#What features should a CMS have?

[room-surprise]

How Old Is Thistle?

(EDIT: I've made a follow-up post to this one that goes deeper into the math and additional evidence that the 5:1 ratio is correct. You can read it here!)

I've seen people debating this and a lot of folks insisting that Thistle is a child, and since Thistle just debuted in the anime, I wanted to do a full write-up to help myself and others figure this out.

We don't know how old any of the Merini family members are exactly, so the best we can do is guess based on the information we have, but after carefully studying the manga, I think Thistle is at least a teenager, but much more likely a young adult, and definitely not a prepubescent child.

Here's what we know:

EDIT: Depending on what translation you read of some of the extra materials, Freinag implies that Thistle is the same age as some of his advisors.

Here's a detailed translation of this panel from my friend Fumi:

Elves age 5 times slower than tall-men.

16 year old tall-men in Dungeon Meshi's medieval time period are adults, they commonly join the military, get married, have children, etc.

An 80 year old elf is an adult. Pattadol is 82 and she's a lieutenant in a military unit. It's her first job and she's obviously a rookie, but Captain Flamela tells Pattadol to accomplish her mission or die trying.

Many fully adult elves look like what we might consider children or young teens, because they're short, petite, and have androgynous features.

An average elven adult is around 150-155cm tall (5 ft), meaning some are shorter than that, and some are taller. Thistle is 130 cm, which is short, but not unheard of.

Fleki is 130 (26) years old and she's 140 cm tall (4'7")

Otta is 137 (27) years old and she's 130 cm (4'5") tall, the same height as Thistle!

They are both women, but there's probably plenty of elven men in their height range.

Just so we can compare Thistle to some adult elven men, Mithrun and his brother are probably adults (or close to it) in the panel on the left.

Mithrun (in this image) is somewhere between 75 and 144 (probably in his 80's), and his brother is older than him (so he could be in his late 80s or 90s). As you can see, they don't look that different from Thistle, Otta or Fleki.

So, how old is Thistle?

(Spoilers below the cut)

Thistle was brought to the royal court as a child (found on the street, stolen or purchased, we don't know how they got him). At the absolute youngest I'd guess Thistle is 25 years old here (so about 5 years old for a tall-man.) He can already play the flute, and possibly the lute, and most children that aren't prodigies can't handle playing an instrument (physically or mentally) until they're around 5.

EDIT: We now know that Thistle is the same age as Freinag, the king that takes him in! So Thistle must be at least 25 years old in this comic, though realistically he could be anywhere from 25 to 40 based on how Kui drew Freinag.

He lived in the court for an unknown amount of time, Freinag hasn't changed much but Thistle appears to have aged a little, so let's say it's been 5 years and Thistle is 30 (6) when Delgal is born. More than 5 years could have passed, but I'm trying to keep the numbers low.

Delgal gets married and has a child. Delgal should be at least 15 at this point, but since he has a full mustache before his wedding, I think he's in his 20's, since teenagers tend to not be the best at growing robust facial hair.

(He has a full beard by the time Eodio's a young child.)

Thistle puts the kingdom inside the dungeon around this point, however, people are still aging: Delgal's grandson Yaad is born, and Eodio is clearly a young adult here, probably in his 20's. Therefore, there is NO REASON to assume Thistle stopped aging. "The dungeon lords don't age" is a common fan headcanon I've seen people spreading, but it has no clear canon basis.

Yaad ages until he looks about 13-15 years old, and at this point all of the people of the kingdom and Thistle appear to stop aging, and 1,000 years pass.

So, the youngest Thistle could possibly be, if he was 30 (6) when Delgal was born, if Delgal was 15 when he had Eodio, and Eodio was 15 when he had Yaad, and Yaad is 13 years old...

Is 73 years old, which would make Thistle about 14.6 years old by tall-man standards.

HOWEVER, I think it's VERY unlikely that all the characters are that young.

I think it's clear from Kui's drawings that Delgal and Eodio are not 15 years old when they become fathers, and that Freinag is at least 25 when he takes in Thistle.

If we assume Thistle was 30 when Delgal was born, and Delgal and Eodio were both at least 20 when they had children, even if Yaad is only 13 years old, that makes Thistle at least 83 years old (16.6), and makes him older than Pattadol, who is an adult at 82.

However, I think it's entirely possible that Thistle was anywhere from 40-50 when Delgal was born, and Delgal could have been anywhere from 20 to 30 when he had Eodio, and Eodio could have been anywhere from 20-25 when he had Yaad. If you use the maximum ages, and assume Yaad is 15, then Thistle could be as old as 120 (24).

I think a reasonable middle ground is assuming Thistle was 30 (6) when Delgal was born, Delgal had Eodio at 25, Eodio had Yaad at 20, and Yaad is 15... Which would make Thistle 90 (18) years old.

This of course says nothing about Thistle's emotional maturity or sanity, he's obviously stunted in some ways, but the point I want to make here is:

Thistle's age could be anywhere from 14.6 to 24 at the most extreme, but more realistically he's somewhere between 16.6 and 18.

And that's not even counting the thousand years that he's lived since then!

And that's all I've got to say about that 🙏🙏🙏🙏

(EDIT: Follow-up post with additional evidence here.) EDIT 2: I've seen a lot of people talking about the page Kui drew talking about elven earmuffs. It's considered just barely okay for Pattadol to wear them, but it's ok for Thistle to wear them... In which case I'd say Thistle could be any age younger than 83. That's handy as it knocks out some of the older ages!

So in that case Thistle's age is between 73 years old and 82, which makes him developmentally between 14.6 and 16.4!

[bethanythebogwitch]

Wet Beast Wednesday: parrotfish

Which fish hangs out on a mermaid pirate's shoulder and repeats what she says in a high-pitched voice? The parrotfish, of course. Or at least in fiction they should (certainly will in my D&D world). But even in real life, parrotfish are still pretty interesting.

(Image: a common parrotfish (Scarus psittacus) seen from the side in front of rocks and corals. It is a brightly-colored fish, mainly light blue but with patches and stripes of yellow and pink on the fins. Its mouth is open, revealing what appears to be a beak. End ID)

Parrotfish are fish famous for their mouths and eating habits. There are about 90 species known. While they were historically considered their own taxonomic family, they have since been reclassified a subset of the wrasse family and there is still some debate on how to classify them. Most species are on the smaller size, but a few can get very large. The largest species is the green humphead parrotfish (Bolbometopon muricatum) at 1.5 meters (4.9 ft) and 75 kg (165 lbs) while the smallest species is the bluelip parrotfish (Cryptotomus roseus) reaching 13 cm (5 in). I could not find an average weight for the bluelips. What makes parrotfish really stand out visually is their colors and their mouths. Most species are very brightly colored, with distinct markings and males are usually more brightly colored than females. Their mouths are dominated by what appear to be beaks, which gave them their common name. These beaks are actually made of approximately 1,000 teeth arranged in 15 rows. As the teeth wear out, they drop off and are replaced by the row behind them. The teeth are made of fluorapatite, the second hardest biomineral int the world. To support their hardness, the fluorapatite crystals that make up the teeth are woven together in a structure very similar to chainmail, resulting in very hard teeth that measure in at a 5 on the Mohs scale of hardness. For reference, iron is a 4 and higher numbers are harder. The teeth can also handle 530 tons of pressure. You could put the weight of 200 black rhinos on a tooth and it would be fine. The beaks are powerful enough to bite through rock. Which is what they use it for, but more on that below. Another unusual feature of parrotfish is how they sleep. Some species make their own sleeping bags, which would be adorable if they weren't made of mucus. The mucus is produced using glands in the gills and looks like a transparent bubble. The fish sleeps in the mucus cocoon and when it wakes up, it eats the cocoon. There have been several proposed benefits of the cocoon. It contains chemicals that harm skin parasites while also providing a barrier that keeps new parasites from reaching the fish. It also likely blocks the fish's scent, helping it hide from predators.

(Image: a green humphead parrotfish (Bolbometopon muricatum) swimming over yellow coral. It is large and mostly a uniform green color, except for the front of its head, which is pink. It has a large, fleshy lump on the top of its head. End ID)

(Image: a close-up of a parrotfish's beak. The top and bottom beaks are divided into two halves, left and right. The beak is bade of small, circular teeth that overlap each other. End ID)

(Image: another common parrotfish seen from the front. It is inside of a mucus cocoon, which appears as a transparent bubble around the fish. Bits of sand dot the cocoon's surface. End ID)

Parrotfish live worldwide, though the majority of species are found in the Indo-Pacific. They live in warm, shallow waters with lots of rocky reefs, especially coral reefs. They use those powerful teeth to eat and what they eat most is algae. There are three main types of feeding behavior: excavating, scraping, and browsing. Excavators bite into rocks to get their food, scrapers crape food off of the surface of the rocks, and browsers go after larger food sources like seagrass and sponges. Some of the larger parrotfish species also make coral a large part of their diet. When they eat, they naturally get rock in their mouths, moreso in excavators. Because their food clings to the rock, spitting the rocks out would deny them food. Instead, parrotfish use pharyngeal teeth set in their throats to grind the rock into sand, which then passes through the digestive tract. When it exists the digestive tract, it is in the form of fine grains of rock. Or to put it another way, parrotfish eat rock and poop sand. A single parrotfish can produce up to 40 kg (88lbs) of sand yearly, and bigger species can produce even more than that. The process of rock being broken down by living things is called bioerosion and parrotfish are one of the most famous sources of bioerosion. The sand they produce can serve as the basis for new growth of coral or other species and helps reinforce nearby islands. In places like Hawai'i, the Caribbean, and the Maldives, it's estimated that up to 80% of the famous white sand is produced by parrotfish and they serve as a major source of incoming earth to support the islands. This makes parrotfish ecosystem engineers. Their eating of algae is also majorly important to their ecosystems. Algae can overgrow and smother delicate ecosystems like coral reefs and seagrass beds and decaying algae draws oxygen out of the water. Parrotfish help the health of their environments by keeping the algae population at healthy levels. Parrotfish also eat seaweeds and sponges that grow much faster than coral and can smother coral reefs. Parrotfish are considered keystone species in many reefs, including the great barrier reef and their population dropping correlates with reduced health of reefs. Damaged reefs tent to have larger parrotfish populations and those populations drop as the reef recovers.

(Image: a group of many parrotfish feeding on coral. They are all the same species and are mostly blue, with yellow heads and stripes on the face. They appear to be biting the the coral. End ID)

Parrotfish are protogynous sequential hermaprodites. This means that all parrotfish are born female and can become male later in life. The transition is usually triggered when there are too many females or not enough males in a location, though in some species any fish that reaches a certain size will become male. Some parrotfish are solitary while others are social. In social species, the social groups consist of a large male and a harem of females that he protects and claims mating rights with. Other males will attempt to fight the male for dominance via headbutting and threat displays and occasionally one of his harem members will become male to challenge him. Males are usually more colorful than females, which they use to woo females, but also puts them at greater risk of predation. If the harem leader dies and is not replaces, one member of the harem will transition to male and replace him. Many species perform courtship dances during nights of the full moon. In non-social species, males will perform displays and fight with each other to attract females. In social species, the dominant male will mate with his harem while smaller males without harems will try to sneakily woo claimed females or sneak in and mate without being noticed. Parrotfish are broadcast spawners. The female releases her eggs into the water and the males releases sperm to fertilize them. The eggs will drift on the current until settling, after which the larvae will hatch. As with most fish species, only a very few of the larvae will reach adulthood.

(Image: a Mediterranean parrotfish (Sparisoma cretense). It is mostly bright red, but with a yellow patch above the tail and a yellow stripe around the eye that runs down to the belly. A large patch behind the eye is blue. End ID)

Thankfully, most parrotfish species are not particularly endangered. The largest threat to them comes from habitat loss as pollution and climate change harms coral reefs. Reintroducing parrotfish to damaged reefs helps them recover. All species are edible, though there is no commercial fishery for them. While parrotfish are capable of delivering powerful bites, there are few reports of humans getting bit. That being said, I found one case where someone had skin on his penis bitten off by a parrotfish. And yes, that link has pictures. Enjoy.

(Image: a blue parrotfish (Scarus coeruleus) looking at the camera. It is a blue fish with darker patches around the eye. Its snout is bulbous and the beak points downward. End ID).

[apollyonsdarksecrets]

The Contract

Aaron Hotchner X F!Reader

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven

Summery: She’s reserved, emotionally cut off, and spiraling down a dark path; one she can’t get out of on her own. Aaron Hotchner may be her only help, but at what cost? When he shows up to her hotel room, contact in hand, she realizes it may be more than what she bargained for.

Over All Warnings: 18 + Only, MDNI, SMUT. Language, typical CM violence, childhood trauma, abusive(mentally) father figure, does not line up with a specific time line, flip flops between 3rd and 2nd POV, so use of Y/n. BDSM Dynamics, contract, Dom! Aaron Hotchner, Sub! Reader, emotional detachment, reader is not good at taking care of herself, Age gap (Reader 25 Arron 40), explicit Smut detailed in chapters. This is a series 😅

A/N: listen y’all, Aaron Hot Hotchner has had me in a choke hold, I wish, since the moment I laid eyes on him. It’s only fitting he gets some love.

15 Years Ago

Her hands sting with little paint splinters, their jagged edges imbedding deeper each time her fists connect with the door. She gasps around another harsh sob, her eyes squeezed shut against the blinding darkness surrounding her. “Please daddy! Let me out!” She begs desperately, her small voice cracking. The door violently rattles back with a deafening crack, making her stumble back. She falls into the sink, clutching at its porcelain surface to stop herself.

“Shut the fuck up!” Her father’s guttural voice fills the confined space of the restroom, “The longer you cry the longer you’ll stay in there!” His words are slurred from the deers he’d had with his dinner, combined with the six he’d consumed during the day.

“Please daddy, I-I’m sorry.”

The only reply is the vibration of his heavy boots as he storms down the hall, shaking the old house. She presses her hand to her mouth, muffling her cries as she dares a peek at her surroundings. A pitch black void greets her, no light to be seen, not even from the bottom of the door. Blindly she feels around, the sink to her right, the rusted toilet to her left. Sinking to her knees she wedges herself in the space between them, pulling her legs to her chest and wrapping thin arms around them.

She rests her head against the column of the sink, every small noise making her jump and squirm, her young imagination running wild. Hot tears cascade down her cheeks, getting caught in the hairs stuck to her face before sliding down her throat, finally drenching the neck of her night gown.

5 Years Ago

“Congratulations! You have worked extremely hard to get here, and I can see great potential in your future working here with the FBI.” The Superintendent, a short stocky man, who’s suit is a size too big, holds out his hand to the woman across from him. She’s schooled her features into a mask of calm and restraint. She shakes his hand firmly, quick and to the point.

“Thank you, sir. This is an opportunity of a life time for me, I do not wish to squander it.” Just barely, if he had blinked he would have missed it, does her lips twitch up at the corners. She’s dressed very plainly, black blouse with grey dress pants. The nicest clothing she owns in her sparse closet.

“You’ll be stationed close to home, for now. With high marks such as yours though, I can’t see you staying long should you request a transfer.” Turning the older man retrieves a small black badge book from his mahogany desk, her eyes trained on his movements with restrained elation. “Your credentials, Agent Smit.”

2 Years Ago

Jennifer Jareau, or JJ as she requested to be called, brings the young woman into the heart of the Quantico department. Her eyes are bright, turning slowly as she walks taking in every inch of the Bull Pen.

