#or forgoing that entirely and just plunging in blind

[seijorhi]

I just wanna say that your fics are perfection (even though I have no idea who these volleyball guys are, but I read anyways) and it's a always a fun moment reading your stories. The pace, the words, the feelings, the obsessed guys... it's all perfection.

So thank you so much for sharing them with us! 💖

<33

in my head everyone adores haikyuu as much as i do, but i realise that's not always true haha

in any case, i'm thrilled you're enjoying the fics regardless and thank you so much for the super sweet ask!!!

[sweetlog]

The Dark Side of Health Insurance: When Profits Trump Lives

Health insurance, at its core, was conceived as a safety net to protect individuals from the financial devastation of medical crises. However, in America, it has evolved into a sprawling industry where profits often take precedence over human lives. The cold efficiency of bureaucracy has turned a system meant to save lives into one that, at times, facilitates their loss—hidden behind the facelessness of paperwork, delays, and denials.

A System Designed to Exploit

For many, the experience of dealing with health insurance is a labyrinth of frustration. Claims are denied on technicalities, treatments are delayed, and coverage is insufficient for the care required. Each of these instances can have fatal consequences. Yet, these outcomes are rarely framed as what they truly are: preventable deaths. When a patient is denied life-saving medication or a critical surgery due to insurance red tape, it’s not seen as manslaughter. Instead, it’s chalked up to a “policy decision.”

This impersonal mechanism allows insurance companies to shirk moral responsibility. Decisions that cost lives are buried in a sea of paperwork and jargon, where accountability is nearly impossible to assign. The end result is a system where denying care is just another way to boost the bottom line.

A Business Built on Suffering

The American health insurance system is a prime example of capitalism’s darker side. Unlike most developed nations, where universal healthcare ensures access for all, the United States relies on a privatized system dominated by profit-driven companies. These insurers work hand in hand with hospitals to maximize revenue, often at the expense of patients.

Hospitals inflate prices, knowing insurance companies will negotiate lower rates—but those inflated prices remain for the uninsured or underinsured, plunging millions into debt. Meanwhile, insurers pocket billions in profits, while patients struggle to afford premiums, deductibles, and co-pays. According to a 2023 report, the combined profits of the top five U.S. health insurance companies exceeded $60 billion in a single year. These staggering figures reveal the true priority of the industry: shareholders, not patients.

When Did It All Begin?

The roots of this dysfunction trace back to the mid-20th century. In the 1940s and 1950s, employer-sponsored health insurance emerged as a workaround for wage freezes during World War II. This shift tied healthcare access to employment, creating a system where coverage was a privilege, not a right.

By the 1980s, deregulation and the rise of managed care plans solidified the insurance industry’s dominance. Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) promised cost control but instead introduced a profit-first model. Denying claims, restricting provider networks, and prioritizing cost over care became standard practices. Simultaneously, the government turned a blind eye, swayed by lobbying efforts and campaign contributions from powerful insurance companies.

The Government’s Complicity

Rather than acting as a check on this exploitative system, the U.S. government has often facilitated it. Politicians receive millions in campaign donations from the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, ensuring that meaningful reforms are watered down or blocked entirely. The Affordable Care Act (ACA), while a step forward in some respects, ultimately preserved the privatized system, allowing insurers to continue reaping enormous profits.

Moreover, the revolving door between government agencies and the private sector ensures that the industry’s interests are well-represented in policy-making. Former insurance executives frequently take up influential roles in regulatory bodies, crafting rules that favor their former employers.

The Human Cost

The consequences of this profit-driven system are dire. In the United States, medical debt is the leading cause of bankruptcy. Millions forgo necessary treatments, ration medications, or avoid seeking care altogether due to cost concerns. And for those who do navigate the system, delays and denials can be a death sentence. A 2019 study found that lack of insurance or underinsurance contributes to an estimated 45,000 preventable deaths annually in the U.S.

The Way Forward

Real change will require dismantling the for-profit model that underpins American healthcare. Universal healthcare systems, as seen in countries like Canada and the UK, prioritize patient care over profit. Transitioning to such a system would ensure that no one dies because their treatment wasn’t “cost-effective” for an insurance company.

However, achieving this will require overcoming entrenched industry power and political inertia. It demands a shift in public perception, where denying necessary care is recognized for what it truly is: a moral failing and, in many cases, a form of systemic violence.

