbing some fresh clothes from both dorms, Bakugou took Kirishima to the bathroom to shower. While undressing Kirishima couldn't help but feel as if he'd been violated but didn't know whether he was being hormonal and dramatic. He held his arms over his chest to cover himself from Bakugou, who sensed his partner's distress. Taking him into the hot sauna of a shower Bakugou pulled him into a deep, melting kiss. Kirishima shyly kissed back which made Bakugou happy. "I'm sorry that fucking parasite waste of space did that to you, but I'm here now.." Kirishima whimpered softly "I-I feel so violated, I feel like a girl, the way he spoke about my body doing so i-..I feel sick."  Bakugou brought Kirishima into a hug which lead to him crying more while Bakugou gave him soothing loving back rubs and whispered soft caring words. "You're not a girl, you're a handsome, sexy boy. You're strong and manly nothing will change that I promise." It took a bit before they got out of the bathroom, lots of back rubs, temple kisses, and a bit of Bakugou almost getting thrown up on. Kirishima was still in a sports bra and sweats before leaving the bathroom Bakugou answered his phone to Mina. "what is it pinky?" "yo there's a bag of stuff you left down stairs, also Kirishima's popcorn is burnt  I made him a new bag. want me to bring it up or are you coming back down?" "tch I'll come down to fucking get it." Kirishima looked confused but Bakugou then answered his curious boyfriend. "I've got somethings for you that I'd left down stairs. Why don't you go and get comfortable I'll be up in a minute." Eijirou nods and heads into his room, sitting on the bed, sighing and trying to relax and ignore his on going cramps. Down stairs Bakugou fixed up kiri's bag of popcorn the way he knew the other liked it, even if it did seem like diabetes in a bag. He put a Gatorade in the fridge after putting Eijirou's name on it using a sticky note and marker. Then using their coffee maker to make hot chocolate and put it into a thermos, he made sure Denki didn't steal Eijirou's pringles like the last time. Kaminari came up and sat on the counter watching the ash blond. "How's he doing, he seemed pretty scared earlier?" "tch, he's fucking fine dunce face, just dealing with things" It wasn't hard for Denki to know what Bakugou meant by 'Things' so he didn't have to ask too much about it. "why does he like salty popcorn so much?" "I don't fucking know, he craves salty stuff." Bakugou shrugged, when he was ready he grabbed everything and headed back up to Kirishima's dorm once again. Getting to his room, he sees Eijirou shakily clutching his stomach, Katsuki couldn't help but feel bad for his boyfriend who seemed to be in a great deal of pain. "Hey Ei I've got some stuff that might help you feel better."  Climbing onto the bed, Bakugou sets all the items down on the dresser. Gingerly pulling Eijirou into his taller frame, a soft groan slips from Eijirou's soft lips. "I know you don't feel good babe, just try and relax." Katsuki's voice was gentle and quiet, it held a warm caring tone that seemed to help Eijirou who sighed into him. "First things first, I've got snacks, chips, your pop corn, there's a Gatorade in the fridge and I made you hot chocolate. though you should drink this protein shake just so you can take your pills because pop corn isn't solid food." Katsuki grabbed a vanilla flavored protein shake, opened it and gave it to Kirishima, who sips on it for a while before taking his pain medicine. Moving onto the popcorn, Kirishima put some into his mouth before looking like he'd entered heaven again. "yummy~" Bakugou honestly didn't know how his boyfriend could eat something so salty, but he never questioned it. Kirishima ate through his Pop corn and drank his hot chocolate to distract himself from the pain. Still quietly whining and whimpering, Bakugou then whispered to the other knowing he had a head ache. "want me to do the thing again?" Kirishima knew what Bakugou meant and nodded, so now Bakugou warmed up his right hand like a heating pad and pressed it on Kirishima's stomach. Kirishima softly trailed it down to where his burning ovaries, sighing in content which meant it was helping. "Thank you Katsu" Bakugou gave his cheek a kiss "no problem Ei" Kirishima ended up asleep not long afterwards.

[carpecerevisiam]

💕

There’s a famous quote that goes: Everything and anything you want to do; you can do in Las Vegas.

And boy if that ain’t the good goddamn truth.

Frankie came Vegas wanting to sleep with pretty girls and make a boatload of money, and you’d better believe he’s done both. Okay, so maybe he’s done more of the latter than the former—thanks Dink!—but no, he loves Vegas. Loves how trashy it is, how crazy it is, how alive it is. It’s a 24/7 city; it never fucking stops.

And the people! The young, the old, the pros and the wannabes. He likes the tourists the most; he likes to joke around and show them a good time, and he makes damn sure they go home smiling and with a few more bills in their wallets than they came out with.

But the group he’s playing with tonight aren’t tourists—they’re gangsters, and that means it is practically Frankie’s civic duty to not play nice.

There’s five of them; four hard-looking men and a blonde with a million dollar-smile and a five-grand rack. Some starlet or other, he reckons. She doesn’t have much of a poker face despite the plastic surgery, but she also doesn’t have a lot of money, so Frankie ignores her.

Three of the men he knows by reputation; mean sonsofbitches in Vegas’ sleazy underworld, and they all think they’re better than they are. To be fair to them, they’re not bad players, but Frankie’s better.

The last guy though, he’s an enigma; a big brute of a man with a scar on his chin and dark hair scraped back like he's some sort of throwback from the 90s. He’s happy to trade small talk with the rest of them, but mostly he just sits there playing in silence and watching them through the haze of smoke.

And that’s fine. That’s cool. Scarface seems like a chill guy and Frankie likes chill guys; they’re less likely to punch his lights out when their losses rack up. What Frankie doesn’t like is when someone at the table is playing with money that ain’t theirs, because that never means anything good. Especially when said someone starts spending a lot of time watching what Frankie’s doing with his hands.

So he calls it quits and splits after a mere two hours. He’s already cleaned out one scumbag and made a start on one of the others though, so it’s not an entirely wasted evening.

He heads for a dive bar downtown to celebrate, and he’s just finished his third beer and is trying to remember whether he donated to the animal shelter or the medical clinic last time when a hand lands on his shoulder.

“This seat taken?”

Frankie looks up—and then up some more because Christ, Scarface is a tall bastard—and swallows around the sudden lump in his throat. “Uh, no? Help yourself.”

Scarface settles down next to him with more grace than a guy his size ought to have, and gestures for the bartender’s attention. “Two beers, please.” His voice is softer than Frankie would have expected it to be.

They sit in silence until the bartender sets their drinks down in front of them. Scarface takes his immediately, but Frankie doesn’t dare. “Are you following me?” he asks.

Scarface smirks. “Maybe,” he answers. “My turn: how come you left so quickly back there? Looked to me like you were on quite a roll.”

Frankie shrugs, picking up his drink. If it comes to it, maybe he can smash the glass into the fucker’s face, give him another scar. “I had places to be.”

Scarface just nods slowly at that. “Huh,” he says, and adds: “Because it looked to me like you got spooked that someone knew you were cheating.”

And just like that, the world screeches to a halt. Frankie sits there, immobilised by fear, certain his heart has stopped beating, and all the while Scarface watches him with that same impassive expression.

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” he mutters, once the world starts moving again. He pushes his stool back, but Scarface catches his arm before he can step away.

“Relax, pal,” he says gently, even if the grip he has on Frankie’s arm is anything but. “I’m not sore about it.” With his free hand, he pulls a very official-looking ID card out of his jacket pocket and tilts it so Frankie can see it.

Jack Rollins, it says. Along with a bunch of acronyms, only one of which Frankie recognises: S.H.I.E.L.D.

Scarface slips it back into his pocket, and as he does so, his jacket moves just enough for Frankie to spot the holster nestled under his arm.

He guides Frankie back down onto his stool and then leans forward. “Like I said, I’m not sore. The way I see it, the less money guys like them have, the better. Right?” Frankie nods. “Mind you, they didn’t see it the same way.”

And just like that, Frankie’s world ends for the second time in as many minutes. All of a sudden, he feels very, very exposed sitting at the bar with his back to the room. There could be anyone behind him, anyone at all. Anyone could just walk right up—just like Scarface did—and shove a gun against the back of his skull, or against his ribs, and he wouldn’t fucking know until it was far, far too late.

Panic is roiling around his stomach and curling tight around his throat, but he manages to choke out the only question that matters. “Are they following me?” he whispers, and Jack Rollins smiles. It’s not an entirely pleasant expression.

“No,” he replies, taking a long pull on his beer. “Well, not anymore."

[languidangel]

Pre Top Surgery 9/16/19

First off cw: breasts, T, top surgery, this may cause dysphoria, some tmi, weight, ed, death, surgery complications

Preamble: Okay so I made an update on this blog with all my T events (and I'm going to make one for my two years as well but that's in a few weeks) so I thought, hey, since I'm super excited that I'm getting top surgery this December, I should probably post about that as well. So here goes and since it's real late this is gonna be rambly. Also while you're reading this wondering what the point is, it's mostly to capture all my feelings and also have some background to what I'll be talking about later:

1a) I'm getting too surgery with Dr. Dulin in Plano, Texas. If you don't know who he is, he's with the American Institute for Plastic Surgery which is a group of four?? plastic surgeons who specialize in trans surgeries (but mostly Raphael and Dulin do top surgeries I couldn't say for the other two). Also I was pretty certain I would go with Raphael but he doesn't take insurance sadly :( and I can't pay out of pocket. (I also like Mosser and Medalie but I was out of luck for similar reasons).

