#like it’s not hers to share anymore!!!

[voulezloux]

.

[ariariari-freehounreal]

When the test subject they told you was aggressive is actually just angsty and autistic

.

I figured if Wheatley were a human he would probably be part of a team that cares for test subjects. Which involves basic medical checkups and general wellness checks. Maybe in Chells case, since she’s so anti-social, he was tasked to be a sort of companion so they could get more information out of her for testing purposes. :3 he’s classified as a nurse and has basic training in it. But he’s not making sense because he’s kinda scared of Chell at first. She just thinks he’s weird and kinda smells bad.

.

I have a hc on why Chell is a test subject I’m just gonna try to write it here

Basically her mother was too young and poor to raise a child so she felt it better to put Chell up for adoption. The orphanage she was raised in was being used by aperture to scout out children with certain “exceptional skills”. They noticed that Chell was highly intelligent and a great problem solver, but had no interest in spending time with others. She had no friends. And none of the other children noticed or cared when she left. She was probably adopted by a high ranking scientist and raised for the specific purpose of testing. She has little concept of social norms or things outside of aperture because she was taken from a “normal” environment so young. [like. Before she was 10 maybe? Idk.] but it doesn’t mean she’s dumb or anything, she just doesn’t really get it yk. Sorry if this is actually so stupid and embarrassing ignore me

[all-lee24]

Radahn designs + Headcanons

Lands between's biggest horse girl

[wandixx]

Halloween dress-up, let's go!!!

Assignment: "Dress up as ghosts".

Status: Yes. They're ghosts. Just really different types of ghosts

[jaxihammer]

You will never convince me that Isabel Lovelace is not disabled post-canon. Think about it.

Of everyone in the crew, she's spent by far the longest time in space. Sure, she's probably been exercising, but that isn't going to fully stop her muscles atrophying. Her bones are going to weaken. Not to mention the fact that she went into the cryo chamber, which we know isn't GREAT for you (I know Eiffel is kind of an outlier but still. Even once is gonna fuck you up at least a little).

Then add to THAT the fact that the body Lovelace has now was created by the dear listeners. Not only are they recreating a body that's already undergone almost a thousand days of the trauma of space; they're doing it with zero existing knowledge of how a human body functions in Earth's gravity. The clones are almost perfect, but there are notable differences in internal organs, and I wouldn't be surprised if Lovelace was put back together with some inconsistencies.

All this to say, I think Lovelace would become a mobility aid user when the crew lands back on Earth. Everyone on the crew would probably end up in physical therapy, but the damage done to her body would be by far the most extensive. Whereas I don't doubt Jacobi, Minkowski, and Eiffel could regain most if not all of their mobility, I think Lovelace would use a wheelchair, and eventually with PT could use crutches or a cane some days. Even if she were to regain muscle function, she would probably have some sort of chronic pain that would necessitate mobility aids!

In conclusion Let Her Be Disabled thank you for coming to my TED talk

[shorthaltsjester]

the venn diagram of people who actually understand pelor’s complexity and the people who understand vex’s character is a circle and a very small one at that

[amphirrhvx]

does mk tumblr fw mk self-inserts …

[commander-gloryforge]

oh no, i've made this new character and now all i want to do is post about them on tumblr! surely my followers will be annoyed with m-

GAY CAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ilovebeatingmywife]

why cant my dad just do things for himself once and awhile im so tired of this

[quietwingsinthesky]

the last unicorn post from earlier has me thinking about the master. that yana is still in there, you know? is still someone he was, if even for a brief flash across the life of a time lord. there’s no way to unlive that life. there are ways to twist it later, sure, to make utopia into hell on earth. but the life was lived. in much the same way that the doctor can remember, can feel, the love he held onto as john smith even as that life is ripped out of his hands. the doctor choose denial and then grief and then to shutter it all away. and so john smith died, and so professor yana died, and the doctor and the master live on. the doctor has done this before, and he lives in orbit around humanity, trying to keep the best parts of them and hold them deep enough to take root (which he can pretend he gets to choose, as a time lord. as a human, it all floods in and can’t be dug back out.) but what about the master, right?

to borrow a turn of phrase: i think there are two time lords left in the universe, and they both learned how to regret.

