#Operation Frequent Wind

[deadpresidents]

Awash in conflicting reports from unstable battlefronts, [President Gerald] Ford wanted a firsthand appraisal [on the situation in Vietnam] from someone he could trust. General [Frederick] Weyand was his chosen emissary. "You are not going over to lose," he instructed Weyand, "but to be tough and see what we can do." Ford conceded that any military options were severely limited. "I regret I don't have the authority to do some of the things President Nixon could do," he remarked wistfully. As the Oval Office emptied, photographer David Kennerly stayed behind. "You know, I would really like to go with the General," he said. Ford needed no persuading. As a journalist, and a friend, with extensive knowledge of the region from his two-year stint as a combat photographer for UPI, Life and Time, Kennerly could be counted on for an honest assessment of events -- more honest, perhaps, than that of diplomats and military men -- and with it, the pictures to back him up. Kennerly returned to his first-floor office with a sign dangling from his neck. GONE TO VIETNAM. BACK IN TWO WEEKS.

That evening the irreverent photo hound dubbed Hot Shot by the Secret Service appeared in the upstairs family quarters to say goodbye. Ford threw a protective arm around the young man's shoulders.

"You be careful. You have everything you need?"

As a matter of fact, Kennerly's pockets were empty. Local banks were closed and he could use some cash. Ford opened his wallet and handed over its contents, $47, as Betty Ford gave Kennerly a hug. He was striding toward the door when the President called out his name. "Here," said Ford, tossing Kennerly a quarter. "You might as well clean me out."

-- Richard Norton Smith, on White House photographer David Hume Kennerly's interactions with President Gerald Ford after Kennerly asked to accompany a General on a fact-finding mission to Vietnam in March 1975, shortly before the Fall of Saigon, An Ordinary Man: The Surprising Life and Historic Presidency of Gerald R. Ford (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

[flock-of-cassowaries]

It turns out that making sure the roller coasters went “Wheee!” was a harder task than Roman had imagined.

And also that the parks, with their magnificent failcoasters that can only operate when the barometric pressure is within a specific 10-point range and the moon is in the luteal phase of its cycle, were what Lukas “failure fascinates me” Mattsson really coveted.

succession au where jenny nicholson releases a 4 hour deep dive on all the problems with brightstar adventure park, which domino effects into the complete and total destruction of the roy family empire

[reasonsforhope]

"An environmental toxicologist in California is cleaning up areas contaminated with heavy metals or other pollutants using fungi and native plants in a win-win for nature.

Where once toxic soils in industrial lots sat bare or weed-ridden, there are now flowering meadows of plants and mushrooms, frequented by birds and pollinators: and it’s thanks to Danielle Stevenson.

Founder of DIY Fungi, the 37-year-old ecologist from UC Riverside recently spoke with Yale Press about her ongoing work restoring ‘brownfields,’ a term that describes a contaminated environment, abandoned by industrial, extraction, or transportation operations.

A brownfield could be an old railway yard or the grounds of an abandoned oil refinery, but the uniting factor is the presence of a toxic containment, whether that’s a petrochemical, heavy metal, or something else.

Noting that she had read studies about mushrooms growing around the Chernobyl nuclear plant, she came to understand further, through her work, that fungi are an extraordinarily resilient species of life that consume carbon, and even though petroleum products are toxic to plants, to mushrooms they are essentially a kind of carbon.

In fact, mushrooms break down several categories of toxic waste with the same enzymes they use to consume a dead tree. They can also eat plastic and other things made out of oil, like agrochemicals.

At the Los Angeles railyard, as part of a pilot project, Stevenson and colleagues planted a variety of native grass and flower species alongside dead wood that would incubate specific fungi species called arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, which assists plants in extracting heavy metals like lead and arsenic from the soil.

Alongside traditional decomposer fungi, the mixture of life forms demonstrated tremendous results in this brownfield.

“In three months we saw a more than 50 percent reduction in all pollutants. By 12 months, they were pretty much not detectable,” Stevenson told Yale 360.

Decontaminating soil like this typically involves bringing in a bulldozer and digging it all up for transportation to a landfill. This method is not only hugely expensive, but also dangerous, as contaminated material can scatter on the winds and fall out of the backs of trucks carting it away.

By contrast, the plants that draw out the toxic metals can be harvested and incinerated down to a small pile of ash before cheap transportation to a hazardous waste facility.

The technique, which Stevenson says has some scaling issues and issues with approval from regulators, is known officially as bioremediation, and she’s even used it to safely break down bags of lubricant-soaked rags from bicycle repair shops.

“People who live in a place impacted by pollution need to have a say in how their neighborhood is being cleaned up. We need to empower them with the tools to do this,” she said."

-via Good News Network, July 16, 2024

[kilgoreontralfamadore]

Linked Universe Sick Headcanons (bc I'm both stressed and bored and could use a pick-me-up... pls feel free to comment so i have something to distract myself with)

Wind: Downplays or denies everything. Hide symptoms if he thinks being "found out" will bench him from the adventure. Doesn't get sick that frequently, though. Something something pirates citrus vitamin C etc...

Wild: Like Wind, but also kind of ignores his symptoms? He's the type to go, "Yeah, my guts feel like they're turning themselves inside out but it do be like dat lol"

Time: Is unnecessarily dramatic/grouchy for minor things, if he has the ability to be. Otherwise he's more of a stoic, "fight through it" kind of sickie. clutches my beloved lactose intolerant!Time headcanon to my chest and hisses

Sky: Gets knocked flat on his a$$ by any kind of illness. From the slightest sniffle to the worst flu, it all hits him the same. He's particularly susceptible to respiratory illness. Or any illness, really.

Twilight: Hides it or fights through it, but if he thinks he's an infection risk for his brothers, he will 100% self-isolate. And be a lil mopey about it. Sickness doesn't go away when he goes Wolfie, but doesn't get worse either.

Four: Just like Sky, gets absolutely debilitated. By anything and everything. But he's good about taking potions and letting his body rest when he needs it. Also, each color takes a symptom when they're split.

Hyrule: Just with his more medieval/tragic timeline and all, I think he fails to understand germ theory. Is unfamiliar with the concept, so he lives with an above average incidence of illness and doesn't even know it. He is an incubus of plague. Chronic sniffles. Love that for him.

Legend: Kiiiiind of an ass when he gets sick. He just kind of operates with a certain level of pain, so when it's even worse he is just that much more grumpy. Usually resolves himself to just ride it out, though.

Warriors: The most dramatic mf in the entire Chain. In the entire kingdom of Hyrule, even. Tends to get really grossed out by his or his brothers' symptoms. Total germaphobe.

And yes, you will see all of these during Feveruary. Get hyped, friendos.

[star-anise]

Ask I got on my sideblog but am answering here:

Hi there! I know you're a therapist and I have a question: I saw some people arguing on Twitter about the impacts of trauma. There was a therapist among them, and they had a masters degree in social work, they post about it often. They say that people who have experienced trauma hurt other people because it benefits them or gives them pleasure, and they are disconnected from empathy and sympathy. That seems wrong, but maybe it's not? That's all, thanks!

Ooof, yeah, that's... complicated. It's technically true, but also frequently used as a lie.

Trigger warning: Child abuse, child grooming, interpersonal violence, trauma (childhood & intergenerational), true crime, totalitarianism

Because basically, that describes MOST humans who decide to hurt other humans on purpose without a strong ulterior motive. That's not a trauma thing, that's a human thing.

I babysit for a family with a 1-year-old and a 3-year-old. When the 1yo does something to upset their older sibling, and that sibling winds up and smacks them, that's the same basic thing. It benefits them (makes 1yo go away), brings them pleasure (having an outlet for their anger is very satisfying), and they're disconnected from empathy (they're often surprised and confused when the 1yo is crying, because they're 3 and THEY feel fine and they don't really understand yet that other people's feelings really exist) or even sympathy (understanding that if you hit someone, they will probably be upset). That's something we adults have to watch out for and intervene in, because empathy and impulse control take time to learn.

But as for where trauma figures into this... how to explain.

There's this old logical puzzle about categories, where you say things like:

All dogs have four legs*

A dog is an animal

And then the catch is that you can't extend that to say

All animals have four legs

*RIP to all the tripods and legless animals that apparently aren't dogs anymore for the purposes of this logic exercise

Animals obviously include fish and millipedes and whales and snakes and jellyfish. The number of legs an animal can have is HIGHLY diverse, and will eventually lead to a debate on what the definition of "leg" is.

So there is this common thing we see:

Some people are much more violent and aggressive than other people

These violent and aggressive people have almost always experienced some form of trauma/abuse/neglect

And the link people are really prone to thinking is:

People who have experienced trauma/abuse/neglect will go on to being violent and aggressive with other people.

This is incorrect. To some degree, I can see why it's widely believed - after all, way more people tune in to learn about a serial killer's abusive childhood than for the more common story, which is survivors of trauma slowly going about their lives in ordinary undramatic ways.

Because the thing is, trauma is REALLY diverse. Humans are inherently varied and a bit chaotic, since we can choose very different ways to live and operate, and trauma splits that variability like a prism turning light into a rainbow. Only about 30% of abused children grow up to be abusive themselves. The other 70% choose very different lives.

And yet. My eternal question is: WHY is this such a meme? Why do so many people with a shitty childhood flinch at the 30% statistic and think, "Is that me? Am I destined to be a monster?" Why does this story have legs, when so many other facts about trauma have way more empirical backing and usefulness and get very little attention?

I submit that there is one group that fucking LOVES the idea that traumatized person equals abuser. One group that pushes it into the discourse, in international media or around the family kitchen table, with great ingenuity and gusto.

Abusers.

They love it for two reasons. The most obvious reason is: It absolves them of their actions. "It wasn't ME who hit you, it was my childhood trauma!" A veritable classic excuse that takes their agency out of the equation. And it really can be hard to tell when it's a good excuse and when it isn't!

Reason two is the more insidious one: It cuts their victim's sense of goodness, worthiness, and moral certainty out from under them.

It's as simple as saying, "Look at how you pushed back at me (when I was abusing you)! You're the REAL abuser here!" It's the heart of what domestic abuse researchers call DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender). It can be that simple, or it can be so complicated and byzantine it makes your head hurt.

I only really got a handle on understanding this thanks to a friend, who said she was okay with me sharing this story if I didn't identify her. I won't go into any unrelated details of her abuse, but for the record, hers is probably the most extreme case of anyone I've personally interacted with, and I used to work as a therapist and in domestic violence shelters. Her dad heinously abused her as a child. He'd also studied psychology in university. I have been trying to fathom how the fuck anyone could do what he did to her for YEARS, and I think I've got a few viabletheories.

So. She was an ordinary child, bright, warmhearted, well-behaved, and a bit autistic. A bit more naive and trusting than your average preschooler. I imagine that from his perspective, there was the convenient benefit that he often had unrestricted access to her, and he could relatively easily overpower and manipulate her.

But she had one serious downside: If anyone ever found out what he was doing to her, they would go fucking apeshit. She wasn't really prone to lying or acting out, so people would treat her as a fairly credible reporter; several other adults found her she was lovable, innocent, and endearing; and what he wanted to do to her was, I repeat, heinous.

So while he abused her, one of the things he said was: "I'm doing this because I was abused as a child. That's how it works. All abusers come from abuse. There are statistics proving it. This means you're an abuser too. See what society thinks about child abusers? That's what people will think about you, if they know that you've been abused."

And she was, you know, a child, not someone who studied psych research. He was her dad. So she believed him.

She thought that he was using his adult brain to correctly assess the truth about her as a person, for purely objective reasons. The way you'd try to teach a kid who talks with their mouth full about table manners. It's been a couple decades now, but she is still very slowly chipping away at her core belief that she is inherently awful and only her father recognized the truth about her.

Sometimes when we talk about it I have to bite my tongue because I'm sitting here trying to figure out what the fuck was going on with him, an adult man who wanted to abuse her because he'd really enjoy it. I think about him trying to figure out how to manipulate an innocent child into accepting being abused, and minimize the risk that he'd go to jail for it. And although I hate his everloving guts, I'm almost a bit impressed at his level of machiavellian audacity, to come up with a line that was SUCH hot bullshit that people have devoted their entire careers into proving it false, and yet, because it hit exactly the right psychological issue at exactly the right psychological stage and his intended victim was so trusting, he could get her to believe him enough to turn that lie into her core identity.

Praise be to G-d and Criminal Minds, he did not, in the end, get away with it. She got enough courage to tell people, and get free of him. And she is not, in fact, a horrible abusive person.

But I think what he did so very brazenly is what a lot of abusers do, in more disguised and indirect ways. Probably partly because it really helps, when abusing people, not to treat them like human beings with their own thoughts and feelings, but if one must posit that they have something going on between their ears, it's easiest to assume that everyone else responds to trauma with aggression and abuse. After all, considering the possibility that someone like them could choose not to be abusive takes all the fun and plausible deniability out of the whole affair.

But now I see echoes of that "my victims are just as bad as I am" tactic all over the place. I honestly think it's a very similar mechanism that Hannah Arendt pointed out in The Origins of Totalitarianism. She observes that violent totalitarian regimes routinely accuse their intended victims of the very act they intend to commit themselves, to justify a "retaliation" that's actually just aggression. Think claiming "Our opponents are rigging this election" as an excuse to rig an election in the opposite direction.)

To sum up: You're human. Humans can do good and bad things. It's not necessarily good to completely forswear anything violent or angry in you, but to come up with a framework of how to be assertive and get your needs met in an ethical fashion. There are times it is appropriate and even necessary to escape or fight against somebody else's will.

On the other hand, If find yourself inflicting pain on other people on a regular basis, get some support and take a good hard look at your life choices. Sometimes it's hard to figure out how to solve problems in your life without violence or aggression, and you might need some help with that. Maybe talk to a counsellor or learn anger management skills.

But in no way is it predestined, inherent, implicit, or doomed, that your experiences and brain wiring make you violent or evil. You always have the choice to define yourself beyond what was done to you.

[morganitering]

Because I'm the Weakest II: The Women Who Never Won

Pairings/character dynamics: Satosugu, Shoko and reader, Nanami and reader, implied shoko x utahime

Contains and warnings: DARK FIC/DEAD DOVE fem!reader, Suicidal ideation, rape aftermath, referenced rape (not written out in this chap), depression, alcohol abuse, misogyny & sexism, internalized sexism, sexual harassment on minors done by minors, victim blaming (thoughts), self harm, angst, hurt & comfort, I call noncon with the official word for it

Word count: ~9,6k

Summary: There's certain desperation when you try to keep your head above water. You were drowning and all you wanted to do was to forget, the weight on your shoulders unbearable. Despite the cards you were dealt with you found yourself among allies as the web of untold memories started to unfold.

A/N: Hey! Yall waited long for this, sorry about that. I have no idea how to tag this but I'll just do it somehow, bc this is a tricky chapter. Here yall get to dive deeper in the stuff that has gone down before the events that took place in 1st chap and get a hug from Shoko. This is hopefully the last installment of this. Read the tags carefully as always and make informed decisions based on that and take care of yourself. Shit can get heavy, but I'm trying to do this in good taste.

Read on ao3 part I

Shoko Ieiri had worked a long time with people who suffered. She had seen it all, limbs cut off, even the toughest of sorcerers reduced to crying messes as they practically had their innards falling to the floor. There’s something utterly horrifying watching a patient, no – a friend scream in pain when even her skills were not enough. Funerals came and went, the white sheet thrown over the deceased on the operation table in the same routine way she’d change her linens. Nothing really shocked her. 

That’s what she liked to think. 

Your visits have been more frequent. It started with bruises and sprained ankles. Then it was broken bones that soon turned to puncture wounds, your clothes sticky with deep red and dirt. When she asked about it, you laughed it off saying it’s nothing, just a silly little mishap, “I was too reckless in the heat of the moment.”  But your eyes were empty, your words hollow like a dead tree. Of course Shoko did her job, without asking too much. You’re an adult and you’ll speak about it if you want to, right? Her job was to keep you alive. Your job was to exorcise curses. 

Shoko and you had been close too, hanging out with the two men, but at some point in high school she had withdrawn from the group. Gojo and Geto had tried to keep in touch with her in adulthood, inviting her as well to spend time together as the four of them, but she had always declined, smoothly changing their relationship to acquaintances at best. She heard enough of the despicable men from you. The only times she was in direct contact with Gojo and Geto was work related and god how she hoped that it would stay that way. She’ll play that pretend game almost happily. 

Shoko closed the office door the day turning to evening, sundown coloring the city in hues of orange and yellow. She held onto her little black purse, thankfully it was friday. A man stood on the long corridor, standing upright as if he did not belong here. He looked indifferent, almost bored.

“Nanami.” 

“Ieiri.” 

They greeted each other with a curt nod. 

“So what brings you here? You seem healthy enough,” Shoko asked as they walked to the open parking lot, only a few cars in sight. The warm summer sun caressed her cheeks, wind making her long hair flow in waves.

“I think she’s going through something,” Nanami stated as a matter of fact talking about you. He and you had gone on missions together, but something about you wasn’t right. He had seen the way you clutch your weapon, throw yourself at the enemy recklessly almost as if you had a death wish. It’s like you waited for your end. 

“No shit.” Shoko chuckled amused. It was as clear as a day if you just had eyes on yourself. “Why do you care?” 

“I’ve seen enough people spiral to know where it leads. You’re a healer, can’t you help?” His voice was thoughtful, not betraying a hint of emotions. 

“I can’t help a person who doesn’t want it,” Shoko said. “But I’ll try to figure something out.” 

“And that is enough. Thank you.” 

***

You hated meetings and rarely took part in them if you could avoid them. You had not met Gojo or Geto after the unfortunate night. If there were some work related things where there was a possibility to meet either of the men, you requested to be part of them remotely or that someone would just forward the key points. But after doing this for a few months Yaga had sent you a passive-aggressive email writing that it is absolutely mandatory for you to show yourself at least once in a while. You didn’t bother to answer him with anything other than a polite see you there.

Honestly you were tired. Your whole body ached in overexertion. Sleep escaped from you, ran a marathon around the block never stopping at your house, and every time you seemed to catch a break, hazy images you rather forbid being real filled your vision. Your eyebags told a story of exhaustion, your body shrinking in every possible way away. You went to see a doctor, not Shoko, just some normal practitioner from the private sector that you ended up paying yourself sick for. 

The doctor gave you pills to help you with sleep. He asked you if you were stressed or going through some sorts of crisis. You answered with a diligent no and explained that you’ve always had issues with sleep, but you were otherwise okay. He looked at you, raising his eyebrow in suspicion, the glasses on his head hung on his nose by a thread. He decided to believe you as he wrote the prescription, but insisted you took home pamphlets about depression and crisis hotlines. 

You tried the pills. You did fall asleep, but only after a panic attack wrecked through your body as the effect of the medication forced you into a deep slumber. The pills made you feel your pulse in your whole body. “It’s a quite strong product, previously used to treat psychosis, but nowadays it’s for patients with severe insomnia. Take it one hour before sleep. The effect might be really sudden.”  

When you woke up you decided to throw them away. It’s better to not to sleep if it meant that you’d go free from the horrors of the night you had experienced. 

The huge meeting table sprawled out horizontally and was able to sit around fifteen people in it. It had several small electric outlets for computers and tablets. Light poured in from the big windows, the blinds only halfway done. You stared at the weird scribbling on the white board that Principal Yaga was wiping furiously, muttering things about how students shouldn’t be let in this room under any circumstance since they can’t differentiate which markers are okay to use on it. 

You exchanged pleasantries with him. The room was devoid of people since you were too early. You swung your leather bag on the back of the upholstered office chair and sat yourself down.

Shoko walked in and her face lit up a little bit when she saw you sitting there. It was subtle, you thought that you were maybe the only one who could differentiate that expression from her. She sat next to you, a faint hint of neroli wrapping you to its calming aroma. 

