#I've been recovering from surgery and it's. been a Road

[fandomsandflyingstingrays]

Happy Pride, everyone!! I would like to take this moment to say that I know in my heart Gravesfield does a little parade each year and Hooty insists on elongating to a horrifying degree and slithering through it wearing every pride flag known to man. The crowd adores him

[starfirewildheart]

Chapter 17

Summary: Sy and his lady both retire from the army but not before tragedy befalls Sy. He slowly tries to adjust to life again on their ranch.

Pairing: Sy / OFC

Word count: 2,512

Rating: no one under 17. I'm not responsible for what you read. Kindly police yourself.

Chapter 17

August glanced over his shoulder into the back seat. Three weeks and two surgeries later the hospital finally agreed to let Debbie go home. She still had a long road ahead and it still didn't guarantee a full recovery and her anxiety was through the roof at times and at other times was so depressed she was nearly catatonic and a few normal days scattered in between. She was refusing to eat and in general sulking like a brat. Sy hoped getting her home would help.

Mike had been released after a week and a half. Walt had taken custody of him and Napoleon and Will were staying with them as security until everyone was jailed, including the corrupt cops. He was recovering physically but emotionally he was distant and shutting them out.

Geralt turned onto the long, tree lined drive admiring the land and imagining what it looked like in summer. He loved the country and a working ranch brought a warm feeling to his heart. He drove past the barns where a few work trucks sat along with ranch hands tending horses noting a beautiful chestnut mare before turning his attention back to the drive. Finally they pulled up in front of the large ranch style home and parked. Everyone got out, Sy helping Deb out and lifting her into his arms bridal style while Geralt and August got everyone's bags.

Deb took a deep breath of the fresh air ecstatic to smell anything besides anesthetic and medicinal scents that she'd been trapped in for weeks. 

“Where's Aika?” Deb asked, seeking out their furry friend. 

“She's with my sister and the kids. They are bringing her home tomorrow. “ He gently bounced her in his arms. “Where would ya like to get comfy sugar?” Sy asked as they all walked in. All the Christmas stuff was still up even though it was after Christmas now because they hadn't got to celebrate yet.

“Bath.”

 “Baby,” he started but was cut off. 

“Bath,” firmer.

“You want to wash off again?” He could see wanting to smell like their soap and not hospital bath in a bag shit so he started toward their ensuite bathroom. He sat her on the edge of the bed with her bad leg up and started gathering clean clothes for her.

“No Sy, a real bath.”

He turned to her. “You know you can't get your leg wet Deb. Your stitches could come apart or you could get an infection.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and scowled.  “I don't care. I've not been in a bath or even a shower in three weeks!” When he arched his brow at her and crossed his arms over his chest she sighed and stood shakily on her good leg. “I'll do it myself!”

“Sit down!” He yelled and stepped forward. She sat down and blinked up at him with wide eyes. He hated yelling at her after all she'd been through but he refused to let her act out like that. “Little girl, you will not hurt yourself or cause any further injury just because you want to get your way.” He gripped her chin in his big hand and forced her to hold eye contact. “I'm gonna try to get you into the bathtub but if it doesn't work I will give you a sponge bath and you won't fight me on it. Got it?”

“Yes sir,” She agrees . “I'm sorry I yelled. I just feel so dirty and I haven't… I know I've been washed but I just

.. I still feel their hands on me and i…I just want to wash it all away.” He leaned in and kissed her forehead. 

Fifteen minutes later she was perched on the vanity in nothing but a shirt and bulky leg brace that went from her upper thigh to her ankle. 

Sy was filling the tub with water when something hit him in the back of the head. “Woman,” he turned to face her, suddenly realizing it was her shirt she'd thrown and she was now sitting on the vanity completely naked. “Fuck,” he rasped all blood flow in his body going straight to his dick. 

“I hope so,” She grinned,  crooking her finger and beckoning him to her. When he was close enough she fisted his shirt and pressed their mouths together in a heated kiss. Sy pressed against her, hooking her good leg over his hip and she felt him pulsing against her through his cargo pants. Tears brimmed in her eyes.

“Are you hurting?” He asked as he wiped a tear away with his thumb.

She shook her head , eyes locked with his while she tried to get her emotions under control enough to speak. Swallowing past the huge lump in her throat she pressed her hand to his bulge rubbing it and relishing in his sharp intake of air. “You still want me.”

“What? Of course I want you Deb. You're my life.” He didn't understand how that could even be a question but he could see the doubt in her eyes. “Debbie?”

“I just,” She didn't know how to express how she felt. Like she couldn't form the words much less say them. “I…”

“Talk to me darlin’, please.”

“Sy, the water,” She pointed to the nearly overflowing tub.

“Fuck!” he ran over and shut the water off just before it spilled over the edge of the tub. He laughed but drained enough of the water that she could get in without it pouring on the floor then went back to her. Cupping her face in his hands he leaned in, pressing their foreheads together. “Please talk to me. Don't shut me out Deb. I know you remember the hell we both went through when I tried to hide my thoughts from you. I was lost in my own hell and putting you through it too. We promised to tell each other everything after that, remember?”

She knew exactly what he was talking about. When he was recovering from his POW time he felt like he was too much, not worth the work, or the love she had for him and he tried everything he could to make her leave him but she refused. It nearly broke them both. “i..I'm not the one for you. Not your soul mate anyway. You're settling for me because I'm safe and comfortable.”

Sy felt like someone punched a fist into his chest and was crushing his heart. “You're my world Debbie, my heart, my everything. I'm sorry if I haven't shown you what you mean to me. Please, give me a chance to….”

“Austin, no! It's not that at all. You treat me like a queen and I know that you love me!” She hugged him tight. “This isn't about anything you've done or not done. It's about me. It's about me not being enough. I mean family is everything to you and your mom hates me. I turned your dream ranch into an animal rescue because I needed to feel like I was doing something helpful. I just latched on to you and didn't even notice that you weren't settling down or or ,” he head was pounding.

“That I haven't given you a ring so you couldn't possibly be what makes me happy? Isn't that what Lindy told you that night at the restaurant?” When he watched her he'd dip down because she couldn't look at him he gritted his teeth. “I haven't given you the ring yet because I wanted to be sure I could be the man you deserve,  that I could overcome the PTSD enough to give you a life, sugar. It has everything to do with you but not how you're thinking. I was so afraid of not being good enough I didn't show you how much I can't live without you.”

She shook her head, “No. It's not your..”

“We both said that but clearly there is a problem, sugar because you are doubting us.”

“Doubting me,” She explained quietly.

Realization washed over him and it all became crystal clear. She'd been his rock for so long he'd forgotten how she was when they first met. The chip she had on her shoulder because she felt like she had to prove she was good enough, that she could be the best at everything. He took it as a woman having to prove herself in a man's military at first but the more he was around her he realized that she was afraid to let anyone close, trusted no one to even have her six. She lived like she herself was the only one in the world she could trust or depend on. It led to a lot of being reprimanded, write ups, push ups, pull ups, and finally a talking to that finally made her see thongs from Sy's point of view about having to trust her team or they were all in danger. That was when he really started trying to get to know her in earnest, when he eventually learned about her abuse and abandonment. She'd come so far and he'd been through so much that he didn't realize she needed reassurance he wasn't giving her. He was a fucking moron. 

She gasped when Sy grabbed her face and kissed her and didn't stop until her tense muscles finally relaxed against him and she was breathless. She didn't even register him removing the leg brace until he was lowering her into the hot water, careful to keep her bad leg resting on the side of the tub. She sighed contentedly as she leaned back. Sy chuckled, “Feel good?”

“So good!” 

They both jumped at the knock on the bathroom door. Sy stood and went to see who it was.

“Your sister is here,” Geralt told him. “She needs to talk to you.”

“I'll be right there,” he sighed. He went back to Deb. “You stay put. If you aren't in the same position you are now when I get back I'm going to spank you until you can't sit and when that ass starts to cool down and feel better then I'm going to do it all over again and again until I feel like you learned your lesson and if I get tired I'll let Gearlt and August takeover.”

She fully intended to protest but what came out of her was more of a strangled whimper. He cleared his throat to hide his chuckle.  “I'll be good, I promise.”

