Revisit - Tumblr Posts
Operation: Baby Talk [1/3]
Hizashi pounds his fist against the mahogany door rapidly while Shouta and Oboro stand behind him, Shouta with his standard bored expression and Oboro with shifting, anxious feet. Beside them, a small white cloud floats drowsily with a small grocery bag full of chili bean soup and medicine inside it.
Unlike the three boys, Nemuri is already living alone in a small apartment complex a few streets away from UA High School, working two jobs to keep up with rent and her own chaotic interests. Although her independence gives them a great place to hang out to play video games on weekends, it also draws most of her attention away from them most of the week. Despite this, Nemuri has always been a punctual, upstanding student who turns in her homework on time and always makes room for friends. Nothing has ever stopped her before, and it still amazes Oboro to see her act like such an… adult.
Bottom line: Nemuri is a busy bee and it’s not uncommon to not see her for days on end. What is uncommon, however, is discovering she hasn’t been at school or internship for the past three days and apparently called off work for the next two weeks.
This knowledge has been bothering Oboro nonstop. Is she okay? Did she get hurt while on patrol with His Purple Highness? Did she get sick? Is she all alone? Her parents live in Saitama Prefecture, a whole three hours away from Musutafu. If she is sick, knowing Nemuri and her stupid habit of hoarding her burdens to herself, she didn’t tell them or anyone else. Oboro knows for a fact she didn’t tell him, Shouta or Hizashi; the only reason they know of her strange absence was through Iida Tensei, who Oboro shares his math class with.
“Oh, she called His Purple Highness and told him something came up and that she wouldn’t be coming in for a while,” Iida had told him casually. “Why? She didn’t tell you?”
It pissed Shouta and Hizashi off that Nemuri wouldn’t let them– her best friends– know about her getting sick, but it just worried Oboro. It took a lot of convincing, but he managed to drag them with him to the local grocery store, grab Nemuri her favorite soup and some medicine, and come all the way over here. Shouta and Hizashi kept on glancing at Oboro strangely and whispering to each other, but Oboro doesn’t understand why they would act so weird about it. He’s Nemuri’s friend! Friends are supposed to look out for each other, right?
“Nemuriiii!” Hizashi shouts through the door between rapid knocking. “I know you’re in there, I can smell hoe for miles! Open up the mcfuckin’ dooooorrr!”
Shouta lifts an unamused eyebrow at Hizashi. “Dude, what the fuck?” he deadpans, and Hizashi glares at the ravenette from over his shoulder.
“We’re friends! I’m allowed to call her a hoe.” Hizashi turns back to the door. “Nemuri! Open the DOOR!” He emphasizes “door” with a high pitched shriek, and Oboro shoves his palm into his face to stifle his snorts.
“You guys are both assholes,” Shouta grumbles, though it’s obvious he’s smiling.
The door swings open in a quick arc that slams into Hizashi’s forehead with a comical bonk. Nemuri is standing in the doorway, clad in her pajamas with baggy pink sweatpants and a white tank top with spaghetti straps. Her red glasses sit on the bridge of her nose, her deep indigo hair tied up into a short messy bun atop her head, and her tired blue eyes glare at the boys with exhausted irritation. Seeing Nemuri without her usual playful smile is surprising in and of itself, but Oboro’s sky blue eyes widen at what she’s holding against her chest with one arm.
A small baby dressed in a cute little sailor suit is leaning into her chest, snoozing quietly with one thumb in his mouth. He looks like the splitting image of Nemuri, with a matching mole under his right eye and pale skin. The only thing that differs from her is the baby’s hairstyle, which is short and curly.
Nemuri releases the door knob and readjusts her grip on the baby, still glaring at the boys. “What the fuck, guys? You couldn’t even call in advance?” she hisses at them.
Shouta and Hizashi stare between Nemuri and the baby, speechless, while Oboro’s brain turns like slow moving gears. After a solid three seconds, he suddenly utters a horrified gasp that attracts the eyes of all three friends. “Nemuri! You were pregnant?!” he shrieks.
The accusation breaks the shocked spell in an instant, and suddenly Hizashi is lying flat on his ass, howling with laughter. Even Shouta ducks his face away, trying to stifle his giggles; Nemuri narrows her eyes at Oboro pointedly.
“Oh yeah, I got pregnant and gave birth in three days. Of course I wasn’t pregnant, dipshit.” Nemuri readjusts her grip on the baby again, holding him up a little higher. “This is my older sister’s kid. Say hello to baby Haito, everyone.”
