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missizzy · 2 months ago

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A Game Novice's Baldur's Gate Log, 116 Hours In: I met Tara! And also some others

Masterpost

(Note: this will definitely contain spoilers for all I've played through, and probably quite of a bit of the later stuff I've also seen.)

I spent most of this week wandering around Rivington and surrounding areas, clicking on characters and having them talk at me, having longer conversations with a few people, including my companions, sighing at the steady amount of lag, and occasionally battling followers of the Absolute, but nothing too difficult. It's been slow going at times. There was even one hour I played where when I expended too many resources and got stuck under the well, I just exited without saving, because there wasn't much accomplished to save for. But despite the mishaps, I enjoyed a lot of it. It even got me to write a another fic.

After seeing a little bit of Rivington and the the refugee camp last week, we started this week by bribing our way past the screening into the circus, much to Karlach's delight. I'm afraid she didn't have that good a time though. When we first approached the stage with the Dribbles impersonator, I even volunteered her to go up on stage with him, but that didn't actually make her happy from the start. When Sara ended up accidentally killing the old man civilian in the subsequent fight, I reloaded, and this time had her go up there herself, if only because I now figured that worked better strategically. Which it did, but the old man ended up getting killed by the beasts anyway. Guess there was no saving him.

From there, the conversations included:

Orin, again, this time administering the love test, which I'd only seen the start of, so I didn't even know it was her. It did feel quite romantic for Sara to answer questions about Gale that were quite easy for her (I'm sure Gale has at least shown her simple images of his tower by now), and I was only sorry there was no way to have questions about her for him. Sara, on the other hand, is now very worried about how much information they gave away to the enemy...

I had Karlach spin the wheel with the djinni, because I really did want her to have a little fun at this damn circus. But of course, she only ended up spotting that he was cheating, and I had her walk away before he turned her into a cheese wheel, since I didn't feel like dealing with that.

Yenna, when I then went back to camp to swap her for Astarion, due to the journal suggesting his siblings would be in a nearby flophouse. Sara had told her at their first meeting her mother was probably dead, because she thought she probably was (to the disapproval of all three companions she had with her at the time!), but she was happy to welcome her into the camp. Also Mattis after returning to Rivington, whom I managed to sell and buy a little bit from, but our gold is actually now starting to run a little low.

The Gur, who further added to her sad conscience when they revealed the bounty hunter she let Astarion kill wasn't working for Cazador. She nonetheless trusted his judgement on the likely fate of their children, but placated them by promising to at least kill he whom she and Astarion had decided to kill already.

Danzo Arkwright, Commander Lightfeather, and two more members of Pigeon Messenger Corps. Seriously, the latter three were priceless. Best use of a Speak with Animals potion ever. I was genuinely sorry when Sara proved of no use to them against the beast on the Temple roof killing their numbers...

...because said beast turned out to be Tara! Who may be a Tressym, but certainly was still behaving delightfully like a cat. Sara was so happy to meet her, she didn't even ask her to leave the pigeons alone. She didn't try retrieve Danzo's letter, either, since it appeared to have been opened.

She was even happier when this got Gale to talk about his mother and reveal his last name, and more still when he talked about introducing her to Morena Dekarios, and other things about his tower that reflected on him seeing a future with her there. As her backstory has developed in my head, I have also recently decided that her tribe didn't do family names, and Tully is in fact the name of her late wife. So now she is totally scribbling Sara Dekarios all over her brain, since it would only make sense to exchange a dead spouse's name for the new one's.

I have also decided (even if the game itself thinks otherwise), that she herself arrived at at Baldur's Gate in her early adulthood not exactly as a refugee, but very much a displaced person, which absolutely is dictating her response to all anti-refugee sentiments expressed to her. Including her conversations with the temple staff, when we then descended from the roof and talked to them about the murder of Father Lorgan, and made her all the more determined to keep the refugees from being blamed.

