#tagging those for good measure even if it’s just in a tube and not ya know gore

[goodfish-bowl]

Test #17 - Blood-Ectoplasm Analysis

Ectoberhaunt 2023 Day 17: Blood

A unique reaction was noted when the sample was exposed to lights and energy charges of a certain frequency. This reaction was the activation of the ectoplasmic bonds within the sample, causing a change in color and nature, where the sample reacted more similarly to ectoplasm, that blood. While interesting to observe outside of the specimen, the experiment must be repeated with the subject itself to if the reaction also occurs intravascularly as well.

Ectoberhaunt 2023 Master Post

[dicebox]

Assembly (Deadlands Fic)

Asher’s Creek

Jillian Cain rode into Asher’s Creek slowly, as much for herself as for her horse. A recent encounter with a herd of undead buffalo had left her injured and drained, and much as she preferred riding the range on her own as the Almighty’s Word, sometimes she needed a roof over her head and a decent meal in her belly. Besides, Asher’s Creek was a reasonably-sized township, and maybe there was someone in town who could do some repair work on her guns. As channels for the Almighty’s power, they were well enough, but from the purely earthly standpoint, they could probably pack a bit more punch.

She approached Asher’s Creek saloon and inn, and stopped dead fifty yards or so from the building as something at the hitching post caught her eye. The ... thing was the approximate size and shape of the average mule, but it was made of metal, boxy of body, and beeping to itself in a contented sort of way. For a moment, Jillian considered whether or not this was an abomination unto the Almighty ... then decided that as long as it wasn’t eating people, she should probably leave the machine alone. Still, she tied up her horse as far away from the metal mule as the hitching post allowed, and eyed it suspiciously as she entered the saloon.

Curiosity and self-interest spurred Jillian into examining the saloon’s patrons as she walked in. Quasi-abomination or not, the metal mule outside suggested someone with a way with machinery, and guns were just a less complicated form of machinery. If she wanted someone to look her six-shooters over with an eye to improvements, she could probably do worse. She could at least take the man’s measure, see if whatever oddity of mind possessed someone to make a mechanical mule could be effectively harnessed for a one-time fix-it job.

The ‘man’, when Jillian found what she was looking for ... wasn’t. All of the men in the inn were the usual range-riders, farmers and occasional shopkeepers; most of the women were farmwives, schoolmarms and one or two ‘ladies of the evening’. But one young woman - no more than a girl, really - stood out. No one with any sense whatsoever tried to dye their hair with boot-black, but that’s what this girl had apparently done. Her clothes were too good for the riding she’d been doing, given the tatters and dirt. She was eyeing her wallet, or its contents at least, with an expression that telegraphed nerves and chagrin.

So the girl was in trouble. That made things a little easier. Jillian went to the bar and picked up a couple of mugs of beer, then made her way to the girl’s table, putting the beer down in front of the girl without a word. The girl, for her part, made a nervous squeaking noise and cut her sharp brown eyes from the mug to Jillian’s face. Jillian could almost see the girl’s mind working, mapping out possibilities and approaches ... and then, in the worst fake accent Jillian had ever heard, she spoke up: “Sooooo ... what kin Ah do ya for?”

After eyeing the girl dubiously for a moment, Jillian just said, “Don’t bother.”

The girl blinked. “Wut.”

“The accent. Don’t bother. It needs work.” While the girl was sufficiently derailed, Jillian got down to business. “That your mechanical mule outside?”

“Uh-huh.” She bit her lip and, quietly, in an accent that was pure Northern and clearly her real one, said, “That’s Muffin. Muffin is awesome.”

Jillian felt her brain trying to actively shut down at the thought of someone naming their mechanical mule the same thing as Jillian herself had named the family cat when she was nine, and took a moment to dismiss it. Then she returned to her original text. “Is that the only mechanical know-how you’ve got?”

The girl shook her head, looking proud. “I like fixing things! Also sometimes boom, when boom is required!” Her eyes landed on the butts of Jillian’s pistols and brightened with interest. “Ooh. You’ve got guns. Did you want me to fix your guns? I can do that!”

Jillian, who hadn’t seen this level of enthusiasm in a very long time and wasn’t sure how to handle it, backed off, stalling with a question: “What’s your name?”

“Um...” For someone whose mind seemed to work a little too fast for common sense, the girl took a suspiciously long time coming up with a name. “Uh ... Aloy! Aloy O’Toole. Pleased to meet you.” She held out a hand for the shaking, biting her lower lip with every appearance of nerves overlaid with high-class manners.

Jillian raised an eyebrow and eyed the self-styled Aloy before taking the offered hand. “Are you gonna stick with that? The name.”

“It’s as good a name as any.” Aloy shrugged. “I mean, it’s something people can call me. It works.”

