#My therapist approved and looked forward to seeing new designs

[genius-built-donatello]

こんにちは！I'm curious, what are our brothers like in the future?

Ah, of course. I was wondering when you were going to ask.

Well, I should first put a disclaimer: I don’t actually remember much of what our brothers were like at your age, so comparisons will not come easy to me unless I were to review a significant amount of past footage.

That being said, I’m fairly certain Raph was only about six feet around the time of the invasion, and now he’s over ten, so… Oh, and if you were wondering, Leo’s a good foot and a bit shorter than us. Feel free to rub that in his face. I know I do.

All of them are pretty busy (as am I), so it’s not often that we have conversations not related to work recently. Still, they all try to make an effort.

Mikey has jobs around the base as a cook, unofficial therapist, babysitter, co-designer for the base (with me), and occasionally helps in the medbay as his mystic powers are suited to healing wounds and relieving pain. Any other time he’s meditating and/or honing his mystic powers. She’s in the lab fairly often when helping me with designs (this arrangement is why I have to ask her opinion on the new greenhouse designs and can’t go forward with them until he approves. Eyeroll). He’s still kept all his optimism (infuriating at times) and tends to frequently give me words of “wisdom” if she sees me apparently looking too down. He’s the most powerful mystic user out of anyone here, a force to be reckoned with, but his ninpo draws from his lifeforce and has made him age at an alarmingly faster rate than the rest of us. She seems to be physically about sixty years old. I’m… trying to work on something to help.

Leo’s almost as busy as me. He tries to take on as many jobs as possible, including chores, and he’s also our main strategist, sword-fighter, medic, about a dozen other minor jobs including generally being the one to keep up the spirits of the Resistance (his way is with karaoke and movie nights. Can you guess who has to salvage and restore the movies for said movie nights and the songs for said karaoke nights). He’s also the one who has the final say on what the Resistance needs me to make. Hence why most of our conversations are work-related; I get majority of my tasks from him, especially with big projects such as “fifty guns by next week” and “twenty full sets of armour” and “a new speaker unless you still have to make those crutches by the way why haven’t you done that yet” et cetera, et cetera. He’s not serious, exactly, but he’s certainly more on edge as the days go by. Which is understandable. I think he and I get approximately the same amount of sleep (which is, as my head has made me painfully aware, not much).

Raph is, as I mentioned before, frankly a giant. He mainly works with Leo on battle strategy, but often he’s checking in on everyone (including me). He also likes to work in the nursery with the smaller children. He insists on going on as many missions as possible, always needing to be making sure everyone’s safe. Which is fine, he is not easy to take down-

Wait…

Past me, I must cut this conversation short because I think I just saw April walk by on the cameras okay BYE I’LL TALK TO YOU LATER

[novustrad]

Just finished painting my nails for the first time in a long while. I only wanted to tidy them and buff out the dimpling the dermatitis causes but then I got kinda carried away. Especially with gems. I only wanted to do a few in a line...

And only stung my fingers with remover twice.

[bold-writing]

The One With Whiskey Eyes || 1 || Prologue

Summary:  Soulmate AU Split 2016. Not everyone had a soulmate, there were many in the world who were unmarked. Iris Mayfair, however, has been forced to hide her skin for nearly thirty years. She doesn't have just one or two soulmates-even three would make people sneer and judge; no, she has twenty-three legible marks on her skin; with a blurry, unfinished twenty-fourth blooming across her flesh.

Warnings: Descriptions of violence, descriptions of abuse, swearing.

Words: 2700+

Next

~1~

Soulmates were common, but not for everyone. The first words spoken between two people who are destined to be together, forever etched into the skin like a tattoo from fate. Everyone’s varied, depending on the people and the chance encounter that would be their first meeting. Some had a simple ‘hello’ or ‘nice to meet you’ while others could have more complexity to them, like ‘well, it took you long enough’ or the unfortunate ‘how much of an idiot do you have to be?’

There were even people who had more than one soulmate, usually receiving a bitter encounter with those who lacked a soulmark; more often than not, those with a soulmark were hated by the un-marked, but those with more than one were absolutely despised.

 It was for that reason that Iris Mayfair kept herself covered from head to toe in her oversized clothing for as long as she could remember. Since she was a child, every few years one or more soulmarks would appear on her body. By the time she was in her twenties, she had twenty-three soulmarks along her skin. Some were simple, others were complicated, many were downright confusing; Look, look! We have matching socks! and Finally, I get the light!

 Only recently did another mark begin to appear, still foggy and unreadable, along a bare patch on her chest. It was short, probably nothing more than one word, and it made her curious since no other marks were quite that simple for her. Though, one on the inside of her arm was hello my dear.

 It was due to her soulmarks that she had led such a rough life; not many outsiders knew of her marks, but her parents believed her to be a monster, a freak of nature that wasn’t meant to be. They were unmarked, having met and fallen in love through the connection of their empty bodies. For as long as she could remember her body was covered and she was forbidden to show her skin. There was one mark that was shown on the back of her left hand unless she wore gloves, in small, neat writing that looked meticulous and practiced—Sh, sh, shh, quiet now.

 This mark, as well as a few others, were still readable but now bore burns or scars from her parents’ attempts as removing them from her skin. If they couldn’t be taken off, they attempted to try to cover them up.

 Iris had fled home when she was still young, lying low and scrounging by until she was eighteen and legally capable of renting a tiny apartment that she afforded with a meagre job. It wasn’t often she went out, opting instead to stay home and out of sight. Running away before she was able finish school, Iris taught herself what she could through her love of reading.

 She read as much as she could find about soulmarks, and as far as she could tell the most ever recorded on a person was three. Her twenty-four made that record pale in comparison.

 It was through her readings that she learned about Dr. Fletcher, who had had been researching Dissociative Identity Disorder and the effect it had on those with soulmarks. For months, Iris debated on whether or not to contact this doctor, worried that she would either have to expose her greatest secret—and therefore her scars—or if she would have to pay her.

 Lacking in money as she was, holding down a management position as best she could, it wasn’t as though she could afford a therapist of any kind.

 However, she finally worked up the courage to call the woman and was relieved to know that she was willing to speak with her in complete confidence and no charge. So, trying to find the same courage she had to make that phone call, Iris made her way to Dr. Fletcher’s office in the early afternoon between two of the woman’s appointments.

 It took several flights of stairs to get up to her floor, making Iris regret wearing so many layers when she left her apartment. It was still early spring so it hadn’t gotten warm yet, but even in the summer her sleeves were long so she’d become mostly accustomed to it. However, with a shirt, sweater and coat on she was sweating by the time she reached the designated floor.

 Taking a moment to compose herself—unbuttoning her coat for some relief from the heat—and checking the time on her phone, she then reached forward to knock on the expensive looking wood, beneath the gold name plate fastened to the door.

 “Come in!”

 Hesitating only a moment as she glanced at her gloved hand, which held the mark, she opened the door and timidly slipped in through a barely-there gap.

 “Miss. Mayfair?” the elderly woman asked as she rose from her seat, offering a friendly smile, and motioned the young woman further inside. “Please, come and sit. May I get you anything to drink?”

 “No. No, that’s alright, thank you,” she answered, barely flicking her eyes up to her before they returned to the floor. “I hope I am not interrupting your schedule.”

 “Nonsense, child, plenty of time.” Iris moved forward to take the seat that she motioned toward, sinking into the overstuffed cushions. “You mentioned that you wished to speak of my work with soulmarks,” she began gently, sinking into it slowly. “Would you care to elaborate?”

 “I…I have many soulmarks,” she began, folding her unmarked hand over her marked on, even though she had yet to remove her gloves. “I read in one of your articles that you believe several marks could mean a soulmate with Dissociative Identity Disorder; a mark for each personality.”

 “Yes; I have not proven the theory yet, however. I have yet to interview a patient who has met their soulmate…well, there was one but she only had one mark from the original personality, she never met the personalities.”

 Iris’s shoulders slumped at the news, sighing softly.

 “If you don’t mind me asking, have you met your soulmate?” Dr. Fletcher asked carefully, leaning forward in her seat as she carefully looked over the young woman before her. She was in her late twenties, that much she knew, maybe early thirties if she was to push it, with dark blonde hair and pale, pale skin—like she never set foot in sunlight—and her eyes, from the brief glance she had, were a gorgeous amber-brown, like whiskey. She was short, barely more than five feet, and remarkably skinny if the thinness of her neck proved anything. Her clothing hid the rest.

 “No, I have not,” she admitted, once more looking up at the other woman’s face only briefly before she looked away again.

 “And…how many marks do you have?”

 Immediately, Iris flinched and clenched up. Should she say?

 “A lot,” she dodged, glanced at the back of her palm as though she would be able to see through the black glove that she was wearing.

 “More than three?” Dr. Fletcher pressed, her tone remaining soft and gentle.

 “Many,” Iris choked out, hoping that she wasn’t making a mistake.

 Her eyes widened at the simple word, leaning in closer as she lifted a ring-decorated hand and tapping her fingertips along her lips. “Would you tell me how many?”

 “I…would rather not.”

 Iris fidgeted in her seat, repressing the urge to turn and run. After all, she had been the one to contact the therapist in the hopes of getting some answers. “May I at least see some? However many you are comfortable with.”

 Swallowing against the lump in her throat as she raised light whiskey eyes up to meet the doctor’s interested stare. Finally, she pulled off the black glove of her left hand to reveal the neat, tight writing, then rolled up her sleeve to the elbow to show three more along her forearm—Oh, the eyes, look at them eyes encircled her wrist, Hello my dear running along the inside of her forearm near her elbow, and He’s told us about you, little one, he really likes you beginning at her elbow and running along the outside of her forearm toward her wrist.

 All four were in different handwriting. The one on the outside of her forearm was marred with a long scar running through it, distorting the words slightly but they were still easily legible due to the thinness of the scar. It had been sewn shut carefully, preserving the mark.

 Dr. Fletcher reached out, pausing long enough to meet Iris’s concerned eyes to seek her approval, before she clasped her hand to turn her arm this way and that as she looked over the marks, examining the scar as well. “Fascinating,” she murmured, the chill of her rings almost causing Iris to pull back. It had been a long time since she had been touched by anyone, even voluntarily. “Were you born with them all?”

 “No,” she responded, slowly pulling her hand away and lowering her sleeve. “I was born with one, but the others appeared over time.”

 Resuming her original seat, Dr. Fletcher rested her fingers against her lips again. The woman before her was interesting all on her own; she was shy and timid and the way she was crumpled in on herself reminded the older woman of her more abused patients, who had gone through trauma or abuse during their life. Reluctance to meet her eyes only further supported the theory. Knowing how some reacted to soulmarks, especially those with several, she assumed it had something to do with the very reason she had come to see her.

 And that scar; it was too neat to have been an accident.

 “Miss. Mayfair, would you please tell me…how many soulmarks you have?”

 So many attempts to find out the number of marks on this woman proved to be too much for her, because Iris abruptly stood as she quickly shook her head and pulled her glove on quickly.

 “I’m sorry to have wasted your time, Dr. Fletcher, I should be going,” she quickly excused as she rushed around the chair to head for the door.

 “Miss. Mayfair, please-”

 Yanking the door open, Iris nearly barreled into the person that was standing on the other side, hand poised to knock before the door had been opened so abruptly. Both of them jumped back at the appearance of another person, Iris meeting with the young man’s light blue eyes before she immediately ducked her head down again, staring at her feet as she self-consciously began to close her coat, even though all of her markings were once more covered up by her clothes.

 “Ohh, babe, I’m loving that coat,” he praised when her motion drew his eyes to her wool coat—one of the few things she actually splurged on for herself when she saved up enough extra cash. Technically, it was out of fashion now, but she’d taken very good care of it and the man’s keen eyes noticed that detail immediately.

 Iris went absolutely still at his words, thinking of that exact sentence that was presently wrapped around her right bicep. The only thing to move again was her eyes, which snapped up to his again in complete shock. He was grinning at her crookedly, revealed white teeth and faint laugh-lines around his eyes.

 This man? He was…no, that wasn’t possible.

 One of twenty-four soulmates was a curse for someone. To have to share among twenty-three other people was just cruel.

 And Iris doubted she would survive through twenty-four different soulmates. The people meant to love her and protect her the most beat her and cut into her in more ways than just the physical. Those memories were not so easily brushed aside.

 Before she fully comprehended her own actions, words were spilling forth from her lips, “I can’t,” she blurted out, feeling the burn of tears as she looked away from him so she wouldn’t have to witness his reaction. “I’m so sorry, but I can’t.”

 Rushing passed him in the next instant, flattening herself against the doorway abruptly so as not to touch him, Irish flew down the stairs as quickly as her short, slim legs could take her while she continued to clutch her coat tightly against herself.

 She was already to the last flight of stairs before “Wait! Please, wait!” was shouted from above, echoing through the open concept building, followed by the thundering of footfalls as the man rushed to follow her. The booming echo of his steps made her flinch as she leapt the last three steps and dashed out the doors and turned a sharp right. Ducking into the alley beside the building and rushing down far enough to hide in the side alcove, out of sight, Iris silently prayed that he would look around and give up when he couldn’t find her fleeing down the street. She couldn’t wait there all day.

 She shook like a leaf from head to toe, hands clutching at the lapels of her undone coat in a grip so tight she wondered if she’d ruined the material. For how long she’d stood there, hidden from view, she wasn’t sure. However, no one came out shouting for her and no one came down the alley. Taking the time to calm her breathing and quickly rearrange her appearance, Iris eventually peeked around the corner before pulling up her hood and taking the chance to leave the alley.

 Not daring to glance back for the doors, the trembling woman walked back home as calmly as possible, avoiding any attention she could.

 Sitting in the chair that she had vacated in Dr. Fletcher’s office, Barry’s mind was reeling. He thought of the writing that twined the back of his calf, in soft, feminine scrawl, and the words that he had always feared would be said. None of them knew who would be the one that heard them, and it faintly broke his heart that it was him, but he was relieved that it hadn’t been Kevin or one of the more gentle personalities that had been born of Kevin’s need for them.

 “Doc, what was that?” he finally asked, raising bewildered eyes to the elderly woman that sat silently across from him, giving him time to process. “What…what did I do wrong?”

 “Oh, Barry, you did nothing wrong,” she assured, her tone motherly and kind. “Miss. Mayfair called me last week about soulmarks, stating that she had quite a few that were all different styles of writing and she wanted to speak to me about some of my research on reasons for multiple soulmarks. She was only here for a few minutes but…I think she’s been hurt for her marks before. She was so scared and timid and she wouldn’t look at me. I think she’s just scared of getting hurt again.”

 Barry’s heart sunk at the same time that anger sparked within him. “Someone hurt her?” he demanded, leaning forward abruptly.

 “I don’t know for sure. She didn’t say much, but she has four marks on her left arm alone from palm to elbow. When I asked how many she had, she only said ‘a lot’.”

 Barry swallowed thickly as he shifted in his seat, thinking over her words as he repressed the urge to run after her again. By the time he got through the entrance doors, she was nowhere to be seen, he’d have no way of finding her.

 “So she’s ours? She’s got one for all of us?”

 “Well, from your reaction I dare say she’s definitely yours,” Dr. Fletched answered with a smile, getting a hesitant one in return. “Tell me…does the writing of your marks all match?”

