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#Australian cattle dog mom
bbyboybucket · 1 month
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Calling all blue heeler owners (or just dog owners in general)!!!!
How the actual fuck do y’all manage the shedding, bc my guy is the worst shedder I’ve seen and is even worse now that it’s springtime. I woulda never guessed it’d be so bad bc he’s a short haired dog but I was not prepared for the double coat. I’ve gotta say, my parents have a Great Pyrenees and my dog sheds WORSE than him
And I’m trying EVERYTHING! I vacuum almost daily which includes vacuuming the furniture bc it gets stuck so bad. I even bought a mini hand held vacuum for furniture and my car but it doesn’t matter bc 5 seconds later, it’s covered in fur again. I brush him almost daily and every time it’s like shearing a sheep, even after 30 min brushing sessions, it just keeps coming. I have a million lint rollers not just for myself but for the furniture multiple times a day AND I have lint roll him too to get the excess off but it still doesn’t help much. He also has a salmon diet which is supposed to be for a healthy coat in general but I’ve also heard fish oils and fatty acids help shedding too but it’s not 🥲.
So that being said, any advice? Bc fuck, the hair is literally everywhere all the time. And like I said, now that it’s spring and getting hot, chunks fall out
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Comet Donati [Chapter 9: Why Don’t We Go There]
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Series Summary: Sex, drugs, boy bands. You are a kinda-therapist recruited (via nepotism) to help Comet Donati through a recent crisis. Things are casual with Aegon, very not-casual with Aemond. Loosely inspired by One Direction.
Chapter Warnings: Language, sexual content (+18), beef cattle, drugs, alcohol, smoking, Walmart, vegan baking, David Archuleta, mental health struggles, pregnancy, pigs, bodily injury, death, miscarriage, Jace acting vaguely human, angst, Southern Baptists, Cookie Monster pajama pants.
Selected Chapter Quote: “You have no idea how much I’ve kept from you.”
Word count: 8.6k.
Link to chapter list (and all my writing): HERE.
Taglist: ​​@doingfondue​ @catalina-howard​ @randomdragonfires​ @myspotofcraziness​ @arcielee​ @fan-goddess​ @talesofoldandnew​ @marvelescvpe​ @tinykryptonitewerewolf​ @mariahossain​ @chainsawsangel​ @darkenchantress​ @not-a-glad-gladiator​ @gemini-mama​ @trifoliumviridi​ @herfantasyworldd​ @babyblue711​ @namelesslosers​ @thelittleswanao3​ @daenysx​ @moonlightfoxx​ @libroparaiso​ @burningcoffeetimetravel-fics​ @mizfortuna​ @florent1s​ @heimtathurs​ @bhanclegane​ @poohxlove​ @narwhal-swimmingintheocean​ @heavenly1927​ @mariahossain​ @echos-muses​ @padfooteyes​ @minttea07​ @queenofshinigamis​ @juliavilu1​ @amiraisgoingthruit​ @lauraneedstochill​ @wintrr13​ @r0segard3n​ @seabasscevans​ @tsujifreya​ @helaenaluvr​ @hiraethrhapsody​​​
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The last day of summer, the first day in Kansas City: emerald seas of soybeans, cornstalks taller than you are, massive tractors rolling laggardly on the shoulder of the road, red-tailed hawks perched on utility poles, cloudless cerulean skies, sunlight that beats down like soft rain. There is a long, rambling dirt driveway that leads from Route 210 to your parents’ farm. When you climb out of the Escalade, you cannot hear traffic or voices or some playlist of bygone pop hits or ice cubes jangling in misty glasses or the roar of jet engines. You can hear only the sounds of the Midwestern earth: wind in the leaves, cicadas humming, the distant mooing of black angus cattle. For a moment, Comet Donati just stands there breathing in the unhurried, golden air like the atmosphere of a new planet, their lungs acclimating, their eyes wide and peering around. Where have we landed? Any signs of intelligent life?
There are footsteps and then the squealing creak of the screen door as your dad throws it open. Along with your parents pour out five Australian cattle dogs. They bark uproariously, herding the new arrivals like errant calves. Aemond laughs and crouches down in the dust of the driveway to pet them. Rhaena screams and clings to Luke.
“Belmont! Bel, you git down!” your dad scolds, pulling her away from Rhaena by the collar: pink, so everyone knows she’s a girl. “Don’t be scared, sweetheart, she don’t bite none.”
“Unless you’re a cow, of course,” your mom adds, tittering merrily. She starts handing out glasses of sweet tea, already dripping with condensation. Outside it’s 80 degrees even.
Your dad whistles as he studies Aemond’s scar, his sightless left eye like a pool of blue fog. “That must’ve hurt like a son of a bitch.”
“Jeff!” your mom objects mildly; she abhors swearing.
Aemond considers your dad: a man who doesn’t flinch away from him, who doesn’t bury truths under the cover of night. “It did.”
“My uncle came back from ‘Nam with something like that. Was never right again.” He taps his own skull. “You must be tough as nails to be carrying on like you are, son. What happened to you was a damn shame.”
“Jefferson, please!” your mom says.
“The man’s been to New Jersey, Carol! I think he’s heard worse words than bitch and damn!”
“Her name’s Belmont?” Rhaena says, frowning nervously at her canine tormentor: rust-orange, brown-eyed, tail wagging eagerly at the prospect of making new friends.
“You betcha.” Then your dad informs Aemond: “That’s Lone Jack you got there.” He points to the remaining dogs. “And the others are Carthage, Kirksville, and Island Number Ten. We call her Tenny.”
“They’re all named after Civil War battles,” you tell Comet.
“Civil War battles in Missouri,” your dad says. He turns to his guests. “Were you aware that over 100,000 Missourians served in the Union Army? Ulysses S. Grant’s first military assignment was in Missouri. He met his wife Julia here.”
“Daddy, they’re English. They don’t know what the Union Army is.”
“Were they for or against staying colonies?” Aegon asks, and Criston covers his face and groans.
Your dad spots the motorcycle Aemond rode here from the airport, weaving between the Escalades until Criston stuck his head out a window to yell at him. “Lord almighty, is that a Gold Star?! Made by the Birmingham Small Arms Company?”
“Yes sir,” Aemond says, smiling down at a delighted Lone Jack and scratching his long pointy ears.
“An ingenious piece of machinery! ‘55?”
“1960.”
“Remarkable.” Your dad admires it. He’s wearing red flannel, Wrangler jeans, the UChicago hat that you bought for him your freshman year of college.
“We’ve been told you don’t eat meat,” your mom says to Aemond, with a gentle, sympathetic tone like she’s conscious of some bad luck that’s recently befallen him: a grim diagnosis, a storm that carried away his house. “So I’ve got some chicken soaking in buttermilk to fry up for supper.”
Aemond chuckles uncertainly.
“No, she’s serious,” you tell him. And then: “Mama, we went over this on the phone. He’s vegan. That means no animal products at all. No meat, no poultry, no fish, no dairy, no eggs, nothing that came from an animal.”
“Well I’ll be, what the heck does he eat?!” your dad says. “Carrots? Acorns? Sticks and leaves? He can graze out in the pasture if he likes.”
“We’ll find you something,” you promise Aemond.
Your dad surveys Aegon (white cargo shorts, neon pink tank top, sparkly matching Crocs) and then Jace (black skinny jeans and a violet sequined blazer with nothing underneath except a mosaic of tattoos). “I suppose you two will be wanting to share a room. Well, it ain’t my place to pass judgement, I reckon. But I don’t want to overhear nothing that couldn’t be done in church.”