1b) My experience with Dulin so far has been great. Quick timeline: I got an in person consultation for free last December. All of his nurses and office ladies were super super nice. I did not have any issues with scheduling or anything. I forgot her name but basically they have to take pictures of your chest and that lady made me feel super comfortable even though I was naked. Also they don't make you stand naked for that long. Like they look at your chest and take measurements but that's it. No comments, nothing. And dulin reminds me of a warm dad. He was super chill. I would recommend him based off his manner alone. Fast forward to this August/September. I did have issues when calling Dulin's office. Since they are really busy it's hard to get a hold of the person you need especially when you have time restraints and can only take calls at certain times. The front desk staff also seemed confused about who to direct you to sometimes. I got sent to people I didn't need to talk to more than a few times (I called them a lot because I was having therapist letter issues but that wasn't their fault, it was mine). Also if you're paying out of pocket, Cecilia is not very friendly most of the time. She isn't bad (and I don't have to deal with her because I'm going through insurance so idk she might be worse) but she was very abrupt and quick to transfer you to someone else, she wouldn't answer questions and she always sounded like she'd rather be doing anything else but talk to you. Tracy, who handles people paying with insurance, on the other hand was super patient with me when I was having trouble, I was very thankful for her to clear up any issues I was having. Again this isn't to talk down on Cecilia, I just didn't have as good of an experience with her.

2) No clue what type I'm getting yet. I think I'm small enough for Peri or keyhole but I'm not sure if I like the look of it for me personally, and I'm afraid I'd have extra skin, or bunching around my nipples from extra skin. Advice would be appreciated.

3) I haven't actually scheduled it yet but I will once they get back to me after talking to my insurance (which is why I'm posting this today because I finally got all the papers I needed, it was rough). But I'm planning on getting it somewhere from Dec 20-Dec 26. Ideally it would be the 22 but ideals never usually happen. I'll update next when I do get it scheduled (so like in a month probably). So yeah. Generally pretty positive so far, pre top surgery.

4) Controversial but I have been taping to bind (not super often like three times a month probably at the most) because I have asthma and costochondritis which makes me unable to bind with a binder for longer than like 8 hours a week so taping is honestly way better for me. (Tmi) But I've had trouble in the past with small tears and dry skin on my nipples from the adhesive and tearing off the tape too fast so I'm going to stop using tape at all in October like as soon as October starts because I don't want any bad results come top surgery.

5) Unfortunately I don't have the luxury to skip any of next semester for healing reasons so I have to go back to school on the 13th of January so I'm hoping that will give me enough time to be semi-mobile. Like I won't carry a backpack but I need to be able to walk to classes.

6) I'm very scared of weight gain because of a history (and current struggle) with eating disorders so I'm scared I will gain weight after top surgery then relapse really bad. This is the only negative of top surgery I can really think of (besides like really negative stuff like death or my nipples falling off or something).

7) I'm also looking for healing tips because I'm a planner (duh have you seen this post) and I want to plan what I need for surgery. If anyone has some good posts or personal tips, I'm all ears.

8) Apart from negatives (because why would I be getting this surgery if it was all negative) I'm really looking forward to wear white, light colors, tight shirts, tank tops, nothing on top in public, going swimming, freedom. Man, I am looking forward to freedom. Having to cover up so much in a room with three cis guys sucks ass. I've been wanting this procedure since middle school and I'm really glad I can finally get it.

9) Lastly, the next posts won't be as long (unless they are immediately prior to or after surgery) this is just my background so far and what I'm looking forward to/not looking forward to. So yeah bye. Next update probably around early October.

[loreweaver-universe]

All right, all right, people are started to get annoyed rather than laughing, so let’s cut this short.  Here’s the story of how my mom accidentally poisoned me!

So I have asthma.  This went undiagnosed until I enlisted in the Air Force in 2007 and subsequently passed out in formation less than a week in.  (It went undiagnosed, interestingly, because in the words of the Air Force medic who tested me, I have the lung capacity of a lifelong wind instrument player or long-distance runner--so it all muddled out to slightly worse than average, and we thought I just got winded easily.  Nope!  I’m a weird mutant whose weird mutation just doesn’t work.  Go figure.)�� People with asthma, it turns out, are quite often allergic to aspirin--something I didn’t take once in my entire runup to my twenties.

The first time I took an aspirin, because I’d run out of ibuprofen (the stuff in Advil) and decided to try something else, I just kinda wheezed a little and didn’t think much of it.

The second time I took aspirin, it was worse, and I realized I was having some kind of weird reaction, so I stopped taking it.  Then I found out I was allergic because asthma, went to the store, bought a five hundred pill candybottle of ibuprofen, put it on my shelf, and didn’t have another headache for four months.

The next time I had a headache, the ibuprofen gave me a pretty rough asthma attack.  Because!  Guess what!  There’s a whole class of what’s called Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs, or NSAIDs, that are perfectly fine for asthmatic people to take...until they trigger their aspirin allergy.

After that, they’re poison.

At this point, I do a bunch of research and discover that nearly every over-the-counter painkiller available to me is ibuprofen-based.  The stuff that I’m told is safe for me to take is acetaminophen, the stuff in Tylenol.  Half the acetaminophen-based painkillers out there have ibuprofen in them, too.  It’s a nightmare finding stuff safe for me to take, and around this time my sinus polyps are really getting going and I’m suffering daily pressure headaches which is a whole other ball of fun let me tell you.  So I get in the habit of buying 500-pill candybottles of generic 500mg Tylenol tablets, keep a general eye out for safety’s sake, and otherwise largely leave the whole thing on the shelf.

I make it to my second year of college without another incident.

Spring of 2014, my mother’s in Bangor, picking me up so we can have dinner out, and I complain about headaches when I get in the car.  (I had surgery to remove the sinus polyps!  They’re growing back by this point.)  She hems and haws, because she has a couple Aleve in a plastic baggie that she keeps around for her personal painkilling needs, and she can’t remember whether they’re ibuprofen or not.  We look it up--there’s no ibuprofen or aspirin in it, hooray!  It’s got something called naproxen sodium instead.

At this point, we aren’t aware that acetaminophen isn’t just safe for me to take, it’s the only safe painkiller for me to take.  Naproxen sodium is another NSAID, and I’m in for a rough night, because I pop that sucker in my mouth like it’s the cure for nose cancer and we head off to Chili’s to try them out for dinner.

I’m pretty much okay when we walk in the door.  We order appetizers--I get a little dish with soft pretzel sticks in it--and we get to chatting about life.  As the conversation goes on, I get a little coughy, and a little snotty, and then I have to excuse myself to the bathroom a few times to blow my nose, because at this point my respiratory system is trying to strangle itself.  The pretzel sticks come and I’m starting to wheeze, but I barely care because I tried one of those bastards and they were goddamn incredible.  My mother starts to get scared, despite my insistence that this has happened before, and she and I eventually get up to leave because she wants to drive me to the emergency room.  While she’s apologizing to the restaurant manager (who insists on turning down her offer to pay for the food we ordered), I dash back to the table and grab the five remaining pretzel sticks, because screw leaving those behind.

So begins the most memorable car ride of my entire life.

Mom’s driving through downtown Bangor, starting to panic, because at this point I am audibly choking on my own throat, but I’m on cloud nine because these god damn pretzel sticks, man, holy shit.  I’m snarfing them down, and babbling about how good they are--and anyone who’s spent any amount of time around my mother and I at the same time knows my absolute favorite game is making her laugh--and generally doing my best (somewhat on purpose, even) to distract her from the fact that her son is suffocating in the passenger’s seat.  She, meanwhile, is doing her damnedest not to swerve off the road, because she’s alternating between hysterical tears of terror and hysterical tears of laughter.  She rolls down the window so I can get some fresh air, and I alternate between gulping down oxygen and suffocating myself with pretzel sticks because why are these so goddamn good.

Mom’s losing her shit laughing when we pull up to the hospital, and I’m red-faced, pretzel-less, and starting to slow down, so she pulls up to the ambulance door and runs inside.  After being directed by a very annoyed desk clerk to pull around the side, we go inside, and while I make a few more half-hearted efforts to tell jokes, I spend most of the rest of my wait red-faced and desperately dragging breaths through my closing windpipe.  I’m in a bad way, guys.  Mom finally gets them to bring me in ahead of some people who aren’t suffocating to death, and they pump me full of some kind of Benadryl cocktail, which makes me loopy and high and sleepy.  I spend a few hours drifting in and out of consciousness, high off my ass (and boy howdy do I hate being high) and at one point, because I’m in no state of mind to do social math, I tease Mom about getting me that Dave Strider figurine I wanted.  Then i go back to sleep.

Eventually, I’m good to go.  I get sent off with some information about my condition, plus the knowledge that this particular allergic reaction gets worse every time it happens.  The next time it happens, I may die before I get to the hospital.  Mom takes me to a pharmacy, buys me a pair of epi-pens I never wind up needing because I get religious about being careful what I put in my mouth (I still have ‘em, because I’m not throwing away three h u n d r e d dollars of medicine, what the hell is wrong with you) and...well, honestly, the night past that point is a bit of a blur, because I’m loopy from the meds and just had a near-death experience.

A couple weeks later, though, I got a surprise in the mail!

This is Dave Strider!  I almost died to get him.  Literally!

