#i should minor in criminology or something

[whenanafallsinlove]

UNDER INVESTIGATION; SHOTO TODOROKI X FEM READER CH. 1: STARTING LINE || series m.list Summary: As a forensic medical examiner, you are used to working alongside the police, but a concerning case calls for the aid of a pro-hero. When Shoto shows up, the time you spend together makes you realise that the case is not the only thing you would like to solve. Maybe what you start to feel needs to go under investigation too. Warnings: crime, violence, discrimination Tags:  prohero au, fem reader, aged up characters, romance + crime, multichapter WC: 4k

It has been a few minutes since the small meeting took place. It concluded with you agreeing to send the autopsies’ reports as soon as you had them. You also agreed to examine each body’s lab results to see if you could find any additional indicators that the three people had died under equal circumstances.

The intention of the meeting was barely a precaution—to advise the police with your opinion as a forensic. As of now, you have no clue how they are handling the investigation or if they have even considered the possibility of these being victims of a murder.

Your supervisor waited for the other two men to leave the room before speaking.

“(Y/L/N), do you really think there is someone behind all this?” His arms cross his chest questioningly.

“I know it is early to assume anything-”

“You know there is no space for assuming in our field.” He interrupts you, and you need to breathe deeply to avoid snapping.

“Yes, I know,” you sigh. “But there is something very wrong about this. Like I said, the three corpses were all at an early stage of postmortem when I examined them. None of them had a reason to decay so rapidly.”

He nodded and stared at his feet thoughtfully.

“Look, the police are currently packed with other minor cases. They are asking Hero Agencies to fill in with the investigations to catch bigger criminals.” He paused to make sure you were following. “During the call, you seemed convinced that this was critical, so they decided to send Shoto. But I need you to be positive that these deaths are related somehow; we cannot make neither the police nor Shoto waste their time.”

You felt almost offended. It was natural for your supervisor to question your work and encourage you to grow. But this felt like he was doubting your years of study and hard work. As if he hadn’t taught you most of the things you currently know.

You mentally scoff before answering.

“I can show you the pictures; I can show you the lab results that show that the bodies have the same mold type; and we can wait for the third lab to prove this too! I’m telling you, this is no coincidence! I took the toxicology tests!” You breathe to calm yourself. “Besides, you know the police think something is wrong too; you heard the detective. Why would they choose the number three hero if they didn’t? Just because I asked? I’m flattered!”

He raises an eyebrow at your tone, making you embarrassed for losing your temper.

“I trust you. I just wanted to confirm that you’re positive about this. As I said, the police are packed and no detectives are available, so I will have to assign you to work on the investigation with Shoto.”

“Me and Shoto? What about the detective that was just here?”

“He’s just a representative; if anything, he’s the busiest at the moment.”

“And who would lead the case?”

“You, of course. It’s time to put to use your criminology degree too.”

“I just got it, and it was merely to give better analysis on the autopsies…”

“(Y/L/N), are you taking the opportunity, or should I find someone else?” He sighs and pinches his nose with two fingers. He looks exasperated.

“Yeah, of course I am!” You say it with an indignant tone.

“Good. You can contact Shoto directly to discuss anything related to the investigation. I trust you’ll do good work?” You nod.

“You know I’ll do my best. Make sure you send me his contact.” You sound defeated, but in reality, you are thrilling with the situation in hand.

Your supervisor grins and walks to the door. Before closing it behind him, he speaks once again.

“And (Y/L/N)?”

“Yes?”

“Stop smiling so much at Shoto; it’s creepy.”

You blush at his comment and thank that no one is around to notice how embarrassed you feel.

It is almost nighttime by the time you make your way home. You take the train with a satisfied grin on your face; the conversation you had with your supervisor is still lingering in your mind. You flush in embarrassment at the memory, but the emotion is switched once again to excitement when you remember the case.

This is a huge opportunity for you. You have been working with your supervisor since your days as a medical intern. After getting to help with some cases, you decided to get a degree in criminology as well; you figured it would help you be better in your field. And even though this was not your first solo investigation, you had always treated minor affairs; the most common deaths were provoked by ‘incidental quirk usage’. A little tragic and funny, in your opinion.

But if your suspicions are correct, this is a major league case.

So now, you find yourself at home with a cup of coffee in hand and roaming once again through some of the lab results.

You read each parameter with detail, your eyes darting between the pages. Nothing catches your eye; everything seems normal outside the organs’ results, which present the same type of fungi in the three bodies.

Then, your phone buzzes, interrupting your analysis. You automatically check to see the notification, and your heart sinks a little when you read it.

An unknown number sent you a message.

[10:48 PM]

Unknown: Hey, this is Shoto. Your supervisor sent me your phone number, but I just want to check if it’s correct. Is this Dr. (Y/L/N)?

You stare at it for a few seconds before saving his number and typing back.

You: Yes! It is me!

You would like to respond to his messages with double the enthusiasm, but you remind yourself to be professional.

Shoto: Ok. Please contact me as soon as you have an update.

You: I already have some of the lab results. I’m currently going through them, so whenever you have time, we can schedule to meet. We need to discuss the investigation in general.

Shoto: I am free tomorrow around lunch. Is it alright for you?

You: Sure!

Shoto: Ok. See you tomorrow. Goodnight.

Just then, the tiredness and sleep deprivation that have been building in the past few days finally hit you. So, you decide it’s time to go to bed.

You wake up the next morning around 7 a.m. and start your daily routine. This is the most you have slept in the last week. As a forensic, you must be accustomed to irregular shifts. There are some things that cannot wait, and analyzing a body is one of them. A few hours can make the difference while searching for proof.

While you are having breakfast, you get a text from Shoto.

[9:03 AM]

Shoto: Good morning, Dr. (Y/L/N). I was wondering where you would want to meet for lunch.

“He texts like my grandpa.” You think and laugh to yourself.

You: Good morning, Shoto! I think somewhere private would be proper, since the information is supposed to be classified. Or somewhere not too busy!

Shoto: Ok. I’ll send you the location. Let’s meet at 12:00.

Shoto: [Attached Location]

You: Good, see you in a few hours! :)

It is still early, so you go through the paperwork once again, just to make sure all the reports are coherent with the lab results. There is a minor unease in the back of your mind; you feel a little anxious at the thought of messing up in your first important work. Besides, working closely with a top hero is not cooperating with your growing stress.

A few hours later, you arrive at his agency. You walk into the building and notice how big it is. There is a young man and an older woman seated at the reception. In the middle of the construction, there is a transparent elevator that connects all the floors. You start to walk towards the workplace cafeteria, where Shoto had asked you to meet. He had given you some indications to avoid that you got lost, and you cannot be more grateful. As you enter the small food place, you find a free table and sit there, shuffling in your bag and grabbing your phone in case he texts.

“Hey, did you get here alright?” You hear Shoto’s voice and see him approaching you.

“Yes, thank you! I had never been here; it’s very nice!” you say, and he grins politely at your compliment.

“Do you want something to eat before we get to work? It’s on me.”

“Uh, sure! I’ll have whatever you have!” He nods and walks towards the cafeteria counter.

A couple of minutes later, he comes back with two plates of soba. It looks and smells amazing, and your stomach growls.

“Thanks, it looks really good!”

“I wasn’t sure if you liked soba, so I brought a couple of pork buns too.” He seems indifferent when he says this, but you still feel grateful.

“I appreciate it.” You smile and decide to go straight to the work talk. “So, have they given you all the investigation paperwork?” You ask as you start to eat.

“Yes, but it doesn’t have a lot of information since it is all recent.” He says and you nod in understanding.

“Do you have it with you?” you ask.

“All the files are on my computer. After we have lunch, we can go to my office and check all the information we have together.”

“Sounds good.” You nod and give him a slight smile.

After that, none of you speak for a few minutes. You feel awkward as you hear some room chatter and cutlery sounds echoing in the background.

You search in your mind for topics you can talk about with Shoto, but your confidence in starting a conversation lessens every time you see his uninterested face. You know from the media that he is not very talkative, but he still has a great reputation for treating his fans and other civilians with respect. You look at him in an attempt to find the key to making him speak.

He suddenly looks up from his plate of soba and meets your gaze, quirking his brow in curiosity. You blush, feeling a wave of embarrassment for being caught, and then focus your eyes again on your own food.

Shoto is very interested in your personality. Yesterday, while you were in the morgue, you seemed very confident and eager to be heard, but right now, you are as quiet as a mouse. He doesn’t know if something is bothering you, so he decides to clear his throat and break the silence.

“What you were explaining yesterday was interesting.”

He sees how your face lights up, and he thinks you resemble a little kid that is given candy.

“Really? I thought you were going to pass out right there.” You chuckle at the memory.

“I was not. I don’t usually see corpses, so I was just taking it all in.” He shrugs while sinking back to his plate.

“Right.” You understand how impactful it is to see a scene like that for the first time. “You said it was your first time in a morgue; did you like it?” You offer an expectant smile, as if what you just asked was common.

Shoto thinks for a couple of seconds for the right words and then answers.

“Uhm- I mean, as a job it is intriguing, but I really expect it to be the only reason I’m ever there.” He scratches the back of his neck, with a thoughtful look.

“Yeah, I get it!” You say, while laughing at his unintended joke. You see how the corners of his lips shift to a small smile.

“Do you like it? Your job?” he asks.

“Yes! I always liked science as a kid, and when I got older, I started reading and watching a lot of crime stories. So, I chose a job where I can do both!”

“How are you capable of facing death so easily?”

You’re not taken aback by the question. People commonly ask you that when they learn what your job is, but it surprises you that he is engaging in the talk. Not that you’re complaining; you are a very talkative person.

“I mean, it’s not that it doesn’t affect me. I have seen terrible and heart-wrenching things, but I would rather think of the people that may be saved if I helped even the slightest from my lab. You’re a hero; you must know what I mean.”

He hums and nods in response, seemingly satisfied with your answer. After that, you fall back in silence for a while as you both finish your food. Then, you decide to ask him if he’s ready to chime into work.

"Well, do you-”

“Are you-”

You and Shoto speak at the same time, making the both of you blush at the awkwardness.

“Sorry, what were you saying?” You ask first.

“I was going to ask if you were finished with your food so we could get to work.”

“Oh! Yeah, I’m finished. I was about to ask you the same thing.” You chuckle.

“Let’s go, then.” He gives a small smile.

You follow Shoto through the agency; he enters the elevator and presses the last button, apparently for the highest floor in the building. The elevator is made of glass, allowing you to admire the agency as you go up.

It takes a few seconds for the elevator to arrive, and when the door opens, you catch sight of the entire city through the big windows. It is an awesome view, but you get chills when you realize how far from the floor you are.

Before you can think any further, Shoto taps on your shoulder and tells you, “My office is over here.” Gesturing to a door at the end of the hall.

He starts to walk, and you go behind him. He shuffles in the bags of his pants, looking for his keys, and opens the door, moving to the side so you can enter first.

“Thanks.” You say, and he closes the door after getting in.

You turn to see the office; it is very neat and organized; it is very ordinary as well. There are some wooden shelves in the back, stuck up with decorations; there is a simple desk made of a similar wood; and three black leather chairs, one behind the desk and two in front.

“Let me move one of the chairs next to mine, so you can see the computer.” Shoto says, and soon enough he is carrying one of the chairs and placing it beside his.

You walk around the desk and take a seat, thanking Shoto once again. He nods and sits next to you; then, he turns the computer on and types a password that you swear is longer than a whole book chapter, so you start laughing.

He turns to look at you and asks, “Why are you laughing? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, it’s just that your password is very long! Sorry for prying, but I noticed you tapped like a whole sentence.” You keep laughing, and he just stares, confused. “How do you even remember that?”

“I just changed it today. I used to have just a pin, but you said that the files are supposed to be confidential, so I thought I was supposed to be more cautious. That’s why I locked my office too.” Shoto explained, still unamused and disconcerted.

“Oh.” Now you feel bad for laughing, but you find it a little adorable how serious Shoto is taking everything you say. “I guess it’s fine then; better safe than sorry,” and you smile at him.

He nods and smiles as well, then turns around and clicks around his files to find the one with all the information the police had collected. When it opens, you see that it’s just three pages of information, one for each person that was found.

You read through it and see that it’s just details of the victims and where and how they were found.

“Is it really just that?” You ask, a little disappointed and stressed about how you really are going to have to start from zero.

“And some photos, but I was waiting for you so we could see them.”

“Okay.” You sigh and pinch the bridge of your nose. “Where do you want to start? Should we read the files, the labs, or see the photos?”

Shoto notices how you tense up a little, so he figures you should start with the topic that you like the most.

“Let’s read the labs first.”

“Nice choice.” You grab the documents that you had in your bag and place them on the desk. “So… Did you understand everything I explained yesterday, or should we go over it again?”

“I got it after you explained it in a more universal language.” He says with a slight apologetic tone. You laugh slightly.

“Good! But, I guess I’ll have to give you a ‘Forensics Medicine 101’ as we go through the labs!” 

“Okay.” Shoto says, and shrugs.

“Wait, really? I was joking.”

“Only if you want. I think it is important for me to understand the case better.”

“Oh, okay. Take one of the labs; we’ll go through it together as I explain, then!”

Shoto nods and takes the document that is on top.

“Okay, so first things first. As a medical examiner, my job is to collect the proof that the body presents. I am in charge of the autopsies to determine the cause of death and other conditions that people may have been exposed to before and after dying.”

“And you do that only by watching the body?”

“Mostly, yes. There’s so much a body can say: the facial expressions, the placement of the body, the condition of the organs… But when there are signs of exposure to unnatural circumstances, we take samples of the body fluids for analysis.”

“And what made you think there was something unnatural about this?”

“Honestly, I was just taking the labs to confirm the time that the body had been deceased. At first, I thought the person had had some kind of terrible infection, but then the lab results did not check with the decomposition.”

“It’s what you were saying yesterday, right?”

“Yeah. And after that, a second and third bodies arrived with similar signs. So, I just got suspicious that something was wrong.” You shrug.

“I get it; I would have thought so too.” He says, and you feel glad that someone is on your side.

“Well, back to the labs. I took samples of everything, so we can go through each section.”

“Each section?”

“Yeah, you know; blood, hormones, organs, toxicology, DNA…”

“Oh, okay.” He nods.

You read each result with Shoto, explaining if anything was in or out of the parameters. This is like the hundredth time you have read these labs, so you almost know them by memory. As you explain, Shoto just nods or frowns, but he seems to understand most of it.

Then, you get to the last section, which was DNA. You are reading when Shoto interrupts you.

“You can see a person’s quirk in a DNA test?”

“Yes, of course! There are DNA tests that specialize in genealogical quirk trees!”

“And what does it mean if it says ‘n/e’?”

“What? Where did you see that?” Shoto extends the paper and points to the words he just read.

You seem suddenly agitated and grab the other two labs. You turn the pages straight to the DNA sections and gasp.

“I knew something was slipping from me!”

“What is happening?” Shoto asks.

“The three labs say ‘n/e’ in this section; ‘n/e’ means ‘non-existent’.” You take your hand to cover your mouth in a very pensive manner.

“I still don’t get it.”

“Shoto, none of these people had quirks. If a person is really behind this, they may be targeting quirkless people!”

You can physically see how the information dawns on Shoto. His lips part, and his eyes open in surprise. As you both process the new knowledge, the room goes silent for a while.

“Now what? What do we do with this information?” You ask with a nervous laugh.

“We should write it down, I guess.”

“I mean, obviously. But what I’m saying is that we should alert the population, right? We cannot let quirkless people roam around like everything is just fine!”

“But we cannot tell them either, at least not yet. We will only cause a mass panic.” Shoto's expression is stoic, in comparison to yours.

“And we let innocent people die while we figure it out?” Your tone is low, but accusative.

“For all we know, this person is not yet aware that we are investigating these murders. We already have a lead; we are on advantage.”

“I understand that, but I really think we should at least tell the police.”

“(Y/L/N), we are technically the police. But don’t worry; it is very uncommon nowadays to find people without a quirk. I’ll make the agency double the security in secluded areas; that should avoid that there’s another victim soon.”

“Okay.” You take a deep breath. “Sorry for panicking; this is my first case involving a possible serial killer; I don’t want to mess up!”

“It’s okay. You seem… passionate about your job.” Shoto says, and it makes you cackle.

“Let’s go back to the topic. I was thinking we could speak with someone who is specialized in fungi and quirks that involve mushrooms, like Shemage.”

“I know her; she was in my school. I can try to contact her.” Shoto says, with a thoughtful tone.

“Good!” You feel relieved to hear that someone might help you. You think that Shemage will be a great guide at understanding the killer’s quirk, which reduces the stress you were building.

After that, the two of you decide to continue reading the few information that was on the files, exchanging some commentary in between. As you go through the information, you write down the points you find the most important.

Start searching in the government’s quirk registration

Start an investigation for quirk extremists

Speak with Shemage

Speak with the victims’ families

The list of tasks seems simple; you and Shoto can do this. How difficult can it be?

a/n: eng is not my first language, excuse any mistakes! I hope you liked it, comment your thoughts! <3

TAGS: @miyamoratsumuu, @serxndipity-ipity-blog, @lauffey, @pretty-sparkle-bomb, @atashiboba, @the-hangry-otter

[crowleys-bentley-and-plants]

It has come to my attention that i havent done a poll in a while, so here we go

For reference i study criminology :) and visual evidence is about analyzing and making films and stuff and how they influence people and, amongst other things, how they're used in court cases and stuff so it's kinda relevant to my study? and it also sounds really interesting. Forensic criminology is like the most basic thing i can possibly choose but idkk it sounds interesting but im kinda meh about it. And creative writing cause the homework is literally writing silly little stories which i already do in my free time but this time im gonna get professional feedback on it and improve so it's a very big win, but it has nothing to do with my career and stuff aaaa i can't choose

[tozettastone]

Some navelgazing thinky thoughts for the day:

Often, the theories, frameworks and lenses we use are offering us one view of a situation, problem or concept, but we treat them as though they're the One True Way Of Knowing, and I think that is a little limiting. I believe (and I suppose this is ideology) we can usually only realise a fragment of truth using a given framework. What's offered by one might be contradicted by another, and it's kind of our privilege as thinking beings to rotate the thing in our brains and look at it from different angles.

Let me offer an example that I have plucked from a conversation I had with my parent two years ago: in my country, we have 4 major banks. Together they own most of the minor financial institutions (eg., Bankwest is owned by Commbank, St George is owned by Westpac, etc etc) and they all have, just, so many shareholders in common. They are an oligopoly and unsurprisingly, moving together, they don't always serve the interests of their actual customers. They famously¹ offer such services as fucking over rural business who take out loans by altering terms without notice or consultation, intentionally charging fees to people who are dead, offering bank-affiliated "advisors," who provide advice to customers that serves the bank, etc., etc., exhausting.

One perspective says that this problem is a matter of low competition—we should slash red tape, reduce regulatory complexity and thereby offer newcomers easier access to enter the industry, which would then force these organisations to court customers or risk losing market share.

Another perspective says that this problem is that businesses are not behaving in the interests of their customers—we should increase regulation and get stronger state oversight to ensure these organisations have to do certain things regardless of their size and market share.

But depending on which lens I use (whether you are economically right or left, traditionally), both of these things may be true. Strong competition, where it exists, does force companies to do things like undercut each other's prices and offer appealing services, and high regulation is a barrier to entry to the market. Meanwhile, strong regulation also has a measurable effect on how business carry out business and what nonsense they're allowed to pull.

