#like maybe theres a genetic factor

[astrowarr]

the urge to write a roomies zombie apocalypse au is so strong right now. they're just the Most zombie apocalypse au people EVER like they would make so much sense as a little gang

[puphoods]

im interestedin your zombie and superpower worlds..

SMILES SO BIG this took me ages omfg sorry

im gonna do it in order zombies -> zombie superpowers -> superpowers okay. i realised u maybe just meant the one thats both im not sure? but i already typed most of this up so too bad

first up egressregress babeyyyy we all know... i think its set in like. the 2000s/early 2010s... there was a poorly handled viral outbreak that caused zombies to happen etc. its pretty much your typical "society is broken down the government fell everythings a free for all" situation. theres pockets of civilization but much, much more small and scattered, there are areas with few or no people, there are areas that are controlled by certain groups or factions, etc. there is some form of self appointed government out there but they ghave no far reaching control.

the characters the story centers around are mostly isolated- they live close by but still a distance away from a well known main road that leads to an area controlled by the "government" and other safe zones and so is often traveled. cooper, dahlia, and elliot are somewhat a group, but they fucking hate each other so bad and they all suck.

the zombies themselves are pretty generic. disease spread via bite it over the course of days to maybe two weeks at most with no intervention degrades the body and eats away at the brain. theyre slow moving, generally die partway into the disease progression, and move out of instinct. theres not much of a focus on the zombies themselves in the story, but they do play a part in the mindset and morality of cooper

THA SECOND ONE my furry zombie superpowers world. smiles. so this is like my newest ocs so i genuinely dont have much but its one that i really really enjoy bc its very self indulgent lol. its... i want to say kind of futuristic? but its a different world as well so. like its not Futuristic but its set in a world w technology + stuff slightly more advanced than ours. its like Furry World. u get it

theres a very small subset of people who have or develop powers. it is there is a genetic factor to it but i dont really have that thought out yet... typically they develop around puberty but can and do develop at any time in someones life

the story starts at the onset of a zombie outbreak- there are very, very few cases, but it is widespread, and extremely dangerous. id say its been like a few months since the first case... the main characters are a part of a team sent out to investigate and study the disease in an attempt to figure out how it spreads and try to find a cure, or at least prevent it from spreading further. the main character, leah, is a "scientist" on this team- shes the one leading the research for her group. leah has powers that appear very similar to the physical symptoms of the disease. shes trying her hardest to keep it under wraps while they investigate, and desperately hoping that there is no link between her and the outbreak

leahs powers are... bio-manipulation? essentially. she cannot alter the mind but can do a lot of crazy shit to the body

the virus ive actually thought about this one pretty in depth okay hold on. its spread through body fluids primarily and is asymptomatic + will remain such unless its exposed to someone with a symptomatic infection (generally via bite but can also be spread through body fluids). if youre bitten by someone with a symptomatic case and you dont have the virus youll just die no zombie mess it iwll kill u... the progression of the disease once "activated" (idk) is slow it generally takes minimum a week before it reaches its final stage but usually takes closer to 2, with 4 weeks being the longest it can take. it causes rapid physical growth + mutations, mostly additional body parts, and causes a huge increase in metabolic processes and how much fuel the body needs that eating enough food is almost impossible, and it starts eating at the body and brain pretty quickly. eventually the person dies but the body is still driven on by the disease until it eats itself alive, and is unable to function anymore. common mutations are just growth of the body and replication of body parts, especially teeth, fingers, and stomachs, but it also commonly duplicates limbs eyes other organs etc. (SECRAT ACTUAL PLOT POINT SPOILER) in the circumstance the body mutates in a way that lets it take in larger amounts of food (more stomachs mouths teeth) and has access to enough food, for example a group of people dedicated to feeding it, it can, theoretically, grow forever. eventually the mutations will be so severe it will be unrecognizable as having been a person and can no longer move. itd be pretty much impossible to keep one fed for more than a year or so unless you were feeding it like. a ridiculous amount of meat.

last storuy ok the superpowers one. i dont have much additional to say wrt the powers than i did in the other post but i can tell u about the people... i actually have a fair few characters for this one but the story centers on adrienne. adrienne is a teenage girl with kinetic manipulation powers, she can store and use kinetic energy which generally comes out as some find of explosive force or something like that. i really am not happy with her story because shes a very old character now so i need to rework it a lot. some other characters:

kasey- a young woman with healing powers who was working as an EMT when her powers developed. she resents her powers and has the same mentor as adrienne, theyre narrative foils, etc.

sonar- adrienne and kaseys mentor. hes ex superhero + regrets his time as a hero, and is trying to get the girls on track. he doesnt want anything to do with the whole hero and villain sort of scene anymore but feels obligated to keep the others safe

longshot- ^sonars ex husband lol. hes a hero turned villain, in part because of their falling out, but bc of a lot of other things too. he has really good eyesight and shoots people. with guns

roulette, copycat, 2 more unnamed characters- a small villain group that are involved in the plot and that adrienne gets involved with while shes trying to do...whatever i decide she ends up doing in her new story. they arent anything serious and mostly just rob banks and shit

[bearzocs]

Also since I’ve decided I do wanna make it work for the merpeople to be able to take terrestrial forms, I’ve gotta figure out how I want that to work and also what I want those designs to look like compared to the current designs I made as like, species-swap au designs.

I feel like its probably gonna be something that varies from person to person and their different aquatic features and also sizes (since merpeople size ranges are much more varied than plain terrestrial humans in this story, they can be quite a bit smaller or larger in scale). But generally it’ll probably something thats kind of a drawn out process that takes a lot of energy, especially for those on the higher or very low ends of the size spectrum or who have more/complex aquatic traits…

So most people don’t make the shift very often and stick with one form for at least months on the lower end, up to decades or their whole lifetime at the higher end (though maybe theres complications that come with that too but I haven’t gotten there yet).

And maybe the amount of aquatic features they retain in terrestrial form is also a factor for the time and energy the transition takes, whether that would be a conscious choice someone could make or if it would be genetically predetermined I’m not sure…

And when I say sizes here I’m talking about height/overall scale, and how that might change going from aquatic to terrestrial form, and again if it’s something that would be down to choice or genetics

[joe-moi]

https://www.tumblr.com/joe-moi/741232725567078400/and-then-theres-joe-keery-still-looking-mid-20s

I mean yeah it’s been almost 10 years since season 1, he does look older but he still looks really young? I’m 23 and my mom thought he was my age while arguing Fargo lol. She was really shocked he’s 32 soon

I think he looks his age. I really do compared to how he used to look when I think when he was in his early 20s he still looks like he was maybe in his mid to late teens. So it really is just all genetics. A little bit of environmental factors thrown in, but most of it’s going to be genetics.

[smallchunk]

The thing is I think overall he is right, I found the bit about Big Tech really interesting and how the way apps are designed to hold as much of our attention as possible and surveillance capitalism etc etc. He has good stuff in there and it’s worth reading especially if you’re not familiar with these concepts.

My main criticism I think:

Theres a big chapter on ADHD in there which imo is not very nuanced and you could honestly skip it and the book still makes complete sense. The main argument of that section is ‘ADHD is being diagnosed a lot more than when I was a child and kids are being put on Ritalin more, but I think most of these cases of ‘ADHD’ are caused by environmental factors including stress, trauma, bad diet etc. and genetics doesn’t necessarily have the bigger role’. Like there’s something to that that’s not just ‘ADHD is fake and society is trying to drug kids’ but yesterday I watched ‘TikTok Gave Me Autism’ by Alexander Avila so the concept of neurodevelopmental conditions as a social construct was on my mind already and I was getting constipated waiting for the book to push a bit deeper than it did. Like there is something to be said about the entire concept and pathologisation of a ‘lack of focus’ in the first place and I’m not sure what yet and I sort of wish that had been pulled together a bit more in the book. Maybe I will think of it later.

I just finished reading Stolen Focus by Johann Hari and I need to talk about my thoughts

[shatteredfears-arch]

sometimes i see non autistics write headcanons abt what probably went on in an autistic char they arent writings head and i just ‘yeah, yeah you have no idea how autistics think at all lol’ like yes its a spectrum, yes we’re all different, and youre still managing to pretend we’re neurotypical like—

[miscellaneous--bones]

mk so i redid 'em a little bit, instead of being the caretaker of the wobble dogs they are just. the first wobble dog of their save file? i figure when they died their core somehow glitched into the wrong game rather 'n spawning in the world right or whatever. i ended up making up a save to base 'em on and them n randy have like 5 kids, so, they deff' have somethin to miss now!

uhhh,, otherwise?? im gonna say game wise they catch on to the whole 'world is a game' thing rather quick, but generally are so distracted and just trying to deal with the new body that they dont have time to miss home too much till maybe after the ending. i like to think science wise they either know lots about like- theres the gut flora thing (plus the early game thing of all the gardening/seed planting stuff) something like a xenflora scientist would make sense- but so would like. genetic shit (because of the breeding simulator) so they could've been in the department that was working on cloning and genetic engineering. doesn't really matter anyway tho? seeing as they'd probably only ''wake up'' or whatever the same time the game goes up. idk yet!

another thing is that i think they slowley start,, loosing their memories? of home, as the story progresses? the more they get used to being 'human' and having more advanced AI, the more they lose their connection to their former game/life. it seems fun to play with? angst factor n all that

[foulserpent]

i think you talked about this before, but what are thoughts on “chosen one” prophecies in fiction being bad/overused?

