#and both have been highly evaluated.'

[ms-demeanor]

any thoughts on the new post that staff went scorched earth on which is now making the rounds abt tumblr live? it basically screenshots all the tos and claims if you've ever opened the app (or in some rbs, unsnoozed live) tumblr has gotten your data. on the one hand i feel like this is fearmongering, but on the other its true that MOST sites have your data as is so its pretty standard. you seem pretty knowledgeable abt data gathering so i was wondering abt your take

This is going to be pretty unkind but watching tumblr users interact with staff and live is a great primer on how conspiracy theories happen.

Nobody on this fucking website knows how to read a ToS, nobody on this website knows how anything fucking works (sorry, this is not a dig at you but how would tumblr "get" your data from you clicking or unclicking live; the only data that tumblr has on you is the data that you have put on tumblr what data do people think that clicking the "new" button is scooping up that is anything beyond interactions or posts or IP addresses which are the things that tumblr already has information about like you do not introduce new information into the tumblr ecosystem by clicking a button you haven't installed anything you haven't changed permissions on your browser if everyone is so goddamned scared about live stealing their data i strongly recommend they stop using anything but public internet through an anonymizer and making sure location data is shut off on all of their devices and anyone who is flipping their shit about the type of data that live is collecting but who is using chrome on any device needs to chill the fuck out about live and flip the fuck out about google)

this is like that post about twitter's content policy that circulated the other day or that post about deviantart's content policy that circulated ten fucking years ago nobody knows how to read legal documents and nobody knows how to read technical documentation and this comes together into unholy matrimony on the no reading comprehension at all moral panic website

live never violated the GDPR it was just rolled out in the US first but the entire userbase decided that because it hadn't been rolled out simultaneously in the EU and the US that it was SO UNSPEAKABLY PRIVACY VIOLATEY THAT THE EU HAD BANNED IT FOR ITS CRIMES with, like, nothing whatsoever backing that up because, again, even at its most intrusive Live collects about as much data as Twitter or Yelp, both of which are *capable* of meeting GDPR standards with that level of data collection (even if musk sometimes makes decisions that violate GDPR).

Live is significantly less intrusive than any facebook product, than Amazon, and than any Google product. If you use youtube logged in, don't worry about live, the horse is out of the barn and tumblr is the least of your worries *regardless* of live. If you regularly use Google as a search engine please god learn how to evaluate and compare risks across platforms because Live is like a coughing baby compared to about a dozen things that most highly online people interact with every single day.

If you don't want to use live don't use live. Clicking the button doesn't magically transfer your secret FBI file to tumblr and even agreeing to the ToS doesn't share anything that tumblr doesn't already have if you don't continue to interact - if you don't interact with live after agreeing to the ToS it's not collecting any data except your non-interaction.

For everyone who is losing it over Live just turn off your goddamned location on your fucking cellphone and turn off your location on your goddamned computers and that's it, you're good, you're fine, relax. If your response to "turn off your location" is "but I need it for _____" then don't worry about Live, whatever "_____" is was already collecting and selling your data.

Do you use an activity tracker? Congrats, you have much, much bigger privacy issues to worry about than tumblr live.

Okay but also I yelled about that post and the very many ways in which it was incorrect in January.

And I happened to take an archive of the page at that time because I'm a paranoid motherfucker.

And if you want my guess as to why staff went "scorched earth" on that post it's probably because if you scroll down to the bottom of the page on the archive, OP calls on everyone looking at the post to send a kind fuck you to the CEO then tagged his tumblr.

If you look at the other posts that went scorched earth in relation to tumblr staff they were also posts that very pointedly directed a lot of ire at a single staff member.

I don't think that any individual tumblr staff members are above criticism and I don't think that staff as a whole is above criticism but part of learning to read a ToS is understanding that someone can be shitty and vague and use TERF talking points and skirt the line and be technically okay under the ToS while someone can have a legitimate gripe about another user being horrible and manage to violate the ToS by accidentally spinning up a harassment campaign or suicide baiting someone.

Shitty people like nazis and terfs thrive on being edge cases. They are very good at finding a boundary and standing juuuuuuuuust on this side of it and going "la la la I'm not violating the ToS, you can't stop me!" and that blows and it leads to a lot of people encountering a lot of shitty stuff on a lot of websites but personally I'm pretty glad that there's a lot of gray area because when you cut out gray area that's when you see things like It's Going Down getting banned as extremist content alongside white supremacists. Please continue to report nazis and terfs, and when possible go deep into their pages to report because a pattern of behavior is more likely to get recognized as hate speech than a single post that gets reported a hundred times. Please block as many people who it's harmful for you to interact with as possible because it's clear that staff is not going to do the kind of work protecting users that users would like staff to do.

However I just can't get angry on behalf of a blogger who got nuked for saying "Hey everyone who hates this feature that we all hate please go tell the CEO to fuck himself at this URL specifically" - that is an extremely clear violation of the ToS because it is absolutely targeted harassment.

So now tumblr-the-userbase is going off on its merry conspiracy way skipping through fields and lacking reading comprehension and saying "users are getting banned for reporting the crimes of tumblr live and its gdpr violations" and ignoring the fact that the post was nuked because the last line was saying "hey everyone, let's all individually tell the CEO to fuck off in messages sent directly to him that are certainly not going to include any threats, exaggerations, gore, etc. etc. etc."

If I were to make a post that had 50k notes and the last line was "and while you're at it, please send tumblr-user-ms-demeanor a personalized message telling them why they're a terrible person so they know what we think of them" it would absolutely be reasonable to say that was harassing that user. And that post did it with the CEO. Who is not above criticism (and I have my criticisms! I don't think he really gets tumblr and that's a problem!), but jesus fucking christ don't tag the goddamned CEO or any other staff member in a call to action asking users to send them messages saying "fuck off" this is literally the stupidest thing I've ever seen a tumblr conspiracy theory coalesce around.

Anyway thank you for giving me a place to vent i've been getting more and more pissed about this for three days. Everyone feel free to kindly tell tumblr user ms demeanor to fuck off.

[heartfullofleeches]

Amab Yan Warrior + Kind Naga Reader

[Size Difference, Reader has a penis - two in fact, Reader is a sweetie and honestly a bit of a thembo, No outright smut, but still highly suggestive so 18 mdni+]

-

Wicked devil.

Bested them in combat and this is what you do with their broken body out on full display?

Shattered armor piled neatly in the far corner of your den, bandages tucked around their bruised and cracked rips - knotted just so to grant their skin passage to breath. Truthfully, you hadn't no intention to leave them in such condition. Perhaps, there was a pinch too great of love in your adoring grasp, but in your defense, they may have poked an eye with that sharpened toothpick their kind dubbed a blade.

You have brewed enough tea for your guests to make a pot with their hands tied, but you have grown rather fond of both of your eyes over the duration of your time with them.

"Dearest guest? Are you conscious enough to evaluate the modesty of your host's wears? It has been so long without a mate. Had to take matters into own hands. Guest forgive such an immodest beast, yes?"

Never in their remaining years will they give you pardon.

Hisses of bliss constricted by a yelp of surprise, or dare say, shame as that authoritative voice of theirs echoed from the walls of your cave. The loincloth cloaking your midsection swells with the unfulfilled lust imprisoned in your twin sheaths. As victor, it is your honor, your right- to unload that burden on them. Had the hours of prepping their hole by the campfire stationed outside your den been for not?

"So happy~ Been so long without a guest. The crest on your armor- You belong to a kingdom, no? One with a king and queen. Perhaps a prince or a princess? Would like to befriend as well."

The princess? What would a brute like you want with her? Don't you see that the trained, hardened body of a warrior like them is the only mortal flesh capable of accepting your impossible girth?

"More friends means more opportunities to find mate. So lonely, but humans good company. Too small to be mate, but excellent companions."

Why must you torment them so?

[id0what1want]

Carmine.

I've been reserved, but I'm gonna come out and say it. Carmine is a very multifaceted character just like her brother, and similarly to him, many people like to pick and choose what they evaluate to simplify her into something either hyper-villified or super one note 'she didn't mean it, and nothing is her fault'. The truth of the matter is that the Teal Mask is a messy situation and trying to figure out who is at fault is beside the point cuz blaming Carmine or Kieran or the player or anything else ruins the nuance and the complexity.

A lot of Carmine's mischaracterization comes from the fact that all of her dialogue is not directly indicative of her character and often isn't exactly one to one how she feels about something. Carmine is a character that struggles a LOT with conveying/receiving tone and is very prone to misunderstanding AND being misunderstood.

Her relationship with Kieran is by no means perfect and way more realistically messy than most fictional sibling portrayals. Many sibling relationships, ESPECIALLY the ones between a sister and brother, have very harsh rivalries, especially at certain age differences. There is constant competition since they're just old enough to want the same things, but far enough apart to claim seniority. I should also mention that throwing neurodivergence into the mix is even MORE volatile, especially the kind that we're working with when it comes to the Kitakami siblings.

It would not surprise me at all if Carmine was also bullied by her peers and it just presented differently. Carmine herself is socially oblivious and has a lot of pride so it seems like snide comments would roll of her back- but look at the things that Carmine cares about. Beauty, power, coolness. She's fiercely loyal to Mossui Town and Kieran was canonically bullied for coming from 'the boonies'. It's not far to venture that Carmine herself suffered the same treatment and her hostility towards outsiders in her hometown stems from that.

Carmine also DOES think highly of Kieran. She thinks he is a skilled trainer and also knows that he has thick skin because they grew up together. They also grew up together without their parents or other kids significantly in the picture. Even with their grandparents, this leads to a dynamic where Carmine and Kieran have each other first and foremost. They share blood and that doesn't count for nothing, and even further they share traits by nature because of it. Both siblings have a deep-set jealous streak and sense of pride, one that isn't immediately relatable to everyone and can even isolate them from other people, but not necessarily from each other. She looks out for his best interest, though it doesn't always come off right.

Carmine isn't self-aware majority of the time. When she is rude, it's not always intentional and her expression of her thoughts or emotions isn't always accurate because Carmine feels strong, complicated things. It's a struggle to verbose them correctly and she seems not to have been taught how to regulate or voice her emotions accurately, instead expressing herself through HER means instead of everyone else's. When Carmine defends Kieran's mask before the festival, that is an expression of her love. When she seeks out the player despite her distaste specifically on Kieran's behalf, that is an expression of her love. Carmine's actions are normally very well-intentioned but don't always come out that way. As a neurodivergent person myself, I completely understand this.

When she lies to Kieran about the ogre, she is attempting to preserve his friendship with the player and his bond with her, and it's because she KNOWS Kieran will be jealous. Was it wrong to do that? Totally! Was she right down the line. Also yes. Carmine does take full responsibility in being Kieran's sister and takes that role very seriously. Turning Kieran over to the player like she did in the beginning is actually a big sign of maturity from Carmine we don't see super often. She swallows her jealousy and pride, risking Kieran finding some outsider cooler than her, because she wants him to have friends outside of her despite being naturally possessive.

Carmine has a very strong sense of justice and this twists when applied to her relationship with Kieran. The two bicker a lot and have a strong leader-follower dynamic, with Carmine sometimes bullying Kieran into listening to her. Carmine is normally not taken seriously outside of Kieran and feels the need to berate people into respecting her. It's not right, but it's how she feels. It's not healthy but it's also not completely abnormal for siblings to be like this. My own siblings are like this and as a family unit we have all fought for dominance, not always in savory, healthy ways. I'm not saying she's right- I'm saying she's a teenage girl that deals with things in messy ways because she's a teenage girl. Kieran often gets the teenager pass (granted, he is younger.) but I also see Drayton getting the teenage pass when he's of comparable or older age than Carmine.

Drayton is also a hot topic with Carmine. Setting aside my own hcs, their objective relationship is antagonistic both ways. Drayton is of course not the devil Carmine treats him as, but it's very well established that Carmine struggles a) to read people and b) to warm up to people. It doesn't help that Drayton goes out of his way to irritate and antagonize her. It's not extreme of course, but Carmine is distrusting, and angers easily which Drayton is amused by. There is NOTHING more annoying than getting mad at something and somebody laughs in your face. Especially from a neurodiverse and bullied perspective- what Drayton is doing is NOT bullying- but Carmine again likely grew up bullied and made fun of, specifically FOR her temper. Growing up, older boys would deliberately irritate me to the point of a meltdown because they thought it was funny to watch me freak out. Things like that are stressful and also SUPER impact emotional regulation in a person. And while Carmine is aggressive, she senses a scheme from Drayton against her brother. She is already insanely loyal to Kieran and after her shortcomings in the Teal Mask she's DEFINITELY going to be hypersensitive about not making Kieran any worse. Drayton being cryptic and treating it all so lightly is bound to get on her nerves, and he already violates her sense of justice with his behavior. Don't get me wrong, I love Drayton, but he also has the emotional intelligence to know better to act in certain ways that he does. What Carmine is doing is essentially a cat puffing up and swiping at a perceived threat, and instead of calming the cat down, Drayton agitates it further to tease it. Carmine, while aggressive with her words, is actually surprisingly tame and restrained. It's obvious to me at least that she is trying to regulate herself and is not nearly aggressive as she could be. Carmine to me in this situation is barking but not biting- she's looking out for the safety of everyone around her, but she can't make a sound enough judgement of his intention to actually bite so she isn't going to. Carmine doesn't genuinely want to hurt Drayton. She has a temper, especially a verbal one, that he pokes fun at and thus she has a negative association with him.

I guess I'm just reallllly tired of people acting like Carmine and Kieran are either completely innocent, erasing the complicated writing behind their actions, or holding them to an unfair moral standard since it's pretty obvious that these kids should have been seeing a behavioral therapist and had more intervention growing up. (Behavioral therapy is not a desperate need but also I firmly believe that most kids should see therapists, even if they're having troubles on this medium a scale. Carmine and Kieran aren't nonfunctional, but they also weren't taught strategies to self-regulate which seeing a therapist would've helped with growing up).

Also the vilification of autistic traits in women pisses me off. Like can we please not condemn Carmine for shit that we actively excuse in other characters, please and thank you. She's not a raging bitch but she's also not the well-mannered pretty girl people want her to be. Women are slightly bitchy and suddenly that's grounds to excuse awful treatment of them and c'mon guys.

[reasonsforhope]

"In a highly-anticipated world-first, the Texas Heart Institute has successfully implanted an artificial titanium heart that uses the same technology as bullet trains to pump blood mechanically throughout the body.

Called the Total Artificial Heart (TAH), the feat is seen as a major step in keeping people alive for longer and longer periods while they wait for heart transplants.

Texas Heart partnered with the medical tech company BiVACOR to create the TAH. It’s a titanium-constructed biventricular rotary blood pump with a single moving part that utilizes a magnetically levitated rotor that pumps the blood and replaces both ventricles of a failing heart.

