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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year ago

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The surprising truth about data-driven dictatorships

Here’s the “dictator’s dilemma”: they want to block their country’s frustrated elites from mobilizing against them, so they censor public communications; but they also want to know what their people truly believe, so they can head off simmering resentments before they boil over into regime-toppling revolutions.

These two strategies are in tension: the more you censor, the less you know about the true feelings of your citizens and the easier it will be to miss serious problems until they spill over into the streets (think: the fall of the Berlin Wall or Tunisia before the Arab Spring). Dictators try to square this circle with things like private opinion polling or petition systems, but these capture a small slice of the potentially destabiziling moods circulating in the body politic.

Enter AI: back in 2018, Yuval Harari proposed that AI would supercharge dictatorships by mining and summarizing the public mood — as captured on social media — allowing dictators to tack into serious discontent and diffuse it before it erupted into unequenchable wildfire:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/10/yuval-noah-harari-technology-tyranny/568330/

Harari wrote that “the desire to concentrate all information and power in one place may become [dictators] decisive advantage in the 21st century.” But other political scientists sharply disagreed. Last year, Henry Farrell, Jeremy Wallace and Abraham Newman published a thoroughgoing rebuttal to Harari in Foreign Affairs:

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/world/spirals-delusion-artificial-intelligence-decision-making

They argued that — like everyone who gets excited about AI, only to have their hopes dashed — dictators seeking to use AI to understand the public mood would run into serious training data bias problems. After all, people living under dictatorships know that spouting off about their discontent and desire for change is a risky business, so they will self-censor on social media. That’s true even if a person isn’t afraid of retaliation: if you know that using certain words or phrases in a post will get it autoblocked by a censorbot, what’s the point of trying to use those words?

The phrase “Garbage In, Garbage Out” dates back to 1957. That’s how long we’ve known that a computer that operates on bad data will barf up bad conclusions. But this is a very inconvenient truth for AI weirdos: having given up on manually assembling training data based on careful human judgment with multiple review steps, the AI industry “pivoted” to mass ingestion of scraped data from the whole internet.

But adding more unreliable data to an unreliable dataset doesn’t improve its reliability. GIGO is the iron law of computing, and you can’t repeal it by shoveling more garbage into the top of the training funnel:

https://memex.craphound.com/2018/05/29/garbage-in-garbage-out-machine-learning-has-not-repealed-the-iron-law-of-computer-science/

When it comes to “AI” that’s used for decision support — that is, when an algorithm tells humans what to do and they do it — then you get something worse than Garbage In, Garbage Out — you get Garbage In, Garbage Out, Garbage Back In Again. That’s when the AI spits out something wrong, and then another AI sucks up that wrong conclusion and uses it to generate more conclusions.

To see this in action, consider the deeply flawed predictive policing systems that cities around the world rely on. These systems suck up crime data from the cops, then predict where crime is going to be, and send cops to those “hotspots” to do things like throw Black kids up against a wall and make them turn out their pockets, or pull over drivers and search their cars after pretending to have smelled cannabis.

The problem here is that “crime the police detected” isn’t the same as “crime.” You only find crime where you look for it. For example, there are far more incidents of domestic abuse reported in apartment buildings than in fully detached homes. That’s not because apartment dwellers are more likely to be wife-beaters: it’s because domestic abuse is most often reported by a neighbor who hears it through the walls.

So if your cops practice racially biased policing (I know, this is hard to imagine, but stay with me /s), then the crime they detect will already be a function of bias. If you only ever throw Black kids up against a wall and turn out their pockets, then every knife and dime-bag you find in someone’s pockets will come from some Black kid the cops decided to harass.

That’s life without AI. But now let’s throw in predictive policing: feed your “knives found in pockets” data to an algorithm and ask it to predict where there are more knives in pockets, and it will send you back to that Black neighborhood and tell you do throw even more Black kids up against a wall and search their pockets. The more you do this, the more knives you’ll find, and the more you’ll go back and do it again.

This is what Patrick Ball from the Human Rights Data Analysis Group calls “empiricism washing”: take a biased procedure and feed it to an algorithm, and then you get to go and do more biased procedures, and whenever anyone accuses you of bias, you can insist that you’re just following an empirical conclusion of a neutral algorithm, because “math can’t be racist.”

HRDAG has done excellent work on this, finding a natural experiment that makes the problem of GIGOGBI crystal clear. The National Survey On Drug Use and Health produces the gold standard snapshot of drug use in America. Kristian Lum and William Isaac took Oakland’s drug arrest data from 2010 and asked Predpol, a leading predictive policing product, to predict where Oakland’s 2011 drug use would take place.

[Image ID: (a) Number of drug arrests made by Oakland police department, 2010. (1) West Oakland, (2) International Boulevard. (b) Estimated number of drug users, based on 2011 National Survey on Drug Use and Health]

Then, they compared those predictions to the outcomes of the 2011 survey, which shows where actual drug use took place. The two maps couldn’t be more different:

https://rss.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1740-9713.2016.00960.x

Predpol told cops to go and look for drug use in a predominantly Black, working class neighborhood. Meanwhile the NSDUH survey showed the actual drug use took place all over Oakland, with a higher concentration in the Berkeley-neighboring student neighborhood.

What’s even more vivid is what happens when you simulate running Predpol on the new arrest data that would be generated by cops following its recommendations. If the cops went to that Black neighborhood and found more drugs there and told Predpol about it, the recommendation gets stronger and more confident.

In other words, GIGOGBI is a system for concentrating bias. Even trace amounts of bias in the original training data get refined and magnified when they are output though a decision support system that directs humans to go an act on that output. Algorithms are to bias what centrifuges are to radioactive ore: a way to turn minute amounts of bias into pluripotent, indestructible toxic waste.

There’s a great name for an AI that’s trained on an AI’s output, courtesy of Jathan Sadowski: “Habsburg AI.”

And that brings me back to the Dictator’s Dilemma. If your citizens are self-censoring in order to avoid retaliation or algorithmic shadowbanning, then the AI you train on their posts in order to find out what they’re really thinking will steer you in the opposite direction, so you make bad policies that make people angrier and destabilize things more.

Or at least, that was Farrell(et al)’s theory. And for many years, that’s where the debate over AI and dictatorship has stalled: theory vs theory. But now, there’s some empirical data on this, thanks to the “The Digital Dictator’s Dilemma,” a new paper from UCSD PhD candidate Eddie Yang:

https://www.eddieyang.net/research/DDD.pdf

Yang figured out a way to test these dueling hypotheses. He got 10 million Chinese social media posts from the start of the pandemic, before companies like Weibo were required to censor certain pandemic-related posts as politically sensitive. Yang treats these posts as a robust snapshot of public opinion: because there was no censorship of pandemic-related chatter, Chinese users were free to post anything they wanted without having to self-censor for fear of retaliation or deletion.

Next, Yang acquired the censorship model used by a real Chinese social media company to decide which posts should be blocked. Using this, he was able to determine which of the posts in the original set would be censored today in China.

That means that Yang knows that the “real” sentiment in the Chinese social media snapshot is, and what Chinese authorities would believe it to be if Chinese users were self-censoring all the posts that would be flagged by censorware today.

From here, Yang was able to play with the knobs, and determine how “preference-falsification” (when users lie about their feelings) and self-censorship would give a dictatorship a misleading view of public sentiment. What he finds is that the more repressive a regime is — the more people are incentivized to falsify or censor their views — the worse the system gets at uncovering the true public mood.

What’s more, adding additional (bad) data to the system doesn’t fix this “missing data” problem. GIGO remains an iron law of computing in this context, too.

But it gets better (or worse, I guess): Yang models a “crisis” scenario in which users stop self-censoring and start articulating their true views (because they’ve run out of fucks to give). This is the most dangerous moment for a dictator, and depending on the dictatorship handles it, they either get another decade or rule, or they wake up with guillotines on their lawns.

But “crisis” is where AI performs the worst. Trained on the “status quo” data where users are continuously self-censoring and preference-falsifying, AI has no clue how to handle the unvarnished truth. Both its recommendations about what to censor and its summaries of public sentiment are the least accurate when crisis erupts.

But here’s an interesting wrinkle: Yang scraped a bunch of Chinese users’ posts from Twitter — which the Chinese government doesn’t get to censor (yet) or spy on (yet) — and fed them to the model. He hypothesized that when Chinese users post to American social media, they don’t self-censor or preference-falsify, so this data should help the model improve its accuracy.

He was right — the model got significantly better once it ingested data from Twitter than when it was working solely from Weibo posts. And Yang notes that dictatorships all over the world are widely understood to be scraping western/northern social media.

But even though Twitter data improved the model’s accuracy, it was still wildly inaccurate, compared to the same model trained on a full set of un-self-censored, un-falsified data. GIGO is not an option, it’s the law (of computing).

Writing about the study on Crooked Timber, Farrell notes that as the world fills up with “garbage and noise” (he invokes Philip K Dick’s delighted coinage “gubbish”), “approximately correct knowledge becomes the scarce and valuable resource.”

https://crookedtimber.org/2023/07/25/51610/

This “probably approximately correct knowledge” comes from humans, not LLMs or AI, and so “the social applications of machine learning in non-authoritarian societies are just as parasitic on these forms of human knowledge production as authoritarian governments.”

The Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop summer fundraiser is almost over! I am an alum, instructor and volunteer board member for this nonprofit workshop whose alums include Octavia Butler, Kim Stanley Robinson, Bruce Sterling, Nalo Hopkinson, Kameron Hurley, Nnedi Okorafor, Lucius Shepard, and Ted Chiang! Your donations will help us subsidize tuition for students, making Clarion — and sf/f — more accessible for all kinds of writers.

Libro.fm is the indie-bookstore-friendly, DRM-free audiobook alternative to Audible, the Amazon-owned monopolist that locks every book you buy to Amazon forever. When you buy a book on Libro, they share some of the purchase price with a local indie bookstore of your choosing (Libro is the best partner I have in selling my own DRM-free audiobooks!). As of today, Libro is even better, because it’s available in five new territories and currencies: Canada, the UK, the EU, Australia and New Zealand!

[Image ID: An altered image of the Nuremberg rally, with ranked lines of soldiers facing a towering figure in a many-ribboned soldier's coat. He wears a high-peaked cap with a microchip in place of insignia. His head has been replaced with the menacing red eye of HAL9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' The sky behind him is filled with a 'code waterfall' from 'The Matrix.']

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

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Raimond Spekking (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Acer_Extensa_5220_-_Columbia_MB_06236-1N_-_Intel_Celeron_M_530_-_SLA2G_-_in_Socket_479-5029.jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

—

Russian Airborne Troops (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vladislav_Achalov_at_the_Airborne_Troops_Day_in_Moscow_%E2%80%93_August_2,_2008.jpg

“Soldiers of Russia” Cultural Center (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Col._Leonid_Khabarov_in_an_everyday_service_uniform.JPG

CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

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thankyouforthememoriesworld · 2 months ago

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Updated Version 2.

They were both overlapped in Minnesota for the North Tartan Summer Jam-June 2016. They had a lot of basketball overlap in June/July 2016 but again, separate age groups, with Azzi playing in a higher age group than Paige.

USA U16 Trials in May 2017 when they met.

Won Gold together with U16 on June 11, 2017.

Flew to Minnesota together where Azzi probably spent the summer doing her camping and State Fair in August 2017. Before this though: they participated in the North Tartan Summer Jam-June 2017 but different groups. I think that first birthday post from Azzi is probably from this tournament. Also, they may have also had an EYBL tournament in Indianapolis in July 2017. This is also when those crush snapchats were most likely sent because the song itself was released July 7, 2017.

Generally, they always have a lot of overlap in the summer because of AAU

Their visit to Maryland, Notre Dame and UConn in Fall 2017. Offered scholarships by UConn at that time.

Azzi and Paige were together at the beginning of Feb, training. Azzi's high school is WCAC Champs at the end of Feb 2018 and Azzi was also player of the year as a Freshman.

Late March 2018, both participated in the 2018 USA Basketball 3x3 U18 National Championship. Paige’s team got first, and Azzi’s got second. Paige’s team went on to rep in the youth Olympics.

April 2, 2018 Paige and her Hopkins teammates watched the UConn Notre Dame 2018 Championship game. Paige apparently watched this match up twice by April 2019 and Azzi watched the 12/3/17 game against ND in Hartford. Maybe overlap?

Paige and Azzi played in the Nike Boo Williams Invitational for their separate AAU teams in Virginia on April 20-22, 2018. Azzi's team (Fairfax Stars 17s EYBL) won platinum undefeated in their division where she stood out as one of the best players at 15 years old. Paige's team (North Tartan 15s EYBL) won platinum undefeated in her division. Geno was apparently at this tournament from what I read.

Paige was in DC to play in the Capitol Classic on April 28, 2018. You can watch the entire game if you want.

Reunited in Colorado May 2018 for USA trials.

The 11th annual North Tartan Summer Jam in Hopkins Minnesota was held June 15-17, 2018, where both Paige and Azzi's AAU teams played against each other. Paige’s team beat Azzi’s team 79-63 but both ended with a 3-1 record with Paige's team getting second place. Azzi watched Paige's final game.

Basically, together all of July because training was July 4-20, with a pre-tournament invitational in Latvia. Afterwards, won Gold with U17 on July 29, 2018.

Azzi attends her first Curry Camp in August 6-7 2018. She blows up after the three point contest. At this point I also assume Minnesota cabin trip and state fair was spent together. Azzi was recognized while on a cruise with Bueckers family after the contest (Date unknown but assuming summer). Azzi also helped with Paige's charity clinic at the end of August in Montana.

Azzi and her family were also in Minnesota for a family wedding in September 2018.

11/2/18 Visit to UConn together. Azzi’s sweet 16 on 11/11/18. We know Paige was there.

March 2019 Azzi is presented Gatorade National Player of the Year for Basketball. Azzi's team is 2nd in the nation.

Paige wins state championship on March 16, 2019. Azzi is there supporting (she's in that day after vlog episode of Paige's teammate wearing her St. Patty's day necklace and referred to as National POY which she just got beforehand).

Both of them flew to Montana and I'm guessing that's when the Yellowstone trip happened. Probably Spring Break.

Buckets with Bueckers camp in Montana - March 25, 2019. Azzi was there.

April 1, 2019, Paige commits to UConn (signs letter of intent in November 2019). I think this is also the day Azzi got her puppy Stewie.

April 4-6, 2019 Azzi’s high school team makes the Geico Nationals final but loses. Not sure if Paige was there.

April 13, 2019 Azzi tears hear ACL/MCL at USA 3x3 championship. Surgery on May 29, 2019 in Indianapolis. Paige was with her before surgery (video proof from Azzi herself).

April 26-28, 2019 AAU together (Azzi not playing).

June 2019 – Paige participates in Summer Jam 2019 with Metro Stars.

July/August 2019 – After Azzi attends the ESPYS and SC30 Select Camp for both of them, Minnesota tradition (they have tiktoks from that time at the cabin and started their joint account that summer). I also think this is when that one Overtime video was filmed with the competition.

10/10-16/19 – Paige is in Doha Qatar for USA Basketball 3x3 tournament. Then she went to First Night at UConn and I think visited Azzi before she went to LA for ESPNW. Azzi visited UConn the week before First Night supposedly.

