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HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY LUCY!!

@chaoticneutrallucy

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If you were a DnD character, which race and class would you be?

uh. I took a quiz bc i have no gd idea what options there are and it says Artificer. I guess gnomes sound fun so that.

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You find a note attached to your front door. In lowercase letters it reads: you are the bikini atoll.

Lucy has no idea what that is, but passes the note along to Ares & Lucien's front door.

@aresmelaina

@lucienmelaina

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Q and A

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Which Member of a Doomed Space Crew Are You?

Botanist What were you thinking, growing green things in the middle of space? The first time you saw those sprouts rise up out of the dirt, you felt fathomless triumph and then the sickening lurch of hubris. Did your recklessness have consequences? Maybe. But how best to find your way out of disaster than to cling to all the life you can find in this desolate place?

X

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"Oh, pff, it's m'job." Lucy puffed the gratitude away, even if they secretly liked getting any positive feedback. "I mean, they're babies, hey? Dirty, hungry, sleepy or pinched. You just gotta work out the trouble, solve it and you're aces." Okay. That was a little cocky, and a lot disregarding the multitudinous variables. But eh.

Tipping a chin in the direction Aris had gone, Lucy spoke casually. "Your boy's big clever. Get that from you?" A curious mind could be turned to chaos if left unnourished, which could mean trouble for parents who just want peace in the home.

Aaliyah had a long day. The bags under her eyes were evident. The twins had kept her up, making her sleep impossible. Aris, on the other hand, was able to sleep just fine. His room's walls were slightly thick enough to block out their low-level crying. Their mother wasn't so lucky. And it'd been a day at the clinic. Not too many pets but enough necessary tasks that took longer than she'd expected.

When she opened the daycare door, she yawned but covered it with her mouth. It wasn't hard for the woman to spot Aris, who was talking to Lucy. She walked over & forced the corners of her lips up. She was tired & wanted nothing but sleep. Hearing the twins were asleep made her hope they would stay that way the rest of the night. Aaliyah turned to Aris & nodded towards the door. "Go get your sisters, will you?" He nodded & sauntered to the room next door. She turns towards Lucy again. "Thank you for watching them. Were they easy on you?"

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Are you still happy with where you are in life?

No! XDDDD No way, anonymous mango. Under-stimulated, no access to any good gadgets, all my experience and work and education are withering away. And I'm trapped in this stupid body, with no hope of ever altering it.

I guess teaching STEM shit is fun, at least.

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What's something you know you're irrational about, but you can't help yourself?

Just one thing?

I feel like giving a sillier answer, so! I truly think every pair of socks has a left and a right. That's why sometimes they fit weird - you put them on the wrong foot.

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Chicken in the Wood. Bright orange. Trees. Shorthand always was best for Lucy. They could repeat the phrases, memorize the words. "Spring to Fall, right" They tried to move as quiet as Orion did, but a sheet of bark sloughed off under one shoe. Landing on the trunk and then their butt, Lucy was back on their feet in seconds with wide, panicked eyes.

When nothing happened, they relaxed slowly. "Sorry," Lucy panted, smoothing blond hair a few times over. "No. Never foraged for them before. Dumpsters were usually more plentiful."

starter for: @chaoticneutralbell

location: outside of Redwood

"There should be chicken in the wood in this part of the forest. It grows on trees. It is bright orange and easy to recognize. They grow from spring until fall, so they are a reliable foraging source." Orion explained Lucy as they climbed over a dead tree sprawled out on the forest floor. Foraging had always been an intrinsic part of his life. The lessons his father had given him when they'd gone out into the woods were as fresh as anything on his mind, kept clear by years of use. That hadn't stopped once he'd come into Redwood. And he didn't mind teaching what he knew to Lucy when they'd asked him to.

Orion looked for the all too familiar shapes and colors among the foliage, occasionally glancing back to make sure that Lucy was keeping up. "Have you forged for mushrooms before?"

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starter for @mcmmabear at the School/Daycare

"...and, frankly speaking, I don't trust the littles to keep their hands away." Shit, Lucy didn't trust adults to keep their hands clear of exothermic reactions. Didn't have the supplies either way, but Aris didn't need to know that. In Clackamas, the older Bells always did their best to hide the lacking from the littler kids as long as possible. In the lab, they'd improvised the fuck out of what they had to work with.

They spotted his mama hovering, and waved her in. "Hey, welcome back!" A last nod to her son and Lucy left him to meet the mama bear. "The littles are a door over, snoozing away and probably loading up a surprise for you. Want I should get them or do you have a minute for jawing?" All the kids kept a person hopping, but checking in with the teacher was - supposedly - helpful.

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- END -

"She was a fan of anything with the right vibe," Lucy sighed, dismissive as always on the subject of her mother. "I should probably be glad I wasn't Taurus Moonclover or something."

Surprised at the concept, Lucy glanced in the direction of the center. "Blessed? I don't know if Daddy Theo is chill enough to help with that. What if we just say we had it blessed?" Focusing with a pen... Automatic writing, right. Lucy believed that even less.

Leaning in, Lucy spoke conspiratorially. "Who do we think it's gonna be? The kitchen workers could poison us all. Orrr - oh, the Hunters... hunt us." Laughing at her own ideas, Lucy pulled her ponytail tighter. "Or I could do it. Lure in some pretty girl with a wink and a smile and then - oh no, another traumatized generation come morning."

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Are you happy?

Rarely to never, but what can you do? At least I'm a cutie.

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Q and A

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Q and A

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Crack Treated Seriously

a certified silly goose, you wish everyone could chill out and find some fucking whimsy!

Which Ao3 tag are you?

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Q and A

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"Ab Fab, my guy, might be as close as I can pull for that." She'd never been that committed to her mom's aesthetic. Hendrix was a jam, but The Beatles sound was never Lucy's bag. She knew enough to be a shit about it, and nothing more.

Her expression wanted to fall sarcastic. Instead, Lucy widened her eyes and pitched her voice higher. "Gee, what's a cartoon, mister?" A few fluttered eyelashes and Lucy laughed again, dry but genuine. "Yes, I'm familiar. But -" Lucy's smile broadened for a moment before she affected suspicion "-methinks the goat doth protest too much. I now suspect you of nibbling the occasional sardine can quite intensely."

Lucy hopped to her feet without preamble, cuffing Ike's shoulder playfully and tried out an accent she hadn't employed in ages. "Keep the Sunday Chapels, Ikey. Better for you than tin. Prolly."

"Whaaaat? C'mon. Lucy in the Sky with Tin Cans doesn't know Liverpudlian slang?" Ike huffed a laugh, using his hands to articulate his explanation, moving them from side to side in front of him. "Gear, that means cool in hip sixties Beatles slang, and fab, like the Fab Four. For fabulous."

He could've gone on -- about Hard Day's Night the movie, about the shifting nature of slang, but honestly Ike figured it might just muddle things up between them even more. He chuckled a little to himself at the prospect -- most of the time even his most byzantine ways of talking seemed to resolve enough for the other person, but with Lucy it was like they were two similarly charged ends of a magnet. Something about their manners of speech sort of ... repelled each other, in a non-value weighted way. An almost literal way.

"I eat tin cans like a goat does," Ike said, then added "--tell me you know about that being shorthand in cartoons for how goats eat everything. I don't actually eat tin cans."