#where do dust mites come from?

[joshmraymond]

How do I remove dust mites from my carpet?

Dust mites are microscopic pests that can live in your carpet and cause allergic reactions in some people. They thrive in warm, humid environments and feed on dead skin cells, pet dander, and other organic materials found in carpet fibers. If you are concerned about dust mites in your carpet, there are several steps you can take to reduce their population.

One of the most effective ways to get dust mites out of your carpet is to hire a professional carpet cleaner. A professional cleaner, such as Axiom Floor Care, can use proven methods to remove dust mites and their waste from your carpet. They have the right equipment and expertise to thoroughly clean your carpet and reduce the dust mite population in your home.

Axiom Floor Care offers a range of carpet cleaning services, including steam cleaning and hot water extraction, which can help eliminate dust mites and other allergens from your carpet. Their experienced technicians use safe cleaning agents and techniques to effectively remove dust mites without harming your carpet or the environment.

In addition to hiring a professional carpet cleaner, there are other steps you can take to reduce dust mites in your home. Regular vacuuming and steam cleaning can help remove dust mites and their waste from your carpet. It's also important to wash your bedding and curtains regularly and to keep humidity levels in your home low to discourage dust mites from thriving.

If you're concerned about dust mites in your carpet, consider hiring a professional carpet cleaner like Axiom Floor Care. With their proven methods and expertise, they can help reduce the dust mite population in your home and improve the overall cleanliness and air quality of your living space. Don't let dust mites take over your carpet – take action to remove them and enjoy a healthier, cleaner home.

[softshuji]

Sometimes Tokyo is a suffocating place. 

Rindou loves it, don’t get him wrong. The various districts, various people, all milling about, some on phones talking fast, pushing through crowds that part unwillingly as they plough through, mothers and babies in prams and it’s loud, so loud, the tinny buzz of voices on top of each other and his head aches with the need for some silence. 

He walks into the library on a whim, his headphones blinking red and drained of battery and the cool quiet interior is a welcome respite from the noise, the collar of his shirt clinging to his neck under his hoodie, the occasional wisp of blond blue hair curling around his ears as the air con blows a blast of cold air.

Once he had hidden here with Ran, between the aisles as a police car rushed past, the two of them hunched over and catching their breath, a long stare that petered off into giggles and laughs, the two of them young and still new to it all. It’s a bit different now, a bit harder to get Ran’s attention since his Wife and child came along. He doesn’t resent it, he’s happy for him. Ran has been the source of his safety for years, it would be selfish to keep him like that- to rob him of what he knows Ran deserves. Peace, something to lean on when he is too stubborn to lean on him. 

Old habits do tend to die hard.

But he can’t lie and say it isn’t lonely sometimes. The days when he picks up the phone, types out a text to his Brother- the only person who was only ever a call away, a message away, a shout across the house- and imagines him juggling the throes of newfound parenthood, something he loves and enjoys, and having his little Brother clinging onto him still, this far into adulthood when Rindou thinks he should be able to stand on his own two feet and wishes it was easier to do so.

There is only so much music he can listen to, only so much he can drink alone, only so many clubs he can waste his time at before it bothers him- the strobe lighting, the flirtations of girls who’ll forget his name when the next hotshot with a wad of cash comes along, and maybe he flirts back for a time, just to throw out the napkin with their numbers on later because it ultimately means nothing to him when there’s so little substance and he hates the idea of meeting someone like that- playing pretend because there’s so little else to do.

He’s angry that it seems so hard for him and he wishes he were a little less….him at times. A little more like Ran, a little easier, a little less rough around the edges, the jagged and sharp points of him that are stubborn and unwilling to be smoothed down by time. If it were a year ago, he’d call his Brother now and they’d drive at night and he’d feel a little less like he’s wading out to shore, a little more seen, a little less like he’s squashed between here and there and scrambling for something to understand. 

Maybe he kicks at the ground then, and maybe he loses his footing and stumbles into you reaching up to get something from the shelf, you knocked sideways and him barrelling into you, one hand braced on the wall to stabilise himself, the other reaching for you to pull you to him instinctually. 

‘Shit, fuck, I’m sorry,’ he says, headphones clattering to the floor, the wires corded around his hoodie, an avid crimson spillingacross his skin. ‘You okay?’

‘Yeah, yeah, no I’m fine, don't worry.’ And you look up from where you’d bent to brush the dust from your legs with the beginnings of a smile. And maybe the light hits you at just the right angle, the sunlight dancing through the window, dust mites flickering in the golden glow- or maybe he’d touched your hand for a fraction of a second and it had been warm and soft or maybe he’s rationalising and something cold in him cracks a little but he smiles back and lifts a hand to rub at his neck with a trepidation that he curses himself for. 

You laugh, awkwardly, a brightness around the edge of you that feels warm, that feels foreign and weird and genuine and he watches the reflection of himself in your eyes, bewilderment and confusion and an attempt at a lopsided smile when you retrieve his headphones from the floor, the two sides now coming apart in your hands.

‘Oh,’ you say, a worried bite on your lip, the two sides of his now broken pair in your two hands. ‘God I’m so sorry, I can pay you for these-’

‘No need, it was my fault, I’m the one who hit you.’

‘No, no, I was in the way-’

‘You weren’t, I was just not watching where I was going. You don’t have to pay for anything, they weren’t that good anyway.’

He neglects to mention that they were his favourite pair, a set he bought a year back to kick off the DJ thing that never really went anywhere, because it was only ever just him and the kit, him and the music and maybe it was a lonely experience to not have anyone to share that with, long nights where the tinny sound of the music is somehow an ache in the otherwise silent house.

‘You sure?’ You cock your head to the side, lifting the two halves. ‘They seem really good quality. I can’t pay for it all now but maybe-’

‘Don’t worry, seriously. I got a tonne more at home.’

You blink and he curses himself again inwardly, avoiding and resisting a sidestep on his feet in nervous apprehension. He sees then, your books scattered on the floor at your feet, and bends to pick them, resting them under his arm as he leans down before handing them to you gently, his fingers brushing yours on the underside and it makes his chest lurch when you murmur a quiet ‘thank you’ that he’s glad isn’t lost on the reverberating drone and shuffle of feet in the next aisles over. 

‘Okay, I can get you a coffee? It doesn’t quite make up but I’d feel bad for not doing anything at all.’ You turn to pack the books into your bag and he watches you, the ease with which you hand the two sides back to him and wait expectantly for his reply, the loud and disastrous crash of his heart that he’s convinced you can hear, the long and ample silence that has his tongue clinging to the roof of his mouth. 

‘You don’t have to say yes by the way- I’m not trying to- you know, I just feel bad for breaking one of your things-’

His lips part. ‘Yes, yes, I’ll….’ he chews on his lip, hands helplessly holding the broken headphones, the swirl of something that feels like desperation clouding the flecked hue of his eyes. ‘Yeah, I think that’ll be okay.’

And it feels strange and different and new and terrifying when you grin brightly and pat his arm  and the hollow of his throat beats with nerves, pink flashing across his cheeks and ears in a way that feels so utterly like a betrayal.

You hum, hoist a stack under your arm and the sun is out, streaming through the windows as you lift your bag over your shoulder. ‘Okay nice, I’m going to go check these out but I'll meet you outside in ten?’

‘S-sure….’ he says, a whisper caught on his lips with a starved and suffocating breath, the dizzying euphoria, nerves and anxiety all rolling along his chest when he watches you leave with a short wav, the bag you’re carrying falling over your shoulder.

And maybe the pain is good this time, the sense of vertigo that has him bracing a hand on the shelf, a hand to his chest to rub at, slow and deliberate breaths to calm his racing heart.

Maybe this time, he feels a little less angry, a little less sad, a little more like something that feels scarily akin to happiness. 

Reblogs appreciated!

[foldingfittedsheets]

my bed mattress is nearly 2 decades old now but it's still like the comfiest bed i've ever slept in (my autism may have a role in this), is it really necessary to replace it?

Hmgh. It… depends. As someone who Bonds with items especially in my comfort zone like bed and couch this is tough to answer.

A few signs that you do in fact need to replace it:

The bed has a divot where you sleep. These will always impact good sleep and support. Automatic replace.

You are tossing, turning, waking up unrested, or achey. Be very attentive to how you feel upon waking. If you need to keep a diary of how often you wake up unachey and check in after two weeks. If you're conssitently not sleeping great the mattress is letting you down.

If you're waking up congested. 90% of people do not have adequate well maintained mattress protectors. Beds can double their weight every ten years due to dead skin, dust mites and their assorted corpses as they live their life cycles, and general dust. All these thing can cause allergic congestion and is also just Not Great to breathe all night.

All this being said. I nor anyone else is gonna come take your bed from you. You can do whatever you like with your bed, ten years is when I recommend people tune in and asses their situation.

[mushroompone]

@0-bloom

Fate wants me to write an evil Twijack fic REALLY bad.

#25 on my Spotify Wrapped was Haunted, by Poe. Poe has received some attention recently for writing some (very good) original songs for the (very good) game Alan Wake II. The reason this song from her 2004 album is on my Spotify Wrapped is because it was written as a companion to the novel House of Leaves—a fantastic piece of experimental horror literature written by her brother, Mark Z. Danielewski. The siblings worked in tandem on the novel and the album, and released them at the same time.

It’s also a really good song.

“What exactly is the story your grandmother told you?” Twilight asked, summoning a brilliant plumed quill and parchment from what seemed to be thin air. “For posterity.”

“Uh… Wasn’t much of a story,” Applejack said. “She told us the farmhouse grew here. Not how it is now—it used to be smaller, and the farmhouse grew a new room before each new child was born.”

“Approximately how long before the birth did the room materialize?” Twilight asked, her quill scribbling madly as she inspected a nearby doorframe. “Excuse me—grow?”

Applejack chuckled. “That’s a funny story, actually: she likes to say that the house knew she was pregnant with my daddy before even she did. Gave her husband a scare.” 

“Mm-hm…” Twilight murmured. “And the other children?”

“Er… I couldn’t say,” Applejack admitted. “My granny tended to talk in stories. You ever know anypony like that?”

“No,” Twilight replied.

Twilight crouched down to inspect the floorboards, pausing her manic note-taking only to run the tip of her quill along a seam and inspect the compacted dirt and dust which collected there. She made a face of moderate surprise and amusement, then jotted down more information.

“What about your younger sister?” Twilight asked. “Apple… something. Do you remember a new room growing before she was born?”

“Uh… that’s where things get a mite complicated,” Applejack said. “See, there was a bit of a… a fallin’ out. A few, actually. Who was or wasn’t considered a member of the Apple family was a bit of a sore subject when our generation was comin’ up.”

Twilight asked no follow-up questions. She scribbled down a bit of information on her parchment, then poofed her materials away. “Thank you, Applejack. I’ll be running some tests out of my lab in the Library. Do you think I could come back tomorrow to collect more samples?”

“More… samples?” Applejack repeated.

“Yes.” Twilight pointed to the doorframe. “I took a small splinter. As well as some dust from the floors. I hope that was alright—I can put it back.”

“The splinter?”

“Yes. I can put it back if you’d like.”

A small smile broke across Applejack’s face. She shook her head. “Naw. I think we’ll be able to get on without it, Ms. Sparkle.”

Twilight nodded—just once, sharp and curt. “I’ll be going, then.”

“I’ll show you out.”

Twilight blushed as the farmer swept in beside her. “And, um… you can call me Twilight.”

Applejack smiled as she opened the front door and waved the tiny unicorn through. “Pleasure meeting you, Twilight,” she said. “And I’ll be seeing you tomorrow.”

Send me a character/ship and a number (1-100)for a snippet inspired by my Spotify Wrapped!

[monakisu]

i'm very sorry to bother you, but since i didn't get a chance before it was shoved in the dusty storage closet, i just wanna say that the cat & the crow is such a PHENOMENAL fic. i was literally so emotional over baby akira the entire time i was reading it. his loneliness is so acute and it is SOUL-WRENCHING. you characterize both him and goro so well. your prose just makes it too omg. it switches so well from a jovial, childhood summer to a scene that makes me sob. it's so so good. goro too is such a little shit in that i need to knit him a sweater right now. anyways yeah that's all i wanted to say gl with whatever project you're currently working on!!!

wow this is great thanks. my current project is: chapter 4.

i remember seeing this notification and smiling widely to myself but right now im feeling like a dust mite so im not very verbose HOWEVER as thanks i'll just show you a section of ch.4 i've more or less completed. i would never do this normally but i like your message a lot so know that you are Sublimely Special. enjoy!

Goro had personally shown up at Akira's doorstep twice now, but not once had he stepped foot inside. This was a tragedy, a travesty, and a tremendous oversight on Akira's part. What a horrible host he'd been! His guest would come all this way and Akira would make him loiter at the welcome mat as he held open the door just wide enough to show off the inside of his house, but not so wide to let anybody actually enter. It was like setting up a candy shop during a famine and catering only to the roly-poly rich who had more than enough to gorge themselves on, while the hungry could only paw forlornly at the window displays. 

It was, in short, terrible, taunting torture. 

The second Goro stepped gingerly into the clearing, prim and pretty, Akira flashed up to him and grabbed him by the shoulders—firmly, the way one stopped a bull by the horns.