The benefit of using magnetic levitation is that none of the moving parts ever scrape or slide against each other, reducing friction, and dramatically increasing the longevity of the device. But what’s really cool is the TAH can pump blood at a rate of 12 liters per minute, enough to allow an adult male to engage in exercise.

The first-in-human clinical study, overseen closely by the FDA, aims to evaluate the safety and performance of the BiVACOR TAH as a bridge-to-transplant solution for patients with severe bi or univentricular heart failure. Following this first implantation completed at Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center in the Texas Medical Center, four additional patients are to be enrolled in the study.

“The Texas Heart Institute is enthused about the groundbreaking first implantation of BiVACOR’s TAH. With heart failure remaining a leading cause of mortality globally, the BiVACOR TAH offers a beacon of hope for countless patients awaiting a heart transplant,” said Dr. Joseph Rogers, President and Chief Executive Officer of The Texas Heart Institute and National Principal Investigator on the research.

“We are proud to be at the forefront of this medical breakthrough, working alongside the dedicated teams at BiVACOR, Baylor College of Medicine, and Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center to transform the future of heart failure therapy for this vulnerable population.”

Heart failure is a global epidemic affecting at least 26 million people worldwide, 6.2 million adults in the US, and is increasing in prevalence. Heart transplantations are reserved for those with severe heart failure and are limited to fewer than 6,000 procedures per year globally. Consequently, the US National Institutes of Health estimated that up to 100,000 patients could immediately benefit from mechanical alternatives.

The successful implantation of BiVACOR’s TAH highlights the potential of innovative technologies to address critical challenges in cardiac care, such as long transplantation waitlists.

“This achievement would not have been possible without the courage of our first patient and their family, the dedication of our team, and our expert collaborators at The Texas Heart Institute,” said Daniel Timms, founder and CTO of BiVACOR."

-Article via Good News Network, August 1, 2024. Video via 7News Australia, July 26, 2024.

[moonlit-void-to-the-far-unknown]

The itch

An: so I’ve never written for TUA, I think, I haven’t written anything in like a long time cause my brain is made of worms most days, but the new season and mostly five in his new attitude? Personality? His almost soft tired of it all way, gives me the feelings. As a 28 year old women it’s odd that a 68 year old trapped in a 18 year old body works for me like it does but hey, I’ve liked weirder (cough I was in the Hamilton fandom cough) so enjoy this sort of bonding with Lila over the new mundane life and the exhausting reality of having to live it, because I love Lila and hate what they did to her and fives characters with the whole 7 year time line romance. Like why make her a mum of 3 and married to Fives brother just to ruin it like that. But anyway enjoy this weird fic.

Readers power: molecular manipulation, think piper from charmed, overhaul from my hero, uhhh it’s hard to explain but basically it means you can make things explode, freeze people and things by fucking with the molecular structure of said thing.

——————————————————————-

You wanted to scream, to smash things, to burn yours and fives apartment down, it had been six years of calm, six years of learning to enjoy ‘normal’. Six years of working at dead end jobs because you didn’t pass the god damn psych evaluation for the CIA, somehow you are far more ‘unhinged’ than your husband.

You and five spent 30 years together, a decade in an apocalyptic wasteland when you ended up teleported there by mistake, and then 20 years at the commission becoming trained and ruthless assassins. Now, now Five worked doing CIA investigations and you got stuck working at a grocery store gas station. It was calm, it was normal, it was absolute hell on earth and made your skin itch.

So sitting in the parking lot of the play place for your nieces 6th birthday, you didn’t know why you couldn’t make yourself leave your car, five was already here, he had texted you as much, everyone else minus Viktor who was in Canada, and Allison who hasn’t shown her face irl to any of her siblings in the 6 years, you just needed to get out of the car and walk in with the gift you signed from both you and five for Gracie. It was a set of toy weapons, knives like her dads old ones, and a few other random ‘play pretend’ things.

Closing your eyes you leaned your head back against the head rest, taking a deep breath. Almost hitting the gas when the passenger side door opened and slammed closed. Turning eyes wide you saw Lila, the exhausted mothers face blank staring forward

“I just needed a minute, just needed” you nodded

“Take all the minutes you need. I assume it’s like pulling teeth in there with Diego?” Lila nodded sighing loudly

“Fives the same way, just on other stuff, like deciding if he wants to go out to dinner or stay in and order pizza, or if he needs new underwear because the ones he has have so many holes in surprised they still count as underwear, or just simple things like the dishes, like how hard is it to wash a cup, it shouldn’t be as hard as it is, how hard is it to just tell me when you need a quiet night cause work was stressful, and you are exhausted from stupid people all day, i work retail, he acts like I don’t understand being tired of idiots…I just…” you paused looking back out the windshield

“It’s like your skin is on fire and nothing stops the itch of being a once highly skilled assassin who could fuck with peoples molecules and freeze them in time or make them explode?” You nodded looking at her

“I find myself flicking my hands out and remembering I can’t just blow up or freeze people anymore, it’s like an itch and anytime I explain it to five he just…”

“Doesn’t listen? Or doesn’t understand that you are used to how your life was and now that it’s different, it’s not bad but it’s eye burning mundane clock ticking by slower then ever reality?”

Nodding you sighed

“Diego, he wants to listen, he just, from what five always told me he had a hard time understanding others because his brain is just, frazzled and he feels inadequate, how they grew up I guess shaped them in every timeline. Five is just used to being alone he was alone for 30 years before we met, then I popped up and it’s just. I don’t think he gets that sometimes I just need him to..”

“Let you Help with the itching”

You nodded smiling at her

“He just, it’s been a lot, and we haven’t quite got the ‘normal life’ down just yet.” Lila nodded

“It’s not easy in normal marriage land either, 3 kids and a chunky husband who, doesn’t make it easier is….”

“Not helping the itching. Well how about me and you, when the itch gets too bad, we help each other? Maybe find a way to do something, go to a rage room? Do a fighting class something to feel the….rush? Of what we did before. Have Klaus or someone babysit the kids, be me and you and just….”

“Fighting each other like the before days?” You laughed nodding

“Yeah…I miss getting to kick your ass and having you kick mine…”

Lila laughed looking around

“We could start a fight club, you, me, Ben when he gets out of prison. Just….maybe we’ll get used to normal eventually….” You frowned nodding

“You know if you ever need anything, help with the kids, a friend to vent to when Diego is being Diego…I’m not to far from your guys place. I can always swing by, let the munchkin tornados beat up on auntie Y/N.” You smiled at her for all the mess you and her had been in against each other, she had become one of your closest friends and family members through it all.

Soon enough you finally made your way into the building, the screams of children everywhere, the smell of sugar and something faintly child everywhere. You spotted five by the ball pit, speaking with Ben, walking over you hugged five from behind sighing as you rested your forehead against his back

“Hello, love.” You squeezed him in response before looking up and over to Ben

“Ahh Benjamin, free from jail, good to see you didn’t die, love that you still look like you want to murder us all” Ben didn’t laugh, just glared at you before sighing

“Not in the snark mood got it.” You felt five squeeze your arm a bit pulling away from you, making you groan

Turning to fully look at you, he looked you over smiling softly

“How was work?” You looked at him blinking slowly before sighing and planting your forehead on his chest, groaning

“Ahh I see” his hand rubbed your back softly, his other lifting the beer to his lips.

“People are stupid. How hard is it to put a gas nozzle in a car….”

“Apparently impossible if what you tell me says anything” you looked at him nodding before turning to look around

“10 bucks says Diego forgets to put up the piñata like Lila asked him” five laughed slightly

“Nah 20 says Lila has a mental breakdown before cake is served” you looked over to where Lila stood with Gracie helping the young girl fix her party hat,

“Nah I think she has a breakdown after presents when she sees what we got Gracie” five laughed looking down at you, brushing the stray hair from your face, smiling at him you sighed softly again,

it seemed even if you wanted to rip your hair out from the new ‘normal’ reality you all had to live in, even if your skin itched from the need to return back to what life was before somehow, it was nice that you still had small moments, where normal wasn’t so bad, normal birthday parties for your nieces and nephews, seemingly normal holidays, and normal, non murder happy work. As much as you loathed admitting it, sometimes it was nice. Like now, now was nice.

[lagomorphique]

Mouthwashing and Capitalism - Analysis

this did unexpectedly well on twt so I'm gonna force people on tumblr to endure my takes as well for posterity (plus i can speculate and elaborate a bit more on here without the character limit). disclaimer that this includes untagged spoilers for both the game itself + the how fish is made dlc. I also refer to some of the meta facts from the dev qnas and to the demo version of curly's psych evaluation. Most of this is gonna be under a readmore and I'll elaborate a bit more on each character in reblogs

firstly, let's state the obvious - the working conditions enforced by pony express are atrocious. "do not indulge in over 5 hours of rest, including leisure time. sleeping over the allowed budget will result in disciplinary action."

Compare this to irl guidelines for pilots. Neither Curly or Jimmy are getting anything close to the required amount of rest for such a demanding job. This edges more into headcanon/speculation territory, but I've been trying to figure out how their shift patterns are supposed to work. I'd imagine that both of them don't always need to be on duty at the same time, so their shift patterns are probably more variable than everybody's else's. At the same time, we see them both on shift at the same time multiple times during the game and Curly is the only one with clearance to make certain extremely important navigation decisions (like turning off the autopilot). The tldr is that the crew is extremely overworked and running on dangerously little sleep for extended periods of time. It's enough to make anyone go crazy.

Next, the company routinely engages in collective punishment, as seen in the below screenshots. This is particularly important because I think it directly informs a lot of Curly's decisions in particular, especially with how he reassures Anya that her stealing the gun case will not go on the performance log. Given her precarious financial situation, she literally cannot afford to have her pay docked. I don't think he has any nefarious intentions here about covering up what's happened.

I think it's really interesting that each of the employee ID cards have an EMV chip. This would imply that they also function as payment cards. Perhaps they also have to pay for the food on board. It is possible that the 'credits' they are paid in are not even money per se, but rather a sort of company currency. Company currencies, or 'scrips,' have historically been used to exploit workers by making them solely dependent on company stores and products, enforcing loyalty.

Corporate communicates with Curly using something that looks no more sophisticated than a fax machine. It it also not clear whether this communication channel even goes both ways, which calls into question whether it would have even been possible to send out a distress signal in the event of an emergency (or, for example, a HR report needing to be filed).

The ship is not equipped for 5 people. It's notable here that Curly says "bigger" here, implying he /did/ raise this as a safety issue with corporate, but was shot down.

It's a plot point that there were only 4 cryopods, which meant that one person would always have been left out in the event of an emergency, even if they were all functioning.

I also wonder if this affects the rations available to the crew during the trip. I highly doubt that Pony Express bothered to provide extra food and other essentials to provide for an extra person, which means that the crew are probably dividing rations meant for four people amongst five.

[alphynix]

Allenypterus montanus was an unusual early coelacanth that lived during the late Carboniferous, around 324 million years ago, in a tropical bay covering what is now central Montana, USA.

Up to about 15cm long (~6"), its tapering tadpole-like body plan somewhat resembled that of modern knifefishes and featherbacks, with the top part of its tail fin highly elongated into a ribbon-like shape and the rest of its tail fins being vestigial. The distinctive humped shape of its back was also much more pronounced in larger, more mature individuals.

It was probably a fairly slow swimmer, and preserved gut contents suggest it mainly ate small soft-bodied prey.

Its closest known relative seems to have been the eel-like Holopterygius – but since around 60 million years and different continents separated them both, this suggests the existence of a whole ghost lineage of other tapering coelacanths yet to be discovered.

———

NixIllustration.com | Tumblr | Patreon

References:

Friedman, Matt, and Michael I. Coates. "A newly recognized fossil coelacanth highlights the early morphological diversification of the clade." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 273.1583 (2006): 245-250. https://doi.org/10.1098%2Frspb.2005.3316

Lund, Richard, and Wendy Lund. "New genera and species of coelacanths from the Bear Gulch Limestone (Lower Carboniferous) of Montana (USA)." Geobios 17.2 (1984): 237-244. https://www.academia.edu/download/66985268/s0016-6995_2884_2980145-x20210504-8876-dzniic.pdf

Lund, Wendy L., Richard Lund, and G. Klein. "Coelacanth feeding mechanisms and ecology of the Bear Gulch coelacanths." Compte Rendus du Neuvième Congrès International sur la Stratigraphie et la Géologie du Carbonifère 5 (1985): 492-500. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/285577607_Coelacanth_Feeding_Mechanisms_and_Ecolqgy_of_the_Bear_Gulch_Coelacanths

Toriño, Pablo, Matías Soto, and Daniel Perea. "A comprehensive phylogenetic analysis of coelacanth fishes (Sarcopterygii, Actinistia) with comments on the composition of the Mawsoniidae and Latimeriidae: Evaluating old and new methodological challenges and constraints." Historical Biology 33.12 (2021): 3423-3443. https://doi.org/10.1080/08912963.2020.1867982

[mydearzero]

𝐑𝐄𝐃 | 𝐄𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐲 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐬 𝐱 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

MASTERLIST

18+ MINORS DO NOT INTERACT

Summary: What once was an innocent crush on a coworker quickly turned into a full blown infatuation with your boss. She could reprimand you all she wanted, but did she have to wear red while doing so?

Contents: NO Y/N, fem!Reader, BAU!reader, unit chief!Emily, SMUT, coworkers, very slight dom/sub undertones, office sex, oral sex, grinding, fingering, power imbalance (boss), canon compliant violence, If I missed any warnings please tell me!

2.8K words

it's here folks, enjoy. let's just ignore that everything about emily screams woman lover to build tension okay. this was the quickest 2.8K I've written in a long time so uh yeah do with that info what you will (I'm horny for Emily) - nik

You hadn't had the opportunity to work with Emily Prentiss before she left the team to work for Interpol. You'd only just missed each other, you joining mere weeks after she'd left. 

Her reputation preceded her. The team was overly fond of her, even after having faked her own death. You'd seen a picture here or there, but nothing could live up to the Emily Prentiss who met you in New York for the Copycat Killer case. 

She'd been in a relationship with some guy Mark, so you'd really tried to look the other way. But when Hotch went on temporary leave during the whole Scratch situation, she volunteered to rejoin. The day she stepped foot in the bullpen, you knew you were in trouble. 

You could ignore the heat rushing to your face and your hands getting clammy. You could ignore the knowing glances JJ gave you. You could even ignore the digs Luke sent your way once he'd figured out something was going on. What you couldn't ignore, however, was the story Emily was telling while having had one too many drinks. 

"-and my girlfriend at the time freaked out. I tried to tell her it was a fake, but she was already halfway to crying in my arms." 

The words repeated over and over again in your head. 

Girlfriend. 

Her. 

She. 

You could handle an unattainable crush. Hell. Who hadn't had a crush on a straight girl at least once in their life? But knowing Emily played for both teams changed things. It made your irrational feelings rational. You completely lost the ability to look her in the eyes after that. 

You tried to not let your feelings get in the way of your job. The work the BAU did was too important to let that happen. 

