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theshopkeepofremnant · 3 years

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Genre: Sci-fi/cyberpunk AU

Length: 33k

Rating: Teen

Summary:

What would you do for family?

For Yang, the answer is everything. Anything. Pulling jobs on the dangerous streets of the sprawling metropolis of Vale with her do-gooder sister at her side, she has plenty of opportunities to prove it. But she's ready to get out. To take Ruby and leave the city behind. When the opportunity of a lifetime comes their way, Yang is all in, despite Ruby's protests. One last job, then they'll be set for life. Free. Simple.

But when you let yourself get tangled in the glossy and duplicitous games of the rich and powerful, things are rarely simple, and they're never free.

(Chapter 1 below the cut)

“I still don’t understand why we’re going to work with some corporate princess,” Ruby muttered.

Yang scanned the busy street through her aviators. Not that she needed them. Sunlight hadn’t found its way down through the towering buildings crowded around the dirty streets of Vale in decades. Maybe in the city center, depending on the day. But not in their neighborhood. At most, the dark glass protected her from the occasional glint off an oil slick left behind by one of the rust buckets parked on the curb. She liked how they looked, though. Cars hummed by, still no sign of their client. “It’s not complicated, Ruby. We need a real job.” When her little sister looked ready to protest, she clarified, “That pays real money.”

Ruby pouted. She may have long since stopped being a child, but even at twenty-two (nearly middle-aged for someone raised by the streets of Vale), Yang still thought of her as her kid sister. Her naive, do-gooder attitude didn’t help any.

“What about that shopkeeper last week? That was a real job,” she argued.

“He paid us in canned beans and ammunition.”

“Both of which we sorely needed,” Ruby remarked, her grin only slightly embarrassed. “Besides, he really needed someone to help him. We did a good thing.”

“Good things don’t pay bills,” Yang said. She tried not to think about the angry notices she’d received from their apartment complex. She failed. One more, and she and Ruby would be out on the street. Her worry was interrupted by a sleek limo gliding up to the curb. Car like that couldn’t idle long on a street like this. Like as not to find itself on blocks and missing everything but the frame. Maybe even that.

“There’s our ride,” she said, taking off her shades and slipping them into a pocket in her bomber jacket. The move was practiced but looked nonchalant. Cool. Shiny. She hoped. “Try to act professional.”

Ruby grumbled but kept it to herself as a stout man sprang from the driver’s seat and raced around to open the rear passenger door. “Ladies,” he said, his voice oddly respectful. “If you would?”

Yang elbowed Ruby as she snickered at the formal address, thanking the man and sliding into the dimly light interior. She couldn’t help but notice the feel of the glossy seat, and she ran her golden hand across the material as she settled in. Text popped up on her HUD: genuine leather. She fought the urge to whistle as Ruby plopped down beside her and the door shut with a solid thunk. Her eyes quickly adjusted, revealing the prim and perfectly still woman seated across from her.

“Good afternoon, ladies,” the woman said, her diction as crisp as the lines on her expensive-looking blazer. “I’m…”

“Weiss Schnee,” Yang filled in. “We’re not amateurs.” She looked the woman up and down again. From the famously white hair to the feint scar slashed across one of her two icy-blue eyes, she was unmistakable. Even if their Uncle Qrow hadn’t tipped them off on their supposed mystery client (“Hey, I’m the best fixer in Vale, you think I’d send you in without doing some digging?”), a blind person could identify those ringing tones from Weiss’s singing days.

“Fine, you know who I am,” Weiss huffed, leaning her head back and looking down her perfect nose at them. “Sadly, I can’t say the same. I was only told that you’re the best at what you do. I hope I was not led astray.”

“I’m Yang. This is Ruby. If a job needs doing, we do it. Period.” She leaned back, doing her best to match the haughty pose of their client. It almost worked.

“So it’s just the two of you?” Weiss asked, looking doubtful. And more than a little disappointed.

“Not exactly,” came a robotic voice.

Weiss snapped her head around, her eyes landing on a small pin on Ruby’s collar. Yang realized she must have high-grade optical implants to zero in on the speaker so quickly. Only the best for the Schnee heiress. “I don’t appreciate eavesdroppers.”

Ruby held up her hands, trying to placate the frosty woman. “That’s our netrunner.”

Weiss nodded, almost as if she’d expected the response. Hoped for it. Yang didn’t like the strange light in her eyes as she spoke. “The Winter Maiden, if I’m not mistaken? Best crafter and cracker of ICE on the net. Or so the stories go.”

“Yeah…wait. How did you know her and not us?” Ruby asked.

Weiss’s lips pursed smugly. “I am also not an… amateur.” She let her words hang before sighing and dropping the act. “We tried to recruit her at SchneeCorp a handful of years ago, shortly before she seemingly vanished. It was believed she’d either burned out or finally hit it big enough to retire. I had my suspicions those rumors were false. You’re a hard woman to find, Ms. Polendina.”

“I…” Penny wasn’t often caught off guard, but hearing her real name spoken by a suit must have been a shock. She quickly recovered. “You may address me as Winter Maiden. We are not friends.”

“Concerned that someone else might be listening?” Weiss probed.

“Of course not. The first thing I did when my friends entered your vehicle was sweep it and then isolate it. No listening devices were present, and you will notice that none of your personal devices have signal at the moment.”

Weiss simply smiled. “I expect no less from the best. Though I must say, I thought someone of your singular talents would be running with a more…impressive crew.”

Yang bristled but tried to swallow her pride. She couldn’t make an enemy of this woman. Not yet. “Much as I’m honored to ride around in luxury and be insulted by the daughter of the richest man on the planet, is there a point to all of this?” Maybe she hadn’t swallowed hard enough.

Weiss’s lip curled slightly, an instinctive show of rage, but she tried to hide it. Yang made a note of her reaction as the woman fussed with her skirt and settled herself. “I need you for a job.”

“So I gathered,” Yang replied, almost biting her tongue to tamp down her sarcasm. “What kind of job?”

“The impossible kind. The kind that wouldn’t even have a prayer without someone of Ms. Po…of the Winter Maiden’s caliber.”

Yang slumped back. “So you don’t need us, just her.”

Weiss examined the bed of her fingernails. “Not exactly. This job has a rather large and not uncomplicated physical component as well. Though frankly, I was hoping that she might be working with more experienced associates.”

Before either Ruby or Yang could retort, Penny’s voice piped up. “They are my team. I trust them, and they, me. I will not work with anyone else.”

Weiss sighed, then settled back into her seat and regarded the women in front of her shrewdly. She gave a graceful shrug. “Fine, if that’s how it is, then let’s not waste any more time.”

“Yes, we’d hate if you missed your evening spa treatment,” Ruby sniped, glaring up at Yang after receiving a metallic elbow to the ribs.

“Don’t make me regret my decision,” Weiss snapped. “You’ll each find a shard in the armrest nearest you. Please slot it in so we can begin.”

Yang and Ruby looked at each other, then reached for the small silicon and copper sticks. Yang ran her ‘ganic hand up under her waves of golden hair, finding one of the open slots on the shaved side of her head and slotting it in. Ruby smirked at her and stuck out her tongue. She kept her dark hair reasonably short for quicker access to her slots and frequently gave Yang shit for her ungainly mass. But Yang never yielded; what was the point of being a badass if you couldn’t look great at the same time?

Besides, Penny had long hair, and Ruby never gave her grief about it. Though Yang suspected she knew why the console jockey might get special treatment. Not that she’d ever say anything. They’d figure it out. Eventually.

Yang’s mind snapped back to the present as her HUD was replaced by schematics, a wireframe of a vaguely familiar building that scrolled across her vision-

“Want to tell me why we’re looking at SchneeCorp’s Vale Headquarters?” Ruby asked.

Of course she had seen it first. Yang knew it wasn’t just because of those fancy eyes she was rocking, though they probably didn’t hurt. Ruby had an incredible visual memory. She probably had most of the sprawling skyline of Vale memorized.

“That’s where you’ll find our target,” Weiss replied as though she thought this was perfectly reasonable.

Ruby reached up and yanked the shard from her socket. “Well, this has been preem, but you can let us out now. Thanks for the ride.”

“You haven’t heard me out.”

“We’ve heard enough,” Ruby replied. “Right, Yang?”

“I mean…”

Ruby whipped her head around, and Yang told herself that the look of betrayal would fade. Ruby would forgive her, but they couldn’t just leave. “Yang, come on.”

Yang swallowed. “No, we’re going to hear her out.” Ruby went from shock to fury to fuming resignation quickly enough that anyone unfamiliar with her mercurial moods would’ve suffered serious whiplash, but this wasn’t Yang’s first day. She rode it out and turned back to their potential client. “Go on,” she said. It was an effort to ignore the smug look on the woman’s face as she did.

“As you so accurately surmised, the target is within SchneeCorp’s local headquarters.”

“Which means it may as well be on the fragging sun,” Ruby muttered.

“Which means,” Weiss cut in. “It’s good that you have someone with so much insider intel. Those schematics include security measures and all other pertinent information needed for the extraction.”

“How recently was this data acquired?” Penny, asking the useful questions, as always.

“Yesterday,” Weiss assured her.

Ruby sighed and slotted the shard again, sulking as her silver eyes unfocused and she went over the data. “Penny, did you get my upload?”

“Yes, but even with this data, I see no good way to get inside.”

Yang knew that being jacked in like Penny meant she was processing things much faster than the rest of them, but it was always disconcerting how quickly she came to conclusions over the wire. Still, it never paid to doubt her. She looked up at the maddeningly calm woman across from her. “Got anything else for us?”

“Naturally. Does this mean you’re in?”

“It means we’re considering it,” Ruby said before Yang could commit them.

Weiss cocked one perfectly trimmed eyebrow, sensing the discord but smart enough not to say anything. “Fine. My father is hosting an exclusive party next week in the ballroom that occupies the top floors of the building. Only the biggest SchneeCorp investors are invited. I can get us in. From there, we simply need to slip-”

“Hold on, us?” Ruby asked.

Yang couldn’t argue with her sister’s reaction. “Look, Ms. Schnee-“

“Weiss is fine.”

“Ok, Weiss,” Yang said, feeling more than a little weird talking to a suit like they were chums. “No offense, but we don’t bring clients with us on jobs.” It wasn’t entirely true, but telling her they didn’t bring amateurs with them on jobs likely wouldn’t have gone over well.

“If I don’t come, there is no job. End of discussion.”

Yang ignored the blatant look of I-told-you-so from Ruby and did her best to only groan on the inside. She reminded herself that all of these annoyances were just going to lead to a bigger payday. A payday they desperately needed. “Fine, you come. What are we stealing?”

“Liberating,” Weiss corrected. “It doesn’t rightly belong to my father, so it isn’t theft.”

This time Yang couldn’t hide her annoyance. “I doubt security will care about that distinction. What is it?”

Weiss looked ready to retort but decided to answer the question instead. “A particularly valuable prototype. That’s all you need to know.”

“Ok, but are we talking a prototype tank or a prototype chip?” Yang asked. “That kind of makes a difference.”

“It’s,” Weiss fumbled, just for a moment, but then she recovered her composure. “It’s the size of a shoebox.”

“Why would you put a shoe in a box?” Ruby asked.

“No, you put a pair of…” Weiss looked between the equally mystified sisters. “Shoes come in boxes.”

Yang looked down at the boots that had been 3D printed for her at a dirty kiosk in a dirtier alley. “Clearly, we shop at different stores,” she deadpanned.

Weiss held up her hands, less than shoulder-width apart. “A box, this big. A shoebox.”

“If you say so,” Ruby said with a shrug. “How heavy? Feel free to give the weight in gold bars. You know, something relatable.”

“Assuming your head is full of lead,” Weiss snapped. “Lighter than that.”

Yang fought the urge to laugh at the frustration flushing Weiss’s face. Time to get back on track. “Ok, ok. Why is this ‘shoebox’ so important?”

”If this piece of tech works out, SchneeCorp will no longer just be the biggest company on the planet; it will become untouchable.”

Ruby shook her head. “Why would you want to sabotage your own company?”

Weiss bristled before going back to examining her expensive manicure. “It’s not my company. It’s my father’s.”

But Ruby wasn’t satisfied. “Still, why-?”

“Let’s just say he and I don’t always see eye to eye,” Weiss said. “Besides, I…I was recently disinherited.”

“Sounds like we’re getting in the middle of family drama,” Ruby snarked.

Weiss narrowed her eyes, but there was something sad there. Her voice seemingly didn’t get the memo, however. It was all ice. “Will you take the job or not?”

“I don’t like it,” Ruby muttered as they waved their way past the familiar bouncer. They were regulars at the Nest, the bar their uncle ran mostly as a convenience to host his real business.

“Yeah, Rubes, you’ve said like a million times,” Yang replied, striding through the mid-afternoon crowd toward the back. “But you know what I don’t like? Living on the street and scraping food out of dumpsters. Which is what we’ll be doing without this job.” Ruby grumbled. Like she had every time they'd circled this particular block. She let it drop when they approached their uncle’s table.

“Hey, my favorite nieces!” he called, waving a glass that Yang doubted was his first. She worried that his ever-present five o’clock shadow and disheveled hair were going from intentionally rakish to unkempt. But his drinking didn’t seem to be interfering with business. Yet.

Assuming this job didn’t go down in flames.

“We’re your only nieces, Uncle Qrow,” Ruby laughed, apparently oblivious to the reek of alcohol as she gave him a quick hug and flopped into the seat next to him.

Qrow chuckled and tussled her hair. “So you are. Did you meet with our illustrious client?”

Yang spun a chair around and straddled it, her arms crossed over the back. Ignored Ruby’s sour look. “Sure did,” she replied, searching his glazed eyes for the cunning intelligence that she hoped was still in there somewhere. “You sure this is on the level?”

“The money’s on the level,” he said as he took a long draw from his glass. “What else do you need to know?”

“It would be nice to know that we aren’t about to get flatlined helping some suit get back at daddy,” Ruby offered.

“What she means is,” Yang corrected, glaring at her innocently smiling kid sister. “We want to make sure this is done right, so we can collect our credits and walk away.”

Their uncle swirled his dwindling drink a few times, then raised it and rattled the ice. Moments later, a waitress placed a fresh glass in front of him. He thanked her. “Look,” he said, sampling the contents of his new cup. “I checked her out, asked around. I mean, she’s Weiss Schnee. It’s not like it’s hard to get info on her.”

“Did you know she got booted from the family?” Ruby asked.

Qrow nodded. “Of course, why else do you think I sent you two to talk to her? Sure, this is some corpo bullshit, no question, but she has real beef with her family. The job’s legit. Besides,” he added, smiling with his eyes over another gulp of the colorless liquid. “Her creds spend well enough. She paid my finder’s fee upfront, and I suspect her offer to you two was…generous.”

“It was,” Yang agreed.

“It has to be!” Ruby shot back. She turned to their uncle. “She wants us to break into,” she looked around, then lowered her voice. “SchneeCorp headquarters here in Vale.”

Qrow shrugged. “I know.”

“You know?” Ruby demanded.

“Hey, at least it’s not the main headquarters on Atlas station.”

“It may as well be!” Ruby retorted. “I don’t see how hijacking a shuttle and going to fucking space could be any more insane.”

“Calm down, kiddo,” Qrow said, a frown tugging at his lips. “It can’t be as bad as all that.” He turned to Yang, obviously looking for support. “What do you think, Firecracker?”

Yang had long since stopped correcting him when he used her childhood nickname. “It just feels…too big, you know? Don’t get me wrong, we need the creds, but why us?”

“She asked for the best, so I gave her the best.”

Yang shook her head. “Uncle Qrow, I know we’re family, and I appreciate the sentiment, but-“

“We’re not even close to the best,” Ruby supplied.

