East Lyme ― A staff member found a loaded handgun inside an infant’s diaper bag Friday morning at Ballestrini’s Child Care Center in Niantic.
She secured the loaded Smith & Wesson M&P 9MM handgun in a desk in the office and called the police and the child’s father, according to a police report and the child care center.
Town police who investigated the incident said it was not criminal in nature. The parents ― one of them a probation officer and the other a correction officer ― have permits to carry a handgun and said there was a mix-up with the bag brought to the center, according to the police report.
Andrea Ballestrini Rowe, director of Ballestrini’s Child Care Centers, said staff reacted quickly to make sure the children were safe. She said the bag never left possession of the parent or staff member and was locked in the office after being found.
“At no time was there a threat to the children in our care,” she said in a notification to parents. “Yes, we agree that the gun being in the program was a risk, but at no time was there a threat made against the program.”
Rowe said the center notified parents of the incident. She said the center would be checking all children’s bags on a daily basis, and the child’s enrollment was suspended. She added that the center also is reviewing its security protocols “and working closely with local authorities to ensure the continued safety of our program.”
According to the police report, a father dropped off his infant at the child care facility at 161 West Main St. in Niantic a little before 8 a.m. Friday with a pink backpack-style diaper bag. Police said the infant “was not physically capable of accessing the diaper bag.”
Police said a staff member, who was unpacking the bag, put the bag down and heard a “metallic thump” and thought it was a water bottle. The staff member checked and saw it was actually a firearm in a holster. The staff member then removed the gun and secured it in a desk in the office and called the infant’s father and the police.
The police officer, William Bergantino, who came to the child care center retrieved the firearm “and made it safe,” according to the report.
According to the police report, the mother of the child, who uses the bag and owns the firearm, came to the center. Both parents were apologetic and informed the police officer that “there was a mix-up which resulted in the wrong bag being dropped off at day care” with the infant. The firearm is registered to the mother and both parents have valid Connecticut pistol permits.
She told police the firearm was in a holster, loaded with a round in the chamber, and had the safety on.
According to the report, the father, who is employed as an adult probation officer, told police that he grabbed what he thought was an empty bag that morning, put the infant’s lunchbox in the bag, took the child to the center, and left for work. He returned to the center once a staff member notified him that a gun had been found in the bag and he called the infant’s mother to ask where her firearm was, and she said it was in the pink bag.
According to police report, the father detailed safety measures in place at home to ensure firearms are properly stored. Police said the parents were remorseful and said they both would ensure safe storage of firearms in the future.
According to the report, the mother, who works as a correction officer, told police that due to her recent work schedule she had been asleep when her husband dropped their child off at day care. She said she has been using the bag when she runs errands and placing the firearm in the bag for protection when she is out, as the holster she uses to carry the firearm does not always fit comfortably with certain outfits.
The mother said she had used the bag the evening before, and her husband unknowingly grabbed the bag with the firearm still inside, the report said.
Police referred the matter to the Department of Children and Families and did not file charges.
Jason Fargo, parent of another child in the class, said he was only notified of the incident on Sunday evening. He said he wanted more detailed information from the day care center sooner and went to the police to get a report. He said he is calling for the center to hold a “town hall” style meeting about the incident.
“My daughter was in there in the same room with a gun that they kept saying was secured,” he said. “But the legal gun owner was not in the room and it was holstered with a live round in the chamber, and it says it in the police report, that the officer had to make it safe and (the staff member) put the bag down and they heard a thud so the gun could have gone off.”
He said the parents are both state employees, and any other parent would have been charged.
According to the Office of Early Childhood, state regulations specify that no dangerous weapons or facsimile of a firearm are permitted on the premises of the child day care center or group day care center unless carried by a peace officer.
But East Lyme Police Chief Michael Finkelstein said there is no state law that makes this a criminal act. He said the police reviewed the incident and also reviewed it with the New London state’s attorney’s office, which agreed no criminal violation occurred based on existing information.
He said the parents’ professions played no role in the determination. He said both parents are legally allowed to possess firearms and, in this case, the child was so young, that there was no reasonable chance for a child to access the weapon.
However, Finkelstein said that after new gun violence prevention legislation signed Tuesday by Gov. Ned Lamont goes into effect, an incident like this could be looked at differently. Most portions of the newly signed law, which expands the state’s safe gun storage laws among other provisions, will be effective in October.
Finkelstein added that hopefully this incident is a reminder to people that storing firearms in a bag that could be mixed up and brought to a child’s school is a danger.
DCF, Office of Early Childcare
Ken Mysogland, bureau chief of external affairs at the state Department of Children and Families, confirmed a report was received after a weapon was located at the child care center.
"Information provided indicated that the center immediately responded, safeguarded the young children and contacted the authorities,“ he said in a statement. ”No further action is warranted in relation to the daycare's actions.“
“The Department is working in collaboration with local law enforcement to investigate the circumstances under which the weapon was brought to the daycare and to ensure the person(s) responsible for the child's care provide a safe environment for this child and any other household members" Mysogland added.
The Connecticut Office of Early Childcare, which licenses day care centers, issued a statement that the child care center followed proper protocols and no violation was found.
“OEC investigated this case and found that the operator acted responsibly upon becoming aware of a firearm on the premises, thus no regulatory violations were cited,” the agency said. “Program staff locked up the firearm and immediately called police and followed their policies by notifying parents of the incident per their emergency plans.”
Rowe said that this is not a situation the Ballestrini child care centers have faced before.
“I am proud of our team’s prompt and responsive actions to protect the children in our school and we are grateful that all are safe,” she said. “The safety of the children is our number one concern, it is important that families continue to feel safe.”
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Background

