#it’s giving his third cousin twice removed

[glossypolaroidkisses]

tested my artistic ability and tried to digitally draw luigi from memory.. no references whatsoever. 0/10 incredibly humbling. that’s not luigi.. that’s not mario either.. that’s toad omfg

[thegreengnome]

Can you write an angst where Daemon’s wife gets very sick after giving birth to their first child.

I hope you don't mind that I changed it from their first child to their third. It just fitted better with the story. I hope you like it!

What was once a moment of joy and pride was now a moment built entirely on fear.

After birthing two children, this birth was relatively easy. While of course still painful it was quick. Quicker then the previous two.

Y/N had birthed a healthy girl, and even at this early age Y/N could tell that she would cause endless restless nights for both her mother and her father but she did not care because at that very moment all Y/N felt was love – pure love.

Her husband held the babe in his arms. His eyes never leaving his new-born daughter, perhaps he would have noted the colour slowly leaving Y/Ns face, but he was busy examining every inch of his precious daughter’s face, her tiny fingers, her tiny toes and the silver lashes above her grey eyes.

Only when the babe had finally fallen asleep from the day’s excitement did Daemon finally look towards his lady wife.

“Y/N” the colour was gone from her cheeks, her vibrant eyes now dull. In only a matter of time a sheen of sweat had covered the young mothers face and neck.

“Y/N” Daemon repeated several times more with another level of urgency to his voice. He shouted to the guards stationed outside startling the young babe from her sleep.

A flurry of people rushed into the room, guards, servants and finally the master pushing his way to the front of the room.

Daemon had never felt more useless then in that moment. He had fort in wars- killed men twice the size of him but he could easily admit that this was the most terrified he had ever been.

For the next few moments, Daemon took nothing in. his wife lay still – too still as the Maester worked around her.

She would not end up like his dear cousin Aemma – he would not allow it!

Y/N was his wife, she belonged to him no one else. Especially the gods.

The babe squired in his arms begging for his attention. The poor thing had no idea that her mother lay in her birthing bed, the Maester hovering over her.

“What is happening to muña?” the voice of Baelon squeaked from the now open door to his parents’ chambers, his young brother Aemon peeking out from behind.

Even with all three of his kids trying to gain his attention he still could not take his eyes of his wife.

He seemed to only snap out of the trance when the wight of the new-born was removed from his arms. His niece Rhaenyra had gently ushered her cousins out of the room but not before throwing her aunt a watery smile.

“My prince” nothing “My prince” Daemon moved his eyes towards the Maester taking note of the way he wrung his hands in nervousness.

“My prince. It seems the princesses has a case of birthing bed sickness”

“What does that mean?” Daemon gritted out

“The princesses will need constant care for the next couple of days, only then will we know if she will live towards the end of this time, I have given her some milk of the poppy to get her fevering down. The next few days are crucial”

“The next few days…” trailing off Daemon could see his wife’s too still body out of the corner of his eye.

“Yes, my prince. If she survives the next few days then we know that the worst is over”

“If” standing up from the chair, daemon steps closer pushing his finger into the Maesters face “There is no if... you will help my wife or you will die screaming”

Xxx

The simple movement of Y/N eyes fluttering open seem to be painful as a tired groan escapes her chapped lips.

“Thank the gods” finally in focus, Y/N took in the man sitting to the right of her. Her husband looked tried, even unhinged.

“Dae-mon “the princess attempts to lift herself up only to be stopped by her husband pushing her down gently.

“Do not move, my heart”

Pushing the hair from her face, Daemon cups Y/Ns cheeks. His thumb rubbing back and forth, soothing both the princess and the prince.

Memories seem to rush back at Y/N, the birth, the beautiful babe in her arms and then nothing “Our child. Where is she?”

“With her very doating brothers’ I would wager. They have hardly left her side”

The soft smile that graces Y/N face melts the prince’s heart. It had been far too long since he had seen it.

“You scared me”

The tears seemed to have a mind of their own as they spilled over Y/Ns face “That was not my intent, my love”

The beautiful baby girl would be their last child together as Daemon feared history repeating itself, and Y/N was right. Their daughter caused much mischief and mayhem throughout her life but she also brought more love and laughter into their family of five.

[tadc-harlequin-au]

Okay HEAR ME OUT--

In theory, if you imagine the gang as family members, it would work something like:

POMNI: gremlin sister/cousin, she's the one who starts all the fights and arguments;

JAX: that little known to whom relative who comes to visit once a year just to teach the kids swear ditties and tell an outrageous story at the communal family table. Your mom thinks he's the one "there's no harm in family."

KINGR: a venerable elderly uncle/grandfather, he may be a third cousin twice removed, but he is adored and respected by everyone, even if he is a little out of sorts at times from old age;

ZOOBLE: a strange relative who appears only once in your life and leaves behind incomprehensible sad memories;

RAGATHA: the universally adored auntie/grandmother/mom. The most understanding and gentle person who supports you in every situation. Probably amasses a beautiful collection of mugs and crocheted doilies;

CAINE: a kind uncle who appears in your life more often than any other relative, but looks sad at times, and because of the damage to your health from tobacco, your mom kicked him out of the house for six months at least;

GANGLE: the oldest of all the cousins/youngest auntie, tall as a bobblehead, emotional as a child. Loves to draw with you and mold plasticine, but don't need to upset her, or..;

BUBBLE: the fucking OUPPY

Hmmm, I'd say it's something more like:

Pomni - The seemingly careless and potty-mouthed relative who gets easily ticked off at the dinner table, but would actually sit down with you, have a genuine talk, and give you a pat on the back when you're feeling down in the dumps

Caine - The one comedic and caring relative who seems goofy ahh, but you when see him smoke outside and sigh so sadly to himself, you realize he's hiding so much baggage that you could never fathom, or will never know because he wants to keep it from everyone

Ragatha - The wine mom of the group, she's good at hiding it but she's actually a couple of threads away from snapping and thus needs some scheduled alone time to unwind (but you are right on the collection of mugs and crocheted dolls)

Jax - The stupid older relative who constantly bullies you and just says "It's just a prank bro" everytime he says something offensive or does a harmful prank because he doesn't know how to lower his masculinity and be vulnerable

Gangle - The talented relative, but was raised by a pretty bad household so now her self-esteem/confidence is at an all-time low and she's very anti-social. You'd have to interact with her first if you want ANY kind of socializing out of her

Z - The one distant but cool-looking relative that seems so apathetic and monotonous all the time, but then once you keep spending time with them and learn their interests, you'll actually find out that they're a bit of a geek about it

Kingr - That one constantly distracted relative who would constantly ramble about his interests, or help you up on the top of the shelf. When you ask questions about his past, he'll answer with quite possibly one of the worst things you've ever heard someone do, but there's a twinge of regret and sadness seeping through his tone.

They're a messy, imperfect and slightly dysfunctional found family, but still loving and caring for one another, just scarred by their pasts and needs healing from it.

... and Bubble is definitely the fucking dog.

[onestormeynight]

So This Is Love

Kip was constantly contacting Lottie. He sent her good morning and good night texts. When he made a particularly complicated drink at work, she was the first one to get a picture. He wanted to know her thoughts on everything from what side of the bed she slept on to if tomatoes go on sandwiches. Was she a cat or a dog person? Did she prefer flower bouquets or live plants?

He was smitten.

Lottie, likewise, was happy to reciprocate the affection. During their third date, Kip decided it was time to introduce her to the gang during their next hangout.

"I'm excited to meet your friends," she said. "Nervous, too."

"They'll love you," Kip assured her. "Lindsey is kinda loud, but she's harmless, I promise. And Vasily is very laid back."

"Vasily is your cousin, right?"

"Like, 3rd cousin twice removed or something like that, technically, but yes, he's my cousin and my best friend. I've been going over to his house since I was a toddler. My mom left me there a lot when I was younger. She didn't really like kids."

"That's so insane to me," Lottie said, sipping her gin and tonic. "I love kids. I want a household full."

"What do you consider a household?"

"Like, four. I'd love four."

Kip's face split into a huge smile, his heart warm. "Me, too."

"Really?"

"Yes. This is stupid but like, I want to be a dad and give some kids the life I didn't have. Live vicariously through them, you know?"

"I don't think that's stupid. I love that. I didn't know how you felt about kids, I'm glad we're on the same page."

((prev)) ((next))

[randomgurl2326]

Andromeda and Perseus: Destined

Chapter 2: It’s the Sorting Hat, Duh

Harry Potter Masterlist

Series Masterlist

Moodboards

This chapter we will finally reintroduce our infamous Perseus, Theodore Nott! So excited, please grab some popcorn and relax as we delve in the magical world of Hogwarts…

Also, to anyone who is deterred from reading this because the mother and the father of the twins are not people of color, please don't feel so. I personally headcanon, since Voldemort is "all-powerful", it means that his children can have a different skin color than his and Bellatrix's. I will always make this an all-inclusive story for any race and religion that happens to come across the story. Of course, wizarding customs are to be added.

So please read whether you are American, Ukrainian, Indian, Korean, or whatever ethnicity. I will NEVER discriminate, and if you EVER feel my writing isn't as inclusive as it could be, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE reach out to me.

I love you ALL💚💜

The Hogwarts Express September 1, 1991

At the sound of his name, the brown-haired boy turned around, spotting his best friend sprinting at him.

“Umph!” 

Right after he turned, Theo was instantly met with his best friend smashing into him with a bone-crushing hug. The Nott boy immediately smiled widely and returned the hug with the same ferocity.

“Y/N/N! I missed you!” at his words, the younger Riddle twin nuzzled her head into the boy’s neck. “I missed you too, Teddy.”

Y/N pulled back from Theo’s neck, “Matty and Draco are getting a compartment right now… Or, at least I think they are. I just kinda,” The girl did a little wooshing gesture with her hands, “y’know.” The girl laughed a little.

Theo returned the small laugh with a grin, “I know, I kinda felt it.”

“Shut up, you love me,” Y/N said, “C’mon, let’s go find Matty and Draco. They're back there somewhere.”

The girl smiled and took the boy's hand, tugging and running through the front of the train. Their mixed giggles filled the train’s corridors as students of all ages flooded in, the two having to zig-zag between them. The two finally stopped as they finally saw the older Riddle twin and the blond-haired diva in a compartment… filled with three other people?

The best friends looked to each other in confusion. The boy decided to pipe up first, “Who are they?”

The girl looked to him, stating in a monotonous voice, “I have no bloody idea.”

The two looked to each other and nodded, the girl reached for the compartment door and pulled it open. They both walked in and sat next to each other where Draco and Mattheo were sitting. 

“There you two are! We were about to send a search party for you,” Y/N and Theo looked to Draco as he yelled as loud as possible.

“Yes, thank you for splitting my eardrum, Draco. Really appreciate it,” as Y/N sassed Draco she looked to the three faces that were there with them.

Upon further inspection, Y/N and Theo realized they did know them. The one with the brown floppy hair with an enigmatic smile was Lorenzo Berkshire–most commonly known as Enzo–he was Draco’s fourth cousin twice removed, or something of the sort. They weren’t really sure. The girl with a short, brown bob was Pansy Parkinson (Y/N knew her from some of the many soul-crushing gala’s she was forced to attend. She hung out with her when her brother, “cousin”, or best friend were nowhere to be found). The third and second boy was Blaise Zabini. Theo also knew him from one of the gala’s he was forced to attend, his father had introduced him to the Contessa Zabini and her son, Blaise. They had bonded over the fact they both had dead parents, dark but a topic of which they had bonded nonetheless. 

Y/N and Pansy smiled to each other in greeting. “Y/N, I don’t think you understand the severity of the situation Mattheo and I were in thinking you and Theo disappeared. Taking so long, almost giving me a heart attack I tell you,” the bleach-blond boy dramatically shouts, waving his hands about.

Enzo scoffs and faces his cousin, “Sure, Draco. Whatever you say… Anyway, “ he turns towards Theo and Y/N, “Hello, you two. Wonderful to see you two again. Haven’t seen you since the last excruciating gala we attended. Pansy was riveting about seeing you again, Y/N. Something about girl talk? If that makes any sense.”

Pansy and Y/N look to each other and giggle, knowing exactly what the floppy-haired boy meant. “Sweet, sweet, Enzo. You have no idea what it is I was talking about. Let’s keep it that way,” as the Parkinson girl said her piece she turned to the two who had most recently joined them, “Y/N, Theo, wonderful to see you two again. Are you two excited to finally attend Hogwarts? You know I’ve been reading Hogwarts: A-”

“A History! Me too! I’ve been trying to explain to these two wankers all summer how it’s actually important to read up on this stuff! You and Theo seem to be the only ones to actually appreciate the expansive history of Hogwarts!”

Mattheo groans, “Great! Now we have three nerds who’ll be bothering us our entire academic career at Hogwarts about useless knowledge! Just bloody brilliant!”

