here garden

Dream is barely done propping open the back door to the kitchen with his bucket of tomatoes—kicking it into place, as he does every Wednesday, if it’s not too stormy out—when the question of the hour gets thrown at him.

“Why the long face, boss?”

Huh? That’s. Not what he was expecting. “What?”

But Daquavis doesn’t back down, his expression now mildly confused, smile hidden away for once. “When did you ever see her?”

Scoffing at the judgement, Dream crosses his arms. “I let George take care of the place every once in a while—”

“When?! Like, once a month?”

“Yeah! So, I saw her on Mondays, after my market run—and every second or third Wednesday or whatever—in the mornings sometimes too! That’s plenty of time!” He’s not sure why his hackles are raising so much at Daquavis’ line of questioning. Why does he even care? Nobody else gave a fuck about how ‘dotting’ of a boyfriend he is or isn’t.

“Bro—that’s NOT plenty of time! Don’t you think that she got tired of being second to your work?”

“Wha—dude, why do you care?” What is this life advice?

At that Daquavis steps forward to clap him on the shoulder, expression still way too serious. “Come on, bro—you need a real break! You’re working yourself to death!”

Before he can answer, Sapnap comes stumbling into the kitchen from the backdoor, easily swerving around the tomato bucket as he slips out from under his boyfriend’s wide arm. “You DO need a break!”

He crushes his cigarette stub out on the metal doorframe and then wraps himself around Daquavis’ slender shoulder, pulling him in closer to whisper conspiratorially. “We tell him that ALL the time, but he never listens.”

Ignoring the jab, once again, at his lack of work-life balance, Dream squints at his childhood best friend, noticing his half-lidded, reddened eyes. “Are you high?”

“Stop changing the subject! My shift—” Sapnap starts, letting go of the bartender to better gesticulate. “—doesn’t start for another two hours. It’ll clear up by then. It’s just a bit of grass.”

“What? What are you doing here, then?” Frowning, Dream nabs the staff schedule from its clip on the fridge door. Checking it, Sapnap is correct, his shift really does start in two hours. Tony, however, who walks in behind Sapnap to wash his hands, does start in five minutes. They must have driven here together.

“I want food!” Sapnap whines, wrapping an arm around Dream’s middle next and pressing his face onto his shoulder. “Feed me, Dream!”

Untangling himself from his best friend, Dream frowns. He’s not in a mood to entertain Sapnap’s—or anybody else’s—shenanigans today. “Make your own food—and stay out of the way for the next two hours! We’re busy!”

Seemingly unperturbed by Dream’s moodiness, Sapnap turns to Tony, shooting him a puppy-dog pout, “Tones?”

Dream catches Tony’s fond smile before swiftly turning back to Daquavis—he shoots a pointed stare at his wide-eyed bartender, sending him scampering back to his post at the front of the restaurant.

“I’m gonna need the weekend of the 9th off,” Daquavis stands before Dream, hands nervously playing with the ends of his backpack straps. He’s just finished his shift and looks wired, ready to jump out of his boots at any moment.

“Sure, okay.” Dream rolls his chair over to the counter with the next month’s schedule. “We’ll get somebody else to cover your usual shifts. I’m guessing you’re including the Friday in that?”

“Oh, yeah, I am.”

“Cool, it’s noted.” Dream looks back up at Daquavis, “Is it some kind of event? Or?”

At the question, Daquavis lights up, smile going wide. “It is! Bartending convention—in Miami! There’s gonna be so many cool workshops and even a few competitions!”

Not quite expecting the burst of energy, Dream blinks once before recovering. “Awesome. Sounds fun.”

“Actually—I—uh—” Daquavis stutters, then gives him his best, winning smile—bright and charming—the type that gets him extra tips and napkins with phone numbers on them. He’s seen it happen. “I have a plus one. Would you—you should come with me!”

He’s so tired from his week that it takes a moment for the bartender’s question to sink in. When it does, he starts laughing—a loud, deep laughter that makes George look up from his station. Dream doesn’t want to make Daquavis feel bad, so he covers his mouth with his hand in an attempt to get himself to stop.

By the time he manages it, his bartender looks red in the face, expression unsure. “I’m sorry—I’m sorry—I’d love to, but I can’t—the restaurant—”

“You should go.” George has put down his knife and approaches them. “I can run the place for a long weekend.”

Shocked, Dream opens his mouth only to close it. “But—but,”

Crossing his arms and canting his hip, George frowns, “Do you not trust Callahan and I? We can handle it.”

“I trust you guys, sure, but—”

What they did have was a single spare bed in the small, comfortable, quiet, wildly expensive facility for girls with eating disorders.

They asked each of the young women currently living there if it was acceptable that I might occupy a bed in one of the rooms for a while, just the long weekend while I was waiting for a doctor's evaluation. I hadn't been violent, I had gone with the cops without putting up any fight at all, and I was still and I was small and all those things were sufficient for me to be deemed safe. So up they sent me, to somewhere high in Western Psych, above the smells and sounds of the denser-packed wards, above where the care workers were harried and frustrated, to a gentle space with seven or eight young women in it.