Jace is confused. “Huh…?”
“No, Daddy, they’re not gay.”
“What, me?!” Aegon exclaims. “Gay?! For Jace?!”
Jace says: “Sir, if I ever start looking at Aegon that way, I give you enthusiastic permission to take me out back and shoot me dead like a horse with a bum leg.”
Your dad guffaws, a deep gruff rumble like an earthquake. “I don’t think I could oblige you, buddy.”
Your mom gestures to the front door. “Y’all go on in and make yourselves at home. We got a few extra bedrooms and a nice big den if anyone’s willing to sleep on a couch. But be warned: you’ll probably end up having a dog or two snuggled up with you.”
“We are guests here!” Criston shouts at the band as they begin dragging their luggage inside, suitcase wheels bumping up the creaking wooden steps of the wraparound porch. “You will not humiliate me! You will not break things! You will not cause any problems whatsoever or you can stay at the Hilton with the security guys and I’ll have them handcuff you to a bed!”
“He will,” Aegon warns the others. “I’ve seen him do it before. To…um…somebody.” He disappears into the five-bedroom farmhouse: mint green paint, white accents, two rambling stories plus an attic and a cellar.
Criston waves to the security detail as the Escalades turn around in the driveway—stirring up dust like a parched cough of earth—and then head back towards Route 210, towards the light pollution and acclaimed barbeque joints of Kansas City. Now Aemond is standing by the barbed wire fence of the pasture and looking longingly at the black angus cattle grazing on tall swaths of windswept, green-gold switchgrass. Lone Jack, Carthage, and Kirksville are all bounding around him hoping to elicit praise and scratches. Tenny has taken a liking to Baela and follows her and Jace into the house. Belmont, still held captive by your dad, whines and struggles.
“Aemond, you can’t pet the cows,” you say. “They’re beef cattle. They spend most of their lives out in fields, they don’t get handled very often, they’re not used to people. They can be aggressive.”
He is disappointed. “Oh, okay.”
“You can pet the pigs though,” your dad says.
“Pigs?” Cregan perks up. “There are pigs?”
“Sure are. Well, they’re pigs now…come Thanksgiving, they’ll be hams! Hahaha. They’re right ‘round the back of the house. You’ll show ‘em, chickadee?”
You reply: “Yeah, Daddy. I’ll show them.”
As the rest of the band claims sleeping spots and unpacks their suitcases inside, you lead Cregan and Aemond—and Lone Jack, Carthage, and Kirksville, all blue speckled with random splatters of white markings like stray dabs of paint—to the pigs. They have a large, muddy enclosure surrounded by a wooden fence that stops at your waist; pigs, fortunately, cannot really jump. They immediately come trotting over to their visitors, tails swishing and snouts twitching, spewing a chorus of guttural oinks. Aemond leans down to pet them, beaming, then takes a Ziploc bag of raw cauliflower out of his jeans pocket and starts dropping pieces into the pigs’ gluttonous, slobbering, gaping mouths.
“Wow,” Cregan says. He’s grinning broadly, something that’s rare for him. He slips out his phone and starts taking pictures. “Iris is going to love this.”
On the second floor of the farmhouse, a window slides open. “Aemond!” Aegon calls. “I need help! It’s an emergency!”
“What’s your problem?” Aemond snaps.
“Tell Jace I need the bigger bedroom!”
“Please go away.”
“Aemond! Do not betray your favorite brother!”
“Hey!” comes Daeron’s muffled objection from inside.
“Aemond! Threaten to break Jace’s face again!”
Aemond exhales in a loud sigh and then makes for the house.
Still taking pig photos, Cregan glances over at your belly: ten weeks. Not enough to be properly showing, but enough that you can feel a difference, an extra inch here and there, a heaviness that settles in you like stones plinked in a jar. Your parents don’t know. Nobody knows but Aegon. “So,” Cregan says. “Have you told Aemond yet?”
Your attention jolts to him, a lightning strike, a surge of adrenaline. “What?”
“I remember what it looks like when someone’s trying to hide the fact that they’re pregnant.” He smirks. “And I remember that night at Club Camelot.”
People are going to start figuring it out eventually. Aemond is going to figure it out. “Do you think he’ll take it well?” you ask hopefully.
“No,” Cregan says.
In your chest, a sinking like dead weight: “Oh.”
“But he’ll probably come around to the idea eventually.”
After he’s said something unforgiveable. After he buries another knife in me, spilling blood and scraping marrow. You stare down into the pigpen, observing them root around for remnants of cauliflower and blink their awfully intelligent eyes, too clever for the fate they’ve been assigned.
Cregan lights a cigarette and puffs on it, taking advantage of a rare moment out of Criston’s line of sight. “When I first found out about Iris, I did not behave in a way that I would consider to be honorable. But fortunately, nature gives everyone time to adjust to these things. I had my head right by the time she was born. If I had to guess, I’d say it will be similar for Aemond. Then again…” He takes a deep, meditative drag. “I’d like to think I was never as fucked up as he is now.”
You study Cregan. “So you’ve been watching me. I’ve been watching you too. You haven’t been partying as hard. A few vodka shots, a secret cigarette on occasion. But no more disappearing with Aegon to do lines in the bathroom or arranging drop-offs with drug dealers.”
He shrugs. “Someone has to be the adult. Someone has to help Criston look out for the others. It used to be Aemond, but not anymore. He’s different now. One day he’ll figure out where he’s supposed to be and he’ll stop touring with Comet altogether. So I’m going to do it. There are people who need me.”
“Comet is your family,” you say. “Just as much as your mother and siblings and Iris. They love you. They belong to you, and you belong to them. And that will never change.”
He smiles; his greyish eyes are teasing but kind. “Good luck, Stargirl. You need it.”
“Thanks, Cregan.” And together, you leave the pigs and join the rest of the band inside.
Your parents’ farmhouse, the same one you grew up in—a different world, a different you—is painted in shades of gold: late-afternoon sunlight, chicken thighs and drumsticks browning in canola oil, mashed potatoes wet with cream and butter, corn cut from the cob, an enormous pan of baked macaroni and cheese, homemade rolls, a butterscotch pie cooling on the windowsill. You find a vegan alternative for Aemond in the pantry: a box of Barilla spaghetti, a jar of Ragu marinara sauce. Criston insists on cooking it so everyone else can enjoy their supper. Cregan asks your parents about tips for raising pigs; Rhaena asks about the history of the farm; Aegon eats butterscotch pie until he has to roll out of his chair and lie sprawled on the hardwood floor for a while, Australian cattle dogs licking at his pink palms and cheeks. And when Aemond finally receives his spaghetti and marinara sauce, you think: That’s the same thing he was eating in Rome. And you remember the razored sting of the comet tattoo, the nightscape motorcycle ride, the incomplete truth about Aegon, the realization of what you felt for his scarred, perfect, brilliant, haunted younger brother.
“I didn’t know the weather would be so nice here,” Baela says as she scoops herself a third helping of macaroni and cheese. Tenny lies by her feet under the table, her muzzle resting on her paws.
Your dad nods, but his words hold a warning. “It can turn quick.”
~~~~~~~~~~
“He could be a stay-at-home dad,” Aegon suggests. It’s the next day and you’re up in a hundred-year-old white oak tree, killing time until the Escalades arrive to shuttle Comet to soundcheck and their first of two shows at Arrowhead Stadium in downtown Kansas City. You’re sitting on a colossal, sturdy branch only four or five feet off the ground, your feet dangling; Aegon is a few limbs above you, alternating between swinging like a monkey and lying on his stomach so he can peer down at you with those large, oceanic eyes.