i dont think its like, innately bad i just think 99% of the time its bad and boring

and like i Mostly dont mean bad as in morally dubious, but it does get questionable sometimes like when the chosen one has Special and Superior traits and it gets kind of eugenics-y, or when the chosen one Just So Happens to be like a colonialist outsider, or if the chosen one hails from a Special Family or royalty or someone which again gets kind of eugenics-y and classist-y 

but even removed from those factors i think its overdone and narratively unsatisfying unless its like, actively examining what the concept of a Chosen One MEANS and all the implications of having that status/burden. it requires a lot of assumptions and worldbuilding- like where is the notion of this chosen one coming from? is it a prophecy? a folktale? what are its origins? what is its historical context? why is this claim taken seriously? is this a world where predicting the future is reliably possible? if so, then what other implications does that have?

and the solution is then not necessarily “ok, derail the story to go in depth about it” but consider that maybe having a vague prophecy or whatever be the basis of your entire plot is kind of flimsy 

and this is a matter of taste but i think we dont Need chosen one stories right now culturally. its not gonna click with people, both bc its already been overdone and also bc theres nothing in the average persons life that even RESEMBLES that arc. and we’re starting to see people en masse get annoyed with it, like with star war when it turns out that no, rey isnt just a normal person who can accomplish what she does on her own merit, shes actually from a genetically superior narratively important space wizard family and gets special powers bc of that. i think people dont want to see that as much any more like i think people want to see normal people accomplishing things together

[x-authorship-x]

On his chakra system compared Kakashi with his implant since it’s more natural and he already magically knows the limits and how it works. Theres also a giant parallel with Minato, another genius who Obito (probably) admired and aspired to be like. Kamui is such a broken ability, aside from Kks, it would be impossible to infiltrate or find. Now, Mokuton. It’s half plant matter, so he photosynthesizes lmao? Just soak in the river for a few minutes and then take a nap in the sun and thats his food for the day. It’ll also be pretty difficult to somehow get food stuffs during a war without being found out or appearing suspicious especially since Madaras would only be able to send out the zetsus so photosynthesizing would probably solve that issue. And having half of foreign substance substituting for actual body parts might put trauma/pressure on organs (I know nothing medically related so this is just wishful logic) and bodily functions. I reject cannon Obito appearance bc it makes zero sense for him to be that TALL with how his growth plates were maybe altered and honestly a short compact ball of rage appearance suits him more. I think it’ll be if he was suddenly distinctively shorter than Kakashi when he’s always been taller. Obito also manipulates plants more than wood, and it seems he has free control over what the plants he can make does. This is such a good technique for traps??? Especially in terrain like Konoha where trees and shit are everywhere. He can plant (Fuck year hallelujah) vines and trees n shit and just KNOW when someones coming through. Also going back to your fic lands there Hashirama chakra everyone in the forests, so does that mean Obito can kind of tune into that???? Like some sort of sensor abilities with trees n shit??? Plant hermit Bito. Oh shit I almost forgot about the fucking HEALING FACTOR. In the kks vs obt fight his cheek scratch thing closed in three seconds so he has an unnaturally fast healing factor, but I don’t thats necessarily a good thing since if he got like a blade stuck in his arm or broken bones it’ll just automatically heal around with that intact? Ouchie. That’ll be so annoying to have ot treat later. think that’s all I have to say on Kamui and Mokuton. Also, unrelated but I just realized theres a word cap on words per PARAGRAPh not the entire ASK hahaha i’m not intelligent enough to understand this website. Plus the amount of sense in this ask has marginally degraded, so I’m taking this as a sign to Stop. Thank you for listening to my rambles and responding to them. :D

TEA 🍵 ITS THE TEA 🍵🍵🍵

(I'm gonna go on tangent here) i have... Such *tosses hands so hard i fly into space* URGH with what we know about Minato. Minato, Minato, i love your ideas (no one hate me please) but you make no SENSE. Minato is super fast? I'm sorry but, in the anime especially, everyone moves faster than light so Kishi really shot himself in the foot. Logically, we're supposed to know that Minato is the fastest Shinobi alive but all Shinobi have a speed that is WACK so??? Also the Rasengan, that's all we really see Minato use and, when Naruto masters it, it's seen as THE power up but... Look at all the other characters??? The Bijuu's fighting is literally just PURPLE RASENGAN??????? i wanted to see FERAL ANIMALS i wanted Kurama to act like a goddamn raccoon fighting for dumpster turf!!!! WHERE IS THE TEETH?!! YOURE TELLING ME THAT OBITO, WITH UNDETECTABLE TELEPORTATION AND CAN BECOME LITERALLY UNTOUCHABLE, COULDNT JUST SHOVE HIS HAND THROUGH SOMEONE'S CHEST AND REFORM TO GRAB THEIR HEART ETC??? make it make SENSE

Yessss, also the trees and shit should all love him, i said what i said, i want the flowers to TURN towards him 😤 grass grows where he steps and the trees sway

The healing etc.... It could be that Madara somehow, without a lab or a scientific background or ANYTHING, actually genetically ALTERED the rest of obitos DNA to behave in a more mokuton-ish way? Like the regeneration, growth, etc etc etc but then would that make Obito less fire resistant, would he stop eating over photosynthesis, would it affect his aging.... This is very very bad science lmao

[luque-moreau]

y'know i think its about time ive refurbished my psychonauts headcanons/theories

what??? me??? rewriting my psychonauts headcanons in a more comprehensible and informed way???

ye

alright, i think everyone knows what im talking about, by headcanons i mean headcanon as in singular, and as singular, i mean my "raz is somewhere on the spectrum of adhd".

so lets just get into it:

what is adhd actually?

adhd by definition stands for attention deficit hyperactive/hyperfocus disorder (yes, let me get into the details in just a sec). it is a nerodevelopmental disorder that is almost completely reliant on genetic factors, however conditions during pregnancy can sometimes contribute to certain aspects of how adhd manifests itself.

long story short, people with adhd have a smaller frontal lobe, and therefore less dopamine in general (even though yes, it is more complicated than that).

theres also a little bit of "chicken or the egg first" goin on here, certain behaviors or personality tendencies can also affect how adhd is presented in one individual to the next, however its still not clear if that is because it is an accommodating for a certain thought process or if someones experiences and personality shape their symptoms of adhd entirely. its a very blurry line, and the answer is different for everybody.

hyperactive type

hyperactive type is probably the closest to most stereotypical depictions of adhd, think the 5 year old whos parents brush off their child’s hyperactivity as something that will “go with age”. however, this isn’t only present in children, adults with adhd have to deal with a constant need for stimuli to make up for the lack of dopamine their current activity is providing them. this results in someone fidgeting frequently in repetitive or predictable motions, unable to hold attention to a specific task for long periods of time, or many other of the symptoms associated with adhd.(i sadly cannot provide more information in this area, i am not knowledgeable enough to...)

hyperfocus type

hyperfocus type is a tricky one, it can look like the complete opposite of adhd in theory. hyperfocus can look similar to special interests or hyperfixation, a great deal of time and knowledge dedicated to a very particular thing (although it is important to note that even though hyperfixations and special interests are incredibly similar, special interests is a term more typically used within autistic-circles, and isnt really the best word to use if you happen to be neurotypical). Think of maybe that kid who knows all the cool animal facts and won’t shut up about them. Its because certain trains of thought or activities might release more dopamine then others, so to get more of that dopamine, someone of hyperfocus type will be mentally unable to stop thinking or doing a very specific task or topic. this results in someone seemingly always spacing out, unable to change subjects or changing subjects too fast or with little to no correlation, or being completely unable to have enough motivation to do simple things.

personally i tend to fall under the category of hyperfocus myself rather than hyperactive, however the two are not mutually exclusive, its more common to find people with both types rather than just one. even myself, i might exhibit more tendencies to place me under the label of hyperfocus, but that doesn’t mean i don’t have any symptoms of the hyperactive type. its my personality that affects my mannerisms, which then makes certain aspects of my symptoms more or less apparent. Thats because im an INTP-T, i just tend to be more to myself and constantly in a state of thinking abstractly. I have trouble communicating and even sometimes recognizing my needs, and get to a point where im unable to do the simplest of things without feeling emotionally drained. Thats just my experience though, everybodys different. 

so what the fuck does this have to do with raz then?

well lets think about it, rather than have it just be me projecting myself onto a comfort character:

raz finds issue with connecting to kids his age

lets be honest. none of the campers really like raz that much. or at least some do the bare minimum to be try and be polite. it doesn’t seem like any of the other campers besides dogen, whos also socially outcasted, are really fond of raz. lili might like him, but that can definitely be interpreted as curiosity in someone new and different from the norm. It might not be that the kids despise him, but nobodys opinionated enough to care whether he is around or not.

social isolation is one of the most damning things i had to experience from an early age and still feel even today. there is a sense of feeling that you are different among your peers, whether that is a good thing or bad thing. it feels difficult to interact with other people you are not familiar with, and can really stunt you emotionally and socially. from a really early age, theres somethin in you that knows something is very different between the experiences of your peers compared to your own, and it can feel incredibly isolating.

raz and his borderline stupidity

time to get real again. raz is a fucking idiot. at least in the sense that sometimes his decisions seem incredibly spontaneous and not really thought through. he runs from home to attend a summer camp, not really thinking about the logistics of how he will get there, how the staff will react, how long its gonna take for his parent to find him, and so on. it doesn’t seem like he over or underestimates his abilities, he just goes for it without considering. that doesnt seem like the smartest thing to do, even though we know hes incredibly intelligent when it comes to larger, abstract situations. its the little details that he misses, small minuet things that seem unimportant that he overlooks, which can sometimes make things harder for him in the end.

