#general pd talk

[avpdpossum]

Hello! Hoping anyone that comes across this could share their thoughts as well, but I was curious if you consider personality disorders on their own as neurodivergent? Why or why not? Thank you

they absolutely are neurodivergent!

i think a lot of people’s introduction to the concept of neurodivergence is through the autistic and adhd communities, and that leads people to assume neurodivergence only includes things you’re born with, but that’s not actually the case.

here’s how i would explain neurodivergence:

the social Powers That Be in our current (Western, capitalist, etc) society have designated certain ways of thinking, feeling, perceiving, and so on as the Correct Ways of Existing.

most of our world is built on the assumption that everyone’s brains will work that way, because that’s the way they “should” work. when people’s brains don’t work that way, it’s assumed that the solution is to find a way to “fix” them or get rid of them.

as a result, people whose brains do work in that way have an easier time navigating the world and are generally treated better by it, while people whose brains deviate from that expectation in some way have a more difficult time navigating a world not built with them in mind and are treated as “wrong”/“bad”.

people in the first group, who can navigate the world with very little added stigma or difficulty as a result of the way their brains work, would be considered neurotypical.

people in the second group, who do face added stigma and barriers to functioning as a result of the way their brains work, would be considered neurodivergent.

so, if you want to determine if something makes someone neurodivergent, you can ask yourself a few questions:

does it have to do with their psychology/neurology?

does it affect their thinking, emotions, perceptions, or other brain functions in a way that is considered “abnormal” by current social norms?

does it carry a stigma and make them more likely to be mistreated?

does it cause them extra difficulty with navigating and functioning in the world?

if the answers to those questions are yes, chances are it’s a form of neurodivergence!

so, if we look at those questions for personality disorders:

this is the easiest answer — yes!

personality disorders are classified as “mental illnesses”, put in the dsm, and generally assumed to be under the jurisdiction of psychiatry, so i think we can pretty safely say that yes, personality disorders are seen as “abnormal” forms of brain functioning according to current social norms.

personality disorders and their traits are incredibly stigmatized — pwpds are assumed to be violent, abusive, generally bad people, and so on. this is most visibly true for cluster b pds, but stigma against the other pds and against the personality disorder category in general is also very real. so this one’s a yes — pwpds are very frequently mistreated on the basis of our brains being “wrong”.

personality disorders, by definition, come with some sort of functioning difficulties, and the world isn’t built to accommodate those differences in functioning. as an example, think of the high expectations of emotional regulation (not “too” emotional but not “cold” either) and social capability in professional spaces, even ones where emotions and social interactions don’t affect a person’s ability to do the job well. that makes this one a yes too; a society that took pwpds into account would seek to accommodate the areas we struggle with and ensure that there’s a place for us, and that definitely isn’t happening right now.

so yeah, according to my own personal understanding of neurodivergence, personality disorders absolutely count. we diverge from the assumed norms of psychological/neurological functioning, so we count as neurodivergent, even those of us who aren’t also neurodivergent in other ways.

on a personal level, i can say i feel no real difference in how i internally experience being audhd vs how i experience my personality disorders — they both just feel like my brain doing its thing, sometimes in ways that are unpleasant/difficult for me to deal with and sometimes in ways that just feel totally fine and unremarkable from my point of view. i also rarely notice a difference in how neurotypical people treat them — they usually don’t know the difference between audhd “weirdness” vs avoidant/narcissistic/schizospec/dissociative “weirdness”, it’s all just one big blob of Weird And Bad And Wrong to most people. the only time they’re ever really treated as different is when certain other neurodivergent people try to separate the two.

trying to draw lines between neurodivergence and “mental illness” (which is usually what’s happening when people say pds aren’t a form of neurodivergence) doesn’t actually help anyone. in my opinion, it’s basically just a way for certain people to try to get ahead by putting other people down — it says “accept us because we’re different in the good way, not in the bad way! we’re not sick like those people!” and that kind of attitude doesn’t do anyone any good. sure, the experiences that come with having a since-birth neurodivergence can be different from those that come with having an acquired neurodivegence, but people within those groups also have different experiences because everyone’s experience is going to be unique, we’re all different people in different circumstances! diversity of experiences among neurodivergent people is to be expected and is honestly a good thing, not a reason to avoid associating with each other.

in my experience, the people who insist that pds aren’t true neurodivergences are usually pretty damn sanist toward pwpds - they exclude us because they don’t want to be associated with us, they want to be accepted but they don’t think we should be so they try to make us seem totally different from them. in reality, neurodivergence is a broad umbrella and there’s room under it for all of us.

[r41ny-days]

I'm sick af, but this ain't stopping the pd grind: episode 10 finished

I have two things to say:

Fuck Mal

Live laugh love Wavelengh

[happyk44]

You know, children of Hades/Pluto and Thanatos/Mors with a propensity to develop SZPD or AVPD would also work. Their fathers are entwined with death, the dead, which makes connecting to the living hard for them.