“No. If he chooses to, sure. But not because he has no other options. A baby is not something to paper over a quarter-life crisis with.”
Aegon thinks, then is struck with inspiration. “He could work for your dad on the farm!”
“The beef cattle farm?” you say. “You want the traumatized vegan to spend the rest of his life as a cog in the blood-drenched machine of American industrial agriculture? Besides, I’m sure he hates Missouri.”
“I don’t know, I mean I thought I hated Missouri too. But lowkey it kind of slaps.” Aegon closes his eyes and smiles as the warm, sunlit breeze breathes through him, tousling his hair. It’s long again, it’s almost down to his shoulders. He smells like sunscreen and Axe body spray and the homemade waffles your mother made for brunch, soggy with dollops of butter and a river of amber-colored maple syrup. Something’s missing. It takes you a moment to realize it’s the scent of beer. Your parents don’t approve of drinking, the house is bone dry. Aegon hasn’t complained about that yet, a miracle, Moses turning the Nile to blood. Maybe Missouri is good for him after all. “How’s Starbaby?”
“Good, I think. I’m not nauseous anymore. Now I’m just super hungry and horny.”
“Oh my God, you can’t say stuff like that around me, now I’m having immoral thoughts.” He squeezes his eyes shut, frowns mournfully. Goodbye forever, pornstar pussy. “When are you going to tell Aemond?”
“Soon,” you say noncommittally, like a coward. Not a coward: someone who’s been hurt before. Not just hurt: slaughtered, buried, exhumed, robbed for the jewels on the bones of her fingers. You’re finally whole again. You’re in no hurry to imperil your resurrection. “Cregan knows.”
“Rhaena knows too.”
“What?!”
“She asked me in Dallas, but she waited until I was sloppy drunk first. Smart girl. I tried to deny it, but honestly she already had it figured out.” Aegon looks at you meaningfully. “If you wait much longer you’re going to lose control of this thing. It’ll get to Aemond before you can. And I think it will be worse if he finds out from somebody else.”
“I’ll tell him.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. I’ll tell him, Aegon, I promise. Before Comet flies out of Kansas City.” They’ll be leaving you here, though no one except Aegon and Criston know that yet. Their private jet will take them to New Orleans, and then Miami, and then all the way to South America: Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Bogota, Buenos Ares, Lima, Santiago.
Now someone is trekking across the field behind your parents’ house and towards the centenarian white oak tree. It’s Jace. He’s wearing a rather understated outfit today: a lavender polo, denim shorts, boat shoes. His dark curls whip and tangle in the wind.
“Ugh,” Aegon says once Jace close enough to hear. “Why don’t you go try to pet a rage-filled, 2,000-pound mound of unprocessed cheeseburgers?”
“I’m here for my complimentary therapy session.”
Aegon stares at you. You stare back. The only sounds are made by the earth and the sky and the animals, air in the leaves, the low mooing of cattle. You both wait for Jace to rescind his request. He does not. At last, you relent. “Okay. Fine. Aegon?”
“You want me to leave you alone with this inked-up ogre?”
“Confidentiality is important. I’ve always given it to you, Jace deserves the same.”
“Does he really?” Aegon flings back; but he obediently climbs down from the tree and walks to the farmhouse. Your parents have no booze, no internet, a landline telephone, and a single tv with basic cable. Everyone else is in there playing Uno, doing animal-themed puzzles, and baking apple cider cookies in honor of the first day of autumn. You’d think Comet would be losing their minds after adapting to months of nonstop, breakneck excitement, but they seem to be enjoying themselves. You feel like you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be. You don’t miss the jet, you don’t miss the bars or the five-star hotels, you don’t even miss your apartment in the city that is still being sublet by some grad student with a Flemish Giant rabbit. You wonder if you ever wanted to leave the farm at all, or if you only wanted to leave the way you felt about yourself the last time you called this place home.
Jace grins and hauls himself up onto the tree branch to sit beside you. “Want to see my new tattoo?”
“Comet has definitely already been to Kansas City.”
Still, he’s acquired one, left wrist, black ink: a single star the size of a quarter. “For you, Stargirl. So I don’t forget about you. So I don’t lose you in the sea of gorgeous women I have marooned myself in.”
“It looks like a pentagram,” you say. “That’s appropriate, since you’re basically Satan.”
He’s not offended. “Aren’t you going to ask me what I want to talk about?”
“I already know.”
“Do you really?”
“You’re happy, but you feel bad about it. You wanted to be the leader of Comet, but you wish it could have happened a different way.”
Jace opens his hands and offers you a crooked, wry smile. “I might jibe at Aemond, but I don’t hate him. Why else would I let him knock out four of my teeth without expecting any penance in return?”
“No, you certainly don’t hate Aemond.”
“And what happened to him…it sucks. I mean, obviously, it was life-ruining for him. Not ruining, I shouldn’t say that. I’m sure he’ll get a new life someday. But it wrecked him in ways I’ll never be able to understand.”
“You’ll have to let him go when the time comes.”
“Yeah,” Jace says, unusually somber, gazing out across the field of white wild indigo, prairie dropseed, blue star, yarrow.
“And if Baela gets into ballet school, you’ll have to let her go too.”
Now Jace turns to you, startled. “I can’t. I’d miss her.”
“Yes, but you aren’t right for her. Sometimes we have to give people the freedom to realize they want something more than us. It’s the greatest act of love we can do for them.”
He laughs, a disdainful little snort. “That’s what everyone says. If you love someone, let them go. But then nobody ever really does it. They cling and they manipulate and they beg. Nobody helps the people they love leave them. Nobody escapes the indignity of becoming a regret.”
Please don’t let that be true. Please don’t let Aemond regret meeting me, touching me, maybe even loving me. “Why do you think that is, Jace?”
And he says, like it’s obvious, like you should already know it: “Because letting go is too fucking painful.” He hops off the branch and drops into the tall grass below. Then he extends a hand to help you down. “Come on. I bet those apple cider cookies are ready.”
~~~~~~~~~~
You see glimmering dresses, incandescent string lights, neon signs, the winding reptilian sheen of the Missouri River in the distance, faint dots of stars muted by the city’s synthetic luminance. You taste your faux Bramble: ice, cranberry juice, a sliver of lemon on the rim, sweet and tart and cold. The speakers are thumping out Prayin’ For Daylight by Rascal Flatts. Aegon is in neon yellow. You almost wore the same, but the flowing yellow gown you bought in Reykjavik suffered an unfortunate Australian-cattle-dog-related incident before Comet left your parents’ farmhouse for the concert. You opted for the short sparkly black dress embroidered with silver stars instead…and hurried out the door before your parents could catch a glimpse of your comet tattoo.
“No way!” Baela cries as she checks her phone. “Look, look!” Liam Payne has just posted a selfie on Instagram. Cuddled up next to him on a beach in Ibiza is Shelby, tan and with her long blond waves flying everywhere. The comments are a smorgasbord: Cutest couple EVER! Aww, did you and Aemond break up again :( Enjoy your vacay, girlie! Guess love really can’t conquer all. You are stunning, Shelby! I’m still hoping you guys get back together. You deserve better! What is Aemond even doing these days?? Is this why Comet took A Girl Named After A Car off their tour setlist :(((
“Damn, poor Liam,” Daeron says. “Should we warn him?”
Aegon replies: “Bruh, this is so tragic. That dude has enough demons already.”