Dec 16, 2019: First HUDL recruiting video. End of December 2019, Azzi was presumably training with Mamba family in NYC.

Reunited in January 2020 in DMV. Azzi’s first games back from ACL were around this time and Paige was there (they filmed tiktoks together and there are videos of her in the stands). During her visit, Paige's second HUDL recruiting video for Azzi was published.

Azzi’s high school team wins state championships in early March 2020. Azzi travels to Minnesota in mid-March 2020 for Paige’s final but Covid shutdown occurs.

Paige stays with the Fudds from the end of April until June 2020 where she goes back for her graduation in early June and I think possibly packing up her stuff because I know her family was relocating to DMV at this time. She rejoins the Fudds in late June and stays with them and travels with them for Azzi’s GTS team up until end of July. Paige also gets her Gatorade award presented to her at the Fudd’s house on July 24, 2020.

Azzi is in Minnesota with her GTS in August of 2020 and Paige starts UConn.

Azzi visits Paige on her birthday and I believe tells her she’s committing to UConn in October 2020.

Azzi's Togethxr video of her day in the life with the facetime call was filmed November 5, 2020 (pop quiz had a date).

Azzi commits to UConn in November 11, 2020 and turns 18.

Paige's UConn season starts with her first games being cancelled because everyone is in a 14 day quarantine when one person tests positive. This was the reality of that time - they had to contact tracing and couldn't risk getting Covid during the season. They didn't have anymore cancelled games after the end of January but it certainly was an issue early on. UConn had nearly 75% of their courses online or hybrid for entire Fall 2020. Out of state students enrolled in online courses didn't live on campus. This was the reality of Paige's first year. Most likely not as social as people think and really just FTing Azzi at 1 AM apparently.

Azzi attends UConn-Tennessee game on January 21, 2021 to cheer on Paige.

Azzi attends UConn Final Four on April 2, 2021 and also attends the final (while being on FT with Paige).

Paige has ankle surgery afterwards and hanging out a lot with the Fudds as she rehabs during April and May 2021.

Azzi has USA U19 Trials in May 2021. Then graduation and prom for high school at the end of May (Paige was present during this time). Then summer session at UConn. Paige has her ESPY award speech in July 2021.

Azzi wins gold with team USA before landing back in Mn in mid August 2021 and reunited with Paige and heading to UConn.

My God, you did it 👑. Here's Pazzi's updated timeline for the people.

#this is why I need you for Willannès too 😈#pazzi #timeline #did you have fun at the game #azzi fudd #paige bueckers

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acourtofthought · 2 months ago

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Credit goes to @acourtdelaluna as she was the one to draw this conclusion. I just loved it so much I asked if I could create a post!

Sarah J Maas 2024: ""Azriel is someone I'm going to be exploring more."

Sarah J Maas 2021: "Because I know this is where I wanted things to go, it allowed me to plant things for Nesta's journey and even Elain's journey early on."

Sarah J Maas 2018: "When spring came, I was heavily pregnant - so I was really nesting - and we realized that the garden beds were pretty overgrown with ivy. There was literally ivy everywhere: in the garden beds, wrapped around the trees, crawling up the sides of the house. So I went into this obsessive, I-need-to-rip-out-every-last-strand-of-ivy-before-I-have-this-baby mode. And I remember the entire time I was ripping out the ivy, and trying to get some semblance of order into the garden beds, I just slipped into Elain's head. Elain is a gardener, and everything I did during those weeks became research for her book. I'm not even joking, Elain's now going to have dreams about ripping ivy out and the ivy creeping in through the windows to strangle her at night, because let me tell you, that ivy does not want to let go"

In 2021 (after the release of SF) Sarah did mention being excited to write Az's journey but never once mentioned laying crumbs for him in ACOMAF, ACOWAR, or even the novella, never once mentioned that she knew early on where she wanted his character to go. If we look back on the trilogy and the novella, we also don't find that Sarah set him up for anything plot related whereas we saw Cassian's desire to train Nesta in ACOWAR, his visit to Ramiel and meeting Emerie in ACOFAS, his desire to see female Illyrian's training. Instead she's spoken of Az's journey as if it's a more recent development since SF and the crossover and that makes sense when Az's plots finally seem to be established as of HOFAS (time travel related things / his connection to TT and Enalius).

If E/riel was always endgame then why would Sarah suddenly talk of exploring Azriel's character ONLY with the release of SF and HOFAS? To state in 2024 that Az will be someone she'll explore more in the future? If E/riel was endgame, shouldn't she have already explored his character alongside Elain's? Already been excited back in 2016 / 2017 for where she was going with him? She's clearly got no issues discussing that she'll be focusing on him at some point so why did she never bring his journey up before the release of SF?

One could argue that Sarah didn't often speak about Cassian's future journey but we still saw the direction she was taking him in the novella, we already knew he had feelings for Nesta in ACOMAF and ACOWAR when he was trying to reach his hand out to her while she was in the Cauldron, where Feyre noted him looking at Nesta with longing. Compare that to how Sarah wrote Az holding Mor's hand and snarling at the King over Mor in ACOMAF? Compare that to how Sarah wrote Az still looking at Mor with heat and yearning in the novella? She didn't need to mention Cassian's journey when it was clear that his journey would be wherever Nesta was and she had already spoken about Nesta and Cassian as a thing in multiple interviews. But Sarah spoke of Elain's journey and then Az's journey. Meaning two separate journey's and she did not speak of their love interests (i.e., Lucien / Gwyn) in the same way she spoke of Nesta's journey but did not often speak directly of Cassian's journey (outside of the Twitter interview / vacation interview where Elain and Lucien were also mentioned).

Sarah doesn't only explore a characters future journey in their book, evidenced by the fact that she herself stated she planted hints for Nesta and Elain's journeys early on (so 2016 / 2017) yet neither sister had a POV at that point. If she knows the direction they're headed she lays those crumbs out well before then especially when it involves their love interest. If Az was always meant to be Elain's endgame then why wouldn't Sarah have explored his character alongside Elain's as she planted the seeds for Elain's journey? Why not lay out clues on how Az's journey will mirror that of Elain's the way she did Elain and Lucien in ACOWAR (Elain was the one with the visions of Vassa and Koschei and Sarah wrote Lucien as the one to go after Vassa, becoming friends with her and meeting Elain's father. Sarah doubled down on the Elucien parallels in SF what with Lucien being permanently stationed in Spring, with the Spring Court continuing to fall apart though the readers is reminded that the NC needs the Spring Courts army back in shape and with Nesta then thinking how the Spring Court had been made for someone like Elain). Why is she suddenly eager about Az's journey, talking about Az's journey only now if it's something she always knew about?

Also, there are no parallels in plot for Elain and Az even now, even after she talked about being excited for Az's journey. If Sarah always knew Az and Elain were going to end up together then why not explore his character in more detail back in ACOWAR? Why not connect Elain and Az's future plots back then? Why give Elain and Lucien the complimentary characteristics of being happiest in nature, her needing sunshine and revealing him as the heir to Day Court? Sorry, that became very long winded and rambling. To sum it all up, it's telling that Sarah is only now speaking excitedly about Az's future journey which seems to suggest she finally realized where she'll be going with his character. Compare that to how she knew early on where she wanted Elain's character to go and I think it's a sure sign that Az's journey and Elain's journey were never one in the same.

#elucien #anti e/riel

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dandelionsresilience · 1 month ago

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Dandelion News - October 1-7

Like these weekly compilations? Tip me at $kaybarr1735 or check out my Dandelion Doodles on Patreon!

1. Arctic ozone reaches record high in positive step for climate

“Above-average ozone levels continued to persist through September 2024. This is significant as, previously, spring has been associated with ozone depletion[….] The March 2024 ozone average peaked at 477 Dobson units (DU), which is 6 DU higher than the previous record in March 1979 and 60 DU higher than the average for the study period (1979 to 2023).”

2. Why Massachusetts loves Nibi the beaver and [won the fight] to keep her out of the wild

“Nibi, now 2 years old, is roughly the age when wild beavers embark on their journey to find a mate and build a home. [… But] if Nibi is released in October, she would be ill-prepared for the winter[…. The governor has] issued a permit for Nibi to remain at a wildlife rescue as an educational beaver and inspire folks to protect our natural world."”

3. In Madagascar, Taniala Regenerative Camp aims to heal deforestation scars

“Residents of the villages around Lambokely manage the nursery and market garden crops. “Local communities receive training in agroecology and agroforestry, benefit from improved soil fertility, and earn additional income from intercropping in the agroforestry plots. In addition, community members are incentivized to participate in tree-planting activities.””

4. Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana Breaks Ground on $6.4 Million Affordable Housing Project

“The project’s first phase will create three-bedroom homes designed for multiple purposes, including elderly housing, emergency shelter, and support for displaced and low-income Tribal citizens. These homes will be built to meet Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) standards, ensuring accessibility for all.”

5. Scientists say painting roofs this colour could save lives: How does it keep cities cool?

“[Researchers] found that cool, light-coloured roofs installed across all of London’s roofs could have cooled the city by around 0.8C [in 2018]. [… Solar panels] could have cooled the city by around 0.3C, preventing the deaths of 96 people [… while generating] more than half the energy [used by] London during the entire year of 2018.”

6. Travis County [TX] opens center to help keep people experiencing a mental health crisis out of jail

“The walk-in urgent care facility is open 24/7 and provides immediate support for people experiencing mental health crises. From there, some patients may be referred to a residential facility[… where] patients will be able to stay for up to 90 days[….] Jailed individuals may also work with their legal teams to coordinate admission to the facility.”

7. Spain’s first transgender soccer team makes debut in regional men’s league

“A soccer team consisting entirely of transgender men has[…] become the first all-trans squad to achieve federated status in Europe. […] Spain passed a pioneering trans rights bill last year designed to make it easier to change a person’s legal gender identity. […] Players may also choose to use a name that’s different from their legal one[….]”

8. Green Status of Species: Pushing Conservation Ambitions Beyond Preventing Extinction

“[… T]he Green Status of Species [is] a new part of Red List assessments that helps tell “a species’ full conservation story.” […] In addition to quantifying species recovery, the Green Status of Species […] will help to better inform future conservation actions by shedding light on which past actions have contributed most to species recovery.”

9. Hell froze over in Texas – the state will connect to the US grid for the first time via a fed grant

“[The projects will] boost grid reliability, lower energy costs, and support the clean energy transition. […] They’ll also generate nearly 9,000 jobs, supporting local economies[…. In particular, the Texas portion is] designed to prevent outages like the ones during Winter Storm Uri that hit Texas hard in 2021.”

10. Pine martens released to be reintroduced to Devon

“Work to release 15 pine martens into woods across Dartmoor has been completed[….] The eight females and seven males have all been fitted with a radio collars to allow their movements to be tracked. […] They were kept in soft-release pens for three days to get them used to their surroundings before being allowed to run wild, staff said.”

September 22-28 news here | (all credit for images and written material can be found at the source linked; I don’t claim credit for anything but curating.)

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buckbuckbarnesstuff · 5 months ago

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Ongoing/Unfinished series

Get yourself a snack, enjoy these wonderful series and leave some love for the creative writers :)

♤ - includes sexual themes

Also, his hair is so perfect

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Time after time [60.6k+] @intrepidacious

Bucky x time witch!Reader

Summary: After what starts out as a fairly normal mission, you find yourself stuck in a time loop. Which would already be bad enough in itself if it didn’t also mean having to watch Bucky die over and over again.

{personal comment: Everything about this is perfect. From the characters, to the tiniest details. I'm in love}

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Reflections @breadqueen95

Bucky x Hydra experiment!Reader

Summary: Steve and Natasha lead the fight against Hydra in 2014, they had no way of knowing just how many secrets there were left to uncover. They suddenly have one more person to add to their list as they search for Bucky Barnes.

Fast forward to 2018. Bucky Barnes is living with the team at the Avengers Compound, trying to settle into life as an Avenger and as a free man. Steve and Natasha, with the help of the third part of their leadership trio Tony Stark, have finally managed to track down the human subject that escaped four years ago.

And you...you've been on the run for four years. Desperately avoiding any detection by hiding your identity, resisting your memories, and suppressing any flicker of power raging to get out. What happens when an unexpected arrival forces you to face everything you've been running from?

{personal comment: This is the first series I've read on this app and it's still stuck in my head. It’s that good}

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Smog & Spirits @artficlly ♤

Gangsterboss!Bucky x Witch!Reader (fantasy 1920s Gang au)

Summary: Barnes, the leader of Sootstone's Smog Boys, needs a favour. A nasty curse has been cast on him, and he needs a witch to help him break it.

{personal comment: I'm so excited about this. I love the reader's powers and the storyline is so interesting. I'll be patiently waiting for more of this delicious piece}

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Friendship is Mandatory @sarahwroteathing

Bucky x reader

Summary: With the help of a new therapist and a recklessly kind and unapologetically damaged new roommate, Bucky learns how to start living instead of just surviving.

{personal comment: I enjoyed the insights in Bucky's therapy session and how they grew a friendship. Also I love the reader's sarcasm. Would certainly love to read more of this}

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Moth to a Flame @tmpestuous

College!Bucky x College!Reader

Summary: Bucky Barnes was the love of your life, and you were his. There was no denying it. But after two years of dating, you found yourselves on different paths and decided it was best to go your separate ways. The only problem was how drawn you’d always be to him even after moving on.

{personal comment: I was so anxious when I started this and it gave me so many feelings. I truly appreciate and love how soft and sweet Bucky stays even after the breakup and the way they still interact and communicate with each other. It’s beautiful and I'm so excited to read more}

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All We've Got is Time @hispeculiartreasure

40s!Window Washer!Bucky x Typist!Reader

Summary: In a world where Bucky never falls off a train and Steve lives after crashing the plane, Bucky is trying to adjust to a new peace-time normal. Spring 1946, Reader starts a brand new typist position in one of the many New York office buildings after being displaced from her factory job once the war ended. An unconventional friendship starts which leads to all the romance and fluff.

{personal comment: This is such a wonderful series, so deeply touching and meaningful. I love all these characters and interactions and even if this won't ever be continued, I'll keep it in my heart and hope people will stumble upon it, it deserves more recognition}

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Ashes to Embers @redwing4life ♤

Firefighter!Neighbor!Bucky x reader

Summary: When an unfortunate event forces you to confront the crush you’ve had on your neighbour since you moved in, you learn that Bucky knows you better than you know yourself. As the two of you grow closer, how does he deal with his past without pushing you away?

{personal comment: Loved Bucky being vulnerable and letting her be there for him. I also enjoyed the teasing and the way it got so heated, damn}

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The Day after Yesterday @bombsonboard

40s!Bucky x reader

Summary: Time travel is volatile, dangerous, playing god. And then sometimes it drops you in just the right place at the perfect time. It’s a matter of perspective. You decide.

{personal comment: This made me realize just how much I love 40s!Bucky! He's so charming and the storyline is really interesting and I'm dying to read more of it}

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The Bet @bucky-at-bedtime

College!Bucky x College!Reader

Summary: You’ve been at college for a year and have managed to avoid the party lifestyle. That is until you meet Bucky Barnes and he decides to educate you on the benefits of being social.

{personal comment: I love oblivious idiots in love! This is wholesome. Bucky is lovely and I enjoyed the many friendships with the others}

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Point of Ignition @sunriserose1023 ♤

College!Fighter!Bucky x College!Reader

Summary: A fresh start.