“I know you will, sugar.” 

Sy went to speak to his sister and Debbie soaked in her hot bath. She sat still for a bit but really wanted to wash. Chewing her lip she pondered if grabbing the soap would be against the rules. Stretching her arm out she reached the soap without moving her butt at all and took it as a victory. Lathering up her bath puff she started washing herself. Once she felt squeaky clean she grabbed her razor and started shaving … everywhere. After three weeks she resembled a sasquatch except the leg and arm (shoulder) they'd done surgery on. When that was done she settled for a few minutes but quickly got bored, she was all alone after all. “Oooo jets!” Pressing the button the jacuzzi jets bubbled to life and massaged her sore muscles only with her bad leg up at an awkward angle it exposed her to the full force of the jets causing her to jerk and gasp. The pain that shot though her leg was almost instantly replaced with need as she used her finger to further expose her clit to the jet. Using her other hand she slipped two fingers into her slit working them hard and fast chasing the pleasure she didn't realize she needed so badly. Turning her body a little toward the side of the tub the jet hit the perfect spot and even though she couldn't reach the spot inside due to her awkward positioning the jet was doing the trick. Her hips slowly started to flutter as she threw her head back and whimpered through her release moving her hand away from exposing her clit as the pulse of the jet became uncomfortable. She hadn't noticed Sy come back in or even approach until she felt his fingers pushing into her still quivering hole. “Fuck!” She squealed at the stretch and shock of it.

He lifted her ass up out of the water enough to latch his mouth onto her clit and switch between sucking and licking until he'd made her cum two more times, the last time screaming out his name with a series of loud moans.

Sy got her out of the tub and carried her straight to the bed. It was tall enough that he could just bend her over the edge, carefully resting her bad leg out to the side up on the bed leaving her open to his hungry gaze. “You ready for me sugar? Gonna take my dick like a good girl?”

“Please,” he begged, trying to rub her ass back against him. She gasped when his big hand smacked against her ass leaving a burning ache in its wake.

“Be still, your brace is still off. You're in trouble as it is, little girl.” He grinned when she went still, knowing she was thinking about the spanking he told her she'd get if she moved earlier. He took the distraction to push himself in up to the hilt causing them both to moan at the sensation. “So fuckin tight for me, like your made to fit my dick.”

All she could do was moan incoherently as he railed her from behind, each thrust causing her to gasp as he pounded against her cervix. It was painful but the pull out and push in up to that point was bliss. She was losing the battle of control over her body and clamped down on him as tight as she could, wanting to give him some of the pleasure he'd Given her.

“Son of a bitch,” he growled as she squeezed him so tight he thought his brain was coming out of his cock. Reaching under her he started rubbing her clit. “Cum for me. I want to feel you come apart when I fill you full of cum.” A few more circles to her bundle of nerves and she was rutting between his cock and fingers.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” She cried as she exploded around him and he emptied inside of her, the wet squelching sound of their combined releases echoing in the room as he collapsed breathlessly beside her.

Tag List

@shellyshellshell

@enchantedbytomandhenry

@mrsevans90

@summersong69

@mollymal

@warriormirkwood

@bloodyinspiredme

@kneelforloki

@liecastillo

@mollymal

[de4dlyniightshade]

ONG I NEED MORE TRANS SPENCER HCS??

NSFW, IF THE BOY GOT TOP/BOTTOM SURGERY, ETC. ANY AND EVERYTHING.

okay so hed definitely have top surgery which(in my mind)is why we never see him with his shirt off, he would've used binders for a good while but found them uncomfortable and restrictive so he saved up as soon as possible for top surgery and diana helped him recover.

i also don't think there's a full bottom surgery for transmasc people as of yet(correct me if i'm wrong)but obviously there are packers and more realistic and complex strap ons for sex and i imagine he'd have maybe a couple.

also i think this au is a really maybe not realistic is the right word but like easy to fit into the storyline and i hc that it's the reason we never know of any other family besides his mother and father, the rest of the family distanced from spencer and diana because of him coming out and her supporting him to the full extent.

he definitely still has a feminine way about things in the way he talks to and treats others which is a good thing and he's always been told he's very sweet for a man and that he's very gentle.

loves that he still has some curves that remained even after years of testosterone because it reminds him of how far he's come and he knows that who he was isn't dead and doesn't have to be.

okay this ended up getting a little deep but i've been down this road and it just made me yap

[journalofanobody]

Struggling just to keep posting, I become a traitor.

As I've been recovering from surgery these past two weeks, I've been trying hard to keep posting, to give something, however little, to my friends and followers here. Quite frankly, many times while posting I have battled a terrible tiredness while simply trying to post an interesting mix of things for those who have faithfully continued to look at my blog and my poor little poems.

Sometimes the fogginess nearly gets the best of me but, at the end of each evening's posting, I feel pretty good about what I have done here. Not great, just pretty good. And for now, that's plenty.

However, mistakes occur, as I learned this morning. A follower whom I was actually beginning to see as a potential friend, wrote to thank me for all the support and advice I have given her during her persecution by trolls here and then revealed to me that she noticed that I had reblogged something from one of them. This, she concluded, is evidence that I was now one of that group of her "enemies" who were "tightening the noose around her blog." I was shocked.

Often, in my current state, I am completely absorbed in just finding aesthetically pleasing content, and barely notice who the original blogger was, and this, I guess, was my undoing. I was now a "betrayer" of a friend and thus belonged to the enemies and internet trolls she claimed were pursuing her. Needless to say, I was hurt and disappointed that she could not consider the context of my trying very hard to post even while recovering from major surgery.

Funny, even as I was reading it, I was ready to apologize and ask her to point out which post it was so I could remove it but, alas, I found that I had been blocked and her blog deactivated. Judgment had been rendered and no appeal was possible,

Now, sitting here, thinking about this, I recall the small herd of trolls I had to deal with when I first started this blog. Some of my friends here were following and reblogging from some of those people and, when I mentioned it to them, they said it's just reblogging of images, nothing to do with our friendship or "sides" being taken. And I thought it made sense and got over it.

I didn't speak out in defense of her trolls, or even reblog a lot from them. One image got through and, even if I had noticed it's origin, it would have seemed wrong to deny the source of it. And so what?

I'm not up for this sort of nonsense right now. I feel like I'm back in high school with warring cliques, or in Donald Trump's circle being forced to care about whether the boss feels betrayed. But this person I was dealing with was no high school girl, or some prickly fascist, this was a well-educated, cultured, kind person, and this is precisely why I find it more disappointing and sad than all the sorts of people I usually imagine behaving this way.

It's a small bump in the road of my recovery, a wee ding on my spirit, and it makes it all that much harder to trust people on this site, but then, who cares? Society unravels even at its upper reaches, among people from whom we would reasonably expect better.

I think I am just going to take a few days off from posting here. My time might be better spent just reading, sleeping, and trying to get myself fit to work again.

A weary good night from a slightly sadder Nobody,

Michael

[echodrops]

The Promises I Made (2023)

Oh man. Oh man.

At the end of last year, I said that I had really struggled through 2022 and hoped that 2023 would be an easier year, but also that I didn't want to count any chickens. Which was... ultimately the right mindset to have, because 2023 was even worse for me than 2022. Between the stressors of work, money, and things just falling apart on me left and right (car is still in need of $3000 worth of work...), I couldn't be more glad that 2023 is over.

Consequently, it was a very bad year for promises. Possibly the worst year I've ever had since I started, actually. Oof, icing on the cake after all the disappointment I dealt with this year.

Still, a tradition is a tradition. Here are the promises I made for this last year!

2023 Promises

1) Work on the Texas house yard. It’s still never really recovered from the frost that killed everything in 2021 and it looks pretty shabby right now.

Status: Broken, mostly. I did have the gardener come and do a lot of trimming as well as take out one dead tree, but still, one dead tree remains, and the tree in the backyard has grown roots so big now that they've exposed a underground wire, so uhhhh... gonna have to deal with that this year...

2) Get both bedroom floors sanded in the Utah house upstairs.

Status: Broken. This just didn't happen. No money. But it really, really needs to happen soon though... Oof...

