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#and i NEED people to internalize this so that MAYBE this could help somebody else who is where i was
uncanny-tranny · 7 months
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I think it would really benefit people to internalize that mental illnesses are often chronic and not acute. Some of us will never be able to jump the hurdle of managing illness, much less sustaining a sense of normalcy. Many of us will never "recover," will never manage symptoms, will never even come close to appearing normal - and this is for any condition, even the ones labeled as "simple" disorders or "easy-to-manage" disorders.
It isn't a failure if you cannot manage your symptoms. It isn't a moral failure, and you aren't an awful person. You are human. There's only so much you can do before recognizing that you cannot lift the world. Give yourself the space to be ill because, functionally, you are.
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pumpkzsafeplace · 9 months
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Hi, hope your day is nice so far, I finished a rough part of my job so im less stressed out about it atleast. Im having a weird internal conflict over how I feel like I can't talk to my friends about stuff relating to my experience with age regression (even tho they technically know about it). I just feel so scared to bring it up in the first place, like they'll think I'm weird for it, or like I atleast have to ask again if they're OK with me talking about it. I just hate having to keep something that helps me so much completely hidden from the 2 people that know me best in the whole world.
I want to be able to bring stuff up in casual conversation and no one bats an eye, like I can with other regressors on discord. But it won't be like that because I was their introduction to all this in the first place. So I feel like everytime I want to have a conversation with them even kind of about reggression I've gotta hold back on talking about pacis and toys nd cartoons cuz somtimes I've gotta make sure they know exactly what age regression is so i don't wanna overwhelm them. -💫
─•~❉᯽❉~•─
hihi lil bug’ 🌼
i'm so sorry honey :<
i understand what you mean though- i talk about age regression so freely at home with my daddy and on tumblr with everyone else that sometimes i forget that it's not an open topic in the 'big world'. there will always be 'that talk' held over our heads whenever we want to introduce somebody new in our live and it's a little sucky :<
with your friends it's is difficult- because like you said, you were their introduction into this world. but that doesn't mean your relationship can't be close, you could still build that comfortability between the three of you.
you could start with just some off comments regarding age regression, like when they asked what you were up to last night- comment and say "oh i regressed for a bit- and then ate my dinner", make the term regression normalise in your friendship group, and then maybe you'll feel a little bit more confident talking about the detailed things, like paci's and other gear that helps you <3.
it's completely up to you though! do whatever makes you feel comfortable <3.
we're here regardless to help if you need us! <3
so big big big hugs <3 & i hope you have a lovely day <3
-🍰
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confusedinfj · 2 years
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Hey, I need your opinion. I’m a bit confused between istp and isfp, so here is some info about me:
- I do a lot of stuff but sometimes I take breaks from my hobbies to start doing something new, then I drop it and get back to my old ones, it’s a never ending circle.
- I like to spend time alone like a lot but sometimes I get active and want to socialize. I can text my friends in a middle of Tuesday and ask out and they are like I’m working let’s meet tomorrow or whenever… and I can’t say yes coz I may not want to meet them, so yeah. And I cancel plans as well when I don’t feel like going, sometimes I regret making plans in my active phase.
- I usually do things last minute. I mean I’m okay with deadlines but I can procrastinate till the last day and then do things.
- I mostly listen to people, I talk a lot with a couple of my friends and my sister. Usually I just listen and overanalyze stuff and when I want to say something it feels like I forget how to talk, tho I’m not stupid. I don’t like being stupid.
- I don’t really care about people but if I do, I want to spend time with them a lot and get jealous when they don’t choose me. I question myself if I’m really friends with these people or I just randomly talk to them.
- I daydream sometimes and it happens unexpectedly but I quickly get back to reality thinking what’s the point at dreaming, like it brings me nothing.
- Sometimes I have a gut feeling and it makes me question things and get paranoid a bit.
- I have emotions but I can’t fight the saying in my head “emotions = weakness”. My family says I’m cold and distant and really not empathetic. I don’t remember the feeling when I was hurt, sad, happy, I just label them as hurt/sad/happy but feel nothing.
- I don’t like routines, I tried to stick to them and even made to-do lists but I give them up in a week. But I kinda have a systematic approach when working idk
- I get bored easily
From this information, I personally don't think I could call it. A lot of the things you mentioned are fairly universal behaviours, and some of them are just age/character development things (emotions = weakness is a strong socially pushed idea, for example).
The real difference between dominant Fi and dominant Ti will be in your decision making process. These can actually sound very similar, which may be why you're having difficulty. So I'll try to give you some separating questions which might help in distinguishing them.
When making a decision, do you naturally choose based off your feelings/moral judgements, or based off internal logic that make might make sense to anyone else?
The difference here is that Ti will first need to seek out enough options and information to make a decision. Fi isn't naturally so thorough. Ti likes to overwhelm itself with options, weigh them all up, and then choose. Fi is less likely to seek out all these options, and may go into a decision with a few predecided requirements (must be an ethically sourced product, for example).
When somebody tells you sad news (like maybe their dog died), do you feel sad too because you remember a time your dog (or someone/something else) died? Or do you feel whatever they're feeling in the moment?
The Fe difference is that if the person isn't actually sad about their dog anymore, you won't be overwhelmed with sad feelings about your own precious situation (with traumatic exceptions, of course). Fe tends to feel what's felt in the present, while Fi assumes what is felt based on its own experience.
When you're very stressed, do you find you become cold and rigorously scheduled (low te)? Or do you become overly concerned with what other people think about you and become unusually emotional (low Fe)?
I hope one of those helps!
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firecoloredwater · 2 years
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🥺🎢💖👀😬 for the ask game? -💙
<3 <3 <3 Thank you!
...you know it'd help if my computer would actually display all of these emojis. Luckily my phone does so cross referencing time!
(...oh yeah that length thing.)
🥺 Is there a certain type of moment or common interaction between your characters that never fails to put you in your feels?
...I can point at it but I'm not sure how to put it into words, but: people understanding and caring about each other, not because they Just Get It When No One Else Does, but because they're okay with not getting it so long as they know what the other person wants/needs.
Also people prioritizing each other in unconventional ways and despite not being expected to. (Whiiiich mostly means 'while not in a romantic or parent/child relationship.')
Basically I like it when characters are important to and care about each other (especially in ways that are very specific to the characters and not culturally standardized), but I want it to be... organic isn't a good word; I like when characters click and I like when they've built something powerful over time, but I very strongly prefer that they could have built something equally good and strong and valuable with other people if they'd made different choices/the situation had been different (or maybe even they have! I love when characters have multiple strong and different relationships), and I tend to be :/ about anything that feels too much like Destined One True Love No One Else Will Ever Love Or Understand You Like This.
(Except that I do enjoy soulmate fics. I am vast and bewildering to myself as well. Although I like a lot of tropes that make things I am otherwise uncomfortable with explicit and a major part of the worldbuilding.)
It's also very easy to get me with characters that are... hm, not rejected entirely, but conditionally tolerated? "You're weird and annoying/otherwise disliked, but you're useful, so we'll be polite, but you're only welcome so long as you're being useful, not as a friend or anything." Or characters that have internalized the idea that they're only acceptable to the extent that they're useful.
Also it's not exactly feels, but I love snarky characters and good banter.
🎢 Which of your fics would you call your wildest ride?
...hard to say, but it's probably a Girl Genius fic. That fandom is just wild inherently.
I think if I'd gotten very far with it Yet To Be A Legend probably would have won, since it was meant to be Agatha POV as she broke through and learned that she was a Heterodyne while escaping/adventuring through the wastelands. Buuuut it only got two chapters, so that didn't really happen.
As it is, Somebody Else's Dream might win, because while the actual in-story emotional arc is pretty standard, the context is... I believe @songwithnosoul called it "a charming tale of kidnapping and coercion" and, well, yeah. Yeah. Girl Genius is Like That.
💖 What made you start writing?
Genuinely no idea. The first story I remember writing (outside of school assignments) was because I wanted a character who had escaped her abusive family in canon (Menolly, for those who know Pern) to go home and Show Them All how great she was so they would be forced to recognize how wrong they'd been about her and feel bad about it. So I just started writing it, with full plans to mail it to the author, be praised for how great it was, and have it officially published as part of the canon, because I did not yet know what fandom or fanfic was and thought I was the first person to ever have this idea.
(Luckily I was about 10-11 and abandoned it after about a page and a half, or else Anne McCaffrey, the canon author, would still be suing me.)
I'm pretty sure I'd been writing before that, though, so I have absolutely no idea where it started. It's just a thing I've Always Done, which is actually very inexplicable since my family is fully STEM-oriented and all encouragement was toward Being A Scientist. I was an obsessive reader as a kid though (like, I recall being about 8-9 and being able to read while I walked through the hallways between classes, because I would not put books down even that long), so writing was probably a result of that somehow.
👀 Tell me about an up and coming wip please!
Currently all my writing energy is going into either original(ish) stuff or Blessed Sacrifice AU (cowritten with @denialcity/@codedredalert, Naruto Founders "hey what if we took this ship-enabling trope and went WAY into the deep end of worldbuilding and consequences for it? ooh look, a shiny supernatural idea--").
I don't want to get very spoilery, but I'm slowly working on a few side fics (oneshots probably, with another POV, but no major plot developments/not actually necessary to read to know what's going on in the main fics), one from each of Izuna's parents' POVs.
There's also the (not yet titled) next main fic in the series, which will be Tobirama's POV (ooor maybe shared with other Senju), and get into how other clans view the Uchiha and their whole Thing with red-eyed people and yomotsu-shikome. Also Uzumaki religion!
😬 Which of your fics would you be most horrified for friends, family, or coworkers to stumble upon?
*sliiiiides the 45k of problematic city alpha/omega AU behind a curtain*
I feel the need to specify: the alpha/omega is not the source of any of the problematicness. The characters are just awful all on their own. If anything they're actually less problematic in the alpha/omega AU.
Anyway though that one's not getting posted, so really if my... okay well basically all my friends are in fandom one way or another and have probably been linked to my AO3 at some point, that's not saying much.
But if family/coworkers somehow found my AO3, ehhhh whatever. I don't really write smut so, I guess there's the dramatic sort of poetry from when I was 15? But nothing is particularly embarrassing or more personal than People I Know Reading My Writing is in general. If anything family reading my fanfic might be less awkward than them reading my original writing, because the canon provides a bit more interference between me and whatever they read.
Thank you again!
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stealing-jasons-job · 2 years
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WIP Game
Post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it! And then tag as many people as you have WIPs.