My answer to the problem of "what do we do about the bloody banks?" more realistically depends on a number of other factors I'm considering, like what I think the ultimate purpose of a bank should be, and how much time I think each consumer should spend becoming adequately informed, whether or not I think markets need regulating over all, and so on... But the point I'm making is, both of the above lenses are just ways of knowing about a thing (in this case, solutions to bank fuckery) and are not themselves singular unified truths. They're lenses that expose one element of truth.

I feel this way about all sorts of perspectives as I see them on my social media feed, but it's always hard to verbalise it in context. The split attraction model isn't the only (or "better") way of thinking about how relationships work. A radical queer reading of a film isn't the only way of understanding it, but it also isn't any less legitimate than, say, a subjectivist one. If you're a proponent of restorative justice, you think that perpetrators and victims need to be treated in particular ways to repair the harms of crime, but you also have to think about how labelling theory might tell you something about those categories.

Of course, it's also our privilege as thinking beings to assess the value of a lens, theory or framework.

Not all ideas are made equal. I talk about how labelling theory interacts with restorative justice, sure, but you'll notice I'm not suggesting Lombroso's biological positivism is equally valuable. That's because it's a school that is really more of a curiosity than a serious criminological theory in the 21st century. But it does still offer us an opportunity to think about how its proponents in the 19th century arrived at their framework and what fragmentary truth they felt it revealed.

----

1— you may have heard that the 2017–2019 Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation, and Financial Services Industry resolved much of this, but unfortunately this is only partially true. The BCCC's report in 2023 revealed that every bank in their sample still charged deceased customers' accounts after being notified of their deaths.

[kunikidas-lost-glasses]

What the BSD characters are majoring and minoring in in my college!AU

First of all, a big thank you to @unleashthegayangels for helping me out and finding a suiting major for some of the characters!!

Secondly, if I got anything wrong in regards of college systems (majors, minors, elective courses), I apologize.

I am not in college and even though I did my research on a lot of things, I am still not quite sure if I got everything right. So feel free to correct me.

---------------------------------------------------

Nikolai: Majors in drama&theatre arts/theatre, minors in fine arts and litrature

Fyodor: Majors in computer science, previously minored in religion/theology but switched to minoring in psychology, litrature and (classical) music

Shibusawa: Majors in fashion design, minors in litrature

Chuuya: Majors in litrature, no minors but is the lead singer of a hobby band in which he is together with Akutagawa, Tachihara, Gin and Higuchi. It's called "The Black Lizard" but they are debating if the should rename it to "Port Mafia" Has an elective course which is fine arts.

Dazai: Majors in litrature, minors in psychology and. Is in three elective courses: Biology, mathematics and fine arts

Yosano: Majors in medicine, minors in litrature

Higuchi: Majors in buisness, minors in litrature

Bram: Majors in litrature

Lovecraft: Majors in marine biology, minors in litrature

Sigma: Majors in buisness management, minors in hospitality management and litrature (He strives to become a casino manager of a casino he owns). Takes one elective course in something related to astronomy

Kunikida: Majors in buisness management, minors in litrature and mathematics but is close to qutting the minor in mathematics

Ranpo: Majors in criminology, minors in litrature

Poe: Majors in litrature, minors in criminology and architecture

Jouno: Majors in criminal justice, minors in journalism (the real Jouno Saigiku was, i.a, a japanese journalist), japanese and litrature, currently also in a training programm (mostly physical training like working out) to become a military police officer together with Tecchou and Teruko since they already got told that they will get a place in the military police after they've finished with college. He is currently debating if he should quit and major in journalism for personal reasons

Tecchou: Majors in criminal justice, minors in litrature, with Jouno and Teruko in the training program. Currently unaware of Jouno's inner debate about his career

Akutagawa: Majors in litrature, minors in fashion design

Atsushi: Majors in litrature

Tachihara: majors in criminal justice, minors in litrature, in the band "The Black Lizard" together with Gin, Higuchi, Akutagawa and Chuuya

Louisa: Majors in litrature

Mushitaro: Majors in forensics, minors in german and litrature (the real Mushitaro lived in germany once for a while and in the manga, Mushitaro is able to speak and understand german)

Gin: Majors in fashion design, minors in litrature

Kouyo: Majors in buisness management, minors in litrature

Steinbeck: Majors in litrature

[bigsnorp]

More about phrenology because im in the last year of my criminology degree and it needs to get used somehow!

phrenology is absolutely a major tool in the antisemite’s armoury. but i think it’s important to understand how it is applied to other forms of bigotry, and how it is used as a way to scientifically legitimise bigotry

one of the so-called “fathers of criminology” is this asshole called cesare lombroso. he wrote a little bitch book called The Criminal Man (but in italian) detailing his experiments in prison populations in the 1800s, and he found certain physical traits which he claimed constituted a biological criminal profile. it includes:

“thick lips”

“protruding ears”

“hawk-like nose”

“small, wandering eyes”

and for the elusive but terrifying criminal woman

“dark hair”

“wrinkles”

“smaller skulls than normal women” (source)

he called these traits “atavistic”, meaning they’re like a throwback from way earlier in our evolution. literally, he believed people who commit crime do so because they are less evolved than civil, law abiding folks. and because this is the piss on the poor website, just to be clear, this is a list of traits collected from a population that were overwhelmingly racial or ethnic minorities, disabled, or marked by the physical effects of poverty.

eventually the book goes on to suggest that people with these traits can be identified before they commit a crime, and they can be removed from society for the betterment of everyone else. this is called biological positivist criminology, and it is a major tool in crime prevention to this day. for more on this, i suggest Katy Sian’s 2017 article about how lombroso’s work relates to modern uk counter-terrorism policy. genuinely a banger piece.

but back to the list. we know there are no physical indicators of crime, because crime is something we made up. so what did lombroso actually measure then? he measured the physical profile of people who are criminalised. i cannot stress enough that prisons have always, from their inception, been a tool of the state to contain, subjugate, and remove minority populations from wider society. i don’t know what a society without prisons would look like, but i know what a society WITH them looks like. and it sucks.

This is the purpose of phrenology. Once the phrenologist gets you to accept that certain physical traits mean someone is bad for society and should be locked up, they have won. 

tldr phrenology is a rhetorical tool of white supremacy in every possible way it’s every been used. please pick something else for your tiktok insecurity bait, at least.

not the coquettes literally reinventing nazi phrenology on tiktok

[superconductivebean]

#1428

having replayed the high keep and the lost child reminded me of the parallels between natty and sebastian as characters. they are both impulsive and pushy about their respective narratives of dealing with the poachers and curing a curse

accidentally wrote a wall of text im sorry

either story deals with mindless approach to revenge as a way of dealing or coping with a trauma under the lights of the bigger, common narrative of Not Everyone Is What They Seem. i want to address that people tend to criticise characters for their handlings of their respective situations.

natty is easier to criticise—her quests are investigatory in nature. it's relatively simple for me to see the flaws in her arguments and overall reasoning (criminology and scene reading are my minor interests). from the hindsight, i know that archie was kidnapped and that victor hunts down rare treasures, but natty really doesn't have a compelling argument. any sort of investigation requires an amount of evidence—some of which must be substantial or present as substantial. you can't just say He Did This; an assessment must be done, everything should be looked at and analysed; running with a single explanation may lead to problems due to misinterpretations and worse, biases. this is the reason a working police unit may take a while to build the case; not everything counts as evidence, something may count for an additional case's evidence, and so on.

aka we cant really say archie's hideout was really ravaged by the ashwinders—the trail of steps going away from the tent doesn't belong to a running boy. the stark difference between the first chain of trails and the latter hints that archie had been followed until he reached the fork on the road where the pursuit had really ensued. that little detail—to which mc is oblivious somehow—could've been used to warn mc and natty that a trap could awaited ahead.

my scene reading of the place: the ashwinders came to the empty tent (judging by the muddy prints nearby). if you'd come to this locale early, the tend is already trashed; nothing is taken from it. so, the ashwinders came, then realised the boy wasn't there, and being professional trackers, followed him from behind to the fork. i also tend to think this because archie's satchel doesn't really look as if it had been abandoned; if anything, it looks like it had been carefully placed on the tree. thrown belongings usually land on the ground—and in the game next door, the witchеr 3, to empathise the hurry, the belongings are usually scattered about the place.

dont get me wrong, i don't have problems with 15yos being oblivious. they're not trained professionals, and even Trained ProfessionalsTM fail spectacularly as if they went to school only to skip every single class and to part with any common sense.

but i do have problems with the game 1) dumbify a character who is usually aware of their surroundings aka mc isn't as breadloafy 2) not playing around natty's luck by killing off more characters, creating serious problems for her, or mentioning her spying as a gazelle isn't the brightest idea in the scottish highlands.

curiously, the game isn't really unaware of the bias's influence.

when sharp says that rookwood-ranrok alliance is inconceivable, he falls for that bias trap. he has reasons to have that bias, yes—but as an auror, he can't have it when presented a lead by someone who perhaps knows more. it hints aesop also has a bias against fig—which isn't really all that enticing. as we know, aesop had a terrible miscalculation once, and he had nearly fallen for that mindset again.

all of this, however, does work for the aforementioned narrative. you see, aside from the game's lousy job, cleverness of natty's reserved for the classroom; out of the class, natty can very well mess up the case by not stopping for a second to think if her thought chain was welded correctly—or if her entire line of thinking is sound. take the high keep quest: you have an entire hogsmeade worth of evidence, local shopkeepers know the names of loyalists and ashwinders on the trade routes, but a piece of private correspondence will prove that harlow and rookwood are working together—so hear me out: that we know rookwood does illegal shit doesn't mean the legal code of the wizarding britain agrees with us or our ethics whatsoever, let alone it may count beasts as objects, therefore, to have legal action against rookwood, natty needs very substantial claims that may concern extortion, robbery, or breaching the statute of secrecy by smuggling illegal goods in and out of the country risking being seen by the muggles.

going back at aesop, he dealt in illegal trade. he was injured on the ship, and his partner died that day. poachers did risk being seen—so did the auror office by dispatching aurors to the site. then, we have a certain dinah hecat taken an entire ring in eastern wales. second half of the 1800s was an era of fast urban and rural development alike, people moved around lots, so the probability of something like that being spotted by the muggles was rather high. that being said, natty's letter argument was rather weak—there were more substantial claims and evidence left to be gathered than risking everything for a letter; it isnt to say they should had come, that quest was made to unlock highwing as a flying mount but still.

sebastian, at the other hand, has the narrative problems all the same.

a lot has been said about his obsessions, but my take on him is perhaps one of the most harsh: he doesn't have a fundamental understanding of how curses work—nor the game does a good job explaining if the lack of care for anne was the consequence of the current political climate.

if sebastian mentioned the wanded goblin to the healers, well. we already have sharp—a former but a well-respected, experienced auror—who'd say that is an inconceivable idea as well; its implications are also play into ranrok's favour a tad too much for his liking i imagine.

sebastian's claim is weak and unsupported, he has nothing to back it up with besides his detest for the goblinkind, which seems to fuel his every further claim. not to mention sebastian insists on his vision of events being the most truthful; he doesn't take in other opinions very well unless you had proven him wrong with something substantial.

by the end of the game we do not even know if the wand cast had taken place or not at all because rookwood saying something at the scene does not mean he casted the spell. it is what mc had assumed—as they are prone to do (for example, after coming back from the book's memories, mc skipped the part of only percival and isidora being wyrds in their recollection; instead, they claimed all keepers wielded ancient magic—which, again, wasn't true).

so you see the picture: we have a an unstoppable locomotive of thoughts that will crush your every bone because he thinks he is right and correct and has all the moral high horses to think and act the way he does—but dare you disagree or criticise or attempt to stop him for a short while, unless you have groundbreaking evidence for your own objection, you will be spoken to in insults and condescending attitudes.

the game doesn't attempt at presenting sebastian with the most shattering challenge on his journey to despair: his supposed friends' regrets, disagreements, arguments and in the end, rejection. his story also doesn't align well with the narrative: from the very first day, sebastian constantly hooks mc's curiosity and says he agreed to keep them company because it'd mean no detention or that he'd gain something from their acquaintanceship. he gets under the skin quite soon into the plot to consider him not being not who he really is: his uncle's nephew, a sprout of a vine that perhaps looks pretty but will tear down the wall that houses it. danger is immanent within him; there is no expectation play, only the depth meter for his detest. [*]

in contrast to natty, i'd say it works though. if we add poppy to the revenge show, you'll have three ways of how such a strong ideation can work out or be tackled, a triptych of sorts.

within the main narrative though, sebastian's story is not so much.

[*] — I must add: his plotline in terms of depicting what abuse can do to people in terms of screwing up their minds and perceptions and moods is done alright. Sebastian is weak and helpless, and he knows it, and it angers him to no end—and I'd call his story an utter fairy tale if he wouldn't act out so violently after hitting the Solomon's walls. It isn't Sebastian being fifteen and throwing a fit; it's Sebastian looking at his world shattering before his eyes and receiving only the most cruel answers: to keep together a wound burst open and splattering blood around without anybody's help and that it's his business not to die—very family much support, isn't it. By the time he casts Imperio, he crosses the last point of no return. I might get very personal going forward; I've seen and experienced lots of anger and hate in life to take any downplays or justifications of Sebastian's urges and actions. So I end this addition here.

[potatowunderkind]

The Soul of the Name

Authors note at the end.

*No plagiarism please*

Adventure can have different meanings.  For some people, it means seeking out thrill and risk, something to get an adrenaline rush; skydiving, rock climbing.  Others may seek out the peace of travel.  Sightseeing and road trips are wonderful ways of seeing what the world has to offer.  Sometimes adventure may only be available at home be it in the town you live or somewhere within the state.  Sometimes the adventure may lead to a mystery.  This happened to be the case for a couple of friends.

Four teens all different yet similar; Nica, Grant, Janie, and Drew.  Each shared a love of nature and seeking adventure.  But then the differences occur.  Nica, an exotic, outgoing and ecstatic girl; Grant, curly-haired, sporty and optimistic; Janie, light-haired, curious and observant; Drew, bright-eyed, courteous and kind.  The group had been friends since the third grade, with the exception of Janie and Drew who had known one another through their parents.  The four had finished their junior year and were anticipating what senior year and their futures had in store.

The friends decided to take a day during their summer break to go on a trip around the town they lived Moreau.  Their destination had been an abandoned farm located down a gated driveway.  Part of the way down the road had been surrounded by trees — great, vibrant and green oaks and paper birches.  The road opened to a secluded area holding a small barn and farmhouse, the remaining land having been fenced off for livestock.  The land and buildings had been owned by the Nelson family, one of the oldest families in the town.  But the family had left the land untouched since 1994 with no explanation.

The four teens began to clamber out of the silver ‘98 Jeep Grand Cherokee belonging to Drew.  The road was as abandoned as the farm so there had been no problem for them leaving the vehicle without being seen.  The Nelson land had been a point of interest by most, although not many traveled there as they could either not find it or ignored the area seeing how secluded it had been.  But the ‘NO TRESPASSING’ sign hanging on the gate had been ignored many times.

A brilliant blue, cloudless sky lit the land, most of the grass had been dead and brittle from the heat and light of the sun.  The only sound in the area had been birds and bugs and the closing of the vehicle doors.  An occasional airplane could be heard flying overhead in the troposphere.

“What do you think we’ll find?”  Grant asked his friends.  The seventeen-year-old watched as his friends climbed over the metal gate, helping them if needed.  They began their trek down the dirt driveway, the sound of the dirt scuffing beneath their feet emitting to their ears.

Nica, who had paid attention to the question, began to speak up.  “Not sure.  Maybe some old equipment and all that.”

A short silence hung in the air between all of them.  Grant spoke once more, “It’s sad this is our last summer here.”  He turned to the others with a smile.  “Remember when we all met?”

“Must you remind us?” Drew inquired.

“Third grade-.”

“He must,” Janie quietly said to Drew earning a stifled laugh.

Grant continued to talk even though he hadn’t heard the remark.  “All three of you sat in the back of the room.  Almost every day.  I sat in the front not knowing you three at all.  The kid sitting next to Nica, and in front of you, Janie.   He could never see the board well.  Turns out he had bad eyesight.

“So then one day, the teacher had to have a talk with him about his failing grades.  Next day, he was asked to move up front — where I was sitting.”

Grant paused for effect.  Nica shared a look with Janie, the two both shaking their heads amusement.  “So I was moved to the kid's old seat.  Right where you three were sitting!”  The group shared a laugh at the excitement Grant showed.

A rustling was heard from the side after the laughter died down.  Ahead of them, a doe stepped out from the wooded area.  Janie let out a gasp and stopped her friends upon noticing the animal watching them.  She motioned for the others to remain quiet as to not scare the doe.  Upon her view, Janie recognized something off about the creature; it appeared transparent.  Janie thought her eyesight was off and didn’t think much of it.  It wasn’t long before the animal stalked off to the other line of trees, soon disappearing out of sight.

The remainder of the walk was silent.  The quartet found themselves gazing upon the barn belonging to the farm.  It had been located before the farmhouse.  The building had been rundown.  Parts of the rusty metal roofing had gone missing either having been taken off or falling in.  Wood from the siding had also fallen, most of the pieces visible had rotted.  Every other belonging outside of the barn — metal barrels, equipment — had rusted.

Drew stepped over to the barn doors and tried them.  There was a metal latch on the front in order to keep the doors closed.  But they wouldn’t open.  His eyes fell to Janie who had stepped over to also check the door.

“What’s wrong?”  Nica inquired as she and Grant stood away from their friends.

“It won’t open,” Drew stated.  He stood in thought, thinking what they could do.  Two options came up: they could continue to look for a way into the barn, or they could split up and two could go to the house while the others stayed at the barn.

He chose the latter.  Drew began to ask, “How about we split up?  Nica, you and Grant could go check out the house, Janie and I will look for a way into the barn.”

“Sounds good to me,” the girl said.

The dark haired girl and the curly haired boy began to walk the rest of the driveway.  Janie began to watch them until the sight of the doe caught her eye.  It went unnoticed by the others as it stood to the side of the barn which faced the house.  The animal appeared to be watching the two teenagers walk away before turning its head to glance at Janie.  She watched as the doe soon walked away disappearing behind the barn.  As Drew continued to attempt to pry the doors open, Janie moved the side of the brown building.  Turning to the right she spotted the doe standing by a metal sheet which had come from the roof leaning against the wall.

From where Janie she could see an opening behind the metal sheet.  Her eyes widened a bit.  “Hey, Drew,” Janie began, looking back at the taller teen, “I think I’ve found a way in.”

Drew looked at her equally surprised.  “Really?”  Janie glanced back to where the doe had been.  Her expression fell at the sight of it not standing there.  The boy who had stood by the doors was soon by the metal sheet.  Careful not to end up slicing his hands on the metal, he was able to move it aside.

Dust flew as the sheet fell.  The two carefully made their way into the barn.  The air was musty, stale.  Hay lay all over the ground, the only sign of anyone having been in the barn was mudded footprints by the large doors.  A latch had been attached to the inside of the doors, a padlock keeping it closed the culprit to the teenager's inability to open the doors.  By the opening in the wall were an old, rotting wooden trunk and dust-covered books on shelves.  A single trophy from a 4-H competition had sat on the top shelf but looked to have been dusted off recently.  At the far end of the building sat a green John Deere tractor with paint beginning to peel off.  Sunlight shone through the holes in the roof.

Janie spotted a makeshift step made from a crate led to scaffolding.  On that, an old motor sat leading to the top platform.  She pointed it out to Drew who agreed to spot her as she climbed, making sure she wouldn’t fall.  On the first platform was another crate with an old and ragged blanket.

There was nothing else of interest there.