I've been compiling a list of "hidden gems" in the back of my mind for a while now. There are many "hidden gems" in Vancouver. To cover them all would be a whole book. To make things easier for a post I created a stricter set of criteria.
 
The purpose of this post is not only to share but also to uncover more "small family run hidden gems". There are many places that almost make it which I added to the Honorable Mentions section.

What constitutes a small family run hidden gem?

A tiny to small restaurant that's family and serves amazing food or beverages. These are the places that people who've been recommend to out of town guests. You go "wow" when you first discover the place.
 
The hidden part is covered by collecting data on posts/comments to verify the "hidden aspect". Although just because a business has low Reddit exposure, many of these places are well known in specific communities.

Detailed Criteria:

1. Small: Under ~10 tables, Ideally ~2 tables. Exceptions for Food Court Stalls
2. Family Run: Owner or a family member is always present. Bonus for family-run businesses with no employees.
3. Hidden (On Reddit): Under 40 comments where a post is worth 5 comments.
4. Gem: Arguably the best place to get a certain dish/cuisine in Metro Vancouver

The List:

Name	Rough Area	Cuisine	Known For (* = other things also good)	Comments	Posts	Reddit Exposure
Nine Ninety	Richmond	Chinese (Wuhan/Food Court)	Spicy Dry Noodles*	1	0	1
Adam's Crepes	North Burnaby	French	Crepes	1	1	6
Feast and Fallow	Oakridge	Cafe (Plant Based)	Coffee*	2	0	2
Lao Cai	West Vancouver	Chinese (Xi'an)	Dry Cumin Lamb Noodles*	2	0	2
Lully's Food Truck	Langley	American	Hot Dogs	4	1	9
Excellent Tofu	Richmond	Chinese (Dessert)	Tofu Pudding	6	0	6
Gateau de Henry	Kitsilano	Cakes	Cakes*	8	1	13
Oide	East Van	Cafe	Coffee Rotation	8	1	13
Tama Organic Mart	Burnaby	Japanese (Grocery Store)	Vegan Bento	8	1	13
Fat Boy Kitchen	Victoria - Fraserview	Chinese (Hong Kong)	Pork Chop Rice*	9	0	9
Klasik Inasal	Mount Pleasant	Filipino	Overall Filipino Food	10	1	15
Long's Noodle House	End of Main Street	Chinese (Shanghai)	Soup Dumplings + Drunken Chicken*	12	3	27
Mr Japanese Curry	Mount Pleasant	Japanese (Curry)	Japanese Curry	17	0	17
Sushi Bar Kilala	North Burnaby	Japanese (Sushi)	Homey Sushi	18	0	18
Sashimiya	Downtown	Japanese (Sushi)	Moderately Priced High Quality Nigiri*	20	3	35
Baby Dhal	Commercial	Trinidadian	Dhal Puri Roti*	24	1	29
Tandoori Palace	Commercial	Indian/Pakistani	Naan + Butter Chicken (Outside Surrey)*	26	1	31
Cafe Dang Anh	Victoria - Fraserview	Vietnamese (Northern)	Pho Bo Tai Lan*	27	0	27
Yama Cafe	East Van	Japanese (Cafe)	Meal Sets/Moffins (Mochi Muffins)	35	0	35
Merci Beaucoup Cafe	Commercial	Vietnamese (Bahn Mi)	House Special Sub	38	0	38​

Honorable Mentions:

Name	Rough Area	Cuisine	Known For (* = other things also good)	Comments	Posts	Reddit Exposure	Honorable Mention Reason
Bali Thai	East Vancouver	Indonesian (Food Court)	Overall Indonesian Food	45	2	55	Too Well Known
Barbara	Chinatown	Contemporary	Tasting Menu*	Unknown	Unknown	50+	Too Well Known (Michelin Star)
Carp	Mount Pleasant	Hawaiian	Ahi Tuna Poke	Unknown	5	50+	Too Well Known
Dragon Ball Tea House	Shaughnessy	Bubble Tea	Fruit Slush	Unknown	5	50+	Too Well Known
Hachibei	Fairview	Japanese (Assorted)	Miso Black Cod (Often Sells Out)*	18	0	18	Owner Status Unknown
Melo Patisserie	Mount Pleasant	French (Cafe)	Almond Croissant	14	1	19	Owner Status Unknown
Prototype Coffee	East Vancouver	Cafe	Coffee Flight*	75	13	140	Too Well Known and Owners not always Present
Unchai	Kitsilano	Thai	Overall Thai Food	59	10	109	Too Well Known​

 
Used this to make the tables: http://tableit.net/

Share some hidden gems. Little shops, nature, scenic, beaches, food places, thrift shops, coffee shops and book stores. Not your typical/popular places everyone knows about.

