#and all they know is to follow their “programming” which in this case is murder!

[clockworkreapers]

I made Ward as the dark urge in BG3 for my 100% evil play through....

[ebsmind]

My Little Treasure | president!Nico Hischier x fem!reader

summary : being the presidents mistress isn’t easy. even when another woman comes out saying she’s having an affair with him.

word count : 8.5k (the longest ive ever written BE PROUD OF ME)

warning(s) : this is purely based off of shonda rhimes SCANDAL sjiwiejdj, angst, longing (kinda? idk), cheating/infidelity (nellie deserves better), reader pushes her feeling aside, timo being called nico’s personal bitch AHAHAHA, murder (mentioned in case), non accurate descriptions of politics and law stuff, like 2-3 mentions of vomit , use of Y/N (I tried not too but I just couldn't), tbh there’s not a lot of nico x reader IM SORRY part 2 will make up for it, heavy makeout session, smut kinda? idk but next part will be smutty TRUST, getting caught by timo (what the hell Timo), VIOLENCE aka just a slap in the face, one flashback spicy scene and i think that's it!

a/n : LISTEN LISTEN before i say ANYTHING i just wanted to say that i know nico isn’t american but im currently hyper fixated on him and only him and i just started watching scandal again SO I HAD TO so please if you don’t like the “accuracy” don’t read it! this is FICTIONAL but yeah here we are! this closely follows the first episode from season 1! this is a long oneeeee! i’ve also changed the names of Abby, Quinn, Harrison, Huck, AND Cyrus (you’ll see who I change him with 😏) I also go along with the case that’s happening so this is semi like a mystery but not? idk how to explain but you’ll see as you read. send me something in my inbox if you want me to elaborate on anything about the side characters! i definitely want to turn this into an au so send me something so i can write about it or talk about it! here’s the mood board! this is also my second time writing anything spicy so please bear with me, this whole fic idea really had me out of my comfort zone so it isn't my best writing but I still wanted to get this out!

The clicks of your So Kate’s are heard throughout the law firm. Everyone knows it’s you, just by the way you walk. It’s swift and carries determination, you are on a mission. You present yourself with a sense of purpose to your colleagues. Scratch that, they’re family. Despite them technically being your coworkers, you would do anything for the four of them. From saving Gwen from her violent ex-husband to Kurt, a soldier who had served in the United States CIA’s top secret, off the books, B-613 program who ended up being dumped on the streets to beg for food, you saved them and they were all you had. 

You step into the standard-sized conference room, and the extensive window along the back wall displays an orange-to-blue hue. The sun is setting and making it known that the end of the day is near. You first make eye contact with Blair, the senior associate at the firm. She stops her conversation amongst everyone and before she can greet you, Kurt, who is sitting at the very right end of the table, utters, “Perla Schmitz killed herself, channel 5.” 

You make no time to strut to the table and grab the TV remote, which had been sitting next to Blair. You don’t need to change the channel once you press the power button on the remote, it’s all you watch in the firm—across the 55’ inch screen, displayed in bold lettering ‘Perla Schmitz (26) found dead in her home’. You take a second to yourself. Perla had been caught cheating on her husband, who was a very conservative congressman, but that wasn’t the icing on the cake. The guy she was having an affair with? He murdered her husband, brutally. 27 stab wounds to the chest, his head almost decapitated because of how much force was used to slit his throat. If someone were to ask you, you’d say she had it coming. 

You turn to the group and raise a finger in the air as you start to speak. “We knew this was coming, let’s not pretend that she wasn’t the one cheating on her husband.” 

Perla came into your office late last Friday night, around 11:25. You had stayed longer than you originally wanted to, needing to finish up some paperwork that had to be done for one of the previous clients you had. What a way to bring in the new year, but you weren’t complaining. 

“Exactly! I knew she didn’t have enough willpower to continue her life. She took the easy way out, man.” You take a seat at the left end side of the table, parallel to Kurt while Neil, another associate and close friend of yours finishes his veracious remark. You decide it’s best to tell Neil and everyone else to drop the topic, but before you can open your mouth, the firm doors open. The 7-foot ebony-colored wood doors reveal a man with black hair and blue eyes, maybe mid to late 20s. The first thing you notice is how his eyes tear up before he speaks, not how he’s covered in blood. 

“I-…I didn’t kill her I swear! She was my best friend, we were gonna get married!” 

Your irises scan over the pinned evidence on the whiteboard, it had been approximately 18 hours since the 6’2 blood blood-covered man had walked into your firm. Sully St. James comes from an extremely well-respected family. His father was a Veteran from the Vietnam War. Sully himself had done two tours in Iraq and received the Medal of Honor. Having someone as well respected as him, show up to the front door of your firm, asking for help wasn’t new but you were determined to help the man not get convicted as the killer in his girlfriend’s murder case. You needed time, but the US attorney general David Rosen was stubborn. 

“Okay! So, according to Sully, he had just come home from the bar down on 9th St, called SOST, he then walked into the bathroom where the crime scene is, saw Paige’s body on the ground,” Blair points out and before she can finish her sentence Kurt cuts her off. 

“Paige suffered from 2 bullets to the chest and 1 to the head. This wasn’t a freak accident, someone wanted her dead.” Kurt crosses his arms and moves up from the far end of the table. He was correct, but your gut couldn’t help but wail that Sully was not the cause. 

Blair continues to explain the approximate details, “Here’s the weird part, Sully calls the police but before they can get there he flies, and he flies here.” She takes a step away from the whiteboard and makes eye contact with you. She can sense what you’re already going to say. Blair knows you, and she knows you like the back of her hand. 

“My gut tells me that he didn’t do this. Something is missing. I need more, all of you need to try to find something, anything! Anything that can clear this man’s alibi. He said it himself that he loved her and that she was his best friend. I believe him.” You step up from the chair you were sitting in and start heading towards the conference room doors when your cell phone starts to ring. Grabbing it out of your left pocket, the name “Timo Meier” is displayed across the screen. You huff in response. 

He needs you right now and you know if Timo were to tell you to head to the White House as soon as possible you would and it wouldn’t end in a way you would like. Yet, you still manage to press the green button, confirming the call. 

“What do you want.” You’re busy and Timo knows it. This isn’t some ‘Oh hi! How are you doing? I haven’t heard from you in a while phone call. Timo didn’t have time for that, being the White House’s Chief of Staff to Nico Hischiers personal bitch, he never had time.

Timo sighs, you can already picture him, sitting at his desk, elbow resting on it, his thumb and pointer finger trying to relieve his throbbing headache. Timo did so much for the President of the United States and somehow that included calling you on a random Tuesday afternoon. 

“He needs you to come in. Something happened and we need you to make it go away.” Timo lets you take a second to respond. Already sensing that the situation was substandard, it had been months since you had last spoken to Timo and maybe even half a year since you’ve seen Nico. Physically. It wasn’t that you hated him, you could never. It was the fact you left your position as the White House Communications Director for yourself. Everything you did was always for Nico and never not you and when the realization of that hit you, it was time to go. It’s time to separate yourself from some fantasy that only ever works out in the books. The feeling of two hands wrapped around your throat finally caught up to you. 

“I’ve got a client sitting in my conference room Timo.” 

“Look, I know, I know, but this isn’t something that needs to be out in the public. Make it go away. Please. If not for him, for me.” He’s desperate and you know it. If you were to tell him that the only reason you were about to agree was because you held him in such high regard, you’d never hear the end of it. So, you keep your reply as simple as needed. 

“Okay, I’ll be there in 45 minutes. I need to let Neil know.” 

You spot Timo before he spots you. He’s sat on a bench, perhaps getting some proper vitamin D. You watch the way his foot taps every other millisecond. Being cooped up in a mediocre-sized office in the White House can make someone feel insane, you’ve been there. 

As you get closer, you examine the navy blue suit that he’s dressed in. It’s his favorite one, he has 3 more pairs of it because he wears it so much. His tie has gold accents on it, it’s from his wife. You had helped her pick it out for him since you had seen him a lot more than she did. His eyes are heavy, he’s needs a vacation, a long one to be exact. You’ll let Nico know if you ever see him again, maybe he can pull some strings for him even if it’s a nice (long-awaited) expensive dinner.

You walk up the concrete steps before reaching Timo, the only thing grabbing his attention is the click of your heels. Once he realizes that you have walked up to him, you open your mouth to greet him. 

“What.” Timo giggles, he’s knows you mean business but he can’t deny he misses your presence around in the White House even if you were telling him off half of the time. 

“Well, hello to you too.” He stands up and gestures to start walking with him. You obey and within a second you guys stride across the walkway that overlooks the White House. 

“What do you need me for Timo? I don’t work for him anymore.” 

“He needs a favor.” You scoff at Timo and choose not to say anything.

“You still came. You came when I called.” His words hit you like a bus. It stings. Both you and Timo know that whenever the President needs anything from you, you’ll be there in a heartbeat. You’d do anything for everyone you love. You were loyal. That’s how it always had been and why Nico wanted you there every step of the way. He knew that he could turn his back and not expect a knife to be plunged into it. 

“Her name is Vanessa Wyatt. She works in AIDE. She claims to have had an affair with him. I need you to make it go away and fast.” Timo places his right arm on his abdomen, in response you hook your left one into his right and walk side by side with Timo. 

“Is it true?” You try to show no reaction but green envy begins to boil in your stomach.

“No, of course not, but I need you to shut it down.” 

“I need to see him.” You don’t think about your reply until after it leaves your mouth. Both you and Timo come to an abrupt stop. He takes a step back and faces you. 

“No, I don’t think that’s possible.” 

“You want me to shut her up? Then I need to look at him in the eyes and know he’s not lying.” Timo knows that you're serious. You always are. 

“The President’s schedule is packed. He has no time to see you.” He’s straightforward, Timo doesn’t have time for negotiating but luckily for you, you’re a persuasive person. You tend to always get what you want even if it means overstepping some boundaries. 

“He wants my services but here’s the thing Timo, I do not work for him anymore! So, tell him to make time to see me if not you’re just gonna have to find someone else to do it for you. You know where to find me.” 

After giving Timo a faint smile, you turn to walk away. As one foot goes in front of the other, you can’t help but feel that some part of this story is true making your heart ache.

By the time you get back to your office, you get a phone call from Timo, confirming that Nico managed to get out of a meeting so that he could talk to you. With that, you grab your coat off the coat rack and start heading towards the conference room to let at least Gwen know about your abrupt departure. 

“Hey Gwen, duty calls at the White House, I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Anything new?” Gwen knows you’re talking about the case and before she utters anything new she’s found, she strides to the door and closes it. 

Knowing that Sully is just in the room next door, she lowers her voice, “Kurt managed to get into Paige’s email and I’ve been reading. I found one where she emailed a friend. She was supposed to meet up with a friend at the embassy party together but never showed.” 

You nod your head to show that you understand but it’s not enough information to be able to explain why Paige was murdered so, you request more information. 

“Who? and Why?” Keep it simple. 

Gwen takes about a second before she replies, “A girl named Ariel, and I don’t know why.” 

“Find out why. ‘I don’t know’ is not an answer I’m gonna take.” That sentence leaves your mouth as fast as lightning strikes the Earth’s outermost crust. 

To other people, your reply would’ve been seen as impolite but to you and everyone at the firm, it was just that ‘I don’t know’ wouldn’t get you anywhere in a case. Especially when so much is at stake.

“I won’t be long Gwen. Tell Blair and she’ll go interview the friend.”

Once you arrive at the White House you are led to Timo’s office. It’s nice and spacious, with a window that overlooks a garden. Nellie’s garden. A sour taste forms in your mouth. The garden is small, not as big as Jacqueline Kennedy’s garden but Nellie insisted she needed her own. You were told moments ago that she’d be attending this “meeting” and as much as you dislike it, you can’t help but feel empathy for Nellie. She was nothing but nice to you when Nico hired you as the manager for his campaign. It sucked most that you went not even a month later you started sleeping with her husband. 

The combined noises of clothes rustling and heavy breaths consume the aura of the small hotel room. It’s unbelievable how an innocent dinner between two ‘colleagues’ can turn outright sexual within two hours, but you weren’t complaining. Maybe it was the two glasses of cabernet sauvignon that your unconscious level of operation had convinced you to drink. 

Nico places open-mouthed kisses from behind your ear, down to the spot on your breast that the black lace push-up bra doesn’t cover. The white ironed shirt, that had been covering your bra, had been tossed over your head about 15 minutes ago and the black midi skirt was currently being tugged down your hips. As for Nico, all to go was the baby blue dress shirt he wore, and the black tie. Which had been taken off right when the two of you entered the room. His dark navy blue pants remained on the list of clothes that needed to be discarded.  

You take a second to admire Nico’s disheveled hair. The thought of pulling it with your fingers when he whispers sweet nothing’s into your core flashes across your mind. Nico cuts off that thought once his lips make contact with yours. It’s messy and filled with need. The months of longing stares, mainly from him, were finally catching up. You take notice that your black skirt is now pooled at your feet. You take a step out of them, in a haze, the action bringing you closer to Nico. He steadies you by placing his hands on your hips. His fingertips graze the matching black lace panties you paired with your bra. He smirks into the kiss at the thought of you planning it out. 

Nico takes small steps, notifying you to do the same but backward, and guides you to the small light wooden desk against the wall opposite of the bed. The back of your thighs hit the desk and with a swift motion, Nico grabs you at the waist and sets you to sit on top of it. A quick gasp escapes your naturally pouty lips and with that, Nico gets on his knees. 

Timo snaps you out of that thought fairly quickly, “Well hello, long time no see!”

He’s being sarcastic, but you waste no time to get to the point. 

“I was told Nellie was going to be here. She knows about this?”

Timo nods, acknowledging your words, and replies, “It’s not like how it was during the election. The isolation of the White House bonded them, their marriage is as strong as ever.” 

Before you can react to Timos statement, Nellie comes barging into the room. 

“Y/N!” 

You fake a smile, deep down you could never hate Nellie. No matter how hard you try. “Nellie, hi! How are you doing?!” Faking your enthusiastic response, you can’t help but feel guilty. It wasn’t hard to read Nellie, so you could tell she missed your presence around in the White House. Once Nellie reaches you she engulfs you in a heartwarming hug. She rubs your back and soaks in the moment, reminiscing an old friendship.

You’re the first to step away and once you create a small fragment of distance, Nellie answers your question.

“I’m doing well! It’s taking some time getting used to you not being here but I’m managing. How’s the firm?”

“We’re doing well over there. It’s been busy but I like being occupied…can never get enough of it.” You chuckle at the tiny comment you make and Nellie goes to carry the conversation but comes to a halt when the double doors to Timo’s office open once again. 

You told yourself, on the drive over to the White House, that you would keep things strictly professional but Nico always managed to make that very hard. Not only that, you still deeply cared for the man and he did the same as well. But the moment you saw his face everything you had prepared yourself for had expeditiously faded away. You can’t even process the moment, that he’s here and physically in front of you until he’s shaking your hand. 

The last time you saw Nico was at a charity gala in late June. Five months after you left. You only managed to stay for an hour until everything felt overwhelming. Your chest felt like it was being compressed by an unseen entity, and bile was rising in your throat. Nico had tried his best to talk to you but with Nellie by his side and her pregnancy rumors, he couldn’t. It broke his heart when he saw the tears in your eyes. You’d felt betrayed but also knew that being the President’s mistress meant that you never came first. Even if he lied to you and said that you did. 

“Y/N, It’s good to see you.” He’s keeping it simple. He can’t show too much vulnerability, there are still two people in the room. 

“Likewise, Mr. President.” You drop your hand first from the handshake and look closely at Nico. He shaved two days ago, you can tell by the stubble sitting on the lower half of his face. It has just grown enough to the point where if he could get on his knees in front of you, you’d feel it scratch your inner thighs. 

“Shall we take a walk?” Timo kindly suggests. 

The three of you decide to chat in Jacqueline Kennedy Garden. With the company of two secret service members but you don’t mind. 