Climbing to the second platform, Janie stopped midway through.  She found things which looked like camping materials hidden under an area which the roof had not been open.  Laying on the ground was a dust-covered sleeping bag and blanket.  An old oil lamp — the metal had become the brownish-red color of rust and the wick had been burned down to the point where it was almost gone.  The light haired girl glanced down at her friend finding him searching the wooden crate.  There was no point in climbing back down knowing she may have found something.  Janie pulled herself up fully on the platform, carefully moving across the old wood.

The backpack had been the first item of interest.  The gray color had faded as though it may have been there for years, the sun continuously beating down on it to leave a lighter color than the original.  The bag had been left unzipped.  There wasn’t much inside the larger pocket; a pair of clothing consisting of a flannel shirt and jeans, a granola bar with an expiration date of 2014, a folded sheet of paper with no writing, and a newspaper clipping referencing the closing of the Nelson farm.  Looking through the smaller pockets all that could be found was a small matchbook, two class rings — Class of ‘90 and Class of ‘88, and a pen.  Standing, Janie took the blank paper and moved to hold it up into the sunlight as though she might find something hidden.

The attempt was futile.  With a sigh she returned the paper to the backpack, her foot suddenly kicking something hidden under the blanket.  A journal peaked from under the bunched fabric.  The journal was small and, upon inspection, not that old.  The cover was a light brown, a leather strand attached to the back was securely tied to the front.  The front cover had a bird engraved.  Around the edges of the pages was a yellowing color.  As Janie opened the book, the pages felt to almost have been damaged by water.

Upon opening the journal, a few short entries covered the pages.  The writing had been neat.  Cursive letters looping together in a readable nature.  A few dated pages had been left untouched.  Most of the entries spoke of lack of sleep.  The most recent page to have been written on was dated June 3rd, 2004.

To whoever finds this journal, please know I am all right.  I have merely found myself elsewhere.  In reality, I never left home.  My family never knew I was so close.  I realize that I never said goodbye to anyone before leaving.  Posters haven’t been put up for a while, but I know my sister is still looking for me.

She’s the only one left.  She was my best friend and always will be.  I hate knowing I left her all alone.  Maybe I’ll return to her.  One day.

Janie took in the words and let out a deep breath.  She couldn’t help but begin to wonder who left their belongings here and why.  Why they left was a strong question in her mind along with what.  The bottom of the page had the writing: The doe will lead the way.

Below, Drew pulled out a book which had been in the old trunk.  Most of the information he had found belonged to the Nelson family and mostly consisted of newspaper clippings or pictures of the family.  The book he found felt to have been more of a portfolio or scrapbook.  Opening the cover, a label inside reading ‘C. Nelson, 1986’.  It took no time for him to connect the ‘C’ with Charlotte Nelson.  In 1989, a then seventeen-year-old Charlotte had gone missing.  She had been a key leader in the family business and caring for the farm.  The people of Moreau loved Charlotte, and the news of her disappearance was more strange than mysterious.

The first few pages of the book held pictures or letters, others held different anecdotes or daily journal writings.  Drew decided to read the entries he found interesting.

20 June 1986

Another day of helping Mom around the farm.  Most girls don’t think to do chores in their first days of summer break.  Annie gets to work at the shop with Dad, and for some reason never the farm.

I couldn’t sleep last night.  Not sure what it may be.  I’ve been having a dream lately but it’s hard to describe — like I can’t actually see what happens.

The entry looked to have had more written, however, the page had been damaged by water.  The ink of the pen faded over time.  Most of the entries after talk about Charlotte’s day and her lack of sleep, none mentioning the dream she had spoken of, until the next entry of interest.

13 August 1988

I couldn’t sleep again.  This has been occurring on and off.  The dream has been more clear since it first came to me.  I’m not sure what to do about any of this.  Mom and dad never seem to show any concern or fascination in what I tell them.  Mom usually thinks I’m making things up, dad is just dad.

But the dream I can’t shake.  It’s always dark, the only light being moonlight.  I see a body of water like a river or stream.  The location is never consistent.  Sometimes it reminds me of the river that runs by the end of the field, other times it’s a different area — but always a river.

And a doe.  She’s always standing on the other side of the water, watching me.  The odd thing about it is that I think I’ve seen her standing by the trees by the driveway once in a while when I work outside.

Drew finished the entry.  His eyebrows knit together as he thought of the doe the group had seen earlier.  It couldn’t possibly have been the same doe.

He flipped to the last covered page of the notebook which had been dated October 30, 1989 — the day before Charlotte disappeared and her birthday.  

30 October 1989

Nothing is going well.  Mom and dad are worried about the business.  They’ve been losing money recently.  They expect me to help them out with the situation.  The only problem is that I can’t and I don’t believe I can.  Lately, they’ve been expecting too much from me; “Take care of the farm,” “Take care of the business,” “Keep up your grades.”  I can only do so much.

I’ve been thinking.  What would happen if I left?  The dream I’ve been having is continuing to occur.  The scene continues to change, showing me different locations and only a few I know of.  The doe I see had led me the other day to the river where I found a class ring.  I’m not sure if she’s leading me to a specific person or thing, but I feel as though she’s trying to show me something no matter what.

So what if I left?

The pen had trailed off at the dot of the question mark.  Drew wondered if that was really where it ended.  Flipping through the remaining pages he found them to be blank, until the very last page.

April 1993

My parents sold the shop.

They’ve sold the animals.

Missing person posters have stopped going up.

Maybe this was a mistake.

On the backside was another entry.  The final piece of writing.

May 1994

The land was closed off.  Mom and dad moved away leaving the land in Annie’s name.

Never have I seen anyone so heartbroken.  I was selfish in leaving.  I should have gone back to them.

I was able to follow the doe.  Two years ago she led me to a specific location — to the body of a girl who had gone missing during the summer of 1989.  Kim Monroe.  She was a great friend and person.  I’m not sure what would make anyone want to do that to her.

I left an anonymous tip to the police.  The perpetrator had been found and arrested, a student from my class.  I realized the ring I had found was hers.  A class of ‘89 ring.

There are so many things I would say to her if she were still here.  She was the one person I could talk to the most.  I know I miss her as much as my family.  But I guess they’re now all ghosts from my past.

I’d rather not say anymore.

A photograph of Charlotte and Kim had been pasted to the remainder of the page.  Both were easy to distinguish, Charlotte with her long and wavy raven colored hair and hazel eyes, Kim with short, feathered blonde hair and vibrant green eyes.  Both had bright smiles and appeared happy together.  It without a doubt reminded Drew of Janie and Nica.

The sound of Janie jumping down from the scaffolding caused the boy to turn.  She held the journal found on the top platform.  Both inquired about what each found and traded books.

“Do you think the doe we saw is what Charlotte wrote about?” Drew asked as he closed the journal.

“It would make sense,” Janie said.  “She showed me the opening in the wall.”  Janie quickly pointed to the opening.

“Do you think She could lead us somewhere?”

“I do.  We should look for Nica and Grant — show them what we found.”  Drew agreed with his friend before handing the journal over.  He returned everything he may have removed from the wooden trunk and closed the lid.  The two teens then made their way out of the barn, the metal sheet moved in front of the hole in the wall once more.  The journals had been left on top of the crate.

In leaving the barn, Nica and Grant had been spotted walking over.  When they were close enough, the dark-haired girl decided to speak, “We couldn’t find anything in the house.  The only thing though was the furniture was covered up.

“Did you two find anything?” Grant asked as a follow-up.  Drew explained what he and Janie each found.  It wasn’t too long after the blonde spotted the doe.  She was quick in getting the attention of her friends and pointing out the animal which had been watching them.

Janie and Drew began leading the others in the direction the doe was heading.  Janie couldn’t help but find her adrenaline level rising.  The group passed through the dried grass of the field, trekking through the wooded area past the barbed fence.  The wire had fallen in an area as a couple wooden posts had fallen, making it easier to get past without injury.  Leaves and sticks cracked and crunched beneath the sneakers or hiking boots of the teens.  The sound of running water became clearer as the four got closer.

Stopping at the riverbank, the doe waited for the teens to get closer before continuing her way along the bank.  She ceased her walking when she came to a certain spot.  Janie had somehow gotten ahead of the others, finding herself coming closer to the doe.  The animal appeared more transparent that earlier.  She was quick to leave, her white-tail flicking behind as she disappeared into the trees.

Janie stopped where the doe stood.  Glancing down she scanned the ground.

Her heart seemed to stop.  Her stomach fell.

A pale hand stuck out from underneath brush, fingertips a light blue.

As her friends neared, Janie turned and looked at them.  She didn’t dare look back at what she found, afraid of what else she might see.  The others seemed to take in her hesitation, slowing their steps as they neared the girl.  Grant glanced down and spotted what his friend had seen.

“Are you okay?” Nica inquired as she glanced at her friends.

Janie spoke but her words were muttered, incoherent, scared.  Grant was quick to say, “We need to call the police.”

Nica and Drew shared looks of confusion before the girl quietly asked,  “Why?”  Both looked from Grant to Janie for an answer.

The blonde took in a deep breath.  “I think that doe led us to Charlotte Nelson.”

There was no hesitation in the next steps taken by the teens.  They returned to the farmhouse upon calling the police department.  The Grant and Janie led the officers to the location the doe had while Drew and Nica remained at the barn, explaining to a third officer the journal findings.

Even with all the commotion, the doe remained on the farm.  She watched as Annie Nelson arrived at the property.  She watched as the younger sister thanked the teens rather than become upset with their trespassing.  She watched as Charlotte Nelson’s body was taken away.

In the trees, but with a sight of everything happening, the doe bowed her head.  She knew her role had been completed.  Leading Charlotte to find Her — Kim.  Leading the group to find the missing Nelson.

Her transparent form began to fade away.  Silently, the doe could finally find peace.

Charlotte Nelson and Kim Monroe could finally be at peace.

A/N:  So...  I originally wrote this because it was necessary for the creative writing major at one of the colleges I had applied to.

I do have inspiration for this short. One involves the doe and Rachel Amber from Life Is Strange.  The other involves a cold case here in my home state.

Kim Monroe I have based off 17-year-old Kimberly Moreau who had gone missing in 1986.  About 3 years ago police “re-opened” the case (not entirely) which involved searching for her body they believed was buried in some persons yard; being Maine, nothing was found.  And being Maine, if someone goes missing, the police never solve the case (sorry, but it’s true).  As far as I know, only about 2-3 missing persons cases have been solved and 27 are still current.

Of course I couldn’t use Kimberly’s name, but could have something close to it; Moreau ending up being the name of the town as a way to still pay homage to Kimberly.  The only other case that can’t be considered “cold” is the disappearance of one-year-old - Ayla Reynolds - but she was too young to write for and her case is too recent (2011) and kind of obvious to solve (but in Maine...).  And just this past year, Ayla was legally declared deceased.

I just hope any missing person who has become a cold case can receive the justice and closure they deserve.

[nostuntmanneeded]

Depp versus Heard

Putting Sebastian and Alejandra aside for a moment to talk about something that has been in Hollywood news for the past six weeks.

(Note: As someone who is very interested in law and was a criminology minor in college, there's a lot of terminology in this post, so please bear with me.)

If you're not caught up on this case, here's a rundown:

Johnny Depp sued his ex-wife Amber Heard for an op-ed she wrote in "The Washington Post." Heard didn't mention Depp's name in the article, but it was implied that the article was about his behavior toward her, so Depp claimed it defamed him.

Some helpful terms and definitions for you:

Defamation is — by law — false statements or accuasations made to "defame" or hurt someone's reputation. This can be done through libel (written) or slander (spoken).

In this case, actual malice also had to be proven, which is "actual knowledge that the statement is false or reckless disregard for the truth." This was used since both Depp and Heard are public figures.

Depp was the plaintiff, the one who sued. Heard was the defendant, the one who was defending the lawsuit against her.

This was a civil case. This means that there are two parties that are representing themselves as individuals (through a team of lawyers, of course). This is opposed to a criminal case where the government serves as the plaintiff.

And because it was a civil case, no one is "guilty" or "not guilty," but rather a "winner" or a "loser." The "winner" gets a monetary reward which are called damages.

There are compensatory damages — compensating (giving) the winning team money for loss or injury — and punitive damages — an extra monetary reward to punish the loser.

In a civil case, both parties can collect damages, but it's the party that receives the most money that is determined the "winner."

What was Depp claiming?

Johnny Depp claimed that Heard's op-ed entilted "Amber Heard: I spoke up against sexual violence — and faced our culture’s wrath. That has to change." had false accuasations in it. As said before, Depp's name was never mentioned in the article. It was implied, though, and was the focus of this trial.

Furthermore, Depp claimed that Heard's past actions against him (including the published op-ed) has taken a toll on his public image and his career, which is where the defamation comes in.

What was Heard defending?

Amber Heard was defending her right to write and publish this op-ed under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. She exercised her freedom of speech by speaking about what she went through, and she exercised her freedom of the press by publishing it.

What was the verdict?

After six weeks of evidence and testimonies, and three days of deliberation, the jury concluded that Heard defamed Depp. Depp receives $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages. Heard receives $2 million in compensatory damages.

What do I think about this?

I am proud to say that I was on Johnny Depp's side. But I do want to say this — I also believe there were faults on both sides. Depp isn't a saint, but in this situation, the wrongdoer was Heard.

While this may be setback for women and the #MeToo movement, it is somewhat of a win for all victims of domestic violence and abuse. We must remember that men can be victims of abuse too. Women are abused more than men, but abuse is abuse no matter what the gender or gender identity is.

Furthermore, it shows how feminism and equality truly works. We must remember that being a feminist doesn't mean putting women higher above men. It means women should be equal to men. We shouldn't be putting Heard above Depp because she's a woman. We should be holding her accountable for her lies and exaggerations, just like we would if the story was reversed.

Sure, Heard used her first amendement rights. There is no problem with that, and her rights are still protected as a U.S. citizen (unlike what she said in her post-trial message). But just like there are checks and balances in the U.S. government system, there are "checks and balances" to the first amendement. Heard messed up the minute she decided to lie and exaggerate her claims against Depp. Simply put, Heard was protected until she lied. The first amendement doesn't protect any statement that is found defamatory.

And lastly, it's important to note that Heard lying is not OK. So, even if this does create a setback for abuse victims speaking out, I'd take that over people thinking it's OK to falsely accuse and lie about being abused. I have seen multiple people speak out about being a domestic violence victim. They have said that Heard, in no way, represents what they went through and the emotions they felt. This is who we should be listening to, instead of blindly following a person who lies and manipulates.

[baghassavocados]

Gonna put a page break cause it's longgg

1. A little biased but Spinning Tree (both times) {I also enjoy the 2016 tour, a bit of McCarter, and Station Theater BUT I haven't seen many productions}

2. No 😔

3. Uhhh if I have to choose one, Noel, cause he's cool and interesting and he was really fun to play and he's honestly really caring.

4. The Most Creative Person in Town?

5. All of them, but "Noel's Lament" and "Ballad..." especially

6. My favorites are Nischa/Passion Fruit, Mischa x Talia (dunno if they have a specific ship name, they should), SpaceDolls, and PerfectDolls. My least favorite is Noel x any of the girls.

7. Constance's definitely (Mischa and Noel are tied for second)

8. (I put this at the bottom cause I put a LOT-)

9. Y E S- (I'd list them here but that'd make this post so much longer-)

10. Yeye I do :) (they all deserve another chance)

11. I've only ever heard that they exist :(

12. U H- all the New Birthday Song mini scenes? And the scene after "Every Story's Got a Lesson" in the 2016 version.

13. I like the rollercoasters that just spin you around a bunch (so probably similarly to the Gravitron?)

14. Yes

15. Ocean choosing Jane, Constance's monologue, "Talia" and what follows it, "New Birthday Song" and the Jane/Ricky and Noel/Mischa scenes after it, and "It's Not a Game/It's Just a Ride"

16. No

17. Yeah, such as staring blankly, sometimes moving like a marionette, leaning her head to one side, and a more monotone voice.

18. Ummmm

Ocean would try to find a prestigious college in Uranium so she could stay close to Constance but I think ultimately might go to Harvard. Dunno what she'd go into. Maybe teaching so she could be a principal or superintendent eventually (Practicing to be the Prime Minister of Canada). Constance would work at the Blackwood Café while doing online schooling. Dunno what she'd go into either...maybe culinary? Mischa would either take a gap year or just not go to college cause he prefers his rap career. Either way, he'd get a full-time job (probably has one already considering shitty parents don't care about him). He'd also get an apartment the moment he's legally and financially able to (unfortunately doesn't have enough money to get out of Uranium, yet). The rest of the choir would help him settle in. If he did go to college, he'd probably major in music. Penny might go into Forensics/Criminology, Psychology, or Zoology. She might try to go for all three at once. Ricky would go into creative writing but I have a feeling he'd major and/or minor in something else. I don't know what, tho. Noel would want to study abroad in France. Would he be able to? Not very likely. Maybe the choir would pitch in to help, that'd be nice. He'd major in French literature and culture, maybe minor in theater.

19. Jane and Talia - Blue (specifically the RTC album blue)

Ocean and Penny - Green

Noel - Red

Mischa - Orange (maybe also yellow)

Ricky, Constance, and Karnak - Purple

Ricky - also Pink

20. Fall Fair (but I do enjoy Uranium Suite)

8. Ocean and Noel are like siblings (hate each other {and Noel knows when to shut Ocean down} but care about each other), Penny has so many dark facts about animals, Ricky learned ASL on his own and has an AAC device, they all probably learn French cause they're Canadian but Noel likes to use it a lot in day to day life (but he also tries to use more European French than Canadian French), Ricky has a whole Google Doc and at least a few notebooks/sketchbooks dedicated to Zolar, they also have a DeviantArt account, Ricky's also trans but I can't decide which trans she is (like idk if they're Transmasc, Transfem, Gender fluid, Nonbinary... Ricky is THE transgender-) he uses any pronouns tho, Ocean is AroAce or Lesbian {either way, she is not attracted to men}, Constance loves baking for the choir and she makes sure to take into account any and all dietary restrictions, Ocean is a vegan, Mischa is unphased by horror movies but if he's watching one with someone else and they seem terrified he'll talk throughout the movie to make them less terrified and if they're enthusiastic he'll talk through some of it to point out details he notices, Mischa is like the older brother the choir never knew they needed, Ocean would probably add more (or has more) religions onto her list of religions (also for some reason, Ocean with a hijab is appealing to me), Ricky likes putting buttons on their uniform and customizing almost everything they own (such as technology, disability aids, sketchbooks, etc.) with cool stickers, Penny and Ricky (and maybe even Ezra) like to talk about Fnaf theories, Ricky has the choir beta read her writing {Penny, Mischa, and Constance tend to be the ones to do it}, when Noel finally feels comfortable to be Lola Lola for Halloween, Mischa and Ricky support him through dressing in drag with him, Mischa offers up stick and poke tattoos and Penny and Noel are the only two who take him up on it (Noel gets a bleeding, broken heart struck with an arrow on his shoulder, Penny gets a snake eating it's own tail on the back of her wrist, and Mischa gets a mixture of the two by the inside of his elbow), they're all autistic, and I think I should stop there cause oh man I didn't realize how many I had (i should make a doc or something with all of my headcanons-)

ride the cyclone ask game!!

