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nabanna · 25 days

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lord help us all I've been given a reason to think about Dracula novel/Drizzt series crossover

I love following canyourfavesurvivecastledracula (I especially love seeing characters I'm not familiar with on there) and they recently got an ask about my little guy Drizzt Do'Urden but didn't know all that much about him BUT YOU SEE (unfortunately for everyone who knows me in any way) this is a crossover of the two major fandoms that have become my entire personality in the past year or so! so as someone who's eagerly awaiting the return of Dracula Daily Season AND reading multiple of the Drizzt series books as we speak (simultaneously! help..) and considers him a blorbo to tenderly and lovingly put in the microwave to watch him dodge the radiation like an ant, I'm taking a crack at it because this looks like fun :D

Making my own post because this is purely to be enrichment in my enclosure and also it's.. gotten So So Very Long.. also pouring one out for my other account where I normally would post this sort of thing that I simply cannot log into anymore for mysterious and unknown reasons. (Literally it's still like There and I can See It but trying to log in takes me to 'make a new blog' pages and... wait I'm silly I think I know why. the email died. no idea how to get back in without the email.)

ANYWAY

To the thought experiment:

Could Drizzt Do'Urden Survive Castle Dracula?

Short answer: Yes, it's not a fun time for him, he saves the baby though!

Long answer:

Using the blog's stated general criteria...

Overall approach to the supernatural:

Is an elf, knows what a vampire is, however D&D vampires work differently from Dracula vampires so he would not have all the information on that front if it came to a confrontation. (Knowing the Drizzt books, it would definitely come to at least one fight or at least a tense chase sequence.)

Also depends on how quickly he clocked that this is, in fact, a vampire, and whether Dracula could catch on to him catching on and spin things in a way that kept Drizzt relatively chill OR decide it's time to strike (which he could probably escape) (though now I'm thinking about Vampire!Drizzt....... no no I shouldn't.... unless.....)

The presence of Guenhwyvar (constellation panther BFF my beloved) would afford him some protection other than Dracula's whims, and companionship which is Very Important as he has been known to go feral without sufficient friendship.

Probably takes all the local superstitions very seriously because where he comes from if someone's like "there are ghosts that come out on certain days" and "there are monsters in these woods" they mean it very Very literally.

Dracula's general inhuman behaviors he could take in stride and adapt to pretty well I think, he's known a lot of really eccentric people and is from Fantasy Zone, so the idea that Dracula isn't human wouldn't be scary or even all that weird. Vampire, yeah that's sus, but just non-human? you walk past a hundred non-humans on a single street in most cities where he's from. Many of the eccentricities might be explainable just by going "Ah, he seems to be some kind of wizard. Yeah that checks out." Doesn't seem to be sleeping on a normal schedule or at all? Drizzt does that too! Sees too well in the dark/doesn't seem to use lights much? Darkvision and light sensitivity, same! Moves inhumanly fast? A little concerning but why not. Tells stories from centuries ago as if he was there? Elves do that all the time and it's because they were, in fact, there. (Also some human wizards do all of that too, just because.)

Now because things work differently between these two settings I'm not sure how much his general familiarity with things in the Forgotten Realms would help him here, like he's taking it all in stride but does he know how to protect himself against a Dracula-type vampire? Does he know magic is so incredibly rare and (apparently) usually evil or does he think this is just an unusually magic-less region?

Whether they would accept the crucifix from the old lady:

He is a polite young man so yes of course he would, and because the lady doesn't know what a drow (or an elf?) is, she probably wouldn't think "evil!!!" like most of the common folk in the Realms do, so much as "weird-looking (yet androgynously beautiful) young man" or depending on the local superstitions may assume he's some sort of fey being? or just like, really exceptionally foreign foreigner.

Assuming she still offers it, he would accept it despite not knowing what sort of deity it's for, because he recognizes it's a token of goodwill and he loves expressions of goodwill. Would definitely go and write about it in his little diary to both wonder what she's so afraid of/what sort of protection it affords, and also gush about the kindness and possibly whether this expands or aligns with his current understanding of morality.

This plus the other Superstitious Behaviors would clue him in that something's up so he'd be going in with that knowledge, prepared to figure out what's going on and what the villagers are so afraid of.

Whether they would go exploring after being told not to:

100% and he might even be stealthy enough to mostly get away with it!

Demonstrably does not like being restricted, only went along with this stuff when he was younger because the indoctrination ensured that he literally had no idea there was any other option (also his dad sparred with him daily to get his energy out so his zoomies were managed)

If Dracula really truly wanted to discourage him from any particular places he might just need to come up with an explanation, but he might also be entertained enough by Drizzt's sneaking and snooping to let him roam and see where it goes. Drizzt is better at stealth than Jonathan but they have different flavors of wet cat charm which Dracula may want to handle differently.

Depending on how you read the scene with the vampire ladies trying to "kiss" Jonathan, like how much of it was vampire charm making him feel kinda into it or potentially more of a paralysis situation, it could go differently just because Drizzt may or may not be able to break out and run away very fast, or just kinda endure it while feeling Really Bad And Gross about the sexual overtones. (Based on instances such as him resisting drugs and exiting the room as fast as possible when a priestess was coming onto him, and going feral to push through a paralyzing poison to prevent an assault on another person.) (I read him as incredibly demisexual and he demonstrates being sex-repulsed to everyone outside of the very short list of people he's actively very close friends with and attracted to.) (His feral side has been known to come out in these types of situations but not all of them and it wouldn't necessarily always work either.)

The girlies would not put him off of exploring for very long but he would likely be trying to avoid all possible run-ins with them from that point forward. Unfortunately for him he is a tasty little guy and I think the girlies would actively mess with him against Dracula's orders, perhaps in part because he's an elf and they find that interesting and engaging. Enrichment for their enclosure! Horrible time for Drizzt. Exactly the way the vampire squad likes it!

Verdict: He has a bad time but he's gotta run around he has the zoomies. Dracula could possibly prevent this, if he wanted to prevent it, by letting him into a training yard of some kind so he can get out his energy.

Ability to manage the whims of a Rich Jerk / hold Dracula's interest:

This one is harder and probably depends on the circumstances of him going to the castle, like what his goal there is, and around what point in the timeline he's at. I haven't gotten through all 30-something books just yet but my answer is Probably?

Just the fact of him being an elf and having some innate magic abilities could possibly be enough for Dracula to find him interesting enough to keep around. He's not a wizard and his innate spells are mostly harmless, more battlefield management than anything, so he's not magically a particularly powerful threat to Dracula, just decently interesting. He could also go on about how magic works where he's from, though going on too much about his inherent drow magic would make him uncomfortable (which Dracula would probably like) and especially like, if he got into the ins and outs of Menzoberranzan specifically.

He would definitely bring out the active listening skills for Dracula's history and war stories. Might want to get examples of any particularly interesting fighting maneuvers. I wonder if Dracula would indulge him in a spar or let him practice? The castle must have a training yard somewhere, but would he let Drizzt keep his weapons/borrow some?

Usually good enough at reading the room to determine when is or is not a good time for the scimitars and the panther (combat mode) to come out.

Not the most charismatic, but insightful and clever. (autism-ass elf. elftism.......)

Raised in a very controlling environment with a strict social hierarchy where he was simultaneously part of a high-ranking noble family but also as far down the social ladder as he could be otherwise (male, youngest child, was supposed to be assigned spell component at birth, doesn't like conforming) so, again, he wouldn't like it but he could probably manage it.