“Good luck, Liam,” Luke says, toasting his Mai Tai against Aemond’s fully-alcoholic Bramble. “Thoughts and prayers.”
“Maybe he’s dumb enough to sign up to be her boy band baby daddy,” Aemond quips. You and Aegon exchange an uneasy glance. Then Aegon gets an incoming FaceTime call. It’s Taylor Swift. He beams—he lights up, he glows—and rushes away to find a quiet spot where he can talk to her. Criston chases after him, extra vigilant since Aegon’s overdose in Las Vegas.
You gulp down the rest of your not-cocktail cocktail. The bartender calls over: “Another cranberry juice, ma’am?”
“Cranberry juice?!” Daeron says. “That sounds…healthy?”
“Why aren’t you drinking?” Baela asks you. It would be a rude question if you didn’t know each other so well. Though not quite as well as she thinks. Cregan and Rhaena peer awkwardly down into their glasses, eyebrows raised.
“Because. Um.” You hesitate. Aemond looks over at you curiously. “I’m an alcoholic.”
Baela blinks. “You’re what?”
“Um. I was developing an alcohol problem so to be safe I stopped drinking altogether.”
“How mature of you!” Rhaena chirps, then drags Baela towards the dancefloor. Luke and Jace go with them. Daeron and Cregan depart to charm some potential paramours: a flock of Kansas City University students for Daeron, a bachelorette party of flattered, giggly soccer moms for Cregan. You procure another cranberry juice from the bar and then return to Aemond. You are alone together, a strange combination of adjectives: solitary, secretive, appreciated, known. You migrate towards the edge of the roof and sip your matching drinks, wearing your matching black clothes, wind in your hair and the sounds of late night traffic on the streets below.
“So this is the place,” Aemond says, playful, wistful. “Where you and Aegon…met.”
“It feels so different now.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” You look out over the city, breathing in humid night air and a verdant, ancient wildness. “You know how when you’re a kid, you’ll go somewhere and it feels endless and magical, and then you go back five or ten or fifteen years later and you’re disappointed? Like, that’s it? Is this even the same place?”
He swigs his Bramble. Ice clinks; the glass is frosty in his hand. “I know what you mean. But it hasn’t been that long. A little over a year.”
“I guess I’ve changed.” More grounded. Less restless. Less aimless. More pregnant.
“I hope Comet hasn’t traumatized you.”
You laugh, and he’s looking at you like you’re the only two people at this rooftop bar, in this city, on this planet: one river blue eye, one pool of sightless otherworldly mist. He hasn’t worn sunglasses since Shelby’s deportation from the band’s retinue. “Not yet.”
He is mischievous. “There’s still time.”
Not much of it. Aemond’s iPhone rings, Mr. Brightside. He checks it. “Is that Shelby offering you ten thousand blowjobs if you take her back?”
Aemond smiles. “No. It’s Helaena.” He answers and puts it on speakerphone. “Hi, LaeLae. Can I call you tomorrow? I’m at a very loud, very crowded rooftop bar.”
“With her?” Helaena asks, delighted.
“Yes, actually.”
“Okay. Call tomorrow. I wanted to tell you about the praying mantis I found in the garden. Check the weather. Goodbye!” She hangs up before Aemond can.
“Weather…?” he muses, then shakes his head and slips his phone into the pocket of his dark jeans. He returns his attention to you. “Ten thousand blowjobs, huh? I think I’d rather have another ten minutes in a bar bathroom.”
You are so game. It’s humiliating how game you are. Dear Starbaby, today I had slutty bar bathroom sex with your slutty dad, the same place I hooked up with your super slutty uncle. “Really?”
“No,” Aemond says sheepishly. But the corners of his lips are curled up in fond nostalgia. “That’s not my usual style.”
“What is your style?”
He drains his Bramble and turns to you. “Do you want to get out of here?”
You want few things more. “Yeah.”
You leave your empty glasses on a tray by the edge of the roof. Aemond lets Criston know that you’re taking one of the Escalades back to the farm. Aegon pauses his conversation with Taylor Swift just long enough to wink at you. No need for condoms, he mouths with a grin. And then he shouts, as the opening notes of Starboy blare from the speakers: “Stargirl, it’s our song!”
The Escalade makes one pitstop: the Walmart just off Route 210, the same one you always shopped at growing up. Aemond piles the requisite ingredients for vegan chocolate chip cookies in the screechy-wheeled cart, flour, baking soda, salt, white sugar, brown sugar, dark chocolate chips, rice milk (Aemond swears it tastes like Rice Krispies), vanilla extract, coconut oil. You wander down the aisles together talking, joking, finding excuses to touch each other, hands on wrists and collarbones and waists.
As you scan the items at one of the self-checkout kiosks, two guys buying frozen pizzas and White Claws peek over at you and start snickering. You grab snippets of their conversation like fireflies from the air: critiques of your body, critiques of your soul. You ignore them. This happens sometimes when you’re home. Someone from high school will recognize you, someone will remember.
Aemond is staring at them. Not staring; glaring, seething, mentally splitting flesh and dislodging teeth.
“Aemond, it’s okay.”
“It’s not okay.”
“It’s not a big deal. I’m not upset. Just ignore them.” He walks away from you. “Aemond, don’t!”
He grabs the closest man’s shoulder and spins him around. “You got a problem?”
Both men gawk up at him, mouths hanging stupidly open and eyes inane like fish. The one he’s clenching sputters: “I’m sorry, are you…are you…are you Aemond Targaryen?!”
“I’m the guy who’s about to go to prison for second degree murder if you don’t shut the fuck up.”
He puts both hands in the air. “Hey man, I am actively shutting the fuck up. You have a nice evening.”
Aemond releases the man with a shove that sends him staggering back into a rack of tabloids. He returns to you, puts the bags in the cart, starts pushing it out to the parking lot.
The man turns to his friend. He is starstruck, elated. It might be the best day of his life. “Bruh, I just got assaulted by Aemond Targaryen…!”
The Escalade glides through the dark to your parents’ farm and drops you and Aemond off in the dirt driveway before zooming back towards the city. Aemond insists on carrying the shopping bags…but he doesn’t go inside. He stands near where his Gold Star is parked and gazes up at the night sky: moon, stars, the hazy white shadow of the Milky Way, all unmarred by the arrogant, buzzing radiance of electricity.
“Aemond?”
“You can see everything out here,” he says. “Maybe Kansas isn’t so bad.”
“Missouri.”
“Missouri,” Aemond agrees. “But you’re still the best thing about it.”
You smile. “I don’t know the names of any of those constellations.”
He points to show you. “Ursa Major. Ursa Minor. Perseus. Draco. Hercules.”
“Heroes,” you say.
“And animals.” He ascends the steps of the front porch. They creak beneath him, weight that will soon be gone, to New Orleans and Miami and South America and God knows where else.
Your parents are watching the 11:00 news in the den. The weatherman is issuing tentative warnings for tomorrow. Summer is gone, storms are coming in. They politely ask what you and Aemond are up to and then try not to look repulsed when you mention vegan cookies. You’re actually pretty excited; you love cookie dough, and because it will have no raw eggs in it, you can eat as much as you like without endangering Starbaby.
On the kitchen counter is the same CD player that your mom has owned since 2008. You press play on whatever she has currently spinning around in there. MercyMe? TobyMac? Danny Gokey? What you hear instead is Crush by David Archuleta.
“That’s a throwback,” Aemond notes.