(I’ve never actually made/done one of these before so if I somehow manage to do this wrong pls tell me ^^)

1. What’s your favourite production?

2. Have you seen/read the script for Legoland? If so, what do you think?

3. Favourite character and why?

4. If you were in the choir, what would your “the most x person in town” be?

5. Favourite song/songs?

6. Do you engage in shipping, and if so, what is your favourite and least favourite ship?

7. Favourite monologue?

8. What’s your favourite headcanon?

9. Do you have any fic recommendations?

10. Do you enjoy the ‘everybody comes back to life’ aus?

11. Do you know much about the cut characters? If so, do you enjoy them?

12. Favourite scene?

13. Do you like rollercoasters? If so, what type of rides do you like?

14. Do you think Talia is real?

15. What moment/scene in the show makes you the most emotional?

16. Do you have any ocs?

17. Do you think penny retained any ‘jane doe-ish’ features after coming back to life?

18. What do you think the choir would have done after high school if they didn’t ride the cyclone?

19. What colour do you associate with each character?

20. Fall Fair or Uranium Suite?

[reidingandwriting]

Chapter Three: “Your Obedient Servant”

“You’ve kept me from the room where it happens for the last time.”

Word count: ~2450 words

Warnings: Shitty parent, verbal abuse from mother, language, bullying, brief mention of alcohol, mention of guns, implied murder, typical Criminal Minds-esque details towards the murder but nothing graphic.

Characters mentioned: Neutral!Reader, Jennifer “JJ” Jareau, Aaron Hotchner

Original characters: Reader’s mother and father, Este and her family, Lara, Andrew Walker, and Abby. 

Mentions of: David Rossi, Erin Strauss, and Penelope Garcia

A/N: And here we are! Chapter three! I think I have marked all warnings but if there are any I’ve missed, please feel free to let me know! As always, feedback is always appreciated. This chapter is kind of background of reader focused and I’m so sorry for that. I hope y’all can enjoy anyways and enjoy the turn made towards bringing everyone in. Next chapter will fully bring the team in and I’m excited! That’s enough out of me, enjoy the chapter!

Previous chapter

Next chapter

Eight years old…

“What in fresh hell are you doing?” A voice came from your doorway, one that belonged to your mother. You didn’t look up from where you laid on the floor, a colored pencil in your hand and a coloring book was spread out in front of you. Your room was illuminated by the lamp on your bedside table, it being well past your bedtime.

“Coloring. Couldn’t sleep.” Footsteps got louder as your mother approached and you flinched as she snatched the book up.

“What time is your bedtime?”

“Eight-thirty.” She cleared her throat. “Ma’am.”

“And it’s midnight. So your ass should be where?”

“But I wasn’t making any noise.” Your eyes met your mother’s and her harsh glare made you look back down. “In bed.”

“That’s right.” She grabbed your arm and pulled you to your feet, and you tried not to wince. “If I come check on you and catch you out of this bed again, you’re gonna be in so much trouble, kid.”

“But what if I can’t sleep?” You asked as you climbed back into your bed.

“You’ll fall asleep eventually.” Your mother turned off your lamp, the warm glow of the room now being replaced by total darkness. “I’ll see you in the morning.” Your mother walked out of the room, shutting the door behind her. You listened for a minute to make sure she was really in bed before you pulled your stuffed animal to your chest and screwed your eyes shut.

“Unfortunately.”

Sixteen years old…

“Happy birthday, kiddo. The big sixteen.” You smiled as you held your phone, sat on the bench outside of school as you waited for your mom to pick you up. Your dad was on the other end of the phone, and you had to admit you missed him. “Still up for your visit this weekend?”

“Are you? You pulled a Mom and bailed on me last time.” Your words could sound harsh to anyone passing by, but there was no malice behind them, just a teasing smile. And you could practically hear your dad rolling his eyes.

“Brat.”

“Yours truly.”

“I promise, nothing will stop me from seeing you this weekend. It’s not every day your only child turns sixteen.” A sigh from the other end makes your heart clench. “I miss you, kid.”

“I miss you too, Dad. I can’t wait to see you.” “Ditto.” Muffled voices were heard in the background before your dad spoke again. “I have to go, but I expect to hear all about your birthday extravaganza Saturday.”

“You mean my trip to the bookstore with Este and dinner with her family? Mom’s too busy with her new fu-”

“Uh uh. It may be true, but don’t finish that sentence.” You could hear the smile in your dad’s voice, mixed with irritation. “I love you, sunshine.”

“I love you, Dad. See you Saturday.”

“See you then.” You hung up and tucked your phone into your pocket, opening the book that sat in your lap to read as you waited for your mom to pick you up from school.

You were delved deep into your book, the sound of the athletes practicing in the nearby fields fading into silence as you let yourself become entranced in your book. You didn’t notice the looming shadow of Lara standing over you.

“Well, thanks, Y/L/N! I’ve been looking for a new book.” You jumped when you heard her voice. She snatched the book from your hands and you reached for it, but she was quicker.

“Give it back!”

“Really? David Rossi?” Lara scoffed and tossed the book over her shoulder where it landed in a pile of mud by the sidewalk we were on. “Whoops.” Lara walked past you, her shoulder knocking harshly into yours. “It’s too easy with them.” Lara said to herself and you ran to your book, and your eyes watered as you knelt down to pick it up, the book being covered in mud.

“Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry.” You whispered to yourself as you held the book and tried your best to wipe the mud off it. You sighed in resignation and walked to the trash can a few feet away and set the book in. You were going to the bookstore tomorrow, you could replace it then.

You were snapped out of your thoughts when a car honked and you looked up, noticing your mother’s car. “Come on, we’ve got places to be.” Your mother yelled from the open window and you nodded.

“Coming.” You called out and jogged over to the car, throwing your backpack into the backseat before you got into the passenger seat.

“What’s wrong with you?” She gestured to your red eyes before she noticed your dirty hands. “Gross, how old are you?” She slapped the back of your head and you digged for napkins in the glove compartment while apologizing repeatedly.

“I’m sorry. Lara threw my book in the mud and I tried to save it.”

“Those were weird books anyways. She did you a favor.”

Twenty-two years old…

“Look at our college graduate, Jess.” Este’s father, Phil, smiled from the head of the table. “Look out, world, you’re not prepared.”

“I will not be taking over the world until Y/N is. They still have one year to finish their master’s degree. So I’m taking a gap year. Maybe I’ll go husband hunting.”

“Or, you know, do something that’ll look better on your job applications.” Este’s sister deadpanned.

“Where’s the fun in that?” You nudged Este with your foot and gave her a playful warning look. Este stuck her tongue out at you and you mirrored her expression.

“I wish Y/N would have majored in the same thing as you, Este.” Not even fifteen words out of your mother and the whole atmosphere was brought down. Why couldn’t she be with Joe? Jonah? J-something. “Instead of aiming for the FBI, where you’re not even guaranteed a job.”

“Which is why I majored in criminology. Minored in digital forensics. And I’m earning my masters in forensic psychology.” You responded, not sparing her a glance.

“And if you still don’t-”

“I think my credentials will be impressive regardless.” You paused as the waitress stopped by, setting everyone’s plates down. You thanked her as she left, before looking at your mother. “Even if I don’t immediately get offered a job, I don’t mind. I can work my way to the FBI. I don’t get bored of something within a month.” Bella’s eyes widened and Este smirked to herself as she took a sip of her drink.

“I would sure hope not! College would have been a bad idea if you couldn’t work at something for a month.” Jessica, Este’s mother, tried to joke but your mother was relentless.

“I hope you fix your personality before you apply or they’ll never let you in through the door.”

“You don’t like it? I learned from you.” Your mother stood from her chair, the chair scraping loudly against the floor.

“I’m done.”

“Drive safe.” You called out to your mother’s retreating form and rolled your eyes as you turned to Este. “Drinks?”

“Drinks.”

Twenty-five years old…

“So, you’re about halfway done with your training at the Academy.” You sat across from your field counselor, Abby. “How have things been?”

“Andrew and I had some… creative differences with firearms training.”

“Creative differences?” Abby asked and you thought back to the day.

You had missed the vital shots multiple times, and you and Andrew both were getting irritated at each other. What was meant to be motivating turned snarky, which had started to turn condescending. You started off getting close to your vitals, and with each negative comment, your concentration turned to frustration which led to further off shots.

“If you could make these three shots so I can leave, that would be great. Come on, how are you going to ace rifle training but not handgun? I might as well talk to our program director and tell her your future in the Academy and FBI is a deadend. But if she ever needs a sharp-shooter…” And something snapped inside you, and you shot the five targets in front of you perfectly. Alternating between head and chest shots, straight in the middle. Bullseyes. You turned to face Andrew, walked towards him and set your gun in his hand.

“You may leave now.” You walked towards the doors of the firing range and called out. “See you tomorrow.”

“I see.” There was a hint of a smirk on her face as she spoke. “You know you can’t let people get to you like he did. It may have benefitted you this time, but there will come a time where you’ll reach your breaking point and lose your temper at your superior and risk your job.”

“You know about my parents, it’s kind of genetic.” You sighed. “But I will work on it. I know I need to.”

“Good. And I’ll have a word with Andrew about his motivational methods.” You let out a laugh before your session continued.

Thirty-one years old…

You sat in Hotch’s office and your body language screamed ‘angry.’ Your arms were crossed over your chest, your foot tapped against the floor, and if that wasn’t enough, the saying if looks could kill truly applied to you right now. If looks could kill, Aaron Hotchner would be a pile of dust in his chair. But like usual, Hotch’s body language was as usual. Professional, stoic, cold. He’d warmed up to the rest of the team, surprising you that he wasn’t truly emotionless after all. But that persona never came out around you. All that came out was indifference at best. Disapproval at worst, often paired with anger. Disappointment. That’s all you’d ever be, huh?

You had been called to Hotch’s office after you got back from your latest case. You’d never seen Hotch as mad as he was then. To anyone else, it might seem like he got mad because he cared about you and your wellbeing. But that was not the case today. You didn’t follow his orders, and now you were to pay the consequences.

“I am slow to anger, but I toe the line as I think about the effects of your choices on the team. I look back on where we failed, but in every place I checked, the only common thread?”

“Let me guess, me?” You interrupted.

“Your disrespect.” Hotch narrowed his eyes at you.

“You call me inexperienced, a danger to the team.” You leaned forward as you began to speak.

“Agent, if you’ve got something to say-” You raised your hand, cutting him off.

“Name a time and place, face to face. Then we can really talk.” You rested your hands on his desk, matching the expression he was giving you.

“That is enough, Agent Y/L/N.” Hotch spoke after a minute of your stare-down, and you settled back into your seat.

“I’m just an agent, trying to do my best for our team. I don’t want to fight but I won’t apologize for doing what I believe was right.”

“Careful, Y/N, or it’ll be the end of your career at the BAU. Not mine.”

“I won’t apologize for my actions, if that’s what you’re looking for.” You shrugged.

“Then be prepared to meet with me and Strauss tomorrow morning to discuss your placement on this team.” Hotch leaned back in his chair.

“Are you fucking serious? Every agent on this team has gone against orders. Even you have given the middle finger to direct orders several times. I make one call that goes against your orders, one that allows us to save the hostage and take in the unsub, and now you’re threatening my career?” You scoffed and looked your boss in the eyes as you stood up. “Unbelievable.”

“Nine sharp, agent.” Hotch kept eye contact with you as he spoke.

“Oh, I have the honor to be your obedient servant, sir.” You turned on your heel and stormed out of the office, slamming the door as you left.

Today…

You sat outside Andrew Walter’s house, lying in wait. Andrew lived in Baltimore now, having quit his job to work at a local FBI field office. You think a federal agent would have been more private about his life; it didn’t take Penelope Garcia to figure out where he worked. Where he lived. You had been waiting for the perfect moment to revisit him, and now you had it. Now was all waiting for the window of opportunity to hit. The window to open just enough for you to seize your chance and show him what all you had become since you graduated from the Academy.

The last light flickered off in his home and you looked down the street. No cars moving, no sounds of laughter or conversations could be heard from your spot. It was almost eerily silent, but there was a rush of an unknown emotion flooding through you. You tucked your gun into your waistband, snapping your gloves into place, and adjusting your hood over your hat. You got out of your car and walked up to the house, a smirk on your face.

---

“Come in.” Hotch glanced up from his paperwork, JJ standing in his doorway.

“I know we don’t typically take cases only involving one person.” JJ said as she walked over to Hotch’s desk. “The detective thinks there is a possibility it could be related to the Fairfax murder.”

“And do you?” Hotch held his hand out for the file and JJ set it in his hand before taking a seat.

“The possibility is there, but the similarities are basic. Both victims were men who died by gunshots. But our Fairfax victim was married, this guy is single. And in Baltimore. There’s a bit of distance between the two cities, but definitely a doable drive.”

“We’ve seen further.” Hotch opened the file and his brows furrowed. “And he died by gunshot?”

“There was some blunt force trauma involved, but the M.E. says the cause of death was the gunshot wound. All the other injuries were sustained antemortem.”

“Personal?”

“Or was our unsub physically incapable of subduing him before injuring him?” A beat of silence.

“Everyone else is here?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. We have a case.”

Taglist: @spideyspeaches @ssa-sugar-tits @willowsbendtothewind-blog @lazy-bird-fanfics @spencerhotchner @lolychu @ajeff855 @averyhotchner @meowiemari @liagzs @herecomesthewriterwitch @colorful-quinn @haylaansmi @theroyalsaikou @boring-yet-creatively-odd @drreidsconverse @notyourcupofteax @catherine-nelson @reids-mismatchedsocks @lieswithoutfairytales @devilswaldorf @panhoeofmanyfandoms @sassiest-politician @yoshigguk @httpeacewitch @feedthemadness-sweetie 🤍 Taglist and requests are OPEN, send an ask/message/whatever makes you comfortable to be added or send a request :))

[gravelyhumerus]

Criminal Minds College AU - Chapter Seventeen

Fandom: Criminal Minds

Title: “I may just take your breath away”

Relationship: Jemily

Summary:

Exams, pizza, board games... what more could a girl ask for?

Slow-burn Jemily college AU where they live across the hall and despite all odds, the universe pushes them together. AKA they’re silly gay babies who pine after each other for months.

Read it on AO3

Tumblr:  One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, (bonus scene), Seventeen, Eighteen, Nineteen, Twenty

 “That was a lot of chess,” Emily complained, nearly chugging her latte as she and Spencer left the coffee shop. 

She pulled her beanie onto her head and braced herself for the snow as the taller boy held the door open for her. Emily almost slipped on the slushy tile floor on her way out but managed to keep her balance. 

“Fifteen of the multiple-choice questions to be precise,” Spencer replied. The salted sidewalk crunched under their feet as they made their way across campus. 

“I’m so glad it’s finally over,” she admitted. “I think I’ve had enough philosophy to last me a lifetime.” 

“I’m enrolled in ‘Minds and Machines’ next semester,” he said. “I think I might try and get a double minor this time around.”

“What’s the goal? Three PhDs by the time you’re 24?” Emily quipped. 

He was well on his way, having completed his engineering degree before she managed to graduate high school. He was 17, only two years younger than her, but somehow seemed like a kid. A kid with more education crammed into his brain than she could ever master in her life.

“Something like that,” he replied with a smile. His hair was getting long and he had tied it back during the exam. With last names starting with P and R, they were seated near each other in the large exam hall, and she glanced over at him as he fussed with his hair. 

They stopped at the red light, watching as the cars and busses wooshed past them, sending the slush flying into the snowbanks. It had been a fairly sunny day, but bitterly cold. Now, the sun was setting and the campus was bathed in a warm golden glow. The snow had fallen the night before, leaving fluffy white snow covering their campus. 

Emily had spent most of the day holed up in the library with Spencer, with him quizzing her on fallacies and philosophers. With his eidetic memory, he only really needed to read the material once. Earlier in the semester, she did feel useful when it came to editing each other’s essays. He always got bogged down with detail, word vomiting everything he knew, and she helped him with his structure and argumentation. 

More studying awaited her back in her room. She rubbed at the back of her neck as she thought about the upcoming evening spent hunched over her desk studying criminal justice, a subject that left her questioning her degree half the time as she was forced to learn about the muddled ethics of justice. 

That week, she had survived on minimal sleep, eating mostly bagels and coffee to sustain her. Her body was protesting with each step, and she had suffered from a constant tension headache for as long as she remembered. At least her college had that golden retriever walk around at the library yesterday, she thought to herself, sarcastically. Animal therapy definitely relieved all her stress. As if petting a dog for five minutes would fix the anxiety of finals season. 

Two more exams, she reminded herself. You’ll make it. 

Despite this mantra, Emily was conflicted. While finals were killing her, the end of the semester also meant winter break. Emily would be forced to go “home” for the holidays. For most college students, that meant going back to their respective towns and being surrounded by their loved ones. Emily, on the other hand, didn’t have anywhere she called home. Last winter break, her mom had at least been in DC, and Emily was able to catch up with some of her international school friends who were in the city. This time, her mom was stationed in London, and Emily knew she’d be roped back into her old life. She didn’t know anyone there and knew most of her break would be spent alone. 

The last place she had called home was Rome, and now that was tarnished by her complicated past with that city. 

Emily was good at being alone. Being an only child of a workaholic single mom meant she learned to keep her own company. She read a lot. She got good at running away, escaping her nannies, and skirting security in order to roam free. She’d be fine. 

The problem was that Emily had gotten used to this. She rarely spent a moment alone these days. Whether it was walking to class with Spencer, or Hotch, or Derek, getting lunch with the team, surprise coffee dates with Penelope and spending almost every evening with her girlfriend, she hadn’t been left alone in ages. She didn’t miss it. 

Their residence building had a warm yellow light shining out of the windows and a soft red brick facade. In the summer, ivy grew up the south facing side but in the winter, the ledges were covered in snow and the stone steps were slippery. She trudged forward, excited for the warm embrace of the dorm. 

Spencer had other plans. He reached into the garish yellow plastic newspaper box that was stationed next to their doorway and retrieved this week’s newspaper. 

“Come on Reid,” Emily said. “Just subscribe to the newsletter or something like the rest of us.”

He held up the cover to her in surprise. Usually it reported the news of a recent sports victory, or a change of policy announced by the administrators, or even a fun event held on campus. Sometimes there was even a dramatic protest or an important speaker coming to campus. But this week, the headline surprised her. In large font printed across the page read: “Multiple student politicians fired amid financial scandal.” 

“That sounds bad,” Emily said. It did seem way more dramatic on newsprint than on a website, so maybe Spencer was onto something with his affinity for the printed word. 

Grabbing a copy for herself, she then walked inside to escape the cold. Warm air greeted them as they entered their residence hall, and both students kicked the snow off their boots before trudging up the stairs. They read as they walked, but the route to their rooms was already muscle memory, so neither worried about stumbling on their way. 

Normally, Emily wouldn’t willingly touch this sort of student politics with a ten foot pole. Sure, she was involved with the Criminology council, but there was a difference between the kind of person interested in petitioning for better accessibility to faculty events or running a bake sale, and the kind of students to embezzle thousands of student dollars like what the current student government executive seemed to be accused of doing. 

She quickly ran her eyes down the page, the contents jogging a memory from Halloween, of Hotch and JJ discussing the early stirrings of said scandal. 

“You know,” Spencer said, “I’m surprised they got a lot of this information, it’s notoriously difficult to file FOIAs for student governments, as they’re technically private corporations. So the fact that they got these files means that this is a much bigger scandal than one might assume.”

Corruption, bribery, embezzlement, nepotism. All words that jogged memories of hiding in the corner of political fundraisers, overhearing the worst of politics from too-drunk elites sipping on their wine and munching on charcuterie. 

“I hate politics,” Emily said, stuffing her copy of the paper into her bag. 

“I find it interesting. It’s basically a microcosm of our current political climate. In fact, I have subscribed to the print edition of fifteen student papers in the region,” Spencer said, “I like to keep informed on the coverage of student issues, and compare them to our own.”

“Why?!” Emily said with a laugh. “You know you can just look them up online.”

