#unusual investigations unit

[justdreamsandmusic]

''SCP Foundation USA Sites''

just something for fanfiction and so on

[dreamersworldduh]

HI, NEIGHBOR - PART ONE

SUMMARY — you’re new to the neighborhood and find yourself becoming friends with the residential bad boy, Jason Todd. From his perspective, you seems like a outgoing guy yet there’s a mystery to you he couldn’t quite figure out.

WARNING! Suggestive Langauge. Swearing.

WORDS! 7.8k

AUTHOR’S NOTE! Okay, here’s a short three part series that I’ve been working on. Part 2– will be posted tomorrow. Hope you enjoy! 😚

NEXT PART! TWO

The streets of Gotham were unusually quiet that night, a stark contrast to the usual chaos that defined the city after dark. The absence of sirens, distant gunfire, and the ever-present hum of danger created an eerie calm that felt almost unnatural. For once, the city seemed to be holding its breath.

After finishing his nightly patrol, Jason Todd trudged wearily through the dimly lit hallways of his apartment complex. His steps were slow and heavy, the weight of the night's events still clinging to him like a second skin. His shoulders sagged with exhaustion, and his boots scuffed against the worn floorboards as he approached the familiar, weathered door to his apartment. He unlocked it with a practiced flick of his wrist, stepping inside and letting the door shut behind him with a soft click.

The apartment was silent, just as he had left it — or so he thought. As Jason tossed his keys onto the small, scratched-up table near the entrance, his sharp ears caught the faintest sound of shuffling coming from the apartment above. It was subtle, almost imperceptible, but distinct enough to register in his keen, combat-honed senses. He paused, frowning slightly, but exhaustion quickly overtook suspicion. Late-night disturbances were nothing new in Gotham, and after the night he'd had, investigating a bit of noise was the last thing on his mind. With a tired shrug, he dismissed it as some insomniac neighbor moving around and made his way toward the worn couch, collapsing onto it without bothering to change out of his gear.

The night passed uneventfully, and for a while, Jason managed to find some much-needed rest.

By morning, however, peace was once again a fleeting concept. Jason was jolted awake by a series of sharp, repetitive banging sounds coming from the apartment above. His eyes snapped open, a scowl already forming as the noise continued, louder this time, echoing through the thin walls and ceiling. He groaned in frustration, pressing the heels of his hands against his tired eyes.

For a moment, he considered ignoring it, hoping the racket would eventually stop on its own. But the pounding persisted, relentless and grating. His patience — already in short supply — frayed further with each crash. Annoyance quickly turned into something more pointed, an edge of suspicion creeping into his mind.

Pushing himself up from the couch with a low growl of irritation, Jason stomped toward the front door. Whoever was responsible for the early-morning commotion was about to get a piece of his mind — or worse, depending on how this encounter played out. With narrowed eyes and clenched fists, he yanked the door open and marched toward the stairs, determined to find out exactly who — or what — was behind the infernal noise.

Jason marched up the creaky wooden staircase of his apartment building, his boots thudding heavily against each step. The persistent noise from the unit above had frayed the last of his patience. He wasn't in the mood for pleasantries or explanations — he just wanted the relentless banging to stop. His sharp, determined strides carried him to the door directly above his apartment, and without hesitation, he raised a gloved hand and knocked firmly — three sharp, demanding raps that echoed down the dimly lit hallway.

It only took a few seconds before the sound of footsteps shuffled behind the door. The lock clicked, and the door swung open to reveal you, standing there, slightly out of breath, clearly in the middle of something.

Jason's eyes immediately met yours, locking onto your gaze. There was something about the way your eyes widened in slight surprise, shimmering with an openness that caught him off guard. For a fleeting moment, his usually guarded mind wondered who you were — how someone like you ended up living in a place like this. His gaze quickly shifted, taking in the rest of your appearance.

You were covered in paint — splatters of vibrant colors streaked across your hands, arms, and even a smudge across your cheek. The strong, sharp scent of fresh paint wafted from your apartment, filling the narrow hallway with its unmistakable chemical tang. It was clear you had been working on something creative, perhaps even in the middle of a project when he interrupted.

Despite your somewhat disheveled appearance, you held yourself with quiet confidence, though there was an undeniable flicker of apprehension in your eyes as you took in the tall, broad-shouldered man standing at your door. His intense expression, furrowed brows, and clenched jaw gave off an air of quiet menace — someone not to be messed with. You couldn't help but feel a slight twinge of intimidation under his piercing gaze.

But just as quickly as his eyes narrowed, something in his expression softened when he noticed the paint stains and the slightly sheepish look on your face. He exhaled slowly, reigning in his frustration. He didn't sense any immediate threat — just someone caught off guard.

Jason cleared his throat, shifting his weight slightly. "Were you the one making all that noise downstairs?" His tone was still firm but lacked the edge it carried earlier.

Realizing the reason for his visit, your eyes widened in sudden understanding. "Oh! Yes, that was me— I'm so sorry!" you exclaimed, sincerity shining through your voice. "I was moving some furniture around to make space, and... well, I kind of stubbed my toe pretty hard." You gave an embarrassed laugh, lifting your foot slightly as if to emphasize your clumsy misfortune.

Jason blinked, momentarily thrown off by your straightforward honesty. He hadn't expected such an earnest response. The corner of his mouth twitched, almost forming a faint, reluctant smirk before he caught himself. His shoulders relaxed just a bit.

"Try to keep it down next time," he muttered, though his tone was far less harsh now. "Some people are trying to sleep."

You nodded quickly, still flustered. "Absolutely. I really am sorry... uh, I'll be more careful."

Jason gave a small nod of acknowledgment before turning to head back downstairs, leaving you standing there, still processing the strange encounter. As he descended the stairs, he couldn't help but glance back briefly, something about you still lingering in his mind longer than he expected.

The soft hum of fluorescent lights buzzed overhead as you wandered through the slightly crowded aisles of Gotham's only halfway decent grocery store. The worn linoleum floor creaked faintly underfoot, and the faint scent of freshly baked bread wafted from the bakery section near the front. You pushed your slightly wobbly shopping cart down the produce aisle, scanning a list scribbled in messy handwriting on a crumpled piece of paper.

Reaching for a bundle of fresh cilantro, you felt someone else's hand brush against yours. Startled, you snapped your head up, your eyes locking onto familiar, intense blue ones — Jason.

His expression mirrored your surprise, his brow furrowing slightly before recognition softened his features. He was dressed casually — a worn leather jacket over a dark hoodie, jeans, and scuffed boots that looked like they'd seen their share of rough nights. His dark hair was slightly tousled, like he'd just rolled out of bed or finished something much more dangerous than grocery shopping.

"Hey," he said, his voice a low, familiar rasp that sent a small jolt through your chest.

"Jason?" you blinked, still processing that he of all people was standing there in the produce aisle, holding a bunch of cilantro like it might explode. "Wow... this is unexpected."

His lips twitched into the faintest hint of a smirk. "Didn't think I shopped for groceries, huh?"

You chuckled, trying to ignore how warm his presence felt in the cool, air-conditioned store. "Honestly? No. You seem more like the 'survive on takeout and black coffee' type."

Jason huffed out a short laugh. "I am that type. But the takeout place near my apartment burned down... so here I am." He shrugged, tossing the cilantro into a small basket slung over his arm. "Figured I should try something that doesn't come in a greasy paper bag."

You smiled, still slightly amazed that this was happening. Jason. Grocery shopping. In the produce section, no less.

"What about you?" he asked, nodding toward your cart. "Stocking up for the apocalypse?"

You glanced at your half-full cart, piled with random essentials — pasta, canned tomatoes, bread, and a few vegetables that were probably going to end up wilting in your fridge. "Something like that," you admitted sheepishly. "I'm trying to learn how to cook... emphasis on trying."

Jason raised an eyebrow, clearly amused. "Cooking, huh? Bold move." His smirk widened just a fraction. "Set off any smoke alarms yet?"

You rolled your eyes, unable to help the small laugh that bubbled up. "Only twice. But to be fair, I blame the stove... and maybe a little user error."

He chuckled, and for a moment, the conversation felt... easy. Comfortable. Like running into an old friend instead of someone as complicated and dangerous as Jason Todd.

A brief silence settled between you, but it wasn't awkward — just the quiet hum of the store and the occasional crackle of the overhead speaker announcing a sale in the bakery. You found yourself lingering, not quite ready to end the encounter.

Jason cleared his throat, shifting the basket in his hand. "Look... since you're apparently fighting for your life in the kitchen... if you need any tips, I'm... decent at cooking." His voice dropped a bit, almost shyly, as if admitting that was some deep secret. "Spent some time learning... helps clear my head."

Your eyes widened slightly in surprise, warmth blooming in your chest. "You? Cooking? Okay, now I have to see this."

His smirk returned, this time softer. "Maybe you will."

Before you could respond, someone with a loud cart rattled past, breaking the moment. Jason shifted his weight and glanced down the aisle. "I should... finish this," he said, lifting the basket slightly.

You nodded, still smiling. "Yeah. Me too."

As he turned to leave, he hesitated for just a second. "Hey," he added over his shoulder, his voice almost casual, but there was something more behind it. "Don't burn down your kitchen."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," you shot back, grinning.

He chuckled under his breath and walked away, disappearing around the corner. You stood there for a moment longer, still feeling the lingering warmth of his presence, cilantro forgotten in your hand.

Maybe grocery shopping wasn't so bad after all.

The familiar creak of the apartment building's old wooden floor echoed faintly through the narrow hallway as you fumbled with your keys, juggling a paper grocery bag filled with supplies for your upcoming housewarming party. You were balancing it awkwardly on your hip, your keys stubbornly refusing to fit into the lock.

Suddenly, you heard heavy boots approaching, the steady, confident stride unmistakable. Before you could turn around, a familiar low voice cut through the quiet hum of the building.

"Need a hand?"

You twisted your head, already smiling. Jason Todd stood just a few feet away, his hands stuffed casually into the pockets of his worn leather jacket. His dark hair was slightly damp, like he'd just come back from a run or... something far more dangerous, knowing him. His piercing blue eyes glinted with quiet amusement as he took in your struggling form.

"Oh, hey!" you greeted, feeling a spark of warmth at the sight of him. "Yeah, actually. This door hates me."

Jason wordlessly stepped forward, his broad frame making the narrow hallway feel smaller. With an effortless flick of his wrist, he turned the key you'd been wrestling with, unlocking the door like it was nothing.

"Show-off," you teased, opening the door with your foot.

He smirked. "It's all in the wrist."

As you stepped inside, you paused, glancing back over your shoulder. Jason lingered just outside your door, as if unsure whether to leave or stay. For some reason, you felt a sudden burst of boldness, fueled by the lingering memory of your last encounter at the grocery store.

"Hey, wait," you called, setting the grocery bag on the small table by the door. "So... I'm throwing a housewarming party this Friday. Just a small thing. Nothing fancy." You shrugged, trying to sound casual. "I figured... you know, since we're neighbors... maybe you'd want to come?"

Jason blinked, clearly caught off guard. His expression shifted from mild surprise to something softer, though he masked it quickly with his usual guarded demeanor.

"A party?" he repeated slowly, as if testing the word out in his mind.

"Yeah," you said quickly, suddenly feeling a bit self-conscious. "Just... food, drinks, maybe some music. Nothing wild. You could stop by if you want... no pressure."

He tilted his head, studying you in that intense, thoughtful way he always seemed to have, like he was trying to figure out if you were serious — or maybe why you'd bother inviting someone like him at all.

"You sure about that?" His voice was quiet, almost uncertain. "I'm... not exactly great at the whole 'social' thing."

You smiled warmly, stepping closer. "I'm sure. I wouldn't have invited you if I didn't mean it."

Jason's eyes softened, his usual guarded mask slipping just a little. He hesitated for a beat, then gave a small nod.

"Alright," he said, his voice rough but sincere. "I'll... think about it."

You grinned, feeling lighter than you had all week. "Cool. It starts around seven. Just... come by whenever."

Jason held your gaze for a moment longer, something unreadable flickering in his eyes. Then he gave you a faint, almost bashful half-smile — something you were pretty sure he didn't do often — before stepping back toward the hallway.

"See you around," he murmured before turning and walking away, his boots thudding softly against the worn floorboards.

As he disappeared around the corner, you closed the door behind you, still smiling. Maybe — just maybe — Friday night was about to get a lot more interesting.

The soft hum of music played from a small Bluetooth speaker in the corner of your living room, mixing with the sound of friendly chatter and the occasional burst of laughter. Your apartment was warmly lit, cozy but alive with energy as your housewarming party kicked into full swing. The smell of fresh-baked appetizers and various snacks wafted through the air, blending with the faint citrus scent of the candle you'd lit to cover up the ever-present paint smell that still clung to the walls from your earlier projects.

You'd spent the last hour moving from one conversation to the next, introducing yourself to neighbors you'd only seen in passing before. Mrs. Alvarez from down the hall had already handed you a homemade flan "as a welcome gift," and a couple from the third floor was currently explaining the best late-night takeout spots in Gotham while sipping drinks from your mismatched cups.

"...But don't go to Big Lou's after midnight," the woman warned, wagging her finger playfully. "Unless you want to wait two hours or get into a shouting match with someone."

"Noted," you laughed, taking another sip from your drink, feeling pleasantly warm from the lively atmosphere.

As you chatted, your eyes kept flicking toward the door, half-expecting — or maybe just hoping — to see Jason Todd show up. You'd invited him on a whim, and though he'd seemed genuinely intrigued, part of you wondered if he'd decide it wasn't his scene after all.

You were just about to turn back to the conversation when there was a firm knock at the door. Your heart jumped a little, and you quickly excused yourself, weaving through the small cluster of guests toward the entrance.

Taking a steadying breath, you opened the door — and there he was.

Jason Todd stood there, hands stuffed into the pockets of his dark leather jacket, his eyes scanning the lively room behind you before settling on your face. He was dressed casually — dark jeans, a fitted black henley that stretched across his broad chest, and his ever-present boots that were still faintly scuffed from... well, whatever he got up to during the nights.

"Hey," he greeted simply, his voice low and familiar.

You smiled, feeling warmth bloom in your chest. "Hey... you made it."

Jason shrugged lightly, but there was something almost shy in the way his gaze lingered on you. "Told you I'd think about it."

"Glad you did," you said, stepping aside to let him in. "Come on in."

He hesitated for half a second before stepping through the threshold, his sharp eyes immediately scanning the room, taking in every detail like he couldn't help but assess his surroundings. You noticed the way his posture remained slightly guarded — not tense exactly, but aware, like he was ready for something to go wrong at any moment.

"Drink?" you offered, motioning toward the makeshift bar area set up near the kitchen.

Jason's lips twitched into the faintest hint of a smirk. "Sure. What's the strongest thing you've got?"

"Whiskey... maybe rum, if you're feeling adventurous."

He nodded approvingly, following you toward the small bar setup. As you poured him a drink, he lingered close, his presence warm and steady, grounding you amid the lively noise of the party.

"So," he asked after taking a sip of his drink, "met any interesting neighbors yet?"

You chuckled, leaning back against the counter. "A few. Mrs. Alvarez might be my new favorite person — she brought homemade flan."

Jason raised an eyebrow. "Homemade flan? You're already doing better than me. All I got was a noise complaint the first week I moved in."

You laughed, imagining it vividly. "Yeah, I can definitely see that happening."

He smirked but didn't argue.

A comfortable silence settled between you as the party buzzed on around you. You found yourself watching him — the way he stood, grounded but still somehow restless, like he was unused to standing still for too long. Yet... he was here. With you.

"I'm glad you came," you said softly, meaning it.

Jason met your gaze, something warm flickering in his piercing blue eyes. "Yeah... me too."

For the first time all night, you felt like everything had fallen perfectly into place.

The weeks after your housewarming party passed in a blur of unexpected encounters, shared moments, and a growing connection with Jason that felt surprisingly natural — and effortless. What started as polite hallway conversations evolved into something deeper, something more meaningful.

It had been one of those long, restless nights where sleep felt impossible, and you found yourself wandering out of your apartment around midnight for some fresh air and maybe a cup of coffee from the 24-hour diner down the street.

Halfway down the dimly lit street, you spotted a familiar figure leaning against the brick wall outside the diner, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his leather jacket. His dark hair was tousled, and his expression was distant, his sharp gaze flicking toward the street like he was watching for something... or someone.

"Jason?" you called out cautiously, stepping closer.

His eyes snapped toward you, instantly alert — but when he recognized you, his shoulders visibly relaxed.