It didn't last long. 

An adrenaline rush got the better of you while attempting to talk down an UnSub. But what were you supposed to do? He'd held a gun to Emily's head. One wrong move and it would've been over. You couldn't take that chance. 

Your ears were ringing as tunnel vision took over. The grimy scenery of the warehouse faded into the background. The dripping of the leaking pipes was deafened by your heartbeat. The UnSub's words were drowned out by Emily's haggard breathing. She was scared. 

You did what you had to. You took the shot. The man had dropped to the floor, but not before firing a storm of bullets in your direction, only missing by a few inches. 

While you'd been lucky nobody had been hurt, the same couldn't be said about the team's reactions to your actions. The flight back to Quantico had been short but tense. You wouldn't be hearing the end of this for quite some time to come. 

Though you knew the team would be on edge around you for some time, you hadn't expected what would happen on the very next case. 

"You're off the case." Emily's words were blunt. 

"What? Why?" You questioned. You'd expected to have to take a psych evaluation. Maybe even redo your gun qualifications. But to be put on the bench? Especially on a local case? 

"We've profiled this UnSub as highly unpredictable. I can't have you take uncalculated risks in the field. I appreciate all the work you've done so far, but this is where I need you to step back." Emily looked apologetic. 

"The last case was different! I can stay back here with Penelope. Just let me help, Emily, please," you pleaded. Damn your inability to be mad at her. You couldn't, not when she wore that damn red top that complimented her complexion (and boobs) so well. 

"I'm sorry. We'll talk when we get back." 

Penelope wouldn't let you into her office, so you resorted to catching up on paperwork at your desk. You could've left and taken this as a sign to get some free time. Yet you stayed right there, waiting. 

When Penelope finally left her office with her stuff, ready to go home, you knew the case was over. She asked you to late dinner, but you declined, waiting for the rest of the team to arrive. She waved a short goodbye before stepping into the elevator, leaving you alone with your thoughts once more. 

It wasn't long before the elevator moved again, doors opening to reveal Emily Prentiss. Just Emily Prentiss. You frowned as she walked into the bullpen, nodding at her office, signalling you to follow her. 

"Where's the rest?" You wondered, walking through the door and taking a seat across from the desk. Emily shut the door and turned to close the shutters. 

"I sent them home. We'll debrief in the morning," was all she said. 

She gestured to the chair across from hers. You sat, unsure of what to expect next. 

"I think we need to talk about what happened in New York," Emily left it an open statement. She obviously expected you to do the talking. 

"I'm aware my actions didn't look thought through. And maybe they weren't. But I was worried about what he would do to you," you were honest about what had gone down. 

"Worried or not, there are protocols we need to follow. You put everybody in that room in danger by making that choice. How is that any better than having me potentially get shot?" 

You really tried to focus. It was a serious and consequential discussion. But it was at that moment you realized you'd never actually been alone with Emily. You rubbed your hands on your thighs, trying to rid them of their clammyness and the tension that built in your body. 

"I don't know," was your final reply. A weak one, at that. Emily searched your face for answers. She noted the sheen covering your skin and dilated pupils. You felt scrutinized under her gaze. She squinted, slowly leaning back and crossing her arms. 

You hadn't meant to look, but the action brought the red top back to your attention. Your eyes dropped to Emily's cleavage, if only for a second. Your mouth went dry as they quickly snapped back up to meet her now amused ones. A coy smile crept onto her face. Emily took a deep breath before speaking again. This time, you knew better, only looking in your peripheral at how her chest raised and fell. 

"You know, earlier, you mentioned the last case was different. How come?" Emily inquired. She'd caught that, huh? You felt trapped as you figured she'd deduced the real reason for your careless actions.  

You didn't speak as Emily rose from her chair, taking slow strides around the desk. She placed a hand on your shoulder, standing behind you and leaning over the other. Goosebumps raised on your arms as you felt her warm breath against your collar. 

"I think I know," she whispered in your ear. You unconsciously craned your neck, allowing her more access. Your heart beat rapidly. The hand on your shoulder slowly trailed down your arm, rubbing up and down. 

"Would you have taken the shot if it had been JJ? Or Spencer? Or maybe you would've taken it if it were Garcia. You're such great friends, after all," Emily's tone was taunting. The rising temperature of the room was quickly becoming unbearable. 

Her free hand reached for your chin, turning your head to face her. She cupped your cheek gently, admiring the sight of your desperation. She'd barely even touched you. Barely implied anything. 

"Is this what your strange behaviour lately has been about?" Emily asked. You bit your lip, not saying a word. She clicked her tongue, getting annoyed at your lack of response.  

"Is this not what you want?" She walked around the chair, standing in front of you. You couldn't give in. You wouldn't be able to stop. Not if she gave you a taste. Your hands remained firmly planted by your side as Emily did the unthinkable. She put her hands on your shoulders and draped her legs over yours, straddling you. Your eyes closed at the sensation of having her so close. 

The weight of her ass on your thighs was delectable. Her hands trailed down your arms, stopping when they rested on yours. She leaned forward, and you had to suppress a groan at the feeling of her chest pushing against yours. She took your hands and brought them around herself, planting them firmly on her bottom. Your entire body was on fire. 

"Look at me," Emily's voice was sultry. You opened your eyes tentatively, immediately dropping them to her lips, which were now dangerously close to yours. She didn't hesitate, kissing you roughly. Her hands came up to cup your face. You finally gave in, properly holding her on your lap as she fervidly kissed you. 

You moved your mouth away from hers, kissing down her jaw and sucking harshly at the skin of her neck. A timid moan came from her lips. You'd never heard a more beautiful sound. Her fingers started unbuttoning your blouse as you continued your attack, creating blemishes that contrasted with her pale skin. Once she got the blouse off, Emily's hands fondled your breasts roughly. 

"Shit, Em..." You sighed. You leaned back against the chair, admiring Emily in all her glory. 

"You look so fucking good in red, you don't even know," you groaned, tugging at the bottom of her shirt. 

"I do know," Emily raised her arms, allowing you to pull the shirt over her head. "That's why I wear it." 

"You drive me crazy, Prentiss," you finally admitted. 

"I think I know the feeling," Emily moaned, taking your hand and crudely stuffing it down her pants. Luckily the waistband was elastic, allowing you to feel the dampness of her underwear as you manoeuvred your wrist to cup her pussy. 

"Fuck... You don't know how many times I've imagined feeling your pussy," you confessed. "I've dreamt of the things I'd do to you." 

Emily groaned as you pushed her panties to the side, feeling the wetness against your fingers. The positioning of your hand might've been awkward, but you didn't care. Emily opted to go for another kiss as you started rubbing her clit. 

The soft noises she made while her tongue was in your mouth were otherworldly. Her hips ground against your hand, desperate for more friction. 

Emily hooked her fingers into the cups of your bra, not bothering to unclasp it, simply tugging them down to free your tits. She left a trail of open-mouthed kisses down your neck and chest before taking a nipple between her teeth. 

"Fuck- Emily," you whine. She brought her hand up to your other breast, pinching and biting your nipples in tandem. You retaliated by finally circling your fingers over her entrance, pushing two inside. 

"Oh! Ah- Fuck," Emily exclaimed, throwing her head back. You curled your fingers in the way you did to yourself while thinking of her late at night. Emily reached behind her, placing her hands on the edge of the desk, creating more space for you to do what you had to. 

Emily was becoming less coherent with every pump of your fingers. Your thumb hit her clit harshly with every thrust inside her pussy. Just seeing her come undone like this, on your lap, by your hand, was enough for you to drench your own underwear.

You brought your unoccupied hand to her naked waist, admiring her figure. You couldn't believe you got to see her like this after all this time you spent pining. Her eyes were closed as her chest heaved with heavy breaths. 

"Fuck, don't stop," Emily moaned. Her jaw was slack. Her knuckles turned white as her grip on the desk tightened. You felt her walls constrict around your fingers. You curled them in a come hither motion as you circled her clit with your thumb. 

Emily's arms shook as her moans turned into high-pitched whines, signalling she was getting close. 

"Shit! Oh my god," She exclaimed, followed by a loud moan of your name. It was like music to your ears. 

She rode out her high as she gushed around your fingers. Your free hand drew soothing patterns on her hip, working her through her climax. 

You carefully withdrew your hand from her panties, bringing your fingers to your mouth and sucking them clean. Emily let herself fall back forward, no longer having the strength to hold up her upper body with her arms. 

She took your fingers from your mouth, wrapping her lips around them and sucking seductively. She released them and pushed herself off your lap, tugging you up from your seat. She switched your positions, pushing you against the desk before getting on her knees. 

Emily reached for the button on your pants, undoing it and tugging it down. She tapped your ankle, signalling you to step out of them and spread your legs. It was a bit awkward with your shoes still on, but you made it work. Her fingers left a trail of goosebumps in their wind as she traced them up your leg to your inner thigh. 

She followed the path she'd just drawn with her mouth, hooking her teeth in the waistband of your underwear, laughing as she tugged them down. You smiled at her antics. 

Her mouth returned between your legs, licking a hesitant stripe between your folds. The kitten licks to your clit drove you crazy. 

"Fuck, please, Em," you begged, bringing your hands to her hair. You couldn't feel more lewd, tits out in your boss's office, said boss between your legs eating you out. The scandal of it all only turned you on even more. 

"Can't believe you put your whole job on the line-," Emily scoffed between licks. "-just because you wanted some pussy." 

"Not just some pussy," you moaned as she sucked on your clit. "Yours." 

"Such a horny little thing for your unit chief," Emily mumbled. The vibrations of her words added to your pleasure. 

Your grip on her dark locks tightened as she fucked your entrance with her tongue expertly. You had to put all your weight against the desk to stop your knees from buckling.

"F-fuck, Em. Oh my god," you groaned as she added her fingers to the mix. 

You dared to look down, only to be met with the finest sight the world had to offer. Emily gazed up at you through her lashes, dark eyes blown wide and amused. You could see her free hand was between her legs, stroking herself at the same rhythm she had with her mouth on your cunt. 

God, did you wish you had Reid's memory right about now. 

You didn't know how much longer you could last. Having had the pleasure of feeling her around your fingers, witnessing her expression as she came. It was enough to have you teetering on the edge. 

"Ah, fuck. I'm close," you whimpered. Emily moaned loudly, her pace increasing. Your hips bucked against her mouth, chasing the pleasure. Her hands came up to your sides, holding you in place. 

You had to withhold from forcefully pushing her head closer, desperate for more pressure, more friction, more more more. 

You balled your fists, throwing your head back. The knot in your abdomen tightened, threatening to snap any second. 

"Oh- shit, please." 

"Come for me." It was like she'd pressed a magic button, your climax immediately upon you as she spoke the words. 

"Emily!" You came with a loud cry, grinding your hips against her mouth. It was mindblowing. You'd never come that hard. Emily helped you ride out your high, careful to not overstimulate you. 

She rose from her position on the floor, hands never leaving your body as she got back on eye level. You searched her face for regret as both of you stood there, taking in the situation and catching your breath. 

She leaned in, placing a tender kiss on your lips. You smiled, kissing her back passionately. She helped you redress your upper body, all while never breaking the kiss. 

You separated to pick up your respective discarded pieces of clothing. The atmosphere was light. There was no unresolved tension as you had expected. A mutual understanding had been created. 

Emily grabbed her stuff and walked with you down to the bullpen. "Dinner tomorrow, my place," she ordered.

"Yes, ma'am," you agreed, putting your things in your bag. 

"For now, go get your go bag out of your car," she instructed, locking the door to her office. 

"Why?" You asked as you walked with her to the elevator. 

"Because you can return the favour and have an early appetizer in my bed tonight." 

[svt-ara]

⋆｡𖦹°‧𓂅 ARA's RELATIONSHIP W '97 LINE

ⓘ masterlist

synopsis࣪ › ⋆｡𖦹°‧𓂅 discover ara's unique bond with the '95 line, from friendship to rivalty, to trust and unspoken feelings

࣪ › '95 liners. , '96 liners. , maknae line

⠀ ꯭⠀ 𓇼 ˚ DOKYEOM

# 𝗗𝗬𝗡𝗔𝗠𝗜𝗖 જ⁀➴ sunshine x sunshine

# 𝗡𝗔𝗠𝗘 જ⁀➴ aryeom

# 𝗣𝗢𝗣𝗨𝗟𝗔𝗥𝗜𝗧𝗬 જ⁀➴ 87%

꒰ 𑄽୧ ꒱ 𓈒 dokyeom kept a respectful distance as he was unsure how to treat the only girl among them. they didn't talk much, only what was necessary during pratice— their interactions were minimal. but they were both loud in their own ways— full of light, but strangely quiet around each other. basically two sunshine who didn't know how to shine at the same time.

but sunshine always finds sunshine, it was inevitable. he started cracking jokes around her, loud enough for her to hear. she started clapping a little harder when he nailed his high notes, making his lips fold in a embarassed smile. that's how slowly their energy began to blend— playful teasing, shares snacks and late-night laugh in their dorm. they matched in a way that wasn't forced, always loud and always too much— yet never too much for each other.

and when things got too heavy, they were the frist to get each other backs— they even matched empathy. ara noticed when his smile was only for the show, when the jokes from others hit too close to home and he noticed how her laughter ended with a soutble pout.

# 𝗖𝗔𝗡𝗢𝗡 𝗘𝗩𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗦 જ⁀➴

her second twin after hoshi

sharing that sensitive ass, they be literally comforting each other throught long texts

they just need to look at each other to brust into a nosense laugh

⠀ ꯭⠀ 𓇼 ˚ MINGYU

# 𝗗𝗬𝗡𝗔𝗠𝗜𝗖 જ⁀➴ siblings

# 𝗡𝗔𝗠𝗘 જ⁀➴ minara

# 𝗣𝗢𝗣𝗨𝗟𝗔𝗥𝗜𝗧𝗬 જ⁀➴ 72%

꒰ 𑄽୧ ꒱ 𓈒 maybe mingyu was the one of the few she personally had problems with lol. she found him overly confident while he saw her as someone who thought too highly of herself— dare to say arrogant. their traniee days were filled with mutual side-eyes, petty comments and who-can-do-it-better moments. they were both proud, competitive and way too stubborn for their own good. and the worst part is that they were often paired togheter— for evaluations or clean-up duties. fate had jokes.

yet something fortunately shifted over time. maybe it was the way he noticed her legs shaking for the hard work, her dark circles under her eyes for staying too long in the dance pratice and hated the way he was putting more pressure on her for no reasons at all. he started to care more, silently— filling her water bottle, adding a snack beside her lunch plate. he never apologizes properly for the past, he was embarassed to do that but he started to show how she cared for her.

their energy softened, rivalry turning into something less deep— more playful turning sharp words into jokes. it was like they forgot how to hate each other— bickered like old friends, competed like siblings but always had each other backs when it truly mattered. as he is the kim mingyu, she still teased him relentlessy whenever he tripped on the stage or said something that made no sense, making him pout. he made fun of her messy buns but always fixed her hairstyle if she needed to.

