#eating discussion kinda

[local-magpie]

tfw you dont realize just how much youve been struggling with food insecurity until you set up for the week and suddenly realize you... don't have to worry about your meals. you have them ready or like, enough money to order out if you need to. you can just. eat. it doesnt have to be a whole song and dance of "oh god what CAN i eat what do i have do i have money can i get delivery should i go get something basic from the corner store instead"

literally felt a whole entire weight fall off my shoulders i didnt realize was even there. god. i very nearly started crying when i realized i had the money to order out every day this week if i really had to. im going to have so much more time to get things done, too, like prepping food i want to make. realized while talking to a friend that this is literally why ive gotten nothing done all last week and struggled the week before that. like. holy shit it really does make a difference to not spend hours trying to feed yourself and freaking out over how youre going to eat the next day

also im pretty sure i figured out why my body's been literally starving lately. i was wondering if its because the office is cold (probs doesnt help but i was helpfully informed its mostly negligible) but i realized it's how much more active i am there - whenever ive worked from home its been a struggle to stay out of bed, but at the office i just dont think about it until i go home. i think i suddenly just doubled my activity and my body started freaking out because i needed more calories/protein for that than i was eating Because I Wasnt Being "Active" Before. so im like fine now as long as i keep feeding myself steadily via like, protein shakes/soylent/snacks

(also if youre like "alex thats barely any activity i think youre overthinking it": maybe. but also consider that im super deconditioned to the point a 30 second brisk walk up an incline gave me an asthma attack. i think its reasonable for "being in bed 30-50% of the day" turning into "not being anywhere near a bed all day" to be a system shock in my condition; which is not GREAT but at least is manageable)

[compacflt]

For the requests/open inbox, this may not be the lane you're looking for, but you made a throw a way mention in a response to the ask about Ice's enforcement of DADT that Bradley and Ice probably got into it at one point about Ice being totally okay with DADT as a policy (which I love your read on Ice being like, 'yeah, nobody should ask and nobody should tell. what's the problem here?') I would love to see that argument go down. Or honestly, just any Ice and Bradley interaction after the reconciliation that suits your fancy. I find that dynamic in your world super interesting. Bradley sees him as a father, Ice sees him as the person whose father I killed. I love the drama.

Five times Ice was so obviously Rooster’s dad + one time he explicitly wasn’t.

[Carole. 1994.]

He’s such a nervous man. Usually that’s not the word people associate with him. Nervous? Never! But he is. Carole Bradshaw’s more a religious woman than a spiritual one. She’s never put any stock into “chockras” or “ouras” or whatever the other girls her age were fooling around with in the late sixties and early seventies. But she does believe that you can understand a person just by looking at him or her, and when she looks at Tom Kazansky, she sees a little anxious creature, shivering in the cold, like one of those tiny spindly dogs who always needs a sweater. Maybe it’s her southern maternal instincts, something primal and animalistic inside her, I need to take care of you—and when he nudges her with a nervous shivering shoulder and whispers, “Can I bum a smoke?” —she reaches down to take his hand and says, “I only have one left. We’ll have to share.”

She knows she makes him nervous. His ears are red, and so’s the back of his neck. It’s early on a Saturday morning, and the church is crowded, and he’s self-conscious about the fact that she’s holding his hand. Good. It’s so rare she gets to make a man nervous anymore. She waves to Bradley, proud in his little striped button-down and his little blue bow-tie, where he’s lined-up with all the other aspiring pianists against the stage along the far wall, under the bare postmodern crucifix. The recital isn’t going to start for another five, ten minutes, and it’s organized by age, so Bradley’s somewhere in the middle. If Tom Kazansky needs a smoke, Carole Bradshaw will bum him a smoke.

They exit out the side door, and the low murmuring of the other proud parents in the church fades to the quiet of the alley. Birds chirping nearby. The sound of a latecoming car on gravel somewhere far away. Her cigarette and the flick of his lighter, her eyes on his mouth and his puff of smoke—it’s lit. He takes a drag, closes his eyes, then passes it to her. “Sorry to make you share,” she says, and she’s watching the red flush creep up the side of his throat with a silent pleasure. When she takes her own pull, she looks down to see that the filter’s gone the sweet red-pink of her old lipstick. Kind of like a kiss, sharing a cigarette.

“That’s okay,” he says. Nervous spindly little dog. “Uh, what’s he playing?”

“Beethoven. ‘Für Elise.’” Then, before he can think to judge, she goes on quickly: “It’s more complicated than you’d think. Goes up and down and all over the place.”

“It’s a good song,” Tom Kazansky says, “though I don’t know too much about piano.” He pauses. “I’m learning a little German, though. I think it’s E-leez-ah. She must’ve been an alright girl if Beethoven wrote a song for her.”

Carole Bradshaw doesn’t know what to say to that. So she says this instead: “Thank you for coming. It made Bradley—well, over the moon, I guess.”

Tom Kazansky smiles shyly. “Sorry Maverick couldn’t come. I know he wanted to.”

Of course he brings up Pete Mitchell. Drags her back into reality. “He’s in Washington again, isn’t he?”

“Correct.” He reaches out for the cigarette; she gives it to him. “TOPGUN’s biggest advocate. I keep telling him he should go into politics. I just talked to him yesterday—he told me he went to the Natural History Smithsonian on Wednesday—he bought Bradley a dinosaur picture book, I think. Does Bradley like dinosaurs?”

Carole Bradshaw shrugs. What nine-year-old boy doesn’t like dinosaurs, but… “He’s more into sea life these days. Whales, sharks, fish.”

“Some fish used to be dinosaurs, they think,” says Tom Kazansky, clearly just trying to fill the silence. Ears red, lips red. Smoke out of his mouth like a fire-breathing dragon.

Carole Bradshaw doesn’t know how much dinosaur history she actually believes. So she says, “It’s still really nice of you to come. You know, Bradley—Bradley thinks of you and Maverick as his—well, his fathers, I s’pose. So it’s nice for you to be here.”

She watches his reaction—just nervousness. Straight anxiety. He doesn’t meet her eyes, like she’s just kicked him in the ribs. He does not want to be Bradley’s father. 

She says, “You don’t have to sign any papers, Tom. You don’t have to put a kid seat in your car. I’m just saying. Don’t worry about it.”

He says, “I can hear the kids starting inside—we should probably go back in.”

So Carole Bradshaw drops the cigarette butt to the ground and steps on it with the bottom of her flat. They go inside, and wait for a kindergartener to finish an overly simple “Canon in D” to take their seats again. She takes his hand. He lets her. After another half-hour, Bradley sits down on the bench in front of the hand-me-down Steinway and busts out ��Für Elise” without a single missed note. It still shocks her, sometimes, to watch him play—it still shocks her, sometimes, that she is the mother of all that talent. And now maybe Tom Kazansky is the father of all that talent. How did that happen?

