#and here I am all these years later and I still haven't fully written it

[shikai-the-storyteller]

I didn't think the first episode of Jentry Chau vs the Underworld was very strong, but I liked the premise and animation style so I kept watching while doing some craft stuff and I wound up binging the entire thing in one sitting. So yeah, solid recommendation. Really liked all the Chinese mythology / Daoist stuff in there

[laora-ryn]

Just in case anyone was wondering, I am in fact a federal employee and I am in fact having A Fucking Time Of It

In roughly chronological order, here's all the things that have fucked us over the last two weeks:

Hiring freeze effective immediately, which involved rescinding final offers to people who were about to start their job. A final offer is something you can get a mortgage with btw. It's what you get after months of paperwork. It's something you move cross country for. Eighteen people just at our hospital had a final offer rescinded

A demand for a return to in person work, with no explanation given for why they want this so badly. No explanation on people who have teleworking written into their contracts, or people who have teleworking as a reasonable accommodation

Related to the hiring freeze: no creation of any new jobs in even a preliminary way, even to prep to fill existing vacancies after the 90 days are over

Closing of all DEIA teams groups, webinar series, webpages, department gatherings... Anything you can think of. This included the queer teams based communities that were just a place for people to chat

Related to this: our acting secretary sending out an email that sounds straight out of the fucking Gestapo, where "we are aware of efforts by some in government to deliberately redefine DEIA positions in an attempt to keep their jobs. If you know of this happening, here's an email line we've set up for tips. There won't be adverse consequences for reporting, however, failure to report may have adverse consequences"

What appears to have been trying to be a total freeze on federal spending, which threw literally everything into chaos, I was not able to follow it at all, but the hospital is still running so I'm assuming money is happening somewhere

Two strange emails from OPM.gov, marked EXTERNAL, saying they're testing a new distribution list and to please reply yes. These were considered so universally sus by employees that they had to come down from central office and confirm that yes, these are legit, please reply

A day later, an email from that same external address offering voluntary resignation, which I'm pretty sure is the bit that's been all over the news for (checks notes) being word for word the same email musk sent to Twitter before proceeding to Not Pay Them

A restriction on communication and travel. "No speaking engagements or attendance at public facing events, seminars, or conferences (unless approved by chief of staff) for 6 months. VA only events are excluded." Which was later clarified to mean "well if you're going for continuing Ed, as long as you aren't presenting, it's ok" but then backtracked to "it's probably ok but you still need approval which can take upwards of a month." Why are they restricting speaking at conferences? It's not a money thing because traveling for VA events still costs money. It's like they're looking to prevent staff from interacting with anyone external, for some reason

And today, an email this morning that "leadership has received guidance from the office of personnel management [regarding the EO about "gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth"] and is working to execute the EO fully, faithfully, and thoughtfully."

This afternoon at 4:30, this began with an all employee email saying that all personal pronouns are being removed from Outlook display names by IT, which was a system implemented several years ago and broadly popular! But nope, we'll need to go back to guessing what genders new coworkers named Quinn, Alex, Morgan, and Taylor are.

(oh I forgot! I can't use the word gender at work anymore. Using Proper Terminology (as interpreted by our ~~~Illustrious President~~~) in all communications at work is now required)

It's been a fucking week and a half and I am so goddamn tired guys. Sorry I haven't been on again but I'm spending most of my energy on Not McFucking Losing It rn

[kitorin]

9:55 am - i.rin. in which, he does his best to help out with math - your weakest subject

"you're telling me you haven't studied at all?"

"i have, just haven't fully committed it to memory"

"that's basically the same thing—and don't lie, you couldn't even state the quadratic formula..."

amidst bored students and hushed discussion was you and yoichi, concealed by the backs of your fellow classmates; approximately something amount of minutes until your mathematics exam, something because you're too stressed to bother with the specifics.

yoichi fiddles with his calculator, ignoring what you pointed out earlier. "how are we supposed to do logs on this thing? where's the tiny ass number?"

you flip through your math book, you must've written the rule somewhere. "hang on, i can't find it."

"yup. i'm failing. couldn't be assed to do anything all term." yoichi stretches his arms forward, across the desk, towards someone in front of him. "oi rin, help me out here." his fingers barely hit the back of rin's chair, weakly begging for his attention.

to which rin responds by rearranging how he sat, forearm and elbow on the backrest, whole body rotated to the side, and study glasses removed with a pinch of his right hand. "what do you want this time?"

"logs. how the fuck do i do it when there's no small number?"

"that's it?" rin tears a page out of his english book, planting it on you and yoichi's desk. "rewrite it as a fraction, put the base on the bottom and the value on top."

yoichi stares at rin. "which one's the base? and what's the value?"

"base is the smaller number that has the index in power form, value is the bigger number that's the result, right?" relief washes over you; at least you didn't need notes to remember that."

yoichi's face brightens. "you're a genius, can't believe you were worried for this test, dumbass."

rin rolls his eyes. "you're just stupid, yoichi. and hopeless." his hand searches around in his bag, fishing out god knows what.

"i'd rather not hear it from the guy who placed in a second year class just for math." yoichi scoffs, asking for permission to revise with your notes through a small tap (and of course you granted it, pushing your notebook towards him). "i'm not that bad at it, also, explain this one."

"no." but rin brings out his calculator. "got better things to do. see here, you can change the base on this thing."

he demonstrates, you barely acknowledge what it can do before flipping through your notes, while yoichi is star struck.

"can i use that?"

"nah."

"i'll give you twenty bucks."

rin rolls his eyes once more. "just learn the math, dumbass."

yoichi swears under his breath, yet rin heeds no mind and turns back to whatever he's doing.

"yoi, it's really not that bad. i have a cheat sheet with all the formulas." you push it towards him but he declines, face slumped onto the desk.

"y/n, i give up. even after years of friendship with itoshi fucking rin he won't give me his calculator."

and it's not just yoichi—others panicked, concealing phones behind textbooks with youtube tutors and notes being aggressively inspected.

you'd be lying if you said you felt okay.

are you doing better than yoichi? certainly, but maths is difficult, it's the kind of subject where your average can drop at any moment. you've studied hard, yet uncertainty still nauseates you a little bit.

you'd be lying if said you weren't nervous—uneven breathing and an unrelenting bounce in your thigh exposes that easily.

9:58 am. only two minutes until next period.

until it's time for you to make your way to the math test.

yoichi leaves first, not even bothering to tuck in his chair. "i'm gonna head to the bathroom first, i feel sick." he taps you on the shoulder. "see ya later, good luck."

you whisper it back while tucking his chair under the table, though the thought of luck doesn't seem to be helpful. at all.

with hesitance, you close your notebook. it's too late to change anything now, you'll only stress out more.

besides, it's only your first year. there'll be plenty of opportunities, right?

rin turns around to speak again, you peer up from slumping forward as he gets ready to leave as well.

"here." it's his calculator.

you blink. "it's okay—." you pull your calculator back out to show him. "i remembered mine." (how could you not, when the very mention of math engulfs you with a sort of doom). you chuck it back into your bag, until deciding you'd rather keep it in hand for the sake of your nerves.

rin just shoves it closer. "take it."

"but i have one."

this time he forces it into your hand. "this one can do change of base for logs."

"but i remember the change of base for logs." you try to hand back the calculator, yet all he does is push your hand back.

"i know. but you can save time with this thing." rin peers at you through his glasses before taking them off to return to his case. "doesn't change anything for me. i don't have a test next period. you might as well take it."

you're tempted to try give it back again, but the way he's staring at you intently insists to you that he's persistent. he won't yield to any "but" or "i'm okay".

and so you give up, nodding and putting your own calculator away. "thanks, rin."

he's by your side as you leave the classroom for your exam. "it's fine." you half expected him to zoom away during the moment silence prevails, to whatever special class he has for high achievers. but he continues speaking. "you're gonna do well, y/n."

"i hope so."

rin scoffs. "not "i hope so". you will. you've literally done nothing but math all week."

you open your mouth to refute, but he cuts you off.

"you're smart. heck, you don't even need that calculator. i bet you could do better than everyone else without it."

a smile appears on your lips. "thank you. i'll do my best!" the two of your swerve to the side for a bit, letting a group of seniors pass. "thanks again for the calculator."

"like i said, it's nothing." he looks away, glancing at the classes the two of you pass. "and you better not do anything to my calculator. it's special."

"of course i won't!" you reassure him by putting it into your pocket for safe measure. "what makes it so special?"

"austria."

"austria?"

"yeah. it's from austria. so it's expensive and hard to get."

your eyes widen. "oh—i see." you're slightly tempted to hand it back to him, just in case you manage to accidentally break it but from the half year you've known rin he'd tell you off for it. "i'll treasure it while i have it."

"you better." his voice is cold, but you swear you can see a small grin.

you pass by a familiar room. "isn't your classroom back there?"

he nods. "not going. i'll walk you there."

"but—"

"i said i'm not going. c'mon. what happens when you add two logarithms with the same base?"

this is easy. it comes as though it's muscle memory. "multiply the values."

rin scoffs, this time with amusement and not irritation. "i told yah you'd be fine."

"y/n, how do i solve this thing?"

you turn to yoichi, who was scratching his head over a trigonometry equation.

"hm? what's wrong?" it's hard for you to tell, with such aggressive scribbles and writing clouding his page.

yoichi grips at his calculator, as though he was trying to strangle it. "i keep getting a fucking obnoxious decimal. how is the road meant to be 0.351 metres long??"

you check the diagram. "you've done everything right." (you mentally check "soh cah toa" to be safe). you check his calculator. "you made it an inverse, silly. that's for finding the angle."

he groans. "thanks. i really fucking hate trig."

"me too." something about his calculator looks familiar. "where'd you get this?" you inspect it, until you notice the little box alongside the log button. "you got a calculator from austria?"

yoichi looks at you as if you're crazy. "i have a calculator from the stationary store nearby. if that's what you mean."

you stare right back at him. "but this is a special one—it changes the log base, rin—"

"rin? itoshi rin told you this calculator's special, from austria?"

"yeah." you say with utter confidence.

"and you believed him?"

"yeah." your confidence remains unfaltering.

"you're an idiot." he states, with no expression whatsoever. it somehow feels more offensive than if he were to scowl at you.

"'m not—"

"you thought, that this calculator. the one i bought at the mall because i got screwed over on that test, was a special calculator from austria."

the way yoichi says it makes you realise how stupid it is, and your face begins to heat up.

"in my defense, rin told me that when he lent it to me."

"why the fuck would rin have a fancy calculator from austria?? i mean, are austrian calculators better than other ones???"

now you have a lot of questions. "well i dunno, he's rich so i thought he was right."

yoichi's fuming, though not at you. "rich people don't spend money on calculators. they spend their money on overpriced shoes and motorbikes so they can show off in the morning." he scrunches a piece of working out paper. "i'm going to kill him next time our families meet up. i could've at least gotten close to passing if he gave me the damn thing."

you pat him on the back. "i would've given it to you if i knew. and if you didn't barely make it to the exam room."

"oh shut up. you better not fall for him."

"now you're the one saying stupid shit. he's just nice, that's all."

he scoffs, loudly, so loudly that you're wondering why no one has asked you guys to be quiet yet. "and i assumed that after seeing him speak to our coach in middle school. he wants you bad. idiot."

"you're being dramatic." rin's just a nice classmate, even if he can be a bit cold at times.

yoichi scoffs again, this time as if you've shamelessly committed a crime. "y'know what, gimme your paper. you don't deserve top mark if you're capable of being this stupid."

"oh shut up yoichi." if you weren't in math class you would've tackled him by now. he's smart, but this whole "rin wants you" is simply ridiculous.

"no, i don't think i'll shut up." he tosses the working out paper he had scrunched harshly at you. "i'll bet on it then. if rin doesn't ask you out until next year then i owe you a meal, if he does then you owe me."

free, food, why not? "fine. deal." you shake on it, then finally resume studying.

little did you know that yoichi would be laughing at your face six months later over sizzling yakiniku.

taglist (send ask to be added) : @yuzurins , @pokkomi , @chigirizzz

© kitorin : do not repost, plagiarize, change, or translate

[vriskaserketdaily]

Announcement; CW for graphic descriptions of medical emergencies & discussions of death/mortality

so, yesterday i briefly mentioned that i had been hospitalized. i unknowingly consumed edibles, became anxious and hyperactive, had a full-blown panic attack, and believing myself to be in the mother of all caffeine overdoses (2 cups of black tea) or having a heart attack or both, called emergency services, and was hospitalized with severe tachycardia.

i genuinely thought i was dying, sitting outside in my pajamas with my back to the mailbox post waiting for the EMTs to arrive. i still thought i was dying two hours later, struggling to breathe in the hospital room with my parents beside me.

i thought about a lot of things in the time between calling the emergency number and being lifted into the ambulance. i didn't want this blog to be my only legacy when i have so much more to do and be and make. i have other hobbies---knitting, crochet, playing guitar & composing music, and especially writing. i haven't drawn or written about my ocs in years, even during the recent hiatus, and i would like to change that.

to that end, i will not be drawing vriskas on a daily basis or consistently updating the fan art queue for the forseeable future. i will still draw vriska, especially if there are requests in the inbox, but i won't be going out of my way to squeeze out fan art when i'm ill, busy in other areas of my life, or generally not feeling it.

i will be keeping this blog up. i will not be changing the url because i fought too hard for a hypen-free daily vriska url and i'm not giving it up that easily. perhaps, after a year or two, i may even resume daily vriskas and normal blog operations.