That’s what you’re focusing on. You’re leaving your past behind you and starting fresh, joining your best friend at college. You’re focused on your studies and nothing is going to get in the way of you being “normal,” for once.

Enter Bucky Barnes.

The campus bad boy has his sights set on you, but you are determined not to become just another notch in his bedpost. When his best friend falls for your best friend, the two of you are stuck in close proximity, and you are set on staying strictly in the friend zone.

However, the more time you spend with him, the more you like him, and the more time he spends with you, the less he feels like hanging around anyone else. You’re set on being just friends, but Bucky has other ideas on that, and he’s determined to convince you to follow his lead.

{personal comment: So glad I stumbled upon this, I'm obsessed. I love this dynamic between her and Bucky and I can’t wait to read more}

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#bucky barnes x reader #bucky x reader #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes #bucky fic #bucky fic rec #bucky x female reader #ongoing series #buckbuckbarnesstuff fic recs

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greatyme · 5 months ago

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i'd be interested in your recent movie list - it's nice to hear what people are watching 🥰

OOOHHH thank you for asking!!! This gives me the perfect excuse 2 talk abt some of my favs ty hehe <3 The genres, years, countries, etc. might be wildly different and there’s no particular order to what I’m gonna list but here we go:

1. The Spook Who Sat by the Door

Ivan Dixon; action/political drama; America; 1973

EVERYONE needs to watch this honestly… it’s probably my favorite film I’ve seen this year. The movie’s about the first Black man, Dan Freeman, to be trained by the CIA, who then quits and takes the techniques he’s learned to create a team of Black youths to fight for freedom and against racism. Even though it’s a fictional plot, the real FBI pulled it from theaters for being too radical, and it has indeed been described as “the only true Black radical movie ever made.” I seriously can’t recommend it enough

2. Medicine for Melancholy

Barry Jenkins; romance/drama; America; 2008

If you’re familiar with Moonlight, you already know this filmmaker. Medicine for Melancholy is Barry Jenkins’ first film, about the romance between Jo and Micah after a one night stand that takes place in San Francisco. Some things I like about it are the ways the city and its racial issues so heavily influence the characters’ relationship so much so that it essentially becomes a character in itself. Since this is Jenkins’ first film, the budget was smaller ($15k) and it has a different feel from his newer movies which I personally really liked

3. They Cloned Tyrone

Juel Taylor; sci-fi/mystery; America; 2023

This movie was released on barbenheimer day and was WAY BETTER THAN BOTH OF THEM!!!! When Fontaine, a drug dealer played by John Boyega, seemingly gets shot and killed, Slick, a pimp, is shocked to see him walking around the next day as if nothing happened. Together, Slick, Fontaine, and Yo-Yo, a sex worker, work to uncover what actually happened and find that it’s much bigger than they could’ve imagined. This is a FANTASTIC sci-fi film with some fantastic writing (a lot of great one-liners lmao) and all the actors do amazingly. Also, the title goes hard!

4. Bad Genius

Baz Nattuwat; thriller; Thailand; 2017

I literally watched this last night (happy birthday Nonkul!) lol. In this movie the character Lynn gets paid to work with her friends to help other high school students cheat on tests. When I tell you this had me SWEATING from stress. It was very entertaining, I really liked the way it was shot and how it consistently kept the tension up

5. Do the Right Thing

Spike Lee; drama/comedy; America; 1989

Taking place on an unbearably hot summer day, racial tensions rise between the Black civilians and the Italian owners of a pizzeria in Brooklyn. This is a v famous movie, directed by Spike Lee, and honestly many of the themes still ring true today

6. Sorry to Bother You

Boots Riley; sci-fi/comedy; America; 2018

Set in the Oakland, Cassius Green becomes a telemarketer and uses a “white voice” to do better at his job. But when his coworkers form a union, he decides to take a promotion instead, leading to unexpected consequences. I don’t want to spoil anything, and this is another famous movie that many people have probably already seen and have probably been spoiled BUT. there is a crazy twist. I really enjoyed the messages and craziness this movie had to offer

7. Marry My Dead Body

Cheng Wei Hao; comedy/mystery; Taiwan; 2022

I saw this with my friend on my birthday and honestly it could not have been a better way to watch it. A homophobic cop accidentally gets into an arranged marriage with a dead gay ghost. Is that not one of the best plot descriptions u have ever heard. It’s horror, it’s comedy, it’s gay, it’s a romance (TO ME! And like everyone else who watched it)… WHAT MORE COULD U WANT!! It gave me a similar feeling as Secrets in the Hot Spring & Pee Mak, two movies that somehow seem to cover So Many Genres & that I love sooo much (the former is my fav movie ever). I literally laughed so hard I almost peed myself at times <3

Other than that some other movies I watched & enjoyed this year are: Love Lies Bleeding (2024), Claudine (1974), Eve’s Bayou (1997), and Bottoms (2023). I don’t wanna make this too long so I’ll stop it here but I hope you enjoy these films too if you decide to watch any!!

#aaaahhhh sorry this took a hot min to post I wanted to give good descriptions (I hope they’re good lol)#also I kno I said there’s no order but the spook who sat by the door & marry my dead body are my top two!#I REALLY recommend the spook considering it’s an older movie and more people should know about it!#the spook who sat by the door #medicine for melancholy #they cloned tyrone #bad genius #do the right thing #sorry to bother you #marry my dead body #ask #b.txt

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cv01doodle · 10 months ago

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Personal Kirby Light Novel Masterpost!

(latest update: 10/18/2024)

(I've been planning to make my own list for a long time, this isn't intended to overshadow the one that's already out, it's just my personal list to keep track of the dates, translators, and upcoming/unfinished projects)

(i'm using the names from the wikirby btw tysm)

thanks to all the translators mentioned for their hard work 🙏 and thanks to the creator of the previous list as well! also thanks to takase-sensei for writing the novels lol

-2013-

Kirby and the Dangerous Gourmet Mansion?! translated by friendship-ended-with-pokespe (complete)

-2014-

Kirby and the Big Panic in Gloomy Woods! translated by friendship-ended-with-pokespe (complete)

Kirby Meets the Squeak Squad! translated by friendship-ended-with-pokespe (complete)

-2015-

Kirby: Meta Knight and the Puppet Princess translated by friendship-ended-with-pokespe (complete)

Kirby: Big Race in Pupupu Land! translated by friendship-ended-with-pokespe (complete)

-2016-

Kirby's Labyrinth Rescue! translated by friendship-ended-with-pokespe (complete)

Kirby and the Great Planet Robobot Adventure! translated by friendship-ended-with-pokespe (complete)

-2017-

Kirby: Meta Knight and the Galaxy's Greatest Warrior translated by friendship-ended-with-pokespe (complete)

Kirby Clash Team Unite! translated by makerofmadness (complete)

-2018-

Kirby's Decisive Battle! Battle Royale!! translated by makerofmadness (complete)

Kirby Star Allies: The Great Friend Adventure! translated by rhythmroute_ (complete)

Kirby Star Allies: The Universe is in Trouble?! translated by theultimateultimateweapon (complete)

-2019-

Kirby: Big Trouble in Patch Land! translated by rosakikoza (incomplete)

Kirby: Save the Rainbow Islands! translated by makerofmadness (complete)

Kirby: Super Team Kirby's Big Battle! translated by makerofmadness (complete)

-2020-

Kirby and the Search for the Dreamy Gears! translated by owls-gamblegalaxy (complete)

Kirby: Meta Knight and the Knight of Yomi translated by theultimateultimateweapon (complete)

Kirby: Uproar at the Kirby Café?! translated by hoshi-no-mahoroa (complete)

-2021-

Kirby Fighters: The Destined Rivals!! translated by owls-gamblegalaxy (complete)

Kirby: King Dedede's Great Escape Mission! translated by owls-gamblegalaxy (complete)

Kirby: The Mysterious Incident on the Pupupu Train?! translated by kachikirby (complete)

-2022-

Kirby: Welcome to the Starlight Theater! (untranslated)

Kirby: Lor Starcutter and a Magician of Falsehood translated by starcutter-and-lying-wizard (complete, deleted)

Kirby and the Forgotten Land: Start Running to the New World! translated by makerofmadness (incomplete)

Kirby and the Forgotten Land: Break Out of the Dreams of the Isolated Isles! (untranslated)

Kirby: Full Stomach, Perfect Circle, Dream Buffet! translated by kachikirby (incomplete)

-2023-

Kirby: Sever Evil with a Slash in a Flash! translated by owls-gamblegalaxy (incompete)

Kirby: Come on Over to Merry Magoland! translated by starcutter-and-lying-wizard (incomplete, deleted)

Kirby: Having a Blast at the Music Festival! (untranslated)

-2024-

Kirby: The Dream Onsen is a Good Hot Spring♪ (untranslated)

Kirby: Meta Knight and the Monster of the Magic Stone (untranslated)

Kirby: Snowy Mountain Nights are Eventful! (upcoming)

#kirby novel #kirby light novel #<- this is just for my own blog sorting #sorry if it fills the tag or something

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katnissdoesnotfollowback · 5 months ago

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kdnfb's Ten Years of Fanficion Mania Featuring: The Midnight Train

Summary: Desperation breeds desperate acts. Katniss makes a deal to protect her sister from the reaping, with no idea of how far-reaching the consequences will be.

Originally written for the @everlarkficexchange Spring 2018 Edition based on the prompt -- “I know what you want. You have money, but what I have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a dream come true for people like you.“ Sexually frustrated trophy wife Katniss commissions artist Peeta who immortalizes naked women after giving them the greatest O of their lives. -- I deviated a tiny bit from the prompt.

PLEASE HEED THE WARNINGS

Rating: E for explicit sexual content, explicit language, explicit consent, dubious consent, age difference, implied/referenced underage sex, implied/referenced grooming and sexual manipulation of a minor, canon typical violence, suicidal thoughts, depression, implied/referenced child abuse, domestic abuse, emotional hurt/comfort, incest, step-relation incest, infidelity, dark!(ish?)Peeta.

Relationship tags: Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark, Katniss Everdeen/Other(s), Peeta Mellark/Other(s)

A/N: Some readers tell me that the tags on this one make it sound worse than it is, others say the tags are absolutely needed. It's not easy to explain them without giving away too many of the twists. Maybe I should say that the tags are there because awful things happen to Everlark in this story, and they do some things that can potentially be viewed as morally gray. They do not, however, intentionally or deliberately hurt and/or cheat on each other... at least not by my definition... again, hard to explain without too many spoilers. Ultimately, though, The Midnight Train, is an Everlark endgame story.

This story is one of those ones that I tried writing one version, which was significantly lighter in themes and plot, but it just wasn't working. Instead, I just sort of zoned out and started typing on the idea of Katniss as a trophy wife. It took a hard left turn into darkness and then wouldn't stop happening. So yes, this story is not for the faint of heart, but I am also exceptionally proud of what I created here.

There has been talk about a sequel, which as of right now is a disaster of about ten chapters drafted, another fifteen chapters planned, told from Peeta's POV. It would span the events of The Midnight Train, and extend several years into the future. I do not know when, if ever, I will finish it. If you've read The Midnight Train, then you can probably take a wild guess that writing anything from this Peeta's POV, especially something that long, is painful and difficult, and can only be done in small doses.

Anyways, for those of you brave enough to try it or revisit it, I give you...

The Midnight Train on AO3

#ten years of fanfiction mania #the midnight train #the midnight train nonsense #words are peetas thing not mine

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mononijikayu · 6 months ago

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present.

It had been a long while since Genmei had set foot in this room, and she couldn't help but let her gaze wander, her eyes tracing the contours of the space. The memories of years gone by resurfaced, casting a warm, nostalgic light on her thoughts. The armchair in which she now reclined seemed as much a part of the room as the air and light that filled it, a fixture of comfort and familiarity that had stood the test of time.

GENRE: pre - hidden inventory arc to shibuya arc (1990s to 2010s);

WARNING/S: domesticity, fluff, angst, trauma, implied death, violence, romance, hurt/comfort, character death depiction of death, depictions of loss and depression, depiction of anxiety, mention of death, mention of grief, profanity, family drama;

LISTEN: present by khalid

NOTE: i rewrote this and made the two of them have more fun because, being married to gojo satoru for almost ten years changes you as a person. genmei certainly isn't all zenin anymore and gakuganji hates that. anyway enjoy this <333

masterlist

u s and t h e m

[ Hiromi Shrine, June 2018; Tokyo Prefecture ]

THROUGHOUT THE YEARS, THE SMELL OF INCENSE HAD BECOME A COMFORT. Throughout the passing years, the fragrance of incense had transformed into a source of solace. Just as the presence of the kamis in front of her, the smell of incense had become the means to find a safe zone. In her tender years, that aroma had often left her feeling queasy, prompting her to seek refuge behind her father's hakama, where she'd bury her face in its fabric.

The scent that emanated from her father's garment was a symphony of sweetness and tenderness, akin to the delicate fragrance of cherry blossoms in spring. That memory remained etched in her mind. Yet now, as she stood in the autumn of her life, Genmei found herself far removed from her childhood self. The scent was not as disagreeable as it once appeared; in fact, she dared to admit that she rather enjoyed it.

The sun's rays filtered through the dense canopy of leaves, casting golden lattices upon the moss-covered path. Birds sang sweetly, the gentle breeze whispered secrets of the forest, and a hush fell upon the world, as if nature itself held its breath in anticipation. Today was a beautiful day, she could admit.

The past few days were obtused by such gray clouds, though it did not rain. That perhaps relieved Genmei, for she would have to take the train rather than being able to walk. She after all enjoyed being able to walk. Though, had Satoru come with her, she was certain he would complain too much about it. He had always been like that.

An elder miko smiled when she caught sight of the young woman, dropping her broom as Genmei greeted her in return. Genmei could not help panic, but she could not stop the older woman as she led her body down into an elegant bow. A flush of red rushed through her, sweat palmed face. One of these days, Genmei wished that she wasn’t as well known as she was.

A long time ago, Genmei would have eaten the glory of being known. Yet these days, the attention is not warranted. However, it is beyond unavoidable. She purses her lips, sighing. Perhaps it might have been better had she convinced Satoru to come with her. Satoru would eat this attention to its bones, she was certain.

One can call it bad luck, he’s too saddled with missions.

But knowing the man, he was already sight–seeing.

Genmei sighed.

“It is good to see you, my lady.” The elder miko grins, standing upwards. Her hands clasped in a formal fold.

Genmei hastily bowed in return. “I am glad to be here. But you need not bow to me, you know? I am not a higher ranking priestess than you.”

The elderly woman shakes her head. “That is not true, my lady. You are a descendant, after all. You are touched by the sacred. To have you here with us, it is an honor.”

The young woman felt her mouth turn into a short line, the reminder of notoriety that she knew she will never be free from. The connection of the blood was what mattered in all clans. The thought of being from the direct echo of the founder, it is as though the founder touches you. It was almost like a blessing from kami. Genmei had never understood that.

She did not like it either.

The thought had made her feel like she was more alien than human.

A moment of glum echoes her aura.

“Are you here to pray, my lady?” The older woman’s voice pulled her from her thoughts.

Genmei nodded. “Before I pray my respects to the ancestral hall, yes.”

