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prettyforwoso · 3 months

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Barca x teen reader

Alexia x teen reader

Lionesses x teen reader

word count: 3500

Summary: y/n, a talented 16-year-old footballer, nicknamed "la princesa," battles the harsh realities of adolescence. Burdened by self-harm scars and body image insecurities, she attempts to hide her struggles from the team. The team uncovers her deepening eating disorder, prompting a collective effort to guide her through recovery.

tw: mention of eating disorders and self harm

Being a teenager in this world is hard. Not only are you working with shitty hormones and breakouts on your face, you also have to put up with the nightmare of other teenagers. Most of them are fine, in fact, what seems to be the worst of it, are the people who are no longer teenagers, and think that’s a valid reason to attack those who are younger and more vulnerable than them. Like you.

You are a lioness, 16, debuting at 15, now playing for Barcelona, a along side your England teammates, Lucy and Keira. You are known as “la princesa.” The nickname came around after your first game for Barca, in which, you scored a Hatrick and pulled a neat assist. the fans linking your talent to Alexia, saying how much you play like her. Quick, rough, strong. You have always been that way.

This nickname sparked a close connection between you and Alexia. She took you under her wing the second you got off the plane in Barcelona. She didn’t like the idea of you living alone in a new country, despite your ability to speak perfect Spanish. So, you lived with her “only for the first few weeks” which has turned into months. Alexia acts like she is trying to help you find an apartment, but isn’t, like secretly loves having you around, seeing so much of her younger self in you. She fusses over you, cares for you, feeds you, scolds you, drives you to school, gets emails from your school. She has stepped into your life and has supported you in every way a mother would.

You have a bad history with self-harm. It was Leah Williamson who noticed it first, well maybe just the first person to speak to you about it, but you don’t know that. You were rooming with her for your first England camp. Nervous about the girls seeing your scars, you were always wearing a long sleeve under your training kit, which at times got hard as it was summer.

A few girls would joke to you, “how are you not boiling?” was the consistent one that just made you want to rip the skin off whoever said it. It was some of the older girls who brought it up with each other at a post-match dinner that you managed to get out of. It was Lucy, Leah, Mary, Beth and Lotte who exchanged their concern, how they never seen your arms, how you were always somehow too busy for ice baths, how you shivered when someone would grab your wrists. They all kept a close eye on you, but decided not to come to any conclusions, as in reality, you were known to be the sunshine and smiles of the squad.

But you weren’t, and deep down, they knew that too.

It all came crashing down one afternoon, when Leah found a bloody rag in the bathroom bin, she investigated further and found your blades in the back of your phone case that you had left on your bed.

She called Beth to your room, who then called lucy, they gathered together in your room, talking about the next steps. The three of them sat in an almost silence, saddened by the conformed truth. They made their plan, not wanting to waste any time.

They found you in the games room, laughing with Ella as you and a group of girls played table tennis.

“y/n, sorry I just need to grab you real quick” Leah said, breaking her observant silence. You were pulled into a room, it all happened so fast. Lucy placing you on her lap, wrapping her arms around you and Beth pulling your phone out of her back pocket. Leah speaking, you didn’t hear any of it, your focus being on Beths hands, taking off your phone case and picking up the tiny metal blades. You just cried and cried as they talked to you, you didn’t say a word, not denying anything. You cried into lucy’s arms as they tried to understand you and your reasoning being the scars. It took some gentle tugging and tears of resistance for your top to be pulled over your head, leaving you in just your bra and pants in Lucys lap as Leah ran a gentle finger across the healed and fresh marks along your arms. Beth moved closer to you, taking your face in her hands, clearly holding back tears of her own.

No one was supposed to know. But when they did, it killed you.

The bad thing about talent is the expectation of performance, and when you underperform, you would be attacked online. The hatred and negativity really got you, and ruined a lot of your confidence and the girls knew that. They knew the comments you would get, about your play, your personality, your body.

The comments about your body were some of the worst, and they didn’t get better when you started at Barca, in fact, they got worse. It was almost like it was all you saw. You would make a post about a game and hardly anyone would speak about how well you played or how many goals you scored. All you would see was the comments about how your body has changed, how you look in the kit, your legs, hips, arms, boobs. It got so bad that you stopped posting all together and turned off all your comments. Soon however, they comments came to the Barcelona Instagram page, and the pages of your teammates. You worked harder that ever. Working out was no longer about training your body to perform and be strong, it became about looking different and making changes to your body physically.

You were running lengths each morning and evening as well as staying back at training. You weren’t fat, or thin, nothing abnormal for a teenager with a changing body. You had bigger boobs than you did 3 months ago, wider hips, thicker thighs, yknow, everything normal, but the fans didn’t think so, and that’s what got the best of you.

Alexia noticed your increase in running and working out but at first brushed it off as you wanting to prove yourself to a new team. But it soon became hard to ignore when you were finding excuses to not eat, the snacks she would buy you because she knew you loved them, sat in the kitchen untouched. She tried to pretend she couldn’t hear you coughing up each meal in the bathroom, more for her own comfort.

It became too much to ignore when others noticed.

“Why are you running so much little one?” Mapi asked you, completely innocently after training one day in the change room. At first you pretended not to hear, until you realised the whole team was awaiting an answer.

“Do you think I’m just naturally the fastest on the team?” you joke back, getting a laugh from her and a few others. Alexia remains stone face, looking as though she could see right through you.

A few of the girls watched you through squinted eyes as you pull your bag over your shoulder, noticing your spine that wasn’t visible last week. They exchange looks amongst themselves as you and Alexia walk towards her car.

“I got a call from your school yesterday” Alexia says, hiding behind her sunglasses as she pulls out of the car park.

“Why” you ask dry as you pull your phone out of your hoodie pocket. Alexias’s silence was inevitable. You turn your head towards her, awaiting a response. She keeps her eyes on the road, rolling her tongue along her top teeth, looking out at the cars ahead in deep thought.

“Why are you hiding from me bebita?” she breaks her silence, with an almost whisper.

“What are you talking about” you snap back in her direction

“You tell me Pequeña, Why do you think your school called, Se honesta conmigo” her eyes didn’t leave the road.

“No sé” you reply, swallowing the truth that lingers on the tip of your tongue, threatening to reveal itself.

“What is going on with you” Sabes que no deberías actuar de esta manera.” She takes a breath, remaining hidden being her bold sunglasses, refusing to look you in the eye, scared of becoming too vulnerable.

The silence was deafening. Pulling up in the driveway, you reach for the car door, your attempt at defusing the situation quickly rejected as Alexia locks the doors, trapping you in a conversation. You refuse to turn from the window, Alexia now being the one begging for eye contact.

“Bebita, look at me” she whispers. Her failed attempt of a resolution resulting in her hand reaching for your long curls, gently moving your head around to see your face. Her breath hitches as she looks at the tears swelling in your eyes, immediately bringing her thumb to wipe them off your soft skin.

“I hate when you yell at me” you begin, chocking on almost every syllable. “Estoy tratando de ser valiente”

“oh cariño ven” she says desperately as she pulls you effortlessly over the centre console and into her lap, wrapping her arms around you. Your tears just get heavier, as you hide your face into her neck, the idea of getting out of the car, now long forgotten.

“Bebita, your school is worried, you are the top student, why are you not doing work? Hay algo que te distraiga? She gently nudges you in her arms as she askes. “I am worried for you, talk to me”.

You just couldn’t bring yourself too. The truth is, you were too distracted for school, for homework, for study. There was so much on your mind right now. The last thing you were worried about was classes that you already knew all the content for. You were hungry, not eating at all, desperate for control over your changing body.

The next dreaded team bonding night came all too soon. Your tried to convince Alexia you were too busy with school but she wasn’t having a bar of it, almost having to drag you out the door and into the car. Nothing you wanted to do more in that moment than curl up in bed with a teddy and your warm blanket Alexia got you for my room in her house. But it was unavoidable. Alexia was correct in the way of you having to be at the dinner, in her perspective it was to show up and be social, for you personally it was about proving the concerned rumours between the girls that you weren’t eating wrong. However, that didn’t exactly go to plan.

Alexia parks in the driveway of Mapi and Ingrid’s home and you follow her inside. You greet all your teammates, receiving a kiss on the cheek and head pat from most of them and they smile down at you.

Since the conversation in Alexia’s car a few weeks ago, she hasn’t let you out of her sight, you didn’t even get into the not eating stuff, but still has watched your every mouthful over the past few weeks. You still had your tricks, not eating when she wasn’t around, running now three times a day on top of training, and all else. You were deteriorating. Dark bags under your eyes and hallowed cheeks.

“Y/n come get some pizza before you sit” Frido pulls you to the kitchen away from the crowd that was the typical team bonding, this felt like a test.

“Oh no, its okay” you scan your surroundings before following up your statement. “Alexia fed me before we came” you smile, attempting to be casual.

“oh, that’s weird, we always have dinner at team bonding” she raised an eyebrow, questioning what felt like your whole existence. She grabs a slice for herself and tries to offer you some anyways, failing as you kindly decline, insisting you will have some later.

People were scattered everywhere around the home, some sitting around the table playing card games, others vacating outside with a drink. You scan the house looking for place to escape to. All you wanted was to leave the overstimulation that was this monthly event.

You head towards the empty bathroom, the room you spend probably the most time in at other people’s houses. You begin to almost run towards it as you hear your name being called. It was too late; Lucy was stood outside yelling your name through the door of the garden.

“Y/n, come talk to us we miss you” she giggles as she enters the room to get you. You begin the walk of shame towards her. Overthinking what is coming next. Stepping out the door onto the porch your gently grabbed by the back of the neck and brought to a group of women standing around. Their faces light up as they see you. The group consists of Mapi, Lucy, Alexia Frido, Jenni and Ona, all sharing a bottle of wine.

“Y/n, you want a drink?” Ona asks, you aren’t sure if she’s joking or not.

“No Ona, she is a child” Jenni interferes and takes the drink Ona is pouring, handing it to Lucy, who puts it down with ease. You crack a smile at the interaction. They think you are so innocent…

“You’re not old enough for a drink yet Bebita, especially on an empty stomach” Alexia jokes with a smile.

“empty stomach?” Frido butts in, tilting her head in confusion at the contradicting information.

fuck.

You let out a load cough to clear your voice before quickly excusing yourself from the conversation. “I need to pee” you announce before hurrying inside, finding Ingrid at the table, playing cards with a few others.

The group, now abandoned by you stand in a deafening silence.

“She’s not eating is she?” Frido breaks, looking at Alexia with wide eyes.

“Shes not doing good, no” Their captain reply’s looking down at the glass in her hand.

“So we were right” Mapi says through squinted eyes as she tightened her grip on the stem of her wine glass.

Most of the team has been talking for a few weeks now. Lucy briefly filled them in about your history with Self harm and how you were managing it now. But the not showing up to meal times and doing overtime in the gym was something she couldn’t explain. However, they soon linked it to the bullying from people online about your body. It became to much for them all when Alexia broke down in front of them, claiming her worry for you. It was clear there was a bigger picture to what you were letting them see, seeing as their usually stone faced, strong captain had tears in her eyes over you.

Your rapid weight loss didn’t go unnoticed, even coaching staff beginning to threaten benching you if you didn’t gain some weight, claiming you were too weak to continue at full trainings and games. You always just told them you were sick, claiming it as an excuse for the weight loss and loss of appetite.

At first, everyone, including team members believed you, until they noticed you weren’t getting better, like you would if you were really sick with a catchable illness.

“So what are we going to do? because we cant loose her, shes our best” Lucy asks, getting more frantic as the sentence rolls out her mouth.

“I’ve tried talking to her, she just lies, tells me shes fine, ella me ignorará” Alexia says, finally looking up from her half full glass, meeting the eyes of her teammates.

“I know she needs me, but she won’t talk to me, she is sneaking into my bed each night for comfort, I wrap my arms around her when she falls alseep, ella tiene miedo de estar sola, shes been clinging to us, as if she is desprate for help, but doesn’t know how to ask. She won’t leave my side, unless there is food involved. luego ella desaparece” Alexia blurted out, speaking slow and clear, explaining herself.

“Maybe if we all try” Ona breaks her personal silence, earning a raised brow from a few listeners, the nodding heads soon followed.

“Bebita, can I come in” You hear Alexias voice beam through the small gap in the doorframe.

“A few of us are here too see you” you tilt your head in confusion at her followup statement, why are people here to see you, so late in the evening. You thought everyone would have returned home after team bonding, as did you and Alexia, why was there people outside your bedroom door?

You sit up in your bed, still tucked under the covers in your hoodie (that may of may not be Alexias) and shorts, clinging to your Stitch teddy. You close your laptop playing your movie and move it down the bed, finally giving Alexia a response.

“ehh, yeah come in” you say, unsure on what you are agreeing too.

You remain put under the safety of your covers, as if they would protect you from danger as the group of women enter your once personal space, finding refusge in spots around your room, most of them making themselves at home on your bed, espechailly Alexia, who comes up close to you and wraps and arm around your shoulders. Lucy, Ingrid, Mapi, Frido and Ona looked at you, as if they were waiting for you to break the artifical silence.

“Querida estamos aquí para hablar contigo” Ingrid is the first to speak up, beofre Mapi adds to her girlfrinds statement.

“I think you know what about” she fidgests with her rings. “we are just trying to understand”

“so help us do that, please sweetheart” Frido interupts.

You shake your head and close your eyes, as if you could open them and it would all go away. “I don’t know what your talking about”

“I have lectured you enough about your lying bebita” Alexia says in a stern voice.

The silence isn’t going away. You were in full control of it, and you knew that. You knew that they were waiting for you to talk, no one was going to make it easy for you.

”Desearía poder hacer que todo desaparezca” you shut your eyes once again as the tears start to spill out the creases. “I just want to be able to control what is changing”

The girls don’t speak, they are waiting for more, and they won’t break untill they are statified.

“I don’t know how to ask for help, or how to be okay” The tears get heavier as you push out the words, Alexia runs her free hand along your face, nudging you to keep going. You put in your best efforts to regain your breathing as your lip quivers in Alexia’s hand. Still no one was talking.

“I never meant for it to get this bad, I just wanted to get some control, I feel like there is so much online about me, rumors, hate, negitivity, all things I cant just reach out and get my hands on, to be able to toy with it and mold it to the way I want it. There is so little I can control, but my body, I can. No queria llegar tan lejos. Im so scared of losing myself, I want to hold onto the me that I am forever but I know I can’t, but I wanted to try, and that is why I yearn for whatever control I can get. So many ideas are put into my head about what my body should look like, how tall I should be, how much I should weigh, how tan I should be, how I should hold myself. I realised I am so calm and content when I play football, and that is because I am perfect at it, no one finds flaws in the way I play, but I second I step off the pitch I loose that warm feeling, because I have flaws again. When football is out of the picture, I am covered in them. I just wanted living to feel the same as playing, perfect and flawless.

The amont of tears in the room should safe a deadly drought.

“nuestra niña hermosa, estamos aquí” Ingrid climbs onto the bed coming closer to you, followed by the remaining womens in the room, all finding a spot, as close to you as they could get. So many arms are wrapped around you, so many hands holding your face, wiping your cold tears away.

“Let us help you darling” Lucy and Ona say in an unmost unison.

You slowly allow yourself to nod.

The following weeks were slow and painful, but what isn’t in recovery? The girls put it upon themselves to keep you in check, taking turns taking you out on small adventures, like going for walks or getting icecream to get you out of the house as you were ruled out of training and playing for a few weeks by your phycologist, that Alexia and Lucy insisted that you saw, they drove you to each appointment and picked you up, no questions asked. Meal time in the house became a big thing, Alexia discarding the idea of sitting around the table and eating, instead opting for sitting wherever, weather that was outside, or in, watching a movie, or just chatting. This change of environment around meals made eating less of a chore, as you got better, teammates would come over for dinner and it became more a social event, a more relaxing endeavor. You slowly made your way back to training as you got your fitness back, earning pats on the back from your team who you had made, very proud.

#wsl #woso #lucy bronze #ona batlle #alexia putellas x reader #alexia putellas #lucy bronze x reader #barca femeni #barca #barcelona femeni #barcelona x reader #lucybronze #lionesses #teen reader #eating disoder trigger warning #mental health #fluff #fanfic

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reiderwriter · 7 months

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Hating You Is The Easiest Thing I Can Do

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female Reader

Summary: When your boss pulls your case out from under you and gives it right to the BAU, you're pissed. You're even more pissed when Doctor Spencer Reid suggests you can't do your job properly. After a week in his company, you decide to give him a piece of your mind

Warnings: Day One of Kinktober - Hate Sex, enemies to lovers, dom/sub, Mean!Dom!Spencer, Brat!Reader, spanking, degradation, spanking, spit kink, sir kink, vaginal fingering, slight creampie, Reader's boss is an asshole, typical office misogyny. Spencer is also an asshole, but that's just because he's a dumbass.

A/N: Special thank you to @reidmotif and @mrs-dr-reid for proofreading this one for me! I wrote this when on a major Pride and Prejudice moment, which is why there's a whole lot of plot before the sex. I hope you like the build-up just as much as the smut! <3 If you like it, don't forget to leave a like, reply, or reblog and tell me your thoughts! ((just as a reminder, apart for Sundays and Tuesdays, I'll be posting all the kinktober fics on AO3 exclusively, so check out my writing there - reiderwriter))

My requests are also back open now, so if you like my writing and have an idea, check out my request guidelines and drop me a message in my inbox! You can find the rest of my masterlist here :)

To say you were angry was an understatement. You were seething, the anger bubbling up inside of you and threatening to lash out at anyone who so much as crossed your path as you made your way down the crappy motel corridor. You'd only known Spencer Reid a week, but you could think of no one you despised more.

The FBI had always been a boys' club, you knew that. There were some goddamn strong women in your field office, of course, but you were outnumbered 10 to 1. Which was why you were so determined to do well on the first case assigned to you as lead Agent. The first week of the case, you'd made sure you were thorough. A body had been found in the park by a jogger, and you darted to the crime scene the moment you got the call. A woman in her early twenties, like you, had been raped, tortured, and then dumped here, her body posed in a demeaning way to make it seem as if she were performing a sexual act. Your entire body shuddered at the sight, but you couldn't let your coworkers see you weak so you powered through. Collecting evidence, getting an ID on the victim, interviewing potential witnesses, and yes, even breaking the news to the poor girl's family, you had been so attentive to every detail of the case and you felt you were making progress, your boss delivered a humbling blow.

"Another body has been discovered. I've invited the Behavioural Analysis Unit in from Quantico because you're in over your head." He'd told you, not even looking up at you from the file he was reading on his desk.

"What? I wasn't told about another body, why wasn't I notified?"

"I didn't think you needed to know, now that the BAU is coming in."

"So I'm off the case? That's it?"

"No, I want you to assist them in their investigation. Tell them everything you've gathered so far, get them situated in the office as best you can."

"Get them coffee when they want it? Rub their feet if they ask for it? This is bullshit, I was making progress, if you'd only have given me more time-"

"Agent, I suggest you walk out of this office right now and get your PMSing under control before I have to suspend you from fieldwork." You pressed your nails further into the beds on your palms then and bit back your tongue from replying, simply giving a terse nod and exiting the office.

It wasn't even an hour later before the new team arrived, and you offered a tense smile and welcome as you got them set up in their own office. The Unit Chief didn't seem too bad, but Aaron Hotchner couldn't exactly be described as the most welcoming of people, and you felt an instant camaraderie with JJ, the other agent who'd come into the office with him. There were more agents apparently, but they'd gone out into the field to check out the new victim and reinterview the family, something you weren't exactly happy about. But, if you were going to be their little bitch for the next week, you were at least thankful they were tolerable and polite.

"So here's everything I've got so far. I've been pretty thorough in my interrogations of potential witnesses, and there are no CCTV cameras in the general vicinity of the dump sites, so I don't think you'll find anything else there that'll aid in your profile."

" If you'd have been thorough you'd have found this though, right?" A new voice popped up from the door, and you felt yourself tense up under the sudden accusation. Looking up you saw he was holding up his phone, a picture of a strange marking on a tree lighting up the screen.

"Excuse me?"

"This was left on a tree roughly thirty feet from the first dump site. I called Rossi and Morgan and they found a similar marking near the second victim. It's a Mesopotamian symbol relating to the worship of prostitutes and sex workers to promote fertility." He spoke plainly, but all you could hear was the condescension in his tone, and your blood boiled with rage.