"What are you doing out here?" he asked, pushing off the wall, his voice rough but warm.

"Couldn't sleep," you admitted with a small shrug. "Thought I'd grab some coffee." You paused, studying him. "What about you?"

Jason hesitated, clearly considering how much to share. "Same," he said finally. "Couldn't sit still."

A comfortable silence settled between you as the quiet hum of the city buzzed around you. Without a second thought, you tilted your head toward the diner. "Wanna join me?"

He arched an eyebrow but didn't refuse. "Sure."

The two of you slid into a worn booth inside the small diner, the smell of old coffee and greasy bacon lingering in the air. Jason ordered black coffee—strong and bitter, just like you'd expected—while you went for something sweeter.

"You come here a lot?" you asked, stirring your drink.

Jason shrugged. "Sometimes. It's quiet... and no one asks questions."

You smiled knowingly. "I get that."

Before you realized it, the two of you were deep in conversation — talking about everything and nothing. He shared small pieces of himself, stories laced with dry humor and a hint of something darker beneath the surface. You listened, fascinated by the way he let his guard down just a little more each time he spoke.

A week later, after another late-night coffee run, Jason surprised you by showing up at your door with a bag of snacks and an old DVD of some gritty action movie you'd jokingly mentioned you'd never seen.

"Figured you should fix that," he said simply, holding up the worn DVD case.

You grinned, stepping aside to let him in. "You brought snacks? Who are you?"

"Don't get used to it," he deadpanned, though the faint smirk tugging at his lips betrayed his amusement.

You ended up sprawled on your worn couch, a bowl of popcorn between you as the movie flickered across the screen. Jason's sharp commentary made you laugh until your sides ached — and you realized how much you liked seeing him like this, relaxed and at ease.

Halfway through the movie, you found yourself leaning against his shoulder, his warmth steady and comforting. He didn't move away — just shifted slightly, letting you settle closer.

Somehow, hanging out with Jason started to feel like second nature — like he'd always been there. So when he mentioned going to the small gym a few blocks away, you'd half-jokingly challenged him to a sparring match.

"Are you sure about this?" he asked with an arched brow, wrapping his hands in worn boxing tape. "I don't hold back."

"Neither do I," you shot back, stubbornly determined.

The "match" quickly became less about winning and more about seeing how long you could keep up. Jason was fast — terrifyingly skilled and precise — but he never hit harder than you could handle. His smirk only widened each time you landed a decent hit, his voice laced with teasing approval.

By the end of it, you were sweaty, exhausted, and grinning like an idiot.

"Not bad," he admitted, tossing you a water bottle. "For a beginner."

"Please," you panted, rolling your eyes. "You were totally struggling out there."

Jason chuckled, shaking his head. "Keep telling yourself that."

Spending time with Jason became your new normal. He started showing up at your door with takeout on nights when neither of you felt like cooking. You dragged him to the farmer's market one Saturday, laughing at how completely out of place he looked among the cheerful vendors and fruit stands. He even let you rope him into helping repaint your living room after you'd complained about hating the previous color.

But more than that, you talked. Late nights stretched into early mornings, with conversations that were both lighthearted and deep. Jason opened up in small, careful doses — stories about growing up in Gotham, about loss, about survival. You never pushed, just listened — and he never judged you for sharing your own stories in return.

And somewhere along the way, you realized you weren't just friends — you trusted him, in a way you hadn't trusted anyone in a long time.

One night, as you stood together on the fire escape outside your apartment, watching the city lights flicker against the dark Gotham skyline, Jason glanced at you, something unreadable in his piercing blue eyes.

"You're... good company," he said quietly, almost like the words surprised him.

You smiled, brushing your fingers lightly against his. "So are you."

Jason didn't pull away. Instead, his hand shifted just enough to intertwine with yours, his grip steady and sure.

And in that quiet, fleeting moment, the world outside seemed just a little less harsh — because, for once, you weren't facing it alone.

One night, you were making your way home from a late shift. The chilly night air bit at your exposed skin, making you tug your jacket tighter around yourself. The streets were unusually quiet, the typical city noise reduced to the occasional distant wail of a siren or the faint hum of passing cars on the main road.

Unbeknownst to you, high above, perched on the edge of a grimy rooftop, Red Hood—watched your every step with sharp, calculated focus. His patrol had brought him through this part of Gotham, the crime-ridden backstreets he knew too well. When he saw you, walking alone, his breath hitched for just a second.

"What the hell are you doing out here...?" he muttered under his breath, adjusting his tactical grip on the rifle slung across his back. His protective instincts kicked in immediately, though he told himself it was just a coincidence that he happened to be patrolling your area.

Then, movement caught his eye.

Three men emerged from a dark alley ahead of you — rough-looking, clad in mismatched street gear, eyes gleaming with malice. A fourth trailed close behind, circling like a predator. Jason's jaw clenched beneath his crimson helmet as he shifted into position, ready to intervene before things got ugly.

"Hey there," one of the thugs sneered, stepping into your path. "Bit late for a stroll, don't you think?"

You stopped cold, instinctively assessing the situation. They were armed — knives, possibly a concealed gun on the one hanging back. Typical Gotham lowlifes looking for an easy target.

"Not interested," you said flatly, your voice steady and calm.

"Aww, don't be like that," the second thug chuckled darkly, moving closer. "Why don't you hand over that bag... and maybe we can talk about letting you walk away."

Jason's finger tightened on the trigger of his grapple gun. He was already calculating his drop angle, planning how fast he could take them all down before they laid a hand on you—

Then you moved.

With explosive speed, you surged forward, your bag forgotten on the ground. The nearest thug barely had time to blink before your fist connected with his jaw, sending him sprawling into a nearby trash can with a satisfying crash.

Jason froze, eyes widening beneath his helmet.

"What the—?"

The second thug lunged at you with a switchblade, but you sidestepped gracefully, grabbing his wrist and twisting hard. He yelped in pain as you delivered a brutal knee strike to his stomach, doubling him over.

The third thug cursed and charged, swinging wildly. You ducked, your movements fluid and precise, as if you'd done this a hundred times before. You kicked out, sweeping his legs from under him in a practiced maneuver. He hit the pavement hard with a groan.

Jason could barely believe what he was seeing. You moved like a trained fighter — better than most he'd seen in Gotham. Your strikes were sharp, deliberate, and efficient. No wasted energy. Every blow calculated for maximum impact.

But the fourth thug — the one with the concealed pistol — was already drawing his weapon, snarling angrily.

Jason didn't hesitate.

CRACK!

A warning shot from his dual pistols echoed through the alley, and the gun flew from the thug's hand as he yelped in fear, clutching his wrist. Before he could react, Jason dropped from the rooftop like a shadow of death, landing with a heavy thud that made the ground tremble.

The thug staggered back, eyes wide with terror.

"Oh sh—"

Jason's fist smashed into his face, sending him crumpling to the ground, unconscious.

The sudden silence rang louder than the gunshot.

Breathing hard, you slowly straightened, eyes still sharp, adrenaline coursing through your veins. Only then did you realize who had taken down the last guy. The familiar crimson mask gleamed faintly in the dim streetlight.

"...Red Hood?" you breathed, still catching your breath.

Jason took a deliberate step closer, towering over the fallen thugs. His gaze locked onto you, unreadable behind the visor.

"You," he said, his voice low and edged with curiosity. "Where the hell did that come from?"

You shrugged, still on guard but calming down. "Self-defense class," you quipped lightly, wiping your hands on your jacket. "Really intense classes."

Jason snorted softly. "Yeah. And I'm the Commissioner of Gotham." His voice was rough but laced with something almost... impressed.

You sighed, realizing there was no point in playing it off. "Let's just say... I've had some training," you admitted carefully. "Didn't exactly plan on using it tonight."

He stepped closer, folding his arms over his broad chest. "That was more than some training," he said slowly. "You moved like you've done this for years. You could've taken them all — if he hadn't pulled the gun."

Your lips twitched faintly. "I would've figured something out."

Jason shook his head, still processing what he'd just seen. "You shouldn't be out here alone," he muttered, glancing around. "This area's bad news."

You met his gaze evenly, undaunted. "I can handle myself."

He tilted his head, considering you. "Yeah... I can see that."

A tense silence settled between you, thick with unspoken questions. Jason's mind raced with possibilities—Who trained you? Why didn't you ever say anything? What else are you capable of?

Before he could voice any of them, you bent down and retrieved your bag, shooting him a small, teasing smile.

"Thanks for the assist," you said lightly. "Guess I owe you one."

Jason shook his head, that faint smirk returning beneath his helmet. "You held your own just fine."

As you started to walk away, he called after you.

"Hey," his voice softened slightly, "Next time... don't wait until they're that close."

You smiled over your shoulder. "Noted."

Jason watched you disappear into the dark street, still stunned — and, for the first time in a long while, genuinely intrigued.

Water dripped steadily from the distant stalactites, the only sound besides the hum of advanced tech running tirelessly throughout the cavern of the Bat Cave. Jason sat rigidly in the main command chair, his fingers tapping the edge of the desk as he replayed the same grainy surveillance footage for what felt like the hundredth time.

It was you, frozen mid-fight, delivering a flawless spinning back-kick to a knife-wielding thug in a dark Gotham alley. The camera caught the brutal efficiency of your movements — precise, controlled, and undeniably lethal. No wasted energy, no second-guessing. Jason watched again as you effortlessly disarmed another attacker, snapping his wrist before sweeping his legs out from under him with near-mechanical precision.

"Play it back again," Jason muttered, his tone sharp, though mostly at himself. His mind needed to make sense of what he'd seen that night.

"Still obsessing over that fight?" Tim Drake's voice broke through the cavern's quiet as he descended the spiral staircase in his casual gear, a cup of coffee in hand. "You've been staring at that footage for hours."

Jason didn't look up. "I know what I saw."

"Okay, what exactly are we looking at?" came another familiar voice — Dick Grayson, still half-suited in his Nightwing gear, sliding down the metal railing with practiced ease. "Because I'm pretty sure I heard you mumbling something about 'this doesn't make sense' when I walked in."

Jason finally tore his eyes from the screen and gestured toward the frozen footage. "Him. My neighbor. You've met him. He's just... some guy. An artist." He jabbed a finger at the screen. "Except apparently, he's not. Look at this."

Dick leaned in with a curious frown, eyes narrowing as he took in your movements, replaying the fight in slow motion. "...Okay. That's not 'just some guy.' That's serious combat training. Where'd you get this?"

Jason sighed, crossing his arms. "Street cam footage from last week. He was walking home, got jumped by four armed guys... and wiped the floor with all of them." His voice dipped with something like frustration — you hadn't even seemed rattled afterward.

Tim sipped his coffee thoughtfully. "Military? Ex-special forces maybe?"

Jason shook his head. "No. His moves are too... precise. Calculated. He wasn't just fighting to survive — he controlled that whole fight like he'd done it a thousand times." His voice dropped. "And the weird part? He doesn't even know how he did it."

Both Tim and Dick turned to Jason in confusion.

"What do you mean 'doesn't know'?" Dick asked, crossing his arms. "He was there, right?"

Jason ran a hand down his face. "We're... friends. He told me afterward he didn't even think — he just... reacted. Like his body took over. He was just as freaked out as I was."

Tim frowned. "Muscle memory maybe? Could be PTSD-related... something buried in his subconscious."

Jason leaned back, scowling. "Maybe... but you don't just accidentally know how to fight like that."

Before anyone could respond, a sharp voice cut through the cavern from the far shadows.

"He was trained by the League of Assassins."

The three of them turned as Damian Wayne emerged from the darkness, arms crossed, his green cape brushing lightly against the cavern floor. His expression was cool and unreadable — sharp, calculating.

Jason rolled his eyes. "Of course you'd say that."

Damian's gaze didn't waver. He stepped forward, eyes locked on the paused footage like he was evaluating a soldier on the field. "His movements are too deliberate. Too precise." His voice was cold and matter-of-fact. "He didn't hesitate. He struck with maximum efficiency. No wasted motion." His tone dropped lower. "That is League of Assassins combat."

Jason scoffed, waving him off. "He's not with the League, Damian."

"You don't know that," Damian shot back sharply. "Perhaps he doesn't know that." His green eyes gleamed with suspicion. "It wouldn't be the first time the League trained someone, erased their memory, and left them as a sleeper agent."

Dick held up a hand. "Let's not jump to 'assassin sleeper agent' just yet," he said evenly, though his expression was thoughtful. "But Damian's... not wrong. His fighting style looks like League training — fast, lethal, precise."

Tim folded his arms, studying the footage. "You said he didn't know how he did it... if that's true, something could've triggered a buried memory or... conditioning."

Jason clenched his jaw, hating how much sense that made. Conditioning. That word sat uneasily in his chest. It could explain how you'd reacted so perfectly without even realizing what you were doing...

But he didn't want to believe it.

"He's not like that," Jason said firmly. "He's... normal. He doesn't even like conflict, let alone fighting."

Damian's voice turned cold. "Normal people don't fight like that. They run. They panic. He didn't."

Jason's fists clenched. "And maybe he just... had to. Maybe someone made him this way without his knowledge."

The cavern went quiet, the only sound the faint hum of the Batcomputer still playing the footage on loop.

After a tense pause, Dick spoke, voice softer now. "Jason... what are you going to do?"

Jason's jaw worked for a moment before he finally said, "I'm going to find out the truth... before someone else does." His eyes burned with determination.

"...And if you don't like what you find?" Tim asked cautiously.

Jason's gaze flickered toward the frozen image of you mid-fight, locked in a perfect strike. For a second, he hesitated.

Then he grabbed his helmet and strode toward the Batcycle.

"Then I'll deal with it."

His words were rough, edged with something protective... and personal.

Behind him, Damian watched with narrowed eyes, suspicion still lingering like a dark cloud over his mind.

The soft glow of your TV cast warm, flickering light across your apartment's living room. The familiar hum of the film's soundtrack filled the quiet space as the opening credits of a classic action movie rolled across the screen. You sat comfortably on the worn couch, leaning back with a bowl of popcorn balanced precariously between you and Jason.

Jason had shown up earlier that night, casually knocking on your door with a bag of takeout and a familiar, easy smirk that somehow still felt a little guarded. It was something he'd started doing more often lately—showing up with food, an old DVD, or sometimes just himself. No excuses, no explanations—just there.

You hadn't questioned it. You liked having him around.

"Alright," you said, tossing a piece of popcorn into your mouth as the first action sequence began, "This better be as good as you hyped it up to be."

Jason chuckled, stretching his long legs out on the coffee table. "Trust me, this one's a classic. If you don't like it, I'll...I dunno, pay for your next takeout or something."

You grinned, pretending to consider. "Hmm... I could order something really expensive..."

Jason smirked, giving you a light shove with his shoulder. "Relax. You're gonna love it."

The movie played on, filled with intense action, sharp one-liners, and over-the-top explosions. The two of you traded commentary throughout, making jokes at ridiculous stunts or quietly appreciating the genuinely cool fight choreography.

But even as he watched the movie, Jason's mind was elsewhere — back in the Batcave, back to the footage of you moving with deadly precision during that alley fight. It had been gnawing at him since he saw it, refusing to let go. He hadn't been able to make sense of it... and something about you still didn't add up.

His eyes flicked toward you. You looked relaxed, entirely at ease — not like someone carrying the weight of a dangerous past. But Jason had been around enough people with secrets to know when someone was keeping something buried... even if they didn't realize it themselves.

Maybe... maybe he doesn't even know.

Jason cleared his throat, shifting slightly in his seat. "Hey," he said casually, keeping his tone light. "You never really talk about yourself much."

You glanced over, surprised but not defensive. "What do you mean?"

Jason shrugged, picking at the label of his water bottle. "I dunno... like, where you're from. What you used to do before you moved here."

You raised an eyebrow, curious. "Why the sudden interest?"

He chuckled, playing it off easily. "Can't I be curious about my friend?"

That seemed to ease your suspicion. You smiled faintly, leaning back against the couch. "Not much to tell, honestly. I moved around a lot growing up. Never really stayed in one place for long."

Jason tilted his head. "Military family?"

You hesitated for a split second — just long enough for him to notice. "Something like that," you admitted, your voice a touch quieter.

He nodded slowly. "Must've been... tough."

You shrugged, eyes distant for a moment. "You get used to it."

Jason studied your face carefully. There was something about the way you spoke—like you were choosing your words carefully, even if you didn't realize it. You weren't lying, but you weren't telling the whole truth, either.

"So, what got you into art?" he pressed, shifting the topic just enough to keep things casual.

