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visceravalentines · 8 months ago

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a goddamn break

that's right boys it's a saw fic from me, the clown

2.5k words. neat n tidy little character study of my favorite guys in loathe with each other. no content warnings. not explicitly coffinshipping but anything's coffinshipping if you glare at it long enough. I fucked with the timeline of saw iv to make this make sense but literally time isn't real especially in these movies. hope you like it!!

Peter Strahm tells his doctor he doesn’t smoke, and if he were hooked up to a polygraph, it would read as true.

That’s because he knows how to lie in a way that makes the words fact, at least in that moment and the one that comes after. It’s because he quit in college, cold turkey, the day after he got his diploma, and the doc doesn’t ask if he used to smoke.

It’s also because the battered pack of Camels he keeps in the pocket of his suit jacket doesn’t count. That’s for emergencies only.

Today constitutes an emergency. The last two weeks have been a goddamn emergency. Every waking moment since he set foot in the Metropolitan Police Department has been nothing but dead ends and incompetence. Today is one of a long string of days he’d rather fast-forward through to get to the good part, the part where he wins.

He’s never had a liaison turn casualty before. Detective Kerry had a good head on her shoulders, knew which way was up. She’d reached out to the FBI for help on the Jigsaw case, not the other way around. That was the mark of a good cop. One who knew when they were out of their element.

Strahm isn’t ready to admit he’s out of his element. Not yet. Because he isn’t.

He just needs a smoke.

His jacket is slumped over the back of his garbage office chair in the shitty little temporary office he shares with Perez. She clocks him rifling through the pockets, raises a sympathetic eyebrow.

“Don’t,” he warns before she can open her mouth.

She puts her hands up like she’s negotiating with a terrorist. “I wasn’t.”

“You were.”

“It’s been a rough couple of weeks,” she concedes.

“Understatement.” Strahm shoves a sigh out through his nose. “I wanna talk to Jill Tuck again.”

“I know you do.”

Her tone borders on consolation. Strahm shoots her a look. “She’s the key, Perez.”

“She’s a big shiny window and you’re a bird flying at top speed,” she replies. “There are other avenues.”

Strahm shakes his head, taps the pack of Camels against his palm. “I wanna talk to her again.”

Perez rolls her eyes, mutters a curse, and he feels a surge of pride. He's rubbing off on her. “I’ll bring her in.”

“Has forensics pulled their heads out of their collective asses yet, or is that too much to ask for in this shithole precinct?”

Perez smiles beatifically. “I’d rather not answer that.”

Strahm makes a sound like a shoe in a dryer. “I’ll be back in five minutes.”

“Take fifteen.”

He grumbles something unintelligible even to himself and stalks out.

There’s a door to the alleyway near the men’s room. Strahm knows this because the two aren’t clearly labeled and he’s gone through the wrong one twice. As he turns down the hall he sees that someone has propped open the external door with a rock to keep it from locking behind them, probably some other idiot chipping away at their respiratory health.

He almost reconsiders, almost turns around to find his way to the front of the building. But that’s stupid. He can stomach five minutes five feet away from another person.

Strahm pushes his way through the door, descends the stairs to his left, rounds the banister to the right, and stops cold.

Hoffman turns that dead-eyed stare on him, blows a lungful of smoke through those Hollywood housewife lips. “Agent Strahm,” he says in a monotone that conveys the most mild surprise conceivable.

Strahm considers walking back in the building for five whole seconds. He has no qualms with casual incivility. But he sees Hoffman doing the same math, catches the twitch of a smirk that may as well be a gauntlet thrown at his feet.

Peter Strahm is many things, but never a coward.

He slouches over begrudgingly, finds a section of wall, gives Hoffman a noncommittal grimace and dares to hope, just for a moment. It would be possible for this interaction to pass in silence, incredibly possible. Painless, even.

“Didn’t know you smoked,” Hoffman remarks, and Strahm grinds his teeth.

“I don’t.” He digs in his pocket for his ancient Bic lighter. He picked it up at a gas station in St. Louis years ago, never saw the need for an upgrade. Bic makes quality products.

Hoffman takes a drag, watches him pull a cigarette from the pack. “My mistake,” he says in the back of his throat. Smoke wafts loose from his mouth.

Strahm strikes the lighter once, twice, thrice. It sparks, but no flame except a flash of white-hot irritation.

He pictures Perez telling him to picture a beach.

He strikes it six more times even though he knows it’s not going to work, tries to count to ten in his head and fizzles out around four, remembers now the last time he lit up in Baltimore and thought to himself I better fill ‘er up.

He did not, of course, do that. Unfortunately.

Strahm straightens his head and looks hard at the brick wall across the alley and waits for it. He can feel Hoffman savoring the moment, knows exactly the sanctimonious look that’s plastered on the detective’s smug fucking face.

If he makes him ask for it, on his sainted mother’s grave, Strahm will shoot him.

Hoffman exhales serenely. “Need a light?”

Somehow that is worse.

Strahm keeps the cigarette pressed between his lips and his eyes straight ahead and holds out his hand to the right. He’ll be goddamned if he lets Hoffman light it for him. He feels the brush of the detective’s fingers on his palm and the familiar weight of a Zippo, uncomfortably warm from Hoffman's pocket.

When he flips it open he sees an engraving, worn down by what appears to be the frequent back-and-forth rub of a thumb across the letters. Saint Mark. He doesn't want to know.

Strahm lights up and hands the Zippo back to Hoffman like it might carry some disease. He fills his lungs with a bittersweet buzz and lets his head drop back, blows smoke to the sky. “Thanks,” he mutters.

“Anything to help the FBI,” Hoffman replies, and Strahm really can’t tell whether or not he’s trying to be more punchable than he already is.

He inhales again and holds it as long as he can. Enough time has passed since the last time he smoked that it goes right to his head, makes his brain hum behind his eyes. He feels better immediately. The smell always whisks him back to his undergrad days, to the stairwell outside the campus library where he used to take study breaks. Cold night, dark clouds, sodium street lamps. A certainty about himself and the future. A support structure. Simpler times.

“Made any progress with Jill Tuck?”

His pleasant memory gets shredded like paper through Hoffman's weird little teeth and he’s back in an alleyway that reeks of trash and vice, stomach acid creeping up his esophagus. Strahm taps his finger, watches flecks of ash spiral down and disappear near his shoe. “What do you think?”

Hoffman takes a thoughtful drag like he’s never heard of a rhetorical question. “She's a deeply troubled woman.”

“Great insight,” Strahm snaps, “really valuable stuff there, detective. Why am I even here?”

“I just figured with your expertise, you might be more successful than me.” Hoffman wears a look of such mock deference Strahm wants to gag. “I'm sure whatever training you get at the FBI is unmatched.”

“Don’t give me that shit.” Strahm doesn't want to play this game, not in this city, not this time. “Look, I know you don't want me here. I know I stepped on your toes at Detective Kerry’s crime scene. That's my job. I come in and stomp around until something shakes loose.”

“Oh, I understand perfectly. Please don't mistake me for someone who intends to make your role in this harder than it needs to be.”

There's something besides cigarette smoke behind the words, something weighty. Something that gets Strahm to look directly at the detective for the first time.

Hoffman looks back, unblinking, and Strahm thinks of a shark behind glass. He thinks about perspective and how an object seems motionless when it's coming straight at you. He thinks all this too fast to parse meaning, but his instincts are good, have always been good, and the hair on the back of his neck wants to stand up.

“I think you’re a good cop, Hoffman,” he says carefully. He’s swimming slow back to shore. “I think your department has been sacrificed on the altar of obsession one by one and you’re still here.” No splash, no wake. “Whatever else that means, it means you’re smart.”

Hoffman blows smoke and gives Strahm a look of gratitude so patronizing it makes his skin crawl. “I appreciate that, Agent Strahm. The past several months have been…taxing.”

The past several minutes have been taxing, but Strahm keeps that to himself. He can't shake the feeling that something big just passed him beneath the surface, barely missed him.

“What’s your instinct?” Hoffman asks. “How much do you think Jill knows?”

Strahm scoffs. “Plenty. Enough to write a trashy memoir and disappear from the public eye if she really wanted to. But she hasn't. Why?”

“Because she's involved. Anything she says could incriminate her.”

“No shit.” Strahm sucks on smoke. “And no offense, detective, but I've seen those interrogation tapes. You're too fucking soft on her. You want juice, you gotta squeeze.”

“With all due respect, I'd like to see you try.”

Strahm bristles, shoots him a glare. “Is that a fucking challenge? You think I'm gonna meet my match in Jill fucking Tuck?”

“You misunderstand me, Agent Strahm.” Those eyes glitter with something like mirth. “I mean I truly would like to see you try. Jill Tuck has been a hurdle since the start of all this. Like it or not, we're all players in this game. It's about time she gets pulled off the sidelines.”

Strahm examines him with interest. “You make it sound personal.”

Hoffman breaks eye contact, settles his gaze on some invisible point down the alley. A look of remorse slides over his face like a shadow over the sun. “At this point, how could it not be?”

Whatever else might be going on here, even Strahm has to concede that’s a reasonable response. His mind conjures up memories of closed-casket funerals past and he thinks of his colleagues back at the home office. He thinks of Perez. He clenches his jaw, remembers he’s supposed to be relaxing, takes a hard drag and is rewarded with a wave of nausea.

Hoffman is talking again. “Have you had a chance to look through the case files for the last three Jigsaw games? I think there were ten victims total. If you're right and John Kramer's health has kept him from hands-on involvement, maybe there might be something we missed, something–”

Strahm holds up a hand and exhales around his teeth. “Can we not do this? I just–I need a break from this Jigsaw bullshit. For like thirty seconds.”

“Sure thing,” Hoffman says amicably. He stubs his cigarette out on the wall, leans back against the brick, purses his lips. For a few blessed seconds Strahm thinks he might let the silence stand, or even better–leave. But then: “Got any plans this weekend?”

Strahm pounds his closed fist back against the wall with a little more force than he means to, closes his eyes, chews on a sigh. “No,” he says loudly with what he hopes is sufficient finality.

“Do you fish?”

“Do I what?”

“Fish. Go fishing?”

Strahm groans. “No, detective, no, I don’t fish. I spend enough time sitting waiting for lower life forms to take the bait in my professional life, thank you very much.”

Hoffman lets out what might be a laugh. “Fair enough. You strike me as more of a hunter anyway.”

“Never been,” Strahm says dismissively. This is a lie. He knows the woods of rural Vermont blind. The first time he shot a gun he was seven and the kick knocked him flat on his ass.

“I like to fish. Head down south when I can find the time. You ever been to Bass River?”

Strahm grunts, gives up, slumps against the wall mirroring Hoffman’s posture. “No.”

“Beautiful country. When this is all over, you and Special Agent Perez oughta make the drive down. Worth the detour.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Where are you and Perez staying in town? Maybe I can make some local recommendations, help you make the best of your time here.”

Alarm bells again. Something in the water. Something coming at him. “I don’t know,” Strahm deflects, “some place downtown. Old as fuck. No water pressure.”

Hoffman chuckles. “Sounds like my last apartment.”

“Yeah, you guys have a real issue with property values up here.” Strahm examines his cigarette, figures he can get one more pull off it. “Have you considered razing all the abandoned buildings so Jigsaw runs out of chessboards?”

Something like a smile twists Hoffman’s lips. “Arson, special agent?”

Strahm flicks his filter across the alley. “Whatever works.”

“Litter, too,” Hoffman observes.

Strahm rolls his eyes so hard his neck kinks. “This has been fun, but I’d better start combing through the four thousand page report your medical examiner handed me this morning. I’m sure I’ll see you around.” He stands up straight, winces at the tweak in his back, stretches his arms behind him.

“See you around,” Hoffman says.

Strahm makes it halfway up the stairs to the landing before Hoffman calls after him. He almost ignores him, thinks better of it. Gritting his teeth, he leans over the railing. “Yes, detective?”

Hoffman regards him coolly, his gaze like a blunt steel blade. “I'm sure it goes without saying, but…be careful who you trust. If there is an accomplice, we ought to proceed with caution.”

Strahm resists the urge to sneer. “No disrespect to your department, but I’m here because I’m competent. Some chemo-addled freak and his band of misfit toys? I’m not exactly shaking in my boots.”

He could swear Hoffman smiles, just for a second. A flash of teeth that doesn’t reach the eyes. “I understand. It’s just I would hate to see you…how did you say it?” He bites his lip thoughtfully. “Sacrificed.”

Strahm decides, once and for all, that Mark Hoffman is spooky.

“I appreciate your concern.”

He flings the door open and ducks inside without waiting for a reply.

For the rest of the afternoon and into the evening, Strahm submerges himself in the cold, clinical mire of half a dozen autopsy reports. In the back of his mind, behind the descriptions of catastrophic injury inflicted on the human body, he is elbow-deep in a dissection of his own.

He replays the conversation in his head again and again like a microcassette tape, trying to pinpoint the moment when Hoffman shifted in his estimation. He tries to reconcile fact and gut feeling and is left wanting from every angle. The thing about fishing–you only ever see what takes the bait. What passes it by lives on unknown.

All the while, from the time he shuts himself in his office to the moment his head hits the hotel pillow, Strahm tries to shake the feeling he's being watched.

He doesn't succeed.