3) Get the Utah house sprinklers up and working ALL the way for this summer.

Status: Broken. This is the hardest promise on this list, I swear to god. This city in Utah has NO ONE who is willing to work on normal residential sprinklers. Please someone save me.

4) Actually get the back fence fixed up and the greenery back there trimmed and managed.

Status: Broken. Well, one day...

4) Put a new sink/vanity in the downstairs bathroom of the Utah house.

Status: Broken. I sure... made a lot of promises about the Utah house, didn't I... Where did I think all this money would come from...

5) Related to that, lose at least 20 pounds. 2020-2022 was not kind to me and the stress eating was real.

Status: Broken. I didn't gain weight this year but I didn't lose any either. RIP.

6) Take my mom on a road trip to one of the U.S. states that she has not been to before.

Status: Broken. I was busy all summer and we just didn't do this.

7) Get back in touch with the allergy specialist to continue working on my allergy/inflammation issues.

Status: Broken. Yikes, seven in a row without a single kept promise. Anyway, I did want to do this, but again, the surgery they want me to have will take all my insurance and then $2000 out of pocket. It's just... not going to happen...

8) Go through my closets and donate or throw away clothes that I know I will not wear.

Status: KEPT. Oh my god, one I actually did. I ended up donating SO MANY shirts to Goodwill.

9) Finish at least five books this year.

Status: Broken. I finished two I believe. But... maybe the 50+ 100k word fanfics I read this year could count instead?

10) Organize my documents (especially student papers)—my desktop and documents folders give me nightmares just looking at them. 

Status: Broken. Jesus, why am I so allergic to this promise? I think it's been on the list for like three years running now.

11) Help Kacchan through her first semester as a teacher! Exciting!!

Status: According to Kacchan herself, this promise has been kept. Go me.

12) Get a decent paper shredder to shred old mail. 

Status: Kept! I finally got a shredder!!

13) Clean off my back patio/car port area so I can park my car there again.

Status: Broken. Literally there's not that much stuff out there other than my coworker's old bikes she dumped on me. Why have I not done this...

14) Get the Texas house dishwasher fixed… I’m so tired of washing dishes by hand… How do people do this, oof.

Status: Kept! I got a newwww dishwasherrrrrr. I am so happy...

15) 100% complete FF16 babyyyyy!!

Status: Broken. I played it, but did not 100%. Too busy. TvT

16) Talk to an HR rep about my retirement savings so that I can consolidate my retirement accounts. I have been putting this off for like five years now.

Status: Broken. I think this has been on the list for years too. And given the current uncertainty of my workplace, I honestly think at this point I might be better off not asking anyone who works there for any financial advice...

17) Do at least one artwork to actually use that new paint program I bought. 

Status: Broken. Well, I THOUGHT about it. Does that count?

18) Pay my credit debt down by at least $2000. I’m still paying off the hell year but I hope I can make progress on this.

Status: Broken. The hell year of last year became Hell Year 2.0, Economic Boogaloo this year. So many things went wrong and had to be paid for. My wallet is C R Y I N G.

19) Finish making changes to master courses. No more major revisions!

Status: You know what, I'm going to count this as kept, because we're now down to the really specific courses that only one or two professors teach. So, close enough!!

20) See a zone-tailed hawk. This is another rare-but-possible bird for my area.

Status: Kept! Conveniently, one flew over my car one day?? I got only a terrible cellphone photo, but I did see it. Yay!

21) Attend the FFXIV Fanfest in Las Vegas!

Status: Broken. I tried!! But I did not win the lottery for a ticket, so I was not able to go. This one was pretty much out of my hands, though.

22) Update HaaH at least once. Please, Echo???

Status: ...I'm sorry, forgive meeee. OTL

23) Get the small leak fixed in the side bathroom of the Texas house and have the faucets replaced.

Status: Plumbers are... so expensive... Broken.

24) Look into the cost of light housekeeping services to give myself a little more time to do things that aren’t work.

Status: Technically kept... in that I did look into the costs... But ultimately, I chickened out of contacting anyone. I don't know why, but I feel like even if I got a housekeeper, I would be so embarrassed by my house being messy, I would frantically clean it the day before the housekeeper arrived anyway...

25) Catch up with hanging up all the charms/pins I’ve gotten recently on my corkboards; these are just sitting in boxes/bags around the house. D;

Status: Broken. My god, I thought about doing this so many times this year but I just never did it... I even both MORE charms and then didn't hang them.

26) Use Spotify more often or cancel my Spotify Premium subscription; it’s not worth it if I don’t use it.

Status: Kept. I cancelled it when they decided to raise the price. Cancelled Amazon Prime and Netflix this year too. Honestly way too tired of companies raising the prices of subscription services while offering LESS quality than in prior years.

27) Get an art display book to preserve my great grandfather’s artworks.

Status: Kept. They are safeeeee now.

28) Fix the screens on the Texas house.

Status: Broken. Probably for the best I didn't do this though, since the dog developed a habit of scratching at the office WINDOW to be let back into the house...

29) Bird watch at a specific location in Texas. It’s my secret where since I’d rather not share my specific location on social media, but let’s hope I can finally make it to this place!

Status: Kept. I didn't see many birds there though, RIP.

30) Finally get rid of the dirt pile in the front of the Utah house.

Status: Broken. I feel like the dirt pile is getting smaller and smaller over time as erosion takes its natural course, but I didn't really do anything to decrease the pile this year.

31) Sign NeNe (my puppy) up for the intermediate dog training course.

Status: Broken. I thought about this several times, but decided not to in the end. I wasn't massively impressed by the trainer she had for her puppy class, and honestly she's pretty decent at learning things at home anyway.

32) This is super nerdy, but my bro got me the FFXIV cookbook and made me promise to actually use it, so I guess I’d better at least try to make something from it.

Status: Broken. I keep making this promise and continually forget it, over and over.

33) Take down the remains of the wooden fence posts at the Utah house.

Status: Broken. This one I could have done and just... did not do. I'm pretty useless.

34) Take part in the fitness challenge at work this coming semester.

Status: Broken. To be fair to me though, in August I fractured my pelvis and basically couldn't do anything past basic walking all the way until December so I kind of have a semi-reasonable excuse for this one.

35) I will remember to take my medicine on time, all the time. Taking them late is messing things up quite a bit.

Status: Mostly kept. There was a night or two where I did forget, but since I literally require this medicine to live, I can basically immediately tell when I need to take it again, so most nights I do take it on time.

36) Get a stand for the toaster oven in the break room so we can finally use it!

Status: I'm going to count this as kept even though we did not get a new stand. Instead, we rearranged the order of the room to make it possible to fit both the toaster over and the microwave on the same countertop. So the toaster oven can indeed be used now!

37) Get my car detailed because the inside really needs to be vacuumed.

Status: Broken. My god, the car needs this so desperately now. But... money...

38) Go horseback riding on the island. I’ve never ridden on a beach before!

Status: Broken. Nobody really seemed that interested in going with me, and I thought it would be weird to go alone...

39) Eat healthier. Maybe cutting out snacks is too much to ask, but at least replace some average meals with salads, etc. and overall make an effort to actually eat better. Sometimes the fact that I feel like garbage is my own fault.

Status: Broken. The stress eating was extreme this last year. Please save me.

40) Wait, I should probably acquire a Playstation 5 so I can actually play my new copy of FF16, lol.

Status: Kept.

41) Help make sure the new tutoring requirement for the English classes goes over well.

Status: Kept, in that I did the best I could with a very, very weird plan. We immediately abandoned this plan the moment the grant expired anyway, since no one liked what admin had wanted us to do.

42) Finish decorating the main office. I’ll feel better if my workplace reflects the level of professionalism and school spirit that I envisioned it having this year.

Status: Broken, and I'm not going to roll this one over to the next year because I am 100% stepping down from my current administrative position and going back to being a full-time instructor again, so I will not need to decorate the main office anymore! Whoo!

43) Catch every variant of Vivillon in Pokemon Go. I’m currently missing Icy Snow, Marine, Meadow, Monsoon, Ocean, Polar, River, Sandstorm, Savanna, Sun, and Tundra, if anyone would like to be friends!