“My parents love David Archuleta. He’s Christian, he’s cute, he’s gracious, he doesn’t swear. I remember them incessantly calling in to vote for him when he was on American Idol. They put in a prayer request at church to help him win the competition. I guess God used his executive veto power.”
“Do they know he’s…?” Aemond draws an invisible rainbow in the air with his fingers.
“No, they don’t use Google.”
“We won’t tell them. He needs the record sales.”
You and Aemond mix the cookie dough and then portion it out on a baking sheet. He slides the sheet into the oven, sets the timer, and then notices the reserve of dough you’ve left in the bowl. You dip your pinky finger in and then lick it slowly, savoringly: sweetness, chocolate, fats obtained without the sacrifice of a soul.
“Looks good,” Aemond says, a little hoarsely.
You swipe your index finger around the curve of the bowl and then offer it to Aemond. He holds your hand still and licks your finger clean, his tongue dragging over your skin, goosebumps rising on your arms, heat stirring up everywhere. You’re transfixed by him; you can’t stop watching. Then he closes the gap between you and cups your face in his palms and kisses you, not in some glittering city or on a stage or for an Instagram post but in the kitchen of a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, the home of nobodies. His lips are sweet, swift, seeking more. He only pulls away when the noise of heavy footsteps approaches the kitchen.
“Smells great in here, chickadee! Even if they are vegan cookies.” Your dad says the word vegan like someone else might say the name of a tourist destination halfway across the globe. He can’t quite get the pronunciation right. His eyes snag on the bare skin between your shoulder blades. “Lord almighty, what is that on your back?!”
Your comet tattoo, that’s what. “Uh, Daddy—”
“It was my idea,” Aemond says quickly, seamlessly. “They’re my lyrics. Lyrics I wrote before the accident, I mean. And I was feeling just…purposeless, and useless, and really doubting myself. She wanted to show me that my work still mattered. So when the band was in Rome, Jace got a tattoo and I suggested she get one too. It’s entirely my fault.”
“Huh,” your dad replies uncertainly. “Is that right? Well, I suppose there’s not much to be done about it now.” He chuckles and moves your hair so it’s covering your tattoo. “Let’s not mention it to your mother. She’s already got high blood pressure. Say, can I try one of them cookies when they’re ready?”
Criston and the rest of the band arrive back at the farmhouse just as the cookies are coming out of the oven. Miraculously, no one is drunk enough that your parents are aware of it. Everyone samples the vegan chocolate chip cookies and agrees that they are nearly as delicious as the cruelty-enhanced version. You and Aemond watch each other from across the kitchen that’s now crowded with people, hearing them but also not, wanting more and knowing you can’t have it, here in this place with little privacy and very few remaining secrets.
Comet scrambles to get ready for bed, racing to claim bathrooms and banging on doors to peer pressure people into finishing their showers faster. Back in your bedroom, clean and alone and wearing an oversized Backstreet Boys t-shirt and your favorite Cookie Monster pajama pants, you rearrange your pillows over and over again and try not to think about the band leaving in two days. Strangely, you don’t really want to go with them; you don’t want to board the jet, you don’t want to sightsee, you don’t want to be surrounded by people ingesting poison in all its forms. But the thought of being away from the band—from Aegon, from Aemond—is impossible, unbelievable, horrifying. You’re humming something as you crawl into bed. You don’t even realize what song it is until you’re under the covers and sinking into sleep: The Man Who Can’t Be Moved.
You’re only asleep for ten or fifteen minutes. When you wake your eyes are watery and you can’t remember your dream—you almost never can—but you know that Aemond was there. Now he’s here in your room as well. He’s gently stroking your cheeks, your forehead, sitting on the edge of your bed.
“Hey, hey, you’re okay,” he’s murmuring, only a silhouette in the darkness. But you would recognize him anywhere. “You had a nightmare. You were crying, I heard you.”
“Were you lurking outside my door or what?”
He doesn’t answer. Instead he asks: “What were you dreaming about?”
“You.”
And when you reach for him, he meets you without hesitation, his hands in your hair and his lips on yours, blankets thrown aside, his weight between your thighs, your fingertips ghosting against his face, reading his past and future like braille. He bites your lower lip, nips at the curve of your jaw, kisses a path down your throat like the contrail of an airplane. You yank off his t-shirt. He lifts away yours. He’s touching you everywhere, fingers beneath your pajama pants, smothering his moans against your neck so no one else will hear.
He whispers breathlessly: “I don’t want to rush this time.”
“I’m yours for as long as you want me.” Forever, I hope. And then: “Can I turn on the light? I want to see you.”
For a moment, he doesn’t answer. And then he reaches out to click the lamp on. The nightstand is cluttered with your souvenirs: refrigerator magnets, snow globes, figurines, cosmetics, snacks, crochet celestial objects, the frisbee from New Jersey, your plushie sika deer nestled together with the hammerhead shark from the aquarium at the Mandalay Bay. In the weak golden lamplight, you study Aemond like a painting, a marble statue, a comet you’ll only see once in a lifetime.
You say, softly like a prayer if you believed in such things: “You are so fucking beautiful.”
He doesn’t believe you, but he doesn’t stop. He wants to see you too. Your clothes are gone, every scrap of fabric and concealment; if he is cognizant of any minuscule changes in your body, he is not suspicious of them. Now he is bare for you as well, now he is pushing your thighs apart so he can marvel at you, taste you, drench his mouth and chin in your wetness, bring you to the edge of a cliff with no bottom, no rocks to rupture against. Now he is inside you, tremendously big but also careful, listening to you, watching every line of your face, slowly, so exquisitely slowly, his tongue darting between your lips and his palm against your cheek. And you remember how Aegon felt—always so simple and yet transient, soothing and welcome but never necessary—and Aemond could not be further from that. Nothing about what you have with him is simple. It is profound and intense and singular, and the thought of it not lasting forever is agony.
Afterwards, he retrieves his vintage metal lighter—small, square, Targaryen etched into one side—and a shimmery gold pack of his Benson & Hedges cigarettes out of the pocket of his pajama pants that are crumpled on the floor. He lies on his back and takes deep, drowsy drags, smoke like opaque morning mist in the air, one arm draped across you as you rest your head on his chest, lungs and heart and bones and blood.
Secondhand smoke isn’t good for the baby. You get up out of bed and sneak across the treacherously creaky hardwood floor. “Let me open a window.”
“So your parents won’t know?”
“Yeah.” You push the window open and then turn to him. “You should stop smoking. It’s really bad for you.”
Aemond smiles faintly. “Why would I care about that?”
“It’s bad for the people who love you too.”
He looks at you for what feels like a very long time. “Come back,” he says at last.
You do: to Aemond, to his warmth and lust and tenderness, to the space he occupies that will soon be empty like the vast expanses between comets, between stars.
~~~~~~~~~~
“I would like to say something.” You rise from your seat at your parents’ long dining room table, perfect for hosting judgmental-church-people gatherings and family reunions. Lunch for Comet Donati is steak and baked potatoes, lovingly prepared by your mom just before she and your dad left in their Ford F-150. It’s Sunday, and your parents will be at church socializing with their friends until late afternoon. Aemond is suffering through another meal of boxed spaghetti and Ragu marinara sauce. He doesn’t seem to have much of an appetite; not for food, anyway. You take turns glancing at each other and then looking away, smiling, flushing. Now he is intrigued by your announcement. His brow knits into thoughtful little grooves. The Australian cattle dogs scuttle around under the table for scraps. The television is on in the den. A tornado watch has been issued for the greater Kansas City area; no big deal, they get alerts like this once or twice a week here sometimes. It rarely amounts to carnage. Outside the sky is a tumultuous grey but not especially sinister at the moment: no greenish hue, no cloud rotation.