“It can be a little intimidating the first time, but you get use to it.” The blond smiles with a soft laugh, a stack of folders pressed to her chest as she tails behind. “It’s just this way to your desk.” She points towards an empty half cubical, the plain desk void of anything other than a computer and a gold name plate, displaying the name ‘Y/n Smith’.

“Thank you, JJ, for taking the time to show me around.” Y/n turns with a genuine smile, setting her purse and bag down on the small rolling chair.

JJ waves her hand dismissively, shaking her head. “It’s not a problem, I remember how it felt coming in here a bit green behind the ears. I’m glad to help, anytime.” Her blue eyes flicker over Y/n’s shoulder, her smile faltering. Y/n turns around, finding a stoic looking man staring down at them from the landing above. He’s wearing a fitted navy suit, raven black hair styled neatly yet a few strands still fall across his forehead. His brown eyes are hard and imposing.

“We have a case.” His voice is deep and smooth, like a fine whiskey, an air of superiority lacing those four simple words. His stance gives him away, hands resting on his hips and chin held high, let’s her know he must be the one in charge.

“SSA Aaron Hotchner this is Agent Y/n Smith.” JJ begins but he holds up his hand, his face hard and set with an unwavering determination.

“I’m aware of who this is, and what you are here to do. Gather the team and meet on the plane. We will debrief there.” And with that he’s gone.

Y/n turns to JJ, her mouth age slightly. “Is he… always like this?”

JJ forces a sympathetic smile, “Unfortunately, yes. But he means well. Come I’ll show you where we need to go.”

3 Months Ago

“How do you do it?” Garcia blurts the question out in the middle of the room, all eyes turning to look at her at once. Her cheeks grow a little darker under her blush as she realizes just how loud she had been.

“Do what?” Y/n asks back, spinning around in one of the chairs circling the table in the conference room. The team had just landed forty minutes ago, everyone decompressing with coffee and donuts, generously gifted to them by the bubbling blond herself. Y/n takes another sip of her black coffee as she waits.

“I’ve never seen you cry.”

The question startles Y/n momentarily, her mind going on the defense as she tries to come up with a suitable answer. Opening her mouth she closes it again as Reid begins, “Ya know she’s right. We work a lot of hard cases but you stay pretty stoic.”

Turning to the rest of the team she glances over their curious faces, her gaze snagging on Hotch. His eyebrow is cocked, but otherwise his expression is impassive, impossible to guess what he is thinking. He holds her stare, almost with a hint of a challenge and despite herself she drops her gaze first, clearing her throat.

“I-I don’t know. Just got a good emotional switch, is all.” Y/n shrugs her shoulder, tapping her fingers against the side of the mug resting between her palms. The heat is nice, seeing as the weather is turning and winter is right around the corner, the office is cold having been shut down for hours now, the clock on the wall reading 1 am.

“Some say that the reason others don’t cry as often or as much is because they are repressing their own emotions, or have a hard time connecting with them. Some just don’t have tear ducts.” She glares at Reid, that smart brain of his going to get him in trouble. Emily scoffs and turns on him in your defense, hand resting on her hip.

“Spencer.” She says his name drawn out and scolding, making him slouch slightly in his seat, appearing sheepish. Y/n holds up her hands, coming to Boy Wonders rescue.

“It’s fine, really though I’m just good at detaching myself, emotionally, from the situation. Emotions are frivolous things that can get in the way of an investigation.” She shrugs her shoulder, her demeanor convincing them she is uncaring of the topic.

“Titanic.” Derek suddenly pipes up. “I bet she cries at Titanic.”

The group laughs, Y/n forcing out one of her own as her heart starts to pound in her chest. Morgan and Emily turn on Spencer, lecturing him about what is appropriate to state facts about, while JJ and Garcia begin to clean up. Slowly chatter and shuffling turns to white noise, a ringing in Y/n’s ears filling their place.

She stares down at the table, shifting in her seat as she tries to squash the rising anxiety. Memories, harsh and bitter like her coffee, pelt her; her chest tightening uncomfortably. All the whole Aaron’s watchful gaze never leaves her face, her mask of indifference and solidarity cracking the longer she sits across from him.

Present Day

You stare out the window of your hotel room, the city is shrouded in darkness but there’s the eternal glow of the night life that makes the inky blackness not so suppressing. Chewing absently at your thumb nail you sway on your feel, comforting yourself with the gentle motion. Today had been hard, grueling and long, but in the end the good guys came out on top.

A knock at your door startles you out of your thoughts, your body stilling and instinctively your eyes travel to your gun resting on the end table. 3am is a little late for a visitor. Another knock spurs you into actions and you cross the shaggy green carpet to the door. Peaking through the peep whole your eyebrows furrow in confusion as you step back, pulling the door open with you.

Aaron Hotchner stands in the threshold, still wearing his suit from earlier minute the blazer. The off white compliments his complexion and raven hair. “Hotch?”

“You’re awake.” He doesn’t sound surprised, more so relieved.

“So are you.” You keep the door pressed to your body, concealing the thin tank top and sweatpants you’ve dressed in for bed.

“Yes, I am.” He looks past you into the small room before gesturing to it. “May I come in?”

You bite your lip, eyeing around him down the deserted hallway before nodding. “Yes, of course.” He steps in full and you close the door, turning quickly to the chair across the room, grabbing your jacket. You pull it on, zipping it part of the way before turning back to your boss. He’s looking around, that part of his brain he can never turn off analyzing every inch.

“So… what do I owe the pleasure?” You ask, going back to the spot you’d spent most of the night occupying.

“I wanted to let you know the hospital called. Jenny is going to be just fine.” He watches as your shoulders sink, a breath blowing through your nose as you visibly relax.

“That’s… That’s great to hear. Thank you.”

Jenny Campell, the 9 year old little girl abducted by her father, who was held hostage for two weeks in a remote part of Boston. She was severely dehydrated and would likely have lasting psychological problems from the abuse her father put her through; but she was alive, and the good guys had won.

“I wanted to talk to you… about the house.” Aaron’s head tilts slightly, as it always does when he’s approaching a subject he thinks may cause someone some uncomfort. You hold his gaze, crossing your arms over your chest, confused by where this could be going. Aaron clears his throat before he begins. “How did you know to look for a secret door?”

6 Hours Earlier

The house was dank smelling, clouds of dust swirled through the rays of light coming from the flash lights of the officers ahead of you. The house has been cleared, but something was missing, Charles Campell said his daughter was here, but where?

You circle back into the smallest bedroom, the voices of Hotch and Morgan floating through the open door as they try to discuss a new plan. The room was littered with trash, a twin sized bed sits in one corner, a large oak wardrobe opposite it. Children’s drawings adorn the peeling walls, and a dusty pink sign hangs above the bed frame, ‘Jenny Girl’.

You step closer to the armoire, newspapers and takeout boxes crunching under foot, as you shine your light over the furniture. It’s new, newer than anything else in the entire house making it stand out against the decay. It isn’t until you’re right beside it do you notice the scratches along the lime green paint.

The realization dawns on your like a bucket of ice water being thrown in your face and before you know it your yelling for your team mates. “Here! Hotch!” Your put your weight into the side of the wardrobe, pushing with everything you have as the two men rush into the room.

Morgan runs for the other side, pulling as Hotch takes up the space behind you, his arms caging you in as he pushes. The three of you move it easily, a small door, presumably to a crawl space, appears in the wall and you rush to pull it open. Morgan covers you with his gun drawn, giving you a nod to go before you yank the door open.

There, curled up in her side, is the little blond girl you all have been searching for. “Medic!” Hotch screams from above you, as you quickly moves towards the girl. She small and light, her hair matted and dirty like her blue night gown. You presses your fingers to the girls throat, a weak pulse answering.

~*~*~*~

“Y/n?” Hotch snaps you out do your thoughts, and you shake your head, clearing yourself of the memory.

“Sorry… I just… I knew there was something there, I won’t say I could sense it but my gut hasn’t lead me wrong, thus far.” Aaron nods, waiting to see if you will continue. “Charles isn’t a lier, his motivation for taking her were simple, revenge on her mother. Make her squirm and give him more parental rights. He never assumed she would get the police involved. Much less the FBI.”

“Jenny’s father is not only a drug user but a heavy drinker. Everything he had done was under the influence and when he was captured, and the substances in his system wore off he had gaps in his memories of what he did with Jenny. Explaining why he couldn’t tell us exactly where she was, just that she was at the house.” Hotch finishes for you.

“Exactly.” You pause, eyeing him over. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No, in fact you did amazing in the field today. You worked out the clue no one else could’ve, and if it wasn’t for you there is no telling if we would have found Jenny in time. I’m extremely proud of you.” His praise makes something in your chest stir without your permission. Your clear your throat to speak, but he cuts you off. “But you didn’t answer my question. How did you know there would be a door behind the wardrobe?”

Your palms suddenly feel clammy, nervousness making your spine straighten. “I don’t know what you-.”

“You do realize I am the one that goes through ever personnel file before someone is permitted to work with my team, correct?” His voice doesn’t have that hard edge like it normally holds, in fact his entire demeanor is soft, calming. Almost like he’s trying to comfort a wounded animal.

You are the animal.

“Where are you going with this?”

“I know about your father, Y/n. I have seen the police reports, and I know you take cases with children very seriously and hold them close to your heart.” He takes a step forward and instinctively you move back, a look of hurt washing over his features. “I need you to tell me if you are alright, if this case was to much for you.”

~*~*~*~

The red lights of the ambulance quickly fade away through the woods, leaving the house illuminated only by the head lights of the surrounding cop cars. Aaron is removing his vest as he walks around watching as people file in and out of the house taping and marking things off.

He stops by the van, pulling the door open and throwing his vest inside, when he notices a figure standing off by themselves. He squints into the darkness along the side of the house, the person is hunched over, hands on their knees as their shoulder shake subtly. He scans the people around him, finding Morgan by the entrance to the house, on the phone with the rest of the team and the other 5 officers are accounted for. That leaves only you.

Slowly he moves closer just barely making out the sounds of you muffled crying over the noises of the others. Concern wipes through his body like lightning but before he can move any farther Morgan is yelling his name, startling you in the process.

You straighten up quickly, wiping your face with your jacket sleeves and Aaron retreats towards the others. Giving you your space without the fear of embarrassment of being caught.

~*~*~*~

Your face burns, cheeks bright pink. You open your mouth then close it again, a mixture of emotions tumbling around inside you.

Embarrassment, anger, hatred, regret, longing to finally let it all go. None of which are directly targeted at your boss but he’s the only thing in sight.

“How dare you.” You seethe, letting anger take over because it’s the easiest to roll with. “Don’t come to my room at all hours of the morning, trying to… to… get something out of me.” Your anger propels you forward and you find yourself inches in front of Hotch. He holds his ground, his hands moving to rest on his hips and you break eye contact long enough to glance at them.

“I’m asking you if you are alright.” Aaron’s voice has dropped, the timber low and you can’t help but like the sound of it. There’s no denying Aaron is a handsome man, but there’s always denying your feelings.

“I’m. Fine.” You ground out.

“Your lying to me.”

“Hotc-“

“Sweetheart.” The nickname catches you off guard, your eyes widening with surprise, breath trapped in your throat. Aaron takes the opportunity, his large hands cupping your face, giving you no other choice but to keep eye contact even as your body stiffens and a look of almost pain flashes across your face. “I know you’re lying to me because I am good at my job and so is everyone else here. You think we haven’t noticed your apprehension when it comes to a dark room? Or the way you always stand closer to the other females in the room, even if it’s just Spencer?”

Your hands find their way to his wrists, tugging but he stays firm, he isn’t hurting you but he’s going to make you listen. “Sto-.”

“Youre to comfortable placating than possibly rocking the boat for yourself. You never finish a cup of coffee because you hate it plain, you’d rather wonder around a new building than bother someone to ask where a room is, you dont open up to a single person because of your anxiety.” Hurt is written clearly on your features, hurt mixed with anger but before you can say anything Aaron steams ahead. “With that being said, you are one of my best profilers. I’ve seen you take on men twice your size and never bat a lash. Behavior like this doesn’t just come from nowhere. Something happened to you that made you this way.”

That unwelcoming pressure behind your eyes begins to overwhelm you, much like Aaron’s presence, his cologne infiltrating your nose with each ragged inhale. “What do you care? I’ve done just fine with how I am by myself, I don’t need you digging around for answers that will have no impact on you whatsoever.” Your voice comes out softer than you would have liked, making you hate yourself more.

“I care,” He emphasizes with a stroke of his thumb across your cheek, a foreign feeling on your skin. “Because I can not sit back and watch you hurt yourself like this.”

You scoff, trying again to pull away, managing to take a few steps back only for him to follow. A hand slips to the back of your neck, hot and heavy, holding you firmly in place. “You’re being dramatic, Hotchner.”

“When was the last time you ate?”

Eyebrows furrowing in confusion, you open your mouth only to realize you aren’t sure. “I… I had a snack in the car. On the way here.” It’s a lame excuse, and he sees right through it.

“I want to make you an offer.” His brown eyes search your face, the anger turning into confusion.

“An offer?”

“Yes, I’d like for you to hear me out before you make a decision. Okay?”

“If it means you will let me go, then yes.” You give his wrists one last tug and he relents, but not before giving your neck a final squeeze. You move until your back is against the window, the cold night air seeping through the glass and into your jacket.

Aaron sits down in the only chair before gesturing to the bed, “Why don’t you sit.” It’s more of a command than it is a suggestion, making you root to your spot, giving him your best disgruntled look that rivals his on a good day. Sighing he leans his elbows against his knees, scrubbing a hand across his face. He looks tired, the wear and tear off the job showing more and more. Dark circles from a lack of sleep, a few new greeting hairs You could have sworn weren’t there when this case began.

“Well?” You snap, throwing your hand up before letting it drop against your thigh. Aarons eyes slowly lift to yours, a look you are unfamiliar with lurking under his features as he reaches behind himself, pulling a folded piece of paper you hadn’t noticed before from his back pocket. He tosses it onto the bed and a thousand possibilities run through your mind all at once. Leave of absence? Demotion? Pink slip? “Hotch…”

“Go on. It isn’t going to bite you, honey.” He let’s a little bit of humor color his words and you shoot him a glare. You close the distance, snatching it off of the bed and unfolding it to realize it’s a few sheets stapled together. Your eyes nearly double their size, mouth falling open as you read the header.

‘Consent of Submission.’

Paragraphs make up the first page, the words jumbling together as you try to make sense of where this is heading. The next page is filled with bullet points, titled ‘Rules’. Eat three full meals a day, go to bed at an appropriate time, check in with how you are feeling; to name a few.

As you continue to stare at the paper, confusion and distraught winning the war of emotions on your face, Aaron begins speaking. “It’s a contract, between you and I. It will help you properly take care of your self and I will help enforce it.

“‘Submission’? Aaron… This is… What?” You begin to tremble with a vengeance, forcing you to sit on the edge of the bed.

“Yes, it will help you learn to regain some control over your trauma and your everyday life. It will help with the anxiety, depression, and emotional detachment you are facing.” He speaks so surely, like he has done this before, and maybe he has.

“You mean it will help you control me.” Your accusation doesn’t phase him, in fact he looks to calm for the situation. His long legs are stretched out in front of him, leaning back in his seat with his head propped on his first. A complete opposite juxtaposition to yourself.