Partly depends on how much effort Dracula is willing to put in to make the Friendship believable and keep Drizzt in the dark, or if he's interesting enough to more carefully balance a web of manipulation around.

I'm gonna say this point gets a Yes

Assuming he realized the vampires are Bad but too dangerous to 2v4, he would be so uncomfortable for most of it but is also funky enough that Dracula would probably find his discomfort and weird-but-trying-to-be-so-polite mannerisms entertaining. Dracula would decide this is his blorbo now. I may be biased but this is tumblr so actually Dracula himself said all of this to me personally in DMs.

Facility for climbing without gear (free soloing):

Lizard fashion? Spider fashion...

He Is On The Walls

Multiple points in the books involve him sneaking around places by climbing on walls and I believe elves are canonically, in general, weirdly good at parkour. So yeah!

Whether they would choose to risk being eaten by vampires over the certain death of being eaten by wolves:

IF he has weapons, the wolves aren't really certain death because he is a whirling tornado of death, I am so sorry wolves. If not then he might be able to parkour out of their way? He probably wouldn't want to fight the wolves though, because he is a disney princess nature lover and would rather free them from Dracula's control if possible.

Depending on how much he could figure out about how vampires work here, he may have some ideas for how to turn a fight against them to his advantage or otherwise.

Wait, this happens after the baby incident, right? If so then he's not getting to this point plot-wise, though he might have come back to try fighting the vampires after saving the baby, and depending on how he's doing that, he might still have to contend with the wolves at some point.

Decision: Doesn't want to go against the wolves at any point, but if necessary, he can out-parkour them.

General analysis from Me:

Main counts on the original post are accurate! He accepts the cross, survives the social situations as long as necessary, and escapes with the baby to give it back to the villagers upset but otherwise intact.

As soon as he realized the vampires were menacing the locals to any extent, he would decide to figure out a way to free the area of their evil. Unfortunately the best way for him to figure out anything about the vampires is to stay in close quarters with them for a little while. He has been known to pretend to side with an enemy to gain information or an advantage in a fight, but I'm not sure how long he could keep it up.

Dracula might string him along with Friendship (Drizzt loves friendship so much if he doesn't have friendship he will explode) but he would have to get his baby-eating roommates to play along and behave or else they could easily freak the guy out too much for it to remain believable.

Either way, Drizzt is not staying in that castle beyond the point of another person (the baby) being put in danger. There's at least one point in the books where he's protecting a baby while fighting some enemies and he always puts the baby's safety first. Also Guen can respawn, so if it's absolutely necessary to, she can get taken to 0 HP distracting the vampires while Drizzt improvises some way to get out of there with the baby intact.

That's as far as "survive Castle Dracula" usually goes because well he got out of the castle alive but now I am also thinking about possible plot beyond that point...

First of all the villagers?? Assuming they saw him as Really Weird Foreigner or perhaps some sort of fair folk rather than Literal Demon Spawn the worst they'd do is probably be very tense and silent after taking the baby back and let him leave uncontested without welcoming him in. Best case scenario is some or all of them, or at least the baby's mother, being grateful enough to help him out a little. But like what's he gonna Do after that? (Also if the villagers think he's some sort of fey guy then would they think there's something up with the baby now...)

I mean he knows there's baby-eating vampires in that castle now and he's very against the idea of leaving baby-eating vampires around. Even if he can't 2v4 all of them plus their minions he'd wanna do something about that. (2v4 rather than 1v4 because Guen counts as one) Would he try to gather allies to assault the castle? If he learned that there's times when he can expect them all to be asleep in their coffins would he try to just go back in and stab them in their coffin-sleep? Would he leave the area if he knows the local people are still in danger or would he reason that he needs to find help and come back?

(Also raising to myself the question of whether this is "specifically only Drizzt has been isekai'd into the novel Dracula" or if there's perhaps a little more crossover type setting blending, or if others from the Realms are in there, is Elminster around I know he's canonically been to Real Life Earth, would Van Helsing have some kind of tangent about how this has allegedly happened before, there's an implication that vampires aren't even Van Helsing's favorite cryptid what if d&d type elves are actually higher on that list and he knows all about them, is it even possible to put something resembling the plot and characters of Dracula into a D&D setting, what if I could make a Domain of Dread out of this–)

No matter what happened, Drizzt would be writing SO many diary entries which is perhaps the true main reason why he would survive, he's got that journaling and diary-keeping swag just like my good friend Jonathan Harker

(This is all assuming he has Guen because if he didn't have Guen he would wilt away of the Miseries. Might un-wilt specifically to save the baby and then re-wilt as soon as he remembered there's no kitty.)

#drizzt do'urden #dracula #drizzt #me #my posts #maybe I shouldn't be putting him in the microwave... he has metal on him usually...#this got so long help me #perhaps there is a point where I should just write a fanfic but then again I would 100% get caught in the setup #but this isn't even getting close to 'what if Drizzt met Jonathan' levels of blorbo crossover perhaps that energy would carry me through #microwave addendum again I remembered the ice scimitar gives fire/heat resistance but would that help in a microwave?

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bestworstcase · 21 days

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So after that first ep of rent beyond how are we feeling about the summer maiden/mysterious hooded lady? The "No new characters!" line leans on the fourth wall pretty hard, so I feel like the audience is definitely being invited to speculate on which already established character it might be. The only viable candidate I can think of though is Starr Sanzang followed by a billion question marks and asterisked conditionals given Sun didn't recognize them at all.

i think it’s maybe a little early to take it for granted that neptune is jumping to the right conclusion (“could she be the summer maiden?”)—neither character is in the loop and qrow kicks them out when he catches them eavesdropping, and neptune is just making a guess based on the presence of two known maidens. note the framing:

the mirroring. two headmasters, two maidens, and two figures framed by the doorways and cast in deep shadow. only one is known to us, and only he steps forward into the light, but mystery girl is paired visually with qrow in the same way oscar is with theodore and winter is with raven. what is qrow’s role? he’s a spy.

given the circumstances, it would also be beyond stupid for the vacuo coalition to not have at least one informant in the ranks of the crown—and we know the crown actively recruits from shade academy. jax’s semblance creates a very serious risk should a spy be found out, necessitating extreme caution to protect her identity. and that’s a damn good reason for qrow to be as pissed as he is when he catches sun and neptune spying—those two cannot be trusted with secrets, period.

so i think there are four possibilities:

she’s the summer maiden

she’s a maiden candidate

she has silver eyes

she’s spying on the crown

or some combination thereof. notably, in before the dawn, theodore DID have rumpole spying on the crown—but she was compromised, so she’s not an option anymore. likewise, both qrow and raven are way too high profile. but the fact that theodore did have someone spying on the crown in the book makes it highly likely for the vacuo coalition to resume spying on the crown after the twins are broken out of jail.

sun’s “i already told you, there’s no way!” implies that he did recognize this girl, and he either knows who the real summer maiden is and mystery girl isn’t her OR he knows definitively that mystery girl isn’t a maiden. if it’s the former, then the summer maiden is undoubtedly starr sanzang and mystery girl is someone else. if it’s the latter, then mystery girl has to be someone sun knows well enough to have an ironclad reason to believe she isn’t the summer maiden—and i can think of exactly one character who fits:

emerald.

