Red welts on toddler
Christopher_Ramirez
2021.10.08 16:28 cualsy_x Christopher_Ramirez
2024.05.21 20:30 samuraispade Talk me down - practice not helping
TLDR: Baby (13 weeks) won’t nap out of arms. We’ve been practicing for 8 weeks. Practicing is making me miserable. Planning to sleep train in July. Should I cut my losses and just contact nap at this point, or is there something I’m missing?
Baby is almost 13 weeks old. Since the end of March, I’ve been working on the elusive contact-free nap. Based on my Snoo record, I’ve tried in the Snoo least once a day (sometimes twice) 29 times in the last 54 days. We’ve had four successes in total, all under an hour. Twice I put him down awake and he fell asleep on his own, and twice I got him to sleep then set him down and he stayed asleep for another 20-30 minutes or so. A few times I’ve tried putting him asleep on my bed, the baby swing, the doc a tot knock off, or some other more comfortable less safe location … but no bites. We’ve also tried naps in the car and in the stroller (both bassinet and car seat attachments), and he’s only had one nap in one of those arrangements—it was in the bassinet part of the stroller, but I had to keep the stroller rolling.
During the day, he primarily naps in the baby carrier. If you get him in before his internal timer is up, he doesn’t even fight it. (If you get him strapped in a little late in the wake window, he’ll let out his swan song for 15 minutes before passing out.) At night he sleeps great in his Snoo, typically nursing to sleep before bed and during his 1-2 MOTN wakes, but he doesn’t always nurse to sleep! Sometimes I’ll put him down awake and asleep he goes. Even when he nurses to sleep, he’ll sometimes wake up during the transfer. The point of this paragraph is to spell out “sleep crutches” that he does have and the extent to which he depends on them, and to suggest that he doesn’t have reflux since he sleeps flat on his back all night long.
When we try for Snoo naps, he typically cries so intensely that the Snoo almost immediately (3 minutes in) turns off. I’ve tried just sitting there in the room, resetting it several times in a row—you have to do it manually because you’re not supposed to let your baby cry that loud for that long I guess. I’ve tried SITBACK. I’ve tried getting him sleepy before setting him down, but almost nothing pisses him off more than me trying to “Taking Cara Babies” CRIES him into a drowsy state. Once we’ve given it 10-15 minutes of wailing in the bassinet (I’m talking 100% volume, sets-off-your-smart-watch decibel levels), the road forks: I hold him to sleep then keep trying to put him down; I hold him to sleep and just sit or stand in his room for the rest of the nap; I strap him into the carrier for the rest of the nap. But whatever we do at that point, it involves a lot of intense crying and a far less restful nap than he’d have if I just put him in the carrier to begin with, and 2/3 of those options tie me down for another hour or more while I try to keep him asleep.
His room is dark with blackout curtains and is 71-72 degrees (bought a thermostat for his room in particular in case temperature was the issue.) We use a sound machine, and we have a pre-nap routine that mimics the bedtime routine. And of course I’m watching the wake windows; he seems to be a little higher sleep needs than average. He still doesn’t love being awake for more than 75 minutes at a time, especially for that first wake window which typically precedes our practice nap, so usually I start the nap time routine at the one hour mark.
I am struggling to provide more consistent practice than this because I also have a 2 year old son, and when I’m taking care of him, my ability to sink time and attention into the baby’s nap is very limited. When my toddler has other care, I need to be getting work done, so it’s a big loss to spend so much time on the nap. Best case scenario, trying for the bassinet nap takes 40 minutes more of my time than just putting him in the carrier and carrying on with life, but often it’s much more because I get stuck in his room trying to salvage some sleep for him. And of course, various life things come up, too: grandma visits and offers to hold him, we take a trip, we try to hit up library story time, baby gets his shots, etc. While I understand that this is not a great deal of consistency, it’s hard for me to imagine that there are parents of multiple children out there who have much more consistency to offer. Who that is also taking care of other kids has an hour and a half out of every 3 to render themselves otherwise unavailable, multiple times a day, every day of the week? Maybe I’m dead wrong on this point, but I have to imagine I’m offering as much consistency as other parents of multiple kids have offered their younger babies, babies who somehow began to get some traction after months of effort.
I’m feeling frustrated and hopeless. I am going on 8 weeks of making what feels like a lot of sacrifice to encourage independent napping, and I am not really seeing any progress. In fact, I’m starting to feel like it’s not worth it any more. I’ve already accepted that I’ll need to sleep train; we’re ripping off that bandaid on 7/22 and have multiple out-of-town trips planned before then. And the practice naps come at a big cost to me in terms of both time and peace of mind. Right now, I don’t have full time childcare for my baby, so I am already working in the margins. I keep telling myself that it will save me time once it clicks for him, but like we are months into this and have seen literally no return on the investment. With all the stress it has caused me, we are actually pretty deep in the red.
So: should I cut my losses and just lean in to the carrier nap until the end of July? Or is there something I can do to get bassinet napping online? Why does practicing help other babies but not mine//why have we seen no progress at all when practice is touted as the ticket?!
submitted by samuraispade to sleeptrain [link] [comments]
Baby is almost 13 weeks old. Since the end of March, I’ve been working on the elusive contact-free nap. Based on my Snoo record, I’ve tried in the Snoo least once a day (sometimes twice) 29 times in the last 54 days. We’ve had four successes in total, all under an hour. Twice I put him down awake and he fell asleep on his own, and twice I got him to sleep then set him down and he stayed asleep for another 20-30 minutes or so. A few times I’ve tried putting him asleep on my bed, the baby swing, the doc a tot knock off, or some other more comfortable less safe location … but no bites. We’ve also tried naps in the car and in the stroller (both bassinet and car seat attachments), and he’s only had one nap in one of those arrangements—it was in the bassinet part of the stroller, but I had to keep the stroller rolling.
During the day, he primarily naps in the baby carrier. If you get him in before his internal timer is up, he doesn’t even fight it. (If you get him strapped in a little late in the wake window, he’ll let out his swan song for 15 minutes before passing out.) At night he sleeps great in his Snoo, typically nursing to sleep before bed and during his 1-2 MOTN wakes, but he doesn’t always nurse to sleep! Sometimes I’ll put him down awake and asleep he goes. Even when he nurses to sleep, he’ll sometimes wake up during the transfer. The point of this paragraph is to spell out “sleep crutches” that he does have and the extent to which he depends on them, and to suggest that he doesn’t have reflux since he sleeps flat on his back all night long.
When we try for Snoo naps, he typically cries so intensely that the Snoo almost immediately (3 minutes in) turns off. I’ve tried just sitting there in the room, resetting it several times in a row—you have to do it manually because you’re not supposed to let your baby cry that loud for that long I guess. I’ve tried SITBACK. I’ve tried getting him sleepy before setting him down, but almost nothing pisses him off more than me trying to “Taking Cara Babies” CRIES him into a drowsy state. Once we’ve given it 10-15 minutes of wailing in the bassinet (I’m talking 100% volume, sets-off-your-smart-watch decibel levels), the road forks: I hold him to sleep then keep trying to put him down; I hold him to sleep and just sit or stand in his room for the rest of the nap; I strap him into the carrier for the rest of the nap. But whatever we do at that point, it involves a lot of intense crying and a far less restful nap than he’d have if I just put him in the carrier to begin with, and 2/3 of those options tie me down for another hour or more while I try to keep him asleep.
His room is dark with blackout curtains and is 71-72 degrees (bought a thermostat for his room in particular in case temperature was the issue.) We use a sound machine, and we have a pre-nap routine that mimics the bedtime routine. And of course I’m watching the wake windows; he seems to be a little higher sleep needs than average. He still doesn’t love being awake for more than 75 minutes at a time, especially for that first wake window which typically precedes our practice nap, so usually I start the nap time routine at the one hour mark.
I am struggling to provide more consistent practice than this because I also have a 2 year old son, and when I’m taking care of him, my ability to sink time and attention into the baby’s nap is very limited. When my toddler has other care, I need to be getting work done, so it’s a big loss to spend so much time on the nap. Best case scenario, trying for the bassinet nap takes 40 minutes more of my time than just putting him in the carrier and carrying on with life, but often it’s much more because I get stuck in his room trying to salvage some sleep for him. And of course, various life things come up, too: grandma visits and offers to hold him, we take a trip, we try to hit up library story time, baby gets his shots, etc. While I understand that this is not a great deal of consistency, it’s hard for me to imagine that there are parents of multiple children out there who have much more consistency to offer. Who that is also taking care of other kids has an hour and a half out of every 3 to render themselves otherwise unavailable, multiple times a day, every day of the week? Maybe I’m dead wrong on this point, but I have to imagine I’m offering as much consistency as other parents of multiple kids have offered their younger babies, babies who somehow began to get some traction after months of effort.
I’m feeling frustrated and hopeless. I am going on 8 weeks of making what feels like a lot of sacrifice to encourage independent napping, and I am not really seeing any progress. In fact, I’m starting to feel like it’s not worth it any more. I’ve already accepted that I’ll need to sleep train; we’re ripping off that bandaid on 7/22 and have multiple out-of-town trips planned before then. And the practice naps come at a big cost to me in terms of both time and peace of mind. Right now, I don’t have full time childcare for my baby, so I am already working in the margins. I keep telling myself that it will save me time once it clicks for him, but like we are months into this and have seen literally no return on the investment. With all the stress it has caused me, we are actually pretty deep in the red.
So: should I cut my losses and just lean in to the carrier nap until the end of July? Or is there something I can do to get bassinet napping online? Why does practicing help other babies but not mine//why have we seen no progress at all when practice is touted as the ticket?!
2024.05.21 15:26 cookus Grateful for this Community
Hi everyone
I am a dad to a recently diagnosed daughter and I am really grateful to have found this sub. Reading through some of the posts over the past few days has given me some perspective and some more ways to converse with my daughter about her ED. I wanted to share our family journey to help in any way it might help, and also to continue to help shape my way to thinking to support my girl. My world.
Since my daughter (11) was born, mealtime has been a challenge. My girl would throw a fit, she would take forever to breastfeed, she would always have the biggest meltdowns during dinner time. Breakfast and lunch were never too much of an issue, for a long time she loved breakfast foods - pancakes, waffles, croissants, pastry in general. She also had always loved fruits and vegetables, blueberries and peas for days. However, meat was absolutely out of the question - except bacon and sometimes salmon. Dinner was pure nightmare. It was all my wife and I could do to keep ourselves sane. We often time would rush to just get through the meal and get to bedtime. For the most part, when she was a toddler and a bit beyond, her mother and I just thought she was a very picky, maybe a bit spoiled only kid syndrome.
Things started to get more challenging as she got older, she would fixate on one type of food - red bean tacos (beans, cheese, romaine), waffles with whipped cream, Annie's Mac & cheese, her aunt's grilled cheese. It started to really become a problem when she would insist in eating only one kind of food, prepared in a very specific way, by a very specific person. Still, we thought she was just really picky and a bit bratty.
My daughter is amazing. Super smart, artistic, empathetic, great to her friends, I love to run errands with her because of the conversations and insights we get into. She knew she was being "difficult", she hates wasting food, she tells us that she just doesn't like eating and food does not excite her. From two foodie parents, that was devastating.
It has come to a head this year. She missed a few days of school and fell a little bit behind. For a typical top achiever, she normally would have caught up in a day or two, but she couldn't this time. Her anxiety became too much and she shut down. For a week, she only ate bread and drank water. We got in to see her doctor and received the ARFID diagnosis. I was able to get her a therapist and she has been making some great strides over the past few months. We have had some really good conversations that have shed light onto her thinking. She has her ups and downs, some days have sucked, others have been awesome. We will keep working together to be in control, instead of being controlled. Anxiety lies.
Thank you to this community. It helps as a parent to know there are people doing well, to see struggles and successes, to know that it will get better and worse at times. My heart goes out to everyone here, from one dad to the community.
submitted by cookus to ARFID [link] [comments]
I am a dad to a recently diagnosed daughter and I am really grateful to have found this sub. Reading through some of the posts over the past few days has given me some perspective and some more ways to converse with my daughter about her ED. I wanted to share our family journey to help in any way it might help, and also to continue to help shape my way to thinking to support my girl. My world.
Since my daughter (11) was born, mealtime has been a challenge. My girl would throw a fit, she would take forever to breastfeed, she would always have the biggest meltdowns during dinner time. Breakfast and lunch were never too much of an issue, for a long time she loved breakfast foods - pancakes, waffles, croissants, pastry in general. She also had always loved fruits and vegetables, blueberries and peas for days. However, meat was absolutely out of the question - except bacon and sometimes salmon. Dinner was pure nightmare. It was all my wife and I could do to keep ourselves sane. We often time would rush to just get through the meal and get to bedtime. For the most part, when she was a toddler and a bit beyond, her mother and I just thought she was a very picky, maybe a bit spoiled only kid syndrome.
Things started to get more challenging as she got older, she would fixate on one type of food - red bean tacos (beans, cheese, romaine), waffles with whipped cream, Annie's Mac & cheese, her aunt's grilled cheese. It started to really become a problem when she would insist in eating only one kind of food, prepared in a very specific way, by a very specific person. Still, we thought she was just really picky and a bit bratty.
My daughter is amazing. Super smart, artistic, empathetic, great to her friends, I love to run errands with her because of the conversations and insights we get into. She knew she was being "difficult", she hates wasting food, she tells us that she just doesn't like eating and food does not excite her. From two foodie parents, that was devastating.
It has come to a head this year. She missed a few days of school and fell a little bit behind. For a typical top achiever, she normally would have caught up in a day or two, but she couldn't this time. Her anxiety became too much and she shut down. For a week, she only ate bread and drank water. We got in to see her doctor and received the ARFID diagnosis. I was able to get her a therapist and she has been making some great strides over the past few months. We have had some really good conversations that have shed light onto her thinking. She has her ups and downs, some days have sucked, others have been awesome. We will keep working together to be in control, instead of being controlled. Anxiety lies.
Thank you to this community. It helps as a parent to know there are people doing well, to see struggles and successes, to know that it will get better and worse at times. My heart goes out to everyone here, from one dad to the community.
2024.05.21 15:24 pohltergiest Boaty boaty mcfloaty all the way north
 | Today started gentler than expected, both of us awake before the alarm. I forgot how early first light is, already the city was waking up in the dim blue of the predawn. We brushed our teeth and got dressed and muttered about how ridiculous it was that we needed to be at the ferry terminal an hour early. They weren't going to check anything besides our tickets, but then again, we've heard worse stories about dumber technicalities. Just after 430 we were outside and a few minutes later we were away. submitted by pohltergiest to RainbowRamenRide [link] [comments] The city in the morning was mostly quiet, a few trucks rumbling on the highway. Luckily the forecasted rain had already ended, I had fully expected to have the added misery of being wet and cold to the headache of being up too early. We arrived somewhat breathless to the ferry terminal, a giant ferry awaiting us. Lines and lines of heavy trucks were waiting their turn to load while lots of cars were also waiting. Looks like everyone took the hour before rule seriously. An attendant looked at our QR codes and told us to put a sign that he gave us on our bikes and put them to the side while we waited for general boarding, which was in 45 minutes. Grumbling, we parked our bikes and went inside the terminal. The terminal was simple but clean, I double checked the reservation with someone at a computer as I had nothing better to do. Upstairs there was a small gift shop where we bought a box of cookies for our upcoming host. Seemed like we should try to get them something from a region they're not from, though I'm sure they'll appreciate the sentiment. The cookies do look tasty though. We shared a drink from a machine and stared out the window, a little dazed. Framed tourism posters were hung about the space, one for each region in Japan. I initially thought they were anime posters, but it seems that's just how ads are made. Maybe one inspired the other. Eventually it was time to board, we were the last as is usual when we're biking. We walked our bikes up the ramp to the second deck and were ushered to one side where after we had removed our bags our bikes were wrapped in blankets and secured to the wall. We thanked them and headed into the ferry. The third deck had a check in counter where we got a key to our room, which was a private room but not facing the ocean. We only wanted the room to nap in, so that was fine. The third deck had bunk rooms as well as a room where you just got a section of the floor, while the fourth deck had the private rooms, the ones facing in like ours and the more expensive ones facing out. The fifth deck had the deluxe rooms as well as the suites (which I don't think were even available to rent). We plunked down our bags and I went back to sleep. I found the rocking motion of the ship rather soothing while laying down, and settled into a light nap for a few hours. Around 830, both of us needed something to eat, so we went to explore the ship's amenities. We found the cafe, which had a disappointingly small selection of things to eat. We later would find out that the restaurant that serves breakfast did not open, probably leading to a run on the pastries. We got a cookie and coffee and sat at a table, watching the waves go by. Bryce informed me that he gets seasick around this time, leading me to ask him why he wanted to do this then. He just likes boats I guess. After breakfast we wandered around to see the amenities. We found the grill restaurant that was more expensive than we cared to spend on, a small arcade with machines from the 80's, some air hockey tables (the sports corner), a theatre with a 10am showing of Tom and Jerry, some vending machines (ice cream time), the onsens, a yellowed smoking room straight out of 1994, a business corner, and a kids corner with blocks. I wanted to play with the blocks but didn't. They would never understand. Also kids are gross and I'm sick enough already. Overall, the same as anything else we've seen in Japan, a relic of the 80's, still spotless, still running, but at 10% capacity. More employees than you can shake a stick at, all doing their very best job. I felt a little ill after writing for awhile so I went to go lay down while Bryce went to the arcade, promising to nobody in particular that he was going to wait til lunch to crack open a cold one. I said I didn't care but good luck with that as I went back to bed. Being horizontal with nowhere to go felt good for awhile. I had a lot of writing to catch up on. Towards lunch I got up and found Bryce in front of a slot machine with a strong zero in his hand. I said nothing about the pre lunch drink, but asked if he won anything. One of the machines you could spin all you like, so we did that for awhile. There was one machine that looked fun, so I played a top down shooter for awhile while Bryce tried his luck at some godawful prize machine full of dusty crap. Eventually the restaurant opened for lunch and we filed. There was a 25th anniversary ramen available, and we both got that, along with a croissant. The ramen was pretty good, I found the shio broth comforting. The croissant was because it didn't fill us up enough. After lunch I was in the mood for a bath. An onsen on a ship felt like a luxury I wanted to try and I thought it would be restful. Bryce had no interest in trying his luck at hiding his tattoos, I didn't care if I got kicked out at this point. What're they gonna do, tell me to get off at the next stop? I did what I always do, hold a hand towel over my arm and mind my business. As expected, not many people were using the bath after lunch and I had it to myself aside from a mother and her babbling toddler who only spent a few minutes there. The bath had a view of the mountains of hokkaido in the distance, and Hakodate a little closer. It was a neat sight to be in a hot open bath while watching the ocean go by. The rest of the ship was whatever but this was nice. I did a few laps of the bath and cold water, and sat in the steam room, hoping the hot air would somehow cure my ailments. I got a chance to properly wash my hair, which had become just fouled from all the road dust, sweat, and body oils that had built up. Gross. I don't usually shampoo as I don't usually need to, but once a week or so I definitely need it while on the road. After the onsen I went to go see how Bryce was doing, happily reading his book in a chair by the ocean. He accompanied me to the room to lay down for awhile, the hot water and sloshing of the rough seas making me feel a little ill again. In our room, we heard a faraway bang like we hit something. I'm sure it's nothing. The ship sure seemed like it was leaning more to one side though. We didn't do too much else for the rest of the ride, we did a few more laps of the ship trying to find more things. We did find the forward saloon, which sounds wild but is merely a room facing forward with comfy couches. Unfortunately all the windows are blocked off, so the room is a little pointless other than a private space to talk or read in a dim room. The ship overall was comfortable, but I definitely got a little nauseated from the rough seas. The ship finally docked, late, and we were let out to the open air of Hokkaido. It's a bit chilly here! I immediately noticed the change in air, it's less humid for sure. It will be a shift to go back to cool temperatures but a welcome one. Nights in the tent should be much less sticky at least! Good thing we still have our biking tights, riding in just shorts is pretty cold here in the evening. Truthfully though the cool temperatures is better for biking and I wasn't really enjoying the heat, so this is a welcome surprise. We docked at the east port of Tomakomai, which meant we had to bike into the city where we planned to stay another night. I needed another really solid sleep to finally kick this illness, so one more hotel night before we braved the wilderness south of Sapporo. We braced ourselves and headed west, directly into a heavy crosswind that was some of the steadiest and toughest wind we've seen yet. It swept right over the flat grassy areas on the coast, really reminding us of the prairies. Everything is so spread out here compared to the rest of the country, I wonder if Sapporo is like this too. After a rough push through the wind on roads that were somewhat falling apart from the truck traffic and a lack of maintenance, we got to a town about halfway. The nausea from the boat was getting to me and we were both too hungry to go further without a bite to eat. Luckily Hokkaido has their own brand of conbinis and we were more than happy to see some new products. We got their take on fried chicken, some Hokkaido grown potato wedges and some soft drinks we hadn't seen yet. The wedges were great, the chicken was good and one of the drinks was terrible. Sour bubbly water with no flavor. What's the point? Biking further into the city now, we rode over bumpy roads on very wide, very long roads designed entirely for cars in mind. Don't get me wrong the bike path was nice but the distances between buildings reminded me again of the prairies. It takes forever to get anywhere! I might find the streets of Hokkaido a little dull if things are this spread out, but then again we couldn't even scratch the surface of things before so maybe we won't feel like we're missing out as much. We stopped twice for bike parts, Bryce getting a new tube to hold on reserve, I got a spoke wrench that I'm excited to try out. My rear wheel should be well tensioned, so I can go off of that. Next we headed to the hotel. We debated laundry tonight, but ultimately there were a few too many things to do and I'd rather enjoy myself, get to bed on time and then get up and do laundry over breakfast tomorrow. The hotel was lovely enough, with little surprises for later. First we needed a proper dinner. Barbecue was on the mind, but we landed up at an izakaya. We ordered edamame, a green salad, chicken wings, a plate of assorted skewers and more hokkaido potatoes. The potatoes, again, were far and away the best part of the meal. The company was a group of red-faced salarymen watching a baseball game along with the rest of the staff who were also eagerly watching the action. The Izakaya had all sorts of baseball accoutrements which made watching fun. Normally I'd rather peel off my fingernails one by one then watch baseball, but with some friendly folks letting me know when to be excited with their cheering I can enjoy it. As we were leaving one man gave us some lemon candies he had and Bryce surprised him by having maple candies for everyone in the building, much to their delight. Bryce needed to recoat his jacket, so we went to a parking lot and did that under a streetlight. It would need to dry overnight, another reason to do the laundry in the morning. I wanted a piece of the onsen on the top level. Inside there were three baths, two hot and one cold, with one of the hot baths being outside. I luxuriated outside by myself for some time in the cool air, as well as the hot bath indoors in the wood panelled room, and a sauna with a tv inside! All very nice. I took advantage of the cleaners and lotions available, and the freezer full of popsicles outside the onsen. Back in the room, there was a fruit jelly waiting for us in the fridge which we enjoyed, a strawberry puree. But the treats weren't over yet, from 930-11pm we could enjoy the hotel's original late night ramen. Now this isn't something I want to have late at night normally, but this is exactly the kind of thing that makes me smile. Time limited free food? I'll set an alarm. The soup itself was nothing special, but the presentation and the fact I could have it in hotel jammies made it all the better. Truly, a good rest day. I could have done without the 20km ride in the wind, but I can't have everything I guess. |
2024.05.21 14:59 Suitable_Muscle_1939 I [31F] adore my husband [31M], but our marriage is SEVERELY lacking in almost every aspect. Is there any chance of saving this relationship?
I have been with my husband for almost 7 years, married for 3. We have 2 young toddlers (we chose the 2 under 2 life), and this definitely plays a huge role in our situation. I love him so much, he's so kind and genuine, but we have a lot going on and it's honestly overwhelming.
TLDR: I feel extremely unfulfilled in my marriage and am worried we are better off divorced. We have no sexual chemistry, no intimacy or passion, I basically have to mother him into doing anything around the house and have to hold his hand when he has hard conversations with his parents. He's a great dad to our kids, but he isn't a great husband to me and I'm worried we're headed to a divorce.
Before we got married, we had so much fun together. We went on so many dates and were always out and about doing something fun and exciting. We were very much attracted to each other, but the sex was never that great. I was very experienced and had a lot of sexual partners in my college years, and he could probably count his on one hand. I always thought it was a work in progress and was willing to continue on with him because I cared for him in so many other ways than just being sexually compatible that I found it refreshing. I had never been with anyone where I didn't care about how our sex was because they were so great as a person.
It didn't take long for me to notice he never went down on me. He did it once and his eyes were so red and I was so embarrassed but moved on. The second time, same thing! And yes, I care a ton about my hygiene so I know it's not that. I confronted him about it and he told me he just didn't know how to do it really and isn't good at it and told me he would do some research (which he never did). One day we were talking oral sex and how I loved going down on him but didn't think he did to me, and that I wanted him to WANT to do it and that I want him to learn to love my downstairs. He said "well I don't have to LOVE it", and I sincerely feel like that was foreshadowing into our entire relationship because those were the only 2 times he has ever done it.
Our sex life is pretty lame. We probably had sex once a month before getting married, and now it's basically 2-3 times a year it seems like. I've always been unfulfilled with how often this happens and doing it this infrequent makes it really hard to get in the groove. So each time we do have sex, it's pretty rocky and awkward, and while I usually am pretty confident in the bedroom I am absolutely self conscious and worried about how he liked it or how it went for him. I know we lack that passion and sexual chemistry, and this has always bothered me, but I always thought we could create that as time went on (still thinking the inexperience played a factor here).
Right before we get married we move in with his parents for several months while our house was being build which ended up being the worst decision. I discovered how much my MIL gossips, how opinionated my MIL and FIL were and it created a lot of issues with my husband and I. I'd hear my MIL talking badly about other family members or saying something really strange to me and would bring it up to him and he always gave her the benefit of the doubt saying she means well, or that he knows she'd never mean something in a certain way, etc. We ended up having major trust issues with them and needing to take lots of breaks from them when we got pregnant with our first (and had moved into our house), which lead to even more trust issues when our first was born. They were extremely defensive with each and every boundary/ask/rule/etc regarding our LO we'd bring up and there was always something negative with every interaction I would have with them. It was so exhausting, and my husband would always give them the benefit of the doubt. It really weighed on me as time went on and this continued. I realized that his gut reaction was always to prioritize his parents comfort over mine, whether that meant talking to them in a certain way so they wouldn't have a reaction, not say anything at all, or contort what they were saying in order to make it seem less bad. This went on through my second pregnancy as well.
I basically had to teach him how to have boundaries with his parents. We would have so many damn conversations about it and it was a lot of hand holding which I was understanding with. It was a lengthy process and we're getting to a better point with that aspect, as in, he can kind of hold his own and stand up for our family, but the amount of resentment I have towards him for feeling so isolated all the time over the years is crazy.
In addition to this, I basically mother him at home and I hate it. He can't do anything without being told! He doesn't help out around the house unless I make him or ask him 100 times, he does 0 deep cleaning or projects. I feel like the man of the house. It has gotten to the point where I have to clean the entire house every single day, and before doing so I get so mad at him for his lack of assistance with it when he's at home. I am a SAHM now and recognize this as my "job" while he is at work, and then we share responsibilities when he gets home - or at least we agree that this is how it should be.