It could be partly because of rejection when their parentage is discovered by demigods, possible unease mortals may feel around them due to their aura or whatever, and then partly because of their own innate nature, meaning even in the friendliest of circumstances they struggle to connect with the other person.

[stuck-in-the-ghost-zone]

fucked up ship bingo.... i feel like you've finished dunmeshi? so i will say. farcille!!!! & also tidalwave :]

i have not actually finished dunmeshi yet !!!! im still relatively close 2 the beginning actually, i took a break from reading it to go hardcore finishing moby dick (which i still have not done yet. you might even call it. my white wha *gets shot*)

I have a lot of feelings about farcille though <3

ALSO FUCK YES THANK U FOR SAYING TIDALWAVE I WAS LITERALLYYYYY THINKING ABT THEM WHEN I RBED THIS

i dont actually want them to kill each other but theyve definitely tried to before so i had to include that one. actually i also should've added the vampire bat one. im not sorry for being a tidalwave enjoyer it WILL happen again. worlds worst divorced single fathers. i think tide should visit him in prison

[leonhrt]

I want to talk about how often characters coded to have a personality disorder are nearly always seen as autisitic coded by fandoms, but i don't have the energy to type a lot.

[subarashiihibi]

logging onto tumblr and seeing blatant ableism was not something i was expecting but Alright

[fvckednddistvrbed]

i ate a lot today, not as much as other days, but still im disappointed with myself and starting to feel sick. why cant i be good at restriction? god this makes me wanna sh so fucking bad

[comradecowplant]

Love how the new PLL writers were like okay FINE fans were right to point out that A was never really a slasher villain and continuing to use that moniker for these new villains is a slap in the face to the original evil girlbosses-- Mona, Cece, and Ello Spensah-- who worked 👏 hard 👏 scheming and stooging (sometimes YEARS of preparation!) in order to torture the original liars...... so for these new girls we will call the villains B instead :)

[kraviolis]

one of these days im gonna be incredibly self indulgent and draw an entire fix-it comic about cleo shaw bcus shes one of my all time favorite characters and i fucking miss her so much bro

[felassan]

David Gaider: "It occurs to me, after reading posts getting it spectacularly wrong, that there are a lot of misconceptions over how game studios organize and, in particular, who makes the actual decisions about what ends up in your game. Much of it is by folks who don't *try* to get it... but not all, surely. I'll explain it a bit, but a big caveat: I'm going to talk in generalities and roles. Actual titles vary (a lot) from studio and studio, and the bigger a studio is the more segmented their departments (and thus management) is going to be. Even so, most studios, big and small, kind of work the same. To start, you're going to break your devs up into at least three groups: design (what is the game? how does it work?), art (what will it look like?), and engineering (making it go). There can be a lot of cross-over and some departments that don't fit into a project structure (QA, Marketing, etc.)"

Rest of post under cut due to length.

"There's going to be someone in charge of these groups - these are usually called "leads" or "senior leads". The actual title varies. The Design Lead could be a Lead Designer, for instance, or it could be a Creative Director and a Lead Designer is what they call someone further down the chain."

"These leads all report to a Project Director, someone who's job it is to manage the project as a whole. Now, this part gets a little dicey. Depending on the studio, this role can be anything from more production-oriented (they control the schedule) to an outright auteur who micro-manages everything."

"More importantly, it's the PD who hands down the project goals to the Leads: the strategic goals, the needed features, the shape of it all, etc. The Leads then figure out how their department is going to tackle those, and work with each other. If the Leads conflict, it's the PD's role to solve it. How much autonomy or ownership those Leads have is, like I said, really up to the individual PD and that studio's culture. Even in the case of a PD who has a lot of authority over the project, however, they still report to the studio leadership (unless it's the same person, like in a small studio)."

"The studio leadership is going to be giving the PD their marching orders, often in the form of those strategic goals. If there's a publisher involved, that's where the studio leadership is likely getting those goals. The PD, then, ends up being the person who has to negotiate with everyone above."

"What does this mean? If the studio or publisher has concerns about the project, they're calling in the PD to explain. If the project needs more time or resources, it's on the PD to explain to them why and how and when. If there are a lot of layers above the PD... yes, it's a looot of meetings. So while the PD is managing up, the Leads are managing down. With big projects, that means managing the "sub-leads"... those in charge of the individual sections of their department. It'd be unmanageable otherwise, and the bigger the project the more of these there are going to be."

"What does this mean? Well, let's look at the way BioWare broke up Design (as of 8 years ago, anyhow). Design consisted of Narrative Design, Level Design, Systems Design, Gameplay Design, and Cinematic Design (who worked in tandem with Cinematic Animation, which actually fell under the Art Lead)."

