#like ur... viewing this from a place of privilege as far as looks go and the way ur spinning it is ...
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A Memory Locked In The Heart - Spencer Reid x fem! Reader
A/N - Requested by the lovely @overduelibrarybooks I hope this was the kind of thing you were looking for!
Find my masterlist here.
My taglists are open and requests are open.
Requested: Yes l No
Request: "could u ever write a spencer reid x reader where reader def works for the cia but more as a translator who’s kinda forced into doing agenty things in order to gather intel and on a mandated break she finds out the UNSUB before the team does so she uses herself as bait, and shoots the guy all very badass fashion n then gets interrogated bc ms girl just shot him coldblood and halfway thru she recognizes spencer bc her mother and his mom lived in the same care facility??? idk sorry my mom has paranoid too so it just hits different but u don’t have to write this if u don’t want to i love ur writing <3"
CW: disclaimer: I know next to nothing about the CIA and what they investigate so please go easy on me here. This is all made up so hopefully it makes some kind of sense. Mentions of violence and sex work, schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s, some swears. Mentions of drug use and overdose. Spanish used towards the end is from Google Translate so I apologise if it isn’t completely accurate. Italics indicate flashbacks.
Plot: Eighteen years ago you met a boy named Spencer Reid whilst visiting your mother at Bennington Sanitorium. This time you are meeting under entirely different circumstances; across the table of an interrogation room.
WC: 5.3K
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How did I end up here?
That was a question you kept asking yourself as you rolled into your third hour of sitting in that cold, dimly lit interrogation room at the FBI headquarters in Quantico, Virginia.
Well you supposed you’d have to go back to the beginning to truly work that out.
The CIA and FBI joint task force for a country wide sex trafficking ring they believed to be operating out of DC.
When your team at the CIA had started investigating it was estimated that the ring had close to a hundred women who had been abducted and forced into the sex industry.
A lot of women were believed to have been taken trying to cross the border. Your job as a translator had involved spending a lot of time in Mexico, helping interview witnesses and family members who didn’t speak English.
The FBI involvement had come when women believed to have been part of the trafficking ring started turning up dead.
At last count they were up to twenty bodies. The Behavioural Analyst Unit had given their profile of the man they believed to be running the show.
White male in his mid to late forties. Bilingual. Possibly born in Mexico or an area surrounding the border but grew up in DC, they assumed based on his knowledge of the area. He’s attractive, charming and has a good level of education, he’d need to be able to charm the women into trusting him. He doesn’t have a full time job because he wouldn’t have time for one. All his time and focus goes on his girls. He was tech savvy, incredibly so, he’d have to be, to be able to set up the network on the dark web which enabled his customers to pay for his services.
It hadn’t been going well. Bodies kept dropping and the task force was no closer to catching the person responsible.
This went on for six months. Everyone was exhausted. You kept hitting brick wall after brick wall. It was demoralising.
Your boss had called for mandated time off. You’d all argued but she had been absolutely adamant. You’d all been working yourselves to the bone and she didn’t want you burnt out entirely.
You’d argued but your words had fallen on deaf ears.
“Can I get you a glass of water or something?”
The voice startled you out of your thoughts. You looked up to see the lanky, messy haired agent who called himself Doctor Reid, sticking his head through the door.
“Is coffee an option?”
He smiled brightly at you, a smile you swear you’ve seen before.
“Coffee is always an option.” He told you. “How do you take it?”
“Strong and black. Please.”
“I’ll be right back.”
With that the door closed leaving you to your thoughts once more.
There was something so familiar about the Doctor. His dark yet sparkling eyes, his awkward smile and the way he dressed. You couldn’t place it. But there was definitely something about him that stirred some memory buried deep in your brain. You just weren’t sure what it was.
He returned a few minutes later, bringing your coffee into the room and placing it on the table in front of you.
“Hopefully you won’t be stuck here too much longer. It’s just standard procedure.” he spoke sweetly, his voice stirring the hidden memory.
“Yeah I know. I get it.” you sighed as you spoke, wrapping your hands around the coffee. “Thank you for this.”
“You’re welcome.” he smiled before he started backing out of the room. You wished you could ask him to stay because you felt so much more at ease with him around. But you knew you couldn’t.
He turned to you in the doorway.
“You look cold in that.” He smiled a little sadly at you.
You’d forgotten about your outfit choice. No self respecting CIA agent dressed like you were right now.
“I guess I am a little.” You shrugged.
Spencer instantly shrugged his blazer off of his shoulders and laid it in front of you on the table.
“Thank you Doctor Reid.” you spoke again before he disappeared out the door.
“Goodbye Agent Y/L/N.”
The door closed, his voice reverberating in your ears, dragging you into a long forgotten memory.
As you slipped his jacket on, your eyes fluttered closed, his scent wafting up your nose.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Spencer. Spencer Reid.”
“Y/N. Y/N Y/L/N.”
Your eyes shot back open, a frown on your face.
“Spencer?” you muttered under your breath. “Spencer Reid.”
Where had you pulled that name from? And why did it feel oddly connected to Vegas?
You tried to push the thought away, you already had enough on your mind. There were much more pressing things to deal with than a vague memory from your hometown an undetermined amount of time ago.
***
You’d been instructed to switch off. Your time off should be used to recoup, relax and not to think about the case.
Easier said than done you thought.
Before you’d left the office on your mandated leave you’d taken photocopies of some files and slipped them into your bag. You knew you’d be in trouble if you were caught but you couldn’t help yourself. You wouldn’t be able to relax with this case still open.
As far as you were aware the BAU was still working on it but it provided you little comfort. In your time with the CIA you’d never gotten to be involved so heavily in a case. Your skills were mostly utilised in interview capacities and then you were sidelined.
You’d never had the privilege to work on a joint task force or investigate a crime so brutal.
You felt personally invested in this case. You thought if you could just find that one missing puzzle piece you could crack this case wide open.
And then you’d found it. The golden ticket. The smoking gun. The missing piece.
It had taken five days of your leave and copious amounts of coffee but you’d connected the dots no one else had.
You knew how to draw the unsub out. And you were going to do it tonight.
***
“Let’s start again from the beginning shall we?” Agent Rossi linked his fingers together on top of the table as he looked across at you, still slowly sipping your coffee.
“Oh goody.” You sighed. “Could Agent Jareau not fill you in what I’ve already told her?”
“Humour me.” The old man shrugged.
You didn’t have any ill will against him. Far from it. You were actually a big fan of David Rossi. But you were sick and tired of being treated like a criminal.
“Tell me how you managed to work out how to find him.”
You took another long sip of the coffee.
“All the pieces were there, they just hadn’t been put into place.”
“And how did you piece them together?”
“There was a pattern to where the women had been last seen. It was a guess more than anything. A lucky guess.”
“And the pattern was?”
You sighed in frustration.
“As I told agent Jareau,” you sipped your coffee. “The bars they were last seen in all had ties to Mexico. I’m not a native to DC but I know the area like the back of my hand. They were all either Mexican owned, had a Mexican name or were previously establishments such as Mexican restaurants. I made an educated guess that he frequented places such as these looking for his targets. I just got lucky I picked the right one.”
***
You felt incredibly exposed, but you supposed that was the point.
If you were going to get this guy's attention, you had to do this right.
It was a long shot. Just because Western’s bar was known for its famous tacos did not mean it would be the place he chose to pick up girls.
You just had to hope.
You wore a skimpy skirt that barely covered your ass, knee high boots and a crop top that accentuated your assets.
Your firearm was hidden in your left boot.
Your outfit garnered a lot of looks as you headed through Westerns towards the bar.
You felt men’s eyes on you from every angle, making you feel extremely self conscious. But you needed to keep your cool, exude confidence.
If your guy was here he needed to see you shine.
You ordered a soda to keep your head clear and sat at a table over the far side of the bar. From there you had a good view of the entrance and most of the room. And more importantly, the room had a view of you.
Three hours you sat there nursing your soda. It was a huge stab in the dark, you weren’t really surprised.
You finished your drink and headed out onto the cool DC street.
You made it five steps before you felt a presence behind you.
Just as you were about to turn, something covered your mouth.
You struggled against a pair of strong arms.
A smell wafted up your nose seconds before you lost consciousness.
Chloroform.
***
“Why didn’t you tell your unit chief before you went in?”
“Because I thought it was a long shot.” And because she would have been furious I was working the case.
“So you chose to use yourself as bait?”
“Yes.” You shrugged nonchalantly.
“Do you know how dangerous that could have been?” Rossi raised an eyebrow at you.
You had to refrain from rolling your eyes.
“Yes agent Rossi, I’m well aware. But I had a lead and I wasn’t going to ignore it.” You pulled Doctor Reid’s jacket tighter around your scantily clad body.
You caught his scent again. Coffee. Old books. A hint of peppermint.
Another long shut off memory wormed it’s way to the surface.
“So are you here visiting someone?”
“Yeah.” You smiled sadly. “My mom.”
“Oh.” He returned your sad smile. “Me too.”
“Agent Y/L/N?”
You were brought back by Rossi’s concerned voice.
“Hmm?”
“I said, what happened next? You were chloroformed and then what?”
You shook your head, your mind clouded.
“Can we take a break? I could really use some air.”
Rossi sighed with a small nod.