COMMON QUESTIONS:

are you like, okay? i think i'm fine, physically? i was discharged after about four hours in the hospital and was able to move and eat and stuff today. i still feel some soreness/tightness in the chest, but i think that's to be expected given the circumstances.

can we still send requests? YES please omg. the interactions i have had through requests have been so positive and rewarding that it'd be difficult for me to fully give this blog up. even something as simple as "draw vriska" will function as a request. one thing that's been going through my head a lot lately is the thought that i could die and no one here would notice or care, so having tangible assurance that there is at least one person in the world who wants to see my vriska art would be very meaningful in that regard. i may not respond immediately, but i will respond to all requests that conform to the blog rules and mission (no nsfw, no pedophilic/incestuous ships, must involve vriska in some way)

will you consider opening mod applications? no, both because i don't think there would be too many takers for the position and because i know from experience that the fastest way to kill a daily blog is to load it up with a bunch of mods. (i am not the original owner of this blog and have moderated a few other multi-mod blogs before---i am currently the sole mod of the two i stuck with, this being one of them). i'd rather keep this blog half-active with just me than have it be completely inactive with me and 3-6 other people. again, there's a chance that after a year or so of taking things slow, i may come back to it.

can we tag you in art/fics/vriska posts? yes, actually, that would be very helpful. i don't expect anyone to do this, but again, i will no longer be actively perusing the character tag. feel free to @ me in vriska-related posts you think could use a little love.

if i have a daily vriska blog, will you promote me? sure! genuinely, i wish you luck---i've seen a couple of y'all come and go, and it really takes a lot to keep a blog like this running for more than three months. if you can do that you will be certified spiders for real.

where else can we find you? my main blog is @beangods, where i reblog posts that are not about vriska. you can send art requests there, too, but they cannot be related to vriska. that's what this blog is for. i also moderate @theextendedzodiacas, which is mostly fantroll-oriented. i'm on discord, too, but you won't find me on any other social media site.

is the vriskord still up? yes, it is, and you can join it, though the server is not very active. i don't plan on taking the server down or anything like that.

eighth question eighth answer 8ottom text

please feel free to reach out to me, and i'll be happy to answer any questions that i can. thank you for your understanding, and i'll see you . . . in probably a few days when i draw the 1 request currently sitting in the inbox.

thanks for reading all this.

-mod 8

[thistlecatfics]

✨Author Interview ✨

tagged by @diamondmeadow <3

total works: 78

total word count: 410,145

your top 5 stories by kudos/likes?

Reenactment (9k, Hermione/Andromeda/Narcissa)

Till Tomorrow and Till Death (11k, Regulus/Remus)

Starina (3k, wolfstar)

rugby boys, they play 15s (5k, flintwood)

Alphard's Favourite (5k, Sirius/Peter)

do you respond to comments?

I really try to! I love comments so much! but I'm very often like "wow that was an incredible comment. let me take some time to construct a reply," and then it's fully a year later and I realize I still haven't responded.

what's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

Duty (2k, Regulus/Sirius) or Waxing Gibbous, October 1981 (6k, wolfstar + Remus/Fenrir) because nothing hits harder than canon compliant first war fic when you know exactly what's coming and still hope for something different anyway.

what's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

It's debatable but I think Icarus (20k, Parvati/Millicent/Pansy). That's a fic that really earns its hopeful ending for these women as they struggle with their substance use.

do you write crossovers?

haven't yet, and don't plan to, but life is long!

have you ever received hate on a fic?

honestly not really. I think someone tried to hate on the Sirius/Bellatrix mentions in Till Tomorrow or Till Death but they were so vague about their wording I choose to believe that they were enthusiastic instead. It helps to mostly write rarepairs and femslash and very obviously tagged dead dove content.

do you write smut?

I'm doing my best!

have you ever had a fic stolen?

nope

have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes, into Russian but then the translator took it down (along with all of her Russian translations) in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. (Slava Ukraini!)

have you ever co-written a fic before?

Nope! I would have thought it was something I couldn't handle doing, but roleplaying is making me wonder if I could.

what's a wip that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

my unposted 40k of Black family fic where Andromeda doesn't run away and Sirius sorts Slytherin. It would be really long and epic, and I only want to start posting it if I actually believe I'd see it through.

what are your writing strengths?

Dialogue, sentence flow, grammar, character voice (sometimes, always working on it)

what are your writing weaknesses?

Description. I'm one of those people who doesn't visualize anything, and so I forget that other people do and would benefit from any visual sense of what's going on. Sensory details in general - I tend to get super into my character's heads and am too into their internal world and not enough in the external world (which is also reflective of how I as a person operate in the world). I also tend to get handwavy about things I don't care about in general.

what are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

that is such a specific question haha. do people really have big feelings about that? I included a little French in my Flonks fic but only a little.

what's a fandom/ship you haven't written for yet but want to?

because of the roleplay, Draco has taken over my brain in a dangerous way. I want to write Draco/Sirius, Draco/Harry, and Draco/Regulus now!

what's your favourite fic you've written?

Ok I first included ten here but I cut out any of the ones I already mentioned, and then I tried to narrow it down further, but I still ended up with four:

Merry Christmas, Please Don’t Call (25k, E, Sirius/Regulus, university AU)

Bellatrix Black: An Elegy (5k, E, Bellatrix/Andromeda, Bellatrix character study)

Nymphadora, Nymphet (20k, M, Bellatrix/Tonks, very dark teacher/student)

Family Legacy (1.6k, T, Tedromeda + Remadora + Teddy/Victoire for HP Trans Fest, queer/trans joy and resilience)

No pressure tagging @mundrakan @st-clements-steps @pain-in-the-riri

[maplefield]

rambling about fujin and the white snake adeptus

ok so. i was watching videos of previous lantern rite playthroughs on yt (started playing at the end of january 2023 so i couldn't even take part in last year's) and looking back now after the 4.4 livestream, i thought maybe that 2022 mingxiao lantern was a nod to fujin, so i started digging and went down the rabbit hole basically and collected some things i found interesting.

NO LEAKS, everything written about here is mentioned in in-game items or is a part of chinese culture and legends, but some of it might be considered potential spoilers regarding chenyu vale

first, i wanna preface this by saying that i am no expert in chinese culture so please do correct me if i say something incorrect.

during the 2022 lantern rite they didn't mention which fallen liyue hero the lantern was for (or i missed it) but i found a really good post on hoyolab by Flora's cake.EN, talking about chinese customs and the celebration of the lunar new year. they say that the mingxiao lantern was based on the lantern with the fish pattern of the previous year's festival, and they also note that the lantern resembles carp and goldfish, how in chinese culture they symbolize wealth, fortune, and benefits, and express "people's yearning for prosperity, auspiciousness, and good fortune". this symbolism in chinese culture is very clearly transferred to the game too since we know from the stream that there is a well-known legend in chenyu vale about a carp adeptus named fujin and that "in local legends the golden carp is a symbol of good luck". they also talk about jademouth, a famous landmark left behind by an adeptus to protect the people from flooding, and mention the abodes of the white snake and the carp adeptus.

bai suzhen aka the white snake is the central figure of a chinese legend titled "the legend of the white snake". there are several versions and i'll be fully transparent, i haven't read them yet unfortunately. according to this article by Minjie Su, who researches medieval literature (and apparently had the same uni major as me lol) bai suzhen was originally an evil snake spirit, but later the story became a romance between her and a man, Xu Xuan. in one of the later versions, though she is still morally questionable (she "poisons the well to boost her husband’s pharmacy") she is devoted to Xu and sympathetic to humankind. Xu almost dies of shock when he sees her true snake form. (1) however, she "revives him and makes him believe the snake was but an illusion. Enraged, Fahai wages war against Madam White and holds Xu as hostage, Madam White commands water to rise from the lake to drown Fahai’s temple. She would have defeated the monk, if she did not feel sympathy towards the innocent townsfolk involved in her war. In the end, she surrenders to Fahai’s power and becomes imprisoned under the Pagoda, but not before her short reunion with Xu and the birth of their son. (...) she will never bee freed unless the palm tree before the Pagoda blossoms (...)" she is eventually freed by her son, though this action is not intentional, merely a coincidence. (2)

while searching, i also found this post by baoboatree on reddit, who did some huge work and re-translated the descriptions of the echoes of an offering artifact set. three things to note before i continue: 1) this part might contain POSSIBLE SPOILERS regarding the story of the new chenyu vale region, so proceed with caution 2) my chinese is not good enough to be able to compare the translation to the original and verify the information presented here (i am NOT saying it is incorrect and i'm certainly NOT trying to criticize baoboatree, just thought i should mention this) and 3) the post is relatively old, so some information might have been updated/re-written in-game and become outdated here. for these reasons, it's best to take it all with a grain of salt.

according to baoboatree's interpretation, the story "involves two adeptus - a "medicine adeptus" and a "carp adeptus". The two are bickering lovers/friends and lived near Chenyu valley. Until one day, the carp adeptus was sacrificed in an ancient ritual and loses her human form. She can no longer walk on land, but longed to see Liyue harbor. The medicine adeptus took her on a trip to Liyue harbor by taking her along in a Serenitea pot . (...) The fish adeptus is implied in at least four of the five pieces to have sacrificed herself again, becoming the sunken jade of Chenyu Vale. In at least one but maybe two legends, the medicine adeptus is implied to have become a tea tree that only grows in Chenyu Vale." they say the medicine adeptus may or may not be madame ping, which personally, i believe it's more likely they have something to do with the white snake adeptus (or is even the white snake adeptus themselves), whose husband was a pharmacist in the legend, and who stole medicine for him in another version of that legend.

i encourage everyone to read the whole reddit post, i found it fascinating and baoboatree really worked hard on it. i don't want to go into too much detail here bc this post is already way too long. when the medicine adeptus brings the carp adeptus to liyue harbor in the teapot, baoboatree also states that, in contrast to the official english translation, the teapot was not a gift from "a friend" but "friends", plural. now, this was actually something i could check, and it is absolutely correct. they theoretize that these friends might include madame ping, the role of the medicine adeptus and carp adeptus being clear. they also note in a comment that the fish lantern during lantern rite might have been representing the fish adeptus. looking back now, i would be surprised if it wasn't. hoyo has shown to pay attention to things like this.

as for why it were two fish, one might have been referencing this medicine adeptus, or one could have simply been put there to make it look more balanced, or to emphasize the wish for good fortune, or maybe there will be more to this that we'll uncover. either way, i'm interested in seeing how the story about this carp adeptus will unfold. if they try to stay close to the legend, it might have been the white snake adeptus that caused the flood which made the carp adeptus sacrifice herself. as for whether this white snake adeptus is the same as the medicine adeptus, honestly i think it could go either way. i could argue both for them being the same character and them not being the same. as of right now, i'm more inclined to think that they are different beings. (edit bc 1) i deleted my reasoning bc looking back it was just ehh and 2) bc i realized that i forgot to add this originally: obviously all of this is just wild speculation, and it could very well be that the story that we get, assuming we learn of these events, will be entirely different. the whole turning into a tree legend from the artifact set could also really just be an in-game myth, though i don't think that very likely, but who knows. either way, nothing even remotely certain can be concluded from the information i presently have.) of course i could very well be wrong, and hoyo will probably do their own take on this legend. after all, they have taken a looot of inspiration from nordic mythology as well (i might do some posts about that too, i was a scandinavian studies major so it's always interesting for me to see how nordic mythology is implemented in games/films etc).

anyway, if anyone read this whole thing, i hope you found it interesting. sorry that it was not very concise, i haven't slept in weeks so my brain is barely working lol. i'm really excited for chenyu vale and lantern rite and can't wait to see what this update brings!

(1) the author points out the storyline also has similarities to that of the french legend of mélusine but i don't have enough brain capacity to go into this as well.

(2) the wikipedia page states that Xu actually dies, and "Bai Suzhen went to Heaven to steal the immortal herb Lingzhi. She succeeded in her mission and used the herb to revive Xu Xian. (...) Bai Suzhen and Xiaoqing fought against Fahai and flooded the temple with water, hurting other living creatures.", however, i can't find this information in the relevant source.

