#she's completely right if you need to get off to videos of women being tortured then you're definitely not boyfriend material

[joethetoonfanandoutcast]

Four Reasons I Don't Support Suki x Marcus

There is another Sing ship involving the Saluki which I can't stop thinking about or continuing to be tortured by: shipping her with Johnny's dad!

These words cannot escape my mind from the video of Illumination taking risks: "The company is 'going to have to evolve. We can have a commitment strategy to movies as a cinema-going experience and we can layer other business on top of that. There are topics of conversation right now that are very relevant to what we're doing in the future that get into areas that potentially might not please everyone. I think you have to honor the stories that you tell, honor the choices that your filmmakers make, and you have to be willing to not have everybody pleased all the time."

And since high-grossing franchises are constantly milked, that means they'll need new stories and new material, including ones that fans aren't doing yet. Plus, as Illumination insists on animal behavior, it makes sense for a gentle giant like a gorilla to be protective towards a Saluki, one of the most timid dog breeds of all, so that's one "open-minded/I'm not a judgy bastard who should be sentenced to damnation" perspective, and yet, I can't stand the idea of them being romantic partners any more than her and Jimmy being romantic partners.

Here are the four reasons:

1. They've too big an age gap

Okay, Suki is either in her 20's or early 30's, and Marcus...well, most of the characters' ages here aren't clear, but I assume he's in his mid-40's or 50's. And I realize that Sing lacks pairings with the man being two-three decades older than the woman and "HAS TO BE relevant to real life in all ways", but do they really need that? And yes, Johnny could have a stepmom in his life, but does it have to be a woman close to HIS age?

2. They lack the chemistry

Seriously, who thinks Chelsea Peretti and Peter Serafinowicz would have any chemistry?

3. It spells old-fashioned stereotype

I know strong men would be a good shoulder for tough women to be there as a shoulder and make them feel stronger and make them feel more human, but does it have to imply the strong man is as strong as one of those weight-lifters at the circus? Skinny guys can be strong in some way too. And a lot of women today aren't interested in beefcakes, which brings me to this reason:

4. It destroys her better judgement

In her first few minutes of the film, she comes off as this pretty-dresser who comes from the squeaky clean big city and is hard to please (FOR ENTERTAINMENT, btw!) and because she's a lackey for someone muscular and well-dressed (Jimmy) and is loyal throughout the film, due to dogs being loyal, until she betrays him, everyone just automatically assumes she only likes high-quality individuals as much as high-quality shows. Shows and individuals are two different things. Why throw it away other than just to make Ash, Meena, Rosita, Nooshy, and Porsha the girls you want to like that aren't picky?

She has potential to be liked by someone not taller than her and for her to reasonably like them back. That's realistic and not as superficial.

And I can stand the idea of Marcus finding someone to replace Johnny's late mom, just not if it means destroying the mentioned potential Suki had with other characters, or better yet, maybe not have Johnny's mom dead after all. Incidentally, what is it with Illumination and not having characters' spouses present? Marcus, Jimmy Crystal, Clay Calloway (that I can excuse), and we cannot completely conclude that Buster's mom is dead too.

I seriously hope Illumination doesn't force them into being so. I can handle it being done in fanfictions, but not in actual canon because that means they'd have to be canon in every universe (like how Mickey and Minnie are a couple in every universe and so on with other cartoon couples).

[eve-is-a-terf]

dude: "my friend's ex-girlfriend said he couldn't watch porn or she'd leave him, she said he has her so he doesn't need it"

response i just read: "That's very controlling and usually the start of a toxic relationship, glad she's the ex"

we are never making it out of the patriarchy 😔

[sunandmoongobrrr]

Korra and her Brutalization: A Legend of Korra Meta

In honor of International Womens’ Day, I want to talk a little bit about Legend of Korra and the treatment of Korra (and to a small extent other women) throughout the show. Content warning: there's some disturbing scenes that I show here, but if you've watched all of LoK, you should be fine.

Korra starts off confident; she is a young avatar who is eager to learn and feels suffocated from the isolation she is kept in from a very young age. But that doesn’t stop her, and like the headstrong girl she is, she moves to Republic City to make a difference and step into her role as the avatar.

Korra immediately starts to doubt herself; she becomes unsure of her abilities and frustrated with herself, and through that she learns to become emotionally vulnerable with Tenzin. To me, this was really great. It showed that you can be confident and vulnerable, and that the two aren’t necessarily independent of each other.

(I’m going to be honest, the 2nd season I didn’t really remember much of, so I’m just going to skip over that. Because what I really want to talk about is season 3.)

In season three, Korra faces the Red Lotus, an “anarchist” group that essentially wants to kill her. And they get pretty close. First, I want to talk about how Tenzin is beaten by the Red Lotus. This has been brought up in Lily Orchard’s (in?)famous LOK video, and while I disagree with her on many many topics of the show, I really think she has a point here. When Tenzin is being brutalized by the Red Lotus, the camera pans away. It is SO painful to see him like this, and the directors know it. It’s TOO painful to see it, so they don’t show you it, and the episode ends before we can see him be defeated.

Contrast that with Korra. They show you every detail of this. And I mean every detail.

It’s disgusting, and they refuse to treat her with any sort of decency or respect like they do Tenzin. It’s almost like they want us to enjoy her torturing. It’s genuinely gross.

People will often refute this by saying “LoK is just a darker show! Look at what they did to the Earth Queen!” And while yes, it is marketed towards an older audience, there’s still no point in brutalizing Korra this way. The main difference between Korra and the Earth Queen is that… well, Korra’s the protagonist. We’re supposed to be rooting for her, and while the Earth Queen being suffocated was definitely dark, it wasn’t unprecedented. The audience was never supposed to like the Earth Queen—she exploited and kidnapped her own people, so of course we wouldn’t care THAT much if she died. But we’ve been with Korra since the beginning. We’re supposed to want her to be happy, and why on earth would we want her to be tortured brutally in such a disgusting way that gives her absolutely no dignity? If we want her to succeed?

(here Zaheer uses the same technique used on the Earth Queen to suffocate here on Korra. for some reason)

In Season 4, the main focus is on Korra and her healing from the brutal things the Red Lotus did to her. She is clearly still struggling, and it could have been another great way to show how being physically strong and confident doesn’t mean you can’t be vulnerable. But they make a lot of bad choices in this season.

One of my main gripes is that in order to heal, she has to return to her abuser, Zaheer, and HE has to teach her how to feel better.

I don’t want to compare LoK to ATLA, although it’s very important to mention that a show that’s a direct sequel, uses its old characters, and banks off of references, should be able to be compared to its predecessor. But I think it’s important to compare Korra’s arc here to Zuko. This doesn’t come out of nowhere; Korra has a lot of similarities to Zuko. The chopping of her hair is a significant turning point in her arc, and there’s an episode called “Korra Alone” (which is clearly a direct callback; shown below).

The difference between Zuko and Katara is that, a. Zuko never had to accept his abuser, and b. Zuko started off as a villain.

One of Zuko’s major points is when he confronts his father—his abuser. He does not bow to him and give in, saying that maybe he had a few good points or his heart was in the right place, but he directly says that Ozai was wrong for what he did. This isn’t the case with Korra. For some reason, Korra has to learn to trust her abuser. The person who did this to her:

And she has to hear him out.

This leads me to my second point, and what’s basically the complaint I have; despite being a protagonist, the show treats Korra like a villain. It frames her torture scenes as if we’re supposed to be excited that she’s being brutalized, as if we’re supposed to think she deserves it. And it’s not even handled properly as one of the villains we know so well—Zuko, who was able to overcome his abuse and become a protagonist who we root for. Again, Zuko and Korra aren’t directly the same characters, but there are parallels between the two and the show encourages their comparison. When it comes to Korra, however, we’re supposed to believe that she deserves everything that comes to her; the brutal scenes and the lack of dignity, even if she is a protagonist.

And in the end, that’s what we’re meant to believe; that Korra deserved what happened to her. In the finale, Korra says, “I finally understand why I had to go through all that. I needed to understand what true suffering was, so I could become more compassionate to others.”

This is, to put it short, ridiculous. I hate this so much I can’t even begin to say how much I hate it. No, Korra did not have to go through the torture she went through. She did not have to go through the mercury poisoning. She did not have to go through every hardship she did. This “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” is so harmful because Korra’s healing revolved around accepting her abuser and thanking him for the awful things he did to her. Korra wasn’t even that cocky by the end of the first season, so what it’s essentially indirectly teaching girls is that if you’re confident, you’ll pay. It’s disgusting.

Zuko got a banishment to the Earth Kingdom, got to have his ideas and practices challenged, but he never got physically tortured. I truly, truly believe that one of the main reasons why Korra is quite literally villainized by the show is because she was a confident, brown teenage girl. None of the male characters are treated with such disrespect and we never get told that they need to be “humbled” by abuse.

This is not completely resolved to LoK; there are some aspects in ATLA that I think could’ve been fixed had there been more women in the room. I tag her a lot (bc her metas are awesome), but I really recommend you read @araeph 's Katara: Consumed by Destiny series. I also have a meta here about how Katara is treated in ATLA, specifically in “The Fortuneteller.” (I want to emphasize that while I am anti-Kataang, I don’t believe that Katara’s treatment had to do with the ship itself or that kataang is inherently anti-Katara. It’s just a note about how her character is treated in this episode and beyond.)

I’ve heard a lot of people say that they’re ‘glad’ that LoK didn’t feature Suki or Mai or Ty Lee, because they can’t imagine how poorly they’d be represented. And honestly, I can’t blame them.

This isn’t to say that we need to stop watching LOK or even ATLA. I think the internet has this weird problem where we’ve been told that the way to get rid of problematic media is to just stop consuming anything even remotely problematic altogether. But certain aspects of media will always be relatively problematic, since as content creators we sometimes input our biases into the things we create. The solution, then, is not to banish anyone who puts any harmful stereotypes into their content from society, but to actively and healthily criticize it. Bryke are not God, but they’re also not demons put on the earth to suppress woc. They’re white guys that have implicit biases that have worked their way into the content they produce. I think the lesson learned here, is to have women, especially BIWOC, in writing rooms, to prevent atrocious acts from happening to future Korra's.

Happy International Women’s Day, y’all.

[crowdedimagines]

Worse Days - Aaron Hotchner

The faint dripping of water pulls me back to reality. The same sploosh happening over and over. Minute after minute. I pull my eyes open blinking, forcing them to focus. The swaying back and forth, left to right, doesn’t help ease the dizziness I feel.

“Looks like your girl is finally up.”

I look around, searching for the source of the voice.

“Wake up, sunshine!” He finally sits in front of me, taking my head in his hand. His fingers are coarse and strong. He forces me to look him in the eyes, his grip tight on my cheeks. He tilts my head to the tripod over his shoulder. The red light on the camera blinks back at me.

“Smile for the camera.”

This is not at all how today was supposed to go…

Twenty-Two Hours Ago.

“Alright, we’re looking at four women, murdered and found on the beach in Miami. All from different classes and backgrounds, but similar age groups” JJ hands us each our files.

“He takes them for three days, before brutally dismembering them. The morning of the fourth day, the woman is always found.”

“He takes risks. Each of these women were taken from high traffic areas.” I comment.

“There’s more.” Garcia suddenly takes over.

“He also sends a live feed to the family of the victim.” She reluctantly pulls it up on the TV, a live feed of the women pleading for their lives. Saying their goodbyes.

“He’s definitely a sexual sadist. He finds pleasure in knowing that families are watching their loved ones last moments.” I clear my throat, pulling my eyes away from the screen.

“That’s what he gets off on.” Derek agrees. “He likes knowing that there’s people in distress on the other end of the camera.”

“Wheels up in thirty.” Hotchner simply says before excusing us all.

As soon as we land we start the process to find the unsub. It begins with all of us splitting up and going to the scenes where the bodies were found. All of them were ditched on the beach, early morning before anyone was out.

We get nothing from the populated beaches other than sand in our shoes.

We sit down and look at the profile and determine the man is bold and try to analyze the footage we have from the previous victims. Penelope is trying to find any identifying marks from the videos to see where they come from. Based on the way he treats the bodies, we’ve determined he’s likely a white male in his early thirties. 

“It looks like they’re on a boat.” I say, we’ve been watching the videos on an endless loop. Trying to catch any new details. 

“The camera is steady.” Morgan argues, looking at the TV now too.

“But look at her hair, it’s moving when she’s not. It’s like the rocking of a boat.”

“It’s possible considering he’s ditching them on the beach.” Reid comments. 

“That’s why no one sees him dragging a body all across the beach. He already had them on a boat.” Ross puzzles together. 

“The most recent body was found this morning, that means he’s going to take his next victim tonight.” Morgan says.

“We should visit where each of the women were taken. Try and get an understanding of how he was able to do so in such populated areas.” Hoctchner announces, “Prentiss and Morgan, go to the grocery store where Hannah Lane was taken, Y/n and Spencer, go to the parking garage where Amy Bryant was abducted and Rossi and I will go to the last two locations.”

We all nod and go off in our separate directions. Spencer and I get in the car and drive to the parking garage where Amy was taken. We drive around until we reach the second level and get out.

“Even for a parking garage, it’s bold. It’s packed with cars on this level. Anyone could show up at any time.” I look around.

“You’re right, they could.” A voice calls out behind me before everything goes dark.

Present time.

“Morgan, you owe me twenty bucks. I told you it was a boat.” I stretch out my neck that has a kink from hanging loosely while sitting up in the chair for so long. It feels heavy, like I’ve been in this position a long time.

The man in front of me rolls his eyes, huffing loudly.

“You picked the wrong girl if you were counting on me melting like puddy in your hands. You forget that I know exactly what you want. You want the tears and the begging.”

“Trust me. You’ll get to that point.” He smirks. “They all do.”

He leaves the room, loudly pulling the door shut behind him as he goes.

“I promise, it’s not as bad as it looks.” I plead with the camera, knowing that my team is on the other side of it. I can only imagine what they’re all feeling. We’ve had close calls with team members, it’s not any easier to be in their position right now. You feel helpless. 

“Definitely on a boat, but I think we’re just at a marina or a pier. I can hear seagulls, we aren’t rocking that much.”

I lean forward as best as I can while still being tied to a chair. There’s a small window along the ceiling allowing me to see blue skies.

“It might be a ship. I’m above sea level, I can see the sky.” I try to give the team as much information as I can possibly gather. Anything could help.

“Sorry that’s about all I have right now to help.” I look around the bare room for any other details that could help, “I think I have a concussion, and maybe a cracked rib. I can’t take a deep breath.”

Suddenly the man comes back in, just as quickly as he left, he takes the camera in his hands.

“That’s all of your Y/n time today. You should get to trying to find me, because I am going to have a lot of fun in the meantime.”

Back with the team at the Miami police department...

The feed cuts out leaving the team in silence and shock.

“There’s nothing we could’ve done. We couldn’t have known-”

“We could have waited.

Spencer looks down at the ice pack in his lap. As if the guilt wasn’t eating away at him enough before. He also received a concussion. Only he woke up on the ground, relatively nothing compared to the person he was sent out with.

“There was no way for us to know that the unsub was going to come back to visit the last scene of the crime.” Emily defends. She can see the pure anger in Aaron’s eyes. Completely unwavering, and only focused on getting Y/n back to the team.

“But that’s the thing. He wouldn’t, that’s not in his MO. He moves on to his next target. Once he kills these women he feels nothing, it’s all in the buildup, he feels nothing at the scene of the crime.” Rossi says, thinking out loud.

“Y/n helped JJ talk to the press. The unsub could have seen her then. It’s likely that he would follow the case, especially once it was announced that the FBI had joined the case.” Spencer rapidly explains.

“She’s the right age, she fits his type.” Rossi nods.

“So, he sees her as more of a challenge. He’s escalated. He knows that she is a higher risk person to take.” Emily comments. 

“Y/n, said she’s on a boat.” Morgan says, bringing up the clue that Y/n gave them before the feed cut out. 

“We’re in southern Florida, there’s thousands of boats within just a hundred miles of us.” JJ sighs, looking around to the group around her.

“Four thousand, seven hundred and fifty-two within 75 miles of here.” Spencer pipes up.

Hotchner cuts him a look. Still trying to find anyone to blame, but himself. He’s the one who sent her in to that parking garage. 

“Garcia, can you locate her based on the feed the unsub has sent us?” Aaron asks, looking at the plain black screen, hoping to see it come back on so he can see the girl behind the camera. 

“No sir, he’s using a different routing server, just like he did with all of his previous victims.”

“Y/n is not a victim.”

---

It takes some time while the team continues to try and work out locations and who the unsub could even be. He wasn’t afraid to show his face on camera, which makes things a little more difficult. He has no record, making Garcia’s life a little harder. 

The TV in the conference room lets out a crackle before the familiar room comes into their view. Everyone sets down what they had been working on and halts all conversation. It’s been several hours since we’ve seen anything from him. Y/n has been gone for eleven hours at this point.

“Welcome back to the show!” The unsub grins. 

He moves out of the way to finally put Y/n in the frame. She’s hunched over, she doesn’t look as good as she did before. It’s evident that things have changed off camera. 

“His name is Nick.” Y/n mutters, picking up her head as best as she can. “He’s five ten and approximately a hundred ninety pounds.” 

“Don’t you learn to shut up?” Nick pulls back on the hair at the back of her head. In doing so it reveals new bruises that have taken home on her. 

“Baby, we talked about this. No more sharing with them, or else you know what happens.” Nick brushes her hair out of her face now. 

“This is his dads boat.” Y/n looks at the man who has taken her with spite in her eyes. It seems in his hours spent with her, he hasn’t learned that Y/n doesn’t like to be told what to do. And that she’s tougher than she looks. 

He lands a sharp fist into the side of her head and takes a step back. He lets himself take a deep breath, trying to gain control. He doesn’t want to kill her yet, that would be over too soon. Now he can step closer again, he lets one hand wrap around her throat, halting any oxygen of reaching her lungs.

He waits for Y/n to start to struggle in her chair before he lets up. 

“You just don’t like to learn, that’s okay. I’ll fix you.” Nick takes her hand, which is still tied to the arms of the chair she’s sat in. He pulls her pointer finger with care, before sharply pushing it straight up, breaking it. 

“Garcia-” Y/n picks up her head struggling to fight against his hands, she’s coughing now still trying to gain her breath back, “You don’t need to see this. Please. Turn it off.”

