#her sense of humor is criminally overlooked

[pamvault]

[thirteenashmctrash]

okay so i have gained a new species of spore for my collective brainrot and i have found the perfect selling pitch to drag everyone i care about down with me. if you know the show this is hilarious. if you haven't watched it pay attention:

the show's called leverage. you know how there's those crime serials that aren't good at all but we've all watched a little too much of at least one of them even though they are blatant copaganda which is morally terrible? take your favorite one of those, but remover the copaganda. all the characters are criminals but their only victim is capitalism. every cop in the show is stupid at best and blatantly corrupt to a disgusting level most of the time. there is just as much genuine and intelligent social commentary as this premise demands.

i sense i already have you hooked. i can make this better. stick with me for a minute on this: the character dynamic is a muppet movie but also the Scooby gang

stick with me here!

You have Parker, who fit into the Scooby gang as Scooby and would be played by Gonzo. her crime thing is that she is a cat burglar and she is very good at it. her skill with it is borderline slapstick (hence Scooby) and she is very autistic coded and misunderstood (hence Gonzo)

You've got Eliot, who is the Shaggy and is played by Sam Eagle. He is the brute force of the team and he wants you to think he is all serious and grimdark. but he loves making the employees and victims of their capitalist targets aware of unions and he is a big himbo. i say he is shaggy because he plays Parker's straight man, he has the second most cartoonlike abilities, and he has a passion for cooking

Hardison is Velma as played by Kermit. he is a geeky hacker with a passion for orange soda and he is the heart of the team. he gets overlooked as leader even though he is the driving force of everything they do. like Velma. he also has that trademark Kermit brand of slapstick and deadpanned humor in balance.

Sophie is Daphne as played by miss piggy. she is basically the world's best grifter, she usually the front man interacting with the target the most. she has that crazy streak and the self defense capacity that miss piggy and Daphne (when she's done right) both have. she also has the confidence and style.

Nate is Fred and he is the human character. Fred has "let's split up gang" and Nate has "then we have to steal *fill in the blank with something comedically unfit to finish the sentence*" Fred and Nate are both flat characters with the main trait "i think I'm the leader but my smart friend does all the work" and the main interest of "trapping and screwing over capitalists" he mainly gets to call himself the leader because he's the idea guy and he has an apartment. his role in the muppet analogy is the peak of my pitch if you're still here. because while this is definitely not the Christmas Carol, Nate is the human character because he is Ebenezer Scrooge if instead of being a capitalist, Scrooge was an alcoholic and instead of character growth he was just steadily losing his mind. his moral compass and general intelligence are on a roulette wheel that is spun at random intervals lasting from seconds to the occasional few hours. also he and Sophie have divorced parents of grown children syndrome and the other three are said children. in vibes, of course, they aren't actually related.

if anyone stayed with me through all of that you should seriously watch it. even if i sound like i pulled this all out of my ass. it's so good.

it's an actively anticapitalist, copaganda free crime show where you get to see fun characters beat up every thing bad in society and fuck it all over. it balances fun comedy and wild characters with serious topics and moments in a way that is very natural and genuine. it also has one of my favorite autistic coded characters, a positive and healthy relationship that develops in a way that feels natural to the characters (as well as a rockier one if you're into drama) and it is in the midst of what looks to be an actually well handled revival series with the original cast. i haven't caught up yet but I'm so excited for it. the original had 5 seasons and the revival is waiting to be renewed for season 3.

please go watch leverage. it's so good and it deserves more fans. also i want more fic and that next season

[thetavolution]

I'm bringing my Tav-related stuff over here to not overload my regular tumblr haha.

First up is Tessa! More info:

I did borrow a lot of this profile layout from elfinbloodbag.

TESSA

Full name: Theresa Siân Chastain Name meaning:  Theresa: late summer; Siân: God is gracious; Chastain: chestnut Pronouns: She/Her  Race: Human Age: 35 Orientation: Pansexual Romance: Gale Dekarios Class: Rogue Monk Subclass: Thief / Way of the Open Hand Origin: Criminal  Theme song:  I Deserve to Bleed — Sushi Soucy / Used To Be Young — Miley Cyrus

Personality Despite being a professional thief, Tessa is a kind-hearted person. She always overflowing with joyful enthusiasm. Tessa is outgoing and funny. She’s the "mom friend" even if she hates it when people say that. She’s the one who takes care of everybody and tends to them physically and emotionally. Some say she missed her calling as a cleric.

She has a big heart and it’s easy to take advantage of it, especially with a good enough sob story. She has a good-natured sense of humor, but she's not averse to dark humor either. When she’s angry or hurt, or just talking to someone she hates, she can be particularly cold and scathing.

Tessa is far from morally perfect, of course. She’s made peace with stealing, focusing on targets that “deserve” it. That said, she doesn't believe in hoarding wealth. She keeps what she needs (with some left over as a little treat) and spreads the rest of it around to those who might need it.

She can get stuck on things, like an idea or desire. She'll become obsessed with it and remain laser focused on it to a fault.

Once you’re in her good graces, she is ride or die. While intelligent, she can be impulsive. She’ll realize how stupid her actions were after it’s too late to take it back. Going back to her motherly tendencies, she can also go full mama bear when loved ones are threatened.

She’s a romantic at heart and she’s looking for true love. Unfortunately, due to being so eager to find love, she’s jumped into some terrible relationships. Those closest to her will often acknowledge (or joke about) the fact that she overlooks a lot of red flags in the early stages of a relationship. (For Tom Cardy fans, she would be the one to date the person whose favorite film is Human Centipede.)

In her younger years, she was much more of a wild child which often comes back to bite her, especially when former lovers and enemies reappear in her life.

History Tessa was born in Bryn Shander, the largest of the Ten Towns in Icewind Dale. She and her twin brother, Leander, are the youngest of Edgard and Sibyl Chastain's six children. She’s technically the youngest since she was born five minutes after Leander. 

Tessa was raised from birth to be a proficient thief. Her father, Edgard, is a renowned member of the Zhentarim. They mostly focus on stealing and smuggling. Tessa grew up learning to live life in the underbelly of the city. She never knew anything else, even though she always wished she could have the life of a “normal girl.”

She came to Baldur's Gate with her father on Zhentarim business when she was abducted and infected with a tadpole. It was their first time in the city, so the Chastains aren't a familiar face to the local Zhentarim members.

Likes: The thrill of stealing, fighting, helping people, taking care of the poor and the sick, reading, writing, animals (especially dogs/wolves), nighttime, rainy mornings, adventuring, music, and cold weather

Dislikes: Hot weather, hurting good people, nobility/the wealthy, bugs, abuses of power, and cruelty 

Fears: She’s afraid of ending up alone. She’s also afraid she deserves to be alone. She questions if she’s actually a good person on an almost daily basis. She's terrified of growing older and having a life full of regrets. She feels as thought a lot of it has already passed her by.

Quirks: I don’t know if this counts as a quirk, but her left hand is her dominant hand. She likes to tap her foot like a rabbit, even when she isn’t nervous. People often mistake it for a nervous tick. It’s just something she’s always done. She has a loud laugh that she’s insecure about.

Mental Health: Tessa has daddy issues. Her father takes advantage of her and she’s desperate to earn his approval. She ties her self-worth to other people’s opinion of her. She often falls for terrible people because she’s so desperate to be loved. Her father never really showed her what it’s like to be properly cared for, and it shows. She doesn't even realize how bad her self-esteem is.

Favorite Foods: Sun-Dappled Paella and Cranberry Cake

Favorite Drinks: Tea and Brandy

Favorite Flower: Roses

Height:  5’7”/173 cm 

Skin: Beige.

Hair:  Brown but with a slight ginger tint.

Eyes:  Green.

Color Scheme:  Generally, she wears whatever lets her hide in her environment. She wears a lot of blacks, greens, and browns. Back in her hometown, it’s not unusual for her to don white colors to blend into the snow.

When she’s dressing just for herself, she’ll wear blues and greens.

Fashion Sense: She’s mostly practical when it comes to her clothing. As a thief, she can’t really afford to be too gaudy or flashy. Everything she wears has a specific purpose. She is usually hiding behind the Shadow of Menzoberranzan cowl.

In the rare occasions she can dress for the sake of looking nice, she does like to wear intricate gowns. If you’re going to be a criminal, why not enjoy the fruits of your labor and have a nice dress or two?

She does have tattoos, including a rose tattoo on the left side of her neck.

Family: 

Blue — 5. He’s Tessa’s pet winter wolf. He’s intelligent and cunning. He was orphaned by a hunter as a pup before Tessa found and adopted him. Her love and care led to him to be a big teddy bear of a wolf. He's back in Bryn Shander.

Edgard Chastain — 60. Edgard is Tessa’s father and the one who led the entire family down the path of crime. He’s a charismatic guy, but he has his struggles and insecurities. He is plagued by self-loathing and depression, often acting on his worse impulses.

He wants to be liked, but he also wants to be feared as a criminal, putting him in conflict with himself. He can be selfish and self-serving, leading him to betray his loved ones or hurt them deeply. He’s corrupted his relationships with his ex-wife and children over the years. Tessa is desperate to believe he'll change.

Sibyl Lisette Chastain — 60. Sibyl is Edgard’s ex-wife and the mother of Tessa and her brothers. After Edgard cheated on her, she left him. It’s clear Tessa takes after her mother. Sibyl is cheerful, optimistic, and excited to live life. She’s heartbroken when her children repeat Edgard’s mistakes and she can’t stop it from happening. 

She had dreams of becoming a writer, but she fell in love with Edgard when they were both 17. Within months of dating, Sibyl became pregnant. After that, Sibyl became a criminal, losing the ability to pursue her dream career. She continues to write even if she never shares it with anyone.

Conrad Chastain — 40. He’s the eldest Chastain child. He has a somewhat normal life. While he does work in the black market, he has a loving wife and two children. He’s a loving father, calm, and level-headed, but he has a very dad sense of humor.

Flynn Chastain — 38. Flynn is the flirtatious brother and he has several lovers. It’s also likely he has bastard children out in the world he’s never met. 

Gavin Chastain — 37. He’s intelligent, but irresponsible and self-sabotaging. He fears being rejected and failing, so he engages in self-destructive behavior.

Emile Chastain — 36. He’s the quiet Chastain child. He’s not happy with his lot in life, but he doesn’t complain. He always wants to do the right thing, but he’s often scared to say anything that goes “against the family.”

Leander Chastain — 35. He’s Tessa’s twin. He and Tessa grew apart as they became adults. He’s a bard rogue who loves music. Leander is repeating a lot of his father’s mistakes, even if he thinks of himself as better than Edgard. He’s a great thief, but he’s been burning his own bridges and fighting his own demons. He’s a charismatic social butterfly. He hides his demons from Tessa and the rest of his family.

Marta Chastain — 39. She’s Conrad’s loving and doting wife. She works a normal job, keeping the family with one foot in respectable society. She’s a teacher and hides the fact she’s married to a criminal.

Tem Chastain — 11. Tem is Conrad and Marta’s oldest child. He’s a silly and goofy kid who has no idea his father is a thief.

Kara Chastain — 8. Kara is Conrad and Marta’s youngest. She’s a sweet little girl with a mischievous streak.

[gcthvile]

Felicia Quinzel-White

Name: Felicia Quinzel-White

Age: 28

Date of Birth: May 15

Personality: Felicia is a cunning and manipulative individual, with a razor-sharp intellect. She possesses a dark sense of humor, finding amusement in chaos and unpredictability. Her mind works in mysterious and intricate ways, making her a formidable opponent. Despite her villainous nature, Felicia has a charismatic charm that can be both captivating and unsettling.

Parents:

Jack Oswald White (Joker) - Father

Harleen Frances Quinzel (Harley Quinn) - mother

Felicia was born into a world of madness and crime, raised by her notorious parents for a time being, until she was at the age of 16, then she was raised by Joker, even though she didn't really like him because of what he's put Harley through. Nonetheless, growing up in the twisted environment shaped by Joker, she developed a fascination with chaos and an uncanny ability to think like a criminal mastermind. Felicia's intelligence was nurtured through exposure to her parents' schemes and her own insatiable thirst for knowledge.

Felicia's primary goal is to establish herself as the most notorious criminal mastermind in the world. She aims to create chaos and disorder on a grand scale, leaving her mark on society.

Felicia is driven by a desire to surpass her parents' (mostly her father's) legacy and prove herself as the ultimate criminal genius. She craves recognition and thrives on the thrill of outsmarting others. She possesses exceptional intelligence and strategic thinking. She excels in planning elaborate schemes and manipulating others to do her bidding. Her ability to analyze situations quickly and adapt to changing circumstances gives her an edge.

Her obsession with chaos can sometimes cloud her judgment. She can become overconfident and underestimate her opponents, leading to potential vulnerabilities. Felicia's emotional detachment can also hinder her ability to form genuine connections with others. Her need for control can sometimes make her impulsive and reckless. She can overlook crucial details in her pursuit of chaos, which can lead to unexpected setbacks.

Felicia has honed her skills in deception, manipulation, and psychological warfare. She is an expert in crafting elaborate traps and creating diversions to achieve her goals. She possesses exceptional deductive reasoning and is skilled in hand-to-hand combat. She also has a penchant for collecting antique playing cards, which she sees as a symbol of her parents' legacy and leaves them behind as signature calling cards at the scenes of her crimes, often in the form of playing cards with her unique symbol. And has a habit of humming or whistling when she's deep in thought.

Enjoys challenging puzzles and mind games. She has a fondness for classic literature and finds inspiration in characters like Moriarty from Sherlock Holmes.

Felicia believes that chaos is the true essence of life. She sees order as a mundane and restrictive force and believes that chaos is what pushes humanity to evolve and adapt.

Hope you'll like her :)

@msrochelleromanofffelton @hanlueluver @blueboirick @jackiequick @meiramel

[mymbios]

Rowdy Olsen, a 27-year-old public defender, grew up in a small town in Georgia. Her childhood was shaped by the tight-knit, slow-paced community where everyone knew each other and family ties ran deep. Her parents, James Olsen (54), a mechanic, and Martha Olsen (52), a waitress at the local diner, worked tirelessly to provide for Rowdy and her two younger siblings, Dale (25) and Ruby Mae (22). Despite their lack of formal education, James and Martha instilled in their children the importance of integrity, hard work, and standing up for what's right.

Rowdy always felt a strong sense of responsibility toward her family and community. From an early age, she noticed the struggles of her neighbors—unfair evictions, limited healthcare access, and unequal treatment under the law. But the turning point came when her best friend's father was wrongfully accused of theft and had no access to quality legal defense. Watching his life unravel ignited a fire in Rowdy to fight for those who couldn’t fight for themselves.

In high school, Rowdy excelled academically and on the debate team, using her natural charm and quick wit to argue her points passionately. But life in a small town wasn’t always easy for someone as outspoken as she was. Many in her conservative town thought she should "know her place," but Rowdy's stubbornness and fierce sense of justice wouldn’t let her stay quiet.

With encouragement from her teachers, Rowdy earned a scholarship to the University of Georgia, where she majored in political science and developed an interest in criminal justice reform. While in college, she volunteered at a local legal aid clinic, where she realized the power of giving a voice to the voiceless. After graduating, she attended law school at Emory University, determined to return to her roots and make a difference in communities like her own.

Today, Rowdy works as a public defender in Savannah, Georgia. Her clients are often people like the neighbors she grew up with—those overlooked or mistreated by the system. Her approach to her work is deeply empathetic; she takes time to understand her clients’ stories, knowing that every case is more than just a file number. She’s known for her tenacity in court, her refusal to back down from a challenge, and her ability to connect with juries by speaking plainly and honestly.