#peter strahm #mark hoffman #peter strahm fanfiction #mark hoffman fanfiction #saw fanfiction #literally so jittery about posting this sksnfjdndks it's not even x reader!! it's just new and scary!!!#it was so much fun to write tho. oh google docs we're really in it now

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philtstone · 5 months ago

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title: check yes, juliet

Summary:

It doesn't matter that Juliet is a freshly-minted, top-of-her-class field agent (alright, so she hasn't actually been in the field yet) or one of the few women working for the Federal Bureau of Investigation's cutting edge check fraud department (just last week, their 20-year-old coffee maker broke and they ran out of number two pencils to mark up their overhead projector notes with): every time her mother calls, all she does is lament that her beautiful, intelligent daughter isn't meeting any eligible bachelors.

“Maybe that’s for the best,” Maryanne sighs eventually. “All O’Hara women fall for liars, Julie. It’s our curse.”

Juliet has to wonder if she didn't scoff at her mother's claim a little bit too soon.

my brother & i had the earth shattering realization a month ago that the plot of "catch me if you can" (2002) is almost to a tee just a mildly alternate psych timeline and that thought has lived in my head rent free to such an insane degree that eventually 14 thousand words poured out of me in au fic form. im posting it so as many other people as possible can see the vision. and also because im sure theres one person other than me who revels in early seasons shawnjuliet's frankly insane levels of chemistry, lol. enjoy!

READ FULL FIC ON AO3

Excerpt:

“Your average bounced check would be routed to the bank it originates from, so you’d only really have a few days in one place before you were discovered. This guy’s been filing off the routing numbers, changing ‘em somehow – so cleanly and neatly that it’ll take a real sharp eye to notice. It’s all about the branch you’re cashing it in. A check cashed in at Chase Manhattan with the one changed to ten’s gonna bounce halfway around the country before anyone figures out it’s rotten, and by that point this asshole is long gone. The numbers go East, Central, West – you see how they cover 0-60, 70-80, and of course they require a special kind of ink to be recognized as real checks, which you’d all know if you’d read the report I circulated …”

Juliet doesn’t notice the full cup of orange juice in front of her until it’s too late.

Her head’s still full of Carlton’s two hour long briefing this morning, during which she learned more about check fraud than she’d have ever thought a single person could in one lifespan. Certainly not Juliet, who’d originally studied literature at Florida State. Then again, back then she’d have never expected to end up an FBI agent, either.

Then there’s the wired, tense feeling in her gut that probably won’t go away ‘til this sting is over and they bring in the pathetic local guy Carlton’s been tracking for the last week. His MO is pretty girls in pastel dresses, which made Juliet the right man – woman – for the job. At least maybe doing this’ll help the guys in the office take her seriously as a field agent. And, well … she does love a nice peachy pink cardigan. The color goes well with her complexion.

“This idiot’s no real con man, he’s just a clown who can’t be bothered to work an honest job. Child’s play compared to the real thing. ” Carlton tends to pause here, angry that he’s got to acknowledge it like that – the real thin g. “ You know what they’ve been calling him in the papers these days?”

Him . Always him. They don’t have a name on the subject yet, despite over a million cashed in fraudulent checks. Juliet hums and nods so her partner feels acknowledged.

“ The skywayman . Pathetic. Like he’s some magician or something, instead of a two-bit liar who thinks he’s smarter than me. ”

“This isn’t personal, Carlton ,” Juliet says tiredly. “ It’s not like he knows who you are to be deliberately toying with you.”

“Oh yes he is. I know he is. I know him .”

Her hands aren’t quite shaking, because that would be stupid; this guy, their local guy, shouldn’t have a gun on him, and if he does he’s not the type to shoot a woman. Juliet focuses on the paper in front of her and tucks a lock of her hair behind one ear. A window of ten minutes – that’s what Carlton said. Unlike Carlton’s unsub nemesis, they know plenty about this one. He’ll come in, dressed like the middle-aged schlub he is, loose tie probably, gray slacks, thinning hair. He’ll notice her, buy her a soda she’ll accept with a faulty check and then pick her pocket for the cash. The string of pearls at her neck makes her a sweet college girl whose parents have money. She mentally forces herself to stop chewing her lip and instead moves her right hand down to her lap, where she can pick at her nail polish without anyone seeing.

“Well, obviously we wanna catch him,” Agent Dobson says, when they’re a third of the way through the morning briefing and half the room is asleep or dreaming of lunch. Juliet, of course, has been furiously taking notes. He means the Skywayman; he means the real thing. “But you gotta admit, Lassiter, there is a bit of a magic show to a good con, isn’t there? The press has that one thing right.”

“It’s not magic. It’s lies and deceit and a healthy helping of audacity, and a damn good typewriter. O’Hara, write that down. We’re gonna go through that list of makes and models again, see what we can come up with.”

Deep breath. Her purse, orange to match the cardigan, is in her lap. The gun’s in the purse. She’ll draw it, but not to shoot. This is the kind of work she’s begged the Chief for, and she’ll be just fine.

Maybe Juliet would feel less desperate to prove herself if this diner wasn’t in Miami, and her father didn’t gift her the only string of pearls she owns.

A voice clears itself quietly above her.

“Uh, excuse me? Hi, yeah, hi. That’s my seat.”

#my writing #psych #psych (2006)#juliet o'hara #shawn spencer #shawn x juliet #shules #carlton lassiter #burton guster #catch me if you can #shawn and juliet really invented having the worlds craziest convergence of daddy issues & i love that for them so much

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dukeofdelirium · 1 month ago

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every time some guilter troll comes along all they say is “well he’s guilty and there’s proof” as if MJ wasn’t fucking exonerated by the damn FBI and as if he wasn’t acquitted of 14 charges in a row, 4 of which were misdemeanors. the judge even gave the jury the option to find him guilty of 14 felonies instead of the 4 misdemeanors and 10 felonies, but they declined.

these allegations are absolutely ridiculous and they always have been, ever since the first one broke in 1993. MJ literally had cops and firefighters at his property, he had security cameras everywhere, he was constantly watched by the world every place he went. how in gods name would this man have even found the time to do such things in the first place?

more importantly, how would he have managed to outsmart all of these agencies and ppl? was MJ a criminal mastermind? it’s laughable.

he’s been accused of raping women he never met. he’s been accused of fathering children he never had. he’s been accused of molesting kids that he never met, of molesting kids on continents he wasn’t on and in buildings and locations that didn’t exist at the time of the supposed abuse. he’s the most litigated person who ever lived with over 1,000 financially driven lawsuits filed by 2004 alone. this man was a multibillionaire and ppl viewed him as open season.

why work when you can jump on the Michael Jackson abused me train? fucking clowns 🤡

#michael jackson #mjinnocent #mjjinnocent #MJ #mjj #king of pop

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vvatchword · 5 months ago

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Reading BioShock: Rapture (Part 6: Frank Fontaine: Funny He-He Clown Man)

<- Part 5: Three Old Men Jerking Their Milk Sticks || Back to the Beginning || Part 7: Shadow Eve ->

By Chapter 2, Shirley finally introduces a few antagonists—Fontaine, as well as G-men doing the world’s worst surveillance.

If you’re hoping for tension,

stop.

hope is a lie and this book is its grave

I Would Like to Feel Anything Please

This chapter opens on Sullivan trying to shake a G-man and failing. Apparently it doesn’t matter because he goes ahead and meets with a character called Ruben Greavy, head engineer for the Wales brothers. I’m assuming that Greavy was originally the city designer before Wales & Wales had to be worked in.

I was most interested in the G-man because I keep looking for antagonists. Ryan has a goal, right? In literally any story anywhere, there would be obstacles the protag has to overcome. One might reasonably conclude that government institutions are Andrew Ryan’s greatest foes. They have the power to stop him through legislation and force: it doesn’t matter how much money you have if your enemy can mobilize the fucking Army.

Who else has the power to stop Ryan? Probably other industry tycoons. In Ayn Rand’s fiction, company presidents commonly ally with each other and the government to stymie the goals of her Ubermensch.

Although present, Fontaine is a small-time crook and motivated in other directions and is thus a non-issue.

As it turns out, I shouldn’t have been excited to see the G-men. After info-dumping a thousand things we either already know or could read in more interesting ways, Sullivan says this:

“Maybe they’ll get a warrant after all. I don’t think they’d find anything illegal.”

So you’re saying there’s no threat.

We are in Chapter 2, on page thirty-fucking-nine, and THERE ARE STILL NO STAKES.

But Preferably Not Indignation

At this point, it’s not about not knowing who Ryan’s enemies are. Functionally, I don’t think they exist. While Shirley invokes entire government institutions, like the FBI or IRS, they literally have nothing to do and no reason to be there.

Moreover, the Olympian—Ryan’s yacht—is namedropped. Which is when I realized that it was being used as a cargo ship.

Wait a fucking minute.

Look, I don’t know shit about boats, but can you really use a yacht like that? Like to ship big ol city parts? Why would you do that? I mean there’s a certain poetic quality in, say, stripping the guts out of your pleasure yacht to bend it to base labor, but we all know Shirley didn’t think that far.

(grumbles to self. angrily notates “research midcentury yacht models and cargo ships”)

Salty — Today at 10:22 AM No, yachts can’t be used like that watchword — Today at 10:23 AM "I found this out in 1 minute Shirley" thank you I figured the design mattered Salty — Today at 10:23 AM It does You’d need some kind of crane to lower things into the water and there’s no way a yacht could take that shit without being built not like a yacht

So it turns out that Andrew Ryan has sent his chief of security personally down to the docks to confirm the time it leaves like he’s some kind of little messenger drone. Somewhere in the proceeding info-dump, Sullivan tells Greavy to leave with all of the building supplies in his ship as soon as possible in case the G-men want to raid them, even though there’s nothing illegal going on. Their reasoning is that they don’t want the US government to learn even a scrap of information about what they’re doing.

Or what? What would they fucking do? There are no laws about shipping out giant city parts. I suppose it could be framed as Ryan being paranoid, but Shirley always explains what characters are doing to the nth degree, and there’s no such explanation here.

Also, and I don’t know why this isn’t being used: the world was fucking flattened after World War II. Shipping building supplies makes a lot of fucking sense. Just tell the gubmint that you’re selling them to France or something. “Aw, yeah, Uncle Sam. You know how much the French like glass tubes. Gonna put all the filthy tourists in there like hamsters so they don’t touch anything. When you get troublemakers you just close the bulkheads and fill them with water.”

Besides, all you have to do is tell the gubmint what you’re shipping off with. It’s for records to be checked against the port that receives the shipment to make sure there’s no funny business. What I don’t remember is if you have to declare what port you’re going to—I suspect that would be the case—but I mean. LIE? This is your life’s work. LIE.

Finally, New York is one of the busiest and biggest ports in the nation. Why would anyone be looking that closely at one more cargo ship? Paperwork back then was even more annoying and difficult to grok than it is today. Imagine the volume for a port like New York’s.

Just fucking LIE.

The real point of this scene is so there can be an exposition dump. Shirley couldn’t just send a messenger who didn’t know what was going on—he needed two people who were In the Know. The important part isn’t entertainment, it’s information: unnecessary and uninteresting exposition about Rapture’s political and economic goals, why they’re shipping supplies the way they are, and the US government, all despite the characters involved being intimately knowledgeable of the situation. Also, they’re about 75% through with the entire escapade, so if this conversation ever occurred at all, you’d think it would be months in the past. The G-man is an attempt at escalation, but then Shirley immediately de-escalates by saying he’s powerless.

So, just to reiterate:

Sullivan tries to shake a tail, fails, and doesn’t care because it doesn’t matter. He shows up at a ship containing building materials for Rapture, meets Greavy, and they lecture each other back and forth about subjects they should already know to summarize a bunch of events we should have seen. As an afterthought, Sullivan tells Greavy he showed up in person to confirm the time the ship leaves instead of calling because the phones are probably tapped. Sullivan will leave before the ship leaves so he won’t actually know the time to confirm with his boss. This particular ship is one of multiple ships and represents only one of multiple shipments—there’s nothing remarkably special about it. They’re not in any danger in any way and there’s nothing the USA can do legally to stop them. End scene.

How the hell is anything this bad.

How.

There should really be like twenty chapters for every one of BioShock: Rapture’s, each explaining how we got here. Because instead of sharing the exciting cat-and-mouse shit, Shirley writes about the outcomes where everything is settled.

This is how our reflections write in the mirror universe.

I have read fanfiction by fans of every age and fluency level and ability. Most of it was trash, but it could be excused because they were young or new or amateur writers, and even then, they’re often excited about a concept and trying really hard and might have some neat thoughts to share.

This… this is on a whole different level.

Writing Is Hard (and Caring Is Harder)

The reason for this is, of course, that Shirley would have had to research several different subjects to write about them in any depth, and time was of the essence. In fact, I am now 100% convinced that everything here is done in a mad effort to save effort, which sounds as delightful as it is.

The elements he thinks to research are absurd. I am now sure that he doesn’t know how to rank research subjects by importance. He does not research, say, the histories of the IRS or the FBI or corporate espionage. No, he researches “how to install a toilet” and “historical boxing.” He’s most often focused on physical processes or what things look like—not on what people do or why they do them.

I have a new bet for you: that each chapter will be like a little push-pin in a plot point. None of them will be married meaningfully to any of the other plot points. They will be little islands in time and rely on the reader to insert connective tissue. This will essentially be a disjointed short story collection, except without any tension whatsoever, because they’re just summaries of larger stories that we never see.

Shrug

Let’s contrast this burning sludge puddle with a different burning sludge puddle: Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. This is a fitting contrast as Rapture is a callback to Galt’s Gulch.

