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ameliathefatcat · 2 months

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I have a theory that Hannah Sparkes is adopted

As the title says is Hannah adopted? I know cartoon logic and everything but Fireman Sam is pretty good about genetics especially when it comes to parents and their kids.

Mandy's skin tone is in the middle of her parents, she has black hair like Helen, and brown eyes like both of her parents.I'll say Mandy looks more like Helen then Mike but she does look a lot like both of her parents

The twins of blonde hair like Bronwyn, yes neither Charlie or Bronwyn have blue eyes but Sam does. So there is a good chance that one of Sam and Charlie's parents have/had blue eyes. I'll say twins look more like Charlie then Bronwyn

It's hard to do this with Norman since he only has his mother. But it's probably safe to say Norman most likely takes after his father

Same for Lily Chen. Since we only see her mother Mrs Chen. It's a bit different for the Chen family since they are the only Asian family in Pontypandy and I don't want to say anything racist by accident.

Now when it comes to siblings in Pontypandy some who look a lot alike such as Sarah and James or Ellie and Jodie and their are sibling groups who don't look a lot alike such as Helen and Malcolm or Sam and Charlie but that could simply be that each take after a different parent (like me and my sister, I look like our dad and she looks like are mom). That's probably the case for Sam and Charlie. Krystyna and Peter do look related but I won't say that they look like (half) siblings. If I just saw photos of them I'll probably say they are cousins

Speaking of cousins, we do see familial resemblances with extended family members. Such as Sarah and James having the same eye color as Sam or that Derek has similar hair color to Dillys. Jerry Lee looks like Elvis but with blonde hair. But not everyone has this strong of the familial resemblance. The twins didn't look like their grandfather Gareth, Mandy doesn't share any traits with Malcolm and Penny and Annie don't look related at all. Which makes sense when it comes to genetics.

Now when it comes to the Sparkes family. The chances of the man with brown eyes and woman with blue eyes to have a baby with green eyes actually has a lot of range, any where from 0% to 25% (different sites told me different things) and for a man with brown hair and a woman with red hair to have a baby with blonde hair is rare ranging form 0% to 17% (once again different sites said different things). I know these things can happen (my sister has blonde hair and blue eyes and the rest of the immediate family has brown eyes and hair) especially since we don't have extended family members for the Sparkes family. Hannah also has a completely different face shape from her parents (this one is hard for me cuz I'm face blind). Hannah just doesn't look like her parents unlike the rest of the kids (with on screen parents) who do look like at least one of their parents (once again looking at you Norman Price). If I didn't really know the show and just saw an episode on tv while babysitting or just because it's the only thing on at the hotel I'll probably say Hannah is mother is either Bronwyn or Penny. Like I'll probably believe you if you say Hannah is Penny's daughter or that Hannah is the older sister of Sarah and James.

Fireman Sam can go many different ways with the Hannah being adopted storyline. Maybe the kids are talking about when they were babies and showing each other their baby albums and in Hannah's it shows when she was adopted. Hannah treats it like it's no big deal and maybe jokes that she wishes she didn't get as an embarrassing dad as she did (Most likely one to be an actual episode). Another idea is that Hannah is excited that her birth mom is coming to visit it can go one of two ways Hannah's birth mom and possibly sibling(s) visit Hannah in Pontypandy or two Hannah's birth mom doesn't show up and Hannah is really upset about it. Hannah and Norman could team up to find their biological parents/father and ask why they were abandoned. Hannah doesn't know she's adopted and finds out by herself and is extremely upset and confused about it she tries to figure out who she really is. Hannah could run away after finding out this family secret and she's really mad at her parents for not telling her. I honestly might start headcanoning Hannah as being adopted but not knowing until she adolescence.

TLDR: Fireman Sam follows the rules of genetics and Hannah is probably adopted

#fireman sam #genetics #I think I’ve mentioned almost every human character with friends members in the show in this post #fan theory #I guess

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sammydem0n64 · 2 years

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Nearly all my gijinkas (minus a small handful) are humans yes but for my color gijinkas they are... rather inhuman. Like yes they’re people, but they possess certain physical quirks, such as having colored tongues and their blood being the color they represent (ex: Greg’s blood would be gold), while all my other gijinkas don’t have that because it’s hard to do so. The most that comes close is that the ice cream giijinkas have a cold tolerance but that’s really just Basic Evolution I would think because if you and your ancestors lived in a place that’s Fucking Freezing your whole life then I imagine your body would adapt to the weather. No other gijinka can have such a thing. The colors are just so WEIRD though, they’re so inhuman in small ways, like the only one who doesn’t have colored blood IS Blanc and in fact their blood has a weird quirk to it because of their dad who, spoilers ig, IS NOT a color, but I don’t even think Blanc’s blood quirkness is bc of their dad I think them being a color gijinka just fucked around with that.

And there’s also the fact supernaturals (ghosts and cryptids) exist in Rainne Bay when no one else has that, and this is primarily a remnant of when all my gijinka stories DIDN’T take place in the same universe for whatever reason, but now through a current lense it just continues to make the color gijinkas... odd.

And the more I think about it, it makes sense.

Take the other gijinkas I have; pop tarts, cookies and ice cream. All are physical concepts, all have rules. Take ice cream for example, all ice creams are generally different because not every brand will have the same flavors or use the same recipes for common flavors such as vanilla. Yet, all specific ice cream flavors are the same. Like if I give you a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Peanut Butter Half Baked, unless some outside force affected it, such as it going bad and thus being covered in mold, I added smth like hot sauce to it, or you just lack a sense of taste, the ice cream is going to taste like Peanut Butter Half Baked. All pints of that flavor will taste like it, once again unless outside forces did something. The same is applied to the rest, like a regular oreo will taste like a regular oreo unless I replaced the cream with toothpaste, y’know? These food items come in different flavors, but the different flavors are all a constant unless something was fucked around.

This is much like humanity; people come in all sorts of different shapes and sizes and genetic composition, but we are all HUMAN. We are made up of the same components and despite how diverse humanity is, in the end we are all the same species. Anyone could tell you that.

Color, though? There is no constant in color. You look up “pink” in the search bar and you’ll find hundreds of different shades of pink all claiming to be the same color, crayola’s pink won’t look the same as a random paint companies’ pink. At the same time, a certain color or hex code could claim to be several different colors depending on what websites you use, no one will give you a straight answer on what color that is. Aside from hex code, there’s even the fact no one person will see the same colors as another, this isn’t even in a color blind sense, its just that some people cannot differentiate certain hues or shades. There are colors we can’t see at all. The concept of color is ethereal.

And this makes sense... because color isn’t a physical concept, it’s just projections of light. Light is not a physical concept. Light will never be a physical concept its a fucking form of electromagnetic radiation and some of it gives us colors. No matter how hard we try to mimic colors we will never have a constant a basis one true form of blue or red or purple because we cannot force something that is just a manmade concept based on how human’s see certain objects into a box.

Color can never be like humanity, no matter how hard we try to make it as such.

Anyways this was all made bc I thought’d if be funny if one of my ocs got a papercut and was like “whoopsies!” while everyone else around them was like “MOTHERFUCKER WHY IS YOUR BLOOD GREEN???”

#long post #I DONT EVEN KNOW WHAT TO TAG THIS AS #I get a little too analytical for humanizing concepts

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chronicallytiredmuses · 1 year

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**MY ART!! DO NOT STEAL!!!**

⚠️Trigger Warning: Mental Illness, Self Harm Implications, Murder, and Childhood Neglect⚠️

General Info:

Name: Jayden Willis

Nicknames: Jay

Gender: Genderfluid Male

Age: 21

Birthdate: August 26

Zodiac Sign: Virgo

Sexuality: Gay

T, S, B: Bottom

Appearance:

Height: 5’7

Weight: 135 lbs

Body Type: Slim, but has some muscle tone

Skin Tone: Pale

Hair color: Ginger, dyed white at the ends

Hair style: Layered, shoulder length

Eye color: No eyes, formerly Green

Scars?: Around where his eyes were and his arms

Piercings?: Ears are pierced

Tattoos?: N/A

Other distinguishing features?: Freckles across his nose and cheeks as well as on his shoulders

History:

Family: Adam Willis (Father), Illiza Willis (Mother), Aspen Willis (Twin Brother), Alice Willis (Younger Sister)

Backstory: Born in London, England, Jay and his siblings grew up in poverty due to his parents abusing drugs such as heroin and painkillers after his dad was in a work related accident. While Jay, Aspen, and Alice were never physically abused, they were seriously neglected and often had to beg their neighbors for food. Whenever Jay was around 7 years old, he started to have some strange experiences, having hallucinations of demons and paranoid delusions of being followed. Command hallucinations demanded that he do things that may cause harm to himself or someone else. Eventually, when he was 18, he killed his family and he blinded himself shortly afterwards in order to rid himself of at least the visual hallucinations (though it did nothing for the auditory and tactile hallucinations), and he was taken to the emergency room by the police. The doctors couldn’t save his eyes or his sight, but he was placed directly in a mental facility once he was physically well enough and diagnosed with Childhood Onset Schizophrenia.

Love Interest (if any): Unknown

Physical Illness?: N/A

Neurological Illness?: N/A

Mental Illnesses?: Schizophrenia

Handicaps?: Blind

Genetic Mutations?: N/A

Personality:

Personality: Jay is a very sweet and kindhearted person whenever he isn’t in the midst of a full blown psychosis, albeit a bit shy. He is the type of person that will give someone the shirt off his back. He loves helping people, because he firmly believes that helping others brings him joy. However, he is very different during episodes of full psychosis. Often times he will withdraw from others, talk much less, and generally have a very flat affect. Sometimes, he even becomes completely catatonic.

How to tell he’s going into a psychosis

Goes from smiling to a complete flat affect. No expression on his face and his voice starting to sound monotonous

Catatonia

Wandering or looking around as if he’s looking for something or someone that isn’t there

Either ignoring everything or paying attention to everything (including hallucinations)

Literally not being able to hear because of how loud his auditory hallucinations are

Self isolation

Easily distracted

Starting to fidget a lot more, typically picking at his self-harm scars or at the bandages covering where his eyes were

Going really quiet in the middle of a conversation

OCD behaviors such as constantly checking what’s around, constantly checking food and then not eating, etc because of paranoid beliefs

#original character #oc art #roleplay #ocs #oc

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echos-lighthouse · 3 years

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Random thing for the ninja

I don’t know if this is going to be headcannons or an au, if it it’s an au it’s the most useless and pointless one ever

Might do the girls in another post

Jay

This one definitely is a headcannon

Jay has heterochromia

His mom had blue eyes and his dad had brown

He has a brown eye on the right, and a blue one on the left

He was never really ashamed of his heterochromia. Ed and Edna never made him feel out of place about it

He wasn’t really sure where he got it growing up since Ed and Edna both had brown eyes, but he figured that they were both carried the recessive gene

When he found out he was adopted it made sense

The other ninja ��find it really cool

The pirates in season 6 teased him about it a bit so that’s another reason he wore the eye patch

Bentho thought there was something wrong with him when he met him, but he learned it was fine

Lloyd

This one is a bit of a headcannon

Lloyd is color blind

He had deuteranomly color blindness

He can still differentiate between the ninja, but sometimes he gets mixed up with things around the monastery and the bounty

It’s gotten to the point where Jay gave him a bunch of stickers so he knows he can put them on things he needs

he didn’t even know he was color blind until Pythor came up in conversation

“Pythor is purple? I thought he was blue?”

