#this got peer reviewed and approved

[princezamlovesthedishwasher]

[slices-of-naranja]

Transmasc morbius be like “it’s my time of the month” call that morbulation

[crossbackpoke-check]

liv idk why but your posts were never on my dash for the past several months and i missed your tag journeys so hard. SO HARD. i was like, 'i hope friend crossback-pokecheck is fine' and you were here tagging and telling stories and losing your mind and i did not see it. anyway.

i am being so appreciative of your deweys journeys. you are, as always, correct.

HELLO!!!! 🥰😭🥹 I MISSED YOU TOO i am SO happy to hear from you and am truly just. 🫶 forever eternally always thank you for traveling along with my unhinged tag journeys, i am enabled so well 💕

also THANK YOU!!! the deweys vibes have now been peer reviewed and approved 🗣️

[bronte-deserves-better]

vespera isn't a villain because she's emotionally numb actually that's just what academia does to you

[wetcatspellcaster]

leaving us hanging like that is SO EVIL. thank you for another fantastic chapter!!! i am frothing at the mouth, chewing at my cage etc etc

I'm glad you enjoyed the story!! Sorry for the cliffhanger, I made the chapter longer to include it, and everything :)))))

[luveline]

IM BEGGING ON MY KNEES PLEASEEEE 🔥🔥🔥 NOTICE MEEEE

Really quiet and shy reader who’s new to the team and Spencer JUST got out of prison like a month ago and he comes back and sees the cutest girl he’s ever seen so young and new to the team and can’t help but tease her

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASEEE🧎🏾‍♀️🧎🏾‍♀️🧎🏾‍♀️🙇🏽‍♀️🙇🏽‍♀️

Unit Chief Emily Prentiss scares the fuck out of you, but you're still not as intimidated by her as you are by Dr. Reid. 

Dr. Reid, and not Special Supervisory Agent Reid —there's a big difference— shouldn't be a scary guy. He doesn't have any tattoos or piercings, his haircut is tame, and you watch him pour enough sugar into his coffee to weaken the enamel of your teeth just looking at it. But while all or this is true, Dr. Reid just came back from a weeks long stint in one of the most tense prisons in the world. Emily assured you in her way that everything bad you may have heard about Dr. Reid would be false, and that anything positive is true. 

He looks different to how you'd pictured him. Emily's promise aside, Garcia painted him as some sweater-wearing Teddy bear of a boy who likes chess and Doctor Who. 

This is a man. Full grown, full suit, dark-eyes. You're not sure what to feel as he spots you. When Anderson gave you the desk across from Spencer's you'd thought you were lucky, getting treated as part of the team from the very beginning, but now you're not so sure. 

“Hey,” he says, eyes on you as he puts down his coffee atop a stack of medical journals. His things were left untouched while he was gone, even though he was technically separated from the bureau. He's well respected. “I've been excited to meet you. I'm Spencer.” 

“Dr. Reid,” you say immediately, standing up from your chair to meet him besides your desks. 

“Spencer,” he says again. “I don't shake.” 

“Oh, no, of course not,” you say, hiding your hands behind your back. “I know you were here long before me, but I can safely say how nice it is to have you back.” You smile. “They were all so worried about you.” 

“You kept them in line while I was gone?” 

“No, I was useless. I've never felt this stupid in my life.” 

“That's just how it feels for the first year.” He isn't smiling, isn't frowning, a hint of amusement in his eyes and hands steady as he tucks them into his pants pockets. “It's not the others, is it?” 

“No, there's just a lot to learn.” 

“It shouldn't be hard for you, though, right?” He gestures to you like this means something. 

“I don't…” 

“You're what, twenty four?” Spencer picks up his mug and takes a drink. “If you're smart enough to be here now, you'll be fine.” 

“You think so?” 

“Don't tell me you're scared, Y/N.” His lashes flare ever so slightly in feigned surprise. After a second of your obvious flustering, he laughs. “No, you don't scare easily. I can tell.” 

Absolutely nothing like you told me he'd be, Penelope. I thought we were friends. 

“So what was your last case like? The Bentley driver?” he asks, nodding toward your desk. “How's your peer reviews going? They used to drive me insane.” 

You startle and rush to sit in your desk chair, opening the case file from the last case to gather his approval. He flicks through pages, almost non-committal, though he gives a hum of approval when he reads your UnSub summary, and when he sees a comment you'd made that you'd believed to be particularly astute, he laughs. “Yeah,” he says, “you'll be fine.” The smell of him floats your way, cologne or aftershave that makes you feel dizzy. He looks down at you. “Something wrong?” 

“Nothing, uh–” You bite your tongue rather than answer and trip over another useless sentence. 

He touches the top of your shoulder lightly. “It will get easier,” he promises. 

He means work, of course, but for a split second you wonder if he means being near him. If he's like this often, you doubt that that's true. 

[mamoonde]

i really really really love the idea of wei wuxian revolutionizing modern cultivation over breakfast and conceptualizing these different theories simultaneously because the adhd brain has no brakes and the only reason it took him a decade to publish all these ideas was because he could not stick to a single train of thought long enough to finish (verbalizing) it, let alone put it down on paper coherently.

the only reason he even got to publishing them eventually (and enrolling to cultivation theory grad program to get on that track) was because one morning, his undergrad thesis advisor, lan qiren, finally got fed up and sat him down for an early morning progress check-in because it was midterm season and wei wuxian still hadn't decided on a topic.

wei wuxian, fueled by an unhealthy amount of redbull and three all-nighters, finally word vomits all his 'convoluted' ideas which he'd thought were uselessly obvious and redundant (because he's gone over these like a bajillion times, it's very plain-as-day to him, so he probably just hasn't read the articles that say these exact things).

lan qiren, teacup frozen halfway to his mouth: ...first of all, i only understood half of how you got to these conclusions, which only means they are indeed too convoluted and will need to be pared down; secondly: you have never mentioned any of these ideas before. why.

wei wuxian: oh. haven't i? oh well, i just thought, xyz, because, obviously, abcde. which is really what the 2 centuries old law on ghjkl was alluding to, right? and so, logically, xyz.

lan qiren: [mind blown, screaming, good gods this is the same child who's always tardy and spent freshman year pulling on the metaphorical pigtails of my straight-laced nephew?!?!??!??!?!] ..again, why...how have you never even spoken or submitted these ideas?

wei wuxian: because!!! they're so obvious!! surely, it's been published somewhere already? i can't be the only one to connect these dots, surely??

lan qiren: incredibly, you are. no one else has even thought to question tradition nor pursued more thoughts on the law of ghjkl, with half as much...sound arguments as you seem to have. in the past century, the focus of modern cultivation has tended towards practical uses and tools, some fine-tuning, perhaps. not entirely new theories.

wei wuxian: huh....

lan qiren, sighing, feeling a migraine: your problem with your thesis is not a lack of focus or ingenuity, but likely to be more a lack of recent, evidentiary sources. you will need to become very familiar with the university archives and dig deep for sources that will back up every argument you make.

he jots down notes on a paper. "you will also need to strictly adhere to the structure and methodology of these articles, especially given how radical your thesis will be. if you are diligent enough, you may just be able to submit your thesis without too much of a delay." he slides the list of materials to a gaping wei wuxian. "depending on your output then, we can discuss the possibility of submitting this for peer review."

"peer review." wei wuxian repeats. "as in, that thing where some uppity committee of old coots put their stamp of approval for it to become the reading materials of undergrads like me. you're joking."

lan qiren chooses to ignore the sentiment about peer review committees being uppity old coots, especially considering how he can't completely deny it on account of some of his colleagues, but also as a member said peer review committee, he isn't exactly pleased about being lumped in the same category.

wei wuxian backtracks at his unamused look. "right, you're not joking, of course you're not." he slowly inches the list towards himself. "right, yes, i guess i'll uh, get to it then. ok bye."

----

idk, just, waves hand at wei wuxian candidly explaining new modern cultivation theories over cheerios at 2 in the afternoon to lwj who's trying to help him structure his grad thesis, getting mind blow dick hard at how this messy genius who's talking with his mouth full of half eaten cereal is the object of his affection....

wwx: --oh, oops, your highlighter fell

lwj: mn

wwx: ...aren't you gonna get that?

lwj: it's fine; i'll pick it up later. finish your thought.

wwx: right... i'll pick it up for you!

lwj, fighting for his life, trying to think unsexy thoughts: NO! sit. finish your meal, and then your thought.

[transmutationisms]

i am the world's biggest wikipedia defender (especially against people who say that it's unreliable) because, while i know it's not infallible (is anything, though?), it is peer-reviewed. once, my friend edited the othello page to include a joke we had made and she got her account banned. how do you reckon with wikipedia as a source of knowledge? my understanding of it is that it can serve as a good base for things, but learning never stops and one should read as many sources as possible to gain a fuller understanding of whatever they want to know about. this is a very long-winded way of asking your opinions on wikipedia. my apologies, and i hope today is alright for you :~)

wikipedia obviously gets a lot of flak for the fact that anyone can edit it, which means that people certainly can and do check each other's work, but also that anybody with an axe to grind or just a poor understanding of a subject can potentially really distort the presentation of that topic. there have been some high-profile cases of bad and even dangerous editorialising, like the woman who basically single-handedly is trying to correct a whole bunch of pages for former nazis that really whitewashed their legacies and cited various antisemitic and white supremacist sources to do so. i think it would be foolish to claim that crowdsourced knowledge is inherently accurate, fair, nuanced, &c. wikipedia replicates the biases people put into it, and just having more people edit it doesn't instantly 'average them out' because yknow, we're often talking about widely held positions or prejudices that have also caused distortions in many of the cited sources. also, wikipedia has many more gaps than most people realise, partly because an encyclopedia is necessarily a massive undertaking and also because, by design, it excludes eg oral traditions, non-literate people, &c.

however i do find a lot of wikipedia criticism annoying because it will usually involve trying to counterpose wikipedia to approved academic channels of knowledge production, specifically in a way that sets academic institutions and publishing as an intellectual gold standard that crowd knowledge simply can't compete with. academia is not some kind of magical solution to problems of distortion and bias; academics have their own ways of perpetuating and rationalising prejudices, and reinforcing rather than challenging each other's epistemological authority and laziest, most harmful assumptions. not to mention that many shitty wikipedia articles do actually cite approved academic sources published by university presses! because these characteristics do not actually guarantee that a source is good, only that it passed quality control at a reactionary institution lol.

ultimately i approach wikipedia basically the same way i approach any academic text, which is to say i have to read both with attention to how the arguments are being developed, what evidence they rely on, what ideological assumptions are being made or defended, and so forth. i can't really think of a source or genre of source that i would endorse just reading and uncritically believing; in that sense i certainly agree with people who point out the major potential for inaccuracy in wikipedia articles, only i think this line of criticism is totally useless and blatantly elitist if it simply exempts 'respectable' academic sources or presumes institutional channels of knowledge to be epistemologically infallible.

anyway i use wikipedia to check dates of major events and it's sometimes useful or intriguing simply to see what about a topic interested people enough to write an entry about it. but i don't automatically trust any arguments or analyses in wikipedia articles, any more than i would the thesis of any nonfiction book i pick up.

