What she means: I'm just sad about Ignaz Semmelweis. He literally drove himself insane trying to convince his fellow doctors to WASH THEIR DISGUSTING HANDS BEFORE STICKING THEM INSIDE PREGNANT WOMEN. (I'm getting mad thinking about it.)
During the early and mid 19th century doctors were increasingly taking over childbirth, but weren't washing their hands or changing their clothes between doing an autopsy and attending a birth. Childbirth was getting more dangerous, not less. Women were surviving the birth itself only to die days later from puerperal fever - postpartum infections introduced by the doctors. In 1847, Semmelweis got his maternal mortality rate down from 18% to 2% by introducing hand-washing in a hypochlorite (bleach) solution.
He didn't have an explanation for why this worked, because germ theory hadn't really caught on yet. He just knew it did, and thought his patients surviving was important, actually. He had graphs about it. He got increasingly angry and alcoholic as his colleagues ignored him and women kept dying unnecessarily. He was violently committed to an insane asylum, and his hand was injured in the process. It got infected. He died from the infection, like his patients didn't, like other doctors' patients did.
The same year he died, 1865, surgeon and researcher Joseph Lister was introduced to the work of Louis Pasteur. Having previously made breakthroughs in inflammation and blood coagulation, Lister made the link between Pasteur's microbes and human infections. He got some pushback for his antiseptic techniques and dressings but nobody dragged him kicking and screaming into an asylum. Semmelweis would eventually be vindicated by Lister's work.
This actually makes me so sad. After Australia and this I can only imagine he must be going through it a little bit.. I just hope he’s okay, by the end he looked like he had given up a bit, and I’m not used to that :(
The Time I Got Reincarnated as an Evil Version of Myself
Chapter 3: Disagreements
Link to AO3 in Bio
~
Akumatization isn't exactly a common experience among Parisians. With a population of over 2 million and under 300 Akumatizations—maybe half that if only count individual victims instead of instances (most of that thanks to Mr. Pigeon)—that's slightly more than a percent of a percent. Still, there are enough of them that there are certain common experiences. Any one of them could tell you that Akumatization is really only traumatizing after the fact, when you find out what you've done. It's a mercy, really, not remembering. Being saddled with the memories of causing mayhem, havoc, and murder would be too much for the psyches of most people, and Paris would look very different.
The number of people who have successfully resisted Akumatization is much, much smaller. A percent of a percent of a percent. Three people, in total, have ever done it. And while they'll gladly tell you how they did it, in hopes that you get the same success, there's one thing all three of them keep very close to their chests—a secret only three people on Earth share.
Breaking an Akumatization hurts. And worse—you remember everything.
Chloé sits curled up on a cot in the nurse's office, pressing her knees to her chest, trying her best to fight down the bile that rises in her throat. Hawkmoth may not have been able to see the memories he dredged up, but he had pressed on the worst emotional response she has, forcing her to relive her most painful moments. All her traumas, all the things she'd buried, front and center. She feels... she feels...
Ugh. Ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous.
The room is too small. And normally she'd be happy for the darkness after a panic attack—she really has to thank Marinette again for helping her admit she has those—but right now it's too much like the darkness, like the black void of Akumatization. She can almost see her mother's face blank with apathy, without recognition, devoid of love. Something inside her chest is tearing, pulling apart, and God she just wants her sister right now.
Zoé is not the person who comes through the door.
"Chloé!" Lila gasps, bursting through the door of the sleeping room of the nurse's station, all false concern and smiles. "I heard you got Akumatized!"
Chloé's pain immediately twists beneath her ribcage into rage and confusion as the most unexpected person in Paris throws her arms around her shoulders. Lila--Lila was expelled, she's been banned from the building, what is she doing here? Chloé wants to pull away, to shove her off, to do something, but she's a deer in headlights, frozen, utterly unable to stop the horror that she's trapped in.
"Are you okay?" Lila asks.