emerald, who is conspicuously absent in the 9.11 animatic; we see more of neon than we do of her! emerald, who until quite recently worked not for salem but for cinder fall, the lady who keeps trying to gank the other maidens; there is not a snowball’s chance in hell that emerald would have survived being the summer maiden whist in cinder’s employ.

emerald, whose semblance makes her an ideal spy… there’s the wrinkle of tyrian and mercury, but emerald was able to disguise oz and oscar as hazel convincingly enough to fool salem for a minute or two; she could easily make herself look and sound like someone else to tyrian and mercury, or make herself imperceptible to them in a pinch. dangerous yes, but the coalition cannot afford to be flying blind while salem infiltrates the crown, and emerald is their best bet.

and like oscar said… they’ve all seen what emerald can do, and they could really use someone like her on their side.

the “no new characters!” joke is way too on the nose for it to not be a hint that this is a character we’ve already met. but the full line is “besides, there’s no more room on our suspects board! no new characters!—i mean, perps!” which suggests that this is a character sun would consider to be a “suspect” in team rwby’s (and jaune’s) disappearance.

who were his other “perps”? ren, nora, and qrow. the ones who were involved in planning the evacuation from atlas/mantle and made it to vacuo safely. none of the vacuan characters introduced in before the dawn fit that description—emerald does.

and, if you look at the group shot:

she’s not actually in deep shadow, her sprite gets darkened as she’s brought into focus:

appearance-wise, the only thing we know about her is she’s “a girl” (ergo, probably somewhere in the oscar-to-wby age range of 15-19) and relatively dark-skinned by the standards of rwby’s cast. and while it’s tough to gauge perspective in this art style, oscar appears ‘taller’ than winter—

—but on a level plane, he’s quite a bit shorter than emerald, who is of a height with winter. so winter and raven are set pretty far back, and mystery girl is probably about as far back from them as they are from oscar.

here’s an approximately-similar shot from the show proper with oscar in the foreground and emerald in the back:

so accounting for different art style, mystery girl does look to be within a margin for error of emerald’s height.

and from a doylist perspective, if you’re doing a “no new characters!” joke to hint to the audience that the mysterious hooded figure is actually someone we’ve already met… doesn’t it make sense to do that with a character everyone who watches the show has a fair shot at figuring out, versus one who had a single cameo in an ancillary novel that only a small portion of the viewership is invested enough to read?

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comradekatara · 23 days

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hi, I'm back again with the jujinta parallels after finishing the legacy of yangchen (it's definitely my favourite of the avatar novels and is in my top ten books I think) and so sorry for how long this is (i have too many thoughts about them):

I think it's really interesting how yangchen and kavik are governed by three things 1)“some acts cannot be forgiven”; 2)“the one who could forgive me is not there anymore”; and 3) jujinta's old habit of begging forgiveness from the spirits each time he does wrong since he cannot ask forgiveness from his brother.

1) kavik never truly learns to forgive himself for any of his actions. he has blamed himself for kalyaan's suffering ever since they were kids and never considers that maybe kalyaan did these to himself and thus should be properly held accountable for his own actions. even after finally outsmarting his brother and hurting him in a way that FINALLY leaves a mark; kavik still wants to protect him (granted there is kavik has a nephew now. which).

but also right to the very end of the book, kavik never forgives himself for betraying yangchen, even though she tells him that she has forgiven him and thus he doesn't have to serve her in order to get in her good graces anymore.

as for yangchen, we see her give up more and more parts of herself by going against her own moral code for the sake of protecting the world. such as when she “made jailers out of her people” by holding the firebenders and henshe in the northern air temple. when yangchen does wrong, even if it's for a good cause, she welcomes punishment such as her calm acceptance of being exiled from the northern air temple and also her acceptance of the knowledge that her people would hardly accept her as theirs after her death with all the un-air nomad things she has done in the name of protecting the world.

2) and 3) pretty much go in tandem: in yangchen's case, she wants to be the avatar she believes jetsun wanted her to be: good, just, honest, inspiring, etc. especially because jetsun died to save yangchen and also because yangchen was powerless to stop the spirit attack. but the world doesn't afford her that luxury, so she has to make one morally questionable decision after the other and this kills her each and every time. however, she DOES get her forgiveness after finding jetsun in the spirit fog. the scene with yangchen and jetsun is so powerful because yangchen finally admits out loud how she doesn't want to be the avatar anymore as all this job has given was suffering and more suffering, but also she can't give it up, but she doesn't quite understand WHY she can't just give up. and jetsun replies with how taxing it was taking care of yangchen and how she pretty much gave up whole parts of herself to be yangchen's primary caretaker, but that she wouldn't change it because she loves yangchen. they are both in very emotionally draining and mentally taxing places in life, but also acknowledge that it's where they're meant to be. a very beautiful scene.

for kavik, he doesn't believe that he deserves yangchen's forgiveness at any point in the story and he accepts that she never will. so he gives himself up to yangchen's service, even when she urges him not to. his need to be forgiven by her even trumps his need to protect kalyaan in the end with the whole plot to get stabbed and “tortured” in front of kalyaan thus really taking advantage of kalyaan's weakness (which wasn't something kavik would have even thought to do a few chapters before). this shifts “the one who could forgive me” from kalyaan to yangchen. so like jujinta, who found new purpose/way to find forgiveness in serving yangchen while not entirely forgiving himself for his brother's death; kavik finds a new purpose in seeking unearned (in his opinion) forgiveness in yangchen's service, while also forgiving himself to admit that kalyaan earned his own punishment.

(sorry this was so long, I just have a lot of thoughts about the dawn of yangchen jujinta/kavik/yangchen parallels and how much being forgiven by someone whose forgiveness seems/is unattainable (including yourself) is such a big part of the characters' journey)

this is beautifully put! i really have nothing to add here, since you basically said it all. thank you :)

#yourlocalamoeba #asks #and don’t apologize for the length i value thoroughness #(as I’m sure you already know)#analysis #the legacy of yangchen #yangchen novels #kavik #yangchen #jetsun&yangchen #kalyaan&kavik

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brightmyth-fr · 6 months

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mass pinglist solutions: better forum search & tagging

I've been thinking a lot about solutions to tools like GASP and G1 sales. We rely on forums a lot to drive these sales, but we don't actually use pings because pings are best - we rely on pings because the forum search system can't find us what we need. I'm proposing a way to add 'tags' to individual forum posts that can replace the tags offsite tools use. If we can find a way to add individual tags to posts, then pings aren't even necessary anymore. Combined with a more robust search system on the forums to look for these tags, we will easily be able to find what we want at our own discretion.

This is a mockup for a proposed search system. This should exist for dragons as well, but I am more familiar with the skin community so that's what I am showing here. It is based off the existing revamped AH search, which is excellent and easy to use. At the very minimum, we should be able to search for tags about breed, pose, status, and price. Aesthetic tags may not be possible to implement.

The main advantage of this is many people cannot afford to preprint skins, so an auction house search does not work well for the skin community. There is also more freedom here for people to add their own tags with information not found on the auction house: customs, public skins, limited print, and retired skins, for example.

If you've got feedback or stuff you'd like to add, I've made a suggestion post about it here! I think it'd be an elegant solution if we could sidestep needing pings at all. Other systems would need their own adjustments and this wouldn't work for things like the Swipp pinglist, but if we added the ability to filter tags as well this could definitely work for skins.