[turtleations]

Interview with Mayuko's mother, Kishi Kazuko - Translation

This one comes with a big "Thank you!" to magnetklaue, who proofread it for me and helped me get rid of typos and some awkward phrases.

The Interview was posted on 1 May 2018, the interviewer was Fukui Shiho. The original post is here.

On we go:

20 Years after the death of X JAPAN’s hide: His secret history with a girl with an incurable disease, “The Promised Cheesecake”

The bond between them, inherited by YOSHIKI

On the 2nd of May, it has been 20 yeas since the sudden passing of X JAPAN’s guitarist hide. He has fascinated the world with his bright red hair and his yellowhearts-guitar. When tracing hide’s steps, one girl stands out: Kishi Mayuko, who was battling GM1 gangliosidosis, an incurable disease. She was the 23rd person worldwide to be diagnosed with this disease, and the doctors had told her that she was unlikely to live to be twenty. In 1995, while fighting her illness, Mayuko got to fulfil her dream to “meet hide, the person she admired”, with the help of “Make a Wish Japan”, an organisation that fulfils the wishes of children with incurable diseases.

Their interaction continued after this, and even after hide passed away, his friends and associates kept spending time with her. Eleven years after hide’s death, Mayuko also left this world. There is a place in Wakayama-prefecture where you can still feel the two of them breathing: “Lemoned Café”, run by Mayuko’s parents. The first floor houses the café, and the second floor a live house, with posters and goods related to hide displayed everywhere. We interviewed Kazuko-san, Mayuko’s mother.

When did Mayuko-san start liking hide-san?

She came to like him when she was hospitalized in the fifth year of primary school and listened to a CD of our older daughter while in hospital. She listened to CDs all the time, and when she got to come home for the weekend, she also watched videos in her room. She especially liked X JAPAN and hide-san, and aside from that, she also listened to the CDs of artists hide-san had said were good.

How did you meet hide-san?

There is a volunteer organisation called “Make a Wish Japan”, which is “fulfilling the dreams of incurably ill children aged three to eighteen”. I had been told that her illness would be difficult to treat with current western medicine, and so I thought, “I want to make at least one of her wishes come true” and called them up. Things got moving from there and it turned out we’d be able to meet him. I called around September 1995 and informed them that I was getting tickets for the concert on 31 December at Tokyo Dome, and they suggested, “Let’s have the meeting there.”

What did you talk about with hide-san?

When Mayuko told him “I’m going to be hospitalized in February, so please write to me”, he said, “I will, because we’re friends.” After it was clear that she would get to meet him, Mayuko spend two months knitting a scarf for him with her hands that could barely move. She gave it to hide-san and he wrapped it around himself right there and then.

The person she was dreaming of was right there!

During that time, the press was around for about fifteen minutes, and once they were gone, hide-san said, “Let’s go to the afterparty together.” That’s where the interaction with hide-san started, and he also introduced her to his band members as “My friend Mayuko”.

It’s hard to believe that he introduced her as a friend! He could just have ended it after those first fifteen minutes with a “See you later!”

Yes, he could. At first, I thought, “This is all there is to it.” But our interactions continued ever since.

That must have made you happy.

It did. He even continued to use the scarf she gave him that day. Hide-san’s mother told us, “Since he’s always wearing the same kind of outfit, that scarf is very useful to him.” Even when he went to the US, he always put it in his suitcase, she said. I heard that one time, when there was a lot of luggage, his manager took the scarf out, but hide-san said, “Not this one!” and insisted on taking it with him. After his death, the scarf was returned to us as a memento, and we still have it.

How long did that relationship last?

Two and a half years, from our first meeting until hide-san died. However, I think we made very meaningful memories in that time. Even after Mayuko passed away, some of hide-san’s friends continued to give live shows on the second floor and write “Mayuko, I’m here!” onto coloured paper. But I think that was because they thought, “I respected hide, and Mayuko was someone he adored”. I feel like Mayuko herself appealed to them as well, but for the most part, it was hide-san’s greatness that drove them.