Next came Meimei and then Utahime who came running to you two giving a happy hug to Shoko. They were so cute together, you thought to yourself as you fidgeted with your slightly too big shoes, constantly removing them and pushing them back to your feet. People don’t usually like small talk, but nonetheless the group chatted with each other. They had to, because it’s polite and you were coworkers. You thought that small talk was easy. The script of it was burnt to your brains for the rest of your life. You get to keep people at an arm's length and keep up appearances, so what’s there not to like? 

A familiar blonde man stood in the doorway. You checked your phone for the time. Only five minutes before the official start. Yuki also appeared after Nanami.  

“Hello,” he said and nodded at you as he sat himself next to you. Your whole body stiffened around him. It was hard to look him in the eyes and even harder to work missions with.

It was ten minutes past the official time when the meeting was supposed to start. 

“Sorry we are late.” Two men marched in the room with confident strides and took their place in front of you facing you, that was sitting in between Nanami and Shoko, Utahime next to the doctor. Suguru sat down next to Yuki leaving a space for Satoru who had Meimei next to him. 

Hearing Suguru’s voice made your skin crawl. 

“It’s fine,” Yaga said and looked over his shoulder to look at the white screen he had pulled down earlier with only a blue screen reflecting on the fabric. “I can’t seem to get this work anyway,” he mumbled. 

“Do you need help?” Suguru walked over to the man struggling over his laptop. “Have you checked the HDMI-cable?” 

“Of course I have, I just don’t understand why it won't work. We have Ijichi remote today,” he muttered partially to himself.  

“Let me.” 

You sat fidgeting on your chair focusing on everything else than the two men and their presence that suffocated you. If you were a candle they’d be snuffing you out but not properly, no, that would be too kind. They’d always let enough air in so that you’d never be completely put out. 

“Hello to you girls.. and Nanami,” Satoru flashed a playful grin at the four of you. Your head jerked involuntarily to look at the man. Thank god he has a habit of covering his eyes, but somehow that made him even worse. 

“Hello. How are you?” Nanami nodded politely. 

“I’m well. Hopefully the work isn’t stressing you out too much.” Satoru’s smile widened. 

“Speaking of work, I’ve heard that you and her have started doing missions together,” Satoru nudged his head towards you as he spoke directly to Nanami. “I actually green lighted the idea of sorcerers working more together. It’s good to practice teamwork and I put in good words for the two of you, since you compliment each other with the techniques you have. ” Satoru moved his head to look your way as he drew out his words in a way that you’d be sure to catch the dual meaning.

The wall flashed a few times showing the computer screen and it’s default wallpaper for only a moment and after that went back to blue. 

“An idea that I actually can get behind,” Nanami said agreeably. 

Your eye twitched. 

“Really? That was your doing?” You barely hid the anger of your voice. One more push and you’d pour your life savings on an amoral hitman, not that you’d believe that anyone could finish him off. It was a thought just for you so you could at least think about being mean in your own petty way. 

“Not a fan of working in groups of two? How about in groups of three?” 

“You fucking piece of-” 

“Okay I think it’s working now,” Yaga put his hands together straightening himself properly. Suguru walked over to Satoru, slightly shaking his head before he sat down. You heard Utahime’s quiet “okayy..” whispered in the awkward silence. 

“Unfortunately principal Gakuganji wasn’t able to make it today, he’s sick or something.”

You heard Gojo scoff audibly. 

“Try to respect him.” Yaga shot a glare in the young teacher’s way. 

“Ijichi and Nitta have gathered data about the hotspots of cursed activity,” he continued and opened up the window to teams only to be greeted by a tired looking black haired man in a suit. The background behind him was red, it looked like some type of wallpaper and small paintings covered the walls. You reckoned it was a hotel room. Or a motel, you really could not tell. 

“Ijichi, do you hear me? Would you like to take over?” Yaga’s voice boomed louder as if he wasn’t already near his computer. 

The grainy picture of the tired man smiling uncomfortably stayed still a little too long to be taken as a real time reaction to Yaga’s question. 

“I hear you. Sorry, the connection here is a bit bad.” Ijichi’s voice echoed in the office room. The picture of a slideshow appeared on the wall, making Ijichi’s face smaller. 

The map of Tokyo loomed on the wall as everyone stared at it intensely, more or less dozing off. Some parts of it had big red circles on them and Ijichi explained the way these places were having exceptionally heavy activity. He reckoned that partially the rise in activity tied to the sorcerers working more missions together leaving less people available. Ijichi also showed statistics comparing the effectiveness of sorcerers based in Tokyo and Kyoto. 

You were about to lose your mind, your body still pumping adrenaline after the conversation with Gojo. Everyone else seemed to be bored, oblivious to your struggle. Satoru had yawned at least three times in the last ten minutes, Shoko and Utahime were both interested in their nails. Even Suguru looked tired and he was pretty good at hiding his thoughts. The only ones who did not look outwardly dead inside were Yaga and Nanami. 

“Thank you Ijichi for your hard work,” Yaga said and Ijichi nodded smiling. The pop up of the slideshow vanished from the screen leaving Ijichi’s face in a huge resolution looming onto the wall. 

“We are going to take in account the effects of pairing up sorcerers. I’m not entirely in charge of how long this trial will take,” Yaga said. “Ieiri has this trial affected the health care aspect in any way?” 

Shoko cleared her throat tapping open the ipad in front of her, her nails making a satisfying click click sound. 

“The injuries have lessened,” she started. That’s good, you thought. “But the severity has increased,” she said with a serious face.

“Why is that?” Principal scrunched his eyebrows together. 

“In my professional opinion it is due to people being more brazen when having a partner. This can be seen especially in lower grade sorcerers, who are prone to believing that they are invincible when someone backs them up.” Everyone had turned to look at the doctor who played with her hair idly as she spoke. 

“And the second grade and up?”

“It happens less. But there are some, even first grade sorcerers, who are accident prone,” Shoko said and quickly looked at you, not long enough for others to pick up on that she was speaking about you.

Gojo’s phone rang in the middle of the conference. He left the room with an apology and never came back. Relief and anger ignited in you playing tug of war in your heart as your eyes followed him bitterly.

“I think this is all. I’ll send everyone the upcoming jobs, but if no one has anything to say, I think we can conclude this meeting here,” Yaga said, the choir of thank yous and goodbyes filling the room. 

You stretched yourself, happy to be on your feet again. 

“Hey, can we talk?” Nanami tried to get your attention. 

You stood in the room that was quickly emptying out of people. Shoko awkwardly hung around in a small distance from you and Nanami, trying to pretend that she wasn’t listening to your conversation. 

“I don’t entirely understand the conversation between you and Gojo, but if I have somehow disrespected you I offer my deepest apologies.” Nanami’s voice was soft. Your heart ached as you realized how bad your words must have appeared to him. 

“I’m so sorry. It’s not about you. You’ve done nothing..” You trailed off as you saw the tall curse eating man walk outside with a sly smile on his lips.

“That’s a relief but if I may be so blunt, I have a hunch that there is something bothering you,” Nanami said. 

You looked at him and chewed your lower lip nervously. This was all their fault. If they had not done what they did, you would not be in this position. The least they could have done is to keep the names of people you know out of their mouths. 

“I’m sorry to leave you hanging like this, but can we finish this conversation later?” You  hurried past him, only hearing Nanami mumble the word ‘sure’ like a kicked puppy and you said goodbye to Shoko agreeing on staying in touch with her.

The corridor was almost empty as you walked through the school building frantically searching for that bastard of a man. Your footsteps echoed on the wood as you arrived at a not so well known exit of the building. Geto stood in front of the dual doors, half heartedly pushing it open as he furiously wrote something on his phone. 

You yelled out his name, but he did not bother to react to you. You closed in on the man that was still standing back towards you. Anger surged in you as adrenaline made you braver than what you normally would be. You were supposed to just grab the ends of his hair that were sprawled across his back, but in the heat of the moment your impulse control had another lapse as you kept on raising your hand. A fist closed around the bun that had been carefully crafted on his scalp and you dug your fingers around the hair tie and then yanked, hard. 

“What the hell are you doing?!” He turned around stepping out of the doorway letting it close properly with a thump and he closed the distance between you for good. His eyes shot daggers at you. 

“You did not pay attention to me.” You shook your hand out of the spare strands that were stuck on your palm and offered the small hair tie back to him. 

“Well you got it now,” he hissed. “You can keep that as a souvenir. I don’t want anything that a filthy bitch like you has touched,” he said, the calm composure nowhere in sight. 

A filthy bitch? Really? Then maybe you should break up with Satoru if this is your deal breaker.. That’s what you wanted to say, but you held back your tongue. 

Geto took a deep breath, calming himself down, slipping on the mask that you were more used to seeing. He put his phone back in his pocket.

“What do you want?” 

“You told me,” you started, tears threatening to flow over. “You told me that I can just leave and do whatever I want. Why do you keep tormenting me? Why do you let Gojo do what he does?” Your voice broke as you started crying openly. You hated it, it made you weak. No. You were weak. 

“Firstly, I’m not his guardian. He can do what he wants.” He sounded like a smartass. 

“Second of all, never. And I repeat. Never, lay a hand on me ever again, especially on my hair.” You rolled your eyes. 

Of course it was the hair that ticked him off completely. It was his crown, the only thing he had ever been able to take care of besides Satoru. Suguru loved to flaunt himself as the calm one, the kind one, but the exterior had always had some cracks in it. No amount of paint was able to hide the rotten wall behind it. 

“I can forgive your outburst at Satoru’s, but now that you’re in your right mind, you won’t get second chances.” 

“I don’t want ‘second chances’. I want you to leave me the fuck alone so I can do my job,” you yelled at him. 

“Lower your voice. Or do you want to air out all the dirty laundry for everyone?” Geto hushed you. 

“It’s not my ‘laundry’, it’s fucking yours!” You roared and tears fell down your cheeks blurring your vision. Your face felt hot as it got wrapped in the wrath of your words. 

Geto did not answer you, instead he chose to stare you down, not moving at all as if he was a statue. He looked like a child throwing a tantrum when things did not go his way, his face contorting to a sneer that could challenge any rich spoiled brat. You panted and wiped your face with the rough backside of your palm. 

“Move.”

“Ladies first,” he snickered childishly and kicked open the heavy door with his foot as he stepped slightly to the side. God this man hangs out too much with Gojo. 

As you left the school grounds barely holding your breakdown away, there was one figure in the corridors hugging the wall near the exit, clutching onto her purse. 

***

SHOKO’S MEMORIES, 2006

“Truth or dare?” Satoru asked, popping the pink bubblegum in the air, sucking the sticky material back in his mouth to chew on loudly. 

“Truth,” Shoko said, placing another cigarette in her mouth. She smoked especially heavily when she was drinking. 

Satoru had managed to bring a whole six pack of beer to the picnic whereas Suguru had found a travel size vodka bottle from his parents. Shoko had brought a package of different berries and salty crackers with her. 

“If you could have any technique in the world, which one would you have?” Satoru asked. He looked at the clear blue sky and the way the summer breeze pushed on the white clouds. 

Shoko played with the corner of the blanket as she thought deeply about his question. She stared at the shoes she had placed on the grass and the manicure on her toes that Utahime had insisted on putting on her. 

“I think I’d keep this one,” she smiled wistfully. 

“Really? You wouldn’t want my powers?” Satoru looked at her tilting his head to the side. He spat out the chewing gum and placed it on the plastic lid that belonged to the packaging of berries. He did not like it when things ran out of flavor, always searching for something more. 

“No. I don’t envy you at all. I just want a happy life and that’s all” Shoko answered his gaze, with a gentle smile. “Besides, I like the way I am and I suppose I can help people like this,” she added. 

Satoru hummed. He was clearly dissatisfied with the answer. 

He did not exactly know why. 

“Satoru, that's sad. You should ask something fun,” Suguru pointed out and took a sip from the beer can. 

The three of them sat on a grassy hill that had a pretty decent view of the city and the park below it. Shoko leaned against the huge tree behind her back. The cicadas were performing their own concert with the hum of motorways working as their orchestra.  

“You figure out better questions then,” Satoru pouted, but wasn’t actually hurt. 

“Isn’t it my turn to ask though?” 

Shoko looked in the distance watching closely how a woman jogged with her shiba inu, her ponytail swishing in the same rhythm as the chord of her headphones. Both men nodded slightly out of sync. 

“Satoru truth or dare?” 

“Truth.” 

“Who’s the hottest person you know?” Her eyes twinkled teasingly. 

“Waka Inoue of course. She’s sexy as hell!” Satoru slapped his hand on his heart as if he was saluting. 

“Really? You still have a crush on her?” Suguru questioned. It was his turn to pout. “Am I not enough?” 

“Baby you’re plenty, but you can’t replace a huge rack,” Satoru’s voice was steady as if he was talking about the most important thing in the whole world. 

“I can’t argue with that.” Suguru sighed defeatedly, his shoulders slumping down dramatically. 

“Ugh. I shouldn’t have asked that. Both of you are so weird and gross about women,” Shoko grimaced regretting her decisions and lifted the cigarette to her mouth as if to cover the bad taste of Satoru’s words. 

The man in sunglasses ignored the criticizing words. “Suguru. Truth or dare?” 

“Dare.” 

“I dare you to share this,” Satoru lifted up a huge strawberry. “Like in Lady and the Tramp with Shoko,” he referred to the scene where the two dogs shared a spaghetti meal, eventually kissing. 

“That’s too small!” Shoko protested immediately, shaking her head. The idea of doing that with Suguru made her feel iffy. 

“I’m game if she is,” Suguru said and offered his palm to Satoru who plopped the berry in his hands. 

Shoko had a nervous giggle come out of her. 

“C’mon, it’s just a game. You can always let go after like one bite. This is truth or dare afterall,” Satoru coaxed. 

“Fine. But I won’t kiss you, not even a peck.” Shoko established her own rule and rolled her eyes. She put out the cigarette on the grass and left the butt there. 

“We’ll see about that,” Suguru laughed and picked at the stem that got thrown over next to the chewed up gum. 

He awkwardly came closer to the young female student and placed the bigger end between his lips. He looked silly, the red end peeking out of his mouth. Suguru attempted at mouthing the words ‘come closer’, but neither Satoru or Shoko understood his words but the context clue carried the point to Shoko. 

She got on her knees sitting on top of her legs and straightened herself out. Suguru was way taller than her, even when he sat. Her face approached Suguru’s who had a pink tint on his cheeks from the alcohol he had drank.  

She opened her mouth and barely bit down on the smaller end, her tongue touching the bumpy texture of the strawberry. 

“Ready. Set. Go!” Satoru exclaimed, motioning finger guns happily. His gaze was completely glued on his two friends. 

Suguru closed his eyes and he started to carefully nibble, closing dangerously on Shoko’s lips. She bit quickly, not really tasting anything and began to pull away in hopes of Suguru calling it quits too. 

Unfortunately she wasn’t fast enough. The last bits of strawberry fell down on Shoko’s lap when Suguru pressed his lips against hers, a faint red trail dripping on her chin. She didn’t move and her eyes widened in shock. Shoko didn’t know what to do so she just held her hands on her lap. 

Suguru pet gently behind the girl’s head kissing her motionless lips. His hand trailed down to her neck and all the way to her shoulder. Shoko felt the sweet taste in her mouth mixing with the alcohol, stranger’s saliva and nicotine as Suguru dragged his hand to the mound of her breast. The warmth emanating from his palm was enough to bring her back to reality and Shoko pushed the bigger guy off of her. 

“Why did you do that?” she snapped and crossed her arms. 

“Oh don’t get angry now. Have a drink and chill out.” Satoru sighed. He shuffled awkwardly and placed the almost empty tote bag on his lap and grabbed a new beer can from there. Shoko narrowed her eyes in suspicion, but did not want to make room for any weird thoughts that would imply even weirder things. “It’s just a joke.” 

“This is not the first time you take jokes too far.”

Shoko looked away from the two boys, disappointment turning into an ache in her heart and wiped her chin clean from the strawberry. She slipped on the ballerinas laying on the ground. 

“Seriously? You’re leaving because of this?” Suguru tilted his head, his voice defensive.

Shoko threw her cigarettes and lighter in her own purse checking the blanket for other stuff she had. 

“Yeah, I am. I’m not having fun anymore.” Her voice was cold as she was attempting to hide the nervous tremble in her body and almost jumped up throwing the bag on her shoulder. She turned around, once again crossing her hands against her chest as if to protect herself and started walking.

“Hey! Don’t you want your blanket with you?” Satoru yelled after her. The two guys sat on the quilt completely bamboozled. 

“Keep it! I don’t need it!” 

She didn’t eat strawberries for the rest of the summer. 

***

“Hey you really should sing this one!” Shoko laughed as she scrolled through the song list.

“Whaat? No that’s not even funny,” you laughed and slapped her arm gently. 

“Is it really not? Or are you just a bore?” Shoko taunted getting ready to put the song on.

“Can we sing something from this?” You pointed at the category called 2000’s hits. 

“I’ll pick something at random and you’re just going to deal with it,” Shoko laughed clearly tipsy too after the multiple drinks you both had drank. 

The disco ball was spinning around the small room painting the walls in hues of blue, red and green. Nanami sat on the couch nursing his whiskey as he stared off into space. The upbeat music filled the room, bass shaking the ground underneath your feet.

It was the first time going out after the events at Gojo’s house. Shoko had basically begged you to come with her to get shit faced complaining that she really needed someone to rant with. You told her that Utahime was right there and would probably love to listen to her, but she claimed that the woman from Kyoto had other plans for the weekend.

After arriving at the karaoke bar you had been taken back after seeing the stoic blonde man at the venue. You weighed the option of immediately leaving in your head, but your conscience did not allow you to do so, after leaving him so rudely hanging in the meeting. When the three of you had gotten your own private room you decided to immediately order shots and drinks with the only goal of getting absolutely black out drunk tonight despite having Nanami there. 

It was honestly rare to see him after work as he had preferred to keep his distance. He was wearing the same clothing he always wore, dress shirt ironed, necktie perfectly hanging against his chest as if he was on the clock. You wouldn’t have been surprised if he were to whip out a cursed tool onto the bar table. 

You clutched onto the microphone singing unevenly as you danced to the beat, half of the syllables disappearing to you being out of breath. Shoko cackled, almost folding over as she kept slapping her thigh eyes watering. She had drunk a few drinks less than you and she had been exceptionally happy even before drinking. Truthfully Shoko was quite a heavy drinker and she definitely should not have been as wasted as what she appeared to be. 

Nanami stared at the both of you, raising the whiskey glass to his lips after checking his wrist watch. 

“Come here! Sing with us!” You yelled to the mic only getting a slightly alarmed expression out of him as he shook his head.

“I think I’m okay with watching you two perform,” he said. 

You pouted but kept on singing, your concentration skills nonexistent. You did not notice the way Shoko glared at him, nudging her head towards you as she pointed the microphone in her hand towards him. 

Nanami cleared his throat under the threatening gaze and clumsily got up. 

“Oh my god! Nanamiii!” You screamed the noise so high pitched that even the speakers were unable to handle it and you could see how Nanami cringed at the sound. 

Shoko squinted her eyes and mouthed the word sing to Nanami. Shoko was not going to deal with you alone. 

The combination of the pop song and Nanami’s voice made you giggle as you hurrayed him happily. He was not a bad singer by any means, but his voice did not fit the song choice. You wondered to yourself, why had you not gotten shitfaced earlier when you had all the good reasons to. 

Shoko decided to take a small break sitting on the spot where Nanami had been earlier and inspected the brown liquid swishing in the glass. She stole a sip from it when Nanami wasn’t watching, not really caring about the fact that it wasn’t her drink.

You grabbed your drink from the table and drank from it and you kept on singing happily, almost jumping around. Nanami looked at you with a terrified expression when you moved side to side with the drink spilling on your hand, but you did not notice the wetness of it. 

“Hey, put that down before you drop the glass,” Nanami said and gently tried to take the glass from you.

“No, I want to keep this,” a pout formed on your face but you still did what he told and turned around swiftly to place the drink on the counter. Your vision was blurry, the lights slightly too bright and you lost your balance tipping over the glass that was already safely on the table. You felt yourself starting to fall but a strong arm snaked around your waist to stabilize you. 