Your expression softened, clearly more comfortable with that question. "It was... an escape, I guess." You smiled faintly. "I've always liked creating things. Something about making something yours... it just feels... right."

Jason nodded, understanding more than he let on. He could relate to that feeling — creating something his, away from the chaos of Gotham, away from his past.

But still, the question burned at the back of his mind.

Who taught you how to fight like that?

He wanted to ask directly... but he couldn't. Not without raising suspicion.

Instead, he leaned back, stretching his arms behind his head like he didn't have a care in the world. "Ever... learn anything else growing up?" he asked, keeping his voice light. "Like... I dunno, martial arts or something? You seem like someone who'd be good at self-defense."

Your brow furrowed slightly, thoughtful. "Not really... I mean, I took a few classes here and there. My dad was... strict about that kind of stuff. Said I needed to know how to protect myself." You chuckled softly. "Guess some of it stuck."

Jason nodded slowly, processing every word.

He could hear the truth in what you were saying—but also what you weren't saying. The way you'd said "strict" hinted at something deeper. And the way you'd fought in that alley... that wasn't something you picked up from a few self-defense classes. That was instinct. Trained instinct.

But maybe... maybe you didn't even know how deep that training went. Maybe there were things about your past that even you didn't understand yet.

Jason shook the thought away when you nudged him playfully with your elbow.

"Why all the questions?" you teased lightly. "You writing a biography on me or something?"

He smirked, shrugging. "Just curious... you're an interesting guy."

You laughed. "You're calling me interesting? You're the one who shows up randomly with takeout and action movies like you've got nothing better to do."

Jason chuckled, shaking his head. "Maybe I don't."

The conversation drifted back into something more comfortable, more familiar, as the movie rolled on. But even as the night stretched on, Jason couldn't shake the feeling that there was more to your story — more than even you realized.

And he was going to figure it out... one way or another.

Suddenly, Jason's phone buzzed in his pajamas pocket, breaking the moment. His brow furrowed as he pulled it out, seeing Dickhead flashing across the screen. Dick didn't call for casual reasons—this was serious.

"Hold on," Jason muttered, rising from the couch and walking toward the kitchen. He pressed the phone to his ear. "Yeah?"

"Jason, listen to me." Dick's voice was sharp and breathless. "You need to get him out of there. Right now."

Jason's stomach twisted, his grip tightening on the phone. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Damian," Dick hissed. "He... he called in the League of Assassins. He's trying to prove your friend is connected to them. He thinks he's hiding something—"

Jason's blood ran cold. "What? How the hell did he—?"

"You know how," Dick cut him off, voice strained. "He still has influence over some of them. Jason... they're already in Gotham. They might already be there."

Jason snapped his head toward the living room where you were still sitting, oblivious to the conversation. His mind raced. He couldn't believe Damian would go this far—calling in the League was a line you didn't cross, especially not for a personal vendetta.

"Jason," Dick urged, voice low and urgent. "Get him out. Now."

Jason shoved the phone into his pocket and stormed back toward you, his face set in a hard, determined expression.

"We need to leave. Right now," he commanded, already pulling on his jacket.

You blinked, confused by the sudden shift in his demeanor. "What's going on?"

"No time to explain," Jason growled, grabbing his gear from where it rested near the door. "You're in danger. We have to go."

Before you could react, the distant sound of something sharp slicing through glass reached your ears. Jason's eyes flicked toward the window—his instincts screaming.

Too late.

The window near the fire escape shattered inward, sending jagged shards flying across the room. Two dark-clad assassins from the League of Assassins dropped soundlessly into the apartment like deadly shadows, their swords gleaming faintly in the low light.

Jason drew his twin pistols in a heartbeat, stepping protectively in front of you. His expression hardened into something lethal, sharp as a blade.

"Stay behind me," he ordered, voice rough and deadly.

The assassins moved without a word, circling like predators. Jason fired a warning shot, forcing them to scatter and take cover.

But before he could engage fully, something... changed.

You gently placed a hand on Jason's shoulder, stepping forward into the light.

"...What are you doing?!" Jason hissed, his eyes wide.

Your expression shifted — calm, focused, and entirely different from the confusion you'd shown earlier. You let out a slow, measured breath, your eyes cold and calculating as they locked onto the nearest assassin.

"Stand back," you said, your voice low and controlled. No panic. No hesitation.

Jason's mind reeled as you lunged forward, moving with the deadly precision he'd seen only in League-trained operatives. In one fluid motion, you disarmed the first assassin, twisting their sword arm with a vicious snap and slamming your elbow into their jaw with enough force to send them sprawling.

Jason could only watch in stunned silence as you seamlessly pivoted to dodge the second assassin's blade, catching their wrist mid-swing. With brutal efficiency, you wrenched the weapon free and delivered a devastating roundhouse kick that sent them crashing into the coffee table.

The sound of the apartment door being kicked open shattered the brief silence as two more assassins stormed inside, their faces hidden behind black hoods.

Jason snapped out of his daze, firing precise shots that forced one assassin to dive for cover. But his mind was still racing. What the hell was going on?!

Meanwhile, you advanced on the last remaining assassin with a cold, calculated intensity Jason had never seen in you before. You moved like someone who'd spent years mastering the art of combat — each step measured, each strike devastating.

The final assassin rushed you with a pair of twin blades, but you sidestepped their slash effortlessly, twisting behind them and locking their arm in a brutal hold. With a sharp twist and a sickening snap, they crumpled to the floor.

The room fell silent.

You stood there, breathing hard but steady, the light of the shattered TV casting strange shadows across your face. Your eyes burned with something... lethal.

Jason lowered his guns, still frozen in place, his mind spinning. His voice came out rough, disbelieving.

"What the hell... was that?"

You slowly turned to face him, your expression unreadable now. The facade you'd worn around him for weeks — the quiet, artistic, easy-going mask — had completely shattered.

"I was trying to avoid this," you muttered darkly, brushing glass off your sleeve.

Jason's eyes narrowed, his grip tightening on his guns again. "Avoid what?!"

Before you could answer, more faint footsteps echoed from the stairwell outside.

"They'll send more," you said grimly, already moving toward the scattered weapons left behind by the fallen assassins. "We have to go."

Jason stepped in front of you, his guns still raised, his voice harsh and demanding.

"Start talking. Now. Who the hell are you?*"

You stared at him for a long, tense moment, weighing your options. The flicker of recognition in your eyes told him everything: You knew. You'd always known.

"I'm not your enemy," you said slowly, your voice cold but steady. "But if we don't leave now... we both die."

Jason's eyes burned with a thousand unanswered questions — but the sound of reinforcements drawing closer snapped him back into survival mode.

This wasn't over.

But for now... he needed you alive.

[tieflingkisser]

N.J. woman was holding a water bottle, not a knife, when cops killed her, family says

The family of a Fort Lee woman killed by police during a mental health crisis last month says the 25-year-old was holding a plastic water bottle, not a knife, when cops broke through her apartment door and shot her. As Victoria Lee was bleeding on the floor, receiving chest compressions, her mother stood nearby asking “why the police would shoot someone holding a water bottle instead of a knife,” according to a statement released Thursday by the Lee family. The state Attorney General’s office, which is investigating the incident, previously said police were called to the high-rise apartment building by family members who said Lee was having a mental health crisis and holding a knife. The Attorney General’s office statement about the incident released last month said a knife was found nearby after Lee was shot. But, the statement did not say if police saw her holding the knife when they entered the apartment. The family alleged by the time police forced their way into the apartment, Lee had dropped the pocketknife and picked up a large 5-gallon Poland Spring water bottle.

[...]

The 911 caller was Chris, Lee’s brother, who made the call because their mother was concerned about Lee’s condition, according to the family.

[...]

Lee’s family said they called 911 that day because she was holding the pocketknife and exhibiting other unusual behavior, including rolling on the bed, briefly shouting, and lightly tapping her head against the wall. Lee was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2017 and faced other challenges, her family said. She withdrew from college in 2021. Since then, she managed her mental health condition through work, travel and music, her family said. Chris, Lee’s brother, called 911 twice on July 28, according to the family’s statement. At 1:15 a.m., Chris made the first call to 911, “specifically requesting an ambulance to take Victoria to Valley Hospital, where she had received treatment at its sister facility, Ramapo Mental Hospital, in the past,” the family said. He was informed police would also accompany the ambulance because that is standard procedure for mental health calls.

[...]

After hearing both an ambulance and police were coming, Lee became agitated and picked up a pocketknife, refusing to go to the hospital, according to the Lee family. Lee was not holding the knife as a weapon, the family argues. She “was not, and had never been, a violent individual, even during previous episodes,” according to the family.

[...]

To try and de-escalate the situation, Chris met police outside the door of the apartment, while Lee and her mother remained inside the unit. An officer asked Chris for a key to the apartment, which he didn’t have, the family said. The officer then pushed Chris aside and started to kick the door, the family alleged. Inside the apartment, Lee’s mother “noticed with relief” that her daughter had dropped the pocketknife, the family’s statement said. Unnerved by the banging on the door, Lee picked up a 5-gallon Poland Spring plastic water bottle and clutched it. Moments later, the door burst open, “and almost immediately, a gunshot was fired,” the Lee family’s statement said.

[seraphinitegames]

Hey, Mishka!!!

I've been replaying TWC over the last couple of months, and must say, it's been an entirely rejuvenating experience for me. Like, I was reading it the first time, although I've replayed the series quite too many (worrying number) of times already. And it still manages to amaze me, EVERY SINGLE TIME.

I've repeated this in the past, and I'll repeat it again. The Wayhaven Chronicles is a blessing for me and I'm sincerely thankful to have come across it when I did. And I'm grateful to you for making this lovely world a reality (and of course, the four beautiful vamps)! Really eager for Book 4 and have already player the demo; can say it's gonna be worth the wait. It every time is.

Replaying the series in the last few months, I had a certain uncontrollable urge to drop and ask a few questions to you. Apologize in advance for the long ask and message, but it had been bottling up inside of me for SOOOOOO LONG.

1. In Book 1, when we're to lead the investigation in one of the three directions, is there any way to get success in any direction without Bobby making a big joke out of our investigation in the newspaper?

2. In Book 2, when Nicole and Max Salinas come to report their incident, can Tina actually find out anything unusual? If so, what is actually needed to explain that?

3. In Book 3, I noticed if we choose to go the final mission alone, depending on the route chosen, Boddy/Doug will end up tagging along as well, jeopardizing everything. Is there still a way to complete the mission successfully and rescuing everyone like it happens when we go along with Rebecca?

4. Less of a question, but more of a plea. Please tell me we can get a pet anytime in the series. I was just curious if we can get one.

5. How powerful is the big baddie in Book 4 compared to Unit Bravo? You don't need to answer if this verges on spoiler-y territory.

Really sorry to overwhelm you with this, but it's just months and months of joy, happiness, and sheer ecstasy making me blabber on about this world like this. Thanks once again, for making this truly beautiful story, world, and the vampires a reality.

Have a good day!!!! Lots of love from India!!

You can never play a game you love too many times (I keep telling myself that as I gradually burn a hole into my poor old console playing Dragon Age over and over, lol!)! If it brings you happiness, then that's what is important! :D

Ok, let's see about the questions...it's been a whole since I've gone through the older games without being in editing mode, hehe!

I don't think so...Bobby is, well, Bobby. And that scene was there very much to establish their character and show the player what type of person they are.

I don't think so, again. If there's anything unusual or odd, then I usually like to let the MC find that instead of it happening 'off-screen' so it's more impactful for the player—unless it's Verda discovering stuff, because that needs to happen for…reasons.

Iirc, in the Bobby/Doug routes, you get the auction scene, so a lot of that branch involves focusing on saving yourself! But the other team that joins Unit Bravo will help in saving a lot of the captives in that version.

I would love that being a massive animal companion fan myself, hehe! But likely not, just because the MC is away a lot from home, and that's unfair on the pet, even a fictional one, lol. I was tempted to give the MC a supernatural pet that hung around at the facility—that was definitely a strong idea at one point just so I could write a pet in the series for those that wanted it (me, I was the one who wanted it, hehe!) :D

**BOOK FOUR DEMO SPOILERS AHEAD** It's not just that Book Four's villain is terrifyingly powerful (or will be. They are, thankfully for the MC and UB, in a weakened state for a while due to what's happened to them and what happened in Chapter Two) but it's a lot to do with the fact that their power specifically counteracts and weakens Unit Bravo's. So that's a double whammy!

Thank you SO incredibly much for the amazing message! It means more than you can know <3

[probablyasocialecologist]

An independent United Nations investigation concluded Wednesday that Israel had committed crimes against humanity during the war in Gaza, including the crime of "extermination". "The crimes against humanity of extermination; murder; gender persecution targeting Palestinian men and boys; forcible transfer; and torture and inhuman and cruel treatment were committed," the Commission of Inquiry (COI) said in a report, due to be presented to the UN Human Rights Council next week. The findings were from two parallel reports, one focusing on the 7 October Hamas-led attack and another on Israel's war on Gaza, published by the COI, which has an unusually broad mandate to collect evidence and identify perpetrators of international crimes committed in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. The reports, which cover the conflict through to end-December, found that both Israel and Palestinian armed group committed war crimes including torture; murder or wilful killing; outrages upon personal dignity; and inhuman or cruel treatment. Israel also committed additional war crimes including starvation as a method of warfare, it said, saying Israel not only failed to provide essential supplies like food, water, shelter and medicine to Palestinians but "acted to prevent the supply of those necessities by anyone else". Some of the war crimes such as murder also constituted crimes against humanity by Israel, the COI statement said, using a term reserved for the most serious international crimes knowingly committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against civilians. "The immense numbers of civilian casualties in Gaza and widespread destruction of civilian objects and infrastructure were the inevitable result of a strategy undertaken with intent to cause maximum damage, disregarding the principles of distinction, proportionality and adequate precautions," the COI statement said. Israel does not cooperate with the commission, which it says has an anti-Israel bias. The COI says Israel obstructs its work and prevented investigators from accessing both Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.

12 June 2024

[lucid-loves]

First Light ~ Simon "Ghost" Riley Part 2

Pairing: bodyguard!Ghost x princess!reader (fem!reader)

Word Count: 4.4k

CW: angst, violence, blood, strong language, scars, verbal abuse by parents, physical abuse by parents, psychological abuse by parents, opposites attract, forbidden love, slow burn, fluff, attraction and sexual tension, reader POV and ghost POV, minors DNI, eventual smut, virgin reader

Let me know if I missed any CWs.

Story Synopsis: After receiving death threats from a mysterious terrorist organization, your royal parents make a decision to reach out to the United States for help. Specifically, they want the US to send a bodyguard to protect their precious princess. When the 141 is called upon to investigate, Ghost is the one assigned to protect you. With your lack of experiences outside of your royal life and his experience with nothing but deadly, worldly affairs, opposites attract.

Chapter Synopsis: You and Ghost have grown more comfortable with each other as both of you got used to a new routine. However, a sudden party announcement along with a marriage proposal from a new bachelor drives the both of you to become even closer.

Part 1 ~ Part 2 ~ Part 3 ~ Part 4 ~ Part 5 ~ Part 6 ~ Part 7 ~ Part 8

It’s been a couple weeks since Ghost was introduced to you as your new bodyguard. The first few days were rough as Ghost spent most of his time understanding the palace layout and your daily schedules. Once he got more familiar with the entire place, though, he was much more relaxed. He got used to following close behind you all while understanding where to go if things went south. He took his job of protecting you very seriously, especially after getting to know you little by little.

You settled into the new addition to your routine nicely. While it was awkward trying to figure out what to talk about around bedtime, you always ended up finding something to open up about. Ghost always listened carefully.

At the end of the day, you both still managed to keep your distance. Besides the occasional stolen glances, the both of you were good about maintaining some professionalism. Even during tea time when he would accept your offer to sit with you. You normally didn’t speak about anything too specific since you didn’t want to get in trouble, so most of that time was enjoyed in complete silence. Ghost never minded. He understood that you had to be selective with your words. Sometimes, he admired how seriously you took your responsibilities as well.

It was a rainy day when you were given a revised schedule to follow for the next few days, one that had you raise your brows as soon as you saw how even more unusually packed it was. Your independent study time was scrapped. You didn’t have to attend piano lessons anymore either. Instead, they were replaced with etiquette-type classes. Table setting, conversation practice, ballroom dancing. Everything pointed to the preparation of a party.

As you looked over your schedule, the room was silent save for the patter of rain against the glass. Thunder lightly rumbled in the distance. Your mother sat across from you, giving you time to drink it all in. Ghost stood behind you near the shadows, watching everything unfold.

