#watching new episodes of 911 with me must be an experience if this is how i look like from the outside mksplapalapakapalpakapao

[lover-of-mine]

My dad sent me this picture he took of me watching the season 6 finale and I legit have been laughing hysterically for the past 5 minutes. This is like, not even 5 minutes into the episode. I really thought something terrible was about to happen huh? (There's a teddy bear somewhere under that blanket too)

[kellykadesperate]

>:3c hello!

Judd is never there lmao … He has strong friendships but he goes home to his wife. ooooh, damn, that is so true! the contrast of judd versus the others makes complete sense indeed, that judd's first choice will always be his wife and kid, and then maybe friends his age that he's known for many years, e.g. tommy and his poker buddies. he's been living and having a fulfilling life in texas before the new team was formed, and it's nice that this is visible in these choices. it makes things clear without downplaying his friendships with the team. also re tommy, she is another good example of more realistic freedom: she did choose her family over her job because it made sense back then until she eventually returned. i liked that – life is long, and people temporarily leave their jobs, go on sabbaticals, etc. this isn't a death sentence to solid friendships.

we don't see them close in that sense despite being very involved in each other's personal life. this!! there is this weird disconnect happening between what i actually feel when i watch canon versus what i know i am supposed to feel (what the shows tries to make me feel) when i watch canon. i get what the show tries to convey but they suck at believably executing it, so i just. do not really feel it lol. i mean, you cannot be amatonormative (all of them have separate families; not being each other's top priority in comparison to their actual partners; being single is equaled to living an unfulfilled life/ romance seems to be regarded as vital) and anti-amatonormative (all the scenes that emphasize that family can come in many forms and that friendships are meaningful too) at the same time. these puzzle pieces do not fit together at all, and whenever one of them is shoved into my face, i just like ??? why is this show just contradicting itself repeatedly? one episode ago, you said something else! either you tell me that a life can be fulfilling and incredibly happy without a romantic partner or nah, but you can't do both.

He's poor little has no clue what he wants Buck in a way that feels like they're almost laughing at him lmao. djdjdjdjdj THAT is so real. they use buck a lot for those purposes, and it's not doing his character nor the other characters a favor lmfao. at best, he's relatable for having those struggles while the others seem supportive. at worst, he seems like the laughing stock because he is young and does not have a romantic partner/children yet, which means his life must be empty and he lacks life experience, while the others seem condescending. "judd with the younger members" feels better than "bobby, hen, chim with buck". i exclude eddie bc he's apparently buck's age but never got the baby treatment.

If it wants to be dramatic, give me drama with lifelong consequences. i agree! i like silly, i like drama... balancing them can be tough tho, and then they just water each other down until you do not really get to enjoy either of them to their full extent. love the funny episode but the entire premise of this show is sooo wonderful for whump that i cannot help being a big sad that they don't manage to build proper suspense :'(

It just feels weird when they really hammer home how close the crew are and important they are but really don't show them all hanging out for extended periods of time. In fact they make a point of showing them hanging out separately. i am taking a megaphone to shout this so loudly that the 911 makers can hear me <3 exactly. it really is a Choice™.

I was fully convinced Kameron was going to try and kiss Buck or something, I still kinda think they'll go there because ... why not! OHH, interesting! i personally did not think that would happen, but it's an intriguing idea to me. i really loved that the only reason this entire donor sl even happened is because an old friend remembered buck to be such a good person that he decided "his [buck's] babies will definitely all turn out great" lmaoooo. and that kameron felt comfy enough to seek out buck's support even though they've only known each other for a few months! <3 cute! ngl i would not even hate them getting together. what a story to tell the child someday LMAO. no but jokes aside, pls omg give these characters something to do that isn't their next love interest for once <3

The whole destined to be alone, unloved, I'll never find someone who knows me is just ... I'm sick of it and makes both characters feel like they actually don't know what they want. absolutely this! i am okay with some romance and drama, that is all a-okay with me, but we've reached a point where it's really just chipping away at the characters. the others have the advantage of being in clearly endgame-coded commitments already, so buck and eddie drive most of the "unsure single life" perspective in the show, which is very very very unfortunate for them because the show sucks at that LOL. i enjoyed natalia and the scenes she had with buck, but i am only "tentatively hopeful" at best at this point sksksksk. we've already covered the whole issue with 911 and side characters in general – i cannot imagine that the show will suddenly improve the writing in this regard, so i expect the worst treatment for all these poor side characters. plus, season 6b felt incredibly rushed and dropped a lot of balls; the buck and natalia romance definitely needed much more room to feel more organic and authentic. it felt like a choice made because the s7 renewal was not certain, so ig we'll see what they'll do with it now that they do get a s7.

It also makes the idea of them invested in each other's lives seem a little truer, more authentic rather than them hearing about snippets of things on the way to calls. hell yeah!! i remember the nancy thing, that was so adorable and relatable! building meaningful relationships takes time and effort and mutual liking and intention! yes, even if those relationships are platonic! it's a little bit like the crucial difference between "what you say" versus "what you do". calling somebody a "friend" but never hanging out with them one-on-one or not seeming to share any interests with them is... weird. saying things to the audience (e.g. mentioning snippets on calls) but not showing things to the audience just doesn't feel as authentic, yes yes yes. i'd rather verify things with my own two eyes if only 911 allowed me to actually see some of those alleged friendships it attempted to establish as canon lmfao.

IDK I just think it's a lot easier to let your audience see a group of friends grow into a family than start by showing them THIS IS THE FIREFAM FAMILY. very true! it's funny because og 911 kinda started out in a similar way? both bobby and buck were quite new to the 118, and none of them were friends except hen and chim. they could have build friendships from there, and they did, in a way, but the approach was so different (and i personally think worse) from how 911 ls did it. they started out with the heavy shit, which isn't bad per se but... they then neglected to do the normal friendship stuff on the way? e.g. they mentioned buck and bobby going to a concert in season 1 and even now, after 6 seasons of development, that seems absolutely unlikely to me. because... do they even like music? do they share the same music taste? what does music mean to them? we simply do not know!!! i cannot emphasize enough how empty all these dynamics feel because the characters lack interests and passions and a life outside of their job sksksksksks. another example, we saw buck being very interested in fitness in season 1, but that was then completely dropped. we see he's fit, but it's not portrayed as a hobby or interest or big part of his life anymore, even thought we know that realistically it must be.

and they all have to go their separate ways and it just shows a nice way of moving these characters along but not damaging ties they still have. oh yeah, i have seen the end of s2 and ik from tumblr that they had to go separate ways – and i LOVED the balls of the show to externalized the reason for such a big change in the show and showcase how the job is not the be-all and end-all for the team. characters trying to constantly fix themselves and that being the entire topic of a show is simply boring to me after a while. i'd much rather watch characters having to work together to fix some big external problem while their self-improvement occurs on the journey. another thing that i miss in 911.

ooooohohoho i watchedAE (it's fantastic!) and severance and succession are both on my to-watch list! i heard fantastic things about them. mostly i am scared of succession being all business talk LMAO i am absolutely no economist asdfghj. might be a nice break from yellowjackets tho hehe (i started it impulsively and really have fun so far)

hey hey!

this isn't a death sentence to solid friendships - And that's it. I think they did such a good job of showing Tommy's influence on the whole group so quickly. The fact that she replaced Michelle was such a good thing for the show. Michelle was outrageously isolated from the group and maybe they would have paired her with Owen but then the stuff with Gwyn might not have happened and that again was a real step up for the show I think.

i exclude eddie bc he's apparently buck's age but never got the baby treatment - Which is so interesting to me. It's like they realised they wanted to make a different/mysterious/he's gone through so much type of character for Eddie so ran with it and they have genuninly unpacked a lot about him which is great. At the same time, Buck is seen as like you say a bit more of a dumbass and they play on that. YET they have given him the most devastating backstory and show him being competent and caring and mature all the way back to season 1 with Abbey so it's ... it's weird. They want a baby of the group and that was fine in s1 but now it's s6, that baby has rightfully grown up and doesn't fit the mould they tend to shove him in for the sake of it. I really hope that stops soon!

The whole donor sl is really an interesting one. I wasn't mad about it but would love to know what the general vibe was a little more because it did seem to come out of nowhere. It seems like another 'give it to Buck!' type of sl where everyone else is so settled, Buck seems to be the character they can try stuff out on without thinking long term. Idk if the sl is going to continue or just be dropped but it's something I think they did give a lot of airtime too in terms of him making his decision.

the buck and natalia romance definitely needed much more room to feel more organic and authentic - It definitely did feel like a choice. Natalia seems a bit more grown up, and settled and that's about it! We literally no nothing else lol. I think they'll probably have her in the next season and I hope they want to build something settled and nice for Buck because it would be nice to see that side of him rather than just being ridiculously unsure of the relationship he's in. It needed a lot more time, you're right. When Buck was like she sees me/it's different, I really didn't know whether we were supposed to laugh or agree with him which is obviously not ideal.

i'd rather verify things with my own two eyes if only 911 allowed me to actually see some of those alleged friendships it attempted to establish as canon lmfao - YES. I remember when Hen and Maddie had that talk about getting engaged I was like dear God have these two ever had a scene together? Have Chimney and Hen and their families ever had a scene together? Hanging out? They're best buds? Maybe they have and I've forgotten but again it was just quite jarring to see. The only relationships I'm sure do exist are: Buck/Eddie, Hen/Chim, Hen/Athena, slightly Hen/Buck but aside from that ... nothing really and usually these parings are at the expense of seeing them all in an environment together.

e.g. they mentioned buck and bobby going to a concert in season 1 - LMAO WHAT! I have no memory of that whatsoever but that seems hilarious. I do have a lovely soft spot for Bobby and Buck, I think their relationship is super sweet but they need to develop it so much more. I get the whole dad/son dynamic but !! I'd love to see more. It's like they can't decide whether to go all in, have Buck be seen as Bobby's family OR they're colleagues. The middle ground sometimes feels ... unresolved or lacking.

i'd much rather watch characters having to work together to fix some big external problem while their self-improvement occurs on the journey. - Yeah exactly. Because the stakes are high. It feels really important and you see them changing as characters and it's meaningful! They're not stuck in their ways. They're developing as people. With some 911 characters, I don't think they're done developing but I think the writers are done with showing any true development.

AE is amazing! I watched it from the first two episodes and was hooked. I'm a secondary school teacher myself so I just die at the accuracy and OMG you need to watch severance, it's one of the best things I've ever watched.

mostly i am scared of succession being all business talk LMAO i am absolutely no economist asdfghj - MOOD. That's how I felt but honestly it's not tooooo jargon-y at all. There's talk that you might not fully get but then other characters explain it well. I had the same time with watching Suits and talks of merges and stuff lol

[not-siri]

I told y’all I’d do a pointless commentary on ”Tsst”. Let’s go. Controversial opinions and a bit of a hot take about Liane coming through. Oh, and it turns into another dumb overly descriptive analysis near the end. TW for a singular graphic image from the series.

Haha, good old Cartman. Back when he’d casually make some fucker dismember himself offscreen for insulting his weight. Stuff like this is the reason I think Cartman’s criminal record is worse than what we’re treated to onscreen.

Yes Liane, cry me a fucking river about your the out of control kid you made. 🎻

I love it when you can’t tell whether Cartman is trying to act normal for a hot second or just being a dick.

Cartman’s songs are always amazing, even if they’re just like ten seconds long and to make someone stop crying.

Nanny 911? You should know that’s not gonna do anything for this kid, Mackey.

A kid literally trying to restart the Holocaust? Nothing ol’ Nanny Stella can’t fix, apparently.

Damn why is Stella so THICC?

Bri’ish Carmen?

It pisses me off to fucking hell and heaven that a certain incredibly shitty YouTube puppet channel used this premise. Fuck the unnamed creators of the unnamed video in question.

Woah, how did Cartman do that? I wish I had the escape magic he does when I was a kid.

You’re right that you shouldn’t get on his level, Liane. Looks like Cartman taught you right to be respectful and obedient.

The virgin Nanny Stella getting called out for being a virgin by the, unfortunately enough, not virgin Eric Cartman.

This new lady is thicc too

Nah lady, we’re gonna see a new Super Nanny. Namely, one that eats her own shit in a mental hospital.

Is she wrong though?

WOOOO! The king is here!

Hell yeah, you’re the dog whisperer! Now go train that psychotic, obese fourth grader and his perverted, antisemitic mom!

Friendly reminder that Cesar’s technique also allegedly works on actual kids

Yeah Cartman, you’re just big boned. And later in the episode, your bones shrink.

Does she love you, Cartman? Eh, debatable at the time of this episode.

Cesar just brought out Cartman’s equivalent to fucking cocaine.

The only real reason to watch this episode:

He’ll be back, soon he’ll see, that he’s a dependent homeless little pussy (People who get the reference deserve all the Cheesy Poofs in the world)

Side commentary, I think if Cartman has anyone in that town who’s truly loyal to him in the current season, it’s Clyde.

Valmer. Sad when some huge bitch with small, detailed eyes from the real world knows Jimmy better than you, Cartman.

Craig is the best.

Proof that the vaccine didn’t make Liane artistic right there.

Yay another tsst pose.

Good for you with controlling him, Liane. Now since I’ve seen this episode, I have a reason to get mad at you at the end.