It may be January but the pansies are still in season. You walk up and admire the some that are purple. You notice that in the outer part of the petal, they’re royal purple, but towards the center, they’re light purple - almost a lilac color. That would be a nice color for a wedding. You’re too busy admiring the flowers that don’t notice the sound of footsteps approaching until the person has already reached you. It’s Nico. You don’t even need to look to know it’s him. He clears his throat before starting the conversation with you. 

“I know you have your hands full with the Sully St. James situation so, thank you for doing this, for me.” He turns to look at you. God you’ve missed him. 

Timo walks up behind you and the president, the two secret service agents aren’t too far behind. He pulls out a beige file folder and speaks. 

“Her name is Vanessa Wyatt.” You take hold of the folder and open it up. 

“I know.” 

“Well if you let me finish- anyways, she’s 25. I’ve heard rumors that she might be talking.” Timo states and looks off into the distance. It’s nice and sunny outside, but not even for it to take the edge off the cold. You take a look at what she looks like. She must be new, or at least got hired after you resigned. She’s cute but looking at her makes you feel nauseated. You push that feeling aside, it’s best at what you do. 

“But you can’t fire her. At least not without a shit show going off.” Both Timo and Nico nod. Nico has yet to say anything. You find it odd but push that thought aside. You know Nico wouldn’t do this. 

“Look, she hasn’t gone to the press, so best shut it down before she opens her mouth.” Timo’s phone rings and he excuses himself to take the call. It’s just you and Nico. A part of you doesn’t want to ask him the long-awaited question but you still do it anyways.

“I have to ask, did you do it?” You look up at him for the first time after reaching the garden. All you see are his eyes, they’re identical to the color of the way he takes his coffee. 

“No. I would never do that.” Nico pauses but doesn’t break the eye contact. You’re starting to feel light-headed. Your heart wants to believe him but there’s someone in your ear screaming that he isn’t telling the truth. 

“You’ve known me for a long time. Most of my time has been spent with you. You know I would never, ever fall for some girl. You know there’s only one girl I truly love.” He accentuates the last sentence. Only you know he’s talking about you. It’s a secret embedded between the two of you. You feel warm, not the bad kind, but the warm and comfy kind. He knows you need reassurance, he knows you think he’s lying, and he knows that if he did do it, it would be unforgivable. It feels like time is passing by slowly, you’re lost in his pools of melted chocolate-like irises. He never once, looked away. He’s telling the truth. 

“We’re due to be back now!” Looking back, you see Timo. He’s about 15 feet away, but he’s walking towards both Nico and you. 

“I’ll handle it. Consider it handled.” You look away. A burning sensation hits the back of your eye sockets. You feel like crying but you won’t let the tears fall.

Once Timo reaches you he wraps his arms around you and the President’s shoulders. 

“The band is back together!”

One hour. One hour is how much time you had given Gwen to find anything and everything about Vanessa Wyatt and boy did she find something. 

Gwen walks beside you, to your left. The pace you’ve set is fast, it wasn’t like you had all day. You had a firm to run and a man’s destiny in your hands. Vanessa Wyatt was just a fork in the road. You had a plan and with enough convincing, she’d end up on a bus to Wisconsin in the morning.

“You’re acting as my witness. Just shut up and listen to what I say. Do not engage with her.” Both you and Gwen had been following Vanessa around Easy Potomac Park for approximately seven minutes. You took immediate notice that she was accompanied by her dog, a golden retriever. Gwen had whispered something about it being adorable, to you it was an amazing conversation starter, a way to get in, and a vulnerability point for Vanessa. 

Vanessa’s quick to take a seat on a bench, overlooking the Potomac River. You waste no time to walk up to her and Gwen follows suit. “What a cute dog! Golden Retriever?” 

Vanessa takes the bait like a fish dumb enough to take a worm that’s on a fish hook. You’ve already got her right where you want her and you’ve only spoken six words. 

“Yeah haha! His name is Thomas Jefferson, like the President, it’s lame I know! But it suits him surprisingly.” The thought of how naive she is crosses your mind. Was she like that with Nico? You take a seat next to her before carrying on the conversation.

“Vanessa, it would be a mistake to think that there will be no consequences to you telling lies about the President.” Her face falls almost immediately. Gwen gives you a look. Almost like she was surprised herself, she was least expecting you to mention the so-called “affair” this early on in the conversation. To your dismay, Vanessa doesn’t make an effort to start running away yet. Stupid girl. Rather instead she questions you. 

“I never told you my name. Who are you?” She finally turns to get a good look at you. Vanessa notices the pale, off-white pantsuit that’s on your body. It fits you to a tee. 

“My name is Y/N.” You pause for a brief moment then continue your lecture to the younger girl, “And I want to make it clear that I’m not here in an official capacity. I’m here because I’m a

concerned citizen.” Vanessa looks away, tears threatening to fall on her plump, pinky cheeks. She isn’t wearing anything to keep her warm besides a thin coat. 

She mutters another question. “What do you want?” 

Your response leaves your mouth rapidly. “I came to warn you. A girl like you can’t win something like this. In, employment your face will be everywhere. And by everywhere I mean tabloids, newspapers, social media, local news. People are going to associate you with a sex scandal. All kinds of information about you will become available to the press in a heartbeat. For example, the 22 sexual partners you’ve had? What about that case of gonorrhea? Oh and let’s not forget your mothers two year stay at Bedford Hospital.” Everything you say comes out nonchalantly. You pause and take a look at the younger brunette, waiting for a response but she says nothing. You take it as a sign to continue. 

“That’s what I thought. It’s information like that, that could ruin everything for you.” Both you and Gwen take notice of Vanessa. The tears that were threatening to fall, are now halfway down her cheeks. Gwen’s heart breaks for the girl but deep down knows it’s for the best. You, however, could care less. Situations like this, never end up good for the woman involved. 

“He said he loved me. He gave me this dog.” Vanessa manages to utter while shaking her head. Her world feels like it’s falling apart and you stand at the altar watching it happen. 

“You see, it’s lies like those that could hurt you when said to other people. People not as nice as me. Here let me give you some advice, hand in your resignation, pack a bag and your dog, get out of this town, maybe in Wisconsin, and start over. Never look back.” 

You’ve managed to move closer to Vanessa. It’s not a lot but you’re still testing the waters. If you were to ask Gwen, she’s still surprised that Vanessa’s still sitting there. Personally, Gwen would have fled a long time ago. The younger brunette to your right, takes a deep sigh and begs, “Why are you doing this to me?” I’m a good person!” You get the urge to laugh in her face. It doesn’t matter if you’re nice or not, people love to ruin people. She should’ve known this by now. A girl this naive should not be in a town like this.

“You want to know who was also a good person?” You question her and continue, “Monica Lewinsky. And she was telling the truth. But she still got destroyed.” You say it casually and Vanessa doesn’t appreciate it, in the next millisecond, she grabs her dog’s leash and hurries away. Gwen is still standing, she’s shocked, to say the least. 

Turning to Gwen, you start to state, “If you get subpoenaed in front of a grand jury, you can testify as an officer of the court that I was working on my own. I didn’t blackmail or threaten her. If you don’t get subpoenaed, then this never happened.” You walk in the other direction from Vanessa. Gwen takes a moment to follow suit and once you hear Gwen’s footsteps, you take your cell phone out of your coat pocket to dial. 

“It’s handled.”

You are typing away on your keyboard, answering some emails when the doors to your office fly open. It’s Blair and she’s rushing in. You can tell her her brain is going 100 miles per hour when she cheers, “Paige is a whore! She’s a whore!” You shake your head and smile in return, expecting her to say more, and that she does. 

“I had Kurt hack into her message log and she had HUNDREDS and I mean HUNDREDS of text messages with this guy named Tom Henderson. And I know what you’re going to say ‘Go interview him then’ We’ll that’s what I did while you were gone doing god knows what!” She’s starting to get off track but you don’t mind. Blair was a chatterbox at heart. 

“Good news is that Tom spilled his guts the minute I went to ask questions, but he has an air-tight alibi. He was working as a bouncer at a club at the time of the murder. There has got to be like 100 witnesses.” You nod your head and before you can tell Blair anything she continues, again. 

“Oh my god! How could I forget?! Henderson claims that Sully knew that he was sleeping with  his girlfriend.” With that, you waste no time to get out of your chair, and before you can even take a step Neil comes strutting into the room. 

“Even worse news, the gun found in the murder has Sully’s fingerprints all over it. It gives him means.” A small “fuck!” leaves your mouth and you dash towards the double doors that connect your office and another. Pushing open the door, you waste no time to start interrogating Sully. 

“Did you know Paige was sleeping with Tom Henderson?!” You point your finger at him like a mom scolding her child. Sully replies stupidly, “What?”

“Did. You. Know?” Accentuating every word in the question causes Sully to get irritated.

“I hired you! You can’t come in here and talk-” Sully’s cut off by Neil almost immediately. You let him overpower the situation by walking away. Your mind is running, trying to think what the possibilities could be.

“Yes, she can! She can do whatever the hell she wants! Without her, you would be in jail right now!” Things are starting to escalate quickly between you three. Blair is just observing what’s happening. You decided to ask one more time even though you hate repeating yourself. 

“Did you know Paige was sleeping with Tom?” The tone that you ask him is softer, things are starting to get real and if you don’t get to the bottom of this, Sully could be going to jail for 20 years to life.

Sully answers your question, “Yes, but I didn’t kill her!” Your mind shuts everything out once he answers your question. Neil and Blair start conducting a plan that you have no care for right now. Deciding to walk away from all the chaos, you manage to bump into the one person you least expect. Vanessa, with Gwen following behind. 

“Oh, what the hell!”

“I want you to give him a message!” You stare Gwen down, scolding her with your eyes for even letting Vanessa in, in the first place. 

“That is not appropriate.” You take ahold of Vanessa’s upper left bicep, Gwen the other, and quickly guide her out of the firm. She tries to go with a fight but your grip doesn’t let her escape. You open the front door to the firm, giving Vanessa access to leave but she makes it clear that you hear what she has to say. “Not appropriate? You came to me and I know he sent you! I know you can give him a message! I’m telling the truth! I am!” 

“This conversation is over. Please leave.”

You’re barely coming down with your high from the previous chaos when David Rosen, the US attorney general walks into your building. 

“Times up, Y/N. I have a warrant.” He’s holding up white papers, stapled together. He’s here to take Sully into custody but luckily for you, David arrived earlier than expected. 

“I still have 40 minutes.” You bark at David, taking a look at your watch. Turning your back to him, you reach the conference doors.

“You can wait in the lobby by all means.” You suggest to David. Maybe he’ll listen to you once and for all. 

“Fine, but in 40 minutes I want Sully St. James in custody.” He huffs out. 

Meanwhile, you try to find Gwen. Once you see her in the conference room you have her call Blair, to let her know that you’ve officially been invaded and time is running out to find Sully a viable alibi. 

Blair, Neil, and Kurt walk through the front doors exactly 7 minutes before David is supposed to be arrested. Blair comes in hot, Neil and Kurt trailing behind her. She’s holding a flash drive and gives you a rundown of what that flash drive material contains. You take no longer than 3 seconds to head your way to the conference room where Sully St. James is currently seated. You tread the water lightly, not wanting to anger him when approaching the situation. 

“We don’t have much time, Sully,” you start with, “the police are here so I need you to listen.” Blair, Kurt, Neil, and Gwen slowly enter the room with you. Most of the time, when debriefing with a client, there’s always someone else with you. In this case, all of them. 

“We were able to verify your alibi.” Sully’s reaction doesn’t surprise you. Confusion shadows over his face. Almost like he didn’t even know how or who verified his alibi. 

“You were?” He looks around the room after he questions you. All eyes are on him and everyone can tell that he’s realizing that his secret is no secret anymore. You nod in response to his question. 

“That’s.. that’s a good thing, right?” He’s playing dumb and you’re catching along. You open your mouth to start a lecture. 

“Sully, you’re the most decorated hero since the Vietnam War, you come from a family of well-respected soldiers, you make your living giving speeches for the conservative right, and you’ve said over and over, that Paige was your best friend. Not your lover.” Your eyes never leave him during the duration of your speech, but when they do you signal Blair to turn on the TV and plug the flash drive into it. Once she does, a video starts to play. It’s from a security camera at an ATM, that so happened to be next to the bar Sully had been seen at before the murder. In the video, Sully St. James is seen standing on the sidewalk, hands in his pockets, pacing. He’s waiting for someone. Just on cue, a man in his mid to late 20s is seen approaching Sully. Once he gets his hands on Sully, he kisses him with passion. Almost like lovers who are reuniting for the first time after months of being apart. The room is silent up until the video shows the two grown men kissing. Sully’s breath starts to pick up, he’s infuriated. 

“Paige knew, didn’t she?” You already knew the answer to that but still needed the clarification. You were never one to go based on assumptions. Sully doesn’t respond so you continue, “She knew you were gay, the two of you had a deal.” Sully speaks up for the first time in 3 minutes. 

“You can’t show anyone that.” Disregarding what he said, you ask, “I need the name of the man that you were kissing.”

“Over my dead body! I serve my country. I honor the uniform! I am a conservative man. Everything I stand for is anti-gay. I am the deacon of my church! They’re talking about me running for Congress one day. I’m a hero. I can’t be gay.” His demeanor starts off hostile but then shuts down and he manages to whisper the last remark. 

“But you are. This is who you are.” You point to the TV which had been paused at a time frame where Sully and his secret lover were engaged in a kiss. “This is your alibi. Let us help you.” You walk over to the couch that Sully is seated at and crouch next to him. You and Sully are the only two who have spoken a word so far. Everyone else is watching the scene unfold in front of their eyes. 

Sully stands up straight and looks ahead of him. With one small word, he answers you. 

“No.” You stand, but before you can mutter a word he turns around and heads out the conference room doors. You don’t pay attention as to whether everyone follows you but you follow Sully out. Demanding him to wait but to no avail, he doesn’t listen. Once he opens the firm’s front doors, he is met with David Rosen. 

The bright ceiling lights are the cause of the forming headache across your temples. To say that everything that happened in the past 28 hours is ridiculous would be an understatement. Neil and Blair are at the police station with you. By the time Sully St. James had his mugshot taken, you got a text message from Gwen. You managed to mutter an ‘I have to go’ and frantically left. Having left instructions for Neil and Blair just in case anything happened with Sully. 

Being told, by Gwen, that Vanessa Wyatt was in the hospital and she was going to see her was just the cherry on top. You wasted no time to get there as fast as you could. It was 7 pm by the time you entered the hospital door, exhaustion hitting you like a ton of bricks. Getting into bed sounds much better than having sex. 

Gwen is standing outside of Vanessa’s hospital room when you get there. You greet her then immediately ask, “What happened?” You take a look at Gwen and she genuinely seems worried for the girl who’s in the hospital bed, clearly sedated. 

Gwen explains, “She slashed her wrists. There’s no press lurking around but one of the nurses told me her dad’s flying in from Michigan.” 

You double-check with Gwen, just to make sure that there is no possible threat. “No nurses or doctors, about anything?” Gwen shakes her head, her ponytail moving along with her head, and responds shortly. 

“Just to me.”

“Good stay with her.” You turn to leave, regretting to have even come in the first place. A simple phone call would have been fine. Before you take a step Gwen takes ahold of your upper arm and blurted your name. 

“Y/N! You told me to trust my gut when I first got hired, and now my gut is telling me that she is telling the truth-” You cut off Gwen to share what you think. 

“She’s not.” You keep it short and sweet. Nico told you that he didn’t do it and you believe him. Your heart believes him. He said he loved you and you were the only girl he’s ever loved. 

“I know the President, Gwen. He wouldn’t do this.” You’re starting to become stern since Gwen is being persistent about something that could never, ever possibly be true. 

“I just find it weird that she was going on and on about how there’s this secret room off the Oval Office where they’ve met, and I’ve read about the White House. There is a little room.”

You waste no time to state the obvious. “If you read it, she read it. People are crazy Gwen. They love to get fixated on famous people and stalk them.” 

“But I don’t think she’s crazy.” If you didn’t have any love for Gwen you probably would’ve smacked her for continuing to run her mouth. Since you do care for her deeply, you demand her to tell you why she thinks that. “Why?”