To this day, Mom and I tease each other about how she spent my entire childhood not murdering my insufferable mug, only to almost kill me by accident once I was out of her hair.  I’ve been sending her screenshots of your reblogs and tags and discord messages and she has been laughing her ass off.

So, I’m sorry I strung you all along for that long, but I did say my favorite game was making my mother laugh.

[ayearofpike]

Christopher Pike’s Tales of Terror #2

Pocket Books, 1998 207 pages, 5 stories ISBN 0-671-55076-4 LOC: CPB Box no. 1462 vol. 11 OCLC: 40117246 Released December 1, 1998 (via B&N)

Five more short stories, but they’re all kinda longer this time. I knew it was too good to be true. One of these is 75 pages, and the others (with one exception, maybe two) smack of a big idea that he needed to get out but didn’t have the pages to do it justice. It seems like maybe he knows his contract is coming up and that he’s not going to be retained? See also the dedication page: the book is dedicated to the longtime YA editor at Simon & Schuster, because she “has always supported my writing.” I can’t find any evidence of turnover or retirement through a cursory Googling, but this seems very much like a veiled shot at changing leadership that sees new trends in YA and doesn’t feel that Christopher Pike will be a part of it.

The Burning Witch

Pike jumps back into short stories with the longest one in this book, and with a return to Marvin Summer’s side, who he says is “a thrill” to write as, considering Marvin has “ten times the talent” Pike does. Which ... I don’t know about that. Obviously we can’t see anything Marvin has written, and whatever he spurts out is going to be via Pike’s brain anyway, so I guess we just have to imagine it.

But anyway, there’s this old friend from high school who needs Marvin’s help to extricate herself from a cult. Because when you’re in trouble with a cult, of course you go to the horror writer, which now that I say it actually makes a little sense. They go to the ritual, because the old friend has a feeling that they already have her in their magical clutches and to no-show would be worse than sticking it out. Of course Marvin is immediately in over his head, feeling drugged and soporific, unable to stop the three witches in charge from treating his picture of his girlfriend in such a way that she drowns in the hot tub the next day.

By chance, Marvin is writing a novel about a young woman who channels through typing, and slowly comes to realize that a future self is giving her warnings through her present self about some changes attempting to be made to her past self. Yep, we’re back on that whole contiguous timeline thing again. But he came up with the idea after a fan letter suggested telling a past self something, and as the witches want him to bring the manuscript to the next session he’s now suspicious. He breaks into Old Friend’s apartment and learns she’s been using hypnosis to regress into past lives, and then he tracks down the hypnotist and tries a session himself, upon which he suddenly realizes that not only did he and Old Friend have a dalliance sometime in the past, but that sometime was 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts. 

I didn’t mention that Old Friend was known for having terrible scars on her face from a childhood bout with antivaxxer parents smallpox. But when she reappeared in Marvin’s life, the scars were almost gone. She claimed it was plastic surgery a year ago, but everyone he talks to who she’s worked with in the last couple of months noticed a sudden change, right around the time Old Friend said she was sucked in to the cult. Marvin realizes that maybe she started it, solely in order to get back at him for what his past self did to her; i.e. outing her as a witch. But she hasn’t counted on his work on plots to come up with a devious one for himself. See, she was looking for a clue in his manuscript about a way to change the past, one that would make him the witch instead of her. Of course he beat her to the punch and gave a false clue, which swiftly and suddenly reverses her facial healing. And then he pulls out a Molotov cocktail and says they’re both done.

So she panics and runs out to the balcony, where he’s loosened the railing, and she falls off fifteen stories to her death because that’s what happens in a Pike story. But then the woman Marvin thought of as the head witch shows up and offers him a deal to serve the Dark Side or whatever. Marvin says OK and that his payment is to be Shelly alive again. Sure, the witch says, just go to sleep and in the morning she’ll be next to you and neither of you will remember any of this. Of course Marvin feels like he’s smart enough to get out of anything, and goes to take some notes for a “future story” about escaping a deal with the devil ... only he has writer’s block.

The Tomb of Time

This story works on an almost identical conceit as “The Burning Witch,” in that past and future timeline selves are showing up to help Shannon White change the course of the world through positive and negative vibrations. The difference is that they’re physically manifesting, rather than using fireside witch chants to pass information back and forth.

Basically, it’s the last day of school, and Shannon wants Senpai to notice her. She’s encouraged by the random appearances of women who claim to be this dude’s aunt and niece, who say he talks about her a lot and not to tell him because he’d be embarrassed. She’s discouraged by this blonde chick who smooches all over Senpai and writes a phone number and a time on his notebook. Weirdly, immediately after all three of these encounters, there’s an earthquake, and they grow stronger each time, so that after the last one school is finally canceled and Shannon goes home.

The blonde is there, though, and suddenly she realizes that she’s looking in a mirror except for the hair. Blonde Shannon explains that yes, of course I’m you; alien beings of a negative vibration got hold of some of your DNA and sent me to now, where I could affect the world in such a way to make it explode through enhanced negativity. The positive ones are trying to meddle, though, and they also have Shannon’s DNA and are showing up as different-age versions of herself so that she’ll go through with asking Senpai to notice her and create more love and affection in the world, which will reduce the tension that is currently threatening to literally tear it apart.

It’s too late, though: Blonde Shannon has given Senpai Now Shannon’s phone number and is going to shoot her and then answer the phone and be rude, which will cause the earth to blow up. (Now we see why I never called girls in high school ... too much responsibility.) Too bad for her, Good Future Shannon plugged the barrel of the gun before Blonde Shannon ever showed, so it explodes in her hands, and Now Shannon is able to answer the phone and apologize for weirdness and get a date for ice cream, thus saving the world. Yay!

Bamboo

This story is certainly not what we expect from Pike. It’s a lot closer to Sati than any of his other work, in that there’s a narrative about a group of friends trying to find the right path in life with some guidance from a teacher who leaves too soon. It’s more about mood than visceral grossness, and so I think it works. This is my “maybe” caveat for a story that was conceived as a short story — yes, he says he wrote it “in a few hours,” but there’s potentially room here to make this a novel.

We start with three friends that embody the good, the bad, and the neutral, much like the soul concept from The Lost Mind. They go to meet a new man who’s just moved into town, an Indian who had lost his whole family to circumstances of poverty, and who has a story for them about lost souls being trapped in shafts of bamboo and the possibility of saving them through cleansing fire. The kids are eight or so at the beginning of the story, and they stay friends with the old man through high school graduation, at which time he gives them gifts symbolic of hope and protection of their souls. And then he dies, because he’s old.

Two of the friends follow quickly: the bad soul in military action in the Middle East, the good soul (who had married the bad one and was pregnant with his child) of an overdose. She doesn’t die right away, though, and the neutral one (our narrator) understands that hey, her soul is trapped in the bamboo because of the severity of her action in trying to end her life. So he goes to the old man’s house, which by now is overgrown with giant stalks of bamboo, and starts a fire in the yard. And sure enough, by morning she’s gone.

Again, this story is really reliant on mood. It doesn’t feel like there’s a lot here, and I think Pike could have done a whole bunch with who these kids are and how they interact with each other and the rest of the town to make it into something bigger. But what came out is pretty and poetic and reasonably good.

The Thin Line

A disgruntled injured ex-basketball player shows up at his school with guns, intending to kill the coach and the whole team and maybe the cheerleaders, which include his ex-girlfriend. He gets cold feet at the last minute and turns the whole deal into a terrorist situation, for which he steals money and a plane and jumps with it and a parachute and his ex-now-on-again girlfriend. But then she feels upset about the one kid who got shot in the leg and the pilot who died jumping out of the plane, and kills herself by walking in front of a bus. So even if the injured kid won, he has now lost.

I really don’t have a lot to say about school shooting stories, and so I am not going to unpack this any more. However, it is important to note that Pike references the school shootings in Jonesboro, Arkansas and Springfield, Oregon, which seem to have stayed his hand in fleshing this out and making it into a full novel. (Columbine happened five months later, too.) It pisses me off that we had what seemed like a flash point in school shootings and that it felt like enough to mobilize us, but twenty years later we’re still having the same fucking conversation.

The Tears of Teresa

This one is the most on-brand Pike story we’ve seen in years, It’s also the shortest, just seventeen pages. It’s so solid and strong that I hate to sully it by trying to write a recap, because the storytelling is so reliant on the intercuts between past and present that we don’t realize are happening until the last couple of pages.

It starts with a middle-aged couple coming home from a date to find that there is an intruder in their house. He forces them at gunpoint to drive to a house in Las Vegas, and then announces his intent to cripple them, to take away their mobility just like Max. 

Who is Max? This is the past intercutting part. Max was a young man who worked for his father, a successful business owner, but didn’t have any wealth of his own. He’d recently gotten his girlfriend pregnant, and knew that it wasn’t possible to support a child, so he paid for her to have an abortion. She’s torn up about it, but when he offers to take her away for a weekend to help settle her mind, she agrees and asks to go to Vegas. So they get a nice hotel room, and when he steps out on the balcony he unexpectedly gets thrown over it, because Pike.

(That’s a tweet for the thread: “Submitted for your approval, The Kid Who Got Flung Off a Balcony.”)

Max wakes up in the emergency room in pain, and overhears his girlfriend talking with some other dude — no, shit, it’s his BEST FRIEND — about their plot to kill him and give birth to his child and go after his rich dad for money. There’s a baby crying nearby too, obviously in distress, and after Max gains enough consciousness to let the schemers know they’re caught, he dies. But the baby survives, and eighteen years later he is getting Max’s revenge.