When you were done comprehending your schedule, you looked up at your mother inquisitively. “What is the occasion?”

“There is a gentleman that we have been communicating with who has recently entered the country for a trip abroad. He is an exceptional bachelor with the money and status to support a proper lifestyle. He sent an invitation for tea with us, but we figured that an important man like him needed a more memorable experience in Stuoca.” Your mother cheerfully explained, clearly excited for this party. She sipped her tea, proud of herself for orchestrating such an event to happen.

You picked up your favorite teacup and gripped it firmly. The warmth of the tea passing the porcelain and into your palms provided you comfort as your head swirled. Your mother wasn’t explicit in her intentions of this party and it bothered you. Reading into her words, you knew what she intended for you, though.

“You are marrying me off.” You revealed, your eyes widening at your little slip. You meant to choose better words, but perhaps you were growing too bitter to think straight. Ghost, who was listening intently, was now fully at attention like he was called by his captain. 

At first, he listened for information. An outside party needed to be investigated in order to keep you safe. He didn’t pick up on what your mother was implying in the midst of it. When you exposed this truth, that’s when he grew rigid. 

“Come now, you shouldn’t say it like that. We are securing your future. If you want to maintain the life that you have, then it would be good to marry. Besides, you are not getting any younger.” The queen jabbed with a bright smile. Her implicit insult stung. 

Your mother was always like this. She was even more subtle in front of your father, so this was actually rather explicit of her. You had to bite your tongue to avoid letting your bitterness seep out once more. “My apologies. I am just surprised that this is happening so quickly.”

Her gaze sharpened as she graded your sincerity. It wasn’t like you had lied, but you avoided telling the full truth on how you felt. Your mother scoffed as you failed to exchange more grateful words with her. “This is for the best. You should be appreciative of this effort. Most women your age have to search for their security all by themselves. They rarely find the perfect one on the first try too. You're lucky that you won’t have to go through the pain of that.”

You bit your cheek hard to avoid an outburst, a metallic taste on your tastebuds. You didn’t say anything as your mother got up and left the room, allowing you to finish your teatime all by yourself. This was her idea of a punishment. If you couldn’t be grateful for her time, then she would give you only a little of her time. Little did she know that you preferred it when she gave you none of her time at all.

As soon as the door was completely closed and her heels clicked further down the hall, you buried your face in your hands. You didn’t know if you wanted to cry or break the throw the expensive teapot out of the window. The stinging in your chest grew to a malicious weight, making you feel like you were drowning. You already had so little control of your life. Now you were expected to give up your life to a man you didn’t know. 

“Princess?” A deep yet soft voice called out. You looked up only to find Ghost sitting on the couch across from you. Lightning flashed from the window followed by a bellowing rumble. Your breath caught in your throat as he looked at you with a patient gaze. He wanted to say something, but he didn’t know what to say. 

Actually, he knew exactly what he wanted to say. He wanted to go up to your mother and rip her a new one. It wasn’t like you were withering away from old age like your mother seemed to think. You were young, intelligent, skilled. For someone that dedicated your schedule on a regular basis, she sure didn’t know a thing about you. From what Ghost had seen from you in the past two weeks, you were very much capable of handling yourself or learning quickly how to.

Ghost could say a million things. The problem was that none of those words may be the right words you needed. Your world was different from his and he was still trying to figure it out. Saying what he wanted to say from his perspective may not have been appropriate or helpful to you.

Finally, you spoke up. Your tone was quiet and grave. “My apologies that you had to overhear that conversation. I shouldn’t be surprised that my parents are ready for me to marry. I just never expected that I would be the one having to do the impressing.”

You were right. Why should you be the one having to dance for this stranger? It should be him that should be trying to impress you. Ghost poured himself some tea, thinking about how backwards this all seemed. “You don’t know anything about this man, right? Your parents have never mentioned him before today?”

“No. They don’t usually say anything to me until events are just around the corner. I don’t have much of a social life outside of the palace walls either, so there wouldn’t be any way for me to really know this bachelor’s true character.” You began thinking more clearly, Ghost’s questions actually helping you approach this much more tactfully. It was like he was helping you come up with a plan. 

“You don’t want to marry this guy or just in general?” He asked, his curiosity getting the better of him. It was a rather personal question, one that would have to be kept secret between the both of you. 

You paused, thinking about his question very carefully. Once again, he was trying to get to know how you really felt about things. Ghost seemed to be the only one in the palace that genuinely wanted to know what you thought. After a sip of warm, slightly sweet tea, you gave him your truth. 

A truth that a princess would give too. “I want to marry who I choose and I would choose out of love. I refuse to marry someone that I do not love. This potential bachelor. . . who is to say that I would not fall in love with him the moment I lay my eyes on him? Though, I do doubt this. I am unsure if I could trust his potential personality if the only people who could vouch for him are my parents. Their values in a partner may not reflect my own.”

Ghost has been getting better at deciphering your cryptic princess language. From what he understood, you didn’t reject the idea of marriage. You just wanted it to be out of your own choice of love. A reasonable answer. A bit romantic too. Like a true princess, you believed that love at first sight was possible. Ghost didn’t think he could agree with that. Though, your hint at valuing certain characteristics in a potential spouse piqued his interest in a way he couldn’t explain. “What do you value?”

For a moment, you looked out the window, another flash of lightning illuminating the rainy gray outside. As the light hit your features for a brief moment, Ghost felt his heart skip a beat. Now, you were giving a daydreaming, sweet smile. “I value courage, ambition, and openly high morals. Someone that isn’t afraid of pursuing their passions, satiating their curiosities appropriately, and standing up for what is right. Someone that I could grow alongside with their complete support. Someone that would not only see me as a lover, but as my own person too.”

He couldn’t help but feel his face grow a little warm as you described your ideal man. Though he couldn’t say he checked off all of those boxes, a part of him did feel like you were describing someone like him, even if you didn’t know it. At the very least, you obviously wanted someone that could put their money where their mouth was. Someone with bark and bite.

Not that he would actively pursue you. He lightly shook his head while you weren’t looking, ridding his thoughts of the idea of him being the perfect man for you. “It sounds like you know what you want.”

Those words gave you courage for some reason. Confidence. It surprised you to be filled with such confidence from that simple sentence alone. You looked towards Ghost, your breath hitching slightly as he stared at you with those blue eyes of his. “Yes, I do know what I want.”

“I’ll help you however I can, then. I’m going to run background checks on this guy. Checks on everyone that received an invite as well. I’ll make sure that you are only present at the party for strictly one hour. I still have my job to protect you, after all.” He promised you. If you couldn’t speak up against your parents due to decorum, then hopefully this would give you what you need to fight back instead.

“Thank you, Lieutenant Ghost. I truly do appreciate it.” You gratefully beamed. Who knew that when you were given a bodyguard that you would be given a friend as well.

~

The next few days were busy. While Ghost followed you around to your now tighter classes, he was also doing background checks on every single person that your parents sent an invite out to. Which was a lot. Jesus, when he saw the list of people he wanted to smack them both. It was incredibly dangerous for them to have so many people at the palace at once considering the threats against them and their daughter. It became clear that your parents were more concerned about protecting their public image or parading you around like a doll than about your true safety. 

You felt that classes were a little easier to handle with Ghost being so focused on his laptop. Normally, he would be watching you carry on with your classes. Now that he was preoccupied with his own work, you felt less like you were giving a performance and like you were genuinely learning. Though, you did wish that he would look at you once you were finished with a successful new dance. For some reason, you craved some of his attention now that you had less of it.

Nights were different as well. While you had grown accustomed to talking yourself to sleep with Ghost listening to your every word, he had to focus on getting all the background checks complete. He also took it upon himself to tighten up some security detail. He was extremely busy making sure that you were safe, so it was hard to be upset with him. Yet, you still felt a bit lonely.

One night, you just couldn’t sleep. You laid awake for hours, trying to drift off to dreamland to no avail. Part of it was nerves over the upcoming party. Part of it was fear of being assassinated or kidnapped. Part of it was bundles of creative energy that needed to be released. You usually got it out of your system during independent study or piano, but now that it was gone for now, your fingers were itching to do something you wanted to do.

Quietly, you sat up in bed, listening carefully outside the door. You knew that Ghost usually spent his time guarding you out there. You wondered if he was still there or borrowing an office somewhere to complete his work. Either way, you wanted to be a little sneaky with or without him.

You opened the bedroom door a smidge, looking along the hallways to see if Ghost or anyone was up and around. Moonlight shined through the large windows, illuminating the halls brightly in a white light. You stepped out, now seeing Ghost situated at a small oak desk that was placed out in the hall for him right outside the door. His attention was already on you, having noticed the small opening of the door. “Couldn’t sleep?”

“I have too much energy.” You explained briefly, fearful that he may tell you to go back into your room. Thankfully, he seemed to understand.

“You usually sneak out in the middle of the night?” He teased, catching you off guard. You didn’t realize that Ghost could have such a playful tone.

“Sometimes, yes.” You answered honestly. Ghost was a little surprised by your answer. You were more defiant than you usually looked. Sneaking banned books, sneaking out of your bedroom at night. Not that you were doing anything bad. You just did what you could to explore your true interests. 

Ghost closed his laptop and picked it up, ready to follow you to wherever you wished to go. “Where to then?”

Swiftly, you led him to a far part of the palace, a room that was far from your parent’s wing. Without alerting any palace staff, the both of you snuck into the room. In the middle of the room was a pure white grand piano. There were some shelves lined with books about music along with piano sheet music. There was a couch with a table as well, which would allow Ghost to continue working while you tired yourself out. 

As you situated yourself in front of the piano, the lieutenant got himself all set up on the couch. For some reason, you were calm. Comfortable. You thought that you would be nervous with Ghost being your audience once more, but that wasn’t the case. In fact, you have never felt more secure than you did then. Even as you had the chance to play the music that you weren’t normally allowed to play.

You started up with warm-ups. Simple scales, listening to the tune of the piano. Feeling the weight of the pedals under your feet along with the weight of the keys under your fingertips. Ghost has grown familiar with that scale. He didn’t have any particular musical talent, yet he still appreciated it. The classics and simple songs you played were good.

As Ghost worked to the sound of your playing, the both of you fell into a comfortable groove. With your playing, Ghost felt more efficient in his work. You felt more confident in your abilities. Along with this, you began to branch out a little more, practicing classical songs that you were familiar with.

However, you played them. Truly. Not how your instructors guided you to play or how the sheet music dictated. No. You felt the emotions in each note. Each sound was played naturally as if it was second nature to you. Full of passion like the songs were intended to be played. Classical music that Ghost had admittedly grew bored of listening to just about every day, no matter how well you played, was now completely enthralled. Even songs he’s heard before meeting you seemed to breathe new life as you played with your heart rather than your head. 

Before Ghost knew it, all of his attention was on watching and listening to you play. He saw how you closed your eyes, your fingers naturally finding each key without the use of sheet music. How you swayed as your hands moved. How you beautifully smiled to yourself as you heard the wonderful sounds your hands made. 

It only got better when you began to play songs that weren’t of the classical variety. Songs that would have you banned from playing the piano in the palace. Hell, banned from music in general. There were some modern songs that Ghost recognized, now given your own flair. He didn’t even know how you knew some of those songs, but that didn’t matter. 

You had talent. Real talent. A clear love for music and the piano.

An hour passed by of him neglecting his work just to watch you play. When you finished a final song, you were breathing heavily as if you had just worked out. Your heart was beating hard in your chest. Once you managed to catch your breath, Ghost spoke up, unable to remain just the silent audience. “Why don’t you play like that during classes? You only play the basics with your tutor.”

You nearly had forgotten that Ghost had been there. You weren’t even aware that he had been listening to you play the entire time. A blush spread across your cheeks as you grew bashful all of a sudden. “It is believed that I am slow at learning the piano. I don’t correct this assumption since I don’t want to be pressured to play even more songs that I don’t find much joy in. At least, not the way they want me to play. I. . . I also don’t want to give my parents another party trick that they can exploit.”

His fists clenched at the mention of your parents. With each passing day, he’s come to resent your parents more and more. How they treat you, control your life, and regard you like a pet rather than a daughter was making his blood simmer more each day. It was getting harder for him to hold his true opinions back. “You deserve more. You deserve to play whatever you want whenever you want.”

Your eyes grew wide at his open criticism. This was the first time he spoke his mind like this. Ghost was careful in his words just as you were up until this point. It was actually rather refreshing to hear him not hold back for once. “Thank you. I hope that I can someday get to that point.”

It felt like a wall between the both of you had crumbled down. As the moonlight fell upon your soft features, your optimism for the future bright in your eyes, Ghost felt himself choke up. This was you at your rebelliousness. You were a princess that snuck around in the night to enjoy forbidden knowledge. And he wanted to be part of that.

For a moment, he understood how people could fall in love at first sight.

You began to toy around with the piano again, this time playing a little more quietly and simpler so that Ghost could get back to work. While it was hard to focus on what he needed to do because he wanted to take in more of the beauty he was in the presence of, he managed to finish what he wanted to do for the night. 

He finished his background check on this bachelor that your mother wanted you to marry. Ghost read everything that he could find on the guy. Net worth, news coverage, social media, and even criminal history. Kate was a massive help in finding more confidential information too. Everything was compiled into a report that he wrote himself. When it was done, he got up from the couch and sat down beside you on the piano bench. 

“Would you like to hear the report?” He simply offered, not wanting to break your light playing.

With a nod, you prepared yourself for what Ghost found. He took a deep breath before reading. “Royal background. A duke. Only a couple of years older than you are. Owns a lot of land and has a lot of wealth-”

“I don’t care about any of that.” You interrupted, your tone suddenly a bit colder. As Ghost looked at you with slight shock, you turned your head away. He didn’t expect you to speak up like that. The fact that you did meant that you were getting more comfortable with him though. You were taking this seriously as well.

“What would you like to hear then, Princess?” He offered, giving you more control that you deserved. 

When he spoke back to you so softly, you met his eyes once more. The piano bench was decently big, but Ghost was a big man. You could feel his body heat radiating off of him. As you looked up, you felt butterflies erupt in your stomach. The way he looked at you like you deserved the world made you feel lighter than air. When you gazed into his eyes, you felt like you could see his genuinity. 

You trusted him. You trusted that he was an excellent judge of character as well. Much more than your own parents. “Based on the values that you know I am looking for, is he a good fit for me?”

Ghost bit his tongue hard, stopping his immediate response from escaping. He wanted to say no. Based on everything he read, this guy seemed stuck-up. Seedy. He had quite a few exes under his belt, not even counting just one-off flings. He didn’t have a criminal record or seemed to be dealing with anything particularly shady, but he did take advantage of his wealthy and royal status to experience certain things in life, regardless of how others may feel.

Then again, Ghost felt like his brain was foggy. Like he couldn’t really make a fair judgment because he wanted to reject him immediately. He had a bias against him. Where it came from exactly, he wasn’t sure. All he knew was that he didn’t trust him to be the one for you. He didn’t want you anywhere near him either.

For now, he decided to be earnest yet nice. “I don’t think he would be a good match based on his track records, but who’s to say that he isn’t better in person. You’ll have an hour to judge him at the very least.”

Your heart fell as you heard his answer. It wasn’t that you were disappointed over this stranger probably not being the best for you. No. You were disappointed that Ghost wasn’t more blunt with what he thought. You appreciated how he was trying to preserve your feelings, but you didn’t want that right now. You wished that he could protest some more, any excuse not to meet this stranger and play into the hands of your parents. 

As he saw the flash of anguish on your face, Ghost felt his heart break. He could tell that you were really hesitant about this man. You didn’t even want to meet him if you had the choice. Without thinking, he took up your hands and squeezed. His hand was so much bigger than yours. Rougher, sturdier. Hands that have done things that you would never be able to fully comprehend. And now, they were holding yours. 

“One hour. That’s all. However, if you tell me that you hate him, even within the first second of seeing him, I’ll make sure that he won’t even get to touch you.” His tone was resolute, unwavering. 

As he put the control back in your hands, you squeezed his hands right back. Your heart swelled again as if on a rollercoaster. The moonlight cutting across the skull mask you have gotten used to only to brighten his deep, blue eyes made you melt. “Thank you, Lieutenant.” 

-

Taglist: @angel-anna @ghostlythots @maiyatheprettiestprincess

[cosmerelists]

The Favorite Food Show of Each Order of the Knights Radiant

I do love a good food-based show, like the ones on Food Network or the Bon Appetit youtube channel before it imploded. So naturally I wondered which show the various orders of the Knights Radiant would like best. The result...is this.