Despite the demands of her job, Rowdy remains deeply connected to her family. She calls her parents weekly, offering advice and sending money when needed. Her siblings adore her; Dale, who works as a truck driver, often jokes that Rowdy’s smarts “must’ve skipped the rest of us,” while Ruby Mae, a nursing student, sees her as a role model. Rowdy frequently visits home, where she spends time fishing with her dad and baking with her mom—a tradition she cherishes.

Rowdy’s personality is as vibrant as her upbringing. She’s confident and quick-witted, with a dry sense of humor that can lighten even the tensest situations. She has a strong moral compass but isn’t above bending the rules if it means helping someone in need. Outside of work, she enjoys hiking, reading true crime novels, and spending time with her rescue dog, Gus, a scrappy mutt she adopted during law school.

[yesimwriting]

Dying Starlight

A/n: i dont think an audience for this exists?? ik it’s not shadow and bone related, but ive been reading red queen and i wanted to try writing maven and ive been playing with this idea. umm...on the off-chance that there is an audience for this i do think of this as more of a series but i’ll probably end up deleting this lol 

(Series?) Summary: reader is a childhood friend of Mare’s who isn’t officially part of the Scarlet Guard but gets captured by Maven. As a prisoner, she feels like her mind is being messed with as she begins to see a more human side of Maven. The new King tells himself the only thing he sees in her is that she’s a way to get to Mare, but something about her genuiness is infectious. 

-- 

Irony twists things. Right now, the irony that my last thoughts might be about how I wish I had been trusted with a suicide pill twist my impending doom into something almost comical. I’d laugh, but I’d rather not startle the rats in my cell. This has been their home for presumably years, but I’ve only been down here a few hours. 

I scratch the back of my wrist, staring at tired stone walls like they’ve done something to me. I wish I knew what time it was. How long have I been down here? How long has it been since I was separated from Mare? An hour? Three?Each passing minute strikes me like a bullet, but I can’t count them. I’ve never had a talent for accurately feeling the passage of time.

My head aches, frustration and dread tangling themselves in the pit of my stomach. Mare told me the Queen can search through someone’s mind, seeing memories even they can’t remember. What will they do when they see I know virtually nothing? What will happen when they see how close Mare and I truly are? i can’t do anything and the unknown hurts more than my bruised rib. 

The sound of the heavy door that divides the luxury of the castle from the wasteland of the cells creaks. I only let my arms flinch, moving from my side to wrap defensively around my stomach. Dull footsteps echo down the pathway that lead to the cell I’m in. I don’t cringe, not even when the sound of walking stops. 

I was not born into a rich family, but I was born into a proud one. Fear was practically a criminal act in my household. I’ve been trained to suppress all signs of weakness. My eyes don’t leave the stone wall, I mentally trace the pattern of a long crack in a specific rock. It reminds me of the slope of the Big Dipper. 

Will I ever see stars again? The answer leaves a sharp pain in my chest. 

“Mare told me about you.” 

The words jar me, my stomach dropping in revulsion. Mare had trusted him, and here he stands--successful because he’s a traitor. I know what it’s like to be the most overlooked sibling and to crave to change that. I know what it’s like to want to succeed more than you want air in your lungs, but I don’t think I’d ever betray someone. I like to think that there’s a line even the monster in me won’t cross. 

I don’t look at him, partially out of an attempt to protest and partially because I’m afraid of what I’ll see. “She might have mentioned you in passing.” 

His scoff is ridiculous. “She didn’t lie about your sense of humor.” 

That almost makes me wince. His words are too close, too personal. It’s like he knows me. I turn my. head, ready to cut through the uneasy beginning to get to the miserable middle if it brings me to the end faster. 

“You’re here to torment me, not make small talk.” Turning had been a mistake. I regret it instantly. His expression is unforgiving--cold, sharp, and made up of only angles. But that’s not why I stare. I did not expect him to be objectively attractive. The fine slope of his nose, the sharpness of his cheekbones, and the ice blue of his eyes. I need to snap out of this mindset. I’m sure his beauty will not be so distracting when he’s burning me. “Though some might consider that the same thing.” 

He scoffs again, the sound dry. The sneer of his lips does not diminish his attractiveness. The fact makes me loathe him. “I wonder if you’ll still be so prone to humor after you’ve been broken--any information of worth extracted from your thoughts.” 

“Let me save everyone the trouble and just tell you everything that I know now.” My back straightens despite the pain in my ribs. I look pathetic, dirty and in a torn dress. He’s regal, dressed in fine, all black clothing. “I know that Mare wanted to kill you today, I know that she needed a distraction and that her distraction needed to be expendable, which is why I’m sitting in front of you.” I squeeze my hands together awkwardly, a bit of genuine irritation rolling in my stomach. “That’s literally all I know, I’m not even part of the Guard.” I scratch the back of my wrist. If I were him, I wouldn’t believe that, but I’m being honest. How pitiful can one person be that they’re worth more disconnected from the group they work for than as an actual member? “You don’t take that kind of risk for someone that’s only skill set is in thought.” 

I didn’t mean to say that out loud, but I don’t regret it. Maybe he’ll think that my story is so pathetic it has to be true. “You have to know more than that.” 

“The Scarlet Guard only reaches out to me on a need-to-know basis, and anything worthwhile to you is something I clearly didn’t need to know.” In a way, I’m glad I can’t give him anything. “So are you going to kill me with a bullet or do you prefer more flamboyant executions?” My death should be plain. I am human completely--I bleed red and I have no powers. “I do think anything more than a simple death is more trouble than I’m worth.” 

His lips press together oddly, something beneath his expression tightening. “You don’t think your dearest friend will return for you?”

The sarcasm in his voice sparks something in me I thought only my sister could. “I think she has a lot of responsibilities and I wouldn’t blame her for having priorities.” 

His eyebrows draw together. “I think you’re painfully unaware of how attached to you she is.” I press my lips into a thin line. “She’ll come for you.”

Something selfish in me hopes that he’s right. No one has ever wanted me enough to come back for me. My mother wanted perfect daughters that knew how to only think in terms of trapping men with stable careers. My sister did it, but I could never manage, and to my mother that made me useless. 

“If you believe it,” I mumble beneath my breath.

I don’t know if he hears me. I can’t bring myself to care if he did. “For your sake, you better not have lied to me.” 

My back relaxes against the raspy wall, fighting down a grimace as the motion irritates my rib injury. “Cross my heart, Your Highness.” 

I watch him carefully, his expression turning into something much more grim. “A King is referred to as His Majesty.” 

“My father was a prominent war general and my mother only wanted daughters she could use to social climb.” I fight down a grin. “I know what I said.” 

His expression darkens into something bone chilling. “I am the King and you’ll refer to me as such or deal with even less pleasant circumstances.” 

I fight against the urge to cower, picturing Mare’s strength in my veins. There’s weakness in everyone, and if I squint I can see the thin cracks in him. “You have everything--the crown, the power, the support of the people, and it’s still not enough. You won and you still feel like you’re competing.” 

“You don’t know anything,” he seethes, practically growling. 

I shouldn’t press him, but the more he reacts, the more weaknesses are revealed. “I know what it’s like to have a sibling that’s the sun, and no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, you’re always trapped in a shadow.” 

The lighting makes his eyes look almost glazed over. “My mother will be here soon and the truth will be revealed.” 

He can run from me, but not the truth. Cal has nothing, he has everything--the father that never cared for him is dead, and yet he’s still trapped. Our similarities hurt me more than my physical injuries. 

Maven turns, his gaze moving off of me feels like the removal of heavy shackles. “It would do you well to not press me. You’re worth as much whole as you are broken.” 

There’s the strangest hint of something more to his voice. I wonder if he’s speaking to more than just me. “You haven’t won until that voice in your head telling you that you’re not enough is silenced.”

“You’re a powerless girl who isn’t even wanted by a dying cause and couldn’t find a husband to drag her above the poverty line. You know nothing about me, and if you keep pretending I’ll slaughter you in front of your dear friend.” 

He leaves without another word. I fall asleep with my back against the wall and my ribs aching. 

[lastxviolet]

Madripoor is for Lovers (Zemo x F!Reader) - Ch. 3

Summary: Y/N is a SWORD agent recruited to help Sam and Bucky track down Karli and the super-soldiers. When Helmut Zemo joins the team, he takes a special interest in her. The friendly union is wrought for disaster, but then things take a turn for the worst when Y/N is taken as collateral. Will Zemo keep her forever? Does she even want to escape? And what happened in Madripoor that made the whole thing so complicated?

Warnings: 18+ / smut / oral sex / f receiving

https://archiveofourown.org/works/32878015/chapters/81589774

The hypnotic bass and Zemo's enthusiastic dance moves almost got you carried away. But over the bouncing crowd, you saw Sharon, Bucky, and Sam on the stairs, looking for you.

“Shit,” you mumbled, breaking the trance. “We gotta go.”

Zemo followed your line of sight and turned to lead you back to the group in silence. You try to hide the disappointment on your face.

“We found him,” Sharon yelled over the music upon your approach.

The five of you went over the plan for tomorrow back in Sharon’s suite. You doubted that even with your experience, you could’ve found Dr. Nagel without Sharon's help. In the states, it was easy to pick a needle out of a haystack, because you always knew what you were looking for. But here, everyone was a criminal. Uncharted territory where you had to find the sharpest needle amongst thousands.

“You good?”

Sam’s voice cut through your thoughts. You looked up and noticed the dissipating group. Sharon showed Bucky to his room, and Zemo sat with his eyes glued to a book on the couch. Only Sam remained standing in front of you, looking like he was about to pass out.

“I’m fine,” you assured him. “Go get some sleep. You look terrible.”

He chuckled and nodded in agreement. “We gotta get the hell out of here. Madripoor has aged me at least ten years.”

“Me too. I miss places where being a criminal makes you the odd one out, not the other way around.”

“Goody two-shoes,” he teased before turning to find his room.

Sharon waved him on from down the hall and they got back into it about her pardon and what she’d missed in the states.

Your attention shifted to the only other person in the room. Zemo’s eyes wasted no time abandoning his book and landing on you as soon as you were alone.

“The Odyssey,” you asked, pointing to his book. “I didn’t take you for someone who enjoys fiction.”

He smiled at the attention and made room for you on the couch.

“I often find that there are elements of truth in every fantasy. The human spirit is sometimes better examined by poets than by professors. This, for instance, is a brilliant study on heroes.”

“Hmm, studying heroes? An attempt to know thy enemy?”

He laughed and turned to you with his elbow up on the back of the couch, bringing him less than a foot away from your face. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw the lights down the hall go out. There were no interruptions, or easy outs, now. All that was left was you, and the only man who’d ever made you truly nervous.

“Y/N, if you were in Odysseus’s place, content and immortal, would you give it up to go back home?”

“You’re asking me if I’d abandon my legacy and family to shack up on an island with some mistress?”

He chuckled and nodded in approval. “Very wise. But what does he gain by leaving? Struggle? Hardship? Mortality?”

You tilted your head to match his. “Are you telling me that you’d stay on the island?”

His expression shifted for the first time since you’d stepped foot in Madripoor. The overconfident, smirking Baron dissolved into a man.

A man who hid the sense of riotousness that he carried with dramatic flair. A man whose charm and wit seemed fabricated.

This man now, fighting off sleepy eyes and grappling with the moral quandary posed, seemed burdened. You wondered if his quest for justice would ever get to be too much. After all the destruction he’d caused, could he still see himself as the exactor of fairness? Were the Avengers still his enemy? Were you?

“No,” he confessed looking down at the copy in his hands.

Your lips twitched but you didn’t smile. “You’d make the hard choice — the hero’s choice if it came down to it.”

He looked almost somber at your words and nodded.

“In another life…perhaps.”

His voice wavered, almost as if he regretted saying it out loud. The briefing that Sam and Bucky had given you about him flashed in your mind.

A hero's choice was the right thing to do; the hard thing to do. You knew that he was a soldier before everything happened. Just like you.

Was that not a hero’s choice?

He tore the Avengers apart in an attempt to stitch up his own heart. An eye for an eye. Avenging his country because its destruction had been glossed over by the world. His loss fueled his anger but he was more capable than most. A man without armor, or mystical abilities was able to wreak havoc on those who had wronged him.

Was that heroism?

If losing those you love didn’t permit revenge, you weren't sure what did.

He broke the silence by tapping his knuckle on the book.

“It is the perfect testament to the valiance of heroes,” he continued. "But, I must say that the wisest thing Odysseus did was marry his wife.”

You laughed and nodded, remembering how she saved the day. Without her, Odysseus’s homecoming would’ve been much more perilous for him.

“I often find that behind every great man is an even better woman.”

He smirked and didn’t miss a beat. “Like you with…your Avengers.”

“I stand beside them,” you corrected.

He raised an eyebrow and waved a hand. “Semantics."

You gave him an eye roll in return.

He smiled then, wider than you had ever seen. It almost made him seem shy. Perhaps it was because he was making a genuine point, masked in humor.

You were well aware of your importance to this mission and yet burdened by the fact that it didn’t make you a member of their special club. When this was all over, you wouldn’t be an Avenger, or anywhere close. You’d go back to S.W.O.R.D to wait until called upon again. It hadn’t occurred to you before, but there was a pang of sadness there where the thought rested. It’d be a mistake to let Zemo know but it seemed to be too late.

“You’re making fun of me.”

His hand brushed yours. “No. I am merely expressing my concerns about your allegiances.”

Still aware of the small amount of alcohol left in your system, you looked away from his quirked moving lips.

“Enlighten me, Baron. What wrong decisions do you think I’m making?”

Frozen in place, you let him brush his fingers along your wrist to your arm. He took his time, tracing patterns on your skin and inspecting his work with an unwavering gaze. Only when his thumb caressed your cheek, and his hand landed on your neck did he look you in the eyes again. The air in your lungs was gone and your body betrayed you with a furious eruption of butterflies.

“Living a hero’s life,” he said somber-eyed and serious.

Your heart rate quickened. As if you’d learned nothing in S.W.O.R.D about manipulation, you were back to watching his lips. They parted slightly, as if he had something else to say but thought better of it.

A hero.

You didn't feel like one.

A sidekick, maybe. But even then, no one knew your name. No one sang your praises at home or breathed a sigh of relief knowing you were out there in the world fighting evil. It seemed that the only one who thought of you as more than an assistant was Zemo.

Your heart felt heavy then. The two of you were impossible. An inconceivable pair brought together by chance.

But that didn’t make his dark eyes any less enticing or his words any less intoxicating.

That didn’t make you any further from his lips.

He was a breath away, but so was your own destruction.

In another life, the island might tempt you.

“Look,” you said glancing past him to find something to change the subject. “It’s a full moon.”

Without sparing him another glance, you crossed the floor in four quick steps to the large windows. Never one to give up easily, you heard him follow close behind.

He beat you there and pushed open the glass door before gesturing towards the balcony in silence.

You looked down at your feet until the skyline drew your eyes. The plan to diffuse the tension had not worked in the slightest. The moonlit balcony overlooking the beautiful city had only made it worse.

You heard him stop a few feet from you and then settle on the lone armchair. The reality of the situation hit you like a train. Away from the windows, you had privacy. This high up no one would see you and everyone else was in bed. You'd meant to creep out of the lion's den but instead, you'd locked yourself in.

“The moon is a friend for the lonesome to talk to,” Zemo mused from behind you.

“Carl Sanburg,” you confirmed, so he knew you didn't think he'd made it up.

Both of you were silent then. Swaying in the tension you'd built. Sanity pulling you back inside, inexplicable hope keeping you planted in place.

“Are you lonely, Baron?”

The words fell from your lips more delicate and intimate than you had meant them to. You let slip that you cared about his answer. That you might even care to cure him of the ailment.