#flight rising #flightrising #suggestion

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olympianbutch · 1 year

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What do you think about people who are in their periods praying, giving offerings and/or approaching the altar? I read that you weren’t allowed to enter the temples in ancient greece if you were menstruating so I have that doubt

Χαίρε, anon! ((:

So, of the hundreds of inscribed temple regulations we have from ancient Greece, not a single one bars menstruating women from participating in ancient Greek religious life.

There are four exceptions to this rule, though calling them "exceptions" is admittedly very generous.

To begin, all four inscriptions come from late antiquity and they all belong to temples of Near Eastern import. Of note is the fact that not one of these four temples belongs to a Greek god. This suggests that certain Near Eastern traditions did exclude menstruating women from participating in religious life, but the same cannot be said about Greek women. Why is that, though?

The four inscriptions (which were written in ancient Greek) give us some clues. For starters, the word "menstruation" is not explicitly used in temple inscriptions found on the Greek mainland; it is instead referred to as a "female matter." This skirting around any direct mention of menstruation is representative of the near-complete segregation of the sexes in ancient Greece.

To put it simply, Greek men did not discuss "female matters," or the female body, for that matter. Doing so was considered extremely taboo. So taboo that physicians—by and large—did not treat female patients, meaning most women died of illness. Addressing menstruation in direct terms would mean that it was no longer out of sight and out of mind, and the Greeks likely wanted to keep it that way.

The issue is made doubly complex when you realize that we don't actually know how ancient Greek women managed their periods. Experts like Dr. Helen King—a classicist who specializes in menstruation in ancient Greece—theorize that women of means maybe wore linen cloth to catch their menses. Poor women (who couldn't afford such expenditures) likely remained in their homes to bleed freely.

What does any of this information tell modern-day worshippers? Well, it suggests that we simply don't know enough to be able to say one way or the other whether or not menstruating Greek women were excluded from religious life.

It most certainly tells us that menses management is way different now than it was back then. And unlike our religious predecessors, we now have personal hygiene products we can use to ensure we don't bleed out at the altar lol 😆

In general, I don't think it makes sense to pretend like modern worshippers can't menstruate and worship at the same time. There certainly isn't enough ancient evidence to suggest that was the standard, so why make it the standard now? This is definitely one of those things where I'm like "do what feels most appropriate to you."

I don't menstruate anymore, but if I did, I'd probably still worship. Alternatively, if I was on my period and feeling mentally unclean/generally gross, I wouldn't (unless I was approaching the gods for some relief).

I know people who take breaks from their religious duties while menstruating, and I know others who don't make any changes to their routines at all. It all depends on your personal comfort level. Just like how everyone's period is different, everyone's worship is different! And that's OK ((:

#Meleagros answers #menstruation #hellenic polytheism #hellenic polytheist #hellenic polytheistic #helpol #polytheism #polytheist #hellenic paganism #hellenic pagan #paganism #pagan #hellenic reconstructionism #hellenic reconstructionist #hellenic revivalist #hellenic revivalism #ancient greek religion #greek gods

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kannagms · 14 days

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As someone who has been a fan of the boys since the beginning of Buzzfeed Unsolved when Ryan was doing his little PowerPoint presentations and reading from a single sheet of printer paper, this entire Watcher fiasco is insane and was definitely not on my 2024 bingo card.

Back when Ryan and Shane announced that they were leaving Buzzfeed to start their own entertainment company with Steven, I was excited! I wanted to see what new, fun, interesting, and creative content they would put out without Buzzfeed holding them back. I'm a huge fan of Mystery and Ghost Files, Puppet History, Are You Scared?, Too Many Spirits, Top 5 Beatdown. Loved Spooky Small Talk before it was scrapped. I watched every new ep that came out, even the ones I didn't like that much like Steven's food ones, and liked and commented because I wanted to support them as much as possible. I rewatch all my favorite episodes. I have a dedicated playlist of Ryan and Shane content because it helps me fall asleep at night. When I didn't have much I at least had Watcher to keep my smile on my face and continuous laughter going when I didn't feel much like going on.

I got the notification 3 days ago about a new Watcher video and was stunned at what I saw. Sure I can watch episode 1 of new shows and watch some trailers, but I'm gonna have to sub to yet another streaming service to watch anything more. A streaming service that doesn't even have an app, so if I want to add anything to my sleep playlist, I'm gonna have to leave my phone on all night.

Anyways, I immediately went and checked the boys' socials and see what they posted for any additional info. Thousands upon thousands of negative comments all saying basically the same thing:

I can't afford $6/month/not everyone has $6 laying around, and it can really make or break someone financially.

Been a fan since Unsolved, guess I'm not a watcher anymore.

This is a bad move.

From what I've seen across reddit, Twitter, tiktok, Instagram, and Tumblr, the negative far outweigh the positive. The only "positive" comments I've seen haven't really been "oh this is a great idea! I'm gonna go sub right now!!" It's really been more, "well it's their business, they can do what they want with it." Or simply bashing other people because they cannot afford $6 a month or $60 a year, which really comes off as boomer ideology. You know, the old "if millennials would stop eating avocado toast or buying Starbucks maybe they can afford a house!" While completely ignoring the global economic crisis we are all facing. It's completely out of check with the fact that there's so many of us not just in America, but in the world who are barely living paycheck to paycheck. That there are so many people who WISH they could get a Starbucks coffee in the morning but often times have to skip meals because they cannot afford food if they want to keep a roof over their heads, you know the ridiculous amount of money that we spend to rent a small space. Never gonna forget the one apartment I looked at that was $800 a month, no utilities included, no parking, no pets allowed, and I could lay flat on the ground and have my 5'4" length reach comfortably in every single room. Wasn't even a kitchen or room for a single size bed (mild tangent rant, I now pay $1300 for a 2 bedroom apartment, most utilities included, but bad parking)

And for Steven to say that anyone can afford $6 is just so factually wrong. Has anyone checked the foreign exchange rate for $6? Some threads I've seen on Reddit are insane. For some people 6 USD translates to someone's entire rent or a week's worth of food. If I recall the comment correctly, one person said that in their country, Netflix comes out to $2 USD, and is considered a luxury item that only the upper class/wealthy have.

Maybe I'm just being bitter. Maybe I'm just overreacting to a piece of content I loved and cherished being pushed behind a paywall. It just feels like a slap in the face to fans who have spent countless hours soaking in their content, recommending them to friends, making new friends over a shared interest, and now feeling like they didn't matter at all. That we were just dollar signs. To hear them going from thanking dedicated fans for helping them get to where they are to but now you gotta give us more money if you want to keep being fans and now we are going to ignore your backlash just feels disingenuous and heartbreaking.

#watcher #i dont know #not to be parasocial on main #but this month has just been so difficult #and to get hit with this just really broke me.#made me think what if all the people i watch on yt make this same move #i want them to succeed but at the same i dont want them to be an example to others yk?

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writemywaytoyourheart · 1 year

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pls help.

hey guys,

sorry I haven't been updating, there's been a lot going on. I've honestly never ever ever wanted to do this but I seriously need help rn.

I literally do not care about food or gas or literally anything but my dog right now. She's got some problems with her teeth and I can't afford to get them fixed. It could be causing breathing issues and it is definitely just hurting her rn. I've been declined for financial help for who knows what reason and idk what to do. I have nothing.