“Okay, she tried to take her life but she didn’t want to die. She called you right after she did it because she wanted him to find out she was hurt and come see her. She thought he would do that.” Gwen rambles everything out in one go as if she’s already rehearsed this conversation in her head. 

“Gwen-”

“She was going on and on about how she thought he’d come to see her and call her some stupid little German word.” You start to doze off but your ears perk up like a dog that hears a siren from a mile away when she mentions the word German. 

“What?” 

Gwen’s face scrunches up and tilts her head to the side at your remark. She’s questioning you and doesn’t even need to open her mouth. 

“Repeat yourself.” You try to tell yourself that you heard something completely different. How pathetic. 

“Oh! He’d call her a German word, she said it means treasure or something. Why does it ma-” You cancel out the rest of Gwen’s sentence and scurry away. Your legs start working independently and lead you down the hospital corridor. Gwen calls out your name in response, but you pay no mind to it. The pit in your stomach is probably the size of a football and it doesn’t help that bile is rising in your throat and everything feels hazy. Betrayal wasn’t something new to you but coming from someone who expected the same loyalty from you was gutwrenching.

Sometimes you think it’s crazy how much authority you still have in the White House because you simply do not work there anymore. Nonetheless, it comes in handy, in instances like these. Rose, the President’s Secretary, leads you the way into the Oval Office in a matter of seconds. It didn’t take much convincing, just a quick “It’s an emergency”. Once Rose opens the first of 3 doors that connect the Oval Office to the White House, you step inside. Walking up to the set of couches that sit in the middle of the room, to set your purse down, you notice Nico isn’t at his desk. Matter of fact he isn’t anywhere in the room. With that, you question Rose about Nico’s whereabouts.

“Where is he?” You expect her to go into detail, whether it’s a meeting or at dinner with Nellie. But Rose never does. Instead, she gives a simple answer. 

“It’ll just be a moment.” With that, Rose walks out and shuts the door behind her. 

It doesn’t take long for Nico to come walking through the door, Timo trailing right behind, but when he does, you notice his attire. He’s wearing a bowtie. Which only means he has something important going on. 

“Y/N? What are you doing here?” Disregarding his question, you plea to him with your eyes. He notices the quiver of your lip and how tears threaten to leave your eyes. Nico senses something is up. 

“We’re gonna need the room, please.” He demands Timo. Nico’s eyes never leave yours. Almost as if there is a magnetic pull to the two of you. Timo stands there dumbfoundedly and questions the President. 

“But, Nico you have to give that toast to the President of Mexico in 10 minutes. Maybe this could wait until after?” Nico’s eyes finally leave yours. He turns to Timo and repeats himself. 

“I said we need the room,” Nico demands almost instantly. That being so, Timo lowers his head, and his hand reaches to the door handle so he can close the door behind him. Once Nico hears the click of the door shutting fully closed he whispers your name. You take no time to finally repeat the word you know Gwen was talking about. 

“Schatzli, huh?” The word rolls off your tongue as if it’s venom. It makes you want to curl up into a ball and never be seen again. Nico turns to you and you repeat the word of endorsement like it’s a chant. You’re angry and Nico knows it. With that, Nico points up ahead. There sits a security camera that overlooks the majority of the room. Watching your every move. Nico knows he can’t have a conversation about Vanessa knowing he’s being recorded. Good thing he was a smart man. During the first week after his inauguration, he managed to find out that the camera doesn’t record past his desk. So the pair of you had rendezvous against the large crystalline window that overlooks Nellie’s garden and a patio. Countless times. 

Nico guides you to stand in front of the window with a simple, “Come here.” To that, you obey. As to why? You don’t even know the answer to that considering all you see is rage. You reach him, keeping your distance but still out of the security camera’s view. Disgust and humiliation still sits on your face, never intended to leave soon. 

Nico is the first to speak amongst you two. “You left me.” He can’t even look you in the eye when he finally admits the truth. A man who lies is always a coward. 

“Because you are married! You said you wanted to dedicate yourself to your marriage! I wanted you to be a better man and be the man that I campaigned for-” Nico cuts you off by slowly taking steps towards you. You don’t need to be a genius to know what he’s doing. 

“Do not touch me.” You planned for it to come out stern but ended up sounding like a hurt duckling. But that you were. The look in Nico’s eye confirms that he was not listening to you. Instead of him pleading for you to hear him out, he steps even closer. Once he reaches you, his hands rest upon your hips. His body aching to make contact with yours. Your body is pressed up against the large window with another step. Nico’s eyes stare down at you, faces only mere inches apart. The pair of you already know where the next thing leads to but you’re not letting him go that easily.

Before his lips can make contact with yours, you push at his chest to get him off of you. Putting all force you can conjure into the shove. You turn around and before you can think your right hand makes contact with his left cheek with a hard smack!

“I believed you! You clouded my judgment! I wanted to believe you because I love you and THIS is what you do to me? She tried to kill herself! Did you know she’s lying in a hospital bed because she slashed her wrists open? I destroyed that girl-” Everything happens too fast and you can’t even see through the tears that started falling just moments ago. Nico finally dared to walk up to you and kiss you. His right hand has ahold of the back of your neck. While the other is on your upper arm, keeping you in place. It takes less than a second for you to come to terms with what’s happening. As mad as you are at Nico, you couldn’t help but feel the need to return the kiss. Your internal dialogue screams at you to stop. To step away and never talk to him again. 

The kiss is slow and passionate, Nico doesn’t want to rush into anything further because he knows you won’t hesitate to take a step back and slap him again. You had the balls no one ever did. Before Nico can gain access to your mouth with his tongue, one of the doors is swung open. 

“I just want to let you know that we can hear you yelling.” By the time Timo shuts the door, Nico and you have created a small fragment of distance away from each other. The satin pinky nude lipstick you wore, transferred onto Nico’s lips. Your hair is a bit disheveled and the pair of you are out of breath. Timo was a smart man so it didn’t take much for him to recognize what was happening behind closed doors. Timo clears his throat before he speaks. 

“Mr. President, I recommended you go wash up.” Timo puts his hands in his pockets and refuses to look you in the eye. 

“Timo-”

“No. You have lipstick on your mouth. You have a toast to give. Go. Now.” With that, Nico obeys and leaves the room, not even looking back towards you. Timo and you bask in a moment of silence. You stand there like a doe who has yet to learn how to walk. The feeling of embarrassment is an understatement to say at least. In times like these, where Timo puts his foot down, it makes you feel like a child being scolded for writing on the wall with markers. 

Timo walks up to the President’s desk and admires the picture he has of the three of you. It was the day of Nico’s inauguration, the picture was taken right after Nico’s speech. Timo wishes things could go back to the way they were. 

“Oh mein gott,” Timo mutters under his breath. After the past two years of knowing Timo, you’d expect that he knew about the affair. 

“You didn’t know? He tells you everything.” You scoff. Nico and Timo are close. Like brothers, who manage to piss each other off all day every day but that doesn’t get in the way of Nico telling Timo every personal detail that goes on in his life. 

“He didn’t tell me this.” He shakes his head and looks down at his feet. 

You wipe a tear that cascades down your left cheek and  quickly mutter, “Because it didn’t matter.” In disbelief, you walk towards the couch, reaching for your purse. Feeling the sudden need to get out of the one place you do not wish to be at. Timo tries to grab at your wrist, tries to talk you into staying but you’re too fast enough for him to get a good grip. Once you reach the door, you adjust your purse and push the straps up against your shoulder blade. You take a deep breath, fighting the urge to stay. Alas, your right hand makes contact with the gold door knob and you twist and push the door open. With every last bit of courage you have, you step out of the Oval Office with your head up high. You’ve got a man to get out of jail.

[bunnysbrainrot]

Sinners - Teaser

Relationship: Sam Winchester x Reader

Content: Explicit sexual content, teasing, more kinks and details to come with the full version, nothing too warning-worthy right now?

Summary: Disguised as a priest and nun on a case, time alone with Sam back at your motel is everything but holy. The taboo of your situation has Sam dealing with some… impure thoughts. Will Sam be able to contain himself?

In the past few weeks you and the Winchesters uncovered some suspicious deaths in a remote area of Georgia. The locations of the tragedies spanned over 50 miles apart, meaning that the team had to split up to cover more ground. Dean had split from you and Sam two days ago, and the night before in the motel had been fairly normal. It seemed like Dean did this on purpose; you had drunkenly admitted to him of your affection for his younger brother.

Whether or not Sam knew of this, you had no clue. And now in your nun getup, it was all too fitting that you began to pray that Sam was unaware. The two of you calmly made your way past the yellow police tape, preparing warm smiles for a victim’s family.

Sam knocked on the door, letting out a bated breath. Weren’t nuns supposed to dress modestly? Your outfit was the proper attire, but the way it hugged your curves left too much to Sam’s imagination. It was his turn to pray that it didn’t stir too much in him, to let him keep his composure.

An older man answered the door, his expression easing at the sight of your attire. Turns out this costume was better received than you thought. You had to channel your tone and proper verbiage before speaking.

“Apologies for showing up unannounced, Mr. Peters. I’m Father Jeremy, and this is our sister from a local church.” Sam waved a hand for you to introduce yourself.

You chose to use your name, seeing that this was your first nun-appearance.

“We’re here on behalf of the church to offer support for your family, but we also have a couple of questions, if you don’t mind.”

Hopefully there were no questions about the nearest Catholic church, otherwise this whole façade would crumble. Mr. Peters’ face only softened further.

“I’m glad you’re here, Father, Sister,” he addressed you with a sad smile, “Please, come in.”

Sam stepped in first, using a beckoning finger behind him to have you follow him. The house was modest, but eloquently decorated. You recalled the murder that had happened, that brought you to this town, and shuddered. Mr. Peters’ daughter had been brutally murdered and discarded in a creek, signs indicating the presence of a vampire. Their daughter had been missing for two weeks before the time of death, which is what you and Sam aimed to discover.

“Mr. Peters, we are part of a youth outreach program at the church. Our aim is to help troubled youth, with restorative services and social connection. We were wondering if your daughter had any odd behaviors before she went missing. Perhaps she became more secluded?”

The man looked confused at first, “Odd behavior?”

Sam gave a small nod, “We notice that teenagers in need of help oftentimes become more distant with their families. Our goal is to provide better services to our youth, which does include finding the source issue.”

Mr. Peters have a small background of his daughter, admitting that she had become distant with the family. Not just that, but her anger had only worsened, amongst several harmful habits. It wasn’t uncommon for teens to become immersed in the occult and all things dark, but being surrounded by the wrong people can lead to harmful connections.

“I see,” Sam started, “and do you know what kind of people she was surrounding herself with?”

Another confused look from Mr. Peters.

You added, “This way, we’re able to identify warning signs - things to be wary of as our youth members meet new people.”

This seemed to clear things up, bringing out a detailed recount of his daughter’s recent social group. But, their social media had been recently deleted, preventing the family from getting their closure. As far as they knew, their daughter had made new friends, ran from home, and was found brutally murdered.

Sam’s eyes darted to you when you shifted in your seat, the fabric of your black dress sliding gracefully along your thighs. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but seeing you dressed up like this sent his mind spinning. The last thing he should be thinking of is taking you dressed like this, but he couldn’t shake it. His mind raced of scenarios the two of you could create, each one dirtier than the last.

But right now, the task at hand was covering the tightness of his pants. He leaned forward, the broad muscles of his arms flexing beneath his black shirt. Blush creeped onto your cheeks, much to the attention of Mr. Peters, who looked at you with concern.

“Sister, are you feeling alright?”

You nodded and gave a small wave, “Oh, I’m fine. Just a little warm is all. I apologize.”

Mr. Peters stood, “No need to apologize, let me get you some cold water. I’ll only be one moment.”

The room had gone oddly quiet paired with Sam’s intent stare at your face. You turned to find a concerned Sam inspecting you fully.

“You sure you’re okay?” He asked softly.

A slight nod, “Yeah, it’s just stuffy in this outfit.”

“Well, once we’re back at the motel we can get you out of it.”

A beat later Sam realized how that sounded. He tried to backtrack, but Mr. Peters had already returned with your glass of water, which you gratefully sipped on. It took everything in your power to resist the images that came to mind. Sam’s hands roaming your body, stripping that baggy dress off of your body, his mouth finding every nook and cranny of your neck.

Sam seemed to have taken over the conversation for the last few moments before standing. Mr. Peters had already given a short list of his daughter’s friends, and their usual hang-out spots. Your attention snapped back to reality; you placed the water glass down with a small thank you, being pulled up by Sam.

His hand could practically wrap the entirety of your arm, his grip stable and warm. Goosebumps rose on your arms, brushing against the tough fabric of your dress. The air outside carried the comfort of fall, the breeze being cool and refreshing on your hot cheeks.

At the car, Sam reached for your door to open it for you, something completely new to the both of you. You glanced up at him with wide eyes. The movements he made to reach the handle had pulled your bodies dangerously close, fully brush against his chest, pressed into the car. A inexplicable scenario that would raise a few eyebrows, for certain.

“Sorry, I just didn’t want you to trip on your dress,” breathed Sam.

Honestly, he was thankful for the little slip up - being this close to you had been a wish of his, but there had never been any excuse for it to happen. Your focus shifted from his soft, hazel eyes down to his parted lips. Sam’s attention shifted to your lips, lowering to your chest for a split second. A selfish move on his part, but the damage had already been done.

Your hand fumbled for the door handle, fingers sliding over his own. The two of you shared another longing glance before getting you into the car. Sam tucked in loose bits of your dress so the door wouldn’t snag on them.

“Alright, hands and feet it, watch out,” he whispered. You noticed how his hands fumbled more than usual, surely due to the nerves. Perhaps you had been reading this wrong, maybe you had taken things too far? Maybe you had overstepped and embarrassed him?

“Thank you,” you replied, giving him a genuine smile. Sam’s cheeks flushed, unmistakably a sign that maybe your anxieties been just that. Simple anxieties from overthinking this whole thing.

Now settled in the car, the two of you made the trip back to the motel. After stepping inside you beelined for the bathroom.

At least, until Sam’s voice stopped you in your tracks.

“Hey, could I talk to you about something?”

You turned to face him, eyebrows raised. You’d be lying to yourself if you said your heart didn’t skip a beat.

“What’s up?”

With the silence in the room, you took the cue to sit on the bed. Sam towered in comparison, his lean physique defined by the lamplight.

His voice softened, “I’m sorry about earlier. I didn’t mean to get that close, I-“

“Sam, it’s okay,” you cut him off with a laugh, “don’t worry about it. I wasn’t bothered by it.”

He relaxed his shoulders. Sam began to dig through his bag for another set of clothes.

“You look good as a priest, by the way. You sell the bit nicely,” you stated.

What you said made his heart skip a beat. Was that a compliment, or just conversation? Sam couldn’t tell, so he turned to you once more with a goofy grin on his face.

“Thanks,” his expression darkened as his eyes raked you over, “You look good as a nun.”

There was no mistaking it - he was taking his time looking over you. Your breath hitched in your throat when he turned, leaned casually against the desk your bags laid on. You transfixed on the way his hands moved around his belt buckle. Mildly fiddling, but you couldn’t help but imagine him following through.

“Not my best outfit, but thank you,” you replied. Sam pushed away from the desk, slowly stepping toward the bed where you sat, tense with every step.

“I would agree there, you’ve worn better,” he commented.

You head snapped up to meet his eyes. A surprise note of flirtation filled your voice.

“Okay, so what’s my best outfit, then?”

He scoffed, “We playing twenty questions?”

You pointed to your outfits, smirking proudly at him, “Look at our getup, man, it’s like a confessional.”

A bright laugh came out of Sam; he tilted his head back as he thought.

“My answer isn’t exactly… appropriate.”

“Sam,” you laughed, “Confessional. You gotta tell me.”

He let out a groan before lowering his head, steadily giving you his answer, “Your dark jeans, and that long sleeve shirt. The, um… the one with the v-neck, you wore it almost every day over winter.”

“And that was inappropriate?”

“It’s why I like it that’s inappropriate.”

“Okay, then, why do you like it?”

The last thing you expected was for Sam to close the distance. He stepped until he was directly ahead, arms crossed over his chest as he locked eyes with you.

“It made your ass look nice.”