“Me? No.”

You turned and scoffed.

“Liar. You were in a cell for years and you hardly talk to anyone now that you’re out.”

He leaned back in the chair, arms on either rest and a leg crossed with the ankle of his right knee. His demeanor was harmless in the same way that a predator poised to pounce was. Elegant, still, and ready for the kill.

“Not true,” he corrected. “I talk to you.”

“One person isn’t enough,” you said, taking a step closer.

Were you walking into disaster? Or being pulled? You couldn't tell the difference between his seduction and your own reckless desires any longer.

“The right person though…can be,” he half-whispered. “And you, Y/N, are more than I deserve.”

He gazed up at you from the chair. Kings throughout history, in war-won golden thrones and elegant capes, paled in comparisons to how regal he looked. Anointed with a crown of moonlight, ruling over whomever he pleased.

Your eyes widened with the admission. “Baron — ”

“Helmut, please.” He stood then and met you near the railing, his hand grazing your hip. “Only if for tonight.”

You shook your head, knowing this was a bad idea. His hand made its way to your waist regardless. He pulled you against his chest before searching your eyes for any signal that you were going to run. You knew he’d find nothing. You knew you mirrored his look of lust with blown pupils and flushed cheeks.

“Have I gone too far,” he whispered, bringing his other hand to brush loose hair behind your ear.

“No,” you sighed, letting him pull you closer and brush his lips to your cheek and jaw.

“Tell me if I do,” he whispered again before finally capturing your lips with his.

You uttered no complaints as his tentative kiss turned bruising and possessive. His arms wound around your waist, crushing you into him. But you needed to feel closer. He grunted as you sprung to action, flinging your arms around his neck, deepening the desperate kiss. He tasted like whiskey and something sweet. A cool breeze brushed against the exposed parts of your body. You let your hands wander beneath his coat, chasing warmth and proximity. He let you do as you please, only insisting that his lips stayed on yours.

You let out a whimper as his hand explored the front of your dress. He stopped to press his warm hand against your breast, before holding your face.

It was then that he pulled away, steadying your searching lips with a grip on your chin.

“Ich esse nicht,” he sighed, kissing a pattern to your ear. “Ich schlafe nicht, ich tue nichts anderes, als an dich zu denken.”

His teeth grazed your pulse point, leaving you gasping for air.

“I don’t speak German,” you managed to stutter out.

A hand slid up the back of your dress, gripping the zipper before undoing it in one swift motion and the fabric fell to the floor. The cool air seized your naked torso for only a moment before Zemo pressed himself against you again. The coat you’d complained about before, now provided warmth and security. You tipped your head back, almost over the edge of the balcony as he continued worshipping your neck and chest.

“I don’t eat, I don’t sleep,” he said between wet open-mouthed kisses on your breasts. His hot mouth left purple spots that cooled instantly in the chilly night air.

“I do nothing but think of you,” he finished before toying with your hardened nipple between his teeth.

You moaned then, louder than you should’ve, and let your eyes flutter open. The world was upside-down but you made no motion to move. You were making Madripoor proud by being pressed up against a balcony by an international criminal.

Utterly pleased with himself, Zemo raised his face back towards yours, leaning you both over the edge.

“Shhh liebling,” he cooed.

He pulled you back over, kissing your shoulder before removing his jacket and draping it over you. Each brush of his lips feeling more improper than the last.

“We would not want your friends to see you like this.”

In the next second, he swept you off of your feet and hoisted you into his strong arms. You watched the world sway around you and then settle when he placed you on the lounge chair, letting you get some warmth back from the coat and cushions.

He draped one of your legs over an armrest, exposing you to him except for a thin pair of underwear.

“Not with you spread open for me,” he growled. He towered over you for only a moment before kneeling between your legs. The man whose stature made him the tallest amongst giants; the most important in any room he chose, knelt before you.

“What would they say,” he mumbled in a trace. His hands gripped both of your thighs, causing an eruption of goosebumps across your whole body. “If they saw you like this, with me?”

He looked up at you then, raising an eyebrow, and tracing the inside of your thigh with his thumb.

You answered him breathlessly. “They’d tell you to stop.”

“And what would you say to that?”

His voice sent shockwaves through your system. Dark and sultry, with a hint of danger. You threw your head back again, barely able to keep a single thought straight. Your body shuddered but you couldn’t tell if it was from the cold or the need for his touch. When you looked back to him, he was surveying your body with the hunger of a starved wolf.

“Would you want me to stop?” His voice was gentle and sweet then, asking in earnest.

“Meine Liebe," he taunted you for consent as he flashed a smirk and pulled something from his pocket.

Cold metal grazed your thigh. A moan escaped your throat as he unsheathed a serrated knife and caressed your skin with the dull side.

“I wouldn’t want you to stop,” you gasped, almost vibrating with anticipation. “I don’t want you to stop — Helmut — please don’t stop.”

He chucked again, before focusing his attention on the area between your legs. You bucked slightly as the icy knife slid underneath the fabric. He made one strong slash upwards and you felt the fabric fall away from your wet core. One of his hands gripped your ass, but only for a second before he tore the rest of the fabric from your body.

“How could I ever withhold something from you, liebling?” His nose grazed your inner thigh, inching closer and closer to where you needed him most. It was only a moment before you felt his breath between your legs.

“How cruel it would be,” he growled. You moaned and slapped a hand over your mouth as he kissed your sensitive bundle of nerves. “To not give you everything.”

His tongue swirled against you in a tantalizing pattern, stroking you deliciously. He licked you methodically like he was reading the blueprint of your body right then and there. He held each thigh in a punishing grip, pressing you deeper into the cushions as he made a meal of you. The stars above your head blurred and the universe shifted.

If this was your destruction then it was illustrious. You'd do it over and over again until you landed in a cell right next to him.

“Helmut,” you whined with a heaving chest.

“Tell me what you want,” he mumbled between flicks of his tongue. “And it is yours.”

You would’ve begged him to let you cum but he beat you to it, making your back arch and mouth fall open in ecstasy. You trembled beneath him, over and over, but he didn’t let up. Your legs strained from being extended by his unflinching hands. You tried to stutter something out to him but no sound came except for content sighs and haphazard gasps. But his eyes remained closed regardless of the noise.

Without his mouth on you, he would’ve been mistakable for a good Christian, deep in prayer. Brow's furrowed in focus and devotion; lips moving in silent divine appeals. Only he could make you feel worthy of an alter. You couldn't picture anyone ever worshipping you in the same way again. It was his, you thought. I am his.

Lost in pleasure and shock, you reached up to run your nails against his scalp. Only then did he release you, and raise to meet your waiting lips as they trembled.

“You,” was all you could manage to whisper. “Only you.”

He pulled you from the seat, to wrap your legs around him. You brought your forehead to his and let him pepper you with chaste kisses.

“When I have you,” he said, before pulling the coat around you again. “It will be in a proper bed.”

You stared at him, confused and overwhelmed. The space between your legs ached with a longing to be filled but he let your legs fall away, and stood up.

“We can’t…I mean not now — they’ll hear.”

Zemo smiled and nodded while looking for something on the ground. After a moment of searching, he picked up the torn pieces of the red underwear you had been wearing. Before you could retrieve it, he pocketed the shorn fabric and stared you straight in the eyes.

“Worry not, Y/N,” he purred, reaching a hand out to help you up. “We have all the time in the world.”

[masterthespianduchovny]

What fascinating about people who claim the anti Sam/Rebecca crowd are infantilizing Sam, with the implication of being racism being a driving factor, is that the aging up of Sam could also equally be argued as racist. But many lack the self awareness to see that or to account for this when lobbing out this defense and implied accusation.

More often than not, young boys and young black men are aged up to prove they knew what they are doing and are hardened criminals. They are seen as adults compared to their white counterparts even when they are legally minors and the white people are adults.

This perception of black boys and men are one of the cornerstones behind the “prison to pipeline” theory. When we refuse to see black boys and men as their age, we do them a massive disservice.

Now, this comes into play with Sam because this logic is being used for the pro Rebecca and sam defense. Sam’s consent and willingness is such a low bar to clear because many young men are interested in older women whether or not it’s to date or fuck them. This consent and willingness has nothing to do with ethics, it’s simply about legality. I’d also assert that the comparison to ted is disingenuous because it’s reactionary and not thoughtful. It pretends that these are two like things when they aren’t.

When we bring maturity into the discussion, it’s not a one size fits all type of thing either. Maturity is such a blanket term and does black children and young black adults disservice because it robs them of youth. Since they’re mature, they should know better or not act like other people their age. And it’s because in a sense, they are seen as older than they are as mentioned.

Stressing how mature Sam is and constantly accusing others of infantilizing him not only ages up Sam, but seeks to silence valid criticism about the red flags and inappropriateness surrounding this relationship.

Someone being consenting and willing isn’t enough when assessing the various power dynamics. That’s a start, not the end all be all when you see such a disparity between two people. I’d assert that due to such a large age gap and the added power imbalance, it’s even more crucial even more discerning regarding such a relationship.

There is nothing wrong with looking out and trying to protect a young black man, esp when society either demonizes them or leave them to their own devices. When such a relationship has the likelihood of blowing up in his face and him dealing with major repercussions as a result, regardless of consent.

And, although this isn’t on the same scale, it reminds me of Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton. She was 21 when they had an affair, he was her boss, and it was fully consensual. However, when the news broke, who was dragged through the mud? Who was used as punchline? Who was attacked and stated to have known better?

Monica.

Where as bill’s presidential legacy is largely intact.

As a kid, I thought Monica was so grown. I couldn’t believe she did that.

Even before I turned 21 years ago, I was like, “she was young as fuck.”

She has to deal with harassment, bullying, and death threats. But she consented and was willing, riiiiiight?

Despite admitting it was consensual even to this day, which I’m not disputing, even Monica says the relationship shouldn’t have happened with one of the reasons being her age. And it’s truly fucked up what America put her through to the point she can barely keep a job, resorted to plastic surgery to hide her identity, among other shit. She has to develop a good humor about it because what else are her other options?

When we age up young adults, we don’t prepare them for if shit goes south. We pretend just because they have a certain level of maturity, that they have the knowledge, foresight, and skills to deal with a situation that turned into a shit show.

That is deeply unfair to them. Respecting a young adult’s adulthood doesn’t mean throwing them in the deep end, it means respecting where they are at and understanding the gaps in their knowledge and experience.

Christ, this doesn’t even touch how black kids are believed to be sexually mature at super young ages like 9-10. It’s not because they are, of course; but society projects these beliefs on them and treats them as teens in their later years or younger adults.

With the constant framing of Sam’s maturity and stressing that he consented, one could argue the same is happening here.

Once we get past the low bar of consent and willingness, what’s the worse case scenario of this relationship? The fact that Rebecca doesn’t even have to intentionally seek to harm Sam in order for him to be harmed in this situation should be enough to give everyone pause.

But alas, no matter what the critics say, its alway going to be called infantilization with subtle accusations of racism because these defenses lack nuance or are performative. Undoubtedly, racism exists in fandoms, however, our efforts to combat racism shouldn’t overlook the problematic nature and troubling implications of this relationship being criticized.

Although our first instinct is to protest black characters (and POC), our analyzation of what’s happening shouldn’t end there. We shouldn’t be advocating for something that is most likely detrimental to a black character to spite fans.

And considering the down spiral Rebecca is likely going through, we should want more for Sam than for him to be caught up in that shit.

[rapeculturerealities]

MARTY GODDARD’S FIRST FLASH OF INSIGHT CAME IN 1972. It all started when she marched into a shabby townhouse on Halsted Street in Chicago to volunteer at a crisis hotline for teenagers.

Most of the other volunteers were hippies with scraggly manes and love beads. But not Marty Goddard. She tended to wear business clothes: a jacket with a modest skirt, pantyhose, low heels. She hid her eyes behind owlish glasses and kept her blond hair short. Not much makeup; maybe a plum lip. She was 31, divorced, with a mordant sense of humor. Her name was Martha, but everyone called her Marty. She liked hiding behind a man’s name. It was useful.

As a volunteer, Ms. Goddard lent a sympathetic ear to the troubled kids then called “runaway teenagers.” They were pregnant, homeless, suicidal, strung out. She was surprised to discover that many weren’t rebels who’d left home seeking adventure; they were victims who had fled sexual abuse. The phones were ringing with the news that kids didn’t feel safe around their own families. “I was just beside myself when I found the extent of the problem,” she later said.

She began to formulate questions that almost no one was asking back in the early ’70s: Why were so many predators getting away with it? And what would it take to stop them?

Ms. Goddard would go on to lead a campaign to treat sexual assault as a crime that could be investigated, rather than as a feminine delusion. She began a revolution in forensics by envisioning the first standardized rape kit, containing items like swabs and combs to gather evidence, and envelopes to seal it in. The kit is one of the most powerful tools ever invented to bring criminals to justice. And yet, you’ve never heard of Marty Goddard. In many ways she and her invention shared the same fate. They were enormously important and consistently overlooked.

I was infuriated when I read a few years ago about the hundreds of thousands of unexamined rape kits piled up in warehouses around the country. I had the same question that many did: How many rapists were walking free because this evidence had gone ignored?

Take for example, the case of Nathan Ford, who sexually assaulted a woman in 1995. Although a rape kit was submitted to the police, it went untested for 17 years.

During that time, he went on to assault 21 other people, before being convicted in 2006.

And I had another question: How could a tool as potentially powerful as the rape kit have come into existence in the first place? For nearly two decades, I’d been reporting on inventors, breakthroughs and the ways that new technologies can bring about social change. It seemed to me that the rape-kit system was an invention like no other. Can you think of any other technology designed to hold men accountable for brutalizing women?

As soon as I began to investigate the rape kit’s origins, however, I stumbled across a mystery. Most sources credited a Chicago police sergeant, Louis Vitullo, with developing the kit in the 1970s. But a few described the invention as a collaboration between Mr. Vitullo and an activist, Martha Goddard. Where was the truth? As so often happens in stories about rape, I found myself wondering whom to believe.

Mr. Vitullo died in 2006. Ms. Goddard, as far as I could tell, must still be alive — I couldn’t find any obituaries or gravestones that matched her name. An interview in 2003 placed her in Phoenix, and so I collected phone listings for Martha Goddard in Arizona and called them one after another. All those numbers had been disconnected.

Little did I know that I would have to hunt for six months before I finally solved the mystery. I would learn she had transformed the criminal-justice system, though her role has never been fully acknowledged. And I would also discover that Louis Vitullo — far from being the inventor of the rape kit — may have taken credit for Ms. Goddard’s genius and insisted that his name be put on the equipment.

I pieced together dozens of obscure marriage and death notices to try to find her family members; read through hundreds of newspaper articles to establish the timeline of events; and even hired a researcher to dig through an archive of Chicago police department files from the ’70s. Finally, I managed to speak to eight people who knew or worked with her. From these sources, and two oral-history tapes in which she told her life story, I cobbled together what happened.

Back in that Chicago crisis center, Marty Goddard encouraged teenagers to confide in her, and she began to realize just how many of them had been molested.

At the time, most people believed that sexual abuse of children was rare. One psychiatric textbook from the 1970s estimated that incest occurred in only about one in every million families, and claimed that it was often the fault of girls who initiated sex with their fathers. Meantime, it was still legal in every state in America for a husband to rape his wife. Sexual violence that happened within a family was not considered rape at all. A real rape was a “street rape.” It happened to women stupid enough to be in the wrong places at the wrong times.

In Chicago, rape seemed like some sort of natural disaster, no different from the arctic winds that could kill you if you wandered out in the winter without a coat. “Chicago was not a city you wanted to venture out into after dark,” wrote the activist Naomi Weisstein. “Rape was epidemic.” In 1973, an estimated 16,000 people were sexually assaulted in and around Chicago. Only a tenth of those attacks were reported to the police and fewer than a tenth of those cases went to trial; an infinitesimal fraction of perpetrators ended up in prison.