The world felt like it was stopping when the arm around you changed into a tight rope that pressed around your ribcage. The karaoke room changed inch by inch to a vast room with a wall made of windows with a night view of the streets of Tokyo. The shattered drink turned into a broken light bulb on the floor. You felt a hot breath on your skin, but your body had gotten cold. It was as if you had been dunked into ice water, all the earlier excitement completely vanished. The disco ball spun around casting blue lights on the white haired man’s face that ogled you like a piece of meat. The imagery was so vivid and real in your mind that you reacted on instinct, elbowing the man behind you. 

The rope vanished around you as the windows melted to the concrete floor, the shadows of city lights turned back to the tacky illumination of the disco ball. You felt the remnants of cursed energy fizzing out like a soda can as your eyes landed on Nanami, who was slightly hunched over holding onto his side the pain making him grimace. You had no idea how much force you had actually used, but probably quite a lot judging by the way Nanami was reacting. 

Shoko stood there completely still, eyes filled to the brim with worry and confusion. Her lips were ajar and she gulped down wanting to say something, but she did not know what. 

“My apologies. I didn't mean to touch you inappropriately,” Nanami managed to say. The music track played in the background, but it felt empty without a drunken voice guiding it. He was lucky to have good reflexes, instinctually protecting himself from the blow, otherwise Shoko would have had a patient off the clock. 

“Uh,” Your mouth gaped at him hopelessly. He had done nothing wrong. 

“I’ll go for a cigarette,” you blurted out and left the room hurriedly. The long hallway stretched in front of your eyes as you looked at the numbers on karaoke booths, only muted colors flashing through the slightly translucent doors. You leaned on the wall as you dragged your feet forward arriving at the front desk that thanked you for your time, but you did not pay attention to them and turned to your left to stare at the steep stairway.

The steps were made out of wood with a black paint that had started to chip away and the walls were pure red, too bright and intense for your eyes. You focused on the door in front of you and barely saw the red walls around it as they got covered by a dark cloud, your way of seeing more animalistic than human.The only thing in your mind was the need to get some fresh air as emotions threw you around like a shipwreck at the sea. 

You pushed the door open and walked over to a bicycle stand choosing an empty spot where you plopped yourself on. You rocked yourself back and forth as you cried and gripped onto your skin painfully hoping that at least the physical sensation would put an end to your suffering. You started to be more aware of the familiar banging against your skull. 

The door of the karaoke bar opened as Shoko walked outside, her face now serious, resembling more the woman she was at work than the friend giggling at drunk people's jokes. 

“Hey. You forgot this inside.” She handed you your bag.

You wanted to answer something but you could not as the words got stuck to your throat. Your world flashed back and forth between sensations that you weren’t supposed to feel in this moment. The guilt and sadness ate you alive, nipping away from your vitals the more you tried to push them down. 

Shoko placed a cigarette between her lips and lit it up and offered it to you. You took it gladly off her hands inhaling the sweet smoke, but you almost ended up suffocating on it as your nose was too stuffed to handle it. Even the menthol taste was unable to help you with this issue. Shoko opened the green box once more to get herself a smoke as well. 

She took a drag out of it and watched your shuddering figure. 

“I saw you in the hallway with Geto. Something happened at Gojo’s right?”

You lifted your head up mascara running on your cheeks. Had you not been in such a bad state her words would have shocked you. 

“I can’t help you if you don’t want my help.” Shoko crouched down to your level. You stared at her face as she left out a puff of smoke that trailed around her face, the dark eye bags now more visible than ever. 

You choked on your tears once more, now openly wailing on the pavement your fingers digging into the soft flesh of your arm. You dragged your nails across yourself leaving pink trails behind it, the soft tingle covering the areas you had just clawed at. 

“I can’t do this anymore,” you cried, your words hard to decipher as your breath hitched. “I can’t keep on doing this. It’s all my fault. I’m so stupid,” you screamed snot falling onto your shirt. 

“So fucking stupid!” You impulsively pressed the cigarette butt against your thigh melting the cloth away the stinging pain shocking you as your skin shed its layers against the fire. 

You had no shame in your breakdown, frankly you did not even recognize the others that looked in your way speaking with hushed voices around you, as they tightened the grip on their partners hands. “That girl really needs to lay off the drinks,” someone had said loudly. Shoko had wanted to immediately pounce, but she held herself together. She knew that you needed her more. 

“Don’t hurt yourself, when you want to hurt someone else,” her voice was just a whisper. “Can I touch you?” She asked not wanting to trigger you further. You nodded. 

Shoko pulled you into a tight hug and you buried your face on her chest, holding onto her like it was the last thing keeping you afloat. You seeked comfort in her presence. 

“I want to die.” You gripped onto her tighter. “I’m so weak.”

Shoko stroked your hair, her own eyes watering as she listened to you wordlessly. She felt your pain almost just as viscerally as you were experiencing them now.  

“No matter… no matter what I do. I can’t escape them. I just want to be gone. I want to-”

Shoko shushed you and slipped her free hand into her pocket, digging out her phone. Almost ten minutes had gone by. She awkwardly opened her chat with Nanami trying to inform the man who was probably still sitting in their booth waiting for the two of you to come back. 

A male voice disturbed the two of you. “Is everything okay?” 

Shoko pressed her hand on your shoulder pushing herself up from the ground, she whispered to you to stay put, not that you really were in any condition to go anywhere. 

“Good that you’re here. I was just about to text you. Can you get us a taxi?”

“Of course,” he said and opened the app punching in your address that Shoko forwarded to him. He looked so much older and out of place in the busy street. 

This was the kind hearted and lovely Nanami that had forgiven you immediately, after you had punched him in the gut because you were fucked up in the head. The kind hearted and lovely Nanami that you couldn’t look in the eyes, because of a certain man whose name you felt like acid on the tip of your tongue. The thoughts in your head brought fresh tears to your eyes. You dangerously sailed in the deep waters of suicidal ideation, your tired hands opening the forbidden door.  

“It’s going to arrive in five minutes,” Nanami hummed. 

“I think you should go. I’ll handle this,” Shoko said, her voice full of pity. “I’ll keep you posted.”

Nanami nodded in agreement. 

“For what it’s worth, take care of yourself too.” Nanami’s words were carefully chosen, anticipating that you weren’t the only one who needed a hug. 

***

SHOKO’S MEMORIES, YEAR 2006

The beach was filled with people who enjoyed the way the sun spoiled them with its warmth. Shoko was sitting on a towel next to Mei Mei who applied generous amounts of sunscreen on her hand. They sat underneath a parasol that had been propped in the sand, covering them both from the direct sun. The brown haired girl watched as Utahime excitedly threw herself to the water. She had given up on trying to get Shoko and Mei Mei in the water as well. 

“Mei Mei, don’t you have a lot of experience with boys?” Shoko almost whispered and hugged her legs. Her beach shawl swayed when the breeze decided to start playing with the huge piece of cloth. 

“Are you trying to imply something?” Her voice was low and melodic but not at all accusatory. 

“No, nothing like that. I just wanted to ask you something.” Shoko shook her head flustered. “Is it normal for a guy to kiss a girl without asking?” 

Mei Mei burst into laughter. This was the question Shoko was getting all worked up for? 

“Shoko,” Mei Mei’s eyes glimmered softly when she said the younger girl’s name with gentleness that reminded her of a mother tugging a child into bed. “I did not take you for being this innocent,” she teased. 

“I’m not innocent,” the brown haired girl huffed with the unexpected blush decorating her cheeks.

“Did someone do that to you?” Mei Mei tilted her head curiously and offered the sunscreen bottle to Shoko who happily took it to her hands.

“If I tell you, will you promise that you won’t tell anyone?”

“If I’m honest, I don’t think I care enough to tattle. You got me curious now. Tell me,” she hummed as a smile curled on her lips. 

“Well uh.. Suguru kind of kissed me when we were playing truth or dare with Satoru,” Shoko explained . She ran her hand between the warm sand, the grainy texture giving her something else to think about. “It was a stupid dare on Satoru’s part. Dunno why I accepted it.” 

Shoko added that she did not want to kiss him under any circumstances but the boy had managed to go over her boundary with ease. 

“That’s it?” Mei Mei asked, raising her eyebrow. She was almost bewildered at how tame the story was. 

“Yeah.” 

The blue haired woman scoffed.

“Guys think that girls like it when they take control and in a certain sense they are right. Maybe they got their eyes on you? Although, I did think that Suguru and Satoru were..” Mei Mei’s voice trailed off as she thought. “It doesn’t matter.” She concluded. 

“If I were you. I’d go along with it.” Mei Mei suggested. 

“No way. I don’t like them like that. Besides that’s not what I asked for your opinion on.” 

“And?” Mei Mei turned her gaze on Shoko, her eyes hardening as she intensely stared at the younger girl. “Those two men are our generation’s strongest and you’re going to complain that one of them gave you a little kiss?” 

Mei Mei’s melodic voice dropped lower as she showed her true feelings of distaste towards Shoko’s views. 

“If I were you,” she started again, her voice tough and bitter. “I’d be securing my spot by their side and not planning to bring forth meaningless accusations over a game of truth or dare.” 

Shoko was at loss with the things that were being said to her. Now that she thought about it, maybe it wasn’t the best idea to speak with Mei Mei. 

“I did not say I was going to tell anyone,” her voice was squeaky like a little girl’s. 

“But you thought about that right?” Shoko did not deny nor confirm the accusation.

Mei Mei’s face softened. “Shoko, you’re a smart girl. You should know better than to get shaken by two boys, especially when you so eagerly lead them on.“ 

“..I don’t lead them on.”

“Then stop meeting them in your spare time. If you do that, guys will think that you’re willing. You’re not a kid anymore, they do notice that you’re a woman now.” 

She stayed quiet, Mei Mei’s words burning on her skin worse than the summer heat. She did not want guys thinking about her that way. She simply wanted to be their friend and the idea of boys and girls being unable to do that because of bodily differences made Shoko shudder. 

“You want to help your friends, right?” Mei Mei asked when Utahime got out of the water. 

Shoko nodded. 

“Then become a doctor. That’s the best you can do to others with the technique you have.” Her words were probably meant to be comforting, but they made Shoko’s heart sink to the bottom of the ocean. 

“Shookoo!” Utahime ran towards the two girls sitting on the beach towels. 

“Are you willing to swim now?” Sand and water droplets clung onto her radiant skin that the younger girl admired silently. Shoko felt her heart skip a few times in her chest when Utahime offered her hand to her. 

“Sure.” The shy smile stretched on Shoko’s lips. 

“I’ll stay here. But you guys have fun.” Mei Mei announced as she opened the book next to her the pages slightly crumpled up. 

Shoko did not really register Mei Mei’s voice anymore. She grabbed Utahime’s hand and the world slowly faded away around them. 

****

Shoko went through the bathroom nimbly avoiding piles of clothing or takeout bags as she looked through your bathroom cupboard. She found a bag of half used cotton pads and a micelar water from the mess.

The taxi drive had felt like eternity. Your tears had dried before settling in the car and numbness had taken over. Shoko helped you to your bed and said that she’d come back soon, closing the door behind her giving you some space to change into something more comfortable. 

The door opened. Shoko looked at you and sat on the bed. You were using a pillow as a support for your back. The night lamp’s warm color casted shadows around your puffy face. The woman shook the bottle in her hand and poured liquid on the white cotton pad and tilted your face towards hers. 

She pressed the pad on your eyelid carefully letting the mixture soak through the heaps of makeup on your face. You sniffled sadly before speaking. 

“I can do this on my own too.” 

“I want to do this,” her voice was soft as she spoke the makeup remover leaving your skin slightly cold. You simply nodded and admired the way her hair framed her face. 

“You know I’ve had my own bad experiences too,” Shoko said, her face turning to a slight frown. Her mind was sailing in memories that she had given up on trying to understand. 

You were at a loss of words. You wanted to pry, but it felt invasive. 

“With them? Really?” You heard yourself asking as you danced on the line of impropriety.

“Yeah,” Shoko hummed, “but we shouldn’t have this conversation yet. Maybe in the morning, but not now,” she tried to make her voice sound brighter, feel brighter as if it would fix everything. 

“Okay,” you said. Maybe she’s right about this. Shoko discarded the dirty cotton pad, simply placing it on the bedside table. It was at its limits the whole thing turned into the color of your foundation with the small black streaks of your mascara on it, or what was left from it. 

She held onto your face gently for a moment too long even after she was done. You opened your eyes to really look at her. She looked so sad and.. young? Yes young was the right word. She looked like a woman robbed out of something sacred. She had been so happy, so easy to excite in her youth, but now all she seemed to carry was baggage. 

Your drunken mind wanted to close the distance, but something held you back. Maybe it was all the answers that were still being withheld by her, maybe it was the understanding that it’s not the right time yet. 

“Can you stay the night?” you whispered. Shoko breathed in and opened her mouth to say something, but you were faster. “Please? Th-there’s some clothes you can borrow in my closet.” 

She stayed quiet and you waited patiently.

“I’ll stay.” 

You smiled weakly at her and muttered a gentle thank you. She shuffled up from the bed and walked over the closet you had pointed for her. You turned your back to her when you heard the rustling of clothing that she ended up piling up neatly on one of the spare chairs in your bedroom. 

You fluffed up the pillow next to you and lifted up the blanket when she climbed in. You turned your back to her as you lay down on your side. Your hand searched the light switch and then the room was pitch black. 

Shoko awkwardly came closer to you till your back was against hers and she played with your hair idly in the silence. The touch was friendly, your body slumping in relaxation almost immediately. It was nice to have someone there. You had gotten so used to being afraid of the nights. 

“Good night,” she said, her voice hoarse. 

“Night.” 

***

You woke up alone with no trace of the woman in your room. She had gotten up earlier than you and dressed up back to the clothes she had in the bar. You hugged your plush blanket, almost burying your whole face underneath it, not ready to face the day.

Your head hurt and you felt nauseous. How is Shoko even able to do things? You wondered to yourself.

The faint knock on the bedroom door disrupted your thoughts as the door opened slightly. 

“I made a sandwich for you and found some painkillers, if you want any,” she said and you heard her steps further away again. 

You groaned and threw the blanket away from your body, the cold greeting you roughly. 

Your kitchen had gotten miraculously cleaner, the multiple empty beer cans piled in a bag and the dishwasher hummed quietly. You stared at the brown table in front of you that had two sandwiches and glasses of water on it, hunger long gone from your body. 

“You really should drink less.” Shoko picked up another empty can from the counter just to place it in the bag.

“Like you’re the one to talk.” You sat on the chair with its legs squeaking against the floor with your rough treatment. 

You grabbed the pill bottle and rattled out two tablets that you threw in your mouth and drank barely enough water to chase them down. 

“What do you remember?” Shoko asked and sat in front of you. She wasn’t feeling very hungry either. 

“I remember punching Nanami and the talk we had before we fell asleep,” you mumbled, playing with the edges of the slightly crusty lettuce between your sandwich. You had meant to use it on a salad a few days ago, but you were too tired to cook for yourself. Even the simple things were hard. “What did I tell you?”

“Nothing. You were just crying.”

Oh. So it was like that. 

“They assaulted me.” Your face was stern, emotions hidden behind a wall. The words felt weird. It was the first time you had actually said it out loud.

Shoko’s face widened from shock. 

“They what?” 

“Don’t make me repeat it,” you hissed. 

“Sorry, I won’t.” 

The silence felt unbearable and you stuffed your face full of bread just to do something. 

“They did something similar when we were still in school.” Shoko ripped the hangnail painfully from her skin and pressed on the miniscule wound with one of her fingers. 

You chewed the sandwich aggressively without tasting anything, the texture turning to mush in your mouth. 

“Why didn’t you warn me?” Your words were way more accusatory than what you wanted. 

Shoko turned her head to the side looking hurt by your sudden outburst. Her eyebrows scrunched together in pain as she looked for the perfect words, but there were none. 

“You admired them. I didn’t want to take that away from you, and when I realized that I probably should have said..”

“Bullshit, Shoko. It’s been ten years. I deserved to know, you could have-”

“Stop blaming me for their shit!” she yelled. Shoko never yells. 

You fell quiet. You reined in your anger, its hands still attempting to reach out to anything it could latch on. She was right. It’s not her burden to bear, but you still couldn’t help but feel powerless, when there could have theoretically been someone who could have told you to not go there. 

“Sorry,” you simply said just to drop the topic. Shoko sighed defeatedly and pushed her head briefly against her hands. She understood the anger, she really did. 

“They drugged me and then raped me together. I don’t remember a lot from it. I fought back – well attempted to,” your voice shook as you spoke. 

The brown haired woman simply looked at you with silent empathy. 

“Did you at least get one good punch in?” 

Your lips curled into a downhearted smile. The memory of your feeble fight playing in your mind, the weakness and despair of it all, a futile attempt of a prey to preserve their life just one moment longer. 

“Not a single one,” you laughed hollowly as one tear rolled on your cheek and your lips trembled. “But I did rip some hair out of Geto at the school,” you tried to brighten your voice and be brave. 

Shoko’s eyes watered and she answered your smile with her own. 

“Good.” 

The almost happy expression faded from your face. Everything hurt, never had you ever thought to be in a situation like this where you were exchanging devastation with your friend like gifts on christmas. 

“Why did you stay? Even Nanami left for a while, you could have done the same.” Your question was gentler this time. 

Shoko pondered for a minute, not sure of her answer either. 

“Because this is the only way I could help. I had you and Utahime and I didn’t want to leave you two behind. Besides what else was I supposed to do? I’ve been given a technique that can save many if I choose right. Had I left a lot more could have died because I wasn’t here — all because of what two men did,” she tried to put her thoughts together. 

“There’s a reason why Utahime doesn’t like Gojo,” Shoko blurted out and played with her hair. 

You took a careful sip of water as if you were trying to carefully dissect the different flavors of Shoko’s words. 

“What do you mean? Did they do something to her as well?” 

“No. I just mean that women know, you know? I think it’s in our blood to recognize danger. That’s one of the reasons she despises him. But this is just my thought, not an universal truth,” Shoko wondered out loud. 

She breathed in once again as if the words she was about to speak were too painful. 

“I think sometimes us women have to carry the atrocities of men. There’s no rhyme or reason why they do certain things. At least that’s what I’ve been telling myself. I never went through what you did, but I can’t say that I’m surprised,” she mused. “I’m sorry though. What you went through. It’s not right.”

Her brown eyes stared at you expectantly. You chewed on your lip nervously and tapped the empty plate with your nail, the small tinkle sound working as a metronome. 

“No, it’s not,” you huffed. But it feels like it’s my fault. If I had not gone there, if I had not idolized them – loved them even. This wouldn’t have ended this way. It was easier to leave those words in your head. 

“So what now?” You looked at Shoko, your eyes pleading, asking for answers, guidance, anything she would be able to provide to you. You knew there was nothing clear cut Shoko could say, but god how you wished that someone would know what to do. 

Shoko shook her head in defeat as if telling you that she wasn’t able to point you on the right track like that. 

“Whatever you want. You can stay or go, but you don’t have to carry it alone,” Shoko said, her face gentle. You could still draw out the remnants of the young girl from the year two thousand and six on her features. The lines were almost faded but they were still there. 

You found kinship in her even if neither of you had shared the full story of what had happened. You weren’t there yet and you weren’t ready. Instead the two of you skirted around words unspoken finding solace of at least having someone who could understand. It was up to the both of you what to make out of the confessions of the past. 