"My house today," Akira ordained lowly.

Goro's eyes blew wide open. His shoulders locked up tighter than a maximum security vault. His mouth worked wordlessly for a few seconds. "O—Okay?"

It would be interesting to see how Goro contrasted with the interior decor. This was a completely normal thought. 

"Is there anything we need to specifically do at your house?" Goro asked cautiously. 

Akira pondered this, then decided that a normal thought ought to work well as a normal response. "I need to see how you contrast with the interior decor."

Once again, Goro went wordless. 

His silence persisted all throughout the trek to Akira's house. It wasn't a terribly long trek; they needed only to stick to a straight path. The forest that housed their clearing belonged to an elevated hillside, as did Akira's cul-de-sac. The further up one ventured in the hills, the bigger and farther spaced apart the houses became. Community was most prominently condensed in the heart of Inaba, down below with Junes, the mom-and-pop shops, and cozy neighborhoods, where people couldn't go two steps without running into a familiar face. This community fractured into thin spiderweb strands high up in the hills, where residents veered more on the stand-offish, reclusive end of the spectrum, loosely linked by gossamer silk that could break off at any sudden movement. Once one made it high enough that the hills became mountains, however, community came to a full stop. Nobody lived there, save for the rare few crazy people. The crazies fell into two categories: those who had gone crazy from the isolation, or those who were simply crazy for nature. 

Those sickos went on hikes... for fun. 

Here on the hills, wide expanses of land could go empty for a great many steps before someone's backyard began. Once out of the forest, there was minimal shade to hide Akira and Goro from the relentless sun, motivating them to quicken their pace. Some land developer decades ago had chopped down a good chunk of the forest to make room for houses. Compared to the odyssey it took to get to Junes, they reached Akira's house in no time. 

The uncharacteristic absence of complaints following behind Akira unsettled him. A chatty birdy was a healthy birdy. A quiet birdy was a... concern. 

Like a candlestick succumbing to a flame, Akira's confidence had melted steadily with each silence-laden step towards his house. By the time they were standing at his doorstep, he had grown quite clammy. 

"Ummm... this is my house." Which Goro already knew. "You know this." 

Goro finally broke his silence. "Yes, I do?" 

Hearing his voice, Akira's candlestick confidence quickly rebuilt itself, invigorating him enough to chance a glance at Goro's face. Instead of the scary blankness he'd been dreading, Goro just looked a little confused. His eyebrows were furrowed and his stare was one full of studious intent, as though Akira had presented him a new, never-before-seen puzzle to solve by the end of the day. 

"Is there a reason you've dragged me here? A real one. Other than to compare me to the interior. By the way, cat, that's an extremely odd thing to say. Be more self-aware, why don't you?"

Aw, beans. Not normal at all.

"Well?" Goro crossed his arms. "Are we going in or wasting the day on your welcome mat?"

Akira looked down at his shoes, where they stood on nothing but stone.

"Figuratively speaking," clarified Goro. 

Akira supposed it was high time to get a move on things. "I don't lock the door—"

"You really should."

"—but the key's usually behind the water fairy." He was referring to the never-once worked fountain statue of a pretty lady carved from stone, cradling a big blossom from which water was presumably meant to sprout. If there was a hidden button to activate the fountain mechanism, then it remained lost to all the residents of the house. 

"Seriously? The first time you're inviting me into your home, and you're immediately granting me the power to swing in anytime I want? Why is this the first thing you tell me about your house?"

Goro sounded awfully judgmental for what was supposed to be a nice gesture. In a brilliant feat of rational thinking, Akira reasoned, "It's fine if it's Goro."

"And only me, alright?" stressed Goro, voice dragged down low by ominous implications. "Never extend this right to anybody else. You recall that chain of murders two years ago. Who knows what they'd do with this sort of power. Sneak into your house and slash your throat while you sleep? That's the likeliest possibility. A preventable possibility. Not even the worst thing that could happen. There are fates far more savage than a quick death. It's a foolish thing to do: handing your death wish to any random stranger who happens to look your way, then pointing them to the welcome mat. Don't tell anybody else about this key, Akira. It's enough for me to know. Got it?"

That was a huge PSA prompted by one little key. Akira patiently humored him, "Got it, Goro. Only you."

Goro seemed to like how that sounded, because his sternness was stolen away by a twitch to the corner of his mouth, which then grew and grew into a big, proud, peachy-pleased smile. "Don't you forget that, cat."

The door swung open with its customary creaaak. Akira had organized the shoes populating the mudroom in advance in jittery anticipation of Goro's visit. It was a plum thing that he'd done so; his mother's last visit seemed to require digging out every pair of shoes in her possession from the shelves and cabinets and closets, and then another requirement had been to flood the floor with mismatched shoes and gutted boxes, and then the last requirement had been to leave promptly. It only just now occurred to Akira that he'd have been awfully ashamed to show Goro something so sloppy. 

"It's nice to see more of your house beyond a tiny crack when you open your door," Goro said, but where his voice would usually be brimming with bite and energy, it sounded off. Shoes still on, he stood listlessly by the entrance. 

Akira took out a pair of newly purchased slippers and set it in front of Goro. Each slipper had its own smiling frog face protruding from the top, big and bulbous. Akira had seen them at Junes, thought them charming, and bought them promptly. While Goro stared incomprehensibly at the slippers, Akira swapped his sandals for his own pair. 

"These are house slippers," Akira informed him, when Goro still had yet to make a move. The frogs seemed to be offending his eyes. "You can wear them if you want." It hardly mattered if he didn't; Akira had recently swept the floors, so there was no dust to kick up. He had to rely on brooms and mops instead of their handier relative, the vacuum cleaner, since it was too bulky for him to maneuver just yet. 

After a few more nudges, Goro stiffly, stiltedly swapped his loafers for slippers, then had to be lured out of the mudroom with encouraging words like a spooked horse. 

Akira's birdy started the house tour with immense, palpable discomfort. Disappointingly, he and the interior didn't seem to be meshing very well. He took small steps, feet feather-light, as though reluctant to even touch the floor through the pads of his slippers. Did he hate the floorboards so sorely? Maybe he thought they were dirty? Hoping to put his worries at ease, Akira assured him that he'd swept it two days ago. He could sweep it again, right now, should Goro wish for it. 

"Wishing is for losers!" Goro snapped with unforeseen fury.

W-Wow. Okay.

Thankfully, expressing his anger in a new environment was enough of a foot in the door for him to finally relax. He began taking big, stomping strides forward, slippers slapping the floor, as though to physically distance himself from his unease. Akira hurried after him. 

By the time he caught up, Goro had made it to the living room. He was frowning at the admittedly excessive number of lamps littering the space. It was as though every lamp in the rest of the house had been squirreled away into this single room—a lamp monopoly. That was Akira's doing. Recently, he'd discovered a fondness for lamps from the lighting section in the furniture store. After spending all day under the sun, returning to a dark and dreary house had been rather jarring. The lamps had been his choice of remedy. There were actually more lamps than there were electrical outlets. 

Across the hallway, separated by big, rectangular columns that rose up into ceiling-high arches, were the sitting rooms. The Red Room waited insidiously in the corner of his eye. Akira had drawn open the thick, velveteen curtains of every window in the house early this morning, to allow sunlight to stream into what was usually a gloomy interior. In addition to Goro's natural influence, the whole house seemed that much brighter. 

"Oh, it's your monster under the bed." Goro was referring to the little cat plushie slumped over on the couch. That's... one way of putting it. "There was also one on your shoe stand. Don't tell me your whole house is populated with these things."

"Alright," agreed Akira. "I won't tell you." And then he pointed at a lamp. "This is a lamp." He felt like he was doing a pretty dandy job of this tour guide thing.

Goro glowered at him sourly, then resolutely looked at anything but the lamp. In doing so, something else caught his hateful eye. "Hey, is that your landline?" He seemed to doubt the validity of this landline, because he went over specifically to the little side table by the couch so he could pick up the phone, listen to the dull beeeeep of the dial tone, and set it back down. "Fantastic. I'll make a note of this."

If Akira could, he'd have a giant question mark bobbing above his head. 

"Your couch takes up too much space," was the next item on Goro's list to gripe about. Actually, Akira had yet to figure out if that phone tangent qualified as a gripe or not. Goro had been shockingly cordial with it. 

Akira settled on a shrug. "There's a lot of space... to take up."

"That's regrettably true. You know what?" Here came the follow-up item on Goro's list of gripes: "Your house takes up too much space."

Akira had nothing to say to that. 

"What's that thing?" Goro pointed an accusing finger at a big, table-like object cloaked in an embroidered tapestry, tucked away in a corner of the living room. It seemed he had found his next target to tear into. 

"That's the piano. Nobody uses it." Akira corrected himself, "Nobody has used it." 

For as long as he'd been alive, he'd never once witnessed its use. It might have been a gift, once upon a time. His mother liked to brag about the various sumptuous offerings the "background characters" had lavished her with, on the most important, most momentous, most mostest day in history: her wedding. This was in conjunction to bragging about her wedding in general. She was a woman who thrived exclusively on the memory of a single day.

Once a reflective obsidian sleeker than silk, the grand piano had now faded away into a mundane fixture of the house—another piece of decor against which to prop more decor. Oftentimes, Akira struggled to recognize it as a piano and not as a uniquely shaped table. 

Goro was prompt in concocting a condemnation for it. "What a waste. Sitting there and rotting away. The keys have probably collected so much dust, mold, and dirt that they're more biohazards than instruments. You've never even bothered practicing?"

"Practicing? For what?"

"Practicing playing the piano, Akira."

"Oh." Akira nodded. That made sense. "No. I don't know how."

"Then why is it still here?" agonized Goro. "Why don't you just—sell it off already?"

Akira wrinkled his nose. Selling required socializing. "That sounds like a lot of work." And the piano wasn't hurting anybody. It seemed to have adjusted well to its new life as a table. 

"Hopeless," was Goro's concocted condemnation for him, personally. 

"Would Goro like to try?" Pause. "Practicing?" Pause. "Playing the piano?" No more pauses. 

Goro grumbled, "You don't have to clarify what you mean so thoroughly. I'm not you." Objectively true. "And, no. What if I'm not immediately good at it? What if I fail from the get-go? I'd never live it down."

 Akira suggested more than said, "Nobody's immediately good at anything...? I don't think..."

"I am," declared Goro with unshakable certainty. 

Someone was missing the obvious here. "But you don't try things."

"I try the things I know I'm good at."

"But how do you know you're good at them if you've never tried them before?"

"Let's move on, Akira," Goro concluded abruptly. 

They moved on.

"Why do rich people insist on depriving their homes of every conceivable color besides white?" Goro's complaints were ceaseless. "They're so obsessed with mimicking mental institutions. All this money, but they still can't buy taste!" He did finally cease, however, when they walked past the Red Room. "T...That's... new."

"If you like perfume or blood, go in there." Akira pointed helpfully. With the way Goro was staring at him, as disturbed as a cow in a meat-packing factory, Akira wagered that he probably didn't enjoy either option very much. "That room's got a lot."

Goro's disturbed cow stare was growing more complex. "Of... blood?" 

Akira had learned the hard way of how ineffectual wet paper towels were when pitted against blood-stained Persian carpets. The same for vacuum cleaners. And hand soap. And dish soap. "Yeah."

"Oh." Goro didn't sound too happy. "Hey, look, there's your kitchen, cat."

"This is my kitchen," agreed Akira. 

Goro examined his surroundings with the critical eye of a health inspector, gaze panning from one end of the room where the fridge sat humming and wearing its winter coat of papers, magnets, stickers, and glue, then panning all the way to the other end, where the length of the black marble island came to a sleek stop and the circular breakfast table (rarely used) came to a circular beginning. The vase of sunflowers, having been moved from the middle of the hallway to the middle of the breakfast table, was slightly wilted and missing some of its petals, but its striking yellowness meant it especially stood out from its black and white environment. Goro lingered on it for a prolonged second, a faint smile ghosting his frown, before he swept over the rest of the kitchen once more. "How excessive." 

Nothing could satisfy his eye, it seemed. 

The second thing Goro said upon entering the kitchen was, "Why is there another cat on the windowsill?" 

"We need eggs for omelettes," announced Akira abruptly. He'd realized partway through the house tour that he'd really, really like to cook something for Goro. 

"Now that I think about it, you really do have those things scattered everywhere. Hoarder much?"

"Eggs."

Side-eyeing him, Goro huffed, "I'm hardly your maid," but went to retrieve the eggs from the fridge, which—Okay. Hadn't been Akira's intention in the first place, but was still awfully nice of him anyhow. Goro was ever-so thoughtful. 

His thoughtfulness extended to his need to narrate his thoughts regarding the state of Akira's fridge. According to those thoughts, it was not a very good state. "Why's this great big casket so empty?! Tsk, what a waste! And what is that? It looks like it used to be a tomato, but now it's growing itself an empire of mold. Disgusting!"

"The tomato lives there," Akira tried to explain, but, in truth, failed to achieve much of an explanation at all. "Ummm. Residency."

The fridge door was closed with a shuttering, shivering SLAM! that had it shedding some of its winter coat. Magnets clattered to the floor in one go. 

"Was that on purpose," asked Akira mildly. 

