#(hence why cookie was going to be assigned to Hazel)

[cubbihue]

Question ...if fairies rely on desire to feed,would Dev be a GOOD food source or a terrible food source? Does desire come from wishing or wanting more, essentially. Because dev like.. Has all he can want except his dad's approval ,so how does that work?

Fairies' food comes from the innate emotion a person has while Wishes are just the only way Fairies can pull the emotions (food) out!!!

The more the desire is out of reach, the more delicious it is, and the longer the fairy can go without needing another meal. It's simply easier to harvest from children because they have big emotions, and weak minds and impulses. A child can say "I wish" more openly than an adult does, making it easier for Fairies to cultivate.

Dev's one of the best food sources there is. In fact, he's able to feed a family of 5 for at least 8 months! However, he's also one of the worse sources to collect from because his desire is noncollectable by magic.

Which means you'll need an expert high-class, high-ranking Fairy Godparent who can siphon out his Desires into smaller parts via multiple smaller wishes!

Bitties Series: [Start] > [Previous] > [Next]

[alex-ruins-everything]

Turning Pages - Chapter 3

Intrulogical bookshop au! Read the whole thing on ao3 here

Logan admittedly was shocked with himself for turning down the offer of coffee with Roman’s brother. He had been equally shocked that the other had actually purchased a book when he crashed the reading of the children’s book. Sure the man with the white streak of hair had crossed his mind a few times in the past few days, mostly when he saw Roman enter the shop to bother Virgil. Would Remus be barging in again? He had convinced himself the thought only crossed his mind because of how destructive the man was. He messed up the stands and shouted in the shop...he was like a tornado or a car crash. Terrible but impossible to look away from. Hence why he had been a little taken aback when he spotted that same white streak sitting with the kids in a circle while Patton went through his Saturday reading circle.

“Who was that guy?” Patton asked during a lull in the customers. “He came and listened to the reading.” “That would be Remus. Roman’s twin brother. You were on break the first time he came in,” Logan responded, smoothing down the front of the apron. “Perhaps word of Patton’s Reading Circle has begun to reach a broader audience.”

That got a laugh from Patton which told Logan he was gonna drop the questions about Remus. Good. There were much more important things to think about than rowdy men with eyes that were so green they looked like toxic waste. Logan wondered if he wore contacts because Roman’s were hazel at best, but Remus’ seemed to glow. No- he shut that line of thinking down, relieved when a customer came in and asked to be shown to the biography section. Work was a great distraction when one’s mind began to be plagued by things he’d rather not think about. After the man was helped the customer’s started to thin, the busy morning turning into a dead zone evening. That was the way it worked around here. Nobody really came into the shop unless there was an event, which is what made Patton and his children’s books so imperative.

Logan didn’t mind being at the shop all day. Patton had opened, but Logan had shown up thirty minutes early just to ensure it was going smoothly. By the time it was closing he was hardly tired, having chosen two new books to read over the course of the day, blatantly ignoring the marine biology section despite his interest having been piqued by a certain encyclopedia. The shop was closed on Sundays so he had no work tomorrow, and Monday was his day off, an unnecessary requirement that Mr. Sanders had put into place for every employee. Something about not working oneself into the ground. Still, his day of absence meant he had to get everything spic and span for Monday. He was out by 6:15, his shift technically ended at 6 since the shop closed at 5. He had said goodbye to Patton around 3 so it was just him alone with the books, something that might seem eerie to some, but it was when he felt most comfortable.

The sun was still out when he left, locking the door behind him. The summer air was warm, but today luckily wasn’t humid. Leaving the air conditioned store into humid weather always made his glasses fog up with condensation. Instead today the warmth just settled pleasantly into his skin. The town they lived in was small, the bookshop nestled among other family owned businesses, any chain store off in the shopping mall fifteen miles away. It was quiet and that was what Logan liked. He took the long way home, walking through the park instead of the direct route. As he passed the pond with the geese sitting around it he couldn’t help but wonder if these were the poor birds that had fallen prey to Remus Kingsley’s antics.

“Perhaps we have something in common, my fowl feathered friends,” he said as a line of them crossed the pathway.

