#oooooooops

when bev was off doing more important green teen things, with egwene, as top of their class and the captain’s son, erlin would spend his time with the other two teens his age.

he was the calm force within their pranks, pointing out logic holes in their plans. they helped him figure out how to get the calmer patches, and they enjoyed working on projects together. they always stood together in the green teen glee team.

they bonded over being kidnapped by frogs together. they had the long way back to galaderon with just denny and no bev to make jokes and distract themselves from the harsh realities of being in a bag.

sending them to the feywild, actually being able to save them, was one of erlin’s proudest moments.

as much as his journal was for bev, to show his (he hoped) boyfriend his adventures, he knew he’d want to share those stories with cran and derlin as well.

but no one quiiite bothers to tell him exactly how long they were in the feywild.

he’s exhausted, still asleep in the stormborn after being freed from a gem and brought out of the court of gods by hardwon, moonshine, and beverly, when he blinks awake, hearing familiar voices nearby.

his slight movement alerts egwene immediately, and he’s elated to hug her. but then he sees two unfamiliar faces. that are… familiar in a way?

and he realizes who, exactly, they are. he grins at their matching rings, and wraps them in hugs as well.

but the tiny part of him that held onto being sixteen when the world ended and knew he would still have some bit of growing up to do if it came back together shattered when he saw their grizzled faces.

he loves their kids, immediately after meeting them, and enjoys growing up with them, showing them the material plane when they’re there.

and i think like. part of it is that migraines can be so scary and difficult to control and i don't find "oh this one specific hat helps with migraines even though no others do" to be like... a comforting or reassuring narrative. if that happened to me like yeah i'd be happy that it helped but it's really scary to have so little control over your disease! what happens if i lose that hat? if i don't know why it's working i can't replicate it. it's scary to rely so much on one specific item that can't be replaced.

i also don't want people to actually think that the hat is a cure lmao. i know i literally called it a cure in probably more than one post and like it's fine to joke about but blah blah blah migraine is a lifelong uncurable neurological condition that can only be managed with preventative and abortive medications. people casually call things "cures" for migraine all the time and like the colloquial use of the word cure is super different than the medical use so i can't really say people are using it wrong, but for something to be a medical cure it needs to get rid of a condition and stop it from coming back. there are no migraine medications that do this: even if botox stops me from getting a migraine ever again, it's not a cure because it wears off and i need to keep getting it every 3 months for it to keep working. i know that people say "cure" all the time when they really mean "medication that works really well at managing symptoms" and i'm not going to demand people stop that entirely but i do also want to point out that phil only said it helped with migraines he got from looking at his phone (I'm sure he gets migraines from many other sources) and he didn't say how well it works. and i'm sure he's using a fuckton of other preventative tools. which doesn't mean the hat isn't helping! phil hasn't spoken much about the details of his migraine management (which is completely his choice and i support it, tbh if i had a major platform like his i would be really worried that i might accidentally influence people in the wrong way, like i would never want someone to make their migraine management decisions based on what worked well for me) so i don't want people to think that like avoiding chocolate + wearing the wad hat are the pillars of his migraine management plan just bc that's all he's shared.

i'm also maybe a little scared that people are going to start unironically suggesting that i get the hat for my migraines lmao bc ppl give me stupid migraine hacks ALL the time like... i'm not going to drink half a liter of purple gatorade in 60 seconds and then do weird breathing exercises for half an hour i'm glad it seems to be helping you but i don't have time to try every stupid migraine hack someone recommends. and some of them have very real risks involved, like SO many people have suggested i get a daith piercing (which is not an easy piercing to care for!) and i might have to kill the next person who tells me i should get one, i don't mind explaining why i haven't gotten one but it's crazy to just confidently tell me i should get one. and okay yeah i do mind a little! when it's like the tenth time i've had to explain it and the people i'm talking to don't really care! if you genuinely are curious about migraine treatment options and want to know why i haven't gotten a daith piercing i could talk about that for ages but it really comes down to "there is basically no evidence this will work" and i'm tired of having to justify myself every time people present me with "treatment ideas" that are stupid and won't work! i'm tired of having to pretend like these are good ideas just to be polite. i understand that sometimes really weird random things help with migraines, but if they worked regularly for large groups of people, they wouldn't be weird migraine hacks, they would be actual medically advised migraine management techniques. human bodies are weird! something working for one guy absolutely does not mean it will work for everyone else. if the wad hat was universally helpful for migraines i think people other than phil would have noticed by now. like i said, i find pressure on my head to generally be pretty painful so i find the concept of something snug on your head helping migraines to be incredibly weird, but i'm glad it somehow helps phil lmao. like, i haven't seen any posts even remotely genuinely suggesting people with migraines should have gotten the wad hat. i'm just preemptively defensive about it because it just seems like the kind of genre of post that could feasibly pop up i guess? hopefully i'm preemptively being defensive about nothing.

Bonus of this in the aquarium/Sanctuary AU: the abyss monsters hear of you calling in sick and get very sad until you're able to show up again.

D: i hope you're feeling better!!!! please don't forget to drink water and get lots of rest <333

oh goodness if you try to make sure Childe doesn't get sick either.... normal Childe is stubborn but Foul Legacy is significantly WORSE when you're involved- he's trying to stay away, he really is!!! but he misses you so much :(( sometimes there'll be periods of him being quiet because he tells himself that he needs to let you rest and recover so he doesn't get sick as well, but he does often spend a lot of his time waiting outside your door. occasionally Childe will stick his claws UNDER the door, as a way of saying hello, and if you're awake and he hears you respond he'll be very happy because HE'S BEEN DEPRIVED OF YOUR SNUGGLES WHILE YOU'VE BEEN SICK </33

it breaks your heart to hear him pawing at the door (he tries to be careful when doing so or else your door will have scrapes in it) and whimpering, but you know for a fact that his body can sometimes be more fragile than your own when it comes to illnesses. even so once you've recovered a bit and your sickness isn't super contagious, Childe WILL push your door open and curl up next to you on the bed <333 the best cure for all that ails you is an affectionate Foul Legacy purring and nuzzling against you!!!