Hey guys! just finished my Master’s, I’m a 23M (turning 24 in August) moving to SJ at the end of the month. Super excited, coming from South FL & been wanting to move to Cali for a while. Got a great job in West SJ near Campbell. I know it’s in a month from now but what’re people doing for July 4th?? I don’t know anyone here so if anyone wants to do something that would be cool too :) I love skateboarding, exercising, trail running, hiking, biking, coffee shops, thrifting, farmers markets, picnics, etc. I will be living 5 min away from work so not taking my car right away…going to enjoy biking :) Hmu!

I (30M) am asking my gf (27F) for help with living expenses and need advice.
Asking GF for help paying for living expenses
Been asking (30M) my gf (27F) to help out financially since my business is going through some unexpected challenges. We've been dating about 8 months now and at first I had told her she could just chill and do her projects and etsy shop stuff at the house and not worry about any financial contributions. My business was just starting out and I was starting out somewhat strong. Told her that I didn't mind taking care of the money if she would take care of the house stuff. Which ended up falling back on me, but hey it's my house anyways so I'm not mad about it.
Cut to 6 months later and I have been met with competition realizing I am a threat and then very effectively trying to edge me out and sink my business. I am able to hang on and keep things afloat but I am living off of 1 meal a day and every bill is always due it seems. As I am met with these challenges I info my GF about it and that things aren't going to be so golden as I thought. I told her I could no longer afford to buy your random stuff and gifts and this and thats abymore and that if she wanted to go I'd understand, but it was about to be survival mode time. She says she doesn't want to leave and I ask her to help out then. She would constantly have a reason why she couldn't get a job. If I ever tried to call BS a fight would start and then things always somehow got turned back around on me and how I was being toxic for 1 reason or another.
She finally ends up getting a job at a thrift store she was shopping at 1 day but it's 2-3 days a week for 5-6 hours at 10 an hour... which as of late she has not been going to. She missed all last week saying she was sick, and several days in the weeks before..
I try and bring up that I think that she needs to get a real job and start helping out for real. And was just met with "wait let me reread our convo" "nope I didn't ask for your opinion anywhere in there"... which makes me upset but Instead of responding poorly I am coming here for some help.
She always has something to derail the convo or a reason not to get a job and I'm wondering how to proceed. She literally is "so sweet" all the time and will say nice stuff and be nice all the time so she never comes off as being aggressive or toxic. So when I get heated and start speaking frankly or have raised my voice when "calling out" her inconsistent stories or bs excuses it gets turned back around on me somehow and I don't stand for it and then nothing gets accomplished or resolved. I tell her she is the one I'm fact being manipulative and "toxic" but she does it in a sweet voice so it's easier to get away with I guess you could say.
Idk I need help with this situation. Feel free to ask for any more details. I am trying to be as honest and objective as possible.
TL:DR Asking my gf to start helping with living expenses and am being met with resistance and misdirection.

A few years ago, I remember going to a grocery store in the west 40’s that had a lot of Asian items. My recollection was that it was on 42nd street, somewhere between 9th and 11th. I tried to find it after work today and had no luck.
Does anybody know what I’m talking about? Is this place still in business, and if so, where is it? (Or did I just hallucinate the whole thing?)

Where's my fellow introverts at?
Could use some long term daily chats to help make the days go faster and less boring/lonely. I've always had a hard time making friends all my life. Having awkward social skills and lack of a brain filter will do that top of other issues. Sometimes I'm not super chatty and my answers can be short or concise and that off puts some people because they think I don't care or am uninterested which isn't true. I'm tired of being ghosted. Shit sucks everytime.
A little about me, I work in shitty retail. Can barely afford to breath most days. Working retail has made me pretty pessimistic and negative to the world when you get treated like shit daily. I like watching tv whether streaming, wrestling or basketball. I play video games occasionally, have a Nintendo switch and would love some new friends there, enjoy going on walks weather permitting and enjoy going to thrift stores.
If you've read this long please message me. I have discord as well since reddit sucks mostly for chat

