Post by Morgan Lysandre-Fay on Dec 31, 2013 3:13:11 GMT -6
MORGAN LYSANDRE-FAY
Age: 23
Birthday: December 31st
Birthday: December 31st
Gender: Female
Orientation: Pansexual
Profession: Mercenary
Occupation: She's...working on it.
Mentor: Quercus Oak
Appearance: [TRUST DESCRIPTION MORE THAN IMAGE]
Morgan is naturally thin. It's almost incredible how thin she is--she has essentially no bust to speak of, and her bones aren't hard to pick out under her skin, provided it's uncovered.
Her hair is a dark red, inherited from her mother's side. She tends to keep it long, usually about halfway down her back, though it's quite wavy, so that the hair itself is rather longer. She has a few locks of what could charitably be called 'bangs' around her face, though they're rather too long for that to be perfectly honest.
Morgan's eyebrows are naturally high, lending her a perpetually disbelieving look--especially as the eyes they hang above, well... They're colored a bright, piercing blue, though it's not incredibly evident; whether she's sneering derisively at almost everything or just can't quite admit that she needs glasses isn't quite clear. It surely can't be vanity, because glasses would do wonders to ease the strong impression of her Roman nose. High and prominent cheekbones on either side of her face seem to stretch her freckle-dappled cheeks taut. Earrings almost always adorn her earlobes--most commonly small studs with some sort of crystal (charitably assumed to be diamond) in them. While technically these are apparel, she worries about the holes closing up such that they may as well be a part of her body. Her lips are fairly average, but these are rarely seen either, as she's most often seen with an irritated frown that reduces them to a thin line. While not incredibly so, her chin is at least on the smaller and daintier side of average.
Everyday Clothes: Morgan prefers to wear reds and whites, though she sometimes doesn't have much choice in the matter. Her clothes are all hand-me-downs from her siblings, altered by her own hand to fit her smaller frame. She does tend to mend and treat her favored colors better than her less-favored, so she does tend to have more of them, but she can't really afford to throw anything away, at this point. So her clothes consist mostly of soft, slightly warn and occasionally patched, red and white clothes--mostly unadorned, but she does like to keep strips of cloth for ribbons, as a way to still feel fancy.
Formal Garbs: Morgan could have laid claim to some old, formal dresses once, but they were left at the Lysandre estate with much of everything else that wasn't useful.
Pack: Nearly always on her shoulder is a shiny black leather messenger bag, carrying anything she takes around with her on a day-to-day basis. It usually acts as an overlarge purse and occasional bookbag (she always takes the books back to the lab, promise!) but she feels it's likely to be much more utilitarian in the days and weeks to come.
Personality: Morgan first and foremost thinks of herself as an intellectual. In return, she tends to value people around her based on their apparent intelligence. She does not mind insulting the mental faculties of those around her--regardless to how they stand intellectually If they are not up to par, she feels they deserve it; if they are smarter than she is--and she feels belittled, insulted, or otherwise put off by the person--she may insinuate that they are very good at faking intelligence, or something, to make herself feel better.
She also really does not like work. The more physical the work, the less she likes it. As a child, she routinely was anywhere but where she was supposed to be when she was supposed to be doing her chores and the like. When told the task for the day was physical labor, she would throw quite the temper tantrum; when the work was nasty, like helping clean up the kitchen, she would whine but abide. When she was helping her mother and men and women from around the family to mend clothing, she was unhappy, but grumbled only to herself.
The exception to this is when it involves Pokémon. Sera and the castle's Pokémon were the only friends Morgan had while growing up, and while she and Sera drifted apart, she never lost her love of Pokémon. While the work of feeding them or cleaning up after their daily walk could be nasty and sometimes strenuous, Morgan never complained. She loves spending time with them, getting close to and loving them--and as an adult, she's not sure whether she's jealous of Sera's ability to speak to Pokémon anymore. (She also questions how real this was. Did she just have a very active imagination?) While understanding them is certainly an enticing idea, part of the reason Morgan loves Pokémon is that they don't judge, they don't mind if you're not very good at conversation... or at least, that's the illusion. It's a moot point anyway, as a hereditary trait, but... She wonders.
About that talking thing, though. Part of the reason Morgan resorts to insults on a fairly regular basis is that she does not understand small talk. She speaks about what she thinks is important--though she's not very good at getting directly to the point, and may ramble--but she does not see the use in talking about how the weather is unless it's to get to a point.