Logan waited for the geese to finish crossing before continuing on, the sunlight bouncing off the leaves of the trees and illuminating the people sitting on the benches. A mother and her young children, two younger boys with skateboards, and couples. Lots and lots of couples. Holding hands, gazing into each other's eyes. Logan noted it was the type of stuff Roman always romanticized. It was the kind of stuff he had always found personally trivial and unnecessary. He gave a content sigh once he finally reached his apartment, taking the steps up to the fourth floor since the elevator was nearly always out of order. He didn’t mind, though. The stairs were an excellent form of exercise which was a vital part to living a healthy life.

His evening was calm, pleasant even. He cooked himself dinner just as he always did, enjoying his meal at the table with soft music playing in the background. For dessert he was even fortunate enough to have some cookies Patton had given him which he snuck some of his favorite jam onto. Logan had no work to catch up on so he settled onto his sofa with a book, flipping through the pages happily until a character description caught his attention. Green eyes. He wondered if they were a muted green or bright and exciting like Remus’-- and then he promptly banished that thought from his mind.

It was highly unreasonable to entertain these continuous thoughts about Remus Kingsley. Firstly he seemed to be a bringer of chaos, a concept that Logan did not appreciate. Logan appreciated order and routine, he doubted Remus had either of those things. Secondly, Remus is Roman’s brother. Logan is not great at having friends, but he considers Roman an acquaintance of his. After all, on occasion he has been invited out with Patton and Virgil and Roman seemed to usually be there. That was his social group, and he was fairly certain there was some sort of unspoken rule about dating family members of your acquaintances. Thirdly, and most importantly, Logan was not looking for a relationship. He was far too busy to dedicate time to another person when his life was divided up perfectly into work, pursuit of knowledge, and the occasional social activity to upkeep connections with others. There was no space for Remus Kingsley in his life. His continued thoughts seemed to suggest otherwise, however.

“I need to make a list,” Logan spoke aloud to an empty apartment, setting his book aside and grabbing the notepad from the coffee table.

He set up two columns, dedicated to rationalizing these daydreams away so he could return to his reality. The first column was labeled Thoughts About Remus and the second was labeled Why That Is Irrational. Logan let the thoughts flow freely now, writing down the things his mind had brought up about the near stranger since their first encounter. Remus’ eyes made the list. So did the fact that he’s tall. Logan wasn’t blind despite what his glasses would suggest, and he could admit that Remus was attractive, sort of in a dangerous way. He then went through and rationalized each of those away. Approximately 2% of the population has green eyes, so it isn’t completely impossible he could find someone else attractive with the eye color. It was unlikely, and it was even more unlikely that they would hold that same sort of glint that Remus’ did.

“You’re missing the point of the assignment,” he spoke to himself, continuing on the list.

Lots of people were tall, and even then it wasn’t a requirement to be attractive. Speaking of attractive, Remus wasn’t the first person Logan had thought of as such, so there was strong evidence to suggest he wouldn’t be the last. When Logan did feel he was ready for a relationship he was sure he could find someone else who checked off the required categories who didn’t mess up the bookshop displays. That last thought was more helpful than any of the others. Logan was satisfied with his list, setting the notebook back on the table and picking up his book once more, content now to continue his night of reading where his only concerns were based in the historical fiction he was reading at the moment.

TAGLIST:

@theiwatobiicepic

[theuprisingbakery]

Less Restrictive, More Unique: A Personified Short Story of Cookie Ingredients

The cookies sat at their desks, watching the clock tick down to the end of the class period. Thirty more minutes, and they would be free to enjoy their Spring Break. A simple half hour of Biology was all that stood between five friends and Spring Break plans. Ms. Chip’s back was to the students as she wrote on the board ‘INTRODUCTION TO HEREDITY AND INGREDIENTS’ and turned around to face her students. 

“Alright! Before we break for break,” she paused and chuckled at her own joke, “I want to introduce you to our new unit of study.” 

The cookies groaned. Sandy Pecan in the back row rolled his eyes, Oreo Nabisco had already slept through most of class, but Gluten FreeMont in the front of the room looked up from a doodle she was creating on her notes sheet, interest peaked. Although she was interested, she was thoroughly irritated at having yet another thing take time away from her holiday freedom.  