The longest lull in conversations of the week ended up happening here, as we went down to the Temple basement, got into the cave after I did enough button pushing to seemingly get them in the right order or whatever, and tried to sneak around the doppelgangers at first, but ended up fighting them while trying to steal their stuff. Finding the flophouse key and the murder weapon, we then exited into the Western Beach, watched the Guild and the Stone Lord fight, and then fought the survivors, which got us worn down enough to need a long rest. From there, the conversations included:

Wyll's speech about how "there's no place like Baldur's Gate" contrasted sharply with Halsin's the next morning when I rotated him in as party healer, seeing only the city's downtrodden and vulnerable. You have to recognize the latter is definitely seeing things more accurately, of course. Though Wyll would ultimately gain a lot of Sara's respect when the last thing I did this week was talk with him after we learned Gortash had ordered the city closed off to the refugees. His talk about the city being better than that she knows to be true; she was once among those who benefited from it being so, after all. She trusts his assessment of Gortash's motivations, too.

Sara asked both Astarion and Karlach if they might consider turning into mind flayers. She's making no more assumptions about what the former might or might not be willing to do for power, and was hoping the latter might find it a viable alternative to death or Avernus. I had in fact seen Astarion's response already, but Neil's performance there makes it worth a rewatch. When they both refused, she won't ask anyone else.

Vlaakith showing up to make Lae'zel a final offer, but noone was buying what she was selling anymore. Though Sara's a little disturbed by Lae'zel's now jumping right into devotion to Orpheus, without maybe considering making a life for herself and her coming hatchling that didn't need to be dictated to her by such entities. But when she insisted she could only consider her own future after freeing this prince, Sara resigned herself to doing so.

Karlach's once again getting overheated and thinking she's going to die soon, which finally got me to hammer out fic involving her and Wyll cuddling up. And also kissing.

So when the Emperor showed up in her dreams that night, with her newly decided she's going to betray him, she was pretty cold to him. It didn't help her view of him that he was now lamenting over the freeing of the Netherbrain that he had essentially ordered us to bring about.

After a long and fruitful walk of looting things up from the beach, I clicked on the side deck of a structure right by the South Span checkpoint to see if the characters could get onto it without jumping. Since they couldn't, they instead turned and starting walking around, only stopping when they hit the confrontation with the guards. Sara was extremely indignant at them demanding money for her to come into the city she's a legal resident of, but played along until the Steel Watch robot tried to scan her, at which point I had her retreat. I wanted to finish going around Rivington first anyway.

We went into Rivington General, but most of the stuff was way too expensive to buy. I sold off some loot, and bought a couple of arrows to placate the shopkeeper a little.

Our first venture into the abandoned windmill, we ended up waking and fighting the newly transformed mindflayer. When that ended up being part of the hour I ended up not saving on, I went into the windmill again just for the ring and the XP, and Astarion successfully picked it from his pocket this time without waking him. Then I went back to that structure whose side-deck came so close to the grass outside the checkpoint, and this time, had the characters jump onto it, getting us into Wyrm's Crossing unscanned by any robots.

So far, we've only been to the flophouse. Neil was once again at his best as Astarion turned nasty on his siblings, though unfortunately some of the effectiveness of his performance was diluted by the lag putting things out of sync. Sara went along with his abuse of his brother, but is now outright balking when he continues to talk about killing them to ascend.

Seeing all the locked chests on the second floor, I then decided to try the key on each of them, only for the guy wandering around to stop us twice. I ended up turning on non-lethal damage for the first time so Sara could knock him out. The key didn't work on any of them, but we found the ladder to the attic, and then the wardrobe the key did work on, and the smuggling space behind it with the remaining evidence we needed. I also managed my most fruitful use of the Speak with Dead spell yet, after we found Ffion Goldgrind's body and interrogated her. I considered some fancy way of getting out, but thankfully the guy Sara knocked out hadn't woken up yet, and so we were able to just walk past him and out.

Once I confirmed the investigator we needed to speak to was in the Sharess' Caress, I went back to camp to get Lae'zel, swapped her in for Astarion, and left off after the aforementioned conversation with Wyll. I'm kind of tempted to swap him in, too, though I'm not sure who I'd have him replace.

#baldur's gate 3 #barbarian tav #gale x tav

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twinfoxtails · 3 years ago

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@parasundered

"... Today really is the day."

It still felt like not long ago when Eri knew of Harune's condition from Lust. He wanted to help her, and he wanted to immediately run in and save her. But...