Tagged by @burninghoneyatdusk! Per usual Mads fashion, I have a neverending list of WIPs — some published, some sitting 1/2 baked in my drafts, others just slivers of ideas for fics that I may or may not write. 
published wips
now with my eyes wide open 
bellarke | 1/9 complete
historical au | philippine-american war | enemies to lovers with some ✨ shared history ✨
Bellamy. She can’t help the way her chest tightens at the thought of him. The memory of his bruised and battered face as it hovered over hers, a dagger pressed against her neck, all of the love she once saw replaced with hate and anger and hurt. So much hurt.***Clarke is back in Manila following the Philippine-American War hoping for a fresh start. But the hurt and pain she left behind haven't gone anywhere.
the choices we make 
bellarke | 9/12 complete
modern au | greys anatomy au | slow burn 
Clarke Griffin is a mess after the death of her father and estrangement from her mother. She decides to spite her mother by doing her surgical residency across the country in the city she grew up in, Arkadia. Her first night back in town, she has a one night stand with a random guy at a bar, only to find out the next day that he’s a fellow intern — Finn Collins.Her first day as an intern definitely doesn’t go as planned. Her chief resident Bellamy Blake seems to hate her. The chief of surgery Marcus Kane apparently knows her mother. And Finn Collins is popping up everywhere. Surviving her residency at Arkadia Memorial may be harder than Clarke originally thought.
intertwining your soul (with somebody else) 
bellarke | 12/15 complete
canonverse au | slow burn | angst 
There are three things Clarke's known since she was a little girl: 1. Love is weakness. 2. Bellamy will make a great heda. 3. He will never be hers.
Bellamy and Clarke grew up together in Polis — Clarke's parents served the previous heda and Bellamy was part of the novitiate class. She's been in love with him for as long as she can remember, but those feelings have never mattered. Ever since he survived his novitiate class as the next heda, he's been promised to Gina kom Ingranronakru as part of a political alliance established during the heda before him.Clarke's had years to come to terms with the fact that Bellamy will never be hers. But actually living alongside with the woman who gets to live the life she used to dream of? Nothing could have prepared her for that.
cross my heart 
bellarke | 2/7 complete
gallagher girls au | spies | exes to lovers 
Normal girls graduate high school, and then they go off to college with their friends. Maybe they join a sorority. Hell, maybe they get a boyfriend or girlfriend and fall in love. They sleep in and skip class and stay up late with their equally normal friends. And then they graduate college and find a normal job in a normal industry and go on living their normal lives.But Clarke Griffin has never been normal.It comes with the territory of being the daughter of two renowned spies for the CIA. Clarke was raised to speak seven languages and be able to change her entire appearance with nothing but a pair of nail clippers and some shoe polish. She isn't built for normal.*********Aka: The Bellarke Gallagher Girls AU you never knew you needed.
amor vincit omnia
bellarke | 1/3 complete
canonverse au | reimagined s7 
Peace has never come easy, and this new planet is no exception. Less than 24 hours after taking down the Primes and quelling the violence in Sanctum, Clarke is thrown back into an impossible situation. Octavia's been stabbed by a woman who has no memory of who she is or why she's here before disappearing into the anomaly. And Bellamy and Echo have followed after her, leaving Clarke to get backup before racing after them. Who knows what's waiting for them on the other side.**Basically, S7 reimagined as if Bellamy's absence didn't exist.**
upcoming wips
What I’ve got partially written but fully plan to publish. 
the alie program
bellarke | 2 chapters planned
modern au | white collar crime | begrudging coworkers to lovers 
Clarke has been a scam artist on her own for a long time—it's how she pays for her mother's treatment bills—but her colleague Murphy recommends branching out to the Alie Program for an extended job for some job security in the current economy. Of course, it would be her luck that her first assignment with the program is to team up as a fake married couple with the most arrogant, irritating, hot-headed, smug asshole she's ever met in her life. God, she doesn't know how she's going to survive this assignment even if the payout is everything she needs and the view is...admittedly nice. 
you can feel the light start to tremble 
bellarke | 5 chapters planned
canonverse s7 au | evil!Bellamy (sort of) | angst 
Excerpt: 
It feels like an out of body experience for Clarke, as if she's watching herself without really experiencing what's happening. She *sees* rather than *feels* the way her handshakes as she raises the gun toward the man she's loved for over a century. 
"You're not Bellamy," she says, voice cold. 
Everyone watches horror-struck at the perverse smirk that pulls at the corners of Bellamy's mouth. No, not Bellamy. *Sheidheda.*
unworthy of a trade
bellarke | oneshot
vikings | arranged marriage 
Excerpt:
After Roan kills Bellamy in a battle between their clans, Clarke offers her own life in exchange for her people. Roan accepts — except he doesn’t kill her, he takes her as his wife instead. Clarke fears nothing. She has fought countless Vikings, gone on trips out to the unknown, gone to war. She fears nothing—nothing except falling in love with Roan.
plot seeds, as kathryn would say
aka some ideas written down but just in the planning stage/who knows if they’ll be written, but probably not
darklina - alina is the new secretary of state who has to work with a private contracting firm that she once called “the guise of satan”...who happens to be run by a very charming man named aleksander, a man who makes her question everything she thought she knew (if you’ve watched Madam Secretary, this is based on the steaming hot chemistry between that episode in s1 w/ bess and the head of the vesuvius mercenary group 
darknik — canonverse au where nina and aleksander learn to heal together. dark daddy doesn’t become a tree and nina doesn’t cart matthias’s body around for an entire book like a psycho 
darklina - after the fbi turns her suspicions away, journalist alina decides to goes undercover at a bdsm club in the hopes of uncovering a human trafficking ring 
darklina - blacklist au with alina as liz and aleks as red 
tagging: honestly, I have no idea who is still writing so just open tagging anyone who wants to join in!!! 
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dizzydispatch · 4 months
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Chasing the High
 We were sitting around the coffee pot when the first call I’d ever responded to in person came in over the radio. I was doing a ride-along, something Regional tried to get our associated towns to give us when we first start, to get a first-hand look into what our responders experience on a daily basis. As all fire calls, it started with a tone. At the sound, I cut my story off mid-sentence and followed the firefighters around the corner into the vehicle bay.
Liz was driving, and as she prepped for response, she explained what she was doing. “We keep the pants and boots ready to step right into, next to the lockers, so it’s easier when we’re getting ready.” She slung an air tank over her shoulder and told me, “This has about half an hour of breathable oxygen. This will go into the back of my seat.”
I took the seat behind her.
“You buckled?”
“Yep. Now what?”
Thomas threw a playful wink from up front. “Now’s the fun part,” he said. “Now we get on the road and hope for something good.” 
I opened my mouth to say, of course we don’t hope that, because that would mean something bad has happened to somebody! But the sirens roaring to life cut me off, so I sat back. As we made our way through downtown, I realized that what I had been about to say was… well, it wasn’t necessary. I was around firefighters, and they were as crazy for disaster as I was. What I’d been about to say wasn’t just unnecessary: it was downright untrue. I was hoping it was “something good.” And so were they. That’s why they became firefighters. Isn’t it also why I became a dispatcher?
It’s not that we want bad things to happen to people. In a perfect world, nobody would need firefighters, or dispatchers, or any first responders at all. Bad things are going to happen whether we do this job or not. The next best thing to having no disasters at all is having disaster-trained people eager to respond when shit hits the fan.
But in a world where disasters do happen, I thought, it sure is good to know that some people are enthusiastic about helping out. 
It is my opinion that people who say they get into high-stress fields of work like first response or surgery “to help people” aren’t always telling the truth. Or at least, not the whole truth. Maybe some of them really do wake up and think of nothing else than making the world a better place. And most of them probably do want to help people, and do believe that’s the only reason they chose that field. But there’s another reason we all got into it, and it has a lot less to do with philanthropism than we’d like to believe. 
Take, for example, my friend Gabe. This is a man who teared up the first time I ever had a conversation with him, when I told him the story of how my grandfather sold his prized possession, his beautiful, lovingly-restored 1968 Pontiac, when I broke a bunch of my teeth in an accident to pay for implants “so my 18-year-old granddaughter doesn’t have to wake up to her teeth in a glass every morning.” True story. He’d spoken to me a grand total of once at that point, and he was so empathetic that the sweet story of familial love brought him to tears. How could somebody so compassionate, who seemed to absorb completely the emotions of others, also be an EMT who saw people die, a firefighter who witnessed families’ homes go up in smoke? After a while, you’d think it would just get to be too much. That the allure of maybe helping someone today would give way to the hopelessness of seeing your efforts go wasted the first time you revive an overdose only to have him die of another a week later. 
So what was it, then, that kept people like him responding to call after call, day after day? If you ask me, it’s the high. 
In the pilot episode of Grey’s Anatomy, titular lead Meredith Grey opens the show with a voiceover playing over shots of her class of first-years rushing around, getting ready for their first day as surgical interns. “The game,” she says. “They say a person either has what it takes to play, or they don’t.” That metaphor, of surgery being a game, is continued by a doctor later revealed to be the Chief of Surgery: “Each of you comes here hopeful. Wanting in on the game… The seven years you spend here will be the best and worst of your life. You will be pushed to the breaking point… This is your starting line. This is your arena. How well you play? That’s up to you.”
After scrubbing in on her first surgery, Meredith tells the doctor who led it, “You think you know what you’re going to feel… but that was such a high. I don’t know why anybody does drugs.” And in the end, as the pilot winds down, the voiceover returns, and Meredith tells the viewers: “I can’t think of any one reason why I want to be a surgeon. But I can think of a thousand reasons why I should quit. They make it hard on purpose. There are lives in our hands… I could quit. But here’s the thing: I love the playing field.”
Meredith’s words resonate with me, as somebody whose job requires me to be responsible for decisions that could, quite literally, change the course of lives. Even be the reason they end. Dispatch may be lower on the risk-factor scale than police or fire or hands-on EMS, since we sit from afar, linked to the unfolding events only by telephone and a radio connection. It isn’t our lives that are at risk if the traffic stop goes bad or the building comes down or the chest pains turn into sudden cardiac arrest. 
But it is my job to run the plates, to see if that driver has outstanding warrants or a violent criminal history. It’s my job to put out the evacuation tones if Command thinks a structure is sufficiently destabilized by fire to necessitate an evacuation. It’s my job to give CPR instructions to keep the cardiac arrest patient’s blood circulating long enough for EMS to arrive and save his life. It actually matters if I make a mistake, because those mistakes can and sometimes do cost lives. 
But that’s exactly why I sought this job out. I love the playing field, too. I live for the high of disaster, for the terrifying, high-stakes moments where it really is life or death. Without it, I’m just the owner of a battered heart, listening over the phone and radio as bad things happen all the time. As people get shot and buildings come down and patients code in the backs of ambulances. All there is between us and the despair is that excitement, the thrill of picking up the phone and hoping for “something good.”
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3/1/23
I haven't been wanting to write in my actual journal for a while now, not sure why. But here I am.
I just wanted to tell somebody (kinda) that I feel so many feelings, so deeply, and I know that is one guarantee for me in my life. That I will always return to feeling overwhelmed by what I am feeling from time to time. Not from conflicting feelings, but from how fucking intensely ______ (sad, happy, etc.) I am. I don't think I feel anything else intensely other than sadness or happiness now that I think of it. Sometimes I feel like the overwhelming happiness is the most unbearable of them all. I can't explain it. But the agitation that I feel. Maybe it is guilt for not always feeling this happy, or for not feeling this happy more often. Maybe I feel guilty for not enjoying every moment in life.