Back to our relationship and lack of intimacy; I know that after having kids things can really take a turn for the worse but I am really struggling to see the light at the end of the tunnel and am worried that HE married the wrong woman. I've always understood men to do anything for someone they like/love and I just don't feel it from him. He doesn't compliment me ever, he doesn't take any pictures of me which hurts considering I have 500,000 of him and the kids on my phone. When I confront him about basically nagging him and his lack of initiation or effort for literally any type of intimacy, it's always that he doesn't know why he's like that and that he wants to change and that he promises he'll make more efforts but never does. It's like he manipulates me by saying he wants to change and he wants the same things I do, but then does nothing. Just like how he did absolutely no research on oral sex/sex in general before getting married.
Now that I'm 1 year postpartum with my second and finally starting to feel more like myself and look like myself, he's still the same. It's making me feel like things will never change and I'm starting to wonder if I'll be able to survive in a basically sexless/loveless marriage in which I have to continue mothering my husband. I just feel like a bunch of nothing in this relationship. I don't feel beautiful, I don't feel respected, and i think I might feel contempt towards him.
He is very understanding when we talk about everything and empathetic and wanting to change (manipulative is how it feels though because of the amount of empty promises), and I'm worried. He doesn't want a divorce, but that has been on the table for the last few months and still no change from him. Do I continue down this path of hoping he will finally change this time or move on? Ultimately, a happy mother is the best thing I can give my kids so divorce isn't off the table in that regard, but it's such a hard decision.
Our relationship has been so complex so it's been kind of hard to sum it all up, but I'm hoping for some advice on whether we can save this marriage. That would be extremely appreciate! Or even similar stories would be helpful! He has been reluctant to go to couples therapy with me or even himself until now, but I worry it's too late at this point.
submitted by Suitable_Muscle_1939 to relationship_advice [link] [comments]
TLDR: I feel extremely unfulfilled in my marriage and am worried we are better off divorced. We have no sexual chemistry, no intimacy or passion, I basically have to mother him into doing anything around the house and have to hold his hand when he has hard conversations with his parents. He's a great dad to our kids, but he isn't a great husband to me and I'm worried we're headed to a divorce.
Before we got married, we had so much fun together. We went on so many dates and were always out and about doing something fun and exciting. We were very much attracted to each other, but the sex was never that great. I was very experienced and had a lot of sexual partners in my college years, and he could probably count his on one hand. I always thought it was a work in progress and was willing to continue on with him because I cared for him in so many other ways than just being sexually compatible that I found it refreshing. I had never been with anyone where I didn't care about how our sex was because they were so great as a person.
It didn't take long for me to notice he never went down on me. He did it once and his eyes were so red and I was so embarrassed but moved on. The second time, same thing! And yes, I care a ton about my hygiene so I know it's not that. I confronted him about it and he told me he just didn't know how to do it really and isn't good at it and told me he would do some research (which he never did). One day we were talking oral sex and how I loved going down on him but didn't think he did to me, and that I wanted him to WANT to do it and that I want him to learn to love my downstairs. He said "well I don't have to LOVE it", and I sincerely feel like that was foreshadowing into our entire relationship because those were the only 2 times he has ever done it.
Our sex life is pretty lame. We probably had sex once a month before getting married, and now it's basically 2-3 times a year it seems like. I've always been unfulfilled with how often this happens and doing it this infrequent makes it really hard to get in the groove. So each time we do have sex, it's pretty rocky and awkward, and while I usually am pretty confident in the bedroom I am absolutely self conscious and worried about how he liked it or how it went for him. I know we lack that passion and sexual chemistry, and this has always bothered me, but I always thought we could create that as time went on (still thinking the inexperience played a factor here).
Right before we get married we move in with his parents for several months while our house was being build which ended up being the worst decision. I discovered how much my MIL gossips, how opinionated my MIL and FIL were and it created a lot of issues with my husband and I. I'd hear my MIL talking badly about other family members or saying something really strange to me and would bring it up to him and he always gave her the benefit of the doubt saying she means well, or that he knows she'd never mean something in a certain way, etc. We ended up having major trust issues with them and needing to take lots of breaks from them when we got pregnant with our first (and had moved into our house), which lead to even more trust issues when our first was born. They were extremely defensive with each and every boundary/ask/rule/etc regarding our LO we'd bring up and there was always something negative with every interaction I would have with them. It was so exhausting, and my husband would always give them the benefit of the doubt. It really weighed on me as time went on and this continued. I realized that his gut reaction was always to prioritize his parents comfort over mine, whether that meant talking to them in a certain way so they wouldn't have a reaction, not say anything at all, or contort what they were saying in order to make it seem less bad. This went on through my second pregnancy as well.
I basically had to teach him how to have boundaries with his parents. We would have so many damn conversations about it and it was a lot of hand holding which I was understanding with. It was a lengthy process and we're getting to a better point with that aspect, as in, he can kind of hold his own and stand up for our family, but the amount of resentment I have towards him for feeling so isolated all the time over the years is crazy.
In addition to this, I basically mother him at home and I hate it. He can't do anything without being told! He doesn't help out around the house unless I make him or ask him 100 times, he does 0 deep cleaning or projects. I feel like the man of the house. It has gotten to the point where I have to clean the entire house every single day, and before doing so I get so mad at him for his lack of assistance with it when he's at home. I am a SAHM now and recognize this as my "job" while he is at work, and then we share responsibilities when he gets home - or at least we agree that this is how it should be.
Back to our relationship and lack of intimacy; I know that after having kids things can really take a turn for the worse but I am really struggling to see the light at the end of the tunnel and am worried that HE married the wrong woman. I've always understood men to do anything for someone they like/love and I just don't feel it from him. He doesn't compliment me ever, he doesn't take any pictures of me which hurts considering I have 500,000 of him and the kids on my phone. When I confront him about basically nagging him and his lack of initiation or effort for literally any type of intimacy, it's always that he doesn't know why he's like that and that he wants to change and that he promises he'll make more efforts but never does. It's like he manipulates me by saying he wants to change and he wants the same things I do, but then does nothing. Just like how he did absolutely no research on oral sex/sex in general before getting married.
Now that I'm 1 year postpartum with my second and finally starting to feel more like myself and look like myself, he's still the same. It's making me feel like things will never change and I'm starting to wonder if I'll be able to survive in a basically sexless/loveless marriage in which I have to continue mothering my husband. I just feel like a bunch of nothing in this relationship. I don't feel beautiful, I don't feel respected, and i think I might feel contempt towards him.
He is very understanding when we talk about everything and empathetic and wanting to change (manipulative is how it feels though because of the amount of empty promises), and I'm worried. He doesn't want a divorce, but that has been on the table for the last few months and still no change from him. Do I continue down this path of hoping he will finally change this time or move on? Ultimately, a happy mother is the best thing I can give my kids so divorce isn't off the table in that regard, but it's such a hard decision.
Our relationship has been so complex so it's been kind of hard to sum it all up, but I'm hoping for some advice on whether we can save this marriage. That would be extremely appreciate! Or even similar stories would be helpful! He has been reluctant to go to couples therapy with me or even himself until now, but I worry it's too late at this point.
2024.05.21 08:27 Unkn0wnimous [No Due Date] Looking to get some feedback on the first chapter of the story I made after posting the prologue here. Hope you enjoy!
Chapter 1
Mors
An endless void, silence interlaid with its pitch-darkness, greeted an injured man. No light can be seen, sensations be damned, and consciousness spread thin as though taut in this incomprehensive expanse that laid before him.
Callum fell into the abyss, his mind the only thing left to accompany him. He hasn’t even counted the minutes as his mind is plagued by something else. He never considered himself a man of interest, only scraping by with his odd jobs and part-time salaries, hence why he couldn’t understand his current situation.
Betrayal is something that he is familiar with, whether it be a betrayal of his expectations when a co-worker broke his promise or a betrayal of his emotions when his first love interest cheated on him back in uni. However, this betrayal orchestrated by his best friend whom he’d known for 5 years, and girlfriend for 8 years felt more gut-wrenching than the pain he felt from the stab.
Denial was the first thing that stormed his mind. He couldn’t believe that the two closest people in his life would stab him in the back, literally. There was no build-up, he didn’t suspect a thing, and everything was normal until he found steel in his flesh.
He rejected the notion that his girlfriend, Catherine, would betray him like this, an accomplice to a murder that he can’t grasp the motive of. He has built up some savings, but it isn’t something that would be worth murdering someone for, especially after buying that ring.
He dismissed the thought of Jake being jealous of their relationship as he couldn’t see the guy doing something as stupid as this. He can’t form any rhyme or reason as to why they would do it, and the only possible explanation is that this was all a dream and he was actually still sleeping inside the tent.
But as he waited for himself to wake from this nightmare, only darkness greeted him. He had tried moving his body in this sea of blackness, but the movement only felt like going through molasses with tired arms, which is why he attributed this as being only a dream that he would wake up from, which appeared to be wrong as he waited and waited.
Anxiety crept in as he tried to call out, but no sound escaped his lips. He strained his voice to be heard, yet he can't even hear himself. No light adorned this place, no wind to be heard, and he couldn’t feel anything even though he tried feeling himself.
The pain in his back was forgotten as he tried and tried to move, to scream, to flail senselessly, amounting to nothing as he was greeted by nothing.
Feeling anything in this void is something impossible, and the only thing that he can do is return to his mindscape.
He went back to his oldest memories, back to a time when everything felt oppressive and suffocating. Callum was born into a broken family. His mother and father had gone through a divorce when he was only 6 years old. He could still remember the screaming and yelling of his parents whenever night fell in their sorry state of an apartment.
His father, Eric, having not finished his education after Callum’s birth, has been living as a blue-collar worker in downtown New Jersey. Even during his day-offs, he can’t seem to find rest as he goes to do odd jobs and part-time work to stay afloat. On the other hand, his mother would leave him, a toddler, alone in the apartment.
He remembered her putting CDs in a DVD player so that it could keep his attention on a cartoon that his father introduced him to. If he had anything to describe his mother, she would be irresponsible and narcissistic. She would sometimes bring guys over to their apartment, threatening Callum with divorce if he ever told Eric about it, hence why it took several years until his dad caught on and filed for a divorce.
Eric was determined to take Callum with him, he argues that he could take care of his child better than Callum’s mother. But his mother and her twisted pride can’t let go of Callum, which leads to a legal dispute between the two.
The court hearings went on for several months, with each passing day being a lot more hellish for Callum. He was subjected to further insults by his mother as she knew that leaving bruises on her child would lower her chances of winning over the court to her side. Sometimes, she would go as far as manipulate him, gaslighting him into believing that she was a good mother who would take care of him better than his father. But after seeing that the court favors Eric’s side more, his mother took drastic measures to satisfy her wounded pride.
It was the second to the last day of the court hearing, and it was during this time that his father was working overtime. Callum had just gone home from his elementary school, feeling tired as he hauled his bag over his shoulders up the multiple flights of stairs he had to climb to get to their apartment.
As he neared his home, he steeled himself and opened the door, only to be met with overturned tables and broken ceramics. He walked quietly through the scene, afraid that someone might hear him entering his home. Looking back on it now, Calum can’t help himself but laugh at his stupidity. He could have gone and alerted their neighbors, or gone back downstairs to wait for his father, but being a child, Callum doesn’t know what to do.
As he entered his room, he saw black words spray painted on the walls, the meaning eluding him as he didn’t know what it meant since he was 7 at the time, but remembering it now sent shivers down his spine.
The words “This is what you get!” on a torn wallpaper are ingrained in his mind. Seeing the manic letters sprayed over the walls gave Callum anxiety, taking a few steps back towards the open front door of their apartment. Escape was now on his mind as he grew scared of what was to come, something that was far too late as he heard his mother behind him.
It was there that everything turned into a blur. He remembered snippets of yelling and crying both from himself and his mother. He remembered his mother forcing something down his throat. He remembered his father coming home early that day and restraining his mother, a crazy look in her eyes. He remembered the feeling of nausea and the floor colored with his lunch. And he remembered the sirens, red and blue lights dancing in his vision as he was carried to a stretcher. The last thing he remembered was his father crying, holding his hands tightly when he opened his tired eyes.
For the next few days, he learned from the news that his mother attempted a double suicide. The story goes, after losing the custody battle, the mother planned to take revenge by ending the lives of both her child and herself. They said that he got lucky as the neighbors had contacted Eric when his mother turned their home upside down, relating it to a possible home invasion. If not for him, Callum would have died from nicotine poisoning after his mother forced tobacco down his gullet, a morbid story that he uses as a joke during his time at work.
He remembered being inside that hospital for days on end, his body recovering from the poison his mother left him with, and his father was there almost every day even though he had to work to pay the hospital bills. After what felt like forever was he allowed to be discharged, going back to the same refurbished apartment that they lived in, but after seeing how Callum had recurring nightmares and trauma attached to the place, they decided to move to Pennsylvania. A hard decision that needed to be made as his father would put it.
Everything after the whole incident was better for Callum. His father got a job as a mover, still doing some part-time work here and there, and Callum did his best in school so as not to burden his father with more work. Even though they lived in a rundown shack handed to them by one of the locals, they didn’t mind as they knew that getting to live at all was better than what they had before.
Callum smiled in the abyss as he reminisced about his time with his father. He was a great man, a good role model for anyone who came across him. He is kind-hearted and considerate, a hard worker that makes him popular among his peers. It was them that helped move him and his father out of New Jersey and found them a place to sleep in, teaching Callum that socializing and connecting with like-minded people goes a long way when someone needs it.
For the next few years, Callum lived happily. Though there were some ups and downs, he and his father got through it, which is why the memory of his time in university was depressing.
Eric, after having saved some money, gave Callum the go-ahead to enroll in a university in California. But after attaining an athletic scholarship in football, Callum gave his father a surprise to ease his worries and stress. Callum felt bad every time he saw his father work, hence why he tried his hardest to take some of that workload to give him a break. With the tuition being lowered with the scholarship, Callum could give the rest of the money back to his dad. A gesture that was fully gratified as his father had a hard time letting him go when the time came to move over to the university. But it was during this time that tragedy struck.
It was his fourth year in studying anthropology when he heard the news from one of his father’s friends, Robby. After hearing it, he grew distressed and worried, taking a lot of convincing from Robby to keep Callum from moving back to Pennsylvania.
His father has gone missing. The news had spread amongst his co-workers and friends, and a search team was already being dispatched to find him. Even though Callum tried to keep his focus on studying, he couldn’t help but feel agitated as days went by without news of his father being seen. His mental state plummeted, and he grew withdrawn from reality as days turned to weeks, his father still gone.
He could still remember the times when he locked himself in the school’s library, searching the web to find any news or reports of his father's whereabouts, but as he searched for days on end, only one thing kept popping up from the newsletters. His father, Eric Hurst Foster, went missing in his own home. There were no struggles in the house, the CCTV didn’t see him on any of the roads or stores in the town they lived in, he just seemed to have vanished into thin air.
The news ate away at Callum, and his friends that he’d made during the time gave their support to keep him from spiraling out of control. However, even with their support, Callum’s worries over his dad never went away, hence why he threw himself into work. Going to part-time jobs and studying is the only way to keep his mind from blowing. He did this until he finished university and found a job to stay afloat.
This went on for years until he’s come to accept that his father may never be found. With nothing to ground him in their old home, he decided to explore the world, thinking that one day, he might find a lead to the whereabouts of his dad.
Months turned to years as he worked tirelessly in multiple jobs. From being a mechanic, electrician, cook, waiter, and many more to count, Callum went on a work frenzy. He made a plan to scour the states as a freelancer, living in his BMW pick-up truck that was given to him by one of his friends. He stayed in each state for a few months, meeting new people and making some friends along the way. They sent their well wishes to Callum as they knew that he was still trying to find his missing father.
Years went by as he made his way back to California. He had gone and explored every state, and yet no news of his father came to light. The case had gone cold, and it was up to Callum to find any clues to this mystery. His mind has told him to give up the search, and multiple friends have given him consolation as they knew that his father would never be found, but Callum persevered.
It was during this time that he found himself as a mover, the same job that his father had before he disappeared. He had just come back to California after getting the job, and he was about to go check in for his first day when a sudden downpour of rain covered the skies of the city. It was only coincidental that he was near that coffee shop, and it was coincidental that only two customers were present there. He and his future girlfriend turned accomplice to his murder.
The rest of his memories went by as he continued to float in the abyss. From the time of their first years in a relationship to meeting Jake for the first time in that apartment to when he taught PE and History in a school in Minnesota. Everything went by as Callum went from one memory to another until he felt something.
A chill ran down his spine as an indescribable dread manifested in his mind. He knew not why he felt this way, and he felt himself tearing at the seams as a slit of light showed itself in the void. He was then pulled into the light, senses coming back after he spent his time in the abyss for what felt like days. And with a flash, he is back in the same hunched-over position he was in when he was stabbed in the back.
Callum can’t help but laugh as he finally could see again. Trees surrounded his vision, with wild grass carpeting the ground. But before he could truly see the world, he felt a sharp pain in his back. With his body remembering that he was injured, he felt himself sweat profusely as he bled, painting the flowers under him red. And yet he didn’t panic.
After all that time reminiscing, he finally gave in and let death come to him. He fell on his back, sending another wave of pain coursing through his body, cursing under his breath as he regretted not laying himself down slowly. And as he looked to the sky, he felt himself getting colder and colder.
Callum felt at peace as he stared at the clouds above him. The sound of the wind and the rustling of leaves helped him come to terms that he was truly dying. He’d thought about death a lot. During his time when he was a kid, and when he was depressed after his father went missing. But the peace he felt for only a few moments as emotions came crashing down.
He felt himself tear up as he came to terms with his current situation. He would never have a chance to marry the girl in his life. He would never have a chance to have his own children and see them grow. He would never have a chance to be a father. And he would never have a chance to grow old with the people he loved around him.
As he thought of these things, the floodgates opened. Streams of tears fell down his cheeks as he sobbed in his dying state. He could only put his hands over his eyes to stop it from flowing, an action that felt challenging as his body became fatigued from all the blood loss. The crying only hastened his death as he felt his breath escape him, his lungs labored and filled with blood as the stab had punctured it.
Minutes went by as Callum felt himself grow tired and tired. And as he closed his eyes, Callum’s heart slowed and slowed as his body has a lack of blood to pump. His breathing grew shallower with each second until his body gave way and stopped altogether.
Callum died at the age of 34, stabbed in the back by his best friend with his girlfriend being an accomplice for his murder. He died from blood loss as his body colored the ground red.
Callum waited and waited to feel his consciousness fade as he welcomed death to greet him. And as the second grew…
'…Wait.'
His consciousness never faded away.
submitted by Unkn0wnimous to Proofreading [link] [comments]
Mors
An endless void, silence interlaid with its pitch-darkness, greeted an injured man. No light can be seen, sensations be damned, and consciousness spread thin as though taut in this incomprehensive expanse that laid before him.
Callum fell into the abyss, his mind the only thing left to accompany him. He hasn’t even counted the minutes as his mind is plagued by something else. He never considered himself a man of interest, only scraping by with his odd jobs and part-time salaries, hence why he couldn’t understand his current situation.
Betrayal is something that he is familiar with, whether it be a betrayal of his expectations when a co-worker broke his promise or a betrayal of his emotions when his first love interest cheated on him back in uni. However, this betrayal orchestrated by his best friend whom he’d known for 5 years, and girlfriend for 8 years felt more gut-wrenching than the pain he felt from the stab.
Denial was the first thing that stormed his mind. He couldn’t believe that the two closest people in his life would stab him in the back, literally. There was no build-up, he didn’t suspect a thing, and everything was normal until he found steel in his flesh.
He rejected the notion that his girlfriend, Catherine, would betray him like this, an accomplice to a murder that he can’t grasp the motive of. He has built up some savings, but it isn’t something that would be worth murdering someone for, especially after buying that ring.
He dismissed the thought of Jake being jealous of their relationship as he couldn’t see the guy doing something as stupid as this. He can’t form any rhyme or reason as to why they would do it, and the only possible explanation is that this was all a dream and he was actually still sleeping inside the tent.
But as he waited for himself to wake from this nightmare, only darkness greeted him. He had tried moving his body in this sea of blackness, but the movement only felt like going through molasses with tired arms, which is why he attributed this as being only a dream that he would wake up from, which appeared to be wrong as he waited and waited.
Anxiety crept in as he tried to call out, but no sound escaped his lips. He strained his voice to be heard, yet he can't even hear himself. No light adorned this place, no wind to be heard, and he couldn’t feel anything even though he tried feeling himself.
The pain in his back was forgotten as he tried and tried to move, to scream, to flail senselessly, amounting to nothing as he was greeted by nothing.
Feeling anything in this void is something impossible, and the only thing that he can do is return to his mindscape.
He went back to his oldest memories, back to a time when everything felt oppressive and suffocating. Callum was born into a broken family. His mother and father had gone through a divorce when he was only 6 years old. He could still remember the screaming and yelling of his parents whenever night fell in their sorry state of an apartment.
His father, Eric, having not finished his education after Callum’s birth, has been living as a blue-collar worker in downtown New Jersey. Even during his day-offs, he can’t seem to find rest as he goes to do odd jobs and part-time work to stay afloat. On the other hand, his mother would leave him, a toddler, alone in the apartment.
He remembered her putting CDs in a DVD player so that it could keep his attention on a cartoon that his father introduced him to. If he had anything to describe his mother, she would be irresponsible and narcissistic. She would sometimes bring guys over to their apartment, threatening Callum with divorce if he ever told Eric about it, hence why it took several years until his dad caught on and filed for a divorce.
Eric was determined to take Callum with him, he argues that he could take care of his child better than Callum’s mother. But his mother and her twisted pride can’t let go of Callum, which leads to a legal dispute between the two.
The court hearings went on for several months, with each passing day being a lot more hellish for Callum. He was subjected to further insults by his mother as she knew that leaving bruises on her child would lower her chances of winning over the court to her side. Sometimes, she would go as far as manipulate him, gaslighting him into believing that she was a good mother who would take care of him better than his father. But after seeing that the court favors Eric’s side more, his mother took drastic measures to satisfy her wounded pride.
It was the second to the last day of the court hearing, and it was during this time that his father was working overtime. Callum had just gone home from his elementary school, feeling tired as he hauled his bag over his shoulders up the multiple flights of stairs he had to climb to get to their apartment.
As he neared his home, he steeled himself and opened the door, only to be met with overturned tables and broken ceramics. He walked quietly through the scene, afraid that someone might hear him entering his home. Looking back on it now, Calum can’t help himself but laugh at his stupidity. He could have gone and alerted their neighbors, or gone back downstairs to wait for his father, but being a child, Callum doesn’t know what to do.
As he entered his room, he saw black words spray painted on the walls, the meaning eluding him as he didn’t know what it meant since he was 7 at the time, but remembering it now sent shivers down his spine.
The words “This is what you get!” on a torn wallpaper are ingrained in his mind. Seeing the manic letters sprayed over the walls gave Callum anxiety, taking a few steps back towards the open front door of their apartment. Escape was now on his mind as he grew scared of what was to come, something that was far too late as he heard his mother behind him.
It was there that everything turned into a blur. He remembered snippets of yelling and crying both from himself and his mother. He remembered his mother forcing something down his throat. He remembered his father coming home early that day and restraining his mother, a crazy look in her eyes. He remembered the feeling of nausea and the floor colored with his lunch. And he remembered the sirens, red and blue lights dancing in his vision as he was carried to a stretcher. The last thing he remembered was his father crying, holding his hands tightly when he opened his tired eyes.
For the next few days, he learned from the news that his mother attempted a double suicide. The story goes, after losing the custody battle, the mother planned to take revenge by ending the lives of both her child and herself. They said that he got lucky as the neighbors had contacted Eric when his mother turned their home upside down, relating it to a possible home invasion. If not for him, Callum would have died from nicotine poisoning after his mother forced tobacco down his gullet, a morbid story that he uses as a joke during his time at work.
He remembered being inside that hospital for days on end, his body recovering from the poison his mother left him with, and his father was there almost every day even though he had to work to pay the hospital bills. After what felt like forever was he allowed to be discharged, going back to the same refurbished apartment that they lived in, but after seeing how Callum had recurring nightmares and trauma attached to the place, they decided to move to Pennsylvania. A hard decision that needed to be made as his father would put it.
Everything after the whole incident was better for Callum. His father got a job as a mover, still doing some part-time work here and there, and Callum did his best in school so as not to burden his father with more work. Even though they lived in a rundown shack handed to them by one of the locals, they didn’t mind as they knew that getting to live at all was better than what they had before.
Callum smiled in the abyss as he reminisced about his time with his father. He was a great man, a good role model for anyone who came across him. He is kind-hearted and considerate, a hard worker that makes him popular among his peers. It was them that helped move him and his father out of New Jersey and found them a place to sleep in, teaching Callum that socializing and connecting with like-minded people goes a long way when someone needs it.
For the next few years, Callum lived happily. Though there were some ups and downs, he and his father got through it, which is why the memory of his time in university was depressing.
Eric, after having saved some money, gave Callum the go-ahead to enroll in a university in California. But after attaining an athletic scholarship in football, Callum gave his father a surprise to ease his worries and stress. Callum felt bad every time he saw his father work, hence why he tried his hardest to take some of that workload to give him a break. With the tuition being lowered with the scholarship, Callum could give the rest of the money back to his dad. A gesture that was fully gratified as his father had a hard time letting him go when the time came to move over to the university. But it was during this time that tragedy struck.
It was his fourth year in studying anthropology when he heard the news from one of his father’s friends, Robby. After hearing it, he grew distressed and worried, taking a lot of convincing from Robby to keep Callum from moving back to Pennsylvania.
His father has gone missing. The news had spread amongst his co-workers and friends, and a search team was already being dispatched to find him. Even though Callum tried to keep his focus on studying, he couldn’t help but feel agitated as days went by without news of his father being seen. His mental state plummeted, and he grew withdrawn from reality as days turned to weeks, his father still gone.
He could still remember the times when he locked himself in the school’s library, searching the web to find any news or reports of his father's whereabouts, but as he searched for days on end, only one thing kept popping up from the newsletters. His father, Eric Hurst Foster, went missing in his own home. There were no struggles in the house, the CCTV didn’t see him on any of the roads or stores in the town they lived in, he just seemed to have vanished into thin air.
The news ate away at Callum, and his friends that he’d made during the time gave their support to keep him from spiraling out of control. However, even with their support, Callum’s worries over his dad never went away, hence why he threw himself into work. Going to part-time jobs and studying is the only way to keep his mind from blowing. He did this until he finished university and found a job to stay afloat.
This went on for years until he’s come to accept that his father may never be found. With nothing to ground him in their old home, he decided to explore the world, thinking that one day, he might find a lead to the whereabouts of his dad.
Months turned to years as he worked tirelessly in multiple jobs. From being a mechanic, electrician, cook, waiter, and many more to count, Callum went on a work frenzy. He made a plan to scour the states as a freelancer, living in his BMW pick-up truck that was given to him by one of his friends. He stayed in each state for a few months, meeting new people and making some friends along the way. They sent their well wishes to Callum as they knew that he was still trying to find his missing father.