He stood from his chair and motioned you to follow him.
You got some odd looks from his fellow agents as he led you to the elevators. They all recognised what you were wearing as Spencer’s jacket.
You followed Rossi into the elevator and he pressed the button for the ground floor.
“Agent Rossi, can I ask you a strange question?” You asked as the doors closed.
He gave you a curious look.
“I suppose.”
“Doctor Reid. As in Spencer Reid?”
“The one and only.” Rossi frowned unsure what you were getting at.
“Where is he from?”
Rossi’s frown deepened, not sure he should tell you such things about his team. But you were an agent and you didn’t pose a threat to the team.
“Vegas I believe.”
Vegas. Of course.
“Ok.”
“Why do you want to know?”
“I don’t know.” You chewed your lip. “I think I might have known him.”
“Oh?”
You wished you hadn’t opened your mouth. This was not the time or place.
“I’m probably wrong. Just forget I said anything.”
The elevator came to a stop and the doors opened. As you stepped out you pulled Spencer’s collar to your nose and sniffed it.
No you weren’t wrong.
***
Las Vegas, Nevada - 1999
“Hi again.” You smiled at the lanky man, Spencer you’d met a few days ago. “How’s your mom?”
“Still angry at me.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and stubbed the toe of his shoe on the floor.
“She came in recently?”
“Yeah a few months ago. I turned eighteen and I was able to have her put into care.” He blanched, clearly feeling guilty for his decision.
“Do you want to grab a coffee?”
“Uhm sure.” He shrugged.
He followed you through to the day room. It was late and there were only a few patients inside and a few nurses milling around.
You got two cups of coffee from the machine and the two of you sat at a table together.
“Do you mind me asking what’s wrong with your mom?” You dared as you slid him the drink.
He sighed heavily, gnawing on his bottom lip as though his life depended on it.
“She’s a paranoid schizophrenic.” He spoke clinically, words he’d had to say too many times in his life. It was as though he’d distanced himself from it. Like he was giving a patient a diagnosis rather than talking about his own mother.
“Mine too.” You gave him a wry smile. You had something in common, just not something you would like to have in common.
“How long has your mom been here?”
“Three years. She got really bad and my dad couldn’t take care of her anymore. She’s been doing much better since she moved in here.”
“That’s good.” Spencer nodded. “I hope my mom realises I did this for her. For her well being. At the moment she’s just so...angry.”
You reached across the table and placed your hand on top of his. He seemed a little startled by the physical touch but you didn’t move your hand.
“This is the best place for her. I assume from what you said earlier your dad isn’t in the picture?”
He used his free hand to sip his coffee with a sad shake of his head.
“He left when I was ten. He couldn’t handle mom's illness.”
You gave his hand a small squeeze.
“I can’t imagine what it was like for you to have to look after her by yourself. It was hard enough with my dad there. Really makes you grow up fast.”
“It really does.” He agreed. “I’m not sure I ever got to be a kid.”
“I know that feeling.”
After that you spent hours chatting about anything and everything until way into the night. It wasn’t until a nurse came and asked you politely to leave that you realised how late it was.
“I’ll probably see you around?” You spoke as you stepped outside together.
“Maybe. In a few weeks I’m heading out of state. I’m working on a PhD.” He didn’t want to tell you it was actually his second PhD.
“Oh. Ok.” You tried to hide the disappointment from your voice.
Despite the circumstances you’d enjoyed talking to someone like minded, someone who understood. You didn’t have anyone else your own age you could talk to about this kind of thing.
“Maybe we could exchange numbers?” You blushed a little.
“I don’t have a cellphone.” He shrugged.
“Oh.”
“It’s not an excuse.” He sensed you didn’t believe him. “I’m not so into technology. I don’t even have email.”
Normally you would have thought it was just a bad excuse to get out of seeing you again but the look on Spencer’s face told you he was being genuine.
“Ok.” You gave him a shy smile. “Well maybe I’ll see you again before you leave.”
“I hope so.” His eyes sparkled as he looked at you on the dark street.
There was an air between you, some kind of thick tension but you didn’t know what it meant.
“If I don’t see you again,” you spoke trying to ignore whatever it was. “It was really good to meet you and I hope your mom gets used to the facility.”
“You too.” He smiled so genuinely at you, it made your heart skip a beat.
And then you went your separate ways.
***
“Ok, so what happened next?” Rossi wasted no time once you were back in the interrogation room.
“Well I blacked out after I was chloroformed so excuse me if I don’t remember.” You gave him a sarcastic smile.
“What’s the next thing you do remember?” He reworded his question.
“I woke up in a large basement. It was gritty and dingy. And there were other women there too.”
“How many?”
“At least twenty.” You sighed letting your mind travel back to the basement you never wanted to go back to. Not even in your mind.
***
You woke with a start, your head pounding. You gasped for air as though you’d been drowning.
You blinked your eyes trying to adjust to the dark room you found yourself in.
It was cold and damp and you could hear a pipe dripping in the distance.
You tried to roll over but your arm wouldn’t budge. You were met by a loud clanking sound when you tried.
You tugged your arm, hearing the same sound and being met with a sharp pain in your wrist.
“Good luck.” A woman’s voice scoffed. “They don’t come loose.”
You blinked a few more times, looking over to your left arm. There was a heavy metal cuff right around your wrist that was attached to a metal bed frame.
That’s when you realised you were laying on a small cot on top of a ratty, itchy blanket. You were still dressed, thank god.
You suddenly remembered your firearm concealed in your boot. You patted your left calf and sure enough you felt the hard weapon still inside.
That was something at least.
Oversight on their part.
You remembered the voice you’d heard before and turned as much as you could with your arm cuffed to take in the rest of the room.
There were at least forty other cots close together lining the walls, with at least half of them containing the body of other women.
The voice you’d heard belonged to a woman in the cot next to you. She gave you a smile but it didn’t reach her eyes.
Her eyes were broken.
“Hi,” you croaked. “I’m Y/N.”
“Delilah.” Her accent was Spanish. You were sure Delilah wasn’t her real name either.
“How long have you been here?”
She sighed, playing with a strand of curly black hair.
“What month is it?”
“September.”
“Oh.” She frowned. “Not that long then. I’ve been here since July.” She looked confused as though that couldn’t be long enough.
“Delilah?” You narrowed your eyes on her. “What year do you think it is?”
“2018…” she saw your face drop and knew instantly it was no longer 2018.
“Oh gosh.” You felt for her, tears welling in your eyes. “It’s 2020.”
“Oh.” Her face fell. “Wow.”
“It’s ok.” You lowered your voice. “I’m CIA. I’m going to get us out of here. I promise I’ll keep you safe.”
***
“Delilah.” Rossi opened the file in front of him. “Was that Roberta Suez?”
He pulled out a photograph and slid it across the table. You averted your gaze.
“Yes and please I don’t need to see it, I was there.”
“How did she end up in hospital fighting for her life?”
“You know how.” You huffed. “Look I’m starting to get fed up with this now.” You folded your arms. “Carlos Ramirez was a sick son of a bitch. If I hadn’t done what I did he would have killed all those women. I don’t regret what I did.”
“How did she end up in hospital?” He repeated.
“Good lord.” You grumbled. “I’ll talk but I don’t want to talk to you.”
Rossi narrowed his eyes on you.
“No? But I’m so compassionate.” He spoke sarcastically.
“I won’t say another word unless it’s to Reid.” You looked up to the two way mirror. You didn’t know why but you had a feeling he was there.
Sure enough it was barely twenty seconds before the door opened and Doctor Reid himself stepped in the room.
“I got this Rossi.” Spencer told the older man who stood up with a shrug.
Rossi left the room while Spencer took the seat he’d been occupying.
Did he remember you? It had been close to twenty years since you’d last seen each other. Had it not been for the olfactory memory that struck you when you put on his jacket you might never have remembered him.
But you knew the rest of his team was behind the two way glass, or at least some of them were so it didn’t seem an appropriate time to ask such things.
“So agent Y/L/N,” he smiled softly at you. “Can you please tell me how Delilah ended up in hospital?”
“You already know the answer to that Doctor but since you asked so nicely,” you leant your elbows on the table, entwined your fingers and rested your chin the little bridge you’d created. “She had a drug overdose. But you and I both know it wasn’t her who administered the drugs.”
“And who did?”
“I did.”
Your words hung in the air between you and Spencer. He knew the answer, the whole team did. You’d already told Agent Jareau everything.
This was a huge waste of time.
“I administered the drugs because he told me if I didn’t he would kill me. I needed to stay alive so I could save those women.”
“Who said he would kill you?”
“I don’t know his name.”
“It wasn’t Ramirez?”
“No.” You shook your head. “If it was Ramirez I would have shot him. But it must have been one of his right hand men.”
“How would you know that? You’d never met Ramirez correct?” Spencer had a soft tone to his voice which made his line of questioning easier than Agent Jareau’s.
“I’m not a profiler but I’ve been to enough seminars over the years. He didn’t fit the bill. He was young, scatty, he didn’t strike as much fear into the other women as I thought the boss would. I made an educated guess and I was right. If I’d shot at him I would have blown my chance at getting Ramirez.”
***
“Shit shit shit!” You pulled yourself as close to Delilah’s cot as possible with your restraint. “Delilah, keep breathing, try to breath. Fuck I am sorry.”