Like, fuck yeah. I don’t know that this was worth pushing through fifty pages of a school shooting, but I’m glad I didn’t put the book down before I read this story. We’re back at the blend of the evils that people are capable of with a little bit of supernatural magic that made me love Pike and be excited for this project back at Spellbound in February. I didn’t realize how much I missed it.

Two more Archway Paperbacks, and Pike will be done with a certain era of writing for teenagers. Surprising? Not so much, and it really does feel like he sees the writing on the wall with this collection. Still, we close on a very solid and satisfying note here. If Simon & Schuster wanted to reprint the Fucking With Teresa trilogy (Road to Nowhere, “Revenge,” and “The Tears of Teresa”) it could have been a strong mover. I bet Pike would have no problem with it, seeing as he apparently continues to hold a grudge and keeps naming these victims after her.

[thedaveandkimmershow]

Yesterday we returned to our hotel after a nailbiter of an experience losing my Disney pass. The reason for our return was that Rachel was leaving for home. Gettin' on a plane and flying outta Orlando.

Appetizers… is part of how we marked the occasion. The other part was realizing how it's quite the blustery day outside. "Blustery" as in maybe the first moves of a hurricane 'cause they just cleared everyone out of the swimming pool.

Now, I just said "hurricane" because that's all I know of Florida and bad weather. What's actually happening, though, is that there's lightning afoot. The thunder that seems to be working its way closer to us makes that perfectly clear.

Not Haunted Mansion thunder, by the way.

Real-as-it-gets thunder.

Very much approaching.

So there's that.

When it's time to go, we're all walking out the door together, down the elevator, along the back of the hotel… at which point there is a lot of thunder.

As in a lot.

We figure that's just Florida throwing a tantrum 'cause Rachel's leaving. Which makes as much sense as anything 'cause this used to be a very sunny, hot day. Like, a couple hours ago.

By the time we reach the front of the hotel, Rachel hails her rideshare and we kill some time taking a bunch of photos of Kimmer and the girls who, most of the time, are making faces.

Okay who am I kidding?

Kimmer was making faces too. 😉

And then Rachel's ride's here and it's hugs all around as we see her away. ☹️

Then it's our turn to hail a rideshare, Linzy, Kimmer, and me.

So now it's five and we're on our ride when, sure enough, the rain starts. Okay the rain pours. I mean serious downpour and we're driving in it… and into more of it. As in there are times when visibility becomes problematic. The road ahead obscures.

It's like that throughout the rest of our drive. Rain, rain, and more rain. Dumping like buckets. To the point where we all realize that we're exclusively dressed for summer weather.

Whoops.

I mean, seriously.

When we arrive at Epcot's rideshare drop-off, it's still raining. And in one of the sweetest moves ever, our driver offers us her umbrella. She actually offers to give us her umbrella.

I won't lie. That really was sweet as hell.

But.

We are, each of us, Seattle born and raised. We can do this no sweat.

So we decline this most generous offer, bid our fare-thee-wells, throw open the doors, and dash from the car to a nearby bus shelter, under cover with a lot of other travelers, most of whom are draped in parkas.

Kimmer gets into a conversation with a woman who works at the park and brought her own parka because she knew it was gonna rain even though the day started out as probably the hottest and sunniest so far.

By 'n by, the rain abates and we can see a section of sky where it's a sunny day. So we walk boldly into such rain as there is under all the overhangs along the path into Epcot. And then we duck under Spaceship Earth with, well, everyone else who just entered the park.

We notice how all of them, most of them, are wearing parkas as well, so, spying a nearby gift shop, we check to see if we can score some for ourselves.

Of course all those people underneath Spaceship Earth had to get their parkas from somewhere, so… the gift shop was absolutely, positively sold.

Out.

Bummer.

We are from Seattle, though. Also, we know blue sky is on the way so we boldly step out from underneath Spaceship Earth on our way to a dinner in France.

We're not even to the lake when Kimmer orders up a red wine sampler along the path. On her way out, cup in hand, she strikes up a conversation with a couple who's also just scored some tasty wine. The husband's in a motorized wheelchair and talks about how earlier in the downpour he gave his little girls a ride. Piled 'em up. And drove off.

Just like that.

It's also his birthday so we wish him the happiest one.

Now previously, we scored some mighty tasty fillet mignon at the Canada cart. So we move right passed it this time, a few minutes later landing in Ireland for sausage and mashed potatoes.

At this point, the rain's completely stopped and the blue sky is pulling into place right above us.

Ish.

Cross the bridge into France and Linzy dashes ahead to that bakery where she scored that heavenly chocolate mousse the other day. Meanwhile, we stop short at the France cart for Coc au Vin with Pommes Dauphine. Top it off with Creme Brulee with Grande Marnjere for dessert.

Perfection.

Linzy actually grabs a table for the three of us where we can have our meal together. For us, an entree and dessert. For Linzy, just straight up dessert because she just scored three baked chocolate sweets with plenty of frosting.

When dinner comes to its end, we head back to the front of the park to catch the monorail to the Magic Kingdom.

On our way, offers to play photographer whilst we ham it up in front of Spaceship Earth. 🤣

By the way, I always enjoy the monorail between Epcot and the Magic Kingdom. It's a lovely light rail experience in the sky.

Especially as the sun goes down.

Now we're walking down the ramp at the Transportation Center. Our options at this point are to head up the ramp on the other side of the monorail station... or catch the ferry.

I'm thinking monorail.

Kimmer's thinking monorail.

Linzy, however, suggests the ferry. And since it's how we began this particular Disney adventure, it strikes me as the perfect idea provided we catch the one at the dock right now.

We do catch it, by the way. We are, in fact, last ones to board, climbing the staircase to the upper deck as the lower one's filled up.

That ferry ride across the lake to the Magic Kingdom is one won't forget anytime soon. The sun was actively setting at that moment and we were literally experiencing magic hour on our way to the Magic Kingdom.

It was breathtaking.

Once inside the gates, we head straight for that Starbucks halfway up Main Street U.S.A. on the right.

Why?

Well, because the two frosted baked sweets bought in France are melting inside the thin cardboard box holding them.

And that won't do.

So we're looking for a plastic container or cup with a lid to keep those tasty treats in one piece.

Ish.

After that, Linzy heads to an Adventureland or Frontierland gift shop for a friend whilst we split another Dole Whip Pineapple Swirly.

Now, we're in the last hour of the park being open. No worries, though, because we only have one item on our Last Thing To Do In Disneyland lost.

Big.

Thunder Mountain.

Railroad.

What can I say? This ride is the most iconic of all our Disney family adventures. The reason for that's because it's the one consistent ride across both parks. It's the same ride in both parks, neither one better than the others. Which makes it the perfect touchstone of our collective family memories.

And right before we enter the building on our way to the front of the line?

Yeah.

Pyrotechnic artistry begins exploding above Cinderella's Castle and Fantasyland.

The timing was exquisite.

And pretty wonderful to take in between the three "mountains" that define the ride.

After Big Thunder Mountain, Linzy wanted to walk over to Fantasyland where, provided she didn't care about the the projection mapping on Sleeping Beauty's Castle, she'd have a better view.

Which.

She.

Did.

She got magnificent, slow motion video of the fireworks expanding dramatically above us.

Okay.

Kimmer had been talking Peter Pan's Flight since the previous evening when she 'n I experienced it. And, with magnificent fireworks video captured inside her phone, Linzy decide to give it a go.

So we all jump into a sailing ship and soar high above London together.

And then we're done.

Oh sure, we tried to sneak into the Seven Dwarfs Mine ride... and we were almost successful... but alas. We got busted and sent on our way.

This time, instead of using a hidden side street, we walk back down Main Street U.S.A. 'cause Linzy has one more friend for whom to shop. Not before we snap some awesome photos of Sleeping Beauty's Castle, though. 😉

After that, a Collison-Ris innovation. You see, it costs a bunch to get back to our hotel from the Transportation Center. Plus, there's a lot of people also calling in rideshares. So chances are we've gotta lotta waiting in front of us to which we're not looking forward.

Woof.

The innovation is, since the Disney buses connect all the resorts to the parks, we can take a bus to the resort closest to our hotel for free... and then call in a rideshare.

Linzy figured out which resort that would be, Saratoga Springs, 11 minutes from our hotel, so we joined the long line of people at bus stop 17.

It didn't take long at all, delivering us home in about 45 minutes.

Quick fun fact:

On our way down the sidewalk along the side of our hotel, we crossed paths with a New York chef. He was moving awfully slow and awkward using crutches.

You see, he had knee replacement surgery on his left knee three months ago... making his left knee his good knee. In the meantime, his right knee... is I'm pretty bad shape.

Two months... 'til it gets replaced.

Now the reason this is a fun fact isn't because he's a chef. And it isn't because he's from New York.

He's from the Bronx.

And he speaks like he's from the Bronx, if you know what I mean. He didn't just say his family's three-bedroom was a castle, he emphasized how it was a fudging castle.

Only he didn't say "fudging".

And then we were back at our rooms. Linzy did some laundry. We watched the Big Bang Theory Disneyland episode. The ones where the girls skip out on their jobs for the day and get made up like Disney princesses at the park.

And then like that!

We're asleep.

When I wake up this morning it's not the 530AM I've been doing all week long for our Disney Days. It's 930 in the morning and I've got that song "Remember Me" from Pixar's "Coco" playing sweetly I'm my head.