She's not entirely barbs, though. Morgan has a tendency to want to help when she sees a person or Pokémon in need. Unfortunately for both parties, her talent for smoothing emotional hurt extends to back-patting and repeating, "There, there..." As for physical problem, well... She has little muscle mass to begin with, and her aversion to labor hasn't helped any, so she tends to need help for much of that, too.
Likes: Cool/cold weather, cool colors, Pokémon, books/literature, math, hot tea, fancy clothes, sweet foods, mint
Dislikes: quite warm/hot weather, socializing, people in general (to an extent), not understanding things, spicy foods
Backstory: [Warning: Some XY spoilers apply.]
[intro borrowed from SG with permission]
Once upon a time, right around 100 years ago, there was a man in the Kalos region of PokeEarth named Fleur De Lysandre. Lysandre foresaw the selfish ways of humans and sought to end it. In order to ensure the earth would have plenty of resources for everyone, he tried to reduce the world's population to a small handful of 'elite' by harnessing the power of two Legendary Pokemon. Using an ancient weapon, he could drain the life of potentially countless lives. He was stopped by a small group of teenage heroes, but not before managing to fire one blast of the weapon. The result was the destruction of his entire base and the weapon itself.
Lysandre dropped off the face of the earth for a long time, but eventually he would resurface, with plenty of time to witness exactly the sort of downfall he'd foreseen. He watched, too empty from his defeat to be properly outraged, as the world's resources continued to diminish and the planet continued to be abused. They had wanted this. Fought for this. And he would let them see for themselves. He'd just never let them live it down. He told them. His eventual children would grow up hearing the stories over and over of how he'd told them. As would his grandchildren. And even his great-grandchildren; Sera is among these. His great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren will probably be hearing the by-then-ancient stories of how PokeEarth was lost because no one would listen to him. For you see, there was one very important side effect of the ancient weapon: those hit by it directly become immortal.
Fast forward through many, many years, and Lysandre is living in his family's estates in the south of Kalos. In the long past, they were built to withstand warfare and siege; now those old stone walls protected the precious gardens and greenhouses only from thieves, though the siege of the world was the true test of the larders' mettle.
Ulrich Lysandre-Fay was Fleur De Lysandre's eldest grandson and second-in-command of the household, though several other relations lived there as well. (Most of which noted the rebellious nature of hyphenating his last name with his wife's maiden name, given most of the others were simply Lysandres, with the occasional married daughter who lost that. Often enough, these would hyphenate the name, but it was quite unheard of for the Lysandre son to do that.) The Legend Portal had opened, but Ulrich was tied to the castle and his power there--not to mention that the devil you know is better than the devil you don't, and he didn't have any idea what to expect beyond the portal. Additionally, Lysandre felt that if the planet were to die, it should at least be accompanied to the grave. So they stayed. About a year later, Ulrich's wife, Hester, became pregnant. ...with her fourth child, who would be eight and nine years her siblings' junior. The rest of the family tut-tutted this development, but as she was so close to the top of the power pyramid, that was the extent of it--though the disappointment never really went away, and was even noticed by the daughter in question, Morgan herself.
Not many years later, Ulrich's sister, Roxanne, who had been travelling abroad, ran home with child and a dead lover, and is let back into the family. Her child, Seraphina, was the only child anywhere close to Morgan's own age, and the two became fast friends for their childhood years. During this time, they both grew fond of the Pokémon that lived with the family on the Lysandre property, and Morgan realized after some time that Sera wasn't just pretending to hear the Pokémon she talked to--there was definitely something there! To be honest, Morgan was jealous, and maybe after she realized this she spent less time looking for Sera to play with while dodging work on the compound (which is honestly not much for an eight year old, but frowned upon on principle) and felt less bad when she gave up and headed for the library instead. She never told any of these thoughts or feelings to Sera, though. Of course not.
