Well Edge, it was a great learning experience for us both, and it’s always a good day to learn new things! Sorry it was a touch confusing. Did you enjoy your bath, Cakey? Play with bath toys and all that? That’s always fun!
5tr3tch: *yeah! no worries, adaptability is the name of the game here on the surface, and yeah, pancakey had a great time!*uh, so, spectra. i was ordered to make you something nice you could put on your fridge too as thanks for that stellar artwork you made us… so! im not a super great artist or anything, but i hope you like it.
5tr3tch: *when i was in the underground, i just assumed humans looked like they did in thos mangwa and manga books, so my style is not… realistic. *but i tried to capture your super magical hair! hope you lock it. ;)
Castellar is a stellar name for such a cutie-bones! *waves at Pancake* Hi there!
5tr3tch: *yeah it is-! huh? how- how did you know that?*did you! complete! my puzzle?! you went through all of that work, figured out the red herring and all, just to know pancake’s real name?!??!?!??!
5tr3tch: *omg! i cant believe it!*casey, look! someone cares about you so much they went thru all the trouble of figuring out your name! and making a super cute pun about it!*i love it! im totally gonna get red to embroider something with that onto one of their bibs!*come on, babybones, how can you be sad with this much attention? smile for the super nice human! say ‘hi! thank you! i am a cutie-bones! and you are rhi-ally great!’
*Pancake whimpers and continues to cry quietly, but it sounds like they’re calming down*
I KNEW IT!!!! omg congrats guys! Must be weird being on the other side of things, huh Stretch?
5tr3tch: *probably the last one or so before Edge gets back, but an important one: thank you!!! but, um, im not pregnant!*im just legitimately just sick from having had pancake. *Edge gets really cagey when he’s worried, so he makes things seem a lot more dramatic and worrisome than they are- so let me just explain while hes not here to scold me, really quick:
5tr3tch: *when Pancake was born, they literally took a chunk out of both my and Edge’s hp. thats normal. *but something went… wrong-ish, so they ended up taking a lot more of my HP than they were supposed to. like literally 1/3 of it. …and 1/3 of Edge’s too. *ive always had low HP, so having that go down really messed me up. im literally staying at home right now because my body is still healing and adjusting.*yall. im literally sleeping like 15 hours a day and eating a ton. i may be growing a belly, but theres no souling in it…
*and then theres Edge!!!! i love that guy, i really do, but when he was like so heavily pregnant he was forced to switch to sneakers (which he hated btw) and had that cute little waddle going on, he turns to me all like, “When are we having our second kid? Pancake can’t be an only child!” *maybe im being the unreasonable one, but i thought it was maybe a good idea to wait a little.*lets have this first baby, learn the ropes and take care of them, adjust our lives around them before thinking of having another one.*can we at least get this one walking and talking and in school first?
*then he was all like, “It would be fine, there’s two of us! And we have a big family ready to help!” *yeah okay, unless Red and Blue move back in, or Black and Classic end up staying for a really, really long sleepover, its mostly going to be you and me! *hes also always going on about ‘use reuse and recycle,’ so wouldnt it be more economical and ecofriendly if we just wait until Pancake doesn’t need the baby stuff and then just use it again for kiddo #2?
*Pancake is literally three months old oh my god. *just thinking about going through everything again- the parentMOOD, the green magic sessions, the PICPE- taking care of a baby on top of everything else we had to deal with!!!!!!!*that makes me want to cry. i honestly dont know if we could do it….*uh, this got kind of long… and whiny…
*but I stand by it! having two itty bitty babybones is way too much work!
Pancake is a leap year baby, which means their birthday is February 29th!
Happy un-birthday, Pancake! Your birthday doesn’t exist this year, but you still get to enjoy your literal carrot cake! :)
(Special thanks to @rhiannon-langley for coming up with Pancake’s birthday and the carrots spelling out ‘cake’ idea! Pancake doesn’t like soft, squishy foods as much, so they’re happier this way! XD)
5tr3tch: *well just show you cause its gonna happen any minute now. just gonna put Pancake down right here in front of the camera.*its fine, babe, this is for science.*see, monster babies don’t need diapers, but they do get messy.*when a grown monster has excess magic, they burn it off by like FIGHTing someone or exercising or practicing magic or something.*but when you’re a babybones, your body doesnt know how to handle it yet.