Having retrieved her hand from the handshake, Jillian took a long drink from her mug while deciding how to proceed. Finally, she asked, “You in some kind of trouble?”

Aloy looked Jillian over for a moment, clearly doing some unfathomable calculation in her head. Eventually, she leaned close for some semblance of privacy and said, “Well ... you know ghost rock? Well, I kind of stopped some people messing with it in bad ways that involved zombie factory workers. Boom was involved. So I sort of want to keep my head down right now, okay?” There was so much more to that story; Aloy couldn’t have been more obvious about it. She also couldn’t have been more obvious about her refusal to say more at that point.

For herself, Jillian was minded to let Aloy keep the details to a minimum. She knew what she needed to; mostly, that she and this strange Northern girl with the mechanical mule and the overactive brain had some common interests. Still, there was a difference between ‘letting this strange Yankee look at her guns’ and ‘letting this strange Yankee tag along on her mission from the Lord’. While the compassionate part of her wanted to help, and a tiny part of herself she tried to ignore these days murmured something about being glad of some company other than her horse on long lonely rides across the plains, the sensible part of her - which was most of her - was still incredibly wary. They’d start with the guns, she decided. At least she could make sure the weird little Yankee had some cash in her pocket--

Then the screams started outside, and Jillian dismissed the entire thing, getting out of her chair and out the door without so much as a word to Aloy.

Jillian froze on the balcony, then groaned at the sight that greeted her. She’d thought that herd of undead buffalo had been a little smaller than the usual plains herd. Now here were the rest of them, eight in all, rampaging through town looking for something to bite. The townsfolk had managed to stay out of biting range so far, but that wouldn’t last long, and while demons couldn’t always afford to be picky, they preferred human suits to wear. Letting one of the ... well, things that had possessed the corpses of these buffalo get hold of a human being, and things would get very ugly, very fast. She grabbed for her guns without hesitation, surveying the main street for a first target.

Something nudged her in the back, and when Jillian turned to look, she saw Aloy running past, the pitter-patter of truly inappropriate shoes on balcony boards nearly unheard over the sound of the miniature stampede. She unhitched the mechanical mule, grabbed something that looked like a blunderbuss gone wrong off its back, then shouted, “Muffin! CHARGE!”

Jillian watched, dumbfounded, as the mechanical mule surged forward on its weird metal legs and rammed its head into the nearest undead buffalo, knocking it into the front wall of the local jailhouse. Aloy pointed her weird blunderbuss at another one, and while there was still a lot more shooting to be done, Jillian had to watch the trigger pulled on that thing. Not least because if it exploded in the girl’s face, something would probably have to be done for her.

The expected explosion never happened. Instead, little glass tubes along the side of the blunderbuss lit up with a faint whining noise before lightning arced from the barrel, hitting her target and reducing it to a smoking, jittering pile of spoiled buffalo meat. The grin on Aloy’s face was disturbing as she cried, jubilance personified, “THE UPGRADES WORK!”

Jillian only allowed herself time to side-eye the weird little Yankee briefly before getting her mind back on business. She’d thought she was too tired for much more of this kind of thing, but the Lord didn’t accept that kind of excuse, and the power rose up in her with the words, “BACK TO THE HELL FROM WHENCE YE CAME, ABOMINATIONS, IN THE NAME OF THE LORD!” Even as she spoke, she started shooting.

Later

Jillian and Aloy, now with the understanding that their money was no good at the Asher’s Creek Saloon, sat back in their corner, exhausted and a little battered, but breathing. Aloy spent most of the meal grumbling into her beans: “It’s gonna take weeks to get the dents out of Muffin. And a new ball peen hammer. He hates the hammer. I’m gonna have to chase him around the street for an hour.”

Jillian considered asking why she kept treating her machine like it was alive, and then decided against it. For all her quirks, Aloy was clearly pretty handy. Which brought her back to her original thought: “So do you work with ... normal guns?”

“Oh, yeah, I wanted to ask you about that!” Aloy’s eyes brightened and she looked over Jillian’s holsters in a covetous sort of way. “I mean, those are okay? But I could make them so much better - more accurate, more boom, maybe channel that ... God thing you do better, even. I’d need a couple of hours for the work and probably a day or so to let the bruises on my shoulder fade so I don’t twitch wrong and mess it up, but... Did you want me to?”

Jillian considered. Aloy talked too much, flailed too much, and was a little unsettling at the best of times. Still, she could get her shit together when she had to and that Muffin thing, however bizarre, was useful. After a long moment to consider her words, she said, “Well ... I guess you can tell how I’m not too fond of the undead and those that make them, any more than you say you are. Might be I could use a gunsmith on the regular, if they don’t mind not having a steady home. Makes it hard to find a body, being on the move all the time.”

