#and he doesn't tell anyone that she's alive

[sassy-cass-16]

Oh god I promised myself no bell’s hells meta until c3 ends but my brain is turning the “can she be trusted?” line over and over like chicken at the shawarma shop. because there are layers to that.

more under the cut because i let this run away from me:

so first off, there's the obvious: dorian initially seems to start to address the whole group, everyone who's left in the inn room, but turns and just locks eyes with orym when he asks. orym, who of everyone has the most reason to be biased against laudna right now. orym, who just got into a fight with laudna over the sword that killed both of them and orym's husband and father-in-law. that's who dorian thinks to ask, because he trusts orym not to let his judgment be clouded.

dorian first saw orym again after months of being separated, like, three days ago, and despite how much orym has visibly changed in those months, dorian doesn't hesitate to believe that orym will still be objective. he trusts that orym will be the one to look at this situation and tell him the truth.

because dorian has experience with orym telling him the truth. dorian knows firsthand how willing orym is to shuck his personal feelings in favour of what's true. dorian just saw what he could have become, had orym not stepped in to stop him taking the circlet of barbed vision. he owes the fact that he's alive and beholden to no gods to orym's willingness to be rational and objective in a situation involving a powerful magical item. by his own admission, "i wouldn't be here without you."

so of course dorian trusts him right now.

and there's something to the exclusion of the others, with that. dorian doesn't look to fearne and orym, although that would make sense because he's known the two of them the longest. he doesn't look to chetney, who's proven to be able to get a handle on this with the scream needle compromise. he doesn't look to ashton, who's been extremely levelheaded through this whole mess. he looks at orym, exclusively. he is asking orym, exclusively. not the group, although everyone decides to jump in to answer and then imogen comes through the window to complicate the matter. just orym.

dorian is the kind of person with a lot of potential for darkness in him. he hides it well because he's also deeply kind and friendly, but it's always been there. he's just been through something massively traumatic, and that was after the original circlet conflict back in exu prime. he had his alignment forcibly changed from good to neutral. but even after all he's gone though, orym's alignment is still good.

as much as orym doesn't want to be a leader and prefers to be a protector and follower, he does very well in situations where he takes on an amount of responsibility. when he's in some level of control over a situation, he takes to it naturally. he's a very good babysitter to his gaggle of weirdos. the "can she be trusted?" might have been an attempt on dorian's part to give orym a bit more control here. to reassure him that regardless of anyone else's feelings—regardless of how laudna's reaction might have affected him—orym deserves to be trusted, and he can make a decision that dorian will trust.

back in exu and all the way into early c3, dorian and orym slotted into a sort of parental position in their groups. watching over the crownkeepers' clothes when they went skinny dipping in exu. orym repeatedly steering everybody away from bad ideas. matt even described dorian leaving dariax in zephrah in 4sd as "dad just going out to get cigarettes." there's always been that underlying sense of "we are two of a pair" with dorian and orym. not to say that either of them don't see the others as adults, but they do have that rapport of being the babysitters in the gaggle of weirdos.

that kind of bond is just part of their dynamic. but especially in light of what's been happening while they were separated, and then what happened between them earlier that evening, "can she be trusted?" is a reminder of that bond. orym's been lonely, by his own admission, and one of the secrets he divulged at nana morri's was "i really miss dorian." he broke down crying during his last message through the sending stone, and then again on the bench not a few hours before this whole incident went down.

dorian came to comfort him. he flat-out said to orym's face "i'm here now." he reminded orym that he needs to rely on other people, that he can't always be the one saving everybody else. he gave orym the room to not be the strong one, and told him he has that room because dorian's there to support him. they can be two of a pair again.

he knows orym's been feeling like he can't do anything, like he had to resort to what he stopped dorian from doing with the circlet. and so dorian both gives him a choice to make, something to do, and shows him that he still trusts him unconditionally. "can she be trusted?" also means "i trust you" and "i'm here with you" and "this is how we've always been."

we know from liam in 4sd that orym has feelings for dorian that he's not sure are reciprocated. but even regardless of the romantic element here, dorian and orym have always had a partnership. they have always been two of a pair. the sequence of events leading to "can she be trusted?" is a perfect microcosm of he relationship between the two of them. it's just incredible.

[little-luna-llama]

Post mystic flour eps the cacaonian cookies return to crispia, yet not all have recovered from their brush with apathy.

Wildberry cookie, who turned around and came back just after the others had left on a gut feeling, goes to see them and sees crunchy chip who doesn't look right. He finds out that a lot of them haven't quite recovered their full emotions back, and while dark cacao did overcome mystic flour and got stronger he needs to recover himself before he can really help anyone else, Dark choco is doing his best but obviously is not fully prepared either. The unit get to go have a break while they all figure out what to do about the cookies who are struggling, some recover fairly quickly once they get back, some don't. Caramel, Crunchy and the other two among the latter.

Wild is utterly devastated and stays even longer to help find an answer. Helping out dark choco at first until dark cacao is back on his feet, and then focusing particularly on his boyfriend and trying to get a reaction, anything to prove he's under there. He gets a little progress via the creamwolf pack, sees the spark in crunchys eyes flash for but a moment when they all rush him for attention. After that though it's nothing and it's incredibly taxing to see all that passion gone.

He finds himself in the uncomfortable position of being the more openly emotional of the pair, and also asking himself if crunchy will still love him after, if he ever gets his feelings back. It's not a pleasant feeling to have when you have a ring in your pocket you'd been working on while he was away saving the world.

Caramel arrow is no help, arguably in a worse condition that Crunchy Chip, because he ends up talking to second watcher who is a wreck over his nieces condition, he already lost her parents, and to him this is even worse because she's still technically alive, but she's hardly spoke and not even taken to the training grounds to use her bow which she used to love doing.

Crunchy does notice the general mood and points it out.

Wildberry, being fed up by this point, just steels himself and tells Crunchy that once he's better he'll take him on a date. A proper one. No monsters or fighting or imminent doom. He knows he can get better and he will. They'll go have a picnic in the woods or go visit crunchys family over in his home village, hang out with the wolf pack or go get another herring jelly pie.

"I..... I think I'd....like ..that?"

"I know"

Then Wildberry kisses him and when they pull away all of a sudden crunchy reacts to it in his typical style, something like "woof, that was a surprise" or something

And they both laugh and then Wild suddenly realises that what they needed this whole time was some big feeling to kick start their emotions, all the quickly recovered soldiers had partners or children- (second watcher was too busy to give Caramel the overwhelming amount she would need to recover)

They both quickly report what happened and run off to find Caramel

[imisshomestuck]

Alpha Kids Rewrite

I have taken an interest in rewriting the four Alpha Kids stories and characters recently. Consider this more like the first draft of an idea. The general idea is to make their stories more fun. The idea is that the story is a bit less grounded, a bit less serious. Though, funnily enough, I changed Dirk dramatically to be much more serious.

Jane Crocker:

Raised under the Empress’s watchful eye. Jane rarely sees her guardian. Jane is informed of what her great grandmother wants by the many robot drones that take care of her. None seem human-like but they can all talk, not that they talk to her often.

Jane has been trained by those drones to prepare her for her future role, though she isn't certain what that role is. She is trained in fine arts, baking, literature, and can speak a language that she is told never to let her friends know about. Most importantly, Jane is also trained to defend herself. She doesn't have any body guards, because she doesn't leave her manor. She's never been outside. It's later revealed Jane lives on the moon, though she doesn't know that.

The years took their toll on Jane and she is stubborn, cold. She has no normalcy in her life but she has stability, discipline, direction. Jane is proud of who she is and proud of what she is being shaped into.

She hates having free time on her hands because she thinks the time could be better spent. In reality, she hates being left alone. Freedom is something she doesn't like the idea of because she doesn't know what to do with herself. Still, she can talk to her three friends. Out loud, to herself, she would regard their relationships as a waste of time and energy. But Jane does love them, she just doesn't want to get too attached incase one day her great-grandma decides to take them away from her too, like she has with so many of Jane's things.

Jane hardly had time to spend with her dad before he passed away. Jane suspects he was killed but she does not know by who. She is determined to find out but with her duties being what they are she has to put that down until she is older. Yes, her dad was killed by her great-grandma.

Growing up, she idolized her poppop and had a childhood dream of being a detective. She put childhood dreams to bed. Still, sometimes she bakes something for herself and visits her grandfather’s body. She sits at his feet and pretends he is alive and comforting her. That he made cookies for her and tells her stories of his life and her dad's childhood. She doesn’t want to admit that to anyone. She never lets anyone know that she is lonely.

Jane’s relationships:

Jane and Jake: Jane would never admit it out loud, but she has a school girl crush on Jake. She thinks it’s a thing that will pass. She views it to be a weakness that she is sweet on him. She listens to everything he says and comforts him often without expecting anything in return. Jane understands that is a normal relationship but she never thought that anything in her life was "normal." There’s no point in pursuing a romance or a friendship if it won’t go anywhere. Still there is a part of her that wishes she could be a normal girl without all the crushing obligations. Though, she knows she is privileged. That’s why she obeys her great-grandma and doesn’t question what she’s being trained for. Jake at times pushes her to talk more about her training. Jane doesn’t have the heart to tell him she’s a capable fighter. There’s a part of her that wants to be saved by him. Sometimes, when the game starts and they all have already met in person, she'll catch herself cheering him on, pretending that he's a hero.