i think its obvious that impulsivity is one symptom of adhd. however i cannot stress how difficult it is to think at supersonic speed and still feel incredibly stupid. i mean, thinking faster doesn’t inherently mean you will have better ideas, you can always be stupider faster, but being able to realize stupid mistakes or inconsistencies in your own thought process is annoying as hell. it feels like every time you try to recognize the issue, fix it, and move forward, you only end up not paying attention to another issue that gets bigger and more annoying than the first. Its always two steps forward, one step back, constantly making the same mistakes even though you try everything in your power to avoid them or grow as a person. The simplest of facts, ideas, or just things to remember end up being forgotten, and once youre reminded of them you remember them and feel like an idiot. however, arbitrary things and complex issues are much easier to digest and remember for me, things like history and the whole blame game charade of it all, biology and how every minuet thing has a greater impact on others and intertwines with every single factor of its environment, philosophy and theorizing why we think the way we do and what can be changed. but oh shit, im a dumbass i forgot to do my laundry. shit. god fuckin dammit.

empathy over sympathy

one of the basic themes of psychonauts is empathy. simple as that. raz goes around into other peoples brains, and tries to help them as much as he can, even if his efforts are not always successful in the way he intended. he never demonizes anyone to the point of unredeemability, and can empathize and understand other peoples perspectives. hes open to new ideas and

although some studies out there theorize that empathy is impaired due to adhd, from my perspective i feel like that is simply not true. if anything, i would say the sensitivity that comes with adhd (hypersensitivity) only enhances that empathy. i could definitely see social disconnection being one of the reasons it might appear that someone with adhd is less empathetic, however i would doubt that adhd would impair a persons empathy. adhd tends to also entail heightened emotions, this doesn’t necessarily mean a more outwardly emotional person, however it definitely shifts a persons perspective of their own emotions as well as others. the concept of hypersensitivity also completely contradicts the idea of people with adhd be less empathetic.

miscommunication and disconnect

sigh, the dad thing. yup. raz has that very iffy relationship with his dad at the beginning of the game which is eventually resolved. very abruptly, might i add. but thats not what this is about, thats a topic for another day. miscommunication seemed to be the root of the issue, however we only get razs side of the story. not to mention the severity of his claims and willingness to seemingly drop everything afterwards. kinda sus, ngl.

alright this ones a doosey. this, i feel, cements my theory pretty well. like i mentioned before, social disconnect and hypersensitivity are side effects of the symptoms of adhd.  this means people with adhd are highly more likely to either misinterpret someones words or actions if those in question are not completely transparent, its because they tend to overthink and interpenetrate responses with too much thinkin n such. the social disconnect makes a whole lot of it worse, it can just pile on top of already established feelings of inadequacy and isolation. and oversharing as a poor coping mechanism isnt an exclusively adhd related thing, it tends to be shared within similar neruodevelopmental disorders such as autism or even ptsd. i find it incredibly easy to disconnect myself from my own emotions at times and think critically at what i feel and how it affects me. which is a bad thing. if i dont acknowledge my emotions like they are my own for too long, everything falls apart. its not fun. but, that disconnect can make talking about certain more traumatic experiences or instances that had deep personal effects on my life and development as a person much easier to just share. and not always in an appropriate manner, comedic opportunity can be   v  e  r  y   enticing. this also explains why raz might have been able to drop everything about his dad after he apologized. he didn’t really, he probably still suffers just as much afterwards as he did before. but he probably wont realize that for awhile, since logically, the issue has been resolved. long story short, he has not had the time to cope, and to put that off he detaches himself from those feelings. w a c k

of course i have other reasons why i feel like raz could potentially have adhd, or at least be accurately represented in headcanon with adhd, some minor mentions being:

he uses his camp map as a journal to track his in-game progress, list of goals, and notes/snip-its of information. writing down information on some form of notepad or book is a common tool used by kids and even adults with adhd to help them keep track of minuet, individual tasks. its just using a planner, but with a bit more information. 

just from my personal perspective, the lengths raz goes to pursue his dream of being a psychonaut feel more like a special interest/hyper fixation sort of thing. he can jump between having genuine conversations with his fellow campers and just exploring the campground, to investing himself entirely in obtaining his goal, even when it seems almost impossible. thats some serious dedication to one very specific thing, y’know?

this one isnt as solid as the other but: m̶̖̰̯̫̍͝o̵̦͖̟͈̹̤̥̝͐̿̄̀̀̎̓ņ̶̛̭̠̐̊̆̍͝ķ̸̝͈̺̙̰̊e̶͉͚̼̅̔͗̂͐̍̕͝͝y̶̦̖̼͖̪͎̝̖̠̐̑͋̾̔̑́͐͘ ̵̢̲̘͎͉̔̀͒̄͌͊̀͌̀m̴̲̫̮̪̖̍̐͆̕͜͝ͅả̶͙͚͗n̶̗̳̩̙̘̼̦̦͇͝ ̷̡̨̡͔̗͕̘͍̥̑͒̎̐̃g̴͔̔̈̅̐̏́̌̔̈́́o̶̥̱̽̆̂͌̀͗ ̶̝̩͙͕͛́s̴̛͓̥̲̜͓͚̣̠̆̓̌͌p̶̜̹̯̦̫̯̣̎͐̽̉̾ḙ̴͇̬͑̈́̐̈́͘͠ͅȅ̶̡̗̞̩͔̫̪͈͑̓͗d̵̠͇͎̜͔͇͒̈́́̀̅̈́̒͘y̸̡̦̠̻̖̥̿ͅ. yeah, its the most generalizing reason but look, hes moving nonstop the entire game, climbing and running around the entire goddamn place wrecking havoc. a bit of imp can be found in most people with adhd if you look hard enough.

so thanks for reading this far i guess? im oversharing even right now with this, like an i d i o t but yknow what i dont want to read the great gatsby rn, so ive got nothin better to do. who knows, maybe the second game will give us more info to either support/discredit this theory? gotta wait for pn2 i guess

:^)

[macklives]

alright, im actually kind of in the mood to unpack some stuff regarding karkat's character and the way alternia works actually, so i dont mind giving this a go. and while act 5 isnt completely finished yet (so this is an analysis post for act 5 up until page 2305), there is still more to explore, and im pretty sure i have a lot more to read regarding both karkat AND alternia. until then, i will give a general layout as to what i know so far and how i can expand this in a psychological way (especially considering i did my psych exam so my mind is FRESH from studying)

alright, starting with what seems to be the deal with the hemospectrum, theres a total of 12 blood colors. HOWEVER, one of those blood colors is a "mutant" blood which is unwanted in troll culture as it is, well, "mutant", meaning whoever has this blood will get brutally slaughtered. hurrayyy. im guessing it is even lower than aradia's rust blood, as she is allowed to live but is the lowest on the hierarchy triangle. meaning karkats blood is not even ON the hierarchy triangle and simply buried underground where they hope he stays. so its not exactly pleasant to be living in a society where everyone is trying to KILL you or at least keep you away from everything.

from what i remember, troll reproduction is a vital aspect in their culture, that everyone is forced to mate and drones will come by each house to collect the genetic material. this is mandatory apparently, and if someone were to object, they will be “culled" as quickly as they could say no. alternia seems to be really keen on the whole "blood and carnage" thing, which means their probable solution to anybody breaking the law, is to kill them on sight and just leave them there to rot - regardless of who they are and what families they comes from or have. trolls are free to kill whenever or whoever they please without any governmental repercussions. which means revenge upon revenge happens without any policy.

however this is very important when looking at karkat, because karkat may not be able to do the whole reproduction process (not that we necessarily want him to, im saying this in terms of how its mandatory for every troll and there will be a time when the drones WILL come for karkat). but as he is already a mutant and if they were to "collect" from him, they would find out his blood regardless of how he hides it. they will either cull him for saying no, or cull him for his blood. karkat, in this sense, is doomed regardless. which makes his character much more interesting.

and keep in mind alternia kind of sucks, because from the looks of it, trolls are constantly tested throughout their lives to prove themselves to society that they are allowed to live and survive. but ONLY if they are the strongest among them. alternia wants to become this fearful planet where the weak die off and only those proven worthy can stay to grow up and slaughter more of their kind until the world is nothing but blood thirsty strong murderers. im not too sure who is governing alternia but they can suck a dick if they think this is how good morals work. alternia only really has one way to solve things which is to kill those who question/fight back, OR to kill those who CANNOT fight back essentially. which puts all the trolls through a double edged sword where they cannot do anything but follow the guidelines given to them by troll's society and government, and try to survive as much as they can until then.

if i remember correctly, when it comes to the law side of things. if you look at it from terezi's introduction where she explains prosecutions with her plushies (lemonsnout ect ect i forgot the term for them lol), she said "you are guilty until proven innocent" which is the polar opposite of "innocent until proven guilty” used in OUR own society today (tho i guess we are by far the "good guys" in this situation, but we are far different than how trolls live their lives). anyways, what this means is that everyone dies regardless unless theres literal proof that they have not done the crime. even so i wouldnt put it past them to do nothing about their case even WITH proof. terezi even goes to say that technically there is no way to deal with the law on alternia, and most of crimes get solved through death. she even demonstrates this by how easily she hung the "suspect" and flipped a coin to determine his fate. however, even with the coin landing on the side of safety, where the suspect were to be released, she said "im blind remember i cannot see this coin" and essentially "killed" him. while terezi may have just been playing with her plushies, theres something we can take from this which dictates how their actual court cases are actually solved.