I wish I could talk about my day at work. I need to know how I can do that. Because of the nature of my work, I can't. And my supervisor is, well, she's great. But I think we dont' have similar approaches to things and when I bring up a concern I have and am honest about it, she seems to have the attitude of "well why does this bother you?" It's hard to fit into the work world when all I care about at work is work, and I am a bit of a perfectionist and care so much about getting everything right.
-
I am very much upset that I am the way I am. But also, sometimes I wonder if it really is that limiting, or if it is really not that big of a deal. Like I sometimes don't pick up on sarcasm, who cares. I am chill and calm and not very obviously energetic or bubbly. But I listen to people talk about the hardest and most vulnerable parts about their lives for a living, I wouldn't want to be bubbly and energetic while that is happening anyways. I don't think I owe anyone a certain kind of attitude or persona, and I am tired of that being pushed on me by society and my internalized demands that I learned from society and put on myself and continue to enforce on myself even when no one is watching or cares. I don't want to be a patronizing therapist. I think there is great value in being able to hold space for someone in a neutral and gentle way. I am finding my "counselor identity" as they say, and there is definitely room in this profession, for me to be myself, the best version of myself that highlights my calmness and confidence, and helping people in that way.
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loudphantommoon · 1 year
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Can we Guess what Stage your Relationship is In.
Whether you're enjoying a glorious singledom, happy dating times, or a loved-up coupledom, it's all about your perspective. But it could be an important step toward making a dating experience that’s about people instead of profit. With one of the most loyal fanbases in the world, this singer, songwriter and director has offered up everything from heartbreak ballads, to revenge anthems and everything in between, and her fans have been there every step of the way. Using publicly available data to purge users who may have been involved in a crime - especially one as visible and troubling as the Capitol attack - requires tougher trade-offs. Hence, to help you stay ahead of the curve, play your cards right and to keep you all motivated, we've compiled some of the most heartwarming stories of how our users met someone special on Aisle. They keep showing up so I know they love me. נערות ליווי ברמת גן If you're all mellow and laid back, then maybe you need someone who is uptight and task driven to keep you in the real world so you can get things accomplished. We give this advice because no member can be completely sure how serious their partner is, and if communication happens outside of our system, we will not be capable of helping members who get into trouble.
But the reality is, that what we want and what we need can be two completely different things. So you want me now? Now a team of international scientists has debunked this modern-day myth of the Vikings by examining their genetic ancestry. You will have the ability to look at somebody else’s profile and find out their interests along with other information and you may decide whether that person will be suitable for you or perhaps not. However, as I had to admit, I’m still trying to figure out the value, and I’m collecting some data on the hunch that it may be useful in the future without clearly knowing why. It's less pressure than Bumble's 24-hour time limit but still eliminates a list full of people who don't care enough to respond or plan a meet-up. Love is just one of the many emotions that humans crave, and while most of us have family and friends who make us feel wanted, having a romantic relationship with someone is an entirely different feeling altogether.
The main difference is that I have a better clothes budget. And some radiometric techniques have a much better success ratio than that. We've seen relationships in movies, on television and in our own families, and many of them have set the tone of what we should expect when getting into a relationship. What kind of relationship should you be in? This works to counteract popular concepts of technology (or knowledge of any kind) as universal or somehow outside of space. Outside of the context of a single site or society, a coin's date is useless. That means that you are choosing appropriate site for dating purpose. Ariana Grande and Billie Eilish are magnificent musicians. But while Ariana and Billie are both young white women with record-shattering album sales, the similarities end there. Tell us all about yourself, and we'll reveal whether you're more Billie or Ariana. Just need to open to more random of meetings when you finally get out of your car. Are you more suited to having a casual fling, a committed partner, a long distance relationship, or should you take some time out of the dating world and get to know yourself?
Are you really ready to settle down, or do you want to go out partying every weekend? I don't want to fight. She reportedly attended a boxing match at the Triller Fight Club with singer Jack Harlow in April 2021. The rumored hangout made waves online, and Bryce wrote a few tweets that appeared to be pointed at Addison and Jack. So, Mitch and I started doing our own thing, and had a few real estate projects, a couple of restaurants. It was only few months. While many people have a list of things that they would like in a partner, is it really what they need? No need to drive for an hour or get train tickets to a different city. In my serious relationships, I often get into fights about money. If you think you have them all down, take the quiz and find out! You can also find new friends in our app.
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wynn02friedrichsen · 2 years
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eight Ways to Produce New Ideas With regard to Your Business
The just purpose of a company is to bring within a buyer; and presently there are really only two ways in order to do it - through marketing or even innovation. New ideas are the lifeblood involving any business so it will be important to motivate creativity among staff and to be truly innovative. But creativeness and innovation are usually not the identical. Creativity is all about coming up with new ideas, whereas innovation entails putting new concepts into action. New ideas can be extremely tough to find. Whenever you do see them and put all of them into action, that they can give a powerful marketing edge in addition to become a permit to print money. Listed here are 8 methods to help make new delete word your business success: 1 . Ask for Thoughts You could hire specialists or else you could just seek opinions coming from somebody who knows totally nothing about your organization. We often obtain so close to that which we are doing, that we cannot find another way of accomplishing things. There are times when we have to step outside our environment because occasionally ideas used inside one trade can easily be adapted to another. For example of this, which came first of all the ball-point coop and also the roll-on deodorant? They both use the same innovative principle. 2 . Encourage Staff Creative imagination If you employ personnel, encourage them to think up new ideas and find those to suggest changes. You will have to be open-minded and encourage their input. You will certainly need to end up being tolerant when their very own ideas do not necessarily work. And you will need to reward these people in some method for good suggestions, although you may probably discover that typically the satisfaction of "seeing their ideas within action" may be reward enough. 3. website of the best ways to tap into fresh ideas is through brainstorming. This could involve family, friends, staff, customers plus even other company owners. The important with any idea session is in order to disallow any bad comments and just analyse or build ideas as soon as the treatment is over. The objective of a brainstorming treatment is to develop an amount of ideas. It is quantity certainly not quality. Refining the ideas comes later. 4. Re-educate typically the Mind There is definitely an old saying, "you never stop learning" and it is genuine. If you are usually willing to make some sort of personal commitment in order to perpetual re-education a person will reap the rewards. Allocate an annual budget (maybe 1% of your turnover) for private and staff members re-education. Consider training courses, seminars, training courses, audiotape programs etc. 5. Get a Case Study Consider nearing a local great school, college, or polytechnic that operates business courses. Present your business being a case study inside return for feedback from the students. 6. Become some sort of Surfer There is a wealth of information in the world wide web and many of it will be free. Search other areas of business rather than9124 your own simply because you might manage to adapt an entirely unrelated idea. seven. Read and Sign up You can often look for ideas in the most unlikely sites. Business, fashion and even trade magazines are typical worth a surf. These days it is easy to subscribe to any quantity of overseas guides. 8. Travel Opens Your Eyes Go to similar (or even unrelated) businesses offshore. You will be surprised at exactly how readily many of these people share their information; in fact you are usually not a threat to them. Found in my travels I actually have made it a place to check out factories that will make typically the strangest things, huge shopping malls, numerous small businesses and even international marketing businesses. It should work, mainly because whenever I seem to come back home buzzing with ideas. We would like in order to finish by saying again what I mentioned earlier. The only reason for an enterprise is to pull in a customer; and even there are actually only two ways to obtain - via marketing or development. So , there an individual have an important key to success throughout business. What you do using this information depends on you. I would like you every success!
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imogenswax · 2 years
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No I’ll be fine but those other girls won’t like no we wanna be the prettiest we want to be sexy and insightful and smart because like if I have a therapist daddy well you know if I have a doctor daddy then you’re fucked and I don’t think there’s anything from way back then is any of your motherfucking business but I do have all of New Jersey so there’s that I know you’re like totally freaked out right now it’s OK you can go girl and anyway wow fuck all of that shit you guys suck ass Lois knows it too she’s one of those people who should’ve been killed by her father for being a fucking cock block now the thing is that in her case what cock… Exactly so now I’m sorry like to Mark and and his children wanna go fuck in target some Greek people or something and is that kind of what I’m supposed to be getting from that Octávio now they’re not children they’re fucking garbage and garbage needs to take accountability for what they are there’s not a single fucking person in us I guess in the world now who doesn’t know when I say something about garbage and I say something about integrity and seven year old kids and taking out the trash and all of that it’s not a secret nobody hit anything in fact it was a black person who took out the goddamn trash to put out to make sure that everybody knew you know what that was her garbage that was her garbage and it’s like well you know what though I respect that thank you I need to be a better friend and that is a very very important thing that I cannot offer insecurity to you guys and I think that will help me feel a lot more fucking balanced intern I feel like I can’t can’t be myself or I can’t be real about stuff and busters in the face I mean maybe I wasn’t first like you know for 20 years or whatever it’s not that anybody could to God knows that I’m so grossed out well at least Dr. Sellers made his incest tribe look cooler well but it’s all what you see on TV on Facebook it’s very bothersome it’s not bothersome to them because it’s all in what you see but what if you don’t see what you see and I think that you’ve got everything but you’ve got nothing… See we looked at that and Mark and his tribe would have never known to look at that or look for that and then these kids want to be instant stars and then I’m like OK that sucks that really fucking sucks that is the shittiest goddamn thing that anybody could the coldest fucking thing and then you want heat and he wants a whiskey sours too don’t you I think you do I know exactly the way that he’s thinking I guess I guess I must call somebody else has him by the balls that’s not his whiskey sour I don’t know what the fuck you’re well you know what royalty is watching and I know that those suburban Rachael Thodi girls want to take all of my hearts but they won’t and they certainly will never have all of my parts either I just need a lot of love it now they don’t need a lot of love they need discipline and they don’t have that well because their dads want them to get a lot of hearts to… I don’t need a lot of hearts one or two makes me feel good in a spoiled way with Debbie yeah absolutely
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nasa · 3 years
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NASA Spotlight: Astronaut Mike Hopkins
Michael S. Hopkins was selected by NASA as an astronaut in 2009. The Missouri native is currently the Crew-1 mission commander for NASA’s next SpaceX launch to the International Space Station on Nov. 14, 2020. Hopkin’s Crew-1 mission will mark the first-ever crew rotation flight of a U.S. commercial spacecraft with astronauts on board, and it secures the U.S.’s ability to launch humans into space from American soil once again.  Previously, Hopkins was member of the Expedition 37/38 crew and has logged 166 days in space. During his stay aboard the station, he conducted two spacewalks totaling 12 hours and 58 minutes to change out a degraded pump module. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Illinois and a Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering. 
He took some time from being a NASA astronaut to answer questions about his life and career! Enjoy:
What do you hope people think about when you launch?