Not knowing what else to do, everyone waves at the little baby, and the baby lifts his head drowsily. When he opens his eyes, Oboro is surprised to find the baby’s eyes are a light blue that matches the hue of the sky above, with faint freckles dusting over his cheeks. Upon seeing the newcomers, the baby fusses anxiously and buries his face in Nemuri’s bust.
Nemuri’s attitude changes in an instant, from tired and angry to worried and tender. She lifts one hand to gently pat the baby’s back and she rocks him from side to side. “Shh, shh, shh. It’s okay Haito-baby. It’s okay. Auntie Nemi’s here. You’re safe with me,” she coos into his hair, and the baby’s whines quiet down. Her voice is so soft and gentle it warms Oboro’s heart just by hearing it, and he can tell Hizashi and Shouta are just as shocked by her motherly tone.
After the baby quiets down, Nemuri lifts her head to peer at her friends, suddenly tired all over again. “Sorry for being a bitch, guys. My sister and her boyfriend had to go abroad for some job interview in South Korea, and since my parents think her boyfriend is a deadbeat, they want nothing to do with him or the baby. So she gave Haito to me,” Nemuri explains, punctuating her words with a tired sigh. “I’ve had, like, no sleep for the past three days. Damn… and my rent’s due next Thursday…”
Shouta and Hizashi look between themselves, unsure of how to react. Only Oboro is willing to meet Nemuri’s eyes, and worry pangs to life in his chest at the dark bags under her eyes. “When will they be back?” he asks her.
“Hm? In about two weeks, I think,” she says, and Oboro can almost feel her invisible walls rising, guarding her from their worry. “Don’t worry, guys. I’m fine. I’ve pulled all-nighters before, this is nothing.”
“You weren’t taking care of someone’s kid, though,” Oboro gently protests. “Have you been eating anything? Anything at all?”
Nemuri pries her eyes away from his concerned stare. “I had a protein shake yesterday,” she replies stiffly.
Oboro’s brows lower into a frown. “For breakfast or dinner?” he presses.
Nemuri sighs. “Breakfast…” she mutters in response, then quickly shakes her head as a wobbly smile forces its way onto her lips. “It’s nothing. I mean it. You guys don’t have to worry about me.”
Oboro is already shaking his head. “That’s bullshit,” he tells her, and when he sees her shoulders haunching defensively, he quickly adds, “I know you can take care of yourself, but as your friend, I still worry about you. I mean, look at you! You look like you could pass out any second now!”
“I’m fine,” she replies, her tone harder this time.
Oboro stares at her incredulously. Why can’t she just let them help for once? She has it in her mind that she has to be the strong one, the responsible one. Why can’t she see that she’s a kid just like the rest of them? It frustrates him to no end, yet in the depths of his exasperation, an epiphany comes to mind.
“Why don’t I help you take care of him?” he offers, and his friends’ eyes fall on him in surprise.
“You? Help me? Take care of… a baby?” Nemuri echoes, her words slow and meticulous as if she were taking her time tasting a treat, figuring out whether she liked it or not. She glances down at the baby in her arms, then to the small cloud floating beside the taller boy, eyeing the small grocery bag full of medicine in particular. Oboro has never seen her look so… anxious before.
Assuming she’s just not used to being offered help, Oboro goes on cheerfully, “Yeah! I have a little brother, remember? I’m a pro at babysitting!” Something about his words is bothering him, the reason flapping seamlessly in the back of his mind, though Oboro can’t pin down why. He just smiles joyfully at her, hoping his smile is convincing enough.
Finally, Nemuri sighs. “Come around six tonight,” she tells him, her tone strange. “Haito usually gets fussy around dinner time.”
Oboro flashes her a thumbs up. “Bet!” he cheers.
Nemuri smiles at him, and Oboro’s heart gives an unexpected beat; somehow it feels different from her usual broad, gleaming smiles. He doesn’t have enough time to decipher it before Nemuri quickly bids them goodbye and closes the door, disappearing back into her apartment.
A long beat of silence passes between them, and Oboro doesn’t dare move his eyes away from the front door. He can feel the hot stares of Shouta and Hizashi on his back, pinning him in place like a butterfly on a bulletin board.
“Holy fucking shit. Did you just…?” Suddenly, Hizashi’s face splits apart into a bright smile, and he latches his arms around Oboro’s to shake rapidly. “Dude, I can’t believe you did that! You’re so smooth!”
Oboro blinks at him owlishly, still not comprehending what just happened. The flapping in the back of his mind is deafening, now. “Eh? What’d I do?” he asks.