[aliteralchicken]

i had an idea for one of those Tim never joins the family aus but it involved two of my fav robin 1993 chracters Danny and Dana

Tim’s not Robin so his mom dies in Haiti as normal and his dad goes into a coma, but rather than living dies very shortly after

Three things happen that will become inportant later:

Dana was supposed to be Jacks physiotherapist before he passed away

she had registered to become an adoptive parent but, being so young, expected it to happen a few years down the line or get a much younger child

Tim is put with Dana, this is completely coincidental and unrelated to her would be connection to his dad

The Drakes company gets sold on and Tim will inherit this most of this money when he turns eighteen

Tim and Dana get along great as per canon but Tim does eventually end up going to boarding school, Brentwood academy, and there meeting Danny temple

because he’s not Robin in this timeline things go a little differently, Danny goes back to finish school with Tim before joining the cult of the cobra as a leader officially, and Tim goes with him

Tim moves in with the cult because he and Danny fell in love at high school, cult and homophobia be damned and move in together at a cult base, he still calls Dana frequently, they both still care about each other very much, Tim just moved out young

now cut to the bats:

Dick is looking though his old pictures and finds the one and that had been taken the last night of the flying Graysons, as per canon the family with them in the picture (the Drakes) had sent it to him and he wants to see if he can find out who they are, so after all these years he can thank them in person

Bruce recognizes them as the Drakes who sadly passed away a few years ago, but according to a quick search by Oracle their son Tim should still be alive

should being there operative word

Tim hasn’t been seen in Gotham since he was seventeen, seven years ago, and any records of moving away are sketchy at best

they talk to some of the last people who should’ve seen him, his old Brentwood classmates and skater friends, who are very closed off about any questions asked (Kip, Wes and Buzz are just trying not to out Tim and Danny because why else would anyone be asking about their time at Brentwood?)

Steph tries a similar approach with Tim’s best friend Ives, she thought she’d have better luck since they went to school together, but is getting the same very vague and cold responses (Ives is also under a similar impression as Kip, Wes and Buzz)

so armed with the knowledge that

No one is giving any information on Tim Drake or his new family

Tim would’ve had access to a lot of money on his next birthday, that until then would be held with his only next of kin

Dana Winters who was supposed to be the caregiver of Jack Drake, who passed not shortly before, ended up adopting his son despite no previous experience with adoption

the bats, being detectives but not omniscient come to the very wrong conclusion that rather than having sketchy moving documents because of his involvement with the cult of the cobra, Tim is a missing persons case, presumed dead

their main suspect, Dana Winters

motive, the Drake fortune

and well you can’t just start investigating and accusing the mother in law of a leader of the cult of the cobra of a heinous crime without a few snakes catching wind of that, and god forbid what will happen if you make her cry

[fittsysart]

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babies, children, dark content, anthropomorphic animals, drugs/drug usage

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[atomicpowered]

So I watched Hazbin. Let the record show that I am not a hater unjustly or unduly. I will put in the effort to fully experience the thing people are dumping on to see if it's legitimate. I went in with as blind a mein as possible given that I am Online and dialed in to various goings on in my swamp. My curiosity finally got the better of me.

I know some of the background of the show and the creator of said show, I have heard rumblings from the edges of my dashes and things passing megafauna-like underneath me. These cries of 'worst fandom ever!!' are pretty overwrought for what, by my eyes, is the pretty standard slew of agitated bees that follows this kind of thing.

Before I get into some thoughts about the show I do know that there was some talk about people not being properly compensated for their work on the newest, hottest, invader zim animated television programme. I have heard various things about what vivziepop (might be spelling this wrong I'm on a fight and bored so I can't check) has done, what fans of this show are capable of blah, blah— I get it. When you've been around the loop of this stuff as long as I have you know what many fandoms and sole operators are capable of. By my metric these examples are all pretty bad. Not the worst but not the best either. Definitely stand out from the other fan based background radiation on websites and in real life.

But I'm gonna talk about only what I've directly seen (the amazon joint and youtube pilot) for both brevity and my sanity.

I sell at conventions for a living, I've done so for years and have also been at that long enough to see swells and ebbs of trends that match up with their digital counterparts. Hazbin is… special. Not often do you see merchants throwing table balance to the winds to have MULTIPLE Hazbin (Helluva thrown in there too they're basically the same thing) monocultures for what they are hawking. I get the drive behind it too, no shade, make your bag, sex sells, but I can't overstate how rare this is! Even during the heyday of Genshin (lessening now) you still had different properties orbiting the cash cow on your display. Nobody just brought one thing and one thing only.

Now, on to what I have to say about the show. I'm sure some of these points have been echoed by a pngtuber with crossed arms but I feel compelled to throw my two bits in.

The show is all together, not good. Not horrific (barring some specific instances), but firmly overwhelmingly mediocre.I watched all of it, including the pilot, and besides occasional drama crossing my dash didn't interact with it much beyond that until now. Now that I have, I am very confident with my pre-watch assertions I made based on spitballing what I saw represented on and off line. I'm good at this kinda thing, you see certain patterns emerge from the data and you can make some accurate generalizations no problem. I frequently withheld a question when I would see groups of 14 year olds in pinstripe suits looking at my prints at weeaboo united or whatever convention I was at that particular weekend. Why are kids watching this show?

I know Why kids are watching the show, Hazbin is made (probably unwittingly) to appeal to kids! This is a neutral statement, I'm not saying it was to entrap kids or anything like that. The kids are a side effect drawn to what Hazbin Is. Not a target.

The appeal comes from a few main points. The characters are all designed like babies' first OCs, they drip little details and playground style power layouts. (My mermaid tail is blue and rainbow and I can shoot lighting and I have a pet sea turtle so obviously it is good or better than your flame covered tail and psychic abilities.) They are all based on a template that is easy to replicate and iterate on with enough play in secondary characteristics to make a bonafide example of some prime Do Not Steal. (Think Sonic, My Little Pony, Homestuck.) This playbook of style is sugar on a kitchen floor to ants.

The characters all say and do stuff with no deeper implication or subtlety, conflicts are raised and finished in minutes if not at least by the end of the episode. They have large gestures, big emotions, little depth, and huge expressions. They are stage acting, and the flat compositions in the storyboarding and directing reflect that. They are tell and almost never show. They walk on the screen and go I'M SAD or I'M MAD with no real subtle work. Yes there's sex, drugs, and alcohol, but, like. Conceptually you easily have characters acting like they're in saturday morning cartoons.

The overacting is great when you're sakuga brained like I am but it is so all the time and in your face that it just ends up feeling like those twitter videos of 60fps interpolated anime openings. (God I fucking hate those things.) Every character is moving and talking and wiggling around so much that it's like parents trying to catch the attention of a crying baby with hastily jingled keys. Even the swearing and the depictions of the more devious acts are so… juvenile. Everything feels like a combination of boys talking in hushed giggles at the back of the bus and what you scribbled in the back of your history notes among the drawings of the best realistic eye you could put out at the time. Like I highly doubt any of the audience knows what 'bolivian marching powder' is or does. And I don't think its main writer does either? Like one of the characters is in high profile porn, like at least make his vice a designer drug? It's like when kids speculate on what it would be like to be white girl wasted with barely trying a sip of Mom's vodka out of the cabinet.

So you got the combo of these character designs which mirror every tumblr sexyman since the bronze age and a very paint by numbers barbie house of characters. Of COURSE it bags kids like fortnight und cola. But like, why are people in charge just letting this rock? Is more my question. Who is letting Timmy get at a new glossary of stuff to yell at his substitute teacher? Don't answer, this is rhetorical. I'm all for letting kids self select but I kinda worry about this one and what it's doing to the teens. I'm sure someone more willing to explore that has said smarter stuff than me. But what I can see is you have the volatile type of person (kid or not) who is attracted to what I just listed grappling with badly handled (fumbled most of the time, let's be honest) adult stuff. This is the recipe in how you get a fandom that acts like this one acts.

My next thoughts concern Concepts and Themes. The ones here of heaven and hell are just kinda skated over as set dressing. In fact everything in the show is more like the plato's allegory of shit to stand on. It's basic on basic. Hell being an alright bunch and heaven being snooty know it alls has been done, demons that are niceys has been done, even interpersonal relationships set with a backdrop of a home for wayward characters has been done. Like again color by numbers isn't BAD! Just because these things have all been done doesn't mean you can't learn from and uplift your own idea with what came before. In fact, when you're having trouble making something a quote always comes to mind.

Wholesale ripping a chunk out of red letter media here: "Now I need to explain that I don’t think that all movies," ((Shows for my use case)) "-should be the same, or conform to the same kind of structure, but it works well in certain kinda movies. So unless you’re the Coen Brothers, David Lynch, Paul Thomas Anderson, Stanley Kubrick, Alfred Hitchcock, Lars Von Trier, David Cronenberg, Gus Van Sant, Quentin Tarantino, John Waters, Wes Anderson, Sam Peckinpah, Terry Gilliam, Martin Scorsese, Werner Herzog, or Jim Jarmusch, you really shouldn’t stray away too far from this kind of formula."

It's clear that this show has its roots in musicals. (Not just in the presence of musical interludes, the talky bits too.) Musicals often are color by numbers stories that expertly perform these fundamentals. They are a perfectly cooked egg. Simple, but a test. If you can't do the basics you cannot be expected to deliver on anything more complicated! It's also obvious that Hazbin's nest was lined with disney musicals specifically. I have my qualms about disney, especially the disney of today, but that's not for right now. Disney by and large knows how to color in said book to the point that it's a formula, and if you can't study this formula to excel at the formulaic you kinda deserve the crit.

You have rules and lore set by your world and you don't follow through with anything, your plots all revolve around introducing the coolest character yet or making your favorites even cooler but not like. Actually. Exemplifying what the hell is going on. I know people here are going to counter that they didn't have time it was only a handful of episodes with no knowledge if they were gonna get more, but so much of the show is donated to bad dialogue that goes nowhere, points and facts that the audience knows that are reiterated half a dozen times for no reason. They had TONS of time.

While I'm on the subject of dialogue, the dialogue is one of the things that is not mediocre but straight up bad. I already listed why above but to cite a specific example of something I haven't touched on, dear god you cannot lampshade your own bad writing by having the characters calling it bad. It is Marvel style spandex is stupid and comics are silly am I right guys 'jokes'. This 'joke' happens at least three different times in vitro and it made me audibly groan every time.

I am not a musical person nor am I musically trained but many of the songs are lyrically poor, abruptly plonked into the narrative, unfitting compositionally or, uh, poorly sung.The cast of VAs is insane, (looking at you David) and also often badly vocally directed. They are trying their best with the script but I'm more talking about how they are mixed. I found it hard to understand what was being said much of the time due to technical failures. Guys like Keith David can phone in a performance and Sell it to me better than some of the other actors putting their foot into it and that juxtaposition is also a form of whiplash that the show excels in. Vaggie is probably the worst offender for not being able to pick up the slack in this regard.

The characters being over and somehow under done lies also in their designs and the style that the show wants. I could talk for days about how much I dislike the sticks with a bunch of junk hanging off of them type of look. Nightmare to animate, no good character variation. I didn't even know what some characters were supposed to BE or represent. Alistor is a deer? Charlie is a faun of some sort? Where? Huh?

Too much red!!!! Too much!!!!! Red backgrounds, red characters, everything is a MESS, this is one of the things that actually gets me mad. There are no values! Everything fades into visual noise, which when you pair it with the animation constantly gesticulating at you and everything being bolted on with spirit halloween leftovers makes a leaf and stick tornado. (Nitpicky as well but pick a line weight and color and stick with it.) When blue or yellow came on screen I would audibly shout in excitement.

Multiple characters have tophats. Stop.

I'm not going to go into what I would do to fix the plot or design documents, I know it's been done to death.

God, where was I, I think I'll just finish this off with thoughts about the characters and then open the floor to comments or questions. I don't mean to make this a proper essay.

Charlie: I really dislike her, she's a weak character that has the IM TELLING HOW IM FEELING AND HOW YOU, THE VIEWER, IS SUPPOSED TO FEEL disease bad. Her design is one of the worst. I don't root for her much! Which is bad because she's the main character and I'm at least supposed to feel for her?

The snake guy: He had an arc. He's probably the most endearing.

Angel dust: the pathos they tried with his story beats is ruined by whipping back and forth between irreverent and WAY too heavy handed. People cried? What? Also the pig showing up for its two appearances to sell irl plushies was bad. His back and forth with other characters is hard to watch, and his capitulation to be better both feels forced and confusing. I don't think they know what to do with him. Why is porn bad in hell.

Husk: hi keith david. Bad design so fucking busy. They scaled him back from the pilot and I still flinch thinking about those tie downs. Why is alcoholism bad in hell.

Tv guy: better episode time than most of the other characters to the point where I suspect multiple writers to have been put in the time out chair

Nifty: Gir redux but with none of the heart

Vaggie: they were going for a wholesome lesbian relationship or toxic codependency and managed to do neither well. She has the weakest vocal performance, the name thing is bad, I thought she was supposed to be based off an owl or bird of prey but apparently not?

Mimzy: why are you even here

Lucifer: design so bad he falls into the background when he should stand out THE MOST. No episode, saying you're depressed and estranged from your daughter isn't an emotive beat you have to Show that by doing things.

There's so much I could say about carmella, the overlords, the other V's, adam, heaven in general, the over-designed incidentals, the exorcists, but I'm TIRED.

Alistor.

Man. This fucking guy.

His ethos is one of the worst in that hes just dripping in conflicting ideas from toe to head. He's based off voodoo? He's the 'coolest' one?!?!? He's word salad. Eldritch, forest, radio, dapper, fox like, the teeth, the staff, the vocal filter, he's a deer????! cannibal chaotic neutral shadow manipulator play pretty. He takes valuable screen time from everyone to blow keyframes and my time in being the 'coolest' most bad ass for real bro made in a lab to clinch a demographic annoyance.

Where do you go when you die in hell? If you died in heaven do you go back there? Nobody tried to crack getting into heaven before? Expediting a culling six months when you do it every year isn't as punitive as it comes off, where are the steaks? Why does charlie care so much about hell? Where are 'her people'? Why does charlie know that heaven wants to quell an uprising? Why don't angels know they can be hurt? Why does Vaggie not know? Why aren't people in hell doing like. Actual for real bad things most of time? You have a whole town of cannibals, something that's pretty rare, but barely anyone on any kind of watch list. Why is Lucifer estranged when he's clearly just awkward and it gets better almost immediately? Why does charlie not know anything about her country despite living there?

Auhhhhgh okay I'm done, I'm done. Like I'm frustrated okay!!!

[sharpedgedfool]

Sonic's gang, lore under the cut!

Knux is the Captain, his normal crew consists of Tails, Amy and Sonic. Stick's is a bit feral, she's a castaway they rescue but she refuses to go on land again so she ends up part of the crew.

Knuckles has a link to the water, Echidna are linked to Chaos so he can steer a ship through rough storms better than anyone. He's not looking for riches, he's trying to steal back Echidna artefacts that have been pillaged by other pirates. He's one of the only Echidna above water, but still dawns a ton of his clan's garb to keep them close to him. Because their crew operates differently from most pirates, they've got a good reputation across the world, often seen as a sign of good luck when they dock at a harbour as they treat the locals nicely, they've helped defend fishing boats caught off guard by other pirates more than once (they're friends with Big because of this).

Tails is their cartographer, and handles most of the repairs (be it the ship or any of their gear) and he built Sonic's prosthetic. Tails' had been captured by other pirates and was rescued by Knuckles' crew, and by the time they brought him to shore he was asking to stay with them - he'd no family waiting for him at home so they took him in.

Amy's a powerhouse - she's good with talking to people and just as good swinging an axe that has most people running at the sight of, she's Knux's first mate. She's got a temper, but is a huge romantic, she says the only reason she's a pirate is so her love story has some drama in it, she used to travel on land a lot and knows a ton of stories. She picked up tarot cards at some point and often does a reading every night - she's managed to warn Knux of storms before even the seas tell him.

Sonic's mostly just on lookout, he's usually hanging around (napping) above the sails - as far away from the water as possible. Knux always threatens to toss him overboard for not doing enough around the ship but he has a suspicion that Sonic grants the ship a boon for strong winds that always seem to be in their favour. He used to have shaky legs, but he's gotten used to water over the years and can put up a fierce fight - though he swears he's better on land.

The Chaotix is Knux's old crew, they all used to work on the same ship. They've since split to do freelance detective work but they remain close allies to Knux's crew. Vector has his own ship (albeit a small one), Espio and Charmy help him out on the water whilst Ray and Mighty work on shore as an informant.

Vanilla and Cream run a market stall they often frequent, Amy's good friends with them so they have special packages ready for them to pick up in the middle of the night without fuss, they also have two Chao they're keeping safe with them - Chao aren't widely known as they typically stay underwater but Knux has told them how to care for them properly.

[lieutenantfloyd]

Pizza Hut and Silent Observation (Also Known as Stalking) - Deadpool x Reader

Word Count: 3.5k

Summary: Through a series of strange but undeniably on-brand events, Wade Wilson has found his opposite—and falls in love with them along the way. But as they both reckon with their feelings, reader pulls away, though this only hurts them both.

Warnings: fluff, opposites attract, attempts at humor, violence, Wade had ADHD, mercenary! Reader, language, mutual pining and a bit of mutual stalking, gentle tapping of the fourth wall, and Wade being Wade.

Authors Note: As much as I love all the Poolverine x Reader stuff, I’m craving some solo Wade x Reader! So consider this to be me being the change I wanna see in the world lol

Read on AO3

A series of strange but undeniably on-brand events had led to Wade Wilson finding his polar opposite—The soft, quiet, and sweet to his rough, loud, and explicit.

For reasons unknown even to himself, Deadpool swears to keep his distance. Yet the more he tries to avoid you, the more you seem to cross paths. Keeping out of each other's way when you wind up trailing the same target quickly morphs into shared glances across bars and grocery store aisles. Wade is all too aware of the universe's fucked up sense of humor, and when he quite literally runs into you for a third day in a row, he swears that the sweet, melodic laughter that graces his is coming from the universe itself.

Despite the stolen kills and strange lack of conversation, Wade quickly grows fascinated by you. As you approach your sixth month of stilted interactions, the last remaining bits of optimism he has leave him wondering if this could potentially be the slowest slow burn of all time, only for those dreams to be crushed by the weight of everything that lies beneath his fancy spandex suit.

Nonetheless, his feelings about you—and how you operate in the field—grow into something far more than a simple curiosity. It becomes a wide-eyed admiration with an increasingly lewd undercurrent. You're everything he’s not. Clean and efficient with a one-track mind that never strays from the mission at hand.

Or at least that's what he tells himself.

-

It took exactly three meetings with the spandex clad mercenary to realize he might be the single most obnoxious person on the planet, and another five before you were willing to admit that he was also the single hottest.

You had always been someone who built their walls high and kept their defenses higher. It's why you found it so strange that the first crack in your emotional fortress was brought on by a mouthy mercenary taking a bullet for you without a second thought and making a joke about pegging with what should have been his dying breath.

His strange effect on you was something you used to justify your actions over the past several months. Frequenting his favorite bars and choosing to pursue the targets you knew he'd go after was simply just reconnaissance. You needed to know the why and how of what he made you feel, and getting close to him—while swearing it was for professional reasons only—felt like the best course of action. Sure, your heart raced every time you spotted him across the room, but that was only because you were satisfied by getting the timing of your meeting right. Maybe you let your eyes wander a little when he sunk his baby knife into the neck of your target, but you kept your thoughts of what else he kept hidden in that suit of his to yourself like any other well respecting person.

You weren't a stalker.

This wasn't stalking.

A grey area? Maybe. But definitely not stalking.

Or at least that's what you told yourself.

-

It was during your eighth month of silent observation that Wade realized that wherever he went, you were his sweet little shadow that kept him distracted. You had spoken to him barely a handful of times, yet you were always there to listen. You didn't care that he couldn't sit still or that he quite literally never shut up. No, you—his silent but darling angel—laughed at his jokes and brought him fidget toys. Alternatively, he never pressured you to speak up or forced you (too far) outside of your comfort zone.

The mutual respect between you grew larger and more profound until you were practically attached at the hip, becoming an unofficial duo both in the field and not. He'd always feel like he didn't deserve you, but at this rate, you were practically all he had left.

Logic—along with everyone in your lives—said that you should hate each other's guts. Yet from the first moment you met, You both just made complete sense to each other. You didn't ask to see what he hid underneath his mask and he didn't ask why you bought your groceries at the shop by His and Blind Al's apartment even though it was 45 minutes away from your own place. Things were simple. Good, even. But they still weren't enough for either of you.

-

He thinks about you constantly.