NOW, vriska (yes ik pls bare with me here, i will not make it about vriska but i do have a point here), from the last few pages i saw, can basically kill her friends in an instant, without any remorse. i can tell she sees this as the most "necessary" solution for her problems. i wouldnt say its for survival, but she does do it as a way to provide some sort of safety on alternia. she is a higher blood, and apparently the high bloods are known to kill whoever they please as long as its convenient. and since trolls have this whole fad of "killing the ones who cause you trouble so the problem is out of the way", she is wired to think its the only solution when threatened or when you dislike a person. 

god, she killed aradia because she wanted "revenge", because she wanted to get back at aradia for tormenting her with ghosts EVEN IF aradia did so because she threw tavros off a cliff in the first place. this may have worsened their friendship, KEEP IN MIND THEY WERE FRIENDS, but NEITHER, and i mean neither terezi/vriska/aradia, had any remorse if the other dies as long as there was a reason. in the story, vriska didnt care what happened to tavros because she disliked him, therefore becoming pretty bias over his fate. because of this attempt at killing, aradia didnt care what happened to vriska either, and neither did terezi. terezi sold her out to one of the most powerful beings on their planet, solely because of their revenge cycle. as long as the troll in question did something "malicious”, then that plays a factor in their morals. vriska gave no second thought to killing both of her friends (or at least attempt to with tavros), terezi also tormented john in act 4 which led to his “doomed timeline death” and sold vriska out after she realized vriska wouldnt change. so no fucking WONDER karkat tries to hide who he is, he's overly cautious to not let it slip out because even the people he calls friends could backstab him at any given time considering theres LITERAL EXAMPLES OF THESE TROLLS HAVING DONE SO.

to karkat, he sees this as dangerous, which is why he even CALLS vriska dangerous to begin with. she might not even hesitate to kill him herself or maybe sell him out to the drones, because 1. she may not want to be a witness to something society actively seeks to destroy and 2. she cares more for her survival than karkats. EVEN if they were friends (re: aradia and vriska and terezi). so it just shows. 

on that note, i find it funny how karkat indirectly distracted vriska after she baited him with the question of his blood in a past conversation, which prompted karkat to monologue about troll romance. he was, yes, VERY interested in this topic to start with, but it was a nice little bonus for karkat as to not be found out by the one person who would most likely kill him even if it wasnt on purpose. however, we do not know how this will play out IF she does find out, we just know karkat is in the right to be scared of the theory.

and, alright i do have to mention this, while karkat may have been an angry fucker to START with, who spites the world and throws out insults every chance he gets, i feel he does this as more of a survival instinct as well. he doesnt care what he says to people no matter what they rank on the hemospectrum. they dont know his blood color so he feels he has some sort of immunity, but he just needs to keep it hidden. it also may just be his personality, as he IS a character who was given specific traits and andrew went along with it without so much thinking about plot. yet if you look at this from more of the metaphorical route, think about it with uhhhh lets say the perspective of how dogs work. for example, when you put a chihuahua next to a doberman, a doberman is more of an excited, energetic dog whereas a chihuahua will rain hell down on anybody who so goes near them. sometimes this is to make up for their size, to seem as menacing as the larger doberman, as they have nothing else to fend themselves with. another way to look at it is, if you see a bear (i forget if its black/brown or grizzly) you make yourself seem like the bigger person by scaring it off with sounds and eventually it will leave you alone. these sort of tactics work in the sense of survival. this is sort of what karkat could be doing, he uses insults and a defensive shouting to not really "hide" himself, but to have some sort of way as to not be found out if people start to question. someone asks him "hey karkat whats your blood" he goes "FUCK YOU, FUCK OFF, END OF STORY" which could make a person go "yo sorry dude forget i ever asked". so this could be a factor as to why he is so crabby, however on the other hand, he is crabby because that is also his character. andrew probably thought yo cancer = crab = crabby. however i do like how he is perceived and the whole "mutant blood" really made me do a double take on how he views life himself. he has to always hide who he is or he will get physically killed. alternia would take joy in finding out he does not belong there because lets face it, alternia is a bitch of a planet.

this also brought me to ask the question, why does karkat want to be a leader if hes so scared of what would happen to him if he were to be found out? which then, at first i said lol this is just karkat, he wants to a leader because he just wants to be the leader, he likes when things go to plan and that he the most say in their sburb plans considering he thinks everyone else is a "dumbass". to which, i then thought about it more and went ouch what if hes a leader because he knows hes not valued enough in society, that he somehow wants to feel some sort of importance in the world, so he wants to become a leader. i imagine younger karkat, not knowing why his blood is so undermined, finding out he is not wanted and suddenly on the most wanted list without having even DONE anything. even TAVROS said he was on that list, but only because he was weak and had no back-bone, here karkat may have been strong but no matter what, he was to be culled BECAUSE of his blood. something he cannot change no matter what. imagine a little kid knowing he will die at any point because of who he is (rlly sounds familiar if you think about it). so of course, he hides himself from the world, but do you think for an instant, little angry karkat wants to simply be FORGOTTEN about? i doubt that, he wants to be heard, he doesnt necessarily want to be rejected as he knows he will be, so while he does hide his blood, he wants to have a voice no matter what. when being a leader, people dont reject you, they LISTEN. they all may not want to because karkat is just a fucking ticking time bomb, who can lash out at any second, but i feel theres now a reason why he has this superiority complex. he wants to sort of become the person he knows he never will become (if you put it into that perspective). so thats kind of why im giving him the benefit of the doubt here.

i would also like to point out a sort of.... comparison?? not with the dogs but with unwanted children in a family household. this doesnt necessarily apply to karkat, but sub in family household with society and it might as well. (on that note, a warning/viewer discretion, if you have any problem with this kind of discussion, i wouldnt read further into this paragraph and skip to the next one) alright, the unwanted child psychology basically deals with the process of a child which is neglected by their parents, and/or know that they were never wanted in the family. i read an article a while back when we were discussing this in a lecture, we were browsing multiple people's perspective on the matter, and one said "An affective relationship may be suffocating to [the unwanted/neglected child]: it’s a defense against intimacy of which they know nothing. Normally they fluctuate between egotism and deep feelings of inferiority. They don’t understand what a balanced and healthy self-esteem looks like." it explains how the child who grows up in an unwanted home admits great emotion deprivation, because the child's bonds of affection are extremely fragile, and this can lead to both egotism and feeling like they are inadequate. and it really strongly shows karkats personality. we havent gotten that much from him in general, but considering how he uses this egotism to cover up the fact that he may be doomed, really shows the similarity. i liked this short article so i want to give some points to take into consideration, specifically this part: "It will be very difficult for unwanted children to build healthy relationships of affection in their adult life. Love is a foreign language to them. They don’t know how to decipher the codes and much less how to build them. It’s very hard for them to need and to be needed. That’s why, more often than not, they completely shirk their conflicts with peers and superiors, or do nothing but generate them. They speak incessantly about the broken relationship that marked their arrival in the world. A person with such a background will need help to get through those abysses of love that live in their heart. The most important step is that they recognize that their discomfort doesn’t depend on who they are, but the circumstances that led to their being." it may not be 100% tru for karkat but theres a small portion of it that can link back to karkats view on life and how being this mutant can really change who he is as a person. and i hope you can see the similarity between karkats character and this form of psychology. yet i also do not fully know the depth of karkat vantas. however i do hope it continues to build up in this way, as it would be both interesting and make us feel more for him as a person.

alright, i think if i write any more i will never stop aghjsk, which is a bit too much for a sunday afternoon, basically to sum up this post, trolls are violent and karkat will be killed if hes found out, even by his friends if it comes down to it. so karkat cannot really trust anybody, hes alone and imagine the thrill he had when he saw jack cut his hand to show the bright red blood? that he finally has someone LIKE HIM. imagine when he finds out about the kids. so i believe in his growth, while he needs to get a better vocabulary, i do get why hes so defensive all the time. because hes both scared and unwanted. and he wants to make up for it.

and i guess with all that being said, you can tell i now have a slight soft spot for the kid lmao

[neontaxidermy]

Ok I have Another village centric mod idea that meshes well with the first one but FIRST I have more to say on this first one

my complete inability to make minecraft mods PLUS the knowledge that any mod that’s large scale and multi feature probably reaquires a team AND the knowledge that this idea is too niche to gain the recognition it’d deserve if it DID get made vs my large and cool biology mod idea

(extensive Animal death mentions in the tags ALSO just found out theres a tag limit with it so)

[soncfseed]

reposted from my old blog

i want to post some links so people can better understand what bpd is and what a personality disorder is and is not. then, i’ll do a quick rundown of the 9 bpd symptoms and which ones ethan has/displays and how they manifest for him.

here is a quick ref of some common misconceptions about the disorder. tldr version: a lot of people think bpd isnt real, or that people with bpd are just crazy assholes but its a legitimate mental health problem that has multiple factors including ones that seem to be genetic and environmental.

a personality disorder is defined by the mayo clinic as: “a type of mental disorder in which you have a rigid and unhealthy pattern of thinking, functioning and behaving. A person with a personality disorder has trouble perceiving and relating to situations and people. This causes significant problems and limitations in relationships, social activities, work and school. In some cases, you may not realize that you have a personality disorder because your way of thinking and behaving seems natural to you.” basically, its not that a person has a bad personality in terms of poor character or is intentionally acting in a way that may seem irrational or explosive, but rather that the person has functional differences in how their brain reacts to things. personality is defined as:  “the combination of thoughts, emotions and behaviors that makes you unique. It’s the way you view, understand and relate to the outside world, as well as how you see yourself.” it isn’t just behaviour nor is it something people consciously control 100% of the time. borderline personality disorder has been linked to physical differences in the brain and its functioning, particularly of neurotransmitters and brain chemicals similar to mood disorders like depression. it is a type of neurodivergence, not a skewed moral compass, a choice, or something that people with bpd typically enjoy. the symptoms are very stress inducing and cause a lot of turmoil for the affected person, and when poor coping skills have been ingrained and then create further stress or complications in the person’s life, particularly in interpersonal relationships.

ok now we’re gonna hit the 9 symptoms and 4 domains of bpd and how ethan fits into it. the dsm-5 requires 5 symptoms out of 9 for a person to be diagnosed with bpd. ethan displays, in my opinion, 8/9 symptoms and would be a candidate for diagnosis in my experience.

domain a - emotional regulation 1) “Affective (emotional) instability including intense, episodic emotional anguish, irritability, and anxiety/panic attacks” ✅ generally, this is episodes of intense sadness, anger, irritability, insecurity and self doubt for ethan. he doesnt usually have anxiety or panic attacks, but he has had a few in extremely stressful situations. his symptoms of an anxiety attack tend to lean more towards irritability and emotional outbursts.