5tr3tch: *so the magic they eat just sorta builds around the center of the baby monsters being, the SOUL, as amorphous magic. *its literally raw potential, ripe to be formed into absolutely anything.*but eventually too much of it builds up, and its just waiting for that final straw thatll break the camels back- that last little crumb of magic…
*before they pop, im gonna pop this under a readmore cause its kinda gross, but:*this is totally natural. its supposed to happen, so dont yall freak out.*pancake doesnt like it cause a whole bunch of weird goo is suddenly going through their entire body and it surprises them, but they aren’t in pain or anything.
5tr3tch: *before it comes gushing out in the form of goo!*i dont know how it works with more fleshy monsters, but for babybones this means the magic kinda explodes into being out their SOUL and throughout their whole body.*out their eyes, nose, mouth, in between the ribs, even down to their pelvis- everywhere.*and if youre the sucker holding them at the time, all over you too.
5tr3tch: *as you can imagine, they dont really like the feeling very much.*and we gotta change them, cause theyre super gooey and slimy now.*sorry buddy, getcha nice in clean in one second.
[Whoops! I messed up!!! oTL I’m sorry!! This is the correct one! I just did it myself to double check!!]
*alrighty folks here you go.
*a difficult but not impossible puzzler thatll make you really work for pancakey’s real name
*ill give yall one hint: change your point of view.
*happy puzzling.
Oh, sweetie! It’s okay Little Bit, everyone is okay, there’s no need to ‘pan’ic. Would you like a treat, cutie-bones? *holds out crunchy apple slices* I brought enough for everyone, if it’s okay?
5tr3tch: *hehe, youre pretty good!*cake a load off, Pancakey, and just relax. were all friends here yeah?
5tr3tch: *wowie, lookit that! apples!*thats one of our favorite foods in the whole wide world, right? we love apples! we love them so much that we always try to eat the stem, too, although daddy always manages to stop us. one day were gonna get our way tho.*come on, grumpy gus. “we rhially appreciate it! thank you for the langley snack!”
5tr3tch: *pretty sure their dads gonna come back any minute now with a snack, tho, and hed prolly blow a fuse if he saw me feeding pancake from an unverified source.*so im just gonna hide them for later snacking! pancake, youre my lookout-*hey! youre looking the wrong way! were gonna get in troubled if you dont help me!*come on, dont bail me on me now! your not gonna be able to see thru me, silly bones.
Are you guys sharing similar emotions/feelings still even with Pancake now born? I thought the ParentMOOD thing was only during monster pregnancy
5tr3tch: *mmm, kinda?*im actually super impressed you know about the parentMOOD. that was a rough quarter, lemme tell ya. *looks like flapperjack is a little calmer, so maybe they won’t mind a quick crayon doodle or two.
5tr3tch: *sounds like you guys already understand the parentMOOD, so i’ll be brief.*the souling is there, but its not its own whole monster yet, right? during the second quarter, when soulings are trying to make themselves into their own lil monster, they need a lot of help.*one of these is an important but kind of annoying effect of the parentMOOD. part of its biology (happy pregnant parents mean happy healthy baby!) but its also the souling using the non-pregnant parent as a, like, model. an emotional/intent/feelings model*so they make (meeeeeeeee) their parents super duper emotional about everything, and soak it all up like a sponge. its like theyre cataloguing all of it away in their personal little wikipedia on how to be a real monster.*in short: i feel, they absorb it
5tr3tch: *so, they’re born yay. were all still kinda linked, but theyre not entirely dependent on us anymore (kinda sorta)*but now and they got this whole big database on emotions they don’t know how to use.*so now both of us get to be the models and like… give them emotional cues. help teach them how they should feel about thing abc and then bcd, stuff like that.*we call that soul resonance, cause its literally like our souls align and its like… literally heart to heart. soul to soul? eh generally supposed to keep it simple and slowly work up to more complex emotions, but were not perfect. so…*anyway. so Pancake knows fear really well (long story,) so when Edge and me get nervous, they cant always parse that out and just go for SCARED and starts crying. *thats why im here just being happy and reassured and great, cause were gonna soul resonate again and theyre gonna go right back to being cheerful and pleased.*there’s a lot more to it but thats the basics.*in short: i feel, they feel, they start reacting to it.
* isn’t that totally different from how humans do it?*from my understanding, yall dont need to teach your babies to cry or laugh or feel stuff, they just… do it. that sounds so weird!*how do they know theyre having the right reaction if you dont show them first?