“Not with that attitude,” Qrow admonished playfully, but his grin faded under their twin glares. “Honestly? She asked for the crew with the best netrunner, and there’s only one I know personally that can claim that title.”

Ruby crossed her arms. “So she does just need Penny.”

“Look,” Qrow said, fishing for words of wisdom he didn’t have and settling on the truth instead. “The gig needs an all-star deck jockey and some competent bodies. You three fit the bill, and you need the money, so I gave you the nod. That’s all.”

Yang sighed, but none of what he said had come as a surprise. She knew where they stood in the pecking order, and she and Ruby both knew that Penny was way too good for them. “Good enough for me.” She looked over at her sister, still slouched in her seat with her eyes scanning the ground. No doubt memorizing the pattern of microscopic cracks in the aging tile.

Eventually, Ruby gave up pretending she didn’t notice Yang’s gaze and looked up, then let out an exasperated sigh. “Fine, whatever, I’ll do it. Penny?”

“I am in,” chirped Penny’s voice, the barest hint of excitement in her tone.

Qrow smiled and polished off the remainder of his drink. “Shiny. Now tell me how you intend to pull this off.”

“We’re being followed.”

Yang gritted her teeth to stop herself from swearing out loud. She had suspected they would be at some point, but it bothered her that she hadn’t spotted them. She supposed she should be grateful Ruby had. “How many?” she asked, pitching her voice low and not moving her lips.

“At least three,” Ruby replied, hawking a loogie and using it as an excuse to look over her shoulder. “About two blocks back,” she added.

“Fangs?”

“Probably. They’re definitely Faunus.”

“Well, I suppose we knew we’d be spotted when we crossed onto their turf.” Yang pushed forward, dragging them deeper into the Fang’s territory. She hadn’t had many pleasant interactions with the Faunus gang, but the same could be said of most gangs that had held sway in Vale. She had no specific beef with them, and she’d always gotten along as well with her Faunus neighbors as anyone else. It wasn’t their fault that their great grandparents had killed time messing around with their genes before passing them on. So now some of them sported extra ears or claws or whatever, who cares?

But Yang wasn’t naive. She knew that many did, in fact, care. That was why most Faunus preferred to live in cloistered communities where they could protect each other from the assholes who saw them as less than human. It was why she and Ruby were receiving a lot of suspicious glares through mostly shut windows and doors.

She wasn’t the only one feeling the unwelcoming stares. “Maybe we should get out of here,” Ruby suggested lightly, trying and failing to play off her growing unease.

“We can’t,” Yang replied. “Uncle Qrow is right; we need this chick.”

“Why? The three of us have always managed in the past.”

“We need someone who can slip past a state of the art surveillance system. Unseen.”

“We can do that.”

Yang snorted. “Please, when have we ever done anything quietly?”

“What about the job for that guy? What’s-his-name…Port? No one even saw us.”

“Yeah, because Penny hacked the signal on their optical implants and literally blinded everyone.”

Ruby tried to look offended but only barely stifled a chuckle. “Ok, but how about that time down at the docks?”

“The time when you set off an entire crate of flash-bang grenades?”

Ruby grinned. “I mean, technically no one saw us that time either.”

Yang’s lip tugged upward. “Yeah, and I couldn’t hear for a week.”

"It wasn’t that bad. Oh!” Ruby exclaimed, seemingly unconcerned with their tail save for the furtive glances she stole when they turned the next corner. “How about the-“

“I swear if you’re about to claim the Oobleck job was anything but a disaster, I’m going to scream.”

“We got away clean!” Ruby protested.

“We set the building on fire.”

“The fire suppression system came on almost immediately. There was hardly any damage.” Ruby’s smile faltered under Yang’s glare. “Ok, maybe we could use someone a little more…discrete.” Yang rolled her eyes at the colossal understatement. “But how do we know she’ll even help?”

“If what Uncle Qrow said about her is true, she’ll help.”

“Assuming we even get a chance to talk to her,” Ruby muttered.

Yang looked around. “We still being followed?”

Ruby’s lips were tight as she replied, “Yup, one more just joined up.”

“Well, we may as well kick this party off.” Yang flipped her optics over to infrared. She only had lens implants, nothing as fancy as the wonders Ruby was sporting, but they did alright. At least she could tell that the next alley was deserted. “In there?” she said, raising her chin.

Ruby sighed. She’d never liked close-quarters fighting as much as Yang, but there was no time to set up a proper ambush, and numbers were not on their side. “Yeah, looks as good as we’re going to get.”

Yang nodded. “Let’s do it.”

“‘No Ruby, we don’t need weapons, we aren’t looking for trouble,’” Ruby mocked, grunting as she dodged a massive fist that passed right through where her head had been a moment before. “Great idea, Yang!”

“Don’t be such a baby,” Yang replied, catching the arm of her own attacker and twisting it painfully behind his back until he stopped struggling. “Tell your buddy to stop attacking, or I break your arm in at least seven places,” she added to her captive.

He sneered up at her until she gave his arm a gentle tug. Once he stopped crying out in pain, he quickly begged the other man to stop. Their two friends were already unconscious on the ground, caught unawares by the pair of sisters after entering the alley.

“Look,” Yang said. “We aren’t here for a fight.”

“Tell that to those two,” the man struggling against her grip growled.

“Oh, so you weren’t about to jump us?”

“I…”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Yang snapped. “We didn’t want any trouble.”

“Then what are you doing in Little Menagerie?”

“Looking for someone,” Ruby supplied, stepping away from her own assailant, just in case he got any ideas.

“Who?”

The sisters looked at each other. Discretion really wasn’t their strong suit, so Yang decided not to overthink things. “Blake Belladonna.”

The man’s face darkened. “Why?”

“We just want to offer her a job. That’s all.”

“And what if I’m not interested?”

The alley went deathly silent. The woman’s voice sounded so close, but there was no one else there. Yang flipped her vision to infrared, saw nothing, flipped it back, and found the same. She watched as Ruby as searched as many spectrums as she could. She shrugged.

Yang shoved the man away from her and raised her empty hands. “So that’s why they call you ‘the Shadow,’” she remarked.

“They call me many things. What do you want?”

“We just want to talk.”

“You have a funny way of showing it,” the voice replied as the air in front of Yang rippled and bent until a dark figure stood before her in a mimetic suit. Yang had never seen one in real life, but it lived up to the hype. One gloved hand reached up and pulled off the hood and mask obscuring her face, revealing a set of golden eyes beneath a splash of midnight hair and two pointed, cat-like ears.

Yang gaped. She’d been given a physical description, but her uncle had failed to mention that the woman was breathtakingly beautiful. A second look at the skin-tight suit showed she had the lithe body of a dancer or a gymnast to go with her perfect face. Yang was mortified as she felt blood rush to her cheeks as well as other, mercifully less visible places.

The woman, Blake, shrugged. “You want to talk? Talk.”

“I, uh, right,” Yang stammered, then forced her wandering mind back on track. “We want to hire you for a job.”

“I told you, I’m not interested,” Blake replied coldly before addressing the man at Yang’s feet, “Yuma, get those idiots off the concrete and go home. We’re done here.”

A thought occurred to Yang. “If you’re not interested, why are you here?”

Blake’s lip curled. “A couple of outsiders wandered into my turf. I came to ensure you didn’t cause too much trouble.”

“Oh please, you could have let these guys chase us off. Admit it, you’re curious.” Yang hoped that her charm hadn’t strayed from playful into desperate, but it was hard to stay focused with those golden eyes boring into her soul.

Blake snorted. “Don’t flatter yourself,” she said, but there was no venom in it.

Ruby, however, was done watching her sister flirt. “Yang, she said she’s not interested.” Yang was about to argue, but she saw that sly expression Ruby often got when she was being clever, so she decided to let her take her shot. “Besides, we don’t need her.”

Blake’s eyes narrowed as she turned toward Ruby. “Is that so?”

“It is,” Ruby asserted. “We came here thinking you were something special, but you just have a fancy suit.” She shrugged and looked at Yang. “Come on, we can just buy one. That's cheaper than splitting the take with someone else.”

Yang’s instinct was to come up with some excuse to keep this shadowy beauty around, but she wasn’t going to mess up Ruby’s play. Not that she had time to anyway. Blake arched an eyebrow. “Is that what you think? That I just put on this suit and it does the work for me?”

“You telling me it’s not?” Ruby shot back.

“Aside from the fact that it was handmade for me specifically, there’s more to it than simply turning it on,” Blake explained.

Ruby crossed her arms. “Prove it.”

“I don’t have to prove anything to you.”

“You’re right, and we don’t have to tell you why we came. Come on, Yang.”

Yang fought a laugh as she followed her sister back toward the mouth of the alley. She was only a few strides from the exit when she was stopped short by an invisible hand in the middle of her chest. She looked down, barely able to discern a ripple in the air in front of her where she assumed Blake’s arm was. The fingers on her collar bone retreated slowly, almost a caress. Yang's breath caught, but not before she inhaled a trace of something wild and dark; the scent of moonlight cascading through clouds on a rain-soaked night. Of freedom and open spaces that Yang had never seen but could suddenly feel in her bones.

Blake chuckled and shimmered back to reality and pulled off her hood. “As I was saying. Anyone can wear a mimetic suit, but not everyone can move without making a sound, without rippling the air, or otherwise looking like a big, dumb, person-shaped distortion of light. I saw you searching for me. How many spectrums did you go through?”

Yang shook her head. “I only have visible and infrared.”

Blake made a face. “Child’s play.” She turned to Ruby. “How about you?”

“Those two, plus microwave, and UV for passive. I didn’t get around to active scanning.”

“And?” Blake challenged.

“Nothing,” Ruby admitted. “I suppose we could use you.”

Blake smirked. “You undoubtedly could.” Then she seemed to remember herself. “Unfortunately for you, I’m not interested.” In a flash, the hood and face-covering were back in place, and she vanished.

But Yang knew she was still there, could feel it, and it was time to show her hand. “What if I told you that the job involved stealing from the Schnees?”

There was a long beat of silence. Yang began to worry that Blake had already ghosted. Then her face reappeared, hanging in midair above seemingly empty air. Her mouth was drawn in a frown, but excitement danced in her eyes. “The Schnees?” she prompted.

“That’s right,” Yang said. “We’re going to rip off their next big prototype. From right under their noses. It will probably cost them billions.”

Blake’s eyes positively shone at that. “Well,” she said, her body shimmering back into view as she held out her hand. “Why didn’t you say so? When do we start?”

Yang took her hand, the fluttering in her stomach driven by more than excitement over a plan coming together. But she wasn’t going to think about that. Instead, she simply replied, “Now.”

Ruby marveled as Blake demonstrated her suit’s capability on their walk through narrow streets to the address Weiss had given them.

“See?” Blake said, going from completely invisible to a bouncing jumble of distorted light and back again before emerging back to full visibility. “It’s not just about the suit. The wearer has to know how to move. Otherwise, it’s nearly useless.”

Yang shook her head, pretending not to watch the display as she tried to focus on their surroundings. She still wasn’t completely sure about their client, and the last thing she wanted to do was march them into an ambush.

“Too bad it’s a bit of an odd fashion statement,” Ruby commented, indicating the strangely patterned black on black. Yang resisted the urge to voice her thoughts on the skintight outfit. Instead, she turned her head and took the chance to clear her throat.

Blake looked down at herself and shrugged, then reached up into a small pouch on her back and pulled out jeans and a long white jacket that really didn’t seem like they could have been hidden away in so small a space. She somehow stepped into the pants without breaking stride, then twirled the jacket around her shoulders. All of it effortless, fluid, and so cool that Yang nearly had a coughing fit as she tried not to visibly drool. Blake smirked up at her. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, shiny,” Yang wheezed. She stopped. “We’re here, by the way.”

The trio looked at the rusted steel door before them. The building was one of countless nondescript towers on the block, all packed in so tightly it was impossible to know where one ended and another began. The address was right, though, so Yang reached up and knocked twice, hard, wincing at the loud clang of metal on metal.

They stood in silence, waiting. As the seconds dragged on, Yang began to feel more and more like an idiot. Just as she was preparing a line to act like she’d planned on getting stood up, an unseen speaker squeaked to life, carrying the cold tones of their client. “That’s not the Winter Maiden. Who is she?”

Yang looked around but saw no obvious place for a microphone, so she addressed the door. “We needed an extra hand to pull off our plan. I’ll personally vouch for her.”

There was a long pause before Weiss replied, “Fine.” Then the door unlocked with an audible click.

Yang swung it wide and waved the others through, stopping Ruby as she passed. “Is Penny wired in?”

Ruby shook her head. “No,” she replied, “She’s going to join us.”

“In meat space, seriously?”

Ruby shrugged and stepped through the door. “Yeah, she said this is too important not to be here in the flesh.”

“Huh, crazy. She almost here?”

Ruby blinked, her eyes unfocusing as she accessed her HUD and sent a message. A moment later, she responded. “Yeah, she’s a minute or two out.”

“Preem,” Yang said, looking up and down the street.

Ruby grabbed her arm, pulling her inside. “She’ll be here,” she insisted. “Come on. Where’s Blake?”

The pair wandered into the darkened building, the remains of what used to be some sort of office but had long since fallen into disrepair. Muffled voices were coming from a room in the back, one of which seemed increasingly frantic. It occurred to Yang where Blake may have gone. She took off at a sprint through the empty hallways, making her way toward the sounds of distress, Ruby hot on her heels.

“Blake, what the fuck?” Yang cried. Their newest recruit was holding a gleaming, black sword. Its razor-sharp tip rested lightly against the throat of a very still, very wide-eyed Weiss.

“You said we were stealing from the Schnees, not working with them,” Blake hissed.

Yang faltered. She had considered telling Blake the whole truth but figured it would be easier to explain after she was in. She apparently hadn’t thought that line of attack through all the way. “Yes, we’re working for Weiss Schnee.”

“For?!” Blake demanded.

Yang cursed herself but pressed on, “But she’s the one who wants to steal the tech from SchneeCorp.”

“So I’m just helping one Schnee in a powerplay against another? No, fuck that, and fuck all of you. I thought maybe you two were on the level, not just a pair of grimmgirls working for corporate scum. For a fucking Schnee.”

The accusation hit Yang like a slap in the face. She’d been called a lot of things in her life. Many of them unpleasant. But to be equated to those soulless killing machines that traded flesh for chrome until they were barely human, anything to get better at zeroing targets, all for a quick buck… She looked down at her arm, gold and black and nothing like the one it had replaced. Then she looked at Ruby, at her wide and shining silver eyes. Those inhuman eyes. Those expensive eyes. She felt her blood begin to race, to boil, but she forced it down. She couldn’t let this fall apart. Not now. Not when they were so close to getting out.

She took a breath. “Look, I get why you don’t like the Schnees-”

“You don’t know the first thing about why I hate the Schnees!” Blake cried. “The things they’ve done to my people.”

“I know, you’re right. I don’t. Just like you don’t know my life story. And none of us know the full version of Weiss’s. But we’re all on the same side here.”

“Stop.” Blake leaned forward but didn’t pierce the porcelain skin under her sword. “The best you can hope for now is to convince me not to kill her where she stands. Go ahead, give me one good reason.”

Yang’s mind raced, but Weiss had apparently had plenty of time to think. “Because I want to destroy Jacques Schnee and everything he’s built,” she said, her voice tight as her throat moved against the blade.

Blake narrowed her eyes, and for a desperate moment, Yang worried that Weiss’s gambit might fail. Then the sword lowered with a snap. Blake pressed a hidden button on the hilt, and Yang watched in fascination as the blade collapsed into it. Blake stashed the weapon back in her small bag. “Either you’re the best liar I’ve ever met,” she remarked. “Or you have a truly screwed up home life.”

“You have no idea,” Weiss murmured, massaging the angry red spot on her throat. “Are you in?”

Blake curled her lip and crossed her arms. “I’ll stay to hear the plan. No promises.”