Jane and Dirk: Jane is always amused at Dirk’s remarks. She is well read and had the best tutors. Dirk was self taught and Dirk thinks that he is more intelligent than she is, something Jane picks up on. Dirk often brings up philosophy, which Jane dismisses as worthless. Thinking about your place in the world is useless, action is all that matters. Even though they don't see eye to eye on anything, they get along well.

Jane and Roxy: Jane lives vicariously through Roxy. She enjoys that Roxy does anything she pleases. Jane thinks it’s empowering to drink, curse and flirt. Though Jane would never do that herself. Roxy is one of the childish things she is holding onto. Overtime, Jane no longer thinks her relationship with Roxy is a bad habit. Jane later thinks that Roxy is someone who is trying to find herself through experimenting. Jane wants to bring Roxy more stability in her life, but knows it’s not her place. Jane starts seeing Roxy more as a confused person when Jane starts to see that she, herself is lost. Everything Jane is is someone else’s design. It’s hard for her to reject what she’s been created to be. Roxy helps her through it more than anyone.

Roxy Lalonde:

Roxy makes references to music like how John makes references to movies. She sings to herself whenever she is idle. She is always poking fun at everything, especially herself. Roxy enjoys fireworks, she has a sense of pageantry. Everything about her is bold and fun.

Roxy is always trying to find herself. She wears different outfits and does her hair and makeup in many different ways. She jumps from hobby to hobby every week and is always inspired to try new things. She has a million projects going at once and if she ever finishes them she celebrates.

Roxy sometimes will binge drink, sometimes she’ll get sober for months. She comes off like she’s sporadic to others. Roxy thinks she’s just trying to get in touch with herself. When she first shows up in the story, she looks like a girly-girl, sporting all pink and with tons of makeup. She cycles through having different looks and wearing different wigs. She is always cheerful and bright, though she hides how intelligent she actually is behind a carefree smile and bad jokes. She likes to be a ditz for "fun," but all of her friends get that she's smart.

Roxy is incredibly intelligent. She is skilled with coding, code-breaking, programming, and understanding advanced technology. Everyone thinks Roxy likes to play dumb, the truth is Roxy can’t put her intelligence into words. Roxy often stumbles as she speaks or types. Sometimes she lies and says it’s because she’s been drinking. It was easier to just develop a personality that embraced her ditzyness.

Roxy grew up isolated from the world. She could speak to the Carapacians but they were not the same as other humans. Roxy’s relationships were always behind a screen. She didn’t have much in her life, but she did have her mother.

Roxy’s mom was a poet, an author and could see the future. With help from Jake’s grandma, there is technology that allows Alpha Rose to speak to her daughter. She also wrote her many notes and a strange journal that Roxy suspects might be a prophecy. Rose’s mom also left behind robots that were made to train Roxy to defend herself against the Empress’s attacks.

Roxy knows her mom is proud of her and is worried for her, but sometimes her mom acts a bit cold like she’s trying to put distance between the two. The last time Roxy spoke to her mom, Alpha Rose actually told her that she loved her and she wishes that she could have been more to her and someday, someone will take her place and be everything Roxy ever needed. Roxy’s relationships:

Roxy and Dirk: Roxy makes fun of Dirk by singing to him, "Philosophy is the talk on a cereal box. Religion is a smile on a dog"

When she talks to Dirk about his bro, she acts a bit stupid about whatever he's saying. He gets that she's joking. But then she'll somehow manage to casually quote lyrics like, "In a world of post-modern fad, what was good now is bad!" showing Dirk that she does understand what his bro's movies are about since she relates the terrible films to postmodernism but at the same time saying Alpha bro's irony is a stupid fad. Roxy fell in love with Dirk fully. She would happily give her heart over to him and one time she even sent him a large plush heart she made just for him. He kept it but told her point blank he wasn’t interested in being with anyone until they get Sburb over and done with. Roxy knows Dirk has feelings for Jake, but she still likes to play around with Dirk. Sometimes she can’t help but do it. He has such warm feelings for her, he lets her.

Roxy and Jane: She makes fun of Jane by singing 9 to 5 at some point, "There's a better life. And you think about it, don't you?"

Jane sometimes is a bit blunt, she can be a bit short with Roxy. Roxy just laughs at her and doesn’t take the words to heart, she thinks Jane is just going through things and often tells her that. Jane is appreciative. She knows she’s difficult.

Roxy likes that Jane has everything all figured out and looks up to her for it. Roxy tries to be more like her mother once cause she felt inspired by Jane to follow her own guardian. Roxy can’t write to save her life, but she has fun making up stories just like she has fun trying out different hobbies and clothing.

Roxy and Jake:

Roxy tries not to sing around him or even quote lyrics, otherwise he'll tell her that she has a beautiful voice.

Jake is in love with her. He tells her that often. He believes he sees her real self, a fun loving girl who is open to anything and is always willing to help others. Roxy tries to steer the conversation away from romance when he talks like that, he is understanding. She likes him because he isn’t pushy or clingy. She wants to be more like him when she talks to Dirk. Roxy often can’t help herself. She ends up flirting with Dirk and saying it’s all a joke. Sometimes she flirts with Jake too so she can keep up the illusion that all her flirting is just friendly banter, but she tries not to because she doesn’t want to lead him on. She wants everything to stay like it is. Just friendships, no romance. Though she won't admit it, she has pictured what it would be like to be with Jake. She thinks he's cute.

Jake English:

Jake is headstrong. He is always puffing up his chest and role playing the role of the hero. He loves comic books and knows everything about them. He sometimes references them. One time telling Dirk about how a red lantern replaces their heart when they join the red lantern core and can’t leave unless a blue lantern helps save them. Also that the orange lanterns are selfish jerks. Yes, this is a reference to John helping Dave.

Jake is always optimistic in the face of everything and is overly happy. He encourages everyone, which when they are all worn down and tired is something that gets old. Even Roxy gets tired of Jake's attitude after they have to walk for miles through old ruins. Though, later in the story, the team all learn to love Jake's optimism and they playfully make fun of him for it. The three of them bond over shitting on him, Jake loves to see them get along.

Jake has rose-tinted glasses on all the time. He thinks everything really is like one big game. He imagines being a hero and playing that role, he does pretty well, but what really amazes him is seeing his friends become better fighters. When Dirk outshines him, he gains more of an interest in him. Jake also constantly praising Jane for her fighting prowess. It's heavily suggested that Jake gets a crush on all three of the Alpha kids, okay, maybe more than suggested. He wears his heart on his sleeve. Who he ends up with is up to the audience to decide.

Jake’s relationships: Jake and Roxy: Jake had fallen helplessly in love with Roxy before the story starts. When they start the game, Jake brags that he is a skilled marksmen, but being around Roxy makes him miss every target. Jake is distracted by Roxy which annoys Dirk and Jane but they hardly talk about it. The focus of the story is less on romance, more on action. Which is just Jake's speed.

Jake is a good friend to Roxy, complimenting her for always being thoughtful. He's convinced he sees the real her, which Roxy eventually tells him that there is no such thing, she's always changing. Which throws Jake for a loop, eventually he has to admit that maybe he doesn't really know Roxy as well as he thought, but he does know that she's smart and kind. That's what he saw.

Never once does he ever doubt his feelings. He always thinks she's beautiful, no matter what persona she adopts.

Jake and Dirk:

Dirk is stoic, hard to read. Dirk doesn't speak that much when he is around Jake, only saying what he needs to and keeps his eyes focus on the mission ahead of him. Dirk stays focus on his tasks and doesn't do small talk. It's revealed slowly through the story that Dirk is interested in Jake. Jake is made aware of this through Auto-Responder. Jake admits to Hal that since he met Dirk in person, he can see the appeal of men.

Jake and Jane:

Jake has an interest in helping her, rescuing her and playing the hero. She is actually the thing that puts him more in touch with reality. He can't just strip her of all her problems. Jake has to have more of a practical mindset when talking with her. He can't role play being a hero with her. However, when they meet in person, Jane cheers him on when he fights. This makes Jake even more confident he's on the right track. Jane is what helps make Jake into an actual hero.

Dirk Strider:

Dirk doesn't do the irony thing, that's his bro's thing. Dirk is completely serious about everything he does and he always means what he says. Most of what Dirk has in his life is something belonging to his bro. That or fishing nets, fixed knives to scale fish, things for survival, practical things. Important tools. Maybe one rainbow dash doll is on his desk, but that's not his, that was his bro's.

As stated before, Jake's grandma had knowledge of alein technology that allowed the user to speak with anyone at any point in time. She gave this technology to a young woman who contacted her, Rose's mom. Roxy, Dirk and Jake had been using it to be in contact with their guardians. Dirk is always able to talk to his bro, though we do not see their conversations. We're told that Dirk tattooed himself at the age of thirteen using a tattoo gun his bro got him. His bro was upset by that but he had to ensure that Dirk was able to tattoo himself to keep the timeline stable. When Dirk meets Dave, Dave loves his tattoo. Dave is everything that Dirk was looking for in a brother.

Dirk and Hal:

Dirk is a character that is blunt, he always says what he means and it makes him sound cold. Dirk doesn't say much, unless someone peeks his interest which isn't hard to do. Dirk secretly loves My Little Pony and things for little girls. Hal openly loves these things. Hal is a childish version of Dirk, always telling people how he feels and asking people to say nice things to him and praise him. It annoys Dirk to no end. Dirk tells everyone else that it's just this AIs way of getting back at him for creating him. Hal and Dirk both know that this is who Dirk really is, someone clingy who loves cutesy things.