“Of course, Y/n is the one being tortured and she’s worried about other people.” Morgan turns away, himself unable to watch this continue. Listening to Y/n’s screams and shouts are going to be enough to stick with him. Rossi forces himself to watch the girl he’s grown so close to since joining the team, brutally tortured in front of him. 

Everyone on this team has love for this girl. She’s managed to worm her way into everyone’s life in some way or another. Y/n always knows exactly what each person needs, and she meets it. She holds the team together when they’re all falling apart. If anything were to happen to her, it would destroy them all. 

Especially Aaron. As reluctant as he would be to admit it, this girl has wormed her way into his heart. Different to everyone else on the team, though. He saw her beauty and kindness. It was hard to him to imagine a woman ever entering his life like Haley did, but Y/n did it with such grace, and without even trying. Y/n helped him out with Jack when he needed it, and made them meals when Aaron just needed to catch a break. She didn’t even need a thank you, it was just part of her.

Without even trying, Y/n became his person and all he can think now is that he never got the chance to tell her, never even got the chance to thank her, and that he won’t let happen.  He wants to see Y/n’s face in person, not bruised and bloody through the screen on the wall. He needs to get out to save her.

“Garcia, does that help you narrow your search.” Hotchner asks their tech who is still on speaker. 

“We’ve got twenty-two Nicks with boats in the Miami area.” She explains. 

“What about Nicks who have wealthy fathers? Or boats that weren’t originally in their name.” Spencer asks. 

“That leaves me with one. Nick Hoffman.” Garcia cheers, “Sunset Harbour on 1928 Sunset Harbour Drive” 

The team takes off without a second thought, quickly trying to save their girl. They manage to get there in record time and find the boat with success. Y/n was right, it’s more like a ship with its size. 

“Morgan, Rossi, work your way around the main levels and then below. Emily and I will lead the upper level.” 

The team takes off to clear the boat. It took a few empty rooms until Emily finally opens the door to where they are. Nick holds a knife to Y/n’s throat. He’s essentially using her as a shield, ducking behind her. 

“If you take one more step in here, I will slit her throat.” Nick shouts. 

“We don’t want that to happen.” Emily negotiates, Hotch finally stepping into the room. 

“Hey! I told you guys not to move!” He presses the blade down tight against Y/n’s neck while she lets out a shudder. 

“Let her go.” Hotch declares. 

“I want a deal.” Nick grovels. 

“Men like you don’t get deals.” Emily says, her eyes trained on him and all of his movements. 

“Not even for your precious Y/n’s life?” He grins, looking down at the girl below him now. 

“Go to hell.” She mutters as best she can., 

“Maybe killing you would be worth it.” He smirks, “Then we could go out together.” 

“I’ve got better plans.” Y/n throws her head back into Nick’s disorienting him enough that Hotch has a clear shot, and he takes it. Nick’s body falls and Emily kicks his knife out of reach.

“Get me out of this chair.” Y/n shakes, squirming to get out of the spot she’s been constrained to. “Get me out of here, please.” 

Hotch and Emily both holster their weapons and rush to help her. They quickly untie her and when her legs fail her, Hotch scoops her up. He quickly walks her down the stairs and doesn’t stop once he reaches the dock, he takes her all the way up to the ambulance. 

Without hesitation, Hotch gets in with her. There isn’t anything that could keep him from leaving her now. 

“Wow, that was a dramatic ending, huh?” Y/n grins. 

“You can’t seriously be cracking jokes about this now.” He sighs. 

“I mean come on, aren’t you going to even ask how I figured out his name was Nick? I figured it out when he ow-” 

Y/n cuts herself off when the paramedic starts feeling her ribs to see which are cracked and if any are broken.

“Y/n, we can talk about this later.” Aaron smiles. 

“Am I hallucinating? Is it the lack of oxygen, because you’re smiling.” Y/n comments, finally turning to look at her boss who has a smile that she knows he saves for Jack. 

“You’re back. That’s reason to smile.” 

They make it to the hospital to find out that Y/n has a concussion, one broken rib and three cracked ribs, and one broken finger. Not to mention the trauma to the trachea. 

“The gangs all here.” Y/n smiles, noticing Garcia has flown down to join the group. Everyone has been gathered in the room since everything settled down, “What are you doing here?” 

“Y/n, you were kidnapped.” Garcia states, still in shock, “You could’ve died.” 

Tears fill Penelope’s eyes and Y/n opens her arms from her hospital bed for a hug, which she easily accepts. 

“Ehh, I knew you guys would find me.” Y/n grins. “I’m fine Pen, I’m getting discharged in the morning and we can all go home.” 

“Yes, speaking of, we should all get some rest. Especially Y/n.”

Slowly, the rest of the team clears out, giving hugs on their way. 

“Not taking your own orders?” Y/n asks, noticing her boss making himself comfortable on the small couch in her hospital room. 

“I don’t think I could leave if I tried.” Aaron admits. 

“And why’s that?” Y/n asks, carefully turning to lay on her side to face him. 

“Because I love you.” He confesses, “I have for a while now, and it’s alright if you don’t feel the same, or if my position with this team makes you uncomfortable. I just don’t think I can go any longer without you at least knowing.”

“You love me?” Y/n asks, her voice cracking. Aaron finally has the courage to look over and she has tears in her eyes. 

“Yes.” He clears his throat, “The way you have become a part of my life, and Jack’s for that matter. You bring so much light with you everywhere you go, even after a day like you’ve had today. You manage to still be the brightest person I have ever met.”

“Please don’t make me get out of bed to kiss you, because I think I would crack another rib.” Y/n sighs. 

Hotch lets out a soft chuckle before getting up from his spot. 

“Only if you promise to go to bed after this, you need rest.” 

“Promise.” 

He leans down to connect their lips, it’s soft. Y/n can tell that he’s being gentle with her. She reaches up a hand to thread them through Aaron’s short hair, using it to her advantage to hold him there and pull him a little closer. They pull away eventually, Y/n stealing one more peck before fully letting go of him.

“Ok, maybe I’ve had worse days.” 

---

AHHHHHH my first time writing for criminal minds! i hope you guys liked it! 🥺

[mylovehes]

Bad Call

Masterlist

Summary: Reader doesn’t wait for backup and gets kidnapped and tortured.

A/N: REQUESTS ARE OPEN!! Any feedback is also appreciated!

Pairing: Spencer x Reader, mentions of the team

Angst with a little fluff (warning mentions of torture and abuse)

I knew it was a bad call. I knew I should have called and waited for backup before chasing the unsub into a big abandoned building. However, everyone makes bad judgment calls eventually in this job. I couldn’t let this guy get away and kill more women just because I was waiting for help. I thought I could take him on my own. I mean I had my gun with me. Unfortunately the universe wasn’t on my side and moments after creeping into the abandoned warehouse after the killer I felt a sharp pain in the back of my head as I hit the ground, gun sliding across the floor as my vision went black.

I woke up in a log cabin house with hands and feet chained to the floor allowing little access to move. I tried pulling on the chains with no luck. Soon after waking up I heard heavy foot steps coming down the stairs to my left. 

“Look who’s awake,” the unsub named Larry Peterson said smirking down at me. He is currently wanted for the murder of 15 women and as fate would have it I fit his victimology to a T. I glared up at the man from where I was sitting on the floor. “I think it’s time to get the party started. What do you think? I hope your friends like movies.” He grabbed a hold of the chains attached to my wrists. As he pulled I noticed they were attached to a pulley that hoisted my body off the ground to where my feet were barely touching the ground now.

“What are you talking about,” I said struggling against the cuffs that were now digging into my skin. He placed a laptop and video camera up directly in front of me. I noticed the red light turn on realizing he was sending a live feed to the BAU. At least this way Garcia can try to trace it back to my location and everyone will know for sure what happened to me. However, I didn’t want them to have to witness what was about to happen, especially not Spencer. He’s been through so much, he doesn’t need to possibly witness another girlfriend being murdered at the hands of an unsub. 

“Say hello to the BAU Y/N,” he said said grabbing my face and aiming it at the camera so they could clearly tell it was me. “Now normally I don’t like an audience,” Larry said while picking up a sharp knife, “but I think the an FBI agent warrants an exception.” He slid the knife across my skin as I groaned in pain trying not to give him what he wanted which were my screams.

-

Meanwhile at the BAU everyone was frantically trying to figure out where Peterson would have possibly taken Y/N. Garcia was unable to locate where the feed was coming from and everyone else was at a complete loss. The furthest they got was narrowing down that she was in a cabin isolated in the forest. Unfortunately for the team there were hundreds of cabins in the woods and it would be impossible to try every single one.

Spencer was slowly losing his mind mad at himself for not going with her to check out the abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of town. He was the first to notice his girlfriend was missing, everyone quickly rushing to her last known whereabouts and finding nothing but blood and a note from the unsub saying he had Y/N in his possession.

No matter how hard everyone tried they could not get Spencer away from the computer screen that displayed Y/N being beaten and tortured. Spencer felt sick listening to her screams of agony but he couldn't bring himself to walk away in fear he'd miss even the smallest clue. If she had given him a clue so far, he had not caught it. 

-

My whole body was on fire. I had been cut, hit, and tased repeatedly for what felt like hours upon hours which in reality was only one hour since he began the torture. I didn’t have the strength to fight back and there was no way I was getting out of these chains without help so I figured the only thing I could do that might help my team catch Peterson was to get him talking.

“Wow mommy really did a number on you huh?” I said spitting blood out of my mouth towards him. 

“What did you just say to me?” He said stepping closer to me threatening me with his glare. 

“What are you deaf? I said, your mommy really did a number on you didn't she? I mean you obviously enjoy hurting women for a reason,” I said hoping to strike some kind of nerve and get him to slip up. 

“Shut the hell up!” He screamed stepping away from me.

“Oh struck a nerve have I? Let me guess. She used to abuse you didn't she, physically and mentally 24/7? I bet you felt real powerless.”

“I said shut the hell up bitch!” He yelled again slamming his fist on the table and grabbing the pitcher on the edge of the table. 

“Are you the one who killed her? This is her place from her mother right? I bet that's how you got this nice cabin because a deadbeat like you obviously wouldn’t have the financials to cover a place this nice and big,” I emphasized hoping maybe the size of the cabin could help narrow down their search somewhat. 

“Maybe this will teach up to keep your mouth shut,” he said roughly grabbing my chin and pouring the contents of the pitcher down my mouth and nose basically water boarding me. The liquid in the pitcher was salt water and it made my whole body hiss in pain from the various cuts scattered everywhere causing me to scream in agony. I begin laughing in a hazy way, about to faint from the pain my body is experiencing. Hopefully the team could track down who the cabin actually belonged too. Before I could think about it too long I glanced at the camera one last time before passing out again.

-

Spencer gasped as he realized what Y/N was hinting at and flew to Garcia’s lair. “Garcia I need you to look up Larry Peterson’s grandmother and find out if she owned any property. I think that might be where he is keeping her.” Garcia quickly typed in the information finding an address that was in the middle of the woods.

“That looks like a nice big cabin in the middle of woods just like what we’re looking for doesn’t it,” Garcia said smiling hopefully at Reid.

“Yes, send us all the address. She has to be there,” Spencer said running out to tell the rest of the team. 

Everyone quickly headed to the address Garcia sent them hopping out of the SUVs and putting on their vests. Spencer and JJ took the back with Hotch and Emily taking the front. Morgan and Rossi entered through the side door. 

-

I awoke to the painful shocking of the taser and a hand over my mouth. As I came to I could hear the sounds of foot steps above me. I tried to scream to let the team know I was downstairs through the trapdoor that Peterson had revealed to me was there but securely hidden. 

“They’ll never find you down here so stop screaming,” He said whispering into my ear. Tears began to pour down my face knowing my team was so close but not being able to find me. I took what little bit of strength I had left and with all my force I bit Peterson’s hand and swung my legs back hitting him just hard enough to get his hand off of my mouth.

“Spencer!” I screamed as loud as I could before the hand once again found my mouth and the taser found its way back into my side. Screams of pain left my lips, muffled from the ears upstairs. 

“Did you guys hear that,” Spencer said causing everyone to freeze.

“Yeah it sounded like it was coming from below us,” Emily said.

“Hey guys check this out,” Morgan said. I could hear the familiar sound of the carpet being dragged back and then the trap door to the stairs being opened up. 

Peterson’s hand left my mouth and I heard the sound of a gun being cocked beside my head. He pointed the gun towards the stairs, taser still pressed into my side. As I heard the steps begin to descend the stairs I realized he was probably going to shoot whoever came down.

“Wait he has a gun!” I screamed in warning. That distracted Peterson as he once again tased me causing me to cry out. The foot steps descended faster and soon everyone came into view. Tears sprung to my eyes as I saw Spencer. I could tell by the look on his face that he did not handle me being kidnapped well at all. 

“Put the gun down Peterson,” Spencer said aiming the gun at him. However, no one had a clear shot because he was using my body as a shield. 

“Take one more step and I’ll shoot her!” He yelled back aiming the gun at my head that hung down, me no longer having the strength to hold it up myself. 

“You shoot her and we shoot you,” Hotch said beside Spencer, gun aimed and ready. 

“There’s no way out of this Peterson you killed 15 women and kidnapped and tortured an FBI agent,” JJ said coming around to Spencer’s other side.

Peterson let out a spine chilling chuckle. He quickly pressed the button on the taser one last time causing me to scream in pain as he had turned the voltage as high as it would go before shocking me one last time. He then pulled the trigger of the gun, a loud bang going off. The taser fell from my side as Peterson hit the ground. He had shot himself. 

“Hotch, JJ, unhook the cuffs. I got her,” Spencer said wrapping his arms around my body.

“I knew you’d figure it out,” I smiled lazily at him, vision beginning to fade into the darkness. 

“Come on Y/N stay with me,” He said carrying me up the stairs. “I love you baby I just got you back stay with me now.”

“I love you too Spence,” I said and that's the last thing I remember besides being loaded into an ambulance.

-

As I woke up the first thing I noticed was the unbearably bright light. The next thing I noticed was the pain all over my body but more specifically my side. Oh yeah that’s right I was repeatedly tased. I groaned shifting and opening my eyes. The small moment caused the curly haired man asleep in the chair beside my bed to stir.

“Y/N you're awake,” Spencer said smiling at you. His smile quickly turned to a frown. “ What the hell were you thinking!” He yelled at me.

“I’m sorry Spence I made a bad call,” I whispered looking down.

“I was so worried about you. I thought I lost you,” He said tears falling from both of our eyes. He pushed his forehead against mine wiping my tears.

“You didn’t lose me. I’m right here,” I said reaching up and brushing his tears away as well.

“I love you so much. I’m so glad you’re okay,” He said pressing his lips to mine in a sweet kiss. 

“I love you too. I’m sorry,” I said again kissing him back. When he pulled back there was a knock on the door and in came the rest of the team giving me hugs and telling me to get better soon.

“The doctor said you’re going to be fine, but you have to take it easy for a little while until your injuries heal,” Hotch said being the last one, besides Spencer, in the room. 

“Really Hotch I’m fine I don't need time off,” I said trying to sit up more and groaning from the sharp pain in my side.

“You’re taking time off until you’re better Y/N and that's an order. Get well soon,” he said giving me a half smile before closing the door on his way out.

“They want to keep you overnight for observation,” Spencer said smiling at me.

“Will you stay with me,” I said giving him puppy dog eyes that I knew he wouldn’t be able to resist. 

“Of course anything for you,” he said. I scooted over in the bed to make room for Spencer and he climbed onto the bed and wrapped me in his arms as we both drifted off to sleep. Spencer leaving a light kiss to my head.

[beatskylar]