At the end of the recital, Tom Kazansky lets go of her hand. She knew he would. Knew his fatherhood is only temporary. But he lets go of her hand to accept Bradley’s great-big hug in the parking lot: “Gosling, that was so good.” Bradley’s proud smile is missing a few teeth. It makes Tom Kazansky laugh.

And after he drops them off at home, and peels away with a wave and a smile, Carole Bradshaw lights another cigarette from the half-full pack she’d brought with her to the recital and brings Bradley out to the backyard so he can play and she can watch him. But before she lets him go, she looks down at him and says flatly, “If kids at school ask you about Uncle Tom and Uncle Pete—you need to tell them they’re just friends.”

And in his eyes, she can see the confusion of a little boy who hadn’t been aware that Tom Kazansky and Pete Mitchell were anything other than just friends—the confusion of a little boy learning about duplicity for the first time in his life. 

“Okay,” he says, so she lets him go.

—

[Maverick. 1998.]

“Don’t go easy on him,” Maverick hollers breathlessly over his shoulder, fishing around in the ice chest in the sand for two cans of Coors; “He just joined the J.R.O.T.C.; don’t go easy on him; he’s tougher than all your squadrons combined; beat him into the dirt…”

“Thanks, Uncle Mav,” shouts Bradley from across the volleyball court, where he’s getting initiated into one of the volleyball teams of younger fighter pilots. 

Maverick flashes him a thumbs-up and finds his T-shirt on the first bleacher bench, pulls it on with one hand, and then hops up the rest of the benches to sit with Ice, who’s got his CVN-65 ballcap on and a book open in his lap and is offering informal career advice to one of the other lieutenants: “Yeah, so, in my opinion, it’s all down to what you think you can stomach… If you want me to look over your C.V., I can totally do that—I think I’m free Monday at around thirteen-hundred, if you want to stop in to talk. Not a problem. Not a problem. Alright. See you later.” He watches the lieutenant go, then lolls his head over to look at Maverick, who’s tossing an ice-cold can of Coors up and down. “Hey. Good game. —Coors, Mav? This is an insult.” But he takes the offered can anyway, looking out onto the court, where Bradley—fourteen and just entering his beanpole phase of evolution—is currently spiking the ball. “Cool.” It’s a nice summer Saturday, a casual opportunity for the officers of Miramar to socialize with their families (Ice is wearing a golf shirt and jeans), and by now pretty much everyone knows that Maverick Mitchell’s raising his friend’s kid and that he and Captain Kazansky are good friends, so this is pretty nice. Not much to hide.

“C’mon,” Maverick says, popping open his own can, “you and I were having a scintillating conversation, a few minutes ago.” He’s hunting around for the sunscreen so the tops of his feet don’t burn to ashes in the sun.

“Scintillating. That’s a big word for you. Wow.”

“You’re rubbing off on me, Sir Reads-a-lot—”

“See, that’s funny,” Ice interjects, “because I seem to recall, before you so-rudely interrupted me to go play volleyball with the kids, I was telling you that it’s really not that interesting. It’s actually, Maverick, quite boring.”

“Well, I’m intrigued now. Go on. Finish it off, I wanna know.”

Ice slaps his book shut and gives the long tired sigh of a man who is very self-conscious about the fact that he’s about to turn forty. He pops the tab on his can of Coors and huffs in exasperation when it foams all over his hand. “I mean it, my family history’s really not that interesting. Typical eastern-European immigrant shitshow. U.S. officials change one letter in our last name and everyone loses their goddamn minds… Actually, that story might be apocryphal, I keep forgetting which former Soviet Socialist Republic I’m actually from, I just can’t remember, all the borders got redrawn so many times, one of ‘em…”

Maverick smiles and pulls his TOPGUN ballcap back down onto his head, tugs the brim down low over his eyes so he can tip his head back and not go blind from the summer sunshine. He’d thought Ice would be reluctant to share his family history, but it turns out that most people are just afraid to ask him, and he’s actually pretty eager to talk, if you just ask. Maybe over-eager. He’s rambling. Maverick cuts him off: “Yeah, you do have a left curve to you, don’t you. Genetic.”

The dirty joke strikes Ice dumb for a second, but then he forges ahead, wisely choosing not to engage. He keeps going, oblivious to the fact that Maverick’s not really listening… “Anyway, my grandfather was Jewish, but he died literally the second he stepped foot in America, so it doesn’t count…my grandmother was Orthodox, crazy story how they ended up together; actually, that story’s probably apocryphal, too…she’s the one who raised me, pretty much. I told you that. She brought my dad out to Southern California when he was a little kid, but I don’t know if you’ve noticed, So-Cal’s not exactly the Mecca of Orthodox churches or anything, so he wasn’t very religious at all… My mom was from Milwaukee, I think. Or maybe Minneappolis. Some kinda Protestant. Forget which kind. The preachy kind. But then she died and I didn’t have to go to church anymore, so I didn’t.”

“You just never believed?” Maverick mumbles, half-joking.

“Nah. I mean, I always had too many questions no one wanted to answer. For instance: okay, say you’re bad. Say you commit sin…”

“I’ve never sinned, sir. You’re talking hypothetically.”

“Right. Me, neither. Hypothetically speaking. So you go to Hell. Well, the devil’s there, too, ‘cause he’s a sinner, too. But why’s he want to punish you? What does he get out of it? You’re both in the same boat!”

“Probably a sexual thing,” says Maverick, watching the purple-green imprints of the sun dance around behind his eyelids. “He probably gets off on it. The devil, I mean.”

Ice laughs and laughs. “Sure. Try saying that in front of my mom and see if you survived. I learned pretty early on that they don’t want you to be too curious. So I kept all my questions to myself.” He’s also joking, not taking this super seriously, but that’s a pretty in-character answer. “What about you, Mav?”

“If I’ve told you my family’s history once, I’ve told you a thousand times…” That’s a joke. Maverick’s the one who doesn’t like talking about his family history. Ice hasn’t heard any of it, and for good reason. Maybe someday he’ll tell him about it. “Later. But, remember, I used to be Southern Baptist? Jesus, I was serious into that shit, Ice.”

Ice snorts. “Yeah, right. You.”

“Not joking. I had about eighty girlfriends between fourteen and eighteen, but that’s the most pious I’ve ever been. Lotsa loopholes to make my relationships biblical. Was thinking about being a youth pastor. —I’m not joking. It was my whole personality, for a while. Most of my childhood, anyway.”

Ice is still laughing in disbelief. “Oh, yeah? And then what happened?”