Color blind

Kai

This is where it goes into AU territory because I don’t really vibe with this as a headcannon (even though I have this one)

Kai has synesthesia

Specifically color-grapheme, meaning he sees numbers and letters as colors in his mind

You say hello? He thinks hello

When the ninja found out he had this, they asked him what color all their names were

This is how he knew Lloyd was the green ninja. Lloyd is green

He had a hard time getting along with Cole because the name Cole was always red for him

Eventually they got along over the fact that they both have synesthesia

Nya thought he was weird for thinking in color, but Kai thought it was just him

Until Zane told him about it and he realized what it was

Jay was his favorite because his name matched his gi

He color codes really well

Skylor also fit so that’s another reason he really liked her

Cole

Again, AU territory, don’t really vibe with hc, the whole shebang

Cole also has synesthesia

Specifically lexical-gustatory

Lexical gustatory means you can taste words

He knew he had it growing up because his mom had it

“Lilly” tastes like vanilla cake, so that’s why he likes cake

Vania also tastes like vanilla cake

His dad was upset because he thought if Cole got either of their synesthesias, it would be his

Lou had Chromesthesia

Chromesthesia makes it so people associate color with sound, and some can even see it, and this makes it so they have perfect pitch

But when Cole couldn’t sing, Lou realized he didn’t have chromesthesia

Cole had never met anyone named Kai before, so when he met Kai, his name came as a mint flavour since Kai shoved toothpaste in his mouth the first time they met

Some names taste bad and it’s hilarious

“Clutch Powers” tastes like the way motor oil smells

He helped Kai figure out he also had synesthesia

He temporarily lost it when he became a ghost, but he got it back in DOTD

Neuro

Neuro doesn’t have anything, I just think it’s funny to mention that when he reads Kai’s and Cole’s mind, he thinks they’re weird

He can experience the same thing they do

“Hello, my name is Neuro”

Apparently his name tastes like Oreos

Zane

Since Zane is a nindroid, it’s hard for him to have genetic mutations (Heterochromia or color blindness) or neural crossovers (synesthetes)

So instead he can see ultraviolet colors

He’s a tetrachromat

He has a fourth cone (or the nindroid equivalent of one)

The rainbow is beautiful cause he sees more colors

He named the other colors after the planets because he’s not sure what to call them

He doesn’t talk about them often

But it makes tracking some villians a lot easier

The illumiswords from the episode where Lloyd grew up are a different color to him

One time, Jay and Lloyd bought those invisible ink pens, but Zane could still read them

#ninjago #jay walker #ninjago jay #lloyd garmadon #ninjago lloyd #kai smith #ninjago kai #cole brookstone #ninjago cole #zane julien #ninjago zane #headcanon #aid

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erigold13261 · 2 years

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compton's daughter/sam and dogen's mother must have done something that was animal rights but went too far and got incarcerated as a result

I don't think that's a necessity, but it definitely is a possibility (also Compton could have had a son making it the father, it's not explicitly said that Compton had a daughter, at least not from what I read/remember).

From what we do know, Compton and Dogen have trouble with their blastokinesis, but Sam doesn't. We don't know if Sam had the same problem and overcame it (something Compton wasn't able to do) or if she just never had the blastokinesis problem to begin with.

In my opinion, I honestly don't think Sam ever had the problem to begin with because it would feel weird if a teenager was able to overcome something like that while both Dogen and Compton struggle with it. Like I feel Sam would have mentioned something about it and having tried to help the two if she was able to overcome that problem.

So because of this, I feel like the blastokinesis problem is a genetic problem in the Boole family that only the males get (or like, it's more common in males, like how color blindness is more common in males than females but it's not unheard of in females). And because we never hear anything about or mentioned of one of Sam and Dogen's parents also exploding heads (we actually get more information that the parents are actively trying to help Dogen, well "trying" might be pushing it because they are scaring the shit out of him with how they are going about it) then I believe either their father doesn't have the problem (if he's Compton's son) or the mother never got it genetically (if she's the dauther).

It could also be that the blastokinesis problem skips a generation. Or that it's not genetic at all (I do believe it's genetic though to some degree).

However, whether or not it is genetic, there is no proof of EVERYONE in the family having blastokinesis problems. Only Dogen and Compton. Those two could literally just be the outliers of the family and no other member in the family has this problem. I say this because the Boole family is not known for exploding heads, only specific members are known to do that. BUT! The family IS known for their Zoolingualism! So to be known for one thing and not the other, especially if the other has killed animals and humans alike, makes me think the blastokinesis problem is not as common as we might assume it is.

Could whichever gender of Compton's kid have also had a blastokinesis problem and done animal rights just as Compton did, sure! But I feel like it's more likely that they only had Zoolingualism and not the blastokinesis problem.

....

Okay, I reread your ask. You didn't mention anything about blastokinesis lol. So going back to that, I don't think either parent is incarcerated. We don't know if Sam is lying when she said she learned how to make pancakes from prison or her mom, but her going straight to "mom" and not "dad" makes it seem like her mom is still in the picture enough for her to immediately go to that one as a reflex.

Looking back, Dogen's campster description uses "family" and not "parents," but we know that Compton has been in psychoisolation for a long time and Sam seems pretty chill about Dogen's powers, so based on the campster description of the "family" yelling at Dogen when he took his hat off, it's safe to assume it's the parents (unless there are some uncles/aunts and cousins we don't know about). This would mean that the parents are active in Dogen's life and not incarcerated.

Now obviously there could be other factors at play. Such as the birth parent who is related to Compton was incarcerated and the other parent found someone else to parent the kids with, or they were incarcerated and got out at some point, or like they are under house arrest or something like that meaning they are still active in the lives of the kids but the kids have seen the inside of a prison most likely.

So like, long story short, I feel like Compton had a kid who did not have the blastokinesis problem (either male or female) but they were very scared of it developing or something. They could talk to animals but probably heard what Compton did and never went as far as he did. Then once that parent had Sam, their anxiety grew more thinking she would develop it, only to have that fear realized when Dogen was born. So no incarceration, at least I don't think it's likely.

#psychonauts #eritalks #noart #asks #erithinks #wow am i over analyzing or what?#lol

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rodeoxqueen · 4 years

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Of Lacking Spectacle(s)-Vergil/Reader

Summary: Vergil is a lot of things. Vergil is the Dark Slayer, The Alpha and The Omega, and the eldest son of Sparda. Vergil is also….in need of glasses?

Tags/Warnings: Suggestive Ending, Gender-Neutral Reader, Dante Read The Lord Of The Flies, Inspired By Vergil’s Buddy Holly Glasses Mod

Read It On AO3

Thank you @drusoona for sending me the pictures of Vergil that inspired this. The title is a reference to Gus Dapperton’s song Of Lacking Spectacle.

-Rodeo

(Picture Credits: @drusoona)

Vergil was always so precise and capable, sensing demons from distances away and predicting attacks with pinpoint accuracy.

He was intense, his eyes purely focused on the task ahead of himself. A man of pure drive and prowess. And he was your man.

It came gradually, something he tried to ignore. A few sentences of blurred lines would quickly flicker back to clarity. A small pain that flashed behind his eyes after reading in a room too dark.

It didn’t look obvious to anyone. Even to his ever-doting beloved. He was the son of Sparda, a demon that surpassed Death multiple times. There was no way he could have failing vision. Impossible, he would scoff to himself as he rubbed his eyes.

This statement soon turned from ignorance to denial of a very real problem Vergil avoided showing. His always narrowed stare hid it quite well.

An anthill turned into a mountain he could no longer stamp down. And his beloved had already watched it build up for some time, waiting for the stubborn devil to say something about it.

Which he didn’t.

So when you were cooking some mac and cheese from a recipe you found from a friend who knew a friend who knew a friend who asked her son for the recipe, you decided to strike up the question.

“Vergil.”

“That is my name, yes,” Vergil said from the couch, enraptured in a new book you bought him. You rolled your eyes at him.

“Are you having vision problems?”

“Of course not.” Hand on your hip, you pointed your rue-covered spatula at him.

“Then why is your nose literally in that book?” Vergil used to always be found with his book at arms-length as he would silently recite the words.

He stilled. He quickly readjusted himself and coughed.

Jackpot.

“I haven’t a clue what you mean.”

“Don’t lie to me in front of my macaroni.” You threaten, stirring the pot. He sighs.

“My vision is just fine.” Vergil insists, squinting at the blurred words.

“Vergil, I think you have vision problems.”

“That’s foolishness.”

“Why so?”

“My father was a powerful demon, bad vision should not run in our family-”

“Didn’t your dad wear a monocle?”

His mouth dries and his eyes widen in realization. Oh god it was genetic. You have won the tirade and you puff your chest out.

“How about I take you to the eye doctor? I can call later and set up an appointment.” Vergil has closed the book and chosen instead to look at you.

The macaroni is boiling, a u-shaped pasta you are rather fond of. Your apron is speckled with flour and you twiddle the spoon in your hand.

“Come on, it’ll be super quick. Just read some letters off a wall.” You say as you add burrata into the cheese blend. Vergil always liked that kind of cheese.

When you went grocery shopping, he really thought you wouldn’t notice him taking more than three samples of it when no one was looking before walking off like a successful sample thief.

Upon the sound of a bag of his favorite cheese opening, Vergil got up. You smile. You go to offer him a bit before quickly snatching it away from his hand. He tuts at you.

“You can have some if you agree.”

“Agree to what?” You sigh.

“Eye doctor.”

“No need. I am fine.”

You turn to stir the pot of delicious pasta before going back to lecturing this stubborn devil.

“I’ve noticed you’ve been squinting more and having headaches.” You state. Vergil scolds himself, thinking he was much more hidden about his new problem.

He is quiet as he stares off into the pot of macaroni.

“Please? I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.” You put your other hand on his cheek. He looks at you finally, ice-blue glaciers warming at your loving and concerned expression.

God, his mate was so soft. He pulls your non-occupied hand to his other cheek-

And snatches the bit of burrata out of your fingers with his mouth. You make an offended noise at his trickery.

“Very well.” He muses.

You call up a local eye doctor after a hearty bowl of mac and cheese.

Taking Vergil to the doctor was like taking a cat to the vet. He sat in the waiting room with his arms crossed and eyes intensely out-alphaing everyone in his general proximity.

When they finally call your names, the ice was broken and people finally felt safe to breathe in his absence.

The eye doctor guides Vergil to the examination room. Vergil does not like it already. Why would you do this to him?

He waits at the door, waiting for you to come in with him.

“Sir, this is more of a personal test.” You shrug and blow him a kiss as he is ushered into the room

“How long has it been since you’ve had an eye test?” The doctor asks, Vergil taking a seat with a strange contraption before him.

“I have never had an eye test.” Vergil declares. The doctor laughs and swings the phoropter down. Vergil flinches slightly.

“Whoa now. Just set your chin here and look into the eye holes. This isn’t some medieval torture device.” He growls at the humiliation before doing so.

A series of lenses swiping through and the repeating question “which one looks clearer” later, Vergil is liberated from the examination room. He is greeted to you sitting and waiting for him.

“It wasn’t too bad, right?” You ask. Vergil nods. You turn to the doctor.

“So how is his vision?” The doctor flips through a few notes.

“Well, the letter Z was on the board and I asked him what he saw and he said triangle.” The doctor flips through a few notes.

“Your husband is in dire need of glasses.” Vergil raises an eyebrow at that statement.

Your husband, he likes that. You don’t even correct him.

Luckily, this clinic also sold frames and Vergil is able to pick out a few while you do the paperwork.

You remember Vergil has no taste and quickly go to help him.

“No, no, well maybe, no, ew.” You respond as Vergil swaps various frames about.

“My love, I simply need the lenses. These materials mean nothing.” He argues as you deny the tenth pair of frames.

“Well, you’re very handsome and I’d like you to get a nice pair that matches.” You say. You go to make a smug face at him when you realize he has finally walked away to pick out his own.

You immediately drop the frames you were holding when Vergil places a certain pair of thick black-colored glasses upon his nose.

“We’ll take them.”

Several weeks later, Vergil is bestowed his new reading glasses. He finds his problem vanishes quickly and he can now read at a decent distance away. You seem to greatly appreciate them. Strange. On jobs, he usually takes them off and stores them in the little case he was given.

He thought of it as weakness. If his own body was failing to maintain 20/20 vision, he should be ashamed. In the demon world, any bit of weakness meant imminent death.

Yet, he told himself he wasn’t in Hell anymore. He was having breakfast with his beloved and he was safe. And he was privileged to be allowed for his body to take a break and age as it should have, his vision waning as a normal man would have at his age.

You kiss him goodbye for another day of work and you push his glasses up as they tip slightly down. His nose does the little scrunch you love so much. So much, you kiss him on the bridge of the nose. He purrs and promptly cuts a portal to work.

He walks into Devil May Cry to work with his brother. Dante is upstairs, the sounds of a shower happening.

Vergil takes to the paperwork his brother has ditched doing once more, typing on a clunky keyboard. You had insisted to pay extra for blue-light protection and he finds it is so much easier to see the computer screen.

Finally, the water is shut off. His idiot brother is done wasting work hours. Well, when is he not?

Vergil continues looking through yellowed documents as Dante passes by, smelling like strawberry soap marketed for children.

Dante walks forward but then puts himself in reverse to see Vergil with glasses on again.

