Promiseland

[knightofcups]

Baby Oz fascinates me because most cats look way different as kittens, but Oz just looks smaller and fuzzy

[Fetian]

Boy is home (has been since yesterday, obvs), he has All the energy, and has gotten out of his cone once already. He also was really clearly starving -- the aftercare instructions were to not feed him until after 6 PM (so 24 hours after his fast started, no idea if they gave him any food while he was waiting to be picked up) and to give him half his normal amounts. I ended up giving him half his lunch at 6, half his dinner at 10, and the other half at 10:30 -- like I said, he was very hungry and I couldn't stand to leave him that way, especially for another twelve hours. I did look it up online and some veterinary advice was to give half and if he still seemed to want to eat, and hadn't thrown up, go ahead and give the rest, so that is basically what I did

He also got to spend most of the night in the room instead of the bathroom, though got locked up at some point in the middle of the night and let out again after Oz's eye-drops at 7, which is when I discovered he'd de-coned himself. He mostly behaved himself and just slept on the bed with us. Oz was (and is) unhappy about it, and did not end up eating enough of her dinner and has barely touched her breakfast today. Her cone comes off in two days and at that point I'm going to try just leaving her food out while I'm awake and in here, and just scolding Cael when he tries to eat it.

Another worry is litterboxes, because Cael is a kitten and a butt and when Oz tries to go to the bathroom he really often gets curious about it and goes to bother her, despite my attempts to stop him. This discourages Oz from doing so, and I don't want her to get sick from not pooping (again). So she needs time with him not around to do her business, and the times I keep them separated to let them eat doesn't seem to be either long enough or the right times of day for her to do that (nor for her to eat enough)

The very weird sleep patterns over the past few days (to say nothing of the waking up to do Oz's eye-drops that's been happening for almost a week) has me pretty braindead, and the weather has my joints very hurty. Gonna go zone out and try to wake up properly, maybe spend a little bit of time out in the sun while I still can

[Fetian]

cw I'm about to describe a rape

So there's a scene in Phantasmagoria in which the husband character (while possessed by a demon, unbeknownst to the wife) tries to initiate sex, is rebuffed multiple times, but ultimately the wife gives in and they have very rough sex which concludes with the husband leaving the wife curled into a ball on the bathroom floor and crying, all while very dramatic horror-movie music plays. Which is to say it's a rape scene and honestly a genuinely upsetting one

I bring it up because I could definitely see people arguing that it's consensual, or dubcon at worst, since she does give in and let him fuck her (plus them being husband and wife), but to my pleasant surprise everything I've seen about it just calls it 'the rape scene' with no waffle. This is a low bar given all the cues the scene gives that it's A Bad Event, but I did expect people to acknowledge that and still shy away from using the r-word for it. Just nice to see it called like it is

I've been thinking about the portrayal of the demon-possession in the game in general, and it's very interesting because there's nothing 'fun' about it like you might see in other stories -- the husband doesn't get neat powers out of it or anything, he's a little cartoony about it but not like,

Like, genuinely what happens for 90% of the game (ignoring his behaviour in the climax) is that he's abusive. Straight up just stuff an abusive partner can and would do. It's a very grounded horror, despite the setting. And it feels very, actually-christian, interpretation of demonic possession. It's made him evil, and not in a cool, fun, saturday-morning-cartoon way. It does eventually escalate into maniacal laughter &c, but until that point it's very uncomfortable to watch.

If only the acting were better, and the leads had any chemistry to begin with.

[Fetian]

Last night, Oz really wanted to be out in the body of the house with everyone else (I think my room was too cold) but the cone was making her feel insecure due to poor fit and reduced visibility (she's been jumpier in general since having it put on), so I took it off of her then instead of waiting until today to do it. But, this morning we also did her last eye-drop application, and so she is done with that whole business unless I notice something concerning (cross fingers and touch wood)

Cael has gotten out of his cone twice, both times after being stuck in the bathroom for more than a few minutes, so I've been taking care to avoid putting him in that position again, which does include letting him sleep on the bed though I wanted to do that anyway. I do will be glad when he also has his cone off and I can isolate him when needed, but we'll see if he can keep behaving himself overnight. The rub continues to mostly be Oz getting enough opportunity to eat, though also still providing her some time to herself. The good news is that Cael is definitely going to get bigger than her, so there's the possibility in the future to provide her a hidey-hole that he can't bother her in -- I took the hood off the litterbox and stored it in the closet, and it happens that without her cone, Oz can fit under it and Cael, with his cone, can't, so she's been napping there periodically.