"The sub-leads are handed their goals by the lead, and work out how they're going to produce their particular corner of the game and also, more importantly, how they're going to work with each other. Conflicts between sub-leads are handled by the lead, as are ANY conflicts with other departments. What conflicts could there be, you ask? Dependencies, for one. "I can't do X until Y is done, but Y is someone else's job". Or scope. "We need 20 doodads but the sub-lead said they only have time to make 10, what now?". Even outright differences in vision. Big projects means room for a LOT of egos. If you think this is easier with a smaller (or indie) project, the answer is "yes, but not really". The roles are still necessary but often get combined into one person. Or outsourced, and someone still needs to manage the outsourcing. Things fall off over-full plates. It's a different kind of hard. Anyhow, the point of all this is: the further you go down the chain, the smaller the box you can play in is. The less you have actual say over, and even then that say is subject to being overridden by ANYONE above... and must still play nicely with the needs and goals of the other departments. You also need to keep in mind that projects are constantly in flux. Problems that were thought solved need re-solving. The team falls behind schedule and scope needs to change. You are constantly in a dance, within your tiny box, trying to figure out sub-optimal solutions that cause the least pain. And there will be pain. Shit rolls downhill, as they say, and when the project encounters big issues that means those high up have the sad job of figuring out how to spread it out and who can afford to take the hardest hit. If you're that one, you take it on the chin and you deal. This is the job. Lastly, I'll re-iterate: not every studio works this way, exactly. The roles exist, sure, but are not divided up so neatly or as easily identifiable. Even so, this should give you an idea what "lead" and "sub-lead" mean... and perhaps help you imagine what it's like existing further down the chain."

[source thread]

[ssahotchnerr]

okay but hear me out: hotch and bau!reader are married and she absolutely is the mom friend so the team calls them mom and dad

simultaneously

i LOVEEEE that cw; fem!reader, brief talk of illness, sweet domestic fluff (i'm crying)

interrupting the current, comfortable silence of the car - mind the radio playing lightly - spencer erupted into a sneezing fit, one that lasted at least a good ten seconds.

once his sneezing had ceased, you turned in your seat, allowing you to peer into the back at him. aaron's eyes quickly darted towards you, double checking your seatbelt was still properly laid across your chest despite your movement - just by force of habit.

"do you need tissues..?"

spencer weakly nodded his head in response, you plucked a few from the package you had conveniently stuffed into your pocket.

"how about a throat lozenge?" spencer croaked quietly and hopefully after he blew. the congestion was clear in his voice, as well as on the hoarse side.

"here." aaron didn't skip a beat, answering immediately. he dug into his pocket to retrieve a few, reaching his arm back behind his seat to hand the cough drops off to reid, all while keeping his eyes set on the road ahead.

emily snorted out a laugh, surprised, but not surprised at the same time. "you just happened to have some on you?"

"cold and flu season," aaron shrugged, flicking on his blinker and taking a right turn.

"and," you finished for him, looking out the window as he turned through the intersection, "with jack, the amount of germs he brings home from school. then you add his age to the mix - being more susceptible and all - you can never be too careful." you too shrugged, mirroring aaron's to a tee. "same goes for a team of profilers."

"speaking of," aaron searched through his other pocket, retrieving a pocket-sized container of purell and handing that back as well. "best we try not spread it if we can. the last thing we need is everyone calling out simultaneously."

"or," you reached into yours, grabbing a small hand gel also. "this one's scented. warm vanilla sugar, if you'd prefer this over the generic. and you know what," you adjusted in your seat again, facing aaron a little more head on, "we should probably stop and pick up vitamin c tablets for everyone before we get back to the pd. just to be on the safe side."

"ugh you two are so married and so mom and dad," emily feigned disgust as aaron nodded his head in agreement to your suggestion, but was still immensely entertained nonetheless, "it's sickening, pun intended. are you going to do the forehead check next?"

[phoebastria-albatrus]

i need to make a post on why i draw 3/4 of the pd nonwhite can i trust the jrwi fandom 2 be normal. awesome. lots of posts today lesgo (this got really long so under the cut)

vyncent is like canonically vaguely asian whatever the fuck that means but he is just generically mixed SEAsian king 2 me. he cannot name any part of his heritage and he’s real 4 that. anyhoo. i think his actual like straight up immigrant allegory is smth more people should think about!!! people are thinking your weird for not knowing what something is??? holy fuck!!! social fumbles??? fuck!!! yeah!! anyway. and the assumption of a dumb immigrant and how people perceive him as that and are actually confused when he can stand his ground and say stop talking at me. yeah. anyway asian king and the feeling of being stuck in someone’s perception of you is something imma bring up w dakota too so.