Sources

Genshin Impact Version 4.4. Special Program https://youtu.be/abZdO3rWoVc?si=wA1QDAYqeCqh3yUA

Flora's cake.EN on Hoyolab

https://www.hoyolab.com/article/14973902 (accessed 20/01/24)

Minjie Su: The Legend of the White Snake: A Chinese Mélusine Story

https://www.medievalists.net/2017/11/legend-white-snake-chinese-melusine-story/ (accessed 20/01/24)

Bai Suzhen on Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bai_Suzhen (accessed 20/01/24)

baoboatree: Echoes of an Offering artifact lore re-translation and interpretation

https://www.reddit.com/r/Genshin_Lore/comments/tta8wo/echoes_of_an_offering_artifact_lore_retranslation/ (accessed 20/21/24)

[amtrak12]

Recently, I realized grief is my primary theme in my Lucifer fics and ideas. More than the theme even, grief is the entire plot of a one-shot I'm editing and the sequel to my current epic WIP. But I'm firmly in my mid-thirties now, so I figured that's just where my head is at in recent years. You go through cycles in life and I'm simply in my 'grief era' as some might say.

Except that's not actually true. I am successfully writing complete stories centered around grief right now, yes, but I've actually been trying to write about grief for a full decade.

Not in my Doctor Who fics, though grief is embedded in the plots.

Not in my Ghostbusters fics either. Those were written out of a mix of spite and love and explore… well I don't really know what they explored. shrug

No, my focus on grief got started back around 2014 (or 2013??) with a Bering and Wells AU that (honest to Jo) was inspired by an innocent Casper gifset @itcameuponamidnightqueer reblogged. I spent YEARS trying to write that AU. I had a ton of worldbuilding and plot elements, but I just could never find the story. There was a clear beginning (er mostly clear) but no obvious middle or end. The concept was just too big and amorphous for me to wrangle at the time. But damn if there isn't something still haunting in it.

When I remembered this, it made me want to put all the story elements together in one place again. Now, I certainly talked about this AU idea before on Tumblr. You can dig back into my 2014-2015 archives, possibly even 2013, and find messy rambles about it. And I haven't actively worked on the idea since Ghostbusters 2016 was released so some of the details are fuzzy now. But in case anyone can spot the story this was trying to be or if anyone's simply curious, here's what I had for this Bering and Wells ghost AU:

Like I said it was a Casper gifset that sparked the inspiration. Specifically, the 'Can I keep you' scene if I remember correctly. With it being late 2013, I was obviously utterly drowning in WH13/B&W feels, and we were all writing and brainstorming full-fledged alternate settings AUs. So of course, my immediate thought was 'ghost Bering and Wells AU' -- except I thought 'what if Myka's the ghost?' Because HG is the obvious candidate, being the historical figure, but I wanted to put a twist on it and then got really obsessed with the idea of ghost!Myka… and it all spiraled from there.

I decided on a modern setting, 2014, and then went college aged -- possibly because I was only a few years removed from my own college years at the time, but also Myka's relationship with her father/family as a whole ended up playing a huge factor in the world-building so that could've influenced the ages. I don't even know where to begin here because again, I never had a real plot, so let's just dive in I guess.

Helena Wells, age 20, an engineering (? of sorts?) student who Caturanga took on as an intern for his work. Now, Caturanga is effectively studying ghosts, though he dresses it up in fancier terms. I can't remember what his research goals were, but identification and communication were certainly the first two steps.

Usually when I age HG down, I make Christina a baby sister who she either lost or is estranged from to keep that aspect of her backstory. This time I decided to center her grief on her father who I made up for this story as also someone sciencey and someone Helena really admired and was close to. But he died in a car accident a few years ago (technically he might have been hit by a car while crossing the street but I can't confirm that). So Helena is interested in Caturanga's research because she would love to at least talk to her father again and refuses to believe he's fully gone. Resurrecting him is not currently her goal, though could easily come up given later events.

Caturanga isn't looking for the flashy haunted locations. He's looking for the mundane and preferably newer ghosts because they would be closer to the living and thus easier to talk to. He hears about a house in Colorado Springs in the US that can't keep a resident longer than two years so he chooses to study it. He and Helena rent it with plans on staying for a year.

Obviously this is Myka's childhood home and she is the ghost haunting the house. So what happened to Myka?

It's 1994 and Myka Bering is 19 years old. Her father still owns a bookstore, though they live in a separate house rather than an apartment above it. She still has her sister Tracy who I believe I made 15, so four years younger. Myka had been enrolled in college at the University of Colorado - Denver, but when she decided to switch majors from pre-med to pre-law at the end of her freshman year, her father complained about her indecisiveness and wasting money and pulled her out of school. He said, she could return to college when she had saved up enough money to pay for it herself.

Myka was gutted because she wanted to finish her degree so badly. She also hated leaving the friends she had made and tried to visit them as much as possible once school started back up that fall. One night when she drove up to visit her friends and boyfriend (Sam, of course), she lingered too long and arrived back home after curfew. Her father locked her out of the house as punishment, leaving her to sleep in the car in the garage where she left the overhead light on. There was an electrical fire that night. Myka didn't wake up in time to get out and she died.

Okay here's one of the rabbit holes I got super distracted by while trying to plot this out: Tracy's reaction. Because this whole thing is supposed to be a Bering and Wells AU, so clearly Helena and Myka are the main characters, right? But the more I obsessed over this story, the more prominent Tracy's role became. This was a tale of two sisters, dual POVs, each grappling with their rough childhoods in different ways. Except, there's also still the plot of Helena finding Myka, befriending her, and ultimately resurrecting her (more on this later), so how the hell were these things supposed to be balanced and woven into one coherent plot?? It was beyond my skill level. :S

In my head, Tracy had managed to skate under their dad's strict thumb throughout her childhood, largely because she just didn't care what her dad said and always opted to do her own thing. Myka did care what their father thought and tried to follow the rules which made the times when she didn't seem like more of an offense. Oldest child syndrome was also definitely at play where the youngest just gets away with more. So when Myka got pulled out of school, Tracy was less sympathetic and more 'you brought that on yourself.' I mean, it's not like Myka even needed to admit she changed majors. Colleges don't send report cards to your parents. She could've kept her mouth shut and stayed in school.

Tracy 1000% blamed their dad for Myka's death though. The electrical fire was an accident and no one was to blame, but he locked the door and didn't let Myka sleep inside that night. Therefore it's his fault. Myka was right about him this entire time. He's not just an annoying or strict dad, he's abusive. (Something Myka never said and will later disagree with though her own feelings towards their dad are certainly complicated.) Tracy's grief becomes anger and even hatred and builds until she emancipates herself from her parents and leaves home at 16. She spirals for a while (partying, reckless sex) before pulling herself out and finding some help to deal with her grief. She puts herself through school and becomes a social worker. By 2014, she's married and has two very young kids, one of which I'm 99% certain I named Micah after his aunt that he never got to meet. Tracy periodically takes them to visit Myka's grave, and did I write one of those visits in my multiple drafts? Yes, yes I did.

Making her a social worker both seemed fitting for her arc in this setting and is a helpful connection to ghosts when a certain little 10-12 year old (can't remember the exact age I made Claudia but it might have skewed towards 10) continually gets flagged in foster care because she insists she's talking to her brother's ghost.

On that note, let's jump back to the actual ghost plot. So in this universe, ghosts exist as amorphous blobs that can't be seen or touched by the living. At best, you can talk to them. Claudia can talk easily with Joshua because he's only been dead for a few years and immediately began following his little sister around. He's never been isolated. Other ghosts often are. It can take up to a couple of years for a ghost to become aware of their surroundings and new existence and if their loved ones are no longer in the same place, they might forget about their previous life.

This is what happened to Myka. Her family left the house immediately after the fire. Her room was empty when she regained awareness after her death and so her memories slipped away. After twenty-years of isolation, Myka doesn't remember ever having a physical body and doesn't even remember her name.

But she reads still. She remembers books and has stolen many from whoever was currently living in the house. She stashes them all away in the closet of her old bedroom and when these stashes are found and thrown out/reclaimed, she just starts again. Sometimes she only had one book to read over and over and over again. Other times, she had many. The reports of moved/missing books is what flagged this house as haunted.

Now, I said the living couldn't touch ghosts and that's because ghosts can't really interact with objects. It involves remembering being alive and corporeal well enough to remember what touching something like a doorknob feels like. Most ghosts can't do this without a lot of interaction with living people to jog their memories. Myka being able to touch books (only books but still) is rare and a huge discovery.

Helena finds Myka first. (Well, she finds the open book on the floor with pages moving on their own.) Communication is slow because Myka isn't used to speaking, so Helena has to figure out who this ghost is on her own with some good old fashioned cross-checking property records against obituaries. It's a bit of a gut punch to learn the quiet, book-obsessed ghost is a girl around her age.

(By book-obsessed, I don't mean just reading them. Ghost!Myka is very, very territorial and protective of her books because they're the only things she's owned since she's died.)

Helena and Caturanga's research involves a lot of equipment to try and sense a ghost. They manage to fine-tune a scanner to see the invisible ghost. This is when they learn ghosts are really just blobs and not a full-fledged body like the stories. Though, over the course of their tests, they do see Myka form pseudo-hands to carry and read her books which brings up all kinds of new questions for them to pursue.

I remember Myka never went through walls either. She could pass right through solid objects and would whenever a door was unexpectedly closed on her. But it always pinged her mind as Wrong so she would skirt under doors and around objects to get around the house. She never left the house -- though again, experiments with Helena later prove she can leave. It's a mental block. This is her house, even if she can't remember living there.

Helena works hard to get to know Myka and slowly befriends her as Myka re-learns how to talk to someone. The more she talks, the more Helena asks her questions, the more her memories return. Some of them return easily. The more painful ones, she fights and tries to forget again. She never looks out the kitchen door at the side of the house where the garage once stood. She doesn't want to talk about it.

Eventually, as Myka's learning how to grasp other objects and open doors herself and Helena's getting more and more attached to her (and feeling more and more outraged that Myka died so young), we hit a tipping point where Helena tries to take Myka's hand. Or more accurately, she asks Myka to try and take her hand since she still can't see Myka. The time Myka finally manages to touch her is when she suddenly returns with a physical body, alive once again. Apparently, a living person touching a ghost leads to resurrection.

This is where I got lost down another big rabbit hole. I was absolutely obsessed with Myka's struggles to adapt back to the world of the living. Think about it, right. She's existed without physical sensations for twenty years. Now suddenly, she has a body again. Everything's too loud, too bright, too much. Clothes hurt. Having to use energy to walk, hurts. Food???? A sensory nightmare. And when I was brainstorming this and noodling around with google, I learned about sensory processing disorder and OH MY GOD did that just send me deeper into the rabbit hole. I was so, so distracted by this topic and wanted to spend forever exploring Myka's initial months alive again. Do you understand why I could never find the plot? I was way too lost in the details to find the tent poles of this story.

Once Myka has learned to take care of herself again and has some coping mechanisms in place to help with the constant 'too much' struggle of being alive, her first desire is to return to college. Not see her family. It's been twenty years and that's still too much to tackle. But she'd been desperate to return to college when she died so that's the first thing she wants to do now that she's been resurrected.

This is when Pete and Mrs Frederick come into the picture -- though technically Mrs Frederick has been in play the whole time. Let's start with her. See, I thought a warehouse equivalent organization that was fully aware of ghosts and trying to help them would be handy for this story. But I was convinced at the time that a government funded agency didn't make much sense. Every secret organization in TV shows and movies are always government funded -- but the US government hates funding anything that isn't corporations or the military.

… So why wouldn't the secret organization actually be disguised as a for profit company instead? Insert Mrs Frederick as CEO of a long-running and ever-evolving company that currently brags about being at the cutting edge of smart home devices and appliances. Except the smart home technology serves a secondary purpose of finding new ways to communicate with incorporeal ghosts who are slowly being lost to time. The company (I'm sure I had a name for it but I can't remember it anymore) gains its funding through product sales and government tax cuts/hand outs to pursue its true goal of locating these lost ghosts and reconnecting them back to their loved ones or at least reconnecting them with community. They want to re-socialize them, help them find purpose and meaning. No one knows how to help ghosts move on or if they even should move on, though if ghost decides to try, they certainly don't stop them. They also had never found a way to resurrect a ghost. Some ghosts had asked if it was possible, so the company is researching it. But they're researching in laboratory settings and with Myka's resurrection, it becomes clear that there needs to be a personal connection between the ghost and living person to successfully resurrect them. (Hence, Claudia and Joshua being the second ones to successfully manage a resurrection.)

I'm losing steam and this wasn't super thought out in detailed back in the day anyway -- but Mrs Frederick helps Myka enroll in college in Colorado Springs and her living expenses are all funded by Mrs Frederick's company. Caturanga's research was also being funded by Mrs. Frederick, though Helena wasn't fully aware of how big this operation was until after Myka's resurrection.