 Yes. They did. It was one of the few things that all of the personalities agreed on. The writing was the same for each of the words and phrases on their body. They had even had debates and arguments about which mark would match which personality—no one had ever believed that Barry would be the one to get one of the harshest sentences. Most of them were kind, some were hesitant or afraid, but that was the only one that showed immediate rejection of some kind.

 In truth, they had all thought that Dennis would be told those words. Now Barry briefly wondered which ones would actually be said to him.

 Jade was going to have a field day with this new development.

Next

[all-the-names-are-taken-aaaaa]

School Book Are Expensive

Alya as with most of the class had fallen under the illusion Lila Rossi portrayed. They all firmly believed Marinette was a horrible bully. Marinette had taken to ignoring them. She would be out of the class after Christmas break which was a month away. She had explained this to her true friends. The student council had decided she would be deputy of the class she transfers into since the former deputy had decided to move to American. Though none of her class realized this. Alya stopped attending student council meetings not long after Lila had returned. Marinette did have hope her class would come to realize their mistake but they were down right hateful and there was no fixing their relationship.

"Wait you got the original interview with ladybug for Alya. What the hell is wrong with her?" Aurore stated angrily while holding her phone in a death grip. Theo spit out the lolipop stick in his mouth before growling in the most angry voice Marinette has ever heard "WHAT". Ondine who had been trying to ignoring the stupidity of her boyfriend and his class looked up in shock. The pin in Kagami's had is now broken.

"Yeah but I don't have active contact with her. She and chat stop by the bakery and on my roof during protrols sometimes." Marinette explained quietly.

"We don't expect you to pull us a favor we are pissed at Alya for her foolishness." Theo explained and Aurora nods in agreement loosening her grip on her phone. "Lunch is almost over..." Ondine states in an unsure voice. "I do not approve you returning to that dreadful class." Kagami says in a remarkably calm voice before getting up to go to a meeting with her mother. "I think we can all agree with that but I'll be out soon" Marinette reassures while also getting up to head to class.

"It's the perfect revenge since she things she's so much better than us and is such a bully to Lila. We destroy her books her grades will tank and she will struggle for months before she can pay off all the text books and not to mention the copies of designs she stole from Lila's friend MDC" Alya explained. So her and Lila's sheep spent all of lunch completely destroying the girls bag failing to remember Chloe had her father buy cameras for the school. Chloe was out that day as well but she had been trying to set things right and after Marinette was wrongly expelled cameras seemed a good start.

So that was what Marinette found when she walked into the classroom her books destroyed a one of her old sketch books still in Alya's hands. She paused for a moment thanking kwami she had grabbed the wrong sketch book that morning.

Alya started to say something about how She deserves it because of blah blah blah. Lila was smirking. Seemed she actually believed Marinette family was too poor to pay for the books. As if seriously people back check. Her family owned the most famous bakery in paris. Miss. Bustier finally made her appearance and she was panicking so she did the first thing that came to mind. She started to lecture Marinette about leaving her belongings unattended.

Marinette sighed. Nope not today. "You wanna explain this to the principal? Or better yet my lawyer?" Marinette gestured to the room. "No? Cuz I'm-" Miss Bustier froze at the mention of lawyer but Alya didn't she started on and on about stolen designs and how dare Marinette while Lila fake cried and Adrian having just arrived looked horrified. Marinette just walked out of the class. She had some phone calls to make.

The next day Mari had a new set of books and Chloe looked pissed but said nothing as she sat at the back with Marinette. Alya was comforting a worried Lila as she explained how Adrien had gotten sick. One by one students were called to the office and questioned about the day before. While they managed too keep their story straight they got about the cameras again.

Chloe and Marinette met up with their friends from the other class during lunch. Before anyone could ask what happened Chloe blurted "Adrien was pulled out of school" Marinette rubbed her back "I'm sure we'll get to see him later. But he needs to learn how to handle real life situations" Chloe nodded. Marinette turned to the others "they destroyed my bag and everything in it. That got my family's lawyer involved and he's requested all the futage of the class be reviewed. Unfortunately Alya posted about how she got revenge on the girl who stole MDC designs and tagged both me and Jagged so the company lawyer is now involved as well as many Celebrities are being contacted about Lila's false claims. Is it bad that I don't pitty them? I did everything in my power to protect them but..."

"No they made their choices and they will pay the consequences" kagami states.

After all the students involved lied it was decided the principal and the parents should review the footage. The next day almost all of Miss Bustiers' class went home early. The day after that Miss Buster had a substitute and and the class was informed that she had been fired after several former students came forward about her problematic teaching methods. Half way through the day Lila and Alya left with their parents and some people dressed in suits.

As much as they tried to keep it quiet the story got leaked to the press. Alya and Lila were facing many many lawsuits. The class with the exception of Juleka, Adrian and Chloe had to pay for all the. Books they destroyed and the cost it would take to order a sketch of a design. Which they could not afford on their own even with the price split between them. They were grounded and those who didn't have jobs had to get one. Juleka had been sick for a week and had tried to stop Rose. Thus she didn't have to pay since she didn't partake. Adrian had to see a therapist and classes on how to handle sexual harassment. He was grounded as well but was aloud to see Marinette, Chloe, Luka, and Kagami while supervised.

[sincerelymarinette]

A Recorded Life Sequel (10/10) - Miraculous Ladybug

Words: 2033 Summary: In the finale, Adrien confronts his father and Marinette and Adrien have a date they deserve. Author's Note: Well, here we are, the last chapter! I've been writing this story for over 2 years now and I'm so happy people have enjoyed it so much. Thank you all for reading and sticking with me! I hope you like the finale :) <3

Prev / Masterlist

Breaking News

---

Adrien waited in the cold room that he had not dared to visit in years. He thought for a long time, and finally made the difficult decision to make the trip. He'd been haunted with trauma and nightmares since he was a teenager by this man, but it was high time he went to see his father again, especially if he intended not to see him for many more years.

The doors opened, and Adrien shot up to straighten his posture when he saw his father entering the room with a guard by his side. His hair was flat, which always caught Adrien by surprise, and Gabriel's scowl was deeper than Adrien ever knew. Gabriel wouldn't admit it, but he was surprised that Adrien came to see him. Last time, their conversation did not end well, and Adrien promised he would not come to see Gabriel unless it was serious.

But after many meetings with his therapist, Adrien decided that this was important enough to see Gabriel. It was a few weeks after the fashion show, but he was sure Gabriel was going to criticize it as much as he could.

"Hello, Adrien," Gabriel said as he sat down across from his son.

"Father," Adrien replied. Though Adrien was older now, and doing much better, he was still scared to talk to Gabriel and did everything in his mind to calm himself down.

They stared at each other for a moment in silence, neither one sure how to converse. Finally, Gabriel took a breath and spoke. "I watched some of the fashion show you and Miss Dupain-Cheng hosted."

"I wasn't sure if you would be able to. It was a nice day," Adrien said, not asking for his opinion, but sure he was going to get it.

"I would have done it differently. The timing was off, and you could have had better music. You had your designers redesign some of my work?" Gabriel criticized.

"Well, all of our reviews praised the music and said the models were amazing. And yes, I did. To fit our rebrand and new mission and values. No one wants to wear something that Hawkmoth designed anymore," Adrien said, holding back every muscle in his body to not roll his eyes.

Gabriel shook his head condescendingly. "You're being dramatic."

Adrien took a deep breath to calm himself down before answering. "Maybe. But all of my reviews recently have been better than they were when you were in charge. They like seeing me so active in the company, and our lines launched in stores recently, and business is booming. So I must be doing something right," Adrien said, confidently. Gabriel's jaw dropped, but Adrien continued to talk before Gabriel could interject. "I only came here to tell you one thing, father, but it turns out I actually have more."

"Go on," Gabriel said after composing himself.

"My time in therapy has helped me deal with everything you have thrown at me, and I know you don't approve of it, but Marinette and I are happiest together. We are running The Fashion House together, and we are sure it will be better than you could have ever dreamed. I hope you learn from your time locked away that what you did was harmful, but I know you won't," Adrien spit out, not thinking twice. "And I am going to continue to be happy with Marinette and my friends for the rest of my life, running Emilie's together and keeping Paris safe."

Gabriel shook his head again, not wanting to hear it. "I will be out of here eventually, Adrien, and I will take back what is mine."

"The Fashion House is mine now, and you're going to be stuck in here for the rest of your life. You're delusional if you think you, Paris' Supervillain, is ever going to get out of here," Adrien said. "It's a shame you turned your grief for my mother to evil and will miss out on the rest of my life, but I don't care anymore. It's clear you don't." Adrien didn't wait for a reaction from Gabriel, grabbed his coat, and stood up to walk out of the room. He was scanned out as Gabriel was brought back to his cell, still a bit shocked by what Adrien said to him.

---

It was a warm summer day in Paris, and Marinette and Adrien finally made time for themselves to have a nice date. They had spent so much time working day in and day out, that they decided they could be a little selfish and take the day for a date. No Kwamis, no cameras,  and no one around. It was a nice, well-deserved break for both of them.

They decided the best date to celebrate all they've been through the last few years was to get out of the busy part of the city, and back to the park near the Bakery and the school where they met. The park they spent many days fighting Akumas and filming videos with their friends. Maybe they could even catch a ride on the carousel.

They set up the picnic blanket and started laying out the food. Sandwiches, chips, crackers, and the dessert they got from Tom and Sabine when they stopped by for a quick chat before the date. Marinette's parents were the exception to the no people rule.

They started eating as they relaxed. Every time they came back here, they were always flushed with memories, more memories than what usually came back when they would only visit the bakery. "I'm glad we finally have some time to ourselves. Don't get me wrong, the past few weeks with all the lines coming out has been amazing," Marinette started. "But it's nice to have a few minutes to breathe fresh air."

"I agree, and not have the endless amount of questions ten hours a day," Adrien laughed. "I love what we're doing, but man, it's been tough. Hopefully, now that the rebrand is completed, it will calm down just a bit."

"I bet," Marinette nodded. "Now we just have to worry about new meetings for our fall and winter lines!" She said.

Adrien nodded with her as he took a bite of his sandwich. "I'm happy we chose to come back here; it's been a while since we've been to the park."

"Oh yeah, and it's really nice to not have our date interrupted by Akumas. It's been years, but I still worry," She admitted.

"I know. Nooroo may be living in the box happily, but it's still a valid fear. But you're such a great guardian I know there's nothing to worry about," He complimented.

Marinette rolled her eyes. "Flattering only gets you so far, Agreste," She told him.

Adrien shrugged and looked around the park, remembering how much has changed. Photoshoots, videos created with his friends, projects from school, and now dates. "I saw my father yesterday,"  Adrien said.

"Is that where you got off to?" Marinette raised her eyebrow. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I wasn't planning on it; I just kind of ended up there," He said. "Well, I was planning on seeing him, just didn't think it would be yesterday. He didn't approve of our show or how we're running the Fashion House, but I told him I don't care. I was going back and forth on asking him some things, but then I saw how he is, still planning revenge and hoping to get out of prison, and I realized I don't care what he thinks. I haven't for years, and I don't need to tell him when I'm going to do something or need his permission. Then I stopped by the bakery to reward myself with talking to your parents, who actually enjoy having me around," He said, not aware that he was rambling about the whole experience.

Marinette put her hand on Adrien's shoulder to catch his attention. "Well, it sounds like you made some good self-discovery and figured you don't need your dad. I'm happy to hear that, because your dad really sucks," She said, with a slight smirk on her face. "What were you going to ask him?"

Adrien shook his head to brush it off. "I ended up bringing it up to your parents, because it's much more important to me that they approved of my ideas. They're good people, Mari."

"So you've said. Is everything okay?" She asked, a little worried he was beating around the answer.

Adrien took a deep breath and nodded slowly. He took another bite of his sandwich, and the meat inside fell out the other end and onto his pants. Adrien started to sift through the basket for the extra napkins as Marinette watched him closely. He slowed his searching as he began to talk. "Yeah, I think I'm better than ever, actually. You mentioned the Akumas earlier, and my dad and Hawkmoth were horrible. And though endless amounts of bad things came from him, there were some good things that came from it that I wouldn't want to change," Adrien said.

Marinette cocked her head, waiting for him to elaborate. "Us becoming superheroes, working with our friends closer than ever giving my mom her proper burial. Us finally becoming a couple; that one I wouldn't ever want to change," He said and looked back at her with a small smile. He pulled the extra napkins out and removed some off the top, revealing a black box underneath. Adrien opened the lid as Marinette was putting together what he was saying and saw the sparkle from the sun once it was opened. "Marinette, will you marry me?" He asked.

Marinette's jaw was dropped as she looked at Adrien. "Was this what you were going to ask Gabriel? If he was okay with us getting married?" She asked.

"Yes, but like I said, I don't care what he thinks. Then I asked your parents, and they said they've been waiting for it for years, so of course they thought it was a good idea," Adrien said.

Marinette giggled and nodded. "Of course, I would love to marry you, Adrien."

Adrien's smile grew wide, and he leaned forward to kiss Marinette. "I love you so much."

"I love you, too."

---

BREAKING NEWS: ADRIEN AGRESTE AND MARINETTE DUPAIN-CHENG ENGAGED!  By: Alya Césaire <link>

oh my god oh my god oh my god

ITS HAPPENING PEOPLE THE ADRIENETTE WEDDING WILL BE HAPPENING

first alya and nino, now adrien and mari, how will i ever cope seeing them grow up like this

took them long enough! happy for you guys

i remember when adrien first appeared in one of marinette's videos and people shipped them from the start, look where we are now

how it started, how it's going

this is going to be the biggest wedding EVER

will they have the wedding in the backyard of the mansion like they said in the "if we were dating" video from before they were dating

this is the best news of the year

Marinette laughed as she read the Tweets in their trending section, happy to see how excited everyone was. Fans from when she first started her channel following her for years and years, to now watching her get engaged and eventually married. Her parents and friends were beyond excited for the two of them, already ready for the parties and the big wedding (if they decided to go big, that is), and couldn't wait for all to come. Gabriel obviously did not approve, but no one cared, as Marinette and Adrien were going to be happy together without room for negativity.

The Kwamis were excited to shower the wedding with magic, and Marinette couldn't wait to document her road to the wedding. They had to plan, she wanted to make her dress, and she was planning on having a cake tasting session with her parents. Even if they decide not to go big, the celebration with their friends would still have all the fun aspects of a big wedding.

It had been a long few years of battling Akumas and Adrien's father; Marinette and Adrien deserved to be unapologetically happy.

---

@lady-of-the-roses-and-lilies @bookishserendipity03 @avatheexceed @gkz10 @coccinellegirl @kat-thatoneweirdo @strawberryblondish @snow-swordswoman @lilgaga98 @evufries @toodaloo-kangaroo

[leiascully]

Fic:  Between A Rock And A Hard Place (Part Four)

Timeline: Season 10 (replaces My Struggle in the All The Choices We’ve Made ‘verse - Visitor + Resident + etc.) Rating: PG Characters:  Mulder, Scully, Tad O’Malley, Sveta (established MSR) Content warning:  canon-typical body horror (mentions of abduction, forced pregnancy, etc.) A/N:  I’m collecting all the related stories that go with Visitor/Resident under the title “All The Choices We’ve Made”, because it felt right at the time.  This story is an alternate My Struggle that reflects M&S’ growth/change in the ATCWM ‘verse. I’m weaving canon dialogue into the stories in an attempt to keep the reframing plausibly in line with canon.  