“In a sense, it’s power exchange. Nothing happens without your explicit consent, which gives you the power in what we do. Where I have the power is how we navigate those consents, what we do, where we do it, and how.” He takes a deep breath, giving you a gentle smile. “I’ve found people in your type of situation benefited greatly from being able to let their brains turn off, not have to over think every step of the day. Just exist and let someone else… Take care of them.”

“And if I say I don’t want to sign this?” You slam the papers back on the bed, more to hide your shaking hands than anything.

“Then I will have you go to therapy within the BAU system.” He shrugs his shoulder feigning indifference, even though his heart is thumping wildly. He thought the days of this life style were behind him, no longer needed, but the moment you turned up on the plane, he knew. Your lips were pressed into a tight smile, your body language screaming how uncomfortable you were seated between Derek and Rossi, though you desperately tried to mimic the calm demeanor surrounding you. Something stirred awake in his chest that morning, and he’s just been bidding his time every since.

Your stomach churns, weighing out your options. Somehow the latter seems worse. You run your hands into your hair, blowing out a breath. “I’m not submissive Aaron, you know this. This job requires to much for this to be a possibility. I don’t… I don’t see how it could work.”

“I’m not saying you aren’t, but I think there are things you haven’t learned about yourself yet. As for our job this is not apart of that, this is separate. We will just be ourselves, nothing out of the ordinary.” He says all of this so sincerely, a part of you wants to trust him. But the part of you that says no one is to be trusted squares your shoulders.

“What do you want in exchange? How do I know you won’t use this as black mail, or some chip to hold over my head?

His eyebrows raise in surprise. “Sweetheart, There’s nothing I want in exchange, I’m trying to help you. Is that so hard to believe?”

“Yes.” You answer before you can even give it thought. Deflect, shut it down, move on. How you handle any sort of situation that strikes a little to close to home, that tries to dig out your weaknesses like he is doing now.

Aaron prepared for this, knew you would meet him with head on resistance, but also knew with the choices given what you would pick. You’ve gone back to staring at the papers, the wheels in your head turning at full force. He can guess within reason what you might be thinking, he had that same look on his face when he was introduced to the lifestyle all those years ago.

“Y/n.” Your eyes dart up to his, large and uncertain. “Give me a month, just one. If it doesn’t help, if it’s too much, then we call it quits.”

“Just one?” You echo back, Aaron nodding. He stands from his seat, large hand stretched out, palm facing the sky. This is crazy, wrong on so many levels. Not to mention the amount of trouble you both could end up in if someone so happen to come across this. Every fiber of your being screams the sentiment. But it’s your heart, though it bruises your ribs, that makes you place your hand in his. Aaron gently pulls you to your feet, making sure you have your balance before letting go.

“Go wash your face, then I want you in bed. You need to sleep.” Instantly you want to rebel against the order, the phrase ‘you don’t control me’ coming to mind but instead you turn on your heel. “Good girl.”

You can hear the smirk in his voice and your shoulders tense up, but you force yourself to walk into the restroom, closing the door a little to hard. You turn to the mirror, a woman with scarlet red cheeks stares back at you and you huff. What are you doing? Where has your brain gone? Groaning lowly you angrily grab for your face wash.

Coming back out into the room, dabbing at your face with a hand towel, you find the room is lit only by the bedside lamp. Aaron, with the contract in his hands, looks up when he hears you. Your hand tightens around the scratchy white towel as a small smile tugs his lips up. “You look beautiful even without the makeup.”

You roll your eyes, tossing the towel into the small tub behind you. “A very typical male complement, Hotch.” You quip, glancing towards your bed. The covers have been turned down, and there’s a glass of water on the night stand.

“Here.” Aaron holds out a pen, and the paper, suddenly your hands have never been so clammy.

“I thought you said we would just try this for a month. Why do I need to sign?” You skirt around him, fidgeting with your jackets zipper. You can feel your heart beat everywhere, from your fingertips to the bottom of your bare feet.

“To protect us both, either you sign or there’s no deal and you go to therapy.” Skin bristling you spin around, whatever you were about to snap suddenly dissolving on your tongue. His chest is mere inches from your face, forcing you to tilt your head back to look him in the eye. He never seemed this tall from across the room. “You’re wearing my patience thin, little one.” The heady rasp of his voice as he whispers to you makes your stomach clench, for an entirely new reason.

Begrudgingly you take the pen and paper, pressing it to his chest to bear down on as you scrawl out your name on the little line. You notice his signature is already on the other side.“There. Happy?”

He holds your stare for a moment longer, and you think he might say something more before he steps back, taking everything with him. “We will go over everything at breakfast, we have an appointment with Jenny and her mother Clair at noon.”

Your eyebrows come together as he reaches the door, pulling it open. “I thought the teams going home today?”

“They are. I have paper work that needs to be done and you are my only child psychologist. Goodnight, Y/n.” He smiles as he closes the door behind himself, relishing in the shock written on your face.

[vickysaurus-art]

One paleoart for each period since the Cryogenian

Thanks to the timeline on my walls that I've been trying to fill in with my art, I have now reached the point where I've done paleoart for every single period of the Phanerozoic, plus the Ediacaran and Cryogenian! That is to say, every period of the last 700 million years. So with that milestone, I thought it'd be fun to go through those periods in order and show off one paleoart of mine for each!

Cryogenian

In the Cryogenian, the Earth completely froze over. Twice! Life wasn't much to look at yet, but I enjoyed drawing what our planet might have looked like at the time. The girdle of lakes at the left is the equator, which may have had ice-free patches.

Ediacaran

When the ice retreated, animals first began to blossom into their endless forms most beautiful. Ediacaran life was strange and quite unlike the creatures that would come later, but it was nonetheless an incredibly important chapter in life's history. Here we see the Ediacaran weirdos washing up on shore after a storm.

Cambrian

The Cambrian explosion brought much more recognisable creatures. But one thing that's easy to miss is that they were all tiny! All of them? No, Anomalocaris was, with a length of about 40 cm, the dragon of the Cambrian.

Ordovician

Life continued to diversify in the Ordovician, and among this diversity were the cephalopods. They produced the largest animals yet to exist, the orthocones, who hung vertically in the water column and decended upon their prey like a claw game.

Silurian

Although fungi and bacteria had already made forays onto the land deep in the past, things began to get busier there in the Silurian. But these horseshoe crabs, and their larger cousins the sea scorpions, have not come to the shore to stay, but to mate and lay eggs. Unfortunately for the horseshoe crabs, they have come to the very same shore.

Devonian

Our own vertebrate ancestors, like Tiktaalik, were pretty late to the party, only taking their first steps on land in the late Devonian. That's no knock against them - there was plenty to do underwater! This Tiktaalik is busy guarding his eggs while his mate is busy hunting, for example. Who has time to step on land?

Carboniferous

The end of the Carboniferous saw some quite large bugs, like these two Mazothairos chasing off an interloping Meganeura. They're representatives of a pretty interesting group of basal insects called the Palaeodictyoptera, who have a set of weird little extra wings on their thorax.

Permian

Among the many fantastic creatures of the Permian were our own cousins, the synapsids, like these lovey-dovey Moschops. As you can see, this picture and the previous one are done in coloured pencils instead of watercolour, because they're the oldest images I'm including in this post. I only very rarely used watercolours before this year. I think it means I should do some more Permian art, it's such a cool and underexposed period.

Triassic

One mass extinction later, the archosaurs are diversifying all over Triassic Pangaea. Here we have the three main groups of them: Paratypothorax, a pseudosuchian in the background; Peteinosaurus, a pterosaur on top of the cliff; and Procompsognathus, a dinosaur climbing the cliff.

Jurassic

I had three different option for Jurassic paleoart to showcase, so I picked the most experimental one. These backlit insects are not butterflies, but kalligrammatids, a group of large-winged neuroptera, some of which even mimicked maniraptoran dinosaurs like this iridescent Caihong with their patterns.

Cretaceous

The Cretaceous featured some of life's most gorgeous crescendos of diversity, like the Yixian formation, where a Psitaccosaurus wants to visit the favourite tree of a group of Sinosauropteryxes, who are having none of it. This is still one of my favourite pieces I've ever drawn.

Paleogene

The Paleogene featured some of the highest global temperatures of all time, leading to tropical climates all over the planet, including at this lake in what will one day be Messel, Germany. Darwinius, a close cousin to our own ancestors, is having a staredown with the lizard Geiseltaliellus.

Neogene

The world turned colder and dryer in the Neogene, leading to the spread of large grasslands, like these South American ones. Phorusracos, a large terror bird, has caught a Thoatherium on the edge of the forest they both live in. South America was an isolated continent for the duration of the Neogene, leading to a quite unique fauna.

Quaternary

The Quaternary, our current period, is marked by the cycle of ice ages regularly freezing the northern hemisphere. But even during the ice ages, spring would come to the mammoth steppes, and these steppe mammoths are happy to celebrate its coming with a bath in the river.

[keepersif]

Keepers, a person modified to be stronger, faster, and immune to poisons. Originally made to fight in a war that no one had any interest in fighting, with the war long over, Keepers continue to be made as a threat to all other nations and a show of Furlandia's magical and scientific ability. 

You are a Keeper, made into one as a child and trained quite thoroughly. Most of the jobs Keepers perform nowadays are rather boring, kill something, protect this person, but your last job was different. What should have been a normal job ended with you unable to find Ren, your fellow Keeper and closest friend. Your quest to find Ren forces you both to become in worlds you have no experience in, ignorant to what the true consequences of your actions may be.

Features:

Play as a customizable character

Try to figure out what's happening and your place in it

Characters that are romanceable regardless of gender

Demo: Coming Soon

Notable Characters/Romance Options

Ren (cis man, he/him)

Taken from the same orphanage and turned into Keepers at the same time, Ren is your closest and oldest friend. With a dry sense of humor and an intimidating presence, Ren often appears unemotional and uncaring, but he is the most loyal person you've ever met. The weeks he has been missing marks the longest amount of time you two have been separated since you were both children. 

Ren is 6'7" (201 cm) with bronze skin, brown eyes and straight black hair slightly past his shoulders. He is missing his left hand and has many scars, almost all of which you were there for.

Lady Briar (cis woman, she/her)

A charming woman who can seem quite impulsive. Her siblings were murdered, but their murderer remains unknown. You don't know much about her but she attended the event that Ren went missing at.

Briar is 5'4" (163 cm) with tan skin, light brown eyes and curly dark brown hair that reaches her waist.

Divine Wane (cis man, he/him)

Blessed by the god of divination to be able to see the future, Wane is bound to the will of the King. A gentle and kind man, he seems overwhelmed by the responsibility put on his shoulders. You caught glimpses of him at the event Ren went missing at.

Wane is 5'10" (178 cm) with dark black skin, dark brown eyes and coily black hair that he keeps short.

Lord Valentine (cis man, he/him)

The son of a high ranking Cleric, Valentine shows little talent in the water manipulation his family is known for. You watched him hang off Ren for most of the night, before Ren eventually left with him, that was the last time you saw Ren

Valentine is 5'7" (170 cm) with pale skin, brown eyes and straight black hair that goes to his waist.

Isabella (cis woman, she/her)

A whirlwind of a woman, and a brilliant inventor. She was hired by Briar for unclear reasons. You saw her briefly at the event, dressed in a dirty shirt and pants with an apron, and if what some of the gossip you heard was correct, not invited in the first place.

Isabella is 5'11 (180 cm) with dark tan skin, green eyes and wavy brown hair she keeps up in a loose bun.

[hotwaterandmilk]

My extremely brief review of Sailor Moon Raisonné Art Works 1991~2023 book is as follows: fantastic as something akin to an exhibition catalogue, disappointing as an art book.

Longer version:

Takeuchi is a great artist, Sailor Moon has some extremely memorable illustrations, there hasn't been a new art book in decades... this should have been a slam dunk in terms of meeting fan expectations. Unfortunately I think the portrayal of this as a preserved "art collection" is a bit disingenous given the format of the book, the number of art revisions, and its overall quality are pretty standard for exhibition catalogues rather than actual art books.

In saying this I absolutely love art work catalogues, particularly when they provide context on how the illustrations were originally used. "Raisonné" shines in this regard, it gives revision notes and context to the original uses of all images from Nakayoshi colour pages through to furoku. Loooooove this:

It even features a comprehensive account of furoku and zen'in for the manga, which is another thing I appreciate in these types of publications.

The main problem, as countless people have pointed out, is that the actual art work in this book is extremely tiny. Many of the rarer images fans were excited to see in decent resoluton (like the colour art from Codename wa Sailor V) are a few cms across here, piled up crammed from a couple to a dozen a page.

The character designs presented exquisitely in full in the "Materials Collection" art book are condensed to a handful of pages rendering Takeuchi's chracter notes unreadable and the gorgeous sketches lacklustre at best. Why are they included at all when some designs are barely visible here? The paper quality too is fine for a catalogue but there's just no comparison to the paper and print quality found in the original Sailor Moon art books.

I think it also has some very standard art collection flaws on top of this, including baffling choices when it comes to putting artworks partially across two pages (will never not hate this in any art book, it's particularly egregious here where the cover illustrations from THE BOOK ITSELF are about the third of a page in size and placed across a page spread).

There's already been plenty of dissatisfaction expressed about this book and I'm not here to give it an additional kick around because I do feel it has value as an art work catalogue. I just think there was a definite divide in what Kodansha produced vs. fan expectations and if you purchase the book knowing this then at least you'll be aware of what you're getting.

[little-diable]

A Losing Game - Professor Aaron Hotchner (Profiling 101 Series, Part 8/?)

Chapter eight, here we go. I hope you enjoy the way this moves into, I can't wait to hear your thoughts on this! Thank y'all for the love on the past chapters! Please like and reblog if you enjoyed reading this, your comments keep us writers motivated. Enjoy my loves. xxx

Summary: The reader enrolls in professor Hotchner's class "Profiling 101", a man she has always looked up to, a man who treats her like an asshole from day one. Will her need for academic validation manage to push the two closer together? Will her bright mind push her into the world of Aaron Hotchner and the BAU team? Will he manage to keep his distance before the world he tries to protect her from can get its grasp on her?

Warnings: 18+, smut, unprotected piv, shower sex, some angst due to the kidnapping, regular CM stuff

Pairing: Professor!Aaron Hotchner x fem!reader (2k words)

Profiling 101 Series Masterlist

Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five Part Six Part Seven Part Nine

It took her a while to wake, forcing her eyes to stay shut, not daring to give away her awakened mind should she not be alone. With a quiet exhale leaving (y/n), she tried to focus on her other senses, on what she could feel, smell, and hear. But she was surrounded by complete silence, nothing could be heard, no cars, no beeping sounds that could indicate any machines, not even the sound of somebody breathing.

She felt the hard chair she was sitting on pressing against her aching back, her wrists unable to move due to the tape that was burning into her skin, keeping her glued to the chair. Fuck, panic arose in her system, not being able to move made the whole thing even more complicated, unable to fight off whoever had taken her.

It had been too dark inside the SUV to make out the features of her stalker, only his unfamiliar, deep voice had rang in her ears before he had knocked her out. She hadn’t even gotten any time to struggle, face falling forwards against the dark console, swallowed by the darkness within seconds before Aaron could come rescue her. 

Aaron – oh god, Aaron. (Y/n) knew that he’d blame himself for letting her out of his sight, leaving her side for just a minute too long. Had he seen her stalker drive the car away from the BAU? Or had he thought that she had driven off on her own? No, he knew what had happened, they were already looking for her – they had to be. 