Myka meets Pete at college and they become fast friends. Mostly because Pete's too chatty to care about Myka's silences and easy-going enough to roll with her quirks and continued struggles with being alive. At some point, he finds out she had died and been resurrected, but I don't remember if I ever fleshed out that reveal.

I did flesh out the sister reunion. In my head, Tracy would get pulled into the ghost aspect because Claudia is one of her cases. But she wouldn't learn about Myka until Myka decides she's ready to see her. That takes about a year (or even longer) and happens after Myka's started attending college. Tracy is shocked to learn her sister is alive again, obviously, but also happy. Myka is happy to reunite with her too but also feels awkward because Tracy is all grown up with kids and she's still 19 (well now 20). Sometimes, it seemed like their reunion should be the end point. But then there's also still so much story to explore after their reunion too. Their father has died by 2014. Warren died of a heart attack several years earlier. Tracy has no regrets over never reconciling with him. Myka does regret that he died before she came back to life. They have different opinions and feelings about their shared childhood and it creates friction between them. Their mother is still alive though, and I played through Myka reuniting with her too. That's awkward in a different way than reuniting with Tracy. The 20 year time gap still plays a role of course, but mostly it's sits strangely with Myka because her mother keeps telling her how much her father regretted that night and how much he missed her and wished he could apologize. And while Myka doesn't blame him for her death like Tracy does, there's a lot of other hurt she does still blame him for and hearing that he's sorry from Mom instead of getting to talk to him herself -- it doesn't solve anything. It doesn't make anything better.

Not to add it like an after thought, but Sam has died too. He still grew up to join the Secret Service and was still killed on duty. It hits Myka hard when she finds out. She hates that he died too soon too. It's not fair.

And… I think… that's everything I ever came up with for this AU concept? I spent most of my time on Helena and Myka pre-resurrection, Myka immediately after the resurrection, and Tracy always. I had a pretty fleshed out world and a ton of pieces that could count as plot -- but I never had the throughline that turned it into a proper narrative.

If you see the narrative in this mixed soup or if you see something in here that inspires you -- please! By all means, run with it and write your own fic for it! Do not feel like you need to ask my permission, because I guarantee you, I will never turn this into a real story. But it was nice to revisit and maybe you can still get some enjoyment out of what is here. :)

[scary-senpai]

Would love to hear more about you & me & a high balcony!

Gahh! Thank you so much for the ask. (Original link is here, if anyone wants to join or reblog.)

So, “you & me & a high balcony” is one of the fics I drafted when I was teaching myself to write again. So it's awkward and striving (mostly in the right direction), and still pretty rough--I started writing it in 2020, I haven't really touched it since 2021, and I have learned a whole lot since then. At the same time, it is a fic that is near to my heart and I'm grateful for the opportunity to talk about it! <3

“you & me & a high balcony” is about Genos taking Garou home for the first time--why? tbd! I wrote probably about 100k words of various interconnected fics without fully committing to the unifying concept or plot and I will never, ever do that again. Probably.

Anyway, Genos takes Garou home and neglects to fully inform Saitama. You are getting my draft in its fully unedited glory.

Saitama’s cactus is on the balcony and it is a very, very painful experience for him. In keeping with running canon gags, Saitama is absolutely powerless against this ickle, stationary cactus and he finds himself in an ongoing fight with it, almost immediately. He also gets totally entangled in Genos' camping gear, but put a pin in that, we'll come back to it.

What follows is a series of interspersed scenes between Genos and Garou inside the apartment, Saitama making strange noises outside, Genos fabricating excuses and lying (poorly), and Genos occasionally stepping out on the balcony pretending to be Genos (because, again, Saitama is wrapped up like a sad sandwich in an unpitched camping tent.) In retrospect, it's very clear how much I miss writing for stage, because it feels a bit like an homage to Noises Off (but, you know, prose).

In the spirit of adventure, I am sending an unedited screenshot. With comments boxes! I haven't re-read it in years because I'm too nervous, but you can!

“CW” doesn’t necessarily stand for content warning but I guess it certainly could? CW is an abbreviation of my name so it’s how I highlight “shit I need to go back and figure out.” Being older and wiser, most of my drafts are now just bullet points for me to come back to later, when I have a coherent, unifying thought for the story/fic/series. It has saved me a lot of screaming and tears.

Anyway, Saitama keeps moving the cactus into the apartment. Garou keeps moving it back. Genos has no idea what the fuck is happening, but it’s the least of his problems. Eventually it leads to Saitama and Garou having a heart-to-heart (and agreeing not to tell Genos they met) and, idk, man, I love writing Genos x Garou a lot, but (Platonic) Garou + Saitama scenes are my absolute favorite. I just give them my ideal relationship, which is All of the Hijinks and None of the Sex with someone who finishes your sentences, but all the sentences are puns.

I started drafting the story in 2020, and anything I wrote in 2020 chronicles my descent into madness— inadvertently & indirectly. Suffice to say, quarantine was hitting me very hard and a lot of my behavior was centered around making myself laugh. My serotonin starved brain had a tendency to overload scenes with jokes. Even if they didn’t fit, even if they threw off the pacing. But stories and scenes need to have cohesive plots and it’s silly, to the point of being out of character. Sometimes that's part of the process, though. There's always a lot of love in the first draft of a story, I think, because it's a leap of faith.

I had written a litany of things that embarrassed me about this draft, I deleted it. So I'll share one of the things that I am proud of coming up with--I don't play a lot of video games. I needed a fighting game for King and Saitama to play during a stint of dialogue (the outcome of which involves King lending Saitama Hatoful Boyfriend so that Genos can practice dating (and also he does not trust Saitama with any of his beloved Doki Doki sims). So I thought of the one game I played a lot as a kid (Super Smash Bros) and combined it with something I do know really well (literature) and came up, um, this:

The Body Electric is near to my heart because it was a major part of my writing journey. It was also a major part of my writing journey where I learned a lot, mostly by making mistakes. Granted, it remains largely unpublished so I failed in gracefully private but it is really important to me to finish it one day.

Thank you so much for the ask!

[fearless-stormclaw]

To celebrate me starting the last chapter of the main part of the first book of my Owl House HP AU here are some sketches of some of the kiddos!

I might put colored versions of these drawings into the final draft.

(Fair warning, I do not claim to be an artist. Headshots are about the extent of my abilities.)

First up, our protaganist, 11-year-old Luz Noceda! She wears her hair in pigtails most of the time. The image on the right is a possible design of her with her hair down. (or a possible Vee, whose design I haven't fully pinned down yet) And I realized I forgot her scar whoops She's also supposed to have a scar across her left eyebrow which I forgot to draw but please imagine it's there.

Next up, 11-year old Amity Blight! Her little ponytail was an absolute pain to figure out how to draw. I think I managed it passably though. Her hair is dyed green, like it was in season 1 of the show.

12-year old Willow Park! Poor girl, she is haunted. Sorry, eyes are still a weakness. She's a year older than the others but still in the same grade because her birthday is after the first day of school. For Willow, this adds to her feeling of being behind everyone else.

9-year old Gus Porter! I should mention that the witches in this AU have normal round human ears, just like the wizards in the Harry Potter books. I imagine little Gus to have quite large ears that he will grow into some later. Again I apologize for the eyes.

11-year old Boscha Malphiday! I'm really pleased with how she turned out, although I struggled with her third eye and I'm still not 100% satisfied with how it turned out. Her surname in this AU is a play off of Malfoy--Malfoy comes from the French for "bad faith" (mal foi); Malphiday comes from "mal fidei", Latin for "bad faith".

13-year-old Hunter! He only appears as a cameo in the main storyline of Book 1, but he has a big part in one of the bonus epilogue chapters (which I haven't really written yet). In this timeline, he has only recently officially received his Golden Guard title. He hasn't gotten his cheek scar, ear notch, or eye bags yet (they will all come in due time) but he does have his tooth gap. He got that from getting his face punched in during training. I drew his Golden Guard uniform with only the one pauldron on his left shoulder as in the show, but I'm thinking of giving him a second one on his right shoulder like in the storyboards.

Meet 15-year-old Oliva Che'! She's one of my OCs. She's basically the Oliver Wood character--the captain of the Owl House grudgby team. She is a very spirited and gung-ho type and very enthusiastic about grudgby. She is in the construction track, although she is not a huge fan of the coven system. She's kind of a fun big sister to the younger Owl House students. She is of Yucateca Maya descent. She has brown or gold eyes. Her hair is naturally black but she dyes it a different color every year and usually keeps it in braids. This year it's pink. Unfortunately Paint did a weird thing when I cropped this picture and made her blurry I am so angry Her Palisman (not pictured) is a black spiny-tailed iguana named Toloc.

Meet 16-year-old Saka Katu! She is another OC. She is a cat demon girl and Oliva's girlfriend and also plays on the Owl House grudgby team (mostly because Oliva insists). She is in Potions track and believes deeply in the Coven system. She's a little uptight, some might call her bossy, and big into following the rules. She's kinda of a strict big sister type to the younger Owl House students. She keeps Oliva from being too reckless while Oliva keeps her from being too stiff. Saka is Malagasy for cat and Katu is Basque for cat so her name is literally "cat cat". She may or may not have a Palisman; if she does, it's some sort of fish.

Last but not least, 11-year-old William Myrtus Warthorne! His design is based off of Ser William from the audio tests/pilot. He is described as a handsome boy--broad-shouldered, with blond hair and blue eyes and a hooked nose which I swear I fixed but somehow it's still wrong ORZ. He is in Goat House and is friends with Boscha, but he doesn't participate in bullying (he doesn't do anything to stop it, though, he's just sort of there). He has a friendly, laidback personality and can get along with just about anyone. It's not discussed in this book (it's more of a plot point in book 2), but his family, the Warthornes, are a cadet branch of the Clawthornes which is why he has Clawthorne and Wittebane features.

[iammikedee]

First run-in with transphobic doctor

Hey y'all. I realize I haven't written in a literal year. In general, things are going great. I got married and reconciled with family, which both need to be their own posts, which I'll get on top of later. Today I wanted to vent about my first experience with a doctor who had homosexual and transgender bias.

Before I get into it, I want to say that I really don't throw the word 'transphobic' around lightly. I think there is a difference between hate, phobia, and ignorance, and each needs to be analyzed and addressed separately. But I'm not here to talk philosophy, I'm here to say that I am deliberately choosing to call this doctor, or at least his actions, transphobic, as he was afraid to treat me the way he would presumably treat his non-transgender patients.

A few months ago, I pulled something weed-whacking and parts of my neck and arm went numb. The numbness persisted for a couple weeks, so I figured I'd better go get it checked out just to be safe. I couldn't see my primary because she's out for a few months, so I went to express care at the same practice at #amplahealth.

The nurse took my blood pressure and it was really high which is unusual. I've had high BP in the past, but not for a couple years, and all other readings at this office in recent years have looked great, so I fully expected the doctor to address it.

I was taken to a room and the doctor entered shortly after, respectfully confirming that I was transgender female-to-male which is of course standard practice. He then attempted to confirm that I was having pain in my left back and shoulder. I explained that there was no pain, but persistent numbness, and swelling that had since gone away.

He asked if I was taking testosterone. I told him that I had not taken testosterone for over a month.  He asked why. I verbally hesitated, as this is an uncomfortable and private matter, and I was not familiar with him. He assured me that to treat me properly, he must know, so I explained that my husband (who was in the room with me, this is important later) and I planned to have a child.

He then declared that my "pain" was the result of abruptly discontinuing a high dose of testosterone. I explained that I had not stopped taking my hormones suddenly but weened myself off safely and successfully under the supervision of my primary care doctor. I also reiterated that there was no pain, only numbness, and added that I first experienced the sensation while weed whacking since he had not asked me anything about the incident yet.

I explained that I felt numbness “here,” and pointed to the area. He was looking at his clipboard and would not look at me. Uncertain if he had heard me, I asked if I could show him the area. He still would not look at me. A really long, awkward stint of time passed that left husband and I staring awkwardly at each other. Eventually he did look at me, and I said, “This is where I’m having the numbness,” and pointed to the area. He didn't observe the area. He didn't touch it. He didn't even ask any questions about it. He simply reiterated that my "pain" was due to stopping testosterone and said that suddenly stopping a high dose of testosterone can cause unexpected pain in various areas of the body.

I'm not a doctor y'all. But Jesus Christ. Come on. I had long since tapered off of my hormones with no issues, and I could feel the EXACT moment my numbness started - - - when I was weed whacking.

Then the doctor stopped in the middle of his explanation and asked, “Why are you looking at me like that?” This confused me and I glanced at my husband, then back at the doctor. “See? Now you’re tilting your head. What am I saying that’s so confusing?”