Spirits are the least conventional lifeforms in Gnosis and the people of its worlds really don't understand what they are or how they function. As they are so highly unconventional, I'm looking for a little feedback on the core concept. I'll keep it as quick as I can, but this is a big complicated topic and spirits are weird so I may need to explain a lot.
From the Outside:
Let's pick a common spirit for an example, in fact the most common spirit species, fey. From the outside, they look like a tiny winged humanoid of some description. We'll go right to the one of the two contenders for least common of four subspecies because they'll require the least explanation, fairies. They basically look like miniature glowing humans with large butterfly wings, coming in every imaginable color for their skin although some are more common for each part than others and that means they're glowing those colors. Fey have some size-changing going on but in their smaller default form fairy women typically range from about 45-50cm and fairy men about 35-40cm in both height and wingspan, and in their larger form they go up to 1.5x scale. Spirits don't need to sleep, can if they want to and there are reasons they might even if usually only for a couple minutes to fix some recent major injury.
Most species of spirits are 75% female and fey are in that group, so let's look a bit closer at a fairy gal. The first thing you'll notice about her is that she is very colorful her surface has zero texture, but you may not notice from a distance because her surface is using artistic tricks to imitate texture without actually having it. Her various features are simplified, yet either exaggerated or understated. Her usually quite a bit of head hair is usually also a pretty loud color but it's also actually just part of her head which is one rigid piece and if this gal has long hair you'll notice it only bends at the top of the neck one time to keep the rest "hanging" where it "should be", and trying to change her hairstyle is painful and fruitless. Her jaw stretches and twists to imitate an actual joint being there but there also clearly isn't one if you look closely. Spirit hands and moreso heads, especially their eyes, are larger while their legs are slightly shorter relative to their height and their feet are tiny, meanwhile secondary and tertiary sexual characteristics are exaggerated overall but with a larger standard deviation from the average in each area between individuals to the point where they still reach 0 if less often. They're not a very convincing imitation, to put it lightly, they should be well on the "less human" side of the uncanny valley.
Spirits are regenerating shapeshifters, in the case of fey it's mostly size-changing, but all spirit sophonts also have the ability to imitate clothing, weapons and equipment even if the imitated gear is not nearly as good as the real thing. It and the body part it's on are not separate and the false gear cannot be taken off or set down except by shapeshifting it out of existence, nor can they imitate chemicals or complex machinery like the magitech in nearly all proper melee weapons, which of course means imitating any sort of ranged weapon or explosive is off the table. It also means they aren't rendering their body underneath the gear, if she's wearing a shapeshifted knee skirt and you were to look up it you'd see an opaque void the same color as the skirt which her knees are sliding freely along the surface of, there's nothing between it and where the shapeshift gear ends, everything from hem to waist currently IS the skirt. (Of course if she's wearing actual clothes this does not apply.) Same if she shapeshifts a sword into her hand, the sword and hand are a single piece so it only looks like she's holding it, like a cheap action figure. It also needn't be a sword, most hand tools can be imitated effectively, from hammers and saws to ladles and spatulas, just note that it's part of her and smacking it on things or getting it too hot will hurt even though shapeshift gear is not very sensitive.
Fey also can control the brightness of their glow or generate spotlights, generate and manipulate magnetic fields, of course fly and pretty quickly, they swim fine too which is extremely odd for fairies given their apparent butterfly wings, and all but pixies have easy if slow contact healing albeit the fairy's healing is stronger and pixies have their own benefits (stealth, sensors and a 3-day forecast). Healing is a fairy's main ability, when in water it's strengthened (as is a nymph or ghillie) and in emergencies fairies can massively drain their energy reserves even to the point of depleting them in order to staunch more severe wounds than they would be able to normally, although that's something they can't do more than once or at most twice without a refill and it's still got its limits, "already dead" is beyond those limits, "decapitated" also counts, if somebody's heart got bisected that's somebody they're not fixing, but this burst of frenzied automatic medical treatment is just the thing for some poor sap who's just taken multiple bullets to the chest and head. They're pretty good at self-repair and generally have less downtime than some fey when the poor things get severely injured very easily. (Not because they're little, being a spirit makes that difference often less than it appears, but because they're spirits.)
But what if you touch her? Well, then you'll discover her textureless surface isn't actually a surface at all. You'll start feeling resistance just before you make contact, like trying to touch like poles of two magnets. This is pretty mild, but intensifies as you go on and once your finger passes through her stomach miss fairy will scream and hit you but more importantly you'll contact something solid not far beyond it, many somethings solid spaced apart, teeny-tiny balls and stands. That's odd, so let's put on a mask with goggles and stick our face in this fairy who hopefully agreed to that but it seems unlikely on account of how much this is going to hurt. (Maybe for science. And food. ...And a hug or five or six.)
On the Inside:
What you'll find in the little lady is exactly what it felt like, many less than one millimeter thick strands connecting hundreds of millimeters-wide orb-shaped nodes and thousands more nodes no bigger around than the wires leading to them. Most of the spirit's body is empty space, covered by a gradient forcefield and projected light. These internal structures are brightly colored, in the case of fey blaze orange and notably each part of their facade is most commonly an orange/brown of various hues, brightnesses and saturations (including super dark brown or super pale orange for their pupils and sclera), but if broken open are transparent or translucent white/grey inside. For ages there was no even vaguely comparable material to the unusual lipid-derived organic stuff these nodes are made out of, but the Drachentäller invented a very similar one half a century ago called "plastic" (though only they make it right now so it's still pretty pricey). The nodes have openings on them of different types which differentiate their function, but these aren't well understood, except the biggest ones outside the core that are just storage tanks for slurries of liquid nutrients. The wires feel like normal rubber-insulated wires but super thin, but under a microscope they look to be another bioplastic and if split open will reveal themselves to actually contain both piping for transporting material between nodes and actual copper wire that carries a current too low-gauge to be powering anything so it's speculated to effectively be her nervous system.
