“Mom! Joly is pulling my hair!”
Brinn looked up from where she was attempting to put her daughter Fleita’s long dark hair into a manageable braid. Across the room, ten year old Yurea was bouncing frantically, as if attempting to dislodge human-sized Joly from her bright red curls.
Brinn sighed and shook her head. “Well, maybe she wouldn’t pull your hair if you didn’t try and wear your little sister as an accessory.”
“I’m not!” Rea moaned, running her fingers through her hair. “She climbed in there and won’t let go!”
“Whee!” The human sized little girl giggled, nimbly dodging her giant sibling’s fingers. ‘
“Come here, Rea.” Sophia called from the table. “I’ll help you get her out.”
Yurea nodded and sat on the floor by the table, waiting patiently as Sophia gently extracted the rambunctious seven year old from her golden mane.
“There we go.” Sophia sighed, as she gathered the giggling little girl into her arms. “Joly, you know better than to climb on people without asking them first.”
“Thanks Mom.” Rea sighed gratefully as she rose back to her feet. “I’ll go finish getting ready now.”
“Now I know why we only try this once a year.” Sophia muttered to Brinn as she set Joly down on the table top.
“Hm.” Brinn agreed as she finished Fleita’s braid. “Okay you’re done.” She told the girl, who immediately rose to her feet and dashed into her bedroom to finish getting dressed.
It was time for the Clan (as they were affectionately known) to gather together to take their annual family photo. This year’s picture was particularly important. Manto, their eldest child, had recently reached adulthood and would soon be leaving for Basic Training in the Avalonian guard.
Not to mention the fact that, due to the birth of the universe’s first set of Hybrid twins, the parents had unanimously decided that twelve was a good number of children to have. Between these two events, this year’s photo would mark the point where their family stopped growing, and the children began gradually going off to lives of their own.
Not that they were in danger of having an empty nest any time soon.
“Joseph and Victor are playing catch with Quentin!”
“Uh huh, that’s nice Tom.” Zara was in the middle of putting a shirt on a squirming toddler and only half listening to what her nine year old son was saying. “Dymon, stop squirming for five seconds so I can…” She paused as what Thomas had actually said finally registered.
“JOSEPH! VICTOR! YOU PUT YOUR LITTLE BROTHER DOWN THIS INSTANT!”
“Aww mom, we’re just having fun!” Victor yelled back.
“Besides, he likes it!” Joseph added, cupping his little brother in his palms.
“Yeah mom!” Quentin piped up. “It’s fun.”
Zara rolled her eyes. “Be that as it may, there are better uses for your time right now, like getting yourselves dressed!”
“Yeah, okay. Sorry mom.” Joseph nudged Victor forward. “Come on guys, let’s go.”
As they walked down the hallway towards their bedrooms, the boys passed by the bathroom where Taron was busy trying to give the two year old twin girls, Kayleigh and Caetana, their baths. The end result being one very soaked titan and two giggling little girls.
They were clean, at least.
Manto chuckled as she watched the spectacle of her father trying to bathe the toddlers from the safety of the bathroom sink. She was already ready to take the photo, wearing her dress uniform from the Guard. Even so, she couldn’t stop staring at herself in the mirror, patting her hair and straightening the buttons.
“You look fine.” Taron called to her over his shoulder, a grin on his face. “Quit messing with it.”
“Right.” Manto fidgeted and put her hands in her pockets. “Sorry.”
“Are you nervous?” Nick asked, coming up behind her and planting a kiss on the top of her head.
“A little.” The young woman admitted, shrugging her shoulders. “I mean, I know we’re not… you know… in a war or anything but…”
“It’s still a big step you’re taking.” Nick told her gently. “It’s understandable you’d be apprehensive about it. But, you can do this. I know you can.”
There was a slight pause and Nick grinned at her in the mirror. “You’ve managed to survive this family, after all.”
Manto chuckled. “Good point.”
“All right, you’re clean.” Taron told the squirming toddlers as he toweled them off. “Now we just need to get you both dressed.”
Slowly, he rose to his feet and herded the excited little girls in front of him and out of the bathroom.
As he passed by the sink where Nick and Manto were standing, he lowered his hand and allowed his daughter and his husband to climb into his palm.
“Careful dad.” Manto called up as Taron raised them to chest height. “Don’t mess up my uniform.”
“Yeah, otherwise she’ll spend the next half an hour fixing it again.” Nick laughed.
*.*.*.*.*
“Okay, headcount!” Zara called as she observed the chaos that was her family assembled at the door to their apartment as they waited to head down to the holosuite for their family photo.
“Okay, one, two husbands. One, two wives. All spouses are present and accounted for.” Zara said with a smirk. “Children: One, two, three… Thomas quit hiding in your sister’s hair….”