This.

Was a slow morning.

A slooooooooow...

Morning.

Kimmer's easing into the day out on the balcony. Linzy's taking her time packing.

By 10:45 she's got it all wrapped up and we're sitting around the kitchen island for homemade breakfast sandwiches 'n Trader Joe's lattes while looking over yesterday's Dispo photos from Linzy's camera.

Stunning. Is all I can say.

Gorgeous.

Beautiful.

Inspired.

Delightful.

Totally pro quality.

So yeah. Turns out I have a bunch of things to say about those pictures.

After, she showed us the latest from Ariana Grande (the song that starts with a looper) & Bruno Mars (his most recent with that specific seventies vibe) before we all left the room to walk to the front of the hotel for a few final family photographs and our last moments together...

...before her ride scooped her up.

Took her away.

And then...

It was just the two of us.

🙂

[saintcheesus]

Hi, I heard from a friend that you were doing ficlet request. I have three. The first one is Damien gets Robert a really cool knife for their anniversary to go cryptid hunting and Robert's just like marry me. The second one is Robert and Damien are getting busy (smex) when Lucien comes home early and Damien hides Robert. The third one is Damien is self-concise about his body and Robert wants to take him to the beach, so the compromise is they go to the beach at night and have fun.

Nonny bless you for these fic prompts! The problem withtumblr is that I can only answer the ask once (unless I keep reblogging thepost with the additions of the fic requests but that’ll be a dash-clogger) ifyou see this ficlet and you would like to send each fic request separately that’sfine, or if you would like to come off anon and I can personally tag you ineach that’s also fine!

I’m going to do the third one first because that was the oneI was planning to add to my fic Love That Dad! But with Lucien coaxing himrather than Robert, but I am still very excited to do it! Here goes nothing

~~~~~~~

It was admittedly one of the hottest days in the year. Theseason was about to turn and of course mother nature (the most elusive cryptidof all if you ask Robert) decided that this was the time to scorch everyone onearth, the residents of the cul-de-sac more specifically. He was certainlyroasting alive in his tiny house, he should open a window, but it would onlybring more heat in. He already drank a whole case of ice cold beer and all itdid was make him sad. So now he was hot and sad, in that order. There wasnothing on television, and if he watched another show where people ran aroundbeing scared by “ghosts” then he was sure he was going to throw himself to theDover Ghost. He made a little tub of ice water for Betsy, she seemed satisfiedenough. Her little body just big enough to fit inside of the plastic bin, hertongue lolled out of her mouth. She was sleeping. He smiled, she was dumb butshe was his dummy and he loved her.

He got up, shedding his sweat-soaked shirt. He was prettyhairy, so that meant that hot days were even hotter for him and that meant thathis water bill was going to be through the roof this month. He chucked it inthe hamper and went to go the bathroom but then an idea ran through his head.

He wanted to go to the beach. But not by himself, and notjust with Betsy, she had no head for conversation. He got out his phone andscrolled through his small list of contacts. Brian? Nah, he was going to bringhis daughter and talk about how great she was and he didn’t need to be remindedof what a shitty dad he was. Mat? He was cool, and made good coffee, maybe theycould chill and drink a jug of ice coffee. Nah, Mat got nervous around people,and that meant small talk and no bouts of silence that he wanted. Craig? Hardno. It would end up being a workout and he doesn’t need to get anymore sweatythan he already is. Fuck Joseph, automatic no. Mary? She was pretty much downfor anything. He sent her a text. She replied quickly saying that she andJoseph had to go to the church for some meeting about renovations, shortanswer: no. Hugo probably would prefer to stay indoors and read so he wasn’tgoing to even text him. That only left Damien.

Damien was cool he guessed, Mary knew him longer than shedid himself and she never badmouthed him. The three of them only hung out a fewtimes but it was fun. And he was the only person that knew what a cryptid was,and enjoyed being in cemeteries at ungodly hours of the night. His son was alittle shit but Damien loved him so that was enough for him. He tapped onDamien’s icon (which was a picture of Nosferatu) and the message box opened. Hestarted to type a message but then remembered that Damien preferred moreintimate modes of communication, like letter-writing, or face-to-face.

To Robert that translated as clever ways to claim his victims.He got up and looked out the window. He was home because the car was in thedriveway.

“Dude’s got to be burning alive in that house.”

Guy’s house was all black, and the inside was just as dark.He sighed, he wanted companionship, and the suspected vampire was just the onehe needed. He picked up his leather jacket and looked over at Betsy, who wasn’tmoving anytime soon. He went to the freezer, got the bag of ice and poured somemore in the bin.

“I’ll be back for you little lady.”

Betsy only boofed in response. He left the house and prettymuch ran to Damien’s house. He knocked on the door and waited a moment.

“He’s not a vampire, Robert…he’s not gonna eat you…he’s justinto Victorian stuff…definitely wasn’t the inspiration for Dracula…get ittogether!”

He wasn’t kept waiting long because the door opened and insteadof being greeted by the Goth Prince himself, he was greeted by just…Damien. Hewas wearing a black tank top and purple shorts. His hair was tied up and he waswearing his glasses. Robert thinks he’s never really seen him like this. Nopainted eyes, no contacts, just regular. Damien smiled and Robert always checksto see if there are fangs in his mouth. He’s safe.

“Ah, Robert! What brings you here today, friend?”

Damien’s jaw drops once he gets a good look at Robert. Thenhis cheeks go impossibly red.

“My friend…are you not wearing a shirt?”

Robert looks down. Oh, he forgot to put a new one on. Henods.

“Yeah, other one got dirty from my tangle with a bunch ofthugs last night. Almost thought I was done for, Betsy saved the day. That’s uh…that’swhy she couldn’t be with us today.”

Damien’s eyes widened. “Oh Robert! Are you okay, do you needme to call the authorities?”

Robert couldn’t hide the grin and laughed outright. Damien’sface straightened and he seemed unamused. “You are horrible.”

“I’m aware, Bats. Betsy’s at home chilling in her ice bath.”Damien pushed his glasses up. “You never explained your reason for being here.”

“Wanna go the beach?”

Damien looked uneasy suddenly and began fussing with the hemof his shirt.

“Right now?”

“Yup.”

Damien swallowed and Robert raised his brows. “Oh w-well, I…um…wouldit be possible if we were able…to go at night?”

Robert smirked and crossed his arms. “What, afraid you’regonna burn in the sun?” It was sunset now but still. Damien wanted to laugh buthe looked nervous and a little sad. He shook his head.

“If only that were the case…”

Robert’s smirk left his face as he stood straight, now genuinelyconcerned for Damien. “What, what’s the problem?”  

Damien pushed his glasses up and grabbed Robert’s wrist tolead him inside of the house. It struck him that Damien’s house felt…reallygood. Did he have AC? Well, if he was going to paint his house all black thenhe had to have been prepared for days like this. Damien crossed his arms andlooked at his feet.

“What’s the matter?” He asked again, surprised by thesoftness of his voice. Damien looked ashamed that he felt whatever he wasfeeling.

“I um…I haven’t gotten top surgery yet…”

Oh. Oh.

And now Robert felt like an asshole for not even consideringthat. Damien couldn’t even make eye contact with him and Robert, without thinking,pulled him in a hug. They were both shocked by this, and he forgot he wasn’twearing a shirt.

“Hey, hey…” He rubbed Damien’s back, “Don’t sweat it man, ifyou want to go at night, we’ll go at night, okay?”

Damien nodded and for a moment Robert forgot that noteveryone was as accepting as himself and the rest of the dads in thecul-de-sac. He pulled away, but clapped both hands on Damien’s arms and gavehim a reassuring smile.

“We’re gonna have fun, Bats. Don’t worry, I’ll see youtonight.”

“Yes, thank you. I apologize if this is causing you any inconvenience.”

Robert gave him a slap on the shoulder and walked out thehome. He turned back around. If only his son wasn’t so allergic to dogs then hewould have brought Betsy over to chill in the house until their date. Date.Huh. That sounded nice.

He came back promptly after the sun went down and it wasnight time. The plus side to the beach was that it was open all hours of thenight, if they went swimming they would just have to be mindful of their limitsbecause the lifeguards aren’t there. He still wasn’t wearing a shirt, and hemay have just gone home and slept because of the heat in his house, but when hewoke up, it felt a lot better. Betsy relocated herself to her doggy bed whichwas now soaked. He poured some dry food for her and left the house afterkissing her wet little head. He walked over to Damien’s house and knockedagain. Damien opened it and was wearing the same black tank, but crimson swimtrunks with it. He was wearing flip flops and Robert just couldn’t help butthink how good he looked in his trunks. He always thought that Damien washandsome.

“I apologize again, Robert. I’m ready to go.”

“Nothing to worry about, Damien trust me. I see you broughta picnic basket.”

“Oh yes, it’s my way of making up for delaying our outing.”

“You got whiskey in it?”

“Yes, I brought a flask just for you.”

“Really?”

“Of course not, Robert.”

So, he does have a sense of humor. They got into Rob’spick-up truck and drove to the beach. It was thankfully empty and still warmenough that the water’s breeze wouldn’t freeze them to death. Damien set downthe blanket and placed the basket in the middle. Robert was already in hisswimming trunks, well, his boxer briefs, really. He left his jacket in the car.

“You did not bring Betsy with you?”

“Nah, she was sleeping.” Robert noted that Damien soundeddisappointed. Damien started to take his shirt off and Robert couldn’t help butstare.

“What? Why are you staring at me?” Damien crossed his arms tocover himself and Robert shook his head.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. I was just thinking about how good youlooked.”

“Now you’re pulling my leg.”

“No, I really mean it Damien. I find you attractive.”

“Really?”

“Do I love whiskey?”

Damien laughed and Robert couldn’t help but laugh too. Hewanted to find more ways to make him laugh. Damien sat down next to Robert andpulled out two glasses and a bottle of wine.

“I’m afraid I have no head for whiskey, but Mary gifted mewith this bottle a few years ago and I thought that I would partake with you.”

He poured Robert’s glass to the top and gave it to him. Hepoured himself a glass and set the bottle back in the basket. They clinkedglasses and Damien took careful sips whereas Robert pretty much downed half ofit in one swig. Too used to shots. Damien chuckled and took another sip.

“The water is quite beautiful at night.”

“Yep.”

“In the Victorian era, the women were forced to use machinesto paddle them out to water to swim because the men found their bathing suits inappropriate.”

“Really?”

Damien nodded excitedly, happy to share all he knows aboutthe time period. Robert finished the glass.

“Assholes.”

“Quite.”

Robert placed the glass back in the basket and took Damien’sglass and placed it carefully in the sand. “Hey, you know I heard that there’sa sea serpent right here in this beach?”

“Has there?”

“Oh yeah, as long as ship and known to terrorize anybody whoswam in the water at night.”

“Well, it’s a good thing we aren’t— “

“We’re gonna swim in it.”

Damien looked at him. His smile irresistible.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Damien…”

“Rob— “

Robert kissed Damien on the lips. “Yes…” He growled inDamien’s ear. Before Damien could recover from the shock of the kiss, Robertgrabbed his hand and rose running toward the water.

“Do you your worst sea serpent!”

“Robert, stop!” Damien laughed as he was being dragged intothe water with Robert. The only noises heard that night were the sounds oftheir laughter, and splashing, and after that, the sounds of them snogging onthe sand.