[earhartsplane]

Since we're all talking about plagiarism now, I'd like to share this video which came out last year about a paper accepted at the CVPR 2022:

For the people not in the know, the Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition conference is the biggest conference in computer science. Last year, in 2022, the paper featured in the video got accepted. A few days later, this video was posted. The first author, a PhD student, apologized and the paper was retracted and removed from the proceedings. Hilariously, the first reaction of the co-authors, including a professor at the Seoul National University, was to say that they had nothing to do with it.

My point here is that scientific papers are not rigorously checked for plagiarism, and a background in academia tells you absolutely nothing about whether or not someone will be diligent in avoiding plagiarism. The biggest difference is that there are consequences if you're caught.

I also don't want people to be too harsh on the first author of this paper, or to think the situation is equivalent to the whole Somerton debacle. For starters, you don't get paid for publishing papers, you (or more commonly your university) pay the publishers. But the phrase publish or perish exists for a reason, and everyone in the field wants to get published in the CVPR, because it's supposed to show that you're great at research. Additionally, the number of papers and the prestige of the venues they're published in criteria on which you will be evaluated as a researcher and a university employee.

The way I see it, there are basically two kinds of plagiarism that are shown in the video. The first one concerns sentences that are lifted completely unchanged from other papers. This is bad, and it is plagiarism, but I can see how this would happen. Most instances of this appear in the introduction and on background information, so if you're insecure about your mastery of English and it's not about your contribution anyway, I can understand how you would take the shortcut of copy-pasting and tell yourself that it's just so that the rest of the paper makes sense, and why waste time on phrasing things differently if others have done it already, and it's not like there are a million way to write these equations anyways.

Let me be clear. I don't approve, or condone. It's still erasing the work of the people who took the time and pain to phrase these things. It's still plagiarism. But I understand how you could get to that point.

The second kind of plagiarism is a way bigger deal in my opinion. At 0:37 , we can see that one of the contributions of the paper is also lifted from another paper. Egregiously, the passage includes "To the best of our knowledge, this is the first [...]" , which is a hell of a thing to copy-paste. So this is not only lazily passing other people's words as your own, it's also pretending that you're making a contribution you damn well know other people have already done. I also wasn't able to find a version of the plagiarized article that had been published in a peer-reviewed venue, which might mean that the authors submitted it, got rejected, and published it on arXiv (an website on which authors can put their papers so that they're accessible to the public, but doesn't "count" as a publication because it's not peer-reviewed. You can also put papers that are under review or have been published on there as long as you're careful with the copyrights and double-blind process). And then parts of it were published in the CVPR under someone else's name.

I think there's also a third kind of plagiarism going on here, one that is incredibly common in academia, but that is not shown in the video. That's the FIVE other authors, including a professor, who were apparently happy to add their name to the paper but obviously didn't do anything meaningful since they didn't notice how much plagiarism was going on.

[underwhelmingalchemist]

I hate that the only two categories for autism are "self diagnosed" and "professionally diagnosed"

Like, technically, I have not gone through the official autism diagnosis process where a professional sits you in a chair and then decides whether or not to give you their official seal of medical approval, so I'm considered "self diagnosed"

However, that doesn't feel entirely accurate when my preschool teachers were telling my mom that she'd probably want to get me tested when I was three, and all the kids in school my entire life isolated me because I was "weird", and the IEP testing people when I finally got tested were like, "we don't know what's wrong with them exactly but asperger's seems like a safe bet," and every autistic person who knows me has told me they're pretty damn sure I'm autistic too, and my diagnosed sister told me I should seek a diagnosis, and my psychiatrist said "that would explain a lot" when asked what she thought about me potentially being autistic

In light of this, I would like to propose a third catagory: "peer-reviewed"

[spontaneousglitterbees]

It's been mentioned that Kokichi has some phantom pains and he has clear mobility issues (love that btw as someone who uses a cane), so I was curious how the rest of the class is doing in that regard. Does Kaito ever struggle to breathe or have coughing fits? Do Rantaro and Angie get migraines?

[Talent Acquisition Pilot Program AU Masterpost]

This one. This one got away from me.

tl;dr: Absolutely, Anon, we are on very similar pages! This ask really got me thinking about how the whole TAPP!cast is doing fresh out of the Killing Game. Every student in Class 79 is going through something, about now, be it physical or mental; in fact, it’s usually both.

Also: for sure, I want to try and be relatively true-to-life with their struggles, especially Kokichi’s. I write from personal experience living with chronic pain, but haven’t used a cane before. Apologies if I miss the mark at any point.

Obligatory disclaimer: I am not a healthcare professional of any kind and the AU’s premise is largely sci-fi, so there may be inaccuracies. That said, I am fascinated with biomechanics and always looking to learn, so I’m trying to keep things at least semi-plausible.

Full spoilers for Danganronpa V3 (and some for the end of SDR2) ahead!

Very Long Loredump (~6.2k words) under the cut:

HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN?

Everyone is traumatized. That much is obvious, sure, but the Talent Acquisition Pilot Program (TAPP) is a virtual reality simulator based on the bones of the Neo World Program (NWP). In much the way SDR2’s NWP is purported to replicate death in the simulation in the players’ real bodies, the TAPP simulation is built to alter the brain chemistry of its participants. TAPP builds muscle memory and ‘burns’ new neural pathways to a participant’s Default Mode Network (DMN), a collective term for parts of the brain responsible for letting us “autopilot” common tasks like riding a bike or typing on a keyboard. The V3 cast’s experiences in the simulation impact their real bodies in a very literal sense to ‘speedrun’ them through orientation at Hope’s Peak and mainstream them in the curriculum as quickly as possible so its researchers can start collecting useful data on the merits of HPA for investors.

The problem is, nobody programming TAPP anticipated they would start killing each other.

Class 79 were the first human test subjects for the program with zero peer review or board approval, of course, because HPA is morally dubious and can pass off “dude, trust me” as genuine credentials to several world governments. Even if this massive oversight was not noticed until after the fact, V1 of TAPP did at least include one quasi-safety feature: if any player became “significantly injured”, that player would be ejected from the simulation. Everyone else would be locked in the simulation (in case one of them was involved and tried to evade consequences) until an administrator could come and manually assess the situation. In theory, the physically-unharmed student could rejoin the simulation once the conflict was resolved.

But TAPP was built to write data to the brain. It was not built to identify what data it’s actually writing, and cannot differentiate between playing the piano and getting smashed in a hydraulic press. Data is data.

It does not help that Team Danganronpa (the group of Reserve Course kids, including Tsumugi) are foolish teenagers entirely unaware of this, assuming that “none of it is real, so none of it will actually matter! we’re just scaring them!” While skimming through the code and thoroughly Knowing Not What They Do, they manage to remove any defined cap for what constitutes ‘significant injury’ before player ejection. The only flag that can set it off is a lack of any other player flags. Virtual death.

This is where Rantaro earns the title of “Ultimate Survivor”. The shotput ball put him down too quickly for the damage to be fully reflected in his physical body, so he managed to get ejected with post-concussive symptoms, short-term memory issues, and persistent migraines instead of fully dying. Were his method of death much slower, he’d likely have been screwed (and wouldn’t have Komaeda’s luck cycle to save him).

Time scales differently in TAPP than in the physical world; while Rantaro’s been at the virtual Academy for several days, the students have been strapped in their pods for a few hours at most. Between the Responsible Older Sibling Energy seared over the person he may have been before and an extant knack for escape room puzzles, Amami is The Man with the skills and motivation to call in backup.

It’s a good thing he did, too! Their “observer”, having tired of watching a bunch of students play the piano and run around outside, only figures out something has gone horribly wrong the moment Rantaro practically busts down the door. The next tense hour-plus is spent doing damage control and imposing limits on the code of the simulation to prevent TAPP from letting the students actually die. Unfortunately, the TDR kids and their takeover took a sizeable chunk out of the spaghetti code holding the whole thing together in their haste. TDR, with proposed talents like Ultimate Cosplayer on their side, are primarily concerned with artistry and are only competent-enough programmers. As a result, there is no obvious way to manually override the lock completely and just let the students out without significant defragging, even as TDR members are still actively messing with the code, and who knows how long that will take. (About 6-ish chapters)

Instead, for now, they’ll have to settle for putting as many programming-adjacent talents as possible on the case and exploit a loophole that panicking overseer managed to write: if the remaining students are systematically ejected, the program will bypass the lock and let them out. During the rescue operation, the main objective is first to minimize the physical damage TAPP can inflict by lowering the tolerance required to eject the students (which is easier said than done) and by dampening its neural-carving functions, then to get everyone left out of there.

It is a very good thing they sprung into action as quickly as they did, as it doesn’t take long for Kaede to arrive.

KAEDE

The first thing Kaede notices coming out of the simulation is that she can’t hum the notes to get back on-pitch after the worst rendition of Der Flohwalzer she has ever heard. The second thing she notices, because it is far easier to be angry about something trivial than face the slow-dawning realization you are having, is that she can only barely speak. It hurts.

I think Kaede learns to sign early on, but still finds herself trying to speak aloud anyway since she’s so used to having her hands busy already playing piano. Shuichi often reminds her to take it easy, treat it like a vocal rest, and steadily she begins to improve. She is as exuberant as ever, with determination fitting of our protagonist. Kaede is the Class 79 representative, though with his renewed confidence Shuichi often accompanies her. Not only are they best friends (though it is strange, at first, to see her alive after spending so long grieving. Kaede last saw him, like, yesterday.) and Kaede will inevitably tell Shuichi all about the meeting anyway so why not cut out the middle man,  but Shuichi initially came specifically to speak at meetings so Kaede wouldn’t strain her voice. She is immensely proud.