[Previously we've seen the Knights Radiant play boardgames, go to musicals, have sleepovers, have fandom jobs, and be birds]

1. Stonewards: Cutthroat Kitchen

Cutthroat Kitchen is a show where contestants can bid money to give each other silly disadvantages (involving a LOT of spreaders, for some reason). You get to keep the money you don't spend at the end, if you win.

Honestly, I think the Stonewards would be good at being on this show, not just watching it: they'd naturally just accept every disadvantage thrown at them without ever harming another player, prove to be really good at putting up with any and all "torture," and then win in the end.

It's the Stoneward way.

2. Edgedancers: Diners, Drive-ins and Dives

This is a show about discovering greasy spoon restaurants and giving them attention for their great food. I am not only saying this because of Lift either! I think there's a sense of bringing attention to restaurants that might, uh, otherwise be forgotten or something. Look, it makes sense in my head.

3. Truthwatchers: Reverse Engineering with Chris Morocco

This was (is?) a Youtube channel with Chris Morocco on Bon Appetit. He's blindfolded and present with a dish, which he can smell, taste, touch, but not see. He then has to try to reverse engineer the dish based on his initial investigation. I think the Truthwatchers would dig a show like that, about investigation, trying to figure out the truth...

4. Bondsmiths: Chopped

On Chopped, contestants are given a basket of four ingredients that are...unusual or hard to put together, and then they have to make a coherent meal out of it. Doesn't that sound like something a Bondmight would like? You gotta unite the four ingredients into one coherent whole.

5. Elsecallers: Good Eats

This is a show hosted by Alton Brown, and it's basically a quiet informational show about food, its history, ingredients, which kitchen gadgets you really need, etc. It tries to take a scientific angle toward everything as well. I just think it would suit the intellectual Elsecallers more so than some of the wilder Food Network shows.

6. Skybreakers: Iron Chef

I haven't watched much Iron Chef, but it is a one-on-one battle between a contestant and one of the current Iron Chefs, who are a board of, like, really good chefs. And they have a signature ingredient and each have to make a dish which then gets judged by a panel of judges. Somehow this formal cooking battle feels like something that would appeal to the Skybreakers.

7. Dustbringers: Kitchen Nightmares

Now, this one I've never watched, but I know it's a show where Gordon Ramsay goes and yells at restaurant owners who are really bad at maintaining their restaurants. I get the sense that it's the fun kind of chaotic disaster, especially if you like to see people who are bad at things get called out on it. For all of these reasons, this feels like a show a Dustbringer might enjoy.

8. Willshapers: The Great Food Truck Race

Per the webpage I found about this show, it's all about "adventure" and "new challenges." It's a show about new food truck owners who travel to new towns every week and then try to sell their food and complete various challenges. That sense of freedom and adventure seems like something the Willshapers would be really into.

9. Lightweavers: Cake Wars

I think the Lightweavers would enjoy any of the many shows about elaborate decoration and presentation, so I picked Cake Wars since I think that's what it's about. They'd probably also like those "Is It Cake?" shows as well, to be honest...

10. Windrunners: The Great British Bake-Off

I have no real justification for this. I just want to imagine Kaladin and the rest of Bridge 4 bundled up in blankets, snacking on sweet treats (for the women) or whatever they can scrounge up that is vaguely similar to a sweet treat for the men (fruit?), watching a purely wholesome show where the worst thing that ever happens is somebody messes up their bake (we don't talk about the Baked Alaska incident).

I just think it'd be good for them.

[morbidology]

Skinwalker Ranch, a remote property in northeastern Utah, has become one of the most infamous and mysterious sites of alleged paranormal activity in the United States. Spanning approximately 512 acres, the ranch has been the focus of countless stories involving UFO sightings, strange creatures, poltergeist-like phenomena, and unexplained cattle mutilations. For decades, it has attracted the attention of scientists, researchers, and enthusiasts of the unexplained, earning its place as a central figure in the lore of the paranormal.

The ranch's name is derived from the Navajo legend of the skinwalker, a malevolent witch capable of transforming into, possessing, or disguising themselves as an animal. According to Navajo folklore, skinwalkers are dangerous beings that use their shape-shifting abilities to cause harm and spread fear. The Ute tribe, who reside in the region, have long spoken of the land where the ranch is located as being cursed and avoid it whenever possible. The Utes believe that the Navajo sent skinwalkers to curse the Utes after a conflict between the two tribes, and that these entities continue to inhabit the area to this day.

The ranch first gained widespread attention in the 1990s when Terry and Gwen Sherman purchased the property in 1994. The Shermans quickly began experiencing strange and terrifying events. They reported seeing large, wolf-like creatures that were unaffected by bullets, mysterious lights in the sky, and crop circles appearing overnight. Perhaps most disturbingly, they encountered instances of cattle mutilations, with several of their livestock found dead and mutilated in ways that defied explanation—often with precise, surgical cuts and no blood at the scene.

The Shermans also described poltergeist-like activities within their home, such as objects moving on their own, strange voices, and even the sudden appearance of unfamiliar and disorienting odors. Despite their initial skepticism, the sheer volume and intensity of these experiences led the family to believe that something supernatural was at play. After only 18 months, the Shermans sold the ranch.

In 1996, Robert Bigelow, a billionaire businessman with a keen interest in the paranormal, purchased Skinwalker Ranch. Bigelow founded the National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS), a research organization dedicated to investigating paranormal phenomena. Bigelow's team of scientists, including physicists, biologists, and other experts, spent years studying the ranch in an attempt to uncover the truth behind the strange occurrences.

Despite employing sophisticated equipment and extensive surveillance, the NIDS team was often frustrated in their efforts to capture definitive evidence. The phenomena were elusive, frequently occurring just out of view or in ways that defied scientific analysis. Nevertheless, the team documented numerous instances of high strangeness, including bizarre animal sightings, unusual electromagnetic readings, and unexplained lights and aerial phenomena. The ranch seemed to be a hotspot for what many called a "paranormal stew," with a wide range of inexplicable events occurring simultaneously.

Over the years, numerous theories have been proposed to explain the mysteries of Skinwalker Ranch. Some suggest that the area is a portal or vortex to another dimension, where entities and phenomena from other realities bleed into our own. Others believe that the ranch may be a site of advanced extraterrestrial activity, with UFOs and alien beings using the area for unknown purposes. There are also those who think that the ranch's strangeness could be the result of secret government experiments or technologies being tested in the remote location.

Skeptics, however, argue that the stories of Skinwalker Ranch are exaggerated or fabricated, fueled by a mix of folklore, psychological phenomena, and the power of suggestion. They point to the lack of concrete evidence and the often anecdotal nature of the reports as reasons to question the legitimacy of the claims.

[genevievefangirl]

Gen's Top 100 DBDA Fics - PART 10

For all caveats/rules/backstory, please read the Master Post

Thoroughfare By: expertonhaircuts worm_pirate_ on twitter Rating: T Tags: AU - Zombie Apocalypse, AU - Last of Us, Slow Burn, Hurt Edwin Payne, Protective Charles Rowland, Unfinished Summary: “I’m Charles,” He says, determined to keep eye contact with the boy’s wide, green eyes, “Are you okay?” The boy doesn’t say anything. He just looks down and rolls up the right sleeve of his shirt, and Charles’ mouth goes dry. Logically, he knew it was there, he knew, he saw the Infected bite into the boy when Charles was under him. But somehow, as they ran, he’d convinced himself he’d saved them both. “Promise me, Charles,” The name comes as an afterthought, the boy’s voice shaking, “Promise me you’ll kill me when I turn.” // OR: A zombie apocalypse AU inspired by The Last of Us in which Edwin is immune, Charles has sworn to protect him, and together they’ve been running from their pasts whilst trying to do some good along the way. My Notes: This is the only truly 'unfinished' fic on this list in that it hasn't been updated for months at this point, but I promise you it is worth reading in it's current state. I love zombie AUs and this one is one of the best I have ever read. The first meeting between the boys is iconic and the instant connection they form is *chef's kiss*. I promise you will love it.

Touched by you By: Lemurafraidofthunder @lemurafraidofthunder Rating: T Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Caretaking, Feelings Realization, First Kiss, Fluff, Protective Charles Rowland, Protective Edwin Payne Summary: After a run in with an iron-happy witch, our favourite ghost detectives take care of each other and perhaps have some realisations. Featuring gentle touches, a slightly panicking Edwin and Charles who’s always gonna be ready with a soft smile for Edwin. My Notes: The boys taking care of each other after getting injured will always be one of my fav genres.

Wait, I'm Coming Too By: flowerbritts @flowerbritts Rating: T Tags: Feelings Realization, Misunderstandings, Protective Charles Rowland, Hurt/Comfort, Case Fic, FIrst Kiss Summary: Edwin was changing. Charles couldn't help but see this as strange as 'Edwin' and 'change' were usually never in the same sentence. But Charles noticed. Charles would always notice. or Charles has to use his investigative skills to solve The Case of The Different Demeanor. My Notes: Edwin's different. Charles is struggling with that. The boys talking about their feelings after the season is over is such an underrated genre of fic and this is one of the best of those.

what is Hell to a broken heart? By: imnotcryingipromise Rating: G Tags: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Whump, Self-Sacrifice, First Kiss, Soul Bond, Protective Charles Rowland Summary: "You'd trade your soul?" the demon asks, evidently mystified but intrigued. "For his?" Charles breathes out a humourless laugh. "His is worth more than ten of mine," he submits. "But I doubt you value souls of quality. You demons want anger, yeah? And pain? You feed off it... Well I'm full of it." *** Hell returns to reclaim Edwin. Desperate to protect his friend, Charles offers up his soul instead. My Notes: Charles trying to save Edwin from going back to Hell by sacrificing himself? SIGN ME UP!

what some circumstance stole By: Chrome @catalists Rating: T Tags: Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Torture, Kidnapping, Hurt Edwin Payne, Protective Charles Rowland Summary: For a magic-user intent on siphoning pain for power, both Hob Gadling and Edwin Payne represent unique opportunities. United in dire circumstances, a man incapable of dying and a boy long dead forge an unusual friendship--and try to survive the experience. --- “When you died,” Hob said. “How old were you?” “Sixteen.” “That,” Hob said, “Is awful.” Edwin shrugged. “Life is, I’m afraid,” he said. “Can be wonderful, too,” Hob said. “I promise.” My Notes: I have never seen Sandman, but this story hit me hard. It has everything! Hurt Edwin with Charles being protective and an interesting case too! And Hob is a great POV character that I grew from not knowing at all to LOVING by the end.

what was there to complain of, but that he had been loved? By: imnotcryingipromise Rating: T Tags: Fix-it, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Love Triangles, Angst with a Happy Ending, Protective Charles Rowland, PTSD Summary: "Edwin!" Charles' anxious plea brings him back to the present. They are just inches from one another, the younger boy’s hands pressed to either side of his inconsolable companion's face. "Stay with me, yeah?" Charles whispers. *** Following Niko’s death, Edwin begins having panic attacks. Charles is torn between his desperate desire to console his oldest friend and his duty to the girl he cares for. My Notes: Charles insisting on giving Edwin comfort when Edwin insists he doesn't need any is such a good trope. And I love Charles running after Edwin when he runs away.

Who Would You Kill For? By: Asoftdaniel ourbluehours on twitter Rating: T Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Troture, Protective Charles Rowland, Violent Thoughts, Cuddling & Snuggling, Hurt Edwin Payne, Angst Summary: Edwins' screams mulled Charles' soul into pieces. He was unable to reach him, the iron collar a burning reminder carving his skin with the guilt. No matter how much he struggled against the choker, no matter how many threats were shouted, he couldn't stop Edwin’s tortured wails. He would make that witch pay. He would make everything alright. or the events from the last episode written slightly different– more violent and sentimental– and the aftermath while comforting away some deep scars. My Notes: Charles going ferral on Esther after she tortures Edwin is catnip to me.

Who? You mean your teammate in the Codependency World Cup? - Series By: RoseGanymede95 @oxbellows Rating: G-M Tags: Case Fic, Whump, Hurt/Comfort, Protective Edwin Payne, Protective Charles Rowland, Angst Summary: The pre-canon adventures of Edwin and Charles. In which they love each other a whole lot and neither one has any idea how to be normal about it. My Notes: Yes I did put all of Codependency together because otherwise it would have taken 5 slots lol This is highly rated for a reason, if you haven't read it yet, what are you doing??? Go read it! The characterization of Edwin and Charles is spot on and the writing itself is delightful. Everytime it updates the entire DBDA Haunt server screams about it. If that doesn't tell you all you need to know then nothing will!

Will it shine forever? By: Asoftdaniel ourbluehours on twitter Rating: G Tags: AU - Canon Divergence, AU - Soulmates, Angst, Protective Charles Rowland, Soul Bond Summary: “He is gone,” Charles choked out, wet and desperate, “I can’t feel him Crystal, he is gone.” It rang true, sucking all the oxygen in the space around them until it was painfully obvious that, even if soulmates could be separated by Death, Hell would have to try a lot harder. Even if the soul mark was gone and Charles grieved the loss of half his soul, he would wreak havoc until there was nothing left of him. Or: the soulmate au where when Edwin gets taken to Hell the soul mark and ‘soul bond’ disappears, leaving Charles uncertain if Edwin is still even ‘alive’ yet he goes down to Hell anyways. My Notes: Soulmate AUs are some of my favorites and I love this one partially because Charles not being able to feel Edwin anymore when he is dragged to Hell hit me right in the gut.

Your flickering light By: tragedy_machine @tragedy-machine Rating: T Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Protective Charles Rowland, Feelings Realization, PTSD Summary: Charles sees it happen in real time. He sees how Edwin goes from distressed to so deeply panicked it’s evident that his mind goes to a completely different place. He also sees the moment Edwin flickers and simply sinks through the floor. Edwin phasing through one floor to get to the one below wouldn’t be anything to write home about, except for the fact that they already are on the utmost ground floor. There was nothing underneath the house but a few meters of concrete, followed by rock and dirt. OR: Edwin gets triggered during an attack which causes him to disappear and a panicked Charles has to figure out how to find him before it's too late My Notes: The idea of Edwin falling through the floor due to panic has stuck in my brain from the first time I read this fic months ago. I love the moment when Charles finds him half buried in the ground. It is just so good.

And that's the full 100!

But we aren't done yet! Tune in tomorrow for:

Part 11- Bonus WIPs day!

[justdreamsandmusic]

[gardens-light]

The Thunder Within The Storm

While sitting at your desk, your body slowly began to curl in on itself. As the silence within the medbay grew more eerie, your gaze studying your surroundings, as if the walls of the hangar had stretched back. Creating a cold, hollow space that swallowed sound, turning it into a empty void without Ratchet bringing it to life. Hours stretched into eternity, the words upon your notebook blurring into one another. As Optimus' words to Bumblebee over the comlink about 'checking in' with an old human ally, begun to repeat within your thoughts. And with the other Autobot's investigating the suspicious growing Decepticon activity, you couldn't help but allow fear to creep into your heart and give it a suffocating squeeze. For something just didn't feel quite right...

Content: Mild Coarse Language. Events takes place during 'Transformers- Revenge of the Fallen.' Major Movie Spoilers. Mentions of death/grief. Fluff/Comfort. Autobot Ratchet x F/Human Reader. Reader Insert.

Seris: The Intern- Part 1 Part 2 Part 4

Word Count: 3,900K

"Major! Incoming SOS from Autobots!"

"Multiple Decepticon contacts in motion. Vicinity, eastern United States, sir!-"

"As in how many?" Lennox questioned, studying the Autobot's location upon the multiple computer screens within the main hangar.

"Unclear, sir-"

"Then get clear!-"

"They're on the move." Lieutenant Smith pointed to one of the screens. "Splitting into two teams, sir. One heading towards New York, the other to Philadelphia. None of our calls are being returned."

"Alright, full weapon's deployment. Wheels up in twenty minutes!-"

"I can get my tactical gear ready in five!" you called out. Rushing to Lennox's side, as the N.E.S.T team rushed into their assigned vehicles and positions.

But the major shook his head firmly, concern etching into his features as his brown eyes glanced at the screens. "Sorry Valkyrie... not this time."

"What?" disbelief lined within your unusual firm tone, as you grabbed the sleeve of Lennox's military jacket. Pulling him closer towards you and preventing him from running towards the standby aircraft, "you can't be serious!"