Aloy tilted her head as she thought over what Jillian had said ... and what she left unsaid. Then she smiled bright as a sunrise on a clear day. “I could do that.” Then she leaned out the window and called, “Did you hear that, Muffin? Adventure!”

Quietly, so as not to be heard over the delighted beeping of the mechanical mule, Jillian sighed and muttered, “What did I get myself into?”

[twinmomma-blog]

MUST HAVES for newborn twins:

BOPPY NEWBORN LOUNGER!!! - ESSENTIAL for bottle feeding two screaming babies at once, good for naps (babies should ALWAYS be supervised if napping in them due to suffocation risk). They’re about $35 each and I found mine at Target. They’re so essential I bought an additional set for my parent’s house for when they babysit so we’re not constantly toting them back and forth.

4moms mamaRoo: So, I have one of your run of the mill swings for my babies, which is wonderful, but sometimes a fussy babe just needs something a lil extra; the mamaRoo is EXACTLY the thing for that. With five different motion settings, five speeds for each, and four different preset audio choices and an auxiliary function for your phone, this thing soothes my screaming, fussy children almost instantly when nothing else works. They’re also a good, gentler option for reflux babies you don’t want swinging back and forth, effectively turning baby into a volcano. Now I’m not saying run out and buy two, at $176 each brand new they’re not the cheapest thing ever. But I have one I bought used (so my model is a bit older, it looks like there’s a new gen out) and if I had the option or finances to buy another one, you’re darn tootin’ that I would.

Zip sleepers: y’all. I have SO many cute snap up sleepers for my babies.. but the million snaps drive me INSANE at diaper changes. I just don’t have the patience for them, and frankly, neither do my 2 month old children. The quicker the diaper change, the better in our book. Target has them I believe, and you can always trust Amazon to have what you need, when you need.

GRIPE WATER!!!!!!: Now, always consult with your pediatrician before giving ANY types of supplements or OTC meds of ANY kind before you administer them to your babies. But, with that being said, Gripe Water is a GODSEND. It’s a bit expensive at $10 per 4oz, and with us having twins and giving it in their milk at damn near every feeding.... we run thru the stuff. But I can DEF tell when they haven’t had it, so we use it constantly. It makes for happier babies, and a happier momma. They ALSO make a NIGHTTIME version, I recently discovered, and my babies never slept so well thru the night and it’s a blessing I will not give up.

GAS DROPS: Another must-have we use at every feeding is gas drops. Now again, consult with your pediatrician before giving them to your baby. Like the gripe water, we mix it in with the milk in their bottles to prevent them from just spitting it right back out. Cause then you don’t know how much they got, if any, and you’re pretty much SOL so that you don’t end up overdosing your child.

A Variety of Pacifiers: These are trial and error. If you’re breastfeeding exclusively it’s recommended to hold off on pacifiers for I BELIEVE 2-3 weeks to prevent nipple confusion. Hayden (my baby B) loves only the Phillips AVENT Soothies. NOT the vanilla scented which are supposed to be calming. The vanilla scented ones make both my babies gag for some reason? It may be because when they had feeding tubes in the NICU, the pacifiers they used were vanilla scented and they have an aversion because of that? Who knows. But Harlow (my baby A) loves both the AVENT Soothies (non vanilla), AND the Baby King pacifiers? I have NO clue where they’re from. Dollar Tree?? I got them at my baby shower and Harlow actually PREFERS these over the AVENT ones. Wild stuff. 😂

Soothing Babywash and Lotion: you won’t regret using calming nighttime scents for your babies baths, esp if your baby doesn’t enjoy bath time. We always try to do bath time before their last feeding of the day before bed, and Tho they’re not the biggest fans, we ALL sleep much better on bath nights because of this. We use the Johnson&Johnson brand and have had no issues with the products.

Dishwasher Basket for Bottle Parts: necessary for the standard size bottle nipples, pacifiers, tiny breastpump parts, Dr Browns vent bottle parts, etc. to keep them from either getting lost or melting in the lower part of the dishwasher when they inevitably fall to their death from the top rack of your dishwasher. Amazon has all the options you could possibly need. My husband found mine on clearance at Walmart 😂😅

LOTS OF BURP CLOTHS: At least for us- our babies spit up A LOT. Reflux is a real problem for us. The BEST ones we’ve found so far are the Gerber Newborn Baby Unisex Prefold White Gauze 6-Ply Cloth Diaper, 5-Pack; make sure they are the PREFOLD! We bought a pack thinking they were the thick ones and they were like the single ply super thin cloths that weren’t good for jacksquat. 😭

Bottle warmer: we got the munchkin bottle warmer (I got one at Walmart that now lives at my moms, and a slightly more stylish version at Target, same brand/model just different color) and it warms bottles in 90 seconds or less! Note that if you use the Dr. Browns bottles with the vents, take the vent out while heating or it could overflow, causing a sticky&stinky mess!!