[lotornomiko]

Dark Enchanted Forest AU Four (Not safe for work)

Absolutely not safe for work, it gets darker and more sexual, so please heed the non consensual/rape/forced seduction warnings please...

https://archiveofourown.org/works/26137747/chapters/63588682

   It hurt to look at her. To look at that brightly beaming form, and watch as that vibrant light from within was slowly squashed, all that fight and defiance losing grounf bit by bit to the woman’s despair. She tried to maintain her anger, every indignant act suffered causing tiny flare ups of it to return, but along with it came a pain and an embarrassment that manifested in tears. Even that did the monster choose to relish, a savoring lap of its tongue upon her wet cheek. Killian Jones couldn’t claim to understand it, the beast or its visceral reaction to the woman, that excitement and elation such a potent force that it had roused even the man trapped inside it.

If pressed for any answer, Killian Jones would say that the Dark One was almost bursting with a foreign euphoria that was so unlike anything that the human inside had ever tasted of it. Both a malignant joy and a desperate relief, the Darkness acted as though this woman, this princess, was something that it had missed. Like a cherished and misplaced possession, the Dark was shaking with an effort to gentle the worst of its handling.

That the Dark One would take any measure of care was a laughable thought, this creature one of brute and breaking force, quick to hurt and shatter those that it toyed with. Killian Jones could attest to that, scores of bodies, both men and women, both young and old, the corpses on which this monster had built its dark legacy upon. This one beneath it, should have proved no different, and yet for every breath taken, she continued to defy the odds of a precedence set from long before the man had been birthed into existence.

Killian Jones, for the hundreds of years that he has been trapped, has both seen and slept through the Dark One’s worst. Has watched as countless necks have been snapped, and borne witness to the most vile and obscene breaking, the monster who had total control of his body, intent on humiliations that saw the soul itself shatter, the mind lost as its pride was broken, and those bodies were pushed past the limits of a human’s endurance. It has been more horror than any one should have the misfortune of bearing, and the man isn’t entirely sure he hasn’t gone mad in the process. He almost laughs then, from where he resides deep inside, the shards of his remaining sanity so fragmented and small, that Killian can’t be anything but insane. He has to be, given what has been done, what his body has been made to do. He feels it from within his soul, the weight of the monster’s countless sin staining blood on his hands, any and every criminal act that the man could and had done, paling in comparison to the Dark One’s cruel creativity.

No one human could compare, the worst of humanity falling up short to this timeless creature of evil. For all the bad that humans could and did do, the darkness did it even better, perfecting the art of such vile misdeeds. It killed and it tortured, made worse those sins, such new and inventive lengths designed to wring out facets a human alone could have never imagined or stomached. It stole all hope, just as it had taken the light from them, the sun lost for more years than Killian Jones had been alive. Born into that darkness, the light of the woman beneath him, was a blinding brilliance that hurt.

With eyes that were in no way ready, Killian saw what the Darkness jealousy tried to cover, that beaming purity of so holy a glow, that the man knew it was in no way natural. That ephemeral warmth, a thousand time stronger than the embers that had come before her, this Emma of Mist Haven might just be a vessel that was perfect.

Hope wasn’t something that Killian Jones had thought himself capable of any longer, and yet looking down at the woman, at her light, how could he do anything but? In that way he was as awe struck as the dark, wanting to fall down in worship of the one of the one creature in all of humanity that might just stand a chance of bringing the world from out of the darkness. Killian wondered if he was ready, if the world itself was prepared to embrace the change that could be brought about.  But most of all, he wondered not if the woman was capable, but if she would survive the Dark One long enough to even TRY.

It was that, the many unanswered questions born in the wake of the woman’s arrival, and his concern for her, that kept him from closing his eyes, Killian Jones forcing himself to bear witness to each and everything that may or may not happen. He’d watch it all, from every grab of her throat, to the wicked worship of her flesh that Emma of Mist Haven was enduring, the woman thus far surviving.

The Dark, so lost in the moment, so enamored with the flesh it was bruising, didn’t seem to notice the man inside, or that sliver thin hope that was building. It was too focused on the Light, on its host, the woman’s body exciting it in a way that no other could be. Its tasted women before, has made use of their flesh, scratching at the surface of an itch that was insatiable. Its even to some extent enjoyed the act, the messy and violent merging of bodies. But the Darkness has never been satisfied, the females before this one, little more than empty husks for the using. Emma of Mist Haven was different, an intoxicating mix of woman and light, this potent combination that gave the dark its desires a form it could finally, irrevocably possess.

Intent on it, on her, the Darkness worked a spell that had slim tendrils of an ebony vine wind around the woman’s wrists. An extension of its body, as well as it desires, these delicate but strong manifestations, were all that it had left of its former state of being. That smokey blackness, it bound and it held her, keeping the woman somewhat subdued and leaving the Dark’s hand free for other uses.