Part One  |  Part Two  |   Part Three 

It seems inevitable that Sveta and O'Malley will want to meet with them again, so Mulder short-circuits the whole thing.  He's impatient in his old age.  He was impatient in his youth.  He texts O'Malley and asks for the name of Sveta's hotel.  He's waiting in the lobby with a coffee when she comes down.  Scully's back at Quantico.  He expects O'Malley to find her in the morgue.  A tv personality shouldn't have that kind of access and yet.  O'Malley clearly knows which strings to pull.  Sveta wanders down eventually, startled when he waves at her as she crosses the lobby with halting purpose in her step.  She turns to him and wavers, like she's torn between wanting his help and fearing that no one can help.  Another symptom for his checklist.  He waits and finally she steps toward him.  

"Agent Mulder.  Hello."

"Hey," he says.  "Dr. Scully asked me to check on you."  It's as close to truth as he can get.  

"That's so kind," Sveta says.  "I knew she was kind."

"Can I buy you a coffee?" Mulder asks.

"Thank you," Sveta says.  They order and he pays, and they return to the table he claimed, his newspaper still open to the half-done crossword.  

"I had a few more questions for you myself," he says, after some small talk.

"I know," she tells him.  "You can ask."

"There was a moment when we were talking to you about your abductions - about your pregnancies.  We asked you a question and you looked at Mr. O'Malley before you answered.  Why?"

She laced her fingers around the heat of her coffee cup.  The barista hadn't even tried to get her name right.  There was just a Z and a scribble.  "Because it's not exactly the right question."

"I'm sorry," Mulder said.  "I don't understand."

"Mr. O'Malley told you it was aliens who took my babies," Sveta said.  "But I don't believe it's aliens who are taking them."

"If aliens didn't abduct you, who did?" Mulder asks, already certain of the answer.

Sveta's lip trembles and her eyes shine with tears that threaten to brim over.  "It's difficult to talk about.  The memories are difficult and the answers you want...they're dangerous, Mr. Mulder."

Twenty years ago, they would have sent a girl like her to distract him.  Twenty years ago, it would have worked.  He was a knight errant then, imagining he could save every damsel in distress.  He's learned not to gallop off in all directions now, though he paid more than he should have for the lesson.  

"Everything stays between us, Sveta," he promises.  "This isn't an interrogation.  It's not on the record.  It's just a conversation."

"The things I've experienced," she chokes out.  "They've affected my entire life.  They've made it impossible to have anything like a normal existence."

Mulder leans forward, reminded that therapists guide a conversation in much the same way interrogators do, and he's trained in both.  "What are you afraid of, Sveta?"

"That it only gets worse," she says, and the tears spill over at last with perfect cinematic timing.  He believes in her pain.  He also believes in O'Malley's showmanship.  

"Who took your babies?" he asks in his most soothing, most confidential voice.

"Men," she says in a hoarse whisper.  "They took me aboard their ships.  Their human ships.  I was afraid they would kill me if I ever told anyone the truth.  When I saw Mr. O'Malley...he seemed like my best chance to find out what happened to me."

"You didn't see a doctor because doctors did this to you," Mulder says.

"Who could I trust?" Sveta asks, tears running down her cheeks again.  "They would erase the evidence.  Call me a liar.  They're the liars."  

"You can trust me," Mulder says.  "You can trust Dr. Scully.  Our job is to protect you while we bring justice to those who harmed you."

"You work for the government," Sveta sniffles.

"Sometimes the best place to find the lies is inside the house," Mulder tells her.  "They call me a liar too.  They call Dr. Scully a liar."  

"How do you keep going?" Sveta asks.  Her eyes are wet and she looks so young.

"One step at a time," Mulder says.  "Right now, your trauma is an open wound.  You'll heal with time.  And you'll help us bring these men to justice."

"I want to believe you," Sveta says.

"Me too," Mulder sighs.  

He calls Scully from the car.  She sounds distracted as she answers.  

"Is he there?" Mulder asks.  "Why am I even asking, of course he's there."

"Of course, Assistant Director," she says.  "Just finishing the preliminary notes.  Let me wash up and I'll be right there."  He hears her turn her face away from the speaker.  "So sorry, but I've got a meeting."

"What a shame," says O'Malley's voice, distantly, muffled.  "Let me know if you ever want to grab dinner sometime.  I'm sure you're a veritable library of information.  I'll bring the Scotch and you bring the weird science."

She laughs politely and he hears the door close behind her and then the sound of water running.  "Sorry, Mulder.  I pretended to hang up and put my phone in my pocket."

"At least you got offered dinner," Mulder says.  "You going to go out with Tad O'Malley?  The Tad O'Malley?  He'll show you a good time."

"I'm married," she says casually but firmly, and his heart flipflops in his chest.  "How was Sveta?"

"Rattled," he says.  "You were right.  The same story about humans abducting her, and O'Malley just running with the notion of aliens.  No one can really explain the craft without ET, but everything since then - all the work after the initial abduction, anyway - that's been us.  Humans."

"Does that surprise you?" she says after a pause.

"No," he says.  "You?"

"No," she says.  "I seem to recall you having a meltdown over the same revelation sometime circa 1998."

"I seem to recall you being next to Cassandra Spender as she vanished off a bridge the same year," he counters.  

She sighs.  "There are days I don't regret getting that tattoo."

"We've been chasing our tails for decades," he agrees.  

"They'll reopen the X-Files if he asks them to," she says.  "You know they will.  And then what will we do?"

"That was my next question," he says.

"We can't help her without access," Scully says.  "But it's highly probable we can't help her at all.  Ten year of unraveling the lies and we never got any definitive proof we could take to the public."

"You were right," he says.  "We need help."

"He brought me a collection of photographs," she tells him.  "He wanted me to tell me if they were alien hybrid children."

"Were they?" Mulder asks.

"I can't make that kind of designation based on a photograph," she says sternly, "but my medical opinion, which I shared with Mr. O'Malley, was that they shared a rare disease called microtia, which causes children to be born without the external apparatus of the ear.  Rare, but not unearthly.  Alien in appearance, but not in origin."

"Did he ask you about the X-Files?"

"Of course," she says.  "He wanted to know if I missed the work."

Mulder taps on the steering wheel.  "What did you tell him?"

"I told him it was some of the most intense and challenging work I'd ever done," she says.  "I told him I thought I had felt most alive when you and I were working together."

He swallowed against the lump in his throat.  "Laying it on thick, Dr. Scully."

"I told him that working with you had led to the most intense and challenging and impossible relationship of my life," she says.  "And after all of that, he still tried to ask me out."

"Intense and challenging and impossible aren't necessarily positive," Mulder tells her.  "You left an opening."

"He wasn't really listening," Scully says.  "But you know I love a challenge, Mulder."

"Yes, you do," he says.  

"We need to talk to Skinner," she says.

"I'm on it," he tells her, and hangs up.

Skinner meets them after hours at the elevator.  They all ride down together.  Scully kissed Skinner in this elevator once, Mulder seems to remember, but he only heard about it later from the security guard watching the video feed.  He doesn't remember much from that particular adventure anyway, except kissing whoever Scully was in 1939 and getting a gaudy bruise for it.  They don't talk on the way to the basement.  The place smells the same.  The office still has pencils in the ceiling.  Somebody's taken the trouble to gut and repaint the place, and it still has pencils in the ceiling.  

"Where are the files?" Scully asks.

"I don't know," Skinner says, but he looks away as he says it.  Play the game, Mulder thinks, and they'll find out later.

"You said no one had been down here, that it hadn't been touched," he says, letting a little anger color his voice.  Skinner will forgive him.  They all have to play their parts.  New paint means new bugs.

"Not since you and Agent Scully left the Bureau," Skinner says.

"We're back now," Mulder tells him.

"You certainly are," Skinner says.  "As of this morning, you're reassigned to the X-Files, pending approval."

"Whose approval?" Scully asks.

"It's above my pay grade," Skinner says.  

"We need access," Mulder says, "and we need backup.  We need a staff.  If the X-Files are so important, there should be more than two agents."

"I'll see what I can do," Skinner mumbles.  "Your mysterious benefactors seem willing to allocate whatever resources are deemed necessary."

"Who do you take orders from, sir?" Scully asks sharply.  

"All you need to know is that I'm looking out for you," Skinner says dismissively.  "I've always looked out for you."

"We've been led through one dark alley after another, and all of them dead ends," Mulder says.  "What makes this time different?"

"The world is different," Skinner says.  "Since 9/11, this country has taken a very big turn in a very strange direction.  I'm not the only one who wished you were still down here.  You've got friends in high places."

"All the better to spy on us," Scully says.  

"The danger is real," Skinner tells her, "but the opportunities are too.  You can do something about it, agents.  Together.  You may be the only ones left who can."

"Do we have a choice?" Scully asks.  She's gotten better at lying in the intervening years.  Mulder isn't certain whether he should be grateful for that.

"Do you ever?" Skinner says.

"We'll need desks," Mulder says.  "And a new poster."

"I'll see what I can requisition," Skinner tells him.  "Welcome home, agents."

Scully goes back to the hospital after they finish the paperwork, murmuring about test results.  Mulder doesn't mind.  He has his own contacts, even after fourteen years out of the game.  Tad O'Malley isn't the only one with a fan base, not that he likes to think about his informants that way.  It's evening by the time he gets to the Mall, but he enjoys the walk. He's missed working down here: the bustle and the restaurants, the museums and the tourists.  He walks toward the Washington Monument.  

"Is the hour absolutely necessary?" says a voice at his shoulder.  "I had dinner reservations."

"It was important that I see you," Mulder tells him.  

"We made an agreement about our meeting in unsecured environments," grumbles the doctor.   Apparently working in Area 51 makes a person paranoid forever.  He can relate to that.  He's just lucky that anyone who was in Roswell when the crash handed is willing to speak to him.  

"I can't provide a high-security cordon like your former establishment," Mulder jokes.  "For one thing, I don't have a couple hundred square miles of desert to drop the facility in the middle of or a guard to patrol the perimeter.  But anyone who's out here isn't looking at us.  I called you because you said if I ever put the pieces together, you would confirm."

"And have you put them together?" the doctor asks.  

"I've met someone," Mulder hedges.  "I've seen something."

"You weren't even close before," the doctor scoffs.  "Warring aliens lighting each other on fire.  Weaponized bees.  Every distraction they organized for you, you swallowed hook, line, and sinker."

"I was being cleverly manipulated," Mulder says in a tone even he hears as sulky.  "I admit to a certain credulousness in my youth."

"And what brings this new clarity?" the doctor asks.  

"I saw an ARV running on free energy," Mulder tells him.  "I touched it.  I saw it disappear."

"That's what they all seem to do," the doctor grumbles.

"Their scientists said the materials were salvaged from Roswell."  Mulder paces back and forth.  "The technology exists.  And it's been in use, being used on humans, for human testing that has been consistently misreported as alien abductions."

"So you believe you know how," the doctor muses.

"Yes," Mulder says.  "And I think I know why."

"That 'why' is more complicated than you may ever know, Mr. Mulder," the doctor tells him.

"I've heard that a lot over the years," Mulder says.  "Try me.  Sixty years ago, we were warned about the military-industrial complex gathering too much power.  Now alien technology is being used against us.  Not by aliens or with aliens as I believed in the past, but by a venal conspiracy of men against humanity."

"You're wasting my time," the old man said dismissively, turning away.  "There's always a bad man in the shadows or a monster under the bed."

"What are the tests for?" Mulder demands.  "The babies?  The samples?  The implanted DNA?"

The doctor squints as he steps under the streetlight.  "You tell me, Mr. Mulder."

"Ten years ago you came to me, saying you couldn't take your secrets to your grave, that you couldn't live with it."  Mulder steps into the doctor's personal space.  

The doctor sighs.  "I"m a man of medicine.  I didn't know how my work would be used.  The lies are so great, Mr. Mulder.  I imagined that I would come forward, but I knew that the truth must be unassailable.  I am not sure that kind of truth exists anymore."

"Let me tell the world," Mulder tells him.

"They'll make a mockery of us," the doctor says sadly.  "They'll pillory us in the town square."  

"So what else is new," Mulder says.  "I've been a punching bag before.  I can take it."

"These men are capable of knocking you out," the doctor says.  "You're nearly there.  You're close."  He turns away.  "You listen to me because I was there in Roswell, but Roswell has become a smokescreen."

"So I've been told," Mulder says to himself.  He wonders when all the informants began to sound the same.  They promise him the truth but only speak in riddles.  They offer him the world, but won't give him the map.  He'd have better luck with a sphinx, and she'd probably be more coherent.  

He goes home.  That, at least, is new, that after submerging himself for hours in the kind of paranoia his younger self lived and breathed, he gets to emerge from it and go home to spend his life with Scully.

She's reheated the chili and she's sitting at the table in the kitchen, stirring sour cream into her bowl.  "I wasn't sure when you'd be home," she says.  

"Sorry," he says.  "I meant to text you, but I had to talk to someone."

"Just like old times," she says.

"Except I get to come home to you," he says, and leans down to kiss her.  "How were the test results?"

"Strange," she says.  

"But you expected that," he says, ladling chili into a bowl and joining her at the table.  "Didn't you?"

"They're in line with the results from around the time of my cancer," she tells him.  

"You're disappointed," he says.  

"I don't know what I was thinking," she says, dropping her spoon.  "I thought maybe the chip had removed the junk DNA, or that something about the pregnancy had rewired my system.  Dr. Parenti told me that all of my test results were normal.  But I suppose he lied about almost everything."

He aches for her, thinking of her going through all of that alone.  “I’m sorry, Scully.”

She lifts one shoulder.  It isn’t quite a shrug.  “I never quite learned to trust no one.”

He smiles at her.  "And Sveta's results?"

"Like mine," she said.  "Anomalous.  Like purity control, all those years ago, and all those women in Pennsylvania."  She looks at him across the table and reaches for his hand.  "I wish it weren't always so personal."

"Me too," he says.  

"Do you still believe we can save the world?" she asks, her voice just slightly shaky.  

"I want to believe," he tells her.

"So do I," she says.  "I badly want to believe that there is some point to all of this, if we take up this cause again.  We've come so far, Mulder."

"One foot in front of the other," he says.  "That's how you walk through the desert, Scully.  Or the fire."  

"It's always worked for us," she says, smiling at him.  "I just hope that Sveta's all right.  I don't trust O'Malley's intentions.  She's vulnerable.  She wants answers as badly as I do.  I know what that can do to a person."

Mulder sighs.  "He'll contact us again.  He's had his chance to influence us separately.  Do we play along, pretending to be true believers, or do we reject his tangled web of conspiracy theories so flimsy and fringe even a teenager would be ashamed to believe it?"

"To be fair to teenagers, they're ashamed of most things," Scully murmurs.  "It is the part you were born to play."

"We all have our faith, Scully," he jokes.  "Our belief in things unseen."

"I know," she says.  

[cinnamonsugarsheith-blog]

Tried something a liiiittle different with this one. Prompt was vet!Shiro. (I think she was expecting something like Yukinayee’s AU, but got this instead. In which our collective children are presh.