Weiss blew a breath out through her nose but didn’t press the point. Instead, she turned to Yang and Ruby. “Is there anyone else you’d like to bring in who might want to kill me? Or is it just her?”

Yang grimaced as she and Ruby finished entering the room. “Just her,” she assured her. “Penny’s generally not much of a killer.” Weiss glared at her, her eyes flicking over her shoulder when they heard the outer door open and close. “We’re back here!” Yang called. Ruby would have let her know if it was anyone but Penny.

Their favorite runner ambled in a moment later, all red hair and freckles and green eyes. “Salutations,” she said, looking around the ramshackle room. She didn’t seem to notice that her chipper greeting was completely at odds with the strained air in the room, but that was Penny for you. Yang gave her a wave, impressed that she had at least remembered to change out of her cryo suit before coming over. Truly jacking into the net was dangerous business, with heatstroke from neural overload one of many potential causes of death for the unwary. Longtime runners, like Penny, didn’t need anything too extreme, like an ice bath. But she still spent most of her waking hours in a suit meant to regulate her body temperature. More than once, after a job, she’d forgotten to change out of it before she came out to join them for drinks. At least she always took their ribbing in good humor.

“Hello, Ms… Winter Maiden,” Weiss corrected. She looked relieved that Penny was there, and Yang was reminded again why their team had really been selected. A job’s a job, she told herself.

“Ms. Schnee,” Penny responded, sidling up next to Ruby, of course. It was only then that she seemed to notice the extra body in the room. “I do not believe we have met,” she pointed out.

“Blake,” the Faunus offered, looking Penny up and down.

“My name is Penny. I am the netrunner for this crew. As this is a job, I prefer to be referred to as Winter Maiden.”

“Noted,” Blake responded, still giving Penny an odd look.

“You expect me to be heavily chipped?”

“I…yes,” Blake admitted. “Every netrunner I’ve ever met has been heavily modified.”

Ruby laughed and looked at Penny fondly. “She doesn’t need anything more than a basic link. Penny’s got everything she needs in that big brain of hers.” She reached up and patted her friend’s head.

Penny rolled her eyes. “I have told you, my brain is a completely normal size, it simply-“

“This is fascinating, really, but I’m on something of a tight schedule,” Weiss cut in. Ruby made a face but held her tongue when Penny squeezed her hand. Blake still looked less than thrilled, but she wasn’t pointing a sword at anyone, so that was a win. Finally, Weiss’s eyes landed on Yang. “Well, do you have a plan?”

Yang smirked and rolled her eyes. Working with this suit was going to be such a pleasure, start to finish. She tried to visualize a stack of credits as high as the stiff woman before her. It helped, a little. “As a matter of fact,” she said, smiling broadly. “I do.”

#janurwby #rwby #fanfiction #cyberpunk #heist

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Star Wars: The Mandalorian Season 2 Episode 8 Review – The Rescue

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This Star Wars: The Mandalorian review contains spoilers.

The Mandalorian Season 2 Episode 8

The core of The Mandalorian has always been the connection between Din Djarin and Grogu. After the first live-action Star Wars TV offering proved in its first season that a story about a faceless Mandalorian could have so much heart (something I hope remains true in the many upcoming shows), that connection became even more vital to the storytelling in the second outing. Instead of the twisted family relationships between the Skywalkers, Din and Grogu were a found family dream, propelling the Child into households everywhere. Unfortunately, at the end of season two, Din and the Child’s heartfelt connection doesn’t quite feel as central as it should.

This isn’t the smartest show in the streaming world, but it is still one of the most fun. Din finds the location of Moff Gideon and the captured baby with the help of Boba Fett, Fennec Shand, Bo-Katan Kryze, and her lieutenant Koska Reeves. Their two-pronged rescue mission goes surprisingly well, the squad of Mandalorians and Din himself taking out stormtroopers, dark troopers, and finally, Moff Gideon. But when Din delivers Gideon alive to his allies, it’s clear this is only less than half of the former ISB agent’s plan.

Stream your Star Wars favorites right here!

Gideon tries to turn Din and Bo-Katan against one another, using his knowledge of Mandalorian tradition to initiate a fight. To truly gain the throne, he says, Bo-Katan has to win the darksaber from Din in battle. It’s both a keen portrayal of the nature of power (someone always must be humbled, especially according to an Imperial who thinks of all of the good guys as “savages”) and a classic manipulative villain. Although Gideon’s plan is clear, it doesn’t work. Eucatastrophe appears in the form of Luke Skywalker, who in the best Jedi fashion, breaks all the rules to save the day.

Din’s hard choices — whether to give Grogu to the Jedi, whether to let Bo-Katan kill Moff Gideon, what happens now that she has to, by tradition, take the darksaber from him by force — take a back seat. Instead, the energy of the final minutes is sapped by a cool but uncanny Luke, Mark Hamill’s welcome presence digitally de-aged far enough that he sometimes looks like his sketchy Battlefront avatar. That game keeps ahold of its medal as the best inter-trilogy appearance of Luke, too. Where his dialogue in the game emphasizes his kindness, on the show he’s first a warrior and then a plot device, interchangeable with the general concept of a Jedi.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Not to say I don’t want to see more Luke, but that bit of fan service sprinkled this episode with sugar when I wanted more substance. Frankly, I didn’t find the CGI appearance too off-putting on its own, although it’s even worse when Luke turns away from the camera toward the end. Luke’s voice doesn’t sound the same anymore, and his eyes don’t have the same spark. I wonder if it would have been better or worse to have cast fan favorite Sebastian Stan or another look-alike. The ambiguity itself speaks volumes.

Luke’s presence is clearly a case of Jedi ex machina, but I was so delighted to see him that I can’t present that as an entirely bad thing. (There’s even a bit of “we called it” pleasure in there.) But as elsewhere in the episode, the build-up goes on a bit too long compared to the payoff. Luke’s dialogue is sparse and lacks emotion. As usual, the music does a lot of work here, diverting from the Star Wars method of leitmotif to give Luke a new, mystical and melancholic introduction.

Even the long-awaited fight between Moff Gideon and Din wass more setup than payoff. Surely some of the time spent reminding us the beskar steel was strong, crafting a meticulous order of operations for how tough various types of metals and glass are, could have been traded for a more dramatic setting than a single hallway. The darksaber fight was cool, with the blade setting the wall on fire and Din using some impressive footwork, but the combat didn’t travel, didn’t tell its own story with acts and beats the way the best Star Wars duels do.

I’m also torn on the fight scenes with the infiltration team. More often than not I ended up wondering whether the cool stunts were going to get the good guys killed, their eagerness to get up close and punch seemingly unnecessary and unsafe when the stormtroopers have blasters. But at the same time, it was great fun to see a team succeed with such competence, the good guys well matched with the bad. It was especially exciting because it’s a team of almost all Mandalorians and all women, armored and weighty. Moments like Cara Dune’s gun jamming reminds us Star Wars is a janky universe, its heroes subject to inconveniences as well as epic stakes.

Star Wars Fans React to The Mandalorian Season 2 Finale

By Kirsten Howard

How The Mandalorian Captures the Spirit of the Star Wars Prequel Era

By Megan Crouse

Like last episode, the relationship between Din and the Child drives the titular Mandalorian’s every action. His love for the baby is the whole reason he puts himself in so much danger, goes to such physically taxing lengths. But they don’t actually interact very much in the end. Even the baby plaintively reaching for Din while handcuffed doesn’t reach the tear-jerking emotions of the scene where Din laughs just seeing Grogu responding to his name. The emotional connection between the two has been well established already, but this is the finale: it shouldn’t coast on the good will from the rest of the season but should make the connection even stronger so it can twist the knife even further later. The very beginning promised some neat characterization between the good guys. There’s a lot to say about the relationship between Bo-Katan and the other Mandalorians. The scene where she and Boba meet is delightfully prickly, everyone willing to fight at the drop of a hat. Bo-Katan dismisses Boba as a clone. Boba, perhaps comforted by Din’s quick acceptance , resents her self-proclaimed right to the contested throne. Koska being so willing to fight on her leader’s behalf gave some great heat to the scene. I love the idea that the two groups have such a deep fissure between them since it illustrates exactly what Bo-Katan is trying to unite, how hard that will be, and why not all Mandalorians might agree with her. It’s also just fun, a sort of Chekhov’s gun of that many people in Mandalorian armor being in the same dingy room together.

There was plenty to love in this episode. I gasped out loud when Moff Gideon nearly shot himself, winced when it looked like the dark trooper would smash Din’s helmet in, and felt that old, old love for Star Wars when it became clear the X-wing held no ordinary pilot. Seeing Luke in the flesh was a delight despite the flaws, reminding me of how much I love the central fantasy of Return of the Jedi: a super-powered nice person can save the day on both strength and kindness. Bo-Katan, Fennec, and Cara were wonderfully cool and central, too. Din showing Grogu his face was touching and long-awaited.

But Din letting the Jedi — any Jedi, but especially one he doesn’t know — walk away with the baby feels wrong. Maybe next season, we’ll see a repeat of the show’s beginning: Din having second thoughts and going to retrieve his son again. The tease at the end of the episode suggests a lot more Boba Fett in season three, a not unwelcome prospect due to Temuera Morrison’s good performance and one that might have made filming during the pandemic more feasible. But I’m left lukewarm about this episode. Even as it wowed with individual moments, the arc of “The Rescue” overall drifted too far from Din and Grogu. Surely some of the time devoted to build-up, shiny plot threads, and cameos could have been traded for a little more time with the iconic duo.

The post Star Wars: The Mandalorian Season 2 Episode 8 Review – The Rescue appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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velerodra-valesinger · 5 years

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A Spark

@revthepunchbear, @eilitheduskbringer

For better or worse, she’d made a decision. Anethemia Quel’Vuran had extended her an invitation, and so, she would accept it. Any reservations or doubts she may have had turned to vapors. Perhaps it was the diplomat in her. There was no plan. There was no expectations. She was simply going to make an approach in good faith. To meet the woman on her terms, with no motives other than to speak with her.

Considerations were made. Would Reveria approve of this? Would Eilithe approve of this?

Perhaps if she had told them first. But she didn’t intend to give a warning. She’d told Rev she had planned to do this, but, things had changed since then. Had Vel been quicker to act, perhaps she’d have been able to keep Quel’Vuran from showing up at that outpost. Perhaps it would have made it worse. She had no way of knowing, because she’d let herself waver before taking action. Eilithe certainly was not a fan of when Vel pulled shit like this. It had happened before. She’d tried to avoid walking casually into danger, but she’d allowed herself to become too cautious. She hadn’t been willing to make moves anymore, she just spend her time thinking about them, never moving.

It might not be approved of, or particular smart, but the monkette had made her decision. No matter how it turned out, at least she’d feel like she was in motion again. Not frozen, unsure of what to do.

She went to great lengths to make sure she didn’t drag anyone else into this.

At an Inn in Boralus she went about getting ready.

She took a longer than average bath. The inn didn’t have a particularly deep bath, which left her feeling a bit disappointed. She would have liked a nice deep soak. Still such luxuries were not required. She dried off and wrapped a towel around herself.

Atop of a waist high wooden dresser she’d laid out several items. Her comm, she left the device turned on, but she would not be taking it with her. The bell in her hair that kept her connected to the seal. A pair of ear rings - which she used to keep in touch with Kurel, they would be left behind as well. If anyone realized she was gone and got worried then they’d be able to track these objects to the inn. But once she left this room, she would be as off the grid as she could be.

She glanced at herself in the mirror and went about doing brushing her violet blue hair. She turned around to dig through a hastily packed bag, and sorted through a collection of ribbons. She opted for a light gray and a pale green ribbon. The bells she choose were cylindrical, and their chimes were high in pitch with a rather muted attack, and a long, satisfying decay. Like quiet little wind chimes. She pulled at a length of her hair, and braided the ribbons in, then attached the bells to the end. She nodded at herself in the mirror as they chimed softly.

She sat down on the edge of the bed slipped on a white dress with blue accents. She didn’t conceal any weapons. Nor was the dress anything other than Pandaren silks. She was going to approach unarmed an unarmored. She adjusted the little decorations on her shoulders, and added a few bells to the tassels. Vel didn’t usually like dresses, but this dress did have the advantage of having a slit along one side, making it a touch less restrictive than if it didn’t have such a slit. She put a blue silk over her mouth, and placed a glowing rune above her forehead. She adjusted the hovering rune a few times before nodding to herself. A tool she’d not used in a while, a way to help keep her chi balanced. As she looked at herself in the mirror she smiled beneath her silk, she hadn’t worn this in quite a long time. And it felt - right.

She would carry her leather messenger bag along with her, but there was nothing of note inside, some blank parchment, an enchanted quill and a case which contained her pipe along with some various blends she might feel like smoking. She wasn’t sure how long it would take for her to find Anethemia Quel’Vuran . Or - for - Anethemia to find her while she was trying to find her. It’s not like the woman told her where specifically to find her. So, having her pipe handy felt - right.

It was too soon for her to attempt to turn to mist again, so she lacked an exit plan. Vel had just barely reassembled herself, and she was still in an odd state of mind. If Anemethia planned to harm Vel, it would not be difficult. Vel had deliberately decided to meet the women in good faith. No tricks. No weapons. No armor. Not even her mists. She didn’t really expect the woman to approach her in the same manner. She expected perhaps she’d send minions to collect her and bring her to her. Or perhaps she’d have her knocked out and dragged off to some lair. She really didn’t know, and she didn’t have any way to avoid such things. She wouldn’t have held it against the woman if she were to take this as an opportunity to seize a hostage, or to kill or torment the monkette. That would be - perhaps the worst of outcomes. But she had no real way to slither out of such things quite yet.

Yes, the circumstances favored Quel’Vuran in literally every possible way, but Vel just didn’t see what else she could really do. She couldn’t allow herself not to meet with the woman. It just wasn’t in her nature. Vel had too many questions. Things she didn’t understand. Quetions about Anethemia, about Morinthe, about Moonsong and how they all - intersected.

Her chances of speaking with Moonsong (without getting shot) were approximately 0.00023%.

She’d never seen Morinthe personally and had no idea how she’d be able to get in contact with her.

Thus, Anethemia, was her best option regarding getting any sort of answers directly from one of the three.

She could have tried to set some manner of trap, to tell the others, but, given that Anethemia has explicitly told her to find her in Boralus suggested to Vel that she’d quickly sniff any sort of trickery out. The woman was likely to have eyes on things. So rather than risk burning a possible bridge, she risked Anethemia taking advantage of Vel’s good faith approach.

Vel stood up and stared at her mismatched eyes in the mirror. Both were vibrant and bright. She smiled lazily and adjusted her bells.

This felt - correct.

This felt - like herself.

As she adjusted the fabric of her dress she saw in the mirror the reflection of an all too familiar figure sitting on the edge of the bed. She closed her eyes. She knew the figure she saw wasn’t real, just a product of her mind. Just her imagination.

She opened her eyes slowly, the robed figure still was visible in the mirror, her amethyst eyes locked on Vel. Vel didn’t turn. It wasn’t real. But she did -- speak.

“Can I help you Mother?” Vel asked, that last word dripped with venom.

Vel watched the figure in the mirror as she rolled her shoulders and adjusted her red hair. “Curiosity or pride. You do remember what I told you little serpent. It’d be either your curiosity or pride that got you killed.” Vel’s imaginary Ava spoke in a cold, belittling but not quite mocking tone.

Vel placed her palms on the dresser and squinted into the mirror. She inhaled. A tension filled her body, but left as she exhaled. She straightened herself back out, “Yes mother, I remember. Curiosity or pride. One of them would be the death of me. Once more, I hope to prove you wrong. As if I do indeed walk into my death, it will be neither curiosity nor pride that gets me killed, but rather the conjunction of curiosity and pride.”