When Morgan was eleven years old, her mother started to become ill. At first, it was thought to be only a cold, but it persisted much longer than it should. Morgan didn't think much of it, until Uther and even other members of the family insisted she stay in bed--this had never happened before, ever. Normally it was "tie a handkerchief around your mouth and deal with it" or "put on some Black Glasses and deal with it" or, in general, just "deal with it." Additionally, Morgan was told that she was allowed to--nay, she really should spend some time with her mother. They spoke, but what was there to talk about, really? Once, Hester tried to read something aloud to Morgan like she'd done when Morgan was much tinier, but even aside from the fact that Morgan had grown out of being read to (even if the book was much thicker than a picture book this time), Hester's coughing quickly made that too painful for the both of them. It was an awkward time, but frightening, as well--Morgan didn't know what she thought was going to happen, surely Mother wouldn't die, but something was still very different...
Of course, Hester did end up dying. A day was taken off of working, and a funeral was held, and her body was burned.
Morgan had always been a bit reclusive, but she was understandably even less talkative than before.
Two years after that, and around fifteen years after the Legend Portal opened, the summer came and went and not even a single edible crop was able to mature in the greenhouses on the Lysandre property. As canned foods would only last so long, and what little fertile land was left on Arceus' no-longer-green Pokéarth would be much too hard to find, well... This was when the family finally made the decision to make the trek to, and through, the portal.
Morgan was scared before they even caught sight of the portal. She'd never been off the Lysandre property in her twelve years of life. She didn't like leaving the familiar grey stone walls and the grey-brown-slightly-green land they surrounded. As the family caravan made its way to the portal, she didn't like the look of the very brown countryside they passed. When they finally caught sight of the portal in the distance, it was awe-inspiring. It was magnificent. It was scary as hell.
No way did Morgan want to go anywhere near it, but she didn't really have much choice. When they were right in front of it, she found that she couldn't convince her nerves to go away, couldn't convince them to step into this wall of energy, and had to be unceremoniously pushed through by her father.
What was on the other side, though... Oh, it was so beautiful. It was late afternoon when they made it through, but even through the slanting orange light it was incredibly evident just how green everything was. And the city before them--down the slope of the bluff, Morgan could see the countless buildings, the lights winking on as the sunlight wasn't quite enough, the hustle, the bustle... Morgan never stood a chance.
The separate, smaller families within the Lysandre split into their own nuclear groups and spread out across Port City. Lysandre insisted he have his own home in this glorious, wonderful new world (which they would have achieved sooner, if they'd only listened, he insisted) but Ulrich felt responsible for him, being the oldest grandchild, so Morgan lived not too many doors down from Lysandre, with her father and her adult siblings for some time. The siblings slowly moved out as they found work and wives (all three of them, actually, even Morgan's sister Isolde), eventually leaving only Ulrich and Morgan.
Port City was large, an confusing, and frightening. She didn't leave the (small, cramped, strange) house if she could avoid it, and given the other members of her family worked, she was able to just read what books she'd managed to bring while they brought home the proverbial bacon. Even after the youngest brother of her elder siblings moved out, about two years after they moved to Port Town (and Morgan was about fifteen) her father was able to support them both quite easily--though he did make her get out of the house and do something.
Morgan eventually found her way to the main Laboratory in Port, and that they held trainers' classes there. She quickly fell into a habit of attending these (though she stayed near the back of the group--she had no idea how to deal with this many people her age and younger) and when the Researchers there returned to their tasks and most of the other children went home, Morgan tried to stick around and read anything she could get her hands on. She missed the literature in the library at Lysandre Estates--the only novel she'd managed to bring was Les Miserables, and as much as she did love the book, it was rather old by the sixth or so time she'd read it. Still, the research logs and scientific reports and such was interesting to Morgan. ...She didn't understand most of it, but it was still interesting.
This was her life for several years, until Ulrich remembered hid daughter's birthday was coming up, and... had apparently forgotten how old she was.
"You will find some sort of job or you're to find your own place to live!" he'd said quite loudly. It wasn't quite as loud as shouting, but Morgan had still flinched. "That's probably not a bad idea anyhow, unless you want to be an old maid. If you haven't got a paycheck of some sort coming in by your birthday, you're out."
Morgan tried. She really did. But she had no real idea where to start looking, how to apply for jobs, and the weeks crawled by... and sooner than she realized, New Year's Eve had rolled around, and she had to shake her head when she came in that evening and Ulrich asked her if she'd found a job yet. "I'll... go to the Laboratory in the morning." Morgan didn't relish the idea of making her Pokémon do her work for her, but it was the only place she knew she could start and she had a background working with Pokémon after all... though not enough that she felt she would excel. At least it would be a living until she could find something better, though.