It’s because they were both wonderful. Do you have any memories with hide-san you want to share?

We first met on 31 December and received a letter from him in January. It read, “I’m going to Los Angeles, but I’m grateful that I got to meet Mayuko at the Dome, because thanks to this meeting, I was reminded of things that I had forgotten." Her birthday was on the fourth of March, but she spent it in the hospital. Hide-san was overseas at that time, but he came to visit her at the hospital one day ahead of his scheduled return.

What kind of person was hide-san?

A caring one. When we first met, we were gathered in the waiting room until we went to the afterparty, and he asked, “Mayuko, aren’t you thirsty?” There was a cooler box in the corner of the room, and for an artist as big as hide-san, it wouldn’t be at all unusual to ask someone from the staff to get it. But he did everything himself. He got out some Oolong tea, opened the tap, put in the straw, said, “There, Mayuko.” When it came to his own guests, he did everything on his own. His stance was that the staff came for the purpose of making music, so he wouldn’t have them do anything else.

He was a kind person, wasn’t he?

There’s more; in order to avoid causing a commotion, his visits were kept a secret from anyone but the attending physicians and the nurses. But one day, there was a boy who was very depressed because he had been readmitted to the hospital immediately after being discharged.  Upon seeing this, a nurse tried to cheer him up by telling him, “hide-san will come to see Mayu-chan tomorrow, maybe you can get his autograph.” And so, word got around. Everyone was lining up in front of the visitation room, holding coloured paper. There were 12 or 13 people in line, but when the situation was explained to him, hide-san had everyone come in one by one, took two pictures with each one, gave them his autograph. He did that for about four hours.

Even though he was insanely busy at that time.

He was. But he also made the children that were there very happy. On the morning of the day Mayuko’s condition got critical, I said to hide-san on the phone, “She might not make it.” When I told him, “If she could just hear your voice, even on the phone, one more time,” he rushed over immediately.

He was in Tokyo at that time?

Getting there took him about two hours. When I went to escort hide-san to the entrance of the sterile room, I found that his parents had also come. I couldn’t help but burst into tears.

So it wasn’t just a relationship between hide-san and Mayuko-san, but also between their families.

Yes, we are still in contact with each other.

What is the story behind your store’s signature dish, the “Promised Cheesecake”?

There was a notebook in which we wrote about our feelings as parents, about Mayuko’s condition and all, and on the first page of it, hide-san wrote a message. It seems he learned from someone that Mayuko loved cheesecake, so he left the message “Let’s have a cheesecake together that’s so amazing it turns into cheese.” However, he passed away before Mayuko was well enough to eat cheesecake again, so they never got to eat it together. When we started our shop, we served cheesecake because she liked it. Later, when Mayuko passed away, I put a lot of cheesecake in her coffin, saying, “You can finally eat cheesecake with hide-chan.” When someone heard that story, they said, “You should turn that story into a decent name,” and so I came up with “The promised cheesecake”.

That’s a wonderful episode.

The fact that he wrapped that scarf around himself, and came rushing when she was in critical condition… There’s so much more. The last time we saw hide-san was after X JAPAN’s Last Live, when he invited us to the afterparty at his office. At that time, Mayuko just had a transplant and couldn’t eat raw food. Hide-san said, “Mayuko can only have food that has been cooked, right?” and handed us cooked food, saying, “Here, this is for Mayuko.” After that, he got food for me, my husband, and my older daughter, saying, “Anything is fine.” I think he was worried that we might be too restrained to eat much. It seems that he liked making people happy, and he did everything by himself. We were the first to leave, but he came to see us off to the car.

When his fans come to the café, I tell them a lot of stories like this. I want to convey to them, “Your beloved hide-chan was such a wonderful person.”

Hide-san really was wonderful, wasn’t he?