Status: Broken. I caught some of the ones I was missing but I really didn't play as much Pokemon Go this year. Broken pelvis decreasing walking ability but also just got tired of the game pushing more and more microtransactions, so I kinda took a longggg break.

44) Try to be more comprehensive with giving feedback to students. I’m always good at providing detailed comments on essays, but I’d like to spend more time commenting on smaller assignments too this year.

Status: Broken. Every year I try, every year I feel like I still haven't given enough. Maybe the issue with this promise is that I don't really know what is "enough" for the students compared to what I personally think I should give...

45) Make sure the retirement party for my coworkers who retired this year goes off without a hitch and honors them well.

Status: Kept. Oh, this was so nice and so much fun. It was really great seeing the retiring faculty members so emotional over how much we were able to honor them and their contributions to the school.

46) Take part in more activities on campus; I have a tendency to not attend many events because they’re in the evening when I’m tired, but I should really stay more often.

Status: Kept, though mostly by necessity. I kept constantly getting called in to help on things, even in other departments.

47) Write some Chainsaw Man fanfic for @mistystarshine!

Status: Broken. I'm so sorry, this just did not happen. I wish my work schedule was manageable instead of actually insane. There are so many things I want to write and do for myself, rather than for work...

48) Help my parents tear out the carpet in my old childhood bedroom.

Status: Broken. My mom talked about it a lot, but it never ended up happening.

49) Do something to destress (massage, pedicure, something?) at least once per month. I gotta take better care of myself…

Status: Broken. So broken. I only got more stressed this year. More and more and more and more...

50) I will keep my promises! 

Status: Oof, mostly broken. Next year I'm going to set a reminder for myself so that I remember to check my promises every few weeks or something...

Kept promises: 15

Broken promises: 35

Another year, another chance, I guess. See you all in 2024!

[eriexplosion]

Who Took Crosshair's Chip Out Anyway?

So I'm one of the weirdos that watched Bad Batch having never actually seen The Clone Wars, so I've been backtracking my way through the series and recently finished up the arc with Fives and the inhibitor chips. After I finished fucking sobbing about it though (thanks TCW writers, didn't need my heart anyway) I started turning over how it connects to Bad Batch a little more thoroughly.

I do believe that Crosshair's chip is out as of the end of season one just like he says it is, and that the removal likely happened after his injuries on Bracca. What I couldn't figure out is why the empire would take the risk of unchipping him, even if the chip was damaged. He's just one clone who they intend to eventually phase out anyway, saving his life is frankly not going to be prioritized over ensuring his obedience. So even if the chip was busted, I don't think the empire would have taken it out. Obviously Crosshair couldn't have it taken out himself.

But there is someone on Kamino that would. We're shown early on in episode three that AZI is still active on Kamino, taking part in Crosshair's medical procedures to exactly Zero gratitude from sniper boy's end. And, honestly, there's not a lot of reason for him to be here necessarily - yeah we get to see Omega have someone to bounce off of in episode one, and then he comes back for the finale, but nothing AZI does is something that couldn't be done without the character.

Instead, I think that he's being set up for a different payoff, something we didn't see happen that will get covered more in later episodes. One of the things that Fives really drills into him in his TCW appearances is his core programming - save the patient at all costs. Emphasizing this one thing let him disobey the kaminoans and try to save Tup, because it overrides any programming for obedience.

So, if Crosshair's chip was damaged on Bracca (possibly breaking down very similarly to Tup's considering the radiation from the ion engine blast) and if leaving it in could potentially have killed him? The empire says leave it, AZI's core programming says to save the patient at all costs. AZI takes it out without the empire's knowledge, the empire still thinks he's chipped and only Crosshair and AZI know the truth.

As for Crosshair's post-chip behavior - he didn't seem happy about the fact that his chip was removed, honestly he sounds downright depressed saying it. Because I think, even with the chip out, he's having aftereffects of it. The people we see having fully recovered without any side effects had their chips active for very short periods of time, only a few minutes for Wrecker, but Crosshair's was active for months, having his thought patterns altered, possibly even causing actual physical damage when the engine fried it. So he wakes up, hears in AZI's wonderfully perky tone that the chip has been removed to preserve his life... and he still can't stop thinking that good soldiers follow orders.

Yeah I'd be pretty fucking depressed about that too. The chip is gone, but his mind still isn't fully his own, of course he thinks this is just who he Really is.

Overall, this gives a more interesting track for his redemption to take - and I do think that they're still aiming for redemption. After how the season ended focusing on him standing there alone while the batch flies away, there's no way we aren't supposed to feel for him. The framing makes the most sense in the context of a planned redemption. But, in removing the chip from the equation, it's no longer a question of just a one and done surgery and he's back to normal. It's long term, permanent damage that he is going to have to deal with and learn to live with, and what comes out on the other end isn't going to be exactly the same as he was before. Hopefully that particular rocky road still leads back to his family at the end, though.

[tsvickie]

The first one is me recovering from colostomy reversal surgery and of course the long deep scar is from having Diverticulitis and then a Colostomy Bag and the second one is before everything went all wrong while I was at work in my semi truck on the road December 6, 2023, I've been a disability since then and now my disability has ran out and I'm getting desperate, I need help I have several months until I can go back to work. Credit cards are maxed out and bank account is empty now, my cash app is the only thing I have. If you can't I understand, if you can help me, then God bless you for your help.

Have a blessed day and night.

[simplytheevebest]

Headcanon Time: Farah's Recovery (from the opinion of a non-doctor who did surface-level research and absolutely doesn't claim to know what she's talking about)

Considering how involved and concerned Terra was with Musa's magical recovery, I can only imagine how involved she'd be with Farah's. Musa gave up lost her magic but Farah was "dead" for an indeterminate amount of time(? I can't remember if it was said how long), came back as a force ghost trapped in a fern, and then had to recharge her magic and strength to regain her corporeal form (this is what happened, fight me canon).

But like, taking away the death-not-death magical aspect and just looking at a physical recovery, and setting aside that canonically Farah's body would've needed to be "regained" because I personally much prefer the headcanon that she rose from the grave, spirit and body intact, you can't just jump up from such a lengthy period of inactivity and be fine. It's been anywhere from a few months to a year since the events of season 1 (if season 1 took place during the winter semester and Rosalind took over for the spring semester it's been a few months; if we pick up during the new fall semester it's been about half a year). That's a long time not to be moving or working your brain (also depending on when she was found). Terra mentioned physical therapy for Musa concerning her wounds, and I personally know people who have had surgeries and recovered from horrible injuries and had to relearn how to walk, talk, eat, etc. So I definitely subscribe to the idea that Farah will need this too.

Combining my love of angsty realism and the magic of Fate, Farah has a long road of recovery ahead of her and she's never going to be just as she was before. Like even if you injure yourself in some smaller way, it can impact your health years into the future. I almost broke my toe over a decade ago and to this day it aches in the rain and humidity. Farah's likely already got scars from serving under Rosalind, which isn't going to help her recovery from literally dying either. So right out of the gate she's probably definitely going to have to regain motor function and she's highly likely to need to regain mental strength as well. And realistically there are other world doctors who would step in to properly assess but that sounds exhausting so instead, Ben and Terra are in charge of Farah's recovery and Terra is absolutely going to make sure Farah sticks to it because lord knows Farah won't be diligent. Yet she'll be impatient and frustrated at herself for not being able to walk short distances without her legs shaking or running out of breath, or being unable to pin up her hair because her arms can't support themselves. She might struggle to get her fingers to cooperate to write, or muddle words and phrases in her head and be unable to coherently express them. She won't be able to teach a class, or go on walks, or maybe even eat without assistance at first. She won't be able to do paperwork, or speak her thoughts clearly, or write down what she wants to say if she can't speak it.

There's a whole host of other things that could impact her: impaired motor function, nerve damage, brain damage, crush syndrome, respiratory issues, cardiac issues, seizures, numbness, organ failure, paralysis, etc. Like I've never been buried alive so I can't speak from experience nor do I know anyone that has, but just imagining, magic aside, that she was essentially in a coma underground for a week at least definitely means she's not coming out unscathed. And considering the magic would've saved her from the worst of it (the irreparable life-threatening complications like necrosis or organ failure) I still choose to believe she's going to have to relearn some skills and rebuild her strength because even if she remembers how to walk, she might not have the muscle strength to do so.