RANTARO (PT. 2)

Rantaro doesn’t hold the shotput ball against her; desperate times, and all. It made sense her proactive attitude would make her first to act for the ‘greater good’. She aimed to end the whole thing, not just comply. Even if she swung and missed, he (an older brother with faint recollections of failing to protect the people depending on him and guilt knowing he doesn’t have the stomach to take a victim and thus will be failing people in need of protection again) can’t fault her for swinging. She is confused when he asks her how she launched the ball that hard, though. Odd.

TENKO

Tenko has neck pain issues like Kaede, but hers are more acute. The seesaw effect was heinous but relatively precise; as the magnum opus of TDR’s homebrewed serial killer, they un/fortunately made him pretty good at it when he has a plan. Tenko has some of the least devastating lingering physical injuries of the class. Given the severity of her classmates’ injuries, though, that still leaves her with minor vocal strain, susceptibility to sore throats, and severe neck pain, among other things.

A lot of Tenko’s lingering trauma is mental: she isn’t quite as willing to immediately throw herself into the fray to help her friends, and certainly doesn’t want to leave her back exposed (a tendency she shares with Kokichi, of all people). While it did numbers on her perception of men again for a while, hearing about the trial left her with a lot to reconcile. In a ‘cool-motive-still-murder’ way, she does not forgive Kiyo (nor is she obligated to) but doesn’t hate him as much as she expected, either. Processing the idea that a girl could be horribly abusive, especially to a guy, and catalyze a cycle of violence… gets to her. She’s more wrapped up in the tragedy of the entire situation than the righteous indignation that’d fueled her for so long. Everybody lost that day.

She’s pleasantly surprised to see Himiko trying to lift her spirits now. Those two have a lot to talk about and boundaries to set, yes, but Tenko is still touched Himiko took her words to heart and seems to be benefiting from it.

ANGIE

Angie had bit more complicated situation than Tenko, getting KO’d before the fatal blow. Her migraines come on more often than Rantaro’s with high light, which is a special kind of awful for the SHSL Artist, but they’re generally closer to a dull ache. Once she gets going on a project she sets out to grin and bear it; Tenko and Himiko often check up on her. She does her best to stay just as upbeat as in the simulation, and if anything it seems more genuine now. She can actually relax, rather than mind-game her way to relative (unsteady) peace under duress.

(Angie is really interesting to me for many adjacent reasons to Kokichi, since they’re both willing to get morally gray and manipulative if it’ll keep everyone from killing each other. Angie-Kokichi compare contrast essay when?)

She hasn’t “forgiven” Kiyo either, but isn’t hostile while she evaluates whether or not his conviction in getting help and being better is genuine. She was pretty heavily affected by TDR’s “character rewrites” as well, after all, and empathizes with the feeling you’ve been used as a glorified dress-up doll. To some unknowable extent, she is a different person now, and it is frightening.

She’s trying to step back and re-analyze her sense of spirituality, particularly how it relates to her art. It’s existentially harrowing, having been made to toe the line between faith and fronting to either get people to either listen to her or not see her as a threat. She’s not even positive “Kami-sama” (not going with the localization here, my understanding is the Japanese version was deliberately more generic and at least a bit less disrespectful towards real people and their beliefs) is the same deity she’d believed in before TAPP, but it’s difficult to try and reconnect with your roots when none of you have any information on your previous lives.

They do, at least, have a resident anthropologist that might have a clue how to even start looking.

Hah. They sure do, huh.

I think Angie is the type to nominally forgive and never, ever forget. She holds the kind of grudge that lives beyond logic as all the compartmentalized emotions you don’t want to admit you have. A grudge that co-exists with an active desire to move on and seeps into her art.

KOREKIYO

Kiyo got burned.

Alive.

Also dead, somehow, an extension of the Ultimate Placebo Effect we have going on in the simulation; Kiyo was so certain ghosts were real and he’d be one that, through earnest conviction, the simulation made it so. I think this is how Komaeda’s luck works in SDR2 as well; the original Neo World Program was developed for therapy, and in doing so assesses whether or not it would be completely devastating (do more harm than good) to actively disprove something about the patient’s worldview at that time and adapts the environment accordingly. Hence you get a reality-warping luck cycle and ghosts are Definitely Real. Is either true in the outside world? No idea! Komaru talks to a ghost in UDG, once, but considering it’s unclear if Kiyo’s sister was ever a living person to begin with there are bigger fish to fry.

Or not. He’s pretty damn-well aware much that hurts. Or at least being boiled and seasoned does. Going by that kind of simulator-logic, I think in a technical sense it was the salt that killed him, not the torture. There’s probably something to unpack there I haven’t fully explored yet.

Rumors start going around campus that Kiyo is a vampire. It makes enough sense for watercooler gossip, the mask covering up fangs and an aversion to lingering out in the sun; Class 79 knows it’s actually because sunburn, for him, is a new brand of Unfun. He prefers to hole up in the library or his lab anyway, so it could be worse. He’s honestly kind of into becoming a school cryptid. It helps transition him from “avoiding my classmates and other people because they hate me, i also hate me, and we are all correct to do so. i am an extension of her so it does not matter what i want” towards “i am not my past, i cannot make up for what ive done but i can move forward and be better, i am forging a new self and it is mine this time and it always should have been”.

(Kokichi is particularly proud of having kickstarted the cryptid thing. Of course Shinguji would love to watch the evolution of new local lore in real time! Now he doesn’t mope in the corner half as much. He’s still in the corner, granted, but its probably reading while Rantaro sits next to him on his phone instead of moping!)

Kiyo’s also in therapy now. They all have therapy scheduled into their school weeks, but Kiyo has a session besides. Fabrication or not, everyone’s backstories are functionally now ‘real’ and need to be dealt with. Kiyo, Maki, and Kokichi got hit particularly hard on that front. Those scars run deep, but are starting to heal.

Of the students with whole-body injuries, Kiyo probably has the most manageable physical symptoms at this stage. He has to have long sleeves and generally keep as covered as he can so that he can subdue the part of his mind that expects the skin is still raw and flaking (it isn’t, but phantom sensations suck). Overheating pushes him toward a panic state like the end of his trial, which doesn’t exactly gel with the first point, but he’s working on it. Rantaro and Kokichi, occasionally Shuichi, tend to notice and start to defuse the situation. Part of me wonders if he’d have a black lace parasol on sunny days to lean in to the ‘mystery’ around him, plus for the sheer Aesthetic of it.

KIRUMI

Speaking of full-body injuries: Kirumi. She has similar ‘got-to-keep-covered’ issues to Kiyo, particularly wearing heavier work gloves now just to minimize any potential for cuts (and, in the back of her mind, ropeburn). Breaking several bones on impact was rough, though fast enough that she’s had remarkable improvement in a relatively short period of time. She started out on crutches, which made it difficult for her to keep up with her workaholic inclinations, but unlike some of the other students she has at least an idea of “when to quit” as not to make things worse. She’s still genuinely lost some bone density resulting from her treatment and coping methods, finding that she really does need to lean on her friends on occasion, but she is still resolute she is a care-giver, damn it. On both physical and mental fronts she’s dealing with reclaiming her agency and independence.

Kirumi is one of the few, with Maki, whose talent courses actively discourage the kinds of behavior they need for personal growth and mental health maintenance. Kirumi is still reconciling her “rewrite”, the encoded passivity in her and clash of her “selfless devotion” against her own will to live and thrive, a nightmarish reminder that You Are Not Your Own. The “Ultimate” maid needs to be agreeable, to follow orders, and hasn’t the tampering just improved her proficiency at her craft? Why be so upset? Never mind having to reconstruct her proper ability to tell people “no”, having to re-learn it’s okay to do things for yourself; according to her programmed instinct, her classes, those very things are antithetical to her talent. And everything relies on that talent, doesn’t it?

Kirumi and Kokichi are the two in Class 79 who were discharged with mobility devices that got students in the other classes… more than mildly concerned about what the hell happened to all of these freshmen (well, first year at HPA anyway), but luckily for HPA administration they’re also probably the two people least likely to offer details.

THE RIBS

There are enough students who have chest pain and associated issues that they made a club about it. It started out as Miu, Ryoma, and Kaito all independently concluding there was no way in hell they were making it through a mile run and sitting on the bleachers. Once they’d had an opportunity to gather themselves again, they do as teens are wont to do and started talking to each other. Hypoxia is an oddly effective experience to bond over. They call themselves the RIBs, standing for “Respiratory-Issue Beleaguered” (students), mostly because it made Miu laugh and for as irritating as the sound could be they’d missed it.

Kaede, Tenko, Gonta, and Kokichi also stop by from time-to-time, meaning precisely half of the 14 active Class 79 students revolving-door through this unofficial student group. HPA took notice. Class 79 has its own gym class, now, taking into account the state of everyone. One could argue that should have been the case from the onset. They would be correct.

RYOMA

Ryoma is fairly elusive. He generally keeps to himself and remains a Fairly Chill Guy with a cool temperament everyone wants to emulate (he doesn’t see what they see in him) and some Complicated Feelings now knowing he hasn’t killed anyone in the certified Real World and, by logic, should not have to have the memories of a hardened prisoner. He still does.  The persistent rasp in his voice now surprises nobody, but it took a few days for everyone in the class to stop flinching a little hearing it. He frequently hangs out in the animal shed with Gonta, Gundham, and Peko to take care of the cats.

MIU

We’ve seen quite a bit of Miu in the AU so far, but to recap a lot of her deal:

She loathes having to “take it easy” but will do so reluctantly

She tries to talk less to stretch out her working time as much as she can (even if she can’t resist just a little banter when Kokichi swings by)

She’s trying to approach her death with a sense of humor. A choker with a huge heart-shaped buckle replaces her usual necklaces with full awareness of the irony. Ha-ha, a choker. It’s a dare for anybody to bring it up, ‘I’ve said it before anyone else could’. The first thing she did waking up was try and make an autoerotic asphyxiation joke. It did not make her feel better like she thought it would.