" Agent Y/L/N, I'm sorry about him, this is Doctor Spencer Reid, he's another member of our team." JJ introduced the man, sending him a warning glance, as if letting him know that he hadn't just put his foot in his mouth directly.

You looked at the man then, really focusing on him now instead of the pictures, and almost cursed out loud again. He was a jerk, but fuck was he attractive. Tousled hair, dark eyes, and a perfectly sculpted jaw, it was as if he were sent from hell directly to piss you off and tempt you. You pushed the attraction aside for the minute then, choosing to be the bigger person and introduce yourself.

"I'm Agent Y/N Y/L/N. And I'm sorry that I'm not an expert on Mesopotamian prostitutes, but I guess that's probably your specialty, right, Doctor?" You held out your hand for him to shake, but he just looked down at it.

"If you're referring to my doctorate, I actually didn't study classic civilizations. I hold PhDs in Math, Chemistry, and Engineering and additional BAs in Psychology, Philosophy, and Sociology. And I don't do handshakes." He glanced straight past you after that, walking back over to Hotch and filling him in on other things you must've overlooked during your brief time working the case.

You glared at his back, finally letting your hand drop to your side again as you let out an angry chuckle.

"Don't take it personally, Spencer is just… He’s He's not great with people. He'll warm up to you." JJ put a reassuring arm on your shoulder and you nodded. But inside you knew there was not one thing the man could do to reverse the bad opinion of him you'd just gained.

–X–

After the initial anger of having the case seeped out from beneath you wore off, you actually began enjoying your time with the BAU. You hadn't put much thought into profiling before, it usually being so far off your radar while you were working in the field office but you were actually coming to enjoy how they worked, and you'd learned a lot.

Your relationship with Spencer, however, only degraded.

Your hatred had reignited the moment you'd been joined by the rest of the BAU Team. Your boss has finally come down to greet them, and, almost as if making you pay for your earlier comments, had genuinely sent you on a coffee run for them. You could deal with the fact that the man had the most annoyingly complicated coffee order you'd ever heard of in the Bureau, but what you couldn't forgive were the sly comments you walked in on when you returned.

"Come on, Reid. That Agent is easy on the eyes, you should talk to her, get you a slice of that." You'd been introduced to Derek Morgan earlier and you'd instantly pegged him as a flirt, so this wasn't exactly shocking to you. What was a bit surprising was the other man's reply.

"If she's attractive I hadn't noticed. I've been too busy trying to clear up her mess with this case."

You walked in the door then, coffees in hand, and slammed his drink down on the table for him. You handed Morgan to him, double-checking that you'd got both of their orders right before shooting another glare at the man and walking away to find the rest of the team.

But not before hearing Morgan chastise Reid in another whisper: "God man, you gotta be nicer to the kid…"

To say that your working relationship had soured totally after your two personal encounters with the man was simply an untruth. You didn't have a working relationship, you had a working rivalry.

From then on, you'd slyly interrupt the man when he was speaking, telling him to cut his genius rambles in half, that you didn't have all day to sit around and wait for him to stutter his way through his theory while there was a murderer on the loose.

He didn't hold back either, constantly asking you questions he knew you didn't know the answers to, just to smile slyly down at you and make you admit that you weren't as good as him. It was getting so detrimental to the office atmosphere that you had to be genuinely separated after only three days, Hotchner bringing you into the field with him on multiple occasions and forcing Reid to stay behind with JJ to work on a geographical profile.

You'd been with Hotchner at a family interview, working with him to gain details of the second victim's actions and whereabouts leading up to her murder to establish a timeline when you got a call.

Excusing yourself from the room, you quickly picked up the call.

"This is Agent Y/L/N."

"Hotch isn't picking up his phone." That was all the explanation you got from the man on the other side of the phone, his voice instantly grating.

"Yes, I'd assume he isn't, Doctor Reid, because we are currently interviewing a bereaved mother and father and he put his phone on silent. Is there something you need?"

"I need to talk to Hotch."

"Well, you called me. What do you need?" You heard him breathe out a frustrated sigh on the other side of the line, and you rolled your eyes, slightly enjoying being this stubborn and getting under his skin.

"Just tell him we're ready to give the profile, okay?" He hung on you after that and you cursed him down the line, receiving nothing back but the empty beeps of the dial tone.

–X–

It didn't take long after delivering the profile to get your guy, but as he hadn't been in the middle of committing any felonies when you picked him up, you'd had to spend a few days in the interrogation rooms.

Hotch had taken a crack at him and gotten nowhere, and so had Rossi and Emily and Morgan. JJ had been the one to make the arrest, so she went in last and still came out with nothing much. He hadn't layered up yet, as they'd suspected he wouldn't, too egotistical to allow anyone else into the room that he thought he was going to talk himself out of.

"We're getting nowhere with this, Hotch. I think I have an idea that could get him to start talking." Reid said as you all stared at the man through the one-way glass.

"What, you think you can charge in there and get him to talk?" It was petty, but it'd been a stressful week, and he was used to this flow of conversation between the two of you.

"No, you are. Hotch, she fits his type, she's attractive, same build and coloring as the previous two victims. I think it'd work." You scoffed at his suggestion.

"Oh so now you think I'm attractive? I thought you hadn't noticed because you were, what, too busy cleaning up my mess?" You crossed your arms as he gave you an incredulous look, and you realized that he didn't think you'd heard him.

"Spencer's right, Y/N." Hotch nodded, looking between the two of you to see if he needed to pull you apart to keep you from fighting or to keep you from jumping each other. You personally weren't sure which you'd like most at that point, cursing yourself as you let your eyes trail down his body.

"It's going to excite him having you so close, you should pop a few of those buttons, too," Reid suggested looking down at your chest as you scoffed and crossed your arms.

"Oh you'd really like that," you mumbled under your breath, but a swift look from Hotch had you shutting your mouth again as he began to brief you.

Going in you felt a surge of pettiness seep through you. You were going to nail this guy, get him to talk about every little nasty thing he did to those girls, and prove to your boss that you could do this when every member of the BAU had tried and failed. But a small, dim, and annoying reminder at the back of your head whispered in your ear that you'd be pleasing Spencer then as well. Proving him right. You weren't sure if you wanted to succeed to hear him or your boss say "good job" to you after you finally succeeded, but when you imagined it with him, he was a whole lot closer, right in your ear, body pressed against yours.

You focused on your anger over your attraction and pushed into the room, ready to stare down a monster and escape unharmed.

–X–

It had worked, of course. It had taken a few hours of building rapport but you'd done it. You'd had him eating out the palm of your hand while he confessed to the three murders you knew about and an extra four that you didn't.

A day of retrieving bodies later and by 10 pm, the case was finally closed.

"Well done, kid, you really got him in that interview. That was some great work." Morgan nudged your elbow as he grabbed his duffle, exiting the makeshift office.

"Don't forget we're getting drinks at the cocktail bar in half an hour. Shower off that mud and change into a hot dress, Agent, and I'll buy you your first shot." Emily called back to you from the exit too, leaving you in a fit of giggles as you promised her you would.

Once they'd all gone, you started packing up your things ready to leave yourself when there was another knock at the door.

" Hey, I need to grab my bag." Reid stood in the door awkwardly, and your smile dropped into a politely neutral face as you nodded to him.

"Don't let me stop you, Doc."

"Spencer."He said, stepping a bit closer to you.

"What?"

"I want you to call me Spencer. You keep calling me Doctor or Doc, I want you to call me Spencer."

"No. Doctor Reid is just fine for me."

"And what if I want more?" He grabbed your wrist as you turned to go, using a bit too much force and leaving you stumbling into him, hitting his chest as you looked up at him, your noses almost touching with the proximity.

"Let me go," you growled, but his grip loosened and you didn't move an inch.

"What if I want more?" He asked again, a little more insistent this time, his eyes dark in the dim room, expression unreadable.

"Why should I care what you want, Doctor Reid?"

"Because I think you want it, too. Because I think that despite all the odds, you want me just as much as I want you."

Your anger burst out of you in a sarcastic laugh then at his presumptuous words.

"Despite all the odds? What odds are those Spencer? You treat me like shit, ignoring me, refusing to even shake my hand, and downplaying the hard fucking work I put in before you got here? God, you are so fucking narcissistic." You finally stepped away from him then, turning away to regain your composure.

"Me? I'm not the one who missed some vital fucking evidence in a murder investigation, Y/N, so I'm sorry I wasn't the most welcoming person, but God if we're talking egos, you should probably check yourself."

"Forget it, you're impossible. I really tried to be nice to you, but more fool me for making messes you had to clean up."

"Are you still stuck on that? Y/N, I'm sorry, but Derek just has a way of-" He stepped closer to you again and you could feel the oxygen being sucked from your lungs.

"Don't you dare blame this on Morgan. You're attracted to me and you fucking despise that, and it's none of Morgan’s fault. Now please, just get out of this fucking office and go back to your motel room." You practically hissed those last words at him, holding back the urge to scream in frustration. Your lips were so close now, as his chest heaved, hands clenched by his sides as he resisted the urge to grab you.

"Forgive me… for suggesting something so obviously repulsive to you." With that, he brushed past you and walked out, leaving you reeling at his almost confession, head light from the lack of air. He'd taken your breath with him as he left the room.

–X–

The promise of free shots had convinced you to get back out to the bar as promised, not letting Reid and his fickle moods control when and where you'd be enjoying yourself.

You finally showed up at the bar and were greeted by hugs from JJ and Emily, already one drink in as they immediately handed you a shot from the bar. Guiding you back to the table, you paused as you saw him there.

Morgan was sat at the table, happily chatting away with Reid, who'd since grown quiet, eyes meeting yours before leaving to rake down your frame. You resisted the urge to cover yourself, confidently standing tall as he devoured you with his eyes. Changing out of your work clothes, you'd decided that you needed some fun tonight, donning a short red dress, barely hitting the tops of your thighs, hugging your curves tightly, and pushing your chest up so it nearly spilled out completely. You'd completed the look with thigh-high black boots and a red lip, looking the absolute image of lust - or anger - personified.

"Whew mama, you look good, Y/N." Morgan greeted you, standing up to give you a kiss on the cheek. Reid still said nothing but kept his eyes trained on you as he took another sip of his drink.

"I was promised shots and dancing, I think I'm dressed pretty appropriately don't you think?" You smiled and giggled up at Morgan, letting your touch linger on him a little longer to see if it would spur Reid into action.

"Have I ever told you about my very good friend Penelope Garcia? I think you two would get along just fine."

The rest of the night continued in a similar vein. You'd stepped out onto the dance floor with Emily and JJ, letting whatever man wanted to sidle up close, begging one of them to be a distraction from the man whose eyes were boring into you from the other side of the room. It didn't work. Their hands were on your hips, guiding you to the sound of the music but in your head, all you saw was him, doing the same.

It didn't help that he was getting hit on constantly from his perch beside Morgan, and you watched with a bitter feeling at the bottom of your stomach as women tried, unsuccessfully, to get him to pay attention to them. After another frustrating invitation for a tryst with a local man, you excused yourself from the dance floor, finding Morgan in the bar, letting him know that you were calling it a night.

"Where's Reid?" You asked, trying and failing to sound casual as you glanced around the now crowded bar for signs of him.

"He left like ten minutes ago. Said he was tired and went back to the motel."

"Was he…" You didn't want to finish the question, not knowing which answer you'd prefer, but Morgan filled in the gaps himself with a wide grin.

"Alone? Yes, kid. Here, it's the address of the motel we're staying at and his room number." You hesitated before grabbing the paper and grabbing your stuff, practically running from the bar and hopping in the nearest taxi.

–X–

That's how you found yourself stomping down the corridor of the motel, pounding on his door at 1 a.m., unashamed in your brazen actions. He opened the door, slightly shocked to see you there, and you pushed your way inside and turned on him as you shut the door.

"What the fuck was all of that?" You demanded as soon as he turned back to you. His shirt was open now, jacket and tie discarded on the floor somewhere deeper into the room, but you forced yourself to look up into his eyes, away from the pale plains of his skin.

"What was what, Y/N?"

"You, staring at me like that the whole night and then just leaving."

"Did you want me to stay?"

"I want you to stop answering my questions with questions, Reid. This is bullshit, you can't act like a dick to me all week and then look at me like I'm a piece of meat you want to rip apart, for fucks sake."

"You made it very clear earlier tonight that you wanted no part of this, Y/N. Are you saying I should've done something else?"

"That's another fucking question, Spencer! If you don't start actually talking to me, I swear to god, I'll-" You ran a hand through your hair, and when you looked up again, he was closer than ever. You backed up into the wall, but he followed you, pressing a leg between your own. Slowly and with that condescending grin plastered across his face, he drawled out his next words.

"You'll what?"

Your lips crashed against his with the fury of your frustrations, a mess of teeth and tongue and biting anger as you surged forward into him.

With a rough push of your hips, he slammed you back into the wall, taking charge of the situation, coaxing his tongue into your mouth, battling you for control, and winning. Grabbing you by the neck he slowly pulled his lips away from yours, leaving you gasping for breath.

"Don't be such a brat, Y/N. When I ask you questions, it's because I want answers." You moaned as you tried to regain his lips, but he chuckled and kept you pinned.

"Tell me, baby, what should I have done earlier instead? Got down on my knees to beg your forgiveness, or thrown you over that desk and used you like a cheap little whore? I think I know which one you prefer."

You moaned at his words, but kept your mouth twisted in a grimace, choosing not to answer. He got tired of waiting, and, with a swiftness you didn't know he possessed, twisted you around so your hands were planted against the wall, your chest pushing against it too as he pulled your hips up and out, effectively baring your pantie-clad pussy to him as your dress pushed up and over your ass all by itself.

"So fucking slutty. You let all those men in that club touch you while you stared at me the entire time." He ran his hands across your ass massaging you underneath your underwear before pulling his hands away again and grabbing your hips. He pushed his clothed cock against you from behind and you moaned at how hard and big he felt already.

"Was this what you wanted, brat?"

"Go fuck yourself."

"I think you'd much prefer it if I fucked you, don't you think?" He turned you around again, lifting one of your legs up to wrap around him, the new angle pressing your core further into his cock.

"Open your mouth, now." Against your better judgment, your body reacted to him quickly, your tongue dropping out of your mouth as he ground his cock into your core, effectively dry-humping you. With a swift motion, he spat in your mouth, your eyes going wide as you instinctively shut your mouth and swallowed.

"Good girl," he stroked your hair, lifting you up and carrying you to the bed. His lips locked with yours as you tasted his spit on your lips, letting him take control and move you in any way he pleased.

"But you've been a brat," he said pulling away. "And brats need to be punished."

With that he forced you over his knee, pulling your panties down as he positioned your hips higher, your ass raised. He fisted one hand into your hair and began softly stroking your ass with the other.

"You're going to count for me, baby. If you lose count, we'll start again. With each number, I'll tell you what you did wrong, okay?"

"Fuck, yes, yes sir." With another soft touch, he pulled his hand up and bought it back again down sharply, letting it cup your ass as you hissed from the sting.

"O-One."

"That was for being a brat in the office. Being so confident you missed some vital evidence that was staring you right in the face."

He did it again, and you squirmed under his touch.

"Two."

"That was for teasing me in front of Hotch. Making me get hard right there in the office before you went to interrogate that creep."

"That made you hard?" You gasped out as he cracked out another slap to your ass. "Three."

"That was for talking. You need to stop fucking talking." He stroked your ass again, delivering a fourth, fifth, and sixth blow in quick succession as you felt yourself leak your arousal all over his lap.

"That was for dressing like a little whore tonight. That was for flirting with Morgan. That was for letting another man touch you. What do you have to say for yourself now, brat?" Your breaths stuttered out of you as you tried to compose yourself, confident that he'd finished your punishment now.

"G-Go…. FuckFuck yourself." He growled and threw you back on the bed, ripping your dress off over your head and letting his lips return to yours as he trailed his hand to between your legs, finally pushing two fingers inside of you as you moaned and writhed beneath him.

" I hate you," you moaned in his ear as his lips trailed down to your breasts.

"You have a funny way of showing it." Your orgasm was rapidly approaching, so close you could practically taste it. He sensed it as well, though, and pulled his fingers out of you before you could reach that bliss.

"You thought it would be that easy, brat?" he whispered in your ear with a low chuckle before flipping you over to your front and thrusting his fingers back into you from behind, causing another moan to rip from your throat, uncontrollably loud in the otherwise silence of the motel at night.

Unzipping his pants and freeing his cock, you felt the weight of it on your ass as he rubbed his precum against your now bright red asscheeks.

"You're going to look so pretty with my cum decorating your ass baby. It's going to make your ass feel better, too."

"You're disgusting," you spit at him, but your hips push harder into his dick, trying desperately to capture him inside of you and force him to use you.

"No more talking, bitch. Take my fingers." He pushed a hand into your mouth and you started twirling your tongue around them, using your distraction to finally violently thrust his dick all the way inside you. You screamed at the sudden filling, cumming around his cock in an instant, trying to milk him for all he was worth. But he clamped a hand down over your mouth so that all that fell from your face was escaped tears and muffled pleas for more.

"Gonna use you like this baby, gonna make you admit you love me."

His thrusts gained a steady pace as your brain emptied beneath him, desperate for more of the pleasure his body was supplying you with. He released your mouth then, content that all your energy seemed to be spent on pushing your ass back into his, listening to the wet, sloppy sounds of your activity.

"Do you like that, brat? You like me making you feel like this, huh?" He slapped your ass again as he thrust, and you moaned back with a nod.

"Yes, Spencer, don't stop… Don't stop." You moaned again, another orgasm rolling over your body, causing you to clench unconsciously around his cock.

"So good baby, you're responding so well to my cock." He trailed a hand underneath you to your clit and started rubbing it in time to his thrusts.

"One more for me. One more and I'll pull out, okay? Just one more."

"I can't, Spencer I can't do it.." You whined underneath him, face fully buried in the motel pillows. You were surprised he even heard you through the tears as the material.

"Yes you can, baby, look you're so close already, just do one more."

"I hate you," you moaned again, feeling your third and final orgasm wash over you, your eyes rolling back in your head as your body started twitching and didn't stop. You felt a small twitch from him too, as he finished thrusting inside of you, letting a little bit of his cum escape into you before pulling out and decorating your ass with his ejaculation.

He fell by the side of you and gasped desperately for a few minutes, before grabbing a hot wet towel from the bathroom and cleaning your ass off.

"Spencer…" you croak out eventually, regaining some clarity, but still not moving much from your spot in his bed.

"Spencer, I don't hate you."

"I know. I don't hate you either. Which is probably for the best."

"What? Why?"

"Hotch just requested your transfer to the Quantico Office so you could start training with the BAU. You did a good job this week, Y/N." Your eyes started watering again and you gently pushed away tears as he laughed at you, asking why you were crying.

"I'm not happy," you joked.

"I just realized that means I have to work with you more." You both laughed at that. You didn't hate each other exactly, but that didn't mean you could work together well either.

And you didn't want to if this was the outcome of your bickering and hatred.

#kinktober 2023 #spencer reid #criminal minds #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid smut #mgg #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds fandom #spencer reid x self insert #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid kinktober #criminal minds kinktober #spencer reid x reader smut #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x oc #hate sex #enemies to lovers

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autismserenity · 6 days

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A Chabad synagogue in Pomona, New York, burned to the ground on April 17th, along with its three Torah scrolls.

Torah scrolls are hand-written, hand-made, and kept in elaborately decorated cases or wrappings.

Many of them have long histories; my synagogue has two, I think, that were smuggled out of villages being destroyed in pogroms or in Nazi attacks. One of them is the only remaining piece of that village on earth.

Sometimes, the Torah scroll doesn't even belong to the synagogue, but is on loan from a place like the Memorial Scrolls Trust:

There's an entire Jewish holiday just for taking them out and dancing with them: Simchat Torah, "The Joy of Torah."

In fact, that was the holiday on which Hamas's invasion took place.

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So it's a particular tragedy when a Torah is destroyed.

Chabad itself has a page about what goes into making just one Torah scroll:

"An authentic Torah scroll is a mind-boggling masterpiece of labor and skill. Comprising between 62 and 84 sheets of parchment -- cured, tanned, scraped and prepared according to exacting Torah law specifications -- and containing exactly 304,805 letters, the resulting handwritten scroll takes many months to complete.