Spencer gave her a withering look, and she should have known better than asking about his aversion to tech. He loathed having to use his computer, as the LCD screens apparently gave him a headache. Penelope even gave him a pair of blue light glasses to attempt to alleviate the issue.

Then, he began to speak, at length, about the dying printed news industry and why print copies were better for understanding than screens et cetera. She made sure to nod and hum at appropriate points, but her mind kept wandering. 

She wondered if her girlfriend was in her room. Emily missed her any time they were apart and she yearned to hold her in her arms once again. But she shouldn’t. She needed to work. She had too much to do. Her grades had slipped, slightly, this semester. Everyone warned her about how college would be harder than high school, but no one ever warned her how much the expectations were raised in second year. 

Two more exams. She clutched her coffee tighter. She’d rather do anything else besides study at this point. Her body was exhausted, her mind frazzled. She wondered if she could even manage to get through a chapter of revision before conking out on her desk. 

As she said goodbye to Spencer and struggled with her keys that were tangled up in their corresponding university-branded lanyard, JJ’s door opened.  

“Hey girlfriend,” JJ greeted her, sounding way too much like a straight girl greeting her platonic friend for Emily’s taste. She gave her a pass because it sounded cute in her voice. 

“JJ!” Emily said, somehow surprised to see her despite the fact that she lived right across the hall. Her girlfriend was dressed in sweatpants and an oversized sweater, with her straight hair tucked behind her ears and her face bare of make up. Her face was lit up with a smile, and Emily rushed towards her, planting a soft kiss on her lips.

“Hi JJ,” Spencer said as Emily and JJ kissed. 

When they pulled apart, JJ gave Spencer a smile as a greeting and asked them how their exam went. 

Spencer babbled about their Logic exams for a minute or two, as Emily basked in JJ’s presence. She grabbed onto her hand and found that it was so much hotter than her own and wasn’t sure if she held on tight because she was cold, or if she had missed her girlfriend. 

“I’m just glad it’s over,” Emily said. “I never want to hear about fallacies again.”

Spencer seemed to want to say something, but fell silent at Emily’s tired expression. 

“Wanna come in for a bit?” JJ whispered in Emily’s ear. Apparently she said so a touch too loud because Spencer replied instead. 

“Sure!” he said, and then walked into JJ and Penelope’s room. 

“I should really study,” Emily tried to argue, but a single glance into JJ’s deep, blue eyes had Emily melting. 

JJ’s room was much messier than Emily had last seen it. Both desks showed clear markers of the ongoing exams, with papers and books piled high. In addition to this was an assortment of pillows strewn all over the floor.

“You guys are back early!” JJ said, after checking her watch, “I thought it was a two hour exam?”

“I finished in an hour,” Spencer said, “and Emily only needed an extra half hour on top of my time.”

Damn straight, Emily thought, feeling somewhat competitive with the boy-genius despite herself. 

She really should study, but the prospect of seeing her girlfriend outweighed the desire to sit hunched over a textbook for another evening. 

Emily and Spencer kicked off their boots, placing them neatly on the mat by the door before peeling their jackets off and hanging them on the back of her door. Emily wasn’t sure if she liked winter. Whenever her mother was stationed in the Middle East she yearned for snow, but now that she was experiencing the Nor’easter for the first time, the desert sounded like a good time. 

“Well there goes my plan,” JJ said, blowing her hair out of her face with a puff of air.

Spencer flopped onto Penelope’s neatly-made bed, collapsing into the assortment of pink pillows while carefully keeping his take-away cup upright. Emily sat down next to JJ on her bed.

“Your plan?” Emily asked. 

“Yeah,” JJ said, sounding a bit shy. “I had this whole plan to make up a blanket fort here for you, and I would surprise you with it when you walked in.’”

JJ gestured with her hands at the mess. Blankets and pillows were strewn about, and a bundle of fairy lights were laying in the middle of the floor. 

“Then you came back early,” JJ concluded. “Spence, I thought you’d keep her occupied longer!”

“You didn’t tell me that,” he replied. Spencer looked quizzically at her, shrugged, then took another sip of his coffee.

“I just wanted us to have a cute date night,” JJ admitted. “I know you’re so stressed, and you deserve a break.” 

Emily grabbed her girlfriend’s moving hands and held them in her own. She felt overwhelmed. JJ was so… thoughtful. Caring. Attentive. So many things that were absolutely foreign to Emily. No one had ever tried to impress her like this. 

“It’s okay,” Emily said. “We don’t need anything special to have a cute date night. You’re cute enough.”

JJ gave Emily a goofy smile in response. 

“Okay,” JJ said. “If you say so.”

“You’re building a blanket fort?” Spencer asked. “I actually have some experience with blanket fort architecture.”

“You do?” JJ asked, raising her eyebrows skeptically.

“Of course,” he replied, seeming almost offended that she questioned him. “It sparked my interest in engineering. I wanted to overcome the problem of chair-tippage when it came to building the structure, so I devised a system of counter-weights that I found increased the structural integrity by 53%. My mom always told me that I could be an architect, but I thought the sciences better suited my intellect.”

“Oh?” Emily asked, genuinely interested. How would someone measure the structural integrity of a blanket fort? 

“Actually, I have some blueprints. Let me grab them,” he said, standing up and making a move for the door. 

“Of course you have blueprints,” JJ laughed. 

“I should probably go feed Gideon, anyway. I’ll be right back!” Spencer  said. Before closing the door behind him.

“Gideon?” Emily asked. 

“His fish,” JJ said, “the one he won at the fair. It’s named after his professor, I think.”

She shrugged. The kid was weird, they tended to just accept that. 

“I guess Spencer’s joining us on date night,” JJ said. “Sorry. I know you’re stressed and probably want to be studying, but I thought we’d order pizza and just have one night off. Just us. And Spencer.”

JJ planted a firm kiss on Emily’s lips, leaving her dazed and blushing. 

“Relaxing sounds perfect,” Emily said, pulling her girlfriend closer to her. “I can’t believe it’s already exams. This semester has flown by. Soon it’ll be winter break, and I won’t get to see you.”

“I can’t imagine you not being right across the hall,” JJ said. “Who will give me kisses when I want them?”

JJ kissed Emily, sucking on Emily’s bottom lip slightly before pulling apart to look at her. 

“I know you’re joking, but I hope you’re not kissing anybody else, no matter the circumstances.”

With that established, Emily pounced on her girlfriend, pushing her onto her bed and kissing her deeply. She intertwined her fingers in the blonde locks that were splayed out in a golden halo and breathed in deep, taking in the warm scent of the lilac candle that burnt on her night side table. 

All her worries melted away at JJ’s touch. Emily’s brain was filled with the feeling of JJ’s lips on hers, with her lithe form beneath her. Exams, student politics and thoughts of home were wiped away, and her stress faded into background noise. 

JJ’s pliant form writhed under Emily’s, her hands sneaking below Emily’s sweater and dancing over her back. They deepened the kiss until they were making out like teenagers in JJ’s dorm with the door still open a crack. 

This was how Spencer, accompanied by Derek, found them when they pushed open the door with blanket fort blueprints and bags of potato chips in hand. 

Spencer made a surprised noise, which made Emily aware of his return. She jumped up and pulled apart from JJ with a dark red blush gracing her cheeks. 

“Woah there ladies,” Derek said with a laugh. “Keep it in your pants!”

“Guys! I was gone for five minutes!” Spencer whined. 

Emily stood up awkwardly, stuffing her hands in her pockets as she watched JJ sit up and pat her hair down in a huff.

“Sorry,” Emily grumbled, not really meaning it. She would never be sorry for kissing JJ, but she was sorry for the awkwardness

“Pretty boy dragged me down the hall,” Derek said in explanation. He had Spencer’s rolled-up fort plans in his hand, and lightly smacked Emily’s head with it, making a comedic thwap noise as it made contact. “Hope you weren’t in the middle of something?”

“Only JJ’s legs,” Emily quipped to everyone’s surprise, even her own. JJ hit her jokingly and blushed. 

“Hey!” Derek laughed, “Let’s keep this PG!”

“You called?” The voice of Penelope Garcia—PG if you will—rang out from the hallway, and within seconds JJ’s room was filled with just about all their friends standing around in a slightly awkward silence: JJ, Emily, Spencer and Derek were joined by Penelope with Hotch in tow. 

The latter two of them had grown closer recently and walked into the room with white shopping bags with the walrus logo printed on the side, looking like they had just returned from out in the cold. Penelope and Hotch going thrifting together, that’s new! Emily thought to herself and decided to file the observation for later. The image of Hotch watching Penelope’s customary fashion show was enough to make her laugh under her breath. 

“We’re building a blanket fort,” Spencer announced, changing the subject to the task at hand. “Are you guys helping?”

“Oh you know I will, boy genius,” Penelope said with an excited smile. 

Emily looked over to her girlfriend. So much for date night.

———

Without much questioning about why they were building a blanket fort, the team got to work. In college, sometimes things just happened. Impromptu blanket forts were par the course. In their defense, any excuse to not spend the evening burying their heads in textbooks was a welcome reprieve. 

It started with just a few blankets draped in the space between JJ and Penelope’s beds, but with Spencer’s instruction, a verifiable architectural marvel began to take shape. 

While Emily knew that Penelope would be all gung ho for this sort of project, it was certainly amusing to see Hotch in his khakis and dress shirt crawling around on the floor like a child with the rest of them, tying off blankets and very seriously maneuvering the different parts of the structure. 

Sheets were draped here and there, tied together to form ceilings and walls. Two chairs stolen from the common room, loaded with backpacks on the seat for support acted as the entrance to the fort. 

While it was crawling space only, Emily had to note that there was a sense of awe when you emerged into the open space of the main fort-area. It was surprisingly big, fitting all six of them with ease. The key to the whole design was a curtain rod Hotch had stolen from the boys shower that lifted the roof up. 

The design was strangely reminiscent of Baroque architecture, which she was sure was due to Spencer’s designs. This was a fact that Emily kept to herself. She always tried to rein in the ‘I lived abroad’ conversation points so her childhood could remain under minimal scrutiny.

Emily’s exhaustion transformed into excitement as she relished the time hanging out with her friends. Music played from Penelope’s computer as they worked, they began to work as a cohesive group, each member doing their share. It was nice to do something besides sit at her desk and obsess over memorizing facts and statistics, or figuring out the proper argumentation for an essay on a subject. Making sure that a bunch of blankets didn’t crash onto them was treated with the utmost seriousness, and the whole group was focused with intense concentration at their own tasks. 

Spencer did, in fact, have literal sketches of blanket forts in his notebooks, but the details of which were fairly incomprehensible to her. While she believed that he did the math, his chicken scratch was just about indecipherable, and his drawing was little more than a few shapes on a page. Despite this, it was laid out on the centre of the dorm-room floor for them to reference. 

At one point, as Emily stood on JJ’s wheely chair, she feared that the fort had all come crashing down as she lost her balance and grabbed at the blankets to stop her fall before tumbling onto Derek with a yelp. 

“Sorry,” she muttered as she climbed back onto her feet and fought off the blanket that had wrapped her in a shroud. 

She flinched as she realized she had ruined it all, a pit forming in her stomach. She looked at her friends in concern, but instead of yelling at her for her mistake, or shunning her for ruining it for the rest of them, they smiled at her and helped her up.

“It’s okay!” Spencer said cheerfully. “I know exactly how to reinforce that wall.”

“You okay, Emily?” Hotch asked, righting the wheely chair as JJ fretted over her. 

“I’m good,” she answered, still confused as to why they weren’t mad at her. 

Instead of making a big deal over the set back, they went back to work. Soon, the fort filled out and it returned to its former glory. Arguably, better than it was because they had draped fairy lights throughout the inside, making the space glow with a warm orange light. 

Inside was filled with pillows and big enough for all of them to sit comfortably so it was a comfy lounge space. It was cozy and warm, the antithesis of the bitterly cold night air outside. 

“You know what?” Hotch said. “This is a damned good fort, Reid.” 

The group muttered in consensus. They all had piled into the space, and as the excitement wore off, Emily was wondering what happened next. What does one do in a blanket fort? She had vague memories of building one in her room, but she had just sat inside and read a book. 

“I hear the RA’s storage room has a ton of board games,” Penelope said. “They pull them out for socials and stuff.”

“That’s all well and good, but we’re not asking Strauss to let us in,” Derek argued. “I still think she thinks we were responsible for that fire alarm last week. She’s been giving me the evil eye ever since.”

“Who said we had to tell her?” Emily said. “We could just… borrow… them…”

“I mean, they are for us to use, anyway.” JJ’s eyes had a mischievous look in them as she looked at Emily.

“That is true,” Hotch said, the scowl that was usually a fixture on his face turning to a smirk. 

“That’s stealing, guys,” Spencer warned, as if they didn’t already know that. 

“We’ll give them back,” Emily said with a shrug. “Come on!”

Penelope led the way to a dark wooden door on the main floor, it was labelled simply “Storage,” but the computer science student assured them that it was where the RA’s stored all of their supplies.

“It’s locked,” Penelope huffed.

“Do you have a bobby pin?” Emily asked her in a hushed voice. She wouldn’t have gotten this far if she hadn’t learned how to pick simple door locks. She had trouble with deadbolts but a simple latch she could probably do within a couple of minutes.

The blonde pulled a hot pink bobby pin out of her perfectly curled hair. Emily snapped it into two, bending one end into a longer L-shape. Sticking that into the bottom of the lock and holding it in place, she used the other side to feel for the pins that held the lock in place. 

Emily could feel all eyes on her as she confidently knelt in front of the doorknob, the group keeping watch for her as she worked. No one questioned how or why Emily knew how to do this. She had her reasons. 

This definitely broke all sorts of residence rules and if they got caught, they knew they’d get into shit, but no one seemed to care that much. They just wouldn’t get caught. 

After a couple minutes, Emily’s hands began to sweat. What if she couldn’t do this anymore? She tried to centre herself. She had made it through infinitely more stressful situations in the past. It was the eyes of her friends on her that made her nervous. She was finally accepted by a group, and she desperately didn’t want to let them down. 

Then, it clicked, and she was able to turn the brass knob easily. Emily made a noise of excitement, got to her feet and yanked the door open. 

Instead of an empty storage closet, on the other side of the door was Erin Strauss, their RA, in a passionate embrace with David Rossi. Her shirt was unbuttoned and he was in the middle of sucking on her neck. 

“Dave?!” Hotch called out, startling the couple. 

Both groups stood stock-still, neither knowing what to say. While Emily had hid the bobby pins, she wasn’t sure who was in more trouble, them for breaking into the room or their RA for using the space for unofficial purposes. 

The room was small and cramped, with a pile of poster board mostly obscuring the one small window that lit the space. Strauss had been hoisted onto the desk, her legs straddling the other student. Emily could see a shelf filled with the board games stacked on the left side of the room, but they seemed unimportant at the moment. While Emily had known about their illicit love affair, she had never expected to see it in action. 

“Hey guys,” Rossi said after a moment, his unwavering confidence carrying on to this moment as he pulled apart from Strauss, who was furiously buttoning up her shirt and trying to sort herself out. 

“What are you all doing in here?” she demanded, standing up and putting her hands on her hips. “This room’s meant for RA’s only.”

“Well,” Emily said, startled by her own audacity, “Dave isn’t an RA so…”

“We just came for some board games,” JJ said in her most diplomatic voice, despite clearly wanting to laugh at the situation, “then we’ll be off.”

“Take them and go,” the RA said in a strangled voice, her face beet-red and as she avoided eye contact like it was the plague. 

Clearly not as embarrassed as Strauss, Rossi simply smirked, collected a few board games into his arms off of the shelf, then deposited them into Emily’s arms. 

Realizing that given the circumstances, they couldn’t be picky with their choices, the stunned group thanked him then scurried away, back upstairs with their loot. The silence remained until they made it back to their floor, where they all burst into laughter.

“What on earth was that?!” Derek exclaimed. 

“Rossi and Strauss,” Spencer muttered. 

Emily and JJ made eye contact, remembering all those weeks ago when they had caught their friend emerging from the RA’s room down the hall in the middle of the night. They had known that Rossi and Strauss had hooked up that night, but had no idea that it was a whole relationship.

“I see it,” Hotch commented. “I mean, I don’t know your RA too well, but Rossi likes a woman with authority.”

Derek and Emily fake-gagged in an exaggerated manner at the comment. 

“I think I need to bleach my eyeballs after that display,” Emily muttered. 

“Ooo-kay!” JJ said, pointedly changing the subject. “It seems like we have most of the pieces to Clue… I think we could manage a game of that. We also have Scrabble, Yahtzee and Snakes and Ladders. Uh… also a pack of cards.”

“At least it’s not chess,” Emily said, thinking about her seemingly endless exam that afternoon. 

“Agreed,” Spencer said. 

“We do not have chess, no,” JJ said with a quizzical laugh. 

———

After ordering a couple of pizzas to the dorm, they all settled in to play a board game. After a few minutes of debate, they decided to play Clue (or Cluedo as Emily continuously referred to it as). The board was laid out: it was vintage, with a teal and yellow colour scheme and some scuffs and rips showing its age. In their blanket fort, they were seated in a circle, all secretly looking at their Clue cards.

“Can I be Professor Plum?” Spencer asked before they had even gotten the pieces out of the box. 

“Of course pretty boy,” Derek said, “I’ll take Mr. Green.”

“My sculpted god of thunder looks excellent in green,” Penelope flirted, choosing the white piece for herself. 

“Did you know that in the original version of Clue, Mr Green was a Reverend, but they changed his name for American audience because they believed that the American public would object to a parson as a murder suspect?”

“Good thing you’re on our trivia team, Reid,” Hotch replied.  

Emily was Miss Scarlet, of course, and was seated right next to JJ, who had chosen to portray Mrs. Peacock. Hotch claimed the remaining piece: Colonel Mustard.

Emily loved board games. Her nanny in France, who was a kindly elderly woman that Emily only knew as “Madame,” would play with her each Sunday after church. She has hazy memories from that time, but the warm glow of sunlight streaming into their Parisian apartment as she learned how to play Cluedo. Emily would always try to cheat, but knew better than to try to do so with her immensely observant girlfriend seated to her left, JJ’s hand resting casually on Emily’s thigh.

She looked at her cards and grinned. She had been dealt her own character, she noted, as Miss Scarlet’s name was printed in bold on the top of her first card. It felt weirdly validating to know that she herself was innocent. Also in her hands were the cards for the candlestick and pistol, as well as the observatory. She marked these off of her card and tried to gauge her opponents' reactions. 

JJ was checking her phone with her cards face down, tracking the pizza’s arrival. Spencer was sprawled back, his long legs taking up way more room than was necessary, jotting down notes on some scrap paper. Presumably some statistics and probability for the possibilities of the cards that were sealed in the envelope in the centre of the board. Penelope smiled over at Derek and flirtatiously tried to sneak a peek at his hand. 

After the initial rounds being dedicated to moving around the board, Emily finally made it into her first room: the lounge. There, she decided on her first suggestion.

“I suggest,” Emily said, in her most dramatic, formal voice, which was particularly suited to the role of Miss Scarlet, “that Mrs. Peacock committed this heinous crime in the Lounge with-” she hurriedly grabbed the candlestick, “the candlestick!”

She knew that it wasn’t the correct weapon, but using it would narrow it down to someone ruling out either JJ’s character or the lounge as the scene of the crime. 

“Moi?!” JJ said, sounding almost offended at the accusation. “Your own girlfriend?!”

Emily grinned evilly at her, but internally she felt giddy. It was the first time she heard JJ use that word in front of their friends. JJ moved her piece into the Lounge. The others chuckled lightly at their antics.

“You have no alibi for the crime, Mrs. Peacock,” Emily said, “and I am merely making a suggestion.”