His tone was surprisingly serious, like he had been thinking of this answer for a while.

“Hugs your body in the right ways. And it makes your, well, chest… look nice.”

Sam humored your shocked expression but pushing things further. If you could dish it out, he could dish it back.

“What’s my best outfit?”

As you collected yourself, Sam stepped closer, bringing a hand to your cheek. He lifted your head, his thumb grazing over your cheek.

“It’s a confessional. You have to tell me,” he joked, earning a slight glare from you. That sour face melted away when Sam placed his hand beneath your chin. He tilted your head back to have you look at him.

Shit.

“Jeans,” you breathed, “V-neck black shirt.”

Sam leaned in, brushing his lips across your cheek. The closeness set your skin ablaze, each trailing lip and finger sending shivers up your spine.

“Is that all?” Sam whispered.

His eyes met yours once again, a startling seriousness lurking inside. You pushed past the shyness of your answer. The honesty could break the tension that had building all this time.

“Pajama pants… no shirt. When you just get out of the shower.”

Sam’s lips curled into a satisfied smile before planting a slow kiss to your cheek. He moved gradually to your jawline, sprinkling chaste kisses until his lips hovered over yours.

“Have you wanted this?” he asked.

Your frustration was intangible - a bottle that had been shaken too much, and ready to blow. He was centimeters, millimeters away from giving you what you’d truly wanted. The silence between you signified the utter defiance to give him this so easily.

“Confessional,” Sam’s voice reverberated against you, but he offered nothing to your pleading lips, “tell me, little nun, have you thought about this? Wanted my lips on yours?”

A small whine escaped you as Sam’s hand lowered to your throat, pressing softly to the tender flesh. The loss of blood flow muddled your thoughts into complete ecstasy, with no urgency to regain control. With just one move, it was clear to Sam that you were undoubtedly his.

You gave him a small nod. A low growl thundered in his chest before pressing into you further, laying you flat on the bed. Locks of chestnut hair framed your face, with a breathy Sam hovering his mouth over your neck.

“Nodding doesn’t count. You gotta use your words, sweetheart.”

Amidst the constriction on your throat you nodded and choked out a small, "Yes."

Sam's growing smile is all you need to know you've satisfied something deeper within him. Darkness floods his eyes seeing you like this, utterly at his will under his touch. If he'd known sooner that this would be the outcome, he'd have bought that nun outfit ages ago.

"That's better," he whispered.

------

Hi everyone! I know it's just a teaser for now, but I wanted to show you something I've been working on! I've also been pretty busy with work and writing for my book series, so things have been a bit busy for sure haha

I love you all, and I keep an eye out for the full version of Sinners!

[maxdibert]

What do you think would be a fair punishment for James and Sirius, considering the werewolf attack (murder attempt) and Snape's worst memory (sexual assault)? In real life, those actions are crimes and they could go to jail, but things are a little different in the magic world.

We know they didn't get any punishment because the school either didn't care or covered up everything. But if the truth came out, what would be the best way to hold James and Sirius accountable for their actions? To me, expulsion would be a start, but it's still the bare minimum.

Okay, we should take several things into account. First, we’re talking about 15-year-olds, so they are minors, which is always relevant when issuing a judgment or requesting any type of sentence. We’re also talking about different crimes, so on one hand, I would judge Sirius, and on the other, James. Perhaps, aside from these specific crimes, I would ask the judge to consider the fact that they committed constant bullying. And then we also need to consider that they are British, so we should base it on the legal system of that country, which I vaguely know. Let’s remember that we are not talking about normal criminal law but juvenile criminal law, which is different because minors are never really judged with the severity of adults, and I’m not going to deviate from that script.

I like this question because I’m a criminal lawyer but not specialized in minors nor am I British, so I’ll be guided by what I know about this type of law as well as the specific laws of the country.

The first thing, obviously, would be to separate the charges I would request for each because the crimes are different.

For Sirius, taking Snape to where Remus was during a full moon, knowing full well what could happen, that’s attempted murder or at the very least reckless endangerment. He was putting Snape’s life at risk with a dangerous creature, which is no small thing. Even if Sirius didn’t directly mean for Snape to die, the fact that he acted with such disregard for Snape’s life would qualify for attempted murder under reckless disregard for life.

James is a bit different. We’ve got him on assault, battery, false imprisonment (by levitating and holding Snape in the air), and indecent exposure (since he forcibly exposed Snape in front of everyone). All of these are serious charges, especially the public humiliation aspect of the SMW incident, which would be aggravated by the bullying nature.

Given that they were 15, they’d be tried in the Youth Court unless the crimes were deemed severe enough to move to the Crown Court. For Sirius, considering the gravity of the attempted murder charge, I’d push for a youth detention order, which could range up to the max of 2 years for the most serious cases. The court might also look at an extended sentence under the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act, if they believe he poses an ongoing risk.

For James, we’d likely be looking at a community rehabilitation order, given the multiple charges but also factoring in that it’s not as severe as attempted murder. The focus would be on rehabilitation, but the court might also impose a youth detention period if they find the indecent exposure and public humiliation severe enough.

Both would have conditions attached, like attending counseling, educational programs, and possibly community service. The aim would be to rehabilitate but also acknowledge the seriousness of their actions.

That’s as far as general terms go. But if you’re asking me personally what I would do as the prosecution attorney and what kind of strategy I would follow, the answer is that I would go all out. Because I always go all out in criminal trials, and because I’m quite competitive and I like not just winning, but winning the best possible outcome for my clients. So, in a case like this, I honestly wouldn’t have much mercy, especially knowing that the defendants are rich kids. So, well, my prosecution strategy would be something like this:

argue that the actions of both Sirius and James were not isolated incidents but part of a prolonged campaign of bullying against Severus Snape. This ongoing harassment exacerbates the gravity of their specific actions — Sirius’s attempted murder and James’s assault and humiliation — and establishes a pattern of behavior that warrants harsher scrutiny.

Evidence and Arguments:

1. Constant Bullying: We would present evidence from witnesses, including other students and possibly teachers, who can testify to the frequent and targeted harassment Snape endured at the hands of Sirius and James. This could include verbal abuse, physical intimidation, and orchestrated pranks that go beyond mere schoolyard teasing.

2. Collaborative Nature: It would be crucial to highlight how both Sirius and James often acted together, using their power and popularity to target Snape, who was frequently alone and without allies. This demonstrates a systematic effort to harm and humiliate him, which should aggravate their charges.

3. Power Imbalance: We would emphasize the socioeconomic and emotional vulnerabilities of Severus. Coming from a less affluent background and dealing with family struggles, Snape’s isolation and lack of resources made him an easy target for the more privileged Sirius and James. This context would further paint the defendants’ actions as exploitative and cruel.

4. Psychological Impact: I’d call on psychological experts to assess the long-term emotional and psychological damage caused by the continuous bullying. This would show that the harm inflicted went beyond the physical, leaving lasting scars that justify a substantial legal response.

Of course i would also would show asistí on al charges.

• Aggravated Assault: For both, given the sustained nature of their actions and the mental distress caused to Snape.

• Harassment: Under the Protection from Harassment, showing a course of conduct causing distress.

• Public Order Offenses: For creating a hostile environment within the school, disrupting not just Snape’s peace but potentially that of others.

For Sirius, adding these charges could push the court to impose the maximum youth detention period, with a strong emphasis on rehabilitation programs designed to address violent tendencies and lack of empathy.

For James, the aggravated charges and public order offenses might lead to a combination of a longer community order, including mandatory participation in programs addressing bullying and its impacts, and a possible detention period if the court deems the public indecency and assault severe enough.

And of course I would seek financial compensation for Severus under the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme, which provides payments to victims of violent crime. Given the sustained nature of the abuse and its psychological impact, we’d argue for a substantial amount, citing:

• Medical and psychological treatment costs.

• Lost educational opportunities due to the hostile environment affecting his learning.

• General damages for pain and suffering.

This compensation would serve both as a recognition of the harm caused and a deterrent for similar future behavior in school environments.

And yes, I would demand a large sum of money from each of their families. I would also require a public apology from both of them, apologizing to Severus in front of their peers. And, of course, immediate expulsion from Hogwarts and a prohibition on continuing their studies in a standard school environment unless they complete and pass all reintegration processes and programs.

I think that covers everything lol.

[lilydalexf]

🌲👽 X-Files Survival/Wilderness Fic Recs

Here are some very good X-Files survival or wilderness fics. Because @thatsaprettycoolposter and @pookie-mulder asked! This list does not include post-colonization fics, which are also all survival fics of a sort. Enjoy!

Alligator Moon by jordan big monster in swamp attacks FBI agents

Antidote by Rachel Howard and Karen Rasch Strange doings in a tiny western town bring Mulder and Scully out to investigate. Once there, they uncover a deadly experiment that may cost both of them their lives.

Backtracking by Kel and Scetti What do Charlie Scully, the Alien Bounty Hunter, and Jesse "the Body" Ventura all have in common? Last April you could have found all three of them in Minnesota.

By the Wind Grieved by Karen Rasch Months have passed and Mulder is back. But things are not as they once were. He doesn’t know who he is or what Scully and he are to each other. Together they must reclaim the past before their enemies take away their future.

A Cabin in the Woods by @leiascully Mulder and Scully, on the run, stay for a while in a cabin in the mountains in Montana. A series of interlacing vignettes.

a cabin in the woods by @monikafilefan Being stuck in this rustic cabin, clearly left to age among the wilderness had Scully feeling wild herself, and it felt as if their bodies danced to an ancient song among the elements.

Camping by Amperage and Livengoo Fox Mulder and Dana Scully have survived abductions, serial killers, mutants and aliens but the Partner Cooperation Program Wilderness Encounter may finally do them in. After poison ivy and catfish, who wouldn’t long for a nice, safe killer mutant?

A Change of Seasons by Jo-Ann Lassiter A search for a mythical beast in the woods of Pennsylvania takes an alarming turn for the worse when Mulder's minor in ury escalates into a life-threatening disease.

Changing Tides by QofMush Who says change is all bad?

Circumnavigation by Suzanne Schramm Sometimes you don't know where you're going until you get there.

Coming Back by Karen Rasch Mulder gets a call from Mrs. Scully, who fears for Dana's safety. Following her instructions, he tracks his partner to a cabin in the mountains where he finds that she does indeed need his help. Memories of her time away have come back with a vengeance. (Sequel: The Calm After The Storm)

Dark Water by Suzanne Schramm Prehistoric insects. Mothmen. Now it’s a publicity-shy tribe of murderers. Just another nice trip to the forest with Mulder.

Falling Snow by Snark Mulder, Scully and a mysterious woman from Mulder's past crash in the snowy landscape of the Colorado winter.

Frozen by @dashakay The end of a case, and a stay in a log cabin during a blizzard, lead Scully to take the biggest risk of her life.

Last Chance Falls by @slippinmickeys A man. A women. A forest. A hit squad. An adventure.

The Lost by Wintersong Mulder and Scully are trapped in the remote wilderness and the art of surviving was not what they expected.

Old Growth Forest by Andrea Mulder and Scully investigate the disappearances of homeless people in Madison, Wisconsin and seemingly end up suffering the same fate.

A Path of Salt by Analise Mulder ditches Scully yet again to help an old friend in the Park Service. But Scully has never been one to sit and wait.

Tam Lin by Pequod When your local young men disappear, only to turn up dead a year later, sometimes it helps to have friends in high places. Myth and murder combine in a remote Scottish village, and Mulder and Scully investigate. The Fairy Queen is out to revenge the loss of her most prized knight, Tam Lin. Mulder believes but Scully’s not so sure, until Mulder takes a walk in the woods.

Tempest by Missy Pennington Mulder and Scully survive a plane crash to find themselves injured and stranded in the Appalachian wilderness. (Sequels: Distance, Wild Places, and Escape Me Never)

Untitled by @o6666666 Prompt: Mulder takes Scully camping and they make love for the second time ever under the stars.

Waiting in Motion by mountainphile After leaving the hot spring (in "Miraculous Manifestation"), Scully and Mulder take an unexpected detour on the way home. Dark secrets emerge when they seek shelter in a raging storm...and an intriguing X-file rears its head... (Sequel: Signs of Life)

Way Through the Woods by Pellinor and Rebecca Rusnak Three months ago, someone noticed something unusual about Scully. Now, in a desperate attempt to stave off the inevitable, Mulder has disappeared, and Scully’s only chance of finding him include an unlikely ally and an untrustworthy informant. As they make their way through the woods, can Mulder and Scully find each other, or is the future lost?

[katherinearandez]

I don’t think Tessa is one of the good guys

I have a lot of questions about Tessa. What are her goals? Is she really on copper 9 for the reasons she told us in episode 6? Does she have hidden motives, and if so, what are they???

The lines of “morality” in this show are super squiggly, so by “good guy”, I mean an individual with positive or helpful intent toward the main characters - in this case, drones. The concept of Tessa bearing ill-intent for drones as a ‘species’ seemed contradictory at first: after all, she’s so nice to N, V and J, right? We’re talking about someone who, as a kid, saved zombie drones from the dump(cough, mass grave, cough) where their human owners left them to rot after creating them by means of improper disposal. Why would she want to kill drones? Especially in the same callous, procedurally improper ways that created the threat of Cyn to start out with?

Well…

Let’s not forget about the evil AI that massacred her family and the guests of their gala. AFTER Tessa took her in as an act of kindness, against her parents wishes. Parents who did seem to look down on her pretty severely, regularly chained her up in her room as punishment(you don’t install heavy duty, floor anchored chains for the occasional time out) and possibly kept her socially isolated???

That last point is pretty speculative, since a lot about the earth of N’s flashbacks screams post-apocalyptic vibes. Maybe there just aren’t a lot of humans left for Tessa to socialize with. Tessa’s dad reinforces this idea in his speech by listing “currently being alive” as an attribute the Elliots are known for. It could just as well be a meta joke(since they are killed in the next few seconds), so lacking more context, I hesitate to extrapolate from this point alone.

Anywho, back to Tessa’s callous drone murder. Even if her parents were crappy by the usual standards, she clearly didn’t want them/the other gala guests to die. She tried to save them by “murdering her a robo-child”. Idk, does this blacked out redacted image of Tessa in the aftermath of the massacre seem upset??

Reasonable assumption. So adult/older teen Tessa has changed the way she feels about drones after these traumatic events. Maybe she doesn’t outright hate them, but she views them from a colder, more pragmatic angle than she did in her younger years. Does she still feel empathy for them and the horrible mistreatment they suffer at the hands of humans? Probably. But she’s now aware of the danger they truly pose and has good reason to eliminate them to ensure the absolute solver mutation no longer has a pool of hosts in which to spread and evolve.

So why the callous drone murder at the end of episode 3? We know you’re supposed to follow a 2 step procedure for decommissioning drones. Software death via lethal injection of a kill program(sounds fun!), followed by hardware death via “core removal” to ensure the decommissioned drone doesn’t reboot with corrupted software and an “increased chance for future errors”.

Did she hastily kill this random drone to keep her arrival on copper 9 secret, foregoing procedure for the sake of urgency? If so, who is she keeping her presence secret from? Is it the remaining drone population of copper 9, who Cyn used to collapse the planet core and kill all humans there? Possibly, Uzi is a prime example of anti-human sentiment, and during Mr Doorman’s parent-teacher conference he mentioned being on a “kill all humans kick when he was her age”. Perhaps Tessa assumes all the c9 worker drones are hostile to humans.

When you start making assumptions about what characters are assuming, it’s generally a good time to stop and just accept you don’t have the answers 🫠 so that’s where I will cut that line of questioning short. That being said, I’m not quite done yet…

What’s with this shelf of small human skulls in Tessa’s room? Why are the trash robots she “rescues” her only friends? Do her parents chain her up in her room because they suck? Or… do they have reasons not yet revealed to us, the audience?

Tessa’s perception among most of the fan base is fairly positive and on the surface there’s good reason for this. She’s presented as peppy, compassionate(except toward that one worker drone, lmao), ~tenacious~ and resilient. Actions like salvaging drones from the dump and perceived displays of affection and warmth for the disassembly drones leave viewers with the impression that she’s a good, kind person.