“I told you she’d see you!”
“…nine, ten eleven…”
Zara blinked. “Wait, who are we missing?”
The children looked around at each other, mentally trying to figure out who wasn’t present.
“It’s Will!” Manto finally called out from her place on Joseph’s shoulder.
“Of course it is.” Brinn chuckled. “I’ll bet I know where he is too…” She separated herself from the group and trudged down the hall, past the bedrooms and towards the children’s playroom. She walked to the far side of the room and peeked behind the large couch in the corner.
Sure enough, there was their three year old son, curled up on the floor, fast asleep.
Brinn chuckled softly and bent down to scoop the young boy into her arms. “You were ready to go first, weren’t you?” She whispered to the child, who was starting to stir. “And then you got stuck waiting for the rest of us. Come on then, time to go finally.”
“I found him.” She sighed as she rejoined the rest of the family. “He was right where I expected him to be. Let’s get moving before someone else disappears.”
*.*.*.*
“All right, move in closer.”
Zhan peered out from behind the camera at the assembled group and watched as they crushed closer together. Fitting this many people in the frame was proving difficult. The “same size” photo was the hard part. When they’d taken the “realistic” phot earlier, he’d had a much easier time framing. Of course, it had helped that half the people in the picture sat on the shoulders or laps of the other half.
Nick and Alex had introduced him to photography several years ago, and Zhan had developed quite the eye for composition in the time since. He often joked that maybe he’d sell some of the ‘candid’ photos he took of Pryvani to the tabloids.
At which point she’d remind him that she was able to outbid anything those magazines could hope to pay- monetary or otherwise.
He squinted and looked through the lens of his camera again. “Victor, tilt your head to the left a little bit- no, sorry, my left- there we go. Fleita, move in a little closer to your sister… a little more… and, perfect. Okay everybody look right here and smile!”
There was a flash as Zhan took the picture.
“Nobody move!” Zhan commanded as he saw some of the children start to fidget. “I want a couple more. Okay… smile!”
Zhan peered at the preview images of the pictures. He’d taken half a dozen photos, and between them he had at least one where each of them was smiling.
Fortunately, he had the best photo editing software available.
“All right.” He sighed. “I think I’ve got all that I need.”
“Thanks Zhan.” Zara said, patting him on the shoulder. “I know it’s never easy wrangling all of us, but we always appreciate it.”
“No problem.” Zhan chuckled. “I only have to do it once a year.” He looked out at the children rough housing in the holosuite, and messing up their clothes.
“You have to do it every day.”
I see Yurea has “bright red curls” and a “golden mane.”
Hello admin i see you don’t monetize your blog. You can earn extra money easily, search on youtube for: how to earn selling articles
That was cute, and what a silly family they’ve got together, I’m everyday isn’t dull together.
I wonder what the 5 parent bed is like… hmmmm
I wonder what that bed smells like… :3
I’m going to put out there that I know young European women pretty well. I think Sophia will want the bedsheets changed. A lot.
I second the first sentence. All these family scenes are sweet and adorable.
Depends… do they use a holo system like Rixie and Alex so that they interact at the same scale while in their home, or do they forgo it and just have Nick and Sophia sleep on their spouses.
On board were the Twelve:
The poet, the physician, the farmer, the scientist, the magician and the other so-called Gods of our legends. Though Gods they were – And as the elders of our time choose to remain blind, let us rejoice and sing and dance and ring in the new!
“Knowing their fate, the quality people ran away,
Ted Turner, Hank Aaron, Jeff Foxworthy,
The Guy Who Invented Coca-Cola, the Magician,
And the other so-called gods of our legends,
Though gods they were–
And also, Jane Fonda was there. “
“The others chose to remain behind
On their porches with their rifles,
And one day evolve into mermaids,
And sing and dance,
And ring in the new. ”
(stupid lack of edit button)
The magician?
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wouldn’t it take millions of years to evolve into mermaids?
why couldn’t she have been the other type of mermaid, with the fish half on top and the lady parts on the bottom? 🙁
For absolutely no particular reason (other than the fact that I looove this movie)…
http://videosift.com/video/Goodfellas-Atlantis-is-the-soundtrack-to-an-assbeating
BTW my first girlfriend was a dead ringer for Lorraine Bracco sans waking up to a gun in the face 🙂
I need to borrow that flux capacitor from Myona…..
For the morbidly curious;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AUEjzVQwKo
*starts digging out my old tie-die t-shirts and semi-used bong……..*
this family gonna be another big argument for pro human activists
On the next installment of “12 and counting” the breakout new Titan reality TV show…..