“You agree that Aegon hooking up with Taylor Swift would be disastrous for everyone involved,” Jace jokes.
“No, I know what it is,” Aegon says. He pokes at his baked potato with his fork, melancholy.
“I want to thank you for giving me this amazing opportunity,” you tell Comet. You have perhaps not dressed for an occasion of this significance: flip flops, a tie-dye One Direction hoodie, an old pair of shorts you found in your bedroom dresser. You like the way Aemond watches you when you wear them. “And I’ve experienced so many things, and learned so much from all of you, and I sincerely hope that we’re going to be in each other’s lives forever. But for right now…for this tour…Kansas City is my last stop with Comet.”
“What?!” Baela cries.
“No!” Rhaena gasps, her dark doe-like eyes glistening.
People are asking you why, people are asking you to reconsider. Aemond only stares, a sharp hostile look, menacing like storm clouds.
“I really, really appreciate everyone’s concern. But it’s been over three months, and this was never intended to be a permanent arrangement. Right, Aegon?”
“Right,” he reluctantly agrees.
“And it’s time for me to figure out what the rest of my life is going to look like, because I can’t just follow Comet around the world forever.”
Cregan nods to Criston. “Did you know about this?”
“I did, yeah,” Criston confesses. “We finished up the paperwork last week.”
“But we’re going to miss you,” Baela says. She sounds shockingly close to tears. Jace tries to soothe her and she shrugs his hand away.
“I know,” you concede. “And I’m going to miss you too. But we’ll still talk all the time, and I’m always willing to help you guys with anything, and maybe in the future I can visit—”
Aemond stands, his chair squealing against the hardwood floor, and flees from the dining room.
“That went well,” Jace says.
Aegon points towards the doorway Aemond left through and asks you: “Do you want me to…?”
“No, I’ll do it,” you say, and go after Aemond. He’s outside by the pigpen, his hair and t-shirt whipping wildly in the strengthening gusts of late-September air. Sparse raindrops fall from the sky. The pigs are agitated, pacing, oinking, scampering in and out of the shed they have for shelter. Aemond is smoking, embers glowing on the end of his cigarette; you purposefully stand upwind from him.
His voice is stunned and dazed and beneath that dangerously angry. “You’re leaving the tour.”
“Yes.”
“When we get on that jet tomorrow, you’re not going with us.”
“No, I’m not.”
“And you told Aegon and Criston but you didn’t tell me.”
“I had to tell Criston. And Aegon…” What can I say? What is the truth? “Aegon is easier to talk to about things like this.”
“So you feel like you can’t talk to me?” Aemond demands.
“Well, yeah, because sometimes you’re kind and patient and the single most incredible man I’ve ever met, and then something rattles your demons awake and you’re this…this…this vengeful, mistrustful, irrationally insecure person, and I can’t do anything right because you’ve already decided what my intentions are.”
“I want you to stay with Comet,” he says suddenly.
“I can’t, Aemond.”
“In Tokyo you asked me what I want, so now I’m telling you. I want you to stay.”
“Why, so you can sometimes love me and sometimes hate me, and refuse to build a new life for yourself, and relive what happened at the Budokan over and over and over again because that’s the background noise of everything you do now? Why?”
He gestures vaguely. “So we can figure things out.”
“I’m figured out, Aemond! You’re the one who isn’t and I can’t help you anymore, you have to do it for yourself, you have to want it!”
“You’ve never wanted to stay with me. You’re a liar, you’re a user. I’m glad Comet could fill that gap in your resume.” He takes a forceful drag and exhales smoke that the wind snatches away. “All you do is keep things from me.”
Venomous, violent disappointment blooms dark and scarlet in your veins. “You have no idea how much I’ve kept from you.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
You watch him, mourn him, commit him to memory for when you can’t see him anymore, every thread of him, miraculous and doomed. Saint Jude, you think, a man your parents as good Southern Baptists do not pray to. You tell Aemond: “You’re a lost cause.”
“And you’re a nobody.”
You turn away from him like ripping a page in two. You don’t want anyone to see the tears welling up in your eyes, escaping down your cheeks, marking you as someone who was weak enough to believe you could save him. You know that’s not the way it works, you know people have to be willing to accept the truths you help them uncover like prehistoric bones. Still, you believed in him. Why? Why?
Because I wanted to. Because I love him.
Your flip flops pound against the soil of the driveway, raindrops leaving spots like freckles, dust flying everywhere. You swipe at the tears that blur your vision. When you are far enough away that nobody can see you from the farmhouse, you rest your trembling hands on your belly. The life in progress there is half-built of Aemond, you carry pieces of him around with you like coins jangling in you pocket. You can’t forget him. You can’t forgive him. It shouldn’t be possible to be so close to somebody and yet so far away.
There’s no one out on Route 210. Your flip flops cross from a dirt road to black pavement. You lose track of how long you’ve been walking. Five minutes, ten minutes, it doesn’t matter. What are minutes when your mind is years away?
How will I keep Aegon in my life without tabloids finding out about the baby? What will I tell my child when they ask who their father is?
A vicious wind, so strong it snaps branches from trees and almost knocks you over. And then you hear it, that sound that every inhabitant of the Lower Midwest knows: a deep rumbling like a train. You peer up into a sky that is dark and murderous and glowing a strange sickly green. And above your head, spiraling with increasing speed: a funnel cloud, an emergent tornado.
~~~~~~~~~~
Criston is herding everyone towards the cellar, bellowing, waving frantically: Aegon, Luke, Rhaena, Jace, Baela, Cregan, Daeron, five yelping Australian cattle dogs. Through the window, they can see the tornado approaching the farmhouse, a column of shadowy atmospheric fury, unpredictable and unstoppable, here and then gone, the meteorological version of a comet.
Aemond slams the door as he sprints inside from the field behind the house. He breaths heavily, his chest heaving as his clear right eye studies the band’s panicked faces. “Where is she?”
“What the fuck do you mean ‘where is she’?!” Aegon pitches back. “She was with you! She’s with you, right?!”
Aemond looks at Aegon, looks through the glass at the tornado, grabs the keys to his 1960 Gold Star off the dining room table.
~~~~~~~~~~
You’re running, but you can’t see; there’s dust and debris everywhere, there are pieces of trees and fences careening through the air, when you breath you choke on airborne earth. The wind keeps pushing you off the road and then you have to fight your way back. You have to find your parents’ driveway. You have to get to the house. The sun is gone, and the roaring like a freight train is louder, louder, louder. And now there is another sound too, a different sort of growling, mechanical and familiar. Punching through the haze like a bullet, Aemond and his Gold Star screech to a stop beside you.
“Get on!” he screams over the storm, then helps drag you onto the seat behind him. You link your arms around his waist and then you’re flying together, just like Rome, just like before Reykjavik or Paris or Singapore or Tokyo or East Rutherford or Las Vegas or any of the other cities happened, back when you believed you could cure him like a witch with a spell, back when you wanted him in a way that was unburdened by truths you wish you didn’t know.
The Gold Star rockets by trees, utility poles, fence posts seconds before they are ripped from the ground by 200 miles per hour winds. Aemond steers roughly onto the dirt road of your parents’ driveway. You cling to him, breathing him in: smoke, cologne, memories, nightmares, dreams. In the rearview mirror is a maelstrom of dark, churning grey peppered with wreckage.