Maverick smiles. “…Got hooked on sinning.” 

“…Yeah,” Ice replies, and Maverick can hear the nervous smirk in his voice, “I guess I’d know a little something about that.”

And normally that would be the end of the conversation. But Maverick’s feeling a little sun-drunk, a little giddy, and he’ll never, ever, ever grow out of instigating stupid arguments with Ice just for the fun of it. From beneath the brim of his ballcap he mutters, “…You think Carole’s brainwashing her kid?”

Ice huffs a laugh, and says through a lazy yawn, “I’m not militant in my atheism, no.” But he, also, will never, ever, ever grow out of instigating stupid arguments with Maverick just for the fun of it, and his curiosity’s clearly been piqued. He stews in it for a second before he snaps, “Do you think Carole’s brainwashing her kid?”

“I’m just saying she has him readin’ outta the Bible, like, five times a day. She sends him to church camp. Does something to a kid.” He has no dog in this fight, but this is fun.

“And what did it do to you?” Ice says, reaching down to shove his shoulder good-naturedly. “Weren’t you just telling me not five seconds ago how you used to be the perfect model of Christian charity?” Maverick mumbles a retort sleepily; Ice pushes on through it: “Bradley’s a human being. Either he grows out of it like you did, or he doesn’t, in which case, whatever, land of the free. That’s the First Amendment. You swore an oath to the Constitution. Maybe you should read it.”

“I’ve read it. I’m not Congress, shithead. How’s it go, you want me to cite it to you directly, ‘Congress shall make no law…’ actually, I don’t know what comes after that. Got me there.”

“Don’t call me shithead, dipshit. And whatever. Good thing he’s Carole’s kid and not yours, then. He’s got a mom who wants him to go to church. It’s up to him if he wants to listen to her or not. That’s growing up.”

Maverick tips up the brim of his ballcap to look at him, sprawled out in the bleachers very unprofessionally for the CO of this entire volleyball court, and snaps back, “Well, he’s a little bit my kid. The same way he’s a little bit your kid.” 

Ice just flicks his sunglasses down onto his nose and purses his lips and neither confirms nor denies this allegation. 

They watch the game together for a while, Ice’s toes pressed against Maverick’s lower back discreetly, trying to work their way under Maverick’s T-shirt. Until one of the young pilots approaches a few minutes later: “Sir!” / “What’s that kid’s call sign again?” Ice mumbles to Maverick, prodding him with his foot. / “Hooker.” / “No shit.” / “Sir!” says Hooker again. / “Which one of us, kid?” says Maverick. / “Captain Kazansky, sir. We’ve got a spot opening up. Wanna play?”

Maverick looks up at Ice expectantly. Ice sighs and harrumphs and waffles for a minute— “I’m too old for this shit.”

“Sir,” says Maverick, “it’s not a competition, but if it were, I’d be winning.” 

Lighting the fire of competition under Ice like that is always a good strategy. He rolls his eyes, but immediately stands and tugs off his shirt and rolls up the cuffs of his jeans; “I’ll only play if I can play with the kid.” 

So Maverick watches the teams get scrambled again with a smile, and sits up to watch Ice join Bradley in the sand. Bradley’s only just now taller than Ice, and Ice clearly isn’t used to having to reach up to curl an arm around his shoulders to strategize, his eyes narrowed like an eagle’s, staring down the competition. Maverick can read his lips from across the pitch: Alright, kid, I’ve been watching for a while, and I think I know these guys’ strengths and weaknesses…okay, here’s what we’re gonna do… And the game begins when Bradley spikes the ball.

Ice won’t always be this fun, this down-to-earth, this human. The admiralty and the guilt and the grief of the years to come will strip it all away from him, bring him back to the cold, remove him from his own humanity. And maybe, even if it isn’t conscious, Maverick can recognize that, right now, watching Ice dive into the sand with a laugh: this summer sunshine is only temporary. It’s gonna have to end at some point. So he doesn’t take it for granted. He keeps his eyes open and watches and tries to commit it to memory.

And after the game, Ice and Bradley come over so Ice can finish his beer and put his shirt and his baseball cap back on, and Maverick can make fun of them for losing. And: “What were you guys talking about for so long before the game?” Bradley asks Maverick with a grin.

“Whether or not your mom’s brainwashing you,” Maverick says.

“Oh!” Bradley says mildly. “…No, I don’t think so!”

“Oh, that’s a great start,” Ice laughs. “You would’ve made a great Soviet. No, I don’t think I’m getting brainwashed. Hey, by the way, Gosling, if you want a beer, Maverick and I won’t tell anyone.”

“Aw, really?” whispers Bradley. “Thanks, Uncle Ice!” And he races down the bleachers towards the ice chest in the sand.

Maverick watches Ice watch him go, fingers still pinching the brim of his CVN-65 ballcap, clearly worrying about something the way Ice always is. 

Then he looks down at Maverick, stares openly for a minute, and says, “You don’t think we’re teaching him to rebel too much, do you?”

—

[Bradley. 2000.]

“Kiddo! You’re here early!” It was Uncle Ice, walking through his own front door, catching a glimpse of Bradley watching the Astros-Nats game on the TV. He was still in uniform, but smiling wide, and he set his bag down near the couch and leaned over to ruffle Bradley’s hair goodnaturedly.

“Practice ended early today.”

“Oh, okay. Cool. Maverick should be home soon, still at work—your mom’ll be here in about an hour—she told me to put the chicken breasts in the oven, but you know me, every time I use this oven I set off the fire alarm, so you oughta help me with that…”

“And,” Bradley said, watching Uncle Ice wash his hands in the kitchen sink, “I got here early because I wanted to talk to you.”

“Oh, sure!” chirped Uncle Ice. Then he paused, sensing a trap. “What about?”

“Advice,” Bradley mumbled. He took a deep breath, and stood to follow Uncle Ice into the kitchen “I was just—I was just curious. If you had any advice for me joining the Navy. You know, with me being gay, and all. How do I—I don’t know. I���ve been thinking about it a lot. It’s kinda been weighing on me. Do you have any advice?”

Uncle Ice was still drying his hands off on a kitchen towel. Rubbing them red and raw. And when he raised his head to speak, there was something dull and startled in his eyes: “I don’t, um—no, I don’t—I don’t know anything about that. —You should ask Uncle Maverick about that.”

“I did,” Bradley said desperately, because he had. Yes, he’d gone to Uncle Mav first. “He—he told me to talk to you.”

“…Oh,” said Uncle Ice, now standing in front of a shelf to return one of his books to it. This surprised him. Maybe hurt him a little. “No. I—I, I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

“But—”

“And there are probably better people to ask than me or Maverick. I—I don’t know—that’s not really my…I don’t know.”

