Shroud'z Underground

When I first got him, he was a quiet cat. But after I moved in with my fiance and their cat (Smudge), he found his voice. After a while, he took to meowing very loudly when he wanted food. It was cute at first but got old quickly. Especially when he nags me about it. We eventually got into this routine where whenever he's hungry, he goes over to the cabinet where his food is kept, leaps onto the stool next to the cabinet, and meows as long and loud as he can. More so when I get within range of the cabinet.

Now, a bit of context. All the cats in our house are food motivated/obsessed to a degree. Smduge was actually the first to be visibly food obsessed and I used to tease that he was a cosmic fatass. The reason this worries me about my cat is because he wasn't always like this. Smduge has somewhat of a history being excited for food. With Nevermore, it feels like a switch just kicked on one day. And now this obsession is so strong at times it genuinely gets on my nerves and in the way of things. I literally trip on him sometimes just making my way to the cabinet for something and he runs over thinking he's getting food.

We used to have an issue of Smudge eating Nevermore's food and vice versa. I literally used to have to chase them away from each other's bowls with a spray bottle. To little avail. But now that we have three cats in the house, we had to buckle down about that. Now they have timed separate feeding. They eat on our schedule. So the first feeding for the day is around 12pm and the last feeding for the day is between 10pm and 12am. They all get up to an hour to eat the food we set out before we put it away. We do this several times a day. And we've been doing this for over 6 months now. Nevermore has a habit of taking a few bites and then napping the rest of his feeding time. Despite my best efforts, he does this at least once a day. And he can get very tetchy between feeding periods, regardless of how much he's eaten.

Of the three types of food we keep for the cats, one bag usually stays sitting out (with the top clipped shut) because we don't always have the cabinet space to put it away. This is Dahlia's food. The kitten food. And Nevermore has taken it upon himself to rub against and bite into this bag between feedings. Or as a way to signal to me that he's hungry. This behavior isn't totally unique to him, but he's definitely the loudest and most entitled when it comes to his food. He will literally harass me in the "mornings" when I get up, screaming until I set out his food. Or scream at me after his last feeding for more food. And then he has the audacity to eat too fast or something and yak it all up on the floor or my bed. I truly don't know what makes him throw up. It's not often but it's still concerning. And he's the only one who does so somewhat consistently. Smudge has only thrown up once or twice in his whole life and the only times Dahlia has thrown up was a hairball.

I know the obvious answer here is to take him to the vet. But I can't afford that. Not right now. But I don't know what a vet would tell me about this. If it's not a symptom of some medical condition, then it's psychological. And what do I even do for that?? We live in a basement. We're currently in the process of renovating to try and make more space, but we only have so much to begin with. If it's a boredom thing, I don't know what to do about that. He's not a playful cat. I've tried so many toys with him and he just doesn't give a shit most of the time.

Uuuuuggghhhh. I just wanted to vent/rant about this because truly, his attitude when he's hungry is unbearable. I don't know how I let this happen or how to reverse it. He's soooooo goddamn entitled, I've created a monster. Sometimes he bites me (softly) when I pet him to signal he's hungry. IT'S ENOUGH ALREADY!!!! If he's smart enough to try biting a hole through a bag of kitten food, he's smart enough to understand timed feeding and cutoff times. I just really don't know what I can do about this

Note: Nevermore = orange and white, Smduge = all black, Dahlia = black and white

Another note: despite my ramblings in this post, Nevermore is not fat or overweight. Neither is Smudge. They're both at a perfectly healthy weight. They just have terrible attitudes and eating habits 😤😮‍💨🙄😒

Not just for being a white guy with dreadlocks (I am specifically calling them DREADlocks in this instance because it is truly dreadful that anyone thought this was a good idea), but for literally everything else. And the hair too omggggg. Everything about this character is just soooooo infuriating. He's barely more than a walking plot device. And in a lot of ways, I feel like the movies would do just fine without him. He brings very little to the table in my eyes other than cringe dialogue, bad hair, and overall mediocrity. He has no personality or interests outside or the Sully family. Favorite color, who cares?? Hobbies?? Doesn't matter. Even his weird relationship with reborn na'vi Quaritch feels half baked and shallow. And don't even get me started on him saving Quaritch in the second movie. Sure that could have been a visual example of what might be a complicated relationship between the two, but what good is it if it's never mentioned in the third movie and everything he does towards Quaritch completely walks back on the idea that he cares about him??!?! And it was such bullshit how Jake basically replaced Neyteyam with Spider right over his dead fucking body. Literally how can you live with yourself or let them call you part of the family when you saved their biggest enemy???

And he's so fucking goofy in the worst way. I cannot take him seriously ever at all. There is literally a scene of him beatboxing and breakdancing in the background while Jake is talking to some science shmuck about the air breathing mushrooms in his lungs. And that fucking nickname. Monkey boy??? Be so fucking for real right now. And it's always used at the worst times. Yeah it's a dumb nickname, but Kiri never fails to call him that at literally the most serious moments and it just throws the whole thing off. Genuine moment ruiner. They should have let Neytiri kill him in Way of Water. They should have let him suffocate in Fire and Ash. I HATE HIM SO MUCH AND I WISH HE WAS DEAD‼️🗣️👹🤬🕷️

I FINALLY finished "Of Ink & Alchemy" by Sloane St. James and I literally had to fight the urge to burn the book I was so happy to be done with it. I've compiled my thoughts into my notes app and further broken them into cropped screenshots to avoid a super lengthy post.

Overall: I didn't like it. Again, I'm a lesbian a fully aware that books like this are written for a certain audience. I tried to enjoy what I could and take the book for what it was. And to the author's credit, some parts were genuinely funny, touching, and occasionally sexy. But overall it was a very stressful and unfun read. I would recommend it, but only for someone who would actually enjoy something like this, or as a hate read. But yeah, that's that. So glad to be done with this fuck ass fucking book 📚😮‍💨💀🗿