“The gang goes to a new amusement park on Grelau and tries out the water slide – with hilarious results”
(they might rethink this First Contact thing after viewing some of the recent Earth entertainment offerings..I can imagine this is what we will be exporting…ugh)
Also coming this fall:
“Guess My Species” – a interactive reality tv show where the contestants attempt to guess the species of the uhh person presented, with cash prizes and free trips
Name tags…. hashtags…. hash browns……Cleveland Browns………thats all I got…(its early, man..)
JS has managed to one-up that old 1960’s Henry Fonda-Lucille Ball movie, Yours, Mine, and Ours…and Ours…and Ours… 🙂
cute chapter. 12 kids even in a group wedding is very… scary u!
in real life my dad came from a family of 11 brothers and sisters and my mom came from 7 sisters and brothers.
Mormons? Hasidic Jews? Arab royalty?
None of that. Dad side pure blood Finnish farmers from north Dakota
Mom side mix blood of Irish/Spanish
Just very big families
They only had two kids me and my younger sister.
I had to take notes. Let’s see how much I guess right.
Name/Age (Ty)/Scale (T/h)/Biological Parents
Manto ~18 h Sophia+Taron
Joseph ~17 T Zara+Nick
Victor 11-16? T ?+?
Yurea 10 T Brinn+Taron?
Thomas 9 h Sophia+Taron?
Quentin ~8? h Sophia+Nick?
Joly 7 h Sophia+Taron?
Fleita 4-6? T Zara?+?
Will 3 T ?+?
Dymon ~2 T ?+?
Kayleigh & Caetana 2 T ?+Nick
That’s about what I can work out or guess given the clues.
Pretty close!
Here:
(hybrid?-gender/name/Archavian Birth year/ Age)
(h-f)Manto Clarissa Dande-Kramer 2106 18 *
(H-M) Joseph Neofyto Archer-Mavoy 2107 17*
(H-M) Victor Jax Archer-Pria 2109 15 *
(F)Fleita Lynn Dande-Mavoy 2110- 14 *
(h-m) Quentin Artemius Dande-Kramer 2112- 12 *
(F) Yurea Pryvani Dande-Pria 2114-10 *
(m)Thomas Zhan Archer-Kramer 2115-9 *
(h-f) Joly Arabeth Dande-Kramer 2117- 7 *
(M)Dymon Nicholas Dande-Mavoy 2120- 4 *
(H-M)William Tiberius Archer-Pria 2121- 3
(H-F) Kayleigh Brinn Archer-Mavoy (Twin) 2122- 2 *
(H-F) Caetana Gabrielle Archer-Mavoy-(Twin) 2122-2 *
Didn’t we have a conversation the other night about how hard you find it coming up with names?
I call bullshit.
Yeah but how many weeks did that list take me to do?
Whoo, stats!
We got half girls, half boys evenly distributed among 8 titan size and 4 human size.
Each Dad is responsible for 6 kids, while Brinn gave birth to 3, Sophi 4, and Zara 5, (including a set of twins).
We have 3 who are pure titan, 5 hybrids with a titan mom, 3 hybrids with a human mom, and 1 who is pure human.
Adjusted ages: Joseph is ~20, Victor is 18, and Thomas is 18. (Youngest are still about the same as their Titan age.)
i used RNG to determine gender and parentage of each kid
Might be the most equitable way to do that.
Twelve kids seems like a lot, but then you take into account the five parents and it’s actually quite well balanced. Still… that’s an enormous family, and fitting seventeen people into the same-scale shot definitely seems like a challenge.
Zhan selling photos of Pryvanni… a rather amusing idea. Until someone figures out that the shots are all low angle on a camera with a smaller lens and shorter focal points… so taken by a human with a human sized camera. Then titan celebrities will have to deal with the chaos of paparazzi thinking of trying that idea out for themselves.
Don’t know much about photography and lenses and such, but there’s no reason Zhan would take the picture from the ground. Also, I’m sure cameras come in a variety of specs no matter what their size is, so not really sure you could tell from that either.
Doesn’t have to be the ground, even standing on a desk the shots would be lower angle. As for telling the size of the camera… It’s hard to explain but a skilled photographer would be able to tell. Pictures of Pryvanni with a human-sized camera would be landscapes rather than portraits, and you’d be able to tell via the focal depths.
utterly adorable, though I imagine poor DX is going to be stuck on the wiki all night getting this all down.
Yeah…”stuck.” 😛
note for DX ; you did put an extra * symbole on Fleita bio so she has biological parents!
PS don’t yell at me lol I
note for DX ; you did put an extra * symbole on Fleita bio so she has biological parents!
PS don’t yell at me lol I just show a error !