#like they’re all sleuths too???

[r3dvlvet]

Riz Gukgak Veth Brenatto bonding when

[riordanverse-crime-cases]

The Di Angelo Siblings: A Cold Case

One early unsolved case that confuses people to this day is the case of the Di Angelo siblings, Nico and Bianca Di Angelo.

They were born in Italy to Maria Di Angelo, Bianca in 1926 and Nico in 1928. Soon after their births, the family of three packed up and moved to Washington, D.C., where, according to friends and neighbors, they lived happily without trouble. Records show that the children were healthy and did well in school, living peaceful lives. People also state that the siblings never knew who their father was, but didn’t seem to mind much, or perhaps they were too young to care. Nevertheless, they grew up untroubled.

However, disaster struck when World War Two broke out in 1938, when the small family left for what was meant to be a short trip. According to an anonymous source, Maria had allegedly been planning to meet with the father of her children, though there’s no way to confirm nor deny that this is what she had planned, nor if the meeting had ever even occurred, for soon after, the hotel they were staying at suffered a severe explosion. 

Allegedly due to a gas leak, the blast caused many fatalities, including to the Di Angelos; Maria’s remains were found blown apart amidst the rubble. 

What makes this case so bizarre is this: Bianca and Nico’s bodies have never been located. In fact, it’s possible they hadn’t been caught in the accident at all—eyewitnesses claim seeing children matching Nico and Bianca’s descriptions being led away by a man in a business suit. The two siblings seemed “completely unharmed” and “eerily at ease”, as if they hadn’t even known about the explosion. Several reported sightings follow the Di Angelo’s path state-by-state, in Indiana, Missouri, Colorado, Utah, and finally down to Las Vegas, Nevada, where the siblings suddenly disappear. Investigators have been left puzzled by this case for decades, trying their best to figure out who the man must be, why the children were with him, why they were unharmed.

Some theories suggest that the man was, in fact, the biological father of the children, and he had taken his son and daughter from their mother before the explosion occurred. This may be a plausible explanation, but it raises questions on why Maria wasn’t with them, or why this man—who had been seemingly absent from their lives for ten years—had arrived at the hotel just to take his children halfway across the country. Internet users theorize that he may have kidnapped the children, and Maria was going to report them missing if she hadn’t died in the gas leak. 

Further complicating this case is the fact that there’s zero evidence of either sibling ever being in Vegas. Their medical and academic records stopped being updated from when the short trip began, and the siblings never legally appeared anywhere after that, not in Nevada or in Washington. 

With no reliable leads, investigators have declared this a cold case, and the Di Angelos were declared legally dead in 1952, more than fourteen years after their disappearance. The case was closed, and people stopped looking into it.

However, starting a few years ago, users have discovered that there have been reported sightings of the siblings. Though the children would be well into their eighties by now if they’d even survived, these sightings claim that Nico and Bianca look like they haven’t aged a day. 

These claims would be preposterous if the children didn’t allegedly have the exact names as Nico and Bianca Di Angelo, and they’re allegedly the same age. Conspiracy theorists have a multitude of explanations for this, from the Bermuda Triangle and Greco-Roman myths of Lotus flowers, to space missions and time-warping science experiments performed on the children, but none of these should be considered as evidence for obvious reasons. 

Internet sleuths have discovered that these alleged clones of the Di Angelos were enrolled in Westover Hall, a military school in Bar Harbor, Maine, though they disappeared from school records after December. More reported sightings of the Di Angelos, specifically Nico, have been reported, but authorities dismiss these as fabricated nonsense claims designed to confuse and scare the general population.

Up Next: The mysterious death of Jason Grace—a boy missing for fourteen years.

[writing-for-life]

Sandman Sneak Peek Analysis

There is Brief Lives in this, but you’ll miss it if you blink…

Is everyone recovering? 🤣

So we obviously got our fill of thirst traps, but I wanted to analyse the sneak peek (click to watch) a bit more closely.

Many people were commenting they only see Season of Mists and Song of Orpheus in the clip, but I don’t think that’s true. We obviously don’t know what exactly they did to the arcs and what might have changed, but I still predict that the first batch will be Season of Mists and Brief Lives (with other stuff thrown in, I wrote about it here). [I think we also saw a clip from Thermidor in the sneak peek, and that Lady Johanna Constantine was in it, but that just as an aside.]

So let’s start with stills I think are definitely from

Brief Lives

I honestly think it’s this (they’re lighting his face from below for a campfire effect, there are candles etc):

Edit 22/09:

We sleuthed a bit more across several platforms, and some clever people pointed out this:

These two frames appear in different places of the sneak peak, so we can’t know for certain if they are from the same scene. It is possible though. And if they are: He is wearing his ruby on the one to the left. It’s hard to tell if it’s the same thing to the right, but it could be? If so, that would mean this could be from Song of Orpheus instead of Brief Lives.

He does wear a clasp in Brief Lives all the way through, so that’s also possible, but again: If these shots are from the same scene, which it honestly looks like, I’m now leaning towards Song of Orpheus, and this particular scene (there’s a fire there, too):

Plus, if you zoom in and squint really hard, he seems to be wearing something on his shoulder here, too:

What else?

We see Despair’s Realm. But we don’t in Season of Mists. So this is either Brief Lives, or they give us a bit of Three Septembers and a January (which I’d love tbh, but I’m not going to hold my breath).

Next:

I think this could be Ruby’s/Wanda’s death/the fire. It’s really hard to see, but that could be Indya Moore sleeping? Let me know what you think…

Then this one:

I bet my bottom dollar this is Suffragette City and Ishtar’s dance. Now, the bottom panel is a tricky one because in the sneak peek, it’s actually right after the shot of (presumed) Wanda, so my initial response was it’s the fire. But the curtains look exactly the same as in the one with Ishtar’s dance, plus I think the glass is also in both shots. Which makes me think they either just put those scenes randomly together in the clip despite them being separate, OR that they changed the arc a bit and pulled Wanda/Ruby and Ishtar’s dance together. Either way, we’re definitely in Brief Lives I think.

Over to…

Season of Mists

I cackled like a lunatic when I saw this. IYKYK, but I somehow didn’t expect them to give us that one. Hurray (or not, depending on whether you like spiders I guess 🤣)

Angels looking modern…

Shame really, I wouldn’t have minded a more comics accurate look, but hey. Also: Is that your man Edward, @marlowe-zara ? Hard to tell from this angle, but I think it could be?

That’s also Andre Flynn in the background (also an Angel then).

Shivering Jemmy with the balloon! 🎈 If she doesn’t dump it on Dream, I’m gonna riot!

These ones with Lucienne are hard to place, and they could be anything, but they somehow give me stronger Season of Mists than Brief Lives vibes, although both is possible.

I have a hunch it’s this one:

Then there’s naturally all the obvious stuff (Cluracan, Susano-o-No-Mikoto, the family dinner etc etc), but I don’t think I have to get into those because they jump out at us straightaway.

More in the realm of

Casting

I think that might be Ella Rumpf as Eurydice, @tickldpnk8 What do you think?

This is definitely Wil Coban, but who he? Fae (the ears suggest so much)?

So what’s everyone thinking?

[physalian]

How to Subvert Expectations Without Compromising The Story

Whoo boy, is this a contentious topic with the last few blockbuster franchises. To “subvert expectations” is to do the opposite of whatever your audience expects to happen. Your audience expects the story to go a certain way based on the archetypes and tropes your characters follow, the tone you’ve set for your story, and the level of mature themes that tone allows.

It might mean your long-lost princess doesn’t actually reclaim the throne she’s been fighting for. Or the presumed hero (or any of their straight friends) of the story dies halfway through their arcs. The mentor pegged for death actually survives to the end credits. The villain’s plan actually succeeds, or the heroes fail to deactivate the bomb before it explodes. The “will they/won’t they” is never fulfilled.

Supporters of SE argue the following:

It’s refreshing, novel, new, a fun twist on a classic tale

They like that it’s unpredictable and bold

They’re tired of stories fitting within the same wheel ruts of every other story that came before and like to see creativity thrive

It gives audiences something they didn’t even know they wanted

Haters of SE argue this:

It’s only done for drama at the cost of fulfilling character arcs

It’s a cheap gag that only works once and has zero rewatchability with the same impact

Tropes and archetypes have stood the test of time for a reason - to entertain

Plot holes ensue

When expectations are subverted and the story changes in a more positive light (like a beloved character who doesn’t die when we all think they will), the reaction is not nearly as emotionally charged as when the story changes negatively. Thus, the haters have plenty of evidence of bad examples, but minimize the good ones. Good SE is novel, or a pleasant surprise, or a quaint relief. Bad SE trashes the story and spits on the fans and destroys the legacy of the fandom.

What makes a bad subversion?

Like killing any character for shock value, bad SE takes all of the potential of a good story and gambles it for a string of gasps in the movie theater. It exists only to keep the audience on their toes, or because the writer went out of their way to change the direction of their work when fans figured out the mystery too quickly and now *must* prove all the clever sleuths wrong.

So, say your subversion is making the hero lose a tournament arc when they made it all the way to the final round and the entire story is riding on this victory. They may have stumbled along the way and had some near-misses, but they must win. Not just so the audience cheers, but because this is the direction their arc must take to be at all entertaining and fulfilling.

Then they lose, because it’s *novel* and irreparable consequences are reaped in the aftermath. They lose when, by rights, they were either stronger or smarter or faster than their opponent. They lose when the hand of the author rigs the fight against them and everyone notices.

Sure, it’s not at all what audiences expect, but you, writer, your first responsibility to the people consuming your content is to entertain them. So what purpose does this loss serve this character? How does it impact their arc, the themes that surround them, the message of your story?

Even if mainstream audiences don’t care on the surface about themes and motifs, they still know when a story fumbles. It’s not entertaining anymore, it’s not satisfying. Yes, crap happens in reality, but this is fiction. If I wanted to read about some tragic hero’s bitter and unsatisfying demise, I’d read about any losing side in any war ever in a history book. I picked up a fiction book for catharsis.

On the topic of “gritty fantasy/sci-fi anyone can die and no one is safe” – no author has the guts to roll the dice and kill whoever it lands on. Some characters will always have plot armor. Why? Because you wouldn’t have a story otherwise, you’d just have a bloody, gory, depressing reality TV show with hidden cameras.

What makes a good subversion?

Now. What if this character loses the final round of their tournament, but it’s their own fault? Maybe they get too cocky. Maybe it’s perfectly, tragically in character for them to fall on their own sword. Maybe the audience is already primed with the knowledge that this fight will be close, that there might be foul play involved, but still deny that it will happen because that’s the hero, they won’t lose. Until they do.

Then, it’s not the hand of the author, it’s this character’s flaws finally biting them in the ass. It’s still disappointing, no doubt, but then the audience is less mad at the author and more mad at the dumbass character for letting their ego get to their head.

If you write a character who’s entire goal in life is to win that trophy, or reclaim their throne, or get the girl, and they *don’t* do those things, then the “trophy” had better be the friends they made along the way, that they learned it wasn’t the trophy, it was something *better* and even though they lost, they still won. Even when expectations are shredded, the story still has to say something, otherwise the audience just feels like they wasted their time.

A good subversion does not compromise the soul of the narrative. You might kill a fan favorite character or even the hero of the story, but their impact on the characters they leave behind is felt until the very end. The hero might lose her tournament, but she still walks away with wisdom, maturity, and new friends. Heck, sports movies leave the winner of the big game a toss-up more often than not. Audiences know the game is important, but they know the character they’re following is even more important. Doesn’t matter if the *team* loses the battle, so long as the protagonist wins the Character Development war.