Chills ran down her spine, a sensation so strong, (y/n) could no longer keep her eyes closed. She had to blink a few times to adjust to her dark surroundings. The room was small, looking like a prison cell, with only her chair, a table, and a small lamp that barely managed to alight even half of the room.

Where the hell was she?

Her gaze flickered down to the black tape that had been wrapped around her wrists, glueing her to the chair. With a huff breaking through (y/n), she tried to tug on her restraints, knowing that she’d eventually be able to break free if she’d get enough time to find her strength. Her body felt weak, leaving her to wonder how long it had been since her stalker had gotten his hands on her.

Fuck, she had been careless, in retrospect she should have been all too aware of the dangers lurking outside. She couldn’t help but curse herself for leaving Aaron’s side, for declining Derek’s offer, she would have been safe with them around. Fuck, fuck, fuck. 

(Y/n) didn’t get any more time to curse her stupid actions, eyes flickering to the door which was pushed open. The man who stared at her looked unfamiliar, a stranger she hadn’t ever crossed paths with before – at least not willingly. She wasn’t sure if she should feel relieved that he was a stranger, or scared, unable to tell what he’d do to her. 

“Well, finally, sweetheart, you had me worried.” He wasn’t much taller than she was, with brown hair slicked back, and dark eyes hidden behind round glasses. The guy must have been in his mid-twenties, a lanky figure she could take down in a fight if she’d only get the chance to. “Now, don’t look at me like that, I warned you, didn’t I? You should have been a good girl, should have listened to my warnings, to the rules, but you’ve never been good at doing that, huh? Of course not, you’re sleeping with your professor after all.

A humourless laugh left the man, dripping with jealousy and hatred. Fear thumped through her veins as he took a step closer, forcing her to part her lips to flush some water down her throat. Perhaps she could use his anger to her advantage, perhaps she could try to rile him up just enough to force him to cut her restraints – she’d only need one chance to fight her way out of this.

“Who are you?” Her voice was monotone, not dripping with anything that could give away her fear, the uneasiness she was held hostage by. She kept her eyes on him, not daring to look away even for one second.

“That’s not important right now, darling. What counts is that I’ve got you here with me, and well, I’ll need to thank the lovely Penelope Garcia for that. She helped me get you after all.”

……

“Hotch, c’mon man, at least sit down for a few minutes. We’ll get your girl.” Aaron’s coffee-coloured eyes met Derek’s wide ones, letting go of an exhausted huff as he slowly sat down on the chair. It has been over six hours since (y/n) had been taken, forced to watch the video over and over again, watching how a masked figure had broken into the SUV, how (y/n) had stepped into the car all too obliviously, and how the SUV had hastily left the parking lot moments later. 

“Alright, so we can rule out Lorey, we can rule out her family,” Emily repeated what they had put together hours ago, letting go of a defeated huff. 

“So, we have nothing.” Aaron let go of another sigh, eyes momentarily squeezed shut to try and collect himself. This is what he had been fearing all this time, after losing Haley Aaron had known that he needed to be even more careful, that he couldn’t take any risks, for his sake and Jack’s. 

“Garcia, anything you could pick up on the CCTV feed?” His dark eyes snapped towards Penelope, studying her tired features, not used to seeing her this quiet. She kept her teary eyes focused on the screen, not replying verbally, only shaking her head. With Derek’s hand placed on Peleope’s shoulder, they found themselves engulfed by silence. A silence that left their insides churning, knowing that time was working against them.

……

She helped me get you after all. She helped me get you after all. She helped me get you after all.

Bile rose in (y/n)’s throat as his words kept ringing in her ears. Penelope? It couldn’t be, not the one she had instantly clicked with. It couldn’t be, not the sunshine that had brightened the darkness she had been trapped in. It couldn’t be, it simply couldn’t be. 

She needed to distract herself, needed to get a grip before she’d spiral. Her thoughts brought her back to Aaron, how he had touched her only hours ago, in the early morning, pressed against the dark shower tiles. 

“Hold on to me, I’ve got you, baby.” Aaron’s raspy voice left her gasping, choking on the moans he forced from her. He had her pinned against the wall, hands holding her up as she slung her legs around his waist. With their eyes holding contact, he pushed into her, making them moan in unison.

Their hearts were racing, minds silenced by the intense sensations washing through them. She wondered if she’d ever get used to feeling him this close, deep inside of her, pressing against her stomach. 

Aaron fucked her without holding back, his thrusts were fast, rough, and calculated, knowing that they couldn’t waste any time in the morning. The open-mouthed kiss they shared managed to swallow some of their sounds, leaving them clinging to one another. 

“Fuck, Aaron, I can’t.” Her pulsing bundle was overstimulated from the two orgasms he had pushed through her only minutes ago, pressed to the mattress with his face buried between her thighs. No man had ever managed to make her cum this fast, this hard, an insatiable need that guided the two of them on. 

“You can, and you will, baby.” His voice dropped with possessiveness, a dark touch that left her toes curling. Fuck, (y/n) knew that she was close already, once again letting go with a moan clawing through her without another warning. 

Aaron kept fucking her, chasing his own high with his eyebrows furrowed together and his fingers digging into the flesh of her ass. She could tell that he was about to cum, pulling out of her at the last second, watching his cum paint her lower stomach. 

Fuck, she needed to get back to Aaron, to touch him again, to feel him again, to speak to him again. She had waited too long to finally be with him, and nobody could take that from her, and especially not her stalker.

As if the man had heard her thoughts, he waltzed back into the room with a smug grin glued to his lips. He wore a suit, trying to come off as sophisticated, as if he was just another normal guy, not the sick and twisted bastard who was holding her hostage. Only as he placed her breakfast down for her did (y/n)'s eyes focus on the badge dangling from his neck, clearly stating that he was working for the FBI. 

The FBI? Had he been that close the whole time?

“It’s time for me to go to work, I was called in earlier because the oh-so-valuable assistant team member of the BAU is missing. Of course, they won’t find her, especially not since I’ll be the one supporting them.” The smirk he wore on his thin lips left (y/n) choking on her angry gasps, trying to keep quiet. He wanted to get a reaction out of her, wanted to rile her up – but (y/n) wouldn’t give in, she couldn’t. “You should eat something while I’m gone. And there’s a bucket for you, I’m sure you’ll eventually need the toilet.”

“Cut me loose, asshole, otherwise I won’t be able to reach the food or the bucket.” A raspy laugh left the guy, slowly stalking closer to (y/n). His breath fanned her skin, leaving her covered in goosebumps, torn between disgust and fear.

“You’re a smart girl, (y/n), I’m sure you’ll figure something out. I’ll see you tonight, babe.” 

……

“Guys, this is Kacey, he’s from the Tech Department, he’s one of the best down there, I thought it’d be good for Penelope to have some extra help.” JJ’s voice echoed through the room, she shot Kacey a grateful smile as he pushed his glasses up his nose. 

“Hi guys, it’s good to finally meet the rest of you, Penelope always speaks so highly of you. I’ll do anything to help you find her, I promise.” He nodded at the team before he was pulled in for a tight hug by Penelope. She and Kacey had crossed paths a while ago, spending some time in her office together as they talked about shared interests, making plans to go out with their friends together, and building a friendship she deeply cherished. 

“Thank you, we’ve got no time to lose, it’s been over twelve hours by now.” Aaron’s voice was emotionless, no longer dripping with the fear he had shown his team, no longer appearing vulnerable in front of a man who was a stranger to him. “Garcia, you two will keep on following the unsub on the feed, the rest of us will go back to (y/n)’s apartment, we’ll comb through it again, and see if we missed something.”

“You found him on the feed?” Neither Penelope nor the others seemed to pick up on the surprise filling every word that rolled off Kacey’s tongue, eyebrows furrowed. 

“I did! He thought he was sneaky, but he missed a few cameras, it’s not much, but maybe we can eventually trace him back to his work, his car, or even his home." Penelope shot Aaron a hopeful smile, clinging to the smallest detail. "Thank you for helping us, really, I know if somebody can push us in the right direction, it’ll be you, Kacey.”

.……

Sweat was pooling on (y/n)’s forehead, lips bloody from the way she had pierced her teeth into the thin skin. She had lost count of the amount of tries she had used to free her aching wrists, without any luck so far.

“Fuck, c’mon!" Tears dripped down her cheeks and a deep, shaky exhale left her, trying to keep herself somewhat collected. With another breath inhaled into her burning lungs, (y/n) collected all her strength to try and rip her wrists free. One last try. It took her a second to realise that she had managed to break through the layers of tape on her left wrist, having to shake her numb fingers a few times before she could free her other wrist. 

She’d get out of here, for the sake of herself, for the sake of Aaron.

[aaronhotchswife]

By the dimed lights

Aaron Hotcher x Female Reader

Hi guys ! I'm sorry for the long waiting for this fic. I had (and still have) to deal with a lot of stressing things. I don't feel really well mentally lately but I'll try to get better. I hope you enjoy this little fic. I'm apologizing in advance if it's not the best fic I've ever written, I can't do better than that these days 💓

Summary : when you can't sleep because of a case, you go for a midnight swim where you find Aaron.

Warnings : unprotected pool sex, mentions of classic cm stuff, not really a elaborated plot, public sex

With no new leads and clues, Hotch has decided to let the team go back to the hotel earlier than usual to catch some sleep. You've been in bed since 10 pm, trying to get most of the sleep you could get. This case was exhausting and it wasn't ready to finish. Tossing and turning, counting the sheeps, nothing could put you to sleep. All you could think about was the case and how it didn't make any sense. You look at your phone, seeing 00:00 am and decided to read a book that you brought with you, hoping that it would put you so sleep. You mind was running 100 mph and even reading couldn't help. But the hotel had a pool and maybe swimming and doing some exercises will drive you to sleep. So you put your swimsuit and walked to the pool where you start doing laps.

"Couldn't sleep either ?" a voice ask in the back.

Getting your head out of the water, you turned around to see your boss in his swim trunks with a towel in his hands. The dark lightning of the pool is enough for you to see his dark blue shorts but not enough for him to see your cheeks getting red.

"Hotch!" you responded suprised, covering the left naked skin of your breast with your arms. "I couldn't sleep. Too much on my mind. What are you doing here ?"

He sat on the edge of the pool, while you swam to him, positioning your arms next to his legs.

"Same thing."

"Something's wrong with the profil." you said, your eyes rising to look at him.

"I know." he sighed, looking down at you. He looked done and exhausted.

Using the walls of the pool, you pushed yourself towards the water to swim away from him before speaking again.

"It's impossible that the unsub dismember his victims in a city and drive across the country to kill again. He can't possibly do that alone...Hotch, what if there's 2 unsubs ?"

Aaron left his place on the edge and swam in your direction, agreeing with what you just said.

"It could be possible. It's the only thing that makes sense honestly...I mean he can't possibly kill someone here, and then be miles away in just a day."

"We should check that more seriously tomorrow." you let out.

"We should."

He's so close to you now, the features of his face softly illuminated by the dimed lights. While he's looking away, you dared looking at him, at his eyes, his cheeks, the way his nose is made. You let yourself check out his lips and the way his shoulders are slowly rising up and down from his calm breathing. As if he knew you were watching him, Aaron gaze turned to meet yours, a small smile on his lips.

He settle in front of you, making your back touch the wall of the pool, his hand reaching a stray of your hair to replace them behind your ear. You follow his fingers, your eyes reaching his once again.

"You look so hot soaking wet." he murmured in your ear. His fingers grazed your cheek to your neck making your eyes closed and your head fall back. His fingers traced their way to your neck, your breast, while his mouth found your jaw, leaving little kisses before your lips meet. It's the more breathtaking kiss you ever had and in that moment, nothing is important. You can feel the need and desperation as you both move your lips together.

A moan involuntary leaves your mouth, the sweet sound making Aaron's body shift. You feel his body tensed, the kiss growing stronger and his hands tucking your face harder. Your hands reach for his swim shorts, so eagerly as if your body's been possessed and by the way Aaron's lips move on yours, you don't have to think about what possessed you. His lips leave yours the moment your hand starts massaging his cock, his head falls back while he murmured a small "fuck".

His hands reach for the top of your swimsuit, slowly pulling on the cords to make it fall in the water. His fingers grazed your nipples, tugging gently on them, making you press your body on him.

"Good girl." he murmured, his lips finding a spot under your ear.

"Please sir, please fuck me." you begged, your mind still running 100 mph but for a different reason now.

"Anything my good girl desires." he praises, and with that, his fingers found the bottom of your swimsuit, pushing then on the side before one of his fingers found it way to your folds. You groaned, taking his jaw in your hand to press your lips on his again.

When he thinks that your slicked enough, you can feel his tip between your folds. He's pushing it slowly, letting you get used to his dick.

"If you knew how many times I thought of me inside of you like that. So tight for me sweet girl."

If fucking your hot boss in a hotel pool was hot enough to make your stomach flutters, him saying things like that was something else. With each thrust, a moan was escaping your mouth. Aaron's hand made his way to your mouth, his lips murmuring.

"I’m fucking you so good that you have to keep quiet or you'll wake up the hotel. Wouldn't want the team to know that your boss is fucking you ?"

With that sentence, your pussy clenched,

"Or maybe that's what turns you on, being seen."

Another moan.

"Such a dirty girl."

"Fuck Aaron. Please."

"Please what, sweetheart ?"

"Please, let me come."

One of his hand found your clit, rubbing little circles on it. You could feel the knot in your stomach growing stronger, and Aaron must have felt it because he started leaving little kiss from your neck to your cheeks, to your forehead.

"Let it go. Come for me baby."

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Big Telco’s fury over FCC plan to infuse telecoms policy with facts

I'll be at the Studio City branch of the LA Public Library on Monday, November 13 at 1830hPT to launch my new novel, The Lost Cause. There'll be a reading, a talk, a surprise guest (!!) and a signing, with books on sale. Tell your friends! Come on down!

Reality has a distinct anti-conservative bias, but conservatives have an answer: when the facts don't support your policies, just get different facts. Who needs evidence-based policy when you can have policy-based evidence?

Take gun violence. Conservatives tell us that "an armed society is a polite society," which means that the more guns you have, the less gun violence you'll experience. To prevent reality from unfairly staining this pristine ideological mind-palace with facts, conservatives passed the Dickey Amendment, which had the effect of banning the CDC from gathering stats on American gun-violence. No stats, no violence!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dickey_Amendment

Policy-based evidence is at the core of so many cherished conservative beliefs, like the idea that queer people (and not youth pastors) are responsible for the sexual abuse of children, or the idea that minimum wages (and not monopolies) decrease jobs, or the idea that socialized medicine (and not private equity) leads to death panels:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/26/death-panels/#what-the-heck-is-going-on-with-CMS

The Biden administration features a sizable cohort of effective regulators, whose job is to gather evidence and then make policy from it:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/23/getting-stuff-done/#praxis

Fortunately for conservatives, not every Biden agency is led by competent, honest brokers – the finance wing of the Dems got to foist some of their most ghoulish members upon the American people, including a no-fooling cheerleader for mass foreclosure:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/06/personnel-are-policy/#janice-eberly

And these same DINOs reached across the aisle to work with Republicans to keep some of the most competent, principled agency leaders from being seated, like the remarkable Gigi Sohn, targeted by a homophobic smear campaign funded by the telco industry, who feared her presence on the FCC:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/19/culture-war-bullshit-stole-your-broadband/

The telcos are old hands at this stuff. Long before the gun control debates, Ma Bell had figured out that a monopoly over Americans' telecoms was a license to print money, and they set to corrupting agencies from the FCC to the DoJ:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/14/jam-to-day/

Reality has a vicious anti-telco bias. Think of Net Neutrality, the idea that if you pay an ISP for internet service, they should make a best effort to deliver the data you request, rather than deliberately slowing down your connection in the hopes that you'll seek out data from the company's preferred partners, who've paid a bribe for "premium delivery."