dakota. yeah. i usually draw him Black or mixed and i think this is important regarding his backstoryyyyy. poc and esp Black families aren’t given the same support sometimes in grieving and that Can lead to drug abuse moreoften so. that happens with alaska. and dakota is in this place of i need to be strong because people will pick on me if im weak and alaska needs me. that’s basically canon but boy if you imagine it in a poc way. 100 damage. so you look outwardly strong to everyone else but like!! you’re just a kid!!! and adultification!! ur a 16 year old boy and you just want to be silly!!! and then people still see you like this and you think but that’s not me!!! but you can’t drop this now either. so you’re stuck between being seen as weird by white peers and weak by poc peers.

mixed latina-white for our girl ashe and it Is important that she doesn’t remember anything she might’ve learned from her mother. her brain made space for the demon language by shoving out her other language or smth. but yeah so you kill your mother and a couple years later you realise oh, i have nothing from my culture and my father can’t help me with this. he doesn’t know how to help keep my hair healthy or what those words mean or how to throw a quince. so ashe spends her time in online school clubs and internet forums but somethings still missing. she finds tutorials for her hair and starts doing language courses but there’s still Something missing. because she’s being taught this by someone she doesn’t know or who’s just a face behind a screen and. yeah. the disconnect from her culture is something vyncent Kind of gets but she’s alone in this. so yeah ashe is someone who became moreeee. timid. in physical spaces. to keep eyes off of her and not dissect whatever is wrong with her. why she doesn’t pronounce that correctly or why she walks around with a white father.

anyway. thats it. dont kill me.

[abbysimsfun]

Sims In Bloom: Generation 2 Pt. 85 (Searching for Rafa Bonilla)

cw: mentions underage trafficking, drug smuggling

Conrad looked for Rafa Bonilla between his regular cases at the precinct, following clues and booking suspects to keep his captain satisfied. A few months into his search he finally located one of Rafa's known associates, according to police reports.

He called Heather, tapping his fingers against the desk. "Hey, you've reached Heather's phone. It's either the middle of the night or I'm with a patient, so leave a message and I'll call you back."

"Hey, it's me. I was hoping to talk to you, but I've got to work a little late tonight. I'll make it up to you. I'm sorry. I love you."

He drove outside Brindleton Bay to greet the man who thought he had everyone fooled with his chess mentorship program. It would be less than thirty minutes before his students - mostly children - started showing up for their scheduled lesson in the park, so Conrad knew he had to work fast. He shuddered as he got closer to him, and not just because it was freezing outside.

"Jimmy Stefano," he said, dropping his voice an octave to sound serious.

"Not lately," mused the man with a laugh. "Who's asking?" He turned to face the voice who knew his old identity. "You? They said you were a cop now. No surprise they never let you work our cases."

Conrad knew they had no time for small talk and he whipped out his cuffs. "You're under arrest for aiding and abetting a known fugitive."

"You can't be serious! Who?"

"Rafael Bonilla."

Jimmy's face went white, but he stopped resisting. As Conrad cuffed him, he asked, "Are you taking me in to help San Myshuno PD, or did she call you?"

Conrad scoffed. "She who?"

Jimmy laughed. "She told both of us sweet nothings, old friend. You were just dumb enough to believe them."

"Shut up and get in the cruiser."

Back at the station, Jimmy looked around the interrogation room in his orange jumpsuit once Conrad booked him. "Aren't you going to need the cameras on to record your attempt at my confession?"

"I want you to speak freely, Stefano. Tell me everything you know."

Jimmy eyed him suspiciously. "You're not working with San Myshuno PD at all, are you."

"I didn't stage an elaborate arrest just to scare you. I still plan to file a report after you and I catch up. Just talk."

"She really did get to you. Are you trying to let her ruin your life again?"

"Where the hell is Rafa?"

"I don't know. I haven't seen him in two years, when the last job we did together went bad. I assumed his sister told him to run since the charges he's facing are so serious."

"She doesn't know where he is."

"I'm sure she told you that. Did she tell you she was done with Los Tigres, too?"

Conrad flinched, and Jimmy raised an eyebrow.

"I'm happy with my chess students, but I can't get out now. When you walked, I should've joined you, but I didn't have your father's connections at the police station to keep me out of jail."

"I wasn't even there that night, but you gave them my name."

"Yeah, I did, because you walked before you even got started. Los Tigres only let you live because you became a cop and they didn't need the heat. I don't know what she told you, but if you think Ximena's turned over a new leaf and is done smuggling for the cartel, you're an idiot. She just uses new aliases these days."

Conrad breathed in through his nose. "If I turn the cameras on, will you avoid mentioning our history while you tell me what Ximena's still doing with the cartel?"

"What's in it for me, Sargent?"

"If it comes to it and you're telling the truth, I only want Ximena. As long as Los Tigres doesn't get caught up in anything at the Brindleton docks, I've got no reason to open up a window to the past. You should think about moving on, too. Turn that chess mentorship program into more than just a front."