'Well, happy damn birthday to me.'
Mentor: Quercus Oak
Appearance: [TRUST DESCRIPTION MORE THAN IMAGE]
Morgan is naturally thin. It's almost incredible how thin she is--she has essentially no bust to speak of, and her bones aren't hard to pick out under her skin, provided it's uncovered.
Her hair is a dark red, inherited from her mother's side. She tends to keep it long, usually about halfway down her back, though it's quite wavy, so that the hair itself is rather longer. She has a few locks of what could charitably be called 'bangs' around her face, though they're rather too long for that to be perfectly honest.
Morgan's eyebrows are naturally high, lending her a perpetually disbelieving look--especially as the eyes they hang above, well... They're colored a bright, piercing blue, though it's not incredibly evident; whether she's sneering derisively at almost everything or just can't quite admit that she needs glasses isn't quite clear. It surely can't be vanity, because glasses would do wonders to ease the strong impression of her Roman nose. High and prominent cheekbones on either side of her face seem to stretch her freckle-dappled cheeks taut. Earrings almost always adorn her earlobes--most commonly small studs with some sort of crystal (charitably assumed to be diamond) in them. While technically these are apparel, she worries about the holes closing up such that they may as well be a part of her body. Her lips are fairly average, but these are rarely seen either, as she's most often seen with an irritated frown that reduces them to a thin line. While not incredibly so, her chin is at least on the smaller and daintier side of average.
Everyday Clothes: Morgan prefers to wear reds and whites, though she sometimes doesn't have much choice in the matter. Her clothes are all hand-me-downs from her siblings, altered by her own hand to fit her smaller frame. She does tend to mend and treat her favored colors better than her less-favored, so she does tend to have more of them, but she can't really afford to throw anything away, at this point. So her clothes consist mostly of soft, slightly warn and occasionally patched, red and white clothes--mostly unadorned, but she does like to keep strips of cloth for ribbons, as a way to still feel fancy.
Formal Garbs: Morgan could have laid claim to some old, formal dresses once, but they were left at the Lysandre estate with much of everything else that wasn't useful.
Pack: Nearly always on her shoulder is a shiny black leather messenger bag, carrying anything she takes around with her on a day-to-day basis. It usually acts as an overlarge purse and occasional bookbag (she always takes the books back to the lab, promise!) but she feels it's likely to be much more utilitarian in the days and weeks to come.
Personality: Morgan first and foremost thinks of herself as an intellectual. In return, she tends to value people around her based on their apparent intelligence. She does not mind insulting the mental faculties of those around her--regardless to how they stand intellectually If they are not up to par, she feels they deserve it; if they are smarter than she is--and she feels belittled, insulted, or otherwise put off by the person--she may insinuate that they are very good at faking intelligence, or something, to make herself feel better.
She also really does not like work. The more physical the work, the less she likes it. As a child, she routinely was anywhere but where she was supposed to be when she was supposed to be doing her chores and the like. When told the task for the day was physical labor, she would throw quite the temper tantrum; when the work was nasty, like helping clean up the kitchen, she would whine but abide. When she was helping her mother and men and women from around the family to mend clothing, she was unhappy, but grumbled only to herself.
The exception to this is when it involves Pokémon. Sera and the castle's Pokémon were the only friends Morgan had while growing up, and while she and Sera drifted apart, she never lost her love of Pokémon. While the work of feeding them or cleaning up after their daily walk could be nasty and sometimes strenuous, Morgan never complained. She loves spending time with them, getting close to and loving them--and as an adult, she's not sure whether she's jealous of Sera's ability to speak to Pokémon anymore. (She also questions how real this was. Did she just have a very active imagination?) While understanding them is certainly an enticing idea, part of the reason Morgan loves Pokémon is that they don't judge, they don't mind if you're not very good at conversation... or at least, that's the illusion. It's a moot point anyway, as a hereditary trait, but... She wonders.
About that talking thing, though. Part of the reason Morgan resorts to insults on a fairly regular basis is that she does not understand small talk. She speaks about what she thinks is important--though she's not very good at getting directly to the point, and may ramble--but she does not see the use in talking about how the weather is unless it's to get to a point.