It was a time — much like our own — when millions of people felt that the police had failed them. Chicago was still reeling from the 1969 killing by the cops of Fred Hampton, the chairman of the Illinois Black Panther Party, while he’d been sleeping in his own bed. The Chicago Police Department was notorious as a brutal, occupying force in black neighborhoods. Citizens’ groups were demanding review boards to reform officers’ behavior.

Amid all that, Ms. Goddard began asking questions that might seem so obvious to us today, but were radical in her own time: What if sexual assault could be investigated? What if you could prove it? What if, instead of a “she said” story, you could persuade a jury with scientific evidence?

A lot of men didn’t like her style. But Ray Wieboldt Jr., heir to a Chicago department-store fortune, did, and in 1972 she was hired as an executive at the Wieboldt Foundation, a charitable family fund that rained down money on progressive causes.

The Wieboldt name became her secret weapon. “I could say, ‘I’m Marty Goddard from the Wieboldt Foundation’ and people would just let me in their doors,” she recounted. And so she Wieboldt-ed her way in to meet with hospital managers and victims’ groups and began asking her relentless questions about rape.

Crime labs did not yet have the ability to test DNA; the first use of DNA forensics would not come until 1986, when British investigators used the technology to hunt down a murderer who raped his victims. But they could analyze pieces of glass, fingerprints, splatter patterns, firearms and fibers. Police investigators could find biological clues to help establish the identity of a suspect by, for instance, comparing blood types.

Ms. Goddard wanted to figure out why — even with all this evidence — no one seemed able to prove that a sexual assault had occurred. She learned that victims usually ended up in a hospital after an assault. The cops might dump a shivering, weeping woman in the emergency room and yell out, “We got a rape for you.” As they cared for the victim, the nurses might wash her off or throw away her bloody dress, inadvertently destroying evidence.

The cops didn’t seem to care. Instead, they would isolate the victim in a room and lob questions at her to try to determine whether she was lying. A Chicago police training manual from 1973 declared, “Many rape complaints are not legitimate,” and added, “It is unfortunate that many women will claim they have been raped in order to get revenge against an unfaithful lover or boyfriend with a roving eye.” Officers would routinely ask women what they’d been wearing, whether they’d provoked the attack by acting in a seductive manner, and whether they had enjoyed the sex. “An actual rape victim will generally give the impression of a person who has been dishonored,” according to the manual.

In the early days of forensic science, the 19th century, rape exams sought primarily to test the virtue of women. A doctor would be called in to examine a woman’s vagina and then report on her motives. Was she a trollop, a harlot, or a pure-hearted innocent who spoke the truth?

In 1868, a British publication, Reynolds’s Newspaper, reported on one such exam. The surgeon “gave such evidence as left no doubt that the prosecutrix could not have been so innocent as she had represented herself to be.” The magistrate “said no jury would convict on such evidence, and he should discharge the prisoner.”

In other words, sexual-assault forensics began as a system for men to decide what they felt about the victim — whether she deserved to be considered a “victim” at all. It had little to do with identifying a perpetrator or establishing what had actually happened.

Even in the 1970s, the forensic examination remained a formality, a kind of kabuki theater of scientific justice. The police officers wielded absolute power in the situation; they told the story; they assigned blame. And they didn’t want to give up that power.

Ms. Goddard’s insight was that the only fix for this dysfunctional system would be incontrovertible scientific proof, the same kind used in a robbery or attempted murder. The victim’s story should be supported with evidence from the crime lab to build a case that would convince juries. To get that evidence, she needed a device that would encourage the hospital staff members, the detectives and the lab technicians to collaborate with the victim. On the most basic level, Ms. Goddard realized, she had to find a mechanism that would protect the evidence from a system that was designed to destroy it.

EVEN AFTER MONTHS of searching for Marty Goddard, I hadn’t been able to find her, or even figure out the names of her family members. But I did manage to track down Cynthia Gehrie, an activist who’d been swept up in Ms. Goddard’s crusade.

The two women met at a gathering for anti-rape activists in 1973 and soon they were strategizing over lunches and dinners, notebooks by their plates. At the time, Ms. Gehrie worked a day job at the A.C.L.U.; she was so impressed by Ms. Goddard that she volunteered to be her sidekick as they figured out how to force men in power to reckon with the rape epidemic.

Their timing was excellent, because 1974 was the year that everything flipped in Chicago. Women who had once been ashamed were now speaking out.

In October, a delegation of suburban women gathered before the members of the Illinois General Assembly. One described how she’d tried to fend off a sexual attacker with a fireplace poker. After the assault, she had carefully saved the bent poker and handed this piece of evidence to police detectives. Then, she recounted through tears, the police returned the poker to her straightened out. The idiots thought she had wanted them to fix it.

A mother stood before the committee and said that her little girl had been molested on her way to kindergarten. The police were already familiar with the attacker, a pedophile who had infected at least one child with venereal disease. And yet he was roaming free.

A nurse at the meeting explained how medical staff handled rape cases — and in the middle of her testimony, announced, “I am a rape victim myself.”

A few days later, about 70 women from a group called Chicago Legal Action for Women, CLAW for short, flooded into the office of State’s Attorney Bernard Carey, and plastered the walls with messages like “Wanted: Bernard Carey for Aiding and Abetting Rapists.”

The rape problem had suddenly become Mr. Carey’s problem, and he desperately needed to look as if he had an answer.

A movement was beginning — an awakening, like #MeToo. The fact that many of these activists were well-off white women forced politicians to pay attention. Black women in Chicago's poorest neighborhoods were most at risk of sexual violence, but their stories rarely made it into the newspapers, and rape was all too often portrayed as an affliction of the suburbs. Throughout her career, Ms. Goddard would wrestle with this disparity and try to overcome it. In 1982 she told an Illinois state legislative committee that “the lack of services on the South and West Sides of Chicago where a majority of our black victims reside” was “totally disgraceful.”

Now, though, in the early 1970s, she had just one obsession. She was determined to convince Bernard Carey that the problem could be solved, if he only had the will to do it. One day she showed up unannounced at his office and to her surprise, he welcomed her in. “I don’t know what the answer is,” he told her. But he had a new plan: He was going to let women like Ms. Goddard help figure out the rape problem for themselves. He appointed her and Ms. Gehrie to a citizens’ advisory panel on rape. Their mission: to investigate the failures in policing and suggest sweeping reforms.

Marty Goddard finally had what she wanted: permission to get inside the police departments.

With her new investigative powers, she headed to the Chicago crime lab building to ask police officers what was going wrong. Years later, she described what she had learned there in the oral history tapes. The cops blamed hospital workers, saying: “We don’t get hair. We don’t get fingernail scrapings.” The slides weren’t labeled, and they’d been “rubber-banded” together so that they contaminated one another. “So there goes that. It’s worthless,” the detectives told her.

The problem, she realized, was that no one had bothered to tell the nurses and doctors how to collect evidence properly.

What if hospitals could be stocked with easy-to-use forensic tools that would encourage medics, detectives and lab technicians to collaborate instead of pointing fingers? Gradually, these concepts solidified into an object: a kit stocked with swabs, vials and instructions.

Somewhere along the way, Ms. Goddard had befriended Rudy Nimocks, an African-American police officer who had handled incest cases and been horrified by what he’d seen. Ms. Goddard and Ms. Gehrie described Mr. Nimocks as a mentor. (He would be in his 90s now; I made multiple attempts to reach him without success.) According to several sources, Mr. Nimocks warned Ms. Goddard to proceed carefully. He told her that she should take care not to challenge the men in the crime lab directly. And he said that she’d need Sgt. Louis Vitullo, the head of the microscope unit, on her side.

Sergeant Vitullo was a scruffy cop-scientist, with a lab coat pulled hastily over his rumpled shirt and the pale, haunted look of a man who spent hours peering at murder weapons.

One day, Ms. Goddard found Sergeant Vitullo at his desk, introduced herself, and presented him with a written description of the rape-kit system. She must have been blindsided by what happened next.

“He screamed at her,” according to Ms. Gehrie. “He told her she had no business getting involved with this and that what she was talking about was crazy. She was wasting his time. He didn’t want to hear about this anymore.” Ms. Gerhie said Ms. Goddard called her minutes later to vent about being thrown out of Sergeant Vitullo’s office.

“Well, that didn’t go so well!” Ms. Goddard said wryly.

As far as Ms. Goddard knew at that moment, the rape-kit idea had just been killed off.

INVENTION, ARCHITECTURE, DESIGN — these are not just technical feats. They are political acts. The inventor offers us a magical new ability that can be wonderful or terrifying: to halt disease, to map the ocean floor, to replace a human worker with a machine, or to kill enemies more efficiently. And those magical abilities create winners and losers. The Harvard professor Sheila Jasanoff has observed that technology “rules us much as laws do.”

When it comes to sexual assault, there are many inventions I can think of that help men get away with it — from the date-rape drug to “stalkerware” software. More striking is how few inventions, how little technology and design, has been devoted to keeping women safe.

Think about our public spaces, and how much they reinforce the power of men. If you grew up as a girl, you were taught to map out potential sexual attacks when you walked through any city. A hidden doorway, an empty subway platform, a pedestrian bridge with high walls — such places pulse with threat.

In my high-school driving class, the instructor lectured us about the dangers that lurked in empty parking lots. “Ladies, you don’t want to be fumbling in your purse if someone jumps out of the bushes,” he said, and suggested that we hold the car keys in one hand as we hurried to the car. Even as a teenager, I remember thinking how crazy this sounded. If there were rapists lurking everywhere, couldn’t the grownups do something about that?

I learned that the streets did not belong to me. Nor did the stairwells or the empty laundry rooms at midnight. I still remember the sense of defeat my first week as a college student on a pastoral Connecticut campus in the 1980s. I’d been aching to explore its tantalizing forests and hidden ponds. But then the freshman girls were herded into a lecture hall, and the head of public safety told us that if we wanted to walk from one building to another at night, we should first call the escort service that squired females around and protected them from rape.

“No way!” I thought.

And yet, at that time I was struggling to understand — and forgive myself for — having been molested as a small child. And though I never did use the campus escort service, I also never felt that the campus was mine.

But this is not how it has to be. It’s entirely possible to create public spaces and tools for everyone. Our environment and technology can foster a sense of equality and pluralism.

At the same time that Marty Goddard was trying to reinvent forensic technology, the disabled community was radically transforming the design of cities by pushing to make streets and buildings wheelchair-accessible. A wheelchair ramp does more than just allow someone to roll into a building; it also sends out a message that the people in those wheelchairs are important and worthy of dignity. This is the power of invention.

You can see why the idea of a rape kit might have been offensive to Sergeant Vitullo and other police officers. Like many of the great technological ideas, this one blasted through the assumptions of the day: that nurses were too stupid to collect forensic evidence; that women who “cried rape” were usually lying; and that evidence didn’t really matter when it came to rape, because rape was impossible to prove.

Now here was this proposal for a cardboard box packed with tools that would allow anyone to perform police work.

Despite his original reaction, Sergeant Vitullo mulled over Ms. Goddard’s idea. He must have found it intriguing. He studied the plans she’d shown him. And he began to see the sense in it all.

One day, Ms. Gehrie told me, Sergeant Vitullo called up Ms. Goddard and said, “I’ve got something to show you.” When Ms. Goddard arrived in his office, Ms. Gehrie recalled, “he handed her a full model of the kit with all the items enclosed.” Sergeant Vitullo had assembled a prototype for the rape kit and added a few flourishes of his own. And now, apparently, he regarded himself as its inventor.

Another friend of Ms. Goddard’s confirmed this story. Mary Sladek Dreiser, who met Ms. Goddard in 1980, told me that Ms. Goddard always praised Sergeant Vitullo in public. But in private, she described him as a petty tyrant who would “only go along with the kit if it were named after him.”

The rape-kit idea was presented to the public as a collaboration between the state attorney’s office and the police department, with men running both sides...

..and little credit given to the women who had pushed for reform. Ms. Goddard agreed to this, Ms. Gehrie said, because she saw that it was the only way to make the rape kit happen

In the mid-1970s, while still at the Wieboldt Foundation, Ms. Goddard began working nights and weekends to found a nonprofit group called the Citizens Committee for Victim Assistance. The group filed a trademark for the Vitullo Evidence Collection Kit in 1978, ensuring that her creation would be branded with a man’s name. For years afterward, the newspapers called the rape kit the “Vitullo kit.” When he died in 2006, an obituary headline celebrated him as the “Man Who Invented the Rape Kit.” His wife, Betty, quoted in the obituary, said that her husband was “proud” of the rape kit “but he didn’t get any royalties for it.” The obituary hailed Mr. Vitullo as a pioneer in a new form of evidence collection that transformed the criminal-justice system. There was no mention of Ms. Goddard.

Even if her name wasn’t on it, Ms. Goddard finally had permission to start a citywide rape-kit system. What she didn’t have was any money to create the kits, distribute them, or train nurses to use them. She had to raise all those funds through her nonprofit group, which represented survivors of sex crimes.

This seems strange. After all, state governments covered the cost of running homicide evidence through the crime lab, so why should sexual assault be any different?

And yet it was. And it still is.

Money problems have always haunted the rape-kit system. Testing a rape kit is expensive; today it costs $1,000 to $1,500. Except in the highest-profile cases, police departments have often pleaded underfunding, and let the kits pile up. That’s why victims themselves have had to bankroll crime labs. In the past decade, groups like the Joyful Heart Foundation have helped raise millions of dollars to test rape kits. The money sometimes comes from bake sales, Etsy crafts and feminist comedy nights.

Fundraising was even harder in the 1970s, however, when most foundations wouldn’t give money to a project with “rape” or “sex” in its title. And so Ms. Goddard had to resort to finding money wherever she could. This is where Hugh Hefner enters the story.

Chicago was built on soft-core porn, and Mr. Hefner was one of the city’s most prominent moguls. Men in suits sidled into his clubhouses for three-martini lunches, celebrities swanned into his mansion for glittering fund-raisers, and a blazing “Playboy” sign scalded the downtown skyline.

Mr. Hefner regarded the women’s liberation movement as a sister cause to his own effort to free men from shame and guilt. And so his philanthropic Playboy Foundation showered money on feminist causes. In the early 1970s, for example, the Playboy fortune provided the seed money for the A.C.L.U. Women’s Rights Project, which was co-founded by a little-known lawyer named Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

In the mid-1970s, Ms. Goddard applied to Playboy for a $10,000 grant (the equivalent of about $50,000 today) to start a rape-kit system. And she got it.

Her collaboration with the Playboy Foundation turned out to be a surprisingly ideal one, in large part because Ms. Goddard had a friend on the inside: Margaret Pokorny (then known as Margaret Standish). Ms. Pokorny brainstormed all kinds of ways to support the project that went beyond the big check. For instance, she recruited Playboy’s graphics designers to create the packaging for the kit. And when Ms. Goddard needed volunteers to assemble the kits, Ms. Pokorny came up with a creative solution: old ladies.

“I’ve got this great idea, Marty,” Ms. Goddard recalled Ms. Pokorny saying. “Everybody just loves the Playboy bunny and these older women, they want something to do.” So one day a horde of them showed up in the Playboy offices, swilling free coffee as they assembled sexual-assault evidence kits.

In 1978, Marty Goddard delivered the first standardized rape kit to around 25 hospitals in the Chicago area for use in a pilot program she had designed — “the first program of its type in the nation,” according to a newspaper article.