However, the people around X JAPAN and hide-san are all like that. The seventh anniversary of Mayuko’s death came up in 2015, and we were discussing doing something for it at the store, when GEORGE (Abiko Shinonkai, LADIESROOM), who often performs on the second floor, said, “If we put word out, everyone will come. We might not be able to schedule it for Wakayama, so let’s do it at a live house in Chiba”, and we did a two-days event. PATA-san came on both days. YOSHIKI-san had something else scheduled, so he sent a video message. TAKURO of GLAY also send a video message. J-san, SUGIZO-san, and RYUICHI-san of LUNA SEA also performed on stage. There were so many others who participated.

At the time of her funeral, PATA-san and INA-san were among those that came for it. When we told the people of hide-san’s office that she had passed away, they closed the office in Tokyo and everyone came as well. They also send a fax to the music industry, because “Mayuko-chan was one of us, so we will let everyone know.” Then, we received flowers from all over the country, around 80 bouquets or so. I was surprised. That they would go that far for us.

Were there people who acted ungraciously towards Mayuko-san out of jealousy?

When the story of her meeting hide-san through Make a Wish was aired on TV, they checked the contents of the letters meant for us at the TV station, because “there might be some nasty ones”. But there were no such letters at all, so the people from the station said, “It’s probably okay to send them directly” and passed them on to us unopened. Even then, there was not a single on that I didn’t like.

That’s amazing! Even though he had so many fans.

Yes. There even was one person who wrote, “I used to refuse to go to school, but I started again when I saw Mayuko working so hard.”

Mayuko-san was an inspiration.

I got this kind of comment several times. Also, Mayuko never said it was hard. A nurse once asked her, “Why do you never talk about how exhausting and painful it is?” She replied, “If I say it’s hard, hearing that would make it even harder for my mother.”…

Both hide-san and Mayoko-san were caring people.

That’s probably where they were on the same wavelength.

Even though she was still in her teens and it was difficult for her.

About a year after her transplant, her condition became critical. At that time, the boy in the next room was also in a bad state, and it was a situation where people would wonder, “Which of them is going to die first?” When Mayuko heard that the boy was celebrating his ninth birthday those days, she asked me, “Please buy ten flowers, one for each year, with money from my wallet, and give them to him.” When I told her, “He’s nine years old,” I got the reply, “He worked hard to make it to nine years, so it matters if he gets even one day closer to being ten.” It’s the weight of a single day that only a child battling illness can understand.

In that sense, when hide-can gave us hope, he didn’t speak of things far in advance. When he says, “I’ll call you the day after tomorrow,” doesn’t it make you think that you will do your best until the day after tomorrow? It’s not, “We’ll do this after you get better.” Instead of speaking of vague big things, he would talk about simple goals that were within reachable distance. He was someone who encouraged people that way. I guess that was the way hide-san was thinking.

They were both really amazing. Hide-san also registered as a bone marrow donor.

That’s right. There was a press conference when he did, but hide-san hadn’t intended for it to become such a big deal. When they heard, “Hide-san says he’s going to register as a donor, how should we go about that?” from someone at the office, people started to talk about it. Someone who happened to know about this matter set the conference up, and afterwards, hide-san was angry, saying, “I didn’t want for it to be this way, I was going to do it just like anyone else.” That said, eight people from his staff at that time and from those who came for the news coverage ended up registering as donors as well.

What did Mayuko-san think when she heard about hide-san’s donor registration?

I told her about it, thinking it would make her happy. But when I did so, she bust into tears. As a matter of fact, because she was herself a recipient of a transplant, she couldn’t register as a donor for the rest of her life. That’s why she said, “I can’t have a donor card with hide-chan.”

I guess those were feelings only she could have.

She said, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get that card. I was taken aback.

When did Mayuko-san learn about hide-san’s death?