# 𝗖𝗔𝗡𝗢𝗡 𝗘𝗩𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗦 જ⁀➴

they always are in charge of feed the other 12 childern, so they have long session of cooking toghter

he's always checking her hair, she has to be pretty

she never gives him a break

⠀ ꯭⠀ 𓇼 ˚ MINGHAO

# 𝗗𝗬𝗡𝗔𝗠𝗜𝗖 જ⁀➴ comfort place

# 𝗡𝗔𝗠𝗘 જ⁀➴ arahao

# 𝗣𝗢𝗣𝗨𝗟𝗔𝗥𝗜𝗧𝗬 જ⁀➴ 78%

꒰ 𑄽୧ ꒱ 𓈒 i don't even need to tell you they weren't close lol. it would've been impossibile with someone like minghao— he was quiet, didn't speak korean that much, reserved and often gave side eyes to everyone. ara didn't know how to place herself around someone so still, they were too different: she talked, he used to say the bere minimum. she wanted to know, he wanted to be left alone. she moved around, he watched— he observed maybe too much at some point.

minghao got so curious about that talkative girl. he used to lean against the green walls of the pratice room, arm crossed, eyes squiting in that quiet way of his, watching ara moving like she was made for the stage— thinking how her moves were made with so much ease, he was amuzed how natural and effortless she looked. he tought he was being discreet, just observing out of habit, but she noticed. at frist frist, she didn't know if to laugh or feel flustered. part of her wanted to ask what he was staring at, another part just continued dancing— pretending to not notice, even if her cheeks warmed up a little more each time.

minghao started replying when she talked— with his korean, for sure. at some point even he found the courage to start a converation, maybe pointing out some moves she wasn't doing perfectly or praising her about some moves who looked better. she, in turn, never pushed him to open up, but she always remembered to include him— dragging a chair close during meals, or waiting for his opinion when everyone else talked over him.

# 𝗖𝗔𝗡𝗢𝗡 𝗘𝗩𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗦 જ⁀➴

she is his comfort place, even if she is just loud like the other members she has that older sister energy that brings comfort in him

tries to bring her into meditation but she is too iperactive for that

he is helping her to learn mandarin

[ladycaramelswirl]

It Happened in Texas

Aaron Hotchner x Fem Reader ❤︎ Chapter 1: Apparently you have a magnet for shitty bosses

series masterlist

A/N: For plot purposes, Haley is not in the picture, but Jack does appear later in the story. Also I gave Strauss some of Linda Barnes’s personality so she’s really annoying :)

Tags/Warnings: mentions of violence typical to Criminal Minds. This becomes a comedy in chapter 2, but chapter 1 is very world/character-buildy, sorry 😭 It gets funnier I swear 🤡

The case in this chapter is loosely based on s3e8.

word count: 2k

Enjoy! 🤍

❤︎❤︎❤︎❤︎❤︎❤︎❤︎❤︎❤︎❤︎❤︎❤︎❤︎❤︎

“Absolutely not”.

The dark-haired man tries to rein in his barely concealed anger at his boss, who, honestly, you weren’t exactly a huge fan of right now either. He gestures to you.

“I don’t know anything about her. It’s my job to decide whether someone is a good fit for the team”, he scowls. Frankly, you’re impressed that he hasn’t exploded.

“Agent Hotchner, I have hired her because I think she’s perfectly capable of doing the job”. 

You swallow a scoff. Sure. That’s why.

“My decision is final. And you have a case to get to”, Strauss snaps.

Agent Hotchner glares at her as she walks away. Then he turns his stare to you. 

“We’re leaving for a case in 10 minutes. Do you have your go bag?”, he asks, not unkindly.

“Yes sir.”

He nods and walks towards the BAU bullpen. You follow him. 

“I trust you’ll keep this altercation between us”, he tells you. “I don’t want the team to be distracted”.

“Yes, sir”.

“Just call me Hotch.”

“Yes, s- Hotch”.

He’s being pretty nice given the situation he’s been put in. But you wonder, not for the first time today, if you should have turned down this job.

————————————

15 minutes ago

“Come in”.

You step into the office of the blonde woman you’d interviewed with. She had been quite pleasant then.

“Assistant Director Strauss”, you greet her.

“Agent. Take a seat. I’d like to discuss some things before I introduce you to your unit chief”.

You wonder what the unit chief is like. You’d heard great things about Aaron Hotchner from your former colleagues. 

“As I’m sure you know this position at the BAU is a highly coveted opportunity”, she starts.

“Yes ma’am”.

“I’d like you to be comfortable here, so I hope we can work together to make that happen”.

Oh?

“Thank you ma’am. I’ll do my best.”

“Excellent! I’ll be expecting an additional personal report for all of your cases.”

“I’m sorry?”

She smiles at you like you’re stupid.

“Agent Hotchner might run a tight ship, but it’s my job to make sure it runs smoothly”, she tells you. “So I just need you to give me details about your cases. No need to mention it to Agent Hotchner, just write the report and send it straight to me.”

“You want me to report on the team? Without telling them?”

This was not what you signed up for.

She laughs mirthlessly. 

“It’s just a report agent. Think of it as a … peer evaluation. I just want to make sure there’s no issues. I’m sure you would understand. Especially after what happened in Houston?”

You grit your teeth. Of course she knew.

“Yes ma’am”.

You try to smile.

“I knew I was right to hire you”, she says. 

You both know you’re only here because she was the only one who accepted your transfer request. 

“Agent. If this conversation leaves this room, you’ll have to understand why I can no longer keep you on this team”.

Fantastic. You were already getting threatened on your first day. 

You plaster on a smile.

“Of course.”

She smiles back, just as fake.

“Great. Now I’ll introduce you to Agent Hotchner. You’ll have to forgive him for his … attitude”, she says contemptuously. “He’s going through a rough time”.

And now your boss was moody too? You were regretting come here by the second. 

Strauss presses the intercom button on her phone.

“Send him in”.

The door is opened by a tall, handsome man. He’s maybe in his late 30s, and he’s well dressed. He has authority figure written all over him, but he looks confused to see you.

“Assistant Director?”, he greets. You suspect it’s not often that he’s walked into a situation where he doesn’t know what’s happening. An exception being right now.

“Agent Hotchner, come in. I’d like you to meet Agent Y/L/N”.

He stretches a hand forward and you shake it. 

“Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise”.

He looks at Strauss. 

“What is this about?”

Strauss looks like she’s holding back a grin. 

“She’ll be joining the BAU effective immediately”.

Agent Hotchner looks like he’s just been handed a bomb.

———————————— 

Present

He doesn’t talk to you at all as you’re climbing into the jet. The team don’t pretend to hide their shock at your arrival. Hotch quickly introduces you and then takes a seat at the back. You politely smile at their wide eyes, but inside you try to fight the urge to turn around and go kick Strauss in the shin. She didn’t even tell them she was hiring you. Unbelievable. This day could not get any worse. The team starts asking you all sorts of questions. Hotch cuts them off.

“That’s enough. Brief us on the case JJ”.

They all follow his directive immediately. A pretty blonde woman who must be JJ hands everyone on the team a file. There’s a pause as everyone realises you don’t have one, because she didn’t know you would be here. A dark haired woman who introduces herself as Emily offers to share hers with you. You smile at her gratefully and try to be invisible as JJ briefs the team. 

—————————

Your first case is in Bridgewater, Florida. A girl has been found with her body eaten by alligators, her fingers cut off and a pentagram carved into her chest. It’s not exactly a great first day welcome. Hotch comes back from the coroner’s office with news that the victim had been force fed fingers before her death. And that none of them were hers, and six of them are index fingers. Remember when you thought your day couldn’t get any worse? This was definitely worse. You wince at the news and Emily looks at you with concern.

“You okay?”

You nod, but notice JJ and Agent Morgan discreetly share a dubious look. The latter turns to face you. 

“Field offices aren’t exactly the same as the BAU. If you’re not up to it-“

“I’m fine. I’d just like to catch the guy that did this”, you tell him. 

You refuse to look weak or feed into the suspicion that you don’t deserve to be here. Morgan stares at you before nodding in agreement and moving away to look over some files. You do the same to avoid any more conversation, and then notice something strange. You pull out a photo.

“This crime scene shows the books the victim was carrying were arranged into a neat row. This specific placement could suggest the unsub was at some point in a mental institution”.

Morgan looks doubtful, but still takes a look. 

Agent Reid springs up. “Of course! When the severely mentally ill are institutionalised, they’re taught to keep things clean and neat to promote order, exactly like the books in that photo!”

You’re a little speechless at his enthusiasm, but it seems his confirmation convinces the team, who now look a little less skeptical about your abilities. They call Garcia to check for names and update Hotch. Garcia calls back about a specific mental institution for a case like the one you’re looking for. Hotch immediately stands up to leave.

“Reid, let’s go”, he orders. The young genius scuttles after him. 

They find a name for the unsub, Floyd Feylinn Ferrel - a cannibal that believes he’s possessed by a flesh eating demon. He was also at the search party earlier to look for a missing girl. The team finds him, but one victim is still missing - Tracy Lambert. Floyd refuses to talk without Father Marks, the priest at his church. They bring him into the interrogation room with Morgan while you and Rossi pore over the sign in sheets from the search party. You frown. 

“Somethings wrong”, you mutter. The older agent looks at you in confusion.

“He signed the volunteer sheet, but not the search team sheet. It doesn’t make sense”, you say, handing him the papers. Usually unsubs joined the search team. Why would he just volunteer to be there?

“Father, I feel so alone. Like God has abandoned me”, Floyd laments. 

The priest shakes his head kindly. “You are not alone, my son. God is in all of us”.

Your stomach drops as you see exactly what Floyd had volunteered for - the food station. 

“We need to stop the interview”, you panic, flinging open the interrogation room door. 

Floyd stares right at you and grins. 

“So is Tracy Lambert”.

—————————

The plane ride back is quiet. You thankfully hadn’t eaten anything at the search, but you still feel nauseous. Is this what all BAU cases were like? Maybe it wasn’t too late to reapply somewhere else? Your unit chief interrupts your thoughts.

“Good job today Reid, we wouldn’t have caught him if you hadn’t noticed the books”, he says. You freeze in your seat, but the younger agent doesn’t notice your discomfort. In fact he barely looks up from his book to correct the unit chief. 

“Actually it wasn’t me that figured it out. It was y/n”.

Hotch looks taken aback and he turns to you, which leads to some awkward eye contact. He looks pained, but he gives you a nod and then moves to the back of the plane. 

Emily nudges your elbow from her seat next to yours. 

“You did good today. He’ll come around”, she tells you. 

“I really didn’t know that no one was informed of my transfer-”, you try to explain, but she stops you.

“I know better than anyone how you feel right now. As long as you do your job and are loyal to the team, everything’s going to be fine”. 

You nod. 

“Look, today was a rough case. We’re going for drinks when we land. Want to come?”, she offers.

You think about the report you’re about to write for Strauss tonight, detailing everything that just happened today. It’s going to take you hours to make sure it doesn’t incriminate anyone on the team. 

“No, I’m tired, but thanks. You guys have fun”.

On the drive home, you realise that you won’t ever be friends with them. You were a spy, even if you didn’t want to be. 

You had come here to escape. Instead, you had just traded one prison for another. 

————————————

Emily enters Penelope’s office to pick her up before drinks.

Penelope greets her with a guilty look.

“Ok. I did something, but don’t be mad. I looked into her file”.

“Pen!”

“What? She’s new, I don’t like new. And we don’t know anything about her. Don’t you want to know how she got hired without Hotch’s approval?”

Emily raises an eyebrow.

“I was hired without Hotch’s approval.”

Penelope gives her puppy eyes and Emily gives in.

“Fine. What did you find?”

The analyst practically lights up.

“Ok, so she graduated the FBI academy with high scores. Went straight to the Houston field office and she was very good at her job - excellent peer reviews and high scores on all of her evaluations”, Penelope starts, putting all of your personal data onto her screen. “Almost everything about her is perfect. Except-“, she clicks on a file. “About two months ago she suddenly requested a transfer to basically every department that was hiring and got rejected by almost all of them. Except ours”. 

Emily frowns. “She has stellar performance evaluations but no one wants to hire her? And why was she so desperate to transfer?”

“Yeah, I thought that was weird too, so I looked into it, but there’s nothing. Except that in her last month at Houston, she isn’t listed on a single one of their cases.”

“None?”

“It’s like she didn’t exist, but she was there every day, I checked her attendance and it’s flawless”.

Emily presses her lips together. She remembers how much she had tried to seal her own history. 

“I don’t think we should be looking anymore. If whatever happened isn’t in the database, then we aren’t meant to see it. She’ll tell us when she’s ready”.

Penelope looks apprehensive, but she closes the files. 

“She’s really nice! And she’s good, she helped us solve the case today”, Emily tries to convince the IT specialist. 

“I’m telling you something is fishy”.

Emily might not say it out loud, but she definitely agreed.

❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎

Chapter 2

[octosan]

I've been wanting to find a way to articulate more of my thoughts about what Veilguard ultimately did with Solas and why it feels like they did and did not take him out of character to me, because said thoughts are a mess.

And fair warning that this is going to be critical of Veilguard (and Inquisition a little bit) because essentially I feel like what they did is soft-retconned key parts of the narrative to make Solas both more sympathetic and less sympathetic in ways that are (imo) a disservice to the character.

Let me explain,

Part 0: This is the page I am on

First off let me open by saying that I always thought of Solas as someone who, in regards to his main plans, knew exactly what he was doing. I think it makes the most sense that someone who has been waging a war against vastly more powerful opponents for literal millennia be intelligent, decisive, manipulative, and unwilling to leave things to chance. I think it makes the most sense for such a person to rarely be wrong in evaluating and executing his intended plans, because against someone with literal godlike power being wrong would presumably mean being dead.

I also think it makes the most sense that such a person, who was continually given extremely difficult choices during his years of leadership, to have gained a level of ruthlessness that few other characters in the setting can claim. I think it makes sense that such a character could become horrendously bigoted, as well as jaded, by their own (again, millennia of) negative life experience. I think it makes sense for such a character to become proud to a fault, convinced that they are correct in what they do, even at times when they don't want to be.

At the same time, Solas is also portrayed as being highly principled. At least, I think that was Weekes' intention with the character. You can see at multiple points in Inquisition, through banter and approval, what things he feels the most strongly about and how he does not like to compromise on them. Protecting and nurturing free will, doing your duty to your people, and never doing harm (without a good cause rlly important clause there lmao) are common points suggested with him. Slavery in all its forms is a particularly sore point with him.

I've always thought that Solas' biggest flaws interacted with his guiding principles in interesting ways. That both combined to make him into an extremely dangerous, but understandable (if not sympathetic) antagonist.