Ms. Chip looked at the class of chocolate chip cookies and smiled. 

“We are all products that have similar ingredients. Commonalities that make us chocolate chip cookies,  but we are also so different. Your genetic ingredients, what makes your essence so uniquely you, can be traced back through your family members. Your heredity! Let’s look briefly at the genetic ingredients map on page 54 of your textbook.” 

There was a quick rustle of pages as students flipped through their books. 

In the middle of the page was a chart that pictured different ingredients: 1 teaspoon of baking soda, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, and ½ teaspoon of salt, followed by different variations of flours, butter, eggs, sugars, and most importantly: chocolate chips. 

“Our recipes are unique, we learned this when we discussed DNA earlier in the semester,” Ms. Chip went on. “But,” she continued, “our ingredients make up the traits that classify us in different diets, our ingredients give us a foundation of who we are, and what we are made of. Everything about us can be traced through our ingredients: nutrition, macros, enzymes, and calories!” 

The class nodded, assured she was correct but many had faces that expressed utter confusion, as any new lesson might leave a student. Keto Atkins nudged the back of Gluten FreeMont with her pencil. 

“What is she talking about?” Keto whispered to Gluten. Gluten swatted away Keto’s pencil proddings. “Shhh!” she turned around slightly to reply in an irritated fashion, then faced back to the teacher, her eyes set on Ms. Chip’s instructions. Gluten cringed slightly at the sudden movement of turning around. She’d experienced continuous abdominal pain for the last week or two, and it always seemed to happen right after lunch. She brushed off the pain not wanting to complain and gritted her teeth, knowing she didn’t have time to deal with stomach cramps and Keto’s unfortunate inability to pay attention at the same time. 

Keto looked to her left after being silenced by her friend, where another girl was sitting. Vegan Planters was drawing a family portrait on the front cover of her Biology book; her focus had shifted attention to an art class project assigned for the break from earlier that day. Keto leaned over and whispered to Vegan, “why else was there a sudden emphasis on ingredients and heredity in Biology with less than twenty minutes left in class?” Vegan looked to Keto and shrugged, and went back to her drawing. 

Keto slumped in her seat, but suddenly made eye contact with Hazelnut Cashew. Known as “Hazel” to her friends, she was sitting in the far left corner of the class, her twin sister Nutella, or “Ella” sat directly to Hazel’s right. Both of them were passing notes back and forth. They are the worst twins in the world, thought Keto. Most twins seemed to have ESP, but Hazel and Ella had nothing in common it seemed like. Keto looked at her four friends, all in some sort of different stage of paying (or not paying) attention to the lesson. Gluten was the only one seemingly writing anything down, and Keto figured Gluten would give the rest of them a briefing on whatever Ms. Chip was explaining. 

“You are going to research your ingredients over the break!” Ms. Chip clapped enthusiastically. “I remember when I learned of my great-great-grandmother’s rare Allulose condition. Her genetic make-up used Allulose instead of granulated sugars. It was so fascinating! That’s why her chocolate chips were a bit more shiny in appearance compared to other chocolate chips.” Ms. Chip sighed, her thoughts somewhere else. “Because of her, my own chips are still shiny...  not because of Allulose, but from my own mother’s Stevia ingredients she passed on to me!” A hand went up from the back of the classroom, it was Oreo Nabisco. 

“So,” he asked, “You want us to research our families and our ingredients to see how we are made?”

“Yes, Oreo, that’s exactly it! Glad to see you are able to have some semblance of attention today, I thought maybe you were getting a little stale back there!” Ms. Chip passed out a packet of instructions and directions to the students, aware that there were only a few moments left before the students would rush out of the room to enjoy the sun and freedom that only comes with an extended holiday away from school. 

“You can present your findings any way that you wish,” Ms. Chip said to the young cookies, “but remember that you are researching your ingredients through family members only- interviews, photos, and resources will all help you compile your findings into a story to share with the class when we return! Really think- what exactly makes you so you!” With precision that only comes with teaching for years, her sentence was punctuated with the Beep-Beep-Beep bell that signaled the end of another school day. 

. . . 

