#she's relatively patient when it comes to issues that are just on her but Put ur dukes up if you make life harder for her agents

[huningan]

thinking about hunnigan in relation to the word roost and how it's likely she's a good 'resting place' for agents to drop off. she's a steady presence in comparison to the horrors, vibes immaculate, calm. she doesn't mind existing in quiet company since she spends so much time in the dead silence of calls while directing missions. and that's all true until you disturb the residents of her nest and then she's 😤💢

[peyton-warren]

Syverson and 🛎?

You know of all people I can't say no to Sy, ever. Who would. And waiting on him hand and foot... hmmmm. Got a bit angsty but there is potential smut coming in another part in the future.

Three-Jump Cowboy

Characters: Gender Neutral Reader, Captain Syverson Pairings: Reader X Captain Syverson Fandoms: Sandcastle, Henry Cavill characters Word count: 1400 Type: angsty, fluffy. Warning: 18+. Minors DNI. Injury, surgery, hospitals, no blood, vague description of accident, and a teeny tiny mention of spanking Summary: Reader waiting on Sy hand and foot. Author's Note: Blame @ronearoundblindly, I do. She sent me ask from this as game if you would like to play too. Thank you to @adulting-sucks for the beta. And thank you to @sarahdonald87 for the injury idea. Ask Box: Open Masterlist

“Sugar,” Sy exasperatedly stated.   If you thought too hard about it , his tone would almost seem like a whine.  You just smiled softly at him as you set the tray of food across his lap where he was sitting up in the guest bed.  “I coulda come to the table, I told you that.”   

“Doc said you are to stay here unless you absolutely have to move.  Eating can be done here,” you assured him as he reached for the silverware.   “I’ll let you cut your own meat up,” you teased.  “Let you keep your masculinity intact.”

You hid your smirk from him as he scowled menacingly at your comment.  You knew keeping James Syverson in bed was going to be an issue from the second the doctor told you both that his femur was broken and would require an extended period of time in bed.  James wasn’t used to being stationary, and you weren’t used to him being dependent on anyone but himself.  This was going to be a trial for both of you and likely your relatively newish relationship.  

You had only been together a few months when you got the call from the base that he had been in a training accident.  You didn’t even know he had put you down as his emergency contact, but you had quickly headed to his bedside, scared at what you would find there.  The nurse on the phone had not been overly loquacious with the details. 

The woman at the information desk told you how to find where his room was going to be, that he was in surgery and who you should talk to once you got there.  The nurses on the floor were kind but busy, telling you they’d let you know if they heard anything and then gestured to the corner room where you should wait.  

You did as you were bade and sat in the uncomfortable chair beside the neatly made institutional looking bed.  Your mind whirled at what his injury was, who else you should call.  He mentioned his mom somewhere back home, why was she or his brother living in Michigan not on his emergency contact list?   How would you get a hold of them if something else happened to him?   

Your heart lept at the sound knuckles on the door.  Your eyes refocused on the woman dressed in scrubs standing in the open doorway.  “Just wanted to let you know he did well, just needs to rest and heal now.  He’s in recovery and will be brought down in a bit.  I’ll be back once he’s settled and awake to talk to you both about next steps.”

“Thank you,” you barely squeaked out with a nod.  It escaped you to ask what his injury was until after she was gone.  By then she was probably long gone, moved onto another patient who needed her. 

 You heard the sound of wheels and a few pairs of feet approaching a little while layer.   As predicted, your beast of a boyfriend was rolled into the hospital room, eyes open but glazed, his normal sober face lit up like a child’s as he noticed you.  “You came?” Sy asked gleefully, as if you were on a date instead of sitting in his hospital room.  

“Of course I did, Sy,” you said softly as he tried to sit up in the gurney.   The  man at the head of the bed placed a hand on his shoulder.  He was almost as big as Sy, his rust colored beard, hair pulled back into an elastic at the back of his head.  “You need to stay still, sir, just a few more moments.”

“But-“ Sy tried to protest, gesturing to you.  

“We are blocking their escape,” the other orderly joked.  

You smiled at them all, and stayed seated as they managed to transfer Sy from one bed to the other.  When they pulled back the sheet to move him, you noticed the new cast running from his calf to his hip on his left leg. 

“Oh shit,” you whispered, your sight trained on his leg.  

“Ain’t nothing,” drugged Sy confessed.  “I’ll be up chasing you before you know it,” he said teasingly, reaching a hand to your knee, squeezing, his fingertips pressing harder into your inner thigh, making your legs close right around them.    

When the doctor returned a few hours later, Sy and you learned his injury was far from nothing.  He had landed wrong on a routine training jump.   His ‘chute had fully deployed but something had happened to the rigging, preventing him from decelerating his speed, the brunt of which ran up his left leg upon contact with the ground, breaking his femur.  The puckered brow on his face told you he struggled to remember much of it, but the doctors assured you both that it was the pain meds talking.   

“Six months??” Sy sternly asked a few moments later.  “I have to be in bed for 6 months? Are you-“ 

You laid your hand on his forearm, sliding your smaller fingers down to curl between his, silencing him.  “When can I take him home?” you switched tactics, trying to keep him calm, and focusing on the next few steps.  

A few days later, Sy was delivered to his own home in town by ambulance.  There was no way he was going to fit in your tiny car nor be able to get into his truck with a full leg cast.  By the time the paramedics brought him home, you had worked with a local in-home care service and set up the guest bedroom on the main floor of his home to fit his new needs.  

He was grumpy but complicit as he was carried on the gurney into his home.  He was agitated, looking exactly like a caged animal, clutching his jaw, eyes flicking around at the EMTs, at his home, at you.   They softened just a touch at the sight of you standing off to the side, dressed in one of his beat up old button-ups, sleeves rolled up to your elbows, leggings and old boots you had stashed at his house to help around the yard.  You hadn’t really been back to your own apartment since you got the call from the hospital at work 4 days previous.  You did a drive by to grab some essentials the first morning after his accident and then had set up in his home (with his consent) to get everything ready and settled for his arrival.  

Catching him looking at you as you stood off to the side out of the way of the two paramedics doing their jobs, but yet still hovering like the protective mother hen you suddenly felt like, you gave Sy a soft smile, happy to have him back in his home where maybe he could relax and let himself heal and  recover.  

It was later that evening when you brought him his dinner on the wooden tray, a steak, mashed potatoes and creamed spinach, one of the meals you made for him when you first started dating.  Only thing new was the side of painkillers and post op antibiotics that were waiting for his belly to have some food as a buffer.

As Sy looked at the tray in front of him, he softly, ruefully sighed and you pecked his forehead, rising to leave.  “Sugar,” he said quickly, but quietly, his hand wrapping viper fast around your wrist, stopping you, surprising you a bit. 

“Yes?” You looked from his hand to his face, seeing the man struggle with the words he was trying to share.  

“Thank you,” he sincerely stated, his crystal eyes clear and possibly sparkling.   “For all this.” He gestures around the room, the bed, the dreaded walker, the other equipment, as well as the food in front of him.  “You didn’t-“

“I know,” you assured him.  “But I wanted to.   I’d like to think you’d do the same for me if the roles were reversed.”

James nodded and smiled a little wider, the dimple you adored making a rare appearance even through all of his beard.  “I woulda.  After I finished spankin' you for jumpin’ out of a perfectly good plane.”  

You both laughed for the first time in almost a week. This was going to be a long journey, but together you were gonna make it to the other side.  

General Tag List: @littleone65, @mysweetlittledesire @jvanilly HC Tag List: @m07belzen, @used-to-be-bourbonwithice, @hawklin, @geralts-yenn

[cryoculus]

— guard dog 13 ⟢

pairing: thoma x assassin!reader

summary: paying the blood price for your sins is something you once thought of as futile. but as long as you're with the kamisato clan, you're certain that you'll be able to afford the world's forgiveness someday.

word count: 9.8k words

notable characters: thoma, kamisato ayaka, kamisato ayato, sayu, kujou sara

tags: found family, enemies to lovers, slow burn, angst, smut

warnings: graphic sexual content (minors dni), semi-public sex

notes: this is the end of it! thank you so much for following this series so patiently! i hope you enjoyed reading this just as much as i enjoyed writing it ^^

header art cr: cuppydraws on twt

masterlist

Fortunately, no one had been suffering severe conditions when you and Thoma finally arrived back home. The worst symptom that manifested across the people in the estate was Ayato’s prior show of coughing up blood in front of you the other day. Now, everyone was relatively fine. Nervous for the fate of the Yashiro Commission, but otherwise fine.

You were quick to round up Hina’s help to administer the available doses of the cure to those that needed it first—Ayaka and Ayato, the elderly retainers, and those with existing medical conditions. The other attendants volunteered to brew the next batch of Sango broth following Doctor Naoko’s instructions in his journal and Thoma gladly busied himself by helping out as well—speeding up the boiling process with his Vision and all.

Contrary to your prior assumptions, your abysmal supply of pearls was surprisingly enough to cover all the retainers and attendants in the estate, along with your esteemed visitors. 

Given that he was unconscious for the majority of the day, you had to administer Kujou Masahito’s dose intravenously. It’s a good thing Hina had some sterile syringes stashed away in the estate’s first aid kit. When he finally came to, Sara, who was still stuck here as well, gave him a thorough questioning. 

However, instead of the merciless man who’d issued your orders to kill Ayaka, you were met with a soldier blinking up at his current audience in confusion.

Turns out, the man was merely another pawn in this convoluted war of ideals. Their father, Kujou Takayuki was the sole mastermind behind the Tatarigami experiments. Masahito explained, in great detail, that their father had been playing his cards quite suspiciously over the past few months. 

“I suspected he was onto something, but he wouldn’t tell me what,” he sighed. “I didn’t know why he wanted us to build a base on Yashiori Island, and I was in no place to refuse. The next thing I knew, I felt like I was in a dream all this time. I was awake, but my decisions weren’t my own. I suppose it’s the same for all the men he’d forced me to bring.”

Ayato gaped at him. “So you’re telling me that the guys who attacked us the other day walked from Yashiori to here?”

“I’m sorry, Lord Ayato. My memory is still quite fuzzy, but that might be the case.”

Huh. That explained why your back-up from burning the tengu feather took so long. Once that was made clear, you decided to come clean to Kujou Sara about the contingency plan Masahito presented to you when he was being mind-controlled.

“No wonder I felt a bit off-kilter that day,” she sighed, massaging her temples. “It’s alright. Once we’re all cleared of the infection, Lord Ayato and I will raise this issue directly to the Raiden Shogun herself. Our father’s actions are putting the people in peril.”

“...Did you just say you’re going to work with us on this?” the Yashiro Commissioner asked incredulously. 

“I’m not as disagreeable as you think I am,” Sara huffed. “I’ve had my own...reservations about our father’s methods when it comes to war tactics. But this is something that would be a crime to overlook. It’s our word against his.”

To her brother’s side, Ayaka spoke out. “Is it safe to assume that Kujou Takayuki has been colluding with the Kanjou Commission? I think part of the reason they refuse to have the Vision Hunt repealed is because they’re profiting off this war more than we thought…”

Masahito nodded somberly. “It’s true that father has been quite…taken with the wealth he’s made from the war effort. That’s why no matter how many times the Yashiro Commission attempts to raise the concern to Her Excellency, they’re quick to shoot down your attempts despite being the commission closest to the Raiden Shogun.”

“So they’ve been taking advantage of it this whole time…” Sara muttered.

…God. This was way too much information for you to take. Why were you even part of this audience in the first place? You were just one of the many casualties that got caught up in a noble’s greedy endeavors. 

Thankfully, it was sorted out faster than you’d anticipated. 

You were back to checking up on every member of the house with Hina in no time. Despite having little medical experience of your own, everyone was surprisingly cooperative when you checked their vitals and asked how each one was faring. But you didn’t have the time to appreciate the fact that everything had seemingly returned to normal with how your fellow retainers treated you because of the amount of patients you had to monitor. 

In the process, you got to speak to the retainers more than usual. Especially Hina, since the estate’s resident healer was pretty much your partner-in-crime for this entire operation. She was kind and patient enough to manage everyone’s medical reports alongside you. And she even filled you in on some random bits of trivia for every person you treated.

“Hirano used to be a player from an underground fighting ring,” Hina whispered. “He doesn’t know who his parents are, and the Commissioner suspected he was a victim of child trafficking.”

“That’s awful,” you told her, face scrunching up. “...You told me back then not everyone is as noble as they seemed.”

She nodded. “Yup. Ayame was a notorious pickpocket at Ritou Harbor. Old man Yuuji used to be a slave trader. There’s lots more that everyone in here got in trouble for in their dark days, but Lady Ayaka and the Commissioner gave them a second chance at life. Now here we are.”

You nodded solemnly, a smile finding its way to your lips. “What about you? What did you do for a living before coming here?”

Hina hesitated for a moment but eventually laughed. “I used to manufacture dangerous drugs and poisons for the underground. You know that powdered crystal marrow you used on Ayame? My old master was the one who came up with the formula for it.”

“What?! Huh, small world.”

“By the way, the Commissioner told me that a doctor that’s familiar with the effects of the Tatarigami will arrive in a day or two,” Hina told you once the two of you finally caught a break by the gardens. “He’ll be a great help, I’m sure. And we’ll get to treat the soldiers that have been infected, too.”

You nodded in understanding as you leaned against the fences overlooking the ocean, sighing. “Do you have any news about those guys? Last I heard, Lord Ayato had them shipped off to some containment facility underneath Inazuma City.”

She hummed. “While you and Master Thoma were away, the Commissioner has been sending messenger crows all over the country almost tirelessly. He’s been laying the groundwork all this time. If Lady Ayaka hadn’t scolded him for overworking himself despite the fact that he’s more susceptible to the curse than most, he might still be at it until now.”

“That’s Lord Ayato for you…”

The next day, when the doctor that Ayato had rang up had arrived, you were the first to brief him about the situation—the state of the estate’s denizens, the timeframe of the curse’s onset, and the experimental cure you’ve administered. 

“I’m no professional, so I’m not sure if it’s safe for them to go out like usual even if they seem relatively okay now.” You sighed, scratching the back of your head awkwardly. “That’s why I was wondering if you knew any better way to—”

“Tell me…do you know someone called Suzuki Naoko?” he interrupted, looking up from the journal containing Doctor Naoko’s research notes. 

You blinked in surprise. “Y-Yes. That notebook belongs to him. The cure we made was also based on his findings when he stayed in Yashiori Island.”

He laughed softly, nodding in earnest. “I see. He and I used to be colleagues at the Sumeru Academia. We both chose the so-called Tatarigami curse as our respective thesis topics, but we’ve had conflicting ideas as to how it can be cured. I think it’s obvious which one of us turned out to be right after all.”

Your jaw nearly dropped. You knew Doctor Naoko was a bit too intelligent for your everyday medical professional, but to think he went to Sumeru Academia, of all places? 

The doctor that Ayato had invited eventually introduced himself as Haruno Shinya, and once Doctor Shinya was done with his own routine check-up of everyone in the estate, he gave you the green light to produce more of that Sango broth you cooked up with Doctor Naoko’s recipe.