A breath that it didn’t need was caught, the Darkness touching clawed finger tips to the creamy perfection of the princess’ skin. A million and one urges wage combat inside it, the dark having to gentle the worst of its nature, for to do otherwise, was to let the Light escape from it AGAIN. It could hurt it, and the woman that was host to it, but only to a point, this body having already proven so, so fragile.

It was both daunting and exciting, the delicate nature of the Light, its weak state, and the vulnerability it was left with. The Light truly was the perfect counterpart to the Dark, each everything the other was not. Male versus female, physical versus spiritual, they represented the worst and the best of human kind. And as was so often the case, the Dark was overpowering all of the Light’s efforts, her kindness and warmth so easily devastated by his hurtful desires. His greedy nature, its hand moving to envelope skin, the ripe fullness of a breast caught and felt firmly by unrelenting fingers.

Emma of Mist Haven let out a strangled gasp, felt the heat of her embarrassment burning from the inside out, as an impudent hand grasped hold of her. She could feel the strength in that touch, a potent force that could hurt her far worse than it already was, the fear of what it would do, leaving her all but paralyzed in place. She shook though, those violent trembles something that would not be stopped, anymore than the ripples of revulsion that coursed through her. For every flexing of those fingers, every knead of her flesh, Emma turned an angrier pink in color, humiliated beyond belief.

She had never been touched this way, had never even had the chance, the protected princess that she had been, leaving Emma of Mist Haven to not have even the experience of a kiss. She was wholly unprepared for the assault of one now, the feel of a mouth that LOOKED sensual, but was ever so demanding, on her now. It brought with it heat, and a taste of its tongue, the Dark One so bold and blatant in the desire it expressed. He stole his way into her mouth through trickery and skill, the hand that was fondling her flesh, turning rough enough to force Emma to gasp. That shocked breath she nearly choked on, it and the tongue that was plunging inside her.

She didn’t know what to do, didn’t know how to act, but Emma of Mist Haven knew she wanted it gone. She shoved at that invading muscle with that of her own, realizing too late, the pleasure that the Dark One took at feeling the woman’s participation. It either didn’t know that she wasn’t kissing it back, or that the Dark simply did not CARE. In one fluid motion, it had tangled them together, the kiss as domineering on the inside as it was on the out. With firm pressure, and a throaty hum, the Darkness engaging her in a sampling that left her more than just breathless, it rent Emma of Mist Haven exhausted and panting.

Limp and left half swooning, for one dizzying moment the princess forgot where she was, and  just who---WHAT was looming over her. She was blind in the way of dreams and nightmares, unable to focus, or grasp at the difference between awake or asleep, conscious only of the need to breath, and that harsh panting sound that was not just hers, but that of the Dark. It too was forgoing, but unlike the Light and the princess that hosted it, the Dark one didn’t HAVE to breathe.

It did however, have to keep a watchful eye, the vibrancy of the Light dimming noticeably the longer the kiss went on for. Its endless enthusiasm found little match in the princess’ stamina, a near constant balance needed to be kept, to keep both her brilliance and her body alive. With what might be its first growl of frustration, the Darkness gave one of its only concessions to the Light, lifting up off it, so that the princess could take in gasping lungfuls of air. What a sight it was rewarded with for THAT, Emma of Mist Haven shaking, her breasts blatantly heaving in a way that called attention to them. The Dark simply couldn’t resist the jiggle of that flesh, or the angry red brand of its teeth upon one. Hand and hook working together, it was the shock of cold metal and heated flesh and the rough nip of teeth, that brought a startling Emma back. She shrieked without meaning too, struggling against her restraints and the cruel beast above her.

Her skin already so vivid a color from the humiliation, still tried for more at the sound of the Dark One’s amused chuckle. Mortified as she was, Emma of Mist Haven still managed the fiercest of glares, not knowing the green of her eyes made for the most vibrant of jade colored light. The eyes that have always been the window to one’s soul, now more than ever betrayed Emma’s as that which the Dark has been wanting. It might not give voice to speak, but the light, all glitter and gleam, gave off the stark proof positive of its rebirth.

Elated at is was, the Dark had no light to spark in the raw abyss of its own gaze. Those ebony pools, all malevolence and greed, could have drowned Emma of Mist Haven whole, the young woman staring into the darkness, and coming away with nothing human or understanding. His was a shell he merely took from the host, Killian Jones like so many of the other men who had once held the darkness, not a person who was inherently evil. Bad choices aside, the darkness wasn’t a mirror of that human’s soul, the man merely a vessel, a tool that Dark had used, and might one day discard.