"An expert pious scribe carefully inks each letter with a feather quill, under the intricate calligraphic guidelines of Ktav Ashurit (Ashurite Script). The sheets of parchment are then sewn together with sinews to form one long scroll. While most Torah scrolls stand around two feet in height and weigh 20-25 pounds, some are huge and quite heavy, while others are doll-sized and lightweight."

I learned all of this on Tumblr.

Once upon time, in people's "punch Nazis" days, I would've been able to find some mention on Tumblr of this synagogue burning.

There is none, so I'm posting about it.

And I'm going to quote Daniel Weiner, Rabbi of Temple de Hirsch Sinai in Bellevue, Washington, when his own synagogue was vandalized last November:

"It’s horrific and heartbreaking.... [Taking out your feelings about] what's going on in the Middle East by defacing a sacred space of a synagogue -- that’s the very definition of antisemitism."

I'm also posting about the Kehillat Shaarei Torah Synagogue in Toronto, whose windows were broken on Friday, April 19th, by someone who also tried to break the front door down.

And the April 15 graffiti outside a Bangor, Maine synagogue that said, "Nazi Israel 30K murdered," next to a crossed-out Star of David. The same synagogue faced pro-Hamas flyers plastered around it in November.

I was going to include all the synagogues vandalized over the past six months. But there are way too many. Several every week. Lots are swastikas.

I'll go back to just doing attacks on and near synagogues.

Someone has to talk about the 1-year-old who was stabbed outside Temple Beth Zion-Beth Israel (BZBI) synagogue, in Philadelphia, on April 13th.

The foiled terrorist attack on a Moscow synagogue on April 11th.

The man who, on April 9th, screamed at the rabbi at Moldova's Great Synagogue, "What are you doing here? How come no one has finished you off for everything you are doing to the Palestinians?" Just one week after people had vandalized a Holocaust memorial in nearby Soroka, and sprayed "Free Palestine" on it.

The Oldenburg, Germany synagogue that was firebombed on April 5th.

The Florida Las Olas Chabad Jewish Center, which on March 16 burned, but not to the ground. The Torah scrolls were safe, and no one was hurt, but the back of the building was severely damaged.

The planned-but-thwarted-on-March-7th ISIS massacre in a Moscow synagogue.

The stabbing of an Orthodox Jew in Switzerland on March 5th. (He was badly injured, but expected to survive.)

A man leaving a synagogue in Paris was beaten on March 3rd.

People set the courtyard of a synagogue in Sfax, Tunisia on fire on February 27th. Firefighters managed to put the fire out before it consumed the inside of the building.

The synagogue is no longer used; there are no Jews left in its area, and fewer than 1,000 Jews left in Tunisia overall.

(Thousands of Tunisian Jews were sent to work camps during the Holocaust. Antisemitism across the Middle East continued to increase rapidly for decades. By the 1970s, 90% of Tunisian Jews had fled to France or Israel.)

On February 18, an Orthodox Jew leaving Synagogue of Inverrary-Chabad in Lauderhill, Florida, was beaten by an attacker yelling racial slurs.

Someone deliberately chose International Holocaust Remembrance Day, January 27, to smash all the windows in the front of Sgoolai Israel Synagogue in downtown Fredericton, New Brunswick.

On December 29, Turkey arrested 32 people linked to ISIS who were planning attacks on synagogues and churches.

On December 17, a man drove a U-Haul truck up onto the sidewalk between a barrier and the front door of the Kesher Israel Congregation in Washington D.C., got out, and started yelling "Gas the Jews." He also sprayed a foul-smelling substance on two people leaving the synagogue.

December 17 also saw 400 synagogues across the United States receive bomb threats.

On December 11, a man attacked an elderly couple on their way into a synagogue in Los Angeles, screaming, "Give me your earrings, Jew!!" and beating one of them bloody with a belt. (Happily, he chased the guy down the street, and caught him when his pants fell down.)

On December 10, a 16-year-old was arrested in Vienna for planning an attack on a synagogue.

On December 8, on the first night of Hanukkah, 15 synagogues in New York State received bomb threats. And someone screamed, "Free Palestine," and fired shots outside of Temple Israel in Albany, NY. Which has a preschool that was in session.

Meanwhile, the five Jews left in Egypt were canceling public Hanukkah candle-lighting at their synagogue out of fear of reprisals. Particularly after two Israelis in Alexandria had been gunned down by terrorists on October 8. (While Israel was still fighting Hamas in Israel.)

On November 15, a terrorist group set the only synagogue in Armenia on fire.

Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) has a history of working with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

(PFLP is part of Hamas's network of groups. Samidoun is their nonprofit arm - which is why Germany banned Samidoun last year, although it's still active in many other countries.

PFLP is also actively supported by the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), a diaspora nonprofit group, and Within Our Lifetime (WOL), an SJP spinoff in NYC.)

On November 11, halfway through Shabbat services, police asked Central Shul in Melbourne, Australia to evacuate "as a precaution" due to a "pro-Palestinian" protest that had chosen the neighboring park as its gathering place. Australia has seen some very outspoken antisemitism at protests, including the march shortly after October 7 that chanted "Gas the Jews."

Also on November 11, protesters targeted a synagogue along a march route. They sat in their cars, spraying green smoke and shouting at people leaving the synagogue. The march itself featured a record number of horrifying signs and chants.

On November 7th, Congregation Beth Tikvah in Montreal was firebombed, and the back door of the Jewish organization across the street (Federation CJA) was set on fire.

On November 4, protesters chanted "Bomb Israel," and burned an Israeli flag outside the only synagogue in Malmo, Sweden.

During October, there were 501 antisemitic acts under investigation in France in just three weeks, including groups gathering in front of synagogues shouting threats, and graffiti such as the words “killing Jews is a duty” sprayed outside a stadium.

On October 18, people firebombed a synagogue in Berlin after homes all over the neighborhood were graffitied with stars of David.

And also on October 18, hundreds of "pro-Palestine" rioters attacked the Or Zaruah Synagogue, in the Spanish enclave of Melilla in North Africa, while worshippers were inside.

Based on the video, they seem to have blocked the synagogue entrance completely, while screaming "Murderous Israel" and waving Palestinian flags. (Melilla is an autonomous zone belonging to Spain. It borders Morocco.)

On October 17, during pro-Palestinian protests, hundreds of rioters set fire to Al Hammah synagogue, an abandoned house of prayer in central Tunisia. They hammered down the building’s walls and raised a Palestinian flag on the building. Police did not intervene.

The Facebook page "Tunigate", which has around 88 thousand followers, published a video of the assault. So did "Radio Bousalem”, with 83 thousand users. The vast majority of comments on these videos welcome these acts. The building was severely damaged and almost completely razed to the ground.

On October 15, bomb threats were sent to many East Coast synagogues. Attleboro synagogue Congregation Agudas-Achim received one of the emails, which read, "The bombs will blow up in a few hours. A lot of people will die. You all deserve to die."

On October 8 -- again, while Hamas was still in Israel -- Madrid’s main synagogue was defaced with graffiti that read “Free Palestine” next to a crossed-out Star of David.

And on October 7, an assailant in Rockland, NY fired a BB gun at two women entering a synagogue. Later in the month, a banner at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in the area was vandalized with the words, “Fuckin kikes."

#if you have used “Free Palestine” as if it's a sort of verbal assault you can shout in comments or scribble over flyers #if you are unwilling to hear what the Jewish term Zionism means to the people who use it #if you cannot name one Palestinian human rights activist #and most of all if you don't know how Hamas abuses Palestinians and you still think it's The Resistance #then you. are. the. problem.#if you don't know people in gaza have been protesting Hamas and blaming it for deliberately instigating a war they don't want #if you don't know how often they've spoken out about Hamas stealing aid and selling it to them #and especially if you don't want to believe me much less find Palestinians in Gaza to listen to #also if you didn't know about any of the stuff in this post BUT you have taken it upon yourself to tell Jews that “it's not antisemitism”#like seriously everyone deal with your learned distrust of Jews challenge #wall of words #fire tw #guns tw #violence tw #Instagram

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pkmn-redirect · 7 months

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-Interlude 2-

In which Chandelure takes care of her person's people~

First | Previous | Next | Latest

Index

(Detail shots and info regarding the next few updates under the cut )

(For a better look at the picture on the Polaroid- check out this post on my art blog)

The text on the letter reads:

"Emmet-

I am sorry to report that we at the International Police still have no word on the whereabouts of your brother.

Rest assured we are researching all available avenues, but please know resources are stretched thin. There have been numerous such disappearances over the past few months. Ingo's case is certainly the highest profile, but is only one of many.

We will keep you appraised of all updates as we can, but please bear in mind that this is an ongoing investigation and as such there will be limited on what information we can provide and when. I'm sure you understand.

In the meantime, we encourage you to try to continue your life as normally as possible, and please refrain from any further independent investigation of your own. We commend your enthusiasm, but please understand that you many inadvertently damage important evidence without even knowing it.

Sincerely yours,

Agent Looker"

Last update for a little while so I can focus on Chapter 3. The Ask Box will be open for the next week or so to see about having a Q&A session on one of the normal update days. If there's no questions then I guess we'll be doing something different lol- but there will be updates here in the feed on our regular days for sure- just nothing terribly significant until Chapter 3 kicks off in earnest.

Thank you all so much for sticking with this so far! It's incredible to see how many of you there are now, and just knowing other folks like reading my self indulgent comic nonsense is just mind-blowing! Take care and see you next update!

#pokemon fancomic #pokemon #chandelure #submas #nimbasa city #battle subway #subway boss emmet #pokemon black and white

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probablyasocialecologist · 6 months

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“We’re seeing a tsunami of police investigations,” Sfard said. “People who are targeted go through a very frightening experience and even if it ends with no indictments, it’s still horrendous.

“There is a wave of silencing of any type of, not only criticism, but also just compassion.”

Protests in sympathy with Gaza have been dispersed with force and Israel’s chief of police, Yaakov Shabtai, said last week: “Anyone who wants to identify with Gaza is welcome. I will put them on buses now that are headed there and I will help him get there.”

At the beginning of last week, Israel’s attorney general’s office also announced that it had instructed universities and colleges to forward cases to the police of students who had posted “words of praise for terrorism”.

In the wake of the attorney general’s instructions, there has been an apparent purge in Israeli universities. The legal rights group Adalah has reported that about 50 Palestinian students have been summoned to disciplinary committees about their social media posts and some have been suspended from their studies.

Intimidation of both Jewish and Arab Israelis with dissident views has also come from faceless individuals and groups, stirring up hate online.

In one notable incident, the ultra-orthodox leftwing journalist Israel Frey posted a video saying Kaddish (the Jewish prayer for the dead) for the victims of the Hamas slaughter and Palestinian civilians under fire in Gaza.

Soon afterwards, an anonymous user of the Telegram messaging platform published his address, which was shared widely by rightwing groups, and a mob turned up outside, lobbing fireworks at his windows, forcing him to flee with his family. He is now in hiding.

#israel #palestine

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cometkenji · 14 days

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ghost in the machine

Pairing: Unsub!Spencer Reid x Agent!Fem!reader CW: Fluff, longing, mild angst, one paragraph with heavy implications of sex, cursing, mentions of reader being in a car accident, mentions of suicide and death, suggestive Ig? idk Spencer kind of taunts reader, if I miss anything please tell me! Summary: An unsub targeting local political powers starts calling you. With virtually no memories of your life before 15, you're tasked with finding out why his voice feels like home. Disclaimer: Reader is chubby. She's not physically described in this but reader is literally always a bigger person. Anyone can read but I wanna clarify <3 WC: 7.8k I lokey feel like I fumbled this one but this idea has been in my head since I saw a post about it like last month so i'm sorry in advance if it sucks 💀 I'm not saying looping ghost in the machine by SZA while reading this will elevate the experience but just know it's strongly advised and im even giving you a link to the song for easy access.

The fourth case this month. This was the fourth battered politician you’d forced into handcuffs while ducking away from the recoil of blood spewing from his mouth. The men you’d arrested had all protested strongly - and wetly - while being walked to the back of your cruiser, demanding to know why you were arresting them even though they were the victims. They were always the victims. They’d been burgled and beaten - yes- oftentimes you were restraining them while they sat in bathrobes or pajama pants, but this unsub always jumped the gun. Somehow they managed all this damage while simultaneously kicking the dirt that had been sedentary for years out from under the rug. The men would call the police themselves - I’ve been robbed, I’ve been beaten - always astounded when you’d taken their statement then turned them around and recited their Miranda rights. This unsub was meticulous, planned down to the second. Somehow, the media always broke the story hours after the arrest with full fledged details on the crime - ones the BAU didn’t even have yet.

The first time this happened, you’d questioned every media worker from Quantico to DC. His target zone never seemed to reach beyond that, giving you an offender right in your backyard. Those were always the hardest to stomach. Journalists, Newscasters, even cameramen had been turned inside out as the team scoured for any connection. He was just too good.

“How can it be just one man?” Derek spoke first, but that was the question all of you were about to ask.

“Wife and kids were outta town. It was a sleeping 50 year old man against the element of surprise.” Prentiss was right, it wasn’t a difficult job when viewed like that. “Description is consistent with all the victims. All black attire, mask over the face.” She flopped the folder down in front of her for emphasis.

“Either he has another guy or he’s incredibly tech savvy. Some of this information was encrypted, it would take weeks to compile all of this. If he’s hitting a new vic every week that’s not nearly enough planning time for something this orchestrated.” Hotch checked the time on his watch. “We’re not finding him tonight. The local PD are investigating. We don’t have clearance until tomorrow. Everybody go home and get some rest, we need to crack down on this.”

As much as you loved your job, the departure was a welcome relief. The day had drained you, you had to basically drag yourself back to the BAU for the regroup after the case. It was routine, and incredibly necessary as this unsub continued his streak, but your brain was mush, and you didn’t know if you were capable of any breakthroughs in your current state. You were grateful, currently, that at least you weren’t dealing with a serial killer. He had an agenda, that much was obvious, but chasing a serial killer for a month bred a different kind of stress than chasing an anarchist.

The AC blast that hit you upon entering your home seemed to steal the tension from your shoulders. It was summer, so on top of hunting an unsub who was essentially a ghost, you were also bearing through the violently humid nights. You locked the door, pulling up your sleeves as you walked deeper into your house. The lights were on, you never left them off for long, and your eyes locked on the pile of notes sitting on your counter. Three small papers, torn at every edge, were draped over each other. Evidence, you thought. You’d kept them for evidence. Once you told the team the unsub had been reaching out, you would show them the notes. It was that simple, you were planning to tell them. You didn’t know why the information hadn’t entered their radar yet. This unsub was clearly infatuated. You could be a valuable part of solving this case, the notes could be the reason you solved it at all. Those were words straight from the source, they would tell you more about the unsub than any crime scene analysis would. Something about them just stilled your tongue, though. You never particularly liked the feds, the cops, the higher ups. You became one of them begrudgingly, you’d been good at reading people your whole life. You wanted to solve things, see justice. It was never primarily about helping people for you, and you feared the reputational repercussions if your team members ever found out about that. You weren't ignorant, you had morals. You simply lacked the place of purity they came from, the virtue your team members carried was one you were void of. Half of the time you walked away from a case, you disagreed with the verdict, and you were ashamed.

You had only realized you zoned out when the phone rang, effectively breaking your gaze away from the notes and onto the ‘Unknown caller’ screen glaring at you from your cell. Morgan just got a new phone, you remembered. He’s probably checking in. You picked it up, stating just your last name in greeting as a reflex from almost exclusively talking to other agents.

It was quiet for a moment, reaching the period of time where your stomach knotted up and almost forced you off the phone. “Hey, Y/n.” The voice was a new one, it pulled at certain strings within you. You knew him, but you didn’t recognize him.

“Who’s this?” The spark of familiarity filled you with guilt. A car accident when you were 15 had stolen most of the memories from your childhood and left a bountiful amount of scars in their place. You barely remembered your own parents, if this man was an old relative, you definitely didn’t know who he was. As much as your family tried to be empathetic, you could tell it hurt them when you were none the wiser.

“God, it’s good to hear your voice.” The man was smiling as he spoke, you could hear it in his tone. “Your number was shockingly hard to find. Feds really don’t mess around, huh?” Your shoulders tensed, you looked around. Blinds were closed, your house was the same as when you left it. You're sure it wouldn’t be hard to find your address if he’d found your number. “I’ve been trying, believe me. I left those notes while I was looking, although it’s really not the same, is it? Phones are so revolutionary, I mean writing you a letter is one thing but it’s so underwhelming in comparison. A piece of paper doesn’t let me listen to you, doesn’t let me hear those little breaths you take when you get scared.” You didn’t even realize your breathing had changed until he called you out.

“Do I scare you?” He sounded so domestic, the contrast between the genuinity laced in his words and the actual words themselves just about knocked you over. “I hope I don’t. I’m not trying to.”

“What are you trying to do?” Your mouth felt sealed shut, just barely managing to grate out the words.

“If you’re asking about my agenda, I’m afraid that’s a private affair for now.” He was so casual about this, sarcastically sucking air in through his teeth like he was telling you he couldn’t meet for coffee next week.

“What do you need with me, then? You don’t want to share and you aren’t calling to gloat. What’s the point?”

You heard him click his tongue at the question. “Everything is so technical with you agents.” You could basically sense his lips quirk up, gaining some type of sick intuition for the man’s tendencies. “Maybe I just wanted a word with the pretty detective working my case.”

Your knees were trembling, your grip getting looser on the phone as you struggled to keep your hold through the tremors of your hands. You had to focus, you could take advantage of this. “Why politicians? What happened to you?”

“Personal grudge.”

“How do you get their data so fast?”

“I know a guy” He knew a guy?

“So you have a partner?”

“I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“Why not?”

“It’s no one of importance.” Sibling, maybe?

“It’s important to me.”

He chuckled at that. You needed to hang up.

“Y/n-” Could he sense your fucking muscles tensing? “Don’t tell your friends.” He could hear your heartbeat from where he was, you were sure of it.

“Why?” You were instantaneous, barely letting him finish before responding. “You gonna hurt me?”

“No.” He scoffed. “If you tell them, I’ll have to stop reaching out.” You swore you could feel the weight of his eyes on you. “Is that really something you want?” Cold sweat pierced through the skin on the back of your neck. You yanked the phone down from your ear and hung up.

No, it wasn’t.

–

You dreadfully greeted the sun as it peeked through the slits of your blinds. You’d slept maybe a half hour in total last night, sleeping in five minute increments while bearing through a paranoid haze only comparable to the first time you’d smoked weed. The world felt unreachable. You could see it like a screen but your true consciousness sat captive in his hands. He’d known you. That was the fact stuck in your throat, that’s why you couldn’t sleep. Does that mean you knew him?

“Jesus.” If you had to guess, the sight of your sunken eyes and hunched shoulders was the trigger for Morgan’s reaction to the sight of you. Walking into work wasn’t going to be fun, you knew that, but you hadn’t expected such an immediate acknowledgement. “Someone have a rough night?”

You wished you could banter with him. Morgan always made working here feel lighter, he was fun to be around, but you were guilty. If you were tired from a one-night, insomnia, even if you were drunk and puking your guts up all night, you would have joked back with him. Now, you had to force yourself to make eye contact. A childish part of your brain was scared he'd smell it on you. At this point, you were fraternizing with the enemy, and it’s repercussions were draped over you like a curtain. “Couldn’t sleep.”

“Clearly.” He handed you a mug of coffee. “Is it the case? If it’s bugging you that much, one of us can stay with you for a couple nights. It’s no trouble.”

“No, Morgan, that’s not necessary.” He was so kind it was nearly suffocating. If someone stayed, he either wouldn’t call or you’d have to decline it. Both of those options making an uncomfortable amount of unease stir inside you. “I appreciate it, but I’ll be fine.”

“Just tell me if you need anything.” He nodded at you, you nodded back, then you both headed into the conference room.

“Any leads?” You walked to your seat as you asked, unsure what you were hoping to receive as an answer.

“None.” Everyone else was gathered around the table, Hotch scanning through the file as he replied to you.

“We’ve pretty much ruled out the media workers.” Prentiss spoke up. “This guy’s most likely an anarchist. His previous victims haven’t belonged to a consistent party so he’s not lashing out at the opposing side.” She thought for a moment. “What path leads somebody to anarchy?”