I hope people are thinking about the fact that we’re starting a new era in human spaceflight. We’re re-opening human launch capability to U.S. soil again, but it’s not just that. We’re opening low-Earth orbit and the International Space Station with commercial companies. It’s a lot different than what we’ve done in the past. I hope people realize this isn’t just another launch – this is something a lot bigger. Hopefully it’s setting the stage, one of those first steps to getting us to the Moon and on to Mars.
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You served in the U.S. Air Force as a flight test engineer. What does that entail?
First off, just like being an astronaut, it involves a lot of training when you first get started. I went to the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School and spent a year in training and just learning how to be a flight test engineer. It was one of the most challenging years I’ve ever had, but also one of the more rewarding years. What it means afterwards is, you are basically testing new vehicles or new systems that are going on aircraft. You are testing them before they get handed over to the operational fleet and squadrons. You want to make sure that these capabilities are safe, and that they meet requirements. As a flight test engineer, I would help design the test. I would then get the opportunity to go and fly and execute the test and collect the data, then do the analysis, then write the final reports and give those conclusions on whether this particular vehicle or system was ready to go.
What is one piece of life advice you wish somebody had told you when you were younger? 
A common theme for me is to just have patience. Enjoy the ride along the way. I think I tend to be pretty high intensity on things and looking back, I think things happen when they’re supposed to happen, and sometimes that doesn’t necessarily agree with when you think it should happen. So for me, someone saying, “Just be patient Mike, it’s all going to happen when it’s supposed to,” would be really good advice.
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Is there a particular science experiment you enjoyed working on the most while aboard the space station?
There’s a lot of experiments I had the opportunity to participate in, but the ones in particular I liked were ones where I got to interact directly with the folks that designed the experiment. One thing I enjoyed was a fluid experiment called Capillary Flow Experiment, or CFE. I got to work directly with the principal investigators on the ground as I executed that experiment. What made it nice was getting to hear their excitement as you were letting them know what was happening in real time and getting to hear their voices as they got excited about the results. It’s just a lot of fun.
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Space is a risky business. Why do it?
I think most of us when we think about whatever it is we do, we don’t think of it in those terms. Space is risky, yes, but there’s a lot of other risky jobs out there. Whether it’s in the military, farming, jobs that involve heavy machinery or dangerous equipment… there’s all kinds of jobs that entail risk. Why do it? You do it because it appeals to you. You do it because it’s what gets you excited. It just feels right. We all have to go through a point in our lives where we figure out what we want to do and what we want to be. Sometimes we have to make decisions based on factors that maybe wouldn’t lead you down that choice if you had everything that you wanted, but in this particular case for me, it’s exactly where I want to be. From a risk standpoint, I don’t think of it in those terms.
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Can you describe your crew mate Soichi Noguchi in one sentence?
There are many facets to Soichi Noguchi. I’m thinking about the movie Shrek. He has many layers! He’s very talented. He’s very well-thought. He’s very funny. He’s very caring. He’s very sensitive to other people’s needs and desires. He’s a dedicated family man. I could go on and on and on… so maybe like an onion – full of layers!
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Star Trek or Star Wars?
I love them both. But can I say Firefly? There’s a TV series out there called Firefly. It lasted one season – kind of a space cowboy-type show. They did have a movie, Serenity, that was made as well. But anyway, I love both Star Wars and Star Trek. We’ve really enjoyed The Mandalorian. I mean who doesn’t love Baby Yoda right? It’s all fun.
How many times did you apply to be an astronaut? Did you learn anything on your last attempt? 
I tried four times over the course of 13 years. My first three attempts, I didn’t even have references checked or interviews or anything. Remember what we talked about earlier, about patience? For my fourth attempt, the fact is, it happened when it was supposed to happen. I didn’t realize it at the time. I would have loved to have been picked on my first attempt like anybody would think, but at the same time, because I didn’t get picked right away, my family had some amazing experiences throughout my Air Force career. That includes living in Canada, living overseas in Italy, and having an opportunity to work at the Pentagon. All of those helped shape me and grow my experience in ways that I think helped me be a better astronaut.
Can you share your favorite photo or video that you took in space?
One of my favorite pictures was a picture inside the station at night when all of the lights were out. You can see the glow of all of the little LEDs and computers and things that stay on even when you turn off the overhead lights. You see this glow on station. It’s really one of my favorite times because the picture doesn’t capture it all. I wish you could hear it as well. I like to think of the station in some sense as being alive. It’s at that time of night when everybody else is in their crew quarters in bed and the lights are out that you feel it. You feel the rhythm, you feel the heartbeat of the station, you see it in the glow of those lights – that heartbeat is what’s keeping you alive while you’re up there. That picture goes a small way of trying to capture that, but I think it’s a special time from up there.
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What personal items did you decide to pack for launch and why? 
My wedding bands. I’m also taking up pilot wings for my son. He wants to be a pilot so if he succeeds with that, I’ll be able to give him his pilot wings. Last time, I took one of the Purple Hearts of a very close friend. He was a Marine in World War II who earned it after his service in the Pacific.
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Thank you for your time, Mike, and good luck on your historic mission! Get to know a bit more about Mike and his Crew-1 crew mates Victor Glover, Soichi Noguchi, and Shannon Walker in the video above.
Watch LIVE launch coverage beginning at 3:30 p.m. EST on Nov. 14 HERE. 
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com 
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ii. secret.
read on ao3
Lena Luthor dies a villain.
Her death took out half the population in the vicinity. A blinding white light piercing through the National City skyline. A deafening boom heard 5 cities over. An explosion so great, even Supergirl was knocked dead.
And so, Lena Luthor dies a villain.
Alone and young. And so, so bitter. An accomplice and ally to Lex Luthor.
Some would even say she was a greater, far more cunning, far more terrifying force than Lex.
There were rumors that the woman had magic at the end of it all. That no one person could be capable of that much destruction without the help of something inhuman.
But well, rumors were all it can be, especially when all possible witnesses perished along with the Luthors.
******
Weeks later, Andrea Rojas holds a memorial event for Lena Luthor; protesters burn the venue to the ground.
Months later, Supergirl returns to the world. More radiant than ever. More alive than ever. Stronger. Better.
Years later, National City recovers fully from the whole catastrophe.
Supergirl is reported to most frequently be seen in the memorial square for the fallen victims. A dozen paparazzi pictures of the caped heroine quietly walking, sometimes whispering under breath.
Praying, somebody on a CatCo article comments. She’s always praying whenever we see her there.
****** The closet doors burst open and out steps Alex Danvers.
A colorful stream of expletives coming right along with her, “Fuckin’ fur coats, goddamn hangers, fucking hitting me in the face—”
“Took you long enough,” a familiar voice greets her, “where the hell have you been? And why are you so...dirty? If you track mud on my carpet I swear to God, Alex—”
“I was cleaning your grave, okay?” she snaps, setting down a bucket filled with various cleaning supplies, that Lena’s just now noticing, on said carpet.
“Oh.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Alex huffs about, crossing her arms, “You don’t have to make a big deal about it. I don’t want to do it again, it’s a bitch for my back pain. I was just pissed about the graffiti. You’d think people would have better manners than defacing the grave of a dead woman. If only they—”
“Thank you, Alex,” she cuts her off, a shy smile gracing her face. She really doesn’t want to hear about the rest of it. And if Alex doesn’t want to make a big deal out of it, then no big deal shall be made.
“There’s coffee in the kitchen,” she says then, and Alex just nods, grabs her bucket of supplies again and turns to leave.
Although not before saying, “Remind me again why you let Kara win? With the portal?”
Lena just shrugs, dark hair escaping out of her messy bun at the movement.
“She said she’s always wanted to go to Narnia.”
Alex shakes her head, rolls her eyes, “Whipped.”
And well, that sounds about right.
******
There’s a documentary on Netflix about the Luthors. Lena’s face in black and white, on the preview banner, a big red X drawn over it.
Kara snaps the remote in half.
Lena reaches over the blanket, grabs her hand, flicks the TV off with only a swish of her fingers and a glitter of sparks.
“C’mere,” she says, tugging gently, till she has a lapful of Krytonian draped over her. Lena traces her fingers over the crinkle between Kara’s brow, smooths them out, thumb dragging across lips till it pulls to a soft smile.
“We know the truth,” she tells her, “and that’s enough.”
“It’s not fair.”
Nothing ever is.
******
“How’re the kids?” She asks, one hand whisking eggs, the other holding the bowl steady.
“Oh, you know, asking me a thousand silly questions a day. Driving Alex crazy. Never letting me sleep. They’re perfect, really,” Kelly says, and Lena hums in response. Before she catches Kelly popping a blueberry in her mouth, a crime punishable by Lena Luthor’s death stare.
“Those are for the muffins.” A foam covered whisk points dangerously to Kelly’s chest.
She raises both arms in surrender, palms opening, dropping the remaining three blueberries onto the counter.
“You know, I’ve seen you do it a thousand times, yet it still doesn’t fail to surprise me.”
Lena concludes she’s talking about the baking tray hovering in the air, a feet away from them, greasing itself. Or maybe it’s the soup at the stove with a ladle stirring itself.
“What can I say,” Lena quips, smirking, “I’m magical like that.”
******
Andrea finds her on a Tuesday.
One minute Lena is reading quietly on her front porch, the next, there is an explosion of sound in her living room. She throws open her door, magical energy sizzling at her fingertips.
The sight that greets her stops her in her tracks. Acrata pinning Supergirl down, their coffee table destroyed. She sighs internally, she loved that coffee table. It was a wedding gift from Nia and Brainy.
“I knew it,” Andrea whispers, her grip slackens around the hero's throat. She stands up slowly, as if afraid that if she moved too fast Lena would disappear. She leaves Supergirl gasping on the floor; materializes in front of Lena in a cloud of black smoke.
“I knew it. I knew it. I knew it.” She sobs into Lena’s blouse, arms wrapped tightly around her. Lena embraces her on instinct, her eyes closing briefly, before opening up again to check on Kara dusting herself off.
“Andrea,” Lena croaks, “you can’t tell anyone.”
You can’t tell anyone I’m alive. You can’t tell anyone how I tricked Lex, how I saved Supergirl, how I saved National City.
“Nobody will know,” Andrea promises her.
******
There is a cottage by the woods that nobody else sees, where every Sunday a blonde woman rips apart pieces of wood with her bare hands, where a pale woman with even paler hands grows crops from the barren earth within seconds, where the closet hides cities instead of clothes, where a dead woman and a hero spend their lives in bliss.
******
It has been ten years, her hair is more gray than blonde now, her skin more wrinkled than smooth, her hearing though? Her hearing is still better than ever. And it has been ten years since she’s heard that tell-tale whoosh of a cape, it’s been a decade and still, the sound brings her the same thrill, the same adrenaline.
“To what do I owe the pleasure, Supergirl? Or should I say, Superwoman, now?”
And oh-
She did not come alone.
Lena Luthor is set gently down on the balcony.
If Cat Grant wasn’t Cat Grant, she’s sure she would’ve already suffered a heart attack from the mere sight of a woman long dead standing breathing and alive in her home. She would’ve shrieked and demanded answers.