Jimmy rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Some of us are lifers, you know."

Conrad hit record while Jimmy told him everything he knew about Ximena's past - how she escaped being trafficked in her teens by offering to run drugs for Los Tigres de Selva, working her way up to running an entire operation moving drugs from Selvadorada to San Myshuno, through Britechester, and back again. Her associates called her The Chameleon because of how often she changed her hair.

She'd been arrested but never did hard time, with those who worked under her often taking the fall, instead - like Jimmy Stefano. Twice. Ximena kept herself just clean enough to avoid prison, and dragged her brother into the same life. "Rafa and I used to pose as Simlandian military to run product for his sister, but he never got caught for that," Jimmy said.

"When was the last time you worked for her?"

"Four months ago."

Conrad led him through several questions, showing copies of Ximena's old police reports. When they'd finished, he released Jimmy Stefano. It didn't satisfy him to send a known smuggler back to the streets, but he'd gained some incriminating evidence against Ximena, at the very least. He was beginning to think he might need it, eventually.

He headed home in darkness, and his mind raced with possibilities. Could Ximena's activities have led directly to her brother's disappearance? Who were her enemies these days?

He tried to call her, against his better judgment, but she didn't pick up her phone. He hung up before the voicemail kicked in.

When he walked in the door, he found six-year-old Ash on the floor, working on a castle diorama for extra credit at school. He knelt down to help him without even changing out of his work clothes. "Can you help me with the small pieces? Mommy won't let me use better scissors, but my kid scissors barely cut anything!"

He grinned. Grateful for the distraction, Conrad pulled out an instruction booklet tucked under the edge of the box. "Of course. What did you need me to cut?"

"Just these windows," he said. "They're too small. And can you measure to make sure my towers are big enough? I want the biggest towers of the whole class! Like the Spire Tower!"

"Tallest towers, can do. Hey, did you want to use this lump of clay for anything?" (Finally, the clay comes out at a sensible moment!!)

"Yeah! Moat mud! And we could use real water!"

"Your mom won't be very happy if we make real mud in the house, buddy."

Heather walked into the room then, kneeling down next to them to play with Gord. "Please don't make real mud. Why don't you use the clay to mould a base for the castle?"

"Good idea, Mommy! Can we have pancakes for dinner tomorrow night? I've been thinking about pancakes all day!"

"I can make you pancakes for dinner, but your mom and I won't be here to eat them with you," said Conrad. "Tomorrow night, I'm taking your mom on a date."

"What's a date?"

"It's when people who like each other hang out," Heather said.

Ash's eyes grew wide. "Is there kissing?"

Conrad grinned. "There might be. What do you know about kissing?"

He paused. "Nothing, I guess. Scotti Holiday says it's like eating faces, but why would people who like each other eat their faces?"

Heather laughed. "Don't worry, Conrad's not going to eat my face. Are you almost finished with your diorama for the night? It's getting late and you should get to bed soon."

"Just a little while longer, Mommy. Please! I'm not tired and I'm almost done!"

When he and Conrad had finished, they displayed the excellent diorama on a kitchen countertop until Ash could take it to school in the morning. Before he went to bed, Conrad went upstairs to check on his sleeping baby girl.

Intuitive to his human's growing stress level, no matter how well he hid it from everyone else, Gord followed him. ->

<- Previous Chapter | Gen 2 Start | Gen 1 Summary | Gen 1 Start

[lalalalupia]

OK so yeah Lore dump about my AU..(beware that subjects can change in the future.)

This is going to be a long long ride with some pretty arts along the way.

let’s start with what is this AU? :

Prime demons / Prime demon glitch is what if Prime defender boys set in a world of horror and they are monster instead of yk like in canon.

first of need to clarify that, the world setting is like in canon but with a little twist that dead star did rift half of prime make it some kind of apocalypse dystopian world where the abyss(monster) come up of the rift and people who interact with it get infected.

However, before the coming of dead star Prime originated had its magic user mutant that originated in its planet ( witch + ghost and stuff.) After the founding of Watch, they selected a few mutant by themselves to raised them to be the new generation of PF ( like in canon)

However Watch in this AU…is not overall good guy. And PF and PD in this universe is not treated as good as in canon. It was more like a grey area operation..only Dakota that still believes they are heroes.

And for the boys I did need to separate them into their own section. Let’s start with William the Ghost.

For the better understanding of the overall plot.

William did died from the fall, but with a little twist that he is actually got stabbed and push by someone before the falls.

He did have some power like the original, However it did come from the previous whisperer that give it to him when Wiwi is dying. In an attempt to escape Mal. He vows himself that he would solve who killed him and another children in dead woods.