Good SE that should be more popular:

The “Trial of threes” – your hero faces three obstacles and usually botches the first two and succeeds on the third attempt. Subvert it by having them win on the first or second, lose all three, or have a secret fourth

Not killing your gays. Just. Don’t do it. That’ll subvert expectations just fine, won’t it?

Let the villain win

Have your hero’s love interest not actually interested in them because they realize they deserve better / Have the hero realize they don’t want the romantic subplot they thought they did

Have the love triangle become a polycule / have the two warring love interests get with each other instead, or both find someone they don’t have to compete for

Mid-redemption villain backslides at the Worst Moment Possible

Hero doesn’t actually have all the MacGuffins necessary at the Worst Moment Possible

Hero is simply wrong, about anything, about important things, about themselves

The character who knows too much still can’t warn their friends in time, but lives instead with the guilt of their failure

The mentor lives and becomes a bitter rival out to maintain their spot at the top of the charts

Kill the hero, and make the villain Regret Everything

More deadbeat missing parents, not just dead parents

Let the hero live long enough to become the villain

—

Why write a crown prince that never becomes king? What’s the point of his story if all he does is remain exactly who he was on page 1 and learns nothing for his efforts? Why write a rookie racer if he spins out in the infield in the big race and ends his story broken and demoralized in a hospital bed? Why should we, the audience, spend time and emotional investment on a story that goes nowhere and says nothing?

Cinderella always gets a happy ending no matter how many iterations her story gets, because she wouldn’t be Cinerella if she remained an abused orphan with no friends. We like predictability, we like puzzling out where we think the story will go based on the crumbs of evidence we pick up along the way, we like interacting with our fiction and patting ourselves on the back when we’re proven right.

Tragedies exist. There’s seven types of stories and the fall from grace is one of them… but audiences can see a tragedy coming from a mile away. Audiences sign up for a tragedy when they pay for the movie ticket. We know, no matter how much we root for that character to make better choices, that their future is doomed. Tragedy is still cathartic.

What’s not cathartic is being bait-and-switched by a writer who laughs and snaps pictures of our horrified faces just so they can say they proved us wrong. Congratulations? Go ahead and write the rookie broken in the hospital bed. I can’t stop you. Just don’t be shocked when no one wants to watch your misery parade march on by.

[carolperkinsexgirlfriend]

Steddie Upside-Down AU Part 55

Part 1 Part 54

Alright, tell me what’s going on with you.” Dr. Owens says, smiling down at Will all genially. Steve doesn’t trust it. “Tell me about this episode you had?”

Will shifts his eyes over to Steve, looking guilty and small. Steve reaches out across his own bed to grab Will’s hand, squeezing lightly until he turns back to the doctor. “I was on Mirkwood–” he starts, shifting his eyes toward Steve guiltily before darting them back. “I heard this noise, and it was like I was back there.”

“What were you doing on Mirkwood, honey?” Ms. Byers asks, eyebrows furrowed as she holds onto Will’s other hand.

Will’s eyes shift again, transparently guilty as he says, “I was just with Steve.” When Ms. Byers looks his way, Steve nods, and Will slumps bonelessly into his bed.

The doctor’s staring intently at Will’s face, like he’s trying to dissect every microexpression, looking for cracks. , the paper spitting out of Will’s machine, needle thing writing its squiggly lines at an alarming pace. “Did you see anything?”

Will looks down at his knees, bare beneath his tissue paper hospital gown. “No,” he says it quietly, almost ashamed. “I don’t think anything really happened. I was just scared.”

Steve squeezes his hand again. He lets his heart bloom when Will squeezes back.

“Alright,” Dr. Owens says, smiling that same untrustworthy smile, “thanks for sharing, kiddo.”

They’re shuffled out of the exam room in short order, left abandoned on benches in the hallway like children while Uncle Wayne and Ms. Byers have the adult conversations. Even though Eddie’s long learned Uncle Wayne will tell him word for word what he was told, Eddie’s still made a habit of pushing his ear against the door, catching snippets of conversation where he can while Steve and Eddie giggle at his antics.

This time, his face goes serious, dimples nonexistent with the straight slash of his mouth as he eyes the door like he’s going to wrench it open and start beating someone.

“Eddie?” Steve calls quietly, not wanting to draw attention to his sleuthing.

Eddie looks his way, face grim. He eavesdrops a few seconds more before slinking back over to Steve and Will, jamming his ass in the nonexistent space between them.

“What did they say?” Will says. Steve leans forward to look at him around Eddie’s big head. His eyes are big and wide. He looks scared.

“It’s all bullshit,” Eddie says, shifting on the hard bench. “I didn’t hear it all, but they said it’s gonna get worse because the anniversary of, uh, you know is coming up.”

He doesn’t look at Will when he says it, though. He’s looking directly at Steve, and Steve knows they’re both thinking of the same thing. The looming shadows, the thing he’s caught glimpses of, towering over buildings, eclipsing the sky. The way he’s there less and less as the days pass.

Eddie’d taken away his keys the week before, and it was supposed to get worse?

“–and we’re just supposed to pretend it’s not happening?”

Ms. Byers voice drifts through the door, high-pitched in her stress. Will’s shoulders hunch until Eddie wraps an arm around them and pulls him in. He holds his other arm open behind Steve’s back, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively until Steve leans in with a roll of his eyes.

Eddie squeezes them both tight enough Steve can feel it in his deep tissue and begins shaking them around like a dog with his favorite toy. “There! One big happy family!”

When Will starts laughing, Steve does, too. He can’t help it. There’s just something about Eddie Munson that makes him feel like he swallowed fizzy lifting drink and can’t get off the ceiling of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory.

But then Uncle Wayne and Ms. Byers walk through the door. Uncle Wayne looks as deadpan as usual, but Ms. Byers looks one second away from her head exploding.

“Is he serious?” she asks, running her hand through her hair, yanking it the rest of the way through when it gets stuck on a knot. Steve winces, scalp tingling in sympathy.

“Anniversary affects a real thing,” he says, looking down at all three of them with pensive eyes that settle on Steve a little too long for him to be comfortable. “It’s as good a ‘planation as anything, ain’t it?”

Ms. Byers sighs. She sweeps her eyes over all three of them, looking remarkably like Jonathan in that moment with the way her eyes go intense and seem to look right through you to the secret heart of who you are.

Seeming to come back to life, she hops up to them and holds out two hands. “Come on, sweeties, up we go!”

Will and Eddie take her hands without hesitation, and she begins to pull them up. Eddie’s arm stays around Steve’s shoulders, so he’s pulled up along with them. Ms. Byers almost falls with the combined weight of three growing boys before Eddie drops her hand, laughing sheepishly as he stands on his own two feet.

“Come on, boys,” Uncle Wayne says, leading the way down the hallway. “Some of us have got places to be.”

They all fall in line, hurrying out of the building they all hate. Steve doesn’t breathe easy until they're all packed away into Wayne’s truck and well into the forest. The woods are lovely, dark and deep, and all that other shit Eddie’s always spouting off that Steve only pretends to understand.

Eddie rubs the pulsepoint of Steve’s wrist gently enough to make him shiver before taking his hand and letting them settle in the cramped space between their legs.

And miles to go before he sleeps, Steve squeezes Eddie’s hand.

Part 56

Taglist: @deany-baby @estrellami-1 @altocumulustranslucidus @evillittleguy @carlprocastinator1000 @1-8oo-wtfbro @hallucinatedjosten @goodolefashionedloverboi @newtstabber @lunabyrd @cinnamon-mushroomabomination @manda-panda-monium @disrespectedgoatman @finntheehumaneater @ive-been-bamboozled @harringrieve @grimmfitzz @is-emily-real @dontstealmycake @angeldreamsoffanfic @a-couchpotato @5ammi90 @mac-attack19 @genderless-spoon @kas-eddie-munson @louismeds @imhereforthelolzdontyellatme @pansexuality-activated @ellietheasexylibrarian @nebulainajar @mightbeasleep @neonfruitbowl @beth--b @silenzioperso @best-selling-show @v3lv3tf0x @bookworm0690 @paintsplatteredandimperfect

[iluvnewports]

Canary

An AU one-shot of Butcher from The Boys where years after Becca dies, he finds himself fighting his feelings for you and finally gives in. + fluff & angst

minors dni

—

“You were always like my canary, I suppose.” Butcher breathes out painfully as he looks over to you across the console. “I knew when I couldn’t hear you anymore I had gone too deep.”

You have half a mind to slap him upside his head, gripping his stupid beach shirt by its collar to hoist him up from leaning against the door. “Stop talking like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re fucking dying.” You place both your hands back on the wheel, making a sharp turn that makes Butcher groan. “You’re going to be fine.” You look over to his blood-soaked pants and his bloodied hands atop it.

“Keep your fucking hands on it, Butcher, Christ.” You look between his hands and the road. You knew it was only a matter of time until his luck ran out and something didn’t go his way. You’re the most wanted criminals in the country for fucks sake, it was only a matter of time. Everyone wants your head.

“Oi, stop fucking shouting, they didn’t shoot my ears out.” Butcher barks at you as you make another hasty turn which causes yet another groan. Serves him right, snapping at you like that, all when you only care about his well-being.

“Just shut up.” You slam on the brakes a little harsher than you should’ve so he lunges forward a little with a pained groan. Pulled up next to the curb, you hastily unbuckle your seatbelt, turning to look at Butcher who’s already staring daggers at you.

“Can’t even let a tender moment stop you from being a cunt, can ya?”

You smile, one corner tugging up further than the other. “There he is.”

You move around to the other side of the car and help the injured man out, escorting him down the steps as he wobbles on his hurt leg. You kick open the door swiftly, though it’s not anything impressive as it is more of a small nudge, heads turning as you two sleuth into the dingy basement.

“Jesus Christ, Butcher!” M.M jumps up from his seat as Hughie looks around panicked, unsure what to do he stands up and grabs the back of his head, mouth hanging open as he stutters.

Kimiko’s brows raise as Frenchie mutters a curse, everyone rushing to their feet to help guide Butcher to the table. He’s practically pulled from your arms and you feel a bit defensive at this, furrowing your brows as you almost pull him straight back into your grip. It’s as if he isn’t as safe unless he’s in your hands.

“What happened?”

“Vought happened.” You murmur, helping Butcher sit down in the chair, his pained groans not particularly worrisome to you until now. You grab his shoulder in comfort, watching as M.M assesses his leg.

“Butcher the bullet is still in there, there’s no exit wound.” He props his leg on another chair, cutting the fabric of his pants around the wound. Blood pools around the wound, his leg hair around it turning slick and red as flesh pokes out around the bullet wound, crimson red flesh peeling like a lotus flower around the gaping hole.

“So, what, you’re going to dig into his leg?” Hughie looks as if he’s breaking out in a cold sweat as he swallows dryly, his voice becoming high-pitched with worry.

“What the hell you want me to do, huh?” M.M raises his arms in question before pointing back to Butcher’s leg. “Just leave it in there?”

“I don’t know—! Shouldn’t we get him to a hospital?”

“No!” You, M.M, Frenchie, and Butcher all say in unison.

“Hughie, go find your nuts, they’re probably hidden beneath your twat, and fuck off,” Butcher says roughly, head thrown back as he winces. M.M is quick to sterilize a pair of forceps, pulling around his spinning chair. He pours alcohol on his leg without warning, causing Butcher to grit his teeth and wail out a “Fuck!”

You grab his hand, your palms clasping together with a squeeze as you cling to his arm as if you’re the one getting a bullet dug out of you. You rub his shoulder gently as your other hand clasps his, watching as M.M digs the forceps into his leg, causing Butcher to jerk and startle. Frenchie grabs his other side, trying to keep him still.

“Be still, Mon Ami.” Frenchie says as delicately as always.

“You wanna swap fucking seats then?” Butcher snaps. He’s always so curt, so rude, and you all just withstand it. Because, hey: that’s just Butcher.