Thanks to the art style, we’ll never know what Cartman saw in that mirror. His own self being bossed around by his mother? A very slightly slimmed face? Some semblance of decency in his eyes?

See, Cartman could do well in school if he gave two shits. He’s not entirely inherently book-dumb.

Look here, Liane knows full well what a monster her son is. And she knows at this point in the episode what she needs to do to keep him on his positive path. This is important.

Cartman looks less fat now, and taller. I think he’s the second tallest fourth grader.

I see Butters’ surprise at his plan. From his experience, it goes the other way around.

Cartman is being really two-faced about his love for Hitler here…

While I don’t condone assisted matricide over her bossing you around, technically I imagine ol’ Jimbo would happily give Stan a gun. Also, just a few episodes back Cartman had a gun. Couldn’t he hypothetically just lend it to him? Basically, that line sucks.

Look at Stan’s eyebrows. This must be one of the few times he was the one most concerned about Cartman’s twisted bullshit rather than Kyle. Stan also has the best relationship with his mom of the kids in that room. Connection?

Just. This scene. It’s actually dramatic and perhaps telling of Cartman’s psyche and worldview. Now I’m gonna get mildly serious.

Cartman is trying to kill his mother. Usually, he only physically hurts/attempts to physically hurt specific people if it’s a) protecting his massive yet fragile ego or b) in a mutual physical fight. Why is he trying to hurt his mom?

Seemingly, because she’s not obeying him anymore. I wanna elaborate on this with a theory: he largely sees her in a twisted light- as not really a person, more a servant. A servant who mainly asks for his validation in return. As such, she is expected to serve his greedy, spoiled, unhealthy self and protect his enormous ego from the insecurities of everyday life (being fat, cruel, hated, etc). That’s the arrangement. (Hell, if he wholeheartedly meant what he was saying about how she apparently doesn’t love him anymore, then that’s his perception of a normal mother-son relationship.) And now the arrangement he’d been raised and gotten comfortable under was being taken away. Liane isn’t being validated by him anymore, she’s not protecting him in the aforementioned sense, and he’s changing away from his lifestyle of narcissism, cruelty, and laziness. Cartman doesn’t like that, so tries to end the whole shebang by offing the source of the now invalid, uncomfortable relationship. (A bit like what he attempted to do to Heidi in “Sons A Witches”... this kid is truly twisted.)

Or he just likes playing the victim. Or both. Idk

Then we see him wonder whether he really should. Maybe I don’t have the right to kill my mom. His suppressed, perhaps deliberately self-neglected conscience is coming out. I think that would have happened in a case where he would try to kill his mom even without Cesar’s help. And it’s just more proof that, technically speaking, Cartman is in fact not a sociopath.

But here’s where Cesar does come in next. Because of his behavior changing due to him, Cartman is so conflicted in the first place. (I think he quite possibly could have gone through with it if it weren’t for Cesar.) First, I’m gonna say that his “evil side” in this scene is a sort of metaphor. The joke seemed to be an allusion to some evil being controlling him usually, but it probably shouldn’t be taken literally due to its being a joke. Rather, I’d like to argue that it also represents the cruel, despicable Cartman we had gotten to know before this episode, who he really is so to speak. And his “good side” is popping up too, representing the decent, self-aware human being he could have been and we knew for about a minute.

We have his “evil side” telling him that he can kill his mother, because he can do whatever with her. And the “good side” is disagreeing, and saying things like maybe all these changes are good for me. Maybe… the world doesn’t revolve around me? And that idea is so alien, so impossible to Cartman’s self-centered, evil-dominated little mind that he nearly goes mad, and his “good” and “evil” are in war, seeing which side to him will prevail.

The next morning, we see which side won the war. A mother by the name of Liane Cartman is about to ask her son about a knife and paper towel roll in her bedroom, when she sees a calm, well dressed, self-sufficient little boy studying before his school day while eating a healthy breakfast, which he did all on his own. She tears up with joy, for that’s her son.

Liane then goes to see Mr. Millan, a man who had been helping her and keeping her company. She proudly told him about her child, and then asked him whether he would like to go on an outing with her. Millan rejects the offer, telling her that his job is done and that he must go back home, then leaves.

And happy fun validation-with-no-strings-attached times are over for Liane, and so is my ability to have a lot of sympathy for this woman. I already made several points and allusions to this point in the episode. You see, Liane learned something today. She learned that in order to have a normal, healthy child, she’d need to treat him as such. (Now here’s where my unpopular and very low opinion of Liane shines through next.)

But fuck all that, she needs her stupid validation. Fuck her son, fuck his chance at being a normal person, fuck his health, literally fuck the whole world.

Now, FYI I wouldn’t be as harsh on Liane with what she did here if it were just an eventual slip back into the old routine. Old habits die hard, I couldn’t fully blame her if that were the case. But given what she learned/knew and then so immediately and in such an extra manner (telling him they’ll go to KFC and she’ll buy two toys) it must be so deliberate that it hurts.

And I must emphasize, Cartman’s choices are still his choices. From an omniscient POV, Liane is just his Freudian Excuse. And while Liane is an enabler to the point of manipulation, it was still ultimately Eric’s choice to go back to his old ways.

[outrunningthedark]

when i watched 911 as a casual viewer, i couldnt care less about ana and i thought no one is invested in her (but your posts about ableism were really educational!) so i wonder how fun is s5 going to be in regards of certain characters

You and I are one and the same re: assuming fans wouldn't be invested in her, but my reasoning, ofc, had to do with expecting better from everyone around me 😑 When members of the disabled community, not just the able-bodied, are prioritizing a character's looks over behavior clearly intended to show they're not the right fit for a man with a son who has CP... I still can't wrap my head around that one. It probably has to do with not having that specific condition and therefore not understanding why what she said should not have been brushed under the rug. But these are the same folks who go to bat for Shannon - although some have pulled back since knowing me, apparently 😉 - so... I can't say I'm surprised. To them, women are fragile creatures who must be protected, and that often means erasing negative characteristics as if women are incapable of fucking up just as easily as men. The fandom was banking on A*a being written out prior to season five because it had been done before with Ali, but Tim's comments in the aftermath of the finale hinted at Eddie still having a ways to go before coming to grips with what who he wants: TVLINE | Before all of this happened, Eddie wasn’t sure how he felt about Ana. Might this near-death experience bring them closer together? I don’t know. He appreciates Ana, and I think he has affection for her. But what Carla was pointing out to Eddie is that Ana seems like a really good thing for Christopher. He needs to make sure that he’s not committing to someone just for his kid. And I don’t know if anything is resolved there in his head. No matter how much people may dislike her returning for the new season, from an honest, analytical perspective, it makes sense that this is how Tim is choosing to proceed. "Make sure you're following your heart..." and then the very next episode she's at his bedside, at his welcome home party? Come on, y'all. Absolutely zero hints that Eddie was prepared to break it off. Maybe this is an #unpopularopinion, but I respect the decision NOT to copy the end of Buck + Ali. Watching Eddie decide FOR HIMSELF who has his heart is much more satisfying than opening the season with some question like, "How's Chris since you ended things with Ana?" Duh, we'd all celebrate it being over. But don't you want to KNOW what Eddie says? Don't you want to watch him take that step? Don't you want to witness his growth, rather than hear about it? @Buddie fandom you can't have it both ways. You're mad because EddieA*a isn't over yet, but A*a getting dumped before the season would be another excuse for Tim to incorporate fewer scenes where Eddie (and Chris) are the focus, and then you'd complain about them being underutilized. There's no winning with a lot of you so Tim's just gonna do what makes HIM happy. It's his show. Not yours. Or mine.

[lils-writes-stuff]

All That Remains

Spencer Reid x reader

Best Years Season 2 part seven | part six | part five | part four | part three | part two | part one | season one

summary: it’s the readers first day back on the job and the case has a huge plot twist

warning: normal criminal minds things, angst, sadness, gore, fun stuff

A/N: based on season 8 episode episode 14

 “Oh my god, okay I know I’ve seen it before, but the ring is just so beautiful on you,” Penelope gushed as she held Y/N’s that adorned her new engagement ring. 

 The women of the BAU gathered around her on her first day back to admire the ring. Of course, JJ and Penelope had seen it at least once before, but it was a whole different experience seeing it on her hand.

 It had been a total of three weeks since Y/N was discharged from the hospital and she was so excited to get back to work. She couldn’t deal with leave again and since she was fine mentally, all she had to do was wait until she was fine physically. 

 Spencer tended to her needs every waking moment he was home, much to her detest. He even thought about having her call her mother to stay with her until she was completely healed, but he revoked his idea when she gave him a not-so-loving look. But she was grateful none the less for his love and care for her. She was concerned about him though, sure she was stabbed, but he was the one kidnapped. After Spencer’s psych evaluation, he was deemed fit to go back to work. Y/N was very jealous when he got to go back. 

 “Thank you,” Y/N blushed as her hand moved to Blake to look at the ring.

 “He really did a good job of picking it out,” she declared as she examined the ring. 

 “Who knew Spence had such good taste?” JJ remarked, making the other women laugh. 

  Spencer heard the last of the conversation and naturally gave his actual reasoning for his choice. “It actually has nothing to do with taste, I made a decision by averaging all of her jewelry together and using an equation to evaluate which rings--”

 JJ coughed making Spencer stop. “Spence, I was joking, you did a great job.”

 “Right,” Spencer smiled sheepishly. 

 “It’s okay, Bubs, I think it was really cool how you chose it,” Y/N reassured the man’s insecurities. 

 He smiled at the compliment and then turned to Rossi as his voice was heard coming down the steps. 

 “Okay, okay, I know I saw it at the hospital that day, but you have to let me see it again,” Rossi spoke quickly as he came over to look at the ring again.

 Y/N laughed and held out her hand for him to see. 

 “It’s very you, Y/N,” Rossi commented as he looked at the ring. “Congratulations you two, again.” 

 “Thanks Rossi,” Spencer smiled at the man gratefully. 

 “Hey, you know what we should do?” JJ asked, gaining the attention of the rest of them. “We should have an engagement party!” 

 “Oh my gosh that is a great idea!” Penelope exclaimed, bouncing on her toes happily. “We can have little cupcakes made with rings and all the fun stuff.”

 “And I’ll host it,” Rossi said happily, turning to the couple who were just watching the plan being made.

 “Oh, Rossi, you don’t have to-” 

 “No, no, I insist, it’ll be a great time!” Rossi cut Y/N off from her protest. 

 Y/N turned her head to look at Spencer, wanting his input on the idea. Spencer simply shrugged, muttering a ‘why not’. The both of them knew he wouldn’t take no for an answer. 

 “Okay, sure, that’d be fun,” Y/N agreed with a smile. 

 “Excellent,” Rossi said with a nod. 

 “Guys,” Hotch said, nodding to the round table room.  

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

 “911 what’s your emergency?” The operator’s voice spook. 

 A pause then an inaudible mutter.

 “Hello? What’s your emergency?”

 “They’re gone,” The man on the other line responded. “My girls are gone. I need your help.”

 “When you say girls, do you mean your daughters?” 

 “Yes.” 

 “All right, I need you to stay on the line, sir. Please confirm where you’re calling from.”

 “1721 Hillcrest Drive, this can’t be happening.” 

 “What’s your name, sir?” 

 “Bruce. Bruce Morrison.”

 “How old are your daughters, Mr. Morrison?”

 “Thirteen and Seventeen.” 

 “When was the last time you saw them?”

 “They went to bed around 9:30. No, wait, it was Monday. Sarah has a study group, so it was more like 10:00.”

 “Sir, today is Wednesday. You haven’t seen them since Monday?”

 “No. No, that can’t be right.”

 “I’m sorry, sir, but it is. The police have been alerted, sir, and they’re on their way.” 

 “That call came in an hour ago,” Hotch said, stopping the recording. 

 The rest of the team sat in stunned silence as they listened to the message. 

 “How does a single father lose his teenage daughters for thirty-six hours?” JJ asked in disbelief. 

 “He doesn’t,” Rossi shook his head. 

 “His girls are gone,” Blake repeated the phrasing of Bruce on the phone. 

 “Yeah, that’s strange, he didn’t blame anyone,” Y/N pointed, agreeing with Blake’s silent question. 

 “And he doesn’t use any buzzwords first responders are trained to hear,” Derek added. “He never says missing, abducted, runaway.”

 “Maybe that’s what they did, though. Maybe they ran away,” Penelope perked up. She didn’t like to hear the call, let alone have this happening in the first place, she was hoping for a better outcome then what everyone was thinking. 

 “There’s no history of that,” Rossi argued sadly. 

 “The likelihood of a stranger abduction in a neighborhood like this is rare. I’ve counted seven turns from the entrance to their driveway,” Spencer announced as he looked down at the map on the table. “No one just stumbled onto the house.” 

 “And where’s the mother? Could this be a parental child abduction?” Y/N asked, turning her head from Spencer to Hotch. 

 “Uh, doubtful,” Hotch sighed. “Exactly one year ago today, he made this call.”

 With one click on the remote, another 911 call came up. The call was almost exactly the same as the one they had just listened to. Same phrasing, same tone, just replacing ‘girls’ with ‘wife’. 

 “She’d also been missing for two days before he contacted authorities, and she’s never been found,” Hotch said, stopping the recording. 