Chloé's whole body contracts, as if making herself smaller will help her escape this. Her throat constricts, strangling her words into a choking whine.
Lila pulls back, holding Chloé at arms’ length. “I’m really impressed you were able to break the Akumatization,” she says with a smile that makes Chloé’s skin crawl. “You’ve been having such a hard time of it lately, you know, and, well…” Lila starts tearing up, wiping her eye with the heel of her hand. “I can’t believe Marinette did that to you,” she whimpers. "All we ever try to do is be nice to her, but—"
Something inside Chloé snaps.
"Nice?" she snarls.
Lila’s expression immediately changes—for a split second, Chloé can see the snake behind her carefully faked expression, and that snake is scared. Some part of Chloé, the part that still likes to hurt people, the part of her that is her mother, is happy with that, and she feels a brief burst of shame, but this is Lila. She deserves every bit of Chloé's vitriol and her own fear.
The rest of her, though? The rest of her is not happy. Another, primal, feral part of her, the part of her that spent ten years in love with Marinette Dupain-Cheng in spite of all her attempts to bury it, the part of her that remembers the day Marinette finally gave her Pollen permanently, the part of her that looks at her friends, her hive, and says protect with your life, rises up like a beast and burns in her muscles, her bones, her rage, and suddenly her palms slam into Lila's stomach, Lila is on the ground, stunned, and Chloé is standing over her like a wasp looming in the air above a doomed tarantula.
"I don't know how you got on campus," she spits. “And I don’t care.” She steps forward, her gaze beating Lila down into the ground. "You say one more word about Marinette and... and..."
Lila stares up at her, eyes wide and glistening. "I—I go here," she says, and for once, her voice sounds almost honest. "I—Chloé, we're friends, aren't we?"
Chloé’s brain goes white. "Friends?" Chloé shrieks. Oh, she’s about to get Akumatized again, isn’t she. But if her Akuma form goes after Lila? Worth it. "After what you did?" She bends down, grabs a fistful of Lila's tacky plastic orange lapels. "Marinette may have forgiven you but I. Have. Not."
Now Lila is the deer in the headlights, except she's not on a road or even on a highway, Chloé Bourgeois is a bullet train barrelling down on a fawn that has wandered onto the tracks and Chloé will not stop. "You are ridiculous, Lila," Chloé snarls, barely managing to stop herself from biting the other girl's face. "Utterly. Ridiculous."
"Hey!" Zoé says, forcing the two of them apart. "Break it up, you two!"
Huh, Chloé thinks, suddenly aware of her sister's hand on her chest. She'd been so pissed at Lila, she hadn't even noticed Zoé come in.
"She just..." Lila stammers, and the shock on her face—oh, Chloé hopes it's real. "She just—”
Than her eyes narrow. For a moment, a grin flashes across her face, before her teary shock returns… but with significantly less reality to it.
”You’re—you’re breaking up with me?” Lila sobs.
Zoé’s head snaps around, and Chloé can feel her sister tense. But she—oh, God, haha, Lila thought…
Lila doesn’t know she’s out.
Chloé starts to laugh.
It’s almost a cackle, more than anything. It bubbles up from her stomach, snatching her breath, doubling her over. She’s laughing so hard she fills the entire space of the tiny nap room, so hard that both Zoé and Lila are looking at her like she’s grown a second head.
”You think—” Chloé gasps, clutching at her stomach, “—I’d cheat on Kagami—” Oh, she can’t breathe. She can’t breathe. It’s too funny. “—with you?”
This is, very definitely, not the response Lila was expecting, given the shock on her face. Probably she was thinking Chloé would loudly deny being gay (when of course anyone with half a brain could have seen she was), thus confirming to Zoé their “secret relationship” and making herself look like the victim.
Whoopsie for her!
Chloé’s laughter slows down as she plops back into her cot, and she sighs, wiping tears out of her eyes. “You’re ridiculous,” she gasps through the largest grin she’s had all day. “Utterly, completely, and totally ridiculous.”