Years went by as he made his way back to California. He had gone and explored every state, and yet no news of his father came to light. The case had gone cold, and it was up to Callum to find any clues to this mystery. His mind has told him to give up the search, and multiple friends have given him consolation as they knew that his father would never be found, but Callum persevered.
It was during this time that he found himself as a mover, the same job that his father had before he disappeared. He had just come back to California after getting the job, and he was about to go check in for his first day when a sudden downpour of rain covered the skies of the city. It was only coincidental that he was near that coffee shop, and it was coincidental that only two customers were present there. He and his future girlfriend turned accomplice to his murder.
The rest of his memories went by as he continued to float in the abyss. From the time of their first years in a relationship to meeting Jake for the first time in that apartment to when he taught PE and History in a school in Minnesota. Everything went by as Callum went from one memory to another until he felt something.
A chill ran down his spine as an indescribable dread manifested in his mind. He knew not why he felt this way, and he felt himself tearing at the seams as a slit of light showed itself in the void. He was then pulled into the light, senses coming back after he spent his time in the abyss for what felt like days. And with a flash, he is back in the same hunched-over position he was in when he was stabbed in the back.
Callum can’t help but laugh as he finally could see again. Trees surrounded his vision, with wild grass carpeting the ground. But before he could truly see the world, he felt a sharp pain in his back. With his body remembering that he was injured, he felt himself sweat profusely as he bled, painting the flowers under him red. And yet he didn’t panic.
After all that time reminiscing, he finally gave in and let death come to him. He fell on his back, sending another wave of pain coursing through his body, cursing under his breath as he regretted not laying himself down slowly. And as he looked to the sky, he felt himself getting colder and colder.
Callum felt at peace as he stared at the clouds above him. The sound of the wind and the rustling of leaves helped him come to terms that he was truly dying. He’d thought about death a lot. During his time when he was a kid, and when he was depressed after his father went missing. But the peace he felt for only a few moments as emotions came crashing down.
He felt himself tear up as he came to terms with his current situation. He would never have a chance to marry the girl in his life. He would never have a chance to have his own children and see them grow. He would never have a chance to be a father. And he would never have a chance to grow old with the people he loved around him.
As he thought of these things, the floodgates opened. Streams of tears fell down his cheeks as he sobbed in his dying state. He could only put his hands over his eyes to stop it from flowing, an action that felt challenging as his body became fatigued from all the blood loss. The crying only hastened his death as he felt his breath escape him, his lungs labored and filled with blood as the stab had punctured it.
Minutes went by as Callum felt himself grow tired and tired. And as he closed his eyes, Callum’s heart slowed and slowed as his body has a lack of blood to pump. His breathing grew shallower with each second until his body gave way and stopped altogether.
Callum died at the age of 34, stabbed in the back by his best friend with his girlfriend being an accomplice for his murder. He died from blood loss as his body colored the ground red.
Callum waited and waited to feel his consciousness fade as he welcomed death to greet him. And as the second grew…
'…Wait.'
His consciousness never faded away.
2024.05.21 06:28 Severe-Technician-43 My experience with Kindercare 🥱
So let me tell yall about this job I was working at before I made the ultimate decision to leave. Bare with me because it’s a long ride…
So for starters, I was working at a daycare not long ago, it wasn't too bad. The job itself was good and the pay wasn't so bad either. I'd work 80-90 hrs bi weekly. So l'd get paid biweekly but my Manager? OOUUUUU she is just, idk how to explain it. Shes just one of those managers who believes she’s above everyone including her employees. My coworkers? Worse. They all literally compete against each other. It’s weird asf if you ask me. I was a teacher aid. At the end of the day, teacheteacher aid. We’re all getting paid the same and working the same hours (besides part timers) nevermind the fact, The amount of incidents that occur in the center is ABSURD.
So if you know Florida, you know Florida is hot AS FUCK ALL YEAR ROUND (majority of the time) a parent comes to pick up their child in the classroom and the child isn't present and they not checked out on the CSR (Child Supervision Report) To better explain, Anytime a child leaves we have to mark the time they left on the paper. So basically, for better understanding… Arrival times and departure times. Including if they were moved to a different classroom also if we take children outside. That is also marked on the CSR. CSR’s also have something called “Name-to-face” which has hourly times where us as the teachers or teacher aids have to mark the minute within the hour so for example: 12PM so for that we would check the time once it’s 12PM and then add the minute which for example would be: 12:43. After we do that we have to check every child off that they are still in the classroom within that time. At the bottom we have to count the amount of children and the amount of teachers and initial at the bottom. It’s basically to help teachers keep track of when children leave or if a child is missing. Well, said child isn't checked out on the CSR. parent goes crazy trying to figure out where kid is because no one else picks child up besides parents. Turns out the kid is outside on the playground sleeping. IN THE HEAT, So parent goes to my boss and goes completely bazurk. Which I don't blame them. Parent mentions how they are worried about the child maybe having had a heat stroke and that’s maybe why they are on the playground sleeping but that’s what the CSR is for.
Another kid, in the toddler Classroom. Probably the cutest child. Little Cuban/Puerto Rican baby if I’m not wrong.I kid you not, that child HAS STACKS ON TOP OF STACKS ON TOP OF STACKS of incident reports from them biting kids. Child bit a another child in their sleep. When parents were told about the behavior they looked at us and literally laughed and said "well my child is being provoked to act that way” PROVOKED BUT THEY WAS SLEEPING? manager wouldn’t kick them out the center but was quit to kick another child out for hitting another child ONCE. Should I also add that this specific child had to be put in a classroom with the same gender be they attack the other gender. Not to mention, some of the teacher (not myself included) be spanking the child who likes to bite. My boss has no idea but I have indeed seen it first hand and may I add that obviously us as the teachers aren’t supposed to be hitting and or spanking but…. NOBODY and I mean nobody wants to deal with said child. Everyone refuses to be in the classroom with that child. May I also mention that the spanking includes pulling their ear, pulling their hair, pushing them on the ground and pinching their body.
One of coworkers, has a medical condition apparently but long story short, coworker falls asleep very easily. You can be talking to them about something important and they are literally ASLEEP. Coworker was in the infant classroom with me and was rocking one of the babies to sleep. Coworker started falling asleep so l asked them politely to hand me the baby. They refused so I said "whatever if they get in trouble that's on them” sure enough they dropped the baby on their head. A 3WEEK OLD BABY. Causing the soft spot to become misplaced. Now said coworker has an open court case for that with the family and they're trying to sue the center for neglect.
My daughter came to work with me one day. While being there she did good but a child slapped her straight in her face and that was enough for me to say "yeah she's never coming back" and she hasn't since. I never told my boss about it because even then, what would be done? Nothing but an incident report would be written. Also, while on the playground. My daughter was trying to reach the water and couldn’t. For those who don’t already know, my daughter is a little person so she often times needs assistance. She was standing there for I KID YOU NOT, 15 mins waiting on said teacher to help her reach the water. Teacher was standing around gossiping with other teachers. That was a red flag for me.
The worse thing about it is, it's said to be a learning center right???? Well sad to tell you but they do no actual curriculum with the kids, kids sit in a classroom majority of the time playing with broken toys or toys that are missing pieces. Fight with one another or sleep. They eat lunch and snack and other stuff but they only go outside twice a day for 30 mins. They (the teachers) have a whole book to read from and figure out curriculum but they don't do it so most the time the kids are over stimulated being locked up inside. They're also supposed to potty train the kids but NOPE, not even that. There are 4-5 year olds in the center who still wear diapers. It's crazy honestly. I’ve never seen more lazy and neglectful workers A DAY IN MY LIFE. Diapers are supposed to be changed every two hours but they don’t check them or change them accordingly. Children have gotten back to back rashes due to the neglect of diaper changes.
Now about my boss, her son, he is the absolute cutest being ever. He's literally a chunky monkey. We all call him Babybear, chunks or chunka monks. Unfortunately, he has a lot of medical conditions so my boss is constantly in and out of the center but when she is in the center she does NOTHING all day besides yell at us or sit at her desk on her phone. Not engaging with parents, not helping out in the kitchen, NOT NOTHING. Just on her phone on TikTok or Instagram or on FaceTime and this is facts because I have indeed seen it while on my lunch break.
There was an incident that occurred while I was on the clock with the preschool kids. I was outside with them on the playground. I was helping a child pour water into the cup and another kid was on the playground on the slide. I hear crying so I turn around to see who it is and I notice bleeding so I run to the child to figure out what happened. Child won't tell me just only saying their mouth hurts so I call someone on the walkie to take the child up front for proper care. They take child and whatever boom, they get the care they need. I make an incident report and that's it. Anytime a child hurts themselves or they injur one another. An incident report had to be made for both parties. May I also add that our form of communication within the center is WALKIE TALKIES. NOWWW, Weeks after the incident my boss brings me into the kitchen and starts yelling at me I mean like screaming. Saying she can't trust me because I have yet to tell her what happened that day on the playground. Saying I'm an outsider to everyone within the center and I have to redeem myself to them. Anything I say to them (coworkers) will be ran back to her. I like “instigate” things with coworkers according to her. She also mentioned how she had multiple complaints about my coworkers saying that all I do my entire shift is sit in which I explained that I suffer from Vertigo. I have it written on medical papers and medication doesn’t help half the time. I sated that me sitting is me giving myself the opportunity to stop a dizzy spell from occurring and or progressing. She really just said a bunch of bullshit and that's really when I realized that I was done working there. I was being overworked for one and two, I really wasn’t appreciated so I left.
Sorry for the rant but moral of the story is…… DO NOT TAKE YOUR KIDS TO ANY KINDERCARE LEARNING CENTER AND OR WORK THERE. THEY ARE HORRIBLE, And I mean ALL of them. Keep your babies safe and yourself included stay blessed 🥹🩷
submitted by Severe-Technician-43 to ECEProfessionals [link] [comments]
So for starters, I was working at a daycare not long ago, it wasn't too bad. The job itself was good and the pay wasn't so bad either. I'd work 80-90 hrs bi weekly. So l'd get paid biweekly but my Manager? OOUUUUU she is just, idk how to explain it. Shes just one of those managers who believes she’s above everyone including her employees. My coworkers? Worse. They all literally compete against each other. It’s weird asf if you ask me. I was a teacher aid. At the end of the day, teacheteacher aid. We’re all getting paid the same and working the same hours (besides part timers) nevermind the fact, The amount of incidents that occur in the center is ABSURD.
So if you know Florida, you know Florida is hot AS FUCK ALL YEAR ROUND (majority of the time) a parent comes to pick up their child in the classroom and the child isn't present and they not checked out on the CSR (Child Supervision Report) To better explain, Anytime a child leaves we have to mark the time they left on the paper. So basically, for better understanding… Arrival times and departure times. Including if they were moved to a different classroom also if we take children outside. That is also marked on the CSR. CSR’s also have something called “Name-to-face” which has hourly times where us as the teachers or teacher aids have to mark the minute within the hour so for example: 12PM so for that we would check the time once it’s 12PM and then add the minute which for example would be: 12:43. After we do that we have to check every child off that they are still in the classroom within that time. At the bottom we have to count the amount of children and the amount of teachers and initial at the bottom. It’s basically to help teachers keep track of when children leave or if a child is missing. Well, said child isn't checked out on the CSR. parent goes crazy trying to figure out where kid is because no one else picks child up besides parents. Turns out the kid is outside on the playground sleeping. IN THE HEAT, So parent goes to my boss and goes completely bazurk. Which I don't blame them. Parent mentions how they are worried about the child maybe having had a heat stroke and that’s maybe why they are on the playground sleeping but that’s what the CSR is for.
Another kid, in the toddler Classroom. Probably the cutest child. Little Cuban/Puerto Rican baby if I’m not wrong.I kid you not, that child HAS STACKS ON TOP OF STACKS ON TOP OF STACKS of incident reports from them biting kids. Child bit a another child in their sleep. When parents were told about the behavior they looked at us and literally laughed and said "well my child is being provoked to act that way” PROVOKED BUT THEY WAS SLEEPING? manager wouldn’t kick them out the center but was quit to kick another child out for hitting another child ONCE. Should I also add that this specific child had to be put in a classroom with the same gender be they attack the other gender. Not to mention, some of the teacher (not myself included) be spanking the child who likes to bite. My boss has no idea but I have indeed seen it first hand and may I add that obviously us as the teachers aren’t supposed to be hitting and or spanking but…. NOBODY and I mean nobody wants to deal with said child. Everyone refuses to be in the classroom with that child. May I also mention that the spanking includes pulling their ear, pulling their hair, pushing them on the ground and pinching their body.
One of coworkers, has a medical condition apparently but long story short, coworker falls asleep very easily. You can be talking to them about something important and they are literally ASLEEP. Coworker was in the infant classroom with me and was rocking one of the babies to sleep. Coworker started falling asleep so l asked them politely to hand me the baby. They refused so I said "whatever if they get in trouble that's on them” sure enough they dropped the baby on their head. A 3WEEK OLD BABY. Causing the soft spot to become misplaced. Now said coworker has an open court case for that with the family and they're trying to sue the center for neglect.
My daughter came to work with me one day. While being there she did good but a child slapped her straight in her face and that was enough for me to say "yeah she's never coming back" and she hasn't since. I never told my boss about it because even then, what would be done? Nothing but an incident report would be written. Also, while on the playground. My daughter was trying to reach the water and couldn’t. For those who don’t already know, my daughter is a little person so she often times needs assistance. She was standing there for I KID YOU NOT, 15 mins waiting on said teacher to help her reach the water. Teacher was standing around gossiping with other teachers. That was a red flag for me.
The worse thing about it is, it's said to be a learning center right???? Well sad to tell you but they do no actual curriculum with the kids, kids sit in a classroom majority of the time playing with broken toys or toys that are missing pieces. Fight with one another or sleep. They eat lunch and snack and other stuff but they only go outside twice a day for 30 mins. They (the teachers) have a whole book to read from and figure out curriculum but they don't do it so most the time the kids are over stimulated being locked up inside. They're also supposed to potty train the kids but NOPE, not even that. There are 4-5 year olds in the center who still wear diapers. It's crazy honestly. I’ve never seen more lazy and neglectful workers A DAY IN MY LIFE. Diapers are supposed to be changed every two hours but they don’t check them or change them accordingly. Children have gotten back to back rashes due to the neglect of diaper changes.
Now about my boss, her son, he is the absolute cutest being ever. He's literally a chunky monkey. We all call him Babybear, chunks or chunka monks. Unfortunately, he has a lot of medical conditions so my boss is constantly in and out of the center but when she is in the center she does NOTHING all day besides yell at us or sit at her desk on her phone. Not engaging with parents, not helping out in the kitchen, NOT NOTHING. Just on her phone on TikTok or Instagram or on FaceTime and this is facts because I have indeed seen it while on my lunch break.
There was an incident that occurred while I was on the clock with the preschool kids. I was outside with them on the playground. I was helping a child pour water into the cup and another kid was on the playground on the slide. I hear crying so I turn around to see who it is and I notice bleeding so I run to the child to figure out what happened. Child won't tell me just only saying their mouth hurts so I call someone on the walkie to take the child up front for proper care. They take child and whatever boom, they get the care they need. I make an incident report and that's it. Anytime a child hurts themselves or they injur one another. An incident report had to be made for both parties. May I also add that our form of communication within the center is WALKIE TALKIES. NOWWW, Weeks after the incident my boss brings me into the kitchen and starts yelling at me I mean like screaming. Saying she can't trust me because I have yet to tell her what happened that day on the playground. Saying I'm an outsider to everyone within the center and I have to redeem myself to them. Anything I say to them (coworkers) will be ran back to her. I like “instigate” things with coworkers according to her. She also mentioned how she had multiple complaints about my coworkers saying that all I do my entire shift is sit in which I explained that I suffer from Vertigo. I have it written on medical papers and medication doesn’t help half the time. I sated that me sitting is me giving myself the opportunity to stop a dizzy spell from occurring and or progressing. She really just said a bunch of bullshit and that's really when I realized that I was done working there. I was being overworked for one and two, I really wasn’t appreciated so I left.
Sorry for the rant but moral of the story is…… DO NOT TAKE YOUR KIDS TO ANY KINDERCARE LEARNING CENTER AND OR WORK THERE. THEY ARE HORRIBLE, And I mean ALL of them. Keep your babies safe and yourself included stay blessed 🥹🩷
2024.05.21 06:11 inimitabley Redness under eye
Earlier today my toddler was in the bathroom on his little potty (he is potty training). I left the room for literally 8 minutes to go make him some lunch while he was sitting, and he managed to get into my shampoo and smeared it all over the floor, all over his hands, face, his eyes, everywhere. I got it all cleaned up and I wanted to be careful about making sure it was all off of his face so I took a wet towel and scrubbed around his eyes. I think I may have done this a little too aggresive on one side unitentionally because he has redness under his eye 6 hours after the fact.
Tonight I did a warm compress on his eye to try to minimize the redness and any soreness he may have from the towel scrubbing under his eye (it's not an open wound or anything, just redness!). It's worrying me that there's still some redness from that though, I didn't mean to scrub his face that hard I just wanted to ensure I was getting it all off of him so he wouldn't have burning eyes. Poor baby. I'm also worried his daycare workers are going to call cps because of that now, I just have anxiety. I just feel so awful and I know things like this happen but I should have been more gentle when I was scrubbing his little face.
submitted by inimitabley to Parenting [link] [comments]
Tonight I did a warm compress on his eye to try to minimize the redness and any soreness he may have from the towel scrubbing under his eye (it's not an open wound or anything, just redness!). It's worrying me that there's still some redness from that though, I didn't mean to scrub his face that hard I just wanted to ensure I was getting it all off of him so he wouldn't have burning eyes. Poor baby. I'm also worried his daycare workers are going to call cps because of that now, I just have anxiety. I just feel so awful and I know things like this happen but I should have been more gentle when I was scrubbing his little face.
2024.05.21 04:57 Interesting-Glass-21 KP Pediatrician Question: How much training are you given on developmental delays and other disorders?
I work in early childhood education and have work experience in elementary schools too. Far too often I see children coming back from their well-child checkup with what parent reports is a clean bill of health. I've seen children with glaring red flairs for all sorts of disabilities and parents report that the pediatrician says everything is fine. I'm talking about elementary school kids who aren't speaking in full sentences or have a stutter. Or, toddlers who consistently walk on tip-toes or do not make eye contact. I keep wondering to myself, am I missing something here? One family is currently on my mind and I know they are a KP family, thus bringing me here
submitted by Interesting-Glass-21 to KaiserPermanente [link] [comments]
2024.05.21 04:54 Affectionate-Bus5288 ADHD Friendly Meal Prep Ideas Please!
I wfh with a toddler and it just feels like I don’t have the time to throw something together for myself in the midst of chaos.
I struggle the most with breakfast and lunch. I can tell such a difference with my ADHD symptoms when I have high protein in the morning, but I’ve been having strong aversions to eggs. I’m mostly pescatarian (~80% of the time) but also eat red meat on occasion. I appreciate any and all advice in advance!
submitted by Affectionate-Bus5288 to mealprep [link] [comments]
I struggle the most with breakfast and lunch. I can tell such a difference with my ADHD symptoms when I have high protein in the morning, but I’ve been having strong aversions to eggs. I’m mostly pescatarian (~80% of the time) but also eat red meat on occasion. I appreciate any and all advice in advance!
2024.05.21 03:23 Itstimeforbed_yay Miscarriage I think?
35F 5’1 117lbs
About a month ago I had several positive at home pregnancy tests. I scheduled an OB appt. (Two weeks out.) nausea and other pregnancy sxs ensued…then after 3-4 days sxs started fading and bleeding started. At first bleeding was light and not super concerning but then it progressed to bright red and heavier. Went to the ER. NO pregnancy was seen on my pelvic ultrasound. U/s and full blood work up was normal. HCG was 468…Doctor said to follow up with OB but probable miscarriage. Days following I bled a lot. I assumed I was miscarrying as suspected.
Here is where I’ll admit I messed up. I didn’t follow up with the OB and I cancelled the appt. I previously scheduled. I’ve been really overwhelmed w. my toddler lately and it seemed pretty clean cut at this point. I was miscarrying…I wasn’t in any pain at all. No pregnancy symptoms anymore. What’s concerning me now is it’s been 3.5 weeks and I’m still bleeding/spotting some. I took an at home pregnancy today and immediately a dark pink positive line came up, quicker than the control.
Is this normal? What’s happening? I’m going to try to get an emergent appt. With the OB Wednesday
submitted by Itstimeforbed_yay to AskDocs [link] [comments]
About a month ago I had several positive at home pregnancy tests. I scheduled an OB appt. (Two weeks out.) nausea and other pregnancy sxs ensued…then after 3-4 days sxs started fading and bleeding started. At first bleeding was light and not super concerning but then it progressed to bright red and heavier. Went to the ER. NO pregnancy was seen on my pelvic ultrasound. U/s and full blood work up was normal. HCG was 468…Doctor said to follow up with OB but probable miscarriage. Days following I bled a lot. I assumed I was miscarrying as suspected.
Here is where I’ll admit I messed up. I didn’t follow up with the OB and I cancelled the appt. I previously scheduled. I’ve been really overwhelmed w. my toddler lately and it seemed pretty clean cut at this point. I was miscarrying…I wasn’t in any pain at all. No pregnancy symptoms anymore. What’s concerning me now is it’s been 3.5 weeks and I’m still bleeding/spotting some. I took an at home pregnancy today and immediately a dark pink positive line came up, quicker than the control.
Is this normal? What’s happening? I’m going to try to get an emergent appt. With the OB Wednesday
2024.05.20 22:40 PinZealousideal358 I wanna rant. Drifting classroom is so bad
Now it did have some nice creepy moments in it. But the over arching plot and the execution of it was absolute garbage.
First of all, here is a brief summary of the plot: Somebody blows up an elementary school, which somehow caused a rip in time and space which transported that school into a distant future where world is just desert. No plants, waters, life anything.
Now from here on out a good chunk of it is kinda survival horror. But here is also the problem number 1: Two freaking adult in this Manga went crazy in just a day or two. Literally within 48 hours they loose their marbles and their first reaction is "let's kill everyone" and all the other adults were so dumb that they couldn't stop them.
But sometime later, we find that the MC, a kid, can communicate with his mom in the past with the help of a psychic girl but they don't realise it until the final chapters. And that helped a lot. His mother sent some medicines and supplies to him in the future whenever they could contact each other (by accident). Which help move the plot forward.
And in the beginning, I think the author was going supernatural and ghosts and unexplained route, but in the middle of it, he changed the narrative and made it about climate change. Because in the beginning chapters, there was a very early solar eclipse. The eclipse came way too early which was mentioned in the manga. And a good chunk of the chapters are dedicated to a supernatural plotline where one of the kid manifests a monster that physically harm the kids.
Like Freddy Krueger but as a giant insect. Which, to me, it seemed the author was going for the unexplained horror type thing. But then he said, "oh no, all of this happened cause of pollution, global warming and over population" But pollution shouldn't effect eclipse, pollution can't manifest a monster from a child's imagination. But moving on.
Now keeping the plot holes aside(which are as big as the ocean) the kids manage to survive two adult serial killer, hunger, massacre, literal black plague( yes the beubonic plague), civil war, flash flood, drought, and TWO ALIEN/MONSTER FUCKING INVASIONS.
By the end of the series out of 862 students only a handful of them survived. Like maybe 20 or so.
All of it happened withing one month. These kids have seen cannibalism, death of their closest friends, monsters and aliens, and I think by the end only a toddler remained innocent, by that I mean the toddler is the only character who never killed anybody. Everybody else has their hands painted in red.
So after all this BS that they go through, finally, when they have a chance to go back to their time period. You know what these MFs say. They are like,"hey, look guys, the corpses of our friends act like a manure and promotes plant growth. Oh look guys I found spring water" then a spaceship from the past comes to them that was sent by the MC mother and a scientist to help them survive and build a new world. It was full of supplies. So they decide that they can't go back. They have rid this current world of pollution. They have to rebuild the earth's ecosystem.
Which is a nice message but there two problem:
submitted by PinZealousideal358 to manga [link] [comments]
First of all, here is a brief summary of the plot: Somebody blows up an elementary school, which somehow caused a rip in time and space which transported that school into a distant future where world is just desert. No plants, waters, life anything.
Now from here on out a good chunk of it is kinda survival horror. But here is also the problem number 1: Two freaking adult in this Manga went crazy in just a day or two. Literally within 48 hours they loose their marbles and their first reaction is "let's kill everyone" and all the other adults were so dumb that they couldn't stop them.
But sometime later, we find that the MC, a kid, can communicate with his mom in the past with the help of a psychic girl but they don't realise it until the final chapters. And that helped a lot. His mother sent some medicines and supplies to him in the future whenever they could contact each other (by accident). Which help move the plot forward.
And in the beginning, I think the author was going supernatural and ghosts and unexplained route, but in the middle of it, he changed the narrative and made it about climate change. Because in the beginning chapters, there was a very early solar eclipse. The eclipse came way too early which was mentioned in the manga. And a good chunk of the chapters are dedicated to a supernatural plotline where one of the kid manifests a monster that physically harm the kids.
Like Freddy Krueger but as a giant insect. Which, to me, it seemed the author was going for the unexplained horror type thing. But then he said, "oh no, all of this happened cause of pollution, global warming and over population" But pollution shouldn't effect eclipse, pollution can't manifest a monster from a child's imagination. But moving on.
Now keeping the plot holes aside(which are as big as the ocean) the kids manage to survive two adult serial killer, hunger, massacre, literal black plague( yes the beubonic plague), civil war, flash flood, drought, and TWO ALIEN/MONSTER FUCKING INVASIONS.
By the end of the series out of 862 students only a handful of them survived. Like maybe 20 or so.
All of it happened withing one month. These kids have seen cannibalism, death of their closest friends, monsters and aliens, and I think by the end only a toddler remained innocent, by that I mean the toddler is the only character who never killed anybody. Everybody else has their hands painted in red.
So after all this BS that they go through, finally, when they have a chance to go back to their time period. You know what these MFs say. They are like,"hey, look guys, the corpses of our friends act like a manure and promotes plant growth. Oh look guys I found spring water" then a spaceship from the past comes to them that was sent by the MC mother and a scientist to help them survive and build a new world. It was full of supplies. So they decide that they can't go back. They have rid this current world of pollution. They have to rebuild the earth's ecosystem.
Which is a nice message but there two problem:
- The problem of the monsters and the sudden climate calamities ( like literal poison fog, flash floods, tremors, the whole world is a desert and they have few acres of school ground to grow food) has not been solved.
- If they had went back in time, they could have possibly warned the world about this future. Their disappearance was national news and they had seen a video recording of a documentary of how the world got into this state. They could have accurately predicted some of the future events which would have made them more credible. Now you might say they would be called a conspiracy theorists, but still as an elementary school kid and as a human being I'd much rather take chances here today rather in a distant future full of monsters and harsh climates.