The woman led Genmei towards the inside.

Genmei moved with a grace and reverence that seemed almost as ancient as the shrine itself. When she could, she followed the ritual that had been passed down through generations with unwavering devotion. With her offering carefully placed in the big red box, she stood before the honden, the heart of the sacred place. As the sun's gentle rays filtered through the ancient cedars, casting a warm glow on the shrine, Genmei reached for the thick rope that hung beside the entrance.

The sound of the bell reverberated through the tranquil forest, a call that resonated with the spirits of the land. Bowing twice, she paid her respects to the deity, clapping her hands twice to signal her presence. In the sacred silence that followed, she felt the ancient energies embrace her, and her heart swelled with a profound sense of connection. With one final, deep bow, she conveyed her gratitude and reverence.

Her sand colored hair quivered against her back as she raised her body slightly. Genmei meets the golden eyes of the kami. She lowered her head, her lilac eyes closed. Genmei is feeling the waves of the kami whisper to her, unable to move for what seemed like hours. It was as though the kami was pulling her body downwards, to force her to submit. Her knuckles buck and close.

A huff of pained breath leaves her lips laboriously. There was always an expectation to submit an offering. To this kami, the cursed energy within her was the best one. It protected the dwelling of the holy abode, after all. From long ago, that had been the practice.

Lilac eyes shone against the kami’s face.

Sweat pears against her porcelain face.

Genmei sighed, exhausted in the fight.

‘You truly are a bitter one, aren’t you?’ The voice laughs, sending shivers down her spine.

‘I hate you.’ Genmei hisses back.

The voice merely continued laughing. ‘You’re far more interesting to tease.’

‘I am not lighting an incense for you.’

‘You’d do it anyway,’ The voice snickers dismissively.

Genmei snarls, knowing the voice was right. Genmei tried to stand up, but failed for a moment. A frustrated gleam in her eyes as her legs took ground. Whenever she visited the kami’s shrine, there was always such entitlement to her body. She could not fight a kami, that she knew. Her cursed energy was drained, but once she took some rest she knew she would be better again. Still, she was glad it was only at his altars where must feel this way. A small price to pay, the words of her ancestor a thousand years ago writes.

‘When has it ever been worth it to serve the powerful?’

‘Gojo Satoru isn’t powerful?’

She shakes her head. ‘I’m not his servant.’

‘As you say.’

Once she was able to gather enough strength, she took to walking. Despite the pain, she knew she could not look weak in front of the elder miko. The woman bowed to her once more, as Genmei moved gracefully, her steps echoing the rhythm of the shrine's ancient stones. The sound of the bamboo fountain ringing in her ears. Her light cerulean blue kimono danced against the white shawl covering her arms.

The elder miko led the way, all the while telling her of the shrine’s condition while they walked. Genmei could not speak, her strength only starting to return to her. Genmei sighed, slowly taking out the incense from her kimono’s safety. In her hands, she carried a bundle of fragrant incense sticks, each carefully chosen for their purity and significance.

As she reached the sacred courtyard, Genmei paused to bow deeply in respect.She stared at the bountiful piles upon the table. She approached timidly the offering table, a wooden structure adorned with offerings of rice, fruits, and flowers. The shrine seems to have offered it on her behalf. The estate must have told them in advance.

At its center lay an intricately carved incense burner, ancient and weathered, its beauty only deepened by time. Her mother had told her that they were the same ones from when the parent clan still existed in its power. Genmei carefully touched it. Memories were inside them, sealed tightly. She was sure. There was such energy in them. Genmei turned to the elder miko, but she did not speak. The woman merely kept her head down.

Genmei did not press the matter further.

Genmei started to hum as she turned towards the small clay pot where fire danced. The way it danced mesmerized her, its every essence alive in its willfulness. Genmei lit the incense sticks, their delicate tips blossoming into tendrils of smoke, fragrant and wispy. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to be swept up in the gentle dance of the smoke as it curled and swirled, an ethereal waltz of devotion.

The world around her faded away as she began her sacred ritual. Holding the incense aloft, she first offered it to the kami, the spirits of the shrine, seeking their blessings and protection. Her whispers were soft, a heart's longing transformed into silent words carried by the fragrant smoke.

"O venerable spirits, o venerable kami, guardians of this sacred world, accept this humble offering! A symbol of my gratitude and reverence. May you watch over this land and its people, as you have done for countless generations. Guide us, protect us, and let your wisdom flow through us like the waters of a serene stream."

The incense smoke swirled and danced, ascending like a bridge between the earthly and the divine, a communion of souls.

Genmei then turned her attention to her own hopes and dreams. With each additional incense stick she offered, she silently whispered her aspirations to the spirits. It was a sacred dialogue, a conversation between her heart and the universe, a moment of pure connection.

With the final incense stick offered, she bowed deeply once more, her spirit lightened and her heart touched by a profound sense of peace. The incense continued to burn, its fragrant tendrils rising toward the heavens, carrying her intentions to the ether.

Once more, Genmei bows.

She stands and turns to the elder miko.

Genmei smiles.

Metallic scarlet pours from her hakui.

The miko’s eyes widened slightly.

“Lead me to the ancestral hall, please.”

One can call it bad luck, he’s too saddled with missions.

But knowing the man, he was already sight–seeing.

Genmei sighed.

“It is good to see you, my lady.” The elder miko grins, standing upwards. Her hands clasped in a formal fold.

Genmei hastily bowed in return. “I am glad to be here. But you need not bow to me, you know? I am not a higher ranking priestess than you.”

The elderly woman shakes her head. “That is not true, my lady. You are a descendant, after all. You are touched by the sacred. To have you here with us, it is an honor.”

She did not like it either.

The thought had made her feel like she was more alien than human.

A moment of glum echoes her aura.

“Are you here to pray, my lady?” The older woman’s voice pulled her from her thoughts.

Genmei nodded. “Before I pray my respects to the ancestral hall, yes.”

The woman led Genmei towards the inside.

Lilac eyes shone against the kami’s face.

Sweat pears against her porcelain face.

Genmei sighed, exhausted in the fight.

‘You truly are a bitter one, aren’t you?’ The voice laughs, sending shivers down her spine.

‘I hate you.’ Genmei hisses back.

The voice merely continued laughing. ‘You’re far more interesting to tease.’

‘I am not lighting an incense for you.’

‘You’d do it anyway,’ The voice snickers dismissively.

‘When has it ever been worth it to serve the powerful?’

‘Gojo Satoru isn’t powerful?’

She shakes her head. ‘I’m not his servant.’

‘As you say.’

Genmei did not press the matter further.

The incense smoke swirled and danced, ascending like a bridge between the earthly and the divine, a communion of souls.

Once more, Genmei bows.

She stands and turns to the elder miko.

Genmei smiles.

Metallic scarlet pours from her hakui.

The miko’s eyes widened slightly.

“Lead me to the ancestral hall, please.”

THE DAY ENDED BEFORE GENMEI KNEW IT. The day had not felt real, but perhaps its all that will ever be reality for her. She shifts, careful with her side. The wound could reopen once more. There were no healers in the temple that day, most off aiding in missions elsewhere. The elder miko was more learned in stopping bleeding than restoring the flesh to what it was.

But it would be enough, until perhaps tomorrow. Shoko should be there by then. All she had to do now was make sure that Satoru doesn't notice. But Genmei was certain that he'd be home in a few days. She was certain he'd get distracted by his sight - seeing again. A small sigh releases from her dried lips. That she supposes is levity. Otherwise, he'd dig into her and never shut up.

Genmei was beyond exhausted, she just wanted to crawl to her bed and let herself rest for the day. The usage of cursed energy beyond her minimum was stupid. But with the knowledge that there was a special grade curse that appeared among the grade one curses, Genmei knew that her cursed weapons would not be enough.

As she stepped out of the shrine's sacred grounds, she tried to bow to the elder miko and the other servants of the temple. They had gathered to say goodbye to her. Genmei gives a small smile, whispering a reminder about the weapons she would be leaving behind. They need repair. Only a Mikoto would be able to do that for her, after all. By the time Ichiji arrived, the sun dipped below the horizon, casting long shadows that stretched across the forest path. The world around her had transitioned from the vibrant hues of daylight to the cool, serene tones of twilight.

Genmei sighed as she got into the back of the car, its leather seats welcoming her with a comfortable embrace. She gave a small greeting, he greeted her back. The engine purred to life once more, and the vehicle began its journey back to the bustling city beyond the tranquil forest. The drive was a stark contrast to the stillness and tranquility she had experienced at the shrine. The city's lights came to life, and the sounds of life returned with a bustling energy.

Her thoughts drifted back to the day's visit, the rituals, the ancient spirits, and the connection she felt with the kami. It was moments like these that reminded her of the sacred lineage she bore, a responsibility she couldn't escape but had grown to appreciate. The scent of the incense still lingered in her senses, bringing her a sense of calm and clarity. The serene whisper of the Kyoto countryside began to fade away as she closed her eyes. She didn’t get much sleep last night, she supposed.

‘She was in my dreams again.’ Her eyes narrowed, thoughts of a smile far away flooding her for a moment. She shakes her head. ‘Haunting me too much, I fear.’

Before it was too late, she found darkness.

When she opened her eyes, Genmei found herself fighting against the beam of the city lights. Outside, the city buzzed with activity and life. and Genmei couldn't help but feel a disconnect from the urban chaos. For a moment, she wished she had stayed the night. Genmei had forgotten how busy the streets get when it's near the week’s end. For a moment, she found solace in the memories of the shrine, the serene forest, and the guidance of the spirits. As the car navigated the crowded streets, her thoughts remained anchored in the tranquil world she had just left behind.

“You must have been weary, Genmei-san.” The voice of her junior, Kiyotaka Ichiji, rings from the front of the vehicle. There was some concern in his eyes for her. Genmei sits up with a low groan. She could feel her hakui pristine against the movement of her body. “You immediately fell asleep.”

She sends him a reassuring smile. “I am well, Ichiji. Truly.”

“I heard Gakuganji–san sent you on a special grade mission.” A hint of concern in his voice. She couldn’t fault him. It has been much too long since she’s been in the field. "But there seemed to be more information unknown about it. It would have been much better if I postponed it until at least some observers were there to confirm more about it."

Genmei shook her head, yawning slightly. Her hands gently rested on her wide hakama. "Old man always did that to us when we were kids too. He used to leave out details. It's to see how well we'd do in unfamiliar territory."

Ichiji frowned. "Genmei-san, that's still not proper."

"It's fine." She snickers, waving her hand about. "That old fart is going to expect a long report on this. He'd berate me if I leave anything out."

"I still can't understand how it decided to stay that long in that abandoned shrine."

"Well, people still live in the town and they still have fears." Genmei huffs. "It was a perfect ground for growth. It adapted to the environment and grew stronger. And it was just waiting to be found. Observers couldn't have known how truly strong it truly was. Old fart was good to keep the information away. The observers would panic."

"Then I'm glad its dealt with, without you being injured."

"It got a scratch in, but that's not really a concern━"

Ichiji’s eyes widened slightly. “Genmei–san, you're wounded?"

“There’s nothing to worry about, Ichiji!” Genmei waves it off, giving a reassuring smile. “i''ve healed it up. Don't worry."

'How easily can you lie?'

'Shut up.'

'I'll talk how I like.'

‘I was just careless, is all.’

The voice snickers. ‘Careless? You were trying to be a hero.’

Her features hardened. ‘Can you leave me be?’

Another laugh. ‘Where’s the fun in that?’

“I’ll bring you to Shoko–san, right away!”

She shook her head. “Ichiji, there’s no need. Shoko should be heading home now, she needs rest—"

The moment stops when Ichiji’s phone rings.

Genmei purses her lips, a small contempt.

‘Gojo Satoru is calling.’

Genmei glares at Ichiji, her piercing lilac haunting him.

“Don’t tell him a word.”

‘She was in my dreams again.’ Her eyes narrowed, thoughts of a smile far away flooding her for a moment. She shakes her head. ‘Haunting me too much, I fear.’

Before it was too late, she found darkness.

She sends him a reassuring smile. “I am well, Ichiji. Truly.”

Ichiji frowned. "Genmei-san, that's still not proper."

"It's fine." She snickers, waving her hand about. "That old fart is going to expect a long report on this. He'd berate me if I leave anything out."

"I still can't understand how it decided to stay that long in that abandoned shrine."

"Then I'm glad its dealt with, without you being injured."

"It got a scratch in, but that's not really a concern━"

Ichiji’s eyes widened slightly. “Genmei–san, you're wounded?"

“There’s nothing to worry about, Ichiji!” Genmei waves it off, giving a reassuring smile. “i''ve healed it up. Don't worry."

'How easily can you lie?'

'Shut up.'

'I'll talk how I like.'

‘I was just careless, is all.’

The voice snickers. ‘Careless? You were trying to be a hero.’

Her features hardened. ‘Can you leave me be?’

Another laugh. ‘Where’s the fun in that?’

“I’ll bring you to Shoko–san, right away!”

She shook her head. “Ichiji, there’s no need. Shoko should be heading home now, she needs rest—"

The moment stops when Ichiji’s phone rings.

Genmei purses her lips, a small contempt.

‘Gojo Satoru is calling.’

Genmei glares at Ichiji, her piercing lilac haunting him.

“Don’t tell him a word.”

WHEN SHE SAW SATORU, SHE KNEW HE COULD TELL. But he did not speak it out loud. Instead, he smiled prettily at her as he gently placed the pink-haired boy into the front seat. The young figure appeared to be nothing more than a teenage boy, or so the young woman guessed.

Genmei pursed her lips into a flat line, recognizing that Satoru had found someone that peaked his interest. Still, she couldn't shake the feeling that this meant something had happened. A sigh releases from her lips, Genmei was certain that she would have to look through the report Megumi would write. The elders would surely use this against them, more so with Satoru. There was so much they needed to discuss when they find the time to be alone, as she had no doubt he had much to share as well.

Satoru quietly exchanged a few words with Ichiji as he carefully fastened the seat belt around the young boy. The car door opened on her side, and her dark hair echoed against her lilac eyes as she shifted slightly, fighting the urge to groan from the pain that seared through her. Her gaze met Megumi's eyes, which glistened and blinked with a mixture of relief and concern. Genmei's heart ached as she took in the cuts that marred his youthful face and body. He was so young, she thought, yet here he was, willingly thrust into the front lines of danger.

Genmei exchanged a knowing look with Megumi as the car door clicked shut, enveloping them in poignant silence as the unspoken worry and tension festered. Had it not been for the gravity of their situation, she might have snickered at the familiarity of it all. She could vividly remember the way Toji nii-sama's eyes beamed with the same shine.

Toji nii-sama used to be that way when he would train with her father, after being knocked down a couple of times. Her father would egg on the younger man, but he would try not to show much of it loss after loss. He would have a silent scowl on his face, but he would make sure it was tender enough to go unnoticed. Just to avoid the worry. Genmei was certain that Megumi was indeed Toji nii-sama's son. He was a true Zenin, a boy who's carrying the weight of that name in his back.

Megumi nodded at her as he entered the car and settled in on her left. She watched him place a shopping bag down and make himself comfortable, closing the door. The car's engine roared to life once more, and they left behind the destruction that marked their world. Genmei was certain that Yaga would scold Satoru for his reckless actions, but as she observed Satoru's demeanor, he seemed untroubled by it.