The protagonist, Dagny Taggart, discovers Galt’s Gulch (libertarian paradise and Aryan summer camp) in Part 3, roughly 60% through the book. In my paperback, Part 3 begins on page 643, and the story ends on page 1,069 (nice). The font is like 6 points. I can’t stress enough how dense this book is.

Rand spends ungodly amounts of time and detail lingering on her enemies—politicians and company presidents and whiny family members. She waxes eloquent on the destructive side of selflessness. Over the course of an eternity, she displays in slow, evolving detail how that world fucks her characters over, despite all their best efforts. And oh—they struggle. They fight!

When Dagny ends up in Galt’s Gulch, staring straight into the face of Objectivist Jesus, she has been through hell, and it feels like a relief: like she’s finally free.

Galt’s Gulch was not a given—it was a process.

Rapture deserves the same build-up. The build-up is the story, you understand?

BioShock: Rapture is like a romance novel that skips all its character building and sex sequences to leap straight into post-coital snuggling. It’s not half as interesting or meaningful if you don’t include all of the pining and rage and frustration and explicit dicking.

Funny He-He Clown Man

Oh, Frank Fontaine. They done did u dirty.

Hey, hypothetical reader, I’m gonna ask you something: what do you think when you hear "Frank Fontaine"? Do you think of a funny little clown man who changes into costumes every ten seconds like a malicious Bugs Bunny? Because that’s what we have here. And, like everything else in this shapeless abortion, I hate it.

Generally, when I write a character who’s not my own, I say: “What is most interesting about this guy?” And I go for some neat character trait or behaviorism and then expand. Everything about that person fractals off of their base personality, psychology, behaviorisms, internal worlds, and past experiences.

Of course, that character doesn’t exist in a vacuum, so you know what else I do? I look at how they’re utilized in the source material, I ask what exactly the source material is, and I examine what the story was originally trying to do.

Characters Are Limited

Since the Beginning of Time, it has been popular in fandoms to act performatively enraged about how each and every character in a piece of media is not fully-fleshed out and explored to the last quark of the final atom.

First, that’s not how narratives work. Stories have to be limited by their natures: we are limited to this time, this space, this person, these concerns, these events. Material can only stretch so far, and characters can only intersect so long. It’s impossible to touch on every single concern and detail of your world, and if you attempt it, you’ll carefully hand-craft an unreadable clusterfuck.

Second, a character is not a person. A character is a slave to the narrative. They are an ingredient and a tool. Even if they’re the complete focal point of the story, you cannot possibly fully explore them. They do not have full human lives or sapience. They only have what they are given. As inhuman objects and creative constructs, they are also not worthy of the same respect as a real human being. can you believe I have to say that

Third, it’s not important to have a fully-rounded character because that’s not always what the story requires. There are all kinds of different stories outside of character-driven ones—for example, focal points might be on themes, ideas, settings, or vast periods of time, and not on people at all; sometimes the narrative as a whole is more important than the characters inside of them; sometimes the style and POV limits how much we can know; sometimes it’s simply more entertaining or informative to omit certain information; and so on.

There are many ways to be interesting, and there are many ways to string along a series of plot points, and characters are just more tools in the toolbox. Instead of raking a narrative across the coals for not meeting your standards, it’s far more sensible to ask what the narrative is and what it’s trying to do, then judge it according to the standards it was trying to meet.

The Fountainhead

Sometimes a character works best if we don’t know that much about them. In my opinion, Frank Fontaine is one of these. He has a limited efficacy and only in specific situations.

How is Fontaine used in BioShock? Sparingly, that’s how. And when he finally shows up as ringleader, it’s to head what is arguably the weakest part of the game. Suddenly you have to look straight at him for a couple of hours, and he’s just not that interesting under a spotlight. He’s a small-time crook who won the lottery; what made him interesting was the Atlas con and his friction with Andrew Ryan, and both are over. He’s not that big of a deal in and of himself. He doesn’t really have any power other than ADAM—and of course, that’s the point.

Fontaine is not a character with an arc. He can’t change and he wouldn’t work very well if he did. In fact, he’s not really a character at all—he’s an anthropomorphized human quality. One of the alternate meanings of “frank” is “honesty” or “truth”; “Fontaine,” or “fountain,” probably refers to Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead.

“What is the fountainhead—the source—of the Ubermensch?” Rand asks.

Levine replied: “What is the fountainhead of Objectivism?”

If Objectivism got everything it wanted, what would its world really look like? Because it wouldn’t be Galt’s Gulch or Rapture in its heyday.

Frank Fontaine is the ultimate culmination of Objectivist theory—not Andrew Ryan. The guy who wins doesn’t have to have any laudable moral qualities at all—all he has to be is the strongest or most cunning. The best idea or product doesn’t necessarily succeed because Objectivism isn’t about quality—you can just get steamrolled into bullshit because some company has more resources and social currency than the innovative little guy. If all you value is strength, all you will receive is the strong, and that strongman does not have any incentive to be anything other than a flesh-tearing, blood-drinking brute.

One of BioShock’s best qualities is how it just lets Fontaine sort of exist quietly in the background, like the faint, tense hum of an electric wire. You see evidence of him. You see what people think of him. But you never actually see him. The mystery is part of his power. Pre-twist, you only hear his voice once, and it’s probably utilized as a red herring in case you started to doubt Atlas’ identity. After all, Atlas is Irish, and Fontaine is from New York or something! You can trust Atlas!

But Can You Trust Shirley?

what the fuck do you think

I thought of just ending here and letting you figure it out but I believe this deserves just a little explication.

In Chapter 2, Fontaine—going by the surname Gorland—waltzes in, front and center, and with all the flare of a supervillain descending from on high, steals some loser’s shitty-ass bar.

“Whatta hell ya mean you’re the owner, Gorland?” … “…You’re about to sign this bar over to me, is whatta hell.” … Merton stared at the papers, eyes widening. “That was you? Hudson Loans? Nobody told me that was—” “A loan is a loan. What I seem to recall is, you were drunk when you signed it. Needed some money to pay off your gambling vig. A big fucking vig it was too, Merton!”

Fontaine got a guy drunk and made him sign something. Is this supposed to impress me?

I cut a ton of needless bullshit out and I still didn’t cut as much as I should have. (A “vig” is a gambling debt, so “gambling” is redundant, among other things.) What shitty dialogue this is. I told you, McDonagh isn’t the only one you should be cringing at. Shirley is terrified you won’t understand him so he makes sure to explain every point three times over.

When Levine writes “CIA spook” or “das vedanya,” it’s not to prove his work. It’s there because it makes sense there. When Shirley uses a specific term, it’s to show off. It’s like a little kid running up to show you that he finished a question on his homework. Except he does it every time he finishes something. And he’s always wrong somehow.

“Vig” in particular got me.

“Vig, you know! Yeah I looked it up! Vig! A gambling debt! Bet you’ve never heard that before! I researched! See! Vig!”

I will find your thesaurus, tear each page out one by one, and eat them in front of you without breaking eye contact. You will see me when you get up at midnight for a drink of water, slowly crunching in the dark. When you call the police I will evaporate. All that will be left is the hardcover, tented over a single dead roach pinned to the floor. At night you will hear me whispering from the walls: “haaaaaaaack”

Cynicism, Nihilism, Gnosticism, Humanism

Frank Fontaine is the most cynically written of all the characters thus far. He’s the one with the most obvious To-Do List.

“What do I need to establish about Frank Fontaine?” Shirley asked himself. “Let’s see: he is a conman. He is a great actor. He needs to find out about Rapture and get there somehow. He’s a super-awful guy. I should establish his background, motivations, and how he learned his skills. I know! He lived in a vaudeville theater!”

All right, all right. Let me be fair. I would bet money that Levine is the source of that background bit—BioShock features a million stages for a reason that I will someday write about at length—but god I hate it. I was in one-act play and I have watched hundreds of films but it doesn’t mean I know how to act. Isn’t it enough that Fontaine learns to manipulate others, perhaps out of a sense of childish self-preservation before evolving into predation? Does it have to be a big show?

…yes, I guess. Fuck. Because gnosticism.

Gnosticism is one of those BioShock themes that I least expected in this novel because it is a pure thought exercise and exists on several metaphorical levels. I’m sure Shirley has been informed of its existence, but we all know how he’ll handle it (he can’t lol). All you need to know about gnosticism is that it’s a philosophy that believes the physical environment is a broken copy of a higher reality. Even though the physical realm is fucked, it can still point toward a higher truth. In other words, you can learn from the physical world’s half-truths to achieve gnosis—knowledge of that ultimate spiritual truth—and thereby ascend to that higher spiritual plane.

But Ken Levine has a different take on ascension.

According to Levine, you learn by going through the horrors of life, but the truth is not some beatific vision. There is no god and there is no better world: there is Only Man. All you learn is that human beings hurt each other, and that they won’t ever stop, and to survive, you must go to war yourself—whether you like it or not. In the process, you struggle toward an understanding of how to make a better world, but there’s a catch: you have committed all kinds of harm out of ignorance. By committing that harm, you have ensured that the damage goes on… and on… and on.

No human being can avoid this.

Nobody can just TELL you how to make a better world—it’s far too big and complicated a place, and it’s always changing. You have to experience it for yourself to understand how it works. That means you can’t take your knowledge to others, either—because not only can future generations not understand you, your own knowledge is highly individual, and the world is continually changing so that you’re always one step behind. Future generations have to make their own mistakes in their own unique settings to figure out how best to live. In the process, they fuck up the future in a whole new way.

Everyone thinks they’re going through hell looking for heaven, but it turns out it’s always been about this fucked-up world and this fucked-up present with its fucked-up people. All you can do is your best with what you know.

The way Levine illustrates this is that art and artifice performatively point toward that ultimate higher truth: there is no escape, and we are destined to hurt ourselves and future generations in an unbreakable cycle. BioShock is existential horror at its heart, and it’s the best kind—the humanist kind.

So, thematically speaking, Fontaine being a literal performer, acting for our education and elevation, is correct. If you pay attention to the game, every character functions this way. Everything is a performance for your benefit as player. I have to admit that it makes sense. Plus, other than working retail, entertainment is a great way to learn how to hate the human race.

I still hate it. I want Fontaine to be more grounded, I guess. Every time I imagine him in a theater I cackle a little.

Cardboard People

Returning to BioShock: Rapture, the first problem with Fontaine’s section is that he doesn’t feel like a person. I don’t get a sense of his past, even when it’s explicitly mentioned. I bring up Fontaine’s past because people do what they do based on a complicated play of psychological need and lessons learned to survive past environments.

Alas: Fontaine is a one-note mustache-twirler. He wants to get money why? To get more money. Not to survive, not to defy the privations of his past, not to take vengeance on an uncaring world, not to bang girls, not to buy cool shit. He just fucks people up because that’s what he does.

Also, despite being a petty criminal, he seems above and beyond the law somehow. I’m not afraid for him when that G-man from earlier walks into his bar.

…oh, for fuck’s sake, that’s still my optimism talking. I keep expecting this book to work like a book. This thing is the hairy knot you find at the bottom of a drain.

Anyway, the second problem with Fontaine is that the entire story works to his benefit, and it’s immediately ludicrous. Instead of giving Fontaine problems to solve—and giving Andrew Ryan ways to work against him—you know, like real human beings with brains—Shirley just throws information and idiots at Fontaine constantly.

Allow me to illustrate.

Frank Fontaine gets his bar by drugging a guy who is dumb with or without intoxication. Fontaine wanted this bar so he could listen into bar patrons’ conversations for hot tips on gambling and grifts. When does this pay off?

guess

If you said, “Immediately!”, Fuck You! You are correct!

[Fontaine] wiped at an imaginary spill on the bar, edging closer. “But can we count on Steele?” said the one some called Twitchy. He twitched his pencil-thin mustache. “Thinks he’s going to challenge the Bomber next year…” “So let him challenge; he can lose one fight. He needs the payoff, needs it big,” said the chunkier one of the two, “Snort” Bianchi—with a snort.

is this a joke

This is one place I am not sure of Shirley’s intentions. Is it supposed to be bad? Is it supposed to be funny? Is he making fun of me or is he just dumb enough to think this is clever?

What I think this dialogue and these characters represent is Shirley’s attempt to complement BioShock's audio diaries. Again, we hit that divide between the ways stories are best told through different mediums. BioShock’s audio diaries are the literary equivalents of bullion cubes. That’s because you experience dialogue sparingly in a video game, and most content is wrapped up in gameplay, so you’ve got to get your whole idea across as quickly and densely as possible.

It’s for this reason that every BioShock character is an outsized caricature. In the same way that Fontaine is a symbol of Objectivism in its purest form (let's face it, the fountainhead of Man with a capital M), McDonagh is Andrew Ryan’s conscience, and Andrew Ryan is Man falling for the lies of the demiurge. Jasmine Jolene—whom we will see in Chapter 3—represents untenable fantasy.

Oh, and Shadow Eve.

Y’all wanna talk about Shadow Eve? I do. There's only like three of us reading this and I'm counting myself so I'm assuming the vote is unanimous.

Long story short, Shirley doesn’t understand the differences between video game narratives and literary ones, and this fact is probably going to hurt me until the end of this entire broken endeavor.

Shirley also feels like he needs to show Fontaine at work at all times. In his mind, Fontaine is nothing but cons 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Shirley only knows what people do; he doesn’t know why they do anything.