I said that regardless of whatever influence may have played a factor in starting the numbness, my day-to-day tasks were exacerbating the issue and I was concerned. I told him that when my arms were held up it increased the numbness, and that working at my desk while typing or driving my car seemed to trigger it.

This is where he really went off the rails. He said he was not going to file a worker’s comp claim (?????????). I asked him why he thought this was a work injury. He said it was because I work at a desk, and that workers comp claims are messy, and “Trust me, you really don’t want to get into that kind of thing.” I reminded him that my issue began when I was weed whacking.

He said, “I can give you some baclofen to relax your muscles, but you need to see your primary about this.” I explained that my primary was on maternity leave, which is why I had come to express care. Then he started to talk shit about my doctor! I can't make this stuff up y'all. He complained that she hadn't set a return date and this and that and the other; personal feelings about his colleague that he had no business talking about to his patients.

At that point his cell phone rang. He recovered it from his pocket and mentioned that it was his son, and that he had to take the call. He corrected himself after glancing at the screen and said that it was actually his boss and stepped outside of the door to take the call.

At that point, I chose to leave because I felt I was not being respected, and felt the doctor was not invested in helping me. As my husband and I left the office, I passed him in the hallway. I said, “We’re going to leave, thank you.” The doctor said, “Don’t you want your baclofen?” I said no and left.

He never asked me questions. Never touched my arm or neck. He barely looked at me. As far as my blood pressure went, he never mentioned it and I had to go elsewhere to get it checked out, as well as my original problem with numbness. (I had pinched a nerve, and the numbness went away on its own. A doctor confirmed that this had nothing to do with testosterone. Was given blood pressure medication for hypertension and told to follow up with my primary.) I scheduled an appointment with another doctor at Ampla to talk about the blood pressure.

Bad experience, but life goes on, right?

WRONG!!

A week or two later, I logged onto my patient portal to find that the doctor assigned to me that fateful day really went to town on my patient chart, filling it with dangerous and incorrect information about my medication, an incorrect reason for my visit, and on top of that, he used my patient chart like a diary to express his feelings about me.

First, he logged my visit as leg numbness.

Then, under "history of present illness," he wrote the following. This is HIS note, word for word, copied and pasted from my chart to Tumblr. I bolded my favorite parts:

“Patient comes to the clinic today with his male friend. His chart note identifies him as a transgender female to male who had been on testosterone 200 mg every week. This was discontinued a month ago. In the last month patient and his male friend have decided they want to have a baby, the reason for discontinuing. Realizing the possible adverse effects of that much testosterone that frequently and then discontinuing it I continued asking questions of this individual. Patient became very agitated. I attempted to explain to him why I was asking was led to his insistence that he was having muscle spasms in the neck and that was causing the numbness down his neck, arm, shoulder, and upper back. While trying to reassure this individual that I was trying to help him with the thoughts of giving him baclofen for muscle spasms myself on begin to buzz from a call from our companies headquarters. I excused myself and stepped out of the room to answer. Before I could asked the caller to hold on, the patient and his male friend stormed out of the room with the patient saying "you know what I am just going to leave". I asked the patient if he would like me to give him a prescription for baclofen to which she said "no I am good". Patient was not thoroughly evaluated. Patient became extremely angry that I was even questioning him. Patient obviously had some kind of disdain for me as a straight white male provider and chose to leave without being seen.”

Y'all.

Y'all.

Where do I even start?

How about how he refers to my husband as my “male friend” after they were explicitly introduced at the appointment? I could not have been clearer in saying we were married and would soon be trying for a child. Our decision to have a child was not decided over the last month as he claimed, but rather, over many, many years. Now my chart says that I up and decided to have a baby with a friend, and abruptly stopped 200mg of testosterone a week to do this, which brings me to the fact that...

NOBODY TAKES THAT MUCH TESTOSTERONE.

My prescription, as in the entire vial, is 200mg. My dose at the time I started tapering (months and months ago) was 0.4ml, which is about 80mg/week. That's over double my dose. It's an insane dose that nobody in the history of ever has been prescribed. Not only is his information incorrect and dangerous, but it shows that he did not read my chart properly and does not understand how intramuscular medication is prescribed. And by the time I was done tapering, I was taking less that 0.1ml (20mg)/week, so no, I did not abruptly stop taking a high dose. Not only does it make it look like I'm abusing hormones, but it implicates my primary care doctor, pegging her as someone who prescribes unsafe hormones.

And finally, “Patient obviously had some kind of disdain for me as a straight white male provider and chose to leave without being seen.” He wrote this under "history of present illnesses." I resent that he projected his inferences about me in MY chart. My chart isn't his fucking diary. This is a grown ass man with a medical degree, and this is how he behaved. His attempt to gaslight me to cover his own ass is sure something. I wasn't agitated. I had no disdain for him as a straight person or a white person. That's not me. I do presently, however, have disdain for his behavior and character.

I've talked with Ampla's patient complaint department and am working hard to get my chart amended. It's a tricky process because it can take months, and the doctor himself has to agree to change the chart.

I requested that he change my hormone dose to the correct dose, correct the reason for the visit, and refer to my husband as my HUSBAND and scratch the part where he says I made a sudden decision to grow crotchfruit with a rando. I did NOT request he change "she" to "he" in my chart, nor did I request he get rid of the bit that says I detest straight white dudes, because if he wants to look like an asshole in writing, that's his choice.

In the meantime, I'm stuck with dangerous and wrong information on my chart that makes me look like I abuse hormones. And my doctor is still on maternity leave. I haven't gone back to the clinic and will not until this is amended. I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place because my primary is amazing, and she is a trans health care specialist who has helped my husband (also her patient) and I prepare to start trying for a baby. She's also helped me with my fibromyalgia and I've made such strides with her. I mean, she's essentially our family doctor and I could not ever hope for a better one. And yet I have no desire to stay with Ampla after this. I haven't made a decision about whether or not to go back, and until my chart is amended, I cannot morally bring myself to be seen there. I need their administration to take this seriously.

I have already let their administration know that if the chart isn't amended, I will approach my primary doctor directly, as well as their board, and proceed to take whatever steps are legal and necessary to protect myself and my primary.

I don't really know how to end this, I'm just so disappointed in their administration, this doctor in particular. There should be no place for medical staff that will not properly treat queer patients at an organization that publicly claims to treat LGBTQ patients.

[funsizedcrow]

Who is your favorite oc and what's their deal, and who are their friends?

ok first of all thank you for asking about my ocs I love to talk abt them even though I don't really do it a lot. they r so real to me...the plot and story is like mostly fully formed inside of my head (although only partially written down.) and i forget sometimes that they aren't real characters that everyone knows about...but now you can know about them! (sorry this is kind of rambly and not all that coherent. I have a lot of thoughts jumbling around in my brain)

(the rest is under a cut bc i wrote a lot)

so my main oc story (which is called teen spirit for now, but i might change it in the future) has a main cast of 5 people. Cat, (they/them) Caleb (he/him), Juno (she/they), Nathan (he/him), and Ellie (any/all). But out of all of them my favorite will always be Cat <3

Some fun facts abt Cat: they exclusively dress in warm winter clothes, no matter the weather. Puffy jackets, thick pants, boots with fur lining. They claim not to feel the heat. One time they end up in arizona and almost die of heatstroke. Cat pretends to be the braincell of their group but the truth is that they are just as impulsive as the rest of them, and its honestly a miracle they haven't been arrested yet. Anyways plotwise Cat has some sort of connection to the supernatural.

Ok first of all heres some basic lore. So there’s a mortal realm (regular old earth) and a spirit realm. Basically when someone dies they’re given five years as a ghost to tie off any loose ends. The only people that can see ghosts are people connected to said loose ends. Spirits are immortal beings that live in the spirit realm. Their job is to watch over the ghosts in the human realm, and run the real afterlife.

Anyways so Cat is connected to the supernatural. And later in the story this leads to them basically becoming a ghost magnet, which leads to fun things (losing the ability to distinguish whats reality and whats not) but anyways at the beginning it is easy things, such as finding a ghost in the basement of their school, where they broke into with their friends caleb and juno (i'll get to them. later.) and anyways the ghost they found was nathan, cast member number 4!

Cast member 5 is relevent now. Her name is ellie (any pronouns) (ellie is not his actual name, her real name is unpronouncable to humans.) So Ellie is a Spirit, but was punished by being sent to earth to live among humans as a mortal because she did the forbidden, brought a person back to life. (said person was juno's mother actually which leads to a lot of drama and tension between them.) So Ellie ends up crashing in Cat's backyard, creating a crater that is. difficult to explain to their parents. And ellie's appearance is not very long after they discover Nathan's ghost in the school basement. This is interesting because Nathan's death was not, in fact, due to natural or normal causes. It's because he, like Cat, was connected to the supernatural, and ended up seeing things that he was not supposed to be able to see. So the afterlife system decided the best thing to do was kill him! But he still has to get his five years on earth over with for his loose ends. (there was debate in the bereuacracy over whether they should bother with that or just send him straight to the afterlife, but they ultimately decided that the circumstances of his death were unusual enough that they should stick to standard procedures instead of changing more things.)

Anyways proximity to Cat allows Juno and Caleb to also be able to see nathan. And Caleb and Nathan specifically become very close. (its the tragedy u see. Nathan is dead. Nathan can't stay on earth forever, he's going to have to leave. He's not alive anymore but being with caleb makes him feel more alive than he ever was. They love each other but nathan continuously pushes back, doesn't let himself get too close because he knows it won't last.)

(i am talking a lot more than i intended to. oops) anyways the main plot is well it starts out with them trying to help Nathan tye up his loose ends so that he can just go to the afterlife sooner instaed of just hanging around for another couple years but then it shifts to realizing the fundamental issues within the afterlife system, which is exacerbated by Cat's interactions with the ghosts that they encounter (btw can u tell that the good place is one of my favorite shows.) They also just do fun high school shenanigans for the other half of the plot because my favorite genre is when something is a comedy with serious and tragic elements.

Characterwise the main dynamic between the original trio (cat, emily, and caleb.) Juno comes up with the dumb and reckless ideas. She is the one that encourages them to break into the school's basement in the first place, because she wants to see if the ghost rumors are true (they are). Cat is the one who makes the actual plans, who ensures that they don't get into any real trouble. Caleb is the anxiety, he's the one who actively discourages the plans, who voices the concerns. Except for when it comes to certain things, such as his not-so-secret obsession with the paranormal. When it comes to that he and juno are opposites, Juno is terrified of ghosts and hates the supernatural, caleb loves it, while with nearly everything else Juno is fearless and Caleb is terrified, and Cat provides the middle ground between them, as well as negotiating with the cops when they need to, which happens more than their parents would like.

I have more things I could say but this is getting out of hand so i will wrap this up but i love my ocs so much <3 I really should start talking abt them more lmao.

Anyways here is a collection of drawings of (mostly) cat from the past year:

[taegularities]

Hello, lovely Rid 💕💕

I'm here to ramble to you about your ramble in response to my ramble lmao.

First of all, we really do think alike apparently, because I also checked the wordcount of my feedback before sending it and it's probably the longest one I've ever written and will ever write. Even without all of the quotes it's like over 2k words, I really don't know how to shut up 😭😭😭

Thank you so much for taking so much care to write such a thoughtful response, Rid 🥺🥺🥺 I always love reading your responses to feedback, and not only my own, because everyone points out different things and you give even more insight into the story and your writing process. I can just read about your stories forever, even when it comes to commentary about them.

I watched the mv for 'when you're gone' and I totally agree with you that that scene matches OC's mood in the beginning of the chapter very well 😔😔😔 It also matches the way I was reading the Valentine’s day drabble, smiling at how adorable they were when I knew how we left off in cmi6. I've said it before but I'll say it again, the thing that hurts the most is knowing how happy they're able to make each other and seeing how they're now hurting each other instead 😭😭😭

Also about the rambling to my sister lmao. Cmi is the first fic I've properly talked to her about (she reads fanfic too, just not bts ones) and I was fully ranting to her about how Jungkook was keeping everything in and trying to be strong until he couldn't anymore, and now he's ignoring OC, I don't think I've ever ranted so much even about a real life person lmao. I might have not painted him in the best light because of how mad I was though 😔😔😔 But I probably will just ramble about how cute he is to her later on when everything works out 😌😌😌

Also also everyone has been adding onto the sadness and angst here and I don't know how they do it, because every time I even think about OC with someone else or just them being even sadder I want to cry lmao. But I still love reading everybody adding to the chaos, I can't lie.