This explains her shapeshifting, seeing as her body's not real she just needs to re-arrange her wires and nodes, alter the shape of her outer fields and the image she's projecting. To grow from 50cm to 75, she just increased the distance between her nodes by 50%, her "surface area" by 125% and her "volume" by 237.5%, her mass and weight are completely unchanged. This also explains how such giant variations can exist within one species or even subspecies, they aren't really nearly as big of a change as they externally look to be. Fairies can project light and generate powerful magnetic fields, those are also being done by her nodes, with the very projectors that create her outer fields and holographic "self" which she doesn't know isn't real unless you tell her (she probably won't believe it). It also explains why they feel pain when you attempt to penetrate their fields, for starters they think there's actual physical flesh you're pushing into except for how it visibly doesn't react like it once you've started (and that confusion's only going to make them freak out more), and it makes sense if this imitation is a defense mechanism for a pain response to exist to reduce the odds of you or them discovering what's inside or either of you being able to make sense of what little you do see.
Of course, passing through their fields doesn't always hurt, only if they're expecting it to, the field projectors will even roll inwards to create an opening if one is expected in that spot. IE she bites things by rolling her face fields inwards to "open" her "mouth", then uses them to apply pressure, but as she has no actual teeth this is blunt and often she'll need to yank at it with her entire head, neck and even engage her torso to, for example, tear a chunk off a steak and swallow it. If you were to observe this hunk of steak you'd watch it get passed by repair nodes down into the woodchipper-like opening of one of her digestive nodes in her core, where it will be broken down into proteins and lipids and sent to storage through her piping. We know that because people have in fact stuck periscopes inside spirits to see what goes on inside them. As she uses energy, you may notice a tiny bit of fine dust descending from around her, this is ash and it's all that's left of the nutrients she efficiently consumes in exorbitant amounts to power everything she does. As she repairs damage, her repair nodes can produce the plastic of her tubing her core production nodes print complex components, even required metals coming out of what she eats.
The Core:
The core is the center of a spirit's being, a series of seven dreamcatcher-looking rings large nodes and thicker wire in rings stacked front to back with cross-crossing wires notably devoid of metal instead having silica fibers and flashing lights on each node for signalling between them, making sure every one in each ring is directly connected to each other for redundancy. Here you'll find, in her notably female case, from front to back, half her reproductive system, forward core nutrient storage, forward core cognitive ring (memory and motor control nodes are scattered throughout the body), central digestive and manufacturing ring, aft core cognitive ring, aft core nutrient storage and her other ring of reproductive nodes, and notably there is lots of tubing running between rings 1, 2, 4, 6 and 7. If she was male instead both reproductive rings would be at the back as the purpose of them is different.
In a fey, any humanoid spirit really, this is in the chest where you'd expect the heart to be. Some spirits have two cores, the second will be lower down, in a humanoid it'll be in the pelvis and/or abdomen, as low as it can be at its size and still fit without blocking the leg tendrils. These nodes require more exotic materials less common in food or that are more difficult to work with and even with recycling as much as possible are usually significantly harder to repair and replace. Losing digestive and manufacturing nodes is a big hit to regeneration rate, enough that they usually start by replacing those if at all possible. The way spirits die is by receiving too much core damage, or losing too much mass overall, to the point where they don't have the manufacturing nodes to fix themselves despite all being multiple redundant, or they lack both material in storage and the functionality to go get them. If starved, they will eventually enter an inert state and be left laying as a bundle on the ground until somebody revives them or they decay which takes a very long time even though their plastic is biodegradeable as it is coated in a preservative (in this case orange) chemical that takes years to corrode and is frequently replenished during normal activity. Even then, if you go grab the bundle and drop them into a bunch of loose resources like a bowl of ground beef and fruit preserves that'll solve the lack of resources and if they didn't lose all the required nodes they'll start fixing themselves up.
Damage control and repair:
As mentioned, spirits regenerate. As also mentioned, this is an internal repair system with distinct parts performing distinct tasks, which when they are unconscious gets all of their energy and resources allowing it to work significantly faster, whether they're unconscious because they were nearly destroyed or because they decided to go lie down for a minute because they just saw their wires and nodes for the first time. You may think this could be defeated by severing a part, since they wouldn't be able to reach out and grab it, but what'll actually happen is microwaves will be emitted by the repair nodes on each end of the breach and it'll fly right back into place to get fused back together, and if a node is is destroyed that node'll be replaced a part at a time which will take longer than patching a wire and it won't be working until it's fully reconnected, but the bioplastic that makes up most of it is pretty easy to print and paint if they've got proteins and fats on hand. If she takes too much damage, though, to the point where she's at risk of being destroyed she will involuntarily bail on this entire situation, dropping her outer fields and image, curling her wires into a tight ball, coating herself in a much denser forcefield, rocketing into the distance in a direction with nobody (detected) in it and as clear of a shot as possible. This launch is very forceful, reaching hypersonic speeds in a matter of seconds before the thrust stops and she cruises ballistically to a different post code and at quickly slows to a gentle landing. (Assailants: Brace for the backblast, or it may knock you on your ass.) She is semi-conscious during this process and once she's landed will fully lose consciousness in order to dedicate all her energy to self-repair until she's either back to 100% or as close as she's getting without getting up and finding something to eat. Significant damage to her core, whether it's that "enough core cables are cut to defeat their redundancy" or "a core node is destroyed", will usually result in her blasting off right away, as will her ending up in a situation where destruction otherwise seems unavoidable. Take a moment to absorb the implications of this while you imagine how much worse her being swallowed by a giant frog or something is going to work out for it than her even if she has to clean that mess up. Spirits actually dying due to violence is a rarity because of their remarkable ability to bail in the nick of time, although it does happen. They get hit with a 7-ton naval shell they're absolutely donezo, but dropping them in a volcano won't work because they'll blast off into the sky.
Reproduction and Development:
In her core, this fairy has two rings dedicated to reproduction, one at the very front and one at the very back. These are rings of dedicated manufacturing, wire-printing and assembly nodes, which create and keep in stock a set of redundant nodes, enough to make 1/2 of a new spirit minus their core. If we look in the chest of Sir Mothwing next to her he has none of the assembly or wire-printing nodes but he's got a bunch of dedicated manufacturing nodes in two rings at the back of his core and between them is kept the fruits of their labour: One entire spare core, in addition to half the nodes needed for the rest of a spirit stored stored between the reproductive rings and the back of the spirit which these nodes also manufactured. All they need to do is keep their cores together so a single opening through both their fields can allow them to interact. The actual internal process is unconscious, any activity that'll align their cores and press their bodies together will do the job. They mimic humans generally, but they don't always know how humans do it so this might just be hugging.
The spirit man will pass his spare parts into the spirit woman's chest, one at a time as she needs them, that's his entire job in the actual reproductive process. Granted, those are hard to replace parts, especially all those core cognitive and manufacturing nodes, so he can't do this nearly as often as she can and that puts the bottleneck on the side of the less common sex, giving them a slow reproductive rate. (Then again, they're massive resource hogs for their size, have indefinite lifespans and are hard to kill. Maybe slow reproduction's a good thing long-term.) As for her part she'll be externally paralyzed and unresponsive while her unconscious works as fast as it can making wire and connecting these parts together. In the mean time, he'll be semi-conscious, cuddled as close as humanly possible, only able to move if it's strictly necessary (if a coyote's wondering if they're edible he can go deal with that real quick and come back). The rest of the time while this process is going on, both of them will be tripping balls. No, that's not doing it justice, they're having a life-changing psychedelic experience. Why is unknown, only they're seeing the same things, communicating somehow and by the end they usually claim to "feel" the newborn's presence before they're born, if their estimates are right seemingly a couple hours after the core's done being assembled. Some think it's how the newborn's consciousness is formed, some think it's how all the child's various traits superficial and meaningful alike are determined, some think it's a deep spiritual experience meant to make them reflect on and prepare for the life-changing thing they're doing bringing another tinier person into the world, some think it's just meant to keep their conscious mind entertained while their unconscious does all the actual work. It's also notably intensely euphoric. Regardless, after about one day in 5d technicolor dreamland, the new infant spirit will be assembled and will exit the mother however makes sense to her. They may just pop right out of her chest as a little rolled-up ball, unfurl and form their facade mid-air before any of them wake up, only provided nobody's there to witness it (as far as any of them know).
The even littler one will as usual typically resemble hehis parents in many ways except often with several completely random minor variations like a ginger and a blue-haired parent may have a violet-haired child and have no idea why even if most of the time most of their traits seem to be inherited from their parents. Mutations that large shouldn't be occurring that often with biology as we know it, but this is not biology as we know it. Their sex is determined by how their mother assembles their core, whether they left room and connections at the front and back (female) or all at the back (male), and their facade matches their core in what may be a "natural" metaphor. As the father donates the core nodes the child will always be their father's subspecies, in fact this is how subspecies are classified because it's that reliable. ...And the exception is there are two species of hermaphroditic spirits who all have one male and one female core and each parent provides one of each and this means that if they are of different species you get actual hybrids, for example an ant myrmidon queen and a bee myrmidon queen make a wasp myrmidon queen with one ant core and one bee core. (Myrmidon queens look like little half-meter anthropomorphic insect queens, they make even tinier autonomous frameworks called "workers", "soldiers" and so on who are full-fledged sophonts. They have a limited cast of minions, a bee queen has six workers, four soldiers and two drones whose minds, memories and personalities are backed up every night in the queen's caboose in case they get smashed and they have to print a new copy. They usually don't understand the original is actually permanently dead and has not come back.)
A newborn fairy is already about half the mass of their parents despite looking externally like the infant they are and being the right size relative to them. The extra weight goes into thicker wire and fitting just as many forcefield and repair nodes into the way tinier body. At birth both sexes are always of identical actual mass, even if there's an apparent size difference, and will not appear to age externally despite accumulating actual mass as they go until suddenly overnight they appear to age years all at once complete with a change in their otherwise permanent hairstyle that seems to be subconsciously or even unconsciously decided and only usually has any continuity with the last style. This will first happen at 2, then at 5, then at 10. Their reproductive tract will grow in during their equivalent of puberty, until then there's just empty space, and even once it's there (age 14-16) it'll need just as much time to generate the parts as will be needed between kids later. If the kid's a girl that's only about six weeks, but for boys it's about two years, notably roughly coinciding with one of their overnight metamorphoses episodes when they turn 17, the previous having been at age 10, and they will suddenly go from looking like a kid in their pre or early teens to somebody vaguely in their late teens or early twenties, as they usually appear to be about the middle of the age group they're in, but it is while they are asleep on their exact birthday that these visible changes occur, all at once, exactly at midnight if they're already out. There is no upper limit on their age, after the "adult metamorphoses" at 17 they stop gaining actual mass (except they can always make more storage nodes if they need to) and their final visible change is at 82 at which point they look about a hundred years old indefinitely.
Combat Performance and the Framework:
Spirits aren't very strong, tend to be sent flying to the next county over from the next county over with one swing of a sword and their nutrient stores aren't much for how fast they can burn through them. That itty bitty fairy eats as much as a human toddler who appears to be several times her size and is many times her mass. Most of that normal operating cost is her facade, its fields and holograms are not cheap and she's not nearly as dimly glowly as other spirits even if turns it down as far as it'll go she will illuminate dim surroundings rather than only truly dark ones so that's more energy spent. All of that's coming from food eaten, and although their metabolism is more efficient and only leaves a fine ash she's still eating several times her actual mass on a daily basis. She also only has at most a couple days of nutrients stored, far less than if she spends that time, say, on a battlefield repairing damage to herself and others and shooting electro-lasers out of her wizard's staff in which case she'll be eating nearly as much as a physical folk-sized caster and more than any of the non magic-using soldiers. Thankfully, all spirits are omnivorous and not super picky about what they eat. Fat's got the most calories for them to use, sugar's the quickest to burn, carbs are sugars with extra steps and they need protein for their bioplastics that's most of what they'll need. They need other organic materials and minerals sometimes too, sometimes they'll eat rocks and even they can't have no explanation to give, but anything even vaguely edible to the least discerning and most voracious of goats will work just fine for them and they don't seem to be subject to poison or disease. (Corrosion is a different matter.)