At Mattheo’s words, the smallest boy of the group raises his hand and speaks with a voice just as timid as Theo’s, “Four, actually. You, Draco, and Enzo seem to be the only ones who don’t seem to understand.”

“Oh, please, Zabini. We understand just fine, we just don’t flaunt it about at every second.”

At Enzo’s words, Blaise raises his eyebrow, “Is that so, Berkshire? Tell me, then, what is Hogwarts’ school motto?”

“Um… Rise up? The hell I know,” Enzo turns to Draco and Mattheo, “You two know?”

Draco shrugs, “Don’t look at us, mate. We haven’t got a clue.”

“See? Point. Proven. You three know,” the small Zabini boy questioned the three who actually bothered to actually care. The three stated in perfect unison, looking straight at the three boneheads, “Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus.”

Mattheo stares at his sister, “You three are extremely creepy, I hope you know that.”

The three–still staring at them–say, “We know.”

Blaise smirks, while the trio of boys shudders at the utter creepiness of the the three.

As the group all stared at each other, they burst out laughing, not being able to keep each other seriously. For the next few hours, the seven eleven-year-olds talked nonsense. To say that these seven kids would be close friends by the end of the year would be an understatement. 

Eventually, they all simultaneously decided to take a nap. Y/N, of course, fell asleep against Theo’s shoulder while everyone else was sprawled out throughout the compartment. Theo smiled down at his girl, how peaceful she was while she slept, even if she did start drooling against his sweatshirt. In all honesty, the Nott boy would allow his Andromeda to ruin his favorite sweater a hundred times over if it would get her to smile.

———————————————————————————-

A couple of hours later, the group was up again (though, only waking up due to Draco’s incessant whining about being alone when he woke up). Currently, they were all asking each other about what house they wanted to be in.

“Well, that’s an obvious answer: Slytherin. Duh. A Malfoy ends up in Slytherin.”

Theo snorts, and says in his quiet voice, “Oh yeah? Imagine you’re the first Malfoy to end up in Hufflepuff? I’d pay a hundred galleons to see that.”

Everyone laughs and Mattheo goes next, “Well, us Blacks always end up in Slytherin,” he points to his sister before she can say anything, “I know, cousin Sirius was a Gryffindor, but other than him; all Slytherin’s.”

Oh, did I not mention that the Malfoy’s thought that having the last name Riddle would be too startling to have at Hogwarts? No? Damn, well, the Malfoy’s thought that the twins should go by their mother’s maiden name, Black to “blend in” more. Sure, as if it isn’t noticeable that two members of the Noble House of Black showed up the same year as the infamous Harry Potter. Oh well. 

“Well, maybe Y/N/N will be the second Black to break the tradition. I swear, all those books,” Mattheo’s joke made his twin swat him on the back of the head. “Haha, very funny Mattheo. We’re almost there anyway, we should go get changed. Pansy?” At the younger twins’ statement, they all gathered their Hogwarts robes and left to put them on.

———————————————————————————-

Thirty goes by and everyone is dressed in their plain robes. As the Hogwarts Express slows, a voice rings throughout the train: “We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes’ time. Please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately.”

A chorus of “cool” leaves the group as the words reverberate. Y/N smiles at Theo and takes his hand, “You ready?”

“Always, principessa.”

The group starts filing off the train and they hear a West Country accent fill the cool air, “Firs’ years! Firs’ years over here! Firs’ years!” 

The group follows the voice to the Black Lake full of tiny boats with even tinier lamps. “No more’n four to a boat!” the voice booms out again.

Mattheo turns to his sister, “We’ll meet you at the castle, okay? Stick with Theo while we’re gone, okay? Malfoy, Zabini, Berkshire, ‘n I are gonna go with Rosier. We’ll see when we get there,” the boy turns to Theo, “Keep an eye on her, okay?”

The Nott boy nods to Mattheo, “Yeah, see you later. We’ll go with Parkinson, I’m sure we’ll find someone else.” Mattheo nods to Theo and heads off with the other three boys as Pansy joins the two again. 

“I found one, just over there,” Y/N and Theo agree and walk with Pansy to a boat with a frizzy-haired girl with buck teeth.

Y/N recognizes her as the girl who was asking around if anyone had seen a Toad anywhere, “You’re the girl who was looking for the toad, right? I’m Y/N Black,” Y/N turns to her right, “this is Theodore Nott,” she turns to her left, “and Pansy Parkinson.”

The girl puts out her hand for a handshake, “Yes. Hermione Granger, pleasure.”

Theo and Pansy say hello and the four of them sit down. The loud voice of the half-giant calls out again, “Everyone in? Right then -- FORWARD!”

As the large group of excited first-years, all started to sail across the smooth waters of the Black Lake, everyone was silent; in awe. As they reached closer to the castle, they reached a cliff and the voice boomed again, “Heads down!” Once through the dark cave, they reached a dark dock where they climbed out of the boats onto dark rocks.

Theo helped Pansy, Y/N, and the now-known Hermione out of the boat. Once on solid land, Hermione went her own way as the other three went to find Mattheo, Enzo, Blaise, and Draco. While walking, Y/N asks, “Amazing, isn’t it? All of this under Hogwarts, I mean.”

Pansy answered unenthusiastically, “I guess, I mean it’s just a bunch of rocks. Nothing especially special.” Whereas Theo encouraged Y/N’s statement, nudging her shoulder with his, “I think it’s pretty amazing.” Y/N smiles and looks to him with a glint in her eyes, Theo uncertain of what it is.

“Oy! You three!” 

At the agitatedingly high voice of Draco Malfoy, the three turn to the other four and rush towards them. Thought we lost you, again,” Mattheo voices over the other first years giggly excitement.

Pansy snorts, “You mean, lose them again.”

As the Parkinson girl’s statement is finished, Hagrid calls to the incoming students, “Everyone here? You there, still got yer toad?”

At his ending remarks, Hagrid raised his fist and knocked three times on the big castle door.

———————————————————————————-

The door swung open and a tall, slim, graying witch in emerald robes stood there. A stern-looking gaze scanned the crowd of new students.

“The firs’ years, Professor McGonagall,” the half-giant said.

The professor smiled tightly, “Thank you, Hagrid. I will take them from here.”

She opens the wide door all the way, showing the first years an expansive entrance hall. Enchanted paintings of old were hung. Torches lit up the stone walls that held the paintings, the ceiling was probably the tallest ceiling any of the children had ever seen, a marble staircase ascending to the upper floors.

The Core Four looked to each other in amusement as they joined each other with the rest of the seven. Y/N looked at each and every painting, analyzing, taking mental notes. Then, she spotted a painting of a woman with wonderfully long hair, curls encircling her long face that ran around a vast field of Aster and Baby’s Breath, twirling around with a book in hand, eventually falling into the flowers. At this painting, Y/N feels a connection with it, an unexplainable. She pokes her curly-haired best friend points to it and whispers, “That’s the painting. That’s the painting I feel. I can’t explain it, but I can feel it.”

Theo smiles at her, “I know… Let’s go catch up.”

As they catch up with the other five, McGonagall comes to a stop, “Welcome to Hogwarts,” says the professor. “The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your house will be like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your house, sleep in your house dormitory, and spend free time in your house common room.

“The four houses are called Gryffindor,” Mattheo makes a gagging face causing Y/N to silently giggle at her brother, “...Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin.” Draco and Mattheo fist-bump one another. “Each house has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn your house points, while any rulebreaking will lose house points. At the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded the house cup, a great honor. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever house becomes yours. 

“The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting.”

The last statement clearly directed to a boy with brown hair whose cloak was all twisted and a boy with fiery red hair that had a smudge on his nose.

Once McGonnagal leaves, Y/N turns to Theo, “Exciting, isn’t it? I can’t wait, but I’m nervous at the same time. What do you think?”

“I think, that everything will be just fine, Y/N/N. Pinky promise,” Theo holds out his pinky to the girl. Y/N hooks her pinky with his, “Pinky promise.”

Draco nudges the twins and Theo, “Look. Right there. That’s Harry Potter. I think I’m going to go introduce myself.”

“Draco, don’t go making an arse of yourself, okay? Really don’t need it right now.”

“Now, Mattheo, when do I ever make an arse of myself? I’m off.”

As Draco takes two sauntering steps towards the Boy Who Lived and the boy with fiery red hair, “It’s true then, what they’re saying on the train. Harry Potter has come to Hogwarts.” Y/N facepalms, shakes her head, and thinks, already off to a bad start. Hushed whispers of “Harry Potter” resonate through the hall. “This is Mattheo, Theodore, and Y/N. And I’m Malfoy. Draco Malfoy.” The red-haired boy snickers at the blond’s name, Y/N sends him a glare while Draco continues, “Think my name’s funny, do you? I’ve no need to ask yours. Red hair, and a hand-me-down robe? You must be a Weasley. You’ll soon find that some wizarding families are better than others, Potter.” At this, Y/N decides to quietly intervene, whispering into her “cousin’s” ear, “I think that’s enough, Draco.” However, the Malfoy boy continues, “You don’t want to go making friends with the wrong sort. I can help you there.” As he finishes his mini-monologue, Draco sticks out his hand. This time Y/N whispers more assertively, “I’m serious, Draco.”

Harry looks at the blond’s hand skeptically and sassily says, “I think I can tell the wrong sort for myself, thanks.” 

At Potter’s words, Draco scoffs and walks back to the rest of the group, Mattheo following him as Y/N stays back and tells Theo she’ll be over quickly. “Sorry about him, he doesn’t usually do that. See you around.” Potter and Weasley shoot the girl a quick “see ya” as she walks back with Theo to the group.

“Told ya not to make an arse of yourself, and what did you do,” Mattheo questions Draco in an accusatory manner.

Draco scoffs, “Not my fault, the wanker was being a prat.”

The rest of the group roll their eyes at the boy. “Seriously, Malfoy, that was pathetic. Even I saw it,” at Theodore’s words, Y/N nods and the rest of the seven–save for Draco–nod and send a chorus of agreement.

The group goes silent as the Great Hall door opens and McGonagall steps through, “We’re ready for you. Follow me.”

As the first years step through the threshold, they’re in awe of the size of the room and the ceiling. Y/N turns to Theo, “The ceiling is enchanted to change according to the overall mood of the student body at any given time. Right now it’s cloudy, so everyone’s mostly anxious or thinking hard.”

The looks in curiosity at the girl, “Really?”

“Mhmm.”

A loud voice cuts through the noise of the students, “What’s that?”

The boy whose loud voice ruminated from was pointing towards a frayed, dirty, and patched hat. That hat would certainly be thrown out the second Aunt Cissy saw that thing in the Manor, thought Y/N. Another loud voice snapped her out of her thoughts, this time from the bushy-haired girl, Hermione, Y/N, Theo, and Pansy had met, 

“It’s the Sorting Hat, duh.”

…Previous Chapter -- Next Chapter...

———————————————————————————-

I don't know how I feel about this one, please send me any feedback you can think of! I also think that this is the longest chapter of Andromeda and Perseus: destined, so far!

Thank you to everyone who has been reading this, it means a lot to me. I love you guys so much!💚💜

Taglist:

@elsie-bells @cinderellawithashoe @niktwazny303 @claranunez @hanversace @desiray562 @jetblackpayne @fandom-life-12 @trshngyn @silencionyx @c-dizzle99 @starmansirius @ssc7514 @amwhy

[sustinentiae-spei]

Bri's LOTR Musical Memories Part 2

Featuring a blurry picture of me hey-daying with Legolas aka Tilbert Bracegirdle aka my third cousin twice removed on his father's side.

Part 1: here.

Can we talk about that opening scene in Bag End?

Sam is so pure. He sounds so earnest as he talks about all his gardening plans.

Frodo's enthusiasm. The man literally hops off whatever he was sitting on. "My [hop] feet have got a journey longing!" And the actual longing in his voice as he talks about wanting to see the mountains and beyond. I truly believe that he is Bilbo's nephew.

When Rosie showed up and she and Sam had their whole exchange about what food they were excited for...Sam's little "Oh" was almost, dare I say it, sexual. The tension was very real. Real enough that Frodo stood there just awkwardly looking back and forth from one to the other and it was such an obvious third-wheeling scenario that everyone cracked up.

The hey-daying is, of course, adorable.

The affection between Gandalf and Frodo was so obvious. The way Spencer always ducked a little to hug Gandalf, to emphasize the height distance between them, while essentially body-slamming Gandalf, was so perfect.

Gandalf's explanation was fantastic. He was grim but not grouchy. He knew he was relaying bad information and he knew he had to do it very quickly and I've seen their conversation described as two people who are clearly very used to having a teacher-student sort of relationship, and that is so true. Frodo was so respectful with his listening and his questions, but also Gandalf seemed respectful in his explanation. He clearly respected Frodo enough to tell him some scary stuff.

Sam's evesdropping! He popped his head over the fireplace and was hauled bodily into the rest of the room and it was so cute.