Hal gets a body during the game, a real robot body that Dirk had been working on and finishes up. He does it so Hal can make his own identity and he purposefully tries to make Hal's body look different from himself. He also makes Hal much shorter, forcing him to look permanently thirteen. Hal often cuddles up to all the other Alpha kids. Something they all learn to love. Dirk refuses to let Hal cling to him, though Hal knows Dirk craves the attention. Hal is what Dirk wants to be and he's free to be it. Hal also loves to make fun of Dirk and belittle him, which is why Hal doesn't act his age at all. Hal acts super childish. Dirk acts like he is over the idea of trying to understand himself and settles on the idea that he must just be an asshole. In the end he admits that all he ever does is beat himself up to fit this image. Dirk lets go of that more and more throughout the story.

Dirk and Jake:

Dirk is a bit frustrated at Jake but he does a good job at faking being okay. He wants to impress Jake and succeeded in doing it. At some point, Jake tells him that Dirk helped him realize something about himself that he wouldn't have known if Dirk didn't come into his life. Dirk is surprised to hear that Jake has an interest in him, cracking his exterior.

Dirk and Jane:

Dirk thinks she's smart, disciplined, and mislead. He tries to convince her there is more to life than blindly following orders. Eventually, he succeeds. Jane though is stressed when she leaves her old life behind. Dirk actually lends her a shoulder to cry on at some point. He often comes off as cold, but he actually has a soft heart. Dirk just doesn't like seeming vulnerable, he'd rather be the shoulder to cry on. It's the role he's comfortable with.

Dirk and Roxy:

He loves her as if she was a sister, Dirk views Roxy as someone to protect and watch over. Roxy is clearly not helpless, but he dots on her. Roxy doesn't mind it, though she tells Dirk that him always taking care of her makes it impossible to get over him. Dirk tells her to keep her eyes focused, survival is their only priority. Dirk is the one constantly telling the entire group that, and Roxy tells him to take his own advice.

For the Story Overall:

The Beta Kids are all sixteen at this point and are not shown at all in Act 6 until the Alpha Kids are ready to see them. The Alpha Kids did have important trials to go through, but their trials required team work to pull off. Once the Beta Kids meet them, they also introduce the rest of the survivors. The Alpha Kids are much more focused on interacting with their family's counterparts. Over time though, Jake notices he gets along with John, Roxy and Dave, Dirk and Rose, as well as Jane and Jade.

Jake saved his grandma's ashes. His sprite ends up being a perfect parallel to Nannasprite. The two of them are sweet, but Jake's grandma is much more bitter about what the Empress did to her. Jake's grandma is often shown cleaning the inside of Jake's guns while Nannasprite cooks them all food.

The Alpha Kids and Beta Kids all get a chance to fight together. Jane and John fight together. Jake and Jade fight together back-to-back while their sprites aid them. The Strider brother's fight together, then Roxy fades in, Rose follows with a flash. The four of them are considered a family and help each other in battle.

When everything is over, Roxy and Dirk always hang around each other. They act like they are two pees in a pod, though they are not together. Whenever Dave is around them, Dirk will jokingly say “don’t take that tone of voice with your mother,” always getting a laugh out of Roxy. If Roxy still has feelings for Dirk or not is not explored.

There is a montage at the end during the credits. Photos scroll by and we see all the Alpha Kids and Beta Kids dressing up to amuse Roxy. Dave is dressed up as little miss texas while Cowboy John walks down a strip of red fabric that Kanaya puts on the ground. We see an image of every character and what they choose to dress up as, of course Dirk is dressed up just like Dave. Dirk tries hard not to be embarrassed and to be as stone-faced as Dave, Hal loves every second of it. Hal is a princess. In another photo, Dirk is gifted a Rainbow Dash plush. Jake and John watch movies and read comic together. Roxy and Jade teach Rose how to shoot. Rose and Roxy are both doing Dave and Dirk's make up. Roxy makes Dirk look cute, Rose makes Dave look goth. Dirk and Karkat watch chickflicks together. We get more silly things like that.

[vidalinav]

She worked at a bookshop. 

In a tiny human town, where residence could hear the steady crash of a shore onto rocky cliffs, Cassian found Nesta here. In a bookshop, tucked away as if the books wanted to hide something precious within its tomes. 

“Are you looking for something sir?” a shop attendant called, not at all bothered by the wings that raised to let someone behind him pass. This town didn’t seem to hate fae which made his lurking easier. 

The city seemed to house them, in fact. A few, if the streets said anything about it. They were positively bare despite the snow and Cassian knew that no human contraption could have ever stopped the winter from coming when it called. 

She was dressed for winter. Nesta shifted from shelf to shelf with a scarf wrapped around her neck. It was warm in this little shop, but her cheeks and nose were red. Cassian clenched his fists together, keeping them firmly at his side. He wasn’t in any position to offer his coat, but the Mother knew, he might have lit the little shop on fire if it meant keeping her warm.

[catkin-morgs-kookaburralover]

"i mess up things and then i don't have the energy to fix them up" yes brain true sentence but no brain the appropriate response is NOT "therefore i should kill myself (and here's how)"

[box-dwelling]

I know that how much Phoenix suspected Kristoph is very vague and I like the idea he had very little clue but honestly the thing that makes me think he did is Trucy. Because I think there is absolutely no way Kristoph didn't want her dead. He tried to kill vera, child murder isn't above him. And Trucy was a far far bigger weak chain in his scheme than she was but she escapes him basically unscathed other than minus one parent, who lets be real was canonically a POS who tried to kill a woman over a poker game. She saw him give her the diary page. She has psychic lie defecting abilities and he is constantly lying. She's absolutely the biggest direct threat to his scheme.

I feel like if Phoenix genuinely trusted Kristoph he would have absolutely had the opportunity to kill her and tie up that loose end. Trucy's savvy and able to protect herself but she's also a child. It is a miracle she's still alive by AA4 and I think that has to be because Phoenix was protecting her because he knew he couldn't trust Kristoph around her.

[kissporsche]

anon, I am so sorry, I tried to publish this but tumblr ate the post AND the ask 🙃 so I hope you see this!

okay okay so. I tried to answer this ask so many times but I kept getting stuck because my brain wouldn't work unless it was part of An AU. so obviously I drafted in @lu-sn to help, assume anything good or fun or clever in this response was her doing

Here's what we got: post-canon, the outbreak starts slow. Infections are just freak accidents at first, but eventually there's so many it starts to cause panic. The compound is well protected and well-stocked with both resources and weapons, so they hide out for as long as they can, essentially locking down the place, but not before consolidating their assets: Vegas, Pete and Macau are brought in for their own protection.

Eventually, it becomes clear that the situation is only getting worse, and the only viable option is to get out of Bangkok while they still can. Korn, the pragmatic forward thinker, already has an Escape The City plan in place, which he triggers just as zombies are breaching the walls. He calls helicopters in to get everyone to safety, and during the chaos of the evacuation ends up killed. If anyone saw Namphueng push him into the horde, they don't mention it.

They're deposited somewhere far from the city, presumably a safehouse with a lot of land around it, and have to try and figure out how to survive not only the zombies, but living with each other for the foreseeable future. The priorities are self-sufficiency and protection, and not killing each other before the zombies do.

Kinn and Vegas make a surprisingly good team on the logistics side of things, Kinn has the loyalty of his men and a good head for large scale organisation, whereas Vegas has much more experience working on the ground level of business, making sure everything is running smoothly and efficiently. There's definitely a learning curve, and a lot of this survivalist stuff is very much out of their sphere of knowledge, so-

Porsche and Pete are invaluable when it comes to the day-to-day. Coming from lower income backgrounds, they have so much more to offer in terms of practical knowledge, how to make food stretch longer, mend clothes, get enough nutrients from limited supplies etc. We saw in episode 6 that Porsche has some legitimate survival skills, so I think those are essential things he can bring to the table and teach to others.

Basically everyone is a good shot and can play their part in protecting their little commune, but it's frequently Porsche, Pete and Kim who leave in search of resources, information and survivors. There's much less hierarchy between family and guards now, there can't be when everyone needs to work together to have a hope of survival, but Kinn is still the de facto leader and Vegas is still recovering from his injuries, so these three end up as the primary scout team.

Kim needs to learn to rely on other people most of all. At the beginning he would disappear for days at a time, take too many risks, and although his kill count was ten times anyone else's he would come back to a hysterical Tankhun, disappointed Kinn and quiet, withdrawn Chay. After that he stopped going out alone.

Lu came up with the galaxy brain take that Tankhun might cope surprisingly well with the apocalypse, the violence of mindless creatures being much easier to conceive of than the deliberate, cruel violence of humans. It's freeing, in a way, to know there's no malice behind the ongoing threat. Despite being the least suited to this kind of life he takes Chay and Macau under his wing, and the levity he brings is as valuable as his perceptive wisdom.

Okay uh this got away from me a bit and has sort of become a fic premise/outline but I hope it still answered your question?!

[and-stir-the-stars]

Got the brainworms.