“Yes?” Vergil grits his teeth.

“Those are glasses.” Dante starts.

“Yes, yes they are.”

Dante snorts and points at him.

“Buddy Holly looking ass bitch.” Vergil stops and glares at his brother.

“I don’t even know who that is.”

Dante wheezes at he keeps looking at Vergil.

“Of course you don’t, you bag of bones! You look like a college RA.”

“Dante, get to work-”

“What are you going to do? Tell the dean on me? Is that why you were gone a couple weeks ago?”

“I had an appointment-”

“I hAd aN aPpOiNtMeNt.” Dante mocks.

“That’s rich coming from someone without insurance coverage-”

His spectacles are snatched from his face. Dante puts them on.

“How do you see with these on? Damn, you’re legally blind.”

“That’s why they’re mine-hand them over!”

“You sound like Piggy from Lord of the Flies. My specs! My specs!” Dante mocks in a terrible English accent.

Vergil growls in anger.

When Vergil comes home with his glasses off, you wonder why. The blue devil comes behind you while you make some soup, hands on your waist and breathing in the scent of your shampoo.

He’s quiet and in a way that is not his usual silence. He seems to have something on his mind. This time, you choose not to push it and let him be.

It isn’t until you’re both in bed, the lamp on as Vergil goes to take out a new novel. He hesitates when he reaches for his black glasses.

“My love?”

“Yes, Vergil?”

“Who’s Buddy Holly?”

Weird question but okay.

You search up the name on your phone and show him a picture. He puts on his glasses.

“Why would Dante think I look like that?” He asks himself with a frown. Upon realization, you put your hand on your mouth and fight back a laugh.

“Did Dante say that?” Vergil rolls his eyes.

“Of course he did, amongst other things.”

“Well, I think you look very nice. Like a very sexy college professor.” Vergil smugly looks at your bedroom eyes. The novel is long abandoned on the table.

Before he can pounce on you, he goes to take off his spectacles. You snatch them and place them back on his face.

“Keep them on this time.” You bite your bottom lip teasingly.

Vergil purrs.

He might get used to this.

[More Photos Of Vergil’s Mod-Credited To @drusoona]

#vergil x reader #vergil sparda #vergil imagines #devil may cry imagines #devil may cry imagine #dmc vergil #vergil #fluff #devil may cry #devil may cry vergil #gender neutral reader #rodeo used butcherknives' recipe for this fic #rodeo is lactose intolerant and a bite of mac and cheese will vibe check her straight to hell #drusoona's pictures

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dreadpoetssociety · 4 years

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Her Over Me

TW: death, verbal fighting

Request: Maybe can you do a Spence x teen! Daughter where Spencer’s new girlfriend is a total ass to y/n and despite her efforts to convince Spencer that she’s extremely harsh, Spencer brushes her off and ignores her until she finally snaps and gets enough of his ignorance, lashing out on him unexpectedly for caring so much for his girlfriend instead of his daughter and she just runs to Garcia’s or JJ’s or smth and spencer finally realizes the truth when his gf asks where the annoying ‘brat’ is? Thank u!

Note: Okay, hopefully this is alright HAH I’ve never written one with Spencer being a dad before, but this was fun. Thank you for the request!!

Pairings:

Spencer Reid x Girlfriend

Spencer Reid x Daughter!Reader

()()()()()()

You never liked your fathers new girlfriend. You weren’t sure what he saw in her, or how he didn’t notice the pure evil that bubbled inside the woman’s veins, considering he was a profiler and a genius and all that. He should’ve noticed her behavior a long time ago.

But alas, he didn’t. As the saying goes, love is blind. You’d tried to bring it up a few times, only to be brushed off, and gave up once you understood he was never going to believe you. The woman was nice to you in front of him, but became someone else when he was gone. You were convinced that if he wasn’t so head over heels for her, he probably would’ve noticed. It was so out of character for him not to, but for a while you didn’t want to ruin his happiness. He hadn’t been interested in anyone since your mom passed away, and even though he pretended to be happy, you had the genetics of a profiler, and just knew he hadn’t been for so long. Not completely, anyway.

When she came home, your mood changed, as though you were putting an extra wall up.

“Y/N, get over here and take these bags. I won’t wait.” she said.

“Alright.” you for the most part just tried to be compliant. You didn’t want any issues, or even worse, punishment, which had happened more than once now due to her incredible lying of ‘Y/N said this, Y/N said that, I think it’s because she doesn’t like me’ blah blah blah. She knew which buttons to push.

“Hurry it up, I have things to do.” she said angrily. You picked up the grocery bags and placed them on the island in the kitchen area. As you did, though, a glass salsa jar fell out and onto the floor, cracking into two pieces. You quickly started picking up the pieces and frantically tried to clean it.

“My God, Y/N! I just bought that! You can’t get anything right, can you? I don’t even understand why Spencer doesn’t just put you up for god damn adoption, you’re such a pain to be around. You owe me three dollars and fifty cents for that, and gas money to go back to the store.” she yelled, “For God sake, if I was your mom, I’d die, too.”

You stopped. You turned so quickly that it would’ve given someone whiplash. This was it. This was the last straw. All those times of her calling you a burden, of her blaming everything on you, trying to get rid of you in any way she could. She doesn’t belong in this family. She’s an outsider. What right does she have mentioning your mother. It hit too close to home, especially since you beat yourself up every day over feeling guilty of your mother’s death, and missing her more than words could even describe. It was your breaking point.

“You know what, Catherine,”

“Catrina” she interrupted.

“Catherine!” you screamed, “You vile, stupid excuse of a woman. Keep my mother out of your slimy, filthy mouth. You don’t have a place in this house.”

“Excuse me? How dare you tell me what to do, you stupid brat! I’ll tell Spencer about how awful you are, and maybe he’ll punish you again.”

“Honestly Caitlin, I don’t give a god damn. Put your own groceries away. In fact-“ you turned around and dropped all the glass piece back to the floor, “you can clean them the hell up, too.” the two of you broke out in a screaming match then, throwing insults back and forth at the top of your lungs.

Eventually, Spencer walked in at some point. You didn’t notice, but Catrina did. Her tone had changed, and she as calmer, and anomy somewhat nicer while you absolutely destroyed her.

“Y/N!” he yelled. You turned around. You’d never heard him yell at you like that before.

“Dad! I swear to you. She is literally so harsh. She treats me like trash! And you just let her! She brought up mo-“

“Really? Because I’m pretty sure it’s you who’s screaming at her. I know you’re upset because you miss your mom, but you can’t throw tantrums like this anymore, Y/N.”

You stopped. Anymore? Tantrums? You had et your father’s girlfriend walk all over you this whole time. All those times she got you in trouble she’d bent the truth dramatically. You hadn’t even yelled at her once until now.

“You’re really going to believe her over your own kid, aren’t you?” you shook your head, “You know what, that’s cool. Do what you want. I’ll do what Cathy has wanted me to do the whole time and see myself out. You know, for some alleged genius and incredible profiler, you’re too easily manipulated. Have fun on date night.”

“Y/N, get back here!”

But it was too late. You’d snatched the keys, walked out and slammed the door. Your eyes were blurry as the apartment elevator closed before Spencer could get to you, and you made your way down to the garage.

You got in the car and just drove. You weren’t sure where your body was taking you, but it was just on autopilot, and you eventually ended up at JJ’s, a coworker of your father’s.

You rang the bell, practically about to pass out from crying so much. JJ answered the door pretty quickly, and her face dropped with incredible amounts of concern that you could almost feel it.

“Y/N, oh my God, what’s going on?”

“Spen- and- a- an-“ you couldn’t even speak. You’d put up with this witch for so long for him, and you were his kid, and he just believed her so easily.

“Okay, hey, hey wait. Come inside, you have to sit down, okay?” JJ helped you in to her living room. The house was seemingly empty, so you assumed Will must’ve taken the kids somewhere. For a few minutes you just cried on her couch while she sat next to you trying to comfort you. Eventually calming down, you began to explain everything from the beginning. The disgusted looks, the insults, the lying, the this, the that, just everything.

“Y/N, I’m so sorry, that’s terrible.” JJ said, “Spence really hasn’t said anything about it?”

“No! Literally nothing! He doesn’t even think it’s happening. He doesn’t find it suspicious at all it’s so weird. He gives a damn so much about her that he’ll just like, see past it.” you replied.

“That’s so unlike him.” she said, “Do you want me to talk to him?”

You shook your head, “It’s just cause more problems with his dumb girlfriend. I don’t even care that he has a girlfriend! He thinks that I hate her because I miss my mom, but I hate her because she’s so mean to me all the time when he isn’t around. The only reason I lost it today was because she brought up my mom.”

“Is that why you got angry at her? What’d she say?”

“She literally said that if she were my mom, she’d die, too. Like firstly, who says that? What kind of insult is that? Secondly, who would bring up someone’s literal dead mother in any situation, let alone over a stupid jar?” you asked. JJ shrugged, not knowing what to say. You both talked for a few more hours after that, ignoring every attempt Spencer had tried to call you.

“Y/N, you’re genuinely welcome here any time if you need to get away from that.” she said.

“Thanks, JJ, I honestly might take you up on that.” you smiled. You said your goodbyes and made your way home.

When you walked through the front door of your apartment, you saw the two of them sitting on the couch together. Spencer looked at you, you looked back and just walked into your room as though life was normal. That’s all you could do for now. For the following few days, you spent most of your time at JJ’s. Penelope was there too, every once in a while, and once you told her the story, she almost went to straighten Spencer out herself. Garcia wasn’t the type to get angry, but when she was, it was like the day had just suddenly turned to night it was so dark. But, you convinced her out of it, saying you’d deal with it somehow and that you didn’t want anyone else involved.

Spencer had been waiting for his girlfriend to go out when you mysteriously disappeared for the millionth time this week. She walked in a black body con dress, and her beauty almost mesmerized him.

“Hey,” she smiled. She quickly looked around as her and Spencer got closer, “where’s that annoying little brat?”

And that’s when it finally clicked for him. All of those behaviors he’d picked up on, the way she looked at the top of his head when talking about how you had done something, the way her voice seemed to fluctuate, even just the way she walked around the house. It was almost like a snap back to reality for him, and he regretted ignoring it before. He knew now that you were telling the truth this whole time, and that he’d just looked over you.

“Get out.” he said.

“Spence, what?”

“That’s Dr. Reid for you. Get out of my house. You lied this whole time about Y/N.” his voice was raising, which she’d never seen happen before.

“What? Spence- no, let’s talk this out, you don’t understand!”

“You’re right, I don’t understand. How can I understand someone who treats my kid like nothing and lies about her for no reason? I can understand what you get out of it, a power trip, maybe. Maybe it stems from how you were raised as a child, since you said your mother did the same to you and now you’re doing it unto someone else. So most likely she’s just a surrogate to represent your younger self, correct? You’ve got the same hair color and eye color, so it actually adds up.” he rambled off angrily, but he stopped quickly, “Get out. Take your crap with you. Don’t call me again, we’re done.”

He slammed the door behind her.

When Spencer showed up to JJ’s house, you, Garcia, and JJ fell silent.

“Y/N, can we talk privately?” he asked. Looking at the two other women, they nodded their heads and gestured for you to go. You both walked out to Spencer’s car, getting in, and starting for a drive.

“Y/N, I’m so sorry, you were right this whole time.”

“Yeah, I know.” you retorted. He sighed.

“Genuinely, Y/N. Catrina’s gone I kicked her out. I should’ve seen who she really was from the beginning. I noticed all the signs and just went anyway. More importantly I should’ve listened to you.”

You stayed silent. What were you supposed to do in a situation like this? You were still mad at him, but wanted to forgive him.

“I’m genuinely sorry.”

“I’ll forgive you eventually, but I’m pissed about it for now.” you stated.

“Which completely makes sense, you have every right to be.”

“Something that might help your case would be a nice trip to the mall, you know. . . “ you smirked. He laughed. The two of you drove around for about an hour and a half talking things out, and the day ended with you, Spencer, Garcia, and JJ all going out together. Of course, not before Garcia and JJ almost killed him, but once it was somewhat settled, the four of you had a good time, especially with you having the satisfaction of knowing that Catrina was literally kicked out of your house.

