#AMOD chapter 5

[liminalpsych-in-teyvat]

Notes for A Matter of Duty - Chapter 5: The night wind's sigh

Thoma's Vision quest has the quote: "Ten years ago, when the Yashiro Commission's Kamisato Clan was losing its power. Kamisato Ayato, who was embroiled in the dispute over the succession rights of the clan due to the death of both parents…"

The Hiiragi family (Kanjou Commission) and the Kujou family (Tenryou Commission) have subordinate clans who assist them in their Commission work. That's called out specifically in Ayato's story quest and in Raiden's story quest. Theoretically, the Kamisato family also has subordinate clans (the Kaedehara Clan was one such family), but none of them are named. The only NPC serving the Yashiro Commission who has a family name is Madarame Hyakubei (the one in the Kamisato Estate who handles reputation quests).

So I had to make up some more subordinate families, and some relatives, because otherwise who else would be a candidate for succession of the Kamisato Clan? We only know about Ayato and Ayaka and their deceased parents; no other relatives are mentioned.

Hopefully the political infodump wasn't too tedious! I will now return to your regularly scheduled porn in Chapter 6.

No research links this time, because it was all just me poring through the Genshin wiki. For hours.

Summary of the fic itself with content warnings, tags, etc so you can decide if you want to read it or not before you click on the link.

A Matter of Duty

"Back then, I had no choice but to accept the position I was in. While I desperately looked around for powerful supporters, I endured smear campaigns and attempts to exploit me. I had no other choice… I didn't mind what became of me, but my family… No one can ever be allowed to trample over my precious family."

How Ayato secured powerful supporters, endured exploitation, and weathered the storm of the years following the death of his parents… and how Thoma helped him contend with a bunch of self-serving, degenerate public officials.

And how, after much stilted fumbling and well-intended sacrifice, they learned the truth of one another's hearts.

Note: Mind the tags. More specific content warnings will be given at the beginning of each chapter, and the story tags will be updated as needed. All characters involved in any sex scenes are adults.

Rating: Explicit. It's porn with plot. Porn as a vehicle for plot, or plot as a vehicle for porn, you can interpret it either way. (I prefer: porn and plot as a vehicle for ~feels~)

Tags that I'm not actually turning into tags here, but it gives you an idea of what you're in for: Kamisato Ayato/Thoma (Genshin Impact), dubious consent but not between Ayato and Thoma, slow burn, sex ed, first time, self-sacrifice, humiliation, exhibitionism, oral sex, anal sex, bdsm, bad bdsm etiquette, rough sex, breath play, impact play, bondage, service kink, abuse, sadism, codependency, shame, guilt, jealousy, possessiveness, trauma, ptsd, dissociation, political sex work, or sex work for political maneuvering, or political survival sex work if that’s a thing, exploitation, blackmail, political machinations, political intrigue, no aftercare, maybe someday some aftercare, hurt/comfort, mostly hurt for a long time but eventually comfort, oblivious disaster gays, for such socially savvy people they are terrible at personal relationships, dominant Ayato, submissive Thoma, top Ayato, bottom Thoma, Ayato is incredibly parentified, Thoma has no sense of self-preservation, self-sacrifice isn't a contest but don't tell Ayato and Thoma that, it's like the snipe-the-check game at restaurants but with sex and politics, Kushiel's Impact, no really this was in my drafts for the longest time as Kusheline Thomato Fic, everyone's an adult in this timeline except Ayaka, she gets protected at all costs, original characters out of necessity, finding appropriate existing Inazuma npcs for some of these roles was impossible, no beta we die like ayato's parents

Full fic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47604337?view_full_work=true

Chapter 5: The night wind's sigh: Thoma gives his report, learns more about the political situation, and finally puts together some painful puzzle pieces.

Chapter contains: allusions to sex work, vague allusions to past dubious consent, hangover, arguing, angst, and politics. (Relatively mild chapter, really, compared to the others.)

[cirrus-grey]

Ao3 Year In Review

I don't normally do these, but I'm really proud of everything I've written/posted this year (and utterly flabbergasted at how much of it there is) so I thought it would be fun to share! Format by @athina-blaine

Top Fandom: The Magnus Archives (55 works) (Yes, that's more fics than there are weeks in the year. No, I don't know how it happened either.)

Date of First Fic Posted: Jan 5, 2020 (1,000, 435 words) (Only fic that's not TMA)

Top Multi-Chapter Fic: Yesterday is Here (53,319 words) Written in ten weeks, posted in twelve, this was the first major multi-chapter story I'd ever posted and I cannot believe how much it took off. It was a purely self-indulgent outpouring of fluff, feelings, and love for TMA, and I never could have predicted how popular it would become. Seeing how much joy it has brought people has been one of, if not the, highlights of an otherwise stressful year, and I am so, so happy that I was able to share it with all of you.

Top One-Shot: Feels Like Lightning (6,065 words) Inspired by and written for the Aspec Martin Blackwood Week collection! My favorite thing about this one is how many people in the comments have told me it's gotten them questioning their own sexuality and possibly realizing they're ace.

Fic You’re Most Proud Of: Tied between A Matter of Diplomacy (57,758 words) and Unsent, but since Unsent also fits another category I'm going with AMoD here. Though 'Yesterday is Here' was the first multi-chapter story of this length I'd ever posted, 'A Matter of Diplomacy' was the first I ever wrote. I learned an awful lot about worldbuilding, balancing plot with character development, and constructing a consistent and engaging narrative through the process of writing it. I'm most proud, though, of the fact that I wrote it, at all. The main story took me a year to write, and the follow-ups added another several months onto that, and even though there were several times when I lost motivation and stopped writing entirely, I always managed to pull myself back and get started again. This was a marathon, not a sprint, and I'm very, very proud of finishing it.

Fic You Wish Got More Attention: Honestly? None of them. I have been absolutely blown away by the amount of hits, comments, kudos, and bookmarks my stories have gotten this year, and there aren't any I could point to as "wish they'd done better."

Fic That Challenged You The Most: Unsent (8,683 words) I spent hours staring at the wall thinking "what exactly is Jon's motivation and mindset here? What about Martin's?" and then used those hours to write a two-sentence text before starting all over again. I had the transcripts open in one window on my computer, and my draft open in another, analyzing single lines of dialogue from the show to figure out how they felt about each other, and how much of that they'd be willing to put into words. I pulled the timeline apart piece by piece trying to work out the order of events, and who knew what when. It is the single most in-character, canon-compliant story I've ever written, and it was hard.

Favourite Quote/Passage: (From In this harsh world, 1,132 words)

"How?" he chokes out, speaking the words into the crook of Jon's neck. "How can you expect me to go on without you? To be happy, without you there?"

"There'll be other things, other people, that bring you happiness. There always are."

"I don't want that," Martin says, and Jon takes a deep, shuddering breath. "I don't want to have to move on without you. I can't- I can't just let you go like that."

"Then don't," Jon whispers, and holds him tighter. "Moving on isn't letting go. Carry the memories. Keep me in your heart. Be the Horatio, to my tragic Prince Hamlet." He draws back, placing his hands on Martin's shoulders and looking him in the eye. "And in this harsh world, draw thy breath in pain to tell our story."

"Jon," Martin sobs.

Jon leans in, and kisses him. "There's no one else I'd trust more to do it," he says. "And know, with every day that passes, that I'm so, so proud of you for making it through."

Total Words Posted: 239,477!