The redhead rolled her eyes, “Semantics will not save your life little serpent.”

Vel watched the figure rise and move from the edge of the bed closer to the dresser until she stood behind Vel. The monk shook her head. This wasn’t even Ava. It was her own imagination. “Perhaps not. But if I do die, due to both curiosity and pride, rather than one or the other, I will be able to die quite satisfied with the knowledge that were incorrect, if only due to semantics.”

Vel smiled slightly as the figure stepped away, and turned her back to Vel. “Fool.”

Vel returned to adjusting the fabric of her dress and her lazy little smile began to seem a touch more genuine as she observed her imaginary mother turn her back to her. “Mhm, if only you’d done a better job teaching me.”

The red head turned to shoot a glare over her shoulder and she looked as if she had plenty to say, in a calm, measured, all-too-familiar tone, but Vel dismissed the figure from her mind just before she began one of the lectures Vel’s imagination could quite easily conjure for her.

Perhaps it would be curiosity and pride that led her to her death. Or perhaps she’d manage to say the right words at the right moments. Perhaps words would end up saving her life. She wasn’t entirely sure what words those might be - or if she’d even get a moment with Anethemia to talk. She couldn’t be sure of that. However if she didn’t try - then she wouldn’t be Vel.

She tapped one of her bells with a smile. And glanced towards the door. Once she stepped outside and into Boralus, she’d be - effectively off the grid, and walking unarmed and alone into someone who’d seemingly warped gravity itself with her void magic.

Vel shrugged as she reached for the door.

The right words at the right moment, that is all that it had taken to cause Ava, a demon, to break a supposedly eternal pact and reject a soul that had been willingly given to her.

Vel took a deep breath and nodded to herself.

She didn’t know what to expect, or what she planned to take away from accepting this invitation, but she would - hopefully find the right words at the right moments. And end up walking away, with something useful. Even if it all went to hell though, she was certainly feeling much more like herself than she had felt in a long time.

#a lost spark #decision #anethemia #(this could go very badly)#(but that has never really stopped Vel from much of anything)#Diplomacy

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calucadu · 5 years

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Momo is beautiful

Momo is beautiful, a Boku no Hero Academia/My Hero Academia One Shot.

I did a giveaway on twitter like a thousand years ago and I finally finished it. It was supposed to be a thread at first but it ended up as this 8k word monster. Anyway, it's a gift for the lovely Amythelovelyelf who came up with this amazing idea and I hope you like it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Summary: Momo and Eijirou are the same.

Pairings: Yaoyorozu/Kirishima.

Characters: Kirishima Eijirou, Yaoyorozu Momo, Kaminari Denki, Ashido Mina, Uraraka Ochako, Sero Hanta

Rating: Explicit

Read on AO3

Or read below the cut

Momo is beautiful, undoubtedly so. Eijirou can’t deny it. Maybe it’s how stylish she seems, or how composed. Or maybe it’s how smart she is. He doesn’t know, he can’t place his finger on what it is about her, but there’s something that makes him really respect her.

She’s really manly, but in her own, womanish way. Because she is most definitely a woman, with those… big, womanly attributes.

Momo is so gorgeous that Eijirou is starting to rethink his sexuality. There’s just something about her.

She impressed him when they saved Bakugou. It’s got to be that. Yes, definitely that. He’s just impressed. It’s not a crush. It can’t be a crush, he likes men.

He likes muscles, firm abs, strong arms, wide, broad shoulders. And she definitely has none of those. He’s not saying she’s not pretty, because she is gorgeous, he just…

Maybe he wants to know what it feels like to touch her tits. Maybe he wants to squeeze them with his fingers, hear the delicious sounds that come from her mouth. Maybe he wants to suck on her nipples, taste her.

Or maybe he’s not as gay as he thought.

Girls are supposed to like boys, Mono knows this. She’s seen the films, read the stories. She’s watched her parents, happily married. Well, okay, maybe not happily, but they’re married. Men should marry women.

But she just doesn’t feel what she thinks she should feel when she looks at men, or boys. Maybe she’s confused, maybe she just doesn't know what she should feel, maybe it’s just that.

Yet it worries her, in the pit of her stomach, that she isn’t normal, that there’s something wrong with her.

What if girls like girls? What if she likes a girl? The thought of it makes her tummy knot uncomfortably. She’s weird, she’s wrong, she’s bad. If mum and dad find out, she’s toast, she knows. But there’s something so special and delicate about girls, and about one in particular…

It’s not like boys can’t be delicate. They can, and they are, she knows. But it’s just not the same. It’s not the same feeling she gets.

She doesn’t want to be different; she doesn’t want to be abnormal.

She doesn’t want to throw away her parents’ hard work just because she’s a deviant. So, she reaches out to the only person she suspects could help her out. She’s seen the way he looks at a certain boy, the way his eyes go hazy as he gently nibbles on his lip in want.

There’s no denying he’s just like her.

Momo’s made up her mind, but it’s not like she can interrupt the class to talk to him. She’s trying her hardest to control her nerves and jitters, trying to maintain herself as composed as she normally is, but the nagging thought that she could be wrong and the fear of being exposed as… the creature of sin she is, makes her feel worse. Of course she knows Eijirou wouldn’t out her like that; or at least she hopes she knows him well enough for that to be true.

Her parents can’t find out. No one can.

So Momo just does it.

It takes a lot of courage but Momo ends up tugging at Eijirou’s wrist, turning his body around so that they are face to face. The boy looks confused for a few seconds before he smiles warmly at her. She notices that he smells good.

“You’re like me, aren’t you?” Great way to start a conversation, she thinks to herself, releasing the grip on his wrist. She watches the way his eyebrows scrunch up in confusion again and she lets a small sigh escape her lips. “Can we talk about this privately?”

“Sure!” He says, looking up at her with a slightly shy smile. “I should invite you to my room, but I don’t know how it’s viewed upon for a lady to go into a man’s room alone.”

“That’s okay, I accept your invitation. It’s surely better than you coming to mine. I mean! It’s not a bad thing! Just that…”

“I understand!” He scratches the back of his head awkwardly, still smiling warmly at her. “Come with me then!”

They go up the stairs in silence, and Momo doesn’t know if that’s a good thing or not. She’s nervous as she walks behind him, but she clutches her hands together to stop them from shaking. He opens the door to his room for her and waits until she’s inside to go in after her, closing it silently on his way in.

He blushes as he sees the mess in his room and quickly proceeds to clear the floor of the dumbbells he left earlier, putting them under his bed. Once it’s more or less cleared, he politely invites her to take a seat wherever she deems comfortable.

Shyly, she sits on the bed and looks up at him. “I’ve seen the way you look at him.” She says, immediately regretting the way she started the conversation.

His smile fades away slowly before a new one spreads. “The way I look at who?”

“You know who I’m talking about. You know what I’m talking about.”

There’s a pause before Eijirou’s smile falters. “How… how’d you know? Is it obvious? Am I obvious?”

“Not really? I mean, I don’t know. I just noticed because we’re the same.”

“The… same?” He mouths, confused, his eyes narrowing slightly. “You… also like him?”

“No! I mean, no. I’m like you in another sense.”

“Another sense…” He mulls it over before realisation hits him. “Oh.”

“I thought you might understand me.” She whispers.

“I hope you'll understand me, too.” He giggles nervously, finally relaxing his tense muscles. “Mind if I sit next to you?”

“Please, go ahead. It’s your room after all.”

“How’d… how’d you know?” He asks, sitting on the bed at about an arm’s length from her. “How’d you know about me? How’d you know about you?”

“About you… I kind of just sensed it.” Momo struggles with how to express the mess inside of her brain, before sighing and closing her eyes. “Kamino is the thing that made it all click into place for me. The way your lip twitched when Midoriya-kun said those words to you, told you that you were the one. I saw the hope in your eyes. I could tell immediately. I’ve always known that he’s special to you, but that… just proved me right. I know what you feel for him. But it’s okay, because you’re just like me.”

Momo towers over Eijirou. He’s a little bit intimidated by that, or maybe he’s intimidated by her. She always sounds so polite when she talks and honestly, it makes him feel insecure about his upbringing and social status. He feels like he shouldn’t be speaking to her, and if he tries to do so out of turn, she’ll be cross. He’s extra careful with his language and the way he acts around her. He knows it’s ridiculous that he feels that way, but she’s a lady, and he can’t get past that.

He knows there’s more to her than her social status. She knows that despite her upbringing he should be treating her like she’s a normal teenager. It’s just weird because he feels like she’s someone important. It makes him feel inadequate. He tries to see past her polite speech and expensive clothes. He knows she’s smart and resourceful, knows she’s worth so much more than her family’s wealth. She’s beautiful but she’s also strong and hardworking.

But the way she gradually opens up to him and talks about her private matters makes him feel way more comfortable with her. She treats him like a normal person would, and it's easier for Eijirou to forget his worries. They end up bonding. It’s special. He finally feels like someone understands him, like he isn’t alone in the world. It doesn’t matter that they’re from a different background; they’re friends and he trusts her.

He doesn’t regret having opened his heart to her.

They share a secret little smile whenever they cross each other. To anyone else, it looks like a sweet, innocent greeting, maybe an acknowledgement of sorts. But it’s so much more than just that. It’s their way of saying that they’re in this together. And they’re okay with it.

They sometimes meet to talk about it, to explain how they feel, to try to put into words what it is that makes them so different. It’s comforting to think they’re not alone, and they bond over how they’re similar in such a different way.

“Have you ever had a crush on a boy?” Eijirou asks Momo one day, but he’s not looking at her. His eyes are on his phone as he flickers through his device’s photo gallery, looking at the pictures of the cute lad that currently has his romantic attention.

“I don’t think I have.” She whispers, throwing her head back so she’s laying it on his bed. She’s comfortable like that, gazing at the posters that look like they’re hung upside down on his wall. “Boys just didn’t catch my attention.”

“When did a girl catch your attention then?”

“It wasn’t until recently that a certain someone… struck me as being different. And special.”

Eijirou finally looks away from his phone to shoot her a friendly grin. “Yeah, she rocks.”

“Do you… do you think I have a chance?” Momo asks, tilting her head so their eyes meet.

“You won’t know until you ask her.” He shrugs his shoulders as he unlocks his phone again and shows her a picture. “He’s dreamy. But you don’t agree, right?”

“Yeah, there’s nothing dreamy about him.” She chuckles, but sits up straight, changing position so her arms drop on the bed beside him.

“It feels weird to talk to a girl about boys.” Eijirou mutters, his eyes glancing briefly at her before he goes back to staring at his screen, a lovestruck expression on his face.

“Good weird or bad weird?”

“Just weird. I mean, it’s not like I’ve ever talked about boys with a girl before, but Mina does it a lot and it’s just different that you don’t see them like she does.”

“Do you wish you were normal?” She asks him, and he ponders about it for a while.

“No.” He finally whispers, crossing his arms on the bed and placing his chin over them. He sighs before he continues speaking, but the stupid grin’s still on his face. “Because I would’ve fallen in love with him either way.”

She just laughs politely, shaking her head.

Momo breathes in, laying on her bed. She covers herself with her sheets and turns the light off. She inhales again, to calm down. She’s not sure why she’s so nervous. It’s just a little test, or at least that’s what she’s telling herself.

It’s really simple, actually. She’s going to think of her new best friend and try to masturbate.

It sounds awful. She doesn’t know why she decided to do something so stupid and now she regrets it, but she’s already committed to it.

Taking another shaky breath, she takes her pyjama bottoms and her knickers off and places them under her pillow. Her hand slowly lowers to her nether regions, but she stops when her fingers reach her mons pubis. She sighs and pushes onwards, forcing her digits to go lower and spread her lips apart.

It feels kind of nice to prod at her folds, but it’s even better when she reaches her clit. She forces her eyes closed and puts some pressure on her little bud as she thinks of sharp teeth and red hair. They're the only things about Eijirou that she can force herself to think about. His smile is his best feature, and she can’t just soil it with this dirty act.

She’s sinning.

She’s going to go to Hell.

She tried to masturbate to her best friend.

Gasping, she retrieves her hand from her crotch and she starts crying uncontrollably.

Why is she such a rotten child?

On a different occasion, they go out. Eijirou decided to because she’d said she’d never been to a café before and he insisted she just had to try it. He helped pick out her clothes so she wouldn’t stand out much and she told him to please not wear his crocs.

They sit at a table inside the café he chose, hoping to get some privacy there. The seats outside looked great and it's the perfect weather out to enjoy the sunshine, but whenever they're together they talk about how they're… different and they'd rather not be overheard.

The waitress comes over with the menus, giving one to each of them before commenting that they're a cute couple.

Momo freezes and Eijirou chokes on his words, shaking his hands in front of his red face as he corrects the waitress.

"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry!" She apologises frantically.

"It… it's okay." Momo whispers, not looking at her. "We're just good friends."

When the waitress comes back with their beverages, she doesn't say anything except a curt "I hope you enjoy your drinks."

She sips on a tall strawberry milkshake and he drinks his mango juice in silence.

They’re both still blushing and avoiding eye contact when Momo clears her throat and does her best to look at him. “Have you ever had feelings for a girl? Has a girl ever interested you?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. I used to be curious about what was inside their… I mean, no, that sounded wrong. I wanted to know what they had under their underwear. They just told me girls were different and I wanted to know how. I’m talking about when I was super small, though.”

“I was told those were our naughty parts and we couldn’t touch them.” She whispers nonchalantly, prodding daintily at her drink with her straw.

“Mmmm.” He mutters, chugging his juice. “Boys’ bits or girls’ bits?”

“Bits?” She laughs. “I guess everyone’s. I can’t really remember.”

“That’s a weird thing to tell someone.” He whispers, looking out of the window, seemingly lost in thought.

“It is, isn’t it?” She mutters back, trying to shake off the sad tone in her voice as she speaks.

They’re silent for a while. Eijirou’s busy looking outside and Momo is trying to think of a way to ask him something that's been on her mind for a while. She decides to finally blurt it out quickly to get it over with. “Have you ever masturbated thinking about a girl?”

He turns to look at her. He doesn't look bothered by her question, but he also isn't smiling like he usually is. “I forced myself to, once. It was… awful. Forced. Weird. I’m not ever going to do it again.” He pauses. “How about you?”

“I…” There’s a reason she really wanted to talk about this, but now that she is, she doesn’t even know how to address the problem “I… find masturbating hard. I can’t really do it. I mean, I’ve tried, but…” She bites her lip and turns her head slightly, embarrassed.

“Why?”

“I… don’t want to speak about it. I mean! I want to! I just don’t know if I can. And now we’re here, in public and I... but I really do want to talk about it. I need help maybe.”

“Why?”

“Because… and I know this sounds stupid but whenever I try to… I get overcome with these thoughts… they tell me what I’m doing is wrong and I can’t stop them.”

Eijirou looks at her with a sort of pitying look before he grabs her hands and gives them a gentle squeeze.

“It’s not wrong. It’s not something that’s bad. In fact, quite the opposite.”

“I mean… I know about that. I know, I know! But they won’t leave my head!”

“Try forgetting about it. Try to stop paying attention to them. Focus on what you’re feeling and the images that you like.”

She sighs, closing her eyes and nodding her head. “I should. Thank you. Thank you for listening to me and not finding it ridiculous.”

“It’s not ridiculous, I understand. They teach us it’s a dirty place and that we shouldn’t touch ourselves, but that’s not right. Look at what they told you! You can talk to me about whatever.”

“I definitely never thought I’d be talking to you about that.” She laughs and her voice trails off before she looks back at him. “Do you think you could get it up with a girl?”

“That… that’s a good question.” Eijirou whispers, his face turning a pretty shade of pink. “I’ve never really thought about it.”

“Have you ever…?”

“I… I’m not sure? I remember realising girls didn’t do it for me when all the boys around me were talking about how awesome it’d be to fuck one and I just… couldn’t picture myself doing it.”