In any case, Fontaine shoos off the Great Value Mobsters, for he has spotted our G-man from earlier, a man named Voss. It appears that Voss is looking for informations.

[Voss] leaned across the bar so he could be heard over the noise. “Word on the street is, this here’s your joint now.”

Originally, I had been reading this quickly, only to run into this paragraph and get terribly confused. Like damn, word travels fast, it’s been 30 minutes and everybody already knows this is Fontaine’s bar?

I had to go back and re-read. The passage of time is suggested somewhere in the info-dump that tells you everything about Fontaine instead of growing him organically over a generous period. It’s done terribly but at least it happened.

Voss crooked a finger, leaned even farther across the bar. Gorland hesitated—then he leaned close. Voss spoke right in his ear. “You hear anything about some kind of big, secret project happening down at the docks? Maybe bankrolled by Andrew Ryan? North Atlantic project? Millions of bucks flowing out to sea…?” “Nah,” Gorland said…. “What kinda deal’s he up to?” “That’s something we don’t… something you don’t need to know.”

haaaaaa haaaaaaa haaaaaaaaaaaaaack

In any case, Fontaine has it in mind that if there are millions of dollars flowing out to sea, he wants in on it somehow.

He didn’t hear anything about Ryan for a couple of days, but one day he heard a drunk blond chippie muttering about “Mr. Fatcat Ryan… goddamn him…” as she frantically waved her empty glass at him. “Hey wherezmuh drinkie?” demanded the blonde.

oh…………. oh this is a hate crime

Have you ever heard of Born Yesterday (1950)? Go watch a clip and listen to the actress, Judy Holliday. Her voice is what I hear in my mind. Except in Born Yesterday the protag is a human being and not a one-dimensional cutout with tits. And Born Yesterday is perfectly representative of its time so the fact it’s outclassing a writer in 2011 is shameful. The only question I have left about this book is, “Who cannot dunk on John Shirley?”

Now I think I understand Shirley a little better. I’m going to give him the benefit of a doubt and assume that we are looking at this crying woman through Fontaine’s eyes, and that this is not reality, but his fucked-up perspective.

You know how I was talking about the relationship between third-person limited POV and bedrock reality? This is one of those breakdowns. In third-person limited, we can see inside of one person, but nobody else. They occupy a world limited by their bias, but that world operates outside of them according to its own logic, which our Subject may or may not be able to comprehend truthfully. There should be clear divisions between what the Subject knows and perceives versus what is happening outside of them. When outside characters speak, or outside events occur, the reader should be assured that they really occurred in the ways they are shared. Otherwise there’s nothing solid to latch onto.

But I’ve got to be honest: I don’t know if this is intentional or not. I have never questioned point-of-view this way in my life. How much have I taken for granted in my tiny span? How do you learn to do something like this so, so badly?

This is John Shirley. We taught him wrong, as a joke.

Of course he wears all black and a goofy hat. Then he sucked all the contrast out until he was clothed in void. Does he think he’s a warlock

Long story short, this POV shit feels like madness to me. Should prose cause seasickness? The way this book is fucked up is one of the most unique experiences I’ve ever had. Although I’m learning a great deal from it, I also hate this experience. And I hate John Shirley.

“I’ll have a Scotch if I can’t have my man back,” she sobbed, “that’s what I’ll have! Dead, dead, dead, and no one from that Ryan crew is saying why.”

Ms. Ogyny the Exposition Whore has managed to interest me despite my deep loathing. I spy a mystery!

Coincidentally, this is why Fontaine’s sections tend to be the most interesting: he’s actively trying to figure things out where other characters just kind of hover in time and space.

New Reasons for Me to Feel an Unearned Sense of Superiority

Some of Shirley’s idiosyncrasies start popping out here because I’ve had some time to suffer under his patterns, much like a player getting their ass handed to them under an Elden Ring boss. For example, he sticks dialogue inside of descriptive paragraphs, and he thinks “went on” is an acceptable dialogue tag. I thought that was a fucking error until it happened the second time.

(✿◠‿◠)ノ.❀。• *₊°。I still think it is a fucking error ❀。• *₊°。 ❀

In my opinion, dialogue can be stuck with a descriptive scene, but it should be limited to the speaker’s actions alone. The implication is that the speaker is performing an action while speaking. Shirley will just slap dialogue into a paragraph with multiple actors and let the reader sort it out.

The reason why this is a problem is that it becomes questionable who the speaker is until you find a subject-verb or infer from context clues. Also, the longer the descriptive sequence, the more you have to think about the time taken to say the sentence as the character is performing the action.

You do not want your work to feel like this:

This is where I noted another little idiosyncrasy: every time Shirley does any research, he regurgitates it almost wholly undigested. Here, in an example from the prologue, he discusses the outfit of a Red Army soldier:

“Father,” Andrei whispers, in Russian, turning to look at a tall lean man in a long green coat with red epaulets, a black hat, a rifle slung over his shoulder. “Is that man one of the Red Guard?”

“in Russian” no shit

“Oh, that’s perfectly reasonable,” you may protest.

Then how about this sequence in Chapter 2, where he talks about boxers:

The talk at the crowded bar tonight was full of how Joe Louis, the Brown Bomber, back from the war with a pocketful of nothing and a big tax debt, was going to defend his world heavyweight title against Billy Conn. And how the retired Jack Johnson, first Negro to win the heavyweight champ title, had died two days before in a car accident. None of which was what Gorland needed to know.

(✿◠‿◠)ノ.❀。• *₊°。then why the fuck did you mention it ❀。• *₊°。 ❀

My chief complaint about the first set of descriptors is the list of prepositional phrases and weak adjectives and verbs. It’s a lot of talk with no power or aim. Additionally, Shirley just wrote about a dozen other people while mentioning their appearances so briefly that they might as well have been plywood standees, so a thoughtfully colorized soldier jumps out like a cat in a shitty horror film. That said, if you’re not a picky bastard, it may not bother you.

But the second one is outright incorrect. None of these historical people or subjects have anything to do with Fontaine’s current aims, nor with what he does next. It’s just there to prove that Shirley did research. If anything, it shows Shirley’s weakness: he doesn’t know how to smoothly blend research into his work.

This description is like stirring your cookie batter three times and calling it done, then spooning out a big lump of baking powder.

Shirley just put that shit in the oven.

“I just want my Irving back,” she said, her head sagging down over the drink. Lucky the song coming on the juke was a Dorsey and Sinatra crooner, soft enough he could make her out. “Jus’ wannim back.” He absentmindedly poured a couple more drinks for the sailors at her side, their white caps cocked rakishly as they argued over bar dice and tossed money at him. “What became of the unfortunate soul?” Gorland asked, pocketing the money and wiping the bar. “Lost at sea was he?” She gawped at him. “How’d you know that, you a mind reader?” Gorland winked. “A little fishy told me.”

gross

God, this paragraph is ugly and I hate it. Shirley splits the lady’s dialogue, part of which butts up against Fontaine and two sailors and causes a moment of cognitive dissonance. Shirley is ridiculously specific as to the song playing when “soft crooner” would have sufficed. The true note of interest—the data that Fontaine is sniffing out—skitters around the outsized imagery like a stupid cartoon creature.

Shirley does have a strength, and it’s in visuals. I can see and feel and smell this bar. Unfortunately, his visuals are static and progress little to nothing. Also, from what I can tell, it’s his only skill, unless causing headaches is desirable.

Also, before I leave this part, I want to clarify that there’s no problem with mentioning historical events, organizations, music, speech, people, etc, in your historical novel, and in fact you should, but if that description is at the expense of your plot, you have erred.

In any case, Fontaine asks this unfortunate caricature of womanhood what happened to her beloved. Shirley writes a long and embarrassing paragraph of dialogue that cannot end soon enough, and when it does end, it’s like this:

“Well, I went over to the place that hired him, Seaworthy Construction they was called—and they threw me out! Treated me like I was some kinda tramp! All I wanted was what was comin’ to me… I came out of South Jersey, and let me tell you, we get what we’re owed ’cause…” She went on in that vein for a while, losing the Ryan thread.

You lazy fucking bastard.

This is not the first time Shirley has ended a paragraph like this, either.

A Visual Depiction of the Dismount

Look, there are graceful ways to ease out of dialogue. Shirley doesn’t care what they are. Dialogue stands between him and a description of a “zoot-suiter [putting] a bebop number on the juke.” Do I care about that, sir? I do not. How about Andrew Ryan? How about Rapture? How about

Fontaine Shapeshift Moments Numbers 4, 5, & 6

One of Shirley’s responsibilities as writer is that he needs to illustrate the kind of person that Fontaine is. As far as I’m concerned, he’s done it several times over. It is abundantly clear that Fontaine is an asshole, and it’s clear what kind of asshole he is, even if he is kinda boring. Now that Fontaine has the Rapture thread, you would expect for him to follow that, because that’s what I’m reading this book for.

Obviously, that’s why Shirley takes Fontaine to a boxing ring! Because it is time to throw a fight! After all, we must follow up on that Great Value Mobster thread! We care so much about that! My heart throbs with anticipation! About Twitchy and Snorts!

See, Shirley did not illustrate one specific trait of Fontaine’s, and he thinks it’s important enough to digress to it: Fontaine’s ability to shapeshift, as it were.

“My name’s Lucio Fabrici,” Gorland said, tying Steele’s glove’s nice and tight. “Bianchi sent me.” … “Fabrici” had gone to great lengths for this disguise. The pinstripe suit, the toothpick stuck in the corner of his mouth, the spats, the toupee, the thin mustache—a high quality theatrical mustache carefully stuck on with spirit gum. But mostly it was his voice, just the right Little Italy intonation, and that carefully tuned facial expression that said, We’re pals, you and I, unless I have to kill you.

Wait. Was “spirit gum” called that in 1946? Oh, I don’t care.

It’s worth mentioning that I have noted two black characters so far—the boxer from the historical infodump and Steele’s trainer, who Fontaine paid to scram—and Shirley doesn’t let the trainer talk. And you know what? Given how he writes dialogue, that’s probably the safest option.

After Fontaine throws the thrown fight, he goes to his bookie operation.

[Fontaine] walked over to Morry, to have a gander at the take, and heard a couple of the dockworkers talking over their flask. “Sure, Ryan’s hiring big down there. It’s a hot ticket, pal, big paydays. But problem is—real QT stuff. Can’t talk about the job. And it’s dangerous too. Somewhere out in the North Atlantic, Iceland way…”

First of all, there’s the unnecessary description. Can’t we just assume that Fontaine walked somewhere? What does that add to the narrative? Use stronger imagery or take that shit out. That’s literally your only skill and now you’re fucking that up, too.

Second of all, split the dialogue off, why do you keep sticking it to random fucking descriptions.

Third of all, how does the entire fucking world not know what Andrew Ryan is doing? Half of what Fontaine has learned has been from overhearing random people. It’s like the whole universe is conspiring to help Fontaine out, and it’s getting a little weird, I’m gonna be honest. Every time I randomly overhear people it’s things like grocery lists and brain-dead political takes. When will I overhear where to find one million dollars

Then there’s how Fontaine reacts when he overhears this information. This sentence immediately follows the paragraph above:

[Fontaine] slipped outside by the side door and set himself to wait.

He literally says nothing to anyone. He just leaves. He’s just had an intense exposition-filled conversation with his employees and then he’s like whoops bye bitches fuck your lives

Look at how fucking pathetic this sentence is, too. “Set himself to wait”? I actually double-checked this after an edit because I was sure I’d inserted a typo. No, it’s just this bland.

This whole sequence was almost certainly written at a sprint. Words and phrases are weak as shit—no emotional power, no visual or spatial sense, no movement. There are no smooth transitions and, quite naturally, no tension. It’s just one domino falling after another. You wanna take a moment and think?

NO.

RUN BITCH.

RUN

Fontaine follows the deckhands until they reach their ship—the Olympian.

Gorland tilted his hat so the G-man wouldn’t see his face and strolled over, hands in his pockets, weaving a bit, making like he was drunk.

There’s some more embarrassing tryhard dialogue but you can read it yourself.

“Making like he was drunk.” jesus christ are you even trying

The only important part is the deckhand arguing with an officer.

“I just ain’t shipping out to that place again, and that’s all there is to it,” snarled the deckhand in the black peacoat. … “I don’t mind being on the ship—but in that hell down below, not me!” “There’s no use trying to say you’ll only take the job if you stay on the ship—it’s what Greavy says that goes! If he says you go down, you go down!” “Then you go down in my place—and you wrestle with the devil! It’s unholy, what he’s tryin’ to do down there!”

Wait. What? Why? Why is it unholy to build things under the ocean? Look, I was a religious nut for a huge portion of my life, and I can’t remember any taboos about checks notes building underwater?

As the deckhand takes off, having quit employment with Ryan Industries, Fontaine sees a piece of metal, picks it up, and runs after the deckhand.

“Hey!” the man yelped. Gorland held the deckhand firmly in place and pressed the end of the cold metal pipe to the back of his neck. “Freeze!” Gorland growled, altering his voice. He put steel and officiousness into it. … “You think I’m some crooked dock rat? I’m a federal agent! Now don’t even twitch!” [Fontaine said.]

Fontaine flashes a fake badge, then gets this deckhand to spill his guts. In two pages, he learns about Ryan building a city beneath the sea, complete with information about its technology and current state of construction.

End chapter.