 “This man is either the victim of a serial offender, or he is one,” Rossi said. 

 “Please tell me this guy’s in custody?” Derek asked with irritation. 

 “The Salisbury police are at his home, and they’ve been there since the call came in,” Hotch answered.

 “There are hard copies and tablet copies of both case files on the plane,” Penelope announced. “It’s a short flight to the eastern shore. There’ll be more when you land.”

 The team gathered up all that they had on the round table and made their way to the plane.

-----------

 “Bruce and Judy Morrison were well-liked and active in the community,” Y/N said as she looked over the files they had received on the plane.  

 Spencer sat down beside her, placing a cup of tea on the table. 

 She smiled and mouthed a thank you which he replied doing the same thing. 

 “Yeah, all signs point to them living a quiet life,” JJ agreed as she flipped through her own file. 

 “He’s a writer and a professor, and it looks like she got into real estate a few years ago,” Derek added as his eyes scanned over a page. 

 “ ‘02, before the market crashed,” Rossi established as he looked at the date.

 “Well, ten years later, Judy had an affair with a co-worker. A Jeff Godwin?” JJ’s voice went off in question as she read the name. 

 “That was discovered in the investigation, but never made it in the papers,” Blake said, leaning in her chair so she could look at JJ. 

 “Bruce Morrison was a prime suspect, but they never found any evidence, and the affair wasn’t deemed enough of a motive,” Hotch clarified. “The university’s put him on sabbatical since then.”  

 “He’s been writing forever, and he’s been teaching since 1985,” JJ added, flipping through the pages of the file. “Transcript says he was grief-stricken and couldn’t handle the pressure.”

 “Not many people could,” Rossi bargained. “The odds of this event striking the same family on the same day must be a million to one.” 

 “Mm, close enough,” Spencer hummed, not arguing with the statistic. 

 “Judy inherited money from her family, and it’s in a trust fund for the girls,” Blake assessed. 

 “Oh, jeez, please don’t tell me he got rid of his wife for money,” Y/N shook her head. 

 “Uh, bank records indicate he hasn’t touched the funds, despite the depleting supplemental income from the university,” Spencer eased the worry. 

 “Yeah, but it could be a combo platter. Revenge and profit,” Rossi argued.

 “His wife cheated, and he retaliated in anger, that might not be a surprise, but that doesn’t explain why he would harm his own children,” Derek added, confusion evident in his voice. 

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

 “The oldest daughter Sarah had a 4.0 GPA, but she didn’t apply to a single college back east,” Spencer began as he read from the page in the file in his lap. “She got accepted to Stanford early admission. Maybe her father saw going that far away as a form of betrayal.”

 “The second one in a year,” Rossi’s voice posed over the phone. “First his wife of twenty-seven years fools around and then probably threatens to end the marriage. A year later, the daughter can’t wait to leave.” 

 “Abandonment could be the common denominator,” Blake agreed from her seat beside Y/N in the back of the SUV with Derek and Spencer. 

 “There is another possibility,” Derek interrupted. “Maybe Bruce Morrison didn’t do it. Did the family have any enemies?”

 “The only person that could remotely be an enemy would be Jeff Godwin,” Y/N answered, her own mind forming possible theories. 

 “Mm, looks like he had a pretty solid alibi the night Judy went missing,” JJ’s voice said through the phone. “He was wining and dining with his own wife at a local restaurant.”

 “So the only viable suspect back then was the same one we have now,” Blake said.

 “All the answers are in that house,” Hotch said as they turned the final corner and came up to the house of the Morrisons. 

 The front yard was filled with locals as one SUV pulled into the driveway and the other pulled along the side of the street. The doors of the cars echoed shut as they exited the vehicles and walked up to the detective who was waiting for them on the front porch. 

 “Marty Friedman. Thanks for making the trip,” the detective said as Hotch and Rossi approached him first. “I’ve got search and rescue combing the woods and the Choptank and Wicomico rivers. We’re dredging all the way from here to the Chesapeake. I’m not letting this guy get away with this again.”

 “Has he said why he took a day to call?” Y/N posed the question everyone had been wondering. Her hands were stuffed in the pockets of her navy coat from the cool air.

 Friedman scoffed. “Claims he doesn’t remember,” he looked back to the window where Bruce was standing, inspecting the new visitors. “He’s been glued to his computer, maybe he needs new material for a novel.”

 “We’ll work alongside your team if that’s alright,” Hotch said to Friedman. 

 “Whatever you need,” he responded with a nod. 

 The team followed the detective into the house. Y/N looked at Bruce as he eyed down Hotch as they walked into the house. 

 “Everyone take a room,” Hotch ordered and the team split up and walked amongst the house. 

 “Looks like Katie stayed in a lot,” Spencer assessed as he and Y/N looked over the young girl’s room. “She has her schedule of when she was gonna try new recipes.” 

 Spencer flipped through the colorful pages of the book with different recipes and fun sketches. 

 “She seems like a really sweet girl,” Y/N sighed as she looked through a journal. She then turned to her desk and pointed out some of the things she noticed. “Her charger’s here, but her phone is not.” 

 “Maybe it’s with her?” Spencer posed.

 “Maybe, I’ll have Garcia track it,” Y/N said, pulling her phone out of her pocket. 

 “It’ll only work if it’s on,” Spencer reminded her.

 “It’s worth a try though,” Y/N looked up to Spencer with sad eyes. Of course, her first case back had to do with kids, just her luck.

 “If the girls had access to a phone and they were okay, they would have called for help by now,” Spencer said, giving her the same sad eyes she gave him. 

 Y/N’s thumb stopped typing, she knew he was right, but that guilty feeling in her didn’t want her to.

 “Y/N.” Spencer’s hands reached for hers that held her phone. “You okay?” 

 “Yeah, it’s just-” she let out a shaky breath with a groan- “it’s just my luck that my first case back has to do with kids.”

 Spencer looked down sadly, knowing the pain she was feeling. 

 “But it’s okay, it’s just because it’s the first case, ripping off the bandaid, you know? I’ll get back to being able to carpmentalizing it any second.” She shook her hands out after setting down her phone and the journal she was holding. 

 Spencer gave her the look. The look that said it’s okay to take a second, it’s okay to talk to me, it’s okay to not be ready all just yet. 

 “Stop that.”

 “Stop what?” 

 “Stop being so understanding,” she laughed and pointed her finger at him. “I’m fine, I really am, it’s just gonna take a sec to get into the swing of things again.” 

 “Okay,” he smiled, reaching for her hand,and pulling her into a loving hug that made her heart melt. 

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

 Y/N’s eyes scanned over the box in the basement of the Morrison house. Shelf after shelf filled with buckets and old memorabilia of Judy. 

 “Wow,” Spencer mused as he walked closer to Y/N from his side of the room. “She had a lot of hobbies before she started selling real estate.”

 “Yeah, family projects it looks like,” Y/N nodded. She turned to the shelf she had just been looking at boxes being held on it. “Devoted mom.” 

 On the boxes were dates written under the label ‘quilts’. The dates went all the way back to 1998, the years Sarah Morrison was born. 

 “You ready, Reid?” Derek’s voice called from up the stairs.

 “Yeah,” Spencer echoed back. “You good?” He asked, turning to Y/N. 

 She nodded and he turned to head up the stairs. 

Her eyes scanned over the boxes again, looking at the only one that was labeled with a name. On the box, it read; ‘Quilts, 1999-200, Katie’. Y/N made sure to keep that in mind for anything in the future and turned up the stairs to follow Spencer. 

---------

 “So what do you think?” Blake asked, turning to Y/N and Rossi, exiting Sarah’s room. The sobs of Bruce echoed down the hall after Hotch told him they had just found the body of Katie in a river. Sarah had still yet to be found. 

 “He’s sober, so this is raw emotion,” Rossi answered as the three walked down the hallway. “He lost his legs when Hotch told him.” 

 “The tears could be guilt as much as grief,” Y/N whispered as a reminder.

 “Because that’s what we’re supposed to do when given that news,” Blake said as they rounded the corner and filed down the stairs. “I don’t mean to sound so cynical, but the man writes fiction.” 

 Y/N and Rossi nodded as they came to the last set of stairs. At the bottom stood Hotch and JJ, who had just gotten off the phone with Derek and Spencer who were at the scene. 

 “Any sign of Sarah?” Y/N asked, hopeful for a good answer. 

 “Maybe she’s still out there,” JJ said, just as hopeful as Y/N for a good report from the people on the phone.

 “Doubtful, unless she’s found shelter,” Rossi acknowledged as they walked the final steps of the stairs. “It’s supposed to be in the twenties tonight.” 

 “Now that we’ve got Katie’s body, we should run scenarios for what really happened Monday night,” Blake said. 

 Hotch hung up his phone and looked up to the group around him. “That was the lab. Bruce definitely fired a gun at some point, there’s residue on the sheets and on the boots.”

 Y/N sighed, not wanting to hear that news. “We need to get him to the station.” 

 The five of them turned as they heard the creaking of the floorboards behind them. At the top of the stairs stood Bruce, hearing the whole conversation. 

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

 “Alright thanks, Spence,” Y/N said, hanging up her phone and turning to Hotch. “That was Reid. He said Katie had skin built up under her nails. They’re on their way back from the M.E. right now.” 

 “We need to look for defensive wounds on him,” Hotch nodded, leaving the bullpen and entering into the interrogation room. 

 Y/N walked closer to the one-way window and watched as Hotch entered the room. 

 “Mr. Morrison, I need to ask you to roll up your sleeves,” Hotch ordered Bruce. 

 “What?” Bruce asked, turning his head sharply to look at Hotch. 

 “Please.” 

 Bruce sighed and rolled up his sleeve on his right arm, revealing small but numerous cuts on his forearm.  

 “I saw these in the shower this morning when I woke up,” Bruce said sadly, not making eye contact with Hotch. “I have no idea how I got them.” 

 “Did they happen during the fight?” Hotch asked, referring to the fit a neighbor had told them he heard. 

 “It wasn’t a fight, it was just parenting,” Bruce tried to explain. “Did the detective tell you about Jeff Godwin? You should talk to him.” 

 Hotch raised a brow in question at the man. 

 “He still coaches Sarah’s soccer team, even though it’s ridiculous.” 

 “Every time I ask you a question, you have this habit of deflecting attention onto someone else,” Hotch remarked, making Bruce become quiet. 

 Y/N rolled her shoulders, standing up straight as she watched Bruce’s body language, trying to decipher his emotions and behavior. When he stayed unresponsive, Y/N took that as the end of the interview and walked out of the room into the break room. 

 “Wonder Woman,” Derek greeted the woman as she walked in. 

 She let out a huff as a greeting back, clearly annoyed with everything that Bruce was saying. “Bruce Morrison wants us to talk to Jeff Godwin.”

 “Convenient, since he just walked in,” Spencer said as he walked over to the two by the coffee station. 

 “Great just what he wanted,” Y/N sighed, moving into the spot next to Derek as he finished making his coffee. 

 As he moved over for Y/N to make her coffee, he picked up his phone that began to ring. 

 “Hey, Blake,” Derek answered as he stepped away from the coffee bar. 

 Y/N poured some creamer into the cup as she listened to Derek on the phone. 

 “Morgan, we need you to find Jeff Godwin,” Blake’s voice echoed through the phone. 

 “She isn’t the only one he thinks that,” Y/N sighed, taking a sip of her coffee. 

 “Uh, he just walked in,” Derek responded, turning to look through the window to Jeff Godwin who was standing in a room to the side of them.

 “He did?” Blake mused. 

 “Says he heard we found Katie, and he’s worried about Sarah,” Derek said, relaying the conversation that Y/N had not heard yet. 

 “He also texted Sarah the night she went missing and then deleted the text.” Blake’s information made the three’s faces contort in shock and look to Jeff. “It looks like they texted a lot.” 

 “Really?” Derek said, some anger boiling inside him as he watched Jeff. Without having Blake respond, he hung up the phone and nodded for Y/N to come with him. 

 “Mr. Godwin,” Y/N greeted as she and Derek entered the room he was in.

 “Mr. Godwin, why did you feel it was appropriate to regularly text a seventeen-year-old girl?” Derek asked, getting straight to the point. 

 “I-I’ve known those girls for a long time-” Jeff shook his head- “Way before anything happened between me and their mother.”

 Y/N and Derek’s faces stayed unresponsive, waiting for him to get to the actual intent of why he was texting a teen. 

 “Look, I coach Sarah.” 

 “And you didn’t think to request a different team, you know, considering the circumstances?” Y/N asked, her hand not holding her coffee gesturing as she spoke. 

 “No,” Jeff shrugged. “My daughter plays on that team.”

 Once again, Derek and Y/N stayed unresponsive. 

 “Look, Sarah reached out to me Monday night- God knows she needs a father figure--” 

 “Maybe the man her mother had an affair with…” Derek began taking a step closer to Jeff. 

 Y/N took a step also, becoming even with Derek. “Might not be the best person for that,” Y/N finished the statement. 

 Derek nodded in agreement. 

 “Look-” Jeff took a step of his own- “I just came in here because I had heard about Katie and I was worried about Sarah. Don’t treat me like a criminal.”

 “Sarah deleted texts that the two of you shared,” Y/N said, turning her head to the side. “The same day she disappeared. Now that’s a little suspicious, don’t you agree, Morgan?” 