Which of course opens the door for so many angsty hurt/comfort fics (and I have read some excellent ones that are escaping me, forgive me) of the teens convincing Farah to take it easy on herself because they love and care about her, or Saul helping Farah with her hair after she tearfully concedes she needs the help. Because Farah is strong and proud and she won't want to admit weakness even when she has so many to support her. And sure, perhaps her recovery isn't that extensive, it depends on your interpretation of her injuries, but these are just a few examples of ways she could be impacted.

And then there's her magic. She's a mind fairy, so if her mind itself is healing there's no way she's going to have total control over her powers from the get-go. Which means intrusive thoughts and feelings of others in her head without being able to block them out, accidental projecting onto others, headaches, and that's just the mind. Farah is also a master of the other magics, so now we're considering random lights going on and off or exploding, liquids boiling over or freezing solid. Plants growing out of control, random flying objects from her haywire telekinesis. We had a glimpse into out of control magic when the Winx channeled it into the stone and forgot to cut it off. Farah is unfathomably more powerful than them, so her magic going off the cuff is problematic and potentially dangerous.

The magic is what's going to get to Farah the most, I think, because so much of her identity is rooted in being the powerful fairy she is, and especially because of Rosalind's influence. With her magic being so uncontrollable, she's going to suggest that the runic limiters be put on herself, and there's not a single person who will agree to that. Farah is going to have to practice what she preaches and be patient and kind with her own magic rehabilitation just as she is with her students. And I think Stella would be an excellent candidate for this, because she's benefited from Farah's teachings the most. And for all of s2's faults, I really did love and enjoy the character development with Stella because she really came into her own this season and demonstrated, to me, the kind of queen she will be, which according to her positive feelings towards Farah in the prequel, is likely very much influenced by Farah. So to have Stella directly involved in helping rehabilitate Farah's magic as Farah did for her is, I think, a great little parallel moment.

Again, I'm not a doctor, nor do I possess any reliable medical knowledge beyond my obsession with medical dramas, which is to say I have no clue what is and is not something that could be a side effect of being comatose and buried alive while also spreading your life force into the plants around you. But this is a show about fairies and magic so I'm allowing myself a bit of slack with accuracy here, because it's become my personal headcanon that Farah required physical, mental, and magical therapy after her nap and it was a long, slow process hindered by her own impatience and final confrontation with Rosalind, in which she was definitely not up to full power and probably would've died for real if, say, Bloom hadn't stepped in to vaporize Rosalind to save her headmistress. I'm just drawn to the idea of Farah's recovery having that ounce of realism that means she doesn't just wake up and go about like it's a normal day. Let her injuries be real and life changing as is the case for so many people, and let her have the support and love of others to rely on. No quick fix. But that's just me.

[i-cast-teatus-deletus]

Re cars: This is something I've only passingly thought about so far and I am SO grateful you brought it up.

We have sort of the opposite issue of you and Large Bastard: I am the tallest at 173cm/5'8", and our guys getting teats deleted are 168cm/5'6" and 152 cm/5'0".

We have multiple cars available, loosely falling into "low-ish 4-door sedan," which I can drive but are not super comfortable for me, and "small-ish 4-seat SUV". The SUV is a slam dunk for taking the taller one to and from, but I am unsure what to do about the smaller one if I drive. I suspect the lower car would be easier for him, but if I drive it will for SURE not be easier for me. This will require some thought, luckily we have time.

Re hotel room: I had been debating getting a hotel room, probably the closest suite-style place to wherever the surgery is being done, for maybe the day night before (to make getting there on time easier since I don't need to be psychic to know our wake-up time is going to completely incompatible with my second shift work schedule and 4am work night bedtime and literally anything to make that morning less awful will be to all our benefits) and maybe a day or two after anyway. The logic here prior to reading how hard that drive can be on anesthesia is that one of them is in the bedroom furthest from the bathroom—like, opposite end of the house furthest—and while walking is good, I was worried that might be too difficult for a day or two after. The other option is dislodge EVERYONE to give the person recovering the closest bedroom, which sounds like a bad time.

It'd increase sleeping space, too. One of them sleeps alone in a queen-size bed, so no problem there, but the other shares a (split) king with me. If we get a hotel room, they could have 1-3 days with a full or queen bed to themselves (and so could I, though hotel beds are usually WAY too soft and I end up with my back and neck messed up.)

The other logic is the cats, the SMALLER of which is about 8 kg/17ish lbs and the other is still getting bigger every single day and is threatening to be like 14kg fully grown. They are significantly more motile than a dog, and I am concerned they will be a problem the first day or two. Not that they would deliberately hurt anyone, but they are used to being able to jump up on anyone they please at any time.

If we have a close-after followup (like 3-4 days) I may just cave and do that and go home after the followup appointment, but we'll see. I will admit that I am not extremely excited about that idea, but I'm unsure if it makes sense to drive back out twice if it's close together.

It's hard because I've had major surgery as an adult, but it's 15+ years in the past, and I don't remember the drive home being all that bad, but I lived like 20ish minutes from the hospital on rural back roads, not 90+ minutes of highway driving.

ALSO, thank for the advice on open heart surgery. It'll be nice to look at something besides mastectomy resources because genuinely, reading blog posts from cis women who had mastectomies for cancer is like THE worst part of this whole thing.

[tavernkeep-fenne]

Not So Great News

My wrist has been noticeably messed up since February and last week I was able to see an ortho about it, where it was determined I will need surgery.

Now, two things: 1) It is the wrist of my dominant hand. I have next to no coordination with my other hand, so this will be extremely limiting. 2) I will spare the details and just say I expect my hand/wrist to be pretty useless for up to six months. 3 months for the primary recovery, then more for rebuilding of strength and all that.

The great news about this is how bad I've been at keeping up this blog. I keep forgetting to document and blog, and also tumblr likes to tell me no when a wall of text is interspersed with pics. I don't know why, I doubt staff knows why either.

The original point of this blog was low-spoon meals. I'll definitely be doing low-spoon while I'm recovering from surgery. A lot of this will be done by meal prepping on high-spoon days and freezing that prep for when I need it later. I'm planning that for next week, after I have fully recovered from the emotional shock. I'll just say that my bones are incorrect and it's a genetic issue, not an injury. I've been headed for this road for a very long time and it could very well explain some pain I've had for 20 years. Mind you, I'm only 33.

Anyway! I have no choice but to look at low-spoon easy-prep so I can't accidentally slide in something that I think is easy but y'all do not. And given how limited my activities will be, there will be more focus on blogging, and hopefully blogging better.

[ghostjelliess]

I'm so sick of being the "interesting" patient to various general healthcare people. Dentist, orthodontist, oral surgeon, optometrist, general doc, everyone. They all gotta say something about how interesting my body is, as if I don't know that's code for "fucked up."

What's it like going anywhere for normal human maintenance with a working vehicle? I wouldn't know, I was born the modern equivalent of a 1957 amateur restoration project: guts out. It's only been wear and tear downhill since. But at least as an adult they stopped bringing all their friends in to look at the anomalies on the big projector screens in front of me so I could hyper fixate on all their big science words before bed for months.

Now when they bring their friends in, when they video conference and hold their phones to my face, flash-on, I call them my team and am much less embarrassed cus I know how weird all bodies are. But still, it must be nice to have been born with a make/model that matches your generation, or I guess to have had the expert mechanic to restore everything well, the investor to keep the timeline on-track.

Jokes on me though, cus there was no normalized procedure before, I was part of the experiment, I was lucky to be in the later batches that survived well enough to be handed over to normal doctors. This is good, I am grateful, but it's a weird third-culture kind of intersection. I guess in this metaphor I'm actually a UFO spaceship that the generalist-specialiats are a little confused and excited by. Cus the oral surgeon didn't even blink at the trauma lines in my mandible—man spends every single early morning surgery slot reconstructing spaceships, was not phased. Everyone else though? Everyone else gets a little too excited, and I'm just feeling a little self conscious about that today.