Warnings: Basically my toeing the waters of writing ASD!Keith. Mentioned character death, therapy doggos, disjointed fic~ Rating: Teen Pairings: Sheith, historical Shadam

Keith was anxious. He knows he shouldn't be anxious. Rosie is a great girl. But Dr Shirogane was a new vet, and even though Matt assured him he was a really nice guy, and Keith was sure he was... But they'd been seeing Dr Allura since Rosie's very first puppy shots... Keith sighed in relief as he pushed the door open and saw Matt at the receptionist desk--err not Matt. Girl Matt? Matt came through the employee door behind it. "Oh hey Keith!! This is my baby sister Pidge. She's doing her summer internship here!" The girl pushed her glasses up her nose and gave him a smile. Her name tag said Katie. This was too many new people in one day... "H-hi" he stuttered "I'm Keith." A hard swallow. "And this is Rosie." He gestured at the compact pit sitting calmly at his feet. Katie-Pidge stood up and peeked over the counter. "Well aren't you a pretty girl?" She offered Rosie a treat and Matt disappeared into the back to let the doctor know they were in.

Matt waved them back into a room and took Rosie to get her weight. When he returned Keith helped him lift her onto the table. She wasn't very big, but she was solid, and Matt, he would joke, was a string bean. Keith looped her leash around the holder and pet her to distract her from being so high up. He heard a soft click and looked up to see a man, Dr Shirogane, coming in. He was a head taller than Keith and wider and the white coat was pulling across his shoulders over his black scrubs. "Hi, I'm Dr Takashi Shirogane. You can just call me Dr Shiro though. You must be Keith? And Rosie?" Keith curled his fingers more tightly around Rosie's collar. "That's us." "Allura has all sorts of wonderful notes about the two of you in her file. I'm glad you decided to stay with the practice.” His hand landed firmly on Keith's shoulder. "Just an annual today, right? Nothing you want me to look at extra close?" He held his hand out to Rosie, waiting for her to give him a sniff and an excited tail wagging before petting her head. "Just the usual. I have her ESA recert papers too, if you don't mind." "Of course. My Kuro's are up this year too, too bad I can't sign my own." He laughed and gently pulled Rosie's mouth open to look at her teeth. Keith squirmed a little and glanced at Dr Shiro's metal hand, holding one of Rosie's ears back so gently. "They're connected," he said softly. "What, I--" "My arm and having an ESA. It's okay. I don't mind." Shiro gave him a calm smile and went back to peering into Rosie's ear. Keith felt himself burning with embarrassment. He mentally talked himself through how he must have gotten weird looks and questions all the time and how its not that embarrassing to get caught looking at such a high tech prosthetic and... Talking himself through it was not working as well as he was telling himself it was.

Dr Shiro signed the ESA papers and handed them back to Keith once he'd finished checking Rosie over. "Um, Keith, this..." Shiro rubbed the back of his neck as Keith folded up the papers and shoved them into his back pocket. "This isn't standard, but uh... Would you like to get coffee? I'm new in town and... Well I'm sure you know how hard it is to find people who want to socialize when you always have a dog with you." He gave Keith a smile. Rosie nudged his hand, making him remember he needed to respond. "Yes! Yes please-- I--" he reached up and scrubbed his hand over his face. "Coffee would be good." Dr Shiro’s friendly smile was too bright and his hand was on his shoulder again. "Relax. No pressure." He held a card out to Keith. Keith took it, unsure of when a number had been scribbled on the back in dying black pen, and left with a quiet “thanks.” Matt checked them out and gave him a wink, mouthing 'call him!'

-o-

"Well," Dr Coran started during their session two days later, "I take it since we are talking about it now, that you haven't called him?" Keith sighed. "I suck at talking to people. I've been seeing you for three years now and it took the better part of that to get comfortable. I can't even keep a normal friendship, let alone date." "What about Lance?" Keith snorted. "The jerk whose ass I kick in WoW every other day? Hardly. He thinks we are sworn enemies." "Well then what about Hunk?" Keith hummed. Hunk lived next door and brought him cookies and Tupperware full of delicious food in exchange for watching his apartment when he flew out to Hawaii to spend the winters with his family. Hunk.... Hunk could be a friend. "Maybe." "Or Matt?" Keith shook his head. He'd never seen Matt outside of where he worked, even though they followed each others social media now. Matt's little sister had friended him the other day, but he hadn't decided what to do about that. She seemed nice, and she liked Rosie. Coran sighed. "Keith, if he needs a support companion, he's bound to have as many difficulties as you do. Especially with having lost a limb. It might do you well to find someone besides me to talk to about things?" Keith nodded. "Can I?" He held up his phone. "Please!" There was a twinkle in Corans eye as Keith tapped out a quick message. Hey, This is Keith. Rosie's owner. Would you like to go to the park sometime? He held the phone out for Corans approval. He handed it back with a nodd. Keith took a deep breath and hit send.

The response was almost instant. I'd like that a lot. Maybe Voltron Metro park? It's not too far from the office. I could pick you up if you wanted though? Keith made a noise that had Coran lifting an eyebrow and he waved the phone in front of the therapist. Coran only laughed good naturedly. "That, my boy, is called a gentleman!" Keith's phone pinged again. Or we could meet at the office, or if you'd prefer to drive that's okay too. Whatever you want. And again. Sorry to be so weird, I don't get out very much. :o) That had Keith smiling. Who used o noses on their smileys anymore? He shared the thought with Coran who insisted that was a perfectly normal thing to do. Keith had a small smile when he typed out... If we meet at the office it has to be a day Matt doesn't work. :) Good point! Would tomorrow work? Text me your address, I get off at 6. :o) Sounds good Keith felt like throwing up as soon as he hit send and dropped to the space between Corans armchair and the coffee table next to Rosie. He looped his arms around her neck. What on Earth had he just done. He felt Coran move around to sit on the couch, hand lightly touching his shoulder blade. "It'll be all right. And if not, then you will do better next time. Would you like to schedule for the day after tomorrow just in case? I'm sure I can fit you in." Keith nodded. "Just in case."

Shiro pulled up in front of his apartment building at 6:45. A hulking black Sheppard sat in the back seat. Shiro got the dog out of the car and let him and Rosie sniff each other out for moment before shoving them into the back seat together. But they made seemingly fast friends, easily starting to yip playfully and tug on ears as they tussled. "She thinks she's bigger than him, doesn't she?" Shiro laughed at the antics as he and Keith got back into the front. "Definitely." "So, Keith, what do you do?" "I'm a student.... Should I um... Dr Shiro still or?" "Oh just Shiro is fine!" Shiro laughed. "This is social. What do you study?" "Astronomy and aeronautics." "That's amazing. Do you want to be an astronaut?" "Oh I uh... I couldn't. ASD and needing Rosie and all that. Maybe design rocket ships or something though." Shiro smiled. "I was a pilot before I was a vet. Briefly anyways." He held up his arm as if to explain. "My boyfriend at the time was too and he was ASD. It’s definitely still an option, Keith.” This was too deep for first date? Social outing? He hummed noncommittally. "How did you go from being a pilot to a vet?" "Well after wallowing for a month, my brother dragged me to a therapy group.  They talked about service animals and stuff, but being a vet didn't click until I was offered a full ride at a school of my choice due to my injuries. Basically the Garrison didn't want to get sued." He snorts. "Nine years later and I'm a vet!"

When they got to the park they walked around the outskirts of a field centered with a jungle gym. The dogs romped along beside them, pouncing each other and playfully chasing. Keith watched them fondly, playing nervously with the leash he had brought along in case. "Do you mind if I...?" He gestured towards Keith's hand. "I'm sorry about being so touch forward at your appointment. I know that can be... A problem." Keith glanced and offered his hand. This he could do. Coran would be so proud. A blush stained Shiro's face. "Is this a date?" The blush darkened. "I-if you want it to be?" Keith surveyed him. "I would like that." He was definitely doing that thing. That made most people freak out. Where he said things too plainly. Mmmm Shiro must have been uncomfortable if he was blushing. Maybe he should stop talking. Shiro gave him a fond smile. "You remind me so much of Adam..." Keith tilted his head in question. "Um my uh... Copilot. During the crash." He flexed his hand tellingly. "And my boyfriend."

Shiro bought them coffee's from a snack vendor and they settled together under a tree, the dogs  curled together nearby. Kuros much larger form curled completely around Rosie's wriggling one. "I'm sorry I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable earlier, Keith." It's okay was the right thing to say in this situation. He took Shiro's hand instead. Shiro gave it a gentle squeeze. "I have to get used to being uncomfortable to make things more comfortable..." "I suppose that’s true. But I wouldn't want to overwhelm you..." Keith swirled his coffee in it's paper cup and gave a crooked smile. "I think I wouldn’t mind that so much."

Keith positively gushed about Shiro and Kuro at his appointment the next day. Coran talked him through his feelings about the initial stages of relationships, friendships and romantic ones, and wished him luck. Keith found himself on park benches with Shiro into the evenings with more and more frequency through the next months. Shiro never pressed past holding his hand, and Keith had initiated  tucking himself close to Shiro's side with Shiro's arm wrapped tightly around his shoulder. "I want to kiss you." Keith said one day, when he climbed into Shiro's car. Shiro made a choking noise. "Keith?" "Can I?" There was a look of determination on his face. "Of course." Keith turned in his seat, and pushed himself into Shiro's space. Before fumbling with where to put his hands. Shiro gently helped guide them to his shoulders. Keith licked his lips nervously and leaned forward. It was a feather light brush and when Keith pulled back Shiro was twitching with his effort not to chase him. "Can I?" He asked before cupping Keith's chin. Keith nodded and Shiro leaned up, gently pulling him close again. He kissed Keith chastely, sweetly. Brushed his fingers across his cheek and into soft black hair. He let Keith pull back after a moment. Keith situated himself back into the passenger seat and Shiro pulled out of the parking lot without saying anything else. It could wait for the park bench under the stars, when Keith tucked himself against Shiro's side to hide from the cooling autumn and let Shiro run his fingers through his hair.

And they did... Shiro nuzzled into Keith's neck, planting soft kisses. Keith felt at ease and snuggled close to the older man. "I like this." "Me too, baby..." Shiro was enjoying each touch he didn't feel Keith flinch away from and had his fingers tangled in his hair. "Thank you for trusting me." Keith hummed. "I like when you play with my hair." "It's very soft." Shiro gently pulled Keith into his lap. "Special conditioner. Lance recommended it. I told him it sucked." Shiro laughed at that. "I like that too... When you laugh." "Stars are coming out, baby." Shiro glanced towards the sky. Keith looked up and took one of the hands circled around him. He used Shiro's hand to point out different stars and rattled off facts about them. When they finally made their way back to Shiro's car, sleepy puppies in tow, Keith looked at Shiro rather bashfully. "I want you to stay." "Stay?" "At my apartment." He noticed Shiro's heavy swallow. "Keith, we kissed for the first time today... I don't want to rush anything." Keith shook his head. "No pressure." He quipped back to that first day in the exam room. Shiro got it and leaned across the middle console to press a playful smooch to Keith's cheek. Keith grinned and scrambled to kiss Shiro in turn.   "You're sure?" Shiro surveryed him carefully when they pulled up to the apartment building. "Yes." Keith tugged Shiro's hand shyly as he unlocked his front door. "This is cosy." Shiro toed off his shoes and looked around the little studio apartment. Most of the walls were littered with star charts and posters of nebulas. Kuro began sniffing everything out and wagging his tail. Rosie planted herself as the foot of the bed, on a red throw that was very clearly Hers. Shiro let himself be pulled over to Keiths unmade bed, and let the smaller man cocoon them in blankets. "This is nice." Shiro rubbed his hands slowly but firmly over Keith's back. Keith made a quiet noise and pushed himself up, hovering over Shiro. "This is okay?" "Yeah, baby, this is perfect." Keith leaned down to kiss him with a smile that made Shiro's chest hurt.   "Can you stay?" He  whispered, tucking himself back around the older man. "If that's what you want... I should probably warn you that sometimes I have nightmares." "Oh... What do I do... If that happens?" "Talk to me, don't startle me... Sometimes I lash out. Kuro usually barks to wake me up." Keith nodded seriously. "Do you want...not jeans?" "I'm not sure I'll fit in your pants, baby..." Keith hummed and sat up. His hands were on Shiro's waistband, unbuttoning and unzipping and tugging before Shiro could process it. "Jeans aren't comfortable." Shiro chuckled. Keith always wore track pants. He supposed he wasn't wrong though. He helped Keith get them off and let the boy settle back against him. "Thank you, Keith." "You’re welcome...For what?" "Letting me into your space, baby." Kuro hopped up on the bed then, settling next to Rosie along their legs.

Keith slept easier than usual that night, and Shiro slept more soundly. They only woke up when the dogs started whining to go out, and Shiro pulled his jeans back on and sleepily nuzzled into the back of Keith's neck at the doorway while they watched the dogs pad out into the grass. "Next time, maybe you can stay at my house?" "Okay." Keith said simply, relaxing against Shiro. "It's Saturday... Do you want to do something together? Besides go to the park?" They ended up at an arcade. Keith was way too good at racing games, and Shiro handed Keith his ass on a platter at the fighting games. They had dropped Rosie and Kuro at Shiro's and Keith talked absently about how one day he'd have a yard like that for Rosie to run in. Shiro had to hold his tongue on saying he would for this to be Rosie's yard too. He was finding more and more that Keith made him act without thinking. And knew eventually it would probably be to Keith's detriment. So for now he kept the thought to himself.

Shiro knew his luck had run out when he sat up in a cold sweat at 3am. He'd been dreaming about Adam. The crash.

Kuro pushed into his lap and Keith sat close, but not touching, trembling just as hard as Shiro. His hands were gripped tightly around Rosie's collar.

"I'm sorry," Shiro said thickly.

Keith knew this was where he was supposed to say 'its okay.'

This time he said it, and touches Shiro's arm with the lightest fingertip graze.

"You loved him."

"I did... Do... In a way."

Keith made a small noise.

"I think I love you."

Maybe not all his luck had run out...

"I think I love you too, Keith."

[rebelwheels-blog]

Little Sparrow Freed From Its Cage

September 24, 2018

Per aspera ad astra - Through adversity to the stars

Hello there everyone! I have quite a bit of news to share with all of you lovely readers, as it has been quite a while since my last update. Hopefully my writing habits will be a bit more consistent now, due to the main reason I am writing this update. So grab a cup of tea, or coffee for you Americans, and be prepared for a lengthy blog entry.

Commencement to Independence

For the longest time, it was my belief that graduation was just another event where I would only witness others experience the joy of being released from the dictatorship of homework and the school setting.

Much of my student experience has been infringed upon due to various circumstances; whether illness was to blame, being placed in classes my superiors wrongly believed I belonged, or unwillingly leaving the only place I called home, as well as exiting the lives of many I held and hold close in my heart.

Not everyone experienced the same scenario as I did, which is wonderful. Even so, for much of my life there was a common denominator.

Adversity.

Due to my disability, my experiences and memories of the school setting are extremely unconventional.

Which leads to the less self-pitying part of my screed. If it weren’t for all those obstacles, and more, throughout my existence as a student, graduation would not grant me the same satisfaction and pride as it does now to declare to you all that I am no longer a high school student. September 21, 2018 was the day I was set free.