Gluten and Keto had been next door neighbors since elementary school, and as the sleeve of cookie-cutter houses in their neighborhood grew in size, Hazel and Ella, followed by Vegan, all moved into houses near each other while the girls were still in middle school. By high school, they were inseparable, and were able to walk to school and home together each day. As Keto and Vegan talked about an assignment for art, Gluten started to fall behind the others on the way home. Her stomach pains were getting worse. She thought eating something small, like a piece of bread as a snack, would help but it only made her feel worse. Ella noticed Gluten walking a little slower, holding her side. 

“Gluten are you okay?” Ella asked her quietly. Ella could see that Gluten didn’t want to bring any attention to something being wrong. 

“I’m fine!” Gluten snapped at Ella, which made her immediately feel even worse. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m just so irritated today. It’s probably because we were given so much homework the day before break.” 

“I understand,” Ella smiled, and hugged her friend. They were at Gluten’s house at this point in the walk, and the girls waved goodbye to her. They would meet up later in the week to work on the Biology project together. Gluten turned around and smiled at her friends, gritting her teeth through the pain in her abdomen. 

. . . 

Ella and Hazel were in the middle of a typical dinner feud. As twins, they were almost identical in genetic makeup, except for one small particular: Hazel was allergic to tree nuts. 

“I just don’t understand,” Hazel said to her mother across the dinner table, “why you had to name me Hazelnut. It’s just so cruel, mom.” 

Her mother smiled at the girls and shook her head.

“You’re named after your grandmother, Hazelnut. Gammie Hazelnut Toffee was so kind to me when I married your dad.” Hazel rolled her eyes at her mother. Everyone in their family had remnants of nuts in their DNA except her. It was the first thing she discovered while researching her family’s ingredients.

“I just don’t understand how that’s possible,” Hazel said to her mom when she discovered this small discrepancy in ingredients. Ella immediately started the “You’re Adopted, Hazel” campaign just to irritate her twin sister, but Hazel knew better. 

“It just happens sometimes, Hazel. It’s a quirk, nothing more. You can be around nuts of course, clearly, you just can’t ingest them. You don’t remember this, but you had all your walnuts removed as a baby.” 

“Ew mom, please don’t talk about removing my walnuts ever again,” Hazel said, while Ella snorted into her glass of chocolate milk. 

Ella and Hazel had created a family diagram of a tree for their presentation. It was a tree of traits that dated back five generations of chocolate chip cookies. The girls had listed out family members across the top each with their own branch. 1 egg, ½  c. granulated sugar, 2 ¼ c. oat flour, ¾ c. light brown sugar were scrawled across the top

“Did you know,” their father chimed in, “that you have an ancestor that was part of Ruth Wakefield’s first batch of chocolate chip cookies? Ingredients were so simple at that time that Ruth chopped up barks of chocolate instead of using morsales in the cookies. The chocolate in our family was chunky and square until about three generations ago.” The girls added the story to their project. 

The girls had a list of their ingredients; some listed as the same crucial elements from their biology textbook, others were unique to their family. 

“The brown sugar,” Ella said, “is different. Most people don’t include that in their ingredients- why is that dad?” 

“Brown sugar adds to the chewiness of our family,” he stated matter-of-factly. “Most people assume that two types of sugar would make a cookie sweeter, but in reality, the breakdown of brown sugar turns into a glaze… hence chewy!” He laughed looking down at the family pet. Their dog, Chewy, pawed at his side begging for scraps. 

“Hazel,” their mother said, “Don’t worry about your allergy, you just have to be careful who you hang out with. Luckily all your friends are nut-free… well, except your sister of course!” She smiled at the twins, and started clearing the plates from the table. 

. . . 

Keto was putting the final touches on her project, noting the last piece of information from an interview she had with an aunt. Coconut flour uses ¼ the amount compared to other flours, her paper stated, and doubles the egg and liquid quantity due to high liquid absorbent properties. She knew her genetic makeup was thinner than others and often runny, but didn’t realize the extent of how different ingredients were to others. This must be why I’m so good at cross country, Keto thought to herself, because I’m made with double the liquid amount as other cookies. Her thoughts were cut short as her mother called her name from the living room. “Ketosis! Come here a minute I need to talk to you!”  Keto looked at the clock, it was so late she was surprised her mother was even awake. Normally at this hour her mom and dad were usually half-baked. Keto walked into the living room, where she realized her mother had been crying.