JJ glared at her, but said nothing. Emily turned to Derek, who was seated at her left. 

“What do I do?” Derek asked, looking around the room, slightly confused. 

“Do you have any of those cards?” Hotch asked. 

“Yeah-” Derek said, moving to show his hand. 

“No!” Penelope stopped him. “Just show one of your cards to Emily if you can prove her suggestion was wrong.”

He made an “o” with his mouth and sneakily showed Emily the Lounge card. Emily noted that, and that it was Derek’s card. Mrs. Peacock had yet to be proven innocent, and Emily gave JJ a suspicious glance. 

She loved this game. 

As the game progressed, Emily noted a few things about her opponents. A part of Emily was profiling her friends subconsciously, reading each of their strategies like a book. 

Penelope always seemed to luck out on her dice rolls, covering a lot of terrain and gathering information like it was a cup of tea. But, she seemed to take it personally when someone accused Mrs. White of having killed Mr. Boddy and gasped every time someone made that suggestion. 

Hotch seemed to take the game very seriously, and was at it like he was an actual police officer solving crime. But, it didn’t seem that he completely understood all of the rules, and definitely hadn’t played before, so he spent most of his turn grumbling as he skimmed the rule pamphlet. 

Spencer, on the other hand, had memorized the rules, common strategies and probabilities of the different outcomes, so Hotch often looked over to him nervously as the boy wrote longhand equations in the notebook that he pulled out of his bag for the very occasion. 

Derek also had never played before, and regularly made ‘accusations’ rather than ‘suggestions’ when he entered a room, frustrating Spencer to no end. But, Derek was smart and seemed to be picking it up as he went along. That was until he made the same suggestion twice in a row, both times making Hotch show him the exact same card. He asked Reid endless questions about specific rules, and more than once he made the boy double check in the rule book when Derek tried to make a rather unorthodox move. 

JJ seemed to be the only one genuinely trying to have fun. She munched on the Cheetos that she stored in the bottom drawer of her night stand, and made conversation. Her strategy seemed to be exclusively focused on playing the game like it was the 1985 feature film Clue, playing the role of Mrs. Peacock with a fake accent and treating it like an actual murder-filled dinner party.

After a solid twenty minutes of gameplay, the pizza arrived. With minimal grumbling from Hotch, who was apparently on a roll, they took a break to eat. 

“Did you see this?” Spencer said with his mouth full, lifting up the copy of the newspaper that he had grabbed earlier.

“Don’t get me started,” JJ grumbled and took a sip of her pop. 

“What happened?” Hotch asked, the conversation piquing his interest. 

Spencer explained—with the assistance of JJ who apparently knew one of the people involved through soccer—the entire scandal. Apparently, last year there had been very little interest in the leadership roles, so the President of the student government had simply waltzed into his role. He then hired all of his friends, his girlfriend, his roommate, and together they embezzled thousands of dollars of student funds. 

“I can’t believe they’re getting away with this,” JJ muttered. “Is there no oversight?”

“It’s always the same,” Emily replied. “Who’s going to oversee them? The college? They’re corrupt too.”

“This sucks,” Derek said. “Wish someone good would run for government, for once.”

Emily shook her head in frustration. It all just reminded her of her childhood. Embezzlement, corruption and nepotism all were casual topics discussed over family dinner in her home. She had higher hopes for students her own age, would they not break the cycle? Or was it just a microcosm of the outside world? 

“You should run Mr. Lawyer Man,” Penelope teased Hotch. “You could take any of these clowns.”

Hotch raised an eyebrow at her and went back to his pizza, brushing her off. Emily smiled at him. Penelope was right, he might actually do a good job if he set his mind to it. 

The people that surrounded her now were nothing like her mother’s friends—or the kids she had been forced to hang out with when she was younger—they were genuinely kind, supportive, and seemed to like Emily for Emily. When she told them she was an ambassador’s daughter, they had been more concerned with the cool places that she had been able to travel to than whatever power she had. At college, Emily finally exhaled fully, slowly relaxing more and more into herself. 

But, the topic of politics always set her on edge, especially since the semester was ending soon. Her mother had already begun to leave her voicemails about the galas, fundraisers and events that she was required to attend over Christmas break. She pushed thoughts of the future aside and focused on the warmth that surrounded her. With some music playing softly (a song that JJ liked by Vampire Weekend), the softness of blankets under her, and JJ leaning on her slightly as she ate her dinner, Emily felt at peace. She knew she could handle winter break, because she knew that these friends would be here when she came back. 

After years of leaving a school midway through the year only to show up to some new boarding school or international school each time her mom was reassigned, Emily never had a chance to put down roots. But, with each bite of pizza, Emily felt herself becoming even more firmly rooted. Not to this place, but to these people as their lives became more entwined. 

Once dinner was over, the game continued, and thoughts of politics left their minds. By then, Emily narrowed it down to the weapon (the candlestick), two rooms (the kitchen and the billiard room) and she was pretty sure that it was Colonel Mustard that had committed the crime. 

She had a decision to make: walk all the way from the study to the billiard room, or risk being wrong by making an accusation. She was pretty sure both Hotch and Reid were on the right track, as the younger boy’s scribbling in his notebook had gotten even more intense and the older boy was beginning to look around suspiciously, as if the others were trying to read his notes. 

She had pretty much ruled out Penelope, JJ and Derek as competitors, as the trio spent most of the time talking, and genuinely trying to have fun. Emily, Reid and Hotch were all way too into it, but Emily was competitive and this was her game. She wasn’t going to lose to Hotch, no way. Reid winning she could blame on his boy-genius nature, but Emily decided that Hotch was going down. 

The two boys seemed to have come to the same conclusion, all eyeing each other across the board, the tension palatable between them as their competition became heated. 

She nervously tried to move to the billiards room, deciding to play it safe. Better safe than disqualified. But, as soon as she made that decision, she regretted it as Spencer straightened up on his turn and said: “I’d like to make my accusation.”

“Write it down,” JJ prompted, as per the rules. He jotted it down in his paper. 

Then, with bated breath, they watched as he grabbed the envelope out of the centre of the board, and read the cards. His face fell when he saw one of the cards, so he must have been wrong. He placed them back into their envelope and back onto the board. 

“No dice?” Emily asked. 

He shook his head. 

“Statistically speaking that should have been right,” he grumbled. “My math was wrong.”

“Boy genius isn’t a good detective, huh?” Penelope mused. 

A few turns went by, with Derek, Penelope, and JJ moving around the board or making suggestions. 

Emily rolled the dice, making one square from a room. She sighed. She’d make a suggestion next round. 

On Hotch’s next turn, he made an accusation, which he wrote down on a pink sticky note that Penelope had handed out when the game started. He checked the envelope. 

Emily held her breath. She was sure he had it and that the game was over. She should just call it quits now. She went to bite her nails out of stress, but stopped herself, they were starting to get long and she wanted them to look nice. 

A moment passed as Hotch compared his cards. After he saw the third card in the envelope, his expression revealed that was also wrong. 

Boys, Emily thought. Always so overconfident. 

She made a suggestion instead of risking it: “Miss Scarlet—er myself I guess— in the Billiards Room with the pistol.” 

It was a gamble. If she was right, and the people who knew she had her own card and the pistol caught on, they would also know that it was the Billiard Room, because no one would be able to disprove her theory. If she was wrong, someone would have the card for that room, and she would know that the crime occured in the Kitchen. 

The second seemed to be true, as Derek showed her his card with a small illustrated image of the Billiard Room on it. She was right. She knew what it was. But, she would have to wait until her next turn. She was going to win. 

But, it was she who was overconfident, because as she was too busy preemptively celebrating her win, Derek casually made his accusation. 

“Hey I’m right!” he exclaimed, holding up the cards and his own hot pink sticky note. 

In his semi-cursive scrawl read: “Colonel Mustard, Candlestick, Kitchen.” These guesses matched the cards hidden in the envelope, and Emily’s own deduction that she planned to make on her own turn. 

“You guys really thought I hadn’t played this game before?” Derek laughed. “I’ve got two sisters, board games were everything.”

“Were you hustling us, Morgan?” Spencer demanded. 

He smirked. 

“Should’ve put money on the outcome,” Derek said with a laugh. “I’d be rich.” 

Emily threw her cards onto the table in defeat. JJ shot her an empathetic look, and Emily tried to stuff her frustration down to pat her friend on the back for the surprising win. He deserved it.

———

After the game concluded and the pizza had been completely eaten, the group parted ways, heading to bed, or for more midnight snacks or to finish up some studying, leaving JJ and Emily alone and to start? a game of Scrabble. 

The board was ancient, and quite a few letters were missing, but with music droning on JJ’s laptop, and the soft fairy lights overhead, neither girl minded too much. 

Emily looked at her letters:  O, B, S, O, T, B, W and thought hard, rearranging the wooden pieces to try and formulate a word. After a long day of academia, and investing so heavily into the game of Clue, she probably had only one or two working brain cells and both were telling her to play the word ‘boobs.’  

Her eyes flicked to her girlfriend, who looked absolutely gorgeous in the warm light. Her blonde hair almost glowed, and she had an adorable expression on her face. Emily couldn’t help but glance lower, thinking about the real world examples of her Scrabble word.  

She played the word with a cheeky grin. 

“‘Boobs,’ Emily?” JJ scolded. “Really?”

She sounded angry, but there was a hint of a smile tugging at her cheeks and Emily could tell the girl found it funny. 

“I can’t help it,” Emily said. “I haven’t thought of much else since last weekend.”

She raised and lowered her eyebrows in an exaggerated manner, making JJ laugh and kick her lightly in protest. 

JJ then played the word ‘throw,’ using the ‘o’ from ‘boobs’ to form her word, earning her thirteen points. 

“I don’t think you can throw boobs, babe,” Emily said. “They’re usually attached.”

JJ rolled her eyes. 

Emily made it her mission to find the funniest words possible, working extra hard (and missing out on some good points) in an effort to make JJ laugh. ‘Armpit,’ ‘meaty,’ ‘hoagie,’ ‘urine,’ ‘joint’ and her piece de resistance: ‘boner.’ All while JJ was playing incredibly normal, and often strategic words like ‘axis,’ ‘snow,’ ‘vain,’ ‘snag’ and ‘writings,’ hitting multiple double- and triple word scores on the way. 

“This is fun,” Emily said, sneaking a handful of JJ’s Cheetos out of the family-sized bag next to the blonde, while she was distracted by playing her turn. 

“I don’t understand how you’re winning,” JJ muttered. 

Emily shrugged, “Guess I’m just a genius.”

“Reid? Is that you?” JJ joked. “Why are you disguised as my girlfriend?” 

“Would Reid do this?” Emily said, leaning over toward her girlfriend and pressing kisses all over her face until she fell back. Then Emily straddled her, their lips meeting in a passionate embrace that left both girls panting. 

“I would hope not!” JJ exclaimed with a laugh, making a face at the thought. 

They laughed and went back to making out, with Emily careful not to disturb the game pieces. JJ sucked onto Emily’s bottom lip, making her weak in the knees and she struggled to support herself over JJ’s shorter frame at the motion. 

“We should-” Emily tried to say between kisses, “finish the game.”

JJ kept deepening the kiss, going so far as to grab onto Emily’s butt to hold her in place on top of her.

“You’re trying to distract me,” Emily chided, “because I’m winning! I see right through your plot.” 

She sat up and went back to her tiles before playing another funny word: ‘suck’ for twenty points. JJ grumbled,fiddling with her own tiles, as Emily collected a few out of the bag. 

Emily was preening as she rearranged her own tiles and didn’t notice as JJ put down her word. When she went to play her next word (‘zap’) and only then did she see what word JJ played. 

‘Love.’ 

It was there. Clear as day. Written vertically and connected to the word ‘snow,’ it was unmistakable. Emily looked at it for a long moment, trying to figure out what it could possibly mean that her girlfriend very intentionally played such a loaded word. Was it the only word that fit? Did she only mean that she loved the snow? Was she also reading into it? 

Emily looked up, making eye contact with JJ. The blonde blushed and looked away, nervously fiddling with the necklace around her neck. Emily smiled faintly at the warmth that flooded through her, but alongside that, was the sharp pang of anxiety. Was she supposed to acknowledge that? Would that make it weird? 

‘Zap’ didn’t feel appropriate when her girlfriend may or may not have confessed her love for her. 

She played it anyway, deciding that making a big deal of it would just complicate matters. Besides, did she love JJ? She didn’t know. It was all so new. She liked JJ a lot. She definitely like-liked her in the traditional sense of the world. But Emily had never been in love before. She’d loved people before, Matthew for one, and her mother in a way, and she loved Derek like a brother. But being in love was a whole ‘nother ball game. 

JJ won the game after playing ‘equinox’ for twenty two points near the end, beating any lead Emily had gained from her silly words. JJ deserved it in the end, as the blonde would sit and stare at her letters until they formed the most complex words that Emily had never even heard of. Emily’s eyes drooped and she was barely able to create three letter words by the end, while JJ was still surprising her with her vocabulary. 

Emily shook JJ’s hand to congratulate her for the win. JJ grinned and kissed her. 

Then, they looked around and realized two things: it was past one in the morning and Penelope hadn’t come back to the room yet and that all of the blankets that JJ owned were currently being used in the blanket fort. 

“Can we sleep in my bed, tonight?” Emily asked. “I’ll help you clean up in the morning.” 

JJ nodded but was in the middle of texting Penelope, wondering where on earth her roommate had wandered off to. Within a minute she got back to JJ saying: with derek! will explain tmrw!! 😘 🧚‍♀️ 😳

JJ showed Emily the message and both girls giggled. Emily saw that coming, but didn’t realize it would be a game of Clue that finally sealed the deal.

Exhausted but happy and relaxed after the game night, Emily and JJ tumbled into Emily’s bed and cuddled up together. Between JJ and Emily, the word ‘love’ was left unsaid that night, but Emily fell asleep that night feeling a new warmth in her chest.

[dystopiandilfs]

what's your opinion of scott having to delete his mcc tweet because people were upset about him being "insensitive" towards the 22 year sentence thing

In my opinion it's stupid. I fully agree with what he said about The UK not knowing. The only reason I knew is because of one of the admins who's African American. A lot of Americans need to understand that their top news isn't the same as everyone else. Canada has been flooded with news about the indigenous people's unmarked graves, The UK recently has been experiencing things that have never happened before like a tornado, on top of that a political scandal and another variation of covid. Also laws against trans people from transitioning being debated. Australia has had to go into lockdown because of a spike in covid so their news is flooded with that. Americans don't know about that because it's not on the top of their news pages, tabs, websites etc.

Getting mad at Scott for being excited for his event and forcing him to delete was purely performative. People are still going to be tweeting and things are still going to be trending because if nobody tweeted everytime a minority voice needed to be heard, nobody would tweet ever. Yes try not to trend things but getting mad at people for tweeting something is stupid because all you do is spam the replies with the same thing causing that to trend instead.

Yes he did delete another tweet but that was to change his wording from poc to black community.

Unfortunately 22 years is actually considered a long sentence for most justice systems. I recently watched a court case where a man drugged, kidnapped, r@p3d and killed 5 teenage girls and he only got 10 years. That's 2 years per girl. That's 2 years for drugging and kidnapping, sexual assult, murder, necrophilia and being a p3d0. Not to mention a lot of countries count pre court time in prison as part of their sentence so they tend to lose 3 ish years minimum of their sentence.

Yes it's awful that he didn't get life but it's honestly not surprising at all especially with the American justice system. I'm saying this as someone spends a lot of time doing criminology research especially on serial killers and female murderers. Especially with him being a police officer and it being a racially motivated crime, the only reason any justice was given was because of the person who filmed and posted the murder. Without it nothing would have happened except from a slap on the wrist.

Honestly I understand that the black community is highly upset and that's totally fine but wasting energy into telling people they cant tweet or do anything other than retweet petitions is so wasteful. That's performative. Yes a lot of people are actually trying to get justice and get the life sentence and are to busy trying to make a change to be mad at a single tweet but it always gets overshadowed by the performative people which is sad.

Unfortunately teens on the internet can't do much other than spread awareness and boost donation pages and petitions. I think instead of getting mad at him not getting life, we should focus more on getting the other murdered black people some sort of justice because most of their killers are still free and still have a job and are still in power and still can legally walk around holding a weapon - Trinity.

[aficionadoenthusiast]

this is...an interesting perspective. first off, at the beginning, you were talking about justification being delusional, and by the end you're saying making a point is okay (although you did call people who make points about villains broken clocks which is. wild), but ignoring all wrongdoings is weird, so it's not exactly clear what you have a problem with. i'll just start with justification.

trying to justify villains isn't 'delusional', it's something actual scholars do all the time (if you don't believe me, look up some articles about the macbeths). it's a really good way to study how certain situations can produce actual bad people, kinda like how we can track all the circumstances that led to hitler's rise (i'm not comparing any of these villains to hitler, just trying to illustrate a point), or how we can use media to study why a person might be egregiously racist, such as in to kill a mockingbird and go set a watchmen. there are a bunch of academic disciplines devoted to these kinds of studies, actually (criminology, the study of serial killers, there are college lit classes you can take that are all about villains). the reason scholars would do this is to prevent bad things from happening in real life or just to discuss bad things. for example, have you ever heard of the movie john q? it's about a guy whose son needs a heart transplant, but insurance stops covering the kid's hospital stay, and they're about to pull the plug on the kid (who is still awake btw, just needs a new heart). the dad takes the hospital hostage. would you call him a villain? would you call the people who justified his actions 'delusional'? that movie and the people who justified him revolutionized health care in the US (if you can believe it, was worse before the movie came out). literary scholars, sociologists, and psychologists do these villain analyses (and analyses on real people) all the time, and calling random strangers online 'delusional,' 'weird,' and 'broken clocks' for it isn't just rude, it's straight up wrong. yes, even the ones who want to ignore all their wrongdoings.

i haven't read shadow and bone or the ballad of songbirds and snakes, but i gotta say, luke is probably one of the worst examples you could've used for this point. he is an amazing example of why you should always try and justify villains. (side note: justify doesn't mean agree with or prove that they were right; it means figuring out why they did what they did and why that reasoning has merit) luke was a victim of an oppressive system that put him, his mother, his siblings, and all the other demigods on the bottom of whatever hierarchy olympus had. he watched his friends and family be killed and maimed, and then pushed aside or forgotten about as their own parents acted like they didn't matter or were replaceable. i'd think with the recent strikes, upticks in hate crimes, and genocides, you might realize why this perspective matters, especially since by the end of the series, most of the main characters have come to realize that they at least partially agree with luke, if not his methods, not to mention the large following of demigods he accrued throughout the books because so many demigods felt ignored and wronged by their own parents. this is a direct mirror of how minorities get left behind by governments over and over again, and it opens up avenues for people to talk about how and why that happens both in the book and real life, and it is not 'delusional' or 'weird' for people to want to do that. in fact, most authors want you to use their books for this. ever heard of the jungle by upton sinclair? people talked about the villains (the meat packing industry) in that book so much we got the FDA and USDA. some authors even base their villains (or main characters) off of real life bad people like in dracula and game of thrones. animal farm is a chilling example of how people (or animals) just like luke have been wronged by their leaders and turn into the bad guy by trying to do what's right for their people, and that was based on real life events. would you tell people not to try and justify the pigs in animal farm for overthrowing the human farmer? if you would, that's gonna be a big fight because people have been doing that since the book came out in 1945. animal farm even takes it a step further and shows how these types of villains get corrupted by power and turn into the thing they were trying to stop. luke even literally turns into the main bad guy when he is possessed by kronos. the symbolism could not have been more clear.

as for the infantilization, maybe people do that to luke (and you called him a man. he never made it past 24. he left camp at 19. he first met kronos at 14. i would not call that a man) because he was corrupted by kronos and his horrible circumstances at 14. maybe it's to give him the childhood he never had. i don't know. but i do know it is incredibly rash to write off anything positive you've seen about him as 'weird' and 'delusional.'