2) “Anger that is inappropriate, intense and difficult to control”  ✅ while ethan does become rightfully frustrated when the captain returns the book, the fact that he has what seems like a minute long complete meltdown including hitting/smashing objects, that would be a good example of the kind of situationally inappropriate anger and displays of temper ethan has. his anger spikes rapidly and it makes it hard to control his actions at times.

3) “Chronic feelings of emptiness”  ✅ while we don’t necessarily see this explicitly in game, i’d argue that’s part of his experience of bpd. he often feels a lack of purpose, a lack of self, and substitutes that with his role as the leader of new eden.

theres additional symptoms described as such: “In addition, if you suffer from borderline disorder, you may also experience emotional hyper-reactivity (“emotional storms”),  or emotional responses that are occasionally under- reactive, and frequent episodes of loneliness, and boredom. “ ethan definitely experiences emotional storms, and episodes of loneliness particularly. thats amplified by the fact that hes not particularly close to anyone in new eden besides maybe the judge. between a lack of substantial interpersonal ties with his community and his disorder, his episodes of loneliness are often very intense and distressing.

domain b - harmful impulsive behaviors 4)  “Self-damaging acts such as excessive spending, unsafe and inappropriate sexual conduct, substance abuse, reckless driving, and binge eating”  ✅ ethan deals with this to an extent, but not these specific self damaging behaviours. for ethan, its usually not eating or not sleeping for periods of time, or going on particularly dangerous missions to find the book. hunting also serves as an adrenaline rush, but because it sustains new eden its less impulsive than it is an acceptable way of spending a day

5) “Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, threats, or self-injurious behavior such as cutting or hitting yourself.”  ❌ ethan has suicidal ideations, but doesn’t have a history of engaging in self harm or suicide attempts.  

though not an explicit symptom, dangerous impulsivity that affects the self or others is a common symptom, and one ethan does deal with. his decision to turn new eden over to the highwaymen was in part spurred by his impulsive thinking and behaviour.

domain c - perceptions of self and others 6) “A markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of yourself (your perceptions of yourself, your identity)”  ✅ ethan definitely experiences shifts in this realm. this is part of why he ties himself so strongly to his identity as the leader of new eden in light of his poor relationship with his father (which will come up again). when that is threatened, it sends him spiraling because of his unstable self image. this applies to ethan’s image of himself as a person morally, his worth relative to others, and even how he feels about his body and appearance.

7) “Suspiciousness of others thoughts about you, and even paranoid ideation, or transient and stress related dissociative episodes during which you feel that you or your surroundings appear unreal.”  ✅ ethan is absolutely suspicious of others and it goes beyond his learned suspicion of outsiders that all of new eden seems to have. he is particularly suspicious of his father, and of people within his own community. some of this is completely rational, but it often extends beyond that. he experiences, in my hc, dissociative episodes and bouts of depersonalization where parts of his body don’t feel real or don’t feel attached to him/belonging to him.

“Other symptoms in this Domain include split- or “all-or-nothing” thinking, difficulty “pulling” your thoughts together so they make sense, and rational problem solving, especially in social conflicts.” ethan deals with all of these issues generally speaking. this is in part why his decision to burn down new eden was so extreme; he has difficulty at times with regulating what is rational and what is not (and making nuanced decisions), particularly when under extreme emotional duress like during an explosive emotional episode or mood swing.

domain d - unstable relationships 8)  “You may engage in frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment.”✅ this is part of why he looked so hard for the book, why he pushes himself so hard to be the leader of new eden and why he turns on them so aggressively at the end. sometimes this can manifest as lashing out, a way to “get them before they get me” mentality. he has particularly strong responses to feeling abandoned or ignored.

9) “Your relationships may be very intense, unstable, & alternate between the extremes of overidealizing and undervaluing people who are important to you.” ✅ this is definitely something ethan struggles with, especially with his father. this is also why he was willing to let new eden burn and its people suffer with it. he had swung too far back from feeling rejected that went completely into “new eden bad”, undervaluing everyone there to the point that he was able to rationalize destroying the place at the expense of the people who lived there.

none of this is meant to excuse his poor decision making, but in the context of my hc for him, it explains why he can act so irrationally at times, and so extremely. in reality, people with bpd are more likely to hurt themselves through self harm, suicide attempts, impuslive behavior, and self destructive behavior. ethan seed is 1) not a real person and 2) living under some very intense and unusual circumstances with probably the WORST person to parent someone with bpd, joseph “i talk to god and he says your soul is tainted” seed. he also doesn’t know he has a disorder and doesn’t have the knowledge or resources to get mental health treatment for his disorder. as it stands, however, he’s made some pretty bad and pretty horrible decisions, and at times can be a bad person. this doesn’t mean, however, that he is 100% bad or always awful, or that bpd is the sole cause of his behaviours. it isnt. lots of people (including myself) have bpd and we haven’t been directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths of anyone; we’ve never burned down our hometowns or tried to get our fathers killed. ethan’s display of bpd is more of a tool to explain and contextualize his behavior and character rather than to condemn him, condone him, or excuse his actions.

tldr ethan has bpd and so do i thanks 4 listening to my ted talk

[bullyfemme]

Vaccinate Your Fucking Kids

Hey I'm an angry bio major and I'm here to debunk some of the dumber arguements against vaccines and provide points as to why you should vaccinate your kids bc my area is now on red alert for fucking measles :')

1. "Vaccines cause autism"

This claim was invented by Andrew Wakefield. I've heard a lot of discussion abt his dumb bullshit. He falsified results, which lead to him losing his medical license and eventually having his paper pulled from the lancet. His results could not be duplicated. Also he only ran a study on 12 kids he personally picked out from anti-vaccine parents. Any scientist or statistics student worth the rocks in their shoes can tell you that the sample size is too small and biased.

2. "The Thimersol preservative in vaccines causes autism and is dangerous because it has mercury in it"

Not only is it not used anymore and hasn't been since 2001 with the exception of a few flu vaccines (which you can ask for without thimersol), it's a completely different kind of mercury than what we think of. Methylmercury is the one that poisons people, because our bodies are incapable of breaking it down. Thimersol contains ethylmercury. I know this is a difficult topic to understand, but there are different kinds of mercury in the world. Where as methylmercury cannot be broken down in your body and has a fucking long half-life, ethylmercury's half life is roughly a week and it does not stick around in your body. You shit it out.

3. Nothing can "cause" autism

Autism is a genetic disorder with at least 1000 different genes connected to it, but it is believed to have some outside factors such as parental age and birth complications.

However, none of those outside factors involve vaccines. Not a one. None. Maybe one? Nah fuck off.

The reason more people with autism exist and are being diagnosed now than previous is not because more autistic people exist now than before. Rather, we now have a better, more complete and full understanding of autism and its symptoms.

Here's an analogy: in the year 1980, you have discovered the color green. Awesome. But the only green you know about is the oversatured secondary color. If the green is any lighter or any darker, or slightly more blue or yellow, or less saturated, you cant and will not label it as green. You might say "oh that's just a really weird blue" or "wow what a strange yellow". But you've never processed that its green, just like the other green. The greens were always there: you just never understood that they were green. And so, in 2019, now that we understand more about green, we can see that the more blue and yellow greens are still green even if they dont filt the perfect green mold.

And that's why theres more. autism diagnosis today.

Correlation =/= causation. Yes, more kids are vaccinated today than were in 1950. Yes, more kids are diagnosed as autistic today than there were in 1950. This is because medicine has advanced since 1950. Jackets may be bought when it starts to get cold but that doesnt mean the jackets made it cold.

4. Herd immunity: you are killing kids fighting cancer

Herd immunity is the well-proven idea that revolves around the immunocompromised. Immunocompromised people are people who, as the name suggests, have a compromised immune system. This could be for many reasons including cancer treatment, HIV, down syndrome, and many others. Because vaccines do introduce a small part of a neutered infection into a body to familiarize it with the immune system (more in the next section), their lack of an immune system makes this ineffective. When everyone in a community is vaccinated except for them, this is herd immunity and that immunocompromised person is safe.

5. "Vaccines put the virus in my children!"

You bet your sweet ass they do! And it fucking rules!

If you read any part of this fucking post, read this. Please read this part. So few people understand this about their immune system and its killing kids.

Okay, so for this to make sense, you need to understand the immune system and for that I have to give a small lecture.