A Nest Torn Empty, the month Mike is away. There are some flavors of trauma that might interestingly suit that scenario. These are just little brainstorms, don't feel like. Compelled to use them lmao

One might fit the idea of being medicalized, poked and prodded. Psych test after psych test, evaluations and therapy as it was in the eighties, possibly by particularly shitty professionals who try to go the therapy version of "bad cop" and INSIST mike is lying just to see if he breaks?

Another might be someone deciding to enact some kind of revenge on Evan's behalf. This could go any number of ways, but I think it would be interesting if someone who has been in Evan's position before decided to try and create some version of "a taste of his own medicine" for Mike, though obviously without the near death bit bc of plotlines etc.

And then there are less obvious things that kind of get left out. Being torn from your family all of the sudden is traumatic. He doesn't know what's going to happen to him, or to his brother and sister. Whether or not he's in another abusive place, the sheer amount of differences could throw him off. All the rules are different, all the people are different. He probably feels very isolated.

(You're giving me ideas for the au where Mike thinks Evan died after they're split up, lmao)

In terms of reactions, I think there might be more of a shutdown than his earlier behavior. If nothing he's doing yields ANY reaction– good or bad– then why bother? I think a lot of it would just lead him to be very tired by the end of it all.

Final aspect that I think would be interesting: as the kids grow up and actually learn to talk about the shitty upbringing they had, I think Mike's month away might fall to the wayside for a while. Nobody else thinks about it; it doesn't come up.

Eventually, though, it does need to be addressed. Maybe it kind of pales in comparison to the bite itself, but the experience still hurt.

(Or disregard all of this! Just brainstorming dhfjdkdksk)

okay first off I think it's so funny that I have to outsource all my "how would Mike react to xyz trauma" stuff to you,, like how dare you know him so well and have so many tantalizing Mike thoughts /honorary /pos

i think my initial idea was more along the lines of like,, Mike keeps insisting that he didn't mean to hurt Evan, but the more the psychiatrists poke and prod and question him, the less certain Mike is.

All of Mike’s claims that "I didn't know that would happen" and "i didn't mean for him to get hurt" and "i didn't want to kill him" are met with stuff like. "So there's no history of you hurting him?" "So Evan hasn't been put in danger by your actions before?" "So this behavior is a recent thing that came out of nowhere?" And just like. General questions that, whether asked out malice or from people genuinely trying to understand if Mike is a danger to himself or others, only serve to highlight in Mike’s mind that maybe he is inherently evil, because every time he swears that he didn't mean it, he's just met with a reminder of all the times he has in fact hurt Evan and others before and with the reminder that he could do it again at any time.

The idea that there are certain "professionals" there who just insist that Mike is lying about not meaning for the Bite in an effort to get him to cave and break???? Oooooh boy. Angsty, I love it. Maybe as time passes and Mike gets more and more frustrated, his "medical treatment" and "psychiatric professionals" just get worse and worse as a result of his lashing out. It starts out with the psychiatrists just trying to be thorough and get a detailed understanding of what happened, and the mere nature of their questioning frays Mike as he interprets their questions as them not believing him. He tells himself that he's crazy for feeling so attacked by them when they're professionals trained to help people, but like. It doesn't make the problem go away. Mike starts lashing out as he feels like they don't believe him. And his lashing out is ofc seen as signs of hostility, leading to worse and worse "treatment" (in both sense of the term), and leading to him being placed with awful "professionals" who blatantly tell him to his face now that he's lying about not meaning to hurt Evan to get Mike to break.

And the whole experience just, like, shreds every sense of faith Mike had in his own judgment. He doesn't know what to do or think anymore, and it doesn't matter anyway, because no matter WHAT he does or thinks it has the same result of people just. Making him feel cruel and evil, like he'll inevitably hurt someone, like he's a monster and has always been a monster and is trying to manipulate everyone here in the psych facility and everyone he's ever known into thinking he's NOT a monster for his own personal gain.

Worst thing is that in Mike’s eyes, these are strangers who don't even know him or know anything about him, and yet they don't NEED to know him to know that he's evil. Mike coming to the conclusion that theres something so fundamentally broken about him that people can PHYSICALLY SEE IT, he reeks of it, it's the first thing people see when they look at him, the ONLY thing people see. People don't even need to know him to see straight into the evil in his heart. Which is only furthered when he goes back home and all these classmates he never talked to before are calling him a murderer, not to mention Liz's ambivalent reaction to seeing him again.

[transxfiles]

lost phineas and ferb episode where perry is called to investigate what dr doofenshmirtz is up to because carl the intern got ahold of some intel that doof has been seen speaking to lawyers and looking up the endangered species act at internet cafes and as major monogram says, "something fishy is going on"

meanwhile phineas and ferb's subplot of "i know what we're gonna do today!" is that isabella needs her environmentalist fireside girls badge so they start researching which species are in urgent need of help in the tri-state area so that they can use new cloning and gene therapy technologies to bring at-risk animals back from extinction

(yes there is a c-plot where buford and baljeet argue the ethics of this idea, i don't have time to explain it all for you rn)

we cut back to🎵doofenshmirtz evil incorporated🎵where we see perry carefully maneuvering around doofenshmirtz's lab scared he might fall into a trap but he hasn't set off a single booby trap and it's clear something is off

he runs into doofenshmirtz and goes to kick him in the gut action movie style but doof steps back one overly confident and says, "nuh uh uh, you see perry the platypus, you are TRAPPED! by the danville section of the endangered species act of 1973!"

doof goes on to explain his tragic backstory: "you see, perry the platypus, when i was a child my parents did not show up for my own birth! but you know that already, yadda yadda yadda they did not love me and then they loved roger more, ANYways i was raised by ocelots! i had a lovely foster mother who took me in and made me one of the pride, and so you see, perry the platypus, i am still legally considered an ocelot. did you know that there are only 50 recorded ocelots still alive in the continental united states? very sad for me as a member of a near-extinct species. it would be immoral for you to hurt someone critically endangered... in fact, you have made many attempts on my life this summer"

[montage of doof's security camera footage of their battles]

"which is why i have decided to bring you... TO COURT!" we cut back to phineas and ferb's back yard where they've decided to start cloning ocelots in their kiddie pool

candace storms outside enraged and says, "phineas and ferb are you cloning ocelots in my duckie momo kiddie pool!?"

ferb's one line of the episode is "well, i guess it's more of a kitty pool, now"

candace storms away saying, "i'm going to tell mom!" and isabella turns to phineas and says, "oh, does your mom have experience in wildlife conservation?"

we cut back to the doof and perry plotline where the two are now in the danville hall of justice and we learn that doof has spent his monthly alimony check on a defense lawyer and perry turns and sees the lawyer and then vanessa helping her organize her briefcase and perry chitters at her and vanessa shrugs and says, "i'm thinking about going into legal defense. sorry perry."

the rest of the doof and perry b-plot is spent in court and perry is about to ask for a public defense lawyer when carl runs into the room and explains that he's owca's official legal defense and perry looks at him like, "uhhh is that even allowed?"

it doesn't matter because apparently the judge is out sick today but because it's danville roger's the judge now because he's the mayor and everyone loves him.

the court case continues.

meanwhile phineas and ferb have successfully cloned multiple ocelots from the original ocelot dna they had on hand and isabella asks phineas if these clones will experience health problems like premature aging, phineas casually explains that ferb figured out the problem while they were experimenting with stem cell harvesting.

back in the courtroom, doof's ocelot foster mother has been brought to the stand along with an ocelot to english translator. doof gets emotional seeing her after so long. she says that he was one of her favorite child and he was as strong a hunter as anyone else in the family. it's incredibly sweet. the jury's in tears.

meanwhile, isabella has established connections with a group in texas who are going to release the ocelots back into their natural habitat and, using the cloned ocelots to prevent inbreeding, help establish an ocelot breeding program. the group explains that they are going to send a helicopter to retrieve the cloned ocelots from danville and bring them to texas soon.

isabella gets her fireside girls badge.

candace manages to get mom to see the backyard only after the ocelots have been helicoptered off to coastal texas, their primary habitat.

mom makes it into the backyard as phineas stares wistfully over the fence and says, "if you love something, you have to let it go." candace goes, "look mom look look look!" and points at the ducky momo kiddie pool, devoid of cloned ocelots, where baljeet and buford are now chilling out, having settled their philosophical debate about the ethics of animal cloning.

back in the courtroom drama, doof looks like he's about to win when an attendant walks into the courtroom and whispers something in roger's ear.

roger looks up, grinning, and says, "good news, everyone! my attendant here has just enlightened me that ocelots are no longer considered critically endangered!"

this settles the case, with perry being decreed not guilty and the entire affair being called off. the courtroom cheers, roger walks over to doof and personally congratulates him on his species' return from the brink of extinction.

doof shouts, "curse you endangered species classification system!" at the ceiling of the danville hall of justice.

perry arrives back home just in time for mom to say, "who wants pie?"

the end.