#Spencer reid #Dr Spencer Reid #Doctor Spencer Reid #Criminal minds x Reader #criminal minds x y/n #criminal minds x you #JJ #Jennifer Jereau #Penelope Garcia #Garcia #Spencer x daughter reader #daughter reader

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messymonologues · 3 years

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𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐌𝐄 & 𝐌𝐘 𝐀𝐃𝐇𝐃 ✿❁✾❀

—

the basics (name, age, etc.):

-> maggie; 19; she/her; february pisces. raised in the american south but currently attending college in new jersey; pursuing a degree in diplomacy + international relations, on track for a 5 yr masters :)

-> i am christian and therefore have a very strong tie to my religion/ faith. i will not shame anyone for having different beliefs and have no desire to pressure anybody with my own religious beliefs in any way; however, you may see these beliefs reflected in some of the posts i make on this blog. my dedication to my faith has made a huge impact on how i have handled having adhd throughout my life, and it has helped me to personally cope over the years in much more healthy ways than if i had not had the stability & security of these core beliefs. that being said, read on for more facts about me & adhd!

some infodumping w/ more fun facts about me:

-> i’m a freshman in college and mentioned my major above, but i’m also hoping to go for a minor in east asian studies. i’m american so english is 1st but in total i speak 4 languages: english, fluent spanish, conversationally fluent korean, and basic japanese; i’m planning to learn mandarin chinese soon too :)

-> my mbti type is enfp (“campaigner”) !!

-> my favorite color is mint green & i love winter ❄️

-> unlike a lot of adhd-ers, i actually suck at art lol; however i write fiction on the side every now & then.

-> i love to travel and have visited 5 countries so far!

-> i don’t plan on putting any pics of myself on here but for curiosity purposes, i’m pale, short, + brunette.

-> that’s enough info dumping for now hehe but feel free to send more questions to my inbox <3 <3 <3

*all about my experience with adhd: (below the cut)*

my official adhd diagnosis:

-> i was diagnosed by an adhd specialist at around 6 years old with combined-type adhd (meaning i showed a combination of having both inattentive and hyperactive types present on my chart), and quite honestly i was told that my adhd levels were highly active and more elevated than a good amount of others with the same diagnosis. so basically, my adhd is fairly severe without being totally crippling. (in case you’re wondering how i treat my adhd: i tried various treatment options throughout elementary school and found that taking a prescription medication for it was the solution that helped me function the most; the dosage of the pill has fluctuated as needed over the years but i still take it every day as it does exactly what it should do inside my brain and makes my life a bit easier. however, i want to put in a disclaimer here to make it known that medication is not the only answer + doesn’t work for everyone the same way.) also, my adhd is genetic on my dad’s side!!

my most prominent symptoms & how my adhd typically presents itself:

-> my most common visible symptom is tics (aka fidgeting in ways that mimic a psych phenomenon called stimming, which describes physical motions that seem random but inexplicably provide release of stress from symptoms for neurodivergent ppl: i.e cracking knuckles, picking at nails or skin, playing with hair, etc.) but the rest of them are internal.

-> my other most common symptoms include: executive dysfunction, emotional dysregulation, rsd (rejection-sensitive dysphoria), decision paralysis, time blindness, object impermanence (“out of sight out of mind” except about pretty much everything not just material things), hyperfixation as well as hyperactivity, distractability, sensory sensitivity issues (specifically i just have an aversion to sudden loud noises like fireworks), and there’s no medical term for it but lastly, burnout/fatigue both physically and mentally.

nobody asked for this but anyways,, here’s some stuff that has helped me cope over the years:

-> reading books was my own personal escape mechanism as a kid. i’d get lost in a book whenever i felt like i was being too much, and then get so absorbed in reading that i’d tune out the world. it was very soothing for my hyperactivity and helped me establish a healthy outlet for my creative energy.

-> i’m not sure if all adhd-ers have this issue, but for me, caffeine has absolutely no effect on me. i can drink a monster/ red bull at bedtime and still get a full night of sleep; also, it doesn’t help me wake up in the mornings either. i cope with this by substituting the caffeine cravings with tea- all kinds- and tbh, tea has a whole lot of benefits that coffee does not! :)

-> you may have noticed that i didn’t include “impulsivity” as one of my symptoms above. this is because i learned at a young age how to curb my impulsiveness through playing a sport (which is one of the top recommendations for adhd-ers actually!), and i played volleyball for many many years. sports helped me control my impulsivity by giving me a place to exert all my quick bursts of energy and also taught me various kinds of self-discipline. it helps!!

-> adhd often (but not always) comes with the challenge of having an addictive personality due to the urge to access dopamine through means that aren’t always healthy, i.e substance abuse or repetitive bad habits. what worked well for me was to combat this dilemma by putting more time into hobbies and habits that make me feel in control of my energy whenever i find myself becoming addicted to or obsessed with a bad habit. this manifested over the years in the forms of: releasing pent-up energy by joining club sports, picking up a new book series to distract myself from the urge to cope with adhd in less healthy ways, writing as much as i want to & about whatever i want to in order to shift my focus from addictive coping habits to creative habits, and surrounding myself with friends whom i feel safe sharing my thoughts and emotions with (although they don’t always understand, they still lend me an ear & it really does help). of course, practicing mindfulness has also decreased how easily i get tangled up in a bad or addictive habit, since reflecting on those habits takes away the desire to obsess over them in a destructive manner.

-> it took me a very long time to realize that my intense emotions were not my fault and that what i was feeling was sometimes all due to rsd- i didn’t figure out how to handle them until late into my high school years. now that i know that my emotions are much deeper than those of the ppl around me, i’m learning to cope in much healthier ways instead of self-destructing/ shaming myself for my reactions. these coping skills include: distracting myself from situations where my emotion or reaction is caused only by rsd and not by an external factor by focusing my energy in a creative way that soothes the pain; using poetry or writing letters to myself to better process the emotions i am feeling and reflect on them in an observational- not judgmental- way; allowing myself to feel whatever i feel in the moment without letting myself be ashamed of the emotions or viewing them negatively; and (if my emotions are caused by another person) having an open-minded and honest conversation with whoever i feel has caused these emotions, where i gently express to them how i perceived whatever happened and inform them of the consequential emotions i reacted towards them with- this includes both good emotions and negative ones, as i am often overwhelmed by either of them. i still struggle with regulating them, so check out my navigation tag for rsd on my homepage for more!!

-> feel free to use any of these skills if you find that they help you overcome your own adhd roadblocks!

— back to navi

#🖇 about me #adhd and me #life with adhd #actually adhd #adhd awareness #adult adhd #adhd tumblr #adhd blog #adhd #learn about me #about the admin #adhder #adhd tag #living with adhd

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dandelionflower · 5 years

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A speck of foam

So I saw @miraculous-of-salt s Eden AU and I was struck with the overwhelming urge to add some felinette

So here we go!

................

Most people believe that one of the most illusive cities in the world, Eden, has been given its name because of its strict control over tourism and visitors, like the famous forbidden garden. In reality it’s because Eden is the most environmentally friendly city in the world.

Those who visit report seeing trees growing through the roofs of houses, and the roads made of naturally mined rock.

Bridgette Cheng, mayor of Eden, states, on the eco friendly nature of her city, “It’s not that much of a big deal, we’re a small city, we can afford to build around nature.”

And build around nature, they have, most houses are described as having “vines for walls” and “the brightest paint jobs imaginable.”

Marinette puffed air from her nose, a hanging fern tickling her cheek. She was hidden against the peach toned walls of her aunt Bridgette’s home.

She had come to visit for the summer after “The great betrayal” as she called it.

During multicultural week at school, her aunt had came to tell the class all about Eden. Lila, however, highjacked their attention before she got the chance. She fed them all sorts of lies under the blanket lie of “I volunteered there once, for a whole year.” Not only were they lies, but her spiel was coated in all sorts of slurs.

The whole class, except herself, Nino, Chloe, and Sabrina, failed the test entirely. They were being held back until they could pass it.

Most of the class, she knew, were studying all they could about it so they could move up before the summer was over. She had high hopes for them and was willing to do all she could to guide them in their studying.

She sighed from behind the cool green vines. Alya was struggling, though, she couldn’t separate Lila’s lies from reality.

Marinette stifled a giggle as her father walked out with twigs in his hair from the giant tree.

“Marinette?” He yelled, looking helplessly at the walls.

She puffed through her nose again, shrinking further into the wall, feeling like a child again.

Growing up she would hide in the vines often, and her dad, tall as he may be, could never find her. She would stay in the vines for as long as she could, until Tom threatened her with-

“Okay... if I can’t find you, I guess you can stay there. And miss the trip to the town square with your aunt.” As he turned around, Marinette launched herself at him.

“No! No, I want to come!”

“Then go get ready, you’re going to be there for a while.”

Eden is spectacular for another reason; the citizens’ midnight blue hair. It’s a spectacular genetic disorder that causes their hair to fade to blue in the sunlight. After five minutes in the sun, the exposed strands will be blue permanently.

The disorder is passed on, generation to generation. Every child with even a hint of Eden in them will be born with the blue hair. This is one of the ways Eden identifies outsiders.

Another such way is clothing. All of Eden’s citizens dress themselves in bright, bold colors. Outsiders, particularly ones not directly related by marriage, will wear varied shades of grey.

Often times in-laws and cousins will have to wear the greys, as they aren’t married to a Eden citizen. Diplomats and reporters will also be found dressed in grey.

Marinette could barely contain herself as her eyes drifted over the seas of deep blue hair around her.

Back in Paris, she had always been viewed as strange by people, even her friends. Chloe had tried targeting her hair color but that was stamped out immediately by the administration.

Her eyes snagged on a small dot of white, stationary in the flowing crowd. A speck of foam in her perfect blue sea.

As she moved forwards with her aunt, she noticed the speck of foam was a boy, not much older than her. He had a grey vest and tie on, paired with a white dress shirt and dark grey slacks.

He was looking around helplessly, likely trying to find a sense of where he was.

“Aunt Bridgette?” Her aunt looked down at her. “Can I go help him and catch up with you later?”

Bridgette smiled and nodded, passing Marrinette two all access passes. “Remember, I have a jury trial at two-thirty, so if you get there around then, just wait in my office.”

Marinette grinned and skipped a towards the bewildered speck of foam.

“Hello, I’m Marinette. You look a little lost, do you need any help?”

The boy looked at her for a moment and nodded. “My name is Felix, I am rather lost. Would you mind helping me get to this address?”

He showed her a sheet of paper with an address written neatly in cursive.

Marinette thought for a moment and nodded. “Yeah, I can take you there. Come on.” She grabbed his hand and started pulling him towards the nearest tunnel.

“Wait, where are we going? What’s down there?”

“Have you been on a subway?” She looked at him, reading the panic on his face.

“Yes…”

“This is more or less the same,” she let a wicked smile grow on her face, “just more fun.”

The transportation system of Eden is unlike any others. It’s full of underground slides that travel all over Eden. There are two slide for every area, one to and one from.

The system works in such a way that a person is strapped to a cart and sent down the slide, with a cord of a certain length tied to the back.

Once the cord reaches its end, the cart stops at its destination and a winch begins to pull the cart back up the slide by its cord.

It’s just another one way Eden protects the environment while accomplishing everything other cities do.

Marinette giggled as she fiddled with Felix’s hair. “First time in the tunnels?”

He coughed and his cheeks tinted pink. “Yes... it was interesting, to say the least.”

“I remember my first time,” she remissed, “I was so tiny.”

“Forgive me for saying, but… you still are.”

“Ah!” She gasped and shoved him. “And here I thought we were friends.”

“Of course we are, my dear Marinette,” he knelt and grasped her hand, “can you ever forgive me?”

When they finally reached Eden’s justice building, Felix stopped.

Marinette turned to see tears in his eyes. “Hey... What’s wrong?”

“I just…” He took a deep breath. “This case is going to determine a good part of my future, whether I get to have a family.”

“What?”

“I don’t have parents.” He declared bluntly. “These people met me and wanted to adopt me, but Eden’s never delt with an adoption case before, they’re fighting for me.”

“Oh... Felix,” she rested her hand on his shoulder, “let’s just wait in my aunts office, you don’t have to go into that room.”

“Yes, thank you.”

Eden is known as a “the city of beauty,” because of not only the kind and giving nature of its citizens, but the natural light it uses when the sun goes down.

It’s common knowledge that Eden’s main export is gemstones. The precious rocks are integral in Eden’s native culture.

One stone that they refuse to export is called “Moonglow Stone.” It acts similar to the moon in the way it reflects light, but solely the moons light.