 “Mm-hmm,” Derek hummed in response. 

 “Hey- wait, okay,” Jeff stumbled, pulling his phone out of his pocket. “They’re all here. We agreed to meet in the parking lot of the convenience store on route 113.” 

 He turned his phone, showing the texts to Y/N and Derek. Derek took the phone from the man’s hand, putting it between the two of them so they could read it. 

 “Is this a regular thing for you?” Derek asked as he read the texts. 

 “Well, we’ve met there a couple of times recently, when she was really scared about what was happening with her and her dad,” Jeff responded. 

 “What was happening?” Y/N asked. 

 Jeff took in a deep breath, almost like he was afraid to tell them. “Bruce gets...violent when he drinks, and it’s been getting worse.”

 Derek and Y/N turned their heads, silently saying for him to elaborate more on the topic. 

 Jeff let out a breath through his nose. “Sarah had every reason to be terrified. I mean look what happened.” 

 Derek and Y/N nodded, handing Jeff his phone back and heading out of the room. When they walked out, they were greeted with the whole team now, including Penelope on a video call. 

 “Is everyone there?” Penelope asked prompting Hotch to nod. “Um, this call came in on Monday.”

 Before she continued, Hotch walked over to the door of the conference room and closed it. 

 “It was made on Katie’s cell, which is still M.I.A., the only 800 number she called was the local abuse hotline. She called there a few times in the last couple of months,” Penelope explained, pressing play on the recording. JJ turned up the TV volume. 

 “My name is Katie Morrison, I called last week,” Katie’s voice rang through the speaker. 

 “Yes, Katie, I remember you,” the operator on the other line responded. 

 “He’s at it again. He’s just going crazy. He’s really drunk.” 

 “Katie, are you safe?” 

 “Yes, hold on.”

 “Hi, it’s Sarah,” Sarah’s voice came into the call. “We’re okay. I can handle this.”

 “Girl’s open the door,” Bruce’s voice yelled next. “Katie, open the door.” 

 The sound of loud banging was heard next, making Y/N squeezing her eyes shut. 

 “I said open the door!” 

 When the recording stopped, Y/N opened her eyes and watched as Hotch asked to have the recording sent to his phone and took Rossi to the interrogation room holding Bruce. 

-----------

 Y/N watched through the glass as Bruce began to remember the night as the call was played to him. As it ended, he slammed his hand on the table, repeating the same words he said in the call. He looked up to the glass, on his side being a mirror so he was looking at himself. 

 He walked closer to it, his demeanor changing slightly as he looked at himself. 

 What surprised everyone behind the glass was what he said next. 

 “Oh my god, what a pathetic little cry baby.” 

 The rest of the team that was behind the glass looked at each other in confusion, continuing to listen to the man as he spoke. 

 “Ugh,” Bruce rubbed his eyes. “I was always right about you, huh?”

 He was still talking to himself in the mirror. He then turned around, a smug smirk playing on his face as he looked at Rossi and Hotch. 

 “So you got old Bruce-y in a cage, huh?” 

 Rossi and Hotch didn’t respond, still trying to decipher who this was and what was happening. 

 “You think that’s gonna help?” Bruce walked around the two agents and back over to his chair. “It’s only gonna make him hide longer.”

 When he reached the chair, he faced the two men again. “What do you wanna know?” 

 Rossi and Hotch stayed quiet again, not sure what to do. 

 When they didn’t give him a response, the man spoke again. “I’m gonna have to tell you ‘cause the baby’s got his pacifier.” 

 “Where’s Sarah?” Hotch finally asked a question. 

 “She’s learning a lesson,” the man responded with a shrug. 

 “What did you do to them?” Hotch asked. 

 In a mocking tone, the man responded, “What did you do to them?”

 Not amused, Hotch and Rossi glared at him. 

 “I scared them that’s all. They need it,” he sighed. 

 “Why?”

 “Because they’re spoiled, ungrateful little bitches who walk all over him any chance they get,” he responded. 

 “Wow,” Y/N whispered in amazement at the response. 

 “What happened to Bruce?” Hotch asked the question everyone had been wondering. 

 “He’s hiding, of course,” the man responded. “See… when he can’t handle it, I save his ass. Bruce’s problem is...he can’t handle anything.”

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

 “So Bruce said Katie baked cookies Monday night,” JJ said, turning away from the board as Rossi and Friedman entered the room. “We found them in the kitchen, so that’s true.”

 “And two of Sarah’s friends confirmed she never made it to her study group,” Blake continued, her voice slightly muffled from her cheek being pressed against her hand. 

 “And that’s because Jeff Godwin was in the parking lot with her from 8:15 to 9:30,” Derek added. 

 “And the girls called the hotline at 9:58,” Spencer finished the timeline. 

 “Detective, have your officers found either gun?” Hotch asked as detective Friedman walked up to the board to look at the post-it notes on it. 

 “No, but we’ve increased the search given where Katie’s body was found,” Friedman replied. 

 “Okay so, we’ve got residue, but we don’t know which gun or where it is now,” Derek said, his eyes trained on the floor. 

 “Okay, look,” Y/N said, raising her hands to stop anyone from talking. “Whoever that was in there said he wanted to scare them, not hurt them.”

 “Katie was beaten over the head in the middle of nowhere,” Blake reminded her. 

 “You’re right,” Y/N gestured to her. “The altar could have lost his temper, or it could have been a horrible accident.”

 “But getting the girls out of the house was planned. He said he wanted to scare them and had a gun to do it,” Rossi said. 

 “And then, he drove them somewhere,” Derek continued. “Bruce’s car had the same mud on the driver’s side floor that he had on his boots, but there wasn’t any in the backseat. SO three people drove somewhere, but only he came back.” 

 “And the DNA coming back from under Katie’s nails will tell us what we already know-- That Bruce Morrison did this. SO can I arrest him now?” Friedman said, antsy to put cuffs on the man he felt was responsible. 

 “Detective, you have sufficient evidence to make the arrest, but we still don’t have Sarah,” Hotch told him, eyes glaring at the man. 

 “Give us an hour, and maybe, he’ll tell us where she is,” Y/N said, an idea in her head forming. 

 “It's your call, but he could still help us,” Hotch said. 

 Friedman sighed. “Okay. One hour.”

 So the team began their work, and they had to work fast. 

 “There’s no way for us to confirm a D.I.D. diagnosis yet, but we do know he has chronic alcoholism, Which can and has gone hand in hand with it,” Spencer explained to the team that was scattered amongst the conference room. “The interesting thing is his liver and pancreas wouldn’t have survived thirty years of that kind of abuse, so there must have been years where he’s gotten help.” 

 “He was in a program,” Blake shrugged. 

 “Eh, it would have to be more than that,” Spencer replied then turned to Y/N who had Penelope on the line. “Garcia, has he ever been on medication to help curb his drinking?” 

 “All I’ve got is a yearly physical, and that is it,” Penelope replied. 

 “D.I.D. usually stems from a history of sexual abuse,” Blake said slowly, hoping to give something to Penelope to help her. 

 “Okay, well, I’ve got nothing like that,” Penelope said. “All I have on Bruce Morrison is that his mother died when he was ten-”

 “There’s your abandonment issue,” Rossi remarked. 

 “And he was raised by a single alcoholic father, and there’s no evidence of any prescriptions.”

 “I mean, they look like the perfect family,” Spencer said, opening the file with family photos in it. 

 “Yeah, but she would have had to know about his drinking before they got married,” Y/N said as she peered over at the photos Spencer was holding. “So maybe, she helped manage him and kept his problem a secret.” 

 “She could have been the one that got the prescription,” Spencer’s lightbulb went off. “Garcia, can you run her medical history?” 

 “Yeah, hold on…”

 They waited about twenty seconds before her voice was heard again. 

 “Okay, disulfiram. Am I saying that right? It’s for chronic alcoholism. She had a 90-day supply delivered four times a year for as long as I can tell. And it stopped coming a few months ago.”

 “It makes you just feel nauseous if you drink,” Spencer explained the effects of the medicine. 

 “But she isn’t the one who had the drinking problem, he is. Garcia, who canceled it?” Derek asked the woman on the phone. 

 “Please hold while I dig.” She hung up the phone.

 “Could that be the trigger? He goes after his daughters now that he’s off his meds?” Blake turned to look at Y/N and Spencer when she asked her questions. 

 Y/N’s eyes panned up to the TV that showed Hotch talking to Bruce. Then to Jeff Godwin in the other room. “That instability could work for us.” 

 She set her plan into action. Y/N had Derek get Jeff Godwin and bring him into the interrogation room with Bruce in it. 

 “Hey, I- I didn’t- Hey, look I didn’t agree to this,” Jeff stumbled as he came face to face with Bruce sitting in the interrogation room. 

 “Well, we’re looking for Sarah, and you’re the last ones to see her alive,” Y/N said, leaning on the metal table.

 “Look, like I told you guys earlier, I had nothing to do with this. And Sarah’s afraid of him.” He pointed at Bruce when he spoke of him. 

 “You wanna tell us about your relationship with Sarah?” Y/N asked, moving her hands in a circular motion as she spoke. 

 “I don’t have one,” Jeff replied, after a pregnant pause. 

 Y/N’s eyebrows furrowed. “Huh, that’s strange. Why do you text her all the time then?” 

 At her words, Bruce sat up straighter, jaw clenching as he looked at a frightened Jeff. 

 “Jeff, come on, it’s not that big of a leap,” Y/N spoke nonchalantly. “Couldn’t have Judy anymore so you thought... Why not? Sarah looks just like her mom.”  

 Her words angered Bruce just like she thought they would. He pushed himself out of his chair and leaped for Jeff, but Derek intercepted him before he could touch him. 

 “I’m gonna kill that son of a bitch!” Bruce exclaimed as Derek pushed him back. 

 “Get him out! Get him out now,” Derek commanded the guard in the room to take Jeff out. 

 Once Derek had calmed Bruce (now his altar) down, he walked out of the room, leaving Y/N there standing on the other side of the table. 

 “Judy was gonna leave my boy for that scumbag,” the altar said, pointing to the door Jeff had exited. 

 “What’s your name?” Y/N asked as she watched the altar's body language. 

 “What’s your name?”

 Y/N scoffed at his retort. “I’m Y/N, and you,” she nodded, her arms crossed as she stood tall. 

 “My name is Johnny, and I need a cigarette, Y/N,” Johnny placed his hands on his hips. 

 “Well, I might be able to help you out there, even though I don’t condone smoking, but I’m sure you’re stressed.” Y/N began to walk back and forth across the room. 

 “Oh, I’m not,” Johnny shook his head. “I just want a smoke.”

 “Johnny,” Y/N scolded at the lie. “Come on. I know these teenage girls stress you out, no matter what you say.”

 Johnny lifted his head up, a smug smirk as he looked at Y/N. 

 “How do you deal with it?” She continued her questions in hopes they would get him to tell her where Sarah was. “Do you like to, um...go out and shoot something?” 

 Johnny’s head cocked to the side and he shrugged. “Sometimes, but I don’t get much of a chance to do that.”

 Y/N raised her brows in fake surprise. “Oh! I thought you did have a chance recently?”

 Johnny chuckled and didn’t respond.

 Y/N smirked at his none response and let out her own chuckle. “I think you did.”

 Johnny’s head dropped as he continued to laugh. 

 “Now, you know, I’m just- I’m curious,” she laughed then pointed to the door with her thumb. “Then I’ll go get you a cancerous cigarette.”

 Johnny smiled and gestured towards Y/N. “I like you, Y/N.” 

 Oh, that’ll make Spencer’s blood pressure go up, Y/N thought to herself. 

 “So…” Y/N trailed off, walking back and forth again as she changed the subject. “You took the girls somewhere to scare them...somewhere quiet, isolated…” She watched his reactions to what she said carefully. “Near the water?” 

 That got him to respond. 

 “I didn’t do anything but scare ‘em.” 

 “Oh, of course not.” 

 Johnny crossed his arms and came closer to Y/N as she stood in a dominant stance across the room. 

 “Do you have a place by the river?” 

 Johnny ignored the question. “Mm, pretty, and smart.” 

 Y/N gave him daring eyes, demanding an actual answer to her question. 

 “It’s not my place,” Johnny shook his head. “It’s not anybody’s place anymore.” 

 Y/N turned her head for him to elaborate more. 

 “I’ve taken them out there before, but this time…” He leaned forward, closer to Y/N this time (almost in her face) and whispered, “I got their attention.”

 Y/N stepped back, nodding her head and nodded towards the guard to open the door. 

 “How about that cigarette now?” 

 “Not gonna let you pour cancer into Bruce’s lungs.”

 The door closed behind her after she spoke and she could hear the tantrum Johnny was having. When she entered the bullpen, she saw Spencer standing in front of the glass. Arms crossed and lips pursed. 

 “Bub,” she whispered, gaining his attention. “You good?” 

 “Mm-hm, yep,” he nodded turning to her. “Just uh, you know, it was a little difficult not jumping through the glass to strangle him when he looked at you.” 

 Y/N chucked, her head dropping as she took a step closer to him. 

 “Spence, you and I both know that he wouldn’t have walked out of that room if he got closer to me.”