On the day he passed away, she had an examination at the hospital. She had turned her mobile phone off for the examination, and when she turned it back on afterwards, she immediately heard from a friend that he had died. She called his manager right away and was told, “Yes, it’s true. We wanted to let you know before you heard it from anyone else, but we couldn’t get through.” She had actually been planning to go to the pub run by hide-san’s parents in Yokosuka that evening after her hospital visit, and she had heard that “if circumstances allowed it, hide-san might be there too.” (After hearing about this death) Mayuko was so depressed she didn’t speak, didn’t eat. The morning of the next day, I received a phone call from hide-san’s mother, who asked, “Will it have an impact on Mayu-chan’s health, what happened to hide?”

Even though her own son had just passed away, she was so concerned about Mayuko-san.

Both parent and child were so kind. So, when Mayuko went to Tsukiji-Honganji (where hide’s body was laid to rest), a lot of people talked to her there. One musician told her, “I used to go drinking with hide, and before we got drunk, he would say, ‘Now that Mayuko’s condition has improved, I am a little more at ease’, and then he’d drink.” Others also told her this, and even a work friend from L.A. let her know that hide-san told them, “If Mayuko’s health gets a little better, I want to show her around Los Angeles.”

It’s sad to hear stories like that.

But, you see, everyone was like that. When the time came for the final parting at Honganji, YOSHIKI-san took Mayuko’s hand next to the coffin and said, “Mayu-chan, until now hide has taken care of you. From now on, all of us are going to do that.”

YOSHIKI-san took good care of Mayuko-san as well, even though that time was painful for him, too.

When we returned to the waiting room from the venue of the afterparty that first time we met, YOSHIKI-san was there. When hide-san asked him, “What’s up?”, he said, “I was waiting for the two of you,” and the three of them walked on holding hands. He also came to our house after hide-san had passed away.

You are all connected by your feelings for hide-san, aren’t you?

It’s amazing how that relationship continues even now, isn’t it? When hide-san died, I thought that would be the end of it, but it has kept going past that point. Even now that Mayuko has passed away, it’s still going on. I am grateful for that.

Back then, Mayuko was exchanging mails with hide-san. Really short ones, like Mayuko telling him, “I started to keep goldfish” and hide-san sending, “Lately, it’s been raining all the time.” It was all trivial. But, in the period between X JAPAN’s breakup being decided and the announcement being made, hide-san told her, “Mayuko, your mails really comforted me.”

They were connected to each other in their hearts, weren’t they? A lot of people come to Lemoned Café, but what kind of place do you want it to be?

For some reason, even people who come here for the first time end up calling us “Mom and Dad”. There are even people who come from far away, so we want to keep it open as much as we can. Everyone is coming, so I want to continue doing this event for an entire year.

The day of the interview was the monthly anniversary of Mayuko's passing. The customers at the café ranged from people who had met Mayuko in person to high school students who had come to the café for the first time in April, and it was impressive to watch them chat cheerfully with each other. When asked about Mayuko, they all said, “She was a really kind girl, like an angel” and “She was a mysterious person who makes me feel like the bad side of me is being cleansed when I talk about her.” One woman said, “There are a lot of sacred places, but this one feels like home.”  Even now, the memory of hide and Mayuko-san lives on inside many people’s hearts.

[sunmoontruth-stiles]

I need a completely rewritten teen wolf series with Derek Hale as the main character. I think it would heal me.

[halojalex]

whenever people say jack and alex dated/g&c is about jalex/etc they're generally joking but i want people to know im being so real when i say that i think jack and alex were together for a brief time

[bluespiritshonour]

I'm kicking, screaming, crying, throwing up, pulling my hair out by the roots—

Exile by Taylor Swift is such a Maiko-coded song. Like, it doesn't get more perfect. Literally every single line of that song fits with Maiko perfectly ugh!!!

The way I'm feeling right now has no solution, no relief. It's like how you want to crush cute things cause there really isn't any response that would deal with the stimulus called cuteness? I'm going crazy because I can't express how much I love this song and I love maiko and sometimes words aren't necessary. Sometimes it's just the vibes and exile is so maiko in vibes—I feel like I've understood a lot of things I feel like throwing up.

It's like Zuko and Aang looking at the dragon flames and understanding firebending. I listen to exile and it's just—maiko in my head...just pictures and vibes and feels. No words apart from the ones in the song and they fit, okay?