I don't vibe with takes that all of Solas' principles are a smokescreen and he's just selfish or just nursing a bruised ego. Don't get me wrong, he says some thoughtlessly cruel things in Inquisition that I can see why the most critical fans feel the ways they do about him. But imo there's a lot of stuff he says and does that is narratively meaningless if caring about people (his people first and foremost, but other people as well) is not a core part of his character. For all his flaws, I personally never got the impression that this was the intention.

Though I also don't vibe with takes that Solas, in his goals and plans to achieve them, is objectively correct either. I think a lot of it comes down to what Solas' actual plan for the veil is and why he's tearing it down in the first place.

Part 1: Solas' Plan (and Lack Thereof)

Veilguard portrays (or at least casts judgement on) a version of Solas who is going at the Veil without much of an actual plan. He is demonstrated as having made a prison to keep the Evanuris from escaping when it comes down, yes, but that's clearly a side concern. He claims he will try to minimize the damage to Thedas, and this is explained to mean that he planned to have spirits intervene to protect people from demons, which is an extremely uncertain method of limiting casualties.

The game refuses to even address what he thinks is going to happen to the elves when the Veil comes down. To go by Epler's AMA response, he seems to just be blindly assuming that all elves will become immortal again when exposed to that much magic, and the game does not suggest one way or the other if that is actually true--the motive to give elves back their immortality is only even suggested in one missable sidequest cutscene.

It's very strange to me that now, with the story finished and the franchise never planning to come back to it, we still don't get an elaboration on what Solas planned. What he was expecting to happen. Unless I missed it, the only explanations we get of what will happen when the Veil comes down, and thus the only thing we can accept as being true, is that the world will be "flooded with demons" and the result of this will be that "thousands of people" will die, and ostensibly the elves will regain their immortality (and command of magic, but iirc even that isn't stated and is just an assumption.)

I absolutely did not think that was the entirety of Solas' plan to bring back the old world. You know why I didn't think that?

Because we heard Solas' original plans in Inquisition.

Low approval dialogue, if you argue with Solas that he should be helping the elves, has this gem of a line:

PC: The man who has lived half his life in the Fade has no ideas? Solas: Not unless we collapse the Veil and bring the Fade here so I can casually reshape reality, no.

At the time, this line is treated as sarcasm or an intentionally absurd suggestion he made because he's irritated with you. But in Trespasser, once you learn the truth about who he is, there is another line of dialogue that suggests that this was actually what Solas intended initially.

PC: What would have happened if Corypheus had died and you’d recovered the orb? Solas: I would have entered the Fade, using the mark you now bear. Then I would have torn down the Veil. As this world burned in the raw chaos, I would have restored the world of my time… the world of the elves.

Isn't this wild?

His plan was actually even worse than Veilguard suggested it to be. It's not that he's okay with some collateral damage to (somehow) restore the elves. He was okay with the entirety of Thedas as being collateral damage. To me it doesn't even sound like the demons themselves would have been the problem, moreso the primordial energy that would spill back in.

And we'll get into what else Trespasser suggested about his plan in Part 2 but the point is that the Veil coming down is portrayed as only being step 1, and step 2 is something that Solas has to guide himself. Even the ending of Veilguard suggests this a little bit? I don't know if intentionally, though. Solas, in the ending where you attack him, has a throwaway line about the "enchantments" needing a "delicate touch" as he goes to finish his ritual, which strikes me as an odd thing to say when the Veil was already falling down and that was the only part of his plan that the game dwelled on. It only makes sense in light of the Trespasser conversation, but I feel like the rest of the game ignores parts of the Trespasser conversation, so I don't know what to think.

Veilguard just isn't interested in exploring what this guidance on Solas' part looks like or what it would actually do to the world. It's content to be vague about it. I am not. I did not want it to stay vague at this last stage of the story.

What enchantments? What are the limits to this reality reshaping he mentioned in Inquisition? How did he intend to restore the Old World? How, specifically, did he think this would be helping the elves? Is there a way that the Veil can come down and not kill everyone in Thedas?

The intelligence of Solas' plan, and therefore his character, depends on the answers to these questions and I never got them! The game won't reward me for making assumptions on them either because the overriding narrative here is "the Veil can't come down, no matter what" so there's no reason to examine what he wants to do with it.

I also think it's weird that they changed it to a comparatively flimsier "thousands of people will die" anyway. I've seen multiple players point out that likely way more people died in the Double Blight that came from disrupting Solas' ritual than the amount of people the characters say would have died if we hadn't. Players who suggest that the resultant disruption to Thedas was so great and the Veil coming down so undersold as a threat that they actually blame Rook not helping Solas with his ritual in the beginning. Which is obviously not the narrative the devs wanted here. If they'd made it clear that Solas planned to destroy all/most of modern Thedas (even if reluctantly) then we wouldn't have this dissonance with players so much, I think.

But in regards to "getting him his goals", I think the intelligence of the plan also relies on figuring out what those goals even are. Veilguard was not terribly interested in those either.

Part 2: Solas' Motivations (and Lack Thereof)

Much like Veilguard evades telling the player what specifically Solas was planning to do with the Veil coming down, it also doesn't really touch on his motivations?

Harding suggests at the opening that he wants to bring back the old world because it is "beautiful". Solas himself claims he has to take down the Veil purely because it is "unnatural", a neutral fact that doesn't address anything, and because it is a "wound" on the world, a negative phrase which is nonetheless not defined. What does it mean that it's a wound? What is happening to Thedas because the Veil is in place? What are the ramifications of leaving it up? I saw little explanation of that in this game, despite previous entries leaving a lot of interesting details to draw on.

We know from the introduction that Solas bringing the Veil up made the elves mortal and destroyed their world, and one of the mural cutscenes suggests that taking it down might give elves their immortality back. So that's another one.

But his main motivation in Veilguard is presented to be simply the fact that Solas regrets having put it up in the first place. In the ending of the game, when he is trying to explain his reasons to (potentially) the literal love of his life who is begging him to stop what he's doing, the reason Solas gives is that if he doesn't take down the Veil then Mythal will have died for nothing. It's the Sunken Cost Fallacy. Yes, he also says that he will "destroy the world [Mythal] loved" but he doesn't elaborate on what this means, just like the "wound" comment, even when it would have been extremely relevant and helpful to his cause to lay his cards on the table here and be honest about what he wants if there is more to it.

So players who have never played prior games are forced to conclude that Solas has no good reason to take down the Veil.

Which might work well enough for Veilguard's narrative of Solas, but it certainly makes his "don't you think if I had another way I would have done it?" to Varric and his "I would treasure the chance to be proven wrong" to a friendly Inquisitor meaningless phrases in retrospect. I personally don't find it more compelling when a heretofore intelligent and principled character breaks their principles for no good reason. I prefer a principled antagonist who breaks their principles for an understandable reason, a reason that the protagonists will have to put in real work to challenge if their goal is to redeem said antagonist.

And I think prior to Veilguard, Solas' motivations were ones that were worth challenging.

Part 2A: Solas' People (and Lack Thereof)

For example, he wants to bring down the Veil to help spirits. There is dialogue between him and the Inquisitor early on that in the days of Elvhenan, spirits were everywhere in the waking world because the waking world was filled with magic. Cole in Trespasser can suggest this too, as a spirit Cole is ecstatic to realize that he "belongs" in the mortal world as much as he does the Fade once they learn that the two were once the same thing. There is an implication that spirits who wish to visit the mortal world become demons because they can't do so without possessing something (unless they are extremely powerful.) Similarly, in Inquisition many spirits were forcibly pulled into the mortal world and twisted into demons in places where the Veil was torn, because they couldn't handle the existential crisis that is a world without magic. The most spirits who show up in Thedas in this setting, do so in places where the Veil is thin, and the Veil is only ever thin in places of great suffering, meaning those spirits reflect that suffering themselves.

Not only does Veilguard never examine this concept as one of Solas' motivations, but they seem to have tried very hard to erase the validity of it from previous games. You would not know, playing Veilguard, that most spirits cannot enter the mortal world without a physical vessel, or that the Veil has been detrimental for spirits. Spirits are all over the Crossroads, and the implication is that they could always go there. You encounter plenty of them in Rivain, Nevarra, and Tevinter, and they are happy, healthy, free, uncontained to a vessel, and even largely capable of retaining their selves under pressure. This is entirely at odds with previous depictions of Thedas and its relationship with spirits. Yes, Nevarra and Rivain have more welcoming cultures and so it makes a little more sense (though not terribly so imo) for you to see more of them around and treated better, but it's not like anyone acknowledges this as outside the norm for the rest of Thedas. Inquisition in particular made a point about how much people hate and distrust them because they're such an unknown to mortals. In Tevinter, they are technically as much victims of magister slavery as elves, at least so Dorian and Solas' banter suggests.

Solas wanting to make the world better for spirits is a particularly important goal for him in retrospect because he was once a spirit, so it's a low blow to his character that it's never acknowledged in this game about stopping him.

But anyway, now we have the whole deal with the elves. This is where I see a lot of the discussion divide. I've seen people argue that Solas should have been allowed to enact his plan because it would end the very real oppression and cultural genocide that elves are facing, and I've seen people say that his plan would not have actually helped the elves at all and so it was a bad plan. I'm not sure how I feel about these takes.

Mostly because I personally did not think that Solas' plan, at least initially, was to end the oppression of elves. I think that if he'd been allowed to carry his plan out, the oppression of elves would end, but only because the entirety of Thedas' oppressive power structures would cease to exist along with its society. I did not think his true goal was to give modern elves their immortality back either, though I guess I can say I judged him wrong on that front in Veilguard. I thought, at best, that helping modern elves became a secondary goal for him later down the line, once he realized modern Thedosians are people--and for a low approval Solas may he rest in retconned peace it was a benefit to help him recruit. In The Dread Wolf Take You, for example, he does have a comment to Charter that the "elves that remain" like her might think his world is a better place when he's done. This could have been a lie to let her think better of his goal, or it could have been the truth and his intention was to somehow spare at least some of the elves what is coming.

The reason I believe that it is only secondary, however, is because Solas for most of Inquisition does not consider modern elves to be his people. He makes it clear he does not identify with the Dalish early on, but even when it comes to non-Dalish elves, which he ostensibly is, he has this line towards the Inquisitor after the Wicked Hearts quest:

PC: I hope Briala uses her position to help your people. Solas: How would helping Briala help… Oh, you mean elves! Solas: I’m sorry, I was confused. I do not consider myself to have much in common with the elves.

PC: Nor should you. You’re not defined by the shape of your ears. They’re not your people. Solas: No, they are not.

This whole exchange can be kind of dfgkdfkgksd ehhh but I think the salient point is that Solas does not identify with modern elves and slipped up when he made this clear.

And yet, he does have people, he isn't just a solitary misanthrope like he tries to shake that off with. He clearly does have people and moreover it is for them that he is doing what he's doing.

Trespasser has this line, for example:

PC: You’d murder countless people? Solas: Wouldn’t you, to save your own?

Consider also that there is an aspect to his motivations that he deliberately refused to tell the Inquisitor at the end of Trespasser.

PC: Why does this world have to die for the elves to return? Solas: A good question, but not one I will answer. Solas (high approval): You have always shown a thoughtfulness I respected. It would be too easy to tell you too much. Solas (low approval): You will survive this day, Inquisitor, and though I owed you an explanation, I will not give you tools to use against me.

I find this exchange so very interesting. There is a reason why the restoration of his world has to result in the end of ours, but he won't tell us because he believes it would give us the tools to stop him. Even on low approval he is comfortable with us knowing that he intends to destroy the world, but not the reason why he has to.

As far as I can tell Veilguard didn't do anything interesting with this. But originally I thought it had to do specifically with his people, the ancient immortal elves, and what he would do to get them back. To bring it back to a previous point, I did not think that it was just in giving the modern day elves their immortality back because I can't see how telling the Inquisitor this would give them the tools to use against him, especially if you yourself are an elf.

I know I saw some people speculate that Solas was trying to bring them back with time travel, as a reference to the Hushed Whispers quest, but even though I could see the Dragon Age devs doing that because the time travel stuff was silly in the first place and yet they decided it was a good plot point anyway I didn't think that was it either? It didn't feel thematically punchy enough.

And as a warning the next section will be getting into more speculative territory, but

Part 2B: The Ancient Elvhen (and Lack Thereof)

So, I don't think it's a huge secret that Inquisition presented the idea that the immortal elves of Arlathan never entirely went away.

We see this in the fact that there are immortal elves, obviously. Solas, Felassan, Abelas, and the rest of the sentinels at the Temple of Mythal are all elves who lived in the days of Arlathan, and yet are still alive thousands of years later, walking about in modern day Thedas. Furthermore, Solas in particular hints to Abelas that there are even more immortal elves than him. Consider the fact that if you're a Lavellan in the temple, Abelas distinctly denies that you number among his people, and in fact if I'm remembering rightly, calls you a shemlen regardless of your race.

And yet when speaking with Solas, he has this to say:

Solas: There are other places, friend. Other duties. Your people yet linger. Abelas: Elvhen such as you? Solas: Yes. Such as I.

Solas who is, of course, an immortal elf. It's even possible that he is one Abelas knows personally, given the importance Solas once had to Mythal. My Lavellan listening to that like wtf :(

Consider also the banter that Solas can have with Cole, if you romanced him and got to the breakup scene after this quest:

Cole: He hurts, an old pain from before, when everything sang the same. Cole: You're real, and it means everyone could be real. It changes everything, but it can't. Cole: They sleep, masked in a mirror, hiding, hurting, and to wake them... (Gasps.) Where did it go? Solas: I apologize, Cole. That is not a pain you can heal.

This banter is never examined in Veilguard! Who is hiding? Who is hurting? The fact that "waking" them is on the table suggests to me that it is sleeping elves, perhaps like the sentinels who only woke to defend Mythal's temple and slept the rest of the time. In the context of Cole trying to explain to Lavellan why Solas broke up with her (and more important, Solas wanting to make sure she does not know this information,) I thought this line referred specifically to Solas' true people, the reason he was doing all of this.

The idea that there are other ancient elves out there, sleeping somewhere, suffering for some reason, as they wait for the Dread Wolf to bring the Veil down and wake them. The "masked in a mirror" part felt especially interesting to me because there's a part in the Masked Empire novel where Briala and Felassan (among other people) come across a couple elves that were allegedly sleeping in Uthenara, in a location they were only able to get to by traveling the Crossroads, which are located through eluvians. In that scene, Felassan gets very upset to see that these particular elves have apparently been killed in their sleep.

It makes me wonder if this is why Solas had to hide this possibility from the Inquisitor at all costs, especially from a low-approval Inquisitor. His motivations for doing all of this are the countless elves, his version of elves, who are scattered all over and currently helpless as they sleep. I can't help but imagine that a particularly desperate modern Thedosian might consider if removing the Dread Wolf's reason to bring down the Veil might not be the only way of stopping him from doing it.