“And now?”

“I don’t know? Maybe?? I’m…” He doesn’t want to say it. Doesn’t even want to think about the possibility.

“I’m not sure I could do it with a boy.” Momo whispers, getting slightly closer to Eijirou. “But it is different for boys after all.”

“Isn’t… isn’t it easier for girls? To like… work?”

“Why would it be easier?”

“I don’t know? I read somewhere that girls work… I mean… get… hot… or whatever… with like touches and kisses. Boys are more visual.”

“I think I understand.” Momo nods.

“So maybe it’s possible? I honestly don’t know. I’m not even sure I could get it up with most boys.”

“Most boys?” She questions.

“Yeah, I…” Eijirou ducks his head and blushes. “Maybe it’s only him that makes me feel this way.”

“Do you masturbate while thinking of him? Do you picture him as you…?”

“I…” He hides his face in his hands. “Yeah…”

“Do you think about other boys?”

“I mean… it’s not that I’ve never done it… I just don’t usually do it.”

“Mmhmm.” She mutters, bringing the straw to her lips. “I don’t picture anyone.”

“Not girls? Not even… her?”

Momo shrugs her shoulders. “As I said, I don’t do it often. Maybe it’s the intrusive thoughts that don’t let me think of anyone as I… yeah. I don’t know. I could try to picture… her. Or someone else.”

“I could borrow a mag from one of the boys if you want.”

“Do you think it could help?”

“It might. You could try, at least. See what happens.”

Momo gulps, looking at the semi naked girl on the cover. She’s gorgeous, with plump breasts – obviously smaller than hers, but she prefers them small – and defined curves. She’s smiling at the camera, looking radiant in her pink bikini. The teenager swallows audibly, opening the magazine and taking a look.

Tons of stunning girls stare back at her, all posing and showing off their bodies. She feels rather inadequate as she flickers through the pages.

It’s erotic, which is something new to her. There’s a tingling sensation in her nether regions and she bites on her lip, feeling her tummy do funny things. She’s all happy and excited, and she doesn’t understand why. All she knows how to do is follow some strange instinct inside of her which is telling her to use her fingers to dance over her clit. Which she does. For over an hour.

The next day, she’s excited to give it back to him. She enjoyed it, and she can’t wait to tell him her progress, what she learnt and what she feels now. But as she gives the mag back to Eijirou, she feels her chest tighten strangely. It’s an odd feeling, one she can’t stop herself from thinking about during the rest of the day. Mina notices.

“Whatcha thinking of?” The pink girl singsongs, coming up close to her and grabbing her by the shoulders to pull her in.

“I… I… Something weird happened to me today. My chest tightened when I saw Kirishima-kun.”

Mina releases her and pulls back, gasping surprisingly loud. “OH MY GOD!” She shrieks.

Momo tries to shush her but there’s no controlling the pink haired girl’s screeches. “Please stop, Ashido.”

“I keep telling you to call me Mina! But… you do know what that means, right?”

When the taller girl shakes her head, Mina rolls her eyes, pretending to be frustrated as she clicks her tongue.

“That you like Kirishima.”

“Can I confess something to you?” Momo asks him when they meet up again. She’s on his bed, her legs and arms crossed, trying to make a barrier for herself if everything goes wrong.

“Yeah!” He smiles brightly at her, and she can feel her chest doing that tightening thing again.

“I tried to masturbate thinking about you.” She finally says, closing her eyes and clenching her teeth.

He doesn’t speak for a few seconds, and when she’s finally about to open her eyes and beg him to please say something, he does. “But the magazine…”

“No, I… I tried to do it before. I’m so sorry, I feel so guilty.”

“Uhm, no, it’s okay. I think. I don’t know. I’m a bit confused right now.” He whispers, avoiding eye contact with her.

“So am I! I… sorry to bring it up! I’m leaving!” She’s off the bed as soon as she’s said that, but Eijirou grabs her arms and tugs at her gently.

“Please don’t go. Can I ask you why you did that?”

“I wanted to try… I…” She sighs and breathes in, but she can’t continue with the sentence. She finally sits back on the bed and he lets go of her arm.

“Can I confess something too?” He asks.

Momo lifts her head up and nods, watching as his eyes dart from hers to his feet before he starts speaking. “Would it be weird if I told you… I’m confused about my sexuality? I mean… I know I’m not straight… but… you’re making me doubt that. I think I kind of like you.”

“Actually… no… I…” She whispers, her hands reaching out to touch his face, tilting his chin so that their eyes meet. “I’m kind of feeling the same way.”

“Is that why you…?” He asks and she nods. Eijirou lets out a small relieved sort of sigh before speaking again. “What… what do you think we should do about it?”

“I don’t know? Try to kiss maybe? Try to date? I don’t know.”

“What do you want?”

They both blush and laugh an awkward little chuckle.

“I mean… we could try to kiss. Don’t you think?” She whispers finally, leaning in just slightly. He leans in too, his head already tilting to the side like he’s seen they do in films.

“Yeah… we… we could definitely try to kiss. It’s just one kiss. What harm could it do?” He speaks slowly, his eyes on her lips as they slowly move in closer.

Eijirou’s hand are shaking as he leans in and presses his lips to hers. It’s a quick peck, but an electric wave washes over him and he pulls back quickly, shocked at the feeling.

“Did… did you feel anything?” She whispers as she looks at him, her expression curious. She’s flushed too, and she’s breathing heavier than normal.

He nods gently, his brain a mess. He has so many questions, so many things he doesn’t understand.

“Did you?”

She blushes and looks away, but curtly nods her head as well.

“Should we… kiss again?” He asks, smiling sheepishly.

Momo nods and Eijirou leans in. The usually elegant girl in front of him is obviously as new and as clueless at kissing as he is, and for once, he’s glad for his lack of experience.

It’s strange how their wet lips connecting makes him feel all tingly and excited. But he doesn’t fight it; just deepens the kiss until their tongues finally meet and it becomes even sloppier. It’s a strange sensation, one he’s never felt before. It’s not bad, quite the contrary, and his body certainly seems to like it. Embarrassed, he pulls away, quickly covering the front of his trousers with both of his hands.

“Wait… did you just…?” Momo asks, her hands quickly lifting to cover her mouth in shock.

“I’m sorry!” He screeches, red as his hair.

“No! It’s okay, I think. I’m actually not sure what I think. It’s never happened before.” She whispers, her voice quieting the further along the sentence she is. “I’ve never kissed anyone before.”

“Me neither. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I hope I didn’t blow it with you. I enjoyed it.”

“I liked it too. Maybe we can do it some more?”

“Uh, yeah! Yeah! Sure!” He blurts out. Suddenly his eyebrows scrunch up in that cute way he has when he’s worried he’s messed up “Did I hurt you with my teeth?”

“No. You were very careful. Plus my tongue just traced over them anyways, so I could tell they are sharp, but it wasn’t painful.”

“Oh, good.” Eijirou breathes in, relieved, before going back to kissing her again.

They only separate to pant and breathe again, but they’re at each other’s mouth just seconds after, groping at each other’s clothes, feeling hot and excited.

Eijirou never thought she’d ever do what she just did, which was clumsily touch his hard-on over his clothes. He’s never thought of her as clumsy before, but then again, he’s never felt her mouth against his, or her hand awkwardly trying to touch his very hard member over his clothes.

Momo pulls back first, but he’s quick to follow. Surprised, they stare at each other for a few seconds before she giggles awkwardly, trying to calm herself down.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s… it’s okay.” He whispers, trying to cover himself up. The place where she put her hand still feels tingly and weird.

She’s silent for a few minutes, watching as he tries to catch his breath. “I may be attracted to you?” Momo finally says, leaning in closer. He looks up and their eyes interlock.

But he doesn’t say anything. He can’t. He’s confused.

“Should I go?” She whispers. The redhead doesn’t want her to go, but he’s also feeling very uncomfortable right now, so he meekly nods.

Momo apologises once more, and there’s a sad look in her eyes as she leaves him, closing the door behind herself.

Eijirou’s alone in his room now, but he’s still flushed and feeling weird. His dick is pulsing inside his pants and he can feel it burning with need. He bites his lip, unsure of what to do. He eventually gives in, and his hands tremble as he lowers his trousers and frees his cock. It’s still hard and aching, and he can’t help frowning worriedly as he looks at it. He’d never kissed anyone before, he didn’t know he was going to feel like this. On top of it, he feels conflicted and strange, like he’s still doing something immoral. Trying not to think about it, he fists himself, quickly tugging at his eager dick with his right hand. He scrunches his face and clenches his teeth as he tries to keep his mind blank. It’s best if he doesn’t think about anything, if he doesn’t think about her.

Images flash through his mind: her big tits, clothed, then naked, her lovely curves, her smiling face… and he increases the speed, his hips thrusting into thin air. The pleasure doesn’t increase. He’s not sure what he’s feeling, actually, but it’s not really good. It’s strange. His breathing becomes uncontrollable and before he knows it, he lets go of his dick in a mixture of displeased agony and gross pleasure. Unfortunately, he stopped himself too late and he cums all over his bed.

Panting irregularly, he looks at the mess on his sheets and his hand, the other clutching at his heart because he’s in pain and he’s not sure what to do.

He’s never been more confused in his life.

They’ve created a strange bond that not even them really understand. They both feel comfortable with each other, feel understood by the other, feel cared about and safe. It’s probably the closest thing to dating without actually dating, and Eijirou doesn’t know what to make of it. He doesn’t know what to do, what to say. He’s not even sure he knows what he himself feels.

To be honest, he’s not sure Momo’s feelings are true. He doesn’t think she’s lying, he just believes she doesn’t know what she’s doing. Since she said so herself: they’re the same.

He sighs, burying his face in his hands. Maybe they’re not the same after all.

They decide to do it. They even decide to go shopping together. It helps with their embarrassment that they have each other as Momo hands the cashier her credit card and Eijirou bags the condom and lubricant as fast as he is able.

It doesn’t make walking back to the dorms any less awkward. It’s worse when they have to part ways and he knows he has to ask if she wants to do it now. She agrees and silently goes into his room with him.

She starts undressing as soon as he closes and locks the door. When he turns around, she's already out of her blouse and he can see her navy blue bra. Flustered, he asks her what she’s doing but she just laughs and walks over to where he is, giving him a quick kiss on the lips and placing his hands on her tits. They’re soft. They’re amazing, actually. They feel really good to the touch, and he can’t get enough of them.

Momo pulls away and beckons him over to the bed as she sits down on it. He follows, tugging at his own shirt until it’s off. He feels slightly exposed and insecure when he’s next to her. Sure, he doesn’t have a bad body; he knows he’s stronger than most, but it’s still uncomfortable for him to undress in front of her. Trying to dismiss the thought, he takes off his trousers and helps her out of hers.

Momo’s got a beautiful body. Well, it’s not like Eijirou ever doubted that she wouldn't. He never doubted the fact that women are beautiful. They all are, their bodies are special. They’re made to be pretty, and he can appreciate their beauty, even without feeling attracted to it. He likes to compare it to art. He’s seen those pictures that display horrible things, like murder, and he knows it’s beautifully made, knows it took a lot of time and practice and talent, but he will never find it pretty. He appreciates the art and value it has, but he doesn’t share the love for it. Girls are the same.

Momo is the same.

She’s looking at him expectantly, maybe hoping something will work. He gulps, feeling more under pressure than ever. She’s not going to get a reaction from him anytime soon.

“You’re gorgeous.” He says, his hands trying to pump his unresponsive dick unsuccessfully. He feels worse as she watches him do so, the look on her face something akin to pity.

He knows he should probably not say that it’s not her fault but his, since it feels like rubbing salt in the metaphorical wound, so he leans in and kisses her. This stirs him a little. It helps.

He tries to get lost in her body. She’s so soft. It feels good to touch her, more than he expected. She’s also warm and her kisses feel nice.

He should feel something, right? He should feel it like that day they kissed. But he doesn’t.

He’s not even sure he feels anything for her anymore. But they’ve already committed to this. So he lays her on the bed and crawls over her, kissing her mouth as lovingly as he can. His fingers try to blindly discover her vagina. It’s weird, very different to what he was expecting. Eijirou doesn’t even know what he was expecting, but it sure wasn’t a warm wetness that feels gooey. He gently puts his digits into the little cave and he thinks that it’s similar to dipping in sauce.

Momo feels uncomfortable. Eijirou’s fingers inside of her feel… weird. They’re bigger than hers, and thicker, and the feeling is… just strange.

It’s not like it’s bad, it’s just something she’s never felt before. He’s doing something completely different to what she does. She can’t even pinpoint why it’s so different. It’s not like he’s doing things she’s never done to herself… but…

A moan escapes her when he pushes upwards and strikes something inside of her. It feels good; obviously her dainty fingers can’t reach that spot very well.

Eijirou looks keen after that first reaction and spreads her legs wider apart. He tries stuffing his hand further in, tries to touch her there again.

“You want to…?” He asks, breathing heavily. Is he aroused? She honestly can’t tell. “You want me to… stick it in?”

‘Not really’ is what she actually thinks, but she nods her head and lies down completely, waiting for him to topple over her. He’s quick to position himself, his hands on either side of her head as their eyes lock.

He looks pretty. She knows he’s pretty. He’s a pretty boy. There’s more to him than just how pretty or not he is – and she knows this – but right now that’s all he strikes her as. She can only stare at his big catlike eyes, his thick eyelashes and the cute little scar over one of them.

She’s soft. It’s soft. It’s malleable and warm, and Eijirou can feel his heart beat faster as he sinks his fingers into tender skin, trying to get himself hard enough to continue.

It feels good. He’s reacting to it. Like he did to the kiss. That’s good, right? Maybe it means he’s normal.

She moans as he gently caresses her breast. It must feel nice to have someone touch them like that, and the idea that someone could do that to him makes his dick twitch. A certain person’s on his mind but he discards the thought angrily, forcing himself to focus on the pretty woman in front of him.

It’s not like she’s repulsing. She most certainly is not. It’s just that he doesn’t find her quite so… irresistible. Or something. He doesn’t even know.

It’s nice to touch her soft body, to trace her curves and to kiss her lips. It feels good but it doesn’t exactly feel right.

Maybe it’s because they haven’t done it yet.

Maybe he just has to fuck her and everything will click and it’ll feel amazing and he’ll feel silly for ever doubting himself.

Maybe he just needs to get his dick wet to realise that girls aren’t that bad.

Maybe it’s just that.

He turns to grab the condoms and puts one on. It takes him a while since his hands are trembling and he’s never done it before, but he gets it on. He positions himself again, trying to figure out the right way of doing it. Is it something he should know? He has no idea.

They’re silent as he moves his legs and opens hers, but Eijirou looks at her one last time before going in. He’s silently asking for permission to do so with his eyes, and she agrees, nodding curtly.

He enters her. He slowly sinks his length into her, feeling her tight walls wrap around him, caging his dick in a nice heat. It… it feels good? He’s not sure. He’s definitely feeling something. She’s wet and tight, but there’s no magic, no fireworks, nothing. He’s not feeling anything he’d been promised. And when he looks at her, he can tell that she isn’t either. Her face is scrunched up in pain and determination, and her eyes are closed as if she’s concentrating very hard.

Eijirou stops and pulls out, sighing.

“You’re in pain.” He whispers, leaning down and watching her slowly open her eyes. She’s beautiful, even now, with droplets of sweat falling from her forehead.

“It’s normal for the first time. I read about it online.” She mutters.

“It doesn’t have to be normal. I don’t want to continue if you’re in pain.”

“It’s not really pain? I mean, it’s bearable.” Momo tries to smile at him reassuringly. It doesn’t work.

“Try to relax.” He mutters, licking his fingers before going back down to her entrance. She isn’t as wet as he’d like her to be, but he coats her with saliva. He inserts his digits and uses a pumping rhythm until she starts moaning again. Not before long she’s begging for him to enter her, so he does, getting back on top of her.