Hizashi laughs loudly. “Don’t play coy with me, bro! You totally went, ‘fear not, my love. Even if this child is not mine, I shall support both you and the baby!’ That was so domestic it made me blush!” he squeals.
The puzzle pieces finally fit together in his brain, and a blush hits him with the speed of an oncoming train. Suddenly, he remembers the faint blush on her cheeks, and the tender pull of her smile. Although Nemuri is the type of person to extend a helping hand out to anyone in need, she rarely accepts help from anyone else. In spite of that, she’s letting him help her with taking care of her sister’s baby?
Oboro has no idea what expression is on his face right now.
“Oboro.” Shouta’s stern voice reaches his ears, grounding him before his brain could float into the sky like a balloon. He slowly turns to face the ravenette, and finds Shouta watching him with dark, serious eyes. “Do you have any idea what you just did?” he asks, his tone flat.
Oboro blinks slowly, his brain slow and muddled yet filled with thoughts moving at the speed of light. “I… said I’d help wit’ da baby…” he murmurs dumbly, the words feeling alien on his tongue. Shouta sighs.
The trio finally gather their wits and begin walking away from Nemuri’s doorstep. Oboro is suddenly thankful her apartment is on the first floor; he doesn’t think he has the motor skills to walk down stairs right now. “I know you said you have a little brother, but it’s been seven years since you had to change a diaper. Do you think you can handle this?” Shouta asks the taller boy, and Oboro wrings his hands together tightly.
“I mean, yeah, why not?” he replies, more so to convince himself. “Between me and Nemuri, how hard can it be?”
a common theme in a lot of media is a character insisting "i'm not crazy" and eventually being proven right. but to be honest? i wish we had more characters who are canonically "crazy" without it being a bad thing or condemnation. characters who struggle with psychotic symptoms like delusions and hallucinations. characters who are unreliable narrators because they're not always sure what's real and what's in their head. characters who need help and support from their friends and loved ones to maintain their grip on reality and stay safe sometimes. psychotic characters who aren't just one-dimensional caricatures or harmful stereotypes but fully fleshed out, developed people with satisfying arcs and meaningful relationships. just more well written canon psychotic characters.
A baby rattle snake following its mommy ❤️
Definitions of parental behavior differ, but Shine points out that mother snakes seem to go to some trouble for their offspring. For instance, python moms will often stay coiled around their pile of eggs for about 2 months, even though they haven’t had anything to eat for 6 or 7 months. At first glance, it might seem hopeless for a cold-blooded animal to try to incubate its eggs. When the temperature drops sufficiently, though, the python shivers, thereby warming the clutch with heat derived from muscle activity. Many rattlesnakes and their pit viper cousins don’t lay eggs but instead give birth to ready-to-wriggle offspring. Back in the Chiricahua foothills of Arizona, the black-tailed rattler mother that so excited Hardy and Greene stayed near her youngsters and the sheltering rocks of the birth site for more than 9 days. The scenes that the researchers described in 2002 might apply as well to a mother dog and her pups. On day 4 after the birth, Hardy observed superfemale 21 near the birth site as five of her newborns crawled around. They had worked their way out of the shelter’s entrance, over the mother’s body, and a little way into the surrounding grass. An hour later, several youngsters had piled on top of her. When one wriggled over her head, she tolerantly rearranged her coils. Thus, the days went by with the family basking just outside its rocky den. About 9 days after birth, the little snakes shed their skins as their mother watched from a few inches away. The youngsters then disappeared, presumably crawling off on their own. Greene and Hardy’s detailed monitoring of black-tailed rattler life had convinced them that the females typically don’t eat during winter hibernation or the spring pregnancies that follow. Greene paints a heroic picture of the mother, who further delays her return to hunting. “She hasn’t eaten for about 10 months, but she stays around for 10 more days,” he says. He and Hardy have since observed similar behavior in several females.
Source: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/social-lives-snakes
My theory of adhd management is that in order to focus there are 4 things that need to be sufficiently occupied:
Eyes
Ears
Hands (or body)
Brain
And if you aren’t occupying them enough or there’s too many things demanding the use of one, it’ll start to wreck havoc on your ability to do things.
So for example, listening to a podcast. This occupies your ears and brain as you focus on both listening and processing what you hear, but it leaves your hands and eyes completely without anything to do. If you tried to sit down and just listen to a podcast by itself you’d probably get unbearably bored and stop doing it.