[pocketbelt]

they announced one of the main writers for FFXIV: Dawntrail is the one who wrote the Shadowbringers trial series, "Sorrow of Werlyt", and the amount of people going "ew no that's the one that redeems Gaius" drives me kind of insane

That storyline takes Gaius and says "Behold this idiot, watch and be stunned as everything he ever said to anyone turned out to be fucking obviously wrong. Watch as the fascist imperialist philosophy he ingrained into his beloved children makes them run to their deaths, even as he pleads them not to, and they tell him to fuck himself and do it anyway. Marvel as he watches them die by your hand, you, who destroyed Gaius himself at the peak of his life, and he can do nothing to stop it", and that's a redemption arc to people

The only surviving kid only makes it because her brother acts to protect her, she doesn't make it because of any act of Gaius'

The entire story is literally "In case you somehow missed it in ARR and most of Stormblood, everything Gaius believed in was horseshit and there's no such thing as a 'noble general in the evil empire'". All his meritocracy bullshit vanished the second he was gone, no-one but his own children believed it or held onto it, and the empire put someone directly opposed to that belief into his old seat when he vanished. No-one cared, no-one else "believed", the Empire was never about that, it was only propped up in his own singular legion by him being there and the second he was gone the legion dumped it and moved on and only Gaius was too naive and stupid to see it.

I mean for fuck sake, the Empire digs up the chemical gas weapon he explicitly had sealed away and destroyed all record of after he's gone and if it wasn't for a particularly dedicated and enterprising catboy and his comedy crew of hardcore engineers, it would have caused the eighth apocalypse

Even the follow-up in patch 6.4, of the family portrait, isn't some "aw he good now" thing. The family portrait you help organise for him has to have four of its six members be projected onto the scene via a machine's reconstruction of them as normal people because they're dead, they threw their lives away because the ideology Gaius taught them meant they could only think to die fighting and nothing else. That's his loving family portrait: four ghosts stood at his back as his last living child smiles through her pain.

"well the people of Werlyt didn't kill him for conquering them" they let him clean up the mess he made (which meant watching his children be killed) and as "thanks" they're letting him stay there to live out the last third of his life or so attempting to atone by fixing the damage he did.

He's 56 at the time of ARR; the Empire he gave 3-4 decades of his life to is gone, it's a smouldering ruin, all but one of the people he loved is dead, his surviving daughter is scarred by the path he led her down, and what few friends he had are also dead. He learned that his beliefs were all horseshit and pretty much everyone around him except for himself knew it, he must live knowing that those beliefs got his children killed, all that he achieved that he once considered "good" was for nothing, he learned that the cool old emperor he idolised who had no magic but built an empire by pulling up his bootstraps and who told him that magic and gods were bad was actually an ancient incredibly magical sorceror attempting to resurrect his own god.

That's not a redemption arc, he's the most owned man still alive in XIV

[loosescrewslefty]

This was absolutely brilliantly done.

Because this isn't Anya's most closely guarded secret being discovered by accident without her consent. She made an active, CONSCIOUS choice to tell Damian that she is a telepath. Something that she was previously terrified would lead to her being hated if someone happened to find out. And throughout this little prom arc we slowly get fed the reasons that lead up to this moment. First being that while she initially saw Damian as a bratty, self centered jerk, Anya has slowly come to know him better and see a more noble and compassionate boy under all that cocky bluster.

Then there's the way Damian also mentions to her that many people try and use him in order to get close to his parents-- which she sees for herself when the other girls start swarming him demanding to dance-- hence his suspicions of her own intentions.

And the finally is the fact that, despite his own admission that his parents barely acknowledge he's alive, Damian still loves and admires them and is desperate to earn their affection.

In fact, during the Damian quiz, it's implied that Anya didn't use her powers to figure out who Damian's most beloved person was, because she already knew the answer just from knowing him. It's the only question we don't see her telepathic 'sparkles' or hear her listening on the answer.

It happened slowly and subconsciously, but despite the unflattering first impression Anya has come to care about Damian. She doesn't want him to be hurt or sad. She doesn't want to use him or take advantage of him the way she sees others try to (and the way a small subset of the fandom accuses Anya of trying to since they can't seem to grasp that Anya is at most six years old and hasn't thought as far as to how the fallout of Twilight's mission will affect the Desmonds). And she understand him a lot better than she ever realized. She trusts him with her deepest, darkest secret despite her fear and the uncertainty because she genuinely WANTS to be honest with Damian. It's her olive branch to him, after HE was vulnerable with her time and again when it comes to his family and his fear of letting others close after so many people tried to use him for his name.

Because more than anyone else, Damian has noticed her, and how intuitive she is of the thoughts of others.

And despite denying or deflecting it time and time again-- including intentionally bombing a few questions in this chapter to avoid standing out too much after Damian called her out again-- Anya FINALLY came clean to him about her powers.

And, of course, he thought she was messing with him, which in turn pissed HER off because this is her biggest secret, dammnit! XD

But despite Damian's refusal to believe her ATM, this isn't something Anya can take back, and Damian is perceptive enough of Anya that sooner or later he's going to realize that Anya was being honest with him. And it'll be a wild ride to see where things go from there.

[reticent-writer]

Spiral p1

warnings: a bit violent, shitty parents

(it doesn't go into details)

✿✼:*ﾟ:.｡..｡.:*･ﾟﾟ･**･ﾟﾟ･*:.｡..｡.:*ﾟ:*:✼✿　

"You killed your parents?" He was genuinely shocked as he watched you nod. He lived for tea like this but coming from you he couldn't help but be confused.

"Why on earth would you do that. You told me that you loved them."

"I mean I did but they were- wait my death led to yours?" You changed the subject.

"Yes, I simply cannot function without you, my dear. I was hiding a body in the woods when I was shot in the head." He said it as if it was a fond memory. It was creepy but as he talked a red X appeared on his forhead. the moment he saw you staring it vanished.

"You can't change the subject, Y/n. When and Why did you kill your parents?"

You sighed as you went to tell your story, "They were an odd pair, in my opinion, they should have been divorced. My mother was drunk, always talking about how she never liked my father but had 6 kids with him, I was the eldest. My father always talked about the life he could've had if he didn't settle for my mother. When my father lost his job he became a drunk and often got violent with us. After a while, I got tired of it and told my siblings to go to a friend's house for the night. The next day they were found dead by the neighbor's, No one was caught."

"That must've been quite a night." He joked.

"It was, it was also the night I met you."

"Really? You seemed so.... happy."

"Because I was."

From then on the two of you talked daily

You had learned that he had been missing from the public eye for 7 years

He started calling you pet names he used when he was alive

He told you things he would never tell anyone else

You met husk and niffty

You started to like him again but you could never forgive him for killing you

nut you considered it when he started working for the hazbin hotel

You were a patron

Although you didn't believe that sinners can change you decided to give it a shot

"Well good morning, My love. It's such a nice day today, would you care to join me for a trip to the tailor? A nobody took a bit off me." He grinned from ear to ear while offering his arm of you to take. You accepted.

At the tailor the two of you while the two of you were waiting for his jacket you suggested he try on more suits for a variety of clothes.

"How does with one look?" He came out in a blue suit with a black button-up. (his colors in reverse)

"You look amazing." You beamed as his posed.

"So this is a yes?"

"Of course-"

"Sir your jacket is ready."

Alastor paid for the new suit and his old one. Outside of the shop was a crowd surround a tv broadcasting Vox.

Alastor told you practically nothing about the other overlords but you could tell he did not like Vox and the way he looked at the TV confirmed it.

"Come along, dear. There's nothing to see over there."

✿✼:*ﾟ:.｡..｡.:*･ﾟﾟ･**･ﾟﾟ･*:.｡..｡.:*ﾟ:*:✼✿　

Alastor beefing with Lucifer and cursing is so funny to me💀

Taglist: @berryghostbunny, @lorkai, @mygoldtears, @kawaiiskeletoneggsnerd, @secretkoalapersona-blog, @koji-akeme, @lofasofabread , @msyolocat-blog, @elementress44, @luujjvi, @justmare

[pathologicalreid]

hello my new favorite tumblr writer 😇 i will b honest i have never requested anything before so!! bear with me. however the spencer reid brainrot is all too real SO would you be open to doing anything with a hotchner!fem!reader? bau or not for the reader! something something hotch is very hesitant about their relationship but maybe reader gets caught in the crossfire of something and hotch and prentiss see them together afterward and prentiss is like “that looks pretty real to me.” DOES THAT MAKE ANY SENSE OKAY I’M LEAVING NOW THANK YOUUUU 🫡

a father's daughter | S.R.

in which your father doesn't approve of your relationship, but who knows how he'll react when reid jumps into action after a threat against your life

who? spencer reid x hotchner!fem!bau!reader category: angst content warnings: general cm violence, blood, stitches, hospitals, medical inaccuracy word count: 2.03k a/n: anon you are legendary. this is an incredible request and i am so honored to be your new favorite tumblr writer! i am an absolute sucker for anything hotchner!reader (or rossi!reader) so i absolutely ate this request up! (also if anyone wanted to drop a request in my inbox... it would be welcome)

Aaron Hotchner was the most professional person in the BAU, except when it came to you. You, like him, had gone to law school. You were a public defender for just a short time before being put into WITSEC, and when your mother died, you applied to the FBI Academy.

Plain and short, it was nepotism, but no one was going to argue with the man whose wife was murdered by a serial killer. Your dad wanted you in the BAU so he could keep an eye on you, and there was nothing Erin Strauss could do about it. What your father couldn’t control, was your relationship with Reid.

He could tell you that he didn’t approve, but so long as David Rossi, king of inter-bureau mingling, was around, he couldn’t actually do anything to stop you. “I’m just saying that I’ve never seen Reid be consistent with a relationship,” your dad said, having pulled you away from the team to, once again, try to warn you off of your relationship.

“He’s been pretty consistent for the last seven months,” you responded, rifling through the victims' files that were in your arms.