Veilguard doesn't follow up on any of these plot threads. In fact, someone who has never read the novel might even come away from the game with the impression that Solas and the Evanuris are the only immortal elves that survived to Modern Thedas, as even Felassan's role in The Masked Empire is obscured from the player.

It's a shame because if they'd kept this plot point relevant it would have been a major challenge to overcome in persuading Solas not to bring down the Veil. Presuming he is talking about the ancient elves, Cole's dialogue suggests to me that it is the process of waking them, or some element of it, which necessitates that Solas destroy the rest of Thedas.

This brings up an important question, potentially even a difficult choice. Which society do you think is worth saving? Would you be willing to let an entire people sleep and suffer for eternity just to preserve your way of life? Could you convince Solas to allow that? Solas, who sees Thedas as so corrupt and terrible to elves and spirits, who fought so hard to give his fellow elves a more ideal world which never came to fruition?

Also yes the sleeping and suffering to preserve your way of life thing IS ironic because that is exactly what he did to the titans but the game was so uninterested in exploring that too.

And like, to be clear, I never thought that Dragon Age would actually have the player make that kind of terrible choice. Even in Origins you were sometimes given the chance to take a third option that benefited everyone if you did a bit of digging. And both Inquisition and the opening of this game teased the idea of you convincing Solas there was another way. I guess what that third option actually looked like would have depended on more specifics. Mainly, why waking them requires that modern Thedas be destroyed.

Ehh I wonder if any of this was even on the table when Trespasser was written. Maybe I read it all wrong.

Edit: crying and screaming because I apparently DID NOT read it wrong and Veilguard did intentionally retcon that plot point.

-----------

All in all, I personally did not really have a problem with what Solas was willing to do in this game. But when it came to the "why", I found myself really struggling with it after thinking about it for a while.

At the very least, I feel as though what I speculated above would have made Solas' motivations more understandable, even if, again, it did not ultimately make them sympathetic. Going just by what is shown in the game, Solas' actual motivations in Veilguard are not nearly as understandable to me, especially because not even a single elf or spirit is shown as wanting him to do it dfkgksdfk.

And clearly that is what they wanted for this narrative, but I can't believe it makes him more compelling as an antagonist in the franchise as a whole. I like him as a classic trolley problem dude.

Also he literally ignored Mythal when she told him not to do it in the regret mural and yet it's Mythal telling him he doesn't have to do it later that finally makes him stop? I guess Flemythal didn't realize the code word was "I release you from my service" or smth

Also,

Idk man. Thinking about it and I'm still so sad the ancient elves were a dropped plot point. I guess it's possible, with all the racism already shoved offscreen in this game, that onscreen racial tension between even these two different factions of elves was too tall an order.

[armor-goblin]

okay given how fucking weird and rapid-fire everything is (already, has been for ages) and to remind myself too: We Need To Learn To Fact Check.

i am talking about anything we see about trumps antics and I am talking about international news and I am talking about local news and I am talking about nearly everything in our lives. it is tiring, and takes more effort. but i think this is the only way we get thru the world right now, is by checking what we share however we can. it won't guarantee we are sharing only accurate info, but it DOES help us focus on sharing more accurate stuff and not buying into mis and disinfo.

Context/why i know this: im an academic librarian. I teach classes and do research on misinformation and media literacy among other topics, and i teach about authority of information and finding and evaluating info all the time. when I teach people to evaluate information i use Mike Caulfield's SIFT method, which is great and adaptable, and consists of these four moves:

STOP. this is the most important one. it just means: take two seconds before you click reblog or share smth. ask yourself: what is my emotional reaction to this content? what does it want me to do with this post or information?

do I know this is true - bc I've already checked into it before or I know something related to it that corroborates it - or am I far enough removed from the situation that I don't really know? for ex: I know gazans fundraise on tumblr bc i have tunblr, and that conditions in gaza are awful bc of both user posts and news coverage I've seen. I don't have tiktok or see much from it that isnt reposted, so I paused more before sharing that last post bc im less aware of the cjrcumstances.

INVESTIGATE THE SOURCE. where did this come from and do I know that source of information? can i identify the author not just the website it was shared from? what position is this person in to know what's going on? they might have expertise, education, a job, they might also just be in a place where things are happening (ukraine, gaza, los angeles, etc) or have access to a place where things are happening (tiktok, for ex).

FIND ADDITIONAL COVERAGE. if this is the only place you've heard about an event or statement, look and see if there are others reporting on it. sometimes you are looking for broad coverage (lots and lots of reporters and civilians have reported on the conditions in Gaza independently) and sometimes for very specific coverage (i wanted to see more than one screenshot of the TikTok ban msg before I believed it was real), but what you really want is to see if others are talking about and reporting on something.

this is called lateral reading btw and it's a really critical piece of fact checking.

TRACE CLAIMS TO THEIR SOURCE. who was the first to say this? where did they say it? was it misinterpreted along the way? the internet is a giant game of telephone and messages get distorted. this one is particularly important if you're not finding additional coverage AND/OR if the coverage is all weirdly samey.

highly specific example here: in 2020 there was a brief time when ppl were saying that ibuprofen was dangerous for covid and could heighten your risk. i am ibuprofens georg and I was on it 2x/day high dose at the time, so this could be a problem for me. so I started citations tracing - following citations and references and news posts and academic preprints. and finally found a brief and uncited Twitter post from a French health minister that appeared to be the original source, and along the way I found NO other corroborating info that wasn't citing that specific quote in the end. and thus. I took my ibuprofen.

this part takes time and effort more than anything else, but it's also often illuminating. I dont always go all the way to TRACE. but I have that move in my pocket for when I need to. it is very similar to a wikipedia rabbit hole where you start somewhere and end somewhere very different - but if you looked at your browser history you'd see all the pages you clicked to get there.

thats SIFT! you don't have to do each move for every post u see. if you take anything as a habit, start from the top and just STOP for a second before you share or repeat something wild. ask yourself about it a little. this is what i consider the most vital step, and it makes it easier to do the others in time.

we can't know everything. we will sometimes share misinformation by accident. we will sometimes share malicious disinformation by accident too. but I think we owe it to ourselves to try and build these habits, and it makes it a little harder for the people in power to convince us of whatever they want this week. it makes us more skeptical and more informed. these are always relevant skills and they're more and more important every day.

[quokkaholic]

Ruin You k.s

Warnings: mafia/organized crime, cussing, alcohol consumption, mutual stalking, emotionless/kinda crazy seungmin, fluff i guess, kiss at the end

Synopsis: HEAVILY inspired by the anime Yakuza Fiance ep. 10 (once again, get into it). While working in an organized crime ring, you are assigned an aloof new partner. Despite working together for a while, you haven’t been able to gather any information about him, and his flip flopping disposition from lukewarm to icy leaves you unsure what to think about him. After tracking Seungmin down, you finally find out how he feels towards you after months of uncertainty.

⋇⋆✦⋆⋇ ⋇⋆✦⋆⋇ ⋇⋆✦⋆⋇ ⋇⋆✦⋆⋇ ⋇⋆✦⋆⋇ ⋇⋆✦⋆⋇ ⋇⋆✦⋆⋇

When you were assigned Kim Seungmin as a partner in literal crime, you were less than excited to say the least. You were used to working alone and liked it that way, but you were starting to rise in the ranks and take on more serious jobs. Being born into a criminal family, your uncle, a high standing member himself, insisted you take a partner. You tried everything to avoid it. The first person they assigned to you was found unconscious in her hotel room before her first day. Doctors say she was poisoned; they never found the culprit. The second person simply stopped showing up to work. No one ever found out what happened to them. The third guy was accidentally left behind at an opposition hideout after a raid. Everyone swore he was in the car, but by the time you pointed out he wasn’t in the car, there was no time to turn around. Despite there being no evidence of the heinous acts you committed in the name of wanting solitude, whispers began to spread precisely as you desired. Hopefully, this would show truly what you were capable of in order to get what you wanted, but when word reached your uncle, he did not see it as savage acts of determination. To him, it was simply childish disobedience. Never allowing another member of the clan to lay even a finger on you, you were harshly punished by his own hand. 

When you had recovered and returned to the scene, you had a meeting with your uncle and this Kim Seungmin. Him and Uncle talk for a while, but tuned them out in favor of your own thoughts as you evaluate him. He’s a smooth talker, even Uncle isn’t immune, letting out a chuckle here and there. He was a humble kind of handsome, no one feature particularly stuck out, each equally stunning and working in harmony to create simultaneously the most devilishly and boyishly handsome face. Those looks must do wonders in this industry. The ability to lure people in with his tenderness before, at the flip of a switch, swapping his look of genuineness for that of intimidation and domineering. You are able to see that switch the literal moment you both step out of the office. Smiling and bowing as he shuts the door, by the time he rises upright again, his face had dropped, the kindness melting away and replaced with pure stoicism, unreadable and unsettling. This is the Seungmin you would become familiar with.

You received strict instructions to leave Kim out of your schemes and actually try to get to know him. In Uncle’s words “you work hard for people you care about”. It's that sentiment that has gotten him so far and well loved in this “career”. You have not been able to heed his direction but not for lack of trying; it is Seungmin that is not cooperating. You’ve been working together for months now, and you can honestly say, you know little of him besides his name and his uncanny ability to put “it” on around others. “It” being a mask of sincerity and friendliness that borders on unprofessional but is always received as real warmth and decency. It's frightening but admirable. He is highly strategic, using his selective charm to control those around him like pawns. 

Seugmin never cared enough to even attempt to use his wiles on you. Hell, he practically acts as if you don’t even exist, only speaking when spoken to and barely ever looking your way, but on the rare occasion that your eyes do meet, his empty, emotionless gaze pierces your soul. You end up avoiding his gaze in return. Even though you like the idea of your partner keeping to themselves, this is bordering on excessive. Your orders from Uncle mixed with aloof and enigmatic nature just make you crave to get to know him even more. You attempt to gather any crumb of information available, spending countless evenings researching, coming up empty handed everytime. Its like he didn’t exist before he joined your family. You can’t even use his habits to deduce information about him. He always orders something different when you end up eating together. Maybe he likes beer, but that really says nothing of his personality. He drives in complete silence. You’ve caught him having a smoke, but it's not consistent. He never gets picked up or dropped off; in fact, it's almost as if he appears when he’s needed and immediately vanishes when the jobs are done, never sticking around for debriefings or after work drinks.

Unlike you, he started to pick up on your routines, showing up to work with your coffee order or favorite soda or sending for lunch without consulting you. He somehow seems to always know what you want before you even do. His thoughtful gestures followed by apathy are really starting to mess with your head and maybe even heart. 

Recently, when he picked you up for an assignment in his blacked out BMW, there was a small gift bag in the passenger seat, simple and elegant, tissue paper expertly folded and poking out the top. You never told him that today was your birthday. Picking up the bag and taking its place before you shut the door behind you. 

“For me?” you ask, trying to coerce even a semblance of a conversation from his lips. He doesn’t respond, just shoots a cool glance your way. Carefully removing the paper, you find a box at the bottom with a luxury brand symbol embossed on the outside. There are a darling set of studs stuck in the velvet base of the box. You rarely change out your jewelry, but these will be a perfect replacement for the cheap little earrings you keep in your second hole piercings. They are just the right size and color to match your other piercings.You pull down the visor, open the mirror and put the earrings in. Admiring the shimmering as you tilt your head back and forth to catch the passing lights. You thank him, and he doesn’t have the decency to even say ‘you’re welcome’. 

A few weeks later, you are in your apartment looking for your scanner. The scanner was a gift from Uncle when you turned 18 and he finally allowed you to join the family business. It scans the area for tracking devices. He was so worried about you in the beginning, ordering you to use it twice a day. Even then, it was probably only once a week you'd use it, only ever picking up your neighbors’ airtags and chipped pets. Nowadays, you use it more like once a month. It was stowed under the couch; you unbox it and set it on the coffee table, hooking it up to your laptop. Starting the scan, you run to the kitchen to tend to the whistling kettle for your tea, but the kettle isn’t the only alarm sounding. An ominous beeping is coming from the computer, one you hadn’t heard before. The scanner has picked up on an unregistered device. It was close by. The blinking dot is practically on top of your current location. The scanner is great, but it's not accurate down to the foot, only showing that it is your building. No way someone has gotten into the apartment. Your very intense security system keeps track of everytime a door or window opens, and they are all accounted for. Is there any way it's you? No. There's no gaps in your memory, and you haven’t… slept anywhere but home, so it couldn’t have happened while you were unconscious. You are reluctant to call Uncle; you want to handle this on your own plus he would make a huge ordeal out of it, potentially restricting some of your freedoms in response. You sit and sip your tea while reading through your journal and walking through your movements since the last time you used the scanner. While lying awake in bed, it comes to you. The earrings. Kim, you sly dog. The question of ‘why?’ doesn’t even cross your mind; you know you’ll never be able to decode his actions, but you have a feeling this isn’t strictly for work purposes. Uncle would have never asked him to do this, knowing it would put a strain on your already contentious relationship. However, if anyone was to know your every move, you’d prefer it to be the haunting ghost that is your partner, often finding him to act more like your bodyguard than your equal. He essentially already knows everywhere you go,and taking them out might reveal that you have caught him. As of now, you don’t need a reason, you just need to get even.

The next morning you present Seungmin with his “thank you gift”. Staying up all night, you hand stitched it with a little surprise on the inside to match your own. There actually is one thing you learned about Seungmin, he likes to drive. He is always the one driving and declining your offers to relieve him of the duty. A key chain was perfect. You tied it with a little bow and presented it to him when you got in the car. 

“As a thank you for the earrings, Kim. It’s not fancy jewelry, but the value is in the sentiment” You’ve been taking notes on his feigned sincerity and try your best to be convincing. You even put on extra rouge this morning to sell an embarrassed flush. Snatching it from your grasp, he removes the bow before placing the plush keychain in his pocket. The next day, you notice the cartoon dog on his key ring hanging out of his crisply pleated trouser pocket. Success. You keep an eye on his location for the next few days, finding what must be his house, favorite convenience store, and the park he goes for daily walks in. There is a location not on the map that he frequents, sometimes multiple times. You allow your curiosity to flourish and have to check it out. Throwing on your best attempt at a disguise and borrowing one of the fleet cars you usually don’t use, an old flatbed truck, you head to the location at the time he is usually there. Finding yourself parked in a business district surrounded by highrises and hustling salarymen, you keep an eye out for Seungmin. Someone in our profession only finds themselves here to conduct business with the corrupt elite. There's no chance he was taking jobs without you. Was he working for someone else? Was he selling you out? Or worse, Uncle? He is late, but soon you see him strolling down the street from the station. Instead of entering any of the skyscrapers, he keeps walking until he reaches a cutely decorated door with a frilly hanging sign over it and a menu stand out front. Your head falls back onto the head rest, eyes screwed shut. It's a damn cafe. You see him swiftly exit the shop with a large iced coffee in hand. After Seungmin is long gone, you remain parked contemplating your actions. What the fuck you are doing here? Maybe you’ve become a little obsessive, but he started this. 