“Okay.”

Uncle Ice swallowed, put the book back on the shelf, then clasped his hands together and set them on the shelf, too, as if leaning over his captain’s desk to chastise someone. He blinked for a long moment. Clearly shifting gears. Becoming someone else so easily. Why couldn’t Bradley do that? “But I can tell you this,” he said, and his voice had gone grave and dim, “and I know you and I don’t always see eye-to-eye on politics—but I can tell you this, professionally, because I respect you, and I care about you, a lot—you’re going to have to keep it a secret.”

Dismayed, Bradley said, “Why?”

“Why’s a funny question to ask about something like this,” said Uncle Ice curtly. He shrugged. “Why? Because it’s the law. That’s why.”

Bradley swung his bat at the hornets’ nest. This was always dangerous with Uncle Ice. “It shouldn’t be a law. Don’t you think?”

“Doesn’t matter what I think. It’s the law. And we get paid to enforce the law, internationally speaking. And the military doesn’t work if personnel refuse to follow the rules in broad daylight. So.” He trailed his fingertip along the spines of all his precious books, then eventually found a different one, started flipping through it absentmindedly. “And even if it weren’t the law, it’d still get enforced extrajudicially. You know what that means?” He did that, when he was intentionally being cruel; used big words that Bradley didn’t know to make himself sound smarter. “It means outside the law. The way people talk to you. The way people respect you or don’t respect you. And this business, the one you want to go into, is all about respect. Being a pilot is kind of like being a knight: you have to be noble, you have to be honorable, you have to respect your service and your adversaries and yourself. And because I respect you, and because I care about you a lot, I’m just telling you the truth—you’re going to have to keep it a secret.”

Bradley blinked. There was something crushing and overwhelming about the truth—maybe the fact that it was the truth, maybe the fact that he hated the fact that it was the truth. It made sense. But it also meant his future was unspeakably bleak. He tried to speak over the lump in his throat when he said, “Yeah. That’s what Maverick told me, too.” And what he’d wanted to hear from Uncle Ice was that Uncle Mav was telling a lie. 

Something went soft and slightly wounded in Uncle Ice’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” Uncle Ice said gently. “I wish I could give you better advice than that. But that’s all I know. I don’t know any more than that.”

“Don’t you want to know more than that?”

“No.”

And thus did the generational gap widen into a chasm. 

—

[February 2003.]

Dear SN Bradshaw, / Please call/email/write me back when you get a chance. / Love Uncle Iceman.

…

[August 2003.]

Dear AN Bradshaw, / I hope you’re doing all right. I hope at some point you and I can get in touch to talk. Please let me know if there is some other address I should be sending my letters to. I am not sure if they are finding you. / Love Uncle Iceman.

…

[May 2004.]

Dear AN Bradshaw, / I wanted to congratulate you on your acceptance to college. Yours is a very good AE program & you should feel very proud. Please let me know if there’s anything you might need as you prepare to start your first year. / Love Uncle Iceman.

…

[August 2010.]

Dear LT Bradshaw, / I wanted to let you know that I’ll be at NAS Oceana for a conference from December 6-9. I understand that’s your neck of the woods—would you be interested in having dinner with me on either that Tuesday or Wednesday night? I would love to hear how you’ve been doing. You can reach my secretary at the number below. / Love Uncle Iceman.

…

[October 2014.]

Dear LT Bradshaw, / We Maverick and I want to wish you a Happy Birthday 30th Birthday. We heard you are deployed out in the Atlantic now—we hope you will be able to enjoy the enclosed gift card when you make it back to terra firma. Our updated personal cell numbers are below. / HAPPY BIRTHDAY! FROM UNCLE MAVERICK & Uncle Iceman.

…

“Haven’t heard back from the kid yet.”

“…You think we ever will?”

The longest silence.

—

[Pacific Air Type Commander Beau Simpson. 2016.]

You could see it in the way they held themselves. An utmost similarity. Aristocratic propriety. Maybe a little sense of entitlement: look how hard we’ve worked to be here. All three of them had it. More accurately: Captain Mitchell and Admiral Kazansky both had it, and had passed it down to their son.

“Captain Mitchell.” Everyone was watching. The sun had only just set; the sky was melting from horizon-red through orange and yellow and teal up to midnight black above them.

“It’s an honor, sir,” said Captain Mitchell, accepting Admiral Kazansky’s handshake. God, you’d never know it by looking at them. Half the people here on this Roosevelt flight deck knew about them, but they were so convincing that more people weren’t sure. TYCOM Simpson glanced at Rear Admiral Bates, who glanced back in confusion—I thought they were…? They were, TYCOM Simpson signaled, just abnormally good at keeping it a secret.

“Honor’s all mine, Captain,” said Admiral Kazansky, and he passed by without a second glance.

And when he made it down the line of aviators to Lieutenant Bradshaw—you could see it. The similarity in the way they held themselves. Straight and rigid and unyielding. Cold and dismissive beyond belief, even to each other. Admiral Kazansky held out a hand. Lieutenant Bradshaw took it, but refused to make eye contact. Quiet rebellion under the radar: Admiral Kazansky had taught him well. 

TYCOM Simpson glanced at Captain Mitchell, to gauge his reaction. And for once, he and Captain Mitchell were clearly thinking the exact same thing.

Like father, like son.

You could see it in their stubborn determination. How far they were willing to go. How hard they were willing to push. How long they were willing to hold their own hands to the fire, if it meant the familiar painful comfort of staying warm. “Ice-cold, huh?” TYCOM Simpson asked him the next morning, trying to pin down their strategy, trying to secure a guarantee that their family would do what their country asked of them, even if that meant death. Even if that meant the ultimate sacrifice.

“Only when I have to be,” replied Admiral Kazansky, which meant always, and—soon thereafter, he ordered Lieutenant Bradshaw to his death.

But also, Lieutenant Bradshaw went willingly, too.

“Dagger One is hit.”

“Dagger Two is hit.”

Loss is supposed to hit a man in stages. Isn’t that the truth? —Not so for Admiral Kazansky, whom grief obviously swallowed whole in just an instant. He did not break, or bend under its weight. Just stood there staring at the E-2D AWACS screen with wide wounded eyes—not disbelieving eyes. They were gone. Captain Mitchell and Lieutenant Bradshaw were gone. He was in no denial whatsoever. He had leapt straight to acceptance.

“Sir,” said TYCOM Simpson hesitantly, and he reached out to touch him—the stars on his shoulder—guide him back to reality—what must it be like, to lose a son?—to willingly forfeit your family?—

But before he could make contact, Admiral Kazansky drew a breath, moved away, and closed his eyes for just a second. Perfectly composed, even with the waters of grief closing over his head, even with three dozen observers in this C2 room all scrutinizing him for his response. Perfectly composed. How did he do it? How could he manage? How was he possibly still this proud?