You started to make your way out of the empty office when your father spoke again, “And he’s too old for you.”

Stopping in your tracks, you pivoted and faced your father, “He’s three years older than I am, I’m twenty-six. That’s hardly an age gap to bat an eye at.” The two of you had always had a rocky relationship, he missed a large portion of your childhood due to this job and you always tried to not resent him for it.

Your parents’ marriage fell apart, neither of them handled it well, and you weren’t all that surprised. They had gotten married when your mom got pregnant with you because they thought that was what they were supposed to do, and when Jack couldn’t keep them together, everything fell apart.

“You have no right to lecture me on relationships, Agent Hotchner,” you snapped, staring him down. Daring him to challenge you.

He sighed, obviously trying not to lose his patience with you. “I’d just hate for you to find out you wasted your time on something that wasn’t real.”

The door behind you swung open, you spun on your heels to face Emily. “Sorry, uh, we have a location, Morgan’s coordinating with SWAT,” she said, looking between you and your father.

“Great, let’s go,” your father said, his parental demeanor falling away as his Unit Chief mask took its place.

You walked out the door to see the rest of the team, Rossi tossed you a Kevlar vest as you walked over to where Spencer was standing with the police chief, “Where are we headed?” You asked, undoing the Velcro on the vest and pulling it over your torso. The beige precinct was buzzing as agents and officers prepared to break into the UnSub’s home base. Hopefully to find his most recent victim still alive.

Reid reached over and adjusted the strap of your vest, making sure it was evenly tightened over your shoulders. “Garcia found a warehouse on the other side of town. It’s being rented out under an anagram of the first victim’s name,” he said, gently squeezing your arm before dropping his hands back to his side.

Nodding, you followed the rest of the team out the metal doors of the precinct and into the black SUVs. “Your UnSub’s name is Jonas Watts, he used a different name to rent the space but the account he uses to pay for it is under his name,” Garcia’s voice rang through the speaker as she told you about the perpetrator. “He checks every UnSub box we have, raised by a single father after his mother left, and… oh, multiple arrests for assault.”

You looked up to the driver’s seat, your dad was white-knuckling the steering wheel, entirely focused on driving as you listened to Garcia reciting the UnSub’s rap sheet.

When you arrived at the warehouse SWAT was already there and Morgan started organizing the tactical assault. Drawing your weapon, you nodded at your teammate when he instructed you to go around the back with himself and your father. Allowing Morgan to kick the door down, the three of you held your firearms up and began clearing the warehouse.

Further away, you heard Emily and Spencer clearing the front. “Clear, moving up,” you called into your radio as you approached the stairs, stepping on them carefully so they didn’t creak. On the landing, you looked at a trail of blood on the ground. “There’s a blood trail in the upper west wing,” you whispered.

“Move up, little Hotch, I’m right behind you,” Morgan responded.

Rolling your eyes at the nickname, one that you had begged him to stop using, you moved forward, keeping your firearm aimed right in front of you. Turning into the room that the blood trail led to, you immediately ducked when you saw a knife coming for you. Keeping your gun aimed, you faced down the UnSub, “Jonas Watts, FBI!” You announced yourself, scanning the room for the girl he took last night.

Watts shook his head, “You’re not supposed to be here! You can’t be here!” He shouted in distress.

“Where’s the girl, Jonas? Where did you take Isobel?” You asked him, not seeing her in the room the two of you were in. There was another entrance on the left of him.

He stepped toward you, and you cocked your gun, “I don’t have her now. I lost her, she’s lost,” he said, there was a hint of uncertainty in his voice.

Unnerved, you decided to take a leap of faith, “Jonas, where’s your partner?” A partner hadn’t been part of the profile, but the more you thought about it, the more it made sense. The crimes were too complex, it didn’t match up with something as simple as using an anagram of a victim’s name for the warehouse rental.

Morgan filed in behind you, aiming his gun at Jonas, same as you. “Time’s running out, Jonas. If you tell us about your partner we can help you,” he said, slowly inching toward Watts.

“It’s too late,” Jonas wailed.

Someone knocked into you from behind, causing you to stumble forward before you were pulled to your feet. One arm was locked around your torso, and another was holding a knife to your throat. “If you don’t leave now, I’ll cut her fucking throat!” The unnamed man said from behind you, he was almost impossibly tall, easily overpowering you.

You didn’t dare move, not with that knife to your throat, one false move and you’d bleed out. Morgan shouted for him to let you go, but he just pressed the knife tighter to your neck, splitting the skin.

Shutting your eyes, you tried not to cry, fearing the damage it would do to your throat.

Your captor held you tightly to him, using your body to block Morgan from shooting. Something warm trickled down your collarbone, and you weren’t sure if it was blood or tears.

For a moment, you thought you could swing your foot back into his knee, but the fear of having your carotid cut outweighed your bravery.

Ever since you were a kid, you thought death would be quiet. Something you slipped into like sleep, but your death was loud, and it left your ears ringing.

The afterlife was the weirdest place you’ve ever been, someone was calling your name, and you heard your rights being read. Although, why you would need your Miranda Rights in the afterlife you had no idea.

“Angel, please open your eyes,” someone said.

Confused, you opened your eyes and saw familiar eyes staring down at you. Golden and bleary. Spencer, Spencer was here. You tried to sit up, but he held you down, keeping a hand on your throat.

Morgan was shouting for medical, saying there was an agent down. You turned your head to see the still unidentified UnSub on the ground, shot through the temple. Using his free hand to turn your chin, “Don’t look,” Spencer whispered. “You’re okay, I’ve got you. I’m not going to let anything happen to you, angel.”

If you weren’t still coming down from an adrenaline high, you might’ve smiled at the irony of the nickname. Being called ‘angel’ after having your neck cut felt like tempting fate.

Where was your dad? Of everyone here, you expected him to be here, barking orders at people.

As if summoned by your thoughts, your dad appeared, nearly hauling an EMT behind him, “Help her,” he said.

Yeah, that absolutely tracked.

The EMT’s packed your wound and assured everyone that your carotid had not been slit, against your protests, the ambulance brought you to the hospital for stitches. Emily had run to the hotel to get your go bag, allowing you to change out of your bloodied clothes.

Thankfully, the doctors said you didn’t need to stay overnight, meaning you and the team got to go home. “How are you feeling?” Spencer asked while you were waiting to board the jet.

You hummed, pulling your sunglasses over your eyes, and leaning against a car, “Tired, but I’m alright.” Tired might have been underselling it, you felt like all of the energy had been physically drained from your body. “You worry too much,” you whispered, closing your eyes for just a moment. Your throat was a little raspy, but it should go back to normal after a couple of days.

“Your throat was cut about four hours ago, some might say I’m not worrying enough,” he responded, reaching down, and picking up your bag, carrying it over to the jet once they got the okay to board. On the jet, he gestured to the seat, “Lay down, get some rest.”

You furrowed your brows, “Isn’t it kind of frowned upon to take up a whole seat?” You asked, of course, sometimes it happened, but you didn’t want to take up too much space.

Spencer cocked his head at you, “I don’t think anyone is going to fight you on it, love.”

Taking a deep breath, you sat down on the seat, laying down and closing your eyes, falling asleep before you even left the tarmac.

Being the Unit Chief had its perks, surely, but the piles of paperwork sometimes felt never-ending. Aaron took a deep breath before he closed the file, Rossi sat across from him, nursing a glass of whiskey.

“Hey,” Prentiss whispered, taking the seat next to him and setting her glass of water down on the small table. “Do you see that?” She said, gesturing with her head toward where you were lying down, asleep.

Right next to you was Reid, who usually had his nose buried in a book at this point in a flight, but he was wide awake, and all of his focus seemed to be on you. Begrudgingly, Hotch watched as Spencer reached over and tucked a blanket around you as if he was afraid you’d freeze on the temperature-controlled jet. “What about it?” Hotch asked, reaching over for the next file.

His eyes flicked up again, Spencer was sitting on the floor of the jet. Everyone had elected to leave the couch seats for the two of you, but the one across the aisle from you was empty. Like Reid didn’t even want you to be any more than one foot away from him.

Leaning back in the chair, Emily shook her head, “That’s what we in the business call hypervigilance.”

Hotch didn’t respond, he just spared another glance over at the two of you. “’We in the business’?” He inquired, humoring Prentiss.

“I’m just saying… the hovering? The blanket? I don’t know about you, but that looks pretty real to me,” she said, leaning back in the leather seat.

Silently, he glared, it would seem his hopes of getting the team to stop eavesdropping on familial conversations were quashed.

“Just let the kids be, Aaron,” Rossi said, grinning into his glass.

He cleared his throat and flipped open the new file before he acquiesced, “Fine, for now.”

please reblog, like, and/or comment if you enjoyed 🩵

[luveline]

I read the Derek and Spencer fainting bit and now I want to complete it with Hotch :)))

If that’s alright of course…

thank you for your request ♡ fem!reader

Aaron knows you harbour more affection for him than anyone else on the team, which is a true compliment to him, as you adore Spencer. He can never tell if you're friendly or loving, if you want some or all or nothing, the line between you blurred. 

When Morgan and Garcia first began their flirtatious friendship, Aaron thought they were seeing each other on the sly for a whole fortnight. He's a profiler, but he doesn't know everything. 