Miu spends most of her time in her lab, now. Granted, she did that already, but she’s particularly fixated on re-creating a certain Ultimate Robot, ground-up if she has to. Fortunately, she has a team assembled (re: two upperclassmen and the Ultimate Supreme Shit-for-brains). We’ll see how this pans out soon enough.

When not re-building Kiibo outright, she ““takes a break”” innovating in other areas (re: prototyping potential features for kIIbo, usually testing them on a bored Kokichi. He usually complies because Miu is one of the few who doesn’t look at him with a patronizing amount of pity she’s Not boring. Mm-hmm. All there is to it.)

Miu does not resent Gonta (or Kokichi, for that matter) for killing her. There's a small extent to which she's a little relieved she was stopped from going through with her plan to kill Kokichi, and a much bigger disconnect between her idea of reality and her memory of Chapter 4. Miu died in a VR game within another VR game. Having messed around with the programming and guts of the nested simulation personally, it still seems fake. She didn't really die, no matter how real it felt; they were in a simulation. Logically, she's well aware of how it works and the consequences, but it doesn't feel like it was more than a glorified fever dream on an emotional level. Both Gonta and Kokichi are more outwardly traumatized by her death than Miu as a byproduct of how she's processing it. She's not "better off" or "less impacted" so much as "disassociated from the whole thing and very much wanting to put it behind them before it catches up with her", thus burying herself in work and trying as hard as she can to bring back the one person she wants to comfort her.

Kiibo's absence is not great for her abandonment issues. It is hard to blame him when he never had a physical body to begin with, though. 

GONTA

Gonta is also with the RIBs, and reeling from it the most visibly of everyone on account of just how. Much, his death was. An allergic reaction blocking off the air, puncturing at least one lung for certain, and living long enough to feel the shrapnel of the laptop lodge into the wound alongside the scythe, the fire quickly eating away any oxygen, any hope of gasping another breath… yeah no he acts as much the gentleman as ever but he is not okay. As Resident Buff Nature Boy Gonta tanked it better than anyone else in the class could have, but the sheer excess of the thing gets to him. Fond memories of setting a campfire in the woods with his adoptive family are overwritten, vespidae in general… hitting differently. But Gonta is kind, to a fault. More resolute than ever to make himself into a kind of person not perceived as ‘too intimidating’ to be friends with, acknowledging the capacity he has for violence is difficult. Somewhere deep down he knows that everybody does, especially in their circumstances, but still acts as though his case is exceptionally bad (nobody else does. This does not deter him, becoming a little less gullible when its least helpful).

He is also not as disconcerted by the occasional spontaneous sensation that your insides are going to lose structural integrity, even with no stitches to pop, that with only the damaged wake and no piercing sharp pain to focus on and blame for the mess could potentially be perceived as a bizarre, abstracted kind of crawling feeling from the inside-out. Things in motion, displaced from where they are meant to be. He knows it isn’t bugs, isn’t glass and metal and plastic, that it isn’t anything but himself. A teeny-tiny part of him wishes it were. At least being shelter for a hive of some sort would be helpful. Aren’t gentlemen helpful, they improve life for people, make things better and how could anyone even look at you again knowing what you’re capable of, who in their right mind would talk to you, you’re going to end up alone again talking to stray cats in the alley since not even the wolves would stay—

Gonta also has extra therapy. He already had to work out self-worth issues, but the game pushed them to interfere too much in daily life not to actively work on.

KAITO

Kaito has made several background and supporting appearances without much central attention just yet. It's not that I don't like him or anything (I do!) but I guess because it seems like well-worn territory in V3 fic to me? Kaito is endlessly proud of Maki and Shuichi (Himiko too, less personally) for "winning" in the face of the killing game, and the training trio of them meet back up again regularly. Only.

It's different, now. 

He's no longer sick and dying, but his lungs 'top out' at a certain level of activity and refuse to take in more air, this burning sensation that leaves him only able to huff and wheeze and brings his training regiment to a dead stop. He treasures those last moments in his failed execution where he got to see the stars, because a lingering anxiety in the back of his mind won't let him forget that he never will again. Not the way he'd dreamed of, the way he'd planned to, the way he'd centered his identity around. There is no way, as things are, that he will pass all the physical exams to become a proper astronaut. 

The drawn-out deterioration of his health during the simulation chipped away at his physical lungs at a rate too gradual for the countermeasures the rescue team implemented; TAPP did more overt physical damage to Kaito than anyone else. It could certainly be worse and he is gradually improving, but some degree of it is permanent. It haunts him. He's trying not to think about it.

It does, though, drive a wedge between him and his sidekicks; the survivors are planning their futures, and Kaito is not too far from a slight tailspin without any idea what his might look like for the first time he can recall. Space has been the dream since he was a kid (as has getting there in this specific role) and it almost feels like a rejection. Like he got too cocky, and the cosmos decided it didn't want him. 

It starts to make a little more sense, then, that he starts willingly hanging out with Kokichi. They went through the hangar together, of course, but even besides the traumabond (and a need to, after he woke from his coma, make sure the little brat is still alive, damn it, you can't run away anymore it counts now) but. If anyone else gets having such drastically shifted circumstances that life as you'd imagined it no longer makes logistical sense, it's probably the leader without an organization. There's no need to explain the feelings of inadequacy, or the aimlessness, going through the motions of classes and formal education because what the hell else am I going to do, right now? It's familiar. 

Kokichi needs someone willing to chase him, no matter how circuitous the route becomes. Kaito needs someone willing to shake him by the shoulders and snap him out of his own head, so sure it's all-or-nothing and that if he can't be the Luminary as he'd dreamed of it whatever happens next is immaterial in comparison. Kaito needs to adapt and roll with the punches, Kokichi needs to double back from his logical leaps from point A to point Q and articulate his thoughts clearly to other people (at least some of the time.) The two of them concoct little daily and weekly rituals, like Kokichi stealing Kaito's notebook and drawing in it, just because the consistency of company reminds them both that they aren't the only one going through this. 

None of the other students quite get it, but have come to accept it.

KOKICHI

Then there’s Kokichi.

Ah, Kokichi, whose whole deal in this scenario inspired me to write about this AU at all (and who manages to weasel his way into every comic and a other entries in these notes) . I’m biased, I know, but there are also a few reasons he’s singled out in-universe as well:

A) So a hydraulic press does not slam down quickly. The pause-and-play of the video deliberately makes it look much faster than it was; watching enough of the hydraulic press channel makes it abundantly clear that it was not instant. Kokichi was impaled with two crossbow bolts (the one in the back being bad enough already), poisoned by those bolts, and then pressed. He had to have felt non-zero of the Pressing, which, considering it already had to be agony before bones started breaking… the rest of the class might not have been fond of him, sure, but he’s right there with Gonta on “sheer level of excess.” Not even Maki is at a point of wishing that on him. Not after finding out how drawn out and excruciating it was. Veering into headcanon, I’m going to add “sleep deprivation” on the pile as exacerbating the whole thing, given his conspiracy whiteboard and everything after the concussion, honestly.

Combined with the World’s Worst Placebo Effect, King Horse takes the crown for top “my entire body hurts most of the time” severity. It’s not a desirable one, but when your previous life is all but erased there is exactly one choice available between Big and Home. Let it be said Kokichi Ouma has never half-assed anything he’s set his mind to, ever.

B) Ouma is paranoid and distrusting, which adds the psychological angle of “you literally shot me in the back” to a poison-laced crossbow bolt in his mind. TAPP will very literally never let him forget the bolt burying itself in the muscle of his back, barely kept from severing his spinal cord; he won’t forget the shivering and shaking from the poison, or the bile rising in the back of his throat handing Kaito the antidote. (He still wanted to live. He forfeit the right, he thought, after getting Gonta and Miu killed, but he still wanted to. That was all the more reason to quadruple-down on the press idea and making their three deaths mean something, damn it. Three, because Kaito could live. If the killing game ends there is no execution. It’ll be over. Can’t take back the past, but at least one of the pair of you has to walk out of this forsaken place!)

(… Can you really believe that? Or is it just another lie.

A lie you want, with all the heart they’re so sure you do not have, to blithely believe. There has to be a cure for whatever the hell has gotten into Kaito once the game ends and they can look for it, it might even stop cold the moment the game ends. That dumbass space cadet can go back to his sidekicks and he better appreciate it, the comradery you’ll never have, because he is the designated Hero and Heroes get happy endings. You want-want-want-want to trust in that lie, to trust him with the collected thoughts and notes and pieces of you spilled across reams of paper that have been so pointlessly important for you to keep secret this whole time. For once in your life, you want to believe you will not be betrayed. You want to believe in the closest thing you have left to a friend.

It will, in fact, be the last thing you do.)

C) Ouma is paranoid and distrusting. Again. Only this flavor has more to do with his persistent denial anything is wrong, in turn making things a lot worse for himself. Mental trauma and impressions of physical sensations can have physical effects. Clinging to his persona and trying to keep bouncing around like nothing ever happened turned a very difficult but potentially manageable condition into small amounts of permanent nerve damage within the first day of waking up. It screws with his coordination; just what he needed at a school that prizes talent above all else, when he is a leader with no organization and proficiencies in sleight of hand, forgery, lockpicking, and generally evading anything that might threaten him because he can’t take very many hits.

Whoops.

D) Kokichi was last of the class to wake up from the simulation, even after the survivors. They thought he was actually dead for a bit. Just when they were thinking of  giving up on him Kokichi Ouma, SHSL Stubborn Son of a Bitch, refuses to stay down for the count.

HPA already knew Class 79 would need accommodations on account of their negligence, but it became much harder to sweep things under the rug when they thought they’d actually killed a student. Even worse, thirteen witnesses have been actively fraternizing and scaled the flashback-gaslighting required to cover it up to easily exceed what their current technology is capable of.

Half the class was positive Ouma was playing dead specifically to fuck with them and light the fire under them to act. He and Kaito are the only ones to know without a shred of doubt that he was not. He still gladly takes the credit, though.

E) Class 79 as a whole already adapted to Ouma Being Ouma, so when the definition of ‘Being Ouma’ expanded he’s still pretty distinct. He hangs out around the people closest to him often, particularly Miu, Kaito, and Rantaro, but the entire class knows now that he’s pretty much beyond the point of perfidy. Even if he were to lie about being in more pain than he is at a given moment, there’s constantly enough underlying truth in how vulnerable he is that it’s not strategically worth trying to use as a manipulative tactic. It’s too real. Plus, he knows better than to boy-that-cried-wolf his way out of help from his classmates after getting lost on campus once and fainting before he found his way back.