[youareunbearable]

Not to be a Hetalia freak on main but im teaching about WW2 again so you all have to suffer with me as this old obsession puts me in a choke hold

I personally just think it would be So Fun to write a story about how Canada (Matthew) changes over the years.

To start off, I think North America is a lot closer with her nations than other Ancients, like Europa who hasn't really been seen since Grandpa Rome fell. North America, like her twin to the South, spends her time amongst her Nations, spending a summer traveling with her nomadic ones like the Anishinaabe (her three children who live together under the Council of Three Fires) or spending the winter with her nations down south in their sprawling cities carved into her rockbed.

She knows every one of her nations, speaks all their languages, knows all their histories, she celebrates their highs and mourns their lows, she loves them all and grieves when they war with each other and sings her joy to the sky when they make peace

One day, she travels up north. She spends time with her daughters, the Nations of the Beothuk and the Thule people, and on her coastline, she spies something curious. There, watching the waves make the horizon dance as clouds drift by, is a child unlike one she has seen before.

Beothuk gives a frightful hiss, and Thule clutches at her mother's arm. The child is as pale as death, but is not one of the blessed creatures, with snow white colouring and eyes that shine like the sunset of a warm summer's eve. No, this child's skin is the colour of pale sand, its long hair in a tumble of waves, as if a braid was just removed, is the colour of pale corn silk, and its eyes, when it turns to look at the trio, dances with the brilliance of the purple seen in the Northern Lights.

North America knows this child instantly, he is Hers. With a gentle and calming hand on each daughter's arm, she brings them forward with a happy smile on her lips. "Little one," she calls as they approach, "I know you. You are a child of my lands, but your features are one of my almost forgotten sister. Tell me, child of Europa and my own heart, what is your name? Where are your people?"

The little child, a boy no older than 3, waddles up to his mother. He reaches his hands up and she gladly takes him to her breast. He rests his head there, eyes closed in bliss as he listens to her heart beat. His sisters begin to calm as they watch the babe. He's not so frightening after that first glance, this pale little sibling of theirs.

When he opens his eyes again, they shine with that twinkle that all nations have, one that pulls their kind together, makes them recognize each other despite their human form. In the language that his sister Beothuk uses, but with a strange accent that makes her nose scrunch at the difference, the child speaks.

"My name is Vinland, and my people are coming." With that, he snuggles into his mothers embrace, but turns to watch the waves again, where in the horizon, some of the clouds get closer.

--------

Big brother Iceland always growled that it wasn't fair that Mamma found him first. He would clutch little Vinland to his chest and grumble that he was His little brother first, and that Mamma's influence was too much. Vinland didn't see what the big deal was, he spent a lot of time with Big Brother Iceland, and Big Brother Norway even though Big Brother Iceland also didn't like that, saying that Vinland was His little brother, not Norway's. Vinland personally thought he had a lot of Iceland's influence, more than Mamma's. He shared his colouring, with their matching pale hair and skin, even if Vinlands was a lot longer and he refused to let Big Brother Iceland cut it. Vinland's people also had the same housing style as Iceland's and Norway's, and the same customs. Vinland even shared their language and when he spoke to Mamma or his sisters he had their Norse accent.

But Big Brother Norway just shook his head when Vinland pointed this out. "She found you first. You will always belong to her more than us. Her heartbeat was the first you heard, and so that rhythm is the one your heart beats to. No matter what, no matter who's influence you may be under," and here Norway played with a piece of Vinland's ice blonde hair, and pinched his fair cheeks, "that heartbeat is what you will always go back to in the end."

Vinland frowned, his little toddler face sad as he tries to piece together what he was told.

"I'll always have Mamma's heart as my heart, but I'm still yours and Iceland's. She may have been the first to find me, but I Saw you first. When my eyes opened, the first thing I saw, the first thing I knew, was your ships coming towards me." One of little Vinland hands reached up to cover one of his big twinkling violet eyes, the other hand reaching up to do the same to one of Norway's. "You gave me life, and the proof of that will stay forever, no matter what."