He does, however, know that something is wrong with you today. Hand held up over your eyes, you squint out over the crime scene with a wrinkled nose. The lakeside smells as bad as it looks with gore blackening the surrounding grass. He's been telling you for months to get some shades. You've been ignoring his advice. 

Your disapproval of the smell is normal. Your unsure footing is not. You take his forearm when he offers it and step across the muddy bank to the body without audible complaint, though you give him a 'this fucking sucks' narrowing of the eyes when he gives you the time. 

"Agent Hotchner," a deputy greets, "Agent L/N. We found the second body here. Bystanders pulled the first out thinking she was still alive, but that was unfortunately not the case." 

You shift unprofessionally close to Aaron. He doesn't really care. The sheriff barely looks at you both, his attention on the corpse hidden between overgrown cattails. 

Aaron hates to admit that he gives you more of his attention than is helpful. You seem odd. Call it intuition, call it plain old profiling, Aaron reads the next minute of events in the smallest twitch of your finger.

You put your hand on his back and he doesn't think, he just grabs you. The sheriff deputy startles as you fold over Aaron's arm like a marionette with strings sliced, exhaling hard as your body does its best to hit the grass beneath your feet. 

"Agent L/N!" The deputy yelps. 

"I got her," Aaron says, easing you down to the ground. He keeps a hand behind your head to lay you down flat, the other quick to leap from your side to your cheek. You'll likely have bruises in the shape of his hands at your waist. "Y/N?" 

He rubs his thumb under your eye. Quick, he leans down with an ear to your lips and relaxes at the sound of your shallow breathing. He pulls away, resting a hand atop your chest. 

"Can you hear me?" he asks, conscious of and ignoring the copious pairs of eyes watching over you. 

You don't respond. Aaron goes into emergency mode, flagging down a cop who races for a paramedic, hands at your throat unbuttoning the first button on your blouse, the second in an overabundance of caution. 

"Y/N, if you can hear me, I need you to open your eyes. Can you do that?" His tone wavers somewhere between demanding and desperate. "Come on. Come on." 

Fainting is one thing. Fainting with no signs of dehydration and little sun exposure is another, especially considering you hadn't moved from one position to another. You've passed out with no obvious cause. Any number of things could be wrong. 

He doesn't slap you —it works in the movies and not often elsewhere. In fact, Aaron finds himself at the opposite end of the spectrum. Patient outwardly and insanely panicked on the inside, he holds your face in his hand and waits for someone to tell him you're alright. 

Your breath catches, your head lolling into his palm. He straightens it, weary of your airways. "Y/N? Tell me you can hear me." 

The whirlwind of your fall and the eternity of your recovery has him holding his breath. 

"I can hear you," you mumble, again attempting to turn your head. He lets you this time. He's so relieved, he'd let you do anything. 

He fights the urge to shout, Where's the medic? instead following your face, tilting his head to the side. "Open your eyes, honey," he murmurs, for your ears alone. 

Your lashes twitch against his pinky index finger. You frown as though you're in pain and finally rouse to attention. 

"What hurts?" he asks, brows furrowed.

"Nothing hurts…" Your frown worsens. "You look really unhappy." 

"I'm not ecstatic about this," he says. He gives in, shouting, "Where's the medic?"

"Oh, no, please," you say, trying to sit up, "that is so embarrassing."

Aaron pushes you flat to the grass beneath you. "Stop, you need to stay flat. You passed out. This is the solution–" He puts his hand flat over your chest as you put in some effort. "Hey, this is what you need to do. Listen to me, agent." 

"What happened to honey?" you ask quietly. 

"That's when you were doing what I wanted." 

You close your eyes in a faux strop. "I guess I'll have to do what you want more often, sir." 

"That's enough." He sounds fond. Why does he sound so fond? 

The deputy clears his throat. "Paramedics are here." 

You groan. Aaron hides a smile. Through everything, his hand has stayed on your cheek. He doesn't pull it away until he absolutely has to, and even then, he holds some part of you. Your elbow, your wrist. He has the sense to be sheepish about it when the paramedic ushers him back, but even then, he's thinking about when he'll get to touch you next; he needs the assurance that you're okay. 

He gets it a half hour later when you're sipping on a gatorade in the back of an SUV. 

"Do I still get paid for today?" you ask, smiling playfully. "Or is this a write off?" 

He wants to joke about it with you, but there's work to be done. He sends you back to the hotel with a frankly unprofessional hug and a demand to take it easy. He's sure you'll be back stepping on his heels by late afternoon. 

[groguspicklejar]

:( price x reader who thinks she's undeserving of love? listen not to dump, but my mom just said "i feel bad for the guy who has to marry you" :(( thanks babe

um... excuse you? how dare she?? and how dare you for believing her???

the scathing look he'd painfully restrain from giving you because he's the guy that's going to marry you someday, what the fuck do you mean? he's patient with you, however, understanding that you didn't have the best circumstances growing up for you to believe that and your mother didn't help with that. he doesn't tell you the part about him being that guy but he has a few choice words to say about putting yourself down like that.

"he'd be the luckiest bastard in the whole world, love." he says. "don't listen to the chatter from jealous birds."

if you'd let him, he'd show you just how wonderful you are to any man to has you. because it's not long after that day before he's on one knee, asking to be that lucky bastard.

your wedding day was the first of many days when you realized that he wasn't fucking kidding.

"my wife." he pants in your ear, rutting his hips slowly as his thumb stroked your clit. "my pretty wife, making me the luckiest man alive."

the reception has just barely started and he'd pulled you aside to have his way with you. pushing up your heavily layered wedding dress just enough to slip his cock into your aching pussy. you try not to moan loud enough for anyone to hear but you were so, so full when he hikes your leg up his hip and starts to fuck you against the door.

"Mrs Price." he mouths kisses on your neck. you clenched down on his shaft, gasping and trembling when you cum on his cock, earning a sharp groan as he spills inside you.

he could not care about the knowing looks when you both returned to the guests with his face painted with red lipstick marks and your mouth (and the white neckline of your gown) had been smudged. if only they knew about his cum leaking out of your pussy throughout the entire wedding.

yeah, your mother promptly shut up after that :)

offer a coin to the picklejar banners by @cafekitsune CoD Masterlist Masterlist

[literaila]

sick

gojo satoru x fem!reader

summary: satoru does not get the 'flu' that you have, or why you can't take megumi to the bookstore

warnings: symptoms of the flu, satoru is a bastard, cute kids

last part | next part

*

year two.

you:  can you take megumi to the bookstore? i can't make it 

"megumi wants me to ask you what you mean by 'i can't make it.'" 

your phone rings as soon as the message is sent, making you groan and roll over in bed. your palms are sweaty, and your body feels a bit like you got eaten alive. 

you probably shouldn't have answered, but honestly, how can you be expected to make smart decisions in this state?

you sigh into the phone. "it means that i can't make it, satoru." 

usually, his voice would make you smile but right now it just makes you want to die. and sleep for a couple... billion years, at least. 

"megumi wants me to ask what you mean by that?" satoru says again like you can't tell he's grinning. 

"just let me talk to him," you sigh, turning over on your side, which does nothing to ease the ache in your abdomen, by the way. you feel briefly nauseous like you might need the bowl you dragged under the covers, but it eases. you swallow bile. 

"what's wrong?" satoru asks, still teasing, and doesn't put megumi on the phone because he has never, not once in his life done anything without an argument. 

really, why do you put up with him?

"nothing." 

"well you just forgot that both of the kids are in school right now, like they are every day, so..." 

you close your eyes, pulling the covers up even higher. "oh. yeah." 

"did you get hurt, or something?" satoru asks, no concern evident in his voice, "going on another mission?" 

"no." 

satoru is silent, waiting. and you really truly do hate him. anyone else would just do you this favor. 

but not your best friend, no, he does nothing you ask. 

"i'm sick," you tell him, after a whole minute of silence. 

you can almost hear it as his brows furrow. "what?" 

"i have the flu or something," you cough into the receiver, hoping that it hurts his ear. 

"how?" 

"ugh," you groan, trying to rub the ache out of your jaw. "not all of us are immune to getting sick, you freak. will you take megumi to the bookstore for me? please?" 

"i don't think he wants to go with me." 

"satoru," you whine. 

"...and also i'm not allowed to enter the premises anymore." 

you sniff, wishing that you had more tissues, "what? since when?" 

"a couple weeks ago," he answers, nonchalantly. you can hear him moving around, probably wreaking havoc on the house you'll have to deep clean in a couple of days. 

not to mention your room. seriously, getting sick is the worst. 

"why?" 

"nuh uh," he says to you, very seriously. "that's between me and the children. they swore me to secrecy, and you're the one that's always going on and on about trust and how easily it's broken..." 

"you mean that you swore them to secrecy." 

"i bribed them," satoru agrees as if it's not an insane thing to say about your seven and eight-year-olds. 

"with what?!" 

"tsumiki took the offer of picking whatever takeout she wanted, and i think megumi was just glad i couldn't bring him anymore, the brat." 

you can hear his eyes roll, and the mention of the little boy's name reminds you of why you're having this discussion in the first place. 

"satoru... i really can't take him and i promised we'd go today," you groan into your pillow, voice feeling very sore. you shouldn't be talking to this insane man right now, you should be asleep. 

he pauses. "i can wear a disguise, i guess?" 

you groan again, hopefully, louder. "no, you're right about him not wanting to go with you." 

"rude." 