Goro didn't deem him with an actual answer. "You need to purge that thing." I'm not going to do that. "Here. Your stupid eggs." Whoa. Egg hatred. 

Akira thanked Goro genuinely and generously, because Goro was acting as though the egg retrieval had been some terribly taxing task that he'd nearly broken his back bending backwards and over completing, and thank you's ought to match the severity of the injuries incurred along the way. "Birdy's the best."

"That's right, cat," Goro preened, before he practically slammed the egg carton onto the countertop, the same way one might slam a plank of wood into someone's skull. The egg hatred went to the extremes, it seemed. 

Akira stopped this hate crime at the last second, shooting his hands out to cradle the carton from its tabletop torment. "Thank you so much," he stressed.

Goro frowned. "If you want the eggs so badly, just ask for them." He handed them over with considerably greater care, in a manner that conveyed his earnest belief that Akira was more fragile than an egg. If only he'd been that gentle when he'd been slapping cartons onto counters. "Also, why are we suddenly making omelettes?"

"Aren't you hungry?" 

A careless shrug. "I usually am. So what? It's nothing new."

How horrible! "Omelettes and onigiri," decided Akira.

Goro was astounded. "Stop adding more food?!"

Akira hadn't been nearly as thoughtful as Goro, and so had neglected to tell him to retrieve the rest of the ingredients with the eggs. As this was entirely his fault, Akira brought back the leftover rice from yesterday, a square frying pan, a spatula, and the seasonings by himself. 

Goro didn't like that. "Hey!" 

"What's wrong, Goro?"

"Why'd you bring back ten times as many items as me? That's a fundamental injustice!"

"You can hold them if you want." Akira shoved bottles of soy sauce and sesame oil into Goro's hands. Hopefully, these would keep him and his sense of justice occupied. 

Goro immediately went to complain, "This is a thankless task." But the complaints ended there, so he couldn't be that mad about it. 

"Thank you," Akira added, just to be sure.

Growling, Goro creaked his hostages rather dangerously. Akira didn't know bottles could creak like that. 

O-Okay, back to cooking. Akira announced hurriedly, "Let's prepare the eggs."

Goro halted his creaking to squint down at the eggs. "What do you do with them? They're eggs, so you crack them, don't you?"

Cracking eggs took serious skill. "Do you know how to crack an egg?" Goro was Goro, so of course he knew how to do something as skilled as this, right?

"Of course I know how to do something as simple as that!" Right!

Delighted by Goro's Goro-ness (this was a common occurrence), Akira accidentally let loose an enthralled, "Really?"

It was taken the wrong way. "Yes," Goro hissed, steaming-hot with offense. And then, dropping his hostages, he ripped an egg out of the carton, reeled his arm back, and smashed it onto the counter.

Akira watched it splatter in the most spectacular, most gruesome manner he'd ever seen an innocent egg be massacred.

...Maybe Goro doesn't know how to crack an egg. 

Goro took notice of Akira's stare and bristled, all pent-up rage and porcupine-y. "It's cracked now, isn't it?" 

"It... sure is," was what Akira eventually settled on. Because it really was cracked now—cracked all over the counter and all over the floor, with bits and bobs sticking to the wall, too. The blast radius was truly admirable, all things considered. He might have admired it a touch more had it been localized in a mixing bowl, where eggs were meant to be cracked—not exploded, simply cracked—and yolk was to be mixed—not exploded, either. 

And what else had cracked? The bottle of soy sauce. Goro was a wonder. 

"What other ingredients do I have to conquer?" Goro asked darkly, and then Akira was hastily re-introducing him to the wondrous safety of rice.

As it turned out, not even rice could curb Goro's bloodlust. 

It became obvious at a very quick, very destructive rate that, for all the years she'd been alive, Goro's mother must have been actively barring him from the kitchen and handing him only the easiest, least explosive foods to manhandle. Because Goro and cooking were clearly two intrinsically incompatible forces of nature. 

"What are you nattering about?" scorned Goro, voice curved high from instinctual defense on his mother's behalf. "Of course I was allowed into the kitchen. We didn't have the luxury of sectioning the kitchen into its own massive ballroom, you know. We ate in there." Having defended her memory an adequate amount, his voice calmed down to its usual melody. "But my mother did never allow me near the stove, or any ingredients, if that's what you mean. She also stopped letting me touch knives near the end, for some reason."

Clearly, Goro's mother had been a sublimely smart woman. 

"She wouldn't even let me wash the dishes." If Goro had been treating those poor dishes the same way he'd treated the fridge and the eggs, then Akira could certainly see why. 

Goro slapped the onigiri he'd been shaping (more like: compacting into the world's most condensed ball of matter) onto the table. Not a plate, nor a cutting board, but the table. Thank goodness Akira had already wiped down every surface in the house that morning. Akira silently relocated it to a plate. "Now, cat, let me have another go at those eggs." 

After three eggs ended up splattered on the wall and the butter stuck to the ceiling, Akira sent Goro off to the living room to watch some commercials and maybe calm down. 

"NO!" Goro snarled, covered in yellow yolk and looking more than a little feral. "I can do this! I can—pulverize some eggs!" 

"How about you pulverize... some... television," Akira suggested gently, then tried to tidy Goro's face with a towel and immediately gave up after three of his fingers were nearly bitten clean off. 

It was a wonder how caustically, catastrophically cataclysmic Goro was when it came to cooking. Akira was suitably impressed—and doubly fearful of what he might have done had the stove been on.

Without Goro afflicting his idea of "help" onto the ingredients, Akira wrapped up the dishes with refreshing ease. Thanks to Goro, he could now appreciate what he'd been taking for granted before: the ability to cook unimpeded by threats of bodily harm and property destruction. Goro exerted a certain revolutionary effect on perspectives. He could make Akira thankful for even the most itty-bitty details of his life. 

Akira surveyed the damage done to the kitchen. A teeny-tiny sigh escaped him. It looked like another wipe-down was in order. 

At the very least, he tried to reassure himself, it's not as bad as letting loose a stampede of wild hogs into the house. This was a very average and comforting philosophy that had him cheering up in an instant. Thank goodness Goro was less destructive than a hog stampede—if only by a little bit. Yet another detail to be thankful for. 

Following the distant rabble of pew-pew!s and sha-shing!s, Akira found Goro sulkily holed up in the living room, in front of the blitzing, blaring television. He was cleaned of yolk, slightly damp, and in the process of making a soggy, Goro-shaped imprint on the leather couch. A stray plushie was half-buried in the cushions of the couch next to him. This was, in every way, better than a hog stampede. It looked like he'd just emerged from the downstairs bathroom, which Akira recalled had a layout of dizzying red tiles that covered the walls and floors and also had zero windows. He hoped Goro had enjoyed that visual experience.

On the television, masked heroes flew across the screen. They wore all the colors of the rainbow, tip-topped with golden, feathery frou-frou. It made perfect sense; naturally, Akira's birdy liked to watch his fellow birds. 

Akira came to a silent stop behind Goro's watery seat. "Would birdy like to eat at the breakfast table or the dinner table?"

Goro whipped his head around. Water droplets ricocheted like bullets. "YOU HAVE TWO TABLES?!"

Akira hesitated, unsure of what he'd done to set Goro off this time. "We don't have to eat at a table?"

It took a while, but Goro did, at least, with equal parts grand mulishness and grander reluctance, concede, "...The dinner table."

"'kay!" A happy clap! rang in the air. Having sufficiently expressed his joy, Akira peered around Goro at the television. "Oh, I like that show, too. Featherm—"

Goro's finger practically speared itself clean through the remote out of bloodthirsty vigor. That poor power button never stood a chance. The television blinked black. Akira had half-expected some of the remote's abuse to travel to the television, perhaps short-circuiting it with an electric zap! and reducing its screen to screaming neon color bars. Miraculously, everything remained relatively intact. 

"Is your finger okay?" Akira cradled Goro's hand as though it might clatter apart at any moment. 

"Irrelevant." Regardless of that ruthless remark, Goro allowed Akira to lightly blow on his finger. Hoo! "And I wasn't watching what you thought I was watching. That was simply a... commercial. Those trifling wastes of time. I've got no power over what cable throws at me. Before the commercial, I'd been watching a crime show. About investigating crime. With detectives and legalities."

"And crime?" Akira absentmindedly patted Goro's hand. The pat-pat's lent it structural strength. 

Goro pointed his nose high up in the air. "Yes. The crime is critical." Akira hummed. "Since it was a crime show," Goro apparently thought this was necessary to expound, "as you know." 

"As I know," nodded Akira, then tugged him up by the hand (although, it was really more like Akira had lightly suggested getting up with an even lighter tug, and Goro had been gracious enough to comply). "Let's get our omelettes, birdy."

Goro's noise remained sky-high 'til it was time to settle into their respective seats, after which he finally deigned to look down. Before him waited two plates, one for each of them. On each plate lay a fluffy omelette—tamagoyaki—rolled up and sliced into plump pieces, and a triangular ball of rice grilled and sauced to a golden crisp. A warm, savory aroma wafted through the air. Akira had foregone any filling for the yaki-onigiri, for two reasons: 1) despite his fondness for experimenting with the cookbook, he didn't have the ingredients on hand, because hoarding ingredients that would sooner or later spoil with nobody to eat them was a wasteful thing to do, and 2) he worried it'd be too much to eat in conjunction to the omelettes. There was a separate plate of more yaki-onigiri in the middle of the table, since it would have been a shame to let the leftover rice go unused. It was leagues more food than the amount Akira would make for himself, but leagues less than what a nuclear family on television would chow down on. 

His recipe book had featured these two dishes in separate sections, but since both required a pan, Akira had figured he could combine them into one meal with minimal difficulty. Using his square pan, he'd rolled the omelettes into fluffy prisms first, sprinkled them with salt, then sizzled the seasoned onigiri second. The recipe book had advertised the eggs as such: "These eggs will be wondrously savory and so soft that you'll barely need to bite down before they're splitting apart in your mouth!" 

"These onigiri... You only had to mash the rice together with the seasonings before you grilled them, didn't you?" Just from listening to Goro's tone, anybody could tell that he was feeling slighted. "With a spoon or something. It wouldn't even have required an open flame at that stage. Just mashing."

This was true. "Birdy's right."

"I could've done something as tedious as destroying grains for you, but you simply had to kick me out of the kitchen." Goro looked remarkably royal sitting in his seat, with the carved mahogany backing of the chair framing his head just so, the way the best oil paintings had the fanciest frames. He didn't look out of place at all. Akira always felt a little awkward sitting in these chairs. They dwarfed him miserably. Goro, on the other hand—oh, wait. Goro was still saying something. "Mashing's not a feat of rocket science."

This was also true. "Birdy's right again. I should've thought of that." Akira didn't sound very sorry when he said, "Sorry."

"What're you always apologizing for?" Rather than wait another tedious ten seconds for a one-word reply, Goro answered himself with a sigh. "As long as you learn from this and take it into account in the future, it's fine. Besides, I don't like sitting around while you do everything. It's unequal. You hate that, don't you? Inequivalent exchange?"

"Inequality?" parroted Akira. It had historically led to a great deal of bad things. "Sure. Hate it."

Goro puffed himself up proudly. "I'm never not right."

Akira nodded. "Birdy's right about that, too."

"See?" Puffed to the max. "When things work themselves out so effortlessly like this, you know that's how they're meant to be."

Meant to be... Akira rolled the idea around in his head, feeling it run along the grooves of his brain, its glassy surface as smooth as water, and felt it roll to a stop in a perfect marble-shaped nook. Clink. A thought occurred to him. It was a good one. Proud to have arrived at this thought but not nearly so puffy about pride as Goro had been, he voiced it aloud, "Like us."

"What?" Goro looked startled. He thought about it some more, then looked even more startled. Stupefied, really. "What?"

"Omelettes," Akira instructed him. 

"Alright, alright!" Goro looked at him witheringly. Withering look turned apprehensive, Goro picked up a fluffy omelette slice between two delicate chopsticks, inexplicably held it there for half a minute, and took what could be an insultingly small bite of his already small piece if Akira chose to feel insulted. He chewed, looking deeply pensive, then lit up with astonishment. "Oh! It's edible."

Edible.

Akira supposed expecting anything more than barebones acknowledgment from Goro was a pipe dream. The aggressive sushi acknowledgment had been more than enough to last a lifetime. Besides, this was high praise compared to the usual dialogue his cooking would win from his mother. "What is all this green rot for? I don't want this. I want that. No, I'd like this instead. No, no, back to that. It's got a peculiar odor. Why is this so small? This is far too big. Also, I'm on a diet right now. I'm not eating."

Akira couldn't be more pleased than if Goro had actually liked his food.

"I... I do actually like your food," confessed Goro in a quiet mutter, before he grew louder. "It's better than watery gruel, at least. A step above fertilizer. It's not going to land you a Michelin star any time soon, but you're getting there. Your progress is too slow. Can't you speed up? This needs more seasoning."

"You think I could earn a Michelin star?" asked Akira in his own version of a quiet mutter, except his mutter wasn't deliberate but a default setting for him. Awe colored his voice. Wings fluttered in his chest. He felt almost airborne. 

Goro harrumphed, nose in the air. "Think what you want, cotton brains."