This shouldn't even be up for debate. The idea that your ISP should prioritize its preferred data over your preferred data is as absurd as the idea that a taxi-driver should slow down your rides to any pizzeria except Domino's, which has paid it for "premium service." If your cabbie circled the block twice every time you asked for a ride to Massimo's Pizza, you'd be rightly pissed – and the cab company would be fined.

Back when Ajit Pai was Trump's FCC chairman, he made killing Net Neutrality his top priority. But regulators aren't allowed to act without evidence, so Pai had to seek out as much policy-based evidence as he could. To that end, Pai allowed millions of obviously fake comments to be entered into the docket (comments from dead people, one million comments from @pornhub.com address, comments from sitting Senators who disavowed them, etc). Then Pai actively – and illegally – obstructed the NY Attorney General's investigation into the fraud:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/06/boogeration/#pais-lies

The pursuit of policy-based evidence is greatly aided by the absence of real evidence. If you're gonna fill the docket with made-up nonsense, it helps if there's no truthful stuff in there to get in the way. To that end, the FCC has systematically avoided collecting data on American broadband delivery, collecting as little objective data as possible:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/26/pandemic-profiteers/#flying-blind

This willful ignorance was a huge boon to the telcos, who demanded billions in fed subsidies for "underserved areas" and then just blew it on anything they felt like – like the $45 billion of public money they wasted on obsolete copper wiring for rural "broadband" expansion under Trump:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/27/all-broadband-politics-are-local/

Like other cherished conservative delusions, the unsupportable fantasy that private industry is better at rolling out broadband is hugely consequential. Before the pandemic, this meant that America – the birthplace of the internet – had the slowest, most expensive internet service of any G8 country. During the lockdown, broadband deserts meant that millions of poor and rural Americans were cut off from employment, education, health care and family:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/12/ajit-pai/#pai

Pai's response was to commit another $8 billion in public funds to broadband expansion, but without any idea of where the broadband deserts were – just handing more money over to monopoly telcos to spend as they see fit, with zero accountability:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/26/pandemic-profiteers/#flying-blind

All that changed after the 2020 election. Pai was removed from office (and immediately blocked me on Twitter) (oh, diddums), and his successor, Biden FCC chair Jessic Rosenworcel, started gathering evidence, soliciting your broadband complaints:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/03/23/parliament-of-landlords/#fcc

And even better, your broadband speed measurements:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/14/for-sale-green-indulgences/#fly-my-pretties

All that evidence spurred Congress to act. In 2021, Congress ordered the FCC to investigate and punish discrimination in internet service provision, "based on income level, race, ethnicity, color, religion, or national origin":

https://www.congress.gov/117/plaws/publ58/PLAW-117publ58.pdf

In other words, Congress ordered the FCC to crack down on "digital redlining." That's when historic patterns of underinvestment in majority Black neighborhoods and other underserved communities create broadband deserts, where internet service is slower and more expensive than service literally across the street:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/10/flicc/#digital-divide

FCC Chair Rosenworcel has published the agency's plan for fulfilling this obligation. It's pretty straightforward: they're going to collect data on pricing, speed and other key service factors, and punish companies that practice discrimination:

https://www.fcc.gov/document/preventing-digital-discrimination-broadband-internet-access

This has provoked howls of protests from the ISP cartel, their lobbying org, and their Republican pals on the FCC. Writing for Ars Technica, Jon Brodkin rounds up a selection of these objections:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/11/internet-providers-say-the-fcc-should-not-investigate-broadband-prices/

There's GOP FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, with a Steve Bannon-seque condemnation of "the administrative state [taking] effective control of all Internet services and infrastructure in the US. He's especially pissed that the FCC is going to regulate big landlords who force all their tenants to get slow, expensive from ISPs who offer kickbacks to landlords:

https://www.fcc.gov/document/carr-opposes-bidens-internet-plan

The response from telco lobbyists NCTA is particularly, nakedly absurd: they demand that the FCC exempt price from consideration of whether an ISP is practicing discrimination, calling prices a "non-technical aspect of broadband service":

https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/110897268295/1

I mean, sure – it's easy to prove that an ISP doesn't discriminate against customers if you don't ask how much they charge! "Sure, you live in a historically underserved neighborhood, but technically we'll give you a 100mb fiber connection, provided you give us $20m to install it."

This is a profoundly stupid demand, but that didn't stop the wireless lobbying org CTIA from chiming in with the same talking points, demanding that the FCC drop plans to collect data on "pricing, deposits, discounts, and data caps," evaluation of price is unnecessary in the competitive wireless marketplace":

https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/1107735021925/1

Individual cartel members weighed in as well, with AT&T and Verizon threatening to sue over the rules, joined by yet another lobbying group, USTelecom:

https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/1103655327582/1

The next step in this playbook is whipping up the low-information base by calling this "socialism" and mobilizing some of the worst-served, most-gouged people in America to shoot themselves in the face (again), to own the libs:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/15/useful-idiotsuseful-idiots/#unrequited-love

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/10/digital-redlining/#stop-confusing-the-issue-with-relevant-facts

Image: Japanexperterna.se (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/japanexperterna/15251188384/

CC BY-SA 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

--

Mike Mozart (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeepersmedia/14325839070/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeepersmedia/14325905568/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeepersmedia/14489390566/

www.ccPixs.com https://www.flickr.com/photos/86530412@N02/8210762750/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[iamnotoriginalphil]

The 5 Times You Almost Kissed Alex + The 1 Time Alex Kissed You (Alex Blake x f!Reader)

Synopsis: You just want to kiss Alex

Words: 3.3k

Warnings: usual CM type violence

AN: This is for @prentiss-theorem's Bingo. I hope you like it!

1

Alex Blake was beautiful in the afternoon light. She was beautiful everywhere, but the warm afternoon light streaming through the large windows of the cafe you were in made it almost painful to look at her. It had come on so gradually, the way she’d begun to take up more space in your field of vision.

She tossed some hair behind her shoulder, that floral scent you’d begun to associate with comfort swirling around you. It was like something in your body compelled you to step closer to her as you waited for your coffees. Those dark eyes found yours, pink lips pulling up into a small smile.

“You didn’t have to come with me, you know,” she said, “I think I can manage grabbing a coffee.”

“Maybe I wanted a drink too,” you said, fluttering your eyelashes at her.

Her laughter was like the sound of heaven to you. You wondered how you could make her do it again. You might willingly spend the rest of your life finding out.

“I would have brought you something if you’d wanted,” she said, still chuckling.

“And miss out on watching you put that boy in his place?” you asked, “never.”

“Do you think I look like a sugar mommy?” she asked.

“Definitely,” you laughed, “the biggest sugar mommy.”

“Would you like me to be your sugar mommy?”

Her voice had deepened and she was looking at you with those fathomless eyes, darkening the longer she looked at you. Your breath caught in your chest and your veins burst into flames. She lowered her chin, her gaze growing more intense. Your mouth grew dry, and you wanted so badly to say something flirty and clever, something to wow her but your brain felt empty.

“Well?” she asked, her voice husky.

Before you could answer her, someone bumped into her. She stumbled forward a step. You caught her, curling an arm around her waist as she fell against your body. Your cheeks immediately flamed, but with her so close you weren’t sure how to function properly.

She was like a blackhole, you could feel yourself being drawn towards her. Her breath ghosted over your face. You tilted your head up. Her eyelids fluttered closed, leaning in to you.

“Alex?”

She blinked, drawing away from you as she turned. Disappointment flooded your body as she stepped out of your arms, the coffees ready for her. When she turned back, it was with a small smile, almost bashful, as she held out your coffee.

“Well, we should be getting back,” you said, once you took it, hoping to smooth over the awkwardness.

“Of course,” she replied, but the way she was looking at you made you think this wouldn’t be the last of it.

2

You raised your hand to knock on the white door in front of you. You’d been thinking about it, that moment in the coffee shop, and what it could mean for you and her. Clearly, you weren’t the only one having some thoughts. You’d stake your job as a profiler on it.

Your fist connected with the door, knocking a couple of times. You didn’t have to wait long before the door was pulled open. Alex dressed in sweats and a hoodie, damp hair curling at her shoulder, stared back at you, surprise lighting up her features. You smiled, not able to help yourself. She was so beautiful she could steal your breath without even trying.

“Hey,” you said, “were you about to go to bed?”

“No, no, come in.”

She held the door open for you. You slipped in, your body brushing against hers. Warmth spread from the points you touched her, filling you with something close to excitement. Her dark eyes were watching you and you wondered if she knew why you were there. She was a good enough profiler to be able to read your mind.

“Did you want to talk about the case?” she asked.

You shook your head, watching her close the door and walk towards you. Without her heels on she was only just taller than you. Her bare toes were peeking out, painted a delicate pink. You felt your cheeks heat up just seeing them, not used to seeing such a casual Alex. No one on the team usually got the privilege.

“Were you looking for something?” she asked, snapping your attention back up to her.

“No, I…” You tried to find words to explain your presence beyond your need to kiss her, “I couldn’t sleep and thought I’d see if you were awake and able to distract me.”

“How would I distract you?” she asked, taking one of those steps towards you that had your mouth drying up.

“Well, I suppose you could…” You looked at her from under your lowered lashes, “do something that would make me stop thinking about the case.”

“Do you have a suggestion for me?” she asked, taking another step towards you.

“I do,” you replied.

“Are you going to share it with me?” She quirked an eyebrow up.

“Come over here and I might.”

Each step was agonising, waiting for her to reach you, but you enjoyed watching her so much. She stopped in front of you, her dark gaze smouldering. You didn’t seem to have the same restraint she did, your hands reaching for her.

You curled a hand behind her neck, fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of her neck. Her own hand settled on your hip, practically burning you through your jeans. You pulled her down, lingering for a moment, breathing her in. She was intoxicating.

Before your lips could press against hers there was a loud knocking on the door, practically hammering on the wood. You flinched back from her, startled at the noise, bursting the bubble of her touch. There was a flush high on her cheekbones and when she looked to you, you found conflict swimming in her eyes.

“Go on,” you whispered. She pulled away from you, leaving you cold.

Only once you found out that you were needed in the field, there was a part of you that wished you hadn’t. Another chance lost.

3

Alex was driving you crazy. There was no shrugging off what had almost happened in her hotel room. No way to misinterpret what you’d been doing. And she knew it. So now, it seemed as if she was determined to drive you insane.

Which is why, on a day when she was being particularly provocative, you retreated into a stationary cupboard just to have a break. She knew exactly what she was doing with her shirt unbuttoned just enough to make you lose your train of thought at the most inopportune times. The way she would look at you, it was making your blood thrum.

You weren’t expecting the door to open as you were looking over the pens, debating the merits of blue versus black ink. You turned, squinting. Backlit from the sunlight outside the door, a figure was staring in at you.

“Are you hiding from me?”

Alex. Of course it was Alex.

“I wouldn’t use the word hiding,” you replied.

She chuckled as she stepped into the closet, the door closing with a quiet snick. Your eyes found that tantalising shadow at opening of her shirt then snapped up to her face. Yes, she definitely knew what she was doing.

“What word would you use?” she asked, tilting her head to the side.

“Taking a breather,” you said, stepping back until your back hit the shelves behind you.

In such a confined space she was everywhere. You could smell her perfume, wrapped around you in the small space.

“You need a breather from me?” She was sounding so innocent but the way her lips were curling up let you know she knew exactly the effect she was having on you.

“If I don’t have a breather I can’t promise I won’t do something I shouldn’t out there in the bullpen,” you said.

“Such as?” She took a step forward into your personal space.

“Kissing you until you can’t remember your own name,” slipped from between your lips before you could consider the words.

Her smile grew and in her eyes you could see the pleasure your words brought her. Your teeth sunk into your lower lip, the heat growing. Her eyes dragged down to it, darkening, seemingly beginning to feel what you’d spent days feeling.

Her hand came up, cupping your cheek. Her thumb gently pulled your lip from between your teeth. You let your tongue flick over the tip of it, watching as her breath seemed to catch.

“Why don’t you then?” she asked, voice husky in the silence.

Your hands landed on her hips, pulling her closer until her body was pressed against yours. You spun her, pushing her back against the shelves. Her eyes widened. Pushing up onto your toes, your nose brushed against hers. Her hand shifted from your cheek to the back of your neck, as if urging you on.

“We have work to be getting on with,” you murmured, lips a hair’s breadth from hers.

You slipped away from her before she could say anything else.When she sat at her desk, the look she shot your way told you that you’d be paying for that later. You couldn’t wait.

4

Working on such intense cases could be draining. No one could blame you for wanting to blow off a bit of steam. Where better than the local bar to relax with some of your favourite people. It didn’t hurt that Alex’s thigh was pressed against yours at the booth, her shoulder brushing against you often enough to derail your train of thought.

You hadn’t had a moment alone with her since the stationary cupboard. A few shared glances, the brush of fingers, the weight of anticipation building. The heat in her eyes when they met yours had been simmering within you for what felt like an eternity.

Even there, sitting in a booth, surrounded by the rest of the team, you felt breathless.

Her fingers brushed over the top of your leg before finding the inside of your thigh, resting there just long enough to make heat bloom over your skin. She lent forward over the table to hear something Morgan was saying, fingers tightening on your leg.

“I need some fresh air,” you murmured, forcing Garcia to shuffle out of the booth to make room for you to get up.

Her hand slipped from your leg, seemingly without her noticing. You pushed through the crowd, shoving your way out the door. It was all becoming a lot, the rising tension between the two of you. You could have dissipated it in that stationary cupboard but the thought of teasing her the way she’d been teasing you had been too sweet to give up. Now you were suffering for your lack of impulse control it seemed.

You lent back against the rough brick wall of the building, staring up at the dark sky. The air was cool where it hit your skin. You let out a long breath, eyes sliding closed as you did your best to push thoughts of Alex from your mind. It wasn’t helping anything. They were driving you crazy.

“I hope I didn’t scare you away.”

Your eyelids fluttered open. It shouldn’t surprise you that Alex had followed you outside, knowing she would be looking for retribution from your last stunt. Still, she never failed to light the fire in your veins.

“Of course not,” you replied, “but it was getting rather warm in there.”

“So you’re not looking for someone to help warm you up?” she asked.

She stepped closer to you, hand in her pocket. The way she was looking at you told you exactly how she would warm you up. You shivered, wanting it more than you could vocalise.

“That depends.” You reached out to her, tangling your fingers with hers.

“On what?” she asked, allowing you to tug her closer.

“On if you’re going to tell me exactly how you’d do it,” you said.

Her other hand found yours. You tugged her even closer, needing to feel her against your body. She ducked her head, lips brushing the shell of your ear.

“You’re a clever girl,” she murmured, “I’m sure you can figure it out.”