But if you pair that activity with something that uses your hands and eyes, like a craft, household chore, or commute, suddenly you’re fully plugged in and can in fact focus better on both tasks than you could if you tried doing them separately.
It’s also why you can’t listen to a podcast while doing homework; you’re trying to use your brain for two different tasks. To occupy your ears while doing homework (which is already using eyes, brain, and hands) you need something for your ears that doesn’t require your brain: music. Specifically music that doesn’t use too much brain power, which is why some people prefer instrumentals or songs in other languages.
Hyperfixation and sensory overload change this by moving the threshold for how much sensory input you need to be able to function. If I’m extremely focused on a craft project (eyes, hands, brain) I might not even need something for my ears; my interest in the project makes up for it. If i’ve had a very overwhelming day, trying to listen to an audiobook while I do some stretches could be too much to process. My brain needs a break.
Video games, which pretty much universally occupy all 4 areas, are basically instant, easy focus wrapped up in a neat little bow. No wonder adhd-havers tend to love them.
If you’re struggling with a task, try looking at which areas it occupies and which are left unattended. Then try to find something enjoyable to fill those gaps, and see if that helps.
Wow. This is... absurd. To the degree where it could be turned into a sketch. Unfortunately, also super cringe. Honey, just stop trying to understand the "physics of gender". Why are you assuming there would be logical rules to follow, and especially, that people would agree on a set of rules? Just let it go. This is not a problem that the world needs you to solve, and you don't need it solved either.
In general, all these posts from that time just ooze the over-eager and hyper-invested need to a) understand and b) belong. That's where almost all the cringe originates.
Bisexuality and non-binary genders
So I’ve been trying to work out the definition of bisexuality when including nonbinary genders, and I’m lost. If anyone has input or literature that I ought to read, please tell me.
Option 1
bisexual = attracted to > 1 genders
homosexual = attracted only to one’s own gender
heterosexual = attracted only to one gender which isn’t one’s own
=> an agender (or other nb person) attracted to only women/only men would be considered heterosexual (which might be offensive too since i assume y’all would rather identify as queer? but idk please correct me?)
Option 2a
bisexual = attracted to > 1 genders
homosexual = attracted only to one’s own gender
heterosexual = attracted to any number of genders > 0 but not one’s own
=> bisexuality would be a subset of heterosexuality, which is super counter-intuitive and erasive to bi people.
=> a binary person who is only attracted to non-binary people would be considered heterosexual (which might be offensive too since i assume y’all would rather identify as queer? but idk please correct me?)
=> this set of definitions would make heterosexuality more inclusive than homosexuality; this seems both offensive to homosexuals, and counter-intuitive if a goal is to challenge the heteronorm
Option 2b
bisexual = attracted to > 1 genders one of which is one’s own
homosexual = attracted to only one’s own gender
heterosexual = attracted to any number of genders > 0 but not one’s own
=> a binary person who is only attracted to non-binary people would still be considered heterosexual.
=> still challenges homosexuality more than heterosexuality
Clearly, these conventional definitions aren’t working out so well with more than two genders. So instead, I propose a definition of heterosexuality that takes into account the heteronorm. I suspected (perhaps naively) that non-binary people might feel offended if called “heterosexual” and thus perhaps nominally deprived of their queer “status”.
=> But please tell me - do y’all want to be “eligible” for heterosexuality, or would you rather avoid being labelled that?
Option 3
bisexual = attracted to > 1 gender
homosexual = attracted only to your own gender
heterosexual = binary and exclusively attracted to the other binary gender
=> now i’m not non-binary so i don’t know if y’all feel happy with this. but i naively suspect that it’s relatively rare for a nb person to be attracted exclusively to members of their own nb gender (again please correct me if i’m mistaken). so i suspect that homosexuality makes as little sense applied to nb people as heterosexuality.
Option 4
bisexual = attracted to > 1 gender
homosexual = binary, attracted to at least one gender but not the other binary gender
heterosexual = binary and exclusively attracted to the other binary gender
=> creates great overlap between homosexuality and bisexuality
=> binary people who are only attracted to nb people would be homosexual then. idk how homosexuals and nbs feel about this
Option 5
bisexual = attracted to > 1 genders OR attracted to > 1 genders one of which is one’s own
homosexual = binary, attracted only to one’s own gender
heterosexual = binary, attracted only to the other binary gender
This last one is the set of definitions that makes the most sense to me … up to this point. But it could definitely be improved. And I have no clue which definition of bisexuality would be better. My head is sweimming.