Tears rolled down your cheeks, the empty needle you’d been made to inject in her vein between your cots on the floor.
He’d held a gun to your head and said he would shoot you if you didn’t do it. You didn’t think he was bluffing.
“It happens a lot.” A woman opposite spoke up. “You’ll soon find out. If she wakes up she’ll have the pleasure of returning the favour.” She gave you an almost manic grin.
If she wakes up. It was the if you were having the issue with.
“Who’s in charge around here?”
She shrugged.
“Don’t know his name. Big guy. Tattoos. Mustache. You can’t miss him.”
“Does he come down here often?”
Again she shrugged.
“Being down here you have a way of losing track of time.” She clicked her tongue. “But he’ll be here for you later. He has to test his new girls.”
Your blood ran cold.
“Test?” You swallowed, pretty sure you knew what she meant.
“He can’t very well expect you to make him money if he doesn’t know how good you are.”
Oh god.
Your heartbeat raced. No, it was not going to come to that. You were a CIA agent and you were armed.
It was not going to come to that.
***
Spencer’s face paled a little at your words. You hadn’t told Agent Jareau that part.
“He was going to...he didn’t…”
“No.” You cut him off, pushing the memory back down. “I had a gun, remember.”
You offered him a wry smile.
“So you know what comes next.”
“I’d like you to tell me.”
The way he said it was more like he was a therapist than an FBI agent. As though he wanted you to tell him so you could get it off your chest, unburden yourself, rather than for interrogation purposes.
“Ok.” You nodded. “He came for me later that night. And that’s when it happened.”
***
“Ahh look at you.”
A deep, Spanish voice woke you.
Your eyes fluttered open and landed on a strong, tattooed man with a mustache standing over your cot.
This must be him.
“Tan hermosa.”
So beautiful.
You tried not to shudder.
You sat up wiggling your legs in your boots to make sure you could still feel your firearm. You could.
“Su nombre es Rosa.”
Your name is Rosa.
Guess again.
“Su nombre es Y/N.”
“Tú hablas español?”
You speak Spanish?
“Si.”
“Eres perfecta.” He grinned menacingly. “My clients will love you.”
He reached in his pocket and fished out a key chain. He reached over you and unlocked your cuff.
You rolled your wrist to try and get your blood circulating again.
“On your feet.”
You complied and stood up. Your legs were shaky.
He grasped your wrist, hard enough so you couldn’t wriggle free but not hard enough to leave a mark. He started dragging you across the room.
With his free hand he undid the four locks on the large steel door and pulled your through it. Once on the other side he took care to lock them all again, keeping a firm grasp on you the whole time.
You were dragged down a long, narrow corridor towards another steel door, this one with just one lock on.
He slid the key in and opened it, pulled you inside and locked it behind him.
The room was much smaller than the one you’d been held in and only housed a single cot.
He licked his lip as he looked at you. His large, thick fingers stroked your cheek and you had to try and hide your disgust.
“En la cama. Ahora.”
On the bed. Now.
You had to pick the opportune moment. You had to plan this just right. You had no doubt he had a gun on him so if you faltered even slightly, he would kill you.
“Qué tal esto.”
How about this.
You made a show of licking your lips and then dropping to your knees in front of him.
“Whoa, feisty. I like it.” He grinned, his meaty hands going to his belt buckle.
Yes. Right where you wanted him.
While he was fumbling with his belt, you reached your hand back into your left boot, drawing your gun in one swift move.
You head butted him in the crotch, sending him stumbling backwards, crying out in pain.
“Mierda!” Shit. “Usted puta!”
You whore!
You were on your feet in a second, your gun trained on him.
“You will never hurt another woman again.” You spat, furious tears suddenly streaming from your eyes.
He looked up at you, his mouth opened to speak.
But the words didn’t come out as your bullet hit him between the eyes.
“Who’s the puta now?”
***
“I would say,” Spencer chewed his lip. “You did what you had to do to survive.”
You breathed a sigh of relief.
Thank god.
“Thank you.” You smiled softly. “And I did. If I hadn’t shot him, who knows how many other women would have died.”
Spencer pushed his chair back and stood up.
“Just so you know, we got word from the hospital a little while ago. Roberta Suez, Delilah, is going to be just fine.”
“Oh thank god.” You felt tears brimming your eyes.
He opened the door and turned back to you.
“Are you coming?”
“I can leave?”
“You were never under arrest.” He smirked at you.
You couldn’t help but laugh.
You got up from the chair and Spencer motioned you out of the room.
“I’ll walk you out.” He showed you across the bullpen towards the elevators. There was an awkward air between the two of you.
Did you say anything? It didn’t seem as though he remembered you, was it worth reminding him?
He motioned you into the elevator first and he followed, pressing the button.
The elevator started its descent.
Time was running out.
“So uhm…” Spencer turned to you and turned too. “How’s your mom?”
A smile broke out on your features.
“I didn’t think you remembered me.”
“Are you kidding?” He laughed. “I recognised you the second you walked in.”
“It’s been twenty years.” You laughed.
“Eighteen years, seven months.” He corrected you. “But I could never forget your face.”
You blushed a little, averting your gaze.
“My moms doing ok. Thanks for asking. How’s your mom?” You looked back at him.
“Recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.” He told you sadly.
“Oh gosh I’m so sorry.”
“It’s ok. These things happen.” He shrugged. “Made it to thirty without having a schizophrenic break but now I have to wait until I’m older to find out if I’ll develop Alzheimer’s.”
The doors to the elevator opened and you stepped out, Spencer close behind.
“I really am sorry Spencer.”
“It’s ok.” He shrugged. “Is your mom still at Bennington? I used to see her when I went to visit my mom but I moved her out a little while ago.”
“Yeah she’s still there. She likes being close to my dad.”
You both hovered by the exit, not ready to say goodbye.
“Can I take you for coffee? If you don’t have anywhere else to be.” Spencer blushed as he spoke.
“I’d like that. A lot actually. But I’d really like to shower and change out of this getup.” You laughed. “How about dinner?”
“Dinner sounds perfect.” He grinned at you.
You gave him a smile and turned to leave but before you made it to the door Spencer spoke again.
“Y/N,” he called your name, his voice cracking a little. “You uh...you forgot something.”
You turned to face him curiously.
He walked closer to you and without a second thought, placed his hands on your face and kissed you.
For a second you stood frozen, in shock of what was going on.
But after a few moments you wrapped your arms around his neck and opened your mouth to deepen the kiss.
When the kiss ended you were both smiling at one another.
“What was that for?” You asked softly.
“Oh you know…” he shrugged with a coy smile. “Just something that needed to be done.”
“I’ll meet you back here in a few hours.” You told him, touching his chest briefly.
“Ok.”
“Bye Spencer Reid.”
“Bye Y/N Y/L/N.” He croaked.
And with that you sauntered out the doors but not out of his life.
***
Las Vegas, Nevada - 1999
“Spencer?” You’d only made it a few paces away from Bennington before you stopped in your tracks, calling his name. “You uh...you forgot something.”
He turned to face you curiously.
You walked closer to him and without a second thought, placed your hands on his face and kissed him.
He stood frozen, in shock of what was going on.
It was just a brief kiss, Spencer was too confused to do anything but stand there dumbly.
“Wh-what was that for?” He swallowed.
“Just something that needed to be done.” You smiled. “Bye Spencer Reid.”
“Bye Y/N Y/L/N.”
And with that you sauntered back down the street, hoping that one day, the universe would lead you back into each other’s lives.
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• JENIFER “JEN” MARLOWE •
IG Info/bio: @/justjenw1n | 220k followers | Fashion | just a LUVer who owns a lovely blog that you’re more than welcome to check out here... astoldbyjenmarlowe.co.uk 🪞🛍🪄
22 (24) (25 in 2021) years of age
From London, England
Her family has French origins
Tends to visit once a year mainly with her family
For her 18th bday, her parents also sent her to Paris with her bf that she’s been dating since she was 14
they broke up since he wanted to stay in Paris to pursue his dreams and she felt like she needed to be back home...which she felt Paris was not
Extremely close to her parents, some may say a little TOO close...
See, I feel like jen comes from a family that spoils her where her parents did everything and took care of everything for her. She had the privilege and didn’t have to work too hard to get things she wanted so that made her a little bit different than a few of her friends, hell—even her bf
Didn’t have to work until she reached her twenties
She also didn’t have too many friends because her parents felt like her cousins and/or her sibs were really only allowed to hold that title
However her parents had some sort of a soft spot for her when they allowed her to date her bf at 14 since he came from a nice background...
And to have at least 1-2 best friends...
I can’t decide if I see her having 3 other sibs with her being the second eldest, or her being the eldest with a younger sister? I can also see her being a only child too? Idk y’all can decide
Because her family is a tight knit one, she values everything they say and do...which is canon/evident
She got her thigh tattoo in Paris and even thought about asking her parents permission but her bf talked her out of it
she later showed them that night while he was in the shower. Her mother openly disapproved saying it was, “unladylike or unclean” while her father was more lenient towards it 
Her mother even scheduled her for laser appointments but this was one of the things jen was sure of, she loved her tattoo and she didn’t want to erase it from her body which led to her mother not speaking to her for about a month—even tho they live in the same household
I feel like she looks more like her dad with her mom’s hair and smile
Got into fashion due to her maternal grandmother who seemed to live a extravagant life as a old time actress, she always had and owned the finest of things
Jen loved having sleepovers there, it felt like she had her own personal Liz Taylor inside of her nan...but better!