All of Eden’s roads are paved in Moonglow and the buildings are speckeled with its shine. When the sun goes down, the whole town is illuminated in the pale, tinted light.

Marinette walked home, arm in arm with Felix, chatting up a storm.

When Bridgette entered her office the first thing Marinette did was ask if Felix got adopted.

The minute the first letter poured from her mouth, Marinette was laughing with glee and pulling Felix, who had a rather stunned look on his face, close to her.

As it turned out, the man adopting Felix was Bridgette’s next door neighbor, Charles Culpa.

Bridgette and Charles were quite close friends and were having a calm conversation while the buildings slowly began to glow in the absence of the sun.

“Felix, look!” Marinette pointed at the Eden Spire, the center of the city. “It’s happening!”

The spire’s stones began to illuminate, starting at the bottom and making their way to the top at a snails pace.

When it was finished, the tower was a myriad of pastel shades. Marinette smiled softly, tilting her head. It felt like home again.

She felt a squeeze on her hand and looked down to see Felix’s fingers laced with hers. She felt her smile growing as she squeezed his hand back.

While Paris is the city of love, Eden and the surrounding area has been known as the place of soulmates.

“It’s not always romantic love,” an anonymous source declares, “its an unspoken bond that can be platonic as well.”

The first feeling a blue haired citizen of Eden will have when they find their bond is called “Star glitter,” which is deep seeded in old Eden mythology.

Marinette sighed, content as she stared out the window at the moon. Her letter to Nino was almost finished.

Just before she signed her name, a flash of white caught her eye. She followed it and saw Felix, rearranging his room.

He pushed the desk up to the window and sat down pulling out a notebook and sketching in it.

She felt her heart flutter as she observed the dillegent look on his face.

Nope, no, no stalking, Marinette!

She pulled down the blinds and hid her burning face in her hands. When she looked up, she saw the remnants of the glitter she was using on her newest design.

It shined like stars.

#felinette #ml felix #felix culpa #mlb #marinette dupain cheng #ml marinette #ml bridgette #bridgette cheng #ml au #ml eden au #ml nino #ml chloe #ml sabrina

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wellesleyunderground · 4 years

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Pandemic Pregnancy by Jess Sirizzotti ‘10 (@JezRebelle)

Having your first kid during a global pandemic makes for a very weird experience. Though the much anticipated “quarantine baby boom” turned out not to be the reality, there were still many pregnancies that started, continued, or wrapped up in 2020-2021.

Being pregnant during a pandemic is about as isolating as you’d expect. Reduced immunity plus *gestures vaguely* everything meant that a lot of people grew a person in unprecedented ways. What I struggled with the most (beyond the overarching panic and dread of a world on fire) was that there was no benchmarking. I could have made it nine months at work before telling anyone, because they only saw me on video conference from the clavicle up. There were no hospital tours, no childbirth classes, no expectant parenting groups.

Whenever you’re going through it, there seems to be no middle ground between dry, evidence-based medicine and projecting yourself entirely into the astral plane for communing with the ancestors. Here are a few things that helped me through my pregnancy, and some things I wish I’d known earlier.

Illustration Credit: Mercedes deBellard

Prep work

There are plenty of guides about how much you should have saved or what kind of physical shape you should be in. Some of that is helpful.

Oddly missing from those guides is “get a handle on your traumas.” Talk to a therapist. Talk to a partner. Talk to yourself in a diary where you ask yourself questions about what you want to carry with you and what terrifies you about having a kid. There are questionnaires for people donating living organs, and it does not hurt to say, “Hey, if there is a problem with ANY OF THE MYRIAD OF THINGS THAT CAN GO WRONG, how would I work through those feelings? What are the boundaries I want for this process that will make me feel safer or in control?””

If you’re getting pregnant with someone who will raise this kid with you, get into it with them. Have very specific conversations about what you will do about parental leave, diapers, daycare, requests for tattoos from a twelve-year-old. My husband and I would read the Care & Feeding parenting column from Slate, debating how we would handle the conundrums of different letters before getting the “answer” from the columnist.

Also, get as full a picture of family pregnancy as you can. You might know your own birth story, but what about the other half of the genetics you’ll be juggling? I, personally, managed to mash up my MIL’s hyperemesis gravidarum and my mom’s gestational diabetes which has been...not a great time.

And ask *lots* of questions. I had pretty low-stakes issues making it into the world, but it turns out all my dad’s generation of siblings all needed to stay in the NICU. My dad had multiple full-body blood transfusions in his first days. That would have been helpful to know!

That said, what I was most shocked to learn is that there is no way to know what kind of pregnancy you’re going to have until you’re in it. Even if you’ve had a kid before—you can have wildly different experiences! There’s literally no way to know in advance!

Pro tip: you can’t know for certain what pregnancy will be like for you, but getting a broad picture can help it seem less like a cliff jump into the unknown.

Getting pregnant will take longer than you think

Once again, for those in the back, GETTING PREGNANT WILL TAKE LONGER THAN YOU THINK.

For starters, you will need to stop not getting pregnant, which has been the focus of most young adult lives since your fertility started. I had to get my IUD removed and also get revaccinated for a bunch of things (rubella, flu, tetanus). If you were on the pill, it may take a few months to get everything out of your system. Then, you will do something to try to get pregnant and wait for two weeks. Whether it takes two weeks, two months, or ten years—it will feel like a very long time.

Especially because by this point, I felt ready to have a child. I looked at the calendar and thought, “Oh good, the kid will be X horoscope sign. They’ll have their birthday during the school year. Their birthday will be X year, and that will be easy to remember.” I made plans.

And then I just...didn’t get pregnant. And kept not getting pregnant. Every month of getting my period was so frustrating. I had charted my cycle! I had taken my temperature to figure out if I was ovulating! I swallowed these giant prenatal vitamins that are the size of a human toe!

Some people do get pregnant instantly, and many blessings on their ultra-efficient plumbing. Some people get pregnant when they don’t want to, and they should be able to have a choice about whether to have those kids.

For most people, there will be a while between deciding to have a child through pregnancy and getting one started. It is happening everywhere, to countless people, and is one of the hardest, loneliest, most unintelligible experiences—made worse by the fact that people are shoving their feet into their own faces around you for the entire experience. You’re surrounded by people getting pregnant (magically! easily! with barely a whisper of effort!), people asking you when you will become pregnant, people congratulating you on not being pregnant because you can go out, drink, get really into aerial silks, etc. And you will have to not punch them in the face.

If you are under 35, most doctors will not even talk to you about fertility issues until you have tried for a year. That’s a minimum of twelve cycles of trying, twelve “I feel really good about this month” conversations, twelve pregnancy tests that say you’re not pregnant, twelve months at a job you may not like but stay at because they have good parental leave benefits or insurance coverage.

After a year (and after you get on their schedule) a fertility specialist can offer you fun adventures like getting dye injected into your fallopian tubes to see if they’re blocked, approval to shoot yourself up with expensive hormones (at home! with a real needle!), and any of the other amazing methods technology and medicine have discovered that tweak any of the multitude of handoffs that need to happen for a pregnancy to “take.”

If I can ask one thing, assume at least one person in earshot of your public conversation is trying to get pregnant and can’t—and be a little kinder.

Pro tip: get the cheaper pregnancy tests with lines rather than the electronic ones with words, because there are few bigger downers than seeing “NOT PREGNANT” month after month.

Find a practitioner you like

Because eventually, you will want to strangle them. It’s important to start with someone you like, so that the strangling phase will be late in the pregnancy and not a sustained hatred for nine full months.

Whether you’re pregnant or working with a reproductive specialist, having someone who listens to you will help. Some people cannot deal with hippie woo woo, some cannot imagine a pregnancy that’s all medical jargon. If you’re a person of color or want to have certain cultural traditions respected from the get-go, vetting at the beginning can avoid being at loggerheads later. Take some time to reflect on good and bad medical experiences you’ve had, and if you have options, choose someone who will not make you hyperventilate every time you have an appointment.

For me, I knew I needed a doctor who would not give me a hard time about weight gain. I have a history of disordered eating and (pre-pregnancy) was competing as a super heavyweight lifter, so am used to plenty of unsolicited opinions about my weight and what I should be doing with it. Pregnancy is fraught enough to take a single off-hand comment to an extreme, and I was deeply uninterested in negotiating an anorexia relapse while battling all the pregnancy changes.

If you have some time, shuffle up your pre-pregnancy appointments to get a feel for different doctors. I pulled up ZocDoc for my insurance network and came up with some finalists: had my annual exam by one, my IUD taken out by another, and my MMR re-vaccine done by a third. I knew my practice was right for me when the doctor offered to take all weight measurements patient-blind for the entire pregnancy.

Pro tip: think about what style of doctoring would make you feel better during this time, and give yourself the gift of one less thing to stress about.

Taking information in

Like the best of us, I enjoy a Wikipedia rabbit hole. I’m an especially good finder and am frequently tagged in as the friend who can unearth the secret Tumblr or yearbook photo of an elusive crush. I can find anything, and have a Jeopardy-level mental trapper keeper for bizarre edge-cases.

This is...not great for pregnancy, especially when unleashed on the “seems legit” constellation of mommy blogs. There are a million things that can go wrong with a pregnancy, and past a certain point, knowing more does not make you more likely to avoid or survive them.

Think of it like a fractal. Having the general shape of the tree: useful. Hyperfocusing so hard on one of the branches that you lose days in front of the computer screen, diving deeper into medical texts and unconfirmed narratives until you completely glaze over: less so.

Knowing this about myself helped me manage the unceasing amount of feedback offered by everyone from doctors to bystanders. I limited myself to one book (Emily Oster’s Expecting Better, which is wonderful), a doctor I trusted, and small doses of the Wellesley pregnancy group. I still couldn’t stop myself from reading every op-ed about miscarriage and stillbirth, but I was able to process them as things I was choosing to read instead of a compulsion I could not turn off.

Pro tip: really think about how much information serves you. It can feel like knowing every little thing will make you an expert who is ironclad against any malady. That’s, unfortunately, not how it works.

Sending information out

Like information gathering, you’ll want to decide how, when, and who to share information with. Having a pandemic pregnancy gave me a lot more power over when I disclosed than I would have had normally—I was sick as hell and it would have been a first-month discussion at work rather than a third-month one. It has allowed others to have entire pregnancies in private, only announcing when the baby has been delivered.

I found it helpful to think of pregnancy updates in concentric rings: my husband and I in the innermost circle, immediate family and some friends next, wider friend group and extended family, and then everyone else. I didn’t have to give minute-by-minute updates to everyone in the world if I didn’t want to, and a quick “Oh actually that’s private” was usually enough to keep any especially nosy questions to a minimum.

There were people who surprised me with wanting to know much more, and some who heard “baby” and unsubscribed. Both are fine!

Pro tip: if at all possible, curate a group of friends who are far from having first kids so that you can be assured of a rapt audience of “WHAT can happen??” Plus, at least one friend with a recent kid who’s very organized who can tell you what’s helpful to buy and what is BS.

Particular pandemic weirdness (good and bad)

While it has been lonely, it has also been wonderfully private. Some particular strange markers:

It is very odd to go from several months of zero physical contact with anyone outside my apartment directly into an intravaginal ultrasound.

My husband is going to meet our doctor at the delivery, because no one except patients is allowed past the lobby at our practice.

I will likely not need to buy any maternity clothes, because my pandemic outfits of blousy shirts and stretchy pants to work from home will suit perfectly.

No one touches my stomach unless I want them to.

Remote birthing classes allow you to snicker as much as you’d like from the comfort of your couch.

Things I did not know and wish I had

The way they count how far along you are starts from the first day of your last period. That is not when you got pregnant, but is the easiest way to have a consistent range for all patients (who may or may not be tracking ovulation spikes).

It is normal to have spotting-level breakthrough bleeding at some point during your pregnancy. The books will tell you this. Your doctor will tell you this. I am telling you this now. It will not make a damn bit of difference, because the moment you see blood, you will panic and be certain you are having a miscarriage. No one will be able to convince you otherwise until you get checked out.

Your entire digestive system slows waaaay down to accommodate a pregnancy, and is part of the reason for nausea. I had heard that you will need to pee all the time, but hadn’t heard that you will almost entirely stop pooping. And then once a week, you will crap yourself inside out.