It's not like last time, where Meiling and Miko showed you all the steps forward, or Prime and others guiding you. This is even bigger.

He can't hide behind others anymore for this one. Not that he wanted to at this situation, of course. It was something extremely personal to him, and something he'd rather do with his own, two hands.

... You need to come up with a plan, with a solution. You need to meet some people, and maybe they’ll help you figure it all out. But no going to see the beast till then.

“And now...”

And now, they finally have one, after meeting with Gluttony and Hope. A plan. A plan which was easier said than done, but the boy has been practicing what he could for this very moment.

...

He has stayed up all night for a couple of days catching up on what he knows about possession to the point where he hasn't been running the cafe often. He asked Orin and Yuri, his mom, to act as training partners, although the latter scoffs at how lacking he was, but at least he has made a bit of progress compared to before.

Immobilize the Feral Harune, and not taking over... Yuri mocked him that he couldn't even immobilized if he tried at his level, so he kept training until he was able to fully control her.

"But... your friend is an uncontrollable nine-tailed kitsune, isn't she? I'm a six-tailed, so you'd need more than that if you're up against an additional three tails, with a side of ferocity. Much, much more than that. Just don’t get yourself killed. No one’s going to bury you for something so stupid."

"..."

Unlike his usual green dress, he's wearing an outfit similar to Jeanne's old daughters, like Lust's and Envy’s, which he tailored specifically for himself. But it wasn't for impersonation sake, very far from it. It was because of the terrain which was explained by the two new androids, and how he was expected to walk on foot, and... well, he wanted to be more prepared compared to his previous space adventure. Basically, tracking gear made for long walks, with new shoes too.

Also, he may feel a little bit left out after standing around with the others in the meeting a little. Just a little.

“Right, here goes...”

Taking a deep breath, he knocked at the door where Lust and Prime are, and waited for them to open the door.

"Miss Lust, Miss Prime, I'm... I'm ready. Ready whenever you two are, that is."

Hah, the boy isn't even ready himself, he's nervous. EXTREMELY nervous.

He's not bringing any weapons, of course. He's not going to harm her, if possible.

#parasundered #I THINK PARASUNDERED IS THE RIGHT BLOG #Feel free to change if not otherwise YES

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bluebird167 · 4 years ago

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Little Shop of Horrors AU

Based on the musical and the 1960 film.

Seymour - Natsu

Audrey - Lucy

Mr. Mushnik - Hades

Orin - Loke

Audrey 2 - An evil plant of some sort

Greek chorus group - Gray and Juvia

Gray and his girlfriend Juvia have recovered from a traumatic event they witnessed that almost destroyed the human race. When questioned by a reporter they decide to tell the story.

Their story goes back to a year earlier and it start's with Gray's best friend Natsu a poor young man who works at a flower shop and spends every day being harassed by people, abused by his boss Precht Gaeblog, and the only people who are nice to him is Gray, Juvia, and his co worker Lucy who he's secretly in love with.

One day his greedy boss threatens to have him fired to make cut backs since business is so slow. That is until he finds a strange and interesting Venus fly trap plant. The plant brings in plenty of customers but there's one problem. Unknown to anyone except Natsu, the plant needs blood to survive so to keep the plant alive Natsu cuts his finger and feeds his blood to the plant causing him to be anemic. Gray suspects something's wrong and questions him about it. He soon finds out the plant's secret and insists that Natsu stop feeding it as it is a danger to his health but Natsu having become famous refuses and convinces Gray to keep quiet about it.

When Natsu's health starts to take a bad turn he stops feeding the plant but then it starts talking to him and demands to be fed, promising him anything he wants in return. Meanwhile Lucy is in an abusive relationship with Loke a sadistic and vain man who's obsessed with his looks. Juvia who is her friend, tries to convince her to leave him but Lucy is too afraid to do so and she reveals to Juvia that she secretly loves Natsu and dreams of one day living a simple and happy life with him but makes her promise not to tell because she doesn't think she deserves him.

One night Natsu witnesses Loke beating Lucy which enrages him. The plant convinces him to feed Loke to him to keep him from hurting Lucy any further. Natsu meets Loke somewhere late one night with the intention of shooting him but he can't bring himself to do it however Loke drinks a special dietary drink that had eggs mixed into it which he is highly allergic to and he neglected to read the ingredients on the bottle.