Definitely found inspiration through Liz Taylor, Kate Moss, Victoria Beckham, and Naomi Campbell
she had no clue what she wanted to do in life (she never had to think too hard about it until now, it’s true what they say about your twenties) and she made the choice not to continue thru with uni & I’m not going to make her out to be the stereotypical “dumb blonde” I think she did well in school—so she kinda just chilled after it was all over
Her first job at 20 was probably working in retail where she learned all about the bs you put up with but she loved clothes! That never changed
So she decided 6 months into her job that she was going to make a fashion blog
she made one separate from her tumblr but kept it under construction since she needed to brain storm what exactly this blog would entail
It didn’t take too long to her to figure it out by how she wanted the blog to look then discussing pieces from celebs/models then slowly discussing her own wardrobe + advice
She didn’t immediately gain success for it —altho she did have a good 1k people follow her thru her tumblr where she also provided the link to her separate blog... but she worked/works hard at it, hoping one day it’ll get her somewhere and that maybe she can get paid for it too?
Retail fucking sucks and people are horrible twats so when she was approaching 21 she deff quit with her parents still hammering...more so her dad on what she needs to do with her life but she found happiness in her blog and no one was going to take that away from her —not even her parents
‘What’s the use of working if it doesn’t make you happy?’ She thinks but again! she has the privilege of living under her parents roof and not having to pay bills so she didn’t have to worry too much rn she knows they’d never kick her out right?
she has two bunnies named “bugsy” and “Lola”—u know the reference right?
I feel like she values the flinstones & jetsons because it was something her dad loved watching as a kid and still does , probably has the dvds showcased in her room that she watches when she feels sad
Seems like a smiley person but when she’s sad? It kinda sucks to see cause she turns into a whole different person and she always seems happy with a smile so wide that turns her eyes squinty
If she disagrees with something, she’s 100% giving her opinion whether you like it or not? Wrong is wrong. But when the shoe is on the other foot? She hates being wrong LOL or doesn’t view herself being wrong. Doesn’t take accountability well...at all!
She’s also showed her ass by being a gossiper and fake as hell with Allegra about mc with the whole, “let’s pretend like we’re there for her” if you’re not fucking with somebody just say that or SHOW it sis cause that snakey shit will come back to bite you in the ass (I forgot about this lol as I’m replaying)
she’s all “mega resting bitch face” until she breaks out into a large smile
Libra sun? + Virgo moon? + Gemini rising?
I feel like she only knows what she wants when it comes to relationships but not with the rest of life?
Lol she was very determined with levi in the beginning, explored shit with jake, (I can’t remember if that was after you/mc showed a interest in him or not in that route? I’m doing a talia/Rohan route rn But that’s kinda foul if she’s smiling in ur face and then boom goes and does what she wants but hey that’s the game right? Fck that tho) and then stood by Tim after only some time?
She wasn’t feeling him in the beginning either cause he thought she was too posh for him and snakey which he’s right to some degree but she’s also right if she finds him too immature for her liking
To you jim? Ten? Stans— Idk what their ship name is but it probably wouldn’t have worked out in the long run either because I don’t see both of them wanting to change themselves completely to satisfy the other. (Tim tried) Sure if you’re showing unhealthy behaviors and are open to diminishing that for yourself then trying to work on your relationship then that’s great! But they already started from the jump not liking each other’s personalities/characteristics....
And hey! Ofc I know people grow to like things they might have disliked about you in the beginning but you can also find yourself not fully accepting it in a relationship and that doesn’t mean you didn’t try
+ it’s been hinted at that they’re not endgame & if you love yourself some Tim not platonically then this works in ur favor. if not? Then you can keep them endgame by all means! For me? That endgame shit is a no! For those that don’t gaf about either of them that’s fine too lmao
YES I feel like they were both hurt over the breakup and it probably happened right around the holidays or either a couple of months after Christmas/New Years 2019
Jen is probably the type to keep checking up on her ex, not necessarily talking to them but finding out who they’re with now
and if it’s Tim with mc she’s definitely gossiping about the shit with erikah and Allegra or making shady tweets or posts on IG for sure
“5 outfits to wear when you run into your ex” type posts on her blog looool
She hopes if she runs into Tim, she’s looking her best and she would 80% go up to him & mc/his new girl if not mc and be all huggy with him and holding conversation before she even thinks to acknowledge mc/new girl and when she does it’s a shady convo with fake smiles
Absolutely loves watching housewives so she was prepared for that moment if it ever does come
Her parents openly didn’t like Tim which made him feel like shit since it seemed like jen never defended him in front of them but again, she values her parents opinion and always wants their stamp of approval that’s just the way the girl is/ was brought up
She owes them everything but deep down knows that in her relationship with Tim she could have been a little more understanding of his needs like he was with her love for her parents...but she’ll never admit that
Doesn’t get over breakups as easily as it may seem like her exes do in her opinion.
It sure didn’t take long with Tim to date mc/new girl months after they broke up! Which was like a slap in the face
The ex bf she spent time w in Paris who looks like Matthew Noszka is now engaged, lives in AMERICA—& of all places??? California to be exact, and just released his debut album!! She knows which songs are probably about her, it’s a nice album she screamed about it for hours into her pillow and cried for what felt like weeks
Lost her voice over that breakdown too
Her mother even went as far as sending a nasty letter to this ex bf’s new address...since ya know? jen’s dad is a private investigator & all!!! but dad had no knowledge of this being done
She’s still fond of Levi and jake but not like in love with them? Like she thought/felt she was with Tim but she still considers them her mates
Maybe in 2021 she’ll be open to dating again and hopes erikah and Allegra will be her wingwomen when the time comes BUT she’s focusing on her blog rn and it’s the best it’s ever been!
She had the show to thank for that now that she has a manager and is getting paid for running her blog now! That’s right this girl is officially employed!
“At least one good thing came from the show ;) 🧽🥐🥂” type of tweets
There’s never not a moment where she’s not connecting her posts whether thru ig or Twitter to her blog: astoldbyjenmarlowe.co.uk!!!
Both erikah and Allegra talk a little shit about that together...WHEN they DO talk, the pair only really socialize when jen initiates it but if one pisses the other off?? they’re going to gossip about it with the other forsure
She doesn’t look that tall to me? Taller than erikah? 5’2-5’5 the 5 is pushing it for me? Maybe? lol I’m still deciding between her and Allegra far as height and I’m too lazy to go back and see what I put for her
Hates straightening her hair, that pin straight look is not cute to her. She loves having waves and body to her hair
Get her eyebrows micro bladed since she doesn’t have much hair up there to begin with
Adores French cuisine, always has since she was a little girl. Bisque used to be her fav back then and all that she would eat
Loves spring season especially pastel colors when it comes to her wardrobe
The type to say one thing and do the complete opposite
I feel like she probably has a little bit of lisp and it’s not really noticeable until she says some words, she’s insecure about it and thought it had something to do with the structure of her teeth and begged her parents to get them fixed but it literally had nothing to do with them
Yet she still got colorful braces in middle school even tho her teeth were pretty straight. She didn’t have to wear them for a whole year, thank goodness
Went to speech therapy to help
Has stacks of fashion magazines even from the early 90s all over her room: her night stand, her vanity, her closet, underneath her bed etc...
Adores the Hadid sisters, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, & Georgia May Jagger
Makes the best white chocolate chip (that’s right, white not just regular chocolate) banana bread but cooking/baking? Isn’t really her thing
Early riser
Loves yellow: yellow phone case, yellow laptop, yellow room, yellow tulips, yellow shades, etc...
Getting Prada shades was probably one of the best things that happened to her, s/o to her nan for granting her this wish
Words of affirmation is her love lanaguage, this girl is a talker and a bit of a thinker too I mean duh? She runs a blog
Likes bright colors on her toes but nude and clear polish on her hands?
Loves a good mascara but she also loves magnetic lashes but is trying her best to grow her lashes out rn! Thanks to erikah for sending her some good ol’ coconut oil!
Smokey eyes? Set her up
Gets a belly ring, and two more tatts one in between her boobs and the last on her ankle & that one she shed a tear over!