Something collides with the motorcycle, a pence post, a tree limb, you don’t know, it doesn’t matter. The Gold Star is knocked off the driveway like a bloodied tooth from a jaw. You sail off of it as it begins to roll; you hit the ground hard on your back, loose a pitiful wounded howl, try to start crawling towards the farmhouse.
“No, stay down, stay down!” Aemond is saying over the roar of the tornado. He covers you, he shields you, he pins you to the ground, he puts his hands over your eyes. The last thing you see is the Gold Star lying on its side a few yards away, its wheels still rotating. It’s over 400 pounds, too heavy for Aemond to lift even if you helped him, even if that couldn’t hurt the baby.
The baby?? Your own hands go to your belly. You try to ascertain if the heat throbbing in your back has traveled anywhere else, reached with blood-red, needle-sharp talons to your child, to your future.
The wind is letting up; is that your imagination? No, the tornado is receding, the debris fall to the earth, the deafening runaway train made of rogue air evaporates. Cautiously, Aemond rises from you. When you look at him, the right side of his face is riddled with shallow, bleeding gashes; but his eye is mercifully unharmed.
“Aemond,” you say, pained, reaching for him, trying to clean the blood from his face with your sleeves, a hoodie with some boy band on it, men you don’t know and don’t care to meet, fantasies that pale in comparison to the reality that stains you like rust.
“I’m fine, are you okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, I think so…”
They come stampeding down the driveway: Criston, the rest of Comet, the barking Australian cattle dogs.
“Oh my God, they’re alive!” Jace exclaims, and soon everyone is there, surrounding you and Aemond like a circle, a ring, an orbit, something that goes around and around and might fade but never ends.
You aren’t worried about the baby. There’s no cramping, no pain except the throbbing in the curve of your back, blood loosed and then trapped, indigo bruises tattooed under your skin like ink. You press your palms to the earth and brace yourself so you can stand. No one is helping you get up; why is no one helping you? Why are they only staring, gasping, covering their mouths with shaking hands?
“You’re bleeding,” Aemond says, a panicked voice through fog. Slowly, like trying to run in a dream, you look down. There are thin rivulets of scarlet snaking their way down your thighs, calves, shins, ankles, painless ruinous tributaries, constellations unraveling until the patterns cease to exist, no myths, no monsters, no men, just senseless pinpricks of distant light you’ll never know the names of.
“No,” you whisper, like you can stop it from happening if you refuse to believe it, like it’s a mistake you can talk yourself out of. You gaze up at Aegon. Knowledge flies between you, something shared like an heirloom or an oath.
“Call an ambulance,” Aegon says to Cregan. “Tell them that she’s…” His eyes dart to Aemond and then back to you. “Tell them to hurry.”
Aemond is holding you, he is touching your face, he is asking: “Are you cut, do you need stitches—?”
“I’m alright, it’s nothing, it’s—”
“What are you talking about?! It’s not nothing, you’re bleeding, why are you bleeding?”
“Aemond, it’s nothing—”
“Tell me what to do, tell me how to help you!”
“It’s just…” And a sob breaks from your throat, and your words are brittle and splintering, and you can’t lie to him anymore. You’re out of time in so many ways. “It’s just the baby.”
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foldingfittedsheets · 9 months
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I didn’t know that 4H did dogs! How does it work?
I’ve gotten this question in real life too and it always surprises me but 4H is like. Every possible thing you can imagine. Dogs, farm stock, fiber crafts, gardening, it’s just a club that focuses on a specific thing really.
For mine I did it with my Australian cattle dog, Sly. When my mom and I got him he was about 6 months old and an absolute hellion. He chewed every possible thing he could, was way smarter than us, and ultimately made our lives very difficult. My mom talked about giving him up, but I loved him despite his difficulty and suggested 4H because a friend of mine did it with her dog.
My mom agreed. We did weekly training sessions (he improved immediately. Shocking no one, a bored cattle dog is a recipe for disaster). He learned all sorts of tricks and how to do obedience and show trials. I memorized dog breeds that I got tested on, and wrote reports on the history of his breed. There was even retreats which was pretty fun.
We went to the county and state fair and he got ribbons in obedience and breed (which was a bit of a joke as he was the only cattle dog, but still, blue ribbon). I only did it for a year before I aged out and got too old to participate but it was a great experience in dog training.
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mollish-art · 10 months
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Watch U!Ranboo get the "shrimp pose" thanks to Showfall not getting them a tail /smh
Also, I like to think that Showfall actually did get U!Ranboo a tail, but it so tiny that it fits perfectly in their jorts and offers no back support whatsoever ( you know those dogs that have an operated tail, like pitbulls and such? Like that, but proportionate to human anatomy)
Talking somewhat about jorts, what is your opinion on Slimecicle's newest hit, "Jort Storm"?
Australian Stumpy Tail Cattle Dog looking mf /j
Honestly, if I were to give the lad a redesign and rewrite the second chapter, I would have given him a big ol' robotic theropod tail! Can't go back now though, I'm afraid.
Ah yes *sips tea* the Jort Storm. It is a melody that has been heard many a time in my abode. IT'S THE WARMER SEASON SO I CAN'T WEAR JEANS, I REALLY LIKE THE DENIM BUT NOT THE LENGTH OF THE SEAM, MY MOM DRESSES CAS AND MY DAD LIKES TO PREEN, I'M NOT LIKE EITHER OF THEM I'VE GOT THE RECESSIVE GENE
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mayathecattledogmix · 3 months
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Wow, so I suppose this is where my story begins! My name is Maya Jade and I am a 2 year old Texas Heeler. If you've never heard of that well that means I am half Australian Shepard and half Australian cattle dog. Intense mix right! My mom says that my Shepard looks trick people from realizing I am a MENNACE. I take after the Cattle dog (also known as a blue heeler fun fact) In my personality. Mom says I have an attitude, I think I'm just opinionated. I just have a lot of things to say and I like things a certain way. Australian cattle dogs were domesticated from the Dingo, ya know.
My Dad was actually the very first one to see me. He saw me on the internet, had to show mom and next thing I know I'm with these crazy humans! This picture is of me when I was only 7 months old. Only a couple days after mom and dad came to pick me up! We have learned so much about each other and have done so many fun things together!
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brettlorenzi3 · 7 months
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Hiii, I'm Brett and I'm so excited to finally post something on here, life is kinda crazy but I'm really glad I got around to doing this!
I'm just going to write a couple basic things about me and it anyone has any questions they want to ask me, feel free to ask(no matter how crazy)!