Truth be known, that day might be the only thing left to Killian Jones, the man having hung onto what was left of the semblance of his sanity, for the chance to finally die for good. Maybe then he’d know peace, his soul finally set free. Would it go soaring into the heavens? Or would it plummet far below, Killian made to pay for the sins the Dark One had committed with HIS body? Did it even matter, a voice whispered in his head, and insane as he was, the man had an immediate retort back.

Of course it mattered! For in the Heavens above, there was surely someone waiting for him, a promise to meet again that had to be kept. A broken heart that had to be mend, that small but fierce ember worth everything that Killian Jones had sacrificed for. Even at his most desperate and insane, he didn’t regret the choice he had made, he couldn’t! Not if it meant sparing her a pain and torment that was worse than any father’s abandonment.

It could have been his Alice before him now. Could have been his only child that might have blossomed enough to be even a quarter of what Emma of Mist Haven was proving to now be. That sweet child, his beautiful and vibrant Alice, so curious and full of laughter and light. She had been Killian’s greatest joy, and had proved his biggest reason to despair, that endless night of her eighth birthday, when she had proved enough magic to make a seedling bloom.

He remembers that day as vivid then as it is NOW, the gap toothed smile of his beloved child, as she had danced around before him, holding up proudly, the proof of her magic. That seedling, made for a vibrant shade of purple as it bloomed and unfurled its awakened petals. His Alice had been so excited, and in awe, so in love with the flower, and what she had thought it meant. Thinking herself part faerie, for only THEY were the ones who still had enough power to make anything grow in the harsh environs of the world’s never ending night, Killian’s heart had broke with the God awful truth of it.

It was a sign all right, a symbol that all lived in fear of, a perverse manifestation of the Dark One’s favor, the monthly tribute it was in need of. Frozen for one split second in eternity, Killian had only been able to stare down in horror at the bright purple offering in his beloved daughter’s hands. His mind had rebelled, protesting that it was too soon, that she was too young, that he hadn’t wanted to lose  her. The man hadn’t cared that this was a price so many others had already paid, the world kept spinning, so long as the Dark One was made appeased. Killian hadn’t cared that he and his Alice, that all of their friends and family and loved ones, had eked out a life in so desolate a world under the Darkness’ limited tolerance. He had just been desperate, both to save Alice and to fight that of the Dark. In the seconds it had taken to progress from a shocked disbelief, to soul gutting despair, Killian reacting with the unnatural fury of a loving father whose child was in danger.

He remembers Alice crying in what had followed, Killian having snatched the flower from her hand. He had not only crushed it, the man had ground it to powder beneath his boots, as though pretending it had never been, would make it so Alice’s fate never came to pass. She had cried and not understood, great sobbing tears that caught on a hiccuping breath. Desperate as he had been, Killian hadn’t been in much of a mind’s condition for comfort, grasping Alice by her thin arms. Shaking her to force an understanding, to make her promise to never repeat that trick, Killian determined that no bit of plant or seedling would ever again come anywhere near his girl, he all but locked her up under the watchful eye of his first mate and loyal friend, Mr. Smee.

Thus, with the promise to one day meet again, the man, a one time pirate, and now turned desperate father had taken off. He had traveled the realms, had searched in just about every kingdom from one end of this world, to the next, always under the cover of that endless and forbidding night. He heard whispers, followed up on trails that went cold, searching for the impossible. All for the want of saving his daughter, Killian determined to do what no other man or woman had ever been able to do. Destroy the Darkness once and for all.

To say he had failed miserably at that, was nothing short of the laughable truth. The Darkness still existed, still lived on stronger than ever. But it had NEVER gotten his Alice, the girl able to live and grow and eventually have a family of her own. And all it had cost her, was the father she had loved so dearly, Killian gladly paying that price.

Just as Emma of Mist Haven was paying the price of her own foolish determination, the young woman having dared to dream she could put an end to the Darkness and its reign of never ending terror. Even as he pitied her, Killian could admit to admiring that brand of bravery that had sparked within her. He might not know the circumstance about it, but he had seen, even FELT the lethal way in which she had fought. If it had been against any thing else, the princess might have won, but the Dark One has had millennia on her, both in magic and strength, and the wisdom and know how to use both to full advantage.

It has been more than just killing the Dark One has learned to excel at. With so many years behind it, it has learned to perfect its instrument, the body and all it’s arsenal, for good or for bad, and with which it now waged a violent and sensual assault. While Emma of Mist Haven tried to regain ground and catch her breath, the Darkness smothered her in kisses, hand and hook moving over her, taking just enough care to not scratch at her skin, though the remains of her clothing couldn’t claim the same.