Thinks about you so much that he finds himself googling 'Can a person be a hyperfixation?' and 'signs you've found your soulmate' at 3am. Yet as much as his feelings for you have grown, whatever you had felt in return seemed to have disappeared along with your presence in his life.

Now what little focus he had was slipping. All because you had pulled away.

He'd taken more than a few knives to the skull over his last several missions, but the target he'd been tracking all year had finally made a home of an unmarked grave. He should feel excited—or at least somewhat satisfied—but he just felt numb. It'd been weeks since he'd last heard from you, but that didn't stop him from feeling phantom buzzes from his phone or searching crowds for your lovely, angelic face.

He'd even stopped by your place a few times. He forced himself to knock before picking the locks and entering your home. His genuine feelings of concern and abandonment were replaced by a gnawing pit in his stomach when he realized that your cozy apartment had become sterilized and vacant. He stayed there, frozen in place, for far longer than he would ever care to admit.

Deep down he'd always known this would happen. He was a depraved fuck up at best, and nothing good ever stuck around for him. But he thought—no, he knew—you were different. Only then did Wade admit that he was obsessed, if not teetering on the edge of stalkerish. He knew this was a glaring sign that he should back off, but Deadpool is anything, he is a man of maximum effort.

So he started waiting. Hoping that maybe you'll miss his unending self-deprecation and come back for him.

-

You promised to keep your distance. Wade was a good, albeit complicated, man who deserved something better. Someone who completed him. Who matched his energy and didn't forge a friendship based on an act of failed reconnaissance.

You'd been clean and clear of anything regarding him for over a month and were finally feeling good enough to head back to your old apartment and turn in your keys.

If you hadn't stopped in the hallway to reread the text from your landlord stating to leave the keys on the kitchen counter, you would have never noticed the shiny metallic scratches around the lock. Your line of work ensured that you knew instantly that it'd been picked, but you still moved in closer for a better look.

Whoever had broken in was either too inexperienced to know how to cover their tracks or brazen enough not to care. Given that the apartment was tucked away on the sixth floor with a freshly posted 'for rent' sign on the door, you couldn't see why this would be a random attack. You'd kept to yourself while living here, and you didn't have any valuables your more shady friends could be searching for. These were the facts you told yourself as you slipped the keys back into your pocket and ignored how only the latter, more reckless possibility had your heart racing.

Your typical evening plans were pushed aside in favor of pulling the security camera footage and settling in for an unconventional movie night.

Most of the tape was mind-numbingly boring, but your eyes were glued to the screen nonetheless. Searching for any piece of evidence to confirm your suspicions. Just as tiredness began to seep its way into your shoulders, you spot him. Even if he wasn't wearing the suit, you'd recognize him just by the way he dances into frame and gives a sarcastic wave at the camera. Seeing Wade again—even just in video format—fills you with so much affection that how you managed to leave him alone this long feels like a damn miracle.

-

The day of your return was unnotable in every way.

The sky is blue, the weather is mild, and you'd been tailing your target since before sunrise.

The job you were currently working requires fast, efficient work with no loose ends left behind. It was perfect for you, but the payout was enough to catch the eye of every mercenary in the local area and beyond. This was something you were banking on—the perfect way to say "I'm sorry" and "let's start over" to Wade without showing up cryptically on his doorstep.

The target pulls into a parking garage, and you know instantly that this is the other opportunity you've been hoping for. You follow them inside and park a few spaces away. You wait for them to walk in view of your rear view mirror before exiting the car. Their pace is relaxed and unalert as you fall in step with them—exactly how you prefer it—which giving you the green light to move in.

Your footfalls are silent as you close the small distance between you, weapon in hand. Hyperfocused and only a step behind them, you nearly run square into their back when they suddenly freeze and gasp.

"I'm on a tight schedule and you know what you did, so let's just cut to the chase, K?"

A second later, a blade lodges through their chest. As it retreats, their body falls limply to the ground, leaving your position completely exposed. Wade's eyes land on you instantly, and the way the whites of his mask widen has something in your chest growing tight.

"Hey," you stutter, thrown off guard by his sudden appearance. Though with everything you know about him, a part of you honestly should have prepared better for this.

"For what it's worth, I've been super busy since you decided to up and abandon me. So busy that I've only had time to cry twice in the last twelve hours," he says, slipping his katana back into place with precision.

"I'm sorry."

"Sorry? You're gonna have to do better than that to get back into my good graces, sugar plum."

His humor remains as unwavering as always, but the edge to his usually carefree voice betrays a glimpse of his inner workings. If it hadn't been obvious before, you know now, without any doubt, that your attempt to protect his feelings had only done the opposite.

"I didn't want to hurt you, Wade."

"Well, you failed spectacularly!" He deadpans.

You breathe in sharply and take a cautious step closer to him as his hands rise to rest on his hips. "I like you, you know. Which for me is…a lot."

You can practically see the wheels turning in his head as he speaks. As if he's holding back his true feelings for once.

"It took me far too long to admit it to myself, but I like you too, Wade." He's shockingly quiet as you speak, and the silence drags on for several seconds afterward.

"Do you maybe… like like me?" He asks in a soft voice that has you gearing up for his inevitable teasing. You sigh, and he takes up a pose that says he's the picture of innocence. Yeah right.

"Against my better judgment, yes."

His hands fly to his face, and he gasps so loud you wonder if your sliced-and-diced target had suddenly come back to life.

"You're telling me—mouthy merc Wade Winston Wilson—that I created such a stirring in that-" his eyes flash downwards before rising back to yours "great chest of yours that the only way you knew how to deal with it was to ghost me like fucking Casper?!"

Your half baked plan honestly sounds stupid when you hear it out loud, but he's undoubtedly right.

You nod in a mix of amusement and defeat, which sends his fists flying into the air.

"YES!" He screams "I'm finally getting my third-act-confession-in-a-hallmark-channel-romance-movie moment! Take that you ableist studio execs!"

You roll your eyes, refusing to believe you're letting his weird quips charm you once again.

"I'm sorry Wade, truly," you say.

Guilt sets in then. While you'll probably always think he deserves better—or at least something different—than what you can give him, you've realized that breaking his heart by leaving hurt you both more than whatever may or may not happen if you let your feelings be known.

You awkwardly poke the stiffening body of your target with the toe of your boot before you take a page out of Wade's book and finally bite the bullet.

"You stole my kill, and that means you owe me dinner," You say with a surprisingly playful air.

Wade shrugs, not missing a beat as he counters you.

"I mean, 'stole' doesn't really apply when it was full on open season for this hit, and you just happened to be too slow."

"Wade, do you want to take me out or not?" You bite back.

"Hold your horses there Dr. House, yes I do!"

"Good." You nod.

"Good?" He questions with mock offense. "That's all you have to say when a handsome man such as I is about to take you out for a candle lit date at the third finest Pizza Hut in the city? I even offered to pay with the dirty money from my most recent kill!" He exclaims, eying the increasingly pale body between of you.

"I should stayed away," you mutter half jokingly under your breath as you turn to leave, knowing that he'd follow.

"What was that, pookie?" He asks, using his gloved hand to cup his ear dramatically as he crosses the distance between you with flourish.

You roll your eyes as he falls in step with you, though it doesn't go unnoticed by the usually unobservant mercenary.

"I saw that, sugarplum," he croons. You snort out an exasperated laugh and nearly repeat your previous eye roll just to stir the pot a little more.

"I know you're probably not as well versed in this whole enemies to lovers, will-they-won't-they dating thing, but I've read enough fanfiction to know that this whole dark and brooding thing you've got going on is supposed to be reserved for others, not you're darling love interest."

"I'm glad that you admit that I'm the main character," You laugh. Wade's eyes widen as he realizes the mistake he's made. Yet instead of pressing the issue, he slips his phone out of his spandex suit—where it's kept is something you don't care to think about—and calls in the kill.

You continue on walking, heading nowhere in particular. You’re just happy to have Wade by your side once again. The call comes to an end quickly, the phone disappears once more, and he loops one of his strong arms around your shoulders.

"So, pookie, about that dinner date…"

You raise your eyebrows instantly, recognizing that his tone of voice as the one he uses right before dropping bombshells.

"The money is on a thirty six hour hold—a surprisingly formal rule given our shady choice of gig—so would you mind paying? I'd tell you I'd pay you back but we both know I won't." He smiles innocently.

You scoff, only for a soft smile to bloom on your own face.

"You better sweep me off my feet," you tease, wrapping your own arm around him as you both make your way through the busy city streets. Cars race by and neon lights flicker overhead, reflecting in the puddles left by the afternoon rain.

He shoots you a sideways grin from beneath his mask, "Sweep you off your feet? That sounds like soooo much work. I'll just stick to charming you with my usual irresistible appeal instead."

You snort sarcastically. "irresistible appeal? You mean being an insufferable pain who always leaves me behind to clean up your messes?"

You turn the corner, arriving at the restaurant Wade had promised. You'd been here together before, though usually after a job gone wrong, and it had become your go-to hideout whenever your paths crossed.

Sliding into your usual booth, you lean back against the cracking vinyl and cross your arms, almost amused by the situation.

"You stuck me with the bill, so you better order something cheap," you joke as he eyes the menu.

Wade leans forward, his elbows resting on the table beside his now discarded red and black mask.

"Best I can do is treat you to dessert if you behave," He smirks, very much not talking about baked goods or confectionery.

You narrow your eyes at him, though he sees the playful spark swimming beneath them.

"Behave? That's rich coming from you. I'll be lucky if you don't have a knife buried in your head by the time the food comes out." He grins, a flash of mischief dancing across his eyes.

"What can I say? I like to make life exciting. Besides, we can't all be dark and brooding on the sidelines, now can we?"

You roll your eyes before looking back at the menu, an action that causes his smile to grow bigger.

The familiar heavy but playful energy between you has returned as if the past weeks had never happened. Things are comfortable, if not easy. It's the kind of rhythm you and Wade always fall into, no matter how long you spent apart.

From across the booth you see Wade's head fall to the side, his eyes examining you closely.

"What?" You ask, your eyes staying on the menu but not really looking at it.

"You seem…excited. Well, as excited as you can get, really." He says in a surprisingly soft tone.

"Me? Excited? Never."

"Perhaps then you just missed this sexy face? You wouldn't be the first…" he smirks as he looks at you with annoyingly innocent eyes.

"Or perhaps I'm waiting on the other shoe to drop. It seems like every time we're together, one of us is getting shot at or double-crossed. I wouldn't call that particularly exciting." You counter, though you know he's got you pinned.

He huffs out a laugh, leaning back in his seat. "Come on, Wednesday Adams, admit it—You. Missed. Me."

You glance up at him, meeting his gaze. There was something disarming about the way he looked at you, like you weren't just two messed up mercenaries thrown into the same mess over and over again. Like there was something more to be had than all your teasing and banter. And as much as you hated to admit it, he was right. You had missed him.

"I missed this place, not you," you deflect, though your smile betrays you.

"You missed this shithole?" he replies, eyes twinkling. "I knew your standards were low—I mean you are on a date with me after all—but holy fuck."

You shake your head, unable to stop the laugh that bubbles up. "Hey! This isn't a date!"

He leaned in, his voice dropping lower as it fills with that infuriating charm he's known for. "Oh, don't you worry pookie. This is just the first step in my plan to date the hell outta you."

For a moment you sit there, the noise of the restaurant fading as your eyes lock with his wild ones. A truth hangs between you—no matter how many times you tried to downplay it, there was an undeniable electricity that always sparked between you. Something crazy and unpredictable, not unlike your daily lives.

You shake your head. "If it's a date, then you're paying," you say, finally breaking the tension with a happy smirk.

"Fine," he says with a huff, drawing out the last syllable as he leans back in his seat. "But next time, you're buying the drinks."

"Next time?" You ask, raising your eyebrows.

"Oh, you know there's always going to be a next time," His eyes gleam as you let out a soft laugh, glancing at him with a mixture of exasperation and fondness.

"You're maddening, you know that?" You say, though there's no bite behind your words.

He gasps dramatically once more. "Is this the part of the movie where you say I drive you crazy before we go back to my place and have a heated makeout session?!"

For a moment you just watch him, eyebrows furrowed but a lazy smile hanging on your lips. The noise of the restaurant and the city beyond it fades into the background. It was almost funny how you and Wade always ended up back here, side by side, cracking jokes and deflecting feelings you both refused to admit you had.

Yet as his hand drops onto the table it brushes softly against yours, and you can't imagine a world in which you pull away. He's incessant, annoying, exasperating, along with a million other words, but he's here with you despite everything. A gesture that proves that maybe a bit of humor is exactly what you are missing from your life.

[greatworldwar2]

• USS Intrepid

USS Intrepid (CV/CVA/CVS-11), also known as The Fighting "I", is one of 24 Essex-class aircraft carriers built during World War II for the United States Navy. She is the fourth US Navy ship to bear the name. Commissioned in August 1943, Intrepid participated in several campaigns in the Pacific Theater of Operations. Because of her prominent role in battle, she was nicknamed "the Fighting I", while her frequent bad luck and time spent in dry dock for repairs—she was torpedoed once and hit in separate attacks by four Japanese kamikaze aircraft—earned her the nicknames "Decrepit" and "the Dry I".

The keel for Intrepid was laid down on December 1st, 1941 in Shipway 10 at the Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co., Newport News, Virginia, days before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the United States' entrance into World War II. She was launched on April 26th, 1943, the fifth Essex-class aircraft carrier to be launched. She was sponsored by the wife of Vice Admiral John H. Hoover. In August 1943, she was commissioned with Captain Thomas L. Sprague in command before heading to the Caribbean for shakedown and training. She thereafter returned to Norfolk, before departing once more on December 3rd, bound for San Francisco. She proceeded on to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, arriving there on 10 January, where she began preparations to join the rest of the Pacific Fleet for offensive operations against the Imperial Japanese Navy.

Intrepid joined the Fast Carrier Task Force, then Task Force 58 (TF 58), for the next operation in the island-hopping campaign across the Central Pacific: the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign. On January 16th, 1944, Intrepid, her sister ship Essex, and the light carrier Cabot left Pearl Harbor to conduct a raid on islands in the Kwajalein Atoll from January 29th to February 2nd. The three carriers' air group destroyed all 83 Japanese aircraft stationed on Roi-Namur in the first two days of the strikes, before Marines went ashore on neighboring islands on January 31st, in the Battle of Kwajalein. That morning, aircraft from Intrepid attacked Japanese beach defenses on Ennuebing Island until ten minutes before the first Marines landed. The Marines quickly took the island and used it as a fire base to support the follow-on attack on Roi. After the fighting in the Kwajalein Atoll finished, on February 3rd, Intrepid and the rest of TF 58 proceeded to launch Operation Hailstone, a major raid on the main Japanese naval base in the Central Pacific, Truk Lagoon. From the 17th to 19th of February, the carriers pounded Japanese forces in the lagoon, sinking two destroyers and some 200,000 GRT (gross register tonnage) of merchant ships.

The strikes demonstrated the vulnerability of Truk, which convinced the Japanese to avoid using it in the future. Intrepid did not emerge from the operation unscathed, however; on the night of 17th–18th of February, a Rikko type Torpedo Bomber from the 755th Kōkūtai (Genzan Air Group) flying from Tainan attacked and torpedoed the carrier near her stern. The torpedo struck 15 ft (5 m) below the waterline, jamming the ship's rudder to port and flooding several compartments. Sprague was able to counteract the jammed rudder for two days by running the port side screw at high speed while idling the starboard screw, until high winds overpowered the improvised steering. The crew then jury-rigged a sail out of scrap canvas and hatch covers, which allowed the ship to return to Pearl Harbor, where she arrived on February 24th. Temporary repairs were effected there, after which Intrepid steamed on March 16th, escorted by the destroyer USS Remey, to Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco for permanent repairs, arriving there six days later. The work was completed by June, and Intrepid began two months of training around Pearl Harbor. Starting in early September, Intrepid joined operations in the western Caroline Islands; the Fast Carrier Task Force was now part of the Third Fleet under Admiral William Halsey Jr., and had been renamed Task Force 38. On September 6th and 7th, she conducted air strikes on Japanese artillery batteries and airfields on the island of Peleliu, in preparation for the invasion of Peleliu. On the 9th and 10th of September, she and the rest of the fleet moved on to attack airfields on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines, followed by further strikes on bases in the Visayan Sea between the 12th and 14th of September. On September 17th, Intrepid returned to Pelelieu to provide air support to the Marines that had landed on the island two days before.

Intrepid and the other carriers then returned to the Philippines to prepare for the Philippines campaign. At this time, Intrepid was assigned to Task Group 38.2. In addition to targets in the Philippines themselves, the carriers also struck Japanese airfields on the islands of Formosa and Okinawa to degrade Japanese air power in the region. On October 20th, at the start of the Battle of Leyte, Intrepid launched strikes to support Allied forces as they went ashore on the island of Leyte. By this time Halsey had reduced the carriers of TG 38.2, commanded by Rear Admiral Gerald F. Bogan aboard Intrepid, to just Intrepid, Cabot, and the light carrier Independence. Between the 23rd and 26th of October, the Japanese Navy launched a major operation to disrupt the Allied landings in the Philippines, resulting in the Battle of Leyte Gulf. On the morning of October 24th, a reconnaissance aircraft from Intrepid spotted Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita's flagship, Yamato. Two hours later, Intrepid and Cabot launched a strike on Kurita's Center Force, initiating the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea; this included eight Curtiss SB2C Helldiver dive bombers from Intrepid. One 500-pound (230 kg) bomb struck the roof of Turret No. 1, failing to penetrate. Two minutes later, the battleship Musashi was struck starboard amidships by a torpedo from a Grumman TBF Avenger, also from Intrepid. The Japanese shot down two Avengers. Another eight Helldivers from Intrepid attacked Musashi again at around noon, scoring two more hits, with two Helldivers shot down. Further strikes from Essex and Lexington inflicted several more bomb and torpedo hits, 37 aircraft from Intrepid, the fleet carrier Franklin, and Cabot attacked Musashi, hitting her with 13 bombs and 11 torpedoes for the loss of three Avengers and three Helldivers. In addition to the loss of Musashi, many of Kurita's other ships, including battleships Yamato, Nagato and Haruna, and heavy cruiser Myōkō were damaged in the attacks, forcing him to break off the operation temporarily. After Kurita's force began to withdraw, Halsey ordered TF 38 to steam north to intercept the aircraft carriers of the Northern Force, commanded by Vice Admiral Jisaburō Ozawa. Bogan correctly perceived that Ozawa's force was intended to lure TF 38 away from the landing area to allow Kurita to attack it, but Halsey overruled him and several other Task Group commanders who voiced similar concerns. Early on October 25th, aircraft from Intrepid and the other carriers launched a strike on the Japanese carriers. Aircraft from Intrepid scored hits on the carrier Zuihō and possibly the carrier Zuikaku. Further strikes throughout the morning resulted in the sinking of four Japanese aircraft carriers and a destroyer in the Battle off Cape Engaño. Halsey's preoccupation with the Northern Force allowed Kurita the respite he needed to turn his force back to the east, push through the San Bernardino Strait, where it engaged the light forces of escort carriers, destroyers, and destroyer escorts that were directly covering the landing force in the Battle off Samar. Kurita nevertheless failed to break through the American formation, and ultimately broke off the attack.