"But this is about what you think, birdy."

"Oh, so you're stuffing ideas into my head now, are you? Thinking my own thoughts for me, hmm? How presumptuous of you. How right you are. I did need the help, thinking for myself. It was getting troublesome. Being mindless—isn't that better? You would know, darling cat. You truly are too generous, too philanthropic—" And off he went, stomping down that long, winding, and well-worn trail that the rickety sign, shaped as an arrow, decreed to be "Deflecting." 

Moving past all that deflecting, it became clear: Goro liked his cooking. This was new. This was big. Nobody had ever liked Akira's cooking before. In fact, up 'til now, he'd been staunchly convinced that his cooking was horrible. Subpar at best. But if Goro liked something, then that meant it was top-of-the-line. Goro only liked the best of the best. 

The best must have extended to the yaki-onigiri, because Goro had stabbed his chopsticks into one and was aggressively chomping a bite out of it. So, it's not only the omelettes... The onigiri, too? 

He liked them both!

Akira felt so happy, so flighty, that he had no idea what to do with himself. Left with little else to do and far too much energy to spare, he hopped down from his seat, bounced over to Goro, and flung his arms around him. It was extraordinarily warm. Sunny rays after a rainshower. Hot chocolate on a winter's day. He murmured into soft hair, "Goro. Thank you, really."

Goro immediately began choking to death. 

Frightened, Akira tripped backwards into the fireplace. "Goro?!" 

A cloud of soot exploded into the air. Eggs on the wall, eggs on Goro, and now soot all over the place. What a great, big mess. 

It seemed a third wipe-down was in order. The stampede of wild hogs was beginning to look better and better by the second. 

•••

By some miracle, the omelettes and onigiri had been mostly spared by the uproar of soot. 

After washing up in the nearest bathroom, Akira set aside the few that had been misfortunate enough to gain a coat of soot, but as for the ones who had a light sprinkling on their edges, Goro refused to part with them. He insisted that it would be a grievous waste of precious food. Akira was at a loss. His birdy who was usually such a stickler for cleanliness was now clinging stubbornly to some sooty eggs? 

"Come now, it's hardly a big deal." Goro's voice was pitched to be pleasantly placating, in stark contrast to his actions: hunching over and caging his plate within his arms like a jealous dragon. "Just leave them be."

Helpless, Akira could only acquiesce, "Um... If birdy likes soot that much..."

"Don't imply weird things!"

Akira scratched his head. There wasn't much to imply what wasn't already screamed aloud for all to hear. He climbed back into his seat, looking down at his own egg. It was still as untouched as it was before The Soot-ening. A gentle pleasure buzzed in his chest. The last time he'd made an omelette, it had gone dissected and uneaten. This time, his omelette was being treasured so devoutly. What wasn't there to be pleased about this turn of events? 

Distantly, from beyond the breezy screen door of the patio, he could hear someone's pet musician practicing the piano, as well as the crunchy roll of a car's wheels against pavement. Wind chimes tinkled twinkly tunes. A dog was barking, as always. 

"Are you going to take a bite sometime this century?" came a drawl across from him. Goro had his chin in his hand and his eyes fixed lazily on Akira. 

"Huh?" queried Akira smartly. 

"You've been staring at that thing for—" Stare still fixed, Goro tilted his head towards the digital clock on the wall. "—two minutes, fifteen seconds, and counting. Are you some alien species that only eats with your eyes? How novel."

It'd been two minutes already? Akira looked at Goro's plate. Empty! He hopped off his chair. "Birdy! Do you want more sooty eggs?"

"Sit down!" Goro barked, jabbing a fierce finger. 

Akira sat down. 

"You're not leaving this table until you finish that." Uwagh. "And quit associating me with soot!" Ugagah. 

Akira went back to staring at his egg, only this time with heaps more misery slouching his shoulders. He poked his egg despondently. Imprisoned in his own house! What a fate. 

Goro had his brows all twisted in vexation. "Just take a bite. Is that so hard? It's not even disgusting to eat. It's quite good, actually. I don't understand you."

That's right! Akira's birdy thought his food tasted good! And—and, last time, he'd called his sushi delicious. Goro thought Akira might earn a Michelin star one day. Michelin stars were Big Deals. Any restaurant, from food carts to big buildings, would jump over the moon from the electric joy of winning a star, and then they'd plaster news of this star all over their carts and buildings, so that any passerby might learn of this star and be lured in for star-ful food. Akira had nearly forgotten this Big Deal because of Goro's near death experience in the fireplace. 

His self-esteem freshly invigorated, Akira picked up a little portion of egg and stuck it in his mouth. Akira was shocked by the presence of flavor. Usually, food was little more than bland mush to work his jaw around until he grew sore and bored of the whole charade. These omelettes had been whisked and cooked 'til they'd turned soft and fluffy; unlike tough grilled omelettes or slippery boiled eggs, biting into a roll required so little effort that the egg split in half with the ease of wind sluicing through a cloud. And it really did taste quite good—surprisingly so! A bit cold, perhaps, but that barely detracted from the taste. He even realized that he had a bit of an appetite. 

It was a resoundingly fresh revolution to his life experiences up 'til now.

"How have you survived this long?" Goro asked in genuine wonder, watching Akira delicately chew his omelette, his eyes wide from revelation and looking like he'd had his mind blown to smithereens. 

Akira ate his omelette, Goro ate one yaki-onigiri, and the rest was either stowed away in the refrigerator or packaged up into a big bento box for Goro to take back (he was not made aware of this bento box just yet). The mysterious, dense ball of matter that Goro had made was squirreled away for safekeeping. 

The ball had come out... remarkably solid. Consuming it required copious amounts of gnawing that had his jaw aching, so Akira was forced to set it aside for later. He'd also had to nibble on it in secret, because the second Goro had seen that thing he'd raised a ruckus about throwing it into the trash where it belonged, and only turning the television on to Feathermen had distracted him enough with a new ruckus to raise that allowed Akira to sneak off with his prize. Maybe this ball, larger than his hand, would grow mushier with time. Like a grape. One could only hope it might someday reach a stage of semi-edibility. 

Also squirreled away, flush against his heart, was the quiet joy of having someone finally enjoy his cooking. 

Happiness was tasty. 

•••

ITEMS GET!! Leftovers

★★★★★

Lots of leftover yaki-onigiri. Looks like you'll have to postpone your daily melonpan for a little while, huh?

•••

Come evening, Akira sent Goro off with the bento box of yaki-onigiri. He'd had Goro leave earlier than when they usually went their respective ways in the woods, lest Goro be forced to navigate the mountainside in the dark, which could be treacherous terrain to navigate without light. Tree roots and cliff sides and loose rocks abound and aplenty! More than one person had been reported missing, only to be found months later at the bottom of a sheer drop sprouting fungi. 

The persnickety subject of hugs was still on Akira's mind while he stood outside on the doorstep, the muggy evening air simultaneously soaking and steaming his skin dry and sticky, and in front of him was Goro, inspecting the bento box with squinty suspicion. Paranoia was par for the course when it came to Goro and food. His reaction to hugs, on the other hand... Had that been considered par for the course? It had proven to be hugely consequential and catastrophic. Akira sort of feared what new catastrophic consequences might be wrought with a repeat incident. 

"'kay!" Akira clapped his hands. The sudden, sharp sound seemed to sluice through what had been a lazy sunset ambience. 

It also startled Goro out of his investigation of the underside of the bento box. "What? What is it?" In retrospect, to Goro, that clap really had come out of nowhere. 

"You're going now."

"Huh? I am? I mean, I was already going to, but you don't have to boss me aro—"

"Bye-bye, birdy!" Instead of hugging Goro the way Akira really, really wanted to—because hugs were on his mind, and he wasn't able to stop thinking about how nice it'd felt—he settled for softly headbutting him the way cats did when overwhelmed with contentment. 

"Y-You—You—" This still had the alarming effect of flustering Goro to the point of stuttering and repeating words, like a skipping CD. He'd nearly dropped the bento box, which—not really the most durable thing on the planet—would have been consequential and catastrophic. At the very least, not hugely so. But it would've cracked open and wasted food, which was certainly a consequence that was catastrophic. 

Well. They had all the time in the world to work their way up to hugs, Akira supposed. 

•••

ITEMS LOSE!! Leftovers

★★★★★

Welp, nevermind. Looks like melonpan's back on the everyday menu. 

•••

It came in the quiet of the night: a shrill, shrieking RING-RING-RING-RING-RING—

"Wallop whatever that is!" Mona demanded. 

Whatever turned out to be the landline, going off the rails with a call. Standing barefoot in the dark of the living room, yearning for the slippers he'd forgotten in his haste, and illuminated solely by weak, barely-there moonlight, Akira held the phone up to his ear. He'd missed the first time, smacking the receiver into his cheek and looking around blearily for the culprit. The second time, he just about barely lined everything up nice and proper.  

What was one supposed to say in a situation like this? 

"Hello?" 

That seemed about right.

"Akira? Is that you?" Goro's lovely, honey voice crackled over the line, sounding a lot like how pop rocks felt on the tongue. 

"Goro!" Akira exclaimed. In his shock, he nearly dropped the phone he'd exerted so much effort to line up. Cue clumsy fumbling, which undoubtedly translated into a hideous racket for Goro to endure on the other end. "I can't wallop you!"

A dragonfire sigh dominated the line. "What is it with you and walloping innocents? And what was that? Did you drop the phone?"

A million questions were running through Akira's head. He picked one at random. "Birdy, you know my number?"

"It's not like it was hard to find," scoffed Goro's voice. His scoff sounded even sharper than it did in person. The phone had him sounding tinny, flinty, and jagged. "All I had to do was pull out the phone book and look up your family's number."

"Ohhh, right." Phone books did indeed exist. 

A soft silence settled over the line. Eyes having adjusted to the minimal lighting, Akira studied how his living room looked in the dark. It was fascinating how what was once so yellow and bright could now look so blue and shadowy—eerie, almost, when one looked at misleading shadows from the corners of one's eyes. He toyed with the loopty-loops of the telephone's coiled cord and shifted from foot to foot. The floorboards, previously ice-cold, had warmed up the tiniest bit. 

Goro broke the silence to complain. Of course. "You sound different."

"Probably because I just woke up," Akira said innocently and not snarkily in the slightest. "In the middle of the night." Zero snark here. "It was very sudden." Absolutely snarkless. 

"If you're trying to get to something, A-kira, just say it out loud. Subtleties are lost on you."

"I'm not getting at anything."

"It's probably the phone," Goro posited, clearly giving up on acknowledging Akira's snark, or lack thereof. "People always sound different over phones and in recordings. If you were to meet a beloved actor from television in-person, you'd be shocked at how much worse they might sound. How much worse they'd look, too. It's easy to mask oneself through technology. With phones, there's no face to be burdened by, so you can pretend to be anything and anyone. Then, even with TV, there are filters and edits, along with the natural blur of camera quality. Did you know—there was once an actress renowned as a great beauty when, in actuality, she had deep pits marring the face that brought her millions? Her husband had to engineer a special camera lens just to obscure her faults and fool the public. Isn't that troublesome? In all mediums, humans crave acknowledgement, but cower from true recognition." 

Had Goro gone through the trouble of excavating Akira's number and rousing him awake at an utterly obscene hour just to gripe about humanity again? What an... interesting upgrade to their relationship. "Wow. That's. Great."

"Are you aware that you're always in a foul mood when you've just woken up, Akira?"

"No." Akira didn't feel very foul, just very woozy. "I don't know. Goro, why're we..." How to put this... "Why are you... um..." 

"Why did I call you?" Goro saved him the toothache of fumbling his words. "I wanted to see if I could."

That sure was something. "Have you seen enough now?"

"Yes. I've determined that this is an acceptable avenue for communication. I'll call you at a better time in the future, when you're less moody."

"I'm not moody," Akira argued, a bit moodily. 

"I'm hanging up now," Goro warned. "You need the sleep, I'm sure. Don't forget—you have to exchange goodbyes to conclude a call."

"Okay, then," Akira obliged. "Bye-bye, birdy." 

Goro's voice was softer than dandelions. "Goodnight, cat."

The line fizzled out. 

Moving proved to be a mistake. The world smeared itself into a mess of shadows as Akira flailed atop numb feet. His head felt light as a pound of air one second, then heavy as a bundle of bricks the next second, leaving him wobbling around, top heavy and bobble-headed. It took a great deal of blinking and breathing for vision to return to him, then a great deal more for the phone to click back into its cradle, instead of clanking onto the table or the floor. After carefully reviewing his situation, Akira elected to spend the night on the couch. Even though it was cold and leathery, it was a familiar bed. Many nights had been spent snoozing in a half-asleep state on slowly warming leather, the curtains pulled back to frame the moon in whatever state of dress it had chosen for that date. 

Besides, Mona was here, too. 

"What did your rival want?" Mona's curious eyes reflected silvery glints of moonlight. 

The leather couch creaked and squeaked with every movement Akira made as he curled up comfortably by his friend's side. "Nothing, really."

[verosvault]

🚨SPOILERS FOR FANTASY HIGH JUNIOR YEAR EPISODE 8🚨

Dimension20 "Fantasy High Junior Year"

Fracas at the Frostyfaire Folk Festival

Timestamp: 34:54

Video Length: 4min. & 45sec.