Maybe she’ll start changing her physical attributes more so than the way she carries her life at first? (Or ever) She’ll cut her hair below her collarbone to the top of her chest, and maybe she’ll try a light light LIGHT brunette (she loves being a natural blonde) with blonde highlights? Who knows
loves espadrilles and wedge sandals
Loves going wine tasting and visiting vineyards, if she’s vacationing? You can bet ur ass she’s looking for a vineyard to visit
Deff a lightweight
Here’s her unpopular opinions on s2: Thought Felix was a wannabe Tim and hates the fact that he follows her, thought graham was unattractive and said so to Allegra who snickered, thought marisol’s clothing choices were rather boring,
didn’t feel 100% bad for Hannah but disagrees with the way Gary and noah spoke about her + the way Gary tried to slide back over to Hannah on her comeback episode
but doesn’t feel like Lottie is wrong for choosing Gary after Hannah left
isn’t a fan of priya but is glad she’s doing fashion since jen strongly believes in if something isn’t making u happy then u need to let it go
Thinks Hope should have won and cannot tolerate Bobby. Feels he’s WORSE than Felix,
would be open to dating Ibrahim or Carl from that szn
has spoken to Harry from s3 due to his drunkenness and actually made a friend out of him? But low key wants to get to know seb? Take that info as u will 👀
Her anthem: Michelle — SUNRISE
#litg#litg jen#litg tim#litg mc#litg oc#litg erikah#litg Allegra#litg Levi#litg jake#litg headcanons#litg headcanon#litg moodboard#happy new year lol I I’m back at it?#personally didn’t hate her but also wasn’t crazy about her after she said that shit cause it’s like? I can’t trust anything u say#yet Idk why I feel like Allegra will try to regrow herself first over jen#jen just seems like she’s stuck in her ways idk#litg2#litg s2#litg3#Litg harry#litg seb
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Hello! I am sorry to bother you but I am a senior getting ready for college this year. I am in the US and I wanted to major in the same thing you did, do you have any possible tips for me? I still haven't even looked for colleges that would be best for animation majors so I figured if you were up to giving out any tips/saying any basic ideas if you wanted to/if you had the time to then maybe I'll have a better idea! I apologise for if I sound weird! I'm tried to word it correctly but I can't 😿
hi!! i’m totally down to share my experiences! someone else also had some questions so i’m going to put them all together in this post haha, hopefully this helps! it’ll get pretty long so apologies ahead of time but art school is a lot to think about so i wanna be as helpful as i can around it, its a lot of time and money. I’m gonna put it all under a read more cus it is really really long!
i wanna start off with the fact that I had the privilege of attending school in a financially stable environment, my parents were/are really supportive so w merit scholarship i only came out with around 20-30k in debt and i also had housing support my entire time in school. they were ok with me focusing on academics so i didn’t hold a retail job unless i was out of school like summer/winter break. Ofc though i regularly take commissions/do merch/cons to try and pay for all bills that arent rent cus i did want to be financially independent where it was possible. I also did try and work during the semester but everytime i did my body would deff start to breakdown from the fact that i didnt wanna compromise schoolwork with jobs.. so just read ahead know this experience is from a student who was able to attend focusing only on school work for most of the time!
the biggest thing is knowing art school is not required to become a professional in either freelancing or industry! there are a huuuge amount of online tools and classes these days that provide the exact same education and for cheaper too. i think it depends on what experience you prefer/can handle/want but it’s definitely possible to make art/animation art your living without higher education. the thing that college will for sure give you though is the ability to meet deadlines, work even when you dont want to, and connections with peers+teachers. i think the connections part is invaluable because you’re basically coming out with a network of people you already know and who know you!
also its good to know if you want to attend/can handle art school! it’s a lot of time and energy and students get burned out really fast. the best piece of advice i got before going was ‘if you draw every single day, even if its for only like 5-10 minutes or a doodle for a whole year you should be fine’ consistency is super key because you’re attending school to draw, and you’ll have to create work for stuff you aren’t excited for at some point or another. burnout is extremely real and the only reason i didn’t experience it was probably because i got super into drawing naruto fanart again inbetween sophomore and junior year! it helped give me something to draw seperated from school which is the only thing i was drawing for since i had entered rip. a heads up id also consider myself a workaholic so i fit in ok with the ‘art school’ environment but it is suuper unhealthy. if you are fantastic at managing your schedule then it’s definitely possible to take care of yourself! freshman year i got 8 hours a sleep a night and only pulled all nighters for some second semester finals at the end. sophomore year + up though i ended up prioritizing hw over sleep and like for sure, definitely shortened my life span. there’s another q down below where i’ll go more into detail but ya, be careful w ur work balance!
another tip especially for animation is knowing for a fact what type of animation you’re looking to go into, and what the school is offering. I didn’t think i’d get into art school at the time so i only applied to two places + decided if i didnt get into either id attend community to get credits out of the way while building portfolio. honestly? i did not do a lot of research LOL but like i did end up having the chance to tour and stuff! just know that each school will have a very different curriculum. The main differences are schools that prioritize 3D (cg animation, cg modeling, ect) and 2D/traditional (hand drawn, ‘oldschool’, digital or traditional based) this is a huge difference so make sure you do research for it! in most cases a 2D/traditional program will also offer 3D since it’s at the forefront of the industry animation wise rn. My school taught 2D but like hand drawn on physical paper 2D, frame by frame. while it was a good experience it’s super outdated because digital tools make it way faster + easier! i’d recommend looking for a program that is digital 2D over traditional 2D.
if after your senior year covid is still affecting campuses in the US to keep them shut down i’d recommend attending a community college to get credits and then transferring into school. one of the negatives is paying money for gened classes when ur not there for them; if you can get them out of the way sooner and cheaper there is absolutely no negative + you could graduate earlier or use the extra time for better work or to work a job!
these are all the general tips i think i’d give on like a broad basis of attending or not to think about? let me know if u have more q’s! someone asked q’s im answering below that go more into personal experiences + work culture so heres those:
- how many hours a week do u spend studying, in class, otherwise making art? like how much of ur life does it consume?
I was basically working on art.... 24/7! since i wasnt working a job at the same time i crammed as many credits as possible into my schedule so on avg i did 18 credit semesters (around 6 classes) art classes go for 6 hours and non art go for 3, so i’d spent around 30-35 hours in class a week! hw wise it varied on the class but combined it would be around 35-50 hours a week... im guessing? on average studio classes would have 8-10 hours of hw, maybe 5 for a light week, and gened classes 5 hours w them all combined. or this was probably how things were before junior year? junior+senior year i had thesis + everything else ontop.. i’d spend around 30-40 hours on thesis a week with other classes ontop of that bc my film was super long cus im a dummy!
- is it hard going to art school n realising that altho u were probably quite talented… so is everyone else? Like. all of a sudden. ur not special and everyone seems as good as u, you know? More generally, how do u deal with comparison?
kinda?? i think instead of the idea of like you vs others it feels more of like a competition at first to be the best. this varies hugely on school culture though; my animation year was really friendly with each other and get along extremely well, so my answer to this is v different than some others who attended different schools. i think that the idea of ‘comparison’ only lasts a portion of the first year because at some point you realize that it’s not a who’s better as much as its a ‘these are my coworkers’ type thing? like healthy competition 100% because we’re all working to improve but i think most of us learned pretty early on that viewing each other as peers going into the same workforce helped a lot. also at some point everyone develops their own style/starts to develop their artistic preferences so there isn’t a way to compare whos 'better’ anymore? i dont think there ever is tbh because style is appealing based off of an individuals preferences. If anything realizing everyone else is also amazing makes you wanna work harder ig? or thats how i felt! it’s inspiring to be surrounded by so many people who create such amazing work.
- is there a lot of workaholic culture? all nighter culture?
100000% there can be a workaholic and all nighter culture. i know people who avoided it and thats honestly fantastic because i fall super easily into that pit. sometimes i’ll pull all nighters on a personal project just because i really want to finish it... i am definitely considered a workaholic all the way through and its not healthy rip... i’d estimate at the worst i was pulling 2-3 all nighters a week and only 4-5 hours of sleep on the nights i didn’t? that was only for one year tho, after that i was like yeah ok this is really bad for my health in the long run LOL so i tried to cut it down to one all nighter a week and around 5-6 hours of sleep the rest of the week! by senior year my decision to cram in full semesters paid off and i was able to consistently get around 7 hours of sleep a night + no all nighters minus finals since my schedule was lighter despite thesis 😭 while there is that culture i don’t think people view it as like a badge of honor or something to be proud of anymore which is good, we mostly view it as a flaw of the art school system and something that needs to be fixed!!
- are you glad u did it? how did u know it was what u wanted?
i am glad i did it! i’m definitely in a limbo right now of if it was worth both my time, money, and my parents money rip but i think with what i got out of it i definitely wouldn’t be as far skill wise or knowledge wise when it comes to the art industry. i would say it was only worth it for be because i had so much support going in though so i was able to focus so much on improving. if i had only been able to put in part of the effort and not make full use of the resources provided i would honestly have a different answer..
i knew it was what i wanted when i realized i really couldn’t see myself pursuing a different profession happily! despite all the bumps and stuff im fully in love with drawing still and feel honored that it’s a field that can provide a living. my second profession choice was to go into culinary school? and third option i think going was into music cus i was also a band kid hehe.
- how do u cope with ur hobby becoming ur job? how do u deal with art going from something u do for fun to something u do on command constantly?
i think seperating work art from personal art is important! in my case im doubling naruto into being personal work so i have something to fall back onto that isn’t work related. its been a hyperfixation for 12+ years? so drawing it at this point is just like personal art imo. some people have hobbies outside of art and only draw for their job! i think after attending classes for so long the idea of hobby turning into job feels extremely natural? also i enjoy doing it so thats a huge plus!
sorry this is SO long but i hope i answered your guys’ questions! if you have more just lmk!