But Genmei knew better.

She sighed and leaned back, her mind drifting to Gojo Satoru. He was a man of many words, but when he fell silent, it held a different weight. In a way, even his silence spoke volumes, and if they had been alone, she knew words would be flying between them by now. But she understood the need to let things unravel at their own pace, and she didn't want to push the issue. Megumi, sitting beside her, seemed to share that sentiment.

Genmei turned her attention to the young boy sleeping in the front seat. He must have been quite impressive, she thought, to have captured the attention and care of the most powerful sorcerer of their generation. Satoru thrived on excitement, and Genmei knew that all too well. Yet it was his unmatched skill that set him apart. His eyes held a depth of knowledge that had not failed them thus far.

As the vehicle navigated through the city streets, Genmei gently reached over and placed a comforting hand on the pink-haired boy's shoulder. The boy stirred slightly in his sleep, reacting to the warmth and reassurance of her touch. For a moment, Genmei saw her own youth reflected in his vulnerability. Her voice carried a soothing tone as she whispered, "Don't worry. You're safe now."

The pink-haired boy, whose name remained a mystery to them, shifted slightly, feeling the safety of her presence. Genmei couldn't help but let out a small, reassuring breath. He was just a boy, perhaps yet to experience much of life. Despite the pain that gnawed at her, she felt a profound sense of responsibility towards this newcomer.

She knew that the path of an sorcerer was perilous, and here he was, a teenager thrust into the frontline of a battle against the supernatural. It was a harsh reality they all had to confront. A bitter pit of worry gnawed at her, wondering how much of his youth would remain intact in a world defined by danger and darkness.

The rhythmic hum of the car's engine provided a backdrop to their thoughts as they continued on their journey. Genmei's gaze remained fixed on the sleeping boy in the front seat, her hand resting gently on his shoulder, offering silent reassurance. It was a fragile moment in the midst of a storm, a reminder of the innocence that could still exist in a world plagued by darkness.

As the cityscape gradually gave way to the open road, Genmei couldn't help but reflect on their shared responsibility. They were a motley crew of sorcerers, each carrying their own burdens, their own scars, both seen and unseen. The pain etched on Megumi's face and the heavy silence that hung between them were testament to the trials they had faced.

Yet they pressed forward, driven by a common purpose, a shared duty to protect the world from malevolent forces. Genmei knew that the path of an sorcerer was one of sacrifice and hardship, but it was also a path of honor. They were the defenders of humanity, standing between the known and the supernatural, often bearing the weight of the world on their shoulders.

The young boy in the front seat stirred once more, and Genmei's grip on his shoulder tightened, offering a sense of security in a world that offered so little. She knew that their journey was far from over, that they would face challenges and dangers beyond their imagination. With Satoru, she knew to expect that always. No matter the cost, he'd have his way. He'd do what would be right.

The car carried them further into the unknown, leaving behind the wreckage of their world, and into a future fraught with uncertainty.

Genmei knew that their fate was uncertain.

But one thing had always been clear to her.

They would face the front of danger together.

For bitter or worse, she stands with Satoru.

IT WAS LATE WHEN THEY ARRIVED. A yawn, like a whispered secret, escaped Genmei's lips as they arrived at Jujutsu High. The long journey had taken its toll, and her thoughts were now consumed by the sweet embrace of sleep. With great effort, she straightened herself, a soundless groan escaping her lips as she opened the car door. Her eyes followed Satoru as he carefully lifted the slumbering boy onto his shoulder, Megumi trailing closely behind, still clutching the shopping bag.

Satoru offered some words to Ichiji, a playful grin dancing upon his lips as he closed the car door from the front. Judging by some of the reaction of the younger man, Genmei thinks he seemed afraid. More than usual, she would like to say. Genmei knew that Satoru now knows what happened to her. It was unusual for Satoru to forgo the speed of the bullet train, given his impatience, but circumstances had led them to this shared journey. Genmei had grown accustomed to Satoru's preference for her company, even during the most mundane of tasks.

Satoru, with the sleeping boy still nestled on his shoulder, bestowed a parting grin upon Ichiji, sealing their gratitude with an unspoken promise of returning the favor. The car door closed with a muted thud, and the vehicle moved away, leaving them standing on the threshold of their responsibilities.

"Is that his souvenirs again?" Genmei inquired, nodding towards the shopping bag.

Megumi confirmed with a nod, "He asked me to hold it earlier."

"Give it to me," Genmei insisted, extending her hand. "We'll go together. You can rest."

A faint crease formed on Megumi's brow as he hesitated for a brief moment, "But the kid—"

"We'll take care of him," Genmei reassured him, reaching for the shopping bag. She smiled warmly, her hand lightly touching his shoulder. "You've worked hard all day, Megumi-kun. Satoru put you to work again, didn't he?"

Satoru interjected with a mock complaint, "It wasn't as bad as you think, Genmei. Megumi's doing his job, you know?"

Ignoring Satoru's pleas for attention, Genmei's gaze remained on Megumi, her smile unwavering. "Go, Megumi. I'll share some of the moon cookies I got from the temple with you once we wrap up here, okay?"

"Genmeiiiiiii, don't ignore me!" Satoru's melodramatic whining was met with a roll of Genmei's eyes, and she returned her focus to Megumi.

The mention of the delectable moon cookies brought a sparkle to Megumi's eyes. He had always enjoyed those temple treats. He nodded in agreement and handed her the shopping bag. Genmei took a peek inside, spotting two, maybe three boxes neatly arranged within. The scent of Kikufuku mochi wafted from the bag, the confections still fresh from Satoru's purchase. Genmei couldn't help but wonder how Satoru managed to sustain himself with his insatiable sweet tooth. She shook her head, her amusement evident, and then turned to Megumi.

Her grip on his shoulder was gentle but carried a profound warmth. Silver-blue energy emanated from her being, transferring from her to Megumi, who felt the tension in his body begin to ease. The radiant energy seemed to coax his wounds into closing, a soothing balm to his injuries. It was a moment of respite.

"I don't think my energy is sufficient at the moment to heal you," Genmei offered an apologetic smile to the young boy. "But it should give you some comfort until you see Shoko tomorrow, hm?"

Megumi nodded in appreciation.

Genmei smiles, satisfied.

She pats his head. “Good job, kid. Get cleaned up and sleep.”

As Megumi Fushiguro looked away, his cheeks tinged with a subtle blush, it was a reminder of the gentle, introspective nature that Genmei had always noticed in him, even when he was just a small boy. Yet, like so many, he struggled to openly acknowledge it. There was no denying the traces of his father's influence in his character, a shadow that he couldn't fully escape. It brought to mind her own memories of youth, of the times when her elder cousin had looked down on her with an understanding gaze.

Megumi mumbled a quick "good night" and awkwardly thrust his hands into his pockets, quickly walking away. Genmei couldn't help but giggle as she watched his retreating figure.

"He's definitely Toji's son," she murmured to herself, a hint of amusement in her voice. She could see the man he was in the young boy, yet she could truly see how different they were. Megumi was truly warm, the seeping lake in the mellow sunrise. Genmei adored him, cherished him as though he was her own. One day, Genmei knew he would be the Zenin heir. Yet Genmei wished he could just be like this, a boy forever. Just be himself, just be Megumi.

The night sky, an exquisite canvas painted with countless stars, bore witness to their parting. Each twinkling light seemed to applaud their resolve and the bonds that bound them together, whether through blood or shared purpose.

With Megumi's departure, husband and wife continued on their path, the night shrouding them in a blanket of tranquility. The air was cool and soothing, a gentle caress that carried with it the secrets of countless nights. They walked side by side, their steps synchronized like a well-practiced dance, the weight of their shared duty and their unspoken understanding guiding them toward the staff dormitories.

In the quiet stillness of the dormitories, Satoru gently laid the sleeping boy with fuchsia hair on his own bed, tucking him in with the care of a guardian. The boy slumbered on, undisturbed by the transition. Genmei, her steps soft and deliberate, placed the shopping bag on the languid coffee table, her movements a testament to the exhaustion that gnawed at her.

In the quiet embrace of the night, the room came alive with a certain timeless charm. In a way, Genmei could only register the familiarity of it all. The moonlight, filtered through heavy curtains, spilled a silvery glow across the space, casting delicate shadows that danced across the wooden floor like spectral memories of the past. The room seemed to sigh in relief, as if exhaling the accumulated history of years long gone by.

The walls, adorned with faded floral wallpaper, bore the gentle marks of age, their colors muted by time, yet still holding an elegant grace that whispered of another era. A framed painting hung proudly on one wall, its vibrant hues rendered in soft, dreamy strokes, a portal to an artist's vision and a journey through the artist's imagination. The painting was a window into a world of serenity, offering an escape from the everyday.

A wooden bookshelf, standing tall against the far wall, cradled the stories of countless lives within its shelves. Dusty leather-bound tomes, dog-eared paperbacks, and well-worn classics leaned on each other for support, a testament to the voracious appetite of the room's owner for knowledge and escapism. Genmei's fingers absentmindedly brushed against the spines of these volumes, and the faint scent of old pages filled the air, a fragrance that spoke of endless adventures.

The armchair where Genmei reclined was a sanctuary of comfort. Its upholstery, once a rich burgundy, had faded over time, yet its cushions still bore the imprint of countless sitters, each one leaving behind a bit of their history. The soft creaking of the chair's aged wood echoed like a soothing lullaby as Genmei settled into its embrace, feeling its warmth and familiarity envelope her.

The room's windows, adorned with lace curtains, framed a view of the night outside. The silver moonlight bathed the world beyond, revealing the serenity of the garden below. In the distance, a gentle breeze rustled the leaves of old trees, their branches swaying in silent celebration of the night.

As Genmei closed her eyes and breathed in the room's distinctive scent, she felt a profound connection to the past. This room, with its muted colors, worn but cherished furniture, and the hushed symphony of memories, had become a sanctuary, a place where time flowed in a different rhythm, and where the whispers of the past intertwined with the peace of the night, creating a space that was both familiar and forever new.

She lets her fingers graze the edges of the chair, a hint of lilac gleam in her eyes transformed into a shade of reminiscing sorrow. She couldn't help but recall the days when the chair belonged to someone else, to two people who had made this room their own. It had been Satoru and another, someone whose memory lingered in the very fabric of the armchair.

‘Wasn't this his? Suguru liked this type of fabric.’ Genmei mused softly to herself, her thoughts tinged with a touch of melancholy. ‘Satoru kept this all this time, huh?’

Satoru, his characteristic cheekiness undiminished, settled on the edge of the armchair, leaning in close. He’s removed his blindfold. "You're definitely making yourself comfortable."

"Of course," Genmei replied with a snicker. "I'm exhausted, Satoru. I worked hard."

Satoru pouted playfully, his bright eyes dancing with mischief. "You're saying this as if I don't work hard too, darling. I worked hard today too, just like Megumi did."

A small laugh escaped her lips as she retorted, "Hm, yet to be seen."

However, the levity of their conversation was interrupted by a subtle pang of pain in Genmei's chest, which didn't go unnoticed by Satoru.

"The boy, Satoru."

"What about the boy?" Satoru inquired nonchalantly.

Genmei's brows furrowed, and her lilac eyes darkened with concern. "What about him? Is someone who you think could aid in your current project? The fingers?”

Satoru sighed, his playful expression betraying a hint of weariness. "You're making it seem like I'm doing a bad thing, darling."

Genmei shook her head. A somber look on her face. "I don't think its a bad thing. I just worry. He's just a boy. He's just like Megumi."

"Him being in our world is expected." Satoru sighed, looking at the sleeping boy's figure from where he was. "Well, especially with his interaction with the finger. He makes the perfect vesdel.

"I felt something when I touched him earlier," Genmei revealed to him, her voice tinged with worry. "Did he actually eat one of the fingers?”

“He admitted to eating it, Megumi saw it.” Satoru leaned back into the modest armchair, his playful demeanor shifting to one of contemplation. "Megumi has no reason to lie, doesn't he? Besides, I saw it for myself. The king of curses."

Genmei’s face fell. “So that’s why when I touched him—"

His gaze fixed on her face, his fingers drumming softly on the armrest. He looked intrigued. Having known the history, he would know why. He slyly smiled. “You felt the layers of his soul?”

Genmei nodded. “But his soul, it’s still more dominant. I’m not sure, Satoru, but as long as he could control it, there’s a chance that the king of curses wouldn’t over take him.”

“I gave Sukuna ten seconds before the boy took over.” he murmured, a stern look creasing his features. "I've got a feeling this boy's a lot more complex and interesting than what he appears to be. No one has been able to cage Sukuna as a vessel before. Well, not that anyone’s tried, really.”

“This is going to be a mess.” Genmei purses her lips. “We’ll have to deal with this, Satoru.”

Satoru nodded in agreement, his gaze fixed on the sleeping boy in the adjacent bed. “We will, you have my word on that.”

Silence engulfed them for a moment.

Satoru let out a low whistle, his bright blue eyes reflecting a mixture of curiosity. "You really think he's connected to one of my 'projects,' as you put it?"

"Your projects and that boy don’t correlate." Genmei shakes her head, lips locked. "He just bumped into your project and now is forced to participate in our world. Like a cog in the machine, like the rest of us."

Satoru laughed, “You make it sound so scientifical, y’know!”

Genmei gave him a look. “The higher ups already complained about losing the item, Satoru. I got the message from your mother."

“And now there’s someone who can may be able to control it. Well, we still have to teach him.” Satoru retorts snidely, waving his hand at her. His eyes darted to the bed. He rubs the back of his neck. His eyes turned serious. “He’s going to be a target now, that’s for certain.”

Genmei hummed in agreement, her fingers slowly traced the top of his hand. Infinity is always off when they’re together. “We have to protect him, Satoru. We can't let him be in harm's way. No matter what. He's still just a boy."

He watched as his free hand rested upon her arm. “You don’t think I could protect him?”

With a fond smile, Genmei leaned back into the armchair, her fingers now wrapping against his own. "I do, Satoru. My faith in you is unwavering. I just hope you're not biting off more than you can chew. I don't want all of this to overwhelm you. You're threading a thin rope, Satoru. I just worry, as always."

Satoru's grin returned, laced with a hint of mischief. “I can deal with all of it. Especially those old geezers. Don’t worry about me.”

“I know you can,” Genmei fondly whispers back, slowly leaning her figure against his. “I worry too much, don’t I?”

“It’s not wrong to worry about people you love.” He says, lilac and cerulean meeting in a warm gaze. His hand squeezes her own. “We’re in this together, hm?”

The room was filled with a comfortable silence, the knowledge that they had each other's backs acting as a reassuring presence in the midst of their enigmatic circumstances.

Genmei finally let out a contented sigh, nodding. “I’ll talk to Gakuganji myself, if need be.”

“You really wanna waste more time with the old fart than be with me?” He pouts at her, causing Genmei to laugh.

“Do you wanna spend time with the old fart?”

Satoru looks away. “No way.”

Genmei laughs again, shaking her head. “In any case, they’ll not say no to me, you know this .”