The kits cost $2.50 each and contained test tubes, slides and packaging materials to protect the specimens from mixing; a comb for collecting hair and fiber; sterile nail clippers; and a bag for the victim’s clothing. There was a card for the victim, giving her information about where to seek counseling and further medical services.

The New York Times, which described the initiative as a collaboration between Mr. Vitullo and Ms. Goddard, said that the “innocuous looking” box “could be a powerful new weapon in the conviction of rapists.” The Times noted that one of the most important features of the system was deceptively low-tech: “Forms for the doctor and the police officers involved are included, as are sealing tape and a pencil for writing on the slides. Anyone who handles the box must put his or her signature on printed spaces on the kit’s cover.” There would be a paper trail that showed how the evidence had traveled from the victim’s body to the crime lab.

By the end of 1979, nearly 3,000 kits had been turned over to crime labs. One of them had been submitted by a bus driver who’d been abducted and raped by 28-year-old William Johnson. He was sentenced to 60 years in prison, and the Vitullo Evidence Kit was credited with winning the day in court.

By now, Ms. Goddard’s friend Rudy Nimocks had been promoted to head the sex homicide department. He told The Chicago Tribune that the new system had improved evidence collection. But perhaps more important, the kit worked magic in the courtroom. “In addition to the kits being very practical,” he said, “we find that it impresses the jurors when you have a uniform set of criteria in the collection of evidence.”

In other words, the rape kit, with its official blue-and-white packaging and its stamps and seals, functioned as a theatrical prop as well as a scientific tool. The woman in the witness box, weeping as she recounted how her husband tried to kill her, could sound to a judge and jury like a greedy little opportunist. But then a crime-lab technician would take the stand and show them the ripped dress, the semen stains, the blood. When a scientist in a lab coat affirmed the story, it seemed true.

Ms. Goddard had invented not just the kit, but a new way of thinking about prosecuting rape. Now, when a victim testified, she no longer did so alone. Doctors, nurses and forensic scientists backed up her version of the events — and the kit itself became a character in the trials. It, too, became a witness.

That’s another reason Ms. Goddard may have been willing to trademark her idea under Sergeant Vitullo’s name. It was as if in order to invent, she also had to disappear. The rape kit simply never would have had traction if a woman with no scientific credentials had been known as its sole inventor. It had to come from a man.

The word “technology” is part of the problem. It’s a synonym for “stuff that men do.” As the historian Autumn Stanley pointed out, a revised history of technology taking into account women’s contributions would include all sorts of “unimportant” inventions like baby cribs, menstrual pads and food preservation techniques. Sometimes the only way that women could navigate this world was to let a white man in a lab coat become the face of their radical ideas, while they themselves shrank into the background.

During World War II, for instance, a team of six “girls” figured out how to operate the world’s first all-purpose electronic digital computer, called the ENIAC. In 1946, one of them, Betty Holberton, stayed up half the night to ensure that the computer would ace its debut in front of the newspaper cameras. And yet she and the others were treated like switchboard operators, mere helpers to the male engineers. Ms. Holberton went on to invent and design many of the essential tools of computing during the 1950s and ’60s almost invisibly, while her male colleagues were celebrated as geniuses of the age.

Ms. Goddard, certainly, had mastered the art of vanishing. Her friends and collaborators from the 1970s had lost touch with her, and were just as flummoxed by her disappearance as I was. But they remembered her in vivid, disconnected flashes. I often felt that I was spying on her through keyholes into other people’s minds.

“She made miniature rooms,” Margaret Pokorny said, describing how Ms. Goddard spent hours with tweezers and tiny brushes constructing fairy-tale interiors inside of boxes. The rooms were scattered all around Ms. Goddard’s apartment, as if a dollhouse had been dissected.

From Cynthia Gehrie, I learned why Ms. Goddard might have been so driven to escape into Lilliputian fantasies. Ms. Gehrie told me that in the late 1970s, her friend had flown to a resort in Hawaii for a vacation and returned to Chicago a different, and broken, person. “I was raped,” Ms. Goddard had told Ms. Gehrie, pouring out a harrowing account of how a man had abducted her.

“He drove her to a remote location,” Ms. Gehrie said. “He taunted her with the knife. She told him she would do whatever he wanted. Finally, he drove her back to the resort. She was astonished when he let her go.” Ms. Gehrie can’t remember whether Ms. Goddard reported the rape to the police, but she’s always wondered if her friend’s prominence as a victims-rights advocate had made her a target. The attacker had won her trust, Ms. Goddard said, by pretending to be a supporter of her cause.

In one obscure interview I found, Ms. Goddard herself mentioned that rape and the scars it left on her body. And, she said, the attacker had infected her with herpes.

I was heartbroken for her, and more determined to find her than ever. By now she had become “Marty” to me — I could think of her only as a friend. I surmised, from the string of addresses she’d left behind, that she had been spiraling into poverty. She would have been 79. Was anyone caring for her? I felt less and less like a journalist chasing down a story. What I really wanted was to save Marty Goddard before it was too late.

Through the 1980s, Ms. Goddard kept fighting for the rape-kit system despite her growing exhaustion. It was “one incident by one incident by one incident,” she said later. “Imagine how many years it took us to go from state’s attorney to state’s attorney to cop to detective to deputy to doctor to pediatrician to nurse to nurse practitioner” and train each person who interacted with the victim and the rape kit. “I felt I had to save the world, and I was going to start with Chicago and move to Cook County and move to the rest of the state. And there was something in the back of my mind that said, ‘Gee, maybe the circumstances will be such that at some time I can go beyond the borders of Illinois.’”

She was right. In 1982, New York City adopted Ms. Goddard’s system because “its effectiveness was demonstrated in Chicago,” according to The New York Times. Within a few years, the city had amassed thousands of sealed kits containing evidence, and the system was putting rapists in prison.

Ms. Goddard had envisioned a kind of internet of forensics at a time when the internet itself was in its infancy. The idea was to standardize practices in crime labs everywhere and encourage police departments to share data to catch perpetrators who might cross county and state lines. And she had personal reasons for grinding away at the problem, for making it her obsessive mission. The man who had brutalized her in Hawaii still walked free. She knew this because she’d seen him, she told a friend at the time.

She had been walking to the attorney general’s office in downtown Chicago when her attacker materialized out of the crowd and locked eyes with her. It must have been a waking nightmare. Had he been stalking her? Had it been a chance encounter?

I don’t know. She was under an extraordinary amount of stress; maybe she was mistaken. I am working from fragments — from bits and pieces of her friends’ memories. What I do know is that Ms. Goddard began to drink; that she depended now on cheap sherry to dull the pain. She was dragging herself from city to city, evangelizing for the rape kit, sleeping in dive motels, giving everything she had until there was nothing left.

In 1984, the F.B.I. held a conference at its training center in Quantico, Va. Expert criminologists flew in to discuss a new system that would detect the serial killers and rapists operating across state lines. But to the dismay of Ms. Goddard, who attended the conference, the country’s top lawmen demonstrated little empathy for victims.

“So, this one man gets up,” a professor known as an expert in sex crimes, Ms. Goddard remembered later. The professor flashed slides on the screen, a twisted parade of naked female corpses. He made little effort to protect the identities of the dead women. Ms. Goddard was horrified at the way he “couldn’t wait to show the bite marks on the breasts” of one victim, as if to share his titillation with the audience.

That kind of attitude might have gone unremarked at a police convention, but there were lawyers, victims’ advocates and nurses at this conference and they “didn’t appreciate it.” Just as dismaying, this so-called expert described “interrogating” women who’d been raped, as if they were the criminals.

“I went nuts,” Ms. Goddard said. She gripped the arms of her chair, “saying to myself: ‘Calm down. Don’t say anything.’”

AFTER THE PRESENTATION, Ms. Goddard approached one of the organizers and said, “Something’s wrong here, and I really object.” Working on the fly, Ms. Goddard gave a presentation about her pilot project in Chicago, explaining how the rape-kit system worked. Afterward, “two guys from the Department of Justice” approached her and asked her to replicate her program all around the country. She was finally given enough funding to travel to more than a dozen different states and help start up pilot programs.

“I don’t know how my cat survived,” she said of those years. “I was gone all the time.”

She was tired out. And “so many people were downright insulting.” They’d ask her why she was an authority on forensics: “Are you a cop? An attorney?” Ms. Goddard was drinking heavily. She began to step away from her prominent role in criminal justice. She moved to Texas, and then Arizona. And finally she faded from public view so thoroughly that I believe she must have decided to disappear.

Her friend and former colleague Mary Dreiser kept in touch. But one day in about 2006 or 2007, Ms. Dreiser was distressed to dial Ms. Goddard’s number and discover it had been disconnected. Ms. Dreiser’s husband, a lawyer, asked a detective to find Ms. Goddard. She turned up in a mobile-home park in Arizona. “She was happy I had tracked her down,” Ms. Dreiser said.

By the time I started searching for Ms. Goddard a decade later, she had moved out of that trailer and her most recent listing suggested she lived in a dumpy apartment building alongside a Phoenix highway. That phone, too, had been disconnected, so I’d assumed that she had moved on once again, perhaps to a nursing home. But just in case, I called up the building’s management office and asked if the people there could tell me anything about Marty Goddard.

“Unfortunately, I can’t,” said the woman who answered the phone. There were rules about protecting the privacy of residents.

But rules are meant to be broken. So I called back. “Listen,” I said, “just hear me out.”

I then plied the woman in the management office with a brief — and, I hoped, heart-melting — tribute to Ms. Goddard’s genius and her sacrifices.

It worked. “OK,” she said, “let me check into it.” Hours later, she called me back. Marty Goddard had indeed lived in their apartment building, she said, then paused.

“And I’m very sorry to tell you that she passed away.”

The news walloped me. Ms. Goddard had died in 2015, at the age of 74, but there had been no obituary. No announcement. I’d searched for pictures of headstones, remembrances, funeral announcements, and I’d found nothing. This woman who had done so much for the rest of us. How could this be?

Paradoxically, at the same time as Ms. Goddard was fading from sight, her name no longer in the papers, the advent of DNA forensics was giving the rape kit a new kind of superpower.

In 1988, a court ordered Victor Lopez, a 42-year-old repeat felon accused of violent attacks, to submit to a blood draw. He would be the first defendant in New York State to be linked to a crime through DNA analysis — and the case would prove the dazzling effectiveness of this new tool. The DNA test showed a strong match between Mr. Lopez’s blood and the semen collected from one of his victims. Mr. Lopez was convicted of three sexual assaults and sentenced to 100 years in prison. One juror, John Bischoff, told The New York Times that “the DNA was kind of a sealer on the thing. You can’t really argue with science.”

When Ms. Goddard began her work, crime labs could establish only a fuzzy connection between a suspect’s blood and the swabs inside the kit — for instance, by showing that the blood type was a match. But now, DNA markers could reveal the path of a perpetrator as he left his semen or blood at multiple crime scenes.

Starting in 2003, several women across the country accused a man named Nathan Loebe of sexual assault, but those accusations had never stuck.

After the Tucson police received a grant to test a backlog of rape kits, they discovered that DNA from several of the kits matched Mr. Loebe. Rape-kit evidence revealed the pattern of his attacks, and last year he was sentenced to 274 years in prison, including for 12 counts of sexual assault.

But DNA testing was expensive. Compounding that problem was the sheer success of the rape kit system: Victims now felt encouraged to report their assaults and submit to exams, which meant that police departments were flooded with evidence.

And so, just as the rape-kit system began to succeed, police departments strangled it. They began hiding away thousands of untested rape kits deemed too expensive to process.

New York was among the first cities to set up a rape-kit system, and almost immediately it fell behind in processing. It amassed a huge backlog — 16,000 untested kits by the year 2000. The women (and some men) who submitted to rubber-gloved exams did so because they hoped against hope that the police might actually catch a perpetrator. Little did they know that their evidence could be thrown in a warehouse — or even in a trash can.

In 2000, Paul Ferrara, the director of Virginia’s crime lab, said that backlogs were growing all around the country and “cost lives.” The year before, the Virginia Beach police had had to release a rape suspect because potentially incriminating DNA couldn’t be processed quickly enough, and the suspect went on to murder a woman.

It is striking how much Ms. Goddard’s trajectory mirrored that of her invention. In the early 1990s, just when she might have risen to national prominence, she drifted south. She retired, though she was only in her early 50s, and eked out a living with some help from friends. By the 2000s, she had sobered up and spent her days clipping newspapers, tracking the issues that she most cared about. And then — this part hurts my heart — she pursued a degree in forensics at a local community college.

Ms. Goddard had founded sexual-assault forensics, and yet she now lacked any of the bona fides required to be recognized as an expert. Nothing came of her studies, and she never really worked again. Ms. Goddard herself had been warehoused.

I know all of this because just a few months ago, I finally cracked the case of why and how she disappeared, thanks to some clues I found in the announcement of her brief 1966 marriage in a Michigan newspaper. Working through a chain of obituaries and phone records and small newspaper items, I tracked down a number for Scott Goddard, who I thought must be Marty Goddard’s nephew.

One day I cold-called him and left a message. It turned out that he was the right Scott Goddard. His father had died in a freak accident in 1980, and after that, his aunt became like a second mother to him. “When I was 9 or 10 years old, she took me to the Grand Canyon. And I remained close with her for her entire life,” Mr. Goddard said.

He told me that his aunt — who’d always been so busy, so engaged — had turned into a hermit in the 2000s. She withdrew into her trailer in the mobile-home park, with her newspaper clippings fluttering everywhere, surrounded by the miniature model rooms she still loved to build. She was vanishing, shrinking down to nothing.

“When she passed, I inherited about 50 boxes of stuff,” he said, including a tiny toy chest filled with dolls for the doll children to play with.

He told me that when he was a boy, his aunt had taken him through the Thorne Miniature Rooms at the Art Institute of Chicago — a place she visited many times. Here they had lost themselves in those perfect shadow boxes, peering into, say, a Georgian dining room with crystal wine glasses, like fragments of diamonds, arranged on a silver tray. Beyond the chandelier and the French windows, a painted garden beckoned, with a lily pond and trees wilting in the summer heat, and paths you could follow into even stranger dreamscapes. You could imagine opening up one of the postage-stamp-sized books to hear the crack of its gold-leaf spine and read the secrets contained in its mouse-print text.

I can’t tell you what drove Marty Goddard into her dioramas. People around her tended to believe she wanted to escape into her imagination. But I think maybe she was exploring the dark magic of ordinary things, the way the most forgettable object can be converted into evidence. Some underwear, a pack of cigarettes, the note scrawled on the scrap of paper — how strange it is that any of these furnishings of your life could one day be used to reconstruct your own assault or murder. I wonder if she was building tiny crime scenes peppered with clues, if somehow she was leaving a message about what had happened to her.

Mr. Goddard told me that about 2010, “depression started to set in,” and his aunt became a furious alcoholic. Her once steel-trap mind wandered. Worse, she raged and accused, believed friends plotted to kill her. “In the last few years, she alienated most of her family and friends,” he said.

THE RAPE KIT WASN’T DOING SO WELL EITHER. In 2009, investigators toured an abandoned parking garage that the Detroit police had appropriated for storage and where officers had been dumping evidence for decades. In the dank building, with pigeons fluttering over their head, the investigators wandered past a blood-stained sofa and a bucket full of bullets and shells. In one of the parking bays, they found the rape kits — what would turn out to be a trove of 11,000, most of which had never been tested. Some of the kits had been collected as far back as 1980. The victims ranged in age from 90 to one month old.

It wasn’t just Detroit. Investigators in cities around the country had begun to open up their own warehouses, and they too discovered towers of untested rape kits.

By 2015, the backlog of untested rape kits in the United States had grown to an estimated 400,000.