Research into Cassandra and Ruvina + Learning about Oblivati Mori (Pt.1 | ‣Pt.2 | Pt.3)

Fig: "Do you want a Bardic?"

Fabian: "I can... Hey, The Ball? Let me help."

Riz: : "Okay, yeah. It's just-"

Gorgug: "Can I have a Bardic?"

Riz: "It's just the dust mites."

Fig: "Do you want some help?"

Riz: "I'm a little worried about the dust mites!" 😭✋ (Murph's CONCERNED FACE! 😭✋)

Fig: "Here!" *starts to play* 😭✋

Riz: "Oh no! It's okay!" 😭✋

Emily: "If you see me wink, you get a Bardic." (😭😭😭😭✋✋✋✋)

Murph: Okay, okay. (*blocking Emily's winks with his hands*! 😭✋)

Lou: "Can my Bardic just be that I run screen?" 😭✋

Fabian: "No, no, look at me. No!"

Emily: "Don't you want it? Don't you want it?" (😭😭😭😭)

Murph: "Okay, right off the bat, dirty 20. Should I throw this on there and try to-"

Emily: "Yeah!"

Siobhan: "why not?!"

Lou: "Come on, baby. Let's cook."

Murph: "26."

Lou: "We stay eatin'!"

Brennan: "Hell yes."

Ally: "A feast."

Murph: "So afraid of dust mites. Are there..." 😭✋

Brennan: "So I think you're going through Rana's stuff, which is all the actual, the poetic... She was the cleric of the group, right? And you're going through Cormyr's stuff. Cormyr was a sorcerer, but you actually see, for someone that was innately magical, Cormyr had very meticulous notes, beautiful script, and has something written out which is a long... You can tell it's a copying of another text. As you arrive at it, it's basically, he wrote a glossary literally for the possibility that they would all die on this mission, and another group of adventurers would find this stuff and could pick up where they left off."

Emily: "We should remember to do that in the future." 😭😭😭✋✋✋

Siobhan: "Put it on the board. Put it on the board!"

Brennan: "You find-"

Gorgug: "A for Adaine."

Brennan: "You find-"

Adaine: "That's my name! What?"

Fig: "I think it's the information, not us." 😭✋

Gorgug: "Oh, well, how holistic is it?"

Adaine: "Catch up. Stop thinking about-[inaudible]"

Riz: "I texted you this stuff, man!" 😭✋

Gorgug: "Got it." 💀💀

Brennan: "What you see is, there is the beginning of a text that is written- and I think that... Adaine, go ahead and give me one more- give me actually, an Arcana, 'cause you rolled History. Give me an Arcana real quick."

Siobhan: "I did roll History...23."

Lou: "Sexy." 😂💀

Brennan: "You are able to point out- you know that what you're looking at is not a spell. But Adaine, you're familiar that there's lots of kinds of magical writing that are not spells. There's ways of annotating things that are magical laws or precepts, and what you are seeing here is a dually arcane and religious axiom of magical law of Spyre. And what you see is it says, "Obliviati Mori."

Emily: "Remember you will die? Or forget you will die?!" (👀👀)

Brennan: "Clerics call it Obliviati Mori, but you see that as an arcane rule, it is called the Law of Theothanatic Silence."

Siobhan: "So that's when a god dies, you forget their name."

Brennan: "Yes. But you see that he's writing down all the mortal stuff you already know. When a god dies, you forget their name. When a god dies, they're scrubbed from existence. When a god dies, da da da da da. But you guys also know that for all that being said, 'Yes!' is dead because nobody believes in it, but people remember 'Yes!', right?"

Siobhan: "Oh, we all remember 'Yes!'." 😭✋

Brennan: "You all remember 'Yes!'."

Zac: "I'll never forget that thing."

Siobhan: "They had a cogent philosophy that we comprehended deeply."

Ally: "Maybe we should forget, though." (😭😭✋✋)

Fig: "Just to be clear, when I was talking about becoming a paladin, it was for 'Yes!'." (😭😭✋✋)

Kristen: "Wait, what? No, no!" 😭✋

Adaine: "Wait, for 'Yes!' or for 'Yes??'" 💀💀💀

Zac: "I'll never forget that thing sliding out of-" 😭✋

Ally: "Yeah, sliding out of that hole." 😭✋

Siobhan: "Just so wet."

Murph: "That thing getting pooped out of space." 😭😭✋✋

Brennan: "Basically, there is an intense series of rules and restrictions, but you see this rule doesn't apply to mortals. It applies to the gods."

Siobhan: "Oh! So the gods also forget the name?!"

Brennan: "They do not."

Siobhan: "Oh! And that's why we remember Yes!, 'cause we're all gods!" (😂💀 IMAGINE! 😂💀)

Brennan: "You're all gods! Obliviati Mori is a precept that binds deities to not evangelize or even speak of fallen deities to mortals. In other words, it's written out as a precept of basically like, if a god succumbs to some form of death, they become archfey, they become a demon or a celestial rather than a full deity, if they only have a few dozen followers and another god kills them and they don't have the strength to withstand that, or if literally, in the most extreme cases, their name is fully forgotten, other deities are not allowed to effectively remind mortals of their existence."

Siobhan: "So does that mean that the person who wrote the note that is supposed to be from Lucy was actually a god?"

Brennan: "It makes it very unclear who could have written that. Because you're in this weird position where you guys can all write Yes!, you can write Cassandra. This god is one whose name has actually been forgotten or scrubbed by every single mortal."

[mugiwara-rosewolf]

Hello, I just discovered your blog via one of your writings, I really love your style ♥

I confess that I never think of sabo with a blind eye. It seems to me that in the anime he has his two eyes.

I thought of an idea: how would Sabo react who, because of the flames, lost an eye to a blind reader. Poor thing, she can't see the beauty of Sabo 😢. The reader is female, with remance. Sabo would be insecure about his scar but would try to get over it so at least the reader can know what he looks like when she touches him.

Have a nice day ♥

Hello! I’m so glad to hear that you’ve enjoyed my writings! Though, I have to be honest, a lot of my headcanons about Sabo’s injuries come from binging @theprodigypenguin ‘s works on AO3 when I first joined the fandom. If you’re looking for deep diving fics about Sabo’s character, I’d highly recommend them!

That said, I absolutely adore this prompt and would love to give it a shot. —Hope You Enjoy!

Love is Blind

Sabo x F!Reader

Note: Reader has color vision & acuity to see shapes, so they are technically classified as having “low vision” as opposed to “total blindness” (aka no light perception)

"Alright, the mission is simple," Koala reminded him. "Infiltrate the engagement, gain entrance to the host nobleman's office, swipe the records and get out. We need to be outta sight by dawn, alright?"

"Ah~ good ole breaking and entering," Sabo grinned. “Just like old times.”

"No, no breaking-" the woman spy snagged his cheek before he could stop her. "Hack was clear about our orders. That means no making trouble for the boss, you understand?"

"Okay, okay, ow-ow!" Sabo swatted her hand away, even knowing that scarred flesh wouldn't bruise. "That was one time, alright? I know what I'm doing."

"Do you?"

She didn't need to be on his good side for Sabo to know the look she was giving him. That droll side-eye and incredulous brow she had, like he was a child who’d spilled food down his front. Making messes that she always had to clean up. Or so she said. Sabo shook his head with a hand on his chest. "Come now, don’t you trust your own partner in crime?"

"I don't know, should I?"

"...touché.”

***

The light of her father's chandeliers hung above them, casting the space into a twilight glow. Silhouettes like over-large dust mites blurred slowly in circles as the orchestra strung together one waltz after another. Perhaps it'd be a crime to say - but Y/N would rather be out in the pitch dark of the garden than be a withering wallflower in this ballroom.

She knows it's a ballroom because the piano echoes in her ears, low notes reverberating in her chest just as much as if she were leaning against the instrument herself. The cellos of the string section strike a similar chord into the vibrating floors beneath her slippers. A lifetime of thin-soled shoes helped distinguish warm wood panels from the cold, slippery marble her mother loved to decorate the entryway and balconies. All those outward-facing places where their wealth-sighted guests could gawk and admire their purported majesty.

Occasionally, a confection of colour would flash past, jerking her back from her reverie. Coarse crinoline would rub between her fingers. A passing maid would scold her with a tap on the shoulder. The universal whisper of 'stop fidgeting' or 'stop staring' always caught her ear.

Y/N ran a tongue over her teeth. As if the voices in this cavernous space weren't living for the pageantry of being seen and gawked at in one way or another. All this fuss over mounds of crinkly fabric and gnarly colognes. What did they care if her sightless gaze was -There are only so many times one can pretend to scan the room between one feels like they're adrift at sea in a dense fog. It was hard not to get seasick at the feeling.

A hand on her shoulder. A warm, nimble-fingered phantom that lingered only milliseconds before-

"Excuse me, miss?"

Y/N turned to the sound of the voice. Following a rail-thin line of bruising shadows until a shock of pale…everything halted her gaze. Is that the face? Gods, I hope that’s the face and not some obnoxious- “Yes? Can I help you?”

“Ah, pardon,” the -presumably male- voice said, retracting his hand as if he’d touched a hot iron. Something inside her wilted. “This’ll sound strange but,” cloth shuffled, somewhere around the joint between pale and dark. “Could you direct me to the nearest restroom?”

“The restroom?”

“Yea.”

“The men’s…restroom.”

“Yes.”

“Well you were right about sounding strange,” Y/N quipped. Resolute and unbothered, Y/N rose from her seat and offered an arm towards the figure. “It’ll be easier if we walk there.”

“If we…walk?”

“Yes, then I can guide you.”

“But can’t you just-"

“No, I’m afraid I’m quite terrible at giving directions,” at least in the way others understand them. Y/N jerked her elbow out for emphasis. “Well? Is your bladder about to burst, or what?”

If her mother was in earshot, she’d surely earned herself a smack upside the head. But in the midst of a public soirée, no one could do a thing. To her surprise, the stranger didn’t choke in shock or stammer in flustered offence.

Instead, the man…laughed. He bloody snorted. The sound was muffled, as if he too were hiding behind a cupped hand. But the sound was unmistakable. Laughter was so rare here….

“Pfft! You are certainly more brazen than I was expecting,” the man said.

“Oh? And does that trouble you, sir?”

Before Y/N could find another taunt on her lips, a velvet sleeve slid past her own. Hooking elbows to elbows like the links of fine jewellery. All words dried up. She could feel his breath lean close to her ear.

“-not in the slightest.”

Her stomach swooped. She quickly cleared her throat and set her chin towards the nearest black hole in the wall. “Very well then, this way.”

***

All things considered, Sabo was feeling rather proud of himself. He had successfully infiltrated the event undetected. He'd found a viable excuse to escape the main throng and was now on his way to objective number two: find Mister What's-His-Face's office.

Only one obstacle stood between him and his next steps: the stowaway accomplice. Witty, direct and beautifully dressed, the woman marched down the halls of this obnoxiously coloured palace as if she owned it. Even then, he wasn't sure what possessed him to approach a party guest for an excuse instead of just wandering off on his own, as was his usual. But then again, Koala had already chewed him out for his last solo fiasco, so maybe it was a subconscious abundance of caution. Her grip was almost worse than his.

However, what he found most perplexing about the new variable in his plans - was that she still wouldn't look him in the eyes. Even when they first met, she resolutely stared at the crown of his head as she spoke, unblinking. Their entire trek had been deathly silent, save for the tread of slippers and boots on hard wooden floors. Then again, given how he could only see one side of her face at any given time...maybe there was a reason she refused to meet his gaze directly.

"Tell me something, miss," he decided on a whim.

"Something important, I assume?"

"Oh no, a trivial curiosity, I assure you."

"Then why bother with it in the first place?"

"For the fun of it," he shrugged. "And because I'm curious."

A heavy sigh. The first time he's seen the noblewoman close her eyes for an extended period of time. "Very well then, ask away."

"-Is there a reason you won't look me in the eye?" Her strides stalled. Both of them came to a stop in the middle of the hall. In front of a glorious painting, Sabo couldn't bring himself to attend. She didn't say anything at first. He offered a sympathetic if self-deprecating laugh for her benefit. "I'm not that atrocious to look at, am I?"

She tilted her head slightly. Turning her e/c gaze to some spot over his shoulder. "No. I wouldn't know. I can't tell what you look like."

"You-" That's when it clicked. The unblinking gaze, the thousand-yard star, the way she tilted her head at certain sounds, how careful her steps were amongst the ballroom crowds. "You're, bli-" His laughter caught him by such surprise he nearly choked.

"Yes, I - I beg your pardon?!"

The irony wracked his body so hard he couldn't stop. Shoulders shaking, stomach seizing, he just couldn't stop laughing: "Oh my-!" His scarred face hurt from the pinch of smiling so much. He wiped a stinging tear from his eye. "I just - it really is the blind leading the blind, isn't it?"

Her offended furrow fell slack. "I...beg your pardon?"

"I'm guessing you still have light perception, then. Eh?"

"You are being awfully casual about this."

"Well, why not?" Sabo shrugged. "I'm completely blind in one eye, figure as long as we're talking here, we may as well speak plainly about it."