A broken memory, is a knife to the heart. part 2

Part one. 

```````````````

Julia’s heart breaks at the sight of Carmen, the loving and free women she fell in love with trapped between four walls, broken and gone. Her bright grey eyes that used to display love and respect for the man in front of her, now showing agony and hatred.

Chief informed everyone in the room that due to Carmen destroying the memory restoration device when she did, that there is a 74 percent chance she will be facing a similar situation as Mr. Calloway: stuck in a limbo of sorts, remembering two different versions of her life. The line unclear to her which is a lie, but that she will choose the reality she has been living.

If Julia thought what VILE did to agent Devineaux in their brief encounter was terrible… she doesn’t want to even imagine what they put Carmen through, if and for how long they tortured her till she broke.

She should have done something: got in contact with team red sooner or set her plan in motions without chief’s approval. She is never going to forgive herself.

“Carmen, you need to rest. You should not be fighting.” Shadowsan’s voice breaks through her thoughts, calm and patient against the unrest she feels. She tries to relax and remember that she isn’t the only one watching the grainy security feed. Zack and Ivy stand by each other, neither dare utter a word as they watch their boss refuse to listen to Shadowsan.  Julia can’t help but remember when Carmen told her how the twins are balls of energy, especially Zack.

“I’m telling you Jules; I have never seen them so focused before. Three days with no sleep and yet neither of them showed any signs of exhaustion. It was like just being in the same room as each other, was keeping them constantly energized.” The two quietly laughed at the story the thief finished recalling, the time she foolishly bet against the duo that she could stay up longer than them.

“I bet there is never a dull moment when they are in the room.” Was all Julia could reply, trying to hide the blush that arose due to Carmen using the nickname, a sure-fire way to make the agent blush in an instant. She hopes the thief doesn’t notice it, but she doubts anything gets passed Carmen.

Her suspicions are confirmed when the thief smiles, the smile only reserved for her. Sincere, happy, and attentive. The same smile she always wears around her, somehow becoming brighter whenever she get Julia to blush.

Agent Devineaux and agent Zari sat quietly at the table in the middle of the room, both watching the scene unfold. Agent Zari only wanting to be in the room to see the great Carmen Sandiego and understand how ACME has been unable to successfully capture her till last night. Agent Devineaux on the other hand is clearly worried over la femme rouge, gasping when Carmen breaks free of Shadowsan’s grasp only to hit the steel sink in the middle of her back. He’s quick to hide his worry by pretending he’s gasping because he moved and irritated the injuries Carmen inflicted on him.

Julia can see through his charades. His feelings and opinion over Carmen changed ever since the two worked together to save Julia in Egypt, even before that. Chase had finally seen Carmen for who she truly was, a thief who stole from other thieves.

Then VILE happened.

“Don’t touch me, traitor!” Carmen yells, not even batting an eye to hitting the sink. All her focus is on Shadowsan. She isn’t going to let her guard down.

“Can you tell me more about… Shadowsan? Did I say his name right?”

“Jules you should know by now, you are never wrong,” the lady in red pauses for a moment, deciding what she should tell. They both had a clear rule that they followed. Whenever they had time alone, neither would reveal anything too important involving their work. “Okay, I can tell you that he means the world to me. I am extremely lucky to have him with me, since the very beginning, even if I didn’t see all the help he was giving me.”

“You’re lucky to have each other.”

“I’m lucky to have team red and you.”

“Can we turn off the audio, please?” Player ask from behind the laptop’s screen, and when Julia looks over at him, she sees clear sings that he has been crying silently. Besides Shadowsan, he’s known Carmen the longest and was the last person to believe that his best friend was stealing for VILE, despite all the evidence they collected during her crime sprees.

He didn’t even believe Zack, Ivy and Shadowsan when they told him the terrifying truth. Carmen attempted to murder the redheaded male; he only accepted the reality when he saw it for his own eyes. The black and white video Julia found showing Carmen and Zack. The latter begging for help and with a wickedly sweet voice Carmen told him the fate that awaited him.

“That’s impossible! Carmen loves us, she would never do anything that puts us in danger,” Player denied, shaking his head as he ran his hands over his exhausted face, clearly tired of this conversation. “We are her family, and she would die protecting us.”

“Player please- “Ivy tried to calm the teen, but her brother interrupted her efforts.

“I looked her dead in the eyes, Player! She looked right at me while I asked if she was okay, if she recognized me!... All she said was that she recognized a problem, right before she kicked me,” Zack finished quietly, biting his second index finger knuckle as he shakily inhaled and exhaled. Tears threatening to fall down his face while he recalls the events he lived through, as his sister begins to rub his back, trying and failing to comfort him. “I don’t know what or how, but VILE turned her against us.”

“No, she has to be playing them. You know, destroying them from the inside out, right?” Looking over at everyone one at a time, his gaze remains on Shadowsan’s when he speaks again, “You know Carmen, she’s not capable of doing such a heinous crime. That’s why you failed her, because you knew deep down, inside your heart she could never take someone’s life. Carmen wouldn’t try to kill Zack, or anyone for that matter.”

“I know how hard this is to hear, but only because it’s hard doesn’t mean it’s a lie.”

With that, the entire room falls into silence. Seconds quickly become minutes, and those minutes feel like lifetimes. Julia can see in Player’s eyes that he still doesn’t believe them, and she won’t blame him. For so long, Carmen always presented herself as untouchable, even when she was clearly injured, she fought on. She stood her ground against VILE and ACME, and despite both organizations best efforts Carmen was always one step ahead of them.

“Player, I need to show you something,” unlocking her tablet, Julia quickly located the carnivals security cameras. “I hoped I wouldn’t have to show you this, but it’s the only thing that will open your eyes. Despite Mr. Calloway turning off the electricity at the carnival, the cameras inside each pod continued recording, running on their backup batteries.”

The video immediately begins when the power was cut off, Zack on his knees while Carmen stalks towards him. The camera’s angle above the door still being able to record the pleased smile forming on Carmen’s face. “Carm, what’s wrong? Don’t you recognize me?”

“I recognize a problem.” In an instant she kicks him, a swift kick to his chest with enough power to push him back and through the closed doors. Zack yells as he barely manages to grab a hold of the side of the pod, the scream of the people below barely being loud enough to be captured by the camera.

“Carm, help me. I can’t hold on.”

“See all those tiny dots?” The camera is no longer to see Carmen fully, but her voice is clear as day. The venom from her words deadlier than poison. “Try hitting the one that looks like your partner on the way down.”

“No!”

With that Julia closes her tablet and before she can apologize to them, Player speaks up. “I’m s-s-sorry Zack. I-I-I should have believed y-you.” Tears roll down his face, as he struggled to finish his sentence.

With a sigh, Chief walks over to the console and flips the audio off, throwing the room in complete silence as no one knew what to say. What do you say when someone as great as Carmen Sandiego falls?

No noise is produces as everyone watches Carmen continue to strike at Shadowsan, both clearly speaking. Carmen’s right foot springs into a forward motion as she uses the momentum to rotate her body at 180 degrees, missing Shadowsan completely as her foot comes in contact with the wall. Without even reacting to the pain, she just put herself through. Immediately she spins with her left elbow out, but she is only able to hit the wall again. Nothing seems to register in her mind as she pushes off her right foot in an attempt to punch the ninja, but luckily, he’s able to sidestep her and knock her out in a second. A single attack to the back of her neck is enough to make her fall into his waiting arms.

Cradled by him, he says something before he lifts her in his arm completely. Holding her bride style against his chest as he walks them back to the bed, being careful to place her down gently. Kneeling by her side, Shadowsan remains by her side for a moment before rising and leaving.

It doesn’t take long for him to enter the room they are in, being right next to Carmen. His features remaining neutral as the twins hug him for a moment before remembering who he is. Both whisper their apologies, but he simply places a hand of each of their shoulders.

“Agent Zari has agent Strode given any indications of when she will be able to fix the device?” Chief asks, looking directly at agent Zari, who looks down at her phone for a brief moment before replying.

“A few days at most.”

“Tell agent Strode to report to agent Argent the moment she is done,” taking one last look at Carmen, Chief fixes her gaze towards Shadowsan. “How long do we have before VILE starts suspecting something is wrong?”

“I am unable to tell. Carmen’s father was able to go weeks, even months without contacting them as long as he always made his prolonged trips worth it. Ever since his death, they never allowed a faculty member to leave their headquarters unless it was absolutely necessary,” he pauses as he looks at Carmen’s unconscious form, and Julia might be seeing things, but she swears she saw a single tear roll down his face. “If Crackle is telling the truth, they might be showing Carmen leniency due to her high success rate.”

“So, maybe, we might have a few days at most. Does anyone have a plan to keep VILE unaware of all of this or help Carmen remember the truth?”

Julia hates the silence that continues to overtake the room. A room filled with four agents of a brilliant organization, a master of remaining unseen, a professional driver, a strong mechanic and skillful hacker can’t find a solution to save Carmen.

“What if we do our own version of a bait and switch?” Zack offers, his voice quiet and unsure of himself. When everyone looks at him, he seems surprised at his own idea.

“Like we did in Stockholm?” Player ask, and slowly the twins start forming the plan.

“Yeah. We throw VILE off Carmen’s scent! Ivy could dress up in Carmen’s coat and hat- “

“Popping up around the world and we pretending to rob something of historical importance!”

“We make sure the news knows its ‘Carmen’ committing these crimes and ask the authorities to hide the artifacts till we save the real Carmen!” Zack and Ivy bounce the idea off each other, both interrupting the other when needed to tweak the plan. She won’t lie, it seems like a doable plan considering Ivy has already been able to trick ACME and she doubt VILE is going to know better than they did. Plus, Chiefs already been able to get the Eye of Vishnu back on display and she has enough connections to continue.

“That would buy us some time. If VILE sees that Carmen is simply continuing to steal, they won’t ask any questions.”

“And I think I know how we can jog Carmen’s old memories back.”

```````````````````````````````````

[horrorslashergirl]

Slasher OC: The Hacker

Full Name: Xander Shawn Rivera (Although none knows his real name as his killer persona)

Nickname(s): Xan, Hackerman, The Hacker, Erron, Cyber Killer, Shawty, BlueRain, Blue

Age: 30

Gender: Male

Nationality: American

Place of Birth: New York City, USA

Current Location: New York City

Occupation: As a civilian, he works in the IT department of a company; As his killer persona he is a Dark Web Criminal, Master Hacker, CEO of Online Drug and Weapon Store

Base of operation: New York

Languages: English

Appearance:

Height: 6'3

Weight: 185 lbs

Body Type: Atheltic

Skin Color: Warm Ivory

Hair Color: Black

Hair Style: He has an undercut hairstyle, much longer on the top, with bangs covering sometimes one eye

Eye Color: Smokey grey, giving off eerily serene, sometimes studiously expressionless

Clothing: As his civilian persona, Xander prefers easy clothing that doesn't attract attention, keeping the image of a boring 30s male, he opts for dark jeans, T-shirts with symbols from video games or simple graphic T-shirts, and hoodies in colors of black, dark grey or light grey, dark blue. His shoes of choice are either vans or converse, comfortable and practical. Xander's clothing could be described as nerdy.

As his killer persona, he chooses black clothing or midnight dark blue, black converse, or black high Nikes, a bulletproof vest under his hoodie, utility belt where he has his holster with the bowie knife. He wears a neon blue Purge-like mask to hide his identity, and he upgraded the mask, installing mini-video cameras close to where his eyes are so that he can record any of his murders or information in order to blackmail.

Other features: He has a dragon tattoo on one of his pectorals, a tongue piercing and he has a cock piercing right on the tip also known as Prince Albert piercing, plus his scrotum ring piercing. He also has blue braces. He also has some faint freckless on his nose and around.

Face Claim: Desmond Harrington

Weapons: Bowie Knife, Beretta 92 Gun, Wilson Combat EDC X9

Scent: He wears Dior Men Cologne Sauvage, the fragrance is announced as radically fresh, raw and noble at the same time. Top notes are Calabrian bergamot and Pepper; middle notes are Sichuan Pepper, Lavender, Pink Pepper, Vetiver, Patchouli, Geranium and elemi; base notes are Ambroxan, Cedar and Labdanum. Other notes of his scent would be tabacoo, a sugary energy drink smell.

Favorite Food: McDonalds, Subway and Burritos

Favorite Drink: Energy drinks, especially the Monster Energy Drink ones

Power/Skills:

Great knowledge in IT and hacking

Torture methodology

Driving skills

Stealth/Evasion

Skilled usage of weaponry

Bulletproof outfit

High intelligence

Manipulation

Computer skills

Murderous expertise

Skill in hand-to-hand combat

Knifesmanship

Gunmanship

Psychopathic nature

Fearlessness

Ruthlessness

Airplane Pilot Skills

History/Bio:

The man known as the infamous Hacker was long ago someone completely different.

Xander Shawn Rivera was born into a suburban neighborhood close to New York City, along with his little sister Chloe, their parents being Neil Rivera, their father who worked as a police officer of New York City, and their mother Olivia Rivera working for a company in New York into the logistic department.

Xander had a normal childhood, until when he was 14 when his mother left him, his sister, and his father for a rich man. Neil took care of the two kids, and because his mother left them, Xander started to hold a huge grudge on her, especially that his sister, Chloe told him many times that their mother would come back, and Xander got even more hate on his mother when she wouldn't come to visit them; never present for Chloes birthdays, holidays and such.

In high school, Xander was considered the biggest nerd; awkward and unsure of himself, he was a prime target for the popular kids. He wasn't the strongest in the physical department, being fairly tall for his age and a slender guy, he focused his attention more on learning, especially in the IT, technology, and robotic department of the school.

Being more captured by the cybernetic life, he spends all his free time learning how to hack, getting deeper into the Dark Web. First, he opened an online drug store and in time he started to do trafficking with dangerous weapons too. His father being at work most of the time, he had all the privacy he needed, and none had any suspicions of what he was doing, being seen as the non-interesting guy with social awkward skills.

In the last year of high school, one night while he was working, Xander received a call from the New York Police, telling him how his father was gunned down during an investigation with a drug-dealing gang.

With his father dead and his sister completely devasted, not to mention a plan for what he will do after he finishes high school, Xander came to a blocking point, and his sister left him too, to go live with their mother and her boyfriend, the rich asshole.

Being left all alone, Xander finished high school and took the job position in the USA army in the security and IT department, since all his reviews were exceptional. After a few years of working for the USA army, learning along how to fight, use weapons, and how to fly an airplane, he decided to quit, not satisfied enough with what his line of work offered him. The superiors treated him like shit and he was viewed just as their lap dog.

After he gave up on the army, he got a job at a New York company, but behind the boring nerdy civilian, Xander developed a new persona, that he earned from all around the Dark Web; The Hacker alias Erron.

Continuing with the illegal stores on the dark internet, he also got intrigued by the more horrible parts, like killing, assassins, torture, porn gore, and the list goes on.

Xander understood that there on Dark Web, he had full control of everything, it was his Kingdom and he was the King, he could be whatever he wanted there and he had all the skills and tricks... And his killer persona turned out to be one of the most wanted international criminals in and outside the USA.

Personality:

As his civilian self, Xander is an introvert to say so, not indulging himself too much in social activities, but he still shows high confidence even as his normal persona. He prefers to keep to himself, being the boring and nerdy Xander Shawn Rivera that is pretty much invisible. It's an image he chose to keep in order not to raise any suspicions of who he really is. Despite being a Master in hacking and IT, he doesn't show it when it comes to his civilian line of work. He has a quote that goes like this: 'Never show your true potential just to be a cheap showoff. Wait for the perfect moment to strike.'

As his killer persona, like most murderers in horror movies, he shares their traits. He is sneaky, intelligent, cruel, aggressive, sadistic, destructive, and brutish by nature. He has no morality, his base of operation being on the Deep Web, where he is doing business. He scops up victims in various ways; down from online dating sites, to posing as a simple seller of a car or phone; he knows what to say to find out more about his victims. Once he tracks you down, he will know everything about you; your name, age, address and even hacking your webcam to cyberstalk you, finding the perfect moment to strike.

As the Hacker, he is very confident, playful, manipulative, and always has a plan B up his sleeves, and if plan B doesn't work, well... get ready for plan C.

The biggest trick is that you don't know anything about who the Hacker is, but he knows everything about you. He is the guy that invades your privacy and knows all your secrets, using all the information against his victims or people that dare to get in his way.

The Hacker is unpredictable, ruthless when he has to be, and extremely possessive of what he owns, because he worked hard for it, and this results in another intense trait of his personality; he is a big workaholic, sometimes forgetting to sleep and eat, especially when he has a huge deal to finish.

The Hackers street smarts and charisma is unmatched and he is one of the toughest criminals to ever walk the streets of America and surfing through the dark web. As the Hacker, he finds it much easier to talk, flirt, and get close to women. It's not necessarily that he is self-conscious, because he is not, and he has an explanation for why as his civilian self he avoids getting too close to the dating game.

'I have to be boring and awkward as to not raise suspicions, besides... why would I need a girlfriend to stick her nose into my business and fuck up everything? Pussy I can find and get anytime and anywhere I want. Thank you very much, motherfucker.'

He also shows traits of narcissism or egomania, loving to be complimented for his work and achievements, hen loves to be praised and acknowledges by those around him that he is the best, which clashes when he has to put on the good civilian mask and pretend he doesn't want to gut everyone's necks around him.

A psychopathic madman with a lust for blood and to be the best in everything he does, he can be considered a big perfectionist, but not in all domains. For example, he is a lame cook and always prefers to get take-outs or food that can be heated into the microwave. He doesn't have time to sleep, much less to spend his time at the stove.

Erron is very blunt and to the point in his conversations, and won't hesitate to tell someone how stupid they are. He lacks empathy and he doesn't work like other people; he is very logical and will use his brain/mind more so than his heart.

All in all, both Xander and Erron are one and the same person, switching personalities.

Crimes:

Stalking

Terrorism

Selling illegal weapons and drugs

Torture

Grand Theft Auto

Mutilations

Kidnapping

Snuff Filming

Blackmailing

Drug/Weapon trafficking

Quotes of The Hacker:

'I see you.'

'Lets see who pays the most.'

'I got many things that may interest you. Drugs, Guns, Maybe a young woman. Lets negociate.'

'I am everywhere.'

'Yes. I got your wife. You should have seen her face when I fucked her.'

'You will never win this game.'

'You think you can catch me? The police tried for years. Good luck, pal.'

[rainy-day-gracie]

Old Friends 9

 Part 1 of a series finale!!

Spencer Reid x Reader

I just wanna say thank you for all the love I’ve been getting :) the positivity is wonderful, so thank you and I love you !!

Please enjoy!

Chapter 9:

I groaned at the sound of the alarm clock screaming at me. “Spencer, time for work,” I said as I flopped out of bed. 

“Huh?” He flinched at me opening the drapes in my bedroom window, sunlight illuminating his sleepy eyes. 

“Get up, c’mon,” I pulled the covers off of him, and he jerked upright in his boxers. “Help me make the bed.”

There was something so entirely sweet about how domestic and loving getting ready together is. While he was brushing his teeth, I was standing there putting on makeup. When I was straightening my hair for work, he was making sure his hair fluffed in just the right way. 

I could easily see this being the rest of my life. 

“Breakfast will have to be on the run, we’re already late because you couldn’t get out of bed.” I poked him in the stomach as I passed him a breakfast bar. 

“We should just call in sick.” He spoke in the most serious tone, and I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. 

“Yeah, if both of us called in sick, I think there would be some questions.” I giggled as I grabbed my keys and left the apartment, Spencer following close behind. 

__

Morgan gave me a look as I settled down at my desk. “Did the pretty girl get some loving last night?”

I tried to ignore him as I pulled out reports I needed to finish. “Morgan, what are you on about?”

He laughed out loud and patted Spencer on the back as he passed by our desks. “Go get em’ lovebirds.”

Hotch had already talked to us about keeping everything professional in the office, but that didn’t keep the team from teasing us endlessly. Just last week Emily asked me if we’ve ever had sex at work. 

“You would think he would have a little more manners than that?” Spencer chuckled without looking up from his work. “You look beautiful, stop checking your camera.”

I sighed as I put my phone back in my pocket. “I’m actually worried about something else…” There had never been a time where I showed up to work with a hickey, and I was worried last night had broken my streak. 

Spencer smiled sheepishly, and glanced over my neck. “I don’t see any, so you’re okay.”

Garcia trotted across the catwalk in her heels. “Hello wonderful people! You have a case!”

__

“You are headed to New York City my fine friends, where there have been three murders, all women in their twenties, with cause of death being a gunshot wound to the head and a… message, written on their stomachs.”

Garcia pointed to the screen, where the crime scene photos popped up. 

“The first message read ‘mine’, the second one said ‘sin’, and the most recent read ‘whore’.” JJ explained, looking in the case file. “The words were carved into their stomach antemortem, that’s torture.”

“But the gunshot to the head is a completely different MO than torture.” Spencer looked at me, clearly confused. 

I furrowed my eyebrows. “What if the gun is just to keep them still? ‘I cut you, don’t flinch or it’s the last thing that you do.’ Psychological and physical torture means he could be a sadist.”

“The women were shown to have been killed in a week’s period, and the unsub is speeding up his timetable. Wheels up in 20.” Hotch took a phone call and left the room.