“It’s a bit odd, though,” he said. “One of the reasons I was against using Sango pearls as a Tatarigami combatant is because of how long it takes for it to work. The pearl itself has special properties, yes. But you have to wield a certain flame to truly access its full potency. Boiling it over regular flames isn't enough.”

The gears slowly clicked into place as you processed his words. 

It took months for you to get over the illness because Doctor Naoko had only experimented with ordinary fire when he boiled the pearls. But now, with the use of Thoma’s fervent Pyro Vision, the effect was near instantaneous. 

“To think Naoko died trying to save people with his hypothetical cure. What a hero,” Doctor Shinya chuckled, adding a couple of annotations of his own to Doctor Naoko’s notes. “I’ve been observing Tatarigami patients for a chunk of my career, and I’m positive that everyone in this estate is cured. But you mentioned another set of patients in the capital…?”

“Yes. The Commissioner gave strict orders to his men to keep the soldiers isolated from everyone else. But we haven’t been able to procure more Sango pearls to manufacture enough doses to cover them…” 

He nodded as he shut Doctor Naoko’s journal, handing it back to you as he patted your shoulder. “You’ve done plenty already, kid. You’re the one who’s been spearheading this whole operation, aren’t you?”

“I… Yeah. I guess you can say that.”

“I expect no less from Naoko’s apprentice,” Doctor Shinya praised. “Leave the patients at the capital to me. I’m actually a native of Watatsumi myself, so I’ll be able to get my hands on all the pearls you’re going to need. However, I have one last question.”

You raised an eyebrow. “What is it?”

“Did you do anything special with the experimental procedure?” he asked, one brow raised. “Sango broth isn’t supposed to be this potent, but here we are, with dozens of recovered patients in no less than a few days.”

While Doctor Shinya elaborated on his inquiry, your eyes managed to catch Thoma across the courtyard, speaking animatedly to one of the elderly retainers. Your heart warmed. It’s been a while since you’ve spoken to him. Your hands have been tied with fussing over the patients that you hadn’t exactly found the time to approach him again. Then, your gaze slowly roved over to the red orb gleaming at his side.

“Yeah,” you replied—a knowing smile spreading on your face. “All you need is a bunch of Sango pearls and…someone with a Pyro Vision.” 

The following days in the estate have mellowed down as everyone quickly recovered. Migraines were gone, spontaneous bleeding episodes resolved, and you’re elated to find out that only a few retainers had suffered the onset of nightmares. They've begun sleeping more peacefully these days, too.

However, the situation of the power balance in the Tri-Commission only got more and more hectic thereafter. 

While you were busy taking care of the patients with Hina, Ayaka and Ayato, together with the Kujou siblings, testified against the Kanjou and Tenryou Commissions’ blatant mismanagement of the war. They were going to try and repeal the Vision Hunt Decree with Kujou Sara’s support as agreed upon as well. Because of this, neither of the two Kamisato heads had been home for nearly two weeks, and the only way you could keep tabs on what was happening was through Thoma himself.

The chief retainer was granted the privilege to attend briefings with the Raiden Shogun but wasn’t required to remain at the Tenshukaku for longer than necessary. It was for that reason that everyday, Thoma went back to the estate to report the situation to everyone before returning to the capital before morning.

You didn’t even have the time for a quick chat with him either. Whenever Thoma was in the estate, he’d update all of you about the state of affairs in the pavilion before promptly passing out in his bedroom. Not a single soul dared to disturb him from those few hours of rest.

It was really kind of him to go through all the trouble, you thought. Everyone in the Yashiro Commission didn’t seem to make too much of a fuss about the whole fiasco. But you guessed it was because of Thoma’s constant reassurance that both retainers and attendants managed to fall back into their old routines without hesitation. 

Today was the last day of routine check-ups that Doctor Shinya had advised you to conduct, and you’re glad to know that everyone was pretty much in the clear now. But as the people around you continued going about with life as usual, you found yourself gaining more free time than you knew what to do with.

Technically, you’re no longer a retainer of the Kamisato house, and neither Ayaka nor the Commissioner officially invited you back into their ranks. But with how much they’ve got on their plates, it was normal for you to be a sitting duck now that everyone in the estate was cured. 

Being completely aware of that did nothing to quell the agitation, though.

You couldn’t bring yourself to seek some semblance of comfort from Thoma either. You knew he was just as busy as the Kamisato siblings. But another reason why you’re a bit hesitant to approach him alone was because…you’re unsure of what you actually were to the guy.

After that eventful trip to Yashiori Island, you’d be lying to yourself if you said you didn’t think about the way he’d kissed you that day. Of course, you’d snap out of it once you caught yourself daydreaming, but…

What else were you supposed to think about?

Despite having complete freedom to do whatever you wanted, you weren’t the type to go around kissing other people for the hell of it. You could barely stand the idea of receiving affection until recently. So when the man who claimed the rights to your first kiss suddenly became too busy to sit down with you and talk about it properly, you supposed you’re entitled to some degree of senseless overthinking.

One day, Hina came up to you at lunch. 

“Doctor Shinya reached out to Madarame this morning,” she told you. “He said he wants you to meet him at the capital.”

For some odd reason, the news filled you with an inexplicable sense of relief. Given that this was the last day your semi-nonexistent medical expertise was needed, you feared that you'd be the only one not doing anything around the estate. And since your status as a retainer was still in question, Madarame decided not to issue any housework for you to do. 

“You’ve done plenty for us, Miss Kira. You deserve to rest, too,” he said. You wanted to tell him that keeping your hands busy also kept thoughts of Thoma far away, but you didn’t exactly know how to break it to him at the time.

Now though, you’ve found a much-needed distraction.

“Miss Kira.”

You’re in the middle of a conversation with Hirano, who offered you a ride to the capital on his horse, when Ayame approached you in the courtyard. She met your gaze with a hint of hesitation, like she was embarrassed. But you didn’t let yourself scrutinize her more than you should. 

“Miss Ayame,” you greeted in return. “Is anything the matter?”

Ayame opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again, and sighed. “I… Can I speak with you for a moment?”

“Sure,” you agreed with a smile, turning to Hirano. “I’ll meet you outside after. Thanks again.”

The guard nodded earnestly. “Anytime! This is the least I can do for you, after all.”

Huh? The least he could do…? But weren’t you the one who’s indebted to them for trying to kill one of their leaders? Alas, you couldn’t spare it another thought when you followed Ayame to a less crowded corner in the gardens. She was awfully quick to get to the point.

“I was wrong about you.”

You watched in silence as Ayame traced idle shapes in the sand with the rake in her grasp. “What do you mean?”

“I thought you were going to take advantage of milady’s trust,” she murmured. “For a while, I even blamed you for the Tenryou Commission’s attack on the estate, too.”

A soft breeze wafted through the courtyard, making you sigh. “You’re completely right about that. It was because of me that the mansion got sacked by those soldiers.”

“But you didn’t leave us for dead,” Ayame argued, turning to face you with an insistent look. “You even went to that…that cursed island just to give us a cure you made yourself. Us, the same people who tried to shun you out of the estate.”

You waved a hand dismissively. “I’m only trying to undo the damage I’ve done. That doesn’t make me any less of the cold-blooded killer you know I am.”

“Real cold-blooded killers won’t try to ‘undo the damage they’ve done’, though.”

Her response was almost petrifying in how sincere it came forth. You stared at Ayame with equal parts confusion and disbelief as you knit your brows together. 

“Miss Ayame… What are you trying to say?”

She huffed. “Well, it’s obvious that Lady Ayaka’s kindness has gotten through so there’s no point in antagonizing you. That’s why, I… I wanted to apologize. For the way I acted around you these past few weeks.”

One second passed, then two, before you ended up burying your face in your hands.

“Miss Kira?” Ayame asked, puzzled. “What’s wrong?”

Archons. She was so sincere with her apology, and you had the gall to overlook the one thing that made her so hostile with you in the first place.

Slowly, your hands dropped to your sides as you shot her a somber look.

“I still haven’t apologized for drugging you that night.”

Ayame’s lips parted with confusion before she slipped back that mask of hostility that’s grown so familiar to you now. “It took you this long to realize that?! Gods, I knew I shouldn’t have apologized first!”

“Miss Kira!” You suddenly heard Hirano shout from the entrance. “Your ride’s ready! Let me know when we’re leaving!”

Not wanting to receive the brunt of Ayame’s wrath, you ended your exchange with a quick bow. “Apology accepted, Miss Ayame! But I have another pressing matter to attend to, so let’s save the teary make-up embrace for later, yeah?” 

“You sneaky little—!”

Without waiting for her to finish, you bolted towards the doorway.

“What?” You scowled. “You sent them all home?”

Doctor Shinya chuckled from where he’s seated beside you at Shimura’s—one of Inazuma City’s up-and-coming outdoor restaurants. When you and Hirano arrived at the entrance to the capital, the doctor was already there, waiting for you. Doctor Shinya even offered to treat you to a late lunch despite the fact that you’ve already eaten. 

And now he was telling you about how he’d discharged the Tenryou soldiers to their respective homes today.

“It was just as you’ve said, performing the procedure with the aid of a Pyro Vision increased the broth’s potency tenfold!” Doctor Shinya gushed with a mouthful of tempura. “It was a good thing Mister Naganohara’s daughter was more than willing to cooperate. Oh, and that boy from the Kamisato clan also dropped by from time to time as well. What was his name again? Thoma?” 

You were surprised to find out that Doctor Shinya asked for Yoimiya’s help in the matter, but you supposed he couldn’t just ignore that pro-tip you gave him beforehand. But finding out about these detours that Thoma made on top of everything else he was dealing with made you shake your head. He was just the same as the Kamisato siblings—putting their duties first before anything else. 

“I’m glad to know the soldiers have all recovered then,” you sighed, sipping the tea you’d ordered. “But what are we going to do with the Tenryou Commission? Didn’t you get any backlash for just ordering those guys to go home or something?”

“Oh? You haven’t heard?” Doctor Shinya blinked, setting down his bowl and chopsticks. “Apparently, the Raiden Shogun has made a definitive ruling for the case filed against the heads of the Tenryou and Kanjou Commissions. They were stripped of their titles this morning, and Kujou Sara was elected as the new head of the Kujou clan. She’s the one who insisted they get some much-needed rest.”

Well. This was definitely news to you.

“I-I see…” you replied dryly. “Um, wait. So what’s going to happen now? Is the war over? Are they putting a stop to the Vision Hunt Decree?”

“The answer to all of that is...yes. Lord Ayato is actually overseeing the return of the confiscated Visions as we speak.” Doctor Shinya smiled, gesturing a set distance away from behind him.You squinted your eyes as you tried to follow his lead until you finally saw it. 

Right where the statue of the Electro Archon stood, you saw a flank of scaffolding set-up in front of the stone visage of the Raiden Shogun. It was hard to tell because you were too far away, but you were pretty sure that the men engrossed with it were taking out the colorful orbs once embedded within. Suddenly, you remembered something Thoma said in passing during that one festival on Amakane Island.

Gods, I wish those two would catch a break soon.

You couldn’t even suppress the grin that made it on your face—not minding that Doctor Shinya could see you smiling like an idiot. 

They did it. Ayaka and Ayato managed to turn the tides of the war after all.

“Well, that said,” Doctor Shinya spoke again, interrupting your thoughts. “I only called you out here to update you about what’s happening. These past two weeks haven’t been easy on any of us, after all.”

You nodded with a dreary laugh. “I never thought I’d be taking care of so many people after I…”

For a second, you panicked. Right. You hadn’t told Doctor Shinya about the years you spent as an underground assassin. And it’s not like you could break it to him easily when he seemed to take your contributions with high regard. Great, now you were ashamed of your own tragic past. Was this what they called character development?

But from the way his eyes softened, something told you he already knew.

“So, Doctor Shinya…” You decided to shift the topic. “What are your plans after this?”

“I’ll actually be accompanying Lord Ayato for the reparation procedures,” he told you. “Her Excellency put him in charge of maintaining public relations with the people of Watatsumi Island, and he invited me in hopes of gaining their goodwill.”

“Oh, right. You said you were a native, right?”

Doctor Shinya nodded. “Yes. And…we’ll also be doing a thorough inspection on Yashiori Island. The Tatarigami typically takes years to fully set in the human body, but we suspected that Kujou Takayuki must have done something nefarious to get his hands on such a powerful manifestation of the curse.” 

You nodded. “Yeah. I’ve never heard of being able to mind-control others with it…” 

“Exactly,” the doctor agreed. “Which reminds me. Would you like to come along when we head to Yashiori for the routine inspections? Lord Ayato informed me that Her Excellency said something about a possibility of the wards being disturbed—causing the rampant spread of the Tatarigami.”

“...Wards?” 

He nodded once more. “When the Raiden Shogun slaid the Orobashi hundreds of years ago, the manifestation of its hatred came in the form of the Tatarigami. To keep it from spreading to the nearby islands, Her Excellency put up protective wards all over Yashiori. But…we can speak of it in more detail if you decide to accept my invitation. I’m sure Lord Ayato will be glad to have you on-board.”

Your shoulders slumped at the news. So it wasn’t over just yet after all, huh…

“You know, there’s an onsen somewhere down the road,” Doctor Naoko mentioned, jabbing a thumb behind his shoulder. “Now that I think about it, you look like you could use some rest.”

You shook your head almost too quickly. “Not at all! I’ve actually been feeling…antsy because I had nothing else to do. So please, do take me with you on your trip. I’ll be happy to show you around the island if need be.”

To your disappointment, it seemed like Doctor Shinya was not having it.

“You’ve worked hard enough, kid,” he chuckled, reaching out to ruffle your hair in that same, infuriating way Doctor Naoko used to do with you. “Now go treat yourself to an afternoon at the bathhouse. We aren’t leaving for another two weeks, so you better make use of the time to relax.”

You wanted to protest—to let him know that you weren’t the only one worked down to the bone by everything that’s happening. Ayaka and Ayato were using all their capabilities to restore peace and order. Doctor Shinya took care of an entire battalion of soldiers by himself. Kujou Sara was busy fixing everything her father had inevitably messed up, and…

Thoma. He was probably out there doing errands in-between for everyone else. Because that’s just who he is as a person—a housekeeper in every sense of the word, even if his duties went beyond the corners of the estate.

But in spite of it all, the buzzing need for a few moments of peace tickled the back of your head. You sighed, succumbing to your not-so subtle desire for a break. 

“So just how good is this bathhouse we’re talking about…?”

You stood in front of the doorway to the hot springs with a sigh.

The owner said the bathhouse was reserved for the day by none other than the Kamisato clan, and was about to turn you away. But, in a moment of desperation, you mentioned you were one of the clan’s retainers. 

“Hmm… Oh, here you are on the guestlist,” he remarked as he went through his clipboard. “My apologies, Miss Kira. I’ll be preparing your things in a while. Someone already went ahead of you, by the way!” 

And now here you are.

The glass on the sliding doorway had fogged over from the steam inside, so you couldn’t really see who you were going to share the hot spring with. And given that this was the mixed bath, there might be men from the estate inside. You weren’t really opposed to being in the company of the opposite sex but…from what you remembered, no one had really left the mansion today aside from yourself.