I've decided to start a gofundme and see if I can get even a little bit of help from that. I've been hesitating putting it here but again I'm desperate. If you guys know of any other way I can also get help pls pls pls let me know.

I hate asking anything of you guys I feel sick about it and I'm trying so hard not to cry rn. Literally anything helps. I'm so so so sorry I'm even having to post this. I know everyone is struggling rn which makes me feel a million times worse even thinking about asking.

Maybe I can do some personalized drabbles or something for you guys, anything you want. I'll write whatever idc, whatever you want. I just cannot watch my best friend be in silent pain anymore.

If you can help at all by donating or sharing or anything I will literally be in your debt for like ever.

Daisy's gofundme

ILY <3

-chip

idk what to tag to get this seen im sorry

#cute animals #cute dog #puppies #gofundme #idek what to tag #fm im so stressed #idk what im doing

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acorpsecalledcorva · 4 months

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The neuroplasticity (or lack there of) of CDDs is really interesting in how it manifests over time. Because in so many ways I really am still a 5 year old child quietly crying myself to sleep, or a 17 year old girl desperately trying to establish an identity of my own in a world that feels like it has no place for me awash a sea of hormonal changes (second puberty really hits so different and yet so similar). But it also really does afford the room for real growth and change.

That change comes at a cost though, which is that I constantly feel alienated from my past selves. I cannot remember what I used to think, or why I thought it, only what I did and said and maybe what I was interacting with and try to work out my thought process from that. It's like most people are playdough, constantly being reshaped to a lesser or greater degree but still containing all that they were, while I'm Lego, I can be disassembled and reconstructed, but the pieces are solid, adding new bricks as needed and discarding those that are not (or putting them in storage at least).

We are also, of course, products of our environment. When your life is marred by identity uncertainty, we look to our surroundings to give us clues of who we might be. When I was on Reddit and browsed /r/all I would see the occasional tumblrinaction post about the plural community, fictionkins, and IRLs and think "well that's definitely not me. Discovering I was trans and coming to terms with being a marginalised identity, it was discord communities that taught me what that could mean and what I should be ready to fight against. On twitter I was lucky, I found the traumacore/empty spaces community that helped me to process the images I saw in my head that I didn't understand, and use my trauma as a tool of creation.

Taking part in the system community, it was the older focused communities that helped me to understand myself. I honestly don't know what my syscourse stance was back then, if I even had one. There are aspects of the wider online community that just don't vibe with me, some were a little damaging, others were simply incomprehensible to me. Joining Tumblr definitely shoved it in my face though.

The only thing I can imagine is that I must have thought that endogenic plurality was this "other" thing, I knew about DID, what switching and fronting and host and protector and system meant in that context, but endogenic plurality was something else that didn't concern me and I hadn't really come across it yet. So I was absolutely confused as fuck when I came here and saw people using all those "DID" words to mean something else. When anti-endos said "you can't form a system without trauma" that made absolute sense to me at the time because system meant DID and that's caused by trauma, why are people claiming to have DID things and using DID words while also saying that they don't have DID? Actually I do still kinda think the terms should be separate but it's not a battle I can be fucked to argue about anymore.

Because the point is that while online spaces might not change all that much, and there will always be people who join those spaces and be influenced by the culture in them, there are always other spaces that will influence them differently. So while it's absolutely frustrating as fuck to see anti-endos repeating the same horrible origins discourse, and endos saying fucking awful stuff like "I think traumagenic systems cling to trauma as a cause because they feel insecure about being a system", we need to accept that it will still keep happening while the spaces exist and remember that the people from those spaces are the ones with the opportunity to change. To learn, to see things from a different perspective, and most importantly grow.

And if they refuse to? If they keep spouting the same points over and over and over again, refusing to back down or learn, reigniting old arguments and digging stuff up from the past because they just can't let go of it? Just leave them to it I guess, we'll all be off making ourselves and each other better ^^

#syscourse

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ambassadorarlert · 4 months

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currently laying in bed sick and figured i’d get some things off my chest

being on tumblr and interacting w ppl on here is strange bc 2023 was the roughest year of my entire life, like no joke. irl and online, i’ve been forced to stay quiet, hidden, and endure being burnt from every possible angle. i’ve gotten out of one toxic cycle barely by the skin of my teeth and the second chance of life i was given would be a wasted if i didn’t change the way i live and think.

this blog used to be a safe haven for me, a place where i could share my writing (which is something I wanted to get back into since falling out of it for years.) i had a huge medical accident, and never got treated properly for it because I couldn’t afford to see a doctor (financial abuse woo!! 😀) and was gaslight to believe certain things weren’t as they seemed, so my health was pushed to the back burner and i had to press on for someone who never even loved me. now that i’m away from that situation, i’ve been trying to not put pressure on myself to write and upload. i see writing as a whole an art and the things i want to create cannot be rushed or mass produced, which is what a lot of younger people are used to and why they’re so rude and demanding requests, why they don’t read rules or respect boundaries, why they say out of pocket shit because they’re used to commenting on their fav creator/celebs pics without repercussions. writers aren’t influencers or content creators — we’re people who do what we love for free. no creators programs to pay us and gives us platforms, no sponsorships, some of us don’t even get tips. when i see mutuals leave certain fandom spaces because of hate, it genuinely makes me sad.

on top of abuse irl, i’ve been getting abused on here as well. internet harassment hardly constitutes as “bullying” in the eyes of some but not to me. this is an especially hard topic for me to talk about, and i can hardly be vague about it because it will kick up a bunch more shit. but if want see the change, i have to speak up. if i want to be comfortable, i first have to get used to be uncomfortable. I never said anything until now, because it’s been dragged out long enough. they’re younger than me and are clearly suffering psychological issues. i for real don’t want them to be hurt. but it’s hard to not notice what they’re doing when they’re doing it. they keep tabs on everything i say and people i talk to, make blogs and remake blogs when I block them. i don’t have definite proof of this part in particular, but i suspect they go around and tell stories about me which makes sense as to why mutuals i’ve made will block/unfollow me out of the blue. (anyone can block who they want for whatever reason they want, but the pattern is there and it’s strange.) i’m sure they’ll try to take this post and create an issue, victimize themselves and change the narrative, but I don’t care anymore. i mentioned no names and i said what i said.

i want my blog back. i want to write my silly fics and stories. i want to be able to support people unapologetically and see all the self ships, say what i want to say and post what i want to post and show ppl that love is everything and there’s no place for hate in 2024. i’ve always been outspoken and called bullshit when i smelled it, and have said whatever has come to my mind. so if there’s anything I’ve ever said that may have offended someone in anyway, i actually truly am sorry and will 100% say it to your face if need be. its easy for me to troll real trolls, and stick up for other people who have a hard time defending themselves. i need to learn how to do the same for myself, and relearn how to take care of myself. i feel more comfortable doing that one step at a time.

#totally don’t have to read this btw #im just venting fr #text post #i’ve written this so many times but never uploaded it

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screwyouhippie · 1 year

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𝑺𝒐𝒖𝒕𝒉 𝑷𝒂𝒓𝒌 𝑯𝒆𝒂𝒅 𝑪𝒂𝒏𝒏𝒐𝒏𝒔

𝑪𝒓𝒂𝒊𝒈𝒔 𝑮𝒂𝒏𝒈

𝙲𝚛𝚊𝚒𝚐

Craig is a very heavy sleeper which makes it really hard to wake him up. His house could be getting nuked and he'd still be sound asleep. Which is good for him, but terrible for Tweek whenever he stays the night since it makes him think he died. Because of how heavily he sleeps, he seems to wake up to himself being in very awkward and uncomfortable positions which make him look like he was dismembered and put back together by some sort of high alien. Which also doesn't help Tweek at all. And since Tweek often struggles to fall asleep, Craig does his best to stay awake until Tweek falls asleep. He's only successful 30% of the time though.