It’s still awkward. He tries to thrust upwards but he can’t get the right speed to do it and he stops, feeling incompetent. She doesn’t look like she’s enjoying it, and he can’t really say that he is too.

‘Maybe it’s the position’, he thinks, and proposes they change places. Momo agrees to ride him so he lies on his back, watching as she places herself on his dick. She slowly lowers herself on his cock, and it feels good. She bounces on it a bit, and he thrusts up, trying to get the feeling he gets when he masturbates, but it feels completely different.

He knows this should feel amazing. Why doesn’t it feel good?

Angry and upset with himself, he grabs her by the waist and helps her ride him faster. He clenches his teeth hard, concentrating on trying to make it feel as good as it should. Tears form in his eyes and she gasps, her hands going to his face to wipe them away. It doesn’t stop him, however. He’s determined to make it good for the both of them.

He's exhausted after a few minutes of thrusting upwards and his speed starts slowing down. She stops, cupping his face and forcing him to look at her.

“Stop.” She says softly.

Momo clambers off of him and gets inside the bed, motioning for him to join her. He gets in next to her and she pulls the sheets over them.

“You don’t want to continue?” He asks, cuddling in closer to her.

She shakes her head but then remembers to ask him how he feels about it. “Did you?”

“No.” He lets out a relieved breath. “It felt weird.”

“I didn’t feel anything.” She laughs sadly, but she turns it into a small smile when she looks at him. “I think I was confused. My chest tightened again when you went in me, but my head was screaming at me that what we were doing was wrong.”

“I think I really, really like you, but as a friend. I think all the love and trust I have for you is merely… me caring for you as a friend. I’m sorry, Momo. I know you’re special, and you’ll make someone very happy someday, but that someone can’t be me.”

“I feel a great load of affection towards you too, Ei-san. And I was confused, too. I don’t think boys will ever do it for me. I’m sorry I put you through it.”

“I’m sorry I put you through it. I’m sorry it hurt you.”

“It didn’t hurt all that much. As I said, I really didn’t feel anything. I hope that doesn’t make you feel like less or a man or anything. You’re a very handsome young-”

But he cuts her off with a laugh. “It’s okay. So… are we… are we like, still friends? Or did this fuck it up for us?”

“You’ll always be my best friend, Ei.” She says, turning over to kiss his forehead.

Eijirou opens his eyes and mouth wide as he remembers the condom, which he quickly peels off. He laughs awkwardly as he throws it on the floor and blushes. He lies down comfortably again and opens his arms for Momo to cuddle in his embrace.

“Never again, please.” Eijirou mumbles, wiping his brow

“Agreed.” She whispers back.

Maybe Hanta’s smarter than he looks. Or maybe he’s just in the wrong place at the wrong time, because that’s how he feels right now, staring at a used condom in his friend’s bin. They’re in Eijirou’s room and he was just going to throw a bubble gum wrapper away when his eyes fell on the dreaded item. Why his friend hadn’t tried to conceal the rubber is a mystery to the teen, especially since they’re that age when sex is new and exciting and even the slightest mention of it will get them either straight up aroused or at least a little bit giggly. So his first thought, of course, is that his friend had used it to masturbate. That makes a lot more sense than him actually… doing the deed with someone. But something about the situation doesn’t seem right, so he decides to talk it over with Mina and Denki, who – obviously – see it completely differently from him.

“No way did Kirishima lose his V-card!” The blond shouts excitedly, his hands covering his excited smirk in surprise.

“And he didn’t tell us!?” Mina squeaks awkwardly, a small blush on her face. “Like, we’re his friends? Hello? Why didn’t he not tell us?”

“No way did he lose his virginity! Before me? THERE’S JUST NO WAY!” Denki screams but apologises quickly when Hanta shushes him.

“Who with??” The pink haired girl is nearly shouting, biting her lower lip worriedly.

“I mean, I’m not sure?” Hanta whispers, leaning in closer. “It was just a condom.”

After a slight pause, Mina exhales a long breath. She looks at her two friends with a triumphant grin on her face as she says “I’ve got a way of figuring it out.”

Mina’s great at setting up parties or events. It’s the same for improvised class 1A “bonding time”. That’s what she calls it as she rounds up everyone and tells them they’re going to spend the afternoon together, playing games.

“Alright, I’m out.” Katsuki mutters, turning away with a half-arsed wave before his wrist is caught by Eijirou.

“C’mon, it’ll be fun!”

“I don’t want to play stupid games with you and these…” He cuts himself off, his eyes darting from one classmate to another.

“Just let him leave, he’s obviously too much of a pussy to play ‘never have I ever’ with us.” Mina says sweetly, grinning slyly at the blond.

“The fuck did you just call me, Raccoon Eyes?” He opens his hand menacingly as explosions start erupting from them. “I’ll show you! I’ll beat the shit out of this game like I can beat the shit out of you!”

“That’s not…” Eijirou begins before sighing and realising it’s better to just let him think that since that’ll make him participate.

“So, what are we playing?” Ochako asks, looking at the pink haired girl expectantly.

“I was thinking we could play ‘never have I ever’.” Mina answers with an ample smile on her face.

Her two accomplices start shouting enthusiastically and everyone ends up sitting on the floor in a circle with a glass of juice, water or milk. Eijirou sits next to Katsuki, who is grumbling because he ended up choosing the same type of beverage as Midoriya but is pretending it's because he finds the game stupid.

The first few rounds are pretty much uneventful, and they go by innocuously enough. When Mina gives Denki the look, he knows it’s his cue to really start the game.

“Never have I ever masturbated in front of a bro!” He shouts proudly. This earns him a few guffaws and small laughs, as well as a few stifled snorts from the boys and loud gasps from the girls.

“Kaminari!” Someone tries to reprimand him, but he just waves them off by encouraging everyone to drink.

This question – as they predicted – starts a new era for the game. The teens become bold and start asking things that go from just risqué to completely unacceptable. Luckily for them, Mineta plays straight into their hands.

“Never have I ever had sex!” The small boy says, breathing heavily. His tongue darts out to lick his lips in excitement, readying himself for the replies.

Eijirou panics. With wide eyes, he slowly brings his glass to his lips, trembling just slightly. He’s smiling sheepishly because of how nervous he is, but he tries to hide it behind his drink. He knows everyone’s gazes are on him, but he tries not to think about it as he gulps his beverage down.

“OH. MY. GOD!” Mina screams, her mouth wide open as she curls her hand into a fist and starts hitting Denki, who is sitting beside her, with it. “I CAN’T BELIEVE IT!”

Eijirou knows he’s blushing and closes his eyes to try and will the embarrassment away, but everyone is talking around him, asking him questions and it’s all starting to be too much for him.

“No way, it’s true!” He hears someone mutter. He can’t tell who the voices are from, and honestly, he doesn’t want to know.

“Who was it with?”

“Was it any good?”

“Was she any good!?”

“How were her tits? And her cunt? Did you eat her out?” Those comments he knows are from Mineta.

“He’s just lying to look cool.”

“Yeah, I know, and it’s a pity, he looked like such a good guy.”

“Wait, so you have like a girlfriend or something now?”

“Fuck, do you have a fuckbuddy? A friends with benefits sort of deal?”

“That’d be so cool! I want one too!”

“He doesn’t look like the type of boy who’d do that though.”

“ENOUGH! Just leave him alone, you blithering imbeciles. So what if he had sex. What’s it to ya what he does or doesn’t do in his private life? Just shut the fuck up and carry on with your miserable lives.” Katsuki snaps, and everyone suddenly stops talking, turning their heads to look at the angry blond. “You have no right to judge him.”

“Wow.” Mina whispers, her eyebrows raised.

Eijirou finally has the courage to open his eyes, and he locks his gaze with the still furious blond, but mouths a small ‘thank you’ before sighing and turning his attention back to his drink. The other teens still seem tense and continue talking despite the intervention.

The redhead sighs, but quickly remembers something. He isn’t the only one that's had sex. He quickly looks at Momo, who smiles uncomfortably at him, raising her drink slowly. She does a small sort of toasting motion only for him before sipping her drink.

A gentle smile spreads across his face, and, for some strange reason, he feels a little bit better. It doesn’t last long however, since Mina and Denki jump on him and continue bombarding him with questions.

"Who with?" She asks.

"When!?" Denki interrogates, his eyes wide open as he stares at him in a slightly recriminatory way.

Hanta looks troubled as he walks over and sits down in front of him. "We're your friends. Do you really feel like you can't even tell us this?"

"Didn't you fucking hear me, you knuckle heads?" Katsuki snarls, pressing his fisted hands into Mina and Denki's heads. "I said leave him alone. What he tells you is up to him, not you."

"Hey, that's not fair!" The other blond helps. "I'd totally tell my bro if I got my dick wet!"

"It's not up to you." Katsuki repeats.

"Why are you the voice of reason all of a sudden?" Mina mutters, pulling away from the other.

"Hey, I uhm. I'm not feeling too well, so I'm uhm… going to...go rest." Eijirou whispers, his eyes on the floor as he scrambles away.

"Ei! Hey, Ei!" Hanta calls after him. The redhead can also hear his other friends voicing their concerns towards him, but he's not in the mood.

His chest feels tight.

Eijirou manages to get back to his room without anyone stopping him. He’s exhausted and still uncomfortable with the turn in events. He doesn’t want to talk to anyone, not even Katsuki, who’s knocking on his door right now.

“Shitty Hair, let me in. I want to talk.”

Because he can’t say no to his best friend, and especially not after he saved him like that, he lets the blond in and they both take a seat on his bed.

“I know.”

“I… don’t know what you’re talking about.” Eijirou forces out a dry laugh.

“Ponytail. I know you fucked her.”

“How-how’d you know?”

“The walls are paper thin, idiot. I’m surprised no one else knows. That and you glanced at each other while the dimwits were still arguing about it. She toasted to you and drank. That seems pretty incriminating to me.”

“Okay.” The redhead sighs, dejected.

“Calm down. It’s not such a big deal. So you’re together, who gives a shit?”

“We’re not!” He screams out, but bites his tongue and clenches his teeth. He speaks softer when he continues. “I mean… we’re not together.”

“Irrelevant. No one should care. No one should be fucking interested in your personal business.”

“Thanks, Katsuki. For that. And for what you did back then.”

“It’s okay. It’s what friends do.”

“Thank you anyway.” Eijirou smiles at him, but the blond looks away, bashfully.

“I said shut up.” But there’s no bite behind it.

#momo is beautiful #bnha #my writing #my fanfiction #momo #kirishima #kirimomo

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foodieworldmelbourne · 5 years

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The 'eight-minute' cure: how transvaginal mesh sentenced thousands of women to a life of pain

Normal text sizeLarger text sizeVery large text size Grace Irvine has blue eyes, pale skin, and short hair that fluffs up at the back like a baby chick's. She is 29 years old. Three years ago, she was a healthy mother of three boys living in a small town in Victoria. She worked as a dental assistant, and wanted to study nursing. After her second son, Sammy, was born in 2013, Irvine noticed what felt like an uncomfortable lump in her vagina when she sat down. This is a common symptom of pelvic organ prolapse (POP), a condition that, at some point, affects about half of all women who've had children. It happens when organs of the pelvis bladder, rectum, uterus drop or press into the vagina. She also noticed "a bit of leakage" during exercise, caused by stress urinary incontinence (SUI). This is a separate condition to prolapse, but both are socially disabling and cause serious health problems if very severe and Irvine was only 24. "I didn't want to be wearing nappies for the rest of my life," she explains, smiling. "I did want to get it fixed." In June 2016, when her third son, Parker, was six months old, she had an operation at her small local hospital, performed by two gynaecologists with an "interest" in mesh surgery, to insert transvaginal mesh. She was told the operation would cure her incontinence and prolapse, and that her recovery would be swift and easy two weeks at most. None of this proved true. She woke from the operation in agony, and six weeks later, her vaginal cuff and bladder were both prolapsing, and she was still incontinent. "The surgeon was shocked," recalls Irvine. "He sent me back to the referring specialist." "It's a pretty rough job," he told her. "But it's not the worst I've seen.'" Irvine lives in a modest brick and tile house. She walks slowly, favouring her right leg, and often pauses while speaking, breathing through her nose. Sitting at the kitchen table, even though she's on a cushion, she shifts around a lot, arms folded tightly. Three years after her initial operation, she's now almost entirely incontinent: at her cousin's wedding recently, she wet herself "completely: a full bladder. I was wearing a proper urinary pad, but it was dripping down my leg." She has frequent serious infections and discharge; and she's been unable to have sex with her partner of 12 years for more than a year because it's too painful. This pain is the worst thing of all, she says. She's not on any painkillers, because she's worried about dependency, and she can't sit for long, or walk far, because it feels "like a cheese grater in my vagina" an analogy used by many mesh patients "like rough surfaces are catching and rubbing together". She can't work, or walk to the local park with her kids, or exercise her border collie; she needs a wheelchair for long outings. The other night, her oldest son, Tyler, now 10, said to her: "'I miss doing things with you, Mum.' " Irvine looks down at the kitchen table. For the only time during a three-hour interview, her self-control slips. "My kids are paying the price for this," she says, eyes filled with tears. "I just can't believe it. I can't believe this happened to me."

A sample of transvaginal mesh. In Australia, only 13 mesh products from more than 100 now remain on the market. Credit:AP Since its introduction in the late 1980s, somewhere between 7000 and 18,000 women have experienced complications from mesh surgery in this country. This figure echoes as many as 200,000 cases reported overseas. In what one surgeon has called a "tragic, two-decade-long free-for-all", these women were victims of often poorly trained doctors, using devices that, in many cases, lacked scientific evidence of safety or effectiveness, without being properly informed of what was being done to them. In this country, most mesh surgery training was facilitated by mesh manufacturers themselves (with all the potential for conflict of interest this creates); the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) required no independent clinical evidence about many of the transvaginal prolapse mesh devices it cleared; and according to a 2017 survey of 1900 women by the Health Issues Centre, a Victorian health consumer peak body, more than 60 per cent of women did not give informed consent. Instead, when things went wrong, these women were cut loose by doctors, regulators and manufacturers alike. Their reports of serious complications and debilitating pain were ignored; the products they were implanted with were not investigated; and their doctors told them they were "imagining the pain", that they should "try anal sex", or that they were "crazy". According to former federal senator Derryn Hinch, who agitated for a Senate inquiry into mesh use, this is all par for the course. "I remember sending some mesh-related paperwork to a government administrative office," he recalls. "And when it came back they'd changed the word 'vaginal' to 'pelvic'! That's what's f...ing wrong with all this! For five years, no one's touched this because it's got the word 'vagina' in it. If this had been a male problem, it would have been up there and out there and fixed in six months!" The eventual 2018 Senate inquiry recommended a national audit of past mesh procedures and a registry for future ones; mandatory reporting of problems by doctors; and the establishment of specialist multi-disciplinary mesh clinics. It also exposed at least some of what mesh-injured women were dealing with. A young teacher testified about trying to look after a class of little children while wearing a catheter bag strapped to her leg after she was left incontinent; a mother of five described how mesh severed her urethra (the tube that carries urine) and destroyed her vaginal wall; a registered nurse explained that her mesh infections produced such a "putrid-smelling discharge" that even showering twice daily couldn't contain it. Many women confessed they had considered suicide. Professor Thierry Vancaillie, a gynaecologist and pain specialist at the Women's Health and Research Institute of Australia, testified that "[these women] are unable to sit for any length of time, which means they can't enjoy such basic social interaction as a family dinner. They can't have intercourse. They have difficulty emptying their bladder or bowel. They have difficulty with basic physical activity, such as walking or going up flights of stairs. [For women with serious complications, it is] a true disaster." A disaster the medical profession has been collectively apologising for. "It was a long way from our proudest hour," then-Australian Medical Association president Michael Gannon told Fairfax Media in 2017. "To call [our support of mesh products] a tragedy is not overstating it at all." "I'd like to offer an apology," said Dr Steve Robson, then-president of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RANZCOG). "A personal apology and an apology on behalf of the College." Even Greg Hunt, the federal Health Minister, acknowledged in October last year "all of those women with the historic agony and pain that has come from mesh implantation, which has led to horrific outcomes. On behalf of the Australian government, I say sorry." Unsurprisingly, many women have decided all these officials can take their apologies and, as one mesh patient put it, "stuff them". These women are now seeking financial compensation. One of the largest medical class actions in Australian history, by more than 1300 women against Johnson & Johnson and Ethicon (manufacturers of mesh products), is currently awaiting judgment in Sydney's Federal Court. A second case, by 850 women against American Medical Systems (also a manufacturer) was filed last July. There has also been an unknown number of individual settlements against Australian doctors. Overseas, meanwhile, the British Medical Journal reported in 2017 that more than 1000 British women had brought legal cases involving mesh to court. In Canada, more than 3000 transvaginal mesh cases had been filed by the end of 2018, and some 107,000 are outstanding in the US, making it one of the largest mass torts on record. More than $US7 billion has been awarded, and in the next few years according to some estimates global compensation claims for mesh complications could exceed $20 billion. Transvaginal mesh looks set, by some measures, to become one of the biggest issues in women's health for decades. Hinch calls it the biggest issue "since thalidomide". But is anything actually changing? Beyond the verbal mea culpas and the fight for compensation, what lessons have we learnt about protecting women protecting all of us from these kinds of surgical interventions? And what has anyone actually done to help Grace Irvine, and the thousands of women like her?