2024.05.20 21:42 Report-Substantial (Long story) Nightmare NF
Context: The positions is Live-In, Travel, 2 toddlers, M-F 7am-7pm 65k-70k salary… in Calabasas…(I know) this would’ve been my first higher paying nanny position and I wanted more travel experience to help me eventually score a better paying travel position. (Most travel positions in LA pay 90k-120k) so you can see the first red flag
I showed interest in a Live-In position in Calabasas. A week later the agency reached out saying mom wants to interview and they’re EAGER to hire someone ASAP.
Mom hops into the interview and asks me to hell her about myself. Immediately after I answer she says, “Ok I’m going to just lay it all out there, I don’t like to beat around the bush I like to tell it like it is. I need someone who can be on it, hard working and isn’t soft. Someone who knows how to take constructive criticism and won’t cry or take it personal if I tell you hey why isn’t this done?” I honestly was taken aback. I was thinking wow what a way to jump into an interview. Mid interview her LO starts crying, she puts the phone down and I hear her ask the current nanny, “what happened?!” In a tone I didn’t love. The nanny tells her she was climbing something and fell and mom says in the same tone, “and you just let her?!” Mom comes back to the phone and starts to complain about current nanny to me and it was awkward! I was confused that she was ok with this interview being my first impression of her.
I decided to do a two day trial with NF. My first day I shadowed the current nanny. There were little things she did that I understood why the mom was frustrated with her. (Having to be reminded multiple times to do something, leaving knifes on the edge of the counter, not watching kids while they’re holding a full cup & kids spilling it on themselves) things that i feel like as an experienced nanny you just know you can’t do. CN was also in my ear telling me how awful the mom was and how she’s extremely meticulous. She told me she’s been trying to quit since her first week and mom tells everyone they’re letting her go because she doesn’t connect with the kids. She told me the nanny that trained her lied about being sick with radiation just to leave the family.
The oldest was sick, and the youngest started to cough so we were suspecting she’d be getting sick too. After the youngest bath, she was shivering. CN told me that if mom sees she’s shivering like this mom is going to be pissed. I thought to myself, well the A/C just got turned off an hour ago. We’re in the hills. & she’s coming down with something. Why be pissed? Sure enough mom sees she’s shivering and in the same tone I heard during the interview she’s yelling, “what happened?! Why is she shivering?! Did you guys bathe her with the door open?! WHY is she shivering?” I couldn’t help to feel like she was actually thinking that we would be at fault for a natural body reaction to being cold. I told her that she’s probably cold, it is a chilly night and she just got out of the bath. She responds saying my daughter has NEVER shivered like this ever and calls her doctor. After calming down she comes upstairs and nonchalantly says that the doctor said she’s probably coming down with a fever and she should be fine. As if she didn’t just freak out.
That night NM & I talked. We recapped the day and I told her I felt like she was insinuating it was our fault LO was shivering and I was concerned about that. I don’t think she expected me to be “straight forward” like her and she backtracked and said no no I mean I was just trying to figure out what happened I mean two nanny’s are with my shivering child. After having talks with the mom and her opening up to me about her childhood, why she’s so hardworking and the trauma she’s experienced I felt torn. NM and I clicked really well and she told me, “I know I can be a bit much, I am nitpicky and I have things to work on.” I would leave our conversations feeling like she was misunderstood, but not naive to how on edge she could also be.
A week later mom asked if I can do another three day trial. This time the CN was already gone and her husband was back home from his work trip. The kids were also back in school and she said I would get a better feel of what a standard day would look like. After the first day, I was like okay I can do this. The energy in the house between mom and I was lighter. I was on top of everything. The second day mom asked me, “so what are the minimum hours a week you’re willing to work?” I said well 40. I am looking for something full time. She started to tell me there would be days where I wouldn’t be paid for any downtime. So once the kids went to school from 9-1, if I had nothing else to do, I can do my own thing but wouldn’t be paid. I was confused because the job is advertised as salary, and even the agency was under that impression. But it’s starting to sound like you guys pay hourly. I asked well what’s the hourly pay? & she said $23/hr. So say I’d work 40 hours 9months out of the year and 60 the other 3 months the kids are out of school, that puts you at about 53k. Not what’s advertised. She made some comments about how her and dad believe you have to earn a higher rate and they don’t pay high from the jump and how nanny’s will tell them they want 30/hr and they look at them like their crazy. So many red flags in that conversation. I knew I wasn’t accepting the position after day 2.
Dad was also just not someone I’d want to work with. Was gone all day the third day of my trial. Got home while mom was doing baths and once the kids asked for dad to bathe them he said in a snooty tone, yeah or the nanny can. While watching me clean the kitchen.
There’s definitely more little details to the story that make this whole thing crazy. I might add to the comments just how meticulous mom really was. & yes I’m crazier for watching it unfold for 5 days. I wanted to see the best in this family and honestly am desperate to land something. Wish me luck in my journey finding the right fit!
submitted by Report-Substantial to Nanny [link] [comments]
I showed interest in a Live-In position in Calabasas. A week later the agency reached out saying mom wants to interview and they’re EAGER to hire someone ASAP.
Mom hops into the interview and asks me to hell her about myself. Immediately after I answer she says, “Ok I’m going to just lay it all out there, I don’t like to beat around the bush I like to tell it like it is. I need someone who can be on it, hard working and isn’t soft. Someone who knows how to take constructive criticism and won’t cry or take it personal if I tell you hey why isn’t this done?” I honestly was taken aback. I was thinking wow what a way to jump into an interview. Mid interview her LO starts crying, she puts the phone down and I hear her ask the current nanny, “what happened?!” In a tone I didn’t love. The nanny tells her she was climbing something and fell and mom says in the same tone, “and you just let her?!” Mom comes back to the phone and starts to complain about current nanny to me and it was awkward! I was confused that she was ok with this interview being my first impression of her.
I decided to do a two day trial with NF. My first day I shadowed the current nanny. There were little things she did that I understood why the mom was frustrated with her. (Having to be reminded multiple times to do something, leaving knifes on the edge of the counter, not watching kids while they’re holding a full cup & kids spilling it on themselves) things that i feel like as an experienced nanny you just know you can’t do. CN was also in my ear telling me how awful the mom was and how she’s extremely meticulous. She told me she’s been trying to quit since her first week and mom tells everyone they’re letting her go because she doesn’t connect with the kids. She told me the nanny that trained her lied about being sick with radiation just to leave the family.
The oldest was sick, and the youngest started to cough so we were suspecting she’d be getting sick too. After the youngest bath, she was shivering. CN told me that if mom sees she’s shivering like this mom is going to be pissed. I thought to myself, well the A/C just got turned off an hour ago. We’re in the hills. & she’s coming down with something. Why be pissed? Sure enough mom sees she’s shivering and in the same tone I heard during the interview she’s yelling, “what happened?! Why is she shivering?! Did you guys bathe her with the door open?! WHY is she shivering?” I couldn’t help to feel like she was actually thinking that we would be at fault for a natural body reaction to being cold. I told her that she’s probably cold, it is a chilly night and she just got out of the bath. She responds saying my daughter has NEVER shivered like this ever and calls her doctor. After calming down she comes upstairs and nonchalantly says that the doctor said she’s probably coming down with a fever and she should be fine. As if she didn’t just freak out.
That night NM & I talked. We recapped the day and I told her I felt like she was insinuating it was our fault LO was shivering and I was concerned about that. I don’t think she expected me to be “straight forward” like her and she backtracked and said no no I mean I was just trying to figure out what happened I mean two nanny’s are with my shivering child. After having talks with the mom and her opening up to me about her childhood, why she’s so hardworking and the trauma she’s experienced I felt torn. NM and I clicked really well and she told me, “I know I can be a bit much, I am nitpicky and I have things to work on.” I would leave our conversations feeling like she was misunderstood, but not naive to how on edge she could also be.
A week later mom asked if I can do another three day trial. This time the CN was already gone and her husband was back home from his work trip. The kids were also back in school and she said I would get a better feel of what a standard day would look like. After the first day, I was like okay I can do this. The energy in the house between mom and I was lighter. I was on top of everything. The second day mom asked me, “so what are the minimum hours a week you’re willing to work?” I said well 40. I am looking for something full time. She started to tell me there would be days where I wouldn’t be paid for any downtime. So once the kids went to school from 9-1, if I had nothing else to do, I can do my own thing but wouldn’t be paid. I was confused because the job is advertised as salary, and even the agency was under that impression. But it’s starting to sound like you guys pay hourly. I asked well what’s the hourly pay? & she said $23/hr. So say I’d work 40 hours 9months out of the year and 60 the other 3 months the kids are out of school, that puts you at about 53k. Not what’s advertised. She made some comments about how her and dad believe you have to earn a higher rate and they don’t pay high from the jump and how nanny’s will tell them they want 30/hr and they look at them like their crazy. So many red flags in that conversation. I knew I wasn’t accepting the position after day 2.
Dad was also just not someone I’d want to work with. Was gone all day the third day of my trial. Got home while mom was doing baths and once the kids asked for dad to bathe them he said in a snooty tone, yeah or the nanny can. While watching me clean the kitchen.
There’s definitely more little details to the story that make this whole thing crazy. I might add to the comments just how meticulous mom really was. & yes I’m crazier for watching it unfold for 5 days. I wanted to see the best in this family and honestly am desperate to land something. Wish me luck in my journey finding the right fit!
2024.05.20 20:45 Nervous-Impact9803 Any ideas?
Small little red welts on scrotum and penis that come and go and they are itchy. Got swabbed for herpes and came back negative and blood tests. My dermatologist gave me this redness steroid creme but it’s really not working.
Any idea what this could be?
https://ibb.co/kJnmRcs
submitted by Nervous-Impact9803 to STD [link] [comments]
Any idea what this could be?
https://ibb.co/kJnmRcs
2024.05.20 20:01 jhowellharris [MF] And So Now, The Snakes
The YouTube Teen changed the rules. We are still earning $1,000 a day to stay in the insolvent, decaying galleria mall that has even the gigantic central skylight boarded up so we have no idea what time of day it is—part of the “social experiment,” according to the YouTube Teen.
Micah, who lost tenure track at SUNY Binghampton because of “a dalliance with a matriculated temptress from Hong Kong,” says the YouTube Teen is not using the term “social experiment” correctly.
Still, the YouTube Teen told us he’s going broke due to our astounding okay-ness with surviving on rank fountain water and rock-hard Mrs. Fields’ oatmeal cookies. Since we signed the four total pounds of legal waivers and were sealed inside the Walden Galleria, just two of the original six have dropped out: Lawrence, because he earned enough money to get his lupus properly treated, and Jessica, whose mind broke.
To date, the YouTube Teen told us—giggling, hair freshly permed, eyes substance-glazed, palm trees swaying lazily in the background on the giant monitor set up in the food court just for these check-ins—we have personally cost him $725,000. Which would be “valid as fuck,” except the Views have gone down and the various memory foam mattress and ejaculate-volume-enhancing supplement sponsors are grumbling. Viewers are becoming bored with the highlight reels edited together from the three hundred GoPro cameras bracketed throughout the mall above us inside small plexiglass boxes.
In the end, The YouTube Teen tells us, he is as beholden to the algorithm as we are to him. And so now, the snakes.
Non-venomous, mostly (the copperheads representing the BIG exception), and—the YouTube teen has assured us—all species native to the region. The YouTube Teen is committed to the Environment and will not upset the local ecosystem by losing track of an invasive snake. Should an eastern hognosed or striped racer escape the confines of the mall, it will be happy and healthy and find plenty of its preferred prey in the drainage ditches and fallow farmland surrounding the mall.
Micah has called bullshit on this, too. He is positive he saw a desert king snake, native to the Southwest, casually contorting its body up a slicker-wearing toddler mannequin inside GAPKids.
But the answer is yes: we have been bitten. A lot. Which is the point, I guess. Any rustling through the Mrs. Fields’ wrappers sends us running—usually into another angry snake’s hiding place, which, of course: more bites. Because of the highly-aggressive northern water snake, we don’t go near the fountain anymore except to risk a quick dip with our filthy TGI Friday’s pint glasses for a gagged-down gulp of gray-green water.
On a positive note, the views are up—not to their peak, when Jessica went into the eerily pristine Lids store on the second level and started setting Florida Marlins Official New Era fitted caps on fire before flinging them like frisbees into the Fredericks of Hollywood beneath the mezzanine on the level below, setting ablaze several plus-size Lara May Lace Babydoll Sleep Dresses that put off smoke so black and acrid that air quality and general visibility both went to zero for hours.
Susan, a single mother to two spectrum-diagnosed precious angels, was overtaken by the flames while holding her drinking cup—a giant plastic wine glass from Spenser’s Gifts reading I’M THE FUCKING BIRTHDAY BITCH—and it was melted more or less permanently to her hand. She has chosen to stay, though, despite the pain and embarrassment—“at least it will make sense one day a year!” Susan says, brandishing the blackened novelty cup and mangled, terrifying hand at us.
Jessica had to go, is the upshot. She also had to forfeit her earnings—attempted involuntary manslaughter of the other participants being one of the disqualifying circumstances outlined in the four total pounds of legal waivers. But it was far and away the best week views-wise, and we each got a large bunch of rubber-banded beet greens as a reward which we immediately devoured raw, sitting hunched on the dead escalator, our deepening anemia making us ravenous for the iron.
This is all to say, the snakebite highlight reels have “revitalized the channel” (Re: the YouTube Teen).
We all hate the snakes but Sylvie talks the most about how much she hates the snakes. She calls me “Kyle” but that’s not my name—I don’t tell her because I don’t want to embarrass her and I am in love with her.
Sylvie is not here for the money—Sylvie has a lot of money because she shares frequent online photos of her large and unique ass, which has had several popular songs written about it—but to pay penance and rehabilitate her image after she used some slurs when she assumed she was free to do so.
It’s unfair, Sylvie says. She would not have said those slurs if she knew there were any type of video or sound recording devices around. Plus, South Asian people should be able to take a joke. No sense of humor—that was another thing that was wrong with them.
I don’t tell her my granddad was from Lahore. Me and my sister called him Nana. He called me Chotu and would cut up mango slices for me until my hands were slick with juice.
But he’s dead now and he didn’t speak English (another thing Sylvie hates) and Sylvie is committed to being a Good Person. Also, I think she believes I am South American or Mexican based on her habit of calling me “Papi” when she occasionally forgets my name is Kyle (it’s not). It’s fine, though, because her heart is in the right place and it’s the least I can do to keep her spirits up while she “really does some listening and reflecting.”
One of the things I do with that in mind is assure Sylvie that you can barely see the snakebites on her large ass, which she also fears is getting smaller due to lack of proper nutrition. A little secret is that I would love her if her ass was even just a quarter its current size. And one day I’ll tell her that and she’ll look into my eyes and smile, and then I’ll tell her my name is Kader, not Kyle, and I don’t think she’ll even get that angry, like when I disagreed with her about the Moon Landing (I still basically think it was real).
Before Sylvie, I didn’t have a purpose of any kind. I came to be sealed inside the Walden Galleria in the same way everything happens to me: first something isn’t happening, and then it is, and I can’t really untangle the millions of decisions and non-decisions in my life that led me to any particular time or place. But I usually don’t feel any kind of way about why one thing happens and another doesn’t, unless something hurts me or makes me uncomfortable. Like snake bites, for example, which sometimes make me wish I was back at the apartment with my mom and my sister. Not that we really saw each other or talked much, except when we ran into each other in the kitchen while grabbing toaster strudels or a can of peaches before scurrying back to our separate little blanket nests and preferred online videos.
So when Micah asked me what sort of “outdated social mores” brought me to the mall, I didn’t have a good answer. The only thing I know for sure is that before the mall I wasn’t anybody and you have to have a lot of people know who you are or your life is bad.
This made Micah quiet (rare) and then he asked me what I liked to do in my life before the mall. I told him I liked to watch videos of crayons being made. Over and over again, I would replay the part when the still-warm, rubbery sheets of colored wax are scraped out of their troughs and forced through the metal, crayon-shaped molds. I told Micah I like to watch orange crayons get made best even though green is my favorite color. I don’t know why.
Micah said entropy is the natural state of the universe and the making of crayons flies in the face of entropy by creating order out of chaos, and this makes me briefly forget about my own mortality.
Probably? Micah’s smart so I believe whatever he says. Even when he talks (all the time) about how it should be totally fine for people in positions of authority to have sexual relationships with younger women who take their Intro To Natural Sciences course, even if these women’s command of English is not one-hundred-percent, and how that sort of thing is very normal because women are attracted to power and have been for millennia and it’s these later-in-life sexual conquests that people with minds like Micah’s are owed when everyone finally realizes how great and smart they are, especially after they had dog shit put in their backpacks pretty much every single day in seventh grade.
Micah also says it’s winter now. The owls that made their way into the mall in order to eat snakes have started nesting (having snake blood dripped on you from the track lighting above is pretty common). Nesting is a winter-time occurrence, according to Micah, instinct forcing its way through the temperature-controlled bubble of the mall.
After one of the owls attempts to make a nest inside a large fuse box and is electrocuted, we know it’s winter. The Macy’s end of the mall stinks of burned owl for three days and the heat and electricity are “completely donezo,” according to a text we receive from the YouTube Teen on the Communal Phone. But the YouTube Teen is very excited about the new dynamics below-zero cold will add to the social experiment. He also told us we can breathe a sigh of relief due to the long battery life and night-vision capabilities of the GoPro cameras, assuring us that the Channel will not experience any disruptions despite the pitch dark and intense cold that have settled in.
Also, we will still be delivered a freshly-charged Communal Phone every few days when the YouTube Teen’s Street Team comes to collect and replace the GoPros before delivering the spent ones to the overnight editorial crew. So we will still get our one hour of Internet access per day, per person, ideally to be spent in part or in whole on updating our social media and “driving engagement.”
Sylvie uses her time to share photos of her ass and also to monitor the activity of her competitors in the large-and-unique-ass influencer space. I usually give Sylvie my hour of Internet time so she has extra, even though lately I’d really like to see a crayon video so I can forget about the cold and dark. Instead, I watch Micah snap wooden Banana Republic clothes hangers over his knee in order to burn them in Sur La Table soup pots to stay warm. He struggles with this due to the dozen or so XXL Nike Dri-FIT athletic shirts he’s wearing, layered one on top the next, the combined girth of the jerseys preventing him from being able to touch one baseball-gloved hand to the other and get a good grip on the hangers for snapping.
It’s funny to watch, and I understand why the edits of Micah falling down while attempting simple tasks are gaining in popularity, but I don’t laugh. Micah didn’t laugh when I broke my nose after I tripped over the poncho I made from a Martha Stewart California King Duvet I found in Bed, Bath & Beyond.
The toilets have frozen solid and the Yankee Candle has become the new bathroom, the theory being that the Sweet Vanilla Horchata and Fresh Cut Rose candles, among thousands of others, would cover the smell. Nope. Instead, these aromas have combined with the odor of our waste to create a stench so overpowering and unique that none of us has the words to describe it. Susan came closest when she said it smelled like someone dumped a million of gallons of perfume into a sewage treatment plant
One day during Sylvie’s (my) Internet time, she lets out a howl. When I rush over to see if one of the snakes managed to somehow survive the owls or freezing temperatures and sink their fangs into Sylvie’s ass, she brandishes the Communal Phone at me and scrolls through photo after photo of gigantic-assed women enjoying a special, head-sized fried chicken sandwich.
Sylvie begins to weep with despair. The sandwich—a Limited Edition Drop from Arby’s that comes in a hand-hewn mahogany box emblazoned with the familiar cowboy hat logo—is so desirable that at least twenty people to date have been murdered during disputes in the massive lines snaking for miles outside the restaurants. Obtaining one is currently the greatest indicator of power, with various dictators from around the globe sharing photos of themselves enjoying the coveted sandwich.
Sylvie says she needs one of those sandwiches more than anything she has ever needed, and I tell her right then and there that I’m going to get one for her. She hugs me and kisses me on the cheek, and it is the best thing that has happened to me in my life.
Susan, waiting for her turn on the Communal Phone so she can video chat with her non-verbal precious angels, points her melted Birthday Bitch cup hand at me and reminds me that if I get caught sneaking out and back in, I forfeit my earnings like Jessica did. Attempted manslaughter and cheating are given equal weight in the four total pounds of legal waivers.
The Street Team is coming soon for a camera swap, so the next day I use my Internet time to look up directions to Arby’s—six miles if I cut through frozen fields and drainage culverts.
During the swap, a piece of plywood is usually left unscrewed at the doors near the carousel and the unblinking plastic horses watch me slip out as the Street Team removes the spent GoPros, creating a momentary video blackout.
It’s nighttime and the snow comes down not in gentle feathers but in tiny knives, given a painful velocity by the wind. The snow is in uneven drifts stretching out beyond the short distance I can see. I discard my Martha Stewart duvet-poncho after I trip for about the tenth time while crossing a corn-stubbled field.
After hours of leaning into the wind and snow, my steps slow to a frozen crawl. But finally, between a Valvoline and a Dollar Tree, the familiar glowing red cowboy hat shines through the slanted snowfall.
I fall through the doors and there is no one inside but a single, furious, pockmarked 20-something behind the counter. He glares hate at me and recoils from the smell of my unwashed body as I crawl up to the counter and order the special chicken sandwich.
Smiling for the first time, thin lips pulling up shittily around ratty teeth, he tells me they sold out days ago, and that I smell like shit. Which is true, but rude.
As I uncoil the Forever 21 Active Seamless Flare Leggings from around my face, though, Rat Teeth recognizes me—he is a fan of the YouTube Teen’s channel. He excitedly tells me he stole a sandwich that he has already promised to sell to the current Burmese dictator, but instead he’ll let me have it for free.
I think maybe I cry a little from gratitude as he goes out to his car to retrieve the mahogany box. But as he shakes off the snow back in the restaurant and I take the sandwich from him, Rat Teeth suddenly puts his arm around me and takes a photo of the both of us with his phone.
I ask him what he plans on doing with the photo. He says he will post it on every platform known to man so he can get “two truckloads of pussy” which he says will back up to his house now that he has proof he met me. I beg him not to—I tell him I’ll lose my earnings and be banished from the Walden Galleria and lose Sylvie if he posts the photo.
Rat teeth tells me tough shit, and I lunge for his phone. We struggle until I bash him in the head with the mahogany box and he has a really bad seizure, a halo of blood spreading across the bleach-smelling tile floor.
I grab the bloody sandwich box and run out into a corn field and back toward the mall. But I’m not sure which way it is, and the storm is way worse. I go slower and slower and I finally sit down and can’t go any more.
After a bit, I see Nana. He’s super pissed and he doesn’t say anything for a long time. Then:
“I think you would have benefited from some structure in your life,” Nana finally says without moving his mouth—he somehow puts the hot words right into my brain.
Yeah, probably. But I tell him that’s not really important right now because I’m gonna die.
“Eat the sandwich, Chotu.” Nana urges.
I tell him the sandwich is for Sylvie. When they find me, they will find the sandwich pristine and untouched and perfect. Then Sylvie will know what I did and she will love me. I tell Nana I need her to love me or everything will be pointless and so fucking stupid.
Nana shakes his head and clucks his tongue like he used to when he read his squiggly Urdu newspapers. And then I don’t see him anymore.
submitted by jhowellharris to shortstories [link] [comments]
Micah, who lost tenure track at SUNY Binghampton because of “a dalliance with a matriculated temptress from Hong Kong,” says the YouTube Teen is not using the term “social experiment” correctly.
Still, the YouTube Teen told us he’s going broke due to our astounding okay-ness with surviving on rank fountain water and rock-hard Mrs. Fields’ oatmeal cookies. Since we signed the four total pounds of legal waivers and were sealed inside the Walden Galleria, just two of the original six have dropped out: Lawrence, because he earned enough money to get his lupus properly treated, and Jessica, whose mind broke.
To date, the YouTube Teen told us—giggling, hair freshly permed, eyes substance-glazed, palm trees swaying lazily in the background on the giant monitor set up in the food court just for these check-ins—we have personally cost him $725,000. Which would be “valid as fuck,” except the Views have gone down and the various memory foam mattress and ejaculate-volume-enhancing supplement sponsors are grumbling. Viewers are becoming bored with the highlight reels edited together from the three hundred GoPro cameras bracketed throughout the mall above us inside small plexiglass boxes.
In the end, The YouTube Teen tells us, he is as beholden to the algorithm as we are to him. And so now, the snakes.
Non-venomous, mostly (the copperheads representing the BIG exception), and—the YouTube teen has assured us—all species native to the region. The YouTube Teen is committed to the Environment and will not upset the local ecosystem by losing track of an invasive snake. Should an eastern hognosed or striped racer escape the confines of the mall, it will be happy and healthy and find plenty of its preferred prey in the drainage ditches and fallow farmland surrounding the mall.
Micah has called bullshit on this, too. He is positive he saw a desert king snake, native to the Southwest, casually contorting its body up a slicker-wearing toddler mannequin inside GAPKids.
But the answer is yes: we have been bitten. A lot. Which is the point, I guess. Any rustling through the Mrs. Fields’ wrappers sends us running—usually into another angry snake’s hiding place, which, of course: more bites. Because of the highly-aggressive northern water snake, we don’t go near the fountain anymore except to risk a quick dip with our filthy TGI Friday’s pint glasses for a gagged-down gulp of gray-green water.
On a positive note, the views are up—not to their peak, when Jessica went into the eerily pristine Lids store on the second level and started setting Florida Marlins Official New Era fitted caps on fire before flinging them like frisbees into the Fredericks of Hollywood beneath the mezzanine on the level below, setting ablaze several plus-size Lara May Lace Babydoll Sleep Dresses that put off smoke so black and acrid that air quality and general visibility both went to zero for hours.
Susan, a single mother to two spectrum-diagnosed precious angels, was overtaken by the flames while holding her drinking cup—a giant plastic wine glass from Spenser’s Gifts reading I’M THE FUCKING BIRTHDAY BITCH—and it was melted more or less permanently to her hand. She has chosen to stay, though, despite the pain and embarrassment—“at least it will make sense one day a year!” Susan says, brandishing the blackened novelty cup and mangled, terrifying hand at us.
Jessica had to go, is the upshot. She also had to forfeit her earnings—attempted involuntary manslaughter of the other participants being one of the disqualifying circumstances outlined in the four total pounds of legal waivers. But it was far and away the best week views-wise, and we each got a large bunch of rubber-banded beet greens as a reward which we immediately devoured raw, sitting hunched on the dead escalator, our deepening anemia making us ravenous for the iron.
This is all to say, the snakebite highlight reels have “revitalized the channel” (Re: the YouTube Teen).
We all hate the snakes but Sylvie talks the most about how much she hates the snakes. She calls me “Kyle” but that’s not my name—I don’t tell her because I don’t want to embarrass her and I am in love with her.
Sylvie is not here for the money—Sylvie has a lot of money because she shares frequent online photos of her large and unique ass, which has had several popular songs written about it—but to pay penance and rehabilitate her image after she used some slurs when she assumed she was free to do so.
It’s unfair, Sylvie says. She would not have said those slurs if she knew there were any type of video or sound recording devices around. Plus, South Asian people should be able to take a joke. No sense of humor—that was another thing that was wrong with them.
I don’t tell her my granddad was from Lahore. Me and my sister called him Nana. He called me Chotu and would cut up mango slices for me until my hands were slick with juice.