There is, however, another light in which to view her actions, and it casts a shadow on the motives we may have assumed were pure up to this point.

While it’s easy to parse Tessa saving drones from the dump as an act of altruism, it can also be interpreted as sinister. It could be an example of a character with a savior complex; a power dynamic wherein the “savior” exerts control over those they “rescue” by taking advantage of their gratitude and using it in manipulative ways. If this is the case, Tessa’s motives take a sharp left turn, flipping from selfless and kind to egotistical and controlling.

The show actually gives us direct evidence of Tessa using manipulation to get her drones to do her bidding.

“It wants paid time off…”

This instance of her using corporate buzzwords to drive J into a rage strong enough for her to bite through metal chains. Or how about her outright lying to the drones at the start of episode 6? Asserting that her intention was to “burn to the ground” labs Cyn was interested in, while later that same episode revealing to N that her “true” purpose was to obtain a list of drones infected with the absolute solver?

Preeetty manipulative. She manipulated and/or coerced Doll as well, in order to obtain the keybug. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if come episode 7, she switches it up yet again, revealing a new manipulation or perhaps, finally, her real mission.

Tessa’s manipulation of the drones she supposedly cares about isn’t the only hint that she might have a savior complex or similar egocentric tendencies. She’s also shown that she’s not very respectful of the drones autonomy, another red flag that can signal a propensity for narcissism and the controlling behaviors associated with it.

N is the example this time.

Tessa’s signature greeting for N, which is to grab his face and swing him around with excitement that borders on aggression. Maybe it’s just me, but his expression doesn’t suggest it’s mutually enjoyed. Looks more to me like he’s uncomfortable and only humoring her pep because he feels like he has no choice… after all, none of Tessa’s “dumpster pets” want to let down their saving grace.

We see this same kind of contact again throughout episode 6, with Tessa grabbing N’s face as a greeting again, and also playing with his hair on the way down to cabin fever labs. The way Tessa interacts with the drones(J and V as well as N) shows that she sees them as objects in her possession, rather than friends, peers or their own individuals with unique thoughts, wants and feelings.

Uzi even calls her out on this very mindset at the end of episode 6 after Tessa asks her sardonically to “don’t date my robot, please.”

Granted, I’ve got no solid backing, just observation, speculation and a suspicious mind. Tessa could be a great person… “good” or “bad” though, she’ll definitely try to kill our main character sometime soon, so… yup. Killing even an anti-hero typically slots you into the bad guy category, even in a show where the moral lines between good and evil are so artfully blurred.

TLDR; I think there’s more to Tessa than meets the eye, and even though Cyn is still probably Murder Drones “big bad”, I feel like Tessa has an element of villainy to her that I hope will be further explored in canon.

[mshalfemptygirl]

The Prince Agent (S.R)

Plot: Reader is called to help Spencer with a case and things get too cute.

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Dr!Fem!Reader

Contents: Really quicky mention to kidnapping and lots of fuffy

A/N: guys it’s my first fic, so let me know if you guys liked it, if you need a part 2. There are some translations at the end for you to understand the fic. Just give support and love. Thank you very much. Enjoy! 

I never knew exactly where linguistics was going to take me, but this is too much. I was at the police station, dressed an updated version of what it was meant to be Mary Stuart all because I helped my teacher with an Scotch Language Class this afternoon. You know, I'm in the postdoctoral program and sometimes we need to help our teacher and that's mean look ridiculous when they ask you to do a "favor" to them. So, I'm here, next to the door, feeling lost and angry for not have time to change my outfit. They said that just need to find an Agent called Dr. Spencer Reid to translate a little girl who was saved by the team. It gonna be easy, but no.

I notice that there is a man looking at me, he’s next to bullpens with some paper in his right hand. He is tall and very handsome by the way. In fact, he's wearing a tie that makes him look really HOT but I can't think about those things at such a delicate moment like this, I need to focus. I walked towards him, looking at the floor because in addition to the long dress, I was wearing high heels and I didn't want to embarrass myself in the middle of the police station. When I stopped in front of him, he put the papers on the table and gave me a small smile.

“Excuse me, where can I find Dr. Spencer Reid?” I returned the smile, wishing it was him.

“Well, right here. I’m Dr Spencer Reid, nice to meet you. You should be Dr. Y/N L/N. Or maybe Princess Y/N L/N?” he give me a big smile. “Can you follow me?” I felt my face burn, he was making fun of me and it made me a thousand times more nervous. I start follow him to the hallway with many rooms, the walls were white and light blue, there is a clock on the wall.

“Sorry, I didn’t have time for change. And It supposed to be Mary Stuart. So it’s Queen Y/N L/N”. He nodded while he run his hand over his hair. He stopped to think about something. Even nervous, I can't take my eyes off him. “Did you know that Mary became Queen of Scots at only six days of age and Mary’s last night was spent drafting an elaborate will in which all her servants were remembered. On the day of her execution, she appeared in her customary black cloak and with a white veil over her head and she then dropped the cloak to reveal a crimson red dress?” he ask me, I can see the excited in his face. I couldn't help but smile big, he's so endearing, so cute. I think he's trying to make me more comfortable.

“Yes!!! And she also was the first woman to practice golf in Scotland. She even caused a scandal when she was seen playing the game at St Andrews within days of her husband Darnley's murder. She was a such badass, I like her” I said. Then I remember about the little girl, they must have been in a hurry to help her. “But Dr. Reid, changing the subject, can we talk about the little girl? What you want me to do?” the expression on his face changed from a happy face to a worried one.

He explained to me that she was only 6 years old, she is physically fine and she was rescued from a kidnapping a few hours ago, they couldn't find her family and they couldn't ask her questions because she only speaks Portuguese. That's why they called me. It looks like his team has been looking into this possible unsub for months. Well, now I'm more relieved to be dressed like this, she deserves a good time in the middle of this chaos, I hope she likes princesses. Doctor Reid will walk me into the room so I can be the bridge between him and Mila.

I was the first to enter the room, there were some children's things on a table in the corner of the room. In the center of the room was a shaggy green rug and a table. Mila was drawing on the table, she had her back to me, focused on drawing and there is another blonde woman in the room with her, it must be another agent. She got up and wished him good luck. I looked at him and he nodded for me to start.

"Oi Mila, me falaram que tinha uma princesa por aqui” ¹ she looked at me and took to give me a hug. She got really excited saying several things at the same time, I sat with her on the floor and she played with my hair. That's when she realized that Dr. Reid was in the room and her face was etched with fear. “Mila, ele não vai te fazer mal, ele é muito legal! Sabe, o nome dele é Spencer e ele é meu principe. Ele é meu cavaleiro que me protege de coisas ruins e ele protege princesas como você também. Então ele não vai te fazer mal. Okay?” ²

She waved at me and I gave her a smile. I called Spencer over and he sat on the other side of the table. I translated for him what I said to her and it was like that for 40 minutes. Mila was no longer afraid of him, she gave as much information as possible about the man who took her and she also talked about her family. When she was scared, she squeezed my hand really tight and I told her that everything was going to be alright. Now, she going to draw two drawings for us. “Y/N, I will pass the information for Agent Garcia so she can start the search. You helped a lot. Thank you. Can you stay with her?" I nodded to him. “Mila, diz “Bye, Spencer”, ele precisa ir agora” ³.

“NÃO! Ele tem que dar um presente para você. Ele é seu principe, não é? Vocês tem que casar e viver felizes para sempre” ⁴ At that moment my heart beat faster. Holy shit, how was I going to translate this to him?! I can feel the presure. If I was avoiding embarrassing myself, now is the time. She was looking for something in the toy box, she walked to Spencer and gave him a plastic ring. She just pointed at the ring and then at me. We looked at each other not knowing what to do. I was in PANIC. “Spencer, I think she wants us to get married. You don’t have to. Sorry, I can explain to her that...”.  

“Oh, don't worry, I can give you the ring. Give me your left hand" I held out my hand to him and when he touched me I feel a good feeling. His hand are so soft. Looking right into Mila's face who seemed very happy with our misfortune. "Right, we are married. I’m married to a queen. I have to go now but can we talk after this, my lady?" he said after kissing the ring on my hand. Damn, he obviously has a hold on me."Yes, we can, Prince Agent Reid". Then I give him a smirk and he left the room. I show Mila my hand, she was happy for the first time in days and I was thinking how lucky I would be if this fairytale were true.

1 Hi Mila, someone told me there was a princess around here.

2 Mila, he won't hurt you, he's really nice! You know, his name is Spencer and he's my prince. He is my knight who protects me from bad things and he protects princesses like you too. So he won't hurt you. OK?.

3 Mila, say “Bye Spencer”, he needs to go.

4 NO! He has to give you a gift. He's your prince, isn't he? You have to get married and live happily ever after.

[chrispywhispy]

First Kiss

I felt like writing for some reason and decided to write about one of my oldest ships, NoiCle from DMMD. Yes, a DRAMAtical Murder fanfic in 2024. There’s not much involved in here except for some kissing. Anyway, I just wanted to share these two 💚💛

Electronics has always been Noiz’s forte.

Whether it was hacking, fixing AI, or participating in Rhyme, he could do just about anything as long as it involved technology. It wasn’t a surprise when he saw a discarded and half damaged android while passing by a dingy alley. He’s fixed robotic pets before, but most definitely not a full scale model of what looked like a human, with half of its face torn off to reveal mechanical innards. Noiz was eager to explore new territory, and maybe even stave off some boredom, so he took the damaged robot and began working on it for the next few months. 

His hard work of staying up every night to monitor and run diagnostics was rewarded by a chipper voice as the android introduced himself by the name of “Clear,” now fully functional and repaired of missing skin and wires. The robot was a lot more expressive than he ever could, which made him equally amazed and jealous of his bubbly personality. Seriously, the guy was so lifelike, you’d never think he was all gears inside from all the programming behind the scenes. 

And speaking of personality, Noiz wasn’t sure if following him around his messy apartment was also part of it, but he didn’t seem to care either way. Clear just liked to observe him playing games on the hologram or fixing something on screen. He would also ask multiple questions a day, almost akin to a toddler with a mind of his own. Well, he did fix him. It’d be natural for the robot to be curious about anything and everything from someone who fixed him. 

Noiz also taught Clear the wonders of food, (not that he needed to eat but whatever,) things he enjoyed, testing out his features and whatnot. He had to admit, he was slowly falling more and more interested in Clear. He would deliberately insist on cooking for him instead of ordering take out pizza, and would even drag him outside for some fresh air. The industrial district wasn’t really as fresh from where he lived, but walking beside Clear’s unusual cheerfulness made the atmosphere ten times more enjoyable than being alone like he always was.

Today Noiz felt particularly lazy and stayed inside, laying back on his worn couch to click the TV’s channels on with a swipe of his thumb on the remote. Clear joined him soon after, just a comfortable distance of half a meter. Not that he was calculating. He just felt the shift of the couch move from Clear’s weight, who was inching closer by the second. 

“Noiz-san?”

Noiz mumbled a short hum of acknowledgment to let Clear know that he was listening, anticipating whatever he wanted to ask this time. He admired that Clear was respectful with his ‘-san’ but it was technically unnecessary given that he was younger than most mechanics out there.

“Why do you have piercings on your face?” 

“I just think they’re cool.” Not exactly a lie. He once saw a piercing shop and returned every few weeks or so to get more wherever part of his body could reach.

“Do they hurt?” 

Well that was a new one. The blond turned to face Clear’s ever so curious gaze, finding nothing but pink shiny eyes full of wonder. It’s not like they ever hurt on the day he got them. He couldn’t even feel an ounce of pain no matter how many injuries he got. 

“Not really. Why?“

“It just sort of looks like it does since it goes through your skin and all.” Clear points to one of them, his head tilted slightly to the side.

Eh, it wasn’t the most gruesome one. Probably even tamer. Worst case scenario would be a knife to the skull. That’d be a great piercing for sure. 

“Y’get used to it after a while. It makes for a nice permanent accessory so you don’t have to remove and put it on all the time.”

This time the android tilted his head back to its original position and put a hand on his chin in a classic thinking pose. What could he be thinking about anyway? Staring at his piercings so much… Actually, on second thought;

“If you’re so curious about them how about I show you what they can do?” 

Clear breaks his pose, only to be followed by wide beaming eyes. It was almost sparkling. He was sparkling. “Really? Please show me, Noiz-san!” 

Noiz sighed and stifled a smile of his own. He’s already got him hooked on, might as well play along right? To start, he points at the ring piercings on  one of his brows.

“You see, these make me look more expressive. I don’t express as much emotion as you so I got them.” He received a fascinated nod by Clear, to which the other replied; “That’s true. It makes up for the rest of your eyebrows. They’re very short.” 

He raised said pierced brow. “Hey, just because it’s short doesn’t mean they make up for it, idiot.” 

So what if his brows were short? They’ve always grown that way. He felt weirdly offended and pinched Clear’s cheek out of impulse. 

“O-Ow…!” Noiz allowed himself to grin this time as Clear scrunched his face up with a pout. “What was that for!” 

“Making fun of my brows.” He didn’t mean it in the slightest, but he enjoyed Clear’s reactions. Their banters always came as naturally as the wind. 

“Now these,” The blond pointed to the studs horizontally across his nose bridge. “They help me sneeze.” He glanced down Clear’s hand, prying one off his lap to replace his own. “Go on, try and pinch them.” 

As hesitant as he was just after being pinched playfully, Clear placed his index and thumb on the cold metal and waited. Noiz faked himself a sneeze as soon as Clear’s fingers touched the studs, eliciting a small gasp from the android. “See?“ He pointed to the last piercings on his face just below his lips. “Finally, these help me speak when I’m kicking ass. Cool, isn’t it?”

Today was probably the most he’s ever spoke in his life playing for a simple prank. Of course, whatever he said was total bullshit, but the way Clear attentively listened and observed with such focus, taking in every fact like some newfound discovery, made it hard to break the truth to him. 

“Wow… that’s amazing, Noiz-san!”

The android cheerily clapped his hands with a bright smile, almost as blinding as the sun. “Do you have more?” Clear’s lashes fluttered with eagerness, face inches away from his. 

Oh he does alright. 

“Well… I have this one right here.” 

Noiz stuck his tongue out to show the piercing embedded there, drawing out a look of astonishment and a hint of pink of the android’s face. That gave him an idea. 

“Wanna test it out? You did help me sneeze.” 

That seemed to make Clear blink, eyes glued to his tongue as he drew out a slow, “What will it… do?” 

“You’ll see.” At this point the distance between them was almost nonexistent, and If he was going to hell for this, Noiz will make sure it’ll be heaven for him and Clear. So Noiz leans in for their first kiss. It wasn’t any different than a human’s, and Clear’s adorable squeak to intimacy pleased something in him he never thought he had. 

The blond also takes the opportunity to study Clear’s features up close. He’s worked on him for months but the robot never failed to mesmerize him with how human he looked. His hair, albeit synthetic, was silky smooth to the touch. His porcelain skin soft and pale with two moles adorning his chin. His pastel pink eyes crowned with long snow white lashes carefully laced with precision. This unit was a work of art. His cheeks were now flushed the same color as his eyes at the contact of Noiz’s warmth. He was even able to react to sensations and temperature. 

Noiz began to test the waters by running his pierced tongue against Clear’s soft lips. The android made a sound of surprise and tentatively parted his lips to let Noiz enter, tasting and feeling the piercings he was oh so curious about. Truth be told, the only sensation he could feel was his tongue, and he hadn’t expected Clear to taste oddly sweet. Did he eat candy or was he just naturally tasty? Either way, Noiz wasted no time exploring what Clear had to offer, enjoying this manmade masterpiece letting out soft hums and pants. 

He pulled the android closer by the cheek, while the other hand snaked around his waist. They would’ve gone hours making out if it weren’t for the need to breathe. Noiz had to pull away much to Clear’s dismay.

“How’s that?” 

Clear almost wanted to go for a second round but decided to lick his lips instead, missing the taste of Noiz already. The cold metallic dud on his sensors made the experience strangely addicting.

“It was… good.” Good enough for him to bashfully turn away, making the blond snicker. “You have the nerve to look away from our first kiss.”