Former senator Derryn Hinch.Credit:Andrew Meares "Transvaginal mesh" is the catch-all term for any product surgically inserted via the vagina to support the pelvic organs. Doctors embraced the new mesh devices because they were marketed as offering swifter surgery, quicker recovery times and lower failure rates than the traditional "native tissue" treatment, in which women's own tissue is used for support. Sometimes the mesh takes the form of "slings" or "hammocks"; sometimes it's called "tape" that wraps around or beneath organs. It's usually made of polypropylene, but has also been constructed from materials such as nylon and porcine submucosa, a technical term for pigs' guts. Importantly, out of 100,000-odd (and perhaps as many as 150,000) women treated in Australia, most have not reported complications from mesh surgery indeed, it's been very successful for many. Success has been most noticeable with stress urinary incontinence, treated via mid-urethral slings (MUS). Many MUS devices have a great deal of scientific evidence behind them, and they remain despite complications the international gold-standard treatment. But for a substantial minority of women, the experience has been not just bad, but truly horrid. Most complications involve the mesh itself, which hardens and shrinks inside the body, perforating tissue and sometimes piercing other organs. In the bladder or bowel, this can lead to adhesions, infections, fistulas, abscesses and severe urinary and defecation problems. In the vagina, mesh may poke into the vaginal passage itself. Male partners can feel this mesh with their penises during sex; women can feel it themselves with their fingers. Unsurprisingly, many women with mesh problems, like Grace Irvine, find sexual intercourse extremely painful. According to the Health Issues Centre survey, as many as 25 per cent of relationships break down following mesh complications. Professor Helen O'Connell is one of Australia's top functional and female urology surgeons, and a former director of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. Her career has neatly spanned the decades during which mesh was extensively used but she has always avoided it, relying instead on native tissue repairs. While diplomatically maintaining that it's "a really complex area", she says that "in almost every circumstance, there's an option" between using mesh and doing native tissue repair. "I'm not saying there's no place for [mesh], but my need for it has become extremely limited." What is required for successful native tissue repair, she says, crediting her practice colleagues, "is really high-quality surgery, performed with a really high level of expertise". What's become clearer and clearer as more and more women have come forward with horror stories is that this expertise has been, for many, woefully lacking.

Leesa Tolhurst, left, with her mother Alison Blake, who took her own life because of the pain of an unsuccessful transvaginal mesh procedure. Credit:Courtesy of Leesa Tolhurst When retired primary school teacher Alison Blake was 62, she was referred to Sydney surgeon Dr Richard Reid for her pelvic and prolapse problems, for which she'd already had unsuccessful surgery. According to her only child Leesa Tolhurst, before surgery her issues "weren't overly severe. She did feel uncomfortable, but she had full function. She just needed to go to the toilet regularly." Reid operated on Blake a daily ocean swimmer who took pride in her health and appearance in February 2014. She suffered immediate complications, including severe and continuous pain. She returned to Reid, who operated twice more before the end of the month. After this surgery, Blake was left with no bladder function whatsoever. "She was completely reliant on self-catheterising," explains Tolhurst. "She had to plan everywhere she went, because she knew she had two hours at most before she'd have to lie down somewhere [to do that]." She was unable to attend her own father's funeral because the crematorium had no facilities for it. "It completely stole her dignity," says Tolhurst. Before her treatment, Blake presumed as most people do of their doctors, especially their specialists that Reid knew what he was doing. In this she was tragically mistaken. Reid had, in fact, been suspended and fined in the US (where he lived for nearly two decades) in 1998, after a disciplinary hearing following complaints by three women. One of these, a 23-year-old, was awarded $US7.6 million after a civil court heard that Reid's surgery had left her unable to "ever have sex again". On his return to Australia, Reid was permitted to practise again (prior to a change in legislation requiring doctors to record suspensions). But his incompetence led to restrictions being placed on his practice in 2011. In 2018 (after he retired), he was found guilty of professional misconduct after 17 women were left with serious injuries following mesh surgery by him. The mesh Reid used in his treatment of Blake, like all transvaginal meshes, was designed for tissue to grow around and through it, "like passionfruit over the chicken coop", as Hinch puts it. This makes its removal extremely difficult, even for highly skilled surgeons. Reid's attempts on Blake left "little spikes of it inside her", says Tolhurst. "On certain movements she'd still feel it digging into her." She wanted to continue her life so much, but shed just lost all her hope. Leesa Tolhurst, daughter of Alison Blake who took her own life in 2015. This continual pain, plus the daily humiliation and social isolation caused by her incontinence, eventually overwhelmed Blake. "I cannot bear the thought of leaving you but the emotional torment and physical pain I'm going through are just too much," she wrote in a note to Tolhurst. "I simply cannot bear to be lying on a couch for months on end and to have to rely on catheters, enemas, Temazepam, painkillers and be a burden to my family and friends." In June 2015, Blake took her own life. "I miss her every day," says Tolhurst, her voice choked. "She wanted to continue her life so much, but she'd just lost all her hope, after hanging on for so long." Alison Blake's case illustrates one of the biggest issues with mesh: medical skill and responsibility. Reid was clearly unfit to be operating when Blake encountered him in 2014. And mesh brought vulnerable patients into contact with doctors working in an extraordinarily laissez-faire, oversight-free arena. As one senior obstetrician gynaecologist explained to Good Weekend, "the mesh reps, the device reps, whoever, come and sit in your office and say, 'So this is the device it's fantastic, we can give you free kits, we can show you how to use it.' And you go, 'Okay, well, I've got a list on Monday, why don't I try it out.' And that's your training." Such an environment places enormous responsibility on individual doctors to oversee themselves. And too often, in mesh cases, this self-monitoring fell short. "We got really excited, and we weren't cautious enough there's no question of that," Dr Jennifer King, then chair of the Urogynaecological Society of Australasia, told the Senate inquiry. "[Mesh] got used overenthusiastically." One anaesthetist who's worked with several mesh surgeons (not including King), believes it went beyond mere enthusiasm. "As a group, they display a lot of narcissistic, god-complex personality traits," he says. "You could argue that surgeons as a whole tend towards narcissism, but these guys were something else. They were absolutely convinced they were wonderful surgeons, and that everything they did was right, and that no one should question them. They thought they were God's gift, basically."

Grace Irvine, now 29, can't work, walk to the local park with her kids, or exercise her border collie; she needs a wheelchair for long outings. Credit:Photograph by Kristoffer Paulsen. Hair and make-up by Karen Burton. Grace Irvine has had to grapple with the fact that, in addition to the failure of the surgery itself, she was also subjected to a hysterectomy while under anaesthetic. "They mentioned [a hysterectomy] as a really unlikely possibility in one conversation," she recalls. "They were like, 'We'll just put it down [on the consent form], but we're sure we won't have to do it.' I mean, I had to go and buy a Mirena coil [an IUD] before surgery: they were going to insert it for me. Then I wake up, beside myself with pain, and this has happened." Her surgeons told her they'd removed her uterus because her uterine prolapse was "worse than they thought". As a further blow, Irvine's hospital bed after surgery was in the maternity ward of the hospital; she could hear newborn babies in the rooms on either side. "It was absolutely devastating," she says. There are many stories like hers: women including many young women whose sexual and reproductive organs were irreparably damaged. Reid, as it turns out, worked with another controversial mesh surgeon, Dr Peter Petros, who was involved in the early development of incontinence mesh in Western Australia. Petros came to the attention of the courts as far back as 2004, when a WA district court judge awarded a woman more than $136,000 after evidence of her severe and permanent injuries following mesh surgery by him. Since then, a series of complaints culminated last month in a professional misconduct hearing brought by the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission (HCCC), in which Petros was found to have acted improperly and unethically and misled the Commission. Had he not already retired, he would have been struck off over several issues, including failing to disclose his financial interest in a mesh device, the Tissue Fixation System (TFS), which he developed and promoted for many years.

A Tissue Fixation System device, no longer on the market. The HCCC launched its investigation after a woman left with serious and permanent injuries as a result of being implanted with Petros's device by Reid, without her knowledge or consent, complained Petros had failed to disclose to her his financial interest in the device. Petros was also present, supervising Reid, when Reid implanted Petros's TFS device on a second woman, during which Reid cut an artery, resulting in a near fatal incident. The woman required 12 units of blood and transfer to a major public hospital. The tribunal found Petros wrote an improper and inaccurate report about that event, in which he sought "to minimise the course of the surgery and the nature of the complications suffered by the patient". Most surgeons are skilled, careful, and trying to act in their patients' best interests. But, as illustrated by recent court cases, when it came to mesh, doctors, manufacturers, and private hospitals (in which many mesh procedures occurred) all stood to make large one might argue compromisingly large amounts of money. During the Johnson & Johnson class action in Sydney, one of the company's advertising concepts for transvaginal mesh products was tendered to the court. It was an ad aimed at doctors, and in it, two surgeons boast about their successful mesh practices. "Just got back from a week in St. Moritz," says one. "Fabulous ski conditions, beautiful resort." He's just picked up his new Lamborghini. But now he's got to rush he's got to squeeze more mesh patients into his schedule. "You know I can do a TVT-O [an incontinence mesh procedure] in eight minutes."

Professor Helen OConnell.Credit:Kristoffer Paulsen Obviously, these aren't real surgeons. But Professor O'Connell "can definitely remember people talking about the time it was taking for them to do a mesh sling. And because people could do it very quickly, potentially that could lead to a position where people would say, 'This is child's play. It's so easy ...' " She pauses. "And, well, it possibly isn't that easy. You may not have as many steps as a heart transplant, but the patient is going to have that mesh there permanently. And if you're not giving it full respect, that could potentially be a problem." In the aftermath of the mesh debacle, many doctors have suggested that it was the device manufacturers such as Johnson & Johnson who were to blame for the problems. And if it wasn't the device manufacturers, it was the TGA, which cleared them for use in the first place. The current president of RANZCOG disagrees. "We as a medical profession have to accept responsibility," says Dr Vijay Roach. "We can't just duck it and blame everybody else." He acknowledges that the profession itself may need more oversight, more restrictions, more rules about behaviour and training. "I have no problem with any of that," he says. "I mean, as a specialist doctor, I currently have virtually no regulations governing my working hours, alcohol intake, fee structures. Contrast that to other professionals who are responsible for people's lives." Pilots, train drivers, even forklift operators are subject to shift limits and blood alcohol tests; senior doctors, in particular, have no such requirements. "But the difficulty," says Roach, "is in deciding who regulates it. If you believe and I do that the college is in the best position to regulate doctors and the introduction of new techniques and devices, then the colleges have to be adequately resourced. And we are not." In the meantime, the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (ACSQHC) has moved to protect patients. Late last year, credentialling procedures for mesh surgeons were accepted by every state and territory, and are currently being implemented by hospitals. According to ACSQHC chief executive, Adjunct Professor Debora Picone, "this guarantees that only the most highly qualified urogynaecologists, gynaecologists and urologists can now undertake mesh surgery. Uncredentialled surgeons are not permitted to undertake that surgery." The problem is that this measure, while positive, is limited in scope. What about the next group of patients being offered new treatments, by doctors without rigorous training, using unproven devices? Describing his own practice, Roach recalls a recent visit from a pair of sales reps with a new laser machine that, they're claiming, will "rejuvenate the vagina" a claim without scientific evidence. "They came in and said, 'We'll get you the equipment, and you're going to be earning $100,000 a month on it'," he recalls. "Just crazy money." As Roach puts it, "the doctor starts by being sucked in to buying this extremely expensive device, and then, because of that financial investment, convinces themselves they're doing the right thing by the patient, when they're not. The doctor is totally conflicted, and the patient never has a chance." Why weren't mesh devices properly investigated 20 years ago, long before surgeons ever got hold of them? How did they ever reach a hospital shelf, let alone a patient's body? The gatekeeper for the Australian medical market is the TGA. Most people believe the TGA's remit from government is to subject every new drug and medical device to stringent review, to ensure that the scientific evidence supporting its safety and effectiveness is absolutely robust. This sounds straightforward. But in the case of mesh, it was not. For some products primarily the MUS products used for incontinence there is extensive research supporting their use. As the 2017 Cochrane Review of mesh studies (a highly respected report by international experts) states, these slings "have a good safety profile" though the experts noted the need for "longer-term data from the numerous existing trials" to help resolve "uncertainties about long-term effectiveness and adverse event profiles". Transvaginal prolapse mesh devices, however, have no such proof. The 2016 Cochrane Review of transvaginal mesh used in prolapse found that the international body of evidence about these devices was of "very low to moderate quality". In many cases, it was simply non-existent, and where present, its limitations included "poor reporting of study methods, inconsistency, and imprecision". As of 2015, what evidence did exist failed to prove safety or efficacy. Indeed, said the Cochrane experts, "the risk-benefit profile means that transvaginal mesh [for prolapse] has limited utility in primary surgery". And yet between the years of 1998 and 2013, the TGA cleared more than 100 different mesh products for implantation in women's bodies, including many of these highly problematic transvaginal prolapse devices. Today, the head of the TGA, Dr John Skerritt, lays responsibility for the original clearances on the American Food and Drug Administration (FDA). "At that time, the TGA accepted approvals from different jurisdictions, including Europe and the US FDA, and used these approvals as the basis for [clearance in Australia]," he says.