As his throat closes up, he begs Natsu to get him his epipen but he doesn't and Loke suffocates to death. Natsu chops up his dead body and feeds it to the plant. The plant to continues to grow as does Natsu's success and with Loke gone he and Lucy start dating but Precht after hearing the police found Natsu's scarf at the scene of the crime, he suspect's that his employee had something to do with Loke's disappearance. His suspicions are confirmed when he sees Natsu and Lucy kiss, finds blood stains on the floor of his shop, and hears from Gray that Natsu was meeting Loke the night of his disappearance. He confronts Natsu about it and threatens to tell the police.

The plant tells Natsu to get rid of Precht or he'll lose Lucy so Natsu tricks his boss into being eaten by the plant. Afterward Natsu becomes very successful and continues to grow closer with Lucy but suffers from intense guilt and stress from the murders which doesn't go unnoticed by Gray, Juvia, or Lucy. One night when Natsu is asleep the plant calls Juvia and impersonates him asking for help. She goes to the shop but the plant tries to eat her luckily Gray walks by the shop, sees what's happening, and manages to save her in time. When Natsu wakes up Gray and Juvia confront him about the plant and he comes clean about everything. They both beg him to destroy the plant to which he considers but refuses believing it's the only thing winning Lucy's love.

Realizing that they can't get through to Natsu and fearing for their safety, the couple decides to leave town. Juvia worried for Lucy, tries to warn her friend before they leave but Lucy doesn't believe her however she is concerned about Natsu who at the moment is being harassed by the plant as it squals for blood. Lucy walks in on Natsu hysterically threatening to destroy the plant which deepens her worry for him. She slaps some sense into him and when he asks if she would still love him even without his success she replies that she has always loved him. Learning this he decides to kill the plant after he collects the shop's earnings from the bank tomorrow and elope with Lucy who he rushes home.

Shortly after the plant demands to be fed, Natsu agrees to feed him but insists that it be meat from a butcher. He leaves the shop but Lucy worried for him goes to the shop to check on him. The plant reveals that it can speak to Lucy and begs for water. Not sensing danger she agrees but when she gets close enough the plant pull her into it mouth and proceeds to eat her. Natsu returns and manages to pull her out before she's swallowed but she is mortally wounded and before she dies asks Natsu to feed her to it so they can be together. He reluctantly feeds her body to the plant and nearly commits suicide but is stopped by Gray and Juvia who returned to tell him that a gardening company plans to have cuttings of the plant sold worldwide.

Realizing the plant's plan for world domination, Natsu decides that it has to die. He tries shooting it, poisoning it, and cutting it but nothing works. Finally he grabs a machete, goes inside the plant, and begins to hack it's insides to bits. The plant dies from it's internal wounds but not before it eats Natsu. The next day Gray and Juvia visit the shop to search for Natsu but instead they find the plant dead and four flowers resembling Loke, Precht, Lucy, and Natsu who just before they wilt away tell them to get rid of the plant's remains to keep it from regrowing. Gray and Juvia then end their story saying that they burned the plant's remains however they're not sure if there are others like it out there and if they are they warn everyone to: Don't feed the plants.

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benrleeusa · 7 years ago

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[Orin Kerr] Peffer v. Stephens, on Probable Cause and Home Computer Searches

On Thursday, the Sixth Circuit decided a Fourth Amendment case that is drawing a lot of criticism online. The case, Peffer v. Stephens, is authored by a new and somewhat controversial Trump appointee, John K. Bush. A few people have asked me to take a look at the case, wondering if it's as crazy and extreme as some (okay, Slate's Mark Stern) say.

My tentative take: I think the court reached out to answer a big question it didn't have to answer. I'm skeptical that the court was right to paint with such a broad brush. With that said, I don't think the decision is as far-reaching or harmful as others seem to think, in part because I suspect future courts will limit it to its facts.

I. The Facts

This case is a civil suit challenging whether there was probable cause to issue a search warrant. The police suspected that evidence of impersonating an officer and witness intimidation would be found in Peffer's house, and they obtained a warrant to search Peffer's house for that evidence. Specifically, the police suspected that Peffer had authored a letter and a flier that was evidence of the suspected crimes, and they obtained a warrant to search for and seize records relating to the crimes including in electronic form. The warrant then says that in the course of searching for those items, the government may seize and then search any computers that might store the records in electronic form.