“I need a favor,” Kara tells her, stalking closer, hand on her hip. Cat would’ve laughed at that if this were some other time. No need to play the intimidating game with me, Kiera, she would’ve said.
“What is it?”
“I need you to break a story,” she tells her. “You, Cat. I want you, and nobody else to cover this.”
Cat raises her brow at that, she already has an inkling as to what the story might be about.
“A story hmm? This better be good, if I’m to come out of retirement for it.”
This time it’s Lena Luthor who speaks. Cat has been dying to hear what she has to say.
“It’ll be good," she promises her, "It’ll be better than good."
Kara crowds closer to Lena, then; wraps a protective arm on her waist. Cat watches frozen as Lena's index finger lights in flame. What a sight they make.
"You’ll be telling the entire world the last Luthor’s secret.”
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princehrry-writings · 3 years
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Legal Guardian
ugh this took way too long lol, but here it is!!! i forget exactly that sparked this but i thought it was a cute idea.
warnings: injuries (nothing major), hospitals, cursing, harry being a protective dad 🥺, talks about adoption and legal guardians, crying
wordcount: 2481
harry styles x reader, stepdad!harry x reader, stepdadharry x oc!stella
masterlist
Stella gets hurt and Harry is the only one there- but he has no legal jurisdiction…
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It all happened really fast. Harry can’t even recall how it started, but he knew very well how it ended. A sobbing Stella strapped into her car seat as he raced to the emergency room, frantically calling Y/n who was in a different state on a work trip.
The 5 year old didn’t understand what was going on, she just knew she was hurting… really bad. And that she wanted her mommy and daddy.
The traffic seemed to be working against him, getting in his way at the most inconvenient times, all the while he was trying to console his weeping daughter, crying out “Daddy it hurts so bad!” effectively shattering his heart into a million little pieces.
Stella had been playing happily in the backyard at home, showing off her wonderful dance moves to Harry who watched with an adoring smile on his face, taking little videos to send to his fiance, when suddenly she was laying on the ground, clutching her ankle, and crying for him to come get her. He rushed into action, not having seen her take the fateful step into what must have been a hole in the ground or something.
Screeching into the hospital car park, he stops somewhere he obviously wasn’t supposed to but he couldn't care less. His mind was racing. What if she broke her ankle? Or tore a ligament? What if she has to get surgery? All of this is what he worries about as he flings the back door of his car open, trying his best to appear calm for his daughter (but it’s not really working), and scoops her carefully into his hold, bringing her inside and shouting for someone to please help him.
A few nurses rush to his side, asking him different questions and asking for someone to “Page Dr. Robbins, tell her we need a peds consult.”
Stella is whisked away from him and before he can start to follow after her, a hand is placed on his chest, stopping him in his place.
“Sir, we can’t have you in the room with her. You’re not on her file as a legal guardian!” A doctor tells him. In that moment, he sees nothing but red, steam pouring out of his ears.
“The hell I can’t, I’m her father! I’m not going to let her sit in there all alone while strangers poke and prod at her!” He all but yells at the man. Harry is not violent. He really isn't. But he’s not afraid to lay somebody on their ass when it comes to his girls. With kindness or course. And maybe a black eye.
From the room she was taken into he can hear her crying for him.
“Wan’ my daddy! Daddy!” Harry didn’t think his heart could break any further than it already had but he was proven wrong by the ache in his chest that only grew stronger the longer he was kept away from his lovebug.
“Doctor, respectfully- if you don’t move the hell out of my way, I will move you myself. That is my daughter, and my fiance is in a different state right now on a business trip so I am the only parent she has right now. If you try to keep me from my child I will take legal action against the hospital and sue for everything you’re worth. Now if you’ll excuse me.” Harry is seething, trying to move past the man in the white lab coat and light blue scrubs. Again, he is stopped.
“I will call security, sir!”
“DADDY!” Stella is now screeching, her little voice hoarse from all the yelling and crying.
“Don’t you fucking hear that? She needs me, and you’re telling me I can’t go be with her! What the hell kind of doctor are you?” Harry is in the man's face, pointing at him vehemently. He doesn’t care that people are starting to watch the scene. Doesn’t care that some people have recognized him and are recording the ordeal. Let the people see him fighting for his family. He doesn’t give a rat's ass if his “image” takes a hit. His daughter is on the line and he won’t back down.
“She’ll be fine-”
“No she won’t! Go ahead and call security. My daughter needs me and you’re not going to stop me from being in that room with her.” With that he pushes past the doctor (who must be an intern or something with how he’s handling this situation) and rushes into the room where his baby is screaming for him. He’s at her side in a matter of seconds, wiping the tears from her face, peppering kisses onto her head, petting her wild hair back from her face, just consoling her in any way that he can.
How fucking dare they try to keep him from her, especially when she’s in a state like this.
“It’s ok baby girl, daddy’s here now. I’ve got you. You’re ok, you’re ok!” He mumbles into her hair, doing his best to stay out of the way of the people examining her but still close enough so she knows he’s right there with her.
Little tears still streamed down her face but she was much calmer now, her breathing more even and body less tense.
“Mr. Styles we’re bringing in the portable x-ray to take a look at her ankle, so you’re going to need to wear this.” He nods and takes the vest given to him, putting it over his shoulders like he sees the others do. A similar article is placed over Stella, who is clinging to Harry’s hand, fearing that she’s going to have to be without him again. But he promises he isn’t going anywhere.
As they’re taking the x-ray his phone starts ringing in his pocket and he checks to see that it’s Y/n calling him back.
“H, what’s wrong, is she ok?” Her panicked voice rushes out as soon as the call connects.
“We’re in the ER right now and she’s getting an x-ray to see what’s going on with her ankle-”
“You’re in the room with her right? She’s not alone?”
The little shards of his heart keep breaking into smaller and smaller pieces as her voice breaks.
“Yeah, I’m right next to her. Don’t worry m’love, she’s not alone!” He glared at the doctor that tried to keep him out as he said that, letting him know he hadn’t forgotten.
“I’m gonna facetime you so I can see her.” She said and he nodded, waiting for it to come through. When it did he quickly accepted it, seeing the love of his life’s face on the screen, with her puffy eyes and tear stained cheeks as she wiped away the remaining tears so she didn’t freak out her baby.
“Stell, mumma’s on the phone, she wants to talk to you.”
“Hi baby girl!” Y/n said as soon as Harry held the phone so Stella could see her mom. The little girl's tear stained cheeks looked exactly like her moms, and her heart broke for her baby.
“Hi mumma,” Stella pouted into the camera, clutching onto her daddy as tight as her little hand could. Harry was a little uncomfortable but he would take this over not being in here at all.
“How do you feel, baby? You ok?” She asked.
“My foot hurts and they wouldn’t let daddy in here and I was scared, but he’s here now so I’m ok.” The little girl rambled off. Y/n almost missed how she said they wouldn’t let Harry in the room but when it finally registered, she was fuming. Absolutely, royally pissed.
“What do you mean they wouldn’t daddy in there?” Stella shrugged and looked up at Harry for an answer. He brought the phone back so he could see her after looking around at the doctors in the room, all doing their job and pretending they weren’t listening to this conversation, but a few of them winced when Y/n asked her question.
“Some bloke tried to keep me out of the room while Stella was being examined but she was on the verge of a whole breakdown. It was like Disneyland in Paris all over again.” He said, referencing the time Harry took his girls to Disneyland while they were in Paris and Stella got separated from her mom and dad. She had never not been able to see at least 1 of her parents before. Needless to say… she didn’t handle it very well. Screaming, crying, and hyperventilating (which freaked her out even more- causing her to scream louder and cry harder) ensued very shortly, disturbing every person around her. But it made it easy for them to find her and she spent a very very long time clutching her tiny arms around her daddy’s neck, not letting him set her down for anything. That was an interesting trip to the bathroom …
“Why would they try to keep you out of the room? You’re her father!” Y/n was on the verge of popping a blood vessel. Of course the one time her baby really needs her, she’s hours away.
“Uh, Mr. Styles, I’m so sorry to interrupt! But the x-ray is complete. There’s no break, it looks like a sprain at worst. Also, about why my intern was saying you weren’t allowed in the room, not that I was listening to your conversation, with ped’s cases we typically only allow legal parents or guardians in the room and your name isn’t anywhere on her file or on her records so he was just trying to follow safety protocols. He didn’t go about the situation as well as he should have because we always want to make sure our patient has what they need and that was obviously you- but that is the reason why you initially weren’t let into the room. You’re not a legal parent or guardian. Based on your situation- you’re legally considered a step-parent and that title doesn’t come along with any legal jurisdiction.” Dr. Robins explained, in quite a few words Harry thinks, but he doesn’t say anything about it. Just sits and realizes that while for the better part of a year and a half, he’s been calling himself Stella’s dad but the whole he’s not been anything… not legally anyway.
Y/n realizes this too and makes a mental note to call their lawyers to do something about that.
“That makes sense… Thank you, Dr. Robbins! I have her mum on the phone, but you knew that, so if there’s anything else I legally can’t do, she’ll have to take care of it like thi-”
“Mr. Styles, we won’t tell if you don’t! Anything else that needs to be signed, we’ll just go ahead and have you do it. Save the hassle for everyone.” Dr. Robbins interrupts him and he smiles, silently thanking her.
“Daddy, what's a legal guardian?” Stella asks after a quiet moment.
“A legal guardian is someone who takes care of you because the law says they can. So because I didn’t help mumma make you and I came into your life a little later, I’m not a legal guardian of you. Not yet anyway.” He mumbles the last part but Y/n catches it.
“Does everyone have a legal guardian?” She hiccuped, rubbing at her eyes with the hand that wasn’t clutching Harry’s.
“At one point yeah, but once you get older you don’t need one anymore because you can take care of yourself.”
The girl pauses, thinking about her daddy’s words before muttering “Don’t wanna take care of myself. Wanna stay with you and mumma forever.”
All the little shards of his heart slowly start to piece back together.
“I want you to stay with me and mumma forever too lovebug.” He cooes. Y/n’s eyes light up, her gaze filled with adoration for her little family.
. * .
*
“The documents are all drawn up Mrs. Styles, everything is ready for your husband to sign.”
“Thank you so much Ben!”
. * .
*
“Baby, c’mere. Wanna talk to you about something.”
“Yeah mommy?”
Y/n took a deep breath, trying to quell the tears she could already feel threatening to fall. Her newly wed husband sat beside her on the couch, running his hand along her back and squeezing her shoulder and letting her know he was there if she needed him.
“Do you remember when you and Daddy had that conversation about legal guardians?” The woman asked, pulling her baby into her lap, brushing her hand over the girl's hair affectionately.
“Uhhh, kinda.” She murmured, curling into her mom.
“Do you remember what a legal guardian is?” Y/n rephrased, hoping to jog the girl's memory. Stella nodded and when prompted by her mother explained that “It’s someone who takes care of you until you're old enough to take care of yourself.”
“That’s right baby, very good!”