A heavy sigh escaped his lips while turning his attention onto you. His firm yet caring tone, matching his guilty expression. "I am serious. With how dire things look with the Autobots, it... it would be too dangerous for you to be there. I won't take the risk of you getting hurt-"

"Do not speak of me as though I'm an inexperienced cadet!" a firm frown came to your lips, as a scoff escaped you. "I've been on the frontlines! I know what you're up against! It was bad enough of having Ratchet push me onto the sidelines. But now you?!"

"Ah, Valkyrie..." Lennox sighed, running his free hand down his face. "You know that's not what I meant... the frontlines are different this time, what the Autobots and my team are up against isn't something you've ever seen before-"

"Oh please! Have you forgotten that I've already shot a Decepticon? With nothing but a double-barrel shotgun, may I add!"

Lennox placed a hand upon your shoulder, "I haven't forgotten that accomplishment. But the Decepticon you shot back then, was nothing but a scout. Running into this... you'd be running into the big guys themselves-"

"I'm not made of glass, nor easily frightened!" you firmly spoke, slapping his hand away. "I refuse to be grounded on this base!-"

"If this was any other situation, you know I'd have you by my side within a heartbeat." Lennox pulled his arm away from your grip upon his jacket. His voice changing to his authicating tone, while a firm expression etched across his features. "But... I'm putting my foot down on this one. You're staying put, whether you like it or not."

While grinding your teeth, hands curled into fists, nails digging into your palms. "Are you... seriously giving me a direct order?!"

"Damn right I am!" Lennox shouted over his shoulder. His soft expression betraying his authoritative tone, as a thorn of guilt pricked within his chest. Clearing his throat, feeling your glare narrow onto his back while approaching the nearby aircraft. "I'm not having you get caught up in the crossfire..."

"This is bullshit!"

Roughly An Hour Later

The sound of confused murmur and whispered guesses caught your attention. Taking a pause from your sketch of Ratchet, eyes flickering away from your notepad, as your attention studied the military personale crowding over the flickering computer screens.

What... the hell...?

The same chaos spread across the main hangar, all computer screens glitched and fazed out, while TV screens rapidly switch through the channels on their own.

"Citizens of the human hive." A cold emotionless voice filled the air, as the image of an unknown Transformer appeared upon all screens. "Your leaders have withheld the truth. You're not alone in this universe. We've lived among you, hidden. But no more."

Covering your mouth with your hand, as a silent gasp slipped from your lips. Fear flashed across your features, heart sinking within your chest as a video footage of a navy ship sinking off the coast, flickered upon the computer screen near you.

"As you've seen, we can destroy your cities at will." Your stomach took a sickening twist, as the Transformer's words held a hidden glee within his tone. "Unless you turn over this boy."

Footage of CCTV and photographs of a zoomed in driver's licence consumed every screen. Plastering a name and face that your brothers in arms seemed to recognize very well.

Sam Witwicky.

The chilling face of the Transformer returned, his crimson optics burning into your very soul. A devilish grin uncomfortably stretching across his features, as metallic blue crystals framing his elongated face clicked in independent movement. "If you resist us, we will destroy the world as you know it-"

"Find me who the fuck hacked our system and broadcasted that message!" Lieutenant Smith yelled from the tall platform.

"Origin unknown, sir! But it's showing up on every frequency globally!" one soldier shouted from the right side of the catwalk.

Frantic panic erupted throughout the main hangar. Voice's shouting over one another, ringing of phones and 'bleeps' of intercoms contributed to the madness. All the while, you remained seated at a desk, remaining frozen as your scared features blankly stared at the computer screen. Hand finally slipping away from your slightly parted lips, falling gently against your notepad.

"Our superiors have assumed Condition Delta, sir!" a voice shouted from the radio-coms station upon the left. "The President has been flown to a bunker, somewhere within the middle of the United States!-"

"Report just in! The aircraft carrier USS Roosevelt has gone down off the East Coast... a-all lives... lost... sir."

"Worldwide casualties are in the neighborhood of seven-thousand... a-and expected to climb..."

Eerie silence gradually fell over the hangar, as realization of how grave things have become, begun to hit home to each soldier. Lieutenant Smith's heart nervously picked up its pace, feeling his comrades look up at him. Their gazes not only filled with fear, but also hope. As if the lieutenant held the answers.

As the roar of an aircraft engine cut through the tension, and snapping you out of your daze. Immedictly abandoning your station and carelessly throwing your notepad onto the desk, as the sight of the plane landed upon the tarmac just outside of the main hangar.

"Lennox!" your tone trembled with worry as you flung yourself into him. Almost knocking the major over, "are you alright? I saw the broadcast! What the fuck happened out there?!"

"The Decepticons... ambushed our boys." He lowly spoke, dropping his tactical equipment. Placing an arm around your shoulders, "as well as an all out global assault. We're... still trying to figure out why but... that's not the worst of it. I-It got messy out there... real messy."

Following Lennox's gaze, your eyes widened as a helicopter suspended Optimus' body above the tarmac. A dull ache plucked at your heartstrings, as the Autobot's lifeless body was respectfully lowered to the ground.

"Prime... was protecting an old ally of ours." The subtle crack within the major's voice betrayed his stern expression, "Megatron... murdered him in cold blood."

His gaze briefly met your wide eyed stare. Your pained expression caused his heart to sink lower within his chest, "th-this... is why I didn't want you to come."

The faminular sound of two car engines pulled you from Lennox's embrace. Slowly approaching the two vehicles, watching Ironhide and Sideswipe roll out of their altmodes. Kneeling towards you with their heads hung low, as an expression of grief and shock framed their features.

"W-We're alright, Doll." Sideswipe spoke with a shaky tone, as you tried to hug him and Ironhide. "A... couple of dents but nothing that can't be buffed out." The light within his optics were gone, as was any ounce of his usual playful demeanor.

As you took a step back, Sideswipe gently nudged your shoulder with the knuckle of his index digit. "And before you panic... Skids and Mudflap are fine. They're with Bumblebee, helping him protect our ally Sam."

Despite not quite understanding how or why this... Sam Witwicky was involved with the Autobots, you simply gave Sideswipe a nod. Now isn't the time to ask...

Not far in the distance, Ratchet's massive frame still hummed from exertion. His servos groaned quietly, and his systems were already running diagnostics upon himself. Sorrow flickered within his opics and a dull ache pulsed within his spark, as Optimus' form came into view. I-I... have failed you... old friend...

"Ratchet!" you breathlessly exclaimed, running towards him practically skidding to a halt as he knelt towards you. Wrapping your arms around his neck the best you could, causing the Autobot to stiffen as you quickly planted two kisses upon his cheek. Feeling his spark pulse against you, as your lips left a soft warmth against his cool steel. "You're ok."

Ratchet's spark skipped a beat, a subtle warmth radiated beneath his faceplates as you gently rested your forehead against his. The quiet intimacy of the gesture almost taking him off guard, and although it was barely a small touch by his standards. He knew to you, it was everything.

Just for a moment, the world seemed to slow down. The chaos of everything briefly fading, the tension in his joints loosened, and the quiet calm of your closeness settled over him. Ratchet didn't move nor breathe a word- don't think the medic was even sure he knew how to respond. But... there was something... peaceful in the way you held onto him, as if your very presence soothed the weariness in his circuits.

"You... don't need to worry about me, Valkyrie. I'm... functional." Ratchet assured, his low tone gentle than usual but you could hear a prang of grief hiding within his words. His knuckles carefully ran up and down your spine, while leaning his forehelm a little more against your forehead. "Steady your breathing. I'm right here..." Right in front of you...

"What's the meaning of this?" Sideswipe quickly raised to his full height. His optics narrowing onto the beige, military Hummers which surrounded him and his Autobot comrades.

"You dare point a gun at me?" Ironhide snarled, his voice roaring over the NEST personnel that immediately tried to settle the building feud between the new arrivals and the Autobots. "You want a piece of me?! I will tear you apart!"

As his comrades stood protectively over Optimus, their weapons drawn and aimed at the new arrivals. You couldn't help but gaze up at Ratchet, giving him a soft look of surprise as the medic protectively placed an arm around you. Ratchet's chassis lightly presses against your back, while he knelt against the tarmac. His free servo retracting and bringing out his saw, preparing the defend both of you.

"Easy, big guy." Reaching up and placing an assuring touch against Ratchet's faceplate. Your heart couldn't help but flutter slightly, as his engine purred in your ear.

"Drop your weapons!" Lennox ordered, his voice adding to the shouting-match that erupted between his N.E.S.T comrades and the new arrivals. Slamming his fists against a Hummer's hood. "Tell them to lower their fucking weapons!-"

"Major, there's nothing I can do... talk to him-"

"Your N.E.S.T team is deactivated, Major." Director Galloway spoke as he exited a Hummer. His stern gaze meeting Lennox's eye roll, "you are to cease anti-Decepticon operations. You all are to be deported to Area 51 and await for further orders-"

"No! We take our orders directly from Chairman Morshower, sir." Lennox challenged, stepping into Galloway's personal space and eyeing him down.

"Well... I'll see your Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But in the meantime..." Galloway reached into the inside pocket of his blazer. Shoving a crumpled piece of paper into Lennox's hands and adjusting his glasses. "I give you a President of the United States official Director of Command! I have operational command now... An alien blood feud has been brought to our shores, for which our soldiers are paying the price! Their secret is out! This is our war now! And we will win it as we always have, with a coordinated military strategy!-"

"This fool is terribly misinformed." Ironhide lowly growled, not caring that Galloway clearly heard him.

"You're gonna need every asset that you've got-"

"What we need is to draw up battle plans." Galloway rudely interrupted Lennox. His professional expression not shifting under the major's firm gaze. "While we explore every possible diplomatic solution-"

"Like what? Handing over the kid?"

You saw a heavy breath escape Lennox. Your anger equally matching the major's, as Galloway's silence spoke volumes.

"All options are being considered." Galloway straightened his blazer, proudly nodding to himself. "Now... you and your boys prepare for departure, and someone remove that thing from the tarmac!-"

"Have you no respect? Or is it pure arrogance that drives you?" you snapped. Stepping away from Ratchet's protective embrace, and storming towards the government director. "Show some compassion!-"

"As this no longer involves you, Private. You are here ordered to return to your original post, back at your previous unit." Galloway casually spoke, waving a dismissal hand as he turned back towards the beige Hummer. "The pathetic joke of this 'intern program' with N.E.S.T has concluded-"

"Beryllium bologna!" many curious gazes and raised eyebrows fell upon you, as you barked the unknown words. While a proud smile tugged Ratchet's lips, knowing full well what the Cybertronian insult meant. "Give them time to grieve and process their loss!-"

"Whoa. Hold up. Hold up." Lennox whispered, stepping in-between you and the director. Preventing you from grabbing a fistful of Galloway's blazer, "don't let bastards like him get the better of you-"

"Save the sentiment speech." Galloway coldly spoke, adjusting his glasses once more. "You're nothing more, but a mare human to the Autobots, Private Y/N. They hold no regard for you-"

"Valkyrie." Ratchet corrected, the uncharacteristic growl within his words giving them a sharp edge. "Her name is, Private Valkyrie. And you have no place to determine her worth!-"

"Whatever the Decepticons are after, this is just the start." Lennox warned, attempting to defuse the tension that grew thick within the air. "There is no negotiating with them-"

"I'm ordering you to stand down!" Galloway snapped, stepping towards Lennox whom still stood between the pair of you. The director's authoritative gaze meeting your narrowed glare. "You all have... twenty-four hours to prepare your assets for departure. And those piles of scrap with you!"

"I really don't like that dude." Lieutenant Smith sighed, crossing his arms and approaching Lennox's side. All three of you watching Director Galloway and his men load back into the beige Hummers and head towards the main hangar. "He's an asshole."

"We should just leave this planet." Ironhide growled.

"That's not what Optimus would want." Sideswipe spoke in a gentle tone, placing a servo upon his comrade's shoulder and encouraging Ironhide to lower his weapon with his free servo. "And... I don't think that's what our medic wants..."

Both Autobots turned to their medic, seeing the brief moment of heartbreak flicker within his optics. Sensing Ratchet's spark slow to yearning pulse as he watched you storm away from the situation.

---

Most of the afternoon dragged at a painful pace. Concerned voices and panicked tones shouted over one another in the main hangar, updates of events from comlinks and radios, adding to the chaos almost every hour. Grief, pain, anger and sorrow whirled within Lennox, his comrades and their Autobot friends, like the wave of an unforgiving whirlpool that continuously reminded them of the current struggles. While Director Galloway barked orders from the high scaffolding platform within the main hangar, looking down upon the military personnel through the circular leans of his glasses.

Forcing open the medbay hangar doors with ease, Ratchet's aching spark twisted in it's chamber, as his soft gaze scanned the area. The space that the medic once happily shared with you, became almost unrecognizable.

Still silence deafened his senses. His monitors and equipment appeared to lose their lively hum, leaving their colour as a dull hue of gray under the dim lighting. A slight shiver vibrated through Ratchet's frame, while his optics scanned the concrete flooring.

Cold...? I've never felt cold. This place has never been cold. So... why...?

Worry and concern flickered within his optics, as his gaze settled upon you. Sitting in the middle of the medbay, knee deep in files and documents which almost swallowed your exhausted frame. He could practically feel the stress radiating off you. A stern and focused expression was upon your features, taking away any hint of your beautiful smile which Ratchet adored.

"Enough." His voice held a gentle warmth, but his words were softer than usual. Brushing the mess aside, kneeling down, making sure not to startle you. "You've done enough."

"Time isn't exactly on our side right now." Your flat, expressionless tone caused his spark to pulse with a dull ache.

"I know that... but drowning yourself in these archives, digging through hundreds of old files. Won't help your chance of finding anything-"

"Why? Because I'm simply a 'mere human' to you?" your words held an uncharacteristic sharpness.

A painful volt of electricity zapped through the medic's internal circuits. The Autobot didn't know what hurt more, how you spoke to him with this new cold attitude without looking at him. Or that somehow a part of you believed Galloway's words, causing you to throw them in his face.

D-Darling... "you know I don't think that. I've never thought that." Ratchet's servo twitched, iching to reach out to you and pull you into his embrace. "You're not just a 'mere human' to me... you never have been. You're... so much more than that."

A warm sensation tugged upon Ratchet's spark, as you took a moment to pause. His gaze softening with worry and concern, seeing your shoulders slouch, your hands slightly trembling. Despite his desire to hold and soothe you, Ratchet refrained from following his spark. Remaining logical and quiet, giving you a couple of moments to breathe, allowing you to attempt to ease your frustration and exhaustion.

"Th-There... has to be another way..." you sighed, a subtle hint of gentleness crept back into your tone, as you continued to blanky gaze at a folder in front of you. "Another solution."

Another solution for what? To bring Prime back? Or... to keep you with me...?

"Valkyrie... I know you're tired and overwhelmed. And I appreciate your determination to find a way through this, but... exhaughting yourself wont do any good-"

"It can't just end this way! I won't allow it!" Ratchet flinched at your sudden outburst, his optics widening as you carelessly through a folder across the medbay. Causing papers to rain down on the pair of you, as you looked up at him through watery eyes. "W-We haven't spent all this time together! Learnt and shared so much, just for it all to meanlessly be taken away! I-I haven't grown to...!"

Ratchet's breath slightly hitched as he waited for you to finish the sentence. His spark skipping a beat in anticipation. But after a few moments of your silence, a shaky sigh escaped him. Composing himself, as he tried to ignore the yearning which tugged upon his spark. Forcing the small zaps within his circuits down, holding onto the small bit of doubt that plagued his processor. The doubt that you could care for him, in the same way he's grown to care for you.

Hold her! Comfort her! His pulsing spark practically screamed. Twisting within its chamber causing an ache to run through his frame.

"What... are you trying to say...?" Ratchet's soft gaze met yours. His words holding a soft, tentative tone.

"Th-That... returning to my unit is going to feel so strange." You lowly admitted. "And that... my medbay is gonna feel so... empty... without you."

Oh... my darling. Ratchet's spark skipped a beat at your words, his processor almost moaning the nickname, as an invisible tug pulled his frame closer to you. I-I'm going to be so lost without you beside me. Working in the medbay just won't be the same...

"Valkyrie..." his servo involuntary reached out for you, knuckles caressing your cheek with a feathered touch. As his thumb brushed away your rolling tears. "My life will also never be the same again... without you in it."

Ratchet's free servo nervously clenched as he gazed into your eyes. His spark thudding within it's chamber, sending volts of electricity throughout his wires. Like how one would feel butterflies in their stomach. A mixture of worry, hope and doubt flashed across the medic's features, almost daring to believe that you too somehow felt what he did.