I guess this is why people stick with one person, cus then you only have to explain once. Unfortunately, explaining once is not an option in the New England healthcare landscape, cus even the optometrist I've had for six years forgets everything cus he has a billion patients. I'm known as "special hazel girl" and it doesn't sound weird in his old man accent, but we both know the special is just another word for interesting, and they both mean shaken, not stirred. I don't call him "my optometrist" either. I do, however, know his name.

Anyway, I have my first general dentist appointment next week after three years of reconstructing from a traumatic injury (as in: caused by blunt force trauma) that happened when I was ten. I'm never going to be able to not explain, no matter how much I look okay now, no matter how faint or hidden the massive scars become, or how many times I circle this country like a drain, because they're written on my bones, and sometimes it's embarrassing, but mostly I like it. No matter how I grow and recover to overcome twenty years of duct tape and WD-40 handcrafted poverty-solutions, the evidence remains. The suffering endured is still visible, but rather than a fresh bruise or a new line of stitches patched with those stupidly fat white square bandages, it's flexible, maybe even wise. I can think of myself as a classic and move on the road with ease, and maybe it's not so bad that the enthusiasts stop at gas stations to applaud the reconstruction, and maybe it's not the worst when amateurs ask what happened in that surreal gawk. Maybe it just means I'm still alive enough to endure the attention and aware enough to feel a little embarrassed by it. At least the guts are on the inside now, and doing pretty okay given the mileage.

But twenty years is a long time to run a malfunction, and now I'm learning what all these new dash lights mean. It's overwhelming. The stories are anticlimactic, the mental trauma recovered long before the physical, maybe numbed into acceptance, and caused different kinds of staccato bruises as I dragged myself up ladders. But now, the healthy and stable results I'm currently experiencing (not done, but almost there) gave me a functioning cloaked spaceship, and continue to confirm everything I knew. Angry road rage-y people have passed by my whole life while people around me said things like "that wasn't because of you, you can't even tell, it looks fine, if it still hurts, take some more Motrin," and now it doesn't hurt and it does look fine and you actually can't tell much if I don't want you to, and people don't road rage past me anymore.

I'm mad about it. I'm mad they lied to me, I'm mad I knew they were lying, and I'm mad I was right. It doesn't matter if the physical recovery allowed me to get up to speed and move more confidently or if the cloaking worked and people stopped rubbernecking past me, either way, my daily experience in the world is drastically changed. It's overwhelming and underwhelming in aggravatingly equal measure.

Except that when I go into the doctor or dentist or optometrist, I still become interesting and special. Maybe someday that will be a comfort, but right now it's still an anxiety-inducing irritation. Not because I don't want to be interesting or special, I was born a spaceship, it's fine, but because of the endless novacaine needles that follow, the exhausting choices to intentionally mutilate and endure pain because of improper healing and patches on patchjobs that have molded into me for decades and the other damages of coping for so long; to face the consequences of choices made for me, to trust the medical professionals standing over me despite a history of shoddy snake-oil promises by others wearing the same coats and charging half the price. I'm angry that people lie, to their children and themselves and each other in the name of comfort, and they never have to endure the repercussions. No matter how curious I am, I won't know the whole story of my own anomalies, and it's exhausting to walk into the same offices and be eroded with the same tidal questions: why is it like this? Why did they do that? Why didn't they try this? Why did this happen?

I don't know. I'm just a spaceship. Maybe this isn't even my home. Please don't hurt me if you don't have to. Please let me be mundane and uninteresting in the ways that don't matter to me.

But also, thank you.

[injuredcyclist]

Fixes and Shifts

About 15 years ago when I was living in Spanish Harlem in NYC I bought a carbon fiber road bicycle. It was the kind of bike I wanted terribly as a kid. We used to drive two hours to Rapid City and I'd stare at the $1k+ bikes they had for sale at Scheels in the mall. It was a Specialize Paris Roubaix Compact. I rode it constantly when I lived in the city.

I had owned it maybe three weeks and I commuted from my apartment on 110th to the office I worked at on Wall St. I was riding on the West Side Greenway with my hands in the drops (for some stupid reason) and there were a lot of other people out. I wasn't paying as much attention as I should have been and didn't have as much fine control at that point in that riding position. Another cycling commuter and I crashed head-on. I went head-over-handlebars and came down on my helmet and right shoulder. I don't even think the impact knocked him down; he was riding an old, beat-up steel everything mountain bike. It probably weighed twice what my ride did and was the kind of thing you wouldn't care too much if it got stolen.

The shoulder hurt like hell but I was miles from my apartment, the bike was in ridable condition, and I didn't want to walk in clip-ons or call a cab so I slowly rode home, not able to put much of any pressure on that shoulder. Hurting the next day I went to the ER, where an x-ray turned up no broken bones. It kept hurting so an MRI followed. Diagnosis: small labral tear. Treatment: for some fucking reason, just physical therapy and no surgery.

Fast forward 15 years. I've just turned 40 and am closing in on two years sober, having swapped my carbon road bicycle for a 3 cylinder 900cc Yamaha motorcycle. My shoulder still bothers me, and has at a low level for all of the intervening years. I can many times very accutely feel where the tear is, and with moderate exercise (shoveling three or four inches of snow for example) or if I move just right or lean against a wall or door jam too long it hurts.

A new MRI and evaluation, because I want to put 20k miles on my Yamaha this year, I want to go back to Ontario camping, and I want to hike more. Can't have this keep lingering, and recovering and body upkeep is only going to get more time consuming as I keep getting older. Also, its fucking cold here in mid Michigan, and the days are short. It was -1F when I woke up today. If I'm going to have a useless right arm for a couple months now is perfect time.

Tear is still there, with some arthritis sprinkled on top. I'm having surgery this time, scheduled for the day after I get back from a work trip to Corporate. My pre-op appointment is in 10 days, at which time I'll know how long recovery will be. Could be in a sling for a week, could be a month. Sorta oddly hoping for the month because I want them to not just clean up stuff, but actually anchor and repair the tear.

This change is leading to another. Cleaning up who I follow and what I post, and blocking some followers I think were bots the whole time but left around so I'd feel better about myself. I still have no memorized idea of what the rules and culture are here anymore. I'll be reblogging political posts a lot less. maybe just liking them more. Shift toward riding and moto culture, with stars/astronomy, and animals. Those three represent the longest held, most continuous interests I've managed to sustain in my life, along with two or three sci-fi universes (Dune, Star Wars, and Battletech). Best I can do with my ADHD-addled mind.

Looking for a new pharmacy where I can get generic Vyvanse consistently. Meijer isn't going to carry it for at least six months because they aren't nationally cost competetive for the available supply, per one of the pharmacists where I get my stuff filled. Also going to finally see about that professional autism screening. I've taken two or three self tests/evaluations that float around online and I've come up with positive results on each one.

Here's to changes, and learning how to do a lot more with my left hand.

[ursatempest]

Welp. I'm officially fucking stupid.

This last week I've been at a large camping event, basically a pop-up tent city for a medieval war reenactment for two weeks in the middle of the summer, and we go every year. There's a lot of stuff besides the war, such as a small but thriving theatre community. I was in 4 shows this war, one on Tuesday, two on Thursday, and the last one (Romeo and Juliet) on Friday. Really cool, super excited to be cast in so much stuff, I love acting and medieval camping with my friends!!

Wednesday night it rained, and on Thursday morning it was absolutely wet and muddy everywhere. Directly outside the entrance of our camp, on the road to the bathroom, was a massive puddle, with slippery clay mud on either side. First thing in the morning, I wasn't thinking straight and tried to jump over the puddle. My left foot landed hard in the mud and slipped out from under me; I may have only imagined that I rolled it, but I was pretty sure at the time, and I figured it was probably sprained, but that the show must go on.

That day I had 3 rehearsals, with barely time for meals, then 2 shows in the afternoon and evening. They went really well, I was playing crotchety (and disgustingly horny) old men so I could use a cane and hobble around and the audience wouldn't even notice anything off. The next day I only had dress and the performance for R&J (which did include me in several fight scenes, and a dance...) so I could keep my foot elevated and wrapped and iced for a while. But I figured I could walk on it at least some, maybe just with like half the weight I would normally put on it. Everything went awesome though, the shows were super great and so, so, so much fun. I seriously had such an awesome time, at least as much as I could with my bum ankle.