You turned your head, nose brushing against the apple of her cheek. The weight of her gaze made your cheeks heat up, your fingers tightening around hers. You pulled her forward again, tilting your chin up. Her eyes flicked down to your lips then back up to your eyes.

“Please,” you whispered and you didn’t know who you were begging.

You drew closer, so close to tasting her.

The door slammed open, loud conversations spilling out into the street. She jerked away from you.

“Oi, Blake,” Morgan shouted from the doorway, “it’s your round.”

“Alright, alright,” Alex called back.

Disappointment flooded your veins. You sighed as she drew away, pulling her hands from yours.

“To be continued,” she promised.

You had to hope so as you trailed her back into the bar.

5

Finishing a gruelling case was always a good excuse to gather at Rossi’s for pasta and wine. Having that time to unwind together, swapping stories and laughing, it made your family feel so much closer than ever before. The warmth of the people you loved so much wrapped around you in a tight hug.

Alex was sitting across from you at the table, her eyes continually sticking on you as she glanced around at your team. Each time she did, you couldn’t stop yourself from smiling, averting your eyes down to keep yourself from staring. You’d stare at her forever if given half the chance.

So instead you did your best to ignore the feelings within you, distracting yourself with Garcia’s rambling about some convention she was going to with Reid. Perhaps that’s why it took you so long to realise she’d slipped away. When you finally did notice it was like an itch in the back of your brain, counting down the seconds to her return.

The time dragged on.

“I’ll be right back,” you murmured, knowing you had to go find her or lose your mind.

You pushed back from the table, wandering into the house. You trailed from room to room, seeking her out, wondering if it was as simple as she was in the bathroom.

She wasn’t. With her back to the door, she was looking out the kitchen window on the small grouping outside. Her hands were resting on the counter, leaning forward, her shoulders tense. You were surprised she could see anything out the window with the bright lights overhead and the darkness pressing in from outside.

“You okay?” you asked her back.

Her head didn’t even turn in your direction.

“I needed a moment,” she replied.

“Sorry, I can go,” you said, “leave you alone.”

“No, no, you’re fine.”

She finally turned towards you, leaning back against the counter, crossing her arms over her chest. You stepped into the kitchen properly. You hauled yourself up, sitting on the counter beside her, with enough space to not crowd her.

“I don’t like cases that involve kids,” she said.

“Mm,” you hummed, not sure how to help.

“You were amazing,” she said, turning towards you, “I don’t think I got the opportunity to say that before.”

“Thank you.” You ducked your head.

“You’re truly a phenomenal agent,” she said, slowly making her way to stand in front of you.

Her hands landed on your thighs. From your position on the counter she had to look up at you. You reached out, gently tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. She stepped between your legs those warm hands sliding further up your legs until they rested on your hips.

“I want to be better because of you,” you admitted, “you make me want to be a better agent.”

“You give me too much credit,” she replied, shaking her head.

You caught her cheeks between your palms, holding her so she was forced to look at you. That soft smile was gone and yet the way she was staring at you lit you up from the inside until you were sure you were glowing. You lent down, determined to show her exactly how much you cared about her.

“I sure hope no one is planning on doing something I wouldn’t want to see on my kitchen counter.”

Your eyes opened, flicking up to the doorway. Rossi. Fucking Rossi.

“Of course not,” you replied.

“I’d suggest rejoining the rest of the team,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest like a disapproving dad.

You slipped off the counter, grabbing Alex’s hand to lead her back out to the table, ignoring the look Rossi was shooting the two of you.

+1

Standing outside the house was like torture. You felt useless, watching on. A gunshot went off somewhere inside, startling you so badly you jumped. Your heart clenched. You stumbled forward a step before stopping. Barrelling in there would not help anyone.

A hostage situation was not the right time to lose your head.

Alex was inside, holding on as the unsub did their best to try and get away unscathed. Another gunshot went off. You squeezed your eyes closed.

A shout went up somewhere behind you. Your eyes opened, the flashing lights of the cars around you almost blinding you as you stared at the house. First one then another body stumbled out the door, quickly followed by a third. You held your breath.

You let it out when a familiar figure stepped out, running towards your line of cars. You stepped forward, not able to stop yourself. You could see her head turning, scanning the line, most likely as blind as you were in the dark. You took another step as the family rushed past you, ignoring them, your eyes only on her.

Her head paused, pointed in your direction and then she was running straight at you. You caught her, arms wrapping around her, her body crashing into yours. Her hands grasped your cheeks and she was pulling you up onto your toes. Her nose nudged yours and then she was kissing you like you were her dying breath.

You held her closer, arms tightening around her until you weren’t sure where her body ended and yours began. She was leaving you feeling breathless, needing her with every fibre of your being. The fear and anxiety for her burned away in the wake of the feeling of her.

Kissing her felt like coming home. It felt right. Every particle of your being was alive and yearning for her as her fingers threaded through your hair. The brush of her tongue against yours only sent you higher.

“Is this really the time?”

Alex broke away, turning her glare on Hotch.

“Yes.”

She kissed you again before you could consider answering yourself and any words you might have said flew from your head. It was far more amazing than you had ever imagined. It was sweatier and a little ashier than you would have hoped, but somehow it was perfect for the two of you.

When you broke apart there was a smile on her face and a twinkle in her eye.

“You’ll be coming back to my room, won’t you?” she asked, just a touch of worry hidden in her eyes.

“Of course,” you replied, not able to think about anything beyond being in her hotel room later.

“Good.”

Her lips pressed to yours chastely. That also managed to steal your breath. She left you struggling for words as she returned to the rest of the team, ready for the debrief. You needed a moment to collect yourself.

The wait had definitely been worth it.

Tags: @trippol-threat​​​​​​​ @theclassicgaycousin​​​​​​​ @prentiss-theorem​​​​​​​ @nightmarish-fae​​​​​​​ @storiesofsvu​​​​​​​ @rustyzebra​​​​​​​ @emsmultiverse​​​​

[storiesofsvu]

Solace in Solitude Ch 13

Emily Prentiss x reader warnings: language, usual CM style violence/storylines talked about. A very minimal bit of dialogue taken from an episode. One more chapter to go besties!

You would have been lying if you said you weren’t totally on edge for the next two days, picking at your nails whenever you found yourself distracted, lost in thought as you wondered what exactly was going on across the Atlantic. You did your best to keep occupied with cleaning and packing up the apartment, getting ready for your own move while making sure things were looking like they did the first night you set foot in the building. 

You were on the balcony watching the darkening sky, a leftover cigarette between your lips when your phone finally buzzed, and you were quick to pick it up.

‘He’s dead. Declan’s safe. Team’s not off scot free though, there’s gonna be this whole hearing bullshit.’

‘Good luck.’

It felt weird moving to London, not because of the change of scenery or language, but simply because you were back on your own. You’d found your own apartment this time, but it still felt strange to be alone in it, to not have the warm light pooling from Emily’s room when you got home late at night. To not wake up to the smell of fresh coffee being brewed or find her on the couch up in the middle of the night when she couldn’t sleep. You’d become so accustomed to having another person around all the time that being solo felt almost wrong.

Your phone buzzed less than a week into your time there, a number with a 202-area code.

‘Hey, it’s Em. Figured I should pass along the new number, unless you’ve already changed yours.’

Your lips curved up into a soft smile when you read the text, putting down your wine glass so you could reply.

‘I’ve had an international plan since DWB’s. I assume this means that trial thing went well? You’re staying in DC?’

‘Ha. As good as it could, but we proved everything we did was for the right reasons. And yeah… it just feels like the right place to be. How’s London?’

‘Dreary. I forgot how much rain we get this time of year.’

Emily let out a small huff of a laugh, she was about to type up another reply when Derek’s voice broke through her bubble.

“Who’re you texting with that smile?” He asked with a wicked grin, and she immediately locked her phone, rolling her eyes.

“A friend.”

“Yeah right.” He laughed, “girl, you’ve been back less than a month and you’re already playing the field? Sin to win never dies, does it?”

“Looks like we have that in common.” She shot back with a smirk and an appalled look took over Derek’s features.

**

Emily knew things were going to be different, that they were going to feel strange and after her original reunion with the team, she knew it was likely she was going to feel a bit like an outsider in a place she once felt like family. Part of her had expected to slip right back into where she was, that her role would be the same, that life would pick up exactly where it left off when she left. She’d been so separated that Paris was starting to feel like a fever dream and she nearly forgot that while she’d been recovering and recuperating, life had gone on for the rest of the BAU team, they had kept moving while she was standing still.

She was incredibly thankful JJ had managed to pull some strings and keep her apartment, even if it had been sublet in the meantime, she still got to come home to something familiar and didn’t have to start from nothing for personal belongings. And while the place had been her home for so long, even with Sergio back, there was something missing, an emptiness that hung heavily in the air. She knew it couldn’t help that there was a lingering thought in the back of her head that Ian knew where this apartment was, even if he was six feet under. She missed the companionship that had come with Paris, suddenly having to do it all on her own was annoying, at least she wasn’t home as much as she had been while recovering. 

‘Do things feel weird in London, or is it just DC and the whole coming back from the dead thing that’s throwing everything off?’

A small laugh broke through your lips as you picked up your coffee mug to take another sip.

‘I’m sure that has something to do with it. Why are you awake? Isn’t it the middle of the night over there?’

Emily sheepishly glanced to the clock on the nightstand, realizing just how late it really was and she let out a sigh, nestling deeper into the wall of pillows.

‘Couldn’t sleep. I’ve been weaning off most of the meds, plus my mind won’t stop. What time is it there?’

‘Just past seven, coffee time. You wanna call? Talk through it?’

‘Nah. If I call, I’m sure someone will wake up and start screaming cause he thinks its breakfast time.’

‘Uh.. what?’

‘Sergio.’

‘Are you telling me you’ve been back less than two months and you’ve already rescued another child in need or did you rename the other kid?’

Emily couldn’t help but bark out a laugh, quickly covering her mouth to keep quiet. There was no doubt you hadn’t woken up that long ago, the caffeine not quiet hitting your brain stream yet.

‘Sergio’s the cat.’

‘Oh! Right. I’m surprised Penelope gave him up.’

‘Well she has custody on weekends and whenever a case takes me out of town longer than a couple of days.’

‘Oof. Co-parenting, hope that doesn’t get messy.’

She found herself quietly chuckling again, a sense of comfort and calm flowing through her as her body began to relax further into the bed.

‘Only when one of us buys fancier treats.’

‘Good. And for what its worth things are a little off here, but I mean, it’s starting a new life for me, it’s just like riding a bike, I’ll get the rhythm back soon. You went back to something old, but that something has changed completely for everyone involved too. I’m sure constantly jetting around the country doesn’t help your sense of stability either.’

‘Last time I checked you weren’t a shrink.’

‘I’ve been sitting in to a few lectures here and there.’ You replied with a grin, practically able to hear her deadpan through the words on the screen.

‘Any suggestions?’

‘Don’t try to force things too quickly, know that it’s going to take some time for things to feel normal again. As important as it is for you to try to repair the relationships you had, you might want to start looking to make new friends, sprinkle in a bit of freshness to an old lifestyle. Change up your routine, hit up different grocery stores, get your coffee from somewhere new, change your commute, things like that.’

‘Already swapped coffee shops. Pretty sure I terrified the poor girl working the counter the first time I walked back in. Felt too bad to go back.’

‘Well that’s a start, lol. And… if you think you’re gonna stay in DC, that you want to belong there, think about putting down some roots, reasons for you to make it your forever home.’

‘Good thought’

The clock chimed beside you and you glanced up from your phone, letting out a soft sigh,

‘I’ve gotta run, but feel free to text anytime.’

‘Go save some lives. I’ll be fine.’  She signed it off with a smiley face, finally dropping her phone onto the nightstand as she curled around herself, pulling the blankets around her. For the first time since being back she was asleep within minutes.

**

Your phone began to buzz on the kitchen counter, you glanced toward it at first, thinking it was just a text, but when it nearly vibrated off the edge you realized it was a call, and from Emily, nonetheless.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“Hey,” she replied, her voice somewhat strained and your brow furrowed, “what was that whole thing about the spleen? Like, when it comes to getting sick or recovery, that part.”

“Should I be concerned about the sirens in the background?”

“I’m a fed, sirens are a pretty regular occurrence.”

“Yeah?” You raised a brow, leaning against the counter, “what about that out of control beeping from the heart rate monitor?”

“It’s nothing, I’m fine, just ow!”

“Emily...” you warned.

“It’s nothing.” She protested before a louder male voice shouted from the background.

“She got shot!”

“Jesus christ.” You muttered, “you’ve been back less than six months and you’ve already gotten yourself shot? What are you, a walking liability?”

The replies came instantaneously from Emily and Derek respectively, “no!” “YES!”

“I’m gonna be fine!”

“Do you know how many times I’ve heard that? Aren’t you supposed to have vests for these kinda things?”

“I was wearing it! I took the hit to the upper shoulder and this lovely EMT says I’m going to be fine. I just can’t remember what you said about the spleen thing.”

Biting your lip, you let out a sigh, “If you get sick or injured it can and will take longer to heal, recovery’s a bitch, you know that.”

“Uh.. Agent Prentiss?” Another voice cut in and you assumed it was one of the EMT’s, “why can’t we find any medical history past March of last year?”

“That would be the other reason I’m calling.” Emily winced and you chuckled.

“I have your full history listed under Valerie Stewart, I’ll send it over, what hospital?” The EMT rattled off the location that you were quick to scribble down onto a scrap of paper, “I know this isn’t ideal timing, but have you gone to that shrink I set you up with?”

“Yes.” She half grumbled back before you heard another outburst from her co agent.

“She went to one mandatory appointment.” 

“Morgan!”

“Ask her about how great her boyfriend Sergio is.”

“Last time I checked, Sergio was the cat.” You replied and Emily groaned, rolling her eyes, “Em, you really need to go a couple of times, especially now.”

“Why does this change things?”

“It’s your first time back in a hospital as a patient since Paris, it’s bound to bring up some stuff.”

“Fine. I’ll go.”

“Thank you.” You pushed off from the counter, “I’ll send your file over, call me when you’re all bandaged up.”

“Yeah.” She replied and you could hear the exhaustion in her voice before the line clicked.

Much later that night your phone buzzed with a text, a picture of Emily back on the jet with her arm in a sling. As tired as she looked, at least she was safe and, on a quick path to recovery from this one.

**

‘Come on, that house is gorgeous!’ 

You shook your head at Emily’s hesitancy through your text chain. She’d spent the last couple of weeks sending you housing listings, asking your opinions and thoughts on just about everything and she found some kind of flaw in every single one of them.

‘There’s cracks in the foundation.’

‘So? Cracks can be fixed.’

‘No, they can be hidden. They’re still there.’

‘It passed inspection. You’re acting like you’re afraid the place is gonna fall down.’

‘I’m afraid it’s never gone be as strong as it was.’

You paused, a frown taking over your face as you read back the last piece of your conversation, you practically felt your shoulders sagging as you dropped into the couch. You wished there was more that you could do for her right now, but you knew being a world away meant this was it.

‘I have a feeling we’re not talking about houses anymore…’

A longer pause, one that left you watching the three little dots disappear and reappear while Emily debated how to reply. Where she struggled with wanting to blow you off, or if she really did want to get into this right now. Eventually she decided on somewhere in the middle.

‘Remember when we talked about setting down roots?’

‘Yeah.’

‘My therapist said the same thing.’

‘Told ya I wasn’t crazy.’