Gojo Satoru knew that too well. Genmei was, after all, the pride of Kyoto Jujutsu High. Even during her student days, legends of her prowess and dedication had spread far and wide across the Jujutsu society. A proud scion of the most ancient bloodline, she was the embodiment of a world that Satoru couldn't fully grasp—a world steeped in tradition, a world where honor and duty ran deep in the veins of those who belonged to it.

Genmei carried that world within her like a precious heirloom, a living relic of ancient traditions and noble heritage. Her very presence, from the graceful way she moved to the dignified tone of her voice, was a reflection of the centuries of wisdom and responsibility that coursed through her veins. Her actions resonated with the echoes of a lineage that had shaped her into the formidable woman she had become.

It wasn't just her bloodline that set her apart; it was her unwavering dedication to upholding the values and honor of that world. Even as she had chosen to diverge from the path that had been laid out for her, she had done so with the utmost respect for her roots.

In the world of Jujutsu sorcery, her name carried weight and reverence, a testament to her skill, her knowledge, and her unyielding commitment. Yaga–sensei used to say that a Jujutsu sorcerer was deep inside, truly so alone. Yet despite it all, Genmei chose to be with him. Her loneliness matched his own, formed something beyond it.

It was a testament to her strength, her resolve, and her unwavering belief in the path they had chosen. She believed in his cause, to change their world into something more. Gojo Satoru couldn't help but feel a sense of gratitude for having her by his side, for her unwavering loyalty was a force to be reckoned with, one that strengthened their alliance in the face of all odds.

After all these years, she still chose him. Even when it caused her the world, she still chose him. She had become his most ardent constant. Pride swells in his heart, as it always did, when it comes to her.

Satoru's gaze softened as he examined her, finally letting his eyes fall upon the side of her stomach. "You got injured, didn't you?"

Genmei met his concern with a defiant look, attempting to downplay her condition. "Not a big deal."

At least Genmei thinks so. When she had been less experienced, injuries were normal. She knew it wouldn't change when she became a more experienced sorcerer. Still. she supposed Satoru expected more from her. She was after all like him, a special grade sorcerer. But it had been years. Sorcerery was the farthest thing from her mind. Training was the farthest thing from her mind.

She had been rusty from years of not being in the field like Satoru. Much too much had happened in the past ten years.

Genmei herself thinks that she was needed elsewhere. There was other ways to expel curses, there were other ways of supporting Satoru. Moreover, Megumi and Tsumiki needed her. Satoru needed her. Her family needed her. Who else would be there if not her? Still she can't help but think about the mistakes that had gotten her injured.

In the shadowed underbelly of an ancient, forgotten shrine, the air was thick with malevolence—a breeding ground for curses long stewed in bitterness and resentment. Gojo Genmei, her posture as sharp as the blade she wielded, moved with calculated precision through the dimly lit corridors. Her cursed weapon, a yari, gleamed with a sinister light, its shaft adorned with subtle engravings that whispered of old battles and victories.

The mission was clear: eliminate the special grade curse that had taken refuge here, a malevolent spirit that had grown too powerful, feeding off the stray emotions and dark histories embedded in the shrine's walls. Genmei, though usually unflappable in the face of danger, felt an unusual heaviness in her chest—a residual ache from recent emotional turmoil that she couldn’t shake off.

As she advanced, her yari pulsed with heavy cursed energy, drawing from her own reserves to manifest its deadly efficacy. She channeled her energy into the weapon, feeling the familiar tug at her core—a drain that she was well accustomed to managing during combat. The tip of the yari vibrated with the intensity of the power flowing through it, ready to strike down the corrupted soul that lurked ahead.

Suddenly, the air shifted, a cold gust brushing against her neck. It was a warning, a whisper of imminent danger. Genmei tensed, her instincts screaming for her to dodge. She pivoted on her heel, swinging the yari in a wide arc. The blade sliced through the air, meeting resistance in the form of a dark, amorphous shape that materialized from the shadows.

The curse, a grotesque amalgamation of despair and fury, howled in anger as the blade cut through it, dispersing part of its form into black mist. Genmei readied herself for another strike, her eyes narrowing as she searched for the core of the curse—the source of its power.

But in that moment, a flicker of distraction shattered her focus. A sharp, stabbing pain in her chest—an echo of the emotional wound that had not yet healed—pierced her concentration. It was a fleeting second of weakness, but it was all the curse needed.

With a vile screech, the curse reformed, lunging forward faster than shadows flee from light. Genmei attempted to react, to raise her yari in defense, but she was a fraction too slow. The curse’s appendage, sharp and oozing malice, struck, piercing her side. The pain was immediate and searing, a fire that spread rapidly through her veins, as the cursed energy of the entity invaded her system.

'Are you going to lose to this?' The voice in her head snickered at her. 'You call yourself a descendant of Hiromi?'

"You better shut up!" Genmei hissed back in pain.

Genmei staggered back, her hand clamping over the wound that now marred her side. The fabric of her kimono darkened with blood, warm and wet against her skin. Breathing heavily, she gritted her teeth against the pain, her mind racing to assess the situation.

The curse hovered before her, its form swirling with triumph. But Genmei, descendant of the Zenin clan, was not one to falter in the face of defeat. With a grunt of effort, she straightened up, her grip on her yari tightening. She could feel her cursed energy waning from the injury, each pulse of power now mixed with stabs of pain, but her resolve hardened.

Summoning the last reserves of her strength, Genmei whispered a vow through clenched teeth, a promise borne of pain and determination. "Not today," she hissed, her eyes blazing with a fierce, indomitable will.

With that, she lunged forward, her movement fueled by a mix of desperation and skilled precision. The yari sang through the air as it burst through with a dangerous amount of cursed energy. Genmei aimed for the heart of the curse, determined to end this here and now. Her pain became a distant echo, her focus narrowing to the point of her weapon and the dark core before her.

She will win.

Triumphant yet gravely wounded, Genmei had pushed her body and spirit to their limits. The final thrust of her yari had vanquished the special grade curse, a fleeting moment of victory that came at a steep cost. As the adrenaline that fueled her through the battle ebbed away, so too did her strength, leaving her exhausted and bleeding heavily.

She managed to staunch the worst of the bleeding using rudimentary first aid techniques she’d honed over years of combat, but healing her wounds completely was beyond her current capability. Overcome by fatigue and blood loss, she collapsed, the world around her fading into darkness.

When she awoke, the sharp sting of her wounds was a harsh reminder of the battle’s toll. Ichiji, a fellow sorcerer who had been searching for her after she missed their planned rendezvous, found her by the pond. Genmei had managed to clean much of the blood from her kimono and had temporarily stopped the bleeding, but her pale complexion and the grimace of pain that flickered across her face spoke volumes about her condition.

"I should take you back," Ichiji suggested with concern, eyeing her warily as she struggled to maintain her composure.

Genmei shook her head stubbornly, her voice a whisper of determination. "No, there’s a shrine nearby. I need to... to perform some duties there," she insisted, pushing herself to stand despite Ichiji’s protests.

"You need to rest, Genmei-san. You’ve done enough for today," Ichiji countered, but he knew arguing with her when her mind was set was as effective as trying to calm a storm with words.

She managed a weak smile, her usual resolve flickering in her tired eyes. "I promised Satoru I'd head home after the mission, but this... this is something I need to do."

Ichiji sighed, recognizing the stubborn set of her jaw, the same determination that had made her a legendary sorcerer. "He’s going to notice, you know. You can’t hide this from him forever. And then he would get angry at me━"

Genmei laughs. "It'll be fine. Don't worry too much. Just go and drive."

"Genmei-san━"

"Ichiji Kiyotaka━"

"Yes, yes, I'll do it!" She could see the panic on his face as he started to drive.

Genmei thinks that her request was reasonable.

Her husband's lips curl into a frown, he's displeased.

But she knows it's not how she had imposed her will.

"Ichiji told me you passed out the moment you got in the car," he countered, his voice laced with worry. Genmei's eyes hardened, and she turned her head to the side. "You should at least have told him about the injury and tell him to contact Shoko."

Genmei looked away, with almost a guilty face.

"I did tell him about the injury."

"You didn't tell him the whole story."

"You didn't have to scare him." Genmei grumbled back.

"It's beyond a big deal," he insisted.

"I just had a tiring day—"

"Genmei," Satoru interrupted her, his eyes locking onto hers. The intensity of his gaze made her pause, and she refrained from arguing further. "Give me your hand."

Genmei hesitated, reluctant to accept his help, but Satoru reached for her hand, gently taking it into his own. She watched him warily as Gojo Satoru allowed his cursed energy to flow from his body and into her own. In that moment, she could feel her entire being being rejuvenated as his power surged through her. When he was finished, he smiled at her, a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. He places a small kiss on her palm as she pulls away, horrified.

Genmei smacked his hand, agitated. "You didn't have to do that," she replied, hitting his arm. He chuckled, not taking her outburst too seriously.

"You wasted your cursed energy on me. This is stupid—"

Satoru didn't respond with words. Instead, he seized her wrist again, pulling her closer to him, their bodies pressed together. Genmei's lips formed a thin line, and her eyes met his, a mix of flustered emotions beyond understanding. It was a dance they had engaged in for years, the ebb and flow of their relationship, with Satoru knowing full well the power he held over her. Despite the time that had passed, he remained endlessly fascinated by her, intrigued by the depths of his connection to her, and enchanted by the mystery of their bond.

"I'd do anything for you," Satoru whispered against her cheek, his voice a gentle caress that sent shivers down her spine. "Anything."

Genmei couldn't help but smile, the weight of their shared history and the depth of their connection settling around them like a warm embrace. She leaned into his touch, savoring the closeness, the reassurance that they would always be there for each other in a world fraught with danger and uncertainty.

"You're insufferable, you know that?" she whispered to him, her fingers lightly tracing the lines of his face.

Satoru grinned, his cerulean eyes dancing with mirth. "I’m glad to hear that, darling.”

In the quiet of that room, a sanctuary within the bustling storm of their lives, the night unfurled its velvety tapestry to envelop them. The world beyond the walls faded into obscurity, its clamor and chaos drowned out by the serenity they shared. It was in these moments, when all was hushed, that they discovered the solace they had long sought in each other's presence.

Their bond, forged through trials and tribulations, was a testament to the resilience of their long standing marriage. Time and circumstance had woven their stories together, threading their lives with the unbreakable ties of camaraderie and loyalty. It was a bond that had been tested in the crucible of adversity and had emerged stronger, like tempered steel. No one could ever impede on it. Not even if they tried.

As they sat together, bathed in the soft glow of the room's lighting, their gazes met, reflecting the depth of their partnership. Theirs was a connection that transcended words, an unspoken understanding that needed no affirmation. It was a source of strength that anchored them in the face of an ever-uncertain world, providing them with the courage to confront the unknown, side by side.

Genmei thinks that she would finally have a good sleep.

But as the clock turns and drifts, nothing did ever change.

She leans towards Satoru's chest, taking a deep breath.

At the very least, the present is fine because Satoru's in it.

facts about the chapter

genmei hasn't partook in missions for near seven, eight years. she's been as inactive as tsukomo yuki, whom she's fond of.

genmei is one of the five special grade sorcerers. genmei herself was classified as such since entering kyoto jujutsu high.

genmei started hearing voices since her cursed technique manifested at six years old. the cursed technique she has was from her maternal line.

gakuganji was very strict with all his students, but most especially on genmei because her father was his favorite student. she always got the most dangerous cases because of gakuganji.

genmei was very close to toji and considered him her elder brother.

genmei is an only child and was very close to both her parents.

moon cookies is a reference to half-moon cookies. they're butter cookies and they're really good. the mikoto clan just adores said cookies and gives them out to little kids who go to the mikoto shrines.

genmei and satoru are megumi and tsumiki's adoptive parents. she's megumi's second cousin, making satoru a in law of megumi.

ichiji considers gojo satoru his primary source of stress, but because genmei is almost like satoru now, her anger is also very scary to him and can cause him stress when it does happen.

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fountainpenguin · 9 days ago

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🍒 Cherry Lane Arc

Fairly OddParents

(June 2018 - Ongoing)

Cosmo and Wanda burst into view with twin poofs beside the tree. “Timmy!” But Timmy ignored them. Keeping his arm outstretched, he looked Jorgen in the eye. His teeth ground together, his buck teeth scraping loudest of all. “Yeah, you heard me right. I’m happy, and I don’t need my fairies anymore!”

- You may also like the Pink Train arc, which precedes this one

- Romance, Angst, & Fluff

- Works related to the main FOP cast and close adjacents in their teen years: Timmy, Chloe, Kevin, Chester, A.J., Vicky, Mark, Tootie, Trixie, Sanjay, Elmer, Dale... and a quietly watching Poof

-> This arc picks up after Pink Train and focuses on humans. If you're looking for pieces centered around Poof and Foop, see Lavender Train

Summary

20 years pass between the end of Season 10 and Timmy raising Tammy and Tommy in his parents' home. Every year brings new developments, and this arc's main multichapter (Along the Cherry Lane) explores each one. Several other works fall under the designation of "main cast in their teen and adult years," so they're here too. The road to adulthood is long and bumpy, but it's about the friendships we make along the way.

☁️ This is a Cloudlands AU arc. It is not compliant with City Lights AU or the "A New Wish" spin-off. However, Dale and Hadley's arcs have been soft reset so they're the same in both AUs.

-> Hazel, Dev, and their schoolmates do not appear in this AU (except in relation to Dale or Hadley's arcs). Works that follow their journey from kidhood to adulthood are in the City Lights arc.

Any Rating - This is the "teenage growth & married lives" arc. Some works are mild while others are more intense. This arc contains flirting, dating, and sexual content.

This arc follows the "Channel Chasers" implication that Timmy had his kids young.

Read on FFN | Read this arc on AO3

130 Sums | Full 130 Prompt Series (AO3) | Other Arcs

Cloudlands AU - Detailed warnings & other AU info

#130 arc guides - More posts like this

More Fairly OddParents 'fics

Highlights of this arc:

- Timmy parts ways with his fairy family early. Chloe doesn't. Poof isn't bitter... Not even a little - Remy hides things from his parents while still living in their mansion... including the orphan child he invited to stay - Teen Dale Dimmadome in recovery (If you can call it that) - Elmer struggles against Bob for control of his body - Tootie wobbles between the lines of morality, fighting to change her life for the better all the while - Trixie garners the courage to show up for D&D night with the boys. Maybe this could work? - The unbearable lightness of raising Tammy and Tommy - Several weddings, some of which go more to plan than others - Vicky and Mark living their best(?) lives - Kevin Crocker makes an unfortunate discovery about his witch genes - Foop runs away from home... and stumbles across familiar faces - Poof watches his godbrother grow up... Very maturely and non-stalker-y, I'm sure

Read on FFN | Read this arc on AO3

"A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys... Painted wings and giant springs make way for other toys..." (x)

#Fairly OddParents #Timmy Turner #FOP fanfic #Cloudlands AU #City Lights AU #ridwork guides #ridwriting #130 arc guides #<- Technically not but that's my tag #Perfect pink beaver boy #Rebellious golden child #Chloe Carmichael #Purple hippie dragonfly #Nerdy blue bat son #Goth Girl and Blubber Boy #Little Crock #FAIRIES!#apparently art #Remy Buxaplenty #Mark Chang #Red babysitter #Dale Dimmadome owner of Dimmadome Global #Hadley and Eryx #Dragonfly parents #Jonathan Magnificent #fic announcement #idk if anyone's reading this far in the tags but “You Deserve It” is in the Cherry Lane arc and I've had this post on backburner-#and now that the 'fic is out I can post this. yay :) Technically “Bones” was already in there but now it has a friend #Anyway... as per usual if you want to filter the things you get AO3 emails for here is the teen to adulthood arc!#ridspoilers

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all-risejd · 11 months ago

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Chapter 23: The first Meeting (A Poly Judgement Day Fic)

San Diego May 10th, 2023 Wednesday

Nessa wakes up and rolls over snuggling back into Dominik's chest, what he told her last night coming back to the forefront of her thoughts. She rests her hand on his chest and smiles. He wants nothing more than to have that future he envisions for them. She draws shapes on his chest with her finger. She remembers the first time she met him in her Emergency room and how far they have come.