But he’s dead now and he didn’t speak English (another thing Sylvie hates) and Sylvie is committed to being a Good Person. Also, I think she believes I am South American or Mexican based on her habit of calling me “Papi” when she occasionally forgets my name is Kyle (it’s not). It’s fine, though, because her heart is in the right place and it’s the least I can do to keep her spirits up while she “really does some listening and reflecting.”
One of the things I do with that in mind is assure Sylvie that you can barely see the snakebites on her large ass, which she also fears is getting smaller due to lack of proper nutrition. A little secret is that I would love her if her ass was even just a quarter its current size. And one day I’ll tell her that and she’ll look into my eyes and smile, and then I’ll tell her my name is Kader, not Kyle, and I don’t think she’ll even get that angry, like when I disagreed with her about the Moon Landing (I still basically think it was real).
Before Sylvie, I didn’t have a purpose of any kind. I came to be sealed inside the Walden Galleria in the same way everything happens to me: first something isn’t happening, and then it is, and I can’t really untangle the millions of decisions and non-decisions in my life that led me to any particular time or place. But I usually don’t feel any kind of way about why one thing happens and another doesn’t, unless something hurts me or makes me uncomfortable. Like snake bites, for example, which sometimes make me wish I was back at the apartment with my mom and my sister. Not that we really saw each other or talked much, except when we ran into each other in the kitchen while grabbing toaster strudels or a can of peaches before scurrying back to our separate little blanket nests and preferred online videos.
So when Micah asked me what sort of “outdated social mores” brought me to the mall, I didn’t have a good answer. The only thing I know for sure is that before the mall I wasn’t anybody and you have to have a lot of people know who you are or your life is bad.
This made Micah quiet (rare) and then he asked me what I liked to do in my life before the mall. I told him I liked to watch videos of crayons being made. Over and over again, I would replay the part when the still-warm, rubbery sheets of colored wax are scraped out of their troughs and forced through the metal, crayon-shaped molds. I told Micah I like to watch orange crayons get made best even though green is my favorite color. I don’t know why.
Micah said entropy is the natural state of the universe and the making of crayons flies in the face of entropy by creating order out of chaos, and this makes me briefly forget about my own mortality.
Probably? Micah’s smart so I believe whatever he says. Even when he talks (all the time) about how it should be totally fine for people in positions of authority to have sexual relationships with younger women who take their Intro To Natural Sciences course, even if these women’s command of English is not one-hundred-percent, and how that sort of thing is very normal because women are attracted to power and have been for millennia and it’s these later-in-life sexual conquests that people with minds like Micah’s are owed when everyone finally realizes how great and smart they are, especially after they had dog shit put in their backpacks pretty much every single day in seventh grade.
Micah also says it’s winter now. The owls that made their way into the mall in order to eat snakes have started nesting (having snake blood dripped on you from the track lighting above is pretty common). Nesting is a winter-time occurrence, according to Micah, instinct forcing its way through the temperature-controlled bubble of the mall.
After one of the owls attempts to make a nest inside a large fuse box and is electrocuted, we know it’s winter. The Macy’s end of the mall stinks of burned owl for three days and the heat and electricity are “completely donezo,” according to a text we receive from the YouTube Teen on the Communal Phone. But the YouTube Teen is very excited about the new dynamics below-zero cold will add to the social experiment. He also told us we can breathe a sigh of relief due to the long battery life and night-vision capabilities of the GoPro cameras, assuring us that the Channel will not experience any disruptions despite the pitch dark and intense cold that have settled in.
Also, we will still be delivered a freshly-charged Communal Phone every few days when the YouTube Teen’s Street Team comes to collect and replace the GoPros before delivering the spent ones to the overnight editorial crew. So we will still get our one hour of Internet access per day, per person, ideally to be spent in part or in whole on updating our social media and “driving engagement.”
Sylvie uses her time to share photos of her ass and also to monitor the activity of her competitors in the large-and-unique-ass influencer space. I usually give Sylvie my hour of Internet time so she has extra, even though lately I’d really like to see a crayon video so I can forget about the cold and dark. Instead, I watch Micah snap wooden Banana Republic clothes hangers over his knee in order to burn them in Sur La Table soup pots to stay warm. He struggles with this due to the dozen or so XXL Nike Dri-FIT athletic shirts he’s wearing, layered one on top the next, the combined girth of the jerseys preventing him from being able to touch one baseball-gloved hand to the other and get a good grip on the hangers for snapping.
It’s funny to watch, and I understand why the edits of Micah falling down while attempting simple tasks are gaining in popularity, but I don’t laugh. Micah didn’t laugh when I broke my nose after I tripped over the poncho I made from a Martha Stewart California King Duvet I found in Bed, Bath & Beyond.
The toilets have frozen solid and the Yankee Candle has become the new bathroom, the theory being that the Sweet Vanilla Horchata and Fresh Cut Rose candles, among thousands of others, would cover the smell. Nope. Instead, these aromas have combined with the odor of our waste to create a stench so overpowering and unique that none of us has the words to describe it. Susan came closest when she said it smelled like someone dumped a million of gallons of perfume into a sewage treatment plant
One day during Sylvie’s (my) Internet time, she lets out a howl. When I rush over to see if one of the snakes managed to somehow survive the owls or freezing temperatures and sink their fangs into Sylvie’s ass, she brandishes the Communal Phone at me and scrolls through photo after photo of gigantic-assed women enjoying a special, head-sized fried chicken sandwich.
Sylvie begins to weep with despair. The sandwich—a Limited Edition Drop from Arby’s that comes in a hand-hewn mahogany box emblazoned with the familiar cowboy hat logo—is so desirable that at least twenty people to date have been murdered during disputes in the massive lines snaking for miles outside the restaurants. Obtaining one is currently the greatest indicator of power, with various dictators from around the globe sharing photos of themselves enjoying the coveted sandwich.
Sylvie says she needs one of those sandwiches more than anything she has ever needed, and I tell her right then and there that I’m going to get one for her. She hugs me and kisses me on the cheek, and it is the best thing that has happened to me in my life.
Susan, waiting for her turn on the Communal Phone so she can video chat with her non-verbal precious angels, points her melted Birthday Bitch cup hand at me and reminds me that if I get caught sneaking out and back in, I forfeit my earnings like Jessica did. Attempted manslaughter and cheating are given equal weight in the four total pounds of legal waivers.
The Street Team is coming soon for a camera swap, so the next day I use my Internet time to look up directions to Arby’s—six miles if I cut through frozen fields and drainage culverts.
During the swap, a piece of plywood is usually left unscrewed at the doors near the carousel and the unblinking plastic horses watch me slip out as the Street Team removes the spent GoPros, creating a momentary video blackout.
It’s nighttime and the snow comes down not in gentle feathers but in tiny knives, given a painful velocity by the wind. The snow is in uneven drifts stretching out beyond the short distance I can see. I discard my Martha Stewart duvet-poncho after I trip for about the tenth time while crossing a corn-stubbled field.
After hours of leaning into the wind and snow, my steps slow to a frozen crawl. But finally, between a Valvoline and a Dollar Tree, the familiar glowing red cowboy hat shines through the slanted snowfall.
I fall through the doors and there is no one inside but a single, furious, pockmarked 20-something behind the counter. He glares hate at me and recoils from the smell of my unwashed body as I crawl up to the counter and order the special chicken sandwich.
Smiling for the first time, thin lips pulling up shittily around ratty teeth, he tells me they sold out days ago, and that I smell like shit. Which is true, but rude.
As I uncoil the Forever 21 Active Seamless Flare Leggings from around my face, though, Rat Teeth recognizes me—he is a fan of the YouTube Teen’s channel. He excitedly tells me he stole a sandwich that he has already promised to sell to the current Burmese dictator, but instead he’ll let me have it for free.
I think maybe I cry a little from gratitude as he goes out to his car to retrieve the mahogany box. But as he shakes off the snow back in the restaurant and I take the sandwich from him, Rat Teeth suddenly puts his arm around me and takes a photo of the both of us with his phone.
I ask him what he plans on doing with the photo. He says he will post it on every platform known to man so he can get “two truckloads of pussy” which he says will back up to his house now that he has proof he met me. I beg him not to—I tell him I’ll lose my earnings and be banished from the Walden Galleria and lose Sylvie if he posts the photo.
Rat teeth tells me tough shit, and I lunge for his phone. We struggle until I bash him in the head with the mahogany box and he has a really bad seizure, a halo of blood spreading across the bleach-smelling tile floor.
I grab the bloody sandwich box and run out into a corn field and back toward the mall. But I’m not sure which way it is, and the storm is way worse. I go slower and slower and I finally sit down and can’t go any more.
After a bit, I see Nana. He’s super pissed and he doesn’t say anything for a long time. Then:
“I think you would have benefited from some structure in your life,” Nana finally says without moving his mouth—he somehow puts the hot words right into my brain.
Yeah, probably. But I tell him that’s not really important right now because I’m gonna die.
“Eat the sandwich, Chotu.” Nana urges.
I tell him the sandwich is for Sylvie. When they find me, they will find the sandwich pristine and untouched and perfect. Then Sylvie will know what I did and she will love me. I tell Nana I need her to love me or everything will be pointless and so fucking stupid.
Nana shakes his head and clucks his tongue like he used to when he read his squiggly Urdu newspapers. And then I don’t see him anymore.
2024.05.20 19:36 PepperAntique Rebirth. Relearn. Return. (14/?)
Previous
Writer's Note: Meant to post this last week, but work got busy. Probably gonna be another chapter later this week.
As for the story, well, even old dudes have back stories.
Enjoy.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Joey did what he could to stay as calm as he could as he and Nesvee walked through the streets of the city.
For the first time since coming to this world he actually LOOKED like a mage. Well... minus a few fun dressup sessions when James had taken him shopping for clothes. He couldn't help but try on some robes and things at the time. But both James and the tailors had assured him that most mages didn't actually dress like that. Most dressed like either craftsmen, like Miss Veliry, or else simply dressed like nobles since their endeavors usually earned them good pay. Ekron fell into the latter group.
But Joey looked more like a D&D version of a mage or wizard.
Maybe a blade singer or something? He mused as his thoughts lingered on the rapier in his belt.
The outfit wasn't bad. He wore a long cloak of dark blue, with bits of dark green and light blue embroidery. It had a built in veil that went over his face. The whole thing was enchanted to conceal his magical nature even more intensely than the neck and wrist restraints had, and he was wearing those too. The veil and hood were both enchanted to conceal his antlers and obscure his face.
He looked like a technicolor wraith of some kind.
Even Nesvee had been unnerved by his appearance when he'd left his room wearing it.
That discomfort had quickly been dispelled when they'd gone more than twenty minutes without anyone giving him more than a passing glance.
"So the old man has a list of stuff he needs and where to get them." Nesvee said as she looked at the little notebook he'd given her. "As well as one person to seek out for a bit of assistance?" She said, questioning the last bit.
He looked at her curiously, forgetting that she couldn't see his face behind the veil.
"Some... Garthan... person." She said as she looked at the notes. "At a place called the... um... Tinnetha's Rest.... Says it's east of the lab by about six miles. Near the bar district." She looked thoughtful for a moment. "Why does that name sound familiar?"
"What else?" Joey asked, eager to simply get the day's tasks over with.
"Mostly just bits and pieces here and there." She replied. "Things he thinks will help with figuring out how to help you."
Joey nodded, making sure to exaggerate it a bit as he did so she would notice, then the two of them set off into the city.
Now that he had managed to calm down, and also wasn't being given any more attention than the occasional passing glance, Joey was able to take in the city of Ospiele with a more critical eye.
Initially he'd thought the city was in shambles. Their journey through the city over the course of the day did nothing to dispel that fact. But he did begin to notice things that gave him reason to think that there was a method to the madness.
For starters the sector of the city that they'd entered, and where Ekron's lab/home were located, seemed to be the only area devoted to dedicated mage laboratories. These buildings ranged from druidic (he assumed) forest groves that frequently spilled into their neighbors' lots, to almost Earth-like office-looking buildings. They also seemed to have been color coded based on their owner's magical proclivities. More than a few times magical outbursts would occur, causing passersby to rush out of the way of anything happening. For red buildings this was usually bursts of flame. For blue buildings it was usually sprays of water or ice. And for one incredibly dirty brown building the outburst actually took the form of half of the building rising several feet unexpectedly, breaking away from the other half with quite a bit of damage. The hastily nailed down boards and tiles spoke to this being a common occurrence.
One building had Cobalt Legion guards stationed outside of it, and people walking past made a point of walking in the street instead of walking on the path in front of it.
That building had been painted black, with subtle bits of red and green in some places.
At his questioning Nesvee explained that she'd noticed the same trend, and that upon questioning it Ekron had explained it was intentional. The Lord of the city, whom they'd met the day before, had required that the labs have their owner's specialties and focuses be easily identified by the city guard. This was so that they could know how to respond, and who to blame, if something went wrong that they needed to respond to.
This made the quiet grey and white coloration of Ekron's lab curious to Joey. He wondered if it was because the elder mage primarily focused on enchanting, and as such worked with more than one magic style.
When they got roughly three miles from the lab they encountered a check point of sorts. The guards there, more of the so-called Cobalt Legion, asked a few questions. Nesvee showed them a letter that explained they worked for Ekron and were simply going for supplies. Then they were allowed through.
On the other side of the check point the city almost looked normal. In fact if it weren't for the difference in architecture, which favored stone construction over lumber, Joey could've been convinced he was back in the Petravian capital.
Well, the architecture and the overabundance of magic users and enchanted items being used in every building they passed. Even in his current magical condition Joey could sense the overwhelming flow of magic. And almost everything that was being used seemed more advanced than in Petravus.
They passed a bakery where the goods were placed on a tray that was then placed on a conveyor belt. The belt then passed them between too sheets of metal that would slowly grow brighter and brighter red until the pastries and breads emerged from the other side. At that point the pan they were on would glow blue while vibrating noisily, cooling itself and also un-sticking the the foods cooked onto it before they could solidify. Then the tray would fall off the conveyor belt and slide into a display case where an employee was ready to take orders.
Don't remember anything that fancy even in the King's castle. Joey thought as they moved past.
"Hungry?" Nesvee asked. "Just wait until you see the shops up ahead." She added. "There's this place selling these new sandwiches from your neck of the woods in Petravus. They called them Hand Bulgers. The dwarf running it has a machine that mixes the meat and then another that shapes it into disks before he throws them on a grill."
"You mean hamburgers?" Joey asked, surprised to even hear of burgers this far from Petravus. Though he knew that the restaurant James had introduced them too in the capital had become insanely popular.
Nesvee shook her head. "No they're definitely hand bulgers."
She couldn't see it but Joey's face scrunched at that.
"Round shaped meat disk between round bread buns?" He asked. "Veggies and cheese and stuff in it too?" She nodded. "That's definitely a cheeseburger." He corrected her.
"Noooot according to the guy running the place." She countered.
"Well he's wrong." Joey assured her. "I would know. I'm FROM Petravus where they came from."
"Well you can tell him that yourself if you're willing to wait an hour to get through the line." She replied.
"I... think I'll pass." He said, still annoyed.
They passed a tavern, at which a few of the Cobalt Legion were resting. They had their helmets off and were enjoying beers and wine, along with something that looked suspiciously like bowls of ramen, or maybe udon.
Can't give James credit for THAT recipe.
He was surprised to learn that the people underneath the helmets looked both incredibly young, AND incredibly aged.
If he had to guess, he would've estimated the oldest of them as being no more than twenty five or so. And yet their eyes had bags under them, and haunted looks IN them. The men bore dark beard shadows and ALL of them had their hair cut incredibly short, including the few women.
In short, they reminded him of how a bunch of James's soldier friends looked when he'd met them a few times. Young, yet prematurely old.
He couldn't imagine what being both a soldieguard AND an anti-mage specialist in a city full of mages did to a person. But the faces he saw as they passed the tavern spoke to the weariness that duty put them through.
One of the guards looked at him curiously as he saw Joey's veiled and hooded head studying them. The guard was reaching for their helmet when the tavern server arrived and put a new round of drinks on their table.
Joey quickly looked away.
"I think that's the first stop." Nesvee said as she nudged his shoulder, breaking him out of his thoughts. She was pointing at a sign with a drawing of some gemstones and a monocle on it. She held up the notepad and looked at it again. "Yeah. There's a few crystal types on here." She confirmed. "Plus a few things that I think MIGHT... be crystals. I don't know what Mordian ice is. But I figure that jeweler should know."
Joey nodded and followed her. Though he was fairly certain that Mordian Ice was a type of liquid. He wasn't 100% certain, but he thought he'd seen a jar with that name on it in Veliry's lab in Petravus.
And just like that, the two of them were shopping in earnest.
They didn't notice a somewhat pudgy looking man walking about twenty yards behind them. He occasionally stopped to inspect something from the shops they passed, and even bought a cheese filled pastry from the bakery Joey had noticed.
But he always kept the two shoppers in his sight, even if only out of the corner of his eye.
Ekron waved his hand, causing his front door to swing open smoothly and silently.
"Good afternoon Ravyn." He said as he poured a cup of tea and set it in front of the chair to his left. "Timely as always."
The large half orc woman walked in calmly as he put two scoops of sugar in the tea for her. Just like she preferred.
"I still need the enchantment that keeps your door from slamming when it does that." She said as she presented her hand to him. He kissed it lightly, as he always did when he saw his old coworker. She looekd back and smiled as the door also closed itself just as silently. "Mine always makes such a racket." She said as she sat in the indicated chair and sipped the tea. "Mmmmm. Still remember my preference eh?" She asked as she swept her silver hair back over her shoulder and behind her ear.
"Vatrian crimson. Two scoops." He said as she made herself comfortable. "How have you been dear?" He asked.
"Quite well." She replied. "Pan gave birth to my third grand daughter last month."
Ekron smiled curtly. "Congratulations." He said. "I remember her when she was still just a toddler on your hip."
"Those were the days weren't they." She said with a raise of her glass and a similar smile. "Now tell me. What are these rumors I hear of you walking in the company of a messenger?" She asked. "I assume that IS... why you requested me to come here."
Ekron nodded. "It is." He admitted. "Though they AREN'T a messenger."
Her eyebrow rose, and she was about to ask how he knew that. But she was interrupted.
BANG!
The front door slammed open, causing Ekron to chew on his upper lip in annoyance.
"Ekkie!!!"Morris Kestin exclaimed as he swaggered into the building with his arms up as if he was some kind of performer walking on stage. Then he made a point of looking around in an exaggerated manner. "Where's our little messenger friend?"
Ekron did NOT pour a cup of tea for his former teammate.
"I've told you SO many times now, NOT to call me that." Ekron said. "And by the gods, its a door not your ass in a bar where you owe money. There's no need to kick it that hard." He said as he waved it shut again.
"And apparently he ISN'T a messenger." Ravyn said slyly. "Good afternoon Morris."
"Ravyn dear." Kestin said as he gestured for her to hug him. She stood briefly and obliged him. Unlike Ekron she'd never had an issue with Kestin's overly friendly nature. "You let him drag you into this too?"
"The whole city is on edge with news of a messenger." She replied as she settled again. "You know full well why I can't just stay away from something like that. Especially when our friend here is right at the middle of it."
Kestin waggled a finger at her. "In your tea again?" He asked as he plopped down in the chair on the opposite side of the table they were sat at.
Ekron cringed as Ravyn's face soured. To the extent that she ever let it.
She held her cup of tea up as she rolled with the joke, which had been made at her expense.
"Not for a few more sips." She said. It was no secret that soothsayers like her had been struggling for the past decade or so as contact with the gods had faded out, and then essentially dropped off entirely.
"So." Kestin said as he reached across the table and helped himself to the tea. "Is HE... coming? I mean. You called me and Ravyn. Belga is... well... not here anymore. HE's the only one left yeah?"
Ekron nodded uncomfortably.
"He's about to knock on my door as we speak." Ekron said before taking a long sip of his own tea.
"No I'm not." A muted voice said from outside. "Just open the damned thing."
Ekron took a deep breath. Then waved his hand.
When he did, the Commander of the Cobalt Legion stepped into his home and stood awkwardly in the doorway to the meeting/dining room they were seated at. Like the others from before, his armor sparked and flared as it interacted with the magic of the building.
Even under the dark blue helmet it was obvious that they were staring at Ekron. And he stared right back.
Then after an uncomfortably long silence, the armored knight removed his helmet.
Ekron's clean-shaven doppelganger stared back at him as he beheld the face of his twin brother for the first time in over a decade.
"Good evening Lady Hardfate." He said, breaking the silence as he showed deference to one of the most powerful fortune tellers in the land. Then he rolled his eyes as he looked at Kestin. "Kestin." He said simply.
"Good afternoon Commander." Ravyn said with a soft smile.
The Commander of the Cobalt Legion didn't take the chair so clearly intended for him, opting to stand instead.
"If this is about your NOT-messenger test subject you could have saved me a trip little brother." The knight said with obvious annoyance. "I likely know more about him than you do at this point."
"Oooh." Kestin said, drawing a look of even more annoyance. "Sounds like Lord Tobin has his spies looking into him."
"That's Lord Mattis to you." The commander corrected.
Ekron rubbed at the bridge of his nose in exasperation.
"He's a reincarnation... or... or a regeneration of some kind." He cut in.
The rest of them froze mid conversation to look at him in surprise.
"I suspect that whatever happened five and a half years ago in Petravus. Between the Hero and the vanishing blight." He continued. "I believe that whatever occurred... he died as a result. And now, by the grace of the gods, he's back."
"Impossible." Ravyn replied, surprising him. He'd expected that kind of reaction from his brother or Kestin, not her. "The gods are gone."
At that Kestin DID react.
"They're what?" The vagabond swordsman/mage asked.
She waved him away dismissively.
Ekron watched his brother's face intensely.
More specifically he watched how little that information surprised the stalwart man.
The two of them stared at each other as Ravyn and Kestin began to argue lightly with one another.
"Vann?" Ekron asked of his elder sibling. "I'm trying to help him. And prevent him from accidentally causing an international incident. Or a crisis of the faiths."
The other two silenced as they heard the quiet request.
"I've asked you three here to help me with that." Ekron continued. "Please tell me what you know."
Vann considered the not of pleading in his brother's voice as he looked at the others.
These were his closest friends. Or had been once upon a time. The remnants of their old dueling team, which had also doubled as an adventurer's party before he'd been accepted into the legion and started rising through the ranks.
He gritted his teeth a bit. He'd already been given explicit instructions by Lord Mattis.
"I can't tell you much." He said as he finally sat down. "But the Lord's people have come to... similar... conclusions." He admitted. "They're attempting to confirm that as we speak."
Ekron nodded, knowing that that was all he was getting.
"I need..." He said as he leaned forward in his seat. "I believe I'll need your help protecting him until we can figure out the truth about him. And whether or not his return is a good or bad sign from the gods."
Kestin pursed his lips. "You mean you're not dissecting him?" He asked. Ekron looked at him with annoyance. But that didn't make him feel as judged as Ravyn's expression did. "Fine." He said with his hands raised in mock surrender. "But you can tell your little bodyguard our deal's off."
Then they all turned as Vann spoke again.
"You know why I can't make that promise." He said simply. "If he IS who we suspect he is. Than he's a matter of National importance. And if it turns out that he IS... some kind of messenger or something. Then it becomes a religious matter." He tapped his finger on his helmet where it rested in front of him. "I have my duty Ek."
"And all I'm asking is that, until that duty requires otherwise, you and yours help protect him." Ekron countered.
Vann considered the request. But Ravyn spoke first.
"Why are you so invested in this one?" She asked.
"Because." Ekron replied, pointing at Kestin. "It's funny you mentioned Belga earlier." He said, causing all of them to look at him curiously. "He reminds me of her." He rolled his eyes as they all suddenly became uncomfortable. "Oh not like THAT." He reprimanded them. "But his mannerisms. His... I don't know. His temperament. I think that if she were still alive they would be kindred souls."
Vann looked down and away. They all knew the drama that had occurred between the two brothers on THAT matter. Hell, it was part of why he'd joined the legion.
Ravyn placed a hand on his arm before turning back to Ekron.
"If you think he's worth protecting." She said softly. "Then I'll help." She nodded a bit. "Besides, if the gods are affecting the world again then I need to know."
"If Ravyn's in, and if I can save some gold," Kestin weighed in. "then I'm in."
Ekron looked at his brother expectantly.
But Vann's face was as stern and unchanging as ever.
submitted by PepperAntique to GATEhouse [link] [comments]
Writer's Note: Meant to post this last week, but work got busy. Probably gonna be another chapter later this week.
As for the story, well, even old dudes have back stories.
Enjoy.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Joey did what he could to stay as calm as he could as he and Nesvee walked through the streets of the city.
For the first time since coming to this world he actually LOOKED like a mage. Well... minus a few fun dressup sessions when James had taken him shopping for clothes. He couldn't help but try on some robes and things at the time. But both James and the tailors had assured him that most mages didn't actually dress like that. Most dressed like either craftsmen, like Miss Veliry, or else simply dressed like nobles since their endeavors usually earned them good pay. Ekron fell into the latter group.
But Joey looked more like a D&D version of a mage or wizard.
Maybe a blade singer or something? He mused as his thoughts lingered on the rapier in his belt.
The outfit wasn't bad. He wore a long cloak of dark blue, with bits of dark green and light blue embroidery. It had a built in veil that went over his face. The whole thing was enchanted to conceal his magical nature even more intensely than the neck and wrist restraints had, and he was wearing those too. The veil and hood were both enchanted to conceal his antlers and obscure his face.
He looked like a technicolor wraith of some kind.
Even Nesvee had been unnerved by his appearance when he'd left his room wearing it.
That discomfort had quickly been dispelled when they'd gone more than twenty minutes without anyone giving him more than a passing glance.
"So the old man has a list of stuff he needs and where to get them." Nesvee said as she looked at the little notebook he'd given her. "As well as one person to seek out for a bit of assistance?" She said, questioning the last bit.
He looked at her curiously, forgetting that she couldn't see his face behind the veil.
"Some... Garthan... person." She said as she looked at the notes. "At a place called the... um... Tinnetha's Rest.... Says it's east of the lab by about six miles. Near the bar district." She looked thoughtful for a moment. "Why does that name sound familiar?"
"What else?" Joey asked, eager to simply get the day's tasks over with.
"Mostly just bits and pieces here and there." She replied. "Things he thinks will help with figuring out how to help you."
Joey nodded, making sure to exaggerate it a bit as he did so she would notice, then the two of them set off into the city.
Now that he had managed to calm down, and also wasn't being given any more attention than the occasional passing glance, Joey was able to take in the city of Ospiele with a more critical eye.
Initially he'd thought the city was in shambles. Their journey through the city over the course of the day did nothing to dispel that fact. But he did begin to notice things that gave him reason to think that there was a method to the madness.
For starters the sector of the city that they'd entered, and where Ekron's lab/home were located, seemed to be the only area devoted to dedicated mage laboratories. These buildings ranged from druidic (he assumed) forest groves that frequently spilled into their neighbors' lots, to almost Earth-like office-looking buildings. They also seemed to have been color coded based on their owner's magical proclivities. More than a few times magical outbursts would occur, causing passersby to rush out of the way of anything happening. For red buildings this was usually bursts of flame. For blue buildings it was usually sprays of water or ice. And for one incredibly dirty brown building the outburst actually took the form of half of the building rising several feet unexpectedly, breaking away from the other half with quite a bit of damage. The hastily nailed down boards and tiles spoke to this being a common occurrence.