 Spencer laughed as she pushed up on her toes to place a kiss on his cheek. He grabbed her left hand and brought it up to his lips, kissing the spot right beside her ring.

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

 That night, in the pouring, freezing rain, JJ and Derek found Sarah in the woods. She had a black eye and some cuts but she was okay. 

 Y/N had gone to the hospital to talk to Sarah with JJ. Letting her know what she would have to do and it was okay to back out. 

 Sarah seemed like a genuinely sweet girl and she took a liking to Y/N as she cried. When the three of them entered the precinct, JJ took her into the interrogation room, while Y/N stayed in the bullpen with the rest of the team. 

 “I have a bad feeling,” Y/N whispered as her stomach turned, something was off. 

 “What about?” Spencer whispered back. 

 “I’m not sure yet…” 

 As Sarah sat down, her two hands clasped together reached across the table for Bruce’s. His cuffed wrists stayed together as he held her hands.

 “I’m so sorry,” Bruce said, eyes spilling with tears. 

 “Dad, you need help,” Sarah said softly.

 Bruce let out a breath and nodded. 

 His eyes went up to the cuts and bruises on Sarah’s face and sucked in a sharp breath. “Did I do that?” 

 Sarah nodded and let a few more tears slip.

 “I’m sorry,” Bruce apologized genuinely again. “I’m so sorry.” 

 Y/N stomach turned again, this time out of sadness. Instinctively, she reached for Spencer’s hand, needing a reassurement, and to know it would all be okay. He grabbed her hand, lacing their fingers together for a second, and squeezed it. 

 “What can I do?” Bruce asked Sarah, pleading agony in his voice. 

 “They say that if you tell them where mom is, this will all just-” 

 “But I don’t know. You know I don’t know,” Bruce cut her off.

 “She didn’t just disappear, Dad,” Sarah sobbed. 

 When Bruce didn’t respond, only letting out a breathy sob, Sarah let out another crying accusation. 

 “Oh God, you killed her too didn’t you?” 

 “No, no, I didn’t,” Bruce shook his head.

 “How am I supposed to believe you?” Sarah sobbed and started pointing to the marking Bruce, or rather Johnny left. “This--this is what you’ve done.” 

 Bruce just looked at the injuries sadly. 

 “You have hurt us all for a long time,” Sarah continued, her voice giving out at the end. She stood up from the table and began to exit the room with JJ. 

 Bruce pleaded with her to not go, but she didn’t listen and just left the room. 

----------

 Y/N walked with Sarah into her home, the mood of the house much different now compared to earlier in the day. The rain had died down from earlier, but it was still falling on the roof hard enough so it could be heard in the house. Sarah had an FBI jacket wrapped around her and Y/N had her signature navy petticoat tied around her waist.

 “You cold?” Y/N asked, noting how Sarah wrapped her arms around herself. 

 “Yeah, a bit, the thermostats right there,” she pointed to the machine down the hall. 

 Y/N walked down the hall, turning up the temperature, and looked back to Sarah. “Should warm up soon.” 

 Sarah stood, staring at the floor as Y/N walked closer to her. 

 “You think you can sleep?” 

 “Yeah, I want to shower first,” Sarah pointed up the stairs. 

 Y/N nodded in surprise. “Okay. Uh… you sure you’ll be okay up there?” 

 The reason why Y/N asked this was because, after her brother died, she wouldn’t even enter that side of the house for months. So it confused her as to how she would be able to go upstairs and be okay. 

 “Yeah, I’ll be fine,” Sarah said reassuringly. 

 Hesitantly, Y/N nodded, her bad gut feeling coming back. “Okay, um, I’m gonna make us some tea, that sound good?” 

 “That’d be really nice, thanks.” And with that, Sarah made her way up the stairs.

 Y/N nodded, letting her reassuring fake smile fall once Sarah was out of sight. Her eyes panned over to the table in the hall that adorned family photos. Behind it was a quilt she assumed their mother made. 

 The sound of her text messages startled her. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and looked at the text from Spencer. 

 All good? 

 “Oh Spencer, you always know when somethings up,” Y/N whispered to herself and replied with ‘not sure’. 

 About five minutes later, after Y/N had finished with the tea, she made her way to the dining room and set the cups down. Her phone went off again, this time a call. 

 When she pulled it out of her pocket, Spencer’s name lit up the screen. 

 “Hey,” she answered, her voice hushed.

 “What’s wrong?” Spencer asked, worry clear in his voice. 

 Y/N sat down at the head of the table and let out a breath. “I don’t know, I’m not sure, but the feeling is back again. She’s just...too casual and almost cold since we got here.” 

 “It could be the shock,” Spencer replied.

 “Yeah, I know, but she’s composed at the same time,” Y/N said, trying to explain Sarah’s behavior. “She has not mentioned Katie to me even once since we got here. I couldn’t go to the side of the house that my brother stayed in after he died.” 

 “She does have a point,” JJ’s voice said through the phone. “When my sister died, I couldn’t even walk into my house, let alone past her room.”

 “Well, what do you think, Y/N, Sarah pulled it off?” Blake’s voice asked. 

 “It may be a possibility,” Y/N shrugged. 

 “It’s a very detailed plan,” Blake commented. 

 “What, she knew about her father’s condition and took advantage of it?” Spencer asked as his voice rushed as he spoke. 

 “She set up character witnesses like Jeff Godwin...to back up her fear,” Derek’s voice said, piecing together a theory. “She even got her little sister to make calls to a hotline. She manipulated us from the minute we found her.”

 “Her writing suggested no empathy and no real emotional connection to the family,” Blake said, recalling the writing she had read earlier that day. 

 “Psychopathic tendencies,” Spencer remarked. 

 “Her wounds are more than superficial, but they could be self-inflicted, right, Y/N?” JJ asked the woman on the phone. 

 Out of the corner of her eye, Y/N saw Sarah enter the room. 

 “Baby, I know, I’m sorry I can’t be there for the dinner tonight,” Y/N said, quickly coming up with a cover for why she was on the phone. “But London and Jackson are there until Friday and I promise I will make it up to you when I get back.”

 Y/N then turned to look at Sarah, acknowledging her presence. “You okay? I didn’t hear the shower.”

 “Yeah, I just wanted my tea,” Sarah pointed to the cup on the table.

 “Oh, I was gonna bring it to you, but it should be ready,” Y/N stood up and handed her the cup. 

 “Yeah, I’m still here,” she said, wanting to let them know she was okay. 

 “We’ll be right there, stay on the phone,” Spencer said quickly as Y/N assumed he was running out of the precinct. 

 “Baby, I gotta go,” she said and hung up the phone, watching as Sarah walked away. 

 When Y/N heard the water running, she walked down to the basement, remembering the tub she saw earlier. She took her flashlight connected to her holster out and walked down the stairs. When she reached the floor she walked straight over to the tubs of quilts, specifically the one with Katie’s name. 

 She pulled it off the shelf and moved it over to an empty table next to it. As she filed through all the blankets, she came across a real estate binder. When she opened it and flipped through the pages, she heard a gun click behind her. 

 “Why did you have to come down here?” 

 Sarah’s voice rang in the quiet of the basement. 

 Cautiously, Y/N turned around to look at her. In Sarah’s hand was the second gun they had been looking for. 

 “We’ve been looking for that.” 

 “It’s an old house, I know the best hiding places,” she shrugged. “But you, what do you think you know?” 

 “You put everything that went missing with your mother inside this box,” Y/N nodded to the box beside her. “1999.” 

 “Maybe my dad did it?” 

 “No,” Y/N spoke before she could even finish. “No, you chose this box because it’s the year Katie was born and everything changed.”

 Sarah’s face formed a snarl as Y/N spoke. 

 “She was your little sister.”

 “Katie ruined everything-” she took the last step so now she was level with Y/N- “and my mother let her.” 

 “Your mother loved you,” Y/N protested. 

 “Well, she loved Katie more,” Sarah seethed. 

 Y/N and Sarah stood in silence for a second. 

 “I should’ve cried for Katie,” Sarah scoffed. “I guess there are some things I just can’t fake.”

 Carefully, Y/N’s hand reached for the gun on her belt, something she really didn’t want to have to do. 

 “You won’t do it,” Sarah said, taking another step closer. 

 “You need to back up- now.” Y/N’s voice was stern as she commanded the young girl.

 “I can say my trauma kicked in,” Sarah explained. “PTSD.”

 Her face then formed into fear, “I saw you with the gun, and I didn’t know what else to do!”

 Then her face went back to normal. 

 Truly, Y/N was kinda impressed. “You thought of everything.”

 Then, by the grace of whatever is out there, footsteps were heard coming down the stairs. 

 “Sarah put the gun down,” Derek said softly as he came up behind her. 

 “No, no, you don’t understand. She has a gun, she was going to hurt me,” Sarah used her plea. 

 “No, no, Sarah, It’s okay,” Derek reassured her. As he put his gun down, Spencer lifted his up and pointed it at her.

 “Listen to me,” Derek said, holstering his gun. “I understand. It’s okay, Sarah. She wasn’t going to hurt you. I know you’ve been through enough. All right? I get it.” 

 Sarah let out a fake sob as Derek placed his hand on her shoulder. “Sarah, you’re safe now, okay?”

 Sarah nodded and turned to Derek. “Okay, thank you.”

 As soon as Derek pulled the gun out of Sarah’s hands, Spencer came up from behind her and cuffed her. 

 “What are you doing?!” She exclaimed as the cuffs came down on her wrists. 

 “You’re a smart girl, Sarah. Figure it out,” Derek said, taking Sarah out of Spencer's hands and led her up the stairs. 

 Sarah tried to plead as Derek took her up the stairs. 

 Y/N turned back to the book she had been looking at, opening to a page that held trophies from Sarah’s mom. 

 “February fourth, the day Judy went missing,” Y/N said as she read the date above the necklace. 

 “Trophies,” Spencer said as he got closer to Y/N. “If the detective Friedman had ever found it, she would have pinned it all on Bruce.”

 “Damn, it’s almost impressive,” Y/N whispered as she closed the boom and brought it up as evidence.

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

 “The guests of honor!” Rossi exclaimed as Y/N and Spencer walked into his home.

 The two chuckled and walked closer to Rossi to hug him. Rossi grabbed each of their faces, kissing them both on the cheeks. 

 “Dave, thank you so much for this,” Y/N said, taking Spencer’s hand as she thanked the man. 

 “Well, it’s the least I could do,” Rossi smiled, then turned and pointed to the room holding his own personal bar. “And I heard that there’s a special someone here to see you, Y/N.” 

 Y/N raised a brow in confusion then looked to Spencer, who had a smirk on his face. 

 “Remember the other day when you had to cover on the phone, and said something about London and Jackson coming to visit,” he beamed at the smile that formed on Y/N’s face as she put the pieces together. 

 “Shut up!” She laughed and rushed into the room, her best friend standing with her own boyfriend next to Derek, laughing about something. “London!” 

 When she heard her name, the dark-headed woman turned around and saw Y/N. “Y/N!” 

 The two met in the middle and hugged tightly, having missed each other so much. 

 “Oh my god, let me see it,” London said, pulling away from the hug so she could look at Y/N’s ring. “Oh, it’s beautiful.” 

 “I know,” Y/N sighed as London held her hand still. 

 “Now I just wonder when Jackson will give me one of those,” London laughed as her boyfriend came up next to her. 

 “Okay, no need to be hostile,” the green-eyed man said as he wrapped an arm around London’s waist. “Congratulations, Y/N.” 

 “Thank you, Dr. Avery,” she responded diplomatically.

 “And to you too, Dr. Reid,” Jackson said, tipping his wine glass to Spencer as he walked up to the three, grabbing Y/N’s hand. 

 “Thank you,” Spencer smiled at the man.

 The four of them had all hung out before. After another case the team had in Seattle, Spencer and Y/N stayed an extra day to hang out with London and Jackson. Y/N and laughed, making a comment about how she was the only one in the group who wasn’t a doctor. 

 “So how was your last case?” London asked. She loved to hear about cases and she repeatedly told Y/N that the team was the real life Scooby-Doo gang. 

 “A plot twist to say the least,” Y/N laughed, not wanting to go into detail. “I’m just glad it’s the weekend, and I’m just keeping my fingers crossed we don’t get called in.” 

 “I know that feeling,” Jackson agreed with a laugh. 

 Then, Hotch’s phone ringing was heard from across the room. 

 “No, not tonight,” Y/N groaned, throwing her head back. “One night, can serial killers just chill out for one night.”

 Those who heard her comment laughed, but then Hotch reassured her worries. 

 “Don’t worry Y/N, that was Jessica, telling me Jack finished his homework.” 

 “Oh thank goodness.”

 The night went on, Rossi had hired a catering service so the dinner was all little finger foods. Due to the cold weather, Rossi had made a dance floor in the bar room. Clearing out the tables that were in the middle of the room and leaving room for everyone to dance. 

 There was laughter heard all night as everyone danced and sang obnoxiously loud to the 90’s rock. It was a perfect surreal moment that made Y/N so happy. As she danced with Spencer, she pulled herself closer to him and whispered to him. 

 “I wish every night was like this.” 

 “It will be,” Spencer whispered back, placing a kiss on the shell of her ear as he spoke. “This is how we’ll spend every night we’re married, dancing, singing, and laughing until we can’t breathe.” 