They're really resistant to projectiles, they're mostly empty space after all a bullet could potentially go right through them and hit nothing, their forcefield does well against explosions, heat and corrosion, nor is cold really very effective, but a sword with good edge alignment faces comparatively little resistance from the forcefields and will cut them right in half straight through the core. Also, blunt impacts work fairly well, as although the force transferred through the fields is distributed between multiple projector nodes an impact can still jolt them hard enough to snap the wires they're connected to, it's not like they're spread across the entire facing side of the spirit's body like a blast wave and the forcefield is good at deflective most of the force of a blast wave away. This amounts in total to a significant melee weakness, especially since regeneration takes time and melee combat tends to be more short-lived than ranged combat. Although they are very hard to actually kill and all have interesting abilities, they tend to lose fights with physical sophonts pretty hard and may have issues with creatures that a physical sophont would demolish, since physical sophonts are stronger than they are, are capable of faster reaction times and can dish out a hit after taking one in a way a spirit won't because they'll probably be in the stratosphere. Of course, all of these people are probably wearing armor and that complicates this entire subject considerably, as does the fact that direct one on one duels are not exactly common.
Frameworks are their built-in attempt to make up for this, vaguely resembling a "wicker man" in the shape of one specific form of theirs complete with any and all shapeshifted gear as actual solid pieces. It's actually made bioplastics and glass as usual with them and it's articulated, it's got nutrient storage tanks, more forcefield and motor-function nodes, more holographic nodes too so their appearance gets more detailed (her hair even becomes a seperate piece from her head and flexible along its length) and they generally look more life-like with slightly less exaggerated proportions. Once in a framework, they can't shapeshift until they get back out, but while they're in it they're more protected, faster, stronger and have room for considerably greater reserves. They're both too metabolically expensive to manufacture and take up too much space to keep one of every possible gear variation, and while frameworks can be re-configured this is also metabolically expensive despite recycling as much as possible and being way cheaper than a whole new framework, so usually frameworks use shapeshift gear only if absolutely necessary even though framework gear is much more effective than normal shapeshifted gear between stronger fields and backing them up with various plastic and glass. Instead, spirits who have call for them tend to cap out at one framework for each of their major forms and not waste resources or space making more. Little miss fairy probably has a 50cm and 75cm framework, for example, and if she's not in danger often they'll last her until she outgrows them, and even then she can recycle them to mitigate the cost of the new ones. They last despite being made of bioplastic because thankfully, the framework is coated in a preservative coating just like her insides are that takes anywhere from months to decades to decay and is constantly being replenished when she's in the framework, it'll also take about as long for the bioplastic to degrade, and it can still be saved for a little while because her own repair system can also repair her framework. Of course, when you compare plastic and glass to actual armor and weapons it comes up short, but once forcefields are added to the mix... They still do in the balance, but only because the real armor and weapons can have internal magitech or be a different kind of weapon that couldn't be replicated, the framework weapons and armor tend to directly deal more damage and provide more protection by weight although that's "more protection" compared to lighter armor and "lighter weight" to denser armor.
What the IU Meat-People Think:
As you may have guessed, a common early "hypothesis" was that spirits were ethereal beings and their internals and frameworks were believed to be some sort of congealed ectoplasm and their connection to the corporeal realm. That belief died pretty hard when they were clearly reproducing, except to the kind of religious nutcase to whom reality is always irrelevant. Actual scholars who study things that exist are currently arguing as to whether to settle on "mechanical lifeform", "semi-physical lifeform", "holographic lifeform", or something like that except they all seem to think only their suggested term is acceptable and everybody else is WRONG BECAUSE (17 paragraph diatribe here). Still, they're at least seen by the scientific community as being an extremely bizarre lifeform. You might think they'd have a little issue accepting them as a lifeform because of all the plastic and metal wiring, but there's one important background detail I should mention: Spirits first came from the Otherlands.
In the Otherlands of west Sohei, meat grows on the ground, plants get up and walk around, animals come from spores, giant clonal colonies of sedentary animals grow throughout forests seeping caustic sludge, meteors sometimes fall from the sky followed by crystals that forge themselves mecha made of the ossified remains of what died in the blast, you get in too deep and all electronic sensors are jammed, electroreception is hit with a signal so overwhelming the sense goes completely dead to keep the creature from ripping its sensory organs out, concrete buildings grow on their own by millimeters per day, random paved roads with painted lines exist and change shape so slowly you don't notice until you're hopelessly lost, usually after running into a vertical loop or something unreasonable like that which those among us overly prone to antropomorphising might attribute to spite, sometimes broken glass falls from the sky, you get giant lightning storms where the strikes are so powerful they produce enough ionizing radiation to create a secondary electromagnetic pulse, the wind sounds like an unintelligible modulating electronic tone, people swear the clouds are watching them.... My point; Spirits are only debatably the strangest thing coming out of that place, and they're definitely not the most artificial-seeming thing that seems to be occurring there without outside intervention. At this point the answer to "Could spirits be natural creatures?" is "Uh... Oh I don't know, why the hell not?" or sometimes "Insufficient data; Please define the term 'natural' within the context of The Otherlands.".
But what do YOU meat-people think of them? (And what term would you choose to describe them?)