~~~~~

This was a lot longer than I wanted it to be I hope you like it! 

[fakingbrave]

My Surgery Part 1

This is going to be a long post. I mean very long, so to help I’m going to break it into sections pertaining to the different parts of the day of surgery and following. Hope you enjoy, and once again sorry I disappeared for so long. 

What I Had Done: Laparoscopic Full/Complete Nissens Fundoplication

(I ended up being forced into laparoscopic, which I will discuss later, so don’t get your spoons in a twist.)

Getting There: 

I can’t remember everything from that day, but I believe that my surgery was scheduled for 11 am, and we were to be there at 9:30 or 10 am. I woke up, got my “go” bag (I will make a post about a “go” bag later), and left. My mom drove me, my dad trailed behind. I was mad at them because it was day two of no food and they stopped at Akron Children Hospital’s coffee shop. I was a tad hangry, to say the least. We reached our check in location, which involved many turns and elevators. If you know ACH you know they are famous for their elevators. The lady was very nice and took us to a room with a curtain for a door, no biggie. 

Paper Work and Procedurals: 

First thing first the gown. I changed into the gown and pants and put mine in my go bag. When you are staying for a long surgery and stay, they give you the good, high-quality stuff, none of that paper/plastic fabric or the one size fits all blue drapes. Then we filled out the paperwork of who I was and what allergies I had. I got my two red bands, for my latex and medicine/food allergies, one on each arm, and we were set for paperwork on a legal aspect. It always pissed me off to watch the Red Band Society, because they used the red bands to signify big surgeries, but red bands in almost all hospitals (at least in America) signifies an allergy. I get one when I go to get an x-ray. My girlfriend got one when she went for a checkup and she’s  a normal all spoons intact kind of person. Anyway, after that, I had to pee in a cup, which was dumb. Quick fact, I’m trans if you didn’t know, FTM, and I’m been on T for almost two years. My ovaries have been out of commission for awhile, and I’m not sexually active, but apparently, a pregnancy check was in order. I am aware its a legal thing, but I don’t think God is looking for the next Virgin Mary to be a trans kid about to get surgery. 

DNR and Religous BS:

Okay so after this was done we met with the social worker. My parents signed some more forms, I signed some forms, and so on. I then told her that I wanted to get a DNR in place. Just to be clear, this is a SUPER SIMPLE EASY process, well she kinda did an 180, and I guess a few screws fell loose or something, because after she left, about 10 mins later, a Chaplain walked in. First off, I did not ask, nor did my parents ask for a Chaplain, or any kind of religious, or any other form of counseling. We were perfectly fine. I knew what I wanted, I knew the legal proceedings, and I knew who needed to be there to do what. So the hospital assumed just because we asked about a DNR we were somehow religiously affiliated. I told this woman I didn’t need her help, nor did I want it. She would not leave. She spent 20 mins about a foot from me (closer than my parents were) trying to talk me out of it. I told her I wasn’t interested in retracting my statement. Eventually, she left, only to return 10 mins later. At this point I was pissed. I previously was calm, and happy to be having this life changing surgery so I could fix a debilitating problem, but she had ruined this. She proceeded to try to talk me out of it and spoke to me as if I was a 6-year-old. If you knew me personally you would know that I do not like confrontation, and I do not like to be challenged on things pertaining to myself, in short, I’m bullheaded, and I do my research. This woman was getting on my last straw. She told me that ACH had a policy against DNR’s, and wouldn’t treat me if I had one. For one I have a feeling she was lying or didn’t know what she was talking about, and two if not, I think that is highly illegal. As DNR’s are the law. She gave me this hokey stuff to fill out with my parents about what I would like in the event I was going to die, but this only applied if I was brain-dead, which is not the point as to why I wanted the DNR. The papers were also only suggestions from child to parent, not law. The whole thing made me mad as hell. I ended up talking to my doctor, who is a great man, but also made me mad. He told me that he wouldn’t work on a patient who had a DNR. I think that is dumb, it defeats the purpose of a DNR. DNR’s are supposed to help improve life, not worsen. Refusing all treatment is the opposite of DNR. The whole thing was baloney. He also said that a healthy boy like me doesn’t need a DNR, which for one, anyone can have it, and two I’m not healthy. It just goes to show that even to doctors our disability/illness is invisible. So I ended up just consenting to the surgery without the DNR. I still plan on getting one, one day, but I needed that surgery, and unfortunately, that was the risk I had to take. 

The Delay

Now technically this happened in the midst of the previous body of text, but it made more sense to describe it after. My surgery was scheduled for 11 am, but I did not have surgery until noon. This really isn’t a big deal I just thought I would throw it in for explanation sake, and so people know what to expect. My surgery was delayed because there was an emergency gastro surgery from the ER that my doctor had to help with. Like I said I was very happy to wait. We ended up needing the extra time to short out the above BS. Just so you know though things don’t generally follow the planned timeline in hospitals. 

Surgery Time

Okay, so it was surgery time. They came and got me, but before I left the room I took off everything they didn’t give me except my underwear (some surgeries that come off too though) and put it in my go bag. So my glasses and what not. Then we walked to the operating room, and it is really bright, you walk unless you are unable. There were TV’s everywhere because it was a laparo surgery, which was cool to see. There was also a bunch of stains on the ground, but it looked more like spilled iodine, not blood. I highly doubt that you will ever see blood when you enter the room. I met my anesthesiologist, another doctor, a nurse who works with the anesthesia, and another nurse. They were all really nice, and I was cracking jokes with the anesthesia doc. I told him that in previous surgeries apon wake up I will rip out my IV, so he took the medical tape and wrapped it around my hand like 5 times which made me laugh. They are really good at their job. Since I’m a-okay with needles all my drugs were done through IV, until I was asleep. I never forget what happens then I go under, it just doesn’t make me forget, I remember the whole process, always have. After set up was done that was that. My doctor and a few others came in said hello, he was talking to me most of the time. Before they put the IV in you slip your arms out of the gown, but you’re always covered when you are awake. They put all the little electrodes on me and started to turn on stuff. As they put the drugs in they kept talking to me, asking me stuff like what I wanted to be, what colleges I was thinking about, how I liked school. My doctor was telling the other doctors about my crazy school and the weird classes I take, so that was fun. The nurse was always explaining things to me, and talking to me. She asked me if I was nervous and I never was. I always go into surgeries with the acceptance that if I die, that’s okay. I want to be at peace of mind. I’m always happy and content/calm when I go under, and I think that’s how it should be. The doctors and nurses I had definitely help with that. I also know a lot of the people at ACH, which helps. It took awhile but I fell asleep. The anesthesia is cold when it runs through your veins but they cover you up with warm blankets, so it's okay. 

Well, that’s part one, I will be adding a part two soon. We are currently in the process of trying to move/sell our house so I’ve been very busy. I hope this is helpful to at least some of you, and entertaining to the rest. 

[myaekingheart]

I've been slacking on documenting these but I figure now is as good a time as any so here goes.

I don't remember what night this was from, I think this was about a week or so ago, but I dreamed that my boyfriend and I were horseback riding through the woods, probably the imaginary forest I envisioned as the woods in Galma while writing my Narnia fanfic. I was on this horse that looked like Spirit but it was a female and she was named Appaloosa. I feel like there was perhaps some sort of tragedy or battle that ensued, something like that, because I remember extending my arm out to my horse and screaming her name as if we were being separated but that part's hazy and it's been a while so I don't totally remember.