 Y/N smiled, turning her head to place her lips on his. This kiss was meant to be a peck, but Spencer held the small of her back closer and let their lips dance together longer. 

 She giggled as she pulled away from him as Derek yelled “Get a room!” as he danced with a very drunk Penelope. 

 “I think I like the idea of us dancing till sunrise.”

Tag List (let me know if you want to be added!!):

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[nikosasakis]

This is the 3rd country I've lived in, including my home country. Not sure if I have a fave, but this has def shown me that nowhere it's perfect. We're like suppose to do between 30 to 40h/week worth of uni work, whatever that might be. I just feel like it's an unrealistic thing, even more now given the situation we're in. The way I see it, it doesn't matter how many hours we do per week, it matters whether we're actually doing something productive or not. So having a supervisor requiring 1/3

me to send in weekly reports of what I've done, making sure it always amounts to a least 40h/week, seems too close to a micromanaging line, and it really stresses me out af. Oh yeah, so glad that most shops have returned to some normalcy a way back now; it was a horror experience at the beginning of this lockdown. Ohh Hawaii Five 0, I miss it. I used to watch it at home so much, it was one of my go to's when I just hadn't the mood for anything specific 2/3   TGP and B99 are def worth the catch up. I felt that TGP became a bit repetitive in its storyline halfway through it, but I really enjoyed the last season and imo it had some of the best scripts from the whole show - in terms of the life lessons they discuss. I loved B99's s7, maybe a bit more 'cause I got a bit more involved with the fandom here, a bit how 911's s3 hit a bit diff than the previous ones for me. I'm in a rewatch mood too, even tho I have a gigantic to watch list waiting for me 3/3

(i hate ask word limits with a passion)

I can understand that, I like travelling, but I don’t think I’d like to permanently move to another country, purely because it sounds far too stressful. That is a lot of work... I can’t imagine how difficult that must be currently. Honestly, I feel like they should give you a bit of leeway there. The shops were most definitely a nightmare, and still kind of are, in my town. Not that that surprises me. I adore Hawaii Five 0, but the latest season has... annoyed me a little, purely because they’ve thrown my favourite characters whole story arc out the freaking window for a last minute love interest :)))) 

I usually watch 99 with my parents, which is why I’m not up to date, but they’re taking forever to watch it, so I may just say screw it and catch up without them. 

TGP i have like, three episodes left? I just really loved the show and I think I don’t want to process the fact it’s over, so I’m just avoiding it lmao 😂

I’ve seen a few spoilers for S7 (and by that I mean the entire arc got spoiled for me because although I had the show blacklisted to avoid spoilers, someone didn’t tag the show so whoops) but I’m really excited to watch it. It’s such a comfort show for me, honestly.

I’ve only just watched 911, honestly. I’m still relatively new to the fandom, but I love it because I’ve been able to meet some cool people because of it !

I feel as though I should probably write down the list, but then that may be far too daunting.

[eponymous-rose]

This isn’t a post I really wanted to make, and I feel kind of shitty making it because parts of it aren’t my story to tell, but not talking about it isn’t working, so hey. Weirdly comforting internet void, please don’t reblog this. 

There’s discussion of mental illness below, but not (directly) firsthand. This is mainly discussion of the impact mental illness is having on my family. Please avoid this post if this is a topic that is likely to cause you pain or discomfort. I think I just need to have it out there.

About a year ago, my brother was diagnosed with Bipolar I. His seeking out a diagnosis was the direct result of the way his mental health was horrifically mismanaged when he lived in the US in his late teens: he was misdiagnosed as schizophrenic and, a few months later, a pharmacy error cut him off anti-psychotics cold turkey. It was absolutely horrible, and he wound up leaving school and moving back in with my parents for a time just to recover. That diagnosis was still on file for him almost a decade later, but recently his job finally had decent enough benefits that he could afford to go in for a barrage of psychiatric testing to rule things out. Bipolar I wound up being the diagnosis that fit.

And I think, for him, there was a sense of relief that came from that initial diagnosis, because a lot of things started to fit. Our immediate family is very close and very loving, but also almost comically controlled and disciplined and logical and isolated. As a kid, he would frequently spiral over something small (I clearly remember being baffled by the fact that my teenage brother would still have full-on tantrums), and my parents and I would just be staring wide-eyed in silence because strong emotion??? what do????? He was comforted and loved, and outright tells us all the time that he loves us and feels really lucky to have had such a supportive family, but I can’t help feeling like we were just... overwhelmed by inertia and kept thinking “this is probably healthier and more normal than the way we repress our emotions”.

I suspected depression was always there, and I’d reached out to him a little about that based on my own experiences, but mania hadn’t even occurred to me, even when he was sending us e-mails at 5 AM about the new opera he stayed up all night writing. It’s incredible what starts to feel like normal when you’re in denial like that.

Regardless, that’s where we were last year: he called us up when I was visiting my parents and we chatted for about an hour about what we all knew about this illness and how he’d be going forward. We all assured him that we loved him a lot and were here for him in whatever way he needed us.

And then, in typical us fashion, we repressed it. My dad yelled at a server out of nowhere for bringing the wrong drink that afternoon; this is the most empathetic man I know, who’s raised his voice maybe three times in my life that I can remember (he called the server over afterwards to apologize and tipped hugely for having to put up with him). My mom’s anxiety spiked. I stopped sleeping well. It took us a few months to realize we were all struggling because we were so worried.

My brother tried a few different meds, none of which had a really strong impact. We all got together for the holidays, and when he arrived, he was furious in a way that felt familiar, like back in high school when he’d be so angry it was like he wasn’t fully in control of his body, wasn’t hearing the things he was saying. It was weirdly a bit of a relief, because I realized then how much he must have been putting on an act before: after high school, he’d always been extremely quiet and positive every single time I talked to him (always for short visits with big chunks in between). He was finally comfortable not being perfect around us. 

The precipitating factor for this particular blow-up was one of his coworkers e-mailing him and asking for one more article even though he was on holidays: dick move, sure, but in no way deserving of flinging his luggage around and teary-voiced ranting at the restaurant we took him to for dinner. We made sure he knew he was being heard and understood, and we sympathized with him, and we set up an hour that evening so he could just sit quietly in his room and work out how he was going to reply to the e-mail. And then things were fine again. He told us stories about how great that same coworker was the next day.

My parents stayed at an airbnb, mainly because my place is a little small for four, and he and I stayed here and just had a wonderful time. I realized how much I’d built things up in my head in a worrying way: this was still my brother, who I love very much, who’s sensitive and feels things deeply and sometimes gets upset, but I knew how to talk to him and I hope I could help him feel better; he certainly helped me feel better. We watched old cartoons and played NBA on the Switch and got milkshakes and ordered in pad thai and had a fantastic time just chilling and talking about whatever crossed our minds. I never once felt nervous or weird around him in the three weeks we were here, and I very clearly remember thinking, “Hey, future self, remember how natural this felt next time you’re catastrophizing: this is one of the few people in the world you’d happily have as a roommate.” We get along so, so well, and some of the new initial tension between him and my parents (that awkward combination of “well-meaning” and “absolutely out of their depths” made for a couple of baffled moments before they hit their stride) just never bled through to our friendship.

It came out during that trip that he’d accrued some pretty hefty credit card debt (overspending being an extremely common thing when you’re in a manic phase... and also in your twenties living alone in a big city when a big chunk of your job involves socializing every night); my parents very calmly and supportively told him they’d help him pay it off on the condition that he cut up those cards and take a serious look at the gaps in his budget. He was more embarrassed than anything, but my mom’s no-nonsense, logical attitude broke through and soon they were happily sitting down and setting up a budget.

He went back home, and things started getting worse. His landlord was an asshole who wouldn’t let him and his roommate control the heating and insisted on controlling it from off-site, so he’d come home to a sweltering apartment every night and couldn’t sleep. He took a sleeping pill to help him get some rest, and that triggered a major depressive episode. Through a series of accidental events (mainly getting stuck on hold with a crisis line for 45 minutes and calling 911 out of desperation), he wound up getting picked up by the cops one night and brought to a mental hospital, which he said wasn’t his intention, but he was glad it happened in the long run (the hospital, not the cops, obvs).

He was only there for one night, after which point they set him up with a social worker and amazing outpatient care, including psychiatrist visits every week and a new set of mood stabilizing meds, and I cannot stress enough that this would have been a much shorter story if he’d lived in the US. With my parents’ help, he wrote a letter to his landlord threatening to go to the city if he didn’t fix the heating situation, and his landlord caved (thank goodness, because there’s no way he’d be able to pay rent anywhere else in that city). Things stabilized, a little.

Now, though, it looks like he may lose his job. He disclosed his illness right after the diagnosis, and after some initial missteps, they started putting in effort to work with him on it---in my brother’s e-mails to us, the HR person went from an obnoxious jerk to a determined ally, if only to avoid liability issues. But on his new meds, while he feels great in the mornings, he’s exhausted by the afternoon, and he often has minor depressive episodes in the evenings, so clearly the dose isn’t right yet. He’s up to missing a couple days of work a week, and they’re clearly trying to lean on him to switch to contract work so they can let him go without running afoul of legal protections. It doesn’t help that what started as a wide-open, exciting startup (he still says the first eight months were his dream job) has turned into an ad revenue-grabbing mechanism where all his colleagues are white homophobic tech bros who ignore him at best and resent his “special treatment” at worst.

A lot of his friends happened to move away around the time of his diagnosis as well, and now a lot of his remaining friends are distancing themselves. A common factor in his last few jobs toward the end was people telling him, “You just looked miserable all the time,” and it sounds like it’s starting to impact his personal relationships. His time online is spent in the deepest of “cancel culture” discussion, where being mostly good but fucking up once is almost more reprehensible than being wholly awful (he quit Facebook for a while, but wound up reopening his account to let people know about his hospitalization... and now he’s just back there again). He and his boyfriend broke up. His friend who initially suggested he apply for this job now ignores him at work.

It’s that awful combo of “people are being assholes about my illness” and “my illness makes it hard to believe that someone who initially reacts poorly will ever come around, so I’d better shove them away first”.

My parents are understandably so worried for him. They’re going out to visit him for three weeks starting tomorrow, staying at an airbnb nearby and occupying themselves with their own retirement pursuits so he can come visit if he likes, or ignore them if he needs space. They’ve told him that, if he’d like, he’s welcome to come stay with them for a few months (they live on the other side of the country); they’ll cover his half of the rent while he’s gone, and he’ll have a bit of an opportunity to just heal, considering he went straight back to work the day after his hospitalization. They’ll also help him strategize about whether he wants to switch to part-time on his current job and see about picking something else up. I suggested they bring up the possibility of going back for a master’s---I know it’s an absolute minefield for mental health, but in his particular case, a flexible schedule plus project-based creative work with specific deadlines has always been a pretty good fit, and he excels academically.

They’re also preparing for the possibility of moving him out to stay with them on a more permanent basis, but they obviously don’t want to disrupt his care (his current appointments are at the best mental health facilities in the country). They can’t afford to live in his city on their pension, but they’re also talking about giving up their retirement condo and buying out his roommate’s half of the rent, and just being there to help him out when he needs it. I don’t think he’d go for that unless things really deteriorated quickly, but a few months away from the city definitely sounds like what he needs.

And I’m just... so angry. I’m pissed off that so much of the stress weighing on him (and so many others!) right now comes from him being nearly 30, in debt, without a hint of a way to start saving for retirement, with these little one- or two-year gig jobs with two-hour commutes full of toxic people stretching out into eternity. I’m pissed off that this awful disease has made it so my parents probably aren’t in a place where they’re going to be able to do their big retirement trip, and they may be giving up their idyllic retired life for good. I’m angry with myself for that little burrowing resentment that, because my parents are older, I could wind up a financial, medical, and emotional caretaker for them and/or my brother at a moment’s notice, and I don’t feel ready to take all of that on. I’ll never feel ready.

(As a bonus, bipolar I has a genetic component, and now I’m thinking back to that one time I stayed up all night determined to save the world by learning all of biology in eight hours, or the time when as a grown-ass adult I started crying like a ten-year-old because I felt left out from an activity friends were doing, and I’m thinking, is this it? And then it’s not those extremes, it’s every normal human emotion that was previously muted by my own situational depression years ago. Is this it?)

I feel so, so entitled to the life we should have had as a family, and so frustrated at all these external factors that’ve brought it crashing down. More than anything, I’m scared for my little brother. I know bipolar isn’t something that magically disappears, and that things are likely to get worse, but I want those external stressors to go away and just leave him alone for half a minute so he can heal and find the right combination of meds and maybe, maybe get to think about thriving rather than just surviving. I’m so grateful to my parents for finding the right things to do and say to help him recover. And I know that, if something goes horribly wrong, I can try to fill those shoes.

I’m still losing sleep, but only every now and then. People at work occasionally comment that I don’t look so good, but that’s much rarer than a couple months ago, and the people I’ve confided in are very kind and check in on me even when things seem to be going well.

After the move this fall, I’m going to find someone to talk to professionally about this. In the meantime, just typing this all out makes me feel a bit better. I am finding better ways to cope; I had to mute him on social media because my overwhelming tendency to overthink his posts was very dangerous (turns out that famous self-deprecating millennial sense of humor is terrifying when you’re trying to work out if someone’s in danger). I have a generally positive attitude about this, and I can now usually catch myself when I’m starting to spiral. I send my brother goofy links, and he sends me funny stuff in return. I’m going for runs and eating better and playing video games and hanging out with friends... 