You give his hand a squeeze, signaling him to ease up a little. He only grunts, shooting you a look. He doesn’t say anything, though. M.M continues digging around, tongs deep in his leg as the handle sits at an awkward angle.

“I found it.” He murmurs, squinting his eyes as he pushes the two handles together with a tugging motion.

“Fucking hell!” Butcher curses as his head falls backward, hair falling into his face as sweat beads his chest, which you can see since his top two buttons were popped off. Eyebrows pulled together and eyelids crinkled close, you allow your eyes to wander down his glimmering chest. His pecs are large, which you’ve always loved in a man, even the harsh lamp light making his skin look appealing. He’s just so… rough. In a good way. His body carries stories, tales of the past, tales of how hard his life has been and what he’s carried, what he’s endured.

M.M gives another harsh tug to no avail, causing Butcher to curse again. “Just fucking pull it out!” You yell, feeling nauseated. Not because of the scene, but because it’s him.

“I’m fucking trying, Jesus!” M.M snaps at you, whipping his head up to meet your eyes. “Do you want to try? Since you’re such an expert all of a sudden.”

“I’m just saying—!”

“For fucks sake don’t yell at her.” Butcher defends, which causes M.M to quiet down. Your eyes snap to him, unsure how you feel about it all. He’s always been a bit… defensive over you? It makes you feel almost embarrassed like you can’t handle yourself.

M.M is quiet for a moment as Butcher groans more, shrugging Frenchie off of him with a small “fuck off,” as he stares down the barrel of his leg as M.M grips the handles and slowly pulls out of the wound, presenting a bullet dripping in gore, clanging against the metallic dish he throws it into. The blood flows off the bullet, saline becoming pink as crimson floats upwards in a somewhat beautiful pattern.

M.M is quick to grab his needle and suture as he begins stitching the wound up, murmuring something under his breath as Butcher tilts his head back to look up into your eyes, hazel as beautiful as any moss-covered tree. You feel a chill at your side as your heart warms under his gaze. It’s not completely foreign to you but this time, it’s more intense.

You both pull your hands apart slowly, your touch lingering longer than necessary. You lift your head, noticing M.M looks at your hands and back up to you. He says nothing, shooting a look you can’t exactly decipher, shooting Butcher a look.

Butcher, never one to be the silent type, also says nothing.

“You’re gonna be sore, but you’ll live.” M.M breathes out a murmur, wrapping up his tools into a cloth before discarding the bloodied gauze.

“Fan-fucking-tastic.”

—

“I don’t need a fucking babysitter.” Butcher slices his hand through the air firmly, tilting his head and raising his brows as he nods in confirmation. “Right.”

“Butcher, Jesus, it’s just a few days, stop being such a baby.” You collapse onto the dirty couch and tuck your legs beneath you as you curl into the corner. You pat the cushion next to you. “C’mon. That old Translucent movie is up next…” You trail off with a smile. Butcher wobbles closer, groaning as he rolls his eyes.

“I’m glad the old cunt died before he could make a sequel.” Butcher stands nearby, watching the TV. “I feel fine, it don’t even hurt.”

“You’re wobbling, you can hardly walk.” You pat the cushion again, though harsher this time. “C’mon, sit. Even super badass wanted criminals need a day off.”

Butcher groans but eventually walks over and sits beside you, maybe just a few inches away, your legs almost touching. He puts his arm up to rest on the back of the couch almost wrapping around you. The silence is comfortable, endearing.

You turn your head to look at Butcher some minutes into the movie and you can tell he’s deep within his thoughts. A dark place, one you know too well. So you shift your whole body, turning to him as you rest your chin on your arms which rest on the tops of your legs. “Do you remember when we first met?” You ask with a smile.

Butcher leans his head back onto the couch, turning to you with a half-tilted grin. “Like it was yesterday, sweetheart.”

“I really didn’t like you, you know.” You smile softly, looking behind him as you think. “Which is so weird because you’re just so likable.”

Butcher chuckles. “Like you’re some dainty flower yourself?” He scoffs in humor. “Right bloody nerve you must’ve had, throwing a drink in my face. That’s how I knew you had balls.”

“A compliment? Are you sure you’re feeling alright?” You bring the back of your hand to his forehead as if feeling for a fever.

“Oh piss off.” He waves you away, humor laced in his tone even if he doesn’t smile. You laugh and your hand falls to his shoulder, remaining there as you look at one another.

In an instant, all in one fluid motion, grabs you by the back of your head, pulling you into him as he angrily devours you, kissing you harshly as he grips your hair, fingers tangling into your hair as he pushes them along your scalp. His other hand moves to the small of your back as he pulls you into him, still sitting side by side as you kiss.

He bites your lower lip harshly, almost harsh enough to make you bleed, soothing it with the lapping of his tongue before moving to your top lip, moving between the two repeatedly. He’s dominating you already, pulling at you as if he needs you. You couldn’t pull away even if you wanted to. You can feel your lower stomach aching, pulsating for more as warmth bubbles in your abdomen.

He pulls away, breathing heavily as his focus moves across your face. You are beautiful, beyond beautiful, in every state he’s ever seen you. Dirty and tired, bright and happy, pissed off. “I ever tell you how knock-dead you are?”

You get what he’s saying, blushing, but you shrug it off. “You know nobody ever understands what you’re saying.”

He pulls you in closer so you’re flush against his side, holding the back of your neck as he buries his face into the side of it, kissing and nipping at you until he licks up to your ear. “You’re fucking gorgeous.”

Your face burns as you chew on your inner cheek. You don’t know what to do with yourself, especially when someone compliments you. And Butcher of all people feels so unfamiliar. You let your head fall to the other side, eyes fluttering close as he licks up your neck and nibbles your ear.

Butcher pulls back and shifts himself so he’s between your legs though not putting his weight on you as he drags his hands from your neck all the way down to the waist of your pants, pausing as he looks up to you. “May I?”

You nod, though a bit hesitant. He immediately removes his hands, backing up a bit. “Are you uncomfortable?” His tone is gentle, something you don’t see often.

“No!” You’re quick to exclaim, shaking your head. “No, no. I want to.”

Butcher smiles cockily, hooking his fingers into the waistband of your jeans. “Say it.”

You look at him with furrowed brows in confusion, which he immediately picks up on as he pushes himself back between your legs and leans forward into your lips. “I want you to tell me what you want.” He whispers.

You hesitate, breathing out slowly in embarrassment. “I want you to fuck me.”

“Of course, I will, sweetheart.” He breathes against you as he’s quick to pop the button of your jeans and strip them down your legs so you’re left in your thin cotton underwear. He backs away, looking down at your slightly parted legs, and dives his large, warm hands down between your thighs to spread them wider, craning his neck to the side as he examines you. You sink in on yourself, blushing, the cushion beneath your bare ass is scratchy and you sort of feel bad knowing this is where your friends sit.

You’re wet, leaving a damp spot right center of your underwear. He runs a thumb down over it, making you jerk slightly as he chuckles to himself. “Don’t be shy.” He looks to you as he hooks a finger into your underwear from the side, pulling it away to reveal your glistening slit.

He looks in awe as he stares at you, his lips parting slightly as he absorbs such beauty. He feels hypnotized, wanting nothing more than to fall to his knees and please you for hours until you’re screaming and raw just so he can worship you and his tongue can memorize you, every crevice and curve.

His tongue runs over his bottom lip as he dips his head down and you can’t help it, “What’re you doing?”

“How do you mean?” He looks up at you confused.

“I thought we were just gonna…” You trail off.

Butcher shakes his head slowly, looking at you as if you were crazy. “I’ve been fantasizing this a long time, love.” Truth be told, it gets him off just thinking about making you cum with nothing in return. “And all I really want is your thighs wrapped around my head until you’re hoarse.”

You almost gasp at his forwardness, though you’re not sure what you expected; it’s Butcher, after all. Even his soft side isn’t very soft. You feel a pit in your stomach, you’re sort of scared. What if it’s bad? And then you’ll have to face him, forced to live with him in this shitty basement, knowing that he doesn't particularly know his way around a pussy, despite most of his vocabulary consisting of ‘cunt’ and ‘twat’.

His finger curiously runs up your slit and you shudder, tucking your lips together as you try and quiet yourself. Butcher yanks at your legs so you’re now flat on your back, head resting on the couch as he displays his wet finger with some sort of pride, glistening in the light before pushing them past your lips and pressing down on your tongue. You suck on his finger slowly, a groan falling from his parted lips as he watches you intently.

“Fucking hell,” he murmurs, pulling the finger from your mouth and grabbing your chin so you’re forced to look up at him. He leans down to kiss you, grinding against you and you can feel the hardness of his bulge against your cotton underwear.

His finger slips down and rubs circles around your clit as he kisses your open, moaning mouth. Your eyes pinch close in agony at the slowness of it all, feeling the way he wants to draw out each and every second of pleasing you. “Look at me darling, come on.” You open your eyes to see him watching you intently. “That’s it, good girl.”

Butcher slips his fingers down your slit and teases your entrance, causing you to gasp slightly, which he reacts to by letting out a deep breath before kissing you deeply again. His touch leaves you needing more and every sense hones in on it as your back arches off of the couch as he slowly draws moans out of you.

As he pushes in and out slowly, he pushes down on your hips with his other hand, ensuring your stillness for him as he works you over and over. Your underwear begins to chafe slightly as you let out a light moan, looking down between the two of you. Lowering his head down between your propped legs, he kisses between your thighs, and his beard scratches against your skin lightly, almost drawing a small smile from you.

He hums into your thigh before dragging his other hand to scoop beneath your thigh, giving you a warm squeeze, fingers spread across your skin. As he kisses down, he begins leaving sloppy kisses that leave your skin wet, nipping you on the way, breathing heavily against you, ready to burst. His head dips down further, though slowly, teasing you as you buck your hips further.

Eventually making contact, his fingers stall as his tongue swipes up your cunt in a long stride before pulling away and savoring the way you taste on his tongue. He chuckles to himself as your hips jolt, going back down to lick up you again, his large, flat tongue trailing slowly as he runs circles on your clit. You gasp out, sitting up halfway and leaning back on your elbows as you look down at him working wonders on your pussy. His hand shoots up to rest on your stomach, pushing you back down onto your back.

His fingers pick back up again, curling up into you as he sucks on your clit, lapping circles against you as you breathe out a string of moans. Butcher grabs the bottoms of your thighs as he pushes your knee back into your face, exposing you further to him, digging nails into your flesh. As you moan again, he moans against you, causing your sensitive skin to vibrate as you dampen his beard. He devours you as you secrete onto his tongue and he finds you oh so sweet.

Your fingers push into his thick dark hair as you pull at him, wanting him closer and closer to you as he curls into your g-spot. Your back arches, one hand moving down to feel his jaw and the way it stretches to mold around you perfectly, moving up and down to lick you raw. Your moans turn into pants as your chest heaves up and down, every movement of his fingers and tongue pushing you closer and closer to the brink.

He notices this, keeping his fingerwork consistent as he pulls his mouth away, wanting nothing more than to watch you fall apart in front of him as he watches.

“That’s it,” he praises, leaning above you as your face contorts in delight, eyelids falling gently as you breathe deeply. “Just like that, gorgeous.”

His praise pushes you over the edge as the bubble in your lower stomach bursts and you’re riding the high of your orgasm, jerking your hips so you’re essentially riding out the high atop his fingers. It’s a good thing he’s as strong as he is, otherwise, you might feel self-conscious.

Butcher plants soft kisses along your collarbone as you heave out another string of moans, coming to the conclusion of your climax as your head spins in a blur. This doesn’t stop the pumping of his fingers, though, the overstimulation of it all causing you to jerk, your eyes flying open as you smack at his shoulder with a cry. “Billy!”