__

On the plane, Hotch explained his phone call. “The NYPD found another body three miles from where the last dump site was. Victim had the word ‘love’ carved in her stomach. The unsub seems to mostly be operating in Queens, one body was found in Brooklyn.”

Garcia made a video call with information. “My pretties, with my all-knowing powers of tech I have been able to identify all four victims. Most recent is Hallie Jones, she was a high end prostitute. $10,000 dollars a night, kind of high end. Third was Macy Johnson, she was a street prostitute, not much on her. Second victim was Fiona Lamber, she was also a street prostitute and kinda the same, not much information. First victim was actually a well known woman, Jamie Lorretta. Her father owns an oil company and she has had problems with drugs since she was a teenager.” 

Morgan gave a puzzled look. “Why change victimology from a well known woman with money to street prostitutes to a high end call girl?”

“The victimology could mean that the unsub himself comes from money and power himself.” Spencer pointed to the case files. “The gunshot to the forehead is personal, as is the cutting on the stomach. Both of these things point towards a craving for total domination, just two different kinds. The cutting represents a need for possessions, marking his property, and execution style killing shows an already confident mindset.”

“Both of which are things people in power need, ambition for possessions and major confidence,” I added. 

“The key to solving this case is Jamie Lorretta. Find out everything you can about her Garcia!” Hotch called over the video camera. Garcia nodded firmly and hung up. “Morgan, Prentiss go to the ME to examine the bodies. Rossi, JJ go to the latest dump site and see what kind of attraction the unsub may have to the area. I will go to the first dump site and see where the killer’s head was at when he first started killing. YLN, go to the station and interview the families of the victims and Reid, go with her and work up a geographic profile.”

I nodded at him and looked back down at the case file. 

What did these women do to get themselves killed?

Spencer squeezed my hand reassuringly, reading me like a book. “We’re gonna get him.”

I gave him a side smile. “We always do.”

__

Macy Johnson and Fiona Lamber’s families were distraught for sure, but it soon became clear that they didn’t know anything about the case. 

Hallie Jones’ family was one of the most composed families I’ve seen. They had sad eyes, but not once during our conversation did either of her parents shed a tear. I finally couldn’t take it anymore. 

“How are you so… stoic? I’ve interviewed many grieving families before and you two seem extremely calm considering your daughter’s body was found this morning.” I hated to be so blunt, but neither of them were showing any sign of grief over their daughter’s murder. 

The parents just looked at each other, then back at me. Mr. Jones took a deep breath. 

“Hallie… did what she did. We offered to take care of her, but she chose to have sex with men to pay the bills. After we paid for her degree, the least she could do was use it.” Anger burned in her father’s eyes, and disgust curled in my stomach. His child is dead and he was thinking about money?

“We told her God would punish her for her actions,” Mrs. Jones blurted. “She deserved what was coming to her in the end. All in all, she was probably asking for it.”

I wanted to vomit. These parents blamed their dead child for her own murder? “No one asks for this, Mrs. Jones. And right now, it looks to me like I want to catch your daughter’s killer more than you do, so either give me something that I can use, or leave.”

Both of her parents glared at me. After a moment, Mrs. Jones stormed out of the room, her husband close on her heels. 

I rolled my eyes and approached the police chief. “Where’s the Lorretta family? They were supposed to be here at noon.”

The police chief made a face. “The Lorrettas are refusing to leave their home. ‘Don’t want the attention’ of the local press. They said if the FBI wants to ask questions, you’re going to have to go to them.”

I swallowed my annoyance. “Okay, I’ll head over there. I don’t think I’ll be much use here.”

Reid raised his chin. “I’ll come with you.”

I appreciated the company. Maybe around him I won’t flip my lid with these damn parents. 

What kind of families are these?

__

The Lorrettas’ home could give Rossi’s mansion a run for its money. We pulled up in the SUV to a long paved driveway and saw gardeners working in the large front lawn. The front door was made of opaque glass and I could almost smell the entitlement. 

Spencer knocked on the door, which was opened almost immediately. A woman with obvious dyed blonde hair and botox greeted us.

“You must be from the FBI! Come in please,” she said as she basically pulled Spencer and I into the house. Not exactly the demeanor of a grieving parent.

“We’re here to ask some…” my voice trailed off as I saw the massive chandeliers and luxurious couches. Money and possessions. 

“Are you from the FBI?” A girl about 10 approached me hesitantly. She had clearly been crying, and I got on my knees to talk to her. 

“Yeah, I’m YFN and this is Spencer. We’re here to ask some questions.” I glanced over at the Mrs. Lorretta, who had suddenly abandoned her politeness. 

The girl looked to her mom, who was giving her a death glare. The girl just turned and ran up the stairs. 

“Ma'am, we’re to ask you about Jamie.” Spencer put his hands in his pockets. “Mind if we sit?”

Mrs. Lorretta picked the politeness act right back where she left off. “Yes, yes. Please sit.”

After a few minutes of awkward small talk, I went with the hard questions. “How did Jamie’s drug habits influence her? Did she have any enemies?” 

Mrs. Lorretta’s mouth tightened in a straight line, and she looked between Spencer and I. “Well… um, I’m not sure. She wasn’t really home much… she’s always been distant with us. I never heard about any enemies, but she never talked to me much anyway.”

Over her shoulder, I saw the girl peeking behind the staircase. Spencer noticed it too, and tapped me on the leg. 

“Excuse me, where’s the bathroom?” I kept my tone light and cheery. She pointed down a long hallway to my right, and I made a small motion to the girl to follow. 

Once we were out of earshot, the little girl burst into quiet tears. 

“Hey, what’s your name?” My voice was soft and I rubbed her shoulders. 

“Lily,” she hiccuped through her sobs. “My dad was always so mean to Jamie…”

“What do you mean?”

Lily squeezed her eyes shut. “He would always go into her room… and I could hear him hitting her. They would fight all the time. He’s why she did drugs… she needed to escape from him.”

I lowered my voice even more. “Do you know who did this to her?”

She opened her eyes and sniffled softly. “I wasn’t surprised when the police found her body. It was only a matter of time before he… and I heard screaming coming from our shed in the backyard.”

“What’s going on here?” 

Mr. Lorretta stood behind me, a smile looking like plastic on his face. 

Money, power, ambition. 

I smiled sweetly, patting Lily’s shoulder. “Oh nothing. I was looking for the bathroom and I just saw that she was upset. Your wife is answering some questions of my colleague’s, come join. I’m sure she’s being very helpful.”

In his eyes I saw an evilness that said that he would tear me to shreds given the chance. I turned away from him, beginning to walk down the long hallway back to Spencer. 

I felt him pull my gun from its holster behind me, and he wrapped a strong arm around both of mine, his other hand pressing the cold barrel against my temple. “Move.” He growled in my ear. 

Lily had taken off running, and as we moved closer, Mrs. Lorretta had taken hold of Lily in her arms. 

Mr. Lorretta hissed at Spencer, who had his gun drawn at this point. “Think about this, Agent. Don’t want the blood of two people on your hands.”

I looked at Spencer, begging him to lower his gun. Not for me, but for Lily, who was still in her mother’s firm hold, a kitchen knife pressed to her throat. 

The cold barrel of my own gun pressed into my temple, and all I wanted to do was kiss Spencer when he finally dropped his weapon. 

“Honey, they’re federal agents. We can’t kill them,” the wife reminded her husband, who seemed torn on what to do now. 

“Why did you carve ‘mine’ into your daughter’s skin?” I blurted. 

He laughed softly in my ear, and I wanted to throw up. “Because she needed to know her place before I put her out of her misery. That was the only way she would understand. Do you know your place, Agent YLN?”

“You are in complete control here, Mr. Lorretta.”

“Damn right I am.” I felt him beat the barrel of the gun against my head, and I was out cold. 

TAG LIST: @itsarayofsunshine @thesailbells @squirrellover1967 @softpeteparker @parkeroffline

[imaginingsoftly]

Baseball Trivia - Josh Anderson

Type: Y/N insert shorts, strangers to enemies-ish to lovers, series

Requested: No

Warnings: standard swearing

AN: This will be a shortish four part series. It’s complete, so I’ll put the next one out Wednesday.

She was never going to an athletics conference again. There was too much testosterone and not enough actual conversation about their field, and was now the biggest waste of $300 Y/N had ever spent. In a room of 250-plus communications directors, she was one of maybe 20 women, and all of them had somehow managed to get themselves seats in a clump on one side of the room. Y/N, on the other hand, ended up in the row with all the washed-up college athletes that were convinced they could still play. The guy on her right was rambling on about how hard it was not to check out the female athletes to the guy on her left, who was agreeing emphatically. Fucking assholes. 

BU’s communications director was on the stage rambling on about keeping social media current, like he had any fucking clue how to do that. Y/N knew for a fact he didn’t even know how to post to Twitter, let alone how to run an effective page. Honestly, most of the keynote speakers were useless. Having 20-plus years in a field like athletics communications didn’t mean much besides knowing most of the other people who had also been there for 20-plus years. The actual job had evolved tremendously in the last 5 years, let alone since they first came into the field. It wasn’t just about writing press releases and keeping track of records any more. They were the people who wrote articles about the teams for the athletics website, the ones who live-tweeted games and kept the social media pages current and innovative. Y/N could almost guarantee most of the speakers didn’t even know how to send a tweet. 

The two assholes on either side of her grew tired of being sleazy, and decided to torture her instead. Y/N took a deep breath when she noticed their attention turn her way. “So, sweetheart, what exactly do you do?” Y/N rolled her eyes. Those fucking assholes were really going to call her sweetheart? 

She cut a glare at asshole #1 on her right, and he actually flinched a little. “First of all, don’t call me sweetheart.” Asshole #2, the one on her right, actually snorted, and Y/N raised an eyebrow at him as well. “Secondly, I’m the Senior Manager of Communications and Media Relations at UBC in Vancouver. I coordinate the press for all of our athletic teams, as well as organize all of the social media pages and our website.” The two were silent, and Y/N smiled slightly. “So what do you boys do exactly?” BU’s director finished talking before either one had a chance to answer, and it was almost too bad. She was looking forward to watching them flounder. Really, her job was a big deal. To be the person in charge and also be a female was a big deal, but to also be her age was pretty big too. At 26, she should probably still be working a low-level job, probably just now getting out of the internship stage. Senior management was usually relegated to guys like Mr. BU, who was old enough to be her dad, but hey: she was good at her job. 

Cam, one of Y/N’s classmates at BC, was thankfully waving at her from his spot in the back of the room, and Y/N slid away from her seatmates without a goodbye. Hopefully she’d never have to see them again. “So,” Cam called out as Y/N got closer, “was it enlightening?” Cam laughed in response to her eye-roll, and Y/N pulled the taller guy in with a laugh. It was nice to see him again. After BC the pair had gone their separate ways, and now they were on opposite coasts. Cam was fortunate enough to find a job close to home in New York, while Y/N had found herself on the far side of the continent in Vancouver. It was weird, after being together almost constantly for four years, to see each other maybe once a year, but it had worked out for the best. 

“Listen, Cam, the guys on either side of me spent the entire time talking about checking out the college girls. They were older than us.” Cam reacted appropriately, making a gagging noise, and Y/N was again thankful to have a person there with her. “Any chance I can get you to go out tonight?” Cam made an apologetic face, and Y/N groaned. “No, you have to come with me so people leave me alone.” 

Most of the time, people assumed they were together and guys left her alone. If he wasn’t there, guys would be bothering her off and on all night, and she never attracted the good guys. She was a magnet for married 40-somethings who liked younger women. “Sorry, babe,” Cam said apologetically, “but my flight leaves in like 2 hours. I’m headed to the airport like now.” He reached out his arms for a hug, and Y/N grudgingly obliged. “I am excited to see you in the city in a few months, though!” The two smiled at each other, and Y/N walked with Cam until he reached the bus taking a ton of the conference attendees to the airport. “Have fun, Y/N. Go be wild for the night.” He kissed her on the cheek with a smirk, and Y/N shook her head at him as he climbed onto the bus. She would go out that night, Y/N decided, and she would deal with those men if it meant doing something spontaneous for once. 

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

The bar looked welcoming, in a part of the city that looked a little less young and crazy than the part near the conference and her hotel. Distance from universities, Y/N had learned, meant everything when it came to bars. The ones close to Ohio State had been wild, and full of college kids. Definitely not her scene. This bar, on the other hand, was perfect. It was homey, sports memorabilia on the walls and country playing from the speakers. Y/N got a beer from the bartender and settled in on a barstool, staring up at the television screen above her. It was playing a replay of the Blue Jackets game from earlier that day, a Sunday matinee performance that had turned into a minor brawl with the Penguins. 

She sat in silence for almost an hour, waving for another beer about 45 minutes in. At one point three men threw themselves onto the barstools next to her, arguing emphatically about some video game, but they thankfully left her alone. 

At some point the argument between the boys had become goofing around, and then they began arguing again. “I’m telling you, man, the Yankees were the first ones.” One of the guys mentioned baseball, and Y/N’s ears perked up. Baseball was her favorite sport to work at UBC, even if the guys could be even more cocky than the hockey boys, something she’d previously thought impossible. 

Out of the corner of her eye Y/N saw the guy next to her shake his head in disagreement. “No way, man. I think Toronto was the first team to retire a number.” Oh, sports trivia. Y/N smiled. This was her specialty. 

“Technically,” Y/N interrupted, “The Habs were the first professional sports team to retire a number.” The trio turned to look at Y/N looking confused, and Y/N caught the eyes of the guy who’d mentioned the Yankees. He was pretty, with blue eyes that somehow managed to be kind and intimidating at the same time. She held his stare as she continued speaking. “If you were talking about just baseball, then it was the Yankees. They’ve also retired more numbers than any other professional sports team.” Y/N trailed off as the three continued to stare at her wordlessly, and she smiled nervously. 

It was starting to get awkward when one of the guys finally spoke, and Y/N almost slumped over in relief. “How the hell do you know that?” The guy that spoke, whom she now recognized as Seth Jones, was starting at her disbelievingly. Actually, now that Y/N thought about it she recognized all of the guys. Boone Jenner and Josh Anderson stared at Y/N on either side of Seth, and Y/N sat up a little straighter. Athletes. She knew how to handle them. 

She shrugged in response to Seth’s question. “I’m a sports fan. I like random facts like that.” Y/N held out a hand. “Y/N. Nice to meet ya.” Boone grabbed her hand first, and Y/N relaxed at the sight of his smile. There was something welcoming about him. Seth followed suit, gesturing at the other two guys. “I’m Seth. That’s Boone, and this,” he shouldered Josh, “is Josh. We’re also sports fans.” Y/N smiled at the three of them, and Josh reached out his hand to her as well. His hand was warm, and she found herself caught up in his eyes again. 

“It’s nice to meet you, Y/N,” Josh said, and Y/N had to fight to break his gaze. “Are you from the area?” She shook her head and looked away to clear the fog that had taken over her brain. “I’m from out of state,” she said. “I work for a university’s athletics department, and I’m in town for a conference.” She answered what would probably be their next question quickly. “And before you ask, yes I knew who you guys were. Baseball has my heart, but I do love hockey as well.” The boys all looked at each other and grinned.

Boone clapped Y/N on the shoulder, and she smiled up at him. “It’s nice to meet you, Y/N. So outside of knowing more about sports than everyone else, what do you do?” 

Y/N laughed. “I work in athletics communications. We’re in charge of social media for the university athletics, coordinating press, stats, all that fun stuff.” The guys were all nodding like they knew what she was talking about, and she laughed a little. “You know the promotional videos and other random crap that gets posted on social media?” They all nodded at that. “I’m part of the crew that designs those. I’m the person who live-tweets games. I’m also the person who decides which reporters get to talk to our athletes and which athletes are going to be available for pressers after games.” 

Seth whistled. “That’s a lot of shit Y/N, how the hell do you manage all of it?” She waved her arms. “No,” she laughed, “I don’t do it all alone. We have interns that help, I just need to make sure that everything gets done right. I actually have an intern that developed a concept for an absolutely incredible intro video for our women’s hockey team this fall that I can’t wait to help her put together.” The guys all nodded along like they were following. It was refreshing to talk about her job with people who kind of understood what she was talking about, outside of the people she worked around all day. 

The conversation moved on from there, and eventually Boone and Seth left the bar, the latter leaving with some girl while the former headed home alone. Josh remained, hooked on the increasingly drunken words coming out of Y/N’s mouth. At some point they had moved on to embarrassing stories about themselves, and after Josh shared a story about biting it in front of his new team Y/N only felt it was fair to share her first-day horror story. “So I’m sitting there thinking I’m doing a great job, like maybe this internship was gonna work, when I get a text from my boss.” It was her biggest mistake as an intern, and really her biggest mistake in the field period. “It turns out I was live-tweeting the hockey game on the women’s basketball page.” Josh had the appropriate reaction, widening his eyes and gripping the hand Y/N had settled onto the bar top between them. 

“No!” He exclaimed, throwing his head back when Y/N nodded in response. “What did you do?” He was genuinely invested, and Y/N’s mildly drunk brain was having trouble computing that. Why in the hell did a professional athlete seem so interested in the behind-the-scenes world of college athletics? 

It didn’t matter. She had a story to tell. “I totally panicked. Like I’m on the phone apologizing to my boss, who’s not yelling but sounds waayyy disappointed, and at the same time I’m trying to delete all the tweets. It was hands-down my worst day on the job ever.” Y/N met Josh’s eyes again, and the expression changed. They grew warmer, a little more fiery, and Y/N found herself leaning forward to meet his kiss halfway. 

She was never going to be able to kiss someone like this again. The couple of other guys Y/N had kissed in the past were good, but Josh was wow. Granted, players generally had a good amount of experience in that department, but maybe that just meant she needed to kiss more players. It was pure passion, and Y/N groaned when Josh’s hand found its way into the hair at the base of her skull. He tilted her head back to kiss her deeper, and then broke away suddenly. “Please come home with me.” Josh’s words were whispered into her ear, his proximity sending fireworks through Y/N’s brain. There was no question. She was totally going. 

Josh smiled when Y/N nodded in response. He slid a fifty onto the bar to cover their drinks and then some before grabbing Y/N’s hand and tugging her out the door of the bar and into the street. They were close to his apartment, a little less than two blocks away, and his hands were all over her as they stumbled up the stairs and into his place. It was modern, with lots of windows and some random abstract art she was sure he hadn’t picked out for himself, but that was the extent of the tour she got. He practically carried her into his room in his haste to get her clothes off, and Y/N settled in to enjoy the night. She had a feeling it was going to be a good one.