You have two different categories of immune cells: adaptive and innate. I wont get in to each individual cell but here's the deal on them: your innate immunity is always active. Always. It's always patrolling your body for an infection. Its nonspecific, and has no memory (which I will elaborate on in a second).

The adaptive memory is fucking awesome. Seriously. It activates after 3-5 days of infection if the innate immune system cant handle it themselves. It sends out hundreds of antibodies which it uses kind of like little tracking devices that attach themselves to bacteria, viruses, or whatever is infecting the body. And they have a memory, meaning they will remember an infection the first time.

If you take anything away from this post, take this: EVERY TIME YOU GET SICK WITH A VIRUS, IT DOES NOT GO AWAY 100%. YOU WILL ALWAYS HAVE ONE OR TWO VIRAL CELLS LEFT. THIS INCLUDES EVERY TIME YOUVE EVER GOTTEN SICK, FROM THE CHICKEN POX WHEN YOU WERE 6 TO THE FLU TWO WEEKS AGO SO THAT THE IMMUNE SYSTEM CAN REMEMBER THE NEXT TIME YOU GET INFECTED WITH THAT STRAIN.

This is fucking essential to understanding what vaccines do. The memory in immune cells comes from having more or less kept the bacteria in the body in a neutered state.

Vaccines make it so that you can skip right to that right off the bat by introducing the body to a neutered version of a virus. They skip the pain and suffering of an illness and skip right to the introduction of your immune system.

So yes. Your kids are introduced to a neutered version of measles so that they don't have to acquire that immunity through a fever so hot the fucking proteins holding their brain together start falling apart at 104-106°.

In conclusion: vaccinate your fucking kids

[avengerscompound]

The Unicorn - Chapter 14

The Unicorn:  A Pepperony Fanfic PREVIOUS

Series Masterlist

Buy me a coffee with Ko-fi Word Count:    2075

Pairing:  Tony Stark x F!Reader x Pepper Potts

Warnings:  Sex talk.  Pregnancy

Synopsis:  The three of you go house shopping in New York to see if you can find something you’re all happy with.

Chapter 14

Over the next few weeks, things ramped up a lot.  There was another ultrasound to be had at 8 weeks and Tony and Pepper were determined to figure out where you should all live that gave the best options for school and work.

You seemed completely nonplussed on the issue.  You still went to Avengers training in the early morning and you continued going to your lab in the afternoon.  Just now before you left you seemed to struggle with the thought that you might throw up first.

By the time of the eight-week ultrasound, you weren't just thinking about it.  You had to factor in an extra ten minutes for throwing up before you made your way down for the dawn run.  It never stopped you though.  If you could go to training hungover a little bit of morning sickness wasn't going to stop you.

The strange thing was that Pepper seemed to be suffering with it too.  Initially, the three of you had put it on her just not handling vomit very well.  It wasn’t a totally uncommon thing that when someone threw up it might set someone else off.  Pepper had never been the weak stomached type but it was possible worries about the pregnancy was already making her slightly nauseated.

By the time of the ultrasound both Tony and you were teasing her about it being sympathy vomit.

The ultrasound went fine everyone was excited to see the twins again.  They still kind of just looked like a weird blurry picture of packaging peanuts.   Tony did still feel both relieved and excited when he heard the fast squish-squish sound of their heartbeats.

After the ultrasound, the three of you went to the first of the choices for the new home.  New York City.

When Tony had made the move to the compound he’d dissolved all his property.  Avengers Tower had become the Baxter Building.  It was probably the least practical course for them because it would mean reopening a branch of Stark Industry so that Pepper had an office and you had a lab, buying a home, and possibly opening a branch of the Avengers if you were set on remaining on the team after your maternity leave was up.

Tony had booked them the penthouse suite at the Gramercy Park while they looked at options.

“Dalton.  That’s the reason.”  Pepper said.  Her heels clicked loudly on the garish marble floors of the Upper East Side mansion they were inspecting.

The house was hideous.  The ‘American Renaissance’ period of architecture was a travesty.  The whole place, with its marble floors, chandeliers, ceiling murals featuring cherubs and gold scrollwork, looked more like a museum than a home.  It was dated, to say the least.  And dated to a period of opulence with no taste or subtlety.  All Tony could think was apart from the library which he’d keep for Pepper (the murals would have to go), the pool and the cinema, he’d gut the whole thing and start over.

“I don’t know, Pep.  It could have 100 Dalton’s but there’s no yard…”

“There’s a roof garden.”

“You want the twins playing on the roof?”  He said raising an eyebrow.

“Right, of course.”  She said heading into the kitchen.  “This is nice.”

“Yeah.  Very light and spacious.  I still think… I’d have to invest at least a cool billion to have us set up and even then it wouldn’t be right and it doesn’t feel like a home.”  He said running his hand over the floating kitchen island.

“What do you think?”  Pepper asked turning to you.

“I don’t love it.”  You said.  “I mean, doesn’t it scream masked orgy to you?  I bet naked asses have been all over everything.”

“Oh yeah.  I thought it looked familiar.”  Tony teased.

“God, you’re disgusting,”  Pepper said, whacking him.  Tony laughed and rubbed his arm.  “Well, we don’t have to get this one.  There were more options.”

“Yeah, but they’ll all be either Townhouses or Penthouses.  They won’t be where we can teach them to ride their bikes or run around with their dog.  We’ll have to take them to the park every time we want to do something like that.”  Tony said.  “Plus there’s the other investments involved.  S.I. is upstate now.  I’d have to reopen here.”

“The Avengers.”  You added.

“Yeah, I moved that because it was unsafe to have it just - in the middle of the city.”  Tony agreed.

Pepper pursed her lips.  She didn’t like that you wanted to stay with the Avengers the same way she didn’t like that Tony wouldn’t give up being Iron Man back in the day.  “We can consider it though right?  That’s what we’re doing here?  Looking at each option and picking the best?”

“Yeah, you're right.  Being here is better than in the compound.”  Tony conceded.  “I don't know how big the pull to Dalton is compared to just buying land near the compound and building exactly what we want though.”

“There aren't any schools around the compound though.”  Pepper complained.

“Start your own one, Elon Musk style.”  You said.

“We are not starting our own one like Elon.”  Pepper said sternly.

“I don't know… Maybe we should.  Give another incentive for people to stay on if it was more family friendly.”  Tony said with a shrug.

“Tony…”  Pepper sighed.  He knew that tone so he dropped it.

You went out to the balcony and looked out over the park.  Tony came up behind you and wrapped his arms around your waist.  “It is a cool city though.”  You said.

“I won't argue that.”  He agreed, kissing your neck.

“Can we get out of this house?  I feel like I'm in a museum and the temptation to just touch everything for no good reason is making my fingers itchy.”  You said.

Tony chuckled and his hands ran over your stomach.  It was still far too early to show.  Even so, he loved that he could touch you and know that his children were in there and it wouldn’t be too long until he got to hold them.  It helped put that nervous impatience he felt in check.  “I’d gut it if we bought it.”

“Oh, yeah?”  You said turning in his arms.  “Not the library.”

“No, but that mural for sure.  I’d make it more shelves.”

“Oh, tell me more.”

“All the ugly ass marble and gold would go.  I’d change the light fittings to something sleeker but still a feature.  I’d keep timber as a feature, but make it less ornate.  Sleek lines but the timber would make it feel more home than office like.  The art would be modern but not surreal.  Maybe some Warhol and Pollack.  Maybe include some impressionists to break it up.  I’d install FRIDAY obviously.  The kitchen would be a similar layout but modern.  White and black.  Granite tops not marble.  I'd make the first floor about entertaining and the top two for us.  Bedrooms.  Living room.  That would be our family space.  It would be warmer colors.  Colors that take mess more.  I'd put a lab for us in the basement.  Probably a garage too but I might keep my of my collection out here.  There would be an office for Pep.  A gym.  I'd keep the cinema and the pool.”

You grinned and pecked his lips.  “Your mind has been racing even though you don't want this place.”

“Well, I mostly just want my girls to be happy.  If buying this eyesore makes you happy, then I’m happy.”  He said.

“That’s sweet.  But it won’t.  I don’t even think Pepper is sold on it.”  You said pulling him back inside.  “God, that bathroom is going to be in my nightmares.  The green marble toilet.”

Tony laughed.  “Yeah, that would be first to go.”

They made their back inside and found Pepper coming down the stairs followed by the real estate agent.  “Okay.  Let's go.  I think I’ve seen enough.”

“Good.  Let’s get something to eat.”  Tony said.  “I’m feeling Gray’s Papaya.”

Pepper scrunched her nose.  “I think the smell would make me throw up.”   She said.  “If you want local let’s go to Katz’s.”

You looked her up and down.  “You’re gonna need to dial in this sympathy sickness thing or see a doctor because I feel like you’re stealing my thunder.”

She scowled.  “I’m not doing it on purpose.”

“So, go see a doctor.”  You pushed.

Tony followed you outside where Happy was waiting with the car.  The three of you slid into the back seat and Pepper huffed.  “I just… it’s only in the mornings or certain smells.  It’s got to just be some weird sympathy thing.”

“Maybe you’re actually pregnant,”  Tony said.  He’d meant it as a joke but as soon as the words were out of his mouth it was like something clicked into place.  Maybe she was pregnant.  He couldn’t remember when she last had her period, and they’d been tracking it regularly right up until they did the first IVF run with you.

“Ha-ha, very funny, Tony.”  Pepper snarked.

“But maybe you are pregnant, Pepper.”  You said.

“You do kind of look like you’re glowing.”  Happy added looking in the rearview mirror.

“No.  How could I be?  We did all that IVF.”  She stopped talking and seemed to try and count something off on her fingers.  “How could I be?”