“Vice Admiral Simpson,” he said calmly, “I relinquish my command to you, until you deem me necessary to return to my post.”

“Sir,” said Rear Admiral Bates, darting panicked, sympathetic eyes to TYCOM Simpson, but it was too late—Admiral Kazansky was already leaving the room. Head held high and steady. 

Some confusing weeks later, after Captain Mitchell and Lieutenant Bradshaw returned from the dead, TYCOM Simpson and Rear Admiral Bates would casually debrief the mission together in the lobby bar of the Waldorf-Astoria in Washington, D.C. No hard liquor, just beers. Just barely enough alcohol to give them an excuse to philosophize. “You think pride is a sin or a virtue?” TYCOM Simpson found himself asking, tracing the rim of his gilt-edged Stella Artois glass with a finger, after having recounted the above testimony.

“Neither,” said Rear Admiral Bates. “Gotta be a vice.”

“A vice.”

“Yeah. Good men die because of pride, bad men die because of pride…we send our sons to battle because of pride…wars are fought and won and lost because of pride… every war in human history, when you boil it down, begins when someone says, ‘You’re wrong and I’m right, and I’m proud of my own righteousness, proud enough to kill, proud enough to die, proud enough to send my sons to die…’”

“Oh, okay. That’s the root of all human conflict, then, according to you, Warlock. Okay.”

Rear Admiral Bates smiled and laughed at himself, too. Pride, he mouthed. Then shook his head. “We’re a proud species. It’s our vice.”

TYCOM Simpson was thinking about the two proudest men he knew, Admiral Kazansky and Lieutenant Bradshaw, and wondered what it was, exactly, that had driven a wedge between them, you’re wrong and I’m right and I’m proud enough of my own righteousness to send you to your death/inflict my death upon you… And then he remembered the warnings he’d previously received about Lieutenant Bradshaw and Lieutenant Seresin and their open relationship, and then he remembered Admiral Kazansky coldly shaking Captain Mitchell’s hand… and he wondered if the wedge between them was exactly that: the matter of pride.

—

[Tom. 2018.]

“Merry Christmas and a happy new year, and all that,” says Pete, raising his glass and reaching over the dining table to clink rims with Tom and then Bradley. “A good year! A really good year! —Sorry your guy couldn’t be here, Rooster. We’ll call him tonight before you go. Tell him we miss him.”

“Where is he again?” Tom asks.

“Washington,” Bradley says with a smile. “Big conference at the Pentagon. I’ll see him next week.”

“You know,” Pete says with a sly grin directed at Tom, “I’ve never actually heard the story of how you two got together.” 

“Oh,” Bradley says, shrugging as he tears open a dinner roll, “not that interesting. Pretty much what you’d expect. Inter-squadron competition-turned-sexual tension. Not exactly within regs, but we did meet each other before D.A.D.T. got repealed, so it wasn’t like we’d’ve ever been within regs, either…” (All the while, Tom’s smirking over the rim of his wine glass at Pete, No, Mav, I’m not gonna tell him I had them reassigned to the same boat…) “We broke up when I got sent to TOPGUN. But we figured it out eventually.”

“Glad you did. Sorry he couldn’t be here.”

Bradley hesitates, then says, “You know what I just realized? I never heard how you two got together…! You’ve never told me that story!”

Tom glances over at Pete, do you want to take this or shall I, and when Pete motions all yours, he sighs and says, “Uh, we don’t really know. We’ve just been telling people nineteen-eighty-six because it’s easy. But in a much more real sense…” He thinks about it, then shrugs. “Whatever. If you really want to know. In nineteen-ninety-three, right after I came back to San Diego to take command at Miramar, he and I had a drunken one-night stand. By accident. Which then turned into twenty-five years of accidental one-night stands. So.”

“Oh, c’mon. You guys bought a house together.”

“Yeah, that,” says Pete, “that was, uh, to facilitate the accidental one-night stands. Make it more convenient for everyone.”

“Cut out the middle-man,” Tom supplies, then shrugs again at the look on Bradley’s face. “That’s our story, kid. It’s not super romantic. We weren’t thinking about it that way. We didn’t know how.”

Pete raises the wine bottle to refill Tom’s glass—though it’s still halfway full—and then raises his eyebrows when he “notices” the bottle’s empty. Changes the subject as he stands: “Okay, what’s everyone feeling? Red, white, what’s next?”

“Red,” Tom says absently. “Anything big, I guess—first cab you see…” But then he thinks about it, and he amends his order before Pete leaves earshot: “Actually—we’ve got that petite sirah we gotta drink—two-thousand-four. Israeli. Might be somewhere in the back, sorry. But now’s a good occasion, I think, to bust it out for the holidays. No reason to save it.”

“Israeli sirah two-thousand-four,” Pete repeats, “okay. I got that.” 

Then he steps outside, leaving Tom and Bradley alone. It’s not awkward—they’ve worked really hard over the last two years to make it not-awkward, after the mission—but human beings are human beings. Prideful, stubborn creatures. There will always be a little guilt between the two of them, and a little blame.

“I have to be honest,” Tom says after a moment, interested in being honest for Bradley’s sake, “sorry we don’t have a better story to give you, about us. It is a little hard to talk about.”

“Why?”

“Well—we don’t know the words we’re supposed to use, for one. It’s your generation who sets the standard for that kind of thing. You young people. We’re a little out-of-date. And…well. I guess we’re just jealous of you. It’s hard to talk about.”

“Jealous?” Bradley repeats quizzically. “Why?”

Tom leans back in his chair and really thinks through what he wants to say. This is one of those impromptu speeches you never really intend to make, but are probably still important to get off your chest. “Maverick and I,” he starts carefully, “will never stop feeling guilty about what we did to you. Ever. You need to know that.” And when Bradley scoffs and huffs and tries to interrupt, he goes on, “Not just pulling your papers from the Academy. It goes back further than that. We will always feel like we deprived you of your father. The merits of that feeling are debatable, sure, but it’s a fact of life. A fact of our lives, anyway. And it’s dictated so much of how we live, and how we’ve lived, over the past thirty years. Part of the reason I came back to Miramar in nineteen-ninety-three was to be with you and your mom. Because I felt I owed you that, in return for what I’d taken.”

“You didn’t kill him,” Bradley says. “Or, at least, I never blamed you for killing him. You or Maverick both. You guys were my dads. You didn’t take anything from me. —Excepting the obvious, the Academy, but that was mostly my mom, I guess, so, whatever.”