“E-Eh?!” 

Clear’s blush had already darkened into a nice shade of tomato red since they locked lips, now impossibly redder than ever. Noiz found it fun to tease this little white rabbit. 

“This really is my first kiss with Noiz-san… hazukashii~!” The android now fully covered his face with his hands, ears bright red complimenting his silver hair. 

“You just noticed that now?” Noiz found himself smiling at the flustered mess that was Clear, bringing his hands down despite Clear’s shy protests. 

“Let’s make that a second kiss then.”

Clear’s complaints soon died out once Noiz took his lips for another session, melting in his embrace. Although Noiz had other plans to spicen up whatever they had going on, he didn’t want to rush Clear into something he wouldn’t want. Like the ones on his… you know what. And so they shared kisses throughout the day onwards, teasing Clear and Clear teasing him back. 

It was a good time, and not once has Noiz regretted fixing Clear since the day he found him.

[mamadarama]

spoilers for the matrix event kind of ?

so i read the translation today of the whole event and it's just unbelievably bad , I'm not sure if you had a chance to look through . and takashi who's basically a little hiiro but actually he's a child of producer rinne once had with god knows if their father or just someone from amagi family ? it feels like a really bad fanservice and I'd like to hear you thoughts if you read this . it's okay if no and you can't really comment on that but i couldn't keep silent so forgive my off topic ramble .

i hope you will have a good day or night

{major matrix spoilers}

i just read the story myself. its alright, not much worse than any of the others, just hard to follow because its all rinne being rinne. its not really that fanservicy imo, i thought id hate it more than i do . my biggest gripe is akiras choice of dialogue for aira . again. i really wish he would stop doing that but thats besides the point.

edit: i also wanted to add that the part where tatsumi and mayoi are worried about hiiro and aira and theyre like "theyll be fine theyre strong capable people" and it immediately cuts to aira screaming bloody murder absolutely sent me

heres a summary of the story from what ive gathered . this is a long one so ill put it under a read more

rinne set up an elaborate scheme to protect the privacy of his hometown. when rinne first went to the city he saw an unnamed idol that inspired him to become one himself. that idol retired and became a teacher at an all girls school (i wanna bet its kimisaki academy. thats unimportant to the story tho.), and his producer , akan, was left struggling until she met rinne and began producing him. unfortunately the job became too much for her and she began to crack under the pressure, and had to retire for her own health. rinne told her about his hometown, where she would be able to live out the rest of her life in peace. to ensure no one would go looking for her , they set up a plan— they pitched a fake mystery program where she would go investigate a phenomenon in the area of the village, and "disappear mysteriously". the footage would never be released because of the "incident", and as long as they didnt find her she would be declared dead after being missing for long enough, therefore closing the resulting missing person case and leaving her to be unbothered and truly leave her past behind and start over. while she was living in the village she met rinnes father, and they eventually got married and had a kid, takashi (its never mentioned that hes their kid, but rinne says his father wishes he could make takashi his heir instead of rinne, implying hes his son) . he looks like hiiro because the amagi family has strong genes (and also likely because the devs could repurpose kid hiiros live2d model). rinne noticed his fans were getting increasingly curious about his hometown and worried that the extra attention would eventually cause trouble for the people in his village, and by extension disrupt the peaceful life akan had built there. his solution was to "reveal" his hometown in a tv program and satisfy his fans curiosity so theyd drop the subject. but he couldnt just make a program for no reason, so he pitched the matrix event , part of which would be hosted at the "amagis village". he didnt want it to be a large scale event, so he contacted the retired idol akan used to produce and asked him to pose as akan to produce the event since he was the only other person to have known her well enough to impersonate her and capitalizing on the fact that no one remembered who akan is or what she looked like. anzu ended up getting involved and as a result it turned into a much bigger event than rinne intended for it to be . the "village" that the event was hosted in was actually the contact point for the actual village, a place that looked convincing enough but was really just used as a meeting point for the village to import resources from the city without exposing their real location. but of course in typical rinne fashion, he only reveals this to the rest of alkakurei at the very end, so everyone was just very confused the whole time. rinne also claims takashi is his and anzus kid at first, but no one believes him of course because that makes no sense.

tldr; rinne is worried that his fans are getting too curious about his hometown and might eventually lead to it being exposed, so he stages a fake reveal to satisfy his fans curiosity.

-----

i sorta like it. its not completely outlandish by enstars standards and it ties up a few loose ends about rinnes backstory (like what happened to his career as a solo idol before his duo unit with niki, why he became an idol, and who produced him before he met anzu) as well as further solidifying his character as someone who genuinely cares about the well being of others and will fight to protect them by any means necessary even if theyre not part of his life anymore .

[furiousgoldfish]

I finished reading "Becoming Yourself: Overcoming Mind Control and Ritual Abuse" by Alison Miller, and it was filled with incredibly useful information for those who struggle with a dissociative identity disorder. It was also filled with descriptions of some of the most extreme and atrocious kinds of abuse, so to anyone wanting to read it, there's a trigger warning for cult abuse, rituals, childhood sexual abuse, satanic rituals, child trafficking, child murder, brainwashing, mind control, and every form of religion used against the mind of a child.

I was reading this book to figure out if I had gone thru any kind of abuse of the sort, and I didn't, one of my abusers was utilizing religion against me and had done enough of brainwashing to construct several brainwashed and controlled parts, who were still under the influence, but that was it. The book is extremely clear and it will not confuse you about what happened to you, it tells you the intention behind every type of abuse, and often, how to resolve the results. The books also notes that the word 'alter' is triggering to those who went thru ritual abuse and developed a dissociative identity disorder, for similarity with the word 'altar', which is used in rituals, so they prefer to use the terms 'insiders' and 'parts', which I found to enjoy as well.

One of the repeating points in the first half of the book was on insiders who pretend to be something else, for instance, insiders who pretend to be your abusers, pretend to be demons, pretend to be gods or powerful entities, who believe it's their job to hurt you, or to control you, who are made to bring out consequences if you attempt to act against your abusers. I had something like that in my head, but I had refused to believed it was an insider, because it looked just like a case of 'internalized abusive voice', and I had fought against it viciously and focused on shutting that voice down and keeping it scared, often via imagined torture if it was making me feel anxious. Reading about these other scary entities, who would, when asked, admit to just being an insider pretending, I became curious enough to engage with the abusive voice and ask it, 'are you just an alter pretending'? The voice laughed at me and admitted to being found out, and then promptly stopped pretending and showed themselves as a child part. It took me several weeks to admit to myself that this was real, because it was mortifying. I had fallen for the trick, and even tortured a child part for doing their assigned job – this part now believed their only function was to be tortured. I feel responsible for that. But there was no way for me to know. Insiders are good at keeping up a pretense.

You can sometimes recognize that an entity in your head that is scaring you, claiming to be able to control you or triggering you on purpose, or pretending to be evil, demonic, terrifying, animalistic, powerful, magical, godly, is actually a child part, just because they often act the version of that thing that a child would believe is real. If your entity is often repeating the same lines, only knows 1 way of behaviour and has predictive responses, believes to be your abuser or something similar to it, doesn't follow any real-life logic and seems to belong to another world that a child would think is accurate, then it's likely a child part, for some reason programmed or brainwashed to believe they're what they're pretending to be. I should note that when children think of these scary entities, they're often very creative, and put their whole heart in it, so it's going to be an entity that is engaging, feels powerful, doesn't back down easily. Parts who pretend to be evil or demonic will sometimes cling to what they think they are very dearly and will not allow themselves to think of themselves as humans or children, this is for their own emotional protection. All they had in their childhood was being tough. They cannot let that go.

Another incredibly useful information I got from the book was on how to process trauma if you are a multiple. I had never seen instructions on how to do this before, and I'm going to share them in another post that should be posted right after this one, and I'll put a link to it here.

[scifigeneration]

Pluto: Netflix’s anime masterpiece explores how robots ‘feel’ when humans exploit them

by Thi Gammon, Research Associate in Culture, Media and Creative Industries Education at King's College London

There have been many TV shows and films inspired by the dual fear and excitement surrounding advances in artificial intelligence (AI). But not many exhibit such masterful craft and profound humanity as the new Netflix anime miniseries, Pluto.

Pluto is adapted from a manga series of the same title (2003-2009), created by Naoki Urasawa and Takashi Nagasaki. The manga version – considered a comic masterpiece for its beautiful art and sophisticated storyline – incorporated fundamental elements from Osamu Tezuka’s celebrated manga series Astro Boy (1952-1968), including the beloved android adolescent who was the titular character.

Pluto is set in a futuristic world in which humans and robots coexist, albeit within a hierarchy in favour of humans. Robots excel in various jobs ranging from nannies and butlers to architects and detectives, but they are treated as second-class citizens.

Although robots gradually gain their own rights codified into law, they are still exploited by humans, who downplay their worth and emotional intelligence. As much as humans depend on AI, they also feel threatened by it.

An AI murder mystery

Pluto, which has both Japanese and English audio versions, follows German robot detective Gesicht (Shinshū Fuji/Jason Vande Brake) as he traces the mysterious killings of robots and humans. The world’s seven most advanced robots (including Gesicht himself) and robot-friendly humans (including his creator) are the targets of this assassination scheme.

What’s most perplexing is that the murders appear untraceable. This suggests that the killer might be a very advanced robot, challenging the belief that robots can’t ever kill humans due to their programmed constraints.

This enigmatic case echoes the cautionary message found in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein – beware of human beings’ ambitious dreams and creations. While the story begins as a murder mystery, it evolves into a thoughtful drama about the conflicted relationships between humans and androids.

While Pluto draws on many familiar sci-fi concepts, it distinguishes itself through its meticulous character development and the depth of its micro-stories. Every character is complex, and the audience is able to get to know them and become invested in their fates. The anime’s unhurried pace also allows viewers ample time to contemplate its philosophical questions about consciousness evolution and the powerful impacts of emotions.

Despite all its brilliance, however, the series is not without flaws. It has a dated representation of gender roles, with no female characters – whether human or robot – playing an important part. None of them break free from the stereotypical role of nurturing, stay-behind support for their exceptionally capable and powerful male partners.

Animation of the year

Pluto maintains a melancholic tone throughout – but despite this overarching dark ambience, it is at times romantic and moving. It exalts love, friendship and compassion without falling into sentimentality, evoking an emotional resonance reminiscent of Blade Runner (1982).

The series emphasises that life, or the process of living, imparts character and humanity, transcending biological organs and blood. Androids may initially be devoid of complex emotions, but they develop sentience through everyday experiences and interactions with fellow robots and humans.

Robots can even learn to appreciate music, as manifested by the charismatic North No.2 (Koichi Yamadera/Patrick Seitz), who was designed for intense combat but grows weary of warfare. The narrative underscores the simultaneous beauty and danger of emotions – particularly the destructive force of wrath.

With great technological advancements and comfort, this futuristic world is still torn by war. It poses the question: “Will war ever end?” – reminding us of the conflicts and tragedies happening in the real world. The anime suggests that an end to war is unlikely as long as hatred persists.

For me, with its beautiful art and riveting narrative, Pluto stands out as one of the best Netflix productions of all time. It’s certainly the best animated work of the year.

[ginalover]

Interview: Gina Gershon on the Love Story and Legacy of the Wachowskis’ ‘Bound’

Gershon discusses what makes the film such an enduring and endearing queer cinema classic.

by Marshall Shaffer

June 25, 2024

 

Gina Gershon’s body of work boasts a murderer’s row of formidable directors. Following her debut in John Hughes’s Pretty in Pink, she went on to appear in films by John Sayles, Robert Altman, John Woo, Michael Mann, Olivier Assayas, William Friedkin, and Woody Allen. Yet it’s two fateful collaborations in consecutive years—Paul Verhoeven on 1995’s Showgirls and the Wachowskis on 1996’s Bound—that loom largest over her filmography.

As Corky in Bound, Gershon displays a fierce commitment to the physical and emotional realism of a lesbian ex-con trying to restart her life, seamlessly transmuting the brooding of a classic noir protagonist into the body of a contemporary butch plumber. This makes it all the easier to understand how she’d fall for a traditional femme fatale like Jennifer Tilly’s Violet.

The erotic and ecstatic chemistry between the two escalates into an elaborate heist plot to get out from under Violet’s mafia money-laundering husband, Joe Pantoliano’s Caesar. And at every turn, the Wachowskis match the excitement of their story with equally mesmerizing direction.

In a less forgiving era for female stars as sexual beings on screen, Gershon refused to bow to expectations for how and who her characters could love. Her commitment to the stories she wanted to tell came with costs at the time, but she’s been validated by the long arc of film history. Showgirls and Bound are now remembered as signature cinematic achievements of the 1990s, with the former film a mainstay of often cheeky repertory theater programming and the latter recently receiving a new home video release through the Criterion Collection.

I spoke with Gershon shortly after Bound’s new 4K digital restoration was released by Criterion. Our conversation covered how she developed the character of Corky, where the Wachowskis guided her to see the full picture of Bound’s construction on set, and what makes the film such an enduring and endearing queer cinema classic.

Before we start, I should say that I actually studied Bound in a college film class.

It’s a good one for film class because there’s so much to discuss, just technically, the way it was shot, and the meaning of it. That would be fun. Good for that teacher!

You’ve teased writing a more traditional memoir than your 2012 book In Search of Cleo. How would you tell the story of Bound in your book? What’s the enduring memory that lingers on decades later?

I actually am writing another book, and I talk about Bound. My enduring memory of it always was how shocked I was my agents didn’t want me to do it. Everyone literally was saying, “You’re gonna ruin your career.” It was a moment of like, “What are you talking about?” And I realized how homophobic the business was. I just saw an incredible script and a great opportunity. And they’re like, “Oh, it’s a lesbian movie!” You know, people weren’t doing that then. Which, in retrospect, is just insane. It was a good lesson in just standing up for what you believe. And I was like, “This is my career, I’m doing this. I think the Wachowskis are exceptional filmmakers. I want to play Corky. I think this will be cool.” I’m glad I did.

What guides your instincts in picking films and seeing beyond the immediate concerns of agents and publicists?

You worked with many visionary directors well into their careers. Could you tell the signs were there for the Wachowskis even though it was their first film?

I get this thing in my stomach: If I meet a really good director—or in this case, directors—I just get giddy. I don’t know why or how I know. But if it’s a really talented person, and the Wachowskis are just geniuses with what they did, I know. Certainly, my agents were like [does a nervous voice], “First-time directors…” And I’m like, “Yeah.” The second I started talking to them about certain shots and how they saw the film, I knew they were very special. And I thought, “I’m in.” It’s exciting to be with first-timers where you say, “I believe in these people doing this.” Sometimes I guess you’re wrong, but I wasn’t surprised how well it turned out.

Were you clocking the Wachowskis’ unconventional filming style with so many close-ups and overhead shots? Does that play into your performance?

No, it’s still the same. You’re still trying to be in the moment and truthful. Instead of just wildly going, “I’m just going to do this,” with certain scenes, they’re like, “No, we need you to look to the left because then we’re going to cut it with the Benjamin Franklin dollar bill looking over to the left.” At first, I’m like, “It feels doesn’t feel right looking this way!” And then they would tell me what they were going to cut it to, and I’d be like, “Ahh, super cool! Okay.” Sometimes directors make the mistake of not clueing in their actors, but that only helped me. I’m a visual person. You can tell me a zillion things, and if you show me something, I’m like, “Oh, yeah, cool!” You want to be part of the team and make that cool image happen. It gave you boundaries of how and where you’re going to be looking. Hopefully, if you do your work, it doesn’t matter.

How did the Wachowskis direct you beyond just getting you to hit your marks? How were they helping you find the character?

Oh, that’s interesting, I don’t really remember them ever doing that! [laughs]

Was it just a matter of them trusting you that much?

When I read for Corky, they liked my reading. To me, Corky was very still like those noir guys or actor men who I always projected everything onto. You can’t help but fall in love with [them]. It was a different, and very still, sort of performance for me. You try not to give away too much. Corky is coming out of jail. She doesn’t trust anyone, so she’s clocking everything. In a lot of those scenes, the audience is learning stuff through Corky’s eyes. I think we were just in cahoots with how that was going on. Maybe [they said], “Amp this or that up,” but it was also a while ago, so I don’t recall. It was more of a physical thing: “You’ve got to look this way.”