There is only one thing that can wake Craig up, the Red Racer Intro. Craig literally watches this show every day of the week and he absolutely CANNOT afford to miss a single episode of it, even if he's watched the entire show multiple times. So whenever you need to wake Craig up in any situation, just play the intro of Red Racer and he's up in .1 seconds. Though he might be a little if not VERY angry if you wake him up like this, unless you're Tweek.

Tweek

Tweek hangs around Craig a lot, so Tweek has picked up on some of Craigs.. bad habits.. Craig is notorious for being the bad kid in class and flipping everyone off, including teachers. So, now Tweek also flips people off whenever they annoy him, especially the main four which Craig and his gang find absolutely hilarious. But as to their dismay, Tweek also flips them off whenever they're being annoying or arrogant which they can be often times. Tweek has even flipped off Craig a couple of times out of habit of doing it to everyone else (He ended up having a panic attack afterwards and Craig had to comfort him). Though Craig seemed to find it amusing.

So now instead of it being just Craig getting sent to the principals office, it's both Tweek AND Craig who get sent for flipping teachers off together. The councilor always lets them off with a warning since they're gay and Cartman absolutely hates that they get special treatment because of it. Tweek and Craig always flip him off together just because it's funny. The Asian girls have definitely drawn fan art of them out of this.

Tolkien

Tolkien is the mom friend of the group, if not the voice of reason often times. And because he's one of the few kids with actual good parents, he has great advice given to him by his parents. So whenever something goes wrong for one of the group members, the first person they go to is Tolkien. Tweek and Craig have even tried to hire Tolkien as their personal Couple Councilor. Tolkien is the type of person to carry bandages and alcohol wipes in his bag and pockets. And in his mind, anything that can't be cured with those or an ice pack, requires a trip to the emergency room.

The others have definitely asked Tolkien for money at least once, seeing as how he's loaded. But instead of just lending them money, he refers them small part time jobs where they can earn it themselves. I can see Tolkien asking his parents if they could hire his friends as his butlers so he doesn't have to do chores anymore. They denied this of course, so Tolkien just offers them money if they can do his chores for him secretly.

Clyde

Since Clyde's dad owns the shoe store at the mall, Clyde has all a full collection of shoes, Jordans, Air Forces, Nike, Adidas, Pumas, he even has some of the most rare and expensive shoes which his friends have tried to steal on multiple occasions. Especially Cartman. Because of this, he has a secret compartment under his bed which he stores all his most rare items. It's just a loose floor board under his bed, but shhh, no one needs to know :›. Tolkien has tried to pay Clyde to let him wear one of his shoes for a day, but not even Clyde has worn some of his own shoes just so that they're value doesn't go down, so that was an instant no.

His friends don't understand him on this. Why have something if you're not gonna use it? Clyde having a huge ego on this topic always goes, "Just to brag!" So this is the part where Craig usually flips him off, sometimes even Tweek when he's fed up. Though Clyde doesn't care, he doesn't see them with a thousand dollar worth of shoes? But one thing he doesn't understand is why can't Tolkien just get his own pair?

Jimmy

Jimmy has a lazy eye. But he can control it. He just likes to keep it that way because well, it's just funny to him. Sometimes, he puts his eyes back to match with his other eye and go through the whole day like that and everyone will notice something's different, but they can never figure out what. Everyone's crowded around Jimmy just asking him questions like- "You look different today, what did you change?" "Did you get a haircut?" "Is your shirt a different shade of yellow?" "Did you grow?" At this point Cartman buds in "You guys, Jimmy's legs obviously got more shriveled up from him not using them!" Jimmy loves the attention that's given to him.

On a random occasion while Jimmy was with his friends, he just made his eye go the other way while everyone was watching him. When he finished he smiled and said, "I can see you" everyone was grossed out. This became a gag and is something he does on the daily now. Still, it's always the same reaction everytime and everytime Jimmy loves it.

#south park #jimmy valmer #tolkien black #craig tucker #tweek tweak #sp creek

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maybege · 2 years

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Car Ride - FBI 9

Summary: The case continues as you and Hotch head to Fargo. (Part 9 of FBI)

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x fem!Reader

Wordcount: 3.7k | Rating: T

Warnings: canon-typical warnings, some flirting, some fluff, the usual

To be honest, I wasn’t sure if I would be posting today considering how I went off on tumblr today but I promised the chapter today so today it shall be posted. I am not sure when/if the next part will be out considering the interest in this story is not really there but it was fun while it lasted and I want to thank those of you who ever took the time to comment on this little treasure of mine. ❤️

masterlist | crossposted on AO3

When you woke up, you felt warm and there was a familiar scent in your nose.

Hotch.

You sat up, suddenly afraid you had overslept. Your cheek felt numb from how it had pressed into the coarse fabric of the one pillow this sofa had. But that did not explain why you felt so cosy.

Someone moved in your peripheral and you spotted Reid, putting a pin on the map.

“Did you find anything?” you asked him groggily, slowly sitting up. Something fell off your shoulder and into your lap and you frowned, finding a pile of dark fabric between your hands. A jacket. A suit jacket.

You blinked, your brain playing catch up with all the impressions of Reid answering you somewhere far off and the feeling of the black fabric between your fingertips. You had seen it before. But where?

Someone entered the larger room and you looked up, spotting Rossi and Morgan talking to Hotch. Hotch who was wearing only his white dress shirt, no jacket in sight.

Had he given you his jacket?

You swallowed thickly, your heart beating so hard in your chest it almost hurt. This was definitely Hotch’s jacket. And it had been on your shoulders when you had woken up. Which meant that someone must have put it on you.

The inevitable hopeful wish that he had been the one to blanket you with it in some small romantic gesture nestled in your head and you bit your lip, desperately trying to get your feelings under control. Maybe it had been Reid who had covered you with a jacket he had seen lying around? Maybe in your half-delirious state, you had been the one to grab it and you just did not remember anymore?

As if he could sense your thoughts, Hotch turned his head, his eyes meeting yours and you sat up straighter. Like that would fool him.

He tilted his head, motioning for you to join them and you did.

No one paid attention to you when you joined the group, something you were immensely grateful for. Taking the rest had been the right decision but you still did not want to feel like the weak link in the group, at least not this obviously.

“That was the Fargo police department,” Hotch revealed and you only now noticed the phone in his hand, “they found the body of a missing child.”

“Charlie?” Morgan asked what you were all wondering. The tension was palpable and it was clear that all of you were on edge. It was moments like this one that you realized just how in tune everyone was with each other and even if you were still unsure of what your place was in this group, you were somehow a part of it.

“They don’t know,” Rossi answered and you frowned. When had the two of them talked alone? “The only thing we can do is go and see and hope for the best.”

“Either way, there are parents out there who will get the worst news,” JJ said what you were all thinking and your heart clenched. Cases involving children were never easy. And you doubted they would get easier with time.