“Maybe he’s been kept out of office.” Morgan started speculating, just trying to sweep together something they could pin to him. “If he’s been running long enough, maybe he gets angry, changes course. He could be jealous of his targets.”

Your brain was half focused on the case, half focused on him. Two sides of you were fighting, one instilling a sort of protectiveness over him, one howling at you to do your fucking job.

“I don’t think he’s an anarchist.” You leaned forward in your chair, revving up to present your theory. “He’s been described in the same outfit for every victim. Long Sleeve, cargo pants, gloves and a ski mask - all black. That’s as minimal as it gets. Some pretty low income areas are well within his safe zone.” You paused, looking around to see if they were understanding what you were getting at.

“He’s poor.” Hotch had a glint in his eyes. Almost.

“So - what?” Morgan prompted. “He’s doing this for money? This is way too elaborate for somebody needing cash.” He shook his head as he spoke. “Hotch, there was evidence of Scopolamine injections. A man who either knows how to make the chemical or already has enough money to buy it wouldn’t be in a position that warrants this. Plus, the kind of tech it would take to get the information he steals? Way more than your typical Best Buy - this is Garcia level stuff. He injects them and probably forces them to help with the robbing, he beats them senseless - he’s getting some kind of kick out of this.”

“He’s not poor” You concluded. “But I’m pretty sure he used to be.” You sat up straighter to elaborate. “A lot of times, kids who grow up homeless or with no money feel wronged by politicians. Here they are going to school hungry while the mayor rolls in cash and lets them bear the consequences of a put-off promise to help the community.”

Prentiss sat back in her chair as she considered your words. “To build this type of anger, though? This is a vendetta.” She glanced down at the crime scene photos as a reminder.

“Exactly. Anger is expected in normal cases. Something extreme clearly had to happen to explain this type of outburst.” Personal grudge, you remembered him saying. You felt like you were airing out his secrets as you spoke. A weak sense of betrayal tugged at your guts. “I’ve been thinking about this a lot, going over what type of event could cause something like this and I think I have an idea.” You pulled out your phone while talking to call Garcia, the woman answering immediately.

“Garcia, can you look up children in the Quantico to DC area who died from complications with chronic illness? Probably late 90’s to early 2000’s, I don’t think our guy is old enough to have been running for office.”

“That’s gonna be a large list. Any more parameters you can give me?”

“Look for families making less than 20,000 a year.”

“Got it. There were three families making under 20,000 that reported losing a child of illness. One was of stage 4 cancer with no plausible recovery and the other two said they couldn’t afford the medication needed for treatment. I just sent them over.”

“You’re the best.”

“Don’t I know it.” You hung up the phone, pulling up the files she found.

“What exactly are we looking for here?” Morgan looked to you.

“We can rule out the first family. Dying of cancer wouldn’t create the effect needed for our unsub.” He looked like he was about to reiterate his question. “What we’re looking for is a sibling. If your family is struggling, you already have the seed of anger that this guy has. I think a family member dying from the lack of money might just give him the motive he needs.”

“That’s good thinking, he could be avenging someone.” Praise from Hotch always felt better than others. “The Bryson family was just the mother and the daughter who died. She worked in janitorial for the local middle school.”

“Doesn’t exactly fit the profile.” Morgan was right, all the testimonies had described a man. Plus the assumption of decent financial prosperity didn’t fit someone still working at a middle school.

“Who does that leave?” You were searching for the answer to your question, but Prentiss was quicker.

“Diana Reid and her two sons. Henry had type 1, seems like they could afford the insulin for a little while but something must have happened. He went into DKA and died a week later.”

Two sons. “What about his brother?”

“Uhhhh-” She scrolled down on her tablet. “That would be one Spencer Reid who…” She scrolled just a little bit further to find the whereabouts of the man, the hope in her eyes snuffing out with the information she read. “is dead. Says he committed suicide a couple years after his brother died.” The whole table deflated a bit as she said that.

“It was a good idea.” Hotch, despite being a monotone man, usually tried to keep things optimistic. “We’ll continue pursuing that angle. Morgan and Prentiss, I want you to go back to the first crime scene. I’ll call Dave and we’ll head to the latest.” The mentioned agents nodded their heads and started making their way out the door.

Your eyebrows furrowed at your lack of instruction. “And me, sir?”

“Go home.” He looked you over for a moment. “You look like hell.” Then he was gone, calling Rossi on his way out. How mortifying.

–

It had been three days since Hotch’s dismissal of you. You managed to get some sleep, convincing your co-workers of normalcy when you went back into the office the next day. In truth, you were anything but. You had been noticeably distracted but the others chose not to mention it until it hindered your performance, which it had yet to do. You were on a timer, counting down the seconds until your next call with him. You seemed to be endlessly tugged back and forth between excitement and pure dread. Everytime you got home, you took a moment to stare at your phone, almost like you could will him to call if you glared at it long enough. The day was just shy of a week since his last attack, and you were nervous as hell. Your phone buzzed once, then it buzzed again. He was calling.

“You’re early.” You didn’t find it fitting to greet him. You knew who it was, why be friendly? “Is there another one?”

“Relax, honey.” His voice lit a fire in you. Jesus. “I didn’t know I was only permitted one call a week.”

“What are you playing at?” You tried to sound sturdy, but your voice hit your ears with more desperation than you’d ever expressed.

“I could ask you the same.” You could hear the tilt in his words, he was so sure of what he was doing. “You didn’t tell them about us.”

“How would you know?”

“I’m not in cuffs, am I?”

“You think we’d catch you if I told them?” Was it your fault he was still free?

“No.”

“Maybe they’re listening.”

“Maybe.” He was so unbothered by the notion. You were never a good bluffer.

“It wouldn’t bother you?” You narrowed your eyes at nothing, staring at your wall as you tried to read him through the phone.

“You could bring in the whole nation, Y/n.” You listened more intently than you ever had. “It wouldn’t keep me from you.” You felt like you were choking on your own heart, feeling it beat at the confines of your throat. Jesus Christ.

“Do you know where I live?” Your lips were too weak to hold back the question. It’d been the only thing on your mind since the first note had been left on your car.

“Why?” His smile bled into his words. “Are you inviting me over?”

“Answer the question.”

“Why don’t you answer a question of mine?” He was so intentional, his MO proudly showing in the way he spoke to you. “Haywood or Clancy?”

“Are those your actual choices?” You tried to analyze him, justifying your actions with the ruse of investigation. He’d tell you more if he wasn’t monitored. “Or are you trying to throw me off your trail?” It was certainly plausible. Get you running after two men not of interest, leaving his real victim neglected by your team.

He laughed, breathy and soft. “I don’t know.” You could almost picture him tilting his head, faceless and so enticing in your imagination. “Pick one for me. Maybe I’ll do him next in your honor.”

“What do you know about honor?”

“Everything I do is about honor.” What did that mean?

“The only thing that would honor me is you turning yourself in.”

“What do you know about honor, agent?” His voice was taunting, you heard his body shift. “What do you think that team of yours would think about us, hm? Those are their words, not yours. You’re the one who’s waiting on calls from the enemy.” Shock paralyzed your tongue. You felt your head pulse with the blood rushing to your ears. “You don’t have to be guilty about wanting it, honey. You don’t fit with them.”

“As opposed to what? Fitting with you?”

He chuckled. “You’ve thought about it.”

“Nightmares, maybe.”

“That’s the angle you're going with?” He saw through you. “If you dreamt of me, I doubt they were nightmares.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“I don’t know where you are.” You didn’t feel relieved. “I have no interest in hurting or robbing you. Why would I want your address?.”

You slipped your hand under your shirt to trace the scar across your chest. Gift from the accident, now a nervous habit of yours. “What do you want?” God, you were a broken record.

“It doesn’t matter what I want, Y/n.” You could barely hear him over the thrum of blood in your veins. Your entire body felt tuned into his words. You’d never felt so far away while connected. “Only what I can do.”

“You take everything from them. More than just money. Clearly you lost something.” You were so sick of asking this question but you were getting farther from the answer with every conversation. “Why are you doing this?”

“They made the first move.” Jesus what did they do to this guy? “I’m not the bad guy, honey. I’m just defending my side.”

“This isn’t a game.”

“It might as well be.” He was quick with his responses. “It’s all the same to men like them.” You stayed quiet for a moment. How did you reply to something like that? “Get some sleep. It’s late.”

“Give me less crime scenes to look at and maybe I’ll sleep more.”

He smiled, you could hear it in his tone. “Every mean has an end, agent.” You held your breath, and as if gaining consciousness, you hung up the phone. You felt the brick of the encounter sit heavy in your stomach. He wasn’t lying. You were guilty, and you wanted it beyond belief.

–

You’d talked to him four more times over the past two weeks. There’d been two more victims corresponding with those calls, continuing his routine of a new one each week. Your understanding of your feelings had become less hazy as you talked to him more. Your guilt wasn’t from withholding information from your team, it was from the fact you wanted to. It stemmed from your instinctual desire to keep him to yourself. Let him exist differently in your home life than he did in your work life. It was difficult keeping something from profilers. It made you feel worse that they definitely knew something was up, but chose not to push it because they trusted you. Did this truly make you untrustworthy? You were only human.

You’d spent what was meant to be your day off at the BAU working. When there was a case like this, rest time seemed to take the backseat. You were drained, more emotionally than physically. You were lying to your friends, but truly, you didn’t know how deeply you considered them friends. They were good people, easy to like and easy to work with. You were starting to wonder if that's where it stopped, though. Everything about their company was easy, but it lacked gratification. His company was hard on you, but it was so rewarding, so filled with feeling that you started to wonder what your morals even were. You wouldn’t find them here, you thought. You certainly tried. You stared into the chipped white paint aging poorly on the brick wall of the bar as if the pigment of the words would organize your thoughts better than your malfunctioning mind could. The liquid in your glass was nearing it’s end. The drink had loosened your joints, loosened your mind. You hadn’t come here to get drunk, you were basically still sober, you just needed the warmth of a drink. There was a certain coldness within you, there had been since the accident. You accredit the feeling with driving away any potential love interests of yours. There was always a sense of being stuck, like you were interrupted in the middle of moving on, and never fully got to close the chapter. This wasn’t hard for others to sense. You were as emotionally nonreciprocal and unresponsive as a corpse.

“Mind if I join you?” A man who’d immediately caught your eye upon entrance gestured to the barstool next to you.

You motioned to it. “Please.” A casual invitation. You didn’t know how to talk to random men in bars. You took a good look at him, something subconscious stirring beneath your skin. The minimal buzz of the drink you had making you write it off, preferring the focus of his eyes on yours.

“What’s your name?” The smoothness of his voice could have rivaled the most expensive whiskey in that place.

You told him your name. He nodded, murmuring a “pretty” under his breath as he took a sip from his glass.

“I’m Matthew.”

“Pretty.” You reiterated, raising your eyebrows slightly as you joked. He chuckled, and you asked if he was new to the area.

“I’m a local, actually. I grew up here, surprisingly never been to this bar, though.”

“Really? I grew up around here too. This place is old as dust, been here forever.” You looked down, finishing the last of your drink.

“I know. I’ve wanted to come here for a while because it’s so old.” Something about him was so off putting but so irresistible. You’d never encountered such an uncomfortable concoction. It was intoxicating. “I lost the knack for drinking I had in my teen years. Back then my friends and me would just buy a 12 pack and get drunk in the field on Fromage.”

You lacked the memories to know if you related to the man, but you weren’t going to delve into why and kill the mood, so you lied. “That field used to scare the shit out of me. Everyone at my school said there were bodies out there.”

His eyes held a certain glint in them when he looked at you, his lips perked up at the edges slightly, if you hadn’t been a profiler you might have missed it. “Really?” Maybe you imagined it all, that or he caught on to you, the look leaving his eyes after lingering for a moment. The slight promise of something more sinister pulsed throughout them. The hairs on your arm were standing. “Mine said the same thing.” He smiled, looking away, shaking his head fondly as he remembered. “My school was full of dumbasses though so I never really took it seriously.” And you laughed.

You laughed a lot throughout the time you sat there with him. A few hours, you’d guess. He lowered your guard so easily, walking leisurely through the gates of you. You’d practically rolled out the red carpet for him. You wondered if he could see how easily he got in, how much you welcomed the feel of him in your veins. He didn’t seem to mind if he could. When he’d wanted to take you home, your lips parted, and you said you’d like that. You don’t really remember driving, knowing one of you did, both of you sober by the time you’d left. He’d been so gentle, so all-consuming. He’d run his thumbs along the scars he encountered, punctuating the sensation with his lips following close after. Mumbling praises against your skin and rhetorically asking “does that feel good, honey?” as your legs shook around him. He melted you down to pure liquid gold with just his touch, knowing exactly how to map you out. You’d felt him everywhere, his fingers burning their respective shadows on your skin, seeping slowly into your soul to leave marks there too. He’d felt so safe, the pure want joining the two of you together. A euphoric distraction from all the disaster you’d let befall you. He was gone before you woke up the next morning, but you saw him in your shadow, felt him in the soreness of your legs. He’d been a deviation, something put in your path to confuse you. What a brutal fucking night.

–

The same day, you’d gone to work, gone home, and then ended up back at the BAU an hour later. There had been another victim. Two days early. This was his eighth, and up until now he hadn’t strayed from his weekly pattern. This was a bad sign, if he was ramping up, who knows how many more he wanted to hit. The story had stayed the same, and that night you were arresting another board member, this time for solid ties to human trafficking. He really knew how to pick them. You’d give him that, at least.

The meeting post-arrest basically just shared what you were all thinking. He was ramping up, and you were getting no closer to catching him. Stating the obvious was doing nothing but wasting time. He was good. One of the best you’d ever seen. Nobody really knew what to do at this point. You watched their faces get more and more helpless and you felt bad. Nothing in your calls with the man would have helped you solve this case, you were almost positive. Any aspect that could have helped was one you explored.

Emily had said the name ‘Spencer Reid’ and the way your stomach lurched made you feel like you had to be onto something. You’d never had such an intense gut feeling about something only for it to be absolutely impossible. You hadn’t told them, but you looked more into him. His death was an easy one to fake. As much as you hated speculating on what could very well have been just a heartbroken boy, you couldn’t deny the theory you were building. His mother had found a suicide note, they hauled a body out of the river a month later and just assigned Spencer’s name to it, marking it down as conclusive. You weren’t convinced.

–

You got home within the hour, locking the door and pulling out your phone. You hadn’t called him before, but it was the same number every time, and you needed to talk. The phone rang so long you were almost sure he wouldn’t pick up. Almost.

“Y/n.” He greeted you. “This is new.”

“You broke your pattern.” You started with the topic at hand. “Why did you do that?”

You heard a chair squeak slightly as he leaned back. “What can I say? You being so interested gave me some extra motivation.”

“Interested?” What the fuck was he talking about? “This isn’t - I’m not fucking interested in anything. You’re a criminal.” You were slightly out of breath. When you lied to him, no matter how small the lie, air seemed to gain a disinterest in staying within your lungs.

“Mhm.” He was smug. That wasn’t a good sign. “I don’t believe that. You seemed pretty interested last night.”

He had pulled a lever, and your stomach dropped to your shoes. “That was you?” You sounded as defeated as you felt. Your eyes were watering from the pure shock, feeling the drop of the bomb shake you down to your core.

“You kept tracing that scar on your chest, you know that?” You hadn’t known that. “Almost like you could feel it.” Feel what? He didn’t elaborate. “You sounded so pretty when I touched it, when I kissed you. Been thinking about it all day.” He was breathy, sounding like he was trying to put himself back in it as he spoke.

You steadied yourself before you opened your mouth. “You lied to me.”

“I’ve never lied to you.” He sighed. “You lied to me, though.” You hadn’t imagined it. “That field used to scare you?” He laughed slightly. “You were the one who told me about it. Took me over there once to look at the moon in the back of your dad’s pickup.”

God, this was frustrating. “Who are you?” The tears were dancing the border of your eyes, begging to run down your cheeks. “I knew you?”

“You know me.” He was so sure of it. “I’m still in there. Everything is.”

You had to ask, at this point you were near certain of it. “Spencer?”

He sighed, relief intertwining with his words. “There she is.” It was such a soft delivery, the moment he took before replying had you wondering if you’d said anything at all.

What kind of situation even was this? “Is this about your brother?”

“You know, when we were younger, my mother knew the mayor. He used to babysit my brother and me when she worked nights.” His tone was humorous, bitter, like he couldn’t believe the stupidity of what he was explaining. “I listened to him promise us he would change the community when he got the time. Get us a house with more than one bedroom, get us into a school system deserving of us. He used to call me a genius.” He scoffed at the thought. “Then my mom couldn’t afford the insulin, and he let my brother die.”

You didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry.”

“The payments wouldn’t have even made a dent in his pockets.” You could visualize him, alone in a room somewhere, that familiar crease between his eyebrows as he talked. You were going to be sick, you thought. “One man for every year my brother got to live. Seems only fair.”

“Two more to go, then?” You couldn’t identify a single thought in your head. All of them speeding past you like bullets before you could latch onto one. “Is it helping?”

“Yeah.” He sniffled, quiet and subdued. “It is.”

“I - um” A tear finally fell, breaking the dam. You wiped it away quickly, two more taking it’s place almost immediately “I have to go.”

“Y/n-” but you were gone already. You put your hand over your mouth, laughing into it slightly at the absurdity of your situation and sobbing into a moment later as you took the cold plunge into reality. You texted your parents, knowing they were asleep, asking if you could swing by when they woke up. If anyone would know something, it was them, and you had every intention of shaking them down to find out exactly how you’d known the man. You had to know. You spent the night preparing the questions you’d ask and trying to fall asleep. You were almost paralyzed with the weight of him on you. There was no getting out of it now.

–

The outside of this house always felt alien. You knew you’d grown up here, but it lacked any sense of home. You wondered as you stood out front how much Spencer had to have meant to leave more of a mark than the place you spent your first 18 years in. The sun was nearing it’s peak in the sky, it was almost noon. Your parents had texted back at eight am, worried and eager to know what was wrong, eager to see you. You’d fallen asleep barely an hour before that, waking up at eleven and quickly getting ready after seeing the text. You were scared. These were practically strangers to you, and you were betting an ungodly amount on them. That’s not fair, you thought. But honestly, nothing was fair, and you calmed your guilt with promise of filling the void in your gut. You broke your staring contest with the front door and leaned forward to knock, the thing opening almost immediately.

“Hey.” You spoke before they did. You found that being the first to talk usually decreased the amount of warmth in their greetings. “It’s good to see you guys. Thank you for having me, I know my texts were sort of alarming. I just needed to talk about something.” You held eye contact to the best of your ability. They brought out a deep feeling of shame, knowing they didn’t blame you for the distance but still being responsible for it nonetheless.

“Of course.” Your mother talked while your father looked down. “It’s good to see you too. Come in, please.” Your father broke from her side to go sit down, while your mother opened the door to usher you in. You stepped forward, nodding at her in thanks as you passed her, joining your father where he sat.

“Um…” You faced both of them as your mom took the place by his side. How did you even start this? “Well, in a case I’ve been working on, somebody came up.” You couldn’t tell them he was alive. “And he just…seemed familiar, I guess. Did I know a boy named Spencer Reid growing up?” You watched the sparks of recognition ignite in their eyes as you said the name. Your mother’s grew teary, while your father’s seemed to harden.

“Knew him?” Your mother chuckled at the thought of it being so simple. “You two were more in love than your father and I.” She rolled her eyes as she held your father’s arm, the man laughing lightly at her words.

“He was the first friend you talked about. I remember picking you up from the first day of kindergarten and listening to you rave about the boy who was ‘smarter than the teacher’.” Her tone got lighter at the end, seemingly trying to imitate the excitement of your adolescent self. “You two were always close, you know?” She seemed to remember him fondly. “When you got older, you would get so defensive if I asked after him so eventually I stopped. But I knew. I knew you two would end up together from your first playdate.” She was on the verge of tears, giggling at her own words as the stories she told surrounded her, smiling at the past.

“His family really struggled. Such a sweet kid, him and his brother both. They were over here a lot.” Your father took the role of speaker as your mother’s emotions got the better of her. “We went back and forth for a while after the accident on whether to tell you or not. It just seemed cruel to. He died the night before you got hit, and you were such a wreck we just -” He struggled to find the words. “We considered it a blessing you didn’t remember him.” Your father’s guilt was apparent, twisting his features slowly as he explained their choices. “You were so in love, sweetheart. You didn’t know who he was when you woke up and we figured, you know, what’s the point? When the only thing that could come from it was pain, it just seemed futile.”