Fontaine’s section of Chapter 2 runs from pages 39 through 54. In about two weeks, he has pretended to be six different people and learned everything he needs to know about Andrew Ryan.

You Can Always Try

I don’t know what Shirley was on at this point. In my mind, you devote one chapter to Fontaine at the tail-end of one really good con. Really put your effort into the con, show the ups and downs as the criminals attempt to outmaneuver the popo. Maybe show Fontaine fuck up some other criminal and then take his name. A shadow steps out of the smoke, adjusts his hat. “The name is Frank Fontaine.” Ohhhhh noooo I thought Frank Fontaine was that other guyyyy ooooooh shiiiiitttttt! And then never give out his background the rest of the story, and never show his internal world. Third-person objective: narrator stands outside of everyone. Keep Fontaine a huge question mark the entire story.

But Shirley was like, “Give Fontaine 3,000 cons in the same chapter, one after the other after the other, nonstop, don’t breathe, don’t stop, go go go go, and do it in such a way that Fontaine looks like the only human player in a world of NPCs.”

It just feels so unnecessary.

Here are images of Fontaine and Atlas.

That’s called “growing your hair out” and “cosmetic surgery” you fucking dumbass. It’s not that big of a deal. Now write something I give a shit about.

Question: how couldn’t the feds get all of this information in all the same ways, plus some? This is the FBI in 1946, the USA has just gone through WW2 like gangbusters, the Cold War is just warming up, and—most terrifyingly of all—J. Edgar Hoover is the FBI director. You think they give a single shit? Hell, I’m not sure they’d have to do much in the way of skullduggery at all. So far, the biggest problem with keeping Rapture secret has been employees talking.

Long story short, now Andrew Ryan and the US government look like chumps, and the narrative has the gall to imply Fontaine is skilled when he’s just unreasonably lucky. And if there’s one rule you should never break for a BioShock story it’s to make Andrew Ryan a fucking chump.

If You Must

Although having Fontaine front and center is not ideal, it’s also doable. So far, he’s the most interesting character in the book—probably because he’s solving the Rapture mystery. There are elements he doesn’t understand, which is a kind of tension, even if there are no repercussions for failure.

This tension is accidental. Just like every other character, Fontaine’s challenges and enemies are either neutered or indistinct. He hovers in a kind of eternal limbo where he is everything he has ever been. We can’t pretend it’ll get any better from here on out. However, let’s pretend that Shirley gives a fuck.

Now that Fontaine in a traditional character-driven narrative, we need to give him an arc. The Fontaine of Chapter 2 must not be the same Fontaine we see by the end of the story. We know Shirley will fail, but that’s the standard we’re going to judge him by. Remember: this isn’t BioShock-the-game. We’re writing literature now, so the aims and methods are different. If you’re going to use him as a major antagonist, he needs challenges to surmount, same as Andrew Ryan and Bill McDonagh and every other character ever.

So if you’re going to use Fontaine in this role, he has got to have an arc of some kind. He’s got to have something to overcome or learn or become because he’s in the kind of story that calls for that.

A competent writer would give you a reason to be interested in Fontaine. Shirley knows you’ve picked up this book because you’re a fan, so he presupposes you already are. So he just… doesn’t try.

jesus christ this lazy bastard. I hold him in utter contempt.

And I am just now at Chapter Fucking Three.

<- Part 5: Three Old Men Jerking Their Milk Sticks || Back to the Beginning || Part 7: Shadow Eve ->

#bioshock #bioshock rapture #frank fontaine #writing #reading #essays #rants #long post #vvatchword #vv reading #sorry for how awkward this gets but I'm tired and done now

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talesfrommedinastation · 1 year ago

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My redneck neighbor Doug watches 'The Bad Batch': Tipping Point

It's pretty darn clear that Doug's love of Daddy Warcrimes runs hard and it runs deep, along with his love for Toaster Strudel and Rex, who is the Daddy of Daddies. So you KNOW this episode made him a happy smiley boy.

For as grumpy and grouchy as 'Pabu' made him (and his extremely weird pairing of Mayday and Phee, which haunts me to this day), the amount of smiley faces and emojis I got in this one was the polar opposite. Or maybe that's because the Crimson Tide lost that day. Who knows.

Onto the Doug commentaries of 'Tipping Point' aka 'THE WRATH OF TOASTER STRUDEL'.

CW: "Call your momma if you wanna read my comments, I guess. Shouldn't the kids be watching that Australian dog show, anyway?"

----

Well, it’s a cloudy gross day in wherever. Is this to remind us that Daddy Rambo and the other two clowns are partying in Daytona while everyone else is suffering? I’m still mad OH HOLY HELL IS THAT JORGE?!

It is Jorge! And oh no it’S BLOND JACKASS’S BROTHER. God damn it, do they only hire the children of the corn to run this damn Empire, what the hell. I hope they’re not going to die, I’m still mad about Sassy Park Ranger.

Okay, they’re going out–woah! What’s this? Space battle? With the old school bloop-bloop noise, that’s great.

WHAT, YES! IT'S TOASTER STRUDEL! AND REX! Wait, no, that’s not Rex–who is that? Oh! It’s Jorge’s cousin, Manny! Hell yeah! And his new best friends he picked up from outside of Miami, no doubt doing some weird survival camp in the Everglades, based on their camo gear and grunts. I’ll call ‘em Trigger and Nutsy, for now.

RAIN HELLFIRE ON THEM, TOASTER STRUDEL! Pretend it’s yo daddy that left yo convection oven momma!

CLENCH YOUR BUTTHOLE AND BITE THE PILLOW, BLOND JACKASS’S BROTHER, YOU ABOUT TO FEEL THE WRATH OF TOASTER STRUDEL AND HIS TEAM OF FLORIDA MEN.

Holy SHIT, where has THIS SHOW BEEN?! I feel like a little kid watching Star Wars again! This is awesome! Kick everyone’s ass, Trigger and Nutsy! I mean, Jesus, they’re wiping the floor with them! I almost feel bad for the troopers, but they work for the Empire, shoot ‘em and let God sort ‘em out.

Manny remembered his electric bocce ball, love the guy. Go Toaster Strudel, go!

Seriously, I could watch Toaster Strudel shoot assholes and take over ships and bark orders at Trigger and Nutsy all day, forget dumpster diving with Church Lady and the gang looking for James Franco’s arm in Utah, THIS IS THE SHOW I WANT TO SEE!

(Hold on, my wife is yelling at me to calm down. I should’ve watched this at work on my phone, but I figured I’d watch it on the TV instead while drinking some Abitas. The last two episodes were not good for my blood pressure. )

10/10 would recommend to chug while watching Copy Paste Bois kill.

“Where are you taking those clones” man, Trigger is FIRED UP, and oh there goes BLOND JACKASS’S BROTHER KILLING HIMSELF ON SCREEN. And look at ol’ Nutsy, saving Jorge and handing him guns! Oh Jorge is so happy to see his militia boo and know his cousin Manny’s got his back. God damn I am smiling so much right now.

Welp, Toaster Strudel can’t download shit, must be the old Limewire acting up. BLOND JACKASS’S BROTHER was probably downloading porn onto the ship’s mainframe and the FBI caught ‘em in the act. The ship was clearly manned by Millenials.

Uh oh, Empire’s here! With the music! Seriously, I feel like a kid again screaming at the theater in Lafayette. Toaster Strudel and Jorge’s cousins escape! Go, go, go! My boys, my boys! Go!

Oh, man, Dr. Meat Muffin, I am a happy old man right now. So happy.

And they’re safe with Sonic Special, she’s getting them drinks and figuring out there’s shit going down in the place. Man, we need more of her and Toaster Strudel. If this is all we are getting from either of them, I’ll find the director’s front lawn and take a dump on it. MORE TOASTER STRUDEL PLEASE

Back in Daytona. Is it bad this place is starting to piss me off? I don’t CARE how pretty it is, I want people kicking ASS and taking NAMES and taking DUMPS on front lawns. At least Julio’s fishing and having fun. Did he just catch an Asian carp?

Woah! Ryan-from-Accounting clearly wants to die, as he’s got Little Orphan Blondie behind the wheel of the HMS Search Warrant and she’s flinging them across the sky. His bitch wife Laura must have found the posts online that Church Lady did of her and Ryan-from-Accounting, or maybe he got some extra life insurance. Who knows.

And there’s TOASTER STRUDEL! I love this bald bastard so much! Look at him hugging Little Orphan Blondie! Talking business with Ryan-from-Accounting! Shaking hands with Daddy Rambo! All after he took down an imperial ship and saved Jorge and his brothers! I bet he even brought some gas station chicken for everyone too! When does HE get his own show?!

Ryan-from-Accounting takes us to his true love, his Windows computer. Maybe he’ll show us his downloaded copies of that show from Japan with the screaming people and the aliens and no one wears a shirt.

(You mean Dragonball Z? -Dr MM

I guess? My nephew won’t stop watching it since he lost his job. - Doug)

That computer loves him more than both Church Lady and his bitch wife Laura combined, I bet. Which is okay, Church Lady’s true love is Sassy Park Ranger, he’ll be back someday.

“When will it be enough?” Oh can it and get a job, Daddy Rambo, don’t knock my boy Toaster Strudel like that. He’s a hard working man.

Oh man, Ryan-from-Accounting is panicking. Daddy Warcrimes is being held prisoner by weirdos, led by Ryan-from-Accounting’s bitchy stepsister, Beth, and Jimmy-the-Scientist.

“We don’t leave our own behind.” Why does this feel like a set up and Daddy Rambo is going to leave Ryan-from-Accounting behind at a Circle K or something?

Man, even coked out of his mind Daddy Warcrimes can take a clutch of folks down. Why do these scenes remind me of that show with Ed Harris and cowboys and robots?

Westworld?

Yeah that. Oh man, Daddy Warcrimes. I like those grey jammies on him. Oh man, it’s torture time. If this goes right back to Daddy Rambo’s gang having a kegger I’m serious, I’m taking a dump on the director’s lawn.

Now he’s getting lectured by Ryan-from-Accounting’s stepsister, Beth. She hates Ryan-from-Accounting because he has friends and she’s stuck in the 9-to-5 working in a place that looks like it smells like mildew and ass.

(“Where did you come up with the name Beth?”

“She looks like one, and she only drinks almond milk lattes and is a total bitch to waiters. She introduced Ryan-from-Accounting to his Bitch Wife Laura, they were sorority sisters in Alpha Amma Bitcha”)

Ahhh shoot them all, Daddy Warcrimes! Oh, now there’s gas. Is the Joker going to show up? I need Prince doing the soundtrack now. Will the internet get that reference? Michael Keaton was the best Batman.

Oh shit man no, it’s Jimmy-the-Scientist! I wanted the Joker :(

What’s going to happen next? Are they going to rescue Daddy Warcrimes?! What’s Stepsister Beth up to?!

(I gave up correcting Doug on Mayday and Phee. Just gave up. - Dr MM)

#tbb #cloneforce99 #thebadbatch #star wars #star wars fans #doug the neighbor #my neighbor doug #redneck doug #the bad batch #tipping point #i call echo toaster strudel #my boy jorge #his cousin manny #TRIGGER AND NUTSY #clone force 99 #bad batch season 2 #head canon

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duskwoodgirl4life · 5 months ago

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Chapter 2

A few days pass and still nothing. I haven't received any message or phone call from Jake. I've never even gotten an email. I'm starting to go out of my mind with worry. I got another message this morning from whoever is behind this clown mask. He sent me another warning, this time his warning was more serious. “You have 48 hours to get your boyfriend to back off, if he doesn't I will come for you. I'm watching you” I throw my phone at the wall in anger, the screen smashing as it hits the floor. I knock everything onto the floor, everything smashing into pieces as it hits the floor. The anger just won't leave my body. I punch the wall so hard my fist goes straight through the wall.

I calmed myself down and banged my hand up grabbing the dustpan and brush. I begin cleaning up the mess I made. After I finish I put all the rubbish in the bin and sit back down trying to work out what to do next. I think the safest thing I can do is pack a bag and go stay in a motel or something. Staying here just isn't safe but first I need to go get a few supplements from the store. I head out of my appointment door and get into my car and drive to the store and get what I need for my stay in a motel. When I get back to my apartment I notice the door is open. I approach slowly and slowly push the door open. I walk inside and see all my things smashed all over the floor, all my pictures have been knocked off the walls and smashed, my bookshelf is broken, my coffee table smashed to pieces.

As I walk around my apartment I can hear the cracking of the broken glass beneath my feet. Whoever it was that's done this is long gone. Entering my bedroom there is a massive clown symbol on my bedroom wall dripping in what looks like blood. My stomach starts to do somersaults. I run to the bathroom and throw up. I grab my broken phone and take the SIM card out and put it on the new one I bought from the store. After it's all set up I decide to send Jake another message in the vain hopes that he responds.

MC: Jake!! I really need your help here now my whole apartment is trashed and look at this someone painted a clown symbol on my bedroom wall in blood!! Please, I'm begging you to get in contact with me. I can't stay in my apartment anymore. It's not safe. I'm going to a motel. I don't know which one yet but just hack my phone or whatever. If you see this before at my room by 8pm if not then I know this whole thing was completely pointless. After packing all the things I need I grab my keys and head out to my car. I found a little motel a few miles away from duskwood. After checking in I go to my room and put my bag down. Taking a look around the room it actually looks quite nice, not at all what I expected. Even the bedding is fresh and clean.