In shreds and tatters, what was left of the blue tunic, and the white leggings beneath it, wouldn’t have been enough to make a single spool of thread. The one and only remaining concession to a maidenly modesty, was that of her lacy white panties. Plain in fashion, and as virginal as the day, the Dark’s mouth still seemed to water in appreciation, the blunt curve of its hook, stroking along the cloth’s band. Emma of Mist Haven seemed to tremble all the more, a strangled word escaping her, more plea than demand.

“Don’t!”

Her eyes were upon it, not so much the Dark One’s face, but that hook it was using. The Dark, ever jealous and greedy for the Light, didn’t much appreciate Emma of Mist Haven’s focus put elsewhere, it hands going along past her cheek, to grab at that golden sunshine that made up her hair. With a tight and pulling grip, it forced the woman to look up into its eyes, the princess seeming to shrink in on herself at the sight. It was pure and utter devastation it dealt her in a smile, those lips curved in the most wicked of fashion, and then the hook was tearing at the band of her panties, and ripping with it the lace clean off of her.

Emma of Mist Haven’s hands were still bound, but not that of her legs, the woman squeezing her thighs tighter together, as though that would afford her some kind of protection. The Darkness blew out a soft breath, letting its lips shape a taunting truth.

“Mine.”

It seemed to eat up the sound of her distress, the protest she could not outwardly voice, all her air leeched out of her on terror’s wings. She couldn’t even maintain her angry blush, Emma of Mist Haven so starkly pale in the moment. Nor could she shake her head in denial, that strangle hold grasp on her hair, preventing her even THAT. She didn’t even know what was worse, being made to look at it, or being made to feel what it was doing to her. For rhough there was that damnable smile, there was also the potent sensations, the hook wedging between her thighs, that cold metal trying to shock her into relaxing against it. It petted and then pried the way open, that grin of it heralding its smug victory, the Dark One holding Emma of Mist Haven still for yet another kiss.

Recoil though she might, that hand whose fingers were locked and tangled in her hair, made sure that the princess could go nowhere. She whined in distress, then nearly jumped up against it, the blunt curve of its hook tracing along the most secret of her feminine flesh. She again tried to break free of those ebony coils around her restrained arms, the Dark continuing to pet over her with a predatory precision. With a patience the belied its true nature, the Dark One was learning every inch of that womanly part. Its breath once again became exaggerated, as though the creature that played at being a man, could not contain its excitement. Again and again with that rasp, with a beat whose timing matched the petting motions of the hook.

Emma of Mist Haven could find no true arousal in the moment. She could find neither pleasure, nor the ability to look past her dread and her fear, bracing for a pain that would prove inevitable.  She was close to hyperventilating, so struck dumb with her disbelief, and that was before the Dark One released its hold on her hair. Falling backwards, to thump against a ground she had never noticed was so unimaginably soft, the last sight she had of that smile, was of it disappearing down her body, those cruel smirking lips replacing that hook.

She let out a god’s honest yelp at the contact of its mouth upon her, and the wicked intention contained in that kiss. A leashed aggression upon her, as tongue and lips worked her over, the Dark One intent on her full shame and surrender. Emma no longer had any fight left in the moment, couldn’t even lift herself up to glare down at the monster whose head was buried between her thighs. She could only stare up into the darkness above her, the warm glow of several fires, not enough to keep her from being swallowed down whole.

-----------------------------------

To Be Continued….

I’m very nervous to post this chapter...also it was all over the place. I knew it was telling me to be a Killain POV but he didn’t want to flow into what I wanted to reveal, the whole back story...of him and the Darkness...so it ended up turning into a Dark Emma narrative, and when I LEAST expected it, he came roaring back in, ready to tell SOME of his story with the Darkness. So I did end up liking the chapter, even if it went a round about way and wasn’t as forthcoming with HOW and when and what I wanted to write about here….

I have to admit I don’t always know what to do about Killian in this fic, or rather I have ideas, but they seem detrimental to what my friend, the person this is a gift fic for, WANTS for the Darkness. I’m trying to be true to her, so please bear that in mind when reading! She wants the Darkness to have its satisfying ending after all. It is probably going to be a long journey to get there too! X_X

As for Alice...okay I couldn’t see Milah as being the catalyst for Killian’s actions. Nothing against her, but I couldn’t imagine her pure enough to have even the tiniest ember of the light within her. So I was happy to work with Season 7, and use wish verse Killian and his lovely little daughter into some form of the back story in this fic. And for the record, Alice is not some ancestor of Emma’s, just cause they both had light in them. I am imagining there were embers all about, but none held the reborn light until possibly Emma.

----Michelle