The placenta can grow wherever it wants, including smack-dab over your cervix. This offends me more than I can say. That’s where the baby needs to go out! (C-section is required in these cases)

A cesarean birth is a horizontal cut, like an envelope opening and then they squeeze the baby through it. I always pictured it vertical, like opening a book.

Acronyms are a minefield on pregnancy forums. For months, I read posts thinking “FTM” meant “female-to-male trans person” instead of “first-time mom.” Don’t be afraid to Google to keep your bearings, but also feel free to create your own—DH can be “Dear” or “Damn” Husband depending on context.

“Morning sickness” is a misnomer. It can happen all day. It can happen for your whole pregnancy, though most women see a gradual decrease after the first trimester. I’m mid-way through my third trimester, and still throwing up six times a day. If I had known that earlier, I would not have tried to “stick it out” for as long as I did: cooking meals from scratch, insisting that pre-packaged snacks were for wimps. If you are sick, get comfortable EARLY. You don’t get extra points or a better baby for staying miserable, so you might as well lean in to Couch and Cheese Central. If it clears up, great. If not, at least you’re not already tired from trying too hard.

Around 4% of babies are born on their due dates. Do not assume your third trimester will be the length you would like it to be. My doctor has proposed a 37 week induction (because of all the sickness and gestational diabetes). While that is technically full-term, that news was given to me in such a way that low-balled the panic of being A FULL MONTH EARLY. As in, LOSING A THIRD OF THE TRIMESTER.

The baby is lower than you may expect—actual location is generally half-way between navel and nethers. If you’re patting the top of a pregnant person’s stomach (with their permission), you are far away from where the kid is.

There is no good news during a pregnancy. The best you can hope for is continuing to meet the baseline. I am so much more understanding of gender reveal parties, because it is literally the only test result that you can have an opinion about. No ultrasound or blood test will come back with, “Congratulations, your child is gifted!” or “They’re going to be so good at tennis!” It is nine straight months of finding out you’re high risk or not for sickle-cell anemia or tuberculosis. I stopped writing them down after awhile because it felt like every one was, “Oh damn, I didn’t even know we were still concerned about that.”

“Round ligament pain” is the technical term for sharp, stabbing pain in your groin caused by all the ligaments in your hips and crotch helpfully loosening to allow for gestation and birth. This can start as early as 14 weeks, which one would think is way too fricking early for it, but nope. You’d be wrong. The general recommendation for this is to keep your knees together, to which I say, “That particular ship has left the harbor.”

#wellesley underground #pregnancy #pandemic pregnancy

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surveys-at-your-service · 4 years

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Survey #330

“and i don't want ya / and i don't need ya / don't bother to resist, or i'll beat ya / it's not your fault that you're always wrong / the weak ones are there to justify the strong”

If you have a job, do you like it? I'm unemployed. Do you like any kinds of fruit? Well of course. Are you waiting for something right now? Covid and this headache to fuck off, May for my tattoo, to be paid to take some pictures again... What is your favorite kind of animal? Kind, not the actual animal itself? In that case, social species, usually mammals. What kind of Dippin' Dots do you like? Holy shit, I haven't had that in like a damn decade or something. I don't know, I barely remember the taste. Who is the most badass woman that you can think of? My mom. My mother is a fucking warrior. Do you have a Pinterest account? Yeah. I get a lot of photography ideas from there, as well as base pictures to make Mark icons, haha. If you were to write a book, what would it be about? The stories I and my friends have weaved in RP. Have you ever seen the television show The Munsters? AHHHHH YES!!!!! Mom loves that show, so I used to watch it with her growing up. Have you ever written one of those 'Roses are red...' valentines? I don't think so. Would you/have you spent more than $200 on any one person for a holiday? I haven't, but I would for certain people. Do you have a favorite Robin Williams movie? Probably Night at the Museum. Thoughts on Slender Man? Have you even heard of him? I think it's a cool creepypasta; he does look pretty unnerving with his height and especially lack of a face. The movie was good too, btw. Do you know what the Tardis is? I think almost everyone does in this generation, haha. Doctor Who ain't no joke to a whole lot of people. Are there any children's shows that you'd watch today if they were on? Sure, like Pokemon or Avatar: The Last Airbender, among others. I wouldn't at all be opposed to watching The Lion Guard, either. I actually want to, with my whole TLK love. I'm not embarrassed to watch "kids" shows or movies at all. What would you call yourself the King or Queen of? Having not an ounce of knowledge on how to love things in moderation/avoid total obsession with things, haha. If I paid for you to take karate lessons, would you? No, especially not now with my legs. Do you read more fiction or non-fiction? Almost solely fiction. What modern technology are you especially grateful for? Laptops, ig. Do you have a favorite science topic? Genetics. Very fascinating stuff. Have you ever read any Sherlock Holmes stories? No. What is the saddest movie that you've ever seen? Either Johnny Got His Gun or Boy in the Striped Pajamas. What's your most popular post? On what? If Facebook, I don't really know. Possibly my "coming out" one or a lovey-dovey essay when Sara and I were together. On Tumblr, it's definitely the gif I made of Mark and Chica (his dog) with I think over 10k notes. Manga or anime? Anime. I don't read manga, though I've been tempted with Deadman Wonderland since the show only had one season and ends on a ginormous cliffhanger, but there's more story to be had. A card game that you're good at? None, really. A popular book you haven't read yet? To Kill a Mockingbird. I feel like every school student has read it at some point. Favorite Mean Girls quote? I don't know any. It's a fine movie, but I've never understood the hype. Name your top 3 albums from your favorite band/artist. Black Rain, Ozzmosis, and... then I can't choose. I love so, so many very dearly. Name your top 5 music videos. I don't really watch music videos, so I definitely can't name five. My #1 favorite is probably "Wrong Side of Heaven" by Five Finger Death Punch; I absolutely cannot watch it without crying. What are you most passionate about? How did this passion develop? Animals. I was born simply adoring animals and have always wanted to protect them and their environment. Do you like monkeys? Do you believe in evolution? Yes and yes. We've literally watched it in action. What embarrasses you the most in front of other people? Discussing RP if you're not involved in it. I'm terrified of people thinking I'm weird. Have you considered running for president? Absolutely not. Which famous person would you like to be BFFs with? I'd say Mark, but I'd be way too interested in dating him instead of being just friends, haha... So with that said, maybe Bindi Irwin? Would you ever go skinny dipping with the last person who commented you? Lyndsey would be that person, so no. She's a great friend of mine, but realistically I'd probably only ever - if ever - do that with the company of my s/o. Are you still friends with the last person who broke your trust? No. How long did your last relationship last? Around two years. Have you ever been banned from anywhere? Online, yes, as a little kid on the Animal Planet forum, haha... Has anyone kissed you when you weren't expecting it? Yeah, Juan. Did you like it? It was a sweet moment, but I didn't want it. Does your dad smoke? Like a chimney. Is your mom over 50? Yeah. Are you currently listening to anything? Yeah, kinda hooked on "The Horrible People" by Manson. I've found a lot of great music lately. Would you ever consider getting breast implants? No, but once (if...) I lose all the weight I want, it's going to be a moderate priority to get a breast lift. I've hated my body way too fucking long and am dying to be satisfied with it again, and with how much weight I need to lose, I would essentially have grandma tits. :x Do you know anyone who is bisexual? Me, haha. Among some friends. Who would you tell, or who did you tell when you lost your virginity? That's not something I'd just go to tell someone afterwards for no reason... I'd only ever mention having lost my virginity if I was actually asked or if it was relevant to a conversation. Is there something you have been trying to learn lately? I'm really trying to practice opposite action and behavioral activation, among other things I've learned in group therapy. When you think about your future career, do you envision yourself becoming the head honcho or CEO? If not, why not? Well, I want to be my own boss as a freelance photographer. In any other job, I definitely wouldn't want that. Too much responsibility and leadership skills. Can you think of a time when you seriously misjudged a music artist based on their name? I don't think so? Have you ever kissed someone that you didn’t really want to kiss (not assault, just indifference)? Why did you go along with it and how did you feel after? Yes, Tyler. I felt like I was "supposed to." I felt really uncomfortable afterwards. If you have to wake up early for something, what time is just TOO early for you to be there and be presentable and sentient? Have you ever had to be somewhere that early? Probably like, 5:00. No. Have the majority of your romantic relationships started with a physical attraction or a deeper connection? Always an emotional connection. Did you ever write a fan letter to a celebrity? How about submit something to a magazine? No to both. What hair color is the most attractive on the opposite sex? Of natural colors, black, but I like unnaturally dyed hair most. Where do you like to go to when you are stressed? On a carride, so long as I'm controlling the music nice and loud and not talking. Where do you go to get your hair cut/dyed? To a family friend's little salon/small business. Why do you want the career that you want? Because I adore art and think it's pretty darn magical that you can freeze a moment forever to not just remember in your head, but actually see. Have you ever watched iCarly? Yeah, I enjoyed it when I was younger. What was your favorite class during your sophomore year of high school? Art. Do you wear bandanas in your hair? No. Have you ever been on a blind date? No, not interested. How many living grandparents do you still have? None. Have you ever worked in an office? No. Who does the grocery shopping in your house? Mom. Have you ever stayed in a hotel without your parents or older relatives? No. Did you have an Easy-Bake oven when you were little? Sure did. Have you ever seen a donkey? Yeah. Have you ever made out in a hot tub? Pretty sure no. Do you always flush the toilet after you use it? Yes. What were the last words you said to your dad? Probably "bye, love you." Have you cuddled with someone you weren’t dating? Nah. Who has the ability to hurt you the most emotionally? JASON. Are you a really understanding person? Yeah, very. Are you the type of person that enjoys getting hugs? Yes. When’s the last time you wore a wig? For a witch costume many years ago. Why were you last hospitalized? Suicide attempt. What’s the longest you’ve ever gone without food? At least 12 hours, but I think I almost went a day once back when recovery started and my appetite was non-existent. What was the last name of your third grade teacher? Mrs. Britt. How was the last chicken you ate cooked? They were chicken tenders. What is your favorite kind of chip? Hot crunchy Cheetos. What grade did you have your first boyfriend? 7th. Have you ever been told that you’ve lost weight? Yeah, back when I actually WAS losing loads of weight. >> Do you have the same political views as your parents? Some things, but definitely not all. Does anyone call you babe/baby? No. Have you ever made a significant other cry? Sadly. If you could make your lips bigger, would you? Maybe just a teeeeny bit. Are you one to sneak food into movie theaters? Yep. Fuck them prices. Are you prone to illness? Definitely not. What races do you usually date? History says Caucasian, but I have no actual preference. I'll date any race. What’s your cup size? C. Ever flirted with a teacher? Yikes, no thanks. Who was the main cook of your Thanksgiving meal last year? My older sister made the most stuff. Have you ever been dumped really harshly? Well, considering it literally traumatized me... Do you have any ex’s you can’t stand anymore? No. Are you more of a phone or a computer person? Computer, definitely. When was the last time you made a sandwich? What did you put on it? Yesterday for lunch. Ham, American cheese, and mustard. Have you ever made friends with someone that you didn’t expect to get along with? Yeah. Do you own any accessories with your name on? No. What brand of eyeliner do you use? I pay no attention to this. Have you ever been sexually harassed? No. Have you ever sent a naughty text message? Suggestive ones, yes. How long have you had your pets? Roman, around two years. Venus, around three or four years. Who was the last person to tell you that they love you, other than family? Sara. Has one of your friends ever tried to hook you up with someone? Colleen tried obnoxiously hard to push Girt and me together. We all went out to eat pizza once just as friends hanging out, and this bitch prefaced an uncomfortable and nosy question to him with an even more uncomfortable "because I'm trying to get you in her pants...", and that, my friends, was the closest occasion I've ever come to slapping someone right across the face. I looked at her in absolute disgust, and Girt was clearly thinking "what the actual fuck" as well. I do not miss her feral mouth. Are you good at staring contests? No. Eye contact is very difficult for me to maintain. Do you like peanut butter? I love peanut butter. When was the last time you had to present something to your class? In this mandatory but entirely pointless entry class at my last college, we all had to do like this PowerPoint introducing ourselves. I hated it. Who was the last person that told you they missed you? I think my friend Chelsea. What store is your favorite shirt from? It's not a real store, but rather an online brand: Cloak. Mark is one of the owners/creators so I obviously support them intensely. Have you ever fell off your bed while you were sleeping? No, thankfully. Do you have something you’re supposed to tell someone, but you haven’t yet? No. What type of food do you never really eat? Vegetables, oops. Have you ever cut someone else’s hair? No. Do you like going to weddings? Not really, if I'm being honest. I'm only interested in photographing weddings for the only the couple pictures and pay, really. I'm not big on formal events. What’s your favorite flavor squash? I don’t like squash. Do you or anyone in your house have a severe allergy? No. Who was the last guest in your house and what were they staying for? Our landlord/family friend, just to hang out for a little bit and chat with Mom. What fad were you actually into? Hm. What was the last spontaneous thing you did? I'm not a very spontaneous person, so I really don't know.