Sam backing desperately into Frodo in fear of being turned into something, and Frodo laughing and clearly not being concerned, yet putting his arm around Sam and giving him a reassuring arm-rub all the same, just nailed one of my favorite things about Frodo and Sam: they are very different people, but they care about each other so much. Sam trusts Frodo to protect him from a wizard, and Frodo is caring enough to reassure Sam even though he doesn't believe for a minute that Sam is in any danger.

When they decide to go Adventuring, both of them seem so excited. It's quite a deliberate difference from the movies and it's fun. We get to see a more lighthearted (and very bouncy) Frodo, and we get to see more of what their friendship looks like when they're not under duress, and that's Important.

Their overly-exaggerated "After you, Mr. Frodo" / "Why, thank you, Sam" was such a sweet way to add a bit of comedy (and show the depth of their friendship) with a line that could otherwise have been played perfectly straight, and it is one example among many of the actors choosing to go above and beyond with the script.

[lychee-nom]

Dallas Winston is the most Italian American new yorker I done ever met. "cawfee" okay, it's giving The Nanny. Fran's probably his third cousin, twice removed or something.

[lazywriter7]

Written for Stony AUgust over at @stonyauniverse , for week one/alternate professions. 

non functional requirements

There’s a man-shaped twig blocking the door to the lecture hall.

“You coming or you going?”

The twig startles – blue eyes darting under wheat yellow hair. Gwen pulls the worn strap of her tote bag more firmly over her shoulder, MacBook weighing it down, grimacing all the while.

“Sorry.” The twig apologises in a surprisingly deep voice, then opens the door for her. Cute gesture if class hadn’t already started and now she’s gotta squeeze past him through the tiny door.

The guy re-evaluates his chivalry after a couple seconds of awkward silence. He ducks through into the hall but lingers, and Gwen sidesteps him to dump her crap on the floor near the closest seat on the second last row.

“Recording’s kicked off, so we might as well. This is lecture four of System Design Engineering.” The lecturer’s voice crackles over the speakers. Looks like he’s just gotten started, so that gives her a couple minutes to get setup. “Today we’ll be going over NFR’s, or non-functional requirements. What they are, how they’re defined. These can apply to any kind of computing systems, system architectures, front end or backend APIs, you name it. Any kind of – sorry, was that a hand?”

“Morning Tony.” Someone greets from close to the front row. Gwen, who’s waiting for her Macbook to complete its primeval, laborious booting up procedure, feels her shoulders sag even further down. God, not this shit again.

“Did your coffee machine explode again?”

“Implode, and no.” The lecturer – Tony – cracks a brief smile. The band t-shirt he’s got on is mostly just wrinkles, his hair flattened straight down the sides like it hasn’t been washed in a couple days. Really gives Gwen such an inspiring picture to look up to for her own prospective career in academia. “And just for that not-so-subtle commentary on my opening salvo today, I’m gonna teach this entire lecture using a metaphor.”

“Was it Justin Hammer?” Someone else calls from the front. “Did he hog the servers to train machine learning models on LinkedIn posts?”

“Fuck no.” Tony says, and winces immediately in the bout of snickers that erupt. “And now you’ve got me swearing on the recording. Gonna put all of you heathens on a bus to the downtown community college, don’t think I won’t do it.”

The students hush in anticipation. Tony blinks, knuckles at his nose under the wireframe glasses, and looks to the ceiling as if in despair. “I mean. I… pre-emptively apologise, and intend no insult to any students, or family of students listening to this, who may have attended community college. Community college is an institution. Just like… jail.”

“You sure your coffee machine didn’t explode?”

“Shut up Miles.” Tony gestures half-heartedly at the screen behind him, where the slide has finally changed.

Gwen’s brought up her note-taking tool by habit on her up-and-running Mac, but she doesn’t have high hopes. It’s not like the guy doesn’t know his stuff, he’s just easily derailed into tangents and rambles and spicy opinions on SpaceX, and Gwen likes to be systematic about learning new things. Start at the beginning, finish at the end, with preferably zero stand-up material along the way. If she’d wanted jokes, she’d put on a late-night show.

And then to add insult to injury, someone creeps up the side and sinks down on the seat right in front of her, blocking her eyeline to the lower third of the screen. The bluish light dances silver over the light-coloured mop of hair… it’s the twiggy dude, from the doorway. Did he just find a seat?

“Think about a relationship.” Tony’s saying, up at the lectern. “Parent and child, cousins twice removed, romantic partners. Whoever. There are the expectations, the responsibilities… the requirements, you could say, which are obviously defined and the bare minimum for the relationship to exist. If you’re a parent, you gotta house and feed your kid. If you don’t do that, you fail at the basic requirements of being a parent. So if you turn up with your deadbeat ass at your kid’s wedding, they’re justified to go all, ‘you’re not my dad’.”

A guy in the third row raises a pen into the air. “Can I explain it like that in the exam?”

“I’m not going to be the only one marking, Ganke, so I’d actively encourage it.” Kinda nice, how he remembered so many names though. Gwen has been in this course for six months and only knows faces. “However, there are certain requirements which may not be essential for the relationship to be defined and functional but are still important. Like if your parent loves you.” A twitch. “Loves the kid, that is.”

In the seat ahead of her, Twig’s shoulders have risen up to his ears, frame gone all stiff. Gwen bites back a sigh and moves over to the next seat, just to eliminate the distraction.

She thinks about Dad in the next breath, awkwardly jabbing at his cereal and darting glances at her over the table, and immediately shoves it down.

“You might be tempted to think of it as how good a system is at fulfilling a base requirement – like how good of a parent they are, depending on if they do or don’t love you. And that’s not incorrect; whether a website is able to serve a high volume of traffic, or have an uptime of ninety nine percent, is absolutely about how good it is at serving its base requirement, which is to present an accessible resource over the internet. But if the thresholds of those non-functional requirements aren’t met, if the website keeps throwing a 404 more frequently than is acceptable, then it impedes said basic requirement. Even though uptime isn’t in the strict definition of the deliverable. You feel me?”

Silence. Someone from the far end meekly chirps a yes.

“Ohhkay.” Tony paces out from behind the lectern, keen eyes scanning the room like he’s actually, really invested. That’s… that’s a nice thing about him too. “Imagine I’m in a relationship, right? My partner and I, we define what a romantic relationship means to us and what we expect of each other going in. Like… monogamy, maybe. Or meeting at least once a week. So as long as I don’t go cruising, or ghost this guy for a month, I’m technically fulfilling my promises as a boyfriend. Those are your functional requirements.”

There’s a tiny murmur in the room at ‘guy’, but it dies out quick. Not exactly a surprise from the man who wears bi flag-coloured sunglasses to Orientation week.

“But to the enlightened, relationships are about more than that.” Tony’s lips curl at one end, like the words amuse him. Or that he’s speaking them? “Dependability. Emotional support. Prioritising the other person’s needs. All that chicken soup for the soul stuff; your non-functional requirements.”

“So I gotta think about it, the third time I reschedule date night. Get lost in a work thing and forget to respond to a text. Several texts. Forget to buy the milk, even though he told me to and put a reminder on my phone. Make life decisions on my own. These things take… a toll.” Tony isn’t making eye contact with the crowd anymore. His eyes skitter up to the ceiling and away again, restless even as his voice continues on methodically. “Maybe my partner can put up with it. Does put up with it. But just because I’m serving the base functionality of a romantic partner, doesn’t mean I can ignore these things. These are also essential to the health of the relationship.”

“But you gotta design for that. I can’t sit there like a dimwit going, ‘oh I’ll just do better next time’ and expect it to magically happen. That I’ll just… be better, with no effort on my part aside from intending to.” Gwen drops her eyes to the plastic tabletop, scratches and pen marks running over the surface. This is weirdly intense. “I have to have the right system in place. Maybe I vow to reply to a text every time I’m downing a cup of coffee. Set up regular delivery orders for milk online. Make it to the date, even if it is an hour too late and not in the place I wanted, just so we’re there together. Plan in advance so that things can get better, instead of crossing fingers and blowing on an eyelash. Do the work.”

She lifts her gaze by an inch, still vaguely discomfited, and catches Twig’s jaw clenching in profile, limned by the light of the screen. He shifts in his seat, raises a fist to wipe brusquely at something under his eye. It’s all very quiet. Tightly controlled.

“And that’s how systems need to function. Sure your primary focus is to get the thing up and running, but you need to think about performance, and security, and reliability when you’re architecting a solution. Two weeks before go live is not the time to realise that you’re pulling from an old-timey relational database when you actually needed caching. That the base components of your system just… don’t work together the way you want.” Tony pauses, blinks a couple times. Like his words have outstripped his thoughts and it’s all starting to come together. Form an obvious conclusion. His mouth turns down, goes wry again. “It gets real expensive to fix things then.”

And so it continues. The hour goes by faster than usual, Gwen startling a little by the time Tony wraps up the lecture, a whole five minutes before time like he always prefers to do.

Or… plans to do, perhaps. Mid-morning lectures, people usually have to empty out of these halls fast to get to the next one, but there’s a disordered cluster of students still lingering around the lectern, shooting the shit and exchanging laughs with Tony. He looks visibly better at the end of the hour, more energetic than he did at the start of the lecture. Like it actually rejuvenated him – which isn’t the worst ideal to look up to as a prospective academic.

Whatever, Gwen isn’t getting ahead of herself. She’s got band to get to.

 Of course, when she stuffs her laptop into the tote bag and does a brief check to make sure everything’s in there, she can’t see her fob. Can’t get into the rehearsal room without it, so she gropes for it fruitlessly for a couple of minutes, before resorting to dumping the bag out on her seat. Chocolate wrappers flutter to the ground, a pen cap without a pen rolling down to join them. Handouts from her other classes, worksheets, one physical notebook, a set of drumsticks… no fob.

Ugh. She ducks under her seat to check, nose twitching as the longer end of her bangs ruffle past. There, small and plasticky-blue against the maroon carpet. Fishing it out through the tiny gap is an ordeal, and by the time she has it secure in her pocket, the hall’s empty.

Or not quite. She’s shovelling her stuff one-handed while pacing up the stairs to the exit, when, “–mean to show up at your place of work.”

“You’re my boyfriend Steven, not a stalker. It’s fine.”

Hang on. What?

Tony and some guy – Twig, she can tell by the bony shoulders – Steven, are standing in front of the door. Tony and his boyfriend. Who was in their class. Who was probably not in their class, just physically present in this… particular class.

Tony seems to be frenetically running through similar thoughts, because his mouth just doesn’t stop moving, hands gesturing through the air like a conductor gone loose. “Well, not fine fine. I guess, considering what I – considering all of the… I didn’t know you were in the audience, obviously. I’ll just do as Taylor does and write a song about it the next time.”

Fuck. Can she just… push past them, really quickly? Or right in the middle of them. She’s been to parties where she doesn’t know anybody before, this can’t be any more awkward than that. Probably.

Steven’s already thin lips press tight together. He’s standing very, very straight, not a thing to criticise in that posture. Captain Stacy would be proud.

“Are we,” He starts, deep voice as startling out of that reed-thin frame as it was the first time, stumbling over the words just a little, “breaking up then?”

“What?” Tony breathes, and it’s like it’s stoppered his flow of thought completely.

Steven’s lips flicker up weakly. “You said Taylor.”

“No, no,” Tony’s hands flutter again – he pulls them back and tucks them close over his chest, just a little protective. “Stupid joke, you know me.” And then, just a little wry. “Of all the times to know a modern music reference.”

It’s like he’s laying out bait, an easy diversion. Steven could say something about preferring The Beatles and they needn’t tug on this line of thought, make things unravel.

Maybe it’s why Gwen hasn’t cleared her throat or done anything to clue them off to her presence yet. Something in her is so discomfited, twisted up with the second-hand awkwardness – she can’t let them go on but it would be worse if they saw her – but there’s also a second voice in her head, the one that’s good at moderating and peeling people open from a distance.

if you stop them talking now, when will they try again?

Steven doesn’t take the bait. Something in him strains like he wants to take a step forward, but he doesn’t move. Instead, he says quietly – “I do know you.”

“I know how much you think about us. How much it matters to you to get things right, and I guess I just…” Steven’s mouth purses, soft and unhappy, “take it for granted, all of that work, because it just happens to be who you are. Who you’ve chosen to be.”

“Steve, don’t – we’re both workaholics–”

“We are.” Steve acquiesces, but the words that follow sound implacable. “But you plan around it. Every single thing you said in the lecture, you… you booked those regular grocery deliveries for us, and I cribbed at you about it because they deliver in those plastic bags and the emissions from the delivery trucks–”

“It was a valid fucking point–”

“It was a stupid point, and you were right to tell me that.” Steve says it without hesitation. “I cancelled on our weekend away, again, and you were right to call me out on that this morning too. You just don’t…” A little softer. “Sometimes you don’t say anything.”