The officers executed the warrant and took away a bunch of computers. In the end, though, prosecutors declined to prosecute Peffer. Peffer and his wife filed a civil suit, claiming (among other things not relevant here) that the warrant lacked probable cause. In particular, the Peffers mainly argued that the affidavit did not establish probable cause that evidence of the crime would be in the house for two reasons. First, the affidavit did not provide reason to beileve that the evidence described was evidence of a crime based on then-existing state law. And second, the affidavit did not make the case that the evidence described would be found in the home.

II. The Sixth Circuit's Opinion

Judge Bush's opinion treats those two arguments separately. First, the opinion rules that it was not clearly established that that the letters were not evidence of a crime. As a result, the officer "would be protected by qualified immunity from liability for executing an otherwise valid search warrant seeking evidence that Mr. Peffer violated those criminal statutes."

Next, the opinion rules that there was probable cause to believe that the evidence described would be in the house. Much (but not all) of the argument, Judge Bush says, was based on the claim "that no assertion was made that Mr. Peffer owned either a computer or a printer or, if he did, that he kept those items at the . . . residence" that was searched. The affidavit argued that the letters and fliers were computer-generated, and likely written by Peffer, and therefore that there was probable cause to find evidence about them in the Peffer house. According to the Peffers, though, there was no reason to think that Mr. Peffer had a computer at home that stored the evidence.

Judge Bush rejected the Peffers' argument. This is the passage that has generated a lot of controversy, so I will present it in full with the footnoted material in brackets:

It appears to be a question of first impression in this circuit whether the nature of a computer is such that its use in a crime is alone sufficient to justify an inference that, because of "the nature of the things to be seized," ibid., evidence of the crime is likely to be found in the alleged criminal's residence. But this question is not a difficult one to answer based on basic principles.

As a general rule, it is reasonable, ceteris paribus, to assume that a person keeps his possessions where he resides. [FN9: See, e.g., United States v. Aljabari, 626 F.3d 940, 946 (7th Cir. 2010) ("When probable cause exists to believe an individual has committed a crime involving physical evidence, and when there is no articulable, non-speculative reason to believe that evidence of that crime was not or could not have been hidden in that individual's home, a magistrate will generally be justified in finding probable cause to search that individual's home.")].This presumption is of course rebuttable and cannot always be relied upon by a magistrate in finding a nexus between the object used in a crime and the alleged criminal's residence, because the "totality of circumstances presented" in the affidavit may suggest that the object is more likely to be found elsewhere or nowhere at all. Brown, 828 F.3d at 382. The affidavit may, for example, include evidence suggesting that the object was not owned by the alleged criminal; that it was discarded, sold, or was otherwise disposed of; that the alleged criminal, while retaining possession of the object, stores it elsewhere than his residence; or that the object no longer exists.

If an affidavit presents probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed by means of an object, however, a magistrate may presume that there is a nexus between that object and the suspect's current residence, unless the affidavit contains facts that may rebut that presumption. [FN10: As with all findings of probable cause, this presumption is subject to a staleness analysis. The Peffers did not argue that any probable cause established in the affidavit had gone stale.]

And although we have not articulated this presumption in precisely this manner, it underlies our previous decisions in cases analyzing the connection between the objects used in a crime and the alleged criminal's residence. Our jurisprudence in this area has not always been as clear as one might hope, but an analysis of several of our nexus-jurisprudence tributaries shows that it is not as muddled as one might fear.

When it comes to guns, because we "have acknowledged that individuals who own guns keep them at their homes," United States v. Smith, 182 F.3d 473, 480 (6th Cir. 1999), a suspect's use of a gun in the commission of a crime is sufficient to find a nexus between the gun that was used and the suspect's residence. For example, in United States v. Vanderweele, an informant told an ATF agent that he had seen Vanderweele in possession of a silencer at a clubhouse. 545 Fed.Appx. 465, 467 (6th Cir. 2013). The agent sought a search warrant for Vanderweele's residence based on nothing more than the informant's statement that Vanderweele had been in possession of a silencer and his awareness, "based on his training and experience, 'that firearms, ammunition, and related items are commonly stored within the owner or possessor's dwelling.' " Id. at 469. We held that based on these alleged facts, "[t]he magistrate judge had reason to believe that the silencer would be found at Vanderweele's house," and we upheld the warrant. Ibid.