ALSO, while we’re on the topic of Dr. Browns bottles, the 8oz size makes it the PERFECT size for heating two newborn feedings in one bottle so you don’t have to heat two separate times. For example: my babes both get about 3-3.5oz each at a feeding, and I just pour 6-7oz in the big bottle and heat it up! I use the cap from a spare milk collection bottle from the hospital that I had, or you could just use the nipple that comes on the 8oz bottles, either way! I’ll make a post later over how feeding times go with my little ones.

Travel Changing Pad- I use this on the go for sure, but if there’s ever any especially nasty diapers to be dealt with, I whip this baby out at home and my couch, bed, carpet, wherehaveyou stays pristine. Magic.

WALMART BRAND DIAPERS: my favorite brand name diapers are Pampers. That’s what they used in the hospital and I LOVED them. Then I realized how expensive they were. Omg no. And my mom let me in on a little secret: the Walmart brand are almost exactly the same as Pampers, if not THE same. They are just as reliable and the blowouts I’ve dealt with in them, are equivalent to the blowouts in Pampers. And those were the apocalyptic type diaper changes where even God himself could not stop that s*** from coming thru. Bless.

LAUNDRY DETERGENT: PODS. PODS. PODS. Pods for YOUR laundry, and the Tide free and clear or whatever their dye free/scent free pods are for the babies’ laundry. The simplicity and time saving nature of just throwing pods in the laundry instead of measuring detergent saves so much time you didn’t realize you needed. “But...Does it really make that much of a difference?” Yes. Yes it does.

A SLEEP MASK FOR YOU MOMMA!! (and for dad): NAP WHEN YA CAN!! A sleep mask is perfect for when you manage to get both babies down at the same time in the middle of the day and you want some sleep too!!! Essential in my book.

What DIDN’T Work for Us:

HALO TWIN BASSINET: Y’all-I wanted to love this SO badly; with completely mesh sides and a mesh divider so you can see both babies always, and it SWIVELS to get to whichever baby may need you, and the sides lean down slightly to get them out of the bassinet without you having to get out of bed. But...my babies HATED this, it’s quite large even for a double bassinet, and the price tag is even larger at $470 retail. And it’s immobile. Once it’s in one spot, that’s where it lives until you completely disassemble it. I much rather would’ve spent about 1/4 of the price on the Little Folks Twin EZ Fold Ultra Compact Double Bassinet by Delta Children, (available online at Walmart) at $138 that not only wheels to where you need it, but FOLDS UP when not in use or for travel.. at least if my twins hated it too, I wouldn’t have spent half a house payment on it.

HALO SLEEPSACK: ....Sorry again Halo... We had the Halo SleepSack that got sent home with us from the hospital, and tbh they were just okay in my opinion. My girls somehow would wiggle further into them (this may just be a preemie baby problem, we finally quit using them.), and their faces would get covered or their arms would escape thru the little openings in the sack. I would LOVE to try the SwaddleMe or the Love to Dream Swaddle UP ones, but we’ve become pretty good at blanket swaddling for the time being. Again, these are kind of trial and error to see what your babies like. If you’re good at swaddling with a good ole fashioned blanket, that’s great!! But if you don’t have the time or patience to practice, no shame in going the easier route.

A “DIAPER PAIL”- y’all. This is the most useless thing I spent my money on. I don’t even use it. We tried to, and it’s pointless. My house doesn’t smell like baby poo, or if it does nobody has told me. The amount of diapers that we as parents of twins run thru warrants the trash being taken out almost daily, if not multiple times per day. It just wasn’t worth my money, and I bought a highly reviewed off brand. Save the cash and put it towards something extra.

A Changing Pad- Also pointless. I change my twins wherever we are in the house. If they’re really nasty I use the portable changing pad someone gifted me, the kind that folds up and fits in a diaper bag. I get that the big pad with the little sheets on it is cute for the whole nursery aesthetic, but tbh my nursery is just a room in my house that you don’t really use for a newborn (or two+) anyway. Not practical or realistic.

Baby Shoes: I, for one, don’t see the point in buying baby shoes until they’re up and walking. They outgrow them too quickly. Socks will do just fine. Unless you live in a verrrryyyy cold climate. But I’m sure they make super insulated baby onesies for those types of outings. But here, not necessary. $ave dat money.

WHAT I WISH WE HAD:

Snoo: A SMART BASSINET. It has a built in swaddle, and it rocks your baby with different speed settings, AND can detect when your baby starts to wake and will rock in response to baby fidgeting. WHAT?! I really wish I could afford even just ONE of these, let alone two. They come in at a WHOPPING $1290 😭 they apparently also have rent options? From what I’ve heard. But I can’t even imagine what being able to actually afford two bassinets for $1600 would be like. A momma can dream.