K1-B0

K1-B0, as far as has been established, is being re/built. Miu is spearheading the project. Presumably, he is currently hanging out on at least one computer in the school, somewhere. Per the AU, though, Chapter 6 did go a bit differently than canon, so we’ll catch up with him soon.

TSUMUGI

Nobody is exactly certain what happened to Shirogane. Or, at the very least, nobody in the class knows. Admin is certainly not about to tell them. Wouldn’t it be just like the Ultimate Cosplayer to Theseus her way back into their lives following a single loose thread…

THE SURVIVORS

Shuichi, Maki, and Himiko each emerged from the simulation minimally physically harmed in a lasting sense beyond initial fatigue from being hooked up for so long. Each is still moving forward on their established character arc: Himiko is finding her motivation, Maki is learning to open up, and Shuichi is becoming more sure of himself and his detective abilities.

I think Himiko begins embracing the 'stage' side of her magic, considering that TAPP was blocking my mana, and you know what? I survived a killing game, and I didn't even need it. What else can I do without my mana? As time goes on, she'll likely value her own practical skills more rather than relying on her want of more fantastical powers. Not to say she'd disown them, but more that she could admit to herself it's more for fun than a need to affix something exceptional to her identity. She is enough as she is.

Maki enters HPA and immediately requests transfer out of 'Ultimate Assassin' classes. She hates fighting, per canon, and after going through the simulation she is no longer afraid of any authority figure that may deny her because she has certifiably seen worse. She initially tries to pivot and become the Ultimate Child Caregiver, for Real This Time; she is genuinely pretty good with kids. After a little incident nearly choking Kokichi, though? It confirms what she'd been afraid of all along: her patience is too thin, her instinct to defend too heavy on the trigger. She talks to Peko about it, among other people, Mukuro and Sakura chief among the other classes. She'd made their acquaintances during combat training in the first few days at HPA. She especially confides in Kaede, who carries a more-domestic-less-battlescorn perspective on it she can't help but appreciate. Kaede takes her to not-Claire's, playing with accessories and make-up and generally reclaiming some of the girlhood Maki has effectively never been allowed to have. In the whole process, Maki realizes she wants more than anything to protect the ability to have that kind of frivolity, that freedom: she changes tracks again, to become a SHSL Bodyguard.

Shuichi is a difficult one to place for me, exactly. He's in a state of becoming significantly more confident in the wake of the simulation, but the deviation from canon has turned the main conflict away from ending a destructive cycle and towards fighting the idea of predetermination by an external force. Shirogane was predetermined to stay in the Reserve Course despite her skills and aspirations, and railed against it; Kiibo was predetermined to be an AI helper and not a person, but embraced the role so hard he developed a soul of his own; Maki denies her talent and changes her destiny, Himiko embraces hers.

I suppose Saihara must fall somewhere in the middle, then. An observer steadfastly declaring that yes, there were aspects of life shaped for them beyond their control (entry into the simulation if they wanted a taste of success, the killing game, the "character rewrites" overriding the people they were before...) and yes they cannot control everything. What happened has happened. There are always going to be things you can't control (like how severely you burn in the sun, or whether you get headaches with the lights up too high, or even if your dream life rockets away too fast for you to catch unless you want to lose what you still have) but you can adapt to it. It's tempting to give in, to consider it all a lost cause, to submit to the forces you feel are puppeting you, but see. You keep living anyway, because you have to. The only way forward is through. Even if you were a puppet, you're still an independent you, and that means something. Maybe you can't snap your strings, but you can sure as hell stretch them out and bend them in a way you like better than this one.

Not having total control doesn't mean the control you do have doesn't matter.

So Shuichi is taking up cases as a detective, now. Seeing how he likes it. If not? Well. Skills are transferable. 

He'll be okay.

They all will.

----

(The first screenshot I took of this ask to begin drafting vs. the last one:

I'm sorry I am bad at timely responses but I hope they are Good.)

[topgunreacts]

Here's a hilariously self-centered comment for everyone to enjoy

I got this at the end of a chapter where I remind people that launching their amateur Kirkus Reviews career in the comments of a fanfiction without being asked is rude as fuck. (Not Top Gun. I made the author's note after a person reacted with utter scandal and dismay to ONE sentence referencing a protag sleeping with someone outside the pairing before they even met)

Highlights

"Hmm"

"Ffn encourages criticism so writers can improve" Girl WHAT. ~*~fanfiction dot com has a culture of criticism~*~ WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT. ITS CULTURE IS YAOI, BAD SEX, AND WORSE FORMATTING

The assumption that everyone is writing fanfiction "to improve" [in a way this person approves of, naturally]. Sorry, some people post things that are full of mistakes because they don't give a shit, and neither should you! Click that back button, babe!

"Maybe the people over at ffn are more the university grad type?" LASKDJFLASK girl PLEASE for the love of god give me some of what you're smoking. This is my favorite line. It is shirt-worthy

Big Cringe[tm] all around

"Your talk of hurt feelings strikes me as kinda immature" is this flirting

"HMM"

"It could be a difference in educational background and/or age" oh my goooood the Cringe. The condescension. The possibility that this wasn't even MEANT to be mean, but EARNEST, which is even more Cringe.

I'M the one being immature. The 20+ year fandom veteran informing people that critiquing fanworks without solicitation is and always has been rude as fuck. Not you, the oblivious, self-important grad student condescending to me because you think I ought to expect and desire [yours, naturally] criticism.

The implication that I am less educated than they are. I'm willing to bet the possibility I could be more educated did not even cross their mind.

The absolutely unsubtle classism dripping from every word

And while we're critiquing without asking, (and treating judgment of people's writing as the Default Reading Experience) I will point out the spelling of "caveat" as "creveate" despite the fact that this comment was edited at least once. Come onnnnnnn.

They didn't even criticize anything! Their single comment on this story before I replied, froze the thread as a monument to their sins, blocked them, and nailed their corpse to the wall, was THIS. They spent time saying THIS instead of literally anything else. An undesired opinion, responding to my post about not wanting undesired opinions.

Pitiful.

Literary critique is a skill. It is not a selection of negative observations written using big words. It is not a list of likes or dislikes. It is not suggestion itself. It is a skill, and a difficult one to develop at that. The fact that your English teachers always made you "peer edit" other students' essays does not make you a real critic. Go to the bars and calm the fuck down. Talk to a single human being who isn't also in your ENG 680 class.

[thoughtfullyrainynightmare]

Fuegoleon headcanons be upon ye, Laura~!

-Fuegoleon, and the whole Fire Vermillion family, are big on group bathing for the bonding aspect. -He's the type of man to wear just a bit of cologne everyday. Something cheaper for everyday and something more refined for special occasions. -Theresa taught him the egg-cooking trick as a method for training his mana control. -I imagine Fuegoleon as a tea drinker over a coffee drinker. Not opposed to getting coffee with a co-worker or partner though. -Was a little self conscious about the eye markings when he first got them (or they manifest? Still don't know.) He grew into them thankfully. -I dunno what it is but Fuegoleon has the vibes of adjusting his sleeves by bending his arms up, closer to his face, rather than holding them down (if that makes sense). It's such a small detail but I just got the idea... -I'm very on the idea that Salamander uses a fireplace in Fuegoleon's room as its nest. Fuegoleon finds different types of wood to put in to see if Salamander likes one in particular. -If he had an artistic pastime, I'd say it'd be a bit of writing. He's not one for writing full stories, but he sometimes sits down and just writes how he observes a space in great, artistic detail. He's great at describing a setting because he's so observant. -In a slow dance, I think he'd like to twirl his partner. It's a dynamic and fun movement to throw into a dance in his opinion.

Erikaa~! ❤️🔥

Yes! It's a bit like going to sauna in Finland. It's a bonding activity that one does. It feels nice. (And because this is the internet, I feel the need to point out that there's nothing sexual about it.)

Oh definitely, and it blends in with his natural scent so well that it's difficult to notice, but he does wear soemthing each day.

Now this is a good question, because they do manifest, but... Are they there from birth? Or later? Mama Vermillion spill the beans! (Because I hold onto the HC that it's inherited via the maternal lineage, so Mereo's kids would have it, but not Fue's or Leo's). But poor baby! 😭 Trust me they're gorgeous 🥺❤️🔥

No but this is a valid way of adjusting them, because you want the sleeves to be covering your arms even when your arms are bent. And usually when people are going about, their arms aren't completely straight all the time. Even while hanging next to your body there's a small bend. Mutual and peer reviewed and approved!

Idk why but I think Sal might like Birch wood smell. But also Birch is a good wood for heating. It's usually preferred, at least in Finland, for burning in fireplaces. In any case, this makes me smile ^^

There's something about this HC that's rotating in my brain. While I don't see him as a storyteller per se, him writing down little lines maybe even poems, does tickle my interest.

Awww~ as long as it's not enough to make one dizzy! We can't all be spinda. 😆

[offbeatcappuccino]

very hungry caterpillar ~ may december ramblings (not spoiler free)

This is not a kdrama review lol

It has been eons since I watched anything in the English language, let alone film. However, TikTok compelled me to watch Todd Haynes' May December starring Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore, and Charles Melton (of Riverdale fame). The movie centers around Elizabeth Berry, an actress, who visits Gracie Atherton Yoo and Joe Yoo, in preparation for her next movie role, where she will be playing Gracie. Joe and Gracie are loosely based on the Vili Fualaau and Mary Kay Letourneau case, where the 34 year old Letourneau was arrested on second degree rape charges for her sexual relationship with her twelve year old student, Fualaau. Similar to their real life counterparts, the 35 year old Gracie, is arrested and imprisoned when she is caught having sex with thirteen year old Joe in the storage room of the pet store that they both were employees of.

Interestingly, the title of the movie, May December, is a reference to the idiom used to describe two individuals that have a considerable age gap and are in a romantic relationship together. Nearly 23 years and three kids later, it seems that the past is behind for the couple, as they build an idyllic marriage for themselves in the small town of Savannah. Their first child, Honor, is in college, while the twins, Mary and Charles, are set to graduate high school. Elizabeth visits the couple at a critical period of their life as this would be the first time in their marriage that they would be living together without the children.