-I'm 21 years old and I am from a small town outside of Tulsa Oklahoma
-My mom's from Oklahoma and my dad's from the rocky mountains but we lived in Oklahoma until I was 15 and my family moved to Knoxville and then at 18 to south Carolina where we stopped farming and my dad and his brother opened up a car restoration shop
-I now live in Miami where I attend the university of Miami
-My major is sports management and my minor is history
-My family roots are Irish, Italian, South Korean, Brazilian and Dutch
-I love F1 and American football with all my heart
-I have 2 older brothers and 1 younger brother
-My favorite colors are navy blue, sage green and baby blue
-I'm obsessed with cars and country music but also have room in my heart for Drake and Rihanna
-However, I grew up in a household of Elvis Presley and old country so they will always have a hold on me
-I have 3 dogs named Sargeant, Jaysker and Beckett who are 2, 3, and 4 respectively
-Sarge is a German shepherd and Australian cattle dog mix
-Jaysker is a golden retreiver
-while Beckett is a golden retriever and Belgian malinois mix
-I've grown up doing dance, cheerleading and volleybal
-Rodeo was super common in my family, growing up on a farming small town, but my brothers were way more interested in it than me so I stopped barrel racing when I was a teenager
-Even though I was really good at volleyball,I just didn't have the necessary height to compete at a higher level so I quit in my sophomore year of high school, despite being on varsity
-Dance on the other hand, has been my passion since I was 2 and a half
-I did ballet, lyrical, and contemporary competitively until I was 19
-Cheerleading was also super important to me since I was really good and was on varsity throughout high school
-Besides English , I can read and write multiple other languages, some not as strong as others; Spanish, Portugese, Dutch, Korean, and Italian
Unfortunately this is all I had time for today, but please feel free to send in questions, as nosy, dirty or off as you want! Byeeee
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autisticarachnid · 2 years
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i wanna move out.
i wanna move out. i really don’t think i can mentally handle living with my brother’s fucking dog anymore. i just can’t. he destroys literally every single fucking thing he can get his mouth on. cardboard. shirts. pants. socks. trash bags. baseballs. concrete. plastic bottles. he’s run away from home twice. he won’t leave me the fuck alone ever. i’m so frustrated, he is driving me up a fucking wall and my mom does not give a single shit. to her, his behavior is perfectly normal. he doesn’t need training or exercise even tho he’s a one year old highly energetic australian cattle dog mix. he’s her sweet, adorable, well behaved can-do-no-wrong dog that destroys everything he comes in contact with. i can’t stand him anymore.
i really wanna move out
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ofviolentdeathmuses · 3 months
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name: Rhett
what: Werewolf mixed with Blue Heeler
age: Timeline Dependent
birthday: January 16
occupation: Serial killer technically
location: Currently California, formerly New York
faceclaim: Skeet Ulrich (age range depends on the timeline)
status: Single Verse
relationship: Single
parents: Isaac Masters, mother deceased
siblings: Quinn, Matt, Sable, Arcadia(twin), and Bailey
kids: River (does not know he has a son for GOOD REASON)
Rhett is from the same litter as Cadi which means he’s mixed with Blue Heeler (Australian cattle dog). This makes him on the older end of the spectrum with the pups and also means he was left with the Mahlendorfs a lot longer than most of the others. Jeff didn’t get a solid lead on him until Genesis and Salem were 19, meaning it took him over a decade to find Rhett.
Initially, no one was sure if the mutt was “savable”, but he’s not actually feral, he’s just very much a serial killer who gets off on fear. With that personality trait, it put Chance and Sera as the couple best suited to help him adjust. This ended up not being possible with Cadi, Sable, Genesis, and Salem still living there. It took all of one night and Rhett deeply freaking Cadi out to put an end to that. Teddy and Lyla would have been the next choice, but Chance advised against that with how protective Vaughn is over his mate and family. Plus, Vaughn and Cadi alternate between which house they’re staying at.
This eventually left Jeff and Ollie stuck with him which was absolutely not ideal, but there weren’t really any other options. He stayed with them for a few years before Valencia offered to take him off of their hands and put him to work for her.
He does not know he has a son because the pup's mom hid the pregnancy and once the boy was born, he was taken across the country to Cadi and Vaughn.
Other Info Threads Face Drabble
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cryptidiopathic · 1 year
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Watching bluey and crying bc instead of an Australian cattle dog your mom was a physically abusive Christian fundamentalist
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redspookys-blog · 1 year
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Cute Australian cattle dog cartoon, Best brown Heeler Ever the Australian stumpy tail cattle dog
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the best design for Australian cattle dog lovers, the perfect gift for fathers day and mothers day, grab one and give it to your mom, dad, sister, brother, friend, grandma, or grandpa.
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hangucplaza · 1 year
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Australian Livestock Pet
The Australian Livestock Canine is a very smart, active, and also strong pet type. Developed by Australian settlers to handle herds of livestock on large cattle ranches, they’re still made use of today as a herding dog. They prosper on having a job to do and also on being part of all family members tasks. Although these are full-blooded pets, you may locate them in the treatment of shelters or rescue teams. Bear in mind to take on! Don’t shop if you intend to bring a pet house. Australian Cattle Pet dogs are loyal as well as safety of their family members, though wary of outsiders. Besides rounding up job, they do well at canine sports, consisting of agility, obedience, rally, flyball, and also flying disc competitors. Newbie pet dog moms and dads and also house residents are careful; these canines require a lot– a lot!– of psychological and also exercise to remain pleased as well as healthy and balanced, as well as to avoid bored, damaging habits. If you have a home with a lot of space to run, and also you can stay up to date with such an energetic pup, this might be the breed for you!
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gothicmilktea · 2 years
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Dog deception
She's also a war vet about bumblebees age
Teamed up with rose during the war and been together since
She's the mom of the group but is not responsible at all she some time losses members of the pack and forget about them completely but always on realizing she'll go look for them.
Clasic line of
"What am I missing..."
She kinda a fem steal jaw but she's not based of a wolf she's based of the Australian cattle dog.
Top lip is shaded in
Color pallet consists of blue gray and muted blacks
Spiky sharp angles
Thin eye browse
Sharp claws
Tail might go⚠️
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Older design concept
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ecofinisher · 2 years
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(The Sims 3 -Jamie Jolina + (OC) Jake Furtado headcanons)
A small list with the headcanons related to the Sims fanonlore of mine.
Relationship state: Married
Naturally or by Registry office: Registry office
Godparents: Pauline Wan & Hank Goddard
Taken family name: Furtado (Jake Furtado, Jamie Furtado....)
Common child(dren): Johnny Furtado
Pet(s): Rocky, an Australian Cattle dog (Member of K9 unit)
Child's nationality: French and Canadian
Jobs of the parents:
Jake's job: Lieutenant
Jamie's job: Surgeon
Jobs of Jake's parents:
Jake's dad: Secretary Attorney
Jake's mom: Former Air Traffic Controller
Jobs of Jamie's parents:
Jamie's mom: Hair dresser
Jamie's dad: Plumber
Additional family members:
Unknown
Living-related:
Vehicle: Toyota Prius
Capacity of driving: Both
Hobbies:
Jake: Sport, Swimming, bicycle with dog,
Jamie: Reading, hearing music, dancing
Special Occasions:
Jake and Jamie met during their jobs after a call-out. At that time, Jamie had been working as a paramedic and he was one of the persons she had needed to heal.
The two had met each other very often in a coffee shop nearby and had taken the chance to get to know each other.
Rocky was named by Jamie, cause the fur color reminded her of rocks. Despite its origin, they agreed the name was perfect for a future police dog.
Their son Johnny is befriended with a girl named Kari Clavell, whose parents are actually thieves, but disguised as logisticians.
According to Jake, he lost his former police partner because the girl's father had shot him in order to escape. But in reality, it had come from another criminal, which had been hidden in the near to make sure his group would make it out. (Up in the future Jake figures it out, who was the real gunner from that night)
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berryfairy666 · 2 years
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Two best buds living the dream 🍄🌈🌻
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tacosaysroar · 3 years
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Teddy deserves a National dog day post
You know what’s funny is that my work did a thing today where you were supposed to post photos and a little blurb about your dog, which I did, but it didn’t even occur to me to give him a shoutout here.
But here goes . . .
This is Theodore Reginald Garfield McDog, better known as Teddy. His birthday is probably August 15th, and on All Saints Day he will have been part of our little family for three glorious years. This Leo is “some sort of shepherd” who enjoys carrots, chasing his own tail, and napping underneath furniture.
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