One building had Cobalt Legion guards stationed outside of it, and people walking past made a point of walking in the street instead of walking on the path in front of it.
That building had been painted black, with subtle bits of red and green in some places.
At his questioning Nesvee explained that she'd noticed the same trend, and that upon questioning it Ekron had explained it was intentional. The Lord of the city, whom they'd met the day before, had required that the labs have their owner's specialties and focuses be easily identified by the city guard. This was so that they could know how to respond, and who to blame, if something went wrong that they needed to respond to.
This made the quiet grey and white coloration of Ekron's lab curious to Joey. He wondered if it was because the elder mage primarily focused on enchanting, and as such worked with more than one magic style.
When they got roughly three miles from the lab they encountered a check point of sorts. The guards there, more of the so-called Cobalt Legion, asked a few questions. Nesvee showed them a letter that explained they worked for Ekron and were simply going for supplies. Then they were allowed through.
On the other side of the check point the city almost looked normal. In fact if it weren't for the difference in architecture, which favored stone construction over lumber, Joey could've been convinced he was back in the Petravian capital.
Well, the architecture and the overabundance of magic users and enchanted items being used in every building they passed. Even in his current magical condition Joey could sense the overwhelming flow of magic. And almost everything that was being used seemed more advanced than in Petravus.
They passed a bakery where the goods were placed on a tray that was then placed on a conveyor belt. The belt then passed them between too sheets of metal that would slowly grow brighter and brighter red until the pastries and breads emerged from the other side. At that point the pan they were on would glow blue while vibrating noisily, cooling itself and also un-sticking the the foods cooked onto it before they could solidify. Then the tray would fall off the conveyor belt and slide into a display case where an employee was ready to take orders.
Don't remember anything that fancy even in the King's castle. Joey thought as they moved past.
"Hungry?" Nesvee asked. "Just wait until you see the shops up ahead." She added. "There's this place selling these new sandwiches from your neck of the woods in Petravus. They called them Hand Bulgers. The dwarf running it has a machine that mixes the meat and then another that shapes it into disks before he throws them on a grill."
"You mean hamburgers?" Joey asked, surprised to even hear of burgers this far from Petravus. Though he knew that the restaurant James had introduced them too in the capital had become insanely popular.
Nesvee shook her head. "No they're definitely hand bulgers."
She couldn't see it but Joey's face scrunched at that.
"Round shaped meat disk between round bread buns?" He asked. "Veggies and cheese and stuff in it too?" She nodded. "That's definitely a cheeseburger." He corrected her.
"Noooot according to the guy running the place." She countered.
"Well he's wrong." Joey assured her. "I would know. I'm FROM Petravus where they came from."
"Well you can tell him that yourself if you're willing to wait an hour to get through the line." She replied.
"I... think I'll pass." He said, still annoyed.
They passed a tavern, at which a few of the Cobalt Legion were resting. They had their helmets off and were enjoying beers and wine, along with something that looked suspiciously like bowls of ramen, or maybe udon.
Can't give James credit for THAT recipe.
He was surprised to learn that the people underneath the helmets looked both incredibly young, AND incredibly aged.
If he had to guess, he would've estimated the oldest of them as being no more than twenty five or so. And yet their eyes had bags under them, and haunted looks IN them. The men bore dark beard shadows and ALL of them had their hair cut incredibly short, including the few women.
In short, they reminded him of how a bunch of James's soldier friends looked when he'd met them a few times. Young, yet prematurely old.
He couldn't imagine what being both a soldieguard AND an anti-mage specialist in a city full of mages did to a person. But the faces he saw as they passed the tavern spoke to the weariness that duty put them through.
One of the guards looked at him curiously as he saw Joey's veiled and hooded head studying them. The guard was reaching for their helmet when the tavern server arrived and put a new round of drinks on their table.
Joey quickly looked away.
"I think that's the first stop." Nesvee said as she nudged his shoulder, breaking him out of his thoughts. She was pointing at a sign with a drawing of some gemstones and a monocle on it. She held up the notepad and looked at it again. "Yeah. There's a few crystal types on here." She confirmed. "Plus a few things that I think MIGHT... be crystals. I don't know what Mordian ice is. But I figure that jeweler should know."
Joey nodded and followed her. Though he was fairly certain that Mordian Ice was a type of liquid. He wasn't 100% certain, but he thought he'd seen a jar with that name on it in Veliry's lab in Petravus.
And just like that, the two of them were shopping in earnest.
They didn't notice a somewhat pudgy looking man walking about twenty yards behind them. He occasionally stopped to inspect something from the shops they passed, and even bought a cheese filled pastry from the bakery Joey had noticed.
But he always kept the two shoppers in his sight, even if only out of the corner of his eye.
Ekron waved his hand, causing his front door to swing open smoothly and silently.
"Good afternoon Ravyn." He said as he poured a cup of tea and set it in front of the chair to his left. "Timely as always."
The large half orc woman walked in calmly as he put two scoops of sugar in the tea for her. Just like she preferred.
"I still need the enchantment that keeps your door from slamming when it does that." She said as she presented her hand to him. He kissed it lightly, as he always did when he saw his old coworker. She looekd back and smiled as the door also closed itself just as silently. "Mine always makes such a racket." She said as she sat in the indicated chair and sipped the tea. "Mmmmm. Still remember my preference eh?" She asked as she swept her silver hair back over her shoulder and behind her ear.
"Vatrian crimson. Two scoops." He said as she made herself comfortable. "How have you been dear?" He asked.
"Quite well." She replied. "Pan gave birth to my third grand daughter last month."
Ekron smiled curtly. "Congratulations." He said. "I remember her when she was still just a toddler on your hip."
"Those were the days weren't they." She said with a raise of her glass and a similar smile. "Now tell me. What are these rumors I hear of you walking in the company of a messenger?" She asked. "I assume that IS... why you requested me to come here."
Ekron nodded. "It is." He admitted. "Though they AREN'T a messenger."
Her eyebrow rose, and she was about to ask how he knew that. But she was interrupted.
BANG!
The front door slammed open, causing Ekron to chew on his upper lip in annoyance.
"Ekkie!!!"Morris Kestin exclaimed as he swaggered into the building with his arms up as if he was some kind of performer walking on stage. Then he made a point of looking around in an exaggerated manner. "Where's our little messenger friend?"
Ekron did NOT pour a cup of tea for his former teammate.
"I've told you SO many times now, NOT to call me that." Ekron said. "And by the gods, its a door not your ass in a bar where you owe money. There's no need to kick it that hard." He said as he waved it shut again.
"And apparently he ISN'T a messenger." Ravyn said slyly. "Good afternoon Morris."
"Ravyn dear." Kestin said as he gestured for her to hug him. She stood briefly and obliged him. Unlike Ekron she'd never had an issue with Kestin's overly friendly nature. "You let him drag you into this too?"
"The whole city is on edge with news of a messenger." She replied as she settled again. "You know full well why I can't just stay away from something like that. Especially when our friend here is right at the middle of it."
Kestin waggled a finger at her. "In your tea again?" He asked as he plopped down in the chair on the opposite side of the table they were sat at.
Ekron cringed as Ravyn's face soured. To the extent that she ever let it.
She held her cup of tea up as she rolled with the joke, which had been made at her expense.
"Not for a few more sips." She said. It was no secret that soothsayers like her had been struggling for the past decade or so as contact with the gods had faded out, and then essentially dropped off entirely.
"So." Kestin said as he reached across the table and helped himself to the tea. "Is HE... coming? I mean. You called me and Ravyn. Belga is... well... not here anymore. HE's the only one left yeah?"
Ekron nodded uncomfortably.
"He's about to knock on my door as we speak." Ekron said before taking a long sip of his own tea.
"No I'm not." A muted voice said from outside. "Just open the damned thing."
Ekron took a deep breath. Then waved his hand.
When he did, the Commander of the Cobalt Legion stepped into his home and stood awkwardly in the doorway to the meeting/dining room they were seated at. Like the others from before, his armor sparked and flared as it interacted with the magic of the building.
Even under the dark blue helmet it was obvious that they were staring at Ekron. And he stared right back.
Then after an uncomfortably long silence, the armored knight removed his helmet.
Ekron's clean-shaven doppelganger stared back at him as he beheld the face of his twin brother for the first time in over a decade.
"Good evening Lady Hardfate." He said, breaking the silence as he showed deference to one of the most powerful fortune tellers in the land. Then he rolled his eyes as he looked at Kestin. "Kestin." He said simply.
"Good afternoon Commander." Ravyn said with a soft smile.
The Commander of the Cobalt Legion didn't take the chair so clearly intended for him, opting to stand instead.
"If this is about your NOT-messenger test subject you could have saved me a trip little brother." The knight said with obvious annoyance. "I likely know more about him than you do at this point."
"Oooh." Kestin said, drawing a look of even more annoyance. "Sounds like Lord Tobin has his spies looking into him."
"That's Lord Mattis to you." The commander corrected.
Ekron rubbed at the bridge of his nose in exasperation.
"He's a reincarnation... or... or a regeneration of some kind." He cut in.
The rest of them froze mid conversation to look at him in surprise.
"I suspect that whatever happened five and a half years ago in Petravus. Between the Hero and the vanishing blight." He continued. "I believe that whatever occurred... he died as a result. And now, by the grace of the gods, he's back."
"Impossible." Ravyn replied, surprising him. He'd expected that kind of reaction from his brother or Kestin, not her. "The gods are gone."
At that Kestin DID react.
"They're what?" The vagabond swordsman/mage asked.
She waved him away dismissively.
Ekron watched his brother's face intensely.
More specifically he watched how little that information surprised the stalwart man.
The two of them stared at each other as Ravyn and Kestin began to argue lightly with one another.
"Vann?" Ekron asked of his elder sibling. "I'm trying to help him. And prevent him from accidentally causing an international incident. Or a crisis of the faiths."
The other two silenced as they heard the quiet request.
"I've asked you three here to help me with that." Ekron continued. "Please tell me what you know."
Vann considered the not of pleading in his brother's voice as he looked at the others.
These were his closest friends. Or had been once upon a time. The remnants of their old dueling team, which had also doubled as an adventurer's party before he'd been accepted into the legion and started rising through the ranks.
He gritted his teeth a bit. He'd already been given explicit instructions by Lord Mattis.
"I can't tell you much." He said as he finally sat down. "But the Lord's people have come to... similar... conclusions." He admitted. "They're attempting to confirm that as we speak."
Ekron nodded, knowing that that was all he was getting.
"I need..." He said as he leaned forward in his seat. "I believe I'll need your help protecting him until we can figure out the truth about him. And whether or not his return is a good or bad sign from the gods."
Kestin pursed his lips. "You mean you're not dissecting him?" He asked. Ekron looked at him with annoyance. But that didn't make him feel as judged as Ravyn's expression did. "Fine." He said with his hands raised in mock surrender. "But you can tell your little bodyguard our deal's off."
Then they all turned as Vann spoke again.
"You know why I can't make that promise." He said simply. "If he IS who we suspect he is. Than he's a matter of National importance. And if it turns out that he IS... some kind of messenger or something. Then it becomes a religious matter." He tapped his finger on his helmet where it rested in front of him. "I have my duty Ek."
"And all I'm asking is that, until that duty requires otherwise, you and yours help protect him." Ekron countered.
Vann considered the request. But Ravyn spoke first.
"Why are you so invested in this one?" She asked.
"Because." Ekron replied, pointing at Kestin. "It's funny you mentioned Belga earlier." He said, causing all of them to look at him curiously. "He reminds me of her." He rolled his eyes as they all suddenly became uncomfortable. "Oh not like THAT." He reprimanded them. "But his mannerisms. His... I don't know. His temperament. I think that if she were still alive they would be kindred souls."
Vann looked down and away. They all knew the drama that had occurred between the two brothers on THAT matter. Hell, it was part of why he'd joined the legion.
Ravyn placed a hand on his arm before turning back to Ekron.
"If you think he's worth protecting." She said softly. "Then I'll help." She nodded a bit. "Besides, if the gods are affecting the world again then I need to know."
"If Ravyn's in, and if I can save some gold," Kestin weighed in. "then I'm in."
Ekron looked at his brother expectantly.
But Vann's face was as stern and unchanging as ever.
2024.05.20 19:33 PepperAntique Rebirth. Relearn. Return. -GATEverse- (14/?)
Previous / First
Writer's Note: Meant to post this last week, but work got busy. Probably gonna be another chapter later this week.
As for the story, well, even old dudes have back stories.
Enjoy.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Joey did what he could to stay as calm as he could as he and Nesvee walked through the streets of the city.
For the first time since coming to this world he actually LOOKED like a mage. Well... minus a few fun dressup sessions when James had taken him shopping for clothes. He couldn't help but try on some robes and things at the time. But both James and the tailors had assured him that most mages didn't actually dress like that. Most dressed like either craftsmen, like Miss Veliry, or else simply dressed like nobles since their endeavors usually earned them good pay. Ekron fell into the latter group.
But Joey looked more like a D&D version of a mage or wizard.
Maybe a blade singer or something? He mused as his thoughts lingered on the rapier in his belt.
The outfit wasn't bad. He wore a long cloak of dark blue, with bits of dark green and light blue embroidery. It had a built in veil that went over his face. The whole thing was enchanted to conceal his magical nature even more intensely than the neck and wrist restraints had, and he was wearing those too. The veil and hood were both enchanted to conceal his antlers and obscure his face.
He looked like a technicolor wraith of some kind.
Even Nesvee had been unnerved by his appearance when he'd left his room wearing it.
That discomfort had quickly been dispelled when they'd gone more than twenty minutes without anyone giving him more than a passing glance.
"So the old man has a list of stuff he needs and where to get them." Nesvee said as she looked at the little notebook he'd given her. "As well as one person to seek out for a bit of assistance?" She said, questioning the last bit.
He looked at her curiously, forgetting that she couldn't see his face behind the veil.
"Some... Garthan... person." She said as she looked at the notes. "At a place called the... um... Tinnetha's Rest.... Says it's east of the lab by about six miles. Near the bar district." She looked thoughtful for a moment. "Why does that name sound familiar?"
"What else?" Joey asked, eager to simply get the day's tasks over with.
"Mostly just bits and pieces here and there." She replied. "Things he thinks will help with figuring out how to help you."
Joey nodded, making sure to exaggerate it a bit as he did so she would notice, then the two of them set off into the city.
Now that he had managed to calm down, and also wasn't being given any more attention than the occasional passing glance, Joey was able to take in the city of Ospiele with a more critical eye.
Initially he'd thought the city was in shambles. Their journey through the city over the course of the day did nothing to dispel that fact. But he did begin to notice things that gave him reason to think that there was a method to the madness.
For starters the sector of the city that they'd entered, and where Ekron's lab/home were located, seemed to be the only area devoted to dedicated mage laboratories. These buildings ranged from druidic (he assumed) forest groves that frequently spilled into their neighbors' lots, to almost Earth-like office-looking buildings. They also seemed to have been color coded based on their owner's magical proclivities. More than a few times magical outbursts would occur, causing passersby to rush out of the way of anything happening. For red buildings this was usually bursts of flame. For blue buildings it was usually sprays of water or ice. And for one incredibly dirty brown building the outburst actually took the form of half of the building rising several feet unexpectedly, breaking away from the other half with quite a bit of damage. The hastily nailed down boards and tiles spoke to this being a common occurrence.
One building had Cobalt Legion guards stationed outside of it, and people walking past made a point of walking in the street instead of walking on the path in front of it.
That building had been painted black, with subtle bits of red and green in some places.
At his questioning Nesvee explained that she'd noticed the same trend, and that upon questioning it Ekron had explained it was intentional. The Lord of the city, whom they'd met the day before, had required that the labs have their owner's specialties and focuses be easily identified by the city guard. This was so that they could know how to respond, and who to blame, if something went wrong that they needed to respond to.
This made the quiet grey and white coloration of Ekron's lab curious to Joey. He wondered if it was because the elder mage primarily focused on enchanting, and as such worked with more than one magic style.
When they got roughly three miles from the lab they encountered a check point of sorts. The guards there, more of the so-called Cobalt Legion, asked a few questions. Nesvee showed them a letter that explained they worked for Ekron and were simply going for supplies. Then they were allowed through.
On the other side of the check point the city almost looked normal. In fact if it weren't for the difference in architecture, which favored stone construction over lumber, Joey could've been convinced he was back in the Petravian capital.
Well, the architecture and the overabundance of magic users and enchanted items being used in every building they passed. Even in his current magical condition Joey could sense the overwhelming flow of magic. And almost everything that was being used seemed more advanced than in Petravus.
They passed a bakery where the goods were placed on a tray that was then placed on a conveyor belt. The belt then passed them between too sheets of metal that would slowly grow brighter and brighter red until the pastries and breads emerged from the other side. At that point the pan they were on would glow blue while vibrating noisily, cooling itself and also un-sticking the the foods cooked onto it before they could solidify. Then the tray would fall off the conveyor belt and slide into a display case where an employee was ready to take orders.
Don't remember anything that fancy even in the King's castle. Joey thought as they moved past.
"Hungry?" Nesvee asked. "Just wait until you see the shops up ahead." She added. "There's this place selling these new sandwiches from your neck of the woods in Petravus. They called them Hand Bulgers. The dwarf running it has a machine that mixes the meat and then another that shapes it into disks before he throws them on a grill."
"You mean hamburgers?" Joey asked, surprised to even hear of burgers this far from Petravus. Though he knew that the restaurant James had introduced them too in the capital had become insanely popular.
Nesvee shook her head. "No they're definitely hand bulgers."
She couldn't see it but Joey's face scrunched at that.
"Round shaped meat disk between round bread buns?" He asked. "Veggies and cheese and stuff in it too?" She nodded. "That's definitely a cheeseburger." He corrected her.
"Noooot according to the guy running the place." She countered.
"Well he's wrong." Joey assured her. "I would know. I'm FROM Petravus where they came from."
"Well you can tell him that yourself if you're willing to wait an hour to get through the line." She replied.
"I... think I'll pass." He said, still annoyed.
They passed a tavern, at which a few of the Cobalt Legion were resting. They had their helmets off and were enjoying beers and wine, along with something that looked suspiciously like bowls of ramen, or maybe udon.
Can't give James credit for THAT recipe.
He was surprised to learn that the people underneath the helmets looked both incredibly young, AND incredibly aged.
If he had to guess, he would've estimated the oldest of them as being no more than twenty five or so. And yet their eyes had bags under them, and haunted looks IN them. The men bore dark beard shadows and ALL of them had their hair cut incredibly short, including the few women.
In short, they reminded him of how a bunch of James's soldier friends looked when he'd met them a few times. Young, yet prematurely old.
He couldn't imagine what being both a soldieguard AND an anti-mage specialist in a city full of mages did to a person. But the faces he saw as they passed the tavern spoke to the weariness that duty put them through.
One of the guards looked at him curiously as he saw Joey's veiled and hooded head studying them. The guard was reaching for their helmet when the tavern server arrived and put a new round of drinks on their table.
Joey quickly looked away.
"I think that's the first stop." Nesvee said as she nudged his shoulder, breaking him out of his thoughts. She was pointing at a sign with a drawing of some gemstones and a monocle on it. She held up the notepad and looked at it again. "Yeah. There's a few crystal types on here." She confirmed. "Plus a few things that I think MIGHT... be crystals. I don't know what Mordian ice is. But I figure that jeweler should know."
Joey nodded and followed her. Though he was fairly certain that Mordian Ice was a type of liquid. He wasn't 100% certain, but he thought he'd seen a jar with that name on it in Veliry's lab in Petravus.
And just like that, the two of them were shopping in earnest.
They didn't notice a somewhat pudgy looking man walking about twenty yards behind them. He occasionally stopped to inspect something from the shops they passed, and even bought a cheese filled pastry from the bakery Joey had noticed.
But he always kept the two shoppers in his sight, even if only out of the corner of his eye.
Ekron waved his hand, causing his front door to swing open smoothly and silently.
"Good afternoon Ravyn." He said as he poured a cup of tea and set it in front of the chair to his left. "Timely as always."
The large half orc woman walked in calmly as he put two scoops of sugar in the tea for her. Just like she preferred.
"I still need the enchantment that keeps your door from slamming when it does that." She said as she presented her hand to him. He kissed it lightly, as he always did when he saw his old coworker. She looekd back and smiled as the door also closed itself just as silently. "Mine always makes such a racket." She said as she sat in the indicated chair and sipped the tea. "Mmmmm. Still remember my preference eh?" She asked as she swept her silver hair back over her shoulder and behind her ear.
"Vatrian crimson. Two scoops." He said as she made herself comfortable. "How have you been dear?" He asked.
"Quite well." She replied. "Pan gave birth to my third grand daughter last month."
Ekron smiled curtly. "Congratulations." He said. "I remember her when she was still just a toddler on your hip."
"Those were the days weren't they." She said with a raise of her glass and a similar smile. "Now tell me. What are these rumors I hear of you walking in the company of a messenger?" She asked. "I assume that IS... why you requested me to come here."
Ekron nodded. "It is." He admitted. "Though they AREN'T a messenger."
Her eyebrow rose, and she was about to ask how he knew that. But she was interrupted.
BANG!
The front door slammed open, causing Ekron to chew on his upper lip in annoyance.
"Ekkie!!!"Morris Kestin exclaimed as he swaggered into the building with his arms up as if he was some kind of performer walking on stage. Then he made a point of looking around in an exaggerated manner. "Where's our little messenger friend?"
Ekron did NOT pour a cup of tea for his former teammate.
"I've told you SO many times now, NOT to call me that." Ekron said. "And by the gods, its a door not your ass in a bar where you owe money. There's no need to kick it that hard." He said as he waved it shut again.
"And apparently he ISN'T a messenger." Ravyn said slyly. "Good afternoon Morris."
"Ravyn dear." Kestin said as he gestured for her to hug him. She stood briefly and obliged him. Unlike Ekron she'd never had an issue with Kestin's overly friendly nature. "You let him drag you into this too?"
"The whole city is on edge with news of a messenger." She replied as she settled again. "You know full well why I can't just stay away from something like that. Especially when our friend here is right at the middle of it."
Kestin waggled a finger at her. "In your tea again?" He asked as he plopped down in the chair on the opposite side of the table they were sat at.
Ekron cringed as Ravyn's face soured. To the extent that she ever let it.
She held her cup of tea up as she rolled with the joke, which had been made at her expense.
"Not for a few more sips." She said. It was no secret that soothsayers like her had been struggling for the past decade or so as contact with the gods had faded out, and then essentially dropped off entirely.
"So." Kestin said as he reached across the table and helped himself to the tea. "Is HE... coming? I mean. You called me and Ravyn. Belga is... well... not here anymore. HE's the only one left yeah?"
Ekron nodded uncomfortably.
"He's about to knock on my door as we speak." Ekron said before taking a long sip of his own tea.
"No I'm not." A muted voice said from outside. "Just open the damned thing."
Ekron took a deep breath. Then waved his hand.
When he did, the Commander of the Cobalt Legion stepped into his home and stood awkwardly in the doorway to the meeting/dining room they were seated at. Like the others from before, his armor sparked and flared as it interacted with the magic of the building.
Even under the dark blue helmet it was obvious that they were staring at Ekron. And he stared right back.
Then after an uncomfortably long silence, the armored knight removed his helmet.
Ekron's clean-shaven doppelganger stared back at him as he beheld the face of his twin brother for the first time in over a decade.
"Good evening Lady Hardfate." He said, breaking the silence as he showed deference to one of the most powerful fortune tellers in the land. Then he rolled his eyes as he looked at Kestin. "Kestin." He said simply.
"Good afternoon Commander." Ravyn said with a soft smile.
The Commander of the Cobalt Legion didn't take the chair so clearly intended for him, opting to stand instead.
"If this is about your NOT-messenger test subject you could have saved me a trip little brother." The knight said with obvious annoyance. "I likely know more about him than you do at this point."
"Oooh." Kestin said, drawing a look of even more annoyance. "Sounds like Lord Tobin has his spies looking into him."
"That's Lord Mattis to you." The commander corrected.
Ekron rubbed at the bridge of his nose in exasperation.
"He's a reincarnation... or... or a regeneration of some kind." He cut in.
The rest of them froze mid conversation to look at him in surprise.
"I suspect that whatever happened five and a half years ago in Petravus. Between the Hero and the vanishing blight." He continued. "I believe that whatever occurred... he died as a result. And now, by the grace of the gods, he's back."
"Impossible." Ravyn replied, surprising him. He'd expected that kind of reaction from his brother or Kestin, not her. "The gods are gone."
At that Kestin DID react.
"They're what?" The vagabond swordsman/mage asked.
She waved him away dismissively.
Ekron watched his brother's face intensely.
More specifically he watched how little that information surprised the stalwart man.
The two of them stared at each other as Ravyn and Kestin began to argue lightly with one another.
"Vann?" Ekron asked of his elder sibling. "I'm trying to help him. And prevent him from accidentally causing an international incident. Or a crisis of the faiths."
The other two silenced as they heard the quiet request.
"I've asked you three here to help me with that." Ekron continued. "Please tell me what you know."
Vann considered the not of pleading in his brother's voice as he looked at the others.
These were his closest friends. Or had been once upon a time. The remnants of their old dueling team, which had also doubled as an adventurer's party before he'd been accepted into the legion and started rising through the ranks.
He gritted his teeth a bit. He'd already been given explicit instructions by Lord Mattis.
"I can't tell you much." He said as he finally sat down. "But the Lord's people have come to... similar... conclusions." He admitted. "They're attempting to confirm that as we speak."
Ekron nodded, knowing that that was all he was getting.
"I need..." He said as he leaned forward in his seat. "I believe I'll need your help protecting him until we can figure out the truth about him. And whether or not his return is a good or bad sign from the gods."
Kestin pursed his lips. "You mean you're not dissecting him?" He asked. Ekron looked at him with annoyance. But that didn't make him feel as judged as Ravyn's expression did. "Fine." He said with his hands raised in mock surrender. "But you can tell your little bodyguard our deal's off."
Then they all turned as Vann spoke again.
"You know why I can't make that promise." He said simply. "If he IS who we suspect he is. Than he's a matter of National importance. And if it turns out that he IS... some kind of messenger or something. Then it becomes a religious matter." He tapped his finger on his helmet where it rested in front of him. "I have my duty Ek."
"And all I'm asking is that, until that duty requires otherwise, you and yours help protect him." Ekron countered.
Vann considered the request. But Ravyn spoke first.
"Why are you so invested in this one?" She asked.
"Because." Ekron replied, pointing at Kestin. "It's funny you mentioned Belga earlier." He said, causing all of them to look at him curiously. "He reminds me of her." He rolled his eyes as they all suddenly became uncomfortable. "Oh not like THAT." He reprimanded them. "But his mannerisms. His... I don't know. His temperament. I think that if she were still alive they would be kindred souls."
Vann looked down and away. They all knew the drama that had occurred between the two brothers on THAT matter. Hell, it was part of why he'd joined the legion.