Entire essays can be written about the jarring musical score, satire, the intersectional dynamics of race and gender, and the relationship between actor and subject. However, as a viewer, what I found most fascinating about the film was Joe Yoo, played wonderfully by Charles Melton ( who has been nominated for a Critics Choice award and I would not be surprised if he received an Oscar nod). Many film critics and netizens liken Melton's portrayal of Joe to that of a stunted thirteen year old boy stuck in a 36 year old man's body. This description perfectly illustrates Joe's personality. Being hyper-sexualized and lusted after by a predatory white woman, Joe's innocence and childhood are stripped from him and he's forced to mature at a rate far faster than his peers. At an age when he's supposed to be in school and pursuing his ambitions, he is burdened with the responsibilities of becoming a father to three children. Yet, despite these circumstances, there is something inherently child-like about Joe.

This is reflected in his relationship with Gracie, which is obviously far from equal. There's this constant state of cognitive dissonance for the audience as we are expected to accept Gracie and Joe as husband and wife when their relationship resembles that of a meek child and his overbearing mother (it's nauseating to even suggest this considering the nature of their relationship, but I can't think of a better term tbh). A constant theme in the film is Joe being ordered around by Gracie to do all of the mundane errands from picking up the takeout to grilling the hot dogs for the family barbecue. There's one scene that particularly exemplifies this in the beginning when Gracie and Joe are getting ready to go to bed after the barbecue. Gracie complains that Joe stinks because of the smoke from the grill and what she would have wanted for him was to have showered before he got in to bed. Much like a child yearning for his mother's approval, Joe hastily and desperately takes off his shirt and cleans himself with the glass of water on their nightstand. Solidifying the disturbing lack of autonomy that Joe possesses and his sickening reality is that Joe is the same age and was previously a classmate of Georgie, Gracie's son from her first marriage.

Throughout the movie we see how the dual realities of parentification and grooming work together to internally break Joe. This juxtaposes his hobby of growing monarch butterflies to combat their extinction. What's intriguing about his hobby is that butterflies have a very systematic and tightly regulated life cycle. First, they are eggs, then they are caterpillars, before they emerge from their chrysalises as butterflies. There is no skipping around with butterflies. All of these steps must be completed in this exact order. This is a direct contrast to Joe, who became a parent and a husband before an adult. In a way, his hobby is a yearning for what Joe wishes his life could have been. As the story progresses, we see this realization become more real as Joe develops a sense of awareness and an ability to critically evaluate his past. When he smokes marijuana for the first time with his teenage son, we see the first display of emotion as he has a tearful outburst as he struggles to verbalize that he is worried that something bad will happen to Charlie, much like what happened to him when he was much younger than his son is now. There is a slow internal accumulation of emotions in Joe as he finally confronts Gracie in the end, expressing concern that the version of his past that he was groomed to believe in is not congruent with the truth. Despite Gracie's efforts to gaslight and guilt Joe, it is clear that he refuses to budge. In contrast to the first bedroom scene, where Joe tries desperately to appease Gracie, he does not run after the end when she angrily storms out of their bedroom.

The next morning it's the twins' graduation and it coincidentally also becomes the day that his caterpillar breaks out of its chrysalis and becomes a grown butterfly. There's a sense of contentment and pride in Joe's face as he releases the butterfly. The last time we see him, he's in tears watching his children graduate, but instead of being on the stands with Gracie and the rest of the family, he watches from afar behind a fence. We don't know much of Joe's fate at the end of the movie, but for me the final scene symbolizes his desire to distance himself from Gracie and discover what he could've been.

Films like May December emphasize how patriarchy harms not only women, but also men, particularly those of color like Joe. Men are perceived to be aggressors and initiators and the politics of consent is not as nuanced as it should be for them. It are these perceptions of masculinity, which allow Gracie to manipulate him into believing that he was the one who seduced her and "that he was in charge of their relationship." May December also speaks to the unique privilege that white women have has historically in American society, which is to be the victim even when they are the perpetrators. Despite the heinousness of her transgression, it is Gracie's whiteness, which allows her to exist in not only normalcy but the sympathy of those around her because she was able to convince those around her including Joe that she was simply a victim of unconventional love. On the other hand, in this process, Joe becomes fetishized and disenfranchised of his childhood.

Rate: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️/5

[jupiterjames]

Hi! I saw your insurance call and am in awe! Also looking for advice, but if you don't have the spoons feel free to ignore! I recently got my fallopian tubes removed and since my insurance is ACA-compliant they have to cover it 100% but they don't want to. I've called multiple times, sent a written complaint I'm waiting to hear back from, but do you have any advice on how to deal with it?

As a former insurance lackey, yes I might be able to place some stones here! Disclaimer as always, this isn't legal or medical advice since I'm not your rep, blah blah. Okay!

So, few things. There are definitely differences between "don't want to cover" and "refuse to cover." Now, since you mentioned they are ACA-compliant, then they are most likely refusing to cover and it COULD be for a variety of reasons.

1) They determined the procedue was not medically necessary.

2) Your doctor/hospital/someone in billing somewhere coded the procedure wrong on the claim, thus allowing the "must cover" to "doesn't need to cover."

3) Someone failed a step in the approval and/or pre-approval process which allowed insurance to deny out of hand.

4) Whoever processed the claim done fucked up and rejected it due to human error.

Now, in 3 out of 4 scenarios, the solution is the same. Filing a compliant does sweet fuck-all. Filing an APPEAL forces them to respond, usually by reevaluating or at least resubmitting the claim internally.

HOWEVER, if the procedure was coded wrong (which doctors and admins at hospitals do all the ding dong day), then you need to speak to the billing and coding to get the hospital or doctor to resubmit the claim wirh the proper codes that will trigger acceptance of the claim for ACA-compliance.

If the claim was rejected out of clinician review at the insurance company as being medically unnecessary or "elective" NOW you need to call the doctor who ordered the procedure, and have them call your insurance for a peer to peer review of the case. That can overturn the rejection because WOW doctors don't like being told by someone who hasn't even looked at your charts, that they're wrong. And they'll fight about it.

And if a paperwork error like improper coding, not getting the necessary pre-approvals, etc. is the issue, then you can absolutely contact your providers and get that fixed and get copies of all pre-approvals plus your records of the medical necessity to file a formal appeal with your insurance if they're gonna be particularly stubborn.

I know this sounds like a lot and a pain in the ass (it is) but an appeal form can usually be found on your insurer's website (if they're a bigger one. Smaller ones you might have to call or email for the form) and are straightforward. But doing that part, even if you don't have all the backing evidence you need yet, is IMPERATIVE to do within whatever timeframe your insurer allows for appeals. There is ALWAYS a time limit, and filing in a timely manner also hits the pause button on them trying to collect payment until a decision is rendered. Ideally. Not saying some insurers aren't super shitty about harassing you for payment regardless. But they SHOULDN'T with an active appeal.

Since I don't know specifically what happened with your claim (and please don't tell me if you do know, as I am a stranger on the internet and you should protect your PPI and HIPPA info as much as possible), I can't really point you in a solid direction, but a good first step is seeing how the procedure was coded and if a coding error is the issue first. That's easiest to fix if your care team doesn't suck at paperwork because they will get everything redone and resubmitted for you.

I hope this helps and isn't super confusing and that you recover well and stay as healthy as possible!

[she-karev]

Mama Bear

Age Rating: 12+

Chapters: One of Three

Fandom: Grey’s Anatomy

Canon Season and Episode: Season 19 Episode 8

AN: Hey guys this chapter is set five months after the last story and will focus on Amber and Andrew’s new role as working parents. The next two parts will be posted over the next two days so hand tight and I always appreciate a like and reblog.

Summary: Amber comes back to work after maternity leave and finds out that Owen and Teddy’s daughter, Allison bit Pru and Lucy.

Words: 5022

I slowly open my eyes as the morning light hits me from the curtains. I’m in bed wearing Andrew’s white button down and my underwear after we got Lucy down and she slept for 8 hours straight. I think she knew today was mommy’s first day back after maternity leave and decided to show mercy. I grab my phone charging on my nightstand and see it’s about an hour before my alarm goes off. I put the phone down and hit my head on the pillow looking to get some more rest. However, an arm snakes around my ribs telling me I’m not gonna go back to sleep.

I can feel Andrew curling himself against my back and kissing my cheek, “Buongiorno bella.”

I groan tiredly, “Don’t speak Italian. I need to get as much sleep as I can and you speaking Italian is gonna make me want to wake up and use all my energy on you.”

Andrew chuckles still spooning me and defies me, “Okay…Ma ti bacero comunque per molto tempo.” (Translation: But I’m still gonna kiss you for a good long time.) He continues kissing my cheek and works his way down the side of my neck nipping me causing me to moan softly and grin despite my previous attempt to shoo him away.

“I’m nervous enough as it is leaving our daughter in daycare while I go back to work since I went on maternity leave. And people are gonna be underestimating my abilities as a surgeon thinking that motherhood has made me soft.”

Andrew kisses my head and grins, “You know someone once told me that sexual intercourse is a really great remedy to reduce stress and nerves.”

I laugh at his ridiculous attempts to get back in the saddle, “Is this peer reviewed or is this just a way to take advantage of alone time while the baby is asleep?”

“...Can’t it be both?” I grin at him mischievously before pushing him on his back and straddle him surprising him, “Whoa, I could wake up like this every day.”

I lean forward till we’re face to face and speak in a low husky voice, “I know you could, but this feels like a special occasion and I don’t want to waste it. We make it quick and we make it good.”

Andrew rumbles in his throat in approval, “Yes ma’am.” I lean forward to kiss him. We make out passionately ready to take things further when Lucy crying over the baby monitor stops us. I pull back and groan at her bad timing as does Andrew who slumps his head back on the pillow annoyed, “I’m not quick enough for us to get that in time.”

I pat his chest in comfort and get off him to get out of bed. I walk to the pale pink nursery across the hall rubbing my tired eyes. I open them to find Carina already in the room reaching down the fancy white crib and putting the crying baby in her arms. Lucia is in a white onesie with strawberry pattern and already has a puff of dark brown hair on top of her soft head. Carina rocks the baby gently singing to her and Lucia is still crying telling me she’s hungry.

I take Lucia from Carina’s arms, “Hi sweetheart it’s time for breakfast let’s go to the kitchen oh yes.” I walk to the kitchen where there are baby bottles everywhere as well as formula. Carina is following me no doubt already attached to her niece.