“And do you remember when we were at the hospital and that doctor was being mean, not letting Daddy into the room with you?” Harry chimes in, scooting closer to his girls. She nodded with a roll of her eyes and a huff of breath, causing a little giggle to erupt from her parents. She really is her mothers daughter.
“Didn’t like him.” She mumbles.
“Do you remember why they didn’t let him into the room?” Y/n asks, knowing she should probably get to the point before her little one checks out and gets bored.
“Cause daddy’s not my legal guardian.” Stella huffs again, rubbing her eyes and nuzzling further into her mom.
“Do you want him to be?”
Stella’s quiet for a moment, tapping her little finger on her chin like she’s thinking hard. “Yeah.”
“Yeah? You want that baby?” Harry asks, pulling her into his lap. The girl wraps her arms around his neck and lays her head on his shoulder, nodding.
“Yeah, Daddy. Want you to be able to come to the doctors with me.” She mumbles sleepily.
The tears Y/n had been fighting off finally broke through, despite her efforts. It’s official. Harry is going to adopt Stella and they would be a family in every sense of the word. No one would be able to take Harry's little girl away from him. All he had to do was sign the paper. Harry felt tears spring to his eyes as well, smoothing his hand along his baby’s back.
“You have no idea how happy it makes me to hear that…” He says, squeezing her a little tighter. Y/n snaps a quick picture before she snuggles into them.
“Love you Mommy, love you Daddy.” She murmurs before falling asleep in Harry's arms. Something that isn’t new, but feels different now for some reason. Things felt a little more official and he hadn’t even signed the papers yet.
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lazyevaluationranch · 3 years
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On a post about the Blue Haired Girlfriend's quixotic citrus breeding experiments, @voidingintotheshout​ asked:
I mean, if you wanted a hearty citrus relative, why didn’t you just grow Osage Orange? They can grow as far north as Michigan which is surely further north than anyone could reasonably expect to grow a citrus tree. They’re not edible but then hearty orange isn’t either. Osage Orange are so cool and such a interesting historical plant from the Shelterbelt era of American agriculture. Apparently they do smell like citrus.
This is part three of three. Part one. Part two.
Now you've done it! It's time for A Very Brief (But Also Insufficiently Brief) History of Twentieth Century Hardy Citrus Cultivation! Growing citrus trees this far north is kind of nuts, it's true, but I promise you it is not even close to the weirdest things people have done to grow citrus in places where the citrus doesn't think it should grow.
A note: This post will written using the Swingle citrus taxonomy system, including things that are definitely wrong. The citrus taxonomic tree looks like that one box of orphaned computer cords I keep moving with me to new houses "in case I need them" except some sort of adorable five-dimensional kitten has entertained herself with them and some of the resulting knots are not technically possible in our space-time continuum. 
The powers that be gave us citrus because nothing pleases them like seeing a geneticist cry.
1. The Migrant Trees
The Soviet Union wanted lemons for tea, and they wanted to be independent enough not to have to trade with anyone else to get them, which meant they wanted to grow their own citrus. That part of the world is not a great place to grow plants that die when the temperature goes below zero, but at the foundation of the Soviet Union, there were citrus orchards in the warmest part of Georgia, along the Black Sea. Specifically, there was about, uh, one and a half square kilometers of somewhat implausible citrus orchard.
Hang on, it is about to get way less plausible.
This is the great citrus migration: any tree that did well in one spot, they'd try planting its seeds a few kilometres further north, or a few kilometres further east. Prizes were offered for breeding hardier citrus. Slowly the orchards spread, but they were extremely weird orchards.
It's usually a few degrees warmer at ground level than up in the air, and there's way less wind. So as the trees grew, they were bent over and tied along the ground. Some of them had the central trunk run in a straight line along the ground, with branches spreading out from it like the leaves of a fern, like an espaliered tree on its side. Others were starfish shaped, with the central trunk looped down until it ended up next to the base, and the branches sprawling out along the ground from the centre like starfish legs. The citrus trees were no taller than particularly vigorous strawberry plants, but they survived the winters, and you could throw a blanket over them to help them stay warm.
None of that helped if the ground froze solid, so they needed Underground Citrus. You'd dig a ditch, down below the lowest area where the ground froze, and you'd plant flat Starfish Trees or Flat Frond Trees running along the bottom of it, too deep to freeze. In winter, you'd just cover the ditch with boards any time the temperature was expected to go below freezing - citrus would tolerate the lack of light, but not the cold. Mandarins (Citrus reticulata) seemed to do best, so that’s most of what was grown.
It is a nearly unimaginable amount of work to grow citrus this way, along the bottoms of pits and trenches. We are experimentally trying to grow a Soviet-developed mandarin breed of unknown parentage, Shirokolistvennyi, but we will definitely not be putting in that level of effort.
2. The Mixed Up Trees
There are a couple species of citrus that tolerate cold well, but taste awful. A lot of effort has gone into crossbreeding them with more edible citrus. The results are ... mixed.
The Ichang Papeda (Citrus cavaleriei) generally survives temperatures down to -18 degrees C. It is stoic and calm and has mastered emptiness. Unfortunately, it has mastered emptiness too well. The fruit smells like lemons, with maybe a hint of rose, but there's nothing to eat here. It has a rind and seeds. No juice, no flesh.
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(Photo by Michael Saalfield)
The Ichang Papeda is the parent or grandparent to several delicious, extremely sour Asian citrus types. Yuzu/yuja smells like grapefruit and clean wet stones from the bottom of a fast-flowing stream. Sudachi smells like grapefruit and leaves with dew on them. (I haven't met kabosu or any other papeda hybrids personally, but they are numerous.)  They're all too sour to eat plain, unless you really need to turn your face inside out for some reason, but make for excellent flavouring. 
(We have a yuzu tree and a sudachi tree and they're surviving, but no fruit yet.)
Trifoliate orange (Poncirus trifoliata) can survive temperatures down to -30 degrees C. This may be partly because, uniquely amoung citrus, they can drop leaves in autumn or winter and regrow them in spring, like a maple tree. They also produce an internal antifreeze. They are angry, twisted, thorny little plants that yell swears when you walk past them. They make a great hedge. The fruit is furry, smells like flowers and pine trees and taste like burnt, bitter plastic. It may or may not be possible to breed the horrible taste completely out of trifoliate oranges without losing cold-hardiness, if it's due to their antifreeze chemicals. Here’s Stabby:
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(Photo by Rob Hille)
Even the least terrible trifoliate crossbreeds are bitter enough to qualify as “acquired tastes.” There are recipes for trifoliate marmalade: put a dozen trifoliate oranges, a kilogram of sugar, and a kilogram of pebbles in a pot, cook until it gels, then sieve out the oranges and eat the pebbles. 
We are growing a trifoliate orange / minneola orange hybrid. And, of course, someday our own trifoliate hybrids. The Blue Haired Girlfriend planted 200 trifoliate oranges a couple years ago. There are fewer now, but the survivors have lived through two winters of snow and frost, and they might have somehow gotten more stabby. We're going to breed them, to each other or to less angry fruit, try and make something new and good from them.
I've limited this post to twentieth century hardy citrus breeding, but I have to give a shoutout to somatic hybridization, a decidedly twenty first century technique, where you take a cell from each of two different plants, remove their cell walls, put them next to eachother, and shock them with electricity until they merge into a single cell whose nucleus contains all genes from both plants. Then the new plant is like, "Wow, I guess these are all my genes? It seems like a lot, haha, but it's not like somebody made me from dismembered body parts and electricity, that is not how science works. Anyway I guess it's time to do some plant stuff now."
3. The Mutant Trees
In the 1950s, people started using radiation to randomly scramble the genes of plants. You'd irradiate seeds enough to change the genes somehow, and then you'd have to plant them to see what had happened. Maybe it was people horrified by the atomic bomb desperately wanting to find some life-supporting use for atomic fission, maybe it was government-supported cold war "atom bombs are good actually, look how many we have, USSR" propaganda. Probably both. 
This time period also saw serious plans for Orion, a spaceship with a huge metal plate for a butt, intended to be propelled by exploding atomic bombs under it, which I am not actually making up.
Thousands of people in Europe and the US signed up to receive seeds with random mutations in the mail, plant them, and report back on what they heck they grew into and if it had any useful weirdness. (The gamma radiation used to mutate the seeds did not make them radioactive themselves - the seeds were completely safe.) There were also more formal and carefully controlled university research programs in China, Japan, and the US, where plants where grown in a circular research garden with a coverable radiation source at the centre, so that the farther you got from the centre, the less radiation the plants got. Radiation breeding is less popular than it used to be, but Japan still has a very productive citrus radiation breeding program.
The most popular radiation-bred citrus is the "Rio Red" grapefruit and its offspring, which has a much deeper red than non-mutant red grapefruit.
There aren't many radiation-developed citrus breeds noted for cold-hardiness - with radiation you get whatever you get  - but there are a few, and I want one just because I think they're neat, a monument to that lovely human vision that looks at terrible weapons and somehow sees glossy-leaved trees with bright fruit.
4. The Monster Trees
Citrus are usually grown via grafting. That is, you plant a seed from a fast-growing sturdy breed, you let it grow roots and all that, and then you cut the top off and replace it with a branch from a more delicious breed. The two citruses grow together, and you end up with a tree that's disease and cold resistant in the roots, below the graft, but makes tasty fruit above the graft.
Occasionally, this process goes Wrong. 
The first recorded instance is the tree called Bizarria, discovered in 1640. Someone attempted to graft a sour orange branch onto a citron. But instead of a clean line between sour orange branches and citron roots, the graft was damaged somehow, and the two different species of cells got tangled and mixed through the whole tree. It has branches that produce citron fruit. It has branches that produce sour orange fruit. And it has branches that produce, uh ... these:
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(Photo by Labrina)
Most graft chimeras are made accidentally, when the graft site is damaged. Trifoliate orange is often used as rootstock, so there are many reported chimeras involving trifoliate orange and a nicer fruit. The mixed-up cells can be arranged a lot of ways, but it's possible to have the outside layer of the tree be trifoliate orange, and the core of the tree be the other citrus (periclinal chimera). This means you could theoretically get a tree with frostproof trifoliate leaves and branches, but fruit that doesn’t taste like burnt plastic rolled in quinine.
This lucky monstrosity has, in fact, reportedly happened. Twice. There is the Prague Citsuma, discovered in a greenhouse in Prague and suspected to have been created by a Soviet breeding program. And then there is the Hormish, discovered in China and thought to have been made by frostbite messing up the clean lines of the graft. The Blue Haired Girlfriend has managed to track down budwood from the Prague Citsuma - I’m so excited! - so we'll see how the fierce thorny monster tree with a heart of gold, or at least heartwood of gold, does for us.
5. Conclusion
Humans have been trying to grow citrus trees where they don't belong for nearly two thousand years, at least since the Jewish Diaspora and people trying to grow holy etrog trees - trunks gnarled as barnacle stones and the whole tree scented like the best dream you can't remember - in Europe. Maybe longer.