#anon#ask#long post#im so so sorry this is like long as shit#ill literally tell you guys everything though art school should not feel like a mystery esp if ur planning to go into it!#Anonymous
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why noah centineo is problematic? i rlly don't know nothing
np! tldr; a lot of white privilege. low-key racism. sorta brownface. more like… claiming to be latino and taking latinx roles when he knows he’s not. also he supports logan paul.
also i got a little carried away but also, in addition to being problematic, i really- i don’t get the hype.
1. noah played jesus in the fosters, a role that was explicitly latinx, replacing jake t austin (a puerto rican n argentinian actor (edit: thanks anon)). this is wrong bc noah centineo has no latinx/latine ancestry– and we know this bc he has a fairly in-depth genealogical profile.
shortly after he got the role, he started saying shit like the “I’m Italian, Native American. I believe I have a bit of Puerto Rican in me, and I’m Dutch.” but ethnicelebs says
[source] which is as close as a read as ur going to get. just bc u have brown hair and brown eyes, doesn’t mean you’re latino and you can take roles away from latino actors. of course, his racial ambiguity has profited him, but literally?? it’s rough being a real poc. him pretending to be latinx just so he can get a paycheck and continuing to lie about who he is to keep up appearances is… upsetting when everyone else doesn’t get to wash off our color or cultural experience when we go home.
2. this is just more white privilege, but noah centineo just called logan paul a “beautiful man” and talked about how much logan paul has grown in the face of adversity. (link) bruh. logan paul literally just called by glaad this month for insensitive statements (link). for a bitch who made his fame literally being carried by lana condor’s talented asian ass, you would think noah would understand that its not about the growth. stop patting white ppl on the back for not even being less shitty, but less open about your shittiness.
like im asian so ig i take it hard but watching logan paul in japan literally accessorize with asian bodies, living and dead, was so upsetting. bc like- u know ur not respected, okay? i’m looking online for someone who can put it better than i can and the best one i can find is here (most relevant is 1:30 and on). it just- logan paul doesn’t respect asian people. and to see noah centineo not only just be like… he’s doing better than he was (which is fine imo), but to be literally kiss his feet? like nahhh
look. ofc logan paul can grow from these mistakes.but like. he’s still doing such terrible shit. and for noah centineo like to openly support and view these things as ‘growth’, either he’s really dumb and/or he doesn’t think what logan paul did is wrong.
either way. he has no place in my heart.
3. he also claims to have native american ancestry. this isn’t necessarily reason enough to ban him, as many people genuinely do not understand the basics of tribal identity and think that their great-grandmother or some other distant relation was native. but please read up here about pretendians and the harm they cause to the native american/indigenous community. regardless if you decide to cancel noah centineo or not, please never ever play him as native.
4. on a lighter note, this isn’t even problematic, but its a problem. have you seen his tweets? i have an OUT-OF-BODY experience every time i see him thinking about his tweets. is there a school for pretentious dumb yt boys trying to appeal to a young girl demographic. every musical.ly user does this and we cringe. but noah- noah, this chinless 22 year old yt privilege bih w/ a stunning career that is on the rise (even tho i watched him in tatbilb and he did literally… nothing… like i really i don’t know what the hype is), i… he leaves me breathless. he keeps me up at night, making me wonder why he does these things. who is he tweeting at. no, not even that. who is he, at all. what does he want. what does he gain from vague tweeting like this.
i’ll close with a few of them.
its heartbreaking that you think that your racial ambiguity is something, noah that u can capitalize on when you’re not an ally to asian people, latinos or just poc in general. ur taking our roles and promoting people who don’t treat us the way we deserve to be treated.
if you made it this far, i’m serious, here’s a reminder that i’m not telling you to cancel him. only you should decide if he’s ‘problematic’ enough for you to cancel. i always advocate for people making their own opinions on other’s actions.
however, he’s staying banned on my list, bc … yeah :/
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why r u called dragon or yang if ur white? not trying to be aggressive but like if those r names u chose for urself u might wanna check that white privilege
I appreciate that you’re not trying to be aggressive, but I think you and I need to have a frank conversation about the assumptions made in this ask and nature of the question you are asking me.
My response is under the cut (sorry mobile peeps, I have a lot to say)
I think the biggest thing I have to address before I get into the history and semantics of my url is that first and foremost, I am not 100% white, anon. I’m white-passing, so I understand the confusion, especially since I’ve only recently taken to using my own face as my icon instead of art. I don’t fault you for that, since cameras historically have been machinated to function and read pale skin better and the lighting I have in my icon and the header image of my blog when you view it from the dashboard helps wash my skin out. Color and light theory work against showing my skin tone a lot of times, so unless I’m in direct sunlight wearing things that bring the color balance of a photo to black, I’ll look white, especially if it’s been a while since I’ve gotten any substantial sunlight. That said, I do experience a very conditional privilege as a white-passing person, but my passing is entirely dependent on how I as a person am read by other people. I have had everything from “hey you’re exotic [because of your race]” to “oh hello fellow person of my ethnicity” and been racially profiled by the police despite having security clearance at my place of work. Somewhere there’s two photos of me with my mom’s and dad’s sides of the family respectively and I’m either the darkest child in that photo or the lightest one. That holds true even now as a young adult, I’m almost always whiter than any Latinx people I know and at least have more saturated color in my skin than any white people I know. That’s all IRL, though. Online, I can easily just state my ethnicity if I choose to and people accept it, because the internet is a great equalizer in terms of first impressions. It’s not my skin or my voice or how my eyes are too light to belong to a Latina girl, it’s the words I use and I am judged by my character rather than the race somebody thinks I am. That said, this is the first time somebody’s assumed my ethnicity online, which is why I’m taking the time to reply to this the way that I am, anon, because I feel this could be a beneficial experience to you and to other mixed people out there who face the same questions and accusations and assumptions as I do. I am too white and too dark, I am commodified as exotic and therefore sexy to some, I’m “one of the good ones”, I have been asked if I wear color contacts (I don’t, but that’s a surprise to far too many people), I have a running list on countries/ethnicities people have guessed because they think they can pin down exactly where I am from (spoiler, I was born in the USA). Fundamentally, I am not white, but I can seem like it. I can be as affable as a proper Midwest-raised girl can be, but that doesn’t change that when people say “all the Mexicans should go back where they came from” they are speaking about me as well. They just don’t realize it. It’s not their fault that they don’t know my ethnicity, just as it’s not yours, but it doesn’t change the fact that assumptions can breed danger for me, because now if I don’t act correctly, I could become a target for racially-fueled vitriol or sexual harassment. Again, it’s not inherently your fault for assuming that you knew my ethnicity, but I strongly recommend you do not do this in the future to me or anybody in your life. If there is someone in your life who does not mind answering such questions, then speak with them, and my inbox/IM is always open to discuss things off anon if you have further questions.
Now that that’s out of the way, I’m going to address your primary question: “why r u dragon or yang”. I’m guessing that you meant to type “of” instead of “or”, but just in case you meant “or” that’s what this paragraph is going to address. Dragons are not culturally or ethnically closed mythical beasts the way that the Native American Thunderbird is or how Hinduism is a closed religion. Dragons and other great serpents have existed as a concept pretty much everywhere humans have, and I have a very close spiritual tie to dragons and commune with them whenever I partake in my witchcraft.
That said, “dragonofyang” is a username I’ve used for the past 10-ish years, originally stemming from when I joined DeviantART at the age of 13. I’ve since deactivated the account since I hadn’t touched it in over five years, but when I joined, I was taking my first forays into paganism and was absolutely blown away by the gods, the concept of the five elements, spells, how the yin and yang symbolized balance and how it wasn’t just a religious concept but a way of life. On that site I took my first forays into Wicca and spoke with many witches, all of whom encouraged me to explore my spirituality and taught me many things about safety in practice, stealthing to avoid judgment by closed-minded religious folks, and how enriching it is to have a personal or working relationship with a pantheon or single deity/spirit guide. If I’m being perfectly honest, it’s also a remnant of my edgy phase because I really wanted the username “DragonofDarkness” but that as you can guess was taken already, but in my research to find something that described my new phase in life I got very deep into the symbolism of yin and yang, at least as deep as a 13-year-old with limited internet knowledge could get. Yang is the bright, it’s the bold, it’s the daytime and it harbors a bit of cold, of dark, of nighttime within it, but that makes it richer. Ever since I was little I’ve always been fascinated by magic, and this was a new take on how the world worked that my little kid mind was just blown away. Naturally, being a bit of an edgelord, I misunderstood it as a principle and focused on how deep and dark I really was underneath, ya know, typical 3edgy5me shit, but as I’ve grown, I’ve come to accept that yeah there’s some shit in my life that hurt me or was bad, it doesn’t overshadow the good and I’ve stopped trying to be an asshole because that’s actually not as cool or deep as people try to make it. I look at my username and I see how I’ve grown as a person, from somebody who doesn’t understand the concept of balance very well or where my spiritual journey would take me and I look at myself now as somebody who’s made but a few steps further in the road to life. I look at my username and remember that yang means the sun, the light and that without the yin, growth would not have happened.
My username also has some ties to my current spiritual practice, though less overt, because my patron deity is the dragon god Quetzalcoatl. Dragons in Mexico represent the sun, and jaguars represent the night, and in my practice, both dragons and jaguars have made themselves apparent to me, and in a sense they balance each other out in a way similar to the yin-yang symbol. I felt the call to Quetzalcoatl about six years ago now and I have much to learn from him still, but he’s continued to teach me about balance, in the day and night, in the human and the animal, in the violent and the peaceful. I’ve come a long way from being some edgy 13-year-old kid, thankfully, but I know my journey isn’t over.