Iceland gave a huge groan as he suddenly scooped up the little colony and gave a muffled scream as he squeezed the boy. "Too precious!! Illegal!! Im keeping you forever I don't care what North America says!!! I'll fight an Ancient to keep you by my side!!!"

----

While Iceland and Norway didn't end up having to fight an Ancient, they did have to fight Vinland's sisters. A fight they lost.

It was chaos, tensions had been building and a bull being set loose didn't help matters, and before Vinland knew it, he was curled into a ball sobbing as the pain of mortal deaths burned under his skin. Iceland had tried to grab him, to bring him with him and Norway on their retreat, but he was cut off by Thule, who snarled and screamed for the children of Europa to leave her Mother's land. Beothuk had scooped him up, cooing and hushing his whimpers as they fled the chaos, the deaths, not stopping even as Iceland screamed his name, cursing out at Norway, at Thule, at Beothuk for keeping his little brother way from him.

This was the last time Vinland saw the Nordic countries for a long, long, time.

------

With no colony of people, he was a nation adrift. Iceland's people kept him alive by their stories, and there was the occasional fisherman that came ashore, but none stayed for long.

Vinland felt himself weaken, like he might fade away if he blinked for too long. His Mamma frowned when she came to visit again, and just like last time she brought the little Nation to her breast, rested his ear to her heartbeat, and walked south. She carried him down to his brother, the Mi'kmaq Nation, who was lonely from the loss of his own little brothers, the Anishinaabe Nations who felt stifled and traveled westward down the Big River, a 100 years prior. Here, Vinland was cared for and entertained. While he still felt weak and faint, and would get weaker and fainter as less and less of Iceland and Norway's people kept him alive in their memories, he was loved. Mi'kmaq was kind, treated him well, and would take him all over his territory to meet his people and visit the other Nations in the area, their siblings. Nothing really would help him get better. Mamma had told Mi'kmaq this as she handed him over to his older brother. Vinland was one of her children yes, but he was also a child of Europas' descendants. He could not survive or thrive without them both. For the next few hundreds of years this is how he lived, half alive.

Until one day, as Vinland was resting on the shore of the mouth of the Big River, he suddenly felt stronger than he had in long time. His eyes snapped eastward, and there, faint and distant but there, were ships being pulled by the clouds themselves. Mi'kmaq frowned at the sight, but Vinland's smile split his face in two.

--------

It wasn't Big Brother Iceland or Big Brother Norway, but a different child of Europa. His name was France, and his hair was a darker blonde, like an oak tree in fall, a mixing of bright yellow and brown and a little red depending on how the sun hit it. His eyes weren't purple, like Vinland's or Iceland's or Norway's, but a blue that sparkled like the sea under the sun's brightest rays. His face had hair growing on it, not in a full bush like Iceland or Norway's people, but thin and almost pointy at the ends.

He had the same power that Norway had, he felt strong, not as strong as Mamma, and a different strong than Mi'kmaq. Where his older brother felt strong and steady as the current, this new nation felt as strong as a buck at its prime. Ready to lock antlers to show its strength, but would soon fade with the passing seasons. That didn't matter, however, because France fell in love with Vinland at first sight. He didn't care that Mamma found him first, or that he lived with his brothers and sisters. As soon as France saw him he wept and knelt before him, and though he was shocked that Vinland spoke old Norse, he asked if the little Nation wanted to be his Colony.

Mi'kmaq was hesitant, made France jump through all these hoops to prove that he would take care of his little brother, and not just leave him behind at the first taste of conflict like Iceland and Norway did. He also made France promise that he was just taking Vinland as a colony, not himself or their other siblings, and that France would treat them all with respect.

France, who only had eyes for the little nation, and also had a healthy fear of the knowledge that an Ancient was walking these shores and would be visiting in time, was more than happy to swear to that.

The European nation promised, they even signed a big treaty that ended in a feast and gift giving, but in the end, Vinland, no, Canada, got a new Big Brother.