“Hap, stop at a pharmacy and get some pregnancy tests would you?”  Tony said.

“You got it, boss.”  Happy replied and swerved the car around, double parking it outside a CVS on Lexington.  He jumped out and ran inside as horns sounded behind him and someone cursed them as they went around.

“But… we couldn’t.  It wasn’t working.”  Pepper said.

“I can’t explain it Pepper, but it’s possible, right?  It would explain this.”  Tony said.

“How come you get glowing and I get a breakout on my jaw?”  You snarked.

“The glow is oily skin.”  Pepper said absentmindedly.  “It depends on how dry your skin was to begin with.”

“God damn it.”  You cursed.

“What will we do?”  Pepper said looking at him.  “We already have twins.”

“Triplets?”  Tony said making an exaggerated shrug.  He was pretty far from actually being worried about this.  He was actually pretty excited at the thought of the possibility of a large instant family.

“Does it count as triplets if two different people are carrying them?”  You asked.

“I don’t know.  I mean, they’re genetically me and Pepper and they’ll be due roughly the same time.” He mused.  “What counts?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s housed in the same uterus.”  You said.

“Can we please argue about that when I’m not freaking out”  Pepper groaned.

Happy ran back out and jumped into the car passing the paper bag back to Tony.  “Hotel?”  He asked.

“Yes, please,”  Pepper said.

“And can you swing past Katz’s after.  Get us some Matzo Ball Soup, a garden salad, and a Reuben.”  Tony added.

“And Knish.”  You added.  “Potato ones.”

“Sure thing.”  Happy said pulling back into traffic.

He drove the three of you back to the Gramercy and Tony lead you and Pepper back up to the Penthouse.  Pepper was in full panic mode by the time they got upstairs and rushed straight into the main bathroom and locked the door.

“Are you okay in there, Pepper?”  You called, leaning on the door.

“Yes, leave me alone to pee in peace.”  She called back.

You snorted and moved to Tony.  “Well then,”  You said.  “I bet she is.”

“I’m not taking that bet.”  He said.

“Oh go on.  A billion dollars.  I’ll bet you a billion dollars.”

“What do you need a billion dollars for?”

You shrugged and flopped down on the couch.   The door opened and Pepper slumped out.  “Positive.  There wasn’t even a wait for lines to show.  It was right away.”

Tony rushed to her side and pulled her into a hug.  A second later you had slammed into their sides and hugged them both tightly.

“Oh my god, this is amazing,”  Tony said.

“We’re going to be pregnant at the same time.  How awesome is that?”  You added.

“I don’t - how - how do we do this?”  She said.  “How did this happen?”

Tony really didn’t know the answer to that.  All he knew for sure was he had the resources and he was excited.  He was going to be part of a big family and he’d make sure they didn’t have to worry about anything.

// NEXT

[negasonicimagines]

TEAM (Part Two)

I forgot to mention that this fic is partially inspired by Lorde’s “Team,” hence the title. Kind of about how no matter how much you and the other characters here bicker, you’re all on each others’ team.

This is the second part to TEAM (Part One) [but I hope that’d be obvious] and therefore is inspired by the same request and has essentially the same trigger warnings.

“So, you and Ellie, huh? About time,” Logan remarks, and you feel yourself blush.

“No! It’s not like that! I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’d be the luckiest girl in the world, but, uh… No, it’s not like that.”

“Are you sure about that? I’ve seen the way you two are together. When she’s not looking at you or her phone, she’s watching everyone else like a hawk, like they’re threats. Honestly, Piotr’s worried about her.”

At the mention of Wade’s friend, you’re reminded of what Logan said before, about the thing that he knew that he shouldn’t tell her, the thing Wade also knew.

“What was that, anyway? The thing you knew that you didn’t know before that you would’ve told me if you had but couldn’t tell me?”

“I’m afraid that’s Wade’s business.”

“Great,” you remark. “So, I’ll never know.”

“Listen, kid, I know the stuff he said-”

“Screamed.”

“The stuff he screamed at you was pretty fucking awful. But… He had his reasons, okay? Being around him, being as close to him as you were was dangerous. It made you a target,” Logan explains.

“When will you people realize that I can’t die forever?! I’ve died plenty of times, and I always come back! Let me make my own decisions!”

“How many times have you died, Y/N?” Logan asks.

“It’s just… Hard not to starve when my mom kicks me out over school breaks, especially with the metabolism that comes with a healing factor. I can’t stay with Wade all the time, he has himself and Al to worry about. Muggers don’t like when you don’t have money. Mom doesn’t like me when I don’t have money. I don’t know, probably like eight or nine times.”

“You should’ve come here!” Logan scolds, and you want to curl in on yourself, just like before. “I’m sorry. He and I both know just how much dying can fuck you up, so, to hear you say that you’ve died.... And that you don’t care if you do? It’s concerning, to say the least.”

“Boo-hoo, Y/N’s crazy. Who isn’t?” you remark, annoyed at his concern. Men, they always think they know better.

He sighs. “Listen. You should just talk to him, I’m sure-”

“No,” you say, and it comes out as a whimper. The wound was still fresh. “I don’t want to.”

“Hey, he’s not gonna hurt you,” Logan reassures you. “He probably feels bad for what he said, and-”

“I said no,” you cut him off, but the sad tone in your voice doesn’t make you sound very convincing.

“And he’s not gonna apologize unless he thinks you wanna hear it. You know how Wade gets when he feels guilty, he doesn’t know how to deal with it.”

“Well, I don’t wanna hear an apology. I just want him to be my friend again, like before. That’s it. I don’t care to know why, or how, or whatever. I just miss my friend,” you admit, and Logan sighs.

“Okay...”

“Is it alright if I go? I wanna get started on my Chemistry homework.”

“Yeah,” Logan says. “Go ahead. See you next Wednesday. Or, sooner, if you need anything.”

You leave the gym, making your way to your dorm  with your head down, when you bump into a familiar red-suited man.

“Sorry,” you squeak, not even able to meet the eyes of the mask, before attempting to go past him. He stops you, grabbing at your shoulder, but you flinch away. “Please d-don’t…”

“Y/N…” Wade murmurs, filled with remorse at his rampage. He’d made you scared of him, which means it worked, but he regrets how much it hurt you. “I’m not gonna hurt you.”

“You’re not, huh?” Ellie, swiftly approaching, asks. “Pretty sure you already did, Deadpool.”

“I just wanted-” he starts, but Ellie, your avenging angel, cuts him off.

“You just wanted what, huh? To terrorize them more, is that it?

“Terrorize? I-”

“You what? Didn’t? Because as someone who sleeps in the same room as Y/N, I can confirm that you did. They cry in their sleep like they did the day it happened. Did you know that, that you made them cry? I guess you do now. So, leave, before I decide I’m going to follow you out the door and blow you to Hell.”

“E-Ellie, I said not to hurt him,” you quietly tell her, and she clenches her fists, grumbling.

“You did?” Wade asks.

“Of course,” you respond meekly, tapping the tips of your fingers together and avoiding the gaze of everyone around you. and Ellie places an arm around you, glaring at Wade without mercy.

“I’m- I’m so sorry, Y/N. I- I just didn’t know what to do, so much was happening. I was so angry at the situation, so scared for your safety, and I took all that aggression out on you, the one person I should’ve been channeling those feelings into protecting, and I- I know I already said it, but I’m a blabbermouth with nothing else to say, so… I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry, kid. I know you probably don’t care, you just wanna start over and stay the hell away from me, but I’m sorry. And my door’s always open.”

“Thank you. I forgive you,” you nod, smiling a little, You’re already starting to feel better, more like yourself.

“You what?” Ellie questions, shaking with anger. “He hurt you. He shouldn’t ever be forgiven.”

“She’s right,” Wade agrees, head down.

“Well, it’s my forgiveness, and I can do whatever the hell I want with it,” you remind them, shrugging.

“There she is,” Wade says quietly, and you can somehow tell that he’s smiling. You don’t know if it’s body language, tone of voice, or what, but he’s smiling.

“I’m sorry for making you worry. I’m gonna keep living here, and I’m gonna keep taking better care of myself, so no one has to worry about me again,” you inform him.

“Wrong goal, but I appreciate the method. I don’t mind worrying about you, kid, but I’d rather worry about you not doing your homework than about the next time you’re gonna collapse on my porch, dead.”

“What?” Ellie wonders, and you groan. “Wait, have you died?”

“Goddammit, Wade,” you grumble. “She didn’t know that.”

“H-how?”

“Not important,” you tell her.

“No, it is, Y/N. You want all of us to get over the fact that you can die, but the truth is that you need to get over the fact that we care if you die,” Wade corrects you. There’s no malice in his tone, but the words themselves cause anxiety to slither out of the pit of your stomach like a snake and curl around your lungs and heart, maintining a tight grip.

“It’s because of you not eating or sleeping enough, isn’t it?” Ellie asks. “That’s what you guys were in that fight about the other morning, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” you admit, and Ellie closes her eyes, taking a deep, shaky breath and trying to remain calm for your sake, for her own sake.

“Right,” she responds, sighing. “Well, I’m not letting that happen again.”

“Challenge accepted,” you chuckle, and she rolls her eyes.

“I was just on my way back to Photography. Forgot my camera. See you later.”

She makes her way in the direction of the classroom, disappearing around a corner.

“Man, if she didn’t hate me before, she sure does now,” Wade says, and you smile, shaking your head. “Really?” he asks.

“Photography is Mondays and Thursdays… And she didn’t even have her camera.”