I go to check out the bathroom and it looks really nice, the tiles on the wall are a light blue colour with purple flowers on them. The shower looks pretty decent. I go back into the other room and put my food supplies on top of the chest of draws. I take a look at the time and it's 7pm, only an hour to go before I really am on my own. I try to pass the time by watching some TV but nothing I put on is distracting me from what's happening. I look back at the clock and it's 7:30. I get off the bed putting my phone down on the bed and open the balcony door. It was just a small balcony with a small table and chairs in the corner. Looking out into the night sky I could hear people talking and laughing as they made their way home to be with their loved ones.

My heart started to ache one day. That could be me and Jake just going about our lives without a care in the world. It's a nice thought to hold onto that one day it could happen or at least we would be together.

Jake's POV

What I thought was going to be any normal day. Well normal as it gets being on the run from the FBI. I am planning my next steps to find another place to hide out when I get a message from MC. My heart starts to beat faster than it ever did before. We didn't get to see each other in duskwood as I promised with the FBI hot on my heels I had to get out of the mine as quickly as I could without them seeing me. Her message is telling me someone is watching her and telling me to back off. Their calling card is a clown, a symbol I am all too aware of as I have seen this once before. I need to do some research before I reach out to her. It's not something I want to worry her with at the moment, however selfish it may be.

I spend the next few days trying to do all the research I can. I've managed to find out a few things but nothing of any importance. I get up from my computer and go into the bathroom to freshen up a little. It's been a few days since I was able to shower. When I finish in the bathroom I come back out and walk over to my computer and see another message from MC. She's received another message and this time is a little more concerning. She's going to stay in a motel and is asking me to meet her there by 8pm.

Now is the time that I go to her and tell her that everything is going to be okay, I won't ever leave her again. I've done nothing but think about her ever since I made contact with her. I have found her fascinating. My last words to her was I love you MC. She told me she felt the same way as me. She loves me too. I have to make sure that it is safe before I leave. My pursuers have not yet reached where I am which gives me some time to reach MC. I pack up my things, put my backpack and load everything into the car and make my way to where MC is staying.

Everything is loading into the car and I am now making my way to MC. Her motel isn't too far away, about an hour's drive it's 7pm so I will be there for 8pm. I have thought about what I am going to say to her when she opens the door. I've thought about what her reaction is going to be when she sees me standing in front of her. I want to tell her all the reasons why I wasn't able to contact her for so long. I want to be able to tell her why she is now being hunted down by a complete psychopath that keeps leaving clown images when he sends her messages.

After an hour's drive I pack up my car in the car park and walk towards MC's motel door. I take a deep breath and knock softly on her door. I hear her footsteps getting closer and closer towards the door. The door handle slowly turns and the door opens up and I see her standing there right in front of me. Her long brown hair, her green hazel eyes looking right into my soul.

MC’s POV

I come back in from the balcony and close the door behind me, I check the time and it's 7:58p.m. I hear a knock at the door and I jump a little. My heart feels like it's going to jump out of my chest. Is that really going to be Jake standing on the other side of that door? Has he really come to save me from this nightmare? I guess there is only one way to find out and that's to answer the door and find out. The closer I get to the door the more my heart feels like it's going to leap out of my chest. I somehow managed to grab hold of the door handle with my shaking hands and open up the door.

It was really him standing in front of me with his beautiful black hair and ocean blue eyes looking right back at me. I notice the dark circles underneath his eyes. I don't know when the last time he slept. I somehow managed to move to one side so he could come into the room. I close the door and lock it behind me. I turn around and he's standing there. I want to say something but I can't seem to form a sentence right now.

He walks towards me and places his arms around me and holds me close to him. I can smell the cologne he's got on it smells like spices, warm, fragrant and inviting. I wrap my arms around his body and hold on as tight as I can not wanting to let go.

#duskwood #everbyte game #duskwood jake #duskwood hacker #iamjake #duskwood jake x mc #i love you jake #jake x mc #he loves me #i love you #untold future

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polarisbibliotheque · 9 months ago

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About the time a guy was being creepy to me on a professional setting and my gut feeling told me "GET OUT NOW"

Ok, so hi! This post has to do with a reblog recently here in my blog, on one of my fics regarding Dante and Vergil with an s/o suffering from being hit on without their consent. I write Devil May Cry fanfiction and that was my way of coping with a CREEP being, well, a creep.

Who would've known, fanfic is therapeutical

My answer got so big, I decided to make a separate post about it - and I'm talking like this because, if this gets out the DMC sphere and other people read it, they'll understand the fandom talk a little bit. This is not just for the fandom, but everyone out there.

Including men. All of us are prone to being targets of creeps - even if I'll be telling about my experience as a woman, take this advice to your heart NO MATTER your gender.

When this episode happened in my life, I was 27 y/o, I think...? I got pushed into such a stupid corner by this guy who kept messaging me with "work related" stuff... And my family wasn't validating my "this is weird" feeling.

So... What happened?

(TW: I mention the words "rape" and "sexual abuse" but none of that has happened. It was a red flag and I want to talk about avoiding it like the plague and how people might dismiss your gut feeling when something is wrong. I write with brutal honesty, curse words and don't censor anything, because I'm here to tell people how it is not curating content to go viral on clean ~family friendly~ social media. This is honest advice I'd give someone else, so it's just a heads up. I'm a little jaded with all the censoring of "forbidden words" when you have to discuss serious subjects like this nowadays hahahaha)

First context, I'm a Lawyer. Hi. I know it doesn't sound like it Second context, I'm from Latin America. Hi again!

Well, in my country, we have to vote every couple of years for the National Lawyer Association President and Vice-President (for my USA people, it's like the BAR association for Lawyers - meaning only lawyers who have passed the BAR and are, indeed, full-fledged to the association and with a lawyer permit can vote). I hate it, but it is what it is, I have to vote every time for one of those posh speaking clowns or else.

This much older guy stopped me at the entrance to the voting building to do some political propaganda of one of the candidates. Expected. They weren't the ones I was gonna vote 'cause their agenda didn't fit what I wanted for the Association - nevertheless, I smiled and was polite. Guy wouldn't shut up, but that's a lawyer thing. Kept being polite, dismissed him kindly and went inside to vote.

As I came back, guy is there and stops me. I had called my mom to give me a ride home - by that time, I had been broke and without a job for 2 years up until that point, trying to get back into the ~lawyer business~ and recover from a very bad burnout, so paying a ride back home was a big no. I had my phone on my hand and kept chatting because, you know, networking. You never know.

Now, mind you. I'm about to celebrate my 30th birthday this year, but people seriously think I'm underage wherever I go. I have to literally show them my credentials and ID so they can believe a single word I say. This guy, must've been around his 50s or something - and I look like a teen or, at best, 20 years old. I graduated when I was 22, so that's the most he could've imagined I was.

As we're talking, dude is flexing his career so hard I start to do the same. He says he has known the President and influential people in politics (back then, far-right government, so red flag already waving in the horizon), he has an office both here and in New York and Miami, he has worked with the FBI (we're in Latin America, the USA stuff is a flex for far-right people). I say I have worked as the Labor Lawyer in a huge worldwide known multinational company, coordinated with people in the USA and UK, had around 100 cases to manage monthly and keep the company in order when the directors were not around.

Guy is impressed and asks for my contact on LinkedIn. I'm down for it, I'm looking for a job and he could be one hell of a way to get back on business. Dude mentions he's in digital law and, heck, I wanted so bad to get into digital law! It was like he was put in my way by the angels to help me get back on my feet!

He asks for my resumé and my cellphone number, so he can have me in his office to have a cup of coffee. I am soaring by now. "That's it!!" I think "That's my ticket back to being a lawyer, to having my own money, to breaking the cycle of unemployment and having my career back!" - so I do it! I give him my number!

hello, workaholic aunt here speaking, my career was everything to me, I'd do everything for it

After I got back home, told my mom everything, and everyone was so happy. That's when he started sending me messages - asking for my address so he could send me some lawyer magazines and such... Even though he had asked when we were talking before and I changed the subject. I didn't give him of course, but instead sent him my resumé.

So, next day he asks me about that coffee and I said we can make it happen... Even if he got my name wrong. I have a pretty exotic name in whatever country I go, so it's a common mistake, known to happen, no one can pronounce my name right if I don't teach them how to, so yeah. I'm willing to gloss over that.

I'm assuming he read my resumé, saw how smart, capable and hardworking I am, and wants to talk business. Wants to offer me a job. I'm super ready. I'm taking my business clothes out of the closet, I'm cleaning my high heel black boots, I'm checking my references and vocabulary so I don't screw up. Guy sends a message saying he wants to take me out for lunch.

Red flag. My instincts flare up and I'm just staring at the screen. I start reviewing everything. I mean... Business lunches are ok, right? I had lunches with my manager and director plenty of times back in the day and it never got weird. So... Why was I feeling weird now...?

Guy says we can go out for lunch and then back at his office so he can show me around. I was like "hmmm... ok? shouldn't be weird. this is normal." but nevertheless I went to check with my mom and my sister.

Both said it was fine. I was feeling weird because it's a guy and me and I shouldn't be feeling uneasy - it's my social anxiety/workplace trauma talking. It's the opportunity of a lifetime. I shouldn't screw up.

I keep talking to him. I ask where we should meet up for this lunch and he tells me to give him my address, so he could pick me up and we can go to "a nice place to have lunch" (his words, not mine).

Red flags are dancing around my head. I keep thinking "have I lead him on something????" and going mad. What was I wearing? Only work clothes, that's all - suit pants, black high heel boots, dark silk shirt and only a nude lipstick so my lips wouldn't get chapped. My shirt didn't even show cleavage.

It's ridiculous how I feel this is a thing I should add 'cause heaven forbid the cleavage

What about what I've said? Did I accidentally flirt?? 'Cause that's been known to happen - I'm a clueless ace who can't for the life of me notice when people are flirting or not or notice when people think I'm flirting with them. And usually when they are not flirting or being attractive, that's when the magic happens for me! So... What gives?! Did I do something wrong, that sent the wrong message?

I mean, I was nice, yes. But you're supposed to be nice to people. I'm not gonna be rude just because most guys can't keep it in their pants.

I go over the messages. I didn't do anything strictly not business like. I'm very good at that. I have only worked responding to men as bosses in my life, had four male bosses before him, all different ages, marital status, star signs, backgrounds, lives. The best colleagues and co-workers I used to spend hours having coffee and laughing with were men. So I know how to keep professional and not mixing things up. It wasn't a slip up from my side.

Well, then there's always the chance I was going crazy and overreacting, soooo... I go over to my mom and sister. They think it's weird, yes, but they do think that's exactly what's going on: I'm overreacting and my social anxiety/workplace trauma is blocking me from pursuing this opportunity that can help my career - and make me have a salary again so I can help at home.

Ok. I though up and go back to talking to him. I tell him fine but I'll go to the place myself, so he can tell me where he's thinking about having lunch. Guy tells me nothing and keeps insisting I give him my address and he will give me a ride so we can "get to know each other better".

My GODS I've never felt so uncomfortable. Not even when I had to stay ONLY with my boss working until 1 am, only the two of us in the company building, every light out except the one in the room we were in, him being around 15 years older than me and very confident, with the two of us having one of the best work chemistry I had in my LIFE.

He could've done ANYTHING to me, but we only talked strictly work. We were tired, he waited for my mom to pick me up at 1 am outside so nothing bad would happen to me, both of us under an umbrella, he apologized to my mom for having me stay at work so late and then went back home to his wife and kid. I NEVER, at ANY moment felt unsafe around him. He was my mentor, he was my boss, he was a good colleague and even somewhat of a friend.

So why on EARTH was I feeling SO UNCOMFORTABLE with this guy I had only met ONCE face to face in my life?

I start to voice my concerns. My mom and my sister think I'm only saying that because I don't want to go back to work. That I want to throw my career away because I can't control my anxiety and my feelings. We fight a couple of times and a couple of days. My mom tells my aunt about it. My aunt goes full FBI and does a background check on this dude.

That's when she told my mom some things weren't adding up. His LinkedIn profile was a little too weird and he had no ties whatsoever with the elected President of the Lawyer Association - was he really someone in their team for propaganda? Nevertheless, he did have an office and did work with digital law, both here and in the USA. I shouldn't let this opportunity slip.

I got so mad. SO MAD. To the point my sister decided to ask her boyfriend for his opinion on all of it and he was like "hey... your sister is kinda right. guy wouldn't offer to take ME to a nice restaurant to have lunch and go to his office later for a coffee, would he...? I mean, this never happened to me" - and sis' boyfriend is on the business meetings and negotiations/selling part of the spectrum. He knows what he's talking about.

So now I finally have a man validating my concerns.

I take the decision to shut the whole thing down. I go "very well, I will NOT meet him, I will NOT maintain contact with him, he's treating me like a whore he picked up on the street". At this point, I am FUCKING FUMING. But still, my sister and mom gave him the benefit of the doubt and made me feel like I was doing something wrong.

So I decided to marinate him for a while.

I should note that all his messages were sent close or around midnight, not at working hours. And I only answered at working hours. Since I was taking a while to respond, my dude just goes like, and I kid you not, "ooooh she's not answering, she's ignoring me, I don't like that *sad emoji*" LIKE A FUCKING 13 YEAR OLD (no offense, 13 y/o peoples, but this dude is a FULL GROWN ASS MAN).

I am offended, I am flabbergasted and I wish I could suplex him to oblivion.