His fingers stall, not yet pulling out, and you almost gasp thinking you went too far, wanting to kick yourself for ruining the moment. You can’t read his face and you’re half-expecting him to curse you as he pulls out of you, leaving you alone and half-naked on the couch.

But he doesn’t. Instead, he pushes forward as he kisses you deeply, passionately, hand cradling your face as he breathes against you, noses touching as he looks down into your eyes. He pulls his fingers between you too, your sweet slick coating his fingers thickly as he inserts them into his mouth to lick them clean.

You can smell yourself on his breath and you push him back, two hands on his chest as you sit up, pushing him down into the couch. You claw at his shirt, ripping it open with such ferocity and desperation that it rips completely, buttons flying off and clanging to the ground. His chest, god how you could stare at it all day, your hands coming up to scoop and grab at his pecs as you dive down to kiss his neck. You can’t get enough of him, quickly diving your head down to kiss his chest as you lick down his torso, leaving wet kisses behind, biting at him. You bring your head back up and kiss along his pecs, close to his nipple, before you’re stopped by a hand laced in your hair, pulling you backward.

Face to face with Butcher, his hand wraps around your cheeks as he squishes your face slightly, chuckling lowly with a head shake. “That’s not how things are gonna play out sweetheart.”

In one fluid movement, he throws you onto your back, towering over you menacingly as he grabs at your throat. “I ain’t half the bitch you must be used to.”

Your pussy clenches at his alpha-male-esque as he shrugs off his ripped button-down, diving down to kiss you as you hungrily kiss back. Attempting to pull your own shirt off your head, he settles to rip your shirt as well, ripping the collar apart as you gasp a startled laugh into his mouth. “This is my favorite shirt, you know.”

“Oh I know love, and you look lovely in it.” Rip. “But you look a lot better out of it.” Riiiiiip. He pulls the loose, torn fabric from beneath you, discarding it on the floor. You sigh slightly, though humorously.

“You rip mine I rip yours.” He shrugs, dipping back and kissing you as he claws at your back with dull nails, unhooking your bra and pulling it off your arms as he goes down to kiss your chest, all the while he unbuckles his belt to give himself a bit of relief from the hardness within his jeans.

Licking down between the valley of your breasts, Butcher pinches your nipple and rolls it between his rough fingers as he nips at you. You arch your back in delight, gasping at the sensation as he takes your other breast in his warm mouth, flicking his tongue over your nipple before sucking on your breast, now rubbing his hand up and down your bare torso.

Your fingers knit in his hair as you throw your head back in a moan. “Fuck, Butcher.” You’re sure not to push your luck by calling him Billy again, which he’s always hated from us for some reason.

Your body breaks out in chills as his fingers lightly graze your skin, clearly more focused on pleasing you than himself. After giving your nipple a nip, which causes you to jump, you push at him and he hovers over you, lips parted as he adjusts himself in his pants. “Tell me you want it.” He groans.

“I want it. You.” His head tilts to the side. Not good enough.

“I want you to fuck me.” You groan in need to which he nods, unbuttoning his pants as he dives his hand down into the front of his jeans.

Pulling himself out, fuck he’s huge, you feel intimidated as he aligns himself with your entrance, running his large tip along your slit which causes you to shiver. Fuck. Your legs are already shaking.

Butcher places a hand on your lower stomach, rubbing slowly. “Relax.” He purrs, tugging at his cock so precut beads over the top. “You’re okay.”

You nod as you take a deep breath, exhaling slowly as he pushes his tip within your entrance, the sudden fullness causing you to gasp as he stretches you out to fit himself snuggly within you. You whine aloud at the sting, shaking your head. “I don’t think it’s gonna—“

“We’ll make it fit.” He whispers a coo, pushing himself in slowly with a slow sway of the hips, moving back and forth in rhythm with what length he’s already accomplished.

You nod, eyes crinkling shut as you push past the burning sensation. It’s odd—it hurts, yet feels so good. Your pussy throbs, a deep ache you never knew had become prevalent, a hunger deep within you igniting as you wish you could swallow him whole. He continues to thrust deeper, laying forward as his chest meets yours, kissing you passionately as he rocks into you, inch by inch stretching your cunt so you’re personally molded for him. He groans into your ear which breaks your skin out into chills, cursing under his breath as he buries his face into your neck, two hands gripping your ass to spread you apart for him and his liking.

His cock hits the sweet spot as he rocks fully into you in a primal need, picking up his pace as he pushes himself above and hikes up your leg against his side, arm scooping beneath to hold it there as he slows himself to a painful pace, cocking his head to look down at your glistening face, sweat beading down between the valley of your breasts as you moan out into the air.

“You were made for me.” He huffs out, throwing his head back with a groan as you tighten around him from his praise. You can feel yourself climbing that same high from earlier, chasing it more ferociously now, his cock ramming into you until the walls of your pussy are raw from the friction. Your other leg shoots up so they’re not hooked around his waist, pulling him into you so you can kiss him because god is he sweet.

You kiss into his open, moaning mouth as you slink your fingers up his rough backside and rip your nails into the flesh, ripping down his back as he slams into you harshly, cursing under his breath. You can feel yourself tightening around his cock, building more and more pressure for the two of you as his hand wands to press down on your lower stomach and the other grips beneath your head, fingers pushing through your hair before bunching it in his fist to tug at as some sort of anchor for himself.

“You’re a fucking succubus, you know that?” He whispers harshly, trying to contain himself as he presses down into your lower stomach, causing your pleasure to tenfold as you moan out, trying to ground yourself as you stab your nails into his back to try and not lose yourself completely.

“Cum for me sweetheart.” He urges, wanting nothing more than to serve you before himself. “I know you’re close.”

You nod, mouth falling slack as you moan out his name, tightening your grip within your legs around his side, feeling his motion and rhythm as if it was your own. You suck in a sharp breath, finally pushed over the edge as he fucks you through your high, filling you with a sort of comfort, playing a game of ping pong with your orgasm; you push onto him, and he only pushes you back. It’s wild and wide, your legs shaking around him as he holds you and fucks you into ecstasy. All you can do is gasp, unable to even speak, feeling as if you are within the heavens themselves. Who knew you could feel so good, especially at the hands of someone so bad?

You feel Butcher’s cock twitching within you as he breeds you, groaning loudly, louder than before, though you can hardly hear him over the ringing in your own ears. He curses a “fuck” and “shit” as he spills himself into you, heaving like a wild animal as he pushes into your with broken thrusts, his cum serving as some sort of slick cushioning from the burn of friction. You can feel his cum spill out of you slightly as he pulls all the way out and pushes back in, both of you breathing heavily as you orgasm together. An unstopping force meets an unmoving object as you two mold into one beautifully, always meant to pass but never meant to stick.

Butcher pulls completely out of you, collapsing onto you as you both breathe as if you had just run a marathon.

You might’ve well have.

“Fucking hell,” Butcher says between breaths to which you nod, heart pounding within your chest as you stare up towards the ceiling, sweat clinging to your naked body feeling tacky and cool as you two gather yourself. Once ready, Butcher lifts himself off of you and pulls his pants up, laying back onto his back as he pulls you into him, resting your cheek on his chest as he rubs your shoulder, body resting between his spread ones.

He kisses your temple, nuzzling his cheek into the top of your head as he runs his hand up and down your arm gently, comforting silence overtaking you two for a moment as you two reflect on what just happened. You crane your neck up so you can look at him.

“You really remember the first time you met me, all those years ago?”

Butcher nods, looking at you and then off into the distance. “Of course I do.”

You adjust your head back so your cheek is to his chest, nodding. “You’re not as heartless as I thought.”

Butcher is silent for a moment, reflecting on your statement. His instinct is to run away from the statement, to retreat and prove you wrong. But this one time, he allows himself to be vulnerable. And while he doesn’t know what to exactly say (he’s never been the best with words), the action of holding you tighter and leaving a long kiss on your temple tells you enough.

“Me neither.”

part two here

[australianwomensnews]

Medical research has a major problem: an alarmingly high number of trials are based on fake, fraudulent or misinterpreted data.

Research misconduct sleuths call them “zombie” studies. They look like real research papers but they’re rotten to the core. And when these studies go on to influence clinical guidelines, that is, how patients are treated in hospitals and doctors’ rooms, they can be dangerous.

Professor Ben Mol, head of the Evidence-based Women’s Health Care Research Group at Monash University, is a professional zombie hunter. For years, he has warned that between 20 and 30 per cent of medical trials that inform clinical guidelines aren’t trustworthy.

“I’m surprised by the limited response from people in my field on this issue,” he says. “It’s a topic people don’t want to talk about.”

The peer review process is designed to ensure the validity and quality of findings, but it’s built on the assumption that data is legitimate.

Science relies on an honour system whereby researchers trust that colleagues have actually carried out the trials they describe in papers, and that the resulting data was collected with rigorous attention to detail.

But too often, once findings are queried, researchers can’t defend their conclusions. Figures such as former BMJ editor Richard Smith and Anaesthesia editor John Carlise argue it’s time to assume all papers are flawed or fraudulent until proven otherwise. The trust has run out.

“I think we have been naive for many years on this,” Mol says. “We are the Olympic Games without any doping checks.”

How bad science gets into the clinic

Untrustworthy papers may be the result of scientists misinterpreting their data or deliberately faking or plagiarising their numbers. Many of these “zombie” papers emerge from Egypt, Iran, India and China and usually crop up in lower-quality journals.

The problem gets bad when these poor-quality papers are laundered by systematic reviews or meta-analyses in prestigious journals. These studies aggregate hundreds of papers to produce gold-standard scientific evidence for whether a particular treatment works.

Often papers with dodgy data are excluded from systematic reviews. But many slip through and go on to inform clinical guidelines.

My colleague Liam Mannix has written about an example of this with the hormone progesterone. Official guidelines held that the hormone could reduce the risk of pre-term birth in women with a shortened cervix.

But those guidelines were based on a meta-analysis largely informed by a paper from Egypt that was eventually retracted due to concerns about the underlying data. When this paper was struck from the meta-analysis, the results reversed to suggest progesterone had no preventative effect.

There’s a litany of other examples where discounting dodgy data can fundamentally alter the evidence that shapes clinical guidelines. That’s why, in The Lancet’s clinical journal eClinical Medicine, Mol and his colleagues have reported a new way to weed out bad science before it makes it to the clinic.

Holding back the horde

The new tool is called the Research Integrity in Guidelines and evIDence synthesis (RIGID) framework. It mightn’t sound sexy, but it’s like a barbed-wire fence that can hold back the zombie horde.

The world-first framework lays out a series of steps researchers can take when conducting a meta analysis or writing medical guidelines to exclude dodgy data and untrustworthy findings. It involves two researchers screening articles for red flags.

“You can look at biologically implausible findings like very high success rates of treatments, very big differences between treatments, unfeasible birth weights. You can look at statistical errors,” says Mol.

“You can look at strange features in the data, only using rounded numbers, only using even numbers. There are studies where out of dozens of pairs of numbers, everything is even. That doesn’t happen by chance.”

A panel decides if a paper has a medium to high risk of being untrustworthy. If that’s the case, the RIGID reviewers put their concerns to the paper’s authors. They’re often met with stony silence. If authors cannot address the concerns or provide their raw data, the paper is scrapped from informing guidelines.

The RIGID framework has already been put to use, and the results are shocking.

In 2023, researchers applied RIGID to the International Evidence-based Guidelines for Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS), a long misunderstood and misdiagnosed syndrome that affects more than 1 in 10 women. As a much maligned condition, it was critical the guidelines were based on the best possible evidence.

In that case, RIGID discounted 45 per cent of papers used to inform the health guidelines.