Your preparation for the film included looking at swaggering icons like Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, and Robert Mitchum. How do those inspirations manifest inside Corky? Is it a matter of incorporating masculinity into the character or blurring the gender binary altogether?

I know, as a woman, what I thought was really sexy when I would look at a man. The way he would hold a beer, certain things as a female looking at a male, I’m like, “Oh, that’s so cool. That’s so sexy.” It was just very quintessential male, like the way they would hold a steering wheel. Those are just like my own little quirks that I love!

It was more of an emotional thing. I started boxing to learn stillness. Instead of being like a [Marvin] Hagler, I wanted to be more like a Sugar Ray [Leonard]. He just moved when he needed to. He was very calm, and I think it was that energy I was tapping into more than anything else. That comes out of you [not wanting] to get hit. It’s a trust issue, who are these people? I didn’t look at it as male or female. I just looked at it as an energy of why they are being that way. It was always very alluring to project onto someone who’s doing…not that you’re doing nothing, but Corky was an interesting character to let people project onto.

It also feels like these characters are consciously playing a part based on what they’ve seen in the culture. Listening to the archival commentary track on the Criterion release, I heard that the Wachowskis gave The Treasure of the Sierra Madre to Joe Pantoliano as a direct influence within a scene.

Interesting, I don’t remember them telling me [to go in that direction]. I go interior-exterior. I just think if you’re someone who’s gauging what is going on and clocking the room and reading the room, it’s not out of insecurity. You don’t give anything away. You don’t make yourself vulnerable in a situation. You just have to figure out: Is this safe? That’s where I think her stillness comes from. Listen, I remember falling in love younger, like, “Oh, he’s so tall, dark, handsome, and quiet.” And then later on, you’re like, “Oh, he’s quiet because he has literally nothing to say!” But you don’t know that at first. And I think there’s something alluring about projecting onto someone and making them much more than they are.

There was some back-and-forth between you and Jennifer on who should play which character in the film. Was each of you having that insight into both Violet and Corky something that helped the production?

I never saw Jennifer [playing Corky]. I think I was playing her [from the start], and then we went to go see Jennifer because they obviously had to see our chemistry. We went to visit her—I want to say Las Vegas, but I could be completely making that up. Jennifer is so animated, so girly, and so like [impersonating Tilly], “Alright, well, you know…” It was so fun to watch! I just thought, “Oh my god, I could do this with her.” As a dude trying to get that energy of just watching some girl, I could watch Jennifer forever and be entertained. And I think there was that element of like, “Who is this creature in front of me?” She’s very alluring, and you could see why Corky would fall in love with Violet even against her better judgment.

How do you feel when the tide starts to shift on a film like Showgirls or Bound? When does the initial reception fade into the background and you can tell it’s been reclaimed as something like a cult classic?

That’s interesting, isn’t it? As soon as Bound came out and people started seeing it, everyone was into it. It was just a matter of the NC-17 from the rating boards. As soon as actors, directors, and regular people started watching the movie, it became a classic instantly.

Showgirls has got its own trajectory. I went to a screening the other night of the film at the Paris Theater. A friend of mine was like, “You have to come and see this,” because I always think I just get PTSD when I watch it. I hadn’t seen it in so long, but seeing it now was so interesting. It’s got a totally different meaning, and maybe people unconsciously were tapping into that. But I find it more interesting that the critics, people who absolutely hated this movie [and said] “this is the worst movie”…to this day, everyone asks me about it. What does that tell you? It’s interesting.

Has the meaning or experience of Bound changed at all for you, especially now knowing it was the project of two transgender women who might not have necessarily had the language or the knowledge to express themselves directly?

I remember asking them, “What do you know about being a woman? How are you going to direct this?” Which feels kind of foolish in retrospect! It certainly had a different meaning to them that I wasn’t aware of. But I think, in general, everyone in that movie is in a box. They’re all bound in some way, and everyone’s trying to become free to be able to be who they are. Of course, we could read so much more into it. I’m sure there’s a reason why they wrote it, but I didn’t know that at the time. I think it’s pretty cool! [laughs]

When you think about the imagery of the closet or even something like the thin walls between the apartments, those feel ripe for symbolic analysis. As you mentioned at the start, it’s a rich text in that way.

I mean, the pipes are all throughout the movie. There’s water, sweat, and wetness. It’s very, very clever. It’s a good thing to have in film school, right? There are a zillion essays [to write] on it.

Have you been involved or consulted on the upcoming stage adaptation of Bound?

I heard about that, but I wasn’t really that aware of it. I mean, it’d be fun to see! Listen, I always felt we were basically doing it in one or maybe two rooms, and I used to say, “God, this could literally be done as a play!” The writing is good enough, although I think so much of the fun of this is the way it looks, the way it’s shot, and the nods to film noir but turning it on its head.

Do you think a version of Corky in 2024 would be played similarly to the way that you played it?

Hopefully, every actress is going to play something differently, but I think the ultimate essence is still the same. To me, it was always a love story. It was about trust. How do you trust someone to give yourself over to them? For me, as Corky, that was the bigger [story]. I never really looked at it like, “Oh, it’s a lesbian, it’s a guy, it’s a girl…” I just thought, “Will I trust this person enough to go all the way in and risk my life?” I’ll be very curious to see what they do with the adaptation. I bet it’ll be cool. I hope it’s cool!

[hisuian-history-makers]

Pre-Episode 4 Theory

Post Episode 4 Theory

I knew I was right to be skeptical about Uzi going full Murder Drone! But wow—there is a lot too unpack with what this one introduced.

|><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><|

First off, what’s wrong with Uzi’s classmates? Why were they so afraid of her when Doll was going all prom murder? The first time I slightly get cause they were surprised by her speaking a bit suddenly. But the second time? They all saw Uzi exit the tree lining before she spoke!

Unless it’s right in front of them—they barely react/register tragedy, going as far as to play it off as a joke. I thought Lizzy was a singular case due to being best friends with Doll. She at least seemed far more nonchalant about killing off her classmates. And she isn’t even AS infected!

The promo showed who was going to be killed.

Once again, I’m reminded these are robots trying to mimic human society. Their emotional intelligence is pretty poor overall considering they barely react to deaths afterward. Following mob/herd mentality, no continuous sense of self-preservation, and having very loose morals.

The fact they found more comfort in known murderers is concerning. Makes me wonder how their parent's generation even survived.

(Also, it was Nori’s idea to create the doors and not Khan's? “Build doors against the coming sky demons!–The singularity awakens...”)

—

Two; How in the world can Uzi’s AbsoluteSolver create organic matter?! I was under the strong impression that it used nanites to affect general things. Yet this is on a completely another level.

Something which her mother seemed to be aware of. Uzi made f*cking bat-like wings and a mouthed tail out of nothing. People appear to be debating whether she was fully herself or AS crazy during that scene in the ep comments. It. It could either way to be honest. We see her puke up (streaming) oil from Daren and look at her oil-covered hand in horror. Her eyes/visor flickering between a Murder Drone X to high temperature warning to AS symbol in one eye.

And yet she goes into murder mode pretty quickly. Laughing eerily similar to V from Ep 1.

She tricked V by begging to speak to N, then during the falling talk was clearly in full control of herself. I hate the Absolute Solver program.

—

Sidenote, We see how V has indeed been hiding things. “New body, same horrors, huh, Cyn?” Who from a very brief flashback from N is the fourth yellow-eyed drone Tessa restored. We kinda knew about her from the beginning since we see “Absolute Solver attempt block by Administrator CYN.” post-reboot slap. She had the AS symbol plus the large distended mouth in the flashback. She—she had a human arm in her mouth showing it off to N (I think.)

How she maintains an Administrator position in the JCJenson corporation—shown to hate rogue/free-thinking AIs—I’ll never know...

Another, or the same arm, was shown in a chandelier a few seconds after. The flashback ends with what I believe to be a black hole in the sky. Or maybe a blotted out sun?

Red eyes were visible when N fries that monitor touching the buttons. Except for them being rounder than a drone’s so we can rule out Doll.

—

Thirdly. There was more to Nori than we could imagine given the little bug recognizing 02.

Register Torture Chamber complaint??? Either Nori used torture chambers(!) on other drones or was subjected to one. She seemed to have a descent into madness after the core explosion. If the box of “Family Memories before Nori went Kooky & Insane” was any indication. I did miss that when I first watched the episode...

Nori didn’t just see the three Murder Drones, she saw countless descended from the sky that the doors were her idea in the first place. There are so many questions we can ask about this: Did Nori and Yeva know about the Zombie Drone thing? Did they not use their abilities in public to avoid turning as Uzi does? Will Doll eventually turn—or is it only older AS “02”? How often did Worker Drones turn into Zombie Drones back on Earth that there needed to be a training tape about them? I really hate AS.

—

4th—AbsoluteSolver does indeed cause the same overheating issues in Murder Drones. It feels nice to get a confirmation for this since we could only speculate. Uzi burns in sunlight now. She can regenerate like a Disassembly Drone too. All while still having wings, a stinger/mouthed tail, and the AbsoluteSolver abilities. The purple protagonist has the programming to become a far deadlier AS/Murder Drone hybrid.

Took down V like it was barely anything. Where did her new wings and tail even go when N caught her? Do they fold into her body like the Murder Drone's own ones do?? Her tail??? I thought J’s AS heart-thing was fleshy cause it used human ribcage remnants. Clearly, we know otherwise that it becomes an extension of advanced AbsoluteSolvee users... What did Cyn/Tessa/JCJenson create? (nightmare fuel)

—

Lastly, character growth! Uzi showed her softer side and insecurities in this episode. N appears to be losing his doormat qualities defending himself. V’s still mean—but worried mean~ She is looking out for N, and very afraid for them.

Glitch and the crew really stepped up their animation ability in this episode. Characters are far more fluid. We see their expressions range, the episode was less joking to bring home how serious Cabin Fever was. At least more so compared to the other three episodes—nice.

More in the tags. >>>>>>>>>>>>> 2nd Post-Ep Four Theory

[ollieofthebeholder]

And If Thou Wilt, Forget: a TMA fanfic

Read from the beginning on Tumblr || AO3 || My Website

Chapter 35: I promise nothing: follow, friend, and see

Tim’s mobile phone sang out from the corner of his desk, the generic ringing that meant it was a number not programmed into his contacts—which startled him, not because he wasn’t expecting a call, but because he could have sworn he’d left it on vibrate. He picked it up quickly before Jon could come out and complain about him interrupting a recording. “Stoker.”

The voice on the other end, a kindly, gentle baritone with its distinctly Sicilian accent, was immediately familiar to Tim, and he understood the words perfectly, although he really wished he didn’t. Switching languages as a matter of habit, he asked several questions, confirmed a few things, and extracted a promise of a call back with more information later before thanking the young priest and ending the call slowly. He barely remembered to adjust his sound settings before setting the phone down on his desk.

Of all the things that could have happened today, this was the last one he needed.

He looked down at the steaming pile of bullshit in front of him. Everything they had been working for the last week had been complete twaddle; they hadn’t even touched anything already on the shelves. Halloween week meant the Institute as a whole was busier than usual. Research was always inundated with statements—credulous people who’d been spooked by convincing displays, teenagers daring one another to get horror film plots entered as actual events, wannabe ghost hunters trying to legitimize their hunts—and, as they usually did, they’d reached out to the Archives for help. Tim had actually thought Jon was going to refuse this year, but he’d surprised him by not only agreeing, but actually doing his share of the research. He certainly seemed a lot more relaxed than he’d been at any time since before Jane Prentiss’s attack, and especially since whatever had happened that had resulted in him needing five stitches in his arm. He’d wondered, briefly, if there was a way he could keep the real statements from ever getting to Jon in the first place, but quickly discounted that. Apart from the fact that he genuinely didn’t think it was possible at this point, Jon was the Archivist now, which meant he was beginning to grow dependent on the statements. If Tim took them away from him, he might be okay, but he might not, and Tim didn’t know how far he was on the path to know if he could survive that. Even aside from the fact that he wasn’t going to kill Jon until and unless he had proof he was the one who’d murdered Gertrude, he wasn’t going to kill him by starving him to death. That was just cruel.

Anyway, it was moot. Jon had taken a real statement the previous day, if Tim was any judge; the man who’d come down had shown clear signs of having been marked by the Corruption, but since he was also the ECDC pest control expert who’d come in response to Jane Prentiss, that wasn’t really a surprise. It still meant Jon had taken in a genuine statement, so he was, at his current rate, probably good for a week.

Between that and the fact that they didn’t have any active cases that wouldn’t go on the laptop, maybe he could justify taking a couple days off.

Logically, he knew this wasn’t a situation where his request for time off would be denied, but…at the same time, he was reluctant to take the time off, even for this, if…things…were continuing to be bad. And he wasn’t sure he wanted to address the situation directly with Jon anyway, let alone Elias. He’d need to talk to Gerry before he made the request, though. Mentally shoring himself up, he tried to put the thought out of his mind and focus on his work.

It had been a long time since he left right at the end of the day—he always tried to stick around until Jon left these days—but when six o’clock rolled around, he shut down his laptop and headed out the door. Part of him worried about that, but the rest of him decided, screw it, he could have one day of letting someone else do the hovering. He didn’t even wait to see if the others were leaving.

Martin caught up to him just before the train pulled into the station. “Everything…okay?” he asked uncertainly.

Tim gave Martin a quick smile. “No, but it’s not related to work. Don’t worry about it.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

It took a lot of willpower not to snap at Martin for being too damn helpful, but Tim swallowed it down. He opened his mouth to tell him no, but what came out was, “I may have to go away for a couple of days. Just promise you’ll keep an eye on Jon while I’m gone if I do.”

“Yeah—yeah, of course. You don’t even need to ask.” Martin’s face softened ever so slightly. “He’s not taking great care of himself these days.”

“No,” Tim agreed. “Not that he ever took great care of himself to begin with.” He cocked his head at Martin. “What about you? Are you doing okay? Taking care of yourself?”

“I’m fine,” Martin said quickly. Too quickly. Tim could hear the lie before the first syllable had left his lips. Martin wasn’t sleeping that much better than he had been when he was living in the Archives, and he was still working himself to death, just less because he worried Jon would figure out he didn’t know what he was doing and more because he was trying to keep Jon from doing too much. He felt almost as guilty as Tim did about whatever had happened to him—or maybe he felt just as guilty, but in a different way—and he was also dealing, or failing to deal, with a massive crush he believed nobody else knew about and fully believed would never go anywhere anyway. Add in whatever was going on in his personal life, between his mum and the shithole he lived in, and he was a hot mess.

Under any other circumstances, Tim would have called him out on it, or at the very least invited him over for dinner and an opportunity to play with Rowlf. Given him an opportunity to vent and let off some stress and get some things off his chest. Maybe he even would have helped him out with it. But right now he had his own shit to deal with and he was too stressed about the possibility of leaving the Archives—and the Archivist—unguarded to take on Martin’s problems too, so he just let it slide. He could pick up the pieces of that next week. Maybe. Hopefully.

Just as they switched lines to head for home, Tim’s mobile phone rang again. He glanced at it before answering. Same number as earlier. With an apologetic grimace at Martin, he accepted the call. “Assa binidica?”

He took a seat in one corner of the car and carried on the conversation as quietly and unobtrusively as he could, keeping half an eye on Martin as he did so; Martin sat a couple seats away and stared out the window with an air of studied, determined nonchalance, clearly trying to give Tim his space and not pry while also making himself available if Tim wanted to talk. There was also a figure in the opposite corner bundled up in a trench coat and doing a very poor job of not letting on that he was watching them. Since Tim didn’t get any bad vibes from whoever it was—they weren’t an agent of one of the other Thirteen, certainly not the Stranger, and they didn’t feel like a mugger or someone who meant immediate harm to them—he assumed it was just some nosy racist bastard trying to figure out what language Tim was talking so he could insult him accurately. It probably wasn’t helped when Martin, obviously responding to the stress or maybe just reminded of his own past by Tim’s conversation in Sicilian, began quietly reciting an old Polish nursery rhyme not quite under his breath.