You villain lovers are really odd. Like I love me a good villain but I’m not delusional enough to ever try and justify the things that they’ve done. I’ve seen it with PJO, Shadow and Bone, and now The Hunter Games. Like why are ppl out here saying that Snow was never the villain and that the actual villain was Lucy??? What is y’all’s problem? Just say you think Snow is pretty and keep it pushing. The same thing with The Darkling. I’m not even apart of this fandom and the weird stuff I’ve seen makes me never want to be apart of it. Luke defenders really get on my nerves. They will argue down with you that that man isn’t a creep and an idiot. I just really need all of y’all to get some sense cuz y’all really be sounding just as weird sometimes.

[chloroformthelittleb4stard]

Family Relations - Part 1

I got some loose inspiration from @were-cheetah-stiles's "The College Years" so if you haven't read that then I highly suggest it! It's very good.

Stiles Stilinski/Witch!Reader with some OFC characteristics thrown in for spice

Summary: Your criminology teacher is acting all kinds of weird, which is the norm, except for the part where his eyes glaze over and he tries to kill someone. Stiles, the hero he is, tries to stop your professor with little avail until he gets some unnoticeable help from you. Stiles seems to find himself with you at the location of multiple attacks, just barely making it out alive. Through the bloodshed feelings, family, and friends mix to create a perfect blend of chaos and calm.

Warnings: Mentions of choking, character injury, implied death of a minor character, EMTs and stitches and such, swearing

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Your hand is aching from the cramps of writing so many notes, your professor going a mile a minute, but making very little sense. You doodle in the margins of your college-ruled journal and stare into space, zoning out and giving up on following your professor's nonsense.

The clock ticked 5 minutes until class was over when your professor went apeshit. He stopped talking all of a sudden, standing straight as a board and looking off into the distance. He started slowly walking up through the students, eyeing each of them as he went by until he got to the row in front of you. He moved down the line until he stopped on a strawberry blonde girl, three seats to your left in the row in front of you. His hands slowly wrapped around her throat and that's when people started screaming.

People tried to pull him off of her but it was like he was glued to her skin, an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. The next tactic that people chose was to flee, they tried running out the doors but they came to see that the doors were in fact stuck and shaking on their hinges, the rattling echoing through the lecture hall. Your attention kept being drawn to a brunette, maybe 5"10 with moles scattered around his skin and eyes the color of amber.

The brunette stood, panicking for a moment like everyone else, but then sprung into action. Launching forwards he grabbed a chair and swung it towards the professor, the item stunning the man but not making him drop his grip. Your professor's attention then turned to him, eyes locking as you saw the man with moles' expression turn fearful. He ran back down to the front of the classroom and the professor followed him, eyes still glazed but now glowing with a green tint.

The man seemed to be struggling in the fight against your professor and since no one else seemed ready to help, you realized you were your classmates' last hope. You didn't want to use it but there wasn't much other choice, you focused your energy and watched as the light fixture above your professor began to swing and crack, sparks of electricity coming from where it meet the ceiling, before it came down in a large crash on top of your professor. You'd forgotten however to push your cute classmate out of the way, and you ran forwards to go check on him while the rest of your class pushed and shoved to get through the doors that were magically opened again now that the would-be murderer was down.

Walking over to the front of the room you saw your brave classmate staring at the ceiling in shock while he was clearly still processing the entire situation.

"You ok there?" Your voice echoed in the now empty room, Stiles' attention coming to rest on you. As he gaped for a moment, his mouth moving with no words, before he managed to regain some confidence.

"I uh, yeah. I mean no! Later! I-" You chuckled as he stuttered, mind moving faster than his mouth could handle and the flitting though of how glad you were that it was this boy's life that you'd saved.

"I'm not ok now but I will be later." He managed to finally articulate. Words falling out of his mouth as he continued to take in your appearance. He had no idea how he'd missed you before but damn had he been missing out. Your legs peaked out from the bottom of your jeans that you'd cuffed, socks with the words 'fuck off' printed on them peaked out from above your worn sneakers, much like his own.

"You really like Star Trek?" He questioned, pointing to your t-shirt. You laughed out loud at that being the first question he asked you, not something to do with your suddenly murderous professor or the seemingly random event of a light fixture falling from the ceiling.

"Yeah, why? You a Star Wars fan or something?" He puffed his chest out as much as he could from his position still sitting on the ground.

"And proud of it." He placed his hands on his hips and beamed as you walked closer to give him help getting up. He limped when he stood, something you noticed immediately and frowned upon realization.

"Did the light falling down injure you?" Your eyes were filled with concern for the man you'd just met, coming to scan his injured leg as he stood in front of you.

"Me? No I'm fine!" He winced as he took a step forward and you rushed to his side to help support him.

"Ok, so I might be a little bit hurt." He smiled shyly at you through his dark lashes, his tongue poking out to lick at his lips while he stared at you.

"Here sit down and I'll take a look." He hobbled over to the nearest chair upon your request, muscles relaxing as he took the pressure off his injured limb. You pulled his jeans up just slightly, exposing the ankle that had a shard of glass stuck in it. Maybe pulling down a lighting fixture wasn't your best idea. You hissed at the sight of the injury causing Stiles to glance down at his ankle, hissing as well at the sight of the glass sticking out from his skin.

"I'm sure someone called 911, an EMT should be here soon." You rolled his jeans back down to cover his injury, already hearing the faint sounds of sirens on campus.

"I'm never going to live this down." He groaned, throwing his head back dramatically. You giggled at the sight and he cracked a smile despite his pain from his pride in making you laugh.

"An FBI agent in training who gets hurt by a light. I'll be a laughing stock." He was over-selling his complaints, he knew he was most likely to receive praise for his actions rather than ridicule, but he liked how you laughed at his dramatics.

"Well..." You paused, realizing that despite being in class with him all year you didn't know the cute stranger's name.

"Stiles." He filled it in for you, smiling again as he held his hand out to shake yours.

"Well Stiles, I think you're a hero. At the very least you're not a coward." You shared a laugh as the sirens got closer and the police and EMT came through the door, interrupting your moment to get to know Stiles more.

The EMT had determined that he'd need to go to a hospital, and having nothing better to do, and wanting to get to know him more, you asked if you could go with.

"Sure, I still need to learn your name." You blushed at the awkward wink he sent you while on the stretcher, being lifted onto the cot that sat in the middle of the vehicle.

You and Stiles made small talk during the trip between his vitals getting checked and the EMT disinfecting his, now stinging, wound. You reached your hand down absentmindedly when Stiles first winced at the disinfectant, and he grabbed it without a second though, squeezing tightly as more anti-bacterials were added to the open wound.

At the hospital he'd had stitches, and you both watched as they removed the small shard of glass from his skin. You'd helped quietly by pushing the glass in the direction of the doctor's hand but Stiles didn't need to know that. After the stitches and a total of three hours later Stiles was discharged and on his way back to campus with you on his arm. He'd had crutches, a precaution, and despite your suggestions he threw them in the trunk of the Uber you'd called and didn't use them at all while walking back to his dorm.

"Well here we are. Room 15, thanks for walking me to my dorm, and for going to the hospital with me, and everything else. Despite the almost-murderer professor, today didn't actually suck that much." You laughed at his statement and waved him goodbye as he limped into his dorm room to an only minutely concerned Scott.

"Who was that?" Scott asked in a sing-song voice as he took the crutches from Stiles' hand without complaint.

"That, was my guardian angel." He slumped along the door, coming to sit on the floor in a haze of your memory.

"Does your guardian angel have a name?" He heard is werewolf friend ask while digging through Stiles' wardrobe for shorts that wouldn't brush against his stitches.

"Her name is Y/n and she was with me at the hospital the whole time. Scott she's awesome, you have to meet her." He stood up gently, stumbling over to his bed to change from his blue jeans to the basketball shorts that Scott had pulled out for him, per doctor's request.

Scott rolled his eyes at his best friend's romantic nature, knowing it was probably just being there for him in a crisis that made you so attractive to Stiles. Scott didn't get a look at you, meaning he had only the basis of what Stiles' personal preferences were for figuring out what you looked like. He assumed you looked similar to a familiar ginger that had broken up with Stiles not long ago, he was wrong.

[forthemorefortunate]

Live Like Animals

Nessian Modern AU

Merry Chris-  er, happy New Year to my secret snowflake!  @ncssian 💕😅

I hope you like the fic! I’ll be honest, when I filled out the application for the secret snowflake, I said I could make a fic believing that it was very unlikely somebody would ask for one 🥴🤔 But lemme say, I LOVED writing this, which is definitely something I didn’t expect. More than that, I’ve never been much of a Nesta or Nessian fan, but actually thinking through their characters and interactions for this fic gave me a whole new perspective on and appreciation for them (even if I’m not the best at writing their characters, aha), so thank you!

A few quick things about the fic:

(Ik I already told you this, but for anybody else reading this aha) This is my first fic! So please take it easy on me 🥺👉🏻👈🏻

Okay so this part is kind of weird, but there’s kind of a corresponding playlist 😅 Each part is named after a song. You can play the songs while reading or not, I know for me personally (*cough* my ADHD ass) it’s hard to listen to music and read at the same time. The title is also the name of a song! Except that one is more random, haha (I couldn’t think of a title, so I shuffled my entire library and chose the first song as the title, and it kinda worked so I went with it)

One more quick thing – thanks to @moussescientist @ko0mbayamylord @blxckbeak @chanberry @mikitheswiftie @potatoburp @dead-on-the-inside666 @queenoffortunes and two anons for answering a question, and a HUGE thanks to Skye, @oneoutofamillionbooklovers for all your help and for roleplaying the parts I got stuck on with me ❤️

Part 1: Distant Early Warning (Rush)

Nesta pulled the dress over her head, letting it slide into place over her body. Screw this, she thought for the millionth time, yet she continued to get herself ready, turning to glance at her reflection when she was finished. She raised an eyebrow and nodded slightly at the woman looking back through the mirror. The woman Nesta spied had on a satin slip dress, darkest blue. She wore no jewelry save for the small silver studs in her ears, and her hair was pulled into a neat-yet-simple updo.

Why Nesta even agreed to go to this party she didn’t know. There was nothing different about it, just another college booze fest. The music would be too loud, the air too heavy, the guys too grabby, and the company too... clubby. Feyre insisted that she would fit right into her friend group – her clique – but Nesta wasn’t sure she wanted that. She padded over to the door of her apartment. No, Nesta was quite certain that “fitting in” with Feyre’s newfound friends was something she didn’t care for at all.

Nesta’s phone buzzed on her kitchen counter as she slipped on a pair of black heels, and she picked up to Feyre’s forcibly perky voice. “Hey! We just pulled up, you coming?”

“No.” Response blunt, tone dry. The line was silent for a long moment, and Nesta held in a sigh. “Did I give you the impression that I was interested in coming?”

“Nesta, I’m not in the mood for fucking around,” Feyre said, perkiness mysteriously faded now. “It’s just one party! I promise you’ll have fun.” Bullshit.

“Since when have I ever-”

“And everyone else really wants you to come, too!” Feyre cut her off, “Rhys is excited to meet you!”

Rhys. Feyre’s boyfriend. Nesta groaned inwardly, truly dreading any interaction with the rugby star. Feyre had immediately caught the eye of the local heartthrob, and the two began a serious relationship shortly after meeting. And with one came the others. In high school they would have been labeled “popular.” They were quite possibly the closest group of friends at the college, almost all of them having known each other since childhood. And Feyre had slipped right in among them. Nesta had warned Feyre against making the tight pack of fourth-years her main group of friends, and she had her own opinions about a freshman dating a senior, but Feyre didn’t make a habit of following Nesta’s advice. Rather, she seemed to think she could give Nesta – a third-year – much more valuable guidance. Domineering bitch.

“I don’t give a shit about your friends, Feyre. I’m only coming because of our deal,” Nesta said. Feyre had been pestering her all semester, spewing crap about how Nesta and Feyre should spend more time together. Nesta should get out more. Nesta should tag along with Feyre’s friend group. Nesta should have some fun. 

More bullshit. 

As second semester began, Feyre had proposed a deal: Nesta would go to one party with Feyre and her buddies, and if she honestly didn’t enjoy it, Feyre would stop asking her to join them. 

“I’m on my way. Let’s just get it over with,” Nesta grumbled, and with that, she hung up the phone and opened the apartment door.

Part 2: Can You Afford to Be An Individual? (Nothing but Thieves

Nesta looked around the group of fourth-years–plus Feyre–arranged in front of her. Introductions were unnecessary; you couldn’t attend this school without knowing who they were. Her eyes fell first upon Rhys, his arm around Feyre’s waist. His chin lifted slightly as she made eye contact. Rhys: double major in history and foreign policy. President of the astrology club. Captain of the rugby team, possibly one of the best players the school had ever seen. He was the group leader, though nobody said it aloud. Nesta knew him well. Perhaps she only knew his type well, or her own perception of his type, but that didn’t keep her from holding his gaze a few moments longer than would be comfortable. Then she turned her scrutiny on his sidekicks, so she called them, Cassian and Azriel. The former wore jeans and a baggy black jacket over his rugby uniform in the school colors: black and red. The latter wore black pants with a dark blue button-down shirt untucked.

Cassian smirked as her eyes met his. “Glad you decided to make an appearance,” he drawled. She narrowed her eyes at him, and his smile widened in response. Cocky bastard. Azriel, double majoring in political science and criminology, simply nodded at her in greeting.

After the sidekicks came Rhys’s cousin Mor, an architecture major with a minor in design. She was entirely too peppy in a way that left Nesta exhausted, but Nesta wouldn’t give her satisfaction by scoffing at her cocked hip and half-grin, ostensibly projecting confidence. She held Mor’s stare, matching her asserted confidence with a cool security in her own assets. The half-smile twisted, just slightly, and Nesta moved on to the short girl farthest to the right: Amren.

Amren scared people. As in, people were genuinely freaked out by her. Aside from a few cultish tendencies, her occasional propensity for violence and/or verbal outbursts, and her sharp expression, though, Nesta couldn’t tell why. Amren majored in gemology and minored in linguistics, and was the only one in the group other than Feyre to have not known the others since they were little. In fact, she was studying here from abroad, though nobody actually knew where she was from. Unlike Mor, Amren presented a confidence that Nesta could believe in and respect. Nesta maintained her chilled posture, but let the bite in her expression retreat.

As for Feyre’s introducing Nesta, that was unnecessary as well. They all knew her; most upperclassmen did. Or rather they knew of her, by the name of heinous bitch. If she were being honest with herself, she didn’t mind the nickname.

“Okay,” Feyre started, her voice expectant as she tilted her chin to look at Rhys’s face, “Let’s head in?” Feyre, Rhys, and Nesta had met up with the rest of the group in the parking lot before they entered the party. Fashionably late, Feyre had told her on the drive in Rhys’s tesla. Rhys taught me that the key to maintaining his public image is in making grand entrances. God, Nesta wanted to laugh at Rhys’s influence over her.

As they entered the building holding the party Nesta immediately stiffened, and had to close her eyes for a moment against the harsh blue and purple lights cast by PAR cans. All senses at once were smacked by the presence of weed. The floor was vibrating, and speakers blasted near-deafening music so that all Nesta could really hear was thunder. Jesus Christ, I hate parties, she thought. A mass of sweaty bodies shifted and bounced through the too-heavy air ahead of her, some only silhouettes in the murky haze, through which Nesta saw red solo cups littering every possible surface. Suddenly she noticed Feyre standing next to her, fidgeting with her clutch and looking over expectantly. Nesta shot her a withering look that said, “This is not what we agreed to.” Feyre had the nerve to look guilty.

“Okay before you say anything,” Feyre began, “I know that look, and... I know this is a bit bigger than we talked about-”

“A bit?! This is a rager, Feyre. Do I look like I rage?”

“Okay no, but I promise Rhys and I have a plan.” Oh my God.

Nesta gave her another glare and plucked a cup off a nearby table. Sniffing it, she sighed and took a big swig. “Please, my dearest sister, do tell.”

“We’re going with a buddy system.”

Nesta coughed. “A buddy system – are you fucking kidding me?” She spied Rhys and his dickhead friends in the corner of her eye. “Wow, are arts and crafts before or after beer pong?”

Feyre rolled her eyes, calling a fresh wave of frustration to roll over Nesta. “Can you shut it with the attitude, Nesta? I already apologized for the crowd of people – it kind of got out of hand. Rhys told me before we left but I didn’t want to scare you out of coming.” She gave Nesta a pleading look.

“Tch, whatever. Who’s my buddy? I assume you’ll be with Rhys?”

Feyre beamed at her. “You’re paired up with Cassian!”

“Cassian.” Great. Alpha dickhead.

“Don’t be like that. He knows his way around these things and he’ll keep you from accidentally overdosing or blacking out.” 

“Who said that wasn’t my intention?” 

Feyre scrunched her face up. “Either way, you can’t deny that he’s bigger and taller than half the creepy guys here. He’ll keep unwanted attention away.” 

Nesta watched as Rhys, lead hulking rugby bro dickhead, caught sight of her sister and eyed her with what might have been lust or love – Nesta couldn’t decide. Cassian, approaching from Rhys’s side, cut Nesta a slow, purposeful look down and back up to her face. She felt an annoying tingle down her spine as the crowds parted for them. This was going to be a long night.

Part 3: Inhaler (Foals)

They had been at the party for less than ten minutes and Nesta already wanted to leave. Drink in hand, she aimlessly wandered around the outskirts of the crowd, hoping to find a place to sit farther from the lights that drowned out any rational thought that flashed through her brain. Cassian trailed a few steps behind.

“So, what do you do for fun?”

She twisted around to glare at him. “Why are you talking to me?”

Cassian puffed out a laugh and spread his arms wide, responding, “If you don’t recall, we’re kind of stuck together, darling.”

Right. Nesta rolled her eyes. “How could I forget?” Cassian left the question hanging, still following her, so she forged on. “I like to read. A concept that’s probably foreign to you.” She dodged a young couple parting from the fray to make out against the wall, and paused to reorient herself.

“You might be surprised.” Nesta groaned inwardly and arched a brow. “Oh I have no doubt.”

“None at all?”

“What. Are you on volume seven of Captain Underpants?”

“Volume eight, actually.”

Nesta stopped. She was pissed. Pissed at this party, pissed at Feyre for lying about how big it was, pissed that she was stuck with rugby bro sidekick, pissed that the purple lights suddenly seemed a lot brighter, the music a lot louder, her thoughts a lot fuzzier. “Look, Cassian. I only came here as a favor to my sister. We’re not friends.” He started to cut her off, but she continued, turning so that they fully faced each other, “You don’t have to stay, I can take care of myself.”

He leaned in close, the laughter in his tone suddenly gone. “Listen, princess. You’ve had two beers and you’re already tipsy. I get it, we’re not friends. But there are at least four guys looking at you like they want to take you against the nearest surface and I’m the only man within a thirty-foot radius that has any self-control. There’s no way I’m leaving.” He held her gaze firmly.

“So that’s it – I’m just supposed to trust you? My knight in shining armor, here to protect my virtue? That ship sailed a long time ago.” Fuck it. “I wouldn’t mind taking you for a ride though,” Nesta said, flashing a smirk at the end.

Cassian’s lips twisted into a half-grin, but she could see annoyance rising up in his eyes. “Nesta, you don’t wanna play with me.”

“Brute.” Nesta turned and started walking away again.