Getting out of Josh’s bed was the hardest part of Y/N’s night. Not only was it comfortable as hell, but the man sprawled across the sheets was tempting to cuddle with. If it wasn’t for her early morning flight Y/N might have stayed, maybe gone another round, but the flight was coming up fast and she still had to get back to her hotel across the city and then to the airport. Y/N paused as she exited the bedroom, considering for a moment leaving a note or her number, but then she decided against it. It’s not like they’d ever see each other again, right?

[lonelyghosts-stuff]

Avengers Infinity War-First Time Watching Reaction Play-by-Play (Pt. 2)

Part 1

I wonder how many people Gamora has killed? What made her finally snap to not serve Thanos anymore?

How DID Gamora find it? Like, who told her?

How did Thanos capture nebula?

Poor nebula. She’s literally been through hell and back.

Ohhhh she snuck on board...

Thanos you suck so much. You favor one daughter over another.

Oh. Where was said map to the soul stone?

Gosh I feel so damn bad for nebula. She was raised as his daughter too but he tortured her and tore her apart. Nebula never had the chance to be her equal. She deserves so much.

Taught groot as an elective? What about all speak?

Buckle up rocket. It’s gonna get emotional.

Thor is literally all alone. He needs a time to sit alone and cry and break a whole building.

Rocket and Thor friends? Please

1500 years old? Jane, honey, you escaped.

Gotta give it up to Hemsworth’s acting chops here. Especially talking to nobody in reality. Just a bunch of cgi

Ew ew ew eye socket

Should have washed that yikes

Snuck it out by hiding it up your? Huh? You watch too many movies rocket.

Huge title card. Thank you. I wouldn’t have known where we were despite them saying their location many times.

How is that video game battery not dead?

Perceptive rabbit

I LOVE that they used a dwarf to play a giant character!!! This is brilliant! (And that dwarves are giant for some reason lol.)

Soooo again Thanos killed everyone EXCEPT Eitri despite his “morality” supposedly being balance

Poor hands

Poor nebula

Smart nebula

Maybe should have waited to be fixed fully first

Ah crap. SOMEONE PICK UP THE SPACE PHONE

MANTIS

Love how Stark asks for peters help in steering and not Stephen lmao

Nice parking job

Peter, stop popping pop culture refs

Lmao ITS ABOUT TO BE THE ICONIC SCENE

YES PLEASE

Blanket of Death. Capey has a new nickname.

Where’s Gamora

Who’s Gamora

Why is Gamora

What master do you serve?

Jesus?

I mean, yea I do. So does Pratt lmaoo.

LMAO PARKER’S FACE WHEN QUILL SAID THOR WASNT HANDSOME

Storm breaker time baby

“In theory it could summon the bifrost” who theorized this? How do you only theorize and not know?

Oh my gosh mantis is just bouncing around

Mr. Clean lmao

Kick names, take ass

Hey now, these guys saved the galaxy and universe from Ego so lmao

Oh no I know the scene coming up

Poor quill lmao

“I’m half human. So the 50% of me that’s stupid, that’s 100% of you.” “Your math is, blowing my mind.” What’s funny is that Quill’s math was actually completely accurate lol

Stephen having a stroke or a seizure? You good homie?

Soooo if Strange looked to the future and so possible outcomes, what does that mean for the TVA? According to them, there’s ONE sacred timeline, so all other branches are erased (which again messes up what smart hulk eventually says in end game. See kids, this is why you don’t mess with time travel in stories. There’s no way to go back in time without creating a time loop). Ehhhhh I’ll let it slide. Just ignore it... sigh... I can’t help it if I’ve studied paradoxes

Hmmmm not good odds I’ve gotta say...

Watch like, outside of the millions of realities that strange saw, there were like a million or billion more he missed where they won with no casualties lol

Hey Red Skull. Long time no see. How did he get here anyways and why?

Yea you’re prepared all right...

Gotta say, Lord Elrond has seen better days

I’m not ready to say good bye to this Gamora. Gamora and Loki and Nat go down as my favorite characters, gotta say. I know that Tony does and it’s sad, but his feels more satisfying because his sacrifice directly results in them winning. Loki is murdered. Gamora is murdered. Nat died just for a stepping stone for the avengers. She has no idea whether or not they will actually win in the end.

I’m hopeful they may bring Nat back like in the comics, red room clone style.

We got back vision, Loki (kinda), variant Gamora, a new captain America, why not Nat? Yea we have a prequel, but gosh I love her so much.

“You must lose that which you love.” Couldn’t that apply to like an object or something? Could I not throw my Nintendo switch over the cliff? Or my dog? (I would hate that just as much as a person, don’t get me wrong, I’m just curious about the rules)

Yea boohoo sad for Thanos... loses his favorite daughter. I don’t care about him. He deserves suffering.

Poor Gamora doesn’t think he’s willing to do it.. GIRL RUN!!!

Thanos deserves all the suffering.

He does love you Gamora... but that love... it’s selfish. It’s blind... Thanos seems to be a chaotic vigilante who is narrowminded, tunnel vision on his goal with no regards of the cost. But he is evil. If there is ever an alternate route to an end that doesn’t result in the loss of innocent lives, and you know that but you willingly choose the once that costs innocent lives, that is an evil decision. Maybe Thanos isn’t evil, but he’s not good. Far from it. He’s obsessed with this idyllic Utopia but he rushes to one method of getting there. Yes, people suffer. It sucks... it’s unfair... it’s horrible. But it is never the right of someone else to dictate whether or not said person would be better off dead. Who lives, who dies. If Thanos truly was neutral and not selfish, he would have thrown his own life into the mix of the potential 50/50 snap. Thanos is not good. He’s not misunderstood. He’s a murderer. A genocidal cult leader. I have no tears for him. Only for those who suffered more at his hands.

Rant over, time to try not to cry about Gamora...

Her face of realization

Gamora run please

Thanos, I hate you. (Great character her, but not a good person)

Poor Gamora

Oh my gosh the emotion here is great but I’ve heard this sound used as a meme on TikTok too many times aghhhh

Gamora!

What a way to die

I’m crying again. I miss her already...

Who the hell designed this place and put the stone here???? Who did this?

Cry Thanos. Suffer. My only comfort here is that you are sad. You deserve suffering. You really do...

The TVA is laughing here and I’m not okay..

Poor Peter Quill... he’s also lost a lot like Thor, but has had the “luck” of not knowing his family too close.

Wakanda babyyyy

No, you don’t want Starbucks, you want Dutch bros

Lmao I love rhodey. Poor Bruce.

BUCKY BUCKY BUCKY

HUG

NO CMON HAVE A LONG HUG

MALE FRIENDSHIPS ARE SO IMPORTANT.

Yea Shuri show em up.

Okay quick pause, I love love LOVE how Shuri is smarter. It’s a powerful moment for females BUT it’s not done in a way that’s condescending to males! It’s not saying women power because men bad, she’s just good! (And she has had access to technology they never could have but I digress). More of this please Hollywood. Don’t let being a female be the power. I don’t want strong female characters, I want strong characters who happen to be female. Ones who hold their own, have faults like anyone else, struggle, have weaknesses and strengths, but are strong without putting down others. Just a comment, just because a woman character may not be as strong as a man character, that is not saying she’s weak. If you’re the second strongest human in the world, you are NOT weak. You’re just not as strong as the strongest human ever, but that’s nothing against you. LET WOMEN STAND ON THEIR OWN MERITS WITHOUT SEX AFFECTING THEM!

Anyways

I love Shuri

I wish they had more time. She definitely could have done it. But stupid Thanos

Ughhhghhg

I know what many scenes are upcoming... with quill and peter and vision and everyone else

Let👏🏻Bucky👏🏻Have👏🏻Peace👏🏻

Thank you Nat!!! I love that Nat is so protective and selfless.

GET THIS MAN A SHIELD

Bucky needs love please. He’s my stand in, manipulated, greasy, long haired, dark and mysterious, stabby boy. (Also I need Bucky and Loki to meet. But let Loki finish his show (and come out of it alive because if he doesn’t I will sue) and be the antihero hero we need. Please. If he doesn’t get reintroduced into the mcu as a hero I will sue.

Thor, sweetie, are you a masochist?

Back to wakanda

Oh no, bad CGI, floating head Bruce banner. I’ll let it slide... sigh....

Can’t like, you just rain bombs on them forever?

JIBARI TRIBE YEA BOYYYYY

Sorry Proxima Midnight, you look like a frog and your name sounds like a middle schooler’s OC.

How nice. Diplomatic meeting.

“Thanos will have nothing but dust and blood.” Reeeeeeally wish you didn’t say that, T’Challa...

Yay big CGI battle commence! It’s like a really expensive animated cartoon at this point

WAKANDA FOREVER!

Poor Bucky. Forgot this dude doesn’t know much about the modern world.

Ahhhh Kamikazi aliens

I just wanna say that I love that Wakanda still has the artistic culture in their clothing and tradition all the while having badass, super advanced technology.

Why can’t they just rain bombs down the whole fight lol. Rhodey has those super nice bombs, like, do that they he whole time? Please? Why do you not have a barrier around the entire king.

No M’Baku, it’s not the end of wakanda. But half of all life, yea

WAKANDA FOREVER YEAAAAAAA

They should honesty all have nano tech suits like black panther lol. Or iron man suits. Fine maybe the most powerful one with the best quality material for the king, but besides that, yknow.

Wow Steve is hot with a beard.

So much happening at once. Thor, Wakanda, Vormir, Knowhere, am I missing anything?

Okay, but what IS the full force of a star? Like in Newton’s or something? Juls? Is it heat?

What’s this metal? How does it fare with vibranium?

Get off your wooden butt, groot.

“He needs the axe” are you Thor, the god of axes?

Soooo, I thought Thor didn’t NEED the hammer, it just helped him concentrate his powers or act as a conduit. Is that retconned already?

Cmon groot, put down your game. Soooo, is Groot worthy? He technically lifted it. Or is it a technicality because it wasn’t fully finished yet?

Cmon bucky, use that fancy arm of yours.

Wow they’re getting destroyed.

They need wanda to help.

BADASS ENTRANCE BABYYYY

How did Thor know to come to wakanda?

Floaty head Bruce

“BRING ME THANOS!”

Ahhhhhahahaha yeaaaaaa

Cry Thanos. Do it. I hate you.

Much more of a purple grape nutsack.

Oh gosh... I know what Peter Quill is going to do. I still don’t hate him.

“With all six stone I would simply snap my fingers. They would all cease to exist.” Orrrr, now hear me out, I know I sound like a broken record now but... MAYBE DOUBLE THE RESOURCES INSTEAD?? That’s not mercy. That’s not up to you to decide whether or not someone’s better off dead.

Smoosh

Yea quill has experience with the power stone

AIM FOR THE HEAD

Cmon it’s basic zombie tactics

I love peter quill lmao

Go capey!!!

Magic with a kick!

Poor Peter

CAPEY NOOOOOO

Wow he’s OP

Ouch quill just got majorly clotheslined

NEBULA

“Where’s Gamora?” 😭😭😭 SHE CARES AGHHHH

Restrain him! Work it mantis!!!

Why even remove the gauntlet, just slit his throat... kill him....

Quill no... stop being cocky...

Oh no

Quill please don’t

JUST SLIT THANOS’ THROAT

Quill please....

Poor quill. Just lost the person who really really loved him

Okay, I still love star lord. Idc what others think. He reacted realistically. If you hate peter quill for how he reacted, you better also hate Tony Stark for how he reacted to bucky when he learned bucky killed his parents despite knowing for a fact that bucky was brainwashed. Yes it was annoying... yes they were so close, but quill is so human here. I don’t hate him. He gets too much hate for acting like any normal person would have. Distraught, grief filled, he lost his love. Someone who helped him open up and finally move on from his mother’s death and fathers villainy.

Spider man saving mantis gives me life

How did that power stone blast not kill them?

Clearly Thanos has played Majora’s Mask. At least he has good taste.

So close vision.... but I know... I know what happens.

YES BUCKY AND ROCKET GUN CIRCLE.

Lmao give rocket Bucky’s old arm.

“I am Groot.” “I am Steve Rogers.” Comedy gold

Cmon Thor, go after the big one first.

Cmon wanda, save them. We need some scarlet witch magic up here to stop these

Okay that was so cool. AND THEN SHE USED THE BLADES

Oh no but now Shuri is alone

So close yet so far.... Dangit... vision was almost good

Ouch. Bonk to the head

YEA BLACK WIDOW

BADASS TIME

AND OKOYE!!

LETS GOOOOOOO

BADASS WOMEN

Ouch poor vision

Cmon Thor back up vision

Please

Hulk is in his feels

Cmon hulk grow up

Ooooh smart move banner

Aaaaand he’s gone

Giant blade look oit

Corvus, screw off.

YEA STEVE

WHERE IS THOR WHEN YOU NEED HIM

CMON NAT

Oh dang. Nice one wanda. But also, sheesh. Helluva way to go. But no big.

Yea vision. Stabby time.

Now vision and Steve, kiss.

Spider man saving everyone’s lives.

YEA STRANGE

Where was this in New York???

MULTIPLYING

WHY DIDNT YOU DO THIS IN THE FIRST PLACE????

Oh no

Well then... ouch. Soooo where’s the real stone???

Hey look Tony, you have a fan.

Okay I’m just pissed odd they didn’t just kill Thanos when they had him subdued. Like, worry about the glove AFTER he’s not longer a threat

Oof

Tony is taking a beating

HE WAS STABBED

WHAT

I don’t want your respect Thanos. That’s an insult.

They will remember him. They will remember him Thanos. When he kills you.

DOCTOR STRANGE WHAT?

You really doing this??? I guess he knows what needs to unfold for them to win... dang. I wouldn’t trust him tho.

Peter Quill in berserker mode

Where’d he go?

Name dropping the second movie

Strange knows everything about to go down. Who dies, who lives, what Thanos is about to do... he’s accepting his soon dusted demise because Stark needs to live...

AIM FOR THE HEAD UGHHHHH

Stop teleporting. That’s Loki’s gimmick.

KILL THIS RAISIN LOOKING NUTSACK UGH

Homie way too OP

Poor wanda and Vis...

HER LIP TREMBLE

PHENOMENAL ACTING

SAY I LOVE YOU

I JUST FEEL YOU

AGGHHHH IM CRYING AGAIN

Poor wanda. To have to kill her love... this.. this is a sacrifice Thanos... not your murder....

Wow Steve is holding back Thanos with pure brute

WANDA IS SO STRONG

HOLDING BACK THANOS WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY BREAKING THE MIND STONE

I LOVE YOU

AGHHHHHHHHH

And I know what happens next...

Poor wanda

Piss off thanos you understand nothing

You lost more than she could know? Bull crap. You are causing everyone to lose...

Cruel reality. Wanda has to see him die twice. RIP Vision

RIP half of all life...

AIM FOR THE DAMN HEAD

IF THOR KILLED HIM THEY COULD HAVE USED THE GAUNTLET TO BRING EVERYONE BACK TO LIFE. USED THE TIME STONE TO REVIVE THEM ALL.

How did that not kill Thanos tho. It may not have been a head shot but still.

Lil Gamora

What is this place?

Is this the soul realm?

Thanos, I hope you suffer forever. You deserve all the pain...

Rest In Peace: Vision, Loki, Bucky, T’Challa, Groot, Wanda Maximoff, Sam Wilson, Mantis, Drax, Peter Quill, Dr. Strange, Peter Parker (I don’t feel so good), and everyone else...

Thank you Nebula.

Thanos, you do NOT deserve to retire peacefully—wipe that smile off of your face

Oop, Rest In Peace Maria Hill and Nick Fury too... Motherfu— (so close Sammy boy...)

Yea Thanos you didn’t really think that through. Much more than half will died since other people rely on other peoples lives

Good thing he hit that button last minute huh? I wonder how captain marvel would fare in the TVA? are her powers considered magic? I mean, she clearly doesn’t know everything since she only just learned about Thanos (which is funny because she was supposedly traversing the universe to protect people)

Welp... onto movie two!

[hoodoo12]

Sweet (Wet) Dreams

Someone on ao3 made a comment on Beetlejuice being a creep watching women sleep. How could I turn that delicious idea away? 

NSFW, Beetlejuice/f!reader. Basically PWP.

You were on the cusp of sleep, just settling in to that perfect, warm place that felt like melting into the sheets, just when your conscious thoughts were fading and barely there any longer, and the mattress shifted a little beside you.

Beetlejuice. The specter didn’t need sleep, but sometimes he curled up beside you while you did, for the warmth and closeness.

You were so close to the Land of Nod you didn’t react. Morpheus was coaxing you, coaxing you, coaxing you closer--

You gradually became aware that your top sheet had been pulled off you. The fingers you felt running down your spine weren’t Mr. Sandman’s.

They were feather light and chilly. Just enough to interrupt your descent. Your breathing stayed slow and deep, however, even as a question flitted through your mind,

“What was he doing?”

The caresses continued. The tips of Beetlejuice’s fingers roamed your back, from shoulder to hips. When you still didn’t react, his hand continued further down, to the swell of your ass.

He paused, his palm on your skin. You were never so happy you slept naked! You weren’t sure what he was doing, so you concentrated on keeping your breath steady. Beetlejuice had to know that those porn videos where some guy fucked a woman while she was sleeping were total lies, right? You knew he liked them, the ‘secret surprise sex’ kind of videos; it probably had something to do with him being invisible and intangible for so long, when all he could do was watch and wish.

The tips of his fingers ghosted along the insides of your thighs while you were trying to puzzle this situation out.

You played along. You lay like you were sound asleep, because having him softly touch you felt nice, and, you reasoned he must like it too, even if he wasn’t getting any overt stimulation in return.

Shifting a little opened your legs a bit wider for him. Beetlejuice dragged his fingernails delicately on the sensitive skin between your legs, and after a few seconds of that, he dared move just one finger to brush the soft skin of your pussy.

It was a butterfly kiss of a touch. Still, you struggled not to moan.

After a moment, like he was waiting to see if you were awake, Beetlejuice repeated it. And repeated it. Each time his finger grew slightly heavier; not to be rough, but to slip further into your folds. Finally, you sighed.

That made him move a little; he was now pressed against you but from the feel of the dent in the mattress, he was up on an elbow. He didn’t breathe, of course, but you could guess his face was near your shoulder blade. The shift in position gave him a little extra reach over your ass and between your legs, and the next stroke he gave you touched your clit.