“I’m just telling you what our lives have been like since the day I met you. Why we did what we did.”

“Okay. But I still don’t understand why you’re jealous.”

Tom smiles, a little faintly. “Because the other part of the reason I came back to Miramar in nineteen-ninety-three was to be with Maverick,” he says, “and I’m jealous of you because I didn’t recognize that at the time. —Everyone hopes, when they have kids—because, look, I’m not your dad, but you are my kid, really—everyone hopes they can bring their kid into a better world than the one they had when they were a kid, and we did. But no one prepares you for how jealous you get when your kid grows up in a better world than you did. I’m not sure people your age understand how hard it was for us when we were your age.”

“I do.”

“Sure, but I don’t think you do. I—I didn’t…” He sighs. “I never meant to fall in love with Mitchell. He never meant to fall in love with me. There certainly were men in relationships in the Navy back then who could make it work—we weren’t those guys. We looked down on those guys. Most people did. And when you were an officer, your job security and your paycheck relied on your subordinates’ respect for you. If we’d rocked the boat, traded away our respect for our relationship, well, we’d have each other, but we’d be out of a job. And then, if we’d been fired—what did we kill all those people for? For nothing! What a waste of all the lives we took! It wouldn’t have been honorable. Would’ve disrespected the Navy, our careers, the men we killed. So we didn’t talk about our relationship. You know that. Didn’t talk about who we were, or what we were doing, or why, because we were afraid of losing our own honor. Didn’t talk about it until the day you two died and came back from the dead. That’s what it took. Maverick still hates talking about some of that stuff, all the labels, all the words—that’s why I sent him to get a bottle at the back of the fridge, he might be out there a while…”

“Cunning,” Bradley says softly, but leaves the space open after he speaks.

Tom looks away. “Maybe this is getting too deep into the weeds. I’m just trying to tell you what it’s been like for us. Not sure how much of this you want to hear.”

“All of it. —All of it.”

Tom clears his throat. “…Well, Maverick keeps trying to convince me that we never wasted any time. And I know there is some truth to that—we didn’t start out liking each other at all—even if we’d been as brave as people your age are nowadays, even if we’d been open with each other about that kind of stuff, we still probably wouldn’t have ended up together. I mean, we really didn’t like each other. Especially right after your dad died, and especially after you left, in two-thousand-two. So maybe it was better for us in the long run that we didn’t talk about it. But I look back on the thirty years I’ve spent with him, and…it still all feels like a waste to me.” Maybe he really is too deep into the weeds. But he just wants Bradley to understand. “Look, Mitchell is, beyond any possible shadow of a doubt, the love of my life. Always has been and always will be. Right? —I just wish I’d known that at the time. I’m jealous of you because you’re exactly the age I was when I came back to Miramar to be with you and your mom and Maverick, and you’re already married, and you won’t ever have to sacrifice any of your honor for your marriage. You’re one of the most respected men in the Navy.”

“So are you, Ice, and you’re also married to another man.”

“I’ll remind you, though it hurts a little, that I’m almost exactly a quarter-century older than you, and you and I got married within a week of each other. I had to wait for times to change.” He holds Bradley’s gaze for a moment, then finishes the last of his dinner and sets his fork down on his plate. “So, if you were ever wondering why Mav and I are a little bitter around you and Jake, well, it’s because we are.”

“Oh,” says Bradley. “See, I always thought it was just because you and Maverick are both notoriously bitter people.”

“We are,” Tom admits through a laugh. Then he continues, “But—you should also know how proud of you we both are. How proud of you we’ve both always been. We’re not very brave men—well, we are, of course, but maybe not in the way that matters. It’s pretty gratifying to have a kid who’s braver than you are. Every parent’s dream, whether we want to admit it or not. You’re brave enough for all of us.”

It’s at this moment that Pete opens the garage door and sticks his head inside and hollers, “Ice, I can’t find it. What about a merlot? Can we do a merlot?”

“No, baby, the sirah,” Tom answers without turning his head. “It’s on the second shelf, you might—have to rearrange some of the bottles—we have too much wine. We need to drink more, me and you.”

“Not a problem,” says Pete, and he shuts the door again.

“It’s on the third shelf,” Tom tells Bradley in an aside. “He’ll find it eventually. He would’ve tried to change the subject six times by now. —The previous Secretary of the Army—he actually just got married this week, I think; I need to send a card—also gay. He and his partner invited Maverick and me out to dinner the last time we were in D.C. Most uncomfortable I’ve ever seen Mav in my whole life. Asking us questions like, ‘How did you guys get together…?’ ‘Was it easier for you guys because you were in the Navy…?’ ‘When did you…know…?’” When Bradley laughs, Tom does, too. It’s really nice, it turns out, to joke about this stuff with someone who understands. “We just made our answers up out of thin air. I was uncomfortable too, admittedly. That’s what I’m saying. Mav and I never learned the vocabulary to answer questions like that.”

Bradley starts taking their plates to the sink. What a good kid. “You know,” he says from the kitchen, glancing over his shoulder when Tom joins him at the counter, “it’s so funny you bitch that you and Mav don’t have a romantic love story, or whatever. When I was a kid, you and him were literally the pinnacle of romance.”

“Oh, really.”

“Yeah. There’s something romantic about the secret, too. When Jake and I made our relationship official—the first time—I begged him to keep it a secret just for a little while. You know; it was sexy, for a few minutes! Something only he and I knew!”

“And you immediately discovered how awful it is, I’m sure,” Tom says noncommittally. “I’m jealous of you that you learned that lesson young. —Yeah, real romantic. Maverick and I could’ve ended each other’s careers fourteen thousand times over. Real romantic.”

“And trusted each other not to,” Bradley points out—

—which makes Tom reconsider. 

Yeah, okay, maybe it’s a little romantic. The way Grimm’s fairytales, once you wipe away all the blood, are just a little romantic. “I’m of the opinion that the only thing getting old is good for is looking back on your life through rose-colored glasses. Sure. Historical revisionism it is. It was a little romantic.”

“What’s a little romantic?” says Pete, stepping into the kitchen and triumphantly brandishing his 2004 petite sirah; “Have I missed something funny? —It was on the third shelf, by the way. Could’ve told me that before I went and reorganized the whole fridge.”

Tom graciously accepts the half-annoyed kiss to the cheek, and answers, “Nothing you would’ve laughed at, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, one of those conversations,” says Pete, hunting around in the drawer for the corkscrew. “If you were planning on continuing, I can go out and rearrange the wine bottles by region instead of by year—” and scoffs when Tom kisses him back to reassure him, conversation’s over.

“Did you know,” Bradley says, “your husband is now openly calling you the love of his life?”