"Hmph," Something like a twitch of a smile tugged at her cheek. "Well, now who's the brazen one?"

Sabo chuckled. Hiding his smile behind one hand, he leaned into the warmth of her arm and whispered: "I don't see why we both can't be bold, do you?"

The lady's own smile turned coy. "You're not really a gentleman, are you?"

"Not exclusively," he admitted with a grin. "Why? Do I make a bad impression?"

"The absolute worst," she said with a breathy laugh. "Our chain of islands is too small for me not to know the voices of most noblemen - and yet I've never heard anyone quite like you."

"And I you, my lady."

"You weren't really aiming for the restroom, were you?"

"Not really," Sabo shrugged. "Just needed an excuse to escape the crowds."

The woman chuckled. "You and I both, good sir."

"Sabo."

"What?"

"Sabo. That's what my friends call me."

Her smile grew, the cutest blush streaking across her cheeks. "Then I suppose you can call me Y/N, so long as we're among good company."

"Oh, you're in great company," Sabo assured, squeezing her arm against his side. "Now that we're free, we can go anywhere we want."

"Free..." her echoing whisper was like a spring breeze to his ears. "There's nothing more I've ever wanted to be."

Sabo grinned. Unwinding their arms just enough to dare and weave his hand with hers. "Then today's your lucky day, Y/N. Follow me?"

"Lead the way - Sabo."

[burnwater13]

It was one of those days. The kind of day where the most you could do was wait, watch, and listen. The Mandalorian was up to something. Grogu just didn’t know what it was. He didn’t like that. Not at all. But sometimes patience paid off. Of course that was mostly through offers of leftovers. Then patience was key.

It was funny to Grogu that he was kind of annoyed at the tall human for being so quiet and secretive. Din Djarin wasn’t really a chatterbox at the best of times. And he certainly didn’t appreciate it when anyone had secrets that they were trying to keep, like where Grogu had hidden the silver knob to keep the bounty hunter from just putting it back where it belonged. 

But on a typical day, if you would agree for a moment that they ever had anything like a typical day, the Mandalorian bounty hunter would tell Grogu all about that day’s plan. 

“We’re goin’ to see Karga” or “Peli said she had a part for us” or “It’s about time you started carryin’ your own weight around here”. That last one generally meant ‘pick up the mess you made, okay kid?’ Grogu didn’t like hearing it from an understanding perspective, but he did like hearing the Mandalorian’s voice. 

And Grogu knew what kind of day it would be. Visiting Karga meant solving a problem the former bounty guild leader hadn’t told them about. Grogu needed to get plenty of rest, eat a lot, and make sure he brought snacks. Greef Karga never seemed to have any food just laying around. 

On the other hand, if it was a trip to see Peli Motto, Grogu knew that he just needed to make sure that his face and hands were washed before he got off the ship. She was just going to scoop him up, talk at him as fast as she could, then order the pit droids to get him some food and carry him around for the rest of the day. These were some of Grogu’s favorite days for obvious reasons.

The days that were all about Grogu interacting with a world scaled for humans, (the issue that made it harder to clean stuff up, then make them messy in the first place), required planning, thoughtfulness, and accepting that Din Djarin had a very different idea of what ‘clean’ was than Grogu did. It didn’t seem like the Mandalorian had ever noticed that.

No one liked wading through wads of crumpled up vids and papers less than Grogu. If his dad, that big, scary bounty hunter, had to do it, they barely reached the toe of his boot and no harm could come from them. When it was Grogu’s turn, then he had to hope that his coverall remain cut proof because his hands certainly weren’t and he was tired of the tiny little cuts and lacerations he would get picking them up. 

And no, before you even ask, Din Djarin did not want him using the Force to do the work.  He might need Grogu to heal him, or stop a charging critter, or hold off a battalion of battle droids and for those tasks having the full complement of the Force handy was… well… handy. So no using the Force to clean up. 

Yet, here he was. Nothing to clean up. No fun to not need to plan for. No unannounced work to actually plan for… Grogu didn’t know what to do other than wait. He really didn’t like waiting. So instead of doing something obvious, like drawing or eating or chasing dust mites around the space, Grogu day dreamed. 

One of the best parts of day dreaming was that the Mandalorian had no idea that he was doing anything at all. He looked like he was resting. Depending on how he sat in the floaty chair or the seats in the Razor Crest he even looked like he was meditating. Importantly, he was being quiet. His Mandalorian protector liked that a lot. “Quiet was Beskar” or words to that effect. 

So Grogu dreamed a day when he could just go frog hunting on a nice planet filled with nice people and plenty of frogs. Where the frogs weren’t considered people because those frogs were his friends, not his supper. Where the people he met thought he was adorable and went out of their way to scale things to his size. 

Peli was there. Kuiil was there. IG-11 was there. Sometimes even Greef Karga was there. When he wasn’t being tricky or crafty or all the other things a person who ordered bounty hunters around had to be to survive. 

Between Peli and Kuiil they had made Grogu his own home and his own, mini-Razor Crest. He loved them both. The house was amazing because it had a clear roof that let him see the stars at night and let Din Djarin check up on him from time to time. They had even made a sitting area that the Mandalorian could actually enter without crawling in on his belly. (That section of the roof was hinged and Din could lift and flip it onto a stand). 

On this delightful planet Grogu often took his little Razor Crest, which he nick-named Cresty, to explore. There were caves and lakes and canyons. Lots of gorgs, chickens, and you shrimp. There were taverns and farms and all the places that let people live a simple, enjoyable life, especially him. 

At least once a week the population would gather, each in their own town square or commons, and watch the latest episode of Diggle and Daggle, The Fish that fish. After that everyone had snacks and sweets and smiled when they went home. It was a lovely little planet. 

He hadn’t thought up a name for it, other than ‘Home’, which he liked. Because honestly, if you didn’t know where you were going or what you were going to be doing on any given day, having a home to just enjoy seemed like a pretty good thing to him. Of course he also called Din Djarin ‘home’. He was also pretty good in the same way.

[xxundeadfanboixx]

I dunno if you ever said or if it's spoilery, we ever find out how Dust Might and Spaghet ever land at 141?

Okay, so there are two answers here depending on what perspective we go off of. If we go with Dust Mite's perspective of the situation, it's definitely spoil territory.

However- if we go off of the boy's perspective of events it's not so much. (Putting a read more thing cause this quickly turned into me spiraling into writer's brain.)

So Dust Mite's introduction to the Task Force was very subtle and slow at first. As mentioned in their 'introductory' post, the team doesn't really question or even notice Dust Mite's presence at first. Due to their role of being a janitor, they end up falling to the background of everything. As intended.

Ghost is the first one to really start taking notice of the janitor. Though he's ashamed that it took him this long to take notice. But due to his hyper vigilance, Ghost starts to notice that Dust Mite is everywhere. It probably honestly starts when Ghost catches Dust Mite in his barracks for the first time (this isn't the first time Dust Mite has been in Ghost's barracks, it's just the first time Ghost has caught them in the act). After that, he starts noticing just how often Dust Mite is just...there. Coming in and out of the background of wherever they are.

If they're in the lounge after a mission, and awaiting their next assignment, Ghost counts the amount of times Dust Mite comes in and out to do random cleaning tasks.

If they're out training recruits, the hairs on the back of Ghost's neck are suddenly standing on end. And from the corner of his eye, his attention locks onto that Janitor. Picking up trash that Ghost swears they brought themselves. He hadn't seen any trash when walking the recruits out.

Even in Intel, he's fucking there. Ghost watches, unable to fully pay attention to the important information that Price is blabbering about, as that bloody janitor just walks into the room. No one but him giving them a glance, as they go to work gathering up the trash. Taking their sweet ass time, if you ask Ghost.

Ghost swears that they make eye contact, his eyes locking on their gray-hued ones, and they almost look shocked, but if it was there it is gone within the blink of an eye. And then they're leaving.

It's after that meeting that Ghost finally brings it to everyone else's attention. And it's then that things start to shift in a direction not favorable for Dust Mite. Cause now not only is Ghost paying more attention, but so are the other three men. Price is noticing them, greeting them when they come into his office.

They physically bump into Soap while mopping the gym floors while the task force is doing hand-to-hand combat training.

Gaz corners them in the hallway, being friendly and nonchalant when he asks them questions about their day. Asking about the job, why they wanted to be a janitor of all things. Do they have family back at home? Where is home? Information that Gaz couldn't find when he tried to do a background search.

There was no information to be found when he had done the background search.

Just who is this janitor?

[crowgirlpictures]

The Dumbest Things My Boyfriend Said to Me This Year (2024)

Sometimes, you hear something so ridiculous, you just have to write it down to believe it happened. This year, my boyfriend has outdone himself in ways that range from laughable to downright infuriating. Here are the greatest hits of his... questionable statements:

The Second Moon Theory Apparently, the second moon we had earlier this year was going to fall out of the sky. (Spoiler: It did not fall out of the sky.)

He Can See Dust Mites According to him, his eyesight is so advanced that he can literally see dust mites. I mean, NASA might want to hire him?

Rock Reincarnation Equals Suicidal Tendencies When I joked about wanting to come back in my next life as a rock, he told me it was a sign I was suicidal. Uh... no. Rocks are living a soft life.

Hysterectomy vs. Having a Baby He genuinely believes that a hysterectomy is a more painful and bigger commitment than having a baby. I can't even begin to unpack this one.

My Reproductive Health Saga My reproductive issues, in his infinite wisdom, must be caused by an untreated STI that has somehow been dormant and symptomatic at the same time for over a decade. Makes total sense... if you ignore science.

Mental Health = "Not Enough Sex" According to him, my mental health struggles boil down to one simple solution: have more sex. (Because that’s how therapy and brain chemistry work, obviously.)

Hypnosis for Sleep Issues His cure for my sleep problems? Hypnosis. No, I haven’t tried it. Yes, he’s asked more than once.

THC Is a Cure-All Every problem I’ve ever had—physical, mental, emotional—could apparently be solved if I just used THC. Forget the family history of psychosis, and the data showing it triggers that, but sure I’ll eat some candy and be chill.

Autism Accusation He once asked if I “made my son autistic” because I’m considerate of his needs and differences. I still don’t know what to say to this one. That is not how autism works.

“I Didn’t Think About Your Son” He admitted that when making decisions that impacted all of us, he simply didn’t think about my son. And that, folks, was the moment I knew I couldn’t do this anymore.

Why I’m Writing This

This isn’t about shaming him—it’s about getting this off my chest. I’ve tried to hold it together, but I’m unhappy in this relationship. Just when I think it can’t get worse, it somehow does.

I’m realizing now that I deserve better. My son deserves better. We both deserve someone who considers our needs, respects our boundaries, and doesn’t make me question my sanity on a daily basis. Writing this is my first step toward reclaiming that clarity.

To anyone else stuck in a similar situation: you’re not alone, and you don’t have to stay where you’re not valued.

[aladaylessecondblog]

no more than halfway real (gortash x good tav pt. 6)

Shorter, no smut, but lots of trust issues. Sad Tav.

------------------------------------

Tav sat beside Gortash somewhat gingerly, considering both that she was still sore despite the healing, and the look he'd just given her. She decided not to mention it, or what he'd said, not just yet.

The tip of one of the claws of his gauntlet was tracing over the boy's small lips while he supported the little head with his other arm.

"He's...quite small," Gortash finally said, after a long silence.

"He didn't feel that way coming out," Tav replied, leaning against his shoulder as she reached over toward the babe. She was still tired, but something about this moment--

you've abandoned us

"It felt like he was tearing me in half," she laughed softly, and stroked the pale purple little cheek. "Like he was angry at being ejected from a comfortable place to sleep and decided to make his displeasure known as much as possible."

"I heard the storm," Gortash replied in an oddly muted tone, "And secondhand, I heard you cursing my name and swearing I would never be allowed to touch you again."

"I didn't mean it, not really...it was just...the pain, you know..."

The babe opened his eyes and yawned. A second later he was crying, though not very loudly.

"Let me have him," Tav said, "He's probably hungry."

Gortash allowed her to take the babe, and watched closely as she tugged at the loose collar of her gown enough to expose a breast. She lifted the little one up to it and he latched almost immediately.

"I envy him already."

There was a short pause which Tav broke with, "What shall we name him?"

"A drow name," Gortash said.

"Poor mite will have a hard time with that," she replied, "Are you sure?"

"I'm positive. Every expectation the Lloth-worshippers have about him will be broken in any case, when they find him ruling here. When they sneer at him he will sneer right back. When they order him about like a slave, he will look them dead in the eye and ask them who in the hells they think they're talking to. I want him to have a drow name because I want everyone to be reminded of all the unspoken rules he's going to break."

"There are so many options...let me see, perhaps something to mark how he is your heir..."

"A NOBLE heir," Gortash insisted.

"Cald," Tav said instantly, "It means noble blood...or noble heir. Cald Gortash. How do you like the sound of that?"

He nodded, and she glanced up at him to find that same devastated look on it. She looked away just in time to avoid his noticing.

And then his head leaned slightly against her own, and he reached a hand over to stroke at the dusting of light hair on Cald's head.

"If you were in danger," he said suddenly, slowly, "Would you give him up to save yourself?"