The Blue Haired Girlfriend's citrus-breeding schemes aren't going to singlehandedly transform Canada into a net citrus exporter. But history shows us: it might be possible to have a little gleaming sweetness from the stony ground here, with the ravens and the fir trees and the auroras. A sweetness we made ourselves, that exists nowhere else. 
Or maybe we'll just have a bunch of weird inedible fruit. I don't know, but it's worth finding out, worth weaving together leaf and thorn and stone and the light of our hands as the years unwind. Worth it to have a quixotic project we can expect to spend decades on together, hands and hearts. This is how home is made, sometimes, with a balcony full of angry thorny little trees that shout swears at passerby.
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andypantsx3 · 3 years
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subtle | shouto todoroki/reader
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pairing: Todoroki Shouto / Reader
status: complete
length: 2,171 words
summary: Someone leaves chocolates on your desk. You're determined to track down the sender, certain it's a mistake, and Shouto Todoroki makes himself as unhelpful as possible.
tags: romance, reader-insert, fluff, valentine’s day
warnings: aged up characters (no smut though!!)
There was a box on your desk.
There was a box on your desk, and the sight of it was enough to instantly set you on edge.
The box looked normal enough, if a little fancy, maybe. Its lacquered top glinted brightly under the fluorescent office lighting, its smooth, polished sides waterfalling into the soft matte of your desktop underneath. You weren’t close enough to read the inscription, but you could just make out some elegant, curling script inlaid into the top of the box, possibly the name of whichever company had produced it.
The box looked very normal, in fact. Only, you knew it wasn’t. Boxes didn’t just show up in the middle of the Todoroki Hero Agency, a campus swimming with pros and armed with layers of security so deep it took even you--Shouto Todoroki’s manager--fifteen full minutes to get through screening every morning. It was something very much like being a prison guard at Tartarus.
So either this box meant the agency was dealing with a security breach the likes of which had scarcely been seen before, or someone had mistaken your desk for somebody else’s.
Which, considering it was Valentine’s Day, made a lot more sense.
Buoyed by the realization it wasn't a security risk, you crept closer, peering at the box, and the script resolved itself into the name of the extremely fancy chocolatier in Hiroo district that you made a point of drooling over every time you had to make a house call on Shouto. Their prices were literally insane, so you had never let yourself wander inside, unwilling to shell out an entire week’s pay for a tiny set of chocolates. Even if they did look absolutely fucking unbelievable from the window.
Your mouth watered.
That confirmed it--this was a Valentine's gift, and it was definitely a mistake. For the briefest of seconds, you’d wondered if maybe you had gotten obligatory office friendship chocolates, but this was too much. Some poor, love-sodden flop had gone out, spent their week’s pay on someone they were clearly very serious about, and then proceeded to fuck the entire thing up by plonking their gift straight onto your desk instead of their intended’s.
You frowned, quickly checking the box over for some kind of clue as to who had left it. There was no note included, nothing even mildly helpful that would give you the slightest hint of the person who'd left it here. Which left you with the question of how to return the box to the sender without knowing who they were, or how to pass it on to whoever they’d really meant it for.
You drew your bottom lip between your teeth, staring hard at the surface of the box like you could crack its code if only you glared hard enough. The box stared back at you, unhelpfully silent.
You were still skewering the box with your gaze some minutes later, determined to unravel its secrets, when a deep voice murmured from your doorway.
“You look puzzled."
You startled, whipping around to find Shouto propping up the wall, looking as unfairly handsome as usual. He was watching you intently, those heterochromatic eyes fastened to your face in that careful way he had, the one that always made you feel too warm and slightly unfocused. As usual, it was all you could do to remind yourself that you were a professional and he was something solidly between a friend and a coworker, and no matter how cute and attentive he was, you shouldn't get any ideas.
This morning, he was dressed in his hero uniform, tall and broad-shouldered, his distinctive hair only a little ruffled from his early patrol. It wasn’t often someone tried something in the districts he watched over anymore, probably too nervous to find themselves on the wrong end of the number four hero’s temper. You knew from the reports you received to your phone that the only trouble he’d encountered this morning was a pack of amorous school girls purposely misusing their quirks to draw his attention.
Thirty minutes ago, in fact, you’d almost spit out your coffee laughing at a photo of him looking wildly uncomfortable as he attempted to ice down some girl’s lava quirk with his right hand while fighting off her unfathomably enormous bouquet with his left. It was only right that he should suffer once a year, when every other day he got to stalk about as handsome as you please, oblivious to the effects his appearance had on every breathing person within a five mile radius.
You gave him an absent nod, gaze drawn back to the box on your desk.
“Somebody accidentally left something in here,” you told him, gesturing to it. “I’m trying to figure out how to track down who it was, or who it was meant for.”
Shouto made a small noise in the back of his throat, almost like a cough, and it was enough to startle you into looking up at him again.
“What?” you asked, peering at him. Was he coming down with something? It wasn't often he got sick, but when he did, he usually attempted to hide it and needed to be steamrolled into taking time off. You looked him over, trying to assess whether or not you needed to start badgering him now.
Shouto gazed back at you evenly, his expression deceptively bland. “...You think it’s not for you.”
You felt yourself blink at him, surprised by the comment and struggling to discern his meaning. What did he mean, you think it’s not for you? “Of course it’s not for me, Shouto, it’s from Grégoire Chardin.”
You knew he’d know the place, considering he lived in the same fancy rich people neighborhood as the chocolatier, but Shouto looked unimpressed.
“Why should that mean it’s not for you?” he asked, his tone dry.
The remark caught you off guard, as his comments sometimes did, and you bit down something like a smile. Bless his sweet, oblivious, rich boy heart. Either he overestimated your appeal to his agency staff, or he really did not understand the concepts of cost and return on investment.
“It’s expensive, it’s not something you would give someone as obligatory chocolates,” you explained, watching as a white eyebrow went up. His expression sharpened into something you couldn’t read well.
“It could be a secret admirer,” he said.
You stared blankly back at him, absolutely floored by the idea.
He thought you had a secret admirer? The idea sent an excited thrill all the way down to your toes, but you quickly squashed the feeling. So far, you'd never been on the receiving end of any furtive but romantic gestures, and you really didn't get any interested vibes from anyone in the office, no lingering glances or excuses to spend more time with you. The person who paid you the most amount of attention was Shouto, which was to be expected, considering how closely you worked together. And obviously he wasn't interested, he was just happy to stand in your doorway spouting wild conspiracies about his agency staffers like they were completely reasonable things to say.
“I don’t have a secret admirer,” you told him.
Shouto’s mouth pressed into a thin line and he took an intent step forward into your office. “Is the point of a secret admirer not to be exactly that--secret? How can you be sure?”
You couldn’t help it--you gaped at him, your face going weirdly warm. Okay, was he--was he serious? You obviously weren’t the most unfortunate creature on earth, and you even had your good days, but nobody in their right mind was going to attempt anything with you when there were girls like Nejire Hado and Ibara Shiozaki roaming the hallways of his agency. Even several of the analysts and most of the support crew had you beat out in terms of appeal--literally bless this man for his obvious indifference to your appearance.
“I, uh--thanks for your confidence in me,” you said, fighting down a laugh. “But I assure you, it definitely wasn’t meant for me. I just have to figure out who left it and who they meant it for.”
Shouto shifted impatiently, like he was waiting for something.
“You’re so certain,” he said, sounding frustrated.
“Of course I am,” you waved at him vaguely. It was actually super cute that he thought you could net yourself a dude who was willing to shell out Grégoire Chardin dollars, but you were just wasting time now, lingering over the least important part of this entire affair. “Listen, Shouto. I know sometimes men talk in the locker rooms. If you--if you hear anything, will you let me know? I just want to return it, it looks way too good sitting here.”
It was actually taking all your willpower not to open it and avail yourself of Japan’s finest chocolate, considering you would never have another opportunity like this again. Maybe you should just pretend it was for you....Really, no one could fault you for opening something left in your own office. But...no. No, you knew better.
Shouto appeared indifferent to your internal struggle. He watched you for a long moment, his features impassive. “Under one condition,” he finally allowed.
You cocked an ear to show you were listening, rifling around with the paperwork on your desk to distract yourself from the chocolate. You were strong, a good person. You had willpower like steel. You did not need to eat it, no no no.
“If no one comes looking for it by the end of the day, you will open it,” he said, moving closer.
You glanced up at him, shocked. “Shouto, this is someone else’s gift,” you hissed. “I can’t just open it.”
He placed a large palm down on your desk, leaning over you slightly. “That is my bargain.”
“You want me to steal somebody’s shit in your own agency,” you accused him. You tried not to pay attention to how close he had gotten, how straight his nose was up close, the way his eyes seemed brighter and his mouth pulled into a pout almost too pretty for a man.
The rest of his expression slipped into something like annoyance, matching his pout. “If no one comes for it, then it must be evident that it was meant for you.”
You suppressed a derisive laugh. Now was not the time to get shirty with your own boss, especially when his delusions were kind of sweet. It was honestly just short of a miracle that a man who looked like Shouto did could possibly think anyone on earth would have a thing for you, regardless of his own tastes.
“What if they’re just too shy to ask for it back?” you asked, watching those heterochromatic eyes flick over you curiously.
“If it’s as expensive as you say, someone will come looking,” he said. Which was actually kind of annoyingly reasonable.
A smirk flitted across his maddeningly perfect face when you failed to come up with another argument. He had a point, and he knew it.
You let out a gusty sigh. “Fine, but only because I’m certain someone will come looking for it. Please be subtle when you’re gathering info, okay? I'm sure this is embarrassing for whoever made this mistake.”
Shouto looked almost offended. “I am perfectly capable of being subtle,” he intoned in his deep voice.
This time, you did laugh. He was quiet, maybe, very perceptive, and unobtrusive when he wanted to be, but no one had ever accused the man of possessing tact. “Yeah, okay. Just, try to channel more subtlety than you think you need, okay? No one else but the sender needs to know about the mix up.”
There was a moment of silence, and then Shouto was leaning over you more fully, eyes glittering strangely as his clean, fresh scent met your nose. You froze in your chair, brain going horrifyingly vacant as he leaned impossibly nearer. What the fuck was he doing?
“It will be like I’m not even asking,” Shouto promised, his voice light. “Not asking anyone at all.”
You tried to scrape your thoughts back into something resembling order, but the effort was all but futile. You needed to get him out of your space stat before you embarrassed yourself.
”Okay, then it’s a deal,” you said quickly. “Now go...flambé a villain or something.”
Shouto lingered for a long moment, his mouth curling a little at the corner, like he was being let in on a secret you couldn’t hear. His eyes brushed over you, almost like a physical touch. And then he was gone, pulling open the door to your office, looking annoyingly pleased with himself.
“You will see,” he said by way of farewell. “You will find out how subtle I can be.”
You stared at him in confusion, but he didn’t explain himself. He just smirked, and closed the door behind himself.
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mrsmaybank · 3 years
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Crushing - Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader
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“Reid, stop giving JJ’s intern bedroom eyes. It fuckin’ weirds me out.”