This afternoon, after packing up our tent and dipping out to drive five hours and get me to urgent care back in our home state to make sure it wasn't too bad, after an X-ray, lo and behold I fractured (and slightly displaced) my distal fibula. And I WALKED and ACTED on it for TWO FUCKING DAYS!!!!!!!

Lowkey freaking out and crying a little bit right now. But at least now it's in a splint and I'm making an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon on Monday and I have my wife's nice knee pillow to keep it comfortably elevated and good reusable ice packs and air conditioning (my poor blessed wonderful wife who is now going to have to help me recover, after I just helped them recover from fucking meniscus surgery literally a month ago. At least we're broken together :).

[sojournerstales]

Works In Progress

So much of my writing is wrapped up in various WIPs that have been slowed by the usual winter-lull that sits into my fingers and brain. Which is to say: I haven't had much to show lately!

If you're new here, I highly recommend checking out my horror short The Long Fingers, go in armed with a warning against psychological horror and gross garbage bugs. [blog link]

I'm still sort of experimenting with how I want to present things on Tumblr. I'm not a huge fan of huge-huge posts, and I like the formatting freedom that Carrd offers when hosting short stories. We shall see.

Anyways sometimes I find it helpful to just unroll everything I'm working on so it is not trapped entirely in my brain so here it goes:

KALIEDOHOUSE - A Haunted House Stories. This is my novel, progress is very slow as when it comes to long-form projects like this I prefer to nail down the structure and key ideas before work proper. That is to say I know entirely what it's about now, I just need to start the chisel work. The idea is how stories and memory inform the sort of anxieties and fears we might project on a house, and what a house might do with those feelings were it - say - impassively evil.

It disguises itself as an anthology, and the deeper we explore the more we see how these separate haunted house stories relate, reflect back on, and influence each other. Right up until the fire starts, and everything that burns up with it.

SHE, NO.99 - Hyper-indulgent cyberpunk trans action heroism. Everyone needs a project where they do not attempt to quality check themselves. This is where I've been focusing all my But It's Just Cool energy, I enjoy writing action and rarely find the space for it, so here we have a cyberpunk setting and a canonically trans action hero who happens to be an amalgamation of all my favourite badass women characters.

It's also framed around this idea of being recovered episodes from a TV show that was cancelled before it ever got to air. A Saturday morning cartoon that was defunded as soon as the producers realized what it was really about.

'GIRLS,!' - Single scene sapphic love stories. I write a lot of horror and this exists for me to just make something nice and softly sapphic and indulgent. I hope to be finished with it by January, at which point I won't shut up about it for another month or two. It's just girls loving girls in all the configurations that can take.

FIELD. - In the dead of winter a heavy blanket of snow settles over the towns that exist along the stretch of A30 road. Except one field. A woman's father becomes obsessed with finding the cause of this anomaly. Why did snow refuse to settle in that square of land?

THE RETURN OF THE JUNIOR CRYPTID SOCIETY - Years after leaving high school, ex-club leader Fizz resummons the members of the Junior Cryptid Society for one last investigation. Safely returning a landlocked mermaid to her ocean home.

It's sort of about having that one shared interest that bonded you to those adjacent in your school years, where your social circle was restricted to who you were in proximity with, and then how those people change from what you remember. It's also about that odd melancholic feeling of growing up and realizing your social circle was almost entirely queer and maybe you'd have more time and better memories if you had known sooner.

That's everything with a name anyway - I've also been passively working on a fantasy anthology because, c'mon, like I'm not going to write sword lesbians at some point in my future? I also want to work on my Sojourner's Tales volumes, which might be where TROTJCS ends up (how about that for an acronym?). I also want to do a volume about queer slasher horror stories.

In general I would like to figure out Blogging more because I just want to get my stuff seen. I intend on posting another personal essay, this time about my stay in hospital post-The Big Surgery. I also intend on trying to interact with the community more in general, alas when it comes to others I often have the constitution of a startled rabbit.

What are you all working on?

[newcatwords]

how collapse looks in kharkiv, ukraine

my family is from kharkiv (pop. 1.5mn, 2nd biggest city in ukraine). we emigrated when i was little, so i've been (sadly) watching this war unfold on youtube.

kharkiv has experienced collapse. i'd like to share with you some of what's been going on so you can better prepare for collapse situations.

* from the first days of the war, busses and trams stopped running. people are staying in the subway stations, so the subway doesn't run either. gasoline was a huge problem early on. massive lines of hundreds of cars to get gas that might or might not even be there by the time you got to the front. gasoline supply seems a bit better now, but the lines are still long.

* basically all shops, factories, and businesses closed as soon as the war started.

* vast numbers of people have left the city, up to half. out of the people who remain, there are many elderly people, people with limited mobility (including people with disabilities, people recovering from surgery or illness) and people who care for people with limited mobility, people with no transit, and people with no money.

* conditions vary by neighborhood. some neighborhoods have no power, some have no water, some have no heat. some have a combination of problems. but things are constantly changing since bombing happens every night.

* city workers have been working extremely hard to bring back power, water, & heat, building by building. many videos include extreme gratitude to these workers for helping their fellow residents have services -- and in the middle of a war! garbage also has been getting picked up. i also know someone who had their window blown out (a big problem in winter!!!) and people came out the next day and replaced it, which is very impressive! anyway, i don't know how much of that we'd see in the US, but that's how it's happening there.

this video from mar. 18 has heroic music and shows city workers removing dead russian military vehicles from a road.

here's a video from feb. 28th where the youtuber says that when the war first started, trash wasn't picked up for 5 days, but that they had finally started up again.

* despite city workers' dedication, many things remain undone. roads aren't really plowed. and here's a broken water main that was just pouring water down a street. many buildings remain without services, or maybe they have one service but not the others. there are people sitting in the dark, in the cold, hearing bombs dropping all night, without a way to have even a cup of hot tea or coffee in the morning (if you have no gas/electric for your stove).

* huge mutual aid now exists. i saw a video where someone said "now everyone in the city is a volunteer." i started writing about it, but there was so much that i turned it into a separate post!: mutual aid in war-time kharkiv, ukraine. i encourage you to read it because mutual aid is the key to life in a collapse situation. THE KEY.

* many nights (maybe all nights?) there's a curfew. it's called "commander's hour". non-military residents should not be out at this time because warfare might be going on. in this video from feb. 28th, the person filming says that they had an unusually early beginning of commander's hour: 3PM because there was a lot of warfare happpening all around. militaries were shooting, so residents should try to not get caught in crossfire.

* some people have been charging phones with their car battery, leading to the battery going down. do not do this! i know of a person that was going to a bombed-out building next door to charge her phone while her place didn't have power. but i think they got power back the next day.

* mobile service has been variable.

* for a long time banks & post offices were closed, so there was no way to get cash, even if someone mailed some to you. in this mar. 23 video, a volunteer says that many pensioners get their payments via ukrposhta (ukraine's national postal service), but all the locations are closed now. even for pensioners who have a card that gets loaded with money, the markets and small shops now only accept cash. larger supermarkets might take cards, but they're more expensive.

* traffic lights are mostly out and with so few cars on the road, people drive very fast and don't obey the rules very much. as a result, there are many car accidents. with so many services not working, you can't really get a tow or mechanic, so there are now many abandoned, messed-up cars on the sides of the road.

* people are trying to keep looting under control and the standard punishment for a caught "marauder" (as they are called) is to be tied to a pole! (here's a video from mar. 19.) i've seen this in videos from other parts of ukraine too, so i think it's common. the places most likely to be looted are kiosks which are usually owned by an everyday person. i think the worry is about groups of lads stealing cigarettes & booze from kiosks and tearing apart even more of the city than is already torn apart.

* humantarian aid points with volunteers giving away food have been set up throughout the city. but the lines are very long and what you get varies greatly. you might stand in line for half a day and get a bag of pasta, some canned fish, and chocolates. or you might get a large bag of potatoes, rice, and fruit. it varies.

here is a video from feb. 28 showing a long line for food, a second long line for the pharmacy... i think the lines are better now, if only because so many more people have left the city.