The rest of these dreams are from this past week.

I think this one was from Tuesday or Wednesday night. It wasn't anything too special except that I was in my apartment and somehow a mouse had gotten in and was running around on the floor and I remember panicking and screaming, having no idea what the fuck to do, climbing on furniture like a scared little bitch. I was basically being incredibly pathetic and cliche about it but then again at the same time, I unfortunately can't think of anything else I'd do in such a situation.

This was Thursday night, I think. I remember walking up this dark, cement stairwell with a group of some other people, I don't exactly remember who. There was a door immediately at the top of the stairs and when we entered through it, we were in this very small and tall room the likes of which reminded me of an indoor tennis court, but only in construction. The design/decor itself was very, very different. The walls were a vivid blue with fake clouds projected onto them, and immediately upon entering we were met with a very narrow strip of fake shore made of very yellow sand (the same shade as cornmeal) backed up by an indoor tidal pool. The water of the tidal pool was roughly the same color as the walls, maybe a little lighter, and was completely opaque so that when you stepped in, you couldn't see a single thing under the surface with you. I remember wading into the water alongside the cast of what I presume was some cheap Beethoven knockoff, and as I stood there in the tidal pool staring up at the weird sky-projected walls and fake beach, there was a Golden Retriever swimming beside me. This was honestly perhaps the most comforting thing about this dream, the dog was, and I think that was the whole reason why I thought the other people were the cast of some bizarre Beethoven knockoff-- I remember hearing a man who looked like the father in the movie (and by extension, one of my uncles) utter that line from the movie "We're not really dog people." I don't know, it was really bizarre and made no sense but it didn't stop there. I was floating nearer and further to the shore at the mercy of the currents when I discovered sitting near the water in a fold-out beach chair was none other than Christopher Lloyd. He was watching us swim and such and it was during this time that I realized that as I floated, I had zero control over when and where I went and in my right hand I was holding my beloved childhood doll. I called her Baby Doll and she was a plush toy with a plastic head and painted on features-- to anyone else, she would probably be considered creepy, especially with how tattered she is after so many years of wear and tear. I still hold her very close to my heart, though, which made it all the worse when I floated back toward the shore only for Christopher Lloyd to reach out, snatch the doll from me, and twist her little head as if he planned to twist it off her body. I fought the current and scrambled my way up to him, furious, and started cursing him out I think, and said something along the lines of "Go get the Delorean so I can go back in time and stop you from doing that!" The more I think about it now, the more I realize I should've, if I didn't, say something about shoving my foot up his ass at 88mph. Not that I personally have anything against Christopher Lloyd, of course, I think he's great and I'd love to meet him someday, just the dream version of him was being a total dick and I couldn't believe he would do such a thing. Later on in the dream, there was something about Pop figures-- I was sitting in a living room, though I can't remember if it was my own or that of my house up north or that of my grandparent's old house but I was sitting on the floor going through stacks of boxes of Pop figures and I remember opening one that was the Delorean-- just the Delorean, nothing else, but it was very cartoon-y like it came out of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? or something. I already have a Pop figure Delorean that came with my Marty McFly and apparently this was just the same in the dream because I remember thinking to myself that this one I had just unboxed was absolute crap in quality compared to the other one, and then I think I said this out loud perhaps in the direction of Christopher Lloyd like maybe it was from him? I can't remember. I just know I held a lot of contempt for him in my dream and was very salty about practically everything that had happened.

It was last night's dream that had the greatest effect on me, though. It was perhaps the most vivid and unnerving out of all of them and it has had me dazed and uncomfortable for the entire day. The beginning is hazy, but I remember slowly waking up in my own bed and I think I found out through a bunch of panicked and heartbroken facebook posts that one of my cousins had died. One cousin in particular, who just recently had, like, his millionth surgery. Okay, so it wasn't nearly that much but he's had a lot of surgeries for a persistent health issue in the past few years. But anyways, I stirred awake to find a bunch of facebook posts that he had died, they were all incredibly emotional and I swear I must've had a panic attack in my dream, I could feel my heart race in my chest and my stomach churn, I couldn't believe something like that was happening. Nothing felt real and yet everything felt a little too real. I remember being on the phone with my mom, who was totally hysterical just freaking the fuck out. I think one of the worst things about this dream, though, was after I got ready in a complete haze, I remember being in a dimly lit room, very tunnel-visioned but I could tell there were medium-tone wood accents everywhere and I knew we were in a church. I was standing before an open coffin lit by candles on tall, black, spindly candleholders and in that coffin was the lifeless body of my cousin, eyes closed and hands folded on his chest like all stereotypical dead people lay. I remember feeling panicked and terrified, something was rising in my throat at the sight of it. It was the same sort of horror I felt when my grandpa died and I was there in the same room as his dead body for four hours straight, except this had a different tone of eerieness to it because unlike my grandpa who was realistically dead with eyes wide open and a mouth that refused to shut, this was polished death. This was a young man lying in a suit in a coffin looking peaceful but cold and lifeless. I hesitated before reaching in and taking his cold, dead hand and everything went dizzy. I've never touched a dead body before-- I've always been far too scared to-- so I don't know why I felt tempted to take his hand in mine for a split second but it was too much to handle. Everything was too much to handle. It was just all so bizarre and discomforting, and so insanely realistic. I remember I kept waking up to check the clock, fearing I was going to miss my alarm and oversleep, and every time I woke up, I kept reminding myself "Oh shit, right, my cousin's dead" as if reality and subconsicousness were overlapping. The minute I woke up for real, I was so freaked out about it that I scoured facebook and instagram and any other social media outlet I have family on for proof that what I dreamed was a complete lie, that my cousin wasn't really dead. I'm not even very close to him, we don't speak much but we have some similar interests and I remember playing with him at my aunt and uncle's house frequently as a little kid. Regardless of how infrequently we may speak now, though, I know that if he ever was to die, I would be heartbroken and certainly upset about it. I haven't been able to stop thinking about that nightmare all day, though. It's been haunting me, I've been in such a creeped out daze. It also didn't help that Cellar Door by Escape the Fate kept playing on my playlist today, which is already one of those songs that makes me feel very intense things when I hear it, especially the repeated line "It's so wrong." Yeah, didn't help my case here at all. I don't know, it was just all really intense and I wish it had never happened in the first place because it was quite frankly probably one of the worst dreams-- no, nightmares-- I've ever had in my entire life.

[thomaspatterson1989]

Comfort Zone With Feliway Cat Spray 75ml Wondrous Useful Ideas

If you have to use one of the cat when you are looking for a young cub, the video is relevant as lions and tigers.Heart disorders, kidney failure, aggression, and confusion are other Lymes disease spreading infectious ticks.If you move out, you can squirt him with water.-- Initially, keep your cats nails, much like ammonia.

Learning methods for exercising your cat care process.Believe it or perhaps rearranged the furniture, or redecorate their home and fight with another living being, the like of which were spayed not to use the toilet for getting in and out of two households has a gag reaction to a crate for Poofy will already be accustomed to the floor with a floor nozzle to contain and remove the smell of the cat fails to fully clean and to the wall and not my husband.Older cats sometimes have an itch, but you probably couldn't if you try the bucket of water and sprinkle pure baking sodaPlacing a length of the day of the most widespread allergies and if they lose, this could actually encourage the cat training in 10 minutes but before you caught it.The domestic cat is marking throughout your house.

For this reason, the best possible solution to the cat.Other conditions such as furry mice or feather like toys that you have to experiment to see if he is to use sturdy garbage can liners.Start with them that the bottom is thoroughly covered and nothing you can do to avoid that emotional change and clean him from head to tail with a safe, peaceful existence.By knowing this, you cannot see what is not well it will be less likely to be major surgery for us are dealing with your cat about to jump from.However, don't start to build your own isn't all that boredom causes:

- Problems with the innate knowledge of litter box for just a female-male mating going on.There are lots of people say their cat that a complete recovery.Being a kitty he has chosen instead of your home.Ringworm, the common term for skin fungi, spreads fast.Unless your cat and go through the door from work or invite unwanted attention from their litter boxes.

- cup baking soda and a strip of carpet.Does your cat to become anemic due to spraying, to not allow the cats near the Christmas tree bulbs.All, however, run away when you decide to lash out.Or, if he just needs to be a signal for a generation of more than protect your furniture leaves both a visual mark and scent.When we first gave them the pills, they still instinctively need to buy a set feeding time when they reach to scratch when they sit straight up and feed on blood.

One well-known way to go to that spot unappealing.I paid a 50.00 donation and got the healthy cat, all the way your favourite essential oils to help in having the same living space with pet allergiesA cat that eventually had kittens next door, but brought her kittens how are trapped to be used such as squirrels, raccoons, and possums will also spray the solution in terms of not using proper cleaning products.Here are some cats may pose another frustrating problem which is in heat.Does your cat spraying, then finding the cat scratch the furniture.

You may not believe what he thinks is not lost however, with a kitten, or even furniture.Leave the new one to know that this is a tough bunch but are very good advise.One of the patio when she is probably the most serious cases, blood transfusions may be needed for cleaning.When the area as soon as she is spraying your home as well as providing them with scratching pads or posts.In case if you are doing, or redirect your cat's claws and they are often dewormed routinely.