I have been waking up around 5 these past few days, and will probably continue to do so even though I no longer have to get up at 6:50 to medicate a cat, but at least I won't have to get up and can just lay in bed until I fall back asleep. It's a combination of brain focusing on potential cat nonsense and staying alert for it even while I'm unconscious (so not particularly deep sleep), and actual cat nonsense waking me up. Things will settle

Cael and Oz are pretty firmly into tolerating each other's presence, with occasional blips of Oz wanting him Not Here and blips of Cael deciding to harass her. We'll see how things change or stay the same when Cael isn't hampered by a cone, but I'm trying some positive reinforcement when he does leave her alone.

I am super brain-dead today and going to take one more day to just let myself be unproductive before I try getting back onto a schedule. ash and I want to take the train downtown tomorrow, since he has a day off and we weren't able to do the Second Saturday thing a couple weeks ago. There's an art installation we want to check out -- a kind of scavenger hunt thing, where secret arts have been dotted along a specific street and you're supposed to just wander around looking for them. Should be fun! I am a little nervous about leaving the cats unsupervised together for the first time -- like I said, I can't bathroom Cael while he's in the cone, and also I'm nervous about him potentially hurting himself. The cats should mostly sleep while we're gone, though, per their usual schedules.

[Fetian]

ash got a migraine yesterday that bled into today, so we rainchecked our walk for his health -- current plan is Sunday, instead

I took Cael's cone off today -- the plan for that had also been Sunday (six days after his surgery), but I've felt bad about him not being able to clean himself, and as far as I can see his incision is fine and he's not sensitive about people touching around it -- or, not any more sensitive than I'd expect a cat to be about someone poking at his bits. So I took it off to see how he'd handle everything and he hasn't been licking or biting at the area any more than necessary for cleaning, so! Assuming things stay that way, he's done with post-surgery stuff

I am a little worried he's going to hurt something by being too active, but hopefully that's not a concern at this point.

He is predictably very energetic, after spending so long hampered by the cone, and also predictably feisty and rebellious. He'll calm back down, I'm sure, especially now that he's able to actually eat without issue -- and also if he's a butthead I can put him in the bathroom again until he calms down, without having to worry about him getting his cone off, or getting himself all tangled up in his harness.

Oh, his new harness arrived today -- I was disappointed to learn it needs to be pulled over his head to be put on, which I was trying to avoid, but also every other harness I looked at he's already nearly too big for and with how fast he's growing I didn't want to get one that he'll outgrow in like a month. Anyway, he was not a fan of it today, given he just got a different harness and a cone off, but I'm going to try again tomorrow and if I'm able, actually try taking him outside in it

I'm also recording an arcadia tomorrow (going to try to knock out a couple, as usual, but I don't think I'm urgent on any yet), and of course if we're both up for it, the walk on Sunday, but beyond that I believe my weekend is free and I can continue to just recover from So Much Cat Stuff. Next week there's yet more cat stuff, in that Cael has his next vet appointment, to finish off his vaccines and probably check over his healing &c.

We're going to try letting him sleep in the room again tonight, but I predict he loses that privilege pretty early on by harassing Oz.

Speaking of bed things, I need to start getting ready for that soon, so I'll end this here.

[Fetian]

He did not lose sleeping-in-a-bed privileges, but it came very close. He decided at about 6 AM that it was playtime and started making a ruckus -- but, notably, did not at any point harass Oz. That, too, came close a couple times, I think, but mostly he just wanted to be sitting in a spot that Oz felt was too close to her. Anyway, at 8 he finally settled down to go back to sleep, and for the rest of the morning he slept in the top corner of the bed and Oz slept nestled against my shoulder

[Fetian]

I want to get up, but,

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[Fetian]

It's started getting cold and I'm working to acclimate myself and the cats to it, but counterpoint: blankets are good

[Fetian]

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Getting him into the harness was a Trial because I kept having to take it off again to adjust the size, and at one point I accidentally adjusted the neck instead of the chest and ended up with it a bit too loose, but I didn't want to take it off again to readjust that so I just left it. And the fun outside times ended because he accidentally dragged a metal chair a little behind him with his leash and freaked himself the hell out, but between all of that was some very chill wandering around the yard and getting used to the harness