#survey #surveys #questions #lyrics: ''the beautiful people'' by marilyn manson

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dragonrajafanfiction · 4 years

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The Mission

While the other students watched the presentation given by the professor and took notes, Ru’Yi rested her chin in her hand and stared out the window.

Her mind was far away on an island, holding sparklers with Tom. She’d run the dream over and over in her head. The feel of the fabric of his T-shirt seemed more like a memory than a dream. He was warm underneath, solid. It wasn’t just an image of him. He was really there. She’d never had such a vivid dream before.

It was a Soul Skill. That’s what she had concluded. But why was that strange boy making them have dreams together? And why did he say he could control them?

She turned her mind back to class. She had just gotten off her unexpected sick leave and was still doing well as a student after penning a make-up essay.

She’d come here to follow in her father and mother’s footsteps, to be around people like her. Now she was staring at images of a sword forged from a dragonclaw, used to kill dragonkin many centuries ago and her mind drifted back to Tom.

Did she really belong here? She didn’t come to Cassell to kill dragons or fight in a war. She just wanted to study. But every class seemed to include something about dragonslaying. What if she didn’t want to slay dragons? Was that okay? Could she just graduate with a degree?

That reminded her. She hadn’t yet picked her major. She’d strongly considered marine biology… until she found out that half of that class was just studying dragonmorphs, especially how to destroy them.

“Alright, that will end the lecture. If there are no further questions, then I would like you to be able to recite perfectly what we’ve discussed this afternoon,” shouted the professor over the sound of closing books and scraping chairs. “No questions, no mercy!”

Ru’Yi closed her books and put them into her backpack. She followed the rest of the students out of the lecture hall and into the chilly sunshine of late winter. She stopped at the top of the stairs.

There waiting for her was a familiar looking bike and the one riding it -- Brian. Despite the cold, he was still in his typical leather jacket and jeans, once again spurning the school’s official Executive department uniform.

Her back straightened slightly and her mouth turned down.

“Can we talk?” He asked.

A group of girls giggled at her, whispering among themselves. Despite them rarely being seen together, the rumormill had branded them a couple. She didn’t understand why her private life was anyone else’s business. Her self-imposed seclusion had made the school paper because it involved the attack of ‘the blind death servitor’ on campus. The paper had said that Brian had ‘rescued her.’ People were expecting something further out of it, like it was an episode on a TV show. Blushing in embarrassment, Ru’Yi was inclined to refuse. Saying yes would just make the rumors worse.

But at the same time, she didn’t want to refuse for such a petty reason. It would be like letting them win, letting other people dictate who she hung out with.

She didn’t say anything. She trotted down the stairs and got onto his motorcycle, wrapping her arms around his waist. The engine made its signature electronic whine and they were off before anyone could say anything that she could hear.

The wind turned her ears and nose ice cold within seconds and she tucked her face against his back to keep protect herself against it. The ride wasn’t long. He took her behind the library, riding over the grass to a secluded spot. He rested his foot on the ground and turned to look at her.

Ru’Yi put her hands over her ears to warm them. His eyes widened. “Sorry, you’re cold?”

“Yeah… aren’t you?”

“Let’s go inside then.” He kicked down the stand and got off. They both approached the library’s back door. He swiped his card and opened the door.

Ru’Yi walked in. It appeared to be a storage room filled with mostly books but some objects in boxes marked with different labels. It was musty and she sneezed. He offered her a tissue and she accepted, blowing her nose with a soft honk.

Brian grinned, briefly, but something about it seemed sad. “What’s wrong?” Ru’Yi asked.

“I’m going to be going off campus for a while. I wanted to make sure there were no hard feelings.”

“Off campus? You’re leaving?” She lowered the tissue.

“On assignment. I don’t know if I’ll get back.” He shook his head. “Are you still mad at me?”

“Wait… what do you mean if?”

“Uh… I meant to say when I’ll get back. Sorry…”

“Oh. Well… to answer the question, no, I’m not angry at you.” She gathered her tissue and put it in her pocket. “I just don’t understand why all this is happening. It looks like a regular campus but it sounds like a military base.”

“That would be our gear department.” Brian rubbed the back of his head.

“I don’t want to kill anybody. But everything I’m hearing says I have to. I don’t think I belong here.” She twined her hands.

“Not everyone does.” Brian said solemnly.

“But at the same time, I haven’t had to hide who I am. I can be as smart as I want. I’m actually challenged here.” Her eyes brightened. “There’s this other guy who actually gets math problems faster than me. We have a bit of a rivalry now. It’s nice. I don’t want to leave. I’ll be so miserable.”

“Then don’t leave. They can’t make you do anything.” He murmured, his eyes lowered. “You’re S-rank. No one can make you do anything.”

“What does that even mean? People say that but it doesn’t mean anything to me.”

He watched her. “Do you want to tell you the truth?”

“Yeah!” She nodded.

“It means you’re as close as a person will ever be to a goddess.”

Ru’Yi looked at him and then squinted one eye. “Don’t be silly.”

“Do I look like I’m being silly? We’re here to fight dragons. The most powerful creatures in existence. They can bend the laws of nature to their will. You saw what I did at Norton Hall. You’re stronger than that.” He leaned forward slightly. “Your mother was S-ranked too. Her files are completely classified.” He lowered his voice to a whisper, right next to her ear. “Her record includes the death of the Lord of Ocean and Water, a serpent longer than 20 empire state buildings stacked end to end. They recovered its body. It’s frozen in pieces all over the world.”

Ru’Yi stood, stunned and he leaned away, gauging her reaction. “S-rankers are always involved in Dragonslaying in one way or another. It’s just a matter of time.”

Ru’Yi kept silent so Brian continued. “Anyway, I’m glad you’re not upset with me.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a 20 dollar bill. “Please give this back to your dad.”

“He gave you 20 dollars? Why?”

“Well… He kinda knocked me in the head. Don’t worry, I deserved it. That’s why I can’t accept the money.”

“You’re all kinds of weird Brian, just be straight with me!”

“Okay… I thought he was an intruder on campus and attacked him. He kicked my butt five ways from Sunday.”

Ru’Yi snorted. “Oh. Was that when he left the letter?”

“Yeah.”

“Dad was… a dragonslayer too.” Ru’Yi said, quiet again.

Brian nodded, then his grey eyes narrowed slightly.

“What?”

“Your dad is different from other Dragonslayers. I mean, Von Frings is one of the most experienced people and he’s always boasting about his adventures. Mr. Baldwin gets pretty passionate talking about it too. But, Mr. Chu doesn’t. It’s like he didn’t want to talk about it at all.”

“Yeah, he never talks about it.” She shrugged. “Neither does mom.”

“Hm… I wonder why that is.”

She shrugged. “Dunno. Is that all you wanted to say to me?”

Brian suddenly looked nervous. “Huh?”

“You just wanted to ask if we were cool?”

“Um… uh…”

Was he blushing? That sudden color to his face was spreading. RuYi's heart started to race. No way. He wouldn’t. The rumors couldn’t be true.

“Yeah… that’s all. I can take you home if you want.” He said, much to her relief.

“Um… No, that’s fine. That’s fine I can go on my own. It's not far from here.” Ru’Yi looked around frantically.

“Door’s that way.” He pointed over her shoulder.

“Right! I’ll see you around.” Ru’Yi hurried to leave the room before he could even think about confessing.

By himself in the storage closet, Brian let the air out of his lungs in a single breath and told himself it was better this way. There was no point in telling her anything now, only for him to leave. He returned to his bike and got on, steering back onto the pavement and heading to the gym to let off some steam.

They say that the S in Dragonslaying didn’t mean the highest rank. It stood for Suicide. The first S rank student in Cassell, killed himself, and S ranked missions would result in the likely death of all involved. The mission he’d received had three S’s attached.

He had the gym to himself. He tied the tape around his hands and slipped on the boxing gloves over them. He’d resigned himself to his fate. Now that he knew that Ru’Yi would remember him fondly and returned the 20 dollars, he could let go.

He drove his hands into the sandbag in a steady rhythm, focusing his mind there. Each swing came faster and faster, until it was a blur of motion. The sandbag twitched and spasmed under the flurry of blows, emitting a fog of dust. Finally, a powerful punch sent it swinging towards the ceiling.

Brians stepped to one side, panting. This was going to be his last act on this Earth. He had to make it count.

But just like the sandbag swaying back into position, his mind returned to Chu Zihang.

He felt a familiar emptiness. That ache and absence in his life that he’d felt ever since the first grade when the other children brought their fathers in for show and tell. He realized he didn’t have one. He asked his mother why he didn't have one.

She explained very simply that it didn’t matter. He didn’t need one. Fathers were just there to provide genetic material. After that, anyone could be a father. Even her. In his child’s brain, it sort of made sense and for the most part, he went along just fine. But as he grew older, the hole in his life seemed to grow.

He couldn’t relate to his mother as much over time. Instead he turned to television and popular media and the internet to answer his questions and satisfy his curiosity. And for a while, that was enough even as bullies made his life miserable in school.

It wasn’t until he met Ru’Yi that he felt that hole again. She sat down beside him and said. “Don’t worry. Daddy’s coming to take us home.”

She had a father. He did not. But for a moment, when she said that, he’d thought she had included him in that statement.

He had spent the entire car ride crying over more than just bullies.

Not only did the ride with Mr. Chu reopen old wounds, later that night, his Dragonblood decided to wake up. He didn’t realize it at the time, but even with the contact lenses covering his golden eyes, Brian was sensitive enough to pick up on the raging power beneath Chu Zihang’s quiet exterior.

He had enrolled in Cassell, only to find Mr. Chu haunting the pages of this place’s lore, only to find himself studying his methods, admiring him. Chu Zihang replaced the internet and the television figures as the man he wanted to aspire to.

They say, “Never meet your heroes.” for a reason. He finally got to meet Chu Zihang man-to-man, but he was completely different from what he expected him to be. Yes, he was strong and fast and intelligent, but his spirit seemed oddly weak. He had no enthusiasm. No fire.

He just seemed sad.

Brian shook himself. He couldn’t focus on this. Regardless of how soft he’d become, the Chu Zihang that he’d studied wouldn’t let himself get sidetracked by outside emotions.

All that mattered was the mission.

While Brian pummeled in worries into the sandbag, Finger Von Frings was on the phone, dialing the same number again and again. “Pick up. Pick up, you lazy bum, I know you’re getting this...”

“Hello?”

“Mingfei! Finally! Don’t dodge my calls!”

“What? I wasn’t dodging your calls, I was busy!” Said the whiny voice.

“Why all of a sudden are you sending me this mission? This is ... this is extremely dangerous. You of all people should know.” Finger flopped down into the chair that was used by Anjou for decades and reached out towards Adams who obediently had fetched him a beer. “You should know I don’t like it. Why don’t you run this mission yourself?” He took a long sip.

“I know... I know. But don’t worry, I have my own students getting ready to go to. It’s not like I’m sending yours out to fight alone.”

“Your students?” Finger inhaled and started choking.

“Yeah. They’re pretty green, one is still laid up, one is scared of her own shadow and another hates himself. But that never stopped me right?” He laughed.

Finger caught his breath. “This isn’t the time for jokes! I’m not going to be one of those people who sends others out to die!”

“Hey...” Mingfei’s voice softened. “Trust me. I made a promise to Carli that no one would get hurt. But this has to be done. Even though its dangerous.”

“Then why... don’t you do it.” Finger asked, speaking slowly.

“Just trust me. It’s better this way. If things get out of hand, I’ll step in. Okay?”

Finger was quiet for a while, fighting down the emotions rising in his heart. “If one of them dies, it’s on you. You understand that right? The others used to say they understood it... but it didn’t mean anything to them in the end. They just hung their poor student’s pictures in the Hall of Valor and lit candles and looked sad for a while. Only to throw more logs on the fire a few days later.” He snarled into the phone.