Tim gave a little bit of his attention to Martin as he got off at Stockwell, waving distractedly and tracking his departure through the window, but mostly he was caught up in his conversation. It ended at last, and he sat back with a small sigh, just in time for his own stop to approach. He got up and trudged off the train. It did not escape his notice that the figure in the trench coat got off as well, but since they were close to the end of the line, he didn’t really think anything of it.

It was well past sundown at this point, but between the street lamps and the porch lights flickering on as people got home, there was enough light to see by. Not that it mattered. By now, Tim knew every step of this walk by heart. Which was good; his feet went on autopilot as his brain ticked over logistics, plans, and contingencies, until he was letting himself into the front door of the flat.

Rowlf, as usual, met him at the door in a whirlwind of tail and tongue. Tim automatically bent down to scratch his ears with one hand as he dropped wallet and keys into the bowl by the door with the other. “Hey, boy. You behaving yourself today?”

“I haven’t taken him out yet,” Gerry’s distracted voice called from another room, probably the kitchen. “Wanted to get dinner going first.”

“It’s okay, I’ll take him,” Tim called back, reaching for the lead hanging on the hook.

“Could you pick up some milk while you’re out?”

“Do my best.” It would be a bit out of the way of their normal route, but the walk would probably do him good. Tim clipped the lead to Rowlf’s collar and stepped back out onto the street.

A flash from across the street caught his attention, along with a quiet curse, barely audible over the usual sounds of a November evening in this part of London. Tim glanced over, seemingly without interest, just a passing look, and spotted the trench coat that he’d noticed on the Tube bending over an object. He connected that with the flash and determined this was a private investigator of some kind. Possibly one of Tim’s former flings trying to get something on him, possibly a current lover of one of Tim’s former flings trying to get evidence for a divorce, but most likely either somebody thoroughly mistaken in their target or who was actually supposed to be watching the building next door and had just taken a picture of the wrong one, hence the cursing. They weren’t very good at their job, though, if they’d forgotten to turn the flash off on their camera.

Tim set off with Rowlf, who had already peed once and was standing at his side like he was supposed to, but was thrumming with nervous energy. Evidently he’d been trapped inside for longer than usual and really needed to get out. He wasn’t pulling as they walked, but he kept shooting glances up at Tim.

Since Tim was also wound a bit too tight and afraid he was going to go firing in a hundred different directions if the wrong thing touched him off, and probably take most of the Greater London area down with him, he waited until they had reached the first corner, then picked up the pace—first a fast walk, then a jog, then into a flat out run as they hit the A24 and headed for the green space on the other side.

Rowlf, of course, was all for it; he stayed right at Tim’s side, matching him in stride, tail somehow still going ninety to the dozen as he went. Tim let his feet pound into the pavement and his mind clear itself of everything but the number of steps from here to the grocer’s and how he would have to adjust that for his running stride versus his walking stride. He forgot about the phone call, about what it would mean for the rest of the week, about what was going on in the Institute and the Archives, about whether Jon had murdered Gertrude Robinson or someone else had, about whether any of them were in danger, about all of it. It was just him, and Rowlf, and the sheer joy and relief of running.

Maybe he ought to start doing this on his lunch break.

He slowed to a jog again, then a rolling walk, as he got closer to the market on the far side of the green space. For a moment, he thought about just bringing Rowlf inside with him, but before he could run the likelihood of the owner letting it slide or there being someone else in there who called him out on it, his brain registered the sounds he hadn’t heard over his own blood in his ears: the scrape of shoe on pavement staggering to a halt and ragged, labored, yet half stifled breathing. Either he’d accidentally been following someone who was now crouched in hiding and trying not to be observed, or he’d been the one followed.

Since he didn’t have an imminent sense of danger, he was guessing on the former, but just to be on the safe side, he paused outside the shop and told Rowlf to sit. When the spaniel complied, Tim unclipped the lead, looped it around the stop sign on the corner and through the handle, and bent to reattach it to Rowlf’s collar. As he did so, he casually glanced out of the corner of his eye towards where he had heard the sounds.

The person in the trench coat who had followed him off the Tube—he was sure it was the same one—was leaning against a street lamp on the shadowed side, visible but still shadowed enough for an amateur to think they were hidden, evidently struggling to catch their breath. Clearly whoever it was had run to try and keep up with Tim and Rowlf. Good job for them that Tim had moved in with Gerry and not the other way around; Tim had had at least three wannabe Jane Marples in his old neighborhood, which would have meant more than one call to the cops about someone chasing him. Around here, nobody saw more than was good for them, so they’d probably escaped notice.

Tim straightened up, considering his options. Ignoring the person was probably the smart option; they weren’t dangerous, after all, and whatever reason they were following Tim for, they’d either finish what they were after and go away or keep following him hoping for something juicier than a grocery run. Either way, it was no skin off his nose how some busybody chose to waste their time. As long as they weren’t out to steal the dog.

“Stay,” he told Rowlf firmly, and then went into the shop.

It didn’t take him long to grab the milk, along with a loaf of bread and a wedge of hard cheese. As he handed over the money and agreed with the man behind the counter that he was tired and should have an early night, he spared a brief look for the window. Usually the difference in lighting between market and street would have meant that the window was more or less an opaque mirror from this side and clear as a millpond on a still day on the other, but he could make out the figure lurking just outside the circle of lamplight, hands shaking as they tried to light a cigarette, as clearly as if they were stood right next to each other on a summer’s afternoon.

It was Jon.

For a moment, Tim stood perfectly still. Several emotions hit him all at once. Relief. Concern. Anger. Irritation. Fear. More anger. Even more anger.

Then he turned back to the clerk, very calmly took his change, and stepped out the side door of the market.

The door stuck a bit, which wasn’t surprising; it led to a side yard where, in the summer, there was usually an offering of fresh produce and baked goods presided over by the owner’s wife under a striped awning stretched between the market and the Oxfam shop next door, but which was rarely used after the almanac turned to autumn and never after the time change. The yard itself was dark and barren, save a few scraps of rubbish and a bucket of sand bearing testament to the fact that at least one of the regular employees smoked as well. Tim quietly pulled the door to, gave himself a moment to adjust to the low lighting, and made a wide circle around to avoid the lights as he crossed the road. Jon—seemingly—didn’t notice. He’d managed to get the cigarette lit, and it dangled from his lips as he fumbled with what was clearly an actual film camera, his eyes fixed on the market across the street.

“See anything you want?” Tim said, directly in Jon’s ear.

Jon jumped, and almost swallowed the cigarette, as he whirled around, camera still firmly in hand. “Tim! What—where did you come from?”

“I thought you didn’t smoke,” Tim said, unimpressed.

“That’s none of your business,” Jon blustered, but the fact that he pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and hid it behind his back as he spoke belied his guilty feelings about it. Not that Tim cared, he told himself, just that it was something better to focus on than the real problem. “What were you doing back there?”

“A better question is, why are you here?” Tim narrowed his eyes at Jon. “Are you following me?”

“Why would you—I have the right to be here, too,” Jon snapped, obviously scrambling for the remains of his dignity.

Tim ground his teeth and reminded himself that ripping Jon’s head off before he had actual proof he’d killed Gertrude Robinson would be counterproductive and only make him feel better for, like, five minutes, tops. “Fine. Be wherever the fuck you like. Do whatever the fuck you want. I don’t care.” He was lying, and he didn’t know why, and it pissed him off more than he already was. “But leave me out of it. Your rights end where our property begins, so stop. Following. Me.” He pushed past Jon, then paused just before crossing the street and added, without looking over his shoulder, “And text Martin when you get home so he knows you’re safe. And put that fucking cigarette out before you set your arse on fire.”

Without giving Jon a chance to respond, he stomped across the road, unfastened Rowlf from the sign, and set off for home.

Rowlf seemed content to go at a fast walk rather than a flat-out run, which was good; Tim didn’t know if Jon was following them again and he told himself he didn’t care, he just wanted to go home. He gripped the lead in one hand and the bag in the other and concentrated on counting steps and running plans. Now he really didn’t want to explain what was going on to Jon if he didn’t absolutely have to.

Soon enough, they reached the flat. Tim opened the door, dropped keys and wallet in the bowl again, unclipped Rowlf’s lead, hung up his coat, and headed into the kitchen. Rowlf had his head in his water dish, and Gerry was reaching into the cupboard where they kept the dishes. Tim didn’t break stride, just headed across to put the milk and cheese in the fridge.

“Sorry, I didn’t think about how far of a walk it would be to get milk, we could have waited,” Gerry said apologetically, pulling down two plates. He turned to look at Tim, and his smile slipped. “Hey?”

“Hey.” Tim closed the distance between them and hugged Gerry. “Don’t go outside for a bit. Jon’s stalking me, he might still be out there.”

Tentatively, Gerry put his arms around Tim and pulled him close, one hand sliding into the hair on the back of his head. “Is that what’s got you looking like a thundercloud?”

“No. I got a call from Don Filippo today.” Tim slumped against Gerry, finally safe enough to stop pretending he was fine, and said the words he’d been avoiding saying since just before noon. “My grandfather died.”

“Oh, Tim.” Gerry held Tim tighter. “I’m so sorry. He was a good man. Was it…?”

“Peaceful. He went in his sleep. Nothing got him, just…old age. It’s the best I could have hoped for, really.”

“I take it you need to go out there, then.”

“Yeah. The vigil is Friday night, the funeral mass will be Saturday.”

“You set that up already?” Gerry asked, surprised.

Tim sighed. “No, that’s why Don Filippo called me. Apparently someone got hold of Mum right away. She’s already out there. She made all the arrangements.” He pulled back just enough that he could look up at Gerry, who was looking at him with such genuine sympathy and compassion it almost hurt. “I understand if you don’t want to put yourself through this, but—”

“Tim, if you’re going to face burying your grandfather and seeing your mother for the first time in at least three years, the least I can do is be there with you,” Gerry interrupted. “Besides, he told me to call him my grandfather, too. Be kind of a dick move not to come. Do we have time to fly there after you get off work Friday?”

Tim managed a smile. He knew what a huge concession that was; Gerry had sworn never to get on another plane as long as he lived. “No, travel time would be too long. Our best bet’s probably going to be taking the train and leaving Thursday. I just…don’t know if I want to tell Jon why. Especially not now.”

“So don’t. Just say you’re taking a few days off and you’ll be back Tuesday. If he was actually worthy to fill Gertrude Robinson’s shoes, he’d know where and why you were going anyway,” Gerry said under his breath. “Do you think Martin would be willing to dogsit while we were gone, or should we kennel him?”

“I’m sure he’d be happy to, if we ask.” Tim sighed and leaned against Gerry again. “Thank you.”

“Of course. You’d do the same for me, assuming I had any relatives and they weren’t complete dicks.” Gerry kissed Tim on the top of his head. “Do you think you can manage to eat dinner? And then we can talk about Inspector Clouseau and why he’s tailing you.”

“He’s doing a terrible job of it, too,” Tim grumbled. “Either he’s being performatively bad so that I’ll underestimate him and he can slip past my defenses, or he really is that paranoid and incompetent. Either way, I’m going to need strength for this discussion. Let’s eat. I wasn’t in any state to eat lunch today and I’m absolutely starving.”

[yakool-foolio]

Hang on, regarding your latest post (the moral spectrum with the NDA) what did you mean by the WDO’s corruption?

This goes into some speculative territory since a lot of what's known about the WDO is hearsay and extensions of what the Master Detectives are like. While the WDO may not be as corrupt as the UG or Amaterasu Corp, there's definitely some concerning things going on with how they obtain detectives and handle them.

Since Fortes are most likely rare, judging by the 1,000 (most likely less now after the Express Massacres killed a chunk of them ((and we'll get to that in a bit))) Master Detectives employed at the WDO currently, which is pretty darn small for an international operation. It can be assumed that almost everyone with supernatural powers is taken to work in the organization. Some people may make the the conscious decision to join the WDO, but it's also plausible that there are people who are forced into the program against their will. Vivia can be considered an example of this, given his aversion to the truth and wishing to quit detective work when leaving Kanai Ward (Fubuki was also sent to work at the WDO as soon as they found out about her powers, most likely without her consent).

It doesn't help that the WDO's creed is, in the bluntest way possible, heartless. It says to discard all emotion in order to reach a perfection solution through a perfect deduction. It basically states 'fuck your emotions, solve the mystery, that's it' (this also made me realize how ironic it is that when Vivia silently walked away from the group as they were crying over Yakou's death, Desuhiko called him a heartless robot. But only a few days ago, Desuhiko recited that creed to discard his emotions when solving the theatre case. Desuhiko didn't know what Yakou did at that moment, but it's a bit of dramatic irony for the aftermath.). This creed has been in motion long before Yuma became Number One (and the WDO putting a very young adult in charge of a whole organization is really rough), as it's the same creed that Mitsume follows in the prequel story. It's safe to say it's something that's been established in the WDO's history for decades, an order ingrained into their teachings for who knows how long.

As for the Amaterasu Express Massacres, since the dispatching and arrivals took place over what seems to be a few days, 2-3 at the very least... how the fuck did the WDO not catch on to the trains being death traps once the first few trains arrived with one or no survivors? They should've been able to call off the last trains and send them back before any more deaths occurred, but nope! All the trains were sent in regardless of the many deaths caused partially by their carelessness.

This line especially irks me. They willingly sent these detectives to their deaths expecting them to come out of the slaughter alive. They didn't care who lived or died as long as some made it out. All those poor detectives who were murdered along the way meant nothing other than a number to them. They tossed aside their emotion, their fear for these detectives' precious lives, all for the sake of solving a mystery.

[mimic-from-the-lab]

On N being as much of a killer as the other two

Likely that all three were put under a similar operating system. Same bases for them, I doubt they are on a pure worker os but something modified if not a new disassembler os. Which I assume controls the need for eldritch forms passively rather than Cyn doing it herself, I mean what would she do if multiple of them died at once. As well as their ability to regen, passive as well. I would guess that the programs are giving her updates but she doesn't control all that continuously.

Regardless, running on the same os doesn't mean same "ability" to hunt and kill. They just have the tools.

Now I hardly think N is purely innocent but it is weird he doesn’t truly have his own hunting thing. Even with that, we haven't seen him hunt and the closest we got was in the first ep and murdering. I guess you can say

He is actually quiet when "hunting", he doesn’t laugh till he gets to the bunker when he has J and V following after him to it. The laugh as V does with J's "slow" walking thing.

I have an idea that since he exhibits both laughing and slow starts to attack. (knowing how J fights would be great to compare this better and see whats different with her.) It could be a case of mimicry, he has seen how the other two do things and mixed the two. Though, he does have one thing. Use of his tail, and it was the first thing he uses. It's not a faster kill in comparison with simply lopping off a head, no idea how J uses it but V uses it last. But he does seem to use it more than the other two, even tho he says he doesn't always have control over it.

The idea of the resets is high in my mind, if he never formed his own style because he is reset so often that he hasn't really had the time to. 

Granted as we have gone on he has used a bigger range of weapons, from making new stuff like the ninja stars to using the basic blades. V has kept to the basics.

It would be nice if something was said about it all between the characters but alas. 

As it stands now something has always been off about him being a killer. It's easy for people to baby him when it hasn't been shown what he can actually do or willing to do. Doubt there would be many other chances for mass murder anymore, any fights will be with a limited number of people. A fix could be showing him need to hunt again, if anything changes to how he does things.

So I would like to see him and V do so again, either because they need to now with Uzi cause they all three will need oil after the stores dry out.

Uzi would be so easy to help in a hunt. Feel like she would be able to twist around mentally for it for the others rather than herself, with V and N both being able to understand at least a bit to how it can affect her.

I would love for V to be more of a support with that rather than N. Since he just knows they have always hunted but V remembers the before they were disassembly drones. How V had to come to terms with it and help Uzi the same way.

I need them to hunt, need it for it to set in stone some facts for N. If he would be able to, if not for himself then the other two. But also because it's not possible for them to continue without being able to.

The idea that he can't because he is friends with Uzi is far too weak of a reason now and he needs a push for his character.