. . .

Vegan was in the middle of her report, typing out ‘½ c. coconut oil, melted, ⅓ non-dairy milk, 1 ½ c. chickpea flour, Vegan chocola’-- when the phone suddenly rang in her bedroom. Vegan looked at the clock. 10:15 pm. It was a little late for a phone call, but she answered it regardless. 

“Vegan!” The sound of Keto’s voice rang through from the other end in a panic. “It’s Gluten. She’s in the hospital.”

. . . 

The next morning of Spring Break started in a gloomy fashion for the four friends. The night had been punctured by the sudden news that Gluten was very, very sick and in the hospital. Mrs. FreeMont called Keto’s mother the night before, and all the girls wanted to go to the hospital immediately to see Gluten. Begrudgingly, and after hours of begging, Mrs. FreeMont agreed. 

“Girls,” Mrs. FreeMont insisted, “Before you go in to see her, you need to know that Gluten is very tired. She was poked and prodded for days, and had an endoscopy done last night. The doctors think she has...” There was a pause as Mrs. FreeMont held back tears, “Celiac Disease.” 

The girls looked at each other, confused. Normally Gluten was the science nerd who knew all the answers to anything remotely medical, but from Mrs. FreeMont’s statement, it was more serious than anyone knew. Keto spoke up first.

“Mrs. FreeMont,” she asked, “What is Celiac Disease, and how could Gluten not know she had it?” 

Hazel, Ella, and Vegan all nodded in agreement with her. 

“It’s an auto-immune disease,” she whispered, as if this cleared up any confusion. “Gluten can’t.. Well she can’t have gluten in her system. It’s been building up more and more over the last year. Even more in the last few weeks. It’s slowly damaging her intestines, so she’ll have to have part of her small intestines removed later week. She also must have an immediate flour transplant. Our whole family’s genetic flour is all-purpose. Completely,” Mrs. FreeMont held back tears, “full of gluten enzymes.” 

The girl’s mouths slacked open, horror-struck. This meant that none of Gluten’s family members would be able to donate flour to the young cookie for the necessary flour transplant. Suddenly, Vegan realized an important fact at the same time as Keto, Ella, and Hazel. 

“Mrs. FreeMont!” Vegan piped up, “Can we help? I mean…” she paused, “can we donate flour to Gluten?” Mrs. FreeMont looked at the girls collectively. 

“My sweets,” she said with a small smile, “I doubt any of you can help, so many chocolate chip cookies are make with all-purpose flour now-a-days, it’s going to take time to find the right donors that Gluten needs--” her words were cut off by Keto suddenly.

“No, Mrs. FreeMont! Listen!” Keto said. The girls all started to talk at once.

“My genetic ingredients include chickpea flour!” Vegan almost yelled excitedly, thankful she decided to study her mother’s side of the family that included other vegan and gluten-free flour alternatives. 

“And ours includes oat flour!” Hazel and Ella chimed in together.

“And mine,” Keto included, “is from coconut flour!” 

“You see, Mrs. FreeMont,” Vegan said as she looked around at her three other friends, “we’re all made from gluten-free flour alternatives. It’s in our ingredients. We can help her.” 

Mrs. FreeMont looked at the group of girls, bewildered, unbelieving at the chances that her youngest cookie would have made friends with a group of unique cookies who all held different active ingredients that her daughter needed most to survive. 

“I just can’t believe it,” she said to herself, “what are the chances…” As the girls called their parents and met at the hospital to prepare for the flour transfusion, they quietly went into Gluten’s room to tell her what they were going to do to help their friend. 

“Gluten, who would have thought we’d actually learn something helpful from an assignment Ms. Chip gave us to do!” Hazel said with a snort. The chocolate chips all laughed and filled Gluten in on what ingredients they were going to donate to help her out. 

“Does this mean,” Gluten said with a smile, “that my heredity project gets to include you all as family now too?” 