You don’t think you blinked the entire time they were talking to you. You only knew you were crying when your vision went blurry, completely neglecting the beading of tears down your cheeks. You remembered the day your mother was talking about, seeing the children you once were illustrate the world in front of you. You could almost see his face, how it would have looked when he died, how he used to look at you. Like he was staring at the universe’s secrets, easing his hands through the veil to touch them - to touch you. You remember the feeling he gave you, something warm and distinct, reserved for the two of you only. If you could have seen yourself in the moments you shared, you’re sure you would have worn the same look in your eyes.

You started speaking, but couldn’t manage much. “Yes, yeah, you’re right.” Reassurance usually worked well. “It was a…a good call.” You had trouble with your words, remembering the feelings of him but lacking the visuals. “Do you have any pictures?” Your mother nodded in response, detaching from your dad and going to retrieve something that held the memories you sought.

“I’m-” Your dad started. “We’re sorry.”

You shook your head. Your parents were the last people who owed an apology. “It’s ok, dad. I’m glad you did it.”

“I could never myself look back at these. Thinking about what happened to them I just…I can never look at them knowing they’re gone.” Your mother re-entered the room holding a camera, dark pink and cheap. “It was meant to document your childhood, but he was around so much, it’s basically just a compilation of you guys.”

You held the thing in your hands. It was everything you wanted to happen but you couldn’t force your fingers to move. Did you even want this? He was alive, sure, but you’re certain the boy next to you in these photos would never see the light of day again. All your birthdays for thirteen years, field trips, science fairs, even just the two of you sitting together reading. It was all here. All consumable. You felt the urge to boil them down and burn your skin with the residue. Anything to keep a semblance of this life with you. You had a right to them, they were yours. Your teeth clenched at the sting of the absence. He had been yours and you couldn’t even remember. “Can I keep this?”

“Of course.” You’re sure the thoughts in your head were obvious to them, spinning like a cyclone in your eyes zoning out on the camera. “I’ve thought about giving it to you for a while now anyway.”

–

They’d made you lunch, then dinner. They told you tales of your past and you let them glance into your present. It was dark by the time you left, setting the goal to talk with them more. You walked to your car, having parked down the street, and tried to shake yourself out of the trance that house put you in. You thought you were seeing things at first, squinting slightly to focus on the chunk of passenger door that was shrouded with out of place darkness. Someone was leaning against your car. You didn’t feel defensive.

“Spencer?”

“Hey.” He pushed off the door and walked closer to you, facing you on the sidewalk. You could see him now, lit up by a streetlight. He took you in, too. Glancing at your hand and grinning. “I remember that thing.” You had forgotten you were holding the camera until now.

“Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“I don’t know, honey.” He shrugged, matching your exhaustion at the situation. “I guess I wanted to see how much you remembered.” He looked at you, his eyes just as bright as they’d been a decade ago. “How much I could make you remember.”

You sighed. God, if only it worked that way. “Do you want to-” What the fuck were you thinking? “Do you want to come over?” You’d looked through every picture on that camera. You missed him. You missed him in your space, on your bed, waiting for you at the bus stop. That knot of feeling stuck only wanted to unravel if it were his hands tugging at it. “I can drive us.”

He raised his eyebrows, surprise blending seamlessly with the undiluted hope he carried as a kid. “Ok.” He smiled, just a tiny lift at the corners of his lips. The image of that smile resting on his teenage face struck you so violently you felt it in your bones. You looked at him, starstruck. His presence was a trance of it’s own.

“Ok.” You repeated him, trying to elongate the moment. You weren’t sure when you’d be ready to look away. He’d have to move first, and he knew it, so he walked to the passenger door. You blinked, grounding yourself, and unlocked the car.

You were preparing for an awkward car ride, but clearly your subconscious was more than familiar with him, being silent with him came as second nature to you. You took the long way back to your house, trying to enjoy the comfortability as long as you could. He added an elevation to your existence that you hadn’t been aware you were lacking. You pulled into your driveway ten minutes later, parking and turning off the car.

“Did you really not know where I lived?”

“No.” He was looking out your windshield, taking in the sight of where you felt safest. “I meant what I said. I never needed to.

You walked into the house first, hearing him shut the door softly behind him. You’d been listening to see how he’d close it, not sure what it would tell you, but deeming it important regardless. He’d been nothing but respectful of your space both times he’d been here. You sat down, nodding your head to the chair near you.

He let a moment pass, waiting to see if you had something to say. You had too much to say, too much to articulate. “I want you to leave with me.”

“Spencer-”

“Don’t.” His eyes were pleading, glistening with his unique mix of hunger and control. “Don’t write me off, Y/n. Nobody would know. They’re not gonna catch me. You can quit, and we can leave.” You looked away, down towards your hands. “Don’t act like you haven’t thought about it.” It was all you’d been thinking about. Usually in dreams - obviously your mind was more up to date than you were. You were going to do it, you thought. Of course you were. You looked at him and knew you’d go anywhere he asked you to. Still, though, you had a life. One you needed time to wrap up before you could leave it. You were a federal agent, if you went missing, they’d send the entire nation to step on your heels.

“Can I think about it?

He looked at you, suppressing a smile and tilting his head slightly. “Sure, honey.” He could read you so easily. He’d known he had you from the moment he asked. “I’ve still got two more.” The burning in your stomach wasn’t a resistance to the words. It was an admiration, a feeling you could wallow in. You weren’t an opposing force to him. Had you ever been? Truly?

“What happens if I don’t go?”

His eye contact had a way of transferring, enveloping any part of you it could reach. You were testing him. “Don’t force my hand, Y/n.”

You didn’t plan on finding out what that meant.

#comet: SR #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds x reader #spencer reid #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x you #x chubby reader #x fat reader #x plus size reader #spencer reid x chubby reader #spencer reid x plus size reader #spencer reid x fat reader #spencer reid fanfiction #suggestive #probably ass #im sorry for this

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grindsta · 3 months

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GAME FEATURES

THIS IS A REALLY LONG POST

There are SO MANY features in The Sims 3 that I keep learning more and more each day, so I decided to start keeping track of all of them. Some of these I've known myself, but most of them come from Reddit and TS Forum.

I'll keep on updating everytime I find new things.

Features are under the cut!

Gameplay

Careers/University/Skills

You can sign autographs as a rock star by clicking on a random building (bookstore, theater, stadium, etc.) and make cash. You can only do it once a week and have them perform the action yourself (similar to the vaccination event you do as a doctor).

If you send a Sim to college, you can get a financial aid grant every 24 hours. Just click on the administration building and select “apply for financial aid”. The better your grades, the more money you’ll get.

Traveling to the past with ambition’s time machine, random events will change your household’s present. (Change careers or add family members).

Sims who reach the highest criminal career level glow red. This is bad for relationships with Sims with Good, Friendly, and Family Oriented traits. Having maxed out the Charisma skill will mostly prevent it, or even throw “Jar of Friendship” potion at them. Although it is good for relationships with Sims with Evil and Insane traits.

When some rectangles of one (or more) skill is highlighted, it’s because it’s the requirement for the Sim job.

If you protest about low wages, you have the possibility of increasing the wages of everyone.

Parent Sims can have a wish for their kids to have specific careers.

You will get gifts for working on your job for 5 years.

Singer Sims could sell their albums to other Sims.

If you click on your Sim work building when they’re at work, you can demand a raise. but if their mood is bad or their relationship with their boss is bad, this can get them fired. You can also go out with your boss and ask for a promotion.

Sims can die while you’re lifeguarding.

Your Sim can get caught if they call in fake sick.

Sims in the medical career can follow up with patients by calling them.

You can fry beetles if you are an evil private investigator (if you have a magnifying glass).

Your Sim can be an evil politician.

Ghost hunters can “appease ghosts” at the graveyard.

Lifeguard and firefighter sims can “demonstrate CPR” on another Sim as a romantic action.

You can select what type of sandcastle to build if you have a high enough skill.

Your Sim can get tattooed and tattoo other Sims. It’s a hidden skill that, if low, tattoos will look like child drawings. You can also get the tattoo removed.

Maids

Some maids actually don’t do their work, you have to fire them so a new one comes up, and is, hopefully, better.

Most Maids will have at least neat and/or perfectionists, brave and flirty, or charismatic traits. Some Maids are also Kleptomaniacs. Exceptions to this are: Delicia Hoover from Bridgeport and Simon Swift from Barnacle Bay, they are Slobs, which means they will never actually clean your House.

Maids will quit if they see Bonehilda in your house.

Toddler/Child/Teen

Kids will gain skills if someone reads them skill books to sleep.

When a witch sim does their homework they accidentally get it done all at once by magic. They grab the blue notebook, but the green bar completes itself immediately and they look confused for a second. In case they fail to do homework by magic, their whole body gets burnt.

When children and teens are asleep, you can click on them to select a dream, and then they’ll wake up with a moodlet related to it. While the moodlet is active, you can get a special moodlet if their dream comes true. While still sleeping, the game will notify if the dream turned into a nightmare and they will get a negative moodlet.

Toddlers and Kids can build hidden skills with certain toys.

You can put kids in time out and they will stand in a corner crying.

Toys can go on the crib.

Babies can get diaper rash if using the changing station from The Sims 3 Store.

If you take a child of the bouncer, they get bratty and mad.

Children can hold a bear while talking to an adult.

Kids can read the newspapers to see what baked goods sell better.

When you get robbed children can get the lifetime wish to become a cop or a thief. They can also want to become a doctor after seeing someone dying or getting a new sibling, become a musician after seeing someone jam, become a creature robot cross-breeder after seeing a ghost. become a firefighter after a house fire, become a magician after seeing a sim use their magic, become a singer while singing with their imaginary friend.

Child witch Sims have stabilizers on their brooms.

Kids can get sick from prison food.

Your Sim can chat with toddlers through their Teddy Bears.

Parents can play with their toddlers in the ocean.

Children inherit the effects of some Genie Wishes.

Your Sim can get detention if they slack off in school.

You can create custom and random baby DNA at the hospital.

Children can fight teens.

Parents will have a higher friendship level with their baby with an at home birth than a hospital birth.

Traits

Inappropriate sims can take sponge baths from a sink.

Your Sim can have a hidden trait called “advanced art training” earned by completing the “Skilled Painting” opportunity acquired through working in the art appraiser career. Sims with this trait can paint paintings of any skill level (0 to 9), instead of paintings appropriate only to their painting skill level.

Bookworm sims can join the book club by computer and get mailed books.

Unlucky Sims can’t die. But they can die of transmutation and leave a golden statue.

Party Animals Sims can dance on top of the counter.

Mermaids with the Evil trait can spawn sharks.

Sims with the Green Thumb Trait can Revive Dead Plants.

Brave Sims can ask for a raise.

Frugal Sims will cut coupons from the newspaper.

Daredevil Sims can “play with fire”, and will stick their hands in the fire and pull them back out until their fun motive is full.

If your Sim has the hydrophobic trait they cannot Woohoo or Try for Baby in the shower.

Being in Bot mode (Bot fan trait) will keep your sim from aging.

Sims with the daredevil trait can eat bugs.

Sims who have the childish trait have the option to read a toddler’s book like any other. Others will get the message “Sim can only read this book to a toddler.”

The Good trait Sims could accuse of being meanspirited.

Sims with the Good trait can donate to charity.

Sims with the “Never Nude” trait shower in their bathing clothes.

Moodlets

If you click on a negative need moodlet, the game will have the sim do the activity to fill that need.

If you gift your child Sims too many times in a row, they get a “spoiled” moodlet.

The creepy magical gnome (the one that kinda looks like a devil) will sometimes spawn next to your Sims bed at night with glowing red eyes. Your Sims can get a creeped out moodlet.

Buy a baby, toddler, or child a teddy bear because it gives them a special moodlet when they sleep while having it in their inventory.

You get a moodlet when you have a blog and something from the blog’s theme happens in your Sims real life.

The “rejuvenated” and “completely at ease” moodlet prevents the horrified noodlet from exploring the catacombs.

Sims can make snow angels face down, and when they do, they get the frosty face moodlet.

Mourning over the dead Sim’s gravestone would reduce the negative effect of “Mourning” moodlet.

If you send too many secret admirers texts to the wrong Sim, they will receive a negative “being stalked” moodlet.

You get a moodlet saying “Brrrr! This is cold!” when your Sim sits on ice furniture.

When swimming in the snow you will get a moodlet saying “Polar Bear Club”.

Romance/Woohoo

You can woohoo or make out behind the scenes at the theater hall if you have two romantically involved Sims visit at the same time. It works for any rabbit hole you can visit (town hall, military base, science lab…).

Using the Time Machine to Try for a Baby in the past will result in a biological teen showing up later that day.

Try Online Dating on the computer.

If your Sim is dating someone and that someone is dating someone else, you can tell them they are cheating.

Sims gets a fertility boost after getting a romantic massage.

Sims can get kicked out of theaters for woohooing.

You can give a cinnamon kiss when you flavored your food with it.

If a Sim marries a plumbot the creator of said plumbot officially becomes their parent-in-law.

If your Sim feels betrayed from an unfaithful marriage they can rebound kiss.

Money

To make money, go to the science skill tree until you have enough skill to take samples from gems, and then clone them using the science station.

Adopt a bunch of dogs or have a werewolf Sim and make them hunt.

Go through the trash of wealthy households.

Experiment on bugs until you get a plasma bug then sample and clone it. A cat with high-level Hunting skills will also catch them occasionally.

Master the Martial Arts skill and break space rocks on the board breaker and get lots of valuable gems.

Paintings appreciate in value over time and are the best sold when the Sim dies.

Miner holes are treasure chests. You can also make several holes into a cave system.

If you have a philosopher’s stone, you can turn pretty much anything into gold. You run the risk of your sim turning into gold and therefore dying. However, if you have a death flower in your inventory you don’t die and you get to keep the gold statue of your sim - making tones of money because of it.

Pets

If you’re cooking food and have a pet, you can throw scraps to them that they will eat.

You can have a rock as a pet.

You can breed fish.

If a pet bowl is outside, any other animal can eat from it.

Gnomes can encourage and discourage cats and dogs on your lot.

Your Sim can pet their dog while they are lying on the couch.

Horses will eat and destroy the newspaper.

When pet birds die, their bodies don’t disappear, they lay there until cleaned up.

Two small dogs can eat from the automatic feeder at once.

Pets can eat garden plants.

Dogs can howl and cats can meow along with instruments.

Your Sim can drop a fish from your inventory onto the ground and their cat can eat it.

If your Sim dog uses the guard-the-house interaction, it will actually bark at any strays that happen to come by your door.

Foals will get a negative moodlet if their mother isn’t around. However, if a Sim gives lots of love and feeds it when it’s hungry, in a couple of days the moodlet changes to a positive one saying that it’s not missing the mother anymore because of all the care you provided

Death

There are only two graveyards in the game with fully unique and custom graves, and no generic ones. They are the graveyards of Sunset Valley and Riverview. Appaloosa Plains is unique in that it has a pet graveyard.

Burning, electrocution, and starvation are by far the most common causes of death among the preexisting graves, with old age being surprisingly common.

If you make a ghost Sim as a playable Sim and have them paint, all their paintings will get the Simoleon bonus to value from the painter being dead.

Your pets can save your Sim from death.

You can have funerals when a Sim from your household dies.

Small tombstone: Dies before 75,000 lifetime happiness points. Medium tombstone: Dies between 75,000 and 149,000 lifetime happiness points. Large tombstone: Dies at 150,000 and above lifetime happiness points.

Sims Graves have different emblems on them depicting how they died; flames, hands reaching out of water, shark jaws, etc.

Expansions

You can discover islands on Island Paradiso.

Isla Paradiso is full of hidden chests on secret islands.

Sunlight charm spell changes a wolf to their human form.

Some Supernatural portraits & paintings (marked with purple border in Build Buy) change during a Full Moon.

Vampires can raid the hospital and the grocery store.

Misc

When out in the ocean, the Kraken can appear. It can attack and sink your Sims small houseboat. It can spawn into Sunset Valley & Lucky Palms if you go out to the furthest point of the water.

If you have a microphone from university life in your inventory, your Sim can greet other Sims by shouting in their face.

You can plant cheese and eggs.

You can upgrade umbrellas.

You can store elixirs in the fridge.

You can waterski.

Sims can mess up an alchemy spell and become a toad.

Birthday cakes can catch on fire.

There are types of objects that aren’t in the catalog that you can make in the toy machine.

If your sims mess up the weather stone, it can rain flowers.

You can open a tab at a bar and if you can’t pay it, they will add it to your bills.

Aliens can steal space rocks from the science lab.

If you steal someone’s clothes after skinny dipping, they’re too mortified to go again.

If your sims are on fire, they can put themselves out in a shower or bathtub. They also put themselves out in dive wells from World Adventures and if you have a shower in a can.

You can upload your Sim sketches and paintings to the digital frames.

Sims can send thank you notes after receiving wedding gifts.

You can place snack bowls on island countertops.

You can announce aptitude test results to other sims.

Not all adult sims get a Midlife Crisis and there are variables involved.

You can go to therapy during a midlife crisis.

Sims who have body hair can get it waxed.

If you place a professional bar at a gym, with a mixologist, they can make protein shakes for your sims and a weird wheat grass-type drinks, graveyards have the tombstone topper and others. The library has basic drinks but one is “alien brain” and is a skill drink and stacks on the library moodlet and the supernatural bonus, so reading skill books takes way less time.

Sim can free criminals from jail with the mining tool.

Celebrities can’t be abducted by aliens.

You can throw herbs at the fireplace, and it will give you a moodlet that varies depending on what herb you have.

Selling objects in the Consignment store is something you can improve over time.

Your Sim can sue people for slander at City Hall when you’re a celebrity and they spread rumors about you.

You can get arrested for harvesting someone else's plants.

Details

The stones at the bottom of the fishbowl change depending on what you put in it.

Artistic, Can’t Stand Art, Computer Whiz, Evil, Genius, Gloomy, Insane, Neurotic, and Virtuoso Sims all have different and unique painting styles.

Fish can spontaneously breed if you put them in fish tanks.

If you are being robbed, and the police come to put the burglar in handcuffs by their car, while they search your house, you can click on the burglar to set them free. They will even thank you for doing so, promising to make it up to you, although they never do.

Cats can jump onto Sim’s lap and they can pet them.

You can drag the greeting card into a big digital frame.

You can get a “wrong number” call.

Clones will be attracted to the cloned Sim.

Cats can sleep on newspapers.

Sims can get a dirtbag reputation if caught cheating. If caught a lot of times, they get a slimeball reputation.

You can “Play in Sand” in the spots where you painted the terrain with sand.

If you have a big dog and a puppy or a cat and a kitten, they can cuddle together in a big pet bed.

Different bars will serve different food depending on the lot type. You can get onion rings, nachos, and hot wings at the normal lower-tier bars but olive platters and shrimp cocktails are reserved for fancy places like exclusive lounges, vampire lounges, and art galleries.

Sims can get sick eating bar food at the lower-end bars.

You can preview a house before you buy it by clicking on the magnifying glass.

Sims can chat on the bunkbed and interact on the playpen.

Try using “Disco tags” in the cheats menu (Ctrl+Shift+C) and go to the map view.

Sims can read lying on the beach towel.

You can style the time machine.

Bonehilda will fight robbers.

Hydrophobic sims won’t accept a fishbowl as a gift.

Simbots have 0’s and 1’s instead of zzz’s.

Male Sims can leave the toilet sit up.

Sunglasses have the reflex of the world.

There are 6 types of snowman - classic, evil, tragic clown, hockey, Grim Reaper, and alien.

With no couch, sims will play video games sitting on the ground.

There’s a city in the background of the university world.

Sims can have different sitting positions.

When your Sim spouse dies and comes back to life, they come back divorced.

Horses can ride boats.

When Plumbots pee themselves, oil is what gets on the floor.

If you place a rubber duck on the bathtub, Sims play with it while they bathe. If you place “World’s Brew Bubble Bath”, they will have a bubble bath.

You can change the colors of the street lights.

You get a popup when a pregnant Sim enters a costume party (it reveals the number of hours left for the pregnancy to end).

Store items come with new skills.

You can expand the inventory and relationship tab by dragging it.