We'll see if he's any more amenable to having it put on later or if the allure of being allowed to go outside isn't enough to be worth having thing pulled over head. By later I mean, like, 'tomorrow' unless he actively asks to do it again

[Fetian]

Cael did get himself sent to the bathroom last night, or more accurately early this morning, after several attempts to harass Oz. Hopefully tonight he's better behaved

ash and I went downtown today! We took the train to The Commons, got boba teas (ash had a peach tea, I think with pudding boba? I had a rose matcha tea with lychee boba. They both tasted kind of like fancy soap, we don't plan on going back to that boba place), and then walked along K street and then back to The Commons, looking for art! We found ... three, possibly four, hidden art, and have no idea how many there are supposed to be. Possibly we do this again before the installation disappears, it was fun and a nice walk, and it's so great to have something to do outside without having to wear a mask the whole time, but also it would be nice to have any information on the installation at all beyond 'We have hidden 'flight' themed art things along this street', like how many there are, or the scope of what they could be (one we found is a picture of a bird on a street sign -- is that part of it? It doesn't match the other three we found at all, but should we have been looking for more bird stickers on street signs?). Part of the problem is that, being the City of Trees, there are a lot of god damn trees obscuring the view of places the art could be, and also we were walking at a time of day when the sun would be in your eyes if you tried looking up at buildings on one side of the street.

It is always a little depressing being downtown because there are so, so very many closed businesses, but the city is trying to inject money into itself via increased tourism (they are building a hotel on the waterfront, for example), which on the one hand, great, and on the other hand, ugh tourists.

As ash noted, it is always a little bit harder to get home from the city than it is to get into the city, for a few reasons, and this time one of those reasons is that the train stop we waited at for half an hour, which listed our train as among the trains that should stop at it, did not ever actually show up and when we checked the incoming trains sign again it wasn't listed, so. Very odd. We walked a bit further to the stop I usually wait at, and had intended to wait at, and the train showed up a few minutes after we got there, so it wasn't a huge deal, just an extra half hour of standing that neither of us wanted to do.

There has been construction happening at the train stations this year to make them work with the new trains they're going to be rolling out once all the construction is done -- I have some Opinions about these new trains, which matches the opinions I have about the new interiors for many of the buses, which is that from what I've seen they have hard seats and possibly less seating in general, and I hate so much that no one with any power can see the contradiction in trying to get more people to use public transit and also trying to make public transit as hostile as possible to homeless people. People aren't going to use public transit if it's not comfortable, so making it uncomfortable is just going to make fewer people use public transit. To say nothing of disabled or elderly people who can't sit on the hard seats for the hours it can take to get anywhere on public transit -- congratulations, to hurt homeless people you've once again thrown disabled people under the bus, way to go on hurting two marginalised communities for the price of one

While I'm at it the new trains are supposed to be to make it easier for less-abled people to get on and off, the current trains are raised and you have to climb a set of stairs to dis- and embark -- and I have opinions about that, too, which are much dumber, because those opinions are 'but I like being high up in the train :(' -- but the construction is leaving the stations with a lot of sharp-angled curbs and super inconvenient railings and it's just much less accessible in general, but in that nebulous way that doesn't actually violate any regulations or anything.

Anyway, the next stop getting worked on should be the one up the street from us, so we'll need to keep that in mind if we plan on making any more trips in the near future, because the station will functionally be closed during that period.

All told we were out of the house for close to three hours. When I got home, I got Cael in his harness again and brought him outside, but he was still freaked out about that from yesterday and wanted immediately to go back in. I gave him treats during the process so hopefully the positive associations from that helps him get over the negative associations

ash had a last-minute recording session to direct (the episode's on-paper director asked him to sit in while we were waiting for the train home), so I spent a fair amount of the evening zoning out to some youtube videos, but when we did have opportunity to hang out we played video games. We've been playing Soma, we should be close to halfway through it, I think. I've never played it before, but I watched a let's play of it back when it came out, so I know the broad strokes but don't remember many specifics, and ash didn't know much about it at all when we started. So that's been fun

I am tired, and it's gotten late, so I'm going to go get ready for bed now.