The look on Lila’s face is priceless. There are few things more satisfying than outmaneuvering smug assholes, and it’s so rare to catch the liar off-guard like this. Blindsiding Lila is a joy all its own, and Chloé intends to savor the memory of that face for years to come.
“Wait a minute,” Zoé says, breaking the moment. “You know?”
”Of—of course she knows,” Lila begins. “She and I—”
"Shut up," Chloé growls, flexing her perfectly-manicured fingers like claws. "And get. Out."
Lila swallows, frozen for half a second, then she spins and bolts for the door. It slams shut behind her, leaving Chloé alone with her sister.
Chloé collapses back onto her cot, her back slamming against the exposed white brick. Now that the adrenaline is gone, the encounter is starting to leave a really bad taste in her mouth, the way any encounter with Lila does. The bile is rising in her throat again, and she just wants to strip off her own skin and fling it somewhere far away where she doesn't have to live in it. "What is with everyone today?" she mumbles.
"What is with—what's with you?" Zoé says, slamming her hand onto the cot next to Chloé's leg. "First the Pollen thing, then the coffee prank, then…” She points out the door. “Lila is a nice person, who for some reason after all the bridges you've burned decided to be your friend, and you just—"
“And then!” Zoé continues, heedless of Chloé’s interruption. “I’ve been trying to make you feel comfortable enough to admit to yourself that you’re gay for months, and then you just… casually? Out of spite?”
Admit that she's... what?
Wait. Something’s—something’s wrong. That's... not at all something she'd expect Zoé to say.
“I—I came out before we met,” Chloé says, haltingly. She's confused, and more than a little hurt. “You—you know that. You’ve met my girlfriend. We—” When she’d found out about Zoé, she’d been pissed enough for Akumatization—but afterwards, afterwards, it had been such a relief, such a joy, to have just one family member who accepted her as she was. “We went on double dates with you and Luka.” Had Zoé not known, all this time? Had she—had none of it mattered?
Zoé looks at her like she’s grown a second head. “Luka?” she says. “Marinette’s ex? I’ve barely even spoken to him, much less… been on dates!”
Chloé’s pulse is stabbing at her ears now. She has no idea what’s going on. Zoé’s confusion—has everyone else been feeling the same thing, today? Is that why they suddenly all hate her? Did some… Akuma or something wipe all their memories of her?
Except she was Akumatized, and Hawkmoth can’t have two out at once unless he’s Scarlet Moth, and that definitely didn’t happen today, and he’d never bother going Scarlet over her because he apparently still thinks of her as the nasty girl nobody cares about so he doesn’t think anyone would care about her the way they do about Marinette. A Sentimonster wouldn’t have this much reach, wouldn’t be able to make EVERYONE forget—
She can see Zoé going through the same mental calculations in her head. Something messed with someone’s memories. Hawkmoth is the most likely—okay, let's be real, only—candidate.
”You—you can’t be Akumatized, you rejected it,” Zoé says. “That means—” She turns pale. “You’re—you’re not my sister.”
Chloé’s heart stops. “W-what?” she manages.
Zoé backs away from her, eyes wide and immobile. “You’re a Sentimonster.”
The way she says the word—as if it's a swear, as if it's a curse—stabs straight through Chloé’s gut. She wants to vomit. Chloe is better at managing her anger when it comes to people she loves. Honestly, she is. But she never expected... from her own sister of all people... Don't get Akumatized, don't get Akumatized, don't get Akumatized—
Shut up and burn her, says the part of her that is her mother, and Chloé ignites.
She leaps to her feet, heedless of how Zoé is forced back, heedless of the terrified expression on her sister's face, barely aware of anything except her own rage. “OF COURSE I'M A FUCKING SENTIMONSTER!” she screams, reaching for her necklace. “You—you helped me steal my Amok from Mom! It was your plan! You—”
Instead of her mother’s wedding ring, Chloé’s fingers close on the necklace to find empty air.