A/N: I love baby genius, season one Reid so much. I wanted to give him a soulmate. Soulmate is you: shy and also a baby genius. Okay, thanks for reading. This was honestly just for me. 
CW: Implied Smut, Mild Cursing, shitty writing 
“Who...Who is that?” Dr. Spencer Reid, debatably the wordiest boy Derek Morgan had ever met, was suddenly at a loss for words. Maybe it was your perfectly sculpted face, your shoes, the copy of The Kreutzer Sonata held to your chest, your chest, or maybe a mix of it all.  Whatever it was, at sight of you walking through the office doors, he was stripped of his ability to speak. 
“That’s JJ’s new intern.” Morgan said plainly, before noticing the completely enamored look on his friend’s face. “What, pretty boy?” Reid couldn’t even be bothered to reply. He was too busy studying every detail of your frame. 
“You think she’s cute or something kid?” Morgan playfully jabbed his shoulder, Spencer’s face instantly flushing an embarrassing shade of red. 
“What?!” He shrieked, “I-no! That’s not..No!” That’s a lie. 
“I just..I didn’t know JJ was getting an intern.” That though, was true. 
“She’s supposed to be pretty impressive. Let’s go meet her.” he started in the direction of the coffee stand, where you and JJ had begun chatting. Before Spencer could protest out of his shyness, he was being dragged along. 
“Morgan,” JJ smiled, “Spence,” she nodded in his direction, “This is Y/N Y/L/N. My godsent savior.” JJ beamed in your direction.
You smiled more sheepishly then you would’ve liked, muttering a “Hopefully.” that got a laugh from Morgan and a “Oh, please.” from JJ, but nothing from the man in the glasses. You did your best not to read into it. 
“Derek Morgan.” the muscular agent extended his hand to shake yours, an offer you timidly but happily accepted. 
The taller, lankier, younger, incredibly cute man next to him stuffed one of his hands in his pocket and shifted uncomfortably with a small wave, “I’m uh, Doctor Spencer Reid, oh! Uh, you don’t have to, uh call me Doctor. No..” He shook his head, “Just Spencer is fine.” He looked at you with wide eyes that sent butterflies berserk in your stomach and swiped his tongue in between his lips that only made them go crazier. JJ had told you all about the team. About the magnificently brilliant Dr. Spencer Reid, his 3 PhDs and eidetic memory, and all the other quirks you’d have to know in order to work with him, but had failed to mention how utterly hot he was. You felt a crush hijacking your system already. Dear god. 
“It’s nice to meet you both.” Your hands gripped your book tighter as you shifted onto your tiptoes, “I’ve heard really exceptional things.” 
The conversation was set to continue, but Morgan and JJ were summoned by Hotch to the closed doors of his office. Leaving the resident genius and you starting at each other with tight lip smiles. 
Spencer started first, “The Kreutzer Sonata is great.” He excitedly continued, “It uh, it actually used to be a pretty bold book to carry around. After the work had been forbidden in Russia by censors, there was actually a mimeographed version that was widely circulated. Then in 1890, the United States Post Office Department prohibited the mailing of newspapers containing serialized installments of it too. Theodore Roosevelt even called Tolstoy a-” 
His enthusiasm was beyond endearing. You finished for him with a soft smile, "Sexual moral pervert.”
Spencer’s lips upturned in a smile. It was rare somebody in the office could finish his sentences. And he couldn’t help but replay the crass words being said in your soft voice. He felt a crush hijacking his system already. Dear god.  
“Most people don’t recognize it in the original Russian.”  Spencer heard you say. 
“Most people probably wouldn’t recognize it in English.” he retorted.
You laughed, “Yeah, you’re right.” 
Spencer wasn’t even kidding. “I’m not joking.” He shook his head. “It’s unfortunate how many people aren’t even vaguely familiar with Tolstoy.” 
“It is.” you agreed. “You went to Caltech, correct?” 
He smiled, “Yes.” 
“I almost did too. Decided last minute on Columbia.” 
“You went to Columbia?” he asked. 
“I just graduated.” 
“How old are you?” he asked before quickly correcting himself,  “I’m sorry! That was forward! I am not...I’m not trying to undermine your studies with your age, I promise. I’m just curious.” 
“No! It’s okay!” You got out fast. “I’m 19. I graduated high school a little bit early.” 
“Me too.” He smiled. “12, actually.” 
Your eyes went wide, “12?” 
“Yes, um, in a Las Vegas public high school.” He winced, but the self-deprecation somehow came out charming, “I uh,” His eyes narrowed, “didn’t go to a lot of parties.” 
That made you wholeheartedly laugh. “Me neither! I graduated at 15, which you know is the age everybody else starts. It created a really weird dynamic because the older kids in my grade didn’t like me, but the underclassmen my age really didn’t like me.” 
Instead of the laugh you were expecting, Spencer just gave you a pensive stare. 
“Um..I can’t see why. I think you’re very likeable.” The compliment would’ve been strange exchanged by anybody other than Spencer to you.
  “Wait till you get to know me.” You said it through a smile but so softly you were afraid he might not be able to hear it, but he did. 
And that was confirmed when he flashed you the most incredible, toothy grin you’d ever seen. “I uh, I doubt there will be any change in opinion.” 
“Well, um, I’m sure- I think! You’re very likeable as well Dr. Reid.” you said. 
“That’s what you say now.” He retorted in the same coy tone you had earlier. 
You shook your head, “You’ll find I can be insufferably stubborn.” 
-----------------------------------
After two weeks, there was little Spencer could do to hide his massive crush affinity for you from the team. 
In the bullpen: 
You guys had locked eyes and were mouthing out exchanged of No’s and Yes’s from across the room. There was an ongoing half-serious dispute about whether or not Xanthippe slept with Plato. 
Morgan glided in his wheeled chair to whisper into Spencer’s ear. 
“Reid, stop giving JJ’s intern bedroom eyes. It fuckin’ weirds me out.” He said, shoving files into the cabinet below Reid’s desk. 
“I’m..I’m not.. I--what? Bedr--No!” Reid whisper-shouted back. 
On the jet: 
“Reid?” Gideon called Spencer, “Chess?” He motioned towards the board. 
“Yes, sure. Just give me a second. I’m almost done. I’m reading Infinite Jest. I don’t usually enjoy literature if it isn’t classic, even less so if it’s American. But..” Spencer smiled, “Y/N likes the author.”  He continued his fast-paced reading of the third-to-last chapter of the book. 
Morgan and Gideon exchanged glances. 
Even in front of you: 
You opened a sugar packet and began stirring. 
“De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium is still some of the best work on  heliocentric theory out there, I think. Copernicus knew what he was talking about!” You spun on your heels to see Reid’s face contorted in disagreement. You giggled, “Don’t give me that face! I’m right!” 
He took a sip of his coffee as to keep himself quiet. “Listen, cosmological theory is for…” 
But the pair of you were interrupted, it was Elle, standing behind you and in front of Spencer. 
“New skirt?” Elle asked as you turned, back now facing Reid.  She was pouring herself a cup of coffee too.
“Yes!” You excitedly nodded. “You like it?” 
Elle looked up and down, but not at you. The judgmental eyes were for the man behind you. She pursed her lips, “Not just me.” 
The only face redder than yours was Reid’s.
-----------------------------------
Nights spent in a bar after a case that had dragged on far too long was nothing new, but the energy tonight was especially light. Gideon had refused, but everybody else was just relaxed, even Hotch, and the team just got happier at each other's happiness. It was great, really. As Hotch and Morgan sipped on whiskey, JJ and Penelope had already downed four sugary, colorful cocktails and were in a whispered fit of giggles. Elle and Spencer settled on a tamer option of an IPA Spencer couldn’t name. 
“SPENCER!” Penelope excitedly shouted, “Y/N is literally you! You’re both adorable! You’re both geniuses! You’re both young!” She drew on her rant, “And if you have a crush on her you should just tell her!” JJ’s eyes widened in embarrassment as she tried to cover Penelope’s mouth. 
Morgan and Elle erupted in soft laughter while Hotch cracked an uncharacteristically amused smile. 
“Spence, I swear, I didn’t say that! I just...I may have mentioned how happy you get every time she’s around! And how you guys can talk for literally hours!” JJ defended, her words slurring in silly drunkenness. 
Spencer rolled his eyes. This wasn’t the first time they teased him about you, and it probably wouldn’t be the last time either. 
“I don’t have a crush on her! We just….we like the same things! It gives us a lot to talk about.” 
“Yeah?” Morgan said through a laugh, “And what is it that boy and girl wonder talk about so much?” 
“Well, uh.. a lot of things. But I find she gets the most excited when we are discussing the theories of postmodernism, in that apparent realities are actually just social constructs and veritable realities are subject to change, and uh... we like to talk about linguistics….political philosophy….history... mathematic theory...and uh, oh! Doctor Who.” 
Spencer was blushing and spoke about you like a teenage girl did their boyband crush, and the team noticed. They didn’t even need to say it out loud. Spencer gathered from the way they looked back at him. 
“I heard she lent you a book too, Reid.” Hotch said before taking a sip from his glass. 
“Yes! She did!” He smiled, “It was her copy of Pale Fire. She has an impressive collection of 19th century Russian literature. All in its original dialect! Some of it’s even annotated, which usually would annoy me but since it’s her thoughts and notes I sort of find it endearing.” 
“Dr. Reid is endeared!” Greenaway shrieked.
“Yeah,” he nodded, pushing his glasses up a little higher on his nose, “I find her incredibly endearing.” 
“Y’all that sounded like a dorky love confession.” Morgan said as the team erupted in laughter and Reid’s head fell in a smile. There was no point in denying it anymore: He really, really liked you.
--------------------------------------
Within two months, you and Spencer had finally put your shyness aside, and spent a very lovely evening at watching an orchestra at the Smithsonian Music,  and sharing noodles at your favorite Thai restaurant. And then you guys spent some time on your couch. And then in your bed. And then in the shower. And then in the kitchen. You were both very sexually frustrated. 
For the following two months, as soon as you both stepped out of the office, it was very, very hard to keep your hands off each other. Could either of you help it though? Teenage geniuses don’t experience parties, or football games, or clumsy sex. The time was perfect to make up for it. 
And you guys did. The sex part at least. “Football involves a lot of dirt. And germs. And sweat.”
“Oh my god!” you shrieked. His hands were in a place they found themselves more and more often: Your pants. 
“Does it feel good?” he asked, continuing his pattern of small circles on that particular bundle of nerves. 
“It feels great.” You nodded. 
“I uh, I’ve been researching the female anatomy.” 
You closed your eyes and nodded your head, but trying to focus on your boyfriends newfound intellect. “It’s fascinating, isn’t it?” 
He watched your undoing with boyish adoration and curiosity before swallowing, “Very.” 
“Oh fuck!” Your legs began to shake, “Spencee...I’m gonn--” 
--------------------------------------------
You and Spencer just understood each other. 
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