There was no denying the moan that came to your lips as he did. A puff of air brushed your shoulder, indicating his silent chuckle. He pressed a soft kiss to the same spot, and you knew he knew you were pretending to be asleep.

You didn’t “wake up” yet, though. You rocked your pelvis like you were just getting more comfortable, and his hand was taken away for a second. From the feel of his movement, he’d brought it back to his mouth, then two wet fingers were in your pussy, making minute circles on your clit.

You couldn’t help but groan.

Beetlejuice stoked you so lightly it was torturous. He varied his touch: first circles, then gentle pressure, then a tiny downward flicking that had you lifting your hips to give him more access while you gasped quietly. Every touch sent electrified bliss through you. You moaned as quietly as you could, still trying to maintain the illusion you were asleep.

Too much hard, direct stimulation to your clit could quickly shift from pleasurable to painful. Beetlejuice knew that. Although he was gentle, he stopped for a moment when your voice hitched.

The specter moved again, away from you, and for a second the side he’d been pressed against was cold. Then the top sheet was completely pulled off your legs and he eased his way between your knees. You’d have turned over if he’d made any indication that was what he wanted, but instead, with his hands slipped under your thighs, between them and the mattress, he maneuvered you so you were up on your knees a little, ass in the air.

There was another puff of a chuckle against your exposed pussy, and then Beetlejuice’s mouth closed over it.

You jerked and buried your face in the pillow to keep from crying out too loudly. His tongue was wicked, lapping at your clit, taking long swipes through your entire pussy, and delving it as deep as he could inside you. He’d always enjoyed eating you out, just as you liked sucking him off, and even playacting you were asleep didn’t stop him from lavishing heavy attention on you.

It felt amazing. You couldn’t help but moan loudly; the pillow muffled it. After he’d made you dripping wet from bathing your pussy with his tongue for so long--you never told him how much you loved that he didn’t have to breathe!--he finally went back to focusing on your clit. His lips found it and latched on, and he sucked it gently while swiping the flat of his tongue against it.

An orgasm exploded through you. Now you were especially happy you had a faceful of pillow, because the noise you made would have woken the household.

Beetlejuice held completely still as you came. When the pleasure ebbed, you were left trembling. When he released your thighs, you couldn’t help but sink back to the bed.

Behind you, he chuckled again and urged you back upwards. You didn’t know if you could take much more of his mouth on you--

But Beetlejuice shuffled forward and spread your knees more widely to accommodate him. With one hand on your hip and the other obviously back at his mouth for a second, in the next moment his cock pushed along the wet of your pussy. He found exactly where he needed to be, and eased into you with a steady thrust.

Your head jerked up as he filled you. After the tease, after his mouth and tongue doing such sinful things and bringing you to such a state of physical bliss, his cock was perfect. Beetlejuice thrust into you steadily, not the hot and heavy pace you both typically enjoyed, but like he still thought you were asleep and he was doing his best to not wake you up, even though he was fucking you and you were moaning and he was groaning and you put a hand between between your legs to rub your clit again and to feel his cock moving in and out of you--

You came again, tensing and squeezing your pussy around him. Beetlejuice’s grip on your hips tightened too, at the extra stimulation, and after a few more, slightly harder thrusts, he bucked into you and you knew he’d come too.

When his grip relaxed, you slid down to the bed once again. You gave a little groan as his cock slipped out of you. It was wet between your thighs.

Beetlejuice settled down beside you again, like he had when he first joined you in bed. His cock left a smear against your hip. You felt the sheet he’d pulled off you covering you again, and you shifted around to face him in the dark.

“I just had the most wonderful dream,” you said quietly, like you’d just woken up.

“Didn’t mean to wake you,” he whispered, returning the tease.

“Anytime, Beej,” you replied, and you were given a kiss before finally starting to drift to sleep again.

 fin!

[fistsofcurie]

Why is Cal the protagonist instead of Cere?

So I was replaying Jedi: Fallen Order recently, and something really stuck out to me.  This is going to be long, kinda ranty, and full of spoilers, so analysis is under the cut.

For those of you unfamiliar with the game, you play as Cal Kestis, a Padawan who survived Order 66.  For reference, Cal looks like this:

In other words, he looks like every other modern white guy video game protagonist: 

Except maybe slightly younger than average, and ginger this time (and even that was apparently one of the first things people modded out).  Oh and he has a cute droid.  This post intends no shade to BD-1, for whom I would die.  

Anyway, when we meet Cal at the beginning of the game, he’s living in hiding from the Empire, who would very much like to finish the job they started with Order 66.  When Cal’s status as an ex-Jedi is revealed, the Empire sends a couple of Inquisitors after him, and he barely manages to escape with the help of Cere Junda, who looks like this:

Over the course of the game, we learn that Cere also used to be a Jedi - a full Knight instead of a Padawan like Cal, but that she turned away from the Force in the aftermath of Order 66.  Eventually (SERIOUS SPOILER WARNING TURN BACK IF YOU CARE ABOUT THIS) it’s revealed that the Second Sister, one of the Inquisitors hunting Cal, is none other than Trilla Suduri, Cere’s former Padawan.  Cere left Trilla to care for some younglings they were guarding while Cere herself ran off to try to lead the Empire away.  Cere was caught and tortured until she gave up Trilla’s location, and then Trilla was caught and tortured until she became an Inquisitor.  When Cere saw Trilla take up that mantle, she tapped into the Dark Side, allowing her to escape, but also prompting her to give up the Force lest she fall completely.  Trilla, for reference, looks like this: 

This brings us to the main crux of this post, namely, why the hell is Cal even in this game, much less as its protagonist?  Trilla, as the main antagonist, is only after Cal because a) he’s a Jedi, so killing or capturing him is pretty much her job as an Inquisitor and b) he’s after the same MacGuffin she is.  It’s not personal, it’s business.  Any personal edge to the taunts she throws your way throughout the game only comes by way of Cal’s relationship with her former Master.  Make Cere the player character, and the conflict with the primary villain immediately becomes hugely more personal, more visceral, the reveal of Trilla’s identity has that much more impact.  

True, it is a big part of Cere’s character arc to show that she’s recovered enough from her trauma to be willing to trust Cal, be open with him, and train him, but the opening up and trusting parts could easily be transferred to her relationship with her friend and pilot Greez, aka Space Danny Devito.  As for being willing to take on a new Padawan, the primary MacGuffin you’re trying to recover in this game is a holocron containing a list of force sensitive children whom Cal and Cere EXPLICITLY PLAN TO TRAIN AS JEDI.  If that isn’t enough of a source of that type of angst, I hardly think Cal “Personality of Wet Tissue Paper” Kestis is going to do the job.  If it didn’t get explored thoroughly enough in this game, that’s just more sequel fodder.  Instead of (MORE BIG SPOILERS FOR THE VERY END OF THE GAME TURN BACK NOW IF YOU HAVEN’T FINISHED IT) destroying the holocron to prevent the Empire from hunting the children it identifies, Cere could use find those children.  Maybe the next game would have the children themselves as the MacGuffins you’re trying to collect, or maybe it would skip ahead in time to where Cere has already trained some of them up a bit.  They could each have their own strengths, weaknesses, and special abilities, and you could play as different characters on different levels depending on what was needed to get the job done.  

True, movie canon shows us that there isn’t a thriving Jedi Order up and running at the time of the original trilogy, just isolated hermits like Obi-Wan and Yoda, which is why it’s such a big deal when Luke becomes a Jedi and we assume that, after the fall of the Empire, he’s going to re-found the order.  That didn’t stop us from getting characters like Kanan, Ezra, and Ahsoka in Rebels though.  (Yes, I know Ahsoka’s not technically a Jedi at that point, but you get my point.)  They could easily be operating in an isolated cell somewhere on the Outer Rim or something.  Or maybe they get shut down at some point, giving us more fuel for tragedy and feels.  The point is, there are ways to handle this that both don’t conflict with canon and also don’t completely invalidate the goal you’ve been pursuing for the whole game.  Oh look, the choice of protagonist isn’t my only issue with this game’s plot.  Short detour, back to the main point.  

You wouldn’t even have to change the main story beats that much.  Cere would also have been in hiding, as demonstrated by the fact that she’s still alive, so have her huddled up in some backwater when she gets exposed and attacked like Cal was, forcing her to realize that she’ll never really be able to hide from her past and must face it.  Her cutting herself off from the Force mirrors Cal’s damaged connection to the Force, so you could have the necessary video game progression of gaining back various force powers as you move through the game.  Cere’s worry about falling to the dark side is much more in line with the traditional Star Wars theme of light vs. dark than Cal’s worry that he’s not good enough because he failed to save his master, Jaro Tapal, and is, in my opinion, more interesting as well.  

Hell, speaking of Jaro, I’d take him as a protagonist too.  So many species in the Star Wars universe, and when’s the last time we had a video game with a canon protagonist who was anything other than a human?  The physical strength and agility he’d have as a Lasat would give the designers room to give the players some cool moves to play with.  

Anyway, Cere’s light side/dark side conflict could even give you some interesting story mechanics to play with.  Maybe the game allows you to make a final choice whether to try to redeem Trilla (light side) or take revenge on her for hunting you (dark side).  Or maybe, in the final boss fight against Trilla, you could choose to tap into the dark side to get a power boost, but in exchange you get a worse ending.  

The point is, as far as I can see, there’s literally only upside from the perspectives of both story and game mechanics to making Cere the protagonist of Fallen Order instead of Cal.  Feel free to point out anything I might have missed, but that’s how I see it currently.  The only thing holding them back would have been the fear that Star Wars fanboys and hardcore gamers wouldn’t have bought the game if it had an older black woman on the box art instead of a young white guy.  The depressing part is, they’re probably right.  

I will admit, I’m being somewhat hyperbolic here.  I did still very much enjoy the game, and Cal was at least a serviceable protagonist, if not an exciting one.  He’s just everything we’re used to seeing in a player character, and nothing we’re not, and that’s always going to be disappointing and frustrating when the opportunity to have a kickass Star Wars video game centering on the conflict between two women of color was right fucking there but we didn’t get it and instead they played it safe.  

[fimflamfilosophy]

Characters: Tearing Each Other Together

After the world-sweeping success of my previous article (forty notes on Tumblr, wow!) and being driven out of my house due to mold for the second time in two months, I think the time is right to add another essay to the subject of character design and writing. But what’s left to say after having definitely solved the entire process of character writing the last time?

Well, suppose you can figure out the emotional state of one person. That’s well and good, and oddly harder for people than you might imagine. And I think the reason it’s so hard is because in virtually any show you’re not going to be given a character in a vacuum to learn that process from. They have some story, something they’re trying to overcome, and other characters they’re bouncing off of, and the actual process of conflict is more complicated than knowing who your characters are.

Hate, Love, or Indifference, It’s All A Struggle

So what’s the essence of a story? There’s some motive that’s trying to be achieved. A conflict. And I can’t stress this enough. Conflict. Because it’s one thing if you say your main character is a kid who wants to be the best Poke’mon trainer and completely another to have that be a concrete objective with a satisfying story and conclusion. Wanting to be the “best” isn’t actually conflict. It’s a dream. Being forced to travel the known world to acquire eight gaudy pins that probably cost twenty-five cents each to manufacture? That’s conflict.

And not only do you have to travel the world, you do so with a shrill red-head who explicitly hates you because you trashed her bike, and a sex-starved pervert whose life dream is to make Poke’mon mate with each other for a living. And that’s important. Without Misty and Brock, Ash’s journey is a lot less interesting for a lot of reasons. Misty calls Ash out every time he messes up, and aside from being on a watch list, Brock is a helpful older character who tells Ash, and therefore the audience, what’s what.

But let’s back up, because people understand the benefit of Brock and Misty at a basic level, but when you’re starting off, how do you know who those people should be? Well, every show, from sitcom, to comedy to drama, does its best to balance personalities against each other so there’s always some sort of conflict possible between them.

Now, “conflict” doesn’t mean they’re trying to kill each other. It could mean they’re falling in love with each other. Maybe it means they don’t have much in common but have to work together over long hours in isolation. The idea is simply that there’s something to overcome between these people. Misty thinks Ash is stupid - that’s a conflict which is often leveraged to push Ash forward. Brock, however, has a reactive role in the show, only functioning in conflict when a womanizer who grovels at the feet of ladies Ash is already helping anyway.

It’s odd because if Misty were older she would be set up very well as kind of an “opposites” romantic torture device with Brock. They’re even depicted as professional equals, which would have made their levels of expertise and experience more balanced. Had they been closer in apparent age, a “will they won’t they” romance would have fit adequately, with Brock’s constant hitting on other women serving as a major, hopeless, long-lasting roadblock to a serious relationship between them; it would work especially well because Misty is established to have an inferiority complex to her prettier sisters. It also might help explain why Brock hung around so long. But as it was, Brock’s main contribution to the inner dynamic was to act as a mediator, caretaker, and mentor.

But circling back to Brock’s dream of Poke’mon husbandry. Well, on the meta level that’s why he doesn’t leave. Because it’s not a motive, he’s not taking steps towards it, and it’s not going to happen, it’s just a dream. Until it does happen, anyway, and then they wrote him out of the show - but we’ll dig more into this later.

Balancing Imbalance

The best place to look to see good conflict set ups between characters are popular sitcoms. Consider the show “Frasier”: it ran for eleven seasons and revolved mainly around the personal spats of Frasier, his brother Niles, their dad, and the dad’s caretaker, Daphne. Frasier was arrogant, Niles was insecure, Dad was an earnest roughneck, and Daphne was well-meaning. Frasier and Niles were also elitist pricks at times so they couldn’t even always agree where to eat together, much less with their father who was happier having a burger with ketchup.

Every episode had some central motivator; an ice fishing trip, a joint investment, an awards ceremony - but these things were just catalysts to the main conflict, which was almost always something between characters. We’d seen it time and again, that Frasier and his Dad would come to blows over differences in taste. Niles would try to court Daphne while torn by his commitment to his failing marriage, over and over. But the pithy banter and the way they resolved it would always be new, so people watched this show, episode after episode, for over a decade.

And the simple beauty of it all was that each of the characters had something to do with each other. Whether it be filial obligation, lust, sibling rivalry, friction between introversion and extroversion, or taste in food, they always had some source of conflict to make a show out of. Niles and Frasier were both psychiatrists, but from different schools of thought and different working environments, so they even had chances to butt heads academically and professionally. It was rich with writing opportunities and it’s not any wonder it lasted so long.

Another sitcom, “New Girl”, which was about a group of roommates, had a good dynamic set-up between two characters, Schmidt and Nick. Nick is a messy slob and Schmidt’s a type A neat freak, creating a really obvious source of conflict to work with. But then they had a third character, Winston, who they lampshade as the token black guy. 

Now, the joke that Winston is the “black friend” has pretty much no legs, so in the early seasons you see him acting as kind of a third party mediator, or maybe a wild card, and it winds up being funnier when Winston is unhelpful. So as the seasons went on, Winston gradually lost his damn mind. He becomes a cop and meets a woman so that he’d have some character growth and dynamic, but also develops into a man who would burn a building down as a prank. The writers had no idea what they were doing with him and he gradually flew further and further off the handle.

Don’t get me wrong, I really liked Winston as a character. Aside from being funny in the show, watching the writers gradually unglue him from sanity was its own meta comedy above that. I knew they were doing it on accident, but having such a good time with it that it was just going to keep getting worse. In fact a major component of the finale for the whole show is an insane thing Winston does. They wrap the show on the note, “Winston is crazy”. And it all happened because they didn’t figure out what Winston’s conflict was at the start. He didn’t have a source of conflict with anyone, so the man became a living breathing embodiment of conflict in general.

Your Story Ends With the Conflict

Now, the catch is, in any type of fiction, whether a video game, a roleplaying session, or a sitcom, the story ends when the conflict does, because if the conflict is over there’s nothing more to tell! It used to frustrate me to no end back when “My Little Pony” was popular and the other nerds on the internet used to ask, “How many times must Fluttershy learn not to be shy, or that being shy is okay? When will she overcome all that she is and eliminate the core element that creates conflict for her?”

The answer should always be that the character will learn their damn lesson when the show ends or when they’re written off it. If you are sick of seeing a character and don’t want to see them any more, the best thing to do is close out their issues, because once they have no conflicts, they have no story, and there’s no point in doing a show about them. Asking Fluttershy to stop being shy is asking to say goodbye to her, because she's a cartoon and her job is to entertain kids by being neurotic and yellow.

People think they’re so smart when they say they’d solve all a character’s problems if it were them. In the finale to the first season of Poke’mon, for example, Ash decides to gamble his whole championship run on Charizard, who’s a self-absorbed bitch of a creature that ultimately throws the match and leaves it an open question whether Ash might have won if he’d left the team primadonna sitting on the bench.

Some viewers see that and complain it’s the dumbest possible thing Ash could have done, but it’s probably one of the single most brilliant things the Poke’mon writers did in the grand scheme, because think about where it left us. Ash didn’t achieve his goal of proving he’s “the best”, but it feels like a fluke and if he got another shot, he might make it all the way. This gave the show a gateway to more episodes with Ash still having something to prove and a dumb mistake indicating he still had a lot to learn. Because he didn’t win, his story hadn’t ended.

In some cases shows can end characters just by addressing some dream goal they’ve been expressing since the first season. In the case of Brock, they intentionally removed him from the show by introducing him to some girl who was willing to work with Brock in the animal husbandry business. He’d been traveling all this time, his dream opportunity fell into his lap, and he was gone. What reason would he have to refuse, and why would anyone stop him? And of course, Brock’s dream job was incompatible with the central plot elements of the rest of the show, so that was it!

The Format Informs the Conflict

If you want to write something but you aren’t sure when it’s going to end, you need a concrete, long-term conflict that’s not just going to go away. For example, in “Scooby Doo and the Thirteen Ghosts”, there were thirteen ghosts. By design, that show should have ended after Scooby Doo found all thirteen ghosts. It actually ended earlier than that because it was cancelled, but you get the idea. When you have a finite goal, your run time is going to be finite as well.

At least in theory. In “JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure” they establish at the beginning of one season that everyone’s magic powers were based on the Tarot. Now, I don’t know the Tarot off hand, but as the show went on I knew that sooner or later they’d run out of Tarot cards, and in my mind I assumed the season would be over when the Tarot ended. But then I got a good chuckle when a guy showed up and his powers were based on a totally different theme, because I knew the writer had realized he’d stumbled into something good and wasn’t ready to end it. He invented a cheap excuse to keep going! And I think if “Scooby Doo and the Thirteen Ghosts” had been successful they’d have managed to unleash a whole lot more than thirteen ghosts because Hannah Barbera was not exactly a studio with a lot of shame.