You two are assigned a job out of town. You’ve gone on business trips before, but unlike other times, you have never been to this city. It’s not really a problem, but it’d be nice to have at least one person you know nearby. You let Seungmin know that, expressing your apprehension about being alone in an unfamiliar place on someone else’s turf. Despite this, after the “discussion” you two had with a few guards and a ceo developing in your family’s historic stomping grounds, you go to the bathroom to wash up and tend to a slash on your thigh you hadn’t even noticed until now, but when you return to entrance, Seungmin is nowhere to be seen. You’re fucking kidding. Hailing a cab, you head back to your hotel grumbling to yourself the whole time. You thought you were actually making some progress with him. You exchanged gifts for fucks sake. Granted, it was to secretly stalk each other, but he doesn’t know that! You try to let your anger pass by taking a bath, but when you dry off and check his location and he is still not back, you reach your wit’s end. You impulsively decide to go to him and confront him about deserting you. 

You follow his ping to a filthy and dimly lit alley. Heading between the buildings and sidestepping some garbage and a man that is probably just sleeping, you come upon the back door to a bar with the clan symbol of another crime family that you recognize. It’s one your Uncle works with often. You can hear the bustling from outside, and when you open the door, you see a substantial crowd of tatted and gruff looking individuals. Instead of their probably typical vicious demeanours, the bar is full of laughter and cheers. It's a sweet sight, a bunch of criminals and outcasts getting to let loose without stigma. Taking in the room, you see Seungmin sitting at the bar, the only empty seats in the bar on either side of him and your “gift” off of his keyring and resting on the table. You approach and when he notices you out of the corner of his eye, he gulps down the rest of his beer and raises his hand for his bill. He stands and grabs his change and keychain. Walking past you he gives a small flick of his head towards the door signalling for you to follow him out. 

“Is your leg okay?” he asked. Seungmin initiating the conversation? He must’ve had a bit to drink waiting for you to find him. 

“Yeah, don’t worry”, you assure him.

“I always worry, y/n. I’m sorry”, his response makes your stomach drop. You think he might truly be sincere despite the lines of his face remaining flat as always. You have to force your feet to keep moving in order to keep up with his wide strides.

“What are you sorry about?” This man never makes any sense.

“A lot, i think” he mumbles, staring down at the ground walking so fast as if he's trying to evade you.

“That's a bullshit answer, Kim. You don’t have to apologize to me” This is one of the few conversations where it hasn’t felt like pulling teeth to get him to respond, but you can't resist giving him a bit of a hard time for all the time he has spent toying with your head.

“I tricked you. Thought you'd be angry with me”, he admits.

“I did some scummy stuff too” you admit gesturing towards the keychain he is still clinging to. He scoffs before responding,

“Yeah following me to my sister’s cafe was unexpected”

Stopping in your tracks, you stare at his back as he takes a few more steps ahead of you before halting  when he realizes you're not just trailing behind.

“You saw me?”

“Y/n, I’m honed in on you; I can just sense your presence, and even if that weren’t the case, you really thought I wouldn’t notice you in a mask, hat, and glasses? And the choice of car was… interesting”

“Damnit, I’m not a spy! I just wanted something you wouldn’t suspect me in” you try to defend your poor excuse for surveillance.

“I was definitely shocked, especially after I figured out how you found me”, giggling up the plush pup in the air, he continues, 

“I guess I got careless after receiving a gift from you.”

“If you knew it had a gps, why didn’t you get rid of it”, you questioned in astonishment, even though the same could be asked of you.

“What do you mean why? It was a gift. From you”, he says as if it was obvious. Like it was silly of you to even ask something like that. There's the tiniest glint of uncharacteristic fondness in his eyes, that alone is enough to tilt your world off axis. It's not the faux geniality you’ve seen hundreds of times, it feels…honest but also disconcerting. His wholeheartedness brings an anxiety of impending doom along with it.

“I was a little disappointed when I realized it wasn’t as kind of a gesture as I initially imagined,” he confesses.

“I only did it because you did it first. I’d get you real gifts if you let me know literally anything about you Seungmin!” You pause for a moment once you realize you’re starting to raise your voice and take a deep breath before going on,

“I thought you couldn’t care less for me, but… that doesn’t seem to be the case.” Now he is the one stunned.

“Of course I care about you. That's why I got you the earrings. I knew you’d love them, and it was a gift for me as well.” explaining as if he's spelling it out for you, eyes locked on yours.

“So, you’re not mad that I was tracking you? You thought it’d make me mad, so you must be, right?” You’re becoming desperate to solve this riddle of a man, turning down every avenue in your mind looking for his motivations.

“Why would I be mad?” he questions. 

“You’re so damn confusing. How do you feel then?” 

He doesn’t answer, just returns a hollow stare.

“You’re unreadable and I'm tired of guessing”

“Well I guess…you won’t get mad?” His expression fades back to his typical dead eyed darkness.

“I can’t promise anything” responding to him honestly. His hand comes up to tuck back your hair and he rests it under your ear with his warm thumb on your cheek contrasting the chilly night air. It seems like a sweet move until he splays his fingers to span the side of your head.

“I could just …” He says as he uses his finger tips to press and grip onto your skull. Your hand flies up to snatch his wrists away but he holds tight and you cut him off.

“You really want to do this with me?” challenging him. 

“No… I just.” frigid gaze boring into you,

“I have these moments… I don’t know how to explain it.” He loosens the pressure in his fingers and you relax your hold. Instead of his hand falling away, he slides it down to your neck. You don’t attempt to stop him, needing to hear what he has to say and entranced by his dispassion you have come to be fond of. You trust him. Shifting to have his fingers on one side and thumb on the other, he gives a firm squeeze forcing out a surprised and strangled gasp from your lips. 

“It's like I want to cherish you…” he steps closer. His tall frame towering over you. His free hand finds yours, gingerly intertwining your fingers as he stares unblinking. Mouth agape, you look up to him eager for him to finish his thought. 

“but sometimes I just want to ruin you.” You whisper your response so as to not strain your voice,

“If I had to choose, it would be cherished” with your words a smile spreads across his lips. Not the charming smile you’ve seen a hundred times, a disturbed smile that rattles you to your core. His real smile, frightening yet beautiful.

“Me too” Using his rough grip on your neck, he pulls you to his lips for the most tender and warming kiss you'd ever received. That night marked the beginning of a different kind of partnership between you and Seungmin.

⋇⋆✦⋆⋇ ⋇⋆✦⋆⋇ ⋇⋆✦⋆⋇ ⋇⋆✦⋆⋇ ⋇⋆✦⋆⋇ ⋇⋆✦⋆⋇ ⋇⋆✦⋆⋇

A.n-Thank you for reading! Might make a smutty part two to this eventually. 

Here is my smutty Han fic that is very lightly also inspired my yakuza fiance 

The Triangle From Hell

-mo :)

Masterlist 

[belit0]

Heylloooooo. How are you doinnn?

Can you do a scenario where the reader offers to trim the hair of the founder's + indra + izuna. Their hair is so much damaged due to all the jutsu they practice and negligence. So the reader offers them a relaxing shampoo and hair trim.

Hey there!! Extremely tired, but holding up. I'm having vacations soon, so looking forward to that!

How are you nonny? Feeling and doing okay? 🤗❣️

I found this request so cute and funny that I had to prioritize it, lol.

Indra

- "I don't require any of that, my hair is fine, that's highly feminine, humiliating." It will take a lot of convincing, but both using good words and managing him without letting Indra realize exactly what she is doing, (Y/N) gets her husband to surrender to her hands. The Otsutsuki does not agree to step full body into the bathtub, bent over the edge and resting his bare chest on the fine cold marble. His hair rains down on the water and is submerged to a certain length, while she uses a cup to wet his scalp. Somehow, impossible in the awkward position but apparently possible for him, he relaxes so much that he stops protesting, accepting the washing in silence. Between massages, (Y/N) inspects the damage, and concludes that it is a sin for a hair as beautiful as Indra's, with golden highlights, to look so dull. Although he maintains impeccable body hygiene, he has no idea how to take care of his mane, dry and brittle from all the battles he's been through. He hisses when the water is too hot, and tries to end the whole situation, but once he's knee-deep in it, there is no way to escape. Indra does not usually turn his back, show his neck, or allow anyone to approach him with sharp objects while he is vulnerable and without sight, but today he makes an exception. After all, is his wife who we are talking about. With the cut, he's adamant about her not reducing its length, proud of its iconic longness, and (Y/N) only succeeds in cutting off the split ends. When he looks in the mirror, he complains about losing a lot of hair, even though he genuinely hasn't. A tiny child, in the body of the worst villain of them all.

Madara

- "Yeah... that might be nice... let's see if it gets me out of stress." He surrenders himself to (Y/N)'s magical hands like a cat, allowing her to manipulate his hair and do whatever she wants with it. The girl suspects that if she were to chop off his mane like his father had it, as relaxed as Madara is in his special bath, he wouldn't even notice. Either way, she gives up the idea of playing a joke on him and concentrates on soothing her husband's scalp, bringing the unique pattern of his hair back to life, and restoring a bit of its shine. Gentle shampooing here, cream bathing there, soft drying to keep it damp enough to cut... The Uchiha actually falls asleep while his wife washes his hair, and (Y/N) appreciates how deeply he trusts her, enough to unwind under her fingers. When his mane is finally clean, she wakes him up to get out of the water, pulling him out of the bathtub and sitting him on a chair. With the scissors, she gets rid of all the unsalvageable parts, removing the fire-scorched hair and leaving only the healthy, reducing the length by considerable amounts. Madara, ignorant of any decision she might make about the size or style of her cut, reads a book while sipping a cup of tea, seated cross-legged like a gentleman. Solely dressed in his bathrobe and with his hair full of hooks to separate it in parts, he looks like a lady enjoying a day at the spa. When she finishes, he doesn't even bother to evaluate himself in the mirror, oblivious to his image and unconcerned about what his wife might have done, fully trusting his judgment and accuracy. He is happy and loves his new/almost identical image.

Izuna

- "What? No, there's no way. I said no... well, thinking about it... no. Well, maybe yes..." Another little child. Izuna refuses to admit the damage to his hair, and a whole week passes from the official proposal (Y/N) did, about taking care of his image, until he decides to accept. Manipulated by candy and promises of steamy nights, the Uchiha can't say no, and hands over his mane for his wife to control as she pleases. His hair is considerably thinner than his older brother's, less dense and bushy, but the problem lies in those unruly strands at the back of his head, near the scalp. A mixture of straight and curly hair, how to treat it is a puzzle, but she is determined to find out. She can't get him to take a bath, Izuna claiming he already showered in the morning, and only manages to wet his hair at the kitchen sink, with the man reclining on top of the counter and trying to squeeze the length of his hair into the cramped space. Even though the experience is uncomfortable, he refuses to get in the shower again and insists they do it this way. Needless to say, the kitchen ends up completely soaked, the floor full of water and the cabinet as well, foam floating all over the surfaces. Once ready, they proceed to the cutting, and the Uchiha himself stands in front of the mirror, suddenly excited and engaged in the task, marking the limits he intends (Y/N) not to exceed. He becomes the leader of the situation, and is genuinely pleased with the result. Promises to remind (Y/N) about doing the same thing every month. Every, single, month. Without fail.

Hashirama

- "YES! ARE WE DOING IT NOW?!" In fact, he is the most excited of them all, and is the one who prepares the items (Y/N) might need. On his free afternoon, the Hokage looks for scissors with sufficient sharpness, and in the absence of the right ones, goes to buy them. He prepares his special shampoo, because we all know this Senju is obsessed with having perfect hair, and readies a bathtub with warm water for himself. All the things she intended to set up for him, Hashirama gets them in an hour and surprises her by sitting in the tub with the shampoo in his hand, smiling from ear to ear. He provides instructions on how he likes to massage his own scalp, which areas are sensitive, and where to pay special attention, guiding each movement without the need to physically control (Y/N's) hands. To make the experience more pleasurable, she follows each step, executing it the way he asks. He cannot finish without first applying one of the most expensive conditioners in the world, which he requires her to leave on for at least ten minutes. In the meantime, and with two cucumbers in his eyes, Hashirama relaxes. When he is dry and ready for the haircut, he suggests the idea of styling his hair in a similar way to what he used to wear when he was a child, and it is (Y/N) who has to get that terrible occurrence out of his head. Pouting, he agrees to sit in the chair and let her control this part of the process, without being in charge of the technical direction. He ends up with a cut the length of his middle back, and smiling because he loves it! According to her, there's not much difference from how he had it before, but he doesn't need to know that.

Tobirama

- "You don't need to take care of it, my hair is fine. And if needed, I can do it myself." He has an irrational fear of losing some of his incredible intelligence if he cuts his hair, and has a bit of trouble accepting the offer. (Y/N) can't stand the strawiness of his hair, and Tobirama refuses to admit that's true. Stubborn and dismayed by his wife's approach, he will first try to work it out on his own. He is extremely embarrassed when going to the beauty and cosmetic store, asking for help "for a friend who has bad hair", and accepting guidance on what products "his friend" should use from the young man who works as a manager. When he gathers the necessary information, he refuses to shop at that same establishment and goes to one at the other end of the village, just so the manager won't judge him. He waits until late at night to proceed, once (Y/N) is asleep, and begins his experiments. The problem is he treats his hair as if it were an object of study, misapplying products and cutting off parts he shouldn't have. In the morning and without having slept, he has to admit defeat amidst his own fatigue and disappointment, and agrees to let her take over. He created a mess on his head, with uneven strands and even somehow managed to stain it with a strange color, but nothing she can't fix. After solving the texture problem, using the same products but in the right way, she corrects the premature cut Tobirama tried to self-manage, equalizing each strand's length and leaving his hair presentable again. He won't admit he made a mistake, at least not without crossing his arms over his chest, closing his eyes, and pouting, but he does acknowledge how good his hair now feels.

[valiantverses]

The Azrael Series: Chapter One

(Simon 'Ghost' Riley X Reader/ Slowburn/Sort of Enemies to Friends to Lovers)

°°°°°

Summary/Notes: Task Force 141 is assigned a new member to deal with Makarov for good. Highly-skilled, brutally efficient and devastatingly competent, Ghost has met his match - and finds himself at odds with the SAS Fraternization Regulations as getting to know you makes him re-evaluate a life he never thought to allow himself.

°°°°°

Chapter One

Introduction 1

@beansproutmafia @chinuneko @agustdpeach

Click.

Ghost watched you methodically assemble your rifle, noting how deliberate each movement was. You worked smoothly - barrel into receiver, scope in place, alignment done perfectly. He met your eyes as you surveyed the area, sliding in casings into the magazine with focused intensity.