On October 27th, TG 38.2 returned to operations over Luzon; these included a raid on Manila on the 29th. That day, a kamikaze suicide aircraft hit Intrepid on one of her port side gun positions; ten men were killed and another six were wounded, but damage was minimal. A Japanese air raid on November 25th, struck the fleet shortly after noon. Two kamikazes crashed into Intrepid, killing sixty-nine men and causing a serious fire. The ship remained on station, however, and the fires were extinguished within two hours. She was detached for repairs the following day, and reached San Francisco by December. In the middle of February 1945, back in fighting trim, the carrier steamed for Ulithi, arriving by March. She set off westward for strikes on Japan on March 14th, and four days later launched strikes against airfields on Kyūshū. That morning a twin-engined Japanese G4M "Betty" kamikaze broke through a curtain of defensive fire, turned toward Intrepid, and exploded 50 ft (15 m) off Intrepid's forward boat crane. A shower of flaming gasoline and aircraft parts started fires on the hangar deck, but damage control teams quickly put them out. Intrepid's aircraft joined attacks on remnants of the Japanese fleet anchored at Kure damaging 18 enemy naval vessels, including battleship Yamato and carrier Amagi. The carriers turned to Okinawa as L-Day, the start of the most ambitious amphibious assault of the Pacific war, approached. The invasion began on the 1st of April. Intrepid aircraft flew support missions against targets on Okinawa and made neutralizing raids against Japanese airfields in range of the island. On April 16th, during an air raid, a Japanese aircraft dived into Intrepid's flight deck; the engine and part of the fuselage penetrated the deck, killing eight men and wounding 21. In less than an hour the flaming gasoline had been extinguished; three hours after the crash, aircraft were again landing on the carrier. On April 17th, Intrepid retired homeward via Ulithi. She made a stop at Pearl Harbor on 11 May, arriving at San Francisco for repairs on May 19th. On June 29th, the carrier left San Francisco. On August 6th, her aircraft launched strikes against Japanese on bypassed Wake Island. Intrepid arrived at Eniwetok on the next day. On August 15th, when the Japanese surrendered, she received word to "cease offensive operations." Intrepid got under way on August 21st to support the occupation of Japan.

In February 1946, Intrepid moved to San Francisco Bay. The carrier was reduced in status to "commission in reserve" in August, and she was decommissioned on March 22nd, 1947. After her decommissioning, Intrepid became part of the Pacific Reserve Fleet. On February 9th, 1952, she was recommissioned. Intrepid later severed as an attack carrier (CVA), and then eventually became an antisubmarine carrier (CVS). In her second career, she served mainly in the Atlantic, but also participated in the Vietnam War. She was the recovery ship for a Mercury and a Gemini space mission. She was decommissioned for the second time in 1974, she was put into service as a museum ship in 1982 as the foundation of the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum Complex in New York City. Intrepid earned five battle stars and the Presidential Unit Citation during World War II, and a further three battle stars for Vietnam service.

[bambi-kinos]

What do you think of Paul and John 's relationship in 1980? Personally, I think they had at least some sort of consensus of the relationship (I mean, a formal romantic relationship) in 1980, and I don't think Paul started thinking about the nature of the relationship after John's death, i think they both took it seriously in the'70s and decided that what they wanted from each other. It wasn't the Beatles anymore, it was John and Paul, but John's death stopped it.

I don't know what to make of John and Paul in 1980 to be perfectly honest. There's a lot of rumors and conjecture swirling around it like the Crazy Days and Nights post. A lot of the interpretations around 1980 are based in wishful thinking because no one wants to believe that John died without some sort of plan in mind with regards to Paul. The fact of the matter is that there's too much we don't know.

What we do know from the 1970s is that John and Paul's relationship really split down the middle and they didn't want anything to do with each other. They did still care about each other but they had pissed each other off too much. Paul did start reaching out in the mid-70s trying to talk to John but John, and especially Yoko, didn't want this contact. That's why John turned him away from the door when Paul tried to show up (alone!) with his guitar. John regretted that later but I don't think it's wrong to see their relationship as very dead in the water.

And the truth is that Paul didn't actually pursue John that much contrary to some bitching that took place last year in the fandom. Paul's heaviest overtures to John were when he was out of Yoko's immediate presence during the Lost Weekend and then when John went back, Paul kept him at a distance again. The communication eventually became infrequent phone calls (since many were blocked by Yoko on purpose) and that often turned into them shouting at each other. Paul eventually stopped calling John frequently and when he did he was careful to keep their conversations very light and stilted. Otherwise John would just get angry at him. Paul had other things going on in his life, he had to raise his children, be a husband, keep making music, and arrange tours.

I can imagine that John and Paul hooked up occasionally through out the 1970s but the truth is that when John said "leave me alone" Paul did.

I don't think John's last interviews wouldn't be so laden with regret towards Paul if they had something planned in the background.

Paul never forgave John for leaving The Beatles or for giving his life up to Yoko. He did want John back in his life and away from her once Paul realized what she was doing to him, but I don't believe that he was willing to stick his neck out again for John's sake. He didn't know what he was going to get in response. I would think that's why they booked the studio in January 1981, to see if they could operate with one another on neutral ground. But that was a test balloon.

It's possible they did have something happening in the background but John seems too torn up about Paul in 1980 for me to really believe that. He was actively trying to leave Yoko but I think he would have been in the wind a bit if he had, Paul wasn't riding to his rescue this time. And he was right not to.

We just don't know enough to make any firm pronouncements about 1980. Whatever John wanted from Paul it was vague and undefined because they were rebuilding their relationship from rubble. Paul was wary around John and trying to figure out if he could really trust him this time.

Idk I just don't get the "we are together again" vibes from everything that was happening in the Dakota at the time.

[adore-laur]

DAD HARRY: PART THREE

— part one | part two

——

October—Flashback

The leaves on southern California’s oak and cottonwood trees are changing colors at last. Various shades of green bleed into marigold and maroon to commence the beginning of autumn. The weather is pleasant when it nears the end of the year, with temperatures never dipping below seventy degrees. Brisk winds blow by the Pacific Ocean, and migrating clusters of monarch butterflies flutter around orange milkweed with their stained-glass wings, looking similar to the plants they feed from.

Driving alongside the premature sunset, you press your foot on the brake pad and pull into the crowded restaurant parking lot. Harry has been bartending for a wedding's cocktail hour, which he seldom does under his title of head chef. Before he left, he mentioned that he wanted to talk to you about something important after his shift, so he reserved a table in the dining area where both of you could discuss it over dinner. Luckily, he doesn't have to work his way into the early morning since someone will replace him once the reception officially starts.

Today is Harry's last shift before he'll be home for an extended period of time. He managed to save all of his annual vacation days and is free from work for the last month of your pregnancy, as well as being allowed twelve weeks of paternity leave once the baby is born.

It's difficult to imagine how much convincing it took and the scheduling difficulties Harry had to face to get everything sorted. You're worried that the restaurant will crumble without his supervision, but you shouldn't judge his expertise on the matter. He knows what he's doing.

You stroll through the front doors while smoothing the chiffon fabric of your dress over your baby bump. Frequently, you’ve been wearing Harry's shirts ever since your bump has gotten too large to wear your own, but you wanted to look nice tonight. It’s been grueling trying to accept your changing body, which is why you strive to do little things to take care of your mental health. Even though you've been more concerned about your physical health as of late, if something as simple as putting on a pretty dress can boost your confidence, you'll take advantage of the opportunity.

Carefully weaving through round, decorated tables, you peer at the bar area operating against the farthest wall. Harry's back is turned to you, broad and familiar, as he washes cocktail glasses. His defined muscles shift under the tight, black button-up he wears, and the sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, revealing the array of tattoos on his forearms. He's also sporting fitted slacks with matching suspenders attached to them. He's been growing out his hair during the last couple of months, with curls now flourishing past his ears. He always keeps them pushed back with a bandana or headband so that they don't fall in his eyes while he works.

You don't want to be a nuisance and steal a seat from any guests, so you stand off to the side and wait for Harry to finish his cleaning duties. His bulky rings clink against champagne and wine glasses as he dries them with a rag and sets them under the counter. You can hear him faintly whistling along to the jazz music coming from the connected banquet hall.

Once Harry finishes wiping his station clean, he sneakily takes out his phone and starts typing—you assume he's texting you to let you know he's done. He then washes his hands as another bartender walks behind the counter to clock in. They must be the one replacing him. You're not too knowledgeable about the rotation of bartenders since Harry is almost always in the back running the kitchen. It’s intriguing to see him adjust his skill set in a different environment.

He gives the employee a friendly squeeze on their shoulder before clocking out and heading in your direction. He nearly brushes past you while taking his phone out again, completely oblivious to your presence, and you laugh before stopping him with a hand on his chest. It makes him stumble back with a confused frown, but he quickly smiles in surprise when he recognizes you.

"How'd you get in?" he asks breathlessly, kissing your cheek.

"I told the security guards at the gate that I’m picking up my husband. If they said no, I was going to tell them my water broke."

He smirks proudly. "Clever. How are you feeling? Baby's good?" He holds your upper arms, and his eyes scan your body as if you've changed drastically since you saw him only four hours ago.

"All good. Just a sore back like usual." You toy with one of his suspender straps. "What about you? It's your last shift for a while."

Exhaling happily, Harry clasps your hand in his and says, "I feel fantastic. Let's go eat, yeah? I'm starving."

He guides you through an open doorway leading to the restaurant's dining area, where your reserved table is. In the back of the room, you spot a candlelit booth with plates, silverware, and two glasses filled with ice water. The water doesn't go unnoticed, considering Harry set a goal for himself to stop drinking alcohol along with you.

On the windowsill, a stout vase with beautiful red roses catches your eye as you sit down. Harry slides into the seat across from you. Only a few other booths are occupied—otherwise, the room is serenely quiet, with the occasional clink of metal and a sprinkle of chatter.

"You look angelic, by the way," Harry says before taking a sip of his water.

"Thank you," you whisper, nudging his foot with yours under the table. "I like your suspenders. They remind me of when you used to be a rookie assistant chef that I'd visit. You wore them under your chef coat with a fancy little neckerchief. I thought you looked so adorable."

"Now I'm old and weathered," he replies wryly.

"Well, you're pushing thirty. And you'll be a dad in a month. Isn't that when someone officially becomes a DILF?" You're not sure why you casually mentioned the racy acronym over a romantic dinner, but it's too late to retreat now.

Harry's eyes gleam, and he fails miserably at hiding a smile under his scrunched nose. "Pardon? What are you trying to insinuate, darling?"

"Nothing! Never mind,” you say, embarrassed that you ever spoke. "I was only trying to bring up a nice memory. Reminiscing, if you will. Forget I said anything."

"I'm definitely not forgetting that. That ugly neckerchief, however..." He laughs at himself. "God, it feels like forever ago. Time flies."

"I thought it was kind of attractive," you mumble around the rim of your glass.

He raises his eyebrows as a warning to not start something you don't want to finish, then clears his throat and rests his forearms on the table. "Speaking of work, that's what I wanted to talk to you about tonight. I want you to keep an open mind, okay?"

Your lips downturn in curiosity. Just as you're about to reply, a waiter arrives at the table with a tray of steaming dishes and places them in the center. You texted Harry what you wanted from the menu after he left this morning, and since he's the boss, everything is free, cooked to perfection, and served promptly.

"Thank you," Harry says before focusing on you again. The waiter leaves, and you begin picking at your food to distract yourself from your increasing heart rate.

"Um, did you say work? Did you get a promotion? Is that even a possibility for a head chef?"

You can physically see the color drain from his face. "So," he says nervously, ignoring your questions, "the baby's coming soon, yes? Obviously."

"Right," you reply with suspicion.

Shifting in his seat, he sets his fork down and runs a hand through his tousled hair. "Listen, the restaurant during autumn and winter isn't as busy as the summertime. You know that. And because of that, I want to be home with you and the baby as much as possible. And I will with paternity leave, but once I go back to work, my hours will pick up again, and it'll be—"

"Harry, just tell me," you interrupt gently. He has a bad habit of running circles around topics.

He blows out a long breath. "I'm demoting myself. It's in the works that I'll be the sous chef when I return, so that means fewer hours and more time at home."

You're glad you don't take a sip of water yet because you nearly choke. Demotion? He’s never mentioned that before.

"Can I ask why in the world you would do that?" you ask. You don't mean to sound snippy, but pregnancy hormones, mixed with Harry's revelation, cause a pit of unwarranted annoyance to simmer in your gut.

"Love, let me explain." He reaches his hand across the table and squeezes yours. "This is my choice. It's final, all right? I'm not going to work ten hours a day, six days a week, while you're at home with our baby. That's ridiculous."

"But what about—"

"Stop while you're ahead, because you're going to overthink it," he says calmly. "If you're worried about money, don't be. It's only a slight decrease in my wage. Everything will be fine."

Your annoyance wins as you slide your free hand down your face. "You realize that we'll need more money when the baby comes. It's common sense. Why would you think cutting your hours is a smart idea?"

Harry scoffs like what you're saying is illogical. He leans in closer so that the impending argument doesn't disrupt anyone's dinner, his voice hushed yet stern when he replies, "Would you rather have me come home every day absolutely knackered and then spend a maximum of four hours with our child before I have to get up to do it all over again? Hmm?"

You shake your head in irritation and remove your hand from his. "It's called adapting. It may be tough at first, but it becomes second nature. We just have to wait until the baby gets here to figure out a schedule that works."

Harry falls back against the booth. He throws his hands up in frustration, and they slap against his thighs before he says, "Do you realize how stupid you sound right now? You're talking about money and scheduling like we're—"

"I'm leaving." When you stand, Harry's mouth instantly clamps shut. You don't care that you barely ate your food—you can't listen to him anymore. You're awfully close to lashing out.

Heading the way you came from, you hear Harry's footsteps scuffing the floor behind you. Once you're in the parking lot, you groan when you remember that he has to ride home with you since you dropped him off earlier. While you struggle to unlock the car, you see Harry in your peripheral, striding to stop you from going any further.

"I didn't mean it. I'm sorry." His shoulders slump, and he looks genuinely distraught. "Can we please talk this through when we get home?"

Your eyes dance over his defeated expression. You can’t say no since you live together, plus you promised years ago never to go to bed angry at each other. So, you nod your head, and he shoots you a timorous smile before withdrawing to the passenger side.

As you drive, you give Harry the harrowing silent treatment. He deserves it, considering he's looking out the window with his arms crossed and pouting like a child. The only sound in the confined space is the air conditioner running and cars whooshing past on the freeway. Your stomach grumbles, and you feel terrible about leaving two five-star plates of food untouched at the restaurant.

After several minutes of dreadful silence, Harry finally breaks the tension when you park in the garage. He grabs a white envelope tucked in the center console and asks, "What's this?"

Oh. You forgot about that.

"Nothing," you mutter, unbuckling your seatbelt.

Harry rolls his eyes and flings the envelope onto the dashboard, then reaches over to take the key out of the ignition. Seconds pass before you hear him open the front door and then shut it harder than necessary.

You swallow down vexation. There have been tiny arguments more often since you got pregnant, and you blame your hormones every time for getting irritated so easily. Usually, Harry isn't the sole reason for those heightened emotions, but there are situations when he can be so stubborn that you just want to shake him out of it.

Eventually, you get out of the car with the envelope in hand and head down to the beach for some time alone. It'll be nice to sit by the water and cool down, figuratively and literally. You have an inclination that if you try to hash it out with Harry right now, it will only result in more regretful words said.

You reach the private stretch of sand that’s part of your beachfront property, holding your bump protectively as you descend the wooden steps. It's chilly by the oceanside this time of year, so you grab a towel that was left on the railing from previous evenings and drape it over your shoulders.

As the October sunset tinges the sky with orange and pink streaks, you sit down and reflect on the unfortunate escalation of your conversation with Harry. You love him dearly and could never feel an ounce of hatred toward him. He has never given you a reason to doubt anything, but to put his career on the back burner without mentioning it to you is hurtful. You almost feel guilty knowing he made the choice because of you and the baby. Sometimes, you shy away from being the main priority because you don't want to feel like a burden. In retrospect, it's incredibly thoughtful that he wants to work less to spend quality time with the baby when they arrive. On the other hand, you can't help but worry that you won't be financially secure because of it.

"Hungry?"

Your head shifts to find Harry walking toward you with a spoon and a strange-looking vegetable in his hand. It's impossible not to smile when you note the outfit he changed into—pale yellow trousers and an argyle knit sweater. All of his rings are off except for his gold wedding band. His feet are bare.

He's the love of your life and has nothing but pure intentions, so how could you not trust his decision?

"What is that?" you ask, pointing to the vegetable as Harry gets comfortable beside you.

"Jicama," he replies with a shrug. "A pregnancy blog said that at thirty-two weeks, a baby is as big as one of these bad boys. So, naturally, I bought one."

You have to turn your face so he doesn't see your irrepressible smile. You're not giving him the benefit of seeing you crack from his endearing ways just yet. "You're an unusual man, Harry Styles. Do you plan on buying more fruit for the last four weeks?"

"I already put pineapple on the grocery list," he says unconcernedly as he scoops out a chunk of the jicama. "Anyway, I didn't come out here to discuss fruit." His tongue sticks out when he takes a bite, the spoon leaving his mouth with a pop before he points it at you. "Still mad at me?"

You sigh, knowing it's useless to continue acting like he's in the wrong. "I can't stay mad at you. And I don't know why I got so worked up. I was just being overdramatic."

Harry hums thoughtfully as he swallows another bite. "Expressing how you feel isn't overdramatic. Don't apologize for having those feelings, especially toward me. Yell at me if I'm being a dick; kiss me if I'm being a dreamboat. It’s simple, baby." He finishes his little speech by shoving another spoonful of jicama into his mouth, chewing introspectively while staring at the waves.

"Was it Socrates who said that?"

He plucks your bottom lip with the spoon and murmurs, "You're feisty today."

"Back to the topic," you say before he can rile you up. "Money shouldn't have been what my mind first went to. It's still a concern, but ultimately, making time for our family is the most important thing. I apologize for freaking out."

"You're forgiven." Harry scoots closer and holds a spoonful to your mouth. You accept the nutty flavor as he continues, "And I'm so sorry for saying you sounded stupid. Please know that that’s the furthest thing from the truth."

"We all say things we don't mean sometimes," you reply. “There's no use in acting like I haven't done the same thing in the past.”

Harry slings his arm around your shoulders, bringing you in for a warm side hug. "What you said is true, by the way. We have time to figure things out and adapt. Let's enjoy this last month we have to ourselves.”

You nod in agreement. "I also want to thank you for being so thoughtful and putting our family first. I trust you with this new life chapter. I don't doubt you at all."

"Don't worry about it," he says, kissing your temple. "I'm proud of you for dealing with every mental and physical change these past eight months. And I will always be here for you through the good and bad moments, all right? In sickness, in health, and everything in between.”

You smile fondly and take out the white envelope that’s been hiding under your leg. "Are you in the mood for a good moment with me?" Harry looks confused but nods anyway. "When you saw this in the car, it's not nothing like I said it was. It's from my prenatal appointment I went to a few days ago. I know we decided to find out the gender a month before my due date, so I had the doctor write the answer down.” You inhale an anxious breath. “I haven't looked at it yet."

Harry's eyes widen, and his mouth parts as he sets the jicama down. "I am not prepared for this. Wait, hold on. Let me breathe for a second." His head tilts up toward the sky as he takes dramatic, calming breaths.

You laugh and place the envelope on his thigh. "Do the honors, Styles. Let's see if your prediction is right."

He picks it up and carefully opens the seal. Unfolding the paper filled with your clinical notes, he quickly skims the tiny lettering to look for the answer he's been desperately waiting for.

"Holy shit," he says, his voice cracking as his hand covers his mouth.

"I'm guessing you're right," you say shakily, your eyes watering.

"Girl… we’re having a girl.”He wipes away his tears, smiling widely. "Why am I crying? I was confident it was a girl."

"Because it makes things more real," you say, leaning over to kiss his damp, rosy cheeks. "Now we know for sure."

"Come here, honey. Let me take a look at her."

You sit on your knees between Harry’s spread legs. He sets the envelope down and lifts your dress, revealing your bump that puts quite some distance between you and him. His hands splay across the taut skin as he leans down to kiss right above your belly button. He gazes up at you under his wet lashes and smiles against your stomach, his dimples carving pure happiness into his cheeks.

"I love you," he whispers with a sniffle. "I love both of you so much. With my entire soul."

In that moment, everything falls into place.

——

July—Present Day

Everything is falling apart.

Well, not really, but it sure feels that way when you bend over the toilet at seven in the morning and empty your queasy stomach once again.

It's the first Sunday in July, marking the tenth week of your second pregnancy. When you woke up with a wave of morning sickness a couple of hours ago, you noticed something peculiar. As you were rubbing circles on your abdomen to ease the nausea, it appeared that your stomach had seemingly popped overnight. The curve was more prominent and firm—a small bump you must have mistaken for bloating. It’s pretty much nonexistent in any loose garment, but anything tight will hug it nicely and be a constant reminder of baby number two growing in there.