That’s a shockingly high number. Those potentially untrustworthy papers might have completely skewed the guidelines.

Imagine, Mol says, if it emerged that almost half of the maintenance reports of a major airline were faked? No one would be sitting around waiting for a plane to crash. There would be swift action and the leadership of the airline sacked.

[attapullman]

Whodunit? / Two

Summary: the one where identities are revealed and mickey cannot handle

Word Count: 2.9k

Warnings: 18+ only! f!reader, food mentions, swearing, 80s inaccuracies, mickey is a little horny

mo's note: for those who have been waiting for the six months since the last update - here it is! we get some baby sleuths! we get some cassie! do we have any theories on our culprit??

one / two / three / whodunit? masterlist

Past

On the first Sunday of Spring in town, everyone flocked to the fresh air to enjoy the bright, cloudless day. Townfolks swapped shopping for picnics in the park. Neighbors shared lawn secrets to the soundtrack of birds chirping. It was perfection in suburbia.

Brittany Willis was having her fellow second grade girls over for a garden tea party. The table was set with her mother’s nicest tablecloth, her grandmother’s chipped porcelain tea set, and a blooming bouquet of tulips freshly cut from the front walk. All the little girls sat on the front porch in their nicest Sunday dresses and white gloves, practicing lifting their pinkies while giggling and pretending to enjoy the blandly flavored hot water Brittany’s mom had served.

Across the street in the green house with white shutters, Maddy Floyd came downstairs to grab water. An act complicated by tripping over the two little boys crouched next to the hall window, cherub faces to the glass. Enraptured. Eyes glued across the street to the spectacle of pastel and lace. Maddy was still laughing at them as she poured herself a glass from the tap.

“What’s so funny?” At seven years old, Bobby still had yet to grow into his features - all big ears and oversized glasses. He gave his sister an unimpressed look from his spot on the floor, eyes still flitting to the girls from his class across the street. Mickey hadn’t moved a muscle from where he took in the scene through his binoculars.

Already old enough to drive, Maddy gives him an equally sassy look - in on a secret he’s years from learning. “Just think it’s funny you’re spying on the girls because you like them.”

The house erupts into noise as the two boys shout, “We’re not spying!” and, “We don’t like them!” in unison. Lucy, Bobby’s middle sister, yells down the stairs to keep it down.

“Mickey, you have binoculars. You telling me you’re bird watching?” The kid’s cheeks heat and he subtly shoves the spy equipment behind his back. 

Bobby’s bottom lip scrunches as he squares up to his sister. “Girls are gross. We’re just…bored.” His sister raises her eyebrow in disbelief. “Mom said we can’t play outside until we clean the playroom. Had to get creative.”

Maddy almost felt tender watching her baby brother discover the fairer sex. As she brushed by him on her way back up the stairs, Maddy placed a hand on his tiny bony shoulder and held eye contact with both of the boys who continually caused mischief. “One day you won’t think girls are gross. And when that day comes, you won’t be prepared.”

Once his sister was securely upstairs, Bobby turned to his best friend with a sisters are the worst grumble. The sounds of the little girls across the street carried over, the tinkle of porcelain and giggles. The knobby kneed kid blew out his bottom lip.

“She’s wrong, girls are always gonna be gross.” He held out his littlest finger. “Pinky promise we can’t change our minds?”

The two boys linked pinkies and spit on the floor in unison before returning back to their reconnaissance mission: Finding out where Brittany hid their baseball yesterday.

Present

The dinner shift is starting when the investigating trio push through the heavy glass door. Meatloaf crumbled onto chipped plates. The prime rib always too rare or completely overcooked. Blondie still playing on the juke just like it had hours ago.

The guys can’t figure out why they’re at the diner. With their frequent trips to the checkerboard square haven to visit Mickey’s crush, surely they’d know if someone named Cassie was here. Hell, the town was small enough that they’d know if there was a Cassie within spitting distance. Instead there was the same ten elderly men who were here every night for their sodium-drenched dinner, and a handful of families enjoying Chef Jerry’s Sunday Special. 

Not that either sleuth would voice it, but was being a police captain’s daughter enough credentials for you to be leading the group?

You slide into a sticky vinyl-bound booth and grab a menu, vaguely gesturing for your high school buds to join you. Your eyes scan the faded laminated paper without registering. The menu hasn’t changed since your grandfather was a deputy. And you only ever get fries and a shake.

While the guys begin volleying back and forth about whether it’s too late for a Coke, you turn to watch the other patrons. You’ve known this town your whole life, not a face in this greasy spoon a stranger to you. You know their habits, their families, their marital problems. This town has no secrets, and yet it evades you who could be so villainous as to steal money from the town. And right under your nose?

You hear your name drift over the crowd and see your friend, waving enthusiastically in your direction. Giving her a big grin, you beckon her over to your booth. The sleuths follow your gaze, curious, before Mickey turns the color of the cherry red vinyl behind his head.

“Cassie!” Jumping from the booth, you hug your new friend tightly, her slick ponytail swishing against your cheek. She greets you with the same gusto, pressing her grease-scented wrinkled uniform against your quarter-zip, apologizing for the stench.

Pulling back, she notices the two men watching the interaction, befuddled. She tilts her chin their way, tanned skin catching the light. “You know my regulars?”

“You know Danielle?” Mickey’s voice is drenched in disbelief, his eyebrows deep in his hairline as his hands shoot out across the table. Bob, best friend and wingman, grabs his shoulder to remind him they’re still in public - although his own head is reeling in this discovery.

They’ve been in this diner every day for weeks, sucking down malts, all so Mickey could work his charms on Danielle. An absolute betty - hair so shiny it reflects light, smile so sultry it kept the sleuth in a constant state of crushing. The name Danielle escaped Mickey’s lips so often they echoed around their apartment. 

So why were you calling her Cassie?

You wrap an arm around Cassie’s waist, giggling as you realize the situation at hand. And impressed that the stupid name tag trick of hers had actually worked. 

“Cass, you can let them in on the secret. I’ve known them forever, the most evil thing they’ve ever done is get a parking ticket.”

Under your teasing giggles, Bob mutters under his breath, “It was an accident, stupid loading zone.”

The glossy-haired waitress turns to the investigators and gives them a smirk. “Well, if she says you two are trustworthy…” She gives a wink that makes Mickey stiffen in his Levi’s. “I got sick of creeps at my last job cat calling my name. So now I’m Danielle.”

Despite their decades of sleuthing and hours of free time spent in the diner, even our hometown sleuths couldn’t have deducted that one.

The waitress and captain’s daughter finally plop into the booth, smiles abundant. One glance over at the table of young’ins and one would hardly believe there was a worry on their pretty little brows. That they were here to share malts and shakes before heading for a night out. No six-figure bank heist investigations going on over here.

You twist in your seat to look Cassie in the eye.

“We’re hoping you can help us.” She gives a shrug, a sure, what do you need? “You heard about what happened at First Local?”

To this she gives her head a shake, ponytail swishing through the air. She’s working a double and it’s been nearly dead until now. Biggest news is that the jukebox will only play Jackson Five.

You start to fill her in when Mickey cuts you off. This is his moment to impress Dani…Cassie. He launches into the logistics - the open vault, the missing money, and that you’re wrapped up in the middle. His smile can barely be contained in her presence. It’s the longest he’s held her attention since he recounted winning the third grade spelling bee. He’s basking in her focus, leaning on his elbows to be that much closer to her.

When he’s finally done, you shoot him an unimpressed look. “Yes, thank you, Mickey…Uh, anyway, we need to talk to Jake Seresin-” She cuts you off.

“I am not talking to him. He’s a tool.”

The boys snicker, approving of the waitress even more for hating their high school bully. 

While you can’t fault her for pointing out the truth, you need some leverage if you’re getting in with the security guard. And you aren’t a complete idiot when it comes to the way his eyes follow her around when she drops by with a burger for you during the lunch rush. 

“We can all collectively agree he’s…with fault, but he knows all the logistics of the bank. And there’s a secret door that only he knows about. We need to know what he knows.”

She cocks her head to the side, ponytail arcing through the air. The men are powerless to watching it float softly in the air. “And what makes you so sure that he is going to tell me what he knows? Isn’t the point of being a security guard that he keeps things, ya know, secure?”

You were banking on him being a sucker for tits, but she has a point.

You worry your lip between your teeth as you try to think of more leverage to convince her. Bob quirks a smirk - it’s been over a decade since he saw you do that before coming up with the winning idea at the science fair. Just like he trusted your prowess then, he knows you can motivate your friend to help. But it’s again Mickey who shamelessly jumps in for Cassie’s attention.

“I’d tell you my bank account PIN for a smile from you. Throw in a wink and Seresin will probably tell you how to break into the bank yourself.”

She gives him a hard look before exploding in laughter, her face warm and glowing under the florescent light. “Oh, Fanboy, you are smooth as ever.” She pauses, rolling a salt shaker between her palms. “Alright, I’ll at least try to talk to him. But if it blows up you all owe me double tips.”

Your fingers tingle as you feel the investigation finally take a positive turn.

From the back, Chef Jerry calls out for ‘Danielle’ and your friend gets up to leave, brushing the wrinkles out of her apron over her baby pink uniform. She promises to meet you in the morning at the diner before the bank opens. Then the interrogation begins.

Not ordering anything, your group heads toward the door to get some sleep after a long day. Just as the slick-haired waitress is about to disappear into the kitchen, Bob calls the name on her name tag. She raises her perfectly plucked eyebrows in interest.

His cheeks are pink. “Not to be, uh, forward, but it’s probably in the best interest that you wear something…lower cut? If we’re trying to honeypot the information out of him? Yeah?” He looks to you and Mickey for backup. Mickey tentatively nodding. You have the same face as when you found out gangly, bespectacled Bob Floyd lost his virginity junior year.The man has big ol’ balls when he needs them.

But the waitress laughs and agrees, shimmying her cleavage a little and cackling harder when Mickey turns scarlet. These boys are too easy. 

You usher them out of the diner before they can do anything else. In the parking lot, you make them promise like good kids to meet you at the diner and be ready for a long day of investigating. When you finally turn on your heel and start the walk home to your fretful mother and exasperated father, Mickey lets out a sigh of relief.

“That girl needs to take a chill pill. We are professionals.”

The next morning you could feel your under eyes on the ground. You’d slept like shit, replaying the past twenty-four hours in your head over and over again. How could a day change your life so drastically?

It was a blessing that your dad was asleep when you got home and already at the station when you got up. In a world of consistencies, you could always bank on him being out the door by seven.

You slung on a band shirt that had seen better days and slipped out of the house unnoticed. You’d have to answer to some questions from your mother when you arrived home, but the last thing you needed was that right now.

The walk into town was short - the benefits of a town the size of a postage stamp - and before you finished reviewing all the evidence from the day before you realized there were two familiar figures standing outside that dusky pink apartment complex your dad said contained more meth than tenants.

“Well, well, if it ain’t the police captain’s daughter.” You elbow Mickey in the side. It’s almost weird to see them twice in twenty-four hours - practically back to being school children again. 

You look at the half-drained kidney-shaped pool behind the gate. “You two still living in this dump?” The shrugs you get in response are enough to remind you there’s a reason you’re an assistant bank manager and not a sleuth. The paycheck.

As if planned and not a coincidence, the sleuths take up stride beside you and join your journey toward the diner. And you’re glad for the company, as Bob listing all the horror-inducing things about that pink apartment building keeps your spirits up.

It’s well before the bank opens, but when you pass the town square there’s a small group gathered - shouting and bullhorns blaring for so early on a Monday morning.

Even though your timing is pressing to meet Cassie, you can’t help but detour. Squeezing between fellow town residents and shooting your best police captain’s daughter smile, it’s not hard to get to the front of the crowd and see what’s causing all the fuss. But considering the movie theater renovation was now indefinitely on hold, you shouldn’t have been surprised.