I was five foot three, and I weighed about 115 pounds. I was underweight for my frame, as a fair amount of that weight was martial arts muscle; I would probably have been ten pounds heavier if I were healthy, with the amount of activity I got.

I was at least two inches shorter than pretty much every other young woman there, six or seven inches shorter than one of them, and I had at least thirty pounds on several of them. The tallest was not allowed to walk, she had to sit in a wheelchair and be pushed around, because her condition was so advanced that the motion would undo what good her hard work had done.

And over the course of the four or five days I was there, multiple of them came up to me alone to quietly tell me that I had the *perfect* body, and they wished they could be as skinny as I was. That I needed to live, because I was beautiful, and if they were as beautiful as I was, they wouldn't need to be here.

Their eyes were on me all the time, in the hours that I wasn't sleeping. I spent a lot of time sleeping, and we took our meals separately (I not needing to be monitored while I ate, and not having my food weighed), but we spent a fair amount of time sitting around in the little shared living room space, talking about movies and magazines and books we'd loved, talking about our families. I didn't talk about my family; they didn't pry.

They were all so fucking nice.

And I could have broken any one of them over my narrow knee. They each thought they were bigger than I was.

Their brains lied to them, every time they looked at a mirror. Every time they looked down at their own thighs. What they saw was not what I could see. They had bright, beautiful eyes in dark hollows, and I could count their vertebrae, could see their ribs winging when they breathed, could see the motion of every tendon on the backs of their hands.

They weren't celebrities. They weren't being paid to have particular bodies, nor were they deep in the toxic sea of having strangers take photos of them to sell to gossip rags if they stepped out of doors in old jeans. They had families and loved ones who were doing everything that they could to protect them, to uplift them and help them be healthy. They were just everyday people--a nurse, a couple of students, a couple of recent college grads, a young woman who had decided it was time to really get help because she wanted to be a mother--and still they'd been so injured by the neverending fucking deluge of body-image bullshit that they were dying of it.

And Techno who doesn't mind talking to anyone but is awkward as fuck so only three people know him.

In the US, there is no meaningful legal definition for educational/academic neglect in any of the 50 states or federally. What this means is that a child can be "homeschooled" and exclusively be taught how to cook and clean, reach the age of 18 being unable to read, write, or count, and this alone is not considered neglect. That 18yo, should they even have the knowledge that suing exists, has no legal grounds to sue their parents for denying them an education.

In over 40 US states, a convicted child abuser can homeschool their children. So someone who has done time for child abuse and somehow regains access to their child(ren) can decide upon returning home that they want to "homeschool" their kids. Those children are now locked in a home with their abuser where nobody can see them.

There are no welfare checks.

There are no routine assessments.

There aren't even databases — state or federal — keeping track of how many homeschooled kids there actually are.

Meaning a child can be locked in their home for their entire life with their convicted abuser, learn absolutely nothing, never go to the doctor, and so long as that child is fed, clothed, and the abuse isn't physical or sexual, that child has almost no chance of rescue and no legal ground to seek restitution if/when they escape.

The only way homeschooled children get rescued is if they're beaten, starved, or physically neglected and they're able to get the right person to see that. Otherwise? They have to wait until someone finds out they were murdered as a result of their parents "homeschooling".

And feral homeschool parents love to jump down my throat about this, and then get even more pissed when I tell them I'm a homeschool alumni.

Because I know it's not all homeschoolers. But even one is too many, and the lack of protections should scare everyone. If you're a good homeschool parent, nothing will change. If not, you deserve whatever comes your way as a result of adequate oversight.

The FDA has upgraded an egg recall issued last month to “Class I,” its highest risk level, as it warns the public that consuming the products could cause “serious adverse health consequences or death.”

The recall of 1,589,577 dozen white-shell eggs and brown cage-free shell eggs was initially issued by Midwest Poultry Services in late July, which warned they might be contaminated with Salmonella Enteritidis.

According to the company, the eggs were produced and distributed from farms in Texas between June 6 and July 3 and have sell-by or best-by dates between July 20 and August 17. The recalled egg cartons have either the code P-1950 or 0840962 and Julian Dates between 157-184.

source: X

ao3 is proship, profic, and anti censorship. being proship, profic, anti censorship, and hosting dark and taboo fics that were banned on other platforms are the main reasons ao3 was created in the first place.

you are welcome to join ao3. but you are NOT welcome to harass, act rude or be entitled towards the people who built this house. if the fact ao3 allows fics you find disgusting (even though it also allows you to filter out anything you don’t want to see) bothers you so much, you are free to go back to wattpad and have nearly everything censored and banned there.

I miss rottmnt sigh

If any of you guys have some bit to spare, I'd really appreciate it. I really REALLY don't have anymore left in me. It's to the point that I've skipped eating some days because I just don't have any funds left from paying this off.

Basically.

12k - First person that got bit got her vaccines bundle

15k - two people got scratched and bit

9k - Housemate got scratched when she was trying to help me put Sol in his room

So. Yeah. I've barely been able to sleep because people kept knocking on our door asking for payment every single morning. I stay up at night wondering how I'm going to pay all of this off. I barely have any appetite to eat anymore. It's that bad.

So please. Please help if you can.