"If he doesn't treat you right, we'll be here for you, little Brother." Mi'kmaq promised, giving the little Nation a kiss on his golden hair. After the treaty was signed, Canada began to change a little. His eyes stayed the same violet shade, and his heart still beat in time with his Mamma and siblings, but his hair darkened to the same dirty blonde as France's, his skin became a little more tan as if he was used to a stronger sun then what was felt up north. But more importantly, Canada began to feel more solid, more real than he had in a very long time.

Life with France was good while it lasted.

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Life with England, was different.

To begin with, England hated Canada's siblings, and hated his Mamma. To England, Canada's only siblings were Newfoundland, the American Colony States, and more than a dozen other colonies under England'svast Empire. England, and his people, tried to scrub away any influence of Mamma's or his Siblings had on him.

Fortunately, England didn't spend as much time with Canada as he did with his other Colonies, and left Canada behind to stay with his older brothers- Scotland and Ireland. These nations loved to tell little Canada all about how snobby and boorish England was. In their own way, they showed Canada the love that he was missing, and took him back to the eastern coastlines where he grew up and thrived. He even got to visit his older brother Mi'kmaq sometimes, even if the older nation always snarled and huffed about how poorly England was treating Mamma and the others. About how England had no respect for a signed and agreed upon treaty.

When England came back for a visit, he shrieked when he saw that Canada's hair had a ginger shine to it, and that there was a spattering of very pale freckles across his nose. Ireland and Scotland just sneered as he screamed at them.

"Thats what you get" they would mock, "when you leave your little brother to be raised by others. Just cause you own him doesn't mean he'll be like you. Or like you." They laughed at this, and would always smile whenever they caught word of the tensions between Canada's French population and the English one, or whenever their people, or Canada's siblings' people, caused a fuss.

England threatened to make boarding schools that would ensure that Canada became a fine Englishman if he kept having bad influences corrupt him.

(He did end up making those boarding schools, and Canada did end up being forced to attend. Canada never did forgive England for that, nor for influencing his government decades later into keeping those schools, or making them mandatory for his Siblings' people. Canada still had those scars over his heart, still felt his heart weakly flutter sometimes from the long lasting internal damage. No apology would ever make his heart beat normally again)

Canada expanded, he grew stronger and stronger, larger and larger. He fought in wars, in rebellions, he went over seas twice to fight for France, for England against their foes and won. He came out of those conflicts as a known power, as a global power. At one point, he boasted the title of having the third largest navy, and his siblings would just laugh and tease and jeer at him that of course he did, he was born of Norseman and settled by explorers, and his siblings' people used his rivers and lakes as their own personal freeways.

Soon, Canada was the tallest out of all his siblings. Mi'kmaq had to look up at him, Haudenosaunee would make him sit when she spoke to him or else she would wave her lacrosse stick in his face. Even America had to look up at him, peer at him over his glasses as he rambled about whatever crossed his mind. Soon Canada was even allowed to sit in the land where his Mamma first found him, feeling that earth under his fingers once again become a part of him. All around him was a coastline, with rolling hills that hid an ancient settlement, his old being, under its soil.

He closed his eyes, feeling the warm sea breeze brush by his face. Vinland, it seems to whisper to him in a language almost forgotten. He could almost remember how his long gone sisters Beothuk and Thule sounded as they called to him. He had almost forgotten about them.

"Canada," his Mamma called to him from behind. Her son turned around, violet eyes twinkling as he got up, stretching his long sun kissed limbs, pale freckles dotting his scrunched up nose. When he relaxed, he smiled and went to her. No matter how tall he had gotten, he was still able to snuggle up to his Mamma, rest his head to her chest and feel that heartbeat that sounded in time to his own, as weak as it fluttered sometime, but getting stronger and stronger. Her warm, steady hands came up to cradle the back of his head, fingers burrowing in his strawberry blonde hair.

"Oh my child, how far you've come, and how far you will go still." She placed a kiss to his hair. "My darling little Canada."

[fallstreakfeathers]

Ah, the cursed day has come

My mother knows about Hantengu

Please destroy all evidence I ever existed.