“Probably,” Keto said to her friend. The others nodded in agreement

“We’re all so similar,” Vegan quoted their teacher from the last day before break, “that we were just meant to be friends after all. This will definitely be a story to tell the class, don’t you think?”

The last thing Gluten remembered before drifting off to sleep was knowing that it felt good to have people in her life that understood her new restrictive diet, and that being made from alternative ingredients didn’t make her a bad cookie. Her new diet and new ingredients made her even more unique, just like her friends.

[ladyserendipitous]

Look What The Villain Dragged In - 3

- First - Previous - Next -

“You made it,” Fox Tail said happily as Ladybug and Chat Noir landed on the roof together. Even when they didn’t need to strictly act like a pair, they did.

“Yes, meeting on top of an abandoned warehouse at the Witching Hour,” Chat Noir teased.

“That’s a little too accurate,” Orchid Bee muttered.

“So what’s going on?” Ladybug asked, crossing her arms over her chest. “It’s not like you to call us for a meetup.”

It was true. Ladybug did have a pre-assigned patrol schedule. One that never seemed to work more than two patrols before akuma attacks and their own outside lives interfered. In Ladybug’s defence she tried to mix it up, but maybe due to some black cat’s influence the reshuffling ended up with Chat Noir and Ladybug patrolling together an uneven amount of the time.

“There’s someone you need to meet.” Fox Tail told the two veteran heros. She then turned away. “Come on up.”

A glowing red spiral staircase appeared at the edge of the roof. Scarlet Luck ascended the stairs, making a small jump off it to the roof propper. The staircase dissolving in pink glowing dust. He took off his hat, as he had to the two girls and gave a sweeping bow. “Greetings, I am Scarlet Luck.”

“Uh, hi!” Ladybug said, looking a bit confused as she blinked her hazel eyes.

“That’s quite the hat you got there friend, all that’s missing is a feather and you’d be a regular musketeer,” Chat Noir joked. Possibly also feeling a bit confused by the situation.

The blond traveler grinned big. “Wouldn’t that be swell. Too bad I’m allergic to feathers.”

“That’s funny, so is my best friend,” Chat Noir replied with a grin almost as big.

Ladybug stopped looking at Scarlet Luck and was staring at her longtime partner. It was likely the most he’d shared, since he kept strict to her no reveal policy. She didn’t get a chance to comment or accuse him of over sharing with a stranger, because Scarlet Luck gathered up both her hands in his. “It’s so nice to meet another devotee of Tikki’s!”

Ladybug snapped her attention back to their new companion. “Devotee?”

“Scarlet. It doesn’t quite work the same way here,” Fox Tail told him gently. “We don’t pray to our kwamis.”

The was a look of bafflement upon his face and it was clear he had no way to even begin to understand, despite meeting with Pollen and Trixx earlier in the evening.

“What’s going on?” Ladybug asked, having not so gently taken her hands out of Scarlet Luck’s grip.

“Our new friend is from an alternative Paris. One where magic is more, um, witch like.” Orchid Bee explained.

“Hence the fancy staircase?” Chat Noir guessed.

“Exactly,” Fox Tail picked up. “Where he’s from he’s been fighting a villain that creates monsters and has entrapped a pair of demigods.”

“There’s a Tikki in your Paris,” Ladybug asked skeptically.

“There is,” Scarlet Luck replied.

“And do you know her favorite food?” Ladybug was fishing for answers to questions other than what she was asking.

There was a soft smile on the handsome face half hidden with his mask. “Cookies, chocolate chips probably.”

Ladybug nodded. It seemed her test was passed. “So why are you here?”

Scarlet Luck sighed. “My Lady and I finally found the identity of the beast who’s been terrorizing Paris. We confronted him. We thought, we thought we had him over powered.” A self deprecating laugh escaped his lips. “We were overconfident is what we were. We might have had more magic at our disposal but he had more plans. He ensnared her and then made an escape. He must have known I’d be able to find her anywhere. So he thought to hide where he thought I could not follow.”

“So he came here?” Chat Noir asked. “Or are we just a pitstop?”

“No, he’s here. They’re both here. I need to find her, but also I worry he might team up with your Hawk Moth.”

There was silence as the heroes considered the thought of having to deal with someone teaming up with their nemesis.