This is consistent with our holdings in similar cases. [FN 11: It is also consistent with the approach taken by many, but not all, of our sister circuits. United States v. Anderson, 851 F.2d 727, 729 (4th Cir. 1988) ("It was reasonable for the magistrate to believe that the defendant's gun and the silencer would be found in his residence ... even though the affidavit contained no facts that the weapons were located in defendant's trailer."); United States v. Steeves, 525 F.2d 33, 38 (8th Cir. 1975) (upholding a warrant on the basis that "people who own pistols generally keep them at home or on their persons"); United States v. Rahn, 511 F.2d 290, 293–94 (10th Cir. 1975) (upholding a warrant because "it is reasonable to assume that [defendant's] house was where he kept things and it is pretty normal ... for individuals to keep weapons in their homes"); Bastida v. Henderson, 487 F.2d 860, 863 (5th Cir. 1973) (upholding a warrant because a "reliable informant stated that on the day after the robbery [Defendants] were still armed with automatic pistols" and "[a] very likely place to find them thereafter would either be on the persons of the assailants or about the premises where they lived"). But see United States v. Charest, 602 F.2d 1015, 1017 (1st Cir. 1979) (invalidating a warrant because there was "nothing in the affidavit from which a factual finding could be made that the gun used in the shooting was probably located at defendant's premises" and "[c]ommon sense tells us that it is unlikely that a murderer would hide in his own home a gun used to shoot someone").] See, e.g., United States v. Goodwin, 552 Fed.Appx. 541, 546 (6th Cir. 2014)(upholding a warrant to search illegal-gun purchaser's residence where an affidavit established that the gun sought was valuable and that "owners usually keep machine guns in their homes"); United States v. Cobb, 397 Fed.Appx. 128, 133 (6th Cir. 2010) (upholding a warrant to search bank robber's residence for the clothing and gun he had used during a robbery because the "reasonable inference is that this clothing and gun likely would have been in [defendant's] possession six weeks following the final robbery"). [FN12: This area of our jurisprudence is admittedly murky. In United States v. Bethal, the panel declined to find a nexus between the gun the defendant used in a shooting and his residence, despite the affidavit's asserting that the defendant had been "identified as one of the drive-by shooters." 245 Fed.Appx. 460, 469 (6th Cir. 2007). Over a dissent, the panel reasoned that because "persons accused of murders often dispose of the guns utilized in the crime soon afterward" and "the affidavit ... provided no indication that at the time of the search, [Defendant] was still participating in gang-related shootings, or was seen carrying a gun," the affidavit failed "to establish any relationship between [Defendant]'s residence and the fair probability that weapons and drugs would be found there." Id. at 468–69. We question Bethal's emphasis on ongoing criminal conduct and are not bound by this unreported decision. See United States v. Ennenga, 263 F.3d 499, 504 (6th Cir. 2001) ("We need not concern ourselves with any perceived inconsistency, however, because [inconsistent case] is an unpublished case and therefore not a controlling precedent.").]

It is clear that the use of a gun in the commission of a crime is sufficient to establish a nexus between the suspected criminal's gun and his residence. Computers are dissimilar to guns in many ways, including the nature of the crimes in which they are used and the relative ease with which guns can be transported and discarded. Computers are similar to guns, however, in that they are both personal possessions often kept in their owner's residence and therefore subject to the presumption that a nexus exists between an object used in a crime and the suspect's current residence. This is borne out by our cases involving the consumption of child pornography via computer.