Dizzily standing, you move toward the sink to brush your teeth for the umpteenth time, then gurgle some spearmint mouthwash to diminish the rancid taste in your mouth. Pots and pans clang downstairs as you wipe your lips, and the occasional giggle from your daughter mixes with Harry's theatrical voice, which he puts on whenever she watches him cook.

The smell of sizzling bacon doesn't help the swirling feeling in your stomach as you head downstairs to the kitchen. Their lighthearted commotion grows louder, and you stop in the doorway to soak in your favorite part of Sunday mornings. Harry is in front of the island, and your daughter stands on her tiptoes on a step stool next to him, the two of them watching pancakes turn golden brown on the griddle. He's in full Dad Mode with tired eyes and an outfit that screams: I have a toddler and a pregnant wife at home. In other words, a black button-up with pink flamingos on it and grey pleated trousers. They don't match whatsoever, but you know he doesn't care. Clothing isn’t his prime concern—family is.

He voyages around the kitchen, pouring orange juice, dropping chocolate chips into the batter, and ensuring your daughter's little hands don't touch anything hazardous. Your hand subconsciously drifts to your bump as you think about how you'll get to see him interact with a newborn again—cuddling them, rocking them to sleep, and pretending to eat their chubby hands and feet. He still does all those things with your daughter, and it breaks your heart knowing she'll grow out of it one day.

"Good morning," Harry says with his back turned, halting your daydreaming. How does he always sense your presence?

When you don't say anything, he turns to glance at you while sliding a heart-shaped pancake onto a plate. Your smile stretches wider as you curl your pointer finger to beckon him closer. He gives you a confused look before unplugging the griddle and instructing your daughter not to touch anything on the counter. She'll be too distracted by the cartoon playing on the television to even notice that the both of you will be gone for a moment.

"What's up, baby?" Sauntering toward you, Harry sticks his thumb in his mouth to lick some excess pancake batter off.

"I have a surprise for you," you whisper, accepting his slow, relaxed kiss.

"Yeah? Is it my half-birthday or something?" he asks, his voice still gravelly and slurred from sleep.

"No, this isn't about you," you tease with a pinch to his hip. "Come with me."

You grab his hand and lead him to the bathroom just down the hall. Flicking the light switch on, you stand in front of the mirror and say, "I'm ten weeks along. I woke up with a little morning sickness, and look!" You lift your shirt and turn to the side to show him a better angle of your stomach. "It was just pudge before, but it's an actual bump now."

Behind you, Harry rubs his warm hands over the swell and marvels at it. "Well, I’ll be damned. You... fuck, this happened overnight. I was spooning you this morning! How did I not notice?"

"I don't know. I didn't notice either, and it's my own body." You shake your head disbelievingly and place your hands over his. "I read that a woman's second pregnancy will have them showing earlier. I guess that's why I popped so soon. Last time, I didn't show until fourteen weeks or something like that."

He hums lowly, pulling you further back against his chest. "I've missed seeing you like this. It makes you glow more than usual." His mouth is by your ear when he murmurs, "Makes me hard."

"You're so naughty in the mornings," you say, removing yourself from his grasp and pulling down your shirt. "C'mon, let's eat breakfast."

Harry whines in protest, gently grabbing your face and turning it toward him so he can nip your nose and then lock your lips together. After your stolen moment alone, the both of you head back to the kitchen to enjoy another blissful Sunday morning.

——

Takeout pizza is on the menu tonight. The Volvo’s trunk is open, with blankets and pillows strewn about to create a fort-like space for the three of you to sit in. Harry drove the vehicle down to the beach so you all could watch the sunset and feel the ocean breeze.

You get comfortable in the trunk and set paper plates and napkins down. Harry and your daughter are in the nearby beach grass, picking wildflowers that blossom there. They wander, her tiny hand gripping stems while her other holds Harry’s. Her precious strawberry-patterned dress flows in the wind.

Moments later, they come strolling toward the car with content smiles. Your daughter crawls into the trunk with your help and hands you a makeshift bouquet of yellow and purple wildflowers.

"Thank you, sweetheart," you say, kissing her windswept hair.

Harry places his hands on either side of your thighs and leans in for some of your affection. You peck his lips—they're pink from the fruit punch he made earlier. Before he retreats, he glances at your baby bump and then looks at you with a crooked smile, his thumb delicately stroking the curve.

"Kumquat," he says, clicking his tongue.

You laugh, albeit not understanding. "Come again?"

"A baby at ten weeks is the size of a kumquat," he explains, like it's a well-known fact.

"Interesting," you say. "Well, the kumquat is hungry, so get up here and cut the pizza."

Your daughter is oblivious to the conversation as Harry scoots next to you and begins rolling the pizza cutter. His forearm muscles flex, the veins popping out. "Small bites, little lady," he tells her as he puts a slice on her plate.

Reaching behind you, you grab the bottle of sparkly pink nail polish you brought out. "She wants you to paint her nails."

Harry nods and pats his lap. She sits between his legs and waits patiently. While taking the bottle of polish from you and shaking it, his phone’s ringtone suddenly goes off. He juts his lips out as he reaches into his pocket to check the number.

"Hello?" he answers, balancing his phone between his ear and shoulder. He opens the polish’s cap and begins painting her nails.

You observe his facial expressions. He has a serious look and frequently nods as he listens to whoever's on the other end of the line. You pluck a green pepper off the pizza and eat it, feeling a swirl of anticipation in your gut.

"Tomorrow? Are you sure?" he asks. You hear an unfamiliar muffled voice before he says, "Awesome, thank you. Call me if anything changes. Okay, bye." He sets down the nail polish and hangs up before resuming painting her pointer finger.

"Who was that?" you ask while tucking a wildflower stem behind his ear. He looks handsome in the evening light.

"My boss," he says, licking his thumb and wiping a smudge he made. “I don't have to go in tomorrow since there are barely any reservations."

"No sparkles," your daughter blurts before you can reply. Harry freezes and eyes you perplexedly.

"What?" you ask. She points to one of her painted nails and frowns. You gently take her hand and observe it closely—no sparkles are showing up. "I'm sorry, sweetie. It must have gone bad. We can take it off and get another one."

It's almost scary how quickly the waterworks start. You exhale as you take the plate from her so she doesn't throw a fit and make a mess. She's crying and staring at Harry like he's the cause of no sparkles. Well, maybe he didn't shake the bottle enough, but you keep your mouth shut so you don't make matters worse.

Harry grabs her waist and props her in front of him. "Mommy said we can get some more, all right? We’re not throwing a tantrum right now. Behave, or I'm not painting your nails."

You could have predicted what happens next from experience. Her harmless fists hit his chest in frustration, and undried polish smears all over his shirt. Harry has always been good at controlling these minor mishaps, so he inhales deeply before lifting her writhing body.

"Early bedtime it is, then," he mutters while walking toward the house.

You begin cleaning up the short-lived dinner. It isn't anything new you've had to deal with, but it exhausts you, especially when she has a tantrum during family time. You take the pizza box out of the trunk, then close it and decide to clean everything else tomorrow. You drive the car up to the garage and lock the doors before stepping inside.

After putting the pizza in the fridge, you stand outside your daughter's bedroom door and listen for any crying or screaming. A sigh of relief leaves you when only subsiding whimpers indicate her tantrum has deescalated for the night.

Opening the door, your heart softens at the sight you walk in on. Harry sits against her headboard, his feet hanging past the edge of her bed, as he cradles his baby girl. He soothingly rocks her side to side with his eyes closed as he rubs circles on her back. Her heavy eyes are barely open, and her tear-stained cheeks are smushed against Harry's chest. She's in her pajamas now.

You kneel next to her bed, and she extends her arm, reaching for you. Harry jolts awake and opens his eyes. His grip loosens when he notices that she wants you. You stand and take her in your arms, her legs hugging your waist. You then sit by Harry's thighs and quietly laugh when you see the residue of pink nail polish staining his shirt.

Harry grins and clasps his hands behind his head, stretching his limbs. "It's not funny. I bought this shirt because of her, and this is what I got in return. She's a menace."

You squeeze his ankle in good nature and say, "I wonder where she gets it from."

He gasps in faux offense and grabs your daughter's hand, shaking it playfully. "Mommy’s being mean, don't you think?"

She sleepily shakes her head. You raise your eyebrows smugly before smattering her cheeks with kisses until she smiles and tiredly whines into your neck.

Harry yawns before catching your gaze and jerking his head toward your stomach. "Should we tell her?" he mouths.

Your heart rate quickens. You're not worried that she'll be upset, considering she’s asked—as best she could with her limited vocabulary—if she could have a sibling on a few occasions. You think it's time to tell her the news now that you're showing.

When you nod, Harry swings his legs over the mattress and crouches between your knees. You shift your daughter so she's settled sideways on your lap, then nod again to let him initiate the conversation.

"We have something to tell you, sweetheart," he says with a fond gentleness reserved only for her. Her head turns away from the safety of your neck. "You know how you've been asking about a baby brother or sister?" She nods languidly, prompting him to ask, "Can you look at Mommy’s belly?"

You situate her beside you and lift the stretchy material of your tank top. Harry says, "There's a baby in her belly." He guides her hand to your bump. "Your brother or sister is growing in there."

Her expression is unreadable at first, but then she gazes at you with curious eyes. "Baby," she utters drowsily. She's about one second away from slipping into a deep sleep.

"I don't think she'll remember in the morning," Harry says with a laugh.

You smile dotingly and stand before tucking her into bed. You kiss her forehead and watch her doze off as Harry tells her goodnight, whispering his boundless love for her and sealing his truthful words with a feather-light kiss to both of her cheeks.

Shutting off her bedside lamp, you leave the room with Harry hot on your heels. You're in the process of pulling your tank top down on the way to your bedroom, but before you can reach the door, Harry grabs your hips, stopping you in the dim hallway.

"You can't look this good and go straight to bed," he says, his breath warm and intimate.

"Mom needs her sleep before work tomorrow," you reply with a smirk. Although you wouldn't mind staying up a bit longer if he continues complimenting you.

"Please, baby," he murmurs, his hands drifting dangerously lower. "Just a quick one, yeah? I'll let you do whatever you want to me."

Don't give in, you tell yourself. Make him work for it. 

"Anything?" you ask sensually as his fingers begin to brush along your inner thighs, causing your knees to weaken temporarily.

Harry licks his lips, his tongue poking your neck with the faintest touch. "Don't act like I wouldn't let you ruin me, darling."

You clench your thighs around his hand, and he groans against your neck. "But I'm so tired, Harry. It won't last very long if I do what I want with you."

"Like I give a shit." He cups your core with his palm, his impatient fingers stroking over the fabric of your silk pajama shorts. "You could give me the sloppiest blowjob ever, and I'd still worship the ground you walk on."

You bite your bottom lip, suppressing the urge to moan. "Will you run me a bath afterward?"

"We can fuck in the bath instead."

You ponder for a second. "It would be an easy cleanup. We'd have to do it in the downstairs bathroom, though, and you'd have to be quiet. Think you can handle that?"

"I don’t know. Do you plan on making me scream?"

"I could always put those suspenders you wore today in your mouth to shut you up."

He exhales a sexy breath, one that reveals you caught him off guard. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

You hum and grab his hand, raising it to your mouth to nip at the calloused pad of his thumb before walking down the stairs to the bathroom just around the corner. The porcelain tub awaits, and you turn the knob and plug the drain. The bay window it sits in front of exhibits an endless ocean and a sky that’s fading into starlit shades of dark blue.

Once the water is high enough and sufficiently warm, you shut the faucet off and begin removing your clothes. Harry enters the bathroom a few moments later and locks the door behind him. He unbuttons his shirt slowly while facing the mirror, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration.

You step into the tub and watch him. He's taking his trousers off now, his exposed back muscles flexing along with his biceps as he shimmies the garment down his legs. His body is truly something from a beautiful dream. Every inch blesses your eyes.

He's entirely naked when you break away from your reverie. His long legs gracefully step over the tub's ledge to settle behind you. A muted moan escapes him when his cock rubs against your lower back.

"Already making noise, and I haven't even started yet," you tease, leaning into his touch.

"Can you blame me? I have my wife"—his fingers glide against your pulsing entrance—"dripping for me. Absolutely soaked."

"Then do something about it."

Harry palms your clit, and you instinctively bend your knees. "I thought you wanted to be in control tonight."

"Will you be good? You have a reputation for getting antsy and taking over."

His hands travel to your sensitive breasts, squeezing them. "Yeah? Does that bother you?"

"You know I like it when you're submissive. Especially when you whine for me and try to touch me when you know you can't."

"Go on, then. Take care of your husband."

"I'm going to take care of myself first." You turn around and straddle his thighs—above his kneecap, your name is inked permanently.

"Ride it. You're the only one who's allowed to." His hands try to latch onto your waist, but you slap them away.

"Touch yourself while I ride you."

Harry's tongue pokes the inside of his cheek as he grips his cock, squeezing and twisting to satiate himself. You grind on his thigh to relieve the building pressure and stifle your moans into his neck. You’re slick with arousal as his thigh muscle flexes with each motion. He starts pumping, his arm resting on the edge of the tub. Your palm presses against his abdomen, causing him to release a choked moan.

You shush him. "You have to be quiet. What do you need? Tell me what you want, and I'll give it to you since you're being so good."

"You," he whispers with a pained look etched on his face. "I need you around my cock. Please, please, please."

His voice dies with each plea, and you cradle his limp head as he fully submits to you. Whenever he begs, you unravel too. Your dominant wall crumbles with his whines, and his deep voice always goes a pitch higher to show his desperation for you. His pink lips form solicitous praises and carnal noises of desire. You want to kiss them until they’re swollen and numb.

"I know," you say, kissing the indent between his eyebrows. "I'm ready."

Shakily lifting yourself off his thigh, you get Harry to sit up more in the tub so he can line his cock up with your entrance. When you slowly lower into him, he stretches your walls and sinks deep. Your fingers scratch his chest, your body leaning into him as you ride him. He moans, and you cover his mouth. His muffled whimpers encourage you to go faster.

Through ragged breaths, Harry says, "Let me come on your stomach. You're so beautiful like this."

Who are you to say no to such a filthy request?

"Are you close?" Your question lingers in the air, and Harry seems to be spaced out from pleasure because he doesn't answer. You feel him throb inside you as he jerks his hips up at a different angle. His glistening chest is heaving, and his eyes are pinched shut.

"Harry." You cradle his cheeks to bring him back to earth. "Are you close?"

He hears you this time, nodding fervently until, little by little, he slips himself out of you and stands up in the tub. You follow his lead and sit on the edge so that he towers over you. He holds his cock and looks up at the ceiling as he comes. You hold his free hand to balance him, his legs trembling and his lips pulled inward to stop any moans from escaping.

Harry’s warm release drips down on you, and once he finishes, he falls to his knees in the water, some of it splashing over the tub and onto the floor. His hands grip your ankles to put them over his shoulders, leaving sloppy kisses on your legs. You spread them more so he can finish you off. You could orgasm in two seconds flat if he puts his mouth on you.

"Fingers or mouth?" he asks.

"Mouth. Can I come on you too?"

He whines against your inner thigh. "Yeah?"

You nod, and Harry immediately latches his mouth on your clit. There's already pressure building in your lower stomach. He moves down to lick the inside of you, his nose nudging your clit as his hands splay on your bump. It’s a protective move on his part.

"Feels so good," you say, placing your hands on the tub's edge to steady yourself. "I feel it. Please don't stop."

He licks a long stripe upward, not holding back by going inside so deep that it makes you ache. Your legs tighten around him until you sense your burning climax approaching.

"Harry. Please, I need—" You can't finish your sentence because Harry stands up abruptly and hooks his hand under your knees to lift you, carefully stepping out of the tub and setting you on the rug. It's messy and uncoordinated—however, he's never the one to give you a stagnant sex life.

He cradles you as your body quivers, then lays down on his back so you can fulfill your request. You straddle his torso, your slickness settling on his abdomen in the dim lighting of the bathroom. His thumb presses onto your clit, a move that always makes your orgasm boil over. Your neck tilts back, and you come. Harry's hands are everywhere—kneading your ass, rubbing up and down your thighs, and groping your breasts. You ride out the last of your release. His skin is sticky with your arousal, and you eventually collapse on your back next to him in exhaustion.

"C'mere, love," Harry says, his arm extended. “You're too far away."

You exhale, your hands resting on your bump. "I can't. My legs feel like jelly."

Harry snorts a laugh and sits up. He quickly unplugs the drain and crawls over to hover above you, placing a kiss on your stomach. He blindly finds a towel nearby and begins wiping you clean.

"This is the lamest aftercare ever," you say, laughing tiredly. The dry towel doesn't feel nice on your sweaty skin, and Harry's movements are lazy.

"That's enough out of you," he replies through his exhaustion, gently cleaning your stomach.

"Should I take off work tomorrow?" you wonder aloud. "I want to sleep in."

"Yes," he whispers, grabbing your hands to position you upright. His eyes take in every bit of you. "Look at you. You're going to be the death of me."

Every nerve of yours seems to tingle at his words. "Remember when I was pregnant last time, and you nearly broke my back during sex?"

Harry cackles way too loud, and you hush him as his hands slap over his mouth. "I was so scared when that happened. But I could only take you from behind because you were ready to pop, so it's not entirely my fault."

"Excuse me? How is that not your fault?" You yank the towel from his loose grasp and begin cleaning him. "I'm surprised my water didn’t break with how hard you were going."

"Jesus, you've got a dirty mind. Save it for later, would you?"

A comfortable silence ensues while you both wrap towels around your bodies and then head to the bedroom. You pick out one of Harry's shirts and a pair of underwear. He slides into some black boxers. While you ruffle your slightly damp hair, he sneakily picks you up and lightly tosses you on the bed, making you squeal in surprise.

"Are you really going to take off work tomorrow?" he asks, kissing along the column of your throat.

"Yeah. I'll lie and say my morning sickness is bad."

His kisses move to your cheeks. "And what if it actually is?"

"Then my husband will wait on me hand and foot," you say with a grin. "He’ll feed me soup in bed. Give me a massage. Kiss me better."

Harry tucks a strand of your hair behind your ear. "You know I'd do that anyway, right? Just say the word, and I'll do anything."

You stare at his kind eyes and inviting lips. The shadow of his dimple even when he's not smiling. His perfect nose that resembles your daughter's. His cheeks that were meant to be pinched fondly. His simple smile that made you fall in love from day one. The love of your lifetime, with a soul that shelters his heart that overflows with love.

"I love you,” you say.

A whispered reciprocation is spoken, and it's all you need in the world.

——

[sunblockbabe]

Lighthouse keeper!John x mermaid reader

4k words

Contents: nudity (nonsexual), semi-graphic descriptions of injury, description of a kinda graphic transformation you undergo but it's not painful i swear, softie john

Lighthouse keeper!John that has been taking care of an aging lighthouse.

The lighthouse is cast out on a lonely, scraggly islet, a mile or two off the coast. Shrouded by constant fog and sharp rocks that break the waves into shards of salt water, the island is dreary and near-abandoned.

It was the perfect fit for John, at least at first. Long years of brutal work in the military had aged him to the point of exhaustion. Seeking complete isolation from the world, he took his pension and retreated to the isolated post that felt banished to a far-off corner of the world.

The islet, covered in thick grass and patches of stout shrubs, was unable to support any life besides a few chickens and a rooster. Every month, John was sent a small boat stocked with rations and supplies, always unloaded in the dead of night and without his presence.

His days blurred together in an endless haze of reading, pacing the island, and tending to the lighthouse and chickens. Every morning, John would trace the rocky shores and small sandy pocket beaches that dotted the island, a monocular in hand as he’d survey the endless seascape in search of any wayward vessels that had gotten caught on the deceptively unimposing rocks below the dark water. In his two years manning the island, John has never seen any wreckage. 