Ever since the renovation had been announced at a city council meeting, all the crazies had come out of the woodwork. Historians with their own opinions and businesses with their own agendas. But the loudest out of all the chatter had been the relentless public discourse between Amy Albert (CEO of Albert Electronics, supporting half the jobs in town) and Hazel Groveman (local historian and environmentalist). 

You’d seen the posters and mail inserts for months. Albert wanting nothing more than to put up a giant cineplex that would bring in more jobs, more visitors, more money. And Groveman preaching nothing but the importance of preserving history. There was a rumour that Thomas Edison himself had seen a flick or two back when it was just a measly nickelodeon.

You know that rumor is bullshit and your great granddad made it up during a drunken night at the station, but Hazel Groveman isn’t privy to your Thanksgiving conversations.

Up on the erected stage, the two women stand ferociously, already shouting at each other before anyone’s morning coffee sets in. Groveman pushes her greying bush of hair from her face as she accuses Albert of petty crimes. Everyone knows Albert Electronics was mad the restoration was chosen over the cineplex. Her competition yells through glossed lips that Groveman massively underestimated the cost of the restoration and the money isn’t gone, the city simply couldn’t face the embarrassment of needing more money. It’s ugly, the way they go for each others throats verbally.

Beside you, both Bob and Mickey are fidgeting, wishing they had ditched you to head to the diner instead of watching this blood bath.

Tearing your eyes from the public fight, you notice Vaughn Carmichael standing off to the side. This definitely isn’t his office and surely he has better things to do on a work day. But he observes the two women with mild interest and a sleazy smile, making your skin crawl at whatever perverted pleasure he’s getting from watching. What a creep.

You shoot his assistant Natasha a smile - what an angel to keep that job - before realizing you’re definitely running late. The two women are still out for blood as they fight over what should happen now that the city can’t fund the restoration. Your stomach turns and you grab the men by their jackets to leave. 

This is why you’re up before noon on your day off. You’re going to find that money. 

When your friend’s shiny hair and wide smile are in view, that feeling of hope returns. You’re going to get Jake Seresin to talk. You’re going to figure this out. You’re going to find that money and save the town and your job and finally buy that Kinks album.

And it all comes down to the one-size-too-small v-neck that Cassie picked out especially for today.

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[myobsessionsspace]

Fun ask: Do you like unconfirmed but possible JiKook thoughts? So JK did GCF-T and used the song There For You - "But you gotta be there for me too" ending line. For 2019 summer, JM on vacation with friends, returned for JKs b'day, etc. JM made a travel vlog for that trip, using the song Come Thru - "Can you come thru?" ending line. (It always stood out to me as an odd choice for a travel vlog.) Soon after, JK began getting the tattoos that included the infamous "J M". Was that JKs answer to JMs question? Aside: the Vlog video concept reminds me of Closer Than This video theme. JMs Vlog -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl3QLdm2uts

Hello Lovely,

Ooohhh you’ve asked THE question. Where do I stand with unconfirmed but possible Jikook thoughts or how I’d probably see it ‘Jikooker Theories’ & ‘Jikooker Delulu’ (said lovingly)?

TL;DR - I’m the worst with this. Honestly my jikooker friends get so frustrated when they delulu and then they’re like…Em?? How about you?? And I’m like…

The main reason I’m so enraptured by Jikook and everything around their bond is because I really don’t need to be into unconfirmed but possible thoughts.

Credit: factkm

You don’t need to squint to spot their unique duo in the midst of anything or anyone else. I don’t even need to put my glasses on to look at them and see that they’re different.

That’s what I like so much about them, they radiate in their actions and words how they feel about each other and how close and unique their bond is, whatever it is it’s closer than close and it’s the two of theirs.

Don’t get me wrong I find it fun delving into Jikook theories. I’m blown away by the intelligent minds that can spot certain connections and patterns. I’m only human too, so I’m a nosy cow. I eat it all up, their off schedule sightings and 1:23 theories etc. I studied psychology and am a lover of love, so of course I’m interested in getting as much information to draw conclusions and all that jazz.

One of many Jikook Icebergs. I love me some Jikook theories but…I above all love Jikook period.

But to me even if all the theories and unconfirmed thoughts of others are stripped away, Jikook give me enough to not need any of that.

It’s a funny balance, taking in others unconfirmed Jikook thoughts. Reading what people say, people thousand of miles away from Jikook, from different upbringings, backgrounds, careers, cultures, ages, genders. People who’ve never met Jikook on a personal level or been apart of Jikook’s inner most circle and not letting it become fact to you, taking their thoughts and opinions as gospel.

Jungkook is me sometimes when trying to get into Jikooker number theories 😩

I love all types of jikooker accounts, art ones, writer ones, historian ones, spicy ones, super investigative ones etc. I’m still figuring out myself how deep into unconfirmed jikooker thoughts I’D share.

I’d love the asks to help me discover what I would be able to answer. **SO ASK AWAY💜** and let’s see how that goes. It’d all be my opinion and my opinion only though.

If it’s not something plainly my opinion, I prefer to stand by everything being backed up by evidence from Jikook and those closest to them, like the members. If it isn’t a verified interview, from original content that can be referenced, from their vlives/weverse lives, sns etc I’m not too keen 😬

VS

Very easily, unconfirmed thoughts can become fact in subsections of fandoms like shipping fandoms, solo fandoms etc. So I like to make sure I can find the first source from when/where/who it started from.

So in conclusion,

I love the fun of it all, the unconfirmed Jikook thoughts, the theories, the sleuthing and delulu.

I do try with my #Tin Foil Hat: Jikook (I’ll tag it so you can take a look if interested) but it’d maybe take asks that make me go for it in more depth?

But ultimately if it’s not from Jikook’s words, their overt and also their not so subtle displays and actions OR if it’s not from those confirmed as closest to them…then to me it’s nothing more than light entertainment that starts and ends there. Nothing that will shape how I view Jikook.

Thank you for you ask!

💜

P.S I think ‘Letter’ is Jimin’s GCF Tokyo/GCF Saipan and ‘Closer Than This’ is the fan song for the collective of BTS fans known as ARMY, cos you know, Jungkook is Jimin’s fan too!

[nekropsii]

I do think it’s deeply funny how I’ve seen… What I will affectionately call the Intermissleuthers (Homestuck Intermission + Problem Sleuth fans, basically the same crowd) get referred to as a very solitary, walled off community that’s very hard to get into or contact or understand, as if it’s a small island populated by a hostile, isolated populous that gets avoidant when perceived by outsiders and violent when outsiders try to encroach upon them, when… In my experience, all you have to do to get their attention and practically get adopted by bloggers in those circles is acknowledge that they, and the characters they like, simply exist with some degree of kindness, and then- and this is the most important part- Be normal about it.

They’re very excitable people. I’m sure this doesn’t apply to everyone, but for the most part the people in there really want to share their passion for these stories and characters with others, and the only reasons for them being kind of on guard is honestly just born out of other Homestuck fans notoriously really deeply disrespecting things they’re passionate about. Willful misinterpretations of their faves, degrading carapacians to the status of subhuman, the sheer amount of people that live and die by the phrase “Skip The Intermissions”, as if those aren’t literally essential parts of the story and that’s just, like, a totally normal thing to say.

All you have to do is, you know… Not… Do that? Don’t do that, and you’re fine. And don’t forget to be a lover, that’s important. Appreciate The Exiles. Appreciate The Felt. Appreciate The Midnight Crew. Appreciate the Problem Sleuth Gang. That section of the fandom isn’t an unfathomable, unapproachable beast, you might just be mean and weird about characters and stories they really care about. That’ll hurt anyone’s feelings. That would hurt your feelings, too.

[thepastisalreadywritten]

It was always going to end this way. The truth about Catherine Middleton’s absence is far less funny, whimsical, or salacious than the endless memes and conspiracy theories suggested.

In a video recorded and broadcast by the BBC, the princess says she has cancer and that she had retreated from the public eye to deal with her condition, while attempting to shield her children from the spotlight.

Instead, she had to contend with the internet giggling about whether she’d had a Brazilian butt lift.

My colleague Helen Lewis summed it up succinctly this afternoon: “I Hope You All Feel Terrible Now.”

What is there to learn from such a sad situation? The internet is made up of people, yet its architecture abstracts this basic truth.

As I wrote a few weeks ago, at the center of this months-long story was essentially “a sea of people having fun online because it is unclear whether a famous person is well or not.”

Underneath the memes was always something a little bit gross and indefensible.

Perhaps humans are just wired this way — to gawk and gossip.

There’s nothing new about hounding a member of the royal family or invading the privacy of a celebrity to sell tabloids or go viral.

You don’t even have to be a scold about it: Famous people are wealthy and beloved at least in part because they’re fun to talk about.

Exactly what we do and don’t know about their internal lives is part of the allure — the discourse comes with the territory to a degree.

But Catherine Middleton, of course, is a human too.

During this saga, I kept thinking about the reappraisal of Britney Spears in 2021, as well as the backlash toward past media and tabloid coverage of her rise.

A New York Times documentary dredged up old coverage of Spears from the mid-aughts, showing a young woman clearly in distress, being picked apart by glossy magazines.

Her suffering became entertainment. The response to this film was swift.

Some of the people and institutions that had shamelessly delighted in her pain backtracked: Glamour publicly apologized to the pop star on its Instagram account, noting, “We are all to blame for what happened to Britney Spears.”

Contrast the Spears reckoning with the Middleton drama and, if you’re being generous, you can see some of that newfound attitude in the media.

I was struck by Lewis’s observation that “Britain’s tabloid papers have shown remarkable restraint” throughout this mess.

Progress, perhaps, but what’s also telling is that they didn’t really need to do the dirty work: Random people on the internet were doing it for them.

They recklessly speculated, memed, and used their amateur sleuthing and networked faux expertise to concoct elaborate, semi-plausible explanations for her absence.

Was Catherine’s face actually Photoshopped from a Vogue spread? It wasn’t, but the conspiratorial tweet got 51.1 million views anyhow.

Missing from much of the discourse was the idea that its main character was a person who was likely struggling.

In essence, the internet democratized the tabloid experience, turning the rest of us into paparazzi and addled editors workshopping headlines and cover images — not to sell magazines but to amass some kind of fleeting online popularity.

In my least charitable moments, I see this toxic dynamic as the lasting legacy of social media — a giant, metrics-infused experiment in connectivity that has had a flattening, pernicious effect.

In 2021, I interviewed Elle Hunt, a journalist who’d tweeted an innocuous opinion about horror movies one evening and woke up to find she was trending on Twitter, her feeds choked with thousands of furious replies and threats.

When I asked her to describe the experience of becoming Twitter’s main character for the day, she summed it up thusly:

“You’re repurposed as fodder for content generation in a way that’s just so dehumanizing.”

Three years later, these words resonate even stronger.

What Hunt described to me then as “a platform failure,” feels to me now like a learned behavior of the internet, where people, famous and not, are repurposed as fodder for content generation. The cycle repeats itself endlessly.

This afternoon, the memes about Middleton shifted — from jokes about her whereabouts to jokes about how awful it was that everyone had been making fun of a cancer patient.

Feeling bad about the memes tweets immediately became a meme unto themselves.

Despite the tone shift, the reason for these posts is the same: They’re a way to take a person and repurpose their life for entertainment and engagement.

If this sounds exhausting and depressing, it’s because it is.

But the internet is also too big to be one thing. Clicking through social media this afternoon, I saw dozens of heartfelt testimonials, apologies, and well-wishes for the princess.

For a moment, from my perspective, it felt like watching a collective of people come to their senses.