* mask-wearing seems to be low. i'd be wearing a mask.

* many grocery stores were closed and had no food in stock in the first part of the war, but now, almost a month into the war, more grocery stores are open and they have more stock. unfortunately prices are about double what they used to be. people post videos showing what's in stock and how much things cost at various stores. you can also charge phones at grocery stores.

* water is a problem. even if water is on in your building, it might be hard to trust that it's drinkable given how many city services are disrupted. and if you have no gas/electric, you can't boil water to make sure it's safe. many people have no water in their building and buy water. people also gather snow and melt it, but that's harder if you also don't have gas (for gas stoves) or electricity (for electric stoves). if you don't have water in your building, you can't drink water, but you also can't cook many things, can't clean your dishes, and can't flush the toilet. as the war drags into spring, there will be less and less snow.

* pharmacy: at first, many pharmacies were closed, or only open a few hours a day, or running out of supplies. there were very long lines at pharmacies. i think it might be a little better now, but i'm sure conditions vary by neighborhood.

* animals: many animals remained in the city. if you have a pet, keep a very good supply of their food! in this video from mar. 7, a volunteer introduces the cats they're now taking care of. they are taking care of a total of 6 cats, 2 dogs, and 1 bird. every cat has at least a little folded up blanket that's "their spot". the volunteers are also feeding some outdoor animals whose caretakers left the city. they also mention that they have to figure out how to get an abandoned cat out of a locked apartment (the neighbor who was watching the cat evacuated overnight and now there's no key and a locked-in cat).

in this video from feb. 28, a volunteer stands in line at a pet store. when the war first started, the store was closed for some time. so when it finally re-opened, many people came to get supplies. then the pet store announced that they wouldn't have enough cat food for everyone there.

* nerves are running extremely high and arguments break out easily. people are on their very last straws - past their last straws. so everyone has to work harder than ever to stay calm and stay personable. making sure everyone has what they need is the best way to avoid additional fighting and heartache. adults also have a responsibility to help the children, elderly, animals, etc., from being too freaked out by a horrible situation with an unknown end. so adults, help keep spirits up if you can. even a cold house can have a warm mood.

* kharkivchyani (as "kharkivites" are called) seem to mostly love their city and are pained by the destruction. they don't have a lot to begin with, they worked to build a lot of the infrastructure that exists, they are proud of what they've been able to accomplish (ukraine was in very bad shape in the 90s! and before that too - it's never been easy there.) and now they're going to have to do it all over again. kharkiv is an educational and industrial center. there are many huge factories, some of them still running after nearly 100 years. everything that gets damaged, they plan to bring back, because people need apartments, and people love their parks. the videos showing pre-war kharkiv are already being uploaded...

[couldyouspeakmyname]

For Thirsty Thursday, could you expand more on how the Shishigumi would react to waking up to seeing their s/o's resuscitating them with mouth-to-mouth, like after rescuing them from drowning or a burning building?

Anon, I really want to be nice but you've sent this in multiple times. Like I said in a small reminder, sending the same ask multiple times will not make me do it before anyone else. To be fair, you're not the only one who's done this. Even still, I would appreciate you being patient as Lexi and I probably have about 90 asks/drafts.

I also understand that it may be confusing why I would be answering asks for Halloween, Sleepover Saturday, and Thirsty Thursday. These are fun, small, events that Lexi and I do so we can interact with our followers and the fandom. They're generally short and fun.

I will get to your ask eventually, but I have probably sixty asks ahead of you.

I want to remind you all that I do the best I can, and older asks have my priority. I ENCOURAGE people to check in and make sure that we have their ask, as tumblr is tumblr, and occasionally asks get eaten. However, sending the same ask over and over is sort of rude, and really makes me feel awkward and kind of terrible.

As of right now, I have three of this same request in the ask box.

I do the best I can anon, but I'm only human. I am also a human who is recovering from surgery. This is my hobby, and it's a hobby I enjoy. Making me feel pressured to answer this ask makes me enjoy this hobby less. I would never let a single person keep me from my passion projects, but it's...disheartening. Since this is the fourth time I've gotten this request, I'll answer this. Please do not ask for this again. I don't know what you want from me. As someone who lives in one of the rainiest places in the USA, and who has almost drowned multiple times, I don't know how to make this sexy, but I will expand on these per your request.

Also, before you ask why I didn’t put drowning as a kinks I wouldn’t write, I really didn’t think about it, as this has never been a kink I’ve come across before. I WILL add it to the list of kinks I will not write. I’m sorry for the confusion, or if I come off as rude, but PLEASE do NOT spam our ask box. 

TW: Drowning, Burning Alive

-Maeve

Ibuki

Out of the two scenarios, Ibuki probably would get caught in a fire

Being caught in the blaze his fur has been burned, his eyes become more damaged, and the smoke damages his lungs

Being recued by you is a god send

When he wakes up, he’s in an ambulance.  fire big enough to knock a lion of his size down would cause enough damage that he would need to seek immediate medical care

His skin is probably badly burned and he would have complications from smoke inhalation 

A few days later, once he’s recovered, he thanks you.

Recovering is going to be a long road

Free

Probably almost drowned.

Felines hate water as it is, so he probably fell in a lake after drinking too much

It doesn’t take much water to drown someone. 

When you resuscitate him, he’s coughing and wheezing

His lungs still burn and he’s disoriented. 

He’s shaking and sick. The panic and realization may make him physically ill

While he does thank you later, he develops an intense fear of large bodies of water. 

Dolph

Probably almost burns in a fire

His cigars are the culprit, and he almost doesn’t make it out

He burns his hands on the doorknob trying to escape

Unlike Ibuki, he remains conscious

There has never been a fear as primal, or as real, as burning in a fire

A fire is arguably one of the works ways to go

He remembers seeing you, then being in an ambulance. 

He thanks you once he’s stable, and the hospital has worked on him. 

He stops smoking. 

Agata

Agata probably drowned. 

The water fills his lungs, and it feels like time slows down

He’s struggling to breathe, and just trying to do so makes everything worse

He blacks out

When you bring him back, he’s traumatized

Honestly? He probably should see a therapist, but he doesn’t

Depending on the weather he may be suffering from hypothermia

While Agata is grateful for you, he avoids water at all costs. It may even take him a while to get back in the shower. 

Miguel

It would have to be drowning

The water doesn’t give two shits and a flying fuck how fit you are, how strong you are, and how capable you are, it just doesn’t care

Miguel got swept by a tide he didn’t count on

Good on you for being strong enough to bring him back, and not drown yourself thanks the the ‘hug’ many drowning victims tend to do

When he wakes up, he’s silent. He doesn’t say thank you, but don’t worry, he will later when his head is back on straight

He avoids all natural bodies of water, and will only swim in pools.

He will refuse to talk about it

Sabu

Sabu probably burns in a fire

His body is so thin, that the smoke overwhelms him before anything else does. 

He will wake up to parts of his body on fire, and he’s burning

When you bring him back, it’s one of the few times you’re ever going to hear Sabu scream

He’s been burned, and probably will need some sort of skin graf

He has nightmares for months. 

He thanks you, of course, but recovery is long and painful

Jinma

Drowns. A rival gang threw him in the ocean

When he wakes up after you rescue him, he’s coughing and wheezing.

He coughs so hard he ends up vomiting 

He can’t remember a lot of what happened after that

He does thank you, but ends up spending a lot of time avoiding you

It’s not your fault, but you remind him of one of the scariest things that have ever happened to him 

Dope

Maybe caught in a fire

He’s smart enough to get down to try and get out, but that’s not enough

When you bring him back, he wakes up still thinking he’s inside the building

He has minor burns, and he’s treatable, but the trauma doesn’t leave him

Dope begins making plans for worst case preparations.

He always carries a fire extinguisher in his car, and has one in every room of his home

Hino

Almost drowns

When you bring him back, he’s coughing and wheezing

He coughs up water from his lungs, and throws up water from his stomach 

He feels sick, both from drowning and due to the fact he just feels dirty

Despite just having been saved from water, Hino takes a long hot shower

He has nightmares for months after, and become clingier 

He avoids the coast and large bodies of water at all costs.