In passing moments he missed having company but found he valued his solitude more. However, over time, the gnawing loneliness inside of him grew the longer his isolation lasted, until he had at last found himself settled into a chilling depression. Like the absence of an old friend, it clung to him, never hard enough to stall him, but an everlasting presence, a phantom hand clasped on his shoulder. 

Still, years of warring and conflict had made thoughts of returning to the mainland apathetic, and he was hesitant to rejoin society. He didn't know where he would go besides back to the military, but his bones would ache whenever he thought of returning to that life. So he stayed.

Storms frequently wracked the island, and this time seemed no different, as brutal as it was. John lies in bed, awake, listening to the harsh winds and rain, watching the light from the beacon cast his room in a yellow glow every half minute.

Despite the lighthouse operating electrically, John usually opted to stay awake until the early hours of the morning, even when the vessel schedule delivered every month alongside the rations indicated another period of scarce passage. 

One arm rests across his broad torso, scratching at his side absently, idly, he ponders if he should bother dragging himself out of bed to make himself a tea.

Out of the blue, a bright flare of lightning followed by an impossibly loud crack of thunder erupts overhead, shaking the room.

Sitting suddenly upright his heart can’t help but race at the shock before he quickly schools himself into a calmer state. Pulling himself out of bed his feet touch the cold wood of the ground. He paces over to his bedroom window, needing to survey if the lightning caused any damage to the islet, close as it struck.

Squinting into the darkness, another round of lightning, this time further away, illuminates the land and the sea, and John swears he sees a body-shaped lump on the rocky shore.

John’s eyebrows raise and he briefly stutters in place, unsure of what he really saw. Another flash of lightning, and there truly is a body cast upon the shore.

Backing away quickly from the window, a noise of disbelief escapes him, and John is out of his bedroom and making his way down the staircase in seconds. He yanks his coat from a hook as he barrels out the front door, the wind snatching the door from his hand and slamming it open against the frame.

Fighting through freezing rain and painfully sharp wind, John makes his way to the shore where he saw you.

In the darkness and rain, John makes out your limp form in the coarse sand, surrounded by debris and seaweed washed up by violent waves. Waves crash over you, and pink foam froths to frame you as seawater mingles with blood. As you lay unresponsive, John fears you may already be dead.

John drops his coat onto the sand. Bare feet and ankles in the waves, he rushes into the water until he reaches you. He bends his knees and hooks his arms under yours, rearing you up halfway until your upper body meets his, your head lolling against his chest. He immediately can feel how cold your skin is, even compared to the frigid waters and through his now-soaked nightshirt.

John begins to pull you out of the water, wind whipping around you both. The waves recess for a moment of respite and your shrouded lower half is revealed.

In the darkness, Joel is unsure of what he sees. His first thoughts are that your legs have been injured or marred to a point of strange form that's unrecognizable in the night sky. John stops and reaches to pick you up fully, instead.

A crack of thunder and lightning overhead unveils your true nature, and John stops, would drop you in astonishment if he had any less self-control. You have a tail. A powerful, gorgeously glittering tail, reflecting the light thrown by the storm’s lightning. The lightning ends and the light again wanes, leaving John to blink helplessly in the dark, pulse racketing higher despite his will.

Another crack of lightning, and Joel this time the damage to your tail is revealed. The symmetrical, beautiful pattern of your scales was damaged in swathes on your tail, where chunks of scale were extensively damaged or missing completely. The flesh beneath was exposed and pale and blood-drained, pieces of scale still flaking off and washing ashore. Another injury spanned half of your torso, forming a jagged crescent of puncture wounds across your navel. A messier tear of flesh was impressed along your shoulder.

Carefully, Joel regains his nerves and reaches for you, with one arm secured under your tail, and picks you up bridal style to carry you from the waves.

Balancing you in his arms, Joel bends to scoop up the jacket he had deposited on the shore, blanketing it over you to shield you from the freezing gusts and rain.

The wind now billows at his back, trying to sweep up under his legs as if Mother Nature herself were trying to force him to relinquish his hold on you, his broad back shielding you from her wrath. 

Dutifully, John trudges across the small grassy plain to the cabin, knocking the door open with a foot. He stands a moment in the doorway, water cascading off you both, and eyes the couch for a moment.

Readjusting his grip from where your body begins to slip from his hands, he climbs the creaky wooden staircase, each step protesting louder than normal at the extra weight. He warily eyes the weak fluttering of the gills on your neck, but the rise and fall of your chest, even shallow as it was, abated some of his concern. Still, if you live in water, John doesn’t want to risk leaving you to dry out on his couch.

Bare feet padding across the upstairs hallway, he nudges open the bathroom door. Moving carefully in the cramped space, he lowers you gently into a clawfoot bath. While the thing was almost obnoxiously oversized in the small bathroom, John is now grateful that a previous owner had enough taste for luxury and overpriced items to bother to haul such a thing and have it installed on the island. 

He adjusts your head where it lulls forward to instead lean back against the lip of the tub, mouth pursing as the injuries to your human form are still dripping blood, thin rivulets already trickling towards the drain. 

John crouches further down, old knees creaking their protests loudly, and reaches to the side to tug on the faucets. John hears the clicking and moaning as the water heater engages from a place deep in the house, pilot light igniting the main burner to warm the water. 

Sparing a few seconds to twist the faucets so that lukewarm water poured from the spigot, John cups the water in his hands, reaching up to trickle the water over your gills before he gives pause.

If you’re similar to other ocean-dwelling creatures, feeding tap water through your gills would do more harm than good. While not a man of extensive academic pursuits, he possesses enough worldly knowledge to fill a library. Freshwater through your gills would kill you rather than resuscitate you.

Dropping the rest of the water that hasn’t already drained from his hands, John can’t help but let out a groan at his oversight as he scrubs a wet hand over his eyes, feeling stupid in a way he hasn’t felt for decades. 

Getting to his feet, he hurries from the bathroom, yanking two rusty buckets from the coat closet at the base of the stairs, trekking outside.

Through your closed eyelids, a bright light shines through, and briefly, through a barely lucid haze, you think you’re facing the sun. But you know that’s not right, water doesn’t flow around you and over your gills as they should, the cold and lively sea water that is so persistent it feels like it’s constantly melding with your skin is absent, replaced by warmer, sterile water that laps gently at your ribs. If you remain still enough, you can almost ignore the pain that pulses through your body like a second heartbeat. Wherever you are, you can’t bring yourself to care and fall back asleep.

Seconds later, consciousness insistent, you’re snapped back to awareness, head jolting slightly from where it rests against something hard and uncomfortable, an unwelcome pressure at the base of your neck.

Eyes begrudgingly peeling open, you experience a short moment of confusion before it explodes into fear like your synapses have been electrocuted. You’re not in the ocean at all. Your hands shoot up, claws gripping the lip of the tub. You have no clue where you are, no clue what you're in, but you know you’re on land, and you know whatever space you occupy is manmade.

Head whipping around and eyes fervent, you see no sign of human life, but have no intention of waiting around. The reputations of humans preceded itself, and you had no interactions with humans to be bold enough to permit an encounter.

Ignoring the ache that ripples up and down your body at the movement, you lean up further in the tub. Using the hand opposite your mangled shoulder, you reach a webbed hand along the length of your tail. Patches of scale are missing, with your more delicate scales towards the base of your tail fairing the worst. You pick out an already half-removed deciduous scale that had managed to survive your escape. Trapping it between two sharp claws, you pluck it free, the sensation barely twinging.

Despite possessing the instinctual knowledge, you had never put yourself through the transfiguration. You clutch the scale in your fingers, keeping it for later. You wait a few moments before the moments turn into an anxious minute. Was it supposed to take this long? Was it possible you messed up? 

You grow antsier with every second that passes, paranoid the human was only a half a breath returning to where you wait. Then, suddenly, a shiver washes over you. Instantly feverish, you swear you feel your scales ripple. With a strange disassociation, you hold up your hands and you watch as the membrane between your digits tingle and slough and melt off as they turn almost gelatinous in quality, the single, thin ray between each finger detaching and falling to the floor of the tub with a plink, plink, plink.

You feel your gills flatten and press into your neck, an uncomfortable stitching sensation as they mend together and close, and you take a deeper breath through your mouth as what minimal oxygen being supplied through your gills in the cold air vanishes. 

The strange sensation is pushed to the back of your mind as you watch your bottom half in horror. Your scales tightened impossibly for a moment, like they were suddenly shrinking, and you were certain that the pressure would make them pop off, leaving your vulnerable dermis exposed. But before the tightness becomes so immense your eyes roll back, the scales suddenly sink down and into your dermis. The corpse-white skin makes you pause as your tail becomes scaleless, and you think you may puke. 

The transition pauses, and for a moment you fear you will be stuck at a horrifying in-between.

Suddenly, the exposed skin distends briefly before concaving through the center of your tail, cleaving through the white muscle and tendons. Thin, watery, blood seeps out from the fissure and overflows, spilling warm over your dermis, and you feel a sudden pop and pressure release as your tail is fully separated in two, and you gasp in shock. You feel the skin wrap closed under each of your thighs and calves, fully encasing each human leg. The skin remains a bloodless white a few seconds longer before you feel your heart start hammering and blood flooding to your legs, color slowly blooming across the surface of your skin as it thickens from the thin epidermis of your tail to a tone the same color and durability as your torso. 

Finally, you watch the now halved thicker spines and scales of your tail crinkle and mold, painlessly snapping and reforming to wrap around bony ankles and delicate toes, the emergence of human feet marking the finale of your transition.

Eyes wide, you wiggle your toes the same way you’d flex your tail, watching in fascination as they move.

The transition, jarring as it was, had been shockingly painless. It felt no more uncomfortable than how it felt when you’d reach out an arm deep into the pore of a coral, trying to stretch your limb a few inches further than it could naturally reach to try to snatch a fish hiding within.

Wasting no more time, you brace your arms once again against the sides of the tub. It’s a struggle to draw your knees up, fighting to get your feet under you. Your thighs tingle as you hoist yourself to a crouch, nearly keeling forward as your center of balance has been plucked from you. 

You take a deep breath. 

Taking a few attempts, you manage to throw a thigh over the side of the tub and lift yourself. You rest your stomach precariously on the lip of the tub as you straddle the side. Your foot presses against the cold tile of the floor, and you briefly test your weight on it, your foot giving out and sliding out from under you. You struggle to right yourself, hands clutching the side. Instead, you bring your other leg up to bring over the tub. The shift in weight twists and slides you off the tub, and the sudden weight causes your first-moved leg to give out and slide out from under you, and you land on your side with a huff as the air is knocked from your lungs. 

Recovering, you roll onto your side and prop yourself on your hands and knees. You begin a mad-crawl towards the door. Crawl through the frame, tile transitioning to wood, you move towards the staircase at the end of the hall. You peer down the steps as you near, the steepness intimidating you, but from beyond where the steps end you see where the front door is swung open, rain splattering the wood from outside, and recognition lights up your brain.

Gripping the wooden banister with both hands, you manage to hoist yourself to your feet, wobbling slightly and gripping tighter. You eye the stairs warily, and take one cautious step down, followed by another, and then another, blood fleeing your knuckles from how tight you handle the banister with both hands. 

You make it halfway down the stairs before your next step leads to disaster. A foot placed too far forward, it slips and your legs fall out from under you, the banister ripped from your grasp. You twist and roll down the stairs, hitting each step with a resounding thump.

By the time you reach the bottom, coming to a rest on your stomach, your head is spinning.  You’ve never been subjected to such gravity-fueled disorientation. The pain of the fall ripples through you, rattling your spine and echoing in your injuries. 

You lift your head from where it rests on your forearms, blinking blearily. Your heart lurches at how close your escape now is, the crashing of waves sounding out over the storm, beckoning you home. 

You get back on your hands and knees to crawl out of the door and to your freedom. The hope soaring in your chest is struck dead as you catch a glimpse of a figure struggling through the storm and toward the house. The silhouette is imposing, strong, and big, and a primordial warning flares inside of you. You’re an imposing predator in the water, outmatched by few, but a hissing warning in your head tells you that being spotted by the human would be a deadly mistake, and you’re urged to hide. To find a dark and secluded space in the rocks and hide.

Your head whips around, big rocks or coral outcroppings in sight, and instead find the small coat closet nearby. Crawling and nearly throwing yourself into the closet with the urgency your legs move with, you nestle yourself between long coats and atop rubber boots, motionless.

The closet smells like mothballs and old blankets, the kind of nostalgic familiarity many would associate with childhood comforts, but instead it just has you crinkling your nose to avoid sneezing.

Heavy footsteps near, and your breathing goes silent, ears perked. You run a tongue over your teeth, feeling where they’ve dulled only slightly with your human transformation, and your claws, surviving the change, flex slightly.

You hear the footsteps pass you, unaware of your presence, and instead climb the stairs. The steps grow distant with each passing second, you risk a glance outside of the closet and spot no one near. 

Your chance, fleeting, is taken. You quietly remove yourself from the closet, crawling and making it to the doorframe. 

Freedom is close now, and you feel yourself shiver with adrenaline, wind howling around you.

Quick and heavy footsteps rush from above you, and you nearly puke your heart out.

“What’re you doing, sweetheart?”

A scream of fright escapes you, foreign to your ears, as you begin to hear a fast descent down the stairs, and you don’t waste time looking back.

Slipping on the grass, instinct takes over as you manage to rise to your feet and break out into a sprint. It’s unsightly, an awkward gait that has you lurching forward like a woman possessed, arms pumping painfully as your shoulder sings, barely managing to keep yourself upright as feet pound against sodden grass. The man is in hot pursuit, and you hear the pounding of his feet behind you, getting louder and quicker like the blood rushing through your ears.

Suddenly, an arm wraps around your waist, stopping you in place as you’re hauled back against a chest, feet slipping out from under you. The vice is above the gory wound on your side, you think the man must be an idiot for not taking advantage of your obvious vulnerability.

Your eyes roll back as you attack, claws blindly swiping through the rain. You gnash your teeth and throw your head backward, hoping to close around flesh. Your teeth only bite air, and your claws miss until you swing them again, this time catching on his side.

With a grunt, the man’s grip on you only tightens, and you kick out before you bring your claws to his side again, fingers digging into torn flesh. 

This time, his hold weakens, just marginally, just for a split second, but it’s all you need as your feet kick again and you pry yourself free. 

Landing hard on your knees, you waste no time staggering to your feet. As you run the water comes within sight. You take the scale that had been clenched in your hand and shove it in your mouth, tongue dry as you swallow. Immediately, you begin to feel a change, a twitch up and down the muscles in your legs as your gills wiggle back to life. You hope you’ve timed it right, not too early you become beached on the island or too late that your human form is bludgeoned against the jagged rocks that are perilously close where the white caps break.

Within meters of your escape, your legs burn with exhaustion, unfamiliar with use, but you push yourself forward. 

An impossibly heavy weight is bowled into your back, sending you careening forward. Arms wrap around your waist again, and you're tucked back into a chest and twisted sideways. Instead of colliding with the earth, you land atop the man, who takes on the brunt of the fall. Your head rebounds off his collarbone as you hiss in pain at the contact. Your bodies slide a few feet against the soaked grass, but not close enough for you to escape.

Your arms are restrained at your sides, a heavy forearm wrapped around you, and a strong hand grasps your jaw to keep your head in place, preventing you from twisting your head to the side to take a chunk out his neck.

“Calm down, m’not gonna hurt you, sweetheart.” 

You growled through your closed mouth, not understanding. Your knowledge of human languages was scarce. 

You thrash against him, a whine escaping your throat as it only serves to put you in more pain.

“I know you’re injured. Just settle down.” 

His words are nonsense to you, but you feel them reverberate through his chest more than you hear them. Like seismic waves rippling through the ocean floor and lulling you to sleep when you press your head against the soft sand, you feel the vibrations of his voice nearly vibrate through you. It’s slightly placating to you. Slightly.

When you struggle again, you hear him shush you, thumb rubbing against your jaw, slow and firm, grounding.

The transformation bubbles, insistent, just below the surface of your skin and at the forefront of your mind, but you shove it back down relentlessly. A stubborn, hopeful, part of you, a part that’s always been more mushy than hardened instinct, still believes in a chance at freedom. That you may yet throw yourself from the burly arms that restrain you and make it the final few meters to meet the ocean.

The resistance to your reversion strains you, and you give another struggle as your strength wanes.

“Come on,” His voice urges, soft, “Just relax for me.”

His voice makes your eyes flutter weakly as you yearn to be returned to the icy, dark waters.

Your will sapped, you give in. 

You feel your form change, webbing growing between your fingers, rays emerging between digits, gills now bristling, demanding seawater. Your legs fuse, skin peeling and flesh merging and hardening to tough muscle, dermis membrane stretching and scales poking through. You hear a wet crack as your feet twist and fold and morph back into a caudal fin. The sound of it is worse than it feels, nothing more than a series of slightly disconcerting pressures and snaps.

If your reversion was anything like your first transformation, you imagine the man’s pants and the grass around must be soaked in blood and gore. Whatever the man sees, silently observes, he doesn’t comment on, thumb stroking your jaw like an endless metronome, while you take heavy breaths, tiredness soaking through.

“There you go, sweetheart.” He coos. “Probably feels a bit more natural, hm?”

You don’t dignify his speech with any reaction, petulantly stubborn in the face of being overpowered. When he removes his hand from your jaw, you do one last snap of finality, a punctuation to your struggle that had been fruitless, and a laugh ripples from beneath, up through your chest until it rattles in your mouth, as strong as the thrum of the earth.

“Attagirl.” He says, voice pleased. 

You growl at him.

[buginacup]

Today's Tynk! Update is all text, so you can read it here:

Talking about my experience looking for publishers, and the circumstances surrounding development at the moment.

One full year into the publisher-search gauntlet.

A little over a year ago I entered into some promising conversations with a few publishers about Tynk!

While I initially was hoping to avoid publishers entirely, I was recovering from a year full of disasters and was in the process of paying the 10k+ cut of my campaign funds in taxes. It was becoming increasingly clear that I wasn't going to be able to develop the game full time without some additional financial buoyancy.

Some of the publisher conversations fell by the wayside quickly, but a few remained active for months on months. It's impossible to really communicate the deep time that these conversations operate on, especially if you're not interested in accepting the boilerplate terms (please, never accept the boilerplate terms.) I've been aching to be more transparent about this element of the development process but frankly I haven't been able to while these conversations were happening - it's hard to negotiate one's pay if you're posting about desperately needing money to make your thing. I've been keeping a poker face as best I can while I ride this stuff out.

But, you can tell this update isn't called "Guess Who I Just Signed With ;)" - these conversations all withered to dead ends. I had been relatively optimistic about the success of these negotiations but in the past few months things turned sour. I can't fully know why things didn't work out. Some had alluded to the current harsh winds blowing through the industry, others were more enigmatic with their falloff in interest.

So what do we do?

The more I've worked on Tynk! the more I've loved it, but I won't deny that it is a big undertaking. I'm still interested in finding a publisher to speed things along - but since I'm suddenly back at square one I'm going to need to establish some other avenue of stability while I cast my line and wait for a nibble.

I don't know what my next move is. I'll be chipping away at Tynk! as always, but my current circumstances might require I give it less priority for long enough that I can produce something much smaller that I can actually sell. I've also been considering setting up a Patreon where I occasionally do tutorials on concept design, pixel art, and other visual arts techniques - but I'm unhappy to be courting my audience for cash when you've already been so generous. If I end up launching something like that and you've backed the game, please don't feel obligated to contribute to it! Also, if you have any thoughts or suggestions for what I can do you can email me at VirtualMothVG@gmail.com.

I'll be honest - I'm disheartened, exhausted, and sad. It's obvious that I'll need to spend more time "building an audience" again, but even if I wasn't burnt out by the process of vouching for my own value for a year straight I don't have a clear vision of what that looks like in the internet of 2024. Maybe I'll set up shop on Bluesky or Mastadon as well as resume frequent Twitter posting. I'll be sure to let everyone know once I've planned my presence.

Thanks for your patience as I figure stuff out - Dear Tynk is taking her sweet time, but she'll get here.