“Okay,” Hotch’s voice pulled you out of your thoughts, “I’ll take Morgan and Y/N. The rest of you stay here and continue to work on this case. We cannot afford to lose time if it isn’t Charlie’s body.”

You nodded, swallowing back a yawn.

Morgan stood up, “Hotch, I think I might be better staying here. I got this lead with the parents that I would like to check out with Reid.”

Hotch looked at him, his mouth pulled in a thin line and your heart skipped a beat. There were only a handful of times when you had witnessed someone openly disagreeing with him and it always caused this look in his eyes. The kind that inspired all kinds of dreams about him where he would ‘discipline’ you.

“Very well then,” he nodded, closing the files, “Morgan stays here and we,” he looked at you, “will drive to Fargo and see what we get there. Keep us in the loop.”

“You got it, boss,” JJ agreed.

One hour in a car with Hotch alone. Great.

“Alright,” he nodded, taking his jacket like nothing had happened and you felt your heartbeat start to race when you thought about how you still had the smell of his cologne in your nose, “Let’s go.”

“Have fun!” Prentiss grinned and you rolled your eyes, knowing exactly what she was thinking. Him catching you off guard today? And now you had all this time to kill? It just screamed him subtly (or not so subtly) interrogating you about why that happened.

It did not even take 10 minutes into the drive until Hotch opened his mouth. “I heard what you said to Reid on the plane today,” he stated, “About donating your clothes from the Smith case.”

You had remained silent, stoically looking out of the window in the hope that (1) your silence would keep you from embarrassing yourself in front of a man you found way too attractive considering he was your boss and (2) it would deter him from talking to you. After all, Aaron Hotchner was not known for being the most sociable within the BAU (Penelope held that title proudly and you doubted anyone would ever come close to her extrovert antics). But he was also a profiler – and your boss.

“Look I don’t care if it’s some kind of coping mechanism that Dr Johnson has in her book,” you defended yourself, feeling on edge with him this close and your heart in your throat, “If working for the FBI means I’ll have to keep some soiled clothes from an unsub then – quite frankly – I don’t –“

“I was going to say that Garcia has a list of second-hand shops we like to donate to in such cases.”

“Oh.”

He shifted, you watched his long fingers on the steering wheel and your brain provided the very helpful image of them on your skin. Or inside you. God, what would it feel like to have his fingers play with you like that? You swallowed thickly.

“Is Dr Johnson still bothering you?” he asked after a while, a knot between his brows, “Do you want me to talk to her?”

“What?” you blinked, blood rushing to your cheeks in the hopes that he couldn’t read your mind. Because sometimes you were convinced he could. “Oh no, she, uh, I mean she made her opinion of my being in the FBI very clear but thanks to your evaluation she leaves me alone.”

He nodded once, showing you that he had heard you but not speaking anymore.

But now that he started the conversation you couldn’t just bear the awkward silence for the rest of the drive. Your fingers thrummed on your knee as you feverishly thought of something to say. Come on, come on, come on. It can’t be that difficult, hell, you just saw him yesterday at the bar!

You sat up, “How did you get home yesterday?”

“Shared with Rossi,” he replied, “apparently he has some kind of driver service he can tap into.”

You huffed with a smile, knowing that Rossi would never stoop so low as to get a rideshare. Even if he had spent the entire night in a bar with people who earned less than half of him. “Gosh we should all be able to become bestselling writers, then we could get our own drivers,” you joked.

“And Garcia could afford that giant umbrella cocktail,” Hotch offered with a grin. You gaped, unsure how to interpret his tone other than … a joke? Had Aaron Hotchner just made a joke? While on a case? With you alone in a car?

The hysteria of the day caught up with you and your unsure giggle turned into a full-blown laugh. You could hear him joining you, his quiet chuckle sending shivers down your spine because fuck did he sound beautiful. That should be forbidden, for a man to sound this attractive.

You both trailed off, silence filling the car again and you wondered if they ever listened to the radio while on a long drive. For some reason, you couldn’t really see it. Except maybe in the rare cases where Penelope was sharing with Morgan.

“So, what do we do if it’s not Charlie?” you asked, genuinely curious, “Would we assume it’s the same offender?”

“It’s suspicious that the body would show up mere hours after Charlie has been abducted,” Hotch replied, “It’s worth a thought.”

“Did they give us the files for the missing child?”

“Not yet, I asked the sheriff to prepare them so we can sight them as soon as we’re with the ME.”

“Sounds good,” you nodded, looking outside as you saw the first signs of the bigger city approaching, “I just hope this will help us in some way.”

“This is not Charlie,” you stated, as soon as the ME had lifted the sheet.

Hotch nodded, looking up at the woman. “What can you tell us about her?”

“COD was blunt force trauma to the back of the head.”

“It’s not messy,” he noted, his head tilting, “When was the time of death?”

“Somewhere between midnight and 5 am this morning,” the woman explained, pointing to a few bruises on the girl’s hands, “There are signs of defensive wounds but it is clear that he knew what he was doing. Her death was quick and – as far as the wounds tell – relatively painless.”

“He’s done this before,” you deduced, “He knew exactly how to dispose of her quickly and efficiently before taking Charlie?”

“If it’s the same unsub,” Hotch interjected from the other side of the table.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” you asked, looking up at him.

“First a white girl from Fargo and now a black boy from the suburbs and an upper-class family?” he listed, “Crossing gender and socioeconomic spheres is highly unusual in cases like these.”

“They’re the same age,” you argued, “No sexual violence indicates that he doesn’t want them for his pleasure. If he doesn’t display a preference then maybe it is not his own he is acting on. Or maybe their looks aren’t what he chooses them for?”

“Then what does he want them for?”

“Well that’s for us to find out,” you quipped, feeling particularly confident. In the corner of your eye, you could see the ME raise her brows. But you were too focused on the man in front of you to care.

Hotch’s lips quirked up as he looked at you. It felt like there was tension between you, the kind of tension that would fill steamy supermarket novellas, and it got difficult to breathe for a second.

You were the first to break eye contact, the heat in your face too much to bear.

“We’re finished here,” Hotch announced calmly, “thank you, doc. Let’s get to the station.”

He was still looking at you when he held the door open, clearly waiting for your, and you felt your cheeks burn. “What?”

“You’re getting more confident,” he simply said, his large form looming behind you as he followed you through the doorway and you could see his big hand move against the glass of the door as he let it go, “that’s good argumentation, agent.”

“Thank you, sir.”

This time, he did not correct you.

The police department was significantly larger than in valley city but just as busy. You wondered if they were all here for the body but just passing a few desks, you could hear talk about all kinds of cases. The world did not stop for a missing child, after all. Although it often felt like it.

An older man looked up, spotting you and making his way towards you.

“Agent Hotchner,” he greeted the tall man next to you, “thank you for coming on such short notice.”

“Thank you for alerting us to the case, Sherriff Dunston,” Hotch replied, shaking his hand and introducing you, “The rest of our team is staying in Valley City. Could you show us the files of the missing child you mentioned?“

“Of course, follow me.”

You followed the sheriff, expecting Hotch to walk beside him but he remained on your pace, something that made your heart skip a beat. Then again, when did he not make you feel like on cloud nine?

Sherriff Dunston pointed you to a small office space that had seemed to have been prepared for your arrival.

“Hannah Williams went missing two weeks ago,” he stated, pointing to a few files, “The case did not get a lot of attention, we suspected a runaway. Apparently, she had done that before and came back unharmed.”