Character conflicts like those in sitcoms are a great way to have conflict perpetually, because people don’t really change that much and there’s no reason why most of the fundamental friction shouldn’t be there indefinitely. But of course, character-driven conflict is going to be secondary in an event-driven show. “Jojo” actually does have a lot of character conflict, but the plot is primarily about the battles and the journey - if all the fighting ended Jojo’s characters probably couldn’t carry a sitcom, at least not without some serious hard work, a little genius, and a touch of elbow grease.

For event-driven conflict, you’ll want to establish a target - a moving target if you don't know when the story ends, and that can be pretty difficult. Old action shows and comics used to do it by having a rotating cast of villains, so that after one was defeated another would show up tomorrow, and it was assumed these guys regularly broke out of prison, or they escaped in rocket pods, or whatever, and they’d be back later with a new goofy scheme. In these cases you tend to find reactive heroes; they patrol the streets until a lunatic in tights and a garden-themed hat shows up and transforms everyone into people-shaped topiaries somehow.

For active heroes, you need to establish something that requires a lot of structure, like Ash’s journey to win the Poke’mon League. In every country he visits, they all have this asinine rule that you have to go to eight unique locations and kick the ass of someone who disadvantages themselves with an easily-countered mono team that all have the same exact weakness. You can’t be accepted into the League if you haven’t proven you own a water Poke’mon to utterly flatten the fire gym! Let’s be real, this nonsense is probably designed intentionally as a money gate - most people run out of cash before they qualify. Either way, it ends when Ash wins the league, and he lost the league so the show could keep going.

For roleplaying games, the same rules apply. With your players, you’re either going to establish a reactive goal - an adventuring guild hires a bunch of colorful salarymen with silly accents to go to a dungeon as part of their nine to five job - or you need players to set an active goal for themselves and keep the realization of that goal beyond their reach until you’re ready to end the game.

The Active Hero Acts

In my younger years, I learned to roleplay in almost exclusively player-driven games where we were expected to come up with our own goals and pursue them ourselves, but I’ve discovered that is stunningly rare in most roleplaying circles. Your typical D&D player likes to play the salaryman with a funny accent who doesn’t have to worry about the venturous part of adventure. His boss told him to go to the Cave of Everlasting Wonders and Torturous Screams, recover the Sword of Bad Portent, and then hand it over to the department of magic items where they’ll file the paperwork to get it delivered to the patron that wanted the sword for some reason. No need to have your own motives.

But what if you want to play a crime fighter who actually, you know, busts up all the crime? Clearly you can’t just wait for crime to happen passively - you’ve got to go after people. Act instead of being reactive. Purse snatchers are small time and in a more grounded setting the guys you’ll catch by being passive are just grunts being hired out by someone - usually kids in a lot of cases. You have to seek out the bosses.

Making an active character to fit into any setting can be challenging, and I’ve seen quite a few pitfalls. I think one of the funniest motives is always “the guy who wants to go home” due to its obvious failure condition. A lot of stories are about everymen who just want to get out of trouble, but those stories end when they get out of trouble! In many books, movies, shows, or roleplaying games, you’re almost always going to find opportunities to send that guy home, and you’ll have to either conveniently ignore it, switch motives and decide not to go home, or end the whole story with going home. These characters only work where the story is happening to them and it's all out of their control.

I’ve also seen my share of the “quirky genius inventor/scientist”. When someone designs a character mistaking a dream for a motive. They dream of building a better mouse trap, you see. That’s their inner conflict. And while this is a real world conflict, it’s difficult to make it a good story because actual science and invention involves a lengthy quantity of controlled experiments. You breed hundreds of fruit flies, expose them to nicotine, and try to isolate the gene that causes nicotine resistance. It can be fascinating work at its level but sometimes the most exciting part of your day is when you give yourself a steam burn cooking the fly food. The “quirky scientist” in fiction is usually more of a mentor, and if he insists on staying in his lab doing his work then he’s not even a main character - he’s a guy who explains fruit flies to the audience and then is never heard from again. Other times he’s the asshole who invented the story’s whole problem.

I once played in a game with “the quirky scientist who wants to go home”, and man was that a frustrating ride. The game itself was about occult magic and demons, and for most of the game the scientist was experimenting with teleportation magic to go home and was focused on that above the goal of finding and eradicating demons (the game’s premise). And when he finally met a boss demon that could teleport him home to his lab, he went! We wound up retiring a character who, to be honest, was barely even interested in the main subject of the story. Had he been in a film or a show, they’d have cut the character after the first draft because he served no purpose and wasted screen time.

So how do you make sure your character has a working, proactive goal, in a nutshell? Establish a goal that can be achieved by the character within the framework of your story through action by leaving his house (or after burning his house down so he can’t go home), and then make sure the goal is big enough that it will take many broad steps to get there - those steps need to be concrete and visible, not things that would happen off-screen. Most importantly, tie that goal into the main premise of the story, so that reaching the end of the story generally may achieve what the character wants.

If You Aren’t Trying, It’s Not A Trial

Okay, I understand that last bit probably requires more unpacking. But think of it this way. There’s a writing structure referred to as the “Hero’s Journey”. Basically it goes like this: the hero is forced into adventure, he meets friends and goes through trials, he hits his lowest point, he is reborn into a better man, he ends the conflict, story over.

What I’m talking about specifically right now are the trials. The “wacky inventor” is usually presumed to do all his research off screen because most media likes to focus on the results of the invention and the conflict. But if you were to focus on the trials of a scientist, it’d actually be about procuring research grants and potentially materials. You wouldn’t watch a show about a man who checks gene A-235 for nicotine resistance in flies, then goes on to A-236, then A-237.

If I were to write a story about a researcher, here’s one thing I might do: the researcher fails to find what he’s looking for in gene A-235, and when he goes to seek a grant to look at A-236, he finds one of his colleagues has convinced the university that the protagonist’s research is a dead end. Hearing this, the researcher realizes he’s about to lose his lab, so he writes a bit of a lie into his report on A-235. He says it may prevent cancer.

Now, the protagonist is, deep down, a good man. He thinks this will generate some buzz at the university and get him more funding, but he’ll do a follow-up and show the data doesn’t hold up. After that he’ll ask for money for A-236 and everything goes back to normal. But disaster strikes. His article, which was only supposed to show up in an obscure research journal, gets picked up by a major news network and winds up being spread all over. Suddenly he’s “the man who cured cancer”.

And as he’s trying to figure out how to navigate the issue, another researcher comes out and says that under peer review, he was able to replicate the results. He too shows that A-235 cures cancer! Now the hero isn’t sure. He becomes a celebrity and simply lies about his research because he has no real data, but try desperately as he might, in private he just can’t get the results the peer review insisted were there.

He struggles and struggles, coming to blows with his colleague who’s scrutinizing his research notes. Throw in a love interest who’s impressed with what this guy did, and actually I think I’ve just described the plot of some movie I saw a long time ago about faking cold fusion. I think Albert Einstein was a supporting character in it. In my version the twist would be the peer reviewer was also trying to get a grant by lying. Point is, the central conflict of the film certainly isn’t the scientific process, it’s all the crazy crap that happened on the way from point A to point B.

The story is in the trials. If nothing changes, if the character doesn’t have to change their way of life or go through anything special, it’s either not a story or it’s not your typical story. There are plenty of experimental films or well-regarded books that can make a certain banality become interesting. Stories that explain the simple struggles of day to day living for people on hard times. But the trials, the palpable challenges, that’s really the meat of it all. When you think of what your character should be doing throughout the story, he should be going through these efforts, these steps, these trials, all in the name of whatever his broader goal is.

Where You Start Affects Where You End

It also matters quite a lot when and where characters are introduced. A lot of tales follow some basic notes, and one of the more common elements is “crossing the threshold”, which prevents your characters from going back to their life before the adventure. It’s used because it compels the characters forward, as they have no other direction they can go. It can be anything: the character’s home town is destroyed, the character commits a crime, he accepts a contract, his mother dies - so long as it prevents him from going back. It’s especially useful in roleplaying games where you really need everyone to be driving forward.

In one such roleplaying game, I got in a spat with the guy who wanted to run the game because I was trying to make a leader character, but the game master wanted to base his game around a movie he’d seen with a single main character. He’d elected another player to be that main character, and explained to me he’d be starting the game after that character had already crossed the threshold and had begun his journey. This meant that everyone else were supporting cast and could go back to their normal lives at any time, because they were coming willingly from where they were and not really facing any drastic changes to their personal status quo.

I eventually resolved not to play in that game at all, because none of the character dynamics I wanted were going to work. It was supposed to be a “wannabe” superhero game, with the premise that everyone wanted to be heroes, except one player had already started the journey and it turned out another had already reached the end of that arc and was going to play a character that had been a hero going on years before the story began. There was no plan to really reconcile the narrative clashes.

If that game were to work as it was, without me being present, then the person playing the pre-established hero would have needed to take the mentor role. The other players besides the main character would have needed to be comfortable in auxiliary roles, and the group would have to play as though they were part-way into the story. Still learning to be a team but well past the initial stages of a plot, and they’d all need to think up reasons to be in this group individually on their own, because the threshold had already been crossed and they didn’t cross it together.

The friend running the game was actually dismissive of my advice here, arguing that I was overcomplicating everything with a meta analysis of narrative and structure when all we need is a basic drive to play, and I don’t think he realized he’d set himself up with a much more complicated game and less cohesive premise by going about things as he had.

The already established hero couldn’t be the mentor because a mentor character had already been created as an NPC. The auxiliary players weren’t really informed at the outset they’d be auxiliaries - especially not me who’d wanted to play the team leader. The player who’d been designated as the central protagonist didn’t want to lead or be the central protagonist. It could have worked, but it would have taken a lot more planning and many more concessions than a typical game.

In a more recent game, I’ve got another bit of an issue with the start misleading the general goals of the players. It’s a sci-fi game, and first, one player is doing “the quirky inventor scientist”; his current stated dream is vaguely to create transhumanist technology. He also wants to play the leader, so he established himself as the most important man nobody has ever heard of. He has spies in every major institution in the known galaxy and is a genius beyond comparison. He’s currently based in a rusting pirate ship in the middle of the space boonies doing nothing with his life save being the most important man.

Meanwhile, I set up a disgraced military officer with a revenge quest against his own nation. But the pirate crew my character joined turned out to not believe in structure nor leadership and they killed their last commander to have a system of “democracy”. My structure-minded character has tried to take the lead and drive us forward, but he runs into general deconstructive resistance and the “quirky scientist” wants to be the leader, but hasn’t yet expressed self-motivated goals.

It’s not exactly my most harmonious game and there’s quite a lot going wrong here, but here’s how it could have worked: first, establishing that the crew of the pirates respects no leadership places the entire crew in the precarious position of being “chickenshit” at the outset. That kind of incohesiveness is why a band of rogues gets easily defeated; it’s not the behavior of scrappy men of action, but hopeless men of inaction. A corrupted “democracy” collectivises failure while awarding success to whoever actually has the most power in the group structure - it protects the weak leaders from responsibility and disincentivizes good work by allowing those same men to reap rewards while offloading the burdens to those lower on the ladder. In essence, “If things are screwed up, blame the democracy. If things are good, I did it.”

What should have happened was the “quirky scientist” should have been in charge to start with, because otherwise he has no reason to be on board the ship. He’s the most powerful man in the galaxy, after all. If it were because he was financing the pirates to go on raiding and salvage missions relevant to his research, then it would make sense. He’d have a purpose and a position of leadership just as the player wanted. It would also establish the pirates have some command structure and a level of respect for it that allows them to function.

And the power struggle between the disgraced officer and the scientist? Perfectly reasonable character conflict that would drive actual, meaningful roleplaying and story. The scientist may bankroll the operation but the officer is the tactical talent and the two pull in opposite directions, as power-hungry men often do.

However, the opportunity to start with a sensible and meaningful social dynamic has passed, and on top of that the “quirky scientist” keeps his galaxy-wide power a secret, so it’s all kind of messy and “badly written” in the sense that most audiences would be generally rooting for the crew to fail, and they’d find the grand reveal of the scientist’s galactic power to be frustrating and unrewarding because it’s more of a plot hole than anything. So close on so many counts and yet so very far, and the opportunity to pull it together eventually is present but a more challenging and uphill battle than getting it right at the outset.

In The End, Did We Even Learn Anything?

Creating a character is easy, in my opinion. Creating a working story with a group of self-driven characters can be a lot harder. This is especially true of roleplaying games or of cooperation with multiple writers, where you need to be on the same general page with a committee. It can help a lot to establish the exact conflicts at the beginning, but as can be seen with Winston from “New Girl” or the later seasons of “My Little Pony”, what you have can morph beyond your control as things go on.

Sometimes you never had control in the first place. Sometimes you lose control because you conclude the original conflict of your story and struggle to find a new one - the brand is too successful to let go. Maybe an executive comes in and injects an idea that throws the entire balance of everything totally out of whack and now nothing works. Sometimes your friend thinks story structure is overrated. It’s a difficult juggling act.

So at the end of this essay did we even learn anything? It depends a lot on what you’re trying to do and what you wanted to learn. If you’re the more typical Dungeons and Dragons group, you don’t need to think much about this. Just make your characters and passively react to activities handed out by Dungeons, Dungeons & Co - your conflict is event-driven. Are you writing a sitcom? Well, balance a tangled web of conflicting character habits and write the ensuing disaster. Want to make a complex film about a group of highly motivated, proactive people with sophisticated individual goals that ultimately converge while still respecting their rich, conflicting, inner politics, and do all that writing as part of a team? Well, good goddamn luck, but with the right start and enough care you can make it happen.

[pennypeabody]

Mädchen Amick teases Riverdale directorial debut, and what she learned from David Lynch

Mädchen Amick wasn't planning to direct the Riverdale season 4 finale. But when the coronavirus pandemic halted production across the world, her directorial debut on the CW series moved into the coveted spot.

"You want it to be exciting and climactic and really building its energy, so I wanted to honor that," the actress tells EW of her fateful episode. "There was a little extra pressure."

Amick has been directing since 2015, beginning with one of her daughter Mina Tobias' music videos. And while Riverdale has kept her busy playing Alice Cooper, the uptight, haunted mother of Betty (Lili Reinhart), since 2017, she has long dreamed of stepping behind the camera as well.

She finally got her shot for "Killing Mr. Honey," which was originally intended as the 19th installment of the 22-episode season. Now it will have to stand as the conclusion — and Amick warns that it ends on a cliffhanger.

In the photos above and below, EW has an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at Amick's directing days on Riverdale. And ahead of the episode's May 6 airing, we called up Amick to discuss her experiences calling the shots, what it was like pulling double duty, and how working with David Lynch early in her career inspired her as an auteur.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How long have you had an itch to direct, and how did this episode come about?

MÄDCHEN AMICK: I moved to L.A. at 16, and got Twin Peaks at 17. I would say around my mid-20s, I had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to be more than just an actress and be a storyteller, but so many things in my career made me busy and made me feel like, "Oh, I don’t have time to step behind the camera. I have to keep busy and focused on staying in front of the camera." This was in the mid-'90s, and there were a few female directors — one in particular was Diane Keaton on the original Twin Peaks — that showed me there are women doing this, but [now] there’s a little bit of this movement to get more diversity behind the camera that I benefitted from. I have to give credit to my husband and my daughter. She asked me to direct her music video, and I was honored and jumped right in. I’ve done a few music videos. I’ve directed and produced a docuseries pilot. At the beginning of Riverdale when I did that first thing, I’d started asking around and asking [creator Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa] and [producers] Sarah Schechter and Greg Berlanti. I said, "Hey, guys, I really would love to direct an episode." They were super-supportive and excited. So it was this season that Roberto said, "You want to direct this season?" And I was like, "Yes!"

Riverdale has a very specific, highly stylized aesthetic. Did that make directing easier or harder, especially when it comes to putting your own stamp on the episode?

It was easy for me. I know the show so well, inside and out. I really enjoy the storytelling and the filmmaking part of it. So I know what Roberto likes, as far as the way he likes the story to be told and unfold. That was a great template that was already in place, and I wanted to honor that. Then, I just wanted to elevate it as much as I could and get as strong as performances out of all my fellow actors, which they were great and supportive. And just push the visual boundaries as much as possible. Presenting new ways to shoot scenes, but still staying within the world and the visual look to it, and just hoping that Roberto loved it.

I remember Roberto and I had a conversation: It might’ve been season 2 or season 3, but there was an episode and he said it didn’t feel very inspired. That really gave me an insight into [that] he really wants directors to come on board and love the show and be excited about the show, and then bring an inspirational take to it. That made me feel I had a little bit of freedom to run with it, and he didn’t want a cookie cutter, just make everything the same. It was nice to hear he wanted something that was inspired.

When you directed the episode, it wasn’t meant to be the season finale, but now it is. Is that exciting? Nerve-racking?

Since it's [episode] 19 of 22, you are getting to the end, so there’s usually a lot of climactic things happening. That’s a lot of responsibility, just because I want to get it right. I know we’re getting toward the end, and those last few are really important to start tying up loose ends or building to a cliffhanger. You want it to be exciting and climactic and really building its energy, so I wanted to honor that. There was a little extra pressure.

Did it lead to any last-minute adjustments or changes in the storytelling?

The episode that I shot was the last episode that we completed as far as filming. We were halfway through 20 when production stopped, so I was editing when production stopped. At that point, we didn’t really know that the season would be done. It was a little bit of a holding pattern of, "Are we just pausing and we’ll get back to it, or will our season end a little short?" Now knowing my episode will serve as the finale for this season, obviously we’ll pick up back up next season. They’ll have to adjust some storytelling with what they had planned at the end of this season. As far as my episode, it pretty much stayed intact the way it was written. There was a new layer that came into the story that now serves as an interesting cliffhanger.

You also appear as Alice throughout the episode. What was it like having to pull double duty?

I’m not gonna lie, it was a huge challenge. My brain was so much behind the camera that it was hard for me to switch over to being in character. I could easily slip into Alice, but I could not remember my lines, and I’m usually really good at that. I was really struggling. In one scene in particular, there’s a big confrontation that Alice has with Mr. Honey and she drives the whole scene with all of the parents, and I could not remember it, to the point where my fellow actors were whispering the lines to me to try to help me get through it. Man, it was rough. I know I’ll continue to get better with that with practice, but my brain was not in that space at all. I was full-on thinking of shots and directing my other actors, so it was a big challenge.