“Bitch.” He followed.

Nesta scoffed. “How original.”

“Not all of us are English Lit majors.” 

Somehow Nesta tripped on her own foot at that moment, staggering sideways into Cassian’s path. He lunged forward, arms going around her waist to hoist her upright. Her lip curled and she spit out, “And not all of us are rugby stars,” and shoved her way out of his arms.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Cassian asked, incredulous.

“Cassian, I’m sure there are plenty of girls here that would love your attention. But I’m not one of them.” She turned around to face him, walking backwards, and almost tripped again. “So go on and play with someone else. I don’t care. Just leave me alone.” With that, Nesta thrust herself into the fray, pushing her way through the mass of shouting people, making the crowd a barrier between herself and Cassian.

Part 4: Emergency (Nothing but Thieves)

After five minutes of random college students bumping into her from every direction, her head pounding and thoughts muddled, Nesta realized she didn’t know which direction the exit was in. Fuck. She was disoriented and exasperated, her frustration now showing in her usually unshakable expression. She couldn’t even tell which direction the light was coming from. How many beers had she drunk? Two? Three? She wasn’t usually a drinker, and it hit her then that she hadn’t eaten for hours before the party started. Stupid, she thought. This was why she didn’t do parties.

She was so distracted trying to figure out where the light source was, trying to get her bearings at least, that she didn’t catch sight of a brooding figure wending its way toward her until the man had a hold of her wrist and was pulling her to the side of the room, wherever that was. 

“Hey! Get the fuck off me!” Nesta shouted over the crowd, but couldn’t get a response from the man until they found one of the cinder block walls.

“What’s the matter, sweetheart?” he asked, his voice cruel as he tried to pull her closer. “We’re just having a bit of fun, that’s all.”

“Excuse me?” Nesta ripped free of his grasp, but he backed her into a corner. He had a drink in one hand. Not good.

“Hey, hey, no need to get worked up,” he drawled, “I saw the way you were looking at me.” Looking at him? Nesta thought. This was the first she’d seen of him.

Nesta tried to step to the side, but the man followed her, his senses keener than hers in her condition. He reached out for her arm again, and Nesta shouted this time. “Don’t touch me!”

He put his hand up as if in innocence. “Come now, I’ll make it fun for you. Just have a drink.” He brought the cup toward her face, his hand now reaching behind her head, which she snatched away.

“I swear to God, can’t you bastards understand that no means no?”

“You-”

“Get the fuck away from me, creep!” She aimed a kick at his groin, but he easily dodged it.

His mouth hardened into a line, and he growled, “Just take the damn drink, bitch!”

The man shoved her into the corner, her head hitting the wall. He brought his hand up to hold her back by her shoulders as he brought the cup up toward her lips and-

“Let me go or I promise you’ll regret it.” Last resort. 

He shot her a crooked grin and began to reply, but whatever response he had in mind was cut short.

A voice from behind him said, “And she never goes back on a promise, asshole.” The man was wrenched off her body by two strong hands, and pulled over to the side to give her an out, which she quickly took advantage of.

And there, dragging the man away from her, was Cassian.

The creep tried to play it cool. “Hey, Cassian, bro, what’s up, man?” he said mock-casually, “I caught your last game! great playing, dude!” His demeanor shifted completely as he turned on his bro mode.

Cassian’s jaw was set. He tightened his grip on the man’s shoulder, his stare withering. “You need to leave. Right now.”

Yet the man kept going with a smirk, “It’s all good bro, we can share.” 

That was a step too far.

Cassian grabbed the man’s shirt, pulling him close. “That’s the thing – I don’t share. I don’t play nice.” Cassian thrust his face forward so they were only a couple inches apart. “You said you caught my last game, right? So you know I don’t go down without a fight. Touch her again and you’ll regret it.” With that, he shoved the guy into a table, and turned to Nesta. “Come on, I’ll take you home.”

Part 5: Before We Drift Away (Nothing but Thieves)

Dizzy and shaken, Nesta let Cassian guide her through the crowd to the exit. Once they were outside in the cool night air, he pulled her aside, gaze dark.

“Did he hurt you?”

“No.”

“Did he force you to drink whatever was in that cup?”

“No.”

His eyes closed and relief flooded across his face. “Good. God, some people are fucked up. I don’t know what I would have done if he had drugged you, or taken you away, or...” He trailed off, leaving anything further than that unsaid. 

They were silent for a minute. Nesta looked up at him, a bit of worry still etched across his features. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you care so much?”

He looked over to her, something strange in his expression that Nesta couldn’t place. “I don’t know. You’re a human being, and your safety was left in my hands.” He paused and looked away. “If I’m being honest, when I saw that guy put his hands on you... I don’t know. Something flipped inside me.” At that moment he looked down to her bare shoulders, noticing that she was beginning to shiver. “You’re cold,” he said softly. “Here, take this.” He removed his jacket and draped it over her shoulders, even when she protested.

Nesta frowned as she gave in and pulled his jacket tightly around her, annoyed at the way her body betrayed her. “I don’t need protection. I’ve lived a long time without people to care about me.” She started walking toward the parking lot, and he followed.

“You shouldn’t have to live like that, Nesta. You’ve been pushing me away all night, but listen to me – don’t you understand? I’m not just talking to you because I’m bored. I don’t smile at you as a game, as if you’re some prize for me to win. Can’t you see by now that I’m doing literally everything I can just to stay by your side? Damn it, I asked Feyre to pair us together at the party.”

Nesta had stopped walking and was speechless for once.

Cassian stepped closer tentatively, as though she’d back away. He ran a finger over Nesta’s wrist and looked up to the sky. “Please, just don’t make me say anything else completely insane. I promise I’m not in the habit of sharing intense moments with perfect strangers.”

A rush of anger coursed through Nesta, and she shoved him back. “Don’t,” she said. “Don’t talk to me like that. Despite what you must think, I’m not an idiot. I’m not naive. I am well aware that this is all a favor to my sister. Stay with my lame, antisocial sister. It might be fun, right?” She paused, any restraint she had used earlier having completely abandoned her.

“That’s not what I think at all, Nes-”

“Fuck you, Cassian.” She shoved him again, more aggressively this time.

Cassian caught her wrists and pulled her closer. “Try that again.”

Nesta glared. “Bite me,” she spit out.

“Maybe I will.”

And as though drawn to her by some gravitational force, Cassian’s mouth came crashing down onto hers. He wrapped his arms around her waist, seeming to lift her off her feet. Nesta’s bare skin burned where Cassian touched her, and she pushed back against his touch to gain control. Everything, every thought was fading to nothing. Biting down on his lip drew out a low groan from Cassian, and Nesta broke free.

Cassian put his hands up as though to make a barrier between them, as though he wouldn’t be able to control himself without it. 

“So much for being the only man with self-control,” Nesta said. Cassian just shook his head, earning a light snort from Nesta. “I shut everyone out--even pretty jocks like you. Don’t take it personally. It’s just easier.”

Cassian smiled his easy smile, and he reached up to touch his lips with a thumb. “You think I’m pretty?”

Nesta scoffed. “The prettiest.”

He stood there for a moment, just smiling at her, before turning back toward the parking lot. “Okay, princess, allow me to introduce you to the pinnacle of after-party activities.”

Nesta raised a brow, and Cassian let out a bark of laughter.

“Get your mind out of the gutter. I’m talking about pancakes.”

She looked skeptical. “Pancakes?”

“Yes. And after the night you had, you deserve an entire plate of them.” Cassian reached out to her with his big, warm hand, and Nesta hesitated.

“Cassian-” She started warily.

“Hey – I’m not asking you to marry me, it’s just pancakes.”

Nesta waited a moment more, then took his hand. “Fine. But I’m not sharing the chocolate sauce.”

“I wouldn’t dare ask you to. Besides, you already know how I feel about sharing.”

Nesta smiled a bit. “Hey Cassian?

“Yes Nesta?”

“Thank you.”

“Anytime.”

[stxrrywildflower]

deep blue

pairing - spencer reid x reader

summary - hotch recruits you for a single case, a certain genius catches your eye

warnings - cursing, mentions of case

word count - ?

note - i’m not sure the true numbers but let’s asssume the acadamy program is anywhere from two to four years

one early morning at the bau, rossi stepped into hotch’s office. “have you seen the case?” the italian man asked. hotch nodded, “yes i have. do you think we need her?” rossi pondered for a quick minute.

“i mean she would be nothing but helpful,” rossi reasoned

grabbing his suit jacket, hotch stood up. “then let’s go, the team will brief when we get back.” with that, the two men exited the office much to the confusion of the team.

____

you practically grew up in the water.

as a kid, your family lived on the coast. swimming was something that came naturally and you were doing it even before you could remember. from age five to twenty-two, you did various swim teams outside and in school. in college, you had swam and broken records all while majoring in criminology. in the end, you decided to go into the fbi acadamy with your skill set.

four years in, you were just a few months away from graduating. however, you had no clue what team you would be recruited onto. you were top of your class with academics and your physical training which made you a good prospect.

you were currently swimming laps in the pool for some extra training. your instructor was sitting at one of the chairs, timing you. he looked up when two familiar agents entered the pool area. you didn’t stop swimming as you hadn’t even realized the two enter.

“agent hotchner, agent rossi,” your instructor greeted, shaking the hands of both.

the three turned towards the pool where you did your final push off of the wall on the far end. “excuse me,” your instructor spoke and leaned down by the wall, the stopwatch in hand. it didn’t take more than a few moments for you to press your hand against the wall and stop swimming.

you emerged from the water, removing your goggles and swim cap. after going under one more time to get your hair wet, you finally appeared and leaned against the wall. “how’d i do?” you asked, not completely aware of the other two agents.

“shaved off five seconds. i’m not sure why you keep wanting to break these acadamy records. you’re already in the top spot.”

you shrugged as a response before looking up at the two older men. “nice to see you again y/n,” rossi greeted. you nodded slightly before getting out of the pool and accepting a towel. once your arms were no longer wet, you shook the hands of hotch and rossi.

“so what brings you to the acadamy?” you asked as you continued to dry off. “we need your help with a case,” hotch revealed. you stopped your movements and furrowed your eyebrows. “my help? what for?” you responded.

“it’s a case in gulf shores, alabama. the unsub is using the ocean to dispose of his victims and all the divers in the city and surrounding area are on a retreat to california. we need someone with diving experience and the swimming ability to aid us,” hotch explained.

“alright, i just need ten minutes to shower, change, and then grab my bags,” you explained. “we’ll be waiting.”

you rushed into the locker rooms, rinsing your hair before using shampoo and conditioner to wash out the chlorine. you were done in record time with five minutes to spare. after changing into jeans, a tank top, your combat boots, and slipping on your oversized fbi windbreaker, you exited and went to grab your bag.

just as you said, you were meeting up with hotch and rossi ten minutes later. you had a go bag in hand and behind you was another with your diving equipment including a wet suit, flippers, and a mask. the three of you headed to the car and began your drive to the bau building.

walking in, hotch motioned for you to drop your bags in his office before following him into the conference room.

“everyone this is y/n y/l/n from the acadamy. she will be assisting us on this case,” hotch announced, “these are agents prentiss, morgan, j.j., and doctor reid. you already know rossi and that is our technical analyst penelope garcia.”

the team took in your appearance. it was hard not too, as they were profilers. you were pretty young, almost the same age as spencer. your hair was still soaking wet and you had the faint smell of chlorine on you. “wait, why do i recognize your name?” emily spoke up.

“well,” rossi started, “y/n currently holds the record for the women’s open swim competition as well as smashing the biathlon and triathlon times at the acadamy.” you blushed slightly, not used to all this attention. emily nodded, obviously realizing why she had known you.

“we can get to know y/n on the plane, let’s get started,” hotch said as he sat down.

garcia began to go over the details of the case, “three bodies have been found in the gulf of mexico over the past two days. what’s weird is that they were all killed around the same time and have markings that resemble shark bites. however, the medical examiner determined that they weren’t actually made from a shark. none of the victims knew each other either. plus, all divers are out of town. these bodies were found by chance.”

“the unsub has to know about the retreat. anyone could have stumbled on the bodies if he hadn’t,” you added.

after bouncing around possible theories, hotch told the team that it was thirty minutes before ‘wheels up’. you, however, were in hotch’s office, receiving your orders for the case.

“since you are still a cadet, you are not allowed to go anywhere alone. all orders must come from one of us,” hotch told you. it was pretty much just standard procedure.

meanwhile, the official agents of the team all sat around their desks in the bullpen. “so the new girl?” j.j. started. “she’s a killer athlete and her skills are really good,” derek added.

“what do you think reid?” emily asked.

spencer, who was reading some book, glanced up for a quick moment. “her record is impressive,” as he said this, his voice went up slightly on the last word. “oh my god,” garcia started, “you totally think she’s pretty!” spencer’s cheeks flushed a light shade of pink. the other agents were about to add something but hotch and you emerged from his office. “let’s head out,” he announced.

on the plane, the first ten or so minutes were spent going over the case details. “alright, i want reid, y/n, and morgan to all head down the the port. a boat is waiting to take you out to the dump sight. y/n i need you in the water seeing if anything useful is underwater. time is important and we need you there as quick as possible,” hotch ordered.

“should i get changed?” you questioned.

once seeing your superior nod, you grabbed your bag and headed to the bathroom. it was honestly miracle that in the small airplane bathroom, you managed to change into a swimsuit and your full body wetsuit. after tossing your hair up into a messy bun, you slipped back on your shoes and made your way into the jet.

all eyes were on you as you sat back down in your seat next to spencer, now in a completely different outfit. “so y/n, what’s your life story?” emily asked. hotch and rossi were now sitting on the opposite side of the jet leaving you, j.j., derek, spencer, and emily to talk.

“well, i was raised on the coast and was pretty much swimming before i could talk fully. my parents always had me involved in different swimming groups during my childhood. i was on varsity swimming all four years of high school. i went to harvard for college, majoring in in criminology and swam for the school also. entered the acadamy after when i was 23,” you explained.

“i thought the acadamy training was only two years?” derek asked.

you shrugged and took a drink from your bottle of water, “i’m taking profiling courses and doing minor field work at the same time. it adds two years on to the program,” you responded. “so your what, 26? 27?” you cracked your knuckles, “i’m 27.”

“not much younger than pretty boy over here,” derek smirked, “so what do you do for fun?” you leaned back into your seat. “oh i’m a huge sci-fi nerd,” you smiled. spencer perked up as derek groaned. “what shows?” the genius asked.

“i mean star wars and star trek are my two favorite. i’m also a fan of doctor who but i haven’t watched it recently,” you explained.

emily, j.j., and derek all watched as you and spencer became engrossed in conversation about one of the shows. you two were talking incredibly fast and motioning rapidly with your hands. wide smiles were on both of your faces. the three other agents shared a look before going to sit in different seats.

upon arrival to the city, you, spencer, and morgan all headed down to the port. after greeting one of the police officers, you boarded the boat. you were shown a room where you could finish suiting up. the water where the body was dropped was pretty deep, meaning you would need to wear an oxygen tank.

“hey spencer!” you called, “can you come help me?” spencer walked out from the deck and into the room. “i need some help putting on the vest.” spencer grabbed the vest which would hold the tank. you held your arms out behind you as he slipped it on. the two of you were extremely close as spencer began to fasten and clip the buckles. you inhaled sharply and when you felt his hot breath on your neck.

“alright you’re good to go,” spencer spoke, still close to you.

you stepped back with a smile. after thanking on, you slipped on your boots and fins. the police officer helped put the tank on your back and connect it to your snorkel.

now, you sat on the edge of the boat, about to go under. “you ready?” morgan asked. you didn’t respond but instead leaned back so you fell off of the boat and into the water. spencer and morgan shared a quick look as they watched you disappear under the water.

minutes later, you emerged at the surface. in your hand was a necklace. derek held out a bag which you then placed the necklace in. after climbing onto the bout, spencer moved over to stand with you.

“do you need help again?”

you shook your head no. “i’m okay for now,” you spoke. as you walked away, spencer felt something be placed in the palm of his hand. he looked down to see a small polished shell, no doubt from you. he smiled softly before going to find morgan.

____

three days later, the team had identified the unsub.

the only issue was that his current whereabouts were unknown and he had another girl with him. however, an anonymous tip was sent to the police station that they saw a small boat go out in the ocean a few minutes ago.

one of the police boats was started and the team piled on. as quickly as you could, you got into your scuba gear just in case. this time, it was a much more modified version; only wearing a wetsuit and a snorkel mask. you didn’t think you would need it and you weren’t even due if you were going in the water or not.

it only took a few minutes for you to arrive at the location. just as you were in view, the unsub pushed the girl off the boat before jumping in himself. he pulled her down deep as a way to drown her. the unsub was clad in his own scuba gear, allowing for him to do so.

after hotch nodded towards you, you took off running before diving off the edge of the boat.

as you swam down the ocean, you looked around. suprisingly, the unsub wasn’t even in sight. it didn’t help that the water wasn’t exactly clear. however, you managed to spot the victim a few feet down. you grabbed her arm and pulled her to the surface.

the boat was a few yards away. using one arm, you propelled yourself through the water. morgan and hotch were already waiting by the ladder at the back part of the boat. after taking your mask off and tossing it on the deck, you helped the victim over to the ladder.

once she was lifted onto the boat, you started to climb up. but, a hand on your calf stopped you. you could barely react as you were pulled underwater, most of your oxygen being knocked out of you.

the water was extremely salty but you pried your eyes open and were met with the unsubs. you were at a disadvantage as he had a mask and you didn’t. if you tried to swim up, he would just drag you back down. so there was only one option, you needed to fight.

in ten seconds, you managed to rip the mask off. you were even deeper underwater now and you knew you couldn’t hold your breath underwater. with your strength, you managed to kick the unsub hard in the stomach. the unsubs eyes showed nothing but panic as water filled his mouth.

in a final effort to save yourself, you wrapped your arms around the unsub neck and started to strangle him. black spots crowded your vision as the unsub thrashed violently, creating bubbles around you. finally, he stopped moving.

you managed to swim to the surface, taking in as much oxygen as possible as you frantically looked around.

the police boat was now even further away. you knew the risks as water was still in your lungs and dry drowning was pretty much inevitable at this point. nonetheless, you dived back under and grabbed the unsubs now dead body. after bringing it to the top, you managed to make it over to the boat.

the team helped you back onto the boat. you rolled over so you were on your knees, pressing your forehead to the deck floor. you began coughing, directly due to the salt water the filled your lungs. your eyes screwed shut as you wrapped your arms around your stomach.

spencer kneeled down beside you, placing his hand on the small of your back. “post-immersion syndrome, known as dry drowning,” spencer informed everyone.

your chest grew tighter as you struggled to breathe. in the background, you heard hotch yelling to speed up. “match my breathing pattern okay. i need you to stay calm,” spencer whispered to you.

he rolled you over so you were sitting upright. a painful look was displayed in your face as the two of you made eye contact. your breathing matched his despite your cloudy vision. you struggled to your first and over to the side of the boat, immediately leaning over the rail to cough up the water from your lungs.

that’s all you remembered before you passed out.

waking up in the hospital meet hours later was less then fun. your lungs burned but thankfully, with the ventilator, you were breathing okay.

in the corner of the hospital room, you noticed spencer sitting with a book in his hand. you smiled weakly and moved your arm to get his attention, not trusting your voice at the moment.

“hey,” spencer spoke, moving to sit by your bedside.

you smiled softly. “i feel terrible,” spencer added. you shot him a questioning look. “i mean you almost drowned. i should have done something.”

“take me out to dinner and we’ll call it even,” you managed to get out despite the raspiness of your voice.

spencer grinning brightly, “i would love too.”