In 2016, the Justice Department announced a new sexual assault kit initiative and $45 million to tackle the backlog. More than 25 states have committed to testing warehoused evidence. Despite the government funding, the cost of these initiatives still largely fell on women’s groups and the victims themselves, who organized dinner parties, Facebook charity drives and comedy shows.

So far, the efforts have paid off. Five states and the District of Columbia have cleared their backlogs. Testing thousands of kits has led to a bonanza of DNA identifications and hundreds of convictions. Scientists are also using rape-kit data to show that there are more serial rapists than we ever suspected. In one study of rape kits in the Cleveland area, researchers found that more than half of them were connected to other cases.

In other words, when a victim decides to go to all the trouble of driving to an emergency room and submitting to a rape-kit exam, it’s because she believes that her attacker will rape someone else. And quite often, she’s right.

When Ms. Goddard died, she asked that her ashes be thrown to the winds in Sedona, Ariz., along the red cliffs. Old friends like Cynthia Gehrie and Margaret Pokorny didn’t even know she was gone. She left behind those boxes of tiny furniture. And, also, a nationwide forensics system that might never have existed but for her.

Writing this, I dreamed of one day seeing one of the original kits displayed in the Smithsonian, among the parade of great American inventions. Mary Dreiser told me she might have saved one of the kits distributed in 1980. I asked her to hunt for it, and there it was, in the back of a closet, yellowed after decades in storage. The kit was emblazoned with the logo of a female face, as if to declare that this — among all the man-made objects in the world — had been created by and for women.

Today, a new generation of inventors are figuring out how to speed up the testing of rape-kit DNA, to improve the design of the kits, and to draw new insights from sexual-assault analytics. This story of feminist technology is still unfolding. Half a century after Marty Goddard answered the calls of teenage rape victims, survivors and their advocates are assembling a vast net of evidence, and it is tightening, ever so slowly, around the perpetrators.

[wickedgxmes]

SEONG HA-NA TASK 01: Character Development

To Die Would Be An Awfully Great Adventure

THE BASICS

Full Name: Seong Ha-na (成 하나)

Nicknames: Hana

Face Claim: Moon Ga-Young

Age: 26

Birthday: July 31st

Gender: Cisgender Female

Pronouns: She/Her

Romantic Orientation: Panromantic

Sexual Orientation: Pansexual

PHYSICALITY

Details About Appearance That Differ From FC: (i.e. hair color, hair length/cut, height etc.) N/A

Perfect Vision or Glasses?: Perfect Vision

Scars/Birthmarks?: Hana has her fair share of scars that litter her skin from healed over cuts from a training her fellow crew to (TW abuse) marks across her palms from where her tutors growing up had reprimanded her. She also has a crescent shaped birthmark located behind her left ear.

Tattoos?: Hana has tattoos littered across her body- collecting different pieces like art as she details her life story across her skin

Piercings?: Yes. Hana has multiple pierces up around both of her ears as well as that of her belly button.

Posture: Hana has a relaxed ease about her. She will on occasion call about her regal background to adjust her posture depending of which role she’s playing, but typically Hana is the type to make herself far too comfortable where ever she is- kicking back in her seat, slouched shoulders, putting her feet up on some table and cocking her head mischievously to the side.

Dominant Hand?: Ambidextrous

Activity Level?: Above Average

Physical Strength: Average

Speed: Above Average

Agility: Above Average

Accuracy: Above Average

Stamina: Above Average

Can They Swim?: Yes! (What kind of Pirate Lord would they be if they couldn’t?)

Clothing Style: For a pirate, Hana is incredibly fashion forward. She’s always on the look out to pinch a pretty garment or two. As for her style, black is her signature color and she enjoys clothes that show their fair bit of skin, that command authority and are easy enough to move around in.

Accessories: Hana is not one to skimp on the accessories. Besides the numerous rings and earrings she wears, she is also known to accessorize with a hefty amount of weapons on her at all times. From different sets of daggers to poison dipped hair pins, the pirate lord is prepared for a fight at any given time.

Any Allergies?: Raspberries

How Do They Sleep?: With one eye open. Hana can fall asleep just about anywhere, but she is a light sleeper. The slightest creek of the floorboard or sound of a breath sending her brows quirking up at you in question.

Any Additional Details?: N/A

MANNERISMS

Languages: Hana speaks english and the popular languages of Shīqù Hǎi'àn (Korean, Mandarin, Japanese etc.) fluently, but she also knows bits and pieces of a number of different languages that she has picked up over the years from traveling Ashbourne and conducting trade.

Do They Curse?: Yes and often

Favorite Word?: Fuck ;)

Least Favorite Word?: Bastard

Good Habits: As tough as Hana would like to seem, she is far more generous than she lets on- giving her portion of diner on occasion to starving children on the streets or to those of her crew. She never forgets a face and has a habit of ‘taking in strays’, finding herself looking after those who seem to have nobody else and donating some of their wealth to the impoverished.

Bad Habits: It is a long list ranging from arrogance to a habit of mocking and teasing just about anyone she comes into contact with. She’s someone who doesn’t often take things all too seriously and yet doesn’t tolerant stupidity, who laughs at other’s expenses, is far too blunt for her own good, and tends to become defensive or misdirect the conversation when it becomes far too vulnerable for her own liking.

Any Specific Ticks?: Hana can often be caught mindlessly twirling her own hair or fidgeting with on of the rings wrapped around her fingers - twisting them back and forth especially when she’s deep in thought or wants something to set her eyes on rather than the floor.

FAMILY & UPBRINGING

Which Dukedom Do They Reside In?: shīqù hǎi'àn 失去海岸 (The Lost Coasts)

Birthplace?: Shīqù Hǎi'àn 失去海岸 (The Lost Coasts)

Social Class: Hana was born into the Upper Class, but now spends her time surrounded by the underclass- preferring to associate with thugs and criminals

Biological Parents/Parental Figures: Kim Hye-Kyo (Mistress of the Late Duke) & The Late Duke of the Lost Coasts (Name - TBD as of now)

Additional Family Members: (Siblings, Cousins, Aunts & Uncles etc.): Sibling: The Duke/Duchess of the Lost Coasts

Pets?: haru (a messenger hawk) & joo (a black cat)

CONNECTIONS

Person You Can’t Seem To Forget?: Her Father

Person You Can’t Seem To Forgive?: Her Mother

Any Additional Connections Your Character May Be Looking For?: {I’ll put together a connections page at a later date but all of the things ;D }

STATUS & OCCUPATION

Current Occupation: Pirate Lord

Dream Position: Pirate Lord

Past Jobs?: Pirate/Lady of the Lost Coasts

Spending Habits: Hana is a frequent spender- taking what she wants when she wants it. She very rarely pays for anything herself and when she does, it is questionable whether the money she is using was stolen or out of her own pocket.

In Debt?: No. She isn’t one to owe a debt or borrow without paying it back.

PSYCHOLOGY

Intellect: Above Average

MBTI Type: ENTP

Enneagram type: 8. The Challenger

Moral Alignment: Chaotic Good

Temperament: Quick Tempered

Element: Fire

Introvert or Extrovert?: Extrovert

ASTROLOGY

Zodiac Sign: Leo

Birth Stone: Ruby

TRAITS & PERSPECTIVES

Drives/Motivations: To look after her crew and protect her ship/make-shift family first and foremost. But, she is also driven to be the antithesis of her brother as much as she can. If they are the great Duke of the Lost Coasts, then she is an outlaw, a scoundrel and a criminal so that no one can ever question her sibling’s right to rule or pin them against each other out of their own free will once more.

Hopes: To protect those she cares about and live her life to the fullest in whatever capacity that may be

Fears: Irrelevancy and being incapable of looking after those she holds dear

Dreams: Hana doesn’t allow herself to dream for more than that of tomorrow or live in anything greater than the moment, since the things she may have dreamed about once upon a time - a family that isn’t bond by the laws of politics or a great love of her love of her own- seems like a fairly impractical wish at this point. Now, she just wants to have a good life before she inevitably goes down with her ship.

Sense of Humor?: Between her teasing smile and quick-witted remarks, it is rare to see Hana being serious.

Most At Ease When?: When she’s set sail, overlook the waves from a perch on one of her ship’s masts

Least At Ease When?: When speaking openly about her past or having to ride in an enchanted lift

Talents: knife throwing, sword fighting, drinking, dancing, playing cards, gambling etc.

Shortcomings: A short attention span, a tendency to act on her impulses, a disregard for authority besides that of her own etc.

Have They Ever Committed A Crime?: (If so, did they ever get caught?) Hana has created far more crimes than she can count and has been caught for a couple of them, but if she has been caught, she’s either managed to escape being brought in or allowed herself to be caught intentionally in order to do business with the Royal Navy to meet face to face with that of her family.

Are They A Team Player?: Depends on the team. They can be when it comes to their crew.

Can They Play an Instrument?: Yes. Hana was trained to play a handful of instruments such as piano, harp etc.

Braid Hair?: Yes

Tie a Tie?: Yes

Pick a Lock?: Yes

Cook?: Hana would say yes, but anyone whose tried her cooking would probably disagree

Drink?: Yes

Use Drugs?: Yes

Are They Prone to Violence?: Yes

Prone to Crying?: No

Believe in Love at First Sight?: No, but they do believe in lust at first sight

FAVORITE

Color: Black

Food: Galbi or Okonomiyaki

Beverage: Anything with alcohol in it

Flower: Cherry Blossom

Scent: Citrus

Mode of Transportation: Pirate Ship

Season: Summer

LEAST FAVORITE

Mode of Transportation: Enchanted Lifts

Season: Winter

EXTRA

I finally got around to making her a pinterest board- https://pin.it/3hd9EaK

[nitrateglow]

My bottom five new-to-me movies of 2020

2020 sucked. So did these movies. Before I do my customary top 20 favorite movie discoveries list, I wanted to share five very special new-to-me movies that were painful to watch. Forgive me if it all sounds like ranting. It probably is.

(And remember-- if you like any of these movies, that’s fine. I am not attacking YOU. I just didn’t like a movie. I know this is a stupid disclaimer to put on a list of opinions, but combing the venomous old IMDB message boards has me on edge a bit lol.)

Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker

Whether you love the sequel trilogy or hate it, everyone pretty much agrees this movie was a mess. I thought no movie could have a more structurally unsound screenplay than The Crimes of Grindelwald, but Rise of Skywalker gives it staunch competition. It creates a new artform from making things up as the plot requires: new powers for Rey, new Macguffins to pursue, new motivations and backstories for characters.

I admit I dislike The Last Jedi. I dislike it a lot, actually, and it appears JJ Abrams did too from the amount of retconning he does here (Rey isn’t nobody! Honest, guys!). But you can’t backtrack THAT much. Either plot out your entire trilogy before shooting the first film or play fairly with the cards you were dealt by the filmmakers of movie two.

If anything, these movies have become a cautionary tale about not having a plan when making a movie trilogy. Now, George Lucas didn’t really have one either when he was making the original trilogy, but in that case, he wasn’t even sure the first movie was going to be a modest hit, let alone the biggest movie of the 1970s. He had an excuse and did well enough finishing the trilogy. Here, Disney knew there would be sequels, they knew they had a hungry audience, but they chose to just wing it and the results are just-- so disappointing, especially given the talented young actors and lovely special effects they had at their disposal.

The more I think about it, the more poetic the image of Palpatine hooked up to a life support system/crane is. The best ROTS can do is riff on earlier, better movies and hope our affection will make us overlook the awfulness.

Artemis Fowl

Outside of Animal Crossing, Artemis Fowl might have been the only entity to benefit (if only slightly) from the pandemic. I cannot imagine it would have been anything but a box office bomb had the theaters been open.

Artemis Fowl feels like it should have come out in 2003-- not just because the books were more prominent then, but the whole style of this film in general. In 2020, it’s positively anachronistic. The whole thing is a joyless attempt at dipping from the old Harry Potter well, with a bit of Spy Kids thrown in for good measure. Beyond that, it’s so poorly done as a whole. I have never read the Artemis Fowl books, but I watched this with a friend who has and his head near caught on fire. Apparently, it cuts out everything that made the books cool, like the protagonist basically being a kid version of a Bond villain. Here, he’s anything but that: he’s the usual bland child protagonist surrounded by a cast of slightly more interesting characters. Josh Gad seems to be the only one really trying. Judi Dench shows up and somehow gives a worse performance than whatever the hell she was doing in Cats.

I was actually shocked Kenneth Branagh of all people directed this. I generally like his films, even the less successful ones like his musical adaptation of Love’s Labors Lost. Even the uninspiring live-action Cinderella remake he helmed is at least pretty to look at-- Artemis Fowl has neither brains nor beauty to recommend it.

Bloodline

This film was intended to jumpstart a career comeback for Audrey Hepburn. This decidedly did not happen. One has to wonder what she saw in this sordid material in the first place. Maybe she really just wanted to work with director Terence Young again? Or she thought this would be a good, more modern take on her screen persona? I have no clue. All I know is that Bloodline is one of the worst big-budget Hollywood movies I have ever seen.

No contest: this is Audrey Hepburn’s worst movie. Hate on Green Mansions and Paris When It Sizzles until the stars turn to ash-- at least there was some fun camp value in them. The plot in Bloodline makes no sense, going into unrelated digressions that lead nowhere (did we really need that extended flashback about the dead father? or the subplot with Omar Shariff’s two families?). Oh and then there’s the awful sleazy snuff film subplot that’s also poorly developed and goes nowhere. Hepburn is game, but she can’t save the sinking ship. The best she can do is be charming in a terrible 70s perm.

Luckily, she made the underrated They All Laughed two years after this cinematic fecal matter bombed, so at the very least, Hepburn’s big screen swan song was a film worthy of her presence. (Hint: there will be more about that movie on my top 20 of the year list!)

Halloween III: The Season of the Witch

You all have no idea how excited I was to see this. All the mentions of it on Red Letter Media made it sound like deliriously entertaining schlock. I mean, it’s a movie in which the villain sells cursed Halloween masks that turn children’s heads into bugs and snakes! That sounds awesome! Instead, the movie is badly paced and boring: the main characters are uninteresting and the plot takes an interesting premise then does.... nothing with it. Nothing whatsoever. The second act is the cinematic equivalent of treading water. In fact, so little happens, that the filmmakers squeeze in a pointless sex scene between two character who have all the chemistry of a lit match and a bag of M&M’s.

The thing that annoys me most about this film is that it killed off a great concept: that all of the future Halloween films would be standalone stories centered around the spookiest time of the year. Unfortunately, this movie botched itself so badly that people often think the absence of Michael Meyers was the problem. It wasn’t: it was the absence of a good story.

Blindsided

This is probably the most watchable movie on this list, but that’s not saying much. A bloodless ripoff of Wait Until Dark, Blindsided is an unimaginative thriller with no thrills, humor, or interesting characters whatsoever.

The whole film is just repetitive. The situation doesn’t slowly boil to something horrific, the threat presented by the villains doesn’t escalate, there are no interesting interactions between the characters: no, here the underdeveloped protagonist is interrogated, tortured and/or sexually harassed, tries to escape, is recaptured, rinse and repeat for ninety minutes. I admit there’s some clever resourcefulness on the part of the heroine in the last scene-- but it’s basically just Wait Until Dark’s climax (down to the twist with the villain finding an alternative source of illumination for crying out loud!) without the emotional payoff that comes from slow-burn pacing or the fantastic performances, so even that’s a letdown.

I thought the movie might at least be saved by Michael Keaton as the main criminal mastermind since he’s shown he can be a great villain in other movies (if they had remade Wait in the 80s, he would have been a perfect Harry Roat Jr.), but even he seems to be phoning it in here. Beyond a scene of attempted cat murder (I’m serious-- the bad guys are so incompetent they can’t even kill a cat), there’s not even anything so bad it’s good to enjoy. Blindsided is just dull and by-the-numbers.