For Dakota :

Some changes in his plot a little bit for the angst ( first of all he and William is a childhood friend before Dakota parents died in an *accident* ) and he moved in with his aunt in new haven.

however, one time when he went hiking with his friends. They got attacked by the abyss bear, Dakota tried his best to save his friend but failed his friend was mauled to death and so does he.

But In his dying state he saw a a big wolf came in and destroyed the bear. and he also saw a boy that looks just like william with it. The wolf bit Dakota results in its saving his life.

Like in Canon Dakota falls into state like coma, but in here he and the wolf did talk and train together( it is actually master cole ) and in the end the wolf told him to go find the new whisperer at deadwood and never trust watch.

When he woke up. Like in canon he is the one who admit his aunt to rehab. And due to complications issues his aunt is the one who sign his guardianship away to the Watch for she can no longer take care of him anymore which results in he went to look for william.

*Side note he has some complicates feeling about watch but still believe in them as heroes, he just needs time and talk with william first*

He then find out William is missing...heart broken he went into the woods where he and William usually go together, somewhere only they know...there he meet William Wisp welcoming him home

Not knowing what happened or what will happen next Dakota and William join finally together again. However, they are not quite alone for William met someone new and Dakota bought Watch here in dead woods as well without knowing. But in the good side they got each other.

[ another Vyncent lore dump will be here soon. ]

[acewritesfics]

Feel the Same | Jay Halstead

Pairing: Jay Halstead x Reader

Request: from @/runnning-outof-time 

Warnings: General Chicago PD stuff. Working undercover. Guns. Serial killer who gets off on forcing couples to do stuff before killing them. I may have taken it a little further than I needed to. 

Word Count: 1,822

Jay Halstead Masterlist | Main Masterlist

“Come on you two, act more like a couple,” Ruzek could be heard over Jay and Y/N’s ear pieces. Y/N fights the urge to roll her eyes as she shifts closer to Jay. 

“Maybe you can come in and take my place,” she mumbles as Jay leans in, leaving barely any space between them as his blue eyes look into hers. 

“You and Jay are more his type,” he says referring to the suspect having an affinity for women who look similar to her with men who just so happen to also look like Jay. The whole thing was uncanny. “Though I’m flattered that you think Jay and I would make a cute couple.” 

“Enough you two,” Hank’s rough voice breaks through their bantering. “But Ruzek’s right, you need to look in love or you won’t get his attention.” 

Jay takes her hand, stroking the back of it with his thumb, his touch calming her. He gives her a soft smile and leans in closer to talk to her so he’s not shouting over the music. 

“I didn’t say it earlier, but you look incredible,” he says softly into her ear before pulling back far enough to look into her eyes. 

Her brain malfunctions for a moment, her skin heating from his compliment and his closeness feeling more intimate than when they last went undercover as a couple. 

Movement from over his shoulder catches her attention. Their murder suspect James Henry, who they feared is a couples serial killer, has his eyes zeroed in on her and Jay. She shifts her eyes back to her partner and pretend husband. “He’s looking but he looks a little bored.” 

“Then maybe we should give him a show,” he says before leaning in and softly kisses the side of her neck. 

She bites her lip and tries to suppress her surprise and the arousal she feels as his soft lips caress her skin. He was used to her kissing her cheek when they played into being a couple for undercover work, but this felt too intimate, and she found herself loving it. 

“This, okay?” She hears him ask, his warm breath fanning against her skin. She doesn’t know how he found her sweet spot on the first kiss 

“Mhmm,” she says unable to form any words. 

His lips brush her skin again, this time brushing against her sweet spot. The sigh of pleasure would have her feeling embarrassed but right now all she could focus on is the way Jay’s lips feel against her skin. She can’t remember the last time she’d been kissed this way and a part of her knows she shouldn’t be enjoying. 

Going along with it, she slides her hands under his shirt and scratches her nails along his skin. When Jay’s lips finally meet hers, she’s gone enough to melt into it. 

She comes back to reality a moment later and breaks the kiss. Glancing at their suspect, she says into Jay’s ear, “It’s time to go somewhere private.” 

Leaning back, she kisses Jay once more, taking his hand in hers and throwing him a smirk. She leads him to one of the private rooms off to the side of the club. 

“He’s following you,” Adam’s voice comes through the earpiece. 

“Good,” Jay says letting them know they heard him. 

“Keep up the show,” Adam adds, causing Y/N’s cheeks to heat up. She’d gotten so caught up in the kiss, she’d forgotten about the surveillance team watching and listening in on them. 

Once inside the room, Jay closes the door, leads her to the sofa and sits down, pulling her onto her lap. “Are you sure you’re okay with this?” 

“Yeah,” she nods and starts fiddling with one of his buttons on his shirt. “We haven’t gone this far before but, whatever gets the job done, right?” 