I show my mom the message. She just stares at me in awe. She FINALLY is like "yeah, ok, this isn't very professional". ALL THIS TIME, I never really told her what I was thinking and what was really worrying me. And then I break her the news that, what I'm really afraid of, is that this guy is going to rape me in his car. Or he's going to drive me somewhere I can't fight or scream and then he'll rape me. Whatever the scenario, it ended up with me being raped and I was scared. SO. FUCKING. SCARED.

My mom goes into Sphinx mode - that's when she doesn't answer and doesn't even look at me and just ~thinks~. It's a brutal reality she doesn't like and I don't like it either, I mean, it's my safety we're talking about here.

I shut down the guy completely. I tell him there's a family emergency and I couldn't continue to give him any attention nor I could go out for that lunch and I couldn't talk anymore. He SUDDENLY goes cold and "I am sorry if any of my messages seemed inconvenient. Do answer when you have the time so we can make an appointment." And that's it. No more messages. He's done in my book.

My mom tells my aunt. Aunt goes Sherlock Holmes mode this time and, lo and behold, they find an website of this guy's office. My mom is shocked at how 90's internet it looks for a guy who works with digital law. She then recognizes the address of the office but the doesn't remember of any office building in that street - so she Googles it.

His "office" is actually a residential building - meaning, it was his home address. She shows it to me and I want to cry - out of rage, shame, fear, sadness. I go like "yeah, this is the place he wanted me to go, to his home. What was he going to do to me there, huh?" - and I think the answer is pretty obvious.

Later, speaking to my sister, she's like "I dunno why you're so mad" and I'm like "WELL MISS I just got PICKED UP LIKE A WHORE outside of an OFFICIAL EVENT for the NATIONAL LAWYER ASSOCIATION while I was DRESSED UP PROFESSIONALLY and looking for PROFESSIONAL opportunities and I COULD HAVE BEEN RAPED. I think I have all the right in the FUCKING WORLD to be FUMING."

That's when we diverged some more. She just said like "hey that's how the world works: women are treated like whores - you weren't the first one to have this happen to you and you won't be the last. What are you gonna do about it? Get over it."

Oh. Boy. I looked at my sister's eyes. I saw her just staring at me weirdly. A storm was approaching. The skies darkened. Bury the Light started playing in the background. Vergil's doppelgänger was standing behind me like an angel of death. (All DMC references for my non-DMC peoples)

"Well. I wanna have power. So much fucking power in this world that no one ever even thinks about treating me like that again. So much power they will fear standing in front of me and saying those words - they will look into my eyes and shut up. So much power I will never be afraid to walk on my own again and I will never have to doubt my feelings when I'm feeling unsafe because some lowlife pitiful little shit decided I should be a whore to satisfy him. I want to have power so I will never be this helpless again."

Cue in my sister just sitting there with butter in the slice of bread in her hand, staring at me like "wtf man... do you need a hug...?" and me doing a dramatic exit back to my room to, well... Write the fanfic in question.

(For my DMC creatures: I never even thought of Vergil when I said all of this, I just noted that thought later in my diary and reading it a couple of days later I was like "omg I have become my worst enemy, fuck you Verge" because I kid you not, I used to hate this man with all the fibers of my being - hence where my longfic Nemesis came from. I realized I lived long enough to become my worst enemy - and maybe I hated him because Vergil made me look at the part of myself I didn't like and didn't want to admit existed *I'm laughing while writing this, I do find it weirdly amusing*)

DMC things aside, this WHOLE episode made me feel so frustrated. I never had anyone to validate me, only people doubting me or asking me if I lead him on, or what was I wearing, or if I smiled too much, if I was being too nice, if I said something inappropriate, and so on. I had to get it all off my chest and I thought maybe, juuuust maybe, Dante and Vergil would've been more supportive regarding that.

Because, you know, they know trauma and they are protective as fuck. They can have all the red flags and mental issues in this world, but I don't think they would EVER dismiss their partner - especially a woman - feeling unsafe and fearing being abused or raped. In order to trust, you have to give the person and opportunity and room to open up to you without judgements - and I do think they aren't very judgy people.

I mean, they are demons, for fuck's sake. They can't judge anything especially Vergil

Also, I don't blame my mom nor my sister (even if I got really mad at her). In the end, both of them wanted what was best for me, they thought it was an opportunity and wanted me to get my career back. Truth is, no woman knows how to act when this happens. And they didn't know how to act as well. They didn't want to think of the worst: just like I was doubting myself and my own feelings, they were doubting theirs as well. We ALL had to be validated by a man to admit something was wrong and we weren't hysterical.

Ok, ok, storytime over. But I felt like sharing this because people, you are ALWAYS valid in your concerns - and there's no clothing, no smile, no attitude, no NOTHING that JUSTIFIES abuse. If you're abused or feeling like someone wants to take advantage of you, especially sexually, YOUR FEELINGS AND FEARS ARE VALID. Don't shrug it off or water it down just because people are saying you're overreacting - if I had listened to everyone around me instead of my gut feeling that something was REALLY wrong, only the gods know what would've happened. But I'll tell ya, it probably wouldn't have been good for me.

At best, I'd be mad this guy would want to pick me up like a whore and I'd have to turn him down and take a ride home. At worst, he would've raped me - in his car, at the "restaurant", at his "office". We don't know, but I didn't want to "give luck to bad luck" as we say where I live.

I didn't have support, so I wrote a story to feel supported by the fictional characters I look up to - I wished SO bad I was dating someone, especially a man, who'd tell me he'd go through hell and back to keep me safe and wouldn't allow anyone to hurt me and validate my feelings. Someone who would make me feel safe and I wouldn't have to only rely on myself.

cue in V saying he too wanted to be loved and protected, I tell you, all this time I thought I hated Vergil when I had only found my nemesis in a mirror

So, don't ever doubt yourselves. Don't ever doubt your gut feelings. We might want validation and someone to keep us safe, but sometimes we don't have that and have to rely on our survival mode. It sucks, but there's a reason why that thing is called "survival": it keeps you alive. It keeps you going.

And no one, NO ONE has the right to say you're overreacting, you're being hysterical, you're reading too much into it, you're just trying to find the easy way out, you just don't want an opportunity because you're lazy, you're crazy and deranged, etc, etc.

If your gut is flapping red flags all around, then overreact. Be hysterical. Read too much into it, find the easy way out, be lazy, be crazy and deranged. Be the villain. Be the bad person. You're not perfect. You're not a princess. Be comfortable with people telling you you're bad - but never NEVER let go of your gut feeling when your safety is on the line.

That fucking thing WILL save your life. Being too nice, though, might not. Listen to yourself, be TRUE to yourself, and, again, don't be afraid to be bad.

Someday you might just find your half-demon man who will support you, protect you and treat you as an equal powerhouse, but until that day, keep on conquering your self-esteem and unwavering will.

I'm just saying all of this now because:

1 - I was too scared to talk about this for a looong time afraid the guy in question would find this, know it's me and my safety would be on the line again

2 - Just now I'm getting comfortable with the concept of being "seen as the villain" and being "seen as bad". My whole life I have been dancing around this because people always said I had a "difficult" personality. I watched Cruella recently and it hit home so hard. We do have things to learn from villainous characters and maybe this is just who I am. People are going to see me as bad so, who cares. Even if I'm not, it would do me good getting used to that idea - I can be more assertive to my boundaries and not allow any of this to happen again. So, there you go. It's an exercise everyone should do. Are you comfortable defending your ideas, your boundaries and your integrity even if people are mad you're not being a pushover/perfectly polite?

It's something I think all of us should think about ;)

Also

thanks for coming to my TED Talk :')

#polaris speaks #story time #red flags #workplace #work life #job hunting #I don't even know how to tag this #so if you guys have any ideas you're welcome to add #I just think it's a bit of experience we all have to share #so other people will be aware and know how to avoid this kind of shit #because like I told you not even all the women in my family knew how to act #and we all have this thing of not being rude or cutting off relationships or networking contacts and such #of being perfect all the time #hence why I'm on this 'be bad be villainous be fabulous' phase #'cause I do think some of us could benefit from that #don't be a bitch by all means #but know how to set and protect your boundaries #alsoooo it's a huge post #I know #but I felt it might be good #so thanks for reading if you read all of it HAHAHAHA #I HOPE it has helped you xD #still scared of that guy finding me tho not gonna lie #but it is what it is

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cowboylikesubai · 1 year ago

Text

bsd characters as taylor swift lyrics pt.1

lemme know if they were accurate 😚

atushi:

i've been the archer / i've been the prey... / who could ever leave me darling? / but who could stay-?

akutagawa:

and now that i'm grown, i'm scared of ghosts/ memories feel like weapons / and now that i know, i wish you left me wondering

i can't let this go/ i fight with you in my sleep the wound won't close/ stained glass windows in my mind/ i regret you all the time...

chuuya:

and I can go anywhere I want / anywhere I want, just not home / and you can aim for my heart, go for blood / but you would still miss me in your bones

dazai:

i wake up screaming from dreaming one day i'll watch as you're leaving/ cause you got tired of my scheming/ it's me, hi, i'm the problems it's me

kunikida:

you're not my homeland anymore / so what am I defending now? / you were my town / now I'm in exile, seein' you out / i think I've seen this film before

kyoka:

from sprinkler splashes to fireplace ashes / i gave my blood sweat and tears for this

i looked around in a blood-soaked gown and i saw something they can't take away / cause there were pages turned when the bridges burned

kenji:

cause he was sunshine i was midnight rain / he wanted it comfortable i wanted that pain / he wanted a bride i was making my own name, chasing that fame / he stayed the same, all of me changed like midnight rain

^^^the manga readers know what i'm on about lol

yosano:

dear john, i see it all now that you're gone.../ don't you think ninenteen's (eleven) too young to be played by your dark twisted games / when i loved you so?

ranpo:

power went to my head and I couldn't stop / ones I loved tried to help, so I ran them off / and here I sit alone behind walls of regret / falling down like promises that I never kept

and I feel like my castle's crumbling down / and I watch all my bridges burn to the ground / and you don't want to know me, I will just let you down / you don't wanna know me now

tanazaki:

they told me all of my cages were mental / so I got wasted like all my potential / and my words shoot to kill when I'm mad / i have a lot of regrets about that

koyo:

ladies always rise above / ladies know what people want / someone sweet and kind and fun / the lady simply had enough..../ while he was doing lines, and crossing all of mine / someone told his white collar crimes...to the FBI

higuchi:

and they called off the circus, burned the disco down / when they sent home the horses and the rodeo clowns / I'm still on that tightrope / I'm still trying everything to get you laughing at me

gin:

now you hang from my lips like the gardens of babylon / with your boots beneath my bed / forever is the sweetest con.

tachihara:

i never trust a narcissist / but they love me / so I play 'em like a violin and I make it look oh so easy / 'cause for every lie I tell them / they tell me three

^^ again, iykyk

fukuzawa:

cause for a moment a band of thieves in ripped-up jeans got to rule the world / long live all the walls we crashed through / i had the time of my life fighting dragons with you / and bring on all the pretenders / one day, we will be remembered.

should i do a part 2???

#bsd #bungo stray dogs #bungou stray dogs #ranpo edogawa #chuuya nakahara #dazai osamu #osamu dazai #dazai x chuuya #soukoku #atushi nakajima #shin soukoku #manga #anime #bsd incorrect quotes #taylor swift #akutagawa

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masterwords · 1 year ago

Text

adding it all up

Summary: Hotch follows Reid and Jack into a haunted house. Inside he meets a ghost and stumbles right into some unexpected arms.

Pairing: Hotch/Will

Words: 3.2k

Warnings: nightmares, ptsd, minor injuries, panic attack

Notes: I formally submit to you my entry for @imagining-in-the-margins Meet Cute/Ugly Challenge with the prompt: Character accidentally gets hurt in a spooky attraction and a scare actor breaks character to help. To the surprise of no one at this point, I took some creative liberties with the prompt. There isn't much to the plot, it's pretty simple and we mostly just have an excuse for kissing. As with everything I've written so far about this pairing, we live in a universe where Will is a DC Metro Detective but he is not nor has he ever been with JJ because we don't have time for that kind of backstory in these little one-shots. Thanks for reading yo! Let's show this incredibly rare pairing some love. (And now I return to writing about hotchgan...I can only stray for so long.)

“Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease dad!”

“I’d rather not,” Hotch said, as if it was going to change the mind of his six year old son. And maybe he didn’t really want to because his argument was pretty flimsy. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to go in, or that he didn’t like Halloween. “I don’t like to be scared.” That was a lie and Reid saw the opening, poking a huge hole in it immediately.

“You get scared for a living,” Reid pointed out from behind him and Hotch groaned. He’d been hoping Reid would take his side. “Come on Jack. If your dad is too chicken I’ll take you in. I’m kind of an expert.”

“You are?!”

Reid crouched beside Jack as best he could, favoring his still sore (always sore) knee and leaned as close as he could to the child. His whisper smelled like kettle corn and candied apples and cotton candy, that’s what Jack thought anyway. Reid smelled like a carnival. “I’ve already been through it three times. I bet you could find some people in there you know. Like playing a really big game of Where’s Waldo…”

“Who’s in there?!”

“You’ll have to come in with me and see.”

“Can I dad?!”

Hotch sighed and nodded reluctantly. “I’ll be right behind you.”

“You don’t have to if you’re too scared! You can stay out here! I’ll be tough.”

“I know you will buddy.”