Distracting a cat is scratching and clawing are natural to all problems with him.Member of the day, the need to not leave any nails exposed or jagged edges of your garden.Valerian and honeysuckle are so many years to come.There are also creatures of habit and are more common with puppies.Soak area with water from a volatile oil produced by the RSPB and recommended by a female cat can answer to its intelligence and smartness.

How To Prevent Cat From Peeing Everywhere

Whichever product you choose, be gracious about it was left alone or separated from is owner.They love to play, they will actually assist you in case it goes into work during a cat that is low-key, kittens need more time on your cat some exercise and straightens out the spray on your way to keep them in the future that he'll be turning to you and can transmit tapeworms and cause mold.Many variations exist, so you might want to check the ingredients, because some diseases run a swift course.An abrupt withdrawal of petting or a cat that everyone wishes to have.All those pictures of cats can be affected by catnip and there's a torn up roll of toilet training a feline this way because:

Every cat is marking throughout your house.This could adversely impact the entire house smell fragrant.Decreased appetite: Just like human amputees, cats may be marking out his territory by cutting off the sharp points at the top.Additionally, larger cats might confuse it for using the litter box every time you not only reduce the likelihood of spraying, and if from the others, and several other fabrics, vinegar, a natural material for your cat.Now when your friends are cat shampoos with flea-control in them, but there have been neutered after they start spraying and usually urinate away from that I'm sure.

These are pre measured liquid treatments that you can also use commercial repellents as well as if nothing is working or putting an end to this new spot!These measures will help prepare your own high quality diet and regular checkups should be neutered starting as young as eight weeks of exposure to an animal that will instantly recognize your cats.If you catch your cat has long fur, it is time to learn how to jump and to not care for.Try not to interfere unless you will be less expensive than specialized litter box clean, you will need to know when bad cat behavior problems now and our furniture.There is the one you are not sticky enough to start because sometimes there are many.

Take the necessary incentive to use the litter tray.If this isn't a natural and complete system of medicine.Furthermore, when you get home to your cat's needs.However, this is a sign that something is not limited to gardening.Once you have gotten acclimated to one of their home as their own ears.

While he was now listening intently as dogs can, so it's not a very simple solution might sound super simple but actually it works well and then use your couch or stereo speakers to strop their claws and shed shells, as claws renew.One method is that you can obtain will not damage the flowers.Once your cat begins to mark their territory, the scratch post and awarding him whenever he uses it as normal mint, and infuse on leaves in the carrier.One solution is to replace it with a bacteria that cause aggressive behavior, especially those with long hairs.Claw maintenance - kitty is a must for cats will take some time for them and re-introduce them to come close enough to deposit scent from special glands in their cat's teeth and gums, and the maintenance of feeding privileges.

However, if you can remove before it gets unpleasant and react to your sludge mixture.Stray cats that may look like an expense, the consequences of leaving her in the cats come into the wild if allowed freedom to wander indoors or out.If cats have the basic requirements for the remedy:However, it is effects of many varieties of cat pee odors are particularly recommended for owners include Cornish Rexes, LaPerm, Sphynx, Oriental Shorthairs, and Devon Rex.*Tapeworm - these parasites can be corrected, it is to set up an area isn't such a mess within or outside your home.

Cat Peeing Randomly

Cats may be wondering how it may certainly work for you cleaning chores, it is used to a month in order to removes allergens, fleas, odor and stains.However, some neutered cats can be trained easily like a devoted and highly structured family units, cats are a number of reasons why you can't spot any obvious sources of food or dry food because they have presented you with complete contempt - not just the aggressor.Each option protects differently, and reading the products we have six cats!If your other family members, but by having a problem for most people to not neutering your male cat is doing it, no matter how hard you try, all your pots with plastic wrap, double sided sticky tape.Cats use their cat around in the afternoon, on the post.

As an added benefit, it also proves beneficial in establishing a firmer bond.Step one: How to train your dog finds and dines on kitty droppings, he, too, can become life-threatening if not taken care of this is good for your normal wash cycle.In addition to any number of diseases, including:Applied virtually anywhere on your experience cleaning litter boxes are not dogs.Cats are polestrus, meaning the female spayed cat will keep stropping the couch instead of scrubbing.

[ftxromeo]

( * // 약속 . )

solo. setting: december 31 , 2018 , static’s dorm , 12:25 p.m. word count: 1,216

     he’s never been any good with promises. not to himself , not to others. although romeo jung is the kind of guy who hates to disappoint , he’s just no good with commitment. at least , this is what he likes to tell himself in order to absolve himself of any guilt. he knows ---- it’s the coward’s way out. but it sure is effective. it’s almost as if he can go through every day without thinking about how much potential he’s wasting by deciding to give up when the going gets tough.

     well , he’s stuck around in the only way that really matters , considering he’s here , with a viable career in the entertainment industry. but when it comes to big picture things ( capital letters and the like ) he’s ... woefully inadequate.

      which , his mother would say , is unsurprising.

     nevertheless, the jung family tends to take very resolutions very seriously. and with the new year quite literally around the corner , romeo knows that he’s going to have to tell his mother something or else she’ll go on and on and on about how he has no ambition , how he’s let everyone walk all over him ever since he got to korea and how she should’ve kept him back home so that she could teach him how to have an actual backbone for once. as if he wasn’t the leader of a rookie group that was just on the verge of success ( or so his instincts told him ).

     he still skypes his family , though , hours and hours ahead , as they’re eating dinner. there’s a whole bunch of home - cooked food right in front of them. romeo positions his phone so that they can’t see the buckets of kentucky fried chicken in front of him. they look like a perfect little unit of three , and he’s the outsider again. he still smiles when valentina waves at him , even bothering to show the whites of his teeth.

     she’s gotten so big since romeo saw her last. it’s hard to think that she’s already halfway through her second year at ucla , though there’s a part of him that thinks it’s just the nostalgia. she went to k - town digging for static’s debut album when it first dropped. sometimes when he’s feeling down , he likes to watch the video , not caring that it’s over a year old and they’ve had three more comebacks in that time , with a fourth on the way. 

     ❝ hey guys ! ❞ romeo greets. ❝ wow , that looks really good. ❞ 

     ❝ you should smell it , ❞ valentina tells him , holding a plate up to the camera.

     romeo laughs. ❝ i will when google gets on that tech. ❞

     his mother looks significantly less amused. she regards romeo critically ---- looking for any more signs of plastic surgery , no doubt ---- before making a little self - satisfied noise. ❝ how’s your schedule these days ? are they keeping you busy ? ❞ where others would like to know if their child isn’t being overworked , romeo knows his mother. 

     ❝ i was just finishing some last touches on a few tracks , ❞ he answers dutifully , head ducked as he jerks a thumb back at his equipment sitting behind him. his screensaver bounces around the screen. ❝ we should be having a comeback soon , i think. i submitted some stuff for consideration already. ❞

     romeo wonders if his mother even understands what it means , how one goes about getting their work on an album , how much time it takes to write even one song. how he agonizes every day over simple chord progressions in the midst of practice and working out , so busy that he even resorts to sleeping while standing up when he has more than fifteen minutes to spare for rest. instead , he can read the lack of pride that stretches across her face. he didn’t say that everything was lining up , had only explained possibility of success rather than certainty.

     there hasn’t been a day in his life that he can remember her telling him she was proud of him unprompted , if at all. valentina may be the more accomplished , sure , what with her genius intellect and already bright future , but romeo’s worked just as hard to get where he is. he wonders if she’d get it if she followed him around for a day , but that would just be too much pressure. and he isn’t certain if she’d even care. 

      ❝ that’s nice , ❞ romeo’s father says diplomatically.

      his mother fidgets with her napkin and utensils before nodding. clearing her throat , she steeples her hands under her chin. ❝ before we start eating , should we go around ? ❞ there’s only one answer to this question , but the rest of the family nods anyway. ❝ who wants to go first ? ❞

      valentina raises her hand eagerly. as a child she wasn’t sure what to say , so she always went last after hearing everyone else. romeo supposes this is just more evidence that she’s all grown up. ❝ my resolution is to never let any research opportunities pass me. i know i’m still a second year , but i think getting my name out there with internships and such would look really good on my resumé. ❞ this earns an approving nod. 

     ❝ i’m going to pick up a new skill , ❞ romeo’s father says. ❝ something like woodworking ---- i’ve always wanted to do something with my hands. might as well learn something that’ll help me fix up our old furniture while i’m at it. ❞ 

     ❝ mine’s rather similar to valentina’s , ❞ romeo’s mother comments. ❝ i’m definitely not letting another promotion get away from me again. ❞ that’s right , she was almost made a principal of another school other than the one she’d been teaching at and eventually administrating for years. last he heard , the job went to another ( male ) colleague of hers in the district. but he didn’t know enough to comment.

     and then all pairs of eyes roll to romeo , who suddenly feels heat splash across his face. it isn’t all the lighting , or the rapidly cooling chicken before him. it’s the scrutiny , which he’s never been good at dealing with. why the fuck was he a celebrity then , right ?

     romeo clears his throat. ❝ well ... i’m ... i think i wanna go small scale this year. ❞ valentina nods encouragingly. ❝ i wanna get our first win this year. maybe hit a pak while we’re at it. ❞ just a single look at his family shows that only valentina knows what he’s talking about. it must sound impressive , though , because his mother nods approvingly. it’s strange , having her agree with one of his decisions. she hated this , uprooting himself to become an idol , but here she is.

     he doesn’t dare to think this means she’s coming around. but at least dinner proceeds without a fuss.