_____________________________________________________________________

Sometime in October of 2018

Nessa’s curly red hair is tied back in a messy bun, her stethoscope slung around her neck. The black scrubs she is wearing that day washing out her complexion making her look even more pale than usual. She looks up from her charting when she sees a young man, tall hair cut short with glasses and a hoodie with a wrestler she recognizes as Rey Mysterio on it. He is calling out for help as he is carrying someone, supporting their weight, practically dragging them in, blood pouring down the other guy's face, his eyes unable to focus.

“You gotta help me, we had an accident in training.” The boy in the hoodie asks, panicking, his own breaths shallow.

Nessa springs into action, snapping on a pair of gloves as she runs over two other nurses joining her. Together they set the man in a wheelchair, one of the other nurses holding the wound on his head to stem the bleeding while Nessa uses her penlight to assess the pupillary response. “His pupils are sluggish, take him to CT and page Neuro while I get information from his friend here,” Nessa orders the others who immediately do as told. Nessa takes off her gloves and turns to the young man who she can’t help but eye up and down, appreciating the chubbiness in his cheeks and finding him adorable even in his panicked state. “Hey your friend will be fine, our doctors and nurses are the best in the state, now I need you to breathe.” She takes a deep breath to demonstrate and continues once he takes a few deep breaths with her. “Good, now tell me what happened and his name so I can start his chart instead of calling him John Doe.” Nessa gives him her best calming smile.

“Andrew, his name is Andrew Watkins, we were training, we are training to be wrestlers and he botched a move and hit his head on the steps.” He explains near hyperventilation again.

“Sir I need you to breathe with me again” She instructs, taking an exaggerated deep breath, the young man copying her. “Ok, now what is your name sir,” She asked as he blinked back tears.

“Dom, Dominik.” He answers, his voice shaky.

Nessa nods and pats his knee. “Ok, Dominik, is there any family we can contact for Mr Watkins?” Nessa asks, writing down information in her little notepad to put in the chart when she is at her computer.

“Yuh… yeah, his brother” Dominik gives her his information and she quickly writes it down.

“Unfortunately Dominik I can’t give you any updates on him because you are not next of kin, I am going to call his brother and when he gets here we will give him the update and what he does with that information is up to him.” Nessa holds up her hand to stop him from arguing, “I’m sorry but it’s the law, he is alive and that is all I can tell you ok.” Nessa assures him before getting up and going back to the computer at the intake desk. She inputs the information into his chart and calls the number Dominik provided, then going back to triaging patients coming in and calling people back.

Dominik keeps his gaze flickering between the door and to Nessa. Grateful at how nice she was and he can’t help but admire the strands of hair that have made their way out of her bun that frame her face and is floored at how she handles those coming in with such compassion yet being stern and firm when needed. Before too long Andrews' brother Alex comes running in and goes straight for Dominik.

Nessa gets up from behind the desk and begins to go over to the two men, but gets stopped by someone stumbling in covered in blood that is still pouring from his neck and chest, over his hand where he has his thumb stuck in a gaping hole in his neck. Nessa immediately jumps into action, going over to the man and guiding towards the trauma room, only for someone to step in front of them. She looks up to the two men seeing Dominik, and the man that must be Andrew's brother Alex.

“I need you to move please.” Nessa asks firmly trying to guide the gentleman around them but Alex steps in front of her again. “Sir this man is bleeding out as we speak, I need to get him into the trauma room. A doctor will be out soon to update you on your brother now get the fuck out of the way before I mow you down.” Nessa orders losing her temper, her concern is the man bleeding out onto her scrubs. Dominik sees how serious the situation is and how serious the young woman is. He fears for Alex’s life so he pulls him out the way and she drags this full grown man, probably twice her weight and a good foot taller than her. He stares in awe at how strong she is, physically and mentally to be able to do this job.

Alex scoffs and crosses his arms, “I am going to go get her manager, she can't speak to us that way.” He complains.

Dominik rolls his eyes and smacks Alex on the back of his head. “Hey stupid, the guy was literally bleeding out and she is just trying to do her job. Andrew is alive, she told me that much. You totally deserved that and more. That guy could die because you blocked her way, look at the trail of blood on the ground.” Dominik gestures, both of their eyes going toward the trail that leads to the room a bunch of people are running in and out of, Dominik smiling to himself when he sees the petite redhead exit the room, a look of relief on her face before she disappears down a hallway.

____________________________________________________________________________

A few days later

Dominik enters the lobby of the Emergency room, his eyes searching for the kind red headed nurse, intent to apologize for Alex’s behavior and maybe… His eyes light up seeing her behind the counter. He pops his neck and shakes out his hands before heading over to her. He gets to the counter and clears his throat to get her attention, unable to form words because of how nervous he is. She looks up and smiles kindly at him.

“Dominik right? What brings you in today, is everything alright, was there another training accident?” She gets out of her seat and walks around the counter to assess him.

He looks down at her and blushes, shaking his head. “Well then what do you need? This is an emergency room and we need to care for our patients.” Nessa crosses her arms and cocks her head, confused as to why this man is in her ER with no injury or emergency.

“I uh…” Dominik clears his throat and starts again, “I wanted to apologize for my friend's behavior and for getting in the way the other day. You were just trying to do your job and here…” He flings his hand out towards her with a gift card to Dunkin Donuts. Nessa only raises her eyebrows, not uncrossing her arms. “You work long hours and know you must live off of coffee like my mom did and you deal with idiots like Alex and me all day so I thought you might appreciate it. The amount is written on the back of the card…” Dominik explains and Nessa slowly uncrosses her arms and takes the card, sliding it into her pocket without looking at the back.

“Thank you, that is very sweet. I Don't mean to sound rude but I have to get back to work and you don’t have an emergency to tend to so I have to ask you to leave.” Nessa steps to the side for him to leave but he stays in his spot, his hands in his pockets, his shoulders raised near his ears, clearly wanting to say something else. “Go on, say what you need to hun.” Nessa prompts and Dominik exhales sharply.

“I was wondering if I could take you out for coffee sometime as well?” His eyes widened, anxious for her answer, pulling his arms closer to his body, hands still in his pockets. Nessa sighs and looks at him sadly,

“I’m sorry sir, I’m not looking for a relationship right now and well I just don’t have the time.” She shoots him down, forcing herself to keep her arms at her side instead of wrapping them around herself for some comfort.

Dominik looks dejected and his shoulders drop. “Oh that's fine, I just want to do something nice to make up for the other day. No expectations of anything else, please?” Dominik offers just wanting to get the opportunity to know her.

Nessa shakes her head in the negative. “No to that either. As I said I just don’t have the time, and while you seem like a very nice man, very cute, I just can’t. Now please go so I can get back to work.” Nessa gestures towards the doors. Dominik nods his head before hanging it down, shuffling out the door clearly dejected.

Once he is out the doors another nurse behind the counter snickers. “Oh he is sweet on you and seems like a sweet kid. You need someone like that after…” She starts teasing but gets serious.

Nessa waves her off dismissively. “I don’t need or want a relationship right now, especially after what happened. It's only been a few months, thank god he is back in the UK. I need to learn how to be by myself for a while.” Nessa plops down in her seat and takes a sip from her water bottle.

The older nurse responds, “I know it's not just that, you are afraid and that's ok, but you know what I say about courage. It is being afraid and doing the thing anyway.” Nessa pauses in her typing, the woman's words hitting home.

“Sarah, I… I know… It's just… It’s just too soon.” Nessa answers.

Sarah gives her a sad smile. “Well that's fine then… sooooo… how much was that Dunkin card because coffee is on you tomorrow.” Sarah asks, changing the subject, and trying to get free coffee. Nessa rolls her eyes and scoffs, pulling the card out of her pocket. She flips it over and her eyes widen and she just stares at it. “What? How much is it like 50? Or something.” Sarah asks, rolling her chair over and looking at the back of the card. “Holy fuck!” Sarah almost yells seeing the $300 written on the back of the card.

Nessa slowly lowers it and puts it back in her pocket. “We are not using this, if he comes back I am giving it back to him because that is ridiculous.” Nessa shakes her head.

Sarah pouts, “But come on, you deserve it and if he wants to just give you 300 bucks let him. He probably has a rich dad or something and doesn’t know how to properly apologize so that's how they do it.” Sarah theorizes, already back on her charting, muttering about rich boys under her breath.

“Who hurt you?” Nessa mutters as she taps her fingers on the desk. Sarah was content to ignore her in favor of charting, so shaking her head, Nessa continued on, “No Sarah, that is too much money. He will be back to ask me out again that I know. I'll give it back to him then, end of discussion” Nessa gets up and walks away not wanting to be badgered about the man.

____________________________________________________________________________

Almost a week passes by and Nessa is about to walk in the doors of the hospital, the gift card sitting unused in her wallet. Nessa enters and sees a different nurse, one she is very fond of, long light brown hair braided neatly, hung over her shoulder. The nurse looks up and smirks deviously at Nessa who groans, walking over and plopping down in her chair. “Don't you start Olivia, we may be best friends but you don’t get the card either, that is going back to him when he inevitably comes back.” Nessa shakes her head, swinging the chair side to side, eying the empty emergency room.

Olivia giggles before responding, “Oh he has already been back, twice while you were gone with some fake ass injuries or minor bruising from his training. Apparently, he is training to be a wrestler like his dad.” Olivia teases and Nessa looks at her confused. Olivia continues on explaining, “Oh he came in asking for you and explained to me what happened that first time. And how he is so floored by how nice you are and how fierce you are.” Nessa gives Olivia a look that screams you better not have given him any information and Olivia clocks that right away. “Don’t worry I didn’t tell him anything important, Just that you are fresh out of a bad relationship and not ready for anything and to not get his hopes up.”

Nessa sighs in relief, that sigh turns into a groan when she sees that Olivia is still smirking, a mischievous glint in her eyes. “Whaaaaattttt” Nessa groans, not really wanting to know but unable to not know at this point.

“Do you want to know who his dad is?” Olivia asks.

Nessa shakes her head, signing in to the computer to try to do some busy work. “No, I don’t really care. I don’t plan to really see him again or get to know him so I don’t need to know.” Nessa answers even though the question is nagging at her but she ignores it. Olivia snorts but keeps the answer to herself, getting up to go intake the patient that just walked in.

___________________________________________________________________________

It is nearing 8pm and the end of Nessa’s shift which was thankfully uneventful. She looks up from her computer when she hears the sliding doors of the ER. She can’t help but roll her eyes to see Dominik again. Olivia hides her mouth behind her hand and giggles. “Men are so predictable.” Nessa mumbles under her breath as he approaches the counter, his hands in his pockets, his shoulders slumped over trying to look smaller, a sheepish smile adorning his cute chubby face. Nessa shakes her head to clear that thought.

“I had another accident in training, this time legit. I hit my head and things are a little fuzzy, my trainer drove me.” He gestures to the door and rubs the back of his head and he winces at the pressure.

Nessa goes into business mode, guiding him back into the exam room to get his vitals and information. Olivia wiggling her eyebrows at them, Nessa flipping her off before pulling the curtain closed for some privacy. “So I've been told you have been a frequent flier here for the last week.” Nessa starts the conversation while taking his blood pressure.

“Yeah well I felt I offended you by asking you out twice after you said no the first time then giving you the card with so much money on it. I’m not that kind of guy, no is a complete sentence and I know better. And I am not trying to flash money to get you to date me. I just wanted to do something nice, no strings attached.” He explains, wincing when she gently prods his head, lightly humming as she does.

“And what is prompting this oddly specific apology. I can assure you that I was not offended in the slightest.” She asks, typing information into her tablet to start his chart.

“Ah, uh.” Dominik stutters and rubs the back of his neck, “A good family friend, she, uh, pointed out how it looked and I never want to be seen like that. Uh it is also just dawning on me that the frequent unnecessary visits are also potentially troubling, I’m sorry I just needed to apologize in person and the other nurses wouldn’t tell me when you would be here which is understandable, the one out there told me you like coffee specifically a cold brew from Dunkin. And that you frequent the one around the corner...” He stares at the ground unable to make eye contact.

Nessa sighs and digs out her wallet from her scrub pants pocket and takes out the Dunkin card. She steps over and holds it out to where it is in Dominiks line of vision. He looks up and meets her gaze. Nessa is looking at him softly, without any hint of malice or anger, just a resigned sadness that makes his own chest tighten.

“No I’m not taking that back, it is for you to use how you see fit. Buy the entire hospital coffee if you want but that is for you. If you try to give it back to me I will just give it back to you another way.” He tells her resolutely, gently pushing the hand holding the gift card back towards her. She reluctantly puts the card back in her wallet.

“Well fine then, Mr Gutierrez, your vitals are good, I need you to wait in the waiting room until we call you back for the doctor since this is a non critical head injury.” She instructs him, back to being all business but failing at hiding the genuine smile he brought to her face. He walks out of the exam room his head held a little higher and nessa shaking hers, the smile still on her face not going unnoticed by Olivia.

_________________________________________________________________________

Sometime in November 2018

Nessa walks into the ER lobby for her shift holding a carrier with three coffees. She gets to the registration desk and hands one each to Sarah and Olivia who beat her there. “Did I mention you are my favorite and I am glad we always have shifts together.” Olivia moans as she takes a sip of her coffee, Sarah hums in agreement.

Nessa smiles and takes her seat sipping her coffee. “Well we still have a few more weeks worth of money on that card from Dominik so enjoy it while it lasts.” Nessa warns them, signing in to the computer not noticing the look Sarah and Olivia were sharing.

“You know we haven't seen your little cutie for a few weeks, and maybe since coffee funds are running low he can fill… it back up.” Sarah teases, sticking out her tongue when Nessa flips her off.

“You know, he has made you smile and we haven't seen that in a long time. You aren't on edge around him which is weird because you barely know him.” Olivia points out.

Nessa pauses, she hadn’t realized she isn’t afraid around him. She feels safe near him even though he is training to be in the same industry as her ex. “I know nothing about him, he isn’t mine and we are probably just the nearest hospital to his training gym…” Nessa rationalizes, not commenting on the observations of herself and her mental state regarding Dominik.

“Oh just give it time.” Olivia waves her off, the earful Nessa gave her about telling Dominik where she frequents for coffee worth the interference. If she has her way Nessa would be happy with the young man.

“Really Liv, can you not be such a matchmaker, I need to be by myself for a while just leave it be please.” Nessa asks, her annoyance lacing her voice. Olivia's reply is cut off by the sound of the sliding door opening. In walks Dominik with a bloody nose, holding a towel to it. Sarah snickers and Nessa lets her head drop to the desk, “Of course he would come in…” She mutters to herself and Olivia waves him over, opening his file and starting this visit.