Ravyn placed a hand on his arm before turning back to Ekron.
"If you think he's worth protecting." She said softly. "Then I'll help." She nodded a bit. "Besides, if the gods are affecting the world again then I need to know."
"If Ravyn's in, and if I can save some gold," Kestin weighed in. "then I'm in."
Ekron looked at his brother expectantly.
But Vann's face was as stern and unchanging as ever.
submitted by PepperAntique to HFY [link] [comments]
Writer's Note: Meant to post this last week, but work got busy. Probably gonna be another chapter later this week.
As for the story, well, even old dudes have back stories.
Enjoy.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Joey did what he could to stay as calm as he could as he and Nesvee walked through the streets of the city.
For the first time since coming to this world he actually LOOKED like a mage. Well... minus a few fun dressup sessions when James had taken him shopping for clothes. He couldn't help but try on some robes and things at the time. But both James and the tailors had assured him that most mages didn't actually dress like that. Most dressed like either craftsmen, like Miss Veliry, or else simply dressed like nobles since their endeavors usually earned them good pay. Ekron fell into the latter group.
But Joey looked more like a D&D version of a mage or wizard.
Maybe a blade singer or something? He mused as his thoughts lingered on the rapier in his belt.
The outfit wasn't bad. He wore a long cloak of dark blue, with bits of dark green and light blue embroidery. It had a built in veil that went over his face. The whole thing was enchanted to conceal his magical nature even more intensely than the neck and wrist restraints had, and he was wearing those too. The veil and hood were both enchanted to conceal his antlers and obscure his face.
He looked like a technicolor wraith of some kind.
Even Nesvee had been unnerved by his appearance when he'd left his room wearing it.
That discomfort had quickly been dispelled when they'd gone more than twenty minutes without anyone giving him more than a passing glance.
"So the old man has a list of stuff he needs and where to get them." Nesvee said as she looked at the little notebook he'd given her. "As well as one person to seek out for a bit of assistance?" She said, questioning the last bit.
He looked at her curiously, forgetting that she couldn't see his face behind the veil.
"Some... Garthan... person." She said as she looked at the notes. "At a place called the... um... Tinnetha's Rest.... Says it's east of the lab by about six miles. Near the bar district." She looked thoughtful for a moment. "Why does that name sound familiar?"
"What else?" Joey asked, eager to simply get the day's tasks over with.
"Mostly just bits and pieces here and there." She replied. "Things he thinks will help with figuring out how to help you."
Joey nodded, making sure to exaggerate it a bit as he did so she would notice, then the two of them set off into the city.
Now that he had managed to calm down, and also wasn't being given any more attention than the occasional passing glance, Joey was able to take in the city of Ospiele with a more critical eye.
Initially he'd thought the city was in shambles. Their journey through the city over the course of the day did nothing to dispel that fact. But he did begin to notice things that gave him reason to think that there was a method to the madness.
For starters the sector of the city that they'd entered, and where Ekron's lab/home were located, seemed to be the only area devoted to dedicated mage laboratories. These buildings ranged from druidic (he assumed) forest groves that frequently spilled into their neighbors' lots, to almost Earth-like office-looking buildings. They also seemed to have been color coded based on their owner's magical proclivities. More than a few times magical outbursts would occur, causing passersby to rush out of the way of anything happening. For red buildings this was usually bursts of flame. For blue buildings it was usually sprays of water or ice. And for one incredibly dirty brown building the outburst actually took the form of half of the building rising several feet unexpectedly, breaking away from the other half with quite a bit of damage. The hastily nailed down boards and tiles spoke to this being a common occurrence.
One building had Cobalt Legion guards stationed outside of it, and people walking past made a point of walking in the street instead of walking on the path in front of it.
That building had been painted black, with subtle bits of red and green in some places.
At his questioning Nesvee explained that she'd noticed the same trend, and that upon questioning it Ekron had explained it was intentional. The Lord of the city, whom they'd met the day before, had required that the labs have their owner's specialties and focuses be easily identified by the city guard. This was so that they could know how to respond, and who to blame, if something went wrong that they needed to respond to.
This made the quiet grey and white coloration of Ekron's lab curious to Joey. He wondered if it was because the elder mage primarily focused on enchanting, and as such worked with more than one magic style.
When they got roughly three miles from the lab they encountered a check point of sorts. The guards there, more of the so-called Cobalt Legion, asked a few questions. Nesvee showed them a letter that explained they worked for Ekron and were simply going for supplies. Then they were allowed through.
On the other side of the check point the city almost looked normal. In fact if it weren't for the difference in architecture, which favored stone construction over lumber, Joey could've been convinced he was back in the Petravian capital.
Well, the architecture and the overabundance of magic users and enchanted items being used in every building they passed. Even in his current magical condition Joey could sense the overwhelming flow of magic. And almost everything that was being used seemed more advanced than in Petravus.
They passed a bakery where the goods were placed on a tray that was then placed on a conveyor belt. The belt then passed them between too sheets of metal that would slowly grow brighter and brighter red until the pastries and breads emerged from the other side. At that point the pan they were on would glow blue while vibrating noisily, cooling itself and also un-sticking the the foods cooked onto it before they could solidify. Then the tray would fall off the conveyor belt and slide into a display case where an employee was ready to take orders.
Don't remember anything that fancy even in the King's castle. Joey thought as they moved past.
"Hungry?" Nesvee asked. "Just wait until you see the shops up ahead." She added. "There's this place selling these new sandwiches from your neck of the woods in Petravus. They called them Hand Bulgers. The dwarf running it has a machine that mixes the meat and then another that shapes it into disks before he throws them on a grill."
"You mean hamburgers?" Joey asked, surprised to even hear of burgers this far from Petravus. Though he knew that the restaurant James had introduced them too in the capital had become insanely popular.
Nesvee shook her head. "No they're definitely hand bulgers."
She couldn't see it but Joey's face scrunched at that.
"Round shaped meat disk between round bread buns?" He asked. "Veggies and cheese and stuff in it too?" She nodded. "That's definitely a cheeseburger." He corrected her.
"Noooot according to the guy running the place." She countered.
"Well he's wrong." Joey assured her. "I would know. I'm FROM Petravus where they came from."
"Well you can tell him that yourself if you're willing to wait an hour to get through the line." She replied.
"I... think I'll pass." He said, still annoyed.
They passed a tavern, at which a few of the Cobalt Legion were resting. They had their helmets off and were enjoying beers and wine, along with something that looked suspiciously like bowls of ramen, or maybe udon.
Can't give James credit for THAT recipe.
He was surprised to learn that the people underneath the helmets looked both incredibly young, AND incredibly aged.
If he had to guess, he would've estimated the oldest of them as being no more than twenty five or so. And yet their eyes had bags under them, and haunted looks IN them. The men bore dark beard shadows and ALL of them had their hair cut incredibly short, including the few women.
In short, they reminded him of how a bunch of James's soldier friends looked when he'd met them a few times. Young, yet prematurely old.
He couldn't imagine what being both a soldieguard AND an anti-mage specialist in a city full of mages did to a person. But the faces he saw as they passed the tavern spoke to the weariness that duty put them through.
One of the guards looked at him curiously as he saw Joey's veiled and hooded head studying them. The guard was reaching for their helmet when the tavern server arrived and put a new round of drinks on their table.
Joey quickly looked away.
"I think that's the first stop." Nesvee said as she nudged his shoulder, breaking him out of his thoughts. She was pointing at a sign with a drawing of some gemstones and a monocle on it. She held up the notepad and looked at it again. "Yeah. There's a few crystal types on here." She confirmed. "Plus a few things that I think MIGHT... be crystals. I don't know what Mordian ice is. But I figure that jeweler should know."
Joey nodded and followed her. Though he was fairly certain that Mordian Ice was a type of liquid. He wasn't 100% certain, but he thought he'd seen a jar with that name on it in Veliry's lab in Petravus.
And just like that, the two of them were shopping in earnest.
They didn't notice a somewhat pudgy looking man walking about twenty yards behind them. He occasionally stopped to inspect something from the shops they passed, and even bought a cheese filled pastry from the bakery Joey had noticed.
But he always kept the two shoppers in his sight, even if only out of the corner of his eye.
Ekron waved his hand, causing his front door to swing open smoothly and silently.
"Good afternoon Ravyn." He said as he poured a cup of tea and set it in front of the chair to his left. "Timely as always."
The large half orc woman walked in calmly as he put two scoops of sugar in the tea for her. Just like she preferred.
"I still need the enchantment that keeps your door from slamming when it does that." She said as she presented her hand to him. He kissed it lightly, as he always did when he saw his old coworker. She looekd back and smiled as the door also closed itself just as silently. "Mine always makes such a racket." She said as she sat in the indicated chair and sipped the tea. "Mmmmm. Still remember my preference eh?" She asked as she swept her silver hair back over her shoulder and behind her ear.
"Vatrian crimson. Two scoops." He said as she made herself comfortable. "How have you been dear?" He asked.
"Quite well." She replied. "Pan gave birth to my third grand daughter last month."
Ekron smiled curtly. "Congratulations." He said. "I remember her when she was still just a toddler on your hip."
"Those were the days weren't they." She said with a raise of her glass and a similar smile. "Now tell me. What are these rumors I hear of you walking in the company of a messenger?" She asked. "I assume that IS... why you requested me to come here."
Ekron nodded. "It is." He admitted. "Though they AREN'T a messenger."
Her eyebrow rose, and she was about to ask how he knew that. But she was interrupted.
BANG!
The front door slammed open, causing Ekron to chew on his upper lip in annoyance.
"Ekkie!!!"Morris Kestin exclaimed as he swaggered into the building with his arms up as if he was some kind of performer walking on stage. Then he made a point of looking around in an exaggerated manner. "Where's our little messenger friend?"
Ekron did NOT pour a cup of tea for his former teammate.
"I've told you SO many times now, NOT to call me that." Ekron said. "And by the gods, its a door not your ass in a bar where you owe money. There's no need to kick it that hard." He said as he waved it shut again.
"And apparently he ISN'T a messenger." Ravyn said slyly. "Good afternoon Morris."
"Ravyn dear." Kestin said as he gestured for her to hug him. She stood briefly and obliged him. Unlike Ekron she'd never had an issue with Kestin's overly friendly nature. "You let him drag you into this too?"
"The whole city is on edge with news of a messenger." She replied as she settled again. "You know full well why I can't just stay away from something like that. Especially when our friend here is right at the middle of it."
Kestin waggled a finger at her. "In your tea again?" He asked as he plopped down in the chair on the opposite side of the table they were sat at.
Ekron cringed as Ravyn's face soured. To the extent that she ever let it.
She held her cup of tea up as she rolled with the joke, which had been made at her expense.
"Not for a few more sips." She said. It was no secret that soothsayers like her had been struggling for the past decade or so as contact with the gods had faded out, and then essentially dropped off entirely.
"So." Kestin said as he reached across the table and helped himself to the tea. "Is HE... coming? I mean. You called me and Ravyn. Belga is... well... not here anymore. HE's the only one left yeah?"
Ekron nodded uncomfortably.
"He's about to knock on my door as we speak." Ekron said before taking a long sip of his own tea.
"No I'm not." A muted voice said from outside. "Just open the damned thing."
Ekron took a deep breath. Then waved his hand.
When he did, the Commander of the Cobalt Legion stepped into his home and stood awkwardly in the doorway to the meeting/dining room they were seated at. Like the others from before, his armor sparked and flared as it interacted with the magic of the building.
Even under the dark blue helmet it was obvious that they were staring at Ekron. And he stared right back.
Then after an uncomfortably long silence, the armored knight removed his helmet.
Ekron's clean-shaven doppelganger stared back at him as he beheld the face of his twin brother for the first time in over a decade.
"Good evening Lady Hardfate." He said, breaking the silence as he showed deference to one of the most powerful fortune tellers in the land. Then he rolled his eyes as he looked at Kestin. "Kestin." He said simply.
"Good afternoon Commander." Ravyn said with a soft smile.
The Commander of the Cobalt Legion didn't take the chair so clearly intended for him, opting to stand instead.
"If this is about your NOT-messenger test subject you could have saved me a trip little brother." The knight said with obvious annoyance. "I likely know more about him than you do at this point."
"Oooh." Kestin said, drawing a look of even more annoyance. "Sounds like Lord Tobin has his spies looking into him."
"That's Lord Mattis to you." The commander corrected.
Ekron rubbed at the bridge of his nose in exasperation.
"He's a reincarnation... or... or a regeneration of some kind." He cut in.
The rest of them froze mid conversation to look at him in surprise.
"I suspect that whatever happened five and a half years ago in Petravus. Between the Hero and the vanishing blight." He continued. "I believe that whatever occurred... he died as a result. And now, by the grace of the gods, he's back."
"Impossible." Ravyn replied, surprising him. He'd expected that kind of reaction from his brother or Kestin, not her. "The gods are gone."
At that Kestin DID react.
"They're what?" The vagabond swordsman/mage asked.
She waved him away dismissively.
Ekron watched his brother's face intensely.
More specifically he watched how little that information surprised the stalwart man.
The two of them stared at each other as Ravyn and Kestin began to argue lightly with one another.
"Vann?" Ekron asked of his elder sibling. "I'm trying to help him. And prevent him from accidentally causing an international incident. Or a crisis of the faiths."
The other two silenced as they heard the quiet request.
"I've asked you three here to help me with that." Ekron continued. "Please tell me what you know."
Vann considered the not of pleading in his brother's voice as he looked at the others.
These were his closest friends. Or had been once upon a time. The remnants of their old dueling team, which had also doubled as an adventurer's party before he'd been accepted into the legion and started rising through the ranks.
He gritted his teeth a bit. He'd already been given explicit instructions by Lord Mattis.
"I can't tell you much." He said as he finally sat down. "But the Lord's people have come to... similar... conclusions." He admitted. "They're attempting to confirm that as we speak."
Ekron nodded, knowing that that was all he was getting.
"I need..." He said as he leaned forward in his seat. "I believe I'll need your help protecting him until we can figure out the truth about him. And whether or not his return is a good or bad sign from the gods."
Kestin pursed his lips. "You mean you're not dissecting him?" He asked. Ekron looked at him with annoyance. But that didn't make him feel as judged as Ravyn's expression did. "Fine." He said with his hands raised in mock surrender. "But you can tell your little bodyguard our deal's off."
Then they all turned as Vann spoke again.
"You know why I can't make that promise." He said simply. "If he IS who we suspect he is. Than he's a matter of National importance. And if it turns out that he IS... some kind of messenger or something. Then it becomes a religious matter." He tapped his finger on his helmet where it rested in front of him. "I have my duty Ek."
"And all I'm asking is that, until that duty requires otherwise, you and yours help protect him." Ekron countered.
Vann considered the request. But Ravyn spoke first.
"Why are you so invested in this one?" She asked.
"Because." Ekron replied, pointing at Kestin. "It's funny you mentioned Belga earlier." He said, causing all of them to look at him curiously. "He reminds me of her." He rolled his eyes as they all suddenly became uncomfortable. "Oh not like THAT." He reprimanded them. "But his mannerisms. His... I don't know. His temperament. I think that if she were still alive they would be kindred souls."
Vann looked down and away. They all knew the drama that had occurred between the two brothers on THAT matter. Hell, it was part of why he'd joined the legion.
Ravyn placed a hand on his arm before turning back to Ekron.
"If you think he's worth protecting." She said softly. "Then I'll help." She nodded a bit. "Besides, if the gods are affecting the world again then I need to know."
"If Ravyn's in, and if I can save some gold," Kestin weighed in. "then I'm in."
Ekron looked at his brother expectantly.
But Vann's face was as stern and unchanging as ever.
2024.05.20 18:51 TurbulentDisposition What is this? It recurs every few months or so, seemingly out of the blue
 | These red welts that look like insect bites will just randomly show up on my arm after I wake up. They constantly weep clear fluid, which solidifies into like a sort of "cap" over the center of each welt. By the way before anyone says fleas or bedbugs, I can assure you it's not them. submitted by TurbulentDisposition to DermatologyQuestions [link] [comments] I'll vividly remember not having them before going to bed, but as soon as I wake up they are there. |
2024.05.20 18:35 Casper_cass REMICADE side effects?
What side-effects big or small have you ever noticed on remicade infusions? I've had 6 infusions at this point, my last two being double the dosage because I wasn't responding well enough to it. I'm fair skinned and redheaded so I know all about sensitive skin, but ever since I got double the dose my skin has been crazy. First itchy bad, then sensitive to the touch. like if i bumped my arm, instant bruise. if I scratched my skin while putting on clothes, instant welts. My skin is sensitive x10 now and I can only reason that its the infusions. last week i had some chips for the first time in about a year. (been flaring for about 16 months) and i noticed that afterwards my mouth felt like i had tiny cuts everywhere. even my tongue hurt. This week the inside of my lips are inflamed. like where my lips natural touch my teeth, there's a red line and it hurts to even talk. I also bite my cheek two weeks ago in my sleep and it still hasn't healed. so many weird things are happening to me. And my doc is being dismissive.
Anyone else having strange side effects to any infusions?
submitted by Casper_cass to UlcerativeColitis [link] [comments]
Anyone else having strange side effects to any infusions?
2024.05.20 16:23 SimbaTheSavage8 My town's roots run deep, but not for the reason you think (Incomplete NS 4)
“Eat your carrots!”
I didn’t know why Mr Turrac said that for every meal. It was not like I was some three-year-old toddler who makes a scene the moment the broccoli comes out. I’m fourteen, for goodness sake, and left alone so many times that I know what’s good for me.
At first I dismissed it as an old people thing. Mr Turrac lived next door to us—and he might as well be as old as Father Time Himself. His hair was gray and thin, and every so often it would fall out in cloud-like clumps. He peered at me behind silver-rimmed spectacles perched on his nose.
But this carrot thing was getting a little out of hand. Yesterday we had carrot soup and carrot pie. Today, as I came down for lunch, I found carrot sashimi on the table.
Which was basically carrot shaved into flowers and served on a plate.
“Uncle,” I said politely. Mr Turrac liked it when I called him that. That’s how you treat your elders, boy!
“Don’t we have anything else to eat? Like…” I frantically searched my mind as Mr Turrac’s face grew increasingly red. “A…a plate of stir-fried broccoli. Or a salad! Or…”
Mr Turrac slammed the table. The plates jumped. “You eat what’s in front of you, and nothing else! Do you understand, boy?”
I avoided his glare and stared down at my plate. “Yes, Uncle.”
We ate in silence, but Mr Turrac seemed…distracted. Instead of staring me down, his eyes boring into the back of his head as I ate like the good boy he wanted me to be, he kept on looking out of the window at the garden outside. The grass was dressed in emerald, and swayed lightly to a beat only they could hear.
His fingers danced longingly on the table.
“There is something I need to do. Don’t you dare leave the table until every bite is finished, boy!”
He left then, slamming the door behind him. I immediately ran to the window and saw Mr Turrac walking blissfully into the garden. Then he sighed and sank deep into the soil until you could only see his chest and head. Soil swam and curled around him like the waves in the ocean.
I sprinted outside and crouched down on the soil beside him. The soil was wet. The air smelled fresh, like it just rained.
Mr Turrac looked content. Peaceful.
Like he belonged there.
“Soak it up,” I heard him mumble. “This is good. Really good.”
I looked past him and saw others getting into the soil. Rows of rows of people just quietly exiting their houses or their cars and burying themselves into fresh earth. Yet they were all different, in one way or another. Some of them were deep into the ground, like Mr Turrac was. Others only had their feet buried, but were raising their arms high into the air like they were trees.
They were staring at me. Unblinking.
Shivers rippled through my spine. Their faces were still, as if carved out of stone, and with an expression I could not quite describe. It wasn’t terror; but it wasn’t peaceful either. It was something in between, and it freaked me out.
“The soil is nice, boy.”
Their voices echoed in the silent air, twisting and turning into each other so no
Author's Note
Yeah, I can't remember this one exactly, other than the fact that it became repetitive so I lost interest. I think it was about people turning into vegetables?
submitted by SimbaTheSavage8 to SimbaKingdom [link] [comments]
I didn’t know why Mr Turrac said that for every meal. It was not like I was some three-year-old toddler who makes a scene the moment the broccoli comes out. I’m fourteen, for goodness sake, and left alone so many times that I know what’s good for me.
At first I dismissed it as an old people thing. Mr Turrac lived next door to us—and he might as well be as old as Father Time Himself. His hair was gray and thin, and every so often it would fall out in cloud-like clumps. He peered at me behind silver-rimmed spectacles perched on his nose.
But this carrot thing was getting a little out of hand. Yesterday we had carrot soup and carrot pie. Today, as I came down for lunch, I found carrot sashimi on the table.
Which was basically carrot shaved into flowers and served on a plate.
“Uncle,” I said politely. Mr Turrac liked it when I called him that. That’s how you treat your elders, boy!
“Don’t we have anything else to eat? Like…” I frantically searched my mind as Mr Turrac’s face grew increasingly red. “A…a plate of stir-fried broccoli. Or a salad! Or…”
Mr Turrac slammed the table. The plates jumped. “You eat what’s in front of you, and nothing else! Do you understand, boy?”
I avoided his glare and stared down at my plate. “Yes, Uncle.”
We ate in silence, but Mr Turrac seemed…distracted. Instead of staring me down, his eyes boring into the back of his head as I ate like the good boy he wanted me to be, he kept on looking out of the window at the garden outside. The grass was dressed in emerald, and swayed lightly to a beat only they could hear.
His fingers danced longingly on the table.
“There is something I need to do. Don’t you dare leave the table until every bite is finished, boy!”
He left then, slamming the door behind him. I immediately ran to the window and saw Mr Turrac walking blissfully into the garden. Then he sighed and sank deep into the soil until you could only see his chest and head. Soil swam and curled around him like the waves in the ocean.
I sprinted outside and crouched down on the soil beside him. The soil was wet. The air smelled fresh, like it just rained.
Mr Turrac looked content. Peaceful.
Like he belonged there.
“Soak it up,” I heard him mumble. “This is good. Really good.”
I looked past him and saw others getting into the soil. Rows of rows of people just quietly exiting their houses or their cars and burying themselves into fresh earth. Yet they were all different, in one way or another. Some of them were deep into the ground, like Mr Turrac was. Others only had their feet buried, but were raising their arms high into the air like they were trees.
They were staring at me. Unblinking.
Shivers rippled through my spine. Their faces were still, as if carved out of stone, and with an expression I could not quite describe. It wasn’t terror; but it wasn’t peaceful either. It was something in between, and it freaked me out.
“The soil is nice, boy.”
Their voices echoed in the silent air, twisting and turning into each other so no
Yeah, I can't remember this one exactly, other than the fact that it became repetitive so I lost interest. I think it was about people turning into vegetables?
2024.05.20 15:48 Busy_Neighborhood590 It is ok for a parent to have a “sad beige baby”
Not only is it ok, I think it’s preferable.
For those not aware of what a “sad beige baby” is:
Sad beige babies refer to children that live in homes that are full of neutral colors and/or have a minimalistic style. There is little to no bold colors or plastic toys. This also refers to the clothes they wear: neutrals, saturated colors. Little to no bold colors or character graphics.
I will refer to sad beige babies as SBB from here on out.
Parents of SBB get a lot of flack. One comment I see often is that it stunts their growth to “not be exposed to color”.
I can’t stand this remark because it implies that a child is only exposed to their home. To me, a home should be the cool down place. The world is full of color. First of all, nature is full of bold colors. You simply have to look out a window to see bright blues and greens.
Even if natural color isn’t good enough, there are no shortage of places to expose your children to bold color. The grocery store, indoor play gyms, aquariums, preschools, etc. Target alone flashes a bold red at you from the moment you pull in to the parking lot.
The only way a child’s growth can be stunted from lack of color is if they are never allowed outside which is a problem beyond their parent’s styling choices.
My biggest gripe is when someone posts their neutral toned nursery and people give them flack for not over stimulating the place where a baby is trying to learn to SLEEP.
A child does not need bold color flashing in their face every second of the day. Between the outside world and television, it’s ok for the home to be the one place where you take a break from that. A place to find peace and calm from a world that is loud with color.
As far as clothes go: clothes are clothes. A baby or toddler doesn’t care. Yes they may like a Bluey or paw patrol shirt as a toddler but then you have to deal with the fixation of only them wanting to wear what they are currently obsessed with. So you buy 7 encanto shirts but then your kid discovers frozen, you buy 1 Elsa shirt and suddenly that’s all they want to wear. All of this could be avoided if you just bought regular solids to start with.
I also believe that character clothes can be a distraction in school settings. One kid has a Bluey shirt and suddenly the kids are all talking about Bluey. Talking about TV is fine if it comes up organically but I’d rather my kids focus on their friend’s personality and not what their friends are wearing.
TLDR: it’s ok to not have your baby exposed to bold color 24/7. That doesn’t make them sad or stunted
submitted by Busy_Neighborhood590 to unpopularopinion [link] [comments]
For those not aware of what a “sad beige baby” is:
Sad beige babies refer to children that live in homes that are full of neutral colors and/or have a minimalistic style. There is little to no bold colors or plastic toys. This also refers to the clothes they wear: neutrals, saturated colors. Little to no bold colors or character graphics.
I will refer to sad beige babies as SBB from here on out.
Parents of SBB get a lot of flack. One comment I see often is that it stunts their growth to “not be exposed to color”.
I can’t stand this remark because it implies that a child is only exposed to their home. To me, a home should be the cool down place. The world is full of color. First of all, nature is full of bold colors. You simply have to look out a window to see bright blues and greens.
Even if natural color isn’t good enough, there are no shortage of places to expose your children to bold color. The grocery store, indoor play gyms, aquariums, preschools, etc. Target alone flashes a bold red at you from the moment you pull in to the parking lot.
The only way a child’s growth can be stunted from lack of color is if they are never allowed outside which is a problem beyond their parent’s styling choices.
My biggest gripe is when someone posts their neutral toned nursery and people give them flack for not over stimulating the place where a baby is trying to learn to SLEEP.
A child does not need bold color flashing in their face every second of the day. Between the outside world and television, it’s ok for the home to be the one place where you take a break from that. A place to find peace and calm from a world that is loud with color.
As far as clothes go: clothes are clothes. A baby or toddler doesn’t care. Yes they may like a Bluey or paw patrol shirt as a toddler but then you have to deal with the fixation of only them wanting to wear what they are currently obsessed with. So you buy 7 encanto shirts but then your kid discovers frozen, you buy 1 Elsa shirt and suddenly that’s all they want to wear. All of this could be avoided if you just bought regular solids to start with.
I also believe that character clothes can be a distraction in school settings. One kid has a Bluey shirt and suddenly the kids are all talking about Bluey. Talking about TV is fine if it comes up organically but I’d rather my kids focus on their friend’s personality and not what their friends are wearing.
TLDR: it’s ok to not have your baby exposed to bold color 24/7. That doesn’t make them sad or stunted
2024.05.20 15:20 DejureWaffles1066 Ellyn Moore, Cavalier, The Discarded Lady
Reddit Account: u/Dejurewaffles1066
Discord Tag: Garin
Name and House: Ellyn Moore
Age: 25
Cultural Group: Valeman
Appearance: Of middling height and red hair, Ellyn has spent the last four years in constant training and increasingly eschews the courtly manners she was taught in favor of a direct and frank mode of speaking and acting, thoroughly disillusioned with subtleties and empty flattery. Her eyes can be rather intense and seldom evade contact.