So who was the person lounging inside the onsen, then? 

It couldn’t be Ayato. He was preoccupied with retrieving Visions from the Shogun’s statue. And you couldn’t exactly picture Ayaka just waltzing into a public bath like this either.

“Only one way to find out, I guess…” you muttered.

The interior wasn’t as extravagant as you initially expected. Just a large, closed room with vents in the ceiling to let the steam billow outside. In the middle, the floor was seemingly paved to imitate a naturally occurring hot spring—decorated with ornamental rocks and fake moss. There was a section in the far end where you figured the showers were, if the bamboo shutters were anything to go by. 

You glanced over to the hot spring in the middle, squinting through the steam rising from the water. Just as you were told, someone else was already occupying the onsen, but their back was turned to you and they had a towel wrapped around their head and a smaller one draped across their face. It made the person’s identity quite hard to decipher through the steam. 

Knowing it’ll be futile to scrutinize from a distance, you decided to take off your robe, folding it by the shelf near the entrance, before finally taking a well-deserved dip. 

The stranger(?) didn’t even stir even when the water rippled all around you. You’d decided to occupy the same side of the hot spring out of curiosity, and when you could take a closer look, this person was, in fact, a man. 

Or they could be a flat-chested woman. Don’t be so quick to judge!

You shook your head, letting the heat of the water seep into your skin. The effect was near-instantaneous. You found yourself sinking lower into the bath as you pressed your back against the edge. A pleased sigh escaped your lips and you were mindful enough to wrap your hair in a towel to keep the strands from getting wet.

You stayed like that for a few minutes—happily letting the hot water work its magic on your fatigued body as you stared at the ceiling. But the more time passed, the more you found yourself growing concerned for the man just a few feet away. He hadn’t stirred since you got here, and you worried he might have passed out. 

And won’t putting a towel on your face in an onsen suffocate you or something?

Hesitantly, you weaved through the hot water with your arms crossed—conscious of the fact that your breasts were on full display. But the moment you reached out in an attempt to remove the towel from his face… 

You yelped loudly—the sound echoing throughout the room when you suddenly found yourself with your arms twisted behind you as the man forced your face against the wet rock. What the fuck? How did he—

“...Miss Kira?”

Oh my fucking Archons.

Of course it was Thoma who put you in an instant headlock. 

The two of you merely stared at each other in stunned silence. The towel on his face had dropped to the water and was drifting uselessly across the surface, and the one he’d tied around his head began to come loose as well—letting his long, damp hair cascade down his shoulders. 

His very naked shoulders, attached to a very naked body he used to press you down in one of the most compromising positions imaginable. Huh. This reminded you of the first night he cornered you in the Kamisato estate’s kitchen… 

“I’m so sorry,” he muttered sheepishly, making a show of turning around as if he was trying to give you some privacy. “I thought you were some asshole that’s trying to kill me or something.”

“I can see that,” you scoffed, sinking back into the water with your face redder than his uniform. “Glad to see you’re alive and didn’t die from steam suffocation, though.”

Once you were settled, Thoma decided to scooch a few feet away before lowering himself into the bath once again. 

You did not stare at his ass while his back was turned to you. You didn’t!!!!

“So…” you began, still feeling all sorts of awkward. “What brings you here?”

Thoma cleared his throat, and you watched the bob of his neck as he swallowed. “Um. I might’ve been complaining about wanting to go to the onsen for days now, and Lord Ayato made the proper arrangements just to shut me up.”

“And he honored your wishes just like that?” you snorted. “If I hadn’t known any better, I would’ve thought you were the princess of the house.”

The chief retainer shot you a narrow-eyed stare. “I could ask the same for you. Did you just happen to go into the same bathhouse as me at the same time I decided to as well?” 

“Maybe it’s fate,” you shrugged, recalling the same train of conversation occurring between the both of you in the past. But when you began to consider his question a bit more seriously…

You know, there’s an onsen somewhere down the road.

The bathhouse has been reserved by the Kamisato clan for the day, my apologies.

Lord Ayato made the proper arrangements just to shut me up.

You blinked. That shouldn’t be possible, right? This was all a coincidence. Surely Ayato and Doctor Shinya wouldn’t deliberately set the two of you up like this, right? 

“How are you?”

A jolt ran across your shoulders when Thoma spoke out of the blue again—his voice nearly echoing in the empty room. You stared at him incredulously before forcing yourself to peel your eyes away from the droplets of water that ran tantalizingly across his pectorals.

“I-I’m good,” you replied. “There isn’t much to do back at home anymore so I was just feeling a little antsy. Doctor Shinya told me to relax for a change.” For some reason, Thoma laughed the moment you finished speaking, and your eyes narrowed into slits.

“Sorry, sorry. I was just a bit…happy.”

“With what?”

“You called the estate home.”

“Oh.”

Man, you’ve gotten so soft, it’s embarrassing. 

“How about you?” you murmured in return. “You’ve been so busy, I could hardly talk to you.”

Thoma raised an eyebrow, mouth quirked into a lopsided smile. “Did you miss me?”

“So what if I did? Stupid guard dog…”

You startled again when the water rippled all around you once more. Thoma rose out of the bath just enough to make his way to you. And when he leaned down to meet your gaze head-on, you swallowed thickly—face burning hotter than the room itself. 

“I think I liked it better when you called me pretty boy.” He pouted. 

You groaned, pushing him away, but Thoma refused to budge. “That was one time.” 

“Once is enough to have me thinking about it for weeks.” The laugh that left his lips had a familiar sultriness to it that made your thighs clench. Thoma’s wet hand was on your face again, cupping your cheek as the other peeled away the towel in your hair. 

“I missed you, too,” he murmured, thumb gently teasing the swell of your lip. His green eyes looked so pretty up close. “So much that I had to hop into a bathhouse just to keep my mind off of it.”

You huffed. “Then why didn’t you just go back? Doctor Shinya said everything was already sorted out with the Shogun.”

“Well, yeah. But I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to hold back if I saw you again.”

“Huh?”

You barely had time to process it when Thoma captured your lips with his own—the hand not holding your face immediately resting on your hip. But you didn’t even have any fight left in you when you were so quick to melt into his kiss. You sighed, and Thoma used the opportunity to slither his tongue inside your mouth. 

He lifted you onto the edge of the bath, wet bodies sliding past each other as he slotted himself between your legs. Though his lower half was still submerged in the water, the feel of his toned stomach made you more flustered than it should. But Thoma wasn’t exactly giving you a lot of leeway to think. 

The chief retainer wrapped your legs around his waist, pulling you closer as he kissed you fervently. You mewled into his mouth as your hands wandered to his hair. You tugged on the strands in a way you remembered he liked, and you couldn’t help the heat that stirred in your stomach at the sound he just made.

“Thoma,” you sighed when he pulled away, lips trailing a fiery path down the column of your neck. “Are we really going to do this? Here?”

For some reason, he tensed. Thoma peeled himself away slightly, eyeing the way you’re presented bare for him to see. You might have blanched and covered yourself if it had been anyone else, but… 

“Sorry,” he muttered again, leaning forward to rest your foreheads together as his hands gripped your thighs. “It’s just like I said. I can’t seem to restrain myself when it comes to you… But if you want me to behave, I’ll gladly do so.”

“...Like a dog?”

“You don’t have to put it like that!”

 For the first time in a while, you managed a lighthearted laugh, shifting your head a little so you could nuzzle the crook of his neck. You couldn’t find traces of Thoma’s scent given that the steam was making your head swim a little. But the reassuring heat of his body was enough to make you feel safe, in spite of his seemingly ravenous appetite for you. 

“I’ll let you do anything you want if you answer my question,” you told him, biting your lip. 

He craned his head. “What is it?”

“...How do you feel about me, exactly?”

You instinctively recoiled, fingers tightening around his arms as you braced yourself for an inevitable rejection. You didn’t really have an idea why you expected the worst right off the bat, but… Surely Thoma wouldn’t—

“How I feel about you?” he repeated, chest reverberating with each word. 

Thoma forcibly pulled you away from his torso, making you meet his beautiful emerald eyes. The smile he flashed you the next second was so real, you could cry.

“I like you. Can’t you tell?” 

Just like that, the disbelief came crashing down on you all over again. 

Did people really just admit their feelings like that? Straight to the point, without any hint of hesitation? You had no clues as to how potential couples went about the ‘confession’ stage, but…wasn’t Thoma being a bit too honest? You thought all the best romances started with some degree of denial and pining from both parties.

“I’m…not used to this kind of thing, okay?” you replied, suddenly feeling even more embarrassed. “If it’s normal for you to just admit to someone that you like them, then—”

“You’re the first person I’ve ever liked enough to confess to, though.”

You could have sworn that steam billowed not just from the water but also out of your ears. This was not real. No one could be this fucking honest with himself. You refused to believe it.

…But then again, Thoma had proved himself to be different from every other person you’ve ever met. He had the patience of a saint, a capacity for banter that could keep up with your own, and a deep-rooted understanding that not everyone could afford to spare for people like you.

Whenever you looked at him, he always reminded you of the sun with not a single cloud obscuring his intentions and you started to see why. 

(Overlooking the fact that he lied about Ayaka’s plans. You can forgive him for that. Kind of.) 

“I don’t deserve you,” you told him with a groan. “Why do you even like me?”

Something shifted in the hot air, and suddenly Thoma’s easygoing smile dropped. He spoke your real name like a prayer in the thick steam, and you could feel your head buzz from the whiplash of it all. When his mouth descended onto yours once again, he lacked the ferocity he’d exhibited in both times you’ve ever kissed him. Thoma merely pecked your lips with the softest of touches before pulling away to meet your eyes.

“You deserve me and more,” he murmured. “And I’ll give you all of that if you’re willing to have me.”

Your first instinct was to argue, but the heat between your legs has festered enough. Instead of debating about what you did and didn’t deserve, you closed your eyes and finally let yourself fall off the edge.

Thoma’s hands were inescapable when you finally gave him a little nudge—that final confirmation. He swallowed up all the sounds you made as he lifted himself out of the water, fingers already making quick work between the growing heat in your thighs. The evidence of your arousal was hard to hide—especially when he’s sliding those thick digits against your glistening seam so tantalizingly, you almost forgot you were in a public bath. 

“Thoma,” you mewled. “W-What if…someone comes in?”

You gasped when he eased one finger inside you, wrapping one arm around your waist as he watched your expressions with a sultry smile. “As much as I’d hate to share this view with someone else…” He leaned closer to your ear, and you instinctively clenched your walls around him. “Something tells me the idea of getting caught excites you.”

“Quit projecting! You’re such a weirdo.” The words were meant to hit like an insult, but you ended up moaning them instead as Thoma slipped in a second finger. “F-Fucking pervert…”

“Hmm? Would you like me to stop then?”

You mourned the loss of the friction when his hand became stock still inside you. A throaty groan scratched against your throat as you threw out a fist—hitting his lean chest in the process.

“...No.”

He chuckled, low and dangerous as he let you sink down to the hot spring—flipping you around so your ass was in full display. His fingers never left, though, and the moment he had you bent over the edge of the pool, Thoma resumed his sinful ministrations. 

You could barely contain your moans when he pressed his chest against your back, spreading your thighs wider as he fingered you loose. His tongue slithered across the shell of your ear, and he even nibbled on your lobe as he worked you between your legs. You sighed—completely embarrassed by how slick and easy the slide of his fingers had become.

But before you could make another sound, Thoma prodded your mouth with the fingers of his free hand. 

“If you don’t want to get caught,” he whispered huskily. “You need to be quiet.”

You would’ve been mortified by how easily you opened your mouth for him had it been any other scenario. But you were so unbelievably aroused by his voice, his heat, and the feel of his strong body caging you underneath his, that your otherwise snarky defenses had been tossed aside. You didn’t want anything else—didn’t need anything else.

All that mattered right now was Thoma.

It didn’t take long for you to notice his hard length rubbing against your ass while he made a mess with your mouth and cunt with his fingers. You couldn’t even fathom the dexterity his multitasking should have required, but you figured that when it came to doing several things at once, he was the man for the job. 

You moaned when he curled his fingers inside you, thighs quivering as he continued thrusting in and out. You couldn’t tell if the clouds of vapor emerging with each bated breath was from the steam or not, but when Thoma took his fingers out from both your mouth and cunt, you couldn’t help the whine that got caught in the back of your throat.

“So needy.” A soft chuckle resounded from behind you and your eyes widened when you felt him slide his cock against your slick folds. 

“T-Thoma…”

“Tell me you deserve me,” he murmured into your ear, pressing your thighs together as he rocked his length into the space between your legs. 

“What are you—”

“Tell me or I won’t fuck you the way you want me to.”

…Gods, he was so hot when he bossed you around. 

Each time his hips pressed forward, you could feel the head of his cock catching on your clit. You nearly sobbed, forcing your palms onto the slippery rocks as you desperately attempted to meet his thrusts. But Thoma wasn’t letting you get what you wanted so easily.

“I’m waiting.” 

Fuck it. Who needs dignity anyway?

“I deserve it,” you moaned. “I deserve you. I deserve your cock. I deserve to get rammed into the next life, just— please!”

Your vision nearly went dark when he finally pressed himself against your entrance—filling you to the brim with the heat of his length. The burn of his passage was conspicuous but bearable. Although, when he finally sheathed himself to the hilt, Thoma let out another infuriatingly sexy laugh as he pressed a kiss against your neck.

“Tell me you like me, too.”

This fucking guy…

“I like you,” you mumbled, feeling your heart stutter with every word. “I like you so much I can’t imagine going back to a life without you anymore.”

All of a sudden, the possessive grip he had on your hips faltered, making you turn around to sneak a glance. Thoma stared at you with wide, green eyes—flushing so badly even the tips of his ears were red.

In the end, his embarrassment melted with a sigh. 

“You know just exactly how to rile me up, don’t you?” 

You were about to dish out some crude reply, but Thoma effectively shut you up with a sharp thrust. 

He took you against the edge of the hot spring, pawing at every inch of skin his hands could reach. Your stomach, your breasts, your thighs—if he’d taken you somewhere else, you were sure he’d spend hours worshipping your body alone. 

Maybe taking a guard dog as a lover wasn’t so bad after all.

“So…good,” you drawled, barely having enough strength to prop yourself upright. Thoma muttered something under his breath before angling his cock a bit differently, hitting a spot inside you that made you melt underneath his touch. 

For a moment, he let himself slip out of your cunt—an action met with another whine in protest. But Thoma  was quick to flip you over again, making your back dig into the pool’s edge. And when your gazes met, you were completely unprepared for the unadulterated want in his eyes.

“I can’t wait—” he hissed, spreading your thighs wide enough to accommodate him, “—to take you in my bedroom. I’ll love you until morning, I swear it.” 

And you believed him. Every single word. Because Thoma was as honest as a man could be, and you wondered if you could learn to be the same way once you’ve been by his side long enough. 

You’ve never felt like this before. So whole. So special. So adored. He made it clear with each thrust exactly how much you meant to him, and you’d be a fool to turn away now. With a sigh, you laced your fingers around Thoma’s neck—eyes glazed over with a desire of your own.