That being said, if my username is offensive and a misuse of a Taoist symbol (such as if it’s a closed religion and use of its symbols when you aren’t initiated is offensive), I’d like to speak with Taoists directly and learn how and why so that I might not offend in the future, especially since I’m unsure if Dao jiao/Dao jia are closed a religion/philosophy. But it’s also been my online name for 10 years now and I’d have to change it on many platforms in order to fully rescind my offense, and if possible I’d like that sort of change to be as unobtrusive as possible because many people know me primarily or exclusively by this username. So unless I come to a point personally where I feel my username no longer suits me, or my ignorance addressed by those more educated than I, I will be keeping it. I am not the most educated person on the internet, and my resources are sometimes limited in terms of educating myself properly, so if there is something I am to learn then I request that I be taught. I am always willing to learn and better myself as a person.
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What have u just learned?
That ur body knows u better than u can rationalize it.
There are these very distinct episodes or events in my life where I took a thing too much. A little weed, a lil cigarette, a lil alcohol, and when I would explain these things, I was so aware of how full of shit I sounded, “Oh, I didn’t mean to!” But I hadn’t meant to. The thing is some of these events ran concurrent with emotionally high states and exasperated them. Not the getting lit part, but the hangovers, the paranoia, my body’s response to crossing the line. The same way certain emotional breakdowns ran concurrent with severe flu episodes. I think, it just occurred to me this morning, that they might’ve happened because I needed permission, permission to feel the underlying thing. I insist that I did not experience it like that at first at all. It was always just a shot or puff or drink too many, a mundane bit over the line. But in the way we are art and the way things have gone lately, I can see how I foretold my own future and grabbed at things that would later reveal themselves to be truly apropos, when I had thought I was simply making a mistake, and a short-sighted one.
The thing is it just happened again this morning, I just did it again. I smoked two cigarettes and got a stomachache. I had sworn to myself not to, and having been a swimmer and a runner before the pandemic, I still identify as such. I was trying to fend off negative feelings and judgement of myself over it, and it turns out, my period had just come in the interim.
So I asked myself, why did I rationalize impending cramps as shame? Previously, I had rationalized the physical and emotional pain as coincidental, and that therefore, they were at least equal in strength. But now, I think I just learned to not be so hard on myself. To be careful with my sentiments. To take it easy. I think the Catholic in me is always just ready with the shame and everything latches on to it. In a moment like that, like this, being kind to myself means that pain should be listened to first before it is explained because at my hands is a language that’s trying to explain a phenomenon, myself, which is much greater than it. My relationship to how I treat my body is much more important than judging myself for a moment of weakness or wanting to feel a little bit of recklessness during this global pandemic. And yeah, its collective trauma but I’m not gonna call it that. I want to call it, from my point of view, collective permission. A collective code switch.
Most of us are in contact with that which we don’t like, and I believe in rants. Rant is my middle name. But I also understand that the people who we are ranting about because they are or aren’t taking advantage of the new circumstances, those people who don’t take up a new skill or the new influx of sex workers, I also want to add that those people we are judging might already know this on some level, and that’s where the code switching comes in. It’s about privilege. For example, a local music producer and what I call a sort of archivist was going on about how there’s no excuse now not to learn a new instrument or skill, as he is a champion of this school of thought. Personally, I have been practicing a more anti-hustle mindset in favor of rest, but as a person of skin color privilege, what can I learn from him as a black man? Let him be! He’s a very particular person, and besides, while I understand the value of rest, and my mom in particular should fucken rest, I really, really, really don’t want to act like our millennially-learned way of being is the most high for all marginalized people. Yes, rest benefits all generations, but migration’s way of living gave us everything we have. Leave them alone, leave us alone. There’s a pro and con to them both. None of this is helping me deal with a parent who can’t stop and will actually rebel against me trying to care for her.
Another person who went on an important rant was a Black sex worker who was talking about the new influx of people joining to make easy money. As a person of skin color privilege, how do I move with them? I look at my experience and make it so I agree, because she’s not wrong. I totally 100% get the rant because I, myself, went on a rant where I sort of wished harm on the newbies. That for better or worse, yall will learn today. But I will also add that I’ve never not heard a sex worker say they wanted to try another line of sex work business because they thought it would be easier. We could play bingo with that. Many of us enter the business thinking that to some degree. I say this for myself and for the people I’ve worked with. I say this as someone who first learned of the sex worker communities on tumblr before venturing into the clubs myself and found that there was a huge gap between the two. I have yet to find an in-person place that was as hardcore as them, social justice-wise.
This is why its difficult for me to agree that a revolution is coming because there’s always a gap, and not everyone understands that. They think, we think that distance means we can get away with something and pretend its not there, which it does, unfortunately. But it also means dissonance, and that u are looking away from the thing that is actually right next to u and that sometimes u share with someone very different than u. That’s not the kind of body we should be building. The revolution without this will not be inclusive for me and I know it will not be for others.
Its been right next door, the revolution and what precedes it, and we just pretended not to know what was going on. We heard the screams, we heard the death. I know that we learn new shit all the time, and I’m also ranting here, but it just helps me, personally, to resituate things, deconstruct, recontextualize. I’ve been waiting for a revolution to happen a long time using many different frames and lenses. When I was younger, I used to go to a lot of protests and it always felt like the revolution was going to happen any moment now. I’m just not for the kind of language that makes me feel good about it anymore, not only, as if its going to happen widely. I have a steady full time job now for the first time in, like, ever, and it’s a job I hate and I’m happy. If that’s not the cherry on top of cynicism, I don’t know what is. Right now, in this moment in history, in this dynamic, frightening moment in history, I am finally free-ish. I’m often not on the same page as others so that’s where my lesson is from. The revolution is illusive because it goes by another name.
I think the revolution is a collective permission to perhaps to not be on the same page. At least it is mine. Collectively, I think permission is in some ways subtle, and it will take a long time to get it together, but the revolution also involves something as big as knowing that the president was going to, that this was going to happen a second term. How did we not see this coming? That the good people don’t strike back like that, we so far haven’t, and the longer u insist that u will, its already gone, that method no longer exists for u, for me. And I think I just learned something else.
It takes so little to ruin everything, and it takes so much to fix it. I think that while people are good and deserve love, that dissonance points to the truth of our nature. We are infinitely destructive beings, and it would help me to move forward on my education and building with that in mind. It doesn’t have to be a bad thing. I love people who have different roles in our community, but we’re all on different parts of our journey. It has served me better to accept that than be mad at one another during a nationally mismanaged crisis, at people who I share something with.
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im just. so dead tired of people out here really thinking that straight people even care about aces at all. like i cant believe exclusionists still actually try that “uhh you’re valid though!” shit when theyre constantly equating being ace as hetero points(tm) on your sexuality card. ‘oh yeah yall ur valid but also ur basically straight and should just go hang out with the straight ppl!’ smhhh like ill be fucking real to you if you are a gay exclusionist you should especially know damn well what its like to tell a straight person you dont wanna have sex with them. they hate it. they hate us. they will get violent. they will pressure us. they rape us. that is Not a safe place for us.
on top of that, they genuinely dont even view us like we’re any ‘less gay’ or something. hets don’t understand it and won’t accept it if its an identity besides het, i thought that was obvious lmao. its the same to them. we’re forced into therapy to fix us, raped to fix us, everyone wants to fix us. people arent punished by society for specifics, nobody says god hates pans, polys and androgynes, you are punished if you arent cishet. whether or not your warped fucking mind thinks aces are straight, straight people dont, therefore we are not accepted by them. and if you listened and even just Pretended to care about our experiences you would understand that, but yall literally won’t take in anything that doesn’t back up your discourse. anything that makes it look like we’re struggling is ignored and brushed off. wiped from the record every time its brought up. doesnt matter didnt happen i dont care. We’re not allowed to look vulnerable.
and the problem is, we are so vulnerable right now. im sorry but the only reason we’re not this dictionary definition of oppression you guys have is bc we’re literally too invisible, and erasure aint privilege when the 25% of people that Do know what you are fucking hate you and think your sexuality is biologically impossible and a mental illness. we’re not accepted by straight people, not accepted by lgbt+ people, we have no support system. saying “go take care of yourselves” is another way of saying go be silent and ignorable. its not how a community works, if only the people that are a part of it support themselves theyre a sitting fucking duck. we have no awareness, no support, nothing and no one on our side but ourselves. if you have no allies you have no system. its literally just a blatant attempt by everyone to push us onto someone else so they dont have to care about us. its hellish and the loneliest ive ever felt with my identity to date.
most importantly just stop fucking telling us where to go, what to do, how to identify, etc. if you wanted us out of your community that bad then you need to stay in your own lane. you literally dont have a right to tell us what to do with ourselves. it was never your place but especially not now. i dont care what your discourse is, aces have valid problems that deserve peoples attention and support. whether we’re traumatized aces or aces with mental disabilities or just ace because we’re fucking ace, we’re out here alone and struggling and if you refuse to listen to our pleas for any form of positive attention from you then your issues with us run far deeper than just saying you dont want us in your club. you literally dont fucking care about us. we’re a joke to you. at least admit that
#neg/ // / // dont reblog#ace discourse/ // // /#rant// / /#long post ///#sorry i just had to vent its been a while since ive let myself even think on this stuff and i gotta get ti out of my system#im just so fuckgin tired yknow like#people out here literally not even letting us say aphobe or allo when we're like Hi we're being raped and forced into therapy can you uhhh#care about that for a sec!!!#can we put the petty bullshit on pause so we can!!!!! deal witht hat please#boostacevoices
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How YouTube Drives Shane Dawson and Other Creators to Conspiracy Theories
At the end of last month, YouTuber Shane Dawson, who has over 20.5 million subscribers, posted a video titled “Conspiracy Theories with Shane Dawson.” The video supported malevolent conspiracy theories, including ones about the California wildfires that killed more than 80 people and destroyed more than 11,000 homes.