Where's my fellow introverts at?
Could use some long term daily chats to help make the days go faster and less boring/lonely. I've always had a hard time making friends all my life. Having awkward social skills and lack of a brain filter will do that top of other issues. Sometimes I'm not super chatty and my answers can be short or concise and that off puts some people because they think I don't care or am uninterested which isn't true. I'm tired of being ghosted. Shit sucks everytime.
A little about me, I work in shitty retail. Can barely afford to breath most days. Working retail has made me pretty pessimistic and negative to the world when you get treated like shit daily. I like watching tv whether streaming, wrestling or basketball. I play video games occasionally, have a Nintendo switch and would love some new friends there, enjoy going on walks weather permitting and enjoy going to thrift stores.
If you've read this long please message me. I have discord as well since reddit sucks mostly for chat

Where's my fellow introverts at?
Could use some long term daily chats to help make the days go faster and less boring/lonely. I've always had a hard time making friends all my life. Having awkward social skills and lack of a brain filter will do that top of other issues. Sometimes I'm not super chatty and my answers can be short or concise and that off puts some people because they think I don't care or am uninterested which isn't true. I'm tired of being ghosted. Shit sucks everytime.
A little about me, I work in shitty retail. Can barely afford to breath most days. Working retail has made me pretty pessimistic and negative to the world when you get treated like shit daily. I like watching tv whether streaming, wrestling or basketball. I play video games occasionally, have a Nintendo switch and would love some new friends there, enjoy going on walks weather permitting and enjoy going to thrift stores.
If you've read this long please message me. I have discord as well since reddit sucks mostly for chat

Where's my fellow introverts at?
Could use some long term daily chats to help make the days go faster and less boring/lonely. I've always had a hard time making friends all my life. Having awkward social skills and lack of a brain filter will do that top of other issues. Sometimes I'm not super chatty and my answers can be short or concise and that off puts some people because they think I don't care or am uninterested which isn't true. I'm tired of being ghosted. Shit sucks everytime.
A little about me, I work in shitty retail. Can barely afford to breath most days. Working retail has made me pretty pessimistic and negative to the world when you get treated like shit daily. I like watching tv whether streaming, wrestling or basketball. I play video games occasionally, have a Nintendo switch and would love some new friends there, enjoy going on walks weather permitting and enjoy going to thrift stores.
If you've read this long please message me. I have discord as well since reddit sucks mostly for chat