Last but definitely not least, I feel like I haven't properly checked in on you in a few days, so how are you doing, Rid? 🥺🥺🥺

I MISSED YOU (she says after just 2 days lol), honestly, i was gonna shoot you an ask today lmao but since you're here, i can just say it now: i hope you're doing well! how's school going? &lt;3

2k even without the quotes? i don't deserve you fr 😭 no but seriously, i copied it into a doc, and thought, kay, must be around 2k, like all of it (which is already a lot) BUT 5.7K.... and it was like 10 pages long !! i went "awwh" out loud 😭

and thank you 🥺 i was even thinking of making a smol commentary one day, when i've got the time, bc i could talk about them forever 😭 i really love reading everyone's reviews and theories, bc sometimes it makes me rethink things that i didn't consider even while writing.

ikr? i spent my teenage years crying to 'when you're gone', and i kinda remembered the song when you pointed out that 'he can be comfort even now' bit :( and you're actually so right. might argue that it hurts even more to relate it to the vday drabble.. especially, considering what's still to come.

hahaha i get it 😭 after that chapter, it was hard to hold a high opinion of him, bc he did kinda fuck up :// but yes, i promise you, there are gonna be scenes and chapters that are so fluffy, it'll be almost disgusting, really. it's so cute that you ranted about it to your sister hahaha i really love that you're so invested 🥺

I KNOW! it's amazing how everyone was ready to jail me for all the angst... yet, they keep coming up with scenarios and songs that break me for good 😂 i wasn't as much in pain when i posted the chapter as i am now hahahah

ahh i'm okay, ivi, thank you for asking! i think the biggest reason for my bleh mood was that i'm... very bored. i've been feeling pretty unproductive since i took this super long break after graduation and quit my last job. which is why i'm lowkey excited (but also very scared lol) to start my semester next week and my job in may! will join you in your academic misery hahah but yeah. i'll be busier, but i'm looking forward to it, bc i do like being busy! hope you're all good, too 🥺🤍

[hongism]

Helloooo ^o^ I have a writing question! Do you ever plan out a series then get so excited you write a whole scene/chapter before it's time? Like the biggest action sequence or the biggest plot twist and would you recommend doing so?

Secondly, for moc have you fleshed out the ending, like do you know how it's going to end? And if not at what point will you decide to do so? Bc I'm planning a fic I haven't planned out the ending for but I really want to start writing it! And tbf I'm not at all sure how it's going to end

Ooh and also (pls tell me if I'm being annoying) when you were planning out moc characters, did they seem to mold themselves a certain way automatically? like I didn't want my character or my story to go in this direction but really it's the best way or the only option to write it this way!

And lastly do you have any advice for new writers? Much appreciated!!!

Also the most recent moc I AM BARELY BREATHING the hongjoong scene I cannot see straight I am too in my head about him ughhh JUST ONE CHANCE I BEG no but I looooove your writing so much 😌 take good care of yourself my dear caly ❤️❤️

oh absolutely ALWAYS!! i do that so so often, i have one of the final scenes of moc written and tucked away in a google doc for when the time finally comes 😭 in fact i very often construct my scenes around an idea that i have and i'll write out a whole scene if i feel really excited about it!! i totally recommend it, i recommend that you write whatever comes to your mind without stopping to edit or anything and just leave that bit for later. write whatever is in your brain and let it all out then you can go back after the fact and edit and make changes as you see fit! it's best to just,, let it rip i think

secondly, i have not fully fleshed out the ending. atm (and kinda since the beginning) i have had two ideas for the ending that are quite different so i guess you could say i have a vague-ish idea in that sense. i will definitely need to decide which way things go around act 12/13 i think? 14 at the LATEST. i'm not the best person about ending things tho bc i fear ending things period but i think it's always a good thing to think about while still in the planning stages bc that will help you figure out how you want to get from point A to point B!

honestly when i was initially structuring the characters i think i wrote 1-2 pages worth of character notes for each one, but when i finally started writing, things kinda just took their own course. now when i look back at those character notes, things are vastly different and there are only some minor bits/backstory notes that are still the same kkkk so yeah they molded themselves just with the writing as i went!! there are definitely things in retrospect i wish were different but honestly i don't want the characters themselves to be different from what they have made themselves become im happy in that regard ^-^

my advice to new writers is to simply not be afraid to write for yourself. i spent probably 8-9 years writing just for myself and i never posted anything and it was all simply for me but even just having that experience of constantly writing, constantly reading, constantly growing my writing in all sorts of avenues was something that really helped when i did find the courage to start posting my writing here on tumblr!

thank you so much for asking me so many questions i hope my advice can help even just a little bit and im sOOO so thankful that you enjoy moc so much hehe i love seeing people engrossed with hongjoong :3 take care of yourself too beloved 💕💕💕💕💕💕

[thewattpadsmutwriter]

*BIG NSFW!!!!* Originally on Wattpad, written by me.

Hey everyone! If you enjoy this check out some of my longer erotica! Thanks for enjoying!

*Sun, Mar 20, 9:15 am*

"Good morning Angel! Happy first day of spring, I hope you're not feeling the worst. Text me when you can."

Seen

*Sat, Mar 21, 7:52 am*

"I'll take the lack of response as a sign your season isn't starting on the best foot. If you need any ~help~ don't be afraid to ask. Love you! <3"

Seen

*Mon, 8:32 am*

"I'm always thinking of you Angel! I know you're most likely not feeling the best, but I hope you are taking care of yourself."

Seen

*Tue, 8:30 am*

"I've been missing you a lot, do you think I could come over today? Whatever you're comfortable with Angel, love you <3"

Seen

*Wed, 6:52 am*

"I can't fully comprehend what you're going through, but I can guess it is not the easiest. Could you at least shoot me a letter so I know you're alive lol? I love you Keigo!"

Delivered

*Yesterday*

"Hey, I am fr getting worried over here, it's almost been a week. Maybe I'm being paranoid, but please let me know you're not dead. I love you, Angel.“

Delivered

*Today, 8:00 am*

"I know you told me not to come over but this is getting scary. You promised to text at least every two days and I don't think you would break that promise if you were okay. I'm gonna stop by later today and if you are there just reply through the door. I'll be there around 5 after work."

Delivered

After your patrol around the city, you walk to Hawk's apartment. Even with sore feet from fighting all day, your pace remained brisk. Hawks never broke promises, and he didn't make many either. Although he's not a top hero, he has deep ties with dangerous people. He has gone missing before, you even had to save him once, so you learned to trust your gut when it comes to Keigo. He lived on the top floor of a large apartment building, and you found yourself beginning to run as soon as his balcony peaked over the cityscape. Although you were also a hero, you felt completely hopeless as you ran across the city. Having a siren quirk seemed deeply useless as your partner might be kidnapped or worse.

You pushed through the doors of the building, and it took everything in you to wait for the elevator to open without punching the panel. Although you had enough adrenaline to leap up the stairs, 22 flights would take much longer to climb. The doors opened and you paced around the elevator with shaky hands. How could you let him get hurt? Of course the second you let go just a little, something happens. You and Keigo haven't even dated for a year yet you were madly in love. He truly was your angel. Not pure or a messenger, but a warrior. Finally the doors open and you sprint out of the elevator to his apartment. You knock impatiently and call out his name.

"Keigo! Are you in there?" You placed your ear against the door. Silence. Although you were panicking before, you now are electrocuted with fear. You didn't even think of using your spare key before kicking in the doorknob. The wood shattered and you stormed through into Hawk's apartment. You looked around and saw nothing out of place. The kitchen had a few dirty dishes, the living room had some gently tussled blankets in a pile, and the large balcony window was closed. He was nowhere to be seen, but then you hear a rustle down the hall. You freeze at the idea of whoever might have hurt Keigo could still be in the apartment. Your home. You slowly close the door behind you and creep through the open living room. You start to hum a calming song to make sure anyone trying to attack would have a lower defense. You creep by the frame of every doorway and realize no one is in the apartment. You finally straighten your spine and inhale to call for hawks, but you are caught off guard.

Two large, warm hands wrap around your hips, and your back is met with a sturdy and well-built chest. A hot breath brushes your ear and whispers, "Weren't you ever told it is rude to break into people's homes?" Tears began to sting your eyes in relief that your partner was okay. You turn around to him in semi-anger.

"Why the hell didn't you reply to any of my texts! It's been a week! I thought you got hurt again!" Your voice was more wobbly than you thought it would be, but you were scared as fuck. You looked into Hawk's eyes for the first time in a week and realized how much spring was affecting him. His face was flushed like he'd been drinking, and his pupils were the size of a softball. His hair wasn't slicked back like normal, but messy and falling slightly into his eyes. His wings looked like someone blew a hair dryer through them, ruffled and soft, compared to the usual sharp and armor-like appearance they had. His lips were slightly agitated and parted.

"I told you not to come here without permission..." he said in what was meant to be a scolding tone but carried nothing but an airy sigh at the end. His eyes traveled to your body and lips as his hands shifted from your hips to your ass. He picked you up slightly off the ground to cause friction against his, what you now felt against your belly, bulge. He let out an oddly loud moan for just a little touch, but it made you ache deep down. Your anger still bubbled up through your lust.

"I was worried! You promised you would reply..." Your hands reached up to his face, trying to make him focus on your eyes. He finally looked up at you through his lashes, but you could tell his focus was still on... other things.

"That stupid fucking phone," he said with disdain. "Every time I saw your name pop up it sent me into a self-pleasuring frenzy. Just thinking about you..." He took large steps towards the wall behind you, making your back slam into the cold drywall. "I've never been this messed up before songbird." His thigh shoved itself between your legs and slightly pushed you onto your tiptoes. "I couldn't even text you. I really did try..." His eyes began to wander again. "At a certain point, I just smashed my phone against the wall. Hoped it would let me calm down a little..." His breath got loud and heavy as his hands moved from your ass, up your sides, gently over top your nipples, around your neck, and then landed intertwined in your hair. "I would have warned you if I could chickadee, but it's never been this bad before..."

Hawk's looked deep into your eyes. He was trying to ask for permission. Your hands drifted from his face to his chest, and you realized how warm it was. You would be lying if you said you hadn't been thinking about this all week. He leaned over you like a tower, and his eyes kept getting darker. You already were on fire like gasoline, and you couldn't help but slightly grind on Kiego's thigh up to his crotch. Hawk's lips opened and a desperate groan left his mouth without shame. "Will you take care of me songbird?" Hawks borderline cried out. You nodded your head to him, and in an instant, his lips dived for your neck. Like clockwork, your hands were pinned above your head by his extremely strong, one-handed grip. Keigo warned you that he would become less considerate when handling you during the season, which gave you butterflies. You had never felt hawk's true strength before. Even when play fighting he would go extremely easy on you. Now his gentle grip felt like his strongest.

A large moan left your throat as Hawks' teeth grazed your nape and his tongue massaged your skin. His lips were soft and his mouth was so warm you began to feel like you had a fever. The rest of his body began to fold into you from head to toe. His second hand wrapped around your waist and pulled you into him. A growl filled your ears, and hawks began to nibble and suck on your sensitive skin.

"Thought- thought you were a bird... not a dog," you tried to quip at him through your fuzzy brain. Although normally Hawks would appreciate such a joke, tonight he had only one thing on his mind. An evil laugh hummed against your throat, and your entire body went limp. It seemed Hawks grew tired of bending down to make you squeal, so as if he was picking up a box of air, he lifted you up and then slammed you against the wall. Now that your pelvis lined up perfectly with his hard-on, Keigo threw back his head to let out a moan that shook your chest. He felt wide and hot. His dick was so hard you could easily imagine it hurting. A small slip of an "aw" left your lips while you stared at your desperate Angel. He looked at you with an expression you couldn't quite understand until he spoke.

"You won't pity me once I'm done with you." His lips cupped yours from underneath, and although he started with quick pecks, in only seconds he was fucking your mouth. You weren't exactly the kissing type, but Hawks' soft tongue melted with yours, and high-pitched shivering moans responded to his slow and deep vocal aches. He repeatedly humped against you while his hands traveled up your shirt. His large palms spread out over your back and his kisses felt like he was trying to eat you alive. You had gotten so bothered so quickly you got a little worried about which of you was really in heat. The friction hawks tried to cause between you and him quickly became slick. Out of the blue, you dropped back to the floor and Hawks dropped to his knees. Grabbing one of your wrists, he placed your hand on his hair to grab while throwing your right leg over his shoulder. Seeing his sharp and glazed-over eyes look at you from such an angle turned your face bright red, and you covered your gaping mouth with your other hand.

Grabbing your pants and underwear, in one pull you're completely exposed to your feral boyfriend. A large, almost sarcastic smirk paints Keigo's mouth and his hand travels between your thighs and up to your core.

"Seems you missed me, lovebird," Hawks chuckles while giving you a look that would make Satan blush. He deeply inhaled as his mouth incased your dripping sex. You cried out and that hand Hawk's promptly placed on his hair clamped shut. Like an animal, his tongue moved around every inch with such power and speed you couldn't even tell what was happening, but just knew it felt like heaven. You could feel that he had been drooling the entire time you had been here as his tongue slipped and slid all around you. His hands touched and massaged any part of your heat his tongue wasn't able to reach. He constantly went from your most sensitive spot to your deepest ache back and forth. You couldn't help but moan like a slut on his tongue, and with every noise, you could feel his Lobito increase tenfold. You had become so bothered you could hear drinking noises from Hawks. One of his hands disappeared from your body and in a few moments, your body began to vibrate with Hawks' moans. Just from his voice, you could tell when his hand went from his base to his tip. While Keigo was commonly vocal, you usually had to fish it out of him by playing with his wings or letting him finish inside, but now he barely could hold it in, and almost didn't want to. His body began to shake and he kept stroking himself, and his precision when it came to getting you off began to falter.