In the nearly two-hour video, Dawson presented a series of false narratives that the wildfires were caused by either direct energy weapons, kitchen microwave explosions directed by electric companies, or people burning down their houses for insurance money. He sprinkled these videos with disclaimers that these were “theories, not facts.” Shane dropped another video titled “Investigating Conspiracy Theories with Shane Dawson” yesterday. In this video, Shane explores the conspiracy that Chuck E. Cheese’s re-serves leftover pizza to other customers (Chuck E. Cheese’s has since unequivocally denied this), and interviews a friend who alleges that she and her son almost became victims of human trafficking.
The theories about the California wildfire were presented using recycled footage and narratives from fringe, conspiracy theory-driven parts of YouTube by creators who have also been known to support anti-Semitic conspiracies theories. Dawson also tried to argue that iPhones secretly record everything that you say, which has been conclusively debunked. Dawson also promotes a conspiracy theory that the app Zepeto records its users, but the app does not use or store microphone data, according to iOS System Preferences and the app’s privacy policy.
When Motherboard looked at other conspiracy videos promoting “direct energy weapons” in California, one of them already had three comments claiming that they looked for the video because of Dawson. The same account has posted videos which claim that the Clinton family practices demon occultism.
Dawson also placed these California wildfire theories in the same video as verifiably true but unrelated things—like the existence of deepfakes (which Motherboard has covered extensively), the fact that supermarket layouts are designed to make you buy more items, and the fact that violence and suicide is common in children’s cartoons. These are not “conspiracy theories.” They’re just creepy. But their adjacency to false conspiracy theories can make them seem more legitimate by association. Dawson did not respond to Motherboard’s request for comment.
Dawson’s recent video was actually demonetized by YouTube a few hours after it was posted—but only for a day. As explained in the Verge, Dawson’s video exists in a grey area where conspiracy theories are presented as possibilities. By doing so, he avoided serious penalization by YouTube, and his video has also been rewarded by his audience. His first video has more than 30 million views at the time of publication; the second video has nearly 8 million views a day after it was posted.
Many YouTubers, including Dawson, have realized that fringe content—like conspiracy theories and far right political beliefs—are successful on the site. Because they are rewarded with engagement and views, YouTubers are incentivized to create videos that edge further and further to the extreme. This phenomenon doesn’t have an easy fix because it’s built into the structure and model of YouTube as a platform.
Becca Lewis, a political subculture researcher for internet research group Data & Society, told Motherboard that across the platform, there are incentives for YouTubers to create more extreme content.
“It can be almost impossible to parse out any one, individual influencer’s motivations,” Lewis said. “But I think it’s important to note that there are some trends on YouTube where you can see that inflammatory, or political, or conspiratorial content often drives viewership. And so there can be a direct financial motivation for content creators to make this kind of content.”
In her report “Alternative Influence: Broadcasting the Reactionary Right on YouTube,” Lewis explained that not only can YouTubers radicalize their audience, but the reverse can be true: audiences can radicalize creators and drive them to make more extreme content.
“The easy feedback systems on YouTube lead to discursive loops, in which influencers build audiences that ask for, or reward, certain types of content,” Lewis says in her report. “For many of the political influencers in the AIN, the more extremist content they make, the more of an extremist and dedicated audience they build.”
For a creator like Dawson, he may risk video demonetization with conspiracy videos, but he’s retained sponsorship deals with companies like Honey and SeatGeek, which he advertises in the videos themselves. Dawson’s conspiracy videos also get a very strong response from his audience, which can help build or reinforce their loyalty. Dawson has been making videos on YouTube for almost a decade, and his content has included vlogs, creator “challenges” like food tastings or product testings, and more recently, feature-length videos exploring particular topics or people. Yet two of his top ten videos of all time are both titled “MIND BLOWING CONSPIRACY THEORIES.”
Dawson isn’t the only YouTuber who started making more extreme content that was arguably in part driven by audience demand.
There’s also the case of Blaire White, a far right political commentator who focuses on critiquing feminism and non binary gender identities from the perspective of a transgender woman. As described in Lewis’s Alternative Influence report, White began her channel with comparatively balanced political videos which conceded to certain feminist beliefs (like male privilege.) But after collaborating with established far right YouTuber Carl Benjamin (Sargon of Akkad), her videos took a hard right turn and pivoted to the political extreme.
Interestingly, White posted a video in September titled “Why I’ve Changed (The Truth)” in which she claimed that she would stop doing far right political content—not because her belief system changed, but because of harassment, and a sentiment that people within the far right YouTube community were faking their beliefs for viewership.
“An amount of them that I’ve met that have told me either directly or indirectly or in a roundabout way that’s very clear that they don’t believe everything that they say that they believe when they’re on camera,” White said. “A lot of them just don’t believe. They’re just actors.”
Similarly, YouTuber Moe Othman started his channel about six years ago by making personality-driven blogs. Then, two years ago, he started making conspiracy theory videos. Conspiracy videos would get, on average, between 50,000-80,000 views, while non-conspiracy videos would rarely crack 10,000 views. He eventually started creating exclusively conspiracy theory content, which have sometimes received hundreds of thousands of views. (Some of these videos promoted the false direct energy weapon conspiracy theory for the California wildfires.)
Earlier this year, Othman posted a video in which he said he would be pivoting away from conspiracy theory content. Why? He claimed it was making him sad.
“Making all of those Illuminati videos that I did, it caused a lot of sadness in me,” Othman said. “And it’s weird because I already knew about all of that. I know worse than the stuff that I made in my videos. So why did making Illuminati videos make me sad? It made me lose a lot of enthusiasm, and a lot of optimism.”
Despite posting that video, Othman has continued to make conspiracy theory-related content.
According to Lewis, this pivoting back and forth may reflect a delicate tension that YouTubers are trying to balance: how do you strategically brand to the extreme to maximize viewership, not alienate too many people, and also remain authentic?
“I think that you see people in these political spaces negotiating that tension over time,” Lewis said. “Particularly with political content, it’s easy to get shoehorned into a specific grouping. So a lot of them are flirting with these extremist ideas. But at a certain point, some want wider viewership than they would get if they become known as full-on white nationalist or full-on white supremacist. So you see a lot of them negotiating these boundaries and flirting with certain ideas, or posting certain kinds of content, and later deleting that content, and going on to different kind of content.”
Lewis said that when YouTubers build up an extreme audience, they get locked into the demands of that audience. After all, if a YouTuber completely radicalizes, their audience might get bored and unsubscribe. At that point, the YouTuber would have to build an audience all over again.
She pointed to Andy Warski as an example of this risk. Warski built a reputation for having “debates” about the merits of white nationalism with YouTuber Jean-Francois Gariépy, but after Warski departed from these collaborations and was accused of being a not “authentic” enough white nationalist, he’s struggled to build up an individual audience (even though he is still, undoubtedly, a far right figure.)
Of course, it’s very possible that for some people, the drive to create conspiracy-related videos comes from a place of genuine interest and belief. For instance, Dawson has created several conspiracy theory-related videos over the past couple of years. In a tweet, Dawson claims that YouTube deleted several of these videos. It’s noteworthy that this tweet was a reply to InfoWars’s Paul Joseph Watson, tweeted about Dawson’s feature-length conspiracy video. Dawson said “love ur stuff btw!!”
Dawson also hosted far right YouTuber Blaire White on his podcast “Shane and Friends” not once, but twice. On YouTube, a collaboration is often functionally equivalent to an endorsement, as explained in Alternative Influence.
YouTube announced that it would be taking steps toward improving recommendations on the site a few days after a Buzzfeed investigation depicted how the site leads people down a conspiracy theory rabbit hole—which has been a problem for years. But the forces driving YouTubers to create extreme content won’t be easily fixed.
After all, Lewis’s Alternative Influence report explains that audience feedback metrics like likes, dislikes, and comments are “directly built into YouTube’s interface.” Those metrics central to YouTube, and those metrics are subject to the politics of YouTube.
“YouTube the company has always positioned itself as this alternative to mainstream news, mainstream entertainment, [and] really the mainstream media as a whole,” Lewis said. “And so, you get these people on the far right that are explicitly anti-mainstream media because they think it has a liberal bias, and are using YouTube as a place to promote what they see as alternative narratives, and often those end up having a conspiratorial bend.”
How YouTube Drives Shane Dawson and Other Creators to Conspiracy Theories syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/
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