Not sparing him another glance, you turned to look into your scope, securing the perimeter. Out on the craggy cliff face of the unforgivingly frigid Ural mountains, escape would not be easy. The only thing keeping you from being spotted was the taiga camouflage you wore and the relative cover of the copse of rocks you had climbed on to next to the lieutenant, chest pressed flat on to the rough ground as you settled yourself into a prone position.

"Alpha Two, in position and operational."

Your voice was clear through the coms, unhampered by the face coverings you wore even as your warm breath created soft puffs of vapour, swirling lazily into the air.

Next to you, Riley shifted, your sides touching as he took a final look over the perimeter and inconspicuously - attempting to, anyway - looked over your rifle to see your handiwork.

"Alpha Actual, in position and operational."

His voice reverberated through the rock you had both deemed fit to survey the target location - A laboratory nestled in a valley in the Ural mountains that served as a logistics facility for Makarov, protected by the mercenaries he hired.

"Copy, Alpha Squad. Bravo Squad getting into position, T-Minus 10. Maintain positions. Over."

"Copy." "Copy."

Twin voices rang out, and then there was a silence, a chasm between you and the lieutenant.

You did nothing to break it, comfortable in the stillness of the break of dawn, even as the lieutenant continued to sneak assessing looks at you.

Though your file spoke for itself, experience and skills clearly laid out for the entire team to peruse in black - admittedly mostly redacted - ink, it was another thing entirely to trust a new teammate to watch your back.

Station Chief Laswell had attempted to soothe the situation, utilizing lots of what you recognized to be CIA mediation training to make the mission seem like less of what it was.

But the message was clear to you immediately upon receiving team assignments.

Ghost was babysitting you.

It didn't matter, you decided. You were the unknown variable in a well-oiled machine that had been training together for months. A factor that could put the team at risk so long as they didn't know - or trust - you.

Acceptance would come. Or it wouldn't - you rarely found the kind of stability needed to forge lasting relationships in this lifestyle.

Hunching your shoulders as the wind picked up, you meticulously cleared each area of your assigned quadrant, catching sight of Sergeant McTavish as he came into the view of your scope on the southernmost side of the compound.

Sergeant McTavish - Soap, as he had insisted you called him - had given you the warmest reception by far. He had taken one look at you during introductions and had been not just welcoming but outright friendly, giving you a wide smile and offering to take you on a tour of the team's home base.

You watched as Soap glanced behind him, jerking his head in the direction of the building closest to him as another hooded figure sidled up by his side - Sergeant Garrick.

Sergeant Garrick did not have quite the same warmness as Soap, but his wary smile had seemed genuine, facial muscles pulling up in such a way that your deeply ingrained intelligence training had told you was free of deception. He had offered to spar, and said that he'd give you a lay of the land outside the base upon return from this mission.

That's about where any sense of welcome started and ended with the team, Laswell and Captain Price had kept you at arms length, a clipped sort of professionalism. Lieutenant Riley was an apathetic sort of distance, and you had the sense that he was on the look out for any of your weaknesses and would no doubt be more than glad to pull out the Personnel Transfer Forms in his desk that had barely ever seen the light of day if you failed to live up to expectations.

You kept your breathing low and steady, the high elevations making the air feel thin. Next to you, you felt the lieutenant shift.

"Our directive mandates recon and reaction only, no active engagement."

His eyes on you felt like an itching in the back of your throat, easy enough to ignore but always at the back of your mind.

"Yes, sir." You affirmed, laser focused on clearing the western perimeter of the compound. "I was there when the instructions were given."

There was a pregnant pause where you continued constant surveillance, not even looking up as in your peripheral vision the blazing nothingness of freshly fallen snow was obscured by the bone white of your lieutenant's skull mask.

"I could do without your attitude, sergean-"

He had leaned in close enough to you that you were able to reach behind him to his nape and pull him in your direction, sandwiching yourself between his bulky body and the rough stone below. Before he could pull away, you tightened your grip on his coat, indicating with your free hand to remain low on the ground.

It had been subtle, well hidden, but the glint of a sniper scope aimed in your general direction had you reacting immediately.

Slightly winded from the lieutenant's weight on you, you reached up and clicked on your coms link.

"Captain, Alpha Two reporting. Hostile sniper positively ID'ed in area of operations. Westernmost building, clear line of sight of Bravo Team. Requesting green light for engagement."

You began to relax your arm but were quickly pinned to place by a hefty elbow as Ghost grabbed you by the collar of your coat, growling into your ear.

"Alpha Two heard. Confirm, Alpha Actual?"

Price's voice rang out of the coms, to no response.

Ghost snarled at you, placing his other hand next to your head, effectively locking you into place.

"Fuckin' hell sergeant, never heard of an anti reflect? Nine times out of ten a sniper has a sunshade o-"

"East facing window on furthest building, two windows down from the top floor. Sunshades work by blocking out light reflections but only with direct sunlight. The snow is freshly fallen and we're south- they hadn't accounted for the reflection of the sun onto the snowbank behind us. Nobody would expect hostiles on a blank cliff face-"

He grunted, keeping his eyes trained on you even as he reached over to look into your scope, bodies still pressed tightly together.

"Alpha Actual, positive ID'ed hostile? Over"

The captain's message once again went unanswered.

You shifted your legs a little, freezing when his thighs squeezed your sides in warning as he surveyed the westernmost building, the brutalist architecture starker in the snow.

You spoke in low tones, trying to get him to see your point. The low oxygen environment forced you to conserve your time spent talking.

"They're deeper into the building and have partial cover because of the drainage. They'd have direct line of fire on Sergeant Garrick and Sergeant McTavish. It'd be like shooting fish in a barrel."

"Alpha Actual, do you copy? Ghos-"

He huffed, the movement reverberating through you as he eased away from his position on top of you, falling into a low crouch behind the rock.

"Captain, hostile sniper ID'ed. West building, two windows from top. Clear line of sight on Bravo. Over."

There was another tense pause as the coms line grew silent, you taking the opportunity to roll over on to your stomach and keep watch on Soap and Garrick's position.

"Copy, Alpha Actual. Alpha Two, request to engage approved- Alpha Actual and Bravo Squad, maintain position."

"Copy, Alpha Two moving to position."

You wasted no time, disassembling your rifle in seconds, taking care not to let the snow into any openings as you turned to face your lieutenant and gave him a perfunctory nod, not waiting for his response as you left the relative safety of the rock formation.

The trek to the Southeast of the valley was arduous, the oxygen thin and the paths non-existent in the freshly fallen snow. Your lungs took in searingly cold air and your vision started to blur as the whiteness of the snow began to bleed into each other, the visor you wore being the only thing that kept you from snow blindness. Sometimes it became necessary to crawl on your hands and knees in the areas that were particularly visible to the valley down below. You did your best to keep your deep breaths from drowning out the coms, hearing Garrick and Mctavish's confirmation of identifying the sniper and entering an obscured alcove.

As you reached a copse of rocks that had the Western building in sight, you took off the gloves which the jagged rocks you had crawled on had embedded into and immediately began assembling your rifle, the familiarity of the metal body a comfort even in the frigid air.

You breathed in, then exhaled, before focusing on identifying the hostile sniper in front of you.

As your eyes began to adjust to the darkness of the empty room, a figure began to form, carved out of the inky blackness, partially hidden behind a mounted rifle.

The outside world stuttered to a stop. There was your breathing, low and calm. There was the enemy, looking up from their scope. There was your finger on the trigger, and then there was the the enemy's body jerking back, a bullet between his eyes as he slumped against the wall.

You waited.

You kept the corpse in sight of the crosshair, making sure the enemy's radio was within sight of you at all times.

Because if there was a sniper, then there would be a spotter, and it would just be a matter of who was more patient.

There was a flurry of movement as another person emerged out of the darkness and ran to their previous partners radio, stopping abruptly and collapsing as the insides of their skull became acquainted with the wall behind them.

"Captain, hostiles eliminated."

"Copy, Alpha Two. Bravo Squad, commence operation."

You kept your eyes trained on Soap and Garrick. You ensured they avoided engaging with the enemy, removing obstacles from their path before it could become a problem. Through the coms, you led them to the intelligence building and then back out, until they had successfully left the compound with Makarov's data in hand.

It was a perfect mission, and you could see by the pleased set of Garrick's shoulders, the twitch of Price' lips and the glint of Soap's eyes that the team really, really needed this win.

Evidently, not everyone was pleased with your performance.

Being the last one out of the chopper before debrief, you felt a hand on your shoulder, tugging you back until that familiar skull mask was in your vision once more.

"Liuetenant." You inclined your head, unsure of what he wanted.

"I don't like your attitude, sergeant."

"I don't need you to like me, sir. "

He remained silent, eyes boring into your own.

You regarded him, standing under the bright lights of the air hangar, mask and snow clothing so bright it almost made it hard to look at him. So you continued on.

"All I need is for you to know that on the field, I have your back."

Your lips quirked up as you managed a relaxed salute, muttering a 'sir' as you went to enter the debriefing room and began giving your report when everyone had gathered.

There was not a shred of doubt in your mind that the skull mask was trained on you the entire time.

[it-happened-one-fic]

Hours in the Moonlight: Fathomless Vespers - 16. Suspicious and Perplexed

Summary: The time had finally come for you to give your report on the Octavinelle clan’s evaluation. There was just one problem though. None of Crowley’s men were showing up and it was starting to get steadily more frustrating.

Series Type: Gender-neutral reader/ Vampire AU/ series/ romantic/ angst/ angst with comfort/ fluff/ sfw/ platonic interactions too!

Trigger Warning: Vampire

Word Count: 1246

Hours in the Moonlight Master-List

The waiting game was agonizing, as it so often was. 

By now I was fully prepared to inform whoever Crowley sent that the Octavinelle clan was innocent of being connected to the influx of insane vampires, but no one came.

Usually I would’ve been checked in on twice by one of his men by now, and to be honest, the radio silence was getting to me.

It didn’t make sense for Crowley to not want a report when Sam had acted like both he and the rest of Crowley’s group were particularly worried about me evaluating the Octavinelle clan. The lack of word from them only increased my suspicions that my job at the clans had very little to do with the evaluation, though.

If it did, Crowley would’ve sent someone already.

I flopped down on my couch after yet another long day of waiting on tables and joking around with the twins and Azul. It had become a part of my evening by now. Going into work like it was any other job and laughing with them like they were just my coworkers and nothing else. It was almost amusing how mundane it would be if it weren’t for the fact they were vampires and I was a vampire hunter.

My fingers idly fiddled with my cross necklace that I’d pulled out from under my shirt. I let my thoughts drift along the same path that they’d been taking the past few nights.

What could be the possible reason for the silence from Crowley?

I didn’t see how I could’ve upset him, since there was no way he could know that I’d ever contemplated asking Azul for information on him.

If I were lucky, he was actually doing something about the insane vampires, but I highly doubted it. 

That would be far too responsible of him.

I let my hand and arm flop down from the couch as I frowned up at the ceiling. At this point, I might as well start getting ready to go to sleep. There was the chance that I might get a visit from Vil, but with how much he’d been visiting recently, he was probably going to have to focus more on the Pomefiore clan at some point fairly soon.

No sooner than that thought had occurred, I heard a tapping on my window and shot up into a seated position.

I paused, though, frowning as the tapping came again. Because that wasn’t Vil, Epel, or any of the other usual suspects. In fact, it sounded suspiciously like metal tapping against glass, which made no sense.

I stood, almost hesitantly, before heading towards my window as I ran through the list of what it might be in my head.

There was nothing metal near my window, so it shouldn’t be anything busted. A vampire didn’t really make a lot of sense either, though. None of them would tap on the window with some metal object when they could just knock.

I reached out, grasping the curtains and inhaling. Either way, even if it was a vampire, it would be okay if I just looked out. They couldn’t come in unless I gave them permission.

I could even open the window and still be safe so long as I stood far enough back.

Having made up my mind, I yanked the curtains open, and my eyes widened in surprise almost immediately. 

Crowley all but beamed at me from behind his mask. His fangs glinting in the bright light from the full moon as his hand, tipped with metal claws, withdrew from the window.

I hurriedly opened the window, hardly knowing what else to do and not even having the chance to say something before the man spoke. His eyes glowing brightly as he continued to smile widely, “There you are, Hatchling! I was worried when you didn’t answer immediately. Sam told that me you are usually quite prompt to greet your visitors.”

I shook my head slightly before I managed to speak. My voice coming out in a harsh-sounding whisper that was utterly coated in blatant disbelief, “Crowley?! What are you doing here?”

At odds with his glee, I was shocked and at least vaguely horrified by the man’s presence. I’d known that he knew where I lived, but I’d never expected him to come here.

He frowned at my reaction, having the gall to look slightly hurt as the wind blew his feathered cape around, “To congratulate you.”

I blinked at his sulky tone before stepping back, not providing him any indication to enter as I casually distanced myself from him.

He was completely different from how he’d been the last time I’d seen him, which also doubled as the first time we’d met.

Then, he’d been imposing. The sort of person I could see being a mastermind behind some horrible scheme such as the one he’d used to turn Rook and Epel into vampires and force me into entering the world of the night as his vampire hunter.

Right now he seemed ridiculous at best as he pouted at me from my window, though. Almost like a useless friend who was hurt that their pleas for a loan were being met with rejection because you and them both knew you’d never get that money back and they’d only waste it.

I swallowed, reigning in my astonishment as I eyed the vampire in front of me, “What are you congratulating me for?”

My tone sounded less wary and more confused, though there was still some wariness there. But this definitely wasn’t what I would’ve expected from my next meeting with Crowley if I’d been asked mere moments ago.

He brightened at my words, recovering remarkably quickly from his sulkiness, “On your success! You’ve done a marvelous job handling each of those problem children.”

He all but beamed at me as I blinked up at him in confusion. I could only assume that by ‘problem children’ he meant the clans.

“Of course, I’m also here to personally receive your report regarding the Octavinelle clan. After all, I am so very kind and have finally managed to find... Make, the time to come see you,” His tone was filled with fondness even as he corrected himself, though I certainly didn’t know where it was coming from.

It wasn’t like we were old friends, after all.

“I… The Octavinelle clan doesn’t seem to be connected to the insane vampire issue in any way whatsoever,” I faltered slightly as I answered, but he only nodded. Smiling all the while as if this were a truly delightful occasion.

“I see. That means you only have one clan left to evaluate!” He clapped his hands together as if this were wonderful news. But then something in his expression shifted, and he leaned forward, as far into my apartment as he could with permission to enter, “By the way, were you able to win over the Octavinelle clan, by any chance?”

I stilled at his words, forcing my face to not betray my thoughts as I slowly answered in as neutral a fashion as possible, “I believe so, yes.”

His face brightened once more, almost like a cloud disappearing as he nodded, “Splendid. I will speak to you again after your next evaluation. I expect good news, my little hatchling! Good luck!”

And with that he was gone in an inexplicable flurry of feathers. Leaving me both more suspicious and perplexed than I had been before.

If you would like to read more:

Previous:

Next: Hours in the Moonlight: Rose Red Dawn