His thumb gently caressed your cheek in a tender, soothing motion. The warmth within his spark spread throughout Ratchet's frame, subtly making his faceplates warm to the touch. His free servo edging closer to you, iching to cradle the small of your back as you leaned in closer. The pulse and rhythm of the volts zapping throughout his circuits strangely changing, as you slowly reached out for him. Causing the medic's frame to shudder under your touch, while your fingers traced over the scars of his chassis.

Butterflies entangled your nerves. A breathless gasp escaped your parted lips. Your soft, affectionate gaze flickering from Ratchet's blue optics to his lips, as your heart fluttered within your chest. Feeling his loving touch filled you with such affection and tender, that your happy sigh almost broke the crackling, electric tension between you.

This... This is the closest we've ever been. Ratchet's digits carefully ran through your hair, nervously swallowing a lump in his vocal processor. The... warmth and touch of her against me. H-Her perfume is filling my sensors. And my spark... it's pulse and rhythm almost matches... his eyes slowly widened. His frame stiffening as your lips almost ghosted over his. O-Oh, Primus no...

"Ratchet...?" your puzzled tone was almost just above a whisper. Your confused gaze studying his flushed expression, as the medic quickly pulled away. Straightening his posture while clearing his throat.

A small prick of embarrassment and disappointment nipped at your sinking heart, like a thorn against your skin. Did I... do something wrong?

But little did you you know, Ratchet felt like he had to pull away. Even with every fibre of his being, begging him to just pull you into his embrace and never let you go. To finally cure his curiosity of how it would feel to touch your soft lips. He just couldn't bring himself to accept the fact you felt the same way.

Saying something now, would... only make it harder to say 'goodbye.' His processor convinced. Like it or not, we have to go our separate ways.

"T-Take care... Valkyrie."

His spark and your heart released a painful ache, a heartbreak that almost shook your very souls, as Ratchet raised onto his peds and walked away.

Your eyes lowered towards the ground again. Ratchet....

Closing the medbay doors behind him, leaning against them and letting out a long, weary sigh. Ratchet briefly looked up at the starry sky, his optics rolling shut as he lightly banged the back of his helm against the large metal doors. His spark clenching within its chamber, while the medic harshly scolded himself. Banging his helm against the doors, in time with each syllable as tears streamed down his faceplates.

Tag List

@junebugessentials @genarf

[youzicha]

Normal Accidents

📖Charles Perrow, Normal accidents: living with high-risk technologies, 1984. Second edition 1999.

The Title

This is another example of a book that lives on its title, a great racket which works like this:

Find a proposition which many people would like to be true. E.g., Nations are fake and don't exist except in people's imagination. Victorian doctors used vibrators as a treatment for hysteria. Computer programming used to be gender-balanced and then male programmers took over. There's no way to run a nuclear power plant without accidents.

Find a catchy phrase that strongly hints at the proposition without outright stating it.

Write a few hundred pages of text: long enough that plausibly somewhere in there could be convincing evidence of proposition X, and someone would have to spend a whole day reading to find out whether there is or not.

Congratulations, you are set for life.

The Theory

The book theorizes that there is a particularly intractable type of accident which it calls “system accidents”. They are different from simple component failure accidents and happen in systems that are “complex” and “tightly coupled”. It classifies systems on two axes: a system is “linear” if each subsystem mostly interacts with one subsystem in front and one after (like an assembly-line factory) or “complex” if the subsystems all interact with each other, and it is “tightly” coupled if each subsystem immediately affects the other one without room for recovery.

Perrow then reads a bunch of accident investigation reports from different industries (nuclear, chemical, airlines, maritime, etc) and highlights interactions and coupling. The whole book produces this diagram:

From this we conclude… what exactly? Maybe that system accidents are important, and we should pay attention to them? Or slightly stronger, that there are more accidents in the upper-right quadrant than in the other ones? A big problem is that Perrow never says precisely what he is trying to prove and doesn't apply any objective measures.  I would want to count the number of accidents in different industries, and compare the ratio of system/non-system ones, or compare the absolute numbers, but Perrow just relates a sampling of accidents and says that they are illustrative.

Whether these accidents really are good illustrations of "system accidents" seems to depend a lot on the spin he puts on them. The classification into complex versus linear seems very hand-wavy. In one example of aviation, which is supposedly complex, "even after bailing out … there was room for the unexpected interaction" because the pilot was hit on the head by the falling ejection seat. By contrast the mining industry is assigned the center of the linear-complex axis, and one example concerns a worker who walked under a conveyor belt—and got hit on the head. Basically the same accident can be glossed as interactive or not.

Or how about this airplane accident:

The next accident, an account of problems with a four-engine corporate jet, the Lockheed Jet Star Model 1329, is more prosaic, but it gives some idea of the world of corporate jets and involves a system accident, unusual risks, and a safety change that was responsible for killing eight people. The safety improvement involved new, solid state units in the generator control units and new wiring. The airplane was flight-tested after installation and one generator failed. Repairs were made. In the next test flight, all four generators failed at one time or another, and were manually reset during flight. [Two weeks later] The plane crashed a mile short of the runway […] The NTSB is not certain of the proximate cause of the crash […] The example strongly suggests a system accident

It is typical of the book: there are no statistics showing that system accidents are common, only isolated examples, and in this example he doesn't even know what caused the accident!

(Later in the book the level of rigor goes down even further. For accidents in space, instead of reading accident investigation reports Perrow says "I am drawing here on the immensely entertaining, and exceptionally perceptive book by Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff." Then for accidental war the discussion is based on Dr. Strangelove. And then he turns to DNA technology, which "appears to be complex in its interactions and tightly coupled, but I caution the reader that I know even less about it than I do about nuclear weapon systems." Thanks.)

But the actual central claim that Perrow wants to conclude is something even stronger than that systems accidents are common: he says that there is no way to prevent them. Thus the final chapter says that we should only accept complex-coupled systems if accidents have acceptably small consequences, and otherwise we must replace them with safer alternatives. In particular Perrow wants to get rid of nuclear power; the book started as an anti-nuclear pamphlet written after the Three Mile Island accident. But it seems quite hopeless to prove this impossibility by just reading accident reports.

So the book has much talk about catastrophic risk, but very few testable predictions. In fact, I could only find two. First, there is this paragraph about airline accidents:

With millions of operating years of experience, repeated trials, tests without catastrophic consequences, and considerable government support, the industry has been able to maximize the potential for technological fixes, including buffers and redundancies. Two engines are better than one; four better than two; the jet engine less complex than the piston engine; and of course the industry makes use of exotic new materials and instrumentation. System accidents in flying will remain, but they have been reduced substantially. […] The safety of both automobile travel and airline travel (and military and general aviation as well) has increased dramatically in this century, but since the 1960s and 1970s the safety curve has flattened out; we appear to be in the area where further increases are very hard to achieve.

It seems to say that airline accidents first fell quickly because we solved the issue of component failures, and now will fall no more because the rest is intractable systems accidents.

Second, there's this nicely unambiguous paragraph:

I would expect a worse accident than TMI in ten years—one that will kill and contaminate. […] There will be more system accidents; according to my analysis, there have to be. One or more will include a release of radioactive substances to the environment in quantities sufficient to kill many people, irradiate others, and poison some acres of land. There is no organizational structure that we would or should tolerate that could prevent it. None of our existing reactors has a design capable of preventing system accidents. Perhaps a safe one will be discovered—loosely coupled and linear—but I am doubtful.

Forty years later, there has not been any accidents in American nuclear power plants, so the analysis seems nicely refuted. The airplane accidents also did not come through. The trend in the 20th century was that the accident rate halved every 10 years:

And based on this data the same trend remained. From 1983-1989 to 1990-1999 the deaths per departure halved, from 1990-1999 to 2000-2009 they halved again, and from 2000-2009 to 2010-2017 it decreased even faster.

As it happens, there's a second edition from 1999 with a retrospective afterword, and it talks about how warmly the book was received while skipping over the fact that its predictions were wrong. It says “Commercial jet disasters are at approximately the same (low) level as in 1984, per departure” (no), and “of course we had Chernobyl”. But Chernobyl was not one of the American power plants whose incident reports the prediction was based on, and also it was not a systems accident. There was only one relevant subsystem, the core, and only one relevant parameter, the power output.

The second edition also adds a chapter about the Y2K problem, which could be "a test of the robustness and applicatory scope" of the Normal Accident Theory. While officials are optimistic, those Y2K plans are "fantasy documents" and there could be disaster whose "potential scale and scope dwarfs all other 'normal accidents' discussed in the book". (Notably one of the scenarios discussed in the book is a global nuclear war.) Having seen the actual outcome of Y2K, I think the robustness and applicatory scope comes across as well here as in the other cases.

Annoyances

So the theory seems dubious and the conclusions wrong, but that on its own would not make me write this long screed. What really gets to me is two annoying tics in the writing. First, constant smugness. The style matters because most of the book consists of summaries of accident investigations, and although they are supposed to illustrate his "normal accident theory", in practice he is mostly just writing descriptions without any particular theoretical angle. Of course I love reading accident reports too, but these days you can get all the pdfs you can read at the click of a mouse button, which raises the question what Perrow adds over the source material. And the main difference is that he thinks he is smarter than everybody else, and lets us know so through constant asides.

First, he is smarter than the reader. The first chapter, about the TMI accident, reassures us that it "will be the most demanding technological account in the book, but even a general sense of the complexity will suffice if one wishes to merely follow the drama rather than the technical evolution of the accident." Don't worry your pretty little head, Perrow is here to explain things. This tendency is even more annoying when he doesn't understand what he is explaining. He does not know what the word envelope means, and then projects his own confusion by saying that this aspect of flying has "poorly understood dynamics".

Second, he is smarter than the accident investigation board, and takes random snipes at them. A random board member in a press conference mentions a “remote possibility”, which Perrow jumps on. He comments that in marine accidents "the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) do what they can. But they can do little in this error-inducing system. […] It can happen. It is bound to. The recommendations are futile." I guess his methodology forces him to take this polemical tone, because all he is doing is reading accident investigation reports, so if he didn't complain, there would be nothing added by his descriptions.

In fact, he is smarter than just about anyone, and happy to share his observations even if they are not related to the accidents at all, e.g. “the approach to the Westchester Airport goes right over an interstate highway with one of those curious signs with the fruitless warning: ‘watch out for low flying aircraft’”.

I think this is a general hazard with writing about nuclear policy: both the pro- and anti-sides seem to have a lot of very smug people. I think for me the biggest takeaway from this book was that I should try to tone it down in my own writing.

The other annoyance is that Perrow never mentions any numbers, even in situations that really cry out for them. For example, there are many mentions of plutonium, in criticality accidents or when it was accidentally released from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. An article says “‘in all plutonium incidents to date, only a small fraction of the plutonium involved was released.’ That is like saying that in a war, only a small fraction of the bullets kill anyone.” A Titan ICBM can “literally go off with the drop of a workman’s wrench and possibly release plutonium”.

And beyond these local accidents, in 1964 there was a “cosmic” one: “Most of the failures of the space program have not been death-dealing, and if they were, they were limited to first-party victims—the astronauts or technicians. However, in three cases of failures with plutonium power packs, the risks are potentially catastrophic, since plutonium is perhaps the most deadly substance known to humans. … a navigational satellite sent up in 1964 that failed to achieve orbit when its rocket engine failed. It reentered the atmosphere over the Indian Ocean and distributed 1 kilogram of plutonium-238 about the earth.”

Like, at this point surely you’d want to know how many people were actually killed? From looking around on google a bit, it seems the 1964 satellite may have caused two hundred cancer deaths if you assume the cancer risk scales linearly to extremely small radiation doses. (And it prompted a change in policy to no longer let plutonium burn up in the atmosphere.) To me this kind of number seems essential to judge how catastrophic the accident is.

Another example where the numbers are lacking:

The price of electricity from nuclear power plants does not reflect the very large government subsidies, nor the costs of the unsolved problem of long-term waste storage, nor even the unknown costs of dismantling reactors after their forty allotted years, if they run that long. Had all these been properly considered in the 1950s and included in the cost, this book would have not been written because no utility would have ordered a plant.

This claim is not cited to anything. I believe that people were in fact considering this, but in any case the costs are now known: the long-term waste storage came to 0.41 cent/kWh and the dismantling to 0.24 cents/kWh. Meanwhile electricity prices have varied between 19 cents/kWh and 13 cents/kWh (in 2020 dollars), so the waste + decommissioning costs are a rounding error in comparison to other factors.

At some point he says that “you are good at counting while I (as I tell my quantitative colleagues) don’t count”, but really, you live like this?

Coal versus nuclear

Perry spends most of the book talking about the risk from nuclear power plants. But what is the alternative? In the introduction he says

There is no technological imperative that says we must have power or weapons from nuclear fission or fusion, or that we must create and loose upon the earth organisms that will devour our oil spills. We could reach for, and grasp, solar power or safe coal-fired plants

And then he doesn’t mention those coal plants again until the final chapter. But as he was writing, American coal plants were killing 30,000 people/year. Compared to the deaths from cancer, that corresponds to multiple Chernobyl accidents every year. Does he not know this?

Actually he includes a final chapter about “current risk assessment theory”, where he notes that fossil fuel plants kill a lot more people than nuclear power, but nuclear power provokes more “dread” and “the public’s fears must be treated with respect”. I feel this would be more convincing if Perrow had not spent an entire book trying to stoke that fear.

He gives a more operational description of “dread risk”: “lack of control, high fatalities and catastrophic potential, inequitable distribution of risks and benefits, and the sense that these risks are increasing and cannot be easily reduced by technological fixes”. I think this still doesn’t distinguish the coal pollution and nuclear accidents very well. Neither is controllable, the particulate emissions and the radioactivity both drift with the wind, the parties that take the risk and benefits are the same for both, and the “sense” that technological fixes don’t work is illusory.

Of course, nowadays we know that coal has has another drawback besides the particulate pollution, and this is mentioned in a single paragraph, literally in parentheses!

(One enormous risk which the industrialized nations may be facing is not considered in this book on normal accidents; eliminating this ill would require much more drastic measures than any of the above: This is the problem of carbon dioxide produced from deforestation primarily, but also from burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and wood. This threatens to create a greenhouse effect, warming the temperature of the planet, melting the ice caps, and probably causing an incredible number of other changes, most of them disastrous. If it is significant—the experts do not agree—we may have a few decades to handle this; but it may be too late. It is one of the strongest cards the nuclear addicts can play, though the enormity of the problem, by some accounts, would dwarf the capacities of nuclear industry. We would have to divert our energy and natural resources from much of industry and use it to build nuclear plants for the next generation to meet some estimates. Battalions of scientists, engineers, and operators would have to be recruited and trained, and so on.)

Conclusion

This book is frequently cited (I have even seen tumblr users refer to it), and I think it’s considered a classic, so I was very disappointed. Let’s mark it as another mistake of the 20th century and forget all about it.

[gghostwriter]

Yours Truly, Romeo

Chapter 4 __ The Profile & The Profiler

Spencer Reid x FOC

Summary: Washington, DC - A string of grizzly murders and obsessive love letters causes Olivia and Spencer’s paths to intertwine. With a serial killer proclaiming his undying devotion to her and the thick tension surrounding her and her agent turned bodyguard, Olivia’s life is writing out like a contemporary love story that she, as a successful writer, could see herself publishing.

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"You are a lover. Borrow Cupid's wings and soar with them above the common bound." - Act 1, Scene 4. Romeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare

“We believe our unsub is a white male driving an SUV. He uses the vehicle to abduct and transport the male victims from Washington DC to Maryland,” Hotch stated in front of the members of the Washington PD.

Morgan stood next to him, hands on his hips. “His victims are between the ages 27-35 and we think the unsub is in the same age bracket.”

“Add to that, our unsub is experiencing a psychosis specifically called erotomania. This form of delusion is when an individual believes that another person, usually of a higher status, is in love with him. His weapon of choice also gives us another understanding on his psyche to these killings, using narcotics to kill symbolizes the emotional detachment the unsub has to his victims—” Spencer elaborated.

“Which means the victims were a crime of opportunity, rather than crime of passion,” Morgan injected.

“—and with his use of methanol and formaldehyde to preserve the body parts, we believe we are looking for an intelligent unsub.”

“Which is not unusual. True psychopaths often have above average intelligence.” Hotch clarified.

“This type of unsub will not have injected himself into the investigation as we often see. He will not be following the case very closely unless his fantasy to Ms. Olivia Hill is disturbed.” Morgan concluded. 

The Washington chief detective raised his pen up in the air.  “So how come he hasn’t tried to kidnap Ms. Hill rather than kidnapping all these male victims?”