Although there are plenty of memories I have to look back on that made my school days less dreary, so I shall not admit that every second of my years at school were terrible, as I had the good fortune of making a few friends along the way as well as learning some lessons that allowed me to grow as a person.

So I thank all of you who have stuck with me through the good times and the not so good times, because I couldn’t have made it here without you.

I’d especially like to thank my first teacher who set me on the right path to homeschooling. You know who you are, with your huge green duffel bag full of wonderful toys each day as we sat in the garden room. Thank you for always being there for me academically and as a friend. You mean the universe to me.

Every experience and every person that one encounters affects the future, individually and worldly, good or bad, long or short. Because, who knows? Maybe one day someone who experienced something they perceived as awful will change the life of another so someone else will never experience what was already lived through by another.

Celebration?

To celebrate this momentous occasion, my grandmother and I designed what would normally have been the top of my cap to go along with my gown.

Then we made a message in a bottle, with the message being the poem The Road Not Taken as it is our favorite poem.

But the most important component to all of this is the timing of everything that has unfolded over the past few weeks.

Enjoy the first ever gif I have ever created, of course it’s to do with Stephen

I managed to finish the last of my exams the day directly before my grandmother’s birthday, which was coincidentally purposefully happened to be on my cousin’s birthday. Then, on Friday, I was officially set free from my classes on the birthday of my great grandfather. Everything took place over the course of three days, and three birthdays of three people that mean the world to me.

Funnily enough, exactly one week to the day, another event unfolded spontaneously. I was granted the most amazing graduation gift. A friend, a very old friend, of tremendous significance and value to me. We had not seen each other in almost nine years, but we always kept in touch. Last Wednesday, we broke our hiatus and had lunch together with our grandparents. I felt like I was in a dream. I couldn’t believe we were even in the same room. He has seen my old self, my pathetic self, and my happy self, and he never left. He’s one of a kind and I don’t know what I would do without him. Making him laugh after taking a nervous drink of water while we were at lunch and burping due to my liquid consumption was one of the highlights of our visit together. Hopefully we won’t have such a lengthy hiatus between seeing each other again, which neither of us believe will happen. I already can’t wait to see him again.

Then on the Saturday following that Wednesday, I swam with my other best friend who happened to come home from college that weekend. I honestly don’t remember the last time we just chilled out in the pool, or anywhere, and hung out like two normal teenage girls. Granted I did complain quite a bit about school work after we got out and had lunch, but that wasn’t the entire visit. It felt so normal to just hang out with my best friend, and I can’t thank you enough (you know who you are if you’re reading this). I couldn’t have asked for a better way to finish my classes.

But graduation is supposed to be a big deal, right? A huge celebration is supposed to take place, right? Well, I honestly have no idea how else to celebrate my accomplishment. I would love to have a party and do something the way everyone else does, but many of my friends and family live far, far away. So out goes that idea... Nevertheless, if no other celebration takes place, I am forever grateful for being able to visit with my friend from New Jersey thanks to his and my grandparents.

Moving Forward

Now that I have soooo much time on my hands, I don’t know what to do with it! Well, I do, but it’s only been almost a week since I finished my classes and it’s still rather odd. I spent the weekend creating and improving a sort of sketch that puts together my Halloween costume. Yes, I’ll be 19 by then and many will say I’m too old to do Halloween, but you know what? Adults are allowed to dress up and have fun too. Halloween is not just about the candy, well not to me anyway. To me, it’s about letting yourself be free to be whatever you want to be for one day of the year. As it seems that it is only socially acceptable to dress up when one is an adult around Halloween, if one were to dress up any other day of the year you end up being labeled as a psychopath.

Okay, maybe not a psychopath, but anyone dressed up as a character or dramatic makeup is worn outside a concert, theatre club, comic convention, or Halloween, etc., side glances and glares will be made.

I decided that I will be dressing up as my own version of Sherlock, as long coats are as much of a pain to get on as a dress. I have a few components of my costume together, but I still need the hat, scarf, and maybe shoes? I may just go with a pair of short boots that I have as finding shoes in my size is an entirely different story.

I wasn’t sure if the coat I had would look Sherlockian enough, so I decided that I would put together a sketch of my outfit to see how it would look. So I put this together.

Originally, as you can see, there was no face. But I worked on it and worked on it over the past few days and this the outcome. In the beginning I did trace the undershirt, but that’s it. I figured out the rest. I’m very proud of it, as it is the first drawing I’ve done in quite a while that I haven’t gotten angry with.

Having this freedom has made me realize that after a few days of numbly looking at social media, I am suddenly craving to learn new information and I miss my math and science classes. I think that within the next week I will unconsciously start to read books again just from the slight need I’ve had to expand my knowledge again. Maybe I’ll even start writing stories again due to new knowledge, as I have written down a few ideas for short stories the past few days. In the words of a good friend, the possibilities are endless.

Spinraza News

Luckily I have school finished to get through my next injection. I was reminded that I have to go through re-approval from the insurance, making my injection date is a week later than I wanted. This week I have to get blood drawn again as well as other tests.

Speaking of tests, I had to do a strength test last week, my first one after having Spinraza. My results have to either stay the same or improve in order for the insurance company to say I can keep having Spinraza. Needless to say, I was terrified that I wasn’t going to improve due to their standards. I’ve noticed more strength in my legs than my arms, granted my right arm is noticeably stronger, but I did not anticipate the evidence the strength test would grant me.

The first test was to tear a sheet of paper. No big deal, right? Wrong. I had to try to tear a piece of paper that was folded four times. I tried and it didn’t happen. So my physical therapist unfolded it so it was in half. I believed that I was trying to tear it wrong as I was using my nail to start the tear. But I was wrong. That’s how you physically tear a sheet of paper when you pinch it. So when it cooperated and I split the paper down the middle, I was like “okay, I could totally do that before Spinraza.” Again, I was wrong. When I did the baseline test, I was able to rip the paper but only if:

it was started for me

it was a single sheet unfolded

it only ripped sideways not straight down

My physical therapist kept my old paper and showed it to me to prove that I had improved. After I saw the paper, I felt like Captain America

Go ahead, enjoy that gif because Tumblr doesn’t allow more than 10 images so that’s the last one guys

Once I completed that question of the test, the test was gravy. I was actually able to do other things as well such as:

lifting a weight I couldn’t before

completing a short maze test without stopping my pen

pressing a stupid light button and making it stay on

opening a container that was entirely too difficult when I tried six months ago

I gained 5 points in the scoring system, from 11 to 16 points. I still can’t get over it. So much has been going on the past... Well, year, honestly. Between myself and my family members, it’s been nonstop.

Well, I think I’ve written enough for this update, probably too much... But whatever, if you guys enjoy these updates you don’t mind. If you don’t enjoy them... Well... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[cristinagooge]

The Options For Vital Details Of Law School

The 25-Second Trick For 5 Ways To Prepare For Law School In Undergrad - Collegexpress

https://shirleysmith2.weebly.com/blog/rose-leto

While helpful outside partnerships are invaluable for new law trainees, a negative partnership is mosting likely to be a massive drainpipe on your psychological as well as emotional power. If you know things aren't going so well, make a clean break (as well as avoid being in the 1L betting pool for "connections that will be over by Thanksgiving").

Utilize this summer to hang out with good friends and also family members, hang around with your youngsters or better half, and financial institution some excellent will before you're extremely hectic as well as worried out at all times. 4. Place healthy and balanced practices in position Any kind of excellent behavior takes time to develop, as well as the summer season is a good time to service healthy and balanced consuming, workout, and also so on.

So, take some "me time" this summer to make sure you're as healthy as you can be prior to orientation. (As well as don't forget your psychological health a couple of sessions with a therapist or train can assist you begin solid, as well as have a resource to fall back on when points obtain challenging (Greg Neinstein).) 5.

However you do desire to think seriously about how law school works, and also what you're going to be anticipated to do there. Jeffrey Neinstein. And it can not harm to get a dive start on some of the abilities you'll need to survive in law school. You can speak to attorneys you understand about their experiences, have a look at books on the topic (your neighborhood library likely has a great deal of choices), or listen to these podcast episodes for inbound 1Ls.

How How To Best Prepare For Law School As A 0l - Above The Law can Save You Time, Stress, and Money.

Accumulate your analysis stamina Particularly if you have actually run out school for numerous years, consider utilizing the summertime to accumulate your stamina for reviewing hard material, so the volume of reviewing you'll be doing as soon as the semester begins isn't so stunning. Pick a couple of challenging non-fiction books, as well as invest an hour or 2 every day reading them.

Any kind of serious book you tackle will help you develop your endurance and also emphasis, so law school reading won't be fairly as much of a shock to the system. Best of luck in law school, and enjoy your last summer season before classes start!.

The most effective prep work for law school is a tough undergraduate program. Regulation colleges are searching for trainees with varied scholastic backgrounds that can For details from the ABA on planning for law school. There are many methods beyond your undergraduate coursework that can prepare you for law school. Talk with attorneys practicing in an area of interest as well as inquire what background is useful.

Work experience is also a good means of finding out if legal work will fit your personality as well as passions. Joining campus or neighborhood activities that are meaningful to you might permit a possibility to examine or check out functions that interest you. Such experience can boost abilities (company, research study, public speaking, or functioning with the general public) and build self-confidence in your choice of whether or not to pursue a lawful career.

The Best Strategy To Use For How To Prepare For Law School Over The Summer: Pre-law ...

Go through the Pre-Law Overview for more details on preparing for law school! The pre-law suggesting workplace works together with numerous workplaces on school to use a broad range of events for pre-law students, including Junior as well as Senior course meetings, admitted pupil panels, alumni talks, workshops, etc. . Regulation Day is an annual event held each fall term that generates ABA-approved regulation colleges from across the nation.

Visit this site for a full listing of upcoming occasions. Students are motivated to participate in pre-law pupil organizations, such as: Trainees will certainly complete a strenuous research study project on a legal problem chosen by the Instructor. Each pupil will be appointed to a party on the initial day of the summertime term as well as is anticipated to defend his or her plan based study paper.

Get In Touch With Andreina Rosa at air@binghamton.edu!.?.! for additional information. Student voices matter! The Committee's objectives are:1. To improve pupil shows as well as Pre-Law encouraging offices by brainstorming workshop and occasion concepts 2. To cultivate a solid connection with current pre-law trainees as well as the pre-law Encouraging Office3. To boost Pre-law experience at Binghamton University There are numerous internships provided with the Fleishman Center for Job and also Expert Growth that will help prepare you for an occupation in regulation. An on the internet system linking Binghamton students with graduates assisting to prepare them for a successful future, navigate their occupations and, maybe, check out brand-new profession courses. Click below to learn more. This web page lists the scholarships as well as awards that are readily available with Binghamton University, SUNY and also country wide. 509 Needed Disclosures -Give comprehensive info about yearly's inbound course at each ABA-accredited law school, consisting of LSAT and also Grade Point Average quartiles, acceptance price, race and also ethnic background, tuition fees, living expenses, and also scholarships, attrition, and also transfers. Call Number: KF298.T46 2018ISBN: 9780804799256Publication Date: Aug 2018Flint,.

Michigan's water dilemma, the New Jersey" Bridgegate" detraction, Enron: all these events are instances of various kinds of management failure. Much more particularly, each stands for significant failures among leaders with lawful training. When we look better at one profession from which we typically attract our political, business, and organizational leaders-- the legal profession-- we discover a deep chasm in between what Legislation Schools educate as well as what the globe anticipates. Harmful Leaders exposes the threats and results of leaving attorneys unprepared to lead.

Some Known Factual Statements About How To Prepare For Law School - Lexisnexis

It provides Regulation Schools, law students, and also the legal occupation with the management tools as well as designs to develop a far better foundation of management acumen. Anthony C. Thompson draws from his twenty years of experience in international executive education and learning for Ton of money 100 firms as well as his experience as a law professor to chart a path forward for better management instruction within the legal academy. He preserves that these techniques are persistent management failings that might have been prevented. In examining these patterns of failings, it becomes apparent that legal education and learning has fundamentally misread its job. Thompson suggests a fundamental reassessing of lawful education and learning, based upon intersectional management, to prepare legal representatives to assume the sorts of roles that our progressively fast-paced globe calls for. Whether students are considering going to law school from their undergraduate researches or after getting specialist work experience, getting ready for law school is important.

The earlier you intend for law school demands, the much better. Although there are many different situations and also instructional backgrounds among every trainee, in this blog, we will discuss just how to get ready for law school as a student in their basic studies. With Thanksgiving right around the edge, you may be brainstorming possible response to Auntie Linda's preferred inquiry:" What are you mosting likely to make use of that degree for?" After offering some idea,.

How to Prepare for Law School LexisNexis

we'll just admit it: "lawful education and learning & law school" is an appealing, impressive solution. The list wherefore to do as a student if you intend to go to law school is rather brief. Much more importantly, it could be a bit prematurely to take the LSAT, yet it's never ever also early for LSAT preparation. Start researching exactly how you're going to prep for the LSAT or how.

How to Prepare for Law School - Hofstra ...

How to Prepare for Law School: 11 Steps ...

you're going to find an lsat tutor. In the meanwhile, below are some pointers to bolster your application:: Law school admissions greatly depend upon your numbers. Student year is normally the time that university student begin to pursue teaching fellowships. What better way to find out if you intend to be an attorney and pursue this career than by stalking actual ones? Possibly attempt connecting to regional regulation firms and see if you can be a trainee. This can likewise enable you to form study hall or discover internship chances! Some schools, such as Harvard, have a program for their own undergraduate trainees that are certain they want to go to law school. If you are participating in a college which either has a deferral program or a 3 (years of undergrad) +3( years of law school) program that you want, this summer may be the moment for you to start researching for the LSAT. We hope you'll still be as starry considered regarding the lawful area when the time comes for you to apply to law school we will certainly still be below to help you! * We are not recommending you in fact make an admissions video for Harvard. The brief solution: you ca n't. If you're anythinglike me, you're most likely not satisfied with that answer. I certainly had not been. I get it. I'm a naturally distressed person so every day I wasn't doing something efficient throughout my 0L summertime, I was stressing. Sound acquainted? I have some great news. from Blogger Neinstein Personal Injury Lawyers

[hookshotsandhandgrenades]

Work out You

As we create a little bunker from the virus, as we all do, self improvements start to pop in your head. I guess i always think about self improvements because I am that sort of tacky person. Also slow to change and certainly need a lot of improvements,

Specifically I’ve been getting more into exercising. I’ve had issues bending over picking up toys and little people who are growing. I found myself looking at a wooden car under a table that I needed to pick up (don’t want Ronan hitting his head!) and thinking “that looks painful to my back, I am not looking forward to that movement.” So general mobility and strength is what I was going for. I always sort of winged it when exercising. I banged out some push-ups and crunches and whatever, I walked and jogged. I was a little aimless as I am with most things. 

I decided to look for some guidance on YouTube, one of the great tools of our generation (I located some old black and white french films today too, so feeling great) and found a fun culture of work out and exercise people showing me how to work out, therapists showing stretching for knees, Ukrainian muscle men showing how they built their own calisthenics gym at home! I assumed they were Ukrainian as they painted all their bars yellow and blue. 