"i guess i'll just..." you attempt to sit up for the third time, feeling a bit dizzy as you do so. "i'll take some medicine and see if i feel better by the time they get out of school."

you're already mentally checking your medicine cabinet, not even sure if you have anything to help this ease by later in the afternoon. just some pain relief would be nice, but if you're contagious...

"what? no."

"well, you can't take him," you answer, still annoyed. 

"he doesn't need to go..." 

you hope that satoru can feel your scowl. "i promised." 

"he's a reasonable kid..." satoru says, clearly not remembering the brooding that happened the last time megumi had to re-read one of his books. "i think." 

you're silent. 

"look, i'll talk to him, okay?" he settles on, finally. "and i'll give him a couple hundred yen, it'll be fine. 

your mouth opens, and you cough, before, "no, satoru--" 

"get some rest," he exclaims, unpleasantly. 

"have him call me when you pick them up, satoru--" 

"don't die of the flu or anything." 

and then he's gone, and now you've got a headache, too. 

*

you think you might be dreaming when you open your front door.

the knocking had woken you up--you think--but with how long it took to walk from your room, into the hallway, and then the door, honestly, you might've fainted. or decided to take another nap against the wall. 

because once you open it, it feels like you've done this before.  

once again, three people are standing in front of you, two of them already arguing before you even take a step back to swing the door all the way open. 

the light hurts your head as you squint at the three of them. 

"it was my idea--" megumi is saying to satoru, grumpy, you know, from all day at school, and because he's talking to satoru.

"you're not taking all of the credit," satoru says back, "i bought everything." 

"'cause you're rich." 

"wow, so you're objectifying me?" 

"yes," megumi answers immediately, even though you doubt that he even knows what objectifying means (actually, you're pretty certain satoru doesn't even know). you cough, and it feels like something has died inside of you. 

the three of them turn towards you, tsumiki with a pleading look.

"it was my idea, okay?" megumi tells you before anyone else can say anything, and then he pulls tsumiki along with him as they move past you, through the door, into your apartment. 

yes, it's clear that satoru has raised them. 

"i said we should bring soup," tsumiki looks up at you, waiting for the praise she knows you'll give her. 

"our idea," megumi amends, easily. 

then they're out of your reach, going to sit on the very same couch they'd slept on a year ago, probably trying to escape satoru.

who you turn to, with a frown. his hair is so white it hurts to look at.

he points into your apartment, "those are devil spawn." 

you cough. "don't call them that." 

he raises a brow at you. probably at how soft your voice is, or the fact that you haven't hit him in the thirty seconds he's been standing there. 

it's a new record. 

"why are you here?" you rasp out, wiping some snot from your nose.

"no 'hello?'" 

"hello, satoru," your voice is retched, "why are you here?" 

"you look kinda rough, kid," 

you sniff, leaning against the doorjam. you could fall asleep here in an instant. "i'm sick, you jerk." 

"so this is sickness..." satoru says, intrigued, pretending to inspect you closely like you're some lab experiment. 

"i distinctly remember a cold that had you shaking on the floor of your dorm, begging shoko to heal you." 

satoru points a finger at you. "that was an uncurable illness." 

"and yet we're still stuck with you." 

satoru just smirks, pretending to be an angel he is not. 

you cough again and then sigh. it's cold with the door open. "are you just here to annoy me?"

"no," satoru shakes his head, giving you a ridiculous look, "well, i was telling megumi that you couldn't take him to the bookstore, cause of your disease or whatever," he ignores your weak protest, "and then i suggested that maybe we could see how you were feeling, bring you a little gift basket--" 

"no, he didn't!" megumi calls. 

satoru frowns. "devil. spawn." 

you snort, somehow amused at all of them, finally moving aside so he can walk through the door. 

satoru passes, suddenly brighter, but not before leaving an obnoxious kiss on your cheek--a resounding smack following. to which, you promptly wipe off. 

he frowns, and you push him so you can close the door. and then you trail into the kitchen, sitting down immediately before you fall. 

it's so embarrassing that just standing for too long has made you this lightheaded. 

satoru sets a bag on your kitchen counter and begins to unpack it. 

you try to see over his hands. "what did you bring me?" 

"you guys are so unappreciative," satoru tells you, pouting, "you only want me for my goods." 

"and the view," you answer, easily. "what'd you get?" 

megumi and tsumiki comes over to you, both of them giving you a short (megumi) and tight (tsumiki) hug. you've trained them well. 

"soup!" tsumiki tells you, grabbing the container from satoru's hands, despite his look. and then she walks over to your stove, looking in the cupboards for a pot to heat it in. 

because she's used to taking care of herself. they both are. 

"satoru," you nod to her, and he frowns, but reluctantly takes over, pushing tsumiki away from the stove. you're both familiar with this behavior from her. 

most days when you make dinner, tsumiki is trying to sneak into the kitchen, refusing to let you take care of it. 

she pouts a little now, but lets satoru handle the soup.

"gojo got you all of these," megumi tells you, bringing your eyes away from the other man, pushing a stack of pill bottles and medicine containers your way. "i don't think he knows what any of them are." 

"hey! that's a great selection," satoru pours the soup into a pot and sets it on the stove, returning to the counter with the three of you.

"this is a muscle relaxant," you tell him, frowning as you look at the packages--most of which are not for the flu. this is why he's not allowed to go to the store without you.

"well, your muscles need to relax, don't they?" satoru asks, dryly. "wish we could find some of those for your brain..." he mutters, afterward, and you throw the packet right at his face. 

"i found those little sour things you like," megumi continues, smirking just a moment at satoru. "they didn't have a big bag." 

"thanks, megs." 

"there's tissues, and chapstick if your lips get dry. and i picked out the cough drops because gojo wanted to get chocolate flavored or something--" 

"strawberry!" 

megumi rolls his eyes. 

tsumiki steps to your side again. "and we got flowers, but those are still in the car." 

"no, they're not," satoru suddenly has a bouquet of roses in his hands, almost covering his entire face. "they're right here." 

"when did you do that?" 

"when you guys were ridiculing my excellent taste," he pouts, white hair falling over his glasses. 

you laugh. 

"where's your vase?" he asks, going through every cupboard before finally listening to your answer. he settles on the other end of your kitchen, cutting and arranging the bouquet. 

tsumiki taps you. "are you feeling bad?" 

"just a little out of it, sweetie, don't worry." 

"did we get everything you need?" megumi chimes in, giving you a brief moment of eye contact before looking away. 

"yes. you guys did great, thank you both. you're very sweet." 

satoru ahems loudly. "and what about me?" 

"you could've done better." 

the kids both laugh and you push them into the living room, telling them to go sit down for a bit--knowing that satoru dragged them from school to the store to here without a break--and that you'll find a snack for them. 

and then you sigh, a bit nauseous from sitting up for so long. 

"do you need to lay down?" satoru peers at you, setting the bouquet on your table. "you look green." 

"thanks. how'd you learn to do that?" you gesture to the flowers which are arranged beautifully. honestly, you're surprised he didn't leave them on the counter for you to deal with. 

"i am a gentleman." 

"ha. no, seriously." 

"...i may, or may not have looked up what to bring someone who has the flu--and the flowers were extra, but!" he pauses as you laugh at him, resting your head against the cool counter. "i only had to do that because i don't get affected by stupid things like the flu or whatever you have." 

"of course," you whisper, closing your eyes. 

and then there's a hand on your forehead. "you're really warm." 

you press your head into his hand, which is also pleasantly cold. "yeah." 

"did you sleep all day?" 

you nod. 

"really? that's so lazy." 

you push him away, and he laughs, just loud enough for you to hear it. you open your eyes again when you hear him move away, watching him stir the soup on the stove. 

"you probably shouldn't have brought them here," you tell him, gesturing to the living room. "i don't want to get them sick." 

"they missed you," satoru shrugs. "you wouldn't want them to be sick alone." 

"yeah, but..." 

"i'm the worrier today," he interrupts, wrapping his hand around your wrist so he can pull you. "go lay down on the couch with them and i'll get your soup ready." 

"you'll burn it, you mean?" 

"as a punishment for all of the cruel things you say to me," and satoru smiles as he nudges the top of your head with his nose. 

his eyes are almost stern (almost, but not quite) as he watches you lay down on the couch, your hands gestured in defeat, and nods when you're settled in. 

when he walks away, you call, "bring us some water!" 

there's no response, but you know he'll do it. 

tsumiki just slightly nudges you with her hand and you smile, opening your arms for her to cuddle under. 

megumi doesn't do the same, but you don't fail to notice when he scooches just a little bit closer to you both, his thigh touching yours. 

your head still hurts and even the smell of the soup is making you a bit sick, but you'll deal with it as long as they're all here. 

*

you're arguing with satoru about dinner, several days later, when tsumiki and megumi sneeze at exactly the same time. 

it took a couple of days for you to recover, but now you're better than ever, happily fighting with satoru over the stupidest things and watching over both of the children for any defects that happened while you were out of sorts. 

they're mostly okay. 

but now the both of you look over to them, your eyes wide, satoru almost wincing. 

and then you look back to him, already scowling. 

"hey, it was just a sneeze," he tells you, quickly, already knowing what you're about to say. 

"i told you--" 

and then he sneezes, taking a step away from you. 

you groan, giving up on dinner. it looks like the next few days are going to be spent coddling all of your children. 

*

next part