She huffed out a laugh, holding back the eye roll.

‘I tried. I’m trying. It’s just proving harder with each time. Like the more that I have tying me to here, the more I start to feel trapped. Caged in here with no opportunity to even see the other options anymore. The job’s the same, sure, but it’s also entirely different. We had a case a bit ago where the unsub was drowning his victims only to attempt to resurrect them, it was the first time the rest of the team found out I actually died, it left an even weirder taste in everyone’s mouths. It was the first time Reid looked me in the eye since being back, Morgan’s just barely over it, nothing feels right anymore. And buying a house? That seems like the last thing I should be doing if I feel like this. I don’t know where I’d want to go, what I’d want to be doing, it’s not like I’m out there actively looking for something different…’

‘But if it fell in your lap, you’d probably jump at the opportunity?’

‘Yeah…’

‘Well, hold off on putting the offer down for now, see what else is out there, talk it over with your therapist.’

‘I will. And hey, thanks for being my soundboard for all of this, it really hasn’t been the easiest.’

‘Of course. Life’s always easier with a friend by your side. I’ve got your back.’

‘No kidding.’ She smiled softly, ‘and thank you.’

**

Three weeks later the opportunity really did just drop into her lap. A phone call to an old source to help the BAU on a case lead to a very lucrative and enticing job offer. One that made her stomach twist into more knots than de arming a bomb did. 

At the end of the week Emily was surrounded by her team, her friends, people that she loved dearly, who were finally accepting her back in their lives. Yet she still felt completely isolated and alone. She was certain that things were never going to be the same in DC again, that it really was time for her to go. So, as she watched JJ and Will dance together, soft smiles on their cheeks while he leant in to steal a kiss, she made up her mind. 

She was taking the Interpol offer.

Maybe a complete reset and starting over really was what she needed right now.

_________________ @momlifebehard @daddy-heather-dunbar @maybe-a-humanbean @rustyzebra @leftoverenvy @kades95 @dextur @supercriminalbean @its-soph-xx @just-a-torn-up-masterpiece @hopelesslyfallenninlove @peanutbutterprincess @emilyprentisssluvr @lex13cm @zizzlekwum @emobabeyy @riveramorylunar @scorpsik @happenstnces @sapphicprentiss @geekyandgay98 @onmykneesformarvel @inlovewithemilyprentiss @desperate-gay @amypoehlfey @overtrred28 @regalmilfs4me @ara-a-bird @five-bi-five-mind @niyizh @inlovewithmiddleagewomen @hotchs-bitch @ollysmulti @kmc1989 @irishavengersassemble @romanoffsho @ratsnestinmyhair @assgardangod @hopedoesntknow @dj-bynum3718 @venromanova @waitaminuteashh @noahrex @imlike-so-gaydude @wittygutsy @cx-emerald-cx @lesbodietcoke @momily @nilaues @borinxnovak

[blackbird-brewster]

Queerminal Minds Fics

I loved seeing this CM Pride Challenge by @imagining-in-the-margins ! And since already written pieces are being collected too, I figured I'd make a list of some of my fics that fit these prompts. [Content Warnings are in the fic tags and/or noted in chapter notes for long-fics.]

Fooled Around (and Fell in Love) - Series

Main Ship: JJ/Emily/Tara (Side ships: Spencer/Luke, Derek/Luke, Spencer/Maeve, Tara/Rebecca, JJ & Elle)

Summary: A queer rom-com AU series exploring sexuality, gender, and polyamory. Focusing on Je T'Emily (JJ/Emily/Tara), but also featuring an ensemble of other CM characters. (aka The AU where everyone is gay)

Prompts Filled:

(JJ's) marriage mutually comes to an end when they come out... now what?

(JJ) Coming out is so much harder the second time

Describe (JJ's) first kiss with the same gender

(Penelope) gifts (JJ, Tara, Emily) something colored like their pride flags because “the colors reminded me of you”

(Tara, Emily) buy (JJ) specialty gender affirming lingerie sex toy

(JJ, Elle) fear it’s too late for them to live authentically, and (friends) assure them that’s not true

The couple is looking for gender neutral nicknames (for JJ)

(Elle, JJ) Character is casually referred to with an appropriately gendered nickname for the first time

Why Am I Like This? (Tara/Emily)

Summary: A look at all of Emily's past relationships that led her to believe one undeniable truth, Emily Prentiss was broken. (Or maybe, she's just not as straight as she always thought she was)

Prompts Filled:

Describe (Emily's) first kiss with the same gender

(Emily) fears it’s too late for them to live authentically, and (Tara) assures them that’s not true

“It’s never felt like this before. I've never felt like this before.”

Friend Like Me (Tara/Emily)

Summary: Tara and Emily have a routine of going out for a drink and playing wing-person to each other, even though they're both hiding their true feelings for each other.

Prompt Filled:

(Emily) goes to a bar with (Tara) as a wingperson (or maybe they want them, themselves?)

HEATED (Tara/Emily)

Summary: Garcia convinces Tara and Emily to let her throw them a 'bachelorette' party. A queer party bus, copious amounts of tequila, and Rossi's AmEx Black Card -- what could possibly go wrong?

Prompt Filled:

Penelope goes a little overboard on rainbow decorations at (Tara/Emily’s) (Bachelorette Party)

Here is Home (JJ/Tara)

Summary: After her divorce, JJ finds friendship and companionship with Tara, but things become complicated when she realises she's developing romantic feelings as well. How could JJ let herself fall for Tara, when Tara runs from absolutely any and all serious relationships?

Prompts Filled:

Child realizes that not every kid has two moms/two dads and they have a lot of questions about it

“It’s never felt like this before. I've never felt like this before.”

Am I allowed to look at her like that? Could it be wrong when she's just so nice to look at? ("She" by Dodie)

Between You & Me (JJ/Tara)

Summary: When JJ comes back to work after maternity leave, Tara takes an interest in her, offering to be her confidant, and the two become fast friends. What neither of them expected was to fall in love in the process.

Prompts Filled:

Describe (JJ's) first kiss with the same gender

(JJ) comes out at the same time they announce their new relationship to the team

[Bisexual JJ] gets irritated when people reduce their sexuality to their current partner

“You're still the person I love. Nothing will change that.”

“It’s never felt like this before. I've never felt like this before.”

Quiet Love (JJ/Tara)

Summary: JJ and Tara have been dating for nearly four years and they're perfectly happy with their relationship, but a series of events start to make them question their firm stance about never getting married.

Prompts Filled:

Penelope goes a little overboard on decorations at (JJ/Tara) wedding

Queer characters have a hard time deciding what their child should call them and come up with fun ideas

New Emotion (JJ/Tara)

Summary: With the help of Penelope and Emily, a BAU Girls' Night leads to Tara and JJ realising how they truly feel about each other.

Prompts Filled:

(Emily, Pen) go to a bar with (Tara,JJ) as wingpersons

“Are they… flirting?” “Big time.”

The Disposition of Emily Prentiss (JJ/Emily)

Summary: JJ has a crush on a woman she met at a bar and employs Morgan and Garcia to help her figure out if she stands a chance with the alluring brunette.

Prompts Filled:

(Pen, Derek) go to a bar with (JJ) as wingpersons

“There is no heterosexual explanation for that.”

To Catch an Unsub (JJ/Emily)

Summary: Sparks fly when JJ and Emily go undercover as a couple in order to catch an unsub in a rural Alabama town. Will the simple undercover assignment create something long lasting or was their attraction to each other just part of the ploy?

Prompt Filled:

[Asexual Emily] explores different forms of non-sexual intimacy

Coming out is so much harder the second time

A Series of Unfortunate Events (JJ/Emily)

Summary: A series of unfortunate events (or how the team found out). This is a series of stories which details how each member of the BAU found out about JJ and Emily's relationship.

Prompt Filled:

The team realizes that (JJ/Emily) were more than roommates friends

Other CM Fic Recs and Masterlists below the cut:

Past Friday Fic Recs:  [Friday Fic Recs - Tumblr] || [CM Fic Recs - AO3 Collection]

Rec Lists: [JJ/Emily] || [Tara/Emily] || [CM Femslash]

My Fics: [Jemily] || [Temily] || [Jara] || [Smut] ||  [All]

[bethanythebogwitch]

If you asked me as a kid what my favorite animal was, there's a good chance I'd respond "chambered nautilus", though I probably would mispronounce it. I don't know if it's still my favorite but it's definitely up there in the pantheon of weird critters. For this Wet Beast Wednesday, I'll discuss my childhood favorite.

(image: a nautilus)

The nautilus is a cephalopod that lives in a curved shell and looks similar to (but is not closely related to) the extinct ammonites. There are 6 living species in two genera, but 90% of the time when someone is discussing nautiluses they are referring to the most well-known species: Nautilus pompilius or the chambered nautilus. Nautiloids are ancient, going back to at least the late triassic with their more primitive ancestors going back as far as the ordovician period, a time when only invertebrates and primitive plants occupied the land and true fish had not yet appeared. Because of their ancient history, nautiluses are sometimes considered living fossils. I have ranted before on how misleading the term "living fossil" is so I'll spare you that for now. Nautiloids are considered a sister group to the celoids, which contains all the squid, octopus, cuttlefish, and everything else we thinks of as cephalopods. Nautiluses should not be confused with paper nautiluses. Also called argonauts, paper nautiluses are a group of octopi that make an egg case which looks like a shell.

(image: a nautilus)

The most noticeable feature of a nautilus is its shell. The shell is smooth and finely curving, naturally growing in the shape of a logarithmic spiral (though not, as is commonly stated, a golden ratio spiral). The shell has a stripy outer layer and an inner layer coated with nacre. Internally, the shell is divided into camarae (chambers) separated from each other by walls called septa. Each septum has a small hole in it through which a strand of tissue called the siphuncle passes. Most of the nautilus's body is in the foremost and largest chamber. The shell grows new septa as the animal grows, with the nautilus's body moving to a new chamber as it becomes too large for previous ones. Juveniles are typically born with 4 septa, with adults having as many as 30. In addition to providing protection from predators, the shell is also key for regulating buoyancy. The septa can contain pressurized gas or water and the siphuncle regulates their contents by either adding or removing water to increase or decrease buoyancy. Because of its pressurized contents, the shell can only withstand pressure at depths up to 800 M (2,400 ft) before imploding. Oddly enough, nautiluses can be safely brought up from deep waters where most animals would be killed by the pressure changes. To move, the nautilus pulls water into the first chamber of the shell using its hyponome (siphon) and shoots it back out. The chambered nautilus is the largest species, with a maximum shell diameter of 25 cm (10 in), though most get no larger than 20 cm (8 in).

(image: a diagram of nautilus anatomy. source)

Where celoid cephalopods have tentacles, nautiluses instead have numerous cirri. Unlike tentacles, cirri are less muscular, are not elastic, and have no suckers. They are used to grab objects using their ridged surfaces and can hold in so hard that trying to take an object away from a nautilus can rip off its cirri, which will remain firmly attached. In addition, the nautilus has modified cirri that serve as olfactory receptors and a pair that serve to open and close the shell when the nautilus needs to retract into it or emerge. Nestled within the cirri is the beak, which is used to consume the nautilus's primary prey of invertebrates, though they have also been seen scavenging fish. Their eyes are less developed than most cephalopods, lacking a lens and consisting of a small pinhole that only allows the nautilus to see simple imagery. Their brains are differently structured than most cephalopods and studies have found them to have considerably shorter long-term memories.

(image: a chambered nautilus (upper left) next to a rare Allonautilus scrobiculatus. source)

Cephalopod reproduction is quite different than that of other cephalopods. While most cephalopods are short-lived and semelparous (reproducing only once), nautiluses can live over 20 years and reproduce multiple times (iteroparity). They do not reach sexual maturity until around 15 years old, with females laying eggs once per year. Eggs are attached to rocks and take 8 to 12 months to hatch. Males have a structure called the spadix composed of 4 fused cirri that they use to transfer sperm to females. Females lose their gonads after laying their eggs and will regenerate them for the next year's mating season. Interestingly, male nautiluses seem to vastly outnumber the females. EDIT: @bri-the-nautilus in the replies found an alternate explanation for the disparity in male and female numbers you should check out. TLDR; the females are asocial.

(image: nautiluses mating)

Nautiluses are found in the Indo-Pacific reagion of the ocean and can be found on the steep slopes of coral reefs. They prefer to inhabit waters several hundred meters down. It was once believed that they would rise to shallow waters at night to feed, lay eggs, and mate, but their vertical migration behavior has since been shown to be more complex than that. They have noon been fished by humans for their shells, which have become popular subjects in art and can be made into a number of decorative pieces. The nacre of the shell can be polished into osmeña pearl, which can be quite valuable. Demand for the shells combined with the late sexual maturity and low fecundity is threatening all the species. As of 2016, nautiluses have been added to the CITES Appendix II, making them protected by limiting international trade of their shells. Despite this, they are still threatened and require further protection

(image: a carved and painted nautilus shell from the Poldi Pezzoli Museum, Milan)

[thesylverlining]

Coming This Halloween: CHAMELEON MOON, in glorious audio!

Pre-orders (with a crapton of bonuses!) open Now!

Yes, I am vibrating into another dimension and beyond excited to announce, the first book of the queer-AF rebelliously hopeful dystopian superhero epic Chameleon Moon series is here - for your ears, at last!

If you haven't heard of this Weird, Queer Indie SFF series, have some important points in meme form!

Funded on Kickstarter in under 48 hours, this audiobook edition features the incredible voice of Kyle Rocco East!

(And a special guest narrator! ........ Me. It's me. Yeah, I make sounds/songs as well as words!)

This baby can hold so much ear-goodness, including sixteen (16!!) hours of enhanced narration and original music including two full songs!

And we've got free bonuses, boy howdy! Every pre-order comes with:

CM-verse short stories "Runtime" and "Always Be You"

Narrated short story "Un-Dead" MP3 (Recommended to listen after reading CM!)

"What You Remember" and "Dream Sweet" song MP3s

All 6 character portrait phone wallpapers, seen above and below!

And that's all cool, but need some examples of said audio mastery? As you should!

So, you can listen to the ENTIRE PROLOGUE as a free preview, right here!

... And lastly, hi there. If you read this far, THANK YOU. If you reblog or like, THANK YOU. And oh boy, if you pre-order, THANK YOU FROM THE ACTUAL BOTTOM OF MY HEART. <3

This project has been a labor of utter love, but it HAS been a labor for both me and my incredible narration partner Kyle Rocco East, and I'm happy, relieved, and exhausted to have it finally UP AND DONE.

Halloween can't come fast enough.

(...More than usual, I mean.)

THANK YOU!

~ RoAnna Sylver

[starryhologram]

CCCC SCP AU MASTER POST

AKA I put Whole in the electric chair and everybody loved it

and renamed him Simon.

DISCLAIMER: This AU handles imaginary medical malpractice and imagery of outdated and misuse of execution and medical equipment and procedures. Real medical practice should not be demonized and feared. Also this does not follow any actual SCP Lore, it is only simply used as a base/jumping off point for my evil science fiction experiments.

SCP-3775

Item #: SCP-3775

Object Class: Euclid

Status: Contained Special Containment Procedures: SCP-3775 does not require any specific or strict containment procedures. If SCP-3775 begins to show any signs of distress or erratic behavior, SCP-3775 is to be moved to a 5m x 5m room while awaiting medical examination.