“Kiss me,” you whispered. 

He was sweating all over, lips bitten red with your earlier activities. But Thoma seemed all too willing to heed your every wish as he lowered himself. You leaned upward to meet him halfway—pressing your breasts against his chest as the cadence of his thrusts slowed into a crawl. Thoma canted his hips deep enough to have you moaning into his mouth, and suddenly, you wouldn’t trade any of this, wouldn’t trade any of him for the world. 

If this is love, you thought airily as you lost yourself in the sensation. 

I want all of it.

A few days later, you and Thoma had gone back to work. 

You’d been out all morning, busy with returning confiscated Visions to their rightful owners—something you were more than enthusiastic to get done. After all, it was a job entrusted to the both of you by Ayaka herself.

As a retainer of the Kamisato house, your Lady’s orders were of utmost importance.

However, as the two of you walked back into the estate, your quiet banter with your new lover was momentarily interrupted. In the center of the pavilion, you spotted Ayaka in her lonesome, but you could very much make out the curious eyes of the other retainers encroaching from the sidelines. You couldn’t blame them for their curiosity. 

The Shirasagi Himegimi’s fan dance was always a spectacle to behold. 

You hung back by the entrance as you bore witness to the sight you’d been dying to see since you’d laid your eyes on her. Ayaka was as graceful as the winds of a winter morning, with every move serving to mesmerize any lucky onlooker. She swayed to the beat of the song in her head, flicking her fan with a show of snowflakes every now and again. And when the breathtaking performance came to a close, she glanced your way with a sweet smile.

“Welcome home,” she greeted kindly. “How was your trip?”

“Tiring,” Thoma yawned as the two of you met her at the center. “But everyone’s happy now I guess. Isn’t that right, Miss Kira?”

You nodded. “But it wouldn’t have been possible without you, milady.”

Ayaka chuckled, taking your hands in hers. “Brother and I only laid the groundwork. Everyone else in the Yashiro Commission did their parts as well. This is a team effort, you know?”

If the you from three months ago saw you right now, you knew she would’ve been mortified. Clutching the hands of the same woman you’d been sworn to kill, what a joke. But then again��maybe your past self wouldn’t have minded the idea of being doted on if it was by the princess herself. 

The day you could finally speak to her again, you practically fell to your knees—face splotchy with tears as you spat out every apology you could think of. You were aware of how pathetic you were being. Your crimes had been duly pardoned by Inazuman law, and even if you still harbored some degree of guilt, you swore that you’d right your wrongs in any way or form. And that’s what you were doing now, as an official Kamisato retainer. 

But Ayaka, in all her merciful glory, asked you to stand and put your chin up.

“There’s no need for tears, Miss Kira.” She smiled. “To me, you never really left. You just had to find yourself. And we’d always been willing to welcome you home once you did.” 

And now here you were.

“Oh, you two! You’re back!”

The sound of the Commissioner’s voice snapped you out of your momentary reminiscing. Ayato emerged from the mansion with a familiar figure curled in his arms, and another familiar figure tailing him from behind.  

“Yo, newbie!” Yoimiya greeted with a smile. “So you’re the one who made all those nifty cures, huh? Glad to have supported your cause!”

Blinking up from underneath her hood, Sayu seemingly nuzzled herself further into Ayato’s chest. “So noisy…”

“Aw, Sayu! Don’t go sleeping now! We’re still going to test the fireworks I brought!”

“Are you making preparations for the lunar festival later?” Thoma asked. “We kind of delayed that for a while, huh?”

Ayato nodded with a sigh. “All the more reason to put our backs into it. We’re heading over to Amakane Island to sample Yoimiya’s new inventions. She wanted to make sure there’s no need for fine-tuning. Do you two want to come with?”

“Isn’t it a bit early for testing out fireworks though?” Ayaka wondered, gazing out at the afternoon sky. “But I suppose we could take advantage of the time we have. You and Miss Kira are leaving tomorrow, yes?”

“Unfortunately,” the Commissioner sighed before turning to you and Thoma. “Well, what do you say?”

Before you could even open your mouth, Thoma was already slinging an arm around your shoulder—grinning at Ayato with a confident air.

“We’d love to!”

“So why are you still calling me Kira again? Everyone’s starting to forget I actually have a real name because of you...” 

You posed the question to Thoma when you two found a comfortable spot on the cliff, just underneath the cherry blossoms as you watched Yoimiya and the Kamisato siblings set up the fireworks by the beach. 

Thoma shrugged, resting his chin on your shoulder as he hugged you from behind. “I kind of got used to it.” 

“Liar.”

“What? I’m not lying.”

You snorted, turning to face him with a smirk—the fox mask on your head lightly bumping against his. “It’s not the whole truth either, though,” you said, leaning closer to nuzzle your nose with his. “Come on. I’m leaving tomorrow without any idea when I’ll be back. I won’t get the chance to ask you again for a good while.” 

He whined. “Can I really not come along? I’ve been to Yashiori, too, you know… I’m pretty tough.”

“So you’re just going to leave milady alone like that?”

“...How about we all just go on an indefinite field trip to the Orobashi’s graveyard, and Madarame can be the pseudo-Yashiro Commissioner for a while,” Thoma suggested. “I think it would be a win-win for all parties involved.”

“I don’t think milady will last long living in the wild,” you admitted, and Thoma surrendered with a sigh. “But fine. If you don’t want to tell me, I won’t force you.”

For what it’s worth, the thought of leaving Thoma to help investigate the wards on Yashiori left a bitter taste in your mouth, too. It’s only been a few days since the two of you made it official, and now you’re going to have to leave him for a while. But there were things that had to be done, and as a Kamisato retainer, you’re obligated to see them through until the end.

Sometime later, Yoimiya shouted from below to keep your eyes peeled. You and Thoma had been assigned as the official judges for her newest craft, and you were more than happy to humor the lively fireworks-maker. It also gave you an excuse to sit between Thoma’s legs as you watched.

However, as the special fireworks shot up to the sky, you felt Thoma’s breath against your ear.

“It’s because I want to be the only one who calls you by your real name,” he whispered. “Is that so possessive of me?”

Whether the redness of your face was a reflection from the fireworks or plain embarrassment, no one would ever be able to tell.

Yoimiya’s invention was something else—fireworks that changed color right before the sparks shimmered into oblivion. Fiery red morphing into electric blue. Bright gold into luscious green. You watched each one rise into the sky with a dazzled look, chest twisting at the idea that it might take you a while to witness another fireworks show again.

You were completely unaware of the bright emerald eyes that watched you the whole time.

When all the preparations on the island were set, and you’d given Yoimiya your stamp of approval, the visitors had started pouring in. It’s as if Inazuma hadn’t been on the brink of an internal collapse because of the Kanjou and Tenryou Commission’s misdeeds. Everyone who walked beneath the torii gates had smiles splitting their faces as they sampled festival food, tied their wishing charms, and tried their hand at the game booths. 

That night, Thoma finally met his match in the form of a rather competitive Kujou Sara—who made a surprising entrance with Masahito despite how busy things were on their end. She ended up beating Thoma’s goldfish-catching record without a sweat, earning herself a new and improved Mister Danuki plush of her own.

Even the kids from Konda Village made it, immediately running towards yours and Ayaka’s direction before they inevitably dragged the two of you all over the place. The princess must have sensed the unease in your posture as Futaba and Takeru told you about how their fathers used to bring them here all the time, too.

There’s a time for you to tell them. Just not now, her eyes seemed to say.

Ayaka had to peel away from your little group to perform her fan-dance to the crowd, enrapturing every single person in attendance without fail. From behind, you could hear Kujou Sara speaking to Ayato about how the princess can finally enjoy a festival like a normal girl. The Commissioner couldn’t help but sigh in agreement. 

By the time Yoimiya’s fireworks show was underway, you were already exhausted. 

Instead of taking your usual spot by the cliffs, you decided to hang around by the entrance with Thoma, where there were less people crowding the space. This gave you the leeway to breathe, resting your head on his shoulder as you fought your brain’s desire to just go to sleep.

“We can head back now if you want,” he offered, stroking your hair. 

“Mmm…” you groaned. “But Yoimiya’s fireworks.” 

The chief retainer smiled. “And you’ve already done her a favor by judging her handiwork. You deserve a good night’s rest before you leave, you know?”

Well, it didn’t take much convincing for you to agree, so to speak.

Thoma’s mattress was soft as you landed on the surface, not bothering to change out of your kimono. Your lover let out a soft laugh while he stripped himself of his uniform before joining you on his bed. The dip of the bed under his weight made you crack one eye open, and you could see him holding a familiar toy in front of you.

“Don’t forget to pack Mister Danuki before you leave,” he reminded, setting the plush on top of his nightstand. 

“I won’t,” you murmured. “I’ll miss you too much if I do…”

Thoma sighed as he pulled the sheets over your bodies. “You always know what to say, huh?”

You let out a satisfied noise when you felt him nestle you in his strong arms. Turning around, you rested your head against his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart.

“You’re not going to try anything tonight?” you asked curiously.

“As much as I want to have passionate, unforgettable goodbye sex,” Thoma started with a laugh, pressing his lips against your forehead, “I am completely serious about you getting a good night’s rest, Miss Kira. Now go to bed before I change my mind.”

Though your eyelids were heavy with fatigue, you still managed a soft, almost mischievous laugh. Thoma, of course, didn’t miss the playful lilt in your tone, and immediately groaned when you climbed on top of his lap.

You stared at him from your vantage point, watching the way his ears turned red under your scrutiny. This was the man who made the gears on your stale, unsalvageable life finally turn. If it weren’t for him, you never would’ve changed. If it weren’t for him, you never would have formulated a cure that’s effective enough to save those you cared about.

If it weren’t for him, you wouldn’t be as happy as you were now.

“I love you,” you told him, fingers toying with the pendant around his throat. “Thoma of the Kamisato House, I love you.” 

Thoma smiled, soft and sincere and everything you’ve ever loved. When his hand reached up to caress your cheek, you’re not strong enough to resist his touch.

“I love you, too.”

This was your place in the world. Even if you had to leave for a while, you’ll always come back to him. 

Without worry. Without fail.

<- previous | next ->

© cryoculus | kaientai ✧ all rights reserved. do not repost or translate my work on other platforms.

[vintage-royalty]

Was so interested by your post on Wallis and her anxiety and I'm curious if letters or others sources suggest if David had much empathy/patience with it?

Yes! He was actually very sympathetic and supportive and there are a lot of anecdotes to support that.

-He mostly stopped flying even when he wasn't with Wallis because her anxiety about plane crashes extended to him and she was worried he would die in one. (Source: King Edward VIII by Philip Ziegler) One of the major criticisms levied against Wallis by David's relatives and courtiers was that she had made him paranoid and cowardly but their letters seem to suggest what was really going on was that Wallis would get severe anxiety about bad things that might happen to him and he would, entirely at his own initiative, avoid certain activities/situations to keep her calm.

-There is an anecdote from their secretary Jean Hardcastle-Taylor that the first time Wallis (very reluctantly) agreed to get on an airplane, David held her hand and reassured her the whole time which seemed to help her get through the experience. (Source: The Windsors I Knew by Jean Hardcastle-Taylor) I also mentioned in my previous response that at least once, according to Jean, he canceled plans to help keep her calm during a thunderstorm.

-In her memoirs Wallis herself, though she doesn't talk about her anxiety hardly at all, does mention a specific incident when she was distressed and worried over how their wedding would come together at Chateau de Candé recalled that hearing David's voice on the phone reassured her. "The gray mists lifted from my spirit. I ceased to be afraid." (Source: The Heart Has Its Reasons by Wallis Windsor)

-According to one of their friends, Rudi von Schonburg, David's positive influence on Wallis was that he "calmed her down." (Source: The Real Wallis Simpson by Anna Pasternak)

-In their letters David was usually patient and reassuring with Wallis's paranoia, even when she was doing things like baselessly thinking he was cheating which would piss most people off.

On the other hand, his antics were definitely a major source of her anxiety over the years. David could be very self-absorbed and in the prelude to the abdication crisis he kept reassuring her and trying to calm her down about anxieties that were actually completely valid such as her fear that the press in Britain were eventually going to take notice of their relationship and ruin her reputation. I'm still not sure to what extent this was him being manipulative or just completely oblivious, but either way I don't think he fully understood what he was putting her through until much later. He had a lot of his own mental health issues so I do think there was a lot of understanding and empathy between them.

Have a great day and thanks for asking!

[rocketchip-comic]

I love that in Rocket's backstory she was a janitor, because as a janitor myself at the hospital I work at we're given a surprising amount of clearance for accessing rooms in the building, second only to security officers. Also, cleaning and maintenance staff are inconspicuous and often looked over. So, chances are you're not gonna question why a janitor is in a room as long as it looks like they're doing their job. Out of mind, out of sight; a ghost. It would be relatively easy (hypothetically of course, to any future employers I wouldn't do this in real life) to "borrow" company property and do... less than legal things with classified information, and with Rocket's engineering/tech experience and the lackluster security the only thing she would have to worry about is being patient and making sure that she's still doing her job to keep prying eyes away from her. Not saying that this wouldn't be a stressful plan to enact, but in this context it's very doable and I just think that's neat

As for the actual stealing of the ship... well, I assume that's where the luck comes into play.

anyway yea :) your comic v cool and fun and good

wait i forgot i had a question! ok so how exactly does Chip's memory deletion work? is it just like a button on the side of her head that just boop and poof its gone? Does she ever accidentally delete memories she wants to keep? wait thats 3 questions oops

HA I'm glad I got that accurate! At my last job whenever janitors got into stuff nobody else was supposed to see there was always this attitude of like "oh well, they won't know what to do with that info anyway." Which is .. hmm. But YES disclaimer for kids at home, I do not condone becoming a janitor to modify engineering plans and eventually hijack a spaceship to leave the planet. Just say NO!

Chip's robot physiology is a little wonky and works by cartoon logic, but basically she has two little electric panels on the sides of her head. That's what those yellow swirl things are supposed to be.

When she wants to forget something unpleasant, she essentially sends an electric jolt through her finger while pressing it up to the panel. and ZAP! (It's sort of meant to invoke the image of someone sticking their fingers in their ears when they don't want to hear something.)

To put it visually, its like her memory is a video in an editing program that she's dragging clips out of, and the gaps in the video are just replaced by vague jumbled static.

Sometimes she actually does remove more memories than intended. When she's in a rush or feeling panicked she'll cut out a wider section of memory in her haste to just GET RID OF THE BAD!! Which deletes pretty much all of the surrounding context of the memory as well. She's never really considered this to be a big issue.

Now where do the removed memory bits go? She has NO idea. All she knows is that she can't access them anymore once she's done the zappy thing, so they're as good as gone to her!

But who knows what could happen? 👀

[linklethehistorian]

So I very rarely get super personal on this blog just for the sake of it, but given there was already a much…darker version of this post sitting in drafts until just a short while ago, and maybe someone here might need to hear an uplifting real-life story tonight, I figured I’d go ahead and draft up and post this anyway.