Her entire body goes cold. She looks at the stunned, horrified Zoé, and suddenly she's in freefall. Part of her wonders if this is how Adrien felt when his bodyguard pitched him off the Montparnasse, but the rest is too caught up in the sickening drop of her gut, the fire in her extremities, the vacuum where her lungs are supposed to be.
"My..." she croaks, barely able to speak. "My Amok. It's—" She swallows as best she can around the lump that is digging spikes into her throat. "It's gone."
This weekend I achieved a kink goal that I have been working on for four years. Daddy and I have been working on it for four years together. Daddy put his hand all the way in my ass and was able to keep it there for several minutes and to fuck me with it. He'd move his hand in and out and go deep inside me.
I know that sounds like a very strange goal to some, but I love the sensations I get from anal, and I love the power exchange and connection that happens during fisting. Very early in our relationship, I told Daddy this was something that I wanted to be able to do. During the first few months of our relationship, Daddy was able to get his hand inside my ass, and it surprised us both. It was simultaneously wonderful and painful. I'm into pain, but having someone rip your ass open is a very specific kind of pain that you have to be prepared for. That early incident told me both that I liked it, and that my body was capable.
That was almost 4 years ago. I've spent a lot of time stretching my ass (because it's a muscle and needs to learn how to move a certain way that it never has before). I've leveled up my plugs, gotten bigger dildos, had Daddy put his hand in my ass many times, but usually only briefly. I've had to battle hemorrhoids and we've gone through periods where we couldn't do extreme anal play because I was too emotionally vulnerable to also be physically vulnerable. I stretched some more and learned to take the pain, and the more I stretched, the less the pain was. We survived a pandemic where I lost all privacy in my home and struggled mentally and to have the time or privacy to practice. I found ways to motivate forward progress when it was difficult. And lately, there have been major leaps in progress.
It's true that I did a lot of the work on my own. It was mental and physical growth, but Daddy was there to help me the whole way. He encouraged me, and told me how proud he was of me. He was willing and enthusiastic to connect with me in that way. When I needed to pause activities for physical or emotional reasons, he supported it and supported me through whatever I had to deal with. After every obstacle, we kept circling back to this extreme anal play. It was something that I was determined to get and Daddy was determined to help me get there.
Finally. FINALLY we did it. There is no way I could have done it on my own, and I wouldn't have wanted to. After we finished, he held me for a long time. We were both glowing from having done such an amazing thing together. Daddy told me many times how proud he was of me, but I am proud of us. 💖
Gritting my teeth while staring in the mirror and repeating PROGRESS IS NOT LINEAR YOU ARE FINE PROGRESS IS NOT LINEAR YOU ARE FINE PROGRESS IS NOT LINEAR YOU ARE FINE PROGRESS IS NOT LINEAR YOU ARE FINE PROGRESS IS NOT LINEAR YOU ARE FINE PROGRESS IS NOT LINEAR YOU ARE FI-
..I drew a drawing, one I was honestly super proud of, and it got 3 likes on my twitter. And 8 upvotes on Reddit..
I know that likes aren't everything but, idk it's just super demotivating when you put a lot of work into something and you're super proud of it and it just.. doesn't get noticed at all
Especially since I've posted art that's way worse and that I'm not as proud of on both and they've done loads better
And also especially because I have around 500 followers on Twitter..
Idk. Sorry for venting. I was just stupidly hoping for a little more since I actually think it came out pretty good. 😅
.. do you wanna see the drawing? It's fine if not, just wondering. :D
- 🐱
Ah, 🐱 that's such defeating feeling. It's hard when you work so long on something and it just doesn't get the reaction you expect. Sometimes the things we are most proud of just miss with others. It doesn't mean what you made isn't good or you shouldn't be happy with your work!
I'd love to see it ☺️☺️! As long as you want to show me ♥️
Keep working hard, don't give up!! Every day is practice