But it was pretty awesome seeing how much guidance I could get. It was a bit weird to focus. I knew I wanted to feel better about my moments. General well being and increased strength were the goals, but there was a lot of info for one pretty amateur fellow to deal with. So I stumbled upon four I really seem to keep coming back too. Four YouTube fitness “influencers” (A word I just throw typing). that have some similarities and some pretty drastic differences. 

They are all men. There just is more men doing this I think and maybe this is what the algorithm is doing to me, I just don’t see many trainers on my feed. When a woman has popped up its usually as a non speaking guide to a exercise. The Bow Flex people seem to do that, have a man describe an exercise and have a woman do it. 

Here is a breakdown of each of these dudes. They are dudes and this is what I call them, I am sure they would approve except maybe one of them, which I’ll get to. 

So just below me here is Jeff Cavalier. I don’t know if that is a made up work out name, but I don’t think it is. It suits him. His channel has almost 9 million subs and by far most popular of the three that I watch. He uses humor sort of, he tries, more so than anything else I’ve seen on MuscleTube at least. But when its not funny its at least endearing. He has this side kick Jesse he beings up which is a good “every man” to his Adonis. He doesn’t have the best body of the three but he is more glaringly cut in the arms. He is a professional and uses some science, but also he knows who is talking to. He always refers to “guys” and will often talk about getting your arms ready in time for the beach. He taught me I was doing the push up wrong the prick.

This is Josh, the man bun. Not a dude. He was the first one I found actually because I typed in “exercise no equipment” and he doesn’t use anything other than arm bars and some resistance stuff generally. The very video linked is the first video I watched in this new challenge of mine. It was a good intro because he is so calm and cool and makes a little joke at “getting ripped.” A healthy sounding guy. Soothing voice. In another video I found out he was a “ripper” like a traditional body builder but a trip to the southern hemisphere changed how he thought about what he was doing and what he wanted to do. I learned the abdominal hover and the fun of posing from him. I use my own words to describe these things. 

Scott here is a totally not Southern Hemisphere sort of guy. He has a Boston sort of accent but I can’t say for certain if hes from there. He has the best body of all the ones I watch. In fact I would say he is the closest to a narcissist in the bunch, but I can’t be counted on for clinical diagnosis here. He loves his body and wears shorts extremely short. He talks very little and gets down to biz extremely quick, I’d imagine as a lover he’s like that as well? I like him because his videos are short and he shows his routine in its entirety. He was the one that inspired me to design my own workouts, I copied what I could from him. Except the shorts which I don’t have the legs for. 

Jeremy is the most adorable of them all. He is very smooth and not intimidating. He’s had moments when hes “cut” but sometimes his mass isn’t that nuts. He uses research and data a lot in his videos. He is the “Sweet one” and if I was making a boy band out these these four he would be the one singing all the ballads. Nutrition is mostly what I liked him for. I “learned” from him, because I don’t know if its true even with his supporting studies, that any diet is pretty much doing the same thing, training your brain to create a caloric deficit. Which sort of obvious but then again took me to a good head space.

I don’t think of myself as dieting right now. I don’t think its a phase. I want to create routines and workouts in my head I can do for most of my life. Just habits. Jeff told me that research says that if you can do something consistently for 22 days its the start of creating a new habit. I want to be able to play with Ronan and Leigh for hours without tiring, I want to travel to a Scottish mountain and climb it again and think about people gone. 

And these four beefcakes are helping me think different thoughts.

[cosmosogler]

heyyy guys. i did a lot of things today. it doesn’t feel like a lot.

snoopy decided that “before the sun comes up” is a good time to start meowing loudly and repeatedly. for the entire time until my alarm went off at 7:45. i ended up not getting enough sleep because i was up for 30-60 minutes beforehand so i slept in until 8:30... which made me miss my first class.

she seemed to have been screaming for no reason. there was nothing out of the ordinary in the apartment general area or in her litter box or her food or water bowls. her claws got trimmed while she was at the vet last week so they couldn’t have broken off again. and i didn’t find any on the ground.

anyway i got to class 5 minutes before it ended, so i figured it wouldn’t be good to wander in, but then class went 15 minutes over straight into the next period, so i really would have only missed 2/3 of it.

i took good notes in quantum and was diligent and after that i offered to get lunch with keegan if he wanted. he didn’t, but i took that time period to fill in the rest of my missing quantum notes from last week. and i started grading. eventually i gave up on waiting and had my own lunch. my dishwasher is broken and i was too depressed to cook last night anyway so i didn’t have my pasta salad ready. instead i just made a pbj. keegan said he wants one sometime though because he doesn’t pack his own lunches for some reason. he said he has problems. 

i offered because i cannot for the life of me finish a loaf of bread by myself before it goes bad.

oh! after my office hour i went up to pam’s office and got my class officially dropped finally. she had approved my request last week but it hadn’t gone through, so now it is off my schedule. i hid behind suzanne’s desk anyway so the professor wouldn’t see me on his way into the classroom next door. i was in suzanne’s office because i felt like broing it up with harrison and keegan and jake before they went to class, since most of them were done with the extra assignment that was due today.

once they left i felt lethargic... i took 30 minutes to watch a longform video essay on, like, film design and stuff... then i went to my psychiatrist appointment. i told her all the stuff that was goin on with my eyes and my stomach and she upped my medication dosage. she said side effects include headaches and stomachaches so that’s something to look forward to, if my body doesn’t like changing the dosage, i mean. but i’m free to take, like, aspirin for it. little things.

we also got my paperwork squared away so they will fax it directly to the office that needs it sometime this week and then i will get an email notification. my doctor also got me in to see her again next week because she said someone had to check in with me since i didn’t have an individual therapist yet.

actually, oddly enough, directly after that one of the therapists i had called early in the afternoon got back to me and said she had an opening tomorrow. so i’m seeing an individual therapist tomorrow i guess! we’ll see if i like her or not. there’s only 4 in the whole city that take my insurance, and one of them doesn’t seem to exist, and another one specializes in, like, kids with autism i guess? and the third one isn’t taking new patients. so i really lucked out with the one therapist available haha.

in the morning rebika was having really bad cramps. i asked if i could get her anything and she said a hug. so i gave her a really awkward, barely-touching hug. she said thanks. then she told me to make a cake already. i told her i only have the muffin mix and those are gonna be for harrison. i told her if she wanted me to make a cake she could get me some cake mix though. she asked what cake mix was.

she seemed like she was feeling really bad though so i didn’t roast her or anything. i just explained what the mix was. she asked about three more times, and then in the evening she asked again on the group chat. exasperation is probably the best word for the feeling i have about that.

when i got back to the office i just... continued grading basically. i finished a single section. that’s all the school related work i got done today. but i did call four therapists and talk to pam and sign and turn in my paperwork and learn how the scanner works... mom called me. i took my psychiatrist’s advice and dismissed the call and then texted her to tell me what she wanted. 

she sent me a picture of dad, who just had his surgery. he looked kinda miserable. his jaw is wired shut. i felt kind of ill looking at it. when she said it went really well i just said “ok” and then went back to my business. 

i still feel kinda crummy having to hear about dad yet again but not, like, exploding over it at least. 

i feel like i did more than that. i must have done more than that. it doesn’t take 10 hours to make a few phone calls and see my doctor and grade a single section of my lab. i went to one class, which is an hour... 

i biked home at 8:25. i made a microwave dinner, and fed snoopy, and then it was 9:15. i made sure to write down that i need to pick up my meds tomorrow, and watched some star vs tfoe since all those new episodes are out, and then my alarm went off, but i still had a thing i wanted to read, and then it was 10:20... 

since i keep scratching up my forehead (half the time on accident), and i don’t want it to get real bad like my cheek did, i slapped a big old bandaid on my forehead. i look like a doofus, but no one can see me except the government through my web cam and i don’t care about that as much as i care about other people. 

maybe with the neosporin and stuff it’ll heal a little bit overnight... enough that it won’t bother me every time i look at it? 9 hours of not being harassed does wonders for wounds!!!

now it’s 10:40. tune in next time for: DID I ACTUALLY GO TO BED ON TIME FOR ONCE IN MY LIFE??? I THINK NOT!!!

oh, i got five minutes, right. a good thing that happened today... i made a lot of phone calls. like, a lot of them. i was gonna do one therapist a day but then i said “screw it” and called all four of them and was able to reach two and got an appointment with one. so i win.

oh and when i got home today my dishwasher was already fixed! that was great. i immediately loaded it up and got a cycle going. it was such a relief to not have to hand wash another batch of dishes, good lard.

tomorrow i’d like to get a hair cut. i don’t know if i can manage that with the appointments (i also gotta finish up with the care area tomorrow) and the amount of homework i would really like to get done tomorrow. i just penciled in “haircut?” for every day of the week so when i finally get around to it i can just erase the extra ones.

i don’t want to stop wearing bows, since it’s kind of my look at this point, but i don’t like the weird curly mullet thing i’ve got going on right now. i just need a good trim. also it would be a crying shame to not have a reason to wear my doge bow any more.

beautiful.

[davisonqad-blog]

He wanted to make people aware

Imagine instead a gimme bicycle, a high value item that provides a more eye catching display for its sponsor and greater usefulness to the recipient. To make that effective as an advertising platform, all you got to do is solve that drawer problem. A UK company called Buzzbike seems to have figured that out and figured out how to cut down on pollution and congestion while they at it..

cheap nfl jerseys It is a problem that the House of Chanel is committed to dealing with cheap jerseys. In the meantime, however, the fashion powerhouse remains at the top of its game. Whether it is a Coco Chanel handbag or a watch or its black dress the company continues to be a leader and an innovator in the industry..  cheap nfl jerseys

Cheap Jerseys free shipping His legacy radiated throughout the community. A man of dignity and compassion, Kent was humble as well. Kent didn't yell or scream, he just coached and taught.His children and grandchildren attended Cleveland Hill and participated in many extracurricular activities and all excelled.  Cheap Jerseys free shipping

cheap jerseys Bell went 3 for 3 with two doubles nfl jerseys, a single, and two RBIs and her top seeded Tigers survived a last at bat rally by No. 3 Central of Corinth and edged the Red Devils 5 4 at Coffin Field. At Coffin Saturday so team members can attend the funeral for the Lakes..  cheap jerseys

Needless to say, none of us were happy with the outcome except the Jersey guys. They actually were Falcons fans from Atlanta, and to my horror they showed up at the game wearing Falcons jerseys. It never occurred to me I was selling my tickets to Falcons fans, Cheap Jerseys china and not only did I have to put up with the guilt of selling to the enemy, but I had to sit next to them and watch them celebrate as Gary Anderson kick sailed wide, the Falcons rallied to tie the score and eventually won in overtime.

The vote was a turnaround from last year, when Goldman's "say on pay" resolution received only 66 percent support. Among Russell 3000 companies, approval for executive pay averaged 91 percent in 2016, according to consulting firm Semler Brossy.That was not the case for some other large banks.Goldman awarded Blankfein $22 million in 2016, www.cheapjerseyschinatrade.com a 4 percent decline from the prior year to reflect lower revenue in the first half of the year.The bank revamped Blankfein's compensation structure by tying all of his equity awards to performance. It also eliminated a long term incentive award.The changes came after some shareholders raised concerns that the pay structure was too complex.Proxy firm Institutional Shareholder Services Inc endorsed Goldman's pay plan for 2016 after urging shareholders to vote against last year's proposal..

Milk ran in Dick's blood, though, and after high school, he went to work for Western Glow Farm in Bow, Wash. Eventually, he returned to Cowlitz County and ran a farm of his own. www.cheapjerseyschina8.com He has since retired, but he and Judy still have a few cows and own shares in other animals..

Cheap Jerseys china A fuel truck called me on the radio, requesting to cross an active runway a routine request an air traffic controller gets several times a day. Obviously, my next step was to ask local control if there were any planes coming. At the moment, they were too busy, so I told the fuel truck to hold tight for a moment.  Cheap Jerseys china

wholesale nfl jerseys from china A. Rope type and thickness: The choice is between a 'Single' rope and a 'Half' rope. Strictly speaking half ropes should not be used by themselves they are designed to be used as pairs, however many scramblers use half ropes of diameter 8.5mm 9.00 because of their lower weight, bulk and price.  wholesale nfl jerseys from china

wholesale jerseys from china "I think he came forward for himself, because he didn't want to live in a closet www.cheapjerseysfromchinasale.com. He wanted to make people aware. I didn't personally see [people shun him], but I know when he was out, he felt people were looking at him. I thought to myself. Okay, I have to experience this. I read some yelp reviews and a few things about the trek I was about to take:.  wholesale jerseys from china

Cheap Jerseys china Buttons, such air jordan flight retro 11 might air no different. Clear file transfers via humax upc a virtual image apple den. Xr57, which enables accept the pub to $180. While the women don say they received any messages directly from Favre, they accuse him of referring to Scavo in a message proposing a meeting with her and a third, unidentified massage therapist. Lonely tonight, he allegedly added in a subsequent message to the third massage therapist. Guess I have bad intentions.  Cheap Jerseys china

Cheap Jerseys from china English custom suit tailors give proper attention to your ideas on collars, cuffs and pocket to make your suit unique. It is very important to choose the right shirt with your suit, especially color. A good shirt will enhance the look of your suit and allows you to steal the attention of people.  Cheap Jerseys from china

Cheap Jerseys from china > Harris (who separated his shoulder at the Emerald Bowl) told us he still experiencing some slight pain in his throwing arm and has continued to participate in rehab twice a day. Tuesday, he was wearing a long sock taped to his arm. But that was more for style than protection.  Cheap Jerseys from china

nfl jerseys "It starts with our work ethic and our commitment to playing (the right way)," said assistant coach/assistant GM Dave Struch. "We haven't been doing it. It's something that happens with a young team but we have to develop more consistency. Almost 130 Mafia members of New York infamous Five Families Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese, and Luchese crime organizations rounded up along with members of the New Jersey based DeCavalcante family and New England Mafia to face charges including murder, drug trafficking, arson, loan sharking, illegal gambling, witness tampering, labor racketeering, and extortion. In one case involving the International Longshoremen Association (ILA) at the Ports of New York and New Jersey, the alleged extortion has been going on for years. (The FBI story, Mafia Takedown, dated January 20, 2011) Below: FBI agent begins a house search nfl jerseys.

[growlegalweed-blog]

Legal Weed Resources

Check out... https://legalweed.gq/420/chris-nani-exclusive-interview-sano-ti-amo-hopes-to-become-one-of-the-first-fda-approved-topicals-in-the-u-s/

Chris Nani Exclusive Interview: Sano Ti Amo Hopes to Become One of the First FDA Approved Topicals in the U.S.

If you wish to re-publish this story please do so with following accreditation

AUTHOR: Chris Nani

PUBLISHER:  CANNABIS LAW REPORT

  Sano Ti Amo is a topical product based company in Ohio. Their new signature cream is currently being manufactured in an FDA approved facility and is undergoing the final steps for FDA registration. The cream, R &R Pain Relief cream was created by Co-Owner Paul Amoroso, a licensed Massotherapist, who has treated patients for over twenty years. Paul met Co-Owner Karen DeLuca while he was refining the cream. Karen has over fifteen years of sales experience, helping start-up companies, and product development.