Your Sim only earns LHP when your Sims mood is in the “bubble” on the Mood Meter,

If a Sim’s mood drops all the way to the bottom (-100), the Sim may simply refuse to do anything, even if directed to by the player. You can send them on vacation but if they become depressed on their vacation, it will be necessary to send them home.

The volcano in Sunlit Tides can erupt.

Ants crawl in and out of a public picnic basket carrying food.

Every time a Sims learning the Painting skill sells a painting directly from the easel there is a 20% chance that the painting will replace a wall decoration item in the local art gallery.

You can spy on neighbors with tab mode.

Your Sims can get bitten by mosquitos.

Sims can chat with other sims while cooking.

Friends can bring their kids over to play with yours.

Resort Staff NPCs sweep the floors of the resort.

Sims can get nauseous from foods with herbs.

Sims with the Asian Culture trait use chopsticks to eat rather than knives and forks.

Ghosts can swim in swimming pools but you can’t see their body under the surface of the water.

You can double-click on the save file you want to play on the main menu screen and it will start the game.

When you have the cheapest washing machine and your Sim tries to stop it from shaking, you will get a “Victory Over Washer” moodlet.

Magic gnomes spawn at random when you do related activities.

The trash bed in buydebug makes you stinky.

If you put your bird cage outside it might fly away.

The doors on cars matter, if a car has 2 doors, 2 Sims will get in, if a car has 4 doors, 4 (or 5) Sims get in. Also, babies and toddlers will be held by their parents inside the car.

You can wax your Sims, and when you do, their body hair will appear again after a while.

If lightning strikes vehicles during a storm, it will completely destroyed them.

If a Sim is performing an interaction related to a trait, the trait will be highlighted.

You can get a graduation gnome that “hides in your books” during university classes.

Create-a-style

You can drag the whole palette to other objects so they get the same style.

You can swap patterns by dragging one of them onto the dividing line next to the other.

You can randomize patterns + colors by right-clicking on the swatches.

Right-clicking on the color above the color wheel, the game will give you a more appealing color (a different shade) than the one you have selected.

CAS

Right-clicking the icons at the top of CAS randomizes that part of clothing you are on.

You can have hairstyles in different outfits.

Build-Buy

Plants change in size as you place them.

You can make custom object collections.

If you typed in the cheat moveobjects on you can move sims by just clicking on them (on Build Buy mode).

You can set seasonal decor on your home lot to auto-change if you place the debug marker and then decorate accordingly.

If you press alt when building a foundation, you can change the height of it.

You can paint ceilings.

Mods

If you play with NRAAS Story Progression, no vampires or celebs will be in your town unless you specifically say you want them.

#ts3 #the sims 3 #the sims #sims 3 #s3 #til

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gravitywonagain · 4 months

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Inquiring Minds

holy shit, i finished a thing. well, a draft of a thing, but still counts!

based on this post about wwx being just dead enough be susceptible to the compulsion of inquiry

It was, in retrospect, the stupidest possible way to be found out. Wei Wuxian will readily admit that. Unfortunately, the level of stupidity was not a determining factor for the level of reality — as was the case for so much of Wei Wuxian’s life.

It all happened because one of the two dozen Jin disciples who bothered to show up to the war got a little drunk and a lot prideful and ended up starting a fight he couldn’t finish. Or, that was the going theory, anyway. The Jin leadership — such as it was — wanted an investigation done. As if they had nothing better to do. As if there weren’t reasons to be conserving spiritual power and not wasting it playing Inquiry for a guy who had decided to pick a fight — hopefully, hopefully it was a fight — with a Nie disciple who, granted, did not have the startling musculature of some of her shixiongs, but was still a fucking Nie disciple!

This guy was not worth their time. This guy was not worth Lan Zhan’s time. Or his attention, or his spiritual power, or the stress it would put on his guqin strings— okay, maybe Wei Wuxian should have taken a moment to purge some of his resentment before walking into the tent.

But he didn’t. This is important.

Because then Lan Zhan began to play.

And there was this strange… tugging sensation in the pit of Wei Wuxian’s gut, right where his golden core was supposed to be, pulling him toward Lan Zhan, or toward the empty space in front of Lan Zhan.

Wei Wuxian shouldn’t have ignored it. He gets that now. He does. But he always wanted to be near Lan Zhan, and his body had been doing all kinds of weird shit since he’d had his core cut out, and who was to say this wasn’t just another weird side effect.

Well. It was. A weird side effect. After a fashion.

But that’s not the point!

He should have noticed then. He should have left then. But he didn’t.

The melody changed and the tugging sensation stopped. Which was great!

Until something else started. It felt like a kind of drunkenness, light and hazy in his head, loose around his tongue. Three or four bowls in.

He shook himself to dislodge it, but the motion only drew a sharp glare from Jiang Cheng.

The tent was full of spectators. At least two representatives from each major clan were present, plus several “close friends” of the victim -- like four of the fifteen total Jin disciples -- who probably just wanted something else to do outside of eat, sleep, and fight. Wei Wuxian couldn’t blame them, exactly, war was remarkably boring most of the time, but it was getting awfully stuffy in there.

Lan Zhan changed the melody again, something almost lexical about it. Wei Wuxian could almost hear the question being asked, even before Zewu Jun’s voice chimed in, translating for anyone who didn’t know the qin language — which was pretty much everyone else in the tent besides the Twin Jades — “What is your name?”

Wei Wuxian caught his own response between his lips, pressing them together tightly, as the guqin sounded three distinct notes which Zewu Jun reported as Jin Zixin.

So, good. It was the right guy. That was great. Nothing weird at all.

He should have left then. He didn’t.

Lan Zhan played again, and again Wei Wuxian thought he understood the phrase, the question, even before Zewu Jun said for the tent, “How did you die?”

Wei Wuxian felt the answer fly to the tip of his tongue and bit his teeth around it, through it. His cheek bled with the force of keeping quiet.

It was weird. So weird. But maybe, Wei Wuxian justified to himself, maybe it was just an effect of holding a secret inside for so long and having someone actually ask the question out loud. Maybe, it was just the same automatic reaction of answering with your name when someone asked for it. Maybe he was just too fucking tired, and the resentment under his skin just wanted something to laugh at, something to entertain itself with. Like the five of ten Jins standing in the back of the tent. War was boring, okay?

The notes from Lan Zhan’s guqin hung in the air, resonant and waiting. The moment seemed to stretch out too long. It dragged and Wei Wuxian gradually felt the words stop fighting him to escape.

But the Jin ghost didn’t answer either.

When Lan Zhan played the same phrase over — “How did you die?” echoed on Zewu Jun’s tongue — the compulsion was much stronger. This time it was like Wei Wuxian could feel Lan Zhan’s spiritual power pouring through him; the strongest of wines, several jars of it.

He couldn’t fight it.

His mouth opened.

I fell. I fell. I fell.

“I fell.”

All eyes in the tent turned to him.

Jiang Cheng’s elbow caught him in the ribs. He didn’t even bother to glare. He said, “Not you, Idiot.”

The qin sounded and everybody looked back to Lan Zhan and Zewu Jun, waiting to hear the Jin disciple’s answer.

Zewu Jun hesitated for the barest of moments, stuttering into the start of his translation before finding the confidence of his voice once more, recounting whatever it was that the ghost had strummed out.

Wei Wuxian didn’t hear a word he said. He was, instead, pierced on two sides.

On one: Jiang Cheng muttered to himself, “Wait,” and then his eyes went wide as he looked back at Wei Wuxian.

On the other: Lan Zhan’s fingers froze above the strings of his guqin and he turned to stare over his shoulder at Wei Wuxian with something like horrified understanding dawning within his gaze.

Wei Wuxian finally realized he should fucking leave. Immediately.

He wanted to run. He knew better. Knew what that would look like.

Instead, he was going to simply walk out of this tent as he had walked out of so many already during this campaign. Gravel crunched under his heel as he turned.

But his brother knew him too well. Jiang Cheng’s hand clamped tight around Wei Wuxian’s bicep, his grip unyielding. With his golden core, Wei Wuxian might have been able to break it. But the real bitch of it was that it was his golden core that was holding him in place.

Jiang Cheng tensed as if readying for a fight, but Wei Wuxian already knew how that fight would end. So he let himself be restrained.

He turned back to face the Inquiry.

Lan Zhan was still staring at him when Zewu Jun finished speaking. He was still so stuck in place that his brother had to prompt him into finishing the ritual. Which he did, with all the grace and skill expected of him. He really was just so beautiful to watch.

All the while, Wei Wuxian listened to the music and bit through his tongue to keep it silent. The questions continued to drag at him -- “Do you know who killed you?” Wen Chao. “Do you have any last requests?” To leave this fucking tent. -- though the pressure to answer eased significantly as the Jin ghost became less stubborn about it. Wei Wuxian settled for reciting the answers to them in his head until they no longer felt pressed against the thin seam of his mouth.

It took approximately sixteen-hundred years.

All seven Jin disciples supporting the war effort left the tent after the ghost had recounted his final moments. The attempted sexual assault was not unexpected, judging by their faces, but still disappointing to hear about. Clearly not the entertainment they were hoping for. Luckily for Wei Wuxian, they were apparently too wrapped up in their Jin nonsense to realize new entertainment was fidgeting in the corner and trying not to sever the tip of his tongue completely.

The Nie, represented by Nie Mingjue and Nie Huaisang, left shortly after the ritual concluded. If Nie Mingjue had to tug his brother away, Wei Wuxian was too busy keeping his mouth shut to comment on it.

And then there were just the four of them. Plus the corpse. But they were like six months into a war, so the corpse didn’t actually seem to bother any of them. It hadn’t even started to smell yet. It was still pretty intact, too, and now that it was verifiably a criminal, Wei Wuxian wondered idly if the Jin would let him use it in their next battle. Probably not.

His idle wondering ceased abruptly as his brother’s fingers bit deeper into the meat of his arm.

“Wei Wuxian,” he said, all of his surely filial worry for his gege boiling over into a spitting, incandescent fury. He never had to say he loved his brother, Wei Wuxian could always tell. It was the teeth gnashing that gave him away. “What the fuck do you mean you fell?”

Right.

Wei Wuxian played it as cool as he could with a definitely-not-bleeding tongue. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jiang Cheng.” He shrugged, but his arm didn’t move very far.

“You answered Inquiry,” said Lan Zhan. Succinct as ever.

“No!” Wei Wuxian said, maybe a little too loud, but not at all childishly.

Zewu Jun narrowed his eyes and pulled out his xiao. Wei Wuxian tried not to flinch about it, he did. But Zewu Jun only played a short, non-Inquiry melody, and a shimmering, blue barrier manifested around the interior of the tent.

“No,” Wei Wuxian said again, this time at a totally normal volume. “I was just… messing around. You know how I do that, Lan Zhan. Always a rule breaker.” He grinned, desperately trying to play it all off. Realizing faster and faster how very badly this was going for him.

Lan Zhan surprised him, then, saying, “Not when it matters.”

“What?”

“Wei Ying doesn’t break rules when they matter.”

Wei Wuxian didn’t know where the fuck that was coming from. But he couldn’t say he hated it.

Except that he did, because it was going to be a problem for this whole I’m just a silly rascal defense he was setting up.

Jiang Cheng still hadn’t let go of his arm. His fingernails were starting to split the fabric of his sleeve. And worse, his eyebrows were scrunched together in the way they do when he’s thinking through all the angles of a problem.

Zewu Jun still had his xiao in hand, and he was looking at Wei Wuxian like he was deciding whether to perform an exorcism or an execution.

But Lan Zhan… Lan Zhan hadn’t moved from his seat on the mat. He had turned his body so that he was facing Wei Wuxian, giving him his full attention, and was looking up at him with… pain in his eyes. Shining, wet pain.

“You died?” he asked. “Are you dead?”

“I don’t…” Wei Wuxian trailed off. He couldn’t find the words.

He didn’t know. Which was, possibly, not the best sign.

“I can’t be dead,” he said, looking over at Zewu Jun, Jiang Cheng, then back to Lan Zhan. “Can I?”

Zewu Jun, still wary, said, “You responded to the compulsion in Inquiry. Inquiry is a song that speaks to and compels answers from the dead. It does not generally work on the living.”

“Well--” Wei Wuxian started, defensive and scared. But again, he didn’t really know where to go with that.

“Where were you, Wei Wuxian?” Jiang Cheng asked him. “Why didn’t you meet me at the bottom of the hill?”

Lan Zhan and Zewu Jun shared a look. They didn’t seem to know what Jiang Cheng was talking about. But Wei Wuxian really, really, didn’t want to get into that whole mess. If anyone was going to see right through him and his flimsy tale about suddenly remembering the location of Baoshan Sanren’s mountain, it would be Lan Zhan. Actually, Zewu Jun would probably figure it out, too. And then maybe even Jiang Cheng. Now that he wasn’t all broken and desperate and gullible.

Fuck. With the way Jiang Cheng was looking at Wei Wuxian, the way his hand released some of the pressure around his arm, he might already have.

Wei Wuxian laughed, hoping it came off more smoothly than it felt in his chest. “Ah, Jiang Cheng.” He brought his own hand up to lay over his brother’s. “What if I told you--”

“No,” Jiang Cheng cut him off. “No more bullshit. Where were you?”

The mirth, false as it was, drained out of Wei Wuxian as he saw the pain building behind his brother’s eyes.

There was movement in his periphery and then Lan Zhan was standing on his other side. His fingers wrapped around Wei Wuxian’s other arm with a much gentler grip than Jiang Cheng’s. Something imploring about the touch. Like he was seeking confirmation to a theory, or maybe proving to himself that Wei Wuxian was actually there.

“I…” Wei Wuxian trailed off.

Zewu Jun’s gaze was hard as steel, but aimed, it seemed, at Lan Zhan’s hand, rather than at Wei Wuxian in general.

“There was a rumor,” he said in slow, even words, “that Wen Chao had thrown you into the Burial Mounds.” He waited a moment after he finished speaking, as if trying to reconcile the words himself, before he looked up to meet Wei Wuxian’s eyes.

Of course, Wei Wuxian didn’t want to meet Zewu Jun’s eyes. He didn’t want to meet any of their eyes. He wanted very much to be out of this tent and away from knowing gazes altogether.

Unfortunately, he hadn’t quite figured out how to teleport using resentful energy yet. So in the tent he remained.

He looked down at his feet. His boots were crusted with dirt and blood and other bodily fluids. War really was super gross, in addition to being largely boring.

“That’s ridiculous,” he said, still looking down. “Everyone knows that nothing leaves the Burial Mounds.”

Lan Zhan’s hand tightened around Wei Wuxian’s arm. Jiang Cheng’s loosened, but didn’t let go.

“Yeah,” said Jiang Cheng, like an accusation, “it would be impossible.”

Wei Wuxian still didn’t look up from his feet which meant that he missed whatever silent conversation happened between Jiang Cheng and Lan Zhan that had both of them tightening their grips on his arms just before fingers were pressed to the pulse points of his wrists. He struggled, flailing as much as he could, but against Lan Zhan’s golden core and his own, he stood no chance. He could barely budge them.

He screamed but the sound only reverberated inside the tent.

The only thing he could think to do was to call up the dead. The dead man still lying in front of them. The Jin. Rapist. Criminal. He could use that wicked corpse to fight off the people holding him down, taking his secrets. Smoke curled out of his sleeves and he--

He stopped himself.

It was over anyway.

Even if they couldn’t read his spiritual energy, or lack thereof, his fighting them was confirmation enough.

He went limp in their grasp. His knees buckled.

It really was the stupidest possible way to be found out.

“Where is it?” asked Jiang Cheng. But it was clear from his voice that he already knew the answer.

Lan Zhan was silent.

Zewu Jun looked to his brother for an answer, not understanding what they had just discovered.

“His golden core,” said Lan Zhan. “It’s gone.”

“Wen Zhuliu?” Zewu Jun asked.

But Jiang Cheng made a sound that was somehow both a laugh and a sob.

Wei Wuxian regained control of his arms. He sprawled himself out on the tent floor, exhausted from his struggle. He laughed, too. “After a fashion.”

Jiang Cheng fell to the ground next to him, hands cradling the place where Wei Wuxian’s core now spun. “What the fuck?” he said, quietly, to no one in particular. Then, loudly, to Wei Wuxian in particular, “What the fuck!”

His cheeks were wet. Jiang Cheng’s, his own. He looked over to confirm, and yeah, Lan Zhan’s too. Zewu Jun had nothing to cry over, except maybe confusion, but he was too cool for that, so he just stood in the middle of the tent, shocked, presumably, as his brother, another sect leader, and a demonic cultivator broke down around him.

Wei Wuxian stared up at the tented canvas ceiling and cursed himself for not leaving the tent when he first noticed something wrong.

“Jiang Cheng,” he started, but Jiang Cheng cut him off with a wet yell.

“Why would you do that, you fucking idiot?! What the fuck were you even thinking?! How did you-- How--”

He seemed to lose steam trying to figure out what happened on “Baoshen Sanren’s mountain” and potentially also why Baoshen Sanren’s voice sounded so familiar.

Zewu Jun’s voice was remarkably calm for a man witnessing-- whatever he made of what he was currently witnessing. He said, “Wei Wuxian, I believe your Sect Leader would like to know how you lost your golden core.”

Wei Wuxian laughed at that. Because yes and no.

“No, Zewu Jun,” he said, still laughing. He tried to stop, but it was just too funny. “No,” he said again, slightly more sober, “he wants to know why and how he now has my golden core.”

He didn’t really mean to say it. He felt drunk again, like he did when Lan Zhan was playing Inquiry. Ready to spill all his secrets at only the slightest provocation. Zewu Jun could probably ask him just about anything right now -- Lan Zhan and Jiang Cheng too, for that matter -- and he would answer it. It wasn’t exactly a safe mindset to be in. But he couldn’t really do anything about that now.

At least there was some kind of privacy barrier over the tent.

Zewu Jun stood. Speechless.

Lan Zhan’s tears fell silently.

Jiang Cheng glared, hands clutched tight against his lower dantian -- whether to hold something inside or to tear it out, Wei Wuxian wasn’t sure.

Wei Wuxian felt light as a feather. Drunk and dizzy with it. A weight had been lifted, he supposed, but one he was never supposed to let go. His laughter died down to the occasional press of his lungs. Tears collected in his eyelashes until everything was blurry.

Emptiness yawned inside him, but it was gentler somehow. As if the secret itself had been clawing away at his slowly healing wounds.

“Fuck,” he said with a hiccup of a laugh. And again, quieter, “Fuck.”

He really should have left the fucking tent.

Also, wait. Was he dead?!

#wei wuxian #lan wangji #jiang cheng #lan xichen #inquiry.mp3 #mdzs #the untamed #cql #fanfiction #my writing #inquiring minds #hey look i wrote a thing!#i actually finished a draft of something!#now if only i can aim this energy toward projects that other people actually care about...........

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hellsite-detective · 4 months

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Hey can you check the post this person mentions about the anon hate they sent to this communist Jacques guy? https://www.tumblr.com/caranmerya/736921804579520512

when i got this request, i was so intrigued. mainly because i was bein' linked a post to take a look at, rather than the typical request. so i went in and read the post. i analyzed it. and i got to work.

the first thing i did was take a trip to my ol' buddy google and see if they had anythin'. i tried searchin' for several different variations of keywords, tryin' anything i could to find the original post. but there was nothin'. not a single thing. everything was linkin' back to this original post. no screenshots appeared. nothin' on reddit besides a screenshot of this post. nothin' in the tumblr search itself, not a single lead to go off of.

tragically, i can't find a single thing on Jacques, and he seems to have vanished into the bustling crowds of this bleak city. i've been gettin' so many requests about this one i simply had to to everything in my power to find him, but alas, he seems to be gone.

strangely enough, however, i'm typically able to find deleted posts/blogs with relative ease. normally i'm able to find a screenshot or a reblog of this post somewhere online, and i can reverse engineer the post through that. however here? it simply wasn't the case. the idea of a 2,000 word rant by a french communist on tumblr simply vanishing into thin air seems unbelievable, but i had no real evidence to claim this was a classic "tumblr fake story," just gut instinct.

if anyone has any lead on this case, no matter how small, i request that you notify me as soon as possible. Jacques continues to elude me, but i will not give up the search. i simply wanted to address the case and ask for additional information. i'm not gonna close the case just yet, or say the trail has gone cold. i'm gonna leave this one open, because i've got nothin' at this point, but i have faith something will turn up.