See, I’m sure all of y’all here have noticed my relative lack of activity with any large project over the past five months, but what y’all don’t know is that this has largely been due to some pretty serious health issues — not the least of all being that…over the past…three-ish months of those five, I have had to stare down the very real possibility that I might have a pretty serious form of Leukemia. I was bounced from doctor to doctor about this, test after test, and not much of it looked good, if I’m being perfectly honest.

During all of that time up to today, I had been sitting around contemplating much of my existence, and how, at last, when the most difficult news of all came, I would break that news to everyone — what I would do, say, etc. I must’ve run through all the scenarios a million times, drafted up at least ten different letters for different people in my life, even recorded a cover of a song through which I wanted to say goodbye to everyone here, if it came to it (and which still sits in my video gallery currently, as though still waiting to be used).

Needless to say, although they had their moments as life always does, these past months have been overall a living Hell, and it only got progressively worse with every new piece of concerning news, up until today — the day I finally was able to go see the oncologist. (Doctors are often booked out for months around here rn — weeks at best.)

Prior to the visit, I had been informed by my GP that the oncologist would overlook all of my results ahead of time, and call to cancel the visit with me herself if she found/determined there was nothing worth being concerned over.

Well, the cancel call never came, so I think you can understand when I say that I went in full expectation of the worst case scenario; I mean, clearly she had thought it critical enough to keep the appointment, so that kind of spoke volumes for itself even without having seen her.

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget the long time spent alone in the doctor’s office, waiting for her to arrive: there was some of the most gorgeous, peaceful instrumental music you could imagine playing softly, and as I was sitting there, forms in hand, staring down the room around me, I was just thinking to myself how that music clearly said exactly what this place was: it’s a place where people go to get basically the worst news of their lives imaginable, and try their best to cope with and struggle against their mortal illnesses. And this music was so pretty and peaceful because the patients needed it.

And here I was. Today I was one of those patients.

I sat there contemplating over my life and realizing that this was going to be the last moment that anything was even somewhat normal again for me. The last moments before life changing news.

I can’t begin to explain how that feels.

…And then the doctor came in and she was immediately telling me, like, more or less, “Oh honey, why are you here? lol We tried to call you to tell you not to come in — you don’t need all this stress for no reason, go on home, there’s nothing to worry about, you’re fine.”

Apparently she had, in fact, made an attempt to contact me because she wanted to spare me the stress of coming after reviewing the results and deciding I was fine, just like my GP said, but the call just hadn’t gone through.

The relief that I have inside of me today knowing that I am okay is beyond anything I could ever put into words. I cried the entire several hour drive home, and even now, as I type this up, I find myself tearing up just a little again in sheer gratitude and amazement and comfort.

Even if things had gone badly, I wouldn’t have had any regrets, but truly nothing makes me happier to know that I will be around for a long, long while here still — with the people and things that I love, with the strangers, with the haters, and everyone else in between.

Please never take life for granted. Live in the present and try to be as grateful for every moment as you possibly can. Life really is beautiful and precious and so, so worth living, so live it to the fullest and always remember that there can be hope.

No matter how bad things seem, there’s always a chance for hope to shine through.

It did for me. It can for you too.

I love you all so much.

[dgcatanisiri]

So, uh... Does it seem reasonable that someone who was on a ventilator on Saturday would then be released on that following Monday? Cuz I certainly don't think so, nor does my aunt, but apparently this is what they're saying is going happen with my mother. That someone who was in the ICU until this morning is going to be kicked out tomorrow.

Oh, and when my aunt commented on this to the doctor, she was told "this isn't a hotel."

Have I mentioned I have ISSUES with doctors at hospitals with regards to beside manner?

Yeah, when a new nurse came on shift, my aunt said that they agreed it sounded unusual to her. And my aunt intends to be there bright and early tomorrow to argue with them about it.

Like... I understand not keeping her in the ICU. But part of what they were telling us over the last few days was that she needed time to get her vitals, her sodium levels and her blood pressure, back up to where they should be. And we're talking about someone who was kept under sedation for the better part of a day and a half, had a ventilator inserted to help her breathe during that time... And they want to say that all it takes to put her back in her home is a weekend stay?

Now, if I'm being generous, what I could assume would be the intent in all this is that it's all the SOP with the average patient, the 'person off the street' kind of thing, where the person who's coming in and receiving treatment is a person in relatively decent health on their own.

BUT... Medical treatment is the kind of thing that has no business being standardized to the extent that it makes no consideration for those outside the average. Because my mother has multiple chronic conditions. She doesn't just "bounce back" from something like this, because she has a permanent condition that has compromised her immune system - that's what MS DOES. She NEEDS additional care to recover. While we can help her at home under normal circumstances, the whole POINT of her being in the hospital is that these are NOT normal circumstances, and she needs additional care beyond our abilities!

Even if they wanted to send her to a rehab facility for a week or two, that would be more reasonable than sending her straight back home TWO FREAKING DAYS after she had a ventilator doing her breathing for her!

[anthonysstupiddailyblog]

Anthony’s Stupid Daily Blog (754): Wed 10th Apr 2024

Continued reading Philip K Dick's Voices From The Street and although this is from the early days of Dick's writing career before he started encorporating science fiction elements it's still very enjoyable and gritty. This particular story has the feel of something from Charles Bukowski in that the protagonist is someone slowly going crazy with his inability to find purpose in life (unlike me who found his purpose long ago which was to stay the fuck away from people). There are also long drawn out scenes featuring monotonous every day situations that are drawn out so long that they start to feel surreal such as a moment where the main character Stuart Hadley runs into a man who lengthily implores him to read an article about how meat causes cancer and keeps going even though Stuart's done his best to convince him he will read it. Then there's another chapter where an old woman comes into the TV store and asks where her normal repairman is as he's the only person he trusts to repair her radio and although Hadley keeps assuring her that her normal repairman isn't working today she keeps badgering him nonetheless. I think this is done to drive home the fact that Hadley think's that he may as well not exist the way people seem to disregar everything he says. When I was on the final few novels of my Edgar Award challenge I was looking at all the Philip K Dick books I was going to read after that challenge finally ended and I anticipated that the first few novels he wrote would turn out to be duds because he produced them before he found his groove. However nothing could be farther from the truth as Dick had a knack for mood and character well before he even decided to make sci-fi his bread and butter. 

Later on I rewatched possibly my second favourite movie of all time (after Catch Me If You Can) the incredible Sunset Boulevard. It's remarkable how much this movie still holds up to this day because the subject matter i.e the trappings of fame are still as relevant as they were back then (possibly even more so since the invention of social media). Gloria Swanson's performance I think is one of the greatest ever commited to film. I can see how her over the top and cartoonish delivery of her lines might put some people off but this is a character who would have been classically trained and would have been used to over projecting herself so that everyone in the theatre would be able to hear her and gesticulating so that silent movie audiences could get the emotions she was portraying so it stands to reason that this would have rubed off on the character. One scene that I never realised the creepiness of before is when Norma is throwing a New Year's Eve party but it's just for her and Joe, her butler Max is handling the refreshments and there is a band playing in the background. Joe and Norma have an argument and both storm out and all the while the band continue to play. The fact that they're there at all playing for just two people is bad enough but that they're playing or such a delusional woman who's acting like there are a thousand people there is what makes the scene so unsettling. The musicians must feel like the relatives of dementia patients feel when they go to visit them, carrying on to engage but knowing it's probably not making a difference. Speaking of illness, previously I thought that the fim was merely a study on the trappings of fame mainly thanks to Swanson's amazing performance but now I see that there's another story being told too. Sunset Boulevard is also a brilliant depiction of the personal sacrifice that goes with caring for someone with mental health issues. Joe feels like he has to be there to feed Norma's delusions so she doesn't do something to harm herself much like those closest to people struggling with their mental health. It's a noble sacrifice and commitment obviously but not being able to pursue your own hopes and dreams as your attention is needed elsewhere can also feel soul destroying. I think it's the mark of a great movie that sixty four years after it was made and upon possibly my tenth viewing I'm still discovering new and wonderful things about this all time classic. 

[plusanimablog]

Chapter 38: Six Years Ago

The group are currently in the spring in a cave, along with Edo. They wash up and eat some fruit provided by Edo as he tells them they should be in Stella in three days. Apparently Edo knows Senri from the past too but Senri has forgotten him (either due to his notoriously bad memory or he just didn't consider him worth remembering). Edo then reveals he knew Senri as a kid, saying that back as an injured child slave he was a hard sell for whatever reason. Edo was going to buy him but got stuck on his resell value before Crystal swooped in and brought him. Edo is stunned at her buying such apparently damaged "goods" and tags after her and him out of curiosity.

Catching her undressing him (Probably for washing...although Edo was more worried than any of us while seeing that), he spots Senri's belt and identifies it as a Kimunkle custom: they wear the belongings of a dead relative, dyed black and as a belt. He then sees his scars and figures that a bear did it. Crystal however only cares about the wounds in his heart and asks him his name. He answers Senri and a transaction is completed! However, after spending some time with him, a problem pops up: he has memory issues. Crystal is pretty patient with him though and has him peel potatoes, pretty much the only thing he can do competently.

Then Crystal gives him a book, knowing that he can't read but giving him a crystal flower to put inside it, saying it will help him remember her. She then tells him whenever he wants to remember something, he should put it inside the book.

A year later, Crystal and her caravan set off on a trip to Asteria...with Edo coming along because he's weak and cheap. She takes the chokers off her slaves because slaves are not allowed in Asteria. The story ends because the kids are asleep (probably lulled by Edo's boring-ass story) and Edo thinks that the chokers are there to protect slaves, leaving them identifiable as livestock. He and many others don't see them as people but Crystal "wishes they were people".

He thinks the Anima around him are special cases though as he reaches for Senri's eyepatch...only for Cooro to stop him, saying Senri freaks out when people do that. That reminds Edo of another story from the past...

One of Crystal's wagons was attacked by bandits while she, Senri and Edo were in the same wagon. Crystal and her slaves defend themselves but when one guy advances on Senri, he goes absolutely feral and fucks up every bandit in the vicinity, sending them running away. The chapter ends with him turning into this:

Yeah.

[arkadijxpancakes]

Yeeeep, that's also the vibe I'm getting.

I know, there are fans who argue with "But they are there because they have spell damage! Muggle-psychology wouldn't work!" (with the implication that it's okay how the patients are treated). But that doesn't make that much sense.

As you already said: While they are affected permanently, they have completely different health issues.

I mean, Lockhart suffered spell damage, yes. While this seems to be permanent, it is noted in the text that his condition is improving. But if his condition is indeed improving, providing him with therapy to encourage further improvement would make a lot of sense. However, from the way it's presented, this really is "just a bonus". He would probably benefit from living at home with a caregiver. (However, considering his ... illustrious ... career, it's possible that he doesn't have any family members who would be willing to provide that care. So I at least understand why he's there.)

Then there is Broderick Bode - who was injured recently and also shows signs of improvement. Why is that guy on this ward? Like, at all? His condition doesn't seem to be permanent, after all. And the injury was relatively recent, too. At least, he's also suffering from spell damage, so yay?

Then there is a witch with fur all over her body. We don't know what happened to her or whether it was a spell that caused it. It seems similar to what happened to Hermione, when she took that cat-hair-polyjuice potion. The wiki suggests that it could be a failed attempt at becoming an animagus. (But if we believe extended canon, that's a fucking potion, too.)

And then there are the Longbottoms, of course. And I'm not sure that their condition even is spell damage. Sure, it was caused by being tortured with magic. But there is no proof in the books that the spell attacks the mind. It "just" causes pain. Even if it targets pain receptors, the damage we see wouldn't fit that bill, either. So it might be good, old-fashioned trauma instead. Which could be treated. If you don't lock them away in a mental ward and pretend they don't exist, that is.

And it's not like being stuck in this ward would help with recovering/improving. There is little to no privacy. The healer seems to work the "let's leave them here and infantilize them, maybe they will get better on their own"-approach. (At the very least, there doesn't seem to be a treatment plan for any of her patients, apart from encouragement.) They also seem to be pretty ... forgotten. Augusta visits, but she clearly treats this as an obligation. (Maybe one she puts up with because of Neville.) She's pretty dismissive, too.* It seems like Agnes' family operates on a similar level. (Her son send an owl to inform her/the healer that he will come for a Christmas-visit. The scene doesn't read like that guy is showing up particularly often.)

Regarding Dumbledore - I doubt that he visits them. Even if he did, his visit would probably look like the ones Augusta is performing.

Apart from that ... I just found this quote:

JKR: That was also asked of me this morning. That idea was one of the very few that was inspired by a real event. I was told what, to me, was a very sad story by someone I know about their elderly mother who had Alzheimer's, and the elderly mother was in a closed ward. She was very severely demented and no longer recognized her son, but he went faithfully to visit her twice a week, and he used to take her sweets. That was their point of connection; she had a sweet tooth, she recognized him as the sweet-giver. That was very poignant to me. So I embroidered the story. Neville gives his mother what she wants, and (it makes me sad to think of it) she wants to give something back to him, but what she gives back to him is essentially worthless. But he still takes it as worth something because she's trying to give, so it does mean something, in emotional terms. (Source)

Excuse me, while I'm a little bit sick.

...

Holy fucking shit.

Like, the fuck. This makes it worse. So. Much. Worse.

* I have to correct my earlier post, here. She doesn't stop Neville from interacting with his mother. However, she is very dismissive in that scene, clearly looks down on their gesture and gives heavy "This is ridiculous and useless. Let's leave."-vibes.

(possibly) controversial opinion time: I honestly think that Draco wouldn't have been able to cast the Cruciatus on Harry when they fought in Myrtle's bathroom .

I admit freely that I'm an unrepentant Draco stan and therefore have rose tinted glasses permanently on when it comes to anything that involves him, 'tis but one of the burdens I have to carry in this wretched life, yet when I originally came upon this conclusion I believed I was being somewhat objective in my assessment.

To check if my theory holds as much water as I've always believed it does, I went looking through canon for clues. During my investigation I stumbled upon one confusing factoid after another so obviously I had to go and write this rambling essay about it; feast your eyes on this,

PART 1: THE CURSE

The Cruciatus curse, cast through the use of the word crucio (latin for "torture")* is considered to be one of the wizarding world's worst curses and is fittingly prohibited by law and placed in the "unforgivable" class together with Imperio and Avada Kedavra.

We first learn of its existence in book 4, thanks to a helpful demonstration courtesy of Barty Crouch jr. (cosplaying as Alastor "Mad Eye" Moody) as part of his Defense Against the Dark Arts class. It's quite fitting that he's the one to make this introduction as Barty is what you'd call an expert. As a matter of fact, most of the information we receive on the Cruciatus curse comes by way of two veritable crucio savants, Barty Crouch jr. and Bellatrix Lestrange. As far as reliability goes, I'd say these two are truly top notch since they went to Azkaban for their use of that very curse in what is perhaps the most notable instance of Cruciatus in the books; I'm talking, of course, of the mind-breaking torture of Frank and Alice Longbottom.