This episode is going to have to hold us over for a while; what can you tease about it? Would you say it’s a satisfactory end to the season?

The whole theme of the episode is the big confrontation between the kids and their awful Principal Honey, who’s just been tormenting them the whole season. So lots of really, really fun stuff. There’s a mixture of some fantasy of what they want to do to Mr. Honey and some reality of what ends up happening to Mr. Honey. So that’s the big tease.

The back half of the season angered so many Varchie and Bughead fans, and it doesn’t seem like the same instant regret Archie and Betty have had over previous kisses. What can you say about where those relationships and feelings are headed? Might Riverdale be exploding some of its most beloved relationships?

[Laughs] Why? Why were they upset? No, but don’t they always teeter on that? I think Roberto loves to torture the fans, quite frankly. That’s the fun dynamic, and that is what’s classic to the Archie Comics, is you have this love triangle that’s always been between Archie, Betty, Veronica, and now we’ve thrown in Jughead into the mix. It’s complicated, but we’ll see what ends up happening at the end of senior year and where relationships really go. I know the plan for the next season is we were going to jump forward in time and see where everybody had landed, but I don’t know if that’s gonna adjust now that our season changed a bit.

Both Skeet Ulrich and Marisol Nichols had announced they were leaving at the end of this season, leaving you as the only original Riverdale parent left standing. Now that filming has ended early, does that alter their plans? Will we get any hint of where F.P. and Hermione were originally headed?

As far as the episode I directed, there wasn’t really anything different happening for their characters. It was the same story line going on. But with technically three more episodes they had planned, I’m assuming they had plans. I also know Roberto really loves Skeet and Marisol, and he told me he hopes their characters can come and go from the show depending on everyone’s availability. It’s always funny whenever some of our characters die on the show, it’s like, "Oh, well that guarantees you’ll be on more often." Nobody’s ever really gone on Riverdale.

Does it feel weird to know Alice was going to be the last one left? And what might that mean for her going forward? She seems so happy with FP, it’s really sad to imagine that ending.

I know! They were finally doing good. I don’t know what Roberto has planned, but yeah, poor Alice. She’s really going to be alone now. Maybe she’ll just be ruling the town, who knows? Maybe we need to start a new campaign, Mayor Alice. Obviously not until next year, but just even thinking about coming back next season and having all my O.G. homies not around on a consistent basis, it’s definitely going to be really sad. I’m absolutely going to miss them, but I know that won’t end our friendship.

Earlier in the season, we had evidence Chic and Charles are working together. Will we see any answers there, and what might it mean for Alice to discover her long-lost son has betrayed her once again?

We hadn’t gotten into that for my episode. I think that was in the next few, so she hasn’t experienced the betrayal yet. I know she’s really resilient, but there’s been a lot of betrayal in this woman’s life. I think Alice is going to need some therapy next season.

And not of the Farm variety.

Real, good old-fashioned traditional therapy.

We were setting up for high school graduation to round out this season, and the characters going off to college or other futures. Will we ever get some taste of graduation, and have you any hint of where the kids will end up next year?

No, I don’t. I know the idea was we were going to jump forward in time a little bit to see what they had done. I’m assuming something brings them back to the town of Riverdale.

Can you point to moment or visual choice that you felt defined your identity or artistic choices?

Jughead and Betty have a fantasy going about what they would do to Mr. Honey, and so Betty’s revenge fantasy inspires Jughead to write an essay for college submissions. We get to go into and reenact Jughead’s fantasies and his writing. I wanted to push the envelope in those scenes. You don’t want to go too far out of the way where you’re totally getting rid of reality, but I wanted to visually have some fun with breaking the rules of what you’re supposed to do with shots and how you edit them together. Jughead is all about classic storytelling, so my inspiration was Alfred Hitchcock and Citizen Kane and that kind of stuff. We did a lot of twisted shots and shots that moved in weird [ways], very Vertigo- or Citizen Kane-inspired.

How much were you influenced by the visual artistry of working with David Lynch so early in your career?

He was my mentor from the very beginning. I didn’t really know too much about filmmaking until I worked on Twin Peaks with him. He showed me you think outside the box and do things that feel and look right to you. It wasn’t until I went into the business after Twin Peaks that I realized how different and what an innovator he was. That’s always been in there as my base, to just not be afraid of taking risks. He sent me a really beautiful email my first day of directing, and just reminding me to make sure I did every single thing I want in every single shot, and to have fun.

[thequeenb]

A Deal With The Devil (part 3)

Pairings: KamilahxMC

Since i started working for Kamilah my routine changed completely. The night turned into day since she made it clear that i have to work after the sun goes down. Lily worries about me and honestly so do i but i am more than determinated to wipe that smirk off Kamilah's face.

I am putting the last touches to my make up before i leave for work. I sigh noticing the dark circles around my eyes. Once again my nightmares kept me awake, each time they become worse. Weirdly enough i have trouble sleeping more often than i did since i started working, but thats probably because i drink an enormous amount of coffee to stay focused

Lily as usual is sitting on our couch playing video games cursing her teammates. I grab my coffee as she shoots a thumbs up at me smiling mouthing 'kick ass'. I roll my eyes as shut the door behind me

As always i am ten minutes earlier something that everyone seems impressed of. I wave at the woman on the front desk. Her name is Linda and we grew quite fond of eachother. She was the one who got me out of trouble on my first days, especially with the printer incident

When i arrive in my desk Kamilah made sure to leave a pile of documents on it, i can only imagine her amused smile. Without another word i get into work desperately, trying to prove to her that i am more than worthy and i belong here.

"Miss Parker" a voice brings me back to reality, i was so consumed by numbers that i didn't even notice Kamilah standing Infront of my desk

"Hello to you too" i say rolling my eyes, i hoped she would take the hint and leave me with my work but she always loves to distract me, a very good strategy indeed

She has a faint smile on her lips as she gestures towards her office "May i have a word with you?"

As soon as these words leave her mouth my thoughts start racing. I did everything right didn't i? I always make sure to double check everything i do to avoid making any mistake that would cost my position.

Back home when my father said 'may i have a word with you' it was always getting me in trouble. I swallow hard walking towards her office wondering what's so important

She always avoids to have direct contact with me, if she has anything to say she sends her secretary to inform me. She is in her office working non stop most of the hours that i am here, and if we cross paths she will give me glances i can hardly read.

Other days she is more social and decides to come out of her office more often. I notice that she tries to find excuses to make small talk and she always finds a way to get information out of me about things that aren't related to work.

Kamilah is a woman that is almost impossible to read. One day she welcomes my company and the other i feel unwanted by her. Working with her has been an emotional rollercoaster ride that I don't know how much more i can take.

She always makes sure to make my work challenging that it drains all the energy out of me. I work for her for a month now and i still cant tell if she is satisfied with me or not. Linda said that since i came into this company Kamilah is more cheerful and different. How can she even tell when she is happy? That woman has literally one facial expression, stone cold serious.

I sit in a leather chair across of her desk while she pours herself a glass of whiskey. I bite my tongue and i swallow the urge to tell her that its inappropriate to drink during work hours because maybe this is my last day working for her

"Look if this is about the printer--" i start talking apologetically, my mind racing with all the possibilities of why she has to talk with me privately in her office

She waves a hand and i stop talking as i dare to look at her beautiful brown eyes

"That's not why i wanted to talk to you" she drinks her glass in one sip and she gives me a look that i can hardly explain

"What's your opinions about parties Miss Parker?"

I can't hold back my laugh but i cover my mouth immediately when i notice Kamilah's seriousness

"Oh you are serious, my god i thought you would fire me!" I say half excited half relieved

"Do i look like the kind of person that would joke?"

I give her a serious look trying to figure out what she is trying to say, because everything is either business or games with Kamilah

"Parties aren't exactly my cup of tea, Maybe because i am to focused on my work if thats what you want to hear"

I can see her smiling even if the glass is covering her lips. I study her face better now that i have the chance to do so. I always see glimpses of her but now i can see how her hair falls on her shoulders, how her eyes shine beautifully when she is amused

I brush those thoughts away focusing on Kamilah who is thoughtful looking directly at me with those intense eyes of hers

"Priya Lacroix invited me to a party that she is holding in her mansion tomorrow and i think you should accompany me"

"Is this your way of asking me on a date Miss Sayeed?" I say teasingly but i instantly regret my words

"I assure you thats not my intention Miss Parker, its work related"

"Don't you have a secretary? Or even better an entire company? Why do you choose me?" I challenge her and i can see a hint of amusement in her eyes

"I just find you suitable, but if you insist i can find another person to--"

"No! I mean yes! I will come with you" i say before she can even finish her sentence

Thats exactly what she wanted to achieve and i know that because she is giving me the same smile she gives me when she is enjoying torturing me

"I will email you the details" she says getting her attention back to her laptop and thats my cue to leave.

"Its a date then" i say as i close the door behind me smiling victoriously.

___

The next day pass by like a blur and before i even know it i am getting ready for the party Kamilah wants me to accompany her to. Lily is smiling holding an expensive looking dress on her hands

"Where did you find that?" i gasp as i notice the tag that it has on it saying "its a Lacroix Original. I thought it would be appropriate for tonight, Kamilah"

Lily is smiling giving me this knowing look of 'give me the deets right now or i will explode'

"Girl since when bosses send dresses that cost more than this apartment complex to their employees?"

I roll my eyes as i take the dress in my hands. The fabric is unlike anything i ever wore in my life. The diamonds shine bright as i careful how i hold it, afraid i will ruin it

"She doesn't trust me that's all, she thinks i will go in an important event looking like a potato"

"Hey what's wrong with looking like a delicious potato?" She says laughing but my death stare is enough to make her stop

"I am sure that's not it, she just wants you to look sexy for her to eat you with her eyes"

I pause thinking of Kamilah eyeing me from head to toe surprised. I smirk at the idea as i try the dress immediately

"Oh wow" Lily gasps as i look myself in the mirror

The dress hugs perfectly my curves as I smile satisfied at the sight. Its silver and shiny like glitter. The diamonds are like little bright stars making this outfit outstanding

"I might need to drop everything and start my model career" i say flipping my hair while Lily cheers

"This is hardly work related, Miss Sayeed has other plans" she says winking and i am annoyed that i even for a second thought about it

___

After a long ride the car Kamilah insisted for me to take came to a stop Infront of a giant mansion. My mouth open without my permission as i watch the flashes of the cameras and the celebrities walking in.

A part of me feels like I don't belong here at all but then i look down at my dress and feel secured. I take a deep breath before i get out of the car. Hundreds of cameras clicked at once covering the night sky. I put my hand out covering my eyes from the flashes when i feel a strong hand on my shoulder

Kamilah is next to me tall and elegant with her beautiful red dress. She gives me a side look as we walk towards the entrance avoiding any reporter that yelled pointless questions.

I can feel her eyes scanning my body as i notice the desire in her eyes. She is great at masking her feelings but tonight feels different.

"I see you followed my advice and wore the dress i sent you" she says and i am kind of disappointed thats all she had to say

"Yes thank you, its beautiful indeed" i grab a champagne glass from a waiter nearby and i can see the judgemental look Kamilah is giving me

"What? You brought me to a party didn't you?"

"A work related one, i need you sober and focused, Priya isn't--"

But before she could finish a woman appeared out of nowhere almost scaring me. I feel two cold hands on my bare shoulders and when i turn to see who it is i almost gasp

Priya Lacroix. One of the most beautiful women on earth, is standing before me. She isn't ashamed to show how much she enjoys the view something that sent shivers down my spine

"My, my what do we have here? I see you wear one of my dresses" she says still running her fingers down my hand

Kamilah doesn't look happy about that and i am sure she doesn't when she speaks up

"Lacroix. Can you be less touchy with my date?"

I almost choke on my champagne hearing the word date coming out of her mouth without a warning. But Priya doesn't seem to care at all and she focus her gaze on me

"Is this your new pet? She looks delicious" i don't know if i feel offended by the word 'pet' or turned on by the fact that she finds me delicious

"Thank you, it means a lot coming from you" i say smiling at her as Kamilah rolls her eyes

"Now if you excuse us" she put a hand on the small part of my back pushing me away from Priya

"Why are we leaving? I was quite enjoying being appreciated" i say grabbing another glass of alcohol, at this point i dont care what it is, i just want to enjoy the party

"You should be thanking me" she says grabbing a glass of champagne for herself

"Since when i became your date anyways? I thought this was work related"

It takes a moment for her to answer me and i smile to myself finding finally ways to get under her skin as she does with me

"Don't get to flattered, i was trying to make sure she won't be all over you tonight, now then i go do my job now" and like that she disappears into the crowd socializing with every potential client

Knowing her she will take ages to come back so i approach the bar asking for the strongest drink the bartender can make. This night is long already and it haven't even started yet. Before i could grab my drink another delicate manicured hand took it and of course its Priya

Her smile is predatory as she takes a sip of my drink handing it back to me

"I see your date left you all alone" her tone isn't apologetic but teasing just like Kamilah's

"You know her, she is all about business and work" i roll my eyes making my annoyance clear

"Well don't worry darling, that's why i am here" at that she leans closer whispering in my ear for me to follow her.

At this point i drank enough to ignore every warning Kamilah gave me and i follow her to the dancefloor where she swings her body to the rhythm. Around us people are grinding waving their hands freely in the air. The whole atmosphere is intoxicating enough and i follow Priya dancing against her

Kamilah isn't giving me attention tonight so the thought of her slips off my mind as i feel Priya's hands on my hips bringing me closer. She is the exact opposite of Kamilah. She isn't afraid to show her desire nor she ignores me, she looks at me like i am the only one dancing among hundreds of people. Kamilah is complicated and hard to read, her games are fun yet tiring

Why am i thinking of her? Why do i crave her attention that much? But before i can overthink about anything i feel my back against the wall, Priya eyeing me hungrily. For a moment i felt aroused but then i notice two pointy teeth escaping her lip

I almost laugh at the thought trying to convince myself that i see things after the alcohol i consumed but then Priya smiled and her eyes turned red

"Now let the fun begin" she said opening her mouth hissing.

Tag list: @justastranger-passing @scarlet-letter-a0114 @amorettemcsky @sayeedbound @wildsayeed @trouble-with-the-curve @littlemissgreen97 @nopenos-stuff @nydeiri @ilovetaylorswiftforever7-deacti @justahumblepie @mrskamilxh @blackphenix9527 @la-guera-69 @mrskamilxh @gavryllo

[scholar-for-christ]

We Can Empty Hell

I made a really cool discovery recently that could revolutionize my prayer life and I wanted to share but it requires a little groundwork for those followers of mine who are less familiar with Catholic teaching.

There are two concepts to explain before I get to my revelation:

Concept #1

There are three “categories” or three parts to the universal Church.

1. The Church Militant: The people on Earth, praying and fasting and suffering for the good of each other and for the souls in Purgatory

2. The Church Suffering: The people in Purgatory who will eventually reach Heaven but need to work off a few minor earthly attachments first

3. The Church Triumphant: The people in Heaven who can intercede for us with God (same way you would ask a relative to pray for you, Catholics believe you can ask a Saint, someone we are as sure as earthly possible are in Heaven, to bring your prayer requests before God)

So it works like this:

Concept #2

God exists outside of time. Time is marked by the passage of the Erath around the sun and the slow rotation of Earth on its axis. Even if Heaven has its own unique way of marking the passage of time, I think we can safely say that God basically created time and thus is free to operate outside of it.

Combining these two concepts, I came to the realization that we, the Church Militant, can in essence empty Hell.

I first came to this realization after watching a video called “God’s Mercy and Suicide” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRaWt4E0r5s) in which Fr. Chris Alar explains that, while the church did once believe that people who committed suicide would go straight to Hell, nowadays we have a better understanding of mental illness and how a person so deeply entrenched in depression or self-hate can by definition not be in a sound state of mind (which is a requirement for the committing of Mortal Sins, the only type of sin that can condemn us to Hell).

Father Alar points out that God and Heaven are outside of our earthly concept of time. Time is marked by the passage of the earth around the sun and the slow rotation of earth on its axis. Even if Heaven has its own way of marking the passage of time, we can confidently say that God created time itself and thus is free to operate outside of it.

How does that tie in with suicide?

There is a moment, between the instant where the person pulls the trigger and the bullet entering that person’s brain. There is a split second of time there, and, being outside of time, God can step into any moment in history and make his presence known.

Survivors of suicide, in fact many survivors of suicide by jumping off the (I think it was the Brooklyn bridge?) bridge profess that the instant he or she jumped, they realized they’d made the wrong choice, that their problems were not as huge and consuming as they’d thought, that life was precious.

So, God can step into a moment and reach out to the hearts of those in despair, but the question is, will that person be open to changing?

God will give us every opportunity to be saved, but there is something intrinsically precious about humanity’s free will, something so precious and important that God will not take from us that gift of free will. He cannot force us to accept him because that would not be true love. But just as we pray to God for the conversion of souls, we can pray that in that moment, a person’s heart may be opened that their fears and doubts be calmed so that they have the strength and courage to take God’s hand, repent, and be saved.

God is outside of time. He hears our prayers outside of the laws and restrictions placed on us by time. Thus, our prayers can be used to intercede for souls in the instant right before their deaths.

But not just for them.

Every human eventually dies. Every human has a moment, whether it be a span of days or only seconds, between their final breath and the moment their soul moves on.

And God lives outside of those days and seconds.

God can step into any day, any minute, any second in time and offer his love… but will the soul accept?

It is their choice, out of their own free will, but with our help, our prayers and sacrifices, our intentions and intercession for their salvation, they might just let him in.

And I’m not talking about just the people we know and love.

I'm talking about...

The pedophiles

The rapists

The serial killers and terrorists

Al Qaida

Nazis

The KKK

Those who manned slave ships, participated in the massacres of indigeonous peoples in North and South America, medieval torturers and tyrants throughout history

Spartans,Romans

Caesar and Herod and all the cruel men and women all the way back to the first murderer, Cain!

We are the Church Militant. We are not here to battle against other souls, to exclude or judge. We are here to face down the real Enemy and to make his defeat complete and total and so devastating a defeat that the only souls left in Hell at the end of time are those of the fallen angels themselves!

Pray..... fast.... fight...

EMPTY HELL