Post Case: Under Investigation

#jacques will continue to be my greatest mystery #i need to find him at all and any costs #ask #hellsite detective #post case under investigation

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ot3 · 3 months

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Hi, I just finished the AA trilogy with my bf and we fell in love with it! I found your blog the other day, and it sometimes feels like you're the only one giving correct takes on these characters' writing and the minutiae of everyone's inner worlds (or the fumbling of, see Godot).

I just got here, but, something that's been bothering me about the fandom's approach to the sequel trilogy is like... the imperialist undertones are glossed over, or swept under the rug. Researching "The Dark Age of the Law" and beyond puts a sour taste in my mouth. And with Khura'in the country vs Kurain the village? It all feels racist at best (the concept of the Divination Seance gives me squick). If you have the time, I'd love to hear your thoughts about AA5 and AA6 in relation to the world of AA as a whole. Thanks again for all of your thoughtful and nuanced takes on this series!

so glad to hear you guys liked the games!! thank you for enjoying my posts, i always appreciate it.

the tl;dr of it is that i do think they are genuinely bad enough additions to the franchise that they have signed mainline ace attorney's death warrant. picking out the dark age of the law stuff and aa5 and the imperialism in aa6 you've pretty much honed right in on my two biggest critiques

however i do want to say that although they're being bundled and sold as a 'second trilogy' that's not quite accurate either experientially when playing the games or from a development perspective. aa4 had scenario design/creative direction by series creator shu takumi, with the art director being kazuya nuri (responsible for character design for rise from the ashes in the series previous to this); aa5+6 was spearheaded by takeshi yamazaki, who had been with the franchise since its first game, with the slightly less tenured takuro fuse on art direction/character design. yamazaki and fuse are not without skill, but i think they're both significantly less skilled than takumi and nuri respectively and. it really shows.

pair that with the fact that aa5 and 6 fundamentally do not follow up on any of ace attorney 4's established characters or plots more than superficially, i don't think it's particularly useful to critique 4-5-6 as if they're a single body of work in the same way the trilogy is. apollo justice isn't a perfect* ace attorney game but it's a good one.

anyway i think buying into the 'dark age of the law' stuff in ace attorney 5 necessitates cheapening all of the events preceding it. the implication that 1. the law wasn't that bad before but it Is Now and 2. a single case was the tipping point for whether or not the entire legal system would be bad just ruins the times when ace attorney has managed to acknowledge corrupt systems as a massive source of problem for the everyman in the past

i think this screenshot from the dark age of the law wiki page says a lot:

For starters, that phoenix quote. He would not fucking say that. I don't think there has ever been a point during or leading up to phoenix's career where he thought the legal system had 'glory' he would then want to restore it to. you seem to get it so im not gonna harp on this too much on this but. jesus christ

then, then there's fact that even by stating the most basic details about the franchise's events undermines the whole premise. like okay notice that the corruption that happens during the trilogy/investigations spinoffs is coming from all of the actual agencies that represent law and order/the system: the prosecutors, the police, and the prosecutorial investigation committee. however in aa5 the thing they choose to paint as responsible for supposedly unprecedented levels of corruption in the legal system is defense attorneys resorting to more drastic means, and the general public; aka not the people who are responsible for upholding the legal system but the people who are victimized by it and in opposition to it.

i don't think this was an intentional choice as much as it's just sloppy, inconsiderate, and contrived writing.

aa6 is just flat out racist. 'imperalist undertones' is i would say the gentlest way you could phrase it. like. japanese characters going to a made up south asian country that needs to be taught how to govern itself to quash its internal rebellion is like. so high on the yikes meter.

making a bunch of fake 'ethnic sounding' nonsense names filled with apostrophes to make them into silly sounding english phrasing was a disastrously tone deaf thing for the localization to do. they're really unforgivable. the worst of it all is probably "Inga Karkhuul Haw'kohd Dis'nahm Bi'ahni Lawga Ormo Pohmpus Da'nit Ar'edi Iz Khura'in III" i'm unsure if the names are quite as offensive in the original japanese because i haven't looked too much into what they actually are and have a really limited knowledge of the language. but. this name in japanese is "インガ・カルクール・ククルーラ・ラルバン・ギジール・ホフダラン・マダラ・ヴィラ・ヤシマ・ジャクティエール・クライン３世" which is written in katakana. katakana is, in contrast to kanji and hiragana which are used for writing japanese, used to phoenetically transcribe foreign languages or to write loan words. so the foreign-ness of this character is being emphasized here in the original text as well.

the supposed cultural inferiority of the khurainese people is baked into the game at pretty much every level, down to the gags. khura'in has the 'plumed punisher' show, which is actively criticized by the characters in game for just being a cheap ripoff of the steel samurai. they don't even get to have their own tv.

i believe the reason the racism is pretty much glossed over a lot in the fandom is for several reasons. for starters, ace attorney fans overall tend to fall into three camps: 1. people like me who fucking hate these games, refuse to acknowledge them, and would retcon them out of existence if possible. 2. people who have found things they like about the game and have a Good Version of the characters and plots that they have constructed in their head and 3. people who view all of the hate on these games as completely overblown

the first camp Does talk about how the game is racist but we're all already in agreement about that so it's kind of preaching to the choir and a bit redundant to keep going on about. the second camp tends to acknowledge the stickier aspects of the game but focuses on making content around the elements they like rather than critique. the third camp is the type to throw the baby out with the bathwater re: critiquing a thing they like. it's all haterism to them. but either way i think its kind of fucked up how many people will be like 'aa6 isnt that bad you guys are just mean' without even acknowledging these complaints.

anyway the khura'in country vs kurain village thing is really weird to me it shows both a lack of imagination and a disregard for the series' own established lore. why would a girl from a village where almost everyone is a spirit medium need to go to a place where only, like, two people are mediums to train.

i will say though that the divination seance is kind of one of the only things i found about aa6 to be an interesting addition. for a franchise with ghost summoning and murder solving, the two have a kind of hilariously low amount of overlap so i found the idea of bringing ghost bullshit into court really fun. mechanically speaking, the divination seances also felt a LOT better to play than the mood matrix segments of aa5.

in general, i think the biggest weakness of the mainline franchise under takeshi yamazaki's stewardship is its misunderstanding of stakes. both aa5 and 6 prioritize more bombastic and impressive on paper material stakes. oh no! the ENTIRE JUSTICE SYSTEM BEING GOOD OR BAD depends on this one case! on no! we have to DEAL WITH REBEL INSURGENTS! complete horseshit when there is not competent and functional enough character writing to get us emotionally invested here. yamazaki seems to think bigger is better, and that just simply isnt true for something like ace attorney

i've pointed this out in the past when critiquing aa5 and 6 but if you look at the actual material stakes on the line in ace attorney, they're at their highest after rise from the ashes. ousting the corrupt chief of police is the most impressive and impactful thing phoenix does with his career (arguably until the jurist system, but definitely in the trilogy.) but that's not the big Finale case for his character arc. his finale case is defending his college girlfriend; a nun who lives in the mountains, whose conviction would have had zero implications on the larger fabric of ace attorney's legal system. because takumi's writing clearly shows that he understands what makes a plot impactful is the emotional stakes the characters have invested in the events.

before taking over the main franchise, takeshi yamazaki was responsible for the miles edgeworth investigations spinoffs. i do enjoy both of those games - aai2 in particular is really strong. yamazaki does a great job with edgeworth's character arc even if i have some specific gripes with the duologys writing. i think theyre solid additions to the franchise. but you can see traces of this sort of misalignment in narrative priorities here as well. for example, the last case in aai1 is notorious for still going on for, like, an entire hour or two past the time when the last remaining plot point we care about has been revealed. because yamazaki seemingly had no understanding that That was the thing the case should have been about, and that should have been the final mic drop of the game. it just keeps going! he didn't know the game was done and he added a bunch more bullshit busywork after it that no one likes!

so yeah. without going into anything even as specific as how individual plotlines or character arcs were mishandled in aa5/6 that's really my overview What Went Wrong of those games.

#i genuinely might need to put my opinion on aa5 and 6 in my faq at this point #not because i mind getting a chance to talk about how much i hate these games. but just for due diligence #ace attorney #*there are two perfect ace attorney games: aa1 and plvspwaa #this got so long im so so sorry.#i think ill just hotlink this post in my faq because it hits most of my talking points about these games

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ecoamerica · 23 days

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youtube

Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared

The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!

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professorcalculusstanaccount · 2 years

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“Four disappearances, all students from the same college... and the police found nothing. Perhaps we should go undercover...”

@onabikaa sent me a message asking for more stuff on my “cult in a boarding school” idea! I was considering making a full post for it and your ask finally pushed me over to do it.

Story details under the Read More! This is already a long post. There’s some pretty dark themes so please let me know if you wish me to tag anything, cw for mentions of death, religion and cults:

This is one of the first cases Chang helps out with since coming over to Belgium. Four students from the same Catholic boy’s college go missing and the police are seemingly reluctant to investigate. They enrol into the school under false names to go undercover. Haddock has a lot of fun mocking the weird upper class culture that looked down upon him before he became wealthy, posing as their aristocratic father.

Tintin initially finds it easy to blend in, as this school is very similar to the one he attended as a child. However, these similarities start bringing back some deep childhood and religious traumas, which he first tries to push aside to focus on the case.

Chang immediately stands out, being one of the only non white students. He is quickly targeted. Tintin stands up for him, quickly leading to the school separating them.

The school tries to drive a wedge between them. Despite the school’s efforts they manage to meet at night, exchanging new information and making plans. With Chang’s encouragement, Tintin starts to open up about his own school trauma and touches on his past.

Chang later discovers documents detailing sales of precious metals - he is caught and captured by some students, who are all secretly a part of a cult. The cult is headed by the school administration who are exploiting their labour to mine metals in the deposits that were discovered around the school grounds.

I had the idea that the cult is broken up through empathy and compassion, leading to the surviving boys working together to escape the underground mine and reporting the school administration. I wanted to explore stuff like power structures and how they are maintained - basically I was thinking this would be a situation Tintin can’t punch his way out of, and a way to showcase Chang’s strengths as a character.

#tintin #Adventures of Tintin #animation #2d animation #Chang #milou #snowy #captain haddock #archibald haddock #gif #gifset #school #boarding school #religion cw #cult cw #st benezet's basement #i went insane making this i hate perspective #my stories

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reasonsforhope · 6 months

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I keep seeing news about charges and what-not being piled onto Trump, and all I can keep saying to myself is "but is he going to experience one (1) single consequence of this?" So... is there any iota of a hope that something could come of this circus that will make the slightest ding in his capacity to run in 2024?

So, the answer to this is a bit complicated - partly because there are a lot of factors and a long time scale, and partly because it depends on how you define "consequences"

If you mean "any serious consequences at all," good news, that has already happened!

If you need to catch up on the whole "cases against Trump" situation, read this: The Cases Against Trump: A Guide. Via The Atlantic, November 1, 2023

1. The New York Fraud Case

A judge has ordered that the Trump Organization must be dissolved in a ruling that is being widely described as a "corporate death penalty." This is an incredibly rare ruling, and a huge deal.

The details will take a while to hash out - currently, Trump's kids are in the middle of testifying in a trial for this fraud case, but it's not to determine whether he's guilty - only the extent of the damages and the outline of how the org will be dissolved. It's extraordinarily unlikely Trump will be able to get out of this one. And high up on the list of things he's probably going to lose? Trump Tower itself.

Now, admittedly, this actually isn't because of, you know, the whole attempted coup thing. It's because the Trump Organization's finances were built on decades of absolutely massive fraud - including the very wealth that Trump lied about in order to explain why people should vote for him.

Oh, and let's not forget that in this case, Donald Trump spent weeks absolutely shit talking the judge to try to "poison the jury pool" (make sure that people on the jury would go in with a negative opinion of the judge already). ONLY TO FIND OUT THAT THERE IS NO JURY IN THIS CASE because his attorneys forgot to request one, so the sole arbiter of his fate is the judge he just spent weeks absolutely slandering in an attempt to win over the jury! And all else aside, judges very infamously do not like being insulted

Oh yeah, and the prosecutors are seeking a permanent ban on Trump doing business in the state of New York

Fraud trial explainer (New York Times, no paywall) Sources: x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x

2. 14th Amendment Lawsuit

Okay so I did all the other sections first, then came back and wrote this one. It's shorter because of that, and because this issue is a lot newer and doesn't have nearly as much legal stuff or investigations going on yet.

What's happening here is that several states have people who are filing petitions and lawsuits to try to get Trump taken off the ballot for the 2024 election, under the 14th Amendment, which was passed in the aftermath of the Civil War and bars anyone who has committed insurrection from holding office.

So far (as of the first week of November, there are cases to kick Trump off the ballot in about 20 states. Oral arguments have started in Colorado and Minnesota.

Basically, my take on the short version is that this could happen, but we'll have to wait at least a few more months to see how likely it is.

However, even if it does go through, Trump would only be kicked off the ballot on a state by state basis. So, if Colorado kicks him off the ballot, he'll still be on the ballot in the other 49 states, and the process would have to be repeated in each one. Still, even if it was just one state, that could be a big deal, voting-wise - and if he gets kicked off the ballot in more than a couple states, he might not end up being the Republican nominee anymore, given the size of that disadvantage.

Correction, 6 min after posting: It's expected that if Trump DOES get kicked off the ballot in any state, the Supreme Court will hear the case and weigh in. The decision would be binding for all states. Supreme Court probably unlikely to ban Trump from the ballot since they cheated their way into a conservative supermajority and 3 of them are Trump appointees

Explainer: Trial to kick Trump off the ballot in Colorado Explainer: Strengths and weaknesses of cases to kick Trump off the ballot Sources: x, x, x, x, x, x, x

3. The Classified Documents Case

So, the fraud case above is actually a civil case (that is, not a criminal case). The classified documents case, however, is a criminal case, and it's arguably the one most likely to lead to legal and political consequences for Trump, in large part because everything's very clear cut.

Like, Trump has literally admitted he retained classified documents on purpose - which is super against the law! Trump is just arguing a variety of nonexistent technicalities for why that law doesn't apply to him. But he did it! We know he did! We have photos of classified documents stored in the Mar-a-Lago bathroom! We have testimony from the employees he ordered to secretly move the boxes before the FBI probe. We have records proving he asked Mar-a-Lago's IT guy about erasing the surveillance footage of the move! We even have proof that a) he stole nuclear secrets, and b) a recording of him waving around the "plans of attack," bragging about them to other people!

All super damning.

(Post continues below, at length; sources at the end of each section.)

And another thing that's extremely key: Trump is charged in this case with violating the Espionage Act. And the Espionage Act explicitly does not give a single fuck about why you retained documents, or whether there's any proof you intended to show anyone. Any and all hoarding of national defense documents is illegal under the Espionage Act - EVEN if they're not classified, which is great since "I declassified them with my brain" (not how it works) is Trump's main defense here.

So, this case is basically the surest criminal conviction - and the most likely to have electoral consequences. Partly because Republicans, as few issues as they care about, generally are security hawks - "Trump stole nuclear secrets and showed them to people" is giving Repubs pause in a way that the insurrection just isn't, probably esp in the military and ex-military demographic.

Trump could also serve jail time if convicted in this case (which again he probably will be).

However, violating the Espionage Act doesn't ban you from running for or holding public office, which imho seems like a pretty major oversight.

Classified documents case explainer Sources: x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x

4. The Insurrection

So, this is where things get really complicated, because the case is complicated and so many things about it are so unprecedented.

There are two different cases here: a criminal case in the state of Georgia and a federal criminal case (that's the one run by Special Counsel Jack Smith, who is also running the classified documents case).

I definitely can't summarize all of this huge situation here, but here's some key points re: whether there will be legal consequences:

I actually have a pretty high level of trust in Jack Smith, in large part due to his record: he's serving as special prosecutor while on sabbatical from his normal job of prosecuting war crimes at the Hague. And he's specifically been prosecuting war crimes from the wars and genocides in former Yugoslavia in the 80s and 90s. That specifically gives me a lot of confidence because - as someone whose family is from the region - I think it's a really strong demonstration of his abilities. It means he has a lot of experience prosecuting high-level government and army officials, in a complicated, multi-year, multi-war conflict, where there were way more sides and factions than we have, along with way less documentary evidence (bc 90s), and a lot of history of political corruption and coverups. I find that really reassuring, especially the "experience prosecuting high-level government and army officials" thing in a situation with, shall we say, extremely contested and variable national leadership, during the course of multiple civil wars

"Schwendiman compared it to prosecuting Kosovo’s equivalent of Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton. “If you indict these people, you’re saying, ‘The founding fathers of Kosovo have committed atrocities, and I’m ready to prove it, in an independent court, with independent judges and rules that apply to everyone.’” And that was Kosovo's founding president. So yeah, I think Jack Smith can handle Trump. Source

Okay now to the points you might have actually heard of lol

The Georgia case is a state level case, which means that no matter what, Trump can't pardon himself in that case

The Georgia case is also charging Trump under the RICO act - aka the rackeeting act, usually used to prosecute organized crime. And convictions under the Georgia RICO Act come with MANDATORY jail time

I think the evidence here is pretty compelling, see: the congressional Jan 6 hearings

There is a pretty high chance that, in a massively unusual step, filming will be allowed inside the trial/hearings. This is HUGE, especially because Trump supporters would actually be watching it too (unlike, generally, the congressional hearings), and that evidence all laid out looks really goddamn bad

Also, if yesterday's fraud trial testimony is any indication, Trump is likely to end up yelling and screaming at the judge, etc. in the trial, which is going to look wildly unprofessional

The federal trial will be taking place in Washington DC, where it should be very doable to get a jury that isn't stuffed with Trump cronies (unlike, say, if the case was brought in Florida)

Trump has attempted witness tampering on a lot of occasions, and tried to poison the jury pool, and he got caught so now he's under a gag order that restricts what he can say re: both of those.

Important note: Jack Smith has brought the narrower of two possible cases against Trump. He's filed against Trump with several conspiracy charges, including "conspiracy against rights," which was historically created to prosecute the KKK for racial terrorism

However, Jack Smith did not actually charge Trump with inciting an insurrection. There are a lot of possible reasons for this, but it mostly boils down to the fact that "inciting an insurrection" is significantly less objectively provable, in this case, esp since "insurrection" isn't actually defined in the relevant law

So, Jack Smith has traded a broader case (the one including insurrection charges) for a case that is much simpler and quicker to argue, and that he's sure he can prove

Jack Smith absolutely knows that he has an effective deadline of November 2024 (aka the next election, because a Republican president would shut down the investigation immediately), and he's planning accordingly

Look. Federal prosecutors - and the prosecutors in Georgia and the other NY case, for bribery of porn star Stormy Daniels - would not be bringing these charges if they did not feel sure they would win. Democracy aside, if any of them lose their cases? That is almost guaranteed to end their careers. So they have a very vested self-interest in only taking on what they are absolutely sure they can prove

The judge in the federal Jan 6 trial is the judge who has given the harshest sentences against any of the Jan 6 rioters, and she is the only judge to have sentenced rioters to more time than the prosecutors asked for

Jan 6 charges against Trump, explainer Sources: x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x

A Very Hot Take: It might not be a bad thing that Trump is still allowed to run

So, this is my personal take on the situation - I acknowledge that it's a very hot take on the Left, and that I might well be wrong about this. I might be totally misreading the field here. But I genuinely do think that Trump being the Republican candidate for president could be a good thing, and in fact I'll genuinely worry significantly more if Trump isn't the Republican nominee for president.

The why all basically comes down to this: I think Trump will be easier to defeat in the 2024 general election.

Again, look, I may totally be misreading this, and that would be really bad, but here are my thoughts:

Trump is super popular with the far right base - but that same strength makes him a huge liability in the general election. You CAN'T WIN a presidential election without the support of independents and moderates (including "moderates"). This is a really common problem for Republican candidates, actually: the more they move to the right to win the core Republican base, the more they risk hurting their chances in the general election

Independents and moderate Republicans - again, who Trump needs to win with to get the presidency - are significantly more likely to care about, you know, all the stealing classified documents and committing treason things

I can't think of anything that will guarantee people on the left get their asses to the polls better than "Vote or Trump is president again." A lot of the time, with someone who hasn't been president before, voters can lie to themselves and go "Oh it won't be that bad once he's in office," esp among moderates. But now we have proof that isn't the case!