Although we have never been asked to pass judgment on a magistrate's finding of a nexus between the computer used to consume child pornography and the alleged consumer's residence based on nothing more than the use of the computer, we have placed our imprimatur on a number of search warrants issued based on affidavits with scant evidence supporting a nexus beyond the use of a computer. See, e.g., United States v. Elbe, 774 F.3d 885, 890 (6th Cir. 2014) (finding that affidavit established nexus because the suspect's residence had high-speed internet and the suspect had been observed using a laptop on his front porch); United States v. Lapsins, 570 F.3d 758, 766 (6th Cir. 2009) (finding that affidavit established nexus because the IP address used to distribute prohibited material was accessed by a residential modem located in the general vicinity of suspect's residence and that suspect had participated in an online chat regarding prohibited material between the hours of 6:30 and 8:30 a.m., when suspect would be at home); United States v. Terry, 522 F.3d 645, 648 (6th Cir. 2008) (finding nexus because affidavit established that the suspect had a computer at his residence and had sent an email containing prohibited material at approximately 2:30 a.m.).

Just as guns, and other possessions, are generally kept in the home, so too are computers, and so we readily find a nexus between computers used in the consumption of child pornography and the suspected consumer's residence.

The principle that we are now articulating also explains why we are more reticent to find a nexus between drugs and their distributor's residences. In Brown, the defendant was apprehended leaving the location of a sale of more than 500 grams of heroin, and was found to be in possession of $4,813 in currency. 828 F.3d at 378–80. Responding to the Government's argument that "the magistrate judge was entitled to infer that evidence of drug trafficking would be found at Brown's residence because he was a known drug dealer," we pointed out that "we have never held ... that a suspect's status as a drug dealer, standing alone, gives rise to a fair probability that drugs will be found in his home." Brown, 828 F.3d at 383. Recognizing that "[i]n the case of drug dealers, evidence is likely to be found where the dealers live," we nevertheless held that "if the affidavit fails to include facts that directly connect the residence with the suspected drug dealing activity, or the evidence of this connection is unreliable, it cannot be inferred that drugs will be found in the defendant's home—even if the defendant is a known drug dealer." Id. at 383–84.

This is because, unlike guns and computers that are used in the commission of a crime, when drugs are used in the commission of a distribution offense, the distributed drugs are no longer in the possession of the suspected distributor. The affidavit therefore must establish some other reason to believe that drugs or other evidence of crime would be found in the suspect's residence if searched. See, e.g., United States v. Raglin, 663 Fed.Appx. 409, 411–12 (6th Cir. 2016) (finding nexus because affidavit established that a suspect drove to the defendant's house directly after trafficking drugs, at which point $38,000 appeared in a purse on the roof and the defendant's girlfriend told officers that guns were in the house); United States v. Kenny, 505 F.3d 458, 461 (6th Cir. 2007) (finding probable cause because affidavit established that an informant identified the defendant as the "cook" of a large ongoing trafficking operation that was taking place on his property, which was corroborated by independent evidence); United States v. Newton, 389 F.3d 631, 636 (6th Cir. 2004) (explaining that affidavit established that defendant was engaged in a "continual and ongoing" drug distribution scheme), rev'd on other grounds, 546 U.S. 803, 126 S.Ct. 280, 163 L.Ed.2d 35 (2005); United States v. Jones, 159 F.3d 969, 974 (6th Cir. 1998) (finding that affidavit established that defendant was seen distributing narcotics directly outside of his domicile). Unlike drugs, guns and computers are objects that generally remain in the suspect's possession after commission of the crime, and therefore it is reasonable to believe those possessions to be stored at the suspect's residence, absent evidence to the contrary.

Here, the affidavit included allegations that Mr. Peffer had used a computer in the commission of his crime, that evidence of the crime would likely be found on that computer, and that Mr. Peffer resided at the Bierri Road residence, thereby establishing a presumption that evidence of the crime would be found at the Bierri Road residence. That the affidavit did not allege that Mr. Peffer owned a computer or that he kept one at the Bierri Road residence is immaterial, because the averment that he used one in the commission of a crime is sufficient to create the presumption that it would be found at his residence. See e.g., Vanderweele, 545 Fed.Appx. at 469. The affidavit did not suggest any reason to believe that Mr. Peffer had used a computer that did not belong to him, that he had thrown out or otherwise disposed of the computer, or that he kept the computer elsewhere. Indeed, the affidavit did not suggest any reason to believe that the computer used in the commission of the crime would not be found at the Bierri Road residence, and therefore the only reasonable conclusion that a jury could draw is that a nexus existed between the evidence sought and the Bierri Road residence.