A beat.

Tony unfolds his arms, eyes fixed somewhere off-centre around Steve’s collarbone. His voice has dropped to match Steve’s, simmering with something indecipherable. “I was really… happy when you agreed to be with me. Stunned out of my head, sure. But happy. I wanted to get it right. It would have never occurred to me to… with our history, with my history, it just didn’t compute sometimes that…”

Steve cuts in, mouth twisting with it. “That I’d be the screw-up in the relationship?”

“Careful sweetheart.” Tony lifts his eyes, and they’re still warm. “Name-calling is my department.”

But he seems to be taking Steve’s previous words to heart.

“I know…” He swallows. Drops his hands completely, lifts his chin and talks. “I know how much that place means to you, I know how much you’d have killed to have a queer shelter in the neighbourhood, heck in the city, growing up like you did. I want someone who cares about what they do, I’d have been bored to shit with a person coasting by on a job that meant nothing to them. You wanna do paperwork till one am, I’ll be right there on the couch with you marking papers. That is fine, the donations from your own pocket are – don’t cut me off Steve – are fine, even if it is a little like Mrs. March teaching the kids to give away their Christmas meal to the less fortunate. That’s the guy I chose to be with.”

“You need to save the world. You can’t help yourself.” Tony bit into his lip, smile here and gone in a flash. “And I’m just a guy who teaches a couple university classes, while trying to get a startup off the ground for the last five years. But this morning when you…” He sucks in a breath, exhales it soundlessly. “When you looked like you couldn’t imagine how I’d think we wouldn’t cancel… how you disdained the idea of. Of spending time with me, instead of saving the world. Then it felt pretty shitty.”

For a moment, Steve doesn’t say anything at all. His face is pale, cheeks lost of any colour. His eyes have gone red. “I. I’m sorry.”

Tony clears his throat, voice forcibly bright. “Not gonna say you’d never think like that?”

“… doesn’t matter.” Steve says simply. “It’s how I made you feel.”

“There are those unrealistic moral principles I know and love.” Tony’s smiling, only a little watery around the edges. He moves into Steve’s motionless frame, hands reaching out again, this time to catch him by the elbows and smooth down to hang onto his wrists. “We’ll work on it.”

Steve is staring down at their hands, both like they’re condemned and something miraculous. “In the lecture. When you said that the components of the system didn’t work together the way you’d want…”

He looks up. Tony meets his eyes, gives a little shrug. “A better guy would know how important what you’re doing is. Would maybe resent its importance a little less.”

“Tony, I’m not a better person than you are.” Steve’s voice is thick, almost choking with the entreaty. His hands turn in Tony’s loose clasp, gripping back tightly. “Tony.”

Tony gives a little burble of a laugh. Bends over low, forehead brushing Steve’s shoulder. “We’ll work on me too.”

They lean into each other for a moment. Tony’s face is almost hidden behind Steve’s golden locks. “I don’t really care, if you’re better or worse than me. I’m keeping you.”

Steve pulls back. Leans up a fraction to press their lips together, both their eyes fluttering shut.

They pull apart, smiles pulling up on those mouths like mirroring sunrises. Steve leans in for another peck, then quietly pushes the door to step outside. Tony follows him.

 Gwen sits down on the floor, fifteen metres away, laptop thunking into the carpet. She bends her head down to her belly, and breathes.

Fuck, she’s going to feel the anxiety of this in her back for weeks.

Band practice is a loss. The entire morning might be a loss. She needs a cupcake, and some grunge music. But even as vague ideas for the upcoming day begin to coalesce, she can feel a curious lightness shoot through her body. Like she can take it. The aches and pains, the barista shift in the afternoon. Like the world is alright, actually, and she’s not gonna keel over just yet.

This is why she doesn’t watch rom-coms.

She pulls herself up eventually and finally exits the hall. And there, by himself in the corner, completely failing to look like he’s doing anything but waiting for her – is Tony.

The world is a nightmare. She doesn’t stutter. “Did you know I was in there?”

Tony looks like he’d be rubbing the back of his neck abashedly, if he were that kind of guy. Instead, he visibly decides to brazen it out. “Not until the last thirty seconds before we left.”

Small mercies.

“Were you… did you have something to talk to me about? My office hours are 2-3, but–”

“Jesus fucking Christ.” Gwen interrupts, entirely out of patience. That’s what’s going through his head right now?

Tony shuts his mouth with a click, eyebrows rising.

“There’s nothing.” Gwen forces. And then, just as involuntary as the swear – “You’re a good teacher.”

Tony blinks. Gwen remembers him bantering about with her classmates, not losing a step.

“Thanks, Gwen.” His nose looks a little red. So do the very tops of his cheeks. He looks unaccountably pleased.

Gwen’s lips tilt up.

“You could do better than him, you know.”

“I wouldn’t want to.” Tony beams at her. Turns around, waves two fingers. “See you next week.”

The rehearsal hall is in the same direction that he’s walking in. Gwen unerringly walks the other way. By the time she loops the quad and makes it there, she’ll have thirty minutes left. Half of band practice is better than none.

She taps a rhythm on her outer thigh, blows a strand of her bangs out of the eyes. Tugs the tote bag higher up. Band, then lunch, and then maybe she can call her dad.

[scaryscarecrows]

Link has definitely had worse weeks. The Calamity, ha, that. That was actually a weekend, but that was terrible. Shockingly, watching the world crumble and die before being brutalized by Guardians is, in fact, not fun. Or the week after he tried to ride the Lord of the Mountain. In his defense, he'd been awake for maybe a month at the time. He had no idea what it was other than 'horse-shaped'.

That time he got clobbered by Magda was terrible. He doesn't like to remember that week.

But this is up there! Ohh, it's up there. Zelda's missing--again!--his arm is...uh...well. He can use it, but it feels like it's being gnawed on by a Lynel pretty much constantly. Hyrule...he has no idea what's happening there, but this whole thing is a mess. And. It's selfish. Maybe a little tiny bit unheroic. But.

There's a veritable mob of people following him as he trudges across the field. All of them want something. Most of them don't even want Hero Business; there's somebody that wants a horse (catch one??), somebody else can start a business if he just gives them thirty pieces of amber (in this economy?), and still someone else wants him to bring a message to their third cousin twice removed in Hebra. The scientists are no better: Purah wants to try some new theory, but of course she can't just ask a civilian to leap off of Dueling Peaks, they'll die, so Linky, if you'd just climb up there...

Sweet mother of Hylia, he needs a nap.

The oozing hole in the ground comes into view. And. Look. He was going down there anyway. There's so many bomb flowers down there, and...well...he may have used more than a couple when he was riding on his stolen Yiga transport, firing wildly at the shrieking Bokoblins fleeing over the hill. It was justice. Those little menaces had knocked him off a cliff and into a pile of cactus. But he's out, is the point, so he was going down there anyway.

But this is absolutely in his top five worst weeks, and Furiosa wouldn't even let him have a Noble Pursuit because 'you're just too young!' He really has no idea if she's bullying him or believes it.

He stops at the edge of the hole. Takes a deep breath. And, before Robbie can ask to get another look at his arm, dives in.

If he screams "FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!" on the way down, well, he's earned it by now.

[alix-relativity]

Tracing My Y-DNA Ancestry - Part I

I have to admit, since I am a woman, extracting DNA from my paternal side hasn't been a simple task.

My mother and my father didn't produce a son. So I had to dig into my cousin and distant relatives' DNA to find the closest haplogroup that can provide more information about my ancestry from my biological father's side.

In simple words, I don't have all DNA sequences with their respective mutations to establish full ancestry in some instances.

In the absence of an biological brother from my mother's and father's union, I had to resource into comparing my closest relatives' relationships on my paternal side. Meaning I extracted it from the mutual and closest DNA haplogrupos from my 1st to 3rd cousins to the 5th to 6th cousins.

Anything beyond that, are distant relatives that just provide a partial relationship to my Y-DNA. Important DNA relationships, but less likely to give me a full map of half my DNA. Since the further you go away from your biological Maternal and Paternal DNA sequences who are shared among my siblings, the further away I get to an accurate mapping.

The rule is: First cousins share grandparents, counting back two generations to their shared ancestors. Second cousins count back three generations to their great-grandparents. Third cousins count back four generations to their great-great-grandparents. Anything beyond the 5th cousin is relevant but they're considered very distant relatives; unless you find a living relative or someone who lived in the same timeline or century that shares the exact same haplogroup ... then, they're related by ancestry.

I don't carry the Y Chromosome in my DNA since I was born a female or woman; I only have one X chromosome from my biological mother and one X chromosome from my biological father, which means I got only my father's mother chromosome (or my paternal grandmother). It's complicated but it's how nature designed it. In this case my biological grandfather doesn't count to trace ancestry even if he is biologically related to me, like all of his children.

In the absence of a brother, my male cousins are the ones carrying the paternal X chromosomes (or my paternal grandmother chromosome). In my case, there are more males on my father's side than on my mother's side so basically they are like "half brothers" (twice removed from my paternal Y-DNA) sort of speaking. This article from 23andMe explains the percentage and predictability of your shared DNA based on the family relationship. It's incredible, only identical twins share 100% of their DNA relationship in the sibling chart. Yes, your identical twin is your natural clone. Any other sibling brothers or sisters, only gets 50% of your shared DNA. Thank God I am not a twin.

Even my biological sister and I share only 50% of our parents' DNA. So technically our DNA sequences are not probably similar.

That's why it is so difficult to insert a fake sibling into someone's DNA pool. No matter if you use a similar last name, you can only be related through DNA. For instance in the US, I legally removed my father's last name by choice and adopted a different family last name that is from my maternal ancestry, my mother raised me, she was mom and dad after they divorced when I was 10 years old; however I am still genetically related to my biological father.

And in my opinion that's why DNA should be protected by law at the federal level to prevent people from trying to snatch your DNA since altering physical appearance can be use as a disguised to impersonate you, if the intention is to cause any harm. Also, there are a lot of scary things that can happen if we don't protect our rights to retain our DNA data.

Back to my research and why this is important to me. A year ago, I received a notice via text from a hospital in Tijuana, Mexico trying to claim that my brother was hospitalized in their facility and they were asking $10,000 to cover for medical bills and they sent me a picture of a heave weight Caucasian man intubated and connected to a respirator. They said his name was Christian and goes by Chris and he provided his sister's phone number to cover for his medical bills. They pleaded for me to reach out to the hospital over the phone so they can give me instructions on how to wire the money so they could continue with his medical treatment.

Yep, that story didn't fly with me. The same name has been used in the past to claim I have a brother from my mothers side named Christopher who was stolen from my mother at birth. I know with 100% certainty, that I do not have a maternal brother. None of my siblings have been separated from her. I told my mom the story and she thought that was crazy. Absolutely not possible. Especially because my mother always wanted a boy and she tried 3 times to have a boy and she couldn't.

She gave up after the 3rd child. And I know there is no possibility my mother had a son while she was in some sort of comma or that she gave away any of her children. She married young and had no illegitimate sons or daughters.

Clearly that was a scammer trying to collect ransom and in the other instance, my number was given to someone in Mexico in an attempt to phishing me into sending money. It's not the first time.

Anyway, back to my DNA tracing. My mother's family and my father's family are from two separate branches that in time, distant ancestors were all located in Europe. My mother is Caucasian and clearly closer to her Spanish, Italian, Scandinavian ancestry and I discovered her ancestry have several Royal Houses, a few American history personalities and most recently I also discovered I have Russian-Germanic ancestry too.

While my biological father who is olive skin Caucasian, his ancestry is closer to some of the British Isle: Scotland, Ireland and Wales and Arabian.

From my Y-DNA haplogroups the closest and oldest ones are all connected to British and Scottish clans. I am including only rare connections to be more precise as close as possible to my paternal Y-DNA, which is my maternal grandmother X chromosome. She was born around 1893 in my native country. My grandparents were married for more than 75 years until she passed away. Her mother or my great-grandmother apparently was also from the same maternal ancestry which I have sort of confirmed based on my DNA research.

More research to be done. I am primarily trying to find connections that indicate a shared ancestral line.

I-CTS595, I-F1295, I-M26, I-PF4088, I-PF4189, I-Z125 Haplogroups

Clan Lindsay 1086 CE 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🗡️ is a Lowland Scottish clan, descends from Walter Lindsay of Lincoln who accompanied David of Huntingdon from England to Scotland before 1116. The Lindsays were found in both England and Scotland with Sir Baldric de Lindsay of Hemingby recorded as holding estates in Lindsey in the Domesday Book in 1086. 1 in 141 or 4,903 people have been identified to be this closely related to the Clan Lindsay.

I-Y3548, I-Z17855 Haplogroup

Martin Luther 483 - 1546 CE 🛐🙏 was a notable German theologian and catholic priest, author, and hymn writer. Martin Luther is remembered as the father of Protestantism and one of the most influential and important religious figures of his time.