Look, I don't know if Trump is getting dementia or what, but his faculties really do appear to be declining. They'll likely be significantly worse in another year - his speeches are already way worse than there were in 2016. He just can't track what he's saying well enough anymore. This makes it harder for him to make his case to the electorate

He's also the only actual Repub candidate that's about the same age as Biden - which will do a lot to stop the Right from using Biden's age as an effective weapon to get a Repub in office

Honestly, my biggest worry is that DeSantis will be the Republican nominee. I am way more scared of Biden vs. DeSantis than Biden vs. Trump.

Reasons I would absolutely rather Biden face Trump than DeSantis include: DeSantis is way younger and he has way less baggage. Because he hasn't been president yet, voters can do that self-delusion thing that he won't be that bad - that he'll be better than Trump - and that unlike Trump's, his plans will work. People on the left and in the center often don't know who he is yet, and there's not such a huge current of electoral energy to get them to the polls. And most of all - unlike Trump, DeSantis is actually smart. And as part of that, he is capable of a deep and absolutely premeditated cruelty that Trump just doesn't have the attention span or the patience for. Biggest example: actually literally kidnapping undocumented immigrants and sending them to Martha's Vineyard, and all the awfulness that went along with that, including the part where he started a goddamned trend.

Nikki Haley I'm less worried about because her core support base - conservatives - is also the country's core support base for misogyny. I hate to be glad about misogyny, but it genuinely would make it harder for her to turn out ultraconservative votes, especially evangelicals.

Sources: x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x

So, yeah, all told I don't actually have "Trump still gets to run for president" super high on the list of things I'm worried/mad about.

Also worth saying that we don't want just being indicted (aka charged with a crime) to disqualify people from running for office, because then all Republicans (or anyone) would have to do to disqualify an opposing candidate is find literally any excuse to charge them with something

But back to your original question! I genuinely DO think he'll face legal consequences, and I genuinely DO think he'll probably face jail time. Which obviously I am rooting for very hard

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boombox-fuckboy · 6 months

Note

Hey!!! You commented on my post about limetown haha which is why I’m here. You offered to give podcast recs! What are your favorites?? I’m looking for some new ones

I completely forgot I had this ask, excuse the delay. Here's a selection of 30 podcasts I enjoyed from a broad range of genres: hopefully at least one appeals.

Let me know if you're after something more specific.

Arden: (Investigative, Comedy) On the 25th of December, 2007, heiress and young actress Julie Capsom crashed her car into a tree and fled into a nearby forest clearing, leaving a trail that seemingly vanished into thin air, and a dismembered torso in the trunk. A decade later, Bea, the first reporter on the scene, and Brenda, a detective on the case, are hosting a true crime podcast about it, and neither is remotely impressed with what the other has to say. Arden is also a retelling of various Shakespeare plays.

Desperado: (Supernatural, Adventure, Horror Elements) In a modern world of gods and magic, three young people, all under the patronage of death dieties, embark on the same adventure for different reasons: for safety, for revenge, and to kill The Old Man in the Sky. Fantastic banter and killer action sequences.

The Far Meridian: (Magical Realism) An agoraphobic young woman wakes one day to discover her lighthouse home has travelled to somewhere entirely unfamilar. As this continues to happen day after day, she uses the opportunity to search for her missing brother. A really unique and charming piece of fiction.

Gastronaut: (Sci-Fi) Interstellar travel audio blog of a former food critic as he travels to an active warzone to get firsthand experience with unfamilar cuisine. ft. Disgruntled martian nobility, sinister businessmen, explosive mushrooms, forbidden snacks, rogue revolutionary artists, and the consequences of your actions.

Girl in Space: (Sci-Fi) The Girl In Space lives alone on a space station, doing science, making cheese, rewatching Jurassic Park, and tending to the plants, animals, and artificial sun entrusted to her. It's a little lonely, but not a bad life. Would be a shame if someone came along to ruin it.

The Goblet Wire: (Microfiction, Weird Fiction) A surreal microfiction with horror elements, taking the form of phone calls to an audio-based game in which the voice of the mysterious Dictator leads each player through fantastic and horrific world and story.

Hello From The Hallowoods: (Horror, Supernatural) A dramatic entity beyond your comprehension visits your nightmares to tell stories of the people (in varying degrees of human and alive) that inhabit the strange, deadly, and beautiful Hallowoods, as they find meaning and sometimes eachother.

Hi Nay: (Supernatural Horror) A year after moving to Toronto, sound designer Mari finds herself drawn into helping people around the city with various horrific supernatural encounters due to her babaylan (shaman) family background. It quickly becomes apparent that there's something much more sinister and complicated happening in the background.

Inco: (Microfiction, Sci-Fi) A perpetually exausted interstellar information trader and her peppy AI find a mysterious (read: bratty) boy floating in space and are inadventently pulled into a world political intrigue.

Inn Between: (Fantasy) Ever curious about what the D&D characters get up to at the tavern between sessions? A generally lighter-hearted (with some exceptions) with richly-written and always-growing characters. A really interesting format, too: a lot of the adventure appears in the "next time" and "last time" segments which makes it all flow really nicely. Not a tabletop podcast.

Janus Descending: (Sci-Fi, Horror, Tragedy) A xenoarcheologist and a xenopaleontologist are sent to a study a dead city on a distant world. Nobody likes what they find there. A unique format, with one set of logs presented first to last, and the other last to first. I'd recommend listening to the supercut for this one.

The Kingmaker Histories: (Steampunk, Weird Fiction, Adventure, Fantasy Elements) In the Valorian Socialist Republic 1911, on her 25th birthday, tailor's apprentice Colette experienced the worst headache of her life. As a result, she fleed from town with a human artificer and a fae chef - both now smugglers - pursued by an utterly furious flesh-crafter. I'm not sure I'm selling how good this podcast is but it's very good.

Life With Althaar: (Sci-Fi, Comedy) A human repairman moves to a space station on the edge of human territory that is perpetually on the edge of self-destruction, and ends up with a less-than-ideal last-minute roomate. Althaar is polite, friendly, deeply interested in human culture, and eager to be friends. Unfortunately he belongs to a species that sends humans into a visceral panic at a glance.

Lost Terminal: (Sci-Fi, Hopepunk) Seth is a very lonely AI living on a satellite. His crew were left stranded aboard with no hope of return, and it's been longer than he can count since then. The Earth below him has changed dramatically, and with only a few other AI down there to talk to, he's very lonely. But! He has a plan to make some new friends.

Love and Luck: (Romance, Slice-of-Life and Urban Fantasy Elements) Voice messages cataloguing two young men falling in love and opening a queer dry bar together.

Midnight Radio: (Light Supernatural, Romance) Sybil McIntyre, host of the ever-popular 1950's nightly radio hour, begins exchanging letters with an old fan who has reluctantly returned to visit Sybil's beloved town.

Midst: (Weird Fiction, Western, Sci-Fi and Fantasy Elements) The old-western planetoid islet of Midst floats, rotating steadily, in a sea of reality-warping darkness. Down in the town of Stationary Hill, things are in movement, and vistors from the light above are about to bring unanticipated change. ft a monocycle-riding monster-hunter, radio-famous airship paladins, deadly mica, the universe's peppiest cultist, good dogs, and a really strange businessman.

The Mistholme Museum of Mystery, Morbidity, and Mortality: (Weird Fiction, Supernatural, Urban Fantasy and Horror Elements) A friendly AI tour guide leads you on a tour of the Mistholme Museum, explaining the strange and often alternatural story behind each item.

Monstrous Agonies: (Supernatural, Relationship Advice) An interpersonal advice show for supernatural entities and other people living liminally in the modern world.

Night Shift: (Urban Fantasy, Investigative) Set in a modern world with the addition of magic, which manifests in small inherited skills/traits, can warp people in horrific ways, or can be manipulated with the right science (and intense work) to induce superpowers. Sebastian Fenn is a barista at Night Shift Coffee, but since things are slow he's decided to start a podcast to talk about various mysteries, crimes and conspiracies around the city, and of course finds himself deeper in them than he'd intended.

The Pasithea Powder: (Sci-Fi, Thriller Elements? I think?) The last major interplanetary war was full of atrocities, but none more infamous then the creation of Pasithea Powder, a memory altering drug which was used to horrible effect and landed it's entire team of creators in prison. So when decorated war hero Captain Sophie Green sees one of them wandering free, worlds away from his prison, she gets in touch with a very old, estranged friend: one Dr. Jane Gonzalez, who's behind bars for the very same reason.

SCP: Find Us Alive: (Weird Fiction, Supernatural, Horror and Slice-of-Life elements) You don't need to know anything about SCP to enjoy this. A research team gets trapped in an underground research facility when the complex collapses and the building is dragged into a pocket dimension. The tear it was designed to study begins creating tiny copies of itself, generating strange entities the team needs to deal with. And as if that wasn't enough, the entire situation physically resets itself every 30 days. And yet, this is genuinely also an office comedy.

Second Star to the Left: (Sci-Fi) Audio logs of a scout sent to explore and establish early infastructure new world, and the communications with the minder in charge of keeping her alive.

Seen and Not Heard: (Slice-of-Life, Drama) Seen and Not Heard follows Bet, who's still adjusting to life a year after a bout of severe illness, and the resulting hearing loss it caused. It's about the ways we make connection, and food, and art, and different kinds of grief.

The Silt Verses: (Horror) In a modern world where gods are abundant, frequently both commercialised and restricted, two devotees of an outlawed river god go on a pilgrimage.

SINKHOLE: (Sci-Fi, Weird Fiction) Forum posts from a data restoration community in a near future where the human brain is its own computer and one city hosts a massive void.

Starfall: (Fantasy) Seeking to escape her mysterious past and find some purpose, a young swordswoman joins a travelling actor's troupe. This new life is unfamilar and sometimes stressful, but she's taken under the wing of stagehand Fel, who's determined to help her feel welcome as she experiences the figurative and literal magic of the theatre for the first time.

The Tower: (Weird Fiction) A low-key, meditative podcasy about a young woman who decides to climb a seemingly endless tower. Gorgeous sound design.

The Vesta Clinic: (Sci-Fi) New GP Dr. Fae Underwood, with the expert transcription skills of resident AI Sec, writes up patient reports on human and alien patients of The Vesta Clinic, a medical clinic on the edge of human space. Really comfy and creative.

Victoriocity: (Steampunk, Mystery) Set in the steam-powered Victorian city of Even Greater London, an aspiring journalist and a tired detective find themselves working together to solve a strange murder. I say Victorian but as queen Victoria is now an extensive grandiocity of cyborg components following seven only-kind-of-successful assassinations, you may need to adjust expectations a little.

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lafaiette · 2 months

Text

I've seen some people ask for comparisons between Pen's Chinese and English lines, so I made a small compilation to show the biggest changes that most baffled me.

There is a kind Chinese player, Yu, who offered the fandom much of the info and insight contained in this post, and she was the first to shed light on these differences! Without her enthusiasm, I doubt people would have started investigating Pen's original lines ;_;

Under the read more because this is long!

Brief premise: the Chinese dialogues in the game are often less "harsh" than the English ones. For example, Qi can sound rude and condescending in English, while he's pretty polite, if not a bit aloof, in Chinese. Justice's lines in English rely on the typical "hey pardner" cowboy accent, while in Chinese he's very professional, almost overly so.

That said, the English writer who worked on Pen made it no mystery that he based his characterization of Pen on Gaston from Beauty and the Beast. There is even a line directly referencing the movie: "[...] when I was a boy I ate four dozen eggs every morning to help me get large. Now that I'm grown I have five dozen eggs [...]"

As such, English Pen sounds much different from Chinese Pen. He's more patronizing and rude, and the writer added stuff that it's simply not present in the Chinese text. So while in English Pen can sound like a knucklehead obsessed only with muscles and training, surrounded by adoring women and fans when in Duvos, in Chinese he shows a different, almost more innocent side, as if he were a very tall and big child who has never had a day of legitimate and healthy fun in his life (and that's carried across in some of the English lines - that's why his English version is a bit contradicting sometimes).

Here are some examples:

One of his lines as a Good Friend is:

Here it's implied that Pen gives the Builder a hard time not only to push them to improve themselves... but also because he likes doing it, referencing his friendship mission where he admits he doesn't like teaching people anything, he just wants to fight them.

Meanwhile, the Chinese version says:

I keep calling you a weakling just to urge you and encourage you to exercise hard and break through your limits. If you won't have me to protect you in the future, you will have to become an eagle for me!

Here "eagle" is a reference to the way Pen calls the Builder in Chinese: 小弱鸡 "little weakling/little chicken" - and the latter is a rude way to call someone in Chinese, especially if they are a man and the "chicken" character (鸡) is repeated twice (but 鸡 by itself is also slang for "female prostitute"... so if you want to read it that way, Pen can call the Builder "my little slut" when in a relationship. HEH.)

In any case the tone in this line of dialogue is much different from the one in English, and Pen sounds genuinely enthusiastic.

Another example:

At the start of the game, Pen asks the Builder to craft a Sword and Shield for Burgess, who apparently misplaced his own. It turns out Burgess hid them under his bed, so when the Builder tries to give the weapons they crafted to Pen, he will tell them to keep them.

As usual, the English version is mocking and patronizing ("Hah! That'd be rich!"). In the Chinese version, Pen first compliments the desert:

In this case, take it back and use it for yourself! Use it to explore the desert and fight those monsters - what a thrill! The desert is very dangerous, but it is also full of charm.

Then there is the line about Logan and his band:

Hey! Maybe you can still find traces of Logan's gang! If you subdue them, you will gain both fame and fortune! [Okay, see you next time] [not shown here]

Now, some romance stuff : >

This is the description for the Robo-Love Couch. In English it says:

Meanwhile the Chinese description:

Referred to as the "Love Sand Machine", Peng Hu specially built a loving sofa for you, pieced together from the remains of robot monsters in the ruins.

He specially built a loving sofa for the Builder. It seems like a silly detail, but wording is important!

And yes, Pen's full name is Peng Hu, 彭虎. Peng is his family name, Hu his birth name. Hu 虎 means "tiger", and now you can understand why Grace suspected him to be Tiger the spy. But that would have been too easy!

Peng 彭 is a common Chinese surname. Its original meaning is believed to be "sound of war drums" (sad implication), but it's also used as an adjective to mean "big". So Pen's full name can mean "big tiger" :D

Back to the couch! Lines are different during the date in Paradise Lost, too.

Come on, little weakling, come and sit next to me. Let's give this trophy a "kiss of victory"! Do you do this with everyone you date? Wait, it seems I'm regretting it a bit... Happiness comes too suddenly...... (Kiss Peng Hu)

In the English version, the Builder can ask "How many of these thrones have you built...?", implying that Pen has had so many lovers he can craft this couch in a matter of few seconds. But in Chinese, the Builder's question is much different, it's more like: "Damn, are you always so over the top when dating someone??"

One of the biggest differences is in this set of lines:

Okay.

Meanwhile, in Chinese:

Today's experience made me realize that love has used a deadly locking technique on both of our hearts. Let me no longer doubt the feelings between us. This love is true love! Now, I am even more unwilling to take my eyes away from you! Haha!

I MEAN.

Also, in Chinese Pen never mentions the infamous 12 girlfriends when the Builder and Grace question him in jail. Yu confirmed that throughout the game Pen doesn't brag about his love life or his popularity with women, probably also due to the negative way Chinese culture sees this kind of "bragging".

Not only Pen and many other characters are younger in Chinese Sandrock (Pen's age ranges from 25 to 27, while he's confirmed to be 31 in the English localization), but he's depicted as being not very experienced in relationships in general. He basically only knows how to fight, punch people, and destroy stuff. Anything else - having friends, being with someone who truly loves him and whom he truly loves, having a normal life - are something he never experienced before. He did date (see his final letter later), but he's not described being the Casanova of Duvos like he is in the English version. In fact, it seems people only liked him due to his body and status, and a remnant of this piece of characterization is left in the English text when he says:

Surely, you understand… I am quite the prize. I can’t take myself off the market just to become arm candy for you to show off at your little buildy guild awards or whatever it is! No, what I desire… is true love…

Furthermore,

In Chinese, he says during the Masterclass friendship mission: "To be honest, I never thought I'd be able to make friends, let alone with someone of your stature/body size! But here we are, with a sick relationship!"

In English: "You know, Skinny, I’ve never had someone I really considered a friend before. Furthermore, I always promised myself I’d never be friends with anyone who didn’t have an awesome cape, but… you made me break that promise."

"I never thought I'd be able to make friends" is different from "I’ve never had someone I really considered a friend before." In the first line, the focus is on Pen ("I don't know how to make friends; I'm not good at it; it's not for me; how do you do it?"), in the second it's on other people ("I've been surrounded by people all my life, but I don't consider any of them to be a friend of mine; yeah, I call this one 'friend', but... they are not really really a friend")

The Chinese line is much sadder, and it shows how lonely Pen's life has been. One of his main characteristics, after all, is being "special", "the strongest", "different from everyone else"; but more often than not, being special and different also mean being "lonely". ("I must say it gets lonely at the top… What I wouldn't give for a truly talented opponent who could really keep me on my toes! Alas...")

And now, the grand finale :'>

A screenshot from Yu's playthrough, Pen's final line:

Farewell, Yu. This time it's for real. You're free.

The Protector, the bracelet Pen will leave for the Builder in the cave, is called "Guardian of Love" (爱的守卫者) in Chinese. Its description says:

A very delicate bracelet that protects the wearer's wrist. Wearing it gives the wearer a feeling of being emotionally confined. Perhaps this feeling is similar to what Peng Hu often said, "Marriage is a boring bondage".

His letter in Chinese is also sweeter and sadder:

最近在这所谓的阿塔拉最高监狱，我也多了点时间思考，没法带你一起来陪我，多少有些遗憾。罢了，这事也怪我。不管怎么说，你也算是我交往过的恋人里最让我上心的，也是为数不多分手之后我还继续挂念的。所以，我打算原谅你了。对——我原谅你了。我想我们也没有机会再在一起了，你也不过是做了你那个位置该做的事，没什么值得抱怨的。我应该一开始就努力把你“招安”了，让你跟我一起，才是最妥当的做法。当然我也没怨你，你确实很优秀。我还留了个最后的挑战给你。在某个遗迹里，有我最宝贵的几样东西，如果你能拿到，就归你了。运用我教给过你的一招半式，要去到那里应该很容易。我亲爱的小弱鸡，这是我最后一次这样叫你了，我相信你的能力。记住，不要怠慢了训练。我们，后会无期。

Dear [name], I've had a little more time to think lately in this so-called Atara Maximum Prison, and I'm more than a little sorry that I couldn't bring you along to accompany me. Well, it's my fault. Anyway, you are still the most beloved lover I have ever been with, and one of the few that I continue to miss even after a breakup. So, I'm going to forgive you. Yeah - I forgive you.I don't think there's a chance we'll ever be together again. You're just doing what you're supposed to do in your position, so there's nothing to complain about. I should have tried my best to recruit you from the beginning, and it would have been the best way to keep you with me. Of course I don't blame you, you're indeed excellent. I also left you a final challenge. In some ruins, there are a few of my most valuable things, and if you can get them, they're yours. It should be easy to get there, using the tricks I've taught you. My dear little weakling, this is the last time I'll call you that, I believe in your abilities. Remember, don't slack off on your training. We won't meet again. (but 后会无期 can also mean "meeting at an unspecified/unclear date")

And finally, if romanced, Pen will leave for the Builder 5 pieces of gold, 2 diamonds, and 1 Protector. 521 (and 520) are a cute way to say "I love you" in Chinese, because when read aloud they sound like "我爱你, Wo ai ni, "I love you". But in some cases, 521 also means "Yes, I will [marry you]" - and Pen does drop a diamond ring after his final battle (apparently he drops it only if you romanced him, but it's unclear yet. I'm pretty sure he didn't drop it during my Fang playthrough, while he did drop it when I romanced him, but I'll need to check that).

WELP, this is pretty much everything I got on this! If the kind Yu will tell us more or I find anything else, I'll update this post!

#mtas #mtas pen #my time at sandrock #my time at sandrock pen #PATHEAAAA #YOU HAD A GOLDEN CHARACTER IN YOUR HANDS #AND YOU WASTED THE CHANCE....#you can see the chinese writers DID put more effort into his characterization #they wanted to write the “bad boy who actually loves you” trope #meanwhile the english writer went for “disney villain/clown bachelor choice”#hahah such fun :')

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