“Oh, yeah,” says Pete with a smile, popping the cork from the bottleneck, “he tells me that all the time. Nothing new.” Tops up their glasses, then deftly changes the subject: “Oh, gosh. I never asked. This is the big news. How are you and Hangman enjoying SOUTHCOM?”

“Oh, God,” says Bradley, rolling his eyes. “Let me tell you…”

“I think we did good,” Pete says later that night—they’re alone now, so he’s fine talking—as he tugs loose the tucked sheets to clamber into bed, and when Tom moves to turn off the light he adds, “No, you can keep reading.”

Tom sets his book down onto his chest and pulls his glasses off anyway. “Well, you and I are known for doing ‘good,’” he muses after a second. “We’re pretty universally renowned for being good at stuff. But, regarding what in particular? —Raising our kid?”

“Yeah. We did good.”

Actually, they didn’t do very well at all. But of course that’s not what Pete means. Pete means: it’s shocking and stunningly fortunate that they did as poorly as they did and still somehow ended up with such a good kid. Tom’s looking up at the ceiling and feeling very small. “How did that happen? Genuinely, how did that happen? I did always build getting married into my plan for my life—but I never thought far enough ahead to consider having kids. And now you and I have a kid who’s in his thirties. How’d that happen? I remember when he could barely walk!”

Pete yawns and rolls over onto his side and closes his eyes. “You and I have a kid who earned a Medal of Honor.”

“I know exactly how that happened” —and doesn’t like to think about it too much. “I suppose we’re just a family of overachievers. A lot of failing upwards, you and me. Somehow we failed our way upwards into a very happy lifelong relationship, a superstar kid…a few dozen medals each, ourselves…”

“That’s life,” says Pete sleepily.

“That is not most people’s lives. You’re aware that our lives look nothing like the average person’s life, right? You understand that?”

“That’s our life.”

Tom considers this. Yeah, it is their life. Wild how that happens. 

He smiles at the singular word life, sets his book on the nightstand, presses a kiss to Pete’s bare shoulder, and turns off the light.

[marvelann]

Watched Society of the Snow with my (Spanish) best friend today.

I liked it. Kinda wish I could have watched it knowing nothing about the story but yeah, no chance. Whispering trivia to my friend and seeing what they chose to cut was interesting too.

I liked how Uruguayan the characters were. They say bo and ta, and the first thing they dream of eating is chivito. Payan to pass the time... That and an irrational hate towards Ethan Hawke was what made me like this movie more tbh

My 2 favourite things were probably the heavy Catholic imagery (I haven't been Catholic since I was 10 and was forced to go to mass in order to take my communion but. It's definitely a big part of the story) and the casting choice for Nando Parrado. A+ on that one even if the actor is Argentinian jaja

[misc-obeyme]

While I don't particulary enjoy traumatizing Barb, I do enjoy taking care of him in times of need

I traumatize him you take care of hi- /silly

tbh I dont imagine Barbatos shed, I think his tail is more..meat like than scales (mostly because scales are hard to draw but they have a great damn texture but I just cant see his tail being like that) so he doesn't shed like Levi,,, but also scaley Barbatos. mhmmm texture. cold body pillow

okay I got sick ideas do you think his tail would be tasty. do you think he would use the meat of his tail for fancy dishes. do you think his flesh is poisonous. I kinda think his tail has a whole other blood system thingy than his body also I don't care about biology we're talking about some time realitywarping god. So anyway I also hc the teal parts of his tail are blood vessels. his skin fades to transparent at the ends of his tail so thats why its also teal too. thanks @/inhuman-obey-me i got the idea after a fic of theirs. anyway Do you think the blood tastes goo-

i want to eat his tail now.

We make a great team lol! Poor Barb probably disagrees~

Honestly, his tail looks more like meat and skin than scales to me, too. It just looks more meaty than scaley. Though maybe if it was a lot of little tiny scales that are super malleable... it does have the potential to feel amazing... like let me run my fingers across that, you know?

I don't know enough about biology to know whether or not what you're proposing would make sense scientifically, so let's just assume that it does!

I never once thought of the tail streaks as being blood vessels, but that makes sense! I mean they do kinda look like veins, don't they? And I see, so the black part is the skin but by the end it reveals all the teal insides! That's a pretty cool headcanon!

While I don't know if I could actually consume some of Barb's tail, I think if anyone could make it tasty, he could. If it's able to fall off and grow back, then I could see him using it for food. And my first thought was he'd only do that if he was desperate, but then I was like well maybe it's considered a delicacy? Tail a la Barbatos, you know what I'm saying? Roasted in a creamy sauce that only Barbatos himself can make. I think it might interesting if his flesh was only poisonous to humans.

I don't think blood in general tastes good (at least I haven't had any that tasted good lol), but again we're dealing with a demon here. And I kinda think Barbatos could make anything tasted good. Maybe he serves the tail with blood sauce.

That sounds gross, but maybe it's not? I'm the kind of person where I'm willing to try anything once. So if Barbatos served me such a dish and I knew what it was, I'd still try some.

Maybe he gets creative and serves multiple things like tail jerky or tail-loaf or perhaps cheeseburgers with tail patties.

[eddiethehunted]

falling into old Very Bad Habits sucks so bad bc i know im doing it but my brain will not allow me to fix this

[hiimcanadia]

Not gonna add this onto the post itself bc it's not really the point and also I don't like the op but I feel like if a friend asked me to "help them enforce their diet" by slapping food out of their hands... I would say no? I feel like the correct answer here is no, right? I mean I think that diet culture is overall unhealthy anyway but if someone close to me was dead set on going on a diet for whatever reason that is absolutely not how I would go about helping them. I think it could be fun to help someone look for alternative food options that are similar to stuff they liked before but are healthier, or maybe help them find brand new foods that they would have never considered before, but ultimately if my friend tells me that they want to completely cut junk food out of their life and then a week later I see them buy a Twinkie I'm not saying or doing shit about that because they're an adult and it's their fckin choice

[the-nettle-knight]

I get that in comparison Liam Hemsworth looks much less muscular than Henry Cavill which seems less impressive etc etc etc, but I think we're forgetting about the fact that it's just not healthy. Like HC was hugely dehydrated and still had to act for really long days doing loads of stunts. They're gonna treat Liam Hemsworth the same. Do you think he doesn't already feel hugely scrutinised being compared to Chris? Why are we feeling so blasé about commenting on someone's body?