The Longbottoms no doubt give us a very big indication of what happens to people subjected to the curse, even though theirs is an extreme case that doesn't reflect the average victim. Let us start our investigation into the Cruciatus with Harry's case instead since, in his dual role role as protagonist and main pov in the books , he can provide us with a firsthand account of the curse's effects. To quote Harry:

(from GoF, courtesy of Voldemort)

Fake Moody puts it plainly when he explains crucio's purpose as

(from GoF, Harry's first class with Barty is Eventful)

Fittingly for a universe where intent is perhaps the strongest component of any spell, the Cruciatus curse requires the caster to be in a very specific frame of mind. To quote Bellatrix:

(from OotP, Bella kinds takes it upon herself to teach harry about magic)

and I'm inclined to take her word on account of both her experience in the field and the fact that she is never contradicted.

Getting back to the ABCs of crucio, I will now take a brief moment to describe the effects of prolonged Cruciatus use through what we learn from its effects on Frank and Alice Longbottom.

The Longbottoms' condition is never explained to us in detail, all we have to go by comes to us by way of casual utterances from their friends, family and colleagues. Moody (the real one this time) gives us a very succinct recap on how we're supposed to feel about what happened to them:

(from OotP, Moody does a brief "where are they now?" on the OG members of the Order)

But what is this terrible condition that leads many characters to feel as though the Longbottoms life is not worth living?

They are mentally ill. That's it.

(seriously)

To quote Dumbledore:

(from GoF, Dumbledore divulges information that is not his to share)

This is treated like a Brave and Noble sacrifice, as they were tortured for an unusually long time because they refused to give informations on Voldemort's whereabouts to their tortures (the fact that they didn't have said information is treated as irrelevant)**. As Augusta Longbottom puts it:

(from OotP, spoiler alert, Augusta doesn't behave like she's proud)

The Longbottoms are called "insane" and "mad" by various characters so we can somewhat extrapolate from that that Cruciatus overuse leads to cognitive impairments of some kind. The medical consensus seems to be that the damage was done to them, whatever it is, is irreparable as they are kept in the Janus Thickey ward, the wizarding equivalent of an insane asylum***.

Since the use of Cruciatus leaves no physical signs and its only outcome manifests itself as unmeasurable pain on the target's part, it is often theorised that the Cruciatus works by acting on the victims' pain receptors. This, of course, is just speculation but the books do seem to indicate something to this effect.

*= brief latin intermission

"cruciatus" in not a conjugation of the verb "crucio" in the active form (as in "I'm torturing someone"). It is, however, a conjugation in the passive form (as in "i'm being tortured") and can be more or less translated to I/you/he/she/it am being tortured or I/you/he/she/it was being tortured or I/you/he/she/it will be tortured (so, like, the opposite of what you should name a torture curse).

"Crucio" IS a conjugation in the active form and it translates roughly to "I torture", though it's not the tense I'd use if I were to issue a torture command (like, I'd use the imperative, you know?)

latin intermission over

**= as an aside, the narrative glosses over the fact that Frank and Alice were tortured for basically no reason and there was nothing they could have done to avoid their fate.; we are supposed to view this as a noble sacrifice instead of the senseless tragedy it is and that grinds my gears greatly. Also, why does everyone seem so sure that this is what happened? As Dumbledore puts it, the post-torture Longbottoms were viewed as unreliable so we don't know this from them since they weren't even able to tell aurors who the culprits were and there had to be an investigation to ascertain that. From what we can gleam by wading through Dumbledore's pensieve memories, the Lestranges + Barty weren't exactly cooperative with the investigation so, again, why is everyone so sure of what happened?

***= I used the (outdated and tasteless) term "insane asylum" intentionally since the Thickey ward doesn't look to be in any way shape or form similar to mental wards, psychiatric hospitals or halfway houses; from the little we do see the magical world doesn't seem to be terribly up to date on mental health as a whole and I shudder to think what jkr herself thinks on the matter.

PART 2: SUCCESSFULLY CAST CRUCIOS

SInce its introduction during Goblet of Fire, we see and/or hear of the Cruciatus curse being successfully cast 12 times. Those are:

5 TIMES IN BOOK 4

done by Fake moody on a spider (for illustrative purposes)

done by Voldemort on Peter (as seen by Harry in a dream, punishment for incompetence)

done by the Imperiused Victor Krum on Cedric Diggory (during the third task of the triwizard tournament, Barty is the person who imperiused Krum)

done by Voldemort on Avery (right after his resurrection at the cemetery, punishment for the twin sins of disobedience and general unfaithfulness)

done by Voldemort on Harry (toying with Harry at the cemetery)

1 TIME IN BOOK 5

[Voldemort performs crucio on Sirius in the vision that brings Harry to dept. of mysteries but since that doesn't actually happen I'm not counting it ]

done by Bellatrix Lestrange on Neville (at the dept. of Mysteries, for funsies)

6 TIMES IN BOOK 7

[Aberforth recounts being crucio'd by Grindlewald decades before over a disagreement but I'm not counting it, just like I didn't count the crucio-ing of the Longbottoms, because it happens before book 1 nor is it witnessed by Harry ]

done by Draco on Thorfin Rowle (as witnessed by Harry in a vision, done under threat of crucio)

done by unknown Deatheaters on the Tonkses (happens off-page with the aim of getting information on Harry's whereabouts)*

done by Bellatrix on Hermione (at Malfoy Manor, with the aim of getting information on the sword of Gryffindor)

done by Voldemort on Ollivander (happens off-page, with the aim of getting information on wandlore)

done by Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle on various Hogwarts students ( several instances condensed into one for lack of information, as recounted by Neville)

done by Harry on Amycus Carrow (during the battle of Hogwarts, because he spat in McGonagall's face)**

*= one would think that, since this event parallels the crucio-ing of the Longbottoms, it'd get more attention, and yet the event is told to us by Remus in a throwaway line.

**= I'm not even going into the OOC-ness of this moment. Plenty of people, far more eloquent than me, have written about the perversion of Harry's character that this moment represents, also I truly lack the words to describe my rage at this scene.

PART 3: UNSUCCESSFULLY CAST CRUCIOS

During the events of the books we witness almost as many unsuccessful Cruciatus undertakings as we do successful ones. These attempts are:

by Dolores Umbridge on Harry, for funsies (INTERRUPTED)

by Harry on Bellatrix Lestrange, in revenge for Sirius's death (INEFFECTIVE)

by Bellatrix on Harry immediately following his attempt (DODGED)

by Draco on Harry in Myrtle's bathroom, as part of the escalation of his fight with Harry (INCOMPLETE CASTING)

by Harry on Severus Snape following Dumbledore's death (BLOCKED)

by Amycus Carrow on Ginny, creepily* (DODGED)

by Vincent Crabbe on Harry in the room of hidden things (MISSED)

by Voldemort on "dead" Harry, to humiliate his corpse (INEFFECTIVE)

Taking the instances where the curse was dodged aside, I would like to focus on the occasions where the curse was ineffective.

Harry and Bellatrix's instance tells us a lot about the mechanisms of the curse as Bellatrix takes time out of her busy schedule to school Harry on the intricacies of torture. Harry has at this point in time just witnessed Sirius's murder and is being taunted and goaded by Bellatrix; this is how his emotional state at the time of casting is described:

Instead of the desired effect, however, the curse merely topples her.

Hatred, it seems, is not the emotion required to successfully cast a Cruciatus. As Bellatrix states immediately afterwards, the spell requires a degree of sadism on the caster's part.

The other mention of a failed casting comes right at the end of the books, when Voldemort crucios Harry's "corpse". The spell, just like in the instance described above, merely knocks Harry about, to the delight of onlookers. This is greatly implied to be because the wand Voldemort is using - the elder wand- recognises Harry as its true master and is therefore unwilling to truly harm him; In this case it's not the caster's will that is lacking but the wand's.

To close out this section, I would like to highlight Umbridge's attempt: after having captured Harry &co. in her office, she decides it's the perfect time to threaten unforgivables. As Harry stares defiantly at her, Umbridge states

and, relishing in the anticipation, goes about deciding where to cast until she's successfully distracted by Hermione. This is notable since it's the only instance in the books where a caster implies the possibility of somehow directing the curse. Umbridge is described as moving her wand over Harry's body and trying to decide on the most painful spot possible; since no-one else ever mentions the possibility of concentrating the Cruciatus on a particular body part it's unclear wether this is actually possible or if Umbridge is just an inexperienced torturer.

*= Amycus's words as he casts crucio are "you cant dance forever, pretty" since Ginny has been successfully evading him so far. I'm pointing this out because of the grossness on jkr's part of using attempted torture as an opportunity for telling us that Ginny is smoking hot. Also, in a "look how the tables have turned" moment, Amycus will, in a year's time, become Harry's only crucio victim

PART 4: INCONSISTENCIES

In going through the previous lists, a few inconsistencies appear:

Even though we've been told that intent is paramount when attempting the Cruciatus, an imperiused Viktor Krum is able to successfully cast the curse in book 4. In the same vein, Draco is able to crucio Thorfin Rowle even though he is shown to be unwilling to do so; somehow, being ordered or otherwise compelled fulfils the criteria of casting crucio. Harry, as he witnesses the scene form Voldemort's pov, recounts that

Even if we take into account the fact that Voldemort, who is directing the operation, is more than willing to crucio Rowle, neither Draco or (possibly) his wand are so why is he successful? How can one force oneself to crucio his fellow men if their will is lacking? This remains unclear.

Now we come to Draco and Harry's failed castings of the Cruciatus in book 6:

Draco is in the heat of battle as he duels Harry after he's been caught crying in Myrtle's bathroom (the horror), the scene is described as fast-paced and hectic:

Notice how Draco is able to get two thirds of the word out before he is hit by Harry's curse. Let's compare that with Harry's attempt on Snape, as he runs away from Hogwarts in the immediate aftermath of Dumbledore's "murder" (aka suicide by underling):

Notice how Harry is able to get an even smaller fraction of the word "crucio" out of his mouth than Draco yet somehow his curse was already partway formed and visible, twice: there needed to be something tangible in order for the curse to be blocked by Snape, and not did he succeed but he was also able to parry it. This is in direct contrast to Draco, who was saying the word with no visible effect. The inconsistency remains even if we take into account the possibility that one's ability to cast nonverbally could come into play, since Draco had just demonstrated his ability to cast without speaking not one minute before, during the bathroom duel:

Both Harry and Draco are shown casting non-verbally to great effect, even though under the strain of battle, yet only one of them is able to physicalise the curse.

[I'm not even going to go into the ridiculousness of Harry somehow being able to shout a four syllable word in the time it takes Draco to get one half of a two syllable word out. just know that the scene is not fleshed out terribly well in the book.]

PART 5: CONCLUSION

Even after going through all the books with a fine tooth comb I continue to find myself rock solid in my belief that Draco's crucio wouldn't have been in the least bit effective. Not only is there a lack of physical evidence of his intent, like there is with Harry in the same book, but I truly do not believe that Draco was in the right frame of mind.

Even taking Draco's demonstrable aversion to physical violence aside, there is no indication that Draco was anything other than furious at the time of the sectumsempra incident, which makes his situation similar to Harry's failed casting book 5.

The books tell us plainly that rage alone is not sufficient to cast the Cruciatus and we are shown by Draco's only actual crucio (and also Krum's) that at least someone needs to be in the right frame of mind in order for the curse to succeed, even if it's just the person directing the proceedings.

Of course, all of this is just speculation. Don't take my word as fact and feel free to come to your own conclusions, this essay mostly exists to demonstrate why I believe what I believe, though I hope it was an enjoyable read nonetheless.

xoxo

[floralcyanide]

Jerry Schilling Dad Headcanons

as requested here!

>> eeeee this was so fun to do!! @austin-butlers-gf and I were talking about Jerry as a dad and we were like “yeah he’s a girl dad” so this is primarily based on Jerry and you having a daughter. Elvis, Steve, and Austin (maybe more idk yet) are coming soon 😎 also I can't believe I've posted so much this week tbh it's been a while since I've posted so much, I'm happy with everything I've put out!!

masterlist || add yourself to the taglist HERE!

ᴅᴏ ɴᴏᴛ ᴄᴏᴘʏ, ʀᴇᴘʀᴏᴅᴜᴄᴇ, ᴏʀ ᴄʟᴀɪᴍ ᴍʏ ᴡᴏʀᴋ ᴀs ʏᴏᴜʀs ᴏɴ ᴛᴜᴍʙʟʀ, ᴀᴏ3, ᴡᴀᴛᴛᴘᴀᴅ, ᴏʀ ᴀɴʏ ᴡᴇʙsɪᴛᴇ. ʏᴏᴜ ᴅᴏ ɴᴏᴛ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴘᴇʀᴍɪssɪᴏɴ ᴛᴏ ᴜsᴇ ᴍʏ ᴡᴏʀᴋs ɪɴ ᴀɪ ɢᴇɴᴇʀᴀᴛᴏʀs ᴏʀ ᴀɴʏᴛʜɪɴɢ ᴛᴏ ᴅᴏ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴀʀᴛɪғɪᴄɪᴀʟ ɪɴᴛᴇʟʟɪɢᴇɴᴄᴇ. ʏᴏᴜ ᴍᴀʏ ɴᴏᴛ ᴜsᴇ ᴍʏ ᴡᴏʀᴋs ᴛᴏ sᴇʟʟ ғᴏʀ ᴀs ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴏᴡɴ ᴄʀᴇᴀᴛɪᴏɴ

❁ Jerry is such a girl dad, he gives off those vibes to me

❁ when it’s time to find out the gender of the baby, he cries when you’re told it’s a girl

❁ he is constantly talking to your belly whenever he possibly can

❁ Jerry throws the most spectacular baby shower and invites everyone. literally everyone. and even Elvis makes an appearance.

❁ when your daughter is ready to arrive, Jerry helps deliver her 

❁ Jerry is an emotional mess when your daughter is born, and you’ve never seen him so happy before, not even on your wedding day, but it comes pretty close.

❁ your daughter has Jerry’s eyes and nose, and it looks like he spit her out himself

❁ okay but he loves dressing her up in cute outfits. you swear he enjoys having a daughter more than you do.