Wade scoffs. “Well, she’s definitely taking good care of you. I always knew she would, one day. When did you two finally make it official?  I’m sorry that I missed it.”

“We haven’t made anything official, Wade, she doesn’t like me like that. We’re just close friends.”

He rolls his eyes, going to playfully shove your shoulder, but you flinch away. He sighs.

“I’m sorry,” he says again. “I- I was so cruel, I just wanted to say whatever i could to get you away, to protect you, from m-”

“From what? The thing Logan keeps talking about?”

“What thing?” he asks, sounding a bit panicked.

“He keeps saying that there’s this thing he knows that he would’ve told me if he’d known before but he shouldn’t tell me now. It’s super weird, but he said you were going to tell me before you- You-” You stop yourself from continuing, still, shaking a little bit at the memory. It was only the day before yesterday.

“Yeah,” he responds quietly. “It was part of the reason I did that. I just- Us being friends was already dangerous, and you being- You- You’re- I- I’m so sorry I left you with her, if I’d known, if I’d known she was pregnant...I would’ve done the right thing! I’m not that kind of dirtbag, you’ve gotta believe me, and I’m just so, so sorry. Everything that’s wrong with your life, maybe it wouldn’t have happened if I’d just thought- If I’d just thought, but I was young, and stupid, and there’s nothing I can do now except own up to it, own up to the fact that I- I am- I’m- Oh, please…” He practically falls into you, wrapping his arms around your neck. You feel him shake with sobs, and you cry, too, but with a different emotion. Not regret, but happiness.

“You? You’re him?” you ask, and he readjusts himself, backing away from you.

“I’m sorry, I should’ve asked before hugging, I just didn’t think it was gonna be so hard, and you’re my best friend, and I- I don’t know, I don’t know. I’m so sorry that I’m your father.”

“You are? You’re sorry?” you ask, knowing that he’s apologizing because he regrets it, regrets you and your entire existence.

“Not in the way you’re thinking! You- You deserve so much better, I wanted so much better for you,” he reassures you, or, at least, attempts to.

“How do you even know?”

“I just… I talked to Xavier to see if he had any connections that could help me find your father, and he said he did, but he insisted that I give him a sample of my DNA to see if they match before he used his connections. I laughed it off, but then… it was a match.”

“How’d you get my DNA?” You wonder.

“Oh, I stuck a cotton swab in your mouth while you were sleeping. Wasn’t hard, you’re a really heavy sleeper,” he says, and you have a faint memory of the dream you had about a week ago where you were abducted by aliens that wanted to harvest your DNA to create genetically modified pet humans for their home planet. You laugh.

“So, you found out it was a match, and then… You were angry about it? Hated that the Wilson family legacy wasn’t going to end with you?”

“No. I was angry, yeah, but at myself. I was irresponsible, and my best friend in the whole world sufferred because of it. I never recognized your mom the times I’d seen her, and we had sex!”

“You had sex with my mom? Bro code violation alert!” you joke, and he chuckles bitterly.

“Right?” he responds. “But… I don’t even know where to go from here. Things can’t go back to normal, that’s not okay. I need to step up. And, even if it was the right thing to do, going back to normal… I get the feeling that you’re not gonna be that comfortable around me for a while. I was… I was just like my dad. My worst fucking fear.”

“You’re not him, okay? I promise.”

“I should be comforting you,” he says, stepping towards you. Out of renewed instinct, you step back. He’s heartbroken.

“Try- Try not to take it personally, I’m like this with just about everybody,” you attempt to make him feel better, but he shakes his head.

“You haven’t been like this with me, not before- Before I did what I did. Said those things, those awful, untrue things. Why did I say those things? They weren’t the truth, they were the opposite of it. I love hearing from you, it makes every day better. Finding you on my couch is a great feeling, knowing that someone as great as you trusts me, sees me as someone who can keep them safe.”

“And my memes?” You ask in a sarcastically accusatory tone.

“The funniest,” he replies. “Can I- Can I give you a hug?”

You nod, and he surges forward, wrapping you up in his arms and spinning you around.

“I always hoped it’d be like that,” you quietly admit, and he beams.

“Listen, we can talk later at dinner. I think you’ve got a certain girl you need to talk to, and she and her metal accomplice are approaching.”

“I think she’s his accomplice,” you correct with a laugh.

“Gotta bounce before the hardest guy on Earth ropes me into another mission. I’ll be back, though, kid.”

“Yeah. See you soon…”

“Wade’s fine for now, unless you wanna call me something else. We can negotiate later, ‘kay? Love you, bye.” Wade scurries down the hall, not realizing that he’s going towards the dorms, not the exit.

“Wade Wilson!” calls Piotr from behind you, and you turn around to see that Ellie is far closer to you than she is to Piotr, having gone faster on her smaller, lighter legs.

“Uh, hello…” you say dumbly.

“Based on your expression, I’d say that discussion went well.”

“Very well. Thank you for giving him the opportunity to talk to me alone, I’m sure you didn’t wanna do that.”

“I didn’t, but I figured it was the best option. Tell me more on the way to the dorm.”

“Well, uh… He apologized, a lot. Not just for the fights.”

“For letting you die?”

“No. Worse.”

“Holy shit, what’d he do, and why haven’t I heard about it?” She asks, tense.

“Because I didn’t know,” you reply defensively. “He’s- He’s my biological father, Ellie.”

“Whoa… Seriously? How long has he known?”

“I don’t know, but not long, the DNA tests were recently. He just wanted to help me find my dad and when he asked Xavier if he had any way of helping, the Professor said that he had to submit a sample to be tested. Turn’s out the old man’s hunch was right. You… You still wanna be friends, right?”

“Yeah, of course, why wouldn’t I?” Ellie wonders.

“I just- I know you don’t like Wade very much, and I’m technically his daughter, so…”

“So? That doesn’t mean I don’t love you anymore,” Ellie argues, and then covers her mouth.

“You love me?”

“Yeah, but just, like, in a friend way,” she plays it off rather smoothly, in her opinion, but you sigh in disappointment before you can stop yourself. “Wait, do you love me in a not-friend way?”

“Not really sure what you wanna hear,” you respond, feeling the recently-sealed cracks in your heart refracturing.

“Do you?” she asks.

You’re silent as the two of you walk to your shared dorm.

“Y/N, I asked you a question. Do you love me as a friend, or as more?”

You feel overheated and nauseous, that’s how nervous you are. You attempt to take some steadying breaths before answering: “More.”

“Oh, thank god…” she sighs. “I- I told you on Monday, when you fell asleep with me. But you were asleep, so, you didn’t hear me… Duh… I sound so stupid right now, don’t I?”

“No, not at all! Jeez, today just keeps getting better and better, I mean it!” You exclaim.

“Can- Can I kiss you?” Ellie asks nervously, and your eyes widen, but you nod. She takes your face in her hands and just goes for it, pressing her lips to yours. You respond immediately, wrapping your arms around her neck while her hands slip past your face and into your hair, tugging gently. You let out a small, quiet moan at that, and you can feel her smirk a little. She kisses you faster, pushing her body closer to yours, and your knees give out. She catches you in the nick of time, laughing a bit at how easily flustered you are as she nudges you toward the bed, sitting there with you. “Your knees are right, we probably shouldn’t rush into things.”

“Yeah…” you admit, resting your head on her shoulder.

“I love you…” She mumbles. “I’ve loved you for a long time, actually.”

“Same here. When did you know?”

Ellie replies: “It’s kind of embarrassing.”

“I can tell you first, if you want,” you offer.

“Yeah, do that…” She says.

“I just realized that every time I was upset, you were there, making me feel better. Even if you didn’t know it. Every time my mom hit me, or I got stabbed by an asshole mugger, or I was about to faint from hunger… You were right there. Making my life better just by existing.”

“I wish I could’ve been right there in person, to help you,” Ellie says, and you shake your head.

“That’s not the point. The point is that you did, without even trying. You always make me happy, without even trying.You just have to be there and everything is better.”

“That’s really nice… I feel dumb now,” Ellie confesses.

“It’s not dumb! Probably not, I mean…” you reply, nuzzling her chest a bit as you try to get a bit cozier.

“Um...You probably don’t know this, but I used to get in fights a lot before we met. And Piotr would always lecture me, telling me it wasn’t heroic to fight out of anger. That I should fight for something, not because of something. That I should be aware of the consequences that come with fighting, and truly think about them before I did. I never understood what he meant, and then we met and became friends… Then best friends…

“I didn’t even realize that before every fight, even the ones I was assigned, I’d think about how I was going to make the world a better place for you. I’d think about what you would think if you heard what I was doing. I- I made a mistake at one point, got angry over nothing and got into another stupid, pointless fight. It was the first time in awhile I’d heard Colossus’s spiel, and I realized my thinking process with every world he spoke. It all just made me think of how I feel about you. You’d made me a better person, more mindful of the consequences of my actions, my thoughtless, immature violence. That’s when I knew.”

“Oh, shut up! That’s way better than mine and not embarrassing at all! Show-off,” you remark, and she chuckles.

“That was fucking beautiful!” Wade wails from behind the door.

“I think I liked it better when you two weren’t friends,” Ellie comments, and you smile at her, shaking your head. She takes your hand in hers and squeezes gently.

“Oh, come on. You can’t hate him. I mean, I wouldn’t exist without him, for a few reasons. I mean, he’s the one who passed me the gene for a healing factor, even if his was recessive before. And, I mean, he’s the sperm donor either way.”

“I heard that!” he shouts, and Ellie smiles at you, planting another kiss on your lips.

You could get used to this.