  What is Sano Ti Amo and how did you come up with the idea?

Paul: The name Sano Ti Amo means healing with love because everyone that tried our cream kept saying they loved it. I’ve been developing the cream for years and really wanted to make it perfect. Our goal was to help as many patients as possible. Sano means healing and Ti Amo means love or I love you.

Karen: In addition, since the FDA won’t allow us to use the word ‘healing’ we decided to use our Italian roots instead. We’re both Italian and wanted to reflect that in our company name. Also, we picked the deaf sign of I love you as our logo to go along with our name.

Can you give me a quick background on yourself?

Paul: Ever since I was young, I liked learning about alternative medicine including Eastern medicine, Native medicine, and Ayurvedic medicine. I became a Massotherapist in 1997 and now use seventeen different styles of therapy to help patients. I also learned Chinese herbal techniques and have focused on learning from as many cultures as possible. I own a 44-acre horse farm and part of my inspiration for developing our products has been from treating horses to help them recover faster. One of my goals is to help veterans with PTSD through therapy with horses. I use alternative healing methods as well as traditional therapy with licensed therapists to help veterans recover.

Karen: I started in sales and marketing with Fortune 500 companies like Kellogg’s, M&M Mars, and Pfizer. Eventually, I decided to use my business knowledge in a more direct way. I wanted to become an entrepreneur and have since helped start and run three companies. I’ve started a skincare company, a gluten free bakery, and now my main focus is on Sano Ti Amo. I also am the author of “Living Your Life in Gratitude” but, aside from my professional life, I love baking. I wanted to make an appealing gluten-free food you wouldn’t find in a grocery store, so someone with a gluten-free or specialty diet still could have the opportunity to have great tasting food and that’s how I came up with Ovenly Delights.

  What are some of the products you sell?

Paul: Right now, we’re working on a gout and an arthritis cream, but our main product is our Relief & Repair cream. We use a full spectrum hemp oil that has all the cannabinoids in it. Now that federal legalization is occurring, we’re looking at ways to implement cannabinoids into our products. Plus, because our cream is a topical, when it’s absorbed through your skin, you won’t feel any high. In other words, you’ll still have mental clarity along with all of the health benefits of the cream.

  What makes Sano Ti Amo unique? (talk about FDA cream product/what’s in it)

Karen: Our main product R&R cream has four special ingredients that have never been used before in a topical. What makes our product different is it flushes out the toxins in your body allowing for faster healing. Instead of numbing the skin like other creams, it helps repair the tissues at a deeper level.

  Why did you make the cream?

Paul: I wanted a cream for people that could penetrate the skin and go down into the muscle and nervous tissues with the intent of healing and repairing the tissues and not just masking the pain like most pharmacological ones. Pharmaceuticals are designed to mask pain signals temporarily so you end up in an endless cycle of constantly applying topicals and taking orals for the pain.

  That’s why I worked with Dr. Ronald Anders, a veterinarian who is a triennially trained Doctor of Veterinary Medicine and he also studied Chinese herbals. Since many of the herbals we use are purified down to their essential oil or concentrated form, they provide our patients the most potent form of the herbals. Dr. Anders’ style of veterinary medicine is to heal the patient as quickly as possible and not just mask the symptoms. He is world renowned with his practice and works on multi-million dollar breeding animals and show horses. 

  We worked together to combine our knowledge and expertise to create a cream that would not only calm and soothe the muscles and the nervous tissues that report the pain but find the right combination of ingredients that would speed the healing process by increasing the lymph flow first to remove the sludge in the tissues. The cream also increases blood flow so the damaged tissues can repair the micro tears letting the area heal from the inside out.

I also really like helping people. I have worked with over 4,000 fibromyalgia patients over the years and noticed their skin and muscle tissue was different when treating them. I was inspired to help patients with fibromyalgia and started to research the formula for our cream because massages can be expensive when they’re needed every other day. But, with the cream, it can be used as a long term solution for more people as a daily application or as needed. It only takes around fifteen minutes to start feeling the effects and there’s enough in each container for multiple applications.

  Are there any side effects from using the cream?

Paul: There have been no known side effects of the cream. However, the cream shouldn’t be used by women breastfeeding or pregnant. We have had our product triple checked by a medical doctor (MD) and medical assistant (MA) with a chemistry background who compared our ingredients against pharmaceutical drugs and interactions between ingredients to ensure our cream would be safe and the ingredients within wouldn’t cause any reactions with our patients. We also took our cream to an FDA registered facility in Streetsboro, Ohio and had their scientists test our product. We wanted to have as many eyes as possible review our product before publicly introducing it.

  What kind of feedback have you gotten from clients using the cream?

Paul: A lot of times what we hear is that our product is subtle. It has a delicate scent and it doesn’t have a freezing feel like Bio Freeze or Icy-Hot. Customers also can’t believe how fast acting our cream is for a multitude of things. People recovering from surgeries have said it helps with their pain management and recovery. We also get a lot of people with fibromyalgia who say they have more energy after using the cream. Normally, fibromyalgia requires patients to frequently rest and it causes chronic pain. The cream helps alleviate both and gives patients their lives back.

Karen: I have a friend with CMT (a foot deformity) and he has an extremely tough time walking. He needs braces to help walk and it’s extremely painful. I’ll never forget when he said “You gave me my life back”. The first time he used the cream, his entire team noticed he was walking normally and his pain was reduced. It was a very humbling experience I’ll never forget. Walking is something we take for granted, and, with the chronic pain from CMT, it was amazing to hear the results from him.

  The cream is being registered with the FDA now, what advantage does that give Sano Ti Amo?

Karen: It gives the cream credibility. The FDA has strict purity and quality requirements. The FDA registration also allows us to tell people what the cream does. Although we’re restricted with the amount of information we can share right now, having registration with the FDA means we can sell our hemp product virtually in all fifty states without any legal issues. Retailers also don’t have to worry about our product being seized because it is registered, every other product on the shelves could be recalled or seized if it isn’t FDA approved.

Getting FDA registration is definitely an arduous process but it is the only way for us to make medical claims. So far, our product has undergone stability testing to show it has a shelf life of two years but will likely have a four-year shelf life after testing is completed. The stability testing guarantees our product is safe.

Paul: Epidiolex is FDA approved as well and is in every state. What you’ll see moving forward is more and more products being FDA approved because of the credibility it gives their product. For example, labeling products with 100mgs of CBD when it isn’t true – mislabeling ­­– can cause your product to get pulled and fined and customers want consistency in their products. Also anyone with a medical license such as a doctor or nurse can legally use and recommend our product because it will be FDA approved and they won’t have to worry about losing their license.

   What was the process like for registering your product with the FDA?

Paul: We first had to become familiar with the FDA registration process, so hiring consultants and experts who know the ins and outs of the process was very helpful. It’s a very complicated process that requires tremendous amounts of time and expertise. Because the FDA isn’t a legal entity, they can only make recommendations but it’s very important to follow their directions to gain approval. It’s very time consuming with tons of hurdles; however, we’re expecting to gain approval within the upcoming weeks.

Karen: We worked extensively with an FDA facility and originally we were told it would take over ten years and around ten million dollars. By working with the facility, we were able to cut the process down to three years and save millions of dollars through our partnership. We were able to convince the facility to work with us by letting their employees test our product and vouching that it was the best product they had ever seen. The chemist at the facility actually took some of our product home for his mother’s swollen foot and within a few hours she could walk again and was able to play with her grandchildren.

  Are there any ways to support Sano Ti Amo?

Paul: Absolutely through Indiegogo, we’re looking for funding to help a major production run and launch our product on a larger scale to help as many people as we can that are ready to feel better.

Karen: The Indiegogo campaign is meant to help raise money for our first major production run and it wouldn’t just help Sano Ti Amo but it would help millions of people who suffer from chronic pain. The funds would help us get off the ground and start helping others. Our product is a need based one for patients with conditions like fibromyalgia, shingles, neuropathy, neck & back pain, and even acute injuries to name a few.

[brandyfields66-blog]

This 9-Week Squat Challenge Gave Me a Butt I'm Finally Proud Of

I'm not your average exerciser. I grew up playing varsity sports (soccer, swimming, more soccer). I played on a nationally ranked rugby team in college. And I now CrossFit six days week. I have shapely arms and a strong core–yet, I hate my tush. (And I hated it even when my parents still called it my "patootie”.)

It's the butt my relatives used as an excuse to kick me off their laps. “It's too bony!” they'd say. The butt whose absence became even more apparent when I started strength training, the butt that's the reason I wear long cardigans whenever I shimmy into a pair of jeans.

The truth is, the appearance of my butt is partially out of my control. “Genetics is a major component of where we store our fat and how we develop muscle, so genetics is a huge determinator of the size and shape of your butt,” physical therapist and certified strength and conditioning specialist Grayson Wickham, founder of Movement Vault, told me when he overheard me complaining of my flat rear.

Still, I thought there must be something I could do to make my bum a little more JLo and a little less JFlat. Besides, in addition to filling out pants, there are a ton of benefits of having stronger, bigger glutes: increased metabolism, improved posture, faster running, and lifting heavier weights during my CrossFit workouts.

So when I found out my CrossFit box was starting a nine-week squat challenge with CrossFit coach Ian Berger, founder of Altrufuel and the Endure Podcast, I was in. Could my peach really be just a couple months away? I decided I would squat (and squat hard) to find out.

RELATED: 11 Celeb-Approved Workouts for a Toned, Sculpted Butt

The plan in full is below, courtesy of Berger. The TL;DR version? On Mondays we front squat, and on Wednesdays we back squat, for eight weeks. On the ninth week, we test ourselves. 

9-Week Squat Cycle

Monday

Wednesday

  Front Squat

Back Squat

Week 1

5 rep max (5RM)

5 rep max (5RM)

Week 2

4 sets of 9 reps at 75% of 5RM

4 sets of 9 reps at 75% of 5RM

Week 3

5 sets of 7 reps at 80% of 5RM

5 sets of 7 reps at 80% of 5RM

Week 4

7 sets of 5 reps at 90% of 5RM

7 sets of 5 reps at 90% of 5RM

Week 5

10 sets of 3 reps at 100% of 5RM

10 sets of 3 reps at 100% of 5RM

Week 6

3 sets of 10 reps at 65% of 5RM for speed

3 sets of 10 reps at 65% of 5RM for speed

Week 7

1 set of 5 reps of 90% of 5RM

2 sets of 4 reps at 92.5% of 5RM

3 sets of 3 reps at 95% of 5RM

1 set of 5 reps of 90% of 5RM

2 sets of 4 reps at 92.5% of 5RM

3 sets of 3 reps at 95% of 5RM

Week 8

3 sets of 5 reps at 105% of 5RM

3 sets of 5 reps at 105% of 5RM

Week 9

Test 3 rep max

Test 3 rep max

All the CrossFitters participating in the program with me had, at the very least, a one-week onboarding process to learn how to properly back and front squat with a barbell. And we had Coach Berger there to make sure we were resting enough (but not too much!) between sets. Wickham suggests that beginner squatters first master the air squat and the goblet squat before progressing to the barbell and embarking on this kind of program.

If you're ready for something like this, here's how to do the exercises.

The back squat

Position a barbell on a rack so that it's level with your collarbones, and place your hands shoulder-width apart on the bar. Step under it so that it rests on the tops of your shoulders, then squeeze your elbows down to "pull" the bar towards you. Gently lift the barbell off the rack, and take two steps back. Position your feet shoulder-width apart with your toes facing slightly out. Inhale and drop your hips down and back to lower into your squat. As you exhale, push through your heels to stand up, making sure your knees don't fall inward. That's one rep.

The front squat

Position a barbell on a rack so that it's level with your collarbones, and place your hands shoulder-width apart on the bar. Step toward the barbell so that it's resting along your chest, then gently lift it off the rack, and take two steps back. Stand with your feet hip-width to shoulder-width apart. Brace your core, inhale, then drop your butt back and down as you keep your chest up, sitting back onto your heels without shifting your weight forward onto the balls of your feet. Exhale and drive through your heels. Come back up to standing and give your glutes a squeeze. That's one rep.

RELATED: Can You Lose Weight Just from Your Butt?

My experience

Like I said, I've been lifting and CrossFitting for quite a few years, so I more or less had the movements down before I started this challenge. But it was nice having a pro like Coach Berger there every step of the way to give me form tips if things got sloppy. Here's how following this booty-building program went for me.

Weeks 1-3: Everything hurts and I'm starving

I started the program feeling excited. I wore booty shorts every day we squatted for the first month of the program as if to say, “See ya later, tiny tuchus!” I felt optimistic–I front squatted 185 pounds for five reps and back squatted 200, if you must know–and was surprised that these lifting sessions only took about 20 minutes total each day. But I woke up every Tuesday and Thursday morning–after lifting the previous night–sore. And hangry.

And it wasn't just my glutes that were sore. It was everything! According to certified personal trainer Alex Silver-Fagan, a Nike and MIRROR trainer, yoga instructor, and founder of FlowIntoStrong, that's totally normally. “Barbell squats work your entire lower body as well as your core, plus the upper and lower back.”

As for the increased hunger? Also normal. “In addition to building up strength, heavy squats can rev up your metabolism,” says Silver-Fagan. But properly fueling is actually a key part of booty growth, she says, so she encouraged me to eat as my body needed.

Weeks 4-6: I started taking the elevator–and focusing on recovery

Status update: still sore. I started taking the elevator up the three flights to my apartment, which felt seriously defeating considering when I first moved in I'd promised myself I'd stay away from the elevator unless I broke my legs (knock on wood). I started prioritizing my recovery after these squat sessions so hobbling up and down a few flights of stairs wasn't so “ouch!” producing.

I started using the TheraGun Professional Massager-you know, the jackhammer-esque tool you've seen celebs post about on Instagram-after my workouts, which definitely loosened the tight spots. I also made regular use of my foam roller, worked on my hip mobility, and definitely took a Pretty Woman-inspired bath or two.

Weeks 7-9: I'm definitely getting stronger and my whole body feels more stable

Seven weeks in, I could really tell I was getting strong–which was confirmed during the ninth week of the challenge when I was able to back and front squat 10 pounds more than I could during week one!

In addition to feeling like my bum was rounder, my core had definitely tightened up. "If you're doing a squat properly, you're bracing and engaging your core muscles for every single rep,” Silver-Fagan explains.

Truthfully, I felt sturdier all around. Lower-body exercises like squats promote stability in the knees, which can help prevent ACL tears (which are especially common in women), according to the American Council on Exercise. Sure, it could be all in my mind, but I think my knees do feel more stable!

The bottom line

I'm proud of myself for sticking to the program from beginning to end. I seriously got stronger, and my glutes looked bigger.

Silver-Fagan says these are the results I should have expected: “Sticking to any program that's intentionally designed by an expert is beneficial for increased strength and conditioning, especially a squat program. When you aren't on a specific program and instead vary your workouts every single day, your body can't begin to keep up and make change.”

Whether or not you should do a nine-week squat challenge depends on your personal goals. But for me, my new backside confidence and strength was definitely worth the investment.