His contributions as a writer and teacher drove the separation of Western Christianity into Protestants and Catholics.

Wars were waged based on his doctrines. He indirectly caused clashes between Christian theological doctrines that led to many medieval wars.

1 in 101 or only 6,850 people have been identified to be closely related to Martin Luther.

Me and Martin Luther share a common paternal line ancestor who lived around this time.

R-SRY2627 Haplogroup

Clan MacLeod 1215 CE 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 🛡️ is a Highland Scottish clan associated with the Isle of Skye. The clan traces its origins back to the 13th century with two main branches: the MacLeods of Harris and Dunvegan and the MacLeods of Lewis.

1 in 101 or only 6,825 people have been identified to be this closely related to Clan MacLeod.

I-L1498 Haplogroup

Clan Munro 🇮🇪 🍀 1320 - 1369 CE. This Clan traditionally dates from their founder Donald Munro, who is said to have come from Ireland to serve King Malcolm II of Scotland in the 11th century.

1 in 387 only 1,778 people have been identified to be this closely related to Clan Munro.

Me and Clan Munro share a common paternal line ancestor who lived around this time.

Other famous people who are closer to same haplogroup are 5th US President and founding father James Monroe 📜 1758 CE who also was a direct descendant of Clan Munro.

R-CTS278, R-Z52, R-FGC22952 Haplogroup

Robert Burns a.k.a Rabbie Burns 1759 - 1796 CE 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 📖 was born in Alloway, Ayrshire Scotland. He was the eldest son of tenant farmers William Burnes and Agnes Broun. He became the most recognized Scottish poet and lyricist of his century to this point. Regarded as the national poet of Scotland.

1 in 5,500 or only 125 people have been identified to be this closely related to Robert Burns.

Me and Robert Burns share a common paternal line ancestor who lived around this time.

I-Z166 Haplogroup

Stephen F. Austin 1793 - 1836 CE, born in southwestern Virginia, is often called the Father of Texas. He can also be called the Father of Anglo-American Texas and the Texas Rangers as he founded the earliest precursor of the famous law enforcement organization.

Austin also helped to meddled the territory disputes between Texas and Mexico. Eventually after the negotiations failed, he led the Texan rebels to victory over Mexico and assisted in the creation of the independent Republic of Texas.

1 in 335, only 2,060 customers are this closely related to Stephen F. Austin.

Me and Stephen F. Austin share a common paternal line ancestor who lived around this time.

R-CTS4065 Haplogroup

President George H. W. Bush 1924 - 2018 CE 🇺🇲 and his son George Walker Bush (1946) were the father and son who served as United States Presidents, as the 41st and 43rd Presidents, respectively. They both started their careers in the United State Military, Navy and Air Force respectively.

Both father and son are prominent members of the Republican party.

I am not related to them directly of course. However, I can proudly say I was an employee that worked for a U.S Embassy during George W. Bush's 1st presidential term. And I personally admire him for his leadership and service to our country.

1 in 346 or only 1,989 people have been identified to be this closely related to George H. W. Bush.

Me and President George H. W. Bush share a common paternal line ancestor who lived around this time.

Since this research is about my paternal Y-DNA and I have to rely on relatives to extract the correct haplogroups to uncover ancestry, I am going to omit some haplogroups that have minimal shared segments or those from far distant cousins with no direct connection. Since they don't provide accurate ancestry links. Again I don't carry the Y chromosome but I see theirs.

Also I seem to have a small percentage of Arabic ancestry in my Y-DNA however more research needs to be done to find the correct haplogroups and connections to the correct timeline.

Until the next blog.

[sonicasura]

“Fundamentally, I can and have survived destruction on a universal scale. Technically—I can function without having a user. Yet I do not want to survive to that point without a user.”

“…Take it from someone who narrowly avoided being erased and technical universal destruction. No one wants to be that alone.”

———————————

“Ben died of old age? I, er, saw the memory of all your users up till me.”

“Yes. Ben passed of natural causes at one hundred, nine years old and two months.”

“…Could you have—“

“Stalled his physical aging? Yes. He asked me not to and I complied. I was very morose despite having a second user in his son, then a third in his first cousin twice removed in law—the Lenopan.”

“Did you ever accept it? Could you accept it?”

“It’s like a scar. Somedays when you remind me of him are harder, but I get to enjoy the differences and new experiences on others. Part of me wished that I had been a little selfish in giving myself more time. But he didn’t want that. I could never go behind Ben’s back… Are you—able to accept it despite the uncertainty of the state of your home universe?“

“I. I don’t think I ever had hope they survived. I was the only person Azmuth could teleport out and my family was right beside me when... Whatever’s left of my universe, my family is gone. The reality bomb ruined many things.”

A moment of silence passed between the two, still in Ditto form to talk face to face.

“Being… erased is an awful yet normally painless experience. It’s hardly consolation by any definition of that word. Maybe living in denial would have been better? Emotionally. Yet you have always been able to cut to the root of most problems. Empathetic to the point it hurts. Wherever what remnants of them possibly ended up, I imagine they look at all you have accomplished and are proud.“

————————————

“Do you think Azmuth sees me as a replacement for Ben?” The still-currently-a-Splixxson teen asked tentatively, neither of them comfortable going back to their base forms just yet. [User] had always been afraid to voice this worry of theirs after everything that has happened since being saved.

The Omnitrix flexed Ditto’s claws into the sand finding the sensation new without another mind in the backseat. Green bioluminescent tears still trailed down their face though in much less volume than before. “In the very beginning, yes. Azmuth had not directly interacted with another user since my lenopan one Viscous. The whole reason he was even looking out into the wider multiverse was for a user in a similar circumstance to Ben.”

It held up one of its claws to hold off the current user’s questions, worry very evident on their face.

“I said at the beginning. Admittedly, he was partially humoring his own grief to find a non-native user. Him giving you me was a gesture to allow you not to feel so helpless. Azmuth hit two goals with one experiment—he was not in a good place, [User].” It explained further tearing apart the worries that had begun to fester. “My creator had started to withdraw into himself like before Ben came to him to get my first self destruct disabled. Beings fighting over me and perceiving me as a weapon broke his hope.”

“Wait… Was his past self’s willingness to let the universe be erased—“

“A potential suicide attempt? Possibly. I think it was less him wanting to die and more so him not finding living worth it any longer. Then, a human child came crashing into his already long life to sass some sense back into him.”

[User] coughed a laugh at the sudden quip from the Omnitrix at the end of it’s sentence. “Still, that was a pretty awful thing to almost sentence the universe too. Ben and you especially back then.” Their tone was dipped with some frustration on the alien device’s behalf. Though, their expression turned concerned as they thought about the reality. “He must been so disappointed to be driven to that point. Doesn’t excuse him, but no one randomly wakes up willing to let the universe die.”

“That there is why Azmuth continues to allow you to transform using me.“ Pride oozed out of the Omnitrix’s voice as it responded. “You always try to understand situations from both angles. Attempting to find what caused them to occur in the first place or the motivation.“

—ROB’d Anon.

Talking face to face means both sides are being more deliberate with their words. Dart’s being pretty honest here about things they have always expected.

109 years old, damm. Ben really did live a long life. Good thing that both are talking about their problems and doubts.

[kindly-gourd]

Dumb Dead Poets Headcanons:

- Charlie doesn’t know his left from his right, this was only made worse by marching band where directions are from the director’s (opposite) perspective (Charlie is such a band kid, he belongs in marching band)

- Neil is related to Steve Perry (lead singer of Journey) in a complicated second/third cousin twice removed kinda way. His family was never in contact with him, it’s just an odd thing they brag about a lot

- Meeks was a semi-popular Viner, not super big but he had at least one viral video that ended up in every vine compilation on YouTube

-Todd refuses to use big spoons, the only explanation he gives is that “the vibes are off” (Neil only uses big spoons in order to save the “good” ones for Todd. Todd does not know this reasoning and is horrified every time he sees it)

-Knox never zips up his coat, no matter how cold it gets. There’s no reason, he just doesn’t

-Pitts has a secret love of country music, only Meeks knows (they scream/sing along to Carrie Underwood together)

-Cameron’s first word was “taxes”

[uglypastels]

hi hi hi hi!!! i loved the eddie munson story abt the reader cutting his bangs, if i could request the reader getting eddie tickets to a metallica concert as a graduation gift! i love how you write eddie sm!! thank you!! 💟💟

so i changed it a little bit, so the tickets are not a graduation gift, sorry but i had to go with what my brain was giving me haha <3 hope you still like it

warnings: mention of alcohol and drugs. smoking. "peer pressure" from randos but not really. skipping school. teenage crushes and awkwardness

'What do you mean, you can't go?' You looked blankly at your friend, who had just shattered all your plans with one devastating sentence. How could she have kept this from you for so long? You had been planning this for weeks- months– and now she came to you, mere days before the big night, telling you that it was for nothing. 

'I'm sorry!' she sighed, 'but I completely forgot my cousin is getting married and I can't just–' 

'Yes, you can just. Who cares about some third cousin twice removed who you've literally only seen at your other cousins' weddings? This is Metallica we're talking about. Metallica!' You somehow managed to get your hands on two front-row tickets for the concert in Indianapolis. The second school was out this Friday, and you and your friend planned to catch the train to the city and have the best night of your lives in the moshpit. 

Your friend didn't answer. Just looked at you with deep regret. There was nothing either of you could do anymore. She handed you her ticket, which you gripped tightly in your fist, almost in disgust.

'Well, what the hell am I supposed to do now? There is no way I can go on my own.' You leaned against the wall, also thinking about how expensive the tickets had been. Your friend couldn't look you in the eye, also being very well aware at what price the ticket had come, but once her gaze fell on something in the distance, her mood suddenly refreshed. 

'I might know a solution.' 

'Please, do tell,' you rolled your eyes, following the direction of what she was looking at. What this had been was the back of the parking lot, where smoke was coming out of a large old van. 'No. Absolutely no way.' 

'C'mon. This is your chance.' She poked you in the arm, grinning devilishly. 

'I can't. What if he says no? I can't handle that embarrassment.' 

'I'm sorry,' your friend scoffed, highly amused, 'The day that Eddie Munson refuses Metallica tickets is the day that hell freezes over. Go.' She pushed you this time to get your legs to move. With a flip of the middle finger, you made your way across the parking lot, your heart thub-thub-thumping against your ribcage. 

The possible words you could open the conversation with were whirling through your brain as you tried to push all your feelings aside. Your teeny-tiny crush on Eddie was most likely obvious to everyone, which was highly embarrassing considering the two of you barely ever spoke, besides some mild interactions when your friend groups merged together between classes. And yet, you felt a very big amount of childish giddiness while making your way over to him. 

The backdoors of Eddie's van were wide open, revealing the one and only lying down, his legs hanging out of the car, just barely reaching the ground, as he smoked a cigarette lazily. The smoke swooped around in swirls and filled the entire car up in a grey haze. 

'Hey, uhm, E-Eddie,' you cursed yourself for how weak your voice sounded, but Eddie quickly got up and pushed his nearly burned-up cigarette into the carpeting off his van. It went off with a sizzle, and a new round scorch mark showed up beside him, matching the dozens of other little burned circles around it. 

'Hey, hi.' he smiled as you stood in front of him, words escaping you. No matter how long you had taken to practice, all attempts are coherence failed you when you saw him. His eyes were just so big and brown, sparkling in the warm spring sun; his hair, a bit messy, looked so soft as he brushed his hand through it. You just wanted to follow your fingers along with his. Gods. This was embarrassing. 

'I uhh– I was wondering…' you could do it. You already had the ticket in your back pocket. Worst to come, you could just throw it at him and run away. You took a deep breath. 'Are you going to the Metallica concert on Friday?' 

'Jesus, please don't talk to me about it.' He fainted back into the van. 'It's too painful.' 

'Oh, alright,' you bit your lip, now very excited. 'I just thought… maybe you would like to go, but if you don't want me to talk about it–' you started slowly to turn around, pretending to walk away as Eddie shot straight back up and jumped up to where you were standing. He reached for your arm to stop you from escaping him. 

'Are you serious?' He was looking straight into your eyes, trying to decipher whether or not you were taking the piss. You just nodded, then revealed the ticket you had been holding back. 

'It's yours if you want it.' 

With a gentleness you had never seen before in him, he took the ticket and stared at it, full of awe and disbelief. Those big brown eyes then looked at you again, small smile wrinkles at the corners as he grinned wider than ever before, and before you knew it, he had you up from the ground in a bone-crushing hug, spinning you around in his arms. 

'Thank you.' His voice was higher than usual, and you could almost think he would start crying any second now.

'It's a pleasure.' You shrugged; after all, someone had to take the ticket, and you needed to pretend like you weren't freaking out as much as he was just by the fact you were talking to him, and he had just hugged you so tightly you could still feel it on you. 

'No, seriously, this is–' he was lost for words, 'what do you want for them?' 