"No, of course not," Tav replied firmly. "Never."

"Even if it would solve every problem you had?"

"Never."

"...and what if I don't believe you?"

The words were like a warhammer crashing down on her chest. For a moment, Tav couldn't breathe. She gulped slightly, and began to tremble. What kind of monster did he think her to be? And where had this come from? He had been so close, so gentle with the child, but then suddenly that softness had hardened.

When she looked up at him she saw a mixture of things--suspicion, anger...pain.

How could you think such a thing of me?

"Then you're WRONG," she said, and pulled back, clinging a little more tightly to the still-nursing Cald. "I would NEVER hand him over, to anyone, for ANYTHING."

Tav's eyes were already wet, but the tears started falling however much she tried to hold them back.

It was either cry silently or loudly, and she wanted not to disturb her son.

Why? Why did it hurt so badly to have Gortash say this? Why was it those words felt like a dagger in her heart?

"I've done everything you ask," Tav started talking, and found she couldn't stop, "I've been loyal, I've...when did I ever give you the idea I would...is it me? Is there something I'm not seeing? Am I doing things I don't remember? Tell me, what is it that makes you think so ill of me?"

Cald was done. Robotically, she burped him, not wanting to look at this suddenly suspicious husband of hers.

"Hand him back to me."

"No--" Tav stood with the boy in her arms and clutched him close against her chest. "If you think I'm going to hand him off to you after you--for all I know you won't give him back!"

"You're being irrational."

"No more than you," she hiccupped. "I see now. The mask is off. You don't need to PRETEND you like me any more, now you have your heir. You don't need to pretend to get along with me any longer. And you're afraid I'll do something to get away from you, is that it?"

Gortash didn't respond right away. Merely stared up at her.

Shattered, that was the word. She felt shattered by those few words, like she'd not realized until now she was made of glass and that push was all it took.

He thinks I would sell my own child to save myself.

"You can't lie and say that you're happy," Gortash practically snarled, and pointed the forefinger of that clawed gauntlet right at her. "Oh, you play the game very well, but we both know you would rather be anywhere but Baldur's Gate. Some bloodsucker's lair, or some druid's home. You don't WANT to be here, any more than you wanted my SON."

There was a brief sneer.

"Perhaps it is not I who thinks I can stop pretending. I imagine YOU must be utterly relieved that you can stop acting as though you want anything I have to give you."

"I wanted--" Tav choked on her words. Her head was storming again, a swirling mess of agony. She knew the seductive touches, the lovemaking, the little compliments were all false, meant to draw her in. But to have his mask dropped so suddenly, so cruelly? She went on, the words running from her mouth like water, "I knew what you were doing was a lie, but still, you did it so well I almost thought...well. You have your heir. You can stop pretending to be the man that I've--"

He perked up slightly at that, but she didn't finish the sentence.

"I will," she said in a strained voice, "Endeavor to be only what the position requires from now on. Now if you'll excuse me, archduke, I--need to go change your son."

Gortash stood there a few moments longer, possibly fuming--Tav didn't know, she was too afraid to look back--and then promptly left, slamming the door behind him.

It was like plunging into cold water.

Once again, she was behind enemy lines...this time with a child. And alone.

Oh, don't fret. You will always have us, kitten.

[frmartinshomiliesandreflections]

3rd October >> Fr. Martin's Reflections/Homilies on Today's Mass Readings for Thursday, Twenty Sixth Week in Ordinary Time (Inc. Luke 10:1-12) ‘The harvest is rich but the labourers are few’.

Thursday, Twenty Sixth Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel (Except USA) Luke 10:1-12 Your peace will rest on that man.

The Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them out ahead of him, in pairs, to all the towns and places he himself was to visit. He said to them, ‘The harvest is rich but the labourers are few, so ask the Lord of the harvest to send labourers to his harvest. Start off now, but remember, I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. Carry no purse, no haversack, no sandals. Salute no one on the road. Whatever house you go into, let your first words be, “Peace to this house!” And if a man of peace lives there, your peace will go and rest on him; if not, it will come back to you. Stay in the same house, taking what food and drink they have to offer, for the labourer deserves his wages; do not move from house to house. Whenever you go into a town where they make you welcome, eat what is set before you. Cure those in it who are sick, and say, “The kingdom of God is very near to you.” But whenever you enter a town and they do not make you welcome, go out into its streets and say, “We wipe off the very dust of your town that clings to our feet, and leave it with you. Yet be sure of this: the kingdom of God is very near.” I tell you, on that day it will not go as hard with Sodom as with that town.’

Gospel (USA) Luke 10:1-12 Your peace will rest on him.

Jesus appointed seventy-two other disciples whom he sent ahead of him in pairs to every town and place he intended to visit. He said to them, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest. Go on your way; behold, I am sending you like lambs among wolves. Carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals; and greet no one along the way. Into whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this household.’ If a peaceful person lives there, your peace will rest on him; but if not, it will return to you. Stay in the same house and eat and drink what is offered to you, for the laborer deserves his payment. Do not move about from one house to another. Whatever town you enter and they welcome you, eat what is set before you, cure the sick in it and say to them, ‘The Kingdom of God is at hand for you.’ Whatever town you enter and they do not receive you, go out into the streets and say, ‘The dust of your town that clings to our feet, even that we shake off against you.’ Yet know this: the Kingdom of God is at hand. I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Sodom on that day than for that town.”

Reflections (7)

(i) Thursday, Twenty Sixth Week in Ordinary Time

Several sayings or phrases of the gospels have made their way into the English language. When we hear the expressions ‘widow’s mite’ or ‘thirty pieces of silver’ we know what they imply. One such saying is to be found in today’s gospel reading, ‘like lambs among wolves’. We use it to express the vulnerability of people in some situation or other. Jesus was aware that the seventy two he was sending out as his labourers would be vulnerable to hostile forces. Not every town would welcome them. Yet, regardless of how they would be received, their message was to be the same, ‘the kingdom of God is very near’. The apparent failure of their mission in certain places does not undermine the fundamental good news of Jesus, ‘the kingdom of God is very near’. God is powerfully at work in the world for the good of humanity, regardless of how Jesus’ messengers are received. The same is true today. We can easily get discouraged by the decline in faith in the Lord in our families, our parishes, our society. People of faith feel more vulnerable, less supported, as a result. Yet, Jesus’ good news, his gospel, is no less good news. God is powerfully at work in our world through the risen Lord drawing all people into God’s kingdom of justice, love and peace. This work of God is changeless and constant, even when God’s work seems to be bearing little fruit. As people of faith, we can draw strength from the good news that the kingdom of God is always very near. The awareness of God’s faithful and powerful presence, through his Son and the Holy Spirit, gives us the courage and inspiration to be faithful workers in the Lord’s harvest, regardless of how well we are being received.

And/Or

(ii) Thursday, Twenty Sixth Week in Ordinary Time

In the instructions that Jesus gives to the seventy-two in this morning’s gospel reading, he tells them that regardless of the reception they receive from a particular town, they are to announce, ‘the kingdom of God is very near to you’. If they are made welcome in a town, they are to make that announcement, but even if they are not made welcome, they are still to make that announcement. Jesus is saying that regardless of whether the gospel is well received or badly received, the kingdom of God remains very near to us. In other words, people may differ, but God remains the same. God remains powerfully present, his reign of love is close at hand, regardless of how the message of Jesus is received. It can be encouraging to remind ourselves of that, especially at times when the hunger for the Lord and for his word does not seem to be as deep or as prevalent as it once was. It is always good to remind ourselves that God was as much present on Good Friday as he was on Easter Sunday. God is powerfully at work when the gospel is being rejected as much as when it is being received. What matters is that the gospel is proclaimed.

And/Or

(iii) Thursday, Twenty Sixth Week in Ordinary Time

It is only in Luke’s gospel that we find this reading of Jesus sending out a large group of seventy two and while doing so calling on them to ask the Lord of the harvest to send out still more labourers into the harvest. The Lord’s work in its various forms cannot be entrusted to a small little group; it requires a large number. The harvest is great and varied; the more labourers the better. This is a very important message for the church in our own day, especially in our own country, in our own Diocese. More and more people are needed to take responsibility for the life of the church, for the work of the Lord. In sending out this large group, Jesus is not slow to draw attention to the difficulties they will face. He anticipates that some towns will not make them feel welcome. Yet, Jesus emphasizes that whether people make them welcome or not the disciples are to proclaim, ‘the kingdom of God is very near to you’. The Lord is very near whether he is welcomed or not. The Lord is present whether he is received or not. The Lord continues to work in and through those who are ready to be his labourers, whether or not that work is appreciated. We are constantly confronted by the presence of God’s kingdom, God’s rule in and through his Son; there is no getting away from that reality. The only question is how we are responding to that ultimate reality.

And/Or

(iv) Thursday, Twenty Sixth Week in Ordinary Time

It is only in Luke that Jesus sends out a group of seventy two disciples. As he does so, the first request Jesus makes of them is to ask God, the Lord of the harvest, to send out more labourers into the harvest. Seventy two labours are not enough. The harvest is so rich that an abundance of labourers are needed. Each of us, in different ways, is called to be a labourer in the Lord’s harvest. The seventy two that are sent out are asked to proclaim two messages which overlap very much, ‘Peace to this house’ and ‘the kingdom of God is very near to you’. They are to proclaim that in the person of Jesus the reign of God is close at hand and they are to announce the peace which those who welcome God’s reign in Jesus will experience. The seventy two are to proclaim this good news regardless of how they are received; they are to announce it to those who welcome them and to those who reject them. They are to proclaim the presence of God in Jesus to all, the receptive and the unreceptive. Regardless of whether the gospel is well received or badly received, the kingdom of God remains very near to us. People’s response may differ, but God remains the same. God is powerfully at work when the gospel is being rejected as much as when it is being received. God was as powerfully present on Good Friday as he was on Easter Sunday. Even in those times when our labours for the Lord do not appear to be bearing much fruit, when our witness to the Lord is not being well received, the kingdom of God remains very near to all of us. Bidden or unbidden, God is present.

And/Or

(v) Thursday, Twenty Sixth Week in Ordinary Time

You may have come across a plaque with the saying, ‘Bidden or not bidden, God is present’. Swiss Psychiatrist Carl Jung had these words inscribed above the entrance to his home and the quote is often attributed to him. Actually, Jung found it in the Latin writings of Desiderius Erasmus, a sixteenth century Dutch Catholic priest, social critic, teacher, and theologian. The saying declares that God’s presence to us is not determined by our openness to God’s presence or our lack of openness to it. I was reminded of that saying in today’s gospel reading. Jesus sends out the seventy two disciples on mission. He is aware that they will be well received in some towns but made most unwelcome in other towns. However, irrespective of how they are received, their message is to be the same, ‘the Kingdom of God is very near to you’. Even to the town that does not make them welcome they are to say, ‘Yet, be sure of this: the kingdom of God is very near’. We don’t have to make God present. God is always present to us. God’s presence is assured. The presence of God’s kingdom, God’s realm of liberating love, is a given. The crucial question is how open, how responsive, are we to God’s presence, to the presence of the risen Lord, God-with-us? The first reading suggests that Job, even in the midst of his darkness hour of suffering, came to the awareness that God had not abandoned him, ‘these eyes will gaze on him and find him not aloof’. The Lord is never aloof from us, even when we are often aloof from him. We do not have to go seeking the Lord after we have been aloof from him, because he is always seeking us; he is always there, fully present to us.

And/Or

(vi) Thursday, Twenty Sixth Week in Ordinary Time

When Jesus sends out the seventy two in the gospel reading, he makes clear to them that, whereas they will be well received by some towns, they will most certainly not be made welcome by other towns. However, regardless of how they are received, their message is to be the same, ‘the kingdom of God is very near to you’. The reign of God in Jesus is equally present to those who reject it as it is to those who welcome it. We are being reminded that we do not make God present, nor, indeed, can we drive God away. God is present to us, through his Son, now risen Lord, whether we want God’s presence or not, whether we are aware of God’s presence or not. God is changeless in that God cannot but be present to us, even though as human beings we can change; we can be more or less present to God. Because the kingdom of God is always very near to us, because God’s loving and just rule is powerfully present to us at all times, our calling is to keep opening ourselves to God’s presence, to allow God to be Emmanuel, God with us. God has done and is doing all God can do for us; it falls to us to keep opening ourselves more fully to what God is doing for us. It has pleased God to give us the gift of the kingdom, the gift of his loving presence; God wants us to receive this gift and then to live out of the fullness and richness of this gift. God has drawn near to us through his Son, and God desires us to draw near to him, to be in communion with him, and then, in the strength of that communion to go forth and become his labourers in his harvest, like the seventy two in today’s gospel reading.