Don't get me wrong, I was upset when HC left and I'm still kinda dubious about Liam Hemsworth but it feels gross to be commenting on his body/physicality

[genderdog]

every time i listen to ugly death no redemption i go fucking insane about ice the last generation again

[catastrxblues]

anyways. watched anatomy of a fall for the plot today

[zevranunderstander]

i love watching youtube analyses of movies and shows and i love when the person explaining something is totally wrong about the thing theyre talking about

[whumpy-wyrms]

(Totally not getting back on the cheese train but) What are Aspen and Silas’ opinions on cheese/grilled cheese? 👀🧀🧀🧀

since Silas is a vampire, he cannot eat or consume anything that isn’t human blood (but sometimes he likes to eat dead human carcasses because he’s a little unhinged). anything other than blood has no taste or nutritional value to vampires and they’ll just spit it out, it’s not food for them, it’s like eating cardboard. so basically Silas has never actually eaten cheese before but he still hates it and therefor hates grilled cheese. as he should

Aspen likes cheese!! 🧀 so Aspen is an extremely picky eater due to having sensory issues with the textures of some food and also being allergic to some things (plus simply not liking the taste). this was kinda frustrating to Silas at first, when he first started keeping Aspen as his bloodbag and they were still new to each other. Silas would try to feed him random human food and Aspen would refuse a lot of it due to the texture/taste/allergy (and because he can still survive without food, starving is just really painful and makes his blood taste bad). eventually Silas came to understand that they both have weird limits with food/what they can or can’t eat, and it caused a sense of solidarity between them in that aspect. Silas just let Aspen choose what food he ate and didn’t bother him about being a picky eater.

maybe Aspen is lactose intolerant but still chooses to eat cheese anyway because he likes the taste/texture, the same way Silas chooses to eat human flesh/meat because he likes the taste/texture, even though it’s technically harmful to them both. they mirror each other in more ways than one…

anyway i’m soo not normal about these guys as you all can tell 🧀🧀🧀🧀

[realitys-ex]

One kinda fun/odd bit about Discworld is the place of Jews/Judaism in it (no, this probably won't go where you expect).

So there are the 2 obvious places and one arguably subtle/debatable place:

Feet of Clay/Golems very clearly drawing from Judaism (though in subsequent books that was toned *way* down)

Omnianism is a very clear stand in for/amalgamation of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism (the amount of each is left as an exercise to the reader).

and Lastly / debatably many people find a similarity between the description of the Dwarf religion and Judaism (I am not stating I agree, just I would have been remiss if I didn't bring it up)

Now the one thing that kinda gets forgotten is that: Judaism as a whole independent religion is somewhat confirmed in Discworld leaving arguments about the above somewhat moot! (you can't have a stand in for a religion if you already have the religion itself).

In both Feet of Clay and Fifth Elephant it mentions Vampires working at Kosher Butchers (for those unaware blood is not kosher so it needs to be drained extra well from meat, a perfect job for a vampire).

Now what does that actually imply? Absolutely nothing.

PTerry often had off the cuff jokes, as well as mucked about with continuity (remember how Trolls originally would continue to grow until they died, and could get up to the size of a small mountain, which only came up in one of the early books and was ignored in the rest?) and (I am sure) just liked that joke and did not intend to imply any theological ramifications or serious world building from it.

But dammit, it is (to me) incredibly funny to step into a (semi) serious discussion about Judaism in Discworld and completely derail it with a throw away line.

[totally-not-up-to-anything]

Hey sooo I’ve dealt with um eating issues for a while and I’ve decided to just call it what it is. An eating disorder.

I’ve decided that if I’m going to bitch and groan about it and be constantly anxious, then I’m going to at least lose weight at the same time. :)

Edit; This will be a blog/journal dedicated to my progress. So I’ll post daily updates as well as monthly progress checks to really see if it’s working. I’d love to have friends and you can talk to me about anything and everything <3

Pls don’t go to my main blog and talk ed stuff tho

[yutadori]

so like . today was supposed to be my fourth day of work and when i walked in my manager asked to talk to me and told me that i was being terminated and i was like oh crap wait girl what . and she hands me this sheet of paper that i read over and there were two bullet points that stated why they were terminating me and i was like oh . hm . okay

i was about to sign it until the words really settled?? so the first point was insubordination and i was like hi can you explain this please...? and i sort of shocked myself the moment i said that because typically i would just sign and leave but in that moment i was like well . im going to be leaving so why not ask for some constructive feedback so i can do better at future places?? and if it ends up being awkward or hurtful it's fine because im never going to see her again hdkdsjks she kept it very vague by saying that she doesnt think im a good fit for the team, which was confusing because that didnt Really explain anything?? so i asked if it meant that the other staff didnt get along with me and she was like well . no not that

so okay the thing is im totally aware that im a part of my own downfall sjssjskn basically i was supposed to work on new years DAY and i was soooo anxious because i had JUST learned how to make a few drinks the night before, so i truly felt like being there on new years would fuck everything up for everyone, which would suck esp because it would be busy. so i sort of um . messaged her saying that i had food poisoning (lie) u__u

so she brought that up as the reason and explained that me not being there = affecting the team and i was like well . okay i can see what you mean i guess ? then i looked at the point under that and it said that i failed to do the tasks i was responsible for and that Really confused me because while im fully aware that im barely decent at the things i do at work, i still dew them u__u so i panicked wondering if i fucked up really badly somewhere and asked her to explain that too, which felt so crazy that i was even saying any of this ?? anyway she said that my absence on that day meant that i failed to show up to do the tasks i was supposed to do and i was like hmm . okay i see i guess

and it was so weird because again usually i would just accept it and leave but i sort of asked her a bit more about it but not in a hostile way or anything. my mouth moved faster than my brain and i really hope she didnt think i was trying to fight or disagree ?? anyway when i reiterated that i was sick that day (which . yes it was a lie but she didnt know that sidldhsl) she said that because that was the second instance, she felt like this was necessary and i was like damn... okay girl...

[orcelito]

Really is a coping kinda night huh lmao

[frostbite-the-bat]

hey so um aside from like, art posts i want to take another break from this site a bit. ive been fucking rotting my brain with it and wasting my time there constantly checking in and yeah thats fucking unhealthy im wasting my time and making my already horrid attention span even worse. if anything im on discord most of the time even if i dont respond right away. if you notice me like, late night posting when im tired feel free to send me a friendly ask to remind me and nudge me off but ill try to not let that happen.

ive also been slipping into bad thoughts on occasion again and i barely caught myself impulsively oversharing abt it again - even if i did mention it briefly at some parts i could've been rambling abt it elsewhere or to myself only making me feel worse which...is not good. i gotta get better and before school starts again i wanna get at least the tiniest bit better. this isn't anyone else's fault, just me placing priorities in the wrong places. but um yeah. im still around ofc!!! and i love talking i want to talk about stuff i like a lot!! im very happy to have ppl to talk about club penguin with... but ya ! ill try to not. check in here every 5 fucking seconds on god damn impulse