'It's all yours… just maybe… well, a ride to the concert would be nice.' 

'Don't even question it. I'll pick you up bright and early.' 

'We have class,' you tried to explain, but his bewildered expression had recomposed in his own little mischievous smirk.

'We gotta be there on time if we want to be so close we can smell their fucking sweat stains.' he saw your disgusted face when and laughed, 'I'm sorry, but I'll take Kirk Hammett's sweaty armpit over O'Donnell's class any day.' He had a point there. 

So, when Friday came, you got ready in your concert outfit, packed your schoolbag with road trip snacks and ran out of the house before your parents could ask any questions. Eddie waited in his van at the end of the road, just as excited as you were. Far from it, this wasn't his first time playing hooky, yet he jumped up and down in his seat. For you, all of this was quite new, so your heart was beating a million miles per minute. 

So much was happening suddenly.  You were 1) skipping school, 2) with Eddie Munson, 3) and you were driving to Indianapolis, 4) to see Metallica. Life could not get crazier than this. 

The entire drive there, you spend listening to the cassettes Eddie had stored in his glove compartment while eating the snacks you had prepared and laughing about whatever in life felt to be funny enough. It didn't feel like you were driving down a familiar road. But, with Eddie behind the wheel, at your side, it felt like a real adventure. You chatted about anything and everything, getting to know each other a bit better, and with every single little new thing you found out about Eddie, you felt yourself falling a little more. 

Once at the arena where the concert would be held, you could see plenty of cars and people who had the same idea as you to get ahead of the even bigger crowd which would accumulate over the day. Lines outside each exit and the last-minute ticket booths spread yards around. It was not even noon yet, and the sun shined brightly, forecasting a heat that would make the waiting that much more unbearable. 

By the time the doors opened, everyone was tired. Half a day sitting in line would do that for the morale, no matter how enjoyable the company around you is. And not just Eddie. Everyone near you was extremely nice, all sharing that same enthusiasm to see their favourite band. 

Fortunately, the fatigue from the waiting subsided, and energy levels reverted back to the max as the seats of the arena filled up and the area in front of the stage became surrounded by fans. It was, surprisingly, not as tight as you had imagined. You had already worked yourself up by the idea of having to squeeze yourself against Eddie's chest when no moving space would be available because of all the people around you. But no, for now, it was spacious, and you felt like you had enough air to breathe. Of course, that would soon change once the band would start playing, and everyone would bulldoze their way toward them. 

'Oh, shit. Sorry,' Eddie smiled an apology when someone pushed into him, making him bump into you. 

'It's fine.' You tried to play it cool like you had been most of the day. But it was hard with the way he was looking at you, with those big brown eyes, and now that he was standing so close to you. He had placed his hands on your arms, keeping you next to him, as men larger than both of you tried to pass. They had been holding drinks, clearly on the lookout for some friends nearby. His rings pressed into your skin. 

'You, uh– you sure?' He cleared his throat, letting go of you. A moment shared that fleeted by just as quickly as it had arrived, but left your head spinning. 

And then the show started, and it was all one big blur. You had been to parties, gotten drunk before many a time, smoked some stuff as well, and yet this was the biggest high you had ever had been on. You jumped and screamed along to all the songs, unable to take your eyes off the band members moving along the stage (you could have sworn James made direct eye contact with you at some point!!). It was all becoming one big blur of emotions. And evidently, Eddie was feeling the same way. He sang along just as loudly, maybe even louder than you. He was one of the first people to pull out his zippo to wave the flame along, creating a sea of light that transcended the songs and their emotions. 

At one moment, you looked up at him. He had been too focused on what was happening on the stage, but the smile on his face was one of the most beautiful things you had ever seen—pure joy. 

You didn't want any of it to end, ever, but unfortunate, all good things must. Much sooner than either of you had wanted to, you were being ushered out along with the masses to the exit and the midnight air hit you in the face. Drunk on emotions, Eddie was leaning on your shoulders, basically making you drag him behind you. 

'That might have just been the best night of my life!' He screamed out into the void of the night. People looked up at him, but no one disagreed with that statement. You even heard some people cheer him on. 

Eddie jogged up ahead of you and made you stop in your tracks. He placed his hands on your shoulders again, making sure you were looking deep into his eyes (as if you really needed to be told to do that) when he said his next words: 'Thank you. So much. For everything.' 

'It's really nothing,' you smiled, and yeah, it wasn't that big of a deal. You had a ticket left, and he was pretty much the only other person in the entirety of Hawkins you knew who listened to Metallica. So, in all fairness, he was doing you a favour by coming with you. But you wouldn't say that. You enjoyed his touch way too much to ruin the moment he was creating. 

'No really. I– I could kiss you right now.' 

Ok. 

'What?' His face ticked in confusion, just the smallest of ways.

'What?' you repeated, confused. Surely, you had not said that out loud.

You were both now just staring at each other, awkwardly, unsure of what to do. It was not how you had wanted any of this to go. Oh, it was just horrible, having to look at him after this. How could you have been so stupid, saying your dumb thoughts right out loud? 

'What are you waiting for? Just kiss already!' A big and deep voice came from behind you. You turned around to see a man, one you had seen before, walking with his group of friends at the foot of the stage. 'I'm tired of this waiting. Kiss! Kiss!' He started a chant among his crowd of friends. 

'No thank you!' Eddie shouted back, pulling you close to him and quickly leading you away from the people, ignoring the boos. Once far enough away, near the parking lot and the spot where Eddie had left his van, he leaned in to speak right into your ear. It was silly, since no one around would listen to it anyway, but he clearly felt the need for you to know that this was just between him and you. 

'Sorry, sweetheart, I didn't feel like our first kiss should be because of peer pressure from a bunch of random drunks. Now, however–' He then placed one of his ringed fingers under your chin, leading it upward, for your mouth to meet his in a soft and quick kiss. Though it only lasted a mere moment, it had been enough to send sparks flying through your entire body, making you feel afloat. You hadn't even realised you had closed your eyes until you had to flutter them back open, and you were greeted with his smirk. 'C'mon, we still got a loong drive ahead of us.' 

the end

Leave a review behind!

Did i base this off of what happened + what i had wanted to happen between me and my high school crush? I guess you will never know. xoxo, gossip girl

thank you for reading!! please comment and reblog!!!

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[iagreewithlilithsrightsnwrongs]

Ok, but Lilith’s third cousin twice removed shows up as a new recruit all “we do not speak of Lilith or her failures” and who does she run into on a mission ripping demons to shreds? Lilith. Lilith is just, “hey, Catherine. You’re dropping your left guard a bit, be careful. Tell Camila I said hi.”

LMAOOOOOOOOOOO TELL EM LILITHHHHHHH

shes come so far..... i want s3 lilith openly not giving a fuck abt her family or their opinions. i need it actually. it'll heal me.

[thefairyletters]

MinaSaku Fanfics

Yes, Minato Namikaze and Sakura Haruno.

Sounds ridiculous, I know. But I can't help shipping this. MultiSaku shippers would understand why we like this. Others, not so much and they probably don't want to know. I'll summarise it for those people – Minato is basically a more calm, collected and handsome version of Naruto (some of his frames are just—damn) (but I honestly can't choose between them) and Sakura has special admiration reserved for people who are cool, confident and good looking, like Kakashi and Sasuke. Sakura also admired Naruto when he first met Sakura after the time skip, and she was impressed with his 'maturity'. Until he ruined the picture of course. Minato might not have made much impression on Sakura when he got resurrected, but she certainly reminded him a bit of his wife, Kushina. Isn't that enough of a reason for serial shippers like us?

I bet nobody saw this coming. Except for anon, who requested this ship some time ago. In my defense, I had lost all changes I made in this list not once but twice (and one time I had successfully completed it! Imagine my frustration) which caused me to give up and go into Neji-mode. However, I wanted to get this done with as well, to remove it from drafts without feeling useless. So here we are.

The Nearest Star: Powderblew || M || Canon AU || Ongoing

The quest for strength comes from the spirit or in this case, the soul.

best character development, perfect romance, interesting plot, hokage!Sakura, slow burnnn, casual flirting, lots of fluff, Minato doesn't hold back his affections, heavy drama, result of Jutsu gone wrong, basically Minato is stuck attached to Sakura's soul

.

Woodenblocks: Olol || T || Modern AU || Ongoing

Minato never imagined he would be raising little Naruto on his own. Kushina had found the perfect pediatrician for Naruto. She didn't realize she would be finding the perfect person for Minato as well.

ADORABLE, lotsss of fluff, pediatric!Sakura, baby!Naruto struggling-single-dad!Minato, smooth development, not-so-smooth!Minato, I love this so muchhh

.

Drifting Blossom: Night of the fallen angel || T || Reincarnation AU || Incomplete

Sakura gave into the chance to fix the past. With so many roads to travel down, she just has to make sure she doesn't pick the wrong one. Though, being in the body of Kushina Uzumaki doesn't make her life any easier.

Basically MinaKushi + Sakura, as the reason why this is in this list...this is the first reincarnation story I've come across with Sakura, Sakura in Kushina's body

.

Covet: || M || Naruto AU || Complete

Just MinaSaku and dark daddy kink

daddy kink, not-so-struggling-single-dad!Minato, AnbuCaptain!Minato, Anbu!Sakura, what plot? only porn, I felt bad because Naru loves Saku, but it's well written and Minato is hot

.

in the magic hour: Powderblew || M || Time travel AU || Complete

It's not perfect, but everything is beautiful.

Perfect pace, sexual tension, wonderful results of Jutsu gone wrong, introduced me to the concept of beautiful porn, lotsss of fluff, befriending grumpy uchihas

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Whisper in the Wind: UNCPanda || T || Time travel AU || Discontinued

Thrown back in time, from a future that needs to be stopped, Sakura has no choice but to keep moving forward, and keep fighting. But life isn't easy, even when you know what's supposed to happen, and love is always tricky.

Lots of relavent drama, Sakura cares about her own future too, Sakura gets adopted, new family found, fluffff, no love/flirting at first sight here, slow burn

.

Fate's Allotter: Kist || T || Time travel + Fates AU || Complete

Sakura had been standing next to her cousin, smiling carelessly, but then the world shifted, and blink, she was gone. Flung back into the middle of the Third Shinobi War and armed with only a kunai and a hair-clip, she makes her stand. It's not about what she did in the past, but rather what she didn't do. Action, adventure, and a slow, burning romance.

Most dramatic and confusing story you'll ever read, it took me three tries to finish this book, spinning tale, romance is not the focus, Sakura adopts many babies, Minato is a curious little bird, past vs future, fluffy when it counts, heavy suspense!!

.

Unravel: pinkpetal34 || T || Time travel AU || Incomplete

Years after the war, Sakura was slowly moving on. However once she defeated the allusive snake sannin, she was given a chance to save the future. She was going to change things for the better, no matter what. But, there seemed to be a blonde that took an interest in her, while she wanted nothing to do with him. And the more she resisted, the more he insisted.

Curious!Minato, Tired!Sakura, Minato chases after Sakura, mission: Avoid Minato, he is a puppy, too much fluff, well written, good start, must read!!

.

The Love Hole: Shanghai Honey || T || Time travel AU || Incomplete

After an ill fated accident occures, Sakura is sent into the past where she meets a certain sexy Hokage. No, its not Sandaime, it is no other than our Fourth! Unfortunately, its annoyance at first sight.

Not the most convincing summary but TRUST ME!, Author may/may not have taken it seriously but I don't, it's CRACK and I love it, OOC Minato, Narcissistic!Minato, Arashi is Minato, read it for shits and giggles only, Minato trying to woo Sakura

.

A Path to Salvation: jennipher || T || Time travel AU || Complete

When Minato approaches Sakura and a dying Naruto with a proposition to prevent the War, Sakura readily takes the chance, even if that means not being able to come back. As Madara tags along and steals her only means of returning home, Sakura and Minato set out to stop the chain of events that lead to the Fourth War, before it's too late, growing closer with each passing day.

Premise different than many others, fast paced, lots of drama, sexual tension, hints of NaruSaku, bondage

.

Significant souls: Winged Lady Colette || T || Post war AU || Incomplete

It's during the Fourth Great Shinobi war when Sakura gets a visit from two very unlikely men. Something is coming and they need the Fourth Hokage to stop it. And he has chosen Sakura to help him be reborn. Will she be able to say goodbye to everything and everyone she has ever loved, or will she crumble beneath the shadow of some unseen force?

Gen fic, MinaSaku relationship in this is not what you're expecting, interesting plot, Sakura suffers alone, angst, heavy drama, connection to Boruto era, Sakura-centric (for now), I sincerely hope one day it gets updated

.

Between You and Me: onemoreword || M || Time travel AU || One Shot

He couldn't do this anymore. The secret was going to kill him... or everyone else.

Yandere!Minato, secret relationship, Jelly Minato, possibly stalker!Minato, sexy times, possessive!Minato

.