He nods and looks over her shoulder, seeing the silhouette of a figure outside the door. Pulling her into another kiss, they move into a more intimate position with one of hands trailing up her thigh and gripping it just below the hem of her little black dress as the other buries it into her hair, holding her to him. Once again Y/N fights to hold back the moan threatening to escape the back of her throat. 

Hearing the door open and close, Y/N breaks the kiss. The two detectives turn their attention to the door, seeing their suspect standing there. 

“Don’t stop on my account,” he tells them, standing there with a smirk on his face and lustful hunger in his eyes. 

“Are you some kind of perv?” Y/N questions him, not even trying to hide her disgust as she clenches her jaw, now fighting off the urge to throw up. This guy was more than just a perv. 

Jay moves them so they’re standing up with him standing in front of her. She places a hand on his arms, to reassure him she can handle herself while maintaining the ‘couple’ persona. To James it looks like a boyfriend shielding his girlfriend, to her and Jay it’s more than that. He was protecting her like he always does, making sure he’d be the first or only one injured if it were to go south, giving her time to take him down or call for back up. She was reassuring him that she can handle herself, that she’s got his back, if anything happens to him, he’s her priority and that she’s willing to take his spot if it means protecting him. She’d be standing in front of him if she wasn’t playing the scared girlfriend. 

“You’re going to want to do as I say if you want to survive tonight,” James tells them pulling out a gun and pointing it towards them. 

Jay’s hand that was reached back behind him to hold Y/N close to him, gripped her tighter. “Are you fucking insane?” 

“Maybe I am, but the thing is I get this urge,” he begins, thinking this will be another kill he can get away with. “When I see a beautiful couple, like yourselves, I have to force them to do things and in a climatic ending I, unfortunately for them, have to kill them.” 

“Babe, I don’t want to die,” Y/N says to Jay, putting on the scared girlfriend act. 

“We’re not going to die, okay?” he says pretending to reassure her. “Look man, I don’t know what messed up crap happened in your life to make you like this, but I know some people who can help you. They specialize in this sort of thing.” 

“I don’t need a fucking therapist!” James shouts at him. “I need you to go back to what you were doing.” 

“Here’s the thing, I also have performance issues, okay?” Jay tells him. “I can’t perform under pressure. Just ask my girl. Last week something bad happened at work. I was stressed to the max and I couldn’t get it up. So, this, this isn’t going to happen unless you-” 

A shot went off cutting Jay off from his rambling about his fake performance issues in the bedroom. Jay looks at James more angry than shocked. 

After James takes a shot at Jay and misses him completely, Y/N reaches for her clutch, shoving her hand inside it and pulls out her gun. Taking a small step to the right, still standing mostly behind Jay, she holds up her gun pointing it at James. She makes sure to aim it at his head as her free hand clutches the back of Jay’s shirt, letting him not to move in case James decides to take another shot. 

“You shoot at him again, I’ll shoot you and believe me I won’t miss,” she tells him before mumbling into the small microphone. “If you’re going to move in, now would be the time.” 

“We’re on our way,” Hank’s voice comes through the earpiece before the door to the office is smashed open and the room is filled with cops. 

Thankfully the suspect drops the gun and holds up his hands knowing there is no other way out of this alive. Jay steps forward, taking the cuffs from Adam. Slapping them on to James’ wrists, he reads him his rights before handing him off to one of the other cops before making his way over to Y/N and Hank. 

“You two can fill out your reports in the morning,” Hank tells them. “Go home and get some sleep.” 

“You got it boss,” Y/N thanks him as he walks away. She turns to face Jay. 

“Are you okay?” he asks her, placing a hand on her shoulder. 

“I should be asking you that,” she says covering his hand with hers. 

“Not the first time I’ve been shot at,” he smiles. 

“Okay, macho man,” she rolls her eyes and pulls him in for a hug. 

“I’ll drive you home,” he tells her and leads her to his truck. 

-

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Y/N tells Jay as she gets out of his truck after a silent drive home. Neither of them had spoken, being too caught up in their own thoughts about what happened at the club now their adrenaline had worn off. 

Y/N heads up to her apartment and gets ready to have a shower to wash away the events of the night. She’s about to turn on the shower when there is a knock at the door. Leaving the bathroom, she walks to the door and opens it seeing Jay. 

“Is everything okay?” she asks him. 

“After what happened at the club… Kissing you… I can’t get it out of my head, and I can’t ignore the way it made me feel,” he begins. “I can’t keep pretending that I don’t feel anything more than friendship for you and that there is nothing between us.” 

“What are you saying?” she questions him, her heart thumping against her chest, a lump caught in her throat and her thoughts spinning in her head. 

“I’m saying that I love you and not just as my friend or work partner,” he tells her. “I love you and I want to be with you. I really hope you feel the same. If you-” 

She cuts him off by pulling him for a kiss. This one wasn’t as urgent as their kiss from earlier in the night. Jay arms move around her waist, pulling her closer before walking her backwards into her apartment and kicks the door close. 