Trait: Brave
Skills: Swords (e), Two-handed weapons (swords), Brute, Errantly
Talents: Weaving, Fishing, Hawking
Negative trait: N/A
Starting title: Scion of house Moore, Cavalier
Starting Location: Greyhelm
Alternate Characters: Dorian Merryweather
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The tapestries of andal knights, fearlessly facing their enemies with gleaming greatswords captured her imagination already as a child, and she began training beside her brothers. They were fairly accepting of this, and so Lord Moore let it slide as long as Ellyn did not skip other lessons for the sake of training, however when the Cavaliers were formed, it would not be many years before his daughter began to speak of joining, in hushed tones at first but ever more loudly as time went on. When she turned sixteen, Ellyn asked for permission to join and was promptly shut down. Instead Lord Berrick took his family on a visit to Snakewood, where Ellyn was introduced to the heir of the house, who had become her betrothed by the end of the visit. her betrothed did not come accross as a cruel or mean-spirited man, yet he was also not particularly strong-willed, a fact which would later become painfully aparent
Soon after her eighteenth nameday, Ellyn married the heir to House Lynderly, moving to Snakewood. Three things quickly became obvious to Ellyn. Firstly, even as a man grown, her husband had few opinions of his own, preferring to hear the verdict of his parents and adjust to it. Secondly, the maester in House Lynderly's service had little knowledge of medicine, and somehow even less of how to practice it on women. This fact became clear from the third revelation, she was already with child, probably since her wedding night. This was celebrated as a sign of good luck and the blessing of the gods. The final outcome would prove a hellish ordeal. The labor would become a protracted affair as Ellyn struggled. Something was clearly wrong, and the maester was utterly clueless in regards to a solution. By the time the idea of cutting the child out of her was being proposed, the impasse finally ended and her daughter was born, as if by the Mother's much belated mercy. At this point a hedge-maester was called in, ostensibly as assistant to the Maester of Snakewood. In practice, the dornishman named Marcel took over her care, and his clueless colleague was happy for an excuse to leave the room. He would stay to nurse her back to health, a process which took more than three months.
By then the warning signs were already showing. Leyla, her daughter, could not even look straight at someone, her gaze constantly shifting and her pupils often turning in opposite directions. Ellyn requested that Marcel stay at Sanekwood to monitor the girl and the Lynderlys obliged, their maester being no more skilled in treating children than women. At age one Leyla was not learning to walk, and struggled to even crawl or lay still. The Lynderlys assumed the child to be dim-witted, an ill omen. Furthermore, even a year after the birth, Ellyn's cycle had not returned to normal, becoming infrequent and irregular. For two more years she and her husband were urged to try to produce a suitable heir, unlike their daughter, however Ellyn proved incapable of conceiving another child. She was increasingly left to her own devices, and began to take up her old swordsmanship again, a way to remind herself and those around her that she hadn't died that night, even if her in-laws increasingly seemed to treat her as such.
Meanwhile Marcel continued to monitor Leyla's condition, unconvinced by the analysis of Snakewood's regular maester. He eventually concluded the condition to be palsy, and that the girl might eventually learn to control the spasms of her limbs, fashioning straps that would limit the movement in her arms and legs, allowing her to begin to practice moving them deliberately rather than involuntarily.
By 21AC, the Lynderlys concluded that divorce was the solution to their plight. A wife incapable of producing a fit heir could be set aside, and so this was Ellyn's fate. Her husband had not leapt at the opportunity eagerly, however as his parents argued the necessity he protested it less and less. He offered Ellyn and Leyla a place at his court after the divorce, but Ellyn rejected it, unable to stomach how the court seemed to treat both her and her daughter as functionally dead, a sentiment which had started years before the divorce itself. Instead she took her unwanted daughter and made for the Gates of The Moon and the Cavaliers, bringing Leyla with her. Marcel would accompany her, intent on continuing Leyla's training. As the years went by, the girl slowly staggered to her feet, beginning to walk with shambling steps and speak with a ragged voice. Meanwhile Ellyn resumed her own training at arms, using up her anger by throwing it into her training, regaining the strength of teenage years that already felt like a lifetime ago. Rather than ruminate on what the gods may have meant by it all, she sought meaning in the people around her, her companions and her family, not any house.
Family Tree:
Berrick Moore (Father, b.30BC)
Sybelle Wydman (Mother, b.27BC)
Lucan Moore (Brother, b.5BC)
Harmen Moore (Brother, b.2BC)
Martyn Lynderly (Ex-husband, b.1BC)
Leyla Lynderly (Daughter, b.17BC)
NPCs:
Berrick Moore (55), General
Lucan Moore (30), Huntsman
Timeline:
1BC: Ellyn Moore is born
6AC: She begins training with her brothers
15AC: She asks permission to join the Cavalliers, but is instead arranged to be married to the heir of House Lynderly
17AC: Ellyn marries Martyn Lynderly and gives birth to her only daughter, Leyla, by the end of the year. The labor is long and difficult, and she is saved by the intervention of the hedge-maester Marcel after the maester of Snakewood proves incapable of helping.
20AC: It becomes clear that Leyla is afflicted with palsy while Ellyn is no longer capable of conceiving. Martyn Lynderly's parents begin advocating for a divorce to allow House Lynderly to have a healthy heir by another lady. Ellyn begins practicing with a sword again
21AC: The divorce is finalized. Ellyn is offered a place at court by her former husband but instead takes her daughter with her and joins the Cavaliers. Marcel joins her
21-25AC: Ellyn trains as a Cavalier while Marcel gradually teaches Leyla to move more independently and speak. Ellyn and Marcel accompany the leaders of the Cavaliers to Greyhelm
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
AC
Name and House: Marcel
Age: 44
Cultural Group: Dornishman
Appearance: A tall man with greying, black hair. Marcello's curly beard is carefully trimmed and his hands usually carry a metallic scent, whether from tinkering or treating injuries. His eyes are bright and keen, but tend to dart around a lot, constantly preoccupying themselves with new objects of fascination
Gift: Erudite
Skills: Medic (e), Craftsman (Armor)
Talents: Tinkering, Language (Valyrian), Fishing
Negative Traits: N/A
Starting title: Maester
Starting Location: Greyhelm
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Arriving in Oldtown at the age of 16, Marcel initially pursued metallurgy, but soon found that medicine stirred a very similar fascination in him. whether understanding the intricacies of a body made of flesh or metal, he was always keenly interested. It only took a few years before he came to be considered somewhat of a prodigy, especially for his interest in reconvalescent healing, the act of helping stroke victims and the maimed to use their bodies once again. By 21 he had taken further interests, particularly in a fellow maester in training, named Leo. For three years they were inseparable, jointly pursuing their studies by day and their passion by night. Then, one day, Leo suddenly started avoiding him. Marcel grew angry and tried to confront him several times, even in public.
This eventually caused enough of a scene for one of his seniors to pull him aside. Leo, as things would have it, was the nephew of one of the closest aides to the Archmaester of medicine. The over-proud geezer, Malcom, accused Marcel of corrupting his nephew wiht 'dornish vices' and told him in no uncertain terms that he should abandon the study of medicine, having already thrown away his prospects with his impertinence. At the time Marcel scoffed at his threat. He abandoned Leo, who had willingly abandoned him at his uncle's order, however he stayed in his course. A decade later, he was painfully aware that Malcom had acted on his threat. After an unusually protracted study they finally granted him a link of medicine, but there after the Citadel's college of medicine wanted nothing to do with him, throwing menial jobs far below his level at him whenever he offered his services. He went into metallurgy, but soon found himself similarly disdained. Though not an Archmaester, Malcom knew many men in the other colleges and had obstructed him here too. At this point, Malcom took to the road, serving as a hedge-maester. With few friends at the citadel, even an official posting at some hole in the middle of nowhere was out of reach.
One fateful evening in the Vale however, he would find a new sense of purpose, aiding Lady Ellyn Moore and her newborn Leyla. As the little girl grew into her toddler years, he determined that she could learn to walk on her own like other children, given the right supports. Those few with her affliction who grew to adulthood would sometimes show more control of their limbs with time, and maesters had speculated about accelerating the process. The project engrossed him so much that joining the service of the Cavaliers was almost an afterthought, a simple decision that would allow him to continue his work on the girl. Functionally, Marcel has now achieved what his seniors tried to deny him, serving as a surgeon and smith at the Gates of The Moon
Timeline:
20BC: Marcel is born in Planky-Town as a merchant's son
7BC: Marcel is a quick learner at everything except how to manage money. After spending a lot of money to acquire an automaton, a Qohorik curiosity, Marcel's parents determine that he is best suited for the citadel
4BC: He arrives in Oldtown to begin his studies
2AC-5AC: Marcel becomes recognized as a promising student of medicine and develops a relationship with Leo, a fellow student. Eventually Leo begins ignoring him. Marcel is told by Leo's uncle Malcom that their relationship is intolerable and that he should stop studying medicine
15AC: After a decade Marcel is granted his chain in medicine, and promptly stonewalled from further advancement. Malcom also pulls strings to make other archmaesters obstruct him from advancement as well. Marcel becomes a hedge-maester at the end of the year.
17AC: Marcel happens to be in Snakewood when the heir's wife is giving birth. He is able to help save Lady Ellyn Moore and her child, Leyla.
18AC-21AC: Marcel trains Leyla to be able to move independently despite her palsy. When Lady Ellyn is set aside by the Lynderlys he joins her to the Cavaliers, where he takes up service as a surgeon and smith while continuing to train Leyla
25AC: He joins the Cavaliers to Greyhelm
submitted by DejureWaffles1066 to ITRPCommunity [link] [comments]
Discord Tag: Garin
Name and House: Ellyn Moore
Age: 25
Cultural Group: Valeman
Appearance: Of middling height and red hair, Ellyn has spent the last four years in constant training and increasingly eschews the courtly manners she was taught in favor of a direct and frank mode of speaking and acting, thoroughly disillusioned with subtleties and empty flattery. Her eyes can be rather intense and seldom evade contact.
Trait: Brave
Skills: Swords (e), Two-handed weapons (swords), Brute, Errantly
Talents: Weaving, Fishing, Hawking
Negative trait: N/A
Starting title: Scion of house Moore, Cavalier
Starting Location: Greyhelm
Alternate Characters: Dorian Merryweather
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Biography:
For house Moore, like many other houses of the Vale's sheltered interior, Aegon's conquest was rather unremarkable. They went to bed one evening as subjects of one king and woke up as subjects of a new one, without the old one having gone anywhere either. Ellyn was the third child of Lord Berrick Moore and his wife Sybelle Wydman. Ellyn would be their only daughter. Lord Berrick went on to play a minor role in the campaign against the Root Father. The stories of the menace in the mountains inspired many a youth at Bronzespear to want to take up arms themselves, Ellyn among them.The tapestries of andal knights, fearlessly facing their enemies with gleaming greatswords captured her imagination already as a child, and she began training beside her brothers. They were fairly accepting of this, and so Lord Moore let it slide as long as Ellyn did not skip other lessons for the sake of training, however when the Cavaliers were formed, it would not be many years before his daughter began to speak of joining, in hushed tones at first but ever more loudly as time went on. When she turned sixteen, Ellyn asked for permission to join and was promptly shut down. Instead Lord Berrick took his family on a visit to Snakewood, where Ellyn was introduced to the heir of the house, who had become her betrothed by the end of the visit. her betrothed did not come accross as a cruel or mean-spirited man, yet he was also not particularly strong-willed, a fact which would later become painfully aparent
Soon after her eighteenth nameday, Ellyn married the heir to House Lynderly, moving to Snakewood. Three things quickly became obvious to Ellyn. Firstly, even as a man grown, her husband had few opinions of his own, preferring to hear the verdict of his parents and adjust to it. Secondly, the maester in House Lynderly's service had little knowledge of medicine, and somehow even less of how to practice it on women. This fact became clear from the third revelation, she was already with child, probably since her wedding night. This was celebrated as a sign of good luck and the blessing of the gods. The final outcome would prove a hellish ordeal. The labor would become a protracted affair as Ellyn struggled. Something was clearly wrong, and the maester was utterly clueless in regards to a solution. By the time the idea of cutting the child out of her was being proposed, the impasse finally ended and her daughter was born, as if by the Mother's much belated mercy. At this point a hedge-maester was called in, ostensibly as assistant to the Maester of Snakewood. In practice, the dornishman named Marcel took over her care, and his clueless colleague was happy for an excuse to leave the room. He would stay to nurse her back to health, a process which took more than three months.
By then the warning signs were already showing. Leyla, her daughter, could not even look straight at someone, her gaze constantly shifting and her pupils often turning in opposite directions. Ellyn requested that Marcel stay at Sanekwood to monitor the girl and the Lynderlys obliged, their maester being no more skilled in treating children than women. At age one Leyla was not learning to walk, and struggled to even crawl or lay still. The Lynderlys assumed the child to be dim-witted, an ill omen. Furthermore, even a year after the birth, Ellyn's cycle had not returned to normal, becoming infrequent and irregular. For two more years she and her husband were urged to try to produce a suitable heir, unlike their daughter, however Ellyn proved incapable of conceiving another child. She was increasingly left to her own devices, and began to take up her old swordsmanship again, a way to remind herself and those around her that she hadn't died that night, even if her in-laws increasingly seemed to treat her as such.
Meanwhile Marcel continued to monitor Leyla's condition, unconvinced by the analysis of Snakewood's regular maester. He eventually concluded the condition to be palsy, and that the girl might eventually learn to control the spasms of her limbs, fashioning straps that would limit the movement in her arms and legs, allowing her to begin to practice moving them deliberately rather than involuntarily.
By 21AC, the Lynderlys concluded that divorce was the solution to their plight. A wife incapable of producing a fit heir could be set aside, and so this was Ellyn's fate. Her husband had not leapt at the opportunity eagerly, however as his parents argued the necessity he protested it less and less. He offered Ellyn and Leyla a place at his court after the divorce, but Ellyn rejected it, unable to stomach how the court seemed to treat both her and her daughter as functionally dead, a sentiment which had started years before the divorce itself. Instead she took her unwanted daughter and made for the Gates of The Moon and the Cavaliers, bringing Leyla with her. Marcel would accompany her, intent on continuing Leyla's training. As the years went by, the girl slowly staggered to her feet, beginning to walk with shambling steps and speak with a ragged voice. Meanwhile Ellyn resumed her own training at arms, using up her anger by throwing it into her training, regaining the strength of teenage years that already felt like a lifetime ago. Rather than ruminate on what the gods may have meant by it all, she sought meaning in the people around her, her companions and her family, not any house.
Family Tree:
Berrick Moore (Father, b.30BC)
Sybelle Wydman (Mother, b.27BC)
Lucan Moore (Brother, b.5BC)
Harmen Moore (Brother, b.2BC)
Martyn Lynderly (Ex-husband, b.1BC)
Leyla Lynderly (Daughter, b.17BC)
NPCs:
Berrick Moore (55), General
Lucan Moore (30), Huntsman
Timeline:
1BC: Ellyn Moore is born
6AC: She begins training with her brothers
15AC: She asks permission to join the Cavalliers, but is instead arranged to be married to the heir of House Lynderly
17AC: Ellyn marries Martyn Lynderly and gives birth to her only daughter, Leyla, by the end of the year. The labor is long and difficult, and she is saved by the intervention of the hedge-maester Marcel after the maester of Snakewood proves incapable of helping.
20AC: It becomes clear that Leyla is afflicted with palsy while Ellyn is no longer capable of conceiving. Martyn Lynderly's parents begin advocating for a divorce to allow House Lynderly to have a healthy heir by another lady. Ellyn begins practicing with a sword again
21AC: The divorce is finalized. Ellyn is offered a place at court by her former husband but instead takes her daughter with her and joins the Cavaliers. Marcel joins her
21-25AC: Ellyn trains as a Cavalier while Marcel gradually teaches Leyla to move more independently and speak. Ellyn and Marcel accompany the leaders of the Cavaliers to Greyhelm
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
AC
Name and House: Marcel
Age: 44
Cultural Group: Dornishman
Appearance: A tall man with greying, black hair. Marcello's curly beard is carefully trimmed and his hands usually carry a metallic scent, whether from tinkering or treating injuries. His eyes are bright and keen, but tend to dart around a lot, constantly preoccupying themselves with new objects of fascination
Gift: Erudite
Skills: Medic (e), Craftsman (Armor)
Talents: Tinkering, Language (Valyrian), Fishing
Negative Traits: N/A
Starting title: Maester
Starting Location: Greyhelm
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Biography:
Marcel was born in 20BC, a son of a Planky Town merchant. While taking an keen interest in learning letters, numbers and even a few valyrian phrases, he had no mind for managing money. His parents quickly decided that out of all their children, he was better sent off to the Citadel, before one of his flights of fancy caused a greater loss of money. This was after he had spent a considerable sum just to acquire a Qohorik automaton, an intricate little lion with cogs on the inside that allowed it to walk when wound up.Arriving in Oldtown at the age of 16, Marcel initially pursued metallurgy, but soon found that medicine stirred a very similar fascination in him. whether understanding the intricacies of a body made of flesh or metal, he was always keenly interested. It only took a few years before he came to be considered somewhat of a prodigy, especially for his interest in reconvalescent healing, the act of helping stroke victims and the maimed to use their bodies once again. By 21 he had taken further interests, particularly in a fellow maester in training, named Leo. For three years they were inseparable, jointly pursuing their studies by day and their passion by night. Then, one day, Leo suddenly started avoiding him. Marcel grew angry and tried to confront him several times, even in public.
This eventually caused enough of a scene for one of his seniors to pull him aside. Leo, as things would have it, was the nephew of one of the closest aides to the Archmaester of medicine. The over-proud geezer, Malcom, accused Marcel of corrupting his nephew wiht 'dornish vices' and told him in no uncertain terms that he should abandon the study of medicine, having already thrown away his prospects with his impertinence. At the time Marcel scoffed at his threat. He abandoned Leo, who had willingly abandoned him at his uncle's order, however he stayed in his course. A decade later, he was painfully aware that Malcom had acted on his threat. After an unusually protracted study they finally granted him a link of medicine, but there after the Citadel's college of medicine wanted nothing to do with him, throwing menial jobs far below his level at him whenever he offered his services. He went into metallurgy, but soon found himself similarly disdained. Though not an Archmaester, Malcom knew many men in the other colleges and had obstructed him here too. At this point, Malcom took to the road, serving as a hedge-maester. With few friends at the citadel, even an official posting at some hole in the middle of nowhere was out of reach.
One fateful evening in the Vale however, he would find a new sense of purpose, aiding Lady Ellyn Moore and her newborn Leyla. As the little girl grew into her toddler years, he determined that she could learn to walk on her own like other children, given the right supports. Those few with her affliction who grew to adulthood would sometimes show more control of their limbs with time, and maesters had speculated about accelerating the process. The project engrossed him so much that joining the service of the Cavaliers was almost an afterthought, a simple decision that would allow him to continue his work on the girl. Functionally, Marcel has now achieved what his seniors tried to deny him, serving as a surgeon and smith at the Gates of The Moon
Timeline:
20BC: Marcel is born in Planky-Town as a merchant's son
7BC: Marcel is a quick learner at everything except how to manage money. After spending a lot of money to acquire an automaton, a Qohorik curiosity, Marcel's parents determine that he is best suited for the citadel
4BC: He arrives in Oldtown to begin his studies
2AC-5AC: Marcel becomes recognized as a promising student of medicine and develops a relationship with Leo, a fellow student. Eventually Leo begins ignoring him. Marcel is told by Leo's uncle Malcom that their relationship is intolerable and that he should stop studying medicine
15AC: After a decade Marcel is granted his chain in medicine, and promptly stonewalled from further advancement. Malcom also pulls strings to make other archmaesters obstruct him from advancement as well. Marcel becomes a hedge-maester at the end of the year.
17AC: Marcel happens to be in Snakewood when the heir's wife is giving birth. He is able to help save Lady Ellyn Moore and her child, Leyla.
18AC-21AC: Marcel trains Leyla to be able to move independently despite her palsy. When Lady Ellyn is set aside by the Lynderlys he joins her to the Cavaliers, where he takes up service as a surgeon and smith while continuing to train Leyla
25AC: He joins the Cavaliers to Greyhelm
2024.05.20 15:03 lizzy_pop Almost 2 year and we finally have someone who believes us
This is my first child but I have worked with 0-3 year olds my entire career and have worked with several hundred of them. So I have some experience on what the average infant/toddler behaves like.
My daughter was different from day 1. Cried when we held her at 5 days old and preferred to be left on the couch to look around on her own. Couldn’t be comforted by being held, didn’t give hugs until a month or two ago (almost 2 now)
Couldn’t figure out solids until close to 10 months old. Still mostly consumed formula at 14 months. Is still a very texture picky eater. Flavours don’t matter. Only textures
She was always social and required every second of every day to be interactive. If you looked away for 3 seconds at 4-10 months old she would fall apart and the only thing that would bring her back was a nap. But she started recognizing her name at 3 months old and consistently responding to it. Made great eye contact. Babbled on time. Rolled over early. Sat early. Crawled late and didn’t have an interest in reaching for toys until 8 months old.
Always was entertained by things that were way ahead of what her motor skills could do so someone had to entertain her all the time. Never really attempted to figure toys out. Just didn’t even touch them if they didn’t make sense to her right away.
By 5 months would scream if you tried to move one of her limbs in order to get her dressed. Always hated the stroller, car seat and carrier. Would get so worked up she’d throw up within a few minutes. But loved being outside where it was busy and watching everything.
She got easier around 11 months when she started talking and by 18 months was super easy and our daycare’s favourite kid.
She’s flexible, she speaks in full sentences, she does what she’s told, she understands consequences, she’s empathetic and will cry if another child is upset, never has tantrums if you calmly explain why she can’t have something, does things she doesn’t want to do if you explain she needs to….
She also screams like you’re murdering her if you touch her hair, she doesn’t hold space for herself and will move away and give up what she’s playing with if she thinks another child is approaching, she’s super verbal but loses ability to communicate if she’s frustrated or struggling with something, she’ll gag if her food is the wrong texture and then won’t eat for 2-3 days.
She’s a gestalt language processor
Despite being followed by early development (a behavioural consultant, SLP, physio and OT) no one saw any red flags. They moved to daycare observations at 15 months and the daycare and all of the therapists think she’s the ideal child.
At pick up, she’ll cry for water (but will never ask the teachers), she’ll tell me she pooped and ask me to change her (but won’t tell the teachers), she’ll tell me how some kid took her toy away, or how she was scared of the story they were reading, or how she fell and hurt herself, or how a teacher scared her by being loud…..none of these are things she allows the teachers to notice. She hides all of these reactions while there.
We’ve been telling them all she’s a gestalt language processor but none of them agreed. What 12 month old says “uhhh help me please” when she needs help but only really speaks one word at a time otherwise, or “look you’re so happy” when she feels happy about something? She’s speaking in full, grammatically correct, sentences for the most part but still mixes up you/I and yours/mine every single time and has some weird word combinations that fully tell you she’s combining phrases rather than words.
We had an appointment with a private SLP a few days ago who noticed it right away. My daughter usually says “where is it sheep go?” If she’s looking for a sheep (or whatever the things she’s looking for is). “Where is it” is a gestalt she still has. But she’ll also say “where’s mommy?” The SLP picked up on it right away. Also noticed some behavioural things and started talking to us about girls and autism and masking. Told us we’re going to have a really tough time getting support for an emotionally intelligent hyper verbal girl as autism presents so differently for them.
We’re both waiting to be paired with a different behavioural consult and a different OT and hoping we find a way to help our daughter be herself more when she’s not with us.
It feels daunting but also so relieving that someone else sees it and we’re not crazy.
submitted by lizzy_pop to Autism_Parenting [link] [comments]
My daughter was different from day 1. Cried when we held her at 5 days old and preferred to be left on the couch to look around on her own. Couldn’t be comforted by being held, didn’t give hugs until a month or two ago (almost 2 now)
Couldn’t figure out solids until close to 10 months old. Still mostly consumed formula at 14 months. Is still a very texture picky eater. Flavours don’t matter. Only textures
She was always social and required every second of every day to be interactive. If you looked away for 3 seconds at 4-10 months old she would fall apart and the only thing that would bring her back was a nap. But she started recognizing her name at 3 months old and consistently responding to it. Made great eye contact. Babbled on time. Rolled over early. Sat early. Crawled late and didn’t have an interest in reaching for toys until 8 months old.
Always was entertained by things that were way ahead of what her motor skills could do so someone had to entertain her all the time. Never really attempted to figure toys out. Just didn’t even touch them if they didn’t make sense to her right away.
By 5 months would scream if you tried to move one of her limbs in order to get her dressed. Always hated the stroller, car seat and carrier. Would get so worked up she’d throw up within a few minutes. But loved being outside where it was busy and watching everything.
She got easier around 11 months when she started talking and by 18 months was super easy and our daycare’s favourite kid.
She’s flexible, she speaks in full sentences, she does what she’s told, she understands consequences, she’s empathetic and will cry if another child is upset, never has tantrums if you calmly explain why she can’t have something, does things she doesn’t want to do if you explain she needs to….
She also screams like you’re murdering her if you touch her hair, she doesn’t hold space for herself and will move away and give up what she’s playing with if she thinks another child is approaching, she’s super verbal but loses ability to communicate if she’s frustrated or struggling with something, she’ll gag if her food is the wrong texture and then won’t eat for 2-3 days.
She’s a gestalt language processor
Despite being followed by early development (a behavioural consultant, SLP, physio and OT) no one saw any red flags. They moved to daycare observations at 15 months and the daycare and all of the therapists think she’s the ideal child.
At pick up, she’ll cry for water (but will never ask the teachers), she’ll tell me she pooped and ask me to change her (but won’t tell the teachers), she’ll tell me how some kid took her toy away, or how she was scared of the story they were reading, or how she fell and hurt herself, or how a teacher scared her by being loud…..none of these are things she allows the teachers to notice. She hides all of these reactions while there.
We’ve been telling them all she’s a gestalt language processor but none of them agreed. What 12 month old says “uhhh help me please” when she needs help but only really speaks one word at a time otherwise, or “look you’re so happy” when she feels happy about something? She’s speaking in full, grammatically correct, sentences for the most part but still mixes up you/I and yours/mine every single time and has some weird word combinations that fully tell you she’s combining phrases rather than words.
We had an appointment with a private SLP a few days ago who noticed it right away. My daughter usually says “where is it sheep go?” If she’s looking for a sheep (or whatever the things she’s looking for is). “Where is it” is a gestalt she still has. But she’ll also say “where’s mommy?” The SLP picked up on it right away. Also noticed some behavioural things and started talking to us about girls and autism and masking. Told us we’re going to have a really tough time getting support for an emotionally intelligent hyper verbal girl as autism presents so differently for them.
We’re both waiting to be paired with a different behavioural consult and a different OT and hoping we find a way to help our daughter be herself more when she’s not with us.
It feels daunting but also so relieving that someone else sees it and we’re not crazy.