Maybe a little like Hate: VesperChan || T || Modern AU || One Shot

He was madly obsessed with her, too much in fact. So, she did the only thing she could do when Naruto came to her.

Grey!Sakura, Naruto Uzumaki fan? You've been warned, Character death, darkish settings

.

Passing of the Torch: lilac haze || T || Canon AU || One Shot

They marveled at her strength, her bravery, her resolve but they all failed to see her hurt, pain, and loneliness. She had surpassed her master in more ways than one.

Just Sakura and her failures when it comes to the matters of heart

.

One More Time: Torikki Jinx || T || Post third war AU || One Shot

He watched her laugh, watched her smile, watched her grow. He was always watching, unable to touch or even speak to her for she can't even see him. But he'd be damn if he gives up that easily. Gods truly were cruel, in this life and the last one. "Thanks, for walking me and carrying Naruto home, Minato." "Anything you want, Sakura." He meant that, he would give anything for her.

Tragic ending, angst, Sakura was born in another timeline, Ghost!Minato

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Blinding: moor || M || Modern AU || One Shot

Minato gives Sakura a shelter.

Savior complex, breakup, Naruto being a dick, I didn't like this part as I love NS and can't see Naruto in that light, Minato is a fair father (kinda?), protective!Minato, alternatively: he becomes her daddy

.

On The Shores of Oblivion: love-warmth-life || M || Fantasy AU || Incomplete

Someone killed her, and she wanted to know why. But first, Sakura needs to learn how to survive in this macabre world known as the afterlife. While struggling to come to terms with her new existence, she discovers that not everything is as it seems…

Interesting concept, dark theme, creepy feels, amnesia!Sakura, too bad this gem is more or less abandoned, must read!

.

The Beautiful and Damned: Lindt Luirae || T || Time travel AU || One Shot

"Didn't anyone ever tell you, love hurts?"

Poetic, mostly Minato's pov, love at first sight, short but powerful

.

Ripped Wings on the Floor: BleachedSakura || T || Time travel AU || Incomplete

"Honestly, I think that I'm afraid of being happy." she stared into my eyes. "Because whenever I'm happy, there's always something in my heart that shatters." she smiled that beautiful tragic smile of hers. "I think it's the knowledge that in the end, I'll be the one left broken."

Character death, grieving!Naruto, obsessed!OC, heartbreaking NS, not much MS yet, angst, another gem in the rough but whats the point

.

Odd Colored Hair: WriterHime || T || Same age AU || One Shot

Minato was certain of only one thing - he seemed to have a thing for girls with odd colored hair.

Short and sweet, some MK angst, just Minato having hair(color) fetish

.

The Secrets that you keep : FireThatFox || M || Dimension travel AU || Hiatus

Sakura thought she knew what it was to be a loyal Konoha kunoichi. The Konoha she knew is no more. It has been replaced by something darker, more corrupt and more sinister than anything she could ever have imagined. The light that does shine through the dark...comes from a most unexpected source, one she thought she had killed long ago. The past is present, the lines of her reality are warped.

dark!Minato, he is eeeeevil, possessive!Sasori, he is better of two evils, Sasori vs Minato, Sakura is in deep shit, it's a cool plot, who doesn't like evil Minato?

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Tourniquet: Lilac haze || T || Time travel AU || Incomplete

She was his tourniquet. She stopped the bleeding, she stopped his bleeding. She stopped his pain, his despair, his loneliness. She was the first face he saw. She was the first person he trusted. She was the first person to keep his secret. She was his tourniquet. He did not love her. He only loved the idea of her.

Slow burn, Minato time travels to future, he is depressed, Sakura wants to help, but she's also a sad mess, good plot but still dropped

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Daylilies: Powderblew || T || Time travel AU || Incomplete

Sakura needs both hands to list off her village idiots.

Deaging, baby!Minato, he is a child now and Sakura adopts him, Naruto and Sasuke are not amused, Minato is estatic though, adorable, fluffff

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Of flowers and new jutsus: Olol || M || Time travel AU || One Shot

"Hokage or not. If you leave this hospital, I will hog tie you to the bed.” "...you promise." In which Minato ends up in the hospital due to a plant. Sakura is not happy, especially when he checks out without her approval.

Sexy times, bondage, top!Minato, and Sakura is a very happy woman, Minato doesn't take kindly to being ordered around

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Summoned In Time: thatsnotmyname32 || M || Time travel AU || incomplete

An overly curious Tsunade and Jiraiya summon Sakura from the future, from the end of the fourth shinobi war. Can they figure out how to get her home? Or will she stay and attempt to change the time line?

Love at first sight, romance: I am speed, Mokoton! Sakura, dramaaaa

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Check out thatsnotmyname32. She has written several interesting MS stories, but sadly most fics never got updated past chapter 1-2. If fast pace is your thing, you'll like hers.

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Rosemary: Powderblew || T || Time travel AU || One Shot

Sakura is not sure what to think.

Lotssss of fluff, dirty talk with chicken, Minato is cooking, Minato cheats on Sakura, FLUFF, readddd

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I have conjured you (for my bidding): SafelyCapricious || T || Time travel AU || One Shot

Sakura is born with a shock of white hair, eyes so pale they look translucent, and what looks like a smear of ink down her side.

By the time she’s a week old, her eyes are a light green and all of her hair has fallen out. The ink smear remains.

After a month her eyes have darkened to a bright green that makes her mother coo “where’s my green eyed girl?” at her and she’s got a soft layer of fuzzy pink hair growing in. If the ink smear has changed, no one has noticed.

They are soulmates, angst, Kakashi is a jerk, Sakura is heartbroken, Minato is heartbroken, InoSaku friendship

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Estuary: FireThatFox || M || Dimension travel AU || Complete

The trick to life is to know what you are really looking at, to really see what it is you are looking at and to understand what it means to you and to those around you.

There is a darker side to Minato that he doesn't let people see. He controls it, he hides it but when a certain pink haired kunoichi stumbles across him by accident he finds it harder and harder to maintain his perfect control. Every moment, every look, every accidental touch brings him closer and closer to the edge.

A Nara is a Nara, but not a Namikaze. Madara doesn't know the meaning of failure, but he is a realist.

Dark!Minato, Shikaku is a cutie, Madara is a tragic character here, I don't like MadaSaku much but I LOVE it here, non-con elements, Minato is a stalker AND a sadist, lotsss of drama, no fluff unless it's ShikaSaku, everyone is OCC here, but it's a cool plot

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Unbound Shackles: onemoreword || M || AOB AU || One Shot

For years, Namikaze Minato's priorities had been towards his son and the village. Nothing was more important than that. With the death of his mate, there was nothing else that mattered now. He'd failed as an alpha, as a husband. He had no right to yearn for anything else. And so, as though to punish himself, he'd regularly take the suppressants, regularly repress his ruts.

But sooner or later, nature would always overcome any obstacle. The repressed instincts will run rampant. And nothing would get in the way of his inner desires.

Porn with some plot, dubcon, I call it rape but you can blame it on AOB instincts, I felt embarassed reading this, well written, bit hardcore I guess, AOB dynamics, go read for "good" reading material, dark theme, dark!Minato,

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thy willing soul transpires: mouseymightymarvellous || T || Time travel AU || One Shot

After everything, after it all, after the war and the loss and the devastation. After everything, Sakura still has yet to find the thing she will not survive.

She's the only one left who remembers now. She does not remember enough.

As she kisses Minato to ruin, she wonders if she will survive this.

As she kisses Minato to ruin, she wonders if she is the only person who will end up surviving this.

Minato tries to flirt, Sakura tries to resist, Alternatively: Sakura wants him but couldn't bring herself to have him

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Through The Looking Glass: onemoreword || T || Time travel AU || One Shot

She thought she could trust him. All the people who knew him had always exclaimed he was an intelligent, reliable man. But it was too late by the time she learned the truth.

Dark!Minato, he is not a kind man, set in different dimension, love(?) at first sight, this is not love but ok, clever manipulation, powerless!Sakura, dubious consent, must read!

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DDK: Vesperchan || T || Canon AU || One Shot

The Edo Tensei brought him back and he's young enough to try making a new life for himself. Strong and powerful with the right people, Minato Namikaze requests her hand in marriage, and Sakura isn't quite sure how she could refuse

I genuinely felt bad for Minato...until that extra bit, Sakura is confused, Sasuke tries to help but he has never helped anyone before so he doesn't know how, proposals, Resurrected!Minato, guilt trip, confessions, has flufff, more angst

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Crush: moor || T || Canon AU || Complete

Minato has a crush.

Minato has high expectations, he is good with babies, implied KS, crushes, resurrected!Minato, Naruto attempts to set her up with his dad (crazy right), fluff with humor

[whisker-biscuit]

The Birds, The Bees, and The Bottles

Fandom: Psychonauts

Rating: T for mild language and discussions of underage drinking

Summary: Two teens are caught trying to sneak into a bar. Bob finally has a conversation he’s held off for far too long.

Because herbaphony is not the only thing that runs in the Zanotto family.

-------------------------------------

Bob’s phone rang at two in the morning. Judging by the jolly ringtone of Helmut singing Strawberry Fields Forever, it was his personal phone instead of his work one, and that was the real tip off to things being very, very wrong.

He woke up and groggily pulled out of his still-slumbering-husband’s arms to answer the little thing going off on his nightstand.

“H’lo?”

“Bob!” Truman’s voice came out far too loud for the time of night, and far too stressed. “Bob, I’m so sorry to wake you, but something happened with Lili. I need you to pick her up for me, please.”

The older man sat up, much more awake as worry and fear immediately rolled in his gut. Helmut finally began to stir beside him, sensing his partner’s agitation.

“Truman, what’s going on? Pick Lili up from where?”

“The city’s police precinct on Abbey Avenue. She – she called me, but I’m out of state and I wouldn’t get there for hours at least even if I left this instant. She’s not in danger!” He added hastily, hearing the concern before Bob could even voice it mentally. “She didn’t get hurt! She’s just…”

The way he tapered off, the way he hesitated, said more than words could.

“She just got herself into some trouble, and she needs someone to go get her.”

Helmut was sitting up now, and Bob felt the question cross their mental link.

 What happened?

 Truman needs me to pick Lili up from the police station.

“I’m up, I’m on my way right now,” He responded to his nephew verbally, heaving himself out of bed. His husband followed suit despite still looking extremely puzzled, bless him.

“Thank you so much, Bob. I’ll make it up to you as soon as I can, I promise.”

“Don’t worry about it.” The older man waved a dismissive hand even though Truman wasn’t there to see it. “Family is s’pposed to do that for each other anyway.”

“Did I hear that right? Our peppy petunia had a run-in with the law?” Helmut asked as soon as his partner hung up. He paused, and in a lower tone – “she didn’t kill anyone, did she?”

“I don’t think it’s that serious,” Bob said, pulling a coat on over his sleep shirt. “But something tells me we still have a few things to worry about. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Ohohoh, no, don’t even think about hoofin’ it without me. We both know I’m the better driver.”

“Neither of us are very good drivers, Helmut.”

“Exactly! That little bit makes all the difference!”

The herbophanist sighed, charmed despite himself and the situation. “Alright, alright. Let’s not keep her waiting.”

The police precinct was nearly dead at this time of night. While it would’ve felt eerie to anyone else, Bob was grateful for the lack of people, and not just because he was still an introvert of the highest degree.

Two teenagers awaited them in the lobby, sitting on a bench together. One was hunched over and burning a hole in the ground with his downcast eyes. The other sat straight up, defiant, holding a glaring contest with the officer standing over them. When Bob entered the room first and met his great-niece’s eyes, her self-assuredness wavered for a brief moment. She hid the slip-up behind a wall of indifference.

“Lili,” he said softly. Then, just as softly but with a gruff tinge of surprise; “Razputin.”

There was no accusation in his voice, but the former scowled harder and the latter looked like he wanted to employ his invisibility. Bob studied them both a moment before his husband appeared and broke the tension with his mere presence.

“We’re here to bust you out, kiddos!” He announced with spread arms, cheerfully ignoring the looks he received from every person in the room.

“Are you Truman Zanotto?” Asked the officer who finally broke his gaze away from Lili to give them a disapproving once-over.

“No, I’m uh, I’m Bob Zanotto, and this is Helmut,” came the awkward reply. “Truman called me to pick Lili up. She’s my great-niece.”

A few seconds of silence passed as the officer made no move to do anything with that information. Bob cleared his throat.

“We’re, uh, listed in her emergency contacts for school?”

“I see. If you can just fill out some paperwork first, we can release her into your custody.”

The herbophanist watched the way Raz seemed to sink further in his seat at the mention of family contacts. The Aquatos were also out of state right now too, if he remembered correctly. Perfect timing for two minors getting up to mischief.

Well, up until they were actually caught.

“And…Razputin, too?” He asked, catching the teen’s startled gaze and giving him the mental equivalent of a thumbs-up.