She's not entirely barbs, though. Morgan has a tendency to want to help when she sees a person or Pokémon in need. Unfortunately for both parties, her talent for smoothing emotional hurt extends to back-patting and repeating, "There, there..." As for physical problem, well... She has little muscle mass to begin with, and her aversion to labor hasn't helped any, so she tends to need help for much of that, too.
Likes: Cool/cold weather, cool colors, Pokémon, books/literature, math, hot tea, fancy clothes, sweet foods, mint
Dislikes: quite warm/hot weather, socializing, people in general (to an extent), not understanding things, spicy foods
Backstory: [Warning: Some XY spoilers apply.]
[intro borrowed from SG with permission]
Once upon a time, right around 100 years ago, there was a man in the Kalos region of PokeEarth named Fleur De Lysandre. Lysandre foresaw the selfish ways of humans and sought to end it. In order to ensure the earth would have plenty of resources for everyone, he tried to reduce the world's population to a small handful of 'elite' by harnessing the power of two Legendary Pokemon. Using an ancient weapon, he could drain the life of potentially countless lives. He was stopped by a small group of teenage heroes, but not before managing to fire one blast of the weapon. The result was the destruction of his entire base and the weapon itself.
Lysandre dropped off the face of the earth for a long time, but eventually he would resurface, with plenty of time to witness exactly the sort of downfall he'd foreseen. He watched, too empty from his defeat to be properly outraged, as the world's resources continued to diminish and the planet continued to be abused. They had wanted this. Fought for this. And he would let them see for themselves. He'd just never let them live it down. He told them. His eventual children would grow up hearing the stories over and over of how he'd told them. As would his grandchildren. And even his great-grandchildren; Sera is among these. His great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren will probably be hearing the by-then-ancient stories of how PokeEarth was lost because no one would listen to him. For you see, there was one very important side effect of the ancient weapon: those hit by it directly become immortal.
Fast forward through many, many years, and Lysandre is living in his family's estates in the south of Kalos. In the long past, they were built to withstand warfare and siege; now those old stone walls protected the precious gardens and greenhouses only from thieves, though the siege of the world was the true test of the larders' mettle.
Ulrich Lysandre-Fay was Fleur De Lysandre's eldest grandson and second-in-command of the household, though several other relations lived there as well. (Most of which noted the rebellious nature of hyphenating his last name with his wife's maiden name, given most of the others were simply Lysandres, with the occasional married daughter who lost that. Often enough, these would hyphenate the name, but it was quite unheard of for the Lysandre son to do that.) The Legend Portal had opened, but Ulrich was tied to the castle and his power there--not to mention that the devil you know is better than the devil you don't, and he didn't have any idea what to expect beyond the portal. Additionally, Lysandre felt that if the planet were to die, it should at least be accompanied to the grave. So they stayed. About a year later, Ulrich's wife, Hester, became pregnant. ...with her fourth child, who would be eight and nine years her siblings' junior. The rest of the family tut-tutted this development, but as she was so close to the top of the power pyramid, that was the extent of it--though the disappointment never really went away, and was even noticed by the daughter in question, Morgan herself.
Not many years later, Ulrich's sister, Roxanne, who had been travelling abroad, ran home with child and a dead lover, and is let back into the family. Her child, Seraphina, was the only child anywhere close to Morgan's own age, and the two became fast friends for their childhood years. During this time, they both grew fond of the Pokémon that lived with the family on the Lysandre property, and Morgan realized after some time that Sera wasn't just pretending to hear the Pokémon she talked to--there was definitely something there! To be honest, Morgan was jealous, and maybe after she realized this she spent less time looking for Sera to play with while dodging work on the compound (which is honestly not much for an eight year old, but frowned upon on principle) and felt less bad when she gave up and headed for the library instead. She never told any of these thoughts or feelings to Sera, though. Of course not.
When Morgan was eleven years old, her mother started to become ill. At first, it was thought to be only a cold, but it persisted much longer than it should. Morgan didn't think much of it, until Uther and even other members of the family insisted she stay in bed--this had never happened before, ever. Normally it was "tie a handkerchief around your mouth and deal with it" or "put on some Black Glasses and deal with it" or, in general, just "deal with it." Additionally, Morgan was told that she was allowed to--nay, she really should spend some time with her mother. They spoke, but what was there to talk about, really? Once, Hester tried to read something aloud to Morgan like she'd done when Morgan was much tinier, but even aside from the fact that Morgan had grown out of being read to (even if the book was much thicker than a picture book this time), Hester's coughing quickly made that too painful for the both of them. It was an awkward time, but frightening, as well--Morgan didn't know what she thought was going to happen, surely Mother wouldn't die, but something was still very different...