My sister-in-law moved in with us a few weeks ago after Maya kicked her out when Carina put a 5150 on her when she tried to leave the hospital despite being at risk for a heart attack. The morning after she came to our house in tears carrying a suitcase asking for a place to stay. Now she’s spending her free days in our home helping with the baby no doubt finding joy where she can while her marriage is falling apart. I feel bad for her I do and I appreciate the help but at this point it’s like she’s raising the baby with us.

“If you want, I can take her into daycare before I drive to the clinic. It can give you some time to rest.” Carina offers over Lucy’s screams.

I take the bottle of breast milk out of the fridge and cradle Lucy so she can eat. As soon as the tip is over her mouth she quiets and gets to work eating, “It’s fine Carina me and Andrew can take her in. Once I’m up fully I have a hard time getting back down, thankfully this little girl didn’t get that from me.”

Andrew walks in wearing his black t shirt and jeans, “Yep because by now we would’ve dropped her off at an adoption agency.” He starts the coffee machine.

I coo at the baby who is peacefully drinking her milk, “Wait the clinic? I thought Bailey’s clinic was postponed due to budget issues?”

Carina sighs, “It is I’m going to the clinic at the station and helping with patients.” I look up surprised at her as does Andrew and she notices, “What?”

I continue feeding Lucy as I explain, “I didn’t think you’d want to go there today after um...well after-”

“My wife kicked me out and told me our marriage was over?” Carina finishes.

Andrew clears his throat, “We were trying to tread carefully but yeah. You know Warren is a doctor and I can go in and cover for you if you want.”

Carina shakes her head, “Thank you but it’s important work and I am not gonna abandon those patients. Maya is not gonna take that from me.”

I grin at her positive attitude, “Have you two talked since that night?”

“Nope, I tried texting and calling her to see if she’s okay but it goes straight to voicemail. Also, I don’t know if she’s in the station today so it’s either gonna be a bad or worse day for me.”

Andrew stirs his coffee with a serious face, “Do you want me to kick her ass if she’s in?”

“Baby in the room honey.” I remind him and Lucy finishes her breakfast, “I highly doubt they’ll let a woman who thrashed in her hospital bed and had a cardiac event come into a fire station anyway. But in the event, they do you know where to find me and I can shoot breast milk in her eyes as payback.”

Carina chuckles, “I will call you if it comes down to that. Thank you both but I am okay I will be okay it’s a day to save lives and I am doing that.”

“Amen sister.” I wipe Lucy’s mouth, “Today is a good day for me too. Not only am I getting back to work but we’re also treating a celebrity, Jermaine Talbott.” I smile at that as Carina looks at me confused, “Number one draft pick for the Seattle Seahawks? Has tackles and sacks that rivals Tom Brady? Come on how do you not know this?”

Carina shrugs, “I’ve been in this country for five years and football to me is when you kick the soccer into the net.”

“Okay I don’t have time to educate you I gotta get ready.” I walk to Andrew and hand him Lucy, “Can you take care of her while I shower and we can drop her off at daycare?”

“Yeah of course it gives me time to spend with my favorite daughter before I go into a six-hour surgery.” He holds her over his shoulder and kisses her cheek. I walk away before I get caught up in her cuteness so I can get ready for my first day back at work.

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

We walk down the hall towards the daycare with Lucy in a stroller I push anxious about leaving her. I know it’s not a bad thing for me to leave her in daycare while I work. All the parents say it’s a great program and the nurses are super nice and text pictures of the babies. I know it’s a good thing for me to go back to work so I can be a good role model for my daughter and she can be inspired to change the world as she grows.

“Okay Lucy mommy and daddy are gonna be saving lives while you play with the other kids all day.” Lucy looks at us blankly with her blue eyes while wearing a pink onesie that says princess, white pants and a white hat, “Don’t look at me like that you’ll know the pressures of being an adult when the time comes and you’ll know mommy was strong to leave you in daycare despite how cute you are and how much I’m gonna miss you. I love you sweetie but I also love being a doctor too.”

Andrew grins as we stop outside the daycare ready to check in standing behind Alex and Jo who are with Luna in a stroller, “Now Lucy don’t worry if anything goes wrong today and that is a very big if, mommy and daddy are only a 30 second elevator ride away. And you have your cousin Luna in there to keep you company, right Luna?”

Jo awes at Lucy, “Hi Lucy. Oh, I remember when I first dropped off Luna at daycare, I was a mess. But don’t worry it gets better and back then she didn’t have a cousin to play with.”

Alex checks Luna in and the orderlies take her inside as he stands next to us, “You got nothing to worry about sis, the people taking care of her are some of the best pediatric nurses in the hospital. Plus, they text you pictures and updates.” Alex hands the clipboard to Andrew to check her in.

“Okay if you have trouble putting her down try The Beatles or AC/DC both of those works like a charm and in case we’re in surgery and don’t answer, my sister’s cell is here and she can come right down.” Andrew explains to the orderlies who take the stroller from me and I whimper at the separation. I grip Alex’s upper arm in anxiety so tightly he yells out in pain.

I inhale, “Okay I’m in the pit all day so can the three of you rotate to hop up here and check on her every ten minutes?” They all say no to my ire and Jo stands in front of me with a reassuring grin.

“Okay Amber take a deep breath.” Jo takes a deep breath and I follow, “And out.” We do that, “This is a good thing, it’s good for her to see you work and achieve that way she can do the same and become supreme justice of the court. It’s good for her to see mommy work and she knows she is always on your mind no matter what. Drill that into your head and you might just end the day feeling good about yourself. Okay?”

I nod, “Okay...here I go off to save the world.” I walk away from the daycare and take a deep inhale to steady myself before starting my first day.

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I discharged a patient with a broken arm to a private room leaving the pit empty. I go over the charts and see Adams, Millin and Yasuda approaching me with eager faces no doubt hungry for surgery.

Adams greets me first, “Welcome back Dr. DeLuca if there’s anything you need to ease back into work after maternity leave, I would be more than happy to help.”

I look up at him with narrow eyes, “Are you doubting my abilities to fully come back to work Dr. Adams?” Millin and Yasuda look amused at how Adams already made me angry while he looks sheepish.

“Oh no, no absolutely not I-I just thought that-”

“You like so many other males immediately assume that just because I had a baby, I cannot do my exceptionally difficult and time-consuming job. I went into labor and pushed a ten-ounce beautiful baby from my vagina, it’s not like I went on a sabbatical to Antarctica. With that being said, Adams you will take beds 1 to 4, Millin 5-9 and Yasuda the rest. Report to me if you have any questions.”

“But the beds are empty.” Adams states.

“You think I don’t have eyes?” I snap and he keeps his mouth shut, “We work in a busy city in the center of the population odds are there’s bound to be at least one patient coming in every 10 minutes and when that happens, I expect you all the treat them accordingly and not give unnecessary surgical hours just because you are greedy to cut. Nod if you understand.” They all nod, “Great get to work and get the beds and charts ready for our future patients.”

I turn to the station and hear them bicker behind me with Yasuda starting, “I am not losing another surgery.”

“We don’t have to compete over everything.”

Yasuda ignores Millin, “First person to do an actual procedure gets the bedroom to the left of the stairs.”

“What? I already drew that room.” Adams argues.

“And I'm appealing the draw.”

“Less talking more working people! I can make it so you’ll get scut till my newborn walks now go!” I hear them walking away when I hear a man pleading by the entrance. I turn to see a guy leaning over clearly in pain.

“Help! Please!”

The interns rush over to him trying to claim him. I roll my eyes and rush over so they don’t rip him apart like a ragdoll, “Sir I’m Dr. DeLuca can you tell me what happened?”

I help him stand along with Millin as Yasuda gets a wheelchair, “I failed, doc. I couldn't do it.

“You couldn't do what?” Adams asks.

“The Pho-Nomenal Challenge.”

I raise an eyebrow, “The what?”

Yasuda stands behind with a wheelchair and I help him sit on it as she explains, “The Pho-Nomenal Challenge is three pounds of meat, three pounds of noodles, three liters of broth. If you finish in an hour and a half, you win $250. Did you just come from there?”

The man explains, “No, I tried it five days ago, and I have not been able to take a crap since. Please help me.” I try to keep my disgust to myself and lead him to a bed. In a strange way this seems fitting for my first day back.

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

After getting him in a gown I do a physical exam in the bed at the pit with the interns observing from behind me. Jared Gillespie is lying on his side groaning in pain. It’s what happens when you try to down nine pounds of food in under two hours.

“Question Adams what are the symptoms of extreme constipation?”

“Um severe abdominal pain, bloating, difficulty sitting.”

Jared groans as I press down, “Very good, Millin what is the home treatment?”

“Increasing your water intake, eating adequate sources of fiber, exercise, reducing stress.”

“Jared, have you tried these methods before coming here?”

“How am I supposed to reduce stress when my entire body is full of pho?” I ignore his outburst and focus on his abdomen that feels rigid, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry I’m just I’m very uncomfortable.”

I snort at that understanding, “I just gave birth I know how uncomfortable and constipated you feel, trust me.”

A nurse walks toward us, “Excuse me um can I borrow one of you?” The interns raise their hands and call out like third graders.

I sigh, “Millin go.” She leaves the pit and follows the nurse, “Your turn Yasuda how do we visualize his bowels?”

“We get a KUB and then do a digital rectal exam.”

Jared turns to us shocked, “Wait I’m sorry digital?”

I try to ease his worries, “It’s relatively painless as long as you relax while you bend down and we-”

“Okay never mind.”

I take the gloves off and feel my body telling me to go to the restroom. I sigh and walk to the remaining two interns, “After ruling everything out, you can try a stool softener or an enema. If none of that works then we can consider doing a procedure. I have an emergency to tend to, let me know how it goes.”

Yasuda tries to butter me up, “Um Dr. DeLuca maybe I can handle the emergency while Adams stays here with Jared.”

I narrow my eyes at her trying to get surgeries while I’m lactating, “Can you take the breast pump out from behind the station, go to a private room and pump out milk for my growing child?” Yasuda looks at me awkward about that and I grin maliciously, “I didn’t think so now move.” She moves out of my way and I grab the bag from behind the station so I can get down to business.