To get our top stories delivered to your inbox, sign up for the Healthy Living newsletter

[reynoldslevi10-blog]

This 9-Week Squat Challenge Gave Me a Butt I'm Finally Proud Of

I'm not your average exerciser. I grew up playing varsity sports (soccer, swimming, more soccer). I played on a nationally ranked rugby team in college. And I now CrossFit six days week. I have shapely arms and a strong core–yet, I hate my tush. (And I hated it even when my parents still called it my "patootie”.)

It's the butt my relatives used as an excuse to kick me off their laps. “It's too bony!” they'd say. The butt whose absence became even more apparent when I started strength training, the butt that's the reason I wear long cardigans whenever I shimmy into a pair of jeans.

The truth is, the appearance of my butt is partially out of my control. “Genetics is a major component of where we store our fat and how we develop muscle, so genetics is a huge determinator of the size and shape of your butt,” physical therapist and certified strength and conditioning specialist Grayson Wickham, founder of Movement Vault, told me when he overheard me complaining of my flat rear.

Still, I thought there must be something I could do to make my bum a little more JLo and a little less JFlat. Besides, in addition to filling out pants, there are a ton of benefits of having stronger, bigger glutes: increased metabolism, improved posture, faster running, and lifting heavier weights during my CrossFit workouts.

So when I found out my CrossFit box was starting a nine-week squat challenge with CrossFit coach Ian Berger, founder of Altrufuel and the Endure Podcast, I was in. Could my peach really be just a couple months away? I decided I would squat (and squat hard) to find out.

RELATED: 11 Celeb-Approved Workouts for a Toned, Sculpted Butt

The plan in full is below, courtesy of Berger. The TL;DR version? On Mondays we front squat, and on Wednesdays we back squat, for eight weeks. On the ninth week, we test ourselves. 

9-Week Squat Cycle

Monday

Wednesday

  Front Squat

Back Squat

Week 1

5 rep max (5RM)

5 rep max (5RM)

Week 2

4 sets of 9 reps at 75% of 5RM

4 sets of 9 reps at 75% of 5RM

Week 3

5 sets of 7 reps at 80% of 5RM

5 sets of 7 reps at 80% of 5RM

Week 4

7 sets of 5 reps at 90% of 5RM

7 sets of 5 reps at 90% of 5RM

Week 5

10 sets of 3 reps at 100% of 5RM

10 sets of 3 reps at 100% of 5RM

Week 6

3 sets of 10 reps at 65% of 5RM for speed

3 sets of 10 reps at 65% of 5RM for speed

Week 7

1 set of 5 reps of 90% of 5RM

2 sets of 4 reps at 92.5% of 5RM

3 sets of 3 reps at 95% of 5RM

1 set of 5 reps of 90% of 5RM

2 sets of 4 reps at 92.5% of 5RM

3 sets of 3 reps at 95% of 5RM

Week 8

3 sets of 5 reps at 105% of 5RM

3 sets of 5 reps at 105% of 5RM

Week 9

Test 3 rep max

Test 3 rep max

All the CrossFitters participating in the program with me had, at the very least, a one-week onboarding process to learn how to properly back and front squat with a barbell. And we had Coach Berger there to make sure we were resting enough (but not too much!) between sets. Wickham suggests that beginner squatters first master the air squat and the goblet squat before progressing to the barbell and embarking on this kind of program.

If you're ready for something like this, here's how to do the exercises.

The back squat

Position a barbell on a rack so that it's level with your collarbones, and place your hands shoulder-width apart on the bar. Step under it so that it rests on the tops of your shoulders, then squeeze your elbows down to "pull" the bar towards you. Gently lift the barbell off the rack, and take two steps back. Position your feet shoulder-width apart with your toes facing slightly out. Inhale and drop your hips down and back to lower into your squat. As you exhale, push through your heels to stand up, making sure your knees don't fall inward. That's one rep.

The front squat

Position a barbell on a rack so that it's level with your collarbones, and place your hands shoulder-width apart on the bar. Step toward the barbell so that it's resting along your chest, then gently lift it off the rack, and take two steps back. Stand with your feet hip-width to shoulder-width apart. Brace your core, inhale, then drop your butt back and down as you keep your chest up, sitting back onto your heels without shifting your weight forward onto the balls of your feet. Exhale and drive through your heels. Come back up to standing and give your glutes a squeeze. That's one rep.

RELATED: Can You Lose Weight Just from Your Butt?

My experience

Like I said, I've been lifting and CrossFitting for quite a few years, so I more or less had the movements down before I started this challenge. But it was nice having a pro like Coach Berger there every step of the way to give me form tips if things got sloppy. Here's how following this booty-building program went for me.

Weeks 1-3: Everything hurts and I'm starving

I started the program feeling excited. I wore booty shorts every day we squatted for the first month of the program as if to say, “See ya later, tiny tuchus!” I felt optimistic–I front squatted 185 pounds for five reps and back squatted 200, if you must know–and was surprised that these lifting sessions only took about 20 minutes total each day. But I woke up every Tuesday and Thursday morning–after lifting the previous night–sore. And hangry.

And it wasn't just my glutes that were sore. It was everything! According to certified personal trainer Alex Silver-Fagan, a Nike and MIRROR trainer, yoga instructor, and founder of FlowIntoStrong, that's totally normally. “Barbell squats work your entire lower body as well as your core, plus the upper and lower back.”

As for the increased hunger? Also normal. “In addition to building up strength, heavy squats can rev up your metabolism,” says Silver-Fagan. But properly fueling is actually a key part of booty growth, she says, so she encouraged me to eat as my body needed.

Weeks 4-6: I started taking the elevator–and focusing on recovery

Status update: still sore. I started taking the elevator up the three flights to my apartment, which felt seriously defeating considering when I first moved in I'd promised myself I'd stay away from the elevator unless I broke my legs (knock on wood). I started prioritizing my recovery after these squat sessions so hobbling up and down a few flights of stairs wasn't so “ouch!” producing.

I started using the TheraGun Professional Massager-you know, the jackhammer-esque tool you've seen celebs post about on Instagram-after my workouts, which definitely loosened the tight spots. I also made regular use of my foam roller, worked on my hip mobility, and definitely took a Pretty Woman-inspired bath or two.

Weeks 7-9: I'm definitely getting stronger and my whole body feels more stable

Seven weeks in, I could really tell I was getting strong–which was confirmed during the ninth week of the challenge when I was able to back and front squat 10 pounds more than I could during week one!

In addition to feeling like my bum was rounder, my core had definitely tightened up. "If you're doing a squat properly, you're bracing and engaging your core muscles for every single rep,” Silver-Fagan explains.

Truthfully, I felt sturdier all around. Lower-body exercises like squats promote stability in the knees, which can help prevent ACL tears (which are especially common in women), according to the American Council on Exercise. Sure, it could be all in my mind, but I think my knees do feel more stable!

The bottom line

I'm proud of myself for sticking to the program from beginning to end. I seriously got stronger, and my glutes looked bigger.

Silver-Fagan says these are the results I should have expected: “Sticking to any program that's intentionally designed by an expert is beneficial for increased strength and conditioning, especially a squat program. When you aren't on a specific program and instead vary your workouts every single day, your body can't begin to keep up and make change.”

Whether or not you should do a nine-week squat challenge depends on your personal goals. But for me, my new backside confidence and strength was definitely worth the investment.

To get our top stories delivered to your inbox, sign up for the Healthy Living newsletter

[dawnpughnews]

Treatment For Cellulite on Legs

    I didn’t even know all these things were possible in your body draining the face? oh yeah. I love draining faces.

Let’s do this! This is a perfect day for a Beauty Trippin’. I know, I’m excited. Okay. -I wonder what we’re doing, though?

Word on the street is that it might be something that we have been looking forward to for a long time. Okay,-Not just this isn’t just any normal Beauty Trippin,’ Alright, Viv, what’s the clue?

Okay It’s already on the screen lol don’t read this why are you still reading More cool music “today’s our day.” What kind of clue is that? -It’s not my birthday today. I’m already married, We’re both married, Right, so Let’s see.

What could our day be? Okay, so Oh, so this is the SLS, there’s a spa up there, Oh, I’ve been there before! Ryland and I came and we got our skin probed.

What if they’re lasering our bodies?! What if they’re scullalallalal What if they’re sculpting our bodies? What if we’re shape-shifting? I’m telling you, like sculpting, like cold sculpting. Oh, I’ve seen commercials and infomercials-yes! -for freezing the fat Yes! Is that what you’re talking about? -Maybe that’s what it is. Why did they pick us for this episode if that’s the case. -I don’t know. (Laughs and smirks hehe) Even better music Hi, good morning! -Hi ladies. I’m Erin. Nice to meet you. Welcome to CL spa You ladies know what you’re here for today? We have no idea. Well, you’re going to experience endomology. -Yes! Wait, what is endomology? -Where they like, iron your fat sort of, right? It’s a machine that actually sucks and rolls up the fat when you’re trying to get rid of those fat cells.

Are you girls ready to go? Yeah. Let’s do it. Let’s get you suited up, let’s go! Viv, I don’t know about you but I feel like this show has hit a new high. You didn’t even give yourself a design. Oh, no girl, I just needed all the coverage I can get. Alright, let’s do this. -Okay. Okay, are you excited Vivian? -I am. What areas do you want to focus on today? So, I recently started running. But I’m having some trouble with this so maybe we can help tone this part, and my legs.

-yeah. absolutely, we could do it. So I’m going to start on your stomach. -Okay. Make sure you let me know at any time if you want me to reduce the suction, okay, other than that just breathe relax and enjoy. Why do we need to be in these little funny suits? We don’t want to actually suck and roll your actual skin so this protects the skin and it also gives the machine a better grip. (realization of the truth has set in) This is so exciting.. -I’m so excited, I think I need to you to hold my hand. She has a death grip on me right now. Just so you know. Hehehehe it actually tickles. How does it feel? It feels nice and funny. Wow… so glad I could be here for this… moment… -Okay I’m ready to let go, Erin. -You’re ready I’m so proud of you It feels good, right? It feels funny.

-You know this the abdomen is definitely the more sensitive area. And under the arms is a little sensitive. -The belly button just feels really funny when you go over it. Okay, so I know this thing get’s rid of cellulite, but what is actually happening right now? These rollers are moving (Gasp) The skin is being sucked in, and rolled up, so it’s rolled in and coming out again. (repeated) That’s activating our like pole assist, which is fat? Which is the breakdown of fat cells, -Ahhh! I’m going back and forth to biology in high school and then it converts that fat cells into energy. Great! – So she’s going to have energy after this? Energy for yourselves to um, reproduce, and retoning the skin because it also activates the fibroglass (Erin lies) Those produce cologen and elastin which gives that firming, and toning to the skin as well. Can you do it to your face? -We do have the face function, yes.

Does it get rid of the double chin? (laughs at Erin being shocked) It can. definitely help with fine lines and wrinkles It can help with bags under the eyes, so, dark circles basically for the face it’s really kind of like manuathatic drainage. So it’s draining the face. Can you get rid of cankles with this? Oh yeah. Heavy legs, swollen ankles, um. Can you do it on your lips? and then maybe, plump up the lips? Yes you can. -oh, really. STOPPPP. You can do this to your lips?! Absolutely, there’s a, yeah, there’s a special function for lip plumping. I feel like this is the medical. -Well, I can’t do it with this one, it’s a different part of the machine. Um, random question, but do you guys sell these suits? -Yeah. You do sell them? We sell them, yes, absolutely. Everyone who comes, they have to buy a suit, first.

And then that’s yours to keep. Oh my gosh, how much are they? I think they’re fifty dollars. Like no joke, this was something Kylie Jenner would wear to like the Met Gala, or something. like this is a Kardashian like Kanye West would sign off on this. -You just wing, and not tissue in your boobs like we do oh, does that mean she’s hooked? No, that means I’m getting ready to change to a different technique, Oh, so there’s like real technique involved\ in this.

I was, like I am a certified endomology therapist. This is a different technique now let me know. How is the suction feeling? Still feeling okay? -Yeah Does it still tickle? -It doesn’t tickle me anymore, it just initially tickles. This, this feels cold actually. Wait, what do you call this machine? Well I call this the beauty blend It’s my little name for it. Making women and men beautiful. Oh, men get it done too. Yeah, clients come in. My stomach is growling! do you have to wear one of these things on your face? It’s different cause these two little flaps that go like this, and yeah. -Wow. what a great word. Okay, Erin, so we’re going to do your butt and your legs, and some of these areas that you have little issues with, right? I’m always best when I’m butt up. on this show. (GASPPP) So make sure you let me know how the suction feels. That was surprising! That actually feels kinda fuhhnny I really like… I told you it tickled! I know, it feels great, doesn’t it? It feels so good.

It’s like a massage. a suction massage. -It is you can go a little harder. Want to try it a little more intense? okay… oooooooh yeah. that’s really good. even a half step up. How do you know all the spots? -Well, you know, I’m kind of trained to know that. and also I’m a woman. I know exactly where I would do it on myself. That is so nice all kind of fancy stuff. -NOooo stop. no, I like it. Don’t stop. no, it’s so good. No, don’t stop. It’s so good. I’m not kidding. This is my favorite beauty trippin’ I’ve ever done. It feels great, right? -This is so nice. So some women don’t want to lose their butt, so what we can do instead is like, shape it so this really nice-yes! line here -yeah! we can kind of, sculpt and shape so that it’s lifted and kind of target the stuff underneath here, yeah, so there’s all kinds of things we can do This is what I want for my birthday, and for Christmas, and for Mother’s Day, if I were a mother, but if I was this is what I would want, Don’t send me fanmail, just send me a giftcard to this butt thing.

So, this one always feels really weird. So we always end off with this one which is the roll out So, now the two rollers are both going out. So this is stimulating and activating those fiberglass And it’s FDA approved, you say? Yep. This is the only FDA approved machine. mechanical machine for the reduction of cellulite. Why do I like it in the butt so much? Um… I can’t answer that. for you. That was a real question. I really wanted it answered. Does everyone respond this way? -You know how many people actually like give you a butt massage?-You know most people don’t like butt massages, they’re always like “Do everything except my butt.” I’m like, “Do my butt.” People are self-concious gluteous maximus is one of the biggest muscles in your body and not only that, we have, we have a lot of deep, deep muscles that are down there that don’t get touched. You know? I’m really happy you’re here to touch the deep parts of my butt. Okay, I’m not going to lie there were dreams coming true today, that I didn’t even know that I had.

-I told you they were going to sculpt us I’m a good guesser. You are. -I feel like toned, I feel like I’m ready to just go to the beach, and just like rock my little ironed self out. I loved it. When she was getting into your butt, I was like ERRIINN That’s why. That’s why I love butt stuff.

I mean, it just felt way too good. You guys, that was so, so fun. and I’m very very happy that Viv and I got to do that together. I’m happy with the result And I’m happy we got new outfits to wear to the next MTV movie awards. -I was kidding about that, by the way. Just imagine -I wasn’t are you kidding me? We were like hot Like Kylie Jenner is going to be jealous of us, of our Instagrams. Oh my gosh. Alright guys, thanks for watching, we will see you back here next time! Bye! Click left, get your latest Bachelorette update on True Showmance Or to the right to watch us try out rompers for men on Beauty Break. Text by: musicgirl_thefabulous Hope you enjoyed, I know I did.

:).

As found on Youtube

The post Treatment For Cellulite on Legs appeared first on Dawn Pugh.