Of course, Hester did end up dying. A day was taken off of working, and a funeral was held, and her body was burned.
Morgan had always been a bit reclusive, but she was understandably even less talkative than before.
Two years after that, and around fifteen years after the Legend Portal opened, the summer came and went and not even a single edible crop was able to mature in the greenhouses on the Lysandre property. As canned foods would only last so long, and what little fertile land was left on Arceus' no-longer-green Pokéarth would be much too hard to find, well... This was when the family finally made the decision to make the trek to, and through, the portal.
Morgan was scared before they even caught sight of the portal. She'd never been off the Lysandre property in her twelve years of life. She didn't like leaving the familiar grey stone walls and the grey-brown-slightly-green land they surrounded. As the family caravan made its way to the portal, she didn't like the look of the very brown countryside they passed. When they finally caught sight of the portal in the distance, it was awe-inspiring. It was magnificent. It was scary as hell.
No way did Morgan want to go anywhere near it, but she didn't really have much choice. When they were right in front of it, she found that she couldn't convince her nerves to go away, couldn't convince them to step into this wall of energy, and had to be unceremoniously pushed through by her father.
What was on the other side, though... Oh, it was so beautiful. It was late afternoon when they made it through, but even through the slanting orange light it was incredibly evident just how green everything was. And the city before them--down the slope of the bluff, Morgan could see the countless buildings, the lights winking on as the sunlight wasn't quite enough, the hustle, the bustle... Morgan never stood a chance.
The separate, smaller families within the Lysandre split into their own nuclear groups and spread out across Port City. Lysandre insisted he have his own home in this glorious, wonderful new world (which they would have achieved sooner, if they'd only listened, he insisted) but Ulrich felt responsible for him, being the oldest grandchild, so Morgan lived not too many doors down from Lysandre, with her father and her adult siblings for some time. The siblings slowly moved out as they found work and wives (all three of them, actually, even Morgan's sister Isolde), eventually leaving only Ulrich and Morgan.
Port City was large, an confusing, and frightening. She didn't leave the (small, cramped, strange) house if she could avoid it, and given the other members of her family worked, she was able to just read what books she'd managed to bring while they brought home the proverbial bacon. Even after the youngest brother of her elder siblings moved out, about two years after they moved to Port Town (and Morgan was about fifteen) her father was able to support them both quite easily--though he did make her get out of the house and do something.
Morgan eventually found her way to the main Laboratory in Port, and that they held trainers' classes there. She quickly fell into a habit of attending these (though she stayed near the back of the group--she had no idea how to deal with this many people her age and younger) and when the Researchers there returned to their tasks and most of the other children went home, Morgan tried to stick around and read anything she could get her hands on. She missed the literature in the library at Lysandre Estates--the only novel she'd managed to bring was Les Miserables, and as much as she did love the book, it was rather old by the sixth or so time she'd read it. Still, the research logs and scientific reports and such was interesting to Morgan. ...She didn't understand most of it, but it was still interesting.
This was her life for several years, until Ulrich remembered hid daughter's birthday was coming up, and... had apparently forgotten how old she was.
"You will find some sort of job or you're to find your own place to live!" he'd said quite loudly. It wasn't quite as loud as shouting, but Morgan had still flinched. "That's probably not a bad idea anyhow, unless you want to be an old maid. If you haven't got a paycheck of some sort coming in by your birthday, you're out."
Morgan tried. She really did. But she had no real idea where to start looking, how to apply for jobs, and the weeks crawled by... and sooner than she realized, New Year's Eve had rolled around, and she had to shake her head when she came in that evening and Ulrich asked her if she'd found a job yet. "I'll... go to the Laboratory in the morning." Morgan didn't relish the idea of making her Pokémon do her work for her, but it was the only place she knew she could start and she had a background working with Pokémon after all... though not enough that she felt she would excel. At least it would be a living until she could find something better, though.
'Well, happy damn birthday to me.'