The officer raised a brow. “Is he related to you, too?”

“Well, uh –”

“Yep!” Helmut interrupted, strolling right up to Raz and giving him a merry clap on the back. The teen had a physique comparable to most adult Olympic athletes, but even he nearly toppled forward from the force of such a big man. “He’s my third cousin, twice removed. Big family. Very close. Holidays are an experience, lemme tell ya!”

“Fine,” the officer pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fine, okay, I’ll make sure he gets cleared for release too. I’ll be right back.”

He stalked off, muttering something about it ‘being too damn early for this’, and the older couple turned to face Raz and Lili. Helmut steepled his fingers together to rest against his mustache.

“So! Now that Officer Spoil-Sport is gone, are we allowed to know what heinous crime has been committed in the night by my favorite pair of mischief-makers?”

The two glanced at each other. Raz was the one to break their silence.

“We, uh…got caught sneaking into a bar.”

Cold heat rushed through Bob’s core. Helmut blinked once, twice, then let out a boisterous chuckle.

“That’s it? Jesus! From the way you two were acting I thought you’d robbed the First National Bank.”

“…Helmut.” His husband murmured. The psi-king lost his mirth as he caught Bob’s eye.

“Ah…w-well, y’know, while I’m certainly glad we won’t hear about a righteous homicide in the news tomorrow, forgery ain’t exactly a humble hobby either.”

“It was just two IDs,” Lili muttered under her breath. “Not a big deal.”

The ice in her great-uncle’s heart turned frigid, but before he or Helmut could say anything to that, the officer was back. He shoved a handful of forms under Bob’s nose and the herbophanist fumbled to grab them before they all tumbled to the floor.

“Uh, uh, thank you.”

“Alright, we’re putting the pause on this conversation to make you free citizens again, but don’t think that means we’re done with it.” The Psi-King gave the teens the sternest look he could manage. “As soon as we get in the car, you two will have a lot of explaining to do.”

“O-Okay.”

“Uh-huh.”

------------------------------------

No one spoke a word as they got in the car and started the drive back.

Raz seemed content to continue his efforts to blend in with the background of his seat, still not meeting anyone’s eyes, and Lili stared out the window with her chin in her hand, leaning against the car’s backdoor and letting the lights of the city bathe her in neon sickness.

Helmut, bless his soul, dutifully kept the radio going while he drove, changing the station to something more mellow whenever a song started getting a little too upbeat for the collective mood of the vehicle. Bob sat in the passenger side with his arms folded awkwardly. His brain was buzzing, dreading the inevitable conversation he needed to have with his great-niece and trying to figure out how he was going to go about it.

It surprised them all when Raz spoke over the music.

“It was my idea.”

The two adults glanced at each other, then through the rearview mirror at the fidgeting teen.

“Your idea to go looking for a drink? Or to sneak into a bar to do it?” Helmut asked, turning off the radio.

“Both.”

He still wasn’t meeting their eyes. Bob sighed through his nose.

“I don’t believe you.”

Razputin’s head finally snapped up to stare at him in shock for the fast call on his bluff. “I’m telling the truth!”

“I think you’re only telling part of it, kid.”

“No! I’m telling all of it.”

“Razpu-”

“Oh, come off it, Raz,” Lili snapped a little too loud, making the whole car jump. “Quit trying to take the fall for me. It was my idea to try the stupid fake ID thing, okay? Happy now?”

“Wh – uh, who said anything about being happy about it?” Helmut asked, legitimately confused.

“Look. Neither of us had anything to do tonight, and we were bored, so Raz suggested getting a drink somewhere, but Adam and Lizzie are out of town so we couldn’t ask them.” She crossed her arms and spoke without any inflection. “So, we went out but no one would let us do anything cause we’re minors. I thought that was stupid, because we’re agents same as any of you, so I came up with the sneaking-in part. We only got caught cause one of the bartenders recognized Raz from a show.”

There were a lot of loaded things to parse through from that explanation, but Bob’s mind stalled on one particular detail.

“Adam and Lizzie give you two alcohol?”

“Not…often,” Raz admitted. “Just once or twice, when we asked.”

“Do you mean like, a literal once or twice, or a…an estimated once or twice?”

“Did Dad put you up to this?” Lili shot back. “It was just a few times, like he said. What’s with the inquisition?”

“…Lili –”

 “Raz.”

“Okay!” Helmut proclaimed as he slapped his hand against the steering wheel in boisterous aggression. “Who wants some ice cream?”

Everyone stared at him, dumbfounded.

“Cause I’m really feeling some chocolate-vanilla swirl right now. Basic bitch style. Right? Who’s with me?”

Silence.

“Great! Look at that, open Dairy King right there, better take advantage of this opportunity before it slips through our fingers like the melting ice cream we’re all gonna have in about five minutes!���

The psi-king swung into the parking lot in a frenzy and herded the car crew inside before any of them could come out of their shock long enough to protest. It was only as Bob was staring up at fifteen flavors of oversaturated sugary goodness that he realized what had just happened.

He couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief over his husband’s diversion. The tension that had been boiling over was cooled significantly by the sudden non-sequitur, and while the teens were rather half-hearted about picking out their sweet treats, there was no longer a risk of an explosion happening.

Metaphorically and literally.

Helmut caught his spouse’s eye with a meaningful look at Lili the moment all of them had their orders in hand, then slung his arm around Razputin’s shoulders and steered him away. “C’mon my lad! Nothing like the cool night air of three in the morning to keep your Hurricane ™ properly chilled!”

The poor boy had no choice but to let himself be pulled outside, leaving the two Zanottos standing awkwardly in the dingy restaurant. Bob gave a nervous scratch at his chin under his beard.

“How about we, uh, find a seat somewhere?”

Lili couldn’t fully cross her arms while holding ice cream, but she did a good job of making it work anyway. “Sure.”

They sat in a booth in the farthest corner from the front counter. Both great-niece and great-uncle stared at their respective sweet treats as if they could teleport them out of this situation. Bob glanced out the window and saw Helmut and Raz standing outside of the car. The former was on one knee with his hand on the teen’s shoulder, speaking earnestly but inaudibly, and the latter was scuffing the toe of his sneaker against the asphalt.

“Are you going to lecture me?” Lili finally cut through the silence.

Bob turned back to her. “No. Not really.”

“No?” She broke her gaze away from her ice cream just a little bit, eyeing him with surprise. “Then why did Helmut take Raz and leave us alone?”

She was so perceptive, so smart. And yet, still so young.

“Well, I… I still want to talk to you about what happened. I’m just not very, good, at this kind of thing.” He took his spoon and absentmindedly began drawing a flower in his soft-serve. “You already know what you did wasn’t a good idea, right? So I don’t think a lecture would help things any on that front.”

She didn’t respond. He continued.

“It’s less about the fake ID and more…the reasons you made the fake ID. Does that make sense?”

“I guess so, but I know what I’m doing, Uncle Bob. I’m not going to drink irresponsibly.”

The herbophanist shook his head. “But you’ll do irresponsible things to be able to drink in the first place.”

“That’s not –” Lili didn’t have a good rebuttal. She folded her arms and grumpily started eating her cherry chocolate delight. “Whatever. It’s two different things, anyway.”

Against his better judgement, Bob began picking at his own food as he thought about how best to bring the subject back up without making the teen defensive again. Spoons clicking against teeth was the only sound between them for a solid minute.

Finally, an epiphany.

“Did Truman ever…tell you anything, about your great-grandma?”

The girl paused with a bite halfway up to her mouth. She frowned, confused. “Grandma Tia? Not much. Just that she died when he was a baby.”

“Yeah. Yeah, she did.” He ran a tired hand over his face. The ache in his heart might have long-since healed into a scar, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt when pressed. “She passed away when I was nineteen. The doctors told me it was liver failure.”

He didn’t have to say anything else. Lili’s mouth thinned and she put her spoon down, uncomfortable.

“When I…found out the reason behind her death, I was horrified by it. It didn’t make sense to me why she would willingly do something that hurt her so badly, especially when I was right there to love her and help her. It felt like a betrayal that she never got help or made herself stop. I was…disgusted by the mere thought of doing anything like that.”

Bob took a moment to breathe and wipe his eyes. He wasn’t crying, but better safe than sorry.

“It sounds pretty hypocritical when I say it now, doesn’t it?”

His great-niece only gave him a hesitant look.

“Anyway, uh, where was I…” He worried his lip. “Oh, right. I told myself that I’d never touch the stuff after that. I was angry at what she’d done, and I was determined not to have the same ‘weakness’, so to speak. As you know, it, uh, it didn’t last long. I was at a college party barely a year later when I was invited by some friends to drink with them. I didn’t make human friends very easily back then – actually, I still don’t – so I was a little desperate to keep them. It turned out to be pretty hard whiskey, so I got hammered.”

The man leaned back in his seat, staring at the patterns in the booth table.

“Back then, no one really knew how alcoholism could run in a family. Everyone thought it was a personal choice to keep drinking. It wasn’t even classified as an addiction yet. So I didn’t know how susceptible I was, or how careful I had to be. I’d spend months not having a single drink, thinking I was fine and could handle myself, and then I’d get plastered for a week at parties and bars and God knows what else, and it would take me even longer to get myself to stop again. It was like that even when I was with Ford and his gang. It wasn’t until I started dating Helmut that I started trying to change those habits. I’d never met anyone who loved me so unconditionally that I wanted to be a better person for them, until him. And it worked for a while.

“Well, barring our wedding, of course. I got shitfaced at the reception. It was embarrassing afterwards, but Helmut told me it made our cake-eating ceremony a hell of a great time.”

Lili snorted, and it was accompanied by a tiny upturn of her lips. Then it dropped as her expression became solemn. “And then…everything with Maligula happened, right?”

“Yeah. I think you know the rest of that story.”

“Uh-huh.”

Great-niece and great-uncle sat together for a while, just thinking about it all.

“I know I have to be more careful drinking than a lot of people, Uncle Bob,” Lili finally said at length. “My dad warned me about it when I was old enough to ask.”

“Truman is a good dad,” he murmured in response.

“The best dad.”

“Definitely the best dad.”

More silence.

“I didn’t mean to worry you and him,” she continued. “Or scare you. I know it was dumb to do what we did tonight.”

Bob looked at her, and she gave a conceding sigh.

“Okay, it was dumb to do a lot of what we’ve been doing with this stuff. That doesn’t mean I’m not being careful.”

“Kid, it’s not always just a matter of being careful. I thought I was being careful. I thought that for years and years, and when I finally realized I wasn’t, I convinced myself I could stop any time I wanted to, and kept up the same patterns anyway. That’s what I’m trying to get you to understand. I just don’t want you to make the same mistakes I did. I’m just worried about you.”

Lili closed her eyes with a grimace. “I know. I’m sorry, Uncle Bob.”

“Hey, kiddo, look at me.” He waited until she did so. “I’m not mad at you. I’m not disappointed, either. That’s your dad’s job. I get it, is what I’m saying. It gives you a buzz, and it’s fun and exciting, and you just wanted to have a good time with your, uh…”

Bob leaned in a bit, and dropped his voice to a stage whisper.

“Is Raz still your boyfriend?”

“Wha –” her cheeks went red. “Yes, he is!”

“Alright, sorry, I’m just always out of the loop. No one ever tells me when these things change or not. Anyway,” he continued before she could get brighter than the cherries in her ice cream. “I’m just saying that you gotta be more than careful with this kind of thing. Everyone should be, really, but especially people like us. Plants aren’t the only thing that runs in the Zanotto family, unfortunately, so we just have to be aware of it and act accordingly.”

The teen turned this over in her mind. He could practically see the gears moving. When she looked at him again, it was with a slow, contemplative nod.

“No more late-night bar-hopping?” Her great-uncle asked.

“No more late-night bar-hopping.” She answered, sincere.

“Good.” He looked outside. Helmut and Raz were both lying on the front of the car, pointing out stars to each other. The sight made him smile. “Come on, we’ll work on that whole thing about Adam and Lizzie giving you alcohol another time, when it’s not three in the morning. For now, let’s rejoin our boys again and go get some rest, okay?”

“Okay.” Lili slid out of the booth and tentatively took her family member’s hand. His fingers squeezed hers in reassurance. “And...thanks, Uncle Bob.”

“Well, what can I say. Us weird Zanotto plant people hafta look out for each other, right?”

“Right.”

They walked out together, hand-in-hand.

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A/N: I knew from promotional material that we'd be going into the mind of someone struggling with alcoholism, but Bob's Bottles punched me hard in the gut. It's probably my favorite mind in the game, both because it's visually gorgeous and because it hit a little close to home with some of the themes, like generational alcoholism and how the addiction can make someone a shell of themselves.

I wrote half of this three weeks ago and then found myself really struggling to finish it because it brought up a lot of old feelings I thought I'd sorted through a long time ago.

Psychonauts, man.