[pamvault]

[bisluthq]

Why is everything a joke to you!!! You never take ANYTHING seriously. It's SO annoying. I try to send you serious asks calling you out and you respond with Kylo R*n GIFs and stupid jokes. But I guess it's fitting that you all think everything is a joke because... you are jokes.

I don't care if I sound like a b*tch. It's the truth. Karlie is literally married to a criminal from a crime family that is pure evil. They've killed people before. Jerk has probably taken part too. He pretends he's the "good" brother but it's all a farce. Karlie is probably being blackmailed into letting people assume this baby is his. He won't let her "divorce" him because he knows he'll lose his only claim to fame and he loves the attention (just like you do from TTB). And poor Taylor... I can't even imagine how she's feeling right now. Being forced to hide her child... Letting everybody assume that she's with Toe and that they're "happy", while everyone believes the love of her life and the mother of her child is married to a criminal. It's all sick.

And you find that funny... Says a lot about all of you as people... I understand why you don't care about Karlie because you're not fans, but you have NO empathy for Taylor. But that makes sense because you're not real fans. You're all fake fans who only care about Taylor's looks and her "angel boyfriend" Toe who is apparently sooo s*xy that you're willing to overlook the fact that he's a clout-chaser with no real career and who constantly relies on Taylor to cling onto some relevance. He is nothing. He has no redeeming qualities. He's ugly, he's talentless, his attempt at facial hair is embarrassing, he's a flop actor with a flop career, he's boring...

And you all think she would choose THAT over sunshine Karlie Kloss, top supermodel, famous worldwide, entrepeneur, multifaceted, so gorgeous that Taylor can't say anything to her face, Taylor's Lover, hardworking, relevant, has her own reality TV show... I could go on.

I know you’re trying to be serious but this is just so funny I’m sorry. But I’m sorry and fine let me humor you...

1) Karlie and Josh are married and obsessed with one another. They are so deeply fucking obsessed with one another that we have them papped together (they have a pap who like stalks them so a bunch of their sightings are organic tho of course she does call too) during a time period when investigative reporting says they’re broken up and Josh is devastated. Like they genuinely can’t keep away from one another. It’s kind of cute in a gross way. Karlie isn’t being blackmailed, she spent near a decade desperately trying to get him to put a ring on it and he... eventually did.

I know you’ve been told they hate one another or that she at least hates him but she... doesn’t.

I’m sorry but this is not a blackmail situation.

She’s literally in love with him.

2) Taylor is literally happy and in the best era of her life and career. She’s making art everyone loves with her boyfriend/platonic life partner lol and she’s dressing weird and being a horse girl on main and making Ugly Bears and blankies for her friends and generally having a BALL.

3) Joe is not a clout chaser lmao but you know who is? 😬😬😬😬

4) I’m not gonna act KARLIEPHOBIC (thanks @babylonmp4) with the last bit but like tbh I can think of NOTHING that would impress Taylor less or be more mortifying for her than someone close to her doing reality TV.

[nitewrighter]

The Truth Has Two Faces Part 2

Amari Fam feels for #AmariAppreciationWeek!

Read Part 1 Here

----

The trek from the watchpoint apartments to the labs and administrative building had felt unnaturally long that morning, as if every step was offering her the chance to turn back to her apartment, or veer off to the training area in the hangar to blow off steam. She saw Genji meditating in his usual spot on the cliffs, Brigitte hunched over the popped hood of the watchpoint’s sole, miraculously still-running truck, but the watchpoint was never that crowded--not when a handful of Overwatch’s members were always off doing a mission in some far-flung corner of the world. Zenyatta, McCree, D.Va, and Tracer, noticeably, were gone, and the gap left by the orca filled the tarmac with a near-blinding morning light reflecting off the sea as Pharah went up the steps to the main building built into the rock of Gibraltar itself. 

Satya was in the lab, talking with Winston and Torbjörn, and displaying a hard-light projection of the watchpoint with several areas highlighted in blue. Pharah wasn’t sure whether she was suggesting them as potential areas in need of refurbishment, or vulnerable points in Watchpoint security, but both Torbjörn and Winston were listening to her intently. Those gold eyes flicked to Pharah as she walked past, then flicked to the stairs Pharah was headed towards. Towards Athena’s primary server and the offices Jack and Ana had more or less requisitioned. Satya gave a nod, but Pharah wasn’t sure if it was to her or to something Winston or Torbjörn had said. She liked to think it was for her, but at the same time, too many words were running through her own head to dwell too much on it. She headed up that other flight of stairs and down a narrow hallway before reaching the room where Athena’s main server was. She could already hear Ana and Jack’s voices on the other side of the door. She took a deep breath before putting her hand on the panel next to the door. It slid open with a whoosh and both Jack and Ana cut themselves off at the sound, looking up at her from their own holo-table.

“Mum,” it felt a little odd to be saying it, the word felt heavy in the air, “Can we talk?”

“Of course--” the words came too quickly out of Ana.

“We’ll be back later,” Pharah said to Jack. He gave her a nod. With half of his scarred face illuminated by the glow of the holo-table, Pharah, like pretty much everyone else on the watchpoint, had to consciously remind herself that he wasn’t the strike commander any more. The truth was their contact had been pretty minimal since he and Ana had joined after the incident at Volskaya. Pharah assumed that was because she punched him in the face at her mother’s funeral, her mother who was walking toward her now. And now, since she had started out not wanting to talk to Ana, he probably had the good sense to keep out of it. Or maybe the search for Reaper was all that mattered to him. Either way, he returned his attention to the holo-table, and Ana kept a tight stoic face as she closed the distance between her and her daughter, but there was something vulnerable flickering in that one remaining eye.

She’s bracing herself, thought Pharah, Probably thinks I’m going to tear into her again. 

And Pharah had to consciously tell herself that she wasn’t going to do that as they headed out of the office. Pharah also knew stress was speeding up the pace of her feet, as Ana trailed shortly behind, apparently trying to gather her words.

“Fareeha, I can’t tell you how much of a relief it is that---” Ana started but Pharah stopped walking.

 “Just... give me a minute, okay?” she said, pivoting on her foot to look at Ana before resuming walking.

They walked on in silence, taking an exit out to the veranda overlooking the watchpoint, where Ana and Jack often talked when the offices seemed too cloistered. The morning was now brightening up into full daylight, but the yellow tinges of the golden hour still seemed to hang in the light off the sea. Pharah raked her fingers through her hair, the gold beads at her temples clicking.

“Okay, look...” said Pharah, “Here’s what this isn’t, okay?”

“What this... isn’t?” Ana started, her brow crinkling.

“This isn’t where we solve all of our problems and cry and hug each other, and everything is good forever,” said Pharah.

“...I... never thought it was,” said Ana, glancing off.

“There’s a lot to unpack,” said Pharah.

“I know.”

“A lot to unpack,” Pharah emphasized.

Ana just nodded and Pharah felt a heat rising in her chest. 

“And I don’t want you to just...” Pharah sucked in a breath, “Lie down and take it and treat it like I’m just getting my frustrations out because that’s easier than actually looking at yourself. I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and even though I’m your daughter, I’m an adult. And I want you to treat this like just as much as you’re hearing it from a peer as your daughter. Yes, I am emotional, but I’ve also taken a long time to figure out what I want to say.”

A muscle twitched in Ana’s jaw at the thought. “Very well,” she said folding her arms.

“So, to start off, I shouldn’t have been avoiding you the way I was back when you first joined the Watchpoint. I was angry, and it was childish. I wanted to inflict the pain you put me through on you for that pain’s sake. It was wrong. And I’m sorry.”

“I understand,” said Ana. ‘I forgive you’ felt too condescending at this point. Obviously, like Pharah said, she wasn’t going to lie back and simply take it, but she also knew a lot of this was a long time coming.

“The truth is, I was also dealing with... a lot of frustration about why now, why finally now you decided to join,”  Pharah leveled her brown eyes at Ana,  her brow set with determination, “You only joined when you realized operating independently of each other made us liabilities to each other... if the situation hadn’t gotten as dire as it had back there, you wouldn’t have even come back with them, would you?”

That’s their mission. We focus on our own. Jack had said.

Do you think Fareeha’s with them? Ana remembered her own response. Emotional. Distracted. Maybe if she had focused more--no--that was her daughter. Her daughter who was in Overwatch. In Overwatch despite everything she had done. In Overwatch despite Overwatch literally collapsing. Why wouldn’t she wonder if she was there? Why shouldn’t she---? What would she have done if Fareeha was there?

“...I don’t think I would have come back, no,” said Ana.

Pharah’s face scrunched up. “This is what I’m talking about!” she said, bringing her hands up, “You keep acting like suddenly you were completely alone after losing your eye!”

“You never responded to my letter!” said Ana.

“You thought a LETTER was enough after letting me think you were dead for years!” Pharah snapped, “You wrote a letter because you’re willing to chase down terrorists all over the world, but you couldn’t face me or dad! And did you even hear yourself in that letter?! ‘The world thought I was dead, I thought that was for the best.’ ‘I’ve buried those closest to me.’ ‘I cannot stop fighting, not while people are waiting for me.’ Like I’m not close to you? Like I haven’t spent my whole life waiting for you!? It sounded like you had no intention of ever seeing me again, like you thought you were going to die in battle and there was nothing I could do to stop you! That’s a great letter to get after already mourning you!” Pharah was breathing hard but she caught herself. A bitter chuckle shook her breath. “And sure. Let me write you back. Where should I have addressed it? 1800 ‘Squatting-in-the-Necropolis’ boulevard?’ You were living like a post-apocalyptic wanderer! You didn’t want me to write back. You only wrote to relieve your own guilt.” 

“Fareeha--” Ana started but her own voice trailed off. She never thought of her letter as something so callous, but she supposed, with how long she had gone since talking to Pharah, that such a breakdown in communication wasn’t hard to imagine. And getting the letter itself out was enough of an emotional labor on her own end--it took so much energy to come to terms with and articulate those feelings, it already felt so raw and vulnerable that it didn’t occur to her that it sounded like a final goodbye. And when she was already dodging watchlists from Volskaya and various other criminal organizations... why would she expect Pharah to be able to track her down, when Helix literally had wanted posters of  the Shrike?

Another bitter laugh, more out of discomfort than any humor, shook Pharah’s voice. “You were in Giza. You had no problem tracking down dirtbags like Hakim, but I had an address. I had an apartment. You could have seen me at any time. You could have had a bed.”

“I would have compromised your work with Helix,” Ana managed, remembering her Shrike mask on wanted posters.

“No one would know! No one saw your actual face!” said Pharah, “You saw Angela. But not me. What does that tell me?”

Ana’s mouth was hanging open, her jaw shaking a little with no words coming out of her throat. 

“Angela told you about that?” said Ana quietly.

“Before she left,” said Pharah, “She stayed long enough to see me back from Vancouver and make sure things were stabilized after the Talon attack, but she was already packing up.”

“Did you two talk often, when she was doing her relief work there?” said Ana, not necessarily trying to derail the conversation, but willing to take a bit more context as relief from Pharah’s barrage. She knew Angela had no small amount of resentments toward her as well, especially with the biotic rifle.

“She butted heads with me and my coworkers when Helix had to investigate a lead at the refugee camp,” Pharah huffed, “Tried to patch things up later, but we didn’t talk much after that.” Too painful a reminder of everything you blocked me from, thought Pharah, Too resentful of you and the organization herself, but playing diplomat for my sake. Giving me crap about you being proud of me when everything I accomplished was in spite of your efforts. She didn’t know you and she doesn’t know me. Pharah decided to leave out the part where seeing Mercy’s apartment also left too much of an uncomfortable association with Ana. A more academic version of Ana, but all the trauma and still-unpacked boxes all the same. Someone ready to flit off to the next big problem in the world if it meant not having to open up those boxes. Pharah was already tired. She was already so tired of saying all these things that had been percolating in her for years. “...for what it’s worth,” she managed to dredge the words up out of herself, “I’m glad she let me know you were there.”

“So you could further justify your grievances?” said Ana, already weary.

“...so I knew you weren’t dead,” said Pharah. Ana’s lips tightened. She kept forgetting that. Kept forgetting that Fareeha had fought her own battles, that the months of silence between them were filled with unsureness for Ana’s own safety, especially after a letter that told Fareeha that she was still fighting. She thought Fareeha’s resentment had shielded her from the pain and worry of their separation, but it didn’t. It only deepened that pain with anger and guilt. They both fought to relieve guilt over fighting. A serpent eating its own tail.

Ana glanced off. “With... with Hakim I didn’t want to put you in danger.”

“Mum,” Pharah pressed her fingertips to her forehead, “I was in special forces. I could handle it.”

Ana’s lips thinned. “I don’t think of you as a soldier. I think of you as my daughter. I never wanted you to see my fights as yours.”

“I know,” Pharah said quietly, “But... when you’re young, and your mom is off fighting, it’s... very easy to assume, ‘Oh, if I fight too, maybe I’ll see her.’ And being blocked from joining Overwatch... I couldn’t not take that personally.”

“I know we’ve gone through this before but... I didn’t trust myself or other members of the old strike team not to engage in nepotism--we did practically all raise you,” said Ana, “And I couldn’t stand the idea of you getting hurt, whether under my orders, or any of theirs.”

“I figured,” said Pharah.

“But you’re here now,” said Ana, “And... you’re brilliant. I haven’t been here long, but I can see that this is who you’re meant to be.”

“And I’m glad I managed to develop those skills outside Overwatch,” said Pharah, “...I don’t know who I’d be if I had everyone fawning over me, over who my mom is.” 

“And you didn’t go down with the ship,” said Ana with a wry smile tugging at one corner of her mouth.

Pharah chuckled and scoffed a little. “But even back in Helix they still talked about you. It was easier... when I thought you were gone...” her voice got misty, “And I hate that. When you were gone, I just got to remember all of the good things, how much of a hero you were, but when you came back,” Pharah sucked a breath in through her teeth, “Everything you ever did that hurt me came bubbling up. I didn’t want to give you the luxury of being something you could pluck off the shelf and dust off and forgive yourself with.”

Ana winced a little at this. “And you didn’t,” she managed, her own voice clouding up.

“But... I don’t know how much more I could hurt you than you’ve already hurt yourself,” her lips tightened, “I love you, Mum. And loving you is so hard sometimes, because you give so much of yourself away that I never know what I’ll have left,” her breath hitched, her voice cracking a little, “And I wonder, sometimes, how many more times I’ll lose you.”

Ana cupped a hand to the side of Pharah’s face and Pharah squeezed her eyes shut at the warmth of her palm, a tear budding out from her dark eyelashes and running briefly down the line of her wadjet tattoo. Ana put her other hand on Pharah’s shoulder and Pharah caught her wrist, wary. Strong. Of course she was. But then Pharah’s hand brushed up Ana’s arm and Pharah slumped into an embrace, fierce and tight, yet so tired from the weight of her own words. 

“And I was so afraid of losing you,” Ana said quietly, “That I pushed you away. Further. And further. And further.” She brushed a hand down Pharah’s back. “You were never something to be plucked off a shelf... but... my own memory kept freezing you in time. There is so much I blinded myself to in trying to protect you. In fighting for you. I blinded myself to you. Shored myself up against your pain as if it was my own. And... I can’t tell you how sorry I am for that. But we’re fighting together now.” A sigh escaped her, “And as much as that terrifies me...” Her fingertips pressed hard against Pharah’s shoulder blade, “I’m even more scared of not having you in my life.”

“I said this wasn’t where we cry and hug and everything is good forever,” said Pharah, her voice creaking.