"Y/N..." he begged at you. Your entire body throbbed so hard you felt your heartbeat in your palms.

You placed your hands on his shoulders and pushed him gently towards the ground. As fast as possible Hawks laid on his back and as he watched you straddle him he bit his lip. Thanks to Hawks you were very ready to take him, but as soon as you felt him at your entrance you knew he was much larger than normal. At this point even if someone walked in, nothing would stop you from riding hawks. You let your legs fall and Keigo's dick parted all the tension that had been building up inside you like atoms splitting. Both of you cried out but you couldn't even let a second pass before rocking your hips back and forth mindlessly. He was the hardest you had ever felt him and the feeling of your guts being stirred by his dick was driving you over the edge. Hawks couldn't take a breath without moaning and arching his back. His hands were gripped onto your thighs so tightly you could already see the bruising. His gorgeous wings spread out on the floor and you couldn't help but reach out to touch them. Right before you reached the soft, red, fluffed feathers, Hawks grabs your hand and pulled it in.

"I'm gonna make you my bitch for life," he slammed his hips into yours, causing his dick to go so deep inside you're worried you'll snap. "You got that songbird?" His voice was so firm it almost scared you. As if he wasn't even thinking, Keigo began to pound you without remorse. With his hands placed above your shoulders, you had to grab onto them for support. Your moans became pained and scratchy. You were feeling so good you barely made time to breathe. Hawks once again threw his head back and he pulled in his knees closer to you, allowing for more leverage as his dick buried itself so deep inside you felt like you were about to cum at every thrust. Both your voices sounded like they were racing to be the loudest in the room.

"You want me to cum inside lovebird? Fuck~" Hawks said to you with gritted teeth as he moved his hands to grab your biceps on both sides. You were so fucked out of your mind you couldn't even speak, you simply nodded your head. Keigo was so strong he could pull you onto his lap while fucking you so hard you were bouncing. His moans followed closer behind each other as his hips began to shake. "You wanna have my kids dove? You wanna make a nest with me, huh? Ah~." The thought of being with Hawks forever turned you on more than anything you did tonight.

"Yes! Yes! Yes!" You moaned out at Hawks. "Please Angel make me yours! Please~" All the tension that had accumulated inside you had finally exploded in a symphony of throbbing and moaning. You squeezed your eyes shut as your body began to frantically clamp on and off of Hawks' cock. You then heard the most animalistic moan leave Keigo's mouth while his entire body stiffened like a statue.

  It almost sounded like crying if he wasn't saying "I'm cumming!" over and over again. He folds over top of you and spasms at the same time his threads of cum paint your walls. You've never had such a strong orgasm, and you've never been filled up so much by Hawks that you could feel every cumshot hit your back wall. It was so warm inside you that even when the direct throbbing calmed down, small moans kept leaving your parted lips. Keigo tried to thrust a little more, but he was so sensitive just pulling out made him shake. A waterfall of cum flowed out of you as Hawks brushed back your hair and looked into your eyes. He planted soft kisses on you, but at this point, your eyes were so teary and your head so dizzy you couldn't tell what face he was making.

"I missed you," he whispered. Slowly your eyes cleared and he seemed shy and embarrassed. You giggled at your confident boyfriend's meek demeanor, especially after his not-so gentlemanly ravaging of your body. You sat up and placed a hand on his face. He then placed a hand over yours.

  "I missed you too Angel."

[novelmonger]

Ooooh I love your book rec idea! Okay, here goes, hopefully you haven’t read this already:

One of my favorite books growing up that I’ve not found a lot of people have read is one of Louisa May Alcott’s lesser known novels, Eight Cousins (and its sequel, Rose in Bloom, which happens eight years later). It’s about a thirteen-year-old girl named Rose who finds herself very suddenly orphaned and in possession of a very large fortune, and is adopted by her uncle and has to go live with him among her four aunts and seven male cousins (yikes!), none of whom she has ever met before, as her father and her uncle had been estranged (though she doesn’t know why). The first book is very heartwarming, exploring how Rose comes into her own in her adolescence and overcomes her fear of and bonds with her male cousins—sort of written in the same serialized style of Little Men. I know you said to recommend one book, but I can’t really recommend this one without recommending the sequel— Rose in Bloom is definitely the stronger of the two books, but doesn’t make a lot of sense without building off the context of Eight Cousins.

Rose is a wonderful protagonist—almost the complete opposite of Jo—and is an excellent example of a well-written enneagram 2. (You know that speech Jo gives in the 2019 Little Women that goes “Women have minds and souls as well as hearts” etc.? That was actually stolen verbatim from Rose in Rose in Bloom, where she gives that whole speech in front of all seven of her grown male cousins. I’m still a little salty about it, lol.) Rose in Bloom also has my favorite of Alcott’s love interests, but I won’t spoil who it is for you 😁.

As for content warnings, there aren’t really any, but I will mention a couple things:

The second book involves marrying of cousins as a main plotline, but if that bothers you, the first book is enjoyable on its own.

There are descriptions of Asian characters that can be a bit…shall we say, of the times occasionally. It’s clearly not meant to be insulting or malicious, as Alcott was an abolitionist and the character in question’s plotline involves an interracial marriage (which would’ve been pretty uncommon in literature when this was published), but it will probably make you raise your eyebrows here and there.

A major plotline in the second book involves a main character dealing with alcoholism. It’s extremely well-handled in my opinion, but is a bit upsetting.

Anyway, sorry to ramble so long—happy reading!

I'll admit that I am something of a Philistine and don't really like Little Women, but that's mostly because grown-ups who didn't really know me kept on gifting me copies of the book when I was a kid, and so I kind of resented it (like, "What, just because I'm a girl I have to like this book?"). Also, I think I read it too young to fully appreciate it; I read it at a time when I wanted high adventure and death-defying heroics from my books, not small domestic adventures and then marriage XD I enjoyed the first part of the story well enough, but once they all started growing up I got bored. I suppose one of these days I ought to give it a second chance as an adult who can appreciate the subtler nuances of the story and its literary merits.

Consequently, I haven't seen the 2019 movie, but I can understand the frustration of stealing a different protagonist's lines. How dare they!

But anyway, that's neither here nor there. Eight Cousins sounds lovely! I'm looking forward to reading it, and will keep my eyes peeled for that speech. And hey, if nobody else bites, I'll probably have time to read Rose in Bloom as well ;)

[fics-n-stuff]

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Pairing: Kaz Brekker × Reader

Summary: Y/N and Kaz were once childhood friends, later reunited in the Barrel. After a business dealing went awry, Y/N has been in hiding for almost a year and the time apart has brought up a lot of feelings for Kaz.

Word Count: 4.2k

Warnings: touch aversion, alcohol consumption

A/N: I haven't actually read SoC yet but I have done my research so I really hope I wrote Kaz accurately enough 🤞🏽 Let me know!! I left the reader gender neutral so all parties can enjoy 😁

Update: Pt 2 here!

You stared out of the window, watching the nightlife of the Barrel in full swing below you. It had been almost a year since you had been able to be a part of it all and, even though you had lived in Ketterdam all your life, you felt like an outsider now.

There was a knock on the door and you froze, head tilting to listen out for any threat. After a moment there was another knock, loud and heavy – certainly not the result of somebody’s knuckle hitting the wood. With a sigh, you stood up from the window ledge and crossed the room to the door.

Kaz was waiting on the other side, looking unamused as ever, and you waved him inside quickly and hurriedly shut the door behind him.

“I am one of three people that knock on your door, Y/N.” He said flatly, removing his hat and placing it atop your desk.

“I can’t be too careful, never know when someone might come sniffing around here.” You replied with a shrug. Kaz hummed shortly in acknowledgment before producing a small stack of envelopes from his coat. You snatched them from him eagerly, but careful to ensure that your fingers made no contact with his gloved ones.

“I’m getting tired of being your courier.”

“Well, I’m getting tired of being in hiding.” You huffed, leafing through your letters. “But I’d rather not walk around in a city where I’m actively being hunted.”

“You shouldn’t have gotten caught then.” Your head snapped towards Kaz at that, and you raised your eyebrows challengingly.

“I should slap you for that.”

“You wouldn’t dare.” Kaz’s face remained largely unchanged but you could see the shine of amusement in his eyes.

You had first met Kaz as a child, while visiting family in the village where his family lived. He was a sweet child, and you had struck up a fast friendship in the few months you spent there. You had even written letters back and forth for a couple of years until one time you never got a reply.

When you met again years later, entirely by chance, Kaz was a changed person. Your family’s fortune had taken a steep downturn and you found yourself alone, living in a tiny room in a boarding house in the Barrel, when Kaz came across you pickpocketing outside the Crow Club. He had recognised you, but you hadn’t recognised him at first. Everything about him was so departed from the sweet boy that you had known as a child.

He refused to tell you what had happened to change him in this way. He never gave you a cause for the ruthless person he had become to climb the ranks of the Dregs and earn the name Dirtyhands, never even told you what had brought him to Ketterdam at all other than that his father had died. He never pushed you away though. Kept you at arms length, yes, but he never tried to dissuade you from sticking around.

The longer you knew him the more you realised that he wasn’t as cold as his demeanour portrayed. He was fiercely loyal, you could see it in the way that he was with his Crows, and you were certain that he would do anything to protect those he cared about most. You admired that about him.

“You don’t have to come, you know. You could send Inej with my letters, she already delivers me food.” You said, turning away at the realisation that you had been looking at each other in silence for a few seconds too long. You went to sit down, picking up the envelope from the top of the pile and pulling up the wax seal. Kaz didn’t respond for a long while. You tried to read your letter but found yourself distracted with anticipation of what he would say, if he said anything at all.

“I commend your commitment to your business.” He said finally, and you smiled at the compliment. “Eleven months trapped in this apartment and you’re still keeping up with it all.”

“Being in hiding is no excuse to get lazy. If anything, it gives me more of a reason to keep on top of things. Work keeps me sane and keeps coin in my pocket.”

“And how long do you intend to keep conducting your business through letters and underlings?”

“For as long as I have to, Kaz. You know that.” You answered with a quiet sigh, setting down the letter that you definitely hadn’t been reading and turning your head to face him again. You saw his jaw tense and the grip on his cane tighten, but you didn’t know what it meant. You were worried that somehow you had done or said something to upset him.

You had learned, in the few years since your reunion, that sometimes even the most seemingly innocuous things could put Kaz in a black mood. You had caught on quickly to the way that he avoided touch at all costs, and adapted your behaviour accordingly. He had still never told you why being touched triggered such a strong reaction in him, but he knew that you would always respect that fact.

It didn’t matter to you what traumas Kaz had suffered to create these traits in him, only that you knew how to navigate being in his space without violating his boundaries, because deep down you knew that Kaz was the most important person in your life. He took you in and offered you support when you needed it, given you structure and taught you skills to survive without even necessitating that you use those skills to serve his gang, all because of the friendship that you had shared as children. It didn’t matter how heartless people said the Bastard of the Barrel was, you knew that Kaz cared; perhaps not in the same way that you had come to care for him, but he did care.

“Maybe you should go, I’m sure you have work of your own to do.” You mumbled, your eyes drifting downwards anxiously. “And anyway, I have letters to read.”

“I could protect you.” He blurted. His voice was a little louder than usual, his tone less flat, and your brow furrowed in confusion and curiosity. “We could. The Crows, and the Dregs.”

“I don’t need your protection.”

“But you’d have it.”

You turned fully in your chair, straddling it with one leg either side of the backrest, and leant your forearms on the top of it. There was something in Kaz’s eyes that you’d never seen before and, although you prided yourself on being able to tell how Kaz was feeling and what he might be thinking about, you couldn’t figure out what it was.

“Do you know something that I don’t?” You questioned.

“Of course not.”

“Do you suddenly not trust my ability to keep myself safe?”

“Nothing like that, Y/N.”

“Then what?” You rested your chin on your arms, looking up at him expectantly. He held your gaze, but you could see the cogs turning in his brain as he calculated his next sentence. You were preparing for an argument to start, so you certainly didn’t expect the words that came from him next.

“I’m concerned about how long you’ve been alone here.” He answered. You blinked.

“Concerned?” Your voice cracked a little with your surprise, and Kaz clenched his jaw as he averted his eyes from you.