“I feel the same,” she says breaking the kiss. “I love you too.” 

Smiling, he kisses her again until she breaks the kiss again. 

“You don’t really have performance issues, right?” she teases him, knowing full well he didn’t. “Because you know, it could be an issue.” 

“Do I have to go over all my sexcapades again with you?” he teases back. “Because I can tell you-” 

“I’m good,” she chuckles and pulls him in for another kiss. 

[utilitycaster]

You have been watching CR so much longer than me, and I'm curious to know your take on TV Show Canon interfering with or replacing Live Play Canon? On the latest 4sd, Sam mentioned that they're sort of in a schrödinger's Canon, where in one instance the show and campaign have two opposing cannons and they get through it by not directly addressing one or the other. The example he gave was Highbearer Vord, who was an old man in campaign 1 and a woman in the show, whom Matt referred to by name or as 'they' in campaign 3.

Personally, I've never been precious about adaptations changing or ommitting things, and I didn't care about the change from the campaign to the show, but for some reason, the show changing the campaign gives me pause. I also personally love the show! Campaign one was my favorite, especially the chroma conclave arc, and I love the tv show just as much, so I don't know why I would be precious about one over the other? I think maybe I'm worried about changes retroactively impacting the campaign because I already saw and loved the campaign as it was and I don't want it to change, whereas the show is currently being created and so any changes or adaptations just feel like their own thing that I get to see unfold.

The change I mentioned is very small and doesn't really impact much, I'm just wondering what your preference would be for this practice in general! I think that the cast mentioned that some changes will be made to the beginning of the Mighty Nein's story for the upcoming show. In a hypithetical future campaign, if someone mentioned the M9, would you prefer it to be in line with the campaign or the tv show, would you prefer if it was vague like Vord, or is it dependent on what the changes are?

For me it would be dependent on the scale of the change and what it is. Honestly, for Vord I don't even find it in conflict in the present campaign (ie, in 843 PD); while obviously Vord's gender is different between the canon of Campaign 1 vs. the Legend of Vox Machina and those are taking place as two versions of the story in the same time, I just assumed that in 843 PD Vord was figuring some shit out re: gender and pronouns. (I'd also add that Vord's description during Campaign 1 itself varied wildly; Matt's changed character pronouns before in the past and I don't know if it's been deliberate or if he forgot but it's not a big deal).

I think if we're talking about scenes that were not visible in the campaign and were expanded upon in TLOVM (eg: getting to see more of the Briarwoods or the Chroma Conclave plotting without Vox Machina present), treating them as canon within Campaign 3 is fine; honestly those probably were canon in Matt's notes anyway, just unseen. Small things that aren't plot critical - changing a character's gender or appearance, for example - are also fine by me.

The issue arises if we get into actual plot conflicts - for example, the party splitting during the Feywild and Westruun arcs in TLOVM vs. Scanlan and Grog being present in the Feywild in canon. In that case, resolving the two is not possible and I don't care for attempts to make it so. I don't generally care for attempts to justify a cast mistake or canon contradiction and make it all lay flat when the answer sometimes is just "this is improv and they forgot", and this feels similar. Like...if Kamaljiori were to show up in Campaign 3, that would be valid, because he doesn't die in Campaign 1 and does in TLOVM, and when we're watching the streaming campaigns we should defer to campaign canon. I don't think it's fair to Campaign 3 to try to play it with an eye to animated adaptation, so any ripples from that can be addressed if an when they come up. But for stuff like Vord's gender, as long as you get the presence and the vibe right, details can be altered. The same, presumably, will be true for mentions of the Mighty Nein if there is an Exandrian-set Campaign 4.

For what it's worth, that is what I expect when the cast mentions changes to the adaptation as well. Like...look, if I'm wrong about this there will be other discussions to be had, but I think the idea that Molly won't die in the Mighty Nein adaptation is a rather desperate and unrealistic one since that sort of derails the entire rest of the campaign both plot-wise and thematically. Fine for AU fanfic, though I'm personally uninterested, but a poor adaptational choice. But changes like splitting the party between the Feywild and Westruun, or Grog becoming weakened, or Vax communing with the Raven Queen a little earlier and at a smaller temple, or Vex facing Saundor alone, all maintain the core vibes and themes while dealing with time constraints and letting Pike be more present. If someone were to ask Vex point-blank "was Scanlan there when you fought the guy who had that cool bow you're carrying" in Campaign 3 I think the answer should be "yes"; but that's not actually important. What's important is that Vex faced a guy who had been consumed by bitterness and grudges for a weapon that she ultimately carved the word for "forgiveness" into as a personal reminder. An adaptation should retain what's actually important to the story, but changing what hangs on the same fundamental fixed skeleton is fine.