Hotch looked at Reid and then at the doorway. He wasn’t scared, it wasn’t that. He simply didn’t care for jump scares or people being that close to him, close quarters, being vulnerable. Not in control. In the dark. Worse than that, he didn’t want any of that to be witnessed by a man he’d just begun seeing just a couple of weeks prior. Because that would be embarrassing. Big strong FBI Agent can’t handle a clown yelling boo in his face.

He always knew this was a possibility. Jack had never wanted to go into the house of mirrors or the haunted house before, he preferred to stick to roller coasters and prize games when they came to the carnival. He thought he’d be safe, especially this year. They were coming up on one year since Haley died and he thought for sure Jack wouldn’t want a thing to do with fake blood and jump scares but here he was practically dragging Reid through the entrance. Dutifully he followed them in, staying a few steps behind. “See you at the end dad!” At the entrance he was asked to wait. Reid and Jack got shoved in with another group and he was about to be sorted with the next when he asked if he could go through on his own.

“I don’t have a guide for a solo trip,” the young man at the door said. “You good at following directions? There are little green glow in the dark arrows along the ceiling that point you the direction you’re supposed to go. Keep an eye on them and you’ll find your way. Don’t go too fast or too slow. There are little red lights on the walls where there are emergency exits if you get hurt or lost or too scared to finish.” The young man flushed a little as he said the last part, Hotch didn’t look much like the type to get scared of anything but he still had to say it. There was a script and he followed it. He liked his job.

“Got it. Follow the green. Red means emergency exit. Thank you.”

Great. Alone. Jack didn’t even care to walk with him, too enthralled with whatever whispers and promises of adventure Reid was feeding him. He didn’t even turn around to see where Hotch ended up. He moved at a relatively quick clip, barely looking in the direction of the sets or the mini scares. Up ahead he was sure Reid was peeking at all the details, getting the most out of everything and helping Jack do the same. He was barely paying attention to any of it. Occasionally he found himself jumping when a clown popped out with a hatchet. That was natural, his heart thumped a little harder, but he smiled and thanked the volunteer in costume before stepping around the corner into a room that was filled with spider webs and hissing sounds. He’d never been afraid of spiders, in fact as a child he’d found himself collecting them in little mason jars and feeding them for a week or two before releasing them back out into the woods. He batted at a piece of cotton webbing that tickled his ear and frowned, not caring much for that feeling. It was worse than the room full of animated spiders.

The haunted house wasn’t huge but it felt like it lasted forever, twisting and angling and collapsing in on itself until he really did feel dizzy. His senses had been warped by the strange dark shafts and violent twists and hanging bloody sheets behind which shadows lurked.

Was he lost or could it really be this long? He glanced up as if to assure himself that he was going the right direction, and squinting into the dark he was able to make out one small green arrow.

There was only one way to go, really. He could hear Jack’s chirpy little voice up ahead and Reid’s surprise, maybe real or maybe an act, and there were voices not too far behind him but he was otherwise completely alone in the maze. The ceiling ahead dropped until he was hunched over in a sort of soft, undulating tunnel. It was pitch black, with only a foggy red light to guide him from what looked like miles away. Hunching like this hurt his back. Up ahead was a pinprick widening to an opening he had to step through into what looked like a torture chamber with bodies hanging from the walls. He’d seen this in real life, this wasn’t entertainment. This was work. Well researched, too. He recognized bits that had been pulled from crime scene photos, small elements not many would recognize but they made his breath catch in his throat more than once. People’s fascination with serial killers would never cease to worry him.

“I’ll gut you like a fish!” growled a man in a grisly voice from the shadows beside him. Hoarse from saying his line so many times, Hotch knew, but something about it still made him flinch away. There was a strangely familiar quality to it, something ghostly and pale, dry leaves rustling in the chilly October wind. “You should have taken the deal…” the voice whispered in his ear and he froze. His legs wouldn’t move. A flash of muzzle and the smell of gun smoke, steel bright in the dark and then pitch black.

“What?” he asked, ashamed of the fear that welled up in his chest. There was a vague pain where his heart should be noisily thumping but was making not a sound. “What did you say?” (He knew, somewhere deep inside, that the man hadn’t said that. There was some still quiet voice of reason in there, it was just disappearing second by second as fear seeped in.)

No reply. He had to be hearing things. There was no way. (Someone could have read the book. He told Colson what Foyet had said to him. He'd been on pain medication, heavy stuff, when he talked to Roy...he should have said less. He knew it but Roy had been so good to him, he found it hard to hold back.) He squinted into the dark where he stood motionless, breathless and saw a black mask coming toward him, outlined by a sickly white fog. Hovering there, not attached to a body for the longest time, and then around him materialized a hooded sweatshirt. Foyet’s mask. He knew it wasn’t Foyet, he’d seen the autopsy report, Foyet was dead. But the mask still startled him, and when it came closer (the person now muttering their actual lines and not something his frightened mind invented on his behalf) he found that his legs did work. They just didn’t obey his commands. He stepped backward, his heel catching on the curtain separating the two rooms and he managed to pull part of it down on top of himself. The feel of the fabric against his neck sent him into a tailspin and he lunged forward past the man in the Reaper mask (now reaching for him and asking if he was alright) until he stumbled into the next corridor where he narrowly missed stepping on a body on the floor. One of his victims, presumably. Hotch glanced down at her, stabbed repeatedly (do you have any idea how long it takes to stab someone 67 times?, he thought) and felt his blood run cold.

Was this some kind of a sick joke? Did someone know he was coming today? (Someone aside from Will? Will would never…he’d been there that day, that was how they met.) As he stepped around the woman on the ground with her guts strewn all around her, he slipped in the gore and took a header down the small flight of black and white checkered stairs. The sound his body made as it hit the wall was horrifying – he wouldn’t doubt if the people outside waiting in line had heard. He groaned and tried to push up to standing but he knew right away that he was hurt. Or just about ready to pass out. His head swam and he collapsed in a heap. “Dammit,” he mumbled. His chest was tight and there was a pain, a burning and squeezing that ran through his left arm. He couldn’t catch his breath.

“You okay mister?”

He recognized that voice, that molasses drawl he’d been hoping to hear in any way but this. Never this. Slowly he looked up, taking the hand of a werewolf who helped him stand. He was dizzy after hitting his head and his ears were ringing. Most of the time his tinnitus was manageable, background noise, but when he was around loud noises or when he hit his head it made sure he remembered it was with him forever. Now it was screaming so loud he felt like his head might burst.

“Will?”

“Hotch?”

“Yeah,” Hotch replied, slipping back against the wall when the group of people who had been a few turns behind him made their way curiously down the stairs. They looked perplexed, probably wondering at all the commotion a few turns ahead of them. Waiting to see a body on the ground. Will quickly maneuvered them until they were part of the exhibit, pretending to eat Hotch and to his credit, Hotch moaned because...well he really felt like it, his head hurt that bad. Once that group passed, Will lifted his mask and eyed Hotch in the dark. There was only a dim foggy glow from the previous room but even in then he could see that something was wrong.

“Are you hurt?”

“No.” Hotch swayed where he stood and watched as an ominous gray cloud crept in at the edge of his vision. He felt foggy and wrong, his heart had slowed to a syrupy thump in his chest. He thought he might pass out. There had been such an immediate feeling of panic and now his heart felt like it might give out entirely. “Maybe.”

“What happened?”

Before he could answer, another group came around the corner and they slipped back into their role of werewolf devouring a poor innocent man. It wasn’t exactly what Will’s job was supposed to be, he was supposed to jump out from around the next corner howling and chase the passersby to the next room but it beat not doing it all or having undue attention paid to him.

Hotch swallowed hard. Was he really about to admit he’d been frightened in a haunted house? Really truly scared? And now he probably had a concussion to take home as a souvenir once this panic attack left him alone? “I don’t know,” Hotch said quietly, incapable of finding the right words. He couldn’t admit what he saw. Was it real? Had his mind played tricks on him? “The last room got to me.”

“The torture chamber?” Will asked, his hands gripping Hotch’s waist to steady him. “You seen stuff like that a hundred times…I guess the mad scientist was kinda creepy, I just thought he looked like Doc from Back to the Future.”

“Mad Scientist?” Hotch asked, gripping Will’s forearms. “I didn’t see a Mad Scientist.”

“Huh. I coulda sworn today was Mark’s day. He loves that damn wig. Who was in there?”

Hotch swallowed hard. His throat was dry and clicked painfully, and for a split second he questioned not only his hearing but his eyes...had he just made it all up? Before he could answer another group came around the corner and Will pulled his mask back down and once again set to devouring Hotch’s jugular. Hotch was happy just to stand there pretending to be eaten, it beat the hell out of exploring the caverns of his mind. Of wondering what happened. Did he invent it all? It was possible. He’d been having nightmares again as the anniversary crept closer but he thought he had a pretty good handle on them.

“You want me to get you outta here?” Will asked when they had a brief break. “You’re still shakin’ and you're breathing all funny. My shift is over in fifteen minutes, I can meet you out front when I’m done. We can talk then.”

“Jack is with Reid,” Hotch whispered. “Can I stay?” He didn’t think he could walk. One step and he had the distinct impression he’d be face planting. Maybe if he stayed until this silent panic attack passed – this panic attack he was so far not admitting to – it would be okay.

“Yeah. Sure. But I gotta do my job so you think you can help me out?”

“I’ll try.”

Will smiled from beneath the mask and let it fall back over his face, taking Hotch’s hand and leading carefully, slowly down into the hallway. He kept his arm around Hotch’s waist, walking with purpose. “Right here, lay down.”

“Lay down?” He liked the sound of that. His head was swimming and his legs felt like they’d been poured with concrete.

“Down.”

Hotch eased himself down until he was on the oddly soft fake grass, and Will nudged him until his body was flush with the wall painted with a glowing full moon and pitch black trees. It looked like something painted by children. “When people come, I’m gonna pretend to be eating you. Then I get up and chase ‘em down the hallway and come back. You just lay here. Close your eyes. Play dead.”

“Yes, sir.”

Hotch had no complaints about closing his eyes, it instantly made the pounding in his head quiet to a dull throb. Will shifted above him, and he heard the distinct sound of a howl. It was low, gutteral, almost sexy. Hotch shifted where he lay when he felt a heat growing in his belly. This was not the time, but it did settle the racing of his heart, and the ache in his chest. There were footsteps beside him and Will was panting, chasing a family who giggled and squealed at him, and then he was dropping to his knees over Hotch.

He expected the fur from the mask against his neck again, but instead in the blind darkness he felt the soft flush of Will’s lips against his own. The mask bobbed against his nose, obscuring both of their faces as Will drew him into a kiss. He was breathless from running, Hotch’s chest was constricting like his heart was going to give out, and suddenly the world around him erupted in kaleidoscope colors behind the black of his eyelids. He sucked in a deep breath, a wanting breath as Will stood and chased a couple past them. And then a group of teenagers, one of whom kicked the bottom of Hotch’s shoe before Will returned.

Another kiss. And another. Hotch had rolled over enough that he could press his thighs together to stop his body from responding in ways that would be wholly inappropriate in a haunted house. Every kiss brought him back to the surface for air, and slowly the panic in him drained to quiet nothing. He forgot, briefly, about Foyet’s mask. He’d been caught up in the moment, that was all. Just his mind taking the haunted house a little too seriously. The nightmares seeping into reality. The handle he thought he had on them was weaker than he thought.

Fifteen minutes later they emerged into the glaring daylight. Hotch had almost forgotten it was just barely afternoon, the sun was still overhead bathing everything in its warm glow. Will held his mask beneath his arm, the sweat on his brow making the strange mix of facepaint he’d had on beneath clump and smear. His eyes were blackened, his lips gray and lifeless. Reid smiled and nudged Hotch, handing him a paisley print silk handkerchief from his pocket.

“You uh...you’ve got something right….there…” he said, indicating his lips. Hotch glanced at Will’s smudged gray mouth and frowned, realizing what he must look like too. “Did you need CPR?”

“Something like that.”

“See ya LaMontagne!” an officer yelled as he exited the haunted house, his black hoodie tied around his waist and a mask dangling from his arm. Will glanced at the mask, and then at Hotch, and then back at the mask. He doubted it was intentional, at least not aimed at Hotch. How could it be? Probably just a practical joke, trying to get the best out of a local legend. Still, he was angry and embarrassed. This was one of his guys. Not a great look.

He didn’t even need to say it and Hotch wouldn't want to hear it. Likely he would argue on behalf of the officer, make an excuse for his poor judgment and lack of taste, and maybe he'd be right too but Will didn't want to listen. Roy Colson's new book about the Reaper's last stand was studded with Hotch's own memories, a gift to his friend for keeping his promise during the initial investigation, and the entire squad was in the process of reading it. They knew, they all knew. He couldn't believe one of them would think this was appropriate. Hotch turned away and wiped the grease paint off of his lips while Reid followed Will’s gaze at the officer and the mask. “Is that…”

“Yeah,” Will grunted. “I’ll handle it.” The guy was going to be seeing a lot of paperwork and grunt security jobs in the near future.

“Who wants a funnel cake?” Will asked, changing the subject abruptly.

“I do!” Jack had never turned down an offer of sweets in his life, and even Hotch could hardly say no to an offer of deep fried batter covered in powdered sugar.

“Well lets go find some grub then!”

#aaron hotchner #will lamontagne #hotmontagne #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #hotch x will #reid is in the story too but he's not a main character so i'm not actually tagging him

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