And/Or

(vii) Thursday, Twenty Sixth Week in Ordinary Time

There is a wonderful example of the Ministry of the Word in today’s first reading. Ezra, the priest, read from the Book of the Law from early morning until noon, and all the people listened attentively. They were in tears as they listened to the Book of the Law and heard it explained, sensing that their lives fell short of what God was asking of them. However, it was said to the people that this was not a day for tears but for joy, ‘the joy of the Lord is your stronghold’. The reading highlights the power of God’s word to touch people powerfully. In the gospel reading, Jesus sends out seventy two disciples to proclaim his word, the core of which was, ‘The kingdom of God is very near to you’. However, Jesus knew that not everyone to whom they preached the gospel would be as open to the word as the people were in the first reading. Yet, even to those who didn’t welcome them, the same good news was to be preached, ‘The kingdom of God is very near to you’. The Lord continues to speak his word to us, whether we are receptive to it or not. His word is alive and active, even when we are not alive to it. This is good news because it means we can always return to the Lord’s word and draw life and inspiration from it, even after we have been deaf to it for a long time. The word of the Lord endures forever; he never ceases to call out to us through it.

Fr. Martin Hogan.

[puppyexpressions]

How To Help Your Dog With Fall Allergies

Ah, fall is in the air, and along with that air comes watery eyes, sneezing, runny nose, and, most commonly of all, skin problems for your best friend! Dog fall allergies can be as big of a problem for your dog as they can be for you.

Dog allergies can manifest in the form of itchy skin, red eyes, hair loss, or even general itchiness. So what’s causing the problem, and what can you do as a loving pet parent to help?

What Allergens Cause Dog Allergies?

Allergens are basically foreign substances that your pooch can inhale, ingest, or just come into contact with, and when he does, it’s possible for his immune system to overreact.

While the fall season is not associated as much as spring with allergic reactions, there are still several plants, like ragweed and sagebrush, that release pollen in the fall. Fall winds can then spread those substances far and wide.

Mold is also a culprit in fall allergies because increased rain and piles of decaying leaves are great environments for growing mold. Additionally, your good buddy may be more exposed to dust mites in the fall season when your heating system turns on and spreads them throughout the house.

Your pup may also show signs of a flea allergy in the fall since they thrive on the increased moisture in the air.

Your dog’s environmental allergies can then result in itchiness, redness, hives, or swelling. He usually responds by licking or chewing on the affected areas, and that can result in secondary skin infections, which then create even more itching. This allergic reaction on your dog’s skin is known as atopic dermatitis or atopy.

It’s a real catch-22, so what should you look for during allergy season?

Signs of Dog Fall Allergies

Signs of allergies in your dog include:

sneezing

watery eyes

runny nose

skin rashes

hair loss

waxy ear discharge

red paws

odor

excessive scratching

Just like with humans, your dog may suffer from sneezing, watery eyes, and a runny nose. But you might also see him develop rashes and generally irritated skin.

He might also experience hair loss, a waxy discharge from his ears, and red, discolored, smelly feet. Flea allergies can also cause secondary ear infections and other problems like an aural hematoma.

Aural hematomas occur when your dog shakes his head because of an irritated ear. He can shake it so vigorously that the skin of the ear separates from the underlying cartilage. That creates a space where blood can pool. That’s an aural hematoma.

How Can You Be Sure It’s Seasonal Allergies?

While environmental allergies are common in dogs, other problems can cause similar symptoms. It’s vital to determine the cause of your dog’s itchy skin, ear infections, or other symptoms in order to choose the best treatment.

While runny eyes might be due to seasonal allergies, it could also be an eye infection or injury that causes that. Other types of problems include things like dog food allergies and allergic skin lesions resulting from a bacterial infection, among others.

Respiratory symptoms could be seasonal allergies, but it could also be something like kennel cough.

Though environmental allergies are common, there are many other health conditions that cause similar symptoms. It’s important to know which one is causing your dog’s itchy skin or ear infections.

That’s why you’ll want to consult a veterinarian when you notice allergy symptoms in your pooch. They can perform diagnostic tests to determine the exact cause. Since those symptoms can be very uncomfortable and result in more problems, the sooner you visit your DVM, the better.

How Seasonal Allergies Are Diagnosed

There are a number of diagnostic tests your veterinarian might perform, but they usually start with a general physical exam. Your vet will ask about possible allergen exposure, and then they may follow up with some simple skin tests.

For example, they might do a skin scraping and look at the material microscopically to see if there are any skin mites or other identifiable causes. If your pup’s symptoms involve problems with his ears, they will look for evidence of an ear infection.

If your vet thinks that the symptoms are due to something else, they may recommend other types of diagnostic tests. If they suspect food allergies, they may also conduct a food trial, which often involves stopping all foods your dog is eating and instead feeding something hypoallergenic like lamb and rice. Then you reintroduce his old food slowly until the symptoms reappear. That will allow them to identify the specific allergen.

If allergies are determined to be the cause, and your dog has a particularly severe case, they might also recommend allergy testing to determine the specific sensitivity. Once they know the environmental allergens are causing your pup’s symptoms, they can recommend an appropriate treatment.

How are Seasonal Allergies Treated?

You can’t cure allergies, but you can manage the symptoms so that your pooch stays comfortable. There are some over-the-counter medications, like antihistamines (think Benadryl, for example), that can manage those fall allergy symptoms.

Of course, you want to be careful about giving any over-the-counter drugs until you’ve spoken with your vet. Just because you can take a drug like that doesn’t mean it’s safe for your pet.

Your veterinarian might also recommend using a medicated shampoo to help relieve skin irritation or itchiness. For many dogs, those kinds of treatments will be enough to relieve the symptoms, and if fall allergies are to blame, you shouldn’t have to use them year-round.

Dogs with more severe symptoms, however, might need something stronger. In these cases, your dog might need something like a steroidal medication to lessen the strong reaction your dog’s body is having to the allergen.

There are also allergy shots available to help desensitize your pup to the allergen. For these, it will be important to conduct skin testing to determine the specific cause of the reaction.

Of course, it’s also important to treat your pup for any secondary skin or ear infections that develop as a result of the symptoms.

What You Can Do at Home

There are a couple of things you can do at home to help prevent allergic reactions or at least lessen the severity of the reaction. You can wipe your dog’s paws and belly off with a clean, wet cloth after you’ve been on a walk, for example.

It’s also a good idea to bathe your dog once a week. Use a gentle dog shampoo, and pay special attention to areas that might come into contact with plants shedding pollen.

Wash your dog’s bed and any linens he comes into contact with regularly so you can limit his exposure to dust mites. Feeding high-quality dog food and getting him checked regularly for parasites are also important for reducing allergy symptoms.

Final Thoughts on Dog Fall Allergies

While it might be a lovely time of the year, fall can also bring different allergy symptoms that can make you and your pooch really uncomfortable. Take the steps you can to keep your home free of allergens, and see your vet if symptoms develop. You’ll feel as relieved as your pooch when the itching stops!





[pancakeke]

I was looking up insecticides and came across a reddit thread where someone was like "I used neem oil, clove oil, cinnamon, and vinegar but nothing works :("

which drives INSANE. influencer brained essential oil fanatics who do not understand the scope of organic products need to do like an extremely basic google search into this shit because there are plenty of natural/organic insecticides that actually work.

Spinosad

This is a natural compound made from fermented bacteria (saccharopolyspora spinosa) and kills ants, fruit flies, leafminers, mites, mosquitoes, spider mites, and thrips. This comes in a spray and a dust.

Bacillus thuringiensis and its subspecies.

This is a species of bacteria that can control a wide range of pests depending on which subspecies you use.

Bacillus thuringiensis var. israelensis (BTi) is used to kill the larvae of flies, mosquitos, and fungus gnats. This is the bacteria used in Mosquito Bits** granules and can also be purchased as a spray or dust.

Bacillus thuringiensis var. kurstaki (BTk) kills wormy type pests like gypsy moth caterpillars, tomato hornworms, cabbage worms, cabbage loopers, cutworms, and leaf rollers. It will kill non-pest caterpillars though so be careful with this one. This comes in a spray.

Bacillus thuringiensis var. san diego works for certain beetles/weevils but not all. Look up a list to see what it's effective against if you have a beetle problem.

There are other ones but idk if they're really commercially available.

**I see people applying Mosquito Bits ineffectively all the time and then they assume the product doesn't work. Don't just sprinkle the bits onto your soil (they aren't effective unless the bacteria is well washed off and allowed to permeate the surrounding soil, plus they eventually decompose and mold).

Fill a clear pitcher with water and add a tablespoon or two of bits. let them soak for 30 mins, stir, and then use that water for your plants. This ensures an even distribution of the bacteria over the plant's soil. If you retain like 1/8 of the pitcher of water and fill it back up you can get several applications out of your spoon of bits. dump the spent bits and replace with fresh ones once the water in your pitcher gets too clear.

There's other stuff that can work for specific insects in specific environments (inorganic dusts, sticky traps, utilizing beneficial predators like chickens, wild birds, or wasps) but they have enough drawbacks that I wouldn't recommend those things without knowing your exact situation.

Be extremely wary of any DIY/home made "insecticides". At best their effectiveness is deceptive (the "insecticide" does nothing but through its application you are mechanically removing pests by washing or wiping them away), and at worst they may cause harm to your plants.

Lastly, never put any kind oil on your plants. It doesn't matter what people say about neem. Plants breathe through pores in their leaves and oil covers those pores up.

[praline-elegy]

iirc you said nick is allergic to cats, do you think he has other allergies??

Hello anon!

(Ooh my first ask, I’m so excited 😆)

If anyone is curious, anon is referring to this post that I made with a list of random headcanons I have about various Fence characters. I mentioned hc-ing Nicholas to be allergic to cats, but still petting them anyways (as he should, even if he does get an atrocious runny nose much to Seiji’s dismay).

Circling back to the question, I do think Nicholas would probably have other allergies. Most likely the kind that aren’t life-threatening but still very annoying to have.

I think that Nicholas would be allergic to grass. It’s the kind of allergy that kind of just exists, and doesn’t come up often in conversation nor does it greatly impede Nicholas’ quality of life. It would be a pretty mild allergy that at most causes itchy skin if he laid or sat in the grass with bare skin.

Tbh I’m mostly just yoinking my own allergies and giving them to Nicholas, but I do have a drabble where I briefly mention this allergy (I’ll polish it up a little and post it sometime).

In a similar vein, I also think that he’d be allergic to dust mites which pretty much exist everywhere in every scope of the world. There’s no escaping it 😩🤧😅

I have this small image of Nicholas in my head doing a research project at the library and sneezing several times in a row after reaching for a dusty book on the top shelf, and Seiji passing by and thinking to himself that Nicholas has a cute sneeze 😆🤧💕✨

Alternatively it would be pretty cute if Seiji learned this fact about Nicholas after inviting him to his home for winter break while rifling through an old dusty box of 2-player board games or puzzles only to hear the cutest sneeze coming from him 🥹🤧💗

Thanks for the question anon! Feel free to leave some more! 🤍

[ghostlycandlefairy]

Simple Steps To Finding The Right Mattress

Buying a new mattress can be a hassle. But with these simple steps, it doesn't have to be!

According to “Better Homes and Gardens,” most of us replace our mattresses every 8 to 10 years. Trying to pick the right mattress for you, one that you want to sleep visit site here on for the next 10 years, can seem like a daunting task.  You spend 1/3 of your life sleeping, make it a comfortable 1/3.

As we're about to show you, it can be as easy as choosing the next show to TiVo.

The first question you may be having is, “do I need a new mattress?” This one is probably the easiest. Ask yourself if you are sleeping well at night. Do you feel rested in the morning or do you need five cups of coffee before even thinking about getting ready for your day? If so, chances are you do need a new mattress.

The age of your mattress could also be a factor. Chances are you have dust mites, and dust mites can actually double the weight of your mattress in ten years. We won't go into detail about that here, but you get the point. This along with mold and mildew can create havoc on allergies and asthma.

Some of the most common indicators of needing a new mattress are:

mattress is too lumpy

mattress is too soft/hard

mattress is too old

mattress is just not comfortable

Ok, so you decided that you do need or want a new mattress. The first thing you need to do is decide on what size you want. If it's the same size as you already have, you're ahead of the game. If you have decided to move up in size, a simple way to see how your new mattress will fit is to move the old bedding and mark the area where the new bed will sit. You can do this using towels, sheets, or even an outline in string.

If you want to really get creative, buy yourself some graph paper and organize all of your bedroom furniture. Draw out your bedroom dimensions and on another sheet cut out your furniture to scale. Then you can organize your whole bedroom without lifting anything heavy.

Here are some of the more popular mattress dimensions to help get you started.

Twin: 38" x 75"

Extra-Long Twin: 38" X 80"

Double/Standard/Full Size: 53" x 75"

Queen: 60" x 80"

King: 76" X 80"

California King: 72" x 84" (Recommended for people over 6'4")

Important Tip: Remember these sizes can vary by manufacturer and don't forget headboards and foot boards can add several inches to these dimensions.

When it comes to beds and mattresses, the softest are not always the best. This almost always comes down to personal preference. Your going to have to “test drive” your mattress. Don't be shy, and don't be afraid t ask the sales staff to leave you alone while you try out the mattresses.

If someone will be sleeping with you, bring them along. Above all, the mattress should support your spine and should not interfere with your pressure points.

Check the number of coils the mattresses has. The higher number of coils the better the mattress will wear. Generally, 300 coils for a double and 350-800 for a queen. A king size mattress can range from 400 to 900 coils. You'll also want a few fabric and padding layers and a pillow top.

Many recommend going to a local mattress store and test the ones you like, then go online to stores like GreatPricedFurniture.com were you can find better deals.