“I just thought that maybe all this time on your own might have had some affect on you. And I... hold a certain sense of responsibility.” His voice never wavered or faltered, other than the one pause there was no suggestion in his speech that the words held any significance to him, but you could see the tension in his shoulders and the tight grip that he maintained on his cane.

You narrowed your eyes, taking a moment to examine his face and his demeanour. Everything about him was wound tight, like he was making a particularly tricky deal rather than talking to a friend – you hoped that he considered you a friend – and though he was looking in your general direction you noted his avoidance of eye contact.

“If I didn’t know better I’d think you were saying that you miss me, Mr Brekker.” You said, your mouth turning in a small smirk. You saw Kaz’s chest tighten as he silently took in a sharp breath, and you chuckled lightly. “I’m fine, Kaz. Inej visits often enough, and I’m happy to see you when you deliver my letters. I will say though, I miss drinking with your Crows.”

Truthfully, you did feel rather trapped in your tiny apartment. For almost a whole year your entire world had consisted of only three rooms, and even if you didn’t admit it you were going slightly mad. Not being able to leave was frustrating, and living your whole life in one room (because really, who spends that much of their day in the bathroom or kitchen?) made you feel like a caged animal.

He didn’t reply. He also didn’t move. You watched him, standing straight and stiff as ever in the middle of the room, for a few moments. Usually he would have said something or made a move to leave, so you knew that he was deep in thought about something. You slouched further down against the backrest of your chair.

“If you’re planning on sticking around then you should at least sit down.” You sighed. “I have some kvas, or whisky if you’d prefer.” Kaz shook his head no to the drink but made a move towards the window seat. You watched him cross the room and sit down, his grip remaining on his cane as he placed it between his knees. “What’s on your mind, Kaz?”

“It’s not important.”

“That can’t be true.”

“And why is that?” He questioned dully.

“Because you’re still here, with me, staring into space like you’re waiting for the wind to tell you a secret.” He looked at you then, and you could see a conflict swirling behind his eyes. You resisted the urge to furrow your brow in worry. He still didn’t say anything, and that didn’t do anything to ease your concern because Kaz Brekker was not often one to be at a loss for words. “Is something wrong?”

“Yes.” He murmured, his head nodding slightly.

“Do you want to tell me about it?” You asked softly. He looked into your eyes for a few seconds before turning his head away, clearly deciding not to answer. You were almost expecting him to get up and leave the apartment right then, remove himself from the uncomfortable situation like he had been known to do before, but he made no move to stand.

You stood instead, abruptly moving through to the tiny kitchen and pouring a glass of whisky for yourself. You took a long sip as you came back out into the living space, picking up a wooden staff on your way. You kept up your combat training while in hiding, though it wasn’t often that you got an opponent.

“Humour me, will you?” You smiled, spinning the staff in your hand and setting your drink down.

“There’s not much space in here.” Kaz commented.

“Then we’ll be careful. Get up and fight me, coward.” You goaded. He gave you an incredulous look but stood anyway, tossing his cane up and grabbing it at it’s middle as he came towards you. Your grin broadened, and you waited just until the was in your range before you swung at him.

Your staff collided with his cane, moved up just in time to block your attack, and he watched you with challenging amusement. You let him make the next attack, knocking his cane away when he swung it towards you.

You exchanged blows, each of you managing to block all of the other’s attacks but you were starting to corner him. It seemed like you were about to get the upper hand when he swiped his cane towards your middle, making you jump back, and before you could move to swing on him he had pushed the crow’s head handle into your chest, not so hard that it was painful but with enough force to knock you backwards.

You landed on the edge of your bed with a groan, letting the staff drop from your hand in defeat.

“No fair, your cane is basically an extension of your arm.” You grumbled. Kaz let out a short breath, the closest thing to a laugh that anyone could get from him.

“You picked the fight.” He shrugged, lowering his cane and righting it at his hip. “I could have told you that you wouldn’t win it.”

“Mean!” You exclaimed in exaggerated offense, sitting up. When you looked at Kaz his expression was soft, the worry behind his eyes seemingly eased, and you smiled. “I could beat you if it was hand to hand.”

“I don’t doubt that.” He replied, the almost compliment catching you by surprise once again.

It had been a while since you and Kaz had spent any significant amount of time together. He was a busy man, particularly so over the last few months it seemed, so other than his brief drop-ins to deliver your letters you hadn’t seen him. It was nice to have his company again, even if he was a little off.

“Do you remember those drawings of Ketterdam that I used to send you with my letters?” You questioned softly, tucking your knees up to your chest. “I used to walk around the city looking for spots to sketch. I’d spend hours sitting on the street with my pencils trying to get the picture perfect to show you what it was like. I think, now, you probably know the city better than I do.” You smiled wistfully, resting your head on your knees as you looked up at Kaz. You saw his Adam’s apple bob with a swallow.

“You miss it, don’t you?” He asked.

“Of course.”

“You could go out there, stop hiding. You know I would look out for you.”

“I can’t put that burden on you, Kaz.” You chuckled lightly. “Enough people want you dead already, you don’t need to be looking after me while I’m being actively hunted.”

“How long do you plan on staying locked in here then?”

“As long as it takes, we went through this earlier. I have a big deal coming up, with the money from that I’d be able to smooth over some edges and maybe I could come out of hiding in a few months.” You theorised. “I’d still have to watch over my shoulder all the time but it would be an improvement.” Kaz’s jaw tightened again, and he bristled with agitation.

You hugged your knees tighter, doubt and worry overcoming you. Was Kaz not okay with coming to see you here anymore? Was he trying to get you out of hiding to lighten the burden it had put on him, getting your letters delivered to the Crow Club and having to bring them to you? The thought of not being able to rely on his short visits was enough to fill your chest with a mixture of dread and guilt.

“Like I said before, you don’t have to keep coming if that’s the problem.” You added, hiding the dejection in your voice. “Inej can-"

“No.” He interrupted bluntly. You blinked, pressing your lips together in contemplation. Was he upset that Inej was bringing supplies for you? Or worse, had something happened to her? Was that what was bothering him so much tonight?

“Why not?”

“Because I-" He cut himself off. He took a step back as if regaining his balance, his gaze falling to the floor, and you watched him flex his fingers around his cane as he organised his words. “Do you remember how you got sick while you were visiting your family?”

“Kaz.” You murmured tentatively, craning your neck to try and get a better look at his face that was turned away from you. Kaz didn’t like to talk about the past. Even bringing up the letters that you sent each other had been pushing it, but for him to choose to talk about your childhood was something he had never done before. Still now, it looked like the mention of the past was making him nauseous as he moved to sit down in the window once again. Your curiosity was growing by the second.

“You got sick and you could hardly get out of bed for almost a fortnight.” He continued, dismissing your concern. “I went to visit you every day. I picked flowers for you to make you feel better, and your mother baked oatmeal cookies but I refused to have any unless you did because you weren’t eating enough.”

“I remember.” You nodded. “You never let my glass of water get empty. It was sweet. But why does it matter now?”

“I can’t... I can’t stop worrying about you. But unlike when we were kids, I can’t just walk up the street and check on you every day.”

You felt as if all the air had been knocked out of your lungs and for a second you genuinely wondered if you had made that up in your head. Kaz very rarely expressed any emotion – the mask he wore hardly ever slipped – but here he was telling you that he worried about you. For Kaz, that was practically him baring his soul for you to see.

“You don’t have to worry about me.” You said shakily. “I’ve been fine so far, haven’t I?”

“But what if you’re not fine for much longer? As long as you’re holed up here I can’t keep you safe, and I can’t come to check on you because if I come here too often people might notice. Honestly, it’s a miracle that they haven’t already.”

“I didn’t think you believed in miracles.” You mumbled. Kaz glanced up at you, and the vulnerability on his face was unlike anything you’d seen before. It struck you in the heart and made you feel a need to comfort him, to put him at ease. “I can take care of myself, Kaz. I promise."

He was silent for a moment, his gaze downcast once again, then he took a deep breath and spoke.

“I think I’ll take that drink now.”

You watched him for just a second before you got up, crossing over to your desk and picking up the glass of whiskey that you had left there. The glass was half full since you had admittedly poured a little too generously.

You held it out to Kaz, who reached for it without looking. Although you were careful to hold the glass at the very top, his gloved fingers still brushed slightly over yours as he took a hold of it. He immediately stiffened, and you were quick to pull your hand away, taking a step back to give him space. He downed the drink in one, his face scrunching just slightly at the burn it left in his throat as he set the glass down by his feet.

“I just want to be able to watch over you.” He said, his voice barely more than a whisper, and you could practically see how difficult it was for him to verbalise his feelings.

“I think... I understand what you mean, Kaz. But I’m safer staying here than being out there, even with the Dregs protecting me. You have to know that, right?”

Kaz pushed a peice of hair out of his face, his gloved hand smoothing over his head as he let out a long and quiet sigh. Finally, he looked up at you.

“I know.” He answered.

“I appreciate your concern though.” You smiled. “Honestly, I didn’t think you cared about me that much. Or, well, I knew you cared but I just didn’t think... nevermind.”

“You didn’t think what?” Kaz’s question made you pause, anxiety pooling in your chest as you contemplated coming clean about your feelings. You thought about lying, about keeping your secrets to yourself, but Kaz had been so sincere it only felt right to return his honesty. With a deep breath, you worked up the courage to finally tell him the truth.

“I didn’t think that you cared as much as I do.” You replied. The sentence hung in the air for a moment as you moved back to sit in your desk chair, heart pounding in your chest. “I’ve kind of found myself caring a lot, actually. I think it’s only fair, really. I mean, I kind of owe you my life and all so it makes sense that I care. That’s not to say that it’s sensible but it is at least understandable, I guess.”

You bit your lip to stop your rambling, dropping your head so that you didn’t have to look at Kaz. There was a long stretch of silence.

“I care more than I might show.” He spoke softly, much more softly than you think you’d ever heard his voice. When you looked up Kaz was gazing right back at you, your eyes locking and his stare going deep into your soul. He didn’t need to say more, that simple sentence and the look in his eyes were enough to tell you what he was confessing. A smile pulled at your lips.

“Be careful what you admit, Brekker, or I might think that you’re going soft.” You joked, and he shook his head lightly in amusement. You leaned forward with your elbows on your knees, letting go of the anxiety that had been coursing through you.

“I'm serious, Y/N."

“I know. You don’t make a habit of saying things that you don’t mean.” You nodded. You glanced up at the clock on your wall with a sigh. “You really should get going, it’s dangerous for us both for you to stay too long.”

“Yes, I suppose so.” He muttered.

He stood after a moment, his hand flexing over the crow’s head handle of his cane. You reached back to pick his hat up from the desk, and he held a hand out for it, but instead of passing it to him you placed atop your own head. It was too big, and you had to push it back on your head so it didn’t slide over your face.

“You know, I rather like you without the hat.” You smiled.

“Is that so?”

“Yep. I can see your face better this way so I can tell when your emotions manage to break through.” Kaz’s lips quirked upwards a little as he took the hat from your head and put it on his own. You jutted your lip out in an exaggerated pout and he let out a huff that seemed suspiciously close to a laugh.

“Do you have any letters you need me to send out?”

“No, not this time.”

“Alright, then I’ll be on my way.” He gave a quick nod and turned towards the door. He had only taken a couple of steps when you twisted in your chair and called after him .

“Kaz.” He stopped and turned back to you. “I’m doing what I can to get out of this apartment, I promise.”

“That’s not something that you owe me, Y/N. It’s your freedom and your safety. But I await the day that you come waltzing into the Crow Club ready to make Jesper lose all the coin in his pocket.” He replied lightly, making you smile. “And if you need anything then I’m here, all you have to do is ask.”

“Thank you, not just for this but for everything. Everything that you’ve given me since that night outside the Crow Club. I might be dead if it weren’t for you.” You let sentiment out freely, finally feeling able to show your heart to Kaz now that you knew that your affections weren’t one sided. His expression softened, and he seemed to contemplate something deeply, before he took a single step back towards you and held out one gloved hand.

You hesitated, unsure if he was initiating what you were thinking, but he maintained eye contact. He gave a small nod, a mix of permission and encouragement, and you tentatively reached for his outstretched hand.

Kaz took in a deep breath when your hand made contact with his, and you watched him carefully ready to pull your hand away. After a moment he released the breath, wrapping his fingers lightly around yours and running his thumb over your knuckles.

“You’re the closest thing to home that I have.” He croaked. “I didn’t want to lose that.”

“You won’t.” You affirmed. Kaz released your hand, and you found yourself missing the feeling of the leather glove. He took a small step back, trying to hide the shake in his breathing.

“I’ll come back soon, as soon as it’s safe to.”

“Okay.” You smiled. “I’ll see you then.”

Kaz left the apartment without another word between you, he paused before closing the door after himself just to look at you for a moment longer. You watched out of the window to see him leave the building and start off through the street, a broad smile on your face.