“Why did we not work the case?” you asked, looking up at Hotch with a frown, “A missing child deemed a runaway that quickly?”

“The local field office wrote the consultation.”

Meaning: Somewhere in the local field office, someone was losing a lot of sleep. You did not envy them.

Countless reports and files and written witness statements and interview recordings later, you finally felt like you had a grasp on the whole thing. The cork board had been covered in pictures of other missing children cases in the area – a discovery Garcia had made upon researching possible unsubs.

(That statistic in and of itself had prompted a heated discussion between Hotch and Dunston that you hadn’t been privy to. But you could feel the frustration radiating off him regardless.)

“Okay, this is just a theory and maybe I’m wrong but –“

“We don’t have time, just say it,” Hotch interrupted you, still looking at the board.

You nodded, a little hurt at his but understanding. When had he ever minced his words in situations like this and why did you suddenly think he would make an exception for you?

You shook your head slightly, trying to get rid of the intrusive thoughts. “Hannah went missing two weeks ago,” you stated, “That means the Unsub probably had a long-term interest in her. She had this,” you ran your finger over a few lines, “This medical condition her school nurse noted and her medication refill was due right around now but Charlie –“

Hotch nodded, “Charlie is as healthy as can be.”

“All these open missing cases,” you elaborated, motioning to the pile Garcia had sent over, ”I bet we’ll find that a majority of them are in perfect health.”

“Alright, so he takes children and he keeps the healthy ones,” Hotch said slowly, mulling your words over, “That means he doesn’t have access to their medical records before he takes them.”

“But he has the means to examine them,” he followed up, “Or at least to somehow find out if they are healthy once they are in his grasp.”

“Hm,” you frowned.

“What are you thinking?”

“What if it’s human trafficking? Or, uh, organ donors? Clearly, the children don’t need to look a certain way, they just need to be healthy. If that is the only common factor these kids have, then it’s – it’s pretty clear, huh?”

Hotch nodded, running his hand over his chin and you forced yourself to take a deep breath and ignore the fact that you could smell his cologne. “Okay, so what if we have Garcia try and find cases of children around the same age, waiting for an organ donor and getting one at the last minute?” you suggested meekly, chancing a look up at him.

He pulled out his phone, “I’ll have Reid go over the case files and tell Garcia to do some more digging. Good work, agent.”

To say your heart was skipping a beat at his praise would be the understatement of the year. Your heart was carried out of your chest by the butterflies in your stomach.

You smiled, “Thank you, sir.”

He looked up from his phone, his brows pulled together and neither one of you needed to say anything. You were thinking the same thing anyway.

It did not take long for Garcia to work her magic. You had been busy trying to get some order into the available files when Hotch’s phone pinged. His hand was dwarfing the phone and the sight should not have made your breath hitch the way it did.

“We got a hit,” he let you know, already rushing out of the room. You hurried after him, the adrenaline coursing through your veins. All you could think about as you jumped into the car was that you wanted this to end well. You needed this to end well.

Your heart hammered in your chest as you raced through the streets. Sirens were sounding everywhere around you and in the rearview mirror, you spotted the police cars following you. “Harold Fletcher lives half an hour outside of Fargo,” Hotch let you know, “Halfway between here and Valley City. The others are coming.”

“Are they bringing his parents with them?” you asked.

Hotch’s jaw tensed and you could feel the dread pooling in your stomach.

“Yes,” he confirmed, “They will be arriving a little later with Valley City PD. So, let’s hope we will have good news for them.”

Fletcher’s house was surrounded by shrubs and bushes and trees which enabled you to quietly park a bit further away, covered by leaves and out of his sight. Behind you, Sheriff Dunston got out of his car, meeting Hotch at the front. “The others are a few minutes behind us,” he let you know, his hands on his hips, “Do we wait?”

“We don’t know enough about Fletcher to go in blindly,” Hotch decided, “Tell your men to drive around the back, I want every possible escape route cut off from him.”

It did not take long before your car was now joined by that of your teams and quite a few police cars. You wouldn’t be surprised if the whole of the county was gathered in Fletcher’s driveway now. The air was cold and it was eerily quiet as you got out of your cars. This really was the middle of nowhere.

“We have an EMT waiting down the road,” Morgan informed you, already shrugging on his vest. You followed Hotch around to the back and tried to ignore the flutter in your belly as he undressed his jacket and put on his vest.

Hotch wearing a vest was a whole other problem that you would need to deal with some time.

Instead, you made extra sure to put on your protection correctly and checked your gun was holstered the right way. “JJ, stayed behind at the station to deal with the news outlets,” Prentiss explained, bumping her shoulder into yours, “Should we go in together?”

You looked to Hotch, finding his lips pressed in a tight line before nodding. “Morgan, I want you on the back entry with Sherriff Dunston. Prentiss and Y/N go in from the west side, there is an open window that I want blocked. Reid you and I go in the front.”

Everyone needed and before you even blinked you were following Prentiss to the side of the house, listening to Morgan and Hotch counting down the second until they breached the doors. Your side of the house was quiet, considering the chaos that took place inside. The window Hotch had mentioned was indeed cracked open and the room was completely dark inside.

The door creaked open and you and Prentiss looked at each other, ready to take down Fletcher if it came to it.

But the person that appeared was not Fletcher.

“Charlie”, you breathed, immediately putting away your gun to reach out your arms for him. Big eyes looked at you, surrounded by deep dark circles and a drawn face. “Hi Charlie,” you said again, “we’re the police. Your mom and dad are so worried about you, you want to go see them?”

That seemed to put some movement in him as he practically jumped out of the small room. Cell more like, you found after a brief glance inside. You could hear the commotion from inside and put him in front of you, putting your arms around him to shield him as you hurried him back to the front of the house.

Hearing a child cry was heartbreaking but the silence that he greeted you with was terrifying. You did not want to imagine the terror he must have felt at being separated from his parents in such a way.

“It’s okay, Charlie,” you heard yourself say, “It’s over now.”

“We got him,” Prentiss spoke into her earpiece, “We’re bringing him up front.”

“Are they really here?” a small voice asked and it took you a moment to realize that it was Charlie.

“Yes, honey,” you replied, “And they will be so so happy to see you.”

A small sniffle and then you rounded the corner and right there, behind the opened police doors, were Mr and Mrs Wilkinson. Their eyes lit up as soon as they spotted their son and they rushed toward you. That is when Charlie started crying, thick ears of relief running down his cheeks and you swallowed back your own cries of happiness.

Prentiss’s hand landed on your shoulder and you smiled at your friend. Today was a good day.

Later, on the jet, you could read the same kind of relief on the faces of your teammates. The way their shoulders dropped their tensions, how all of them seemed so much lighter all of a sudden.

You were sitting at the table, Reid having left you alone in favour of taking a nap on the couch and you could not fault him for it. Especially considering that the lack of sleep seemed to catch up with all of you.

But it did not take long before Reid’s empty seat was taken up by someone else.

Hotch.

He did not say anything, did not even acknowledge the fact that he had left his own seat across from Rossi to come and sit next to you. And you did not either. You were too tired and, to be honest, too happy to have him next to you, his entire side subtly pressing against yours as he flipped through a few pages.

You deserved these two hours of closeness and daydreaming, you decided, just before you fell asleep.

#maybege writes #aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner x fem!reader

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