Prima Ballerina
Natasha spun round in her pink leotard and tutu, it wasn’t often she found herself with enough free time to refresh her skills but when she could, she took the opportunity. Lorelai was outside in the backyard playing with Dodger, the sight made Natasha smile as she walked into the screened in sunroom. The warmth of the sunshine helped fill the room with relaxation for Natasha.
She played a bit of soft classical music, stretching carefully before she soon found herself dancing around the room on her tippy toes. Her legs ached a bit as it had been a while since she last practiced but she kept dancing. The music grew louder a bit more intense as she danced and twirled round and round. Natasha hadn’t noticed that Ransom had taken Dodger inside to wash up or that Lorelai was sitting in the corner with her juice box watching her mother in awe. Eventually her soft voice spoke up, “Mama?” She asked.
Natasha jolted and stumbled a little as her concentration was broken. She puffed a bit of breath and gave her daughter a smile. “Hey baby, did you get too tired outside?” Natasha walked over to Lor and kneeled beside the girl. Brushing a few sweaty curls from her soft round face.
“How’d you learn to dance like that?” The young girl asked between her last few sips of her juice box. Natasha held back horrific memories at the question.
“When I was a young girl like you I was in ballet class. There weren’t many girls that stayed with the program but those that did became famous dancers. But they live all around the world in all different places.” It wasn’t the truth but also wasn’t quite a lie.. it’s not like the four year old needed to know the exact details, especially when she didn’t have to be exposed to such things.
The little girl looked up at Natasha as if she was a goddess, Natasha leaned in and gave the girls cheek a kiss. “Mama, can I learn to dance with you?”
Natasha smiled brightly and nodded. “Of course you can, babylove. You’ll just need shoes and leggings like mama’s. I can order them for you, let's say after lunch?” Her brow quirked and the young girl nodded enthusiastically.
“Can we have lunchables?” Lor stood up and held her hand out for Nat to get up.
“Why don’t we make one of Mama’s grownups lunchable? You know on that pretty plate you love?” She asked as she stood and took her daughter's hand.
Lorelai bounced up and down happily, Natasha chuckled. “Knew you’d like that baby.”
Natasha turned the music off and led the pair into the kitchen, scooping Lor up she sat her on the countertop while Natasha grabbed the fancy charcuterie board from the island. Lorelai wiggled happily at the sight of the board and traced her little finger on the pattern.
While Lorelai played with the board, Natasha gathered the deli meat and cheese before cutting them into squares like a lunchable as well as grabbing two different crackers for them. “What else do you want, bubble?” She asked her daughter.
Lorelai hummed in thought. “Some strawberries and grapes please.” She said, Natasha then went to the fridge and pulled out the washed fruits before setting them neatly on the board.
“Did you want water or another juice?” She asked, Lorelai having carefully scooted down from the counter so she could stand in front of the fridge that Nat left open.
Natasha chuckled softly at the sight of the little girl in front of the big refrigerator but she grabbed her another juice box and a bottle of water for herself before she handed them to Lor. “Here baby, you take these and Mama will get the food. You just find us something on tv you wanna watch.”
The girl bounced happily and sped off to the big fancy couch that resided in their living room. Ransom was watching the news but Lor pounced on him making him grunt softly from her weight. “Papa!! Is my turn now to watch something.” She whined almost like Natasha would.
Natasha followed in moments later and set the board down on the coffee table. Ransom held Lorelai in his lap as the pair playfully fought for the remote. The little girl giggled profusely as he tickled her sides. “Alright you two, why don’t you both pick something to watch?” She asked as she sat down with them, curling her legs under her a bit.
Lorelai and Ransom conferred in whispers while Natasha ate a ham and cheese cracker, scrolling on her phone looking at ballet outfits for Lorelai. After a few moments Ransom spoke up. “Seems we have come to an agreement, we should watch The Lorax.” He grinned over at Nat, her green eyes flicked up and a smile grew on her lips.
“It’s my favorite movie.” She nodded in agreement, and soon Ransom turned the movie on, the little yellow fluff appeared on the screen.
Her smile grew as she felt little flutters in her tummy, she rubbed her little tummy and ate another cracker as she set her phone aside to cuddle up with her family properly. Lorelai was entranced with the movie, Natasha knew they could finish up their talk about ballet later, right now they were all together as a family.
All four of them even if one happened to be a little speck on a clover flower.
7 notes
·
View notes
it's so fucking frustrating to be in college and know everyone uses chatgpt and to be tempted by it constantly while also knowing intellectually that it doesn't work and it's a bad idea. like, i hang out in the library a lot, and i see people using chatgpt on assignments almost every day. and i know it isn't a good way to learn, because it's not really "artificial intelligence" so much as it is an auto text generator. and it gives you wrong information or badly worded sentences all the time. but every week i stare down assignments i don't want to do and i think man. if only i could type this prompt into a text generator and have it done in 10 minutes flat. and i know it wouldn't work. it wouldn't synthesize information from the text the way professors want, it wouldn't know how to answer questions, it just spits out vaguely related words for a couple paragraphs. but knowing my classmates get their work done in 10 minutes flat with it while i fight every ounce of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in my body is infuriating.
31K notes
·
View notes
People don't like to admit it bcs cringe or w/e but Homestuck really did revolutionize the webcomic as a storytelling medium and I am endlessly frustrated that before webcomic artists could really stretch our legs fucking webtoonz swooped in, set a new, more restrictive standard, and then monetized and monopolized the ever living fuck out of the concept of The Webcomic until it drove away anyone who couldn't be a professional quality manga artist for free, and now the only webcomics that actually feel like spiritual successors to Homestuck are so obscure they're basically cult classics that you have to beg people to read.
Like it's just so wild to be in high school and see Homestuck be like "we're using like fifteen different artistic mediums to tell this story bcs we can" and be really fucking inspired by that, only to grow up and see basically every webcomic ever have to conform to One Single Standard or fucking perish.
70K notes
·
View notes