A recognition, perhaps, of the humanity of the person at the center of the maelstrom.

Then, only a few seconds later, I saw a different post. It was a screenshot from the blockchain platform Solana, where users can create their own cryptographic tokens for others to invest in.

The name of the token in the screenshot is “kate wif cancer,” and its logo is a still of the princess sitting on a bench, taken from this afternoon’s video.

The coin’s market cap briefly surpassed $120,000. Only six minutes later, the price had cratered — the result of a standard memecoin sell off.

An awful thing happened. Some people made a joke about it. Other people made some money. And then everyone moved on.

NOTE: Edited

[naffeclipse]

I hope you'll forgive me, but these came to me in an almost delirious state the other morning when my brain wouldn’t let me sleep :s

I give you the sleuths now in the flesh. 

Can’t forget the bossman either: 

“This time you bruise and bleed too, angel eyes” >;) 

Just a fun little ‘what-if’ and obviously not cannon, unless the Vigilante encounters these guys in some fever dream - actually that sounds like a funny scenario; nearly dying of some wounds (the usual) and high on meds, their mind cooks up this little world and once it gets to the Eclipse part, they’re just so repelled they wake themselves from their delirium xD

I did these in quite a hurry so if I were to ever have another go, I’d probably make some adjustments, focus on a more unique design, age them up a little, and give them more likeness to their animatronic counterparts, but hey, still works as a proof of concept I guess :)

Have a nice day/night, Naff! <3

Forgive you??? I would only forgive you for making me fall in love! I am not normal about your human designs for the Sleuth Jester boys at all!!! I hope you know that! I adore them so much ahhh! They're everything to me and so cute and handsome and their eyes and the details of their faces eeee!!! I'm kicking my legs and laying on my bed like a middle school girl rn, you have no idea!

Oh. Ohhh and that Eclipse! Bossman indeed, whew! He should not look that good smoking a cigar; yet, I'm swooning! He looks so menacing even in human form! Guess some things never change, huh?

I have to say, I'm more inclined to the DCA as robots but your human designs are making me into a turncoat right now! The idea that the human boys are from a fever dream is perfect and Y/N waking themselves up because, ew, what is Eclipse doing here? Has me cackling!

Gosh, I love your art! I'm sorry to hear your brain isn't letting you sleep though, and I hope you take care of yourself and get what rest you can ♥ I hope you have a nice day/night, too, Piixel!

Thank you for sharing! ♥

[wildemaven]

My sweet Heidi! Congrats again on your 1K bby!! You deserve it and even more!! I was wondering if I could put in a blind drabble request with my love Frankie and numbers 22 and 301. I’m so proud of everything you’re doing and am so glad to call you one of my best buds. 💜💜💜

Meet Cute in the Garden Section

Wildemaven 1k Celebration / 1k Masterlist Pairing: Frankie Morales x Reader

Warnings: 18+ Blog; No warnings, just fluff!

Prompts: "This doesn't smell like roses." / "It was nice meeting you."

You don’t mean to stare. Actually you do, because it’s the cutest thing you’ve seen in a while. 

Between reading the tiny plant labels and filling your cart with an array of plants you had been looking forward to purchasing for your growing garden, you can’t help but notice a Dad and his daughter an aisle over doing some planting shopping of their own. 

He seems a little lost, removing his tattered ball cap every once in a while to comb through his chestnut locks, as he examines each plant his daughter holds up to him. His furrowed brow gives you the impression he doesn’t shop for plants often. 

As you continue your browsing, you find yourself in the same section as the cute shopping duo. In closer proximity you decide the Dad is quite cute with how his eyes crinkle when he smiles at something his daughter is saying and you think you see a hint of a dimple through his patchy beard. 

“This one is cute too Papa! Look at it.” The sweet little girl, who looks to be around 5 or 6 years old, says to her Dad holding up the tiny potted plant. “Can we get this one too?”

He takes the plant from her tiny hands, squinting as if he either forgot his glasses at home or thinks he doesn’t need them and continues struggling through reading small print. 

“I don’t know baby, I can’t really tell what the little symbol is, if this one is saying full sun or partial— maybe no sun?? This one might be a little more difficult to take care of.” He tells her as he goes to place it back in its designated spot. 

“Actually, those are pretty easy to take care of— perfect starter plants too.” You say, giving him a reassuring smile so as to not come off as some creepy stranger in the garden department. “Sorry, didn’t mean to bother you, just thought you should know.”

“Thanks— thank you. As you might have guessed, I know nothing about plants, or gardening for that matter.” He says, laughing at confessing his lack of knowledge about plants to a complete stranger. There’s definitely a dimple, way more prominent when he laughs. 

“That’s okay, we all start somewhere. So far, all of your choices are great ones, you shouldn’t have too much trouble getting things going.” You tell him as you glance over their selections. 

“So there’s hope for us then?”

“Definitely!”

“Papa! This doesn't smell like roses!” The sweet little girl, who looks like a copy and paste version of her father, declares while shoving another plant into their nearly filled cart. 

“That’s because it’s a succulent, no real scent to them.” You say, and guessing by her confused expression, she doesn’t know what one is. “It’s like a cactus, but none of those pokey needles on them. They’re fun to take care of because they don’t need a lot of water to grow and love the sun, very low maintenance.”

“That’s just what our garden needs, low maintenance.”

He doesn’t have a ring, but you're aware not everyone wears one these days, so you use your sleuth skills to ask about his marital status so you don’t over step any sort of boundaries. 

“Well, I’m sure your wife will be happy with everything you two have picked out.”

“Oh, we’re not married— I have her on the weekends and she’s been begging to plant a garden since she has one at her mom’s place. And I have no clue what I’m doing so I’m just guessing as we go.” 

Cute, and single. 

“I’m Frankie and this is Isabella.”

You give him your name and you continue to talk him through his gardening hesitations, really soaking up everything little detail you’re sharing with him— wishing he had something to take notes knowing he’ll probably forget most of it by the time they get home. 

“It was nice meeting you. I hope you both have fun and I wish you the best of luck in your gardening ventures.” Realizing you had definitely overstayed your welcome, but wishing you could chat more with Frankie— and not just about plants and their needs. 

You give them both a friendly wave goodbye, turning back to your cart to make your way to pay for your own plants, looking forward to an afternoon of planting and deciding what to make for dinner. 

You had finished loading your car with your collection of flowers and a few bags of potting soil, when you hear your name being called, and turn to see Frankie and Isabella walking in your direction. 

“Hey! More gardening questions?” 

“Yeah, I mean— not really. I was wondering, umm if I could maybe get your number. In case I were to have any questions about garden stuff, I could text you or call if you prefer— or I could turn back around and head to my car and we can pretend this lame attempt at me asking to see you again didn’t happen.” He sounds nervous, his one hand firmly tucked into the pocket of his jeans and the other securely around Isabella’s tiny hand— his irresistible smile and charming personality has really won you over. 

“I’d love to give you my number— for gardening and stuff.” 

[s-che]

“you are a good nurse” (knives out and great men)

***(this is extremely spoilery for both knives out and glass onion. read with caution)***

In quarantine, in a smaller apartment than you might expect, Benoit Blanc is playing Among Us. This is a game—like Clue—which the celebrity detective hates. It’s too simple, too obvious, and too easy to resolve. Although he holds himself to be better than these “stupid things,” they are also a weakness—later, we will be told that he nearly failed to solve a case because it was too simple all along. For now, the gentleman sleuth is doing poorly in isolation, suffering from an all-consuming boredom which descends between cases (a trait he shares with his literary antecedents in Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes). This is, all in all, a tremendous reintroduction to Blanc, the detective who, in 2019’s Knives Out, solved the murder of James PattersoHarlan Thrombey and who—in 2022’s Glass Onion—will attend a murder-mystery themed weekend getaway of the innermost circle of tech billionaire Elon MusMiles Bron. Blanc shares DNA with the classic sleuths—but he is both more and less of a hero than they were. Much of that has to do with the communities he finds himself in. Murder mysteries have always run on high-energy casts of colorful characters—most especially in the works of Agatha Christie, whose Mousetrap, Murder on the Orient Express, and And Then There Were None feel like important steps on the road to Knives Out. Working with big tropes and cliches makes sense in a genre which is, in many ways, about developing and subverting reader expectations, and the two Knives Out films certainly build on that mold, establishing a set of stock characters drawn from the here and the now. Whether we’re dealing with a wealthy college student who sets her political beliefs aside to bow to the demands of her family (Katherine Langford as Meg Thrombey, Knives Out) or an internet micro-influencer about to explode into the mainstream screaming about the downfall of western masculinity (Dave Bautista as Duke Cody, Glass Onion), the supporting casts of both Benoit Blanc murder-flicks are fresh tropes for a fresh culture. They’re also—critically—all drawn from a particular world. Children of wealthy families, publishing executives, influencers, lifestyle models—these are people given a huge privilege, not only in the quality of their lifestyles but in the degree of their control over the direction of their lives. Although Knives Out and Glass Onion both  depict circles dependent on the charity of individual, powerful men—Harlan Thrombey and Miles Bron, respectively—they are also circles made up of people who society grants decision-making power, imbuing them with the belief that they are the protagonists of life granted the god-given right to personhood in contrast to those in sidelined roles—the help, medical staff, and “Derol.” The heroes of both films, however, are the odd ones out. They are neither the suspects (the colorful ensembles of those who “could have done it”) nor the celebrity sleuth himself (on whom everyone depends to solve the mystery and straighten things out), but rather those who are pushed to the side—assumed to be objects, not actors. Marta and Helen are the Watsons of both movies—the characters through whom we view the story, whose experiences frame and color our own (Helen takes on this role predominantly in the second half of the movie, once her true identity has been revealed to the audience). Unlike Holmes’s Watson or Poirot’s Arthur Hastings, however, these two characters are not neutral “straight characters” but individuals who suffer an active isolation, people who—however “normal” they might be in comparison to the cast—are marginalized and assumed to occupy a passive space. This positioning impacts their perspective, skewing things for viewers, reminding us that there is no apolitical way to view these events—and not to normalize the antics of the elite. In both cases—as Marta is Harlan’s long-term nurse and Helen is dedicated to seeking justice for her sister—they are presumed to, and in many cases do, act without ego, functioning solely as objects and in the ecosystem which surrounds the powerful decision makers (Harlan Thrombey and Miles Bron) and support systems on which the protagonists of life can lean. Although the films work to counteract this assumption—reminding us of the fundamental personhood of both Helen and Marta—it is also partially through their dedication to serving others that both Helen and Marta succeed. Blanc puts this clearly in Knives Out when he reveals that he knew Marta was involved in the murder from the start: “I want you to remember something very important:” he says “You won not by playing the game Harlan's way, but yours.” The heroes of these films do not succeed by using their invisible status to their advantage in playing “the game Harlan’s way,” getting one up on everybody by being the cleverest person in the room. Rather, they succeed by staying true to their values and doing what they know is right—even if that means sacrificing themself to the cause of another because it is right. For Marta this is attempting to save Fran—for Helen it is running out of clever ways to seek justice for her sister, and setting fire to theb building instead. By working against their own self-interest in the “game” or “puzzle” of a murder mystery, both Helen and Marta defeat their antagonists. In Knives Out, the Thrombey family spends much of their time bickering over who really deserves to inherit Harlan’s legacy—and the film is clear that none of them can truly claim to have built success themselves, as each was granted the privilege and security of their family’s wealth. None are truly as independent—we might say, “protagonal” —as they believe. Glass Onion takes this a step further, attacking the “source” of the cycle of  wealth. While Harlan Thrombey seems to have been a generally good man, a skilled storyteller, and a strong judge of character—it was his decision to reward Marta, and not his kin, with the inheritance—Glass Onion’s counterpart in Miles Bron is explicitly framed as lacking substance (being a “Glass Onion,” which appears deep but is in fact easy to see through) and having simply been in the right place in the right time to steal someone else’s work. There is no “self-made man” or “good billionaire” in Glass Onion—only people who were lucky enough to be given the opportunity to step on someone else on their way up the ladder. This developed critique of “great men” plays directly into the events of Glass Onion’s climax. Unlike Knives Out, where the police are presented as broadly interested in justice and glad to work alongside Blanc although their investigation has already ended, Glass Onion demonstrates explicitly how systems of power—the courts and the police, but also social dynamics and community pressures—can be bent to the defense of those assumed to be powerful decision makers (like Miles Bron or Ransom Thrombey). There were allusions to this in Knives—where Ransom claims that Benoit solving the murder means nothing, since he has good lawyers and will avoid a significant sentence—but they are eventually unsubstantial, as Marta tricks Ransom into confessing in front of two officers and he is arrested as a result. When, in Glass Onion, when the only evidence to Bron’s crime is burned, Blanc himself seems to surrender, claiming that “This is where my jurisdiction ends” before leaving the room (though not before handing Helen the physical and emotional material she needs to literally burn Miles Bron’s island home to the ground). Although Helen eventually manages to set fire to the Mona Lisa—defeating Bron by ruining his public image, not through criminal prosecution—this does not seem to be her intention when she begins destroying the mansion. In this, Glass Onion seems to develop a second critique of Knives Out—not only do we come to question the validity of the narrative of “good” billionaires, we are shown that, faced with hostile powers insulating  themselves within systems of law and order, the only path to justice may be working outside the law and our basic (i.e. carceral) assumptions of what “justice” is. As the emergency  services arrive to pick up a body, Benoit sits on the beach, smoking a cigar. His hands are clean, and he has inspired Helen to the heroic action that she must take. He is as smart as any Holmes, but he did not do his part in this adventure in the way Holmes would, by playing the game, solving the puzzle, and handing things over to the police. Rather, Benoit has himself taken on a supportive role—supportive to Helen, who has, in turn, taken action and found justice for her sister. He understands the limits of his jurisdiction—in other words, he knows when it is actually his turn to be the protagonist, and when it is his role to inspire others. In a world full of people who claim to have risen to power by their skill and focus, Blanc actually has remarkable skill—but he uses them, ultimately, to ends of uplifting the meek, not simply restoration of order.