“I’ll never forgive them for it. And I’m not going to become them. I’m not, Lu Mingfei.”

Mingfei sighed on the other end. “When you see the results, you’ll understand. But you can hate me for now, if you can’t trust me.”

Finger put his can of beer down. “I’m glad you’re not a complete idiot. How’s the wifey?”

“She’s fine. I’ll tell her you asked.”

“Give her kiss for me?”

“How about no? Anyway, I gotta get back to work.”

“Work. Now there’s a good joke. Piss off.”

“Bye.”

Finger hung up, took a deep breath, and downed the rest of his beer in a single gulp.

#Dragon Raja #Fanfiction #Class of 2032

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birdie-bane · 4 years

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Who is Finian the Cat?

Well, obvious answer, he’s a cat. Yeah, no, I’m going to give you the full story.

First and foremost, Finian is a white tom cat with heterochromia, one eye being blue and the other a gold-green, who is deaf and FIV positive. For those unaware, male white cats with either blue or heterochromia eyes tend to be deaf due to their genetics. FIV, or Feline Immunodeficiency Virus, is the cat version of HIV; just like with HIV, it is only transmittable through exchange of blood or saliva or other bodily fluids. I’ve met people who have asked me if Finian is contagious and explain that, no, he is not contagious like the flu. Petting him then petting your own cat will not transmit it. Finian appears to be asymptomatic and the only sign that he has FIV is that he constantly has goop in his eyes which is common with FIV positive cats. Other than that, Finian is no different from any other cat.

Finian was a stray for around five years before he decided to approach a woman who managed to catch him and take him to a non-kill, non-profit shelter. Seeing him, a big white cat, walk out of the forest reminded her of a Yeti so that’s what she named him, Yeti. The shelter cares for animals with various conditions like FIV and Feline Leukemia and ensure they are all healthy. FIV positive cats can live with other FIV positive cats without worry of transmitting the virus, but ultimately Finian did not have a good time with them. The other cats he shared a room with could tell that he was deaf and bullied him. Ultimately, they moved Finian to a separate room where they kept the food for all the animals and he was quite happy there; there was a built-in enclosure attached to the kitchen area that allowed him to go to an outside play area that he could have fun in whenever he wanted. He wasn’t lonely either since employees came in and out pretty often and he had a neighbor behind a baby gate, an elderly, blind basset hound.

So how did I find Finian? Well, that story goes all the way back to high school. I’d gotten my learner’s permit but the idea of driving never sat well with me. Ultimately, I decided not to do my hours until my second year in college. During the fall of my sophomore year of college, I told my parents that I wanted a cat to live with me in the dorms because I was stressed and I needed something to help me feel at peace. My parents said I could have a cat, on one condition: I had to get my driver’s license. When winter break came around, I grabbed my Dad and told him to get in the car. Overall, getting my hours was fine but I lacked motivation. So, my mom and I decided to begin searching for my cat. We went to our local SPCA and one the next county over but I didn’t have a connection with any of the cats. They were all very sweet and deserved a home but none of them were quite right. I knew that I didn’t want a kitten because they required more care which wouldn’t work out well with my classes and I was personally more interested in a Special Needs cat. Come summer, we’d had no luck but then my mother’s dentist mentioned adopting a dog from a shelter out in the middle of nowhere.

My mother and I drove out to the shelter only for our GPS to crap out on us because we were in the middle of nowhere but I managed to get us there somehow. Before we’d made the trip, we had called the shelter and told them what I was looking for in a cat and they played match maker like they were setting up two people on a date. They had a list of cats for us to meet when we got there. To say I was excited would have been an understatement. And the very first cat we met was Yeti.

It was literally love at first sight. He came up to me. All the employees told me that he was usually standoffish with them and I knew he was meant for me. But I knew I had to give the other cats a chance to make an impression so we went and saw the other contestants. They were all sweet and adorable and just precious and deserve good homes, but I was set. Yeti was my cat. We went back to his room before we left and he climbed onto my lap without any prompting and decided he was going to stay there. I still have the scars from where his claws dug in, but I was stupid for wearing shorts to an animal shelter but it was worth it.

I went back to see Yeti two times after that, once to let my dad meet him and once to see how he got along with May the Chihuahua. Both went really well, especially the meeting of cat and dog; May went right up and licked him and he let her. It was basically set in stone, we were adopting him. Now I just needed my driver’s license.

Come July, I had my license. And, the very next day, I was driving out to pick up Yeti. So, in between finding Yeti and picking him up, I had been pondering his name. Yeti was… fine, but he didn’t look like a ‘Yeti’. After first meeting him, I began brainstorming names. I had a few based on my favorite Marvel Cinematic Universe characters (Loki, Bucky, Winter) then just some random ones like Snow or Barnaby then I went looking at names with color meanings because I was very into RWBY at the time. Names related to the color white were rather plain (Gwyn, Whitney, Weiss) but then I found one with the meaning “little white one”. The Gaelic name Finian. It was perfect, especially with my love of Celtic Mythology.

And that’s the story of Finian the cat. I’ve got a boatload of other stories about his shenanigans like the time he decided he didn’t like the origins of his name and ate the cover of my Celtic mythology book. Yeah, I’m still not sure what he was trying to say with that. Maybe sometime I’ll post some more stories about my boy!

Thanks for reading! If you have any questions, feel free to ask!

#finian the cat #finianthecat #storytelling #white cat #cat

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elfwriter1088 · 4 years

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Old Guard fanfic (prologue)

A/n: Please bear with me. It’s been a hot minute since I got the time to do this. Plus, I blame @badassbaker (in a good way) for getting this done. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do NOT own any of the Old Guard characters! That belongs to their respectful owners--don’t sue me! I only own the ones that you would not recognize (i.e. Nyx, Erik, etc.)

---(prologue)---

The blaring of a mobile device rings out into the otherwise silent apartment. Nothing happens for a couple of seconds before the figure underneath a pile of blankets swore under their breath as a hand reaches out to grab at the device.

“Hello?”

Hey, it's Book

“Where's the job at?”

Booker has to laugh--blunt and straight to the point. That's one thing about Nyx: you never beat around the bush with her.

I'll text you the details. How are you, l'amour? (love)

“You know what that does to me, Book. You think, after how many years we've known each other, that you would use that one weakness against me.”

Can you blame me? But, seriously, how are you?

Book could hear the gears turning in her head. Then again, who would blame the youngest member of the Old Guard for slipping to his native tongue on one of the older females. However, Nyx could outdo him on being fluent in a lot more than just French.

“It's been busy on my end. Trying to blend in a mundane day job while awaiting to see you all again. Je vous ai manqué (I missed you).”

Booker smiled at how Nyx managed that phrase with a hint of her own accent. It amazed him that she could slip into speaking different tongues with ease...after all, the woman had spent years living in Europe throughout most of history before making roots in the US after WWII.

And you said that I was playing dirty by using my mother tongue.

“Never said I play easy, Book. Who else will be there?”

Joe and Nicky are arriving in a couple of days...Andy too.

“It'll be good to see them again. Even though it's only been over a year since the last time. θα σε δω σύντομα, αγάπη (See you soon, love).”

As the figure ends the call, they sit up to reveal a disheveled woman, who was clearly just getting back to consciousness.

“...Σκατά. Δεν το πιστεύω ότι θα μου τηλεφωνούσε ακριβώς πριν τη βάρδια μου… Γαμώτο, πρέπει να βρήκα μια δικαιολογία την τελευταία στιγμή.” the woman mused aloud as she scrolled through her phone to place a call.

*Shit. I didn't think he would have called me just before my shift … Damn, I now have to find an excuse at the last minute*

Sand...gritty, earthy, hints of iron and raw material. The sun is hot, drying, killing all moisture in the humid air. The sounds of sword fighting, the grunts of men and women littered the surrounding atmosphere as far as the eye can see. People of all ages, from the age of three to eighteen, training and bettering themselves for future battles and parenthood.

In a blink of an eye...the scene changes to numerous battlefronts: different clothes...different tongues...different weapons...same results. Another blink: landscapes evolve with the passing years and eras of mankind. Same faces of agony...same faces of yearning for peace and hope...same color of death on the ground.

She is startled to consciousness as the memory of sleep starts to fade little by little. She's glad to have her headphones, although cheap by price in today's world, to block out any outside noise from her sleepy mind. She blinks away the sleep while getting into a more comfortable position in her seat, almost forgetting about the flight she's currently on to Morocco. Once in a good comfy position, she takes off the headphones and rubs at her weary face to a more alert look. Glancing down at the watch resting on her left wrist, she can read the time on there: 0238.

She wondered if the others were awake or asleep. Then again, Booker only called her up only nine hours prior to alert her of a new possible job for the group. It was not easy as far as booking a last minute flight, let alone from one of her own contacts in the US to get her safely to her destination. Then again, Nyx was owed this favor. Raphael knew that, once the petite brunette called him up just after Booker's phone call, her turning in that favor she was owed was something. He gave her details of the first possible flight to the other side of the Atlantic and Nyx was up in the air within four hours of planning. Now, five hours into a thirteen hour flight, Nyx was in dire need of catching as much sleep as she could.

She unbuckled her seatbelt and rose from the chair, grabbing a small toiletry bag in the process before she shuffled her way to the toilet onboard the jet plane. Once she closed the door and turned the vanity light on, she grimaced at the sudden brightness on the narrow compartment. Glancing back at her was a mirror image of herself: a messy chest length of dark brown hair rested on two directions on the left side of her head, bound only by a hair tie; her complexion looked a bit ashy, although the woman knew that her natural coloring was a somewhat warm olive-brown tone from years of being out in the sun and somewhat thanks to her genetics of long ago; vibrant amber-brown eyes hidden partially to the blue ringed contacts she wore to enhance the exotic nature of her origins.

She scowled a bit under her breath as she went about washing her face and brushing out her hair and teeth. Sighing once she freshen up a bit, she risked another glance in the mirror. She saw a worn-out woman looking back at her. She was merely surprised at how quickly she was able to scramble an excuse to her 'boss' of a family emergency that would take her out of the country for a while to care for them. She shook her head at the response she got back on how last minute the excuse was--then again, it was merely a front of her waiting for the next time she was called to help "save the world", as Andy would kindly phrase what the Old Guard was responsible for doing.

A soft knock on the door took over her musing thoughts. Nyx sighed in a breath as she turned the handle to see a young male looking back at her.

"Everything ok, ma'am?" The man asked, his voice a bit too soft for how tall he looked.

"Yeah...sorry, just wasn't intending to sleep so little for this trip, Erik."

Erik nodded his head, his crew cut hair did little to hide how handsome he appeared to others.

"Dad was mentioning that you would have issues with staying asleep. Did you try alcohol?"

Nyx gruffed at the suggestion of being drunk to sleep while flying.

"Wouldn't have worked for me. Even took a sleeping pill...tried it all, kid," she answered as she slowly got out of the small compartment; Erik allowed her to exit by scooting off to one side to allow her to pass. "I'm surprised that you fly this tincan at all. Your dad lost a bet with you?"

"Dad mostly does logistics now. Hasn't flown in a while due to his heart condition. Plus, he was really upset about missing out on taking ya." The man replied back as he took a seat across from Nyx.

"You left the control on autopilot, didn't ya"

The younger man nodded his head in response.

"Needed to take a nap. You ok with taking over for a bit while I catch a quick snooze?"

"Weather is going to be fine there?"

"Clear skies and only God to guide us there. It's safe."

Nyx nodded her head in return.

"Go on. I'll holler if I need ya," she said, grabbing a can of Cola Coca on the way to the pilothouse and giving Erik a squeeze of his shoulder in passing.

After getting situated in the pilot seat, Nyx let out a breath she didn't realize she held. The man accompanying her was the son of the man that helped Nyx get her semi-retired life in order. She helped raise that kid from diapers. Although, she never once complained at the mere thought of looking after one of her descendants from one of her long-lost children of yonder ago. She had been careful of revealing too much of her origins to Erik's father, but the boy wasn't blind nor stupid to see some sort of family resemblance. The kid was quite good at keeping his thoughts to himself--only happy to have someone be his guiding hand at times; other times, just be there if he needed an ear to vent to.

Sighing once more, Nyx prepared for however long it would take to fly the jet before the young pilot would awake from his slumber and join her on the controls.

#old guard #fanfic

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