... and I’m genuinely very happy a majority of the time (not just content, but happy), which wasn’t true even a couple months ago.

I’m scared and angry and coming to grips with it being okay to be both of those things, as long as I’m also supportive and loving. This is my little brother. This is my family. They’re the best. 

And all we can do is take it one day at a time.

[eilisfrasercogc]

Short Documentary Research

Idea Two (Back Up Idea) - Summary

My idea two will be about Gordon Buchanan who is a Scottish Wildlife filmmaker and presenter. I will be interviewing Buchanan about his career as a whole, from how he got into it, projects he’s worked on such as some of his series ‘The Bear Family & Me’, ‘The Polar Bear Family & Me’, and ‘The Elephant Family & Me’ to name a few. I will also explore what made him interested in shooting wildlife specifically and how he got his start. As well as that I will ask him about what it is like to be face to face with wild animals such as when he was petting a wild pack of wolves or when he was feeding a bear cub in the American wilderness and therefore what has been his proudest moment in his career thus far. In terms of target audience for this documentary, I think it is suitable for all age groups as there is no adult humour involved or it being hinted at unlike my idea one. This documentary is fact based and appropriate for all.

Feedback

May not be in the country – Travels often due to career.

Potential questions: -

-Where was the most difficult location to film at?

-Did he ever feel like he should have stopped something bad happening? Why didn’t he?

What would you do for this visually – Could use Victoria Park as location as it is outdoors which goes with the theme of his career and could get some interesting cut aways by using the Fossil Grove walk path and the pond.

Practicalities

He is based locally when in Scotland therefore it would be minimal travel costs. He also has a passion for his work which may mean he will be interested in sitting down and talking to younger filmmakers, discussing his experiences and knowledge that he has gained from his specific field. In terms of the location idea of filming in the park, it is a great idea and I can see it looking really good However, it would be tough to film outside for both shoot days as the weather might be bad making it almost impossible to film. Also, the weather for both days could very different which could make it look odd. Therefore I think the more practical thing to do would be to film at least the interview indoors and then get some shots outdoors on the second day of shooting and if we were able to film in his house it would be great because he would have some of his equipment and any other props which are relevant to the documentary (eg a jacket he had to wear when he was in the North Pole) close to hand. However, after my idea one subject got back to me and as have other back up ideas, I am somewhat convinced that Gordon will not be getting back to me as unfortunately I am still yet to hear anything back from him, therefore as time ticks on it seems more and more likely that this idea won’t be able to come to life for my Graded Unit. This is unfortunate as the subject matter is so interesting.

Concept Adapted due to feedback

From the feedback I have received I have considered more visual ideas when shooting the cut aways, for example I would film any of his camera equipment he has handy and ask for b-roll of his which include some of his work as well as photos of him in resort places. I have also considered more question ideas to really create a capturing short documentary about his work such as what was his scariest experience he’s had during his career? From some of the research I have done by watching many of the documentaries he is in involved I am confident he as many to choose from.

Analyse of Other TV shows/Short Films/Documentaries

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOlryIvYoCc

I have analysed Netflix’s ‘Our Planet – Behind the Scenes’ instead of the actual documentary ‘Our Planet’ as it is a more exact insight to Gordon Buchanan’s job role. The documentary show cases just how long it takes, how much patience and determination it takes to be a wildlife filmmaker. To create ‘Our Planet’ it took 4 years there were 3376 days of filming in 60 countries. To get all the sea footage there was 911 days spent at sea and 2,000 hours of diving. The audience gets to see the danger and equipment issues that often come along whiles shooting in wilderness and how they overcome these issues. An example of how extreme the job becomes is what the camera men filming in Eastern Russia had to live like when they were trying to get shots of Siberian tigers, they lived in induvial huts for the next two winters – for six days at a time they won’t even open the door. Its shows the times where crews will get sent out to a certain part of the world and return home empty handed such as, one crew was sent out to Canada to film bears fishing for food in a new way due to climate change which is something never before been filmed but there had been too much rain which meant the polar bears could fish and the crew had been sent home. The documentary also exposes the more heart-breaking side of it, the part which you have to watch animals suffer while standing aside and filming it. This is another aspect I would like to ask Buchanan about, has he ever experienced that and how did it affect him. However, of course the documentary highlights the triumphs of when a crew would get the shot, through the triumphs we see the relief and joy in the filmmakers faces which is in its self an amazing thing to see. I think ‘Our Planet - Behind the Scenes’ is the perfect documentary to get inspiration due to how similar the subject matter is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWI1eCbksdE

I Have analysed this 5-part series ‘dynasties’ from BBC iPlayer as it also shoots wildlife, each episode follows a different endangered animal as the audience follows these animals and see some of the struggles they are faced with the audience become attached to individuals. This is something which this documentary does very well, creating emotion which is an aspect that I think must be rather hard to convey when it is all fact based. There is no room for exaggerating or manipulating the truth with this genre. Again, this is something I would be keen to ask Gordon Buchanan on, if this is something, he finds challenging.

[iluvzfewdnstoreyz]

Nightmare Dream Home

Afew years ago my ex husband and I moved our new little family into a cute 3 bedroom little house. It was painted blue, and therefore has since been called the blue house. The 1st week there we were in our living room watching television, when a massive shadow went up the wall behind us, onto the ceiling where a mist formed with it. It moved across the ceiling down the hallway and disappeared into the nursery. I was a die hard skeptic at this time. My ex husband asked me if I saw it. I am ashamed to say, I told him I had and that it was merely someones headlights outside. He argued that the windows were not near any road and the mist was not explained by this theory. I shrugged it off and accepted my explanation anyway.

We began having experiences hearing footsteps running down the hallway to bathroom; banging and scratching on the walls; toys turning on and off without batteries; hearing children cry outside the nursery window; large shadow and mists movement daily; a full body apparition of a woman, the kids complaining they could not sleep because "they" would not leave them alone; cold spots, lights flickering and going off, sounds of heavy furniture being moved around in the vacant bedroom; the television coming on and or going off on its own accompanied by an odd high pitched hum and sometimes a faint sound of music. I continued to find explanations for these events and ignored what I could.

As things escalated everyone in the household experienced nightmares, and some of us began sleep walking. I was one of them and I had the most frequent episodes. I would wake up under the kitchen table; on the floor in odd places; and even outside. There would be mud on my feet and other signs I had been outside. My family said I would have my eyes open but I did not respond to them like myself and I seemed vacant.

We were advised to try and get EVP. To talk to it. To ask questions. Doing this was our undoing.

We caught some low class EVP's in the question and answering stage. Nothing alarming or conclusive. Following our EVP session when we went to bed something growled. I was in bed and my ex husband was reaching up to the ceiling fan to turn the light off leaving the fan on. Something growled angrily from the foot of the bed. I thought it was our dog. I found her at my mother's feet, in the den, where she had been when I left to go to bed. We searched our property outside and found nothing. Even after all that I was convinced some stray or even my dog growling must be what we heard.

Later that night I woke to something strange. My computer monitor was visible at the foot of the bed. Standing in front of the monitor was the silhouette of my shirtless ex husband. His back was to me and he was just standing there. I called out to him but he didn't answer or turn around. Something told me to look at his side of the bed. I did and nothing was there. I looked back and my husband had vanished into thin air.

I realized that what I had seen couldn't have been a person. I smelled something burning. Then the covers began to be pulled down off of me. I froze. The air conditioner was a window unit. It began to beep and go from low fan to medium fan to high fan then back to low over and over. In unison with each fan cycle change the blinds were flipping open and shut, along with banging on the walls.

I suddenly became a little girl. I felt like all the air hang been sucked out of my body. I could not take air in to make a sound. I am embarrassed to say I urinated on myself. When I finally could take air, I gasped and began screaming for my mother like a child. I mustered the courage to finally move and reached for the door knob next to the bed. At that moment my husband came in and flipped the light on at which point it all stopped. He had been in the bathroom vomiting. His mysterious illness stopped right then as well.

I looked for a new home. I no longer was the skeptic.

Before moving I found a necklace on my dresser one day. I thought it was left there as a gift so I put it on thinking nothing of it. A couple days later I woke to a blinding headache. My husband got up to get my migraine medicine but fainted just outside our bedroom. I got up and went down too. I crawled to the kids room. I found my son first. I got him aroused enough to help walk him outside. I went back into the house for my daughter and husband. My husband crawled out while I located our daughter. She was 3 at the time. I found her tiny little body blue and unresponsive in her bedroom. I drug her out the front door thinking after I called 911 I would return to the home and lay down. I believed my daughter dead and wished to follow. My thinking was very muddled.

I went in and retrieved the phone. Passing out twice in this process. When I returned to the front door, my daughter's eyes were open. So I laid down in the yard and called for help. When paramedics and firemen arrived, I was told we had carbon monoxide poisoning. The firemen said 30 per square feet was lethal. My home was over 500 per square feet. Just short of barbecuing in the living room, no explanation for those levels was found in the home. No one in my family knew where the necklace had come from. I removed it at the hospital and left it there.

We moved shortly after that. The last night everyone was at our new home while I was at the blue house cleaning so we could collect our deposit. I was tired from the night before. The whispers and banging on the walls were relentless. I was in my bedroom when someone knocked on the door. I went and looked through the peephole and see the silhouette of a man I believed to be the neighbor across the street. I saw him lean down and look into the peep hole, then a bright light behind him appears and he turned and walked away. I opened the door and no one was there.

After shutting the door I realize he had stooped down to look in the peep hole at me. How is that possible I thought. He wasn't taller than me. Anxiety hits as it begins to hit me that the tall man could not have been my neighbor or any normal human being. My lungs seize up. I rush to the bedroom to get my rescue inhaler out of my purse.

That's the last thing I remember. The next thing I can recall I am slamming into a wall, falling from a standing position. I am in the living room. I am freezing. I have never been so cold. I looked around and was very confused about where I was. I didn't recognize it without the furnishings.

I am so cold my jaw was chattering. I wander briefly through the home trying to get my bearings as to where I am. I go into the bathroom. At this point, I begin to have a dejavu feeling, like I know, that I know this place, but I can not put it together in my head. It is fuzzy and slow moving.

I am desperate to get warm. I can see in the mirror that my lips are blue. "What the hell is wrong with me" I think. I begin filling the tub with hot water and I strip quickly climbing in.

As the water fills and my body begins to warm I see my cell phone on the floor next to the tub. It must have fallen out of my bra when I was undressing. I used to keep my cell phone in my bra along with money etc. I pick it up and call my husband.

When he answered I started crying. "I just woke up. I'm so cold."

He was frantic, "where are you! Where have you been! I have been calling you for hours. You didn't come home!"

I looked around the bathroom. I finally recognized it. I told him I was at the blue house.

"Babe where have you Been? We last spoke over 5 hours ago. Its 3am." He said.

I took about half an hour to warm my body enough that I would get out of the tub. My husband came and got me. I was too confused to even figure out how to get home on my own. I can not express how terrifying this was.

It turned out the man I thought I saw had passed away.

I don't know what I was doing in that 5 hours. It's scary to be up doing things with no recollection of it.

I don't know what happened to me that night or why. Seizure maybe? I try not to think about it.

We have continued to have issues, but very mild in comparison. We did lose one of our children to suicide about a year after moving. I can't help wonder if it had anything to do with what attacked me. Had it attacked him after leaving the blue house? He left no note. I am left never knowing.

I have accepted that there are no answers for me. My best friend lives next door to the blue house. She says that the new neighbors do not complain of having any issues. She had experienced something every time she had come into the blue house when I lived there. She has not experienced anything while on any of her visits to the new neighbors. I am too terrified to even pass the house. I do not visit her in her home. She comes to visit me.

I am a shadow of the person I once was. The events at the blue house severely traumatized me and my family. My son's death sent me over the edge into a full nervous breakdown. Which is not as dramatic as it may sound. I simply quit functioning. I closed myself off from the world and just stopped. I could not remember how to do a job I had done daily for 5 years. I had to be walked through it daily until I was terminated. I cried so much that my face was chapped all the time. Even now, 4 years later, I am struggling to reclaim my life. I pray no one else comes into contact with whatever that thing was.

Thanks for reading my story. Sharing it helps me let it go and heal. I am open to alternate explanations and discussions. You do not have to agree with me, and you can even think I am crazy. I only ask that you be respectful. Crazy or not, my life has been shattered into pieces because of what I experienced. Thank you. Shine on.

[constantviewings]

The TV Show Trials - Law & Order

Set and filmed in New York City, Law & Order follows a two-part approach: the first is the investigation of a crime (usually murder) and apprehension of a suspect by New York City Police Department detectives; the second is the prosecution of the defendant by the Manhattan District Attourney’s Office. Plots are often based on real cases that recently made headlines, although the motivation for the crime and perpetrator may be different.

The episodes that I chose for this month’s TV Show Trials are specifically ‘Ripped From The Headlines’ episodes from this list.

Reality Bites

The father of several adopted special needs children is accused of killing his wife over her reluctance to sign off on a reality show based on their family, and the subsequent trials threatens to turn into a media circus.