❁ when your daughter becomes a toddler, he’s the most patient guy in the world

❁ surprisingly, your daughter grows into kindergarten age without any issues. she’s relatively tame and only says what she deems important, just like Jerry

❁ your daughter and Lisa-Marie are roughly the same age, so they spend a lot of time together growing up

❁ he totally lets them put makeup on him, mess with his hair, and for sure lets them paint his nails when Lisa-Marie comes over to stay the night

❁ when your daughter gets older and becomes a teenager, Jerry becomes even more protective 

❁ he knows his limits though, and knows when to back off and give her space

❁ when she brings a boy home for the first time, Jerry tries not to freak out or seem nervous, but he doesn’t want his little girl to grow up

❁ when your daughter goes off to college, Jerry is just as emotional as the day she was born

❁ when your daughter brings the guy she thinks she’s gonna marry home to meet the family, Jerry is hesitant to shake his hand at first

❁ Jerry doesn’t wanna accept the fact she’s a grown woman now and could possibly be having a family of her own soon

❁ please don’t get me started on grandpa Jerry because it’s a whole other world with his grandbabies 

❁ Jerry is just as emotional walking your daughter down the aisle as he was the day she was born

❁ he makes a big speech at the wedding, talking about fond memories and about how much he loves his little girl, who isn’t so little anymore

taglist: @cozacorner @onxlymnsn @anangelwhodidntfall @butlersluvbot @jolovesfandoms @austinbutler17 @slutforblueeyes @misspygmypie @mamaspresley @mirandastuckinthe80s @bobbykennedyfan @sodonebruh @lizzymizzy-blogg @defnotreadingfanfics12 @izzvoid @homebodybirkin2003 @thatonemoviefan @sarachacha @kittenlittle24 @alltheflowerstomav @tubble-wubble @kaycinema @annamarie16 @adoreyouusugar @apparently-sunshine-deactivated @amiets2 @mrs-butler @mesbouquins @ari-nicole @austin-butlers-gf @feral4austinbutler @inlovewithchrisevans @shynovelist @mommy-maia @karamelcoveredolicity @thtguyovrthere @starry-night-20 @coldonexx @hangmanswhorey @shelbysbitchh @mavericksicybabe @coco-bitch @bobthefishiesworld @emmymaehereeeeee @myguiltypleasures21 @rainydayz101 @finelineskies @cryingabtab @kaitaesupremacy  @specialk6802 @ash-omalley

[writingwithcolor]

Desexualized Mammy & Strong Black Woman, too busy for “frivolous love”

“Alyse” (Anon Submission) asked:

My science fiction story includes a black woman (Talia) who raises two children that aren’t her own and takes on two young adults as apprentices. One of the children she is raises has Arabic background and was taken into her home upon his father’s death (his mother’s whereabouts are unknown). She was a close friend of his father and the closest thing he had to a relative. The second child has mixed French-Latinx background and was taken in after becoming shipwrecked with no means by which to contact her people. Talia was the first non-hostile individual she encountered and one of the few who would so openly embrace a stranger. Since Talia is Master Medic (the highest medical authority in her community) she is training two apprentices (think residency) and eventually mentors the second child as well. She was once married and passionately in love but lost her husband to illness. In this setting, some technology we take for granted is inaccessible and violence against their people is commonplace. Most have experienced sudden loss. This particular loss was the catalyst that drove Talia into medicine- a desire to protect her loved ones and prevent others from experiencing similar tragedy. She is usually kind (though businesslike) but sometimes succumbs to a frigid, furious depression when, despite all her knowledge and determination, she can’t save someone. 

I worry that her maternal association with the two children (one of whom is an outsider) mires her in the mammy trope. On top of that, she hasn’t pursued romance since the death of her husband. I’ve considered giving her a romantic subplot but there are already so many characters to keep track of. Furthermore, I just can’t see her engaging in the frivolous pursuits of new love when she’s dealing with kids, students, and an extremely taxing career. 

In terms of race and culture in this story, practically every character can trace their ancestry back to populations displaced through war. Even Talia’s second child was shipwrecked during a botched evacuation from a military science lab. The people who live here have been isolated for generations and no longer have a real concept of their ancestry. Cultures have blended, new religions have formed, and many of our familiar racial/ethnic issues are forgotten. However, new and different but equally toxic ones have replaced them. In this way, Talia’s blackness doesn’t carry the same associations in her world as it would in ours. However, readers may still make these associations. Do you see any issues with her character that I could amend? 

So! You have:

A highly educated Black-coded woman (the highest medical authority in the community)

She raises two kids alone 

She also looks after two apprentices

She is widowed (not sure the race of the husband, was he Black?)

Having experienced heartbreaking love, Talia's drive to look after, protect and save people through medicine is a great motivation for the way she is. Her experiencing depression and taking losses seriously is also very human and is dynamic characterization. 

However, such characterization with Black women is prone to brush across several tropes. You have a Black woman who gives and protects, but what does she get in return? Who cares for her? 

Prioritize your Black character’s happiness

"I’ve considered giving her a romantic subplot but there are already so many characters to keep track of. Furthermore, I just can’t see her engaging in the frivolous pursuits of new love when she’s dealing with kids, students, and an extremely taxing career." 

Priorities, priorities. Is love a frivolous pursuit in her eyes, or yours? Because I strongly disagree. You probably don't mean to but you, as the author, having an excuse to NOT give the Black woman romance is showing that you do not think she's worth being loved. TV viewers and stans who are uncomfortable when Black women characters have relationships find similar excuses to explain away not wanting BW in relationships.

"She's too strong and independent for a man/relationship" 

"I liked her better alone." 

"It'll take away from her character."

“A romance doesn’t feel right for her”

These sorts of statements above are grounded in racialized misogyny. 

Relationships do not lessen the woman.

Relationships does not lessen Black women. 

Love

Whether that love is romantic, familial, or friendship, it can come in many forms. Give Talia love. Because Black women characters deserve it! Either one or all! 

Let her have a loyal best friend, a cat, and a girlfriend. Because why not? And not to downplay the love of children to parents, but please provide her love beyond what she gets on a maternal level from the children she looks after. 

The stories that Black women are in today severely lack love for us, so why add to the narrative of Black women being all work and no play, and too [insert excuse here] to be loved? 

Of course, you didn't provide all the details from your story, but I'm not seeing much of a balance from the struggle. She is a caretaker, teacher, doctor (or doctor-like figure). 

Her position and background in itself is okay. It's the Strong Black Woman being presented with seemingly no commentary that strikes me. 

Where is her team to help balance the weight of the world? 

Who takes care of her when she's depressed from another loss? 

What does she get in return from taking an emotional and physical toll to heal her community? 

Do those around her recognize all she does for them and offer their friendship? 

When does she get to relax and turn off the need to be everything for everybody?

Fitting love into a book with many characters

There are many books with several characters to keep track of. People tend to manage. Also, I'm sure some of those characters are in and/or out of relationships. Even stories that couldn’t be classified as romances have relationships of some sort. It’s unrealistic to have a ton of characters and none of them be in relationship(s) of some sort. Not when there’s so many forms of it and many sexualities. 

Friends, frenemies, enemies, romance, affairs.. Relationships make stories (and life) interesting. By no means do I think adding these dynamics harm your tale. And what’s one more for a hard-working Black woman who sacrifices a lot and clearly deserves a shoulder to lean on? And, if you use an existing character to be that friend, family, or lover, then you won’t need to pencil in another character.

For romance specifically - I think a misconception when it comes to including romance in stories is that they have to somehow take over the story. Romance does not have to bombard the plot nor be described in lavish detail. Not every story is a romance and those sort of details aren’t everyone’s style or things they’re comfortable with. A sentence or two establishing relationships does not take away from the story.And how those relationships look and affections expressed will vary based on the characters, sexuality, etc.

Not every character needs to have a deep level of detail. 

“Katie and Lisa, a newly engaged couple, walked into the meeting.”

“Jack and Jamie are a married couple in their 40s.” 

“The two met in college. After two months of blissful courtship, they eloped, eager to start their happily ever afters. Twenty years together, they were still blissfully in love and never too far from one another.”

Sentences like the above are enough for some characters. You don’t always need to put in paragraphs worth of relationship-establishing details or plot. 

When it comes to the characters whose love you would like to highlight, at least a bit, you still don’t have to go over the top.

Use subtle details. 

“As soon as Talia’s back was turned, he gave her a longing look before shaking his head and getting back to the patient.”

“He squeezed her hand before taking hold of the stethoscope.”

“She kissed her wife goodbye before racing out the door.”

“You mean the world to me.” he had said, holding her face. Those words stayed with her all day, making her heavy load light as a sack of feathers.

“She soaked his shirt with her tears and he just held her tight, saying nothing, silently holding her together.”

As for Talia specifically…

Talia having the mindset you described, as love being frivolous and not a priority, is understandable knowing her background (I just don't agree with you as the creator using this as a means to keep her alone. Whether she’s romantically alone or without close friendships). She has lost so much, and continues to experience loss with patients. This can be extremely traumatizing. I gave some examples of being subtle, so perhaps that will help with the burden of feeling a thick subplot of romance doesn’t fit in your story. 

And as Talia doesn’t strike me as someone who would go looking for companionship, what if she stumbles upon it without trying? Is there someone on the medical team that can offer her friendship? Someone who admires her and feels the urge to care for her that she feels the same for, or has pushed feelings down for? What happens when she can’t hold those feelings down anymore?

Takeaway

Talia deserves healthy love, even if she doesn’t believe it or feel she has time for it. That love can come in any and many forms, not necessarily romantically required, although it is a plus. A struggle-ridden novel is balanced by love, support and rest for characters that hold the weight of the world. If you do not, evaluate why you want to write Black characters in these struggle roles without at least a social commentary. 

~Mod Colette

[w2beastars]

Waezi2′s thoughts on “Beast Complex” chapter 14.

On one hand, I wanted more random characters who happens to live in this world instead of “Beastars” main cast content.

On the other hand, I’m so dang fricking happy to see canon Legosi X Haru content!

We get a reminder of how Haru and Legosi’s romantic is deeply affected by two factors. A) their different species means that their affection is relatively basic compared to same-species couples that has unique ways to show intimacy (like wolves uniting their tails). And B) The size will always be a factor as Legosi always make sure not to put too much weight on Haru.

Haru gets that they have to compromise because of size and species difference, but it greatly annoy her that Legosi is being so careful around her, as if she was made of paper.

But notice that she doesn’t berate him about it. One of the good things about Legosi and Haru’s relationship is that Haru is always telling Legosi exactly what she is annoyed and unhappy about, she is not scared of hurting his feelings if she has an issue with the wolf. So this is something Haru is not really blaming Legosi for, she gets that he has to be careful. But it also means that the times he has kissed her can be counted on a hand since he is so god damn fucking careful. It makes Haru worried if they will ever have sex if Legosi has to worry about not hurting her.

Anyways, we are not going to talk about the lack of smooshing in this relationship. We are going to talk world building as Paru combine a real life ritual with something anthropomorphic animal world related.

... Okay, before I explain Seijin no HiI, I HAVE to say that Haru and Legosi looks AMAZING being dressed nicely in furisode and hakama! And Haru’s even has the Moon Rabbit on it, that’s a great detail. And I can see that Haru is wearing high heels... probably to look a bit taller than usual for this special day.

In Japan, they celebrate Seijin no HiI that is sort of... well, it’s a little like Japanese Bar Mitzvah I suppose.

There is a holiday in Japanese called Seijin no Hi, or Coming of Age Day in English. On this day, everyone who recently turned twenty celebrate officially becoming adults and taking on the responsibilities of a grown-up while being dressed in nice-looking kimonos and such.

On this day, there are plenty of parties and ceremonies to celebrate this “adult day.” But there is one that is unique in the world of Beast Complex. The Fang Purification Ritual.

The idea is that a herbivore who turned twenty goes to this ceremony accompanied by the carnivore who gave them a wound. It is said that a wound on a herbivore caused by a carnivore is filled with cursed energy, so the carnivore who is the one harming said herbivore has to clean their victim so that they can free them from the evil spirit.

Haru is not sure how she feels about this ritual, but she asks Legosi to come with her and “clean” the arm he scratches when they first met(if he wants to).

Legosi is surprised by how many herbivores that comes to the ceremony accompanied by a carnivore that hurt them. And they look like they are on friendly terms.

We see a bear and a goat talking casually, a panther and a sheep gossiping and a crocodile who looks a bit embarrassed as he carry a hamster who looks like this is his big day. For once we don’t see hostility between carnivores and herbivores. We see this animals who talked things out after one of them hurt the other and going to this ceremony is the official way of saying that they will let bygones be bygones.

Heck, even this pair seems friendly. Sure the rabbit is a bit on edge, but that is because of superstition as he really believes that these old scars he got ten years ago really cursed him. The lion is being patient with his friend, telling the rabbit to take a chill pill since it has been ten years since he scratched him. There is no guilt tripping, the carnivores are coming by their own free will and takes responsibility for what they did to these herbivores.

Legosi calls Louis as well and ask if they should do the ritual as well since he ate his leg. But Louis already has a full plate with Bill and five other carnivores who wants to do the ritual with him.

... Five? FIVE?! Louis, are you doing okay?!

Haru and Legosi are much more moved by this ceremony than they expected to be. Haru tells Legosi she doesn’t mind the scars as she has been more happy after getting them, as if they brought her luck. It’s fair since Legosi and Haru made each other better animals ever since Legosi instinctively attacked her. they are not just cleaning the wound, they are celebrating their relationship.

... And Legosi, being the quirky wolf he is, decides that NOW is a good time to show intimacy in front of a whole bunch of strangers as he kisses Haru’s arm passionately. DAMN, BOI!

Poor Haru XD Legosi is gonna be the death of her with his quirky unpredictability.

This was a nice chapter. We got some more world building, and it was some about peace between carnivores and herbivores despite one harming the other, something that is a fricking big deal in this world.

And the pairs who came are a nice detail, makes you wonder what sort of stories they have to tell. Perhaps as complex as the one Haru and Legosi has? :P

[perfectpaperbluebirds]

‘I Need You to Pull Over!’

@sicktember 2022 Prompt #24

Fandom/OCs: Shane & Molly OCs

Title: It’s Not Over

Words: 2330

Inspiration: Shane’s bout with the stomach flu is alluded to in the first fic I wrote for Shmolly. 

Author’s comments: What can I say? It’s stomach flu fic. Nothing against you, Shane. There’s only certain people I can bring myself to whump with emeto, and you happen to be one of them. Your fate was sealed when Molly mentioned this stomach bug last year. I’d say sorry but– I’m just the messenger.

CW: multiple mentions of vomiting and diarrhea. This is a stomach flu fic. You have been warned. 

There's nothing quite like a bout of the stomach flu to test a relationship, and for Shane and Molly, the test came relatively early in their courtship. They had been together a little less than a year when gastrointestinal disaster struck. 

Molly first became aware of the impending storm at lunch one day. She and Shane were sitting together in the hospital cafeteria as usual. Shane was generally ravenous by lunchtime and inhaled his food more than ate it. On this particular day though, he barely picked at it and took at most three or four bites the entire time they sat there. Of course, Molly asked him about this strange behavior, unable to miss how clammy he was looking. In response, Shane made a face.

"I'm not feeling so good. My stomach is really messed up today." He belched softly to prove his point, his hand going reflexively to his stomach. "Ugh, and I'm so bloated, look." He shifted away from the table to show her, and sure enough, the middle buttons on his tight, usually well-fitting shirt were straining over his rounded abdomen. 

She made a small sound of concern. 

He shifted uncomfortably, still rubbing his stomach. "I thought eating might help, but it definitely did not. Just made me feel even more gross."

Molly took a deep breath, reaching across the table to press her hand to his forehead. "Poor guy. You do feel a little warm. And you're all sweaty. You gonna make it through work?"

Shane shrugged. "I think I'll be okay. I'll call you if I need to go, though." He stifled another quiet belch just then, and Molly's stomach twisted in response. She could only nod, unspoken understanding hanging between them. They both knew well that a nasty stomach bug was going around the city right now. All the patients were talking about it, and the ER was overrun with it. It wasn't looking good for Dr. Mitchell. Molly's anxiety was suddenly through the roof; historically, she didn't do well with close-proximity puking. 