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s3 episode 7 thoughts

today was another awful day at work. trying to hope that it’s just the getting started part that makes this job awful and not that the job itself is awful, but i need my scully and mulder time again tonight. fetch me them. this instant.

let us begin. a man is in a hospital. someone won’t let this man- who we learn is a lieutenant colonel- hurt himself. he glances at a mirror.

oh, and he’s out of his hospital bed and breaking loose. into some boiling water? with weights in his pockets. oh nooooo. someone catches him and he says again that “he won’t let me die” HUH? what is going on???

man, i feel bad for this poor gentleman. idk who is tormenting him so. but i hope the “he” the lieutenant colonel spoke of leaves him alone. 

oh shoot, the agents are there three weeks later and he is in this sort of… facial gear stuff because of the burns. and his hands are wrapped up, too. i realize now i have almost no familiarity with the process of treating burns. i guess i’d never thought on it before.

scully’s taking notes while mulder asks about whoever this poor man sees when these awful things happen… he sees a solider standing at attention. a ghost? a real guy? a secret third thing?

oh! scully is not taking notes. she is passing them. she says it’s classic ptsd. her handwriting… it’s nice <3

the man says that whoever is tormenting him burned his wife and children alive???!?!? hello??!?!

someone pulls them out and asks them to suspend their investigation and scully is NOT having it. at all. putting her foot down. as she should. oh the general can’t talk “ask him to make himself available” okayyyy!!!! mulder looks pleased by this. but some guy delivering mail overheard what was going on and seems deeply troubled.

guy carrying mail goes down the hall and he seems to be crashing a group therapy session, where a man who has lost a leg is describing his recurring dream, which he calls “the walk”, running with his family, and it seems so real. he’s opening up! talking about his feelings! all good things to be doing in therapy!!

and some guy named leonard is being mean??? tearing down his happy dreams? saying they’re not “normal people”. and the walk dreamer says they ARE normal people, but leonard is like nope. no you are not.

leonard points out that he has no arms and no legs and that he prays god will come down and take away the dude leading the group’s arms and legs. oh. this seems unhealthy. then he gets wheeled out by the mail guy. who is named. roach.

roach is freaking out because the fbi agents are here, asking about the lieutenant commander. and he says “to hell with the feds”. so is this leonard the guy that burned his family alive??? is he torturing him?? or something??

now scully and mulder are being called into the general’s office. and the general, named callahan, is yelling at them for misconduct. i’m a little confused tbh but i guess they were supposed to go through him? um. okay. sounds like they’re trying to keep secrets and NOT the fun kind! 

scully is NOT letting this man go. and she shouldn’t! um why doesn’t his file mention his whole family died… yeah i’d be asking the same thing!! the general is like yeah it’s sad. but why are you here.

OH TEA??? ANOTHER person had their family die in a fire and had tried to hurt themselves but kept saying someone was stopping them… oh scully is PISSED today!!! she demands a stop to this nonsense and some answers.

she says she thinks it’s very clear what is going on here: she thinks the men killed their families, and the general is hiding that fact. OH! my brain didn’t go there. but i can see why she would think that. anyway they are sleuthing about. 

general looks stressed as hell. he tells the woman- captain draper- to go home. pulls some alcohol from under the desk. but then HE STARTS SEEING A SOLDIER saying “your time has come”!!! and there are spooky noises coming from a cassette tape!!!! 

draper is swimming. i knew something was about to go down, because we rarely see people swimming just for the fun of it, except that one time in season 2 where mulder was swimming about at the beginning of the episode. anyway, it’s very quiet and spooky. she seems to think she sees something. OH. and something does in fact grab her. and pulls her under?!!!! NOOOOOO 

scully at the scene as they pull the body out. general callahan is there too, and he seems surprised. there are bruises around her neck so it is not looking accidental. 

mulder says that if the pattern is consistent, the general’s family might be in danger. he seems offended by this but a pattern is a pattern. and mulder’s hair is messed up a lil aww. AND NEXT CUT ITS FIXED HAHA they must have spruced him up!!!! that is so funny

general seems to have taken the message to heart. talks about seeing a guy and the phone going wild. 

okay back at the general’s house… someone magically got through the door??? like the mail guy. oh it’s ROACH!! 

(i thought that later in the episode we would get an explanation as to how he sort of just clipped into the house but. it was never revealed)

fbi at the house. playing the spooky audio from the phone message. mulder is pondering. scully is looking around. she is always looking around and i love that about her. SHE SAW SOMEONE IN THE YARD!!! queen of spotting things.

ohhh leonard is at the doctor’s. and roach is approaching. he is bringing something from the callahan’s house TO leonard. and he says he doesn’t want to do it anymore but leonard says he wouldn’t be in the wheelchair if it wasn’t for him, so he owes him. oh that’s not how that works i don’t think…

he says “the enemy must be defeated” um is the enemy your boss? i have had some bosses that are enemies. but he’s speaking as someone who was sent to war and their erroneous decisions put him in peril. so very different context.

the earlier burn victim lieutenant colonel is being wheeled down to the doctors/nurses and he seems really freaked out to see leonard. i wonder if he can sense who it was…

(scully walks in to find mulder replaying the same cassette again and again) “find anything?” “no, but i’m really beginning to like the tape :)” AUGH i paused here to type down that line and he has the BIGGEST nerdiest smile it’s priceless :) need to find this screenshot so i can just look at it when i’m down

but scully says we found some fingerprints!!! and they go to roach’s place and arrest him. mulder is looking about a very nasty kitchen. and in a cupboard he finds mail stolen from all the targeted people!!!!

the general’s son sees a soldier but he’s not worried about it so maybe it’s a guy they know?? or someone guarding them since they might be in danger. but then he gets BURIED IN A SANDBOX??? and the soldier tries to dig him up. 

NO!!! THE BOY DIED!!!! 

this is really sad.

roach, in custody, identifies himself as “rappo’s mailmail” so it turns out rappo is leonard. same guy. and now he’s a suspect. scully thinks roach lied but we can’t rule anything out i know this tv program.

so leonard is dreaming. and roach is saying he knows this place, that he isn’t safe here, that he’s going to be killed. so is it in his dreams that leonard can go about and murder people?

for some reason mulder has been carrying around dental x-ray plates and she’s like “i know, you’ve had them the whole time” so i’m glad they’re at a point in their relationship where they don’t feel the need to ask, “hey, why are you carrying around stuff from the dentist” there is just that implicit trust 

oh, mulder is saying it is a case of astral projection, and that this leaves behind radiation. and maybe he needed a piece of their mail to form a connection. and then he plays the cassette backwards and it says “your time has come, killer” ohhh!!

so they go to question him and mulder jumps straight in with the “why did you kill him and also why can you leave your body” 

OH LEONARD SAYS SOMETHING NASTY TO SCULLY this is a good way to make mulder very angry. but leonard screams in his face about him not knowing war, or what it’s like, and he is INSISTANT that he is astral projecting

the callahans are putting away the boy’s toys nooo it’s so sad :( they’re both crying and he’s pouring a drink when he sees leonard in full gear and then his wife dead on the ground!!! and the phone rings while he pulls out a gun. 

the general has his gun and brings it to the lieutenant colonel. and he says the same guy won’t let them die. and the lieutenant colonel knows who it is!!!

callahan is confronting leonard, who says he killed his wife and his son. he fired like a million bullets. but none of them hit, just went right in the wall. agents roll up just as leonard enters some kind of trance. and callahan gets in the elevator, having refused to kill leonard like he’d hoped for!!!!

the general goes to a bottom floor, where pipes are exploding and the voice is talking about how his time has come.

enter mulder, who finds him on the floor, but also the astral projecting leonard is decking him.

and the colonel goes in there and smothers leonard!!!

scully is mad because she was trying to save leonard from what she thought was a seizure but she was interrupted and instead watched a murder go down. not a great feeling, i’m sure.

episode wrap up. no physical evidence that leonard committed the murders. but he meant to keep his victims alive and suffering. and as mulder talks about the case, the lieutenant colonel walks in and hands the general some stuff. and he walks away pushing a cart, while mulder ponders what can destroy the human nature.

well. that sure was a dark one. 

it turns out i’m not big into episodes where children die. just ruins the whole tone.

i think there were some interesting concepts being explored here, on who suffers the most in war, the ordinary men being sent out to fight and be fought while others give the orders from relative safety. and the resentment that dichotomy causes. as well as the weaponization of survivor’s guilt in the form of roach just going along with the evil schemes. that is interesting. 

but all things considered, it was a bit too dark for me. it was lacking in whimsy or jokes, which i like to keep going at an even pace. i liked to see a very determined scully, and a mulder who was smiling happily on his cassette tape streaming endeavors, but other than that, this was a real bummer.

i will say, it did mostly successfully distract from my garbage day, though, so i do not take this for granted. it just would have distracted me a whole lot MORE had there been a higher number of stolen glances and grasping hands and brushing fingers through each other’s hair or cradling of injured bodies. these are really balm to the wounded soul.

[artsandstoriesandstuff]

Animation Test 10 (Robo Sleuths)!

Did you remember to pet your touch starved AI today?

I wish I could’ve made the colors less choppy.

I also have one I made before this (the Moe expressions) so it’s technically number 11.

All that aside, this one’s cute too. They’re taking over my brain. If only I could develop Lois more, then I’d be really obsessed with these two. :)

Also, the blush being green as opposed to blue fits more. It makes it look like it’s actually part of his display.