“Don’t worry, ḥabībti,” said Ana, stroking a hand down the back of Pharah’s hair, “We still have so, so many problems.” Pharah huffed out a half-sob half-chuckle against Ana’s headscarf, and Ana pressed her face into her shoulder. “But I am so proud of you. And I missed you so much.” said Ana softly.

“I missed you too,” said Pharah.

Ana brushed a finger along the gold of Pharah’s hair beads. She remembered braiding them into Pharah’s hair back when the Omnic Crisis first started, telling her that it was the light of the sun and the flesh of the gods and that they meant no matter how far away she was, she would always protect her. But now, in her own Fareeha’s arms, Ana realized she felt safer than she had ever felt in years.

[ejzah]

Can u a story about an alternate version of Densi’s wedding where Kirkin’s actual goal all along was to kidnap the groom aka DEEKS. XD

A/N: I know I have others stories waiting, but this one spoke to me. The events of the episode are a little altered to fit the prompt and I’ve excluded the guys that came after Kirkin.

***

“I cannot believe Kirkin actually tried to kidnap me on my wedding day,” Deeks said, shaking his head. He rubbed his eyes with his forefinger and thumb. As if he needed the additional stress.

Callen patted him on the shoulder, consolingly and with surprising sincerity.

“Well, hopefully he got the message,” he said. On the other side of him, Sam shook his head, looking equally amused and annoyed.

“Only you would have a Russian criminal who’s obsessed with you and won’t take no for an answer.” Deeks glared at him.

“I’m glad you find this funny, Sam.”

“Hey, you woke me up in the middle of the night after you broke into my boat. You’re lucky I’m in such a good mood,” Sam said, looking pointedly at Deeks.

“Point taken.” Deeks sighed and scratched at his head, already feeling exhausted. This day was already 20 times more stressful than he’d been expecting. “Well, I’m gonna go to the mission and see if I can find my box.”

“Good luck,” Callen offered, clapping him on the shoulder again. “We’ll meet you at the venue.” As they headed to their cars, Deeks prayed that the excitement was over for the day. He didn’t think his nerves could take anymore.

***

Deeks stared at the ring and letter Kensi had given him, completely overwhelmed. Kensi was somewhere in the building, presumably getting ready with her bridesmaids, and it was taking all his effort not to find her and say to hell with tradition.

He glanced down at his watch and swore under his breath. The guests would be arriving soon and he hadn’t even started to get changed. He grabbed the garment bag with his suit and stripped off his jacket and shirt. There was a slight noise behind him, followed by a horribly familiar voice.

“I see I’ve come at the perfect time.” Deeks yelped and spun around, automatically reaching for his gun, which he belatedly remembered he’d left at work, and covering half his chest with the other.

“Kirkin, jesus, how the hell did you get in here?” he hissed. “And-and more importantly, what are you doing here? Again.” Kirkin just stared for a moment, glancing at his bare chest with a small smirk.

“Maaarty, you must know I will always come for you,” he answered with disturbing sincerity. He sighed deeply, eyes straying back to Deeks chest. “It has been too long since we’ve been together like this.” Deeks took a step back.

“Ok, first of all, that is probably one of the most creepy things you have ever said, which is saying something,” Deeks said, ticking off points on his finger. Callen and Sam would never let him live this down. “Secondly, I specifically told you that I did not need, or want, you to rescue me or whatever the hell you think you’re doing right now. And let me reiterate, this is super creepy.”

Kirkin’s expression turned to one of sympathy, which was even more disconcerting. If that was possible.

“I know, Martin. But it occurred to me that the two of us have never been given a fair chance. Ever since that day we met, there has been something undeniable between us, but we’ve never been given the opportunity to fully explore it.”

“If you’re referring to your complete insanity, then yes, that it definitely between us.” Kirkin tilted his head, reaching out to touch Deeks’ arm with the top of his finger.

“You have always had such a wonderful sense of humor,” he gushed. Deeks rolled his eyes and reached into the pocket of his jeans.

“M’kay, I’m texting my team. You better hope Kensi doesn’t get in on this, because she will pulverize you. And then there’s her five bridesmaids and mom, who have been looking forward to this day for years,” Deeks said, typing as he spoke. Kirkin cleared his throat, slipping his hand beneath his suit jacket to pull out a gun.

“I wouldn’t do that Martin. You are coming with me. Now.”

***

“Hey, have you seen Deeks?” Callen asked, as Nell passed him in the hall, likely on the way to start directing guests.

“Um, no, why?” She turned around, clearly sensing that something else was going on.

“We were supposed to run through his vows with him 20 minutes ago, but he never showed. And now we can’t find him.” Nell’s brows furrowed and she grabbed her phone.

“We’ve already tried calling him,” Sam said. “He didn’t pick up.”

“That’s not a good sign,” she murmured. “But I was actually going to check the security cameras. I can tap into a few and see where he’s been.” She tapped at her phone a bit more, staring at the screen and then after a few minutes, frowned again. “What is Kirkin doing here?”

Sam and Callen immediately crowded on either side of her, watching over her shoulder.

“Oh, that is not good,” Callen muttered, glancing at Sam.

“Ok, you guys need to tell me what’s going on. Like right now,” Nell said, lowering the phone for a moment.

“Kirkin showed up earlier today and tried to “rescue” Deeks,” Sam explained.

“You’re joking.”

“I wish was.” Nell sighed and resumed watching the surveillance feed.

“Well, let’s see where he went. He better not mess this up for Kensi and Deeks or I will kill him. I do not have the patience to wait around while they plan a second wedding,” she said and Callen smirked at Sam over her head.

“Hm, it looks like he went into Deeks’ dressing room. That’s a little creepy.”

“Uh guys,” Eric interrupted, appearing in the hallway with a harried expression. “What’s going on? Guests are starting to arrive, the bridal party is almost ready and they’re wondering where everyone else is at.”

“We think Anatoli Kirkin might have kidnapped Deeks,” Sam explained shortly.

“Are you serious? Why aren’t we doing anything about it?”

“Because you’re still talking.” Sam gestured to Nell’s phone. “Did they come out?”

“Yes...and Kirkin took him, by gun point, to what looks like a lounge at the other end of the building,” Nell said. “So far they’re still in there unless they left through one of the windows.

“Ok, we’ll go retrieve Deeks. And you guys are in charge of making sure that Kensi doesn’t find out anything about this. Got it?” Callen instructed. They both nodded and scurried off.

“C’mon partner, let’s save Deeks from his crazy Russian boyfriend.”

***

“So what exactly is your plan, Kirkin?” Deeks asked, the skepticism clear in his voice. After Kirkin had pulled the gun on him, he’d lead him to a small room, ensuring Deeks’ compliance with the threat of violence if necessary. Part of Deeks thought he was probably bluffing, but he also didn’t want to underestimate him.

“I have my men waiting outside. When the time is right, we will make our escape,” Kirkin replied, clearly pleased with himself.

“Yeah, that’s not going to work. You know that, right? Even if you make it out the door, my team will take you down. There’s no way they haven’t missed me by now.” Kirkin patted him on the shoulder consolingly.

He hadn’t let Deeks put his shirt back on and he was feeling distinctly exposed and...nipply. He retreated to other side of the room and sat down in a small love seat. He’d known something would go wrong and boy had he been right. He felt a grim sense of satisfaction that his intuition had been so on point.

“Don’t worry, Marty, my men will protect us. And then we will be free to be together.”

The door to the room burst open, smacking off the wall as Callen and Sam appeared in the doorway. They were both armed and dressed in their tuxes.

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Sam said darkly. Kirkin reached for Deeks again and Sam moved in on him, pointing his gun directly at his head. “Don’t even think about it.”

Kirkin wisely took a few steps back and dropped his weapon on the ground. Sam kicked it away.

“You ok, Deeks?” Callen asked, frowning as he took in Deeks’ bare chest.

“Well, I was almost kidnapped on my wedding day, we have about 300 guests waiting for me and Kensi to get married and I think I’m on the verge of a panic attack,” he summed up and then blew out a long breath. “No, I’m not doing great.”

“Put your hands behind your back, Kirkin,” Sam ordered.

“Gentleman, I’m sure we can all overlook this small understanding and just go about our business,” Kirkin said in what was apparently supposed to be a charming tone. Sam just shook his head and gestured for Callen to cuff him.

“Why aren’t you wearing a shirt?” Sam asked Deeks eventually.

“Don’t ask,” Deeks told him firmly. Kirkin shot him an appealing look and then sighed.

“I will never forget the first time we met, frolicking naked together,” he said reminiscently. Deeks frowned, wondering what fantasy world the man was living in.

“Ok, that’s not what happened. I was undercover at a Russian bathhouse and I’m sorry to break your heart there, Kirkin, but I was not frolicking because I don’t frolick. I have never frolicked,” he clarified firmly.

“You are a frolicker and you know it,” Kirkin said in what Deeks assumed was supposed to be a seductive tone, leaning towards him.

“This is the worst wedding ever,” Deeks retorted, sitting down again and crossing his arms.

“Guys, what the hell is going on? The ceremony is supposed to start in five minutes,” Kensi said, running through the door, closely followed by a harried looking Eric and Nell. It took her approximately 10 seconds to notice Kirkin. “What the are you doing here?”

“You had one job,” Sam said to Nell and Eric. Nell shrugged, gesturing to Kensi.

“What can I say, she threatened to hurt us if we didn’t tell her where you were,” she explained. Somehow Deeks didn’t think Nell had put up that much of a fight.

Kensi glanced at Deeks and then back at Kirkin, who raised his hands defensively as she descended on him. Dressed in her wedding dress, and with a look of pure fury on her face, she had never looked more beautiful to Deeks. Even though she was unarmed, she was frightening.

“Kensi, you look lovely,” Kirkin tried.

“Kirkin, did you try to kidnap my fiancé?” she asked in a dangerous voice. He took another step backwards.

“Please, you must understand, Kensi. You know how irresistible Martin is. His hair, his muscles. I could not help myself.” Kensi made an incredulous sound and shook her head and shoved Kirkin into a chair.

“Unbelievable,” she muttered. That seemed to be the general consensus.

Callen had moved over to the side and was on his phone. From the sound of it, he was calling in reinforcements. Apparently he and Sam had taken out a Kirkin’s cronies before making their grand entrance.

Kensi sat down next to Deeks and ran her fingers through his hair, looking concerned.

“Are you ok, baby?” she asked, checking him over. He laid a hand over hers, holding it in place and nodded.

“Yeah. I may be about to have a nervous break down, or possibly a stroke, but otherwise, I’m fine.”

“I love you,” she whispered, leaning her head against his. He sighed, leaning into her touch. “Let’s get married.” He grinned at that, feeling content for the first time in hours.

“Let’s get married,” he agreed.

“You should probably put some more clothes on,” Callen suggested with just a hint of a smirk.

“I’ll go help him change,” Eric offered. Kensi linked their fingers as she tugged him up. As they left the room, Kirkin reached towards Kensi with a desperate expression.

“Kensi, don’t hurt him,” he begged. “You know, we could always work something out between the three of us!” Sam jerked him back, not being particularly gentle.

“I’m gonna need a lot of champagne,” Deeks sighed as they left the room, Kirkin being led by Nell and Callen, while Sam brought up the rear.

“Or vodka.” Kensi added.

***

A/N: As creepy as he is, I have so much fun writing Kirkin. Sadly, Hetty didn’t quite fit into this one with the changes to the plot. Some dialogue is pulled directly from “Till Death Do Us Part”.

Thanks for the prompt!

[t100ficrecsblog]

three thoughts about john murphy (& 1 thought about folklore)

ONE

John Murphy… where to start?! I didn’t like him exactly, but I was intrigued by him from early on. His motivations fluctuated and he was hard to pin down initially, but I found him much more interesting than the other male characters so I guess that’s how it started for me. Canon tries to sell Murphy as selfish or uncaring or primarily out for himself, but only in very early s1 do I ever buy this about him. He was making efforts to be helpful & doing good deeds ages ago, so I actually find it pretty frustrating that both canon & some of fandom are now suddenly on the “we’re so proud” of Murphy train. He has matured into a better person, yes, but the seed of that was clearly visible in s1 and it’s one of the reasons I love Murphy because for me at least, the glimpses of who he really was when he let his guard down have always pulled me right in. -JENN

One of the best arcs on the show. Murphy’s grown and changed so much over the course of the show, while also staying true to himself. I think it’s been interesting to him progress, but just as fascinating to see where he stays the same or even regresses at times. I think Murphy really encompasses how good people can be bad sometimes, but learn and overcome and, ultimately, live. -RYN

he is far more fair and pragmatic than people give him credit for. i think a lot of it is him feeling the effects of being expendable. i also don’t believe this is a new development - he wanted to help finn in season two, he helped bellamy in season three, he stole medicine in season four, he stayed behind for raven in season five, he didn’t want to start a war in season six. he’s not a hero or a villain, he’s just a typical complex human. -ELLE

TWO

I’m a big fan of Murphy’s sense of humor, his ability to read people & situations, and how he’s really not much of a grudge holder, all things considered. He doesn’t get enough credit for that. I don’t view him as comic relief for the show though - to me Murphy’s arcs over the seasons have often been deeper and more complex than they first appear to be, and I don’t know that other characters would have come out of them as intact as Murphy has. He doesn’t get enough credit for that either. Yes, he’s a survivor but he’s also had to develop an incredibly thick skin to deal with the things he has been through. So basically what I’m saying is that Murphy deserves the world! -JENN

Morality. I think Murphy perfectly demonstrates the morality of t100. How it changes, ebbs and flows. How it can adapt and become better, but also lose hope and go to extremes when under pressures to survive. Then, even amongst the darkest times, there’s always the lingering feeling of hope and light.  -RYN

john murphy (thanks to richard harmon) elevates every storyline and character he’s involved with. i know i’m biased, but i feel he is criminally underused. he’s often used in the b or even c plots, but he shines so much when he’s with the rest of the mains. part of the reason i love murven so much is that i find murphy and raven so natural and electric together. they have such an easygoing banter, and their development is second to none. i feel like the characters (and actors) can bounce off one another like no other pair. -ELLE

THREE

he is more than just comedic relief or the resident “cockroach” (while i’m here: i viciously hate the cockroach joke as well as the “shut up murphy” shtick). i think a lot of people tend to overlook him, but he is actually such an interesting and compelling character in terms of mental health. i definitely feel like in the modern world, he would be diagnosed with something. that’s why so many of his fans relate to him and see something that maybe a lot of viewers wouldn’t. he’s smart and loyal and kind - but like anyone, has inner struggles. -ELLE

Dad!Murphy rights. This has been living in my mind for a while now, and I am even part of the dad!murphy enthusiasts founded by the amazing @queenemori. We all are passionate about Murphy being a dad, and regardless of our ship of choice, love to talk about it and come up with headcanons and fic that includes the dynamic. -RYN

Now that we’re so close to the end, I do regret that canon likely won’t delve more into Murphy’s ties to Abby (before and after her death) and how he connects her to his own parents. Also his isolation/PTSD in s5 & his reliance on drinking in s6/s7 are pieces I think we’re missing out on too. I think these aspects of who Murphy has grown to be are important to his character, his past and his future. I’m glad that fic writers who love Murphy will tackle topics like these though, because they are stories that deserve to be told. -JENN

what’s your favorite song from folklore?

Probably betty, though I really love august and cardigan as well! There’s just something about betty that really gets me in my feels and it’s such a poignant song. It’s been on repeat for me for a while and I don’t see that changing soon. -ryn

other than all of them? right this minute it’s maybe ‘invisible string’. though again, it’s really all of them. -elle

How dare you ask me something so difficult! Every listen this answer might change but Exile & Mirrorball are consistently in the top 3. -jenn