“It’s because his fantasy—transformation if you will—isn’t complete yet. He’s collecting all these different body parts to fit into her perfect male partner. Once that process is complete, he will try to kidnap her next.” Spencer explained.

Morgan took a deep breath. “There is something about him that would be helpful, he has a superficial connection to Ms. Hill. Not enough for her to notice his feelings but enough for him to project his fantasy, possibly a colleague or someone she interacts with on a daily short basis like a delivery man.” 

“We suggest not to go public with this information and to re-interview female co-workers to ask if they’ve noticed any untoward or suspicious behaviors from their male co-workers to Ms Hill,” Hotch said as Morgan’s phone started to ring. “Thank you very much.” 

With his back turned to the police officers leaving the premise, he accepted the call and put it on speaker. “Prentiss, what you got?”

She sighed. “Another body has been dumped in the Potomac River, skinned from his upper thigh to feet.”

“That completes his suit,” Spencer noted.

“Forensics is currently running his fingerprints in the system to see if we have him in the database. I’ll get Garcia to forward any information she has,” she stated before ending the call. 

The two FBI agents turned around to face their stern unit chief for further instructions. “Morgan, you’re with me for the re-interview. Reid, you go back to Ms. Hill’s residence and Reid,—“

“Yes?”

“—keep us updated on any slight disturbance.” 

Spencer nodded, gathering his belongings before dashing out of the precinct. 

———

Dusk was beginning to settle when Spencer turned off the SUV ignition in front of her residence. Crossing the empty and calm street road, he took note of any rustling noise, flickering neighborhood lights—the lack thereof—and dark corners where the unsub could hide while keeping watch of the doorstep. All the curtains were shut, he observed, as if mimicking a moat bridge drawn up to protect the castle and it’s inhabitants. Steeling his nerves, he knocked on the door and announced his presence.

“Olivia, it’s Dr Spencer Reid,” He called out.

Several bolts were heard being unlocked from the other side before the door fully swung open, Olivia’s eyes darting behind his stature before widening as it settled on his form. 

“Oh, uh-hi Dr. Reid, you look—different,” her cheeks turning a rosy shade of pink as she observed his change in attire. Gone was the brown sweater vest that emphasized his lithe form and the lilac button down shirt that was once hidden underneath now had its sleeve pushed up to his forearms. With the vest out of the way and the gun holster secured on his waist visible, he looked formidable, sensual, and dangerous rolled into one. The sharp contrast to the soft spoken and intriguing male that she met this afternoon to the knight and shining armor rounding her living space had her feeling lightheaded with desire.

Spencer sat down at the worn love seat sofa located in her office. “My team is re-interviewing your female colleagues and I’d like to ask you for any strange male colleagues and interactions that rubbed you off the wrong way.” 

“I don’t really interact with any other publishing employees beside from my agent and publicist,” she sat beside him with a glass of water in hand. “One of the perks of being a writer is not having to interact with anyone beyond necessary.” 

A heavy silence covered their surroundings. Their thighs softly caressing the other, as if whispering the subconscious declaration of intrigue and attraction. Eyes flitting across the room, never meeting each other’s gaze afraid of unconsciously communicating their innermost thoughts. 

His palms opening and closing, unsure of what he needs to do and apprehensive of what he wants to do. Hers drumming on her thighs, nervous of the palpable tension around them. He wanted to touch her delicate hand, he realized—to envelope hers in his, to trace patterns on the back of her hand that will never leave a trace but wishing it would, and to never let go.

“Dr Reid, is it too forward of me to ask if you’re in a relationship?” Olivia rushed out to ask, clearly sheepish with her inquiry. 

His ears turning red at the implication behind her questioning. “My job and its urgency isn’t ideal for a relationship,” he explained. “Being on call 24/7 and not knowing when I’ll be able to return home isn’t a fair deal for a potential partner. Statistically speaking, divorcees are common in the FBI, especially in the BAU.”

“Oh, that makes sense.” 

A silence crept between them. 

“Spencer,” he clarified, noticing the little scrunch of her nose as if asking him to further clarify. “Call me Spencer.” 

She smiled, the kind so infectious that he felt his own lips curling upwards and his filter evaporating into nothing. “Did you know that women in the romance community are more likely than the general population to be currently married or living with a partner?” He articulated as his fingers tapped a rapid beat on his thigh, an outward display of nervousness. “More often than not, most writers are to be in happy relationships. The stereotype depictions of the lonely, lovesick romance writer who pens alluring novels is largely false in narrative.”

“Huh, I’ve always thought the minds behind romance would be the hopeless romantic pouring over their frustrations, hopes, and dreams into ink to escape reality and live out their fantasies,” she countered back. 

His body shifted to face hers. “That is not necessarily incorrect. Romance novels are, for the most part, written by women, about women, for women but it also allows the writers to explore who they are as a woman. Who you want to be. Finding out what you can be. Pushing yourself to be more of who you are.”

“So it’s more of self navigation and therapy?”

He nodded, pleased that his intention was understood even if he explained it in a convoluting way. “Yes, actually more like a self discovery and research.” 

“Sadly and realistically speaking, I do tend to fall on the stereotype category of being a romance writer,” she shrugged as if it was no big deal. “So Mr Genius, how’d you end up in the FBI and as a profiler?”

His eyebrows scrunched in concentration unsure to what extent he should divulge. “I was recruited and this was the path that I wanted to do.” 

“Can you profile me, then?” She smiled, leaning further into him. “I’m no criminal but I’d like to see your job in action. To see if it’s how they portrayed it in the movies, I mean.” 

She was obviously flirting, Spencer noted. He was known to be oblivious to these types of advances as Morgan pointed out, mainly rooting from his deep sense of insecurity, but she was making it clear that she felt an attraction to him or maybe he was just projecting his own emotions, he countered in his mind. After all, he didn’t have the typical male physique—muscles that allude a capability to protect and attack. His greatest asset would be his IQ of 187 that slashes into 60 whenever her set of doe-eyed eyes looks into his with such trust and comfort. His hand moved on their own accord, swiping on her lower lip that was being assaulted by her teeth.

Her breath hitched and his hand quickly dropped, a visible flush coloring his cheeks. “That was, uh, that was inappropriate of me—“

“It’s alright, Spencer.” 

“I—it’s really not. You—you asked for a profile, yes?” He brought up, desperate to diffuse the atmosphere and change the subject matter. “You’re a perfectionist based on the organization of your home. Your books are a financial success but you still use an old sedan, possibly a hand me down from your father based on the color and make, which tells me you’re frugal with your income, despite the fact that your house is located in one of the pricier neighborhoods—I believe this is your biggest purchase to date—and that you possibly grew up in a middle income family. You subconsciously tap your fingers on your thighs when you’re nervous and you keep your nails short meaning you’re other tic would be nail biting which you’re trying to break. And you mentioned that you fall under the stereotype category of being a romance writer which tells me you didn’t date much during your school years and never felt the need to go through all the usual considered landmarks of being a teenager, kissing under the bleachers and such. Perhaps you’ve had a boyfriend or two, nothing noteworthy for inspiration and romance, so you pour your hopes and dreams into the characters and scenarios you create.” 

“You missed one more important piece.”

He titled his head, thinking of what he could have possibly missed.

“You, and my apparent attraction to you. How I’d like to see you again once this situation is through,” her voice trailed off, the sudden confidence evaporating from her body. 

There was silence. His intelligent, hyper-active mind not knowing how to respond. Her confession had rendered him mindless and mute.

The lights flickered, as if wanting to escape their bodies as the space in between lessens ever so slightly, before complete darkness and danger shrouded over. 

[blueiscoool]

Haul of Historic Coins Sells For $176,000 at Auction

A British man who found a massive cache of ancient Roman gold and silver coins while hunting with a metal detector has a lot more modern currency in his pocket after the treasure was auctioned off for $176,000.

George Ridgway, a trained archaeologist, investigated an unusual marking in a recently harvested field in Suffolk, England in September 2019, according to a news release from Noonans Auctions. He knew that a Roman road had once run close to the field, and thought there might be something to find.

Hours scouring the area turned up nothing, he said, but when he shifted his position by just 30 yards, he found two Roman brooches that dated back to the 1st century. Shortly after, he found a silver coin issued by Julius Caesar in 46 BC. Another three hours of searching turned up 160 more silver coins and some pottery fragments.

"I knew I had made an important archaeological discovery and called my dad to guard the site overnight while we waited for an archaeological team to arrive and excavate the site," the 34-year-old said. "It took three months to recover the hoard."

During that excavation, researchers found even more coins, including gold pieces. In total, 748 coins, dated from as early as 206 B.C., were recovered. Alice Cullen, a coin specialist at the auction house, said it was one of the largest hoards of Iron Age and Roman coins found in the United Kingdom. The coins may have been buried by a long-serving soldier in Rome's XX Legion, who were once stationed in what would later be known as Colchester, England, Cullen said. There was a "fierce battle" in the area around 47 A.D., Cullen said, and a victim of the conflict may have been the person who buried the coins.

Sixty-three of the coins were claimed by the British Museum and the Colchester & Ipswich Museum, to be displayed in their collections, and the rest were auctioned. While the auction house expected the sale to garner about $100,000, it actually brought in more than $176,000, according to CBS News partner the BBC.

A coin issued by Gaius Caesar - also known as Caligula - decorated with a portrait of the Empress Agrippina and dated to A.D. 37-38 sold for about $9,295, according to the BBC. Another coin, issued by Claudius and dated to A.D. 41-42, sold for about $6,640.

Ridgway said the proceeds of the sale will be split between himself and the landowner of the site where the coins were found. He said that such a find has been like a dream come true.

"I was inspired by my childhood hero Indiana Jones to start history hunting when I was 4 years old, and I dreamed of finding a Roman hoard since my grandmother bought me a metal detector for my 12th birthday," Ridgway said. "It was an awe-inspiring moment when I realised that I had found one!"

By Kerry Breen.

[matan4il]

I was going to refer to this Newsweek op ed, written by Doctor Qanta Ahmed, in my daily update post, but when I was looking for which part to quote, I found that it was ALL too important to leave out. So here is all of it:

I was in scrubs from the wet morgue at Abu Kabir when I learned Queen Rania of Jordan questioned whether Israeli children had verifiably been killed by Hamas on October 7. Hugely appealing to the West, ranked among Forbes's 100 most powerful women, among the top ten most followed international leaders on Instagram, dressed routinely by Valentino, Schiaparelli and Dior, and of Palestinian origin (her family is from the West Bank's Nablus), Queen Rania is undeniably a global icon. And her powerful voice became the opening salvo to a chorus of innumerable deniers, a further barbarism dehumanizing the victims of Hamas' atrocities targeting women and girls.

Hearing her strident tone, even as I was surrounded by Israeli Jews, Israeli Christians, and Israeli Muslims still reeling with shock, cut to my core.

Days after the attacks, as a Muslim woman committed to combating Islamism and a physician, I traveled at my own expense to the Gaza envelope to view the aftermath of Hamas' butchery. I examined the cadavers of the murdered and defiled; the corpses of the decapitated and immolated. I spoke with the victims of Hamas, including a former hostage—a Muslim physician—and numerous witnesses to Hamas' express barbarity against women, children, girls, and infants, brutally violated in life, in utero and in death.

I inspected bodies that had been repeatedly stabbed, shot, and crushed. I examined mutilated bodies, restrained with cables, electrical cords, and zipties, still in place post-mortem, and those that had been decapitated and incinerated at temperatures approaching 3,000 degrees Celsius.

Back in New York City, Israeli criminal prosecutor Ayelet Razin Bet Or shared with me evidence compiled in Israel's ongoing investigation into Hamas' crimes. Michal Yaniv, Head of Foreign Affairs on Israel's National Security Council, provided me testimonies recorded by Israeli security officials.

One account, far from unusual, is especially harrowing: A woman who survived the Nova music festival in Re'im witnessed a young woman encircled by Hamas, stripped naked, violated, and manhandled by multiple Hamas terrorists as they gang raped her, repositioning her by the waist and hips, moving from one rapist to the other.

Shuddering at the memory, covering her face, with difficulty, the eyewitness continued: One terrorist pulled the woman's long hair, forcibly arching her neck backwards, fully exposing her naked torso, only to sever both her breasts from her chest with his commando knife. Her entire torso fell backwards, slackened in agony. She may have fainted, though she lived through the mutilation. The disembodied breasts fell to the ground, where terrorists casually played with them.

Sergeant Major Natah Katz from the IDF Rabbinical Unit at the Shura base near Ramle described to me cadavers he received with breasts and genitals hacked off, one with a knife impaled directly into the vagina. The mutilation of sexual organs and breasts, "seemed to be an obsession," he recalled. Dr. Chen Kugel, head of Israel's National Forensic Center has confirmed to me the same.

Indeed, Hamas arrived with orders to mass rape: Phrasebooks belonging to Hamas found in the Re'im area listed phonetic Hebrew commands in Arabic "Take your clothes off!"; " Spread your legs!'; "Get down!" Terabytes of their own video data confirm Hamas raped, amputated breasts, mutilated women's genitals, and committed systematic sexual crimes on both the living and the dead. Necrophilia has been explicitly reported.

Despite all of this, almost two months would pass before the U.N. denounced the October 7 sexual violence during hearings. Congressional and Senate Hearings must urgently follow.

Silence ensures Islamist antisemitism overrides human morality. Silence also grants open season for Hamas to continue these obscene crimes with impunity, as they likely still do this hour upon the remaining 129 hostages in captivity.

Genocidal rape has no context. Contextualization is contemptibly antisemitic and pure misogyny, if not open Islamist sympathy.

Repudiation must reverberate globally. In the meantime, I will not rest until Congress, the Senate, and the U.N. speak in unison on the international humanitarian values protecting women, for only then can the decapitated screams of the tiny girl in Abu Kabir can at last be granted silence.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[morbidology]

Tina Watson, born Christina Mae Thomas, was a 26-year-old woman from Alabama who had recently married Gabe Watson, her college sweetheart. The couple had a shared interest in scuba diving, and they chose the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland, Australia, as the perfect destination to kick off their new life together. Gabe, an experienced diver, had over 50 dives under his belt, while Tina was relatively new to the sport.

On October 22, 2003, the couple joined a group of divers for an expedition at a site called the SS Yongala, a shipwreck popular among divers. According to Gabe Watson, shortly after the dive began, Tina began to experience difficulties. Gabe later claimed that Tina panicked and knocked his mask off, causing him to swim to the surface to get help. When he returned, he said, Tina was already unconscious on the ocean floor.

Tina was rescued by another diver and brought to the surface, where attempts to resuscitate her were unsuccessful. She was pronounced dead on the scene, and what had begun as a dream honeymoon had turned into an unimaginable nightmare.

Tina’s death was initially ruled an accident, attributed to drowning and possible inexperience with diving. However, as the investigation progressed, authorities began to suspect foul play. Witnesses reported seeing Gabe Watson act unusually during the dive, and questions were raised about the couple’s relationship and the circumstances leading up to Tina’s death.

The most damning evidence against Gabe Watson came from Tina’s autopsy, which suggested that her death might not have been accidental. It was determined that Tina’s air supply had been turned off during the dive, and her body was found in an area where the current was not strong enough to have caused the kind of panic that Gabe described. Additionally, investigators discovered that Gabe had increased Tina’s life insurance policy shortly before the wedding, with himself as the primary beneficiary.

Furthermore, fellow diver, Dr Stanley Stutz told authorities that he had witnessed David giving Christina a “bear hug” as she was flailing in the water, clearly distressed, before he saw David reappear at the surface as Christina sunk to the bottom. Another diver, Gary Stempler, snapped the disturbing above photograph which shows Christina lying on the bottom of the ocean. The photos were developed a few weeks after her death.

In 2008, five years after Tina's death, Gabe Watson was charged with her murder by Australian authorities. Watson agreed to return to Australia to face the charges, and in 2009, he pleaded guilty to manslaughter, claiming that he had failed to fulfill his duty as her dive buddy. He was sentenced to 12 months in prison, a sentence that many, including Tina’s family, felt was shockingly lenient.

Following his release from prison in Australia, Gabe Watson returned to the United States, where he faced additional charges of murder in Alabama. U.S. prosecutors argued that Watson had plotted to kill Tina in order to collect on her life insurance, and they sought to try him for capital murder.

The case drew significant media attention, with debates over whether Watson should be tried again for the same crime he had already been convicted of in Australia. In 2012, the Alabama judge overseeing the case dismissed the charges due to insufficient evidence, concluding that there was no proof that Watson had intentionally killed his wife.