N/A See Addendum 3775-008, 3775-013, and 3775-019

SCP-3775 is to be contained within three conjoined 5m x 5m rooms. It is to be kept alive whether in state 3775-A or 3775-B. In state 3775-A SCP-3775 is to be monitored at all times to determine mental stability. SCP-3775 is to be kept physically restrained to a specially built wooden chair and electrocuted through electrodes fastened on the head through a screwed metal halo.

In state 3775-B three separate instances of SCP-3775 must be monitored.

Addendum 3775-008: SCP-3775-008 is to be kept alive with minimal monitoring but must be kept in the room furthest from SCP-3775-013. Failure to comply with containment procedures of SCP-3775-008 will result in potential harm to SCP-3775-013.

Addendum 3775-013: SCP-3775-013 is to be kept alive with moderate monitoring. SCP-3775-013 is permitted to interact within the same room as SCP-3775-019 under personnel supervision.

Addendum 3776-019: SCP-3775-019 is to be kept alive with strict and constant monitoring. Personnel assigned to SCP-3775-019 are instructed to wear protective noise cancelling headphones when interacting with SCP-3775-019. Personnel are instructed to not listen to any vocalizations from SCP-3775-019 under any circumstances. Other means of communication are permitted.

Description: In state 3775-A SCP-3775 appears to be an average white human male in his early twenties with curly black hair and brown eyes. Subject has been measured at 178 cm in height. Subject was born 20?? on ??????? ??th. Subject has no known living relatives at this time.

In state 3775-B, three instances of SCP-3775 exist.

SCP-3775-008 appears similar to SCP-3775 with exceptions such as missing eyes, replaced by hollow sockets which allow abnormal purple veins and bone structures to be exposed. Subject’s hair seems to become dyed purple towards the ends. Subject has irremovable purple coloration on its lips as well.

SCP-3775-013 appears similar to SCP-3775 with exceptions such as a total of five eyes that faintly glow a light blue color. Subject also features a luminescent organ similar to that of an esca as seen on the body of an Anglerfish. Subject’s hair seems to become dyed blue towards the ends. Subject has irremovable blue coloration on its lips as well.

SCP-3775-019 appears similar to SCP-3775 with exceptions such as what appears to be scar tissue along the right half of its body with epidermal red dots clustered around joints and around the eyes. Subject’s right eye is abnormal with a grey sclera and white iris and pupil. Subject’s left sclera is white with a red iris and black pupil. Subject’s hair seems to become dyed red towards the ends. Subject has irremovable red coloration on its lips as well.

Subject’s vocalizations sounds similar to that of an autotuned version of SCP-3775’s. It is hypnotic and [REDACTED]. Like one would imagine an [REDACTED] to sound like. It is impossible to resist to do as he commands.

SCP-3775-019 has been modified to have a welded metal muzzle to its face to prevent auditory vocal noise from coming from the subject.

History and Past Proceedings: The Foundation became aware of SCP-3775 due to widespread video circulation of music the subject created. Audience and viewers became enraptured with the music and upon listening were unable to function properly without the music playing in a conscious audio range.

Once obtained and studied, it appears no process in which SCP-3775 creates music is abnormal to that of any other modern musician.

After a prolonged period of time spent at the SCP Facility, SCP-3775 began to become distressed and showed signs of mental health decline, similar to that of severe clinical depression. Once the subject had hit a peak in its mental instability, it began to physically split into three instances of itself. This state shall be referred to as State 3775-B, the prior singular instance of SCP-3775 will be referred to as State 3775-A.

Accessing Past Data Records…

Old Survey Data Found…

Please fill out this Mandatory Personnel Survey if you have 1) Come into contact with SCP-3775 or any of its instances. 2) Listened to any audio/tonal/musical recordings created by SCP-3775.

Have you listened to any music created by SCP-3775 in the past 12 hours? Example Given: [CORRUPTED FILE CANNOT BE RECOVERED] ▫️Yes ▫️No ▫️I’m not sure Have you experienced any of the following symptoms upon listening to audio/tonal/musical recordings created by SCP-3775? ▫️Strong or irresistible urge to replay recording. ▫️Mental and/or physical inability to complete activities without auditory sensory input created by SCP-3775 ▫️Lapse in cognitive functions in favor of activities relating to SCP-3775, its instances or its music. ▫️Strong or irresistible urge to seek others affected by SCP-3775’s music. ▫️Mental fatigue that can only be cured by listening to SCP-3775’s music.

Do you grant permission for Foundation Personnel Staff to use your physical and psychological anatomical resources for further research of SCP-3775? Risks may include threat of bodily/emotional/mental harm. ▫️Yes ▫️No If Yes, please send additional information regarding Name, Address, Age, and other relevant details to [HYPERLINK NOT FOUND]

Thank you for completing this Mandatory Personnel Survey

S.C.P. Secure. Contain. Protect.

Accessing Past Data Record…

Audio Transcript File Found…

SCP-3775_Interview_15/11/2022.txt Interview Personnel (IP): “Interview recording date November 15th, 2022, 3:23 PM. Audio recording of [DATA_EXPUNGED] interview with SCP-3775.” SCP-3775: “You can call me [DATA_EXPUNGED] you know.” IP: “It is for easier assessment and research purposes that we identify you by your item number.” SCP-3775: Exhales forcefully. “I’m not a [EXPLETIVE] item.” %Sounds of shuffling.% IP: “Regardless, I simply need to have you do a test for me.” SCP-3775: “Fine.” IP: “I have here with me an ordinary electronic piano keyboard. Would you please demonstrate how you play it?” %Sounds of shuffling.% %A short melody is played on a keyboard.% IP: “What song was that?” SCP-3775: “It’s called The Mind Electric, its by a band I like.” IP: “Does it have lyrics?” SCP-3775: “Yeah, do you want me to sing it?” IP: “Please.” %The audio recording cuts out for a few moments.% IP: “Thank you. You play very well.” SCP-3775: “Yeah, thanks.” %Silence.% SCP-3775: “Are we done here? Can I go home?” IP: “We have to make sure the music you create- and yourself as a being- are safe to be interacted with. Do you know how your music affects people?” SCP-3775: “What? What’s so strange about people affected by my music?” IP: “Listeners tend to become irrationally obsessed with your music.” SCP-3775: “What? That isn’t even weird! Plus- what about all those musicians more popular than me? With obsessive fans! I can’t be the only one!” IP: “Please, calm down, it is for your safety that we study and assess this situation and that we take all precautions necessary for the best results.” SCP-3775: “No! I want to go home. You can’t keep me here!” IP: “End of interview recording.” Pause Play Time 5:54/5:54

Accessing Past Data Records…

Surveillance Notes Found…

SCP-3775_Surveillance_21/11/2022.txt No audio recording is provided alongside footage. Documentation Start Time 13:46:23 13:46:23 SCP-3775 is pacing the room. 13:53:12 SCP-3775 moves to sit on the bed. 13:53:40 SCP-3775 begins grasping at its sleeves in a self-soothing way. 13:58:25 SCP-3775 lays down on the bed in a fetal position. 14:01:32 [DATA EXPUNGED] enters the room. SCP-3775 makes no notion to acknowledge this. 14:01:58 [DATA EXPUNGED] stands next to the bed and looks down at SCP-3775. 14:02:45 [DATA EXPUNGED] calmly communicates verbally with SCP-3775. 14:03:00 SCP-3775 yells angrily in response. 14:03:03 [DATA EXPUNGED] retreats away from the bed defensively. His hands are open in a symbol of non threatening behavior. 14:03:05 SCP-3775 does not calm down, continues yelling, begins to grow more agitated. 14:03:07 [DATA EXPUNGED] makes his way towards the door. 14:03:11 SCP-3775 has stopped yelling. 14:03:12 [DATA EXPUNGED] yells back a short declaration assertively. 14:03:15 [DATA EXPUNGED] leaves the room. 14:03:20 SCP-3775 begins to cry violently, returning to its previous position on the bed. 14:19:53 SCP-3775 has stopped crying. 14:20:01 SCP-3775 stares at the ceiling. 14:45:27 SCP-3775 falls asleep. End notes of interest.

Accessing Past Data Records

Surveillance Notes Found…

SCP-3775_Surveillance_25/11/2022.txt Audio transcript provided alongside footage. Documentation Start Time 18:37:15 18:37:15 SCP-3775 sits on its bed, holding itself tightly while breathing heavily. 18:37:20 SCP-3775 lets out a scream of desperation. 18:37:26 SCP-3775 begins to move erratically. 18:37:38 [DATA EXPUNGED] enters the room. 18:37:40 [DATA EXPUNGED]: “Hey! What are-.” 18:37:41 SCP-3775 screams again. 18:37:43 [DATA EXPUNGED] draws a stunning device. 18:37:44 The visual feed cuts out. [DATA EXPUNGED] screams. 18:38:07 The visual feed is restored. Four figures are now in the room. Three look like SCP-3775. [DATA EXPUNGED] is lying on her back on the ground. She stands up slowly. 18:38:10 The Red SCP-3775 clone (?) points at [DATA EXPUNGED]. “Get out.” It says 18:38:11 [DATA EXPUNGED] leaves the room hurriedly. 18:38:20 Red SCP-3775 looks to Blue SCP-3775 and Purple SCP-3775. It says “Well, you two look fine. We should get out of here.” Blue SCP-3775 and Purple SCP- 3775 nod accordingly. 18:38:30 The three SCP-3775s leave the room. Access of hallway cameras denied. 18:57:04 Only the Red SCP-3775 is dragged back into the room by multiple personnel wearing noise canceling headphones. 18:57:47 Red SCP-3775 is restrained with a loose straight jacket and a high tech deafening muzzle with red armature limbs attached. 18:57:53 Red SCP-3775 begins kicking the Personnel. 18:57:55 Personnel tazes Red SCP-3775. 18:57:56 The visual feed cuts out. 18:58:20 The visuals feed returns. SCP-3775-A is sitting where Red SCP-3775 was, but is no longer wearing the muzzle or straight jacket. 18:58:30 Personnel leave. End notes of interest.

Accessing Past Data Records…

Surveillance Notes Found…

SCP-3775_Surveillance_08/12/2022.txt Log following updated securement protocols of SCP-3775 in State 3775-A. Audio transcript provided alongside footage. 06:03:02 SCP-3775-A is put into a medically induced unconscious state while sleeping. 06:20:07 Six metal screws are drilled into SCP-3775-A’s skull. 06:30:35 A metal halo is fastened to the screws. 06:48:24 SCP-3775-A is placed into a wooden chair with metal conductors attached to the top. 06:50:46 SCP-3775-A is secured with leather straps to the chair, and the conductor is mounted to the metal halo. 06:51:13 SCP-3775-A is removed from the medically induced unconscious state, but does not wake up immediately. 07:12:41 SCP-3775-A begins to wake. 07:13:03 SCP-3775-A pulls at it restraints. “Hey.” It says. “Hey, what the [EXPLETIVE]?” It then seems to notice the metal halo, and reacts in horror. “Holy [EXPLETIVE] [EXPLETIVE]. What the [EXPLETIVE] have you done to me? What the [EXPLETIVE]?” It continues to curse under its breath and begins to cry. 07:13:40 Three Foundation Personnel wearing noise cancelling headphones and general protective gear enter the room, and silently give a signal to an observing personnel not present in the room. 07:13:45 The lights flicker as the chair is activated. SCP-3775-A screams. 07:13:47 A terrible ripping sound is heard, like flesh being torn. It is difficult to describe what happens to SCP-3775-A’s body. It appears as though it is turned inside out. It begins at the chest area and folds outwards. The chair disappears alongside SCP-3775-A as SCP-3775-B emerge. The three look just as horrified as SCP-3775-A. 07:14:09 The three personnel move to detain each instance of SCP-3775-B, removing SCP-3775-008 (Purple) and SCP-3775-013 (Blue) and remove them immediately, placing them in a separate room. 07:15:10 SCP-3775-019 (Red) stands alone in the room with one last Personnel.

07:15:20 The Personnel speaks, as SCP-3775-019 is still wearing the muzzle and loose straight jacket. “You would find it wise to not be any trouble. You are here for the safety of the world, and we will not hesitate to cut your tongue if necessary.” 07:15:25 The Personnel leaves, 07:15:50 SCP-3775-019 sits down on the ground and stares into the wall. This continues for several hours. End notes of interest.

Accessing Updated Data Records…

Experiment Notes Found…

SCP-3775_Experiment_26/07/2023.txt Documentation Start Time 20:14:46 20:14:46 SCP-3775 is administered a sedative, causing it to lose consciousness. 20:14:50 Personnel enter SCP-3775’s containment cell, remove it from its chair and place it on a metal operating table. 20:15:02 [REDACTED] prepares SCP-3775 for incision. 20:15:33 [REDACTED] opens SCP-3775’s neck using metal grade scalpel, inspecting its vocal chords. 20:18:21 [REDACTED] administers [DATA EXPUNGED] directly into SCP-3775’s vocal chords. *Editorial Note: [REDACTED] notes that the organ had become inflamed almost immediately, noting an abnormally sensitive reaction to the serum. 20:20:46 [REDACTED] closes up the incision and personnel return SCP-3775 to its chair. 20:21:35 Personnel leave. End notes of interest. For further reading of Experimental log visit [HYPERLINK].

[kushkomikss]

š! #51 'Mindfulness' open call!

After some quite chaotic times, we want to meditate a bit and put our mind at ease. So for our next issue we make an open call with the theme "Mindfulness."

Excerpt from Gary Colin's mini kuš! 'Link'

Details of Participation:

Theme: Mindfulness

Page count: 4-12 (preferably an even page count)

Language: English

Format: DIN A6, width 10.5cm × height 14.8cm

Bleed: In case you want your comics to be full bleed make sure to add 3 mm cut off space all around the comics (in this case the width of each page should be 11.1 cm and the height 15.4 cm). Don't place texts and important details close to the page borders!

Colors: Yes, CMYK, b/w works are also welcome, color profile FOGRA52

Resolution: 300 dpi (1200 dpi for b/w works)

File format: preferably tiff or pdf

If we publish your comics, you'll get 6-10 free copies of the anthology.

You keep the full copyrights to publish your story anywhere else.

Submit only low-resolution jpgs for our consideration (but big enough to read (approximately 900 pixels in width)! The high resolution files as described above we'll ask you to send later.) Please don't send zip files, don't use google drive, dropbox or the like, we only want preview files now as simple attachments.

Please include a short description of yourself and a link to your site/instagram

Deadline: 1 May 2024

Send to komiksukonkurss@gmail.com

Additional notes:

After receiving your work we'll write you a confirmation e-mail within 14 days. If you don't hear from us, please write us again, maybe your mail got lost.

Not all the works from the open call will be published! Usually we get around 200 submissions of which we can print around 20. As we usually get many submissions we enjoy, we often also use "rejected" pieces for later issues or try to collaborate with the artists on other projects.

The decision what we'll publish will be made until around 1 June. We'll mail you if you're in!

We'd prefer if you don't publish the full comics on- or offline before we print it.

Please don't send comics which are made for a bigger format. If your comic is unreadable in A6 format, it will not be published!

We are always happy to feature experimental approaches in storytelling and art. Don't limit yourself!

If you have any questions, just write us. Best if you write a comment below, as other people might have the same question.

If you are not interested to take part and just landed here because you are obsessed with comics, you probably should get some of our previous books. You can find them all on komikss.lv or maybe even at your local comics shop.

Looking forward to your submissions.