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

I exhaled in relief inside the resident’s lounge bathroom as I fill up the last bottle and put my bra and top back on. I put the items away, sling the bag over my shoulder and walk down the hall to go back to the pit when my phone rings. I see the daycare is calling me and I immediately answer it.

“Hello? …What?” The daycare told me to come down stating there was an incident and I ran down as fast as I can opting to take the stairs since the elevator was full. I run inside the daycare and everything looks normal except Lucy is sitting with Pru Miller while a nurse plays with them and Bailey is talking to the daycare supervisor. I rush toward Lucy and kneel down relieved to see that she’s okay as she plays with her plush green dragon, “Hi sweetheart what happened? Is everything okay?”

Bailey explains as she kneels down next to me in front of our daughters, “She’s fine and so is Pru they just had a little…encounter with Allison Hunt.”

“What do you mean? What kind of encounter?”

“Allison bit Pru and then she bit Lucy while they were playing in the carpet.”

Her telling me what happened incites something in me, it’s like a new kind of fury has developed in me, “What? Hunt and Altman’s kid bit my baby?”

“And mine and before you go into-”

I turn to an orderly, “When are that little shark’s parents getting here and what is the hardest object you have in this room?”

“Amber, I know what you’re feeling right now and I know the rage pulsing in your body is something I can’t mend but I’m gonna try to. Pru told me it was a one-time thing. The three of them were playing and apparently Allison was trying to say something and she couldn’t get the words out. Kids bite it happens.”

I scoff, “My baby isn’t even six months old yet, she shouldn’t have to worry about bullies this early. Why aren’t you mad? She bit your daughter too.”

“And I will talk to her parents but I am keeping in mind that Allison is three years old. She is not a bully; she doesn’t know what she’s doing and I’m sure when she’s told of this when she’s older she will feel bad.” I inhale and exhale as I hold my baby in my lap, “Now we will calmly tell the Hunt’s what is happening and hope this is a one-time thing. I am emphasizing the word calmly DeLuca can you do that?”

“…Can I calmly suggest they put a muzzle on their kid?” Bailey looks at me with a ‘really?’ look when Andrew walks inside the daycare looking worried.

He kneels down next to us relieved to see our baby in my lap, “Hey, a nurse came to me after my surgery and told me to come down, is everything okay?”

“Hunt and Altman’s little Damien bit our baby girl.” I explain in an angry tone.

Andrew looks shocked, “Which Damien?”

“Allison.” Bailey explains, “She bit Lucy and Pru.”

Andrew strokes Lucy’s short dark hair with an amused chuckle, “Oh is that true bambina? Was Allison a little rough during playtime?”

I look at him bewildered by how nonchalant he is, “Playing rough is stealing blocks or making noise during naptime. Biting is another story.”

“Well honey kids bite all the time it’s no big deal.”

“No big deal? This is our daughter, and yours.” I point out to Bailey, “Our three-year-old and five-month-old daughter who was bitten by a three-year-old. Why am I the only parent here who gives a-”

“Read the room.” Bailey reminds me.

I sigh remembering I’m in daycare and that I need to filter, “Right, why am I the only parent here who gives a chocolate pudding emoji about this attack?” I ask frustrated for Lucy who is too busy with her dragon to notice.

“Amber it’s not like Allison targeted Pru and Lucy.” My husband tries to mediate which means he thinks I’m overreacting, “Their babies and babies’ bite. I mean what if this was Lucy who did it?”

“But she didn’t.”

“But what if she did?”

“She didn’t.” I remind him sternly.

“Look as angry as you are and I feel you I really do Hunt and Altman are gonna feel as bad as we would have if Lucy did the biting. Don’t you agree?” I look at him with narrow eyes and stay silent confirming my answer, “Great so we will gently tell them what happened and not have to worry about this because odds are it will be a one-time thing.”

I sigh, “I will be civil.” I handed Lucy to him and we stood up to fill the injury report with Bailey. I fill out my information with Andrew holding a sleeping Lucy over his shoulder.

“We’re all the parents page?” I turn to see Hunt and Altman walking in and I take a deep breath reminding myself to be civil.

“Just the parents involved in the bite.” Bailey turns to face them, “Your kid bit my kid.”

“And mine.” I add venomously still pissed and they look shocked.

“Which?” Hunt asks.

“Allison. Bit Pru.” Bailey explains in a serious tone.

“And Lucy.” Andrew adds serious as well still holding our baby.

“That seems like a one-parent job. Let's make this one about you.” Hunt smugly says leaving Teddy to deal with us as we glare at her.

She sighs, “We are so sorry.” Bailey hands her the clipboard that she takes looking guilty.

I inhale seeing I’m no longer needed and turn to Andrew, “Okay I think you’re good to take care of the rest. I have a patient in the pit who needs to make a chocolate pudding emoji.” Andrew and Bailey look at me confused, “Don’t ask.” I smile at my daughter still sleeping on her dad’s shoulder, “Okay sweetheart mommy has to go to work but I will see you tonight don’t let the other kids tear you down.” Altman looks more guilty if that was possible but I ignore it and give Lucy a big kiss on her cheek, “It was nice talking to you, Dr. Bailey.” She nods in acknowledgment and I face Altman glaring daggers at her before leaving. As I leave, I distinctly hear her saying “If looks could kill.” That alone makes me grin to myself glad that I haven’t lost my touch.

I walk down the hall to find Yasuda outside the all gender restroom which tells me they performed the enema on Jared and is waiting for him. I approached her.

“You did the enema?”

“Yes ma’am.” Yasuda confirms leaning back against the wall, “I am just waiting for confirmation from the patient himself.”

“How long has he been in there?”

“About twenty-five minutes.”

I groan in disgust, “Oh god I hope my kid doesn’t do stupid challenges like this and end up in the same predicament.”

Yasuda shrugs, “Well making mistakes and doing stupid things makes us smarter and more prepared for life.” I look at her with a raised eyebrow, “How else do you think I got to be this stellar person who wants to achieve more than anyone else in life?”

“Have you bitten babies along the way?” I ask angry and she looks startled by my topic change, “Because that’s what happened to my kid. Altman and Hunt’s demon spawn bit my baby and everybody except me is writing it off. I left her because I trusted my husband enough to think that the daycare would take care of her but I left her alone for five minutes and some tiny little snake from the garden of Eden sunk her teeth into my baby. I swear if that kid becomes an intern here, I am gonna make her life hell.” I exhale in rage and look at Yasuda staring at me obviously taken back, “Sorry I’m angry and I rant when I’m angry.”

“Plus being a new mom, you’re bound to have mama bear moments especially when your baby cub gets hurt. And the way I saw Hunt and Altman biting each other’s head off my first week kids are bound to copy what they see at home.”

I chuckle at that, “That probably explains why I had so many anger problems as a kid. Oh god I want my kid to have a better life than I did growing up, instead she’s getting bitten on her first day of daycare.”

Yasuda looks at me in sympathy which I hate, “Kids are tough and the bright side is her hippocampus isn’t fully developed so she won’t remember this.”

“That is true.” Adams approaches us and I glare at him, “Adams where the hell have you been? Are you letting Yasuda do all the dirty work?”

“Um I was watching the Tanks surgery from the gallery.”

“Your patient is your patient until he’s discharged you don’t just hand him off to your co worker and expect her to do your chores.” I groan at his incompetence, “I do not need to be pissed off more Adams I’m already feeling like punching one brat don’t make me feel like punching two.”

“You should listen to her and agree because she will be violent.” Yasuda tells him to save him from the green-eyed resident.

Adams looks at Yasuda confused, “What are you doing?”

“Can't rush the rectum.”

“Wh-Uh, you're a surgeon. We are surgeons.”  

“Yeah, and general surgery's all about poop in the pipes, Skywalker.” I glare at both of them and she explains, “We have a bet whoever gets a procedure done at the end of the day will get the master bedroom and this enema of mine counts.” She turns to Adams with a smug grin, “Curtains or shades? My room gets a lot of light.”

“Eh, it's not your room until you have success.” We hear the toilet flush confirming the enema worked.

“Congrats Yasuda you win, Adams take the loss like a woman.” The door opens and Jared comes out looking much better, “Jared, how are you feeling?”

“I feel like I just lost 10 pounds.” Jared holds their shoulders gratefully and I am glad not to be touched by him after his crap marathon.

“Pho-tastic!” Yasuda yells out happy, “It's another dish on the menu.”

“I want to say thank you so much for your help. Now I can go back.” I look at him confused.

“Uh, um, I'm sorry?” Adams asks confused as well.

“To the restaurant. I need to win that $250.” I look at him dumbfounded and I shift into my stern mama bear face. I calmly hand Yasuda the tablet and she takes it sensing I’m about to tear this boy down.

“Young man, do you have any idea how badly this could’ve gone?” Jared frowns at my serious question, “You ate three pounds of meat, three pounds of noodles and three liters of broth in under two hours and came here with your pipes more clogged than Homer Simpson’s! And this right here was the best-case scenario your stomach could have burst and you would have to eat through a feeding tube at the age of 22 do you want to live like that?” Jared shakes his head clearly scared of me, “No! Nobody wants to live like that and you’re taking that risk going back and doing this dumb contest.”

“Challenge.” Adams corrects me and I glare at him shutting him up, “I’m not important here got it.”

I turn back to Jared, “Look Jared are your folks well off? Do they have money to give you if you need the cash this badly?”

Jared shrugs, “I mean yeah but I’m 22 and I’m graduating soon I don’t want them to worry about me if I ask for money.”

“Newsflash Jared they already worry about you! It’s a parents biological need to worry because if they don’t worry about you as you explore your life and figure out who you are through this terrifying and dangerous world then they don’t love you. Do your parents love you?” Jared nods, “Then they would rather have you call them and ask them for money than do this stupid challenge that could result in your doctors calling them and telling them their son lost his stomach or worse all for a few measly bucks you could’ve asked for. Do you get that?” Jared looks down guilty and nods, “Do you?” He nods more and mutters yeah, “Good you call your family tell them what happened tell them your okay and that you need money, go!” Jared walks away looking scared, I inhale and exhale after my speech with the interns looking at me clearly impressed.

“Damn.” Yasuda says with a grin, “I feel really bad for whoever is dumb enough to pick on your cub, mama bear.”

“Oh, you know that’s right.” I confirm and take my tablet back from her, “Come on you two back to the pit.”