The two parted ways when the hour ended. Shane looked very down, and Molly wished there was something she could do. She made sure to give him a good hug before they left (around the ribs, steering clear of his stomach) and wished him well. Even with space between them, she could hear his stomach gurgling ominously, and he continued to rub it as he walked away. 

Around four o'clock, not long before their workday was due to end, Molly received a text from Shane:

"S.O.S. Definitely sick 🤢 please come get me ASAP."

Molly's heart fluttered, but she tried to stay calm. She let her boss know she needed to duck out a bit early, and was excused without an issue. She drove across the hospital campus to his building as quickly as she could. Shane was sitting on a bench around the side of the building, out of sight of most passerby. His head was laid back while both hands were clutching his stomach. He hopped up as soon as he saw her car, though, and quickly got in. He immediately leaned over to put his face between his knees, arms wrapped around his middle with a sickly groan. Though Molly was beyond anxious, she was glad for his sake that they had ridden together today of all days. She wasn't sure how he could've driven home on his own in his current state. 

"How bad is it?" she asked cautiously, putting the car in drive as she tried to maneuver as smoothly as possible. "You look terrible."

"I feel terrible," he moaned. "It’s so bad. I've already thrown up twice. Once around three, and again just before I texted you. I actually felt better for a while after the first time, which is why I tried to stay. But I'm just feeling worse every minute now. I'm beyond nauseous. My stomach will not calm down."

Molly bit her lip and focused on the road, unsure what to say. She drove as smoothly as possible, but there was always quite a bit of stopping and starting involved when trying to leave the hospital campus, and they managed to hit the first few lights on the way to Shane's condo, too. The sick doctor kept his head down, but it was a losing battle. Shortly after the second light he sat bolt upright in a panic, looking green and clammy.

"I need you to pull over!" he moaned, arms crushing around his middle as he swallowed convulsively.

Molly had been expecting this and had been driving in the right lane. Before the words had totally left his mouth, she was yanking the car to the side and immediately squealed to a stop. Shane leapt out before the wheels were still and barely had time to fall to his knees before he began heaving, his stomach trying to purge every last bite he'd eaten over the past day or two. 

Molly didn't watch, covering her ears and controlling her breathing. ("In through the nose, out through the mouth.") Shane needed her, so she needed to stay calm, and sympathy puking wasn't going to help anyone. 

Many endless minutes later, he dejectedly climbed back into the car, looking no better and still holding his stomach. Molly wordlessly handed him a water bottle. He rinsed out his mouth and spit several times before taking a few tiny swallows. 

"Good to go?" Molly asked quietly. 

"Yeah," he sighed, letting his head fall back against the seat and closing his eyes, more pale and clammy than ever. "I just wanna get home." The sound of his thick swallowing and his grumbling stomach were loud in the quiet car. 

"We'll get you there," Molly reassured him, putting the car into drive. 

Shane had very little respite. Not five minutes had passed before he put his head between his knees again with a sick whimper. Thankfully the condo was only a few more miles away. However, Molly had no more put the car in park outside his door when he shot up with a strangled noise of alarm.

"I'm gonna hurl," he moaned, dashing to unlock the front door and sprinting to the bathroom to pray to the porcelain gods once more. 

Shane spent the rest of that day on the bathroom floor, vomiting at least every hour. Molly, for her part, felt very useless. Now that the worst had happened, her anxiety had all but disappeared. Her boyfriend was very sick, and all she wanted was to help him somehow, but there wasn't much to be done. She made a quick run to the store for stomach flu supplies, primarily Pedialyte and Gatorade, but after that she simply hung around and tried to keep him company. She wasn't about to leave him alone in this state, after all. 

She did make one miscalculation, though, in trying to care for him. There was a soup and sandwich place just down the road that Shane frequented. He adored their chicken and rice soup, and believed it to be the best cure-all for everything from headaches to the sniffles. As soon as it was clear Shane was down for the count, Molly fetched him a quart of soup to go from the deli. She brought it to the bathroom eagerly. 

"Shane, I got you something I think you'll like!" she said, opening the container.

Shane lifted his head from the rim of the toilet, leaving a little trail of drool behind, and sluggishly turned to look at her, sweat-soaked and pale, an arm held loosely over his abdomen. "Soup?" he said warily.

"Yeah, your chicken and rice!"

Shane leaned forward to get a closer look, but the steam reached his face about then. Molly saw his lips go pale and the arm over his stomach tightened immediately as he broke out into a fresh sweat. He spun around and began to dry heave over the toilet yet again. 

Molly quickly closed the carton, going pale herself at such a violent reaction to a benign smell. She quickly took the food far away, putting it in the fridge for him to find when he was ready and cursing her foolishness. 

And so, the day passed. Molly settled in to stay the night, still unwilling to leave Shane, though he didn't seem to want her hanging around the bathroom much. Shane was usually very tactile when he wasn't feeling well, but apparently that changed when he was puking, which was understandable. She was thankful the next day was her day off as she didn't expect to get the best sleep, nor would it have been wise to go in after being surrounded by stomach flu germs for hours. However, she was determined to be here if and when he needed her. She took over the bedroom and master bath while poor Shane had the bigger main bathroom to himself. She stayed up late, hoping he would start to feel better, but she waited for naught. 

Around midnight she was ready to sleep, so she went to check on him once more and bring him some Gatorade. When she walked in, he was lying on the floor cradling his aching stomach. He turned his head to meet her eyes with his own sickly gaze. She clucked sympathetically, kneeling beside him to press a kiss to his forehead. He moved away from her weakly.

"How are you holding up?" she asked. "Any better?"

"No," he croaked. "It's not over yet. I still feel like I could hurl any second."

"You poor thing. Anything I can do? Do you need a pillow or a blanket?"

"Still no. Just want you to stay away from here for now. I don't want to puke on you or pass this on. Either option is terrible. It's better if you keep your distance."

Molly sighed. "Don't be a martyr. If you need something, I want you to tell me, okay?"

"I will. But I'm okay for now. Go get some sleep."

She sighed again, but he had already turned away, ending the conversation, so she reluctantly went back to the bedroom. She fell asleep not long after that. Her last thought was a desperate hope that Shane would be able to get some rest as well that night.  

The late morning light woke her the next morning, and she lay in bed for a while, deciding what to do. However, the decision was made for her when Shane crept into the room not long after she'd awakened. He had showered and changed and looked marginally better than when she'd seen him last, though no one could ever look well lying in front of the toilet with their head on a towel. 

She sat up quickly, smiling in greeting. He attempted a half-hearted smile in return, though he was clearly exhausted, and still shockingly pale. He staggered into bed, curling up beside her with a pathetic groan. 

"How're you doing, baby?" she murmured, beginning to stroke his hair while subtly checking for a fever. He was warmer than usual, but not alarmingly so.

He shrugged. "I'm alive, I guess. I haven't thrown up for about three hours, so that's good. Just got the shits now. I called into work already, obviously. Drank some Pedialyte. The nausea won't go away though, and my stomach is in knots. I'm still so goddamn bloated, too." He carefully rolled to his back and moved his tee shirt to show her, palming his stomach with a grimace. Indeed the roundness was clearly visible, and without thinking Molly too reached out to rub the bloating, wanting to fix whatever was hurting him. He made a little sound as she began to rub, and her hand froze in hesitation.

"No, please rub it," he mumbled. "Maybe if you do it, it'll help. It doesn't really work when I do it."

"That's what she said," Molly whispered, unable to keep a smirk from her face as she did what he asked. Shane gently smacked her leg and rolled his eyes, but smiled nonetheless. 

"You're terrible," he said.

"Hey, it made you smile. That's all I was going for. Is this okay?" she asked, gently rocking her hand back and forth over his abused abdomen.

"Mhm," he sighed. "That's perfect. Feels so good." He yawned hugely.

"Did you get any sleep last night?" she asked, continuing the motion.

"Not really. I napped, I guess. Sleeping is the only thing I plan to do today, though. I’m hoping I can sleep this off." 

As he finished speaking, she both heard and felt a cramp ripple through his stomach, making him hunch up in pain with a whimper. He quickly slid out of bed with a mumbled, "Be right back," running to his bathroom. 

Molly flopped back down with a sigh. However, Shane returned surprisingly quickly, still holding his stomach and looking tired as ever, but otherwise no worse, and snuggled in beside her once more.

"Did you throw up again?" she asked.

"No. Just the other end now," he sighed. "I can't believe this still isn't over. The cramps are unreal. It's been the longest day of my life." He grabbed her hand and returned it to his upset stomach, and she felt it churning beneath her palm. She resumed rubbing and he made a sound of pleasure. 

"I also can't believe you're still here," he said, almost too quiet to hear. "Thought you would've run for the hills by now. I wouldn't blame you."

"As long is this isn't over–" she gestured vaguely to his stomach, "–then this isn't over." She gestured to herself in his bed. He smiled again as she resumed stroking his middle.

"I don't deserve you," he mumbled, his eyes growing heavier. 

"Just hush and go to sleep."

"Yes ma'am," he said with a smile. "You'll be here when I wake up?" 

"Absolutely."

"Okay then," he sighed, slipping easily into slumber.

[lafiametta]

For the past weeks I have been slowly scrolling through your 1899 tags and reading the asks you receive about the show and Olek/Ling Yi, and I'm so mesmerized at how much effort you put into fleshing them out as characters and as a couple! I'm very captivated by your 1899 New York AU as well, everything you wrote about it is so sweet. I'm excited to read your longfic set in this period.

I would like to ask you something about the 1899 au, but that can be applied to the modern New York as well. When have them spent the longest amount of time away from each other? I ask this because, in your 1899 AU, if Olek got badly injured while working in the factory, which was a normal occurrence then as it is now, how long would he spend in recovery, and how would Ling Yi find out he was hurt if no one knew he lived with a girl? I imagine that their relationship being secret and forbidden is very fragile in case something bad happened to the other out in the world, even more so for Ling Yi who could only wait for him to come back home at the end of each day. Would the landlord know they lived together and warn her that he got hurt? The thought of Ling Yi feeling frenetic as the night grows darker and Olek isn't back yet, only to then receive the bad news, is devastating, but I'm still intrigued to know what she could do in that situation. Visit him in the hospital? If, that is, he is even sent to the hospital? Or would he be sent home to recover while she's still at work, and then welcome her back and try to calm her down as she panics and cries at his injuries?

Oh my goodness, Anon — I'm super flattered that you've been reading through my 1899 posts! (There are so many at this point *hides face in hands* so I can imagine it might have taken a while!) And thank you for your interest in the longfic, which I feel a bit guilty teasing you all with for so long, even though there's nothing to show for it yet. I'll just say that work continues... ;)

To answer your question, I'll start with the modern AU. After they Ling Yi and Olek get together (beyond just the first few casual dates), I would say that the longest they've been apart is two weeks, because that's how long Olek's trip back home to Poland lasted. Of course, they still texted and talked, along with some FaceTiming. (I imagine there were at least one or two more, um, private phone chats as well!)

In the 1899 New York AU, they're never really apart at all, aside from when they go to work (or during those first few Sundays when Olek used to go to church by himself, although he stopped going after a while). Part of the issue is that there really wouldn't be anywhere else for them to go — in the city, they only really know Olek's brother and sister-in-law — and the working hours are so long that when they're finished, they mostly just want to come home and rest.

If Olek got injured on the job, which, as you say, was a relatively common occurrence, he would have to hope that it was minor enough that he could get home and let Ling Yi know what happened, once she got back from her own job. (Of course, he wouldn't have any income during his recovery, and he would probably lose his job for being gone so long.) If it was something serious and he was unconscious and unable to get a message to her, then I imagine she would be terribly worried about what had happened. (For immigrants and the poor, you would have been taken to one of the public hospitals, maybe by ambulance or just in the back of an empty cart. Can I just take a minute here to put in a plug for The Knick, a fantastic series by Cinemax set in The Knickerbocker hospital in 1900? Staring Clive Owen, directed by Steven Soderbergh... Seriously, it was so good, and if I had to imagine an 1899/The Knick crossover, would I put Dr. Maura Franklin into that hospital, doing groundbreaking neurological research while also caring for penniless immigrant patients? You bet I would.)

If Olek didn't appear at the end of the day, I imagine Ling Yi would start looking for him. They each know where the other one works (they don't need to keep that part secret from each other), so she would probably start there. If the factory was closed, she could only hope that there would be a night watchman on duty and that he knew something about the accident that had happened that day. But the language barrier could present a serious problem, so she might be reduced to just saying Olek's name over and over, hoping that someone would recognize it and be able to help her. I don't want to turn this into the saddest story ever told, so let's imagine that there is a night watchman (probably Ukrainian) who has a smattering of English and who had heard about what had happened from a few of the workers as they left for the day. Maybe he even takes pity on this strange, panicked Chinese girl and tells her what he knows. Would Ling Yi have to make her way through the gaslit streets at night, finally arriving on the steps of the public hospital, only to be told that it's too late for visitors, besides only family members are allowed to visit? Again, maybe there's a sympathetic orderly who lets her go in a side door and points her towards the indigent ward, mostly full of occupied beds. A lantern would draw too much attention, so she follows the rows of beds in the hushed darkness, squinting carefully at each face to find one that looks familiar. And when she finds him, his head bandaged from the injury he got earlier in the day, she would be both relieved and terrified. The only thing she could do would be to sit on the floor beside the bed and hold his hand, waiting for the morning and the moment when he would finally wake up.

[alchemicalterror]

[ Begin Transmission ]

Mmmkay.

I’ve had a weekend to decompress, think about all the bullshit from the past week, and consolidate my thoughts.

I have a bone to pick with all y’all.

First off let me say: while Isley may have been keeping me confined, and I would have liked to have gone home, she was not being unreasonable about the whole affair, at least by her standards.

I had food, water, a place to sleep, and relative privacy. I could not leave the room I was stuck in, but i wasn’t being tortured.

This is pretty good deal when it comes to Dr Isley. She even did me a big favor ,managing the blog so I would have proof that I was being held when I got back to work.

Generally, the safest thing to do when it comes to dealing with Dr. Isley is to go along with her plans and to negotiate when you can disentangle yourself from them.

Dealing with her is generally akin to being locked in a cage with a tiger that has recently eaten. Unless you anger the tiger or appear threatening to it, you are likely to survive the encounter while waiting for someone to get the keys. The issue lies in having been kept for several days; the longer you and the good doctor are in proximity, the more time and opportunity there is to stumble into something that makes you a target.

All of y’all annoying her on purpose, trying to emotionally appeal for my release, reveal that I was lying about working alone, or calling her cruel for the circumstances of my internment could have gotten me killed.

I was in more danger from outside meddling than I was from just sitting put and waiting it out. If I had thought kicking up a fuss would have saved my ass, I was in my lab, in my costume, armed and able to make that fuss myself.

I don’t know why it hasn’t clicked that you are dealing with violent criminals, but the majority of rogues have a much shorter fuse than I do, and your lackadaisical approach to my safety put me in far more danger than proximity to Poison Ivy.

Just because I am a patient man does not mean that all rogues are so generous.

Please, for the love of god, think before you talk to us, because your parasocial projections are now officially considered a threat.

[ End transmission ]