An illustration of how one mesh device, the Prolift, was used. This matters because in 2001, the FDA cleared a transvaginal mesh device called the IVS tunneller. And significantly, this device was green-lighted not only for incontinence, but also for prolapse. The FDA made this decision on the basis of "substantial equivalence" that the IVS tunneller was so similar to a device already on the market (in this case, the TVT incontinence sling) that it needed no new or independent clinical proof that it worked, and was safe. This clearance, fatally, meant that the IVS tunneller could be used not just for incontinence, but also for prolapse despite the lack of specific evidence that it was either safe or effective for prolapse use. "It's almost impossible to believe that that [FDA] clearance happened," says Professor Chris Maher, one of Australia's top urogynaecologists and a lead Cochrane Review author. Prolapse and incontinence are different conditions involving different anatomical structures. Also, the IVS tunneller was made of a different material from the TVT, and was of a different design. "The clearance was factually incorrect," says Maher. "There was no substantial equivalence." And yet, in the years to come, this single clearance opened the door for a cascade of new prolapse devices to be approved, first overseas and then in Australia. So in terms of the science behind them, a whole section of the mesh market was simply a castle in the air. Many doctors were as shocked as their patients to discover that the mesh devices they were implanting were not supported by watertight scientific evidence. As of January 2018, all transvaginal mesh prolapse devices have been removed from the Australian market, and, as of last month, only 13 mesh products remain, including some prolapse devices that cannot be inserted transvaginally, and the Johnson & Johnson TVT mesh mid-urethral sling for incontinence. All of them, says Skerritt, are now classified as high-risk (class III), "which [require] extensive analysis of clinical and non-clinical evidence" before clearance. Most doctors think this reclassification is a good move, as is the establishment of a national Pelvic Floor Surgery Clinical Quality Registry, which was announced by Health Minister Greg Hunt in April. "What we want," says Helen O'Connell, "is a very well-tested group of products, about which we have a great deal of long-term data, being used by a group of highly competent surgeons." Women with existing mesh complications are glad others will be protected in future. "I want no woman to suffer as I have suffered," testified one woman at the Senate inquiry. But because they already have now-banned products in their bodies, future restrictions won't help them and might isolate them further as the lack of new cases makes their suffering seem increasingly irrelevant. So if you're one of these women, what do you do now? Grace Irvine, for one, isn't quite sure. She's considering her legal options: she's part of the Johnson & Johnson case, and may yet take legal action against her own doctors. She had her mesh removed at Melbourne's Royal Women's Hospital last August. According to her operation notes, her mesh was "exposed one centimetre under urethral meatus" where urine is discharged from the body. It was also "very adherent to periosteum and required division at pubic bone to facilitate removal". In other words, mesh was stuck to the tissue covering her pubic bone, which had to then be pulled apart which she describes as "a bit like having your hip surgically broken" and the mesh shaved away from the tissue to get it out. In the course of the operation, the obturator nerves of her right leg were damaged, which is why she limps. She has a large scab on her right shin, I notice during my visit. "Oh yes," she says sheepishly. "I've got no feeling below the knee, so I'm always banging it on things." Her new surgeon, in whom she has great and under the circumstances, extremely touching faith, has told her she will need "several more surgeries". Specialists at The Royal Women's Hospital have also told her that her hysterectomy was unnecessary. Mesh removal complications aren't unusual. Professors O'Connell and Maher both do removal operations, and both regard them as extremely difficult, often distressing procedures. "It's bloody horrible surgery," Dr Jennifer King told the Senate inquiry. Indeed, in many cases, even the most experienced surgeons are reluctant to remove mesh, because of the risks of causing new injuries, or exacerbating old ones. And yet, says Maher, more and more women are anxious about potential problems and seeking full removal. "And because they're so adamant, increasingly it is being performed," he explains. "In a way, doctors' opinions have been sidelined." Mesh removal is a matter of opinion. Some women want it, whatever the risks. "They feel violated," says Hinch. "And I can totally understand that. They just want it gone." Others feel Australian surgeons can't be trusted, and want to travel overseas, where complete mesh removal costs tens of thousands of dollars and results are mixed. According to RANZCOG's submission to the Senate inquiry, removal surgery is entirely possible in Australia, though it may require a surgical team with "urogynaecologist/gynaecologist and urologist and/or colorectal surgeon" expertise, and surgery can take eight hours or longer. A multi-disciplinary team and all-day surgery, to remove a product that took one person as little as eight minutes to put in. And even when such surgery is successful, the problems aren't over. "Unfortunately, pain may persist in as many as 50 per cent of women," says Maher. You may remove all the mesh, repair all the damage, and yet the experience of terrible pain remains. How can this be so? If this had been a male problem, it would have been up there and out there and fixed in six months! Former senator Derryn Hinch Dr Jason Chow is an obstetrician/gynaecologist in Sydney. He's also a pain specialist, and every week he sees patients with chronic pain from mesh complications. Chronic pain, he explains, is the result of a complex sensitisation process within the body. "[It's] a kind of maladaptive response from the nerves that report pain. It's a change in the pathways," he says. "The pathways that tell you you've stepped on a thumbtack and you're feeling pain are not the same as the pathways telling you you're still feeling the thumbtack three months down the track."

Professor Debora Picone. The problem is that most non-pain-specialist doctors don't understand chronic pain. For this reason, the Senate inquiry specifically recommended that the multi-disciplinary medical units for the treatment of mesh patients should include pain specialists. "That's crucial," says ACSQHC's Debora Picone. "These women have major issues with pain management, major issues of good old-fashioned psychological trauma, particularly in the old days when they weren't believed. The question is, how long it will take to get the centres going? "I've been in health a long time," she adds. "And to be honest, it's not going to happen overnight not even within 12 months. This is a new clinical problem, and it's a long process. But I'm confident it will happen." Some things have improved for patients with transvaginal mesh complications in Australia. Better awareness among health professionals helps, as will the mesh registry, multi-disciplinary centres and better accreditation of doctors. And the removal of unproven mesh devices from the market, plus information about informed consent, which hospitals must now provide to patients, will help protect women in the future.

Dr Vijay Roach.Credit:Steven Siewert But not all the signs are good. Last year, Maher who first raised the alarm on mesh more than 20 years ago experienced a terrifying groundhog day. In last November's edition of the respected Medical Journal of Australia, he and colleague Dr Melissa Buttini expressed the widespread concern of doctors about a new wave of CO2 laser treatments marketed at women for "vaginal rejuvenation". (These are the lasers represented by the reps who visited RANZCOG's president Dr Vijay Roach, suggesting he could make $100,000 a month from treatments.) In August, the US FDA issued a warning about laser devices in this context. (The TGA is currently reviewing their use.) "These products have serious risks and don't have adequate evidence to support their use for these purposes," the FDA stated. "We are deeply concerned women are being harmed." Maher and Buttini are also concerned. They point out the "lack of properly controlled trials", the "deceptive health claims and significant risks", and the fact that companies "promoting vaginal laser treatment do not currently need to provide evidence from stringently conducted trials in order to receive device clearance [from the TGA]". Sound familiar? "It's exactly the same," says Maher. Unproven devices, patients at risk. "Doctors do want to do the best for their patients," he says. "But sometimes they get carried away with their enthusiasm for the newest, most innovative treatments. Women need to know that, if treatments aren't funded by Medicare, they may not have been fully assessed for safety or effectiveness." In the wake of what's gone before, he concludes, doctors and patients alike need to be extremely careful. "Have we got the message from mesh? I'm not sure we have." Lifeline 131 114 To read more from Good Weekend magazine, visit our page at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and Brisbane Times. https://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/health-and-wellness/the-eight-minute-cure-how-transvaginal-mesh-sentenced-thousands-of-women-to-a-life-of-pain-20190611-p51whn.html?ref=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_source=rss_feed

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zarafoodrecipe · 5 years

Text

The 'eight-minute' cure: how transvaginal mesh sentenced thousands of women to a life of pain

Dr Vijay Roach.Credit:Steven Siewert But not all the signs are good. Last year, Maher who first raised the alarm on mesh more than 20 years ago experienced a terrifying groundhog day. In last November's edition of the respected Medical Journal of Australia, he and colleague Dr Melissa Buttini expressed the widespread concern of doctors about a new wave of CO2 laser treatments marketed at women for "vaginal rejuvenation". (These are the lasers represented by the reps who visited RANZCOG's president Dr Vijay Roach, suggesting he could make $100,000 a month from treatments.) In August, the US FDA issued a warning about laser devices in this context. (The TGA is currently reviewing their use.) "These products have serious risks and don't have adequate evidence to support their use for these purposes," the FDA stated. "We are deeply concerned women are being harmed." Maher and Buttini are also concerned. They point out the "lack of properly controlled trials", the "deceptive health claims and significant risks", and the fact that companies "promoting vaginal laser treatment do not currently need to provide evidence from stringently conducted trials in order to receive device clearance [from the TGA]". Sound familiar? "It's exactly the same," says Maher. Unproven devices, patients at risk. "Doctors do want to do the best for their patients," he says. "But sometimes they get carried away with their enthusiasm for the newest, most innovative treatments. Women need to know that, if treatments aren't funded by Medicare, they may not have been fully assessed for safety or effectiveness." In the wake of what's gone before, he concludes, doctors and patients alike need to be extremely careful. "Have we got the message from mesh? I'm not sure we have." Lifeline 131 114 To read more from Good Weekend magazine, visit our page at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and Brisbane Times. https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/health-and-wellness/the-eight-minute-cure-how-transvaginal-mesh-sentenced-thousands-of-women-to-a-life-of-pain-20190611-p51whn.html?ref=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_source=rss_feed

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catholiccom-blog · 7 years

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Biblical Resurrection Reports are not "Hopelessly Contradictory"

Agnostic New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman says that we can’t trust the Gospels in their reports about Jesus’ resurrection. His basic argument is that the Gospels are “hopelessly contradictory” (The Historical Jesus).

In his 2006 debate with William Lane Craig, Ehrman gives what I see as five discrepancies that he thinks support his claim. I will deal with each below.

How many women were at the tomb?

Discrepancy one states that John only records Mary Magdalene going to the tomb (John 20:1), but yet Matthew (28:1-2), Mark (16:1-3), and Luke (24:10) report that she was among other women.

The objection falsely assumes that John was intending to say Mary Magdalene was the only woman. John merely showcases Mary Magdalene without any mention of the other women. And just because an account is incomplete, it doesn’t follow that it is in error. Even Luke doesn’t give a complete account of the women that went to the tomb (24:10).

Moreover, John’s later account of Mary’s response to Peter and John indicates that he knew other women were with her: “she ran . . . and said to them . . . we do not know where they have laid him” (John 20:2; emphasis added). Luke employs a similar tactic when he first showcases Peter going to the tomb (Luke 24:12), but then later informs his reader that others had gone as well (Luke 24:24).

Did they see the stone rolled away?

Discrepancy two states that Matthew records the women seeing the angel roll away the stone (28:2); whereas Mark (16:3-4) and Luke (24:2) record the women finding the stone already rolled away.

Once again, the objection makes a false assumption—namely, that Matthew is intending to assert that the women witnessed the angel rolling away the stone. But a close examination of the text proves otherwise.

First, as A. Jones argues in A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture the entire passage concerning the angel, the stone, and the guards who “trembled and became like dead men” (Matt. 28:2-4) seems to be a parenthetical statement. It’s unlikely that the women would have conversed with the angel while the guards lay there as dead.

Furthermore, the details concerning the angel and the stone are introduced with the Greek conjunction gar: “And behold, there was a great earthquake; for [Gr. gar] an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone, and sat upon it” (28:2; emphasis added).

Such an explanatory conjunction is used to introduce a clarification of a previous part of the sentence. For Matthew, the angel rolling away the stone is his explanation for the earthquake, not to assert that the women witnessed a stone-moving spectacle.

This answer could be further supported by Matthew’s use of an indicative mood in the aorist verb tense of ginomai: “And behold, there was [Gr. egeneto] a great earthquake” (28:2; emphasis added). The aorist verb tense in the indicative mood usually denotes the simple past. So a possible translation is “an earthquake had occurred,” implying the women didn’t witness it.

Even the angel’s descent can be described as having already occurred since the aorist participle katabas (“descended”) can be translated with the English past perfect: “for an angel of the Lord had descended” (28:2; ISV, emphasis added).

But wait a minute, how did Matthew know about this stuff if the women didn’t see it happen? It’s possible that Matthew received the details from the same source he received information about the conspiracy theory that the guards and the Jewish rulers made up (Matt. 28:11-15). If the empty tomb was part of the guards’ story of “all that had taken place” (28:11), then it’s possible the details in the parenthetical statement (2-4) were part of it as well.

Men, or angels? And how many?

Discrepancy three states that Mark (Matt. 16:5-6) and Luke (Luke 24:4) record that two men were sitting at the tomb, and Matthew says it was an angel (Matt. 28:5), which contradicts John’s account of two angels being present (John 20:11-13).

That some reports say men were present, and others say angels were present, in no way makes for a contradiction. Mark and Luke describe what the women saw (“men”), whereas Matthew and John give an interpretation (perhaps the women’s own interpretation) of what the women saw (“angels”). Recall that angels often appear as men (Gen. 18:1-2; Heb. 13:2).

With regard to how many were present, Matthew and Mark showcase the one who spoke to the women, and simply omit the other. And as mentioned above, just because a report omits some details, it doesn’t follow the report denies those details.

Did they see Jesus in Jerusalem or later?

Discrepancy four states that Matthew (Matt. 28:16) and John (John 21:1) report that the disciples went to Galilee as Jesus instructed (Matt. 28:7), but Mark and Luke don’t mention it: they only report that Jesus appeared to them in Jerusalem, after which Jesus ascends into heaven.

For a contradiction to hold, Luke and Mark would have to have said something like, “Jesus did not appear, or only appeared, to the apostles in Galilee.” But Luke or Mark never says this. They simply omit the detail from their narratives. Once again, to omit a detail and to deny a detail are not the same.

But a skeptic may still object that the way Luke and Mark narrate the events implies that Jesus’ resurrection, the appearances, and the ascension all happened in Jerusalem on Easter Sunday. How can we resolve this?

One solution is that Luke and Mark used the ancient literary device of time compression—that is to say, what Matthew and John spread out over a period of locations and time, Luke and Mark compressed into one day. The time compression hypothesis makes sense for Luke, since his Gospel, like Matthew, is about the length of one full scroll. Perhaps Luke’s purpose of omission was economic, not having much space left on the scroll to finish his narrative in full detail. This hypothesis becomes even more plausible when one considers that Luke explicitly states Jesus appeared to the apostles on multiple occasions over a period of forty days, and then ascended (Acts 1:3).

Regarding Mark, the sheer length of his Gospel supports his use of time compression. Furthermore, Mark’s use of the word “immediately” (Gr: euthys) forty-seven times suggests that he desired to emphasize the excitement and urgency of Jesus’ ministry, and that he was a man of action. This stands in stark contrast to the combined ten times euthys is used in Matthew, Luke, John, and Acts.

Did the women talk?

Discrepancy five states that Mark reports the women “said nothing to anyone” (Mark 16:8) because they were afraid (Mark 16:8), and Luke says the women told the disciples what they had seen and heard (Luke 24:10-11).

A reasonable reading of Mark’s report is that the women ran straight to where the disciples were gathered without stopping to speak to anyone on the way. This is supported by Mark’s explanation that the women fled from the tomb “trembling,” and that “astonishment had come upon them” and “they were afraid” (Mark 16:8). Such fear would account for why they would not be inclined to talk to anyone as they were fleeing. Moreover, Mark explicitly tells us that Mary “went and told those who had been with him” (Mark 16:10).

Although the above responses do not give positive evidence that the Gospel writers are reliable in their reports about Jesus’ resurrection, they do show that one cannot reasonably reject their reports because they are “hopelessly contradictory.”

In his 2006 debate with William Lane Craig, Ehrman gives what I see as five discrepancies that he thinks support his claim. I will deal with each below.

How many women were at the tomb?

Discrepancy 1 states that John only records Mary Magdalene going to the tomb (John 20:1), but yet Matthew (28:1-2), Mark (16:1-3), and Luke (24:10) report that she was among other women.

Did they see the stone rolled away?

Discrepancy two states that Matthew records the women seeing the angel roll away the stone (28:2); whereas Mark (16:3-4) and Luke (24:2) record the women finding the stone already rolled away.

Men, or angels? And how many?

Did they see Jesus in Jerusalem or later?

Did the women talk?

#CAMO #Catholic Answers #Karlo Broussard #Resurrection #Bart Ehrman #Athesim #Agnosticism

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