Because Sergeant Stephens executed a valid warrant supported by probable cause as to a connection between the mailings and the Bierri Road residence, when he searched that house, there was no Fourth Amendment violation on this ground.

III. My Analysis

Here are some tentative thoughts.

First, I'm not sure it works to treat the Peffers' two probable cause arguments separately. The Peffers claimed that the warrant was defective because the conduct wasn't evidence of a crime and because that evidence wasn't going to be in the home. Judge Bush treats those as two separate claims. He first disposes of the scope-of-crime claim on qualified immunity grounds, and he then takes on the claim that the evidence wasn't sufficiently likely to be there. But I'm not sure they can be separated. Probable cause has to be assessed all at once, I would think. The question is, overall, whether evidence of crime is likely to be in the place to be searched. If it's not clear that the conduct alleged is a crime, then I would think that discounts the odds that there are evidence of crime in the place to be searched. Off the top of my head I can't think of cases where that issue has come up. But that's my instinct, at least.

Of course, the bigger controversy over the Peffer case is about the court's apparent conclusion that "the nature of a computer is such that its use in a crime is alone sufficient to justify an inference that, because of the nature of the things to be seized, evidence of the crime is likely to be found in the alleged criminal's residence." What about that?

Here are three thoughts about that in particular. First, skimming over the briefs, I am somewhat perplexed as to why the court tried to paint with such a broad brush. Here's the opening Peffer brief; here's the officer's brief; and here's the reply. I only skimmed them, so maybe I'm missing something. If so, I apologize. But based on my quick read, I don't see how they asked the court to take a position on whether computer-generated evidence is likely to be at a suspect's home. So one way this passage is odd is that it's not clear the parties really briefed it and the court had to reach it.

Second, I'm skeptical that it works to paint with such a broad brush as the court did. The category of "computers" and "computer-stored evidence" seems just too broad. In a world of global computer networks and the cloud, with many (most?) people having different electronic devices in different places used in different ways, it's hard to generalize about where computer-stored evidence is likely to be.

In this case, for example, the court was dealing with letters and fliers that presumably were generated with some kind of word processing software. I think it's probably the case these days that if someone is creating fake letters and fliers as part of criminal activity, and they're just regular computer users with no obvious sophistication, they're probably just doing it on a home computer. The home computer probably generated copies of the documents, either as automatic backups or maybe as a version saved by the user, that are there in some form on the machines. Probably.

But I think the point is about the specific kind of document, perhaps generated by someone with no computer sophistication. It's not about the fact that it was generated on a computer generally. If you change the nature of the document -- make it, say, a threatening text message that is more likely to be on a phone the suspect carries around than on a computer always at home -- then the odds change about where it could be stored. If you change what we know about the user -- say, make him very technically sophisticated -- the odds change again.

Given that, I wouldn't be surprised if future courts tend to limit Peffer to its facts. The likelihood that using a computer to commit a crime means that evidence of the crime will be found in a computer inside the person's home at some future point just seems too fact-dependent to justify a broad generalization of the answer. The nature of the probable cause determination calls for a more fact-specific holding, it seems to me.

Third, I think there's some interesting tension between Judge Bush's ruling and Judge Srinivasan's ruling for the D.C. Circuit in United States v. Griffith, 867 F.3d 1265 (D.C. Cir. 2017). Griffith opened:

Most of us nowadays carry a cell phone. And our phones frequently contain information chronicling our daily lives—where we go, whom we see, what we say to our friends, and the like. When a person is suspected of a crime, his phone thus can serve as a fruitful source of evidence, especially if he committed the offense in concert with others with whom he might communicate about it. Does this mean that, whenever officers have reason to suspect a person of involvement in a crime, they have probable cause to search his home for cell phones because he might own one and it might contain relevant evidence? That, in essence, is the central issue raised by this case.

Judge Srinivasan's opinion isn't in direct contrast with Judge Bush's, but it is skeptical about presuming that a computer is in a home. Srinivasan's opinion demands more evidence, both that a person has a device and that the device still is likely to have evidence on it. It's an interesting contrast with Judge Bush's opinion. I wouldn't be surpised if future lower court cases on this issue grapple with both precedents.

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