 While it is not based on a specific crime and more so the reality stars/show Jon and Kate Plus Eight, this is an entertaining episode and was a great introduction to Law & Order and its characters. My only issue is that the ending line references a character that I didn’t know about from previous seasons, which made the ending more than a little confusing.

In Vino Veritas

A washed up, anti-Semitic actor is arrested with blood on his clothes. Detectives later discover that a Jewish television producer he has connection to has been murdered. But what role, if any, did he play in it?

 The main character of this episode, Mitch Carroll is a stand-in for Mel Gibson who was arrested with a DUI and was also witnessed making anti-Semitic remarks. As for similarities to the real-life case, what has been previously mentioned is all there is. This episode features highly entertaining court procedures as a young boy confesses to killing a woman on his father’s behalf.

The Serpent’s Tooth

A businessman and his wife are killed. The couple’s two sons emerge as the most likely suspects, but detectives later find business ties to the Russian mob.

 This episode leaves no ambiguity towards its connection to the Menendez brothers case, all the way down to one of the brothers calling 911 after ‘coming home from a night out’. It seems to be that the episodes with mob related plot lines are my least favourite; as a later episode will prove. This episode spends too much time investigating, for my taste, over showing the court proceedings, which are easily my favourite part.

Baby, It’s You

Baltimore Homicide detectives Munch and Falsone help Briscoe and Curtis with a murder investigation. However, the victim’s family attorney interferes with the investigation by leaking information and offering rewards.

 Though it’s not clear by the synopsis, this episode is heavily influenced by the infamous JonBenet Ramsay case. While the real-life case has gone cold, with no conclusion as to who killed the young girl, this episode heavily insinuates that it was the father that killed his daughter. I really enjoyed this episode, especially the cameo from Richard Belzer as Detective Munch, who is easily one of my favourite character from Special Victims Unit.

Smoke

The child of a popular comic dies after he is reportedly thrown out of a window during a fire. However, the investigation also uncovers allegations that the comic molested an 11-year-old by years earlier.

 This episode clearly references two cases, both surrounding Michael Jackson. The first is when he held his 9-month-old child over the edge of a balcony back in 2002, and the second being the multiple allegations of child grooming and sexual abuse against his name; both topics I won’t be expressing my opinions on here. My main issue with this episode is that, with both cases being covered, the episode changes course halfway through the episode and we aren’t provided with a conclusion to the first case.

Excalibur

While preparing a murder case, the DA’s office stumbles upon a potential scandal involving a prostitution business and the governor of New York, and it could have serious implications on Jack McCoy’s future as District Attorney.

 My main issue with this episode, which is based on former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, is that it’s very reliant on plot elements from previous episodes. This makes it hard to watch as a stand-alone due to my unfamiliarity with the parties in play. Other than that, it is a fairly average episode.

The Reaper’s Helper

A gay man with AIDS is accused of murdering another gay man. However, he claims that the victim also had AIDS, and that it was a mercy killing.

 This episode brings up the interesting topic of assisted suicide in the medical industry as the episode is based on Dr Jack Kevorkian, who assisted the terminally ill in committing suicide by euthanasia. The acts of suicide are enlarged in terms of violence and drama, as the victims are shot in the head by the perpetrator. I didn’t really enjoy this episode, apart from the last five minutes.

Indifference

A child’s collapse in school from mortal injuries leads to an investigation that uncovers a family steeped in horrific abuse.

 Uniquely, this episode has an end card and voiceover explaining the similarities between this episode and the Joel Steinberg/Hedda Nussbaum case; which it is based on. I am torn between this episode and another one further on, as to which one was my favourite out of all fifteen that I watched. This episode has extremely interesting and satisfying court proceedings, as well as some amazing synth cop music.

Remand

A convicted rapist in a high-profile trial from 30 years earlier receives a new trial because of legal technicalities. In addition, prosecutors must try to convict this time without a confession.

 I would say that this episode is perfectly average in terms of quality. To be completely honest, I don’t remember much about this episode, and not in a good way, so I don’t have much to comment on.

Gunshow

After Jack is forced to settle with a man who committed a mass murder in Central Park, he decides to go after the gun manufacturer.

 I’m not going to talk too much about gun control, nor the crime (real or fictionalised) due to the recent events in Christchurch. This is the other episode that ties for my favourite, it features entertaining investigation and court proceedings as well as genuine uncertainty about how the trail will end.

Fools For Love

A man is accused of raping and killing his girlfriend’s sister and another victim. Prosecutors make a deal with the girlfriend for her testimony against the accused, but they also suspect that she was a willing participant in the murders.

 This episode is memorable to me mostly because it features a crossover with Special Victims Unit as we get to see Detectives Benson and Stabler assist in the investigation. This episode is a somewhat entertaining interpretation of the crimes of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka or ‘The Ken and Barbie Killers’.

Born Again

A therapist is charged with murder after an 11-year-old girl dies during a “rebirthing” procedure.

 This episode is clearly inspired by the horrific murder of Candace Newmaker, with a slight twist. Instead of it being somewhat of an accident on the mothers half, this episode paints the mother as the killer as she purposely causes her daughter to have an allergic reaction and suffocate. This episode even goes as far as to use direct quotes from the real-life crime in its script. It is an episode that had me hating both the mother and the therapist both in the fictionalised version and the real perpetrators of this crime.

Hubris

A charming conman acts as his own defence during his murder trial. During the trial, he deliberately tries to taint the jury by flirting with the forewoman.

 This episode was pretty boring, as it consisted of a lot dialogue and speculation compared to solid evidence. I also don’t remember much about this episode other than thinking that the forewoman of the jury was an absolute idiot.

Myth of Fingerprints

A fingerprint analyst’s error put an innocent man in prison. Detectives discover that this may not have been the only error she has made in favour of prosecutors.

 Similar to a previous episode I had watched, this episode derails from its original crime to focus on another but, unlike Smoke, this time it’s for the better. I didn’t really enjoy this episode, mainly because the crime didn’t appeal to me and I didn’t feel much sympathy for the criminals that were trying to gain justice due to lack of characterisation.

The Torrents of Greed

Stone makes a deal with a group of low-level mobsters when they offer to testify that a crime box murdered a missing union leader. However, the prosecution’s case unravels at trial, causing all parties involved to walk.

After a crime boss Frank Masucci’s murder case gets thrown out, Stone turns up the heat on the witnesses who played him in order to find charges against Masucci that will stick.

 This is the only two-part episode that I watched over both series, and god was it boring. Subjectively, I think these episodes sucked, I couldn’t keep up with all the connections and thus the entire plot was lost on me.

Overall, Law and Order was a good experience to watch. But, if I had to pick one series or the other, I would pick Special Victims Unit. Am I likely to watch this again, probably not, but I wouldn’t turn it off if it was on.

[jamessandersweb]

13 Reasons Why: Confused About Jeff Atkins? Let's Check the Tapes

Still reeling from the loss of Jeff Atkins? So are we. With all of the flashbacks and dream sequences, 13 Reasons Why offers a lot to think about when it comes to Liberty High's star pitcher. For instance, did you realize Jeff's car accident happens prior to the events in the first episode? If you rewatch the season, you'll find Jeff only appears in Clay Jensen's flashbacks. Moreover, Jeff's death is the one Principal Bolan and many of the students are referring to when they mention a drunk-driving incident that rocked the community.

Because Jeff is mentioned in season two, you may want a refresher. Let's break down the six tapes that explain exactly what happened to Jeff Atkins.

Tape 2, Side A

Jeff makes his first appearance in the third episode. He sits in the library with Clay, his peer tutor. At first, the scene takes on the mundane appearance of high school life as the two argue over the proper use of the word "unique." However, the scene establishes two things: unlike most of the popular kids at Liberty High, Jeff's not quick to make harsh judgments about his classmates, and he's open to offering Clay advice about women.

Tape 3, Side A

The next time we see Jeff is in one of Clay's dream sequences. The pair meet on the bleachers during the Winter Formal and watch Hannah Baker sitting alone on the other side of the gymnasium. Jeff encourages Clay to dance with Hannah, but the dream then turns dark. Jeff stands in the bleachers, bleeding from his forehead, while he mocks Clay. The image is brief, but the moment hints at Jeff's fate and foreshadows Clay's emotional devastation.

Later in the episode, we once again see Jeff at the Winter Formal - but this time we experience a version of the truth through the combined perspectives of Hannah's tape and Clay's memories. While the boys argue about dancing, we learn Jeff made a bet that if he got a "C" or better on his next history paper, Clay would attend the formal. The detail seems trivial in the moment, but the information establishes that the pair have formed a bond. More importantly, we see Jeff's first official act as Clay's matchmaker, a task he continues until the night of his death.

Tape 3, Side B

For those with sharp eyes, this tape is the most revealing when it comes to Jeff as a permanent fixture of the past. His scene opens on Clay's comment to Sheri Holland: "I used to be a peer tutor." In that moment, Clay stops to look at the library station he shared with Jeff during their study sessions. The camera pans over Clay's shoulder, and we see a flashback of the two boys sitting across from each other. Then the perspective changes so that the guys are in the foreground and present-day Clay is in the background. Even though the scene revolves around a discussion about the Dollar Valentine Survey, the abnormal angles and perspectives highlight the remorse Clay feels for the loss of a friend he didn't even realize he had.

Tape 5, Side A

This is the first tape to directly refer to the circumstances surrounding Jeff's death even though we see very little of him in the episode. The thing that we do see is Clay running down the street at full speed. At the time, we don't know why he's running. However, the narration laid over the image is Hannah's recorded voice: "If I'd known what would happen, what that night had in store, I might never have walked through that door." She sets up a timeline that indicates three ominous things are on the horizon. The image of Clay running ties directly into one of them - Jeff's accident at the corner of Tanglewood and Bay Street.

Tape 5, Side B

In the 10th episode, we're given the full story of Jeff's death. The episode opens on the scene of his accident. The camera pans over the broken stop sign toward two cars in the distance. The sequence of events haven't been made clear yet, but we can see that Jeff's car has been T-boned by another vehicle, which would indicate that he ran the stop sign. Then the camera moves in closer to reveal Clay talking to a police officer, and we realize that he must have been first on the scene.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves here, so let's rewind.

The events of this tape occur on the night of Jessica Davis's party. For the sake of brevity, we'll fast forward through the non-Jeff parts. Essentially, Clay and Hannah get into an argument. This causes Clay to leave the party prematurely, and Jeff attempts to keep Clay around by inviting him on a beer run.

When Clay questions whether his friend is sober, Jeff replies, "Two beers, two hours ago. I'm good."

Nonetheless, Clay decides to walk home, which gives us our first and only solo moment with Jeff. We follow him back into the party where he asks Sheri to move her car so he can pull out of the driveway. This is how his death connects with the narration on Hannah's tape.

As Sheri leaves the party, she notices Hannah sitting at a piano and offers our heroine a ride home. Unfortunately, the girls crash into a stop sign when Sheri gets distracted by her cellphone charger. Hannah insists they report the incident, but Sheri refuses and leaves Hannah stranded on the side of the road. We know at this point that the downed stop sign is the same one from the beginning of the episode, and our stomachs knot as we put the pieces together.

Related:

How Old Is the Cast of 13 Reasons Why? An Age Investigation

Cut to Clay sitting alone on a playground where he hears the distant screech of wheels and a violent crash.

Then the episode leaves us in suspense for a few moments as Hannah goes into the Blue Spot Liquor Store to make a 911 call. That's where the story attempts to fake us out by indicating the police already received a call about an accident. Sadly, though, the truth trickles to the surface - Jeff died at the same intersection where Sheri demolished the stop sign.

In a touching scene with Jeff's parents, Clay tells them the truth about that night: "I was the first person to get there. I was walking home, and I heard the crash. I found Jeff. I found him. I don't know - I thought - I thought maybe I'd try CPR. Something. I don't know. It was me. I'm the one that called 911."

Clay then confesses he didn't think Jeff was drunk that night. As he says these words, the images that follow show Jeff dead in his car with alcohol bottles strewn across the floor and passenger seat. We know from earlier in the tape that the drinks don't belong to Jeff - they're actually part of the stash secured on his beer run. So for those of you who were worried, the accident wasn't Jeff's fault. The downed stop sign set the entire scenario into motion, and Jeff Atkins was the unfortunate victim of fate.

Tape 6, Side A

In case you've forgotten, this is Clay's tape. BUT when we look at the storyline through the filter of Jeff Atkins, this episode feels like an homage - a chance to say goodbye to the only popular kid at Liberty High who lived with compassion and decency.

The backdrop is still Jessica Davis's party, although this time we watch Jeff use the threat of torture and a wonky baseball metaphor to broker a connection between Clay and Hannah. In fact, Jeff's guardian-angel-like matchmaking skills are in full effect when he bluntly states, "Go talk to her, man. You're the reason she came." Not to mention, he suavely intercepts the beer-pong-loving interloper, Troy, who threatens to torpedo the couple's intimate conversation. And since the details of the accident transpire on the previous tape, we leave Jeff Atkins on this generous note.

For those of you still brokenhearted about the loss of our hero, take heart. We do get a brief appearance from his character in the seventh episode of the second season, but don't expect a new storyline. Just think fond thoughts of our beloved Jeff and know that he deserved better.

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