In between answering her questions he glances at Nessa, whose head is still on the desk but she is looking at him, catching his gaze and blushing. After a few minutes of this she picks up her head and pops her neck, collecting herself. “Either you are getting hurt on purpose, or you have no business training to be a wrestler, orrr your training partner really hates you.” Sarah comments.

Nessa narrowing her eyes at the implication. “Uh a little of column A, a little of B, and we are both inexperienced. But my dad and Jay Lethal are training me and they aren't easy neither is Andrew who gave me the bloody nose today.” He answers, his response slightly muffled through the towel he is still holding to his face.

“Hey, you have every business training to do what you want. I wanted to be a nurse now look at me, I graduated with my BA in nursing at 20 and have been doing this for two years. I want to help people so I am the best way I know how and from what little you have told me you have family in the industry you are training for so you have an in, and natural talent or I’m assuming they wouldn’t train you.” Nessa praises, not wanting him to be down on himself. She may not know him well but she can see he has confidence issues. He blushes at her praise and inwardly preens that she has given him even the smallest morsel of personal information.

Nessa covertly kicks Olivia under the desk for wiggling her eyebrows. “Go back to your normal bed Dominik, I’ll be in in a moment to take your vitals and do the initial exam.” Nessa orders, gesturing vaguely behind her knowing he knows the way. Once he is out of earshot she swivels her chair to face the other two who are smirking victoriously. “Don’t you two start, you are just as bad as Ma and my cousins.” Nessa warns, standing up and disappearing from their view as they giggle.

The next few weeks go similarly, Dominik coming in with minor injuries that Nessa treats, the two of them getting to know each other in these interactions. Both of them drag out the visits to be longer than they should, Nessa not ready to see him outside of the four walls of the hospital and Dominik not wanting to make her uncomfortable, able to tell there is something she is trying to heal from and he doesn’t want to press the subject. He is just happy with whatever she is willing to give him.

__________________________________________________________________________

Dominik enters his parents house for their weekly dinner since his dad is home. He is shocked to see Vickie and Lita sitting on the couch with his mom, all of their heads close together clearly scheming something. “Aunt Vickie, Aunt Amy, what are you guys doing here?” He asks, hanging up his keys on the hook on the wall.

“Your mom called us over for dinner to discuss how you are struggling to get your soulmate on a date.” Vickie bluntly states, mischief alight in her eyes.

“Oh come on…” Dominik whines, his arms falling limply to his side, averting his eyes at the look his mom is giving him.

“It's ok Dom, we will help you out,” Lita informs him, a calming tone to her voice.

“Mijo, go set the table, dinner is almost ready, we will be joining you in a few minutes.” Angie instructs, Dominik doesn’t fight or argue and just goes to do as he is told, knowing he can’t stop them from meddling, he just fears they will make it worse.

“Amy, Vickie, that is Kevin's daughter and she hasn’t had an easy time of it, and from what Dominik has told me she is skittish which begs the question what else has she gone through.”

“Well that might be obvious and I hope we are wrong. However I have a plan, Here is what we are going to do…” Vickie explains her plan to the two women, their scheming getting interrupted by Rey who clears his throat.

“The table is set and food is dished out, lets go I’m wasting away…” Rey whines and the women roll their eyes but get up and go to the dining room, taking their seats.

“Ok Dom spill, how did you meet and what do you know?” Lita prompts, wanting to hear it from him.

He groans and slumps in his seat, knowing there is no use in delaying the inevitable so he explains and throws in his own theories, which are limited because as much as he would like Nessa to share anything with him the most he’s gotten from her is generalizations.

“Well sweetheart that is one of our theories as well so you need to tread carefully, but her friend told you where she goes for coffee and she knows you know so I think enough time has passed to where you can just “bump” into her. Amy has volunteered to go with you… tomorrow. You've been racking up medical bills just to go talk to her and frankly that is both sad and adorable… and stupid” Vickie explains, pointing her fork at Dominik who looks down embarrassed and mumbling something the others can’t hear.

“What was that baby, speak up.” Angie orders, a stern look on her face which melts with his answer,

“I don’t want to seem creepy, it seems like her ex really did a number on her. I’d be happy just being her friend.” Dominik speaks up, his blush going from his neck up to his cheeks and ears, the women cooing at him.

“And have you gotten this young lady's number yet?” Rey asks and Dominik shakes his head as his answer. “Then you are already being creepy and running up ridiculous bills for the ER visits, we may be well off but Mijo this is excessive for someone who hasn’t even given you her number. Nothing against her at all but is she worth it?” Rey asks, his opinion on the matter crystal clear to the room.

“Look, you have the day off of training tomorrow so we are doing it. What time is she normally there?” Lita asks, sipping her glass of wine, giving Rey the side eye.

“Uh… yeah… She works from noon to midnight so she is there around 11 to relax before her shift. And according to Olivia she works tomorrow, so yeah we know she will be there.” He answers , setting down his fork because he lost his appetite, nerves setting in for the next day.

Rey’s words chip away at what little confidence Lita and Vickie might have given him.

__________________________________________________________________________

Nessa grabs her order from the counter and goes to sit down at a nearby table, intent on enjoying the last 30 or so minutes before she has to go to work. She sips on her coffee, scrolling on her favorite fanfiction site, clicking on the Loki fanfiction, getting lost in the romance between Lauren and Loki, immersed in the world the author created, ignoring everything around her. She sips her coffee, unaware of a certain redhead that just sat opposite her in the booth.

Lita glances at Dominik, giving him a reassuring smile before clearing her throat. Nessa looks up from her phone which clatters on the table when she recognizes just who is sitting across from her. “You… You’re Lita, holy shit I loved you so much as a kid.” Nessa blushes, the admission just flying out of her mouth.

Lita smiles warmly at the young woman in front of her. “Yes I am, You don’t mind if I join you right?” Lita asks and Nessa can do nothing but nod her head and stare. Lita chuckles before complimenting Nessa and getting straight to the point, “You are very pretty you know, I think you would be good with my godson.” Lita leans forward and taps her fingers on the table, a familiar smirk on her face.

Nessa’s smile falters slightly and she fiddles with the straw of her drink. “While that is sweet, I’m not looking for a relationship right now Lita,..”

Lita cuts her off. “Call me Amy, dear.”

Nessa pauses momentarily before trying again, “Amy, I’m not looking for a relationship. And if it is your godson as you say he is probably in the industry and I am personally trying to stay away from dating anymore wrestlers or professional fighters. My last relationship didn’t exactly go well.” Nessa groans realizing she gave too much information to her childhood idol.

“Oh he is training in the industry but he is the sweetest boy, cute too and knows how to cook and wouldn’t hurt a fly but I respect the wanting to be alone. At least let me give you his number and when you feel you are ready give it a shot. Between me and you he is entirely too shy so that’s why I am trying to play matchmaker.” Lita reaches over and squeezes Nessa’s hand.

Nessa sighs in defeat, having a feeling that this mysterious godson is Dominik, it is too convenient that she comes to the coffee shop Nessa frequents and sits down and immediately starts to play matchmaker. “Fine, I guess I can agree with that. I make no promises to call or text him though.” Nessa hands over her phone, Lita snorts and types in Dominiks number but putting the contact name as Lita’s godson. Nessa grabs the phone back after Lita slid it across the table. Nessa checks the contacts and snorts, “What you won’t even tell me his name?” Nessa cocks her head.

Lita laughs. “I think you have an idea who it is. Look before I go lets take a selfie, you can make it my contact photo since I put my own number in in case you need me to come kick his ass.” Lita offers, while informing of the extra contact information.

Nessa can't hide the blush, her childhood crush offering to take a selfie with her. Lita, used to the fangirling, gets up and moves over to sit next to Nessa, wrapping her arms around the young girls shoulders and grabbing her phone. Lita angles the phone and snaps the picture then kissing the top of Nessa’s head. Lita gets up saying her goodbyes and walking out the door, Dominik slinking out behind her unable to look at Nessa from the embarrassment.

Nessa snorts into her drink and turns her attention back to her phone and the selfie that is still on the screen. She laughs to herself again seeing Dominik awkwardly staring at the ground in the background of the picture. She saves it as Lita’s contact photo suggested but never plans on having to contact her.

____________________________________________________________________________

A few days later Nessa is sitting at the counter at the nurses station, her phone in her hand staring at the contact screen of her phone, her finger hovering over the name Dom. She hears Olivia’s steps coming up behind her and greets the other woman, her eyes never leaving her phone screen. “You have been staring at your phone for like 3 days now. What's so interesting, are you finally talking to Dominik?’ Olivia asks, taking the seat next to Nessa.

“Uh no but… it's his number, his godmother kinda cornered me at Dunkin and gave me his number trying to play matchmaker.” Nessa huffed out.

“Ohh so he got his Auntie involved that takes some guts, or some serious lack thereof. Either way it is cute.” Olivia giggles, sipping the coffee Nessa brought in for her.

“You don’t think it's too creepy, or like a red flag?” Nessa asks, glancing over at the woman who quickly became her best friend.

“If it was any other circumstance I would say yes, but I am normally a very good judge of character and I never liked… your ex from the word go. But Dominik.. He… he has for lack of a better word a good aura about him. I think he would be very good for you and you for him.” Olivia gives her honest opinion, pausing before adding on, “I think you should message him and go out for one date, if only to get another Dunkin card for us to last through Thanksgiving and Christmas because girl we will need it.” Olivia jokes, but Nessa knows she is halfway serious about the Dunkin card; they would mainline it if they could for the holiday season.

“I wouldn’t even know where to start and I don’t think I am ready. And you’ve heard about the stories coming out about the men in wrestling. What if..” Nessa starts rambling, spiraling.

Olivia cuts her off, quickly, “Don’t spend your life thinking about what ifs, we take life as it comes or we don't really live. You won’t know how it turns out unless you try. I’m not asking you to marry the man, just text him. Get to know him and put yourself out there. And if you fall, if it goes south i will be there like last time to get you out.” Olivia promises, her voice thick with said promise that settles the unease in Nessa’s stomach.

“Fine” Nessa mumbles to herself and clicks on the contact information and opens the messaging app.

To: Dom -> Hey… It's Nessa from the hospital. Uh Lita gave me your number, and I kinda thought it was adorable that either you asked for her help or she just stepped in and took charge. My money is on that she just stepped in and took charge. Long story short, I’m off at midnight tonight and if you are still up you can take me to waffle house or something, that way she gets off your back and the girls here get off of mine.

Nessa hesitates before pressing send and tossing her phone on the counter and begins chewing on her thumbnail, Olivia snickering in the background. A patient comes in and Nessa does the intake, missing the silent notification coming from her phone. Half an hour later Nessa returns to the counter having finished with the patient, letting out a huff as she plops into her seat.

“Your phone has gone off a few times while you were with that patient.” Olivia points out excitedly tapping her fingers on the counter, bouncing up and down. Nessa rolls her eyes, her stomach going in knots afraid of what awaits her in her phone. Unsure what she wants the answer to be. On one hand she wants him to reject her which she knows is unlikely, on the other hand she wants him to say yes, and wants to give him a chance. She takes a deep breath and grabs her phone, unlocking it, seeing 3 messages.

From: Dom -> YES!

Nessa snorts seeing the excitable answer in the first message, she ignores Olivia’s annoyed huff and reads the next two messages.

From: Dom -> Sorry, I mean I would love to take you out to Waffle House when you get off work. Do you want me to pick you up or do you want to meet me there that way you have a way to leave if you want to?

From: Dom -> And yeah, Aunt Amy is my god mother and she just wants me happy. Mom, her and Aunt Vickie were plotting how to interfere when Aunt Amy came up with the plan. I look forward to seeing you tonight, just let me know what the plan is!

Nessa narrows her eyes at the last message gears turning in her head. She used to watch wrestling back when it was the WWF and him saying Aunt Vickie triggered something in her head. “What, what is it?” Olivia asks, the excitement gone from her voice, in its place was a worried tone.

“Uh he said yes rather excitedly but, uh he said Aunt Vickie, Amy who is Lita and his mom were plotting to get us together.” Nessa explains and Olivia hums thoughtfully.

“Well, I don’t know anything about wrestling like at all but I can look it up, what do you know?” Olivia asks, pulling up google on her phone.

“Uh that his dad is a wrestler, and is being trained by, uh, Jay Lethal and his dad who he hasn’t given the name of. But Dominik’s last name is Gutierrez and he has an Aunt Vickie….” Nessa trails off, her eyes widened. Olivia stops typing when she sees Nessa’s face. “What is it Nes?” Olivia asks, worry heavy in her tone.

Nessa clears her throat, “Uh, back in the day when I was young like 8 there was a custody battle that now seems so obviously fake but it was between Rey Mysterio and Eddie Guerrero, could his Aunt Vickie be Vickie Guerrero?!” Nessa quietly exclaims, everything starting to make sense. Olivia starts researching on her phone letting out a soft gasp. Nessa narrows her eyes, “What did you find Liv?”

“Uh yeah it’s Rey Mysterio’s son. Rey's real last name is Gutierrez and his son is Dominik and here is Dominik’s instagram with a picture of him and his dad.” Olivia turns her phone towards Nessa who sits back biting her lip, spinning back and forth in the chair. “And does that change anything?” Olivia asks, annoyance flavoring her tone, her friend of course gets a handsome rich boy with a bright future ahead of him fawning over her and she is too scared. Though she can’t blame her.

“...No” Nessa starts, chewing her lip before continuing. “It doesn’t, it just complicates things a little… It does explain why throwing $500 away on a nurse he doesn’t know and the constant ER visits for no reason.” Nessa snickers, feeling a little less uneasy knowing more information about him. Her attention turns to her phone which vibrates again. She checks the message seeing yet another from Dominik and her stomach knots, the constant texts being reminiscent of her ex and she hasn’t even gone on a date with him yet. Nausea builds up until she reads the message.

Olivia watches Nessa’s face contort, showing a progression of emotions Olivia recognizes immediately, having seen them many times before when nessa was still with her ex. Olivia curses his name under her breath for breaking her best friend. She only hopes Dominik will help her pick up the pieces.

From: Dom -> Hey sweetheart, it's Amy on Dom’s phone, he will meet you at the waffle house nearest the hospital you work at. You probably figured out who he is and he is freaking out that you don’t want to see him now. I am calming him down and he will be ready for you to be there or not, don’t worry about responding or feel pressured to respond or show up.

“Nes, are you ok what did he say?” Olivia asks softly, scooting her chair closer to Nessa who swallows thickly.

“Uh it was Amy, also known as Lita. She is with him right now and took his phone. He apparently started freaking out when he sent his last text message thinking, correctly, that I guessed who he was and worried I don't want to meet up with him. She said he will be at the waffle house near here and I can either show or not show no pressure.” Nessa scoffs, already well aware that Lita is trying to be a matchmaker. “She would get along well with Ma.” Nessa muses, rubbing her chest in an attempt to rub away the anxiety that flared up and to calm her racing heart.

Olivia notices this, “Go take your break and take your medicine, I’ll text you if I need you.” Olivia orders. Nessa nods silently agreeing and goes to do as she is told. Mentally trying to get ready for her date that night.

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